Navigating Misunderstandings in Social Safety Net Discussions

In this episode, Simone Collins and Malcolm discuss a provocative article from the Intelligencer that critiques their views and actions regarding reproductive justice and other sociopolitical issues. They delve into topics including government sterilization programs, disparity in reproductive services, and policies surrounding abortion and birth control, particularly their implications on marginalized communities. The conversation touches on broader themes like demographic collapse, social safety nets, and the intersection of political ideologies with reproductive rights. The script also features a comparison of contemporary progressive stances to Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel 'Brave New World,' and a review of Amanda Bradford's innovative dating app idea. Overall, the duo challenges commonly held progressive narratives and explores the deeper societal impacts of these controversial subjects.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I'm excited to talk to you today. Every now and then an article comes out and it's never the big ones. Like there was a New York Times article on us where you've a big picture of you on the front of it. I loved it.

You looked beautiful. It was the Women of Tism and I didn't care because it was kinda a boring article to me. But then it's the deranged articles I really like.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And, and one of the articles. From the Intelligencer basically argued that, and, and we'll go over it 'cause it's really fascinating.

It was like, well, what we should really be talking about isn't Tism but what was the word that they used about reproductive justice? Re Okay, so what they meant by this is that TISM should have had a lot more talk about sterilizing black women. I, I, I'm sorry. The government sterilizing black women and then it wouldn't be as racially problematic.

And I'm like, and hold on, hold on. No, sorry. You might be thinking here that ISTs should talk about the government not sterilizing black like that we should [00:01:00] be No, no, no, no. They think that Tism needs to have more talk in it in support of the government sterilizing black women. This is their progressive position.

Simone Collins: And I, these are the conversations that are missing Now. She couches it in. Well, we can go into the language if you want to, but it, it's still deeply disturbing to me that

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, she, well, she's like, look, black women have historically had access to the ability to abort their child as easily as white women have.

And that should be what we're focusing the prenatal list conversation around. And they haven't had access to b birth control and other means of sterilizing themselves at the rate white women had. And that is the one thing we should be talking about in fertility rates.

Now if you're here thinking, wait, is that true? That doesn't sound true. It's not true actually. , while black people only make up 14.4% of the US population, 38% of abortions are performed on black women. They make up the vast majority of [00:02:00] abortions. And if you look at Planned Parenthood clinics, I think it's something like 89% of them are in a minority majority neighborhood.

, they were originally set up famously, even by their own website. To sterilize black women as part of a eugenics program, , and they still function in that capacity. There is almost no organization, , that I think you should be more in support of than Planned Parenthood if you are an actual racist or a eugenics.

Simone Collins: To be fair, she also, you know, talks about the, the fact that they also want prenatal care, postnatal care fibroid screenings well also STI tests.

So that just has to do with, you know, yeah. What's it having? Continue having sex. But basically she's just like, why aren't we giving free healthcare to people of color and. That's, I don't see how that has to do with anything. Also, well, that, that's not why, which real, she, well, she opens with that, but then she proceeds to just [00:03:00] make it an argument about reproductive choice and then how Roe versus Wade makes this a bigger issue than ever.

So what's clear from her ultimate emphasis, even though she starts with this sort of vague illusion to wanting universal healthcare, at least for black women, is that. This is really an issue about abortions, and that's where it's, it, it gets my goat a little bit like, wait a second. Is that, that's what's missing from prenatal in your

Malcolm Collins: is.

It was, it was weird and meandering. But, but I will say that, that if you go through, and we'll get to this when we get to the piece, 'cause I wanna read some excerpts from it because it's, it is actually a very interesting piece and I quite liked it. Like it's one of these pieces where it's critical of us, but I like that it comes out.

Because of some of the things that are in it, which we'll get to in a second, not just from a humor standpoint, but a Oh, we've broken through one of the progressive walls. We're getting closer to getting through all of the progressive walls, right? Hmm. They have, they have seen something that historically they didn't see [00:04:00] before.

Right. And, and all of the things that she said we needed to give black women were like only relevant if they were like. Sexually promiscuous. And yeah, it made me realize that this is a person who believes that sex is a human, right? Well, I mean,

Simone Collins: to be fair, either sexually promiscuous or having babies.

But then why not? This for, for all women?

Malcolm Collins: Well, or, or, or like regularly being griped or something in their community. It's, it's, it's like this. There's these people out there, and we went over this in our prepped episode, which we'll review a bit in this one Good episode. You should check it out if you want.

This is the one that blew my mind. Yeah. About the government has us funding gay orgies. But anyway it's like these people think like the founding fathers are like writing down our, our, our rights, and they write down, okay, life, liberty. And the pursuit of sex with anyone you want without consequences.

That is, that is the, the three things that we need to preserve in this shrine of, of, of, of rights is the right to promiscuity, the right to sex with [00:05:00] anyone. The right to treat sex like a handshake, as the, you know, one person. Said, but let's, let's get into the, the first bit is a bit on you, which I thought was really interesting in this article here.

Okay.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: So she goes, former venture capitalist, Simone Collins did attend Natal Con where she told an NPR reporter that she was prepared to die in childbirth. She also said that she would rather not. Do that, but explain that historically women died in childbirth at roughly similar rates to the rates which men died protecting their land and country.

I have no idea if that's true and I doubt the Collins does either. It's the sort of nonsense a person would say to provoke a reporter and the Collins are good at that. And no, Ann Collins is good at that. She and her husband Malcolm have appeared in so many news stories. I have lost count of the headlines and each article is more unsettling than the last.

So before we go further some things I like here is one is unlike the Slate article, which I really didn't appreciate, where they're like, why is everybody writing stuff about this couple? You know, they only. [00:06:00] Created a free school system, created a religion, have a fairly popular podcast, run a movement.

You know, they're like, I, I wonder if like, as they were writing it, they were like, oh, this is why so many people are talking about them. You know, run multiple companies. Okay, okay. Okay. Successful ones, by the way. But this individual. She's sort of gone past that where she's like, I get why everyone is talking about them.

Right. Like, it makes sense. And, and she also had the presence of mind to get that we are intentionally baiting reporters not with false information. I mean, that's a true fact, right? Simone? The, the women die in war as much. Like, does she not think that that's measurable? How many women died in childbirth and men died in war historically?

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, I can, I can't remember my original source. I'll. Double check it in case I'm pulling this out of nowhere. I, I, I looked through so many studies, I, she literally could have like,

Malcolm Collins: just asked grok like, is this true? Like, you know, like we have AI now. Like I love how there's this, like were they telling the truth?

I don't know. And I have no curiosity to check. And it doesn't even seem [00:07:00] like a particularly like anti-feminist thing to say. You know, you're like just pointing out that women made sacrifices historically, which I thought was really interesting. I also love the now because Simone does like the full dress up and outfit, progressive reporters immediately when they run into us, are like, oh, oh, I get it.

Okay. So this is some sort of a troll. They're like, I can't fall for the trap. And, and, and. Panic about this, but like, I'm a little bit panicked about this, so how do I handle that? So what are you gonna say? You got, you got something there? Yes.

Simone Collins: Hold on. It's still loading though.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and the

Simone Collins: problem is that it depends on whether the society was at war. Like if there was a major war, obviously men conscripted to fight were dying at higher rates.

And I wish it was giving me the general number 'cause that's what I'd originally found, but I can't. Immediately off. Okay. Whatever.

Malcolm Collins: We don't care anyway. They, [00:08:00] like Musk, are concerned about falling birth rates, so they have decided to have as many babies as they can. They use IVF to select the most superior embryos for implantation.

Hold on. I'll also note here where she's they homeschool their kids. They hit their kids. They used to be atheist, but now they've decided, underline their techno puritans a metaphysical system of their own creation. So, so I, I, I love your this like. Everything is mortifying to her, right? Yes. A-A-C-N-N video filmed at nacon shows Simone in a dress in bonnet, like an 18th century Quaker, but without the egalitarian beliefs.

Collins is a troll, certainly though it's diff and or later in the, in the article, they were like, and they, they, whether they're Catholics or, or techno puritans or anti gender egalitarian. And it's like, what about our beliefs are not gender egalitarian like we. Believe males and females are like genetically different, which, okay.

I mean, that's like a theological belief if you don't believe that, like that's, yeah. I [00:09:00] mean,

Simone Collins: you're not gestating children, so I guess that disqualifies us.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But, but, and even here, they note that only women can get pregnant. So like, clearly she believes this as well. But like, other than that, I, I don't think you could be particularly more gender egalitarian than our marriage.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I don't see it. I mean also just given the sheer amount of childcare that you do.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But I love, I love that she doesn't mention in what way were gingery get in egalitarian, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. She just, out of nowhere

Malcolm Collins: it seems to be, well, she doesn't insinuate that we're gender egalitarian because I expect you to undergo the, the costs and risks associated with reproduction.

And I'm like, I don't really have, oh, but you

Simone Collins: know, I'm sure she hates Elon Musk for suggesting the use of surrogates.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: that you can have more kids

Malcolm Collins: so you can't win. Cullins is a troll, certainly though is difficult to tell, where the performance stop and the sincerity begins. She is pregnant with her fifth child and it tends to have more, which is at a minimum, an extreme commitment to the bit.

When she [00:10:00] says she's willing to die in pursuit of her brood, I tend to believe her, but if martyrdom is what she wants, she's probably going to be disappointed. American women do perish and childbirth. Or directly as a result of it, yet most have little in common with the Collins'. Oh, who is a well off and white like mini ISTs.

I'm too rich to die, Malcolm. They just won't let it happen. So what I like about this is, is, is all the time when they like freak out about you talking, potentially dying in childbirth, like they seem to be missing that you are having multiple C-sections, which is incredibly dangerous. Like. That like there was the other reporter in The Guardian who insinuated that when you said, well they'll, they might take my my uterus one way.

That they was like, in scare quotes, men in

Simone Collins: black or something, men in black

Malcolm Collins: or progressives when you were talking about surgeons, because this happens if you have too many C-sections, it can cause serious risk. So that was really fascinating to me. But I also love the, the recognition that your and your life is a troll, [00:11:00] but the lack of recognition.

That like. It's also real, like, can you talk about that? Because there, there isn't a place where the sincerity ends. It's all sincere and all a troll. Just like that cover of Man's World where it was anime girls and Trump having missiles come out of his mouth. And then like an anime style or that anime little video of like Trump and the, the, you know, the studio

Simone Collins: Gib inspired Trump video.

Yeah. Like it's gone around Twitter. The issue is that. It seems many progressives don't understand that there's this new trend of very earnest irony or ironic earnestness where like we are self-aware of how ridiculously we, we come across and we own it and we have fun with it, but we still 100% mean what we're doing and believe in what we're saying and like the way we're dressing or looking.

And there's this thought that [00:12:00] if we, if we recognize how ridiculous we look to some people, we couldn't possibly actually take that seriously. That a joke can't also be true when actually the, the, the root of humor things are funny because they're surprising, but they make sense. There's truth to all humor and that they don't get that as really odd, but.

There is this repeated pattern we've noticed in media about not just things that we say, but things that other ISTs have said, especially if they're trolling progressives, that we couldn't possibly be both joking and earnest at the same time, when that is absolutely 100% what is going on.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, but I, I think that that is sort of, we, we did an episode recently on the aesthetics of the new, right.

It was raw nationalist, and I think that that is sort of the core of the aesthetics of the new, right. Where you, you sort of live your life performatively as a troll, like, because to, to be a troll is to [00:13:00] thumb your nose at the dominant cultural group, you know? Mm-hmm. Like we. We are just living the ways that we want out and proud and they're, they're gnashing their teeth at us in anger because they can tell that we are happy with who we are.

We are happy with this whole thing we're doing. You are happy. Having lots of kids, we are happy to raise them. Like anyone. I think she thinks like the techno puritan thing is a troll, and like anyone who's actually engaged with like the, the, the, the track series or especially like the more recent ones where we get way into like biblical analysis.

I'm so excited for the one I have coming up. It's so big. It's so long. But it's just like four hours of biblical analysis. And she would, they, people will see that and they'll be like, no. Like they really believe this stuff. Like they're really, really serious about this. Yeah. And I guess it's like it allows you to engage in all of this with even more earnesty because you know that, you know, we're not afraid of that judgment.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. [00:14:00] Anyway. No, we're gonna do it regardless of what other people say.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, if I go here in 1994, the Clinton administration had developed a healthcare reform package that left out as much as it covered. As time would later report the legislation offered, quote, little focus on health services, like pre and postnatal care, fibroid screenings and STI tests, which eliminated its vision of reproductive, quote, unquote, choice.

In response, a group of black women gathered in Chicago hotel room and decided to respond, calling themselves women of African descent. For reproductive justice, they took out full page ads in the Washington Post in Roll Call Magazine outlining their political demands. Reproductive freedom is a life and death issue for many black women and deserves as much recognition as any other F freedom they wrote.

Now,

Simone Collins: where I really have trouble with this paragraph is she makes it seem like this Clinton era policy thing only affects black women. Really, instead of all women who would want maybe some of these [00:15:00] services. So she's painting this really skewed perception of reality. And then she's also, I think, misrepresenting what this group may have been advocating for.

If what they're talking about is reproductive choice, they're talking about birth control and abortions when she frames it a little bit differently, like, well, they just wanna be checked for fibroids, which is weird. So I, I feel like I'm being misled or led to, and it makes me very uncomfortable. I wanna hear her out, but

Malcolm Collins: she's already losing me.

Or, or, or here. Robert's proposed a broader understanding of reproductive freedom, which did not quote, reject abortion rights in favor of a right to procreate in quote, but rather sa quote, the right to terminate a pregnancy as one part of a broader right to autonomy over one's body in one's reproductive decision makings.

Do you have reproductive freedom if you can birth a child but not house them? Like, what's really interesting here is yeah, like what, what is, [00:16:00] so hold on. What, what's fascinating to me here right, is this is almost certainly somebody who would be apoplectic about us choosing, you know, using IPG to choose among our embryos based on genetics, right?

But she is, is meanwhile completely about quote unquote reproductive freedom, which to her has nothing to do with the ability to reproduce, but the ability to choose to abort. And well, no, no, no.

Simone Collins: Or have a child. While also having your house totally paid for or something.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, you know, but if she says, if there's raw sewage in your yard and no one in power will do anything about it, are you free?

Are your kids free? Is is she here comparing the, the fetus to raw sewage?

Simone Collins: No, I think she's saying how can we have reproductive justice if city infrastructure doesn't work, which is. Ironic. 'cause that's one of the things we constantly point out is gonna fall apart when demographic collapse plays out. But let's not go too deep on that, I guess.

Malcolm Collins: I love this. I understand why, right? Ring [00:17:00] ISTs don't talk about reproductive justice. What? Yeah. Why don't we talk all the time about abortion? Why, why might that not be like our main talking point? They're invested in race and gender hierarchy, not liberation. And that's true whether they're TriCast or techno puritans.

This isn't a novel development either.

Simone Collins: And actually we do talk a lot about abortion.

Malcolm Collins: We do. And specifically

Simone Collins: how? This is not an issue that should be talked about in the name of Tism because messing with abortion doesn't help.

Malcolm Collins: But I mean, we, we are more restrictive on abortion in our perspectives. In the mainstream society. Like the, the, not really.

No, actually no, no. I mean, than the laws in the mainstream society. The average American would likely agree with us that we do need to be much more restrictive on abortion.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But the laws in America are, are like shockingly low light on abortion in most

Simone Collins: states. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: There's multiple state, I think it's multiple states.

I, I know it's at least one. 'cause I checked, when I heard this, I was like, this can't be true. Where abortion is legal until like the day you [00:18:00] give birth. Which is absolutely wild. There is, in, in I think almost all of the United States, there is a medical practice where if they're doing a certain, I think it's like after trimester one surgery on the baby they'll give it anesthetics if they.

Are trying to save its life, but if they plan to abort it, they won't give it anesthetics. Which is just like mortifying. 'cause it shows the doctor. That's what bothers me the most, recognize that this is so, like, okay, I think that there's a conversation to be had on abortion. I don't see what it has to do with, I.

Tism or like from her position, this problem that social safety nets are about to collapse. You know, as I said to somebody in my class, 'cause they were yelling at me about this recently from the Stanford Business School. So funny how like people who say they care about conceptual safety nets are like, buddy Buddy was like a party that like wants to defund them.

And I'm like, no. They wanna make them funding lighter so that they last longer. It's really funny to me that you pro. Progressives who claim to care [00:19:00] about social safety nets don't care that mathematically they're going to break down if we don't do something about this. Mm-hmm. Like which one of us has the crazy position here?

Right. You know, or you claim, I said and say, when you claim to care about Latin Americans, but you don't care that they're below us in fertility rates in a lot of these countries. And we are taking them during their productive years and letting these countries expend the tax dollars to train them during their unproductive years.

Like. Is that not gonna collapse these country's economies? Like, are, are you being fairer here? Like, in so many instances it's like they're not. But I wanna get back to the central question I asked originally. Should sex be a human right? Like, like, does it fall into like what are the, the human rights that somebody should have the ability to pursue within the United States?

Or we should, like, what are your thoughts on this, Simone?

Simone Collins: I think the government shouldn't have to pay for anyone's hobbies. And I, [00:20:00] I consider sex to be a hobby, so I think people should have the right to pursue hobbies that don't hurt them or cause, you know, like hurt the, the local like shared. Environment, right? Like if one of your causes is detonating, nuclear explosives, that clearly, like if that's a hobby, no that's not okay.

'cause it's gonna hurt people in the area. If one of your hobbies is griping people, then no, that's not okay. But, you know, otherwise it's fine. But the government shouldn't have to pay for it, which is why. I was really alarmed when you went through all the data about prep and how much money's being paid.

Like I appreciate the fact that like it's, it's reducing disease spread, but at the same time. Ooh, that's a hobby. So, so

Malcolm Collins: for clarification, we should give people some background on prep. So prep is a drug that prevents you from kidding aids if you have sex with somebody with aids. Mm-hmm. Now, we should note here that the drugs that suppress aids are so good now [00:21:00] that if you have a, like a monogamous partner who has aids, this drug isn't relevant to you because you would know and you would trust that they're on one of the drugs that suppresses aids.

And as you know, if you, if you read, you know, stuff on this, the risk of transmission is negligible. And I don't even think you'd be recommended to take prep just because, you know, if, if you're part, it is called like showing zero or something. It means your, your test is showing zero. I can't remember.

Yeah. But, but, but, so this is not for monogamous gay people or monogamous straight people, or even gay or straight people who are having sex with a small collection of partners that they know and trust. This is for people having sex with people who you don't know about, like, like casual sex.

So Obamacare made it so that every insurance plan had to cover this. And a number of states cover it for free. I think it's like 12 states in the United States. Cover it for free. And it's like when that money can go to like. A child with cancer or something like that. Like why on earth is it going to literally the only use cases, orgies?

And you [00:22:00] could say, well, the externality of disease spread is bad. And it's like, I get that, but like, we shouldn't be financing this. Right? Like, maybe if you know you, you. And that's, that's where I get this, like an orgy is a hundred percent like not necessary for a person's life. Like lots of people go through their entire lives without orgies or sleeping with, with, with random people.

Like that's not, and they seem

Simone Collins: okay. They

Malcolm Collins: seem really okay. Yeah. Now I will know, you know, if, if you are having sex with somebody, you know, outside of prep Right. You know, you know, a lot of contraceptives like are, are not as, as a hundred percent as people think they are. Yeah. And if you are having sex a lot, you can get somebody else pregnant.

You know, and this is an expensive externality to a hobby that you have. If, if you assume that like the way to deal with that, its abortion. I do not think that is a great. Thing to do. But I'm just saying like even if I was a person who like had absolutely no problem with like, [00:23:00] recreational sex and then abortion as the 'cause when I was younger, you know, I, I, I felt that way.

I, I don't think that it is the state's responsibility to pay for that hobby. Just because the hobby can have big, small, negative, expensive externalities. You know, like if somebody has a hobby around like hiking in nature and they get lost, they often have to pay for the rescue effort. You know? Like I don't think that that should go to the taxpayer.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's kind of disturbing when it does. The other thing that that strikes me about this is just how reminiscent it seems the implied ideal world of many progressives is. The dystopia of Brave New World. They just don't wanna admit it. Okay. Explain

Malcolm Collins: what you mean by this, because a lot of people don't know the dystopia.

Yeah. And, and before you get to that, hold on, hold on. Before you get to that, I wanna read the tweet that we mentioned in the prep episode that like started all the discussion around prep.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay. Go ahead.

Malcolm Collins: That was by plant Mommy Zaist. Realizing that sex doesn't have to be this sacred, all important [00:24:00] thing and can instead just be an expression of affection between friends who are dear to one another, is honestly the most life-changing realization.

I. For me surpassed only by realizing I'm a girl. And then somebody was like, aren't we in an AIDS epidemic or something? You all seriously tripping? And they responded. I literally took pills every day, so I can't contract HIV. So, there are people, if people like, the reason I wanted to read that if people are like, nobody thinks of sex as something as like insignificant as a handshake.

Yes. There literally are people who think that. Continue Simonon. No. It was the Brave New World thing.

Simone Collins: No, but that's, that is, that is kind of the attitude that they want in Brave New World. So one of the in, in ELs Huxley's Brave New World, which is this sci-fi book written in the 1930s of this futuristic dystopia that's surprisingly like today and or our near future, it is a very sexually free world. They they have all these, these things they're supposed to repeat and they've sort of been brainwashed [00:25:00] with, and one of them is everyone belongs to everyone else. And it's a mantra that reminds everyone that you should never get in an exclusive relationship and one character who's.

Kind of leaning towards that is, is like strongly dissuaded from doing so because it would really hurt her reputation. They're also like, really here. Here's just another quote that like, makes me think of today.

Oh, she like has been napping and doesn't wanna wake up, but whatever.

Here's another quote from the book that sort of shows how they view relationships. Quote. He let out the amazing truth for a very long period before the time of R Ford, which is like their God, I think, you know, they're trying to sort of say industrialization was the thing that changed everything.

And even for some generations afterwards, erotic played between children had been regarded as abnormal. There was a roar of laughter and not only of normal. Actually immoral No. And had therefore been rigorously suppressed in most cases till they were over 20 years old. Yeah. The results were terrible, which is [00:26:00] just like erotic

Malcolm Collins: way between children had been considered abnormal.

Hello. Yeah. So they're literally like pushing for maps and everything in this. They're, they're like. I had

Simone Collins: no idea I had. And then another, another quote from the book, no wonder those poor pre-modern were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn't allow them to take things easily, didn't allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy, but with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibition?

What with the prohibitions, they were not conditioned to obey what? With the temptations and lonely remorse is what with all the diseases and endless isolating pain. What with the uncertainties and poverty, they were forced to feel strongly and feel strongly and strongly was what? More in solitude, hopelessly, individual isolation.

How could they be stable? Because this is like an, this is an age in which people are heavily drugged constantly switching partners. They also have basically the existence of like sex VR experiences. Like that's a huge source of [00:27:00] entertainment. They're called the Feelies where you like, it's like going to the movies, but instead you get to feel everything.

Oh gosh. I have to find a, a quote about that 'cause that it's, oh, yeah. Here's a quote about like that part of their assistant. Okay. Okay. When the assistant Predestinate Henry Foster saying quote, going to the feelies this evening, Henry. I hear the new one at the Alhambra's first rate.

There's a love scene on a bearskin rug. They say it's marvelous. Every hair of the bear reproduced the most amazing tactical effects. So, wait, there's a bear. Wait. Having sex with a bear? Yeah. No, no, no. On a bear skin rug. So it's, it's like, it's it's a movie with an erotic scene in which there's. Sex on a bare skin, skin rug, and you feel everything.

It's, it's like wearing a haptic suit. But this is the 1930s, so they don't have words like haptic suit, gross. Like I

Malcolm Collins: never understood this like, group sex thing, like the idea of going to like a movie theater where multiple people are at the same time, like watching a pornography. The thing that like Peewee Herman got in trouble for, like, [00:28:00] how, who is that?

How,

Simone Collins: how is that

Malcolm Collins: desirable? Like

Simone Collins: that, or, or going to, in a highly communal society, people wouldn't see it as weird. But yeah. It's the, the Society of Brave New World is one in which there's basically polyamory VR sex underage sex. It, it's their ideal world. And I mean, there, there are parts of it that I really like.

They, they would hate, obviously the, selective breeding, the Stride Strided society. There's some other elements of this, this dystopia that they would absolutely love. And every time I hear about like the, the sexual ideals of like everything is paid for and you have sex with whoever you want to and sex is like a handshake.

I just think of brave new World.

Malcolm Collins: Which is very different. Somebody needs to write a dystopia about our fu I'm writing it, it's the game I'm making. Yeah. It's where I have our faction be one of the particularly dystopian factions. Exactly. You're [00:29:00] doing it. They've, they've bred individuals within their faction to have no.

The technican to have no arousal patterns anymore. And no pleasure from anything other than like, accomplishments and exploration. Yeah. You know, instead of, instead of just like, spamming all that other stuff, just be like, Hey, just remove it, right? Like, live a life dedicated to you know, improvement.

Also very brave new world.

Simone Collins: Just, just removing the temptation. You won't feel it anymore. Why would

Malcolm Collins: you But, well, I mean, it's, it's the way I have it work was the faction to make them be sort of like evil because I don't want a faction that's like representative of mid and it to not be evil. Right.

Like, I, I want it to be interesting. Right. Sure. So they. The pathways that previously were used for arousal appear to have been sort of co-opted by the systems that are associated with accomplishments. Mm-hmm. Like overcoming particular [00:30:00] challenges which means that. You know, one of the big challenges that a person would face, like on Rum Springer or something like this, is a conflict with a particularly challenging foe who you have to defeat or kill or something like that.

And so they're, they, they don't seem to recognize that the sexual impulse has a sublimated, the. Kill. Strong thing, impulse because they're, they're too proud to recognize that, that that's what's happened. And it's just the previous emotion there. And so they're all like, pretty psychotic. The, like, they're very cold and they don't like to show that they get emotion from anything. Okay. But they, they really like, you know, trying to hunt anything they see as a particularly challenging bow or prey. Which, which makes them, you know, psychotically, blood thirsting in the minds of, of other people

Simone Collins: in the

Malcolm Collins: world.

Which, which I like. Because I don't, I don't want my side to be the good guys. I want them to be sort of psychos. I think that that's way more fun than, than making my guys [00:31:00] the utopia. We're making them the dystopia.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, back to this article. What I think was so interesting about it to me was that she, it, it isn't like muddled first.

She's like, well, how could women not just receive. Support for fibroids and prenatal care and postnatal care, but then also like why aren't they receiving free housing and why isn't the infrastructure of their cities perfect and. And reproductive justice is what this is all about. But reproductive justice and choice is really mostly about birth control and, and abortions.

But she's also like, no, reproductive choices is about free housing. And that's where I'm like so confused and I feel like what's going on is she's. She's trying to use one argument that's very popular among liberals, like how a lot of people who are progressive say like, oh, you know, actually how a lot of people in the s movement who for example, might be like a Marxist or like, it's all about tism, which is why everyone needs to have free [00:32:00] social, like everything.

But really all they really care about is, is, is Marxism, right? And, and I think what's going on here is she's trying to use. Reproductive justice and choice, which is just an obvious yes if you're a progressive to argue in favor of, again, Marxism. It's like this, this horseshoe that we see both among ISTs and antinatalists or, or antinatalists of like.

Why aren't we? Why aren't we giving people endless services? Which brings us back to the entire argument around demographic collapse, which is we can't do that if there's no one to pay for it. Hey,

Malcolm Collins: I'm gonna get you twice. We'll get the, the wealthiest to pay for all these AI billionaires, all the, all the tech, all the tech lords.

And it's like, well, they're gonna leave. Yeah. Like that's, that's a lovely idea.

Simone Collins: And I'm sure, see, the thing is like, I feel like there [00:33:00] was an era, like the era of, of Dale Carnegie where the, the robber Barons of the Gilded Age absolutely. Did that. And they were rewarded for it. And they were, they were, they were respected in society.

But then Bill Gates tried to do it, and Mark Zuckerberg tried to do it. And to a certain extent, Elon Musk tried to do it. Yeah. And they've all been derated and they're all seen as evil and they're all seen as the problem. And I think at this point, it's like, well, I tried. I'm not gonna do this anymore.

Because no matter what I do, and no matter how much I give, no matter, no matter how much I'm taxed, you're gonna hate me. You're gonna try to take more and I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. So well,

Malcolm Collins: and you know, progressives. Totally unappreciative the conservatives not, and this is the thing, like when you are nice to conservatives they are nice back.

And I think that like when Elon, you know, he probably started going to like Trump rallies not realizing this at first and he said, but wait, wait, wait. They like genuinely love me, [00:34:00] like un unironically. Like I might have some beliefs that they disagree with, but they still think I'm great because I'm trying to help.

And I think that if Mark Zuckerberg just. Come to one of the rallies, just come, you know, you, when you say positive things about Trump, you get love from us. Like the progressives don't give you love when you say positive things about, you know their side, right? When you're like, oh, whatever. Start banning them a little more.

Start, you know, you can, you can, you can rig the platform in our favor. And then, you know, I say I'm against regulation, but I wouldn't mind a little bit more on the you know, the, maybe when they say that we need to eradicate the Jews, you can, you can handle that. That's happening a lot on a lot of lefty platforms now.

I love, I love how they've like gone full antisemitic and they're still going with the Nazi thing.

Simone Collins: I

Malcolm Collins: still haven't figured

Simone Collins: out the lack of continuity there, but, okay. I mean, I think the, the thing is if you just keep [00:35:00] trying to pull it off and really believing it, then, you know, they'll, they'll just keep doing it. Just lying straight to your face, you know. Like, no homo, but no antisemitism, but the Jews needs to die.

I mean, it's, it's not an anti, I'm not

Malcolm Collins: anti, I mean the river

Simone Collins: sea, but like, of course I love Jews. Yeah, of

Malcolm Collins: course I love Jews, but like, just the, the most of them. Just the, which, I

Simone Collins: mean just not the, not evil.

Malcolm Collins: They are. No, it is, it is weird how like. Ideology just makes so little sense when you try to like construct it more. Anyway, I love you to DeSimone. This conversation has been fun. Me too. We initially like went away from like the rant [00:36:00] conversations where we just have like a few, like a broad concept that we're gonna talk about, but you guys seem to love the rants, so that's what we're here for going forward.

Well, yeah, always

Simone Collins: give us feedback and ideas. Some of you by the way. Send us really great ideas, thematic to some quotes from today's discussion, not Aldi Huxley on x. Shout out to you dude for sending us always interesting links. And so yeah, everyone else feel free to do it too.

Malcolm Collins: Yep. I love you to de mom.

Love you too, Malcolm.

Simone Collins: Also just this idea that readers would find it insulting that a man should choose to not reach out to a woman on a dating platform because doing so would require a donation to the Trevor Project.

Malcolm Collins: Sorry, you cut on on me. What? What did you say that readers would find? What? Insulting? Insulting,

Simone Collins: I find it entertaining that readers would be insulted by the idea that a man should be.[00:37:00]

Unlikely to pay money to the Trevor Project in order to speak to a woman, like if you're not politically aligned.

Malcolm Collins: Right? But he didn't like that. Like somebody would be against an organization that, in his mind only exists to help gays who or thinking about suicide, which of course is not why a lot of people don't support the Trevor Project.

Like I didn't wanna go on a big rant about why the Trevor Project is so evil. Because you know, that's, that's a battle that I don't fight. That's why I kept redirecting everything. Sorry. There was a, a chat thread with my Stanford graduate school business class. And they were all trashing us.

'cause we were what front page of the New York Times today? I don't know. And it was called Women of Affirm. You were mentioned

Simone Collins: in the New York Times. Yeah, I don't know where it was in

Malcolm Collins: the newspaper. And then Amanda Bradford, one of our friends who's at the conference, I guess we can say it now 'cause she must have given them permission to publish that.

Mm-hmm. Was one of the people who's speaking, she founded the league, the dating app. She's in my class. She's a really cool person. She's awesome. She was helping people [00:38:00] date there, and, and so I had to respond. Typically, I like, don't get into these big chat, but if somebody is attacking, like somebody who stood up for me and being like, oh, you're, you're a racist, or you're a Nazi, or whatever.

And anyway, so, very, do you wanna explain to them how the app would work? It was a really cool idea for an app.

Simone Collins: Yeah. The, the idea that came out during this brainstorming session that Amanda Bradford led at Nacon was that. To reduce the extent to which female participants on this online dating platform were spammed by male prospectors, you were expected as a man to make at least a small donation to the nonprofit of a woman's choice in order to send her a message.

So it's similar to Ashley Madison where I think men have to pay per woman contacted. However. It. One is, isn't a like hookup with for married men's site and two it's, it's to charity. So this is for good and it's great because you can al also learn something about the woman's values. You can feel [00:39:00] good about having donated to a cause that you support even if the woman didn't get back to you.

You know, it's not just like throwing money into a gaping hole of a corporation and. Three, you know, instantly if someone is really likely to be politically misaligned with you, which matters these days. So it really helps. It's, it's a very functional, very good feature. And yet that's being used to Derate, Amanda Bradford and NATO Con in

Malcolm Collins: general, which is just, so, do you know how big I am when somebody sticks their neck out for me and then they get attacked for it?

I like, that's the one time when I actually, I just don't, mm. Nope. Nope. I'm not having that, you know, if you're defending me, you, you, you get my full backing after that. Yeah. Which is appropriate. Yeah. Alright. How am I gonna serious this? But I think it gets me all, like, all the adrenaline from having your whole class, like jump on you, like, oh, you Nazi.[00:40:00]

Simone Collins: Yeah. Even the person giving you the shout out, being like, oh, I made a mistake. That's just. I don't know. I think it's feels really crappy. It feels really crappy for people to not give you even a modicum of, I'm not, we're not asking people to give you the benefit of the doubt, but like, maybe read the article, maybe actually understand the points that you're making instead of just assuming like some kind of pod person that you are.

A bad person.

Malcolm Collins: I love, one guy was like, oh, it's really, it's really suspicious that all these people who say that that social safety nets are gonna start collapsing due to fertility collapse. That they hang out with all these parties that want to defund social safety nets. And then I'm like, huh. You know, it's equally suspicious that all these people who say they love social safety nets don't seem to care that they're about to collapse.

Like is this whole thing performative? You know, I mean, anyway, I'll jump into [00:41:00] this.

What? I'm going keep it because you brow my Steve two times. Mommy give back to.

What are you doing? I twist, I said twisty not to throw my yama Steve. Two times that I wanted and I did wanna keep in this lock. And what do you have there? Torsten? I band You cannot. And Titan, what are you trying to do? When was the rubber band? What doing?

I see.

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