Teaching the Holocaust to skeptical youth

In this in-depth discussion, Malcolm and Simone Collins tackle the dramatic rise in antisemitism among young Americans — now affecting over 25% of people in their 20s, compared to just 5% among those in their 80s.

We examine hard data: skyrocketing antisemitic incidents since 2021, Holocaust denial rates (especially among young GOP voters), and stark generational and demographic divides. We argue that the surge isn’t primarily driven by the Israel-Gaza conflict or historical tropes, but by two distinct modern dynamics:

• On the right: A cultural backlash against perceived entitlement, suppression of criticism, and lack of reciprocal gratitude for decades of U.S. support to Israel and Jewish communities.• On the left: The growing influence of Islamist or Muslim-sympathizing voices within progressive intellectual circles, reshaping “woke” priorities.

We explore why traditional strategies (invoking discrimination, deplatforming critics) are backfiring in today’s media landscape, how cultural misunderstandings fuel escalation, and why even former strong allies are reevaluating their stance.

Ultimately, we discuss practical paths forward for Jewish cultural resilience in a changing world — including dropping any sense of ongoing entitlement, building genuine intergenerational alliances, and rethinking how historical traumas are taught to skeptical Gen Z and Alpha audiences.

This is a candid, data-driven conversation aimed at understanding a dangerous trend — not promoting hate, but preventing worse outcomes for everyone.

🔔 Subscribe for more discussions on demographics, culture, fertility, and the future of civilization.[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about why everyone hates the Jews again. Oh boy. And it’s not, it is not Gaza. Actually, the rate of Jewish hate has gone up significantly since the war in Gaza ended. Right? Like what? So, and, and I think that there is a lot of mistake in, in terms of how people are trying to diagnose where this is coming from.

Okay. Where it is either mistakenly put on the war in Gaza, where if you actually look downstream of where we see it, I’ll, I’ll bring a lot of receipts that that is not it or that it is put on historic reasons. And I also don’t think it’s happening for the reasons that Jews were hated historically.

Good. I think that it is happening for new reasons and reasons. Even get to me. Like even I will say that over time my perception of the utility in standing Jewish culture has dropped pretty precipitously. And I will explain why, [00:01:00] but first I just want to document how high it is and how much it’s shifting.

Wow. So I’m gonna put a graph on screen here that shows explicit antisemitism by age among registered voters. Now if you look at people in their eighties, you will see that this is hovering at around 5%. So very, very low for older people. Okay? If you look at people in their twenties from, from, it’s slightly higher among Republicans than Democrats, but you’re looking at between like.

24 and like it looks like 32%. So, and, and then on average well over 25%, so, over a quarter, one in four people in the United States now is anti-Semitic. Young people. Yeah. When it used to be at around 5%, and this has changed within like two generations, right? So yes.

Simone Collins: Something that young people are reading and experiencing is making them.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, if you look at, anti-Semitic incidents in the United States. I’ll put [00:02:00] a graph here, which you’ll see is they were fairly low up until about 2021, and then they start to go up and then they shoot up in 2023 and then are higher still in 2024. If you look at there was another study here Holocaust denial or minimization, nearly four in 10 in the current GOP 37%.

So this is in alignment with the antisemitism rates we saw there. Okay. Believe the Holocaust was greatly exaggerated or did not happen as historians describe, oh younger men are especially likely to hold this view. 54% of men under 50, 39% of women under 50. What? And this is of GOP voters among men, over 50, 41% agree compared to 18% of women over 50.

Racial divides are particularly striking. And so what you can see is. Anybody who knows this, who are the most anti-Semitic Hispanic voters? 77% of Hispanic GOP voters. Oh,

Simone Collins: I actually wouldn’t have

Malcolm Collins: guessed that. Black voters, 66% of black GOP [00:03:00] voters. Okay. And it’s fairly rare among white GOP voters that only quote unquote 30%.

So that’s still about a third. So this is obviously a real issue.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But what is it that young people are seeing that boomers aren’t seeing that’s so profoundly affects their views of Jews?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, I think what we’re actually seeing here, and I’ll just drop right to the point. So one, I’m gonna be arguing later in this, but I’ll go into it in more detail.

When we get to it the, the reason why progressives have started hating the Jews very intensely recently is not the reason I thought historically, just because Jews were out competing other groups. And if your entire worldview is around equality and you believe that everyone is genetically identical and just somebody’s culture, like you can’t be like, well, if we’re all genetically identical, then some groups must be doing worse because of their culture.

And then people are like, that’s victim blaming or whatever, you know? It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this or that group’s culture, why their children. Are, you know, not doing as well on tests and stuff. And so, if a group is [00:04:00] doing better, people are gonna say, oh, well that can be explained.

This is what I historically thought, oh, it must be because they’re cheating. I’m actually gonna argue that it’s something different that’s leading to the current leftist antisemitism. But I wanna talk about rightist antisemitism. Simm or even my own internal calculation has sort of been changing recently.

So first I’ll get to the broad rightest antisemitism and where it’s coming from.

Okay.

And, and, and why this doesn’t work intergenerationally. Why you don’t see it as hitting older people? Basically everyone in our society around the eighties and the nineties agreed that racism was bad. Like we just societally agreed.

Racism is a bad thing. We shouldn’t be actively racist, right? Now woke, people in the woke cultural movement took this, right, and they, they then warped it to be like, well, discrimination against any perceived group is bad. I can self define as a minority discriminated group. And because, and [00:05:00] then, and then they abuse that.

This is where a lot of the trans stuff came from. This is where a lot of the, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, came from. During that period of discrimination is bad happening. A lot of Jewish cultures and cultural groups basically learned how to hack this to get their way right. Mm. We try to shut down criticism by, as we’ve seen people do, and, and people can be like, well, every group does this, and I wanna point out that no, every group doesn’t do this.

We have multiple times on our videos, so we did a video arguing that Jews are not genetically superior to other people. Right. Not at all an antisemitic take. If anything, it would be a proje take because it’s arguing that Jews are outcompeting other people in terms of like income and politically predominantly due to cultural advantages.

Which is better than just having a genetic advantage. ‘cause then that would just be blatantly unfair. And I could see why other groups would be like, oh, well we don’t want them competing amongst us if that’s the case. But I [00:06:00] put that video out there and I literally had people reach out to me saying that it was anti-Semitic.

Like, I can’t believe you did this, et cetera. I had the video saying that we should stop paying

Military aid.

Malcolm Collins: to Israel.

Something we, we’ve been giving it. We, we literally, like if you look at America right? We freed the Jews, America freed the Jews from near complete eradication during the Holocaust. Um, That in the Holocaust actually happened.

And we since paid for economic helping hands for a long time up until like the last five years and. Huge military helping hand for, for a long, long time period. Right. To just say, Hey, we should stop giving them aid now, you know, they’re a developed economy at this point and they’re not actively in a war is not an anti-Semitic thing to say.

Simone Collins: Right? Yeah. Like we’ve, we’ve helped out and that’s great and now we’ve, we’ve helped the help isn’t definite be like,

Malcolm Collins: Well anyone would do this if anyone who’s a long time fan of the show. Knows [00:07:00] that we are two Catholics. Whatever Nick Fuentes is to choose, like, and I don’t mean this by that, what I mean is Nick Fuentes doesn’t actually seem to individually hate Jewish people.

He seems to sort of hate the religion more broadly and what he sees that as standing for. Whereas with us, like we like Catholics individually, but I think that the Vatican, and I’ve said this on shows, is. A, core enemy of the United States, our way of life, our long-term objectives. They have stated this pretty explicitly, and I think that the Vatican in their form of Catholicism, I mean like the heads of the Catholic face is incompatible with long-term human thriving.

Like this is a stance that is as antagonistic to Catholics as anything Nick Foes has ever said about Jews. And yet never once. And I’m, I wanna be clear about this, to Jews who are like, well, you know, you can’t control what every Jew does or something like this. There are dramatically more just in terms of numbers, Catholics who watch the shows in Jews, never once has one of them reached out to us [00:08:00] saying that, oh, you went too far with this, or You went too far with this.

Or how dare you say this? That means that you just hate Catholics.

Malcolm Collins: They will question us with, with facts. They’ll say, you know, well, actually if you look at Thomas Aquinas on this or you look at Augustus of Hippo on this, they actually said this, this, and this, or they actually said this, this, and this. Or the early church actually thought this about, you know, when life began.

That is not calling us. That’s saying you made a factual mistake. Right? Like, or, or this is a philosophical argument against you. That’s not a, how dare you say this about Catholics.

Hmm.

And again, you, you can’t say, well, you know, the Catholics have never been mass murdered. My actual ancestors have mass murdered Catholics, right?

Like Catholics have been mass murdered in extremely brutal ways. And in ways that were now note, they were equivalent to how brutal Jews were murdered in previous pogroms. But the Holocaust was, actually speaking, if you look at the, the brutality displayed not quite [00:09:00] at the level of, you know, mass live burnings and stuff like that.

It was, it was horrifying. Don’t get me wrong. But what I’m saying is, is Catholics went through a lot in various periods as well. So like to say, oh, well, they’re just not afraid of, of, of this happening. And this isn’t about driving individuals who might be your allies away. It’s actually about how it.

Heightens the message. So I’ll explain what I mean about this. Nick Fuentes goes on PI Morgan, or he goes on Tucker Carlson. And the first few questions that either of them wanna talk about are about Jews in his perception of Jews. And so he has an opportunity to go on a whatever long rant exposing people who may never have actually heard anti-Semitic arguments to long form anti-Semitic arguments.

We regularly go on interviews, right? Not our interviewer ever has asked us about our anti-Catholic opinions. You, you know, the interviewer that [00:10:00] recently went viral with us. That was a Telemundo reporter, right? Like age interviewing for predominantly Catholic populations all around Latin America, right?

Never came up just completely irrelevant to her. Now, I want you to think about how this was a really advantageous way to react culturally in a historic context, in a very disadvantageous way to react culturally in a modern context, right?

Mm-hmm.

So in a historic context. What would’ve happened and this did happen historically, is somebody like Ben Shapiro would say, oh, this person is saying stuff that is anti-Semitic, or that, you know, in the early days like borders on antisemitism.

In his mind when early days it was just like, well, we shouldn’t be giving his real aid or something like this. And so then he forwards that to. Whatever media watchdog organizations and these people get removed from X platform or Y platform. And because media was much more consolidated them and because media [00:11:00] was I don’t like this. It’s not antisemitic to say that Jews are disproportionately in media. We’ve done episodes where we actually track just how disproportionately Jews, especially early Hollywood

Malcolm Collins: So as a quick reminder, Jews make up 2% of the US population, but around, . And this is by a 1970s Times Magazine poll, around 80% of professional American comedians. , Here, if you’re looking at founders of major studios, Warner Bros. Founded by Polish Jewish immigrants, MGM, founded by Russian Jewish, , paramount Pictures, Hungarian Jewish Universal Pictures, German Jewish immigrant, Columbia Pictures, the Kahan Brothers Jewish.

. 20th Century Fox, , Hungarian, Jewish, United artists, , not primarily Jewish founded, but acquired by MGM, which was Jewish founded.

In fact, the only major studio I’m aware of that was not Jewish founded was Disney. ,

But Disney is currently run by Bob Iger, who was born Jewish. [00:12:00] I.

In terms of actors, , estimates range from 30 to 50% of screenwriters are Jewish and informal guesses put it at 20% of studio executive producers and agents is Jewish. For producers specifically, a 2015 analysts of best Picture Oxford Oscar nominees found that eight out of 28, around 29% are Jewish.

Contrast that again with around 2% of the general population.

and especially certain categories of media like comedy and stuff like that, are disproportionately controlled by, by Jewish groups, meaning that they can put pressure on their parent organization actors as well saying, oh, I want appear in this, or I want appear in.

This if you have X person in the movie. We saw this recently with some red scarce girls losing a part in a major thing for having Nick Fuentes in on an interview, right? This system of control was actually very advantageous to prevent negative views of Jews from being normalized. In a historic context, like it was an advantageous cultural reaction.

The problem being is it has the exact [00:13:00] opposite effect now,

And I would point out that this being pushed to more skeptical positions, , is something that you see not just with us being incredibly phili, but with people like Charlie Kirk,

Who like us was incredibly pro jewish.

Where, you know, we have on record him saying, just lost another huge Jewish donor, 2 million a year because I won’t cancel Tucker.

Jewish donors play into all the stereotypes. I cannot and will not be bullied like this. , And I think that. They, there’s , this miscommunication culturally where they think that by saying, oh, you’re doing X, which is anti-Semitic, or You’re doing Y, which is anti-Semitic, which will make us less likely to do those things instead of a more likely to do those things when those things are clearly not anti-Semitic.

, And this is just cultural misunderstanding of the new right. , And it’s not unique to us.

And when I talk about a cultural misunderstanding, it’s like, suppose [00:14:00] you see somebody at a bar who’s doing something that you know you disapprove of, and you walk up and you shove them. Now a person from one cultural perspective is going to just be like, okay, I’m gonna stop doing that. Whatever, right?

Just leave the bar. Avoid confrontation, but a person from another cultural perspective that’s gonna always lead to an escalation. And this claim of this is antisemitic is going to almost always add to a cultural escalation. If you look at this from the perspective of American Protestant culture.

Or think about it another way. Suppose somebody comes up to you and says you’re being an a-hole and you’re doing something that you internally look and you’re like, you know what? I was being an a-hole. And then , you know, correct your behavior. But I think for a lot of people from many different cultures,

if you come up to them and you say, Hey, you’re being an a. They’re not at all being an a-hole. They’re just trying to be rational or just trying to be pragmatic about something. , the natural response for a lot of cultures is to be like, you know what, like, f you man.

And I think where this leads to sort of the [00:15:00] anti-Semitic spiral we’re seeing in our society right now is the person who said FF you, man. Then the other person who said, oh, you’re being an A-hole in this case, you’re being anti-Semitic. They, they say that again and more loudly because of this person, said, Hey, f you man.

Then the person is even more incensed and says, Hey, F you louder. And so you have this cultural sort of spiral happen between two groups who are misunderstanding each other, where one group says by saying, Hey, you’re being an A-hole that’s going to lessen this behavior, when in fact it’s increasing the behavior and it’s being said louder in response to the thing that’s increasing the behavior.

But you don’t even need this kind of spiral to happen for these, you know, focus on, oh, he said X thing that could be antisemitic. He said Y thing that could be antisemitic for that to lead to an actual escalation of the airing of antisemitism.

Malcolm Collins: which is it causes the people like say Pi Morgan, who want to appear like want to make sure they know, okay, I’m interviewing the guy who [00:16:00] is in part in trouble for being anti-Semitic. And so I have to. Challenge him or bring up his antisemitism, basically giving him a chance to air his antisemitism and the logic behind it.

Hmm. Now consider us. We’re, we’re not gonna do it. Like we’ll be interviewing soon. We’ve got it on record, which I’m very excited. Student Destiny’s kid who has some views around. You know, that, that sort of stuff. I think specifically around the H guy. And I’m not even gonna be asking him any questions about it ‘cause I just find it uninteresting within the modern media landscape.

Right. And I don’t need to prove when somebody’s like, oh, you had him on and you didn’t even ask him about XI, that’s not what I’m interested in. I’m more interested in being like a counterculture 15-year-old in the modern media ecosystem. And intergenerational cultural transfer and how he thinks about that given that, you know, it didn’t transfer to him.

Very effectively from, from his parent, right? Like, I, I find that to be the fascinating question. There’s a lot of interesting questions I’d had about, you know, people know if we had Nick on the show, we’d just be asking him a bunch of stuff about Catholicism. We’d be asking him very little about his views on, on Jews.

But most people in the old 80 Boomer [00:17:00] system, that’s the way they approach this. And unfortunately, it airs. Attitudes very, very frequently. Now one of the questions can be, but during the period of discrimination, why didn’t the Catholics ever, right, like presumably they could have done this, right? Like, Catholics were really discriminated against in the United States for a long period.

In, in fact, if you’re talking about with in America Catholics were significantly more discriminated against than Jews were to my.

If you look at like, like specific like gang violence targeting. Now admittedly the Catholics had their own gangs and that was part of it. I think the Catholic portray more hate crimes than Jews. I’ll look this up in post.

Unfortunately, it looks like we just don’t have data on this because most of the Catholic hate crimes

were in the late 19th century or early 20th century. While the tracking for hate crimes didn’t start until 1991 under the Hate [00:18:00] Crime Statistic Act, and after that point, there was much more anti-Jewish hatred.

But the point being is they, they like, you know, no Catholics allowed at this job and stuff like that were really common during that period.

So the question is. Why didn’t Catholics ever, I hadn’t thought about this until I was doing this. Why didn’t they ever really in a cohesive format, try to pull the We are discriminated crowd. Do you know what it was? I’ll tell you why. It was because the Catholics wanted to be normal, like the Mormon zoo.

And so for a long time the Catholics tried to act like they were just another form of Christian. And they still do this today. Like they’re just. Like a, a little bit different than Protestants. Not really that weird, not really that distinct at the culture. And it has led to their culture, bleeding members faster than groups like the Jews.

But because of that, they also didn’t pull the, we’re discriminated card. In fact, Mormons also never really pulled the word discriminated card to a big [00:19:00] extent. And they’re another group that did that. So, okay. Yes. That that’s the pattern there. It is their cultural distinctiveness that led them to pull this card, the.

Simone Collins: Could this more broad? I guess it can’t because Islamic groups have claimed to be discriminated against, but their culture is still one in which they want to save everyone. Because I’m trying to think is, is the pattern the difference between religions and culture, cultural groups that want to convert everyone versus those which.

Prefer to be distinct from mainstream society, but that doesn’t seem to be the delineating factor. Right? I don’t think that’s

Malcolm Collins: it. What I would say is that with is, is Islam. It hasn’t been hit as hard by this as Judaism has because sort of the damn on saying negative things about Islam broke during the last age of sort of public media.

Mm. So it really broke was, I’d say the, the rise of the atheist revolution. Basically you had the [00:20:00] atheist revolution happen, the new atheist, everything like that. Then you had like the counter atheist skeptic movement and the, this was like the, where it went in terms of online culture, the anti-feminist atheist movement, and that movement was generally extremely anti-Islam.

And they sort of normalized at least within the right you know, if you say, like I say that it is wrong. That, you know, Muslims go around griefing children or something like that, you know, let’s say marrying nine year olds, right? Like this is common in some Muslim countries. And we’ve, we’ve pointed this out in previous episodes.

It’s so much so that in Pakistan there was a religious council that said a law banning it was Islamophobic right? So, you know, this is mainstream was in some Islamic communities. And you say that and people now are just like. But yeah, that’s kind of true and we shouldn’t be standing that now you’ll get the far progressives and everything, but you sort of have two media ecosystems.

Mm-hmm. That wasn’t true. Was like questioning anything about the Jewish identity until very recently [00:21:00] even questioning something like, should we be giving, you know, continued support to Israel X many years later. Is something that E can was labeled even fairly recently as, as anti-Semitic. Mm-hmm. The other thing that I think that Jewish culture hugely doesn’t like realize, and I really don’t know how to address this ‘cause this sort of needs to be addressed from an intra cultural perspective. And, and again here, no, this is not me saying like I, I don’t particularly feel super strongly one way or the other.

When I did used to feel much more strongly pro Judaism, and one of the things that’s changed for me is I think a lot of Jewish people heard why I was proje. And they fundamentally. We’re not listening to what I was saying. Like they, they saw the words, they could structure them together, but I think they believed it was like, not what I was saying or like a whiter fondness for Judaism in the same way that I think that many people who are just like broadly antisemitic or [00:22:00] the Fuentes tips might not hear what we’re saying when we say why we actually want, we’re pro Jew, pro Jew.

For a few reasons Jews are going to do well in the future, right? Like, look at their fertility rates. Now look at their level of technology. Now look at the way they’ve set themselves up right now. Look at their disproportionate success within existing ecosystems, right? Like if you view the world as like a collection of clans, and then on top of all of those things, they don’t have an intrinsic drive to one day convert or wipe out my people because they, they, their, their religion doesn’t need everyone to convert into it, right?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So I was looking at those things and I was like, so it makes sense to invest in a relationship with this other group because this other group is going to be strong and influential in the future. And so if I invest in them now, if my culture, my country invest in them now, in the future, we will have a more harmonious relationship right.

And we will be able to utilize each [00:23:00] other.

Simone Collins: And importantly, they’re safe as a long-term ally because they’re long-term imperative is not to undermine anyone else’s cultural sovereignty because they’re the chosen people and you can’t really opt into their special club anyway, so it’s fine.

Malcolm Collins: Well, by that, what she means is at end game for Catholics, everyone’s a Catholic in game for Muslims, everyone’s a Muslim.

Mm-hmm. In game for Jews. Not everyone is a Jew. That that would be a failure scenario. Like something went wrong with Judaism if that happens. Yeah. Well, okay, I should, I should add caveats here. Many Jews believe that in the God, I forget what it’s called the end times everyone does become a Jew, but that’s like specifically an end times phenomenon.

Or like a type of Jew, like no hide or something like that. But the, but the point here being is, is that’s what I was saying. And so basically it is they are a group that is going to be strong in the future. Therefore it is worth investing in them because that increases the harmoniousness of our relationship.

And I think what [00:24:00] was not heard in that is, and that increases the harmoniousness of the relationship. Oh. Because what unfortunately seems to happen and I I, I don’t know what it is, is I would suspect that we get more comments or about as many comments from Jewish people angry at us for being antisemitic, like directly at us.

Maybe if somebody like Nick Foes does. And yet we are for people who watch our content know historically incredibly Phils sematic. And I, I began to think, I was like, wait, so we’re getting additional judgment? Right to like toe the line because we have been nice on Jewish issues in the past.

And then I started to think about this in a wider context and I begin to think, wait, is this proof that investing in Jewish cultural groups does not actually earn you long-term goodwill? Um, And I started to think about the United States, right? Mm-hmm. [00:25:00] Like, again, we saved the Jewish people, right? And people can say, well, you know, the Russians had more people die in the war, and they would’ve liberated them anyway.

The communist Russians tried to kill the Jews too, right? Like it would not have been a good thing if they had liberated the concentration camps on their own. Right. Like for the Jewish people. Right. They certainly weren’t gonna help you set up Israel. Right. So not only do we, and when I say we, I mean I say this very much like my ancestors.

Every single one of our grandfathers between Simone and me, like every single one of our four grandfathers between Simone and I was at D-Day and every one of them was at D-Day. And no, actually

Simone Collins: only one of my grandfathers was at D-Day. Oh

Malcolm Collins: really?

Yeah. Was the other one too young?

Simone Collins: Yeah, the other one was too young.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. So everyone who wasn’t too young, three of the grandfathers was at D-Day. This is like, and, and people should know disproportionately, people from the Appalachian tradition within the United States disproportionately serve in the military.

If you wanna see statistics on this, particularly in the World War II [00:26:00] period, look up the book American Nations.

Malcolm Collins: It’s one of the things that you’ll see in, in terms of like military serving. So like the, largely our cultural group was the one there actually fighting to save them. We set up their country, we send them economic aid, we send them military aid. We regularly intervene diplomatically to help them out for 70 years.

And then we begin to talk about it. And I talk about, you know, Netanyahu wants us to cut off aids, so like he’s being smart about this, right? Like he’s done the 40 chess move at this point, right? Netanyahu’s administration wants us to cut off the military aid ‘cause they see the long-term damage. I talk about this with that context in one of my shows.

And even like the sanest smartest Jews I know, like, I’m talking about people who have immense intellectual respect for immense emotional respect for like, feel compelled to be like. Yeah, but we should really be careful about cutting off that aid. And, and that I think they don’t realize. The, the way that that comes off, [00:27:00] it comes off like your, your kid who you’ve been giving money to, like, well after he moved out of your house, and then you say, look, I’m sorry.

I need to cut off money. Like money’s tight these days. Like I’m dealing with my own things at home. He’s your mom. And then he’s like, well, then I’ll just hate you, dad. You know, like, I won’t talk to you anymore, dad. Like. How dare you do that dad. And what you realize is that you,

Simone Collins: not even that just like, even just, well, you should really think carefully about that.

Like, no, the response we would want from any of our kids when they reach the age of majority is Thank you so much for everything you’ve done. We appreciate your getting us set up. I feel so equipped to go. And the thing is, Israel is. Like pretty all right. You know, it’s amazing economy, amazing amazing tech, amazing people.

Like, they, they don’t need a lot of help as far as I can tell. Like, especially relative to other countries who are super screwed demographically. [00:28:00] They’re in a fantastic position. I mean, Israel is not. On the list of like countries that I can name off the top of my head, Israel is close to the bottom in terms of countries that need help.

So that’s, I think, problem, it

Malcolm Collins: literally is below the United States in terms of countries that need external assistance right now. I, I literally, I, I think you’re right. I literally cannot think of another country on earth that needs less external assistance than Israel. So I think that’s,

Simone Collins: that’s kind of more of the problem is, is if you have a kid.

Or just like a friend that you helped out when they were in, a lot of danger and then things were rough for them and you helped them out, and now they’re doing really well and they’re making a lot of money, and you’re like, all right, cool. You know, I’m just, by the way, and like, I’m gonna stop sending you, you know, monthly venmos.

Like, I’m, I’m so glad to see you thriving. And they’re like, well. Should really, really, do you think that’s a good idea? Exactly.

Malcolm Collins: Hold on. No, but think about it. How would you [00:29:00] feel if somebody did that to you? Would immediately be like, oh my God, I am actually actively making our relationship worse by doing this person favors.

Okay.

Simone Collins: I’m finally, okay. So I’m really starting to understand your argument, and I’m putting this together with a lot of things that I’ve been hearing, as we both say on his stream where he’s just kind of like. Let’s just stop sending money outta the country like we need to. And, and even like just immigrants within our own country, like we need to help our own people.

And Americans in general, and especially younger Americans who’re kind of seeing their future vaporize are like, wait. Why are we giving all this money to Israel? Why are we giving all this money to migrants and refugees in our own country? Like, right, but why are you screwing me over? And, okay, so that’s, I guess now, now this is all coming together, especially because boomers have retirement plans and, and houses they were able to buy and all these things.

And younger generations really do feel like they could use government assistance in getting on their feet and they’re seeing [00:30:00] all the assistance go. To Israel, which is already on its feet. But the point is,

Malcolm Collins: and I I made this point historically, the amount we give to Israel isn’t dramatically higher than the amount we give to a lot of other countries.

It’s like the amount. Yeah. But that

Simone Collins: it’s still the American sees that we’re giving money

Malcolm Collins: care. You are entirely missing the point. So I often point out that the amount that we give to Israel is about the same as the amount we give yearly to like Egypt and Jordan.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But nobody

Malcolm Collins: cares. Yeah. But the still giving them money.

If we cut off the money we gave to Egypt and Jordan, if I on our podcast and we should cut off the money we’re giving to Egypt and Jordan.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: No. Egyptian listener is gonna email me saying like, how could you be so Egypt phobic? How could you be so Jordan phobic, how could you? How could you air an idea like this?

There’ll, is there word for that? I guess think you might have a few politicians in Egypt and Jordan make a stink, but generally speaking, the core people who are gonna freak out that we cut off money to Egypt and Jordan are gonna be white women in the United [00:31:00] States. To be frank here, right, like the most other people, like, like most cultures on earth, if you have been doing them a favor for a long time and then you stop doing them that favor like if it, if it’s a, a, a healthy culture that’s used to making long-term alliances with its neighbors, it will say, oh, we really appreciate that you did that for us. And in the future if things work out where like one of us needs a favor again, like, let’s do that and actually you’ve been helping us out so long, what can I do to help you? Right. That’s, that’s like a normal reaction. And as I point out here, like Israel, if next year Japan didn’t give Israel military aid, Israel wouldn’t be mad at Japan.

Japan’s. They have created a situation where by doing them favors you damage your future relationship with them. And, and, and you can see this with different, you know, groups around the world and anyone knows this, like so many people have probably built like a toxic relationship [00:32:00] like this where you realize that somebody is just using you for money basically.

And at the end of the day, they then normalize to whatever you’re giving them. And they’re no longer really appreciative of it anymore.

Simone Collins: In fact, you only ever get crap from them. Forever questioning the support you give them and then like you basically only ever get punished by them just for like being you and being generous.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And unfortunately this is where, and I don’t think a lot of the hate on the right is coming from this perspective, but I’m pointing out that this is eroding even people who would otherwise be very, very pro-Israel. And I think that the reason why that this is sort of snowballed to eroding is that.

Questioning things in, in a public context, like being like, well, you know, I do have some problems with this part of our relationship with Israel, or, I do have some problems with this Jewish behavioral trend. People used to be just, frankly, more afraid in a public context to air these things. And so, because, because they were able to be de platformed when they did.

Mm-hmm. And so. [00:33:00] They are doing it more now and they are being pushed in an antisemitic direction. If you remember. I mean this is exactly what happened to Nick Fuentes, right? Like he started fairly like nuanced on these issues and then just had the type of personality that was prone to radicalization.

I don’t think I have that type of personality, but I will say that I, I know where I’m like, wait, are we being punished? Because we were historically, so Phil Sematic and does this change how I relate to this? Now, if you’re thinking, okay, well I’m Jewish, what do I do about this? The, the reality is, is I don’t even know.

Like I, I personally cannot conceive. Of what led to this behavioral pattern to be so strong? I guess it could have been because of the Holocaust. Like genuinely it could have been like really like big cultural moments. Still a very big part. Like Catholic families, they are aware that there were Catholic purges in the past.

But I’ve met Catholics in the United States who didn’t even know that the KKK targeted Catholics like it was like Catholics, blacks, and Jews. Right. And they were, were [00:34:00] like targeting Catholics. I mean, I was like. It might be that Catholics are not taught about their own oppression historically.

Yeah. But you

Simone Collins: can’t take stories of historical oppression away from Judaism. ‘cause that would be, it wouldn’t work with like the holidays and traditions. What you can do though is, is shame and drop any form of present day entitlement. That the focus should be. I’m totally all for Jewish exceptionalism and like, you know, being proud of your community and investing in your community regardless.

Like, I don’t care what your religion or culture is. I’m all for that. Like, being all about helping your people and being proud of who you are and investing in your group. And I, I don’t like, it could be like d and d enthusiasts, like it could be your culture as well. I don’t, I don’t, it doesn’t necessarily have to be religious or ethnic or anything, but like all for that, just don’t.

Don’t support, abide by or express any form of [00:35:00] entitlement to assistance from any other group assistance or favoritism. I think that would solve it. And if that’s just dropped, I think that this issue in general will be dropped. I think the problem is that people feel an intense amount of resentment around.

Repeated political and media-based insinuations that we owe something to Israel. When there’s a lot of concern about when, like

Malcolm Collins: objectively it’s the exact inverse. Yeah. Like if you’re, if you’re looking historically, Israel owes the United States, literally everything. Like I do not think any people has ever owed another people more.

Like, and it’s funny that, that Jews will have memories. If you look at like, you know, the Old Testament and stuff, they’ll be like, Cyrus the great freed us from exile. Right. You know, like brought us back from exile. Right. And so we as a people like show him respect, but you don’t get a similar thing for like America. Right. Which [00:36:00] America. Objectively did a lot more in terms of the exile that the Jews were experiencing when America intervened to bring them back with a significantly longer and more severe exile, and they, where they were in significantly hotter water right when they were freed.

Then the Cyrus, the Great Exile, except you don’t see this same, you know, like religious ment towards America as a result of that. Mm-hmm.

So to be more explicit here, the Babylonian exile was only 50 to 70 years, and the Jewish people were not at existential threat of elimination during the Babylonian exile. When Cyrus came in, he allowed the Jewish people to move back to Israel. If you consider how long the Jews had essentially been kicked out of Israel when the Holocaust happened, because that’s a large reason why the pogroms were happening,

. iE that the Jews were not in their, their own country. , That was way longer than 50 to 70 years. That was hundreds of years at that point. And the Jewish people were [00:37:00] at an existential threat at that point when America came in and intervened.

And this isn’t even considering the Jews who America took in during that period and actively protected, which Iris did not do, and his country did not do.

And while it is true that the communist freed more of the camps.

If it had only been the communists, we know because of the later communist, Jewish purges, , those Jews would’ve been in almost as much hot water as they were, , , in that situation. So America comes in and more so than Cyrus, it actually. Helps fund the Jewish relocation to Israel from a much wider and more dispersed distance over a much longer period, and then helps set up the Israeli state, which is something that Cyrus also did not do, just objectively.

America did more in almost every metric than Cyrus Seg Great did. And yet you do not see this same reverence.

Specifically here, I’m talking about the length of the exile before the Israeli state was reset [00:38:00] up the level of threat the Jewish people were under when they were rescued by this foreign power. And the amount that each leader or country did to set Israel up after, , freeing them from their, , particular crisis or exile.

And if you wanna talk about American antisemitism of this time, pretty much everywhere was antisemitic at this time period. , Even if you’re talking about restrictions on Jewish refugees, America still objectively took in about twice as many refugees as the next biggest taker in of refugees.

Malcolm Collins: And so I think like if I was Jewish, this, this is something that I would like promote more. We need, I, I would say like Judaism more broadly needs to get over its meth addict problem, which is two, a few fold.

One is getting like, like punishing people for doing you historic favors and then no longer doing them, like losing the appreciation for the historic favor. And two, I think the best way demonstrating entitlement, I

Simone Collins: [00:39:00] think people are. Allergic to entitlement, especially when times are rough for them.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, yes.

And that’s, that’s what I think they’re seeing is a, is a form of entitlement. But on top of that you have the problem of because I wanna get to why leftist now hate Jude as well, which is interesting. And I think if you just like, and if you’re a Jewish person and you’re offended that I’m saying this, like genuinely think about it from an American’s perspective, whose ancestors risked their lives, you know, in, in World War ii.

And then the, our country for the past few generations has been setting up a stable Israeli state that can defend itself. And then to be like, yeah, but it would really be a problem for us if you stopped giving us money when, when they’re earning, like more than we are here.

I was wrong here. , The average wage in the United States is around 70,000 now, which is just crazy high to me. , And the average annual wage in Israel is now around 50,000, but it’s [00:40:00] still very wealthy as a country compared to saying that it needs foreign financial aid.

Especially when you consider that we have been giving them that economic and military aid for the past 75 years, and they should be stable by now. Like when does it end? Right? We’re 300 billion in. When do they say, okay dad, you know, I’ve been in college for X long, now I’m ready to graduate and start supporting myself.

Malcolm Collins: Why would, why would somebody be like, I’m actually kind of like, that’s a, that’s a bad thing, right?

Like that? And I, I don’t, I don’t feel offense personally, but it does make me think if I’m being logical about like, well, the Jews will be powerful in the future, and we want them as an ally in the future and the best way to do that. Is to cut them off. That’s a, that’s a really bad cultural precedent to set.

Mm-hmm. So I think like the best way to react to this, like if I was actually Jewish and I was gonna do something about this, would be to create sort of a narrative about this within, like, we need to start really [00:41:00] appreciating America for what it was and what it did for us. And find a way to.

Meaningfully give back and meaningfully create the sorts of partnerships that work intergenerationally. And as I’ve said, the easiest way to do that is for an Israeli based AI center on in America. And if people are like, well, why not have it in Israel? Well, one, because this would cause a vested interest in Israel having a vested interest in America.

And two, you can’t build a major AI hub in Israel that has military purposes because it’d be literally the first thing that was targeted and very easy to target. But if it’s in America, it’s incredibly defensible. And so it makes sense if you’re gonna do your Manhattan Project of AI in America and then you can, you know, build , a better long-term relationship there.

Specifically what I’m saying here is if you’re Jewish, but you’re also smart enough to see sort of above the wall of your own culture like Bibi is, , because Netanyahu has said, , you know, we, we need to end these payments like now, right? Like this is causing problems. . And if you are like that and you’re like, okay, well I can’t change my people’s culture, so how do I do [00:42:00] something that sort of forces them to invest in the United States, , setting up one of these sort of Manhattan projects

Around an AI data center that would make no sense to do in Israel, but.

that would be perfect logic to do this in the United States.

, And it would. You know, utilize the culture’s preexisting tendencies because now there’s a vested interest in building up and protecting the United States. And I think that, . You know, when I go around and I think about all the remembrances of the Holocaust, it’s always been sort of shocking to me.

‘cause I’ve been to a number of Holocaust museums that, you know, Jews that up all over the world, that I see so little about what the United States did for them during those periods, right? , I will see setups of, oh, this country or that country helped hide Jews. And it’s like, no country helped protect Jews during the Holocaust.

And I’m not just talking about freeing them from the Holocaust, but. Taking them in during that period of danger than the United States.

Specifically, we [00:43:00] have records of this from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, , which shows that of Jews who escaped the Holocaust around 24% went to the United States, around 15% went to. Israel, , great Britain, around 10% went there, , central and South America.

In total, it was only around 19%. Remember just United States was 24%. , Shanghai around 5% and. Other Western European countries that is all other western European countries combined with only around 30% with other destinations making up 10%.

So for clarification, Jews were 2.5 times more likely to shelter in the United States during the Holocaust than in Israel. .

So yes, the United States was the major player in protecting Jews from the Holocaust, not just in terms of resolving the war in a way that helped Jews get out safely.

, Not just in helping Jews set up the state of Israel, not just in funding them for [00:44:00] 75 years, but also in terms of where they went. , And this is where I’ve come to this, if you can invest so much in a people and yet go to their museums and see so little praise for your people, for everything you’ve done, why continue to invest?

, And I think that there is a way to fix this , from , a Jewish perspective, and that is to just really. Build some sort of movement around greater appreciation for what America actually did for the Jewish people. , Instead of seeing it as some sort of external, like when, when the Jewish identity should be Israel in America, right?

, And, and it is in terms of where they live, but it isn’t in terms of their internal narrative.

And I think the mistake that other people and, , Jews themselves made when they heard me say Phil Somatic things in the past, or say the Jewish people are people worth investing in the past, is they thought, [00:45:00] I think intuitively from a internal cultural perspective, that I was saying that because I liked individual Jewish people and in truth, , in terms of like individual, how much I like people, I like Catholics just about as much as I like Jews that I’ve met. It, it has nothing to do with what I think of individuals. It has to do with the wider, , theological metaphysical and culture and whether I think.

Investing in it is going to help my own people in the long term. , And if it is a culture that doesn’t repay its debts, then. Obviously not. And even worse, if it’s a culture that normalizes to people who do them favor and other cultural groups who do them favor and then begins to expect that, then it becomes like that friend who always expects more from you, , when, when you’re, when you’re giving them money and then just gets angry when you cut them off.

And people can say, oh, how dare you, , talk about what Jewish culture [00:46:00] is doing that is leading to the rise in antisemitism these days. And. I would say here they’re like, that’s victim blaming, right? But if you know this podcast, this mantra, it’s you as a people can really only control your own actions.

So like if you are black for example, there’s very little you can do to combat any sort of systemic discrimination in society. But there’s a lot you can do to try to improve your own culture and what. That contributes to say, black people earning less than other cultural groups. So I give advice like this, not saying that there are not external things that, for example, cause black people to earn less or cause Jewish hate.

It’s just that those external things are generally not addressable by the culture that is on that is, that is dealing with the consequences of , the hate or the lack of income or anything like that.

Because at the end of the day, no one is more motivated to stop the existential rise in antisemitism we’re seeing right now than Jewish people. , and unfortunately , the [00:47:00] intuitive way that they’ve been approaching this recently makes the antisemitism much worse, which is, I think where you’ve seen this, , cycle that’s almost sort of like an inverse, virtuous cycle where antisemitism rises and then Jewish people do things that causes more antisemitism to rise, , which is really sad.

And I think a, a addressing this and seeing this problem and cutting it off now is really, really in. Important for the long-term safety of the Jewish people.

Malcolm Collins: But I wanna go to the, the leftist because I think the leftist hate for, for Jews that’s been growing recently. It’s coming from a position like I gave my original hypothesis at the beginning of this, but when I actually think about it, like why is Greta Thornberg on a boat going to Israel and Gaza rather than the DAR four region, which is Lidia really twice as big, you know?

Why is it that, aMI is saying, you know, we need to globalize the ada. The fact the ada ADA Ada whatever. Why is, why is he saying this? Why do you get. These incredibly [00:48:00] antisemitic, anti

anti perspectives

and screeds from individuals like Hassan Piker. Yeah. And what I’ve realized, like actually as I began to think about it more, I was like, why were those boats going there for Greta to get on?

Oh, that entire brigade wasn’t even started by woke people. It was started by just like. Actual Islamists, right? Like it was, it was actually started by like, Islamist groups that wanted to eradicate the Jewish people, right? Like there has been funding for that flotilla that she was on that came from Hamas.

Like this has been traits back at this point. If you look at like Mond. Grew up in a, in a Muslim household, right? Like, Hassan grew up partially in Turkey and has a lot of you know, Muslim affinities, right? Like if you actually look at his, his broader affinities, they are more I, I’d say pro Muslim was like a, a sheen of wokeness on the top.

And what I’m realizing here is the current [00:49:00] woke anti-Semitic belief system is actually. Downstream of an intellectual class of either directly Islamists or Muslim sympathizing individuals. And, and when I say Muslim sympathizing, it’s in the way. ESS Synthesize was a group where they sort of have to sublimate all of their opinions and lived experiences to this external groups lived experiences.

And we’ve even seen some clashes here when there was a big fight between like, well do Muslim interests come before, like black interests, right? And people were like, well, no black interests come first. And Muslims were like, no Muslim interest come first. Yeah. This,

Simone Collins: this saw a flash point around the, the most recent presidential election, Kamala Harris from, and I’ve begun

Malcolm Collins: to think like, what, what are I actually think the Wokes antisemitism is coming from is not the historic sort of Marxist antisemitism.

‘cause you know, Marx was a massive anti-Semite. He wrote an entire book about. Jews being a problem. So like, I, I hate when people are like, oh, he was descended from [00:50:00] Jews. That’s like saying Hitler was descended for Jews, which is proof he wasn’t an antisemite, which people used to believe. And then they did a DNA test and they found out he wasn’t.

And like, we haven’t done a d everyone says they’re ex is descended from Jews. Why is descended from Jews? Anyway, the point being, where was I going with this? The point being is I actually think that a lot of the leftist antisemitism comes from when they are modeling what the future of humanity looks like, what the future of our existing geopolitical architecture looks like.

They don’t actually plan on them existing in the future. Like, I can talk to like gays and trans people and I can be like, but really you see if only people who hate you continue to have kids like. In the future, only people who you cannot not allow your culture to exist are, are, are going to be the dominant cultures on earth.

Like I talk about this in terms of tism all the time, and they’re often just like, they don’t really see it as a problem. And I’ve always been very confused as to how they don’t see it as a problem. Mm-hmm. And what I’m realizing, and you see this was like the, the, the wiles. In, what is it like Michigan giving all the money to the Somalians right?

With this big scam where like billions of dollars have, and it’s clear that a lot of ess knew this was happening, right. You know, to [00:51:00] Islamist groups in Somalia. If they see the future of their movements and the territories that they feel they de facto control as something they want to hand to Muslim groups.

They believe in a Muslim future. And because of that they, they see that future as incompatible with Jewish interest because they’re sort of the Muslims within the, the top circles of their intellectual communities. And I, and I find this very interesting trace, the intellectual giants on the left right now in many of them.

Are tied to Islamism in some way or another. Especially the younger ones. Especially the younger ones. And this didn’t used to be the case. So I think that this is what we’re seeing here. And I, I, I think that that’s where it’s coming from in their intellectual class. I don’t think they actually think through like, oh, Jews have more money than other people.

Why did Jews have more money than other people? Well, it must be because they cheated, because it can’t be for cultural reasons. Because if we said it’s for cultural reasons, then well, why do blacks have less money than other people for cultural reasons? Oh my God, you just said blacks are poor because of their own [00:52:00] culture.

That’s a naughty thing. You know, all differences must be due to oppression. That’s what I used to think. Don’t think that when I actually try to trace like why it’s Greta Faberg antisemitic now. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, I think it’s a really difficult position when you look at these incredibly quickly rising rates.

I think Jews were basically playing a very smart game for a while that utilized the existing power system and levers that they had access to in sort of the age of the Boomer. But the conservative youth. We spent the last x many years being told, you’ve said a naughty thing, you’ve said a bad thing back of the line, have your channel banned, et cetera.

And so we, and when I say I mean like the larger, new right movement has become incredibly, or, or like, how dare you say that that’s offensive. Or how dare you say this little thing that means like you’re homophobic. Like when I’m like, hey, like we need to rethink how we look at gay people and stuff like that.

This is another thing I did an entire episode where I’m talking about like rethinking how we contextualize same sex attracted individuals. Like is this just a [00:53:00] kink? Everything like that.

Mm-hmm.

Didn’t get this, this show has a decently sized gay fan base. Didn’t get a single angry email from our gay fan base about that.

Why is it that they didn’t. Say that, like why is it that other groups like you can bring up? Because if you watch that episode, you can see we’re not saying that we hate gays in the same way that our Jewish episode, like isn’t saying like, we hate Jews. We’re just saying, okay, well here’s the problem, here’s the problem, here’s the problem.

Like, and I, I can see how people are resonating with what Nick is saying on these problems. How, how does Jewish culture, like, react to this or, or adapt to this. And, and if your reaction is to say, well, we just can’t because of the Holocaust, like we just can’t because of ex cultural trauma then you’re going to have a lot of enemies in the future.

Yeah. Because it makes you a group that is actively dangerous to attempt to help. And I don’t know, like, and it also makes your group like just. Hit the triggers on the new right, which is trying to cancel individuals, right? Like trying to say or not cancel individuals, but shame [00:54:00] them when they’re saying something that is genuinely not antisemitic and you come at them and you say.

That’s homophobic, that’s transphobic, that’s whatever. They’re so used to this that’s racist. And they’re like, that wasn’t antisemitic. You sound to me just like the person who comes and says you know, that’s transphobic when you say, Hey, children should not be transitioning. Right. And then that ends up pushing people into being more and more genuinely transphobic.

And if you are a Jewish person and you’re like, no, people don’t actually get pushed into these positions by people attacking them. Look at us on like trans issues over time. Right. Like. Look at, look at even maybe yourself on trans issues over time. Did it push you in that direction? Maybe even same sex attraction.

You’ve seen this happen to you with some other group. When you see it happening to yourself, it’s easier for you to be like, oh, this is how it can happen to somebody else. But what are your thoughts, Simone?

Simone Collins: You have me at entitlement. I think that’s gonna get pretty much anyone, because it’s a, it’s a very dangerous pattern, and I think people know it on an instinctual level, but it also made a lot of sense when I thought about the context of.

The way that [00:55:00] Mond Gold brings up Israel, which is basically just like, let’s stop sending money to anything that’s not us when we’ve got our own problems.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The final thing I wanna talk about is the Holocaust thing. Because I think that the Holocaust narrative is unfortunately not one that is going to grab the use of today in the way it did historically.

I as a young person, when I’m taught about the way the world really works, the way most young people grow up is they start by thinking there’s good guys and bad guys, and then they hit this age where they realize, oh my god. Actually, most people when they do something, they think they’re the good guy, right?

Like, most groups in history, things are shades of gray. And when people teach me that things are not shades of gray they typically have some alternate agenda to like rewrite history for me now, and this is just something that like we all learn, everybody experiences this growing up, right? Like this moment where you’re like.

Oh, like, [00:56:00] like while there might be some instances of genuine evil like these, generally speaking, people think that what they’re doing is right in, in the context. And that generally in any story where I was told one person was all bad and one person was all good that story was being rewritten by the, the victors of the story.

Now imagine your. 15-year-old Destiny’s kid. ‘cause we’re, we’re, we’re talking about like, you know, we’re talking to him. And he experienced this at school and he goes to school and he has taught the current you know, world War II scenario. And the, the sort of default World War II scenario is one side was genuinely like comically evil, almost as evil as any group could ever be in any historical context.

And the other side was mostly good. And. That’s just the truth of it. Like just that’s the truth. I can see why they immediately are like, wait a second. Like do I believe that? Like that. That sounds like one of the stories I was [00:57:00] told is the type of story I should doubt. Right? So it’s, it’s a narrative and it, I actually think it’s a narrative that it’s mostly true.

Like I think we were the good guys and we beat the bad guys. You know, I pointed out that they, they marched under a, a theo society flag. Like a wcan flag basically. Like they were like, of every route. I think that they were, they were bad in almost every way. You can watch our video that was taken down by YouTube on this subject because I, I guess we hit too close to the home on it.

But the point I’m making is it’s just a narrative that’s gonna be like, I think we need to rethink how we tell kids this narrative, how we teach this narrative, how we teach it. And, you know, every city has a Holocaust museum. Every city has a, and I think the, the sort of like. How do I reframe this in a way that is believable to the type of kid who has been systemically lied to?

Because how many kids were, especially during the age of COVID, systemically, lied to by institutions that had power. Right? Mm-hmm. Like, I don’t even know if I would believe it. If I was growing up today, I’d be like, [00:58:00] well, you know, I can’t trust what I read on Wikipedia anymore because it, it’s got this extreme you know, leftist bias.

I can’t trust what I read on a, a, you know what I hear from mainstream news? AI is all controlled by X, Y, or Z, you know, and so I need to. Try to like educate myself. Right. And when it comes to educating yourself, that means going to conspiracy websites and stuff like that, right?

Simone Collins: Oh, dear. Okay. So you’re also saying in, in the age of the information or truth crisis, it’s going to be extra hard to talk about really, really, really bad atrocities because it seems easier to assume that it was just made up.

Malcolm Collins: Well, this is the way I put it. We have found a way like at least the American right to talk about things like the communist atrocities because they committed genuinely. Horrifying atrocities you know, on the scale of Holocaust atrocities, right? We have found a way to talk about that, talk about all the horrible things they did [00:59:00] while still humanizing the communist, right?

Like, to an extent where like if somebody goes to a communist rally today, or has a friend who went to a communist rally who then went to a different event, you know, we don’t go, oh, you left us, you went to an event that a communist went to. How can I have you on my stream? Or somebody will be like, oh, you went to an event.

That a Nazi went to, right? Like, how could I be on your stream? Right. Like, the, the point that I’m saying is I think we need to learn to talk about Nazis and Nazi-ism the same way we talk about communism. And, and its horrors where we can admit that communism did a lot of just like holistically evil things, but like the people who were putting it together had some, like, some plan to what they were doing.

You know? They, they, they at least thought that there was some like. Good thing at the end of this and here, here and here is why they thought that, right? Mm-hmm. And I think if we can get to teaching World War II like that it, we won’t have this reflective. That just doesn’t seem plausible every other time in history where I’m told [01:00:00] there was a bad guy and a good guy.

I then get told, and that’s the way we taught it to you in middle school because you know, you were too dumb to understand that actually the Native Americans committed a ton of atrocities and actually the settlers committed a ton of atrocities and it’s not always black and white. Right.

Simone Collins: Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I’m not sure. Part of me thinks it’s, it’s, it’s simpler than that, that people today are now struggling to use the Holocaust as justifications for special treatment in the same way that people struggle to use reparations as justification or like slavery for as justification for reparations for black Americans.

‘cause they’re like, ugh. Like this was a long time ago. Like it was horrible and it, and it happened and that’s bad, but like. W what about today and how is that gonna fix anything? I think that might be more of the instinctual sentiment, but I, I still definitely see there being an issue [01:01:00] about educating children around atrocities and mistreatments and also.

Being very unsure of what, what can be trusted in the age of AI and the internet and everything else.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So I, I think that that’s the other thing that, that like, because people can be like, the over the evidence for it was overwhelming and I agree that it is, but I can also understand how young people are pushed away from it in the current media ecosystem.

And I think that thinking through how this story can be retold in a way that is going to be believable to an edgy youth is really important.

Simone Collins: Well, do you think part of it is the weaponization of the word Nazi? The fact that it just has been used so much like it’s the new N word. And it has caused a, a sense of desensitization and also trivialization of, of that which is being invoked.

Malcolm Collins: I, I think that, well, so there’s a part of it, like the reclaiming of [01:02:00] the word is something that Nick has tried to do, right? Like this idea of if I can, if I can. Sort of deradicalize the use of this word or claiming affinity to this group for a lot of young people today. Like that’s the ultimate way to rebel, right?

Like on the left, it’s, it’s cutting your, and on the right it’s claiming to be an inward right? You know? And I think that unfortunately they made it like this edgy taboo thing. And. You there, there, there is a downside to doing that. Like it’s, it’s, it’s taboo to the extent now where you know, a kid can, can break that taboo and watch their parents and teachers, you know, stare in shock in the same way that, you know, maybe our generation had piercings or whatever, right?

Like the, they need something that can create that among their parents. And you know, unfortunately, the, the way the media ecosystem treats it right now, it’s just sort of the perfect thing for that.

Simone Collins: Hmm. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. I have to, I’m gonna have to [01:03:00] mentally chew on this for a while, but I, I’m glad that you’re talking about the fact that this is happening.

The trends that you brought up at the beginning of the episode, just the number, the percentage of young people who are now antisemitic really means that people need to be thinking carefully about not only why this is happening, but what. People can do both. People who support Jews and then Jewish populations themselves to address this.

Because if, if left unaddressed, I think it’s only gonna get much worse. And that could lead to problems.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I was a Jewish person. What I would do. Because I actually think this would be cool to do is build like a set of codes. Like be like, look, Judaism needs a system for dealing with intergenerational relationships with other cultural groups.

Mm-hmm. That has, because Jews love their rules. That has a lot of set rules that will make it rewarding for other groups to help us. Because when it’s rewarding for other groups to help us, then other groups are going to be more likely to help us. Mm-hmm. [01:04:00] And to a lot of people, that’s just the way they are.

Right? Like a lot of groups that have lived in clan based systems for a long time th this way of having intergenerational relationships with other people, like, as I said, Simone and I come from clan based cultural system is just natural. You just think, oh, I help another culture. Next generation, they’re gonna help me.

But if you’re a group like the Jews that’s regularly getting kicked out of places every couple generations, you may not build a system like that. But going into whatever the world becomes after this, especially after we begin space exploration and, and, and have interstellar communities, the Jewish culture is going to need a system of rules like that.

And somebody in our generation can be the two who makes it.

Simone Collins: Hmm. Interesting. Well, thank you for this conversation. I love talking with you.

Malcolm Collins: Love talking to you too.

Good pattern of repeatedly doing basic things he needs to learn, like math and English and stuff like that. Of course. And then for more advanced concepts like biology and stuff like [01:05:00] that, get him very familiar with the idea of, and how to use a an AI to explore that stuff.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Like explain to him why it’s important to learn how to explore it.

And then basically send him off and have him learn it, and then come back to us and tell us what he learned. That’s where you really get it with him. You’re like, okay, tell me what you learned. And he’ll come back and he’ll remember one thing and I’m like, go out again. Learn more than one thing. I need at least three facts.

And we can expand that into, I need at least a full explanation. I need at least, you know, so that he can learn how to learn this stuff on his own.

Simone Collins: I like that. Yeah, I mean we’re, we’re trying to present him with various reasons why he might wanna learn things now. Like he, he asked to see the, the mice we got in the mouse drops again this morning.

But then he got really sad about the mice and the mouse traps, and I’m like. Okay. Like, do you wanna build something that prevents them from getting inside? Like, you know, you gotta [01:06:00] learn. You have to learn how mice work and what they eat and all things. All the things.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway.

So we are going to go over a number or I’ll get started here.

Speaker: You attack it? What’s, what’s going on? What’s going on? My little buddy. Oh, okay. Question. Question. Get up. Get up. Question. Toasty was there No question. Did you see Torsten? Mommy said the milk was drinking. And And mommy. And also Mommy said the cookie got, oh my gosh.

Speaker 3: So, that’s not even weird. Not even weird. Not even weird. I think it’s pretty weird. It a supernatural being invades [01:07:00] your home. I personally find that a little weird fix. Sorry, didn’t we have to fix your hair before we get downstairs?

Come here. So we go.

Speaker 2: Go Octavian. Did you hear reindeer downstairs last night? I think I did.

Really Torsten, did you?

No, I.

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