The Immorality of Weakness: Nietzschean vs. Collinsian Philosophy

In this thought-provoking episode, we dive deep into the often misunderstood philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, exploring his ideas on the immorality of weakness, the concept of the Ubermensch, and how they relate to modern issues like woke culture and tribal morality. We differentiate our views from Nietzsche's, discuss the relevance of his ideas in today's world, and address the broader implications for cultural and societal development. Join us as we unravel complex philosophical concepts and their impact on contemporary thought.

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. Today we are going to be talking. About the immorality of weakness, and I would note here that we are not going to be talking about this from the perspective of niche, but we will be talking a lot about Frederick Nietzsche throughout, especially at the end of this episode to differentiate our views on why weakness should be scorned versus Nietzsche's views on weakness leading fundamentally to immorality.

Because they're actually distinct, but not as distinct as I thought when I went into this subject. And I would say that me studying Nietzsche, very sad. It's just a bunch of instances of me being like, I don't want to be basic, but he actually makes a lot of good points. Very prescient about woke people, but we'll get to that in a second.

Okay. Well, that people will use the sympathy of others to try to exert power over them and that people will manipulate others by acting sympathetic to them [00:01:00] to keep them in a permanently infantilized state that glorifies themselves i. e. the person doing the infantilization. But before we get to all of that, where this was highlighted for me.

Was two things. One is a recent evolution in my understanding of our wider world perspective, which has become a lot more clear to me and sort of how I view clan based structures and how I view morality at the wider societal level than at the individual level, but also a clip that we ran in a recent episode that's a famous scene from Trigon or I don't know if it's a famous scene, but it's a scene that always hit me hard as a kid.

Because in it, there are two characters arguing and the character who is the villain says you have to kill the one character is trying to save a butterfly, the good guy. And then the villain says, well, you just need to kill the spider then basically.

Simone Collins: Because it's a butterfly caught in a web for those.

Because [00:02:00]

Malcolm Collins: if you free the butterfly. Then the spider will eventually starve. You can't, you're not doing a good thing by freeing the butterfly. You're just consigning the spider to a slow death. And the good guy character says no, there's always a way.

Speaker 6: That was the easiest way to stop him. I didn't want to kill the spider unless the spider caught the butterfly, it would die of starvation . You can't save both,

Speaker 5: it's not right to make that choice so easily. . BUt

Speaker 6: I'm not wrong about this, Rem. Wanting to save both is just a naive contradiction. And what would you have rather had us do, just think about it? In the meantime, while we do that, the spider eats the butterfly

Speaker 7: I wanted to save both of them, you idiot!

Malcolm Collins: And the entire Trigun series is based around this philosophy of No matter how bad things are, there is always a way to save the bad guy.

There is always a way to make things right. When in reality, by [00:03:00] attempting to save the bad guy, you often cause much more harm in the longterm. You are masturbating your own sense of justice. Like you being a good person, usually because you don't have to deal with the risk that that bad guy poses to society.

The famous example here, of course, I'm thinking of is the woman who had a person murder her mother. And everyone was like, this is a really bad dude. She petitioned to get them released from prison early, hired them, and then they murdered her when she fired them for stealing from her. Which is to say that a lot of people, when they take this benevolent and magnanimous looking position, they're doing it just to heighten their own sense of I'm a good person without really thinking about the other harm that this person is going to cause, which is what often happens.

If you look at statistics and I'll add some in post here, The vast majority, for example, of thefts are caused by a very, very small majority of thieves who just do it over and over and over again, right? It's the same as just about any crime, right? Very small number of people actually do it, which I think

Simone Collins: Also, [00:04:00] just to be fair, explains the behavior of people who want to give people the benefit of the doubt because the vast majority of humans deserve the benefit of the doubt.

It's a very, very small percentage that really just needs to be distrusted and removed from mainstream society.

Malcolm Collins: The, the, the problem here is I think that we as a society have been conditioned to not believe this by media.

And I'm going to call this the Thai hot Maru problem.

Speaker 2: What's on your mind, Lieutenant? The Kobayashi Maru, sir.

Lieutenant, yOu are looking at the only Starfleet cadet who ever beat the no win scenario.

Speaker: How?

Speaker 2: I reprogrammed the simulation so it was possible to rescue the ship. What? He cheated. I changed the conditions of the test.

I don't believe in the no win scenario.

Malcolm Collins: Now, for people who don't know what the Tai Hot Maru is, the Tai Hot Maru is a famous test from the Star Trek universe that [00:05:00] you are supposed to be unable to pass.

And it's supposed to show what do you do in an unwinnable scenario. And yet our society and media constantly says, when the hero is given an unwinnable scenario, save this person or this person. Save your love or like this group of citizens. The answer is always supposed to be, there is a way to save both.

Simone Collins: And

Malcolm Collins: that is not true. Fundamentally,

Simone Collins: right?

Malcolm Collins: There is not always a way to solve those. And it creates a really toxic mindset around morality for a lot of people because they believe that any decision that leads to harm for some group of people is fundamentally an immoral decision, regardless of the necessity or longterm good of that decision.

And so here, what I wanted to dig into was your response to the try again video because I think it's accurate and it encapsulates our view of morality that [00:06:00] we will go into and why this view of morality leads downstream to some very perplexing beliefs that we have, for example, a lot of people can be like, wait you guys think that there's differences between cultural groups.

So if you think that there's differences between cultural like groups Then why don't you think that like the europeans are the good guys and like, the the jews and like the the blacks are the bad guys when it seems that you actually have a great deal of derision for northern europeans and even more derision for anti semites And yet you hold very pretty neutral views to groups like the hispanics.

And Really really confuses And it's like, well, there's actually a logically consistent reason for all of these beliefs, but you just assume that the reason is that we're capitulating to the urban monoculture without realizing that the position that we're taking is actually even harder to hold than the just generic, you know, Sort of racist person position.

Yeah we don't have some big community that's going to back us up for it Yeah More based [00:07:00] than this other position because it is more unique and out there But simone go through what your thoughts were to the the spider in the web

Simone Collins: Yeah, I mean, I think that there's an obvious correct answer for the spider in the web Which is you leave them alone.

And if the butterfly is You know A strong and resilient butterfly. It will get out of the web. If it is a smart and resourceful and healthy spider, it will eat the butterfly. And you don't want to release the butterfly as if it's a weak butterfly and it continues to reproduce and produce other hapless butterflies, it will hurt all butterfly kind ditto with the spider.

So you just kind of have to let them Duke it out and you shouldn't be intervening. And nature will run its course, which. I guess makes us bad people, but it's very consistent with our Calvinist inspired views, right? Of like, it is not our job to intervene. You are saved or you're not saved. You are fit or you're not, you're going to matter or you're [00:08:00] not, you're going to change history or you're not.

And that is not within our control. We have free will 100%, but we've been dealt the cards. We've been dealt. Does that make sense?

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And I would say that While you can talk about this at the level of the spider and the butterfly, where this matters more when we're making cultural decisions about the cultural groups we admire, and that we look to, and we tell our kids, these are good cultural groups, these are cultural groups you should model yourselves after, these are cultural groups you can learn from.

Are the cultural groups, That are thriving and in an upwards trajectory So i'll note here when I say in an upwards trajectory the unique amount of derision we have towards things like european cultural groups or Americans who are born into positions of relative privilege, but haven't been able to secure a family is downstream of the belief that they should have had access to all sorts of advantages, and yet they are still failing.

Why are they failing despite their [00:09:00] historic position of strengths? That must mean that their culture is uniquely ill fitted to our time and place. Essentially, and people get very surprised, they're like, but I thought you guys care about diversity. And this is where you need to understand the way we relate to diversity.

So, If we care about cultural diversity, we see every individual culture as a hypothesis about how people might live and thrive and get through the current challenges, both technological and social, that our species is facing, and if every culture is a hypothesis, a culture that is failing to thrive.

under these conditions is fundamentally an incorrect hypothesis. I do not care about incorrect hypotheses thriving. I care about the greatest diversity of correct hypotheses thriving. Because the greater diversity of correct hypotheses we have, the less of a monoculture we will have, and the more resistance we will have to unknown threats.

We humanity the species will have [00:10:00] two threats that may occur in the future. So

Simone Collins: in other words, we're looking at cultures and cultural technology that produces human flourishing and if it fails to do that then we don't see The point in trying to intervene and save it because in the end it is producing suffering it is producing harm It is producing death and it's causing damage and it's holding humanity back

Malcolm Collins: Well, yes, and this happens at two levels and there's two reasons to have this derision one is for yourself And for your own culture and family So if I looked with admiration, for example, we were doing the episode on on modern German culture recently that we were pointing out is really, really failing right now, if I looked with admiration at the culture in Germany right now, and I told my kids, Oh, you should admire that.

You should follow that. They would end up weaker because that culture is failing. I need to teach them to see that culture with a degree of disgust. And if they can [00:11:00] do that, then they are less likely to follow a culture that isn't thriving or pick up bad ideas. But if they see a group that is doing well, a high fertility, economically thriving cultural group it, they should look at that group and be like, Oh, for whatever reason in our current cultural context, this group is doing really well.

What can I steal from them? It reminds me of the Klan people, as I've mentioned, who go into the backwoods, which can help people understand pluralism as a cultural value system, which is to say that when the backwoods cultural group, the greater Appalachian group in America, when they immigrated into this country and they encountered the Native Americans they butchered lots of Native Americans, when contrasted with the Puritans or the Quakers or the other cultural groups in the region.

But they also didn't dehumanize the native americans They married into native american families at very very high rates. They adopted tons of native american cultural technologies They basically saw the native americans as just a another group in this inter clan [00:12:00] competition You know if you have the hatzfields and the mccoys the native americans are just another Group that we should try to take their stuff and learn what they're doing.

That's working and learn what they're doing. That's not working No, I'm not saying that that should work, that that's like a good way to do things, or that's the way things should work in a modern context, and I'll discuss why this is, is, is uniquely bad in a second, but I'm saying that it epitomizes this view of diversity, which is to say That when you see another group not doing well, you're like, okay, i'm gonna take their stuff But like like I will outcompete them but when you see a another group that is doing well in some way you're like, okay, what can I learn from them?

Everyone is equally human to you and everyone is part of this game to you Whereas to groups like the quakers the native americans weren't really human. They were like The child or something that needed to be protected and kept in a zoo, but like there was obviously nothing to learn from them There was obviously nothing no reason to respect them or marry into their families or etc, right?

[00:13:00] And this is also a very interesting thing, which is why people who have this pluralistic cultural competition mindset End up being much more, from stronger cultures because they believe they have to be a strong culture. It is a position of internal cultural weakness that leads to an individual shying away from this world perspective, because it means that.

When you look at other groups, you think if they could intermingle with my group or if we were competing within a fair equal environment, I would be outcompeted when you are certain that you will outcompete others. You always want equality. Strong groups always fight for equality while groups that have an internal weakness.

A fear of being out competed, they will always compete for isolation.

Simone Collins: And either you will think, if you're in one of these groups that you're really confident about, that your group will just take over all the other groups and make the world better, or that in the end, only the strong groups will remain and the world will be better.

But either, either [00:14:00] perspective. Has an adherent believing that the world will be better off, especially if the weaker groups are allowed to run their course and stop existing.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And an interesting thing about this philosophy, and this is where actually something that Nietzsche talks about aligns with something that we believe, which is he argues that being sympathetic to someone who is suffering, or I don't believe he uses the word sympathy.

What's the word he uses here?, showing pity to somebody who is suffering is fundamentally to infantilize them and to prevent them from rising up. But this doesn't mean never help people who are suffering. Help them with magnanimity. And when you help another culture with magnanimity, You are helping them with the intention of creating a group that competes against your own and through that competition makes you sharper.

I like that. And I, I

Simone Collins: think the point isn't to say into the garbage, like, can these guys go or like, maybe it would be better if we just accelerate [00:15:00] their demise. No, it's, it's give them tools to maybe have them change because as they are now, isn't clearly sustainable. And. Help them, give them an out, maybe offer them the chance to join your group.

Malcolm Collins: It's important to note that one of these tools needs to be derision and looking down on them. Because if you accept another group for their failure, as the progressives do, handing out Yeah, yeah. That evangelizes them and it insults them. It doesn't just insult them. It traps them because it puts them at a local optimum where it is better for them to continue with their state of non contribution over exploring what potential other pathways might be available to them.

Simone Collins: And another avenue, or I guess arena or part of our lives in which we see this is that classic issue with teachers. Where is a student sometimes it'd be really annoying if a teacher was really critical of [00:16:00] you or would like put a lot of time into showing you what an idiot you are with your work or how much you could improve your form on something like in martial arts or in a sport.

And you would complain to a parent and say, like, well, why are they being so mean? Like, can't I just. And your parent would explain to you that teacher actually cares about you. Like they don't give a s**t about anyone else in the class. They're just letting everyone else skate by and basically be mediocre, but they're investing in you because you have potential.

And I think that's the same kind of dynamic here. Are you going to. Just let them slide by and feel bad for the fact that they're mediocre and bad and not encourage them to improve? Or are you going to recognize the potential they have to flourish and invest in it?

Malcolm Collins: Well, and I think that this can be seen in the way that we approach things like philanthropy.

You can look at the Collins Institute, which is a institution that is designed to teach people and be free. And as an education source that we built for our own kids education primarily, but we made it free to anyone else who wants to use it to put all of human knowledge at their fingertips. And that.

[00:17:00] This is fundamentally opposed to many of the progressive solutions to things like poverty, which is to say, Oh, well, we'll give them money. Oh, well, we'll give them houses. Oh, well, we'll give them this and this and this which is a form of enablement. But it also makes the progressive dominated areas worse because they end up attracting more of these economically unproductive individuals.

And so people can look like when a progressive looks at what we're offering, they're like, well, yeah, but the homeless people may not want. To use your education system. They may not want to attempt to educate themselves. And it's like, well, That's a problem then, isn't it? And then they're like, well, what if they have, what if they have like severe mental illnesses and stuff like that, what if they've got all of these other, you know, problems?

And it's like, well, this is the thing. I believe that everyone is capable of economically contributing in this country, unlike you progressive. I think that when you lower the amount of restrictions that people have on them, there is always a way to make a living. I believe that [00:18:00] everyone has some utility to society, which is fundamentally different than the view that you are espousing, which is that these individuals must be permanently infantilized.

And I believe that there is a class that is born with that level of mental disability, but I think it's a much smaller class than is functionally left disabled by the way progressives handle things like homelessness. for this.

Simone Collins: That and improvement requires tough love. Improvement requires being critical. It's something also that shows up at a lot in your, in my relationship, right? People think, oh, can you believe that they would criticize each other or encourage each other to be better for me to be like, Hey, Malcolm, you could do this better, or you'd be like, Simone, like this was a great meal, but it needs more of this or that.

And by the way, you're totally right. That race needed way more salt or like MSG. It just needed to kick. But like the fact that we do that it's because we care and it's because we love each other and it's because we respect each other and we live in a culture now that sees [00:19:00] criticism as an act of violence, rather than an act of care.

And I think it's that contextualization that needs to change. a complete rebrand now and a complete overhaul because we have to return to an age in which giving someone criticism, giving someone room for improvement is an act of, and it's seen as an act of care and love. We can, we can get there. And I think people are ready for that, but I think it's going to take a lot of work because we've been so indoctrinated, even from your and my childhood of thinking.

That critical feedback is violence technically speaking. Yeah. And

Malcolm Collins: So people will hear this philosophy and they'll think oh well This means you think this the strong should lord over the weak that the strong should Push around the week when instead we're saying the exact opposite.

Anybody who knows us knows that we have a very high opinion of ourselves and our family culture, which I think all culture should. You don't have pride in who you are. Then why are you existing? Why are you doing any of this? Why are you passing on your [00:20:00] culture to the next generation? We have an incredibly Yeah.

A high degree of pride in who we are, and yet we focus our efforts on trying to help other cultures and communities that are struggling right now and making it through something like demographic collapse, even cultures that are very different from our own. And we want that because we want our kids to have a diverse group of competitors.

To further hone themselves if humanity becomes homogenous humanity has fundamentally failed because we are no longer Intergenerationally improving we are just a blob The same thing forever

Speaker 12: So cast off your fears of age and blight. In putrescence find your true delight. For in my real all I cherish, so let my blessings upon you grow. Embrace the Let Bloom inaction.[00:21:00]

Join

my God.

Malcolm Collins: because we are no longer Intergenerationally improving we are just a blob The same thing forever and I think that this leads to conflict between us like some people are like, why are you so antagonistic? To cultures that attempt to enforce their values on other cultures so for example Cultures that try to enforce oh anti gay marriage.

All society shouldn't have gay marriage. And I'm like, no, the cultures that are against gay marriage can do better. They should do better, but you can't enforce this on other people. Like Sharia law is bad. Right. And they're like, no, I think that my culture needs to be enforced on everyone. And then people who have this perspective you often see a high overlap with this and things like antisemitism and stuff like that.

And I think that there's this influencer class who I'll move away from naming them specifically, but who. Have an overlapping fan base with our own who [00:22:00] have a confluence of these sorts of perspectives, and people are surprised by the amount of intense derision we have towards these individuals. And I think that they think that this derision that we have towards these individuals is.

A capitulation to the urban monoculture instead of literally for the exact same reason we have derision for the urban monoculture. And perhaps even in greater measure, because when I look at the type of person who might be saved, who might be able to build a strong culture themselves, who might be able to build some sort of level of intergenerational thrivingness.

These types of individuals are drawn to right leaning philosophies like ours, but they can also be lured by the siren calls of these other philosophers, which where the aesthetics of the right leaning community and people can be like, what, what do you mean? Like, like, like, be specific here. And I'm like, well, I see no different from your standard anti Semite than I see your average BLM protester.

These are both individuals who are from one cultural group, whether it's like a black [00:23:00] cultural group or whether it's from. A white supremacist cultural group who sees another culture out competing them. Whether it's academically or in the number of famous people they have, or in the number of politicians they have, or in the number because Jews do very well in those categories or in their economic success.

And they basically get angry and flip over the board like a child and are like, you must be cheating instead of being willing to see any flaw in themselves. And these individuals are worthy of the highest level of score, much higher than just a culture that's failing because they're not just a culture that's failing their culture that is incapable of improving itself because it is incapable of seeing its own laws or when other people are out competing it, which means that when I'm, you know, interacting with my kid and I want to ensure really, really, really stay away from values like this or people like this.

That's what we're looking at. And The highest degree of toxicity in this comes from when we look at how to better our culture, and I think that these two cultural groups [00:24:00] can really be seen here how they differ. Both groups might believe the goal is cultural supremacy cultural supremacy through individual competition, which is a little different, but we, when we're improving our culture, or I guess I should say, both of these groups see their goal as cultural improvement.

But when we're looking at cultural improvement, we are looking at other cultures and trying to see how they're doing well or hypothesized ways we can do our own culture better while looking to our culture's history to see what parts of it worked in the past. Well, and I improve their future. They're looking to purify their culture by going back to some sort of cargo cult aesthetic of an imagined past greatness, which existed for almost no culture on Earth.

Simone Collins: Yes, and we need to see a return to. Friendly rivalry and a good form, which I, I don't know, reading J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan introduced me to the concept of good form in a way that I just really loved because it, it gave me a peek into [00:25:00] how people used to view healthy rivalry in the past, which is, and then maybe I'm totally romanticizing this and misremembering it.

But the idea is that you would compete with someone and you would compete along, I guess, certain rules of like basically being a good sport or a bad sport. And it, a rival was seen as a good thing that you wanted in your life. It was, it was like a knife enjoys seeing something can sharpen itself on it and it knows that it needs it.

And right now when people see groups that are in competition or even opposition that hold different values, they see them as a threat that has to be eliminated. They see them as a thing that they should take out in using any means available, including very bad form. Whereas in the past, I really love this concept of seeing opponents in life, seeing rivals as a source of improving your own fitness.

And when you lost, you would lose in good [00:26:00] humor, understanding that you've learned something from it and that you will become stronger through the act of losing, figuring out what you did wrong. And then getting excited about having another round with this. opposing entity or person and hopefully winning next time.

But you can't get there if you don't engage. And if you don't take everything with good humor, good sportsmanship and good form.

Malcolm Collins: Exactly. Well, and, and, you know, this is where I get so high in my derision of these groups is They haven't the capacity to improve anymore because of that because they see a group beating them as a group Victimizing them.

They are unable to believe because of this usually a lionization of a fictional historic past greatness That their culture could lose in a fair competition. And so they'll say well then the competition wasn't fair [00:27:00] And this matters to us because as soon as people realize that cultures are actually different and groups are actually different, they then want to say, well, mine's good.

But if you say yours is good, not because of you, not because of your individual efforts to improve that culture, but because historically it has some. claim to supremacy, it will inevitably fail and is also uniquely tempting and dangerous to individuals who are close to the path of, I think, cultural actualization, which is, again, why we constantly deride these groups so much.

Speaker 4: And here I really want to highlight something that is often missed by people, but Nazis really were just the we was kangs for white germanic people. , if people aren't familiar with the we was kings meme, it is this joke around some people in modern black culture that will try to take credit for all of these historic moments or characters in history [00:28:00] saying, oh, ancient Greeks, that was all black people or, oh, you know, uh, the first battery or the first, you know, they, they think Wakanda is real basically.

Speaker 20: The original rulers of England and Britain

Speaker 21: were black. That's King George of England, a light skinned black man. You clearly see the Vikings as black men.

Speaker 22: Do you see that with your glasses? These are black men. Jesus is a black man.

Speaker 23: Beethoven. Black. Mozart. Black. Henry VIII. Black. William Shakespeare. Shakespeare.

Speaker 22: Undoubtedly

black.

Speaker 8: We was kings and s**t, that's the truth we spit M is con, Alexander too Black as f**k, yeah, they knew what's true Caesar, Napoleon, all them cats Black power, homie, we created that We started China, Japan, and Rome, India, too, man, we claimed every throne.

Built the Great Wall, Taj Mahal, no cap. Babylon's gardens, yeah, we did all that. We brought democracy, math, [00:29:00] and science. Set the standards, made the world reliant. We was kings, and that's no lie.

Yasuke, the greatest samurai ever known. His legend grew, as black as our own.

Malcolm Collins: Aristotle, Socrates, yeah, they was black. Plato too, that's a straight up fact.

, and we laugh at them and are like, oh, that's so silly, but that's exactly. Who both the Nazis were in a historic context, but also a lot of the modern neo Nazi movement falls into this category in that, you know, the Nazis would say, oh, well, Buddha, he was actually Aryan. He wasn't Indian, of course.

Or you'll get, not even exaggerating here, I have seen this in our own comment section when we're talking about, oh the ancient Greeks did stuff, it wasn't the ancient Celts, it wasn't the ancient northern Europeans, it wasn't the ancient Germans, and they're like, oh don't you know?

Just like in the Kangs. Stereotype. Don't you know that, , like Socrates and Alexander and all that, they were actually northern European guys? And all of the ancient Greeks, they actually used to be northern Europeans? And it's like, oh my god, you sound exactly like a Kang's [00:30:00] guy.

Aristotle, Socrates, yeah, they was black. Plato too, that's a straight up fact.

Speaker 4: And they would talk about how great, like, German and Aryan civilization was.

When anyone who studied Roman history knows that they were, Of the barbarians, one of the most barbaric, , along with my own ancestors in, in, in Britain. You know, these people were basically animals when the Romans were building all of their great stuff, when the ancient Greeks were building all of their great stuff.

, and so I view both movements and individuals with equal derision. In the same breath here if the progressive movement's goal is to force everyone into the urban monoculture, you have a number of options.

ideological arguments against that, like the clan based argument that we're presenting here. But in addition to these ideological arguments, there is athetic conservatives. So in the same way that, you know, some progressives like to dress up like furries and furries [00:31:00] broadly are a progressive movement, , in the conservative movement, we have these people who like to LARP in sort of this cargo cult of the 1950s trad family that they, you know, got from Hollywood.

Uh, not taking into account that if they saw something come out of Hollywood today, they'd be like, Well, that's obvious propaganda and not real. And I'd be like, yeah, and what was happening in the 1950s was Hollywood propaganda heavily influenced by the Legion of Decency, , and it's okay to have them in the movement. Like we, we have many of the same goals, but them attempting to impose this LRP that they're playing on other people hurts us in election cycles.

And is the conservative version and should be treated, I think, with equal derision to when progressives do this, , of, you know, the trans community trying to legally force people to use their pronouns. If, if they can gain status within their own little local hierarchies for playing that LARP, fine. , if they can gain status by signaling that they want to impose that LARP on other people, fine.

But they need to learn that when they're hurting us in election cycles for [00:32:00] something that is obviously, it's no sort of. philosophical backbone to it other than an aesthetic. , that's where we need to draw the line and there needs to be some degree of pushback.

Malcolm Collins: But now I want to go into Nietzsche, because a lot of people will hear this and see rhyming parts. Have you ever studied Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy?

Simone Collins: Nietzsche? No. What do you

Malcolm Collins: know about it, broadly, before I go into it?

Simone Collins: What do I know about his philosophy? There's the ubermunch. There's a fairly blackpilled approach to humanity.

And society, and there is a deeply unhappy man who people have misframed as an incel, just because he like never married, but it's not like he was actually an incel who was generally fairly unhealthy and didn't have very great relationships in his life, but had really great ideas and left behind that legacy that has since mostly resonated with young people.

How, how accurate am I [00:33:00] agreeing with him a lot? No, no, we would totally end up agreeing with him a lot because we take a

Malcolm Collins: very Okay, well, here I'll ask you a different question. What do you think his view on the ubermensch was? What is your vague understanding of the ubermensch?

Simone Collins: If I were to frame it in our terms or state it in our terms, it would be that some people really matter and the rest of people just don't know.

That's not it. Okay. What is it?

Malcolm Collins: He believes the ubermensch is someone who creates their own values and meaning in life, rather than accepting pre existing moral frameworks.

Oh

Simone Collins: wow, so we totally like that, because that's basically what the pragmatist's guide to life is all about, is decide for yourself what you believe and why.

Malcolm Collins: So this individual affirms life completely, saying yes to all aspects of existence, Including both joy and suffering. He believes that this individual has to has overcome and have self mastery.

A fundamental aspect of the Übermensch is the ability to overcome oneself continually. This involves mastering one's own instincts, passions, and even one's quote unquote evil tendencies. The Übermensch strives for constant self improvement and self overcoming. This worldliness he positions the Übermensch as a counterpoint [00:34:00] to otherworldly religious ideals.

The Übermensch is focused on giving meaning to life on Earth rather than seeking fulfillment in a spiritual or afterlife realm. Creative power, the Übermensch is described as a quote unquote poet of life. Someone who creates and destroys in the process of self realization. This creative power extends to the formation of new values and the ability to shape one's own identity, independence, and responsibility.

An Übermensch takes full responsibility for their life and choices, not relying on external authority or scapegoats. They are capable of standing alone and embracing the freedom and responsibility that comes with self determination. Embracing life's challenges, rather than seeking comfort or easy solutions, the Übermensch welcomes challenges, conflicts, and adversity as opportunities for growth and self realization.

So the Übermensch

Simone Collins: is

Malcolm Collins: just a reasonable, logical person who takes ownership of what they believe? Wait, hold on, hold on. I'm not, I'm getting to the end here. Transcendence of common morality. The ubermensch goes belong conventional morality, recognizing its socially constructed nature. However, this does not mean being amoral, but rather creating [00:35:00] a personal ethical framework based on life affirming values.

In essence, Nietzsche's Übermensch represents the highest potential of human beings. Someone who has overcome societal constraints, created their own values, and fully embraced the challenges and joys of earthly existence.

It's important to note that Nietzsche saw this as an ideal to strive towards, not necessarily a concrete reality or call for a superior race. So, continue. Your thoughts. So

Simone Collins: this sounds like someone who just owns their own morality and lives life. According to it, in accordance with their, the values that they have decided independently for themselves without being told what to do by society matter.

And that there's nothing exceptional about this kind of person, aside from the fact that it is fairly exceptional for someone to be a part of society. We didn't think he existed yet. Wasn't he one of those people? No. So what you know, because he doesn't seem to be the kind of person who went by society values

Malcolm Collins: were were influenced by the values of society and that other people's values were influenced by the values of [00:36:00] society and that these were not truly independently crafted values.

Simone Collins: Okay,

Malcolm Collins: well, he's probably being a little hard on himself, but I don't know, Simone. I'd ask you this other than us. How many people do you know who created their own values all like we go through in the pragmatist guide to life? How many have actually followed through with that?

Simone Collins: I think I mean, someone, obviously, because we spoke with him recently give me a moment here.

Monarchist. Curtis Jarvin. Yeah. I think that

Malcolm Collins: What

Simone Collins: is his name again? Ernest

Malcolm Collins: Yarvin. Sorry. Hold on, hold on. I'll add it. So this morning, Simone and I were doing what we call a list of live players.

These are people we need to follow up with and know. So, our list because basically they're acting. This is

Simone Collins: cribbing from Sam Oberge's concept of live players, which is someone who I don't know. Is thinking independently and likely to change the trajectory of, of change. Humanity because they're not going to act in [00:37:00] the way that any other optimal thinker would when placed in some kind of wind up toy position.

Malcolm Collins: But the point I'm making, Simone, is that we made this list this morning. So this is like a list of basically Uber mentions, you could say. Yeah. So on that

Simone Collins: list are people like Ayla, like Curtis Yarvin. These people definitely are thinking How long

Malcolm Collins: is the list? It's like maybe 12 people. It's like maybe 12 people.

The list is, and I want to make absolutely clear here, not limited to the live players in our social networks. It's not live players we think we can build a connection with. Yes,

Simone Collins: some of these people are people we've never had a conversation with. They don't know who we

Malcolm Collins: are.

Every live player on Earth is today. that we could identify. Simone, with the internet, how many more people do you think we know than Nietzsche knew within his lifetime?

Simone Collins: Okay, touche.

Malcolm Collins: He knew people who were maybe writing books within [00:38:00] his lifetime, and then, like, people in his surrounding town. The number of people that we see, we are looking at Cities of like millions and millions of people and not like one city, but multiple cities.

We are looking at like the smartest of the smart people in our society who get together to hold private events where, you know, we are picked for those events because like successful people think, Oh, you guys are uniquely smart. And then we are, we are, we are leveraging those networks. To find every other live player we can find, and there's just not that many.

Like, when you went to Hereticon, which is like, some of the wealthiest people in the world, they go out and they find all of the greatest, most heretical thinkers of our time, and the most common complaint among the live players there was, it's just not that heretical here.

Simone Collins: Yeah, there's a lot of like, we want more spicy conversations, but part of that and part of the discussion when people were saying that was, have we just become desensitized at this point?

Malcolm Collins: No, no. So my point is, Simone, if you look at, if you [00:39:00] assume that the rate of live players within Nisha's lifetime is the same as the rate of live players within our lifetime, and ubermensch means live player, is it really that weird that he wouldn't have met anyone that fit that qualification in his life?

Yeah.

Simone Collins: Okay, you, you make a strong point and I'm probably I'm, I'm conflating his existence with the existence of that sort of Vienna cafe, culture, turn of the century, social club of people who are all very influential intellectuals. But he wasn't in that. But he wasn't in that and so that's, that's my problem of just kind of mushing history all together and being like, I don't know, all smart dead people kind of hung out with each other.

Like we're going to

Malcolm Collins: have live players throughout history, but Nietzsche was not in one of those communities. In fact, his work was not recognized until after he died. So he'd have no reason to think that he was uniquely brilliant or anything like that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Okay. Then totally understood. And thank you for giving me that [00:40:00] explanation.

And it's interesting that this concept comes up again in Samuel Berger's work and comes up again in what we're at least in what we're calling people to become in the pragmatist guide to life. I didn't realize we were essentially asking people to become Yeah, the pragmatist guide to

Malcolm Collins: becoming an ubermensch.

That is what the book basically is.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-4: I really want to emphasize here how rare people are, who create their own value system, even though Simone was like, but even that the basic that expected of everyone. We have been environments that are supposed to be the places where the best and the brightest of our society. Colette, you know, I have a Stanford MBA.

She had the graduate degree from Cambridge.

Whatever you think of higher institution utility, it is true that it can open some doors with you for you indefinitely. , of the people who are going into higher education. , Stanford business school is probably the hardest program to get into. And Cambridge is one of the most classically prestigious. Graduate programs to get into. And neither did I [00:41:00] meet a single person? I would put in this Uber man category and I frequently, like one of my go-to conversations is okay. What are you? What do you want from your life?

Like what has value? What's good. And So few people had anything other than like an aesthetic explanation for that. Like, I want this athletic outcome, or I want this set of things that I was taught to expect from life. Instead of having some like underbrush line. Logical explanation or you get pretty, um, you know, childish life philosophies, like, oh, things that make me feel good are good.

And I should maximize feeling good among the population. , which is, you know, what you normally get from w just, hasn't put a lot of thought into life, I guess. And so, yeah. I was, I think that, , I would commend to people that if you're out there and if you're young and you're like, okay, when am I going to finally meet the.

Intellectually active people. , I might give up on that or not give up on that, but understand that you're going to meet them by doing the types of things that you, as an intellectually active person would decide to do. So [00:42:00] like, If I was at the prenatal it's convention, which is coming up soon, by the way, you can check it out.

And the code word to get a discount is Collins. , you're probably going to meet a lot of people like that. There. Just because if you were looking at the world's problems today and you're not concerned about what other people think of you. You're probably going to be like, oh, fertility rates. That's an issue. , I should probably be working on that in some way. , or, you know, Some stuff around AI. You might see them in, in, in higher numbers.

, so it like was the cafes of oldest. Simone was talking about. It is the places where the best and the brightest coalesced to talk about the problems of the time and not be accrediting institutions where you're going to find life players.

Simone Collins: But I'm glad that we, I mean, I don't know, I kind of have insistently tried not to read Nietzsche because I don't want to be one of those people who is constantly influenced by, I personally, and this is another thing about our more backwoods influenced culture.

Is that we, we look down upon people who speak in the terms of other [00:43:00] philosophers and constantly refer to them. Oh, I hate it. As soon as somebody starts quoting philosophers to me, I'm like, oh, so you're an

Malcolm Collins: idiot.

Simone Collins: Yeah, like just state things in simple terms and, and stop trying to front and show me how well read you are.

This really bothers me. Well, and

Malcolm Collins: I think that Nietzsche does a good job of this. He's also very against, like, cruelty of the strong to the weak. People think he does anything, he's like, no, he'd view that as a form of weakness. You know, that's like the adult who plays children in tennis to dunk on them.

Simone Collins: Oh, well, and I can probably dig up this study and find it for you if you ask me for it before you run this. But I can share with you the study that showed that people in like a technical academic field who are lower in status tended to use more jargon than people who are higher in status, because it's a way for, if you actually are low status to try to puff yourself up.

If you're of high status, all you want to do is explain things in dumbed down terms that people can understand. So honestly, the more dumbed down your terminology is, the higher status you are. And you know, someone who's really amazing at that. Is Elon Musk. [00:44:00] When he explains things, he uses extremely simple terms, he doesn't make references, he speaks in words that everyon