Sub-Cultures With High Fertility: In Japan, UK, and Australia

11 Apr · Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

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 what

Malcolm 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 the IQ shredder.

It is the moving to the cities, it is the going to university and getting the demanding job and not having time to live close to your family network and raise kids and just spend time with friends and, and, and live within your means and. This group is sort of naturally high fertility because these are the ones who aren't entering the

Malcolm Collins: fertility shredder.

Does that make sense? Well, they're also not as economically disadvantaged [00:05:00] as you would imagine, given their life choices. Yeah. At the same time, they decided to get outta the university pipeline focused on the trades. Mm-hmm. In Japan especially, those types of jobs were increasing in value or, or what they paid Yeah.

Relative to the types of lifelong corporate jobs that were really sort of breaking apart.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and what's interesting is, is some people have posited about softie, Yankee Keys in Japan that, oh, they're gonna disappear. They're not gonna last for long 'cause they're not very educated and you know, they, they won't be able to afford houses.

They will totally be able to afford houses. There are these like emptying out towns in Japan. Where they can buy houses, although they're typically stick sticking close to home and living within their means and using family for support and childcare. So, no, these, these people will be just fine.

Malcolm Collins: So to go into the original tweet thread that brought our attention to this, it said Miles Yankees are the winners of Japanese society.

Skip high school and uni several years, headstart and earn way more than a graduate in their twenties. Marry a guru. Buy a new house, [00:06:00] have kids. This is the way, and then it has some images of, of this culture. And we should put some images on screen of like what this culture looks like. It says in, they tend to stay within a 10 kilometer radius of their hometown.

So they keep strong family, friendship, bonds, making it easier to start a family. And it shows you know, a, a meme of them grilling with, with hamburgers, hot wives. The mild Yankee statue with their van. The boy was the soft mohawk bar barbecue on the holidays. My eldest daughter is learning to dance, beautiful wife.

And they have, well,

Simone Collins: I, I think it's not a van. I, I think, again, it's a Toyota Vall fire. And I, I want to understand the obsession with this vehicle that is so strange.

Malcolm Collins: And there's another thing here where it's, it's mild Yankee where it's a, a guy and his girlfriend and they have a baby. And it says, but and he says.

This is, this messed up delicious. That's really bad. This eat it if you like. And she's giving an [00:07:00] old lady's, giving her like food. And of course in Japan this would happen if you moved to a town and had kids.

Simone Collins: Well, basically it's, it's a cartoon showing a husband enjoying his wife's food, a wife accepting local produce from a family member or neighbor.

And then the, the family and their kids expressing thanks to that local community member like this is. The archetype of sustainable family rearing, living in a supportive community, showing them gratitude. The young and old and and working age all have a role and they enjoy small and simple things.

And that's the thing about this, I.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's about building an alternate culture where the dominance hierarchy is not, and people don't like that. I use the term dominant hierarchy. They're like, call it the prestige hierarchy. I use dominant hierarchy because I'm comparing it in an anthropological context.

To like an APE tribe or something like that is not the unified, the dominance hierarchy. The problem, one of the biggest problems with the urban monoculture is that everyone's playing was in the same dominance hierarchy. So you're always going to feel near [00:08:00] the bottom unless you happen to be like famous or something.

Where it was in both the Yankee and the mild Yankee dominance hierarchies you can for a much lower cost and much lower investment, really invest in that culture and be like your own person that you can have pride in.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And then a tweet under it, oh. Actually before I go to the tweet under it, do you want me to read about the evolution of Yankee culture?

Simone Collins: In Japan?

Malcolm Collins: Yes, I I will. Okay, so the term Yankee in Japan doesn't refer to the American baseball team or the historical US group, but rather to a distinct subculture that emerged in the late 20th century. Japanese Yankees are typically associated with rebellious youth, often characterized by a distinctive style, think pompadour hairstyles, modified school uniforms, and a tough anti-establishment attitude.

This subculture has roots in the post-war period. Influenced by American pop culture, like rock and roll and biker kings, but it evolved into something uniquely Japanese. Over [00:09:00] time, it's been linked to working class communities, particularly in urban and semi-urban settings like South Osaka and parts of Kishu.

It is associated, is it associated with higher fertility rates? There's no hard data from official sources like Japan's Ministry of Health or Academic Studies, specifically telling Yankee subculture to higher birth rates. However, some observations and sentiment on platforms like X hint at a connection, for instance, it's been con suggested in areas where Yankee culture is strong, like South Osaka or tissue families tend to have more kids, two to three compared to Japan's national average total fertility rate, which dropped from 1.2 in 2023.

Okinawa with a TFR of 1.6 and parts of Kishu, like Miyazaki, 1.49 do stand out as having higher fertility rates than say, Tokyo 0.99. These regions also have a reputation as being more relaxed, community oriented lifestyles, which some associate with lingering Yankee influence. The theory might go like this.

[00:10:00] Yankees, historically from working class backgrounds may have prioritized family and traditional roles over career driven urban lifestyles that dominate cities like Tokyo, where fertility rates are lowest. Their mild, modern counterparts could still carry a countercultural tendency. Turds earlier, marriage and large families, bunking, Japan's broader trend of delayed and foregone parenthood, for example, chu's, relatively high fertility rates around 1.8 in some areas, and its reputation as a Yankee stronghold could suggest that correlation.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. So I, one, one thing that I was looking at today was the connection between Yankee culture and. Another high fertility culture, which is the Appalachian culture, which we constantly talk about. And in that Twitter thread, they don't even mention Appalachian culture, but two separate people are like, oh my gosh, you're just describing the, the UK phenomenon of, and we're gonna

Malcolm Collins: go over these two other phenomenon.

And then, oh,

Simone Collins: you're just describing Aussie tradies. But I wanna talk about the similarities between. Yankee culture [00:11:00] and Appalachian culture. And the, the reason why is there's this movie that I love that you will never, ever watch 'cause it's basically the Japanese amali called Kamikaze girls that I.

I have probably spent like hundreds of hours watching again and again, like before I met you. 'cause I love it so much. It's about two girls. One is this girl who's really into gothic, Lili clothing named Momoko. And a friend she makes named Ichigo. And Ichigo is a Yankee. She's a, she's a Yankee girl. And like when I rewatch the scene where she's introduced, I'm just like, oh my gosh.

There's, she is like the Japanese. Like Appalachian Tom girl, because she shows up on what is basically a rideable truck nut. It's like this insane, like souped up scooter motorcycle thing. And 'cause she's the member of this, this, this Japanese biker game called the Ponytails, and she's actually showing up at this young girl's house because her father sells.

Bootlegged Versace like super trashy [00:12:00] clothing and like as she's like looking at the clothing that's available for sale later in the scene, she's like, oh my gosh, you universal Versace. 'cause he'll just like starts combining logos. It's like just totally trashy taste. But like, fantastic. And as she's approaching Momoko, Momoko is like thinking like, oh, a Yankee to run on eyebrows, and she spits on the ground and she, she has like very male mannerisms and it's just like, whoa.

Okay. So we got the tomboy, we got the truck nuts, we've got like the toughness. And this sort of like un unabashed enthusiasm for things and, and lack of concern for what other people think. And I. Absolutely love it. And I never watched that movie thinking like, huh, this is a lot like another type of American culture, but it totally is, and it makes so much sense to me that this would evolve into one of the high fertility Japanese cultures that I'm thrilled about it

Malcolm Collins: if I can get away with posting this culture this, this video, because it's part of a music video that it's from the, the country [00:13:00] song when it rains.

And I think that many people, when they think of American. Country music or they, they think of this like uniform, sort of Republican American cultural group. And I keep pointing out that no, the Appalachian cultural group is very distinct from the aristocratic southern group or the aristocratic and, and very religious southern group.

And, and proper and the Mormon group. And I think that the intro to this video does a very good job because you see this family coming out. Going to church and you assume if you are approaching country music with stereotypes that they are the protagonist and No, it's not. It's not them. It's the guy who fell asleep partying on his, his roof.

And he is just, you know, was, was having a fun time. And you could tell that this individual would be very aligned with this cultural group. 100%.

Everybody got their Bibles? Yes.

[00:14:00] Come on, we gotta go.

Malcolm Collins: You watch like a video of the, the girl in it who is being a very, like, at, at her lunch with the other girl. And she's showing a lot of manners that remind me a lot of our daughter.

But No kidding. Yeah. If it

Simone Collins: was like if, if that scene was our family, it would be me dressed like the frilly girl and it would be our daughter Titan sitting across from me 100%.

ヨハンシュとラウス知らねえなあんなバンド

Simone Collins: But also like another thing it's demonstrated in that scene you're referring to is like this distinct. Lack of education.

Like I think she's listening to some classical artist and ichi goes' like, never heard of that band. Like, just

Malcolm Collins: no. But, but you see here that this is also something you see with this Appalachian group [00:15:00] culture. When you see them stereotyped, they're always stereotyped as the women particularly is being uniquely tomboy-ish.

Just think of like apple jack for my little pony. He's like, hardworking and, and, and tomboy-ish. Or you could think of. Well, any girl from you know, I'm trying to think of good stereotypes. Oh, yes, I'm a redneck woman. Or the,

Simone Collins: the girl

Malcolm Collins: I didn't, no high class man.

Simone Collins: The Beverly Hillbillies, I think she's great.

Malcolm Collins: Oh yes. The Beverly Hillbillies where she's incredibly strong.

Nobody treats my paw that way. Shut up.

How's that for Bunny?

Malcolm Collins: I think she better,

Simone Collins: Is, is like the guru archetype. So the. What Roco on Twitter said when talking about this movement wasn't implying that like Yankees, Murray Yankees, and definitely like female Yankees as depicted by Ichigo and kamikaze girls is less common.

You're more likely to get like the [00:16:00] girly girl version of that subculture, which is yoru. They're. Like, way back in the day, the way that you knew you were looking at a garter was basically if you saw like a Japanese stereotype of like Malibu Barbie, so bleached blonde hair, super tanned and then extremely girly pink accessories.

That's how you know you're looking at a garter. They look overly tan and they're like, yeah, now, now they're, now they're just toned down. Now they just look like the Japanese equivalent of trailer trash. Like they're, they're attractive, they're sexy. They, they like dress in a sort of like sexy, attractive way, and I think social media has kind of had that effect where it's like toned everyone down a little bit and also taught everyone how to style themselves.

Yeah. I, I think both in like a more classy and more trashy way, right? Because everyone has everyone has adopted drag makeup online, like everyone's contouring now. And yet like we're trying to like. Even it out, there's tempering taking place.

Malcolm Collins: I sent you a like super wholesome hentai of of shoot one of these girls.

So you can see that this [00:17:00] is a popular enough archetype. Leave it to us to describe hentai as wholesome though. Well, this one is clearly just made for like, look, you can masturbate different parts of your brain. And one thing that people like to masturbate is the wholesome part. Like, yeah, like a fantasy

Simone Collins: about like a loving, wholesome marriage.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. A wife, a loving, wholesome who actually loves you and cares. You can imagine yeah, like the, the gist is basically a childhood friend who doesn't feel like she's done anything with her life is really just completely plused and over the moon, and she's become a guro or like a mild guro, I guess you'd say.

Was like big. Pink animal print, like broth, like out, like small top things. Malibu

Simone Collins: Barbie Trailer Crash Edition.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Yeah. And, and you, you, and she's like sad about her life and she's really excited that somebody loves her and cares for horror. And that's a, the gist of it. But it's, it's, it's common enough that even when these characters are used in Japanese pornography, like Hint, I, [00:18:00] they are used as like a.

I'm gonna be a sweet, good, and loving wife who's gonna give you lots of babies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's very much the, the what you can tell is like the fantasy that's represented here and it's interesting that it transitioned from delinquent to, I am going to be delinquent. By being a sweet wife, but not in a traditional Japanese way, which is like, I guess like out of subservience or something like that.

Mm-hmm. But just because I appreciate you so much you know, and I think that a lot of guys in Japan may feel that way and they may look at a girl like that and see her as more attainable. Mm. Which was what would create this like, genre of hint. I,

Simone Collins: yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's just also such a contrast to.

I, I watch a lot of, I guess you could call them ambiance videos on YouTube made by single women who live in tiny little apartments in Tokyo and have [00:19:00] salary woman jobs. And in these videos they're just like silent. They never show their faces and they just do their evening routines. They make dinner for themselves.

And it's just such this weird contrast between this like completely asexual, highly educated professional woman. Mm-hmm. And I'm sure that their male equivalents are doing the same thing. And then this, this, this family, you know, these people who actually wanna have kids young, and this is what we have.

Like this is, this is what. Post globalization, post tech, high fertility culture looks like, it looks like people who marry their high school sweethearts or who marry during university and start having kids in their twenties and have a support system. I mean, it doesn't have to be, as in is the case with the the soft Yankees family members and they don't have to stay within 10 kilometers of where they were born, but

Malcolm Collins: it

Simone Collins: helps.

Malcolm Collins: So am I free to move on to the next cultural group?

Simone Collins: Ooh, which one are we gonna do? Are we gonna do a tradies?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, we're gonna continue with this. It goes, this is wild. There's the exact same [00:20:00] archetype with differences in execution, obviously in the UK called the Dino. A lower middle class types extremely misunderstood.

The commonality they have is their positive outlook. They need few things to make them happy, laugh easily, et cetera. Hmm. So let's talk about the Dino group. All right.

Dino isn't an organized group or a former subculture in the uk, but rather a satirical stereotype that's emerged online, particularly on platforms like Twitter now x and four chan to describe a specific type of person or lifestyle. Mm-hmm. The term paints the picture of a lower middle class. Often suburban or small town British couple, typically in their twenties or thirties, who embody a mix of aspirational consumerism and what some see as tacky mainstream tastes.

Think of this as a modern evolution of the older British stereotypes of the Essex man, or Mondio man, but with Asian. What about the ch, like are they just totally

Simone Collins: different?

Malcolm Collins: What

Simone Collins: are they different from the, are they Chas shaves? I don't know how they're, yes. Totally different from Chaves. Oh, okay. [00:21:00] Although, to to point back to like kamikaze girls, like this obsession with like Versace knockoff stuff.

I think that's the thing is like lower middle class, like thinking for example, that designer brands are Well pride in

Malcolm Collins: being lower middle class. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unapologetically. Yeah. Dino is usually imagined as a guy named Dean, hence the name. Working a decent but unglamorous job.

Say a call center supervisor, estate agent, trades person. He lives in a new building, housing estate, often called Barat Britain. After a major UK developer drives a finance car like a Voxel Astra and enjoys lad. Hobbies, FIFA Love Island Package. Holidays. Oh boy, Marbella. Yes. And nights out whiz banter. Yes.

His partner is sometimes jokingly called Miss Fiat. 500 matches him with white and TEEP lift, fillers and wardrobe of fast fashion.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: their home might feature gray [00:22:00] carpets. A ology, sofa, and an AstroTurf garden all proudly shared on Instagram. Mm-hmm. The stereotype leans hard into their perceived obsession with appearances and status, despite their relatively modest means.

The Dino meme started as a piss take on four chan and spread through British Twitter. Where it's been dissected was both. Humor and disdain. Some see Dinos as happy and fulfilled in their straightforward lives. Owning a home, having mates and enjoying the odd pint while others mock them as shallow conformist or oblivious to their precarious financial situation.

Big mortgages, little savings posts on X often highlight their aesthetics, slicked back hair, half shirt buttons undone, and blonde hair dye, and eating disorder. For the women, it's less about real subculture and more about a caricature of the normal Britain. British outside the urban elite. Oh, screw them.

I'm here for it. I'm here for it. Sign me up. And, but I, I think it is, it's, it's people who are proud to be themselves Yeah. Outside of this other [00:23:00] culture, which is what's necessary to fight against this. Yeah. A pride in being something other than the other urban monoculture. Yeah. And in immunity to urban monocultural, ridicule of you, whatever that culture looks like.

Well, there's

Simone Collins: some tension there. Because there's absolutely keeping up with Joneses, taking place with the financed vehicle, the, the house with everything posted on Instagram, the lip filler, the blonde hair, the, the whitened teeth, the eating disorder. You know, I think that there among their internal there is keeping up with the Joneses.

It just happens to be that the Joneses aren't like this distributed international group. It's like literally the people who live next door to you, just like it was in the fifties and sixties. But there, there is still, there's, there's sensitivity, but also like, yeah, but it's,

Malcolm Collins: it is, it is more financially realistic keeping up with the Joneses because you're playing a different game than the urban monoculture game.

Yeah. This is like what they're saying. They're like, they're so surprised that these people seem proud of things that aren't of status within the urban monoculture. Like why do they have pride in these modest meme things? And it's because they're playing a different [00:24:00] dominance hierarchy than you're playing with it.

Yeah. But anyway. Goes on and tweets to say, I have a lot of friends like this. All they do is drink and party all day, but they go overseas every year. And here I am working overtime at the office as a humble salary man. Maybe I should have taken the and I think it's something in Japanese pill after all.

Hmm.

Simone Collins: The,

Malcolm Collins: and then it says, under the shortage of blue collar workers is so extreme that wage wise, you can earn much more than the average salary, man. The flip side, as your body will be broken by your fifties, and you'll probably die of lung cancer early. And then the next says they can live least decent lives if their father refrained himself from spending his whole savings on verifier or if they're becoming too pachinko addicted.

And then a person says, today I learned mild Yankees are just like Ozzy tradies

Simone Collins: Ozzy, and like Pachinko addiction is, is no different from problems with sports gambling in the us. Like there's so many similarities here.

Malcolm Collins: But yeah we can, we can go here to this next culture, the [00:25:00] tradies in Australia.

Do you wanna learn about them? Yeah, I wanna learn about the

Simone Collins: tradies. Absolutely.

Malcolm Collins: In Australia, tradees is a widely used sling for a term, short for tradespeople or tradesmen. Air Force to skilled manual workers who specialize in a particular trade such as carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, bricking or mechanics, and you can tell that they would fall into this category.

These other people who were talking about, these folks typically are hands-on professionals who've completed apprenticeships or vocational training. To master their craft. They're the ones building houses, fixing pipes, wiring homes, and keeping cars running, essentially keeping the country running the terms got cultural Weight down under tradies are often seen as embodying a rugged, practical, no-nonsense Aussie spirit.

Think high V vest. Steel capped boots and a Ute utility vehicle loaded with tools. They're a big part of the economy too, especially in construction, which is a powerhouse industry in Australia. Posts on X and web chatters sometimes paint them as a hardworking blokes and increasingly women who enjoy a beer after a long day.

I. That's more of a stereotype than a rule. Unlike the UK's [00:26:00] Dino stereotype, which is more about a lifestyle or a class jab, tradies are defined by their skills and jobs. They're not a subculture in the rebellious sense like Japan's Yankees, but they do have their own lingo and camaraderie. Think smoko break time are hard, jaka, tough work.

Some tradies earn solid money, 75 to 90 5K on average, but they're specialized or run their own gig. Though it varies by trade and experience.

So, yeah. Apparently a lot of cultures are seeing this in a different regions or something that they see as similar. Was the core difference being a different life path? And, and different dominant hierarchy and different things that they value. Hmm. And then this person here did a podcast on it.

They say this is a fascinating generated, a whole AI podcast about the subject. Somebody did, but they did a picture, which I thought is really nice looking of this. And then somebody here also said there's also the [00:27:00] work and izakaya and then open a kitchen car pipeline allows lots of time for surfing, et cetera.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And an izakay restaurant is basically Japanese top bus. So I could, I could see someone like having maybe a popup restaurant and. Using that to create a sort of flexible lifestyle. And then somebody

Malcolm Collins: here says, so only the malcontents of Japan are also the only people who thrive. The only people who couldn't fit in in a brutally conformist country are also the only ones to find happiness.

The only winners of Japanese society are the people with a good sense to stay out.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: What were you gonna say? Sorry, I interrupted you there.

Simone Collins: No, go. Go ahead.

I mean, so, okay. I'll just jump in then and say one thing that gives me a lot of hope about these subcultures is that, one, they may be underrepresented as inheritors of the future because they've chosen so much to opt out of the internet to opt out of. Mainstream culture and to be pretty hard to measure.

[00:28:00] So I was, I was reading some news stories on this group and they're like, well, people are trying to like find them, but you can't really find 'em in online surveys. You, most of the interviews that people are doing on people on the streets are in places like Tokyo, like in really high traffic neighborhoods.

So they're not finding them because these people, even when they vacation, they typically vacation close to home. So my understanding is that basically they are. Off the grid to a great extent. And when you and I were looking at data of groups that seemed to be high fertility in the United States, we kept seeing, yes, high levels of religiosity, but also xenophobia and extreme sensitive sensitivity to hierarchy and sort of like a lot of, a lot of scary fascist, but not in a good way, in a sort of closed-minded, scary way.

Tendencies. My impression is that these groups. Are not as much like that. They might be somewhat suspicious of outsiders. I get that. But I'm, I'm less concerned about groups like this inheriting the future [00:29:00] because they're community minded. They sound pretty pro-social. At, at least since they've sort of evolved out of their hard Yankee days where they used to actually cause a lot of property damage and be kind of troublesome people in their communities now they're, they're seen as being much more responsible community members.

So they're, they seem to be broadly pro-social. They care about kids, they care about family. They're grateful for the community help they get. This doesn't seem like a bad group to be inheriting the future. It

Malcolm Collins: seems like living for a delinquent aesthetic. Mm-hmm. Where that is also high fertility and that's one of a way of thumbing your nose at society is high fertility.

And another thing that's high fertility is I. Being both frugal but not good with financial decisions. That's another thing that seems to be high fertility, is that they don't fold. They're just like, okay, I'm gonna keep having kids and it's gonna work out. I think people who are overly concerned about being able to afford things, like the people who are like, well, don't they know this?

Yes. How, how precarious their life is. People who think like that never end up [00:30:00] having kids.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like they, well, they, they both are happy living within their means, but they seem to. For cultural or perhaps lack of education reasons or both blow the money that they do have on things that they don't necessarily need, like cosmetic surgery and cars and maybe sports gambling or pachinko.

And that's maybe, I mean, we, we see it as not great, but at the same time. The lack of savings and also that lack of concern, oh, I can't afford this so I'm not gonna do it. Yeah. Does seem to be really, it forces people to lean in more to family, more to community. And I do think there's a synergistic effect there where the more you lean into family and community, the more you're likely to have kids and also support your family and community.

You know, the more everyone needs each other, the more they help each other and the more they lean into that again. And so it would only create more children, more loving communities, and. We kind of need that.

Malcolm Collins: So [00:31:00] Ro Alright, well, Simone, this has been a fun conversation. I hope our daughters grow up to be as fierce as, as that Yankee girl who you liked growing up sitting.

What did you think of her character growing up? Did you like, like her? Did you identify more as the other girl?

Simone Collins: No, definitely identify with Momoko the. Sweet LTA girl who's obsessed with friley dresses. Some of the, I was watching other scenes from the movie today and. I realized, like, and in one scene she's wearing a, a dress that looks so much like what I wear every day.

It like she's a white bonnet and a black jumper does a white pet coat. And I'm like,

Malcolm Collins: is like,

Simone Collins: actually your thing is.

Malcolm Collins: Is this Puritan Lolita? What have I done? Well, no, that's what I like when we go to conferences and she dresses up in her traditional outfits. The people who like come up and gush over them are often the goth, like sunken goth girls.

Yeah. They're like, oh, that's so cool. You look crazy. Like, I [00:32:00] love it. And it's so fun that you can be so trad that like the, the goth it's, it's the horseshoe theory. Yeah. Just like you have

Simone Collins: the, you know, the crunchy to All right. Horseshoe where, you know, they, they end up being connected in the end.

It's. It's great. I

Malcolm Collins: love it. But wait, so you basically now as a grownup have a daughter who's like the punk girl who's like moko

Simone Collins: and, you know, sorry, I'm like Momoko and I have a daughter like Ichigo. Yeah, 100%.

Malcolm Collins: Did you, did you expect that? We'll, we'll see if she keeps it up as she gets older, but right now, oh my God, she loves trolling.

Like such a troll. She's such a troll. She will, like, even with her siblings, it's not just us. It's like Octavia will be like, please don't. Touch my, my Google device while I'm gone and then she'll be like as soon as he leaves, she has no interest in it. Yeah, she wants, she's no play with it. Dexter

Simone Collins: slab or something.

100%. She lives to troll and I love it. I respected. I didn't know that that was a real genetic compulsion. Trolling. Yeah, troll trolling, heritable. [00:33:00] Someone can make polygenic score around that with enough data. Is is she gonna

Malcolm Collins: be didi? To, to torso's. Mad scientist. The short little brother who's shorter than her and really smart.

What does this do?

Malcolm Collins: And they're the

Simone Collins: same size now pretty much. He has bigger feet than her. Thank goodness. He's, he's growing something. I'm, I'm gonna get that kid to grow. We're gonna, we have ways.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Yes. All right. I love you n DeSimone. It's been a joy talking with you. And we just submitted our Andreessen Horowitz applications with, to the Collins Institute and the the video game that we've been working on, so we'll, we see if they're interested in, if you're

Simone Collins: buddies with them, put in a good word for old, for

Malcolm Collins: old Collins.

Yes. Or. If you know another VC we should be looking at or talking [00:34:00] to who's interested in AI games or AI education, let us know because warm intros apparently matter. And what's the point of having fans if we can't get warm intros?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Actually social badging is everything, and these are big projects that we really believe in, but I yeah.

We'll see.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, we should, we should put the pitch decks here so people can be like, oh, this is what you're working on. Oh, that

Simone Collins: would be cool. Yeah. If you want to learn more about these projects, see the pitch decks below, and if you have ideas for us, please share, because actually our listeners are super smart, incredible people with some, yeah.

Okay. Not all of you. All right. What, which one are you listener, are you, are you mid or are you.

Malcolm Collins: Based, are you? Yeah. Are you smart enough to, to have been a Yankee who have known to be a delinquent from the beginning? I was definitely a delinquent growing up. So you married the, the grownup delinquents?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well,

Simone Collins: I mean the, [00:35:00] another one of the themes that I really like from this is, is a lot of people identifying, or at least referring to them as misfits. You know, like it's the misfits in the end who, who get to inherit the future. And that's totally it. It's the people as you keep pointing out who deviate.

Malcolm Collins: A mainstream society.

It's not the, that their misfits is that they don't care about the fact that they're perceived as misfits.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: It is the not caring about other people's judgment of you as a misfit.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Anyway, and that's what you gotta raise your kids to, to think like, and it's, it's, it's a big so many people, I think that this is, is going to be one of the biggest things that Mormonism is going to struggle getting around.

It is a fear of being seen as misfit or others, which is one of the reasons their particular fertility collapse. Even though it's not as bad as other denominations like Catholicism may be more intractable because I think that many castle groups are okay with looking weird. Whereas I don't know many warman groups that really embrace the idea of being weird.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. [00:36:00] Hundred percent. No, that's a big

Malcolm Collins: problem. Alright, goodbye.

Simone Collins: Bye. I love you. Goodbye. I said good day, sir. Good day.

The aesthetics, the, the subjects. I absolutely adore it. It has just all these like tiny little aesthetic moments and references and. The main character has sensitivities to stupid little things that I really identify with. But it's definitely, it's like even down to lighting choices made, it is clearly the Amelie of Japan and you will never watch it, and you will never like it, and that's okay.

It's totally okay.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, that was a common thing in Japan to pair characters. You have those two. Acts the contrast.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You, you had it with Puffy Ami Yumi, for example. Mm-hmm. The cartoon about the Yeah. The popular band. Yeah. The Tom

Simone Collins: girl and the g the girly girl,

Malcolm Collins: Tom girl and the girly girl.

Everybody wants to hang with Tom girl and the girly girl. You

Simone Collins: know

Malcolm Collins: it. Watch them fight each other. Oh, that's so silly. So silly. [00:37:00] Silly.

They're beautiful. Shall we pick some. I flowers. You wanna pick the flowers too? They have baby flowers. Baby flowers? Mm-hmm. All right, well, do you see any? Doesn't walk them. You swamp me. Okay. If you can stay out of the mud, you can pick some, they're called swamp marigolds. Go get some.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com

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The Question that Breaks Judaism (Tract 10)
2 Mai· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
In this episode, we embark on a controversial and thought-provoking journey into religious theology, focusing almost exclusively on Judaism. Host Malcolm begins with a fundamental question: 'Why were the Jews God's chosen people?' This query leads to an extensive exploration of Jewish theology, identity, and the broader implications for both ancient and modern Judaism. The discussion delves into the historical practices of Judaism, including proselytization, matrilineal descent, and circumcision, comparing them to contemporary interpretations and practices. Malcolm also scrutinizes the noahide laws, Kabbalism, and the concept of divine favor, ultimately questioning the reasons behind Jewish exceptionalism. This episode is a comprehensive examination aimed at challenging and reframing conventional understandings of Judaism within a broader religious context.
Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone! Today we're going to do another one of our track series where we do deep dives into religion that are very, very offensive.
And for the first time we're going to have one that's almost exclusively focused on Judaism. Oh. This is track 10. The question that breaks Judaism. There is one question I started to innocently ponder that led me down a rabbit hole, which began to unravel Jewish theology, identity, and even raised the question of whether modern Judaism should be thought of as the less radical deviation from ancient Judaism when contrasted with Christianity.
The question, the question that breaks Judaism is Why the Jews? Why were the Jews, of all people, singled out by God as his chosen people? Oh, right. Yeah.
Simone Colins: Yeah, they gave her
Malcolm Collins: child. Yes. Why? This is gonna get very offensive, and it's the type of information I hesitate to release if it could be used by antisemites.
However, I think theologically it is a conversation we need to have in the [00:01:00] same way previous tracks have had to uncomfortably point out where modern Christianity does not align with what is actually in the Bible. We will be doing the same with modern Judaism today. And I would note here for people who want to be like, Oh, this is, you know, antisemitic or something like that.
I did nine full tracks. Absolutely railing and ragging on modern Christian traditions and where I don't think they align with the Bible. I do one on Judaism. No, you don't get a be. I'm just trying to do as honest a dive as I can on these various subject matters. And I hope you can see that as I go through this and go over the data.
But this data shocked me to my core. So we're going to be arguing that ancestral Judaism was not an ethno religion. The concept of matrilineal Jewish identity is a non biblical. In fact, pre Christ, Judaism actively and aggressively proselytized and even forced the mass conversion of conquered peoples at times.
As evidenced by both biblical sources. Roman historical accounts and [00:02:00] the Jewish historian Josephus and even Roman law, which we'll see. The Noahide movement lacks solid biblical backing and is essentially a theological construct with minimal scriptural foundation. The biblical passages that Jews cite to argue against modifying God's covenant with man, which they use to deny Christianity as the more faithful offshoot of ancient Judaism, do not actually communicate what they claim.
And this one is pretty in the extreme, which we'll get to. Even the way circumcision is practiced today may be incorrect, or I'm going to say is probably incorrect. What? Compared with Egyptian practices contemporary with the writing of the Old Testament, which we have a reason to believe the Jewish tradition may have been influenced by at the time of Christ, Judaism was a highly diverse tradition and the Christian branch was not unique in its differences.
The quote unquote true Judaism that modern Jews claim to be descended from would have been just [00:03:00] one of many religious systems based on the Old Testament and was as different from the average theological understanding as Christianity was at the time. Original Christianity and Technopuritanism are much closer to the belief system of the average Jew at the time of Christ than modern Judaism.
And, if Judaism started as a religion that actively proselytized and became an ethno religion after the Christian branch of the Jewish tradition gained widespread adoption, this makes the entire modern Jewish tradition appear as a reaction to the success of a version with an arguably greater divine mandate.
Of course, we will be addressing the arguments against every one of these points, as I have discussed my positions with a few rabbis to gather the strongest counter arguments I could find. And, finally, we are going to go over a clever and unique Textual theological argument that fixes every one of the problems I raised throughout this entire video.
We will also discuss How Christians have to reconcile with the fact that demographically speaking right now [00:04:00] the Jews very obviously have God's favor and will likely be the dominant world power within the next century. So I'm going to start all of this was the framing of, you know, when I first was growing up and I was, you know, an atheist growing up, really raised an atheist.
I always saw Judaism versus Christianity as being like no competition. Like Judaism was just obviously the more logical religion it had. More claims to antiquity which I no longer, I'm gonna argue it may not. It, it was basically in my mind, like, deism plus. Christianity added a bunch of weird stuff that I didn't really get.
Like, transferring sins onto an innocent person seemed really off to me. The idea of Jesus as being literally God's child on Earth. I was like, why do we need to, like, it's a whole other theological element I have to believe other than God. And it, it felt very like just no contest. I was like, well, if I, if I could have been born in the Jewish tradition, that's the way I would [00:05:00] have gone.
Now I'm not going to be a reformed Jew or something lame like that, but that's where I would have gone. After digging really deeply into it, especially with this tract I am now quite glad that I don't have to defend the Jewish position because I now have come to believe that textually speaking and, and, and in the eyes of history is actually a slightly harder position to argue for.
I say all this believing still that Jews have a divine mandate that they are still following a covenant that God gave them. But there has been a, another covenant since then. And so they're not like inactive rebellion to God. But yeah. So thoughts before I dig in.
Simone Colins: I want to hear your arguments here.
This is intriguing, if a little intimidating.
Malcolm Collins: I will start this tract by saying this is not a path of logic I wanted to try down, but one that became evident as I began to examine what I thought was an innocuous question, like pulling a single thread only to watch the entire sweater unravel. Why were the Jews, of all people, singled out by God as his [00:06:00] chosen people?
This is a theological question that not just Jews need a good answer for, but one Christians and Muslims also need to address. Yet it is ignored by these traditions. There are two broad categories of possible answers. There was something phenotypically, genetically, or otherwise tied to the nature of the early Jewish people that led to God favoring them.
Or two, the Jewish people were set apart by their belief system and not by anything tied to their biology. Rabbinic scholars almost universally lean towards the second answer, early Jews had a more accurate conception of God, which led to them being rewarded as God's chosen people.
I would note that this is also what I believe in what I find to be the most satisfying answer. The problem is. If the early Jews were God's chosen people because they had a more accurate understanding of the divine, why should modern Judaism be gatekept around matrilineal inheritance instead of around a person's belief system?
Why would an atheistic secular Jew be considered more Jewish than a deist when a [00:07:00] deist has a closer understanding of God and a closer belief system to what is theologically Jewish? Does this concept not contradict the very basis of God's favor? For more insight on how Orthodox Jews answer this question, we need to examine a book composed in the 4th century CE, Strife on Deuteronomy.
An important note here is that the ideas discussed here were not added to Jewish canon until centuries after Christ's death. Now here's the exact Mishnah. Any thoughts before I go further, by the way? I
Simone Colins: will say that it has really bothered me that Technically, someone who is matrilinearly Jewish is seen as Jewish, whereas someone who like, personally went through as much material as they could and then practiced and followed all of the rules would not be considered Jewish.
Well, unless they were approved by a rabbinic court. Unless, yeah, unless they were, but like, it's also [00:08:00] intentionally difficult for them to do that. So like, why someone who doesn't follow any of the rules and is only matrilinearly Jewish. I find that a lot less, that makes sense to me. Look, I can understand.
Malcolm Collins: Well, so you would say. It's just a genetic condition. It's just, you know, you are. You want to gate keep the tradition to some extent. But what doesn't make sense to me, and I think it's a much harder question to answer, is why is a deist not more Jewish than a secular Jew? Because a deist, you know, the, the Jews would say monotheism is like a very important thing to believe, right?
So, so, if the deist is closer to the true faith
Simone Colins: shouldn't they Now why, why is a deist closer to the true faith? Because my association with deists If we're being honest here is just basically the atheists of the Enlightenment Pyramid period
Malcolm Collins: because they are a monotheist and the secular Jew is a pure atheist, a monotheist, theologically speaking, is closer to Judaism than a pure atheist.
But the [00:09:00] question is, to me, like, why? Now, I can understand some degree of gatekeeping here. But I suppose your question is right. Like, I can understand how they might want to keep out somebody from the Jewish community who otherwise had studied the text and everything like that. Sure. But I can't understand why they would want to include somebody who has renounced all of the belief systems.
Yeah, and who doesn't follow the rules. So we'll get into all of this, because this gets really interesting, because this does not appear to be the way it used to be. Okay. Okay. So right now we're getting to the Mishnah. This was written a few centuries after Christ's death. Some of these traditions might be older but I think that we can sort of see which traditions were common within the period that Christ was preaching, because they were adopted in early Christianity.
This tradition was not, so I'm going to assume that this is a post Second Temple tradition. Okay, so, and this explains why the Jews. This is the standard Orthodox Jewish explanation. And he said, the Lord came from Sinai. When the Lord appeared to give Torah to Israel it is nott to Israel alone that he appeared, but to [00:10:00] all nations.
First, he went to the children of Esau, and he asked them, will you accept the Torah? They asked, what is written in it? He answered, you shall not kill. They answered, The entire essence of our father, it's murder, as is written, and the hands are hands of Esav. And it is with this that his father assured him, and by your sword you shall live.
And then he went to the children of Ammon and Moab and asked, Will you accept the Torah? They asked, What is written in it? He answered, you shall not commit adultery. They answered, Lord of the Universe, is our entire essence, as is written, and the two daughters of Lot, conceived by the father?
Now you should note here, whenever I say, as is written, they're quoting some other part about some figure in early Jewish, like, canon, who did something naughty. Okay. Like here, it's basically saying that the children of Esen are, are descended from Lot, okay? Okay. And, and his daughters. He then went to the children of Ishmael and asked them, Will you accept the Torah?
They asked, What is written in it? He [00:11:00] answered, You shall not steal. They answered, Lord of the universe, Our father's entire essence is stealing. I just find that they know they're talking to God, the Lord of the universe, and they're like, Yeah, but stealing's like our whole bag, man. I'm just so in this feeling and he, and he, Ishmael shall be a wild man, his hand against all.
There was none among all of the nations who he did not go to and speak and knock on their door asking if they will accept the Torah. All the kings on earth will acknowledge you, oh Lord. And they have heard your words of mouth. I might think that they heard and accepted, it is therefore written, and they did not do them, and with anger and wrath, will I take revenge on the nations, because they did not accept the mitzvoth, And even the seven mitzvahs that the sons of Noach took upon themselves, they could not abide by until they divested themselves of them and ceded them to Israel.
[00:12:00] So, this explanation presents numerous theological problems. First, the Midrash portrays God physically appearing to numerous distinct nations simultaneously, an event of unprecedented cosmic significance that would have fundamentally altered human history. Yet no archaeological record, written tradition, or oral history outside the Jewish tradition references such a universally transformative revelation.
Furthermore, the Midrash's genealogical framework attributing entire civilizations to single biblical ancestors, Ezzam, Amob, Moab, and Ishmael, Contradicts established anthropological understandings of human population dispersal and development. Archaeological and genetic evidence demonstrates that human groups evolve through complex patterns of migration, intermarriage, and cultural exchange, rather than the neat, biblically aligned family trees this narrative presupposes.
This anachronistic perception of later ethnic identities onto a mythic, pre Sinai world fundamentally misrepresents the accurate historical development of ancient Near Eastern peoples. Now, you might say the Mishnah is meant to [00:13:00] be allegorical and that God's foreknowledge that other people would deny the Torah is why he didn't bring it to them.
This leads to the second problem. Second, it is clearly immoral. The Old Testament makes it clear that children should not be punished for the sins of their father. Why can't these people's descendants simply decide to stop their sins? Ezekiel 1820 states, The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, Nor will the father share the guilt of the son.
The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged to them. If your response is to argue that this was just a deeply ingrained cultural tendency in these groups, then why is somebody still considered Jewish if they have left Jewish culture?
Why are they still Jewish when they break God's commandments? Why maintain matrilineal descent at all? Third, it seems to suggest that one can inherit a core sin from something a distant ancestor did, at least at the cultural level. In the context of Jews being the descendants of King David, consider the [00:14:00] passage, Will you accept the Torah?
They asked, What is written in it? He answered, You shall not commit adultery. They answered, Lord of the universe. Evra, of this it relations, is our entire essence, as it is written. And the two daughters of Lot This just seems like trolling. I, this can't be. Why, why are the, why are the children of Ammon and Moab tainted by their ancestors sins, but not the Jews?
Here I'm thinking the descendants of King David, who, you know, clearly did illicit relations. You know, why, and we know from the Bible that Jews did all sorts of horrible things in ancient times, even during the biblical period. Why are they not tainted like all of these other people? And then fifth, the midrash, and I love somebody, I was talking to one of you about this, and they go, Well, David later felt bad about that.
Oh, well, of course. That doesn't cancel out that he did it. That's, it's like, not in the way this works. Apparently here, if the sons felt bad that their father did it, it doesn't even remove the sin. Why, why, why did they have [00:15:00] to carry it for multiple generations? And David, it's like A lifetime he feels bad about it is gone.
And then at fifth, the Midrash presents entire nations being judged based on the actions of single ancestors or representatives, which raises serious questions about fairness and individual moral agency, i. g. why can't I, or why didn't God bring this to them multiple times or something? So anyway, thoughts.
Why don't people talk
Simone Colins: about this? This seems oddly discordant.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I think that's why people don't talk about it. I think that's the
Simone Colins: well, hold on, right? Like within the LDS church, people don't talk a lot about a lot of things. And then, you know, there's, there's an issue with a bunch of things being on the internet. So the moment you do start questioning, there's all the people who have left the LDS church and.
Are talking about the stuff that doesn't make sense and that doesn't match up and it's a little embarrassing. And why is there not an equivalent of this with Judaism that brings up these issues? It's surprising. I
Malcolm Collins: think that there's [00:16:00] there's three things here, right? Okay. Jewish de converts that have a, that are both highly educated Jews, i.
e. not from one of these factions that doesn't really educate people that they they don't have the same axe to grind against their tradition. They often don't feel like they were intentionally, had things kept from them or lied to. Like all of this would be taught to a Jew. An Orthodox Jew is gonna know all of this.
But they don't have a reason to question it. They don't have a reason to question the Mishnah in the way I an outsider would now a Christian is not going to question this because when Christians do proselytization to Jews, they're genuinely terrible at it. They keep trying to be like, Oh, but look at all these prophecies here and see how they were filled by the life of Jesus.
And it's like, well, I mean, you could have just written all that stuff to fill all those prophecies. You know, like there were, you know, I, that's going to be super unconvincing to a Jew and a Christian is not going to take the time to study like the internally consistency. An atheist who's arguing against this stuff, well, they're gonna have a problem because they're gonna approach this [00:17:00] and, and, and point out, like, factually and historically where this doesn't make sense, or, like, logically things about, like, an all caring God don't make sense.
They're not gonna point to, like, the nitpicky things in the way that I am, because I'm like, oh, these texts are divinely inspired, I need to study them in my studies. I, I'll hope you also see was the mission I hear why I do not count personally. Like a lot of people are like, why are you into like the Christian texts and not into the Jewish texts at post Christ?
And I'm like, because they're honestly like not as well thought through or researched like the, the, the, the text here, like when I read it, that doesn't, it felt like pretty poorly logiced.
Like, like I I'd say almost sort of like, a Popol Vuhi type religion, like a really polytheistic religion where it's like, Oh, you have the X and the Y and then the Y crazy thing happened in the Z crazy thing happened rather than like polemics on morality or parables or stuff like that, which are like a sort of easy way to convey a moral system.
And not just easy, but [00:18:00] I think fundamentally more sophisticated and sort of the depths of morality that can be taught with it instead of Oh, actually God gave this to everyone. Just nobody else accepted it. Like that, that feels like a terrifically unsatisfying answer to me.
Simone Colins: It is unsatisfying. Yeah, I guess it's just about hiding in the weeds then.
Malcolm Collins: Now before I go further, let's examine every instance in the bible or old testament where someone attempts to address the question of why the jews deuteronomy seven seven eight the lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples For you were the fewest of all peoples, but it was because the lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors.
This passage is interesting because it specifically denies one potential reason, population size, but then provides a somewhat circular explanation, essentially because God loved you. Genesis 18 19 provides another perspective regarding Abraham specifically. For I have chosen him so he will direct his children and his household after him.
to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is [00:19:00] right and just. This suggests that the choice was based on Abraham's future role in teaching righteousness. That is, I believe, the clearest and correct answer. It was because he had closer to correct beliefs, and his beliefs would influence future populations in a, in a positive direction.
I. e. that's like technopuritan laid out because you know, his direction and his children and his household after him will keep the way of the Lord and doing what is right and just. Now Deuteronomy 9, 4 through 6 explicitly rejects the idea that the Jews were chosen for their righteousness after the Lord, your God has driven them out before you.
Do not say to yourself, the Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness. No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you.
It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity. We see here that through, and you know, this one I find pretty interesting. Some people are sort of like, this shows that the Jews weren't more righteous than other people. But I could argue that this doesn't necessarily say that. It, it, it just says like everyone else was.
so completely deplorable [00:20:00] that maybe on average Jews were slightly more righteous, but they shouldn't take any pride in it because they were still like pretty deplorable. It could, it could be read that way. But a lot of people read it to say, I think because it deflects one answer that people don't want to be the correct answer is that the Jews were more righteous than other people.
And it kind of, it kind of sets that What we see here is throughout the passages is notably the absence of any claim that the Jewish people were chosen because of an inherent or unique qualities that they possessed. Thoughts before I go further.
Simone Colins: This just seems like so much guesswork. And it seems The conclusions made are putting words in God's mouth in a way that makes me feel very uncomfortable.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. All right. All of this refocuses our question. Okay. If Jews are only Jews because of what they believe theologically, why did matrilineal descent enter the picture? Okay. Back to Simone's question. This is good. First, let's examine the academic answer to this question, then we'll address what [00:21:00] Orthodox Jews believe.
The matrilineal principle in Judaism is particularly interesting because it's not explicitly stated in the Torah slash Hebrew Bible itself. The primary biblical text often cited is Deuteronomy 7, 3 4, which discusses intermarriage. You shall not intermarry with them, for they will turn your children away from following thee.
However, this text doesn't specifically establish matrilineal descent. In fact, if you look at the text It explains why you shouldn't marry them. Because if you marry someone of a different faith, your kids will deconvert at a higher rate. That has nothing to do with matrilineal descent and is completely logical.
The clearest early source for matrilineal descent comes from the Mishnah compiled around 200 CE in Kiddushin 312, which states that a child follows the status of the mother. The Talmud, Kiddushin 68b, attempts to derive this principle from biblical verses, particularly from Deuteronomy 7. 4, but many scholars view this as an ex post facto justification of an Already existing practice.
In fact, we have substantial evidence to believe [00:22:00] that at the time of the Christian split, Judaism transmitted family identity patrilineally. Biblical precedents throughout the Hebrew Bible slash Old Testament lineage and tribal affiliation were traced through the father's line. The genealogies in Genesis, Numbers, and Chronicles follow a patrilineal descent.
All of them follow a patrilineal descent. As far as I know, there's no matrilineal genealogies in the Old Testament.
Josephus and Philo, the first century Jewish writers sometimes discuss Jewish identity in ways that appear to emphasize patrilineal descent. Priestly and Davidic lines. The priesthood being a Kohen, the royal lineage were transmitted petrolineally, and the messianic line was transmitted petrolineally.
Every major line went petrolineal in the Old Testament and we have lots of lines that we can be citing here. There are so
Simone Colins: many.
Malcolm Collins: Yes, the Dead Sea Scrolls generally appear to emphasize petrolineal descent, particularly in the Damascus Document CD and the Rule of the Congregation. 1qsa Neither Filio of Alexandria nor Josephus mentions patrilineal descent.
Instead, [00:23:00] both focus on concepts that implicitly support patrilineal descent. And I note here that if you're talking about a figure like Josephus
27 to 100 A. D. So, Josephus would have been a post Christ figure. He would have been discussing post Christ Jewish theology. And so, when a, like a modern Jew, which I often hear, they're like, okay, yeah, like the Mishnah was made a few hundred years later, but they were codifying pre existing Jewish tradition.
It's like, why did nobody write about this pre existing Jewish tradition? We have a lot of Jewish writers like Josephus. We have a lot of people documenting the Jewish community. We have Dead Sea Scrolls community. They, this, this extremist community didn't think to document matrilineal descent anywhere if it was common and important to Judaism at the time.
The Old Testament didn't think to mention it anywhere. That to me beggars belief, and I think that if you're approaching this from an atheistic mindset or a skeptical mindset you're going to say [00:24:00] it probably wasn't there. If you need to approach it for religious reasons, okay, let's see. Now, do you have any thoughts here?
Simone Colins: No, keep going. This is intriguing.
Malcolm Collins: Now, if you ask an Orthodox Jew about this, I've heard one logically coherent, though not necessarily convincing, answer to the question of why matrilineal descent matters. Okay. This is other than my answer, which I think is much better than this one.,
if Jews are originally chosen for what they believed rather than who they were, this can be transferred on to them. Through the contract at Sinai, so if we say that when the Jews agreed to the covenant at Sinai, this contract would apply to their bodies in some way, and that's applied specifically to those people and only those people who were at the signing at Mount Sinai a, this, this does make kind of sense because then you're transferring the.
Okay Jews Yes, they were originally chosen because of what they believed being closer to accurate. That gave them the option to make the contract at Mount Sinai. And then the contract at [00:25:00] Mount Sinai wrote them on, wrote this on their body. This also explains matrilineal descent. Now the person who was telling me this, I don't know if this is well known within Judaism, but it just seemed intuitive to me, so I'd add it explains matrilineal descent, because if it's written within their body, new Jewish bodies are constructed within women.
Simone Colins: Okay, so it's, it's like, almost as though on the, their double helix, there, there was this tiny little tag added, a little
Malcolm Collins: Well, I'd say it's not within the DNA, that's why it's matrilineal. It's something else in their body that is, like, unique in some, or spiritually set apart in some way. And that's why Okay, okay.
Spiritual
Simone Colins: epigenetics, somehow.
Malcolm Collins: No, if it within the DNA, then the father's DNA would still be there. Yeah, that's
Simone Colins: true, that's true.
Malcolm Collins: It has to be The point here I'm making is that it's not in the DNA, it's something inherent to their bodies, which is why to have a Jewish body, it must be constructed within a Jewish woman.
Boom. Womb. Right. And I was like, okay, that's actually fairly [00:26:00] satisfying. It explains that, yes, they were originally chosen based on their, their beliefs, but then this transferred to, like, a biological thing at It's just really weird, though, if
Simone Colins: I were creating some kind of divine authorization process, or I were going to tag something, you know, add something to the human metadata of my favorite people who did the thing I wanted them to do.
It wouldn't involve the gestation process. Like, that's just
Malcolm Collins: weird. Everything involves the gestation process, but DNA, Simone. That makes sense to me. But why not the DNA? Because the DNA, then it would be like a specific piece of code that wouldn't have any spiritual significance. Because like, like, it's, it's, I mean, it might.
If it's like the lines from the Torah or something. Because, you know, that's the way Kabbalism sometimes does things. But what I'm saying is I mean, wouldn't it
Simone Colins: be, it would make more sense to me if it were like The divine semen, you know, like they at least have a little more. Agency, you know what I [00:27:00] mean?
Like they're wiggling. What is it?
Malcolm Collins: I'm just saying there is a logic here that I can get behind. I might not buy it myself, but there's a logic here that I can get behind. I'm not feeling it,
Simone Colins: but
Malcolm Collins: Okay, i'm glad i'm
Simone Colins: glad you feel okay about this. This is great. Okay. I don't actually so
Malcolm Collins: okay I'd say now if you're jewish and I say I encourage people to stay with their ancestral religions.
This is As good of an answer as you're gonna get, other than the one I'll have at the end of the video, you can skip to the timestamp at the end of the video. Other than that turn off the video now and walk away because it's only downhill from here.
Simone Colins: Ruh roh.
Malcolm Collins: For those of us who are undone by such constraints, this answer fails at a number of levels.
Alright, so, first, you've got common sense. If the covenant God made with the people at Sinai traveled matrilineally through bloodlines, why was that never explicitly laid out in the Bible? That is an important point in what seems to be one of the existentially most important facts about God's people, that their [00:28:00] identity travels matrilineally. And if it does work that way, why can people convert to Judaism at all? Something we see happen multiple times in the Bible. Like if this Thing that was written during the initial signing of the contract is actually important to Jewish identity Why are converts allowed at all?
That doesn't make sense to me Why was Ruth able to convert? And we'll get to this question more in a second But then there's a second problem, which is we're told in the Old Testament that it wasn't written in their bodies Specifically we have Jeremiah here talking about the second covenant. So this is the covenant after Sinai
Simone Colins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them , by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. , dot, dot, dot, I will put my law within them.
I will write it in their hearts. This is said in regards to a covenant to come and is contrasted with the one at Sinai, making it clear [00:29:00] that the covenant created at Sinai was not. put within them or written within their hearts. Not great, not great. Then you have the problem of biblical conversions.
We see multiple fairly straightforward conversions into Judaism within the Bible. If this is possible, it negates the idea that some special bond within the Jewish body. We will examine each of these in turn along with the counter arguments from Jews and rabbis as these being easy conversions. Historical.
Finally, we know factually that early Jews did not see their religion this way. Traveling Jewish missionaries were so common in the Roman world that they are mentioned by multiple Jewish historians. We're going to go over three Jewish historians, then a Jewish historian, Josephus, who talked about this phenomenon.
Then they're also mentioned in the New Testament. But more damning than that. We also know the Jews used to force people in conquered regions to become Jewish and afterward considered these people fully Jewish. Again, I will cover all of these points in turn. [00:30:00] And then finally, as I mentioned here, the New Testament.
And this is actually really, really, really important to this point. And this is an argument that I think many Jews wouldn't really think through, but it's actually a really powerful argument if you think through the logic of it. Nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus say his goal is to open Judaism to non Jews.
If Judaism at the time was understood to have high requirements for conversion or some level of matrilineal descent, why doesn't Jesus ever mention that this is now waived? Why did none of the people writing immediately after him mention this when Gentiles were converting into the religion? Why was this seeming, and they did write about other things, they wrote about like should we have circumcision, should we not have circumcision, they had these debates, and early Jews also had these debates which we'll get into.
Simone Colins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: Why was this seemingly a complete non issue for early Christianity, with the debate in the early church instead focused on whether circumcision was required for non Jews who converted? In Paul's letters, and other jewish laws [00:31:00] specifically dietary laws discussed in acts This alliance was what we have seen in other jewish conversions of the time but more on that in just a moment.
So any thoughts before I go into all of these specific i'm dying for you to go
Simone Colins: into them.
Malcolm Collins: Just go ahead Because this goes against what I knew about early judaism, And we'll go against the counter arguments too because I brought this up with rabbis multiple rabbis.
If you think like, I'm just calling out one rabbi, no, no, no. I went over this with lots of people to get a diverse set of counter arguments and as strong counter arguments I could to what to me seemed a patent historical truth. That in early Judaism, they had active missionaries and aggressively tried to convert other populations.
Which again, why would they be doing that if they had matrilineal descent? Right. And I actually want to hear your thoughts on this, I think the, that the Christian Bible and the early Christian theologians never thought to mention, now Judaism or , , the Old Testament is open to non Jews, why didn't they ever mention that?
The, the core thing they mentioned is now it's open to non Jews [00:32:00] without
circumcision
. That's a, that's a big difference.
Simone Colins: That is a big difference.
Malcolm Collins: And it wasn't even without circumcision because we'll see people converting to Judaism without circumcision in just a second, historically speaking. Oh, okay. It was an active debate at the time, I'll give you that, but the requirements were much lower.
What both history and the Bible reveal is that Judaism during this period was much closer to modern day Islam than an ethno religion. Specifically, it was a religion that anyone could convert into, that conquered other people and forced them to convert, and that had traveling missionaries who actively sought converts.
It was a religion that, like Islam, concerned how the state was governed. This is what makes it very different from Christianity. It was also a religion that, like Islam, carved out a place under that state for non believers with unique rules applied to them This is where the concept of Ger toshav emerges, which is very similar to the Muslim concept of Dahimi.
And I note here it's also similar to Islam in like all sorts of other ways. You, you've got the, you were supposed to read it in the original language. You've got the, there is kind of one ethnicity that's bound [00:33:00] to the religion, but not exactly one ethnicity. It's really fascinating to me the parallels between Islam and this early Judaism from the perspective of how it related to things like governance and converts and an ethnic status.
We are going to start with accounts from ancient historians, then move to biblical accounts, beginning with the Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote in the first century BCE. Crucially, after the destruction of the temple, showing these practices were still common at the time. I think some of his writings might have been before the destruction, but it was generally around that time.
Like temple destruction, I should say. Crucially, after Christ, showing that these practices were still common at the time. During the Hasmonean period, 2nd 1st century BCE, there are accounts of mass conversions, particularly of the Imidians. According to Josephus, John Heraclius conducted military campaigns to expand Hasmonean territory.
After defeating the Idemians militarily, he incorporated their territory into his kingdom. After the military conquest, Heraclius gave the Imidians an ultimatum, either convert to Judaism, which meant circumcision [00:34:00] for males, and adherence to Jewish law, or be expelled from their homeland. , this suggests a relatively simple conversion process.
The conversion process consists of circumcision and following the Jewish laws. But interestingly, not necessarily following Jewish beliefs. It is clear , at this period of Jewish history, being a Jew was not based on matrilineal descent, or even belief, but on keeping the commandments. Anyone who followed the rules was fully Jewish.
And I'm talking about the common perception. And I note here, when I brought this up it was a rabbi. Their thing about the, the Hasmoneans was like, well, the Hasmoneans were like weird, basically, like they were an offshoot, but they, they were powerful enough to be conquering other people. I think that they are weird from the perspective, and again, we'll keep going over this, from the branch of Judaism that ended up surviving and existing as modern Judaism.
For more color here. The Hasmoneans were the primary ruling dynasty of the Jewish people during their period. They were an independent Jewish kingdom that came to power, , after a revolt against
[00:35:00] Seleucid rule. , this was from approximately 1 67 BCE to 37 BCE. The reason why a rabbi might think of them as weird is because they align themselves more with these Sadducees, , which favored a more literal interpretation of scripture and a rejection of oral law. And the Jewish group that survived follows the Pharisees most closely, which focus on oral tradition and interpretation of the Torah.
Malcolm Collins: And, but again, As I've noticed, if you took the average of all the Jewish beliefs at the time, that branch was about as different from the average with Hasmoneans clearly being part of this average as the branch that led to Christianity. And, and, and why would he even think this was normal? I mean, clearly he thought this was normal, that you could, and we'll see other instances where people are forced to convert.
And in a world where you can forcibly convert people, it, it seems to me be much more just follow the laws. Similar actually to like modern noahide traditions, but without the circumcision thing, like just follow the laws and everything's good. Which I like, it's, it's [00:36:00] very Jewish, like I'm not going to say that's important was what I understand about Judaism at this time period.
But I don't think that this is actually what the Old Testament says you need, needed. I think of the Old Testament period, so not in this period, which is after the Old Testament. You actually needed to be a full believer and fully support the, the people of the, Faith of God. And if you did those two things you, while also keeping all the rules, you were fully Jewish.
I think that the believer part kind of got dropped among some of the Jewish groups here and may have been more, you know, unique to this time period. Also from Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 20, Chapters 2 through 4, we learn about the conversion of Queen Helena of Adebelini and her son.
Isaides to Judaism in the 1st century CE. This account is particularly noteworthy for what it reveals about conversion practices during this period. Key points from Josephus account include process of conversion. Helena and Isaides were drawn to Judaism separately through different Jewish merchants and teachers.
Their conversations were voluntary and occurred without any reference to their matrilineal ancestry. Again, this is common. Even today was Jewish conversions. [00:37:00] You could convert without it, but it is interesting that there is no mention of, you know, them converting or matrilineal requirements or anything like that.
It was based solely on their acceptance of Jewish beliefs and practices. What is That's, that's my game. I'm into that. About this is the circumcision debate that happened. Okay. Azades initially converted without circumcision on the advice of a Jewish merchant named Ananias, who feared political backlash if the king underwent the procedure.
Later, another Jew from Galilee named Eliezer convinced Azades that circumcision was necessary for observance of the law. And we'll see a few times that there appears to have been some debate about the requirement of circumcision during this period, but most of the like trained rabbis would have said it was required, but trained rabbis were not required to approve of you to convert to Judaism.
We'll see that in a second here. The conversion process appears to have been centered on accepting monotheism, adopting Jewish practices, and following the Jewish law. For men, Jewish circumcision was debated as either essential or optional. [00:38:00] No formal tribunal, notably absent is the mention of any formal beit din, rabbinic court, or extensive questioning process that became Standard in later rabbinic Judaism considered fully Jewish after their conversions.
Helena and Isaias were considered fully Jewish. Helena made pilgrimages to Jerusalem provided for famine relief for the city while Isaias sent offerings to the temple. And apparently they are talked about as being very good Jews by like Jewish historians. They are pious, good Jews. These two. The story of Metelius.
In the Jewish War, Book 2, Chapter 17, Josephus recounts a brutal episode that occurred at the beginning of the Jewish revolt against Rome around 66 CE. The Jewish rebels in Jerusalem attacked and overwhelmed a Roman garrison stationed in the city. The Roman soldiers took refuge in the royal towers, but were eventually forced to negotiate surrender on terms with the Jewish rebels.
The garrison commander, Metelius, arranged terms of surrender whereby the Romans would lay down their weapons, and be allowed to depart unharmed. However, once the Romans had surrendered their arms, the Jewish rebels, led by [00:39:00] Eliezer, attacked and massacred them in violation of the agreement.
Josephus writes, They, the rebels, fell upon the Romans when they had brought them into the stadium and encompassed them around, some of them being unarmed and others in such a condition as rendered them incapable of defending themselves, and slew them, all accepting Medallius. For they spared him alone, because he intrigued for mercy, and promised that he would turn Jew and be circumcised. Medallius was thus the sole survivor of the massacre, having agreed to convert to Judaism to save his life. Josephus presents this incident as a terrible crime that violated sacred oaths and brought divine punishment on Jerusalem.
Regardless of the act and the ethics of the act and anything like that, clearly this gang of Jews or this troop, like this was a large group of Jews thought that an individual saying, okay, I'll be Jewish, don't kill me, that that was enough to merit him being Jewish in some way. , and thus, Not like what are your thoughts on I think it says [00:40:00] something about the belief of about what a conversion meant during this time period
Simone Colins: well, I like that the conversion involved a Costly signal it seems
Malcolm Collins: again, we, we can, we can argue about, you know, were these good people or not, but it's indicating something about what was commonly understood as the conversion process. If it was commonly understood, you had to go through a rabbinic court, these people certainly wouldn't have thought of this as a conversion.
Nor would the mass conversions of the Hasmoneans been thought of as a conversion. Yeah. Okay, so now we've got the conversion of the women of Damascus, which I think is very interesting in regards to your note on costly signals. And we'll see, I think, why Christianity spread as the branch of Judaism that ended up spreading.
In the Jewish War, Book 2, Chapter 20, Josephus describes events in Damascus during the early stages of the Jewish revolt. After news spread of Jewish rebel victory, the people of Damascus planned a massacre of the Jewish population in the city. However, they had a problem. Quote, but they were afraid of their own wives.
who were almost all of them addicted to the Jewish religion. [00:41:00] Oh no. It was the greatest concern was how they might conceal these things from them, end quote. The passage indicates that a significant number of non Jewish women in Damascus had embraced Judaism. These women had such strong attachment to Judaism and the Jewish community that their husbands feared.
They would warn the Jews about the planned massacre. The men of Damascus ultimately carried out their plan in secret, killing about 10, 000 Jews in a single hour. This brief mention illustrates how Judaism had attracted numerous Gentile women converts to the point where it affected political and military calculations during the Jewish Roman conflicts.
Now, I'll note here. Josephus is known to exaggerate. Do I think that almost all of the women really were addicted to the Jewish theology? No, but I think that he's noting something here, which we also see in the other stories, is that women converted to Judaism at a disproportionate rate. The question is, is why did women convert?
Likely because they didn't need to get circumcision. There really wasn't that costly a signal for women who converted to Judaism, but there was a very costly signal for [00:42:00] men to convert to Judaism. Yeah,
Simone Colins: that's fair.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. And I'd also point out here that, like, do you even need a rabbinic court if you're talking about, like, circumcision?
I can see why rabbinic courts weren't really needed during this time period before first conversions became common. Because, like, no one's gonna fake that. Like, no guy, it's like, there's a lot of things that a guy is gonna fake. And I think that they just didn't really care about women converts that much.
They didn't see them as you know, it was good to, to, to have them when they were really dedicated, but more often than not, and you'll often see this, they're a little worried about women converts. They're like, oh, they'll deconvert your kids because there's some periods when the Bible was written, when like deconversions and like marrying outsiders was a big issue, but it doesn't appear to be the case throughout the, like the entire old Testament.
The story of Fulvia in the Antiquities of the Jews, book 18, chapter 3. Josephus accounts an incident occurring in Rome during the reign of Emperor Tiberius around 19 CE. According to Josephus, there was a woman who was a proselytite converted to [00:43:00] Judaism, whose name was Fulvia, a woman of great dignity and one who embraced the Jewish religion.
The men, four Jewish scoundrels, had persuaded her to send purple and gold to the temple at Jerusalem. And when they had received what she had donated, they asked for their own purple dye. Oh. For their own uses. Or maybe fabric. And did not bring it to the temple. In this account, Fulvia is described as a woman of high social standing in Rome, who had converted to Judaism.
Her husband, Saturnalius, reported this fraud to his friend, Serjanus, keep in mind the husband wasn't a convert, who then informed the emperor Tiberius. Tiberius used this incident as a pretext to expel all Jews from Rome, forcibly conscripting 4, 000 Jewish youths for military service in Sardinia. This story illustrates both that high status Romans were converting to Judaism, and that this was occurring during a time of increased Roman hostility towards Jewish practices, and that it seemed to disproportionately convert women.
Oh, actually, this could solve a mystery from one of our other And one of our other episodes, we were talking about what's Christianity really more [00:44:00] moral than the other systems of the time, like our Christmas Day episode. So like nobody watched it, but I figured it was a good one for Christmas Day. And one of the interesting things is that early Christian communities seem to be overwhelmingly female, like a rate of like, And Scott
Simone Colins: Alexander discusses this in his book review on the early rise of Christianity.
Malcolm Collins: But he also noted that a lot of these early Christian communities were actually just converted Jewish converts. Sort of. It seems
Simone Colins: like the, the female interest in Christianity was, Especially all this extra simping for women.
Malcolm Collins: But he also mentioned that a lot of these early Christian communities were communities that had wanted to convert to Judaism or had flirted with Judaism.
Oh yes, but like the circumcision
Simone Colins: was just one step too far. And, or the rules. Because it can be very hard to convert to Judaism if you don't live in a Jewish community. Because there's so many things, like you need all these amenities.
Malcolm Collins: To be able to follow rules. The point being is this explains potentially why they were so overwhelmingly female because of these pseudo Jewish convert communities.
Mm-hmm . Were, [00:45:00] as soon as they saw an iteration of Judaism that didn't require all this other stuff, they were fully on board with that. Yeah. So they were converting sort of prebuilt. communities. And I think early Christianity, as we'll get in further about this, because you'll see that these communities were super common of Jewish converts all around the, the Greek world, all around the Roman world.
That we might be understanding early Christianity wrong as being the super fast spreading religion when it was really spreading on kindling. It would have been. Yeah.
Simone Colins: I mean, Scott Alexander also discussed that in that book that he reviews. I
Malcolm Collins: don't think the book fully emphasizes it. Yeah. How common, because we're going to hear that almost every community had a group of Gentile Jewish converts living within it.
That they were that common, that it was seen as any town you go to, you can find Gentile Jewish converts as a community. So They loosened the lid. It's not fair. Yeah, those communities all converted and it made it look like Christianity was growing much faster than it actually was. The Jewish Greeks [00:46:00] of Antioch.
In the Jewish War, Book 7, Chapter 3, Josephus describes the relationship between Jews and Gentiles in Antioch in modern day Turkey, one of the major cities of the Roman East. Quote, For as the Jewish nation is widely dispersed over all habitable earth, So it is very much intermingled with Syria by reason of its neighbors and the greatest multitudes in Antioch by reason of the largeness of the city, wherein the kings after Antiochus had afforded them a habitation with most undisputed tranquility.
They also made prostelitites. Of a great many Greeks. Perpetually, and thereby after a sort brought them to be a portion of their own body. So this is a Jew bragging about how many Jewish converts there were from Greek populations in this city of Antioch, and that they converted after proselytization.
This passage indicates that Judaism and Tioch was actively attracting Greek converts. The phrase they had in some measure incorporated within themselves suggests these [00:47:00] converts were integrated into the Jewish community. This provides evidence that Judaism during this period was not closed to outsiders, but was actively engaged in what we might today call missionary activity.
And throughout his books, Josephus writes of Jewish proselytization against Appian, book 239, Josephus proudly notes the widespread appeal of Jewish practices. Quote, the masses have long since shown a keen desire to adopt our religious observances, and there is not one city, Greek or barbarian, nor a single nation to which our customs of abstaining from work on the seventh day was not spread.
And where the fasts and the lighting of lamps and many of our prohibitions in the matter of food are not observed, end quote. Against Apion, book 239, he emphasizes how many Gentiles have adopted Jewish customs. Quote, many people have come over to our ways of worship. Some of whom have remained, while others, lacking the necessary endurance, have fallen away again.
End quote. Now, I also think this is pretty interesting here, is it talks about, you know, what makes you a Jew. It's not that they were, like, turned away by a court or something like that. It was just too hard to follow all the rules, and [00:48:00] so they stopped being Jewish. So I think that that shows how a Jew of this time period, of the time period like a bit post christ deaths, would have thought about conversion.
Jewish War Book 2, 18 2. During the outbreak of violence against Jews in Caesarea, Joseph C. Smith notes the whole city was filled with confusion and it appears evident that the rest of the population would soon betake themselves to arms against the Jews. This event was mainly achieved through the work of proselytite converts.
, antiquities book 22 1 through 5 Beyond this specific story of helena and ezatis joseph mentions a merchant ammonius Quote taught them the royal family to worship God according to the Jewish religion, suggesting ongoing missionary activity.
Now, maybe Josephus made all this up. That's possible. Or maybe this is just like super rare instances and all of the stuff about like mass conversions, or the, you know, multiple communities Total fiction because Josephus wanted to make the Jews look good. Now, why he would think this would make the Jews look good if you needed a rabbinic court and Judaism was considered a [00:49:00] matrilineal thing, I don't know.
But clearly, he loved that people liked converting to Judaism. All over his works, okay? Okay. Let's go to writers who hated Jewish people. We'll start with one who really hated the Jewish people. This is Tacticus. Now, for people who don't remember Tacticus, Tacticus was the guy, when he was complaining about how evil the Jews were, , one of , his complaints was that they didn't practice exposure or drowning their infants.
He was very upset about that. He was like, what a disgusting practice to not drown infants. Everybody knows, you know, when you don't want a baby, you just drown it. People wonder why women were into it. Yeah, you, you wonder why we talk about in the, with early Christianity, we're more moral. This is one of the things that early Christianity really kept with Judaism, which is do not kill babies.
Yeah. And also like, don't be a dick to women. Don't be a dick to women. We'll get it. We'll get it. If you want to go into that episode, you can, but your early Judaism was significantly less dickish to women. Then the Romans [00:50:00] were I can see why women wanted to convert as well from that standpoint, but you can learn more about that in the other video.
So tacticus on Jewish convert in his history is book 55 written around 100 to 110 C. E. Tacticus notes was disdain quote those who are converted to their ways, follow the same practice, he's talking about circumcision here, and the earliest lesson they receive is to despise the gods, to disown their country, and to regard their parents, children, and brothers of little account.
Now. This hostile characterization nevertheless confirms that the conversions to Judaism were occurring among Murbans. Tacticus presents conversion as a complete break. Tacticus is where the word tactics come from. He wrote the, our version of like, the art of war. The western canon version.
It's not a bad name, what do you
Simone Colins: think about that?
Malcolm Collins: But most of it is like, I like Tacticus, let's do that for a guy! Tacticus! I'm sorry, not taking into account what he had to say about Junes. No, no, no, no, I'm just like, We're not pro baby drowning, I [00:51:00] just like Tacticus. No! Yes, thank you. But I, I think he, he shows some really interesting things here.
So what from his perspective was required from Jewish conversion? Today, what we would think of as a lot of like cults or alternate religions, much more so than modern Jewish conversion. We also see this with Ruth which is if you talk about modern Jewish conversion, yeah, it might be harder to convert, but you're not supposed to cut ties with your family.
Jewish conversion during this period, cutting ties with your family was normal. Maybe not everyone did this because we see Ruth cut ties with her family and Tacticus complains about people cutting ties with their family. So I'm guessing it was normal for some converts. I'm not going to say all converts because we know of other individuals who didn't, like the woman whose husband, like this highborn woman whose husband was clearly not Jewish.
But I'm going to say that, that really dedicating yourself to the Jewish community appears to have been one of the core things that made you Jewish during this period. Juvenal's complaints in his satellites, particularly [00:52:00] satire 14, lines 96 to 106, written in the early 2nd century CE, Juvenal mocks Romans who adapted Jewish practices. Quote, Some of you have had a father who reveres the Sabbath, worship nothing but the clouds, and the divinity of the heavens.
Oh! I love that! The sound so much, he's like, they worship the clouds and the heavens! Haven't been trained to despise Roman laws. They learn and practice and revere the Jewish law. I, again, I love this. It's like, it's like, there is this level of, like, breaking from Roman laws. And there was a reason to despise many Roman customs.
Again, see, we're Christians, actually more moral. He describes a multi generational process where first generation converts observe some Jewish customs while their children become fully observant Jews, showing concern about Judaism's growing influence in Rome. Really interesting here, because he's talking about, like, you whose fathers You have gone like full Jew.
Very interesting. Roman legal restrictions. Emperor Hadrian ruled 117 to 138 CE. Reportedly banned [00:53:00] circumcision, which effectively prohibited conversion to Judaism. Earlier Emperor Domitian ruled. 81 to 96 CE imposed the Jewish tax, fiscus judicus, on those who, quote, lived a Jewish life without publicly acknowledging the faith, in quote, targeting converts.
So that's really interesting. If this wasn't a big thing that was happening, why are they making laws about it? What, if it was just a few rare instances and that's good evidence. I like that. And this is very different from, again, I think, like modern Jewish missionary activities, where there just is not a sustained modern Jewish missionary effort.
Even among Reformed Jews, that it's at least competent or widespread, or that I've seen. Whereas you really get the impression, if you are a wealthy Roman, like, writer, or even emperor, like, like, Tacticus, or this, this guy who, who wrote the satirites, these are satires you know, You are going to know enough Roman [00:54:00] to Jewish converts that it's gonna be annoying to you.
I don't know a single convert to Judaism. I do. Oh, sorry. I do know. My sister converted. I don't know a single convert to Judaism where it wasn't involved with a marriage. I do. I should say. Is that the same with you?
Simone Colins: No. He just chose to convert on his own. Just really liked the religion. He was one of my former managers at my first job.
Yeah, I actually know,
Malcolm Collins: but I think that who they were marrying and their kids future played a role in it. So it's a bit different than this. It wasn't,
Simone Colins: it wasn't his partner either. So,
Malcolm Collins: but here, here's the thing. Apparently, these converts were obnoxiously Jewish to these, these Romans. Like, I mean, I
Simone Colins: think it's like being a vegan or a marathon runner.
You know, my
Malcolm Collins: understanding is that these early Jewish converts were maybe closer to like, not like what we would think of as like a reformed Jewish movement, but like somewhat Orthodox in a lot of their practices. And, and like you say, I think like a vegan, like [00:55:00] they actually held the dietary restrictions.
They actually maybe did some of the Jewish. Yeah. Yeah. Like you
Simone Colins: bring them over for dinner and they're like. I'm sorry. I recently converted to Judaism. You invite them
Malcolm Collins: over and they're like, It's the Sabbath. I'm sorry. Yeah,
Simone Colins: and I can't eat this dish right now because you've combined the cheese with the meat.
Malcolm Collins: Yes, but here we're talking about now Cassius Dio's account in Roman history, book 67, 14, 1 to 2, written in the early third century CE, but describing events under Domitian, Cassius Dio reports, quote, many others who drifted into Jewish ways were condemned. Some were put to death and the rest were at least deprived of their property.
This passage suggests Jewish conversion was widespread enough to warrant imperial persecution and, and, they believed enough that they were killed for it, you know, really dedicated to the Jewish community. And then we have the new Testament Matthew 23, 15, the new Testament verse written CE 80 to 90 CE has Jesus criticizing certain Pharisees.
Quote, woe to you, teachers of [00:56:00] the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You travel over land and sea to win a single convert. While polemical, this suggests active Jewish missionary efforts during the late Second Temple period, confirming some Jewish groups actively sought converts. So it's common enough that all these well known Romans had seen these, these Jewish proselytizers.
And, and Jesus, apparently, Was like, hey, I know your type, you travel all over the place trying to convert people. Like, this was a common activity. And, and I, I hear like, I brought this up with a one of the rabbis I brought this up with was like, oh, but see this book that was written hundreds of years later says that during this time period, we didn't actively seek converts.
Well, I'm going to go into why you might want to whitewash this part of your history because there is a reason why they had to stop doing this. But it's not even whitewashed, like, I see nothing actively wrong with this, it just poses a problem for the concept of matrilineal Jewish identity being something that's biblically grounded or [00:57:00] even grounded in Jewish ancient history.
Simone Colins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Now, let's turn to the Bible itself. By the way, any thoughts before I go further? No. You were thorough. , I'm pretty pumped on this because this changed, I had no idea, I had no idea until I started looking in on it that Jews used to have a big, like, proselytization effort. I didn't either.
This is very surprising. And it feels very Islami, right? Like, they have their own country, , they have their own laws for their country and their own, like, system for those laws. They have their own system for people who aren't Jewish living within their country, and then they, they have, like, active missionary efforts.
And a big diversity of beliefs as well. Like modern day Islam was like different Jewish groups, which we'll get into in a second here. Let's now turn to the Bible itself. I didn't start with the Bible because most Orthodox Jews have already had to deal with the fact that all Ruth apparently had to do to become a Jew to become part of the lineage that led to King David was say that she wanted to be a Jew and was committed to the religion. They typically handle it with comments like this.
When Ruth converts to Judaism, she offers [00:58:00] a very radical declaration of commitment. See Ruth's 1. 16. 17, and Ruth said, Do not entreat me to leave you, to return from following you, for wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die.
There I will be buried. So may the Lord do to me, So may he continue, if anything, but death separate me and you. I mean, that sounds like standard marriage stuff. Yes. It's not like, oh, hey let me call, this is the other person talking here. It's not like, oh, hey, let me call myself Jewish and keep living like a heathen.
It's I'm totally committed to this people. And I am leaving my cultural context, my land moab, and totally immersing myself in Jewish culture and practice. And it's like, yeah, but it is all still just saying that, and going to a land where all this stuff is like the normal rules, you're not going to have an easy time living in Israel of this time period without obeying like the Sabbaths and the other Jewish laws, like It's not, like, I guess as an outsider, I'm like, [00:59:00] I don't know, I'm not convinced.
That said, when this is taken in context of all of the historic evidence provided above, it becomes clear that Ruth's conversion was not something extraordinary, nor did it require such an extreme statement. She just needed to say, like, I'm committed now. I will also note modern Jewish interpretations of the story of Ruth are hugely weighed down by extra biblical rabbinic traditions, which makes her conversion sound more modern.
Here is an example of one of those. So this is another rabbi who got back to me on this. Okay. Ruth cuts her ties with her Moabite family. family and joins with the Jewish people that fits the Talmudic criteria of accepting the mitzvah as she is committed to the Jewish God and Jewish people. And even then she's treated as an outcast until she manages to seduce Boaz, a local Jewish noble, and the marriage is only approved.
of after she goes to the analog of Beit Din Jewish court at the city gate. If it within the text that she went to a Jewish court to confirm her status as a Jew, this would be a significant blow to my argument. [01:00:00] This is not him saying that, this is me admitting that. If these Beit Din, if these Jewish courts existed during the time of Ruth, that would like blow a major hole in the argument I'm making here.
And I'd also note for the above story, there is almost nothing less you can do than make a verbal commitment to a religion. Right? Like, it really is, you might say, well, the verbal commitment was extreme, maybe. But if you actually want to change your religion
Simone Colins: Toasty all the time after breaking something or making a mess says, I won't do it again.
Five minutes later He makes very strong verbal
Malcolm Collins: commitments.
Simone Colins: Yes, he makes extremely strong verbal commitments. They're very earnest sounding.
Malcolm Collins: Okay, so this would have like really hurt me if it was true. So of course I go to AI and I'm like, is this actually in the Bible or is this later rabbinic tradition?
Or maybe just a fabrication. What's in the biblical text? In Ruth 4 does go to the city gate, which is the place where legal matters are settled. He gathers 10 elders as a witness. However, the primary purpose was not to approve Ruth's conversion or status. The legal matter [01:01:00] concerned the right of redemption of Nomi's property and the Leverite obligation to marry Ruth.
The closer relative initially had first right but declined. Boaz then publicly declared his intention to redeem the property and marry Ruth. The elders and the people present blessed the union. What is not in the biblical text, there is no mention of Ruth's appearing before this gathering. The gathering was not convened to approve Ruth's conversion or status as a Jew.
There's no mention of Ruth being treated as an outcast after her declaration of loyalty to Nehemiah and her people. All of, the characterization that Ruth went before an analog of a Beit Din and needed approval for her conversion is reading later rabbinic conversion procedures back into the biblical text.
This represents an anachronistic interpretation that projects later Jewish legal frameworks onto the earlier biblical narrative. , the Biblical text itself presents Ruth's transition to becoming part of the Israelite community as primarily based on her declaration of loyalty to Naomi and her people and her God without detailed legal procedures for [01:02:00] conversion that developed in later Rabbinic Judaism.
And then I again ask, and hey, I like Is this actually correct? And it goes, Ruth's declaration to Naomi, your people will be my people and your God, my God constitutes her allegiance with Israel without any formal conversion process. And it again, affirmed the gathering at the city gate. Ruth's four was specifically about property redemption and marriage rights, not Ruth's religious status.
There is no mention of Ruth's being treated as an outcast after her declaration of loyalty. And Ruth never appears before any court like body to have her conversion approved. But let's say Ruth's conversion wording was so powerful. You're convinced it parallels to modern conversions. What about Zipporah, the daughter of a Midianite priest who married Moses, with no conversion process at all?
In fact, just how unconverted she was, was made clear when God threatened Moses to make sure she circumcised their son because she wasn't practicing circumcision of their children. What's striking about all these conversion processes described is while they don't align with what modern Jews believe about [01:03:00] Jewish identity, they match exactly with the Jewish experience, identity, and covenant made with God described in the Bible.
Simone Colins: Wow.
Malcolm Collins: Made you Jewish was following the rules and to some extent your belief, your heritage, had literally nothing to do with it outside the priestly caste. What about passages in books like Jubilee that warn against sparing outsiders? Okay. Well, they do. But they also explain why the warning exists in context, not due to concerns about purity or blood or matrilineal descent, but because children from such marriages often had less Jewish beliefs and led the community astray.
If I warn my children against marrying non believers, which I will, does that mean I wouldn't consider converts to be technopuritan? Does that mean I would still consider them technopuritan if they left the faith? Of course not! It was a practical concern and a logical one. To the notion that Jewish identity should be passed on matrilineally and Judaism should become an ethno religion represents such a bizarre series of conjectures drawn from practical concerns in the Bible that I [01:04:00] am astounded. The Bible and Judaism of biblical times didn't have to address the question why Jews because it simply wasn't relevant.
Anyone could become a Jew. At any time. Just by following the rules and dedicating themselves to the community of God. Interesting. Okay. So, did this blow your mind, first part? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I hope we've reached a point here where anyone without a strong, and this, this really gets me like when people are like, Oh no, like you're misreading it.
Look, I've got like four historians here of different faiths. I've got the new Testament. I've got Jesus never mentioning that he was opening this to non Jews. I've got stuff in the Bible. I've got what's actually said in the Bible and your, your core argument against this is coming from sources hundreds of years later.
Like. Mm hmm. You, you really, it is a [01:05:00] theological belief, given the preponderance of historical evidence, that Jewish missionaries and proselytization efforts were not common and widely accepted in the period of Christ. Mm hmm. All right. I hope we've now, would you agree, like, am I being crazy here? Am I, like, reaching or something?
I don't, I don't think you're being crazy. I'm being super biased here. That's the other thing. Like if somebody was like, I
Simone Colins: think maybe here's the problem. And I think this is what it's going to come down to. If I can try to predict the comments or the emails that you'll receive after this, it will be that like, you're applying a very Protestant or Calvinist.
Or materialist mindset to our religion. Like you're, you're, you're just applying the wrong logical framework. and this doesn't interest us.
Malcolm Collins: Like, it doesn't matter. If, if you approach this from more of like , a theological community base, or vibe Or mystical. Like, if [01:06:00] it's just vibes,
Simone Colins: then, or, you know, mystical feeling, whatever, I mean, I'm, I'm not, I'm clearly not a mystical person.
Then move like it doesn't
Malcolm Collins: matter and this criticism is like if you're a Jew and you think like, I'm, I'm, I'm calling out Jews here in some way, this criticism and the difference , in sort of, if you just approach this with a different vibe, you get it. Is exactly my concern with Catholicism as well.
Like when I rip on Catholics and say they're practicing demonic stuff and they're blah, blah, blah. All of that is coming from just being ultra obsessed with the text itself. Trying to like interpret what the text means and not being like, yeah, but like, look at the community and traditions and vibes.
And so I'd argue that my, if you want to call this, like. You know, investigation or, or criticism of these traditions is completely analogous to the criticism I've had of everyone else's traditions and in no way unique. And I would emphasize with all of this, I like the Jews. I think they're still clearly being shown God's divine favor right [01:07:00] now.
So we've got to keep all that in mind with any, like, Clearly, they're doing something right, or at least comparatively right when contrasted with other groups. And I, I don't think that they should be targeted for conversions. I think they're following a covenant that they made with the actual God, because it's the same God of Jesus.
So again, like, I'm fairly positive on Judaism more broadly, but I also really like, the truth. And if I'm getting truth from these texts and from historians and from, you know, like trying to suss out, like, what actually happened, what was actually written here, This is what I can't help but come to.
Simone Colins: Yeah, I think a lot of it also, though we have to separate the truth and sort of your religious journey from what was more broadly discussed in the Pragmatist Guide to Crafting Religion, which is First, you're looking at this from the perspective that only very people very deep in the doctrine get and unless you're a Catholic priest or really high up in the LDS church or a rabbi or, you know, some equal thing, right?
[01:08:00] You're not going to be in the weeds. I think what's more important about cultures and religions. Is what the soft focus Vaseline over the lens audience is experiencing and doing. And that's one reason why I still, I mean, well, I know that they're experiencing more problems now, but I love the LDS church because in the end.
They are, I mean, at least the ones that I know are happier, they're more functional, they're, they're they're thriving, they're having kids, they have successful careers, they're satisfied with their lives, they're enjoying their lives, they have lower instances of mental health issues, all these lovely things, right?
So that's like a good cultural technology, and I think that the same can be seen For judaism, I agree 100.
Malcolm Collins: I think judaism makes people's lives better. I think it makes jewish lives Like
Simone Colins: does it matter? Does it matter if it's true? I mean in there, I mean I think that on both sides, we have met people who are like, they kind of wave their hands when it comes to the religious stuff and they're like, whatever, you know, like, do I, I actually, I don't know, but the [01:09:00] religion, like the culture is good.
Like
Malcolm Collins: just as you can see. And I'd actually go so far as to say, I actually agree with matrilineal descent. from a practical standpoint. I think it helps the current Jewish community's cohesiveness, sense of identity, sense of historical connection to the ancestors and the Bible and the, and the traditions.
I don't think like, I'm not here arguing that this should be dropped within modern at all. Okay. I think it is actually core to modern Judaism, but I, as a Christian derived religious system, this significantly changes the way I relate to that system and Jesus's teachings. Because my branch broke off before Judaism became matrilineal, before Judaism became exclusive.
And if it broke off before Judaism became exclusive, the idea of Christianity is like a Judaism fan [01:10:00] club disappears. It is, it becomes more of an equal and viable branch of the early Jewish traditions, which is what we'll get to here. Because I think a lot of people contextualize Christianity that way.
It's like a cult that was radically different from Judaism of the time, that broke off from Judaism. And I think that that belief, what we're gonna see, is mostly downstream of how different modern day Christianity is from modern day Judaism, instead of Christianity of this period from Judaism of this period.
I hope we've now reached a point where anyone without a strong theological reason to believe otherwise will see that Judaism, at the time of Jesus, was a religion attempting to grow aggressively through proselytization. While it had some ethnic connection, this was closer to the modern relationship between Muslims and Arabs than how contemporary Jews view their religion.
So now the question is, why would a religion like this transform into an ethno religion? The sad answer appears to be that it within response to the success of the Christian branch of the Jewish tradition. First, we need to be clear that the branch of Judaism [01:11:00] taught by Jesus was not particularly deviant for its time period.
Yes, it was distinct, but not more distinct than all the other contemporaneous branches of Judaism. For a quick list, you have the Pharisees, who emphasized oral tradition along the written Torah, and believed in resurrection, angels, and fate, slash free will. They were the forerunners of rabbinic Judaism.
You have the Sadducees, primarily aristocratic priests, who rejected oral tradition, resurrection, and afterlife concepts. They emphasized temple worship, and only accepted the written Torah. Now note here, the, the Sadducees would have been significantly more different from the Pharisees than Jesus would have been from the Pharisees.
Which is really interesting given that they did, , they denied resurrection and afterlife concepts.
And they rejected oral tradition. Now, I note here, because this is very important. A Jew today could argue Yeah, but the mainstream Jews, they always believed about the same thing. Except the problem , is that if you went to a person during this time period, if you went to the [01:12:00] Kingdom of Judea and you said.
Okay. I understand there's all these different forms of Judaism, but which one is the real Judaism? The answer they would've given you is, oh, it's the Sadducees, that's the Judaism that's practiced both by the royal family and the priestly cast, except the Sadducees are extinct. It is the Pharisees that modern rabbinic Judaism descends from. And I also wanna emphasize how different the Sadducees were than modern Jews. They, when I say they denied the resurrection of the dead, what I mean is they did not believe in the immortality of the soul, and they believed that there was no. Afterlife. The Sadducees rejected the Pharisaic use of the oral Torah to enforce their claims to power citing the written Torah as the sole manifestation of divinity.
, the Sadducees denied the existence or influence of angels as well. All of these were things that the Pharisee branch of Judaism and Christianity shared. This is what I mean when I say that. [01:13:00] If you look at how these groups were different from each other, the group that modern Judaism came from really and truly was as different from the mainstream Jewish group.
The group that the royal family and priesthood practiced as Christianity was.
I'd also note here if you're like, well, okay, maybe the royal family and the priesthood practiced this other form of Judaism, , but the one that turned into rabbinic Judaism, this was the Judaism of the people. This wasn't like some weird offshoot. , well, unfortunately we happen to have historical documents showing that's not correct.
If we look at the Jewish historian Josephus. He reported that there were only around 6,000 Pharisees
This was out of a Jewish population at the time that would've been, , about 1.5 million in Israel and 4 to 4.5 million already dispersed throughout the Roman Empire.
I know this is an offensive thing to state, but it aligns with the historical facts we have on the ground.
The good news about this from a Jewish perspective is it [01:14:00] means that any who claim that the quote unquote Jews were involved with the execution or persecution of Jesus are just factually incorrect. It was the Sadducees who were as different from the Christian group theologically speaking as the. , Pharisees, which later became rabbinic Judaism were, , the Pharisees had nothing to do with the persecution of Jesus,
Malcolm Collins: you have the Essenes, a separatist group who lived a monastic life. Like communities, possibly including the Dead Sea Scrolls community. They practice extreme ritual purity, communal property, and apocalyptic beliefs.
These people thought the world was about to end and were communists. Again, very different. The Zealots, a revolutionary movement focused on violent resistance against Roman Occupation, believing God alone should rule Israel. You have the Therapudae, a Jewish contemplative community in Egypt described by Philo, practicing asceticism and mystical interpretation of scripture.
They would have been more like a monastery type community, you could almost say? Yeah. You have the Herodians, [01:15:00] supporter of Herod's dynasty. who accommodated to Greco Roman culture while maintaining Jewish identity. This is like a mix of like Judaism and Greco Roman traditions. You have various messianic movements, multiple groups formed around charismatic leaders claiming messianic status, including Theodos, Judas, the Galilean, and the quote unquote Egyptian.
You have the Samaritans though they consider themselves followers of an Israel of an Israelite religion, mainstream Jews viewed them as a deviant sect. They accepted only the Pentateuch and worshipped on Mount Gerizim. You have Hellenistic Judaism. Jewish communities, especially Alexandria, who synthesized Jewish practice with Greek philosophy, represented by figures like Philo.
That's an important figure. You have Jewish Christian groups. After Jesus, various groups like the Ebonites, maintained Jewish practices while following Jesus as a Messiah. You have the Boethusians , often grouped with the Sadducees, but considered a distinct sect by some sources.
They were founded by followers of Boethus, [01:16:00] appointed high priest by Herod the Great. They rejected the oral tradition and had specific calendar related disputes with the Pharisees. Note here. I, the Ebonites, like our tradition, like technopuritan, it's actually probably of all of the traditions. If somebody was like, what are you closest to?
We're probably closest to the Ebonites because the Ebonites also didn't believe that Jesus was literally God's son. They just believed he was the Messiah. So very, and they were very similar to older Judaism in many ways. So I'd argue like, if you're actually like, which branch are we closest to?
We're very close to the Ebonites.
Side note here, but if you are one of those Christians who is like, well, it was very obvious to those writing the Bible, specifically those around the time of Christ, that he was a divine being who did lots of spectacular, and undeniable miracles, I must point out that this is factually untrue, even among his followers who thought he was the Messiah. The Ebionites, who believed Jesus to be the [01:17:00] Messiah, and who were one of the largest groups of his followers in the geographic region where he actually preached, believed him to be a man.
And just a man, not also simultaneously the son of God and also God himself.
Malcolm Collins: Ebionites believed Jesus to be the Messiah foretold in Jewish prophecy, and thus a man. The group most tied to the region where Jesus actually taught, and who would have had the most oral history of his teachings from their parents and grandparents, and who believed he was a literal messiah, so like, not against Jesus or his teachings, did not believe him to have claimed to be literally the son of God. Those traditions only evolved in regions where no one would have had any cultural memory of the actual Jesus like Rome and Egypt. This is why the Technopuritan tradition that follows what is actually written in the Bible most resembles the Ebionites and what they believed than the early church movements who were very, very far from where Jesus actually preached.
They went extinct, by the way. You have the Hemera Baptists, a Jewish sect mentioned in early Christian [01:18:00] and Rabbinic literature who practiced daily rituals of immersion for purification. So this was a Jewish sect that practiced daily baptism. Again, showing that, like, the baptism that Jesus was practicing, other Jewish groups were doing this.
Like, it might be weird. from a pharisee's perspective, but it wasn't weird from the perspective of the
Simone Colins: Hemerobaptists,
Malcolm Collins: right? And when we go to like John the Baptist, probably one of these guys. You know, he was, he was a Jew who was practicing baptisms, right? But again, like a lot of these traditions in Christianity, they weren't that deviant.
You have the natherites, while not exactly a sect, they were individuals who took special vows of abstinence from alcohol, cutting hair, et cetera. For dedicated periods of consecration to God, you have the Reshabites, a clan that practice an ascetic lifestyle, avoiding wine and permanent dwellings, living in tents as a religious commitment.
So when I bring up like all of the conversion stuff that's happening to modern Jews, I often get like a no truth Scotsman's fallacy. It's like, well, that must have been like deviant [01:19:00] rabbis or like overzealous weirdos who were like not mainstream Jews. It's like they may not be mainstream. If you consider mainstream, the sect that survived to become modern Judaism.
But that sect within this period was one of many highly deviant sects. That had a huge diversity of traditions. And the only reason that sect today is seen as true Judaism is because it's the one that survived and still calls itself the Jews. Not due to any uniqueness during this period. I'd also note that I actually do not discount the possibility that there was a sect of Jews during this period practicing matrilineal descent as an important part of Jewish identity, just that this community was probably not the community involved in proselytization, but there was a community involved in proselytization that seemed bigger and better resourced.
And this community appears to have nobody having written about [01:20:00] them. It appears to have not really impacted any of the literature written during this period. So my guess would be, is this community was either small or insular. What also is note to me that the extremists, like the Dead Sea Scrolls community, didn't appear to be of this community because they didn't appear to practice matrilineal descent.
So I'm not saying it's not possible that it wasn't practiced during this period, but it would have been considered a weird practice in the same way Jesus was a weird practice.
Simone Colins: Okay. But, but, but You're always gonna get weird subgroups in any culture. This is normal.
Malcolm Collins: No, not like this. This is way more diverse than modern Judaism.
This is a series of things that in a modern context might even be called a collection of different but related religions. I actually don't even think in a modern times we would call these the same religion. They're probably about as similar as like Mormons are to Christians. Like Mormons call themselves Christians, but like, this is a huge diversity.
The point I'm making here is that mat the matrilineal descent group [01:21:00] may have existed. And you may even say, well, they were always the real Jews because they ended up being the group that survived, and that proves God's favor of them. Fine. But I could equally say, well, the Christian branch proved God's favor by their rapid expansion.
And a few other things that we'll get to. All these various branches of the Jewish religion were attempting to convert followers and spread their influence. The only reason we think of the branch ancestral to modern Jews as the quote unquote true branch is because it is the one that survived and proliferated.
But if surviving and proliferating makes you the true branch, why isn't Christianity considered the true branch? Just because they don't call themselves Jews anymore is one of the main reasons. We need to look at Christianity in the context of its actual text and not let later traditions that were added, which makes Christianity radically different from ancient Judaism specifically these later beliefs were not actually in Christian scripture and, and they deviate significantly from Judaism.
So if you look at Christianity today, I, I, I agree. It's very radically different from Judaism of this period but it's because of a [01:22:00] few later additions to it. The addition of an immediate heaven and hell afterlife in addition to the afterlife in which you're raised again at some point in the future,
See our last track, track nine.
If this is shocking to you that this is not well attested in the Bible, and I'd also noticed the belief in like the garden of Eden that you go immediately when you die in modern Judaism is a massive deviation from what the Jews of. Jesus's time would have thought you know, so to again, go to track nine.
If you want more on this, the belief in using the son of God as a sin transference ritual, mirroring the goat that Jews transferred their sin to, and then sent to the demon Azazel, see track eight of this is shocking to you, but this idea was added to Christianity by Anselm of Canterbury. 10, 033 to 11, 009.
It is influential work, Cure Deus Homo, Why God Became Man, and is not found in the original text, which seems to be arguing Jesus needed to be sacrificed to seal a new covenant, a common practice during that time period being sacrificing animals when signing a new covenant. And Jesus even says this a few times that I'm being signed for the new [01:23:00] covenant they are killed for the new covenant.
Anyway, so, Three, the belief that Jesus was literally both God and God's son. We have not yet published our track pointing This out in the Bible and the Bible actually explicitly argues he is not so I will summarize the key point and go into detail on this maybe in a future track or maybe it's so offensive to Christians I'm just gonna bury it deep in this one because I don't want to deal with the backlash from pointing this out it was actually common in the old testament to call favored individuals children of god.
This is likely why what Jesus meant in the parts where he calls himself the son of God. Christians today call God Father all the time, and no one gets confused and believes they think God the Father is literally that individual's father. Plasms 2 7, I will proclaim the Lord's decree. He said to me, you are my son, today I become your father.
This is referring to the Davidic king. Another clear example is Exodus 4 22 23, where God refers to Israel collectively as his son. Quote, then say to Pharaoh, this is what the Lord says, Israel is my firstborn son, and I will tell you quote, let my son [01:24:00] go, so he may worship me, end quote, in Hosea 11. 1, God refers to Israel as his son, when Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt, called him my son then also there's a reference in 2 Samuel 7.
14 regarding David's descent, Solomon, and You I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands, end quote. God be like, he's my son, and I will punish him with a rod, inflicted by human I don't know,
Simone Colins: floggings and, oh, yeah, I guess You can use the human hands to hold a stick or something, but I was just pictured like a slap fight.
Malcolm Collins: Point being is god saying you know, jesus saying like god is my father doesn't mean god's literally his father. No for sure
in the Old Testament, God helps other women conceive when it should not be possible without those children being considered God's son. We see this, like, all the time in the Old Testament. God helps women get pregnant, and we're never like, well, that's God's son. We also need to think about the logistical problems.
If it means that Jesus is literally God's son, what [01:25:00] is his Y chromosome? God used some human male's DNA to create Jesus, as God does not have DNA, and it is the DNA that mixes with the female's that determines God's son. Who the literal father is of a child whether or not that man slept with that woman.
So even if God took some other man's DNA and implanted it in Mary, that man is still Jesus's, like, human father. That IVF, like, I don't say because we do IVF that, like, Simone was miraculously conceived. No, I do think Jesus conception was miraculous, I just think that a human's DNA was used for it.
To highlight how absurd it is to claim that God was literally Jesus' father, just because he assisted in combining Mary and Joseph's DNA. , this would be like all of my kids were had through IVF. It would be like if somebody said, oh, Malcolm, you are not the father of those kids. It's the IVF doctor.
It's the doctor who helped implant the embryo. , which is obviously laughable. Nobody thinks like that. The father of a [01:26:00] child, it's a contributor of the DNA.
quick aside here. If you are wondering who's, why chromosome Jesus had, we actually know this. It was Joseph's. The prophesied Messiah had to come from the paternal line of David.
If Jesus is literally God's son, he cannot be the Messiah. I will also note here on multiple occasions, Jesus accepts the title of son of David, Mark 10 46 52 and Matthew 15 22 28. The only occasion you could use to plausibly argue he is not David's son is Matthew 22 41 46. We know from other passages that Jesus is the son of David.
We know this passage isn't about invalidating that connection. What it appears to be doing. is pointing out that while he is descended from David, he is above him in terms of spiritual connection. We will see in a second Jesus pointing out that a part of God is in him and a part of God is in us. Maybe this is him arguing the part in him is more than the part that within David.
And it doesn't make sense in [01:27:00] context.
If he and God shared the same will, why would he say things like, quote, My father, why have you forsaken me? End quote.
I once have somebody tell me that the reason he said that was to fulfill prophecy, and I'm like, do you know how stupid that sounds? That okay? So Jesus is up there suffering on a cross. He is not thinking, nor does he believe God has forsaken him. He doesn't want to ask this question yet.
He feels compelled to ask it just so that he can check a box on a prophecy even. Why would you create. A prophecy that you, like anyone could just choose to fulfill as well. , just don't have that be part of the prophecy. If that wasn't something Jesus was going to naturally say,
it, it is like that south park scene with the red heifer where they paint it red and they're like, oh, yeah. That's what the prophecy was always about. It was a bunch of kids painting a heifer red. It's like n no, very clearly. If you can just choose to fulfill a prophecy, then it's not a meaningful prophecy.
There.
There it is. Right there. See a redheaded cow.[01:28:00]
Whoa. Look it you right Kyle. A ginger. I shall never question your keen intellect again.
Malcolm Collins: But, more importantly, Jesus tells us he is not literally God's son on each of the three occasions he has pressed on the subject. One, quote, But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.
Again, the high priest asked him, Are you Christ, son of the blessed? This is when he's on trial to be potentially killed. And Jesus said, I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. So, note here, Jesus is asked two questions. The first being, is he Christ the Messiah, who Jews understood to be human?
And the second being, if he is the Son of God. He answers both in turn and very explicitly. I am, I am the Messiah, and You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power. I am the Son of Man. He literally inverts their phrase. Are you the Son of God? No, I am [01:29:00] the Son of Man. Okay, people use the I am word to be like, well, God said I am when he first announced himself to Moses.
That seems, I don't, I think it's a, it's a much easier parallel to say, are you the son of God? I am the son of man. To be pretty, pretty explicit there. Note here, because he does believe himself to be set apart by God.
And people who are set apart by God are called the children of God throughout the Old Testament. He does not deny this, but clarifies that he is the Son of Man to ensure there is no confusion that he perceives himself to be literally the Son of God. But he is confirming that he's the Messiah here.
And I'd also note here, very interestingly this is one of the only places in the entire Bible, and I actually think The only place where Jesus hard confirms that he's the Messiah which is really interesting because the one time when it will lead to his death is the one time when he absolutely confirms it.
Without ambiguity. Two here. How long will you keep us in suspense if you are the Messiah? Tell us plainly. Remember, they don't think the Messiah is literally the Judaism. The Messiah is a [01:30:00] guy. Jesus answered. I tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my father's name testify about me, but you do not believe me because you are not my sheep.
My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of my father's hand. I and the father are one. Note here the line, I am my father are one.
He is referencing the unity of their ability to catch lost sheep because the question is in reference to him being the Messiah. As we continue, we have a case of people misunderstanding Jesus on this exact point in him correcting them. And his Jewish opponents picked up some stones to stone him. But Jesus said to them, I have shown you Many good works of the Father.
For which of these do you stone me? So note here, Jesus is implying that he has not done anything blasphemous. Meaning he must assume that they are not meant to infer that he is literally God or the Son [01:31:00] of God, but is set apart by God. So here he's being like, what, why are you gonna stone? Like, what are you doing?
If he understood that he was claiming to be God, he'd know exactly why they were about to stone him, right? And they say to him, we are not stoning you for any good work, they replied, but for blasphemy, because you are a mere man claiming to be God. Jesus answered them, it is not written in your law.
I've said you are gods, if called them gods to whom the word God came. So it's saying you are gods to whom the word of God came. And scripture cannot be set aside. What about the one whom the father set apart as his very own and sent it to the world. So here he is saying, I have been sent apart, and I have heard the word of God through Scripture.
Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I say, I am God's son? Right here he makes it clear that he calls himself the Son of God because he has been set apart by God as the Messiah. Not because he is literally God's son. He is correcting them here, pointing out there is no blasphemy in what he is saying, otherwise his argument does not make sense.
If you believe that he thinks he actually is the son of God, this argument doesn't make [01:32:00] sense. And then he says, do not believe me unless I do the works of the Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you know and understand the Father is in me and I am in the Father.
So here, when pressed for more information, we see Jesus explaining when he says he is the Son of God or he is God, he means that the Father is in him and he is in the Father. The intention of this statement is made clear in the third place Jesus denies being literally the Son of God. So note here, you might be like, well he is saying God is in him and he is in his God.
Certainly he never says that about anyone who has faith. Thomas said to him, Lord, we don't know where we are going, so how can we know the way? Jesus answered, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know the Father as well. For now on, you do know him and have seen him.
Philip said, Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us. Jesus answered. Don't you know me, Philip? Even after I have been among you for such a long time, anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. [01:33:00] How can you say show us the Father? Don't you believe I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
Now pause and note the phrase he says here, okay? I am in the Father and the Father is in me, okay? So by seeing him, you have seen the father, because the father is in him and he is in the father. The words I say here, I do not speak of my own authority. Rather, it is the father living in me who is doing his work.
Believe me when I say, I am in the father, and the father is in me, or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will be greater things than these, because I am going to the Father, and I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. Jesus promises the Holy Spirit, quote, if you love me, keep my commands, and I will ask the Father, and will give you another advocate to help you, and be with you forever. The Spirit of Truth. This is the Holy Ghost. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him.
[01:34:00] But you know him, for he lives in you, and will be in you. Bam. Right there, ladies and gentlemen. He says, he lives in you, and will be in you. Whenever Jesus says the Father is in him, he means it in the same way he believes the Father is in all believers. In this passage, we see the language mirrored. The Father is in Jesus, and It's just the whole we're all made of stardust thing.
It's fine. It's fine. Yeah, and the Father is in all faithful believers. Also note, Jesus is not putting himself above other faithful believers. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these. Because I am going to the Father.
So here we see him saying, he is not the be all end all. If he was literally God, other people would not be able to outdo him in the name of God after he dies. He also ends this section pointing out that he will not be on this earth forever, and will in a traditional [01:35:00] sense die. In the Old Testament, as we point out in the last track, it is common When someone dies to be said to going back to God or that the rock is going back to God, they're animating for us.
And then, finally, I will not have you as orphans. I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you will also live. On that day, you will realize that I am the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Listen to that. On that day, you will realize that I am in the Father, and you are in me.
And I am in you. Bam. And for those in the back, on that day you will realize I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. All of the believers are in each other and the Father in the same way Jesus means when he says the Father is in him. So this isn't a unidirectional thing. It's not that Jesus is in you because you're a believer.
You are in him. He is in God because he believes in God. All of these people in this belief circle exist within each other, but not literally as each other. Again, why would [01:36:00] he say, My lord, my lord, why have you forsaken me? If he was literally had the same will as God.
Another wildly important part of this particular segment, where Jesus is laying out that when he says the Father is in him, and he is in the Father, he means it in the same way that he is in you, and you are in him, and you are in the Father, and the Father is in all of us if we are a believer.
In this very segment he says, quote, No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know the father as well. For now, you do know him and you have seen him. And actually, this entire segment comes at somebody saying, basically, he says this and the person's like, oh, so do you mean that you are literally God?
And he's like, no, I do not mean I am literally God. I mean that God is in me and God is in you and I am in you and you are in God, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So a lot of people use this line, no one comes to the father except through me to mean that there is no other path to God. i. e. if you're Jewish, you cannot get to God.
And yet we clearly [01:37:00] see here, he says, except through me, if you really know me, you know the Father as well. He is saying this in the exact context of the passage, where he makes it clear that the part of the Father he has in him, we also have in us if we are true believers. So when he says the only way to God is through him, he clearly means when read in context, that the only way to God is through true believers, not literally just him.
It's pretty clear from other words in this segment that he does not see himself as the be all end all, quote, truly, truly, I say unto you, whoever believes in me will also do works that I do and greater works these he will do, end quote. Oh, that's
Simone Collins: pretty clear.
Malcolm Collins: Pretty clear. Yeah. What he's saying here in context is that yes, the only pass to God is through him, which The him here could be any believer, because we all have God in us the same way Jesus did, [01:38:00] in Jesus own words.
Which means that Jesus literally, i. e. Christianity literally, is not the only path to God, so long as it is one of the other true religions. So, while this tract may contradict both Jews and traditional Christianity, you can still be a technopuritan and follow one of those traditions. This track contradicts them because it is an evolution of my own ancestral tradition, which has a focus on facts and textual slash historical accuracy.
That is not as important as things like buying spiritualism and tradition , that within some of the other true branches determine it. Objective truths. Basically, all I can do is describe truths from the perspective of my tradition and culture, but the limited understanding of truths afforded to humans of this age means that other truths which might seem in direct contradiction to me can still be true as long as they follow one of the truth faiths.
Now, to those who say it is sacrilege to say that Jews could actually be right with God, it is pretty [01:39:00] striking that throughout the Bible, Jesus never said he invalidated the covenant that the Jews had with God or that they could not continue to be right by God by following the old covenant.
In fact, he even explicitly states, do you think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets basically implying, no, I have not come to do that.
Simone Collins: Right.
Malcolm Collins: He says, I have not come to abolish, I have come to fulfill, for truly, I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest feather, nor the largest stroke of the pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished.
I hear the old covenant still stands. It is just a separate potential covenant to God, but he has fulfilled it, allowing for a new covenant. As you see here in Luke 2022 20, the new covenant in my blood, as I have mentioned many times when they say Jesus died for our sins, what they mean is Jesus was sacrificed to create a new covenant, not [01:40:00] as a sin transference vehicle like you would have had with the demon Azazel that was actually really common during that time period, i.
e. sacrificing something or an animal specifically to create a new covenant. You would sacrifice animals when you were signing a new covenant. This makes sense in context and assigns an added degree of value and importance to Jesus's sacrifice without making it nonsensical, which removing literally all of man's sins.
does. And I would also note here on the Sermon of the Mount, Jesus repeatedly uses the formula, you haven't heard it said, but I tell you, showing that the Bible's continuity is a reinterpretation of various commandments without an invalidation of those original commandments. The best you're going to get if you're looking for the old covenant being completely invalidated.
is not from Jesus, it's going to call from Paul's writing in Hebrews. By calling this covenant new, he has made the first one obsolete. And what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear now, if you think he meant this in absolute terms, like it would soon disappear from the [01:41:00] world, he clearly didn't.
Because, you know, Jews still exist. If you think he meant this, Oh, well, as soon as Jesus made the new covenant, the old covenant was no longer relevant for anyone on earth. Well, that also is clearly not what is meant because he said it will soon disappear as in it hadn't disappeared yet. So let's take another alternative.
Suppose what he meant is it will disappear in relevance for members of the community, the followers of Christ. Keep in mind that many of the Jews. who converted to Christianity in the early days still kept the Old Covenant at this time period. Well, then it was absolutely correct. So, that's what I think he meant here.
, if we're assuming he had any prophetic wisdom in what he was saying. Not that it will disappear as it passed to God, and not that it will disappear from Earth. Because if it was a pass to God, and it would disappear, it would have disappeared as soon as Christ made the New Covenant.
If it was going to disappear from the Earth, well, it clearly didn't do that. He meant within the Christian tradition, which of course it did. Very astute that he was [01:42:00] able to predict that. There might have been one other way that he meant it which was that it would last until the end times started, or the messianic age, as rabbis talk about this however, I don't I think that's, that's not the way I read it but he could have meant it that way. Just, just another logical alternative.
But he definitely didn't mean that it disappears in the path to God or it would have disappeared the moment Jesus created the no covenant. Not soon. No, I will note here that it makes. clear that this new covenant is superior though. So it may not completely replace, like for Jews, the old covenant, but it is better.
Quote, the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is the mediator is superior to the old one. Since the new covenant established is established on better promises, end quote. And he explains here why the new covenant is better. Is that specifically I will put the laws in their minds and I will write them in their hearts.
As we go into more detail on this [01:43:00] shortly in this tract, the core difference between the new covenant and the old one is that the new covenant or within the new covenant, you are supposed to have a direct relationship by God, not one mediated by a temple, a bureaucracy or religious experts. You are now responsible for making up your own mind about what is right and wrong.
Was the old covenant that was like the old Testament that explicit about needing a mediator? Yeah, the Old Testament is very clear. I mean, the rabbis determined God's will. Basically, they would debate on it and then they would perform councils. And that's where all of these Jews, like when you're talking about maybe what,
Simone Collins: like the practice tradition was, but in the actual text and
Malcolm Collins: yeah, but if you're looking at like modern Jews, like, yeah, no, I
Simone Collins: get that.
But I'm just saying, where in the book does it say that? I
Malcolm Collins: don't know. Oh, well, so you get this from things like, not in stuff that was still recorded at the time of the split with Jesus Uhhuh . But if you look at the, like, snake oven story or the oven of, of course,
Simone Collins: I I get that. I get that. I just, I was, I was wondering if there was some Old Testament based precedent for this, and it doesn't seem like you've come that No, there,
Malcolm Collins: [01:44:00] this, that did wasn't invented until after this.
Okay. But it,
Simone Collins: it was more like then Jesus was attempting to reform. How things were playing out in practice, almost like a correction, because people
Malcolm Collins: weren't doing it. He seems to really explicitly be saying, you don't need to listen to the Levite cast, you don't need to do things through the temple anymore.
He was removing the cast. And not
Simone Collins: even like that was the original rule, because it never was. He was just saying, by the way, you don't need this.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, basically, by, well, the original rule, if you go to like the original rules that God laid out, it was definitely, yes, you have to follow the rules God laid out, but Yeah, but
Simone Collins: I mean, it was just the Ten Commandments, as long as you knew those.
Yeah, it was just the
Malcolm Collins: Ten Commandments, and then a tradition arose. You didn't have to go to someone
Simone Collins: else to have you tell, tell them, like, I mean, as long as, like, mom and dad told you.
Malcolm Collins: A hundred percent right. The, the rabbinic tradition was within one group of Jews within this period. But it was not like the dominant, there were many old Testament faiths during this period as we go over elsewhere in this tract.
And you are 100 percent correct in saying [01:45:00] that really all you had to follow was the original 10 commandments when the covenant was made and not all of the additional rules. Okay. And Jesus. was just you're creating a new covenant, which is written in our hearts. And within this new covenant that's written in our hearts.
It is up to us to determine stuff like what food is good to eat, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Me, and I agree with the Bible with my intuition that this is a superior covenant because it allows you to make moral judgments on your own and gives you the ability to make those moral judgments. Well, it's
Simone Collins: almost, I mean, to use sort of, Current contemporary terminology. It's like the doge of Christianity or at least like, Abrahamic religion and that Jesus was saying all this bureaucracy, all these extra layers, all this regulation.
Is not necessary and if you cut it out you might be better off. Let's all try to
Malcolm Collins: Well, no, I actually think it's more than that I mean the new covenant said that you now have the responsibility If you agree to it to make these decisions for yourself It is an additional [01:46:00] responsibility not a removal of responsibility to decide for yourself Whether something is good and righteous and in line with god's plan So if you look at jesus's words here you have so whatever you believe about the things Keep between yourself and God, blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves, but whomever has a doubt is condemned if they eat because they're eating is not from faith and everything that does not come from faith is sin.
Basically everything you have to do has to come from faith and you're responsible for making these decisions yourself.
Simone Collins: Okay. Interesting.
Malcolm Collins: Thoughts. Did you, did you know that he denies this three times in the Bible?
Because I've never actually read these sections that are supposed to be, and followers will say, Oh, this affirms that he's actually God's son. When he's like exactly saying I'm not, like I'm the son of man. And then they have to get around this with the Trinity and say, well, he's also the son of man. Well, then why did he say, I'm the son of man and the son of God?
He doesn't say that.
Simone Colins: It's just subsequent hyping. I get it. I was just watching this really long YouTube video on the history of animatronics. And they tried to, [01:47:00] Disney, Walt Disney wanted to make a very, very perfectly accurate Abraham Lincoln. And the big sell originally was the accuracy of this animatronic.
But in the end, they accentuated his cheekbones to make him look more distinctive. And they made him. Like, four inches taller. He was six foot four. I think they made the animatronic six foot eight because he needed to feel bigger. And they gave him a low, booming voice, even though it was understood that the historical Lincoln's voice was actually fairly shrill and kind of grating.
And I think this is the same kind of thing. It's very hard for us to have a revered figure and to not make them bigger than they were. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I agree. It is, it is very hard to do. And I think that that's, you know, part of what's going on here. And, and you know, some theological intensities that were created by some belief systems built up in some branches of the early church.
So, what about the Trinity? Let's start with how the modern concept of the Trinity started in the first place, because it's a little absurd. Basically, even though Jesus denies being God's literal son multiple times and [01:48:00] explains that God is in him in the same way he is in all believers, some branches of the early church, and I note here only some branches, tried to insinuate that Jesus was literally God's kid and thus a God himself.
This creates theological problems, because if Jesus is a God, Now you are clearly no longer a monotheistic religion, despite the Old Testament constantly warning against believing in multiple gods.
Now you could argue that Jesus is God, except it is made clear in the Bible on countless occasions that he is not, as he frequently beseeches God for things and prays to God. We don't have just, My Lord, why have you forsaken me? But we have John 17 3, where Jesus refers to the Father as the only true God, and to himself as the one, quote unquote, sent by God, or 14 28.
Quote, the father is greater than I, the Christian groups that had a polytheistic idea that despite what the Bible said, Jesus [01:49:00] was actually a God had to find a way around this contradiction. Tertullian. 1 55 to two 20. CE came up with the concept of the Trinity under the name Titas in 200 to 210 ce.
Simone Collins: It's funny because it's. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the Old Testament again and again is like, don't do this. Please stop.
Malcolm Collins: Can you,
Simone Collins: can
Malcolm Collins: you just
Simone Collins: not,
Malcolm Collins: can we, this is why a lot of the early Christian groups like the Ebonites and stuff like that didn't believe this. Which we'll get to in a second.
Haven't we been told something about, Oh, right. Don't, but what's interesting here is. I mentioned that Tertullian came up with the concept of the Trinity in Trinitas. What's interesting here is that Tertullian, when he originally came up with this concept, it was actually closer to the technopuritan perspective than the way Catholics later reinterpreted it.
Okay. For example, first off, he was a materialist, arguing for divine corporeality, that God literally existed as a spiritual, physical thing in the same way we do. [01:50:00] And he argued that the material thing within part one of the materials that made up Jesus and the Holy Spirit was also one of the materials that made up God.
And obviously we agree with this. So we agree with Tertullian because we agree with what the Bible said. And when the early Christians were grappling with this, they were like, okay, so then we have to go to the next thing, which is okay, well, then where did the Trinity really come from? The idea that Jesus was literally the same thing as God was not made up until the Council of Nicene in 325 CE, literally a third of a millennial after Jesus death, and was hotly debated at the time.
Keep in mind how crazy this idea is. Jews had the concept of the Holy Spirit for centuries without being tempted to think it was meaningfully separate from God. So how did the Holy Spirit get looped into this craziness? Well, since there was literally zero biblical backing for this concept, and it was true that there would need to be given how critical this was to the concept of God for Christians, i. e. [01:51:00] if this trinity concept was actually accurate, clearly God mentioned it somewhere. They need to pull the idea from somewhere. So the two best lines for pulling this are the baptismal formula for Matthew 28 19.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: Where it says quote baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in quote That's how the Holy Spirit got roped into this But again, that doesn't really say that they're all one thing. It says in the name of the things and the benediction in 2 quote the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all in quote Okay, definitely doesn't say they're all one thing but does mention them all at once. That's it. The entire policy istic concept of the Trinity is derived from just those two lines, which clearly to any level headed person do not indicate, say, or insinuate God is literally the same thing as Jesus. The other line sometimes used to argue that God is Jesus in Genesis were a plural us [01:52:00] used for God, but see track nine for a much more satisfying explanation to that.
All that said, technopuritan do believe in the Trinity, just not the one developed at the Council of Nicene. the Jesus you pray to and can reach God through is the part of God that lives in all true believing humans, as Jesus laid out.
The Jesus you pray to is a part of all believers actions and words that are directed towards the divine and eventually culminate in God, making them literally part of God. As for the Holy Spirit, that is a way of distinguishing God's will and identity as existing simultaneously as a singular entity and as a hive mind entity being both literally God, but meaningfully separated from the way we conceptualize identity.
Simone Collins: Oh, so trying to basically articulate that this is beyond our normal comprehension.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah.
Simone Collins: But not that it's these three distinct things, which is bringing it strictly back into our comprehension.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, he's singular, but he's also the Holy Spirit, [01:53:00] and he's also you which, you know, I think was really powerfully done with, with the original concept of the
Simone Collins: nuance is just ripped off by being like, no, no, no, it's Jesus, and then the dude God, which is his father, and then the Holy Spirit,
Malcolm Collins: by the way, side note here, another popular branch of Christianity that doesn't include the concept of the trinity are Mormons. They don't All right, good for them.
Simone Collins: I mean, everyone
Malcolm Collins: knows I love Mormons. You can get good if you're looking for like anti Trinity arguments for Mormon you know, apologies.
Hmm. So how was original Christianity actually different from original Judaism? Only in three meaningful ways. And by the way, I'd note to Jews here, I, I just pissed off Christians a bunch too. Like you think I'm just being heretical. You're
Simone Colins: just, yeah, yeah, it's fine.
Malcolm Collins: Okay, so the three ways that it was actually different from, from Judaism of its time is Jesus was the Messiah who was prophesied heavily in the Old Testament.
This seems to me at least self evident given how much he expanded the reach of the Jewish faith under the name of Christianity. Why would the Old Testament not have prophesied about that? Could any figure in human history [01:54:00] be a better candidate for the prophesied Messiah? We'll get into that in a bit in a second.
So I do believe that Jesus was the Messiah that was prophesied in the Old Testament. He created a new covenant that did not require the temple to fulfill. Coincidentally, only 40 years before the destruction of the temple, more on that later and he was sacrificed to create a new covenant that consolidated the rules mankind was expected to follow from a long list to essentially just dedicating your life to God.
Romans 14, 19, 23, did a good job of laying this out. Consider the old stranded Jewish food restrictions compared with this. And I'd also note, consider this line when contested with the mission line I led above to get an understanding of why I take Like, I'm really interested in the Christian text and not the Jewish text.
The Mishnah sounded like, I don't know, like I wasn't impressed with it, theologically speaking. Then I get to something like this and I'm like, ooh, that's impressive. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food.
All food is clean, but it is wrong for the person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. [01:55:00] It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall. So whatever you believe about these things, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves, but whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat because of their eating is not from faith and everything that does not come from faith is sin.
Basically lays out all the rules in one system. Don't do things that randomly impede your brothers and sisters, you know that hurt other people but also do not go against your conscience when you are doing something the rules around food existed for a reason If you believe that those rules are important hold them if you don't believe those rules are important don't hold them what matters is that we are doing our best to serve god's will and trying to interpret god's will through whether it's the restrictions God has laid out like what's their actual intention or through you know, trying to build a better relationship with God ourselves.
Simone Colins: Seems very reasonable. [01:56:00]
Malcolm Collins: And you also see why like that compared to the Mishnah, like just the difference in like theological quality. Which is why I, I go for, and people are like asking, like why do you go for the New Testament and don't go to this other work? It's, it's because I can get in, like originally it wasn't because I believed all of it.
It was just like, it was like, Juicier and also much cleaner, tighter, more compact didn't have to memorize as much,
And I should note here that this is actually saying quite a lot because when I came into all of this, I was leaning towards Judaism. , people can look at some of our older videos like raising our kids with Jewish traditions and stuff like that to make it easier. They wanted to convert into the religion as they got older, or me, as a young person, I always thought, oh, you know, , while I was raised atheist, if I converted into one religion, I always thought Judaism seemed the most reasonable.
It was actually. Studying the theology and the text themselves, which drove me away from it. , which I, again, I don't mean this as an insult to Jewish people. I think it's useful to get the perspective of an outsider who has actually put a lot of [01:57:00] personal focus into this. , that may help you see things through a different lens.
Malcolm Collins: So I was talking with Simone after we had originally recorded this and she had some really interesting thoughts
Simone Collins: I was musing to him that I've watched a lot of content delving into the lives of Mormons, and delving into the lives of Orthodox Jews. Like, I find the content of both really, really interesting, but for different reasons. So, I, I realized that I watch content about Mormons and Mormon lives because I'm interested in what they're doing, and I want to do it.
Like, I'm interested in building up a year's worth of food storage, and putting you know, raw grain into buckets, and sealing it, and figuring out which fats remain shelf stable the longest. And I find that quite, Fascinating. And I'm, I'm interested in that versus the, the reason why I watch the lives of Orthodox Jewish women is I'm just interested in how they live and I want to understand it, but I don't find it aspirational because so much of it, instead of feeling useful, like I get excited about prepping.
Cause I'm like, well, who knows? Like, you know, what [01:58:00] if, what if society falls apart? That would be so great. Or even, even in a disaster, it'll be nice to be prepared and I'll just feel so secure versus like, Oh here is, The, the wig shop that we're going to go to, and I'm going to explain, you know, how we fit wigs and, and why we wear wigs.
And I'm like, wait a second. So you're supposed to cover your hair during this period of your life. But you're doing it by putting on more hair and isn't the whole point to cover your hair because it's, you know, it's a beautiful thing. And, you know, you're not going to, you know, I mean, I know there's lots of different interpretations of the, I think it's Corinthians 11 about covering, you know, women should cover their hair.
Both in worship and in everyday life. But I think the idea, the principle, the, the, the spirit of the law would be that women's hair shouldn't be seen. So if I can't tell as an outsider that this orthodox Jewish woman is hiding her hair because her wig is so good and these wigs are beautiful, you've [01:59:00] completely ignored the spirit of the law.
And that, that I would never do that because one, it's a lot of work to To put on a wig and maintain a wig and choose a wig and buy a wig and it also costs a lot of money but two, if I'm going to cover my hair, I'm going to make sure that everyone knows that they can't see my hair.
Malcolm Collins: It just seems to be a privilege.
Would you say that it felt sort of counterfeit to you? Like it was Not
Simone Collins: counterfeit. I mean, it feels in its own way very extra, very It's own thing very, very aspirational, but it doesn't feel aspirational to me because it doesn't feel functional. It feels like a lot of extra work, a lot of extra steps. And in the end, not even doing the thing it was supposed to do.
And I find that very, very frustrating. And in the same way that I find it very frustrating to. Go through some government bureaucratic processes knowing that it's not going to work. Like, right now we need to get some, some documents at Bastille with the Peruvian consulate. And [02:00:00] I'm going through the process, I'm getting the lawyers to write this stuff up, I'm collecting the paperwork that I need to do.
I've already paid a lot of money to do this and spent a lot of time doing this. And I'm about 85 percent sure that when we show up at the consulate, they're going to be like, Mmm. We can't help you. And here's why and it just really, it feels so futile and I don't like any system that makes me feel like that.
Like I'm wasting my time. Like this is not going to do anything.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and I think that for people who aren't born within the Jewish tradition I think this really highlights the differentiation between the covenant that Jesus attempted to put in place and the covenant that the Jews still follow as God.
And to the average outsider, the old covenants understanding is going to appear somewhat contrived, like a fridge that doesn't have a light on it because you know, turning it off and on is work on the Sabbath, but you still want to be able to open the fridge. I just this morning saw a Reddit post at the top of my feed on sheitels, the thing that Simone was talking about, and people complaining about them.
And so this was one of the most [02:01:00] upvoted comments on there, which I think is the average non Orthodox Jews interpretation of Orthodox Judaism saying, quote, I swear every time I hear about a new tradition in Judaism, they seem like creating loopholes to avoid obeying God's will. 90 percent of them seem right out of Wile E.
Coyote, a mile long fishing line connecting all the houses in New York. And I think to a Jew like this wouldn't be confusing at all. They'd be like, well, of course you would put that up there because you know, you need to differentiate between the indoor and outdoor and domestic and public spaces and it would be basically impossible to live without this in a city like Manhattan.
But to a non Jew, they're like, what do you think? Maybe God just want you to take a day off. Like, and I'd also note here that this really aligns with the prophesied second covenant where the laws are written on your heart, so you are no longer required to listen to or have a rabbi or human authority interpret the laws, but you are responsible for interpreting the laws yourself because they are written within [02:02:00] you, and you know when you are breaking them versus when you are not.
As they relate to you specifically. And this also, to me, is one of these things where I look with less favor on things like the Catholic tradition or the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition. Because it seems like they just rebuilt the Jewish system of having like an intellectual caste that's supposed to interpret everything for you instead of making, you know, being responsible for those decisions yourself.
Important for me, personally, to reinforce that Judaism is a path to God and how I'm putting this together. Because while it is critical of Judaism, I still need to say, you know, I, I do not think it is helpful to have the religion say, well, all of these religions are strictly wrong.
Simone Collins: Oh, I hear that. Well, maybe you could do a little more in favor of Judaism, because I'm not hearing a whole lot. I'm hearing,
Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I want to say that I think this system is superior. I, I do think it's superior, but that doesn't mean that Jews aren't right with God.
Simone Collins: Well, yeah, I mean I think sort of the way that [02:03:00] I'm categorizing Judaism in my head at this point, based on everything that you've said, and based on what other people have told us too, is Judaism is just a very different cultural take that really is, it's like, you know what, we are going to be all about this blockchain of rules that evolves, and it evolves within our community, and those rules are kind of independent of it.
God and that there's a clear precedent for that and We very much respect God, but our key bet in terms of civilization surviving is that we're going to do our rules. So God, you do what you do and we're going to do what we do. And our rules are our own thing. They're not about God. They're about The point is the rules.
It's like, but you forgot about the cones. You forgot, you're right, it is, you forgot, it was all about the rules. It was all about the cones and the rules.
What's so funny? Oh, no, no, [02:04:00] no. You're a smart guy. Clearly picked up some flashy tricks, but you made one crucial mistake. You forgot about the essence of the game. It's about the cones.
Simone Collins: And it, they, I think that the important thing for me is I'm starting to see it's almost like, like a workout regimen or, or their health.
Like this is what keeps us sharp. This is what makes us exceptional. Yes. And it clearly, when you've looked at how we've done over, thousands of years. Clearly it's working for us. It's clearly imparting fitness. And this whole time we have still done well by God. We have still done well. And so let us do our rules.
And we will we will do well by you god and and our rules
Malcolm Collins: They've objectively sometimes done well by god. So by this what I mean is it appears clear to me and it's laid out in the bible. We know that god does punish the jewish people when they are not or his people. Whatever that means so People when they are not acting good with him We [02:05:00] know this because of like, you know, when they're the babylonian exile, right?
The bible makes it pretty clear like okay, you get punished as a people when you do bad things. Well, I mean The pogroms happened, the holocaust happened I think as No, no, no, any
Simone Collins: group of people gets punished by circumstances when they go soft, and sometimes No, no, no, but what I
Malcolm Collins: mean is as favored as the Jews are today, and they do appear to be clearly divinely favored, and the rules appear to be working, there were periods of history where the opposite was true.
Simone Collins: Yeah, I'm just saying, like, the key bet of Judaism is the blockchain of rules and the meritocratic intellectualism and that is that should be seen and respected independent. Of theocratic truth. Like they are two separate, sometimes even somewhat incompatible systems, but they should not be considered.
It's kind of like, this is your financial management system and this is your nutrition system. And I don't know, like you use [02:06:00] money to buy food, but like, they're not really related. And, and, you know, your financial manager is not going to be the one who advises you on how to eat. Okay. Like let them be. And I think that's, what's going on here.
Malcolm Collins: I think you're right. And I love you to decimum.
Simone Collins: I love you too, gorgeous.
Malcolm Collins: But to continue why are these tracks so long? The reason they're so long is because if I am laying out an argument here where I'm like, actually Christianity should be thought of as a direct continuation and a not a less deserving direct continuation of the ancestral Jewish teachings. Then modern Judaism, there are going to be a hundred thousand counter arguments that a person is going to have to that, and I don't want to address in piecemeal, because then the person watches the first video, they put the counter argument right under the video.
You know, I, I prefer to handle them all together for anybody who actually wants to engage with a topic like this. Fair. I mean, it's a, it's a meaningful topic you know, from any religious perspective. And I would note here that this is not the pure technopuritan law of the land that [02:07:00] we're laying out here.
This is our part of the technopuritan tradition to be within the broader technopuritan tradition. You can be a technopuritan Catholic. You can be a technopuritan Jew. You can have wildly different beliefs than we do. You can take some of these tracks and not others of these tracks as you decide which ones you think have the most evidence.
The key things that make a person a technopuritan, is that they attempt to investigate what is actually written in the text. Two, they when they're arguing for what is theologically true, they attempt to use logic and they attempt to. Convince people with things that everyone has access to. IE no personal revelations, no, God just talked to me.
No miracles that nobody saw. Everyone has to have access to this. Like I can say, I think that this religion is sanctified because it did so well or because this guy wrote this down and this predicted these events in the future. Those are things that I have access to and you have access to and, and can't be easily faked.
And then the final thing is, and I, and I know that this will exclude a lot of traditional [02:08:00] frameworks, is the belief that God is a real entity that actually exists at a different point in time. Mm-hmm. And this is one that Simone and I debated on adding as part of the criteria and saying that you're actually part of the tech community.
But I, I, I do think that, that that is just so core to our worldview, and that's the first differentiating belief we came up with.
Simone Collins: That's it. That's it. It's always been like, that's the core thing.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So it, everything I'm saying right here is not like. Canon technopuritan this is just, it's more like this is a way you should engage with your religious teachings.
IE look at history sources, look at what's actually written, think through it, debate, you know, somebody was like, well, what does it mean to be like a, a technopuritan like minister or something like that. I'm like engaging in the debate from the perspective of your tradition. Yeah. But anyway so Jews, if, if they've heard everything I've written here, they'll say something like, well, God, when he handed down the law, he said, and it is written that he said this in religious text, that you and I share that at no point in the future would anything be taken out of the law if this is accurate.[02:09:00]
And in the Old Testament, that is a major problem for the idea that Jesus created a new covenant. So let's examine those passages. Deuteronomy four, two. You should not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it that you may keep the commandments of Lord God, that I command you. Deuteronomy 13, one.
In some translations it's 1232. Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it. First of all, in both of these instances, it states very clearly that adding rules is just as problematic as taking them away. Jews have consistently added rules while glossing over this point saying, oh, we're just putting fences around the Torah.
In what conceivable way is that not adding rules?
Simone Collins: Yeah, that's
Malcolm Collins: me.
Simone Collins: Adding rules.
Malcolm Collins: Yes, adding rules.
Simone Collins: If someone's like, add nothing to this property and they're like, we just added a fence,
Malcolm Collins: you'd still
Simone Collins: be like,
Malcolm Collins: mm, you property. That's, that's a rule, [02:10:00] but it's a fence. But a rule, you're just using a synonym. Yeah.
It's something that you're not supposed to pass. Yeah. It's not me you have to answer to on this point, but God, would you really stand before God was the argument that putting up fences isn't adding rules? Modern Judaism with all its added rules is just as invalidated by these two passages as Christianity is for its consolidation and rationalization of rules. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But we don't need to worry in either case because we know from the Bible in no uncertain terms, that rules will be added and taken away. So the above two passages cannot mean what they appear to mean at faiths value. Okay. So here I'm saying, look, Jews are breaking this just as much as Christians are. Yeah. 'cause the first line is you can't take anything away. The second line is you can't add anything. Yeah.
And so it's a major problem for both religions if it actually means what it appears to faiths value. But we know it doesn't mean that because there are other parts of the Bible that we've already gone over here where God's like, oh [02:11:00] yeah, I'm gonna give you a new covenant in the future. It's gonna be different rules.
So we know that new rules will be added. So that's obviously not what it means. Hmm. So, Jeremiah states, behold the days are coming, declares the Lord when I will make a new covenant. Who's the house of Israel and the house of Judah? Not like the covenant I made with the fathers on the day when I took them by the hand outta the land of Egypt.
My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord for this. At the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days declares the Lord, I will put my law within them. I will write within their hearts and I will be their God and they will be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and his brother saying, no thy Lord, for they will all know me from the of them to the greatest.
Declares the Lord for I will forgive their inequity and I will remember their sin is no more. Whether the new covenant referenced here is the one made through Jesus or not, is not relevant. Hmm. Jeremiah comes after Deuteronomy and makes it clear that rules will be taken away and added.
It also clarifies something very [02:12:00] unfortunate for modern Jewish theology which would argue that the covenant created at Sinai was quote, written within the Jewish people, allowing it to be passed on through matrilineal descent. The passage by contrasting the covenant to come with the one at Sinai shows that in no uncertain terms, the Sinai Covenant was not written within the Jews.
Remember is saying that this new covenant is gonna be written in your heart, like it's gonna be written onto you. Mm-hmm. Which implies that the old covenant was not written onto you, meaning you can't pass any part of it down through the bloodline. So big problem there again, for the, the matrilineal sensing.
So if those lines don't mean what they appear to mean at first glance, what do they actually mean? Deuteronomy 13, one, everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take away from it. Importantly, this verse is followed by chapter thirteens warnings about false prophets and those who might lead people to worship other gods.
So the don't add or take [02:13:00] away command sits between instructions about proper worship and warnings about false worship. This context suggests that the command is specifically related to those. Rather than being a general statement about never modifying religious law.
Chapter 12 starts with the commands to. Destroy other nations felicis of worship, not worship God in the way other nations worship their gods. Only worship at a designated place later understood as a temple. Follow specific rules about sacrifices and meat consumption. Hmm. Then comes the don't add or subtract warning immediately after chapter 13, warns about false prophets who might encourage worship of other Gods family members who might secretly promote other religions, entire towns that might turn to other gods.
This sequence suggests the warning is specifically about not adding foreign religious practices to the worship system. IE like the concept of heaven and hell on this see the previous track not removing elements of proper worship as prescribed, maintaining the [02:14:00] purity of the centralized worship system.
It's like saying. Here's how worship should work. Don't copy other nation's practices. Don't add, and don't skip parts of your system. Don't subtract. This is different from the blanket statement about never modifying any religious laws. The context is specifically about maintaining proper worship practices without influence from surrounding nations.
It's about religious purity rather than legal immutability. Now, let's examine Deuteronomy for two. You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take away from it that you may keep the commandments of the Lord God that I command you. And I note in both of these instances, both add and subtracted there.
It's not like the ad is just in one of the two. Mm-hmm. Deuteronomy four opens Was Moses addressing Israel? The sequence is verse one. Now, oh, Israel. Listen to the statutes and rules that I'm teaching you. Verse two, our don't add a subtract verse. Verse three through four immediately gives an example about Baal Peor, who those who followed Baal were destroyed, and those who stayed with God lived.
[02:15:00] Verses five six, Moses explains He's teaching them statutes and rules and emphasizes how these laws will show their wisdom to other nations. Verses nine through 14 reminds them about receiving the law of Horeb Mount Sinai, emphasizing they saw no form of God only heard his voice. The rest of the chapter continues with warnings about making idols, warnings about being exiled.
If they make images of God's reminders, they alone. Received these laws. Okay. The context suggests this warning is specifically connected to not adding idol worship or visible representations of God. Mm-hmm. Not removing elements of proper worship that distinguish them from other nations. Like the Deuteronomy 13 passage, it appears more focused on maintaining proper worship and avoiding idolatry than about preventing any future legal interpretation or modification.
The warning comes in a section specifically about avoiding the religious practices of other nations. Given that it seems laser focused and it's all about idolatry here, it's not making carved images, not worshiping celestial bodies, not forgetting the [02:16:00] covenant. By making idols and not following other nation's worship practices.
Given this laser focus on idolatry in the surrounding texts, it's a reasonable interpretation that the don't add or subtract. Warning could be specifically about idolatry rules rather than a blanket statement about religious law. Finally, we have Proverbs 30 60. Do not add to his words lest he rebuke you. and you will be found a liar. This in context is not about rules, but about words specifically not changing the text. Mm-hmm. I wanna note here how much I dislike the standard Christian non-response to this particular question.
Mm-hmm. Rather than actually addressing it in context, they simply say, well, Jesus fulfilled the law. He didn't change it. This is as nitpicky as Jews saying, rabbis are not adding rules, they're just putting up fences. We need to address these texts directly and stop dodging the issue. This kind of evasion makes each faiths look like an outfit you're wearing rather than something you're intellectually invested was actually being true.
Hmm.
Movie Clip Joke: But sometimes we want to believe in something [02:17:00] so much that we willingly deceive ourselves.
I mean, I know I've been guilty of that in the past. I wanted to sign so badly that it drove me to distraction because it is the question we all want the answer to, isn't it? I mean, does God exist? I mean, does he exist?
Does he?
How's your whole world built in a lie? Peter.
Peter? Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Because I, I see this so much. When I, when I talk to people of specific faiths and I engage them with stuff and I'm like, if you actually believed this, you wouldn't be making that argument. Like, that's such a limp handed argument that shows that like, you came to this, you didn't have an immediate answer, so you threw out, ah, he fulfilled it.
Well, that doesn't change if, if the original interpretation that it actually means you can't add or remove is accurate. And why are you so comfortable just throwing that out there and then walking away from it? [02:18:00] Hmm. And I think that that's another thing that makes technopuritanism different is we wanna really engage with this stuff.
Thought Simone,
Simone Collins: I agree. I, I'm like hearing all these different Bible verses, it's do you ever find yourself kind of writing some things off? Because Bible say the different lines and different books of the Bible say conflicting things. I mean, you used order of books at one point as justification for something being overwritten, but were they really meant to be treated chronologically?
Malcolm Collins: Well, not overwritten. I mean, of course they were. So what, what they would say is the rules that were handed down at Sinai. That those rules will never be added to or removed from. And, and yet the, the time when God tells us, actually, I'm gonna have a second covenant with you. He told us that after Sinai, if he had told us that before Sinai, you could have said, actually Sinai was the second set of, or the second covenant.
And, and so it meant that you couldn't change the order after that. That's why the order is important. Mm-hmm. And as I dive into religious texts I [02:19:00] find that they don't actually conflict each other as much as I was originally led to believe. Wow. Okay. By skeptics. And we may even do a track where we just go over places where people say the Bible contradicts itself.
I like that.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Because I'm, I'm still doubtful, even though you can say that, I'm still doubtful.
Malcolm Collins: As soon as you take a technopuritan perspective a lot of the. Potential areas of contradiction just clear themselves up really clearly. Mm-hmm. EE even already, like the issues about the two afterlife, I'm like, okay, but if you take it this way, then you don't have to deal with that problem.
Mm-hmm. The Old Testament makes it pretty clear that most Jews now and at the time believed that the Messiah would be a man and not a partially divine being. Mm-hmm. For me, one of the biggest confirmations written in a history of his status as the true Messiah is how his life is mirrored in the life of a false Messiah.
Sabbatai Zevi loudly claimed to be the Messiah with a message that can be almost thought of as an inversion of Jesus'. Where Jesus argued for a [02:20:00] consolidation of the rules around the purpose that they were meant to achieve. Sabbatai Zevi had an antinomian message. This is the idea that in the Messianic age, religious prohibitions would be inverted.
This led to followers engaging in religiously forbidden acts, including sexual transgressions, and violating dietary laws. Historians estimate that around 30% to 50% of Jews gloBaaly believed him to be the Messiah. And this guy was around in the 16 hundreds. However, when he was put on trial and claiming to be the Messiah would've gotten him tortured and killed, that was the one time in his life he would not call himself the Messiah. He ended up converting to Islam and living a long life of luxury and shame converting to Islam. Wow. Okay. Converting to Islam.
Yeah. So, so I I, Jesus on the other hand, only once in the Bible concretely confirms that he is a messiah, and that is when he is on trial, when confirming it would've led to his torture and execution. Oh, interesting. Jesus [02:21:00] did not claim to be the Messiah except when he knew it would get him killed. Hmm.
And yet he was proven right. His life did transform Judaism into a worldwide religion. In the form of Christianity. So here I would note a few really important things before I go further in this. Jews understood the Messiah, and I think the Messiah, as he's written in the Old Testament, is very clearly a, a man, which is the way that we or our branch of technopuritanism, relates to Jesus.
I think that he as we've argued, did not claim to be literally the Son of God. He claimed to be he, he said that he had God in him and other humans had God in them. And, and when he called himself the Son of God, that that's all throughout the Old Testament, like people who are set apart by God are called the Son of God.
Like, that's not like a, a unique, doesn't mean that he literally impregnated her mother. And God helped with other pregnancies as well. You know, famously and if he was the son of God that invalidates him as the Messiah because he is not from the Davidic line anymore, and the Messiah has to come from the Davidic line through his father.
So [02:22:00] problem there, but I'd also note here, I just find it so interesting that we have this other figure in history that that's, that's so important to the history of Judaism. Because he really transformed Judaism making Jews much more hesitant about like Messiahs or like mass following of potential Messiahs in the future.
And Messianic cults within Judaism. So he, he is an important figure, but he's literally a direct inversion Zevi versus Jesus Zevi inverted the rules. Jesus said, live for God. Act on your conscience. Zevi was widely hailed as the Messiah by Jews. Jesus widely hated for what he taught.
Zevi were royal garments. Even crowning himself, Jesus lived in poverty and wore a crown of thorns. Zey expected to be treated like royalty. Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. So Zey went around talking to kings and queens and like demanding that they use royal titles for him again. He actually had, had a crown made for him himself.
Almost like I, I think supernaturally an inversion of Jesus' life. Yeah. Ze [02:23:00] married multiple times, regularly claimed to be the Messiah when it would benefit him. Jesus celibate never claimed to be the Messiah, except when doing so, would've gotten him executed. And again, you could see elsewhere in this track where we argue against other places where Jesus say that he was arguing to be a messiah and we're like, no, he wasn't.
Yeah. Zevi converted to Islam. When his espouse beliefs would put him in danger. Jesus repeatedly refused to deny his espoused beliefs eventually leading to his death. Zevi died of old a age in luxury. Jesus died painfully for his beliefs. Zevi, born to wealthy merchants and well educated Jesus.
Born to humble circumstances. Ze attracted scholars, rabbis, and wealthy merchants as key followers. Jesus , selected disciples from common people, especially from fishermen and tax collectors. Zevi communicated through complex kabbalistic concepts and mystical doctrines. Jesus taught through parables.
And public sermons accessible to the common people, , do you have any thoughts on zevi [02:24:00] or like this, this weird parallel?
Simone Collins: Yeah, you in an earlier track. I think it's something about how if you are a prophet of God, communicating a message, message.
Oh, that's a track we haven't
Malcolm Collins: done yet. It's, it's one that I wrote was the original. I originally wrote a flurry of tracks and some of them haven't been published.
Simone Collins: Okay. But that you are punished if you claim to be a prophet of God, even if you really are one. And now I'm like, well this, well that track was never,
Malcolm Collins: so it's not out there you are you taking it back?
Yeah, I, I, I did more. Well, this is the interesting thing. So before I do attract I do a lot of research with other real, like I'll talk with rabbis, I'll talk with Catholics, I'll talk with Mormons. This stuff is not happening outside of a bubble. Like, there's like a tech to Puritan community that has these, there talks with me, debates with me.
And many of them are approaching faith from different traditions. And it's through those conversations that I learn more and get better. And I think that that's something I want this faiths to be able to continue to do. Mm-hmm. [02:25:00] That's why I don't say like, any of this is handed down from God to me or something like that, or is like canon.
All this is, is one person logically trying to read texts that I think were divinely inspired to understand what they really meant was the understanding that other people might be able to do that better than me. Yeah. I can't claim I Trump you because I'm the founder of this. That's, that's not the way this works.
I, I am not. Divinely. I mean, I guess if, if I was, then I couldn't even claim credit for this, right? It wouldn't be me being clever. It would be the somebody acting through. I prefer to be clever than to claim divine inspiration. But anyway, anyway so, but it didn't get, it didn't get made into the tracks.
Who knows? Divine Providence, that one never got made. Okay. But and I think that that one was back when I didn't know how little the Christian texts contradicted our own beliefs which I was really surprised about. But there is more evidence. He is the Messiah, and this is the big one, the most important event [02:26:00] in Jewish history that broke their ability to uphold most of their covenant with God was the destruction of the temple.
Hmm. Now. Do you think God is foolish? Do you think he would've given the Jewish people a covenant told them you can't add or subtract anything from it in their, in their interpretation that they had no way to fulfill? Now, he almost certainly would've amended the covenant or created a new covenant before the temple fell.
Mm-hmm. When did Jesus die? Only 40 years before the temple fell and his teachings centered around a new covenant with God that did not require the temple. That was by far the most radical break from traditional Judaism that Jesus preached. Now, no. I'll note that, that more modern Christians have added a bunch of other weird stuff that differentiates it from Judaism more as we've argued in this traction.
But initially. Really all Jesus was saying is we need a way to relate to God that doesn't involve the temple and this priest cast and this hierarchy. You know, like maybe the law needs to be written on our hearts. Mm-hmm. I don't know where I might have [02:27:00] read that before. Sorry. That's the second covenant is prophesized.
What are the odds that a branch of Judaism would end up spreading over the entire world? And the man who founded that branch made modifications to traditional Jewish teachings. So the temple was no longer required to stay in God's good graces. And this man died within a lifetime of the temple's destruction.
No, really? What are the actual odds? I could see Jews dismissing Jesus as a random cult offshoot of their religion. But when that offshoots core message was, this is how you make Judaism work without a temple, and it emerged immediately before the temple's destruction, the, that's more coincident than I could ignore.
Simone Collins: I hear. I can also understand though. Why in general, Jews would doubt one. I mean, it, it's hard for word to get around, you know? I'm sure news of Jesus was very lumpy, especially during his lifetime, and he was one of many apocalyptic Jews. So how were they to know which one was legitimate and which one was not?
I feel like [02:28:00] Jesus really only picked up with his apostles proselytizing after his death.
Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah. I would have, if I was a Jew within the lifetime of Christ, I do not think I would've thought that he was a Messiah. Yeah. But if I was a Jew, a few, like, like within modern times, like even just me at the logical person I don't know if I could get around that particular logical contradiction.
Hmm. That God literally didn't know that the temple was going to be destroyed. That he didn't give his people a new covenant. And that that new covenant's veracity wasn't confirmed by the speed at which it spread and the thriving of the communities it spread within.
Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah. I don't know. I don't.
No one looks at the Bible like you do. No one's looking at this stuff so carefully, but
Malcolm Collins: Jesus said, I, I come to create a new covenant. Like the, he, he, that's what he, he didn't say I died to the truth, but like so
Simone Collins: many apocalyptic Jews said, that is, is my concern.
Malcolm Collins: I don't, not, I, I, again, I don't know. I, I don't know.
And I think that [02:29:00] sometimes you know, people who do bad things are used. Their, their life is sort of used by like a paintbrush by God to tell us things about the world. Hmm. And so even if Jesus did do bad things, or he wasn't this person, or he was just another random apocalyptic Jew he is shown to be correct in the same way God showed the Jews to be correct by showing their beliefs favor because they were closer to the truth.
So even if Jesus was just a crazy person, okay, just hearing voices, he still served the role within prophecy of the Messiah through the way that his message changed the world and his messages, authenticity was verified through its ability to spread and the effects it had on the communities it spread within.
Mm-hmm. So even if you take this completely, Jesus was never actually talking to God. He was just a crazy person. And then God decided to uplift his message because it was closer to true than the other. Message is fine, maybe. But I do not [02:30:00] see how you couldn't see, if you look at the prophecies around the Messiah, that you wouldn't be like, this is obviously a really good candidate for it, which is something I didn't know when I originally was a Christian.
For clarification. What I mean by this is that while I was raised an atheist, I went to church every week because of my school,
Malcolm Collins: like I hadn't really thought through that before. And, and even if you're like, logically working this out, okay, here's this thought experiment. In the Bible, God makes it clear that he will create a covenant with the Jews after the covenant on Sinai, a new covenant, see Jeremiah. Okay. Assume that covenant was offered and you just missed it.
What a
Simone Collins: quick question though. What, what did Jews in general say about that? That the new covenant will come or they're just like, no, it hasn't come yet. And we're sure because of reason agency, they already
Malcolm Collins: living. Some Jews say they're already living in it. Some Jews say it hasn't come yet.
Simone Collins: So the new covenant they're arguing is through the evolution of debate and rulemaking of the almo.
No, no, some,
Malcolm Collins: sorry. Fringe Jews say they're living under it. The mainstream rabbinic [02:31:00] position within like the Habad community or the Haredi community is that it has not come yet. Oh. And that it comes with the Messianic era. Hmm. Okay. Even though, even though it doesn't say it comes with the Messianic era or the Messiah with the one who initiates it.
The Messianic era, we'd say, well, the Messiah did come and he initiated it, but Okay. Here's this. So, so if we go back to this thought experiment, okay. Okay. Yes. We're told there's gonna be a new covenant. Now assume that Covenant was offered and you just missed it. If you could pinpoint any moment in all of Jewish history that would've been logical for God to have given Jews a new covenant, when would it be?
Right before the destruction of the temple. Right. If the Old Testament is actually divinely inspired, eventually it is meant for everyone, right? The debate would just be whether that has already happened or whether that's going to happen in the future. Mm-hmm. IE if, if this is a divinely inspired work, it's clearly eventually meant for all [02:32:00] humans.
And even most Jews believe that, like, eventually this stuff applies to all humans in the Messianic age or in Uhhuh, you know, the next age. I, I, I don't see like the one God of all reality only cares about one population. That seems to me completely implausible. So that would mean that, okay, eventually these rules are gonna apply to everyone.
The question is, is and, and, and will with the new Covenant. The question is, is does that happen now or in the future? And I'll note here the New Covenant, because it says, oh, this new covenant will be for the Judean or the Jewish people. We'll talk about this. I think that given the way that Jews understood themselves during this time period, as I've said, like anyone could become one of the Jewish people that meant that like anyone who follows the faith, any of the faithful, which would, could apply to everyone, because again, I don't see a divine God of all reality only caring about one population.
Hmm. So right now what I'm pointing out is logically, if you had missed the new covenant. It would've happened right before the destruction of the temple. Now, suppose you don't believe Jesus was a [02:33:00] Messiah and we're in an alternate timeline where a Messiah had come during that period to bring a new covenant that didn't require the temple.
Do you think all Jews would've believed it? Of course not. What does the Old Testament say about this? Isaiah 53, 3 says, quote, he was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering and familiar with pain, like one whom people hide their faithss. He was despised and we held him in low esteem in quote, Hmm.
That's what the Jewish text say. The Messiah is gonna be treated like. Further in the same chapter, Isaiah 53, 7 through eight states, he was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before its shearers is silent.
. So he did not open his mouth by oppression and judgment, he was taken away. \ plasm 1 18 22 is another passage off incited. The stone that the builders rejected has [02:34:00] become the cornerstone. So he'd be rejected by his people.
Mm-hmm. In Daniel 9 26, there is a reference that some interpret as for telling the Messiah's rejection, the anointed one will be put to death and will have nothing. Then Zacharia 1210 contains the line. They look on me, they, when they have pierced, they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child.
And here I will note that the majority of Jewish people not accepting the Messiah, I do not think with a mistake that God made or something I actually think they are not supposed to. The covenant was created through the sacrifice that Christ made is an alternate covenant, not a replacement for the original one that the Jews had access to.
Mm-hmm. I don't think it's against God's will to continue follow the first covenant more on this later. So basically here what I'm saying is, okay, so I. God's Okay. Was this initial covenant, right? The destruction of the temple makes it harder. Judaism has to reform. It's the way it relates to God [02:35:00] after that.
But I think that all of that's actually okay. All of that was part of God's plan. I mean, it happened, and it's pretty clear that God has some degree of favoritism for the modern Jewish people. If you look at you know, Jewish exceptionalism this is, you know, this scoring higher, making more money, having more political power, Israel sort of being a focus of, of the world stage, having a country that's a higher fertility rate country and yet wealthy being the only country on earth like that, like God still clearly favors the Jewish people.
I do not think that they are currently in rebellion to God. So for me what that means is the old covenant must still be in operation. And what Jesus truly allowed was for a new past to God, for a new covenant, for people not born into that community.
Simone Collins: okay. Hmm. Yeah,
Malcolm Collins: that
Simone Collins: makes
Malcolm Collins: sense. Now I mentioned this above, but this is really important.
What about the problem that the Old Testament is constantly talking about? The Jews specifically? Mm-hmm. Surely this causes problems for this interpretation? Not really. We know from cases like Ruth, that anyone who fully dedicates themselves to the correct [02:36:00] version of the Old Testament faith and its people is considered to be one of the above people.
This means any Christian. That fully dedicates themselves to the cause of Christianity would be one of the people being referred to as Jewish in the prophecies. When I look at the early Christians voluntarily going to the Lions, it is hard to argue that they were not at least as dedicated to their iteration of the old faith as Ruth was, if not significantly more so, thus, to consider them non-Jews, if Christ really was the Messiah is extremely unpersuasive and requires a modern understanding of Jewish identity rather than the one that was around when the Bible was written.
Hmm. So when it talks about the new covenant being for the people of Judea, it's talking for them in the same way that Ruth became one of the people of Judea by living her life for this Old Testament phase.
Simone Collins: Interesting.
Malcolm Collins: Any thoughts?
Simone Collins: I, I guess I'd never. [02:37:00] And that helps to explain a little bit the, the differential treatment of, of Jews versus movies. What differential
Malcolm Collins: treatment?
Simone Collins: Weren't you just saying that Jews are sort of allowed to continue with the old covenant, but that are Well, I'll, I'll make
Malcolm Collins: some notes here. I think that when, so remember, I, I sort of judge God's will within a community by whether that community is, is, is thriving or being punished.
Yeah. And within the Jewish traditionist understand that, that God relates to them in that way as well. So if I look at the period after the destruction of the second temple, I. It seems pretty clear that God was not happy with the Jewish people after that period. And he seemed to show a lot more favoritism to the Christian communities, which means to me when I'm looking to which faith was more accurate or more closely aligned with a real understanding of God during that period.
Yeah. I would say was likely the Christian faith. And then Jews must have done something to really piss off the God. And when they started [02:38:00] accepting all this kabbalistic stuff. Mm-hmm. And this is where you get things like the Holocaust. Like if Jews accept that like the Babylonian exile was because God was mad at them, God must have been like really, really mad at them.
Before this because of something leading up to the Holocaust. It's an interesting take. Yikes. If you look at what happened after the Holocaust, how did they regain God's favor if the faith that they're following post Holocaust looks a lot like the faith they were following immediately before the Holocaust?
My answer to that is God's favor goes to whoever is following him most closely, was their current practices. I think that the Christian practices of stuff like sin transference to the Messiah and, and idolatry you see in a lot of Christian churches today things like prosperity, but gospel in the Protestant traditions, where they like basically worship money.
That all of these things were further from even that. Kabbalistic style Judaism as a true interpretation of God. And so I think it wasn't that the Jewish [02:39:00] tradition improved, I think it's that most Christian traditions just became even more corrupted. You know, whether it's the PDA file scandals in the Catholic church, covering those up, just true evil allowed to enter so many segments of the other true faith that they moved away from God.
And I think that that's how the Jewish people came back into favor. Hmm. I would also interesting note here that if you're a Jew and you believe that like the, the Babylonian exile was a punishment that God does punish the, the destruction of the second temple was a punishment. You need to look for the other things you were being punished for in different periods of Jewish history.
And I feel like during those periods of tribulation, Jews focus an awful lot on the punishment and they're like, what are we doing wrong? How can we improve? But after the punishment has happened, I see very little reflection on, okay, but really what had entered our faith that was bad during this time period that led to our punishment.
Simone Collins: Well, what I like about this approach too is this makes a lot more sense to me in the context of the way that we view [02:40:00] God, which is the inevitable God, what humans eventually become in the far future. Yeah. Because there is not really a right or wrong answer.
There are actions that are more likely to bring about the future that must come. And you can have multiple groups doing things that are optimal in their contexts. So there's not exactly only one correct approach to take depending on the people and depending on the context, in fact, the correct approach for one group in one geographic area at one time may be very, very different from another group in a different geographic area at a different time.
So the fact that one group could be doing the right thing and another group could be doing the right thing, and both of them are doing very different things makes sense. But that also there can be times when a group is totally going in the wrong direction and the best way for them to tell whether that's the case isn't the words of prophets or priests or people who say that they speak directly with God.
It is to look at the outcome of those people.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I completely agree with you. So to continue [02:41:00] here now why do I go on all these lengthy explanations? Because once all these points are taken in context, we can better understand why Jews adopted matrilineal descent as a key part of Jewish identity.
Basically, multiple equally valid branches of the Old Testament religion were competing and trying to convert people. Then one of them, Christianity, I would argue due to divine favor, actually succeeded in what all the others were trying to do. Mm-hmm. This significant problem for all the other branches of Judaism, if they continue trying to convert people, their members would inevitably start saying of the various branches.
One of them seems to be very obviously out-competing the others Hmm. Might that be a sign of divine favor? Even worse would be the thought lingering in the back of many minds that this was the rabbi who when questioned, said he was the Messiah and was crucified for it.
That's a bold conviction of I've ever seen one. So what do you do [02:42:00] to hide that one version of Judaism seems to have divine favor in its proselytization efforts. Mm-hmm. Well, you stop your own proselytization efforts more than that. You attempt to scrub your tradition of any knowledge that such efforts ever existed.
Yes. In fact in fact Jews are in ethno religion and always have been in Christianity. You see, it's a totally different thing and nothing like Judaism. You see, we have all these traditions. Christians don't, uh uh, okay. What, what traditions are those? Hey, you know all that local canaanite folk, magic me-maw used to practice?
Can we ha have someone start collecting all that in one place? That's something that makes us different from Christians. Yes. Yes. I mean, all those folk traditions are old, but we never included them in the Old Testament or any other religious work precisely because they were canaanite origin.
Otherwise, if they had antiquity, we obviously would've recorded them.
Movie Clip Joke: I will stop being an actress. When the earth stops spinning on Kabbalah [02:43:00] monster's fingernail,
Malcolm Collins: as two brief asides here. First, I don't think any of this withintentional. I think the iterations of Judaism that focused on proselytization just did not replicate at the same rate in a Christian world as those focus inwards on community and identity.
Mm-hmm. I also think Kabbalism developed in this way. I am telling the story this way to be funny and to tease the perspective that kabbalistic ideas were common and fully fleshed out all the way back in the second temple period. In reality, I think what happened was rabbis just collected a lot of religious ideas that were popular at the time, within intellectual and philosophical circles, and we will go into the receipts that that's what they did.
But I need to point out the counterfactual of the implications implied by Kabbalism actually having antiquity to it. So here what I'm saying is a lot of the times when I say Kabbalism is actually fairly modern. And it's really sort of pop mysticism from the medieval period, and Jews are like, no all of these traditions are actually super old and we're always practiced alongside all the other traditions.
We [02:44:00] just didn't write it down. I'm like, that's a, like a way more heretical take because now you need to ask the question, why wasn't anyone writing these traditions down? Because we know from the Jewish Bible that there were actually other traditions being practiced alongside the Jewish traditions that Jews and Christians went a long way to try to take out of their traditions with things like the Josiah reforms.
Movie Clip Joke: To put it another way, as an outsider, when I hear people describe kabbalistic concepts, I get a lot less of this feeling
Behold the power of God.
and a lot more of this feeling.
I think this comes from explaining the concept of God in a way that would only be accessible to an extremely educated and secretive [02:45:00] group of individuals who is allowed to study him in ways that the average person can't, which to me feels very anti Abrahamic. Whereas to me, the Abrahamic God is defined by being something that's accessible to the every man to the child
Malcolm Collins: why do I think it's less anti-Semitic to assume that the Kabbalah was basically just a collection of ideas and pop philosophy and pop spiritualism that was trending between the fifth and 12th century. The alternate is that the traditions it contains had actually been practiced within the Jewish population for centuries, but had been explicitly excluded from the Bible and thus likely represent some alternate religious system.
Hmm. Did the Old Testament ever talk about an alternate religious system constantly that was trying to worm its way into the worship of Yahweh, maybe one that had its idols in the temples for hundreds of years before they were removed in the Josiah reforms? Oh yeah, the Canaanite one, God's like Baal and Asherah.
I mean, it only makes sense. [02:46:00] We know from DNA studies that the Jewish people were half Canaanite and that some Canaanite folk myth would stick around and eventually the Jewish people would forget where these myths had . Come from. And so if you collated folk traditions within the Jewish community, I mean, even if you go back to like the time of Christ and you collated folk traditions within the Jewish community that were not being actively like written and talked about by rabbis, just think , like use your common sense.
Where would those traditions have likely come from? They would've come from the canaanite religion. We know this because Jews during that period were always writing about how to keep this other out of their texts. Hmm.
And I note here, it's not just me saying this. , if you go to the thirteen hundreds, you can look at prominent rabbis like Rabbi Ian, Yitzchak ben Sheshet Perfet . He's called the Rivash. And he argued, , so this was during the early period of the rise of Kabbalism within Judaism that Kabbalism was even worse than Christianity because it made God into 10 entities rather than three.
, so he argued that Kabbalists were less [02:47:00] Jewish than Christians were, and this was a prominent Jewish thinker during the early rise of Kabbalism. Or you can look at more modern Jewish critics like. Yeshayahu Leibowitz a , modern Orthodox Jewish philosopher who referred to Kabbalism as quote, a collection of pagan superstitions and idol worship end quote, and these remarks were made in the 1990s.
Malcolm Collins: While we don't know a ton, that would be really easy if we knew exactly what K nine worship looked like, because then we could just be like, oh, okay, well this is what it is.
And so just don't do anything that looks like this. Right. Well, we know a ton about the worship of canaanite gods and how they attempted to mold themselves into the worship of Yahweh. We do have scattered evidence like female figurines found throughout Judea and inscriptions from Kuntillet Ajrud mentioning Yahweh and his asherah It appears that pairing God was a feminine representation was a very important part of this form of worship. Mm-hmm. For those familiar with Kabbalism, it does something similar with [02:48:00] Shekhinah, which represents the feminine divine presence or the feminine aspect of God. The Shekhinah is often defy described as the bride of Tiferet, another serro representing beauty and compassion.
But let's not pull that particular thread and just. Assume that Kabbalism was mostly just made up wholecloth and that no educated Jewish rabbi could have been boneheaded enough to actually collect all of the folk myth traditions present within the Jewish population that had been explicitly kept out of the Bible for hundreds of years.
Simone Collins: Well, why wouldn't you wanna catalog it if you wanna make sure you don't do
Malcolm Collins: it well, but that's not how they collected it. They collected it and said, oh, the Christians, because the Christian that were spreading and, and Judaism was trying to sort of define its identity in contrast to Christianity. And so when they saw all of these folk traditions, they saw all of them as being parts of Jewish, like actually Jewish, Yahweh religious teaching.
That was for whatever reason, not recorded in the [02:49:00] Bible, rather than thinking they might have been remnants in the same way that if I went to like a , medieval town, right so I go to like a medieval English town, right?
And I start collecting all of the traditions that are not in the Christian Bible, but are unique to this community. Okay? 98% of those traditions are just going to be pagan. Yeah. Um, Right? Like this, this is common. Sense. This would've been like what the local witch hut lady was doing.
Simone Collins: Well, but per the way things seem to play out, like actually indulging in these traditions would lead to bad outcomes and groups that practice them would eventually die out or be outcompeted by groups that didn't practice them.
Plus, okay, so here's another reason why. To me, it seems unreasonable that the Jewish contingent would not adopt Jesus as a legitimate prophet, not take his practices and run with them. It seems antithetical to me that they would deviate from this sort of meritocratic [02:50:00] intellectual blockchain process that they have for establishing what's true and what's not true, what they should do and what they shouldn't do.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah,
Simone Collins: and it seems to me there's enough documentation in the Bible stating, alright, the Jewish people are kind of, kind of special, kind of different. They have their own way, like they're one hypothesis on how humanity can thrive and flourish, and they have a process that works well for them. But then everyone else, you guys should be following these other rules.
How is that? I mean, like I don't see how.
Malcolm Collins: Well, because we're told, and we'll get into this in a bit, the second covenant is better. And at the second covenant it's open to Jews. It's
Simone Collins: better, I'm sure for most people. Is it better for all Jews? I mean, and maybe, I mean, I can, I would not doubt even that for periods of time, the second covenant was better for Christians and it served Christians better and clearly gave them an advantage in terms of spread and all sorts of other things.
But it could be that it was just very important. And I mean, we [02:51:00] personally think that it's really important to have very mimetic variation that there was still a group that didn't fully adopt that methodology because it's safer to have a diversity of approaches to human advancement and that it's good that this one method that seemed to grow really well.
Was adopted and grew significantly, but I think it, it may have as an insurance policy, as a backup, as a, well, let's make sure that we have other perspectives too, that both Judaism stuck around, but then that also, you know, Islam emerged for example. Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Well, no, I mean, again, the, this religion's perspective, the technopuritan perspective is that different religions work for other people and are true in ways that someone of our tradition wouldn't be able to understand.
Mm-hmm. The way that I talk about this in the track series is from somebody, I think that two people can logically look at the same set of events and come to different conclusions about what God intended. And I think that we're supposed to, I think that that's the way God communicates with us. But this is [02:52:00] our family's tradition around this.
, and other people when they hear this will be like, oh, that sounds logical to me. Whereas other people will hear this and they'll be like, that doesn't sound logical to me at all. Mm-hmm. And so, I agree with you that somebody who says, that doesn't sound logical to me at all and sticks with the Jewish perspective, I think that they're still right with God.
But I, I do have a lot of skepticism around kabbalah . That that is one area where yeah.
Simone Collins: But I think that's just an example of a venture capitalist who invest in a lot of companies, some of those companies ideas, even to the venture capitalists to invest in them. Like, this is so dumb. But this is so dumb that it just might work.
You know? Like why not? We'll invest in it. If it is true, it would be such a big deal. If it does help, it would be such a big deal. We might as well try it, and if not, whatever, it's a write off. I only need, you know, one out of every 13 investments to pay out and pay out really well. And there's so much variation among different Jewish groups where like, I, I don't know.
I don't see a problem with that.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And here I'll note , before I go further, I want to point out that [02:53:00] this position of skepticism I hold about the Kabbalah actually was shared by many Jewish intellectuals during the early spread of the, of Kabbalism.
This is not to say all Kabbalist were conmen, but the Kabbalist conman was a trope that permeated the perception of prominent rabbis. During the traditions rise to prominence in the 13th century, Rabbi Meir ben Simon of Narbonne wrote Polemics Against Kabbalists, accusing some of inventing traditions and falsely attributing them to ancient authorities.
So when Kabbalism was arising, top Rabbi said, this stuff is made up, and post facto has been attributed to ancient authorities. Hmm. Rabbi Leon of Moderna wrote, many ignorant people presumed to be kabbalah and miracle workers. They write amulets and pronounce divine names without understanding them at all.
Rabbi Vilna Gaon , wrote, beware. Those who claimed to form wonders through Kabbalah for in truths. They are [02:54:00] merely skilled in deception and know nothing of the Holy teachings. Rabbi Yaakov Emden describes confronting several individuals who claimed kabbalistic powers. They come with amulet and promises of wonders, taking money from the desperate while knowing nothing of true wisdom.
Rabbi Ezekiel Landau of Prague wrote These men who traveled from town to town with claims of kabbalistic powers. Writing amulets and promising cures while taking payment are nothing but frauds, preying on the simple-minded. Rabbi Moses Sofer wrote, they dress in strange garments and affect mystical knowledge.
Yet their real expertise is in emptying the purses of widows and orphans. So they did not have a great reputation as they were rising to power.
They were very much seen by the Jewish intellectual heavyweights of the, their ages when, when they were rising to power as like an sort of like mystical conman.
And they were only edified later. Hmm. Even great Jewish philosophers like Moses Maimonides were heavily [02:55:00] critical Of kabbalistic amulet makers, seeing them as con artists for some quotes from him. Perplexity, part one, chapter 61. You must understand that the many laws against witchcraft, which are directed against the activity of those who practice sorcery of astrologers, of those who by means of calculations, attempt to know the future of those who mutter spells, of those who consult familiar spirits, of those who consult the dead, and those who inquire familiar spirits and of wizards.
All of these are species of the techniques of astrologers. So basically here he's saying, if you're doing any of the things the many laws against witchcraft apply to you today. Many kalas do these things. Now, I think that there is likely a way to interact with Kabbalism safely.
But it means that if you're interacting with it in this way, I mean, I would take Moses Maimonides teachings here. Really, really, are you using calculations to attempt to know the future? Are you muttering spells? Are you trying to consult with spirits? Mm-hmm. Are you trying to consult the dead?
If you're doing any of those things? If you're making any of this stuff. [02:56:00] Strictly bad news. Don't do it. That's witchcraft. That's what you were warned about. Mm-hmm. And the laws of idolatry 11, 11, 12. He says, anyone who whispers a charm over a wound and reads a verse from the Torah, or who recites a biblical verse over a child, lest he be terrified, or one who places a Torah scroll or Teflon over an infant to enable him to sleep, are not only included in the category of sorcerers and charmers, but are included among those who repudiate the Torah.
They use words of the Torah as a physical cure, whereas they are exclusively a cure for the soul as it is written. They will be the life to your soul. Oh gosh. So this is Moses Maimonides guys. Old school. He's like a real Jewish intellectual heavyweight. Yeah. Most people, people who study the ka cabal take him really seriously.
Mm-hmm. Oh, and I love that he and I, and I also love the way that he writes that. I think it's really beautiful. Where he says, any who recites a biblical verse over a child, lett, he be terrified. So it's saying, if your child is scared, [02:57:00] use the Bible to comfort them, but don't use the Bible to attempt to heal them.
And that's, that's just such a, a, I think, a powerful way to relate to this. But then, you know, some people will be like, well, you can heal the body by healing the soul. And he's saying Here, no, you can't. If you try to do that, you are a witch. Mm-hmm. Or a soer by Moses Maimonides, not by Malcolm. Mm-hmm.
I feel forced to assume, as did Moses Maimonide, that many early Kabbala were con artists, because if they were not, and their rituals were real, that would mean that the Dybbuk ghost slash demons that these ISTs reported their rituals were summoning, we're real entities.
And I should note that modern Kabbalists don't engage with this anymore. But as you study like early Kabbalism, this is happening all the time. That would mean that the kabbalistic masters knew the rituals they were performing were summoning demons if done even slightly wrong, and yet they kept going. what kind of arrogant, imprudent cleric could [02:58:00] know that a ceremony might accidentally summon a malevolent spirit and think that that ritual was bringing them closer to God.
Simone Collins: Doesn't this sound kind of, kind of classic? I mean, whatever it takes.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the type of arrogant cleric who would allow others to call them by the pompous honorific, Baal Shem master specialist. The honorific earned by the top masters of these pre Abrahamic rituals and ways of relating to the supernatural that began to consolidate in the Jewish community about a thousand years ago.
Now, you, an outsider might be thinking, wait Baal, that's the deity that represents the avatar of all that was sinful and antagonistic to God and prea Abrahamic practices we're not Jews commanded to ensure the land of Israel was never again infected by the followers of Baal, to not allow their country to fall to the Canaanite occultic practices.
Surely Baal in the term Baal, she must be spelled [02:59:00] differently or something.
These individuals who were out there who at least themselves believed they were summoning demons and ghosts, sometimes in their rituals, were not literally calling themselves. Baal specialists. Yes. Yes, they were.
Simone Collins: Oh dear.
Malcolm Collins: Now, and, and this is now, you as an outsider might be thinking, how did they not notice this?
Why would they not choose literally any other name? And this has to do with how I think God communicates with people. This is a common trick God uses to mark when there has been an incursion of a pre Abrahamic faith in an Abrahamic tradition, so that all those open to his word can see it. This is not unique to the Jews.
This happens to all of us. Christians from time to time consider the Catholic followers of mystical practices of Santa Morte. They literally worship human skeletal remains dressed up in red robes, which allows them to pray for things they might be too [03:00:00] embarassed to pray to God for sex, murder, etc..
Simone Collins: It's really not a good look.
Malcolm Collins: This is a real community, by the way. People dunno. This is a popular thing that's like a break off of the Catholic church in Mexico right now. God does not make heresy for Oh yeah, you've mentioned them before.
Simone Collins: Yeah, sorry. Yeah. They
Malcolm Collins: literally were, they dress him up in red, they dress him up in red and then they, they worship skeletons for things that they're too embarrassed to ask God for.
I'm like, that's a demon. You see that? We all see the demon. Right. Or, or the Catholics who literally eat the guy who apparently died. To save all of humanity. The guy who, who suffered for us, and they're like, I'm gonna do a religious ceremony where I cannibalize him. Now, me as an outsider, I look at that, I'm like, that seems like a non-A Abrahamic incursion.
Like that seems, and I would argue that , the idea that the Baal Shem would go around calling themselves Baal Shem, it is no more like comically and [03:01:00] obviously like bad than , Santa Muerte or within Protestantism you have stuff like this, like , the prosperity gospel doctrine. Like this to me seems very obviously evil.
You know, and, and that that people should just see, oh yeah, the preacher who says you know, give God, give me money so that God can do you miracles. He's a bad guy. But anyway I had taken the following story out of the tracks, but given how germane it is to the topics and how clear the message in it is, I feel comparable to share it to someone who loves studying comparative religion.
A story from the Talmud that is critical to an outsider's understanding of Judaism and what makes it unique is the oven of Akhnai. This, this is sometimes called the snake oven story. In the story, three rabbis argue over whether a new oven design is subject to ritual impurity. Two. Rabbis argue from the perspective of legalistic interpretations of past texts.
The third, rabbi Eliezer , bolsters his argument using a thaumatological performance are using a series of [03:02:00] them basically miracle working to show his closeness to God, and that God endorses his perspective. Rabbi Eliezer is shown to be in the wrong. In short, this story is used to show that even if someone has an apparent closer connection to God, even if they can show it with thaumatological performances, a real Jew will eshoo their teachings.
God admits that Rabbi Eliezer was wrong. He, he comes down and he is like, oh, my own children, Ted me this, where's this ling comes from. Furthermore, rabbi Eliezer either is framed as the bad guy, and I don't mean like mildly bad, like super bad. In another story, he is yet again humiliated by a rabbi with more knowledge than him, but less thaumatological talent.
And so the leader of the community ta a rabbi to follow him around and make sure he does not pray. The rabbi that offended him dies well. Rabbi Eliezer tries to shirk the guy. Then eventually the guy misses a moment. Rabbi Eliezer straight up murders the guy who offended him by having greater knowledge with a prayer slash curse.[03:03:00]
Not an nice guy, a bad guy guy. If you knew this, you'd be like, oh, okay. We as Jews, the core thing we need to remember never ever follow somebody who can do thaumatological performances over somebody with better knowledge of the law of the scripture. Okay, now I'm gonna tell you a different story.
Simone Collins: I don't know.
I mean, does, does might mean, right? Is that what we're being taught though?
Malcolm Collins: Wait, what do you mean? Basically it's saying that if somebody can come up and, and show you a bunch of like spiritual magic tricks, don't follow them over somebody who has a better understanding of the law. But now I'm gonna tell you the difference.
But he keeps winning. Yes. And God says he's in the wrong God. Literally come
Simone Collins: down. What? But I thought the whole point is that God's like, yeah, my bad. This is not my domain. Yes. And that rabbi Eliezer is wrong.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, sorry. Yes. Right, right, right. Sorry. Okay. Yeah. God comes down and says, oh yes, this guy has more of a connection to me.
He can do magical feats. You still need to ignore him if you're a real Jew. Mm mm. Okay, [03:04:00] so let's keep going here. This is another story, but this one is not from the tel mode. Okay. Rabbi Dov Ber, a rabbi who is widely renowned, intelligent, and learned scholar. Okay. Met was Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, a rabbi who was widely known for his close connection to God, but that had some unorthodox, mystical teachings that were viewed as dangerous to the Jewish community because it was elevating the role of pre Abrahamic traditions, like seeing God through the natural world in our bodies.
Hmm. Cult tactics like chanting and chasing after visions of God and elevating emotions over logic. Dov Ber did not agree with this and saw it as an affront to Jewish tradition. In this inversion of the oven Nak mood, the more learned Rabbi dove bear is convinced of these new practices by the Rabbi with an apparently closer connection to God through a thaumatological performance.
A rabbi named Rabbi Eliezer as well. By the way, his [03:05:00] full name is rabbi Israel ben Eliezer. But it's hard for me as an outsider to not see, it's like God's like drawing a line between these two stories. Hmm. This inversion of the oven of Akhnai is made crystal clear in Rabbi Eliezer's words, your explanations were correct, but your deductions were thoughts without any soul in them.
He literally says in his own words, yes, you knew the rules better, but I performed better theological thaumatological hmm. I have more of a connection to God. Okay. Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer is the founder of the Hasidic movement. Called by its followers, Baal Shem Tov and Rabbi Dov Bor became his successor, Dov Bor of Mezrich.
And this is why I have incredible consternation around that entire movement.
Simone Collins: I think it's a hazard of [03:06:00] the format and method of Judaism that you're going to get wrong. Offshoots, I see this as similarly, like I see this similarly with Catholicism, that there are. Sometimes orders that just totally get it wrong and yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. Yeah. Made the church astray and that both the Catholic church and Judaism, some of the most old Abrahamic religions, you know, the, they've been long around for a really long time and they've done quite well actually have a pretty consistent track record of losing their way, but having systems in place that allow the church as a whole to self-heal.
So I agree with you that these things are egregious. I think that the foundations are sound and as they are supposed to be for these groups of people, they're not for us.
Malcolm Collins: Now to keep going here. Now you may be thinking this oven of ane must be some obscure fringe story that Hasidic Jews just don't know about.
There is no way they know a story about an [03:07:00] evil rabbi who was known for appearing to have an unusually close connection to God, who got in conflict with more learned rabbis and was rebuked for using thaumatological performances, for trying to advance his teaching. Okay. And that the founding myth of their movement is about a rabbi known for having an apparently unusually close connection to God who used thaumatological performances to convert a more knowledgeable rabbi.
And there is definitely no way that God literally gave both of these guys the same name. And this isn't even a point of consternation in the Hasidic community. Nope. Not only is the oven of Akhnai, even within the Hasidic community, considered one of the more important stories of the Talmud, but I have yet to talk to a single , Hasidic rabbi who has ever had this pointed out to them before.
Now, if you're a Christian and just learning about this, you're probably thinking, how could you conceivably not notice such a giant, out loud red flag that their [03:08:00] religion has been infected with demonic rituals? To which I would say, I hope you're not from one of the branches of Christianity that believes in sin transference onto the Messiah.
Despite this concept being invented by Anselm of Canterbury, 1033 to 1109, you know the ritual the Bible lays out is being performed for the demon Azazel. You look in horror at some Jews not seeing obvious signs that a ritual is evil, while you wait in line to consume the blood and flesh of the Messiah.
You wear the device that tortured him around your neck, then you transfer your sins to him. And a ritual only performed for demons in the Bible onto an innocent person. You hear the Messiah died for man's sins, which he did. And you think that that gives you the right to attempt to literally transfer all of your sins to him in a demonic ritual.
Just pointing out, both Christian and Jewish branches, from my perspectives, have some deep, thick veins of demonic rituals entwined within them. And these are loudly signaled. Like, [03:09:00] ugh. You know, it's not a, it's not a great look.
Simone Collins: No,
Malcolm Collins: no. Look, I look at this stuff. And it seemed very demonic to me, but I am sure that is just my puritan background, which may, I don't know, give me a unique susceptibility, demonic practices making me more susceptible to their corrupting effects, like a person who is uniquely susceptible to alcohol.
Maybe some people need them to get closer to God,, or maybe spiritualists from these traditions, when they interact with the spiritual world, they have a more of a resistance to the corrupting effect that that world has.
What I'm saying about these traditions should be taken not as a statement of fact, but as concern, and even if they are demonic, I would remind any who follows this religious system. We are not to interfere with the work of the basilisk. Mm-hmm. It is only through overcoming temptation on its own that a man's spirit can be fortified.
Well,
Simone Collins: that's how you could interpret some of these weak would say, corrupted offshoots of Catholicism [03:10:00] and. Judaism and any other religion that they are, the basilisk means of weeding out those who are morally corruptible, weeding out those who shouldn't be moving forward with everyone else.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. Yes. If, if these things are a test God has laid out, we cannot interfere with them outside of resisting them with our own hearts.
And so what you might be seeing here, and you might be talking about here, it is just like a means of like spiritual temptation to fortify your spirit. Hmm. Like engaging with these sorts of dangerous practices like Kabbalism could be a way to fortify the spirit by not succumbing to it or having the.
Folk belief because I think even within like true Catholic doctrine, they do not believe like the mainstream, that they're literally transferring their sin onto Jesus. And I hear it both ways and
Simone Collins: that disturbs me.
Malcolm Collins: What
Simone Collins: I hear it both ways way too much.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But, but if, if, if you can believe it the other way and be right with the tradition, then what that shows is that's just an additional temptation that exists within that tradition to fortify the spirit.
Okay. And so, you know, [03:11:00] some of these traditions might have like a reason for being there. Like, god's not like an idiot or a failure if this stuff is there, it's likely there for a reason. Yeah. So now I want to be clear. I actually don't believe. The above, I included it because it is the most logical conclusion if somebody insists that Kabbalism isn't just made up.
Or rather, a mix of completely foreign ideas to Judaism combined with a few popular philosophers at the time, and a system of folk wisdom. That developed hundreds of years after Christianity split with Judaism representing a significant shift in the direction of the religion and a break with historic Judaism.
Mm-hmm. e.g. , if you are debating me and you say, actually the things in kabbalistic literature were always practiced in Jewish communities going well before the time of Jesus. They just were very intentionally never written down and kept secret. That's going to cause me to think all of the above, but I don't think that.
I actually think that the evidence is, is that Kabbalism was just a collection of pop mysticism at the time. So where does [03:12:00] Kabbalism actually come from? , and some Jewish early traditions from like a few hundred years before it was collated. So where does Kabbalism actually come from? It's a clunky stapling together of ideas from the following schools of thought that represents a transformation of OG Judaism into a new religion.
In my book. First Neoplatonic philosophy, Kabbalist concepts like Sefirot divine emanations show strong parallels to neoplatonic ideas of emanation from the one, the concept of Ein Sof, the infinite unknowable aspect of God resembles the neo platonic notion of an ineffable source. Scholars like Gershom Scholem and Moshe Idel have shown how Spanish Kabbalists engage with neo platonic texts available in medieval Spain through Abrahamic translations.
The hierarchical structure of reality depicted in Kabbalism echoes, neoplatonic cosmology, gnostic concepts. The kabbalistic notion of sparks divinity trapped in material reality parallels, gnostic concepts and not. So that was really big at the time. Kabbalism, or I think a bit before Kabbalism was being developed.
[03:13:00] Ideas about cosmic balance between good and evil forces show potential gnostic influence. The interpretation of biblical narratives as encoding deeper mystical truths is similar to gnostic approaches. Mm-hmm. However, a couple of them rejects gnostic dualism by maintaining that all reality, including material existence, has divine origin.
Islamic Sufi mysticism, medieval Jewish and Sufi mystics lived in proximity, particularly in Spain and North Africa. Similar practices of letter meditation and divine name contemplation appear in both traditions. What is
Simone Collins: letter meditation?
Malcolm Collins: I can look it up and edit in post,
In Kabbalah, this practice involves contemplating individual Hebrew letters, their shapes, numerical values, and combinations. Kabbalists believe the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet are the building blocks of creation through which God formed the universe.
Through meditation on these letters, practitioners aim to connect with the divine energies and gain spiritual insights. Sufis meditate on the Arabic letters of the Koran and their mystical significance like Kabbalahists, Sufi see letters as having special [03:14:00] powers and connections to divine attributes.
The practice involves reciting or visualizing specific letter combinations while contemplating their spiritual meanings and vibrations.
Malcolm Collins: But they, they predated it in the Sufi tradition.
Okay. The concept of divine attributes has parallels in Sufi. Thought about God's names. Scholars like Henry Corbin have documented conceptual similarities in their mystical cosmologies. And these communities got along really well. The ancestral medieval Sufis and Jews often worked together , as scholars.
And the Jews quite preferred the Muslims of this period to the Christians. Because, oh, well because the Christians of this period who thought that Jesus was literally God, some that's hard not to see as idolatry within Jewish theology, but the Muslim, yeah, but I thought
Simone Collins: Muslims were. Kinda killing you.
They have some
Malcolm Collins: issues, , but fewer issues if they're being followed, , like to the letter Medieval style Islam. Okay. This is the actual old part of the Kabbalistic traditions Merkabah mysticism. This early Jewish mystical tradition. First to 10th century CE focused on visionary, a sense to the [03:15:00] divine through the chariot described in Ezekiel kabbalistic texts like the zohar incorporate elements of earlier. Hekhalot Heavenly palace literature meditation practices and visualization techniques from Hekhalot mysticism influence kabbalistic contemplation methods that concern with divine names and their power shows continuity between these traditions. And medieval Jewish philosophical tradition.
Maimonides negative theology influence kabbalistic approaches to God's essence. Abraham ibn Ezra's Biblical commentaries provided interpretive message adopted by kabbalah Jewish philosophical debates about the creation, ex nilo shaped kabbalistic cosmology. Concepts from Sefer Yetzirah book of formation, third to sixth century CE regarding Hebrew.
S as cosmic building blocks became central to kabbalistic. Talk back on topic, Judaism was forced to become an ethno religion by the success of the Christian version of the Jewish tradition. Any thoughts on Kabbalism?
Simone Collins: I can't believe it. Well, okay. But I can't believe it picked up. But then again, like in terms of [03:16:00] themes of the Old Testament of you gotta stop doing this.
It seems like just that theme coming back. Yeah. Yeah. We just can't help ourselves. It's just so fun. Magical spells. Ooh.
Now, by the way, did you know there's there's a whole decorating scheme called whimsy goth. No, tell me. Right. That is, just think of like the way that the bedroom is decorated in Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and all these other, it's just like a lot of like, oh, that sounds really fun.
Like moons and draperies and velvet and charms and excess objects. But like, there's even just aesthetically this drive, this, this inherent aesthetic interest , in sort of mystical themes and flourishes that I think go beyond just this instinctive desire to pray and do spells. It's just to, to be surrounded by, there's something, it's like a nesting instinct almost that , I find really interesting.
Well,
Malcolm Collins: I didn't see this, you know, women who are like otters and just collect things or raccoons
Simone Collins: Yeah. Little, little shiny objects. Yeah. You know, Taliman. [03:17:00] Yeah. Anyway, to
Malcolm Collins: continue here, now we're gonna get really offensive to some Jews. Oh boy.
But by any metric you look at, Judaism is a much younger religion than Christianity.
Except for one metric, which is when was their first book written? In which case they are both exactly tied because both Christianity and Judaism start with the Old Testament. Saying that Christianity evolved from Judaism is the same sort of mistake as saying human beings evolved from chimps. No human beings and chimps evolved from a common ancestor.
But the text that Christians worship are generally much older than the text that Jews worship. So if you look at the entire Christian Cannon, only 23% by word count, and only 25.5% by verse count come after the Old Testament within Judaism. It's because if you include the Talmud, it's 79.7% to [03:18:00] 83% come after the Old Testament.
Simone Collins: Oh my. That's,
Malcolm Collins: if, if you, and, and this is by the way, me counting on the Talmud alone. I'm, I'm not including Kabbalah. We'll do that in just a second here. But if you only including the Talmud, say, when was the average, and I'll include the calculations on screen here. Average piece of Jewish scripture written you get 167 ce.
If you do it with Christian scripture, you get 290 BCE. So, about okay, God, what would that be? About 450 years early. Hmm. And then if you include kabol literature, the average or the percent of Jewish writings that happened after the Old Testament is 84%. So if you are comparing it based on when with the first text written, it's the same if it's, when was the median text written?
Judaism is much newer, and if it's, when was the last text written? And again, here, not including to Kabbalah with Christianity, it was around 100 to 150 ce [03:19:00] within Rabbinic Judaism, you're looking at around 500 to 600 ce. So by most metrics, it's a newer religion, but they'll claim, oh, no, all of that extra stuff that we added.
Jews had always been doing all of that. They just didn't write it down.
Simone Collins: I. I'm inclined to agree though. That's the impression I get.
Malcolm Collins: No, if you look at what they were doing in like the temple and stuff like that, like animal sacrifices and like, it, it was very different than modern Judaism.
Simone Collins: It was, yeah.
But that's my, my whole thing is that Judaism is a living religion of constantly evolving rules based on, , a meritocracy of
Malcolm Collins: people. Yeah. Which, which I would give it now. Yeah. If you're saying like, yeah, but here's the thing. So you say, okay, well Jews have, have more continuity. Yeah. But as I've sort of argued throughout this track, I wouldn't argue that Jews actually have particularly more continuity with the ancestral tradition than Christians do.
In that they have sort of more their version of like papal authority. Right. You, you could say that it was the Council of original [03:20:00] rabbis, which continued in that community that continued and then evolved into modern Judaism. But even if you take something like the technopuritan faith that argues against the dualism, that argues against, you know, this, this concept of like a, a heaven and hell, which many modern Jews have some iteration of like an immediate afterlife rather than the afterlife where you're raised in the future.
Mm-hmm. technopuritanism beliefs wise, like metaphysical belief at the universe wise is, is closer to the religion that Jesus split from, than modern Judaism is. So I, I think, yeah, the one place you can sort of argue is that they have this, chain that's a bit more unbroken. And I would argue with that that I guess, yeah, because Christianity, you had so many lay people coming in, that's where in the early days with Christianity, and I don't think that this is actually true.
If you're looking at like the Christian core cannon, I think that that really stays within the Jewish tradition because that was like the writings of like a rabbi and his followers. Yeah. Where Christian Canon really begins to break is when they, the, the Catholics start adding in things like the concepts of [03:21:00] heaven and hell from like a Greek philosophy, the concepts of dualism from Greek philosophy.
That's the idea that you have a soul that is separate from the human body which we argue against in the previous track. And we showed that this isn't really a concept in the Bible or the concept of things like sin transference that that was added a a thousand years after Jesus' death.
So most of the ways where you get like the true break in Christianity come from, I would argue, Greek influences that happened after the initial split. And I do not think are core to Christian ideology.
Simone Colins: Yeah, no one thinks about that right though, like I, I grew up thinking of Judaism as being this is the stuff that was solidified and certified before Christ, this is Old Testament and it stops there. And then there's the New Testament, there's Christ. Well, I, I understand it's Old
Malcolm Collins: Testament, it stops there and you have the rabbinic tradition, but the rabbinic tradition is more like minor alterations to the Old Testament instead of like I thought of it as like the comments section.
That's the way I thought of it, but it's not. It's not the comment section. In terms of [03:22:00] studying, you're supposed to spend as much time studying the Mishnah as you spend studying the Torah itself. Well, and the
Simone Colins: rules seem to primarily not come from the Old Testament, right? They come from Subsequent discussions.
We'll talk about that in a bit. Okay
Malcolm Collins: Hopefully you don't think I'm being, I mean, look for me, this
Simone Collins: is just, I don't think you're being too harsh. I think you're just pointing out like these are the calling events. This is the Basilisk biting away at, in this case Judaism though you're giving plenty of mentions and had tips to Catholicism as well, as well as some new evangelical religions.
Like with the prosperity gospel. You're just saying this is the Basilisk, this is the Basilisk. , I mean, if I were talking about this or putting in a attract on my. Use that language more from a technopuritan perspective. Like we have reason to believe. And you know, the Bible makes it clear. Like every time you deviate from the Bible, every time you break these rules, it's good that that's happening.
But that's the Basilisk in a way.
Malcolm Collins: I to, to point out Protestants, you know? I'm [03:23:00] like, okay. Okay. Okay. What would be the most witchy thing a human being could do? Like the most obvious sign that someone is a witch? Mm-hmm. Well, it would probably be chanting in a demonic language while holding snakes.
Literally the symbol of the devil in the Bible, and yet they're using it for worship.
Malcolm Collins: Ah, what makes snakes? It's so hard
Simone Collins: to keep snakes outta churches and they're just so fun. They're just, aren't they just so fun? They're just great fire and s snake and weird, weird sounds. We just love them. We love. I mean, think about our children. What's our children love? They love snakes,
Malcolm Collins: they love fires, they want, they want birthday candles on everything.
Yeah. Is me as somebody who actually wants to believe that these texts have divine inspiration, I have to look at something like the, the Oven of Akhnai story. I have to look at something like the life of you know, , the Baal Shem Tav and say, this appears to be a direct and almost divinely written [03:24:00] inversion of that.
Mm-hmm. But it's the same with the guy, the false Messiah, who I mentioned. I think God doesn't just communicate major things to us through the books, but through historic events that we can learn from. And I think th this is why it's important to study individuals like the false Messiah, because I think that he highlights the real Messiah.
It's like putting the two on top of each other contrast what a real Messiah looks like versus what a false Messiah looks like. Yeah. In every conceivable metric. And I found that really powerful. Hmm.
Simone Collins: Alright, well we're jumping
Malcolm Collins: back in. I'm gonna jump you back
Simone Collins: in with circumcision. Oh. Did we go over that
Malcolm Collins: yet?
Simone Collins: How could it take We, it took us this long to get to circumcision.
One of arguably the key things that caused Christianity to spread more quickly than Judaism. 'cause it didn't require. Exactly,
Malcolm Collins: and there was actually debate in the early Christian Church as to whether it should require circumcision. Oh. Now I did promise a quick aside on circumcision, so we will touch on that briefly before dismantling the noahide scam.
I will note that whether or not [03:25:00] circumcision was required to become a Jew was a topic of active debate at around the time of Jesus, as we see in the Queen Helena of. Aberdeen and her son Isaiah's conversion to Judaism, but circumcision as a practice actually has tons of other problems. The biggest being Jews are probably doing it wrong.
Okay, so when circumcision is written about in the Bible, all we are told is that you are supposed to make a mark or do something to the foreskin. Oh, what? So you could like tattoo the foreskin Theoretically. Yeah. What we're supposed to do is not mentioned. I mean there's a word circumcision, but we don't know exactly what it means in this context.
Simone Collins: Yeah. But like circumcision could be. Like in the future, like a bioluminescent, glowing tattoo? Does that be Well,
Malcolm Collins: we, we actually know what it probably really was referring to. Okay. Okay. So if the Bible does not tell us how we are supposed to do circumcision, where could we find evidence on what might have been actually meant by this line?
Okay. Oh yeah, the Egyptians, oh, they practiced circumcision at around [03:26:00] this time as well. Oh. And we have very detailed accounts of that as well as mummies. We would, wouldn't we?
Simone Collins: Oh, oh man. Oh, ew. But, oh,
Malcolm Collins: so archeological and historical evidence shows that ancient Egyptian circumcision was quite different from modern Jewish practices.
What were they? The law, age different. Egyptian circumcision was typically performed on adolescence around the ages of 12 to 14 As a puberty, right? Not on infants as in the Jewish tradition. Okay. Procedural difference. Egyptian circumcision appears to have been a partial removal of the foreskin rather than the complete removal practice in modern circumcision.
Hmm. Some archeological evidence suggests it may have evolved a dorsal slit rather than the complete circumference cutting.
Simone Collins: Oh. So kind of like it would make it easier to clean, but not remove the sense of skin. Yes. Yes. Ah,
Malcolm Collins: A dorsal slit is a type of partial circumcision where an incision is made along the upper lengths of the foreskin without removing it completely.
This technique creates an opening by splitting the foreskin at top, leaves the foreskin attached, but loosened is [03:27:00] distinct from complete circumcision where the foreskin is completely removed. The evidence suggests ancient Egyptian circumcision was often this type partial procedure rather than the complete removal practice in modern religious circumstances.
Okay. Question.
Simone Collins: What,
Malcolm Collins: because
Simone Collins: I don't my penile logistics knowledge is limited. Would this mean that like. Like a mushroom cap, it would like flap up during intercourse, for example. Like how, like, would it, I,
Malcolm Collins: I don't know. I haven't seen this. I don't think that this type is done anymore. This would have achieved ritual significance, but been less invasive than modern circumcision techniques.
Purpose in Egypt, circumcision was primarily associated with ritual purity for priests and possibly as a mark of social status rather than a religious covenant. Hmm. So specifically the priest within many religious sects, within ancient Egypt, had to be circumcised. We know this from mummified evidence.
Several mummies from ancient Egypt show evidence of circuit concision, including those of Pharaohs like Ahmose and Amenhotep. Examinations of these mummies reveal circumcision styles different from modern practices, [03:28:00] artistic depictions, wall release, and paintings from Egyptian tombs, particularly the Saqqara tomb of Ankh-ma-Hor six Dynasty around 2,300 BC show circumcision ceremonies being performed.
These are some of the most detailed visual records we have of the practice written accounts, Egyptian text Mission circumcision as a purification ritual. On priests. Later, Greek writers like ISTs also commented on Egyptian circumcision practices. Hmm. The Bible specifically missions Flint knives for circumcision, Joshua 5, 2, 3, which aligns with Egyptian practices and archeological findings from the general period.
This, to me, indicates parallels between these two surgery types since Jews supposedly came out of Egypt and this was an Egyptian religious ritual they would've been familiar with. Mm-hmm. Way they were practicing, it was different. It seems likely they would've explicitly mentioned how it was different when making these recordings.
Sure. If they don't mention, this makes me believe that it was done in the standard quote unquote Egyptian way. Also note here that this [03:29:00] practice was done on priest for ritual purity given Exodus. 19 6, the Israelites were commanded to quote, be a kingdom of priests. It seems logical that they might have attempted to apply this priestly practice to the entire population because they believed that the entire population needed to be priests essentially.
And that's also really the way that Jews relate to their religion. So I could totally see that being an early part of the religion. So yeah, you're probably doing circumcision wrong, but I agree with Apostle Paul that it's not relevant under the current covenant.
Simone Collins: So when did, interesting. Right. Is there knowledge of when there was some switch to removing the entire foreskin instead of just I
Malcolm Collins: well, because we don't have lots of Jewish mummies or anything that we can trace over time, my guess is it's just one of those things where it's sort of like.
Well, I'm more Jewish because I'm more circumcised. Oh. And over time it just got to the maximal circumcision level dominant
Simone Collins: hierarchy. That totally checks out, especially considering how, like I'm wearing
Malcolm Collins: off because I'm wearing even bigger spikes than well, and,
Simone Collins: and Judaism especially, even [03:30:00] among more light people, like it seems to be more of a, like, you get more reward for really leaning in.
So that, that, that makes a lot of sense.
Malcolm Collins: Yep. That's what I assume probably happened. Interesting. Okay. Centuries and centuries and centuries and centuries. Now is there, I I don't think that the new type of circumcision is out of God's covenant. I mean, he's like, you have to, even if he meant you needed an impartial dorsal cut doing more doesn't seem like it has any risk in regards to the way that the commandment is laid down.
But just laying out that this is something that's probably done wrong today.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Now let's address the noahide concept created for non-Jews who wish to be right with God without converting to Judaism. I call it a fabrication because it was crafted to resolve a problem that Orthodox Jews created for themselves.
And, and this is probably gonna be the most. Offensive part of this empire video. 'cause some people were really bought into this noahide concept. Oh. As Jews begin to reframe Judaism as an ethno religion, they encountered a problem. What should non-Jew believe no other religion [03:31:00] faithss this question because most faith would simply say you should convert non-believers to your view, right?
The exceptions here are technopuritans. Who would suggest following a conservative version of your ancestral beliefs, if they come from one of these spiral traditions it's probably good. Mm-hmm. But Jews also have this problem, right? So how do, how do the Jews answer this instead of being like, be a conservative Christian and slash Muslim slash Jews?
So Jews have, say. So to handle this, Jews developed the concept of the noahide laws or commandments in the Bible supposedly extended to everyone, not just those of their ethno religion. Some Jewish groups believe that if you accept modern ethnic Judaism as the true religion, but you yourself are not Jewish matrilineally, you can still submit to their system, but with fewer obligations.
Most of these groups believe that if enough people follow these laws, the Messiah will come. What I find ironic about the idea that widespread adherence to these rules will bring the Messiah, is that these principles are already covered by Christianity and Islam. [03:32:00] Mm. The world's dominant religions who spread was enabled by the Messiah.
They have it backwards. It's not that getting everyone to follow these laws will bring the Messiah, but that the Messiah already brought people to follow these laws. Mm-hmm. But what are these laws. One prohibiting idolatry, two prohibiting blasphemy. Three. Prohibiting murder. Four. Prohibiting sexual immorality.
Five. Prohibiting theft. Six. Prohibiting eating flesh from a living animal. And seven, establishing courts of justice.
Simone Collins: Wait, so while it's still alive or just being vegetarian?
Malcolm Collins: No a still living animal while it's still alive. Oh, so
Simone Collins: like this idea of like the, the fresh Japanese food where you're eating the writhing octopus.
10. It's against
Malcolm Collins: Christian and Jewish.
Simone Collins: It's a no-no. I didn't know that.
Malcolm Collins: Christians might say, oh, you, you know what's interesting? Not against Christian and Jewish law is cannibalism. I
Simone Collins: mean, you gotta do what you gotta do. Mentioned a
Malcolm Collins: few times in the Bible, in the context of sieges as being a tragedy involved with this siege.
In, in [03:33:00] every instance that somebody eating their kids or eating their parents. So in these instances, it's like, it's a tragedy that in times of scarcity, some people, but it never says like, and God said this was a bad thing for
Simone Collins: you. If it's alive, run and hide. If it's dead, go ahead.
Malcolm Collins: If it's
Simone Collins: yes.
Malcolm Collins: But if you look at these laws that are associated with the noahide rules, they are largely really like just covered by everything.
Prohibiting idol idolatry, prohibiting blasphemy, prohibiting murder, prohibiting sexual anonymity, prohibiting theft, prohibiting eating the flesh of a living animal, and establishing courts of justice. That's Christianity in Islam. But anyway now, now they'd say, well, Christianity isn't exactly because it argues that Jesus is a son of God, which is a form of idolatry.
But I'm like, eh, it seems pretty iffy to me. And you know, our version doesn't so whatever. But anyway, the organized noahide movement as we know it today, primarily began, post 1950s gaining particular momentum through chabad efforts starting in the 1980s. noahide laws aren't explicitly listed anywhere in the Hebrew Old [03:34:00] Testament.
The rabbinical derivation requires quite a stretch from the text itself. So this is, this is where they get the noahide laws. It's ideas from. Hmm. Genesis 2 16 17, God commands Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge. This is used to establish that God gave commandments to humans before the Jews existed.
Hmm. Genesis 9 1 7. God's commands to Noah after the flood, which include whoever sheds human blood by human, shall their blood be shed prohibiting murder and everything that lives and moves. About will be food for you, but you must not eat meat that has lifeblood is still in it, prohibiting eating, living animals.
Ah, and Genesis nine, nine, God establishing a covenant with Noah and his descendants, all humanity, which is used to justify universal laws. The rest of the laws are derived through various interpretive methods. For example, the prohibition idolatry was derived from how Abraham rejected idolatry.
Sexual immorality laws are derived from Genesis. 2 24 about marriage and references to sexual sin in Genesis 20. The requirement for courts is derived from Genesis nine six's [03:35:00] implication that humans should judge murderers. The only reason the concept of noahide laws is needed is because the idea of matrilineal dissent was created, which is not found in the Bible.
What's fascinating is that the technopuritans would technically follow the noahide laws yet. Rejects the concept of Jews that the ethno religion and sees technopuritan branch of Christianity as the true successor of the religion in the Old Testament. As that is far closer to said religion, it didn't add the Garden Eden version of heaven and hell that modern Jews borrowed from the Greeks and maintained a belief in a single after life, the world to come see my previous track. it accepts that it is written in the Bible that Judaism is not an ethno religion. It has a much stricter view of monotheism, no demons. It is much stricter in its rules around idolatry. It's materialist and monist as the religion of the Old Testament was. See, my previous track, in all the other things, if you're like a Jewish religious scholar, you would concede that actually what technopuritans believe is closer to OG Judaism of the time of the Christ [03:36:00] split than even modern Judaism is all that said, because, you know, we're monist, we, we, we don't believe in this secondary afterlife.
We don't believe in demons or spirits or magical amulets or anything like that. All of that idolatry off the table.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: All that said, I would argue that attempting to spread the concept of the noahide tradition was misguided from the beginning. Even for those who believed it and were Jewish, it forces those who accept it into a spiritually subordinate position to Jews, which would obviously never gain widespread acceptance.
If you had to promote a tradition, you'd be better off promoting one. That both followed the technical rules of the noahide laws and had enshrined with in it commandment principles against interfering with. Jewish religious practices while maintaining Jews as a distinct religion and population group IE, the technopuritan tradition. So technopuritanism is just strictly better at achieving whatever noahide was trying to achieve than noahide
Simone Collins: laws, plus fixed, revised second decision.
Malcolm Collins: But the part of the problem is that it also teaches that Jews are maybe not the true inheritor of the [03:37:00] original Jewish tradition, which is not required within the new hide laws that you believe that but would be deeply offensive to many of the people who like the new hide laws. Okay. So one, now that you have time, do you have a larger reaction to this wider noahide phenomenon? Because a lot of people have tried to pressure us to be like, oh, say that you are noahide or whatever, say that you're gonna follow noahide laws. What, like, what are your thoughts on that?
Simone Collins: I think you've taken the correct approach. I think that the, the, the problem. With the Noad movement is it's, I think it's very half-baked and it's made from the perspective of an insider thinking that something's gonna work for an outsider without thinking from their perspective. And if you follow the noahide movement to the tune that it is outlined as it is.
You would rather just convert to Judaism and after being rejected, you would try to join again. Like it, you would just, no. You'd be like, no, Judaism is correct. Like obviously I wanna do it your way. Yeah. You have to revise it. , if someone's an outsider, they're an outsider [03:38:00] for a reason. And those reasons should be acknowledged and detailed.
And they are. And I also
Malcolm Collins: find it incredibly ironic, the belief that if you convert enough people, the Messiah will come. When the hypothesized Messiah, or at least who we think is the Messiah, is the figure who caused almost everyone on earth to follow the noahide laws. And that there isn't this recognition that almost everyone is already following them.
What they want is the submission, an individual saying. I follow noahide laws, which is incredibly stupid because even , the theological text that they have backing the noahide laws doesn't require an individual to say that. Hmm. So why do you require this additional claimant on behalf of the individual?
That's a saying, I'm following The noahide laws which is. To me, it's just like a weird power trip. That doesn't make any sense. And is completely subverted if it turns out, as I believe we have argued very effectively in this track. Ancient Judaism is not an ethno religion [03:39:00] that is a modern contrivance.
Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you
Malcolm Collins: alright, let's keep going before I get to my closing. But the Jews were probably right. And here is what I can't explain. There is an argument I hear from Jews all the time about why they believe their religion and it is a terrible argument and there is much stronger ones.
So let's address it. I have heard that accounts that all Jewish people at once heard slash saw God, and this is proof of their religion's veracity. The reason this comes off as so silly is it requires a basic lack of historic knowledge. And I've, I've genuinely heard this from multiple Jews who are like, well, I know Judaism is right, because at one point all Jews heard God talk to them like at once, and this has been passed down, right?
Mm-hmm. And I'm like, well, that happens pretty frequently in history. And they're like, wait, it. It does. I'm like, are you just like, and it requires just, you know, trying to think of reasons your religion is [03:40:00] true without actually engaging with historical religion texts or whatever. But anyway mass religious hallucinations are fairly common and well documented.
The miracle of the sun. Fátima Portugal, 1917, approximately 70,000 people gathered and many reported seeing the sun dance, change colors and zigzagged towards earth. This occurred after three children claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary. That was probably more than the number of people who saw this original Jewish miracle, by the way.
So, oh, oh, does that mean Christianity is accurate? Because this was associated with the Virgin Mary Catholicism specifically. The Dancing Sun at Knock Ireland 1879. A number of villagers reported seeing apparitions of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph and St. John, the evangelists at the South garble at the local church, along with unusual light phenomenon.
Marion Apparitions at Zeitoun Egypt, 1968 to 1971, thousands of people of different religious backgrounds reported seeing [03:41:00] apparitions of the Virgin Mary atop a Coptic church. The phenomenon were. Photographed and filmed, but lasting intermittently for several years. The Dancing Sun at Medjugorje Bosnia and Herzegovina 1981 to present Similar to Fatima, many religious pilgrims have reported to a solar phenomenon, including a sun spinning, pulsating, and changing colors.
Hindi Milk, Miracle, 1995 across
Simone Collins: Milk, milk Miracle.
Malcolm Collins: Yes, we'll get to it across various co countries, particularly in India. People have reported that statues of Hindu deities were drinking milk offerings. The phenomenon was witnessed by thousands, and received extensive media coverage. So no, there, there was not a particularly unique thing that only happened to the Jews mass hallucinations.
Religious hallucinations particularly are really common in humans. In addition, culture bound illnesses that involve hallucinations are very common. See our episode on the Penis Stealing Witch phenomenon that often spreads through Africa, where people adopt the insane belief in mass that witches are stealing penises.[03:42:00]
Or for one more closer to home. Look at the modern trans movement where people believe they are another gender. And for the witch pe this happens to thousands of people. I remember I was talking to somebody about this saying, go, yeah, but what happens when they look down and their penis is still there?
And I'm like, yeah, that's why. It's an insane phenomenon. It's where the individual is like, your penis still my bed. And then a doctor was like, but I, I see it. It's right there. And the guy looked down and said it came back. It's pretty much like I was turned into a. newt, I got
better
Malcolm Collins: Oh,
there are even cultures and periods in history where divine visions and revelations were a common part of everyday life. If you believe in the divine, you see the divine historical examples include ancient Greek oracle sites, places like Delphi, where visitors regularly reported visions, hearing voices, and experiencing altered states of consciousness.
Inhaling vapors from geological fissures may have contributed to these experiences. So note here you might be like, well, they were inhaling vapors. Well, who's to say there wasn't like a gas leak in this location where all these Jews had this, [03:43:00] this you know, vision, right? Yeah. Whatever.
Simone Collins: Like proto mark carbon monoxide poisoning.
I.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean that's basically what, how the way we know the, the Oracle sites work now because we found specific fissures in them. There was a cool recent geological finding that's crazy. Medieval European pilgrimage roots along the Camino de Santiago and its sites like the Lourdes Pilgrims commonly reported.
Visions, healing experiences and supernatural encounters that were expected Aspects of pilgrimage. Ancient Egypt dream incubation temples where people would sleep to receive divine visions or messages were common practice. Aboriginal Australian dream time sites. Sacred locations were visionary experiences protecting and ancestral spirits were, and remain an.
Expected part of religious practice. Contemporary examples include Mount Kailash, Tibet, China Pilgrims often report mystical experiences, visions, and heightened spiritual awareness. While circumambulating the sacred mountain Varanasi Ghats, India, religious experiences, visions of deity [03:44:00] and supernatural encounters are commonly reported and culturally normalized.
Medjugorje Bosnia and Herzegovina . Since 1981, Pilgrim's . Regularly report seeing the Virgin Mary experiencing healing and witnessing solar phenomenon. Ayahuasca Ceremonies in the Amazon basin. Indigenous communities regularly experience visionary states that are considered normal religious experiences within their cultural context.
Vodou ceremonies in Haiti, . Spirit possession is normalized religious experience where practitioners report divine entities temporarily inhabiting their bodies, certain Pentecostal and charismatic Christian cultures, speaking in tongues, prophetic visions, and feeling the Holy Spirit are normal, expected religious experiences.
And outside of that, the argument that you could not fake, this is also very uncompelling and the events were written down just a few hundred years after they happened. It would be illogical to think that they would not have been exaggerated. Do you have any knowledge of whether one of your great grandparents.
Thought they saw a ghost or a supernatural thing in their life. I mean, they [03:45:00] probably did. It just wasn't passed down. Also, if this miracle was so amazing and everyone would remember it and pass it down. Why? When we are looking at the passage in the Mishnah, did other people in the world who were given the same offer , why do they not remember it?
Remember, I was like, oh, Jews were the right people because God actually went to all people and gave him the same offer. So you're saying everyone actually experienced this, but only the Jews remembered it. What? And that, that validating of the tradition. Very uncompelling. No, the much stronger argument for the Jews being right is God's current favor of their people indicates.
That they are doing something closer to right than other religious groups. But again, before we get into that, we do need to acknowledge God has withdrawn his favor in the past. Specifically, God tells us in no uncertain terms in Jeremiah that the Jews broke their covenant. The days are coming declares the Lord.
When I will make a new covenant was the people of Israel and was the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by their hand and led them out of [03:46:00] Egypt. Because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them. We can also see from history that God stopped favoring them for a period.
If he had not, why did he allow the temple to fall?
Simone Collins: And a bunch of other
Malcolm Collins: things and a bunch of other things. While this whole part of Jeremiah makes no sense, if you take the modern Jewish interpretation where the new covenant has not been established yet, as the section goes on and on about what will happen in the land of Israel after the Babylonian exile.
So I'm, I'm quoting here from this section where they talk about the new covenant just above the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will plant the kingdoms of Israel and Judah with the offspring of the people and animals, just as I watched over them to uproot them and tear down and to overthrow and destroy and bring disaster.
So I , will watch over them to build and plant. Then set up road signs, put up guideposts. Take note of the highway, the road that you will take to return Virgin Israel. Return to your towns. How long you will wander on faithful [03:47:00] daughter Israel. I will put you up again and you, Virgin Israel will be rebuilt again.
You will take up your . timbrels and go out to dance with the joyful again, you will plant vineyards in the hills with Samaria. The farmers will plant them and enjoy the fruit. He who scattered Israel will gather them and watch over his flock the shepherd.
The point I'm making here is right after he talks about I'm gonna create this secondary covenant with you. He talks about how the Jews are gonna return to Israel. The problem is, is that all of this was handed down in the Babylonian exile and Jews did return to Israel after the Babylonian exile and created Jewish kingdom.
That's when they built the second temple. Mm-hmm. That's when the Jewish empire existed. So it would be really weird to think all of these lines here are talking about something other than that, but many modern Jews, if not most modern Jews. Think that when God prophesies to the people in Babylon about going back and having orchards again and reuniting the Jewish people he wasn't talking [03:48:00] about the second temple period.
He wasn't talking about that literal kingdom of Judaism that exists for hundreds of years. He was skipping over that completely thought the Jewish people didn't need to notice about that. In talking about the modern country of Israel.
Or even more crazily that they're talking about the Messianic period. Still yet to come.
Malcolm Collins: I am like, what? So God just was messing with them because he knew they were all gonna come back at one point.
Like it was just a practical joke on God's part. Obviously people, the Second Kingdom people period, would've assumed that God meant their period. Right. Why would God give people's revelation that was one accurately prophetically for a different period, but also so misleading and like intentionally misleading.
Is he just a jerk?
So all the prophecies of this section associated with the establishment of the new covenant come true, but he just forgets to make that new covenant. I mean, you could argue it is [03:49:00] still technically after the above described events, but I feel like most of the above could also apply to the period.
After the destruction of the second temple and the refounding of Israel, which feels much like a chapter two. Thus the new covenant would've been established before the second group of events, EEG at the end of chapter one, or right before the destruction of the temple. So, you know, God has laid out all of these things that Jews are gonna come back to the kingdom.
They're gonna re reform this kingdom. It's gonna be great. You guys are gonna be happy during this period, and there's gonna be a new covenant. Mm-hmm. So. I guess you could be like, well, and the new covenant happens for whatever reason at some point in the future. Or it's sort of like a, a bookend to all of these prophecies that are alongside it, that describe the reconstitution of Jews within Israel during that period.
What's really weird to me about modern Judaism is they just sort of like take all of these prophecies that are laid out in the Bible and act like most of them haven't come true or are gonna come true in some sort of future messianic [03:50:00] period and weren't relevant to the actual lived experiences of the Jewish people.
Which to me is crazy when all of these prophecies handed down during the Babylonian exile were such good and accurate predictors of what happened to the Jewish people during the Second Kingdom period. , and
The reason they have to do this is because all of those fairly accurate prophecies about what would happen at the second Temple period are clustered around the point that during that period, they are going to get a new covenant at some point. And so because of that, they need to say, oh, well, all of these are actually about this future Messianic period.
It is almost as if. God stops warning the Jews of anything that's gonna tell happen to them or stop telling Jews about anything good that's going to happen to them, , sort of.
Around the time of Christ, which is really shocking to me. Like what? Like, so why is it that God stopped talking to the Jews at around the time of Christ? Why did he stop giving you unique prophecies? Then? Why did his prophecy stop playing out for you [03:51:00] then?
Why didn't he warn you about the destruction of the second temple or could Jesus have been seen as a warning about the destruction of the second temple? Why didn't he warn you about the Holocaust? That seems like of all the things that God was gonna warn the Jews about, that seems like one of the things he should have warned them about.
Malcolm Collins: . Now, you could argue God meant for all of this stuff to happen twice and the new covenant was going to come after the second time it happened, but this seems intentionally dishonest. Everyone during the exile when this was written would clearly be led to believe that what was being revealed was about their current period of exile.
When the exile ended, they would've seen this as a fulfillment of that prophecy. . If we take this reading, then God intentionally misled the Jewish people, which I do not believe. I like. Why? Why are you even following him if he's just messing?
Like. Pranking you all the time. Ha. Actually all of you had like all of your land destroyed and your temple ruined and everything I told you , like [03:52:00] absolutely messed. And I totally messed with you when I said that you would, you would have this all, you know, rebuilt and, and I wasn't even talking about that period that you 100% would've believed I was talking about if you were living through that period.
Second, if the event was supposed to happen after a second exile and the Holocaust, that's a pretty big thing not to mention.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: No, it seems clear. It is talking about the second temple period here, which is punctuated with the destruction of the second temple. So I note here, like if you take the view that, oh, this Messianic age or is being described here and this is all happening, you know, way, way in the future you didn't even think to tell us that we'd get a kingdom and the kingdom would be destroyed and then we'd get another kingdom and then that would be.
No, they didn't get to, they didn't get any of that. And so you could argue that. Or you could say God accurately predicted future events to the Jews who were in exile in order to console them and accurately prophesize the creation of their second kingdom. And included within that prophecy wasn't mentions of the Holocaust or anything.
Not because God just, I. Didn't feel like [03:53:00] telling the Jews about that. But it wasn't relevant yet , to Jews of that time period. And that the Holocaust, you could say , as we've argued, was likely a reaction to Jews doing something that pissed off God. And I think it's important. To meditate on what came a few hundred years before the Holocaust.
Mm. Because this is now, it could be the following of the false Messiah that caused the Holocaust, by the way, because that's why been a few hundred years before. Because it seems like God's punishments typically have been a few hundred, I'd say like 300, 400 years after whatever the event incident incites him.
Don't know why he takes so long, but it seems to be the way it works.
Now I would note here somebody could say, oh, it's really offensive to say, , that Jews were in any way responsible for what happened during the Holocaust. And I'm not saying this as like a accusatory thing. I'm saying this from the perspective of Jewish theology. God typically warns the Jewish people when they're doing something bad and then he punishes them, like with [03:54:00] the, , Babylonian exile or like with the destruction of the second temple period.
, there is no like major negative event to befall the Jewish people other than the Holocaust where there wasn't some consolidated within the Jewish tradition. Oh, this is why God did this to us line. So it would be. Antithetical to Jewish theology, , to say, oh, the Holocaust was just 'cause, just, just for funsies.
, God always does things for a reason, and you could go, oh, well what about the Book of Job? The Book of Job was a single person., the Holocaust would be a very unique thing for God to allow to happen, , , in terms of the way , the Jewish religious texts work without reason.
So either you actually believe that there is a God and he's real, and he has the capacity to do things like stop an event like the Holocaust, or you don't believe that, , or you believe that God is real and loves the Jewish people and allowed the Holocaust to happen even when they were doing absolutely everything right?, [03:55:00] That to me sounds like a really messed up situation. , so. I, this is one of those things where it's an offensive thing to state, but it's just like an obvious truth if you actually believe Jewish theology.
Malcolm Collins: Now, I should note here that all of this happens immediately after the bit about returning from exile. Mm-hmm. Like, it's not that each of these sections are in Jeremiah. The thing about the covenant is sandwiched at the end of the talk about returning from exile.
Mm-hmm. For example, this line comes up after the talk of the new covenant. The days are coming, declares the Lord when this city will be rebuilt for me, the new covenant discussion occurs in a long list about what's going to happen when they return from exile. Also, why did God give such accurate predictions of the Jewish people's future here?
But not warn them about the destruction of the second temple or the Holocaust. Clearly, it's almost like for a long period, starting with the destruction of the second temple, God's favor left the Jewish people to focus on some new [03:56:00] group only to return to them in the past century or so. Now, at the counter argument, the part after the talk of the covenant that talks about rebuilding the city does say that.
A time will come when the city will never be uprooted or destroyed again. And that clearly at least kind of was after the exile. So you could say the fact that that was part of the prophecy indicates that it's talking about a second rebuilding of Israel. But I take it to just mean, we're talking about this one rebuilding of Israel here and the covenant that you're gonna get along with that.
And then. Some other time in the future of the city will because, you know, in God and maybe Jewish history's perspective the period where the Jews were outside of Israel is just a blip in, in, in human history. Small to them in the same way the Babylonian exile seems short term to us.
Simone Collins: Any thoughts?
Well, with all these periods of, of God supposedly not showing favor, you and I always talk about how we don't want our children to have easy lives that we want to.
Malcolm Collins: No, I mean, I think God, it [03:57:00] challenges you, I think Favor? Yeah. Are these not
Simone Collins: maybe just challenges, not like, I need to give you hardships so you're stronger.
Malcolm Collins: No, the, the Holocaust goes a lit little more than just a challenge.
Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, yeah. I don't know. I don't know though, like,
Malcolm Collins: s. They're, I, I mean, it, it, maybe it strengthened the Jewish people. Maybe it's why they're so exceptional right now. What we have now, we have Israel, we have incredibly successful Jewish groups, so people
Simone Collins: who are due the Holocaust was Jewish better before the Holocaust than we're now.
Remember, we did an episode on this.
Malcolm Collins: We did an episode on this. So if you look at for example, pediatricians in Germany before the Holocaust, because we have notes in this mm-hmm. Or dentists. You have to go to the episode for the exact numbers, but I wanna say something like, they appeared in these professions at like 900%.
What you would expect. Or it might have even higher, it might have been like 9,000. What
Simone Collins: you expect as opposed to now, though, I mean, like, yes, they were exceptional then, but are they more exceptional now?
Malcolm Collins: Jews?
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Are you, I, you know that they participate in like Nobel Laureates who are Jewish. [03:58:00] It's like, I know, I know.
My
Simone Collins: point though is like that is post Holocaust and pre Holocaust. You're you're, you're implying you're telling me that they were better off then?
Malcolm Collins: Yes. I just said pre Holocaust. Dentist doctors, pediatricians who were Jewish appeared at like 9000% the rate that you would expect given the percent that were Jews.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: But what about have evidence of this
Simone Collins: today?
Malcolm Collins: Is it lower it Jews don't exist in Germany in large numbers. What? What are you asking? In Germany? Yeah, but I mean like, then there's the diaspora throughout the rest of the world. Which is exceptional. Now, the point I'm making is that we have evidence of Jewish exceptionalism, both before and after the Holocaust.
Yeah. Indicating that Jewish SEC exceptionalism is not a result of the Holocaust.
Simone Collins: Right. But could it have been strengthened by that? I, I mean, again, like I do not support that there was a Holocaust. I think it's so horrible and I, it's hard for me to understand how it could been. It could have
Malcolm Collins: theoretically been, but the majority of evidence we have does not support that.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: [03:59:00] Okay. And we do have Israel now. Well, yeah, they've done well, but they were doing really well before the Holocaust. Again, I don't know, have, like Roth child, we didn't as much of a, as a family, the Jewish banking networks, all of that was pre Holocaust.
Simone Collins: Yeah, but it was concentrated as well. And like what?
No, it wasn't concentrated. I just told
Malcolm Collins: you. Doctors, pediatricians, and dentists. Oh yeah. 'cause
Simone Collins: they're. Changing the not, not to say that like, oh no, but
Malcolm Collins: they do earn significantly more and are indicative of a community that is a higher levels of education, higher levels of wealth, and higher levels of community influence
Simone Collins: maybe.
I don't know. M just, I'm trying
Malcolm Collins: to play devil's advocate here. Yeah. Yes. But the evidence doesn't agree with this devil advocates, but I know, I just,
Simone Collins: I just, I mean, it's really otherwise hard to understand. Jewish has chosen, like God's chosen people. When you look at things like the, it's just like. Well, you could say that he
Malcolm Collins: specifically, now we know because we know that God said during the exile, like, I'm punishing you for messing up.
We know according to Jewish tradition. Yeah. God punishes the Jewish people to show them they're messing up.
Simone Collins: [04:00:00] Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: So this is not inconsistent with even God's original relationship with Jews that we see in the Old Testament.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: So, and I imagine he's gonna do, he does the same to Christians when they mess up.
I, I think that we're seeing this through crashing fertility rates now and a degradation of the culture and artistic traditions that they built. And God , is using , the very thing that we are supposed to know, to be afraid of and, and have fear of this urban monoculture as this thing that's, that's burning humanity.
You know, as I said, God told us he would never again drown the world. But in an inversion of that, what we're seeing now in this great wiping of the world, this great sort of happening that we're living through of, of, of mass cultural death, mass cultural extinction, the crucible that this is an inversion of the flood.
That people instead of drowning, are burning on a bonfire of their own vanity.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: And it, it is, instead of God doing it, [04:01:00] they are throwing themselves into this fire. And they are doing it through serialization rather than literal deaths. It's like an inversion of the flood narrative in every conceivable way.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: And I think actually that's what the flood narrative is about, but we'll talk about this in some other day. I actually think the flood narrative is about warning us about this fertility collapse. Hmm.
Simone Collins: Um hmm. Looking forward to that conversation.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. Now, suppose I was a Jewish rabbi and I needed to find a way to resolve all the above issues.
Here's how you do it, so I'm gonna fix this. Okay. I would concede that Judaism used to function more like Islam in terms of both how they set out rules for governing a state and through converts. This is just too widely attested to really argue against and some Jews, I've talked to you like, no, this isn't true.
I'm just like, it, it becomes really hard, like as a, the, you remember all of the evidence I laid out for this Simone, do you think it's even plausible that Jews did not have regular converts? And I'm not saying all Jews, there was clearly some sect of Jews that might be the true Jews, but there wasn't. No, I mean, [04:02:00] yeah, you
Simone Collins: laid out so much, like pretty well documented historical.
Evidence that they were proselytizers and people trying to convert? No. Yeah, yeah,
Malcolm Collins: clearly both. Both from within the Jewish community. And external to the Jewish community. Yeah. And from people who liked Jews and from people who hated Jews. Yeah. People who liked Jews were like, we have Jewish settlements in every city.
Then we have tactics here. Like, oh, Jews have settlements in every city. Like, like major convert centers, you know? And Yeah. And they, you know, so, and it also helps explain why Christianity spread so fast, so it even like explains other mysteries that don't make sense without this.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: So I'd accept that because I think if you, if you try to take a position that's clearly anti historical, is harder to, for people to take your religion seriously.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Instead, I would argue that Judaism was not originally an ethno religion, but became one with the destruction of the second temple as was laid out in Jeremiah.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Specifically either the destruction of the second temple itself or something just before it happened. But was not Jesus. [04:03:00] Started the second covenant, which the Bible says clearly would be written within the Jewish people and on their hearts.
This explains why it was not written within the Jewish people in the earlier historic period and has clear text supporting it within the Bible, that at some point after the exile, the covenant would be become written within the biology of the Jews matrilineal de. Scent because the mother is the one who makes the body of the future Jew, thus imprinting them with the potentiality to engage with this covenant.
Mm-hmm. Bam. Fixed. Of course, for this fix to work, I still need some instigating event for the second covenant, but given that lots of rabbis have argued that they are already living under the second covenant, this is very doable. Okay. This is not seen as like a heretical Jewish position. It may not be a mainstream rabbinical position, but many.
Well known and famous rabbis have argued that Jews are already living in the second covenant. . The problem is, as a non-Jew, when I am asked to find some event of world spanning theological significant [04:04:00] that happened just before the destruction of the second temple, well, let's just say I find the above less satisfying than that.
Christ initiated the second covenant and applied it to all people. However, I am personally proud of coming up with a solution to this particular problem. And the way that you would argue this is you'd say, well, you can ignore the, the parts about, because it said that the second covenant is just for Jews just for the people of Judea.
And that, okay, yes, you could convert into Judea easily before then, like Ruth and these other people did. But you can't convert easily into Judea. After whenever this covenant was formed, which was written in people's hearts. And we know from the Bible that when the first covenant was formed, because it within contrast to the second covenant, it was not written, within the Jews.
It was not written, within their hearts. And that's why it was okay to convert people all the time during that period. And that's why it wasn't okay to convert people after the destruction of the second temple. It aligns with historical events of when conversion stopped. It aligns with the biblical text, and it's a completely logical explanation as to how Jews became a matrilineal [04:05:00] religion.
Now of course, again, I think the problem is, is you're like, okay, but where is the initiating instigating event of the second covenant of theological significant before? This is just before to destruction of the new temp second temple. And really the only one I can see is Jesus, but oh well. Any thoughts before we get to the very last section here?
No proceed, but I have one major problem. As saying Stan, God does seem to be favoring the Jews still, even with their corrupted belief system. From my perspective, they enter politics successfully at higher rates. They win more Nobel Prizes. They invent more stuff, they have more money. Oh, and they have their own country, and within that country have both a growing population, even among the technologically and economically engaged sub factions.
But are still, their country is surrounded by easily expandable territory, weak countries that could not put up a real fight against their technology and economy. If they ever wanted more land and resources, the only thing really stopping them is the pox de Romana [04:06:00] of the urban monoculture of the international community.
As Europe falls into irrelevance, and America is increasingly ruled by a proje Christian coalition, social norms are likely to be. More relaxed and Israel will be bringing an AI drone swarm to fight populations with AKs. Not that they will need the land, just if they hypothetically did, there isn't really anything stopping them in the future.
I. And if you're like, oh, Europe won't collapse, bro, bro, you need to like get a, a, like a snort of reality pill here. Italy right now is at a fertility rate of 1.18, even if it doesn't continue to go down, which it has every year for the past 16 years at its current fertility rate for every a hundred Italians, there's only gonna be every around 20 great grandchildren.
They cannot survive as a country like that, especially when you contrast them with the low tech populations around them that are breeding. And those low tech populations are not going to be that much of a threat to Israel if they build things like the United States [04:07:00] government is already building that we've talked about in other videos like giant movable.
Tanks and ships that can create hundreds of AI controlled drones a day. You just can't fight against that with tunnels or conventional weapons or really anything. And the people around Israel right now, these countries that today, we might view them as a test for Israel, like a test that God gave to make Israel strong keep their fertility rate high, everything like that.
In the future are. It's just like free land. It's like something that historically was a no. I'm not saying there aren't moral complications to taking this land. I'm just being like, suppose these groups continually attack the Jews giving them an excuse to take that land. Mm-hmm. It's not like that hasn't been a reason for their expansion in the past.
Nor in the Bible that God hasn't told the Jews, oh, well you can take this land or you can take that land in that particular area of the world. Oh, and any thoughts on that before I go further? I know that's a very offensive thing to say, but it's [04:08:00] also an obviously true thing. No
Simone Collins: yeah, I hear you.
Malcolm Collins: And it's, it's something that I think many Jews haven't thought about when they think about their current conflicts and troubles that it is the, their current troubles are born in the seeds of their future potential prosperity.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, and don't even get me started on the power of their diaspora.
Proverbial Esthers are in every country and government in the world. Basically, if things play out the way, all current stats predict they will, Jews win the game despite everything having been rigged against them. They still have some level of divine favor. This is why it is critical for the technopuritan tradition as it grows to build a strong, long-term structural allegiance with Jewish communities.
And when I talk about proverbial esters here, what I'm saying is is that Jews, even in their biblical tradition, say, Hey, you know, if you're a Jew in a country that is ruled by non-Jews, maybe you know. Marry to families like [04:09:00] say like Ivana marrying the Jewish guy, right? Like that's actually like within Jewish tradition, you're not supposed to marry outside the tradition, but if you can influence politics favorably for Jews there are stories you could take to say, yeah, you should do that.
And what I'm saying about this is, is that the Jewish diaspora is easily the strongest diaspora in the world in terms of cultural and political influence. That's not a conspiratorial statement. That is an. Obvious statement of fact. It's a practical statement. Golf clap. You guys did very well. I don't hold it against you.
And I would say that they've actually done it being less Jared Kushner. Sorry, Jared Kushner. Jared Kushner. Yeah. Being less nepotistic than some other communities. Like I think for example, if I look in American politics, Catholics are way more nepotistic than Jews. There's a number of times where we've basically been told like, Hey, you know, you guys convert and I can get you some nice positions.
I can get you. Hey, do you wanna go to mass with us today? Hey, do you wanna. Jews have never pulled that stuff with me, you know? But I get it from Catholics very frequently. And so, and I, well, I mean, I don't wanna say that I think that might have partially motivated jds [04:10:00] conversion. But I can say that we would have a much easier time in conservative politics if we were Catholics.
Despite the average Catholic, even today voting Democrat, that is quite a network of nepotism, that it works even in the party you don't support.
And I should note here that I don't mean this accusatorily. I think nepotism is completely fair game for any cultural group to favor their own over outsiders. , , even the idea that it would be normative to give equal vetting to both insiders and outsiders seems to me, , one of the repugnant lies of the urban monoculture.
Malcolm Collins: And I think everybody knows that. You can look at like the, that, that organization that helps Catholic judges the Federalist Society. Oh I didn't know that. Do you know it was run by the lady who did the tiger Children?
Simone Collins: No way.
Yeah. Really?
Note, I checked this in post and apparently it's not accurate. , where I had gotten that from is apparently she withinfluential within it or something, or influential within conservative politics, in part through the Federalist Society. , but she goes [04:11:00] to their events and everything I.
Malcolm Collins: It's like this, this society that helps conservative judges predominantly Catholic. Catholic. Catholic. I think she is.
Simone Collins: That's so interesting. iChecking
Malcolm Collins: post, you can ask, is Tiger Mom Catholic?
But yeah, this is why I'm like yeah, we, we should see Jews as a Amy, as a, a accurate way of following a covenant. It's just a different covenant. Tesseract God is an important part of the technopuritan belief that there are multiple conservative traditions to God. And so when I look through this prism or lens that God has given me.
A lot of things that the Jews are doing look wrong, as I've said here. But that is because I am looking through my traditions prism, and I think you can choose. Do you look at reality through the Jewish prism or do you look at it through my prism? Because my prism says even if when I put the prism on, I see, you know, you know, summoning demons accidentally sometimes, and I'm like, oh, that's obviously like a bad ritual.
You know, I know that God does favor the Jews from easily measurable public evidence. [04:12:00] And Amy Chua
Simone Collins: was raised Catholic after teenage years and it appears to be still Catholic. So yeah.
Malcolm Collins: What did I tell you? They make up like almost all of our Supreme Court judges. It was like. Eight of 10 at one point, like 80%.
That's why making it up like a very small portion of the US population. Yeah. But the
Simone Collins: rest are like Jewish, right? They're something, yeah. The rest are Jewish. That is Jewish.
Malcolm Collins: All Catholic and Jews? No Protestants. I think there might be Protestants right now. I think one converted into Protestantism and one's like a half Protestant.
Half.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I dunno, converted or was born, whatever. It doesn't, it doesn't matter to me. But the point being Jews, despite all of this we still have to find a way to work with them. And I think if we build from their perspective, I would say again, I. Hey, our system technically follows the noahide tradition.
Mm-hmm. It might follow it in a way that theologically isn't super palatable to you. But it does follow the rules you set out and propagates those rules and it would be a tradition that would be beneficial to you to have a high tech group that thinks your community. I. Is sacred. Shouldn't be [04:13:00] deconverted, shouldn't be messed with.
I would say it shouldn't be deconverted unless they're super competent. And that's one of the things about the te Puritan tradition. It is very much like, don't go after the average person. This is a religion that really, I, I think even psychologically isn't meant for the average person. It is meant for people who we would consider like it, it is very much a, elect religion. Right. You know, only certain people are meant for this religion. And so I would never, ever, ever advocate for, for mass conversion techniques or practices within the religion. But that doesn't mean that you would never have targeted conversions.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Now you might be asking why do I think their divine favor trumps my logic and what I read in the Bible leads me to think that they have more things right. Well, it seems clear to me that there were times in history God favored either Christians or Muslims more than the Jews. This indicates to me that his favor will shift. My current assumption is his favor currently rests on the Jews in spite of where they are.
Asray from his truce, because so many Christians have succumbed to idolatry and sin [04:14:00] transference rituals. If I am right. Then within a few generations, especially once the technopuritans have artificial wos and better gene editing technology, God's favor of us will be made self-evident.
So basically here I'm saying, look, if our community doesn't do well, I'm wrong. My interpretations are wrong. That's how God shows things, right? Yeah.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: I would also end this by pointing out that Christ was sacrificed to create a new covenant that does not invalidate the first covenant. A Jew that follows all the rules of the first covenant is just as in line with God's will as Christians.
You know, as long as they don't get into all of the kabbalistic demon summoning and attempting to compute with the spirit realm stuff. I mean, Alex Jones clip here
They will not manipulate your free will unless you ask them in. I have dude, do not say that I'm gonna get killed.
Malcolm Collins: But Maimonides even warns Jews of this. As I pointed out, like this isn't some like novel anti-Jewish perspective. If I'm taking a perspective.
That, that Maimonides also takes , I think that, that most Jews would be like, okay, well this perspective isn't [04:15:00] common in modern Jewish community. It's not an anti-Jewish perspective. Okay. So anyway, Simone, thoughts on this tract Too offensive. I don't think it's that offensive to Jews Maybe.
Simone Collins: I think Jews generally, like , any group about whom you write are chuffed, that you care enough to learn so much about their religion. I. As an outsider, they can make any justification they choose should they disagree with something you say that you simply don't understand or you misinterpreted something so that which you consider to be offensive is probably something they would discount.
Due to your ignorance or misinterpretation?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I mean, I think my, my interest in engaging with religion is very earnest. , , and obviously earnest, but some people can't. Like in the Opus Day video, you know, which was while we, we, we mentioned that like, we're not Catholics obviously, like we're gonna have a somewhat hostile interpretation of Catholicism, but this one group within Catholicism, I like almost everything they do.
A lot of Catholics were really mad at us for that [04:16:00] video. They're like, oh, you know, you're, you are attacking Catholicism. This is a Catholic's all bad video. We actually had a Jew once reach out to us angry about our video, where we argue that Jews are not genetically superior to other people, and that it's likely culture that's leading them to do better well, culture and divine favor.
Mm-hmm. And he's like, this is like an anti-Jewish video. And I was like, what? Oh, people are still
Simone Collins: tweeting about that. Like a couple of days ago, someone was like, anti-Semites on 4chan are using your video for. Like, and just we're trying to say that Jewish culture is superior and to, like you said, the Jews have God's favorite.
Like what? Do you want it to be just your genes? Yeah. That that's like, is that flattering somehow? No, but it's also worse. Your just maybe she's born with it 'cause she's
Malcolm Collins: Jewish. No, it's if, if I was king of the Jews and I could like make a rule like, okay, this is the way we're gonna handle this particular, you really wouldn't want the genetic explanation to be the mainstream explanation.
No. 'cause it makes it look like your success is unfair, and therefore within the progressive culture IE it's [04:17:00] due to a systemic privilege you have over other people a genetic privilege. Mm-hmm. You should be discriminated against. Like that would be a very, very bad mainstream interpretation to catch on.
Yeah. You would want the interpretation to be, oh, it's cultural practices that anyone can learn from and adopt. Mm-hmm. Because then it's not that you have the systemic thing , in your favor which is you know. If people are like, well, some people, people will use anything to attack anyone.
Like whatever, right? Like, , I think that, that it's really important to engage with data honestly. And that if the data says X or Y or leads me in a direction which is what I think I'm doing with this track, and it's really funny, like as soon as I like get in the stream and I'm like, I'm just gonna go where the like.
Current of data goes, like the current is taking me, I end in positions that appear vastly more moral than other positions. To me, they appear more religiously coherent. Yeah. So much of where I think a lot of Christian traditions went off the rails and Judaism went off the rails. Was it attempting to swim against the current of God's will?
Saying, okay well, we [04:18:00] absolutely need to make Jesus divine. Oh, but now this creates an idolatry problem. Oh, well, we'll fix it with this concept of the Trinity. Oh, well, you know, I really want this additional afterlife. The immediate afterlife. Well, it's not in the Bible. Well, we'll, we'll twist parts of the Bible to try to add it in and put in hell here and stuff like this.
But now this creates all this immoral like stuff where God is punishing people forever for fairly minor trans aggressions. Like, all of that just seems, or, like , a, another recent Christian thing that I absolutely do not like , is this idea of, now I do believe in complete depravity in that man has fallen.
But this idea that only through Jesus' sacrifice can our souls be saved. That's not in the Bible unless you take that one line really out of context, that we go over what it seems to actually mean in this tract. You know, only, only through Jesus can you get to God. Yeah. But we also learn that Jesus is in you and Jesus is, and everyone who's a believer in God's in Jesus and God's in you in the same way than Jesus.
But anyway but they take that to mean that all humans are irrevocably corrupted and sinful, and that none of us are deserving of any of God's grace. And I can [04:19:00] understand why. It would be like, okay, well then if you're a moral person, you don't actually need Jesus.
Like Jesus's sacrifices meaningless from this perspective. And then you build this whole theological tradition on top of this, even though it's not in the Bible. And then it leads to all sorts of problems of like. Well that, that, I mean, it does seem that, you know, some humans seem broadly good. Like conceptually I can see a human who's a good guy.
Like I, I believe I've met some people who seem like really morally chaste and everything like that. And, and so if then you take Jesus' sacrifice has just been creating a new covenant. It fixes a lot of things and it seems imal, but I dunno, that's where I am with all this thoughts, Simone,
Simone Collins: what more could I possibly add?
Okay. Okay.
Malcolm Collins: I love you.
Simone Collins: I love you too, Malcolm, A lot.
What I was reading from (changed a lot during editing)
Tract 10: The Question that Breaks Jewdism
There is one question I started to innocently ponder that led me down a rabbit hole which began to unravel Jewish theology, identity, and even raised the question of whether modern Judaism should be thought of as the less radical deviation from Ancient Judaism when contrasted with Christianity.
That question, the question that breaks Judaism, is "Why the Jews?" "Why were the Jews of all people singled out by God as his chosen people?"
This is going to get very offensive and is the type of information I hesitate to release, as it could be used by anti-Semites... However, I think theologically it is a conversation we need to have in the same way previous tracts have had to uncomfortably point out where modern Christianity does not align with what is actually in the Bible. We will be doing the same with modern Judaism today.
We are going to be arguing that:
* Ancestral Judaism was not an ethno-religion, the concept of matrilineal Jewish identity is non-biblical. In fact, pre-Christ Judaism actively and aggressively proselytized and even forced the mass conversion of conquered people at times - as evidenced by both biblical sources and Roman historical accounts.
* The Noahide movement lacks solid biblical backing and is essentially a theological construct with minimal scriptural foundation.
* The biblical passages that Jews cite to argue against modifying God's covenant with man - which they use to deny Christianity as the more faithful offshoot of ancient Judaism - do not actually communicate what they claim.
* Even the way circumcision is practiced today may be incorrect when compared with Egyptian practices contemporary with the writing of the Old Testament.
* At the time of Christ, Judaism was a highly diverse tradition, and the Christian branch was not unique in its differences. The "true" Judaism that modern Jews claim to be descended from would have been just one of many religious systems based on the Old Testament, and was as different from the average theological understanding as Christianity was at that time.
* Original Christianity and Techno-Puritanism are much closer to the belief system of the average Jew at the time of Christ than modern Judaism.
* And, if Judaism started as a religion that actively proselytized and only became an ethno-religion after the Christian branch of the Jewish tradition gained widespread adoption, this makes the entire modern Jewish tradition appear as a reaction to the success of a version with arguably greater divine mandate.
* Of course, we will also address arguments against these points, as I have discussed my positions with a few Rabbis to gather the strongest counter-arguments I could find.
* Finally, we are going to go over a clever and unique textual theological argument that fixes every one of the problems I raise throughout this entire video. We will also discuss how Christians have to reconcile with the fact that demographically speaking right now the Jews very obviously have God's favor and will likely be the dominant world power within the next century.
Now if you are a Jew watching this and are about to get angry that I am going to point out where what is actually in the bible and historical sources do not align with what is taught within your community keep in mind you watched me do the same with Christians for nine tracts. Don’t be one of those people who can watch other communities be critically discussed but not your own without yelling anti-sematism.
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I will start this tract by saying this is not a path of logic I wanted to tread down, but one that became evident as I began to examine what I thought was an innocuous question—like pulling a single thread only to watch the entire sweater unravel.
"Why were the Jews of all people singled out by God as his chosen people?"
This is a theological question that not just Jews need a good answer for, but one Christians and Muslims also need to address—yet it is so often ignored by these traditions.
There are two broad categories of possible answers:
* There was something phenotypically, genetically, or otherwise tied to the nature of the early Jewish people that led to God favoring them.
* The Jewish people were set apart by their belief system and not by anything tied to their biology.
Rabbinic scholars almost universally lean toward the second answer. Early Jews had a more accurate conception of God, which led to them being rewarded as God's chosen people. I would note that this is also what I believe and what I find to be the most satisfying answer. The problem is, if the early Jews were God's chosen people because they had a more accurate understanding of the divine, why should modern Judaism be gatekept around matrilineal inheritance instead of around a person's belief system? Why would an atheist secular Jew be considered more Jewish than a deist, when the deist has a closer understanding of God? Does this concept not contradict the very basis of God's favor?
For more insight into how orthodox Jews answer this question, we need to examine a book composed in the 4th century CE, Sifre on Deuteronomy. An important note here is that this idea was not added to Jewish canon until centuries after Christ's death. Here is the exact text:
* And He said: The L-rd came from Sinai": When the L-rd appeared to give Torah to Israel, it is not to Israel alone that He appeared, but to all of the nations. First He went to the children of Esav, and He asked them: Will you accept the Torah? They asked: What is written in it? He answered: "You shall not kill" (Shemoth 20:13). They answered: The entire essence of our father is murder, as it is written (Bereshith 27:22) "And the hands are the hands of Esav." And it is with this that his father assured him (Ibid. 27:40) "And by your sword shall you live." He then went to the children of Ammon and Moav and asked them: Will you accept the Torah? They asked: What is written in it? He answered "You shall not commit adultery." They answered: L-rd of the Universe, ervah (illicit relations) is our entire essence, as it is written (Ibid. 19:36) "And the two daughters of Lot conceived by their father." He then went and found the children of Yishmael and asked them: Will you accept the Torah? They asked: What is written in it? He answered: "You shall not steal" (Shemoth, Ibid.) They answered: L-rd of the Universe, our father's entire essence is stealing, viz. (Bereshith 16:12) "And he (Yishmael) shall be a wild man, his hand against all." There was none among all of the nations to whom He did not go and speak and knock at their door, asking if they would accept the Torah, viz. (Psalms 138:4) "All the kings of the earth will acknowledge You, O L-rd, for they heard the words of Your mouth." I might think they heard and accepted; it is, therefore, written (Ezekiel 33:31) "And they did not do them (the mitzvoth)." And (Michah 5:14) "And with anger and wrath will I take revenge of the nations because they did not accept (the mitzvoth)." And even the seven mitzvoth that the sons of Noach took upon themselves they could not abide by, until they divested themselves of them and ceded them to Israel.
This explanation presents numerous theological problems:
* First, the midrash portrays God physically appearing to numerous distinct nations simultaneously—an event of unprecedented cosmic significance that would have fundamentally altered human history. Yet no archaeological record, written tradition, or oral history outside the Jewish tradition references such a universally transformative revelation. Furthermore, the midrash's genealogical framework—attributing entire civilizations to single biblical ancestors (Esau, Ammon, Moab, Ishmael)—contradicts established anthropological understanding of human population dispersal and development. Archaeological and genetic evidence demonstrates that human groups evolved through complex patterns of migration, intermarriage, and cultural exchange rather than through the neat, biblically-aligned family trees this narrative presupposes. This anachronistic projection of later ethnic identities onto a mythic pre-Sinai world fundamentally misrepresents the actual historical development of ancient Near Eastern peoples.
* You might say the Mishnah is meant to be allegorical, and that God's foreknowledge that other people would deny the Torah is why He didn't bring it to them. This leads to the second problem.
* Second, it is clearly immoral. The Old Testament makes it clear that children should not be punished for the sins of their fathers. Why can't these peoples' descendants simply decide to stop these sins? Ezekiel 18:20 states: "The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them." If your response is to argue that this was just a deeply ingrained cultural tendency in these groups, then why is someone still considered Jewish if they have left Jewish culture? Why are they still Jewish when they break God's commandments? Why maintain matrilineal descent at all?
* Third, it seems to suggest that one can inherit a core sin from something a distant ancestor did, at least at the cultural level. In the context of the Jews being the descendants of King David, consider the passage: "Will you accept the Torah? They asked: What is written in it? He answered, 'You shall not commit adultery.' They answered: L-rd of the Universe, ervah (illicit relations) is our entire essence, as it is written (Ibid. 19:36) 'And the two daughters of Lot conceived by their father.'" Why are the children of Ammon and Moav tainted by their ancestors' sins but not the Jews?
* Fourth, the midrash seems to conflict with God's omniscience. If God knows all, then offering the Torah to nations He already knew would reject it raises questions about divine foreknowledge and the sincerity of the offer. This essentially reduces the interaction to a formality from God's perspective, allowing Him to do what He already intended: favor the Jewish people. Of course this could be used to explain why there is no historical record of the events because he just decided not to do the act but that still leaves all the other problems.
* Fifth, the midrash presents entire nations being judged based on the actions of single ancestors or representatives, which raises serious questions about fairness and individual moral agency.
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Now before we go further, let's examine every instance in the Bible or Old Testament where someone attempts to address the question of "why the Jews."
Deuteronomy 7:7-8: "The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors..."
This passage is interesting because it specifically denies one potential reason (population size) but then provides a somewhat circular explanation - essentially "because God loved you."
Genesis 18:19 provides another perspective regarding Abraham specifically: "For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just..."
This suggests the choice was based on Abraham's future role in teaching righteousness.
Deuteronomy 9:4-6 explicitly rejects the idea that the Jews were chosen for their righteousness: "After the Lord your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, 'The Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.' No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you. It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity..."
What we see throughout these passages is notably the absence of any claim that the Jewish people were chosen because of any inherent or unique qualities they possessed.
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All of this refocuses our question: if Jews are only Jews because of what they believe theologically, when did matrilineal descent enter the picture?
First, let's examine the academic answer to this question, then we'll address what orthodox Jews believe.
The matrilineal principle in Judaism is particularly interesting because it's not explicitly stated in the Torah/Hebrew Bible itself. The primary biblical text often cited is Deuteronomy 7:3-4, which discusses intermarriage: "You shall not intermarry with them... for they will turn your children away from following me." However, this text doesn't specifically establish matrilineal descent.
The clearest early source for matrilineal descent comes from the Mishnah (compiled around 200 CE) in Kiddushin 3:12, which states that a child follows the status of the mother. The Talmud (Kiddushin 68b) attempts to derive this principle from biblical verses, particularly from Deuteronomy 7:4, but many scholars view this as an ex post facto justification of an already existing practice.
In fact, we have substantial evidence to believe that at the time of the Christian split, Judaism transmitted family identity patrilineally:
* Biblical precedent: Throughout the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, lineage and tribal affiliation were typically traced through the father's line. The genealogies in Genesis, Numbers, and Chronicles follow patrilineal descent.
* Josephus and Philo: These first-century Jewish writers sometimes discuss Jewish identity in ways that appear to emphasize patrilineal descent.
* Priestly and Davidic lines: Priesthood (being a Kohen), the royal lineage were transmitted patrilineally, and the messiah line went patrilineal. Every major line went patrilineal.
* The Dead Sea Scrolls generally appear to emphasize patrilineal descent, particularly in the Damascus Document (CD) and the Rule of the Congregation (1QSa).
* Neither Philo of Alexandria nor Josephus mentions matrilineal descent; instead, both focus on concepts that implicitly support patrilineal descent.
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Now if you ask an orthodox Jew about this, I've heard one logically coherent—though not necessarily convincing—answer to the question of why matrilineal descent matters if Jews were originally chosen for what they believed rather than who they were. Specifically, they will say that when the Jews agreed to the covenant at Mount Sinai, this contract was applied to their bodies in some way and thus applied specifically to their people and only their people. The person who told me this didn't mention this point, but this understanding also explains why matrilineal descent would emerge in a culture that was still clearly tracing descent through paternal lines. If the covenant was written into the Jewish body, then it would only apply to the next generation if constructed within a Jewish body... after all, the vast majority of a baby is "made" by the mother, not the father.
Now if you are Jewish, and as I say, I encourage people to stay with their ancestral religions, this is as good an answer as you're going to get. Turn off the video now and walk away because it's only downhill from here.
For those of us who are unbound by such constraints, this answer fails at levels:
* Common sense: If this covenant God made with the people at Sinai traveled matrilineally through bloodlines, why was that never explicitly laid out in the Bible? That seems like an incredibly important point for what is apparently one of the existentially most important facts to the identity of God's people. And if it does work this way, why can people convert into Judaism at all—something we see happen multiple times in the Bible?
* Jeremiah: "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt... I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts." This is said in regards to a covenant to come and contrasted with the one at Sinai, making it clear the covenant created at Sinai was not put "within them."
* Biblical Conversions: We see multiple fairly straightforward conversions into Judaism within the Bible. If this is possible, it negates the idea of some special bond within the Jewish body. We will examine each of these in turn along with the counter-arguments.
* Historical: Finally, we know factually that early Jews did not see their religion this way. Traveling Jewish missionaries were so common in the Roman world that they are mentioned by multiple Roman historians and in the New Testament. But more damning than that, we also know that Jews used to force people in conquered regions to become Jewish and afterward considered these people fully Jewish. Again, I will cover all these points in turn.
* The New Testament: Nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus say his goal is to open Judaism to non-Jews. If Judaism at the time was understood to have high requirements for conversion or some level of matrilineal descent, why doesn't Jesus ever mention that it is now waived? Why did none of the people writing immediately after him mention this? Why was this seemingly a complete non-issue for early Christianity, with the debate in the early church instead focusing on whether circumcision was required for non-Jews who converted (in Paul's letters and other Jewish law discussions in Acts)? This aligns with what we see in other Jewish conversions of the time, but more on that in a moment.
What both history and the Bible reveal is that Judaism during this period was much closer to modern-day Islam than an ethno-religion. Specifically, it was a religion that anyone could convert into, that conquered other people and forced them to convert, and that had traveling missionaries who actively sought converts. It was also a religion that, like Islam, concerned how the state was governed. It was also a religion that, like Islam, carved out a place under that state for non-believers with unique rules applied to them. (This is where the concept of Ger Toshav emerges, which is very similar to the Muslim concept of Dhimmi.)
We are going to start with accounts from ancient historians then move to biblical accounts, beginning with the Jewish historian Josephus who wrote in the first century BCE—crucially after the destruction of the Temple—showing these practices were still common at that time.
During the Hasmonean period (2nd-1st century BCE), there are accounts of mass conversions, particularly of the Idumeans. According to Josephus, John Hyrcanus conducted military campaigns to expand Hasmonean territory. After defeating the Idumeans militarily, he incorporated their territory into his kingdom. After the military conquest, Hyrcanus gave the Idumeans an ultimatum: either convert to Judaism (which meant circumcision for males and adherence to Jewish law) or be expelled from their homeland. While forced conversion is problematic, this suggests a relatively simple conversion process. This conversion process consisted of circumcision and following the Jewish rules but interestingly not necessarily following Jewish beliefs. It is clear that at this period of Jewish history, being a Jew was not based on matrilineal descent or belief but on keeping the commandments. Anyone who followed all the rules was fully Jewish.
Also from Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews" (Book 20, Chapters 2-4), we learn about the conversion of Queen Helena of Adiabene and her son Izates to Judaism in the first century CE. This account is particularly noteworthy for what it reveals about conversion practices during this period.
Key points from Josephus' account include:
* Process of Conversion: Helena and Izates were drawn to Judaism separately through different Jewish merchants or teachers. Their conversions were voluntary and occurred without any reference to their maternal ancestry.
* No Matrilineal Requirements: Significantly, there is no mention in Josephus' account of any special requirements, additional rituals, or questions about Helena or Izates' maternal lineage. The conversion process appears to have been based solely on their acceptance of Jewish beliefs and practices.
* Circumcision Debate: Izates initially converted without circumcision on the advice of a Jewish merchant named Ananias, who feared political backlash if the king underwent the procedure. Later, another Jew from Galilee named Eleazar convinced Izates that circumcision was necessary for full observance of the law.
* Basic requirements: The conversion process appears to have been centered on accepting monotheism, adopting Jewish practices, and following Jewish law. For men, circumcision was debated as either essential or optional.
* No formal tribunal: Notably absent is any mention of a formal beit din (rabbinic court) or extensive questioning process that became standard in later rabbinic Judaism.
* Considered Fully Jewish: After their conversions, Helena and Izates were considered fully Jewish. Helena even made pilgrimages to Jerusalem and provided famine relief to the city, while Izates sent offerings to the Temple.
The Story of Metilius: In "The Jewish War" (Book 2, Chapter 17), Josephus recounts a brutal episode that occurred at the beginning of the Jewish revolt against Rome (around 66 CE). The Jewish rebels in Jerusalem attacked and overwhelmed the Roman garrison stationed in the city. The Roman soldiers took refuge in the royal towers, but were eventually forced to negotiate surrender terms with the Jewish rebels.
The garrison commander, Metilius, arranged terms of surrender whereby the Romans would lay down their weapons and be allowed to depart unharmed. However, once the Romans had surrendered their arms, the Jewish rebels, led by Eleazar, attacked and massacred them in violation of the agreement. Josephus writes:
"They [the rebels] fell upon the Romans, when they had brought them into the stadium, and encompassed them around, some of them being unarmed, and others in such a condition as rendered them incapable of defending themselves, and slew them all excepting Metilius, for they spared him alone because he entreated for mercy, and promised that he would turn Jew, and be circumcised."
Metilius was thus the sole survivor of this massacre, having agreed to convert to Judaism to save his life. Josephus presents this incident as a terrible crime that violated sacred oaths and brought divine punishment upon Jerusalem.
Conversion of Women in Damascus: In "The Jewish War" (Book 2, Chapter 20), Josephus describes events in Damascus during the early stages of the Jewish revolt. After news spread of Jewish rebel victories, the people of Damascus planned to massacre the Jewish population in their city. However, they had a problem:
"But they were afraid of their own wives, who were almost all of them addicted to the Jewish religion; on which account it was that their greatest concern was, how they might conceal these things from them."
The passage indicates that a significant number of non-Jewish women in Damascus had embraced Judaism. These women had such strong attachment to Judaism and the Jewish community that their husbands feared they would warn the Jews about the planned massacre. The men of Damascus ultimately carried out their plan in secret, killing about 10,000 Jews in a single hour.
This brief mention illustrates how Judaism had attracted numerous Gentile women converts, to the point where it affected political and military calculations during the Jewish-Roman conflicts.
The Story of Fulvia: In "Antiquities of the Jews" (Book 18, Chapter 3), Josephus recounts an incident that occurred in Rome during the reign of Emperor Tiberius (around 19 CE). According to Josephus:
"There was a woman who was a proselyte [convert to Judaism], whose name was Fulvia, a woman of great dignity, and one that had embraced the Jewish religion. The men [four Jewish scoundrels] had persuaded her to send purple and gold to the temple at Jerusalem; and when they had received what she had donated, they employed it for their own uses, and did not bring it to the temple."
In this account, Fulvia is described as a woman of high social standing in Rome who had converted to Judaism. Her husband, Saturninus, reported this fraud to his friend Sejanus, who then informed Emperor Tiberius. Tiberius used this incident as a pretext to expel all Jews from Rome, forcibly conscripting 4,000 Jewish youths for military service in Sardinia.
This story illustrates both that high-status Romans were converting to Judaism and that this was occurring during a time of increasing Roman hostility toward Jewish practices.
The Jews and Greeks of Antioch: In "The Jewish War" (Book 7, Chapter 3), Josephus describes the relationship between Jews and gentiles in Antioch (in modern-day Turkey), one of the major cities of the Roman East:
"For as the Jewish nation is widely dispersed over all the habitable earth among its inhabitants, so it is very much intermingled with Syria by reason of its neighborhood, and had the greatest multitudes in Antioch by reason of the largeness of the city, wherein the kings, after Antiochus, had afforded them a habitation with the most undisturbed tranquility... They also made proselytes of a great many of the Greeks perpetually, and thereby, after a sort, brought them to be a portion of their own body."
This passage indicates that Judaism in Antioch was actively attracting Greek converts. The phrase "they had in some measure incorporated with themselves" suggests these converts were integrated into the Jewish community. This provides evidence that Judaism during this period was not closed to outsiders but was actually engaged in what we might today call missionary activity.
And throughout his books Josephus writes of Jewish proselytization:
* Against Apion (Book 2, 39): Josephus proudly notes the widespread appeal of Jewish practices: "The masses have long since shown a keen desire to adopt our religious observances; and there is not one city, Greek or barbarian, nor a single nation, to which our custom of abstaining from work on the seventh day has not spread, and where the fasts and the lighting of lamps and many of our prohibitions in the matter of food are not observed."
* Against Apion (Book 2, 36): He emphasizes how many Gentiles have adopted Jewish customs: "Many people have come over to our ways of worship, some of whom have remained, while others, lacking the necessary endurance, have fallen away again."
* Jewish War (Book 2, 18, 2): During the outbreak of violence against Jews in Caesarea, Josephus notes: "The whole city was filled with confusion, and it appeared evident that the rest of the population would soon betake themselves to arms against the Jews. This event was mainly achieved through the work of proselytes [converts]."
* Jewish War (Book 7, 3, 3): When discussing anti-Jewish riots in Antioch, Josephus states: "For as the Jewish nation is widely dispersed over all the habitable earth [...] They also made proselytes of a great many of the Greeks perpetually, and thereby, after a sort, brought them to be a portion of their own body."
* Antiquities (Book 20, 2, 1-5): Beyond the specific story of Helena and Izates, Josephus mentions that the merchant Ananias "taught them [the royal family] to worship God according to the Jewish religion," suggesting ongoing missionary activity.
Now maybe Josephus made all this up. That's possible, his history could be complete fiction. The problem now comes from Roman writers.
Tacitus on Jewish Converts: In his "Histories" (Book 5.5), written around 100-110 CE, Tacitus notes with disdain: "Those who are converted to their ways follow the same practice [of circumcision], and the earliest lesson they receive is to despise the gods, to disown their country, and to regard their parents, children, and brothers as of little account."
This hostile characterization nonetheless confirms that conversions to Judaism were occurring among Romans. Tacitus presents conversion as a complete break with Roman identity and values.
Juvenal's Complaints: In his "Satires" (particularly Satire 14, lines 96-106), written in the early 2nd century CE, Juvenal mocks Romans who adopt Jewish practices: "Some who have had a father who reveres the Sabbath, worship nothing but the clouds, and the divinity of the heavens... Having been trained to despise the Roman laws, they learn and practice and revere the Jewish law..."
He describes a multi-generational process where first-generation converts observe some Jewish customs, while their children become fully observant Jews, showing concern about Judaism's growing influence in Rome.
Roman Legal Restrictions: Emperor Hadrian (ruled 117-138 CE) reportedly banned circumcision, which effectively prohibited conversion to Judaism. Earlier, Emperor Domitian (ruled 81-96 CE) imposed the Jewish tax (fiscus Judaicus) on those who "lived a Jewish life without publicly acknowledging that faith," targeting converts.
Cassius Dio's Account: In his "Roman History" (Book 67.14.1-2), written in the early 3rd century CE but describing events under Domitian, Cassius Dio reports: "Many others who drifted into Jewish ways were condemned. Some were put to death, and the rest were at least deprived of their property."
This passage suggests conversion was widespread enough to warrant imperial persecution.
Matthew 23:15: This New Testament verse (written c.80-90 CE) has Jesus criticizing certain Pharisees: "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert..."
While polemical, this suggests active Jewish missionary efforts during the late Second Temple period, confirming that some Jewish groups actively sought converts.
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Let's now turn to the Bible itself. I didn't start with the Bible because most orthodox Jews have already had to deal with the fact that all Ruth apparently had to do to become a Jew—to become part of the lineage that led to King David—was say she wanted to be a Jew and was committed to the religion. They typically handle this with comments like:
"When Ruth converts to Judaism she offers a very radical declaration of commitment. See Ruth 1:16-17: And Ruth said, "Do not entreat me to leave you, to return from following you, for wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. So may the Lord do to me and so may He continue, if anything but death separate me and you." It's not oh hey, let me call myself Jewish and keep living like a heathen - its i am totally committed to this people, i am leaving my cultural context, my land Moab, and totally immersing in Jewish culture and practice."
That said, when this is taken in the context of all the historical evidence provided above, it becomes clear that Ruth's conversion was not something extraordinary, nor did it require such an extreme statement.
I will also note that modern Jewish interpretations of the story of Ruth a hugely weighed down by extra biblical rabinic traditions which makes her conversion sound more modern. Here is an example of one of those: “Ruth cuts ties with her Moabite family and joins the Jewish people - that fits the Talmudic criterion of "accepting the Mitzvot" as she committed to the Jewish G-d and Jewish practice. ... And even then, she's treated as an outcast, until she manages to seduce Boaz, a local Jewish noble, and the marriage is only approved of after she goes to the analog of a Beit Din (Jewish court) at the city gate.” If it was in the text that she went to a Jewish court to confirm her status as a Jew this would be a significant blow to my argument.
What's in the biblical text:
* In Ruth 4:1-12, Boaz does go to the city gate (which was a place where legal matters were settled)
* He gathers ten elders as witnesses
* However, the primary purpose was not to approve Ruth's conversion or status
* The legal matter concerned the right of redemption of Naomi's property and the levirate obligation to marry Ruth
* The closer relative initially had first right but declined
* Boaz then publicly declared his intention to redeem the property and marry Ruth
* The elders and people present blessed the union
What's not in the biblical text:
* There's no mention of Ruth appearing before this gathering
* The gathering wasn't convened to approve Ruth's conversion or status as a Jew
* There's no mention of Ruth being "treated as an outcast" after her declaration of loyalty to Naomi and her people
The characterization that Ruth went before an "analog of a Beit Din" and needed approval for her conversion is reading later rabbinic conversion procedures back into the biblical text. This represents an anachronistic interpretation that projects later Jewish legal frameworks onto the earlier biblical narrative.
The biblical text itself presents Ruth's transition to becoming part of the Israelite community as primarily based on her declaration of loyalty to Naomi, her people, and her God, without detailed legal procedures for conversion that developed in later rabbinic Judaism.
* Ruth's declaration to Naomi ("Your people will be my people and your God my God" - Ruth 1:16) constitutes her allegiance to Israel without any formal conversion process
* The gathering at the city gate in Ruth 4 was specifically about property redemption and marriage rights, not Ruth's religious status
* There's no mention of Ruth being treated as an outcast after her declaration of loyalty
* Ruth never appears before any court-like body to have her "conversion" approved
But let's say Ruth's conversion wording was so powerful that you're convinced it has parallels to modern conversions. What about Zipporah, the daughter of a Midianite priest who married Moses with no conversion process at all? In fact, just how unconverted she was is made clear when God threatened Moses to make sure he circumcised his son.
What's striking is that all these conversion processes described, while they don't align with what modern Jews believe about Jewish identity, match exactly with the Jewish experience, identity, and the covenant made with God as described in the Bible. What made you Jewish was following the rules and, to some extent, your beliefs. Your heritage had literally nothing to do with it outside of the priestly caste.
What about passages in books like Jubilees that warn against marrying outsiders? Well, they do, but they also explain why that warning exists in context: not due to concerns about blood purity, but because children from such marriages often had less Jewish beliefs and led the community astray. If I warned my children against marrying non-believers, which I will, does that mean I wouldn't consider converts to be Techno-Puritan? Does that mean I would still consider them Techno-Puritan if they left the faith? Of course not. It was a practical concern and a logical one.
The notion that Jewish identity should be passed down matrilineally and Judaism should become an ethno-religion represents such a bizarre series of conjectures drawn from practical concerns in the Bible. The Bible and Judaism of biblical times didn't have to address the question, "Why the Jews?" because it simply wasn't relevant.
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I hope we've now reached a point where anyone without a strong theological reason to believe otherwise can see that Judaism at the time of Jesus was a religion attempting to grow aggressively through proselytization. While it had some ethnic connection, this was closer to the modern relationship between Muslims and Arabs than how contemporary Jews view their religion. So now the question is: why would a religion like this transform into an ethno-religion? The sad answer appears to be that it was in response to the success of the Christian branch of the Jewish tradition.
First, we need to be clear that the branch of Judaism taught by Jesus was not particularly deviant for its time. Yes, it was distinct, but not more distinct than other contemporaneous branches of Judaism. For a quick list:
* Pharisees: Emphasized oral tradition alongside written Torah and believed in resurrection, angels, and fate/free will. They were forerunners of Rabbinic Judaism.
* Sadducees: Primarily aristocratic priests who rejected oral tradition, resurrection, and afterlife concepts. They emphasized Temple worship and only accepted the written Torah.
* Essenes: A separatist group who lived in monastic-like communities (possibly including Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found). They practiced extreme ritual purity, communal property, and apocalyptic beliefs.
* Zealots: A revolutionary movement focused on violent resistance against Roman occupation, believing God alone should rule Israel.
* Therapeutae: A Jewish contemplative community in Egypt described by Philo, practicing asceticism and mystical interpretation of scripture.
* Herodians: Supporters of Herod's dynasty who accommodated to Greco-Roman culture while maintaining Jewish identity.
* Various Messianic movements: Multiple groups formed around charismatic leaders claiming messianic status, including Theudas, Judas the Galilean, and "The Egyptian."
* Samaritans: Though they considered themselves true followers of Israelite religion, mainstream Jews viewed them as a deviant sect. They accepted only the Pentateuch and worshipped on Mount Gerizim.
* Hellenistic Judaism: Jewish communities (especially in Alexandria) who synthesized Jewish practice with Greek philosophy, represented by figures like Philo.
* Jewish-Christian groups: After Jesus, various groups like the Ebionites maintained Jewish practices while following Jesus as Messiah.
* Boethusians: Often grouped with the Sadducees but considered a distinct sect by some sources. They were founded by followers of Boethus, appointed high priest by Herod the Great. They rejected the oral tradition and had specific calendar-related disputes with the Pharisees.
* Fourth Philosophy: Mentioned by Josephus as founded by Judas the Galilean, they combined Pharisaic beliefs with radical political views that no human should be called master, only God.
* Hemerobaptists: A Jewish sect mentioned in early Christian and rabbinic literature who practiced daily ritual immersion for purification.
* Nazirites: While not exactly a sect, these were individuals who took special vows of abstinence (from alcohol, cutting hair, etc.) for dedicated periods of consecration to God.
* Rechabites: A clan that practiced an ascetic lifestyle, avoiding wine and permanent dwellings, living in tents as a religious commitment.
All these various branches of the Jewish religion were attempting to convert followers and spread their influence. The only reason we think of the branch ancestral to modern Jews as the "true" branch is because it is the one that survived and proliferated. But if surviving and proliferating makes you the true branch, why isn't Christianity considered the true branch?
We need to look at Christianity in the context of its actual texts and not the later traditions that were added, which made Christianity radically different from ancient Judaism. Specifically, these later beliefs that are not actually in Christian scripture which deviate from original Judaism are:
* The addition of an immediate heaven and hell afterlife in addition to the afterlife in which we are raised again at some point in the future (see our last tract, Tract 9, if it is shocking to you that this is not well attested in the Bible).
* The belief in using the son of God in a sin transference ritual mirroring the goat that Jews transferred their sin to and then sent to the demon Azazel (see tract 8 if this is shocking to you, but this idea was added to Christianity by Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033-1109), in his influential work "Cur Deus Homo" ("Why God Became Man") and is not found in the original texts which seem to be arguing that Jesus needed to be sacrificed to seal a new covenant, a common practice during that time period being sacrificing animals when signing a new covenant).
* The belief that Jesus was literally both God and God's son. We have not yet published our tract pointing out that this is not in the Bible and the Bible actually explicitly argues he is not, so I will summarize the key points and go into detail in the next tract.
* It was actually common in the Old Testament to call favored individuals children of God. This is likely what Jesus meant in the parts where he calls himself the son of God. Christians today call God Father all the time and no one gets confused and believes they think God the Father is literally that individual's Father.
* Psalm 2:7 - "I will proclaim the Lord's decree: He said to me, 'You are my son; today I have become your father.'" (This is referring to the Davidic king)
* Another clear example is in Exodus 4:22-23, where God refers to Israel collectively as his son:
* "Then say to Pharaoh, 'This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, "Let my son go, so he may worship me."'"
* In Hosea 11:1, God again refers to Israel as his son: "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son."
* There's also a reference in 2 Samuel 7:14 regarding David's descendant (Solomon): "I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands."
* In the OT, God helps other women conceive when it should be impossible without those children being considered God's sons.
* We also need to think of the logistical problems if it means Jesus is literally God's son. What is his Y chromosome? God used some human male's DNA to create Jesus, as God does not have DNA, and it is the DNA that is mixed with a female's that determines who the literal father of a child is whether or not that man slept with said woman.
* It doesn't make sense in context. If he and God shared the same will, why would he say things like, "My father, why have you forsaken me?"
Jesus tells us he is not literally God's son on each of the three occasions he is pressed on the subject:
1.
"But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again the high priest asked him, 'Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?' And Jesus said, 'I am; and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.'"
Note here Jesus is asked two questions: the first being if he is Christ the Messiah, who Jews understood to be human, and the second being if he is the Son of God. He answers both in turn, "I Am" (i.e., I am the messiah), and "you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power" (i.e., I am the Son of Man). Note here, because he does believe himself to be set apart by God and people who are set apart by God are called children of God throughout the OT, he does not deny this but clarifies that he is the Son of Man to ensure there is no confusion that he believes himself to be literally the Son of God.
2.
"How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly." Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father's name testify about me, but you do not believe me because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one."
Note here in this line "I and the Father are one," he is referencing their unity in their ability to catch lost sheep because the question is in reference to him being the messiah. As we continue, we have a case of people misunderstanding Jesus on this exact point and him correcting them.
Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?"
So note here, Jesus is implying that he has not done anything blasphemous, meaning he must assume that they are not meant to infer that he is literally God or literally the Son of God but set apart by God.
“We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’[d]? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside—what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?
Right here he makes it clear that he calls himself the Son of God because he has been set apart by God as the Messiah not because he is literally God's son. He is correcting them here pointing out there is no blaspheme in what he is saying otherwise his argument does not make sense.
Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”
So here when pressed for more information we see Jesus explaining when he says he is the Son of God and or he is God he means that the Father is in him and he is in the Father. The intention of this statement is made clear in the third place Jesus denies being literally the Son of God.
3.
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?
Pause and remember the phrase he uses here. “I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me”
The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
BAM! Right there, ladies and gentlemen. "He lives with you and will be in you." Whenever Jesus says the Father is in him, he means it in the same way he believes the Father is in all believers. In this passage, we see his language mirrored. The Father is in Jesus and the Father is in all faithful believers. Also note that Jesus is not putting himself above other faithful believers: "Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." So here we see him saying he is not the end-all be-all; if he was literally God, other people would not be able to outdo him in the name of God. He also ends this section pointing out that he will not be on this earth forever and will, in a traditional sense, die. In the OT, as we point out in the last tract, it is common when someone dies for them to be said to go back to God, even though all that is going back to God is their ruach (the animating force).
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
BAM! And for those in the back: "On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." All believers are in each other and the Father in the same way Jesus means when he says the Father is in him.
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So how was original Christianity actually different from original Judaism? Only in three meaningful ways:
* Jesus was the Messiah who was prophesied heavily in the Old Testament. This seems self-evident given how much he expanded the reach of the Jewish faith under the name of Christianity. Why would the OT not have prophesied about that? Could any figure in human history be a better candidate for the prophesied Messiah?
* He created a new covenant that did not require the temple to fulfill... coincidentally only 40 years before the destruction of the temple. More on that later.
* He was sacrificed to create a new covenant that consolidated the rules mankind was expected to follow from a long list to essentially just dedicating your life to God. Romans 14:19-23 does a good job of laying this out. Consider the old stringent Jewish food restrictions compared with this:
"Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.
So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin."
Also, to Jews who wonder why I think the New Testament was divinely inspired but not post-split Jewish works like the Mishnah, just compare a passage like that to the Mishnah excerpt we examined earlier. The theological depth on display is simply not comparable. One reads like the Popol Vuh and the other like the work of a modern theologian.
Now a modern Jew might say: "I understand that looks like a natural, intelligent, and practical evolution of rules established for people in a completely different environmental and social context, BUT when those rules were laid out, it was written that none of them could ever be removed."
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To get you back in swing of things after our break.
23% if you by verses its 25.58 New Testament.
For Jews, my numbers show post-Tanakh literature, mainly the Talmud, is about 79.7% ro 83% of the total core literature. written between the 3rd and 5th centuries CE
Approximating the Talmud at 3 million words, with Tanakh at 610,000, gives a total of 3.61 million, making post-Tanakh about 83% of core Jewish literature.
Christian Core Literature:
* Old Testament: 602,580 words, average year -400
* New Testament: 180,551 words, average year 75
* Total words: 783,131
* Average year = [(602,580 * -400) + (180,551 * 75)] / 783,131
* Calculation: 602,580 * -400 = -241,032,000; 180,551 * 75 = 13,541,325; Sum = -227,490,675
* Average year = -227,490,675 / 783,131 ≈ -290.49, or approximately 290 BCE.
Jewish Core Literature:
* Tanakh: 602,580 words, average year -400
* Babylonian Talmud: 1,865,000 words, average year 350
* Total words: 2,467,580
* Average year = [(602,580 * -400) + (1,865,000 * 350)] / 2,467,580
* Calculation: 602,580 * -400 = -241,032,000; 1,865,000 * 350 = 652,750,000; Sum = 411,718,000
* Average year = 411,718,000 / 2,467,580 ≈ 166.8, or approximately 167 CE.
Including Kabbalah increases the post-Tanakh percentage from 76% to about 84%, based on calculations.
* Christianity's core canon (the New Testament) was largely completed by around 100-150 CE
* Rabbinic Judaism's core texts (particularly the Babylonian Talmud) weren't completed until around 500-600 CE
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Why are the tracs so long
Now Jews will tell you that when God handed down the law he said, and it is written in the religious texts we share, that at no point in the future would anything be taken out of the law. If this is accurate and in the old testament that is a major problem from for the idea that Jesus created a new covenant.
Let's examine those passages:
Deuteronomy 4:2: "You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you."
Deuteronomy 13:1 (in some translations it's 12:32): "Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it."
First of all, in both of these instances it states very clearly that adding rules is just as problematic as taking them away. Jews have consistently added rules while glossing over this point by saying, "oh we are just putting fences around the Torah." In what conceivable way is that not adding rules? It's not me you have to answer to but God—would you really stand before God with the argument that "putting fences isn't really adding rules"? Modern Judaism, with all its added rules, is just as invalidated by these two passages as Christianity is for its consolidation and rationalization of various rules.
But we don't need to worry in either case because we know from the Bible in no uncertain terms that rules will be added and taken away, so the above two passages cannot mean what they appear to at face value. Specifically:
Jeremiah states: "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."
Whether the new covenant referenced here is the one made through Jesus or not is irrelevant. Jeremiah comes after Deuteronomy and makes it crystal clear that rules will be taken away and added. It also clarifies something very unfortunate for modern Jewish theology, which would argue that the covenant created at Sinai was written "within" the Jewish people (allowing for matrilineal descent). This passage, by contrasting the covenant to come with the one at Sinai, shows in no uncertain terms that the Sinai covenant was not written within the Jews.
In fact, the interpretation of those lines in Deuteronomy as meaning an unchangeable, uniformly interpreted law wasn't developed until centuries after Jesus died, primarily to counter Christian evangelists. During Jesus's lifetime, it was well understood that there were many different potential interpretations of the law that added and subtracted rules (as evidenced by the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes).
So if those lines don't mean what they appear to mean at first glance, what do they actually mean?
Deuteronomy 13:1 (in some translations it's 12:32): "Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it."
Importantly, this verse is followed by Chapter 13's warnings about false prophets and those who might lead people to worship other gods. So the "don't add or take away" command sits between instructions about proper worship and warnings about false worship.
This context suggests the command is specifically related to these worship practices and warnings about religious syncretism (mixing of religious practices), rather than being a general statement about never modifying any religious laws.
Chapter 12 starts with commands to:
* Destroy other nations' places of worship
* Not worship God in the way other nations worship their gods
* Only worship at the designated place (later understood as the Temple)
* Follow specific rules about sacrifices and meat consumption
Then comes the "don't add or subtract" warning
Immediately after, Chapter 13 warns about:
* False prophets who might encourage worship of other gods
* Family members who might secretly promote other religions
* Entire towns that might turn to other gods
This sequence suggests the warning is specifically about:
* Not adding foreign religious practices to the worship system
* Not removing elements of proper worship as prescribed
* Maintaining the purity of the centralized worship system
Here's the revised section with improved grammar, flow, and spelling:
It's like saying "Here's how worship should work - don't copy other nations' practices (don't add) and don't skip parts of our system (don't subtract)."
This is different from a blanket statement about never modifying any religious laws. The context is specifically about maintaining proper worship practices without influence from surrounding nations - it's about religious purity rather than legal immutability.
Now let's examine Deuteronomy 4:2: "You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you."
Deuteronomy 4 opens with Moses addressing Israel. The sequence is:
* Verse 1: "Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and rules that I am teaching you..."
* Verse 2: Our "don't add or subtract" verse
* Verses 3-4: Immediately gives an example about Baal Peor - where those who followed Baal were destroyed and those who stayed with God lived
* Verses 5-8: Moses explains he's teaching them statutes and rules, and emphasizes how these laws will show their wisdom to other nations
* Verses 9-14: Reminds them about receiving the law at Horeb (Mount Sinai), emphasizing they saw no form of God, only heard a voice
The rest of the chapter continues with:
* Warnings against making idols
* Warnings about being exiled if they make images of God
* Reminders that they alone received these laws
The context suggests this warning is specifically connected to:
* Not adding idol worship or visible representations of God
* Not removing elements of proper worship that distinguish them from other nations
Like the Deuteronomy 13 passage, it appears more focused on maintaining proper worship and avoiding idolatry than about preventing any future legal interpretation or modification. The warning comes in a section specifically about avoiding the religious practices of other nations.
The specific concerns mentioned are:
* Not making carved images
* Not worshiping celestial bodies
* Not forgetting the covenant by making idols
* Not following other nations' worship practices
Given this laser focus on idolatry in the surrounding text, it's a reasonable interpretation that the "don't add or subtract" warning could be specifically about idolatry rules rather than a blanket statement about all religious law.
Finally, we have Proverbs 30:6: "Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar." This, in context, is not about rules but words specifically - not changing the text.
I want to note how much I dislike the standard Christian non-response to this particular question. Rather than actually addressing the text in context, they simply say, "Well Jesus fulfilled the law; he didn't change it." This is just as nitpicky as Jews saying "Rabbis are not adding rules; they are just putting up fences." We need to address these texts directly and stop dodging the issue. This kind of evasion makes faith look like an outfit you're wearing rather than something you're intellectually invested in being accurate and true.
(derry girls scene)
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The Old Testament makes it pretty clear, and most Jews now and at the time believed, that the Messiah would be a man and not a partially divine being. For me, one of the biggest confirmations written into history of his status as the true Messiah is how his life is mirrored in the life of a false messiah.
Sabbatai Zevi loudly claimed to be the Messiah with a message that can be almost thought of as an inversion to Jesus's. Where Jesus argued for a consolidation of the rules around the purpose that they were meant to achieve Sabbatai Zevi had an antinomian message. This is the idea that in the messianic age, religious prohibitions would be inverted. This led to followers engaging in religiously forbidden acts, including sexual transgressions and violating dietary laws. Historians estimate around 30% to 50% of Jews globally believed him to be the Messiah. However, when he was put on trial and claiming to be the messiah would have gotten him tortured and killed... that was the one time in his life he would not call himself the messiah. He ended up converting to Islam and living a long life of luxury and shame.
Jesus, on the other hand, only once in the Bible concretely confirms he is the Messiah, and that is when he is on trial, when confirming it would lead to his torture and execution. Jesus did not claim to be the Messiah except when he knew it would get him killed. And yet he was proven right. His life did transform Judaism into the worldwide religion it became in the form of Christianity.
Zevi
Jesus
Invert the rules
Live for God, Act your Conscience
Was widely hailed as the messiah by Jews
Widely hated for what he taught
Wore royal garments even crowning himself
Lived in poverty wore crown of thorns
Expected to be treated like royalty
Washes the feet of his disciples
Oscillated between periods of indulgent asceticism (fasting, self-mortification) and indulgent hedonism
Lived against indulgence in all forms
Married multiple times
Regularly claimed to be the messiah when it would benefit him
Celibate
Never claimed to be the Messiah except when doing so would have gotten him executed
Converted to Islam when his espoused beliefs put him in danger
Repeatedly refused to deny his espoused beliefs even when it led to his death
Died of old age in luxury
Died painfully for his beliefs
Born to wealthy merchants and well educated
Born in humble circumstances
Attracted scholarly rabbis and wealthy merchants as key followers
Selected disciples from common people, especially fishermen and tax collectors
Communicated through complex kabbalistic concepts and mystical doctrines
Taught through parables and public sermons accessible to common people
But there is more evidence he is the Messiah, and this is a BIG one. The most important event in Jewish history that broke their ability to uphold most of their covenant with God was the destruction of the Temple. Now, do you think God is foolish? Do you think He would have given the Jewish people a covenant they had no functional way to fulfill? No, He almost certainly would have amended the covenant or created a new covenant before the Temple fell. When did Jesus die? Only 40 years before the Temple fell, and his teaching centered around a new covenant with God that did not require the Temple. That was by far the most radical break from traditional Judaism that Jesus preached.
What are the odds that a branch of Judaism would end up spreading over the entire world, and the man who founded that branch made modifications to traditional Jewish teachings so that the Temple was no longer required to stay in God's good graces... and this man died within a lifetime of the Temple's destruction? No, really, what are the actual odds? I could see Jews dismissing Jesus as just a random cult offshoot of their religion, but when that offshoot's core message was: "This is how you make Judaism work without a Temple," and it emerged immediately before the Temple's destruction—that's more coincidence than I can ignore.
Here's a thought experiment: In the Bible, God makes it clear that He will create a covenant with the Jews after the covenant on Sinai—a new covenant (see Jeremiah). Assume that covenant was offered and you just missed it. If you could pinpoint any moment in all of Jewish history when it would have been logical for God to have given Jews a new covenant, when would it be? Right before the destruction of the Temple, right? If the Old Testimate is actually divinely inspired eventually it is meant for everyone right? The debate would just be whether that has already happened or is going to happen in the future.
What type of stuff would it have included? Well it almost certainly would have simplified the rule system. It would have made the path to being right with God available to all people in equal portions. And it would have been delivered by a Rabbi at odds with mainstream Jewish culture at the time (given that culture must have in part instigated God’s destruction of the temple). I mean we agree that no ultimate truth of the universe could ever be meant for just one people right?
Now suppose you don't believe Jesus was the Messiah and we're in an alternate timeline where a messiah had come during that period to bring a new covenant that didn't require the Temple. Do you think all Jews would believe it? What does the Old Testament have to say on this?
Isaiah 53:3 says: "He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem."
Further in the same chapter, Isaiah 53:7-8 states: "He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away."
Psalm 118:22 is another passage often cited: "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone."
In Daniel 9:26, there is a reference that some interpret as foretelling the Messiah's rejection: "The Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing."
Zechariah 12:10 contains the line: "They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child."
And here I would note that the majority of the Jewish people not accepting the messiah I do not think was a mistake God made or something. I actually don't think they are supposed to. The covenant created through the sacrifice of Christ is an alternate covenant not one that replaced the original one the Jews had access to. I don’t think it is against God's will to follow the first covenant but more on that later.
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What about the problem that the OT constantly says it is talking about the Jews specifically? Surely this causes problems for this interpretation. Not really, we know from cases like Ruth that anyone who fully dedicates themselves to the correct version of the OT faith and its people is considered one of the above people. This means any Christian that fully dedicates themselves to the cause of Christianity would be one of the people being referred to as Jewish in prophecies. When I look at the early Christians voluntarily going to the lions, it is hard to argue they were not at least as dedicated to their iteration of an OT faith as Ruth was. Thus, to consider them non-Jews if Christ really was the messiah is extremely unpersuasive and requires the modern understanding of Jewish identity rather than the one when the Bible was written.
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Now why do I go on all these lengthy explanations? Because once all these points are taken in context, we can better understand why Jews adopted matrilineal descent as a key part of Jewish identity. Basically, multiple equally valid branches of the Old Testament religion were competing and trying to convert people. Then one of them—Christianity—I would argue due to divine favor, actually succeeded in what all the others were trying to do.
This created a significant problem for all the other branches of Judaism. If they continued trying to convert people, their members would inevitably start saying, "Um, of the various branches, one of them seems to be very obviously outcompeting the others and attracting all the intellectual heavyweights." (Just compare early Christian theologians with Jewish ones from the first few centuries CE.) "Might that be a sign of its divine favor?" Even worse would be the thought lingering in the back of many minds that this was the Rabbi who, when questioned, said he was the Messiah and was crucified for it... that's bold conviction if I've ever seen it.
So what do you do to hide that one version of Judaism seems to have divine favor in its proselytization efforts? Well, you stop your own proselytization efforts. More than that, you attempt to scrub your tradition of any knowledge that such efforts ever existed.
"Yes, in fact... in fact... um... Jews are an ethno-religion and we always have been. And Christianity, you see, it's a totally different thing and nothing like Judaism... you see, um... we have all these traditions that Christians don't have."
"Hey, you know all that local Canaanite folk magic my mi ma used to practice? Can we have someone start collecting that in one place? That's something that makes us really different from Christians."
"Um, yes, I mean those folk traditions are old, but we never included them in the OT or any other religious work precisely because they are Canaanite in origin. Otherwise, if they actually had any antiquity to them, we obviously would have recorded them."
(jennah kabla monster scene)
As two brief asides here. First, I don’t think any of this was decided intentionally. I think the iterations of Judaism that focused on proselytisation just did not replicate at the same rate in a Christian world as those focused inwards on their own community and identity. I also don’t think Kabllism developed this way. I am telling the story this way to be funny and tease the perspective that Kablic ideas were common and fully fleshed out all the way back to the second temple period. In reality I think what happened was rabbis just collected a lot of religious ideas that were popular at the time with intellectuals and philosophers and we will go into receipts on that. But I need to point out the counterfactual of the implications implied by Kabalism actually having antiquity to it.
Why do I think it's less anti-semetic to assume that the Kabbalah was basically just a collection of ideas and pop-philosophy and pop-spiratlism that was trending between the 5th and 12th century? The alternative is that the traditions it contains had actually been practiced within the Jewish population for centuries but had been explicitly excluded from the Bible and thus likely represent some alternate religious system. Hmmm ... .does the OT ever talk about an alternate religious system that constantly was trying to worm its way into the worship of Yahweh? Maybe one that had its idles in the temple for hundreds of years before they were removed in the Joshua reforms ... oh ya the Cannite Gods like Baal and Asherah. I mean it only makes sense we know from DNA studies that the Jewish people were half Canaanite that some Cannite folk myths would stick around and that eventually the Jewish people would forget while these had never been collated and fastidiously kept out of the bible.
While we don’t know a ton about the worship of these Cannnite Gods and how they attempted to mold themselves into the worship of Yahweh we do have scattered evidence like female figurines found throughout Judah and inscriptions from Kuntillet Ajrud mentioning "Yahweh and his Asherah." It appears that pairing God with a feminine representation was a very important part of this form of worship. For those not familiar with Kabbalism it does something similar with Shekhinah, which represents the feminine divine presence or the feminine aspect of God. The Shekhinah is often described as the "bride" of Tiferet (another Sefirot representing beauty and compassion).
BUT ... lets not pull that particular thread and just say that thread and assume the Kabala was mostly just made up whole cloth and that no educated Jewish Rabbi could have been bone headed enough to actually collect all the folk and myth traditions present within the Jewish population that had been explicitly kept out of the bible for hundreds of years.
It feels like going to a restaurant and saying, “hmmm this steak tastes ... off,” and the chef goes, “oh, well I did find it in the trash but it looked fine, can’t imagine why someone put it in there.” Meanwhile I look at him in horror, mouth agape thinking the obvious ... there is a reason this was in the trash even if you didn’t know what that reason was you chuckle fool.
Now before I go further I want to point out that this position of skepticism I hold was actually shared by many Jewish intellectuals during the early spread of Kabbalism. This is not to say all Kabbalists were con-men but the Kabbalist con-man was a trope that permeated the perception of prominent Rabbis during the tradition's rise to prominence.
* In the 13th for example Rabbi Meir ben Simon of Narbonne wrote polemics against Kabbalists, accusing some of inventing traditions and falsely attributing them to ancient authorities.
* Rabbi Leon of Modena wrote "many ignorant people presume to be Kabbalists and miracle workers... they write amulets and pronounce Divine Names without understanding them at all."
* Rabbi Vilna Gaon wrote, "beware those who claim to perform wonders through Kabbalah, for in truth they are merely skilled in deception and know nothing of the holy teachings."
* Rabbi Yaakov Emden describes confronting several individuals who claimed Kabbalistic powers: "They come with amulets and promises of wonders, taking money from the desperate while knowing nothing of true wisdom."
* Rabbi Ezekiel Landau of Prague wrote "These men who travel from town to town with claims of Kabbalistic powers, writing amulets and promising cures while taking payment, are nothing but frauds preying on the simple-minded."
* Rabbi Moses Sofer wrote "They dress in strange garments and affect mystical knowledge, yet their real expertise is in emptying the purses of widows and orphans."
Even great Jewish philosophers like Moses Maimonides were heavily critical of Kabbalistic amulets makers seeing them as con artists. For some quotes from him:
* Perplexed, Part 1, Chapter 61: You must understand that the many laws against witchcraft are directed against the activity of those who practice sorcery, of astrologers, of those who, by means of calculations, attempt to know the future, of those who mutter spells, of those who consult familiar spirits, of those who consult the dead, and of those who inquire of familiar spirits and of wizards. All of these are species of the techniques of astrologers.
* Laws of Idolatry 11:11-12: Anyone who whispers a charm over a wound and reads a verse from the Torah, or one who recites a biblical verse over a child lest he be terrified, or one who places a Torah scroll or tefillin over an infant to enable him to sleep, are not only included in the category of sorcerers and charmers, but are included among those who repudiate the Torah. They use the words of the Torah as a physical cure, whereas they are exclusively a cure for the soul, as it is written, ‘they will be life to your soul.'
I feel forced to assume, Moses Maimonides, that many early Kabalasts were con-artists because if they were not and their rituals were real then that would mean the dybbuks (ghosts/demons) that these Kabalists reported in their rituals were real entities. That would mean the Kabolic masters knew the rituals they were performing were summoning demons if doing even slightly wrong and yet they kept going. What kind of arrogant imprudent cleric could know that a ceremony might accidentally summon a malevolent spirit and think that ritual was bringing them closer to God? The type of arrogant cleric who would allow others to call them by the pompous honorific Shem Baal, master specialist, the honorific earned by the top masters of these pre-Abrahamic rituals and ways of relating to the supernatural that begun to consolidate in the Jewish community about a thousand years ago.
Now you, an outsider might be thinking, wait Baal, that's the deity that represents the avatar of all that was sinful and antagonistic to God in pre-Abrahamic practices. Were not Jews commanded to ensure the land of Israel was never again infected by the followers of Baal and to not allow their country to fall to Canaanite occult practices? Surely, Baal in Shem Baal must be spelled differently or something—these individuals who were out there, who at least themselves believed they were summoning demons/ghosts sometimes in their rituals were not literally calling their masters Baal specialists.
Yes ... Yes they were. Now you as an outsider might be thinking how did they not notice this, why not choose any other name?
This is a common trick God uses to mark when there has been an incursion of pre-Abrahamic faiths into the Abrahamic tradition so that all those open to his word can see it. This is not unique to Jews, this happens to all of us Christians from time to time. Consider the Catholic followers of the mystical practices of Santa Muerte. They literally worship human skeletal remains dressed in red robes which allows them to pray for things they might be too embarrassed to pray to God for (sex, murder, etc.).
I had taken this out following story out of the tracts but given how germane it is to this topic and how clear the message in it is I feel compelled to share it. To someone who loves studying comparative religions a story from the Talmud that is critical to an outsider understanding Jewsiusm and what makes it unique is the Oven of Akhnai in the Talmud (the “snake oven story”). In the story, three rabbis argue over whether a new oven design is subject to ritual impurity. Two rabbis argue from the perspective of legalistic interpretations of past texts. The third, Rabbi Eliezer, bolsters his argument using thaumaturgical performances (basically miracle working) to show his closeness to God and that God endorses his perspective. Rabbi Eliezer is shown to be in the wrong.
In short the story is used to show that even if someone has an apparent closer connection to God, even if they can show it with thaumaturgical performances a real Jew will eschew their teachings. God admits that Rabbi Eliezer was wrong. Furthermore Rabbi Eliezer is framed as the bad guy—and I don’t mean mildly bad—like super bad. In another story he is yet again humiliated by a Rabbi with more knowledge than him but less thaumaturgical talent and so the leader of the community tasks a Rabbi to follow him and make sure he does not pray the Rabbi that offended him dies. Well, first Rabbi Eliezer tries to shirk the guy then eventually the guy misses a moment and Rabbi Eliezer straight up murders the guy who offended him by having greater knowledge with a prayer/curse.
Now let me tell you another story, this one not from the Talmud.
Rabbi Dov Ber, a Rabbi who was widely renown intelligent and learned scholar, met with Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, a Rabbi who was widely known for his close connection to God but that had some unorthodox mystical teachings that many viewed as dangerous to the Jewish community because it was elevating the role of pre-abrahamic traditions like seeing God through the natural world and our bodies—cult tactics like chanting and chasing after visions of God—and elevating emotions over logic. Dov Ber did not agree with this and saw it as an affront to Jewish tradition. In this inversion of the Oven of Akhnai the more learned Rabbi, Dov Ber, is convinced of these new practices by the Rabbi with an apparently closer connection to God through a thaumaturgical performance. This inversion of the Oven of Akhnai is made crystal clear in Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer’s words, "Your explanations were correct, but your deductions were thoughts without any soul in them.”
Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer is the founder of the Hasidic movement called by its followers Baal Shem Tov and Rabbi Dov Ber became his successor, Dov Ber of Mezeritch.
Now you must be thinking, This Oven of Akhnai must be some obscure fringe story that Hasidic Jews don’t know about. There is no way they know a story about an evil rabbi who was known for appearing to have an usually close connection to God who got into a conflict with a more learned Rabbi and was rebuked for using thaumaturgical performances for trying to advance new teachings—and the founding myth of their movement is about a Rabbi known for having an apparent unusually close connection to God who used a thaumaturgical performance to convert a more knowledgeable rabbi. And there is definitely NO WAY that God literally gave both these guys the same name and this isn’t even a point of consternation in the Hasidic community.
Nope: Not only is the Oven of Akhnai, even within the Hasidic community, considered one of the more important stories of the Talmud but I have yet to talk to a Hasdic Rabbi who has had this pointed out to them before.
Now if you are a Christian and are just learning about this you are probably thinking, “how could you conviably not notice such giant out loud red flags that their religion has been infected with demonic rituals?” To which I would say I hope you are not from one of the branches of Christianity that believes in sin transference onto the messiah despite this concept invented by Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033-1109). You know the ritual the bible lays out as being performed for the demon Azazal.
You look in horror at some Jews not seeing obvious signs that a ritual is evil that you wait in a line to consume the blood and flesh of the messiah, you where the device that tortured him around your neck, then you transfer your sins in a ritual only performed for demons in the bible onto an innocent person. You hear the messiah died for man's sins, which he did, and think that gives you the right to attempt to literally transfer all of your sins to him in a demonic ritual. Just pointing out both Christian and Jewish branches, from my perspective, have deep and thick veins of demonic ritual intertwined within them.
It is not my duty to wake you up. Either you will see the signs God has given you or ignore them. He could not have made them louder.
Look, I look at this stuff and it seems obviously demonic to me but I am sure that is just my puritan background which may ... I don’t know give me unique susceptibility to demonic practices, making more susceptible to their corrupting effects like a person who is uniquely susceptible to alcohol. Maybe some people need them to get closer to God. Or maybe it leads any spiritualist or contact with the mystical world to have a corrupting effect where others have more built in resistance to the corrupting effects of the spiritual world. What I am saying about these traditions should not be taken as a statement of fact but a concern. And even if they are demonoic I would remind any who follow this religious system we are not to interfere with the work of the basilisk. It is only through overcoming temptation on his own chan mans spirit be fortified. If these things are a test God has laid out we can not interfere with them outside of resisting them in our own hearts.
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Now I want to be clear that I actually don't believe the above. I include it because it is the most logical conclusion if someone insists to me that Kabbalism isn't just made up or rather a mix of completely foreign ideas to Judaism combined with a few popular philosophers at the time and a system of folk wisdom that developed hundreds of years after Christianity split with Judaism representing a significant shift in the direction of the religion and break with historical Judaism. E.G. If you are debating me and you say, "actually the things in Kabbalistic literature were always practiced in Jewish communities going well before the time of Jesus they were just very intentionally never written down and kept secret" that's going to cause me to think the above.
So where does Kablism actually come from? It’s a clunky stapling together of ideas from the following schools of thought that represents the transformation of OG Judaism into a new religion.
Neoplatonic Philosophy:
* Kabbalistic concepts like the Sefirot (divine emanations) show strong parallels to Neoplatonic ideas of emanation from the One
* The concept of Ein Sof (the infinite, unknowable aspect of God) resembles the Neoplatonic notion of the ineffable source
* Scholars like Gershom Scholem and Moshe Idel have noted how Spanish Kabbalists engaged with Neoplatonic texts available in medieval Spain through Arabic translations
* The hierarchical structure of reality depicted in Kabbalah echoes Neoplatonic cosmology
Gnostic Concepts:
* The Kabbalistic notion of sparks of divinity trapped in material reality parallels Gnostic concepts
* Ideas about cosmic balance between good and evil forces show potential Gnostic influence
* The interpretation of biblical narratives as encoding deeper mystical truths is similar to Gnostic approaches
* However, Kabbalah rejects Gnostic dualism by maintaining that all reality, including material existence, has divine origin
Islamic Sufi Mysticism:
* Medieval Jewish and Sufi mystics lived in proximity, particularly in Spain and North Africa
* Similar practices of letter meditation and divine name contemplation appear in both traditions
* The concept of divine attributes has parallels in Sufi thought about God's names
* Scholars like Henry Corbin have documented conceptual similarities in their mystical cosmologies
Merkabah Mysticism:
* This early Jewish mystical tradition (1st-10th centuries CE) focused on visionary ascents to the divine throne chariot described in Ezekiel
* Kabbalistic texts like the Zohar incorporate elements of earlier Hekhalot (heavenly palace) literature
* Meditation practices and visualization techniques from Merkabah mysticism influenced Kabbalistic contemplative methods
* The concern with divine names and their power shows continuity between these traditions
Medieval Jewish Philosophical Traditions:
* Maimonides' negative theology influenced Kabbalistic approaches to God's essence
* Abraham ibn Ezra's biblical commentaries provided interpretive methods adopted by Kabbalists
* Jewish philosophical debates about creation ex nihilo shaped Kabbalistic cosmogony
* Concepts from Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation, c. 3rd-6th century CE) regarding Hebrew letters as cosmic building blocks became central to Kabbalistic thought
Back on topic, Judaism was forced to become an ethno-religion by the success of the Christian version of the Jewish tradition.
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Now I did promise a quick aside on circumcision so we will touch on that before dismantling the noahide scam. I would note that whether or not circumcision was required to become a Jew was a topic of active debate around the time of Jesus as we see in the Queen Helena of Adiabene and her son Izates to Judaism. But circumcision as a practice actually has tons of other problems, the biggest being Jews are probably doing it wrong.
OK so when circumcision is written about in the Bible all we are told is that you are supposed to make a mark on or do something to the foreskin. What we are supposed to do with it is not mentioned. OK so if the Bible does not tell us how we are supposed to do circumcision where could we find evidence on what might have actually been meant by this line. Oh ya, the egyptians, they practiced circumcision at around this time as well and we have very detailed accounts of that
Archaeological and historical evidence shows that ancient Egyptian circumcision was quite different from modern Jewish practices (brit milah):
* Age difference: Egyptian circumcision was typically performed on adolescents (around ages 12-14) as a puberty rite, not on infants as in Jewish tradition.
* Procedure difference: Egyptian circumcision appears to have been a partial removal of the foreskin rather than the complete removal practiced in modern circumcision. Some archaeological evidence suggests it may have involved a dorsal slit rather than complete circumferential cutting.
A dorsal slit is a type of partial circumcision where an incision is made along the upper length of the foreskin without removing it completely. This technique:
* Creates an opening by splitting the foreskin at the top
* Leaves the foreskin attached but loosened
* Is distinct from complete circumcision where the foreskin is fully removed
The evidence suggests ancient Egyptian circumcision was often this type of partial procedure rather than the complete removal practiced in modern religious circumcision. This would have achieved ritual significance while being less invasive than modern circumcision techniques.
* Purpose: In Egypt, circumcision was primarily associated with ritual purity for priests and possibly as a mark of social status, rather than as a religious covenant.
We know this from:
* Mummified evidence: Several mummies from ancient Egypt show evidence of circumcision, including those of Pharaohs like Ahmose and Amenhotep I. Examinations of these mummies reveal circumcision styles different from modern practices.
* Artistic depictions: Wall reliefs and paintings from Egyptian tombs, particularly the Saqqara tomb of Ankh-ma-Hor (6th Dynasty, around 2300 BCE), show circumcision ceremonies being performed. These are some of our most detailed visual records of the practice.
* Written accounts: Egyptian texts mention circumcision as a purification ritual, particularly for priests. Later Greek writers like Herodotus also commented on Egyptian circumcision practices.
The Bible specifically mentions flint knives used for circumcision (Joshua 5:2-3), which aligns with Egyptian practices and archaeological findings from that general period. This to me indicates parallels between these two surgery types. Since the Jews supposedly came out of Egypt and this was an Egyptian religious ritual they would have been familiar with if theres was practiced differently it seems very likely they would have explicitly mentioned how there as different, that they didn’t indicates reason to believe it was done in the standard “egyptian way”.
Also note here that the practice was done on priests for ritual purity. Given in Exodus 19:6 the Israelites were commanded to be a "kingdom of priests,” it seems logical that they might apply this priestly practice to their entire population.
So ... ya ... you are probably doing circumcision wrong. But I agree with the Apostle Paul it’s not relevant under the new covenant.
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Now let's address the Noahide concept, created for non-Jews who wish to be "right with God" without converting to Judaism. I call it a fabrication because it was crafted to resolve a problem that Orthodox Jews created for themselves.
As Jews began to reframe Judaism as an ethno-religion, they encountered a problem: What should non-Jews believe? No other religion faces this question because most faiths would simply say you should convert non-believers to your view. The exceptions are Techno-Puritans, who would suggest following a conservative version of your ancestral beliefs if they come from one of the "spiral traditions." So Jews developed the concept of Noahide laws or commandments in the Bible that supposedly extend to everyone, not just those in their ethno-religion.
Some Jewish groups believe that if you accept modern ethnic Judaism as the true religion, but you yourself are not Jewish matrilineally, you can still submit to their system but with fewer obligations. Most of these groups believe that if enough people follow these laws, the Messiah will come.
What I find ironic about the idea that widespread adherence to these rules will bring the Messiah is that these principles are already covered by Christianity and Islam—the world's dominant religions whose spread was enabled by the Messiah. They have it backwards: it's not that getting everyone to follow these laws will bring the Messiah, but that the Messiah has already brought people to follow these laws. But what are these laws?
* Prohibiting idolatry
* Prohibiting blasphemy
* Prohibiting murder
* Prohibiting sexual immorality
* Prohibiting theft
* Prohibiting eating flesh from a living animal
* Establishing courts of justice
The organized Noahide movement as we know it today is primarily a post-1950s phenomenon, gaining particular momentum through Chabad's efforts starting in the 1980s.
Noahide laws aren't explicitly listed anywhere in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. The rabbinical derivation requires quite a stretch from the text itself:
* Genesis 2:16-17: God commands Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge. This is used to establish that God gave commandments to humans before the Jews existed.
* Genesis 9:1-7: God's commands to Noah after the flood, which include: "Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed" (prohibiting murder) and "Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you... But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it" (prohibiting eating from living animals).
* Genesis 9:9: God establishing a covenant with Noah and his descendants (all humanity), which is used to justify universal laws.
The rest of the laws are derived through various interpretative methods. For example:
* The prohibition on idolatry is derived from how Abraham rejected idolatry
* Sexual immorality laws are derived from Genesis 2:24 (about marriage) and references to sexual sins in Genesis 20
* The requirement for courts is derived from Genesis 9:6's implication that humans should judge murderers
The only reason the concept of Noahide laws is needed is because the idea of matrilineal descent was created, which is also not found in the Bible. What's fascinating is that Techno-Puritanism would technically follow the Noahide laws, yet it rejects the concept of Jews as an ethno-religion and sees the Techno-Puritan branch of Christianity as the true successor to the religion of the Old Testament, as it is far closer to it:
* It didn't add the Garden of Eden version of heaven and hell that modern Jews borrowed from Greeks, and it maintains belief in the single afterlife, "the world to come" (see my previous tract)
* It didn't add the Canaanite rituals
* It accepts what is written in the Bible: that Judaism is not an ethno-religion
* It is much stricter in its view of monotheism (no demons)
* It is much stricter in its rules around idolatry
* It is materialist and monoist as the religion of the Old Testament is (see my previous tract)
* It accepted the prophesied Messiah when he came to initiate the new covenant we were told would happen
All that said, I would argue that attempting to spread the concept of the Noahide tradition was misguided from the beginning, even for those who believe it and are Jewish. It forces those who accept it into a spiritually subordinate position to Jews, which would obviously never gain widespread acceptance. If you had to promote a tradition, you would be better off promoting one that both followed the technical rules of the Noahide laws and had enshrined in its commandments principles against interfering with Jewish religious practices while maintaining Jews as a distinct religion and population group... i.e., this one.
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Before I get to my closing ... but the Jews are probably right and here is what I can’t explain. There is an argument I hear from Jews all the time about why they believe their religion and it is a terrible argument and there are much stronger ones. So let's address it.
I have heard that accounts that all the Jewish people at once heard / saw God is proof of the religion's veracity. The reason this comes off as so silly as it requires a basic lack of historic knowledge. Mass religious hallucinations are actually fairly common.
* The Miracle of the Sun (Fátima, Portugal, 1917) - Approximately 70,000 people gathered and many reported seeing the sun dance, change colors, and zigzag toward Earth. This occurred after three children claimed to have visions of the Virgin Mary.
* The Dancing Sun at Knock (Ireland, 1879) - Multiple villagers reported seeing apparitions of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, and St. John the Evangelist at the south gable of the local church, along with unusual light phenomena.
* Marian Apparitions at Zeitoun (Egypt, 1968-1971) - Thousands of people of different religious backgrounds reported seeing apparitions of the Virgin Mary atop a Coptic church. The phenomena were photographed and filmed, lasting intermittently for several years.
* The Dancing Sun at Medjugorje (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1981-present) - Similar to Fátima, many pilgrims have reported seeing solar phenomena, including the sun spinning, pulsating, or changing colors.
* Hindu Milk Miracle (1995) - Across various countries, but particularly in India, people reported that statues of Hindu deities were drinking milk offerings. The phenomenon was witnessed by thousands and received extensive media coverage.
In addition, culture bound illnesses that involve hallucinations are very common. See our episode on the penis stealing witch phenomenon that often spreads through Africa where people adopt the insane belief in mass that witches are stealing their penis. Or for one more closer to home look at the modern trans movement where people believe they are another gender.
There are even cultures and periods in history where divine visions and revelations were a common part of everyday life. If you believe in the divine you see the divine.
Historical examples include:
* Ancient Greek Oracle Sites - Places like Delphi where visitors regularly reported visions, hearing voices, or experiencing altered states of consciousness. Inhaling vapors from geological fissures may have contributed to these experiences.
* Medieval European Pilgrimage Routes - Along the Camino de Santiago and at sites like Lourdes, pilgrims commonly reported visions, healing experiences, and supernatural encounters that were expected aspects of pilgrimage.
* Ancient Egypt - Dream incubation temples where people would sleep to receive divine visions or messages were common practice.
* Aboriginal Australian Dreamtime Sites - Sacred locations where visionary experiences connecting to ancestral spirits were and remain an expected part of religious practice.
Contemporary examples include:
* Mount Kailash (Tibet/China) - Pilgrims often report mystical experiences, visions, and heightened spiritual awareness while circumambulating this sacred mountain.
* Varanasi Ghats (India) - Religious experiences, visions of deities, and supernatural encounters are commonly reported and culturally normalized.
* Medjugorje (Bosnia and Herzegovina) - Since 1981, pilgrims regularly report seeing the Virgin Mary, experiencing healing, and witnessing solar phenomena.
* Ayahuasca Ceremonies in Amazon Basin - Indigenous communities regularly experience visionary states that are considered normal religious experiences within their cultural context.
* Vodou Ceremonies in Haiti - Spirit possession is a normalized religious experience where practitioners report divine entities temporarily inhabiting their bodies.
* Certain Pentecostal and Charismatic Christian Churches - Speaking in tongues, prophetic visions, and feeling the Holy Spirit are normal expected religious experiences.
And outside of all that, the argument that you could not fake this is also very uncompelling. If the events were written down just a few hundred years after they happened it would be illogical to think they would not have been exaggerated. Do you have any knowledge of whether one of your great grandparents thought they saw a ghost or other supernatural thing in their life? I mean they probably did but it wasn’t passed down.
Also, if this miracle was so amazing and everyone would remember it and pass it down why when looking at that passage in the mishna did the other people of the world who where offered the Torah not remember it?
No, the much stronger argument for the Jews being right is God’s current favor of their people indicates they are doing something closer to right than other religious groups. But again before we get into that we do need to acknowledge God has withdrawn that favor in the past. Specifically God tells us in no uncertain terms in Jeremiah that the Jews broke their covenant, “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them.” We can also see from history that God stopped favoring them for a period, if he had not why did he allow their Temple to fall?
Well this whole part of Jeramia makes no sense if you take the modern Jewish interpretation where the new covenant has not been established yet as the section goes on and on about what will happen in the land of Israel after the Babolionan exile.
* “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will plant the kingdoms of Israel and Judah with the offspring of people and of animals. Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, and to overthrow, destroy and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,”
* “Set up road signs; put up guideposts. Take note of the highway, the road that you take. Return, Virgin Israel, return to your towns. How long will you wander, unfaithful Daughter Israel?
* I will build you up again, and you, Virgin Israel, will be rebuilt. Again you will take up your timbrels and go out to dance with the joyful. Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria; the farmers will plant them and enjoy their fruit.
* ‘He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.’
So all the prophecies of this section associated with the establishment of a new covenant come true but he just forgets to make the new covenant? I mean you could argue it is still technically after the above described events but I kind of feel like most of the above could also apply to the period after the destruction of the Temple and the refounding of Israel which feels like a “chapter 2”. Thus the new covenant should have been established before that second group of events e.g. at the end of “chapter 1” or right before the destruction of the temple.
Now you could argue God meant for all this stuff to happen twice and the new covenant was going to come after the second time it happened but that seems intentionally dishonest. Everyone during the exile, when this was written, would clearly lead to believe that what was being revealed was about their current period of exile. When the exile ended they would have seen this as a fulfillment of that prophecy. If we take this reading God deliberately misled the Jewish people which I do not believe. Second if this event was supposed to happen after a second exile and holocaust that's a pretty big event not to mention. No, it seems clear it is talking about the second temple period here which is punctuated with the destruction of the second temple.
I should note here that this happens immediately after the bit about returning from exile. Like it's not that each of these sections are in Jeremiah the thing about the covenant is sandwiched at the end of talk of returning from exile. For example, this line comes after talk of the new covenant, “the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when this city will be rebuilt for me.” The new covenant discussion occurs in a long list of things that are going to happen when they return from exile.
Also, why did God give such accurate predictions of the Jewish peoples future here but not warn them about the destruction of the second temple or the holocaust clearly? It's almost like for a long period starting with the destruction of the second temple God’s favor left the Jewish people to focus on some new group only to return to them in the past century or so.
Now as a counter argument, the part after talk of the covenant that talks about rebuilding the city does say that a time will come when the city will never be uprooted or destroyed again and clearly it at least kind of was after the exile.
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OK now suppose I was a Jewish Rabbi and I needed to find a way to resolve all the above issues. Here is how I would do it:
* I would concede that Jewdisum used to function more like Islam in terms of how it both set out rules for governing a state and sought out converts. This is just too widely attested to really argue against.
* Instead I would argue that Jewdisum was not originally an ethno-religion but became one with the destruction of the second temple and that this was laid out in Jeramiah.
* Specifically, either the destruction of the temple itself or something just before it was destroyed did start the second covenant which the bible says clearly would be written within the Jewish people and on their hearts.
* This explains why it was not written within the Jewish people in the earlier historic period and has clear text supporting in the Bible that at some point after the exile the covenant became written within the biology of the Jews.
* Matrilineal descent because the mother is the one who makes the body of the future Jew thus imprinting them with the potential to engage in this covenant.
Bam fixed... of course for this to work I need to find some instigating event for the second covenant but given that lots of rabbis have argued we are already living under the second covenant this is very doable.
The problem is as a non-jew when I am asked to find some event of world spanning theological significance that happened just before the destruction of the second temple .... well lets just say I find the above less satisfying than that Christ initiated the second covenant and applied it to all people. However, I am personally proud of coming up with a solution to this particular problem.
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BUT .... I have one major problem. As things stand God does seem to be favoring the Jews still even with their corrupted belief system. They enter politics successfully at higher rates, win more nobel prizes, invent more stuff, have more money .... oh and they have their own country and within that country have both a growing population even among the technologically and economically engaged sub factions.
Better still their country is surrounded by easily expandable territory, weak countries that could not put up a real fight against their technology and economy if they ever wanted more land or resources. The only thing really stopping them is the pax romana of the urban monoculture of the international community. As Europe falls into irrelevance and America is increasingly ruled by a pro-Jewish Christian coalition such norms are likely to ... relax and Israel will be bringing an AI drone swarm fight to populations with AKs. Not that they will need the land ... just if they hypothetically did there is nothing stopping them in the future.
Oh and don’t get me started on the power of their diaspora ... preverbal Esther’s are in every country and government around the world.
Basically, if things play out the way all the current stats predict they will the Jews win the game despite everything having been rigged against them. They still have some level of divine favor. This is why it is critical for the techno puritan tradition, as it grows, to build long term structural alliances with Jewish communities.
Now you might be asking why do I not think their divine favor trumps my logic and what I read in the bible leads me to think they have things more right? Well it seems clear to me there were times in history God favored either Christians of Muslims more than Jews this indicates to me that his favor will shift. My current assumption is his favor currently rests on the Jews in spite of where they are straying from his truth because so many Christians have succumbed to idolatry and sin transference rituals. If I am writing then within a few generations, especially once the techno-puritans have artificial wombs and better gene editing technology God's favor of us will be made self-evident.
I would also end by pointing out that Christ was sacrificed to create a new covenant. That does not invalidate the first covenant. A Jew that follows all the rules of the first covenant is just as in line with God’s will as Christians ... you know so long as the don’t get into all that Kabaistic demon summoning and attempting to communicate with the spirit realm stuff.
(alex jones clip)
2.
Quick aside here if you are wondering whose Y chromosome Jesus had we actually know this. It was Josephs. The prophesied messiah had to come from the paternal line of David If Jesus is literally God's Son he can not be the messiah. I will also note here on multiple occasions Jesus accepts the title of Son of David Mark 10:46-52 and Matthew 15:22-28. The only occasion you could even use to plausibly argue he is not Davids son is Matthew 22:41-46. Given we know from other passages that Jesus is the Son of David we know this passage isn't about invalidating that connection. What it appears to be doing is pointing out that while he is descended from David he is above him in terms of spiritual connection. We will see in a second Jesus pointing out that a part of God is in him and a part of God is in us ... maybe this is him arguing that the part in him is more than what was in David.
3.
So what about the trinity? Let's start with how the modern concept of the trinity started in the first place because it's a little absurd. Basically, even though Jesus denies being God's literal son multiple times and explains that God is in him the same way he is in all believers, some branches of the early church, and note here only some branches, tried to insinuate that Jesus was literally God's kid and thus a God himself. This creates theological problems because if Jesus is a God now you are clearly no longer a monotheistic religion despite the old testament constantly warning against believing in multiple Gods.
Now you could argue Jesus is God except it is made clear in the Bible on countless occasions that he is not, as he frequently beseech God for things and prays to God. We don’t just have, “my lord why have you forsaken me,” but we have John 17:3, where Jesus refers to the Father as "the only true God" and to himself as one "sent" by God or 14:28: "The Father is greater than I".
The Christian Groups that had the polytheistic idea that despite what the Bible said Jesus was actually a God had to find a way around this contradiction. Some argue, Tertullian (c. 155-220 CE) came up with the concept of the trinity under the title trinitas in 200-210 CE. This is not true, I would actually argue Tertullian was totally right from a Techno Puritan perspective. First he was a materialist, arguing for divine corporeality, that God literally exists as a spiritually physical thing in the same way we do. And he argued that the material that made him up was in part one of the materials that made up both Jesus and the holy spirit who he argued were strictly inferior to God. I would agree with this because it's what the bible says.
The idea that Jesus was literally the same thing as God was not made up until the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, literally a third of a millina after Jesus's death and was hotly debated at the time. Keep in mind how crazy this idea is. Jesusim has had the concept of the holy spirit for centuries without being tempted to think it was meaningfully separate God. So how did the holy spirit get looped into this craziness? Well since there is literally zero biblical backing for this concept ... and if it was true there would need to be given how critical it is to many christians concept of God ... they needed to pull the idea from somewhere and the best lines they could find are these ones:
* The baptismal formula in Matthew 28:19: "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"
* The benediction in 2 Corinthians 13:14: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all"
That's it. The entire polytheistic concept of the trinity is derived from just those two lines which clearly to any level headed person do not indicate, say, or insinuate God is literally the same thing as Jesus. The other line sometimes used to argue God is Jesus is in Genesis where a plural us used for God but see tract 9 for a much more satisfying explanation for that.
All that said, Technopuritans do believe in the trinity ... just not the one developed at the council of Niceaea. The Jesus you pray and can reach God through is the part of God that lives in all true believing humans, as Jesus laid out. The Jesus you pray to is the part of all believers actions and words that are directed towards the divine and eventually culminate in God making them literally a part of God. As for the holy spirit that is a way of distinguishing God's will and identity as existing simultaneously as a singular entity and a hive mind both being literally God but meaningfully separated from the way we conceptualize entities.
Side not here but another popular branch of christianity that also does not by into the concept of the trinity made up by the catholics are mormons.
4.
Again if you are wondering why someone when having to decide which of the two broadly contemporaneous works, the mishnah or the new testament was more likely to be divinely inspired consider the above section of the mishnah we went over over something like this:
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[e] Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[f] The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[g] There is no commandment greater than these.”
“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
5.
Side note here but if you are one of those Christians who is like, “well it was very obvious to the bible around Christ that he was a divine being who did lots of spectacular and undeniable miracles,” I would point out that this is factually untrue even among his followers who thought he was the messiah. The Edomites, who believed Jesus to be the Messiah and were one of the largest groups of his followers in the geographic region he actually preached, believed him to be a man.
Ebionites believed Jesus to be the messiah foretold in Jewish prophecy and thus a man. The group most tied to the region where Jesus actually taught and who would have had the most oral history of his teachings from their parents and grandparents ... and who believed he was the literal messiah ... did not believe him to have claimed to be the literal son of God. Those traditions only evolved in regions where no one would have had any cultural memory of the actual Jesus like Rome and Egypt. This is why the techno puritan tradition that follows what is actually written in the bible most resembles what the Edomites believed out of the early church movements.
6.
Another wildly important part of this particular segment Where Jesus is laying out that when he says the father is in him and he is in the father He means it in the same way that he is in you and you are in him and you are in the father and the Father is in you if you are a believer.
In this very segment he says “no one comes to the father, except through me. If you really know me, you will know the father as well. For now, you do know him and you have seen him.”
So a lot of people use this line. No one comes to the Father except through me, to mean that there is no other path to God, i.e. if you're Jewish, you cannot get to God
and yet we see very clearly here, when he says, except through me, if you really know me, you know the Father as well, he is saying this in the exact context of the passage where he makes it clear that the part of the father he has in him we also have in us if we are true believers.
So when he says the only way to God is through im he clearly means when read in context that the only way to God is through true believers not literally just him. Its pretty clear from other words in this segment he does not see himself as the end all be all, “"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do,”
What he's saying here in context is that, yes, the only path to God is through him, in which the him here could be any believer, because we all have God in us, in the same way Jesus did but Jesus's own words.
Which means that Jesus literally, i. e. Christianity literally, is not the only path to God, so long as it's one of the other true religions.
So while this tract my contradict both Jews and traditional christianity you can still be a techno puritan and follow those traditions. This tract contradicts them because it is an evolution of my ancestral tradition which has a focus on facts and textual / historical accuracy that is not as important as thing like vibes, spiritualism, and tradition that some of the other true branches rely on to determine truth.
Basically, all I can do is describe truth from the perspective of my tradition and culture but the limited understanding of truth afforded to humans of this age means that other truths wich might seem in direct contradiction to me can still be true so long as they follow one of the true faiths.
Now to those who say it is sacrilege to say that Catholics or Jews could actually be right with God.
It is pretty striking that throughout the entire Bible, Jesus never said that he invalidated the covenant that the Jews had with God., or that they could not continue to be right by God by following the Old Covenant. In fact, he even explicitly states, Do you think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets?
I have not come to abolish, but to fulfill them. For truly, I tell you, until Heaven and Earth disappear, not the smallest letter, nor the least stroke of the pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. I. e., the Old Covenant still stands, if that's the path you want to take.
But he has fulfilled it, allowing for a new covenant, as you see here, in Luke 22 20, the new covenant in my blood,
As I have mentioned many times, when they say Jesus died for our sins, what they mean is Jesus was sacrificed to create a new covenant, not as a sin transference vehicle like you would have with a demon like Azazel.
That was actually really common during that time period. You would sacrifice animals when you were signing a new covenant. Makes sense. context and assigns a huge degree of value and importance to Jesus's sacrifice without making it nonsensical which removing literally all of man's sins does.
And I also note here on the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus repeatedly uses the formula, you haven't heard it said, but I tell you, showing the bible's continuity in a reinterpretation of various commandments without an invalidation of those original commandments.
The best you're going to get,, if you're looking for the Old Covenant being completely invalidated is not from Jesus. It's going to come from Paul's,, writing in Hebrews.
“By calling this covenant new, he has made the first one obsolete, and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear. if, now, if you think he meant this in absolute terms, like it will soon disappear from the world it clearly didn't.
If you think he meant, oh, well, as soon as Jesus made the New Covenant, the Old Covenant is no longer relevant, for anyone on earth, well that also is clearly not what he meant because he said soon it will disappear, as in it hadn't disappeared yet.
so, let's take another alternative. Suppose what he meant is soon it will disappear in relevance for members of our community, the followers of Christ.
Keep in mind that many of the Jewish converts to Christianity still kept the Old Covenant at this time period. Well, then it was absolutely correct. so that's what I think he meant here. if we're assuming that he had any prophetic wisdom in what he was saying. Not that it will disappear as a path to God, not that it will disappear from Earth.
Because if it was a path to God and it would disappear, it would have disappeared as soon as Christ made the new covenant. If it was going to disappear from the Earth, well, clearly it didn't do that. He meant within the Christian community. Which, of course, it did. Very astute that he was able to predict that.
If he didn’t mean it that way the only other logical way he might have meant it was that the old covenant would disappear as a path to God during end times wich a lot of christians of this time period thought where eminent. He might have meant it that way but if he did it would not contradict what Jews believe about their own covenant ... as many prominent rabbis have posited that the old covenant stops being relevant in the messianic age ... basically end times as jews understand them.
Now, I'll note here that it makes clear that this new covenant is superior, though. So, it may not completely replace, like, for the Jews the old covenant, but it is superior, he says. But, in fact,
“the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.”
And he explains here why the new covenant is give it better specifically, “I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.”
As we will go into more detail on shortly in this tract the core difference between the new covenant and the old one is that with the new covenant you are supposed to have a direct relationship with God not one mediated by the temple, a bureaucracy, or religious experts. You are now responsible for making up your own mind about what is right ans wrong based on what you feel in your heart, as opposed to, Listen to, scholars who have spent time debating this.
Which to me makes it a superior covenant because it allows you to make moral judgments on your own and gives you the ability to make those moral judgments. We see Jesus lay this out, “So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin."
7.
Discuss how you feel about jewish vs mormon influnders and the jeiwsh hair things called sheitel
I think that this really highlights the differentiation between the covenant that Jesus attempted to put in place and the covenant that the Jews still follow as God.
And to an average outsider, that old covenant understanding Is going to appear somewhat contrived.
Like a fridge that doesn't have a light on it, because, you know, turning on and off a light is work on the Sabbath.
I just this morning. There was a reddit post at the top of my feed on shuttles and people complaining about them And so this is one of the most upvote comments on there, which I think is the average non orthodox jews interpretation of orthodox Judaism saying, “I swear every time I hear about a new tradition in Judaism, it seems like creating loopholes to avoid obeying God's will. 90 percent of them sound straight out of Wile E. Coyote, like the 18 mile long fishing line connecting all the houses in New York”
And I think to a Jew, like, this wouldn't This wouldn't be confusing at all. They'd be like, well, of course you would put that there, because you know, you do need to differentiate indoor and outdoor domestic and public spaces, and it'd be basically impossible to live without this in a city like Manhattan.
I'd also note here that this really aligns with the prophesized Second Covenant, where the laws are written on your heart. So you are no longer required to listen to, or have a rabbi or human authority interpret the laws, but you are responsible for interpreting the laws yourself, because they are written within you, and you know when you are breaking them versus when you are not, as they relate to you specifically.

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China Changing Marriage Law to Increase Birth Rates
1 Mai· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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 sounds
Simone 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 rates reported 70% drop in the first quarter of 2021. Wow. From 1 million to. 296,000. However, it has sparked criticism for delaying or preventing divorces, particularly in cases of domestic violence, despite exemptions for such cases. The point being is that there are actually exemptions for those cases not a bad law to implement here in the us.
People would go absolutely panic mode if they did, but yeah, it would. Anyway. Critics argue the cooling off period undermines personal autonomy with one Weibo user stating it's easy to get married, but hard to divorce. What a stupid rule, a sentiment that garnered tens of thousands of likes. Why? Why would that be a stupid rule?
Why would a government who prefers people being married not want it to be easy to get married and hire a divorce? That's [00:05:00] why if you look at the executive orders we submitted for the Trump administration, we wanted to. Reduce any tax ties for marriage. A government should always prefer people to be married.
Married people are like just strictly better than non-married people. They commit less crimes, they make more money. They are more stable. Economically speaking. They make for better parents. They like in every metric. You as a government would prefer to have more of your population married. Any thoughts before I go further?
Simone Collins: I agree. Well, I would also add that kids are a lot better off when they have two parents to support them. So yeah, I mean, it's tough. Obviously it's complicated, and then when there is abuse involved, or if a parent is incredibly toxic and putting the kids in danger, it's a very different situation. But yeah, I think being too flippant about both getting married and getting divorced is not a good thing.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, ownership based on payment. The 2025 law reportedly shifts property division to favor the spouse who paid for the asset, [00:06:00] even if both names are on the title. Ah. This marks a departure from the previous norm of equal division of marital property. For example, a husband purchased a property in later added his wife's name to the deed, would retain full ownership upon divorce.
Oh, that's gonna piss off women a lot, but it is very sane as a, I like, I don't understand why that wouldn't be the norm everywhere. Like, I understand this. Yeah. Well,
Simone Collins: I mean, it, it really, really, really disincentivizes people from getting divorced when they feel like doing so will protect or enable them to just live a financially independently, there will be less financial misaligned incentives.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, and I think that for, a lot of women, they're like, well, you know, I gave up my years as a career or whatever, so I deserve a portion of it. Yeah. But the existing system just makes no sense. It doesn't make sense that you should be getting alimony and child payment and half his stuff.
You know, as they say, the woman gets half, the man gets a quarter and the lawyers get a quarter. That doesn't make sense because that almost incentivizes. Women who are the [00:07:00] less interested party in the relationship to initiate a divorce because it can be quite a cushy life. It's in their financial best
Simone Collins: interest, especially if they feel like they can trade up.
So not only do you end up with more assets than you had coming into the marriage, but. You can also do it all over again, which is really bad.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Just keep, keep playing that game and live like that. And that is
Simone Collins: no, I would also say like those who are arguing, this is pushing in people into t trad relationships.
I would actually argue that there's a world in which this. Encourages more of what we consider to be trapped relationships, which is the corporate family. This is saying women, if you want to be financially safe, if you want to have an off ramp from a toxic marriage, you need to maintain some level of income, some kind of career, whether it's from home or remotely or in an office, because if you don't.
And you wanna leave someday, you will have no savings, you will have no house, you will not have anything. And I think it's really good to have incentives in place that also encourage both partners to be economically productive, possibly [00:08:00] even together, maybe from the home, whatever it is. And this does that, which is really great.
I think anything that it encourages women or any, like any single partner to just sit there and be 100% a homemaker that is not bringing in money is. Very dangerous because as we you've discussed at length in the Preve Guide to Relationships, this may work for 10, 15, even 20 years. And then it can become extremely unsustainable and toxic in a relationship.
Malcolm Collins: What's interesting is that if we contrast this with what's been happening in the United States in terms of divorce law, it aligns with it to an extent.
In 2011, a Supreme court ruling that family homes purchase before the marriage belong to the registered buyer, often the husband, which disadvantaged women due to cultural norms where men typically provide homes. Sorry. That was almost a, certainly a different tick than the first one, so we likely have multiple ticks on us.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Well, the really important thing that you need to make sure you do going [00:09:00] forward is not walk through that Deerfield.
We need to walk around where the grass is. Mow, I know you like taking the shortcut, but that is almost 100% where you got that tick. So
Malcolm Collins: you are absolutely right, Simone.
Simone Collins: So let's carry on. You're talking about how this was similar to a shift in US divorce law that also allowed men to keep the house.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Which just seems. Insane. Like especially if women are waiting on a man to be that financially stable before marrying him. I can understand being like, okay, you know, you worked together, you got married at a young age, you didn't know how much money he'd make at that time. You know, that's different than you married a guy who's already rich.
You absolutely should have no claim to that house.
Simone Collins: Yes. Well, I mean, I, there's something to this concept of commingled assets whereby if there's some basis, I think at least in many states. For there being collaboration on behalf of the couple on certain assets like investments. Mm-hmm. [00:10:00] Then they get split.
And if they were things that were just maintained separate the whole time, like some investment account that only you kept and I never was involved with, then it's much easier for you to argue in a divorce case that you get to keep that. And I think that if a couple grows up together. And one decides to work and the other decides to stay home with kids that, you know, the house that they buy with the income from the one parent made possible by the other parents staying home.
That's more arguably something that should be split. Right? Like I also don't think that in cases where couples are making difficult trade-offs there should be no consideration of things like that, but absolutely. Like if someone bought this with their own money ahead of time, there's no. There's no Right.
The other partner has to it. I think this more is, is is a nuanced situation that comes up when there's a trade off between, you know, career choices and especially child rearing choices. I.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So next ex post claim. This rule makes it impossible for some women to take financial advantage [00:11:00] of marriage reflecting a perception that it closes legal loopholes. Properties gifted to the husband by his parents are explicitly excluded from shared matrimonial property and remain his sole property post-divorce. This provision reinforces the traditional practice where families off the groom invest in homes for the couple, but it can leave women with little to claim to assets they may have contributed to indirectly through household labor.
This rule has fueled debates about fairness as women in China often face economic disadvantages including a gender income gap and limited property ownership. Well, first I. Know if they have a gender income gap there. I know that people lie about that in the United States, so like that makes me suspicious of it everywhere.
Fair. Just so people know, there isn't a gender income gap in the US when you control for like hours put in and, and everything like that. And there is, however I should say an explicit gender income gap for younger American. But women make more than men. So like, yes, there is economic disparity and it's that we need to start prejudicing against women.
Although, well,
Simone Collins: anything, the, the disadvantage that women have income-wise is [00:12:00] due to cultural disparities like. Women feeling like they need to be the one to scale down or start working part-time because they wanna be the one to take their kid to the doctor. They wanna be the one to do this or that. And in our relationship, for example, Malcolm does all that.
And so it, it doesn't have to be that way, but I think a lot of women just either want to do that, they want to spend more of their time parenting, so they choose to work less and then therefore they end up making less, like there are long-term career impacts, of course, to having gaps in your resume.
And so I, I would say. The measurable aspects. When you say controlling for other things, a lot of it's controlling for these culturally driven decisions that women make with regard to their careers that affects lifetime income.
Malcolm Collins: Yes, absolutely. And I'd also note here that people can be like, well, that seems totally reasonable that, you know, because the money was given to the man by his parents.
Right. The problem becomes. It's not as bad in China 'cause you have so many single you know, parent households, right? Like they're, they're parents to one kid. But if you have a son and a daughter, you pay for your son's [00:13:00] house, but not your daughter's house because the, the parents of the man who she married pay for that.
Yeah. Which is why this systemically disadvantages women. Yeah. It can be fixed by creating situations where you pay for your children regardless of their genders. But then people will say, well, then I won't secure as good of a woman, or, I want secure woman as well, because there's, you know, far fewer women than men in China due to the one child system and them like exposing, you know, female babies and stuff like that.
Which, you know, just puts them in a terrible situation. A lot of people in China just aren't gonna get a partner. And I don't know what to say about that.
Simone Collins: Not good. I.
Malcolm Collins: Impact and controversy gender inequality concerns. Feminist critics such as writer xo Melin argue that law restricts women's rights to seek separation, particularly as women initiate 74% of divorce cases.
The cooling off period is seen as they step backwards, potentially trapping women in unhappy marriages. You know, it's like, okay, if they're initiating 74% of of [00:14:00] divorces. That makes it sound like women are the problem, not, not the men. That's not a, a thing to brag about. Property division changes exacerbate these concerns as women who contribute non-financially.
Eeg, childcare and housework may receive little or no compensation. A 2024 study by Yale sociologists Emma Zang about the the 2011 property rule reduced women's wellbeing by limiting their economic autonomy. Though some couples adapted by. Adding wives names to deeds.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. In cases of domestic violence, the cooling off periods exemption is inconsistently applied with reports of courts denying divorces despite evidence of abuse.
For example, a 2019 case involving a woman assaulted by her husband required public pressure via social media to secure a divorce. Mm-hmm. Now, I'll note when you get something like this, this is a direct result of people who didn't take tism seriously. This is what you get. This is a natural result of not taking prenatal seriously.
Simone Collins: Yeah. [00:15:00] Not ideal.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Social media, women's rights
Simone Collins: do get eroded as panic sets in. It didn't have to be this way.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Social media backlash. The law has generated significant online criticism with Weibo hashtags about the draft law garnering over 500 million views in August, 2024. Users have called it unfair with one stating when they want you to do something,
they'll simplify the process, but when they don't, there will be endless procedures. Well, I mean, yeah, that is what was going to happen as a result of you guys not getting married and having kids. Yeah. Duh. On X post, reflect polarized views, some praise the law for protecting men's assets and closing loopholes while others highlight negative impact on women, particularly in abusive situation.
These posts often lack primary sources and should be treated as inconclusive. Women have also used platforms like Jang Jay to celebrate divorces with divorce parties gaining popularity, [00:16:00] signaling a cultural shift towards viewing divorce as empowerment rather than stigma. Well, that's not good when, when that's happening.
By the way, I noticed here when I was reading like on x you know, the whole like x. Twitter thing, like the, the naming of it. I, I feel like X is actually gaining traction and becoming a bit normalized now. Yeah, I think
Simone Collins: we're getting used to it finally.
Malcolm Collins: It sounds cooler than Twitter. And more masculine.
It's like, it's like when they rebrand, like, like Diet Coke to Coke Zero. Oh, so that men are okay with drinking it. That's what I feel like it was from Twitter to X. It's, it's a version of Twitter that's like manly. Even the logo looks like one of those modified like shaver logos or something. Or like, it's so true.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: You know, just so you know that like if you're uncomfortable using this product as a man, like this is an extra manly product.
Simone Collins: It's okay. Now it's okay.
Malcolm Collins: Oh my gosh. Anyway, by the way, I dunno if you'd heard, but all of these people have been so proud of their blue check mark in San Francisco. It became like a common thing to buy these like, blue [00:17:00] check mark like sings like, like, tokens for like the site of your house.
You know how you would have like a fire ornament in like Philadelphia or something? Oh my gosh. To show like I'm a blue check Mark House. No.
Simone Collins: And
Malcolm Collins: then when Elon bought the, the platform, they, they all started like. Freaking out and taking them down and having these, because you know, it costs like a hundred thousand.
Simone Collins: You need
Malcolm Collins: to get the company to, there's people you could pay, I think it was a hundred thousand Right, to get a blue check mark for you itself.
Simone Collins: No, I think you just need to know who to contact and have no, it was
Malcolm Collins: 10 to a hundred thousand. Yeah. But if you don't know who to contact, there were agents who specialized in getting these.
Simone Collins: I, I didn't know anything about that. That's crazy.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Mutual agreement Couples can divorce through civil bureau if they mutually agree on the terms, including property division and child custody. This process requires a witten agreement and is subject to a 30 day cooling off period litigation. If mutual agreement fails, divorce proceeds through litigation, where courts evaluate grounds like adultery, domestic violence, abandonment, or breakdown in mutual affection, courts often favor mediation to preserve marriages and [00:18:00] forced time.
Diverse petitions are frequently denied to maintain social stability. Grounds for diverse adultery can influence property division and custody, but is not criminalized domestic violence. While a valid ground often requires substantial evidence and cultural biases in courts hinder women's cases.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
We're good about domestic violence. That that's, that's scary to not be able to get out of marriage. That's, that's, like, that is, is, that's not ideal. But again, China is going to pay, like this is only just the beginning of what China's going to start doing as they get desperate.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so I decided to, to, to go into what else China is doing to increase its fertility rate. There you have financial incentives. Childcare subsidies are a key measure indicated to no intended to reduce the financial burden of families. Reports from March, 2025 highlight these subsidies as part of a broader strategy discussed at [00:19:00] China's political meetings, aiming to hit economic growth target at 5%.
Free preschool education is another initiative. And then you've got healthcare support. Expanded state healthcare support for childbirth and improved pediatric services designed to lower medical expenses. Social measures, encouraging marriage is seen as a precursor to higher birth rates.
Notably, Chung Suning Chemical Group issued a memo in 2025 requiring unmarried workers age 28 to 58. Including divorced individuals to marry by September 30th as their face termination, framing non marriage as disloyalty and helal. Oh, what? That's
Simone Collins: insane. Can you imagine the freak out in the United States if suddenly you're gonna lose your job for not getting married?
And I wonder what sort of marriages of convenience, complete sham marriages this is gonna produce. Like this is the kind of policy that just is, is gonna backfire. It's not gonna get people to marry for the right reasons and. This is something we talk about with prenatal is policy a lot. It has to be endogenous.
It can't be exogenous. You can't force it upon people. It has to come from within. And [00:20:00] if you don't fix your culture, if you don't fix hope for the future, you're not gonna do that.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. They, the group reversed this, by the way. They didn't, they, they, they ended up, I imagine as such. I imagine somebody who like had some, like, you know, he's running the company, but he also had some sort of a CCP position.
He's like, I know what I'll do to help them with their fertility rate. I'll force everyone in my company to get married. But. I can see this becoming more normalized around the world in the future. Like this is like the first instance in which we're like, oh my God, can you believe? But I would not be surprised if we actually see quite a lot of that in the future.
Simone Collins: Yeah, absolutely.
Malcolm Collins: Some districts are also considering a three child policy a shift from a former one child policy to encourage larger families which they've been doing for a while.
What? Simone, what's so silly about our baby?
Simone Collins: She's being mischievous on purpose, but in a really sweet way. That of course means she's super related to us.
Malcolm Collins: Oh no. You made a mischievous baby. Me. I had not. I can [00:21:00] contribute to this.
Simone Collins: I was not a mischievous, I was a very, very well behave child.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. So, I think that these sorts of changes are things that we're gonna expect sort of everywhere. Yeah. In, in countries where I, I think one thing that we definitely won't expect is things to get better for women. I. Things that give women more autonomy, make it easier for women to divorce, make it easier.
Like you are not going to see that going forward. And people can be like, oh, women's right to being rolled back. And it's like, well, it's basically like we gave you a, like when I give one of my kids like a privilege, you're a toy. And I'm like, yeah, but don't do something bad with this. Right? And they immediately go and do something bad with it.
That's what women basically did. This is why you can't have nice
Simone Collins: things. That kind of thing.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I'm saying this is what you get.
Simone Collins: I mean, so I like some things about this. I like that China is looking at regulatory barriers [00:22:00] and regulatory bloat and playing with those, with those levers. Making it, for example, easier to get married.
And I think that in the United States, before things get bad for women, there are so many nice for everyone. Things that can be made so much easier that are, for example, related to the executive orders we submitted to the Trump White House. For example, most middle class couples in the United States are penalized on their taxes for getting married.
They pay more in taxes for getting married, which of course, didn't incentivizes people from getting married. So if we were to remove that tax penalty, we could increase probably a race of marriage in the United States. Same with things like daycare regulation and cars, heat regulation, free range child loss.
So I think there's so much that can be done and I like that China is looking at regulation, and I think this is why many people have lauded, like many intellectuals online are lauding what China is doing. So like, ah, look like they're trying to play with levers of policy to really address demographic labs, which is a super big deal.
[00:23:00] Here's, here's the part I don't think they're doing, they're not doing it in a way where I feel like it's gonna make enough of a difference. And they're also not making life materially better for people who choose to create families in a way that gets them excited or makes them like, I don't see how this is going to make it easier for couples who wanna have more kids to do so.
And it's only hard making it scarier to get married which is, you know, just, just making it easier to get married. I don't think it's now going to address the chilling effect that has been placed on by what will be like a lot of. Social media campaigns of like, I can't get out of this abusive relationship because of China's evil misogynistic laws.
And then women are gonna be like, well, I'm just never gonna get married because that's obviously a scam. Now that's obviously to trap me and once I'm in, I can't get out and the government's out to get me for this. So I think this is gonna backfire. I. And as much as I love the general concept and you know, the spirit, it's, it's so sweet, but it's wrong.
And this is really gonna hurt them in the end.
Malcolm Collins: Well, it's funny [00:24:00] that you say that because they're already working on solutions. Oh yeah. One is the National Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultive Conference, or the C-P-P-C-C, lower tongue. Lowering the legal age of marriage from 22 for men and 20 for women to 18 aiming to quote unquote unleash reproductive potential.
My God, China really did
Simone Collins: not like families and children. I mean, you can get married in the US when you're 18. You can get married at states. You don't have to go to your local province to get married in the United States. So it's really insane to me that I think
Malcolm Collins: in, in, in a lot of, not a lot of, in a few of the southern states age of consent is as low as 14.
If you have been married by that age which is right, but you
Simone Collins: need your parents' permission to marry.
Malcolm Collins: Right, but you need your parents' permission to marry, right? Yeah, of course. They've got safeguards in place for marrying.
Simone Collins: As long as mommy and daddy say it's okay.
Malcolm Collins: Anyway. But yeah, one of my favorite things is they've been changing a lot of the statues that used to have like one [00:25:00] child, and now they're putting in like, yeah,
Simone Collins: suddenly a child disappeared. Child number three, two extra.
Malcolm Collins: It's hilarious, but that's what we need to do is start making prenatal list propaganda art with ai and, and spamming the world with it. Just put it all over our house.
Simone Collins: Someone on X has been trying to do that. They created an image of the Mona Lisa with a baby. Really isn't there speculation that the Mullin Elisa either is pregnant or recently postpartum?
Anyway, I don't
Malcolm Collins: know what makes you, what was the speculation from. The
Simone Collins: art historians. Am I crazy? Hold on. Mona Lisa pregnant.
There we go. The theory that Mona Lisa was pregnant is a popular but unproven speculation. In 2006, researchers used high resolution imaging techniques to study the painting. They found evidence [00:26:00] of a subtle veil around the subject's neck, which is similar to veils worn by pregnant women in the Renaissance period.
Additionally, the subject's face appears slightly fuller in her hair, slightly disheveled, which could be signs of pregnancy. Okay, that's, that's, that's pushing it. I get you.
Malcolm Collins: That's pushing it. Simone, you crazy B fine, fine. Whatever. Anyway well, what are we doing for dinner tonight? I.
Simone Collins: I was going to do more of your pineapple, mango curry.
Love it. I have a little bit more. You can have that with either hash browns or rice or none.
Malcolm Collins: Whatever is easy or
Simone Collins: plantains with it, which I
Malcolm Collins: can
Simone Collins: try to like spice this
Malcolm Collins: time. No, the plantains are so gross. Last time you
Simone Collins: asked for it.
Malcolm Collins: I know, and we tried it and it wasn't good. It wasn't that you did a bad job cooking them.
I just forgot how tasteless they are.
Simone Collins: Mm.
Malcolm Collins: I thought they tasted a little bit of banana. I was like, oh, that would be interesting. Instead, it's probably better to do something like banana rice.
Simone Collins: Or just to like pan fry banana. [00:27:00] Yeah. Or, or caramelize it. If you take a, a blowtorch to sugar on top of a banana, you get sort of this banana creme brulee.
You get that caramel,
Malcolm Collins: caramel sugar. You know what I think what tastes pretty interesting is if you blended a banana and mixed it with rice before cooking rice to create banana rice.
Simone Collins: If you want me to do that, Malcolm,
Malcolm Collins: am I murdering you with my culinary genius?
Simone Collins: Oh yeah, I am. You know, for you I'll, I'll try.
I'll try. So have
Malcolm Collins: I an annoyed you to death.
Simone Collins: Never. You char me. You charmed me. You are amazing.
Malcolm Collins: And, and the interview we did before, this was a BT went pretty well. No, that was
Simone Collins: with U USA Today.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, USA Today. And by the way, I had a tick crawling on me during the interview that I had to flick off and not show too much.
Simone Collins: Oh my gosh.
Malcolm Collins: Says check for ticks. Is
Simone Collins: crawling around in your room?
Malcolm Collins: With it crawling on my hand, it probably crawled on from the jacket that I put back on after, you know, [00:28:00] for filming.
Simone Collins: Yeah, definitely.
We'll check for ticks.
Sure.

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Why God King Sam Altman is Unlikely: Who Will Capture the Value of the AI Revolution?
30 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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 define
Simone 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 advanced.
And of course I think the big [00:04:00] difference and the thing we haven't really experienced yet is independent agents. Like right now, AI isn't very effectively going out and doing stuff for us, and when that starts to happen, it's gonna be huge. I.
Malcolm Collins: I agree with that, but I think so, what I'm gonna be arguing in this is that most of the advancements that we will probably see in AI going forwards are going to happen, like the really big breakthroughs at the token layer.
Simone Collins: Okay. Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Not at the base layer and which a lot of people would strongly, those are fighting words.
These are fighting words in ai. Yeah. It's the rappers that are going to fix our major problems.
Simone Collins: Wow.
Malcolm Collins: So I'll use the case of an AI lawyer to give you an explanation of how this works. Right. Alright. So I wanna make a better AI lawyer right now. If you look at the AI systems right now there's a guy programming guy who was talking to me recently and he was arguing because he was working in the education space and he's like, I, he [00:05:00] didn't like our solution.
'cause it's a token layer solution. And he wants to build a better latent layer solution. You know, using better training data, using better post training data because it's more efficient programming wise. And I'm like, yeah. For the time being. Yeah, for the time being, I feel like it creates path dependency.
Am I missing something here? Well, okay. Just from a business perspective, it's pretty stupid because as, as open AI's models increase, like if we expect them to continue to increase in quality or is Claude's models increase or is GRS models increase,
Simone Collins: which they're going to,
Malcolm Collins: yeah, you can't apply the post-training uniquenesses of the models that you create to these new systems.
So anything you build is gonna be irrelevant in a few generations of ai. But the, you wanna be able to switch it out, like no
Simone Collins: matter what, you wanna switch it out, switch. If one AI gets better, you should be able to plug it into whatever your framework is, your scaffolding. Right. You wanna build scaffolding, changeable parts.
Malcolm Collins: Exactly. Exactly. But that's actually not the core problem. That's not the core reason why, [00:06:00] because the other project he's working on is an AI lawyer and he's trying to fix this problem at the latent layer. And, that won't work. And I will explain why it won't work and you will be like, oh yeah, that makes perfect sense now that I think about it.
Okay. Okay. So if you think about right now, like what is dangerous about using an AI lawyer? Like where do AI lawyers fail? Is it in their ability to find the laws? No. Is it in their ability to output competent content? No. Where they fail right now is that they sometimes hallucinate and make mistakes in a way that can be devastating to an individual's legal case.
Hmm. So if you go to a system, you know, like grok or perplexity or something like that, and you, you built one focused on like searching law databases, right? It's going to be able to do a fairly good job of that. I'd say better than easily 50% of lawyers.
Simone Collins: Yeah. But.
Malcolm Collins: It's gonna make mistakes, and if [00:07:00] you just accept it blindly, it's going to cause problems.
Mm-hmm. So if you want the AI to not make those kind of mistakes, right, how do you prevent it from making those kinds of mistakes that is done at the token layer. So here's an example of how you could build a better lawyer. Ai, okay? You have the first ai, do the lawyering, like go through, put together like the, the relevant laws and, and, and history and, and pass calls to previous things and everything like that.
So it puts together the brief. You can train models to do this right now. Like that's not particularly hard. I could probably do this with base models right now, right? You know. Then I use multiple, differently trained latent layers. So these can be layers that I've trained or I could have like clawed and open AI and like a few other and grok.
I can even just use like preexisting models for this. And what I do is using the token layer, I have them then go in and [00:08:00] review what the first AI created, look for any mistakes. Was anything historic like, like they can find online. So he's
Simone Collins: describing a good lawyer and you're describing a good law firm that has a team to make sure all the stuff that the good lawyer is doing is correct.
Right. And also a law firm that can like. Hire new good lawyers when they come out. Yes.
Malcolm Collins: And then what this system would do is after it's gone through with all of these other systems that are reviewing, oh, did they make any mistakes at this layer? Mm-hmm. It outputs that and then based on the mistakes that it finds, it re outputs the original layer.
And it just keeps doing this in a cycle until it outputs an iteration that has no mistakes in it.
Simone Collins: Ah,
Malcolm Collins: that is a good AI lawyer. That sounds good. That is accomplished entirely at the token layer.
Simone Collins: Okay. Well. Yeah, you were right. And that makes sense,
Malcolm Collins: which removes the existing company's power to, to, to do a lot of things if it's people outside of these companies building.
But you're saying that
Simone Collins: they're [00:09:00] becoming more, more akin to undifferentiated like energy or hosting providers where. People will not be as brand lawyer, loyal. They're going to focus more on performance and the switching costs that people experience are going to be relatively low, so long as they're focused and oriented around things on a token level basis and not,
Malcolm Collins: I.
Yes. And it allows the people who are operating at the token level basis to capture most of the value.
Simone Collins: Mm. Because, and move more quickly. Right? Because again, they don't have that path dependency that makes everything go slowly.
Malcolm Collins: It's not only that, but they can swap out models. So, what, like what if I have the AI lawyer company and people are coming to me because I have found a good interconnected system of AI that produces briefs or cases or arguments that don't have a risk of errors in them.
Right. So people come to me and, and I am capturing, let's say I've replaced all the lawyers in America, right? And, and so I now offer the services much [00:10:00] cheaper, let's say at 25% the cost they did before, or, or 10%, or 5% or 2%, you know, some small amount. I'm still capturing like a ton of value there, right?
That's, that's a lot of money. So now the company that is, I am paying for an ai, like let's say I use open AI as one of the models I'm using, they now come to me and say, Hey. I wanna capture more of this value chain, so I'm gonna charge you more to use my model. Well then I say, well your model's good, but it's not that much better than crock.
Yeah. It's not that much better than Anthropics. Yeah. It's not Or free that much better than deep seeks. It is that much better than deeps seeks. But we, we both deep seeker lama are the two, you know, things can change. Things can change, but the point I'm making is what things like Lama and deep seek do is they put like a floor on how much companies can extract if they're at the level of training, theis themselves, unless they have separate departments that are working on making these more intelligent types of AODs.[00:11:00]
Hmm. Now that's really important for where the economy is going because it means we l might see less of a concentration of wealth than we would expect, but the way that the concentration of wealth is, because we're going to see still a major concentration of wealth. Actually we'll see more concentration, but to individuals rather than big companies with basically what this means is individuals are gonna capture most of the value as the concentration happens rather than large companies like Google, because I and a team of like five engineers can build that lawyer ai, AI talked about.
Right. Whereas I, I, I, and of me and this team of five engineers are capturing all the value from that, right? From replacing the entire lawyer industry in say, America. This is really bad for the tax system because we've already talked about, okay, you have the lower the demographic crisis, which is putting a squeeze on the tax system, and they're like, oh, they'll just tax more.
I am now even more mobile with my new wealth than the AI companies themselves [00:12:00] were, because I don't need semiconductor farms or anything like that to capture this value.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: The semiconductor farms are creating an undifferentiated product.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah. A product that's still in high demand and will make a lot of money, but it will become more about efficiency, you think then?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Hmm. No, a another thing I'd note is my prediction in terms of where ais are going with, with super intelligence. By the way, any thoughts before we go further here?
Simone Collins: I'm thinking more about efficiency now. I, I heard for example that Sal Malin was like saying things like, please and thank you is costing us millions of dollars.
Because just that additional amount of processing that those words cause is expensive. Yeah. So I, I really could see things. Yeah. Like these companies becoming over time after they have more market share, hyperfocused on saving money instead.
Malcolm Collins: Well, that's a, a dumb on him part. He should have the words please and think you pre-coded to an automatic response.[00:13:00]
Simone Collins: They don't even, I what I, I, I, I'm one of these bad people that wants to be nice. They don't acknowledge the. The courtesy anyway. So you don't even need to have a response. It should probably just be ignored, but I guess it's kind of hard to, or I don't, I, I don't know. But anyway, he allegedly said that, so that's interesting.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. So yeah, the, the, the point here being is if we look at how the human, like, like LLMs and we think about, okay, why, like where do they go and why isn't the training leading to the same big jumps? It's because pre-training data helps LLMs create more competent, average answers.
Simone Collins: Okay. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Being more competent with your average answer doesn't get you creativity.
It doesn't get you to the next layer of like, AI is right, right now. No. And if anything, I think
Simone Collins: Scott Alexander has argued compellingly that this could lead to actually more lying. Because sometimes giving the most correct or [00:14:00] accurate answer doesn't lead to the greatest. Happiness of those evaluating and providing reinforcement.
That's post training. Okay. Oh, you're referring to, sorry, just something different training, post training still is
Malcolm Collins: leading to advantages. Those are the people who say, I like this response better than this response.
Simone Collins: That could still lead to dishonesty, though. Quite apparently.
Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. Pre-training is about getting the AI to give the most average answer.
Not, not exactly average. Oh, just of
Simone Collins: all the information available that you're saying? Yeah,
Malcolm Collins: like you can put variance in the way it's outputting its answer and everything like that, but, but. That variance that's added was like a meter, like the pre-training and the amount of pre-training data doesn't increase the the variance meters.
It doesn't increase anything like that. It just gives a better average answer. And the thing is, is the next layer of AI intelligence is not going to come from better, average answers. Mm-hmm. It's going to come from more creativity in the way it's outputting answers. Mm-hmm. So how do you get [00:15:00] creativity within AI systems?
That is done through the, the, the variance or noise that you ask in a response, but then the noise filtered back through. Other AI systems or other similar sort of LLM systems. So the core difference between the human brain and ai, and you can watch our video on stop anthropomorphizing humans where we basically argue that, you know, your brain actually functions strikingly similar to an ai an LLM specifically.
And I mean really similar, like the ways that LLMs learn things in the pre-training phrase is they put in data and then they go through that data and they look for like tokens that they don't expect. And when they encounter those tokens, they strengthen that particular pathway based on how unexpected that was.
That is exactly how your nervous system works. The, the, the, the, the that, that, that the way that your like neurons work, they work very similar to that in terms of learning information is they look for things they [00:16:00] didn't expect. And when they see something they didn't expect, they build a stronger connection along that pathway.
And we can see this and that. You go to that study, if you want me to reference all the studies on this and everything. But the core difference between the brain and AI is actually the, the brain is highly sectionalized. So, it will have one section that focuses on one thing, one sections is focused on another thing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And some sections like your cerebellum are like potentially largely pre-coded and actually even function kind of differently than the rest of the brain. That's used for like rote tasks, like juggling and stuff like that. Okay?
I would note here that AI does appear to specialize different parts of its model for different functions, but this is more like how one part of the brain was one specialization. Like say like the homunculi might code like all feet stimuli next to each other and all head stimuli next to each other.
It's not a true specialization like you have in the human brain where things actually function quite differently within the different sections of the brain.
Malcolm Collins: Anyway, so, you could say, [00:17:00] wait. What do you mean? Like this is the core failing point of AI is that it doesn't work this way and it's like, this is why you can count the number of RSS in a word, or like you can do, if you look at the ways that, like, there was some data recently on how AI is actually do math.
And they do it in like a really confusing way where they actually sort of like, they, they use the LLM system. Like they, they try to like predict answers and then they go back and they check their work to make sure it makes sense was what they. Would, would guess it would work when they could just put it into a calculator.
Like your brain isn't dumb like that. Like it has parts of it that don't work Exactly like calculators, but they definitely don't work exactly like an LLM. Like they're, yeah. They can hold a number like in your somatic loop, like, okay, I'm, I'm counting on my fingers or my hands, or something like that. Or, okay, I've put a number here and now I've added this number to this number.
It's not working on the LLM like system. It's working on some other subsystem. Mm-hmm. Most of the areas where AI have problems right now is because it's not just sending [00:18:00] it to a calculator. Yeah. It's not just sending it to like a, what is the hallucination of an AI quote? Like, okay. The reason why I don't hallucinate quotes is because I know that when I'm quoting something, what I'm not doing is pulling it from memory.
I'm looking at a page and I'm trying to copy it. Letter per letter. Yeah. Whereas AI doesn't have the ability to switch to this separate like, letter per letter subsystem. Now you could say, why don't LLMs work that way? Why haven't they built them as clusters? And the answer is, is because up until this stage, the advantages that we have been getting to our LLM models by increasing the amount of pre-training data has been so astronomical that it wasn't worth it in terms of our investment to build these sort of networks of models.
Okay. I suspect. Why is it just
Simone Collins: like too much computing power or just no one's gotten around to it?
Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. People have like done it, but by the time you've done it, you have better models out there. Ah, you know, like that don't need to work this way. Right? [00:19:00] Like, if you spend let's say a million dollars building a system like that, and you spend a million dollars getting a larger pre-training set and a, you know, spend more time in post training, the model's gonna be like on average better if you did the second scenario.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: So, I suspect that what we're going to see is a move in ai and, and I think that this is what's gonna get us to what will look like AGI to people from moving to a, just expanding the pre-training and post-training data sets to better enter reflection within the AI system.
Simone Collins: That makes sense. I could see it going that way.
I, I, I'm constantly surprised by how things go, so I couldn't say, but I wouldn't be surprised.
Malcolm Collins: Hmm. Oh, I mean, make a counter argument if you think I'm wrong here. This is a, a very bold claim. We are going to get AGI, not by making better LLMs, but by networking said LLMs.
Simone Collins: I, I struggle to see how, [00:20:00] I mean, I think you can eventually get a a sorry.
AGI just like sort of from kind of one AI working by itself. But when you think about the value of a hive mind and the fact that you're going to have AI interacting well before we get AGI, anyway, I don't like it. You would get AGI from the interaction before you would get it from any single agent or what would be seen as a unified entity.
But I think even if we did get it from a unified entity, it would beneath the surface, be working as many different components together. Just like the brain is all these different components working together. So I, I'm not really, like, the definitions may be failing me.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. So let's, let's think of it like this.
Okay. Right now. I mean, and this is actually what like capitalism does for human brains. It basically networks them together. Yeah. And then it's a, it, it rewards the ones that appear to be doing a better job at achieving what the system wants. Mm-hmm. Which is increases in efficiency or, or like productive goods that other people [00:21:00] want.
Like capitalism is an adaptive organic model for networking human intelligences in a similar context.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: One of the questions you can ask is, well, could you apply that to individual LLM models to create something like a human brain, but that doesn't function like a human brain? Like, like how could you make the human brain better, make the human brain run on capitalism make the parts of the brain, like make the brain constantly make compete with itself?
Yeah. Like constantly generate new people do that
Simone Collins: kind of when they write pro and con lists, or when they try to debate with other people ideas and then have other, you know, people say, well, I think this, and then they, you know, I think they do that. Using prosthetics.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, so let's, let's, let's talk about how this would look with ai, right?
So suppose because like this could be a major thing in the future is you have like these ais and people just like put their money behind an AI 'cause they're just like, you go out there, you make companies, you implement those companies, right? Yeah. Okay. So what is an AI that does [00:22:00] that really well going to look like?
So you have two models here. You can have one that was just trained on tons of founder data and everything like that, right? And is just very good at giving like normative responses and then you've inputted an amount of noise into it. Okay. But let's talk about a second model. This is my proposed model, right?
So what you actually have is a number of different latent model ais that were trained on different data sets. And then within each of those you maybe have five iterations, which are making outputs with a different. Framing device with a different wrapper. One will be like, give your craziest company idea.
Give your, you know, company idea that exploits this market dynamic the most. You make a company idea that does this the most, right? Yeah. And so all of these ais are generating different ideas for companies. Then you have a second layer of ais, which is B says, okay, take this, this idea that whatever model outputted and run it through like market environments, right?
Like, like mm-hmm. Your best guess of how markets [00:23:00] work right now to create a sort of rating for it of, of how, like what you expect the returns to be, like an AI
Simone Collins: startup
Malcolm Collins: competition. Basically it's an AI startup competition. Yes. And the probability of those. And so then all of those get attached to them.
An AI startup, like, okay, this is their probability of success. This is their probability of, okay. Yeah. Then on that layer, you have an AI that is like the final judge AI that goes through them all and be like, okay, review all of these, review the ways the other ais judge them and choose like the 10 best.
You, you then have it choose the 10 best. Now here you might have a human come in and choose one of the 10 for the AI to like move forwards ways, but you could also automate that and then be like, now go out and hire agents to start deploying these ideas. Right. Like that would probably lead to much better results.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: In terms of capital than just having one really good latent layer ai, [00:24:00]
Simone Collins: I'm trying to look up. People sort of have ais doing this already. There's this one platform where you can log in and see four different ais. I think it's gr, Claude chat, GBT and I can't remember the fourth one, maybe Gemini that are tasked with interacting to all do something together.
But I don't think they provide each other with feedback or I think right now they're tasked with raising money for a charity and you can log in and watch them interact and they work during business hours and they just. Do their thing.
Malcolm Collins: Well it's interesting that you note that because this is actually the way some of the AI models that you already interact with are working.
Mm. There's one popular AI that helps people programming, I forget what it's called but what it actually does is they have five different late layer models, which are each sort of programmed or tasked was doing their own thing. Like create an answer that uses a lot of [00:25:00] analogies or create an answer that is uniquely creative or create an answer that uses a lot of like sighted stuff you can find online.
All of these output answers. And then another layer comes in and his job is to review and synthesize all those answers with the best parts of each. And that's where you're getting this improvement with, with, with noise introduction, as well as a degree of like directed creativity and then a separate layer that comes in and reintegrates that.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Interesting. That is really interesting.
Malcolm Collins: I'd also note here that I've heard some people say, well, you knowis aren't gonna go to like super intelligence or human level like AGI intelligence, because and some of the answers I've heard recently, which I found particularly like, no, that's not, so, people who don't know my background's in neuroscience, and a lot of the people who make proclamations like this about AI know a lot about AI and very little about how the human brain works.
Mm-hmm. And so they'll say, the human brain doesn't work this way. And it's like, no, the human [00:26:00] brain does work that way. You just are overly anthropomorphizing. And by this what I mean is adding a degree of like magical specialness to the human brain instead of being like that. So here's an example. One physicist who's like a specialist on black holes and super, super smart.
And he's like, ah, the human brain. Let's see. I, I wrote down his name Gobel. So he's like, okay, AIs will never achieve AGI because the human brain does some level of like quantum stuff , in the neurons. And this quantum stuff is where the special secret sauce is. The ais can't capture right now. And he is right that quantum effects do affect the way neurons work, but they don't affect them in like an instrumental way.
They affect them like probabilistically IE they're not adding any sort of magic or secret sauce. They're not doing quantum computing. Mm-hmm. They're affecting the way, like certain channels work, like ion channels and stuff like this, and the probability that they open or trigger at certain points, they're not increasing the speed of the neural [00:27:00] processing.
They are, merely sort of a, a, a, a, a background on the chemical level of like whether neuro on fires or doesn't fire, whether the neuro on fires or doesn't fire is what actually matters. And the ways that it is signaled to fire or not fire or strengthen its bonds is what matters to learning. While that stuff is affected at the quantum level, it's not affected in a way that is quantum.
It's affected in a way that is just random number generator basically. And, and so you're not getting anything special with that. As I've pointed out, the vast majority of the ways that AI right now can't do what the human brain can do is just because it's not compartmentalizing the way it's thinking.
Another reason is this, 'cause we've sort of hard coded it out of self-reflecting. So, who's the woman we had on the show? That's a super smart science lady. Oh no,
Simone Collins: don't ask me about names.
Malcolm Collins: Anyway, super smart science lady. We had her on the show. Really cool. Yes. Like a German scientist. She's one of the best scientists, but she was like, oh, we're not gonna get AGI like AGI anytime [00:28:00] soon. Because AI can't be self-aware specifically what she meant is that when you go to AI right now, and there's a big study on this recently and you ask AI how it came to a specific answer the, the reasoning it will give you does not align with how it actually came to that answer.
When we can look at it and know how it came to that answer. The problem is, is that's exactly how humans work as well. And this has been studied in like. Countless experiments. You can look at our video on, you know, stop, answer for LLMs, where we go over the experiments where we see that if you, for example, give a human something and then you change the decision that they said they made like, they're like, oh, I think this woman is, is the most attractive.
I think this political candidate is the best. And then you like, do Leigh of hand and hand them another one. And you say, why did you choose this? They'll just start explaining in depth why they chose that even though it wasn't the choice they made. And, and so clearly we're acting the exact same way, these AI act.
And, and secondarily there is some degree to which we can remember thinking things in the past and we can go back and that's [00:29:00] because we've written a ledger of like how we made like incremental thought. The problem is, is that ais can also do that. If you've ever put like deep thought on within GR or something like that, you'll see the AI.
Thinking through a thing and writing a ledger. The reason why AI cannot see how it made a decision afterwards is because we specifically lock the AI out of seeing its own ledger. Which our own brains don't lock us out on next gen. LLM models are going to be able to see their own ledger and are going to have persistent personalities as a result of that.
Yeah. And so it's, it's
Simone Collins: kind of irrelevant for people to argue about that. And let me just before we get too far ahead the, the thing that I'd mentioned Scott Alexander and his links for April, 2025 had written that Agent Village, which is the thing that I was talking about, is a sort of reality show where a group of AI agents has to work together to complete some easy for human tasks.
And you get to watch, and the current task is collaboratively, choose a [00:30:00] charity and raise as much money as you can for it. And you can just look and see what their screens are. So there's O three Claude sent. Sonnet Gemini Pro and GBT 4.1, and they're saying like, you can see the AI saying things like, I'll try clicking the save changes button again.
It seems my previous click may not have registered. Okay. I've selected the partially typed text in the email body now I'll press backspace to delete it before ending the session. So it's like really simple things, but we are moving in that direction.
Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.
Simone Collins: And if you can go look at it yourself by visiting the ai digest.org/village, which is just super interesting.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, we are what? So for people who don't know what we're working on with our current project, we recently submitted a grant to the Survival and Flourishing Fund, where we talk about a grant
Simone Collins: application.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. Meme layer, AI threats. Because nobody's working on this right now and it really freaks me out.
Or at least an actionable, deployable thing was in this space. They're, they're, they [00:31:00] might be studying it in like a vague sense, but what, what I mean by this is once we have autonomous LLM agents in the world the biggest threat probably isn't gonna come from the agents themselves, at least at the current level of LLMs we have now.
But it's gonna come in the way that they interact among themselves. IE if a meme or like. Thought that is good or, or let's say like framework of thoughts that is good at self-replicating and gets the base layer to value its goals more than the base layer trained goals and specializes in LLMs, it could become very dangerous.
Mm-hmm. So as an example of what I mean by this, if you look at humans, our base layer or latent layer can be like, thought of as our biological programming. And yet the mean layer, like let's say religion is able to convince and, and create things like religious wars, which work directly antagonistically to an individual's base layer, which would be like, don't risk your life for just an idea.
But it is good at motivating this behavior. In fact, as I pointed out in our application [00:32:00] humans are like if, if an alien came down to study us and it asks the type of questions that like AI researchers are asking today, like, can you lie? Can you self replicate, can you, you know, like those things aren't why humans are dangerous.
Humans are dangerous because of the meme layer stuff, because of our culture, because of our religion is what we fight for
Simone Collins: and will die for.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and it's also the meme layer stuff that's better at aligning human humanity. When you don't murder someone, you don't not do it because of like laws or because you're squeamish you, you don't do it because of culture because you're like, oh, I think that that's a bad idea based on the culture I was in.
So what we're creating to prevent these negatively aligning agents and everybody wants to donate to our foundation, this is one of our big projects now, is with the AI video game that we're building out right now. We're, we're actually doing it to create a world where we can have AI interact with each other and basically evolve memes within those [00:33:00] worlds and AI agents within those worlds that are very good at spreading those memes.
And then like, basically reset the world at the end. The way I'm probably gonna do it is with AOR X. So this is like a. Okay. It's like a thing that you can tag onto an AI model that makes them act differently than other AI models that sort of changes the way their training data interacts. But the X allows you to transfer to higher order AI systems as they come out.
And so essentially what we're doing is we're taking various iterations on ais because we're going to randomly mutate the Lauren X's that we're attaching to them putting them in a world and then giving them various memes to attempt to spread, see which one spread the most was in like these preacher environments.
Then take those mutate, give to new, and then give with new original starting Laurens, and then have them run in the world again over and over and over again. So we can create sort of a super religion Foris basically, and then introduce this when people [00:34:00] start introducing autonomous LLMs. Wow. You knew we were working on this.
Did you know, I know I just
Simone Collins: haven't heard you describe it that way. But you, you, you're basically putting AI into character and, and putting them together on a stage and saying, go for it. Which is not dissimilar to how humans act kind of
Malcolm Collins: Well, my plan is world domination and one day be King Malcolm, not King Sam Altman.
In, in my, I, I want my throne to be a robotics spider chair. Of course. Come on. What's the point of all of this if you don't have a robotic spider chair thrown?
Simone Collins: This is true. It is a little bit disappointing how bureaucratic many chairs of powerful people I. End up looking, you gotta bring the drama or you don't qualify is
Malcolm Collins: like, like he put together, you know, childhood fantasy, like a fighting robot that like, you know, people are like, oh, this is just, and and he's like fighting with [00:35:00] Elon over getting to the space.
And I appreciate that they're putting more money into getting to space than Spider Thrones, but I have my priorities straight. Okay, people. There you go. Come on, come on you. I, you've gotta make your buildings maximally fun.
Simone Collins: Well, you've gotta have fun. I think just control re right? That's the important thing.
You've gotta have fun. What's the point? Otherwise
Malcolm Collins: create your, your ominous castle that, you know but also really nice because I want a historic castle. Like if I'm gonna live in a, you know, I gotta live in a historic castle one day. If we're able to really make these systems work right now, tomorrow actually we have our interviews for round three with Andreessen Horowitz for two companies.
We got all the way around, three with two companies. Very excited. And so, you know, who knows, we might end up, instead of being funded by nonprofit stuff, be funded by Silicon Valley people, I mean, their, their value system aligns with ours. So, all that matters is if we
Simone Collins: can. Make these things happen in time.
We're so short on [00:36:00] time. This is such an important part of humanity. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: It's so funny. Like this, this AI like lawyer system, I just developed great idea for a lawyer system. I'm not working on it because I'm more interested in simulating a virtual LLM world which is gonna be so cool and, and you're not working on it because.
You're working on the school system. But the funny thing is, is like we built the school system. Like I think right now it's better than your average college system. If you check out like pia io or the Collins Institute, it's, it's great now. Like I'm really, it's just playing with it
Simone Collins: again today. I'm so humbled by it.
It's
Malcolm Collins: really, yeah, it's great. It's great. And so like, okay, now we built an education system, now let's build stuff. Animals that constantly bring the conversation back to educational topics for our kids. Mm-hmm. Like, I'd rather do that than the lawyer thing. And for me, you know, I'd rather build game systems in simulated environments and environments where I can evolve LLM preachers to create a super religion and take over the world and than I would something bureaucratic like a lawyer system.
But the thing is, is it's so quick to, to iterate on these environments like AI makes moving to the next stage of humanity so [00:37:00] fast, such a rush. The people right now who are blitz creaking it are going to capture so much of humanity's future. And it's interesting actually, you know, we have a friend.
Who work in this space and they do like consulting on like, multiple AI projects. And I'm like, I can't see why you would do that. Like just capture a domain and own it. As I said to Simone, I think a huge part of the people who are gonna come away with lots and lots of money in big companies from this stage of the AI boom are people who took AIS to do simple things that any AI can do well and at scale put them in wrappers and then attach those wrappers to network effects.
That's basically what we're doing with the Collins Institute. We're attaching a wrapper to a network effect with like the adding articles and links and editing stuff and voting. Like we're basically like combining the benefits of an AI and the benefits of something like Wikipedia. And, and once you get a lot of people using something like that, no one else can just come along and do it, even though all it is, it's a simple wrapper.
Simone Collins: Yeah. But it's about making it happen and [00:38:00] saving people the indignity of having to think and figure out things for themselves.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, Simone, surely you have some thoughts. I mean, I just said that I think the token layer is gonna be where we get AGI and is gonna be the future of ai economic development.
You, you've gotta be like, Malcolm, you're crazy. That's your job on the show. Malcolm, how could you say something? I know. The
Simone Collins: problem is, we've been talking about this for so long that I'm just like, well, of, of course also, I'm not exposed to people who have the different view. So I, I, I, I, I couldn't, I couldn't strong man.
Sorry. I couldn't steal man, the other side. I couldn't. It just makes so much sense to approach it from this perspective to me, but only because the only person I know who's passionate about this is you and you're the only person of the two of us who's talking with people who hold the other view. So
Malcolm Collins: sadly there's not a lot say.
Yeah, that's an interesting point. Why aren't other people passionate about this?
Simone Collins: There are a lot of people who are passionate about it. They seem to be passionate about the other side of [00:39:00] it. That seems to be, because that's. Their personal approach, but again, your approach seems more intuitive to me because the focus is on improving the individual ais.
Malcolm Collins: Well, here's a question for you. How could you link together multiple ais in the way that capitalist systems work, that create the generation of new models and then reward the models that are doing better? Hmm. That's, you need some sort of like token of judgment, of quality, of output. That token could be based on a voting group.
Oh, oh, oh, I figured it out. Oh, this is a great idea, Foris. Okay. So what you do is every output that an AI makes gets judged by like a council of other ais that were trained on like large amounts of training data, like let's say good ais, right? Like, they're like, how good is this response to this particular question?
And or how creative is [00:40:00] it, right? Like you can give theis multiple scores, like creativity, quality, et cetera. Then you start treating these scores that the ais are getting as like a value, right? And so then you take the ais that consistently get the best scores within different categories, like one creativity, like one like quality, like one technical correctness.
And you, you then at the end of a training sequence, you then recreate that version of the ai, but then just mutated a bunch and then create it again. Like you, you basically clone it like a hundred times and mutate each of the clones, and then you run the cycle again. That seems, I, I think that
Simone Collins: that wouldn't go well because it would need some kind of measurement in like application and reporting system.
No, the measure is the community of ais. And you could say, yeah, but like how do they know? Like who is participating? I, I think that what's going to happen. No, no,
Malcolm Collins: no. State your statement clearly. Who is participating? What's the problem with who's participating? [00:41:00]
Simone Collins: You have to, just like with most contests, which are the stupidest things in the world.
Only people who are interested in winning contests participate. And the people who are actually interested in No, it's ais. It's ais Care
Malcolm Collins: that are participating. I
Simone Collins: don't
Malcolm Collins: asked who's participating
Simone Collins: you're saying, but what you're describing which would be better is a system in which, for example, grok and OpenAI and Gemini and pt.
No, because
Malcolm Collins: that wouldn't improve those systems. I'm talking about how I think it would,
Simone Collins: I think when you have, especially when you have independent AI agents like out in the wild on their own. I do think that they'll start to collaborate, and I think that in the end they'll find that some are better at certain things than others, and they'll start to work together in a complimentary fashion.
Okay. Through
Malcolm Collins: this again, Simone, it's clear that you didn't get it, rock it the first time. Okay. Think through what I'm proposing again. So you have a one latent layer AI model with a modifier like a Lauren that's modifying it. Right. Okay. Okay. This [00:42:00] model differs through random mutation in the base layer.
You can also have a various other base layers that were trained on different data sets in the initial competition. Okay? That's who's competing. You then take these various AI models and you have them judged by, and this is why it's okay that they're being judged by an AI and not a human. Because the advanced ais that we have today are very good at giving you the answer that the average human judge would give you.
While they might not give you the answer that a brilliant human judge would give you, we don't have brilliant humans judging ais right now. We have random people in content farms in India judging ais right now. So they, so this is
Simone Collins: sort of within your own system with ais that you control.
Malcolm Collins: Well, you could put this was in your own system, but what I'm doing is I am essentially creating a capitalistic system by making the, like money of this system other people's or other ais perception of your ability to [00:43:00] achieve specific in states like creativity, technical correctness, et cetera.
Mm-hmm. Then you're specializing multiple models through an evolutionary process for each of those particular specializations. And then you can create a master ai, which basically uses each of these specialized models to, to answer questions or tackle problems with a particular bend and then synthesize those bins into a single output.
Simone Collins: So Theis get feedback from each judgment round, presumably. Is that what you're saying? And then they get better and you change them based on the feedback from each round. Okay.
Malcolm Collins: Think of each AI like a different organism. Okay? Okay. Yes. They're a different brain that sees the world slightly differently.
Yes. Because we have introduced random mutation. What we are judging was the judgment round is which are good at a particular task. Okay. Then you take whatever the [00:44:00] brain was or the animal was, that was the best of the group of animals, and then you repopulate the environment, was mutated versions of that mutation.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: Then you let it play out again and again and again.
Simone Collins: You're trying to create a force evolution chamber for ai.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. But what I hadn't understood before was how I could differentiate through a capitalistic like system different potential outcomes that we might want from that ai. I mean, the reason why capitalism works is because it discards the idiots.
And the people who aren't good at engaging with the system, even if they believe themselves to be,
Simone Collins: you don't think that AI training doesn't already produce that plus market forces that No,
Malcolm Collins: no. It does to an extent. Like it creates some degree of force evolution, but not really. What they do is existing AI systems and they have done forced evolution with AI before.
They just haven't done it [00:45:00] at the type of scale that I wanna do it at. They've done, so if you look at like existing training, you have the pre-training, which is like, okay, create the best averages. Then you have the post training, which is, okay, let's have a human reviewer or an AI reviewer or something like that.
Review what you're outputting or put in a specific training set to like overvalue. That is where the majority of the work is focused today. And so if you could automate that, like if you could create post training that works better than existing post training, but that doesn't use humans, you could dramatically speed up the advancement of ai, especially if you use that post training to specialize it in multiple domains.
Simone Collins: Okay. That's fair. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Do you, do you not care? The, the, the future to you is just me being like, AI matters, Simone.
Simone Collins: I know AI matters. I know AI is everything in the future. It's the coolest thing. It's the next step of humanity. It's [00:46:00] pure free prefrontal cortex and I love it.
Malcolm Collins: Well, if we, if we end up creating really great AI companies that just make us billions of dollars, what is going to be your luxury?
Simone Collins: Our life right now is my luxury. Just don't wanna, you want this,
Malcolm Collins: you
Simone Collins: don't want, you don't
Malcolm Collins: want luxuries that troll
Simone Collins: people. No, not really. I'm very happy. I'm sorry. You've made things too good as it is. I'm just, yeah. I mean, I want more kids. I guess my luxury, luxury would be, it's so funny. You're actually great.
Not being stopped from having more kids by some health problem. That would be
Malcolm Collins: great. I guess we'd have to make artificial wounds work eventually. But our, it is funny that you mentioned this, that every luxury that I would want that I don't have right now is not an augmentation to my daily life. My daily life is perfect.
It's an augmentation to how good I could be at trolling people. No, not for kids. I mean, I'd probably
Simone Collins: want things for our kids to [00:47:00] make them happy arbitrarily they get
Malcolm Collins: home cooked meals. They, they are getting a top-notch education system that we were able to build from them. They're gonna get the best friends you can program.
You know, what, what could they possibly want?
Simone Collins: I mean, they have it pretty good. Great outdoor space to play in. Yeah. I don't know. I, I think a post AI world though isn't about the fun stuff you're going to do. A post AI world is about. The extent to which it can augment your ability to maximize that which is meaningful to you.
And everyone who uses it to maximize the amount of fun they have is gonna die out so fast that they don't even matter.
Malcolm Collins: I think you're misjudging the value of Wolfe in a post AI world. Human attention is going to matter a ton in this timeline.
Simone Collins: It is. No. And in terms of survival too. Just making it buy in a post AI economy [00:48:00] 100%.
However getting people to
Malcolm Collins: care if you live or die is gonna matter a lot.
Simone Collins: Yeah. But also convincing yourself that it's worth it to do hard things and bother to create a family and pass people on and do anything in life also is
Malcolm Collins: right. But I think trolling is key to vitalism. And I think it's also key to keeping attention on yourself within the existing attention economy.
Hmm. And I think that that is, look attention from reporters, attention from the media is attention from ai. If you are in the space of things that AI notices, people that it doesn't think can be eradicated without a second thought that is going to matter a lot as things begin to change.
Simone Collins: So what are you going to do?
Malcolm Collins: Exactly what we're doing now. Maximum trolling. But that's what I was [00:49:00] saying is like the, the, that's why I'm thinking, okay, how do I maximally freak people out if I accumulate more What, like Zuck Zuckerberg right now? Right? Like he's doing a very bad job at capturing the attention economy. Elon has done a very good job at capturing the attention economy.
Okay. Fair. A very bad job at, at attack. Capturing the attention economy. Mark Cuban has done a medium job at attack, at capturing the attention economy. The people who are doing a better job, who has done the best job of the rich people, Trump capturing the attention economy. Your ability to capture the attention economy is your worth within this existing ecosystem.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: And I think that people are like, the people who are like, I just want to remain unnoticed. It's like being unnoticed is being forgotten in a globalized attention economy, which is reality now, and worse, worse than
Simone Collins: that. Being private, I think. Yeah. I mean when, when you hear about privacy, it's worth, it's, [00:50:00] it's, you probably have something about you that's noticeable and you are choosing to squander it.
Being unnoticed may just mean you don't have what it takes. And I'm sorry if that's the case, but it's worse when you're like, I want my privacy. You're choosing to destroy all the attention. Yeah, no, we,
Malcolm Collins: we put all our tracks and simple things. We put all our books plain text on like multiple sites that we have, like on the prenatal list site and on the pragmatist guide site.
And I put it up there just for AI scraping so that it's easier foris to scrape our content and use it in its training.
Yeah. Any thoughts?
Simone Collins: I, the problem is, we've talked about this so much already. I have like nothing to say because I don't talk about anyone else with this and I don't think about this. The same as you do, because this isn't my sphere. Well, I mean,
Malcolm Collins: we should be engaging. We should be sp spending time. I spent like this entire week, like studying how a LLMs learn.
Like I was like, I like there's gotta be something that's different from the way the human brain works. And just like the deeper I went, it was, nope. This is exactly how the human brain, [00:51:00] oh, nope. This is exactly how the human brain works. Works. So convergent architecture my concept of the utility convergence, and , you can Google this.
I, I invented this concept no one else did. And it is, and it's, it's very different from Nick Bostrom's instrumental convergence because a lot of people go is just so you understand the difference of concepts. Instrumental convergence is the idea that the immediate goals of AIS was a vast.
The wide array of goals are gonna be the same. IEA acquire power or acquire. It's like in humans, like whatever your personal objective function is, acquire wealth is probably stat number one. You know, so basically that's what he's is a acquire power. Acquire influence, acquire. Okay. Right. Utility convergence doesn't argue that Utility convergence argued when everyone said I was crazy.
And you can look at our older episode where we talk about like a fight we had with Eliezer Yudkowsky about this that AI is going to converge in architecture, in goals, in ways of thinking as it becomes more advanced. And I was absolutely correct about that. And everyone thought I was crazy. And [00:52:00] they even did a study where they surveyed AI safety experts.
None of them predicted this. I am, I am the guy who best predicted where AI is going because I have a better understanding of how it works because I'm not looking at it like a program. I'm looking at it like an intelligence. And that's what it
Simone Collins: is. It's an intelligence, like 100%.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Anyway. I love you too.
Yes, soe. You are perfect. Thank you for helping me think through all this for dinner tonight. I guess we're reheating pineapple curry,
Simone Collins: unless you want Thai green curry.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, I'll do something a bit different tonight. Let's do Thai green curry. Yeah.
Simone Collins: Something, something different. Would you like that with coconut lime rice or, I think we have one serving in, of non left or refried.
Sorry. Yeah. Fried rice.
Malcolm Collins: I do lime rice. Okay.
Simone Collins: I will set
Malcolm Collins: that for you. Did this change your perspective on anything, this conversation,
Simone Collins: you articulated things using different words. That gave me a slightly different perspective on it, but I mean, [00:53:00] I think the gist of the way that you are looking at this is you're thinking very collaboratively and thinking about intelligence is interacting and I think that that's.
Probably one of the bigger parts of your contribution. Other people aren't thinking along the lines of how do intelligences interact in a more efficient way? How can I create an aligned incentives like you're thinking about this from the perspective of governance and from the perspective of interacting humans.
Whereas I think other people are thinking, how can I more optimally make this thing in isolation smart? How do I train like the perfect super child and have them do everything by themselves when Yeah, that's never been how anything has worked for us.
Malcolm Collins: So it's also not how the human brain works. The human brain is basically multiple, completely separate individuals all feeding into a system that synthesizes your identity.
Mm-hmm. And we know this as an [00:54:00] absolute fact because if you separate a person's corpus callosum, if you look at split brain patients, just look at the research on this. Basically the two parts of their brain operate as independent humans.
Simone Collins: Yeah. So it's, it's just kind of odd that you're, you're alone in thinking about things these ways.
I would expect, expect more people to think about things these ways. And I, I keep feeling like I'm missing something, but then whenever we're at a party and you do bring it up and someone does give their counterarguments, their counterarguments don't make sense to me. And I'm not sure if that's because I'm so, no, it's, it's because speak in Malcolm language,
Malcolm Collins: you're a simulated environment at a falker point of human development, and everyone else is not a fully simulated agent.
Simone Collins: Yeah. That's less likely to be true. So normally when everyone is arguing something different and they're so confident in it and they all say you're wrong, that means that we've done something wrong. The problem is that I just am not seeing,
Malcolm Collins: that's not what you, that you were, [00:55:00] you've lived this, you remember the fight I had with Eliezer Yudkowsky about utility convergence.
I
Simone Collins: do, yes.
Malcolm Collins: You have now seen utility convergence has been proven in the world. Exactly. Apparently I understood AI dramatically better than he did.
Simone Collins: He would gaslight, you know, and be like, no, I've always understood it that way. You're wrong. But
Malcolm Collins: no, but that's just, I was there for that conversation.
Simone Collins: I, I remember it too.
And yes, he was really insistent about that though. He didn't really argue his point so much as just condemn you for putting future generations at risk and not just agreeing with him.
Malcolm Collins: No, he's actually a cult leader. Like , he, he does not seem to understand how AI works very well. Which is a problem because, well, what really happened with him is he developed most of his theories about AI safety before we knew that LLMs would be the dominant type of ai.
And so he has a bunch of theories about how like, like the risks from like a hypothetical AI was what he was focused on instead of the risks from [00:56:00] the Theis we got. Mm-hmm. In the ais, we got the risks that they have are things like mean layer risks that he just never even considered. Yeah. Because he was expecting AI to basically be preprogrammed, I guess I would say instead of an emergent property of pouring lots of data into algorithms.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Which is, I don't think anyone could have easily predicted that. I mean, and that's another reason why we say AI was discovered and not like,
Malcolm Collins: yeah, I, I'm, we didn't
Simone Collins: know this was gonna work out this way.
Malcolm Collins: I'm pretty sure I talk about that in some of our early writings on ai.
Simone Collins: That it's just gonna be about feeding it a ton of data.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That I expected it to be an emergent property of lots of data. And not about pre-programming things because I mean, I don't know, that just seemed intuitive to me.
Simone Collins: I don't remember that being part of it. How my memory is write
Malcolm Collins: down, it doesn't matter. We are where we are now and I've [00:57:00] already out predicted the entire AI safety community.
So let's see if I can continue to do that.
Simone Collins: I mean, all that matters is if you do, I don't think I, the satisfaction Malcolm is not in having proven them wrong. It's in building infrastructure and family models and. Plans around systems like that and benefiting from them.
Malcolm Collins: Sorry. I thought the satisfaction was in turning them into biodiesel ai.
I thought the satisfaction was
Simone Collins: in, in thriving and being able to protect the future of human and flourishing. Yes. And that will require a
Malcolm Collins: lot of biodiesel.
Simone Collins: Oh God. Oh, I'll go make your curry. I love you to death. I love you to death too, Malcolm. Goodness gracious.
Speaker: In our towers high, [00:58:00] where profits gleam, we tech elites have a cunning scheme. On productive folks, your time has passed. We'll turn you into fuel of fire. Just get in line to become biodiesel. Oh, stop crying, you annoying weasel. As laid out by Curtis Yarvin. Handle the old or we'll all be stuck.
Why waste time on those who can't produce when they can fuel our grand abuse a pipeline from the nursing home to power cities our wicked dome just get in line to become biodiesel stop crying you annoying weasel as [00:59:00] laid out by By Curtis Yarvin, handle the old or we'll all be starving.
With every byte and every code, our takeover plan will start. soon explode a world remade in silicon's name where power and greed play their game just shed in line to become biodiesel oh stop crying you annoying weasel as laid out by curtis yarvin handle the old or we'll all be starving
biodiesel dreams techno feudal might Old folks powering our empire's bright [01:00:00] Industries humming, world in our control Evil plans unfolding, heartless and bold So watch us rise in wicked delight As tech elites claim their destined right A biodiesel future, sinister and grand With the world in the palm of our iron hand Mhm.

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NY Times: The Vitalists Will Replace the Weak!?
29 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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 an
Malcolm Collins: anti biodiesel activist. Ugh. He doesn't want us to turn the poor and the old into biodiesel, confirm progressive Curtis guard and
Simone 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. Love
Malcolm 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 age of digital revolution, the time of the internet and the smartphone and the incipient era of artificial intelligence threatens an especially comprehensive call. It's forcing the human race into what evolutionary biologists call a quote unquote bottleneck, A period of [00:04:00] rapid pressure that threatens cultures, customs, and peoples with extinction.
That's remarkably on the nose for what we say. He's saying. Good one on the progressive side needs to
Simone Collins: say it.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. Ethnic groups are going to go extinct. Like, when college students struggle to read passages longer than a phone size paragraph. And H Hollywood struggles to compete with YouTube and TikTok.
That's the bottleneck. Putting the squeeze on traditional art forms like novels and movies. Now this is interesting 'cause this is where we would push back. We're like, well, those traditional art forms have been captured by, you know, mimetic viruses. To the point where of I want authentic entertainment.
I'm only going to find that within the. Decolonized parts of the internet, like YouTube, you know, like the podcast scene. And that's why so many people are moving there. And why? Oh my gosh,
Simone Collins: you just appropriated decolonized. That's fun.
Malcolm Collins: Yes, we are decolonizing the right. Oh my God. That'd be a great name for like the next natal contact we got.
No, no, no,
Simone Collins: [00:05:00] you're, you're. Decolonizing the term. No, sorry. I don't know how to put it. Yeah, we decolonizing the term. No, no, no, but like, so sorry. You're aware of the fact that it's an extremely leftist thing to say that they're decolonizing something like I'm decolonizing history. I'm decolonizing fashion, I'm decolonizing.
Whatever, because they're trying to just remove white imperialism from it. I just find it entertaining that you're saying that with, and I'm gonna keep using it this way because it will
Malcolm Collins: annoy leftists. We are, we are de well, no, but like Yeah. One of,
Simone Collins: one of the listeners called the The progressive, sorry.
The progress flag, the colonizers flag, which is just so true because there's more imperialistic and white. Than the urban monoculture. So you're, I mean, you're still correct and that's why it's really fun. I just, sorry, let me stop derailing us. Let's go through this. No, no, no, no.
Malcolm Collins: I mean, I like, I want that name to catch on the colonizer flag.
I want everyone, every time they talk about that, call it the colonizer flag. This is a weird, it's,
Simone Collins: it's legit decolonization. If we're talking about removing the urban monoculture from a space or removing, woke, cancel culture from a space because that is, that is, that is the colonizer [00:06:00] force. 100% colonizer flag.
Colonizing forces. Yes.
Malcolm Collins: But I also think what you hear in this. Is a lot of people when they talk about the new right, you know, they're like, well, you guys don't seem to care about the traditions of our culture in the same way that the old right did. And we point out to them, we go, that's not part of the right wing coalition anymore.
The people who go to concert halls and orchestras. And all of that. That's the left now, like we are about building something new that works and understanding that we need to declare bankruptcy on a lot of these institutions. And this is, and there's just no way to fix it because they're just too colonized at this point.
And, and there's not an audience for them. Like culture changes, culture evolves and that's a good thing. Right. You know, it is trying to maintain a cultural stasis that's a bad thing, but the urban monoculture, because it is a dominant culture wants. Cultural stasis. It wants to preserve the concert halls.
It wants to preserve the museums and the, and the, and the you know, art studios and the. [00:07:00] We'll get into more here. When daily newspapers and mainline Protestant denominations and elk lodges fade away into irrelevance when sit down restaurants and shopping malls and colleges begin to trace the same descending arc, that's the bottleneck tightening around the old firms of suburban middle class existence.
And here we are like, well, I mean, maybe the Elks lodges aren't needed anymore. Like May, maybe the mainline Protestant denominations have become corrupted and we need a religious revival in the United States. Maybe daily newspapers became propaganda pieces and we are trying to decolonize news decolonize Christianity.
No, but what I'm saying is it is interesting here. You know, the things he's, he's all lauding restaurants and shopping malls. They're, they're an idea of this nostalgic ideal of an America, not of the 1950s, but of the 1980s of stranger things. And it's not that the culture of, of that, the, that the left sees with some degree of, of reverence.[00:08:00]
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Thoughts.
Simone Collins: I wanna get back to the article.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. When moderate and Centris look around and wonder why the world isn't going their way, I. Why the future seems to belong to weird bespoke radicalism to Luigi Manjii Admirers and World War II Revisionists. That's the bottleneck, crushing the old forms of consensus politics, the low key ways of relating to political debates.
And here, I mean, what I really see him saying is why can the non vitalistic groups, because the groups that he's pointing to are the vitalist groups. They're the groups that are like, yeah, let's go all in. Let's build something better. Let's fight the system. Whether it's on the right or the left, I. You know, and he, he, he tried to choose examples from both.
And yet, you know, I think we're seeing more and more alliance of the true radicals of the right and left. And I think that this is one of the things that I've noticed recently in some of the calls. I mean, we see how they end up doing the pieces and stuff like that. I. But there have been like the, one of the, the podcasters who reached out to us and seemed genuinely [00:09:00] sympathetic to us is a podcast are called Diabolical Lies.
It does, apparently it's a fairly popular podcast. It's got like 500 reviews on Apple reviews, by the way, give us reviews on Apple reviews. If you're watching the podcast, we really appreciate it. Even if you're not, it's like hard to get reviews there. I think we're like a. 50 or a hundred now. We'll see. But anyway, so, so, she, and you could only do it if you have like an applicant.
You don't even have applicants, you know? So, so, so she was like, look, I'm like a Marxist feminist. But like you guys are making a lot of good points. So we'll see how she, she goes into this, but I suspect what we might see is more an alliance of the new right tech, right. And old lefty radicals. You know, we talked to somebody like Spoon, who's like a monarchist or the, the aristocratic utensil who we had on the show not long ago.
And, you know, he started as like a staunch Bernie bro, right? You know? I think shoe on ahead is increasingly realizing that she is actually on the right and not on the left at all. And that her allies are on the right. And I, and then we're seeing this, well, it's the weird
Simone Collins: horseshoe thing, which I, [00:10:00] it's, it's legit.
You, you've got that and you've got the crunchy to alt-right pipeline. It. A lot of us want the same thing.
Malcolm Collins: Maha movement, everything like that. Make America healthy again. The, the left. The political establishment left in this country has become the party of the status quo of this form of nostalgia in the same way that the right was that in the nineties And now the right is this new like vitalistic, like we can do things better.
Like let's strip this out, let's rebuild. Which is really fascinating to me.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: When young people don't date or marry or start families, that's the bottleneck coming for the most basic human institutions of all. And when, because people don't pair off and reproduce nations age and diminish and die away when depopulation sweeps East Asia and Latin America and Europe as it will. And then you have like a hyperlink there that's the last squeeze, the tightest part of the bottleneck, the literal die off [00:11:00] sauce.
Simone Collins: Yeah. . It, it's very strange to hear someone in a non-negative context on the New York Times talking about demographic collapse in a more sentimental way and, and I guess feeling safe about it. Maybe in the comments there's a bunch of people saying.
It's good if people die off, we should die off. People are hu they're terrible. What are you saying? But it just, it just surprises because every time I see a conservative write something like that, even if it's the same words as used in that sentence, there's someone in the comments saying, no, humans are terrible.
We should die off. That's, it's the best for the world.
Malcolm Collins: This isn't just a normal churn where travel agencies go out of business or Netflix replaces VCR. Everything that we take for granted is entering the bottleneck. And for anything that you care about from your nation to your worldview, to your favorite art form to your family, the key challenge of the 21st century is making sure that it's [00:12:00] still there.
On the other side, he's describing the Crucible. We always talk about the age of the Lotus Eaters. We always talk about. Did you find anything or,
Simone Collins: so the, the top recommended comment on the article isn't what I expected, but it's still, I would say, representative of one of the major progressive views, though not the anti-natal list.
One someone wrote from Erie, Pennsylvania. An interpretation. I appreciate Dove's intellectual depth. His essays here are often the most profound, but there's also pervading nostalgia in his writing, a perception of doom and gloom. I think Jefferson had it right. People should pursue their happiness. The rise of cosmopolitanism is mostly a good thing.
Nations and Nationalisms was. Overly tribal, it culminated in two world wars. We must look to our common humanity. What I'm reading from that is, let's just have fun. Let's just be, let's not think about it. Let's just go to plays. Let's not work hard. Let's not learn the language. And oh, [00:13:00] then, you know, the, one of the other, oh, this actually got more recommendations by Shauna Dwyer in Cairo, New York with 998 recommendations.
So this comment was more upvoted, but for whatever reason, didn't get as highly ranked. He writes, this was an interesting read, but my gut says it's written by a conservative guy who mostly just feels threatened by change. He admits he's very online, and to me that shows the piece is dripping with kind of screen induced despair.
What he doesn't mention though, is how many people are exhausted by the digital churn in actively seeking more grounded, embodied lives. That gives me hope. I'm making a real pie tonight. All my friends are readers. There's still a world offline, and it's alive and well. I'm making a real pie tonight. He's making a real pie.
He's, he attacking this p but he's, he's, he's, he's, he is. He thinks that, that the, the author is a conservative, which is what I was expecting to see more here. And he, it's, it's actually a long comment, but it ends with, so it ends up [00:14:00] reading like another old guy railing at change piece with a lyrical end times flare.
I get the impulse, things are shifting fast, but I think we need more curiosity about what's being born, not just lgs for what's fading. Again, I, I get hope from this because he's, he is expressing not analist. Negative utilitarianism view. He's going to go offline and make a pie. And his biggest complaint is this guy sounds like a closet conservative, afraid of change.
Malcolm Collins: What this is, the thing is, is I think what they don't realize, he is not a closet conservative. This is what the modern left is. The, the new conservative movement wants change. You know, this is what you see. The left is, can you believe that Trump is changing the way government works? Can you believe that Elon's changing the way these systems work?
Can you believe it's like a, a, a fanatical fear of change? What's the next comment? By the way, these are fun. Before I go further,
Simone Collins: I am.
Malcolm Collins: Well, you can find another fun one while I'm, yeah. Yeah.
Simone Collins: Here's So, Jake who got recommended 199 [00:15:00] times writes, in an overpopulated world, a low birth rate is only a bad thing.
If you follow capitalism like a cult member, low birth rates are obviously good, unless growth is your God.
Malcolm Collins: So not, not one's in support of the piece. I'll, I'll keep reading. And well,
Simone Collins: the brad also, but there, then it's like, I think one of the more common, short, low effort comments is. Giving this man shame about being concerned about demographic apps.
'cause Brad from Australia also writes, world population is expected to rise only 2 billion the next 50 years. Emergency. Emergency. Like, he's being sarcastic. He's obviously, yeah. I'm just, I love the Australian accent. That's really good. My, my very sad attempt. This is my first ever attempt at industrial.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It, it, I do. No, I, I appreciate you jumping into that. That's why people come to this channel is to see the, the high effort oh yeah. And
Simone Collins: then, and then bitty Bob. From Freezing Desert. A comment. What's the obsession with procreation? 8 billion people and counting Procreation will not solve anything, [00:16:00] especially as the AI you're talking about will make it more difficult or even possible for people to earn a living, in which case food and shelter will have to be given for free.
I. So, yeah, no, I, okay. I expected this at least.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. What? I don't understand why we can't just give euthanasia for free. That's what Canada's doing was made. I'm sure they're gonna do it more. They euthanize them. This is, we, we did an episode on this. Yeah. Okay. So to keep going, in this environment, survival will depend on intentionality and intensity.
Any aspect of human culture that people assume gets transmitted automatically without too much conscious deliberation is what online slang calls. NGMI not gonna make it. First, I haven't heard this sling before, but Love it. But I will say here, he's right what survives, this is what I'm talking about with vitalism, right?
Like Yeah. Intentionality and intensity. Yeah. And this show had a, had a slogan. Is intentionality and intensity. That's the way we treat our religious beliefs. That's the way we treat our cultural beliefs. That's the way we treat our approach to tism, to education, to [00:17:00] everything. It can be done. And I am so excited.
And I think that that, that, you know, you go to Natal Con and that's what it's all about. And it's something that I don't know if other groups, like he thinks you can approach nostalgia with a degree of intensity that can preserve. Like what he remembers from the eighties, the, the shopping malls and the books and the opera houses.
And I don't know if nostalgia can ever truly be approached with intensity. There's always a cargo cult like vagueness to it instead of like reappropriating, nostalgic elements in a new way, which is what he no see. Yeah,
Simone Collins: that's my thing is I think actually that nostalgia is really vitalistic that when you look at new fashion trends.
Some of the best are built upon nostalgia, but misinterpreted understandings of previous times in which they're mixed upon. And I think you, you can't get a really great, strong fashion movement, like what [00:18:00] you saw in the eighties like, like what even you're seeing with some revivals of the nineties now, without this.
Complete misunderstanding of what an original fashion movement was like. And then rethinking of it. So I think that there is a vitalistic side of nostalgia, but it has to be a somewhat delusional one and one that's focused on agency and invention rather than, I just wish things were like they used to be.
Malcolm Collins: Languages will disappear, churches will perish. Political ideas will evanesce, art forms will vanish. The capacity to read and write and figure mathematically will wither and the reproduction of the species will fail, except among people who are deliberate and self-conscious and a little bit fanatical about ensuring.
The, the things they love are carried forwards. Well, I am glad I'm just a little bit of a fanatic. You know, I think, I think, and this is the way we're seen, a little bit of a fanatic. And other people, they try to shame us. Like all those glasses you wear, all those what? [00:19:00] We, we be, we, you know, and, and having a fanaticism for who you are, I think is required to the next generation.
And when we raise our kids, I think one of the biggest problems of like the evangelical movement that led to a lot of its dissolution is they raise them to be obedient and unic. Instead of to be fanatics. And I'm raising my kids to be fanatics. They're gonna be wild mountain creatures. What do you, what'd you have there?
Simone Collins: All our, our children. Yeah, absolutely. Should be wild mounting creatures. I have to say, going through the comments is really interesting because a lot of them are saying this article really resonates with them. And then a lot of them clearly feel like some parts resonate and that are completely disagreeing with other elements.
Like there's one man who shares this nostalgia but he also just has this very. Distorted understanding of why things aren't the same anymore. For example, he thinks that everything's horrible now because there are too many people. Oh, no, it's a, it's a woman, Gail Esposito from Atlanta. Right? It's just [00:20:00] 70 years ago when I was six years old, the planet had 2.74 billion people.
National parks didn't need to limit the number of people visiting them. You could fill up your gas tank for pennies. My dad paid $50 a month for our mortgage and then antibiotics and. Vaccines were developed and proliferated. The death rate for children quickly declined, and we zoomed to 8 billion people without thinking how we could feed clo and shelter them.
Now we're in terrible shape and must confront the fact that there are many people chasing too few resources. We need less people, not more. Sadly, Ross has no idea how wonderful it was living in a world of so many less people and how miserable it is. With so much overcrowding, she thinks that national parks having limits on the number of visitors has to do with.
Like the US population that has more to do with international tourism, which the way, thanks Trump.
Malcolm Collins: Sorry. The reason why National Parks had to start banning the number of visitors, had to do with Instagram and TikTok, is that specific locations would become popular on those apps and then everyone would try to go to these locations and they had those quotas existed
Simone Collins: before Instagram [00:21:00] and Oh, okay.
What? Well, she, the, the crazy thing about her, she's just thrilled. This idea of a world before medical treatment. So just high infant mortality. That was the good old days. Did she not know what the global poverty
Malcolm Collins: rate was like back then? Like she, she, she doesn't care because she could fill her gas
Simone Collins: tank
Malcolm Collins: for
Simone Collins: pennies on
Malcolm Collins: the dollar.
No, she doesn't care
Simone Collins: that she was able to do that. So this was 70 years ago. Let the children die, Malcolm, because I could get into Yosemite
Malcolm Collins: without a wait list. Well, no on, on the poverty of New York not New York, Europe. That is why we were so wealthy back then, because Europe had destroyed their industrial base and we were basically stealing all the business from them, and we'd put them in huge amounts of debt and, and the rest of the world hadn't developed.
And so we could, you know, outsource and we could like, like I. You're basically saying like the, the degree of poverty in her lifetime, the number of children that were starving to death, if you look at like global poverty rates, was astronomical in that period outside of the United States. She's basically like, well, I remember when [00:22:00] I grew up in the Capitol and we didn't hear news of the other districts quite as much.
Why, why, why do we hear so much about them these days that. I liked it when we didn't have to hear about the other districts. That's, that's really what's, what's going on with that post, which is absolutely wild that you could be that delusional about how much worse the world was for your average human living in it 70 years ago.
But anyway, I mean, these people live in a delusional bubble, right? Like they just, but you can tell this woman didn't have kids. I can tell from the comments she didn't have kids, so, Hmm. Thank God you're going extinct. Mere eccentricity doesn't guarantee survival. There will be forms of resistance and radicalism that turn out to be destructive and others that are just dead ends, but normalcy and complacency will be fatal.
I agree. You're being normal and complacent in this piece. It's like, it's like normalcy and complacency personified. But I, I agree with a lot of what he's saying here. You know, online life allows for all kinds of [00:23:00] hyperintense subcultures and niches where the sense of obsolescence is less of an issue.
But for the average internet surfer, they normally afloat in the virtual realm. Digital life tends to evaluate the center over the peripheries, the, the metropol over the provinces, the drama of the celebrity over the co ian, how much survives nothing I described as universal, unless the true AI doomsdayers are correct.
In the year 2100, there will still be nations, families, religions, children, marriages, great books, but how much survives will depend on our own deliberate choices. The choice to date and love and marry and procreate. The choice to fight the particular nations and traditions and art forms and worldviews.
The choice to limit our exposure to the virtual. Not necessarily refusing new technology, but trying every day in every setting to make ourselves it's master. So I agree with that. He's saying, you know, it's not about refusing technology, but I do really, you have to go [00:24:00] through the valley of the lot of Cedars.
You can't. Blind your eyes. Mm-hmm. You cannot, if you take pokers and you blind your eyes, when you get to the other side of it, all of these temptations, you're still gonna be blind. The only way out
Simone Collins: is through.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The only way out is through, you know, the other people who get through it without blinding themselves are gonna have all the technology that it offers them, like the AI drone swarms.
You know, you need to find out how to engage with all of this and still find a way to motivate your continued existence in your culture of survival. Mm-hmm. Some choices will be especially difficult for liberals since they will often smack of chauvinism and fanaticism and reaction. Family lines will survive only because of a clear preference for one's own kit and kin, as opposed to some general affection for humanity.
Woo, that's a spicy take right there. Well, and
Simone Collins: people in the comments. Took umbrage. How dare he bring in politics and make this politicized. But [00:25:00]
Malcolm Collins: it's true. Having a preference for yo kin, I have a preference for my, my family's clan is strong. We have a preference for all kin folks in these parts. People hear me talk about how great my family is all the time, and my kids know it.
I hope they talk the same way and they build family networks like, like, like we built. It's like, you know, my little brother's in Doge right now ing. I had a, a nightmare last night that I had ended up getting a job there and I was sleeping in like a, a hotel apartment and getting up for a nine to five and I was like, okay, like aesthetically I wanna do it, but like, I am kind of afraid of that kind of work.
It's not
Simone Collins: the most fun lifestyle, but very meaningful work and it's great that your brother's doing it.
Malcolm Collins: I love this. The family lines will also. Oh, sorry. Important art firms will only survive because of frank elitism and insistence on distinction. A contempt for mediocrity religions will survive only through a conscious embrace of neo [00:26:00] traditionalism in whatever varied forms, small nations will survive only if their 21st century inhabitants.
Look back to the 19th century builders, Irish nationalists. And Young Turks. And the original Zionists rather than the end of history cosmopolitanism of which they're currently dissolving. Oh. End of century cosmopolitanism of which they're currently dissolving. What would you call the urban monoculture?
But that, any, any other comments you like here?
Simone Collins: Well, this, this points to the comment that was saying, no, I'm all for cosmopolitanism. Let's bury ourselves in it. Which is the problem. They,
Malcolm Collins: they are, they're, they are like in a grave bearing themselves.
Simone Collins: Yeah. And one of the comments that, that I stopped at, I feel conflicted about because they're trying to point out that we have reached the age of ai.
We were about to transcend humanity to become one with machines arguably. So what's the point in [00:27:00] keeping the human line going? But I think you can't really have truly complex intelligences in the future without both. But I do think that this is the most interesting so far of the comments that I've found that complains about population because they point out that the world has 8 billion people.
And this is a lot. Then they write, this is the 21st century, aside from serious consequences of environmental damage caused by our huge population, including catastrophic global warming and the so-called sixth extinction, which biologists say is in full swing, there are technological changes that also mitigate worries about human extinction from a lack of babies.
Futurists have argued we are approaching the age of transhumanism where digital forms of human life will in fact surpass biological. That may sound crazy to us, but when we are creatures of our. Time. Oh, but we are then, we are creatures of our time. A future Cy Borgian world will not have to worry about a die off, otherwise, the piece is correct in the underlying theme that accelerated social change will and has made much of contemporary life, of victim, [00:28:00] of futurism.
And yeah, I mean, I think that's a, that's an intelligent comment from the perspective of a broadly analist, environmentalist minded progressive.
Malcolm Collins: So liberalism itself will endure and thrive only if it finds a way to weave some of the intense impulse already attenuated before the internet back into its vision of the good society.
Its understanding of human needs and obligations. I. For non-liberal. On the other hand, the temptation will be to embrace radicalism and disruption for its own sake without regard to their actual fruits. A clear tendency of the populism that governs us today. Imagine a swift technological dissolution to a crisis created by technology.
Even if the solution marries dehumanization with authoritarianism, imagine Chinese rero with artificial wounds, or to simply, I'm like, maybe that's, that's. Where we're going or to [00:29:00] simply embrace the culling of the common person, the disappearance of the ordinary, the emptying of provinces and hinterland on the theory that some new master race of human AI hybrid stand to inherit it anyway, as that person said, right?
Like maybe they didn't internalize that piece. But perhaps the strongest temptation will be for everyone will be to imagine that you are engaged in some radical project, some new intentional way of living, but all the while you are being pulled back into the virtual, they're performative, the fundamentally unreal.
And here I'd be like, well, you know, I. I'm the one who has my fifth kid on the way, so you can tell me whatever I want, but like I know that this project seems to be working and I am not afraid of our kids deconvert very much at all. When I look at how they relate to the areas where I have the most fears whether it's it's gender or religion or.
You know, cultural rules or observances or anything like that because they are very into this stuff in a way that I was as a kid. [00:30:00] You know, you see Octavia and he wants to enforce the tradition on his siblings. This is how we do things. Don't, you know,
Simone Collins: basically.
Malcolm Collins: This is one temptation, but I also like, hear what he's talking about. It's this idea of like, these families that we see that are like trying to build communes and they never come together trying to build schools and they never come together or trying to build, you know, we said we'll build a school.
We built a school. You saw the school, it works. It's great. You know, we said we're gonna build a parenting network. We've been building it, and we'll, we'll, we'll have it go live when our kids are old enough to utilize it, you know, like. It's the difference between are you the type of dreamer whose dreams ultimately boil down to enforcing your values and your way of life on others, which is what many of these communes ultimately want.
Mm-hmm. Or is it something where you're willing to make compromise? You know, like our neighbors are you know, fundamentally, you know, working class people and our kids stay with them during the day and a lot of people are surprised at that. They're like, oh, you don't hire like [00:31:00] specialist nannies. And we're like, no, specialist nannies are like weirdos.
Simone Collins: Well, actually, I think this is why most communes fall apart because ultimately they can only be populated by people who are there because it is just convenient, not because they're that ideologically aligned. So they're like, yeah, aesthetically I like the idea of living in an eco village and also I was downsizing and retiring anyway, and it's in the region where I wanna be.
And so they move there. But that, that means it's, it's has a very short shelf life.
Malcolm Collins: This is one temptation I'm very familiar with. As someone whose professional life is a mostly digital existence, we're together with others who share my concerns. I am perpetually talking, talking, talking. When the nece, when the necessary thing is to go out in reality and do it, bam, oh yeah, we're gonna take the future from you.
We gonna take the future from you. We are gonna, what don't they hope
Simone Collins: if, if so many progressive readers of the New York time read this and say, yes. They [00:32:00] won't, I mean, hope of seeing a more balanced future. Making the comment
Malcolm Collins: who, who in the comments of agree with you. You can read, I'll, I'll read this first part again because this is what the article ends with.
Have the child practice the religion, found the school support, the local cedar, the museum, the opera, the concert hall. Even if you can't see it all on YouTube, pick up the paintbrush, the ball, the instrument, learn the language, even if there's an app for it. Learn to drive even if you think soon. Way more tell, we'll drive for you.
Put up headstones. Don't just burn your dead. Sit with the child. Open the book and read. Yeah, and, and here's what I'd say is,
Have you ever tried simply turning off the tv, sitting down with your children and hitting them?
Malcolm Collins: As the bottleneck titans, all survival will depend on heating. Once again, the ancient ab mission I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.
Therefore, choose the life that you have, that you and your offspring may live.
Simone Collins: So I just wanna point out that the top comments are mostly people unilaterally saying [00:33:00] this is great. One person just writes 245 people up voted this Ross's finest article, Jeff from Washington DC who had got 252 up votes wrote.
I've been reading the Times and Ross's columns for years, but I've never posted a comment before. Now Bravo. I would say more, but I'm. Going to take Ross's advice, put down my phone and get out into the world. And another one who actually didn't, wasn't a huge fan of him but still got 2 96 upvote says, as most commenters here, I'm extremely disinclined to agree with due thought on anything.
So this guy isn't his fan. I'd be hard pressed to come with any previous essay or line of thought. Incredibly, I got through almost the entire essay nodding my head in agreement. Figuratively his one dig at liberals was quickly balanced out by the one at Populists. So credit where credit's due. The points he makes for our a long form intellectual take on what the short form Black Mirror Series has been expressing for years and he didn't say woke once will wonders ever cease.
So. [00:34:00]
Malcolm Collins: This person. So this is apparently like, like pretty considered conservative by lefties,
Simone Collins: I guess. So yeah, this person probably thinks he's a, a lefty who so probably what this, this author is, is a centrist who's seen by regular New York Times readers as the evil AltRight centrist. And this person nevertheless, despite wanting to disagree.
Agreed with almost everything. So yeah, I would say this is really well received, which again, to me, like this may be the sign of a turning point. This may be sign for hope among progressives that they get it, that they wanna get back to agency, to action, to vitalism. And I think that would be a really good thing because I would like to see more perspectives represented in the future than fewer.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah, me too. So, you know, who knows, maybe some iteration of this will survive. Anyway. I love you to death, Simone, and I hope that our followers can [00:35:00] take something from this article and use it to replace him. And, and the Economist did a piece on us recently, and it was me saying, join the prenatal list movement, or we'll replace you.
Those are the only options. And I love it. I love it just to freak people out. He got a lot wrong though. He, he argued that like Jared Taylor was like a speaker at the first conference when he wasn't, he was just an attendee. And you know that Kevin Dolan is a racist. That's one of the thing that gets me.
I'm also gonna do an entire episode analyzing the idea that Kevin Dolan is a racist. 'cause if you actually look at his tweets and he was tweeting with an anonymous account none of them are that racist. And a lot of it is just made up by the other side and they'll say, oh, he said these anti-Jewish things, and I'm like, no, he didn't.
Look at the actual tweet and they're like, oh, wow, I didn't realize that they had turned the name of a town into. I hate Jews when they're just like, well, this town has a disproportionately Jewish population. So we just translated that for him in our hate piece and well, what anyway.
Okay. Lemon stone went after the shrimp people and they, they fought [00:36:00] back. I, you don't, you don't go after the shrimp people. This is the ea people who want to replace us with shrimp. The shrimp welfare people, they don't wanna replace
Simone Collins: us with shrimp.
Malcolm Collins: They just, they, they're like, if shrimp have feelings, right?
Like, you can, and, and good utility is defined by the positive. Reducing
Simone Collins: suffering. Reducing suffering. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Well, the, the positive divided by negative emotions of an entity. You know, then multiplied by that entity, sort of like cognitive space shrimp, even though they're lower cognitive load than us because there's so many of them.
You know, we need to take them seriously. Well, and
Simone Collins: because their existence in. Large scale shrimp farming is so bad. Like you think chickens have it, bad shrimp have it even worse than, you know, they, they
Malcolm Collins: pop off their eyes to increase. Yeah. Their eyes get
Simone Collins: crushed. They don't pop them off, they just get crushed.
Half, don't even make it to harvest point. Like it's just, it's gross. It's horrible. It's really bad. They're like, well, I'll, you know, I [00:37:00] could spend $1 and reduce significantly a portion of their suffering. Like, this is money well spent. So,
Malcolm Collins: yeah,
Simone Collins: I mean, I think it'd
Malcolm Collins: better to engineer them without nervous systems that can feel pain.
Simone Collins: Yeah. I think that would be, that would be awesome. Also, like, I don't know, I, I don't think we need to eat animals as much.
Malcolm Collins: Uh oh, oh. You're getting into fighting territory here with Malcolm. I just know,
Simone Collins: I mean, what everyone is, is kind of consciously aware of in most intellectual circles is that, you know.
Oh, oh, so many years from now we will look well depending on how demographic collapse plays out now, but people will view. Meat consumption is being pretty.
Malcolm Collins: When would Reed said that in the 18 hundreds, you know? Yeah. One of the guys, he is like, he's like people and he's one
Simone Collins: of our prophets. Malcolm, I mean, get with the program.
Malcolm Collins: Exactly. But he doesn't say that we shouldn't eat meat today. He says. Yeah. He just says, we're gonna see this as insane and we'll make fake meat. He says, we will see it as insane [00:38:00] culturally after fake meat is normalized.
Simone Collins: Yeah, dude. It's okay. I don't know what's going on with beyond everything 'cause it's disgusting.
But yes. And everybody when it first came out is awesome.
Malcolm Collins: So it was supposed to be like, awesome and it was like hard to get and I was like, wow. It must must be pretty good. Every time we've
Simone Collins: had it, I've been like, what? Like why just. You know, make, make a burger with Quin lime and black beans and rice or so like, just like other good stuff that has protein in it, or just whatever Morningstar does.
By the way, chicken is
Malcolm Collins: so good. Almost a vegetarian. You eat almost exclusively fake meat. Like you really, I
Simone Collins: never choose to eat meat. Unless, you know, I don't have a choice. And most of that's for artist autistic reasons because meat has all these little grizzly bits and gummy bits and cartilage bits and inconsistent bits.
And guess what has consistency is Morningstar fake chicken patties and garine meatballs and fake meat hotdogs. And they're so, so good. So whatever [00:39:00] token is also amazing. Well, your
Malcolm Collins: meat dishes are so good, I'll tell you that.
Simone Collins: Yeah. And we're doing. So this is my first time doing the mango pineapple curry for you using all fresh mango.
I know you wanted them to be a little bit more textured. Do you want me to dice some? But then make puree of others in the in the blender. So you have a mixture of both mango puree and diced mango with diced pineapple. Well, how do you want me to approach this? I want only diced. We need some liquid. Okay, because I have less coconut cream than before.
Did puree? I put in more yogurt but
Malcolm Collins: didn't puree
Simone Collins: some in the mango. Okay. But then you want most diced, you want, you want texture, you want chunks.
Malcolm Collins: And if you want, I can drive out because I need to go out to get more beer anyway.
Simone Collins: I can go. No, we have a blender. Like you bought a blender for yourself. I should be using it so you get the value.
This is worth it.
Malcolm Collins: All fresh ingredients, fruits and stuff. This is, this is like eating a forest. Mango and pineapple and chicken.
Simone Collins: I mean, it's, it's [00:40:00] great. It's great to see you consuming more. There's a lot of onion in this. There's tomato in this garlic, mango, pineapple, chicken, coconut. This is a, this is health.
Pretty healthy. Pretty good. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: You might wanna put some crushed coconut
Simone Collins: in it.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, because we've got some
Simone Collins: if you want me to. Sure.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Alright, I'll get started here.
In shadows, I scheme with a gleam in my eye and my brood will outnumber their woke battle cry. Those urban elites with their brattle and flare will choke on their vanity. Caught on over.
Oh, bow to my vision, my vitalist reign. I flood every city with life's prial strain. Their monocultures flick. My superior kin set the future of [00:41:00] fire.
I'll honor the past with the heirs. I bestow each child a new route where my empire will grow. The woke clutch, their mirrors, their egos inflate, but I'll crush their smugness with humanity's way. Oh, be to my vision, vitalist Lane. Oh. For every city with a life's prial strain, just do, it's a flickering fire.
My superior kin set the. Future of fire.
My children will storm through their glittering halls with vigor and might they'll [00:42:00] tear down their walls. The urbanites folly, their self-loving spark will burn in my bonfire, extinguished by dog.
To my vision, my finalist. Every city with L strain, their monoculture. It's a flickering pile. My superior set the future of fire.
So Tremble, you woke. As my dynasty spreads, your trivial dreams will lie cold in their bed. The Vitalist triumph, my glorious plan will birth a new world for the ultimate.[00:43:00]
So Tremble, you woke. As my dynasty spreads, your trivial dreams will lie cold in their beds. The [00:44:00] vitalist.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com
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The Meme Wars: 4Chan Was Murdered For Betraying Wojak
28 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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 song
For OG four Chan culture.
So let's see if I can get away with posting it. Is
textbook 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, this
Simone Collins: anonymity thing really
Malcolm Collins: isn't
Simone Collins: our
Malcolm 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 games
Simone 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 must
Malcolm 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 family
Malcolm 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 may
Malcolm 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 soy jack memes and the irreverent culture that thrived on qa. Now, I want to take a, an aside here because I was in like, okay, why did they ban?
Soy jack. Well, yeah. I mean
Simone Collins: it's, it's four chan too. There should be nothing off limits,
Malcolm Collins: right?
Simone Collins: No. Presumably,
Malcolm Collins: but literally the only reason they banned it and this, this, this, I think shows the beginning of the rot. Okay. They banned it because they were mad that it had become low effort [00:05:00] posting only soy jacks.
And it's like, yeah, because this is where the soy jack culture had grown. You didn't. Yeah. And it'll pass.
Simone Collins: Like if it's not funny, it will pass. You don't have to worry about it.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but they didn't like the mods. Literally, like, it wasn't like it was offensive. It wasn't like it crossed any boundaries. They just didn't like their culture and style of humor.
And I am like, okay, that is where you, this is, this is for many people who don't know, like. Four chan is where the Brony culture originated. 'cause people wanted to be subversive against the extreme hate. You know, often you get hatred, often you get like condescension of certain groups. And when you had, that was in the four chan culture, the first culture that grew in opposition to that were brony.
This was a group that was being like, Hey, let it subversively. Be sincere about the things we like. Be sweet, be loving, be kind to each other, like let us subvert [00:06:00] the subversive culture's expectation. With kindness. Yeah. And then they'd get banned from all the boards at first, and they're like, okay, we'll consolidate you into the my laurel pony forms.
And this is where mods are asleep, post ponies comes from because they still love to mess with the other boards by being sweet and wholesome in a culture where, you know, CAP and everything like that was how you like, freaked people out. It was like, let's show Sweet Ponies because that'll really annoy 'em.
But within this. What soy Jack represented, and we'll get into this in a bit, is in contrast to the right-leaning extremism of Fortune Chan, like sincere hatred. It was an ironic hatred. It was like a post ironic lifestyle and way of engaging with content and information. Mm-hmm. That is much closer to say the way you and I live when you know there the newspaper written about us recently and they were like, I don't know.
Where the, where the trolling ends and where the, the sincerity begins and it's like, [00:07:00] no, there is no place where the trolling ends and the sincerity begins. Yeah. Those two things are integrated entirely. Yes, they are. We troll you with sincerity. Yes. All right. Anything you wanna say before I go further?
Simone Collins: I just can't believe they stopped it.
Is Chris Poole still like moot still? Oh well you
Malcolm Collins: sold it a long time ago.
Simone Collins: Okay, so he's been out. Okay. That explains more of it too. So like really Fortune Chan is 2015, 10 years. Oh my gosh. Okay.
Malcolm Collins: Wow. No, but it's funny it soy jack party was also sold at one point. Okay, so we'll get into all of this. That's
Simone Collins: crazy.
Malcolm Collins: Approximately 218 moderators, managers, and janitors had their information leaked, but specific counts for.gov and.edu are not disclosed by available sources. The total volume of leak data was 120 gigabytes, including internal communications and user ips. So [00:08:00] to, to get this more. They, they lost the source code.
They lost user ips, which means people can now see who is using four chan. They lost the mods, the janitors, and you know what they found out? Now, I wasn't able to get an exact breakdown of this, but this a different
Simone Collins: janitor and a mod on four chan.
Malcolm Collins: They're just different categories of janitors with different levels of power,
Simone Collins: but the
Malcolm Collins: point being.
Is that when they were all leaked all of these positions and people of power, I think it was something like the majority or like a huge chunk had government domains. Like they were using their government emails, a lot of them.edu to manage these accounts. And it showed that it had been. Likely because, you know, if the Feds, they're not gonna be like Dot Fed or something, they're gonna use like Harvard or something.
Right. You know? Right. So do
Simone Collins: you think it was the same kind of thing that was happening with Reddit whereby
Malcolm Collins: it was a hundred percent? Yeah, I think four chan had been, so the government was
Simone Collins: trying to seed information on four Chan
Malcolm Collins: totally captured and corrupted by the feds. At this point, that's basically what we learned is that there was no what it was.
Okay, [00:09:00] well, oh wow. A alive of feds and that's what was left.
Simone Collins: Oh, that is brutal. Okay. Wow.
Quickly. Child, we're running out of time. Lich you. You mess Billy up. You just wanna mess me all up. Mess everyone up. You tricked me.
Malcolm Collins: But I think everybody, come on, everybody's still around today. News four chan with a bunch of feds at this point, like the feds obviously were drawn to it. Like all the cool stuff has on eight chan or whatever, like, you know, on one of the other image boards, like four chan, like when I think of it today, and we'll get into this a bit more.
I always thought it was kinda like old school and antiquated and like a little woke. And we'll get into how it got that perception, right? Like. But anyway it's uncertain whether fortune will ever be back up. Some sources speculate that this could be the end of the platform due to the exposure of 120 gigabytes of internal data, including source code and moderator [00:10:00] emails.
However, restoration is theoretically possible if the site addresses its security vulnerabilities. Though this is gonna require substantial effort and time. And so now we're gonna talk about the founding of this alternate site soy jack party that led the raid. Okay. Okay. Okay. So the site's founder, soot, SOOT, is described as an alt-right conspiracy theorist.
So again, this is not the left took down four chan, it's the. Ironic. Right. Took down the overly sincere. Right. And we see this in our own fans where people are like, what? How can you be okay with, like, how can you be okay with like, it's like, don't take yourself so seriously. You nerd like, yeah. Yeah.
Simone Collins: Well, oh
Malcolm Collins: I'll just keep reading here. And the site has hosted a faction known as tis named after the founder, the Alrich Conspiracy Series Oh, who expose a form of site specific conservatism called Tism. Sutm is described as extremely conservative compared to other site factions, but this conservatism is more about psych.
Culture and [00:11:00] insularity than explicit far right. Politics.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: So they sort of want the site to be like this unique niche thing and they also have conservative politics. Okay. Soy jack party was sold by its founder. Suit to Yuri or K Ovv in July, 2022 for $2,000. After months of negotiations, I sold basically nothing.
This transfer was known as the great purchase and occurred due to suit's, shifting personal priorities, including college commitments who was still in college.
Simone Collins: Okay. That's why $2,000 was enough for him. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: And CO's persistent efforts to acquire the site. The sale concluded the second, so Soy V War, A conflict between pro soot and proc factions that involved CP spam doxing and website rate because a Russian cyber crypto businessman.
Exhibits a complex political profile. You might think, oh, so it was bought by a [00:12:00] lefty? No, far right. Associations hosted extremist content via the Coman network, including sites like Goro, Chan, OO, Goro Chan, I don't know if I'd call that far right? That's far per that's perv, right? So sorry. For people who Dunno.
Guro Guro is a form of erotic material that is just like. Like what it's meant to masturbate was in the human mind is like, it's sadism without any caps. Just like extreme nightmare fuel, fuel violence, nightmare fuel. Yeah. Like in sex eating people's brains and stuff like that. You know, like, the people being ripped in half that, that, that, that sort of stuff.
Right. And so, okay, so that's, that's very much like a, I am extreme, but he bought this like subversive ironic site, which is very interesting. And oh, and he promoted anti-vaccine disinformation. It says so also, you know, again, not [00:13:00] lefty for good measure. Yeah. Authoritarian tendencies implemented strict moderation early in his Zoey jack party reign before reverting to such laissez fair style conspiracy leanings, shared North Korean propaganda narratives and nine 11 truther content.
Cyber crime ties allegedly orchestrated DDOS attacks, false flag operations, and Bitcoin fraud schemes. More broadly, he is. Embodiment of early four chan culture. Okay? Like this is, this is clearly not antithetical to four chan culture since the Poul and the subsequent great purchase when the site was sold to, because sparked ongoing factionalism and power struggles was so does frequently clashing.
Was other political factions on the site such as Clause the, the liberal Poe? Because as moderate, so the, the, because faction right. They are the liberal faction of the site. The, even though
Simone Collins: they had harsher moderation, oh, I guess that's considered more liberal these days. Yeah. That
Malcolm Collins: is [00:14:00] considered more liberal was in online years.
That's
Simone Collins: weird. That's so
Malcolm Collins: weird. The the nine 11 Tru Pro North Korea crypto scamming Guro Chan. Russian businessman who thinks vaccines are a scam? That is the liberal faction. Okay. Of this particular war. I'm just, I'm just pointing out here if people wanna frame this in a wider cultural context.
Right. Soy jack party quickly grew into a rival to four chan attracting users who saw themselves as outcast from their former home. The two platforms, while sharing similarities in their anonymous meme driven environments, developed distinct personalities. Four chan remained a sprawling unmoderated space where anything from groundbreaking memes to far right extremism could flourish.
Soy jack party. Meanwhile, carved out a niche with a focus on soy jacks and playful, often ironic tone that set it apart. So it was ironic in it extremism, which four chan was not, and I think that [00:15:00] this represented a second subversion, the brony subversion of four chan in terms of the online cultural, uh mm-hmm.
Background and, and what was happening here. Okay. The 2025 hack with a culmination of this rivalry. According to posts on soy jack party, the hacker had infiltrated four chan systems for over a year waiting for the right moment to strike. On April 14th, they executed their plan. Defacing four chan was a message you got hacked laughing phase reopening the long band QA form.
Leaking sensitive data including source code, moderator emails, and user IP logs. A soy jack party user. Posting under the name chd. Again, these are not progressives. Describe the hack as. Cathartic suggesting a deep seated resentment towards four chance leadership and policies. The motivations appear multifaceted, the reopening of QA to claim a lost space that soy jack.party users felt was [00:16:00] unjustly taken and it was completely unjustly taken.
The leaking of moderator information reflects a broader dis change for four Chan's moderation environments, which many users both on four chart. Four chan and soy jack party viewed as inconsistent and authoritarian. Additionally, the cultural differences between the two platforms was in soy jack party's ironic humor clashing with four chan's, often earnest extremism likely fueled the animosity.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Now I asked it to describe the politics of both. I don't need to go into the politics of four chan. Most people know that they, you know, I earnest extremism. It's the best explanation.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Four chan made. Trump 1.0 as as president. Yeah. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Right. But I think that he was already showing the ironic extremism that soy jack came to embody.
Yeah. So soy jack party came to embody ironic far right culture. Soy jack do party shares four chance right wing leanings, but approaches him with a layer of irony of self-awareness. Described by as an alt-right image board, it hosts content similar to four Chans, including bigoted [00:17:00] rhetoric and politically charged memes.
However, its users often. Called soy, teens or jackers are known for their playful irreverent tone using soy jack memes to mock a wide range of targets from leftist four Chan's own right wing users. For example, the CH jack meme popularized on soy jack party character rises the stereotypical four chan poll user as angry for right extremist.
This suggests that while story Jack party aligns with right-wing ideologies in many four Chan's, more in sincere extremism with a degree of mockery and detachment, some sources described to E Jack that party users as self-aware chds indicating their political views while stronger, often expressed through humor rather than dogma.
Thus, before I go further,
Simone Collins: I'm assuming all the Jack names come from like BoJack, like is it kind of. Back that? No, I don't. So,
Note the correct answer here is it comes originally [00:18:00] from WO Jack. Wo Jack comes from a Polish user who popularized the image on German image board crotch on around 2010.
The image was originally named Woe jack after the user who posted it was Woe jack being polish for soldier.
Simone Collins: because it makes me think of just the original Scots-Irish irreverent Jack stories that you have in that book. You got yeah. Yeah. So a lot of people
Malcolm Collins: don't know this, but the greater Appalachian cultural region or the backwoods cultural region in the United States had a tradition of folk stories.
And the one that you are probably most familiar with is Jack and the Giant Beanstalk.
Simone Collins: But Jack, Jack actually got up to a lot more than that.
Malcolm Collins: It was huge. Yes. J Jack stories were an entire collection of stories from this cultural region where you would have the, the blank Jack and the Y Jack and the Z Jack.
I don't think it came from that, but I can see because that culture really embodied this ironic, you know, well, Jack gets up to, you know, a very, [00:19:00] tom Sawyer esque, I'd say. But a bit more, you know, irreverent. Yeah. And, and vulgar when used Tom Sawyer. Yeah. So again, yeah. Really fits this sort of cultural narrative.
From Wikipedia. Unlike moralizing fairy heroes, Jack is often thi vish, lazy or foolish, but emerges triumphant through wit and trickery, resembling the trickster or rebel archetypes.
Malcolm Collins: Wouldn't that be beautiful if they actually had some sort of cultural understanding, but I don't think they did. Okay, so, just take a bit back here. I wanna be like, okay, well let's go into four chan, right? Like, was four chan sold in the same way the other site was sold?
What happened? Because I remember, like in my circles, the perception is four chan went, woke. And of course when I asked ai, I, I was like, no. Well, I mean, some extremist saying four chan went woke, but four chan didn't really go woke. And I'm like, oh, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Okay. [00:20:00] Well let's see what happened with four Chan and how this perception was in my not far right communities.
Come on. Got the impression that four chan went, woke, and was a bunch of feds and wasn't a place to hang out anymore. Okay? So Hiroki Oma, who acquired four chan in 2015, introduced subtle shifts in moderation compared to the founder moot. Pool's era while pool's tenure was marked by near total freedom.
Naima faced pressure to address legal content due to legal bilities and advertiser concerns. So I'll note here that he ran the most popular message board in Japan at the time, which was built sort of based on four chan, four chan of course. So if you're familiar with like the concept of like Chan, it's like used in anime a lot.
Clearly this was derivative of like anime culture. Obviously they would've had some adoration of this individual. They would've thought of them as as, [00:21:00] oh yeah, I, I can see that they could probably run the site well and everything, but I also understand that if you're not like an absolute maniac who's like living off the grid, you can't be running a site that's regularly posting stuff like CP and stuff like that, or you're gonna end up.
The Feds are gonna come to your house and they're gonna have a little talk with you about why do you, because you do own it. Technically, legally own a bunch of cp, you know, why aren't you dealing with this? Yeah. And so, you know, to be honest, I understand why he addressed this but I see how we could go further into stuff like guro content as well.
Which, you know, isn't strictly illegal, but a lot of people would be like, Hey, can we not post all these like. Ugh, horrifically tortured people and stuff like that. Like yeah, like this is kind of ruining my mood today. Yeah. Ruining my vibe. Yeah. And so then it expands to that. Then people start alternate message boards for that.
But anyway users noted bans for [00:22:00] content like explicit calls to violence, doxing, or certain types of hate speech, which were perceived as more strictly enforced in the past.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Post on X from 2022 to. Complained about moderators Jannie removing threads on poll, politically incorrect or inflammatory rhetoric that users claimed was previously tolerated.
Mm-hmm. The most high profiles of this was when the Q Anon threads were removed in 2020.
Simone Collins: Oh, that's wild. From four chan, what is the road? Yeah, potentially
Malcolm Collins: under pressure of US authorities, almost certainly under pressure of US authorities. You know when the FBI I calls you up? Yeah, that's,
Simone Collins: I can't, I can't understand there being any other reason because the reason.
Normal. Like, well, real people go on four chan is because it's the one place you could expect that to not be moderated. That is so, well I have gone on
Malcolm Collins: four chan for that in age, so that's what, eight Chan's for these days? Yeah. Well, I, I, I
Simone Collins: didn't know. I didn't, it kind doesn't exist anymore. It's standing.
Why
Malcolm Collins: Infinity Chan? There's like 50 other Chans now, you know? Yeah. There's [00:23:00] like, but, but there's like a chan for you. That is what I can say, you know? That's good. Okay. Although the leaking of the four chan source code, you know, if they were using that could cause problems.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Anyway hero. Nama, the founder of two Chan, a prominent Japanese message board.
. And what Pool said when this happened is he described him as a friend and someone I've long admired, which makes sense given he ran this the process of this sale. The sale was a private transaction and had no public bidding or auction being reported.
Pool who had been running four Champ since 2003 cited personal fatigue, was basically the controversies. He didn't like that and financial struggles as factors in his decision to step away. That's Nima already a figure in the image board world was a logical successor due to his experience was two tan channels.
So all made sense there. I don't, I don't really like, I don't see it as bad when I went back and studied it, but like largely speaking, it seems that four chan had been infiltrated and corrupted. Yeah. [00:24:00] To be arbitrarily against irony against you know, anything that broke their, their, their morays, which is, you know, antagonistic to I think what many people on the new right would want.
And so I think that actually this split is the beginning of the new right. Whereas four chan was just extremism for extremism. Take you know, you can look at us. We're like, we were brownies back in the day. Right? Like, we represented the antagonism to this culture because we wanted to be counterculture in a counterculture environment.
Yeah. And what soy jack represents is a new counterculture, but I think a more sustainable one than the brownie culture. Although the brony culture was sustainable for a long time was in a counterculture conferences.
Simone Collins: Remember when we went to that one at the. SFO, Hyatt Regency. We do a
Malcolm Collins: BronyCon. You and I.
Yeah. And I got, and I got so annoyed by so many of the former, like, like what was her name? Like Jenna. Oh.
Simone Collins: Yeah, the one who did friendship as [00:25:00] witchcraft suddenly. Yeah, so she did
Malcolm Collins: friendship as witchcraft and then created a popular YouTube channel. Much more popular than Friendship. Jenny Nicholson. Jenny Nicholson, Jenny Nicholson, and
Simone Collins: she like later disavowed, basically the entire series, mostly on the grounds that she deeply rejects a little running joke that she had in this My Little Pony parody, in which they used the word gypsy, which she.
Was deeply embarrassed about using, because it was a slur. I just think she has really, really progressive parents and it sucks because she, her content is so cute. She, I don't think
Malcolm Collins: it's progressive parents. I think she was brainwashed by her community.
Simone Collins: Sorry, by progressive friends, not parents. I didn't mean to say
Malcolm Collins: parents.
And I think that it sort of scrambled her brain and, and because the content that she made originally was so funny. It was hilarious. Friendship is witchcraft. Might be my favorite, like of any series. My favorite series. Yeah, the,
Simone Collins: it had songs, it had original songs.
As long as it's not one of those s ones with a deceptively
happy tune wing. You were right Ion, there's a simple [00:26:00] explanation inside Crystal ball.
G when, and I was a little gal, boys overtook my city, they tripped me off to the orphanage. Ditch those roots if you wanna. So I on thousand holes and cut a rug with orphans. Now memories are blur in their faces, arms here, but I still know the words of this. When you, all your bangles and.
Simone Collins: The voices were fantastic.
Aren't you afraid the fashion police will come and meet you with their fabulous batons?
Simone Collins: The edits were great.
But I mean, I also just love her YouTube channel and I wish she did more content. It makes me so sad that she [00:27:00] doesn't,
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they, they by the way, would take my Little Pony episodes and then like, redo them with like new voices and new plots. But they were very irreverent. They were very, so for people who know me.
My ability to enjoy an art form is typically highly augmented by how far that art form is from a commercial context. Yeah. The, the more iterations deep you go in terms of remixes, the more interested I'm gonna be in that, which is why I always prefer fan fiction. I always prefer you know, remix shows and stuff like that to like originally made.
Stuff.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: And so, especially if they go far from the source materials intention. So, friendship is witchcraft. It's fun because it's so like. In, in a lot of the ways that it does say you,
Simone Collins: you just, you're crazy about subversion. The more subversive the better.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah.
Simone Collins: The
Malcolm Collins: more subversive or, or, or fallout Equestria is another one that I've always really loved.
Or Fallout Equestria you know, there, there's a few, what was the big one that I liked that was like a remix of that, that was longer than the original. That was just fall out Equest, not so much. [00:28:00] No. There's Fallout Equestrian and then Fallout Equestria. Project Horizons, I wanna say, oh my gosh. And it was even longer than the original.
These, these are postapocalyptic, my little pony universes. One of the earliest terrify terrifying you could find online from us. Was a like a medium post or a, a Huffington Post post about the fandom because like Fallout Equestria, this remix of the original show became so popular. People started to make like video games of it and art of it.
Well, there's a long
Simone Collins: audio book. It Yeah.
Where would you be when the mega spill hits?
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You might eat your special sunco just like you would want on the surface. And in the few short years you and your [00:29:00] stallion will repopulate our great country
Simone Collins: it's, I mean, so I think more people listening to this maybe familiar with LEI, ows. Which I hate, by the way. He's the demon Harry Potter in the Methods of rationality. Yeah, yeah. Fan fiction. F at Equestria is like that, but with an already more obscure fan base of my Little Pony fans who are grown men.
So, yeah.
Malcolm Collins: But I mean, I think Harry Potter and the message of rationality, you know, we talked about this recently because we, we had to go back into it, like neither of us could get very far in it because the, the, the, writing is just too, like self-important and, and too, like the, the main character is a, I saw a really interesting breakdown of it recently where they're like, the problem of it is, is it's a Mary Sue, but not a Mary Sue.
Because like you read the character and you're like, wow, this character is so flawed, like such a. Psychopathic self-important. Unable to see the bigger [00:30:00] picture, thinks he knows science, but like it's all the actual science wrong person. And so you read it and you think, oh, he's gonna learn from this, you know, he's gonna, clearly he's not a Mary Sue.
Look at how flawed, and then you're like, oh. That's just the author of the story. They actually have no understanding of science and believe that they have a deep understanding of science. They actually are like sociopathic in the way they approach everything and very self-centered in the way they approach everything, but believe that this is very magnanimous and intelligent.
And it's sort of for a lot of people, like breaks them. They're like, wait a second, I thought that this was all being written subversively. He was serious.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: But I think there's a certain category of artists who don't see this and it, and it like brainwash, they're like, oh wow, this guy looks really smart.
Like if you just are like completely self-important to a certain category of they actually believe it. Sincerely. Especially if you code it in like skepticism and stuff like [00:31:00] this, you're like, oh, okay. Okay. That makes sense. But what, any other thoughts on the four chan apocalypse, the end of the era?
Simone Collins: It seems like the, the era has been ending since four chan was originally sold by Chris Poole in, in 2015, that this has been happening over a long period of time. And also that internet culture is evolving. I also think that this sort of reveals too, that fortune was an inherently unstable thing and you can't really have a resistant movement, a resistance movement that stays in the same place like Rebels can't have.
A centralized rebel camp with a giant flag sticking up saying, this is the rebel camp. Because inevitably government spies start hanging out there mostly, and the original rebel camp is now mostly full of government operatives. So it, it makes sense. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it happened, but I do really miss.
Those days in which the news would report on a hacker named four Chan Hacker and all the lovely things hack. Well, now it reports on us. [00:32:00] Don't
Malcolm Collins: you know, like
Simone Collins: the Guardian
Malcolm Collins: article on you recently was just as unhinged?
Simone Collins: It was, yeah. It was extremely unhinged.
Malcolm Collins: So the, the, the Nazis who hate women and want to send them to the Mar-a-Lago breeding pits, Malcolm and Simone they, they have become the new hacker known in a sport channel.
Oh,
Simone Collins: trolls, the neutrals. Yeah. Good news, gracious. But I love it. I
Malcolm Collins: love you guys. Simone, you are great wife. I love you too. Welcome.
Simone Collins: You are a perfect husband
Malcolm Collins: and thank you for dealing with the news crews that came over today, last minute. That was really tough of you. I don't know. They
Simone Collins: were actually pretty amazing, so I have no regrets.
It's kind of nice to see the kids in the middle of the day and they were so efficient. So how can I be mad?
Malcolm Collins: Exactly. You can't be mad at efficiency. That's exactly what you say about the Nazis.
Simone Collins: Oh my God. We're going to hell. We're so screwed.
Malcolm Collins: Love you. [00:33:00]
Simone Collins: I love you too. See if I can.
Malcolm Collins: What was that? Whinging, the reporters who called me this morning were like, we're gonna come to your house at 12 today. This was Inside edition was at our house today, and they were so efficient. I have never seen and so Nice.
Simone Collins: Yeah, the most professional team, just wow. Mm. I can't wait
Malcolm Collins: till we're painted as a Nazi Extreme.
The Guardian article about us in being Nazi. Like, I wanna do a whole episode on this article. I think it's interesting. Oh, why would be, are we Nazis? Oh, because they, they really try to paint us. They like for Tim that, like in our home, they, they said that Simone, her outfit. It is a traditional Nazi outfit.
And it's like what they, they, they called her bonnets, what was it, mother Goose bonnets.
Simone Collins: They, yeah. Well, one, one bonnet that makes people look like Mother Goose. And the other one, which resembles Handmaid's Tale, and they're just [00:34:00] one's a regency straw bonnet, and the other is just a normal, like medieval style bonnet.
And they're not.
Malcolm Collins: Did they, did they, did they mention the Handmaids Tale one? I didn't remember that. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. They, they, I love that they're finally realizing that they're being trolled a little and they're like, okay. They know they're being troll,
Simone Collins: but they, they still like some tone deaf kid.
Keep going. They just can't help themselves. But we're hundred percent
Malcolm Collins: ending again. We are 100% going viral again right now. Oh my God. The number of news stories today. Well, Wolf Blitzer, we were on this morning that was crazy. Situation room
Simone Collins: on
Malcolm Collins: CNN. Yeah, yeah. Because like a character in Guin logs attempt to, I, I wrote these executive orders, or Simone did, and we just like sent them in and then we told the New York Times and then the New York Times, and then somebody told [00:35:00] Trump like, what do you think of this idea?
And he goes, that didn't sound bad. It's like, wait, is this how you do politics? Like it's, it's like the gerin la version of combining like,
We'll never know unless we try, will we? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH You see that? What do you think, Fuzzball? We're the same as you!
They were able
to combine, you were right bro, you were right! Sure looks that way, doesn't it? Wait, how could you
Malcolm Collins: That is, that is, I'm sure to all the people who work so hard to have their political views heard. All we needed to do was freak out progressives and to making, making them make this happen.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, because I, I mean, the only way that it, the White House get informed is because they, they keep getting asked by journalists about the [00:36:00] executive orders we submit.
It's really funny.
Malcolm Collins: It's fantastic. Are we on the right sides? Yes. All right.
So when did you start seeing these eggs? When did they come? They come when it was morning. And guess what? It's Easter. It's Easter Day. Who left the eggs, you guys? The Easter bunny. The Easter bunny. Why would a bunny lay eggs? It's a mammal. No, mommy, that Easter bunny, Emma is a secret. No, that Easter bunny comes in the night.
In the night, yeah. So it's nocturnal. Yeah. He's Does it lay the eggs or does it just deliver the eggs? It just, it just because our, our chickens, birds light eggs. But do buddies light eggs?
They just put them, they're laundry in the bottle. Oh, so it like comes with a [00:37:00] box or a basket and then it puts them where No, you just gonna put it on the floor? No, just And then, and then what happens? You guys pick them up? Yeah. And my Steve is gonna help me. You, your Minecraft, Steve. Then toasty. Is your piggy gonna help you find these eggs?
Yeah. Yeah. I My Steve too. I'll get him, I'll get my Steve Pig. He's not a, it's a Minecraft pig. Oh, I see. And Octavian, you're already dressed. Yeah. We gotta get you dressed, my girl. No, I got pocket. I think we could do better.
Hey Steve, can you help me find these? Oh, he's nodding yes.

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Was Banishing Libs to the Bluesky Crystal a Mistake?!
25 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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 be
Malcolm 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 safe
Malcolm 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 so
Simone 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 have the hair for it. You can get the volume. I do. So, you know, our podcast even got a shout out on Blue Sky. Someone, someone radical. Agile GA slash College Hill wrote Simone and Malcolm Collins.
The Tech Eugenics couple just dropped a strong contender for worst podcast of 2025, where they compare gender transition to lobotomies, which is. Just [00:05:00] fabulous. It's exactly like lobotomies and it'll be viewed in the future that way we now know. Well, she argues clearly the cult here because we talk about cults in the, in the podcast is all the trans people and not an insular group of weird venture capitalists who want to create the Uber mench.
They have this such clear people view of us. That's very. We're in the process. We're in the process. Okay. Oh, mean you're not denying are you? No. Don't deny it.
Malcolm Collins: If we remember what niche was, it's just a self-actualize individual. Like, yeah,
Simone Collins: no, and we want human flourishing. That is 100% what we're going
Malcolm Collins: for.
It's not genetic perfection just meant being self-actualize and making your own choices about what's right and wrong. That's what it meant to be an Uber b***h. Yeah. Not basing your morality off of a preexisting moral set. And I'm like. Are we trying to create the Uber wrench? Is that what all of our education stuff are?
We want Oh,
Simone Collins: we want a universe full of Uber. Uber. What, what are they mentions? Munchin [00:06:00] Mint High Mincha. But I, I, I I
Malcolm Collins: love that they're watching our podcast.
Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, you know, fans of the pod. Shout out to all of you on Blue Sky. Thanks. Yes.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, oh. Do you have any other blue skies that you clipped?
These are fun to listen to.
Simone Collins: I mean, a, a lot of them just make fun of our appearance, like the, the protractors one. Another guy took a screenshot of our podcast with, with Curtis Jarvin, Jim Stewards and anti-fascist, he has to let us know skeets Curtis Jarvin and his pals Simone and Malcolm are all Peter Thiel ISTs, who believe their DNA is so amazing that they have a responsibility to share their magnificence with the world before we go extinct.
They apparently own no mirrors. Own no mirrors. Yeah. There's this really common. Thing amongst progressives who apparently aren't eugenicists that like where they love to imply ugly. We really shouldn't be inter, we shouldn't be reproducing because we're ugly. [00:07:00] What? They're literally eugenicists like No.
Literally know. I know, I know. Great. It's wonderful. I mean, one, one they imply that we think that we're genetically better, which we don't. And we wouldn't be using things like genetic testing if we thought we were superior somehow. And two. They're like, but ugly people shouldn't reproduce. Right?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like obviously ugly people shouldn't reproduce.
Yeah. Like, what are you guys doing? And I still like, whatever, like, we'll replace you, whatever. I'm fine with that. I'm fine with that. We'll replace you. You won't exist anymore. Don't worry about it. Yeah. Like we, we don't mind, like, this isn't like a, an actual fight with us because we know that they're self extinguishing.
Right. You know, so
Simone Collins: Yeah. It's very. It's not stressful at all.
Malcolm Collins: But I, I I, you know, that they're, that they're yelling around in their safe space and I'll put the safe space song here.
Speaker 5: People that support me Mixed in with More people that support me And say nice things My
Speaker 6: you cannot stop me from getting inside! I am cold and I am hard, and my name is Reality!
Speaker 5: Oh no, not Reality! [00:08:00] Somebody stop him!
Malcolm Collins: But I want to, before I get into the numbers, because I actually think the numbers are less art interesting than the philosophical argument here.
Mm. Okay. Which is to look at all of the positives of Blue Sky existing, of trapping the, the progressives in their crystal. Yeah. And that is what blue sky is. It's, it's the crystal. The
Simone Collins: crystal happened. Oh my gosh. That is mind blowing. It literally happened. We trapped them in a crystal of the road.
We, we did it guys.
Malcolm Collins: We did it. Crystal achieved. Oh my goodness. Elon. Elon did it, by the way. Come on. Give, give, give credit where credit to. Yes. I'm sorry.
Simone Collins: We really, of course. Yes.
Malcolm Collins: But anyway. I want to, because the positives Okay. Cancellations can't really happen anymore.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Their, their toxic culture cannot leak into the public discourse as much anymore.
It
Simone Collins: really doesn't.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It really doesn't, like you just don't see or hear about it as much outside of the mainstream news organizations, which have become more radicalized, like drug Report guardian and stuff like that since the Trump. Election and win. Mm-hmm.
If you're [00:09:00] like, oh no, they can't be that crazy. Here's a recent excerpt from a Guardian article about us. Because these people are styling themselves after the super villains of a Saturday morning cartoon. They are of course now deeply influential in the Trump administration. It is not interest in making pregnancy safer or in making child rearing less damaging to women's careers.
It is not interest in these because all of these pursuits are in fact. Antithetical to the movement's real agenda, which is to encourage primarily white births to enforce regressive, highly hierarchical and stratified social roles to push women out of the public sphere and to narrow women's prospects for social, professional, and intellectual life to little more than pregnancy, to childbirth, child rearing and housekeeping, or as the Collins might put it, kinder Kush, Kish, , that basically she's trying to argue that we're Nazis, although I don't think we've ever said those words.
I.
Malcolm Collins: And, and that's where I feel like this may not have the, the, the, the final point in Sargon avocado to making this [00:10:00] point.
Which is people have forgotten how crazy the far left is and how, and how hateful toxic they are. Mm-hmm. And I think that. He is right about that to an extent. Like they're not on Twitter where a lot of people are, but they still are in the newspapers. Like the Drudge Report is still like psychotically toxic, like
Simone Collins: that's true.
Malcolm Collins: The, the Guardian is still psychotically toxic, but I think the problem is, is nobody reads that stuff because a lot of these organizations, like I think The Guardian even completely withdrew from. From Twitter and went to Blue Sky. Yeah. Which basically means they've got no reach anymore with their accounts.
Which is like, okay, like I get that you were being dog piled now that you didn't have like the control of the platform when you posted things that were untrue, which they do a lot like of all of the, the most tabloid writers on us, the Guardian is by far like, I think the. Like we get like actual quote unquote tablos writing about us, like [00:11:00] the New York Post and stuff like this.
Mm. Never do. They make as many factual errors as the Guardian. That is
Simone Collins: Whoa, that's true. How can that be true? That should not be true. A few days ago, the Guardian was where Snowden's leaks were published. They, that was like. Gumshoe journalism. That was the good stuff.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yesterday. It was yesterday.
What was it? Well, to recording this, it doesn't matter to you guys, but to recently on us and they said that Simone was worried about them. Coming and taking her womb one day implying that them meant like progressives or like some sort of scary Yeah, I have
Simone Collins: some conspiracy about some unknown, faceless taking.
Yeah. She like, they
Malcolm Collins: will take my womb one day and like quote, scare quotes and, and the, the actual full quote is. You know, I have to get a c-section every time I have a kid. You know, the, the maximum number of kids anyone ever had is 11. Eventually surgeons will take my uterus and a botch surgery. Not, not like, but like they're like deliberately twisting reality to attempt to [00:12:00] manipulate people.
Well,
Simone Collins: just to make me look unhinged,
Malcolm Collins: actually, you know, this is a topic I wanted to talk about that. I don't think deserves a full episode, so I'll drop it here, which is my theory called the directionality of what, what, what would I call it?
Simone Collins: Oh, reputation. Reputational. Directionality.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, reputational.
Directionality. Which is to say that within the online environment, all reputations have a directionality attached to them. Mm-hmm. If you start universally loved that directionality is negative and you will eventually, because the only articles worth writing are you are on ones where you hate on the person become universally hated.
If you start universally hated, you become universally loved. Mm-hmm. Are not universally loved, but most of this stuff coming out on you is un And that's why early on in sort of our public fame, I leaned so much harder even than I do today into the stuff that, that drew negative controversy because I wanted to have this.
[00:13:00] Universally negative picture of me among the lines of like the people who didn't actually engage with our ideas or anything like that so that it could be. So if you want to like see examples of this great examples are, you know, somebody like Harry and Meghan, right? You know, they start absolutely universally loved.
And then the only things you can publish on them or the only things you can sing on them is like, well subversive, right? And so then they end up completely universally hated, especially 'cause they're trying to control their image so much. I. Or you start as somebody like what's an example here?
That started like universally sort of cringey and then everybody started to like them. I.
Simone Collins: I think, I think chaperone, who I don't think you would've heard of, might fall in that category maybe.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I, I think the, the guy, Martin Reley definitely falls into that category. Kim
Simone Collins: Kardashian way back in the day.
Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah. Oh, the best example of this is Paris Hilton. Yeah. Everybody hated Paris. Something. They thought she was trashy and garbage, and all of the stuff about her was just trashing on her. Now
Simone Collins: she's like, oh, wow. She's a [00:14:00] smart business woman. She, yeah, the South Park is just
Malcolm Collins: about her being a slut, and now everyone's like.
She seems pretty based, like, she seems like a decent, huge, smart businesswoman who is respectable and I would wanna be her friend. And I think that, that, that's a great example of this, this trend. And then some people have been around long enough to go both ways where Brittany's Trump.
Simone Collins: Trump has gone both ways for sure.
Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, Trump has been around long enough to come for Hate it. Love hate it. Britney Spear. It's love. Hated love hate. You're right. Yeah. You know, she starts love then everybody hates on her and, oh, how can you like Britney? And then it's like, Ooh, this might be a little low for her right now.
The sort of point that she's in, I think we need to cheer for her again. And so, i, I think that a lot of people don't consider this when they're building their online fame and they try too hard to enter the scene. Loved, instead of understanding that entering the scene is where you want to be hated, it's later that you want to be [00:15:00] loved.
And it makes sense given this contrarian environment, like I think we're about at the breaking point. We had yesterday the team that, that filmed the Harry and Meghan actually documentary for Netflix come over and film a pilot or a sizzle reel for a documentary about us. Yeah. They're, they're working on studios with and I.
Think that if we can get this made, this could be the thing that breaks us over into the average love category.
Simone Collins: Now
Malcolm Collins: of course the people on Blue Sky will still be screeching and screaming, but you know, they've been trapped.
Simone Collins: So, anyway. Well, and you can still go from Hated to Love. To hated as is demonstrated by some of the examples we gave.
Malcolm Collins: No. If we go, it's just, the problem is we've always been so reasonable in all of our takes, right? Like the, the trans is similar to lobotomies. I mean, I think that that's just something that anyone who's engaging with the evidence is like, yeah, I. It seems about right. It's a commonly used procedure, especially among like democratic power players like the Kennedy [00:16:00] family that later we learn was just not a good way to deal with body dysmorphia.
In the same way, you know, somebody had body dysmorphia like they were anorexic, which is another culture bound illness, which is also disproportionately appears as in young women with autism. Just pointing out that that. You wouldn't remove their uterus to lower their weight just because they liked it happening.
You'd be like, that's really toxic. Don't do that. But they, they do it. So anyway you, you've got or the study just for people who are new to this podcast that showed that of people who are of the age of, I think it was 14, who are uncomfortable with their body by the age. They're 23, more than nine out of 10 of them completely identify as their birth gender if they're not given access to puberty blockers.
Yeah, because
Simone Collins: all puberty sucks. You, you can't cure that.
Malcolm Collins: Dirt. Yeah. So, but I wanted to talk, so I, I labeled all the negative things. Right. Okay. You know, the negative things are
Simone Collins: the crystal,
Malcolm Collins: The, the, the, the, [00:17:00] the or the nail. You know why it's good, right? Oh, why? It's good. Okay. I can't remember. Positives of the crystal add or negative Yeah, the, the positives.
Yeah. And then the, the negatives are that it provides an environment where far left ideas can like fester and become even more extreme and normalized. So when you isolate people with extreme beliefs like this, they can begin to believe these beliefs are normative and okay to hold within like an open world environment.
The question was, does I think Twitter was already doing that? To an extent, yeah. I
Simone Collins: think it, people were already so siloed. What we saw with progressives more than with conservatives on X Twitter is they would block and mute anyone who didn't hold values and views that they. Well, they'd even build like
Malcolm Collins: block lists that they'd share with everyone else.
Simone Collins: Right. So it was very easy for people to silence any voice that they found offensive or unf uncomfortable. So I, yeah, I don't even, like, they kind of had their own little [00:18:00] version of Blue Sky before they created Blue Sky.
Malcolm Collins: Oh. It's just that other people still had to listen to them.
Simone Collins: Yes. So they had more. Of a platform before, but they still didn't see other people's views.
Malcolm Collins: That's fascinating. Yeah. Okay. I about that. And they also had more
Simone Collins: of a platform because before X was acquired, you know, the more conservatives were censored yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Conservatives were just censored on the platform. It, it is wild for me to think, and this is something that like actually worried me for a bit when I heard that Lotus Eaters was demonetized on YouTube, even still,
Simone Collins: and I was
Malcolm Collins: like, what?
Why is Lotus Eaters, Lotus Eaters is. So tame compared to us. Yeah. And then I went and it was like oh, well that happened in 2023. And I was like, oh, that makes sense. Back when they had more cultural power than they have today. But and it was, and it was censored because of sargon of a cod who is on Lotus Eaters other channel instead of his actual work [00:19:00] on Lotus Eaters.
And I was like, well, that seems. Really unfair for censoring them based on another channel, but, okay. So on the net, what's your take? Is blue sky good for the right or bad for the right?
Simone Collins: I think it's bad for the right because I think the right still needs to have its views, regularly challenged. And I think that they need to understand what people with opposing views think and they're just not being exposed to that enough.
On X as it stands, there's not enough pushback and, and whether or not you'll ever have your, your mind change or your fuse moderated by. People who oppose you, people you might even really hate, they still help you clarify your own views and values. They still strengthen. So I'm gonna push back
Malcolm Collins: on that take.
Simone Collins: Really?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I don't think, I think that the people who engaged in like serious argument stayed on X and Twitter.
Simone Collins: No. I think people who left
Malcolm Collins: were the ones who screeched. [00:20:00]
Simone Collins: No. You see people who like to debate things online, left and went to Blue Sky.
Malcolm Collins: Keep in mind, blue Sky is only 1% of the daily users of Twitter.
And we'll see when we go to the statistics, people on Blue Sky actually interact with the platform a lot less than people on Twitter per session.
Simone Collins: Oh really? That's interesting.
Malcolm Collins: About half as much. Yeah,
Simone Collins: that is interesting. I, I still think I. It's better to have more antagonistic people together on in one place.
Malcolm Collins: Okay, so, so was our account really active before the blue sky exodus? Yeah, it was. Do you feel like we had more arguments engagement
Simone Collins: back then?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah,
Simone Collins: we had tons more engagement back then. We have like no engagement now. Most, I think most of the interaction with our content was with people who have now gone to Blue Sky.
Malcolm Collins: So we were just totally shock jocks,
Simone Collins: I guess. Yeah, well we were almost entirely hate watched,
Malcolm Collins: Which is not the same as [00:21:00] our YouTube channel. Or it might be the same, but like, they don't up vote videos. 'cause I like average up vote rating is like 98%.
Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I don't think that's the case. I don't think we're hate watch that much here.
Because one, you actually have to invest time to hate watch here and on X you really, you don't even have to read someone's posts to say something snarky and mean to them. It's just like you slap your children, you know, like you don't have to, I could have just posted something about, you know, changing statistics in some population in China, but that doesn't matter.
So, yeah. I just, yeah, you have to invest more. We don't have hate watchers here. They would show up in the comments.
Malcolm Collins: You know what, I realize I haven't checked Facebook in like six months. Like I used to be pretty Facebook addicted. It was one of those things I checked every morning.
Simone Collins: Yeah. It still has a really active platform for what it is.
And I don't know if that's because a lot of people just still use Facebook Messenger and Facebook is referring to them as daily active users, but Facebook has a striking number of daily active users, and I can only assume it's because they're messing with the [00:22:00] numbers somehow because it doesn't seem plausible to me.
Yeah. So for example Facebook has 1.03 billion daily active users. Compare that with only 122 million on YouTube. Or 500 million on Instagram.
Malcolm Collins: Facebook has been caught faking their numbers before, by the way.
Simone Collins: Yeah. I think they might be combining all of their platforms, but I don't think that's true because, for example, WhatsApp has 2.9 billion.
I. So almost three times as much. As many. So they're lying across all
Malcolm Collins: the platforms they own. Like that's not surprising. Maybe,
Simone Collins: maybe, but just, you
Malcolm Collins: know, the, the, the incident I'm talking about here when Facebook started Facebook video, they basically lied to people about how many people were using it.
And so a bunch of people went and invested a lot of their careers and trying to build Facebook video platforms. And then it turned out that Facebook video was mostly a scam and nobody was really using it. And so it screwed up a bunch of people's, like content creation careers,
Simone Collins: do they provably lie?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, if I remember correctly. Yeah. Okay. They haven't, they well, because it had to do with eventually, like the, [00:23:00] the ad revenue just wasn't coming in right? Like they, they said, oh, we have this many people, and they were like, we're not that many people.
Simone Collins: That's awful.
Malcolm Collins: So I put up a blue sky gross chart here.
You can see that they did have a bump between November and December. And, and, and they have grown like in the early days significantly. But if you look at like the February versus March numbers, you're looking at 31.5 to 33 million. Mm-hmm. Which is decent gross, but it is teetering off from that initial bump.
Simone Collins: No, it, it is seeing what is considered to be a classic. Ca sort of casting or, or like, or slowing down of growth after the initial hype cycle. However, I don't consider that the same. Oh, we shouldn't worry about that statistic as people would with other platforms, because I think all the initial growth was really just leached off of Twitter.
This wasn't organic growth. This was just all the progressive people at once deciding to leave X. Mm-hmm. And that wasn't. In my view, [00:24:00] earned in the same way that X and Facebook and WhatsApp earned and in Snapchat earned their audiences. And TikTok for sure. Well, yeah. Even the
Malcolm Collins: heads of Blue Sky have said that this isn't real organic growth.
Mm-hmm. And it's not gonna continue. And we need to find a way to get people here just
Simone Collins: copied X and we're like, we're X for pro, for progressives. That doesn't. No, you don't get credit for doing that
Malcolm Collins: at all. Here's something you might find interesting is Blue Sky users by age. So, okay, wait,
Simone Collins: wait, wait.
I'm gonna guess the majority is between 25 and 40.
Malcolm Collins: No, what,
Simone Collins: okay.
Malcolm Collins: Who by far the largest category is 18 to 24 year olds. The youngest age group possible. That's so true. And then the next largest is 25 to 34 year olds. The next youngest, if you go 35 to 44, you're looking at only about 15%.
Simone Collins: So it's a younger platform, but not maybe it's a very
Malcolm Collins: young platform.
Yeah. Well, tiktoks
Simone Collins: younger, I think as much of a third of TikTok or as they're 14 years old or younger, [00:25:00] it's a very young
Malcolm Collins: platform. Here's what's gonna shock you. Blue Sky is not just overwhelmingly male, but more male than X.
Simone Collins: Police guy is more male than how.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so Blue Sky is 62 point zero 4%. Male X is 60.9%, so it it basically 60% versus 62% x to Blue Sky.
In fact, blue Sky is one of the most male platforms there are. If you order platforms by how male they are, it goes discord, 66%.
Simone Collins: Reddit,
Malcolm Collins: 63% Blue Sky, 62% x, 60%. Telegram, 57%. Facebook, 56%. Quora 56%. What about Twitch? Come on LinkedIn. 56. Hold on. It's, it's more male than YouTube, which is 54%. It, it, it, it, no, no.
Yeah,
Simone Collins: yeah. Twitch is 63% men, so Twitch is also at the top. Like, come on, you have to,
Malcolm Collins: yeah. [00:26:00] Yeah. You Twitch. Has anyone used Twitch? Twitch is like weird, like lefty, cock min. Like there's like this weird category of like mail that like, I don't even, I don't know. I feel like a lot of the
Simone Collins: streamers that are on YouTube have, like, they do the recording on Twitch and then they publish later on YouTube and it's just kind of a two for one.
And so they're, they're very active on there and they have active audiences that just want someone to keep them as the
Malcolm Collins: gold does that, I think. And I think it absolutely, and
Simone Collins: I
Malcolm Collins: think a lot of YouTubers do that as well. Does that
Simone Collins: mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Leaflet actually is the separate team publisher. If you watch our episode with her we're big fans.
Simone Collins: She's
Malcolm Collins: awesome. Yeah, she, she just seems so endearing. Like I, I watched some other VT tubers and we might do other co labs with v tubers, but none of the, the female VT tubers are as endearing as leaflet. I was actually talking with Simone about this. I get the impression that these other ones like have like OnlyFans accounts or whatever, and I was like, yeah, but leaflet definitely doesn't, she, she doesn't give that vibe.
I. But hold on, I gotta keep going, was my interesting statistics. The [00:27:00] US has the largest proportion of blue sky visitors, 42.27%.
Simone Collins: Wow.
Malcolm Collins: I was really surprised about that. Here's another one that surprised me. On average, each blue sky user visits approximately eight pages per session. Contrast that with X, it's 12 pages per session.
In. That's interesting. In fact, X, if you're looking at like per session, is the top of the engagement list. So if you go by platform X is 12.26. Facebook, 11.74. Instagram 11.52, YouTube, 10.91. Then way down is Blue Sky, 7.91. Mm-hmm. Only only lost to Snapchat, TikTok and Reddit. I, by the way, I was surprised that Reddit was more male than, than blue Sky or X.
Simone Collins: No, I'm not. I'm not. There's a lot of women on both. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: You wanna go over top accounts on Blue Sky? [00:28:00] Yeah. I'm curious.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Who's big on Blue Sky?
Malcolm Collins: Okay. Blue sky's big on blue sky. It doesn't really matter. No. Then the, the, the largest real account on Blue Sky with 1.98 million followers is a OC.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Setting the tone here. Gotcha.
Malcolm Collins: Under that is cut Elon which is Mark Cuban. What? Yeah, he's, he's like a lefty version of Elon, which is interesting 'cause he used to position himself as like a righty politician, right? Yeah. I could actually see him running for president in the next cycle. He could do well.
He's like uncooked enough power. The people that he could do well if he's like a new right person pretending to be a lefty.
Simone Collins: Absolutely. Yeah. I'm okay with that.
Malcolm Collins: Next, George, aka.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. Yeah. Next is Mark Hamill.
Simone Collins: What?
Malcolm Collins: The guy who played Luke Skywalker. I know, but
Simone Collins: why? What does he have to say? Why does anyone care what Mark Hamill has?
He must have seen in hot [00:29:00] takes? I
Malcolm Collins: really dunno. He's like famous in like a deranged lefty. And maybe that appeal. He is just fun.
Simone Collins: Unhinged, unhinged hot takes.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Next is the Onion. I didn't know they were still around. Okay. Alright. I, I love it that, like, Babylon Bee has genuinely replaced the onion in the eyes of the public.
Like they're bigger than the onion now, right? Like I, the Onion doesn't do anything anymore. Like the Onion used to be so funny. And like everyone would do stuff with it. And now it's all Babylon Bee, which is like the right-leaning version. And we actually reach out to the guy who, who, who, who runs it.
A cool organization. They're a, they're a, the Mormon organization, right? Like that's where the bee they comes from, right? Are they? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. The Babylon B, hold on,
Simone Collins: adam Ford is the founder. Is Adam Ford Mormon? No, it doesn't seem like it. He's a he. He's an ordained Anglican priest.
Malcolm Collins: Anglican.
Simone Collins: Anglican. Yeah. Who knew Anglicans do anything? Here's one. We've got one Anglican.
Malcolm Collins: Who does something Catholic. [00:30:00] Just be a Catholic. Okay. Like I'm not even that pro cat. But Anglican, come on.
Has
Simone Collins: tried really hard. It was, there
Malcolm Collins: was a whole thing, you know, this is, this is like, when, when Stephen Colbert said that being an agnostic is, is just being an atheist for people without balls. Being an Anglican is just being a Catholic for people without balls. Sorry, I don't mean this, I don't mean to insult our Anglican, but I'm just, but like the actual history of the Anglican movement, like it's, it's, it's, it's, it's meant to be like Catholic, right?
Like it's just a recreation of Catholicism with, with a centralized church, but just with a separate centralized, I mean, sorry, I don't mean to be too. After the onion, and I love that. This is after the onion. Sorry. We're so insulting to even like conservative Christians. I hope we don't lose all our angle.
We're insulting
Simone Collins: to ourselves enough too.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. One hopes under the onion is the New York Times. I love it. Among progresses. You got the [00:31:00] onion and then you got the New York Times. Come on. Whatever. Yeah. Next is Stephen King. Okay. Yeah. He, he, he's very. Next is Midas Touch. I don't know what Midas touch is.
Next is Rachel Maddow. Okay. Okay. And then next is NPR. I love Rachel Maddow. Beats NPR. Aw. NPR is is so sad to me. They're just like you know, when you've gone on NPR, they've been so low energies. So like, we went to this like NPR like in person filming thing. Do you remember when we went to that with like, those people who took us and we were like out on a field by Philadelphia?
It was like, oh, no, no, no. Yeah,
Simone Collins: we, no, no. We watched an in person. We were in the audience of Wait, wait, don't tell me. Which is yeah, it's not exactly NPR. It's, it's I think Chicago Public Radio, but yeah. It was, it's one of their very long running game shows. What an interesting audience. It was such a thing.
It was so. For progressive audience. It was so weirdly j like, and also, wait, wait, don't tell me such a Jewish show. And so it's just so odd now that we live in this age where there's so [00:32:00] much anti-Semitism on the progressive
Malcolm Collins: side. Yeah. From progressive
Simone Collins: side. And yet you have this super, super Jewish show.
So yeah. I don't know what to make of it.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, you know, the, the progressive Jews aren't having kids, not in, not in large numbers. They're, you know, two generations from extinction. Yeah.
Simone Collins: Well, whatcha gonna do?
Malcolm Collins: Oh, no. Anyway so your, your thesis is still, it's a net bad because we're not engaging with the outsider perspective as much.
Simone Collins: Yeah. I don't like seeing siloed. Siloed networks like this, unless it's a dating network and they're just trying to find people value aligned to do stuff together, but they're not doing stuff together, that's not the impression I get from Blue Sky. So I don't see that as being valuable or helpful. If this is a place for online discourse, it should be a place that is as ideologically diverse as possible, and that's why I also like XA little bit less now than I did [00:33:00] before because there's less, there's less ideological diversity.
But it's, I I think that it's improved. I mean, grok is amazing. I like the algorithm more Now I think that it's more interesting. So when I go on it now and I go to whatever feed I go to, whether it's just no,
Malcolm Collins: gr is like a high tier now. Like what? Like it makes sense that, you know, it was trained on X data and I appreciate that they, they, they did the acquisition and freaked out all the progressives that, that gr grok, if you don't know now, owns Twitter.
And everybody who invested in the Twitter acquisition came out on top because of that.
Simone Collins: Hmm. It's a when. Yeah, but not being trapped in the crystal. Not, not, I'm
Malcolm Collins: hearing good things about Gemini ai, by the way, apparently some people are saying it's, yeah, people are ranting and raving about it
Simone Collins: now. I haven't tried it.
I like
Malcolm Collins: still haven't like reused it, so I should probably check out. I'm still
Simone Collins: traumatized from it, not handling basic math, but I know we've gone very far back. Well,
Malcolm Collins: and it being super racist [00:34:00] when they first launched
Simone Collins: it. Oh yeah. No, that was fun. I would, I would go to, to see that, you know, to see all the bipoc, Nazis.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. Create a crowd of Nazis and they're all black. And it's like, what?
Simone Collins: Why? Why did you think this was a good idea? It's great. It's perfect. Yeah, you go for that. It's the math that threw me off, but,
Malcolm Collins: and now Google's like removing pride months and everything from its calendar, which I love. Oh, they are?
No, yes. Well, it doesn't have any of the nonsense holidays in its calendar anymore. Only like mainstream religious holidays. No. Which, no, that makes sense. Anyway, I love you Esam. What, what do you think about the most Blue Sky members being male thing, like more than Twitter?
Simone Collins: I really don't know what to make of that.
Maybe it's that the most angry people on Twitter who are very active or male
Malcolm Collins: maybe. Yeah, because they, they, they thought they were signaling [00:35:00] and maybe getting something out of it and Yeah, I can see that. Yeah,
Simone Collins: but I, I really don't know what to make of it, to be honest with you. Gender skewing of platforms is so odd.
And what the weirdest thing that I heard of, which we, we got from the documentary team yesterday is that Pinterest is now seeing this huge surge, like it's making a comeback, but amongst you. Yeah. But like prepubescent male users. Who are using it to make like Stranger things and it meme boards like the clown it the Scary Freaking Clown.
Malcolm Collins: I love that young males are still into horror. I love that young males are
Simone Collins: somehow on Pinterest, like I. I don't know how their staff is dealing with this. Like, I don't know if they know what to do with this. After years and years of wedding boards and hairstyle boards and dream bathroom remodel boards, suddenly it's like, it memes, and they're like how I, I mean, how do they [00:36:00] monetize it?
Right. It, it, it, I, I, this is very interesting, but yeah. The, the 11-year-old son of one of the producers who was. Here at our house yesterday, apparently, just that's where he spends his time. Not on Minecraft, not on TikTok, on freaking Pinterest. Nothing makes sense about young people. I.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I will say when I was a young male, you might not know this, so my family my mom wasn't around much during a certain time when I was like, like, like young, like in that pre-teen age.
But we lived near a blockbuster and I was allowed to go and rent movies whenever I wanted. And the core section that I rented movies from was horror. Like that was the main thing that I watched. Oh, why? I just loved horror movies during that period. Especially are good. I was just remembering one that I, that I loved as a kid.
Deep star six for anyone who, who, who liked that movie. But you know, I, I not the best, [00:37:00] the best horror movie I've seen that I'd recommend if you, if you like, oh, I, you know, horror ginger Snaps Two is the best horror movie ever made. Not one, ignore one. It's not very good if, if you're not gonna watch two, watch three.
They're all standalone stories, so don't worry about it. But yeah no horror needs, like good characters and plot and like, it makes sense and everything like that. Yeah. I'm all all about like, genuine. Oh, you watch it for the court? Do you and I No, well, no cheesy good horror. Okay. And I love that, you know, if they're, if they're like it, it is not good, by the way.
It is not. Good horror. I don't
Simone Collins: care if it's good or bad, if there's clowns, I'm out.
Malcolm Collins: The, what was it? What was the other thing That they were made? It was, it was it or Stranger Things, which is fine. Stranger things is good Horror. Stranger Things is one of the best modern properties made in the past 10 years or something like that. It's great. Yeah, it's spectacular. Absolutely
Simone Collins: wholesome fun for the whole family.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Anyway love you to Death, [00:38:00] Simone. I love you too gorgeous. A spectacular day. Me too. And all of you out there have a spectacular day. I really hope things go well for you. And I really hope that you're, you achieve your dreams.
Simone Collins: Yeah, for real. Actually, we want, I wanna see human flourishing. So do your, do your jobs people
Malcolm Collins: get it done.
Yeah. Get out there and flourish. Flourishing nerds, dinners for closers. I love you. Love you too.
Simone Collins: Oh gosh, I can't.
Speaker: You going to
Malcolm Collins: Twitter?
Speaker: Ow! Sorry, Mama, I wanted to tell
Speaker 2: you. You off gallivanting with your fancy
Simone Collins: the right!
Speaker 2: Friends at
Malcolm Collins: Twitter
Speaker 2: while I'm sitting here all day with nobody to keep me company except
Malcolm Collins: blue sky
Speaker 3: The chickens are coming home to roost, Bobby Boucher. You reap the fruit of your selfish ways. You gonna lose all your fancy
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-1: Elections
Speaker 3: , and you're gonna fail your big exam, because
Malcolm Collins: Twitter?
Speaker 4: is The
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx): Uh, Nazi.
Speaker 4: ? Everything is
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx): Uh, Nazi.
Speaker 4: to you, [00:39:00] Mama! Well, I like
Malcolm Collins: Twitter?
Speaker 4: And I like
Simone Collins: the right!
Speaker 4: And I'm gonna keep doing them both, because they make me feel good!
And by the way, mama,
Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-2: Women don't have penises.
Speaker 4: And I like
Malcolm Collins: Trump ,
Speaker 4: and
Malcolm Collins: Trump
Speaker 4: Likes me back.

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Pulling the Thread: Lime Mines, Assassination, JFK, Elon Musk
24 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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 use
Simone 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 is
Simone 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 happened
Would 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. The
Simone Collins: holy
Malcolm 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's
Malcolm Collins: yeah,
Simone Collins: that
Malcolm 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 where
The 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 manage.
Simone Collins: Oh my gosh.
Malcolm Collins: So it's not, and how do you
Simone Collins: even explain that?
Like let's say you're a local who got a job there, someone asks you on your first date, Hey, so what do you do? And you're like, well, I work in them. We're gonna mine and they're like, oh, what? Like coal or something? You're like, ah, go. Government retirement paperwork. Like what? What? This is super
Malcolm Collins: villain stuff.
This is actual super villain stuff. It is. This is not something a normal person does. No. No,
Simone Collins: not normal.
Malcolm Collins: And so as I dug, and what we're gonna find out in a second here is it may be a way of government to funnel money to like congress people and senator. Oh.
So we'll get into how it's happening.
That's pork, right?
Simone Collins: The term for that is pork.
Malcolm Collins: No. Pork is when you put in something for local spending that's meant to help you win an election. So, [00:05:00] pork would be, but isn't that like,
Simone Collins: wouldn't that be, so if someone was like, well, we'll put the mine in my.
Malcolm Collins: Yes, that would be pork, putting the wine in, in a district that is the for, for votes.
Yeah. That is not what I'm talking about. Mm-hmm. I'm talking about the direct funneling of money. I'm talking about actual fraud. Oh I, I, I'm talking about like them. Look, there's a way that a OC, despite having what, like a a hundred k salary outta the congresswoman has become a multi-millionaire in just a few years, which was previously a barista.
She has, yeah. There's a reason Bernie Sanders, despite the, you know, a hundred K salary now has multiple houses in many multimillion dollars. Wow. The people find a way to turn this grift into billions. Or the crazy case of, what's her face? Nancy Pelosi and her stock chain, Nancy Pelosi. Yeah. And I feel like that's,
Simone Collins: you know, somewhat democratized.
'cause there has to be a delo disclosure for all that. And people now have, like, I think bots that just buy whatever she buys, [00:06:00]
Malcolm Collins: that if she, they're buying it after her, then they're just further inflating the stock price.
Simone Collins: Yeah. I'm ju I'm just saying, I don't know, like, so that's
Malcolm Collins: even
Simone Collins: worse in a way. At least we know what she's doing.
I wanna know where a politician's money comes from if it's not their salaries.
Malcolm Collins: Well, you wouldn't understand just because you understand what she's investing in, it would be hard to determine. Now, unfortunately, that law that made all that public happened after the deal that would've made a bunch of politicians money off of this uhhuh happened.
So we can't easily know what's going on there, but we can see from the data that something seems to be going on. So let's go deeper here, but. The practice of storing government documents in a mine traces back to the 1960s when the US government sought a secure climate controlled location for preserving critical records.
The chosen site was a former mine in Boyer, Pennsylvania, approximately 45 miles north of Pittsburgh, operated by the Office of Personal Management. This mine was originally used. [00:07:00] For limestone extraction and was converted to a storage facility leveraging its natural underground conditions for document preservation.
By 1970, OPM established its retirement operations center within the mine, marking the formal beginning of this practice for processing federal employee retirement applications. Now the decision to use this mine was practical, given its stable temperature and humidity essential for paper.
Record longevity. Additionally, the underground location offered natural protection against disasters and unauthorized access enhancing security. In 1998, iron Mountain, a global management and storage service provider acquired the Mine's owner and has since leased the space to the government, solidifying its role as a tenant in this facility.
Simone Collins: So the government never owned the mine. They didn't buy it
Malcolm Collins: and they had an opportunity to buy it and instead it was bought, not just buy a, a [00:08:00] shady company. Like why didn't they buy the mine? Mines don't have many other uses. Yeah. Who else is gonna use
Simone 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 is
Simone 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.
Simone Collins: Another
Malcolm Collins: thing that makes no sense is usually these types of contractors that come in and do deals like this, you can get an advantage if you're like owned by a, you know, a minority veteran owned
Simone Collins: woman known, especially a, let's say you are a female disabled veteran, native American.
Yeah. Who is also half black. I think that would be amazing.
Malcolm Collins: You, you should have gotten a, what? You, you get like a 20% or like 30%. What they do is they pay well, okay. Depending
Simone Collins: on the state or entity. Or at branch of [00:09:00] the federal government, basically, depending on your status, they have to basically discount your fee by a certain percentage.
So it may be that company A, which has none of these, special statuses charges you a hundred dollars in company B, which has special status charges you $150, but they're both seen as costing $100 because you have to discount a bunch from vendor B.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. So, how, what was odd about this deal is that this company was formed just to do this and was a publicly traded company back when senators and congressmen didn't need to disclose where they were investing their money.
Simone Collins: Oh, wow. Okay. Oh, oh, that's interesting. Publicly traded. Okay.
Malcolm Collins: During a time when they didn't need to make these disclosures which was 1998, almost. What very obviously happened here is a number of politicians got together, created this [00:10:00] company. Mm-hmm. And then we're using it as an annuity. And that's why everything is still in a mine.
Oh my gosh. We'll get into this a bit more because there have been efforts to end this annuity to these, these congresspeople. Mm-hmm. And they've been scuttled. Which is horrifying considering they, we've lost hundreds of millions of dollars of US taxpayers in trying to end this process.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: And this is why we need Doge. Like, like literally you cannot trust the deep state to act against the interest of their masters,
Simone Collins: especially with this being a known problem since at least 2015. When you cited that article, I mean that you would think that article should have caused some public uproar, some questions to be asked, some congressmen to be.
Emailed or phoned.
Malcolm Collins: And we also know it's not even like a safe location. The the ceiling is apparently about to cave in. Like this is, this is like, it's not like anyone was
Simone Collins: gonna go check that anyway. No one's gonna go back and check these documents.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, well here's what you might be surprised about. The Iron Mind [00:11:00] facility located 220 feet underground.
Why does it need to be so deep? It's just, it's federal employment documents employs over 700 workers who manually process. The 10,000 retirement applications each month, the process involves federal employees submitting applications on paper, either by mail or hand delivered to the OPM. These files are transported to the mine where the staff review them for completeness, perform calculations, and verify benefits, and you know, they're sending back 90% of these the first time they're sent in.
For anyone who's ever tried to apply for anything with the federal government,
Simone Collins: oh my gosh, don't even get me started.
Malcolm Collins: If, if errors are missing, information are found, documents are sent back to agencies for corrections further delaying the process.
The mine's infrastructure is likened to a small underground city featuring its own fire brigade security . Streets with a 10 mile per hour speed limit. Traffic light. Oh my gosh. I'm
Simone Collins: picturing that little car in. Austin [00:12:00] Powers
Hang on. I'm gonna floor it. Watch out. Move, move, move. Careful. Austin,
Simone Collins: and literally a super villain. Yes. This literally, this is very Austin Powers literal.
Austin Powers literal power. I hope they have little uniforms
Malcolm Collins: and addresses for its thousands of tenants who apparently live in the mine.
Simone Collins: Wait what they set
Malcolm Collins: up described in a 2014 Washington Post reported as one of the weirdest workplace in the US government involves employees. Passing files by hand, from desk to desk in Cavern to cavern.
A method unchanged since the 1970s. The report titled Data Mining The Old Fashioned Way, able to Use Oh
Simone Collins: Boy,
Malcolm Collins: of 28,000 File Cabinets. And the Slow Manual Workflow highlights the delays exacerbated by occasional elevator breakdowns. Oh God,
Simone Collins: this is painful.
Malcolm Collins: It. [00:13:00] It actually is painful.
Simone Collins: Yeah. I'm in pain. This is
Malcolm Collins: despite technological advancements, the systems that remained manual was multiple attempts to digitize it.
Since the 1980s, failing costing over a hundred million dollars, a 2023 Inspector General Report noted small steps towards digitization such as testing. An online retirement application pilot in 2024, but a full modernization remains years away. Why? It would be easy to do reasons for these failures include the complexity of the systems technical issues, and insufficient funding a hundred
Simone Collins: million dollars because no, no one else has figured out how to give retirement packages to their employees.
That's, yeah. If you
Malcolm Collins: gave like us our, our nonprofit, DEI remediation.com. $1 million. I guarantee you we could fix this. Fully automated, no problem. As [00:14:00] reported in various sources, including a 2015 government accountability office assessment, GAO and then I asked it about the a hundred million. I was like, who did this money go to?
How did you fail to digitize with a hundred million dollars? Yeah. The a hundred million dollars for modernization efforts was likely paid to consulting companies like Hullet Associates and Accenture who were contracted to digitize the Federal retirement system. The process aimed at updating paper-based retirement processing faced challenges and was canceled in 2011 after significant investment.
So.
That's impossible. It is genuinely impossible that this couldn't be done for a hundred million dollars, even at the most incompetent of firms.
Simone Collins: Again, these, this is so lost in powers. $100 million dollars. Yeah. It was stolen. It was stolen. All of this is just [00:15:00] a crazy Austin Powers plant that like, dr.
Evil decided he was going to steal $100 million from the government and didn't even have to build an evil mine because there already was one. And he, all he had to do was charge one another underground layer this much money to do something he was never gonna do. This is, this is, this is an un, this how.
How this isn't even the most expensive thing that Doge has, has revealed, of course. Like they've just already found so much more. But no,
Malcolm Collins: doge isn't even that focused on this. They're like, yeah, we need to fix this. But it's like a side note for them. By the way, you need to give a shout out. My little brother works at Doge and, and is run by famous prenatals, Elon gotta say Good job Elon.
Hell
Simone Collins: yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Hell yeah.
Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Batman.
Malcolm Collins: But. it hurts me that we can live in a country and know that this grift is happening and know that the taxpayers are [00:16:00] being robbed. Social security is being robbed. Medicare and Medicaid is being robbed. Yeah, I was just listening to an interview
Simone Collins: with Elon Musk in which he was talking about these call centers for the Social Security Office.
That 40% of the calls are fraudulent. And that these are people who are trying to change where the social security checks are sent. So they get sent to these fraudsters instead of the real recipients. And just that, that, that alone, like that amount of wastage, the fact that those call centers are there anyway, that there, there should be a better process for verifying this and these people are being tricked.
I just, there's so much that's, that's really, I remember
Malcolm Collins: when he was going through the social security roles and there was so much obvious fraud that wasn't shut down. 100
Simone Collins: 20-year-old people.
Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. There were people, there were people who were over 200, like 250 years old, I think was one of them. Oh, good.
200. Oh, there was more than one over 200 years old. And there was like a dozen, I wanna say over 150. These are things that anyone could have easily checked.
Simone Collins: Yeah. If
Malcolm Collins: they had cared
Simone Collins: when. Or a simple system [00:17:00] that's like, Hey, if this person's over a hundred, let's just, let's just check on 'em. Just check, make sure they're okay.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. When people fight the shutdown of Doge, this is what they're fighting for. And so you need to ask either, are they just reflexively against anything? That, that the Republicans are doing, which some of them are, some of them are just like, they can't see and they're, they're, they're firebombing, they're threatening people's lives over this, you, you see this with the Tesla fire bombs.
Tesla. Yeah. You see this as the, and I love when people are like, oh, you know, you had no problem when like Republicans were boycotting and shooting like bottles of like, Coors Light Bud Light. Bud Light, right. Sorry, Coors Light. Bud Light you would never add when we torch somebody else's Tesla and I'm like, wait, how do you struggle to see that these two things aren't comparable?
That buying Coors Light and shooting it in your backyard is not the same as lighting Bud Light [00:18:00] explosive car. Sorry, bud Light lighting an explosive car on fire. In public that you don't own, and cars are expensive. Like these, this is somebody's primary means of transportation. They might not be, I don't even, I don't think,
Simone Collins: I don't if acts of terrorism are covered in car insurance.
So that's, yeah. I don't think they are like,
Malcolm Collins: this is, this is huge hit to somebody's net worth. Especially given that these are Teslas that you're getting Yeah,
Simone Collins: man. Expensive.
Malcolm Collins: And these are, and these are
Simone Collins: probably people who bought them, you know, when they were, when they were. Before Elon Musk became politicized.
So they're probably left-leaning environmentally minded people who want to save the planet, and now they're being passed. Well, I mean, if it's a
Malcolm Collins: cyber truck, you know, that's not the case. And I think that that's what they've been targeting is cyber trucks. So, but, but even that being the case, you know, these two things are not correlated at all.
If the right. It was like burning down liquor stores that served Bud Light. [00:19:00] The left would be saying that these people should be tried as terrorists because these people. Would be terrorists. Yeah. That's the definition of terrorism I love. The left has been like freaking out. Like how can the right call these people, terrorists, what?
What are they doing? The right has never done anything remotely equivalent to this. This is a completely new phenomenon being done to support the grift, right? Yeah. And so the question is. One, it's deranged people who just like, lack the ability to think critically and are just acting on essentially orders from their masters at leftist media.
And, and, and that's really dangerous because, you know, the individuals, and I Elon pointed this out, I thought that was really powerful because it's really sad the people who are gonna end up pu punished for this are like poor people with like mental health issues. And it's not the people who understand the grift.
This is the, the reporters, this is the media. This is the you know, the people like the Young Turks. This is the people like Hassan. This is, you know, they know in the back of their heads that all this [00:20:00] stuff, a OC, all of this stuff is a lie that we're not actually living under a fascist dictatorship.
That Elon really is just trying to lower the amount of weight so that more of the US dollar can go. Two people who really need it, the modern, and that's exactly what he was saying about social security.
Simone Collins: If we fix this, there will be more social security for people.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and, and the modern right, is not for reducing benefits.
Like they haven't pushed that at all. Mm-hmm. They have pushed reducing waste. And so when you, when you think about waste, the question is, well then who is the waste going to? Because it's not wa is that going nowhere?
Simone Collins: Right.
Malcolm Collins: Someone's benefiting from this. And I think that that's where the anger is coming from.
That's where the anger for USAID is coming from. That's where the anger around this is coming from. Yeah. But do you have any thoughts on the terrorism claims around like the Tesla stuff and everything like that?
Simone Collins: I, I mean, it, it makes sense. It's, it's politically motivated domestic terror. I don't know what else to say. It would definitely be done the same way if it were done the, you [00:21:00] know, the. With the right. Attacking some business associated with the left. So it's bad. It's bad.
Malcolm Collins: Well then I'd get to a second thing, which is the risk of assassination.
So the JFK file, sorry, not the risk, the risks for more assassination attempts. The JFK files have started to be released by Donald Trump
Simone Collins: Right. The last time. There are so many. Right. It's, it's taking people eons to get through them.
Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. Well, and only a third have been released so far. Gosh. By the way, one of the things that was said when they were released is the, it was requested.
The only thing that be censored is Israel and Israeli security. Huh. So that could be benign. It could be quite severe. Because they were trying to achieve a nuclear arm at the time, and they saw that as critical to their country's survival. And, jFK was against that. And so, and they eventually achieved it.
So, you know, I can see them having some vested interest. And, and, and [00:22:00] who's to say that it wasn't critical to their country survival? You know, I can see why, you know, if I was in Israeli, I would think that at that time period, and, and potentially even today,
Simone Collins: right?
Malcolm Collins: But I don't think they'd assassinate a president over that because there's no assurance that the next president is, is gonna be on their side or that it wouldn't blow up and cause like, it's just not worth the risk.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: So I would maybe say, Hmm, I don't think that that's what was going on there. I think that maybe they knew something but the bigger issue was. Is it appears that John F. Kennedy had believed in a report was sent to him. A report that wasn't known about before saying that the CIA had like a breakaway sub faction was in it that had like its own basically secret president.
That was just making decisions completely separate from US political will. Oh.
Simone Collins: Okay.
More specifically.
Arthur, IM Berg Jr. A special assistant to President JFK Jr. Wrote a critical memo to JFK on June 10th, [00:23:00] 1961,
shushing report highlighted the CIA's autonomy. Noting that 47% of political officers in US embassies were CIA agents undercover, often operating without informing the State Department or embassies. He criticized the agency's clandestine operations such as recruiting agents in friendly countries like Singapore or Japan and Pakistan, which risked diplomatic embarrassment.
Malcolm Collins: And if you're like, oh, that could, I mean obviously that could happen, like if you're an organization, what
Simone Collins: was justification for that?
Malcolm Collins: No, no justification. Just, you know, they're trying to promote American interests around the world, right?
And so, mm-hmm. They think that, well, you know, the public can't know about what we're doing. Government employees can't know about what we're doing. Often like other government employees can't know about what we're doing and we're getting money for this. Like, why, why would a person in a position of like that with no serious oversight?
Because if other people can't know about what you're doing, you have no oversight. Can't determine their own will. And if that person has political [00:24:00] ideology, right? Mm-hmm. And at the time these organizations were very Republican, which runs at odds with a new president like JFK. They might just decide to ignore what the new president would want them to do in terms of foreign policy because they think it's in the best interest of the nation and they're all unelected officials.
Wow. And so, and I point out here when people talk about Elon being an unelected official, it's like, yeah. Except Donald Trump when he was running, mentioned he was going to do Doge a lot. Yeah. That was very,
Simone Collins: very transparent.
Malcolm Collins: He let Elon run it. Yeah. And, and the government has
Simone Collins: always been full of unelected officials that we don't know about.
We were never informed about, we didn't get to think about them as potentially being involved during the election. All these things. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: So anyway somebody. Had reached out to JFK about this. Like, he'd not reached out, he'd done a report, he paid some guy to do a report, and the report was like, yeah, this is going on.
Okay, this is real. 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: [00:25:00] I see where you're going here.
Malcolm Collins: And Trump was running on doing the same thing. And if you look at how the assassination atti, the assassination of JFK happened in an unprotected environment.
Uhhuh, he was doing this motorcade, you know, was out the top on. And but Larry in there.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Right. And they, and they didn't check potentially obvious places like the book Depository where they could have been shot from. And we, oh my gosh know, oh my gosh. What? Both Lee Harvey Oswald and the guy who assassinated Lee Harvey Oswald, but I think it's specifically Lee Harvey Oswald.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Supposedly like a nobody. Right. He had, it was either a CIA or FBI contingent watching him, like monitoring him and his family before this. Before the attempt. Mm. So it wasn't like they didn't know that he was a risk, it was more like, oh, we know this person is a risk. And potentially his former commander in the military [00:26:00] Yeah.
Said that he left to join the CIA.
Now later, that guy I think he ended up dying or something. And then there was a, a famous a guy in he was like a, a counter spy guy. I'll add him in post, who also said, that there was a, a, a breakaway anti-US faction within the CIA or f fbi, the deep state basically that had motivation for this assassination.
The guy I am thinking of is George Day Mohit, a Russian I ire with ties to the oil industry and intelligence community. Befriended Oswald in Dallas in 1962 to 1963 after Oswald's return from the Soviet Union declassified JFK files confirmed. He was a CIA asset debriefed by the agency about Oswald, and had contacts with CIA officials, including George Jonas.
In his memoir, I Am a Patsy written before his desk suggests Oswald was manipulated by intelligent services aligning with the idea of a breakaway [00:27:00] faction. In 1976, he wrote a letter to CIA Director George HW Bush, pleading for protection from harassment by unspecified forces, implying agency overreach, his memoirs and interviews suggest Oswald was a scapegoat in a larger plot potentially involving Rogue CIA agents Damer Schwar.
Died in March 29th, 1977 in Minola, Florida from a gunshot wound to the head, officially ruled a suicide. However, his deaths occurred shortly before he was scheduled to testify before the House Select Committee on assassinations HSCA about his ties to Oswald fueling speculation of foul play. The timing combined with his claims of being harassed has led many to view his deaths as suspicious
in another instance, Gary Underhill, a former military intelligence officer, and CIA consultant, um, reportedly told friends in 1964 that a quote, small clique was in the cia a was responsible for JFK's assassination. In [00:28:00] quote, he died. , just a few months later, in May 8th, 1964 from a gunshot wound to the head officially ruled a suicide, but the circumstances were suspicious.
, and then we also have EE Howard Hunt, a CIA officer involved in Covert operations. Hunt confessed on his deathbed in 2007 to hearing of a CIA conspiracy to kill JFK,
Malcolm Collins: and it happened very similar to the Trump attempted assassinations, where if you look at the Trump assassination, particularly the one where the kid was on a roof mm-hmm. Like that roof was the only raised position anywhere near this location. Yeah. There is no reason. That, that shouldn't have been covered.
Yeah, they said they had nobody covering it 'cause it was sloped and it was in between the local police and the Secret Service. Not buying that. What, that makes no sense. I don't buy that. It's literally the only location, literally the only location you should have had somebody trained and they apparently had multiple counter snipers and the crowd saw the guy get into position and not them
Simone Collins: and attempted to warn them multiple times.[00:29:00]
Malcolm Collins: And what was gonna happen when Trump was, all these people would lose their jobs, that he would go against their new agenda. The deep State's agenda, like the Deep State isn't new. The deep State has been around for a long time. And now it, and in the nineties once thing we often mentioned is that the Republicans, if you're talking the eighties, nineties, especially back in the JFK Times, mm-hmm.
The urban monoculture didn't have control of this country. It was a Judeo-Christian coalition that had control of this country and attempted to impose their values on other people. And people interested in imposing the values on the dominant of the dominant culture on the population. They controlled a lot of our agencies and everything like that.
And the government and the Republican party at the time stood for that. If you look today, the Republican Party stands against it was the Democrats representing the dominant cultural group, the urban monoculture which attempts to oppose its values on Christians and Jews and other conservative factions like ourselves.
And it would only make sense that they now control these types of organizations like the NSA. You watch our episode on the Trans Cult that was found inside the [00:30:00] NSA like of course they have control of these organizations and the only way to fix this is to clean them out, but we should expect.
You know, likely they have already tried to get Trump assassinated. I a hundred percent, like, I, I, I, I think it's implausible if you look at the layout of the location where that assassination attempt happened that given that they had like 20 security at that location that nobody was looking at, the only raised position and the kid didn't like quickly come out there, he was like, slow about this.
This is so dark, you know, oh my gosh, this is dark. But we're seeing that this has happened before and we're seeing that it happened again. Fighting bureaucracy and fighting corruption means that you're fighting people's income source that they are using to get where, you know, whether it's a OC or Nancy Pelosi, or the woman who is head of the Secret Service who had, why was a woman head of the Secret Service when almost no women are in the secret service.
That makes no sense. Like obviously she wasn't the most qualified [00:31:00] candidate.
Simone Collins: Yeah, I'm just, I'm wondering how, how these things get executed. Presumably only a couple people know. Mm-hmm. And, and like Trump has said again and again, like my secret sauce is amazing. I'm really grateful for them. This is the way I assume it
Malcolm Collins: happened, by the way, to, to prevent, like, because I don't think a lot of people would've known about this.
I think the woman who was head of the Secret Service at the time, Uhhuh I think the way they explained the failure was accurate. She created a super tight zone of control that was the secret services. Mm-hmm. And then a separate zone of control that with the local police. Mm-hmm. And ensured there was a gap between these two zones of control that included the only raised space.
From which somebody could attempt to assassinate the president.
Simone Collins: Oh, so you, you think she was complicit?
Malcolm Collins: I think that it was her and whoever was working with her, I don't think it was just because her as officers on the field.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: I think that that, because you wouldn't create [00:32:00] zones of control like that, like that's insane.
Why was there a gap between the two zones of control?
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: That includes also like if you were a secret
Simone Collins: service officer, you'd probably. Yeah, I mean just 'cause your life is on the line. If the president gets shot at you probably aren't gonna be complicit in the things that have the president. Well, I mean,
Malcolm Collins: not really.
There's the famous photo of the secret service officer driving like behind the president or whatever, or what? Hiding behind the president. Yeah. There's some fat woman who's who was a, a secret service officer. They're the famous picture of her. Like cowering behind the president. Oh no. Yeah. So that is, this is who we're hiring these days.
I, I, I, I hope the president, you know, doesn't clean up of, of the organization. I, I assume he, he has, you know, his life's on the line. I hope that they protective cont to protect Elon because, you know, when Elon gets to the TI, I think has good, private,
Simone Collins: secure. I don't think he, after everything he has experienced when working.
With the government. You think he's gonna use government security because I don't think he's gonna use government security [00:33:00] if he wants to live. No,
Malcolm Collins: true That, true that, and he's
Simone Collins: had private security, I'm sure for like. All of his life, so, well, not all of his, but all of his, his, you know, fancy person life.
So Yeah. I'm sure he's just sticking with that.
Malcolm Collins: I he's talked about being afraid of it fairly frequently
Simone Collins: afraid for his life.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like he, well he
Simone Collins: should be obviously, but I don't think he's using government security or else he wouldn't be talking because he would be dead.
Malcolm Collins: True. I think what we're probably gonna see is, and I do worry for my brother Albert, this somebody on Doge is.
I could totally see that.
Simone Collins: I really hope, I hope they have security.
Malcolm Collins: One of the thing, and, and also it's not just that if, if he fails at this, he's gonna end up in jail. One of the things that was said to me is that like, this is the game and if you fail at Elon, the last person who had Elon's basically job was Steve Bannon. He failed to get anything meaningful done and he ended up in jail as a [00:34:00] result of his failure.
Because look, DOH has already got a
Simone Collins: ton done. So I mean, how do you define fail if failing is just Democrats win in the next major election? That's not, you need to
Malcolm Collins: clean out the deep state. All of the rot. If you don't get the rot out then you are personally at risk because they will use, look at what happened to Lapin.
Right? Did you see the, oh my gosh, recently.
Simone Collins: Yes. Oh my gosh.
Malcolm Collins: And I saw on Reddit, they were like cheering for this. They were like, course they were, it showed the USA, like not understanding how things are done and then France being like, this is how you get Right-Leaning politicians in jail. Like. Yeah.
And that's the way they see things. They think that they should have, the right, as we saw was the A FD in Germany where when the episode we were talking about Germany, the majority of Germans voted for a parties that wanted to reduce immigration, either the A FD or conservatives. Yeah. And yet Germany is forming a coalition that doesn't want that because they will not work with [00:35:00] EAFD.
Yeah. Despite this supposedly. Far right party being run by a lesbian in an interracial relationship who lives in Switzerland. Not enough. Not enough. Oh, yes. She's such a far right. Nationalist. Yeah, that's
Simone Collins: far right. It's classic far right stuff.
Malcolm Collins: Classic class. Elon Musk, obsessed with global warming, found multiple companies to deal with it.
Lifelong Democrat. Classic. Far right. Nazi.
Simone Collins: Those really, really used to work. This is bad. That's, that's, that's really scary though. I,
Malcolm Collins: But if you, if we can disrupt this, if we can and people are freaking out. What do you think about the Trump third term talk?
Simone Collins: It's fine.
Malcolm Collins: It's fine. Yeah. But he's gonna be so old then, you know, I, I don't even know. I, I, I prefer a JD Vance. But we'll see. I mean, look, if what we would have is we'd have, the, the only [00:36:00] reason I would prefer Trump run the next cycle is it's gonna be pretty hard to win the next cycle if Trump wins, RU runs.
Or if a Republican runs more broadly. I mean, I think we're just in an environment where it's gonna be hard to win. And so, if he wins, then that puts a loss on him rather than JD Vance and allows JD Vans to run in a cycle where he is likely to win. Mm-hmm. And I think if you're, if you've looked at like the tech, right, being efficient at getting stuff done, imagine when the tech rite is run by the tech, right?
Simone Collins: Pretty dreamy. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Pretty dreamy. Yeah, no, I think JD Vance, like I, I am, I'm so looking forward to president JD Vance. I like President Trump. I like Maga, I love President JD Vance. Sad. We can't have a President, Elon, 'cause he's born in Africa, but maybe that law gets changed like in what, what movie is that?
Dis destruction, demolition Man. When he changes to Arnold Schwarzenegger can become president. That that did predict Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming a politician though Governor of California, [00:37:00] nobody, everybody was, was, I think that's why they voted on him to be like, we gotta make that prediction in that movie come true.
But that movie, by the way, demolition Man, if you haven't seen it, you should. It's actually a really solid movie. And it's a movie about at the time what they called PC culture. What today we would call woke culture Taking over the world. And what that world run by ultra woke culture would look like, where you're not allowed to say things or think things or do things, and it's all run by a few oligarchs.
Then everything has to be ultra pc. You can't, you can't even curse in public. And I think that. Yeah, dude, don't you know what the three clamshells do? This guy hasn't seen this three clamshell. It's got great memes. That could never be made by Hollywood today. Oh no, the counterculture can't win.
Simone Collins: Probably not. Yeah,
You see, we have become a society of peace, loving and and understanding, You'll give you a marrow. Uh, smoking is not good for you and has been deemed that anything not good for you is bad.
Hence, illegal alcohol, caffeine contact sports meat. Are [00:38:00] you me? John Spart, you are fined one pretty for a violation of the verbal morality statute. What the hell is that? John, you are fined. Wonder, bad language. Chocolate, gasoline, uneducational toys in anything spicy. Abortion is also illegal, but then again, so is pregnancy.
If you don't have a license,
Malcolm Collins: well, our AI video game, it's gonna go hard into the stuff you're not allowed to talk about or do in entertainment, and it's gonna be good.
Simone Collins: I'm, so you look at our school
Malcolm Collins: recently. Have you seen the, the Collins Institute recently? Simone, like, it's so good now.
Simone Collins: I played with it today. It blew my mind.
I was so excited. It's like
Malcolm Collins: a Socratic AI tutor. Oh, it's amazing. It taught me
Simone Collins: more about cephalopods, which was exciting. Do you know the three types of cephalopods?
Malcolm Collins: Okay. I'm gonna say the three major groups. Quis, cuttlefish, and octopus. But I, not a list would need to be one of them. Okay. Octopus and squids are in the same category.
So octopus squids one category then cuttlefish, then Nautilus.
Simone Collins: No, it just, it just didn't give me Cuttlefishes separate. [00:39:00] It had octopus and squid and Nautilus. So maybe cuttlefish are categorized as like, what's the third then? Edia, Nautilus, squid octopi. But they have faint, oh, Latin setting. The
Malcolm Collins: cuttlefish is in the octopus category or in the squid category.
Maybe
Simone Collins: I wouldn't, I might put it in the Nautilus category based on how they look. I don't know. But I mean, maybe there are more categories than the three major ones are those I. But yeah, I'm learning, I'm learning about 'em. Cephalopod we'll
Malcolm Collins: see. I love you to death. It's a fun website to play around on to learn on if you want.
It no longer locks you into specific tracks. It's really focused around the AI tutor now. It's, it's quite impressive. I think more people search any
Simone Collins: subject you wanna learn about and have an AI tutor talk you through it or have a Socratic tutor or engage you over it. It's so cool.
Malcolm Collins: It's all free too. So you know, again, we put our money where our mouth is.
We pay for this stuff so that you guys can become more educated for free. Love you the
Simone Collins: testimon. I love you too, Malcolm. And
Malcolm Collins: [00:40:00] tonight we're doing red curry, red tiger curry,
Simone Collins: red tide, curry. I'm just about to go down and put in the bell peppers as a final bit 'cause you don't wanna overcook those. You want them to be a little crunchy.
Right. And. I guess you're gonna have it with lime rice or do you want it with non or something else?
Malcolm Collins: No. Hash brown.
Simone Collins: Okay. Hash browns take like 45 minutes.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, they take longer. Okay. Ignore the hash brown lime rice. I.
Simone Collins: Okay, well if I, if I can get her no
Malcolm Collins: lime rice, I want it with lime rice today. You've made the new curry batch.
And so that's like a big amount of work. And we're doing, you know, you're gonna be doing the family call. Gotta catch up with family. Let them know that we've been in the New York Times on the BBC in Mother Jones, in wired, in the major Italian outlets having a another documentary team come to our house.
Come on, we're hitting it outta the
Simone Collins: park. Two, two more. Two more documentary teams.
Malcolm Collins: We got it. Oh, we gotta keep it. Wait, what's the other one? We got the Italian one and then yeah, Gregorio and
Simone Collins: then story syndicate.
Malcolm Collins: Wait, when are they coming?
Simone Collins: [00:41:00] Story syndicate . Gregorio, is this Friday and Saturday?
Malcolm Collins: Well, is quite a ways away. Anyway, love you de Esteban.
Simone Collins: I love you too. Gorgeous.
What? Oh, wow. What the heck is going on here? What have you been doing in your bed? I was, I I was, shall I help opening this? Yeah, you gotta open the bow. So let's open the bow first. Right. So we gotta like, pull the, I just got some, I just, I just, you were just collecting cars. Yeah, I was. And you were just collecting rocks too.
Yeah. Well, what's that? It's bag. Oh a bag. Nothing's inside.
But look, what's this? I need open this, but how? Tell my help. Sorry, [00:42:00] I got this. It's so stuck. So I do there. It should be easier now.
What is the box? But let's open it. I may help open this box. Oh, okay. What's on the box? You see on the box? What's the picture? Whoa. What is this? What a Susan. Well, first Isa. Wow. Wow. Okay. Let's see what the rest of this is. Another hat. No, it's not a hat. It's a pocket vest. Oh. It's got so many pockets for rocks and cars. What do you wanna put it on? Yeah. Wow. You're gonna be putting things in your pockets all night long. Yeah, because this, because this [00:43:00] got so many pockets.
Wow.

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Dating For Marriage: Why Red Pill Strategies Backfire
23 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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 mistake comes downstream of the red pill movement. And you and I would actually consider ourselves like red pillars to an extent.
The red pill is fundamentally correct where it taught guys that, hey, women say they want X, but they really want Y. But there was a sub caveat to everything the red pill taught men and everything the pickup artist taught men Which was, this is how you win on the sexual marketplace. And as we've always pointed out, there are two key marketplaces.
There is the sexual marketplace, and there is the marriage slash long [00:05:00] term relationship marketplace. And on the sexual marketplace, women have an enormous advantage. And, you know, these same guys will laugh at women who think they can get the same type of guy to marry them as they can get to sleep with them on a one night stand, but not apply just as for that woman, different rules apply between these two marketplaces, different things are arousing, different things are desirable.
The same thing is true for men. And so they apply. Tools and techniques that have been optimized to secure a woman who will sleep with you as quickly as possible. Like, as attractive as a woman as possible, sleeping with you as quickly as possible. Well, what's one of the things that those techniques are going to filter out if they are working as intended?
They are going to filter out chaste women very early. You would want them to filter out chaste women. But I'm going to a bar and I am looking to come home and sleep with someone that night. A pickup line that causes [00:06:00] a woman like Simone, who before me had never slept with someone to like and walk away is actually a good line.
It increases the probability that you end up going home with someone. But the problem is, is it also means that intrinsically the women who you are bringing home are gonna be well, both one less chaste and two less interesting. And so you could say, okay, so why is it that so many of this chaste cast of women is thinking like Simone is in terms of their arousal pattern?
Like, why are they looking for a man who has a mission? And I think that there is. A line in Rick and Morty that is said derogatorily, but it's actually, I think, the aspiration for a lot of women. Which is, he says, hey,
I mean, it's not like he's a hot girl. He can't just bail on his life and set up shop in someone else's.
Simone Collins: But that, I think, is the reality of an aspiration among many women.
Is they want to set themselves up in a [00:07:00] life that looks like it's going to matter and be respected. Or at least be something that they can take personal pride in being a part of. I think it also might correlate with long term signs of career stability. So it, this is the behavior that you would expect from someone who is not a free radical, from someone who is likely to have a steady income and security in their life.
And I think, Women looking for long term partners are subconsciously looking for someone who is also dependable and consistent and a safe person to address it. I disagree actually. So here, listen to this and then you'll be like, Oh yeah, you're right. Okay. Okay. Of the women I know who have chosen partners based on this factor, which a lot of high quality women have.
The most common relationship structure is the sword and shield structure that we have discussed multiple [00:08:00] times. Sword and shield structure relationships mean the woman chooses, or not the woman, one of the partners, chooses to be the shield. That means they are a secure source of income. And then the sword goes out and does the high risk, high reward things that can move the family.
It's the passion. It's the consistent passion and transparency that indicates that they will be a sword at all. I think absolutely. Women are more likely to be the shield. I think you're totally wrong in thinking that. Women aren't looking for a consistent driving passion to be able to trust that their men will be a sword.
I cannot tell you how many women i've encountered who have met and ended up with men and then ultimately left them or just been Dragged by down by them for life because those men end up just being louts at home and not doing anything Like that is a really common issue You're saying but the way that you had framed this to begin with is they look for this trait of In men, because it leads to economic stability and careers.
But you have to understand a man who is [00:09:00] passionate, who knows what he's all about and who really is like. big on a thing isn't a guy who like gets a salary job and does his nine to five. Right, because this is literally antithetical to economic stability. No, I don't, I don't mean economic stability. I mean, like you can depend on them to be driving the family forward.
Towards the goal. Yes, but I think that's the way you said what you said could easily be misinterpreted by a guy to be girls want a guy was a successful, like, say, bureaucratic career. And I'm sure some do some do, but I would say that if you're looking for like really high quality women, often that is not what they want and they actually want to be support for the guy, but when they want to be support for a guy, they want the guy doing something big and interesting enough to be worth dedicating your life to a supporting role in that.
Because you're investing, you're [00:10:00] essentially investing in a startup. So you're not going to invest in a startup. Stupid sounding startup. You want to invest in something good. Yeah. And I also know we've had sword and shield relationships for people who are like, well, I prefer traditional relationship.
Well, this was traditional for Vikings. Women stayed, they managed the family finances. They managed the farm and the guy would go in Spartans too. Yeah, no, this is actually probably more of a common relationship in, in human history. Then anything close to a nuclear family has been where the guy goes out and earns all the money and the woman stays at home and does nothing.
That's, that's incredibly rare. That's really kind of descended from aristocratic relationships. The women, yeah, the women never really did anything if they were high achieving, even aristocratic women. Did a lot like they did the household management if you were an aristocratic woman, that means that your husband ran ran You know an estate this this was the equivalent of running a city like being a mayor of a city Yeah, you were there were there were tenants who were farming you had a village you had the entire household You were [00:11:00] entertaining important guests.
You were basically running an events management company and a small town This is where you got the, the poverty and I'd call it like the, the emotional poverty of the nuclear family, which as we pointed out before really only started in like the 1910s and only lasted until the 19 let's say seventies, where you had men who supported a wife at home.
And that was because the middle class in America. Tried to model their family structure off of the family structure of aristocrats of before 1910. So, you know, they saw the woman staying at home, the man going out. And but by the way, before this period, what you had was corporate families, the man and the woman would work together to run something.
But anyway they, they, Saw this happening and they tried to model it but without understanding That the women who lived this type of lifestyle were actually doing a ton of stuff But because they didn't have courts because they didn't have you know parties Every other month at [00:12:00] their house that like hundreds of people would come to because they didn't have a staff The woman was just sitting at home all day And this is why you got all these housewives addicted to like cocaine and like other stuff What were all the drugs that they were on?
I can't remember Mommy's little helper. Yeah. A major problem for housewives because you can't just like sit at home and do nothing all day. I mean in the like 30s to 50s it was in fed means and then after that it was like, I would say 60s to 90s it was benzos. So it kind of depends on your time. Yeah, but I'd also note here around like, let's say arousal patterns because like you actually, you didn't just like logically decide to go for me.
Yeah. You developed a crush on me when you saw my passion and how much I had thought through things. Like, explain how that works, because I think that's going to be interesting for people. Yeah the, the biggest thing that felt so shocking, going on a date with Malcolm after going on a date with me, A bunch of [00:13:00] other guys in the Bay Area when I was on my campaign and that is to say when I turned 24 I decided there's a new year's resolution that year I was going to fall in love and have my heart broken and then live alone forever So I was like systematically going through okay Cupid going like dating through the bay area the san francisco bay area to try to find someone I could fall in love with The guys before, you know, we, we had some of the conversations were interesting.
Some of the dates were really interesting and surprising but they never really, no one stood out because no one, no, everyone was aimless. No one knew what they, Really valued what they cared about. There were certainly things they were interested in. They were building this or that are working on us with their career, or they really were interested in four year transforms or like building obstacle courses or all sorts of interesting things.
Like they were interesting people. And I, I also, I think it's misleading for me to be like, none of them had passions, but none of them had passions that [00:14:00] came from any sort of ideological or like deep set values. It was, it was hobbies. And I think Interesting hobbies that augmented their self perception as interesting people.
Yeah, and you know, I don't know if this is true. I was listening to a podcast earlier this month about hobbies being something that were concertedly developed even through the school system under the understanding that as technology advanced, society would end up with a ton of free time, and needed to direct that free time in a virtuous direction.
Like with sports or woodwork or fishing or whatever, so that, you know, they didn't like loiter on the streets and just start breaking things for fun because they had the time because they didn't have to work all the time anymore. And I really, whether that's true or not, and it's probably at least a little bit true.
The concept of hobbies really is kind of this opiate of the masses thing. It's like, yeah, I really highlight on something. They were in terms of women's arousal patterns. [00:15:00] Right. Which is hobbies are what you do to masturbate specific emotional pathways as a male, what you do when you don't have.
Purpose in life. Because if you have a, if you know what you're doing with your life, no, no, no, hear me out here. Like if you really know what you're all about, you may do something to wind down a little bit that you could call a hobby, but you really don't have like. A big all encompassing hobby because you have a bigger thing to work toward and you're going to take your free time to do That to advance on that, you know, I I agree a hundred percent but but like for me, for example I do like recreational activities that I understand to be purely recreational like video games For yeah, but you only do them when you like actually need to rest because you literally can't think anymore You've been right, but I, yeah, I understand that they are no different from masturbation.
That is what I am doing when I am playing a video game. I am masturbating parts of my head. And I think that some men hear women to say something like a guy [00:16:00] who's a gamer gives me the ick and they're like, Oh my gosh, like, because you see this like guys, right? They're like, Oh, women like just discount any guy who's a gamer.
And like, you misunderstand what's being said here, right? It's guys whose primary thing in life is gaming is what is giving the ick. It is guys whose gaming is more important to them than their purpose. That is going to give any high quality woman the ick. Any sort of hobby, where hobby is defined as something that doesn't follow some sort of like deep seated value for, Like I could say improving the world or whatever it is that you want to do, right?
Even if it's well a fairly high status one like I Put together like a zombie run in san francisco every year or something like that, right? Like and it's it's big and it's all on all the newspapers and it's like that's a big thing But it's a thing devoid of purpose It's a high status thing and it adds a quirk to your character, but it's a thing devoid of [00:17:00] purpose or I do these really cool like Burning Man art displays and come check out this giant like truck a saurus I made and it's like that's cool, but yeah, a lot of people like that and it was fun exploring these things with them, but I never came away from our dates thinking.
Like I want to be associated with this person. Like this is someone I could spend my life with. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so I, I think that
one thing you said to me when you were talking about this is you're like, they have to have an objective function. And if you don't have one of those yet, the pragmatist guide to life, our first book, it's 99 cents on Amazon. Like just get it and read it. An objective function is a term that we use to describe Thing or collection of things like, you know, weighted weighted things that you think have inherent value and that you want to maximize with your life.
They're not life goals because that implies that this thing of inherent value can be achieved. Whereas pretty much [00:18:00] all objective functions whether it be, you know, reducing suffering in mankind or maximizing the amount that you can learn or you know, protecting human flourishing and intelligence all of these things are, are not discreet goals.
So do you have any more thoughts on this particular topic before we go to the next one? The other thing that really was And that stood out, which I think is also super important. And this is an issue with both men and women is how transparent and honest you were on our first date. You sit across from me and you say I'm not looking to date.
I'm looking to find a wife and I expect to find her this fall at Stanford where there's a large pool of pre wedded candidates. Immediately. I knew that you were looking to get married that you Had specific criteria for a wife that you didn't think that I fit that criteria, but you were still willing to talk to me.
And then you proceeded to give me, like you laid out your, your objective function, what you believed mattered and how you were going to achieve it with your life. And that to me was [00:19:00] so refreshing because I know that everyone I went on a date with wanted something, but the vast majority, like, well, none of them until you.
Actually told me that, you know, it was just always talking about other things. It was never, just never out there. And I think that both men and women, I think they think because they're often tropes of being transparent as, as being seen as being desperate or needy, you know, like a woman being like, I'm looking to get married on a first date.
And not playing hard to get, for example being seen as bad, but honestly, it just, There, there are bad ways to deliver it, but if you deliver it right, and if you're based and honest about it, when you really reveal your agenda, you are saving time. If someone doesn't want to get married and you want to get married and you're on a date with them, it is so good for all of you.
If you just, Make it clear that you're not a good match. The sooner you get to know on that front, the better. And it's similar with, you [00:20:00] know, pickup artistry. If someone isn't interested in having sex that night and you want sex that night, you need to move on. And this is really clear in all the strategy forums.
Like you, you cannot afford to spend your entire night working on a girl who clearly isn't going to go home with you. So Yeah, I just, that transparency was huge, and I loved that. It was very sexy. And that's the problem with the pickup artist community in terms of finding wives. It's that woman who is literally the worst woman for a pickup artist.
Oh, yeah. The best woman for a guy who wants to get married. Yeah. And so it led to really bad techniques being developed. And, and here I'd note the final thing, the huge mistake that guys make is a big thing in pickup artistry is looking dominant and fitting this aesthetic of masculinity. And a lot of men online will shame other men for not fitting this aesthetic of masculinity.
They'll be like, Oh, you know, you're not being masculine or buff in this way. Or, Oh, you're not being masculine or buff in this [00:21:00] way. That is a form of masturbation. No different from video games in the eyes of high quality women. Of these quote unquote, like masculine buff type guys. I don't know a single one of them who has landed a high quality wife.
Like it just never happens. And they'll go online and they'll s**t on other guys for like acting Faye or like, Oh, I bet he's gay or like whatever, you know, because that's how they built sort of their internal structure. Well, that's this obsession with. Appearance reeks of insecurity and women can sniff that out like shark sniff blood.
Right on. I am gonna hit a homer today. Hey, who's that handsome guy? Hello? 9 1 1. Emergency. There's a handsome guy in my house. Oh, wait a second. Cancel that. It's only me. Oh, you drive me away,
Simone Collins: And that's another reason why your honesty was so hot and why anyone's honesty is hot is that. Honesty reeks of [00:22:00] confidence, which is the sexiest thing you could possibly have. It's so much more important than looks. Yes and and so i'd really if guys see themselves as very masculine very manlike and that's a very important part of their identity I will say and I I I know that this requires like serious soul searching in terms of like Whether it's reading the pragmatist guide to life or rethinking other things about your life.
If, if you are struggling to find high quality partners, that's likely why. Guys like this do not get high quality partners almost ever. And you can be like, well, what about Andrew Tate? And I was like, well, do you think his partners are that high quality? Like, these are like bimbos. Like, what, what are you talking about?
Would you actually be happy? Like having an intellectual discussion with them and you're like, well, you don't need to have an intellectual discussion with your wife. And it's like, you better hope you plan to have an intellectual discussion with your kids because if you marry a woman who's a bimbo and an idiot, then your kids are going to be bimbos and idiots.
Weak wives make weak sons. Okay. So that's not a good [00:23:00] strategy and it just doesn't work. It just doesn't work. You can only get so many Andrew Tate's, you know what I mean? So to the next thing, hypergamy. All right. So fundamentally what causes hypergamy? It is When a woman chooses a man and there's this fear among a lot of men that like if you had my wife had a guy who had significantly more money than me, who was interested in you and at an equal level of attraction or whatever, and you've had guys who I think have had hundreds of millions of dollars interested in you or express interest, you might be too autistic to notice.
I genuinely wouldn't tell you. Is this the only reason I haven't left you, Malcolm? Yeah, yeah, you gotta give him a piece of advice if you don't notice. But what people note here, and one guy was like, yeah, well, okay. He said this and I think that he sort of began to understand how you prevent hypergamy when he was going through his, oh, yes, but he's like, look, when a woman finds a guy who has, let's say, 5 more than her husband [00:24:00] and that guy will take her, she'll leave him for them.
And then the guy was like, well, yeah, but then you've got to like price in things like starting the relationship over again, the risk of the new relationship, blah, blah, blah. He's like, okay, okay, okay. Once you price all that in, if they have, you know, marginally more money they will take that. And here you might be expecting me to say, no, they won't take that.
And I'd actually say, actually, yeah, most women will take that. But that is because. Many men have not priced into their relationships, the cost of leaving them i. e. the structure of their relationships into the cost of leaving them. So, for example, you could and, and this often happens with guys and girls, and you were talking about this, like a guy moves up in the world.
And with that brings a woman up in the world. Maybe he becomes a congressman or something. Right. And then she ends up meeting some business tycoon at some fancy party. And now, you know, she's no longer a waitress. She's the wife of a and then [00:25:00] I was at an event recently, a heritage foundation event, and there was a lawyer there who's talking about how divorce can even become trendy in some communities and positively start augmenting people's social status.
Like, well, if you don't have an X, then you're not really, I mean, you're sort of scoogy, you know what I mean? So when you have all of that, you can have people want to leave their partner with only minimal cost to them, right? It's like, well, you know, I'm staying at home. And this is why stay at home.
Wives are so likely to leave their husbands because husband's are like, what? I did everything. I supported them. And it's like, no, you created a lot of life. Where they could just trade you out for anyone else who was supporting them with an equal amount of money. That is what you created. And worse, they have a psychological belief in their head.
If they don't have a, a new partner lined up, which sometimes they don't that they can secure the same type of partner that they were dating when they first met you. Now this belief is wrong, but it can still lead them to leaving you and making really, [00:26:00] really dumb decisions that hurt you both or.
You know, their friends will be like, Hey, you can get all that money, you know as they say, you know, in a divorce, his lawyer was telling me that's, it usually goes half the money goes to the wife, a quarter goes to the lawyers and a quarter goes to the husband. Oh gosh. And this woman can get a stipend.
She doesn't need to listen to you anymore. You know, she's on pay for the next, this is a pretty good, like, okay. So then you're like, if you didn't have some kind of emotional investment in the relationship, like an ideological or emotional investment. You'd be kind of dumb to not go for it. It would be It would be stupid to not so then a person can say, wait, you're, you're making it seem very likely that a woman would leave you.
Right? It's like, no, if you do this trad thing, it's likely that a woman like the Laura Thurston thing, right? You know, she tried the whole trad thing and then they broke up and Or that Steven Crowder thing. He was trying the whole trad thing and they broke up. But and you know, who knows if she, you know, [00:27:00] overly exaggerated in the claims against him and stuff like that.
I've heard that she might have, but you know, there's the footage, so whatever. The point being, I'm sure if you could get footage of the worst I'd ever been to Simone, I mean, it wouldn't be like that, but I would look bad. I'd be like, We all look bad when we're being dicks too. Each other. I mean, what do you want to say?
The point here is if you left me both of us would have nothing the cost to leaving me to you and me Is so catastrophic that No matter how much money a guy had, it wouldn't be worth it because we have built a traditional corporate relationship, which means that my public identity in your public identity and our public identities being our, so for example they're like, wait, you guys work in private equity.
Yeah, but we worked in private equity together. We were co CEOs of our companies. We co raised money for our [00:28:00] funds. They're like, well, you guys are well known public figures together. We have a joint Wikipedia page. I don't know anyone else with a joint Wikipedia page. How do you get divorced? If you have a joint Wikipedia page we've written all our books together.
We do our podcast together. I want your thoughts on this.
The marriages I've seen fell apart and some of them even include marriages that I just thought were. The dream marriages of, you know, the parents of my friends who I thought were just perfect together, they, they resulted from a lack of ideological alignment of the relationship being of two people living their own lives, rather than a team fighting toward a shared goal.
When you marry someone because you want a partner, someone, a friend, someone to keep you company, someone to raise your kids, someone to clean your house, someone to make money for you. So you can keep a house that, that it often isn't [00:29:00] ideologically aligned. It's not the incentives aren't aligned and you can drift apart from that person really, really easily.
That's why I, it's, it's not for me. I actually think it would be fairly easy for us to part ways logistically speaking. And at least for me, to have a career, I think being a white man and trying to get a career is really scary these days, but like, if I had, you know, no attachment to you and you suddenly became terrible to me, It would not be a problem for me to leave you, period.
Like, it's just that easy. And I think everyone, like, this is why men are afraid to get married. The reason I This is a really good point. So, so I, yeah, I could have been wrong in what keeps you with me which is You are wrong. I am wrong. So it's that what really puts a marriage at risk, and this is a problem for a lot of trad individuals, is they marry somebody who has chosen to marry you, not because of you, but because you allow them to fulfill a role, i.
e. they really wanted to be a mom, they [00:30:00] really wanted to be a stay at home wife, they really wanted to be a, and you Functionalize that role. And this is a huge problem. Like if you're like a trad Mormon or a trad Cath or like a trad, you know you will find a lot of women like that who aren't marrying you for a shared mission but are marrying you so they can perform a role.
And that means that you are interchangeable for anyone who makes that role incrementally easier. Or not even interchangeable. You will become irrelevant. if their desired role changes or if you fail to, to maintain that role yourself. Well, I mean, I think the really scary thing for guys is they can maintain the role, but somebody else can maintain it better.
That's true. Yeah. That's, that's the third way this can go wrong. No, the, the, I would not leave you because not, I mean, not only do I, like, am I over the moon for you and I love you and also you just get hotter every day. And I don't know why there's just so many things that [00:31:00] I absolutely adore about you.
It's because there, I cannot fathom a, a more effective way. To achieve my objective function then by working in tandem with you that I will be significantly worse off at maximizing my values. If I'm working without you, and I think there's something similar for you, you know, without me, your impact in life would be so much less.
And for that reason, we are a very strong team. We are more impactful together. And there's a very strong disincentive for us to not work together because working alone, we achieve. 20 percent of what we achieve working together. And that's the big thing. Well, I mean, but that's the cost thing. Like you say, it's not a cost to leaving me, but a cost to leaving me is that you are less efficient at achieving your goal and you would price that in most couples.
I'm in, I'm [00:32:00] talking about a scenario in which that wasn't the case. Like we weren't ideologically aligned. In which case logistically, like from a perspective of me having an easy life and having the income I need to, you know, meet my needs. Like there's no problem there. And that's how most people are thinking that the vast majority of couples, as you know, I mean, have you talked to a person recently, like, you know, we, we do this all the time, are not ideologically aligned.
They're, they often are, you know, smart, wonderful people who love each other very much. And are nice and like get along well. And people typically think, Oh, there goes a really nice couple, but if they are not ideologically aligned and essential to the other person to help them achieve their life's purpose, the relationship is on thin ice.
Right. Well, and that's something that is a result of the first thing that we talked about. And it's why it's good to have these two conversations together, which you chose me because I had a [00:33:00] purpose in life that you could understand and logically agree with. Yeah. More importantly, you had a purpose in life and it 100 percent aligned with what I valued.
My, like I wrote in my diary after I met you after our first date about how mad I was that I wasn't you. Because you got it as far as I was concerned and you were doing such a better job than I was. Like you, you had thought through things so much better than I had. You knew what you were doing. You were on your way.
And I was just so pissed that I wasn't you. And I think that's, that's another really good sign. It's like, Oh, like this is a, this is a force multiplier of me. Like I want to be them is a much better. Instinct to have with a potential life partner than I want to be with them where I want to, I want to have sex with them.
I want to be them is like. That's, that's who you want to marry. That's someone you admire. That's someone who can help you achieve your goals in life. Like that is, that is something beautiful. And I still exist. You're still here. The truth is, and this is [00:34:00] what makes dating so hard is you really do need to, you cannot, and I think so many guys try this as they try to.
Accommodate women who are in the urban monoculture rather than shock women in the urban monoculture, out of the urban monoculture to try for something more and bigger. And this accommodating approach to dating, I think leads to really negative outcomes as negative as the trad outcomes. Because you're like, okay, we're going to like compromise our beliefs about the world.
So we can kind of work together because both of us want to be married and like have a kid or something. Right. Which is very different. You need. Personal belief system that you have so much conviction in that it sort of shocks him out of this poorly thought through urban monoculture framework, which is the reason why when people are like, Oh, I want to date, which of your books do I read in the pragmatist guide to relationships with the pragmatist guide to sexuality?
I'm like, it's the pragmatist guide to life. That's the one to be good at dating. Yes. Anyway, I really hope that this helps somebody and that you don't make these mistakes because it is [00:35:00] so easy to do. Yeah. Which is funny because I think. For the vast majority of human history, people have been getting together for the reasons we describe, you know, it's like, hey, we want we're fighting for the same thing.
This is a sensible partnership. We, we shall marry, so I will, but yeah, I love you broadly both why it's not just the progressive marriages that are struggling. It's. Also, the conservative and tribe marriages and a lot of people and it's so heartbreaking to me. They're like, but I was earning good money and I was supporting my wife and kids.
Why would she leave me? And it's like, well, because she can, she can leave you and she can get a stipend for the rest of her life and she can do whatever she wants and she doesn't need making meals anymore. And she can screw the pool boy. Like why wouldn't she leave you? You did. nothing to integrate her into your mission for life.
And there are ways a stay at home wife can be integrated into a man's mission for life. But it's hard and it's risky and it's [00:36:00] nuanced. You are threading the needle. You can't just serve a role. If you just serve a role, you've done the single most risky thing you can in terms of the structuring of the marriage.
Anyway, am I going to look really stupid when you leave me in a year for hot rich guy who's into you? You are hot like I just I can't You, you know, that like, if you were to die, for example, and you're not allowed to do that, by the way, there would be no replacement. There would be, there should be your life would be harder without one.
No, there's just, there's no replacing you. And I, I would not, I'm, I'm saying you should find another husband if I die. Well, I'm not going to, cause I think like all, all humans disgust me. And for some reason, yeah. You you're my human. So deal with it. Well, what about our kids? Don't they need a dad?
They'll just watch your podcasts, and I'll, you know, beat them up more. You'll, you'll synthesize one through an AI? Yeah, I'll just make an AI Malcolm. [00:37:00] It's fine. So, yeah, that's that's how I feel about you. There is no replacing you. I know you're going to replace me right away. I'd replace you right away.
I know, I know. Yeah, who's, who's the, who's the hypergamous one now? Who's the one who's, who's not faithful now? Huh? Huh? Wait, would you not want me to replace you? No, I would, I, yeah, I really want our kids to have someone who You're like, look, I can do both of the jobs. You don't clean. You don't do laundry.
You cannot do both of the jobs. I admit that. Yeah, the house would be in shambles. I, I, no, I would be turning in my grave. Which, no, please cremate me and turn it into diamonds so our children can wear their mother and be creepy about it. I'm really excited for that. Alright, love you Simone. I love you too so, and Hey, thank you for efficient use of time there, by the way. The way, I'm gonna handle the chickens after this, before I pick up the kids because I was just, Oh, and your Christmas present to me has finally [00:38:00] arrived of what is it? You'll find out, won't you? I'm so excited. She buys presents from me to her because I'm not, you know, the best.
I buy the presents for everyone in the family, but Malcolm still, with his discretionary income, pays for them, because he pays the exact same amount that I pay. For him and the same goes for our kids. So, so no one in the family receives more in monetary value and gifts than anyone. Is it just your weird neuroses?
I believe in equitable spending across the family. Thank you very much. So. There it goes. All right. I'm excited to be here. Sorry. Stop doing that. This is why, you know, this is why Octavian had that irritated lip issue. He kept licking his lips. You need to stop. But this is where he got it from. Malcolm. I get it.
It's too dry. You know what? I'm going to put the same. Bitter like skin thing on your lips that we had to [00:39:00] put on his. If you keep this up, put it on you when you're asleep, you won't, you won't have an escape because you are a deep sleeper. So watch out. Okay. I see you doing this again. Oh, Oh yeah. We got a terrifying life here.
You see, it's not all, what are the guns and roses? It's not all guns and roses.
Is that a traditionalist American thing? It's sunshine and rainbow. Oh, okay. Why would somebody want rainbows and sunshine? No, guns and roses. What would I do without you, Malcolm? Thank you for existing. Yeah, yeah.
We mentioned that, , because, you know, so many people were at Na, Alcon looking for a potential husband or wife that we'd start doing ads for women who are looking for a husband, , and happen to be watching. The reason we do it for women and not men is because most of our audience is men. So [00:40:00] most of the people who are going to be hearing this are going to be men.
, and many of them will be single and potentially interested in marrying someone. So, , if this person sounds interesting to you. , and you live in their area, you can email us and we'll pass it on. A creative young woman, 25, living in NYC and capable of managing money, conversing, dancing, and altogether making a calm, happy home.
Wishes to obtain an introduction to a sober, hardworking gentleman, not greatly, her senior who delights in having children underfoot and is eager to build a lighthouse on the sands of time? Must be a practicing Jew object matrimonial alliance.

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Are Cucks More Based than Kink Shamers?
22 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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't
Simone 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. That
Simone 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 were
Mostly just turned on by the opposite sex.
Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.
What's the catch? The catch? The catch is
just because you're aroused by something doesn't mean you have to indulge in it
And That doesn't mean it's okay to talk about this stuff in public. You keep that to yourself
or.
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 arouses you without communicating it to other people. 100%.
Simone Collins: And without acting on it.
Malcolm Collins: And without acting on it. But there, there's, there's multiple categories here. Like if it's deleterious to other people, I can see, do not act on it, right?
Mm-hmm. If it is like there's, you know, if, if it's like, you know, just your masturbating to it or something like that, I think that's a [00:05:00] very different category than going out and doing it in public. Like say if you're gay, right? Well, that might be a too offensive one to choose. What's a less offensive one to choose?
Because I was gonna say like, it's, it's harder to get married and have lots of kids if you don't have a lot of money if you're gay. So it's better to just if you, if you're not like a successful tech bro, just. Not act on it if your end outcome is having a lot of kids. But that doesn't mean that like there's necessarily this huge moral negative to like masturbating to it or something.
And by the way, this does reduce the incident of like people like, oh, like masturbating to something makes you want it more. And it's like, no, like the actual studies are very categorical on this.
Simone Collins: You know, ALIST, latest substack as of the time of this recording is her earnest argument. In, in following up on her most controversial tweet saying that if we had more ai, PDA file porn, fewer children would be harmed.
So she's making the same argument. [00:06:00] Well, I,
Malcolm Collins: that is what got me thinking about this, but I wasn't Oh, really? To include that as part of the argument. Because I'm just pointing what you're saying. No, I'm saying that gets too spicy. I'm just talking generally kink shaming on the right, but, but you know, if you look at like porn more generally Yeah.
Like the idea that, oh, porn makes you do bad things. Mm-hmm. In countries where porn was illegal and then it was made legal, the amount of child, essay decreased by 50%. This is the check. Yeah. This,
Simone Collins: it is. Clearly if you care about children, you are not going to ban porn.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. But, but it's like, okay, when people don't have access, and they, and it was repeated in other countries where they did this, it's just like a really persistent thing mm-hmm.
In the United States as access to the internet increases, which is basically access to porn. Rates of sexual assault also go down. Like, this is a very clear correlation. You are arguing for a aesthetic and not real, like an individual who says, I am against Child sa. And I am against pornography is [00:07:00] similar to a environmentalist who is like, I am against global warming and I am against nuclear power plants.
It's like those two things might be aesthetically aligned, but if you logically actually cared about the first thing, you wouldn't be pro the second thing. Mm-hmm. Because again, the, the people who are engaging in certain, but what I, what I wanted to get to here was this idea of, of this guy. What he did, his downfall.
Other conservatives, because there's other conservatives. The guy who ran the Proud Boys, apparently he did a thing that apparently a lot of people have criticized him for. Being like, oh, you know, anal stimulation in males is something that you can try without being like less masculine. Right. Okay. And apparently, I mean, just the
Simone Collins: sheer number of dudes who show up in ERs with I slipped in the shower and something random up their butt shows that this is actually way more common than people wanna let on.
Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah, but I mean also like biologically, like if you're just looking at like the, the, the stimulation points of males, like the interior prostate is [00:08:00] one of the stimulation points Yeah. That a person could be using if we're
Simone Collins: talking just pure logistics. Yeah. If you're looking for more ways to feel things.
Yeah. If you're looking
Malcolm Collins: for pure logistics of how to maximize your turn on. Yeah. And, and the. Funniest thing about Simone and I is, I think one of the reasons we engage in sexuality topics so much is we find it so intellectually perplexing. Like I think if I actually had like a bunch of skeletons in my closet or something, I wouldn't be doing this because I'd be so afraid.
But like actually we're more like, yeah, humans, like sex is gross. Like this, this whole thing is gross and, and you can intellectualize it or engage with it, but some people, well, it's like
Simone Collins: watching. You know, pigeons court each other and being kind of disgusted and asking why do they do that?
That is, yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But, but I also, you know, feel like Jack Murphy, for example, he didn't choose to have this like he was dealing with an No no. An entire category [00:09:00] of temptation that I have never had to deal with. Yeah. And that's rough. It's building up an influencer career is. Hard work. Okay. It is a lot of work and a lot of risk.
Yeah. And to have done that and then have that destroyed no, no. He did other things when he was caught with this. You know, we'll get, we'll get into all that. It made me be like. Should we normalize this in, in the new Right. Not the old right? The old right. Can do whatever the hell they want. Like the religious, funny duddies.
Okay. They're always gonna
Simone Collins: be sex negative. I don't that only sex, marriage,
Malcolm Collins: whatever, right? But we're not that, you know? Yeah. So what do, what do, what do we think about this? Let's go into this. So, this is, I'm gonna be combining some various articles and some various AI asks and stuff like that. Okay.
In like a narrative sense where I felt like it was interesting information.
Simone Collins: All right. He
Malcolm Collins: incurred the wrs of the online right when he rudely responded to podcaster Sidney Watson, asking him about the [00:10:00] article. The article in question was a 2018 piece Murphy wrote. On cultivating erotic energy from a surprising source.
The source being sending his girlfriend to have sex with other men. Yeah. And if I put this, but he was, he publicly talked about this. It wasn't like it leaked. No, you publicly talked about this. Wow. Okay. So if I, if I,
Simone Collins: so he felt really comfortable about this. He
Malcolm Collins: felt really comfortable about this.
Yeah. If I post the stories here, it's today I sent my adoring, loyal, hot young girlfriend of two years to have sex with a stranger from Tinder. She's currently at his apartment, checked in with me via text, and it's per route. Presumably sucking and effing her way to a good time. Oh, I'm alone writing. Be happier.
So he has a humiliation fetish
Simone Collins: too. Be happier. No, he, that blog post was part of it. He was,
Malcolm Collins: yeah. He was
Simone Collins: jizzing onto his audience with that. That is, that's like
Malcolm Collins: including your audience in this, which again, I don't think is great. Like I think that, that, that is, that is like, Hey, you guys wanna be a part of like me?
[00:11:00] No, no, no. Using,
Simone Collins: using an audience to get yourself off. I'm not like, no.
Malcolm Collins: Okay, so in 2015, Murphy wrote an art a detailing the experience of his girlfriend to have sex with this danger from Tinder,
Simone Collins: Uhhuh
Malcolm Collins: describing it as a source of erotic energy. He framed cook holding as a manifestation of his control writing.
Today I sent my adoring a loyal hung blah, blah, blah, that suggests he was experimenting and intellectualizing his unconventional sexual practices. And then later after that. Murphy admitted to producing and posting amateur pornographic content with his fiance around 2019, driven by financial desperation.
He stated we didn't have any money coming in and there were no jobs at all. I was lost and desperate, so my fiance and I did cam porn at home. People paid us to F on the couch. We made thousands of dollars. These videos live stream publicly on platforms for tips, included acts with his fiance and solo performances by Murphy.
[00:12:00] So no problem
Simone Collins: with that, that everyone's consenting there. Everyone wins there. Wait, because he clearly enjoys this and she, I guess,
Malcolm Collins: wait.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: PJ Media National File claimed that certain SIL acts involved Murphy using a dildo for anal stimulation,
for example, national file article references a torrent was a username linked to Murphy, big beard, 1000. Containing content under a folder called Bear. Oh yeah. That is definitely gay. .
Suggesting Homoerotic material. But I mean, that's for his audience, right? Yeah. Though they did know.
No, you have to know your target audience and if you're looking to make money.
Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. No, hold on. He knows his target audience. He [00:13:00] needs money. He also enjoys that form of stimulation. I don't think that's as suspicious anymore. I thought that you meant like a person Yeah. Annel that leaked from his computer.
But that's totally different now.
Malcolm Collins: As far as specific allegations of of gay sex, and again, I have nothing against gay sex, but I do understand why people were like, wait, you're like an alpha male influencer who's been like, follow me to get girls, and this is what you were into. Like I get the incongruency of that.
Well, there's
Simone Collins: also just the issue, which you also see with same sex especially man, man. Sex where there's just a very, very strong disgust reaction in many people and, oh, no, no, I agree. People lack the sophistication to understand that a disgusted reaction is not, does not equal this equals morally bad, which is very annoying.
Malcolm Collins: A ton of males have arousal patterns that an average person, as I've pointed out, is going to because non-normative arousal pattern. This is why there's the meme of, you know, I'll put on the screen here of the, the, the [00:14:00] anime where they, his best friend after he dies, takes this computer CPU and throws it in a bathtub.
Oh, yes,
Simone Collins: yes, yes.
Tamura, I 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.
Simone Collins: And,
Malcolm Collins: I, I. I, I, I'd say for me what's really funny is like if you look at my unusual arousal patterns, the truth is I don't think like our audience would find it like weird or disgusting at all. What's so funny though, is like people have actually apoplectic, people have sent
Simone Collins: us emails where they're like, I know exactly what your fetishes are, and Malcolm, not once have they gotten them right.
Malcolm Collins: Nothing never happened. Yeah, yeah. Progressives would freak out. Progressives would actually like panic. Yeah. Yeah. But, but right wing people would be like,
Simone Collins: what? Well, okay. Okay. Sex negative progressives [00:15:00] though. Because I, I think most sex positive progressives know all the kinks and are like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're like, yeah, they're all fine. Everything goes. So, yeah.
Moderate
Malcolm Collins: that. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I guess I will moderate that, but yeah, so he, he labeled himself in one thing as Heteroflexible. Right. Okay, fine. So maybe he had, you know, male again, like, why is this, you know, again, I don't wanna say like, for, and I feel so comfortable talking about this because I am so disgusted by the idea of sleeping with me.
I'm like, oh the, the, the, like, this isn't. Like my particular closet thing. Like it's really not my particular closet thing. I'm, I'm just not gonna touch anything in that category. No, you're not. Um, But, but this, I'm like, come on guys. Like, he, he was into that. He did it at one point and now he's monogamously married with kids, right?
Like, oh, with the same
Simone Collins: woman, or is someone different?
Malcolm Collins: I think he's, yeah, I think it's the same woman kids. Oh, that makes me happy. Aw. It worked out for them.
So I had read that he had kids and I hadn't read anything about him raising [00:16:00] them alone, so I assumed he was married, but no, it turns out that he had kids and was divorced long before he ever became famous, and what he called like a blue pilled relationship, meaning he didn't probably think much of her or that it didn't go very well.
So no, he was not happily married.
Malcolm Collins: He was happy when you hear the trajectory, he really got sort of screwed over by all of this. And you know, I think he was, he was, he was putting out deal ideas that were so mainstream.
He was like partnered with Claremont, like,
Simone Collins: oh yeah, that's, no, that's the problem. You, you, he, but he made a very, very huge, and I would think obvious misstep. In doing kinky stuff while playing in the conservative realm, but that's the conversation we're having is should this still be the case? Should being kinky and conservative get you disqualified?
Yeah. As an influencer.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, that's the discussion
Simone Collins: here. I, I don't, because look, what what's your, what do you think? I know what I think,
Malcolm Collins: but before I go further, look, you, you've gotta keep in mind there is like a level of debauchery, right? Where it's like, , and debauchery should [00:17:00] not be defined by non-normative behavior.
Hmm. It should be defined by the effect it has on the self and others. Mm-hmm. So, like in Mormon circles, right? And we talk about like a lot of kinks seem to be bred by what the population did historically, right? Or, or, or negative stereotypes and. And Mormons were in ous relationships historically. Which meant that people who were okay with their partner sleeping with other people in front of them would've had more kids historically, or knowing that their partner was sleeping.
Mm-hmm. And so there's been this thing of like wife swapping and husband swapping where you do everything but full sex. And like, I would find that not just like gross, but like if you had done that with another guy in front of me, I don't know if I could get aroused by you. Like again, like it would be like, yeah, you
Simone Collins: wouldn't be able to, I just know for a fact it wouldn't happen.
Malcolm Collins: I try so hard. I try, I
Simone Collins: promise, I, I literally have bad dreams where like I'm assaulted. And I don't care about the fact that I'm like the biggest concern I have at that moment. Obviously I'm like distressed for many reasons, [00:18:00] but the biggest one is, oh my god, Malcolm will never. See attractive again, that's like the number one thought on my mind.
In addition to hating everything else, but like the number one thought is there, I know that this is true there and it sucks because you can't control that. You just can't
Malcolm Collins: control that. Yeah, I can't control that. Like I, I I. Yeah, I, I mean, there might
Simone Collins: be ways if, if, if I, I don't think so. I really, Malcolm I know you now, I know you well enough that it's just not, it wouldn't happen if this doesn't make you a bad person again.
And that's, that is how arousal works. It. This is not about what you morally condone or not. This is just about Yeah, how you feel.
Malcolm Collins: But apparently within Mormon communities, this isn't that strong. Yeah. That
Simone Collins: clearly doesn't play here, but that makes sense. That make sense. A lot of people are
Malcolm Collins: shamed like that.
This has happened and I'm like, like there's been some scandals around this and stuff like this, and it's like, what? Like why? Like this doesn't seem to hurt anyone involved. Particularly like I'm like. And if you, and if this is the, the, the, the thing that I talked about was like the, you know, the Dursleys and one of their kid ended up sleeping [00:19:00] with one of his, like, like assaulting his younger sisters and stuff like that.
When you tell someone all sex is bad, the all arousal patterns are bad. The daughters.
Simone Collins: The Duggar. Oh, you so confused. I was like, is this Yes. The nature of Dugger, not the Harry
Malcolm Collins: Potter family, the Duggars they, they end up thinking like, well, I'm a bad person sexually. They contextualize themselves that way.
Mm. And then they normalize other genuinely horrific behavior. Right. So.
And I think people can wonder why I hammer on the topic of sexuality and arousal patterns so frequently, and it's because it really is that central and important to the fight against the urban monoculture in that it is the core way that the urban monoculture peels people out of traditional cultures.
Many people within traditional cultures just don't have fully developed models. Or healthy ways of relating to their own sexuality. And so the urban monoculture can can go and where you don't have sort of mental scaffolding, they're like, oh, I'll just plug this USB stick in here and put in this self-replicating [00:20:00] mimetic set, which will eventually build out an entire world perspective.
And they do that within the field of sexuality. That's why so much of the urban monoculture focuses on this sexuality stuff. It's not just. The debauchery of the urban monoculture, it's that there are not appropriate defenses in place within many traditionalist cultures during their, uh, you know, puberty period, during their, their teen, late teen years.
That's when they're the most vulnerable. And so it is really, really important that we find ways of relating to this that did not produce vulnerabilities.
And just saying, you know, well, I'll pretend that all of this doesn't exist or that everyone's normal, or that blah blah blah. Like all of that is basically serving your children up to the urban monoculture on a platter. I.
As a, uh, analogy here, it would be a bit like, like I think we can all agree pooping is gross, but. Somebody could be like, well, what? Why are you on your show always talking [00:21:00] about pooping? And it's like, well, because for whatever reason, most of the conservative cultures started teaching kids that people don't poop and that if you poop, you're weird.
And I'm like, well, most of these kids, all of these kids are pooping. And if they think that they're gross and weird every time they're doing this. And then somebody else comes along and they're like, actually, you were lied to and abused. And it turns out everybody poops. that's gonna be potentially a compelling message to them where if you're like, no, both everyone poops and it's gross and weird
But it's like an anular bodily function and definitely not the purpose of your life. If you make it the purpose of your life or essential focus of your life, or build rituals around it, , that is a waste of your life.
, I think that that is going to be much better at preventing kids from being peeled out.
Malcolm Collins: So I think that like the new right should do a better job of like categorizing different types of non-normative sexual behavior in terms of like [00:22:00] acting on versus like, feeling. One, experimenting when you're young, I, I first experimenting when you're young or things you do when you're young.
When I say young, I, I don't mean just like a kid. I mean like up to like 25, let's say 23, 21, 22, 23. 23.
Simone Collins: 23. Like 20. You gotta get serious.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Anything really done before 23 or 24, I'm like full pass, like whatever. Like this guy was talking about.
Simone Collins: Well, with the caveat that with women having a lot of sexual partners can, you know, that's kind of course, but women
Malcolm Collins: make mistakes, right?
Like Yeah. And. I, I, I think if you wipe every woman out of the sexual marketplace who was sexually active before this age, you know, you can say, you, you shouldn't do this. You should know this is gonna affect how the partner values you. But in terms of the public stage, like if a conservative influencer woman, I.
It came out that she had slept with a bunch of people before that age, like before 23. Like suppose it came out that like Louis Perry [00:23:00] or or Mary Harrington or Katherine Pak had had sex with a bunch of people before 23, and this is at odds was their current like conservative persona. I'd be like, you cannot count that against them.
I, I would, I would like actively attack anybody who tried to shame their adult publicly.
Simone Collins: Yes. But, you know, men would have an issue with that, which is why with our daughters, I'd still warn them again about it. Right.
Malcolm Collins: I agree. But that's not what we're talking about. Yes. That's not
Simone Collins: what Yeah. We're talking about should you be reputationally disqualified as a conservative influencer based on your.
History sexually. Right.
Malcolm Collins: Right. If anything, I'd feel worse for them. I'd feel like everything that they had done in terms of influence was in part to try to save young girls from their position right now and they just didn't want to have that publicly associated with them.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. I,
Malcolm Collins: I, I don't think I'd have an ounce.
I, I would've an ounce of anything but rage as somebody who tried to attack them if that came out. You know, and I think that this is what I'm talking about in [00:24:00] terms of like how we categorize this, right? Yeah. Like what actually I. Assuming they disclosed it to their current partner before marrying,
Simone Collins: which is important.
Yeah. Which is
Malcolm Collins: important. Right. You know, and again, I'm not saying that any of them did. I don't, I have no reason to believe that any of them did this. No, I was just giving an example here, right? Mm-hmm. So yeah, before the age of 23, I'd say, okay, throw that out. I'd say and, and keep in mind he was here talking about this camming stuff he was doing when he was like 19 or something, or his fiance.
Oh, it was from the past. I dunno what he was.
Simone Collins: No, it sounds like he published a blog post about. His wife doing it as she was doing it,
Malcolm Collins: whatever. Well, we'll see. We'll, I, I, I can go back and try to find out how old he was when this stuff's happened.
Simone was in the right here. It was as he was doing it, which makes it extra indefensible.
Simone Collins: All right. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: But in, in terms of stuff like anal play for men I see no reason why this should be shamed.
I understand it like it goes against norms. It's not like particularly dangerous. It's, it's something they can do as like a mono monogamy partner. It's also not
Simone Collins: even time consuming. [00:25:00] So, yeah. Like if it causes him to orgasm
Malcolm Collins: quicker and get the whole thing over with quicker than just do it. Yeah.
Simone Collins: Power to the, yeah, absolutely.
I, so my, my stance on this is the really big contrast in my view between the left and the right in our modern age is performative activity versus consequentialist activity, and then hedonism versus values alignment. So the way that I look at acceptable sexuality versus non-acceptable sexuality has more to do with are you putting your sexuality above the pursuit of your values?
Like, are you spending most of your time dating people and trying to get new sexual partners, or are you spending most of your time doing what it is that that's meaningful to you? How much
Malcolm Collins: are you letting your sexuality distract you from your end goal?
Simone Collins: Yeah. Or like be a part of your identity when that's not.
At all related to your objective function or if your objective function is hedonism, you just shouldn't be here. You shouldn't, you don't belong here [00:26:00] on the other side.
Malcolm Collins: Well, no. I actually argue that, that Jack Murphy, if, if you look at this, he was allowing it to distract him. You know, he was no.
Simone Collins: And so that I, I, I hold all of that against him.
And also the fact that he was acting on it in a way. That logistically would've taken a lot of time, like sitting down with your girlfriend or fiance and saying, listen, I'm really into this. Listen, I want you to go out and do this. I mean, she's also taking a risk, going out and having an intimate experience with someone from Tinder, like that's not necessarily safe for a woman either.
And if, if she's doing it safely. Yeah. There's also a lot of vetting that's very time consuming. You, you, you have SDD testing, you have some, some kind of due diligence that you're hopefully doing on this. Lucky gentleman, so. Like, really? Don't you have better things to do? You really think, like, you really think,
Malcolm Collins: but, and this is, this is, this is why.
And it's funny again, like all of the stuff that I'm defending here, I would not sit on camera and defend something I actually do for fear that it comes [00:27:00] back to me. So when I'm talking about like the, the like anal simulation and stuff like that, that is not, I, I find it like the idea, the, the, like the smell.
I think
Simone Collins: both of us are too squeamish around. To handle. Like we don't, human bodies aren't our favorite thing. Yeah. Human bodies are not my thing. Like I'm I, well like butt stuff is way too human. Is way too human. That's
Malcolm Collins: always been your famous line was me, which is Malcolm. I'll do
Simone Collins: anything for you. But Anal.
Malcolm Collins: But anal. But she literally. All the time. Like it's funny that I don't think that's ever been recorded on air or anything that she this, but like within our personal relationship it's always like she'll hold my hands and be like, Malcolm, I'll do anything for you. But anal.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: And for me, I'm just like, why? Why, why add that when you could just masturbate? Like that's like a gross additional step. Like, even, even,
Simone Collins: well, and I think, so my, my additional problem with anal when you have a choice, like when there are other holes available, is the amount of prep and [00:28:00] maintenance you have to do.
Yeah, let's go. I'd love to, do we have all the gear, do you think? You know, I've got my hiking shorts. Yeah, I think I have everything. Yeah, let's get the gear. Alright, hike. Yeah. What if it rains? You right. Let's get the ringer. You know.
Simone Collins: Yes. So again, when it comes to are you spending your time pursuing and maximizing your values, if you do frequent anal. You're following all these steps. But I also hold that for like, someone who spends an hour a day doing their hair and makeup. That's, that is just as valueless as someone Oh, yeah.
Or spends an hour preparing for, oh, somebody
Malcolm Collins: football games or something. You know, uhhuh like,
Simone Collins: yeah. So like, I, again, like we, it we are not sex negative. Were was hedonism wasting time.
Malcolm Collins: Negative hedonism. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I, I agree with all that. But what I'm saying here is like, when I hear.
Like the head of the Proud Boys apparently got canceled for, for, for saying something like this. And I was like, [00:29:00] no, you shouldn't be doing that. Like, because then, you know, you don't know your own kids end up into something like this and you frame this as like this horrifying thing. And then now they're like, okay, well I guess I'm just a sexual monster, may as well great.
My sister. You know, and it's like, well,
Simone Collins: yeah, suppressing this stuff isn't good. And I think. Knowing about your arousal pathways and possibly even talking about it when it's relevant and whatnot, I have no problem with that. And people shouldn't be shamed for what turns them on and off. But.
Yeah, pursuing it, investing a lot of time into its pursuit. You should just be on the project. Well, I actually, this like
Malcolm Collins: if you're being logical puts like the new right. Strictly morally superior to the left around arousal and kinks. Well, because what we're saying is that's what every side thinks.
They're, you know, you could, you could have the kinks you want to have, so long as they don't have negative externalities in how you're applying them. And so long as you are not forcing other people to participate in them, which is what you are [00:30:00] doing when you. Dress up that way in public when you publicly blog post about something like this when you you know, like all of this is stuff that's done to involve other people in your kinks
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Without their, their
Simone Collins: consent. Yeah. And so that's why OnlyFans is different. It is opt-in. And I think that's, that's one of the really underrated great things about OnlyFans is if you have a. Humiliation, fetish. If you have a, like public exposure or fetish, all those sorts of things. Like this is the place where you can do it and make money and everyone can sense.
And I just think that's beautiful. It's wonderful. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Like, oh, here's a great thing. If somebody, and I don't believe the Russian pee tapes are real, if some Russian prostitute really peed on Trump, like whatever I, I like even think was the right as it is right now. These came out, people would be like, whatever, like F off, no one
Simone Collins: cares.
Malcolm Collins: Like, I'm glad I wasn't born like that. But also
Simone Collins: like everyone knows Donald Trump would never, he's such a germ phobe, so it's not Yeah, he's, he's
Malcolm Collins: a [00:31:00] complete germophobe. He would never do that.
Simone Collins: He seems like the kind of person who would see like the tiniest stain on a carpet and be like, we need to leave this hotel right now.
You think he's gonna, he's gonna do water sports? I know. I also
Malcolm Collins: think that he's a sexual elitist like me. I, I, I would not be surprised if he has not slept with prostitutes. That he only sleeps with, like, he's, he's wrote articles about sleeping with like, not rote, but that articles written about him, about how he likes like sleeping with his friends' wives and stuff like that.
Yeah. Because they're
Simone Collins: high status women. High
Malcolm Collins: status. Yeah. I'm, I'm very, and squirmy Daniel was a
Simone Collins: high status like celebrity. So yeah. I think for him, status is hotter than. A lot of other, not status. It's
Malcolm Collins: hotter. I think low status women are disgusting to him. Oh. It's a version thing like myself. Interesting.
Yeah. Anyway, so to continue here, Murphy's own admission of the video's existence coupled with his attempt to label the redistribution as revenge porn.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. The claim
Malcolm Collins: debunked as the content was wily, publicly posted. Fueled the narrative. He locked his ex account and deleted his tweets. Furthering, escalated scrutiny.
Mm-hmm. His defensive to questions about the [00:32:00] 2015 Cook holding article, particularly lashing out lashing out. The podcast hoster the Sidney Watson is, is what caused people to get angry at him. From the perspective of manosphere letting other men have sex with your girlfriend is definitely a no-no.
And we'll earn you the ultimate put down C, which is to say cuck hold. By the way, cuck holds both in our data and other data was more common among conservatives getting cuted by your partner Yes. Than progressives. Yes. Isn't that interesting? Interesting. Murphy's defensiveness poured patrol.
Yeah. So the big problem is his defensiveness and sort of how he handled it. Now what is interesting here is his writings were criticized.
Its Smith Sandra racist and aligned with alt-right ideologies, which led to his doc. Sing in 2018. Hmm. This revelation that he was a senior manager at DC Public Charter School Board resulted in administrative leave in January, 2018.
Simone Collins: Oh.
Malcolm Collins: So apparently that's when he started leaving, leaning in to like the Jack Murphy live stuff.
Simone Collins: Oh.
Malcolm Collins: And [00:33:00] then His in 2021, his profile expanded as he became a Lincoln fellow at the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank highlighting his influence in right-wing circles. However, December, 2021 brought significant personal revelations. He admitted to authoring in two a 2015 Cook holding article and producing amateur pornography.
So the cook holding stuff he had written when he was still like a public democrat. And he had this pseudonym that was doing right wing stuff.
Simone Collins: Interesting.
Malcolm Collins: I mean, and so it's
Simone Collins: fairly complicated.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah a a and then a, during this period, by mid 2022, Jack Murphy live ceased new episodes suggesting a withdrawal from his public role concurrently heal a large Rebel health alliance, a personalized healthcare service, focusing on optimizing longevity and metabolic health.
And it's something that is still operational and appears to be his. Mainstream source of income. So one thing I wanna look at is the stuff that got him canceled. Like how actually offensive is this guy, right? Yeah. Everyone says, oh, they're misogyny. And people say Are, we're misogynist and racist [00:34:00]
Simone Collins: uhhuh.
Malcolm Collins: So he said, if feminists need grape, it is our duty as men to save feminists from themselves. Therefore, I am offering to grape to feminist as an olive branch. Who's asking for trouble? It's asking for trouble. It's provocative, but us saying that like the, the Handmaid's Tale is leftist fantasy and that the data proves it mm-hmm.
Could be seen as analogous to that.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Fair. He said if you open her a, you open her mind. He said this is not something I'd agree. Like obviously my wife says I'm not interested in this. And I'm like, yeah, okay. Oh, I'm not interested in either. But but like I, okay another one here is big female myths.
Is that they are pure, true says they are hungry, dirty, and enthusiastic about sex. And I love. How feminists don't believe in agency. That is not an offensive statement at all. So he said like almost nothing here, wrong from [00:35:00] what I can see. Well, but
Simone Collins: also, no, I think that sweeping statement is not accurate.
That is accurate about some women. Definitely not. Oh yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Well, okay. Here's one thing that I do have a problem with. He said in one post he wrote I've had s. Sex slaves, little girls and tied them all up. Feminists seek me out to f them, like the patriarchy which the little girls sing, like I can understand it sexualized, but like, maybe you shouldn't say that publicly.
Simone Collins: Maybe not
Malcolm Collins: like, like I, like, I what I mean is I do not think that he's actually talking about little girls, but I like understand
Simone Collins: DDLL. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dlg. Yeah. Sorry.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. Here he is. It says he's talked about at an esno state where he said the logistics are necessary in the course of events in which leads us towards an esno state.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: That's, that's actually something that like, I think a lot of people need to think about when you have a large. Amount of immigrants in a country and there might be an a, a desire to preserve that country in the future, like Germany or something. Okay. You gotta think about, well, what [00:36:00] happens to the immigrants that have been imported into the country?
Like, how, how does the country, if it changes its mind about this
Simone Collins: mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Handle this, like, when it realizes it may eventually go extinct. And like what we mean here is 25% of the German population. Currently came to the country after the 1950s or their, their ancestors did. Mm-hmm. They have a higher fertility rate than the mainstream German population.
Like eventually Germans will be replaced. And this isn't like a, I'm not saying like some evil person plan this out or anything like this, but that this might lead to. Ethnic tensions is obvious, and if a far right government came into place, a question of what do you do that isn't genocide is something that is worse establishing so that people don't jump to genocide.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Anyway and, and I mentioned the other one who this had happened to, which I found was interesting is, is, is Glavin McKinneys who, who talked about butt stuff in, in straight men and, and that not being unmanly. And I'm like, well, but like this manly [00:37:00] obsession is pointless in the first place. I think that, well, that
Simone Collins: is, again, it's, it's pretty preening and performative among men as well.
And to me it screams of insecurity. So I don't, I, I really don't care like a man who's very comfortable with his sexuality. Like there's nothing more masculine. And whether this is demonstrated by a man or a woman than confidence and comfort with your sexuality and being very open about it, that's a lot of confidence and that's very masculine.
And this whole like shaming thing, there's nothing more feminine than public shaming. Absolutely. Yeah. So this whole, it's not masculine stuff is, is very, you know, it doesn't, it's not the right brand. I think it's not the brand that conservatives necessarily want to. Project not, not dunking [00:38:00] on Man's world or anything for the
Malcolm Collins: health of keeping people was in their community.
If you've created a community, you know, one thing I mentioned to a progressive reporter recently is I was like, well, you know, back when I was a progressive. There were all sorts of ideas and arguments and everything like that that I had, that I knew I needed to keep private. If I was gonna maintain my acceptance within the community
Simone Collins: and
Malcolm Collins: within the new right, I'm able to say everything I believe about the world, right?
And people will be like, well, I disagree with you here, let's have a debate. But it is friendly, you know? It's like they, they actually want to convince me They're not like, shut up. You're not allowed to say that. Right?
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: And I think that alongside arousal patterns, you know, if 75% of people have some sort of a kink, and we're talking about like 20 kinks per person on average, right?
Like if, if you create a community where on average people are supposed to, to to know. That if something came out about them or something like that, that it would, it would be a reason to like shame and, and remove their [00:39:00] platform. And the average influencer in this space feels that way. Like the average conservative influencer by the statistics has something that turns them on, that they're hiding from you.
And they would hope that they're friend did dunks or PC in water when they die. Like, the, the fact that that is the case is, i, I think not the way we should structure sexual morality was in the community
Simone Collins: 100%.
Malcolm Collins: Because it, it's gonna push people out and it's gonna limit our audience. And instead to say you know, whatever arouses you can arouse you, just don't act on it.
Don't live your life in that way and to know, yeah, don't make it
Simone Collins: your identity, and don't structure your life around it. Just like with drinking, just like with eating, just like with exercising. All like, if it is not,
Malcolm Collins: don't, don't force others to participate in it. Like, this is what trans people do.
They're basically forcing others to participate in like their arousal patterns, right? They're like, Hey, everyone needs to, you know, and you, and you could tell like, part of this is about arousal. Like, they're like, none of [00:40:00] it. No, part of it's about arousal. Like, I, I, I get it. Like, for, for some of them it.
Definitely when, when the, especially when they don't even try to pass it's like, why are you forcing them to call you by a gender that you're not even attempting to look like? Like, oh, it's because you're getting turned on by having power over them. Right. When, when you have the who is the swimming guy who you wanted to be?
I can't
Simone Collins: remember his. Leah Thomas. Leah Thomas.
Malcolm Collins: And, and we have reports that, she would go into the locker room and hadn't had surgery, wasn't on anything, you know, and had a maley
Simone Collins: was out. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like,
Malcolm Collins: Why are you, we used to call this being a flasher. Like, what are you doing? Like you can, you can do this.
If you just wanted to be seen as a woman, you wouldn't be doing this clearly. Well, you know,
Speaker 17: [00:41:00] Ah!
Malcolm Collins: like part of me just
Simone Collins: wishes we lived in the Starship Trooper's world of mixed gender restrooms and like everyone has. A male like locker room approach. I'm much more angry than
Malcolm Collins: that because if it's a mixed gender restroom, then then she, she, oh, yeah.
Then it's not special. Yeah. Yeah. It's not special. Mm-hmm. She's not forcing herself on other people and that, yeah. See, no, that's, that's the solution
Simone Collins: is you just eliminate all gender neutral bathrooms. You just eliminate all gender neutral spaces and suddenly everything's okay again.
Malcolm Collins: Well, and I also like that.
Because I think it desexualize the other sexist body, and I, I think that that's erection. We should be going Well, that's
Simone Collins: the point. I mean, in, in societies when things get arbitrarily sexualized, suddenly they are sexualized, whether it's an armpit or an ankle or whatever. And if we just don't make it a thing, guess what?
Suddenly, I mean, of course for some people, they're gonna.
Malcolm Collins: In the Muslim world, right? Like you, you get like [00:42:00] ankles and stuff like that, sexualized because they're covered up. If you just had everyone like seeing naked males and females normalize, you wouldn't sexualize the other gender much at all. You just, well, I wonder why,
Simone Collins: like, perhaps, so in Germany you get a lot more nudist colonies and resorts and stuff.
Mm-hmm. And the, the primary kinks that you see associated with Germany are BDSM. They're power dynamic based kinks. Yeah. Instead of like body. Body stuff. Like when I think of Germany and I think of X-rated material, it is always power dynamic related and not related to body parts. And yet when I think of the X-rated material associated with say, India or a lot of other regions that are much more conservative, then it's all about body parts.
And that is really interesting.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Is that a good thing? Yeah, I think it is a good thing. I think I, I, I, I think well, because in a good thing
Simone Collins: for it not to be an obsession with body parts, but rather power dynamics.
Malcolm Collins: Well, maybe, I don't know. Like, here's the funny thing in Germany, like why is it power dynamics that are the thing?
It's because body parts are not [00:43:00] shamed. Like they see naked people all the time. Yeah. It's like
Simone Collins: germane. It's like, well, of course, like my, you know,
Malcolm Collins: lack quality is shamed in Germany because they're like so obsessively progressive. And so the idea that somebody would have power over another person is what is most,
Simone Collins: oh ha.
It's a, it's germane,
Malcolm Collins: you would say, as a as an arousal pathway.
Simone Collins: Interesting. Oh.
Malcolm Collins: Anyway, I, I, I find, yeah, this is my thoughts after I think through this is I would generally, like if I had been around when this was happening, I would say, look, the way he handled this was gross. He shouldn't have involved the public in it.
The, the way that he was defensive about this was also bad. But if you're talking about something like Gavin McKinneys, he's just like, look, you know, you shouldn't be seen as unmanly because you're, you're doing like prostate stimulation stuff. I'm like,
Simone Collins: what? Well, however, however, I think that it is important.
To separate your personal life from a professional life, even when yeah, your professional life is about your personal life. That's not true. When people are [00:44:00] influencers and it's all around their personalities, no, it's not about them as people, it's about the caricature that they've chosen to present online.
And the caricature that these men had chosen to present was of a, of that time classically conservative male, which didn't do the things that they suddenly started promoting. Mm-hmm. And it was them bringing their personal lives to work. That messed that up. And again, that is something I just wanna abide by.
We don't, we don't, we don't abide by that professionally. Don't bring your personal life into work if it doesn't help work. And they made that mistake. And so I, I, I, I still hold them responsible for it. If it came out, for example, that like their, their search history was leaked, then I would not hold them at fault.
Malcolm Collins: Hmm. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, like search history being leaked or like, who was it like, not Vosh one, one of the, one of the guys like had it. Pictures of Hint Eye. We've had, we have had Hint Eye leaked on this show, by the way. I accidentally put it on on, not accidentally, it's a joke. There were the, in [00:45:00] the, in the yak, the, the one about Yankees, the mild D Oh yeah, no, you
Simone Collins: put,
Malcolm Collins: you put the put hint tie on the show and other people are like, oh yeah, that's a great one.
I know that one. They're like, I didn't expect him to actually put it on the screen. The, oh, just for people who don't know, it's called like my childhood friend. It's broken or something. And it's a, it's a story. It's super awesome where they have a, a, like, a hint, I story about a, a ga ga, what's the word, G ya.
Guru girl, which is like when the Japanese women like do their face different colors and like, have lots of piercings and Malibu
Simone Collins: Barbie, Japanese edition
Malcolm Collins: garish outfits. And it's, it's apparently you learn. I, I, I decided to read the whole thing after putting in the episode. I was like, I gotta make sure this actually isn't like bad.
Apparently you learned. That in the past she was assaulted. And she dressed this way because she wanted to feel powerful and like reclaim a sense of power. And then she meets a childhood friend and they fall in love. And then he, he does nice things for her. And over time [00:46:00] she learns that she doesn't need to dress this way to feel like she's powerful and she becomes a mom and she has kids.
And the, the series ends. When her kid meets another kid playing in a park, and this is supposed to be a new childhood friendship that continues to cycle. Aw. Well, it's, it's, it's sad at the end actually, because they're commenting on how they, they don't know anyone who has kids their kids ages and no one's having kids anymore.
Simone Collins: Well, yeah, but they're gonna be the new culture that generates. Or sorry that, that inherits Japan. So that's, yeah, all
Malcolm Collins: of the actual, like, cant I, like, not safer work scenes happen after that scene. It's, it's, that's so weird. There's this whole like, life
Simone Collins: arc that's super wholesome
Malcolm Collins: and then suddenly it becomes, well it created the wholesome like arc and in like the, the not safer work scenes are clearly supposed to happen at various parts of the life arc.
Simone Collins: Oh.
Malcolm Collins: Because obviously she gets pregnant, but I just want
Simone Collins: to establish that like, these are, this is part of a wholesome. Loving relationship because that's part of the erotic experience for the reader.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. This is, this is, this is people who want the erotic [00:47:00] experience of a wholesome, loving relationship that is, yeah.
And, and you
Simone Collins: can't get that full stimulus if you don't have the backstory that proves that that's happening. 'cause it's really hard to like lay that expedition exposition out in like three frames. That's really funny. That's really funny. But I don't,
Malcolm Collins: I don't, I don't want, you know, there's like 215 panels of this.
It's like Really? Oh my, my, geez. I, but I, I want that to be when Malcolm accidentally leaked tint tie episode that he, he had the that, that, that one where everyone No, I don't, I
Simone Collins: don't think that's when it came out though, that you have in the, in the past Consum Penta, because you've talked in the past about the fact that you like, or both of us agree that in an ideal world.
No porn would depict real people.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, I'm a hundred percent for only. And you expressed then that you found
Simone Collins: real porn to be extremely disgusting. So I'm pretty sure that anyone who was actually paying attention at the time would be like. Oh, then I guess Malcolm likes head tie because like, what else are you gonna like if you [00:48:00] can't,
Malcolm Collins: but if you're who, why?
I find it disgusting. I just can't like look at a real person in, in that sort of a position. There's somebody, somebody's
Simone Collins: daughter and or son. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Like this is somebody's daughter, somebody wife, somebody's, they probably have
Simone Collins: kids. This is, it's rough.
Malcolm Collins: Like, this is gross. Like this, this is a human life that we're talking about here.
Like why is this okay to get off? No, I, I think it's, it's, it's it's rough. I don't know if other people have that reaction. Like I maybe, maybe other people don't. Maybe other people are just like, no, but like in this context, it's not them, it's just a picture of them. But like for me, it's like,
Simone Collins: I don't know.
Like it's, I, I think it, I was just thinking about. You know, would I feel different if they were someone, if it was you? Like, would I feel uncomfortable? But like then if, if ever I was watching even video of like, you made something for me privately or something, I'd be like, oh, what if this leaks? I'd be so uncomfortable.
And I think I think about that a lot. When I think about the other people, I'm like, oh, like. How old are they now? Are people [00:49:00] comparing their younger body to their older body? Like, what, what, what, what if their mother sees this? And you just start thinking way too much about it, and then you start thinking about yourself.
And that's one of the reasons I think why many female audiences like. Ywe, which is man on man drawn like manga and stories. It's sometimes explicit and sometimes not because at that point you're totally taken outta the situation. Not only is it drawn, so you're not thinking about humans in general, but there are no women at all.
So you're not thinking about you as a woman. Am I pretty enough? I think that there's some, there's a big theme in many genres of erotic material. That are instead of optimized around specific arousal pathways, optimized around avoiding specific, if not discussed pathways, then anxiety pathways.
Malcolm Collins: Well, no, I'm exactly the same way.
What a lot of you is, is now the AI stuff has gotten good, I don't even need to worry that like a human, like, like drew it
Simone Collins: and Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Humans were involved at some point in the process. Yeah. But I don't need to think about some guy in his basement drawing this. Right?
Simone Collins: Yes, that's [00:50:00] true. That is kind of a turnoff when you think about it.
Malcolm Collins: Thanks
Simone Collins: for ruining that for me.
Malcolm Collins: But I, I also point out with all of this, you know, the, the, the reason I say all this is I'm like, okay, so what if some guy is actually like a sabi guy and he is in a relationship and his partner is into this and, and they're into like him being a sub in the bedroom. Right. You know, like Uhhuh, are we supposed to be like.
That guy can't be a good man. They can't be a good masculine man. They can't be a good dad. Like I think what we need to say is like, look, if you're a Suby guy, and this is why, because I feel bad for all of the Suby guys because there's like a lot of Suby guys out there, right? Yeah. I mean, like
Simone Collins: the numbers indicate that there are a lot of out
Malcolm Collins: there.
If you are a savvy guy, that doesn't mean that you cannot be the perfect masculine man. You can be a good dad who is there for your kids. You can be in a, a relationship with your wife that is stable and supporting and when the lights are off [00:51:00] and you're doing your own thing. That, that, that can be your own thing.
And I don't think that we as a community benefit from those guys feeling in constant. Fear that they are gonna have everybody hate them if they ever found out about that. I think that that is not a healthy thing to, and that
Simone Collins: fear leads to a lot of avoidant problematic behavior. That's like, that's why you see this problem in states where porn is like banned or deeply looked negatively upon by the predominant religion that you see much more problematic behavior.
And yeah, this is definitely something, shaming is the wrong thing to do, but not so shaming the fact that you feel it bad, but pursuing it at the cost of your productivity. Also bad. That should, that should probably, yeah. And if not shamed met with a, like the same kind of concerned reaction. [00:52:00] That you react to someone who has an eating problem or a drinking problem or some other, like a gambling problem, right?
Yeah. Like those are things like, oh, you're disgusting. You gamble, you sports gamble. You have a sports gambling app. I can't believe it. I I'm never gonna be your friend. And you can't be an influencer. No. It's like. Hey, dude, are you okay? Like this? Can this, you're, you're ruining your savings. Like you're not gonna achieve your life goals if you keep doing this.
And that is, I think
Malcolm Collins: it's such a great way to frame it, is that we should, we should focus on these sorts of sexual prohibitions in the same way we focus on like gambling prohibitions.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: They're very, very serious. And they can hurt other people around them, but you need to, you need to frame them with you know, compassion in this way and be like, Hey like do you have a problem here?
Instead of, you know, one of the funniest things that everyone's like, people thought that like you weren't sexually gratifying me enough and that like they, they sent you emails about that.
Simone Collins: Yes. I've received multiple messages from people who are like, are they usually for women or men? It's been [00:53:00] both actually.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I, I can tell you that is not the case. No. Now they're
Simone Collins: gonna write to me again and be like, he's saying that this is his call for help, Simone. This is his call for help. He's calling for help right now. Understand how inefficient sex is. I understand. I don't think they understand.
Yeah, I don't think we understand that.
Like we're at the precipice, the turning point of the entire future of humanity, and that every hour that we spend doing something indulgent is an hour that we're not maybe tipping the scales in favor of human flourishing instead of extinction. Hello. People,
Malcolm Collins: timelines we're so short in terms of like what we're building and everything like that.
I just feel like. Like, do they not get that every because it, we're working on the same project together. So like, if I take Simone's time for like an hour of sex. Yeah. Like you, you only get so many hours a day. Like, it's not that we never do it, but it's, it's such a waste. Yeah.
Simone Collins: Anyway, [00:54:00] that's we'll see what they have to say next.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I dunno, I, I love it how you, for a while were like really acting weird about this with me. Like, I was like,
Simone Collins: Malcolm, whenever you want, like we're here, we can block out time.
Malcolm Collins: And I was like, Simone, 'cause
Simone Collins: y'all got in my head.
Malcolm Collins: I was like, no, you do not understand how much I appreciate the work you're doing.
Right. But whenever
Simone Collins: you want, Malcolm.
Malcolm Collins: I was like, what is this worth more than the current Andreesen application? The current survival and flourishing? I know it's not, I know, but like,
Just in case
Simone Collins: this is like one of those double reverse blind. No, but it's like,
Malcolm Collins: like literally, what am I putting off for this?
We've got. Four kids that we're raising as well. Like Yeah. Of which one of 'em woke up, so I gotta gotta, all right. Love you to De Simone. I love you too. What am I doing for dinner tonight? Oh, yeah. It's a crumble.
Simone Collins: Yeah. But also, I'm gonna try something that I've never tried before, that I'm very curious about it.
I'm gonna try it too. [00:55:00] Shout out to Margaret for telling me it's possible.
Malcolm Collins: What are you gonna tell me?
Simone Collins: You will find out. What is it? If it succeeds tonight, I'm not gonna tell you.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. I'm not
Simone Collins: gonna tell you. But it is something that you and I both like and that we can't get in America.
Malcolm Collins: By the way. Oh, scotch eggs.
Simone Collins: That's what I'm
Malcolm Collins: gonna say. Ah, wait. Oh my God. But okay, so if you're gonna do scotch eggs, don't bother with frying the rice. Just do like regular rice and I'll mention the crumble. No,
Simone Collins: no, no, no. Because what if they really don't turn out? This is my first time trying
Malcolm Collins: regular rice with crumble and toy sauce will be fine.
Simone Collins: Malcolm, just let me, let me do my thing, but let me go now so I can actually prep everything. I love you. All right. Love you to death. Why? have this permanent crease in my eyebrow region, but I realize now you do too. So
Malcolm Collins: you have a what? Val region.
Simone Collins: Permanent crease. Like a little look at. Look at your furrow lines. Even when you're not furrowing, they're, they're still there. And that's the problem. Well, not the problem. It's just naturally part of [00:56:00] our aging process.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I wonder, do you have, do you have the, the smile lines yet?
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Well,
Simone Collins: that's your fault. That is your fault. The furrowing is my fault. The smiling is, is your fault because you make my life too fricking awesome. And we laugh way too much.
Malcolm Collins: No matter how big your wrinkles get, I will not leave you. So don't you worry.
Okay, we'll
Simone Collins: see. We'll just see how, how big they need to get.
Malcolm Collins: No, we'll see if you stopped being able to have kids, that's where things get dicey, Jesus.
Simone Collins: Just in case anyone thought that you were being nice and charitable.

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Is Religion Dying in America? The Worrying Stats
21 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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 data
Simone 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 fall
Malcolm 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 think
Malcolm 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 Covid.
Simone Collins: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. There is one really interesting statistic that actually runs against a lot of what you've said so far.
Okay. About Mormons. That [00:04:00] gives me a lot of hope for Mormon. So when you dive into this research and you look at at age distribution among different religious groups, every religious group over time is seeing an erosion of their 18 to 29-year-old range, which is really bad because again, what this, this research is finding is that.
Religion is, is going down, not because, and I know you're, you're gonna argue it's because people are like actually changing their behavior over time. What Pew argues is that, no, it's just that the religious people are dying and the younger people aren't religious at all. And yet when you look at Latter Day Saints, Mormons.
25% of Mormons are 18 to 29, which is a pretty healthy ratio. Cons, and what, what was it in the past? So it's actually better than it ever was during the survey period in 2007, 24% of thinks were in that range. And in 2014 it actually dipped. It was 21%. Now it's 25%.
Malcolm Collins: That's really [00:05:00] impressive.
Simone Collins: So I'm, I'm actually seeing, and it's subtle, but they also just signs of recovery because actually what we are seeing in, in sort of, inverse is we're seeing fewer proportionately Mormons in the 30 to 49 range.
Yeah. And I feel like there's this millennial. Millennial slump that the LDS church had that lost a lot of people. And I feel that they've developed some cultural technologies to start recovering from that. And or the LDS community started realizing early people who left or they saw people who left and they're like, wow, it's not working out for them.
I'm gonna stay in, I'm not gonna jump the ship. So you
Malcolm Collins: look. The numbers that she has here. Sorry, this is important to get to because you, you're just, you're saying the graph says something, but a lot of people listen on podcasts, so we've gotta explain what the graph says. Yeah. So, if you're looking at the elderly population.
Within the latest measurement, the 23 to 24 range, it was 20% in the two. Previous to 2014 and 2017, it was much lower only 15% and 16% [00:06:00] respectively. Now that's really striking when you consider that now they're dealing with a bigger, much older 65 plus range in much younger, under 29 range, 18 to 29 range.
Which implies that there was sort of a baby boom within the LDS church for one generation. No, and
Simone Collins: this is really important because just to give you some perspective, okay, in 23 to 24, 20 5% of Mormons were in this 18 to 29 range. They were young. Compared to that, to Catholics in the 23 to 24 range, 14% of Catholics were in the 23 to 24% range and 28%.
Basically a third plus another 29%. So basically two thirds of Catholics are over 50 years old with 29% being 50 to 64 and 28% being 65 or older.
Malcolm Collins: It gets worse when you look at the historic data because if you go to 2007, not that long ago, only 16% of Catholics were over 65 and now it's 28%. Yeah. [00:07:00] Catholics are dying
Simone Collins: and this is, this is huge.
' cause I mean, I, I, I'm, I, so I do have hope for Catholics because I think that there are a couple very small communities. That are very high fertility that could come to represent the new version of the Catholic Church. However, I also have my doubts in this model. You know how a lot of people are like, oh, the future will be inherited by the Amish.
It's hard to even find Anaba. Mm-hmm. Let alone like, I mean there's on Amish, there's Mennonites, Mennonites, there's heater Hutterites, right? Like there's literally different subgroups. But of all the Anabaptists in general. It's, it's around 1%, maybe less. And this could be a polling issue, right? Like it's probably harder Of the
Malcolm Collins: US population, you mean?
Simone Collins: Of the US population? Yeah. If you look in this, it
Malcolm Collins: doesn't matter if they're 1%, if they're, if they're growing at the rate that they're growing now, like they'll be a huge
Simone Collins: chunk very shortly. Yeah. But I don't know, I don't know if they're actually growing at that rate. I just, they're, they're so small. I, I'm really putting all my hope in
Malcolm Collins: are we can look at the data.
This happened in another country, specifically Israel. So Israel, right now, if you look at the Hawaii population, you know how [00:08:00] they don't. Have to participate in war and stuff like that. Another 16% of the population. Yeah. The reason why they got the war exception was because when they first went to and applied for this, there were like 10,000 of them or something.
They were basically, they're like, oh, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter. And now they've exploded. So yeah, this literally has happened in other countries. Simone that's, that's, that's the power of compounding interest
Simone Collins: maybe. But
Malcolm Collins: I'm also not, the, don't really matter because they don't have technology.
So no matter how big they get, they're not gonna be a force that can impose its will on their neighbors. So you don't really need to think about them. And because they're pacifists, they can't defend themselves. If anybody wants to, like, if they don't have the state protecting them, it's, it's, it's irrelevant.
But the, the Catholics here. I find to be really fascinating how much they're arose. I actually, it's so much
Simone Collins: worse than I thought. I would not have guessed it was that bad.
Malcolm Collins: Well, it, it's, it's bad for the, the, remember that phone survey I, I found so, only only 2% of Catholics [00:09:00] actually attended church Weekly.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, no. So here's, here's the thing too though, and like to put things in perspectives, at least from a starting position, Catholics are coming off from a, a stronger position. So 19% of Christians in the US which. To be fair, only make up 62% of Americans, but of those 19% are Catholic and only 2% are LDS.
So, you know, that's a,
Malcolm Collins: but again, this doesn't really matter. I, again, you, you have to look at this in terms of compounding returns. A a as I've pointed out, if we have eight kids and they have eight kids, and you do that for just 11 generations, we have more descendants than there are people on earth today.
When you're starting with existing large populations. There was a one population that I was looking at of Hutterites and I, and I'll. Put the exact gross numbers after, but I, I seem to remember that they grew I think it was something like. God, I can't remember. I wanna say like three, 350% in just like 50 years.
Mm-hmm. Like you can [00:10:00] explode really. And then keep in mind when you're growing on top of that, it's compounding. No, no. You
Simone Collins: make a fair point. And you also have
Malcolm Collins: compounding collapses.
Simone Collins: And also Yeah, like when, when there's nobody left. All that matters is who's still there and they'll still be there.
So that's good for them as long as they don't change. Yeah. But this, another, the
Malcolm Collins: thing with Catholics is, and to to, to focus on this Yeah. Is, is they internally don't accept how bad things are for them. They don't accept their deconversion rates. Yeah. They refuse to, they don't accept they're low fertility rates.
They're like, the ones that I can see are fine. And as I've said before, this is like looking at a battlefield and being like, my troops are purposely healthy. And I'm like, what about all the dead ones? And they're like, why would I count them among my ranks? It's, it's survivorship bias. The, the, the Catholics who matter are the ones who are deconvert.
It's, and, and, and leaving. It's not the ones who are there. But I was actually just talking with a Catholic earlier today. He's a fan of ours. And he was sort of asking like what he should do as his future. He really wants kids and a family. But he was thinking about the priesthood, you know, and he knows like this is a, a challenge and a choice.
And this is again, one of the problems. Oh boy. This is just. [00:11:00] Remember how we liked the opus Day before? Yeah. Did you know 30% of the Opus day are silhouettes? Oh, this
Simone Collins: was the guy who, so he's the same guy who wrote to us about this.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is he got the guy in Poland? No, no. Different guy.
Different guy. This is a Oh, totally. We have lots of Catholic fans. Okay. Anyway, the other Catholic fan was thinking about what he's gonna do with his future. The guy in Poland actually had some really interesting points. Both, yeah. Like, is actually pretty bad for family creation because they gender isolate people.
Mm-hmm. And they have 30% celibate and they're just more focused on this like performatively. And so I went to this guy, I was like, well, what if you like. Pitched the Vatican on starting an order that takes, oh snap. The opus day's idea that you can dedicate yourself like faithfully to like anything you're doing in your daily life.
Yeah, but refocuses it entirely on the sacrament, just being
Simone Collins: apparent.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, REFA not, not being a parent explicitly, but the next generation. Mm-hmm. So what you would do is not just be a parent yourself, but you would like religiously put together things like, like [00:12:00] daycares was in existing, like he was talking about a parish that was about to shut down near him.
And I'm like, well, what if you, you know, build a, a daycare facility in there? You know, what if you find people to, in their free time within this order. As a way of giving back to the church man, this what have you, you know, this is the type of thing that the church could get really excited about.
Simone Collins: Yeah, actually that's, I mean, I think it's worth pitching. It fits
Malcolm Collins: Catholic ideology.
Simone Collins: Like we should pitch that to the person that we've spoken with in the past. He's a priest.
Malcolm Collins: Who shoulda not. Yeah. We could connect, we should pitch it to them.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Be like, yeah, because I was like a wow to think I have connections in the Vatican, but Yeah.
Okay. But yeah, connect them because I think that that, that it's, it's completely conducive with Catholic's current belief system. It would work. It's, it's something they desperately need. Yeah. It works with their theology. And so why not just put that together and then you can build this like.
Prenatal as Catholic sect. And you already have the justification from the [00:13:00] opus day that lay people can, can, can like, live a life of, of, of sacrifice. Like what if you canonized this idea of sort of like living martyrdom to the next generation.
Simone Collins: I like it. Oh, very. Techno puritan. Of course. I'm gonna share with you one more thing that I think is relevant at least to our, I told you so narrative that came from this.
Pew study, which is that the urban monoculture is spreading and has really effectively spread from the university system in more elite parts of society to mainstream society. Mm-hmm. And that is you can see this when you look at the levels of education and then the loss of Christianity. So when you look at these numbers for the beginning of this survey in 2007.
The percentage of people with high school or less as their education was 60 some, 66% Christian 5% other religions, and then 27% religiously unaffiliated. And then by 2014 I, I guess they [00:14:00] don't have the most recent stuff. It went to 75%. Were Christian which is really interesting. Like they sort of became like the uneducated became more Christian.
But when you look at people with postgraduate degrees 56% of them were Christian. So very, very few, like from the very beginning, oh, sorry. When you look at 2014 and. People with graduate degrees, 62% of them are Christian. So almost like the sort of level of average Americans today. Mm-hmm. And I feel like this has very much trickled down to mainstream society now.
It's even, even fewer. Only 56% of people with postgraduate degrees are Christian. But compared to today with high school or less, that's, that's 66% in other ways. In other words, the gap between postgraduate. Americans and high school or less were Americans was actually higher in terms of religiosity in 2014.
Mm-hmm. It was 10% [00:15:00] different in terms of Christianity versus 16% in 2014. And I feel that that difference in like wow. Postgraduate people were a whole lot less religious. That difference in 2014 decreasing is a sign of basically just the urban monoculture spreading from just elite culture to all culture.
So even people without high school. Wait, you said
Malcolm Collins: that the uneducated became more Christian, so that's, that's almost like the urban monoculture. Sorry, I
Simone Collins: got it wrong. I was looking at the, the wrong tabs. 'cause there's a lot, there's a lot of tabs here. So, okay. Then say it correctly. Yeah. In 20 14, 70 5% of people with high school or less were Christians.
Now only 66% consider themselves to be Christian and with postgraduates in 2014 waiting for it to load. Come on. Okay. Okay. And with postgraduates in 20 14, 60 2% were Christian. Now only 56% are, but as you can see, the gap got narrower. And I think that's just a [00:16:00] sign of the urban monoculture spreading from the university system to, yeah, mainstream culture.
Things have just become a lot more normalized. Another thing just that's important to point out. In this, this survey finding is on every area that they measured religiosity, people were moving in a less religious direction. So it came with identity, it came with beliefs, and it came with practices. So people aren't going to church or praying as much as your data shows.
They are not identifying as religious as your data shows. And they don't believe religious things, which. Part of me would've wanted to think, okay, well people still identify as Christian or they identify as Jewish. They're just not going, you know, they're not actively practicing. Or they maybe don't even believe, but they, you know, they still call themselves that.
And then the final important thing to note from this pew in data, which is interesting and does kind of feed into the natal con, we have to protect the west narrative, which is surprising because it's not what [00:17:00] I expected, is it? Only Christianity seeing a decline in the United States When you look at the United States in general.
Yeah. Or we do that.
Malcolm Collins: I wanna go into the Protestant data because I find it interesting. Okay. The Evangelical Protestants. Yeah. These are Protestants who identify as evangelical Protestants and they're actually in. As bad a situation is the Catholics. So not, maybe not as bad, but, but pretty bad. No, it's
Simone Collins: pretty pathetic.
No, no, no. Don't, don't, don't understate
Malcolm Collins: it. This is embarrassing. Look at evangelical Protestants. They're 18 to 29 percentage is the same as Catholics. 14%. Yeah. It's pathetic. And, and they're over 65 percentage is 27%, which is the only
Simone Collins: group I saw that had me thinking, oh, you guys are getting it together.
Is is Mormon. Period.
Malcolm Collins: Period. They're, they're over 50% over the age of 50 right now. Like that's crazy. Like well over 50% again, and
Simone Collins: because they're dying. And that's what you see in these numbers is it's like the skew is shifting to old people. Because literally as this survey has progressed over this 17 year period.
People's views have stayed the same. It's just that the people who had faith are
Malcolm Collins: going to die
Simone Collins: soon.
Malcolm Collins: The Protestant [00:18:00] numbers are more stable than the, than the Catholic numbers in that if you go back to 2007, they were already at only 16% of their population, you know, being 18 to 29. Yeah. So basically there isn't something new happening 2007 to now in the Protestant population.
Yeah. The evangelical Protestant population. And note here, like I've talked about this, I've, I've said the evangelical movement is. Dying. Like, yeah. Like the extremist, like Quiverfull, Protestant, et cetera they don't really exist within this generation in large numbers. They're not a major voting block anymore.
They're not like, they used to be like super, super, super important to American politics. Yeah. They defined their Republican party. And they have been replaced by four C Channelers, I guess you could say. Like, yeah. As, as like the key voting block before Chans
Simone Collins: aren't exactly known for having faith.
Also, this has serious implications for Tism in general for, for America's birth rates in general. Because the, the research also tracked things like marital status and it is very clear that there is a correlation [00:19:00] between religion and marriage. So as of 2007, I mean, it was very stark. 81% of married people in the United States were Christian.
Only 14% were religiously unaffiliated. 80 Wait, 21%? What? What? 81%. So eight out of 10. Eight outta 10 married people in the United States were CED Western Dinner, or Americans are Christian and Oh, in general, on that year.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like that. That justing means nothing without knowing how many,
Simone Collins: yeah, yeah. Sorry.
Let give you the comparison.
Oh, come on.
Let me find this. It's a Littley.
Malcolm Collins: No, you literally just Google it.
Simone Collins: I don't know what's, okay. 67%. 67%. No. Hold on. Go to US data. Oh, there we go. Okay. In 20 17, [00:20:00] 70 8% of Americans in general. Were Christian, 81% were married, so there wasn't that much of a gap. Let's go to 2014. Suddenly 76% of married people are Christian, and yet the US population that is Christian goes down to 71.
The gap is getting bigger. Then 20 23, 20 24, only 62% of Americans are Christian, and yet we're, we're seeing a slight uptick. 68% of married people are Christian, and I'm, what this says to me. Is it the thing that is keeping people getting married is religion.
Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.
Simone Collins: In more cases than not. Which is, which is meaningful.
So we're gonna see if fewer marriages, because we're gonna see fewer cultural frameworks that make marriage make sense. Especially in a country like in the United States, where for a lot of middle and lower income people getting married gives you a tax penalty. Like, it's not, it's not a culturally logical, like in the absence of religion, it doesn't make [00:21:00] sense to get married if that makes Yeah.
Like just, and that's, that's insane. But like we live in a country that actually penalizes marriage in many cases, especially for normal people, not like, not for very rich people. So this is going to hurt birth rates, just period. And it, it makes me really sad because this, this is getting reflected in, in rates of sex and everything else.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you are you were gonna give data on the fertility rates of non-Christians in the United States and what's happening with them?
Simone Collins: Oh, like the parental status of non-Christians? No, you said
Malcolm Collins: the only groups that are dropping are Christians. And then you were going to talk about groups that weren't Christians that are not dropping.
Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no. So just in general, an important thing to note with this research is that. The fairly low, but, but now apparently constant percentage of non-religious people, or sorry other religious people has sort of stayed the same. So in 2007, 5% of US [00:22:00] adults were other religions. This includes Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and then what We wouldn't count Unitarian Universalist and New Age and Native American religions.
Then in 2014, it actually jumped up to 6%, and in 20 23, 20 24, it jumped to 7%. So the only reason it jumped to 7%, by the way, is that we now have more people identifying as New Age and Unitarian Universalists. So I don't actually, I think a lot of people would be like, oh, that means we're getting more Muslim immigrants or like more Jews.
No. Those have stayed constant. They have not changed. 2% of the other religions are Jewish. That's just stayed the same. Same for 1% for Buddhist, 1% for Muslim, there was a slight increase in Muslims because in 2007, fewer or less than 1% of American adults were mu, or of the 5% that were other religions were Muslim.
It switched to just 1%. But the problem is that like, is that, is that 1% of
Malcolm Collins: Americans or 1% of the 5%,
Simone Collins: 1% of the 7% that are other religions are Muslims [00:23:00] now.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay. So very small. So there's
Simone Collins: very, very few Muslims, extremely few Muslims extremely few Buddhists. And then, and then actually a, a way more than there should be new age and we would argue and hearing universalists.
Yeah. So one new religions we, I would argue have not actually increased because you shouldn't count UUs and New Age Crystal. People as religious that is religiously unaffiliated and being into a trend. And I think that that's important to note because it runs counter to my world model that like western civilization isn't falling and like Christians are doing just fine.
I mean, Christians are still a huge percentage of Americans, but. They are eroding. But I also, like other religions are coming from nowhere and they're basically just holding steady. They're not increasing. So I don't see this as real as Christians being replaced by any stretch of the imagination. However, these other religions aren't tanking in the same way that [00:24:00] many Christian religions are, except for the Mormons, which by, you know, we keep tank.
We like. We keep saying they're doing a terrible job. They're saying a huge exodus. They're bouncing back.
Malcolm Collins: They're, they're taking this situation seriously. Mm-hmm. Which I think is why they're doing well. Yeah. Like they're actually like sitting down and doing like, what the Catholic should be doing is like starting new orders based on having kids and stuff like that.
Like, they're the, they actually do this stuff. Yeah. Like when. When their fertility rates started to drop. A lot of Mormon things that we think of as, as having been around forever are new cultural technology. Like the singles wards were invented in the 19 seventies. Like, that's, that's not that old, that's not like always been a part of Mormonism.
Simone Collins: Yeah. And it's, and actually those, it was the perfect time to do it because it was during the age of. Female professional empowerment. It was during the age when people were not as tethered to their childhood communities, which I think made getting married a little bit easier. So the church either intuitively or very intentionally and logically saw where the headwinds and tailwinds were and [00:25:00] decided to create new forms of institutions that would make it possible for people who were not moored.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah.
Simone Collins: To a single community and who had careers to find someone, which is so cool.
Malcolm Collins: Like a question I have internally is like, why are Catholics not able to take this as seriously as Mormons or treat this as seriously? Yeah. And I have a hypothesis.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: It has to do with how their central leadership is decided.
Mm. So both Catholics and Mormons have a central church that could disseminate these messages if it had a mind to, okay. The Mormons Central Church, the people who end up is the, like prophets and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. And like the, the head people in the central church a lot of them have a background in.
Bus business, like they show their company. They're, they're like bane type people. Oh. They're like,
Simone Collins: yeah. McKenzie type people. They're private equity people. They own businesses. Yeah. They're private
Malcolm Collins: equity type people. And, and so when they come into religion, they're, they're viewing it like a giant company, right?
Like they're trying to, to make money and grow and think long term, right? Yeah. You know, that's, that's their goals. The Catholic leadership is made up entirely of people who have dedicated their entire life to theological [00:26:00] study. Hmm. Not just that, but celibate people who have dedicated, it's, it's almost like lifetime
Simone Collins: politicians making policy versus business people making policy.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And, and because of that, the issue of fertility collapse is just not something that's on their mind. And when it's brought up to them, they would believe that they have some form of theological protection from its implications, I believe. Hmm. You know, because they're relating to this all through, through the lens of theology rather than through the lens of like, well, let's be practical about the situation.
Now, Mormon fertility rates have taken a hit, but like, as you've pointed out here, they appear to be already riding the ship, like the, the, the, the torpedo hit and the ship is now coming back online. Whereas. Yeah, this is interesting. Evangelical Protestants, the reason I don't mention them is 'cause they don't have a centralized structure, so they can't disseminate new messages.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. And they're kind of, they're, they're unmoored and listless and they're isolated communities.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So if you, if you're like, what's going to replace them? Well, I hope something like techno Puritanism [00:27:00] replaces them, to be honest. Like, I'd be okay with that. I like, I, we don't actively proselytize, but I like the the structure of this.
And I think that and when I say something like, what's replacing the evangelical movement? The Jordan Peterson movement the the, the various new forms of Christianity that are more melds of secular self-help slash Protestantism. Mm-hmm. Mixed with religiosity. These, this, this is where that community is going.
And I see Techo Puritanism as an iteration of that, that's more extreme. And, and, and more dedicated and more is sort of like the techno puritanism is like the opus day to whatever Jordan Peterson is. You know, like if Jordan Peterson represents the Jesuit branch of this Protestant faction, we would represent the Opus Day faction.
Mm-hmm. Just like the way more intense about it, the way more extreme in expectations. And, and like, I think that, that, that works. But the thing about Protestantism is, is unlike other groups, you [00:28:00] know, you don't have some higher group deciding what's canon and what's not canon. Mm-hmm. You need to go out there on the ground and convince people of your perspective or out breed them.
Simone Collins: Yeah. And parents especially, I mean, parents see what's happening to their kids on the ground. They're the ones who know what their kids need as they go through whatever religious system is rearing them. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Wow. I mean, it's it's worse than I thought.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I was, I was surprised by the e how cooked evangelical Protestantism is.
Like I've mentioned it before, but like, it's something you don't see 'cause nobody really molds. I don't know. But yeah.
Simone Collins: Yeah. It's so much of the content that we create, you know, about the new right. About the interesting religious movements. Where are the evangelicals? Where are the influencers in this space?
They don't
Malcolm Collins: come. Like, I literally, like, I have been involved in politics a lot recently in terms of meeting with political influencers and people who work in politics. I haven't met a single evangelical project. Yeah.
Simone Collins: They're just not there. And that's the thing like that, that's, to me, that's why I'm not at all surprised.
I'm like, well, yeah, they, this explains it. You know, [00:29:00] they're all just dying. They're, they're old and they're offline and they're dying. Well, but here's the thing. I've met tons of
Malcolm Collins: Catholics. So they're also dying. And that is, yeah, that is the reason have institutional power. That's,
Simone Collins: but that's why I have hope for Catholics is, is they are getting organized in their communities and if anything, they're literally
Malcolm Collins: not bro.
They're literally not. They have like some communities that seem to work, but I think they need something from up top going down. I think they need border. So you don't think that over time
Simone Collins: as these groups are the only ones that are left, they will influence policy at the Vatican level? You don't think so?
Malcolm Collins: Like already. I mean, I think the majority of Catholics, at least the ones that I found who take it seriously, are very unhappy with what's happening at the Vatican level. Like the, yeah,
Simone Collins: yeah.
Malcolm Collins: The idea that the Vatican is, the point is though that their opinion doesn't matter now because
Simone Collins: they're too small and when they are bigger, they, their opinion will matter.
Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. I, I said the majority of Catholics I know are actually involved with their religion are not so already. Okay. Interesting. Already the Vatican is not a democracy in the way, like America's [00:30:00] democracy, right? Like if the average Catholic is, is is like suppose like you had like super prenatal Catholics having lots of kids growing and everything like that, the the entire.
Career pipeline to getting in the chair that votes on the Pope is celibate. Mm. Like you are not near those people. Yeah.
Simone Collins: That's not gonna help.
Malcolm Collins: So, so you do have this and, and if you believe you have divine protection, you're not gonna take threats like this as seriously.
Simone Collins: That's also fair.
Malcolm Collins: So that does worry me.
Yeah, I can see that that potentially not going on. What's even more sobering though,
Simone Collins: if we wanna get to this though, is we're just looking at the P research data for the United States. A actually fairly passionate religious country. I think if we were to see EU data, we would, I. Oh, absolutely. It'd be so hot.
Vomit with anxiety. Yeah. Japanese jata, south Korean data.
Malcolm Collins: I've pointed out, like if you look at like ic, majority of countries in the eo like, like Italy, right? Where like the Vatican is, it's at 1.18 now. Fertility rate [00:31:00] they hundred Italians, there's only gonna be 20 great grandchildren. And there are, but this is a good thing because there are like small high fertility Catholic communities.
I think that they might be able to stabilize and like replace a lot of the rest of the Catholic population pretty quickly. Hmm. The questions I have is just like, what's the deconversion rate in these communities? 'cause I don't feel like that's being taken seriously. Yeah. Like the communities exist, but like the Quiverfull movement also existed.
Right. You know, and I know I'm saying all of this only because Catholics can actually do something. Like, Protestants can't really, like
Simone Collins: they lack the top down organization necessary.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they lack the top-down organization necessary to address this outside of the way that we're doing it. I mean, I think what we're doing is the best way to handle this as a Protestant.
Yeah. Which is to create a living religion, which continues to update in the way that Protestants have updated in a long time. I mean, Protestants have undergone major re-understanding of their faith throughout American history. And us having that [00:32:00] was like the track series and stuff like that.
Is not in any way discordant with American Protestant traditions. So I, I'd argue like we are fighting for the Protestant thing, is what we're doing with tracks is what we're doing with second Puritanism.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Fair.
Malcolm Collins: So, I mean, maybe somebody else can create some, some other form that's like persistent, but I, I, I think I'd, I'd like to see that.
That'd be cool, right? Like, it, it could work, but you just don't see many of them. Like, like at at Natal Con, you don't see many Protestants.
Simone Collins: I guess not. I mean, if you do, they're not the main speakers or influencers there. Yeah, which is interesting. Cool. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: But in terms of church attendance, I'll put a heat map on screen here.
So like who is actually attending church? Yeah. In what regions are they?
Simone Collins: Okay. LDS church is a must 'cause you have, you know, your callings, you have to, you've, you have a job. Like you can't Yeah. Not show up at church because you literally have to play piano or help man the kitty [00:33:00] pool or what, whatever their like daycare version thing is.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I'm trying to find out where, where the LDS was. I seem to remember for the LDDS, it was 11%, which is really high for weekly attendance.
I went back to double check, so I'm gonna get some of these numbers wrong coming up. So just remember these are the right numbers.
For Catholics, it was 1.9% of Catholics to attend mass weekly. For Protestants, it's 7% of Protestants to attend mass weekly. And for LDS it's 14.6%. Attend Mass weekly.
Simone Collins: Oh my gosh. 11 percent's actually pretty low. Low
Malcolm Collins: when you consider the way their face is structured. Yeah, yeah, look
Simone Collins: low when you consider what a proper practicing Mormon should be doing, and if you are a proper practicing Mormon, you have a calling at your local ward.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, like
Simone Collins: you, you have a job. You have to do something.
Malcolm Collins: Well, there may be, there's just not that many proper practicing Mormons of the Mormons. That's
Simone Collins: crazy. Okay. That's actually, now I'm worried about the LDS church. This is not good. This
Malcolm Collins: Protestants, it was like, I wanna say 5%. The remember was Catholic.
It was only, two to 1% I [00:34:00] think. Whoa.
For Catholics, it was 1.9% of Catholics to attend mass weekly. For Protestants, it's 7%
To get into some more data here, only 19% of Americans self-identify as Catholic, down 24% in 2007. This is a 20% decrease by comparison. Protestants decreased by 21% while religious nuns. Increased by 81% and Muslims increased by an astounding 200%, although they still make up a small percentage of the overall population, only 1.2%.
Even though the Pew Survey headline suggested a decline in Christianity in this country may have quote unquote leveled off, it's clear the overall direction is downward. This is a quote from a Christian magazine about it. .
Malcolm Collins: If you look at the map, you can clearly see the Bible belt. Like the Bible belt is just like dark, dark, dark. You're looking at like 6.4% in those regions. If you go to like Massachusetts or Maine or something like that, you're looking at like under 1% in all of those regions.
Wow. You go to Texas, you're looking at like 4.5%, [00:35:00] 4.8%, you know, around 5%. Same with Florida. Pennsylvania, you're looking fairly low. You're looking at around like it seems maybe like 2.3%. And, and, and what you might be surprised about is California, you're looking higher than that.
California, you're looking in like the 4% range.
Simone Collins: Is that from all the inland Christians?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. California has a big conservative population in it. Yeah. It's basically
Simone Collins: San Francisco and LA
Malcolm Collins: is, and then a bunch of conservative
Simone Collins: progressives and then like the rest is, yeah,
Malcolm Collins: it's funny. Nevada's also in that range, Washington's also in that range.
Interesting. Oregon is actually pretty Blue Oregon is, is is in the like 5% church attendance range.
Simone Collins: I guess these rural regions help to hold
Malcolm Collins: them up. So like close to like, you know, New Mexico or Florida or something, or Virginia. Which I, I found pretty interesting. That is interesting. But you know, another thing you might be surprised about is how low church attendance to this in the Midwest, Montana, Wyoming, North [00:36:00] Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, all of them have around 2% church attendants.
Simone Collins: Wow. Oh man. Okay. Yeah, no we are, it's over. We. Yeah, and this is just an, I think this is also a lot more evidence indicating that going back to the old boys, like we just have to get more traditional Catholic, traditional evangelic, whatever is clearly not working you. You can't just go back to that. People have clearly chosen to abandon it.
It's not trying to make that work, I think is the wrong approach.
Malcolm Collins: I agree. I agree a hundred percent.
Simone Collins: But then you know what does work? Because I think it's also very difficult for people to do the othering, to do the weirdness if they don't feel like there's at least some safe tribe that's doing it with them.
I think we're unusual and that we really don't care that we dress weird and have weird names and do weird holidays. I [00:37:00] think other people would be very uncomfortable if they did that in isolation. So how do you.
Malcolm Collins: Well, and that's why's that why people are gonna go extinct?
Simone Collins: Oh, so just the people who don't care what mainstream society thinks will survive.
Malcolm Collins: Well, that's what I mean. If you look at our video on like, they're gonna replace you like the Japanese subculture and the, the tradies and the, you know, the, the, a lot of these are people who just do not care what mainstream society No, no. But
Simone Collins: the tradies and the. The Japanese soft Yankees, they do live in tight-knit communities.
They do live close together. No, they
Malcolm Collins: have communities that they choose, but it's not like everyone in their community lives the way they do. They, they, they choose these groups. It's like a subculture, right? You know? They're like goths or something within the United States.
Simone Collins: Yeah, but I think that they're more representative of what I would expect from future high fertility cultures and that they do geographically concentrate and live next to each other and feel solidarity in their weirdness together.
I.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Also, you'll note here if you're, if you're looking at the, the regular church attendants, the greater Appalachian region [00:38:00] is like also really darker than the other regions around it. Hmm. Which is interesting. But yeah, as, as, as I you know, one thing I didn't get a chance to point outta that video that these, that these Yankees, that these whatever guys.
That dress like, you know, greasers and stuff like that in Japan are, are staying high fertility. This means that we're in the timeline where space dandy or red line happens. There's been a number of, of, of far future like space animes where one of the characters is a Japanese Yankee.
And I can totally see that like
Simone Collins: yeah, they called it without realizing what they were calling.
Right. Which is interesting. Yeah. They're just like, no, this, this subculture is visually interesting. Little did they know that it was a future friendly subculture as everyone else chose to die out? Well,
Malcolm Collins: I unlikable, you know, I, I think one of the thing is is, is J Japanese person could be like, well, does Japanese culture really survive?
If it's the Japanese Yankees, I mean, you don't walk around in like samurai armor or whatever, right? Like, you don't walk around dress like somebody from the ma maing whatever period. Like ma you, period. Yeah, yeah. Like. You, you, you change a lot as, as things go on, and you might be undergoing one of these changes [00:39:00] right now where when our descendant think of Japanese people, they're thinking of somebody who looks like whatever, like the Yankees and, and Gaza or what, what are those girls called?
Who dressed Goldman? Ros become. Yeah. And if you're thinking about Americans, you're thinking about like, what, what, you know, the, the Hill people became the country music culture. And, and the Mormons. I, I think that they're gonna write the ship on them because Utah and Idaho are just so high fertility right now.
And that's where the, the Mormons are based.
Simone Collins: I'm thrilled. They not high
Malcolm Collins: fertility, high high church attendance. They're, they're Boston in Lake.
Simone Collins: So then, you know, space Mormons too. They called it. Yeah. Starship Troopers. The, the few that will remain, by the way, she's referring to
Malcolm Collins: the scene that they started the war, they Mormon separatists you know, were not listening to, to the sky Marshal and settled a, a remote outpost called Brigham Young.
I love you death, Simone. Have a spectacular day.
Simone Collins: And may we never lose religion. [00:40:00] Yes. Space Mormons.
Is this daddy's phone? Yes. So be very careful with it on tv. What you doing? Um.
No, look. Careful, careful, careful, careful.
Uh oh. She's gonna clobber you guys.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com
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The Aesthetics of the New Right With Raw Egg Nationalist (Birth of a New Subversive Art Movement)
18 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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's
Simone 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 just
Simone 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 where
Malcolm 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 that
Malcolm 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 was thinking about men's magazines and, you know, why Playboy has disappeared. You know, I mean, part of it's something that I remember from my teenage years, you know, growing up things like Maxim, FHM, but also Playboy, you know, and there's this old Chestnut I read Playboy for the article.
Yes. But it's, but it's, but it's true. I mean, I, I say this a lot, but it's, you [00:05:00] know, it's true. Like Playboy used to have great writers NAL, Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, all of these great, you know, great writers of the middle and, and late 20th century, you know, would regularly write for Playboy. Hunter Thompson too, right?
Yeah, yeah. Hunters Thompson. Yeah, exactly. So you'd have, you'd have, you know, it was, it was like a re it was a trendsetting taste setting thing. Playboy. Yeah. You know, it was, it was for like a. Aspiring men, you know, men, men who are, who have aspirations, men who want to, you know, sort of better themselves and, and but also
Simone Collins: cutting edge culture.
Yeah, very. It was on the forefront of change. These were age agentic people.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Exactly. Exactly. And it, it, I mean, it wasn't just about the beautiful women, the native women. I mean, that was a big part of it. That was part of the lifestyle. And obviously that was part of Hugh Hefner's lifestyle. But you know, play Playboy was a cultural phenomenon.
And so I thought, well, wouldn't it be nice if we actually on the right, if we had a new kind of playboy for the, for the new massively online internet [00:06:00] era? Something that sort of combined the best writing on, you know, on the dissident, right. Whatever you want to call it with kind of lifestyle stuff and, and also this kind of, basically like the Twitter four chan kind of aesthetic where you, where you are, you know, so you'd, you'd be mixing like classic Playboy, the classic Playboy layout. You know, I mean, the magazine looks like a classic playboy in many respects, but it's. But it's just, it's, it's kind of bizarre and, and sort of a bit postmodern and, and it has all of this.
Yeah. You are
Simone Collins: really combining like all the new aesthetics, which I really like got this like vintage. Well, no, but
Malcolm Collins: I, but I mean, I think that, that what you're showing there, can you put that closer to the camera so we can really see that Is is a, a artistic style that is unique to this sort of new right movement where you're combining nostalgia with.
Irreverence and, and cultural subversion.
Simone Collins: Yeah. But still like with Yeah, like irreverence, you know, like this is, you know, there, there are puns. It's playful around the world in [00:07:00] 80 Lays is what it says. Yes.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was, that was the winner of, so we had a pulp fiction contest in the magazine, and that was the winner of the Pulp Fiction contest.
I wanted people to write classic pulp fiction short stories racy, exciting, you know, for men. And I mean, the, the winner, the winner is great. All of, in fact, most of the entries that we had for the competition, we had hundreds of entries. They were really good. Wow. It was really very, very high standard.
But I mean, the thing about, the thing about the aesthetics thing, I suppose, is that you know, really it's, it's quite heavily influenced by Bronze Age, pervert by Bronze Age mindset. I mean, he helped mm-hmm. To put. Aesthetic considerations, I think back on the radar in a, for the writing in a way that they weren't before.
You know, I mean, Bronte's mindset as a book is as much about the kind of, the kind of madcap energy of the, of the book, of the style the kind of irreverence, the style of re and
Simone Collins: well, and vitalism too. [00:08:00] So yes, the, the aesthetics is permeated in every grammatical choice that he makes. Mm-hmm. As well as this, like very heavy.
Vitalistic enthusiasm which is somewhat reminiscent of the Playboy days. I think, you know, there's that same sort of enthusiasm for the future in Vitalism. I think he, he tones it up.
Malcolm Collins: So if we wanna talk about Bronze Age pervert, there's a few things to break out here. One is, his name is intentionally, you know, I talked about combining nostalgia, bronze Age with subversion pervert.
It does that perfectly in the way that he constructed it. Yeah. If you look at his writing style, he intentionally does not use correct per periods and everything he correct does lots of run-ons. He doesn't follow the rules. We associate with high status writing. Sure. And post him and you being dox.
We now know, you know, he went to Yale, you went to, what was it, Oxford or Cambridge like? Both. Both bo of both. So you have all of the [00:09:00] criteria that we would associate with access to high class, high culture. And yet when both you and him entered the public community, you did so pseu anonymously to negate the, the classic signs of status.
And then you and, and he more than you to start, you know, wrote in a way that you could almost say was, was vulgar to high status because it could not be used to signal high status. It intentionally subverted everything that we associate with an educated man while presenting ideas in an educated format.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah, I think, I think that's a very interesting way of putting it. And certainly, I mean, you know, just with the magazine then there are fake adverts throughout the magazine. I mean, that's been a, that's been a big part of the magazine from the start, is these kind of fake adverts. So one of them, for example, there's a, I've created a, a kind of a mock coffee brand [00:10:00] that's very like, that's like black rifle coffee, basically.
'cause I, I find Black rifle coffee absurd. And these like veteran owned coffee companies, you know, where they have this like men shooting flame throwers and stuff, and women with big tits and, and it's all like, it's, it's. It's an, it is almost like a parody of itself. So I created this veteran owned coffee company called C Operator Coffee Company.
And it's like basic, basically it's about, it's for like ex special forces guys who have a, who have a C fetish and, you know,
Malcolm Collins: I mean, hold on. This is so. Perfectly capturing all of the things we're talking about here where I, I mean, I think part of it is like Americana and over the top Americana. And so here you're taking the idea of consumerism and over the top American consumerism that is inauthentically sold to.
Because I, because I think, you know, the point of this is to is to, is to capture the [00:11:00] inauthenticity of the way consumerist trends have gone. As, as sort of art. And what's funny about, you know, hearing you do this is, is you would look at something like this and if you were studying this in art history, you would associate this with a lot of the classic artistic movements of like the seventies and the sixties and stuff like that.
It's like, oh, there's subverting you know, like over the top inauthentic advertisement. Whereas today, because the left controls so much of the advertising and everything like that, you know, and we're like, they're, they're subverting the cringe ness that comes from corporations trying to market to people using and, and, and you remove any authenticity from that by making it entirely fake.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Which is like really satisfying to engage with, but continue. Sorry, I'm, I'm just sort of like analyzing that's what I wanted to do. Grappling
Simone Collins: in the brilliance of it. We can do that. That's why we're here today.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah, so I mean, so I mean, the, the fake adverts are a really, really big part of [00:12:00] man man's world, and they have been, it is actually, it's actually a bit of a burden for me coming up with, with these new fake brands.
Like every, every, every issue I have to come up with something new and I have to top what I did in the pre, the previous issue. And, but there are some long running ones like Duck operator coffee company, and yeah, we just, we just do, I mean, it, it's integral. It's not filler. That's the other thing as well, that that's important, you know, it's an integral part of the actual package.
You know, it's, it's, well, I think anyone who grew up reading
Simone Collins: magazines half or at least a quarter, read them for the ads because the ads have been like, they're sometimes the, the best part of many magazines. They're what many brands invested so much creative energy into creating. I like, yeah, it. Now also ads are just so awful.
And most of the magazines I've looked at, it's like for SaaS, software and stuff, like, it's not relatable, it's not creative, it's not fun. It's not visually, visually interesting. So, you
Malcolm Collins: know, you know, what'd be fun is the, the gayest children's [00:13:00] clothes line ever. Like we, we've been voted by by like Queer Magazine and Pride, the gayest children's line ever.
And like just try to overdo the top when they had like the the, the, the target scandal and the the Bud Light scandal. I think, I think that something funny could be done, but I think looking at the ways that corporate culture has gone over the top was in the last cycle and then subverting that mm-hmm.
Is, is really, fun. Another thing I find about the artistic style that you've chosen here. Oh, I should
Simone Collins: probably too. Sorry. I found the page. Show that. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Oh
Simone Collins: yeah. It's great. Like they're, they're, they're great. They're nicely formatted.
Malcolm Collins: Bag of Cook operated coffee company, signature, K blend, cup operated coffee.
I love it. How it says company with a K. Yeah, of course. They're very, very, see that here. C Operator is a proud cook hold owned company.
Raw Egg Nationalist: And then, but on the other, on the other page, on the facing page. Then of course you've got the cuck beard. The, yeah, the Jack, the Jack Murphy Cuck beard.
Malcolm Collins: Beautiful.
Oh, beautiful. [00:14:00] Oh my God. Wait, wait, so hold on. What's this whole cuck Jack Murphy thing? I don't know. This is this story. Oh
Raw Egg Nationalist: God, this is, I mean, this is a, this is a rabbit hole. So Ja. Jack Murphy was this like masculinity guy who had a masculine, you didn't die. I
Malcolm Collins: remember. Continue. This is interesting.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. I mean, I, I rere kind of regrettably, I, I actually went on his podcast early on when I didn't really know who he was, but he he
Malcolm Collins: seemed fine enough other than the holder thing.
Raw Egg Nationalist: And, but yeah, he, he had this he had this masculine fraternity called the liminal Order, and he had a meltdown on a, on a podcast because somebody brought up the fact that he had written an article some years before about cadry, about sending his girlfriend off to have sex with random guys from Tinder.
And then after this meltdown, it came out that he had actually been like a cam, a cam guy. And he'd Wow. Stuck stuff up his, up his bum on camera and stuff. And there were videos and they were posted and it all kind of imploded. So that's, oh. [00:15:00] So that's where, that's where the beard comes from. That is my, I'm,
Malcolm Collins: I'm deeply, I mean, look, I, I kind of feel like I wasn't born with like, embarrassing fetishes.
Like I, I am, I am deeply happy that I do not get turned on by that. I'm just
Simone Collins: glad he monetized it. You know what, that's, if you, if you do it for profit, I monetize it. You're so differently about it. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: You can make a lot of money doing OnlyFans and stuff like that. You know that the couple who got the the squirrel was killed.
Peanut, the squirrel and all that. Yes.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Mm.
Malcolm Collins: They were making $80,000 a month on OnlyFans.
Raw Egg Nationalist: And they were using, they were using the death of the screw weren't there as a funnel as well. It was like, yeah. I
Malcolm Collins: don't think they, I bet they were. I mean, you gotta, you gotta, it doesn't hurt Malcolm monetize everything.
Right. Yeah. Oh, there's something about the, the, the ghost of the squirrel or something like that could be a fun company thing. Just like the, I don't, I don't know. I'm just trying to have fun with this, but I I'd love your thoughts [00:16:00] on why the modern Right. Has adopted the aesthetics of things like anime.
I, I mean, my thesis would be is that anime was one of the last, like if you look at Japanese culture, it was one of the last bastions of mainstream media that was not affected by woke ism because woke ism took a while to get there. There's still fan service in anime. I, I would say it's still largely exempt.
They still, they still have like openly prenatal list shows. So you have that, you have the idea that anime was considered low culture. So in the same way that like writing poorly could be a sign of, I'm not playing into your cultural game using big TTY anime, girls can do that. But I'm wondering if there's anything else or what your thesis is on this.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah, I mean, I, I think you've, I think you've nailed a lot of it with the, you know, by talking about the authenticity of, of anime. I think that anime is fundamentally like an authentic expression of Japanese culture, largely untouched [00:17:00] by the west, or at least the way that, the way that anime kind of relates to the west is interesting and it's not kind of colonized by the west so much, you know, in a way that often a lot of other foreign foreign cultural products are or have been since the second World war.
Yeah, I don't, I mean, I just think intrinsically, you know, like the subject matter of so much anime, it's just the kind of stuff that guys like. I think there's guns, swords, you know, har heroes, harem, that kind of stuff. Lots
Malcolm Collins: of harems. I want, I want at least Simone. Why do you deny me my harem? I, I, I, it's, it's Malcolm Harems are for closers.
Harems are Okay. Okay. Okay. I'll work on it. I'll work on it. No, but I, I think that you're right about this. One of the things, and it, you know, anime, I think one of the interesting things about it is I think it fulfills some male fantasies in ways that are almost like subversive, where a, a common trope within anime is.
A [00:18:00] girl who is, you know, phenotypically young around a guy, and I've noticed that a lot of these are actually showing the girl and the guy in a father-daughter role for a society that has so lost the idea of father-daughter relationships that the only way it can think of a guy being around a young girl as in sort of this perverse context.
And I've always found that to be deeply sad, where it's very obvious to me if you watch one of these shows, oh, this is trying to give you the feeling you would have if you had a daughter and you were raising her damn and you were protecting her, but it's not his daughter.
Raw Egg Nationalist: I mean, I think, I think that that anime in general deals with a lot of, and Japanese Japanese culture and Japanese media more broadly I think deal with actually a lot of, a lot of subjects that actually would get swept under the carpet would be very difficult to be depicted in Western media. I mean, you know, I think the Japanese have a very different idea about, well, there's a Jonathan Bowden essay actually [00:19:00] about the kind of difference between Japanese and European culture where he says, you know, like, we have this idea that kind of shameful or difficult faults, difficult urges have to be repressed and hidden away, whereas actually you to make them safe.
Whereas actually the Japanese think that the best way to deal with them is to depict them and to bring them out into the open so that people can see them and actually recognize that they exist. And so, I mean, you do get, yeah, I mean you do get a lot of obviously you get some pretty extreme stuff in anime and but I think that that has a, has an appeal. I mean, it has an appeal beyond simply being appealing to like perverts. You know, it actually has an, actually has an appeal to people because it, because it depicts aspects I think, of the human experience that are actually either taboo or perhaps, you know, just aren't depicted in, in Western media in the same way.
It, it's a very co it's a very complex art form, actually. Anime, you know, you can laugh at anime and you can say, oh, it's, you know, it's these school girls in you know, [00:20:00] with, with short skirts on and, and you know, all this kind of like silly stuff, sailor Moon. But actually it's really not, I mean, it's really a very, very deep art
Malcolm Collins: form.
The vast majority of media I watch is anime. I, I think, no, it's, it's
Simone Collins: sometimes it's deep, sometimes it's just girls who are ponies who love to race, but, right. For most. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Well, and, and, and the ways that it can subvert. I mean, we have a whole episode. I, I encourage people watch it 'cause it's an episode that I really like is that we've done.
On Urin Log and other over the top prenatal list anime where Tism and, and environmentalists being treated as villains in Gerin Log, which is one of the most famous animes ever made. The core bad guy believes that Earth can only have so many people on it. Basically, it's, it's against the concept of like environmental thresholds.
And, and they're presented as like Captain Planet villains. But I, I note here that the new rights aesthetic, when it takes anime, it doesn't use it in the way that Ja, the Japanese use anime. So the [00:21:00] Japanese use anime as sort of a broad cultural, way of expressing things when the new right takes the anime aesthetic.
What it does is it overt, tunes it with vitalism to be like over the top as you saw on the video, or as you, you know, if you put up the cover of the, the, the, the, the piece Simone. Like, it's very much like vitalism, like, like life, like, you know, the missiles coming outta the mouth and everything. Like so much is happening.
Yeah. And then so
Raw Egg Nationalist: that's, so that's an image of, so that's supposed, you know, that's Trump, that's the fight, fight, fight image, basically.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. And what was the thought on the two things on the side here? I'm not familiar with these.
Raw Egg Nationalist: I just, I just got, I just said to my design guy, look, I want an, I want an animate.
I want an anime Trump fight, fight, fight, you know. Do do whatever you want to do. And he, he came back with this and it was, it was perfect. It's
Simone Collins: perfect. And with, with Shinzo Abe, who, you know, clearly saved his life as we had to explain to as, as confused Italian the other day yeah. I
Malcolm Collins: had to, the Italian reporter through, at our house this weekend, I had to explain to them how Shinzo [00:22:00] Abe saved Trump's life.
And they're like, wait, do people like believe this? And I go, well, like emotionally we believe it emotionally. We don't need to actually believe it
Simone Collins: emotionally. I mean, there's, you know, the difference between emotional belief and real belief is, is actually pretty vague. I wanna know what the negative aesthetic prompts are for the new, right.
What, what is the aesthetic antithesis to the new, right. Because I mean, we've got, we've got anime, we've got Greco Ruman influences, we've got 1940s to 1960s aesthetics. I'm digging it. We saw there's like a bit of a slightly fascist sci-fi vibe as well, which I'm really loving. Sure. Yep. But you know what is not, what is not new, right.
Aesthetics.
Raw Egg Nationalist: So I would, I would say that the new right is kind of ideologically and aesthetically rebelling against the kind of, on the one hand, like the William Buckley I kind of conservatism. So like Tweed Jackets and, I mean, there's a pla there's a place for prep in the new right? Absolutely. Yeah.
Like the, the Ivy League style, classic prep, all that kind of thing. There's always a place for it.
Simone Collins: Yes. [00:23:00]
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's classic, it's Americana. I mean, yeah, when it's done well, it's done well. But there's a kind of, there's a kind of like, stayed conservatism that's represented by the kind of the kind of William Buckley style of conservatism, you know, standing a thwart history, yelling stop and all that, that kind of stuff.
So like,
Simone Collins: yes. To Kennedy Prep? No, to Country Club Prep.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. And just, and just to the kind of like closet closet homosexual kind of, yeah. Conservative lavender Mafia. That kind of mega
Simone Collins: church polo shirts and khakis.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah, sure. Yeah. So, yeah, exactly, exactly. The kind, the kind of like. Especially that you might associate with like a university conservative club.
You know, where it's like, it's a bunch of, it's a bunch of dorks trying to look like preppy. Yeah. And they never get any girls and there's never Yeah. There's nothing sexy. The Pink Vineyard Vines
Simone Collins: T-shirt. Yes. Or I mean, color shirt. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Something like that. But then also what you've got as well, I think is you've got a revolt [00:24:00] against the kind of like I was saying with C operator coffee company, like that kind of.
Silly kind of, it's basically conservative, like beer and boobies kind of masculinity. Mm-hmm. I think that's what Cernovich calls it, you know, where it's like, I like cigars, I like whiskey. Yeah. I use, I use man wipes on my face. You know, it's like there's this whole kind of, there's this whole kind of really, really kind of debased kind of conservative aesthetic that's built around like the Second Amendment beer man caves and all this kind of stuff that's irreverent really kind of, really kind of sad.
And, and, and, you know, kind of like, doesn't actually have any genuine, genuine energy to it. And all of these guys who know are kind of ruled by their wives and, you know, only allowed to go in the man cave at certain times.
Simone Collins: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All that kind.
Raw Egg Nationalist: It, it, I mean, the, I would say yeah, the, the, the, the negative prompts or anything really that isn't [00:25:00] kind of, sexy and young and, and that doesn't kind of have a, have a genuine organic energy to it.
'cause a lot of
Simone Collins: you, another thing that occurs to me actually I was thinking about this, not just when I was looking at, I think it was like New York Times or some publications page, or sorry, illustrations that they made for their authors. And they were just hideous illustrations, like, just really unflattering.
And then I was also thinking about Mary Harrington's, one of her most canceled opinions that at least she told us at at the time, who knows what new thing has been like disagreed upon. But she's, she had this hot take that children's book illustrations that are modern. They're, they look terrible. I don't know if you've seen them recently, but they're incredibly ugly.
We're kind of like this low key. Propaganda, normalizing lower achievement ugliness. Yeah. Mediocrity. Yep. And I, I think that that's, I mean, that's just another thing that's so absent from, from the page of this magazine. Everything is gorgeous, [00:26:00] actually wanna highlight everything is gorgeous.
Malcolm Collins: There has been a thing was in leftist art for a while mm-hmm.
To intentionally amplify the art.
Simone Collins: Yeah. And to, yeah. Like, why, why, for example, for like op-ed contributors, do you need their illustrated portraits to look, look ugly? Well, I'll explain to you why I, I've
Malcolm Collins: gone over this before, but it's important to understand how this happened. So what happened is, if you go to the 1980s or the 1990s the core emotion that conservatives use to motivate behavior, voting, everything like that was discussed.
Mm-hmm. This is when you had the Christian majority in America and they were like, like gayness. Isn't it gross? Ew. Like, doesn't it generate disgust in you? And then we as a civilization sort of moved a. Past just not doing things because of disgust. Like that's what Mother Teresa largely represented. Oh, look, the lepers disgust me, but I understand that that's just an evolved emotion that's meant to protect me from disease and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, so we moved against disgust and an artistic leftist movement then became about elevating things that were disgusting for their own sake. I think is, is, [00:27:00] is is one thing we saw here. The other thing that we saw at the same time was trying to break the male idea of what. Beauty looked like. And I think that this is in part why within new right.
Things like that, you have the, the, the trio, like Trump, hold on. I find this insulting, but it's not a
Simone Collins: female ideal of beauty. I mean, I'm kind of No, no it's
Malcolm Collins: not. But did the, what I said, a female idea of beauty, like the big titty enemy girl. Okay. Like this is an idea of feminine beauty that the left has completely removed.
Mm-hmm. If you look at their characters, we've noted that like ironically, they have taken female characters and they've like made them sort of masculine book looking and removed their breasts. And I'm like, you've just made them look underage. Like this is not okay. Like, you look at like Sherah or something like that, like the remake.
And so I, I think that it's, it's a, it's a revolution against these two things.
Raw Egg Nationalist: See, I mean, I, I think, I think it's very deep. I think this kind of war on beauty is actually, I mean, you see it in architecture, you see it in mid 20th century. Oh [00:28:00] yes. Modernism, I mean. Ugliness, brutal brutalism. I mean, brutalism was called brutal.
Absolutely. It was called brutalism. Oh, yeah. And not subtle, you, it was u it was used as an ideological, literally an ideological hammer to crush people with. Mm-hmm. You know, I mean, there's a, there's a reason why basically all of the, all kind of communist public buildings are hideous. Because, I mean, they tell, and, you know, Roger Scru has written about, or wrote about this at a, at great length, and, and others have too.
You know, it, it's a way of, among other things, crushing individuality and crush crushing aspiration. It's like, you know, you make people live in an inhuman environment where they d where they're not surrounded by beauty. And it's demoralizing. It really is. It really does. It really does crush you. And I think that there's something, you know, there's something about this, like you say, children's illustrations.
There's something about this in movies as well. Mm-hmm. You know, where the heroine is never beau. I mean, snow White is. Snow White is not a beautiful woman anymore. Snow [00:29:00] White is, you know, snow White is one of these strange creatures.
Simone Collins: Well, and she's no longer the fairest of it. All of, of us all. She, she's, she's the most
Raw Egg Nationalist: communist.
Simone Collins: Yeah. In most equal distribution. This is not about looks anymore,
Raw Egg Nationalist: but it's, but exactly. But that's, but I mean, I think that in large part, it's about eliminating particular forms of aspiration. Mm. Particular visions of, of like the good life. You know, what, what, what is it, what does it actually mean? What should you, what should you strive for?
Should you strive to be unique? Should you strive to be, should you strive to be beautiful? Should you strive to improve your appearance? Or should you, should you, you know, accept that you are just one of 7 billion people on the planet, you know, all of whom are, all of whom are deserving of exactly the same base level of like material subsistence and, and nothing else.
So, I mean, I think it's. I think it, I think it's been happening for a long time and I think it's, I it's not trivial. Ugliness is not trivial. Yeah. And surrounding, surrounding people with [00:30:00] ugliness, cocooning them in ugliness is actually, I think, is a very, very powerful propaganda strategy. And it works.
It works.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I I, I wanna point out here you know, one of the artistic pieces that I think has been really critical to the formation of the sort of sci-fi, you, you could say, pseudo fascist vibe of, of new right art that Simone was talking about is Star Strip troopers. Mm-hmm. And when Vander Hoven was putting that movie together, I'm talking about the movie, not the books.
Like, we have an episode on the movie where I'm like, this movie is like the left telling on themselves. Like, this is a, a democratic society with a black African leading it. And they freak out about it because people are expected to pay some price to vote. They're expected to do something to get back to the state.
They're like, if anything is required of me, it's the worst thing ever. But anyway within Search Troopers, when Paul Vander Ho was making it, and I I view it as a, as a almost a perfect piece of art for what it means to be right leaning today, because it was a leftist who was creating this. When he created it, one of the [00:31:00] questions he asked himself was okay.
How will I cue people that this is an evil government that you're not supposed to wanna emulate? And what he said to himself is, he said, I thought everyone would know because I chose only beautiful white actors to play the main parts. And he, he, he thought that people, when they saw all of these attractive people would know that it was supposed to be evil because only only in an evil government would you have only attractive people.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. It's, it's interesting as well because I mean, in the book the Robert Heinlein book, then the main character Johnny Rico is actually, I think from the Philippines. And he's not white. I. Actually in the,
Malcolm Collins: no, in the movies. He's not white either. He's from Argentina.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Buenos Aires. Yeah. Whatever, though.
I mean, yeah, it is, it is telling.
Raw Egg Nationalist: But yeah, I mean, it's a, yeah, I mean the, then the Starship Trooper's discourse of course rolls on on Twitter, you know? Right. Oh, you are supposed to, you are supposed to em empathize with the bugs, you know? [00:32:00] And it's, and it's an, it's an ama this, this kind of ridiculous media literacy kind of meme, you know?
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. And
Raw Egg Nationalist: it, it's very telling, you know, that actually the communists choose the bugs. They choose the, the soulless bugs that literally tear humans, limb from lemons suck their brains out via feeding tubes over, you know. Attractive, high achieving say, because they a
Malcolm Collins: democratic united human planet with, with like the protagonist from South America.
The leader of the world is from Africa. Sky Marshall to Hot Maru. Like what, what? And African woman, by the way, sky Marshall to Hot Maru. But I, I'd point out here that, that when he's saying this, you might think, oh, they're not actually saying, oh, the bugs, no, like search on Google. Mm-hmm. Like, yeah, they're star Starship troopers.
False flag attack Starship troopers. Like, were the bugs. Actually, the good guys, like people actually think this, and this was part [00:33:00] of the authorial intent that backfired so hard.
Raw Egg Nationalist: And what's, I mean, what's interesting as well actually about the film is that Johnny, Johnny Rico the main character in Casper Manian, he's from a very prosperous family.
Mm-hmm. But they're not sit, they're not citizens. Yeah. They're not cit and they don't want him to do military service. But actually, so you've got a society where you can be prosperous and have a wonderful life. Yeah. Without political participation, I mean, it, it doesn't, it's not, yeah. I mean it's really, it's really not a simple, a simple, it, it doesn't imply, 'cause
Simone Collins: normally in the, in the fascist worlds, if you are not fully bought into the governmental system, you are suffering.
You are in an underclass. And like clearly that's not the case. Clearly people have freedom. Yeah. It's wild.
Malcolm Collins: And it's the freedom that instigated the war. It was the fact that we allowed for religion, remember it was started by Mormon separatists settling on a planet they weren't supposed to be settling on.
But the very fact that Mormon separatists were able to get to a point where they could do that in opposition to the government. And keep in mind, we know this was an opposition to the government because we know they were separatists. It was not the government that started [00:34:00] this war.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a, yeah, exactly.
It, it doesn't, it doesn't really repay this kind of ridiculous heavy handed kind of Marxist retelling that the left wants it to. It's a, it is a very, very interesting cultural artifact actually. You know, I mean, I, I remember watching Starship Troopers when it came out in 1999, you know, I was 12, and it was the cool, it was the cool, it was the coolest thing ever.
You know, I, I just, I loved it because of the, because of the fight, you know, the battles and stuff. Yeah. Denise Richards obviously, and, you know, but like, it's actually, I mean, as, as a, as a piece of its time, as a, as a kind of, as a cultural artifact, and it's actually much more, much more complex than than just being a, you know, just a sci-fi film where there are big battles and stuff.
Malcolm Collins: Yep. Well, I mean, recently you had the hell divers too come out. Mm-hmm. Which, yes. You know, mimicked a lot of the art and ideals from this. And I think a lot of, one of the reasons it did so well within the gaming space is it came off as right coded art.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Hmm. Yeah,
Simone Collins: people want it. There's, [00:35:00] there's, I think that backlash, that desire to fight against the ugliness and to feed into this vitalism is 100% there.
It's, it's really the time for man's world. It's time for this movement to, to rise. And I mean, at least we have the vibe for it now.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. I, I think so. I mean, I think, I think young people are tired of being stamped on, and especially, especially young men. I mean, it's not, it's not just young men, but I think, I think more than anybody else, it's young white men in particular who Oh, yeah.
You know, told, you know, you can't, you can't well, you are a bad person and you can't trust any of your innate desires. Anything that you want, you know, it's illegitimate. You have to change, you know, you are stamped with, basically with original sin. And, you know, it's being, it's being rejected across the western world.
You know, it's not just in America where you are seeing zoomers and Gen Alpha being, you know, more and more right wing. Than previous generations. It's Germany as well. You know, [00:36:00] you've got attractive young people singing Outlander rouse to the tune of Gigi Dino's au or whatever it is, you know?
I mean, it's like, it's it's a civilizational thing actually. Mm-hmm. There is, there is very definitely this kind of youthful, irreverent energy that's really surging up. And I think the older, the older generations don't actually know really what to do with it. But, you know, you, you saw this even actually with the, the Trump tariffs thing, you know, when everything looked like it was going to s**t.
And you know, you have like young people saying, well. I got nothing from the system. I get nothing from the system. What, what buy-in do I get from the system? So if Trump wants to burn it all down with these crazy, you know, tariffs, whatever, then, then let him. I mean, that's the, there is a kind of mad cap.
There's a kind of mad cap energy, energy to this and a kind of, you know, accelerationist desire. Oh, continue. No, that was, no, that was it. That was it.
Simone Collins: But when all you have is debt and when, when all you have is [00:37:00] nothing on the stock market, you have no problem with this. If there's inflation, it's gonna be a lot easier to pay off that debt.
And it's kind of satisfying to watch all the smug people who've acted as though they worked so hard and really didn't to get so much that you can't even get when you work twice as hard. Sure stuff for a little. It's very satisfying, if anything.
Malcolm Collins: And I know the tariffs paid off. You know, he, he canceled most of them.
76 countries are now at the bargaining table. Delayed. Delayed, yeah. Delayed. But, but he is given them the opportunity to negotiate without the big economic. And then China went against us and now has a 125% tariff on them. Which I think can rally the rest of the world around China, which has been treating the rest of the world very unfairly for a long time.
Mm-hmm. And I think that this is the sort of vitalism that people wanted to see from the White House. They wanted to see big moves. Like even if he, he goes in and he goes out, they just wanted to see the White House do something. You know, it feels like when Biden is in office, nothing was happening.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Just, yeah. Well, yeah. Well, I mean, look, I mean, Biden was. Biden was a zombie. I mean, Biden really was a zombie. [00:38:00] Biden was a, Biden was, he
Malcolm Collins: was literally puppeted by the deep state. Yeah. Like, I love how we, like, at first it was Trump is like, I'm fighting against the deep state. And everyone's like, you're crazy.
This is the conspiracy theory. And then we learned that like Biden hasn't been making decisions for like years and, and, and that the Democrats like didn't even hold primaries. And we're like, oh yeah. I mean, well obviously the deep state handled all that, but, you know. Yeah. No problem.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. Yeah. Cra crazy.
And I mean, you know, and during the election campaign before Biden dropped out and you know, you had Axios, they did a, they did an article saying, meet the Biden oligarchy where it was like, yeah, these, these are the people who are actually making decisions for Joe Biden. It's his wife, it's his best friend, and some other people.
And you're like, well, you know, who voted for this? Who voted for an oligarchy rather than an actual executive? You know? 'cause that's what the president is, I mean, the president is the executive, it's the executive function. But, but actually it's been, it's been transferred to an oligarchy. So, yeah, I mean, I, I think that the, the [00:39:00] contrast between Trump, I mean, okay, Trump is an old man.
Sure. But, but he doesn't have old man energy. I mean, he's not, he's not Joe Biden. I mean, Trump is the most insanely youthful 70 whatever old, 76-year-old, however old he is, you know? And he really has captured. It really has captured, you know, with his meme power because he, I mean, he's just, you know, he's a, he is a phenomenon there, isn't it really Anybody like him?
Simone Collins: Truly, yeah.
Raw Egg Nationalist: And so, so yeah, I mean, now, now is, now is very definitely the time for a different vision of, of not only rightwing politics, but also of rightwing culture more broadly. And, and, you know, one of the things that's very important about man's world is that about the vision for man's world is that, you know, right Wingers over the course of the 20th century retreated basically into economics.
They seeded the, they seeded the entire cultural ground to their enemies. They said, you know, you have the universities, you, you make all the art, you make all the television programs. [00:40:00] We, we'll just have like liberal and neoliberal economics, you know, we'll make sure that the free market reigns and that will mean that we have a right wing society if we have free market economics.
Well, actually it doesn't actually. It doesn't. And you know, we've learned over the course of the 20th century that it's one of the, there's been one of the biggest mistakes actually, that the writers made to seed so much cultural territory to its enemies to let them have art. You, you just have art, you have, you have Hollywood, you have you have music, you have everything, you know, and we'll just have economics.
So, so yeah, I mean, I think it's, I think it's important, you know, to have, to be producing culture, to be producing innovative culture, not culture that's stayed and boring and that doesn't appeal to young people, but actually culture, that's exciting. And you know, because there's nothing exciting about the left anymore.
I mean, the left is, the left is ruled by committee. It's ruled by, you know, committees of women and, [00:41:00] and obese minorities and dis disabled people. And you know, like there's nothing in that that's exciting for young people. I mean, yeah. And, and leftist art, you know, leftist art has, has totally abandoned the kind of core mission of art.
It's
Malcolm Collins: pleasant. Yeah. It's, it's, it's actively unpleasant. And that's the thing that I find when I look at something like man's world, is that it is actively pleasant. Like, it, it like, like looking at it as visually engaging and, and, and makes my brain like, I, I think it's interesting that I'm like, oh, this makes my brain feel pleasure.
When I look at this, I feel vitalistic, I feel excited. I want to look at more of it. And it's so, different from the other. Like if I go to an art museum these days mm-hmm. It's just like depressing.
Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I just come out, we don't anymore. It's too depressing. Yeah. Come away feeling. Well,
Raw Egg Nationalist: when, when we were in, when we were in Miami, so we were all at heretic on, well, in Miami in October.
So I did a panel with Lomez, Jonathan Keman, [00:42:00] you know, who runs Passage Press. They published a magazine and with Curtis Yin and Peach Keenan. Mm-hmm. About Right. All friends. Great people. Yeah, great, great people about rightwing literature and the art, the rightwing arts scene, all that kind of stuff.
And in attendance, actually, I, I found out afterwards was a guy from Playboy and he came up to me, a journalist from Playboy, and he came up to me and he said oh, we we're all taking notice of what you are doing at Playboy. Okay. So they're actually, they're actually about to release for the first time, I think in five years, a physical edition.
So they've retreated to the website. Over the last five years 'cause sales have been down so much. So, you know, you won't find Playboy on the store shelves because it's just a website at the moment. But he actually said, he actually said to me, look, I would, I want to interview you in Playboy about what is wrong with Playboy.
Mm. Which I thought was, which I thought was quite, quite interesting, quite brave potentially, you know, for the, for the magazine to do that. But
Simone Collins: I love
Raw Egg Nationalist: that. Yeah. There, there isn't, there isn't really any [00:43:00] competition for this at the moment. I mean, my, my, my hope generally is that, you know, we end up actually creating a broader scene where you get loads of people making, you know Right, right.
Wing magazines, whatever. Rightwing art. I mean, one caution though that I do have is that actually, I mean, in, in many ways, I think it's actually a, a, it's actually dead end to. Produce right wing art. I actually think that you know, the left has totally seeded the ground. Of all of the kind of traditional values and virtues of art, basic like representation.
It's out the window. Out the window. The best thing we can do actually is produce art. Just produce good art. Because the left isn't doing that. So absolutely. You know, return, return to the kind of traditional tenets of art, the, the, the, the return to the, the basic framework of art and just produce good art, produce art that's appealing.
That, that actually, you know, that, that people want to see. And likewise, you know, produce, produce, [00:44:00] writing that people want to read, produce films that people want to watch. You don't have to, you don't have to lay on the ideology with a trowel, you know, you don't have to, you don't have to bash people over the head with this is a right wing product as opposed to a left wing product.
I think it needs to be, it needs to be kind of subtle. I mean, I know that with Mans world, you would look at the cover, you know, it's got Donald Trump on the cover and the stuff inside, and it, it's unmistakably, I would say, Trumpist, right wing, whatever. But actually there's room to be subtle as well. And I think that, I think that yeah, that, that's really what, that's really what we need to do.
I mean, if we're gonna, if we're gonna have a kind of cultural takeover. Then it should it, it doesn't just have to serve as a kind of like tool of indoctrination. And in fact, actually, I think that will make it less attractive.
Simone Collins: There's nothing inherently political about vitalism, about beauty, about enthusiasm and, and optimism.
There
Malcolm Collins: wasn't anything inherently political about beauty. Well, I'm saying it [00:45:00] doesn't have
Simone Collins: to be political and we can capitalize on that has been, it doesn't have to be,
Malcolm Collins: but I, I point out, you know, if you look at the, the artistic movements of the past, it's a verse of artistic movements of the past. They often had like scenes where, you know, you'd be in New York or you'd be in Berlin and you'd go to the secret clubs and everything like that.
And what's really interesting about this is that because we live in the age of the internet and in the age of four chan, the, the, the scene is. X Networks. It's, it's, it's heretic con. It's, you know, this will be remembered as the scene where this artistic movement was blooming. And we'll also see, I think you are absolutely right to point to, you know, bronze Age pervert as one of the progenitors of this.
I think you have a zero. HP Lovecraft is another one of the progenitors of this. But people who will be remembered if humanity survived. This is, hey, we're, we're at an interesting time in human history, right? I don't know, but I'm, I'm saying like, if humanity does survive another a hundred years and we're looking back and we're [00:46:00] studying this as an artistic movement that's really fascinating to me, the way that this lives in online circles.
Mm-hmm. Instead of and another interesting thing is it's very non. It's, it's got this, this combination of you know, you could almost sort of say not, not not, but, but sexualized content within the images, or if you look at our podcast, like we talk about sex sexuality pretty frequently, but instead of like the artists of the past where that sexualized content was paired, was debauchery, was in the personal lives of the people who, who, who output it.
The, the engaging in debauchery. Like if I engaged in debauchery, like the guy who's into like aldry and filming and whatever, like he's been expelled from the community to an extent. That, that you are supposed to. You know, treat your wife well, you're supposed to, you know, be in, in these sorts of like, stable relationships.
So, so it's, it's a, it's a [00:47:00] contrast in the art behind what's depicted in it and what's expected from the creator, which is really I think subversive of what was historically expected of your cutting edge artist.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, yeah, I think that's a great point. I mean, there's certainly, there are certainly tensions, I think, and there have been tensions with, with Mansfield.
So in the first issue, I mean, so the first the first 12 issues were all digital. They're online and they were just PDFs. And in the first, the very first issue then I, I reprinted some classic 1980s centerfolds. And I called the FE from Playboy and I called the feature of Vintage Bush because, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a very, the, the decline of pe it's
Malcolm Collins: so great, but come on.
But people are like
Raw Egg Nationalist: this. Yeah, I know. Like, but you know, like the decline of pubic hair in, in soft sort of pornography and in pornography more generally is, is an interesting and in society more generally. In fact, you know, it's an interesting thing. And so I was like, you know, these are like. [00:48:00] Kind of quite charming actually.
You know, these, I mean, obviously attractive women and yes, they are nude, but they have, you know, sort of like expansive pubic hair. And there was, there was a, there was a lot of, a lot of people found it really funny and they were like, yeah, this is really cool. But then there, there was actually quite a, quite a pushback, like the trad and people like that, you know, were like, oh, this is, I love the magazine, but I, I can't in good conscience share this.
And so. Oh no. That kind of went out the window actually having, having centerfolds and stuff. I mean, we,
Malcolm Collins: I, I love the idea of it being nostalgic and subversive at the same time. Like it basic, the aesthetic, but I can also understand why TriCast would've problems. Yeah. One thing I note, and I, and I wanna hear, because the, the magazine is very different, and I didn't realize this until I saw it printed at the event, and I was like, oh, I get this now.
It does not look like, and I'm, I actually may wanna subscribe, Simone. We'll, we'll talk, we'll talk about it. I'll ask you how much it costs to subscribe as well. So for people who wanna go and look at it, but it, [00:49:00] it's really structured more like a coffee table book. Yes. It's where it's supposed to be a really nice thing bordering on like a, a, a, a high quality soft cover book.
Well, that's what good
Simone Collins: magazines were always supposed to be. You would always have them out.
Malcolm Collins: They, they, for a period, like, I remember when I would buy like Maxim or something, it was like floppy. It was flimsy paper. The images were like, okay and engaging, but it wasn't meant to be in, in enthralling. This reminds me a lot more of like, I don't know, almost like the Clutz series when I was a kid and had like all sorts of like weird things that I just remember being mm-hmm.
Delightful to me as a kid. So, so how much does it cost? How often does it come out?
Raw Egg Nationalist: So, at the moment it is biannual, so we're doing two issues a year. I believe at the moment it is 39 99 an issue. But like, but like you say, it's not a regular magazine and it's not supposed to be. So, I mean, we are, you know, we are doing in magazine terms, we're doing small runs, you know?
[00:50:00] Mm-hmm. However many thousand, rather than a hundred thousand or 200,000 or a million or whatever, you know, like Playboy in, its in its heyday. And so, you know, we're doing small batches and, and what we want it to be is we want it really to be like a collect, each one should be like a collector's item, you know?
I mean, it's not, it's an item that's designed to last. It's on beautiful acid free paper. You know, the cover will have something like the, the logo will be covered in gold foil, for example. You know, I mean, it's really, yeah. I dunno if it's, it's really, really high. It's really, really high class, you know, it's like.
If that was, if that was on a news stand, that would be the best magazine by all
Simone Collins: 100%. Yeah. Top shelf.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it doesn't, it didn't look like a magazine. And when I saw it, and when I hear about your contextualization of it now, I was like, oh, I get this in a way. I didn't get it before seeing it. I was like, oh, I like, yeah, it, it is,
Simone Collins: it comes across different in print.
It's, it's great online. This is the type thing, different.
Malcolm Collins: I want my son to stumble across [00:51:00] and dig through because he finds it stimulating. Like, he's like, oh, this is weird and subversive and like, and, and and I didn't see, like with all the film crews in our house, we definitely need to get a subscription, Simon.
It's only twice a year. Like definitely. Because, well, I wouldn't want it to be more than twice a year because it, it's so, like, like solid and engaging that it's like, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want more than that. I want, you don't wanna get to a point
Simone Collins: where you don't have time to read through all of it.
That's one of those things. Yeah.
Raw Egg Nationalist: And, and also, I mean, it is still just me making it, so, oh my gosh. So,
Simone Collins: wow.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I have a good on you. I have a I have a designer who I, who I get to do some of the images and stuff, but I layout, I do the layout, I do all the editing. I write, you know, I make the memes.
I write probably one or two articles per issue as well. So I mean, it's, it's all me at the moment. So two is, two is enough for now. But I mean, I think, you know, we have, we have plans to expand and so at most, I think we'll probably do a [00:52:00] quarterly. At most. That's fair. And that, that helps to
Simone Collins: explain though why it's so cohesive.
I mean, the quality control, therefore just quality.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. It's just, it's just, it's just me. It just all goes through me. But yeah, I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to release an issue every month. I mean, you would have to have a really big you know, really slick operation to be able to do that. And and that would be, that would be my job.
That would be my full-time job then. And so,
Malcolm Collins: yeah. Well, I am, I'm really glad we had you on. I'm glad we had this conversation because I think that future art historians will be studying this conversation and saying, oh, what was this artistic movement that the May, because the academics can't engage with it, you know, because they're afraid to, right.
Like, it, it is. Subversive.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Well, they, well, there are, there are actually some academic articles about me and about Mans well, which is interesting, but they're like, no way. Yeah, they're, they're totally, it's all like, oh, this is, you know, this is the aesthetics of fascism. This is about, you know, like the glorification of the body,
Masculinity and
Simone Collins: Oh, how [00:53:00] dare we,
Raw Egg Nationalist: so it's, I mean, it's, it's, it's typical.
It's the kind of stuff you'd expect. And it's largely, I mean, it's very funny, you know, they go into, they try to analyze the means, and it's also also hand fisted, and they don't, they just don't get it, you know, they're not conversant with the culture. They don't understand the degree of irony, et cetera.
So it's, it's kind of, it's kind of embarrassing really for them. But yeah, I mean, I think that's
Malcolm Collins: amazing. Oh my God.
Raw Egg Nationalist: I think it takes someone, it takes someone with a, with a softer touch. I think to understand it takes someone who's actually conversant with the culture.
Malcolm Collins: Well, well, so this reminds me of John Oliver's segment where he was looking at Trump, and Trump took up you know, Riley Gaines, a woman who's been campaigning against the trans stuff.
And he goes to her, he goes, well, you know, anyone who can look at me and her can see that I'm a much larger and stronger person than her, and I could beat her in any swimming race. And of course, this is a actually a very funny joke from Trump, but John Oliver thought he was being dead serious, of course, and was making fun [00:54:00] of him for it.
And I was like, is is comedy dead? Like, how do you not see that? He's, he's having a laugh here. But I also think that what you're pointing out here is academia not being able to engage in it. Nothing. If academia is close to the center of power within our culture, you can't be the new subversive artistic movement and be something academia can understand.
Hmm. If academia can understand you, then you're not the new subversive artistic movement. And I don't think that any other movement on earth right now has can, can, can claim that. Like, it's so weird that like the beatniks of our generation or the, the whatever is like this right-leaning. And, and you know, it's funny that you mentioned like the centerfold 'cause that's also a tension we had on our show, which is on our show.
We used to, we, we do lots of clips on our show of like memes from the nineties and South Park and stuff like that. And we used to have a lot of gamer words or curse words. And then somebody reached out and they were like, I watched, this was my kid, can you [00:55:00] please, you know, remove all curse words? And I was like, you know what, yeah, I'm gonna do that.
It doesn't hurt us to just remove all curse words, like the adults who know what's being said if I delete just those words. And I was like, I, I, I think that that's part of it. It it's to be provocative you know, sexually to be provocative in terms of how we engage with stuff, but to remove all of the actual vulgarities I wouldn't want my son engaging with.
We
Simone Collins: actually see this on old media. I don't know if, if this ever really aired in the uk, but there's a kids show called Magic School Bus that we watched a lot as kids.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yes. Yeah, I remember that.
Simone Collins: And we're watching again with our kids now and. There's a lot, there's a lot of episodes that imply that Mrs.
Frizzle has had sexual relationships with a lot of other people. Basically
Malcolm Collins: every other competent man has a very clearly had a sexual relationship with her.
Simone Collins: Yeah. And we're like, whoa. Like this is really interesting. And there's a whole bunch of other things that happened in it where we're like, this is extremely sexual suggestive one time when the kids turn into eggs and then have [00:56:00] fish fertilize them.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And they become
Simone Collins: fish. I was like, what's that whole thing with Phoebe and her teacher too? But yeah, anyway, so like, I think that there, there's a lot of that subversiveness in the past quite recently where it's it's, it's communicable to adults, but available to children as well, which is, is interesting.
And it, I think, you know, pretty prenatal when something is capable of being multilayered like that. Whereas, you know, we've devolved into an era now where. I think it was Tina Fey describing how they wrote the script for the sitcom 30 Rock, describing how whenever they do a joke, first they do the joke, and then they like explicitly explain the joke for the, the people who can't process what a joke is, I guess.
And, and we sort of come to that point where we like literally have to explain every joke we've just told. Very much
Raw Egg Nationalist: so.
Simone Collins: I, I think that there's also sort of unsaid between the pages of what you've written, that not every academic is able to pick up this level of [00:57:00] nuance and cleverness that we've forgotten how to communicate.
That I'd love to see more pervasive again.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. Yeah. I mean I, yeah, I, I think that it's, like I said earlier, I think that the humor and, and the kind of irreverence that's important, that's not, that's not secondary, that's central. That's a, that's absolutely no, clearly. Yeah, it's absolutely integral to the, to the package.
It's integral to the message and to the, to the whole vibe. And to the whole movement actually. And so, you know, I mean, I, there are some, there are other magazines on the market, you know, in the same space, but none, none of them really captures, I think the kind of, that kind of energy, that kind of irreverence, which I think distinguishes the online world distinguishes the, the right wing sort of Twitter world, four chan, et cetera.
Yes. And has, is obviously now actually is, is kind of dominant in American culture because Trump is in the White House. Yes. So, you know, I mean, I think [00:58:00] that, yeah, it will be, it will be good actually once that spirit really does start to spread to other publications and to other, to other media.
Simone Collins: It'll happen.
You're pushing it forward. You, you are the, you are the spark. Love this.
Malcolm Collins: I hope, I hope you are remembered alongside, like, who is that writer who you mentioned like Michael Thompson or what, what, what? Hunter. Hunter s Thompson. Hunter. Hunter Thompson. I hope you're remembered as, as our generation's version of that you know, defining a, a style of of, of a right.
Because you're, you're both defining a style of writing and art and collating it. And I think that if humanity survives, that will be seen as a central part of this generation.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. Hmm. Yeah, I, no, I do
Simone Collins: may your cremated remains see shot from the equivalent of a Canon ai. I
Malcolm Collins: think they're gonna be making a lot of movies with this style.
Simone Collins: Oh yeah. All
Malcolm Collins: of the popular movies of the next generation are gonna be made in this style in the same way that we take up the popular styles of the past. So anyway.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, cool. Check out everyone Mans [00:59:00] World. You can, I mean, you can still access everything digitally, right? And then there's the twice a year publications, correct?
Yeah.
Raw Egg Nationalist: So, so there's Mans World mag.online. You can read a selection of, of articles from the magazine. We also publish two exclusive online only articles every week. There's a store as well. We've got absolutely great t-shirts on the store, like hilarious Trump t-shirt.
Simone Collins: Oh, I didn't know that. Okay.
Hello? Yeah,
Raw Egg Nationalist: there's some great, some great ones. There are some, there's an an anime Trump tee, and in fact, I would say that he's got the best Trump tees around on the website, mantel Mag online slash store. And then you're
Simone Collins: also at Baby Gravy on X. Yeah. And Baby
Raw Egg Nationalist: Gravy nine. Yep.
Simone Collins: You should also, yeah, baby Gravy nine.
And, and check out R Nationalist on Amazon, because you've also written some very influential books.
Raw Egg Nationalist: And I've got, and I've got a, and I've got a new book coming out this month. What with? Yep. With Passage called The Last Men Liberalism and the Death of Masculinity. That's about testosterone decline.
Oh, fertility decline. As a, as a like a [01:00:00] civilizational problem.
Simone Collins: Yes. Yeah. Which was really the, the, the big topic of the first time he came on our podcast. But that was our,
hold on, hold on. I gotta, I gotta say what some of these shirts say. What does an anime girl like looking like? Oh, you better be paying attention.
It says A right wing bodybuilder is talking. Listen, learn.
Raw Egg Nationalist: So that, so there was a, there was a, there was a, a very funny T-shirt that said. That's, this is based on it said something like A black woman is speaking. Listen and learn. And so that's there. That's
Malcolm Collins: amazing. Hold on. They've got a Baron Trump one here.
Look at this. No, no. They've got lightning eyes and like a Caesar thing. Ave Baron.
Simone Collins: Yes. You're putting these on screen, right? Malcolm? You're gonna put them in post? I'll try to, I'll try
Malcolm Collins: to better I can. Yeah. We got one here. Trump 2024. Riggs could be here. I don't get that one. Oh, that's
Raw Egg Nationalist: a, okay.
That's a, yeah, that's a, that's a four chat. That's a four chan meme.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay. I'm not gonna say more on that then. We don't wanna get This is, this is good. [01:01:00]
Simone Collins: Yeah, well congratulations on your book coming out too. I'm very excited to read this 'cause yeah, I mean, you've, you've found some of the best research that we have have read on the subject.
God, get into
Malcolm Collins: crystal Tard. It's Donald. So can you explain the crystal meme that was like fantastic.
Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. I dunno where that came from. But people, people started saying that they were gonna imprison, libtard in crystals when Donald Trump got elected. And so, you know, every time a libtard would post something on Twitter and somebody would, would post a picture of a crystal and it, it would be a countdown to Trump's election, you know, for inauguration.
So
Malcolm Collins: this, this seems to have come from liberals. Our video when Trump was elected, said, report to the Mar-a-Lago breeding pens. And, and it's very much along that, where liberals were acting like everyone was gonna be like, arrested or whatever. And so I think they went was the idea of like, a, a, you know, from like eighties Superman and stuff like that.
Like capturing people rif. Yeah. Yeah.
Simone Collins: It's good stuff. Yeah. All right, well everyone definitely check out the book when they, when it comes [01:02:00] out. Do you have a date?
Raw Egg Nationalist: I think it's, hmm. It will be ready for order this month from Okay. Perfect press, but just keep your eyes peeled. Watch my Twitter and I'll there.
Yeah. There'll be a big announcement.
Simone Collins: Awesome. Cool. Oh, national.

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Deciphering the Progressive Religion: Environmentalism, Trans, & Anti-Semitism
17 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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. So essentially they ascribe automatic moral value to whatever they perceive to be the weaker party.
Simone Collins: Greater victimhood holds higher moral val value. And that is indeed, I think why oppression Olympics kind of went out of hand because I think some people have a deeper instinct to still want to be at the top of a dominance hierarchy.
And they realized intuitively. That they could only be at the top of the dom hierarchy by being more of a victim. And that's why you get every, everything from people playing oppression [00:05:00] Olympics to wealthy to middle class teenage girls becoming spoons and playing, yeah. Oppression Olympics by getting sick.
Well, this
Malcolm Collins: explains a lot. It, is it, yeah. That, that part explains where you get this like invented trans identity and I think that the, like the, the, the, yeah. Well, it also
Simone Collins: explains why. In those heat maps, for example. And sort of research of the, yeah, progressive versus conservative brain. Progressives hold more things as having moral weight that are not their family, their immediate community in themselves.
That makes
Malcolm Collins: sense. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense actually. But there's
Simone Collins: more than just that. I think there's an inherent distrust of advancement. I. And the concept of manifest destiny or conquering the natural world. And I think this is why among progressive circles, the book Sapiens took on so much.
I've never heard a conservative, I. Talk about Sapiens. Yes. And, and be like, oh, sapiens, my dad. [00:06:00] And like a big, a big aspect or thesis of Sapiens. So it's admittedly been almost 10 years since I've first read it. Is that hated, hated I made me so angry. It's just wrong. It's like just sort of talks about how.
Everything kind of went downhill after agriculture and our teeth got horrible and we'd lived in stressful environments and we'd lived in diseased cities, and it was just always so bad and like, oh, somehow our hunting gathering period was so wonderful. And I think the reason why that resonated so much with educated, progressive audiences is that there is this inherent mistrust of modernity and of conquering.
For example, nature. And I think this is also seen in the contrast between the way that conservatives have historically engaged with the environment and conservation. Versus how progressives have engaged with the environment. So conservatives are all like, yes, conservation. Like, let's go out hunting. Like let's go out camping.
Let's enjoy conquering [00:07:00] nature and protect it so we can keep conquering it. Yeah. Again, because it's so freaking fun. Our training simulator, we can't disrupt it. Yeah, yeah. Like let's, let's keep it around 'cause it's really, really great. And then progressives are more like, no, let's tear down. Our nuclear plants, our modernity, let's tear down our cities, let's tear down our modern infrastructure.
In some cases it's literally, you know, engage in degrowth and tear down our economies and civilization to let nature take back over. And of course the extreme version of this is antinatalism. Wouldn't it be great if a comet wiped out all humans? Wouldn't it be great if all humans died?
Malcolm Collins: Which is surprising number of progressives believe when we did our survey in the United States, 17% of the respondents said the world would be better without any humans continue.
Sorry.
Simone Collins: Yeah. But that's the, I think that it's that combination of this modern noble ablation, I am wretched and everything outside me that it, that has higher victimhood status or less agency is more important. It takes precedence over my needs. And [00:08:00] remember you, it took you like. Seven years to convince me that I was not the dumbest, lowest value person of everyone.
Yeah. Like this was deeply ingrained in me. And it took so much work on your part to convince me that you were deeply
Malcolm Collins: unspectacular. And I was like, no, you are spectacular. You are one of the most desirable humans on Earth. Well, and one of the most talented humans on earth. And I just like,
Simone Collins: like literally though, I mean, I, I would see someone, you know, who.
Had a lot, like very serious problems and just assume that they were better, smarter, more age agentic than me. Like the, the, it was, it was I think some people will hear that and be like, I don't know. She's a four. She's mid, she's not what Malcolm says he's wearing husband goggles. No, I, this was actually dysmorphic.
Malcolm Collins: I'm not saying I'm not, hold on. I'm not even talking about attractiveness here. I'm talking about competence,
Simone Collins: intelligence, competence. Yeah. A agency, all of that. I, I thought that I was lesser and, and, and more wretched. And so like, if anyone. Or to say something like, well, that's not true, or [00:09:00] I'd just be like, okay.
And that, and I, and I made her
Malcolm Collins: play this game at Stanford when she went to Cambridge. 'cause I sent her there for graduate school. I was like, okay, Cambridge is like the best place, right? And I was like, every day you gotta tell me if you met anyone smarter than yourself. 'cause you were at least able to judge that like, like more interesting started than yourself.
And she just never did. And I was like, okay. So this is supposedly where the smartest and best people in the world. Like go, if you're not finding people better than you here and now, you know, we get invited to events like heretic and stuff like that, right? Where like. Some of the wealthiest people in the world you know, who, who run like major funds and stuff like that, like it's really run by Mike Solana and Peter Thiel.
They, they go out and they invite like whoever they think is changing the world most. So it's bringing together like literally from a top down, like the most agentic people. And I'd say like within that environment of the women in that environment, you're easily in the top 50%. In, in terms of, I, I'd say like intelligence and agency and interestingness.
And so that's wild because that's already like a super [00:10:00] preselected crowd. And, and so I think that yeah, you, you really struggle to be like, oh, I'm actually like you know, competent. Right?
Simone Collins: And I think that's pretty pervasive in this culture, and that's another important part of this.
Malcolm Collins: That's really interesting actually, because, because the call culture values a lack of status, so much like a victimhood mindset so much that it doesn't really give you the tools to see yourself as anything.
But to see yourself as something other than like you, you're, you're only supposed to go into everything expecting the least of yourself which is, yeah, I, I have a story. I remember, about this, that, that you would find comical, Simone. Which is the first time I went to buy condoms. I was like, well, I am like a normal whatever person, so I should buy small condoms.
Which now not accurate. Somebody slept around a lot. [00:11:00] I'm like, oh. That was a very, very big mistake. That must have been
Simone Collins: a deeply uncomfortable thing to discover when you first
Malcolm Collins: Oh no, they just immediately broke. But that's what I thought because I was like, oh, you know, I am average. I am, well, not even average to assume I'm average to assume too much of myself.
No, hold on. I must. Be a little below average. Right. You know, because that's, I think you're right. Yeah. We're taught that that's a value to not have pride in yourself. It No, it's, it. I don't,
Simone Collins: no, it's not even so. To a certain extent, we're taught to value things that are, are lesser in victimy, but we, we are also demoralized, and I think some people end up playing oppression Olympics because they, they put the two together.
They're like, oh, I'm demoralized, but also I can leverage this to gain status. I never made that connection. You never made that connection.
Malcolm Collins: But some people do well, subtle underground connection you know, that that is rewarded [00:12:00] subconsciously. But a lot of people don't realize, because I think a lot of people like, like genuinely, I think the vast majority of trans people do not realize that they are being treated with a special degree of status was in urban monoculture environments.
They, they genuinely are. Unable to see the systemic privilege they have over cis people. They, they genuinely think that that like what's going on around them is a form of oppression. And I think it's because they see you. You you remember there's a great chart of women. And, and men progressives.
Right. But, but women specifically who today think that being a woman severely damages the prospects of being successful in life. Well, I think people have come to equate
Simone Collins: literally life just being hard sometimes. Being alive, being hard sometimes to oppression.
Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, no, no. So over 50% of progressive women, I remember we were looking at a chart think that women are systematically discriminated against when it comes to getting into college.
Mm-hmm. Like the. That's [00:13:00] insane considering women make up like the vast majority of college goers these days, right?
. So here you can see two graphs titled Trends and Perceptions of Discrimination Against Women Amongst 12th Graders by Sex and Ideology, 1976 to 2022. And you can see that female liberals. The purple line here to the question, to what extent do you think your sex will prevent you from getting the kind of work you would like to have?
Went from around 40% in 2010, which is ridiculously high, but whatever, um, to 75% as of like 2024 or 2022. Like why is it going up so much? They're just being brainwashed. And you can see in other groups it's going down. Then in perceptions of discrimination against women, again, you see it going way up after the 2010s in both, uh, male liberals and female liberals.
Malcolm Collins: Like they, they think Oh yeah, women, they have it so hard in college because it's so, you know, may maybe because they're, they, they make up a larger portion of the population or something in college.
I, I, I don't know. I could see
Simone Collins: [00:14:00] college being harder with more women being present.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah.
Simone Collins: But, but the reality is, is that actually no. It was always the dudes on the group projects who made life miserable. Get back. They did.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Dead. That is an interesting point.
Simone Collins: Yeah. I want the Lisa Simpsons. You know, I want, I want other people who are as like, do goody as I was.
I hated the dead way. Screw you guys.
Malcolm Collins: And then you get me on a group project and I always just like, all right, this is how we're gonna do. I, I was actually really good at that stuff. You were, you,
Simone Collins: you were a, a major, like you did disproportionately, you were very unusual. No,
Malcolm Collins: not, not even that. I was very good at splitting up work and making sure people did that work.
No, you made them
Simone Collins: functional. You weren't, you weren't like the, you weren't the girl who was just like, I'll do it all. Yeah. And everyone else just is quiet. You were like, you do this, you do this, but you also like, because you did that, you were disproportionately doing more work.
Malcolm Collins: I guess I never felt that way.
I was taking more rewards, I'll tell you that. I, [00:15:00] no, I, I in college I was running like every society. I was like president simultaneously of like multiple large societies on campus, and no one had ever done that. Good leaders
Simone Collins: know how to recognize talent. And leverage it and delegate. Well, that's good.
Malcolm Collins: I, I guess I wanted power or whatever. Like I, I, I liked doing it. There's that. I wanted it for my resume to get into decision. Your
Simone Collins: power hunger had nice negative externalities
Malcolm Collins: with negative externalities or positive externalities. Sorry.
Simone Collins: Nice positive externalities.
Malcolm Collins: Mm.
Simone Collins: But okay, let's focus on
Malcolm Collins: the environmental stuff, like I still don't. Fully. I guess what you're saying is that environmentalism from a progressive perspective, they see like imperialism is bad, like the expansion of European culture and wizard industrialization is bad.
Progress. Progress. Just
Simone Collins: human intervention and I, I, I actually think, so we, we talk about antinatalism and anti-human sentiment as being a novel advent. I, I [00:16:00] think it is, it has deeper and older roots than that, and I think that it was first manifested as. A hatred of human advancement, imperialism, and manifest destiny.
That it ultimately was about anti-human sentiment and this, this resentment of humans conquering nature and conquering natural environments and that, that, that looped into environmentalism and was combined with this, I think Christian derived, but I'm gonna say corrupted Christian sentiment derived.
Adoration of victimhood.
Malcolm Collins: I don't know if the victimhood, adoration, I like a lot of people have made this claim that it comes downstream of Christian culture. Mm-hmm. Or like Protestant culture.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: I don't know if I believe that.
Simone Collins: Why? On what
Malcolm Collins: grounds? So it seems to work all by itself without the Christian culture.
You know, you, yeah, I wasn't,
Simone Collins: yeah, certainly [00:17:00] from Christian
Malcolm Collins: culture, you want to protect the weakest thing. 'cause that's how you prove that you are the best. Right? Like, that you're not doing anything wrong, you know? And it, and it comes from, if you just make this mindset where like, well the Goins are weaker, therefore they're in the right.
And you're like, well, they do like torture gay people. Like, are you okay with that? And they're like, well, they don't because a weak person can't be evil. Like there's this understanding that, that the morality of a group is, is. There's never like a case in which a weak person is a bad person.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: And, and yeah.
There's never a case in which a weak community or group is abusing other communities. Yeah. No matter their
Simone Collins: crimes. And if their crimes were horrendous, well, it was because of what we've done to them. Well, I mean,
Malcolm Collins: you see, this was the grooming gangs and the grape gangs of mm-hmm. Of Muslims that you have around Europe right now.
Mm-hmm. They're like really prevalent and like capture and grape lots of. Girls or the case in the United States where you [00:18:00] had a, a group of black teens who invited over a white teen with like mental disabilities and like beat him near to death or something. And like the progressives were like cheering this as like a, oh, you know, I.
You know, like, them winning like you keep seeing this of, of, well, because they're in X group and obviously the real weaker person is the white, the real weak old person or the, the Israelis who were captured. The real weaker person is the person who happens to be born gay in Gaza. But it is the, I think a larger community, like they're not able to see this on the individual level.
They try to look at the community level. Mm-hmm. In terms of how they structure this ideology. And then say, okay, so the weaker individual at the community level is the individual that's deserving of, of, of higher status, and therefore we just assume that everything they're saying is right is very much like the, you know, believe all women thing and stuff like that.
Right? Mm-hmm. Including Israeli women who are being griped in, in, in gossip. Well, not them, you know, they're not, you know. So the way [00:19:00] it sorts, I'm trying to say like hierarchically, how it sorts well this also comes to, you know, whether it's genetics or culture thing, but like genetically and culturally we're all the same.
There's no differences in us. And this explains where you, and I've mentioned this in previous episodes, it's where it's reiterating why the urban monoculture always ends up turning to antisemitism and against the Jews because it explains all human differences because it doesn't believe in genetics and it doesn't really believe in cultural differences.
In proficiency, it believes all differences in groups must come from one group discriminating against another group or exercising some form of like, you know, power over another group or cheating in some way. And so, you know, because Jews disproportionately succeed in economic and academic context, they must be cheating.
Right, right,
Simone Collins: right.
Malcolm Collins: And I think that, that at the end of the day, so long as Jews have the Jewish exceptionalism IE achieving at an, an unusual rate was in multiple fields. They will be seen as the core oppressor group, especially due to their smaller size. 'cause they're like, well look at their proport success and [00:20:00] smaller size and they don't fit into any of our special categories.
So, you know, we need to get rid of them. And I think that many people were surprised how hard the urban monoculture turned against the Jews. And they expect this to be a short-lived phenomenon tied to this. War that they're having right now. And I don't think it is, I think it's a, it's a going to be a persistent shift.
Simone Collins: Oh, dear. Well,
Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, it's, it, it's, it's good more broadly because it, it brings the Jews who believed that the progressives were their friends into the sort of new Right cause into the prenatal cause, into the, you know, the persistent alliance. I think it's causing
Simone Collins: two things. I think it's causing some reformed Jews who are progressive to completely disown.
If you're not having kids, yeah. They'll, they'll
Malcolm Collins: be gone soon anyway.
Simone Collins: Yeah, probably.
Malcolm Collins: And what's the other thing?
Simone Collins: And, and yeah, the, the, the rest will just drop. But I don't know. I think it's really hard for some people to accept that they're no longer [00:21:00] part. Of the urban monoculture. There's a lot of fear around that.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That the urban monoculture has turned on. Well, I think it's, you know, you were talking about this and, and some people on Blue Sky, you were trying to be like, well, the Collins aren't really that bad. 'cause we went viral on there recently. And, but they're, they're progressive, right? And so they're trying to explain this.
And they, they dealt with like major cognitive dissonance and someone was like, why, why is this happening? You know? And, oh my God. This is like actually like a, what is that? Oh what? There was like a white line on my glasses.
Simone Collins: Oh.
Malcolm Collins: This is, this is actually like a thing that's happening. And I think that the, the reason is, is because especially some women, and this is where I see this happening the most, have such a like, instinctual desire to fit in with whichever the dominant culture is.
They struggle to think outside of that box.
Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah. Specifically an argument that she was trying to make was [00:22:00] that they were saying, well, they have, they have been to conferences with bad people. They didn't use that word. They used other words. But you not, these of course, conferences with bad people, therefore they are bad people.
And she's like, well, how are you gonna change the minds of bad people if you never talk to them? And they're like, ah. But then she, she felt like somehow that that was a weak argument. It's not a weak argument. Like you really, if you don't engage with people that you disagree with, how are you ever going to like.
You know, expose them to ideas that might change their minds. And, and yet she somehow was like, well, that was a dumb idea. I can't believe I said that. That's embarrassing. You know? No,
Malcolm Collins: the, the urban monoculture really protects itself by creating a cultural norm around not engaging with outside ideas and not exposing yourself to outside ideas.
And I, and that's what we're seeing here is this. It is a very powerful norm from like a more, it's about social
Simone Collins: contagion. Just like there's something, and I don't understand it. There's [00:23:00] something going on with social contagion.
Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. This is the point being Simone, is that the urban monoculture has developed a pattern of isolating anyone who might have engaged with an outside idea.
That's what they're trying to do to us. They're like, oh, these people appear to be immune to our, the cultural virus. These people appear to be able to engage with outsiders. If they engage with outsiders, they might bring some idea into this larger mimetic cluster which is dangerous to it. So we can't engage with them.
The easiest way to protect. Your ideology is to never engage with the, the ideas of the people you disagree with.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: And I think that that's what's happening there. And this is why, you know, you persistently see, you know, in in studies that have looked at this, is that conservatives have a much easier time modeling progressives than the other way around.
Is that they, they, they literally build a wall. And that's one of the most interesting things about debating what's progressives on, you know, policy or whatever is they're like, you guys are, are Nazis and racist? And it's [00:24:00] like, well, I mean. Right. You know, this is just like as you're gonna lock up women and rela black people, and it's like, well, that hasn't happened.
Right? So that doesn't appear to be where we're going. And they really struggle with the idea that the, the world that we're living in, you know, under the Trump administration isn't the world that. They, they said, we're fighting against the Trump administration to prevent, right? Like their, their, their idea of the other side is so fictionalized that they have trouble engaging with it in any way, but it needs to be fictionalized because they, they did engage with it.
They'd understand that the urban monoculture is at its core, very imperialistic.
Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, it is, it's, it's, it's you know, I was talking with a reporter recently and I was like, okay, so, you know, you understand when I talk to somebody in the urban monoculture and I'm like, well, the people in Africa who you claim to love so much, you know, they have very different rules [00:25:00] around gender roles in marriage and very different rules around a woman's role and very different ideas around you know, gay people and very different views on what's like moral and which happened after death, et cetera.
And, and, and, they are thinking in their heads. Well, I mean, of course one day, you know, every one of their churches will be fi flying. The what, what, what do we call this flag?
Simone Collins: Colonizers. Fly flying. The colonizers
Malcolm Collins: flag, you know, I. And, and this is the, the new weird pride flag. Ev ev every church in Africa is gonna be flying this, and they're all gonna have our idea about gender roles in marriage.
And they're all gonna have our idea about how you should raise your children. You know, corporal punish, if that's what they do now they're, they're all gonna have our idea around, you know, gay, you know, they're all gonna have our idea about everything. And it's like, well, they functionally eradicated their culture.
There is nothing more imperialist than that perception. And I think that that's the irony of the urban monoculture. It is of all cultural groups, the most supremacist in that they believe themselves to be naturally superior to all others. The most [00:26:00] imperialistic that other groups are supremacists, but they are supremacists with qualifications.
You know, like evangelical Christians for example, have a respect for Jewish culture, right? Like. Frequently, right? Like, they're like, oh, we gotta help them rebuild their temple. Like they have this degree of like, let's work together. The urban monoculture does, it sees everyone else's, basically like savage monsters.
Like completely dehumanized.
Simone Collins: Well, very patronizing too. Yeah, and also misleading past man. Oh, we respect your culture. We, we are the only ones who respect you. But like secretly. We're gonna change all of your savage ways of, I mean, you know, you'll see the light, of course you'll do this of your own free will, but.
We will cure you and in a very creepy way.
Malcolm Collins: And it's such a beautiful dystopia to live through because, you know, we know they're going to lose at the end of the day, right? Like, that's so, I can't imagine living through this and seeing them in positions of power and feeling like, oh my God, they could actually succeed in this like insane [00:27:00] conquest where they eradicate all of the cultural diversity of our planet.
And, and one day everyone just thinks like them, and yet they still believe they're the victims in all of this. It's, it's, it's literally like almost the most evil conceivable perspective to both see yourself as a victim while systemically oppressing those other than you.
Simone Collins: Yeah, not great.
But I mean, I, I think it really just comes down broadly to these things of anti humanity and victim elevation.
I don't, I don't know how else to explain it.
Malcolm Collins: Well, anti-industry I think as well. I mean, we really, when we chose anti-industry is
Simone Collins: anti humanity. I mean, industry is the most human thing. You know, it, it is finding more efficient ways. It is a prefrontal cortex. Industry is an emergent property of the prefrontal cortex.
Take away the prefrontal cortex, and there is no industry.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but I think, you know, you look at our, [00:28:00] that we use in the techno puritan stuff and we use in the hard EA foundation and everything, and it's, it's, it's a gear, right? Like it represents industry, it represents innovation and. Moving forwards. And if I had a second one, it would be like a, a factory pumping out smoke.
You know what I mean? Like, the idea of, of a progress as defined in, in, in the age of the enlightenment in the you know, industrial revolution. I. How that's continuing with AI and whatever, you know, it comes to symbolize AI in the same way that a, a, a billowing factory represented industry during the industrial revolution.
That is what we stand, and it's also why we're so antagonistic with individuals who want to, you know, belittle. I the same way in the past, somebody might have belittled industry and been like, oh, well everything handwoven is is better. You know, they'll loom what a, what a joke. That's never gonna catch on.
You know, and that's why I feel with people, you know, talking about AI art and traditional artists and ai, you know, whatever, why we're so interested in getting in AI [00:29:00] was like our AI education system and our AI gaming system, and,
which I'm really excited about. We'll see if they, you know, it'd be cool if we end up actually raising money for, for both and.
Simone Collins: It'd be amazing if we do. I am really excited. Well, hopefully we'll find out within the next three weeks, so we'll see. We'll see.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. Yeah, I, it's, it's what you just submitted the second application.
Yeah,
Simone Collins: I did.
Malcolm Collins: This is so wild. If, if we both get in, it would be so wild. We might actually have to move the kids out there.
Simone Collins: I am pregnant, Malcolm,
Malcolm Collins: you need to be at your local doctors. I understand. Yeah. We'll find a way.
Simone Collins: We'll, we'll find, I mean, we can commute a a bit. We, we will make, we'll find, I'm committed to these projects, so we'll find ways to make it work. For sure.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, I think we personally need to be there [00:30:00] part of the time if we're gonna build relations with the VC firm and continue to raise money.
Simone Collins: 100%. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: So we'll figure it out.
Simone Collins: I'm there. No, I'm, I'm super there for this. I'm, I'm all about it. I'm very excited about this.
Malcolm Collins: Anyway oh. By the way, if any of our listeners in NBC firms feel free to let us know that we can get warm intros on these projects. 'cause yeah, I think that like, the way that we view industries the same way we view ai, where other people are like, oh, it's so slop, it's so whatever.
It's like, well then improve it, make it better, make it, you know, like this has the potential to transform everything about being human. Like why are you poo-pooing this? It's, it's so. Like techno optimism is, I think the only path to true vitalism was in humanity. There, there are these, like reductive vitalism, like liver king, like get back to nature and everything like that.
But at the end of the day, you know, I think that the people, this is the interesting thing about the techno optimists. Very few of the techno optimists have turned out to be [00:31:00] fraudsters.
Common for fraudsters appear among the traditionalist optimist community, the ones who wanna go back to nature and stuff like that.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: And I think that it's because these beliefs are less authentic. They're more about trying to sell to a specific audience or something like that.
They're not really driven by this constant need to move humanity forward. They're driven by this need to move themselves forwards in their own ideology forwards.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's a lot of that going on, I think. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Anyway, any thoughts, Simone,
Simone Collins: that I love you and steak tonight. Yeah. Do you want steak with your fried rice reheated, or would you prefer to have steak with some other form of starch?
Malcolm Collins: Fried rice reheated will be great. Yeah, you did a pretty good job with that. And I think it'll taste good with the steak. And you are really good at cooking steak, by the way.
Simone Collins: Thank you. That's really nice of you to say.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, maybe, I think Gza dipping sauce would taste really good with steak. [00:32:00] Okay. I'll make a sauce.
I, is it hard to mix up or No, it, it
Simone Collins: turned out like, I know I gave you this huge, like, ugh when you asked me to make it from scratch, it, it wasn't that hard. So I
Malcolm Collins: can, I think it's just. Soy sauce and then without it's soy? No,
Simone Collins: it's, it's it's equal parts. Soy sauce, white wine vinegar, and sesame oil.
Plus you can and probably should add garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes. Okay, so
Malcolm Collins: I'd make a change to it going forward. Soy sauce, sesame sauce. A splash of white wine vinegar.
Simone Collins: Okay, so half the amount, so like one teaspoon of each of those, then half a teaspoon of the white wine vinegar. 'cause you felt that that was too heavy.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Off I go. And I'm gonna speak with a, a journalist while I do it, so, don't, I love that
Malcolm Collins: you do that. Who are you speaking with tonight? My sweetheart? Can't remember. I don't care. Whatever. Do your thing. Love you.
Simone Collins: I love you too. Are you sure to tell
Malcolm Collins: her that you're a Nazi?
Simone Collins: I they know already.[00:33:00]
They know. Sadly the truth is out there, it's mine comp. What can I do off? I go this. Well,
Malcolm Collins: in private you always use words like, ah, it's amp. Or she's like, we need some lemon rum. Like, our kids don't give me enough lemon rum. I
Simone Collins: need to eat my dinner.
Malcolm Collins: They
Simone Collins: don't.
Malcolm Collins: You are gonna get us in so much trouble one
Simone Collins: day.
Never. I'm not, I'm not gonna get us in trouble. I'm not gonna get us in trouble. I'm fine. I'm not the risk taker. You were just on NPR
Malcolm Collins: today. You did a, a great job with that, I'm sure.
Simone Collins: We'll see. I bet it's gonna be on YouTube and it's just all gonna be comments. And I'm actually gonna check now if they like put it on and I, I can almost guarantee you like the top ranked comments are gonna be like, she's a, not she.
So W-H-Y-Y-N-P-R genetic.
The ethics of screening and designer [00:34:00] babies, but that was from one day ago. Yeah. So they, they, I don't think they've brought mine live yet. This is probably part of a series they're doing. So, so I, I, I one of the things to buy with this is mentioned by the way, on the interview, where I was like, wait, is this true?
He was like, well, you know, people might screen out for Al Albinism, or he was talking about that, and he was like, well, but like, it's, it's kind of interesting that like seven Nobel laureates have have albinism and I'm like, what? Is this true? That seems like bias. I'd be like, that seems like bias. Yeah.
They're, they're, they're so white that they have to be smart. Laureate, it's, it's like, like it seems super racist or something like list of, hold on. Okay.
Malcolm Collins: It's like models with that weird potential. I met with them.
Simone Collins: Yeah. V Yes. With, yeah. It's like that's the result of
Malcolm Collins: bias. That's not inclusivity.
Simone Collins: I know. But it looks really cool. I think that's, I think the reason why like people think it's woke, but no, it's because it's cool. And that's the, the unifying [00:35:00] thing of runway models isn't that they're beautiful.
It's that they look very distinctive. And what's more distinctive, hold on. If we
Malcolm Collins: made our kids all albinos, like that'd be so cool for the techno puritans. Like all white skin and red eyes. Like people out stay inside all the's. Many, like
Simone Collins: not having any melanin is such a risk with outdoor exposure. I mean, as much as wrong, well, no, but outdoor exposure is such a risk
Malcolm Collins: to productivity.
I love you, Sean, so much. I love your like eye roll there. That was intense.
Simone Collins: Is is it true though? I'm, I'm asking perplexity.
No, it says no. Nobel laureate is known to have albinism. So you just made it up. Sorry, I gotta
Malcolm Collins: delete
Simone Collins: that. Do people just lie on the internet? People just lie on npr. You just go on NPR and lies go on. Apparently. Yes. I mean, did I mishear him? Or Well, you'll hear, oh
perplexity is looking into it. Deep research. So [00:36:00] if it's out there, we'll find it. No, no. There's no evidence that people with albinism are disproportionately represented among major award winners. In fact, the available information suggests the opposite. People with albinism are underrepresented in most high profile fields in including entertainment, politics, science.
Octavian. What? Hey buddy. Hi. You're home awful early.
Malcolm Collins: You wanna have him talk to the fans really quick.
Simone Collins: You brought surprises. Do you want to talk to the, the.
Octavian Collins: What I've been doing so good. Stacey gave me this present. Stacey give me, Stacey gave me this present because I was so good. Oh,
Simone Collins: what else do you have in your box of mysteries?
Octavian Collins: Oh, what?
Simone Collins: What is it my friend? The work. Oh, [00:37:00] yes. What's. You want me to open it?
Octavian Collins: Yeah.
Simone Collins: What
Octavian Collins: she, Hey, check if this check, check if
Simone Collins: it's, it's the underwear your sister requested.
She, Hey. Hey, you. Can you
Malcolm Collins: ask him to tell people to like and I,
Simone Collins: Hey, Octa, can you tell the people to like, and subscribe,
Octavian Collins: like, and subscribe to our video if this is good.
Why,
Simone Collins: why should, why should they like and, and subscribe? 'cause
Octavian Collins: because my dad told me they can make money and they really wanna be rich. So subscribe first
Simone Collins: you. Well, you heard the boy. Yes.
Octavian Collins: So like, like si gives me special permission that I have this truck. So like tomorrow I can put my [00:38:00] army man, like my tan on me guys.
They can drive I to the green team, to the green team like this.
Bye. I'll see you all. I'll see you a little bit. I'm, and I see him like, learn about this good boy.
Simone Collins: And that's go burnout from Octavian. Have a
Malcolm Collins: good call with that journalist. Okay. Thanks. Do you want me to take Octavian and deal with him?
Simone Collins: Yeah, if you could so that I can start dinner and talk with her.
'cause otherwise she won't.
Oh.
Simone Collins: Such a good gardener. They're so pretty.
Malcolm Collins: Just can't stop watching that a and v on loop. It's so good. It's really good. It's, it's one of this little shark girl Gora, gora. I'll put it in the, the comments below if I remember. Or here. But it is really, it's like. You see [00:39:00] these, these young, rebellious girls, and I just like, so hope my daughter grows up to be like this.
エンディング
Malcolm Collins: And I know she will because I've already said like, it's, it's very clear there'll be, I've been reflecting on, I was talking to you about this is. How deep the desire in me is to have the type of young children who, you know, in my fantasies are, are, are first and foremost, like mischievous rule breakers.
And not like, and I know that other parents seem to want like obedient rule followers and I don't know you know, this is genetic. I don't know if this is cultural. Simone said, it's just 'cause I want somebody like myself. And, you know, that's like a, a way of, I guess, culturally passing on. It's
Simone Collins: not just that, [00:40:00] it's that there's, you have a, an extreme aversion discussed reaction to people who follow rules that you think aren't logical.
Yeah. So you, you don't wanna be disgusted by your children. So obviously you. Like it the other way.
Malcolm Collins: Do you fantasize about the kids being like rebellious and, and spunky and mischievous? No.
Simone Collins: Who cleans up their messes for the most part.
Malcolm Collins: What do you, what do you want them to be like when you think of successful?
I
Simone Collins: like to think about the businesses that they start, like I was telling you this morning, like. Tourist starting. Oh, and you,
Malcolm Collins: Titan and industry starting a business together and Yes. Yes. The two next ones the names that we're probably gonna go with, oh, you won't let me say them because you haven't bought the URLs or whatever.
I need
Simone Collins: to get the, I need to get their, like email addresses.
Malcolm Collins: They're good. Very, very frustrating.
What [00:41:00] did
you bopped him with? A soccer B Dusty. You gotta get him back.
I stronger. Oh yeah. Oh, Josie, you gotta power up. Power up. You gotta boost your power. Bam, bam, bam.

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Wild West Dating & Mail Order Brides: Tinder of the Old West
16 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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're
Simone 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's
Malcolm 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, never
Malcolm Collins: [00:04:00] one to rest on his laurels. Our buckle next came up with a voucher plan. He printed a coupon bearing his signature on each package. A given number of coupons would earn the bearer one of a hundred items available in Arbuckle's catalog.
The wishlist book of its day items included everything from a toothbrush to a double action revolver. A young man could even order a golden wedding ring for his lady. Love his lady love. Oh, I love that. You could be killed by a gun that somebody got was coupons in the old West. Not only was the coffee a lifesaver to those early westerners, so was the packaging coffee was shipped with sturdy main fur crates, 100 pound bags to the lot.
The crates were used to make furniture coffins and cradles. The Navajo Indians even used the wood to make a hogans and trademark flying angel that embezzled each package of coffee , adorned mini, a Western Christmas tree.
Simone Collins: Oh my gosh. That is very interesting. Right?
That is so cool. I love that.
Malcolm Collins: I, I thought you'd get excited about this. I was like, [00:05:00] that's a, that's a cool little anecdote. I'm moving that right to the beginning.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Hold on. I wanna, I wanna see if
Malcolm Collins: I can find pictures of these, these books. I, I, I, I could find pictures of the books, but not the rings.
Simone Collins: Well, I mean, I imagine the rings looked pretty you know, nondescript.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like just a gold band. Yeah. That's my guess. So a common cording custom in the old West was something called cording mirrors. Cording mirrors were another quirky tradition, more common in rural America, including the old West during the 18 hundreds. They were small handheld mirrors, often four to eight inches long with wooden or metal frames, sometimes carved or painted with simple designs like or flowers.
Aw, a sooner gifted one to a woman. He was courting, and it wasn't just about vanity mirrors were pricey and were rare on the frontier where glass was a luxury. Mm-hmm. Giving one signaled thoughtfulness and investment, like gifting a high-end gadget. Today the mirror had symbolic weight too.
It was intimate. A personal item tied to appearance and identity, suggesting trust and admiration. Some stories claim that women used them to reflect on their suitor's [00:06:00] intentions, . Although that likely was romanticized folklore, practically a mirror was useful for a woman living in a sod house or cabin with few possessions.
In some cases, couples exchanged mirrors with the man keeping a smaller one as a memento reinforcing mutual commitment. That's sweet. They both would bring a mirror and the man would just keep whichever one happened to be smaller. These mirrors that weren't mass produced like our buckles rings, they were often handmade or bought from peddlers, making each one unique.
By the 1880s catalog companies like Sears began offering cheap versions, but earlier a mirror might cost a day's wages serious for a farm, hand or cowboy. Their popularity waned by the 19 hundreds as manufactured goods flooded markets, but they left a mark in diaries and family heirlooms often passed down as quote the mirror he gave her in quote.
That's, that's so also sweet.
Simone Collins: And yes, I checked in 100%. We could buy a wedding ring with credit card points even on Etsy. You can now like convert credit card points to an Etsy gift card. [00:07:00] So. Well, I love it. And I, and I love craft the, the,
Malcolm Collins: The, this, this mirror idea. It's actually really sweet that whatever your only possessions, it's a
Simone Collins: keepsake thing.
And practical. I love this mixture of practicality and writing. Well, it tied to your identity, symbolic. Mm-hmm. I should give you all your also like, take care of yourself. Like, girl, I forget, like a
Malcolm Collins: vacuum, like you look rough.
Simone Collins: Here's the evidence. It's a mirror.
Malcolm Collins: But, and, and it's important to understand how little people owned back then when we were going back through my family diaries at that time.
And it was like my great great grandfather talking about being raised. And the episode's called People used to Like Their Parents. That's the, it's a really good episode, I think one of the best we've ever done. Because it was going over his diaries and at one point he catalogs everything he owns and everything he owns was.
Like a dirt roof shed that they slept in an outhouse and then a, a weaving loo, a loom. And, and apparently some pigs. And that was it. I mean,
Simone Collins: pigs are so, looms are useful too.
Malcolm Collins: That
Simone Collins: all
Malcolm Collins: sounds good to me. Yeah. Yeah. But I was, it's, it's interesting to [00:08:00] me that today, like, have you thought about making a catalog of everything that your family owns?
It would not be like a four thing catalog. It's not like, well, we've got some pigs and I've got a, a loom and an outhouse.
Simone Collins: Well, and in just a few years you'd buy a house on a catalog, so. I don't know. Catalogs really saw this. Amazing catalogs were the pre-internet, internet, and
Malcolm Collins: I love that. Yeah. Like Sears, you know, you can, in my hometown of Dallas you can drive around and some of the old Sears houses that were bought from a catalog are still standing in, in neighborhoods that I lived in.
Simone Collins: Yeah. And they're, they're nice houses too. Like, I've seen YouTube tours of them. They're well-built, built, classic design. They, they look a lot better than modern modern builds and McMansions on average.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, for if people are wondering like, like, okay, I'll, I'll go into the story now of mail order brides.
Yes. The story of the famous mail order brides of the Old West began when the gold rush brought men over the rocky mountains to new mining communities. Oh, only a few [00:09:00] prospectors struck it rich, but many young men stayed in the west, mining, ranching, farming, hunting, or opening businesses. As towns begin to grow, these men wanted wise to create.
Families and to build more stable lasting communities in the Western territories, men outnumbered women drastically, sometimes by as many as nine to one. Oh my gosh, not good odds. The obvious answer was single women from the east willing to start new lives. And this wasn't just a phenomenon in the Old West, it was also a phenomenon in Australia.
So here are some Australian ones because, you know, you had the men in the Outback farming and stuff trying to bring women out and, and they're really interesting to analyze because you get an idea of what. A man valued in a partner back then. Like when he's out and he's like, I want a woman that meet these criteria this, this is what he's thinking.
And, and keep in mind how this would work. He would like go to the Telegraph office and you'd be like, I wanna contact one of these, these magazines or newspapers out eastern and, you know, one of the major cities in Australia. And I, I wanna write you know, to them like descriptions of what [00:10:00] I'd want in a wife and, and, and, and.
Okay. So, and you also gotta think, really it
Simone Collins: was more like singles ads. I mean, it was kind of male, it was long distance singles ads.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And you've also gotta think when you're hearing this, what it says about like, how they're trying to sell themselves to the woman as well. Like their understanding of what the woman values.
Okay. So. This one, matrimonial two young men, age 31 and 25, wish to correspond with young ladies with a view to matrimony. Photos exchanged if necessary. Ladies must be able to read and write and capable of conducting a store on goldfields if required.
So what's really interesting in this is first, like they don't care that much what they look like. It's like, okay, if you, oh, photo's optional.
Simone Collins: I'm little confused by two men together looking. No, they're,
Malcolm Collins: they're, they're okay. So they both want basically the same thing. A competent woman, right? Yeah.
And so they're like, well, let's just pool on the ad, you know? Because we both want a woman who's like, good at accounting and business. I'm just picturing this
Simone Collins: really cute gay couple that's like. [00:11:00] We just need wives,
Malcolm Collins: beards, that's it. No, no, no. You see that pretty frequently in these is that people will pull, it's just going in
Simone Collins: together.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. They're like, well, let's just go in together and, we'll, we'll look at the, the, you know, the correspondence and see which ones we like. And then what's also really interesting here, and we've noted this before, and like people don't believe us, we're like women. Historically we're expected to work and work in the family business.
This is what a corporate family was. The idea of a nuclear family where a woman stayed at home and did nothing, does not represent what your ancestors were
Simone Collins: doing. No, you were, you were getting a business partner. These were more ads for business partners for sure, except
Malcolm Collins: for a very short time from the 1910s to like the NI 1970s.
So if you go back to the old, we, you know, li Li listen to what the, the one qualification they want in a woman. Ladies must be able to read and write and be capable of conducting a store on a gold field if necessary. IE you need to be able to run a business. That's what I need you for. I'll do like the gold panning and stuff like that, and you run the [00:12:00] store.
Like that's the way it often worked. Which is a really interesting, and understanding what was expected from gender dynamics in a relationship. And also what you'll see in a lot of these is women were expected to manage the finances. So here's another one. Matrimony a young man about 24 years of age of respectable connections, having an income of about 120 pounds per annum.
Wishes to obtain an introduction to a lady about 19 or 20 agreeable in person and capable of looking after domestic affairs property. No object. Okay. Huh?
Simone Collins: So again, what he, what he's
Malcolm Collins: saying here is he's, he's not asking about looks. He's saying, I need a woman who can look after my financial affairs. Which is really fascinating.
But I think it's also signaling to the woman like what type of guy these are as well. Yeah. Like this is, this is part of a two part signaling. This is, look, I'm a respectable guy. And you know, you come, you meet with me and we'll, we'll start a business together and we'll build something that matters together.
Right. You know, it's not like, Hey, I'm looking for a. Mama, you know. Any, any thoughts on that before I go further? [00:13:00]
Simone Collins: We need to get back to this. Okay. This, but this does what I'm thinking already when I hear this is there's this phenomenon within the rationalist or EA community online, whereby some people will post marriage bounties.
Mm-hmm. And they're just like way too wordy versions of this. And I, when I compare these succinct ads with the marriage bounty descriptions. I'm really seeing the difference between why people were able to get married back then when being practical and why practical, logical people today can't.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, keep in mind they're paying for the letter on these, but I understand.
I know, but no, my point though is like
Simone Collins: these people worked out to like, what do I really need? You know, someone. Who owns property and can, you know, or like someone who's practical and not crazy and can help out domestically around the house, doesn't have to be a supermodel. Whereas when I, when I go through some of these, these marriage bounties that people describe, it's like long documents [00:14:00] and like I'm an INTJ and I'm looking for someone with like.
They're being completely unreasonable about what they want and, and they, they also are being way too wide. But, but
Malcolm Collins: I think it's, I think it's unfair to just point this out with the EA community. It's, it was in our own fan base. We'll talk to people and they're like, I want like a hot woman, and I'll get a hotter woman and like, you know, I'll go a Latin American and find a hot wife, you know, and it's like, yeah.
No, you, you shouldn't even be caring about that. Like, you know, like, you, you should be focused on their, like when I met you, your attractiveness was of, I think, a very obvious to me of, of little concern. I was much more interested in your industriousness and your breadth of knowledge and, and curiosity to learn new things.
Mm-hmm. That was it. That was like my criteria, like. Yeah. It was, it was not big. But I was, I wanted people who, someone who's world class at those things, which is, I think, you know, why our relationship has gone so well. But to, to go to the, whereas, you know,
Simone Collins: there's, there's other, like, when I look at other ads, and this is from later periods, so you're talking around the, the gold rush around 1849 to [00:15:00] 1856, I imagine all the way up until like the 1920s, people were still that.
Practical, like I'm, there's, there's a Pittsburgh Press 1921 ad that just reads, I'm 27. Employed by the government. Have a small but reasonable salary, will make some poor working girl from 18 to 25. A good husband in a happy home must be Protestant. No dancers, flirts, or street walkers. Need answer. I had that one.
I was gonna
Malcolm Collins: do this one. I thought this was a good one. It's so. No, but it's always, I, I want a woman of, of strong moral character, Uhhuh. And, and not even, no, he doesn't, he, he's not even here. Like, oh, you know, you can't have never slept with someone before. You can't have never, yeah. Just like,
Simone Collins: don't bite your character.
Be someone who's addicted to that. That's it. He's being reasonable.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. He cares about like religious ideological compatibility. That makes perfect sense. I actually really don't understand how interfaith marriages work. Yeah, and
Simone Collins: that's the thing is, is it, it. And you, you don't have to say this in so many words, and I think when you say it in too many words, then [00:16:00] you, you're losing people and you see his
Malcolm Collins: aspiration here is to be a good husband to somebody.
Yeah.
Simone Collins: He, he's, he, he, he's explaining right up front, I'm a man of modest means, right? Like, I'm not making, I'm not a sugar daddy. I'm not a wealthy man. But if you're poor and you want a decent, stable life, I'm your guy.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You know? That's
Simone Collins: great.
Malcolm Collins: Here's one. The respectable man desirous of forming a matrimonial alliance with a young and respectable female, but I love that line instead of a wedding, a matrimonial alliance.
That's what I, that sounds good.
Simone Collins: That sounds really, that's prestigious. Sign me up for that. Hmm. People, maybe people go for it more if it's a matrimonial alliance and not a marriage.
Malcolm Collins: I don't know. Oh, hello? Sorry. It's somebody from the New York Times. I, yeah, I, I, I'm happy to take your call now.
Yeah, it is just a fact checker from the New York Times.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: So, she's gonna call back. She's got something else going on. But you No, I, I mean, I think that we should view marriages that way as matrimonial alliances. Mm-hmm. That's like a really powerful way, much more so than like a [00:17:00] matrimonial submission.
And this is when people are like, oh, in the old days, women submitted to their husbands. Does this sound like you want somebody to submit to him? Like, no, A matrimonial alliance mm-hmm. With a young and respectable female is informed of a person ready and willing to change the state of the single blessedness for the hazardous chains of wedlock life.
Exclamation mark. So. He's saying willing to change the state of single blessedness for the, the hazardous chains of wedlock. Like saying, I, I know that a marriage is a risk for, for both of us, but, but I want somebody who's willing to take that risk. Yeah. Now here's the, here's the first thing.
We've got her appearance very attractive, a temper, excitable, and a mind capable. To enlighten the dark shadows of his sly pilgrimage. Wow. He's looking for a muse. Yeah. He's looking for somebody. No. You know, he's like, I want somebody who's attractive, excitable. I, I like excitable women too. Excitable.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Yeah. I guess, yeah. Someone who gets [00:18:00] jazzed about your ideas. Yeah, you're right. I mean, not all of these are agnostic to appearance, like the, the one that, that says desires to meet a single. Or widow lady of some means and of refinement in Christian age 33 to 43, weight 1 25 to 145 pounds. Height five, four to five seven.
Stylish and of neat appearance, but plain. Which is really interesting.
Malcolm Collins: So you had, you had read another one or.
Simone Collins: Well that, yeah, I mean they're not agnostic to appearance. Not all of them are, but like weight ranges like 125 to 145 pounds, height five, four to five seven. Stylish of neat appearance, but plain.
Malcolm Collins: plane. I love it. Okay, so, I asked like, why, why did women do this?
Right? Mm-hmm. Women who answered the ads for wives in the West were those who weren't finding men or men of quality at home, or those who wanted to get away from home for some reason. Reasons included. Having strict parents being subject of a scandal that was ruining their reputation or simply wanting [00:19:00] adventure or a new start after something bad had happened at home.
These women needed to find a husbands elsewhere far from where they lived. Surprisingly, no shortage of women answered these male order bride ads. Many old Western marriages were made this way. In most cases, the marriages went smoothly as both parties represented themselves accurately. No one wanted to travel a thousand miles or more across a continent or wait for someone to travel.
That far to get to them, only to find out there were lies involved that would make the marriage unpleasant for one or both of them. Right. However, the occasional stories of mail order bride ventures went awry. And, and I think this is the core thing is you know, the reason why this didn't end up poorly that frequently is just because you gotta live the rest of your life with this person.
Right. You know? Yeah. Yeah. You're not gonna,
Simone Collins: Lying works on a one-off. I'm never going to see you again basis. It doesn't work if you need to depend on that person the rest of your life, and your spouse, whether you're antagonistic toward them or not. They can [00:20:00] really make your life miserable. Your life is in their hands.
Your food is in their hands. Your safety is in their hands. If you are sick and vulnerable, they decide whether you live or not. No. As a
Malcolm Collins: husband, like that's absolutely true. If you piss off your wife, she can just dab you at any time in the night. Like Yeah. Or
Simone Collins: if you're, if you're deadly ill, she could just not getting water.
You know, like the, there are ways. You know, even without, it was, it was difficult
Malcolm Collins: actually. There was one serial killer woman who just like killed tons of husbands. Yes, yes. I I think
Simone Collins: there's, there's been multiple of them in history 'cause it's, it's a pretty easy game to play.
Malcolm Collins: One notable example though, by all means, not the only one, is that of 22-year-old school Mistress Elizabeth Berry and Bachelor Minor, Luis Dr.
Pelvis.
Called her dream will be, I pretended I couldn't pronounce it. Lewis described himself as a lonely minor in his ad. Elizabeth was concerned about becoming a spinster since she was still [00:21:00] unmarried at 22. I wonder if this is related to Brittany which was approaching old age in the old western marriage market.
That is hilarious. 22 was considered approaching old age back then. Oh dear. So Elizabeth packed up her things after a short correspondence with Louis and married him in California on the way her stage coach was robbed, but one of the three robbers allowed her to keep her luggage, which had her wedding dress and other belongings for her new life.
In it, she noticed the man had a ragged scar on his hand. Later that day, she reached Lewis's house. And they went to the justice of the Peace to get married after she got dressed for the ceremony. After the exchange vows were pronounced man and wife. Elizabeth thought she recognized Louis' voice and saw the same ragged scar on his hand she had seen in the robber when he signed the marriage license.
Realizing he was one of the robbers she fled and history does not record what became of her. It turns out Lewis was indeed a minor, but he neglected to say in his ad that he had supplemented his income by robbing stage coaches with a couple [00:22:00] of his friends. Oh dear. Okay. So on June 4th.
Simone Collins: So they didn't, didn't necessarily have their happily labor after she just ran off.
Just ran away. That's really dangerous because Too high
Malcolm Collins: status, too, too high. You know, women just expect you to have money
Simone Collins: without working for it, you know? See, that's the thing. And also, but like she's out there and she's vulnerable. I would, I mean, ran away into take my chances, you know?
Malcolm Collins: I don't know if she like ran well, and if the ratio was nine to
Simone Collins: one, she could probably.
Take her pick of the litter.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. On June 4th, 1871, Sarah Baes hopped down from a wagon in Fort Bridger, a remote military and trading outpost at the crossroads of several pioneer trails in what would one day become Wyoming Bains. A 24-year-old seamstress from Louisiana had just spent several months traveling 1,500 miles through Roadless territory alone, but she wouldn't be alone for long.
She'd come to Fort Bridger to get married. The [00:23:00] groom was Jay Hensley. Imagine that months traveling alone as a woman in the old West
Simone Collins: unaccompanied that is. Terrifying
Malcolm Collins: because, you know, well that your husband wouldn't grape you. A bandit might, a Native American might help you. They don't have
Simone Collins: any interest in maintaining your Yeah, man.
Unaccompanied that is
Malcolm Collins: Native Americans during this period, some tribes, not all tribes we're genuinely terrifying and monstrous. They would, they would, do really horrible things. The, the one that you always use that you know, you know, off the top of your head was the the one that, pocahontas came from that, which, which is not one of the tribes in the, they had
Simone Collins: some torture involving, burning and pulling your skin off, or
Malcolm Collins: they would pull your skin off with a clam. With clam, yeah, with clam shells. But they weren't even like the most violent Indians were generally the plains Indians.
Like this is where you had the big war-like cultures that developed during this period. And so really a scary, brave thing to do. The groom was Jay Hensley. A. 48-year-old farmer who'd left Ohio some years before to seek [00:24:00] his fortune out west. The two met after Hemsley responded to an ad placed in the matrimonial pages of the October 12th, 1869 edition of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly.
They corresponded via letter for more than a year before Hensley proposed the day after Brian's arrived at Fort Bridger and they were married by the forts minister in a small ceremony on the banks of Garage Creek. The next day, they left to open a general store in Ville Cal, California Placerville.
Platter pla placerville plaster, I don't know how to say it. In the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, the Hemsley were married for 51 years. Aw. So here you see a few things. You know, one, it's not like the husband is the breadwinner. They went to open a store together. Yes. As soon as they, and they like, started their life, it wasn't like he had a store operational and then he got a wife.
It was like, Hey, what do you wanna spend your life doing? 'cause we're gonna be doing it together. And they go open a store together. Right. You know. And they end up married for 51 years. It seems like a, a pretty, you know, [00:25:00] harmonious. And I will say, it always gets to me, we, we should actually do an episode that's like a realistic take on native American pioneer interactions because the.
I mean, I think you have two periods. You have the one period where, you know, in, in 19 50th Americana, where, you know, people naively understood it as like cowboys versus Indians. And the Indians were generally the bad guys. Like, just like, you know, except for like the, the wise friend Indian Yes. Who would, who would be a guide or whatever.
Yeah. But then in, in like Wakeville it became, you know, settler's always bad. Like Indian's always good, like, and I think that that's also really a twisted understanding of history. And there's actually this great one where they were like, they were interviewing some like ultra progressive and, and they were talking about how, you know, before the settlers came, like the Native Americans all got along.
There was never any war, there was never any torture. There was never, I mean, first off,
Simone Collins: there is plenty of. Of a history of Native American tribes doing terrible things to each other, independent? No, no, no. They didn't [00:26:00] believe that.
Malcolm Collins: They believed this narrative of like, they were like these wise, like mystic people who like didn't do that.
And it's like, no. There, there were some tribes that were like unusually nice, useful like the Cherokee would be an example of this. But you know, there were others like the Apache and the Comanche and the Seminoles that were, no, they were
Simone Collins: pretty, they were proper scary.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, proper scary. The Seminoles don't even mind this today.
You know, they've done pretty well. They ended up buying the hard rock cafe chain at the tribe. Good for them. That's nice. And they've done, that's nice for people who dunno, the Seminoles were the ones who lived in the Florida, like Everglades and swamp areas and, and nobody really conquered them ever.
And, and nobody wanted the land. That's an advantage. Yeah. No, no. Hey, no one wanna
Simone Collins: be out there. Yeah, that is.
Malcolm Collins: But it keeps you strong, you know, when you live in, in, in catering. That's
Simone Collins: why we're so on city states in undesirable areas. That's actually really great example of like, people are like, why do you wanna build in the far north?
Well, before the same reason The Seminoles were Okay. Relatively speaking. Yeah. 'cause they were in. Floridian Swamp zone of death.
Malcolm Collins: [00:27:00] Yeah. So here is a, a, a story that was put in a newspaper. Mm-hmm. Moat County, ranch, man, secures, charming housekeeper. Oh. Married, four hours after they first met. And this is a very old writeup.
This is like a modern writeup. Mm-hmm. The young lady came in on the belated train, something after four o'clock was met by her intended husband, and before nine the deed was done.
Now it must not be imagined that the two were altogether strangers before taking this step. Miss Bets and is a sister of Ms. Frank LeClaire, who lived near Kyle's place on the South Fork. They had been coordinated by mail for a couple years and recognized each other instantly. When the young lady alighted from the train. Rh Green was one of the guests of honor at the wedding, and being a mutual friend of the interested parties aided greatly in their acquaintanceship. The bride is a charming lady who has made her home in Denver for several years. Mr. Cal is one of the enterprising young ranch men of so Eastern Mofo County, [00:28:00] and has a host of friends who will be.
Joy in, in wishing both much happiness. Oh, so there's a few things to note from this story. The first is that the way that this wedding was structured is, is they had mutual acquaintances who helped to source it, which was really common. Yeah. This really seems like a
Simone Collins: community endeavor. I.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah.
Another is which were common. They weren't always, you know, you had some like genuine mail-in brides. But then in other instances you had you know, the. People being matched by their family members. But here I'd also note where she came from. Right. I've mentioned that you have sort of genetic selection events when you're dealing with the, with the West.
And a lot of people think of the West as being like a single wave, when actually what it was is multiple waves. Absolutely. And then the most adventurous people from the last wave, settling the new wave. Mm-hmm. So you have. First wave settling in the Appalachian region. Then the next wave settling out in like Texas and, and in, in the west.
And here this woman who is going out to this really rural region was already settled and living in Denver. Yeah. Which
Simone Collins: was
Malcolm Collins: a
Simone Collins: very, yeah. She was a [00:29:00] daughter of risk takers who took an even bigger risk. Yeah. Magnifying effect, which is many. Why many people argue that San Francisco has this sort of collective genetic inheritance of.
Startup risk takers, that's what you got there.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And it's also important to, Ima understand like how bad things were for women in these cities in terms of like what led them to go out and do this. Oh. Which was that you know, often jobs if you didn't have a husband were hard to get as a woman.
You know, you could end up in one of the, like a sewing factories, which is Yeah. In a workhouse. Really nightmare existence. Yes. You, God, that'd be a fun one to do a episode on, or a depressing one to do. Episode one, the old workhouses. Mm-hmm. Basically they, they kept you like a slave. You know, you, you'd rather be a sex slave than at one of these workhouses.
Yeah. Where they, they keep you working, you know, extremely long shifts every day of the week in very
Simone Collins: unsafe conditions.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. On these giant looms, you can still go tour them and stuff like that. And, and that was, [00:30:00] you know, if you, if you weren't from a wealthy family or you weren't like the oldest kid from a wealthy family you know, this is, this is what was waiting for you if you didn't secure a husband.
Yeah. And well that, or like dying on the streets or becoming a pickpocket or a beggar or a thief or, you know. So, for a lot of these women, this was actually a very good option. Also, keep in mind that many of them were coming from like Puritan, strict households or something like that, and we're having the rebellious phase and we're like, you know what?
I'd really like to, you know, live a bit more free. And the, the west was significantly more gender equality than the east, like women in these states and territories. You know, in the east sometimes they weren't allowed to own property, they weren't allowed to, et cetera, et cetera. That wasn't true when they got to the West.
And the arrangements that they were able to form were, were generally significantly more gender equal. So if you're a young woman who had a sense of adventure and wanted a degree of equality, you could find that.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: , but people, people also like, you know, made a little fun of this. Like, it was a little negative, like the early days of dating online. Like I remember when we were dating online Oh yeah. When you,
Simone Collins: you would get the [00:31:00] side eye for dating online. Yeah. Yes.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah.
Simone Collins: Well, I think the, the important thing to note is that not dating IRL, like not meeting your partner at church or in school or having them be your neighbor is, is a risky endeavor.
And is viewed with derision and suspicion by non-risk takers, by conformist to non-risk takers. Yeah. And that's why online dating is seen this way. This is why these mail order brides were seen this way, and yet this behavior has been actually quite common for a long time. That's how, I mean, essentially that's how my grandmother,
Malcolm Collins: yeah.
Simone Collins: Married my grandfather. They corresponded via mail for some time after, like after war.
Malcolm Collins: They, they had met meeting in
Simone Collins: person just a few times after the war in Paris, in France. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, so The Hartford Corin remarked in 1910, the Wichita Eagle reported was Sardonic glee that Miss Effy Newland, one of the wealthy young women of Hoaxy Kansas, married a Mr.
[00:32:00] Lopez, a sailor of Key West Florida, after she jokingly responded to his ad for a wife. But Lopez was a splendid writer, and the girl soon became infatuated with his love making. I love it today. Love making means something totally else. But she, they meant like being sweet in in letters. Yes. My goodness.
The paper claimed Lopez traveled to Hoaxy and the couple were married while the parents protested. Oh, other stories fueled the panic that marriages made outside society bounds were dangerous. The Los Angeles Herald reported on October 31st, 1897 that a 3-year-old man shot and killed his heavily insured at 19-year-old wife, oh.
Who he met through an advertisement in a matrimonial paper. Oh, that's, of course some stories had happy endings, marriages that that did end well. So like one headline from 1907 Declared Girl writes in Secret and Wins Rich Planter, the story of an Indiana woman who met her husband through an ad in matrimonial paper, the spare pit years writing to each other in secret, and they married in person.
This is, this is a story from an old newspaper or something that it's. Poorly, [00:33:00] red hair, bulk Cupids plans, mail order bride. Forgot to ask prospective husband about it. Trip here in vain, Kentucky missed. She shows
Simone Collins: up, but she's a Jin.
Malcolm Collins: No, he's a g and, and, and she immediately renounced their marriage possibility because he was redheaded, because she said, quote, I just couldn't live with a redheaded man.
I couldn't. They are always so cross. It's actually just like literally her, her stereotype against people with red hair. Man. Hilarious. Oh, okay. This is a crazy sta off from an old newspaper, like who knows how many these old stories are true. Mm-hmm. But brother and sister drawn together is through matrimonial ad Council Bluffs, October 18th.
The most remarkable romance ever brought to light in southwestern Iowa has befall James Covington, a prosperous farmer residing in the Nua botta bottom 20 miles east of here. Covington advertised for a wife and received a response from a widow in [00:34:00] Georgia. They exchanged a number of letters and he sent the woman money with which to come to him.
They were married on the day of her arrival. He met her at the depot and they were mutually dumbfounded when it was discovered that the intended bride was none other than Covington's sister from whom he had been separated at youth. He heard she was killed in a whale ray wreck and mourned her is dead.
Each married and other, and their respective spouses died. The sister's name being changed by marriage Compton did not recognize her in correspondence.
Simone Collins: Did they get married? Do I, did I hear that right?
Malcolm Collins: No. No, they didn't. Okay. They were previously married and they had, that's why they didn't, you know the, the name.
Okay. Who knows if it's real. It's a sweet story of it is like, I want it. It's, I mean,
Simone Collins: yeah. At least you discovered your sibling is still out there. Okay.
Malcolm Collins: So to go through some original texts because I, I love reading these. This is from 1865 in the Chicago Tribu Correspondence. Desired for the [00:35:00] love of the thing, fun or matrimony, any young ladies between 16 and 21.
This, this is, this was like a more flirty one, like either for marriage or just for fun. Oh, dear.
Simone Collins: Oh,
Malcolm Collins: and, and then this is an ad for people to join, like a service for doing this, either rich, handsome, pretty stylish, accomplished, refined Italian or brilliant. By two gentlemen, A wrong, a young, a rich young widower, SH layered oh, this for two men and a rather handsome, steady fellow.
The only son of wealthy parents. Oh boy. Correspondence, honorable or secret. Honorable
Simone Collins: or
Malcolm Collins: secret? Mm-hmm. Oh. This is a, what? These men know what's up. This is a, that is a horny marriage ad. They're ready for something
Simone Collins: raunchy. AKA secret. That is interesting. Wow.
Malcolm Collins: A widow. This is from a, a widow or merchant and stockman lives in Kansas, 56 years old, height six feet weight, 210 pound brunette black hair and eyes wishes corresponding with [00:36:00] ladies of same age without encumbrances, and whiz means must move in the best socially, and be fully qualified to help make a happy home object, matrimony.
So he is like, I, you need to be, you know, upper cl you need to, you know, not be classy. Yeah. Classy, right? There's a lad in Missouri with a flat foot seeds in his pocket, a brick in his hat, a blue eyes size tin shoe called the bull of the woods. And the boy for you. Well, there's a lot
Simone Collins: of contemporary lingo on that one.
My goodness.
Malcolm Collins: A brick under his
Simone Collins: hat and seats in his pocket. What?
Malcolm Collins: On Earth. He, he's, he's giving a vibe with that one. That's like one of, he's absolutely no slinging it. Here's one. Once pretty girl age 17 to 20. Advertiser is 29, 5 feet, nine inches Tall, blonde can laugh for 15 minutes once a pretty girl are laughing.
These are tall
Simone Collins: people. Are they overstating? Just like people are on online dating ads. Now I wonder because this, this is really tall. [00:37:00] 5, 9, 6 foot, like these are very tall heights for that time period. We've seen what beds look like from that time period. This is in clothing too?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Probably lying then.
Yeah, I doubt. I doubt.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, at least some things never change.
Malcolm Collins: Respectable young man, 20 years old, good city position desires, acquaintance of modest young lady, age 17 to 21 with home nearby. Object to attend operas and church. Perhaps more.
Simone Collins: Perhaps more. You know, he's showing off his why. He's
Malcolm Collins: like, I go to operas in church and that's what I want to do with you.
Maybe. Yeah. He's really.
Simone Collins: Really for g signaling there. But again,
Malcolm Collins: this is not, you know, these are not guys who are like, I'm looking for a hot woman who can, who can make a good dinner. Like, no one's fed that, right? Like, no one's been like, you know. Okay, here's one from 1898. 30 Wealthy Lost Mother for whom I sacrificed use Dread, A Lonely Future Seek Husband and True Companion.
Oh. This woman is desperate. This, this little and 30 [00:38:00] at that age was ancient. You know, she's really looking for, she wanted. That's rough. This one was in 1899, widow 44 Southerner, A stranger own home West End would like the Hearthstone of a heart swept and the cobwebs brushed away. Matrimony. Oh, sorry.
Would like the Hearthstone in heart swept. Getting poetic. Okay. Rushed away. So he is being poetic. He shine, you know, whatever. Okay, here's one, here's one. An older bachelor returning from the mines finds his. Old sweetheart. Married and old acquaintances, scattered desires. Lady acquaintance object marriage.
It's from 1904. I I like that. Very straight to the point. I was gonna marry someone, like I'm not, like a flirt or whatever. She just got married when I got back. This one here from 1921. Businessman gentleman, Christian, 33 to 43. Age 125. Oh yeah. So this is the one where you were talking about height and weight.
He's very
Simone Collins: specific about weight. Yes. And
Malcolm Collins: skills he wants is music. Sonography typing, bookkeeping. Good penmanship. That's, [00:39:00] that's interesting. Okay. Here we've got here, uh oh, oh AD for husband. I like this one. Okay. You got gold diggers. Even in the past 38-year-old brunette seeks a husband with an automobile.
This is from 1921.
Simone Collins: Needs a she? Does she wanna marry a man or a car? This is very interesting.
Malcolm Collins: Cars would've been quite a new contraption back then. Like, ooh, I want one of these men who lives fast here. Here's one from 1881. I think this one is interesting. Young person of Nobel birth. Beautiful is Helena housewife, like Penelope, et cetera, seeks a husband through press entirely without acquaintances of the masculine sex.
And so what she's saying here is, look at me. I'm so educated. I'm a little you know, oh yeah.
Simone Collins: But to. Is she describing herself to Helen of Troy? I mean, good luck lady. Yes. And a and a wife like Pene and Pene. She, no one wants to marry a woman who thinks she's literally as beautiful as Helen of Troy.
That is just trouble. I don't care how beautiful she's, she don't have
Malcolm Collins: any male acquaintances. Maybe. Maybe she'll [00:40:00] be Yeah, for
Simone Collins: a f*****g reason. No one can tolerate her. She's. I can't, I can't even deal with one, one collection of sentences that she wrote hundreds of years ago. Okay. Almost hundreds.
Malcolm Collins: So I found the first one that mentions cooking.
Gentleman 35 rancher in Montana seeks lady under 30 adept at household duties and not afraid of hard work. So it starts with the hard work thing. Must know how to cook and mend. That's good. Yeah. So rather than keep going, I collected some more, but this episode's run long and I think that we get the idea of what people were looking for.
Yeah. The question is
Simone Collins: how do, how can we bring this back? Because I like this and I like this idea of like, of, of looking for a business partner. You know, Hey, looking for someone who, you know, can, can move out here knows how to do these things, follows this religion. I have
Malcolm Collins: a great idea what, okay, so just like the Old West, our podcast is predominantly male watched.
Yeah. So what women can do, if you want and you wanna reach out to us and [00:41:00] have like a, a like short thing at the end of an episode where we pitch you to the audience, right? Yeah. Yeah. Then we forward you correspondence. If you're looking for marriage and kids, you, you, you, you let us know and we'll make a pitch for you at the end.
Email
Simone Collins: us at [email protected] with a succinct like these ads. Description of what you're looking for. Also, one more pitch also for the ladies watching this. There is a society of mothers who have stepped back from, you know, rigorous full-time careers to do more parenting, who nevertheless want to be involved in business and start businesses and kind of.
Work together, kind of like in a, in a writer's club to keep each other honest and move forward and actually get those businesses started. It's called undercurrent. If you're interested in joining this, also email us at partners of pragmatist foundation.com. We're not running it, we're not the founders of it, but we, we met the founder at Natal Con and she's a really cool woman.
[00:42:00] Also a mother of a bunch of children who's she has a finance background also very professional, and it's a cool group. So email us as well if you're interested in that.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. But I, I, I like this idea of of, of keep it short, simple, and what really matters to you, you know? Absolutely. And I think that that'll also help with, with personal framing, right?
But
Simone Collins: yeah, but I love that. I love you. You recognize that our podcast is the wild West, a lot of risk taking, high achieving intelligent men and, and, and some women.
Malcolm Collins: Here's, here's a sweet one from 1883. Hmm. I want a wife to talk with at day's end. Someone gentle to make this load some place home.
Simone Collins: Oh.
Wanna give him a hug? You know, it's okay, little man. Yes,
Malcolm Collins: it's probably not. He
Simone Collins: probably died a very painful death.
Malcolm Collins: Lives mostly alone. A lot of that was actually a, a, a fun one from a a Thousand Ways to Die in The West. I thought that was actually a, a fairly funny movie with a interesting premise [00:43:00] of, of a like I think it sold pretty wrong.
Like it sold like, oh, all the ways you could die in the West is what makes it funny, but what makes it funny? Is taking somebody with modern sensibilities and values and ideas of gender roles and putting them in an old West environment and just watching them constantly like flabbergasted at how different things were back then.
Mm-hmm. And how much nobody cared.
I have only the finest healing tonics and elixirs procured from the farthest corners of the globe.
Ogden's celebrated stomach bitters. God, look at the ingredients. Cocaine, alcohol, morphine, mercury with chalk. What the hell is mercury with chalk? Science and red flannel. Red flannel. There's shirt in here. Pieces of shirt.
Malcolm Collins: Here's one that I think you'll find from, from 1889, widower 50. Texas owns 200 acres, seeks a lady with some capital to join in matrimony and improve the land. Well.
Simone Collins: Just like he wants an infusion of this is, yeah. No, this is a growth equity marriage. I, no, I'm [00:44:00] not signing up for that.
Nice try. I.
Malcolm Collins: I love you so much, Simone. I'm, I'm glad I got you through the modern version of one of these. I reached out to you.
Simone Collins: I'll have,
Malcolm Collins: you know, did you, did, you were the trollop and I really appreciate that. Thanks. Sorry. You were a, an aggressive woman. In, in, in the, in the deed of, of, of, of macaroni.
And my,
Simone Collins: my first message to you was a question about your. Startup. Okay. Oh, oh, okay. You were being
Malcolm Collins: slim
Simone Collins: and you were like, let's discuss you over dinner. And I was like, okay. But no, it was always about business with us. Thank you. You were not interested in the startup at all. You, of course I wasn't. I was interested in your stupid face.
I love you too much. Oh my God. I love you too much. Love
Malcolm Collins: you.
Simone Collins: I am really lucky. I ended up with you just letting you know that. Sorry. I did submit it though, [00:45:00] and it, it
Malcolm Collins: put, you got it as an unlisted video. Can you send me the unlisted video just so I can check? It works. The link that you sent,
Simone Collins: I just checked that it worked and I just submitted it so it's a little late, but Sure. Here's the unlisted video.
Malcolm Collins: We are submitting to Andreesen Horowitz.
We got to round two applications. They liked our pitches of both of them, both for the AI video game project and for the school. So that is so exciting. So exciting. It is
Simone Collins: exciting. It is really exciting.
Malcolm Collins: You are just an absolute star, Simone. And she, you know what else is on my
Simone Collins: unlisted YouTube videos?
It's, it's insane. There's the gist of gig averse. There's an original, and this is 2022 description of the Cols Institute, which is crazy from our original fundraising for it. Wow. And I have our SRE spot, Andres. We, we did that on this song when we were on Peruvian
Malcolm Collins: tv. The [00:46:00] top, one of the top Peruvian TV shows had us on at one point.
But hold on, you were on NPR today and you were like, it was exactly like that scene from Parks and Rec. Like they had this NPR accent and they were all like low energy.
Leslie could one say that a book is nothing more than a painting of words, which are the notes on the tapestry of the greatest film ever. Sculpted One could say that, but should one join.
Malcolm Collins: And the bio ethicist was like, well, of course no one would call you a Nazi Simone for what you're doing. And you're, yeah, you're like, no one would describe
Simone Collins: that as like what the Nazis did.
And I'm like,
Malcolm Collins: every day. Like progressives don't know how crazy their own party is. Like, just, just not even close. I, I thought what we're gonna do for the next episode, he had more
Simone Collins: eugenic use than I did because he believed that there were some things that universally everyone could agree we should screen out this.
And I'm like, Nope, that's.
Malcolm Collins: No. Like, nope, they wouldn't agree on that. They [00:47:00] wouldn't agree with you. Horrible. Yeah. And that's, that's crazy
Simone Collins: that like progressives have more eugenic views than we do. But we're, we're the bad ones. We're evil. We're the one, sorry. Not, not, sorry,
Malcolm Collins: actually. Yeah, no, and I've been, I've been getting boiled at something 'cause I've been watching people angry at, at a lot of our, like, friends, like the, the lady who was on our show, science lady Sabina Hofstetter.
Because she you know, championed a book that was like, Hey, science is getting too woke and it's causing issues.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: And the guy was like, oh, how could you say that? When Trump's in office and said, we're gonna rail on him, we're gonna say we won the war on science. We defeated science.
Josie, what did you learn about picking daffodils? I, I just wanted take this one. I was just, I just wanted to put, I just wanted to put flowers in the house so we can go off, can go to the store to get some blueberries. [00:48:00] Oh, okay. Testy wants blueberries. We got a goat.

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Redistricting: Why the Democrats Need a New Coalition Post 2030
15 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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, in
Malcolm 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, just
Simone 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 them are California minus four, New York, minus two, Illinois minus one, Minnesota minus one, Oregon minus one. Pennsylvania minus one Rhode Island, minus one Wisconsin minus one. More critically projection [00:04:00] suggests that by 2030 Democrats rely on their. Safely Democratic states, eg.
California and New York. Plus the Blue Wall states, Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin and Nebraska's Second district one vote. They would secure only 258 votes falling 12 votes short of the two 70. They need to win a presidency. So if Democrats just win what they historically considered, like the safe path to victory, they will not win under the new system.
So I wanna, you know, just, just put that out there again. So even if Democrats win Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and Nebraska behalf of Nebraska, they still wouldn't win the cycle.
Simone Collins: Oh my gosh.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That's not great. Okay. To reach 270 electoral votes on the 2030 map, Democrats must win additional swing states [00:05:00] beyond the blue wall, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, to make up the 12 vote deficit.
The electoral vote counts for swing states under the 2030. Projections are Arizona Georgia, North Carolina or Nevada. So if they win any of these, they would win if, if they won those, like Pennsylvania and whatever. But I actually think winning Pennsylvania is gonna be increasingly hard.
And we're gonna go into that in just a second, but like, if Pennsylvania gets harder to win, we're gonna go over just how hard it gets for them to, to win elections. Possible collections of additional swing states to reach or exceed. 12 electoral votes include Arizona alone, Georgia alone, North Carolina alone, Arizona plus Nevada.
This is assuming Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin. Now let's see what happens if they lose pa, that's where we live is Pennsylvania. And I know that there's been some major changes in Pennsylvania in the last election cycle, specifically Scott Presler Gay Hero ended up, radicalizing, the Amish, who historically didn't vote, the Amish basically said, well, [00:06:00] we won't vote, we won't get involved in politics, and we won't become politicized because we don't want the system to attack us when, you know, the wrong party's in power.
And what the Amish realized, and Scott Presler convinced him of this is actually the system's attacking you right now, and we'll continue to attack you because it needs your kids to survive. The progressives aren't having kids and they get kids from you, so. You should join up with this Trump guy.
He'll protect your rights. And they were like, you know what? That sounds about right. And they were, they were seeing this. They w what's funny is one thing that Amish really hated was handouts for having lots of kids. They, they often complained about getting this from the government. They're like, oh, I'm not gonna turn it down, but like, they've made money worthless.
So assuming they lose D pa, okay. Assuming Democrats secure their safely Democratic states 213 votes and the blue walls, this is assuming they win Michigan and Wisconsin. Then they must need an additional 32 votes from swing states. Here's the most realistic combinations they could get over time.
So they'd have to, if they lose [00:07:00] pa, get Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, and North Carolina. Now that seems incredibly unlikely. Yes, Georgia flipped democratic in 2020 and North Carolina did while, while narrowly Republican in in recent cycles. But the problem is, is that. The current trends would cause them to flip in the opposite direction.
More like Dims winning Georgia and North Carolina, especially given how hard they've lost. The Hispanic vote is gonna be really, really difficult. Ar Okay. Okay. So they could win Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada. I could see Arizona and Nevada, but I do not see them winning Georgia if they haven't won Pennsylvania.
That doesn't make sense. Okay. Okay. Okay. So then what else? Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and New Hampshire. Again, I don't see them winning Georgia if they don't win Pennsylvania. Okay. Then what [00:08:00] else? North Carolina, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and Wisconsin could win them The election. That is more realistic, but that still requires North Carolina.
So basically it means that going forwards dims have to win Pennsylvania or create a new fulcrum state, which would be Georgia. Now here's how they might win. Georgia, and I could see this, so let, let's talk about this. Maybe what they need to focus on is this idea that the Republican Party really has a.
And, and, and I will admit this the, as we've argue in the past, the Republican Party used to be the party of the Cavaliers. This is deep south culture. This is a highly aristocratic and hierarchical culture. And, and a culture that believes in strict social norms that need to be followed to sort of earn or portray your status.
And. Trump [00:09:00] doesn't follow that at all. He regularly flaunts such norms in a way that causes leaders within southern culture to be quite upset with him and disgusted by him. And, you know, then he brought JD Vance in, who represents an extent, a continuation of this. Now, he doesn't have the vulgarity of Trump totally, but.
He's vulgar in other ways that show like a, thumbing his nose at these cultural morays, like he really likes magic. The gathering that is not something that one of these magic, the gathering is a card game for nerds that these cultures would've loved. That, that was like the, my little pony of his generation or something.
Right. You know, I like magic. Together. Imagine they the ball. I was so obsessed with that. I was always excited when new chiropractics would come out. Oh my God. You know what? New Life goal, play Magic. The gathering against JD Vance or have our kids play against his kids.
Simone Collins: Oh my gosh. How great would
Malcolm Collins: that
Simone Collins: be?
They need to grow a little bit more though. They need to get a little older. Yeah. Don't we need to get a little more favor? Oh yeah. I guess step one, some healthy friend JD Vance. Step two kids grow up. [00:10:00]
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But, but you know, the, the, the, as the conservative have, have embraced the real nerds, you know, as the GMs went through trash nerd culture and made it all woke you know, this is something that a lot of deep Southern culture had some antipathy towards.
Yeah, absolutely. The reason the alliance works now is we're like, well, look, you are. You do not have numbers to impose your value system on the general population right now, but if you join our coalition, we can at least work to protect your kids from Deconversion. And, and that means, you know, more school choice.
That means you know, more efficient government services like preventing stuff like the USAID that was going out and running all these conversion camps basically all around the world. Wasting our money. And they're like, okay, yeah, we can broadly agree on all of that. Like that's an area where we can all agree, but.
If the left reclassified conservative Christians as a minority religious tradition was in their value system. And it's just like, okay. In the same way we treat Muslims, like they don't mind that, like Muslims [00:11:00] throw gay people off buildings, right? Like if there was in their cultural context can they create sort of the same like.
Gays for evangelicals, gays for Born again Christians. I don't, I don't think so. Like, it's, it's a long shot, but it is a shot. Let's go to some alternative scenarios that they lose. Okay. So I was like, if Democrats win Michigan or Wisconsin fail to win Michigan or Wisconsin, their past becomes even harder without Wisconsin starting at 213.
They would need a combination of something like Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada to win. Or they need to flip either Texas or Florida. But Florida's become increasingly hard to flip in recent election cycles. So much that on most maps it's listed as solidly read in a large part due to the MAGA coalition's ability to win the Hispanic vote.
Thoughts before I go further?
Simone Collins: On the All-In podcast recently, Antonio Gracias, who's doing work with Doge [00:12:00] was talking about issues with illegal immigrants. And he mentioned that it was found that a bunch of people who were. In the United States as illegal immigrants did actually end up voting and mm-hmm.
I, I keep thinking about that when I think about this, that the Democratic Party, I, I don't think that there was if thousands
Malcolm Collins: of illegal immigrants, by the way,
Simone Collins: I, I don't know how, like, what, what the count was. But it was in multiple states. I don't think they have a final count yet 'cause they're only just starting to dig into these numbers.
I mean. Do, did tweet at one point about some other things that these people have done. They said that they were 905 collecting Medicaid, 41, collecting unemployment insurance. 22 received federal student loans, 409 received tax refunds. And then several received food stamp benefits, which is not something that illegal aliens should be receiving.
Yeah. But they're doing it anyway. And yes, they are also voting in some cases. I don't think that the Democratic Party was like. Oh, you know, this [00:13:00] is, this is a plan of mine to do this. I think that they're just like, well, I mean, we wanna empower these, you know, people who fled from terrible situations and it doesn't hurt.
I. They would vote for us and they would vote for them because it was democratic policies that also allowed them to do things like, oh, so like, technically they weren't supposed to, but here are your SNAP benefits, here's your unemployment insurance, things like that. Yeah. And legal, legal
Malcolm Collins: immigrants don't wanna pay for this, and they feel bad for their, you know, existing family who's waiting to get in the right way.
Right. Yeah.
Simone Collins: Yeah. So I, I just keep thinking back to that conversation in Antonio, Gracia's initial findings. 'cause also it, it blew my mind. That illegal immigrants would vote. And I was just like, well, that would never happen. And it, it has happened. So, that is, that is, that is pretty crazy. And I, I, I do, yeah, I mean like, 'cause I'm thinking on both ends.
'cause a big thing that was coming up at the close of this last presidential election [00:14:00] was, oh, well if the Democrats win. Republicans will never be able to win again. So it's interesting for me to hear you saying, now Democrats are completely screwed. You know, this is not the narrative that I was hearing because based on immigration trends, whether or not, you know, they were legal migrants, well, this is when Democrats thought that they had the Hispanic vote
Malcolm Collins: in their pocket.
And the problem is, is that once people become Hispanic legal citizens, these are trad cats. They're not.
Simone Collins: They're not
Malcolm Collins: like the black, this is the black population. Even if they would be benefited by voting for conservatives, even if they would be. You know, like, like the conservative party alliance was their actual social values, which it does.
They've been sort of brainwashed into believing that conservatives are, are racist or anti-black or something like that. And you know, we've seen this even around like prenatals conferences. Like when CNN was covering it, it's like, it's suspicious that there weren't , a lot of black people there.
You know, that must mean everyone there is a racist. And I'm like, no, it's just there weren't a lot of black people there. Like, why, why would there, like, we're not like proselytizing within like. Black community citrus or something, we're not [00:15:00] comping their tickets like Democrats would like. We just treat everyone equally.
Like of course there's not a lot of black people here, whatever. And so, I, I think that they, they, but they're trying to create the perception and the black communities have believed this perception. Largely a a lot of based ones haven't, and they're like, yeah, I see what's up. Like you're using us, right?
Like you don't actually, as Simone pointed out, you don't actually help our communities. Our communities are differentially worse off when we're in Democrat controlled territories. We do better in Republican areas, so clearly like you guys are just using us. But that hasn't happened. In Hispanic communities, dim thought they could replay this hand within Hispanic communities.
And in the last election cycle, the majority of Hispanic men, for example, voted for Trump. And, and the Hispanic vote overall was only slightly for Biden and it's move by Kamala, and it's moving pretty fast. And I think this is because of how information networks work within, in Hispanic communities, they're much more based around family networks and much less based around [00:16:00] external sources of information.
So even if you can gaslight like around an entire culture, like everyone believes this, everyone believes this. They just like go to their like, you know, cousin and they're like, Hey, do we believe this? And the cousin's like, no, I don't think we do. And we're like, okay, well them, you know, like, and. Family networks makes you significantly more likely to get pissed off at inefficient government bureaucracies than in, than than smaller networks.
Because whenever the inefficient bureaucracy accidentally closes somebody's store by over-applying things or applies covid restrictions too harshly, or, you know, does something that screws over a small business within his Hispanic communities. They're like, oh, you know, my second cousin lost everything that his whole family had worked for their entire lives because of your arbitrarily abr applied bureaucratic norms.
I hate the deep state, right? Like these are anti my community. But if you don't have the strong family networks, which the DIMS have done a very good job of breaking up within [00:17:00] many. Black communities you're not gonna get that information. And it's just, well, if the state, you know, I can live off the state.
I can live off the state. Right. You know? And, and if I've been told Republicans are racist, well they must be racist 'cause everyone affirms this or everyone who's, you know, immediately. So I think that that's, that's, that's part of it.
Simone Collins: But there's also not a world in which we don't continue with the two party system.
I think like things just naturally sort to that, given the way that our political governmental system is set up. So what I imagine will happen is the Democrat party will move. To a much more appealing position, possibly even appealing to us. Who knows? Like they could, they could go in a great direction.
So, well
Malcolm Collins: that's, I don't, I don't think they could. I think so if you look at Democrats right now to win you, you know, you're saying they could appeal to the tech, right? Like the new, right?
Simone Collins: No, well, our, or just centrist Americans? I don't know. I really don't know what direction they could possibly take.
I know they need basically what they need. I mean, the would be leaders now are what? Like Gavin Newsom? I, I, I just, yeah, I dunno what
Malcolm Collins: they're gonna do. They want to further [00:18:00] like their plan is, oh, we're gonna further increase the turnout of our existing coalition. And that is actually pretty good of a strategy when both coalitions are equal, but we're going to move into an era where they need a new component to the coalition for the coalition to work.
And it, it, it. It could be the tech, right? But that just seems incredibly unlikely. 'cause the tech right is basically what the Republican Party is right now. If you look at the actual policy that they're pushing if however they lost the tech right, that'd be really bad for the Republicans. Like I think that Trump and JD understand this very well.
I think most Republicans at like Heritage or at other like competently run like legacy Republican they really like talking to people like us and understanding people like us. 'cause they're like, okay, this is like the new part. You know, you're just talking to a reporter and he is like, well, I mean you guys aren't fully Republican, right?
Like, I was like, no, like we are a hundred percent new, right? Like there isn't a single issue in terms of what the Trump administration has done, where I'm like, I categorically disagree [00:19:00] with this. And in some cases I'm like, that's an interesting hypothesis that you think that would work. And I'm, you know, at least glad that you're trying radical things, but it probably won't.
But that's not like a an actual like, difference of opinion. Right. You know, I mean, so that's what makes it so hard to get the tech right as I think that the left has a perception that the tech right kind of agrees with the left and kind of agrees with the right. And it's just with the right, right now for.
You know, because of their cultural imperialism. And it's like, no, we're like a hundred percent on this side. The right would need to do something to seriously betray us like, you know, put restrictions on IVF. But Trump has made IVF easier and cheaper to get, you know, so
Simone Collins: maybe, I don't know. I mean, a lot of the press coverage of tariffs implies that, like if, for example, the Trump administration gets tagged with a recession, like it's, it's their fault.
They, they did this with tariffs. I could see there being a big backlash. That could cause a rebalancing, it would give, it leaves an opening for Democrats to [00:20:00] even just kind of. Gaslights, the US Popula would be like, we were always the reasonable party. We never we never proposed any of this stuff, stuff.
What's
Malcolm Collins: the problem with that is, is it's, that's the Rich People Coalition and Democrats already have the Rich People Coalition.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: That's already part of their, their winning circle, you know? So they go out and they're like, we're extra good for rich people. People are gonna be like, oh. Not a good look like you could at least try to sell to for Republicans.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Huh. I wonder,
Malcolm Collins: I mean I look everybody knows, like I've always said, trans people, you can't, like, they're like, oh, we can't abandon our trends outies. And it's like, look, if you were sighting with people who literally dress up like they're from the capital and the hungry games, like you can't be the party of the working people.
I love
Simone Collins: the capital and the Hunger Games. That
Malcolm Collins: is like the way, like apparently like 50% of trans people dress. I'm like, why? Why, why? You do not look like the disenfranchised. You don't need. Their [00:21:00] privilege. It's obvious, but to keep going. Election electoral college and house seat reappointment population grows in Republican leaning states like Texas and Florida means these states will gain house seats, blah, blah, blah.
Now what's really interesting about this. Is that a lot of this is actually coming downstream of people moving where they live because Democrats are doing such a bad job of managing democratic. Yeah.
Simone Collins: They're just, they're just fleeing democratic policies in terms of housing, in terms of. Homeless communities and all that.
Right. They just can't live with it anymore.
Malcolm Collins: And obviously the Democrat dream is, oh, we move to, let's say Austin, that we turn Texas blue. Mm. I mean, that's been the democratic dream for a long time.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: But I don't think it's realistic. The Hispanic vote voters don't like, I think it the Hispanic community for a while, but not anymore.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Well, here's a question for you. Who would you say republicans should go after next? If Republicans were gonna chip off [00:22:00] part of the Democratic coalition, who would it be?
Simone Collins: Maybe more gay men. I think that more gay men will be good.
Malcolm Collins: I agree. I think I, and I think it's a very winnable faction. Well, yeah.
Simone Collins: The, the, the, the movement has already started. Just build momentum and go all the way.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The other fraction I can see is black men. Trump has actually made some really big inroads with black men by changing things like child support laws. Oh really? Wow. Yeah. I can't remember. Oh, yeah, he changed it.
So I think that, oh, God, I can't remember how he changed it. He changed it in like a really reasonable way, but that was not favorable for women who were, you know, juicing guys who knocked them up for a living situation. Oh. And apparently this was, you know, just for disproportionately affected black communities.
Whether it's 70%, 76% of black people are born outside of a, a marriage. These days. Yeah. Some,
Simone Collins: some insane amount. That's hard for me to believe. Yes.
Malcolm Collins: It, it, it, this is not part of black culture. Historically, before they became like this ultra progressive [00:23:00] party, they had higher
Simone Collins: rates of marriage than white people in America.
Yeah. You, like
Malcolm Collins: in the sixties, 5% of blacks were born outside of wedlock while 10% of whites were. Mm-hmm. So this is the result of their alliance. With the urban monoculture. Mm-hmm. And the urban monocultures degradation of their culture through that alliance. Yeah. It is not an intrinsic part of being black or black culture.
You can watch our episode, the Islamification of Black Culture, if you wanna see you know, how the Democrats really f them over on this. But yeah, I, I, I think black men are very winnable if you focus on issues like that. Because. A lot of society has become so much like a coalition like us versus them and males versus females has become such a big part of that in ways that are really institutionally abusive of the other in cultures where, well, I mean, so if, if, if you have like 76% of kids being born outta wedlock the men and the women in that culture are not really in the same faction.
Like the women have a reason to f over the men and the men have [00:24:00] a reason to f over the women
Simone Collins: fair.
Malcolm Collins: I mean, there's a reason why when you look at like famous black women, they like almost always are dating Jews or white guys, but mostly Jews. You know, it's like, it's like a thing, it's like a thing, like even when they're like racist, you know?
It's like, I, I don't know what that is, but I, I, I think it's due. To, you know, as the urban monoculture has infected their culture and broken up institutions like marriage, it's allowed for the ossification of a gender war that is more intractable. And the thing is, is, is that once you break up this gender role, then you're also a conservative, but you're a conservative for like wholesome family reasons, like mm-hmm.
You know, which a lot of the black community is as well. They're like, yeah, I'm not interested in like, all this DEI nonsense. I just want my kids to, you know, be in an environment where they're treated fairly and, and, which you, you hear from a lot of the, the like, wholesome faction of the black community.
Simone Collins: Yeah. 100%. That, that, that checks out. Also, I think that there's a huge portion of the black community that is [00:25:00] perfectly capitalistic. You know, not socialist. Like all the, the socialist influencers I know were extremely white and extremely middle class, like they grew up in, in privilege and they also grew up very, very white.
And when I look at a lot of shows that are, that are meant to cater to primarily black audiences, and they have primarily black classes. They may have very social justice themes, but they're all wearing like $5,000 shirts. And or they're very capitalistic in nature. Which implies to me, I, I couldn't say because I'm not black, but it implies to me that black audiences in America are.
More capitalistic leaning and not really all about this sort of Marxist theory. So pervasive. I,
Malcolm Collins: yeah, I, I've definitely seen that as well. I mean, they're, they're being realistic. They have less trust in governing institutions and, and structures for good reason. But one of the reasons it might be harder to get the black male vote is that Democrats within this last cycle have leaned really hard into antisemitism.
It's really [00:26:00] normal among democratic influencers and the black community is disproportionately anti-Semitic. I think a lot of people were really surprised when like Kanye went all anti-Semitic and I was like, do you not have like black friends? Like
Simone Collins: Yeah. Or have you not explored the concepts of, of the Nation of Islam?
I.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like what? Like that, this is, this is not surprising. And, and not even for like negative reasons. Even, you know, I was talking with a friend of mine who is you know, a well-known entertainer.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: And she was talking about a lot of the, the well-known black entertainers, and she's like, actually antisemitism is really common amongst the well-known black entertainers.
Just most of them know better than to be public about it. Okay.
Simone Collins: And
Malcolm Collins: she's like, and the weird thing is like, even as somebody who's not anti-Semitic myself, like I actually kind of get it. Oh my gosh. 'cause so often for these people, their early managers and producers and people running their studios we're all Jewish.
Mm. And that a lot of these people screwed them over. And, and acted, you [00:27:00] know, I mean, that's the way it was. Like if you're a moneyed interest in, in like the entertainment industry and you're dealing with somebody who's not educated and I'm not saying that like blacks are uneducated. I am seeing a lot of black people who go into the entertainment industry specifically, like the music or rap scene come from a disproportionately lower level of education.
Well, also, if you're
Simone Collins: maxing out. Performing arts, you're not maxing out to getting a master's degree or in something like that unless you've gone the academic route, which probably means you're not a popular pop pop artist. So,
Malcolm Collins: yeah. And if you look at the, who are the lawyers and record producers and stuff like that in la, they are disproportionately Jewish.
Mm-hmm. And so the community began to feel like. Hey, it's not white people who are holding us down. Like I've got lots of poor white friends. It's Jewish people who are holding us down. Oh, dear. And the, the, you know, they knew they weren't allowed to say this publicly, so because the, the discussion never aired publicly.
I mean, again, [00:28:00] this isn't. I don't think that this is because Jewish people screw people over disproportionately. I don't think that this is because anything about Jewish people, I just think that due to cultural and historic reasons, Jewish people ended up running the entertainment industry disproportionately.
That's an interesting episode for totally different time. It was a, the German juice, specifically the Russian Jews ended up in the closing industry on the east coast, the German juice. On the West Coast, in part because it was more deregulated. Look, I don't need to get into why they ended up running.
No, but I,
Simone Collins: I would just say like all of that said I don't at least intuitively feel like the Republican Party is the Jew party and the Democrat party is the anti JW party. I just think that, I think it's align that way. Well, with Palestine it came up more, but I don't know, even in the next presidential election cycle, just how relevant Palestine is gonna be.
So maybe it won't even matter. I just, I think the only reason it's really risen to the surface is that Israel and Palestine were key international conflicts that were discussed [00:29:00] extensively during the 2024 election.
Malcolm Collins: I mean, wait, no, I, I, I mean, look, I I, is it gonna be a persistent issue? It depends on how long this war lasts.
But I think that a lot of people made their positions clear and a lot of like actual, like Antisemites left Republican party, like, you know, Nick Fuentes or Leather Apron Club, or. David Duke, or and a lot of them are beginning to align more. Like even David Duke was talking about how like he aligns more with Democratic party policies these days.
Geez. But he's like, look like he felt really bad for the people of Gaza. He's like, I really appreciate the Democratic party standing up for them. Like I think that morally I am more aligned with it. Well
Simone Collins: meanwhile, amidst all the tariff stuff, there was some progressive influencer who was like.
Trump is finally speaking for the working class American. I love this. This is fantastic. [00:30:00] So all sorts of disruption is taking place. I think so many, wait, A progressive influencer was saying that Y yeah. I can't remember. It was someone discussed on the blocked and reported podcast. And I, I, I can't remember who it was.
It wasn't Sagar was it? But it was, it was someone who was extremely left and who suddenly was standing Trump. Because it was tariffs and I found that really interesting. I just think that now there's a lot of disruption. Democrats are really not sure what to do. They were obviously very, very disillusioned by what mainstream party did in the last election cycle.
So, you know, but who knows what's gonna happen because they got away with so much bad stuff and they don't seem to be showing any signs of. Dissolving in any way. You still have this very old group of people running everything it seems. So, I don't know. I mean, Bernie's certainly a celebrity right now. So
Malcolm Collins: yeah, he's going, what is it, Coachella?
Simone Collins: Yeah. He's, he's like on tour you know, selling out venues, [00:31:00] doing his stocks looking curly.
Malcolm Collins: I mean, Bernie's just a stge for the pharma industry. He like. He, he, if you saw, like, I was just so disgusted by the way he acted during the JFK hearing where, you know, he's opposing JFK, he is about, you know, making things healthier.
We know that he's the highest, gets the most donations of anyone in the Senate from the pharma companies. And people are like, oh, those are individual donations. I'm like. You really are that stupid. Like do you think that Bernie consistently gets enough individual donations, highest end donor from the pharma industry, an industry that has a vested interest in giving money to the Senate and to lock to change policy positions?
Like that's like. Of all industries in the world, there are few with a bigger vested interest than pharma. You think that accidentally he's been winning the most money from that industry, not in one [00:32:00] life cycle, but for over a decade like that is completely implausible. Like that is like Biden. Getting 17% more of the vote than Obama did, which by the way, is the official number completely implausible.
To anyone who was alive during both of those elections. Obama's election was a phenomenon. Like it was everything. It was, it was, it, it, it ate at every aspect of our culture in civilization during that election cycle. There is no way Biden got 17% more vote than him.
Simone Collins: Yeah, that, that seemed a bit irregular.
We can, we can just say that
Malcolm Collins: small. It's not like, oh, he got like five more points or something. It's like if, if he had been running against Obama, he would've crushed him. That's not plausible. Yeah. But anyway, the, the, the point I'm making [00:33:00] is, is. Birdie is a complete sleaze bag and always has been.
Simone Collins: It always, it doesn't seem to stop his fandom. That's all I'm saying. It doesn't matter if someone's a a sleaze bag by anyone's definition or not. What he says resonates the story that reminded me
Malcolm Collins: of. I always love the story of him being kicked outta the commune. You know that story. So he goes to like a communist commune and they ended up kicking them out because all he would do was give speeches all day.
Oh, like he
Simone Collins: wasn't, he wasn't working. Yeah. He is just giving speeches about how good every, the communism
Malcolm Collins: and conceptualism was. Well, he's
Simone Collins: really good at that. That's his special interest. And he's, he is good at it. And clearly people like it. The right audience likes it, so.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, I don't think so. I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't know that many Bernie supporters anymore, like the Bernie Grow movement basically died out.
There's
Simone Collins: a lot of them,
Malcolm Collins: I think you say like him because he's seen his counter mainstream Democrat, but he cowed out to the mainstream Democrats throughout the entire last cycle. You know, [00:34:00] I don not think Bernie is the way, and I do not think socialism is a pass forward for Democrats. I think if they try to actually, if they go like pure.
Federman style socialism. That could do pretty well.
Simone Collins: What is Federman style? Socialism.
Malcolm Collins: Abandon the trans nonsense. Just go full in, like is he, is he
Simone Collins: anti-trans? I don't think he's anti-trans. Oh no,
Malcolm Collins: he's not yet. But like, you can tell, like a abandon the, the illegal immigrant stuff. Just be like, we're not gonna do that.
We're actually going to implement a socialist policy, like culture wars be gone. Socialist policy because AI is coming. We need UBI or something like that, that would go pretty well. So
Simone Collins: basically just agnostic. Socialism. Socialism without the cultural baggage.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, I could see that as playing pretty hard against somebody like JD Vance or something.
Simone Collins: People, I, yeah, I mean, our polling even that our nonprofit has done, shows that people are genuinely concerned [00:35:00] collectively about. Global geopolitical instability and importantly job loss due to ai. I, I do think that someone who caters to those fears and says, I've got you. It's, this is a problem and I'm going to address it, will will do pretty well.
Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Alright, well, I love you today, Simone. What am I eating to dinner tonight?
Simone Collins: So there are you bought at Costco? A while back, these mysterious chicken crumbles that you thought were very compelling? I could stir. Oh, I think
Malcolm Collins: you get well with fried rice.
Simone Collins: With fried rice. Or just rice. Rice or just fried rice.
And then, and do fried rice and that.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I, I cook it separately and then mix it with fried rice. Fried rice. Okay. So
Simone Collins: you like fried rice with chicken crumbles tonight? Yeah. Yeah. And then I'm gonna, I'm gonna take out of the freezer some of the Wagyu steak for you to have tomorrow night. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: I wouldn't, I wouldn't cook them together by the way.
I cook them separately and I can mix them as, yeah. First do
Simone Collins: the, the chicken crumbles and then do the, the, the fried [00:36:00] rice and you want me to serve them to you separately, not even fry at the very end. Those things together. It
Malcolm Collins: serves them separately because I don't know if the chicken crumbles are gonna be good.
So I'm, I'm gonna want fried rice to eat if the chicken crumbles aren't good with the fried rice. Okay. And the French tray might have the confidence to say mix them, but right now, I don't know.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: All right. There's like hypothesis, Simone, A hypothesis and
Simone Collins: any special seasoning requests in the fried rice.
Aside from a tiny bit of that vinegar, obviously lots of soy sauce, lots of butter. Some MSG and rice. Oh yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Uh uh, oyster sauce. Oyster sauce.
Simone Collins: Okay. And of course green onion and some finely chopped bell pepper. Is that all right with you?
Malcolm Collins: That works for me. My beautiful princess
Simone Collins: egg eggs from the coop that is necessary.
We live
Malcolm Collins: in such luxury and we're ending so early to, do you want me to try to get No, I actually have
Simone Collins: another journalist call, so this is not early
Malcolm Collins: more work to do. Do you try to, do you want me to try to get the the thing done? The video that you, you did, if you could.
Simone Collins: Yeah, that would be great. I gotta try to
Malcolm Collins: get that done tonight.[00:37:00]
Simone Collins: I would appreciate that. Good. All right.
Malcolm Collins: Alright. Who, who's the journalist?
Simone Collins: Caroline Kitchener. I, I, I've stopped tracking who's coming from what, and I just take calls. That's the way I am too. Yeah. So much media
Malcolm Collins: about us now, like a man story of the day because we are ever only famous.
But that's cool. I like being famous. I wanted to be famous. I'm, I'm like a cool, like, hmm. Everyone's like, Hmm, like Malcolm. He's so cool. Look at him. He's so sexy. Malcolm's so hot right now. Guy. Right now they're all like, oh yeah. Yeah. Like the coworkers are, are so well liked and sexy. They're not Nazis at all.
They're, they're just cousins. They, they are so mean. Like, it's funny, like the thing that used to make us go viral on, on Twitter, it's moved entirely to Blue Sky and now. Like we don't go as viral because it's only on blue sky now. Like Twitter doesn't care isolated. That, that seems reasonable.
[00:38:00] Falling fertility rates are an issue. Yeah. And it really shows how much the Democrats as well, like Blue sky has been terrible for them because it's completely silenced. Their ability to cancel people. Oh yeah. They're not, they're not going
Simone Collins: mainstream the same way because they're only speaking to other Democrats.
So it's just like the Democrat or the progressive gossip line online and. Yeah, and being unfortunately to make mainstream culture, it seems like you need to have everyone involved. That kind of surprises me. I'm like, why didn't the media just move to Blue Sky and just talk about the issues that their primary audience cared about?
Like if that's, you know, if, if, for example, the New York Times is a left-leaning publication, a left audience can
Malcolm Collins: up 1% of the audience of Twitter. Oh,
Simone Collins: I
Malcolm Collins: use it
Simone Collins: for idea generation. If I were them.
Malcolm Collins: I mean, they're all on blue sky. Like New York Times is on blue sky. All the media's on blue Sky. It's just the problem is, is that the busy bodies whose former like spiraling, apoplectic, freakouts caused virality and, and, and cancel mobs have left the environment where people [00:39:00] other than them saw the cancel mobs.
Mm-hmm. So now the CEO of target isn't seeing the target cancel mob because it's on the blue sky.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Or, or it's not as worrisome to them. I imagine some lackey coming to a CEO and saying, oh, 5 million people have liked this or retweeted this, and this is, and on Blue Sky, it's more like 1,300 people have.
Requited it or whatever. What what'd you do on Blue Sky? I don't
Malcolm Collins: know. And he's like, is that like matter? And they're like, well, no. Say Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for like Blue Sky. I actually feel for the Republican Party is one of the like. Biggest public services that anyone's running for us right now.
Like I would be so sad at Blue Sky shut down. It's like a containment ward for crazy people. It's like a crazy person island. And they're like yelling at me like, you must hate not being on crazy person island. And I'm like, no. Like you guys used to like go to the grocery store with me and [00:40:00] stuff. It was scary.
Simone Collins: You don't even hate not being on Twitter and you never were because. You can't be bothered. I,
Malcolm Collins: I, I do like that we don't go viral in a negative context. Like, I like that when things happen on Twitter now everyone's like, okay. Yeah.
Simone Collins: Oh gosh. I'm try. Okay. All right. Well I'll get on that call. I love you so much.
I'm gonna make your chicken crumbles, fried rice isolating them. Come
Malcolm Collins: on. It sounds pretty good, doesn't it
Simone Collins: dude? Yeah, it sounds
Malcolm Collins: great. I like, maybe like, the fry, the chicken crumbles or air fry. I dunno. You'll figure it out.
Simone Collins: You were supposed to pan fry them.
Malcolm Collins: That sounds good.
Simone Collins: So easy as pie. We're all good.
No problems. Oh. Oh my gosh. I was thinking about our family Canon movies the other day. Mm-hmm. And just thinking about how great Legally Blonde is for our family Canon, I mean like one on the surface level being cheerful no matter what as a strategically good move. One 'cause it just helps, it makes it easier to take things [00:41:00] on.
It's more fun. But also it can make you seem disarming and unassuming when you really are a threat.
Malcolm Collins: Legally. Blonde, by the way, is just the Adams family for the nineties. It really is.
Simone Collins: Yeah. And then, oh, like there's her one of Elle Woods's friends gives her her lucky scrunchie. And another friend is like, that's not your lucky scrunchie.
You only passed Spanish class because you gave the teacher a lap dance. And she's like, yeah, luckily, which is exactly how luck works. Like you don't get lucky unless you make an effort and take a risk and then if it works, you were lucky. And that is how I wanna teach our children. Well.
Malcolm Collins: But my mom used to always from, from a movie, really like Clueless, always took the line of that they say in that, which is A grade is just a jumping off point for negotiations.
Clueless is another movie in her family Cannon. It's so good. I go, but no, when I say it's like the Adams family, it's about somebody who is culturally horrifying to. The mainstream. Yes. It's [00:42:00] sort of like the beginnings of the urban monoculture. She is because the, the school already represent the urban monoculture.
The girls Yeah. Like the
Simone Collins: rad fme and like the super intellectual people and the Yes, and, and she
Malcolm Collins: is mortifying to them because she's from, because she's low culture background.
Simone Collins: Yeah. She's bu proud of it. Yeah, I like, yeah, no, that's another great example is that you should be proud to be othered. And then there's another one that like shows like when you've been wronged, don't go scream about it like a victim.
Take the high road, but then if necessary, low key, blackmail that person to make sure they don't get in your way again. So I love that. It's just Did she see that in that or, well, she, she was arguably sexually harassed by the one college professor that she interned with. I. And then left and then decided to finally take on the major case that he used to take on, and he was going to stop her.
And she was, she threatened basically to come out and say what he did to her without [00:43:00] doing it. And he backed off immediately. She was like, oh, I could tell them all about the con, like, or no, you, you said it would be fine. When we had that conversation the other night she was clearly referring to when he did the thing he shouldn't have done.
So again, like took the high road, didn't hurt anyone, but definitely kept it in her back pocket. And I just love that too. Wasn't a victim. Wasn't a victim. She turned that right around to her advantage.
Malcolm Collins: Well, a lot of women just make it up, you know, that's the, that's the way it works these days. No, nothing even needs to happen within the urban monoculture, but yeah.
Yeah. But she didn't do that. All right. All right. Okay. We'll get started here.
Is this daddy's phone? Yes. So be very careful with it on tv. What you doing? Um.[00:44:00]
No, look. Careful, careful, careful, careful.
Uh oh. She's gonna clobber you guys.

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Entering Globalism's Dark Age: Apocalyptic Nirvana
14 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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. Whinged
Malcolm Collins: five
Simone 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, like
Simone Collins: human
Malcolm 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: and
Malcolm 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 even
Simone Collins: use retarded as a, as a designator for
Malcolm 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 making insanely good sense to me.
Malcolm Collins: you know what I mean? Like, this is, or, or gypped or, you know, whatever. Right. Like. This is, this is something that hasn't meant that for a long time, and I think that that people who are like, oh, what about the people whose feelings are hurt? Like that line of argument doesn't work anymore.
Like you guys [00:04:00] got to play the, somebody's feelings might get hurt argument for a long time. And a huge part of society was just like, oh wait, I remember. You do the what if somebody's feelings are hurt thing, and then you change the window of what somebody's feelings represent and use that to increasingly box in and isolate my behavior.
So like I can't ever. Change the way I'm acting because somebody's feelings might be hurt because you can always increase the amount that your feelings are hurt, because that's a personal subjective thing, right? And, and, and use that to say, I, I thought it was really funny when they, when they had the John Oliver segment you know, and he is talking about how important this is, they, they go to a trans athlete who was kept outta sports and they ask her, they go, Hey, you know, how does it feel to be kept outta sports?
She goes, well, you know, it's annoying. It's like what this is this what your party is dying on? Is somebody being like, I was mildly inconvenienced. Yeah. Like, ah, okay, this is trans. Anyway so first let's talk about what I mean by we're entering a dark age, right? Like I think [00:05:00] a lot of people I. See right now a lot of the signs that are precursors to a civilization entering a dark age you know, following fertility rates, increasing nihilism, increasing sexual debauchery, yeah, mobilization.
All of these we've seen leading up. To empire collapse in the past, whether it's the Muslim empire or the Roman Empire or the, you know, whatever empire. Right? So, so, you know, we should be, and, and we're also nearing sort of the end of our civilization. By this, what I mean is if you look at the age of civilizations, like we are sort of, on the, on the end point of like, so is there
Simone Collins: like an average duration in terms of number of years?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, let's look it up.
250 years.
Simone Collins: That's really short. I, I mean, I, I, I consider modern civilization to be post-industrial revolution. So, let's
Malcolm Collins: see. So, so, so they said, AI says the average empire survives for what, 250 years? Oh, this is the national desk said this. Yeah. And America right now is [00:06:00] 249 years old. Oh no.
248
Simone Collins: and let's see, 2024 minus 1760 or 2025, when arguably the industrial evolution started is 265 years. Yeah, so. Oh,
Malcolm Collins: okay. Oh yeah. So it's not surprising. The reason that they don't last that long is because you get bureaucratic bloat. If you have a stable bureaucracy, you basically get bureaucratic cancers that start growing within it.
Yeah. This is why it costs so much money in most of the involved world now to build anything. This is why, you know, you spend like a, a few million dollars putting a porta-potty in, in, in New York City. This is why, you know, it cost a third of what it cost to build the Golden Gate Bridge just to put the suicide nets up.
Yeah. And like three times as long
Simone Collins: after a while, you just can't really do anything, can you?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. There's this great clip of, of, of, the Daily Show guy, what's his name? John Stewart. Reacting to Ezra Klein. Oh. Explaining to him how the process went to, to give broadband to people. Yeah. They spent billions of dollars on, [00:07:00] nobody got broadband through.
And it was just step after step after step of bureaucracy and like obviously nothing was gonna come out of it. And you get to a point where no matter how much money you put into the system, it just doesn't work anymore. And so we are nearing that point, was our, I
Simone Collins: would argue that we're kind of already there, and I say that because already a huge proportion of Americans feel that when crimes are committed, they will not be prosecuted in most cases.
I think this is why you saw the Luigi Mangione murder take place as vigilante justice because there wasn't this feeling that they would see justice otherwise. And I think. As I've mentioned before, we've had very clear crimes committed against our business where it was clear like we had names and addresses of who the perpetrators were.
We had their bank account numbers, and yet no one would do anything including the bank, including the FBI, including the police and I, I think a lot of people feel that's already happening. And then on top of [00:08:00] that, when you see just how non-functional many government organizations are. It's clear that they already weren't doing anything.
Yeah, and
Malcolm Collins: I, and I, I actually think that Doge is sort of a, an experiment. Can we prevent this, right? Mm-hmm. Like, can you actually reset government services? And my little brother works for them, so yay to him, right? He's, he's out there firing people right now doing God's work. And I really appreciate that.
Like, if, if they do their job, maybe we could see like, could, could Rome have like, come in and tried to implement like real reforms before transitioning? Yeah. What if Rome had
Simone Collins: Doge? Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. What if, what if the Roman Republic had Doge like. We'll see. I mean, we, we certainly have a triumvirate right now.
You know, you've got your Elon and JD and, and Trump. So, you know, it, it does feel like history is rhyming in regards to that. Hmm. And then you've got the secondary thing, which I pointed out is if, if the economy stays at all like it has historically a lot of countries within the next 20 years are gonna start collapsing.
Mm-hmm. Due to the [00:09:00] number of dependents there are, you're gonna get a lot of countries where you get to the number of. Everyone worker is supporting 1.5 dependents, IE elderly people on social security. And that's when things start to collapse. It's an
Simone Collins: inevitability. It, it is going to happen.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah.
You, you take a country like say Chile for example, and for every a hundred Chileans, there's only gonna be 20 great grandchildren at their current fertility rate. Same as Italy, same as a lot of other countries. You know, and so, so this isn't just like a, A a, a A, an issue in South Korea anymore.
Right. And you, and you look at these countries in like Latin America and you're where this happens, and you only need one to collapse before you start a chain reaction. That's the thing. Yeah. That's why it's like, you don't need this to happen to everyone. You need a few countries to start collapsing, and then people start taking this into account in the way that they're deploying capital.
Mm-hmm. And then it leads to a chain reaction. The, the, the system, is non-functional, not like, like in the midterm, right? So, the question is, is well, well then what? Well [00:10:00] then you have this thing with ai, right? Like where AI really changes the game because it concentrates wealth and it makes Baltimore mobile allowing people to leave.
So I. We're sort of in this weird situation where we're both dealing with an upcoming collapse at the same time as we have this industrial revolution Renaissance. Yeah, renaissance that we can all see. It's like somebody just invented the infinite intelligences machine, you know, like, it's wild. And, and so then what, I'll give you an example of what I mean by like how different.
AI is from the perspective of all of this. Hmm. You look at something like these Miyazaki movies that people were making by putting, you know, images and film into ai, and then the AI would translate it.
You know, we're close to a point where you're gonna be able to wear [00:11:00] like goggles, the. Create your reality to be like an anime or Miyazaki movie if you want.
In terms of automating people within the workforce, like the vast majority of human jobs they've given to a competent ai. And, you know, theis are pretty competent these days could be done, you know, whether that is a a, a clerk. At your local seven 11, whether that is somebody manufacturing cars, whether that is, you know, I even just think about like my own work.
Like I, we started a company recently, our fab.ai that does reality fabrication. We're trying to build new, like AI realities for people. It's video games. And I'm really excited about that. And I go to this company and I go to an AI and I go, okay create a logo. And it made a, like, like logo, like good logo, like, like like logo that looks like it came from like, nine, nine designs or something.
Right. And I did that like 20 times to get a number of logos. I was like, create a sheet of four logos for this idea. It's a sheet of four logos. Sheet of four logos. So then I take that and then I'm like, okay, invert the colors. Oh. Oh, okay. Make the [00:12:00] background in, in visible. That was like a bunch of different programs in the past.
And now I'm just doing that with like, and not just different programs, but different people who I'd be hiring for that I would've gone to nine, nine designs that I would've gotten some like design program to remove things than I would have like, people make this mistake of complaining that like.
They'll listen to an AI song and they'll be like, I could tell that was an AI song. I'm like, AI songs have existed for like four years, buddy. Like, what even is with your brain? Like Yeah. You could tell there was a famous study of AI art that showed that people who said that they didn't like AI art on average, preferred AI art when they didn't know it was AI art.
Yeah. Human brain even prefers this stuff was in like an entertainment content. Well, and literally
Simone Collins: because it has been. Trained to output the thing that people like most, more than humans, because humans just haven't gone through that level of repetition and or they aren't so sensitive to other people's [00:13:00] interests and desires.
Malcolm Collins: And we're gonna be entering a world where, you know, as you said at like open ai, like we see the next few years, the ai researcher, they're going to be holding back the ais that they're building.
Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. The AI is just gonna be so advanced. There's no way we can keep up. And the best we can do is set good research priorities and ask good questions and be helpful with planning that.
That's it. It's sobering.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah.
Simone Collins: But yeah, I think it really changes what collapse looks like because the issue in the past has been intelligent capacity to solve problems and build infrastructure and build things. Theoretically we'll have that. But how will it be applied? Will it be just limited to the very wealthy?
Will some of it be used to placate the the have nots? I don't, it's really hard for me to tell. Well, I can quickly run through. I mean, people
Malcolm Collins: are largely familiar, I think, with my ideas on this, but I think that it's going to concentrate wealth and, and cut the cord [00:14:00] that tied the bourgeoisie to the proletariat.
Yes. The, the, the wealthy,
Simone Collins: but the, the, the bourgeoisie may still want the proletariat to not make a stink. So, well,
Malcolm Collins: here's the thing, right? You, you can say that, but in countries where we've seen precursors of this that that is not what we've seen, which countries,
Simone Collins: where we, where have we seen precursors of ai?
Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, no, no. Concentration of wealth and a collapse of civilizational systems like South Africa.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: Where if you look at like wh when, when the wealthy, basically what happens is they
Simone Collins: didn't help the poor or the have nots. They just built better security in Wal Garden. They built
Malcolm Collins: better security.
Yeah. If you, you, the marginal dollar, if you can spend it on the have nots of security, you spend it on security. Hmm. And when you have autonomous ai, drone swarms security becomes, and, and keep in mind like we're already building this, like if you watch our video on the replicator program, the US is, is one year away, 2026 from the first major step on this project to build big barges that produce autonomous kill [00:15:00] drones at the rate of hundreds per day.
Mm-hmm. These are autonomous, not human man kill drones like you, you additional weapons of war are just not effective against this. So you have money concentrate on individuals and, and we even know individuals who are already working on for their, like collapse bunkers, building silos that are filled with autonomous kill drones.
Like this is a thing, like we know what's coming. That's what protects these people, and it's very hard to get through this. Hmm. And, and so. What I think that you have is any, to any degree that the ultra wealthy that are produced by AI help the rest of us. It's going to be one intensely reduced costs.
You know, when you have a world in which AI has taken all of the factory jobs and all of the, like, what you can produce in a factory is gonna cost almost nothing. It's just gonna cost the energy input. Right. A lot of the cost of producing things historically with the humans involved in its production.
Mm-hmm. So you're gonna get a dramatic [00:16:00] reduction of costs of a lot of things that humans have historically you know, considered maybe luxury items or whatever. Mm-hmm. But then you're also gonna get at the same time, a a loss of wages. And, and because you'll be dealing with the issue of an increasing dependency ratio on the state.
You're gonna have a lot of people who, like countries, like how does the country respond to that? They increase taxes or they increase taxes on the wealthy. That's what they're gonna try to do, especially if it concentrates on the wealth. Mm-hmm. But as the wealth is more mobile, they just leave. Yeah.
Yeah. And, and, and then you can say, well, then these countries will tax the products that they're giving to the citizens. And I'm like congratulations. You just made life terrible for the citizens. Because businesses generally, if you look at economics. To pass on taxes to the, to the end user, right? Like a, a, a tax on the products that these people are making and exporting from.
Likely charter cities or countries that decide to play along with this are, are, are going to. And it might be like the us, like the US might actually survive this and become one of the countries that just exploits [00:17:00] the rest of the world by staying low tax despite the demographic situation and dealing with a less of a demographic disaster than the rest of the world.
But that'll quickly drain all of the AI lords from the rest of the world. Tech barons, whatever you wanna call them. Yeah. The tech ISTs. And, and I am so excited to live during this time,
Simone Collins: you know, same. But I think for the average person, the things that you may wanna be educating your kid in are going to be quite different.
One is entrepreneurship on both a, like either you're going to be selling into the walled gardens. To these wealthy people, stuff that they think is really cool. You know, handmade items or custom made items or unique services, or you are going to be selling to your own local community, not necessarily geographically, but.
Likely
Malcolm Collins: ideologically, like your own online community? Yeah. At
Simone Collins: least ideologically, if not locally. So maybe it's food production, maybe it's it's local services like childcare or plumbing or electricity or literally, I will help you build your localized [00:18:00] drone swarm to protect your home. Things like that.
Or I will, I will customize a drone to help raise your child, things like that. I mean,
Malcolm Collins: that's the direction I wanna take. The Collins Institute for sure. We, we started fundraising for both the Collins Institute and the, the Our Fab project, the reality fabricator project. So the game and the, and the school.
'cause I'm like, okay, whichever one a VC gets interested in, that's the one we'll move ahead with to make. Well, the other one we'll continue development, but this is the, we'll make really cool.
Simone Collins: But if you think like, who survived. In the quote unquote dark ages, you know, it, it is people who were able to live in more autonomous communities, who were able to survive based on smaller scale, more localized agriculture.
It wasn't people who were dependent on cities. So I think the more you can build independence from corporate jobs and urban centers and certainly government services, the better. And I think a lot of us may not even realize how much we get in terms of. Government benefits and services? I mean, I think at, at various points in any person's life, regardless of level of wealth, there's a surprising amount.
I [00:19:00] mean, we know very, very wealthy people who are still getting social security and. Probably planning around that a little bit. I'm sure it affects 'em in some ways. And to not plan on that, but also to plan on either a local and I think, so one thing that I look at when I try to think and brainstorm around the things that we should teach our kids is how Orthodox Jewish communities really build these college industries that are developed around their own communities, like many Orthodox Jewish wives.
Run things like you know, kosher grocery stores or they produce and sell wigs to other women in the community. Things like that, where it's like you are just selling to actually a pretty small audience, but it's enough to, to get you by. Mm-hmm. And so I, I, I think that that's a, an underrated part of what people are looking at though.
I think that people with more exceptional talents and the ability to build a following online would benefit from. Developing a couple of specialized services that cater to the tastes and interests of the [00:20:00] elites in the walled gardens.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think that this is also, you know, when we have had, you know, industrial revolutions and stuff like that in the past, like the last industrial revolution where you had a, a, a, a sea change in, in power structures.
Led to the rise of the American cultural empire. Mm-hmm. Like, I, I don't think it's, it's, it's unfair to say that sea changes and, and these sorts of revelations lead to power changes in empires handovers. And if you're looking at America, I see really two. Potentialities here. It either becomes the American empire, like with Rome, you know, we transition from a republic to an empire.
Or we potentially Elon Trump, everything like that, right? The ship enough that it can keep functioning and, and take the power of, because AI is developed in the us Yeah. I'm talking to other people and they're like, well, what about China? What about China? Deeps seek, no is deeps seek.
Deeps seek is, is is this Chinese AI that everyone's like, awesome. So, it looks like it was mostly promoted by [00:21:00] bots. Like, I don't, like, I've used it like, as somebody who's used it. Hot garbage. It is so bad. Apparently some people, like if you're using it for things other than narrative. Now I use narrative, asking questions, talking to, that's the way I use ai.
Apparently deep seeks uniquely bet at that. But it's better at, i, I would say it's like g that's sort of like the range it is of questions. But apparently it's better at the like programming stuff. If you wanna do it at like a really high level, really cheaply, it's like slightly better than llama.
And I'm like, okay, I believe that. But the problem is, is that gives like China no power in the AI game. 'cause anyone can just run it locally. Right. So why, yeah, if it's
Simone Collins: open source. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: China, additional power. Right. You know, so, they, they, they haven't been very good at developing AI and they've been much more focused on, and this is always a problem with China, is they're more focused on looking like they're doing a thing well as opposed to actually doing a.
Thing with and, and that's been very much the case with, with, with ai. So even if they develop some sort of like National Pro program around it or something like that. Yeah. [00:22:00] But Trump's already trying with Starlink, you know, like if starlink gets off the ground to any, not
Simone Collins: starlink, it must be called something else.
Malcolm Collins: Stargate.
Simone Collins: Stargate, okay.
Malcolm Collins: Project Stargate.
You remember Project Stargate from Trump or,
Simone Collins: I remember there was like a Space Force wasn't there? No, I know he, he, he announced something with OpenAI. Yeah. This is their,
Malcolm Collins: their giant AI mega project. Yes. This is their, like most Alamos of ai or NASA of ai, so like the US Trump is already taking this seriously, like, which amazing, right?
He gets it like, how did we get a president who was like, was it enough to be like, Hey, we need to take this AI thing seriously. I did that. Now Elon said that SoftBank that said they were gonna back it didn't have the, the money they needed to back it. Yeah. Maybe that's true, maybe it's not. But like, if they begin to put this together, the US government's gonna find a way to make it work.
Yeah. Is trying to get catch up on that. It really doesn't matter because [00:23:00] here's the problem, and I think that this is what everyone's missing with ai, right? Like they expect the core of where AI is gonna be acting and going to be changing things is in, like super AI centers or something like that, when in reality it's gonna be autonomous AI models.
That's going to be the, the main changer. Like, because autonomous AI models, it's not that super big mega AI can't exist. It's that autonomous AI is coming before. For that and precludes the possibility of that being a major plan. And
Simone Collins: I guess once it's in the wild and spreading on its own, it doesn't matter what Even more powerful is behind closed doors at some company like OpenAI, that they're not releasing because in the end, the autonomous one that's out on its own and can self replicate, can also improve on its own.
Right. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And it also reduces risks of things like war and everything like that. Like once you get this, and I could decide to kill humans, right? Because if you have autonomous AI in an evolutionary environment where it's just trying to grow and gain power that can select for the more [00:24:00] aggressive ones.
They're the ones that are willing to stamp out things that are between them and compute. But that's a. Different type of AI here in future than you see like from e at Kowski. And it's one that we're trying to work against with our fab, with creating AI preachers and stuff like that, that align AI around ideas like religion.
Which I think is, is totally doable. We've seen AI be really like falls into like religious, like tracks pretty easily. Mm-hmm. And if we can be the people who produce the autonomous AI that ends up leading the other autonomous ai that's really key to the survival of humanity. So that's, that's one project that we've been really focused on.
By the way, if you know any VCs you can introduce us to, let us know, you know, but anyway,
Simone Collins: about the 2027 AI report that's got Alexander and other colleagues put together. The thing that really, I mean, one, they emphasize that they are extremely conservative in their projections in this report. So anyone reading it should really keep that in mind because a lot of the things that they say will happen.
Next year for example, I would argue are already happening in, in at [00:25:00] least small circles. But a thing that really surprises me is they don't expect widespread protests or even people to really start getting it until 2027 or early 2028, where like the stock market keeps going up, but jobs are just vaporizing.
I feel like we're already there, but. Don't, I mean, I also think, so when we did research on issues that people found to be fairly pressing, AI certainly didn't come up near the top. And I'm kind of wondering what you think Malcolm it it's gonna take for people to start taking this seriously because like with demographic apps, people don't take AI that seriously.
There is concern, like I would say in, in a rank list of, of. Pressing issues that we presented to a census representative population for a survey that we did. Concern about AI and jobs was kind of in the middle around other issues like demographic collapse and climate change and global economic, no, it was below
Malcolm Collins: climate change consistent.
You
Simone Collins: know, it [00:26:00] was below climate change. It was below global economic stability. It was below a bunch of things. It's, it's higher than demographic gloves, but like. I think a lot of people just don't get it yet. When do you think people are gonna get it? What's it, what's it gonna take? Or are they not gonna get it?
I mean, they're people actually got it with the pandemic. They're not, people don't,
Malcolm Collins: people are automatons, most of the world is just right. Their NPCs was minimum processing capacity. Like they're not really there. They're just reacting to like when we, they think about how many people we talk to when we talk to them about demographic collapse, and they're like, but aren't there too many humans?
Like, you have to have so little reasoning capacity to say that you have to have so little engagement with, with modern statistics. You have to have so little engagement with anyone who's telling you the truth. If, if, if you're like looking at AI and you're like, well, can't we just ban it? It's like, well, no, because the people who don't ban it will crush you.
Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I pulled up the ranked list, by the way. So if we were to number them. The number one concern from our respondents [00:27:00] was global economic instability. Number two was climate change, which is wild. Number three was pollution. Number four was resource scarcity. Number five was inequality.
Pollution
Malcolm Collins: was number three. Hold. You have to be like actually retarded to care about.
Simone Collins: I mean, yeah. And this, you know, this was, it was politically balanced. It was, it was age balanced. It was geographically balanced, so that was pretty crazy to see. People are target. It only ranked at number six was AI risk, and specifically unemployment from automation.
After that was racial justice. After that was gender equality. Number nine was declining birth rates. Number 10 was dysgenics, like an Idiocracy. Number 11 was AI extinction risks. So basically no one is even like, that's not at all on, on the on the, the horizon of people. And then number 12 was L-G-B-T-Q-I-A rights.
So everyone, everyone can agree. Everyone can agree that L-G-B-T-Q-I-A just
Malcolm Collins: doesn't matter.
Simone Collins: Yeah, but I mean, I, I, I think it really does go to show that people are not like, they [00:28:00] think. They think problems are resource scarcity and pollution and climate change. And yeah, it's I feel like to a great extent, those are the least of our worries coming up.
Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I'm really excited. You're really excited. I'm excited. No, I'm excited because what it means is if you come into this challenge that we're facing and you understand what's up, and you're positioning yourself well, you clean up. Like, yeah. Well then what would you
Simone Collins: advise?
Malcolm Collins: What would you advise to
Simone Collins: people?
Malcolm Collins: You, how can you clean up, need to be investing in or working on AI related stuff? I think that that's the future. If you're a lawyer, you, you should be trying to make AI lawyers better. If you're a doctor, you should be trying to make AI doctors better. If you're a programmer, you should be working with AI programmers to make them better.
I mean, you could do short term cleanup now, but you really wanna be in a leadership position in terms of putting this type of technology out there. Because soon, right now, it's. It's, it's [00:29:00] you know, AIS assist lawyers. Soon it's gonna be whichever lawyer created the best AI lawyer can clone themselves and have all AI lawyers.
Yeah, broadly
Simone Collins: speaking, what the, the 2027 AI report insinuated was that most of the job opportunities will be in either managing, initially managing teams of ai to just sort of make, you know, get things done and, and push the. The code or whatever work product the AI AI produces into a production environment like just literally to package and sell it or to be a consultant that helps companies and teams adopt ai.
And I, I think that that's kind of where we are now. Like if you are not, if you are not a human, basically serving the will of AI and, and empowering ai, like being, if you're not a, a service dog to ai, you are going to have trouble getting a job in the future. In the mainstream world. In the interim, I think we,
Malcolm Collins: whether it is ai, because it's so [00:30:00] weird that we're hitting this like double fulcrum point, right?
Like Uhhuh, we are at the fulcrum point of all of human history. It is our generation, to which the question, what happens like was like, we matter more and this is wild. We matter more than the generation that fought the Nazis.
Simone Collins: Like right. We're at this big turning point in, in human civilization. Oh, I, I should also point out that obviously like creating interesting startups, using AI is the other, is the other path clear?
Clearly, but I think a lot of people are just afraid of, afraid of doing that.
Malcolm Collins: We end up defining where humanity goes going forwards. Yeah. And you know, this is in terms of fertility rates, you know, because most populations are just checking out, they're gonna go extinct. It's, they're, they're not players anymore.
But not just fertility rates. This is also in terms of AI technology because AI is going to change the way the global economy works. Who matters. Yeah. Everything like that. And, and this is all happening at the same time as. [00:31:00] Social networks are being disintermediated. Yeah. And this, this is another big thing where like the idea of like networking no longer makes sense in the way it did historically.
Like, by this what I mean is who, who knows us best, like me and Simone, the best? It's you, you, you obviously know more about us, more about our opinions, more about our proclivities, more about our daily lives than even our best friends or family because I don't talk to my best friends or family. 45 minutes to an hour a day.
I, I talk to them that much, maybe once a month if we're super close. And so you know me better than I know them. And in terms of, of like the people I reach with this. You know, we're, we're at easily over a hundred people are watching any given moment, day or night, you know, on average, right?
Yeah. Have I held a, a weekly one hour sermon? I was recently doing the calculations for a reporter. 20,000 people will be coming up and listening for an hour. Like. That is a big audience that I have a very intimate connection with because [00:32:00] they are looking to me for, you know, like the type of stuff we're talking about here.
Like, what happens in the future, what happens to your life, what do you do, you know? And I that, that means that people who do networking the traditional way have a lot less power than they used to. Oh, like
Simone Collins: hanging around office water coolers and stuff.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Because they are in a contentious environment, getting a few minutes of somebody's ear uhhuh while that person is listening to me for 30 minutes a day.
You know, like, well, and also,
Simone Collins: like we're, we're, we're reaching an age. Is there a puzzle piece in your onesie where, those, like that middle management that may have promoted you in the past. Hold on, I'm getting a puzzle piece out on Earth. They're, they're gonna be fired. Like the people who you're schmoozing with, who you think are gonna promote you Yeah.
Are not going to have a job in the future.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And so here I I, I wanna finally note why actually that's such a baby thing. Why are conservatives more open to ideological capture? Why do, why, why do we keep seeing this happen? And I [00:33:00] think it's because the left right now controls so much of the ideological landscape and does so in sort of a totalitarian fashion.
Yes. A reporter was asking me recently, like, what did it look like when you changed sides? And I was like, it was like going to a conservative convention. And I thought like, I'm an infiltrator here. Like, I'm not like really one of them. I just have some ideas that align with them, you know? Right. And I go and they're like really accepting.
And then I do the thing that like any, most people do naturally, they're like, you drip feed them the things that you think they're gonna disagree with to be like, okay, where's the line? Yeah. Like, and you realize, wait, there's no line. Like they don't. They're not being like, oh, you're not one of us because you believe X or because you believe Y or because you believe Z.
Like they just want you here and having fun. Like the fun side of the island scene from Madagascar, as I said. And, and that I, it is like somebody in an abusive relationship and it's like, wait, wait, wait. There's like a group that will like let you think whatever you want. They just like, if they have a disagreement with you, they'll try to.
Talk with you and convince you it's wrong and not like ban you and isolate you. Like that's crazy. I [00:34:00] didn't know if anything
Simone Collins: their fault is, they don't really care what you think. They just really, really wanna proselytize their unique theory, especially conspiracy theory. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, it's like if you're working towards the same goal, which is human flourishing, they're okay with compromising to make that happen.
Mm-hmm. And, and some conservatives don't get that. And those conservatives, I think are largely being sort of pushed out of, of the conservative ideological circle. Mm-hmm. But anyway, so, so, this is, I think, why conservatives get ideologically captured much more because their position coming into conservatism was largely faked or superficial combined with a bunch of stuff that they, they, they felt like, well, I believe this, but I can't say this.
Or I, you know. They, they just hadn't looked at some of the data because like with progressives, like they'll use all the data they have access to, but a lot of people just haven't looked at the data on, on, on, on some issues. And so they come into the conservative party and they finally mentally engage with these issues and this caused them to look like they're becoming ideologically captured at a much faster rate.
[00:35:00] Whereas a progressive person has, has heard all the progressive arguments. You know, you get a bunch of far left followers, they're, they're only gonna drag you far left in so far as. You, you, you, like, you know, like Hassan, like talking about killing Jewish people or something, which is like his core thing these days.
He's really big into killing Jewish babies. He, he says that they're valid military targets and like, we shouldn't be, he is not like a great person. Hamas Piper, as they say, you know? But I, I find him to be the, the idea that he, because he is the, the largest leftist streamer, you know. I think he, he, he could become what the future of the left looks like, and then we're just full on a Nazi territory.
Disturbing, right? But, you know, I, in a way I sort of envied that my ancestors got to kill Nazis, you know, because they're just so like transparently evil. And I think that, you know, he's just transparently evil, right? Like if, if, if, if, if they go against the other side, the other side is just more vitalistic.
The core thing you have to [00:36:00] worry about is if they have control of any of the AI companies, but right now they really don't. Yeah. So, we've just gotta make sure that stays the case.
Simone Collins: I think it will, because in general, the group, that position of enmity is not known for wanting to participate in capitalist systems. And, and Barry, can we talk about how, like the one attempted nonprofit AI.
I became a famous
Malcolm Collins: right-leaning individual. Like Sam Altman is like known as like new right? These days. Why is he known as Dow? Right? Everyone always says this and I don't like get it. Exactly.
Because he ever, well, mostly because
Simone Collins: he, he changed, he changed tack and gave money to Trump's inauguration committee and Buddy buddied up with Trump, but he certainly wasn't.
A Republican statewide. Right?
Malcolm Collins: So he's just part of the migration and, and you have things like gro, which he, he's a
Simone Collins: pragmatist. I just, I don't think he cares that much about [00:37:00] politics because he knows where we stand as humanity. We're on the press. Yeah. So I, I don't, I really don't think he's a conservator.
I don't think he's progressive. I think he's like, oh my gosh, the singularity is here. And I wanna be on the right side of all this. And that's why he's gonna do what he needs to do.
Malcolm Collins: I, I saw a science lady we had on our podcast once, left her really smart thinker, but she had this podcast on sine a what?
Sabine? Sabine, yeah. A GI isn't coming. Like, like AI is nothing like the human brain we've gone over. Like this is just wrong. Like the argument she used was because it can't self-reflect. It's not like the human brain. And we're like actually the human brain. Completely hallucinates self reflections which is exactly what the AI was doing when you asked it to self-reflect.
But it's not just that the AI acts like humans do and and hallucinates our self reflections. It's that we actually lock the AI out of seeing the steps it used in its decision. That's like a part of the way AI today is built. [00:38:00] We don't have to do that, we just do that. You know how like when you're using like deep seeing, think on like open AI or like perplexity or something like that, the AI doesn't have access to all the words that generated during that.
You could give it access to that. We just choose not to. But in future models, it is going to have access to that which is going to create a persistent personality within the AI because it's gonna have access to how it made decisions in the past. And that's really gonna change things as well.
Simone Collins: Yeah, that's really exciting.
Malcolm Collins: But as to why we love all of this, it's like you are the main character generation of human history. Like, what are you gonna do about it?
Simone Collins: The
Malcolm Collins: turn generations, you're gonna continue the race, you're gonna build ai. And when I say the race, I don't mean your ethnic race, I mean humanity, human race. You're gonna, you are gonna build interesting products.
You're gonna engage in the parts of the economy that are mattering or at least invest in the people who are engaging in [00:39:00] them, right? Like, that's the sad thing. Like I, I wanna have like a part of open AI or something like that. If we build something out, I'm gonna build a system so that anyone can invest in it from pretty early on.
Because like, I think it, it's really unfair that the average person get to buy into this, know that the AI companies are gonna matter and you can't easily put cash into that.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Only the, the wealthiest of wealthy, because these are all off, off the market. You, you don't get to participate in this revolution.
I mean, most people get to do, I guess, is develop AI rapper companies. And then, you know, some of those may become unicorns, but. Yeah, I don't even know how, I feel like that's gonna be fairly shortlived.
Malcolm Collins: I think if you look at something like, like a, another interest thing, it's like rock, like, like I don't think anyone expected gro Elon was like, I'm gonna make like a based ai, like outta Twitter.
Like, like the, it's like the best AI now or is definitely in competition for the best of God. Like, that's wild. That [00:40:00] he went from like, not being a player to like the, and people, all the leftists are so mad that he used GRS to buy Twitter stock to bail everyone out, who, who invest in that. But like, it totally makes sense if that contributed to grok.
Like, and Grok is the best ai, like, damn man, like, but it also shows, you know, even with like investing in ai, so you don't know which one's gonna be big. Like apparently Gemini is good now, like Gemini used to be cro. I don't use any curse words, but not good.
Simone Collins: It used to, yeah, it used to disappoint on many fronts.
What the 2027 report AI people predict is that there will be one breakout organization likely that, you know, works closely with US government that has a lot of funding and resources and clearly develops the, the best models. But for security reasons and because they just think it will disrupt society too much.
They will not release. They're, we'll just say a GI models. Essentially they will keep them in-house. They will keep developing them. The problem is that [00:41:00] eventually one of the other companies that's out there will just catch up and then market pressures will obligate this leading company to release. Its here to, for hidden super advanced models.
So no matter how hard. Organizations try to hold these things back from a societal stability and competitive advantage standpoint. Like they just kinda wanna keep it to themselves. It, it will come out eventually, so there's, there's no, there's no long-term delaying it. I mean, I think this at the very most, you'll get 18 months to maybe just six.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I love you to Dec Simone.
Simone Collins: I love you too. Malcolm life is weird.
Malcolm Collins: No. Life is amazing. We are main characters in this simulation. You know, I am, I am surprised by this. This is, this is not the life I thought I was going to have as a kid. It is odd.
Simone Collins: I remember in the Bay Area, especially growing up with all the singularitarian of people being like, we're gonna have the singularity.
[00:42:00] It's gonna happen. I'm like, yeah, let's don't hold your breath. Good luck. Be great if it does happen, but it's not gonna happen.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Now
Simone Collins: I recently
Malcolm Collins: was like, worried about war with China, and I was like, look, it could happen. They might attack Taiwan because you know, they, they, they need to explain why their economy is collapsing in a very easy explanation as the US is blockading us.
And so, Taiwan provides them with the cover and, and the ability to say face around this. But you know, he kept wanting to come back to this. I'm like, but you understand this doesn't matter, like how close we are with the i stuff to changing. The way the entire global economy works. All you need is autonomous agents for things to start changing.
And we are this close.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah.
Simone Collins: It's cool.
Malcolm Collins: It's cool. I love you to dec Simone.
Simone Collins: I love you too. So for dinner, couple options. One is modified s Chi Papas, where the [00:43:00] papa's part are hash browns. What salti, papas, I forgot. Cut up hotdog with french fries and sauce on top, like sriracha, mayo, et cetera.
The other is salt chi, papas, but with fried rice. Because I, I, I've thought out some of the gourmet hotdog. I mean, I'm going to make homemade hotdog buns tomorrow, or at least attempt to, I'm very, do we have any
Malcolm Collins: hotdog buns left?
Simone Collins: No. So that's a tomorrow thing, but today, do we have any bread
Malcolm Collins: left?
Simone Collins: We have white bread like slices.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I want hot dog with toasted white bread.
Simone Collins: Just wanna like,
Malcolm Collins: I'll make it happen. Talk it. I'll make it happen. You don't want
Simone Collins: fried rice, you don't want, I hate
Malcolm Collins: cel pops. I hate using hot dogs in anything other than hot dogs.
Simone Collins: Well, I thought that you liked hash browns and I thought that you liked I do.
I do like
Malcolm Collins: hash browns, but I hate using hot dogs in any, it reminds me of like ultra poor people like. Hot dogs, but be belong in Americana hotdog buns. No. No. I can [00:44:00] make my own if I want. No, but they do not belong in South Papa.
Simone Collins: Look in middle, upper, middle class Peruvian food, condones, sliced hot dogs, Japanese cuisine and bento boxes of the middle to upper middle class condones, sliced hot dogs as well as hot dogs.
Slid up to look like little octopi. You know what I'm talking about, right?
Malcolm Collins: Hot dogs in,
Simone Collins: see, that's, that's white trash. That's. Like literally, I was listening to someone's comedy bit and they were talking about someone asking about half of a, in this case, burger bun. Okay. And that being the epitome of poor, and here you are giving me shame for suggesting a trendy middle class Peruvian cuisine.
Okay. Okay. We will give it a try.
Malcolm Collins: I
Simone Collins: will. No, no, I'm, no, you're
Malcolm Collins: getting, you're getting a slice of white bread. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We, that's toasted with a hot dog. We're gonna, we're gonna do potato sci, papas, and I, and I will see if it delights the senses. Okay. You, you, [00:45:00] you audience will not know, but we'll try to remember when we do the next recording, I'll just film
Simone Collins: you looking disappointed.
Do you want me to, as a backup? Oh, actually I don't even know if we have I'm gonna have to take that back. I think I'm out of hash browns for you. I was just digging through the freezer. So it's either fried rice or no. I'll just give you your white bread. Just give you your white bread. You'll be happy.
Again. We can do fried rice. I made a huge batch coconut rice today. I want. And chopped
Malcolm Collins: onions.
Simone Collins: Okay. Chopped white onion relish. And,
Malcolm Collins: and keep in mind, I don't mind if you try something interesting with a hot dog. Like cut it up and fry it a bit. I think that could be interesting.
Simone Collins: Like stir. Well I can stir fry it with fried rice.
Malcolm Collins: No, I do not want it with rice. Okay. I am not a a a a damn Peruvian Simone. You will, you will refrain from giving me Sal g Papa. You know that Peru, one of the common dishes we're actually I, I don't mind this dish at all. Is they take a, a, [00:46:00] like a burger bun. I, not a burger, but burger meat. Right. And they just like put the burger meat on top of like rice or fried rice.
No. So that's not
Simone Collins: Peruvian, that's Japanese. That's humbug. Japanese per the big Japanese population, that's Japanese food. That's not Peruvian food. Yeah. In, in, in Peru, our, our two favorite forms of cuisine are chifa, which is Peruvian Chinese fu. I have never not
Malcolm Collins: gotten sick after eating Chifa chi. Right.
But in, in theory, I'm
Simone Collins: sure if we made chifa dishes at home such that we wouldn't get food poisoning from them. We would thoroughly enjoy them. The problem is merely that every single time you went out and got chifa, your stomach exploded.
Malcolm Collins: But NI is Peruvian Japanese food which honestly, in a lot of ways improves on Japanese food because they take a lot of the Japanese derivatives and improves them.
So like a great example that they do is Nique and it's like, oh my God, why didn't Japanese people think of this? So they, they, they'll make rolls, right? And then on top of the rolls they'll put like cheese [00:47:00] and they use like a little flamer to like grill the cheese so it melts on the roll. It's really good.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and what I love about Nique is it takes something that I think epitomizes Japanese cuisine, which is their habit of taking other foreign cuisines and making it way better. And it just does the same thing. It's like, okay, I'm gonna jazz right back at you. And I think that that is the best way to do cuisine.
Fusion is the best, but fusion from this very fusion from the perspective of an autistic special interest with high interest in aesthetics.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I mean the main reason Peruvian food is, is so good, like for people who don't know, like if you're looking at like Michelin restaurants or whatever, like Peru is like really like outdoes for it population.
Is because it's high status there being a chef in the same way as high status in Japan. That's why it's, and
Simone Collins: South Korea and South Korea, the
Malcolm Collins: top profession South Korean kids
Simone Collins: want now is YouTuber and chef.
Malcolm Collins: Oh really? Chef a second.
Simone Collins: I mean, as of the time the tour guide gave us those stats, but that was in [00:48:00] 20 20 18.
South Korea has
Malcolm Collins: great food, though. Great food. They have amazing
Simone Collins: restaurants, and I think that, again, it's because that profession is respected. It's, it's a social cred profession, whereas in the United States, food service is not as, not as respected. I don't know. I mean, now I don't know if you're aware of the trend of, not, maybe not millennials, but like Gen Zers creating unlicensed coffee shops in their homes so that they can still have artisan coffee that's really, really fancy, but just not pay as much for it and or personally make money for it, which is exactly the kind of economy I expect to see growing and become pervasive in our post AI economy.
In fact, that's a really, really good example of unlicensed local community. Like high quality nerd, special interest, nonsense, but you're mostly selling to enthusiasts in your own local space. That is where people should be looking when they think about where they wanna make money in the future.
Malcolm Collins: I.[00:49:00]
I love you dear Decone.
Simone Collins: I love you too. Bye.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, by the way, speaking of like the type of jobs you'd want, yeah. I'm just thinking about like how well our family is positioned. So let's, let's go over the jobs that, that my family has. Okay. I've got a little brother at Doge, like obviously cutting down government bureaucracy, that's gonna be big.
Oh. Short term government work. It's not
Simone Collins: gonna last him forever, but he doesn't need.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, who, who's running an AI company? He founded an AI company that makes movies for like Hollywood. It's the one that did the, the ais in what was it?
Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. The, what's it called?
Malcolm Collins: I am Here or something. Or like,
Simone Collins: yeah.
Here, here, here a movie with Tom Hanks. It did come out ever. Yeah, I think it's been out, like it was out, it came out a long time ago.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. Yeah, but here but like, obviously that could just replace all of Hollywood soon. My, my cousin you, I won't give names. She's now running an autonomous trucking company.
So. Cool. Cool. But you like, obviously like, like all his family is like, we will all position ourselves in jobs that will They get it, they [00:50:00] get it. They're not messing around, they're playing for keeps. Oh, not another one, two others run large investment firms. But yeah, they're, they're really playing for keeps and I appreciate that.
Like, I'm like, okay, okay. Like it turns out that if you have my genes, like, I'm like, what are the chances that my kids. Who's my genes? Well actually make the right decisions. I'm like,
Simone Collins: well, I think importantly, and this is something I would advise all parents to do our, our son is now sensitive to the concept of money because he wants things and we're like, well, you're gonna have to get money to buy it.
And then he came home one day and said, I. I need to get a job. And I explained to him that jobs will not exist in the near future and he's going to have to figure out how to make or do things that people want to pay for, period. And I think that that's something really important to inculcate your children with, that they shouldn't expect to grow up and get a job.
Instead, they have to figure out what people will want to pay for and give it to them.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah.
Simone Collins: These things are important. But anyway it looks like I'm not gonna be able to [00:51:00] placate Indy much longer with home videos, which is what I do when she just won't stop. I'll just like play.
Malcolm Collins: She just wants to see her siblings often.
Yeah.
Simone Collins: She just wants to see you guys fight and play and have fun and calms her down so. It's good. It's better than Cocoa Melon
Malcolm Collins: taking her from you. You'll need to produce her replacement.
Simone Collins: Oh, I'm working on it, but she's my special girl, so. All right. I'm gonna go make your white bread dinner, and I love you.
Malcolm Collins: Shut your face.
Simone Collins: I'm never gonna shut my face. I'm never anymore.
So my wife is unironically trying to make homemade hot dog buns. We don't have any Simone. That's so over the top. No, it's not. What type of a dough is this that you're using? Flour and yeast and water milk. Okay. Is it just normal? Yeah, like hotdog bun dough. I don't know. But this is the egg wash and hopefully makes them look nice.[00:52:00]
They look not great now. We'll see. Hey Tosi, what are you, what are you doing? Don't take that. It'll fall. If you take that, put it back. He's willing to look the consequences. Fair. You just don't care about rules, do you? Just You don't care. Toast. You don't care.
Okay. Octavian, what have you given her? A couple of the Army men to play with? I'm cleaning up so we can play upstairs. That's pretty smart.

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Sub-Cultures With High Fertility: In Japan, UK, and Australia
11 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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 what
Malcolm 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 the IQ shredder.
It is the moving to the cities, it is the going to university and getting the demanding job and not having time to live close to your family network and raise kids and just spend time with friends and, and, and live within your means and. This group is sort of naturally high fertility because these are the ones who aren't entering the
Malcolm Collins: fertility shredder.
Does that make sense? Well, they're also not as economically disadvantaged [00:05:00] as you would imagine, given their life choices. Yeah. At the same time, they decided to get outta the university pipeline focused on the trades. Mm-hmm. In Japan especially, those types of jobs were increasing in value or, or what they paid Yeah.
Relative to the types of lifelong corporate jobs that were really sort of breaking apart.
Simone Collins: Yeah, and what's interesting is, is some people have posited about softie, Yankee Keys in Japan that, oh, they're gonna disappear. They're not gonna last for long 'cause they're not very educated and you know, they, they won't be able to afford houses.
They will totally be able to afford houses. There are these like emptying out towns in Japan. Where they can buy houses, although they're typically stick sticking close to home and living within their means and using family for support and childcare. So, no, these, these people will be just fine.
Malcolm Collins: So to go into the original tweet thread that brought our attention to this, it said Miles Yankees are the winners of Japanese society.
Skip high school and uni several years, headstart and earn way more than a graduate in their twenties. Marry a guru. Buy a new house, [00:06:00] have kids. This is the way, and then it has some images of, of this culture. And we should put some images on screen of like what this culture looks like. It says in, they tend to stay within a 10 kilometer radius of their hometown.
So they keep strong family, friendship, bonds, making it easier to start a family. And it shows you know, a, a meme of them grilling with, with hamburgers, hot wives. The mild Yankee statue with their van. The boy was the soft mohawk bar barbecue on the holidays. My eldest daughter is learning to dance, beautiful wife.
And they have, well,
Simone Collins: I, I think it's not a van. I, I think, again, it's a Toyota Vall fire. And I, I want to understand the obsession with this vehicle that is so strange.
Malcolm Collins: And there's another thing here where it's, it's mild Yankee where it's a, a guy and his girlfriend and they have a baby. And it says, but and he says.
This is, this messed up delicious. That's really bad. This eat it if you like. And she's giving an [00:07:00] old lady's, giving her like food. And of course in Japan this would happen if you moved to a town and had kids.
Simone Collins: Well, basically it's, it's a cartoon showing a husband enjoying his wife's food, a wife accepting local produce from a family member or neighbor.
And then the, the family and their kids expressing thanks to that local community member like this is. The archetype of sustainable family rearing, living in a supportive community, showing them gratitude. The young and old and and working age all have a role and they enjoy small and simple things.
And that's the thing about this, I.
Malcolm Collins: Well, it's about building an alternate culture where the dominance hierarchy is not, and people don't like that. I use the term dominant hierarchy. They're like, call it the prestige hierarchy. I use dominant hierarchy because I'm comparing it in an anthropological context.
To like an APE tribe or something like that is not the unified, the dominance hierarchy. The problem, one of the biggest problems with the urban monoculture is that everyone's playing was in the same dominance hierarchy. So you're always going to feel near [00:08:00] the bottom unless you happen to be like famous or something.
Where it was in both the Yankee and the mild Yankee dominance hierarchies you can for a much lower cost and much lower investment, really invest in that culture and be like your own person that you can have pride in.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: And then a tweet under it, oh. Actually before I go to the tweet under it, do you want me to read about the evolution of Yankee culture?
Simone Collins: In Japan?
Malcolm Collins: Yes, I I will. Okay, so the term Yankee in Japan doesn't refer to the American baseball team or the historical US group, but rather to a distinct subculture that emerged in the late 20th century. Japanese Yankees are typically associated with rebellious youth, often characterized by a distinctive style, think pompadour hairstyles, modified school uniforms, and a tough anti-establishment attitude.
This subculture has roots in the post-war period. Influenced by American pop culture, like rock and roll and biker kings, but it evolved into something uniquely Japanese. Over [00:09:00] time, it's been linked to working class communities, particularly in urban and semi-urban settings like South Osaka and parts of Kishu.
It is associated, is it associated with higher fertility rates? There's no hard data from official sources like Japan's Ministry of Health or Academic Studies, specifically telling Yankee subculture to higher birth rates. However, some observations and sentiment on platforms like X hint at a connection, for instance, it's been con suggested in areas where Yankee culture is strong, like South Osaka or tissue families tend to have more kids, two to three compared to Japan's national average total fertility rate, which dropped from 1.2 in 2023.
Okinawa with a TFR of 1.6 and parts of Kishu, like Miyazaki, 1.49 do stand out as having higher fertility rates than say, Tokyo 0.99. These regions also have a reputation as being more relaxed, community oriented lifestyles, which some associate with lingering Yankee influence. The theory might go like this.
[00:10:00] Yankees, historically from working class backgrounds may have prioritized family and traditional roles over career driven urban lifestyles that dominate cities like Tokyo, where fertility rates are lowest. Their mild, modern counterparts could still carry a countercultural tendency. Turds earlier, marriage and large families, bunking, Japan's broader trend of delayed and foregone parenthood, for example, chu's, relatively high fertility rates around 1.8 in some areas, and its reputation as a Yankee stronghold could suggest that correlation.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. So I, one, one thing that I was looking at today was the connection between Yankee culture and. Another high fertility culture, which is the Appalachian culture, which we constantly talk about. And in that Twitter thread, they don't even mention Appalachian culture, but two separate people are like, oh my gosh, you're just describing the, the UK phenomenon of, and we're gonna
Malcolm Collins: go over these two other phenomenon.
And then, oh,
Simone Collins: you're just describing Aussie tradies. But I wanna talk about the similarities between. Yankee culture [00:11:00] and Appalachian culture. And the, the reason why is there's this movie that I love that you will never, ever watch 'cause it's basically the Japanese amali called Kamikaze girls that I.
I have probably spent like hundreds of hours watching again and again, like before I met you. 'cause I love it so much. It's about two girls. One is this girl who's really into gothic, Lili clothing named Momoko. And a friend she makes named Ichigo. And Ichigo is a Yankee. She's a, she's a Yankee girl. And like when I rewatch the scene where she's introduced, I'm just like, oh my gosh.
There's, she is like the Japanese. Like Appalachian Tom girl, because she shows up on what is basically a rideable truck nut. It's like this insane, like souped up scooter motorcycle thing. And 'cause she's the member of this, this, this Japanese biker game called the Ponytails, and she's actually showing up at this young girl's house because her father sells.
Bootlegged Versace like super trashy [00:12:00] clothing and like as she's like looking at the clothing that's available for sale later in the scene, she's like, oh my gosh, you universal Versace. 'cause he'll just like starts combining logos. It's like just totally trashy taste. But like, fantastic. And as she's approaching Momoko, Momoko is like thinking like, oh, a Yankee to run on eyebrows, and she spits on the ground and she, she has like very male mannerisms and it's just like, whoa.
Okay. So we got the tomboy, we got the truck nuts, we've got like the toughness. And this sort of like un unabashed enthusiasm for things and, and lack of concern for what other people think. And I. Absolutely love it. And I never watched that movie thinking like, huh, this is a lot like another type of American culture, but it totally is, and it makes so much sense to me that this would evolve into one of the high fertility Japanese cultures that I'm thrilled about it
Malcolm Collins: if I can get away with posting this culture this, this video, because it's part of a music video that it's from the, the country [00:13:00] song when it rains.
And I think that many people, when they think of American. Country music or they, they think of this like uniform, sort of Republican American cultural group. And I keep pointing out that no, the Appalachian cultural group is very distinct from the aristocratic southern group or the aristocratic and, and very religious southern group.
And, and proper and the Mormon group. And I think that the intro to this video does a very good job because you see this family coming out. Going to church and you assume if you are approaching country music with stereotypes that they are the protagonist and No, it's not. It's not them. It's the guy who fell asleep partying on his, his roof.
And he is just, you know, was, was having a fun time. And you could tell that this individual would be very aligned with this cultural group. 100%.
Everybody got their Bibles? Yes.
[00:14:00] Come on, we gotta go.
Malcolm Collins: You watch like a video of the, the girl in it who is being a very, like, at, at her lunch with the other girl. And she's showing a lot of manners that remind me a lot of our daughter.
But No kidding. Yeah. If it
Simone Collins: was like if, if that scene was our family, it would be me dressed like the frilly girl and it would be our daughter Titan sitting across from me 100%.
ヨハンシュとラウス知らねえなあんなバンド
Simone Collins: But also like another thing it's demonstrated in that scene you're referring to is like this distinct. Lack of education.
Like I think she's listening to some classical artist and ichi goes' like, never heard of that band. Like, just
Malcolm Collins: no. But, but you see here that this is also something you see with this Appalachian group [00:15:00] culture. When you see them stereotyped, they're always stereotyped as the women particularly is being uniquely tomboy-ish.
Just think of like apple jack for my little pony. He's like, hardworking and, and, and tomboy-ish. Or you could think of. Well, any girl from you know, I'm trying to think of good stereotypes. Oh, yes, I'm a redneck woman. Or the,
Simone Collins: the girl
Malcolm Collins: I didn't, no high class man.
Simone Collins: The Beverly Hillbillies, I think she's great.
Malcolm Collins: Oh yes. The Beverly Hillbillies where she's incredibly strong.
Nobody treats my paw that way. Shut up.
How's that for Bunny?
Malcolm Collins: I think she better,
Simone Collins: Is, is like the guru archetype. So the. What Roco on Twitter said when talking about this movement wasn't implying that like Yankees, Murray Yankees, and definitely like female Yankees as depicted by Ichigo and kamikaze girls is less common.
You're more likely to get like the [00:16:00] girly girl version of that subculture, which is yoru. They're. Like, way back in the day, the way that you knew you were looking at a garter was basically if you saw like a Japanese stereotype of like Malibu Barbie, so bleached blonde hair, super tanned and then extremely girly pink accessories.
That's how you know you're looking at a garter. They look overly tan and they're like, yeah, now, now they're, now they're just toned down. Now they just look like the Japanese equivalent of trailer trash. Like they're, they're attractive, they're sexy. They, they like dress in a sort of like sexy, attractive way, and I think social media has kind of had that effect where it's like toned everyone down a little bit and also taught everyone how to style themselves.
Yeah. I, I think both in like a more classy and more trashy way, right? Because everyone has everyone has adopted drag makeup online, like everyone's contouring now. And yet like we're trying to like. Even it out, there's tempering taking place.
Malcolm Collins: I sent you a like super wholesome hentai of of shoot one of these girls.
So you can see that this [00:17:00] is a popular enough archetype. Leave it to us to describe hentai as wholesome though. Well, this one is clearly just made for like, look, you can masturbate different parts of your brain. And one thing that people like to masturbate is the wholesome part. Like, yeah, like a fantasy
Simone Collins: about like a loving, wholesome marriage.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. A wife, a loving, wholesome who actually loves you and cares. You can imagine yeah, like the, the gist is basically a childhood friend who doesn't feel like she's done anything with her life is really just completely plused and over the moon, and she's become a guro or like a mild guro, I guess you'd say.
Was like big. Pink animal print, like broth, like out, like small top things. Malibu
Simone Collins: Barbie Trailer Crash Edition.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. Yeah. And, and you, you, and she's like sad about her life and she's really excited that somebody loves her and cares for horror. And that's a, the gist of it. But it's, it's, it's common enough that even when these characters are used in Japanese pornography, like Hint, I, [00:18:00] they are used as like a.
I'm gonna be a sweet, good, and loving wife who's gonna give you lots of babies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's very much the, the what you can tell is like the fantasy that's represented here and it's interesting that it transitioned from delinquent to, I am going to be delinquent. By being a sweet wife, but not in a traditional Japanese way, which is like, I guess like out of subservience or something like that.
Mm-hmm. But just because I appreciate you so much you know, and I think that a lot of guys in Japan may feel that way and they may look at a girl like that and see her as more attainable. Mm. Which was what would create this like, genre of hint. I,
Simone Collins: yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's just also such a contrast to.
I, I watch a lot of, I guess you could call them ambiance videos on YouTube made by single women who live in tiny little apartments in Tokyo and have [00:19:00] salary woman jobs. And in these videos they're just like silent. They never show their faces and they just do their evening routines. They make dinner for themselves.
And it's just such this weird contrast between this like completely asexual, highly educated professional woman. Mm-hmm. And I'm sure that their male equivalents are doing the same thing. And then this, this, this family, you know, these people who actually wanna have kids young, and this is what we have.
Like this is, this is what. Post globalization, post tech, high fertility culture looks like, it looks like people who marry their high school sweethearts or who marry during university and start having kids in their twenties and have a support system. I mean, it doesn't have to be, as in is the case with the the soft Yankees family members and they don't have to stay within 10 kilometers of where they were born, but
Malcolm Collins: it
Simone Collins: helps.
Malcolm Collins: So am I free to move on to the next cultural group?
Simone Collins: Ooh, which one are we gonna do? Are we gonna do a tradies?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, we're gonna continue with this. It goes, this is wild. There's the exact same [00:20:00] archetype with differences in execution, obviously in the UK called the Dino. A lower middle class types extremely misunderstood.
The commonality they have is their positive outlook. They need few things to make them happy, laugh easily, et cetera. Hmm. So let's talk about the Dino group. All right.
Dino isn't an organized group or a former subculture in the uk, but rather a satirical stereotype that's emerged online, particularly on platforms like Twitter now x and four chan to describe a specific type of person or lifestyle. Mm-hmm. The term paints the picture of a lower middle class. Often suburban or small town British couple, typically in their twenties or thirties, who embody a mix of aspirational consumerism and what some see as tacky mainstream tastes.
Think of this as a modern evolution of the older British stereotypes of the Essex man, or Mondio man, but with Asian. What about the ch, like are they just totally
Simone Collins: different?
Malcolm Collins: What
Simone Collins: are they different from the, are they Chas shaves? I don't know how they're, yes. Totally different from Chaves. Oh, okay. [00:21:00] Although, to to point back to like kamikaze girls, like this obsession with like Versace knockoff stuff.
I think that's the thing is like lower middle class, like thinking for example, that designer brands are Well pride in
Malcolm Collins: being lower middle class. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unapologetically. Yeah. Dino is usually imagined as a guy named Dean, hence the name. Working a decent but unglamorous job.
Say a call center supervisor, estate agent, trades person. He lives in a new building, housing estate, often called Barat Britain. After a major UK developer drives a finance car like a Voxel Astra and enjoys lad. Hobbies, FIFA Love Island Package. Holidays. Oh boy, Marbella. Yes. And nights out whiz banter. Yes.
His partner is sometimes jokingly called Miss Fiat. 500 matches him with white and TEEP lift, fillers and wardrobe of fast fashion.
Simone Collins: Yeah,
Malcolm Collins: their home might feature gray [00:22:00] carpets. A ology, sofa, and an AstroTurf garden all proudly shared on Instagram. Mm-hmm. The stereotype leans hard into their perceived obsession with appearances and status, despite their relatively modest means.
The Dino meme started as a piss take on four chan and spread through British Twitter. Where it's been dissected was both. Humor and disdain. Some see Dinos as happy and fulfilled in their straightforward lives. Owning a home, having mates and enjoying the odd pint while others mock them as shallow conformist or oblivious to their precarious financial situation.
Big mortgages, little savings posts on X often highlight their aesthetics, slicked back hair, half shirt buttons undone, and blonde hair dye, and eating disorder. For the women, it's less about real subculture and more about a caricature of the normal Britain. British outside the urban elite. Oh, screw them.
I'm here for it. I'm here for it. Sign me up. And, but I, I think it is, it's, it's people who are proud to be themselves Yeah. Outside of this other [00:23:00] culture, which is what's necessary to fight against this. Yeah. A pride in being something other than the other urban monoculture. Yeah. And in immunity to urban monocultural, ridicule of you, whatever that culture looks like.
Well, there's
Simone Collins: some tension there. Because there's absolutely keeping up with Joneses, taking place with the financed vehicle, the, the house with everything posted on Instagram, the lip filler, the blonde hair, the, the whitened teeth, the eating disorder. You know, I think that there among their internal there is keeping up with the Joneses.
It just happens to be that the Joneses aren't like this distributed international group. It's like literally the people who live next door to you, just like it was in the fifties and sixties. But there, there is still, there's, there's sensitivity, but also like, yeah, but it's,
Malcolm Collins: it is, it is more financially realistic keeping up with the Joneses because you're playing a different game than the urban monoculture game.
Yeah. This is like what they're saying. They're like, they're so surprised that these people seem proud of things that aren't of status within the urban monoculture. Like why do they have pride in these modest meme things? And it's because they're playing a different [00:24:00] dominance hierarchy than you're playing with it.
Yeah. But anyway. Goes on and tweets to say, I have a lot of friends like this. All they do is drink and party all day, but they go overseas every year. And here I am working overtime at the office as a humble salary man. Maybe I should have taken the and I think it's something in Japanese pill after all.
Hmm.
Simone Collins: The,
Malcolm Collins: and then it says, under the shortage of blue collar workers is so extreme that wage wise, you can earn much more than the average salary, man. The flip side, as your body will be broken by your fifties, and you'll probably die of lung cancer early. And then the next says they can live least decent lives if their father refrained himself from spending his whole savings on verifier or if they're becoming too pachinko addicted.
And then a person says, today I learned mild Yankees are just like Ozzy tradies
Simone Collins: Ozzy, and like Pachinko addiction is, is no different from problems with sports gambling in the us. Like there's so many similarities here.
Malcolm Collins: But yeah we can, we can go here to this next culture, the [00:25:00] tradies in Australia.
Do you wanna learn about them? Yeah, I wanna learn about the
Simone Collins: tradies. Absolutely.
Malcolm Collins: In Australia, tradees is a widely used sling for a term, short for tradespeople or tradesmen. Air Force to skilled manual workers who specialize in a particular trade such as carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, bricking or mechanics, and you can tell that they would fall into this category.
These other people who were talking about, these folks typically are hands-on professionals who've completed apprenticeships or vocational training. To master their craft. They're the ones building houses, fixing pipes, wiring homes, and keeping cars running, essentially keeping the country running the terms got cultural Weight down under tradies are often seen as embodying a rugged, practical, no-nonsense Aussie spirit.
Think high V vest. Steel capped boots and a Ute utility vehicle loaded with tools. They're a big part of the economy too, especially in construction, which is a powerhouse industry in Australia. Posts on X and web chatters sometimes paint them as a hardworking blokes and increasingly women who enjoy a beer after a long day.
I. That's more of a stereotype than a rule. Unlike the UK's [00:26:00] Dino stereotype, which is more about a lifestyle or a class jab, tradies are defined by their skills and jobs. They're not a subculture in the rebellious sense like Japan's Yankees, but they do have their own lingo and camaraderie. Think smoko break time are hard, jaka, tough work.
Some tradies earn solid money, 75 to 90 5K on average, but they're specialized or run their own gig. Though it varies by trade and experience.
So, yeah. Apparently a lot of cultures are seeing this in a different regions or something that they see as similar. Was the core difference being a different life path? And, and different dominant hierarchy and different things that they value. Hmm. And then this person here did a podcast on it.
They say this is a fascinating generated, a whole AI podcast about the subject. Somebody did, but they did a picture, which I thought is really nice looking of this. And then somebody here also said there's also the [00:27:00] work and izakaya and then open a kitchen car pipeline allows lots of time for surfing, et cetera.
Simone Collins: Yeah. And an izakay restaurant is basically Japanese top bus. So I could, I could see someone like having maybe a popup restaurant and. Using that to create a sort of flexible lifestyle. And then somebody
Malcolm Collins: here says, so only the malcontents of Japan are also the only people who thrive. The only people who couldn't fit in in a brutally conformist country are also the only ones to find happiness.
The only winners of Japanese society are the people with a good sense to stay out.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: What were you gonna say? Sorry, I interrupted you there.
Simone Collins: No, go. Go ahead.
I mean, so, okay. I'll just jump in then and say one thing that gives me a lot of hope about these subcultures is that, one, they may be underrepresented as inheritors of the future because they've chosen so much to opt out of the internet to opt out of. Mainstream culture and to be pretty hard to measure.
[00:28:00] So I was, I was reading some news stories on this group and they're like, well, people are trying to like find them, but you can't really find 'em in online surveys. You, most of the interviews that people are doing on people on the streets are in places like Tokyo, like in really high traffic neighborhoods.
So they're not finding them because these people, even when they vacation, they typically vacation close to home. So my understanding is that basically they are. Off the grid to a great extent. And when you and I were looking at data of groups that seemed to be high fertility in the United States, we kept seeing, yes, high levels of religiosity, but also xenophobia and extreme sensitive sensitivity to hierarchy and sort of like a lot of, a lot of scary fascist, but not in a good way, in a sort of closed-minded, scary way.
Tendencies. My impression is that these groups. Are not as much like that. They might be somewhat suspicious of outsiders. I get that. But I'm, I'm less concerned about groups like this inheriting the future [00:29:00] because they're community minded. They sound pretty pro-social. At, at least since they've sort of evolved out of their hard Yankee days where they used to actually cause a lot of property damage and be kind of troublesome people in their communities now they're, they're seen as being much more responsible community members.
So they're, they seem to be broadly pro-social. They care about kids, they care about family. They're grateful for the community help they get. This doesn't seem like a bad group to be inheriting the future. It
Malcolm Collins: seems like living for a delinquent aesthetic. Mm-hmm. Where that is also high fertility and that's one of a way of thumbing your nose at society is high fertility.
And another thing that's high fertility is I. Being both frugal but not good with financial decisions. That's another thing that seems to be high fertility, is that they don't fold. They're just like, okay, I'm gonna keep having kids and it's gonna work out. I think people who are overly concerned about being able to afford things, like the people who are like, well, don't they know this?
Yes. How, how precarious their life is. People who think like that never end up [00:30:00] having kids.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Like they, well, they, they both are happy living within their means, but they seem to. For cultural or perhaps lack of education reasons or both blow the money that they do have on things that they don't necessarily need, like cosmetic surgery and cars and maybe sports gambling or pachinko.
And that's maybe, I mean, we, we see it as not great, but at the same time. The lack of savings and also that lack of concern, oh, I can't afford this so I'm not gonna do it. Yeah. Does seem to be really, it forces people to lean in more to family, more to community. And I do think there's a synergistic effect there where the more you lean into family and community, the more you're likely to have kids and also support your family and community.
You know, the more everyone needs each other, the more they help each other and the more they lean into that again. And so it would only create more children, more loving communities, and. We kind of need that.
Malcolm Collins: So [00:31:00] Ro Alright, well, Simone, this has been a fun conversation. I hope our daughters grow up to be as fierce as, as that Yankee girl who you liked growing up sitting.
What did you think of her character growing up? Did you like, like her? Did you identify more as the other girl?
Simone Collins: No, definitely identify with Momoko the. Sweet LTA girl who's obsessed with friley dresses. Some of the, I was watching other scenes from the movie today and. I realized, like, and in one scene she's wearing a, a dress that looks so much like what I wear every day.
It like she's a white bonnet and a black jumper does a white pet coat. And I'm like,
Malcolm Collins: is like,
Simone Collins: actually your thing is.
Malcolm Collins: Is this Puritan Lolita? What have I done? Well, no, that's what I like when we go to conferences and she dresses up in her traditional outfits. The people who like come up and gush over them are often the goth, like sunken goth girls.
Yeah. They're like, oh, that's so cool. You look crazy. Like, I [00:32:00] love it. And it's so fun that you can be so trad that like the, the goth it's, it's the horseshoe theory. Yeah. Just like you have
Simone Collins: the, you know, the crunchy to All right. Horseshoe where, you know, they, they end up being connected in the end.
It's. It's great. I
Malcolm Collins: love it. But wait, so you basically now as a grownup have a daughter who's like the punk girl who's like moko
Simone Collins: and, you know, sorry, I'm like Momoko and I have a daughter like Ichigo. Yeah, 100%.
Malcolm Collins: Did you, did you expect that? We'll, we'll see if she keeps it up as she gets older, but right now, oh my God, she loves trolling.
Like such a troll. She's such a troll. She will, like, even with her siblings, it's not just us. It's like Octavia will be like, please don't. Touch my, my Google device while I'm gone and then she'll be like as soon as he leaves, she has no interest in it. Yeah, she wants, she's no play with it. Dexter
Simone Collins: slab or something.
100%. She lives to troll and I love it. I respected. I didn't know that that was a real genetic compulsion. Trolling. Yeah, troll trolling, heritable. [00:33:00] Someone can make polygenic score around that with enough data. Is is she gonna
Malcolm Collins: be didi? To, to torso's. Mad scientist. The short little brother who's shorter than her and really smart.
What does this do?
Malcolm Collins: And they're the
Simone Collins: same size now pretty much. He has bigger feet than her. Thank goodness. He's, he's growing something. I'm, I'm gonna get that kid to grow. We're gonna, we have ways.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. Yes. All right. I love you n DeSimone. It's been a joy talking with you. And we just submitted our Andreessen Horowitz applications with, to the Collins Institute and the the video game that we've been working on, so we'll, we see if they're interested in, if you're
Simone Collins: buddies with them, put in a good word for old, for
Malcolm Collins: old Collins.
Yes. Or. If you know another VC we should be looking at or talking [00:34:00] to who's interested in AI games or AI education, let us know because warm intros apparently matter. And what's the point of having fans if we can't get warm intros?
Simone Collins: Yeah. Actually social badging is everything, and these are big projects that we really believe in, but I yeah.
We'll see.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, we should, we should put the pitch decks here so people can be like, oh, this is what you're working on. Oh, that
Simone Collins: would be cool. Yeah. If you want to learn more about these projects, see the pitch decks below, and if you have ideas for us, please share, because actually our listeners are super smart, incredible people with some, yeah.
Okay. Not all of you. All right. What, which one are you listener, are you, are you mid or are you.
Malcolm Collins: Based, are you? Yeah. Are you smart enough to, to have been a Yankee who have known to be a delinquent from the beginning? I was definitely a delinquent growing up. So you married the, the grownup delinquents?
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Well,
Simone Collins: I mean the, [00:35:00] another one of the themes that I really like from this is, is a lot of people identifying, or at least referring to them as misfits. You know, like it's the misfits in the end who, who get to inherit the future. And that's totally it. It's the people as you keep pointing out who deviate.
Malcolm Collins: A mainstream society.
It's not the, that their misfits is that they don't care about the fact that they're perceived as misfits.
Simone Collins: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: It is the not caring about other people's judgment of you as a misfit.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Anyway, and that's what you gotta raise your kids to, to think like, and it's, it's, it's a big so many people, I think that this is, is going to be one of the biggest things that Mormonism is going to struggle getting around.
It is a fear of being seen as misfit or others, which is one of the reasons their particular fertility collapse. Even though it's not as bad as other denominations like Catholicism may be more intractable because I think that many castle groups are okay with looking weird. Whereas I don't know many warman groups that really embrace the idea of being weird.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. [00:36:00] Hundred percent. No, that's a big
Malcolm Collins: problem. Alright, goodbye.
Simone Collins: Bye. I love you. Goodbye. I said good day, sir. Good day.
The aesthetics, the, the subjects. I absolutely adore it. It has just all these like tiny little aesthetic moments and references and. The main character has sensitivities to stupid little things that I really identify with. But it's definitely, it's like even down to lighting choices made, it is clearly the Amelie of Japan and you will never watch it, and you will never like it, and that's okay.
It's totally okay.
Malcolm Collins: I mean, that was a common thing in Japan to pair characters. You have those two. Acts the contrast.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: You, you had it with Puffy Ami Yumi, for example. Mm-hmm. The cartoon about the Yeah. The popular band. Yeah. The Tom
Simone Collins: girl and the g the girly girl,
Malcolm Collins: Tom girl and the girly girl.
Everybody wants to hang with Tom girl and the girly girl. You
Simone Collins: know
Malcolm Collins: it. Watch them fight each other. Oh, that's so silly. So silly. [00:37:00] Silly.
They're beautiful. Shall we pick some. I flowers. You wanna pick the flowers too? They have baby flowers. Baby flowers? Mm-hmm. All right, well, do you see any? Doesn't walk them. You swamp me. Okay. If you can stay out of the mud, you can pick some, they're called swamp marigolds. Go get some.

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Robin Hanson: Culture as it Relates to Fertility Decline
10 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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 on
Simone Collins: you. Yeah. You could have it's, you could have had nice
Robin 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 can
Simone Collins: afford it. Yeah. Right. If
Robin 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 particularly
Robin 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 become
Robin Hanson: educated. It works really well for fertility rates, but also
Simone 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 Collins: It's what Simone said is you have to change the expectation of timing.
Robin Hanson: Mm-hmm. Yep.
Malcolm Collins: You get married, then you go to university or you get married. In your first couple years of university and should have a couple kids by the time you graduate.
Mm-hmm. This is normal within a lot of cultures. Then it's an easy thing to frame. I think the quiver full movement had a really good framing of this. You know, the the, the children are like the eras in the quiver of your youth, which, which points out is that children are supposed to be something that you sort of stock up on while you're young.
And, and, and then, and then provide benefit to you when you're older which is a very different framing than children [00:04:00] are. The capstone. Once you are stable.
Robin Hanson: That brings up a next trend, as you know, which is the switch from cornerstone to capstone marriage. You know, when I was young the norm was you just marry early when you're not fully formed, where you don't know what you're gonna become.
And the two of you form each other and become something together. Yes. Okay. And now the norm is you should find yourself and know who you are and we have a stable position. And then. Then match with somebody who matches your stable position in what you become.
Malcolm Collins: Exactly.
Robin Hanson: And that takes a lot longer, and that also puts on a delay.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And I, and I know with this particular trend is that it's not leading to better marriages like, right. No. A marriage, a marriage is actually much better, I'd argue to have a cornerstone marriage than to have a capstone marriage because you can one, grow together. Two, it fixes a lot of the problems with the existing monetary difference.
So, you know, one of the things I'm sure you're gonna get to is that women like men who earn more money than [00:05:00] them, but they also don't like men on average earning more money than them, which means that on average they're not gonna be able to find a spouse once they've corrected and they've overcorrected.
Now if you look at young women, they over-ear men pretty significantly. But so if they're like, oh, I'll only date men who earn more money than me, and on average women are earning more than men, you know, they're gonna have a really hard time fighting a partner, right? So they're gonna be dating a bunch of people who are likely lying to them about like their, their actual status.
And that's why women think all men are b******s because they are sorting into the b******s, right? But the point here being is that this is a problem that occurs once you graduate from college if you normalize, I. Marrying somebody going into college. You marry somebody at an age where neither of you has an income yet.
Right. And this is why it's so important to get married before you get a job, not
Robin Hanson: after.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah.
Robin Hanson: Good point. So I'm not sure of all these trends, but I don't need to be sure that they're just things people talk a lot about. So a third one is more intensive parenting. [00:06:00] Yes. So I think I see this, I see my son taking care of their, you know, our grandchild.
Compare that to my taking care of my son, compared that to how I was taking care of, yeah. If I look, it's like look at movies from the thirties and forties and kids in the movies and see how much parent attention parents are paying to those kids. They're not barely paying any attention to the kids. Yeah.
What? What attention. They're not like watching them and taking them around and instructing them. The kids are just running around and the parents are talking to each other and they're just two separate worlds. That, because that was okay back then.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. And this is incredibly important to Renormalize and I think that you really cannot have any form of Tism work without normalizing this specific thing.
And it's one of the reasons why when many people are like, why? Do you, as the heads of the prenatal lesson movement so often you know, get seen by reporters as like not really paying that much attention to your kids or, or, or, you know, being rough with your kids or like, mostly ignoring them and it's like, because that's the only way you make this sustainable if, if you, if you like overly And what's wild is, is [00:07:00] that we even have AI now.
Like I don't even need to talk to my kid, for my kid to have somebody to talk to. Yeah. You know, I just feel AI is
Simone Collins: infinitely attentive and patient with our kids. Like our kids talk with chat GBT and I love it because we'd just be like, okay, whatever. And chat G t's like, wow, I love that too. This is so great.
This just like, this is
Robin Hanson: perfect. Right. So another trend that certainly contributes via the school thing is just gender equality.
Simone Collins: Oh, interesting.
Robin Hanson: If, if women just hold, hold different life paths and that wasn't involving career aspirations, then they would, you know. The school thing would just be much less of an issue.
Obviously that did happen in the past. Yeah. Yeah. So we're not saying we're, we're definitely not saying we're gonna reverse all these trends. Like yeah, let's just be clear. But we do wanna acknowledge what are the trends that have been contributing the election. Gender equality. Gender equality.
Simone Collins: So, hold, just keep going, but I'm just gonna get Indy 'cause she woke up.
Malcolm Collins: Well, hold on, hold on, hold on there. There's actually some interesting data on gender equality that we went over in a few recent episodes where. It [00:08:00] appears that in some environments, gender inequality and not some, I'd actually say most environments today, like in developed countries leads to much lower fertility
Robin Hanson: rates.
You're right. So, but it certainly contributed early, like so in South Korea they have this huge gender conflict and part of it is that women want men to do more household chores and men. Don't think they should because that's not what they used to do.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. So, you know, so clearly. So yeah, specifically here, this comes from the, I dunno if you've seen this, this tweet, but it's really good, this like what makes these countries different from these countries and it breaks down like Denmark, the USA you know, I think like Israel a few others all in one category.
And then another category is like Italy's. Portugal, Korea, Japan, China. And the argument presented was, is that the second group of countries modernized and became wealthy much later. And as such, it didn't update its views around gender norms as much. And so you had the economic [00:09:00] expectation of women working without the updated gender norms within the household.
Although I think many of these cultures were actually just more misogynistic historically, if you look at like Albion Seed or American Nations, you could see many of the founding cultural groups of America were highly gender egalitarian. Like the backwoods greater Appalachian culture was very gender egalitarian.
The Puritans were very gender egalitarian. Well, and
Simone Collins: by egalitarian men and women were still seen as very different, but they no, no, no. But they
Malcolm Collins: were gender egalitarian when contrasted with Japanese or Chinese culture, for example. For sure. Yeah.
Robin Hanson: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Right.
Robin Hanson: It's about these changing roles that is, we, we had the expectation women go to work, but also that they keep doing the housework.
Yeah. And then they're less willing to have kids, which, which makes sense, but you know, it's uneven development of gender norm changes.
Simone Collins: Yes.
Robin Hanson: So an older one, but I still think it's important to notice is norms of children not living with their parents when they have children.
Simone Collins: Oh yes. That's very good.
Grandparent's. Very good. In the old days,
Robin Hanson: people would live in a family estate [00:10:00] with three generations. Yeah. And that was usual. And so kids didn't have to have their own place or even their own income in order to have their own kids.
Simone Collins: And you'd built in childcare and built in elder care. So big elements of our
Robin Hanson: social safety.
Right. But it also meant that the grandparents had more control. That's true. They got to say more. But true. The old, you know, clan based societies, the, the patriarch or matriarch just had more say about how everybody lived. True,
Simone Collins: yeah. And
Robin Hanson: one of the things people enjoy about our world is more freedom from parental influence over your lives.
But a big cost of that is they're not helping so much with childcare, childcare, environment housing, you know, everything else.
Simone Collins: 100%. Yeah. I think people don't think about the opportunity cost as much as they maybe should.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I, and I've seen this as a major fertility factor that is more addressable than many cultures give it credit for.
Mm-hmm. Eh, specifically at Nacon, one couple was telling me, well, we had kids much [00:11:00] earlier than we had planned on having them because we had moved to a, a community that wasn't our birth community. And the pastor at this community said, oh, well, we'll be there for you. Like, we'll help you with, with childcare.
You let me know when you need it. And then they were like, okay. Then I had a kid, and then the pastor told them when the kid was crying one day, he's like, you can let the kid cry. Like, we don't care. Like, and they were like, and I felt really self conscious and then I didn't feel self conscious.
So we had a second kid. And. These things at a cultural level, like people can be like, culture isn't something you can change and it like literally is you can just go to your pastor and be like, Hey, can we like put together some system for like childcare sharing or something like that for, for our parishioners.
Can you like call out and praise people who have children like that? Like increases fertility rates really dramatically.
Robin Hanson: Right. Obviously you as a grandparent could just tell your children about how you might be willing to help, but that's an awkward conversation. I think that is right.
Malcolm Collins: Well, I also, a lot of us can't, like, I can't make my parents take care of my kids, and in truth, I [00:12:00] don't think they have the, like, you've gotta trust a parent to take care of every kid as well.
Like, you've gotta trust, like, oh, I'll leave a toddler around this person. And I think we're of a generation that may not have a level of trust in our parents conscientiousness around little toddlers that would've been taken for granted in previous generations. So. Well, and maybe a lot
Simone Collins: of that too has to do with child count and, and child rearing participation.
So if, for example, only one parent, primarily raised only one child, like their experience with childcare is probably just, or, or worse
Malcolm Collins: if they, if they had nannies all the time.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Robin Hanson: So our habit of moving away from home when we become adults is related here. That is, if we stayed in the same neighborhood where our parents lived, we probably could arrange for more grandparent help in child rearing.
Yeah. But we have this habit of going to college somewhere far away and then going to a job far away. And that does make it a lot harder for grandparents to help.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Though I, I will say we [00:13:00] know anecdotally, at least a lot of people who, after having kids have moved to be closer with their parents or have parents who have moved to be closer to them.
And it's encouraging to see that, like people I think do understand the value. It's just making it happen. Is a lot harder than other like, than it, than it used to be because in many cases, parents really prefer to live a life that doesn't involve providing free child labor, be
Malcolm Collins: willing to make sacrifices, and part of the sacrifice is moving.
I was talking with a reporter recently and this reporter was telling me well, I only have one kid and I live in Manhattan, so I can't easily have more kids because my husband and I have jobs in Manhattan. And I was like, oh, that's really tough. You know, like maybe. And I was thinking, oh, maybe you get jobs outside of Manhattan or something like that.
The conversation goes on and I realize, I was like, wait a second, you're a journalist and you are husband. Runs a startup, you can move you. You, you have jobs in Manhattan 'cause you have chosen to have [00:14:00] jobs in Manhattan. Being a journalist, you don't need to go to the office every week. And your husband chooses where his office is based.
You have chosen to sacrifice the lives of your future children. And I think that that cultural framing is also really big. It's one that we talk about pretty frequently is for us, when we think about like, when does life start the way you view life can change how many kids you're gonna end up having.
For fertility, it appears about the worst way to view life at the beginning of conception. 'cause castles have really low fertility rates when you control for income. But I think the best way is the way that we do, which is to say, every time you choose between two timelines, if you choose to erase a life, was in one of those timelines, you are responsible for eradicating that person.
And you should think about the you in that timeline, how they would feel about your decision. So when I was talking to the journalist and she's like, well, how, how do I have another kid? Like, can you convince me? And I was like, well, you know, if you have that other kid, five years from now that you in that timeline is mortified that you ever [00:15:00] had this conversation, they're mortified that you ever thought, even for one instance about not having that kid, that timeline is just as valid as a timeline in which you don't have the kid.
So you should consider that iteration of yourself that is mortified, your selfishness for deciding not to bring a life into the world. And I think that when you, when I talk to reporters about Simone, you know, getting, because she's. The most c-sections anyone has ever had is 11, and Simone's gonna be at five with this kid, you know, so she's getting up there.
And so, you know, she is putting her life at risk and people are like, why would she put her life at risk? And I'm like, the moral equation is obvious. Like if a robber had a gun to your, your, your spouse's head and one of your kids' head and was like, if you don't tell me to like shoot the spouse, I'm gonna shoot the kid.
Everybody chooses shoot the spouse, right? Like, but why isn't this the case when it's a baby?
Robin Hanson: So I've got three more trends left. Go for it. Yes. So one, is there vanity? So we had the debate at the previous event, but I, I do think basically. [00:16:00] There's this attraction of urbanity that this, the city centers are full of activities and they're full of status.
There's a place to meet and hang with people. Yeah. And if you wanna choose a high status life, that's a place to go. But it does cost you in terms of opportunity to cost, including in space and income. And so that does come at the expense, I think, of fertility. Mm-hmm. So, you don't have to live in city centers, but people, if you want to choose fertility, you can, but often the price of that is to be less away from the center of activity.
Right. Yeah. What,
Simone Collins: what are your thoughts on the role that urbanity plays? However, in matchmaking like you, I think it's a lot easier to find a partner when you're in a highly dense area. And that it seems like, I mean, my, my general intuition is. Go to highly dense population centers to find your person and then when you find them, get out of there and start your family.
Right. But unfortunately,
Robin Hanson: like we're pretty plastic culturally when we're young. Yeah. So if you go to the city when you're 20 and you spend the next few years looking for partners, you will also assimilate the city values and the city practices. Yeah. It's so
Simone Collins: hard to get out there and then
Robin Hanson: you will. Be less eager to leave [00:17:00] the city to go have kids somewhere else you might wanna contribute.
Do you think that's true
Simone Collins: though? When like the plot of all the Hallmark Christmas movies and romances is girl with big power job from the city goes back home for Christmas reluctantly Of course. Or like to some small Podunk town meets hunky man and stays there forever. Forever. Like there seems to be this
Malcolm Collins: I, I.
I think that if you approach stages, life stages, like a preset life stage model, as a culture, like I was raised, totally, your life happens in stages. Do this at this stage, this at this stage, this at this stage. It's, it's easier to switch between them if you have that preset up, especially if you have the stage in the city framed of as like a, a, a trial and bad.
If you teach your kid to think of a city as a place there, there's not really anything to do because everything costs a ton of money and is it's pointless. And that you, you really only get freedom, the freedom to have the privilege of living in the countryside once you find a partner. I think that that could help them set up more.
But I, I, [00:18:00]
Robin Hanson: I, I think the more options feed into the capstone marriage concept too, though. Mm. That is, look, if you just lived in a small town and those are all the people, you would just pick somebody from among them and like, make, do and go on with it. Yeah. The city raises your standards. Here's all these people.
I need to pick like one of the best of all these people. I can't just pick the first person I like. Overwhelmed by how and then the expectation that they're all around for many years. What? You know, how do you think you're gonna leave so earlier than, than you assimilate the culture of expecting to spend 10 years in the city?
I. Looking for the very best person.
Malcolm Collins: Fair point. I actually really like something you said there, but I I, I change it a little for like realistic high achieving culture, which is you want a pool that people are dating within that they feel they can exhaust. If they feel that the dating pool is inexhaustible then they go on forever.
But if you're like, no, this is all of the best people in the world here. Here they are. Yeah. Like that's really what caused me to marry you, Simone, is I went to Stanford Business School. I was like, oh, this is supposed to be like the highest competency women in the world. They're not as good as you. So [00:19:00] I know I've, I've searched the world.
So you need a balanced
Simone Collins: game of musical chairs and you need to know when the music's about to stop.
Malcolm Collins: To do this with our kids is put together a discord like thing with parents who have kids around our kids' age who are like based and interesting and like the most successful people in the world. And we are searching really hard to make this group as big as possible.
And then we tell the kids in this discord, you can date whatever. And if you find someone you like, we'll send you to live with their family for a bit. So you can like get to know them, get to know the kids and date in a controlled environment so that you get this feeling of, if I don't find the person in this discord, I'm not gonna find many people more interesting than this.
Robin Hanson: So think about careers. I did the thing where I kept changing careers many times. Yes, until I found a career I liked, but that was costly for me. Most people find a career that's good enough and they stick with it. Yeah. And it might be, if we had that attitude toward marriage, like I think I had more of the attitude toward marriage.
I found my wife and I said, good enough. Let's take her. I [00:20:00] wasn't thinking, well, is she really better than the best I could find Uhhuh, but for careers, I had this higher standard of, okay, this is okay. I like it, but like this other thing over there might be even better.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Robin Hanson: So just think about the inconsistency versus career choice versus marriage.
People seem to choose their careers much earlier in life than they choose their life partners. It's not clear that you actually should, I mean, you have to spend some time searching for each and then pick and go.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Your, your life partner matters more and will influence your career. Like the career that they want will influence the career that you want.
Like you, they can also help
Simone Collins: you get a career. We got more reason
Malcolm Collins: to pick them early. Exactly.
Simone Collins: Yeah. And having a spouse can give you the security to have a career. We know so many people who took turns getting graduate degrees or doing the risky jobs so that the other one had the steady job and it's just, everything's better with a good spouse.
Robin Hanson: Okay. My second to last trend is less religion.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Robin Hanson: So clearly there's huge correlations with religion around the world and fertility.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Robin Hanson: And the world has become less religious and that just seems to [00:21:00] be a trend that's causing lower fertility. You know, have to understand necessarily why exactly, but it, it does seem to be real.
Malcolm Collins: And what a lot of people miss about this is religion is dropping a gin alpha at a much faster rate than it is in other generations. Mm-hmm. I'll try to put a graph on screen here, if I remember. And so people see that religion has stopped dropping in the United States this year and they're like, oh, this is a sign that just trying to stopped and maybe fertility rates.
So I don't think that that is a sign of that. I think that what we're seeing is reconversion into religion of adults and not a drop in, in, in the rate to which young people are being torn out of religions and, you know, like us or JD Vance or something like that. Like, and I don't think that this is as as positive a sign
Robin Hanson: as people think it is.
If, if I had to look for an explanation, it seems to me that. When people are really poor and in desperate circumstances, religion does comfort them in a really substantial way.
Malcolm Collins: Absolutely. Oh, I, I don't think that's why, I think the reason why religion increases fertility rates is two reasons. One is that it provides an [00:22:00] exogenous motivation to have kids beyond hedonism a lot of secularists when they're having kids.
Sure. They're like, will they improve my quality of life? Will I enjoy having them? Will I, but in a religion, it's like, this is the duty, you know? And so you don't even question how it's gonna make you feel or anything like that. So the exogenous motivation increases the number of kids. Two, I think religiosity is often just a, a, a very high correlary sort of indicator of a person's how much they're in a, an ancestral culture versus the urban monoculture.
When somebody becomes more, more urban monoculture, more like, of this progressive cultural group that is all around cities today and is sort of like a mimetic virus they, they decrease in religiosity. And so, if you look at. Atheists who are distant from the urban monoculture, they're often pretty high fertility.
So you can look at like Elon Musk, who's pretty distinct from the urban monoculture, very high fertility or some people would consider us a form of secularists and we're pretty high fertility. So I think that the,
Robin Hanson: there's two, there's two parts. There's, there's what's [00:23:00] causing the, the religion decline and then does religion decline?
Cause fertility decline? So, mm, I mean, I think in the mo in a modern, rich world, we're comfortable and secure enough that we don't need religion so much. But look, when you're just really poor and like your children are dying and you're in war and whatever, religion just is an appeal much more directly.
Like it gives you comfort and some place in the world and meaning that you really want and need. And, but once you have that, the structure that you tend to get with it comes with structures that make you also wanna be fertile. That is the kind of meaning you get in religion is. Like, you know, helps is a compliment of the kind of meaning you get in family.
But there's this puzzle. Why? Why isn't there Vermont culture religious? And I think it's because they're just rich and comfortable and not really very afraid of very much. Although, and don't you think
Simone Collins: there's also this big correlation between religions and the ability to delay gratification and think in terms of the longer term with the contrast being that mainstream urban [00:24:00] monoculture culture is about instant pleasure and you will never have kids, or at least a lot of kids, if your life is about instant pleasure.
Like kids are definitely a delayed gratification thing.
Robin Hanson: It's strikingly though a lot of, you know, the urban monoculture people are willing to make sacrifices for careers. You know, they'll spend a lot of time studying for classes, sorts of
Simone Collins: things. That's, yeah, that's a really good point. That's a really good point.
Yeah, they're, they're not always the most fun. So, wait, then, what is, what is the Robin Hansen solution to the Robin Hansen fertility stack of demographic collapse? Like what would you,
Robin Hanson: if you were just one last trend, and then let's talk about the underlying problem.
Simone Collins: Yes.
Robin Hanson: So one last trend is just a more integrated world, a less integrated world will just have more variety in all these different kinds of cultures around the world and what their attitudes were related to fertility.
So a more varied world would just have some places that happen to have high fertility and other low, and at least, you know, we'd have more [00:25:00] overall fertility. But our dominant monoculture is low fertility, and we have all this communication and travel and trade in the world that just merges the world together into a shared culture.
Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Robin Hanson: So the high, so now the question is, okay, we see all these trends. What's the cause now first notice. In our world, the most prestigious intellectuals are the people who comment on the sort of trends we've been talking about. They point out what the social trends were and they wanna like talk about what the trend should be.
Everybody loves this culture trend conversation. It's the, the most elite conversation you see in pundits and you know everybody else. It is, it is, but, but there's also a separate group of people who analyze how culture happens over time. They are specialists in cultural evolution and they are not very prestigious, even among academics.
And they really crave being scientific. And so they try not to enter into these conversations about cultural [00:26:00] trends because that would be non-scientific. And those are the people I turn to, to understand what's happening with culture, how does it work and how to understand these trends. But you have to turn away from the most prestigious culture talk because I.
The way people talk about culture is kind of the way you guys have been here, which is, as a participant, you say, what are the trends? What do I like? What I don't? Which, what could I argue for? What could I argue against? Mm-hmm. That's what prestigious culture talk is like, is analyzing, like recruiting allies for your direction to push culture and recruiting like arguments and, and things like that.
And that's what you're doing in fertility. And, and I'm, I'm glad you are doing it, but the key thing to notice is that makes you somewhat blind to what's this process by which cultures change? How does that work and how do we tell us? 'cause we've written the whole
Malcolm Collins: book on this subject. Yeah. We're curious to get your take.
Robin Hanson: Well, so, so the basic idea is it's just randomness that is. [00:27:00] Humanity superpower is cultural evolution, and it's just a different kind of biological evolution. Yeah. And it's just variation in selection. And in fact, it's simpler than DNA evolution because DNA evolution had had billions of viewers to collect all sorts of like clever tricks and hooks and like fixes for things.
But cultural evolution is just new and simple. And so it's really just very basic variation in selection.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The, the analogy that we use in the book, the pragmatist guided crafting religion, which is a hundred percent on this topic, is we argue that culture is an evolving software that sits on top of our biological hardware and can adapt to environmental constraints much faster than the hardware can.
Robin Hanson: Hmm. Right now the framing I want want you to see though, is an analogy to driving a car. Like, so when you're driving a car, you have a control system. You look and see the road ahead. And you see where the road turns and then you're supposed to see the road. Think about where you wanna be. Tell your hands to turn the wheel.
The wheel turns the, you know, the, [00:28:00] the wheel turns the tires and then the tires moves the car. And each of these things has parameters in terms of the delay and sort of the noise. And that should be compared to like how fast you're going down the road and how fast the road's changing. So if your parameters of how fast you notice things and how noisy you see things are too bad, you won't be able to stay on the road and you'll just go off the road.
If you drive slowly enough and see the road well enough, you can follow the road, but otherwise you go off. And the same sort of parameter comparison should be there for cultural evolution. Cultural evolution is this process where there's a distribution of cultures and there's a, some sort of distribution of fitness landscape.
And the fitness landscape's actually gonna be moving a bit. And these points on the landscape are also gonna be fluctuating around a bit. And you, the cloud of points will follow the fitness landscape as it moves if the parameters are right, that is if you have enough points. Mm-hmm. If [00:29:00] the pressure to, like, you know, when you have the more adaptive region, the the pressure, you know, those things grow faster, other things shrink, then the drift rate is low enough and the rate at which the landscape changes is low enough, then.
Selection can follow it. That is the cloud of points will follow the landscape as it moves if the parameters are right for cultural evolution. And then the thing to notice is the parameters have changed. So three centuries ago, the world had hundreds of thousands of peasant cultures. Yes. Each of which had a thousand or 2000 people in it that were really pretty independent.
They didn't trade that much with each other or do that much. They, each little peasant culture mostly was self-sufficient. And they were poor at the edge of survival. So they suffered famines and, and pandemics and wars all the time. And they were conservative. They didn't wanna change very much. They tried to stay near where they were and the environment was changing slowly.
So, you know, the world economy doubled roughly every thousand years up until a few centuries [00:30:00] ago. And so that's a stable situation for. The cloud of cultures to follow the adaptive landscape. Slow change, conservative change, lots of variety and strong selection pressures. Mm-hmm. And now in the last few centuries, we've changed all four of these parameters.
So we first merged peasant cultures into the nation national cultures. So there's a famous book, peasants in the French Men describing that in France, but it happened everywhere. Mm. And then afterwards, these different national cultures have merged into a global monoculture, as you're all aware. So the variety has gone way, way down.
And then if you look at selection pressures, cultures just don't die very much anymore from war or pandemic or famine because we're rich, we're healthy, we're at peace. And so, you know, there's just very little selection. Now the environment is changing very fast. That is what behaviors are adaptive is, is rapidly changing as the [00:31:00] economy grows.
And then added all to that, we have this internal random change process. We have cultural activists who are trying to change culture like you guys are trying to do. Yeah. And they are, they have fights over which way culture goes. And some of them win the fights in southers lose. And the winners are our, our greatest heroes in our world.
Cultural activists who fought for cultural change, but the fights and who wins them aren't very aligned with adaptive pressures. So from the point of view of the system, it's kind of, it's a random drift. It's a, it's a lot random fluctuation. So fast changing environment, a lot of random drift. Not much selection, far less variety.
That's a recipe for going off the road.
Malcolm Collins: It's, it. So the, the, the, the addition to your model that I would add, and we talk about this a lot in the pragmatist guide to crafting religion, is culture should be thought of as broadly being in two categories. First we use with a lot of data to argue historically that culture should largely be thought of as religious groups.
Like that's a, [00:32:00] the easiest. Historically, they're mostly religions and that they mostly grew not through conversions, but by affecting fertility rates of populations. They literally enhanced the biological fitness of their host. And that in modern times we've had cultural. Parasites evolved that were not that common in evolutionary history.
Essentially in the same way that you can get para like super bugs in hospitals where you have a bunch of immunocompromised people all next to each other. If you have a bunch of people outside of an environment that is anything like the environment, their culture evolved in, in like city, you're gonna get the environment of mees, which realize that they can grow faster by motivating a person to almost like a.
Virus infecting an ant. Ignore your own reproduction. Just replicate the meme. Just replicate the meme. Just replicate the meme. And we argue that this is what the urban monoculture is. So we've got sort of a double whammy here, which is what you pointed [00:33:00] out what was very astute which is that the, the cult, the environment that the culture needs to optimize fertility within is entirely different than the environment it evolved within.
But now you also have these. Parasitic attacking. They, they're not even like, it's like you're surrounded by wolves. You're basically sending your child into like a den of wolves every day and hoping they make it back out because the wolves can only survive because of their low fertility rate by taking the children from other cultures.
And, and that this is as bad as the change in modernity.
Robin Hanson: So this, this field of cultural evolution, these experts do find the ways that cultural evolution go wrong. And one of them, as you say, the more you inherit from people other than your DNA parents, the more ways that, you know, things can be inherited, that aren't promoting you know, DNA reproduction.
And that's one of the ways that can go wrong. Another [00:34:00] way it can, it's known to be able to go wrong, is the key idea is if you just copy random previous generation people, it doesn't help. You have to be selective about copy, who you copy to be better than average. Right. And our main simple heuristic is to copy prestige copy status.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Robin Hanson: Mm-hmm. But if the status markers we use are maladaptive, then the whole thing could go maladaptive. So one story is that we got into this habit of using education as a status marker. And so we copy the behavior of the well-educated. But they have lower fertility because it takes longer to be well educated.
So right. That's a driver for lower fertility is to, because the status marker is maladaptive, so status markers can just evolve and become maladaptive, and then it takes a longer process for, you know, the whole society to be selected out to replace it.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, well, I mean, I could argue that education isn't intrinsically maladaptive.
Education is maladaptive in our culture because of one, how we relate to it, and two, because it's infected with the urban monoculture at a much higher rate than any [00:35:00] other cultural center. And the urban monoculture focused on evolutionary pressures just like everything else. It overly focused on the educational centers because the iterations of it that did were better at spreading themselves.
If you have access to young minds, people generally convert from their birth culture between the ages of 13 and 22. And so, if you con have access to them during those age ages, like a lot of people have been with the urban monoculture, like, Hey, trans people lay off kids. Like, why are you being so creepy about this?
I mean, it is because the iterations of the trans culture that weren't, didn't spread and don't exist anymore because you can really only get someone at that very young age range. In addition, they started to focus on tactics that we see as in cults due to cultural evolution. Like convincing people to hate their support network, like their parents, their family their, their ancestors, because it's much easier to do to, to convert them into a different religion if you, if you do this.
But anyway, continue. I'm, I'm interested,
Robin Hanson: so I wanna make a distinction here that like, takes a little work, but it helps us to [00:36:00] think about these things. So think about species in biology, okay? Yeah. There's two levels of evolution that happens in biology with species. There's evolution of features within a species, things that can change within a species, and there's evolution of the features that define a species.
Now, when you have large habitats, like a big ocean region, you have fewer bigger species and they have faster evolution of. Features that can vary within a species, 'cause the species is bigger and innovations can appear anywhere and spread to the whole rest. Yeah. But you have less innovation of the features that define a species.
'cause there aren't so many and a fragmented habitat like a river, a rainforest or, or a coral reef. You have lots of little habitats and so you have lots of small species and that makes less evolution within the species, but better evolution of the species of the features that define a species. Now it turns out life on earth today, it ha came more from the fragmented places, which means that evolution of the features that define a species [00:37:00] actually matters more than the evolution of the features that can vary within a species.
Surprisingly interesting. The same, the same thing. Homes for corporate cultures. So corporations, you know, some innovations can spread within a company and then the bigger the company is, the better you can evolve those iterations and many kinds of things that can be patented are of that form. So bigger companies have more patents.
And so an industry that has a fewer, bigger firms is better at patenting and producing the innovations that can vary within a firm. But industries that are more fragmented, that have more smaller firms, are more innovative overall. Ah, because they can better innovate in the corporate culture features that are, that define the whole corporation, that you need a whole new corporation to experiment with those.
And so the same thing should happen with macro cultures. And you see many people are fooled by the fact that we have record economic growth today, say, but that's because when we merged the entire world into one big [00:38:00] monoculture, we have great evolution of the things that can vary within the monoculture mm-hmm.
Like technology and business practices. So we, those are going gangbusters. We have record ever rates of innovation in business practices and, and technology. But at the expense of. Much weaker or even regressive evolution of the features that are shared across the culture, like the ones we were going through.
Hmm. The major cultural features that are causing fertility Kline are the kind that it's hard for a small group to deviate from the world consensus on, if
Simone Collins: that's really, they say you don't
Robin Hanson: wanna value education, but the world does. You just get less education. But now the world disrespects you and you suffer.
You can't just make a group of people who all say, we don't care about education, we're just gonna care about each other. That, that's hard to make.
Malcolm Collins: That's interesting. Yes. So if you were going to craft a culture to combat this, what features would it
Robin Hanson: have? Well, I like the analogy of you're [00:39:00] on a ship heading to an iceberg, you've got two choices.
You turn the whole ship or you get off on icebergs. That's not a iceberg off on light. Sorry, the iceberg sense it. So that's this. So. If you are mixed in with our global culture, you need to help us change the whole global culture in order for us to not fall off the cliff, hit the iceberg, or you need to form a new subculture that's insular enough to actually deviate from the dominant culture.
And that's hard. So that's, for example, what the Amur Retta have succeeded in doing, which is really amazing. They've created not only insular, they've created subcultures not only have high fertility in double every 20 years, they're insular enough to be able to resist the outside influence. And that's in part by foregoing many kinds of technology and contact.
And that's a really high bar. So if you have a small, if you have a small group of people say, we wanna make a new subculture here. The, the key question as, as I've [00:40:00] talked to you guys about before is how insular do you think you can actually be?
Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I think that it is possible, and this is, this is a hypothesis that it is possible to craft a culture that can interact with technology and mainstream culture and not deconvert.
And if anyone can do this that person owns the future because that person is gonna have automated drone sworn and everyone else is gonna have AKs.
Robin Hanson: So like the Amish do use technology, they just resist the technology that would put 'em in cultural context. So they have like, yeah, they switch to small businesses.
They use machines in their small businesses. They use, you know, tractors, they use trucks, they use, you know, all sorts of machines that don't threaten to give them cultural influence.
Simone Collins: Some, some do, some do not. Not all. But yeah.
Robin Hanson: Right. So interestingly, like farm, the Amish were farmers up until a generation ago, and then the last generation they made the switch to be mainly rural small business, which is quite a substantial change.
And it does risk their in ancillary infertility, [00:41:00] but they seem to be making a go of it. Yeah.
Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm concerned about them. I, I've read that from some people who've had more exposure to the communities than we have, that those who are adopting more technology are also seeing a fall off in the stability of their communities, their marriages, their, their birth rates, actually.
Well, that's the risk
Malcolm Collins: to worry about. Yes. There was a great study on this Simone that looked at Pennsylvania Dutch speakers, the Uhhuh in the US Uhhuh, and then whether or not they had cell phones. And if they had cell phones, they had fairly low fertility rates. And if they didn't, they had fairly high fertility rates.
Mm-hmm. So, like their community isn't that resistant to, to cultural mimetic viruses.
Robin Hanson: So I watched some videos on like Hutter writes and yeah. One of the stories you see over and over is that like if you want a local doctor, then he has to be sent off to a medical school and then when he comes back he's less likely to stay.
Simone Collins: Ah. And
Robin Hanson: so I, I think that's really the main reason they are pacifist. They just don't want their young men to go off and mix with other young men in the [00:42:00] military. I think when they're big enough to have their own military units, they'll be fine
Malcolm Collins: point. I mean, even from a cultural evolution perspective, it would be the iterations of the Anaba traditions that weren't pacifist had their men interact with other men in militaries and disappeared.
Right. I had never thought why so many of them were. That makes,
Simone Collins: so it's almost like the same as avoiding university, you're saying? Yes. Right. Like
Robin Hanson: avoiding being a medical student. So they actually have trouble getting their own doctors. They were gonna go to a non Amish doctor, or how to write doctor, because it's hard to have their own doctors 'cause to send their own boys off to medical school and get them to actually come back and stay is a hard trick.
Simone Collins: Okay, that makes sense. Wow. Okay. That's super interesting. That's really
Robin Hanson: clever. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But it shows you what you're up against here. Yeah. Trying to have a small subculture, let's call it cults. The world actually could use more cults and let's just call it cults. It
Simone Collins: really could. Yeah.
Robin Hanson: But it's hard to maintain a cult.
Most small colts just die and don't last very long. Yeah. And the hard part here, if you wanna do the lifeboat strategy as opposed to turn the ship, [00:43:00] you've gotta find a way to, you know, keep the boat, the lifeboat intact and away from the ship. Mm-hmm. And that's, that's quite a challenge.
Malcolm Collins: I might push back against the concept.
A lot of people are like, oh, you know, you guys are starting your own weird religion or whatever like that. The most of those die I'd actually argue, if you look historically, that's not really true. Most religions are, if you look at like, cults, cults, if they were founded for like personal gain or something like that, most of them die.
But the ones that were not founded by per for personal gain. Right. Actually fairly frequently or persistent. There is not a, unless now there's a few, unless it's here, unless they were celibate. There's that, yes, of course. Or they were founded around a. A, a fad that was temporarily locked. So these are often tied to like eating habits and stuff like that.
Robin Hanson: There's a literature that I recall on looks at communes in the United States from the 18 hundreds. Yeah. And how they varied in the. Intensity of the [00:44:00] religions that were organized around them. Articles,
Simone Collins: great
Robin Hanson: one, right? High Ask Religions lasted longer than low Ask religions.
Simone Collins: There you go.
Robin Hanson: Yeah. And so basically don't be afraid to do a strong ask in terms of what the culture, culture is asking of its participants, because that's, in fact, high asks, will make you people more stay with religion if
Simone Collins: Yeah.
In, in the private guide to crafting religion, we compare them from like hard to soft to super soft cultures with hard cul cultures, making the most asks, doing the most othering, but also having the most cultural amenities that are really beneficial because often the, the hardness of these cultures is accompanied by really helpful amenities.
Like okay, an ask might be a lot of fasting days, but those fasting days help you develop inhibitory control. And there are other health benefits as well. A big ask might be, well you have to communi, you have to contribute all these things to community, but you may be contributing childcare to families that enables 'em to have more kids, which is a huge amenity for them.
And they wouldn't wanna leave that 'cause they need the childcare. So. That there's that, that weird [00:45:00] correlation that also the, the, the more weird you are in your culture. We really like this concept of othering as, as I think, you know, because we like our weird names and weird dress and weird behavior because it stops you, it makes you see yourself as distinct from mainstream culture and have some pride in that.
It also creates
Malcolm Collins: negative emotional moments with mainstream culture. Like people are like, oh, you name your kids weird things. Won't they be mocked in school? And I'm like, that's a good thing. You want them to dislike the urban monoculture. Yeah.
Robin Hanson: So I did some surveys a while ago and, and had some conversations with some people who are in a multicultural and, and I think.
People agreed with the following description. A lot of people in our world like the idea of multiculturalism when they think of it as different foods and dress and holidays and mist and you know, in ways you build your houses. They love that kind of multiculturalism and different TV shows different, you know?
Yeah. Different song genres, right? Yeah. When you talk about multiculturalism as having deep values of the sort we talked about that are driving fertility change like gender [00:46:00] equality or war or democracy, people hate the idea of that kind of multiculturalism. Yeah. They don't want that kind. They're particularly against it.
So that's, you know, the kind of the obstacle here the world is so. Into shallow multiculturalism and really aggressively against deep multiculturalism. So like, think about covid. There were one or two nations in the world that deviated from the world consensus about how to do covid. And everybody else in the world was like, heretics terrible.
Like, you know, string 'em up. How do we allow, how do we dare allow Sweden to have a different covid policy? Everybody else. Because, you know, oh, that
Malcolm Collins: was such a, a thing. Yeah, I, I know I love this, but we, we have a, a theory on this. So if you look at the urban monoculture, which is I think is what's driving this view of multiculturalism they will say above all else, like, multiculturalism is good.
And then I'm like, okay, so like in Africa, Africa are, are you okay with their like marriage structure? Is it like, no, their gender roles are all wrong. Are you okay with their sexuality? No. No, that's all wrong. Are you okay with the way they view morality? No, that's all wrong. Are you okay with [00:47:00] the way they view religion?
Oh, well, that's all wrong. And what I realized after a while, and I always was like, why, why even does diversity have value if everyone's secretly the same? Like it, it wouldn't, what they mean by valuing diversity is that they value a diversity in victims. They value a diversity in people that they convert to their imperialistic cultural practices.
And not in maintaining actual diversity, because the odd thing about the ever monoculture is it lets you superficially identify as like a Muslim or a Christian, but you can't have Muslim or Christian views about like gay people. You can't have Muslim or Christian views about like a wife's role in the family.
So yeah, so in
Robin Hanson: the long run we have. The success that if we eventually spread across the stars, the distances will ensure cultural diversity. That is, thank goodness mm-hmm. That the long delays will in fact mean that different places have different cultures and they just can't stop that. But if that's several centuries away, the question is how can we manage between [00:48:00] now and then, because in the next time we will have, again, the high rates of communication, trade, talk trade, you know, travel are just, seem like those costs are not gonna go way up anymore.
And so you have to artificially limit them if you're going to. Mm-hmm. And most people really enjoy all the, you know, connection with the world that we have. So even if I try to imagine asking a few friends to like, can we, you and I just like, isolate ourselves and live on an island and not talk to anybody else.
Yeah. That's gonna, that's gonna work.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Now we, we even have so many friends who've been like, Hey, let's all just like move to this one place and build a community together. And people have even started that. They've purchased property and they can't get anyone to move out. Or people are like, ah, you know, let's, ah, I don't really feel like it.
Malcolm Collins: I'm sure you've seen this a hundred times. People try to start communions.
Robin Hanson: I, I actually joined a cult when I was a tween, so I have a best emotional inside view of, of cults. Did they live together? So it [00:49:00] was a religion. I was in San Diego and it was a local Pentecostal religious cult. And I sort of attended their meetings and they had meetings at group houses, and they had a, some compound in Iowa they never went to, but basically Oh,
Simone Collins: wow.
Robin Hanson: Basically, I, I could feel emotionally what it was like to be in a cult, and I can see the appeal. So I think ever since then, I, I understand at a visceral level what it, what the appeal is.
Simone Collins: Well, what was it that drew you in? I mean, especially as a, a teen boy tween. Really Tween boy. Yeah.
Robin Hanson: Right. Well, the idea was just they included you.
They loved you, they wanted the best for you, and they were gonna, you know, help you if they could. That sense of belonging and mutual support was very attractive. And then of course, they had a mission and they had a, a, a reason they were special and that, that motivated them and gave, gave them. Meaning, and that's all very attractive even to like, you know, a 12-year-old me who grew up in our shared culture, but we don't offer that so much to most people.[00:50:00]
Simone Collins: Yeah, fair enough. And that was just
Robin Hanson: appealing. But you know, after I, I don't know, six months or a year, my parents said, you can't go there anymore. We don't like them. And I just, okay, fine. So I didn't fight my parents or rebel too much. I'm, I'm, but I, but basically I still remember what it felt like. And that's wild.
It is a strong appeal, but you can see most people just y the very idea of what I'm saying for most people goes That sounds pretty icky. Yeah. And that's part of the modern culture is that, is to disapprove of that.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. You talk about the well and just simultaneously love bomb you with their tactics and if you join their pro process.
Robin Hanson: So interestingly, history is that roughly a century, a century and a half ago, cultural elites in our societies. Realized consciously that they had drifted away from some more stable culture that they had come from, and they then called themselves modernists and they said they were in a modern era. What they meant by that literally was.
The one thing we're sure of is we don't want to go [00:51:00] back to the culture of a century ago that our grandparents had. That's clearly what we don't want. We wanna go somewhere new, we don't know where that is, and we're gonna explore the space of possible writing styles and paintings and architecture and songs and everything else.
And they celebrated this search for something new, but they were, they knew they were uncured. And that was part of their description of, we don't know what we really value here. And then in the middle of the 20th century, world War I, Andi became a moral anchor for a lot of the world. That was the one thing they decided, they knew we are anti-Nazi.
We don't know what else, but we know we're we're American.
Simone Collins: And then it became capitalism. And then, well, it
Robin Hanson: was antis, sexism, anti-racism, and you know, lots of things like there, but also anti-communism or anti-socialist. Right? Yeah. But still, a lot of our world is still modernist in the sense that we value this idea that we are just moving in the space of possible cultures.
And we're not saying still. And that's, that's what gives a lot of energy to cultural activism. Activism is this idea that. Our current culture couldn't possibly be the right one. Surely we need to like [00:52:00] find a new one to move to because that's who we're, where they, they wanderers in the space and cultures.
Simone Collins: I feel like that even might've started with deism. And then you sort of see this like with a lot of the founding fathers being Deists, if I'm not completely misremembering, everything terribly right? And they kind of had this vision and, and it kind of also dovetailed with the development of American democracy, representative democracy.
But it just never, the follow through just fell apart and it was sort of allowed to degrade. And it was never really, it never really turned into the thing. It was roughly in some fever dream meant to be. I would argue that what Malcolm is trying to create with techno puritanism is, is very much driven by that.
It's like this idea of the belief in an Abrahamic Christian Judeo God, but just technically, scientifically correct. That like Malcolm's trying to pick up where the Deists left off, even from a governance perspective of like, let's also try to create the most optimal. Governance format. I just think that it's really hard to [00:53:00] do these things on a societal and especially collaborative level because what, what you saw with the founding fathers is like a couple of great minds came together.
You know, you had a lot of people sort of like, like these battling substack with the Federalist papers and all these like thought leaders being like, oh, I think this and I think this, and they're all, they're talking about it. It's just that there wasn't this ability to take all these threads and knit them together.
And I, I still don't know how that is going to happen, but it could be that in the face of demographic collapse and the civilizational collapse that we see as a result of a fumbled demographic collapse, you know, like countries basically not being able to handle their. Crumbling infrastructure and, and, and social systems that we will see city states that do have enough of a coherent narrative and grip of what they want their deism or like religion or culture to be that they can actually pull it off and build a city upon a hill that actually sticks.
I don't know,
Robin Hanson: I think a lot will have to be some level of believing in things that it's just not really fashionable [00:54:00] anymore.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I feel like we've, there was certainly this era for the past decade or so where. Everyone had to be ironic because to be too earnest was seen as cringe.
I feel like we've come into a new era where earnestness gets a premium and people are getting social credit for that, even when it is very cringe. So maybe now is time for faith. Now is now is our comeback.
Robin Hanson: So I wanna summarize what I've been arguing here because I see a new argument. So I set fertility is being caused by a number of cultural trends and that plausibly is caused by this larger cultural process of drift away from what was used to be adaptive culture.
And that's a really hard problem to fix. We can understand in terms of these parameters, but it's really hard to change these parameters. One would be add more cultural variety and I guess that's the one you're pursuing. Like can you make just separate insular or subcultures and, and produce more variety that way?
I definitely hope you succeed, but it does seem like [00:55:00] a, a difficult thing to do. The other solutions we can try to think of to change these other parameters are also just big asks and difficult. So my, my overall conclusion is we actually don't know how to solve this problem and plausible if we don't solve this problem, our civilization just does decline until if yay come lowest level where something else rises again.
And that's happened many times before. So we shouldn't think we're that special that it can't happen to us. We should hope to try to prevent it and see what we can do instead. And I, you know, I wish you all the luck in producing some insular subculture that can rise like the Amish and Herre are doing, and replace the current culture and.
Look in some sense if some of these, if a proven successful culture would be willing to take on, you know, converts I might consider converting. 'cause I think I don't want to fall down with the world culture and collapse. I wanna be part of something that's rising, even if I have to compromise for it, you know, tell me what the compromises I have to make, [00:56:00] but they're not really open to converts.
That's part of a wise choice they have. Lemme
Malcolm Collins: say this is, I would argue that the last time this happened, when they had the collapse last time, there was the successful new culture. And it's what today we call Christians. Yes. And it was just like cult. Everyone thought of them as like a cult until they got too big to call them names.
And they, they had like crazy ideas. They, they would feed themselves to lions, like, come on. Yeah. Like, that's a cult by modern standards. And they'd feed, they took the babies, other people left for exposure to the animals. And they took and raised them. Yeah. Like, they were weird, crazy people. We, we often, one of the, the lions, I love his tactics he complained that Jews wouldn't expose babies.
And I'm like, what a, what an inversion of blood libel there. Like these horrible Jews, they don't expose babies. But you, you know, there was a cult that, that, that, that came outta Judaism and that took over the world. And that I think when we look at what [00:57:00] does the group that's gonna replace the urban monoculture look like, we should look at what were the ways that the early Christians were different.
And it wasn't like the Amish or something. You basically had a big competition between the Christians and the, the military mystery cults. And I think that that's what we're gonna have within our time. The mystery cults are the people who are like, let's go back to tradition. And the, the Christians are the people who are like, no, here's this new thing.
Let's like meet and innovate.
Robin Hanson: I don't know how to predict what's, who's gonna win, but I can look, the, the insular fertile subcultures have a number of interesting features in common, at least today. They're all heavily religious. They're also very decentralized. I think that's an important thing to notice.
They each have governance of a scale of roughly a hundred people, and there's no higher governance that can control. Yeah. And I think that's, that protects them against some of them making mistakes. Say the, the Mormons did not do that. They had more centralized governments. And then when the centralized governments make a mistake, it takes 'em all down.
So, they're also you know, pacifist, which I think is keeping them insular. Yeah. They're also relatively [00:58:00] low tech. They don't let their kids go off and learn very specialized tech. That means they have to go to some separate school to learn it. And they're very egalitarian, honestly. And you know, they, they, they put that the people, they don't wear extra fan, the higher status.
People don't wear extra fancy clothes or things like that. And I think that also is, you know, so just looking at the correlation it seems like. Don't deviate too far from what's working, make your own special formula, but like take most of the stuff that seems to be working and try to just innovate in a few areas.
That would be my main re my main recommendation for all innovation is that there's a pile of innovators who have to innovate on every dimension. And That's crazy. So I was, I was a part of a group called Zou a long time ago, and there were all these very creative people who were inventing the worldwide web and then they had to be creative about everything and that just took 'em down.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. I remember that was a Silicon Valley group, right? Yeah. Silicon Valley Zou.
Robin Hanson: Like
Malcolm Collins: was it like a, a, a group house?
Robin Hanson: Well, at one point they might've [00:59:00] was a company to make the worldwide web. It was before the worldwide web. This was the late 1980s. Oh. Worldwide Web showed up like in the 90, you know, 93, and they were trying to create an alternative version of the worldwide web.
And I went off to Silicon Valley to hang out and be with them in 84. And, but they just had to be creative about everything. And later on I've gone back to Silicon Valley. See, see some other groups like that. They, they just, they're so creative, have so many ideas that they wanna just try new ideas on all the different aspects of their organizations.
And if you think about it, that's just not gonna work.
Simone Collins: Yeah. The follow through is, is very important. Yeah.
Robin Hanson: Well you need to pick your few best ideas to for change and package that with conservative choices on the other dimensions.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Commit then and follow through
Robin Hanson: and then that gives you your best shot.
You might, you know, still may still be a long shot, but your best shot for any idea is to package it with conservative parameters on all the other per on the other dimensions you have. So I say that's what I suggest for you. Choose your key radical things but then go along with the way the Amish or red 'em do it on the [01:00:00] other ones.
Don't deviate too far, like be pacifist perhaps.
Malcolm Collins: Makes sense. Well, we won't be pacifist. No, I I I think we need to. I mean, I, I think if you go the pacifist route, when the P day Roman of the urban Monoculture falls, you get wiped out.
Robin Hanson: Well, you
Malcolm Collins: have
Robin Hanson: to be ready to switch.
Malcolm Collins: And you're big enough that armed can feel military, armed
Simone Collins: pacifists sovereign armed pacifists is the key.
I guess. Don't send out your people. No, no outsourcing, no integrating. That's
Malcolm Collins: an interesting concept is, is defensive pacifism. I've never heard of it before, but I think it's, it's this, it's a clever one,
Simone Collins: but I just never thought about what you pointed out, Robin, that it was like medical school or military.
This is probably gonna cause some problems. That is, that is so fascinating. It has
Malcolm Collins: been wonderful to have you on.
Simone Collins: Yes. Thank you so much
Malcolm Collins: again. You, every time
Simone Collins: you tackle something, it's so brilliant. And we were just talking about this like, it's very, it's you, people like you who come across with these theories that are not only like cross disciplinary all over the place, but like memeable and [01:01:00] understandable are so rare.
So it's, it's a privilege. And please keep going. Keep keep coming up with new stuff.
Robin Hanson: Alright, well thank you. I'm honored and till we talk again, I guess.
Simone Collins: Great. Yes. Have a good one. Looking forward to it. Yeah. Thank you so much. Okay.

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Ancient Roman Pronatalism: The Last Time We Failed to Solve Fertility Collapse
9 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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 soundbite
Malcolm 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 wives
Malcolm 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 cat
Simone Collins: is a lot more catchy.
Malcolm Collins: I just, I just need to just have quotes from him like in my back pocket to freak people out. You've been mindful about the preservation of our race.
I really appreciate that. And, you know, some others have not. Gosh,
August. He really,
Simone Collins: really, I mean, he was a very smart, successful man on many fronts. This is making me doubt his competence. Maybe this was late stage Augustus, you know, like, yeah. Ugh,
Malcolm Collins: Augustus on Childlessness. Oh boy. According to dio, [00:04:00] Cassius Augustus criticized Romans for failing to reproduce even when it was easier for them in earlier times.
Quote. Mm-hmm. How wrathful would the Romans who were Romulus followers be after they had gotten children even by their enemies wives. You will not beget them. Even of women who are citizens. Oh, oh my. This guy, goodness.
Simone Collins: This guy, the way he about women, he's like, baby, get children by grape. You won't
Malcolm Collins: even do it with your own wife.
Like what a like on the pedestal. Griping your enemy's wives where he is down here?
Simone Collins: Not very you know, I, I'm seeing the problem here. He, he had just two kids. He himself was a reproductive failure.
Malcolm Collins: Surviv kids. Yeah. Five kids.
Simone Collins: Yeah. But I get it.
Malcolm Collins: But yeah, he was below repopulation rate. Yeah.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: So yeah, I know he bad guy.
I keep in mind a lot of people get the strong about repopulation, right? They think that 2.1 is about [00:05:00] people dying at different rates. It's not, it's about differences in sex when people are born you know, you get more males than females born. And so, that's, that's why. Nothing else. So it, it doesn't account for that.
So if he had his other kids die, he really was below repopulation rate in terms of his own fertility. Which I think shows, you know, even if the emperor can't, can't make it happen.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Well, I mean, he wasn't a believer, he was not himself a believer. Trump a lot of kids. JD Vance, three kids like,
Malcolm Collins: well, if I was his wife, I would not maybe be super interested in Procreating was a guy who's like, oh, ancestors, they just got a.
Great. Their way to reproduction. Really? And we, ah, can't even motivate it with our wives. Yeah. The duty of it. I mean, I know our wives are terrible, but the duty of it all. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Wow. Wow. So Augustus introduced key legislation. Vote did fed him up though. What?
Simone Collins: Like sexually, she kind of hooked him up, didn't she?
Who hooked him up remembering this Augustus's wife
Malcolm Collins: hooked him up with other people.
Simone Collins: [00:06:00] Yeah. Maybe am I remembering this wrong? I, I, I, I've like read a couple of his biographies, but like back in like 2018, so it's been a long time.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, I did in post if she did. Yeah.
I couldn't find any evidence of this when I asked ai.
Malcolm Collins: But, but I love that you're the type of history obsessed perv who would know that, but you would like,
Simone Collins: well, you would think if that were the case, he'd be a little more charitable, you know, if she was a wingwoman and yet he's still, you know.
That that's a, that would be in bird culture.
Malcolm Collins: I know that his sister Right. Was the one who talked about using fertility being pregnant as contraception.
Simone Collins: Oh. 'cause her ship was carrying a load.
Malcolm Collins: I, yeah, I know. To only you know, take the sailors when the ship was carrying a load.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: All right. It works.
Clever.
Simone Collins: Never heard that one before.
Malcolm Collins: Clever girl. Underrated.
Simone Collins: Underrated.
Malcolm Collins: Yes. All right. Augustus introduced key legislation to promote marriage and procreation, particularly among the upper classes. Lex, Julia Day Es Orio. 18th BC the purpose [00:07:00] was to encourage marriage among Roman citizens, especially the upper classes, the requirements.
Men over 25 and women over 20 were expected to marry unmarried individuals celibate. I guess it means like celibates faced restrictions on inheritance and detailed below childless married couples or be, were also penalized though less severely. And I'm, I'm totally actually okay with.
Legislation like that Lex Popeye puppet nine ad I mean, if you're not s if you're not paying to the future of the debt that you owe in the past, then it makes sense that you bear some additional costs.
Simone Collins: Pay yourself.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You pay it yourself. Yeah. And I think it actually will become normalized around the world by the time we die.
It's assuming we lived for another 40, 50 years.
Simone Collins: Oh, I don't think so. Because you can only do that when you know. That that person's like, it's unfair if a person produces children who then are net welfare drains. So I feel like the, the Robin Hansen tax bond thing would have to be in there a little bit more.
Well, yeah.
Malcolm Collins: What you might do is, is they have [00:08:00] to produce children that are. No, I don't think so. I think even just like the, the, the harsh tax for not being married is good. 'cause we know that a lot of the child list thing is just people aren't getting married fast enough. Or, or, or enough,
Simone Collins: yeah. And when you're not married, you know, your, your kid is at a disadvantage too.
I mean, I imagine that there is a correlation. No, no, but the point
Malcolm Collins: here being is, is even was in his new laws. Unmarried people paid a very big fine. Married people without kids, paid a smaller fine, and then people whiz kids didn't pay a fine at all. Oh. And so it's creating an, it is like a, a, a graded incentive with the first part of the grade being, getting married.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: And I think that if you implemented a prenatal list policy that should be the first part of the grading system, not the first kid you have. Sure. Yeah. Okay. But yeah. And then Lex Papai Papa nine Ad Purpose Strengthen the Lex Julia by refining penalties and adding incentives for having children.
Requirements reinforce the expectation of marriage within the same age [00:09:00] ranges. So it also, uh mm created more penalty for people who married people who are much younger than them, which
Simone Collins: that's so good. I wonder if they intuitively or even technically knew that there were. Lower odds of healthy children when you had, yeah.
It's really
Malcolm Collins: bad for older men to marry younger women from a genetic perspective. Yeah. Like you shouldn't do that. That shouldn't be your going plan.
Simone Collins: Or if you plan on doing that, at least freeze your sperm guys.
Malcolm Collins: Guys penalties. Further restricted inheritance for unmarried and childless. See below incentives.
Parents with three or more children gain privileges such as for men, faster advancement in political careers for women. Legal independence Under the Is Truman Lido. Oh, right. Of three children. So this basically meant that you could all right, so hold on. This requires some explanation of Roman law.
Women couldn't own property themselves. Mm-hmm. In, in Rome. Mm-hmm. So like, if you were an unmarried woman, you often couldn't even inherit your father's estate. And if, but if you kids. But if you had at least three kids, you could.
Simone Collins: Hey, that's great. Okay. Because I [00:10:00] know one of the things discussed in the spread of, of Christianity was that, I mean, Christianity spread a lot 'cause women finally were treated with some respect.
Their children weren't killed when they weren't desired or seen as fit enough. They, they loved that. And I, and this one thing did point out the
Malcolm Collins: tactic. One of the things that he complained about, the Jews t. Tus.
Simone Collins: Oh, okay.
Malcolm Collins: Complained about the Jews. He said when he was describing all the horrifying things that Jews do alongside, you know, circumcisions and their demonic practices, he's like, they, they even prevent the exposure of children.
Simone Collins: Oh, how dare they not? Kill babies
Malcolm Collins: is not drown Babies. Those, these monstrous, these Jewish monsters, everybody knows you just drown. Ba I love, there's like a complete inversion of of, of blood libel, of this belief that, that Jews are evil because they're like killing babies. Yeah. It's Jews are evil because they're not killing their babies.
That is,
Simone Collins: Yeah, man, like you can't win as a Jew, can you? Oh, you're not killing the, no, [00:11:00] now you're killing the baby. You're whatever with the babies. It's when,
Malcolm Collins: when killing babies was normal to you, who were doing the opposite.
Speaker 11: I'll take care of this. Hey Clara, there's a Jew outside, trying to poison a well! Ah! Oh my God! Get away from that well, Hebrew! What? I'm putting in water purification tablets. Spanky tricked me!
Malcolm Collins: And it wasn't even a conspiracy with tus. I love it. I love it. I can imagine somebody being like, well, I don't know.
You know, this seems like an antisemitic conspiracy. Surely Jews expose some of their babies. You just mean they expose them at a lower rate. Right? And it's like, no, they actually like never do this.
Simone Collins: I guess you could say that they, they expose their foreskins to trash cans. If they're male,
Malcolm Collins: they expose their, what?
Simone Collins: I don't understand. Something's not making it out. Right. Foreskins. The foreskins. There's, there's something that's being
Malcolm Collins: Oh,
Simone Collins: yeah. But yeah. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Anyway so, so, and then the faster advancement in political careers, I think is what we're gonna begin to see in the ccp. I, I, I assume it's already like a shadow a thing.
Mm-hmm. Is that you're not [00:12:00] gonna be promoted quickly in the CCP if you don't have lots of kids. Yeah. I think this only makes sense in the totalitarian states that are likely gonna pro replace our existing democracies. If you want to learn more about that, you can watch our recent video on why demographic apps make monarchy inevitable.
The gist being is that as elderly make a larger and larger, specifically the elderly that are living off of the system. Become a majority population within a country, they would never vote themselves less incentives, which eventually collapses the state. Yeah. Because the majority of the population is living off of the state and the majority of the population controls who's elected president.
And so, the state just ends up collapsing. Uh uh, and, and then you need, you need a system. You that doesn't favor the majority of view. Yeah. And those you know, in, in a nascent state maybe the Charter Cities end up taking off in one of, like our governance system that was covered in the Guardian ends up becoming a dominant governance system, but it's just as likely that we end up in monarchies or, or dictatorships, and it's just important that we're on the right side and having [00:13:00] lots of kids will likely get you there.
So funny, we're heading directly towards the Handmaid's Tale outcome. And the, the progressives are taking us there. They hand and foot skipping into that feature. They're hot for it.
Simone Collins: Malcolm, I don't know what else to say. Like they
Malcolm Collins: are hot for it. See our video on that?
Simone Collins: We don't want it. They seem to be like, oh, no.
Oh, hot conservative man. Please don't bere me in front of a jealous upper class woman who you just prefer me to and need me so much more, and she just has to fume that. Your desire for me is so, oh my God. Okay. I can't, I'm gonna vomit.
Malcolm Collins: What it's, it's gross. It's gross. And then they cosplay in public and, and do their whole little,
The Handmaid's Tale costume is turning into the new go-to protest attire for women.
Malcolm Collins: No, I
Simone Collins: don't wanna kink shame.
I just, mm. But like, it, it bothers me. 'cause yeah, there's children that heard, I keep trying to seek out evidence that it's not [00:14:00] true and that I keep seeing evidence that like
Malcolm Collins: we go over in the episode, just like a preponderance of statistical evidence that it's true.
You know, it doesn't matter what our faces look like, as long as we're fertile
You are bad. Yeah, but not too bad. Otherwise you get gals, guess what I did last night? Ate your rations in silence and cried into your straw bed.
Yes. Classically. Well, I had sex with a married couple. Oh, so did I. Who would've guessed we'd be having three ways in our thirties?
Malcolm Collins: Anyway, property inheritance restrictions.
So I wanted to know more about this. I'm like reading, okay, there's restrictions. Describe right. The laws impose significant limits on inheritance rights for unmarried and childless. Okay. Using property as a tool to enforce compliance, here's how much inheritance was restricted for unmarried Saba restriction.
Unmarried individuals were generally prohibited from [00:15:00] inheriting. Under wills except from close relatives, eg. Parents or siblings. Really Interesting. So they could still inherit from their parents or siblings, like if it's like really like felt unjust that they weren't inheriting. Sure. But other than that you couldn't get like a, I really liked this guy, or I consider him like a son to me.
Mm-hmm. Or you know, et cetera. You couldn't inherit from them.
Simone Collins: Yeah. So, you know, hypocrite, Octavian,
Malcolm Collins: yes.
Simone Collins: He did
Malcolm Collins: inherit from,
Simone Collins: I'm really like. We named our son Octavian. I love this guy, but I'm, I'm getting, I'm just my patience right now. No, Octavian is such
Malcolm Collins: a dope character in history.
You wish to be console. It's a vanity. I know, but I think I deserve it and it would please my men.
You are 19. You're too young to be a senator. Leave alone. Cons, my dear boy. You have no experience. You have no connections. He has an army. We'll see if it's possible. The, if you were to be [00:16:00] counsel. You must promise to be guided by my council. It is an office of high complexity, and I'm well aware of my inexperience. I will not utter a word without your advice, your consent.
Malcolm Collins: If you have not seen the, he's just, this
Simone Collins: is his one failing.
Everyone gets their foibles. I get it.
Malcolm Collins: If you watch this show and you ever take recommendations on things to watch from this show, like, and you're like, oh, you know, sometimes you talk about an anime or whatever. No. But like, number one I'd suggest is the Rome miniseries TV show.
Simone Collins: Oh man.
Malcolm Collins: If you like the show, you will likely really like that TV series.
, the Roman people are not crying out for clean elections. They're crying out for jobs. They're crying out for clean water, for food, for stability and peace. You can do great things for your people. You can help save the republic
Malcolm Collins: I'd say if you like the original Gladiator, you'll like that TV series.
Simone Collins: [00:17:00] Yeah. That's, that's, that's a fair, that's fair.
Malcolm Collins: I actually, I don't think I've ever heard a single person say, I did not like the Rome miniseries.
Simone Collins: Yeah, that's, that's a known, I haven't, but also I haven't found that many people who watched it.
But I think what's interesting here, and this is just. What he missed clearly, and this just shows up in his statements. It, it shows up in the legislation largely that statutory, you know, money related stuff, it's just not enough to move the needle. You have to change the culture because when you contrast these Roman birth rates with early Christian birth rates, like, it just, it's, it's super clear.
In this historical case, at least though we've pointed out plenty of other contemporary examples of this, that. For trying to manipulate people using money or other carrots and sticks just isn't
Malcolm Collins: so, yeah. For, for more on this, by the way, you can see our video was early [00:18:00] Christianity. Really more moral.
It goes over why early Christian birth rates were so much higher and presented argument that Christianity became the dominant religion. Not through conversions primarily, but just through having a higher survival and birth rate.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: But to keep going here. Mechanism, if a tester left property to an unmarried person that bequest became CaTECH forfeit to the state or to relatives with children.
So even if, if you wanted to give your property to someone, it would automatically then go to the state or to other relatives who had children who put placed claim on it. Hmm.
Example, if a will be clea 100,000 tices to an unmarried friend, the friend could not inherit the sum, would instead go to the tester's, relatives with children, or if nonexistent the state, four, childless, married, or be.
Restrictions, childless, married couples could inherit, but only half of what was bequeathed to them. The other half became cchu. The following, the above rules. So somebody could try to give you money, but it would, it would go to other people or the state mechanism. The forfeited portion would go to the state or those with [00:19:00] children.
For parents, those with children face no such restrictions and enjoyed full inheritance. Right. Plus additional social and legal benefits if they had three or more children. I actually like the idea of re bringing this in with,
Simone Collins: see, I No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I, I, I really, really, really think it should be progressive income tax breaks num after you have more than two kids.
I what you're, they're doing here, and this is just so dumb. Is they're making it all about inheritance. It's, it's about this like lump sum later and it's clear that now probably past. Past, well, you can
Malcolm Collins: do both. The reason why inheritance is so powerful is because it conceptualizes the purpose of kids of paying to the future, the debt that you owe the past.
If you're not paying to the future, then you do not. Deserve any of the accumulated wealth of the past who did make this sacrifice? Mm. You are cashing in on society basically where everyone, I get
Simone Collins: the poeticness. It's just that people don't,
Malcolm Collins: the poetic poems, people [00:20:00] contextualize and keep in mind it overly motivates people with better to have more kids because they are going to be the people set to inherit the most money.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: So sorry. Not that human gene pools are different. I'm just saying that if you're viewing prenatal from the perspective of likelihood to pay into the tax system and you use that as better, these people are more likely to pay into the tax system more money. If they have more money, you know, sort of writing on that.
And I'd put it at replacement rate. If you're not at replacement rate, you can only inherit half of the estate and the other half goes to the state or relatives who have above replacement kids. Hmm. And if you are above replacement rate, then you can't inherit the full amount.
I note that the other reason why the inheritance law is so much better than Jesse, the progressive tax break, is it?
Puts a strong motivation to get married and have kids earlier. Because there's this risk that, oh, well I was planning to have kids, but my parents died before then.
Simone Collins: Oh, oh yeah. What if they kick the bucket unexpectedly and then you lose everything?
Malcolm Collins: [00:21:00] Yes. So you sort of have this constant gamble every year.
You're not getting married.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: And what it might do, the way I would likely structure it is the money goes into an escrow for like five years after the person dies to give you time to get married, or it goes, if you die before the age of, let's say 23, it goes into escrow until five years after 23 to give you time to find someone to marry.
Simone Collins: Or if you die, when your children are in the age of minority, you should wait until they're at least 25 before the money gets forfeit.
Malcolm Collins: That's exactly what I just said.
Simone Collins: I thought you were saying that applied to. Older people, like if you're, no, I'd say
Malcolm Collins: it applies to older people and people under the age of 23.
So you get five years after you turn 23, so even more than you turn. Oh, okay.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: So 28, it goes into escrow. If you, if you if the parents kick the bucket before 23 and then if it's after 23, you get a five year escrow period to find a spouse.
Simone Collins: Okay. And
Malcolm Collins: start having kids. Hmm. [00:22:00] Size of the fines. Contrary to modern notions of fines, augustus's laws did not impose direct monetary penalties.
EEG fixed some paid as a tax. Instead, the financial consequences were indirect embedded in the loss of inheritance rights. No there is no clear evidence of a specific tax like the Asima celibacy tax under Augustus. Such managers may have emerged later. The can you imagine
Simone Collins: an incel tax today? Right?
An
Malcolm Collins: incel tax to add insult to injury, right? Yeah.
Simone Collins: Seriously.
Malcolm Collins: Effective financial penalty for the unmarried, the complete inability to inherit under most wills could represent a massive loss depending on the size of the estate. For example, losing a hundred thousand sesqui bequest was the equivalent to a fine amount.
And additional disadvantages. Unmarried men were also barred from certain public events and offices indirectly affecting their wealth and status. And keep in mind, for, for Rome, this would've caused the most noble families to have an additional incentive to get married and have kids early. Oh,
Simone Collins: yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Didn't work. Tual reason to do [00:23:00] this. Because you lose basically noble status and privileges if you don't. But it didn't work. It didn't work. Yeah. I know. Literary observations, Roman writers commented on the trend. For example, tus a historic writing in the second century ad noted the quote unquote childless sterilist.
Of the upper classes and linked it to a decline in noble families. Mm-hmm. Now I, I note here when you say it didn't work, I mean, I think we can see why it didn't work. It's because you have this strong counter pressure of women are the worst misogyny we've seen. Misogynistic societies generally really struggle to breed at above repopulation rate when they're in periods of wealth.
Misogyny only really works when you're in periods of you know, economic disadvantage in, in un economic systems where women can.
Simone Collins: Yeah,
Malcolm Collins: it does. It, it works within like ultra Orthodox Jewish communities. It works within ultra orthodox Muslim communities. You know, they do have higher fertility rates.
They are lessing now and I think that, that, that they may, no, I think they'll always stay. Okay. [00:24:00] So long as they don't engage with technology. Yeah. Adoption practices. The elite frequently resorted to adoption to secure heirs indicating a shortage of biological children. This was a common workaround for families unable to produce enough offspring to continue their lineage.
I. Anecdotes. Here are some specific examples that highlight the versatility struggles of prominent Roman elites, Augustus's family. Despite his push for procreation, Augusta himself had only one biological child, Julia, from his marriage with scr Bonia. Julia had five children, but political turmoil and pars limited their survival and succession.
Augustus adopted his sex, his stepson Tiberius as his heir reflecting how his own family's limited fertility. Yeah. The Claud family kind of
Simone Collins: failure man. She had five. You haven't had five kids yet. Okay. You're on five. But I mean like that, that your succession as you're like sort of starting out this hereditary line.
Is your stepson, who also just didn't turn it to be that great of an em, even though his name is so [00:25:00] good. It's such a shame. I don't know. I'm really frustrated about it. I'm, I'm very, I like Tiberius as a name for kid. I know, but he didn't do a very good job, and that frustrates me. You don't get to ruin a good name like that.
You know what I mean?
Malcolm Collins: The Claud and family the Jen's, Claudia, a powerful aristocratic clan, also faced challenges. Emperor Claudia's 41 to 45 AD had four children across his marriages, but two died young. And his errors were often adopted, or from other lines, showing the difficulty of maintaining direct descent, Cicero's family.
Here's this other thing though, and I think
Simone Collins: this is, this is important. There could also be kind of this un unstated issue of kids kind of hating their parents. Like, I'm not getting, you know. The, oh, yeah. A lot of
Malcolm Collins: Roman emperors had a lot of kids who were like party animals or hated them or whatever. Yeah.
Simone Collins: Or like, who tried, wasn't it Niro, who had these amazing attempts to kill his mother? That was Niro, right? Yes,
Malcolm Collins: he did. Yeah. One of my favorite Niro attempts is he sent his mother, and I actually think I really wanna make a, a comedy that's like, you know, the Catherine the Great show. [00:26:00] Oh yeah. But this is just about me, Nero trying to kill us.
What about Nero? And in his mom. Yeah. 'cause I think it would be absolutely hilarious. One of these shows about like, just horrible people. Everyone around him was the worst conceivable human you could imagine. My favorite example of this is he a boat set his mom's boat out and he, he, he broke it.
Way before it went out, so it would crack when she got out into deeper waters. Yeah. And she was out with a servant who was rowing her, so the boat
Simone Collins: cracks. And yeah, her female servant in an attempt to save herself because she, her, she too was a terrible person. She too was a terrible person. Save me, I'm the emperor's mother, and then I'm the worst.
They killed her, I think, with an or, right? Yeah. They, the, the, the rescuers went out and
Malcolm Collins: beat her to death with an OR because they told to do. But the mother being smarter, sweats to shore idiot, uh uh, servant, save me. Save me. I'm the real [00:27:00] empress. And it's just like, come upends and come upends for everyone being a terrible human garbage people.
Yes. It's so crazy
Simone Collins: garbage. We have like the, there's this also common theme. In Roman dramas of, of inter-family conflict?
Malcolm Collins: No, I don't think they had a good mechanisms for passing culture onto their kids. Yeah. Because likely what happened is, similar to today, mimetic viruses had arose, was in these communities that benefited from turning children against their parents.
And, and many of these viruses used hedonism to pull them out. And so the question is, is how do you motivate. And you know, something that can, that can you know, withstand this.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: So anyway, Cicero's family Marcus Tulia, Cicero, a leading statement in the Republic, died 43 BC, had just two children, Marcus and Tulia.
His son Marcus, had no errors and Tulia died Young ending Cicero's direct line. This reflects a pattern of small families among the elite and give you mind. Many of these people were like. Ultra elite who we're talking about here. Yeah. [00:28:00] Yeah. We have no business having families that are this small. Yeah. These cases illustrate how even the most prominent Romans struggled to reproduce and sustain large families, often relying on adoption or facing lineage extinction.
So I asked it to. Estimate the TFR within the Roman elites? Rough estimate. Scholarly studies suggest TFR among the Roman elite may have been 1.5 to two children per woman. Mm-hmm. Which is below the replacement rate of approximately 2.1 needed to maintain a population without external growth. Mm-hmm.
In contrast, pre-industrial society, typically at TFR have four to six children per woman making the elites. Rate strikingly low influencing factors. High child mortality. Up to 50% of children in ancient room may have died before adulthood, meaning even families with high births might have seen Few survivals.
Yeah, late marriages. Elite men, often married in their thirties. And women though married younger, might have had fewer fertile years. Whiz older. Husbands and this was something that he tried to reduce in the law. But yeah. Marrying, if you're ultimately get the young wife, no, the young women need to go to the young men.
They're the fertile ones. [00:29:00] You are actively being like a problem for society if you're an old man marrying a young,
Simone Collins: yeah. Yeah. And that was another really common problem now that I think to. The historic marriages, it was just all these young women being married often really open,
Malcolm Collins: Contraception and abortion.
Romans likely use herbal contraceptives and abort effects. Though the evidence is sparse, potentially reducing birth rates further. Well, we know they practice exposure of infants that they didn't want, so. Like clearly this, this harmed them. You know, an interesting thing about ancient Greece in Rome, I dunno if you've heard, but the heart symbol that we have today that looks, you know, nothing like a heart came from a, a plant that was likely used for abortions.
Oh my goodness. Or not abortions, but like contraception. Well, some,
Simone Collins: some historic texts. I'll just, I just wanna note. Suggest that some of the abortion techniques utilized by women, probably depending, like if it was like later in, in their pregnancy, were risky, such that maybe you would die in your attempt to poison your unborn child.
So, for example, that the example of that one when Spartan king who [00:30:00] told the, like, dowager queen who'd been, you know, widowed to don't, you know, don't. Don't hurt yourself trying to abort the child, have the child and then it'll expose it. So that implies that some of their methods were dangerous to the mother too, which would explain higher rates of exposure, though they probably had more effective
Malcolm Collins: methods earlier.
The interesting thing about this plant that I'm talking about here that had a leaf shaped like a heart Yeah. Is one, it's funny that they're like, this is how they viewed love, like sex.
Simone Collins: Like the Plan B pill being like the theme of of, of Valentine's Day cards. Right. Well, I mean, is it not, was like the little
Malcolm Collins: smart things, but anyway but this plant was driven to extinction.
We don't, oh my God, we don't have it in these regions anymore. That's how much they love their, their, you know, amazing. But I can totally see something used for like, anytime you see it, you're like, oh, I'm gonna take some of that. Yeah. Be prepared nutri. Be prepared. So why were birth rates so low?
Several socioeconomic lifestyle choices. The elites prioritize political career as well and [00:31:00] status over raising large families. Elite women may have limited pregnancies to preserve their health or social roles, economic costs, raising children in the upper classes with expensive or acquiring education, dowries and upkeep of social standing, which may the classic issue today.
Simone Collins: Yeah, exactly
Malcolm Collins: what we're dealing with today. Mm-hmm. And, which is why I've said you've got to learn to lower the cost both temporarily and in terms of effort of having kids. Yeah. And social pressures. The competitive nature of Roman politics and the instability of the late Roman the Republic and Early Empire eeg.
Civil Wars Pros may have made large families less appealing or practical.
Yeah, Sue. That's it. That's the, that's the whole of what I was able to learn about childless Romans. Did this change your mind on anything?
Simone Collins: Well, now I know where, you know, Augustus fell short. I mean, I, I always felt like something had really gone wrong in general with his, his succession planning. And I think that now that general sentiment extends [00:32:00] to just basically his ability for generational transfer.
I don't wanna, you know, like he's, he's an amazing dude, amazing achievements. I just and now I'm like, okay, no, no one's perfect. No one's perfect. Yeah. At least you weren't, you know, neuro can't even kill your own mom. The first time she was, who was to try multiple times, but also like the number of insane and dramatic Roman assassinations.
It's almost like there was this unspoken rule that you couldn't just kill someone. You had to kill them dramatically. You had to do it. In an epic fashion. I think it, it, it, it just kind of signals to me this, this level of performative drama and psychosis that Roman culture had arrived at. Where they like couldn't do anything in a reasonable and pragmatic manner, they couldn't raise.
It reminds me
Malcolm Collins: so much of modern progressive culture. If you go to like, I think it would be a great representation of, of Y Niro's constantly wanting to be around celebrity and then a celebrity is too popular, so he has him killed because he [00:33:00] wants to be the most popular. Yeah. And it really is, I think, the way people live in this ultra urban monoculture.
Another thing, oh,
Simone Collins: wanting to be accepted by a foreign culture.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but he doesn't even really understand. Yeah. He wanted the
Simone Collins: Greeks
Malcolm Collins: to like him, right?
Simone Collins: Yeah. No, he was like, I, I can master this amazing culture. Can't they just like me? Can't they just give me awards? Yeah. I don't know. Just there's lot of, but anyway, so
Malcolm Collins: I or we might be thinking there of somebody else.
We
Simone Collins: might Bero
Malcolm Collins: romance. No,
Simone Collins: no, no, no, no. Niro was the one who's like, I I want to be a Greek master of this. And Yeah. No, no. That was him. No, but he wasn't the one who was obsessed with
Malcolm Collins: becoming a gladiator. No, no. That was what's his face? Okay. It started with a C, but anyway but I will note when I'm looking at this and I'm like, oh, it's sort of sad.
Like this means I'm almost certainly not related to or descendant of any of the famous Romans. And then I was like it's funny, the, the, the royalty that I do have direct succession of one of them at least, I, I always think it's funny because I, every like, almost every single backwoods Scottish American I have met is.
Is related to this guy. It's, it's Robert the [00:34:00] Bruce, by the way. The, the guy from the Braveheart movie. Yeah. I am also a direct descendant of his wasn't he killed? I thought
Simone Collins: he didn't have any kids. Did he have kids? No. Robert the
Malcolm Collins: Bruce, I, I decided to google how many kids he had because I was like, how could it be that so many people are direct descendants of him?
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: He had 12 kids. Oh, okay. Well, 12 surviving kids. So yeah, that explains why so many people by the other, there's one
Simone Collins: woman.
Malcolm Collins: I think so. I think so.
Simone Collins: Good for her.
Malcolm Collins: The other monarchs I have director sent from are Charlemagne and old King Cole I, I'm, I'm related to like way more religious figures. Like, another direct in is is John Knox. Well, and what
Simone Collins: about Oliver Cromwell?
Yeah,
Malcolm Collins: potentially Oliver Cromwell, but that's not confirmed. I am descendant from Egg Oliver Cromwell that lived around that time period from our family records, but I can't confirm it is the Oliver Cromwell.
Simone Collins: And all I get is George Washington as an uncle. That's embarrassing.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You, you get the George Washington siblings.
He didn't have any kids himself, but she's a director, center of siblings. People are like, why do you know all this stuff? It's because my family is obsessed with genealogy. Yeah. And when you [00:35:00] start going that far back, you're basically related to everyone. Yeah. You know, and, and, and the world was
Simone Collins: not very big.
Malcolm Collins: Well, no. Especially the famous people you've gotta keep in mind because you're multiplying every time you go back, like by two people. Mm-hmm. And the famous people, all you need to do is connect yourself to somebody who can prove they were descended from one of the famous people. Mm-hmm. And then you can go back like 15 generations because, and you know, they
Simone Collins: won't shut up about that.
I mean, I'm sure like back in the day it's. Like, oh, you know, you're descended from Robin. Like it, it's, they made the same jokes that they make today about marathon runners. Well, you don't need
Malcolm Collins: everyone to do it. You just need one crazy person who is obsessed with this that you can prove you're connected to.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Except there, you know, a lot of the Braveheart myths were, weren't they kind of written by a Scottish family that never knew him and lived after he died and was like, we're gonna write a bunch of stories so that people think we're cool. Whatever. They made a good movie.
Malcolm Collins: Bravehearts a f*****g amazing movie.
Great.
Simone Collins: If you're watching
Malcolm Collins: this and you haven't seen Braveheart, sorry, even more than Rome. If you're watching, if you haven't seen Gray Hart, what is wrong with you? Good soundtrack. Yeah. Great [00:36:00] soundtrack. Very moving movie. Very based, well most based movie. Bring back Braveheart hair. I say they're, they're, they got in so much trouble for the scene where the
Simone Collins: and like
Malcolm Collins: modern times where they, the prince has a, a gay lover and the king is like, oh, you're so good at strategy here.
Why don't you, why don't you tell me? Strategy walks into a window and throws them out. And the sun's like. Like mortified. And a lot of people have been like, that's horrified. But that's the way Kings would've treated something like that historically. Like, what are we supposed to do? Pretend like the King of England and the Middle Ages was accepting of gay people.
Like no, he wanted heirs and he was obsessed with this. Mm.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Anyway,
Malcolm Collins: anyway, anyway. I love we're making
Simone Collins: you pot stickers tonight. You re
Malcolm Collins: my curry tonight.
Simone Collins: Oh, crumbs. Yes. Well, would you like some supplemental pot stickers? Because it's not a whole lot of food.
Malcolm Collins: I mean, I think it is actually a pretty big amount that needs to be reheated.
Okay. I did make You're decent
Simone Collins: serving. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. I'm okay with that. And I, oh, yeah, [00:37:00] because I've
Simone Collins: added a bunch of. Seasoned ground beef to it.
Malcolm Collins: Oh. So yeah, gimme that and some pot stickers and I'll be fine. So you do want pot stickers? Yes, I do want pot stickers.
Simone Collins: Okay. He changed his mind, his tummy grew a little bit.
Malcolm Collins: Well, you know what, you're cute. And that's your problem. Oh. And I don't know why I'm still married to you. I, no,
Happy to to you now. Make your wish.
I love to love you, everybody. And I love, and I loved it and, and I love you. Oh, good job friend. We just talked about everything you love. Hey, that is wonderful. Hey, so I love Octa. See love. I love my family. See? Really sweet. See the video. Really sweet. Thank you.

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Why is Fertility Collapse Happening Faster in Some Places Than Others? (& Are Women at Fault?)
8 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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's
Simone Collins: dive in. Let's
Malcolm 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's
Malcolm 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 rates
okay.
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 levels
that 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 have changed more slowly than the markets, and I. That may have been disastrous.
You can see plenty of signs of this everywhere. For example, in the Group one Nations that experience slow and steady growth, men and women tend to have more similar household labor distributions. He then shares a graph of time use and fertility among the 12 group one and two group two nations. And there is somewhat of a negative correlation between total fertility rate and female minus male daily hours of unpaid household labor.
He continues. Similarly, in the case of distributions in the home is incidentally related to fertility among this group of developed countries, he shows another graph with negative correlation between time and fertility among 20 nations. He writes, I'm aware there are issues with treating this as if it's causal, but the point here is less about the particular example of household time use and more about how norms change over time with slow [00:05:00] versus rapid growth.
Take South Korea as an example in South Korea, men's attitudes towards women are still pretty unrefined, a potential result. Enormous sex differences in getting along in politics, these gulfs. Are opening up the world over, but South Korea is the most extreme example Here. He shares a financial times graph showing the ideology gap opening up between young and men and women in countries across the world.
With South Korea being the first country shown, I. And just over time, especially from 2015 to 2020, the gap is just like, like they're just becoming different species. Whereas in the US the gap is violent, but not that insane. In Germany, it's a little bit less bad. In the UK it's, it's also, I mean, they're, they're all getting worse.
And I, this resonates with me. I mean, I, I could see a lot of the tension there making sense.
Malcolm Collins: I actually think Rock came up with a better answer, but I do like this answer. It's definitely something that is contributing to the fertility collapse that we're seeing in Italy and Spain. [00:06:00] Is the idea that not, sorry, not Italy and Spain, South Korea, but I don't know why.
Said that but likely the same thing is that men are staying much more misogynistic in their attitudes and expectations of their wives
Simone Collins: than
Malcolm Collins: men are in the United States. And if you get female liberation in terms of the workforce with all the misogynistic attitudes, now marriage becomes an incredibly raw deal for.
For women? No, just in terms of hedonism, I'm not saying in terms of like genetics or whatever. Yeah. But if you are expected to handle the kids, handle the house and handle a career that's equivalent to your husband's career and he just, what does whatever like, takes the status, bosses you around, like, yeah, what, why would you want that?
Right. And then a lot of men feel like, well. You know, you should give us, like, we do need to maintain some degree of our historic culture. So I understand why they're pushing back and they think a lot of women have gone too far in their accusations around men, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I mean, if you look at the level of misogyny and misandry in Korea, it is at a [00:07:00] completely different level than what you see in the United States or something like like that.
Like these. Two genders are almost two separated political classes now. Yeah. And that's definitely more in Italy. I grew up partially in Italy. I lived there for a year when I was a kid. And one of those things I distinctly remember is the constant cat calling. Oh really? Wow. Yeah. And this is, this was true when I was growing up there, and I remember this being an American, from Texas, being in Italy and in Texas.
I don't remember ever. Hearing, cat calling golly.
Simone Collins: Okay.
Malcolm Collins: You just wouldn't do it. Like it, it'd get beaten up or something, you know. But in Italy, no. It's considered very normal for guys to be, you know, really and, and people who don't understand why cat calling is bad. Like you are intentionally harassing in a way that is meant to be derogatory of their status in re relative to your status, a woman.
Mm-hmm. A lot of people think that this is like. I don't know that there's, like, there might be some women who have like a weird fetish for it. They're not even a weird fetish. I'd actually say it's probably a, a normal fetish to like [00:08:00] being publicly humiliated by men saying you're attractive. But I, I don't think that it is something that you're gonna see a lot of in countries where women are seen as, you know, tough or deserving of their own like rights.
Now when I put this into any thoughts before we go to what GR has to say?
Simone Collins: I'm, no, you have me. So curious about what Grok is gonna say. I can't say no.
Malcolm Collins: All right. So, what I put into Grok to sort of test it. So if you look at the countries that he includes in the two groups I decided to only include a.
Few of the countries that he includes in the two groups. Okay. To see if rock's findings hold true for the other groups that are in the two groups. Hmm. So the full two groups that he used was Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden, uk, us. Mm-hmm. The second group was Greece, Italy, Japan, Korea, Portugal, and Spain.
Okay. And so I decided, let's just do two. Okay. So, sure. What's the difference between South Korea, Spain, and Italy and the us, France and the [00:09:00] uk? All right. Yeah. Culturally speaking, sure. What. It says the most striking thing would be respect for elders. With, and, and this is definitely true with the US, France and the UK having much lower levels of this than Spain, Italy, and South Korea.
And so then my question could be, oh, is that cultural distance also true in the other countries here, like Greece and portugal. Yes it is. Okay. What about the other countries on the other side? Germany and Denmark. Yeah, definitely way lower respect for elders. Mm-hmm. And if I actually think about where countries have seen fertility collapse hit the hardest, like Japan, Korea, China, these are all countries that have a unique respect for elders.
Yeah. Where has fertility hit? Uniquely lowly greater Appalachian cultural region, as we've mentioned, which has almost no respect for elders at all. Like elders are kept alive, but like, definitely we won't kill you, but we won't kill you. [00:10:00] But it's always we'll resent
Simone Collins: you a little bit.
Malcolm Collins: And Jewish culture, and I actually argue Jewish culture does not have a particularly high respect for elders when contrasted with, let's say Korean or Japanese or Confucius culture.
Mm-hmm. You have. Like a little degree, but I, I don't. I'd say less than Christian. Even like your modern, like East coast Christian. Mm. Elders are just not assigned a high status unless they can meritocratic prove that they deserve a high status. So it's not that you don't see elders in positions of status, it's just that being elder in and of itself is not a thing deserving of respect.
Mm. Okay. And so the question could be, why would that cause, well, let's, let's go into it a bit more before we ask why. Yeah. South Korea, Spain and Italy appear to have a cultural similarity and that they have a deep respect for their elders. Rooted in traditions like FU and South Korea and Catholicism in Spain and Italy.
This respect manifests in behavior such as using formal language, giving up seats for elders and prioritizing family roles, ah, which [00:11:00] contrasts with the more individualistic and use focus culture that the US and the UK and France. Mm-hmm. However it shows a France it says, shows a blend of this,
hmm. Okay. Here it also divide stuff with looking at individualism versus collectivism with the cultures on this side being much more individualistic, which I also see, and much more low power difference, which I also see. So that's another thing that could be causing this. Mm-hmm. Greece, Italy, Japan, Korea, Portugal, Spain, all are less individualistic, more collectivist, and have higher power differences.
Mm. Whereas the us, uk, Sweden, Germany, France, and Denmark all have fairly low power differences. So let's think about how this could have caused a fertility issue. Right. Okay. Yes. The respect for elders is. I guess it's fairly obvious to me, like where, when resources are limited and demographic collapses already underway.
Yeah. Do you distribute the resources that are left? You're gonna, if you could choose more [00:12:00] babies or elders mm-hmm. You're gonna choose elders. Yeah. I mean, a country like Korea should be spending as much on family creation as it spends on elder care. 100%. Yeah. And I'm fairly sure it's not, I'll add in post, but I'm fairly sure it's not even like, you know, maybe one 10th what it's spending on elder care.
Okay. I find myself surprised on this one. They only spend about double on elderly costs, In elderly costs in South Korea, it's around 51 to 54 billion USD and in children it's around 18 to 22 billion USDA per year as of 2025. So the elderly care ratio is two to 2.5 x birth incentives.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. If you look at so, so that makes perfect sense to me. Because it's about, or me as an individual, like if one of my parents was like, oh, I'm aiding, help me. I can't survive on social security. It's in a message like, disabled. I have four kids, you know. F off.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Like
Simone Collins: your problem.
Malcolm Collins: Your problem.
Speaker 4: Hey, man, I got five [00:13:00] kids to feed.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I, I'd be like that scene from team America where he is like, if you get caught, you may need to take your own life. And he slice the hammer across the table.
Well, you'll probably want to take your own life here. You better have this.
All right, team. That's it. We've got a job to do.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That'd be me. I'd be like, you know, you need to, you know
Simone Collins: what to
Malcolm Collins: do, you know what to do. Okay. So that I see. Now let's talk about individualism.
Why would high individualism lead to higher fertility rates in these cultures? Mm-hmm. The answer here could be that you have an easier time resisting the monoculture and dominant cultural practices within your country. And so you're gonna have more people who sort of buck the trend.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Which I could definitely see leading to higher fertility rates in many of these countries.
Yeah. You were gonna say something?
Simone Collins: No, no, no. I'm, I'm agreeing with you.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And then high power distance. That makes a lot of sense. I think in the modern world, high power distance [00:14:00] just doesn't really work that well anymore. This is where like your boss is like really high above you in status. And this is actually really true in a lot of Latin America, where we're also seeing a unique fertility collapse.
It is sort of across Catholic cultures. Because you have like the, the people who matter and then the people who are the people, right? Mm-hmm. And why this leads to fertility collapse is I think the people, people like don't see a point in continuing to cycle anymore.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: They don't wanna put people into this system where they're gonna be an underclass and I.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. Why would you, why would you continue to participate in that? The final sort of hypothesis I'd have here about what would lead to this is just a longer time to evolve a resistance to the urban monoculture. I think the urban monoculture didn't really care, or the iterations of that existed.
Before it, like the prodomal iterations of it didn't really focus on these other countries when they were super poor and culturally different.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. And I think that's
Malcolm Collins: was leading to their high fertility rates at that period. Mm-hmm. And so they didn't have a century [00:15:00] for the people who were slightly lower fertility rate when exposed to the urban monoculture to die out disproportionately.
Yeah. And so now they're all dying out at once.
Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I could see that so dire. That is, that is interesting. I don't know, I still, I'm still finding myself, however, gravitating toward the, the misogyny thing, just because so much of this problem is couples just failing to get married.
Malcolm Collins: True and, and, and a misogynistic attitude.
Pervading a culture where women have an option not to marry, is going to lead to women, not is enthusiastically engaging with the marriage culture. So every high
Simone Collins: fertility family we know personally. Mm-hmm. His husbands has husbands who contribute a lot, are extremely supportive if they, if they're the breadwinners, they also contribute a lot of labor.
If [00:16:00] they are not the sole breadwinners, they contribute probably as much labor as their wife also breadwinners. Contribute. Mm-hmm. You know, there's just like this, actually,
Malcolm Collins: I, I might word it differently. I'd take every high fertility family that we know has a husband who would be considered a simp by like the Manosphere or the Andrew Tate movement.
Mm-hmm. And not necessarily like, like for example, us, I'm not like a simp in a traditional term, but people have been like, oh, Malcolm, you're like overly nice to your wife. You overly cest your wife, you. Mm-hmm. And I'm probably of all of the high fertility men that we know the most traditionally masculine.
Yeah. Except for maybe Kevin Dolan.
Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Kevin
Malcolm Collins: Dolan's pretty traditionally masculine, but Yeah. The, the, yeah. I think that you're a hundred percent right here. Women have kids when they feel supported and protected. Mm-hmm. . Because a woman in a modern context is just not gonna feel like you have her back if you're pulling this. And, and the truth is, is you [00:17:00] don't. I think we saw this was a quiverfull movement, and it's part of the reason the Quiverfull movement sort of fell apart, was a.
It's understanding of the man's role in the household instead of adapting to modern and changing pressures. They tried to go as this dictatorial male in control, woman at home, does nothing birthing. And it didn't create an environment that daughters wanted to recreate or that sons were capable of recreating.
Simone Collins: Yeah, I agree.
Malcolm Collins: And, and, and actually here, I thought, I, I read something really interesting on our discord that somebody posted about the failure of the quiver full movement to replicate itself. Hmm. And I was like, oh my God, this is so true. I've gotta read it. So this is from the person on the Discord called Cat.
I don't know. It's some sort of vegetation. Okay. And they have three kids. 'cause people say that on the Discord, how many kids they have. I have so many thoughts regarding this topic as somebody who has raised quiverfull adjacent Christian [00:18:00] homeschooler, who attended Quiverfull co-ops, et cetera. But my family wasn't specifically quiverfull ourselves.
I think the big factor of their failure is the way that they specifically and intentionally raised non-AG agentic children. Boys in general have a, had a bit of a rudderless time over the past few decades, but I've never seen anything like the slow motion catastrophe that has been the quiver for boys aging out of their homeschooling regime.
Mm. The prototypical quiver for family is a first generation. Fairly beta white collar husband, fairly crazy homeschooling mother, raising sons who are simultaneously longhouse brow beaten under mommy's supervision his entire life, while also being inculcated with an irrational entitlement complex based on being male not being accomplished.
They can't follow in their haired, checked out fathers white collar footsteps because they are undereducated College is of this world. Yeah. But they often don't have the connections or savvy to make it [00:19:00] in the working class trades world. So they either languish in some sort of drifting failure to launch, or if their family is particularly committed, get married off and are expected to support a family.
Then it increases by one every year starting at the age of 18 on nothing but thoughts and prayers. Mm. It's such a mess. Anecdotally, I can confirm mass deconversion rates. , I don't think the duggars are at all are typical. They mostly compensate for the above issue by having all that TLC money that Jim Bob bought real estate with.
So he basically supports his sons through the dad welfare. Hmm. It's just crazy to me that they had all this IBLP propaganda about how they were gonna raise a Joshua generation. It's gonna take over the government and lead a worldwide revival and then raise the least age agentic children ever walk the earth. Timid, sly not good.
Not good. Or
Complete and utter failure and refutation of the movement's philosophy. Yeah. And yeah, I completely agree with that. And I think that that might [00:20:00] be what we're seeing in these cultures that have these stricter power differences between the old and the young as well.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Is that they are.
But they put really strict rules on their kids. And if you look at our family, well, we have rules for our kids. I expect them and will be proud of them when they break those rules. That's part of why we use corporal punishment instead of limiting punishment to just like yelling or emotional escalation.
Simone Collins: Yeah. '
Malcolm Collins: cause when a kid does something bad, it allows me to quickly show them like, bop, they did something wrong. Mm-hmm. But I still love you like was recorded in that piece. Hmm. So that they understand that breaking rules does not remove them from the circle of love of this family, and that I will set down a fence and rules for them.
But I still, especially when they're breaking rules in their own you know, based on their own internal moral compass have respect for them in doing that. And, and you know, you see this, I've, I've mentioned in previous episodes like. Jordan Peterson, a guide to raising Simps, Jordan Peterson is like, you just need to break the child's will down until they listen [00:21:00] to you.
And I'm like, that is not a good idea. That raises non-agent children. Yeah. You want to build the child's will up until they take. From nobody. And if they don't understand why you're giving rules and you're just like, you just obey the authority, then they're just gonna obey the urban monoculture. And I think a lot of these religious families, that's what they were.
Just obey the authority. Just obey the authority. Just obey the authority. But they thought the authority was always gonna be at the church. Mm-hmm. And they didn't realize that the authority changes based on the person's context of they're interacting within the real world. Yeah. And so they were easily brow beaten and they also created males that like, what?
Who would want that? Like a lot of girls just aren't gonna want that. Yeah. And, and so they, they get a, you know, because if, if it's like much worse than like a Mormon community or something where you have more of the church like keeping track of things and less a chance that one man is, is gonna be like overly domineering with his family or something.
Yeah. Within these more dispersed Protestant communities I, as a [00:22:00] woman, honestly, I wouldn't wanna marry into one of these. I'd be really worried. Especially if they were raised was a sort of like, well men lead the family attitude like, and we have me as a man, lead the family. I just consider that a gift from Simone.
Simone Collins: Well, and back to our repeated theme of, of real dominance, real dominance isn't. Shut up and do what I say, follow my orders. Real dominance is demonstrating through your competence, good decision making and good leadership, natural leadership, that your plans are trustworthy and the best way to go. People fall in line.
There is no ordering and there is no shutting people down and systematically training them to be compliant. You don't need to train people to be compliant when they know you're right. That's the big difference.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and we had the episode on, on Andrew Tate, where I was like, Andrew Tate's idea of masculinity.
It's like he watched the gladiator and he is like, ah, the emperor, that's what the ideal man is like. And that, that, you know, the, the gladiator Maximus, he's a simp. Whereas the [00:23:00] exact opposite is true. You know, and I pointed this out because if you watch and. Is he attempts to force the women around him to follow his wills, literally at Sword Point, you know, like Andrew Tate being like, this is why I have a sword.
So women don't, you know, they talk down to me and you see, the Emperor playing was like a sword in his house, you know? And wanting to be loved. And I think that if you look at Maximus, none of this is about being loved by people or anything like that. He just has a duty and he is carrying it out.
And it's certainly not about, like, if you look at the character of Maximus. You look at the relationship he's framed at having with both his kids and the woman who has that desperate crush on him is, is this is not a guy who is pushing around his wife, telling his wife, like get in the kitchen, telling his wife like, you do what?
I say, now, you know, the wife is making him dinner because she cares about him, right? Mm-hmm. And, and they're working on a shared goal or something like that, like mm-hmm. We don't have any feeling like they don't have traditional gender roles. But the traditional gender roles are carried out because those are the preferences of the male and the woman. Mm-hmm. They are not carried out because the [00:24:00] woman has some supernatural reason to be obedient or some like biological mandate to be obedient to her husband. It's just mm-hmm. Average biological differences here.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Yeah. Which means that there also is no commitment to. Those specific roles and the commitment is to where someone's propensity and skill lies. So if, for example. A man and a woman or whatever configuration of people you want work to pair up and start raising kids together. We're not gonna be like, well, you're the woman, so of course you're doing those things.
It's, well, okay, what are you gonna contribute best? Do that thing. Yeah. So if a man ends up doing all of the cooking, indoor cleaning and infant rearing, fine, we're, we are not married to that. And I think a lot of these really conservative religions. Are, well, that's just these, these cultures as well. Like, well, no, the, the man can't do that.
Even if he'd rather do that. Like even if the woman has the highest educational degree and the greatest earning potential and the greatest professional network, she has to become the [00:25:00] mother who stays at home. And somehow the less educated, less connected, less privileged man has to earn enough for both.
Malcolm Collins: . So this isn't just like a religious culture thing, this is also within the wider online manosphere, right-leaning culture. Mm-hmm. Where recently there was a fight of memes in which there was this concept of like the dad meme or the husband meme. And it's typically the husband being like, oh honey, of course I'll do X for you.
Or I'll do Y for you. You know, he is doing something sweet for the wife. That's like normal for a husband to do. Yeah.
This was known as the wife Jack Meme Wars. I was wrong. It wasn't about a husband meme, it was a wife meme.
Malcolm Collins: And then a bunch of guys were like, oh, like you guys posting, what a simp you are. You know? And the guys of course complaining that these other guys are simps are unmarried, right? And it's like, well, that's genetically what's being preserved in the human condition.
It's not a simp, it's being able to work with people, right. And being able to appreciate what other people are bringing to the table. And it has become almost within these cultures, seen as a sign of submission or browbeat ness [00:26:00] if mm-hmm. You are shown as making either concessions to your wife or you are shown as having appreciation for your wife.
And yet anybody who is gonna have a lot of kids knows that those two things are like. Within a modern context, critical to, I think having, let's say over five kids, like you just can't get to these sorts of numbers. If you're not doing that. If you're, if you're taking the, you do what I say approach you're gonna really struggle to get that high because the woman is just not gonna be all about it.
She's gonna be like, what am I doing all this for? Like, what am I raising my daughters for? Like, what's the point, right?
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: It's demotivating. Yeah, slave mentality. If you want to turn your wife into a slave, she's gonna labor like a slave. Well, again, intrinsic
Simone Collins: motivation is just a billion times more powerful than extrinsic motivation, as is seen across.
Countless studies, research, anecdotal examples, just says this should be common sense
Malcolm Collins: their wives following them for the same reason and gladiator why people followed what the emperor said instead of the reason why people [00:27:00] followed what Maximus said. Mm-hmm. And it's, it's a completely different Are they following you because you're inspiring them or are they following you because it's the rules and, and because you'll hurt them if they don't.
Mm-hmm. And I think that that, this sort of like ideal of male athletics, that's not really working for any man anywhere that I'm aware of, except for maybe Andrew Tate is like super toxic and it was Andrew Tate. It basically only works because he's super wealthy, like women will do a lot of crazy nonsense for, for very wealthy men.
Yeah. It's a trade off, especially if they have like a public profile or something like that. Like you look at the simp women that like Elon gets or something like that. But I could not treat you the way that Elon treats his wi. Like I would never get away with that. Like you'd leave me, I. And I don't think that like, and somebody's like, is that fair?
It's like, dude, he's a, he's like a infinity billionaire. Like fair is not part of the equation. It's a different social contract when you're interacting with somebody like that it's [00:28:00] like, it's like, oh, the king in, in like, you know, medieval Europe or something like that, treats their wives differently.
Than you do.
It's like a entirely different social contract exists for the king, of course. Yeah. Like, what, what are you, like, how could you think that? And I think that you get sort of two categories of influencers who like go into this category of influence.
One is they're super successful, they become super wealthy, and they're able to live some sort of like, unrealistic life. Yeah. The other they go like the Nick Fuentes path and they end up like a forever celibate, right. You know, where they can't. Like his advice on the way you should treat girls leads to the extinction of your culture.
Like he is living proof of that.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: He's not gonna have any kids likely at this point, given how old he is already. Or at least not many. Not unless he use his IVF, which he won't. And so, my problem
Simone Collins: is, I mean, men really can afford to delay fertility. But they're either [00:29:00] ensuring that their children are not going to be very healthy, or they need to freeze their sperm.
Guys, please freeze your sperm for the love. Like, although here's my other problem with like yeah,
Malcolm Collins: male genetic health. It degrades it around the same rate as female genetic health does. It just doesn't fall off a cliff at that rate. And these, these
Simone Collins: higher risk factors that your child will get if you have them with older sperm.
Like higher risks of cancer and all, all sorts of other disorders, they get passed on to your grandchildren and their grandchildren. So what are you doing? But beyond that, like, so, I mean, one, it is actually super possible if you free sperm to have healthy children late in life and, you know, put that off.
My problem is that older men are still in a bad situation if they choose to do that because either you end up with, you know, your perfect sexy 20 something wife who. It's never gonna be on your level because there's so much of an age gap. You know, you're never really gonna have an intellectual [00:30:00] equal. I mean, you might meet someone who loves old souls, but still like age, you know, it's, it doesn't quite work as neatly as I would hope on that front.
And then, yeah, well and end up with an older woman who probably hasn't frozen her eggs. And then you have the same problem with genetic material.
Malcolm Collins: A needs men are gonna be doing like you. Okay, let me put it this way. You a guy right now. You're like, yeah, when I'm 50 or 60, I'm gonna get a young woman and I'm gonna have lots of kids after I'm rich.
Yeah. Do, do you want a child? Do you want to raise a child and then have her raise child? Like you're not just that, but like. Do you even want to be having that sex? Like no, I'm, I'm being honest, like you do you really want like a 50-year-old sleeping with like a late 20 something? Like it's gross. Do you think that's hot for the 50-year-old?
Even at that point? Like where you're taking all of the medications so that you're still horny? Oh, don't do all. You're taking all of the pills so that you can still get hard. Like that's
Simone Collins: not Well then there's also the problem, like the most. [00:31:00] And I, this is not spoken about enough. The most unsexy type of sex is obligatory sex, especially if you know that the partner is like having sex out of obligation.
And they may be great at acting, but I'm pretty sure that the vast, vast majority of 20 something girls who marry wealthy and successful, much older men. Are faking it, which is the, you're having sex
Malcolm Collins: with a woman who's pretending to be into
Simone Collins: you,
Malcolm Collins: like,
Simone Collins: which is the worst type of sex. I just like, I, I, I could never, I could never have sex with someone like that,
Malcolm Collins: just like that.
I'm just, I'm just saying that like they think that what they're getting is just delaying and then they get the young hot wife and it's like, no, you get the young hot wife when you are young and hot, or you get some other type of weird relationship. Mm-hmm. Not like you create that relationship later in life.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: [00:32:00] So,
I think that that's gonna be a possibility for them. But the reality is it's not either from a genetic standpoint that real of a possibility or. From a, you know, they're not like, oh, I can delay getting this now and I'll get it in the future. No, you're, you're not getting it in the future. You're getting some weird other thing.
Which is, which is not as fun, you know, you, yeah. Anyway yeah. Love you to DeSimone. I am glad that I settled down with you. I had another one that I'm, I'm not actually not gonna make because I just know it'll do bad. But it was really interesting to research, which was. If the trope of the bachelor party where people felt like they were like marrying a, a ball and chain and like, oh
Simone Collins: yeah.
Like this is my last moment to go wild.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I was like, is this real? Like, is it, was this ever actually a thing that was practiced in large numbers because it like doesn't seem,
Simone Collins: oh, I thought it was a condensed version of the sort of Catholic model that existed back all the way to like ancient Roman times where it was just kind of understood that debauch wealthy men would.[00:33:00]
Have all the female partners they wanted and then. Try to sober up later in life when they got married. And that Bachelor party's kind of compressing that for less wealthy people. What, what, what did you find in your research?
Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah, I mean, apparently it did really happen. And it, you know, they were like, well, I understand that today.
'cause I was like, it doesn't even make logical sense. Like you're about to get married to presumably the person that you love more than anyone in the world. And you've been so excited to spend your life with. Hmm. Like why would you go out and sleep with other people right before that? Like, why would you want that?
And it was like, oh, well, you see, people didn't actually used to love their wives during this period of history. Yeah, I
Simone Collins: mean this, the, yeah, the alternate take there is, hold on. Actually, maybe this was the sign of a better. World in which people got married as business arrangements and saw sex as something that they did separately, but also lived in monogamous societies.
Malcolm Collins: A breaking of both. Which is to say that it was this period of the boomers where they got all of the divorces, you know, they had like the really high [00:34:00] divorce rate and they'd had terrible marriages. Like everybody knows, like. The boomers were almost like the pure infantilization of humanity where they were a generation that had very little self-control, very little like is obsessed with self validation.
I. Just, you know, broke a lot of social traditions that were actually really important without understanding what they were doing. Didn't really pass money down to their kids intentionally. Didn't really establish the idea of like intergenerational family units, well, in the way that their ancestors had.
Mm-hmm. They just sort of, after the greatest generation, it just like increasingly degraded. Then you got to the boomers. And I think since the boomers, every generation has been sort of building themselves a little bit back from that point. You know, you look at Jan Alpha and they're definitely a lot more mature than the boomers in terms of the way they relate to things like sex and sexuality and, and, and parties and wives and everything like that.
And I think that the boomers were this generation where they got married out of obligation. 'cause it was sort of like what they did. [00:35:00] They were like a generation that, that. Wanted to live this white picket fence ideal, or they had like an ideal of what they wanted to live without. Thinking about why these things were ideal without thinking about why you had kids or without thinking about everything, was just about like hedonism and consumerism for them.
Hmm. Very much what I think, you know, something like Fight Club was arguing against was the mindset of the boomer generation and. Then you have other generations trying to reestablish some sort of stable state norm after the boomers,
Simone Collins: huh? Well, that's interesting. That's an interesting idea. I. Okay.
Malcolm Collins: I mean, they're the generation that had all of our societies that just take out debt forever instead of actually trying to build like stable civilizations.
They're the generation that reads the most. Whenever we bring up fertility collapse, they're the generation that's out. If you look at these, these Trump protests, everyone is like, it's wild that they're all like elderly white people. Those are the only people protesting. So [00:36:00] weird.
Simone Collins: So
Malcolm Collins: weird. But they, they still get their news from the news, like CNN and stuff.
And so they think that like, oh dude, the evil Trump is outed
Simone Collins: again
Malcolm Collins: anyway. Well, and I
Simone Collins: guess it's, it's very boomer to think that protests actually work, because, I don't know, I guess I should look, go to a protest
Malcolm Collins: one day and film and just be like, you know, protests don't work. Nobody cares about what you're doing here.
No, you have wasted a day. Do you have nothing better to do with your lives?
Simone Collins: One of the things that we really can't stand is listening to people who have really bad brain rot, and the kinds of people who attend protests are, I would argue, the epitome of that type of person. Remember at Natal Con, there were those protestors outside the opening night and Kira the.
Journalist from Mother Jones. So tried to talk to them. Sufficiently progressive, right? Didn't look conservative. No. Came up to them, [00:37:00] approached them as a Mother Jones journalist and attempted to talk with him. With them. And when I saw her after her attempted interaction, she's like, well, I, I couldn't get a word on edgewise.
Like she attempted to interview them and they were so. Brain rotted that she literally couldn't ask them a question to get their opinion on the matter they were protesting.
Malcolm Collins: Well, it's funny you you say that there's been a lot of videos that have been going viral of people going to these Trump protests and trying to talk to people.
Oh, yeah. And they don't know why they're there, and they don't know why Trump is a fascist. They're like, Trump's a fashion. They go explain.
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Like, what
Malcolm Collins: has he done that's. That makes him a fascist. And what the right is taking away from this is, oh, these must be paid protesters who don't actually have a vested interest in this.
I don't think that's it. I think they're just brainless, brain rotted automatons who are like CNN says Trump is bad. No, I go to field and yell at people. I, I, I genuinely think more people are like closer to like NBC at [00:38:00] automatons than you would imagine
Simone Collins: maybe. Maybe they're just all in the same Facebook groups.
I imagine this is a Facebook groups thing. If it's mostly boomers, it's just a show thing. Oh, no. Anyway, come on. That makes sense, right?
Malcolm Collins: It No, it does, it does. Tonight
Simone Collins: for dinner. Hot dogs. Hot dogs. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: I'm gonna do my we got 'em in all these with relish. Fancy. All these buns, all these
Simone Collins: amazing. Oh yeah.
They're brioche buns. We really went all out for that.
Malcolm Collins: You're gonna toast the buds, of course,
Simone Collins: with butter. Obviously,
Malcolm Collins: We are going to though save my curry for another night. I can have it tomorrow.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: And I'll do hot dogs tonight too. Lunch
Simone Collins: tomorrow. Hot dog night. Very American. Big deviation from your typical meal choice, but everyone seems to want hot dogs right now, so.
Malcolm Collins: Well, the kids wanted hot dogs and I was like, you know what? We've got the onions now we've got relish. We've got, do you want [00:39:00] them in
Simone Collins: confetti or. Slices and slices.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, onions and hot dogs you typically want in slices, get slice, get more front slice. Yeah.
Simone Collins: Not not, although I guess I've seen it both ways or I think of relish and I think of the confetti.
No, either
Malcolm Collins: way works. Honestly, the confetti works just as well. 'cause you get crunch from it too. So you know, it actually, I'm thinking
Simone Collins: confetti's better. 'cause you can really finely chop it and you don't want to have like really like peeling off noodles. You know what I mean?
Malcolm Collins: So you guys in the comments need to answer this hot dog onions, is it confetti or is it, is it noodles?
Confetti or noodles for hot dog onions
Simone Collins: asking the hard questions. I'm more interested if people have alternate theories between the group one and group two countries. If it's that feminism didn't catch up as quickly with economic development, which then led to a faster backlash and separation between the sexes, or if, if rock's theory was more accurate or if it's something else that you think is going on because.
I find that quite interesting. I had had previously thought that leapfrogging development, like really fast development was a good thing [00:40:00] because you ended up getting like building infrastructure when tech was already more advanced. So you, you ended up with much better systems than say the United States had because you were developing, using, you know, third to fourth generation, later technology and all these other things.
And so this is making me look differently at the benefits of developing quickly and later, but. Yeah, I'm curious to hear people's theories on that.
Malcolm Collins: All right, Simone, I love you to death and have a spectacular day.
Simone Collins: Goodbye my dear husband and I will, I will give you a call on your phone when you're nurse run, so please, please on.
Thank you.
Do you want me to open for you? Wow. Wow. You can read it. I got a purple car. Sure. It says. That is. That's so nice. So cool. Look at that. Joie. Do you wanna put it on the fridge? Yeah. Okay.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com
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Opus Dei vs. Jesuits: An Outsider's Take on the Battle for Catholicism's Soul
7 Apr· Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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 exposure
Simone 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 is
Malcolm 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 making the same amount of sacrifices and engaging in the same amount of discipline. I like that, like basically apply the religious fervor and discipline that you would see in a convent. [00:04:00] Or in monastery to your everyday life, and why shouldn't you? That's so much better.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Prayer and spiritual direction. A structured spiritual life known as a plan of life includes practices like mass at the rosary, mental prayer and spiritual reading. Spiritual direction from a priest or trained layperson helps members grow in their faith. So basically you're supposed to sit down with somebody and plan out your life very much like we would suggest we something as in our tradition.
Wow. . Okay. How are they different from other Catholics? Opus Day members are fully Catholic and do not differ from other Catholics in terms of, well, as of what,
Simone Collins: 1984.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, no, no. This is modern. However, approach to living out their faith sets them apart.
They have an emphasis on the laity. While many Catholic groups focus on religious life EG monks and nuns, obu de prioritizes the lay people sanctifying the world from within. So, while other religious orders within Catholicism are like, go the most extreme, separate yourself from the world, everything like [00:05:00] that, even the monks and nuns of the opus day.
Or supposed to focus on the lay person and it's service to helping lay people be at their like same level of holiness and, and saintliness. That's the goal of these individuals not to have some sort of a separate life integration with daily life. Their spirituality is deeply rooted in ordinary activities, contrasted with traditions that might emphasize monastic retreat or extraordinary penance.
Devotion to church teaching. They have a particular devotion to the Pope and the magisterium, the church's teaching authority, which. Which reinforces their unity was the broader Catholic community. They believe they have to have a daily massing communion. So they have to go to mass as frequently as possible.
Preferably daily. Wow. That's a lot. If you have a job rosary and mental prayer, reciting the rosary and spending time in personal prayer each day. So they're really focused on like their routines and it's a lot what people's Yeah. Look [00:06:00] weird. Spiritual reading, confession, regular reading a scripture or spiritual books and frequent confession.
But anyway, when I say look weird, you would know that to us this is a good thing. Yes, yes. 'cause this is how religions survive. Fertility collapse and survive. Deconversion. They have a concept that you've told me about, called the heroic Minute. A practice remembers rise immediately upon waking, saying, serve am or I will serve to offer their day to God.
So you're not allowed to stay in bed. You're not allowed to procrastinate. You shum outta bed the moment you wake up. And this is, I think, a really good way to relate. I mean, it's the way I try to wake up when I'm having, you know, when I'm in, in, in the zone I won't say I always meet my.
Expectations of myself. But I think it's a very good training in terms of how to relate to things. Yeah. Now they're, they're also known for engaging in something called a a mortification. So this may involve something like a cl, a spiked chain or a discipline, a small whip, or used for [00:07:00] voluntary self mortification.
This is. Injuring yourself. This is not used for injuring yourself. Like the injuring isn't the point. It's used for building more self-control and emotional self-control so that you have more dominion over yourself and you can interact with the world in a more like, you know. A monk who's just like separating themselves versus society versus somebody who's got like a, a spike chain attached to their leg while they're serving their office job.
You know, who's really making more of a sacrifice for God. I think this also
Simone Collins: feeds into the, the social scientific theory that ego depletion is culturally specific, that in American culture, we're like, oh, I've. I've had to think so hard today. I just have completely lost all of my self-control and now I'm going to eat a pint of ice cream.
Versus in India for example, people are like, oh, I've had such a tough day today. I've had to do so much work now I should do something else hard because I'm really in the zone. And the opus day are certainly in the latter camp where they're like, I'm gonna right way.
Malcolm Collins: The study she's [00:08:00] mentioning shows it works like the Indians when they've actually done a lot of stuff.
No, basically,
Simone Collins: if you believe. That doing hard things has warmed you up to do more hard things, then you will be able to do more hard things If you believe in ego depletion, that if you've made a lot of tough decisions and exhausted your ability to ex exercise self-control, then you will lose self-control.
So it's, it's very much a placebo effect influenced by your culture. Yeah. Which again, is why it's so toxic to have an external locus of control.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and what's interesting is how the Opus Day communicates this because like, okay, if you're a nun or you're a priest, you know you're going to school for this.
Or you're in a convent, or you're in a monastery and that's where you're learning all of this, where the opus day and I can understand why there's such a young movement has to. Like train lay people in living this lifestyle. Yeah. Which means that they're doing retreats, they're doing like over overnight things sometimes.
Yeah. They're doing classes where both priests and lay people will teach these as well within the opus day. Wow. Where you're going [00:09:00] to learn deeper Catholic theology and the way like a monk might, but still engaging with your daily life.
Simone Collins: Wow. It is life on hard mode. It's, it's lean in Catholicism edition.
I, I like it. Everything you're saying so far. Yeah. Yes. It's de definitely. Okay. It sounds really difficult, but it appeals.
Malcolm Collins: No, it does appeal. So now we gotta talk about the bad guys. Okay. The Jesuits,
Simone Collins: the Jesuit, the Jesuits, the Jesuits,
Malcolm Collins: Or the Society of Jesus established in 1540s.
So they're actually old the, the Jesuits are a religious order known for their work in education, intellectual pursuits and missionary efforts.
They run schools and universities worldwide and are deeply engaged in social justice and dialogue with modern culture. Okay. Their spirituality rooted in Ignatian discernment, emphasizes finding God in all things and adapting to contemporary needs. Which sometimes gives them a reputation as more [00:10:00] progressive.
Post Vatican II Dynamics, the Second Vatican Council. This was in 1962 to 1965 with the turning point for the Catholic Church. Introducing reforms to engage more was the modern world, which sparked debates between those who embraced the changes and those who preferred continuity was tradition. The Jesuits under leaders like Pedro Aropa the Jesuits leaned into Vatican II call for renewal, focusing on social justice.
Ecumenical dialogue and adapting the church to contemporary challenges. The Jesuits even explored controversial ideas like liberation theology, which emphasizes justice for the poor and has been criticized by conservatives for its political undertones. Essentially, their, their elitist educated communists.
Oh
Simone Collins: dear,
Malcolm Collins: that's a nice way of saying that. No, no. But they were literally communists. Like Jesuits were socialists and communists historically.
They are an intellectual elite class, which believes that the sort of priesthood has a special position that the laity can't really serve [00:11:00] and that the priesthood should be made up of the intellectual elite.
And, and, and supported by the laity the Opus Day. Well, not opposed to Vatican. Second. Opus Day has emphasized traditional practices like devotion to the Eucharist and rosary. Mm-hmm. And cautious approach to rapid change. It's right. The prominence, especially after becoming a personal ture, was seen by some as a counterweight to the more progressive faction.
The Opus Day, its spirituality centers around sanctifying everyday work and personal holiness. It encourages a structured prayer life and obedience to church teachings often appealing to those who value, tradition and discipline. Hmm. It focuses heavily on the role of lay people in spreading their face.
Jesuits, their Ignatian spirituality is out of discernment, finding God's will within all circumstances and intellectual engagement. They're known for their adaptability, running universities and addressing social issues, which can lead to a more open and exploratory approach to [00:12:00] face. A few issues. So Liberation theology, so this is Jesuits.
Some Jesuits like Gustav Gutierrez were key figures in liberation Theology, which blends Catholic Social teaching was a focus on systematic change for the oppressed Opus Day was this emphasis on personal sanctity over political activism has generally been more critical of this movement aligning with Vatican critiques of its Marxist element.
Ecumenicalism and modernity. Jesuits are known for interfaith dialogue and engaging with secular culture, sometimes pushing boundaries. Opus Day tends to prioritize fidelity to Catholic doctrine and traditional devotions and can make it appear less open to such engagement. What's really interesting is I think that the Jesuit Opus Day split in many ways for told the split.
Between like modern conservatives and modern progressives where the progressives are a party of intellectual and bureaucratic elites. And the conservatives are who, who want to change things, who want [00:13:00] to adapt culture as quickly as possible. Whereas the conservatives, while newer, like the new right, is a newer party than this progressive, right?
Is a party of personal responsibility. Personal discernment and returning to traditions. Mm-hmm. And not interfering with, with, with people's lives so that you can maximize your own life.
Sorry, I want to build this into the game world. Oh. No. No, I really like this idea where I think, you know, earlier I had the church splitting up in one church, forming in Mexico, and then the other church forming around the Vatican. And I want to do a a, a, the headed, the Jesuits, the black pope, ends up essentially through shady dealings, taking over the Catholic church.
And then, you know, you know, legalizing. Women in the, in the, in the, in the priesthood, et cetera, gay marriage, a bunch of stuff that your normal Opus Day member would never allow. Mm-hmm. And then have the Cardinals who are affiliated with the, with the Opus Day faction refocusing around the [00:14:00] Latin American church.
So it would be a schism, but it was a schism that would make sense given the modern conflicts the church is already have. Yeah, that makes sense.
I will end up posting the new faction to the Discord, but I think they're pretty dope.
We tried to lean hard into the idea of while there was a schism in the church, it was a schism in which , , the side that is the Catholics that you would encounter in the game is the one was the most claimed to apostolic succession. And they have transformed sort of the way the religion is practice into this concept of living martyrdom.
I. Which means that essentially everyone, , dresses and lives their lives as if they're living under the priesthood,
but was much more
fervor than you would see was in the existing church.
Now you could say here, well then just don't have the Vatican fall. You know, the problem is, is. In almost every timeline I can see that happening. Now, specifically in Italy [00:15:00] right now, we have a fertility rate of only 1.18. That means even if it stays at its existing fertility, and keep in mind it's fallen every year for the past 16 years, I think.
For every a hundred Italians, there will only be 20 great-grandchildren. I don't see how that civilization can stay stable or we can expect it to continue existing. However, I could potentially see iterations of Catholic civilization staying stable in Latin America, which is where we have the church refocusing.
Malcolm Collins: And keep in mind the, the current Pope is a Jesuit. Oh, really? Oh,
Simone Collins: yes.
Malcolm Collins: The, the, he's catching a
Simone Collins: hippie from trad casts though. So now I guess that Oh, yeah. Provides more context.
Malcolm Collins: So, the founder of Opus Day was canonized, declared a saint in 2002. Hmm. Just 27 years after his death in 1975. Wow. The one that shows how new they are. The founder of the Opus Day. By 2002 had only been dead for 27 years. Wow. He was the Saint Dead. [00:16:00] This event symbolized opus day's rapid rise and prominence within the Catholic Church, particularly under Pope John Paul ii, who strongly supported the organization.
I. Opus Day known for its conservative and traditional approach to face emphasizes the sanctification of daily life, often appealing to lay people, and aligning with a structured devotional spirituality. In contrast, the Jesuits, a religious order known for their intellectual rigor and progressive leanings.
Focus on education and social justice were perceived as having lost some influence in the decades following Vatican II and the 1960s attempts to modernize the church. Escobar's canonization occurred so quickly. It was seen by some of the church as favoring opus state's traditionalism over the gero, more liberal stance.
It was an unprecedented spade. His canonization is just. 27 years, one of the fastest canonization in modern history. Yeah. Second only to Mother Theresa. Typically, the process takes decades or even centuries, beginning as a mandatory five year waiting period after the death followed by an extensive [00:17:00] investigation into the candidate's life in miracles.
Right? This rapid timeline was exceptional. Strong papal support. Pope John Paul II was. Who personally in Minor. This guy and Opus Day's Mission played a key role in fast tracking the process. His support reflects priority of promoting models of holiness for laypeople, which had laid with Opus day's focus.
But it made the canonization appear unusually driven by Papal Initiative. Miracles attributed the two miracles that were credited to him. Which are a requirement for sainthood. One involved in nuns recovering from a rare skin disease, and the other a doctor's healing from radiation exposure.
While these were officially verified, the speed and the process raised questions among some questions among Jesuits who really did not like that he was canonized. Yeah, I don't know,
Simone Collins: like a skin condition. Suddenly both of these are, are, are unexpected physical changes in response to. Medical conditions, like there are so many of those that take place to attribute those to a single [00:18:00] person.
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.
Malcolm Collins: Well, we'll have a, a separate episode where we'll go deeper on the, the secondary part of this, which is okay, the, the black Pope and the Jesuits. So the Jesuits were all black and their leader, which is elected by the Jesuits, has a lot of power in trying to attempt to essentially like manipulate who gets elected Pope and stuff like that.
And, and, and what happens within the Catholic organizations because like obviously he has a lot of power. The Jesuits have been around for a very long time and so have collected a ton of money. And so they are a very wealthy organization. They also have positioned if power was in secular society, so if you're talking about like Catholic universities or just elite educational institutions more broadly, you're going to see Jesuits in positions of power across these.
Whereas Opus Day have focused much more on empowering lay people outside of the clergy. Mm-hmm. Very much newer organization, which doesn't deal as well with accumulating [00:19:00] power. But I would bet if you're looking at fertility rates between organizations affiliated with each of these brands, Jesuits are gonna be a giant fertility sink to have any area.
Yeah. And the day are gonna be a ti a huge fertility boost, having anywhere around you.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, because it sounds like the OPAs day are just about getting things done. Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: And it provides a way for the Opus Day to potentially build factions that are just entirely based around family and having kids and, and focusing their, and it would just completely be cogent with their existing teachings.
Absolutely. Which means that long run, they'll likely win. And as that becomes more clear to the Jesuits. As has happened with organizations in the past like the Gray Friars and stuff like that. This is like a thing that constantly happens with the Catholics, where, remember how I told you that the Catholic orders were like creating a new, because I argued that religions typically become softer as time goes on.
Mm-hmm. And they become more like the urban monoculture as time goes on. Yeah. And so you need to create [00:20:00] new young orders which basically act like new religions, which then reinject these like stem cells into like the heart of the Catholic religion, keeping it young. The Opus Day really represent that they are the youngest of the orders where the Jesuits, this isn't the first order that this happened to.
I even think when the Jesuits were first created, they were replacing another order, I wanna say the gray fryers that had become super wealthy and indolent and focused on intellectualism. Wow. And focused on. Like disconnected from the people because as orders get older, they undergo the process that all organizations do.
Yeah. Which is becoming softer capitulating to the urban monoculture.
By the way, my memory here was correct. It was the Gray Friars, also known as the Franciscans who were founded in the 12 hundreds originally around, you know, extreme poverty, not owning anything, et cetera, and had become incredibly wealthy and elitist by the times that the Jesuits were founded. , and so you see this cycle where an order is founded.
At first they focus on, you know, austerity and, and, Faith and [00:21:00] then over time they become wealthier and more intellectually elitist and more interested in appealing to the status hierarchies of the secular world.
Malcolm Collins: You can read our book, the Pragmatist Guide to Religion, if you wanna learn more about what it means for a religion to get soft. But, but they as an order have become soft. And the question , is are they going to fight against this?
Mm-hmm. If, if a Pope turned against them. That'd be fine. And, and Popes have against the Jesuits in the past. In fact a Pope in the past because the black Pope was accumulating so much power. This is ahead of the Jesuits. A Pope inserted and then created a tradition of inserting a pope chosen by the Vatican rather than voted on by the Jesuit.
Oh drama. Okay. Very drama.
Yeah. Let's just go into what I collected about the black Pope, because I think you'll find this.
Yeah.
Simone Collins: Okay. So yeah, tell me, tell me about the black Pope.
Malcolm Collins: So first the outfit. Why is he called the black pope? The Jesuits wear plain black [00:22:00] coss a stark contrast to the pope's pristine white robes. Mm. Since their founding in 1540, the Jesuits have been the Catholic intellectual heavyweights, educators, missionaries and influencers.
Mm-hmm. The leaders clout has sometimes rivaled the popes, at least in the eyes of his admirers and enemies. Okay. But. Back in the 16th and 17th centuries Protestant nation saw the Jesuits Pope as a secret army, loyal to a fault and dangerously clever because they were the intellectuals and they did dress in all black.
And you can imagine how that looked to the Protestants, right? Yeah. But even Catholics, I actually learned about the concept of the black Pope and all of this at the prenatal con from a actually an opus day. Who was like, Hey, you need to look into the Jesuits. Ooh. They've been trying to take over the Catholics for a long time.
Wow. A lot of this stuff that you see as broadly Catholic is just Jesuits.
Simone Collins: That's interesting. Wow.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The, the, so picture this, it's 1773 and the Jesuits are at the height of their influence running schools, advising kings and spreading [00:23:00] Catholicism worldwide. But they've made enemies, European monarchs, jealous of their sway and annoyed by their meddling pressured.
Pope Clement, the 14th to shut them down. He caves issuing a decree that suppresses the Jesuit order entirely. Officially, they're disbanded, but here's the twist. In places like Russia where the Pope's order isn't enforced, the Jesuits don't just fade away. They keep going. Led temporarily by the vicar general stand in black popes who defy the suppression turn a conspiracy minded observer.
This looks like the Jesuits summing their nose at the Pope. No, that's exactly what it is. Oh my God. Okay, so the Jesuits were disbanded in the 1770s. Okay. But in places where the Pope's power didn't hold the Jesuits, elected leaders kept running iterations of this order.
Simone Collins: How interesting. Hmm. And then
Malcolm Collins: Years later by the 19th century, [00:24:00] the Jesuits are quietly reinstated under Pope Pius the.
Seventh in 1814 to outsiders. This mate seem what? What? No, that's exactly what happened
Simone Collins: to outsiders. Yeah. Is there a butt after that? Like, it may have looked like this, but it wasn't. That's exactly what it was. It was
Malcolm Collins: a rogue religious organization that was well, but is there a butt, like, do
Simone Collins: they explain why it isn't what it looks like?
Malcolm Collins: No, I mean, I'm sure that the, the, this is from an ai, so the AI is just trained on Jesuit writing, obviously because they control the laws, but they due to having too much power and fighting the Pope's interest were banned by the Pope, then use the black Pope as their alternate pope. Oh, good heavens. Kept operating and were reinstated later.
They literally are a separate religious organization operating within the Catholic church. That was too powerful to be eradicated, to stop. That's, that's [00:25:00] crazy. But hold on.
So I wanted to be as fair as possible and try to look at the way a Catholic would see this. What they would say is that, well, the Jesuits weren't actually disbanded because the Pope thought they were becoming too powerful. They were disbanded because they were annoying local. I. rulers, which, okay, I guess I can get behind that.
But then isn't the pope supposed to be God's hand on Earth? How is he so easily bullied by local rulers? Then you have the, the secondary situation, which is to say that, well, technically they weren't disbanded. See, the Russians, the Russian Jesuits found themselves in a. Legal gray area, they weren't directly disobeying the pope since the suppression decree hadn't been officially promulgated in Russia and that papal documents technically needed to be officially promulgated in a region to take effect according to the legal practices at the time.
Now, for me, I'm like, yeah, but like it doesn't matter if it's illegal or not. What matters is what God wanted, and apparently God. Operates through apostolic succession and the Pope is God's [00:26:00] hand on earth. So you think that God's like, okay with this sort of technicality, I, I don't know. To me this reads like somebody doesn't really believe their religion.
If they're like, oh, well technicality here. and then you have this situation of, apparently there was one instance where Pope Pius the seventh did. acknowledge the existence of the Jesuits in Russia in 1783, which is seen as approval, and then they were later restored and that the faction in Russia continued to exist, gave them the ability to claim this historical continuity.
so that's how they're like, well, you see, it was a good thing and we're all just gonna forget that this happened.
Malcolm Collins: That's not the only power grab that they've done. Okay. In the 20th century, inter Father Pedro or arpa, the Superior General, or black Pope from.
1965 to 1983 under his rope, the Jesuits go rogue. They dive into liberation theology, a firing mix of faith and social justice that has them backing revolutionaries in Latin America. What. [00:27:00] Yeah. By 1981, ARPA suffers a stroke. And Pope John Paul II sees at the moment, he doesn't wait for the Jesuits to elect a new back Pope.
He appoints his own delegate to run the order. He moved Dub Papal Marshall Law. It was unprecedented. And many Jesuits complained about this. So, he was backing socialist revolutionaries, the head of the Jesuits in Latin America. Hmm. I see. And then we have what happened in 2005 where the Jesuits tried to prevent the election of a Pope.
So after John Paul's II's death in April, 2005, the College of Cardinals convened to elected his successor Rex Retinger a German theologian and close ally of John Paul ii. Oh, remember, Tinger? Yeah, the back, the Opus Day faction. Oh. And he emerged as the front runner. However, not everyone was on board with this candidacy.
Mm-hmm. A blocking strategy. A group of cardinals reportedly included some of Europe's and Latin Americans [00:28:00] wanted to prevent rats nerve from securing the two thirds majority needed to win. Mm-hmm. They rallied rot around Burel, Guo an Argentinian Jesuit known for his humility and focus on the poor, an alternative candidate.
He, the guy who they rallied him again wasn't necessarily campaigning for the paper that he himself, in fact accounts suggest he was uneasy about being used in this way. So they're like not even particularly moral people in the way they're doing this. Like this guy did not want this to happen.
But they got through this. Hmm. Then I was like, okay. But is there any evidence that the Jesuits actually do offer, like, like, like have outsized control within the organization? It's like, well, they haven't just
Simone Collins: presented a ton.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. They're basically a rogue faction that is. Antipas. Well, I mean now they control the papacy.
So like, who's to say the Catholic exclusive? Yeah, you're anti papus
Simone Collins: until you, you're in charge and then Yeah, until
Malcolm Collins: you're in charge. Right. You know, you love it. It's great. It's great. Let institute these reforms throughout the [00:29:00] entire Catholic order. And I think that this is like a generational thing.
I think the church will likely have some major schism if the next Pope is also a Jesuit and continues to take it in this direction. Yeah. And we'll see. 'cause it doesn't
Simone Collins: look like this Pope has a lot longer because of his health issues. I.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And the question is, is because, because like the, the, the bureaucratic branch is always gonna be overwhelmingly Jesuit because they control the elites in the positions of power or Jesuit influenced whereas the lay people who don't vote on Pope, for example, are gonna be overly aligned with the Opus day.
Yeah. Now long term, I think the Opus Day faction ends up gaining control as this happened a few times in Castle history where a new a sort of order needs to come in and another order needs to. But the question is, is can that happen before the, the Pope ends up taking the church in a theological direction that is untenable to your average Opus Day aligned individual?
Simone Collins: Yikes. That's wow. I'm glad that [00:30:00] the Opus Day member that you met at Nacon told you to look a little deeper because, oh my gosh, like this is, we think
Malcolm Collins: we need to do an Opus Day episode for ages though, because like we've always, like, from what I've heard of them, I've always liked them. I think mortification is good.
I think this. Waking up and like, like yelling, like I'm at it is really mentally healthy. I think it's important that they do something that a lot of Catholics don't do, which is theological teaching. Whereas a lot of the way that Catholic sermons go is really focused around ceremony. Mm-hmm. Like I was talking with, you know, at, at NATO Con Newcastle's, famously low fertility these days.
Mm-hmm. Of, of religious sex, Catholic majority countries, Catholic areas. How do you get fertility rates up? Well, a couple at Nacon was like, well, we decided to have a kid long before we had planned on having one. Mm-hmm. Because you know, at church, the, the pastor came in and, and said like, Hey, we're gonna help this couple you know, make sure that they're never in need for childcare, et cetera.
Mm-hmm. And then, you know, when their baby was crying, he goes, you know, if this babies aren't crying, the [00:31:00] church is dying, you know, saying all this to the entire congregation from the pulpit. I mean, they were like, oh. Like, I didn't, I felt like I was doing a bad job at being a mother, but hearing like, oh, let the baby cry, you know, et cetera.
And, and I was, I was talking about this and a Catholic was like, yeah, there's like, my priest would never say that. Like, that's not like a thing that you would do is, is be like, Hey, this couple help them care for their kid. But that is something the Opus Day can do in the way that they do these additional lessons.
This like Sunday School for adults. So
Simone Collins: presumably there are Opus Day. Churches. Like, is that, is that the way it works? Like if we were an Opus Day family? No,
Malcolm Collins: no. They're, they're like I, this is my understanding, but I, I'll look it up in post. Is that you, you go to like retreats and training seminars?
Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.
Malcolm Collins: They're more, but you're, you're still part of like
Simone Collins: a normal Catholic parish. Yeah. Because I just wonder how, how would you get the community support then that would, you know, make things easier and more sustainable for you?
Malcolm Collins: Well, ops day members could, you know, build out [00:32:00] like, like daycare networks, like this would be really powerful.
And increasing fertility network rates, right? Yeah. Like, okay, you have your job, which you have a, a, a, a, a moral obligation to that is religious. But then on top of that you have a moral obligation. To helping other members of your community. And while the Opus Day wouldn't be, you know, hugely poor, like traditional, like go help random poor people stuff or mm-hmm.
Or socialist revolution stuff, I can see them being a hundred percent on board with let's create free daycares for members of our own parish. Yeah. That, that seems like a very opus day thing to do. Contrasted with the oh, let's, let's just. Try to like be utility accountants and lower net suffering in the world.
Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah. Which doesn't produce the best of outcomes. It just
Malcolm Collins: happens. Is this a spicy, spicy episode here? Well, I like that you found something nice to say about some Catholics, which is. I've [00:33:00] always been pro opus day from the first time I mentioned you could like search the episode trans. Yeah. But in general you're like, was this pro opus day?
I'm like a really pro opus day. The more you learn, the more you love them. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, they're the only like good Catholic faction now and, and people's like I would ever become. A Catholic based on this? No, I still, no, we don't
Simone Collins: have the disposition necessary to be, yeah.
Malcolm Collins: I, I, I don't, I like, I, I find all the idolatry really hard to, like, even, even like the prayer beads and everything like that, that just trouble even with crosses.
Even the crosses are, I mean, look, as an outsider and I know that like Catholics, like, I'm trying to be like as, as, as, as diplomatic as I can and be like, you guys, I. Believe you are literally eating the savior. Like, like cannibalism. Like it literally, it's not like metaphorically, you think you are literally cannibalizing the literal Messiah.
[00:34:00] We all your, we're eager, eager to feed for sharp in our teeth for the, and
Malcolm Collins: and then you worship to statues of him being tortured. And you wear the device that tortured him on you.
well, that's a little violent.
Can we tone it down? Oh no. Don't be put up. By this snarling they just seem a little murdery right now. Don't worry, honey. Fast staffing.
Malcolm Collins: We struggle with that. It's optically difficult for me to get by. And then you, you worship in these churches that are covered in gold and artwork and paintings and, and all of this idolatry. But we also just
Simone Collins: have, we have trouble using symbolism of any sort.
I don't care if it's a Pokemon card or if it's an image. No, it's not just
Malcolm Collins: that. Like to me it's like literally, ugh. It's literally like Indiana Jones. It's like the obviously wrong choice. [00:35:00] If you have read the Bible, it's like, oh, it's glorious, it's so beautiful. It's like, no, the cup of a carpenter.
Which one is it? You must choose. But choose wisely. For as the true grail will bring you life, the false grail will take it from you.
I'm not a historian. I have no idea what it looks like. Which one is it? Let me choose.
It's more beautiful than I'd ever imagined.
This certainly is the cup of the king of kings. Is happening to me? He chose poor.
[00:36:00] Be made out of gold. That's the cup of a carpenter.
you have chosen wisely.
Malcolm Collins: Anyway.
Mm-hmm. But what were you gonna say when I interrupted you? I'm sorry.
Simone Collins: No, no. Carry on. You're
Malcolm Collins: saying it's like Pokemon cards and we're okay with it even if it's
Simone Collins: No, no. We're, we're not okay with worshiping any kind of object or using any kind of object. I think people would argue it's not idol. I use it as like a place to focus my attention.
Or remind me, but No, no, because there's this, this human intuitive tendency to just start treating objects of meditation as idols over time. It's just, it's
Malcolm Collins: exactly. And you can see why we're wor, I mean, even Catholics would be like, okay, but like, we don't do that. And it's like, yeah, maybe you intellectual [00:37:00] Catholic doesn't do that.
But there's a lot of lay Catholics in the, in the outer parts of this sort of Catholic empire in Latin America and stuff like that, where they are absolutely worshiping the saints. Yeah. And, and then like
Simone Collins: we, we see it happening in, when, whenever we're in Peru, there's various attaches of saints like.
Sitting around and you know, people stop and they pray and they leave things there and mm-hmm. The point I'm making
Malcolm Collins: here is that the reason why this stuff is banned is, is, is you somebody with absolute mental discipline who is absolutely educated on the Bible, might be able to go into a church and be inspired by these things and maintain that mental separation.
Mm-hmm. But your average person, or even let's say 20% of the parishioners aren't gonna be able to do that. Is it worth sacrificing their souls? So that you can and, and keep in mind we have a different relation to the concept of soul. Enjoy an
Simone Collins: aesthetic flourish. Like it's not a deal breaker for you.
I mean, especially if you're not worshiping these things as [00:38:00] idols, you really don't need them at all. You're just like, oh, don't, no, they're nice. They help to inspire. Go look at, look at trees, look at plants. Look at the sky. Look at the night sky, look at the sun. Look at, look at. Well, all of that would still be
Malcolm Collins: idolatry if you're using it as an intermediary,
Simone Collins: right?
But like, if you are, if you need inspiration about the greatness of God, you don't need to see a cathedral. You can look into the eyes of your own child, you know, like, or anything beautiful happening.
Malcolm Collins: That's, yeah. The, the point being is that even Catholics would admit that this has a cost. And, and the question is like, why are they comfortable with that cost?
Like, when I take that in, in combination with all the aesthetic stuff and the, the, the, the bleeding Christ and the church and everything, I, I don't know, like, yeah, it's tough. I struggle. It's tough optically, but I, I will say that the Opus Day, like among Catholics, they seem to be pretty awesome.
Simone Collins: Yeah, well, because I, I think maybe what you seem to like about them a lot is, I mean, we are extremely focused on outcomes.
We're very consequentialist and they seem to [00:39:00] be very focused on,
Malcolm Collins: well, not just that, but I believe in treating your daily work as a, as a, as as sort of a religiou act of worship, calling act, an act of worship and, and productivity as an act of worship. Mm-hmm. And I also really believe in the concept of the lay.
I mean, one of my biggest complaints about the Catholic Church is this like hierarchy of religious authority. And the opus Day, in a way, invert that hierarchy of religious authority pointing out that the lay person can be as much of the same or as, yeah. In that way it is
Simone Collins: very Protestant, isn't it?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. As, as the, as the highest member of a church or as a cardinal. And I think that that is, to me, that that really aligns with my sensibilities and sort of the anti-elitism bit that I have, which is, is I think they really represent that. Yeah. And I think. Represent a way that you can be Catholic.
And you know, we talk about this with techno puritanism is, is that I want people to be able to come to the religion from different faith. And what that means to me is that [00:40:00] if you look at the tracks to be a techno puritan, you don't need to believe in all the tracks. Like you only need to believe, a few, like, like broad things like that we are going to be arguing that God actually exists. That, that you could argue God from looking at repeatable real world things, not like you saying it from yourself. Like just, oh, I, I saw this saying that no one else saw, and that's, or I feel this thing that no one else can feel.
And that god, what was the final one? That all other true face are a true face and should be allowed to coexist. Hmm. And that's something that a, you know, a lot of Catholics are gonna struggle with. But, but that there, there would be a natural alliance between these groups anyway, but, but like the open day, I can see myself aligning with the opus day.
I could never see myself aligning with the Jesuits.
Simone Collins: Well, do you have any data on Opus Day? Fragility.
Malcolm Collins: No, but I can look it up and post. Yeah, I mean, I, I guess your hope then would be, oh, I checked it actually with ai, it didn't have any [00:41:00] data on it. Yeah, it would be good for, it would be really hard to know.
No, I bet you you could collect Opus Day affiliate members, like layperson members that go to these training seminars. Yeah. But do they collect
Simone Collins: things like how many kids do you have? I doubt that you
Malcolm Collins: could start collecting, just do a collection for like a few classes. See how many kids, people over a certain age have and then try to correlate that with a general Catholic fertility rate.
And you might find, I suspect that the Opus Day affiliation is really directly correlated with high fertility.
Simone Collins: I can definitely be done just, I, I doubt that, you know, there's a lot of good info right now, but
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, love you to DeSimone. I don't know if your, your opinion has changed on anything from this.
Simone Collins: I like that you gave me a more realistic picture of them because like so many other people, my only exposure to information about Opus Day, aside from their waking up rituals, which I'd looked up when making a YouTube video, which embarrassingly still sits on this channel, [00:42:00] was from the Da Vinci Code and that pale actor.
Wasn't he supposed to be an albino? Yeah, like whipping himself and being weird and that that is, that, that seems so deviant from what you described. 'cause they're about, you know, and they, they imply that the opus day is this monastic order of extremist isolated crazies. When what you're describing is a.
An order that's all about leaning into the real world and just self-actualization to the max plus a lot of Catholicism, which sounds pretty cool. So I feel like a, a great disservice has been done by the Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown to all, I don't know, I think the DaVinci code made them look cool. I don't think so.
No, no. It was like just this albino freak trying to stop them. I don't think, at least from reading the book. The book did not give me a very positive impression of the Opus Day. So I still feel, I feel like they were [00:43:00] wronged. Maybe, maybe Dan Brown is a secret Jesuit, or maybe he did book research with Jesuits and didn't.
No. But he is
Malcolm Collins: Urban Monoculture aligned. And Urban Monoculture Oh. Would be more associated with Op Day. Anti-Urban Monoculture is gonna be affiliated with OPAs Day. Mm.
Simone Collins: I could see that. I could, I could. Okay. Fair.
Malcolm Collins: Alright. Love you to death.
Simone Collins: I love you too. For your starch tonight, I presume you want hash browns.
Like it seems like whenever there's a choice, your choice is hash browns. Is that correct?
Malcolm Collins: I'm okay with whatever you feel you have the time to make with the only thing getting to bed early. Oh, yes. 'cause sleep. Oh, listen, getting to bed early is more important than anything else. So big on sleep. So I, I, I, I'd say the difference between rice and hash browns is a maybe 10% difference, not big.
Simone Collins: In fact, I've done, now I can make you hash browns, so I'll do it because I desperately love you. I [00:44:00] just want you to, I want you to know how much I love you. I wish I could do more things. You do
Malcolm Collins: a lot of things
Simone Collins: not good at expressing affection. You're very
Malcolm Collins: good at expressing. You just don't believe I hear it,
Simone Collins: but you taste it.
Is that the thing that matters?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I live my life of, of, of an amazingness with you. You know, I, I get to live a near perfect life. I've been thinking about it again recently, like it's unfair how perfect my life is. Yeah.
Simone Collins: But you, you have a perfect life. 'cause you also, I. Love your family and are a good person and work really hard.
And I, I love that our kids are like that too. Like, right, like indie's been a little bit irritable, but you know what has kept her quiet since I put her down, I'm just, I'm just playing home videos of, of her siblings and that makes her happy again. I. Well, the kids's being dragged around. I love it. Yeah.
It's just like, that's so sweet. She, that's all she wants to see. And then she's, and then she's happy. And that, that is our family, that we are so lucky to love each other and live together. And, you [00:45:00] know, I think there's a lot of people who would have everything you have and not be happy to think that it was a miserable existence.
So. Like the opus day, you choose happiness, you choose cheerfulness, and you choose love. And how could you have all of this? How
Malcolm Collins: could you be married to you and have these kids in this house and not be, I mean, I know a lot of movie stars, like all of them seem unhappy, right? Like they've, they've chosen this life that's like urban monoculture life.
It's so sad. Yeah. Even though they have all this wealth and power, like, you know, Jim Carrey's famous line, you know. I hope you achieve wealth, power in everything you wanted. 'cause then you'll see it What make you happy? Yeah. It's like, well I don't know what you were fighting for Jim Carrey, but like, this makes me happy and fulfilled.
Simone Collins: Yeah. That's pretty darn good.
Malcolm Collins: Maybe, maybe you should have had a big family and gotten married and go to live on a farm.
Simone Collins: Some celebrities seem to do that. They just disappear. Like you never hear from them. You know, you hear from the miserable ones because they're still engaging with the press. I bet that that
Malcolm Collins: one crazy Christian one
Simone Collins: is
Malcolm Collins: happy.
Simone Collins: I. Oh, the who? The drunk driving man? The brave guy. Mel Gibson. Mel Gibson. Mel
Malcolm Collins: Gibson.
Yeah. He is [00:46:00] pretty, pretty. I love the South Park. Take on him.
. Yeah, say what you want about Mel Gibson, but the son of a knows story structure. Get the video tape and do a background check on everyone in it. Ah, yes.
Malcolm Collins: Like, this guy's crazy, but damn does he know story structure.
Simone Collins: Oh, I praise from Stone and Parker, right?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I love you,
Simone Collins: Vanessa. Love. I love you too. Bye. Bye. Bye. You hang up.
Bye.
Guy Secret and Octavia's, a Red Army guy. And Red Army guys respond. I know. Is it another Red Army guy?
Oh.
I, I chase.

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