The Impact of Online Scrutiny on Public Discourse

In this episode, Malcolm and Simone discuss the pitfalls of online neutrality and the importance of taking a clear stance. They critique centrist influencers who refrain from aligning with any political side and explain why this can be intellectually and morally weak. The conversation delves into examples like Short Fat Otaku, Asma Gold, and political figures such as Trump and Bernie Sanders. They argue that supporting or opposing a figure should be based on actions rather than inherent traits, and emphasize the ethical imperative to reveal biases and support movements actively. The discussion touches on the ideological investment in political figures akin to financial investments and the inherent responsibility that comes with it. They also highlight the differences between honest loyalty and manipulative neutrality, urging viewers to stand up for their values publicly, even if it invites criticism. Finally, the episode concludes with personal insights on family dynamics and the learning curve in understanding loyalty and criticism.

[00:00:00]

Speaker 8: What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! I want to talk today about being a stan. Specifically, I want to talk about a type of online influencer which honestly disgusts me. And it has been brought up by the number of people who are sad about how quote unquote Republican or conservative we are.

Okay. to be this other type of influencer, which I hate, and I want to talk about intellectual reasons why I hate them, and why it's so dangerous to become this type of influencer. Alright, let's do it. Who is always like, everyone's bad. They are skeptical about everything. They They refuse to have a team.

Speaker 8: I hate these filthy Neutrals, Kif. With enemies you know where they stand, but with Neutrals, who knows?

It sickens me.

Malcolm Collins: They refuse to holistically support anyone. [00:01:00] They refuse to stand for anything. And, it, it bothers me. A lot. One that, one that this is expected of me, and two that people sort of fall for the shtick. I, I'd say probably the worst offender of the YouTubers who I actually watch to any extent of this is Short Fat Otaku.

Where he constantly refuses to, even though a lot of his positions align with conservative politics, identify with Trump, Trumpism, conservatism. And I'd also say, actually, to an extent, Asma Gold used to be like this, where he constantly played the role of the centrist. And I think increasingly he is dropping that role.

And unabashedly saying, Oh, I really like this. I really like this. you know, like I can't, I'll be excited to really dig into the Trump administration when they make mistakes. Like right now I like what they're doing, but I'll really dig into them when they make mistakes.

And I think that there is this. I don't [00:02:00] want to call it perverse because I get

Simone Collins: it. No, I think it is somewhat perverse, or at the very, the very least, it's a sign of insecurity because they're afraid of being subject to scrutiny if the person that they think did something good ends up making a mistake.

I also think it's a sign of intellectual weakness because it's a suggestion that's saying like, Oh, I think this person did something cool means that you suddenly endorse 100 percent of what they do and that is obviously not true. If you don't control someone, you don't, you

Malcolm Collins: don't control what they do. A hundred percent.

And what I picked up from what you said here is you need to be able to Invest in movements and people and investing in movements and people means taking responsibility when those movements and people make mistakes

Simone Collins: or

Malcolm Collins: you are never going to have your movement be successful. So let me explain what I mean by this.

If I, for [00:03:00] example, say I like that Trump did X and I like that Trump did Y like during the campaign trail, but I am unwilling to say. I endorse Trump as a candidate. I support Trump as a candidate. When you, when you say I endorse him or I support him or when you take that position in a way, it's like telling people to invest in a stock because you don't know how that stock is going to do in a future you are using your best judgment based on the information you have, you know, collected your intelligence, what you have seen your ability to judge people to try to predict how that political stock is going to do in the future.

And an individual can say, why is it valuable? Like why, why should anybody be making these kinds of judgments? It is because

you will large extent. That's part of the reason people are watching you. They are watching you to report on the facts that you have access to, but then to two other things, very critically. One. Reveal your biases. [00:04:00] If you don't reveal your biases, and this is one of the other things that I really hate about people when they do this is they are pretending that they are unbiased and in so doing, they are manipulating their audience.

Our audience knows you and I are biased. And when they get information about us, about Democrats or Republicans, that information is biased. It's not us pretending, like, if Republicans did something bad, we would dig into them as harshly as we dig into Democrats. We wouldn't. For example, Asmy Gold, famous centrist, he wouldn't either.

Anyone who's seriously watching knows, he would not dig into Republicans, Asmy. Take it he would for Democrats, but if you present yourself and he doesn't present himself this way as much anymore But if you present yourself as somebody who's going to do that on both sides you are misleading your audience, but then more than that it's my job to as somebody who is In part like our audience [00:05:00] relies on this with our biases or everything like that to Spend more time than they've spent Investigating political players, investigating political parties as those parties are changing.

Cause that's what we talk about all the time on this. And if I'm going to do all of that, I need to, when I tell you, and I do need to tell you, like as somebody who's investigated all of this and as somebody who spent a lot of time thinking about this, I think this party is a safe bet. If you have this value system, I need to take responsibility in the same way I would if I tell somebody to make an investment or sell an investment.

And I'm not always going to be right. But anyway, I want to hear more thoughts from you. So you're, you're, you're a genius.

Simone Collins: One thing that I've noticed is it's, it's an active, like you were saying, active manipulation when people choose to not make their stanzas clear, because it is a known human bias to assume that if you like someone in general [00:06:00] and think they're cool, that they're going to hold the same ideological points as you do.

Unless you suddenly hear them say otherwise. So, a lot of people, I've seen comments on our channel before, from people who are shocked, SHOCKED, that we hold certain views. Because, they just assumed that because, on some other videos, on unrelated topics, where they liked our takes, and they thought we were In general, same reason.

Is it more that they think

Malcolm Collins: that we're more conservative or more progressive?

Simone Collins: It's both. Yeah. It's a mixture of the, it's a mixture of the two. And so what people who choose to withhold their opinions on these issues are doing is allowing people to just assume that there's agreement when there may not be.

Yeah. So one, I think that's manipulative and I think it's inherently dishonest to do that. Because you are one allowing people to believe something that's maybe not true. So you're kind of lying to them. And two, maybe these people would change their minds if they were presented with compelling information that may, they may not be exposed to.

It's really important that people don't end up [00:07:00] in bubbles online. And I know that sometimes just showing your hand could make people bounce away from you, but there's a small number of people who's. Views are given more nuance by differing opinions, and it's worth it to share your opinions to do that.

But it's, yeah, I just see it as really ethically dubious to do that. Inherently, it makes you untrustworthy. When you choose to withhold information and when you're not predictable in your stances on things, aside from just shitting on everything you are not someone that other people can trust because they don't know what your objective functions are, what your ideologies are.

I would like to think that people, at least who've watched a certain number of our videos, are able to pretty easily predict what we're gonna say about anything, even if they really don't like What, what we're going to say? Well, no, I, I

Malcolm Collins: like that people can't always predict what we're going to say. Really?

That's why a lot of people watch this channel, because they're like, I'm consistently surprised by your takes, and those are the videos [00:08:00] that they often like the most. Hmm, interesting. But they know that these takes are given by people who are invested in this particular political ideology. I think that's really important.

To word it another way, the takes follow an internal logical consistency but are still surprising to people because the logical consistency that they follow is unique enough that people who are coming to it may not have experience with it. And it's a logical consistency which leads to the support of one particular political party over the other given the information we have right now.

And for people who may not have friends with, who support that political party, or may struggle to understand how people support that political party,

it helps them a lot. By the way, this episode is one we filmed a little bit ago, , but I felt forced to release today because Romanian TV did an episode called The Centrist.

This is a guy who does the troll avatar, where he [00:09:00] was, , talking about short, fat otaku, and I was just like, ah, two on point.

A few other things I'd note here is being invested in a political ideology, like being invested in a particular stock or crypto or anything like that, doesn't mean that you're never going to change your mind. We, early on, had a video where we were very, very promotional of Bitcoin, and then we had a video where I'm like, I no longer have the same conviction in Bitcoin that I used to have.

And I think that that to me, you know, whether it's an investment or whether if somebody is always pro Bitcoin, no matter what to me, that's a really negative thing because that's an ideologically captured person, right? Somebody who is able to be pro Bitcoin. And then be anti Bitcoin when it appears that it is no longer serving the ideological alignment that they have.

And they're willing to say, I made a mistake here, right? Or I don't think I made a mistake. I think that the underlying value proposition change that that may also happen with candidates, right? How many people do you follow? Like if you follow conservative, modern conservative influencers, [00:10:00] like new, right?

Influencers who used to be Bernie. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. This doesn't remove these individuals credibilities in anyone's mind. They, they were individuals who told you at an earlier time, based on the information I have, I support Bernie. And now, they say, based on the information I have, I support Trump.

And these individuals have taken a hit for supporting Bernie. I mean, Bernie has turned out to be basically he and you watch the RFK trials where he's out there harassing RFK for his stances on things like vaccines. And yet, you know that Bernie is the number one senator for pharma, donations.

So this is not a new thing either, here he is in the 2015 16 cycle where you can see he was also number one,

uh, and here he is in this last cycle where you can see he's number one.

And I'd point out here that his campaign has come out was a very slimy way of trying to get out of this Which is to say oh, no, no, no. No, you see, um, we rejected all [00:11:00] contributions over 200 from PACs executives and lobbyists So this money is just from rank and file employees , which Hides that , yeah, but he didn't put a cap on the quote unquote amount he was getting from rank and file employees,

, so that does not mean that rank and file employees who wanted to donate quote unquote rank and file, I mean, these people can be, , high level people within these companies, that wanted to influence him, , could not donate large amounts to his campaign to influence him, and you really only get numbers this big if you're getting large amounts from individuals.

Yeah, that's really plausible, Bernie, that you happen to just accidentally, with employee small dollar donations, beat every other senator raising from pharma companies corrupt money, and you also just happen to accidentally be one of the people most adamantly against the Kennedy appointment and Pharma in that particular fight.

Now, [00:12:00] you could say, well, what if it's coincidence? You know, Bernie raises lots of money from small donors. And he just coincidentally raises a lot more from donors in the pharmaceuticals industry.

This is an argument I could possibly buy if it happened one year or something like this. The fact that it's happening consistently year over year for like a decade and more than that. It's orders of magnitude higher than the amount that this industry is donating to specific candidates who, , they want to lobby to get their stuff done.

Like, it doesn't make sense to me. How is he raising orders of magnitude more, and we're talking like 5, 6x more, , from this industry, than this industry, which has a, an existential profit driven motivation, to give money to senators to get them to back their project or get their project through or build artificial barriers.

why is it that he's able to out raise them to such an extent just accidentally and year over year and he happens to back everything the industry does?

Simone Collins: [00:13:00] That blew my mind. When he told me that this morning, I could not believe it. That's insane. Yeah, no, he's

Malcolm Collins: a genuine corporate slimeball without a single degree of integrity to his name. That's really

Simone Collins: wild. That's really crazy.

Speaker: You have said the Covid vaccine was the deadliest vaccine ever made.

End of quote. The

Speaker 2: reason I said that, Senator Sanders, is because there were more reports on the VAERS system, on the vaccine adverse event reporting system, which is the only surveillance system, that and V safe. And there were more reports of injuries and deaths than any other, than all other vaccines combined.

Was it the scientists that had saved 3 million lives? According to FAIR. Did I, I don't know because we don't have a good surveillance system. So you disagree with the scientific community that Oh, I just, I'm agnostic because we don't have the science to make that determination. Really? Okay.

Simone Collins: But I understand

Malcolm Collins: why people, before they knew all this about him, before [00:14:00] they knew that he would lean in to like a disabled guy like RFK, who genuinely, if you watch RFK, RFK is not about making money, RFK is not about He genuinely just wants to help people and to watch Bernie like attack him knowing that Bernie is getting, what was it like 1.

5 million in the last campaign? Alongside Elizabeth Warren, who is the second biggest pharma donor. I can't

Simone Collins: believe it. Their brand is so not that this is so surprising to me.

Malcolm Collins: Plus Elizabeth Warren, right? You know, and I think that you see where the integrity really was all along. You know, you see that he's out there attacking Trump for stuff that equally applied to Biden, and yet he never attacked Biden for this stuff.

Why not? You know, it. I think people originally like, oh, this person doesn't have a spine or an intellectual core, but that doesn't make me respect them less because they were willing to do something that other people weren't willing to do. Somebody who's like, I'll turn against Bernie the moment he makes a mistake, versus somebody who said, I support [00:15:00] Bernie given what I know, and then later was like, I was wrong.

I respect the latter more than the former, infinitely more than the former.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

To be more specific here, what I respect is somebody who's willing to take a stand. Say something like, I support Barney, and I'm willing to take responsibility if he does something that I disagree with in the future, or that is in the, , not best interest of people who share a similar ideology as myself.

It is totally respectable to say, you know what? I made a stand, and I was wrong. What I don't think is respectable is to refuse to make a stand in the first place. Somebody who's willing to, when they maybe internally support Bernie, say, oh well, both sides are good, that I don't like. I am okay with you if you were formerly a staunch Democrat or Communist and now you recognize that is wrong.

If you were a fence sitter then who leaned left and a fence sitter now who leans right, I am not okay. I'd also note this in the [00:16:00] context of the recent stuff about ukraine because somebody could be like well Did you mess up in saying that we should invest in trump? Like is this a mistake and i'd say no I actually really agree with what he's saying about ukraine right now If you look at the position that he has to make on ukraine at the moment, we basically have a choice which is Does Ukraine make territorial concessions to Russia this year, or do they make territorial concessions to Russia next year after thousands, tens of thousands more deaths, or territorial consolidations to Russia the year after that, after Hundreds of thousands of deaths. There is almost no world now in which Ukraine doesn't end up making territorial concessions to Russia. That being the case, is Zelensky willing to do that? And what we have seen in his statements is no, he is not willing to do that.

And he is hugely motivated not to do that, given that they're not holding elections right now. Something that we, by the way, in the United States, continue to do during [00:17:00] World War II.

because a lot of people are like, well, you know, a lot of countries stop holding elections during war periods. And it's like, well, not us.

At the same time, Trump saying, well, Zelensky only has 4 percent support within his own country right now, that does not appear to be true. Although it does appear that he probably couldn't win an election cycle if what happened right now.

, the point being is that he has a vested interest in the war continuing at this point. And a personal honor interest. I mean, a lot of people have died on maintaining the territorial borders as they have been now, I think for almost half a year at this point.

So that'd be half a year of deaths being completely pointless if we call it quits now, but it's likely going to be what then another year. It's just doubling down as bad investment after. Good. And so I completely agree with Trump on this point. And for the individuals who are like, well, if Russia gets what they want, then they're going to start attacking NATO countries.

Very unlikely at this point, because Russia has basically expended an entire generation on this war. , if this [00:18:00] war ends now,

might they attack another country? Even if they do, it's a very high likelihood that They'll just be absolutely destroyed, invaded, and dismantled. It would be the dumbest, dumbest, dumbest thing for them at this point. It's not that it's impossible, but it would mean the end of Russia, just because they do not have the manpower.

To maintain an offense, as we saw, even when part of their own forces decided to double back on Moscow, they had no internal defenses. They've thrown everything at this, leaving nothing internally to defend themselves. If they were fighting against a country who could just march on Russian territory, Russia would be boned.

And that's what we would see was a NATO war.

This actually reminds me going into this election cycle on the discord, , somebody was saying, look, I want to support Trump, but I struggle to because I am afraid what he and JD might do to IVF or making it illegal. And I [00:19:00] need this to have kids. So at the end of the day, that is my number one voting issue.

And they say, Malcolm. Do you still recommend voting for him, even given this? And I was like, yeah, I, I do. And that's me making an investment. I could have been really, really wrong on that. And yet, we already know that they signed an executive order to make IBF cheaper. And so, I played the right hand there.

I do you think that in general public sentiment is shipping shifting on flip flopping because in the past I grew up under the impression that the worst thing you could do as a politician was change your stance on an issue.

Whereas now, like, as I've grown intellectually, the thing I respect most is people who change their opinions when presented with new information. Do you think that the public understands this more broadly, or do you think that we are not there as a society?

Malcolm Collins: I think that we will likely undergo some big points where this becomes more acceptable.

I think we've undergone a number of them already. I think, for example, a huge one was the [00:20:00] J. D. Vance. Nomination is VP.

Simone Collins: What? Oh, because he was a never Trumper.

Malcolm Collins: He was a never Trumper. He was the most, he was the face of the never Trump

Simone Collins: movement. Yeah. Well, then you have people like Mark Zuckerberg, who was a huge donor in favor of Biden in the 2020 election, who then in response to Trump.

Like saying fight fight fight in response to being shot in the head Yeah, saying that was one of the most like badass things we'd ever seen like I really I respected No, I respect that.

Malcolm Collins: But I will say with Zuckerberg, and this is where it matters. Do you switch sides before it's obvious who's gonna win?

Zuckerberg was too tentative. He did not go in. For Trump, like Elon did Elon went in when it could have destroyed everything he had ever done in terms of wealth, anything like, [00:21:00] he's like, you understand I make most of my money off of like government contracts, I am beyond effed if Trump loses this election, and this is when the, everyone, all the polls had Trump losing the election, and Elon went in.

And he didn't just go in, he went to the campaigns, he went to the rallies, he put effort into this. And I think that that's why he edified himself in the mind of the general public in a way that Zuckerberg did. Or, or J. D. Vance. J. D. Vance went in on Trump when, when a lot of people still thought that Trump didn't have a chance.

Same with you and me. We were not always pro Trump. In, in the Trump first election cycle, I, I did not support Trump at all. And I was very hesitant on Trump in his second election cycle.

And you could say, oh, it took me a long time. Oh, I was a poor judge of character. Whatever. I was. It took me a while to see how evil the Democrats had become. Or how good Trump was, I think. And when I saw that, now I'm willing to, in part, [00:22:00] I could say almost as penance, is say, I really have faith in his administration.

And for some people, they see us and they're like, Oh, well, I've built my personal reputation or whatever on like a Well, Trump is just so uncouth, and it's like, yes, he is uncouth, but that's not what I'm judging him on. I'm judging him on, is he gonna do right for my value system?

Simone Collins: Well, so then I think this means that we need to slightly shift the default definition of Stan.

When I first learned about the culture, within the context of fans of K pop and then later kind of like Taylor Swift, who no matter what, if you said something bad about their idol, you were going down like you really had to be careful about what you said. And these are people who you know, stans, I think the concept of stan culture is such that you will back this person no matter what, and I think that exemplifies It's actually exactly the wrong kind of support that you should lend to a movement or a person.

The point should be that you appreciate the [00:23:00] actions of a movement or a person and not, for example, their inherent nature, because you can't control that and that is subject to change. Similar to Like, good compliments for a partner or a friend or a colleague are not, like, about their inherent nature, but about their actions.

Or about moments. Like, wow, you know, the, the, the way that you made breakfast for me this morning, or the way that you helped me with this without even me asking was just, it really made my day. It's so much more meaningful as a comment because this person put effort into that then like wow your shirt looks great You know cuz that's or you know, you look pretty And I think that philosophy should extend to this too.

So I don't know maybe maybe Stan is not the word we should be using maybe it's just more about lending support to things that we think are good instead of just trying to look good by criticizing everything. It's so easy to criticize and it's so hard [00:24:00] to support, especially something that's controversial.

Malcolm Collins: Exactly. And I think that here's an example, right? Like obviously we're big supporters of Elon's and the media has repeatedly tried to get trumped in Elon to fight each other. You look at the drudge report, like every, it's like. But the Drudge Report today, oh my god, I love the things they had on Elon today.

It was the best. Okay Trump Musk wage a two front war as donor does president's dirty work. This article was just amazingly, I tried to be anti Elon, but if you're pro Elon, it was the most pro Elon. The next one goes, Elon moves with lightning speed to exert control over government. The next one says, The young inexperienced engineers helping.

The next one says, Given unfettered access to private data of government employees. The next one says, You said staffers told to stay out of HQ after billionaire closes it.

Simone Collins: USAID. Yeah, [00:25:00] yikes.

Malcolm Collins: Next one says, New official declared a competent white man must be in charge. Next one says, Senior FBI official forcefully resisted firings.

And let's see what happened to him. Oh, next one. EPA tells more than a thousand they could be fired immediately. So you see this, they're trying to make Elon look like a monster, but I think to people who see what they're like, Oh, yeah, this is what I was waiting for.

Simone Collins: I will note here that since the speech that JD gave in Munich, I have begun to see this administration as not Trump and Elon, but Trump, Elon, and JD all moving ahead on their own unique fronts, almost as unique executive branches. And as somebody once pointed out, in my entire lifetime, I have never seen a vice president who wasn't just an appendage to the president.

And instead, what we're seeing with JD Vance is a Fully independent actor who has his own goals and is marching forward with them as [00:26:00] fast as Elon or Trump is. You know, while Elon is doing the specifics within the government and Trump is managing everything, we have J. D. Whether it is his approval of big balls or his takedown of the EU, doing the verbal stuff, like the the speeches and new ideas that need to be laid out to remake this country and Fight the cult that has taken it over.

Well, not this country, this world, which is again, I call them the triumvirate

Well, there's one other aspect actually, not to change the subject too quickly, but

showing support for someone, especially when that support is not universal. Rather than just criticizing things that everyone agrees are bad is, is one of the most meaningful ways to show your value to someone and to be useful to someone possible. So there's fertility.

I'm well, how are you?

Okay, so everything looks good. Okay, that's great news.

Pneumonia didn't take

Malcolm Collins: [00:27:00] him out. He's a fighter. He's a fighter. You got to keep going, Simone. You got to keep taking the medic medications.

Simone Collins: I will. Okay. Let's see. Back to what I was

Malcolm Collins: saying. Is it Elon recently? Sorry. Where I'm like, that is a bad investment sign in, in the Elon sphere. Specifically like the boosting accounts on various games.

To try to look like he was a world player when, you know, he, and he said, he said, look, you can't compete with the Asians unless you do that. And he is right about that, right? And he did pretend and then banning Asma gold for on, on X. And he really do that.

Simone Collins: Oh my God, he did.

Malcolm Collins: And honestly, it was.

Not a good look and it's one of the things where I need to be like, okay, I'm reevaluating do I Does this make me judge his ability to handle these government things less to handle the government shrink downs less does it? No, it doesn't. But it's something that I need to [00:28:00] take into account, which stains my reputation, because I supported him and continue to support him.

And I think that that's the important thing. Are you willing to take these stains on your reputation, because you made a bet on somebody else?

Simone Collins: I do, I do take it, exception to Current societal trends around assuming that because you support someone for one thing means that you endorse everything else they do because that's the

Malcolm Collins: difference between endorsing everything else you do and saying that overall they're a good bet.

Simone Collins: Yeah, but I think that it's really clear that Elon Musk is a he's very consistently good at some things and he's, he's very famously controversial on some other things. He's, he's, he's famous for doing certain things that get him in trouble, and he's done those things multiple times. In that way, he's extremely trustworthy because he's also rather predictable.

And that, that makes him, you know, someone that I personally would trust, like, from a [00:29:00] political or policy standpoint, more than a lot of other people, because he acts pretty consistently.

side note here, because I know some of our fans will be like, Oh, what about your knights versus kings dichotomy in terms of males? Because I talk about alphas and betas and I say this is a bad dichotomy. You, you actually have most males divide into the knights or kings category. , and one of the things about kings is they don't like following other people.

And I know I fall into this category to, , , a moral fault, which is to say that I struggle to be a part of a clique when I am not the head person of a clique. That is not a sign of being extra manly. That is a sign of a weak personal ego . , , so I have this mindset and so people can look at that and say, Hey.

Malcolm, how can you stand to support somebody else as being above you, like Trump and Elon and J. D. Vance, the triumvirate, , and , the answer here is a fewfold. One, I, , am sort of the figurehead of a movement, the pronatalist movement, [00:30:00] and people support me, whether it's because that move in or because of this channel, not because of me specifically, but because they trust me to make the decisions that are in the best interest of other people who support a similar ideology.

And if that. requires sublimating myself to another individual, even if it goes against my pride. Of course, it is my duty to do that.

Or I have betrayed the individuals who put their trust in me and for what benefit? For the sake of my ego? I, I betrayed my values, and in the past that was most likely to see my values realized in the world, especially when those values are aligned, was what the potential collapse of our civilization. I gave up on fighting that just for my ego?

But even outside of that, the individuals that I'm sublimating myself to, the reason I am able to say I support these individuals decisions , without the strong emotional.

Dissonance [00:31:00] that I might otherwise feel is that none of these individuals have ever signaled that they think that they're better than me. And I wouldn't say, for any reporters who might be listening to this, I am not saying that I actually know any of these individuals or talk to them. But, they have Let's just say publicly, always treated me with respect and as an equal despite having significantly less wealth and power than them.

, which is something that is going to make it very easy for someone like me to follow them and say, okay, yeah, this individual isn't lording this over me. I mean, I actually think that that's why Trump did so well in the first election cycle.

Is despite his big ego and everything like that It doesn't rely on putting other people down or seeing himself as better than other people

But the, yeah, the other point I was making, though, is that Your value to other people can also be widely determined by, especially if you yourself has a good, have a good reputation by costly signaling, which is putting your reputation on the line to support them.

When they're doing [00:32:00] something controversial and improved this could be anything from like writing a letter of recommendation. Just someone who maybe, you know, earlier in their career and who just needs a good reference to, you know, standing up for someone online. And whenever we get attacked on Twitter normally no one stands up, but recently a couple people, you know, will actually stand up for us and be like, Hey, look, look at this point, look at that point.

But

Malcolm Collins: they're putting their reputation consistently on the line. If we do something crazy in the future, they get attacked for it. They could even lose their jobs for it.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and I mean, But I, I now regard those people very differently because, you know, when, when someone is willing to stand up for you. Now, I don't think that Elon Musk feels that way about the people who stand up for him online because they're.

There's so many. It doesn't really matter. I think this matters more on a micro scale. But I, I just want to point that out. That like, standing up for someone

Malcolm Collins: I disagree with what you're saying here a little bit.

Simone Collins: Where

Malcolm Collins: I'd push back is this idea that you can reach a level of [00:33:00] fame where the people who stand up for you don't matter.

To Trump, they obviously still matter. They may not matter to Elon, but they do matter to Trump.

Simone Collins: I think they matter to Trump coming from certain people on like certain news networks or like channels that really matter to him. But just random. Random people.

Malcolm Collins: Vetting people for jobs? I bet you he has people look at what they said online.

Did they stand up for him, or did they turn their back on him?

Simone Collins: That's a test of loyalty though, not so much of like, Oh, I'm gonna feel sad if this random person I

Malcolm Collins: disagree,

Simone Collins: it's not a

Malcolm Collins: test of loyalty. If it was a test of loyalty, JD Banz never would have passed. It's a test of where are you now?

Which is different from traditional loyalty, I think and I think this also is true for our fans, you know, we have a controversial reputation and when people decide to support us They put their potential careers at risk. They put a lot of stuff at risk like when we're out there people can see us as Liz Cannons, and we're not [00:34:00] actually as Liz Cannons as we appear.

We actually have, like, lists of the things that we're willing to break rake on lists of the things where we're willing to be controversial like, the positions we hold on trans stuff are not, like, Me shooting off the cuff. This is like days of conversation I had with Simone. Like, are you comfortable going out and taking this position publicly given what it could do to our careers, which is you know, maybe now it might be mainstream.

Maybe, maybe we made the right investment on this position early on. But when we first made it, it was. a very risky position to make, especially given that we have trans friends or had trans friends. I don't know, I haven't had the guts to talk to them since then because I don't want to deal with it, you know, it's like, whatever, right?

But the, the point being is we took a stance on that when it was still a really risky stance to take. And so I'd say that for our own audience, like in the same way and people can be like, well, why, why, why do you, when it comes to Trump or Elon or whatever, act this way? It's because I would want other people to [00:35:00] act that way towards me.

And I think if I'm the type of person who's going to go out there and say, Oh, I always support people when they do exactly what aligns with my value system, and I always attack them if they do anything that deviates from my value system. I, I would, I, I don't think that anyone could really support me, right?

Like, how could you? Because you know that this person lacks any loyalty to others. Because that's what loyalty means in the age of the internet, you know, people have forgotten I think the concept of loyalty right like They're they they they think that showing a lack of loyalty is a thing of value Instead of being able to say I disagree with what the king did here, but i'm still one of his knights, right?

And I still you know Broadly, I haven't been driven to betray the kingdom yet and I think that's what loyalty is loyalty isn't following somebody Whenever they're doing exactly what aligns with your value system, that's just serving your own best [00:36:00] interest. Loyalty is being a reliable ally, even when somebody doesn't exactly follow your value system.

And I think that if you ever want a movement or an ideology to become mainstream, to influence the mainstream, you need to be willing to be loyal to people who don't. Always a hundred percent in line with you.

Simone Collins: I think that's always, I mean, or I'm under the impression. That's what alliances were from the beginning. The whole point in there being an alliance is because you have two parties that are distinct, that are not exactly the same. There's no such thing as an alliance. If you're on the same page with everything, because then you're just the same entity.

So an alliance means you're different. An alliance means that there are some things on which you disagree. So I agree with you on that and you can't really build anything that's powerful or meaningful without having some alliances. So I I'm with you on that, but.

Malcolm Collins: When was in the online world what an alliance or [00:37:00] loyalty means has changed like you used to be able to Maybe voice your misgivings privately Or even vehemently privately and still be a loyal ally to someone that isn't true in the age of the Internet

If you voice misgivings, you need to do it couched in a, I still support this person.

Phone: Yeah. And I'm wondering, have I seen that recently? Have you seen that recently?

Malcolm Collins: No, I honestly haven't seen many people who to me like demonstrate loyalty and integrity as I define it as online influencers. Among so many people it has become so normalized to be like, I can't wait till they mess up so I can turn on them.

Whereas that's not the way I feel with the administration at all. If Elon or Trump messes up, I am going to feel like I misled people. And I'm not going to take any glee in reporting on that or saying like, I'm disappointed in this behavior or, or what they did here. And [00:38:00] I think that this sort of preemptive glee and the, and the mistakes of your own side shows such a degree of disloyalty that makes me really sad that this has been normalized or even glorified in our society.

Simone Collins: Hmm. So, what you'd like to see from, I guess, our own family, our own kids, is Loyalty, but with a willingness to criticize respectfully and tactfully. For example within a small group, you may show loyalty and especially signal public loyalty to someone. But if you're concerned about what they're doing, you privately air those concerned with them at first.

And don't actually show any public hesitation around them. Unless you've completely lost faith. Like they're really showing that they're unwilling to change their views. And that's actually something that you discussed with me a lot in the very beginning because I had this tact, like this thing that I would do.

Or just to [00:39:00] like keep this social peace around your family. I would just throw you under the bus when the family piled on. Like when you, I don't know, we're, we're doing something. Controversial and the family just was being really mean to you. I just couldn't deal with the social conflict. So I'd be like, yeah, they're right.

Just knock it off, Malcolm. And you were like, Simone, this doesn't make you look good. It makes you look like you're, you just completely don't respect me at all as a partner and like you're two faced as a partner. And And what you really should do is if you disagree with me, and you absolutely should air things with me when you disagree with me, do it in private, you know, like wait until after, but don't do it in public because that makes you look bad, it hurts me.

And it doesn't really help anyone else. So, I think that, that's, that's also something that I've learned from you, which is absolutely yes, disagree with someone. Do it in private at first. And yeah, maybe in the end, if they don't listen to you, if they show that they vehemently disagree with a view that you hold really strongly, then [00:40:00] yeah, you're probably going to publicly detract from them.

But the classy, Way to disagree with someone is to show support for them. Be a pro and then behind closed doors are your concerns.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And the final thing I'd note on this is someone might say, well, what if neither party really represents my value system, right? If you're out there saying, well, I invest in this party, I invest in, I, I think that this party will do a good job.

And I think when I invested in the current. Trump party. I did not expect them to even do as good a job as they had. I feel like in terms of an investment in

Simone Collins: past expectations is

Malcolm Collins: surpassed expectations in terms of payoff. And I feel really edified for, and even if they make a mistake in the future, I'm gonna be like, yeah, but did you really think they would do that much on like DEI and stuff?

But so you can be like, what if neither party represents my values, right? Supporting No party in an election [00:41:00] supporting no side in a conflict is not the default option. That is the most extreme option you can take in a democracy or a voter based system. I'm not saying that you should never do it, but you need to understand that is the burn it down option.

That is the, when you're out there and saying neither party is better than the other party, that is an extreme effing position to take. And people treat that position like it's a trivial, safe position to take. That is not a, that is saying that you literally think that both parties are so corrupt that there is no difference between them.

That is, that is, and it's not an insane position because it is true in some democracies at some periods in history,

Simone Collins: but

Malcolm Collins: it is a bold effing position to take, but people take it as if I don't agree with everything [00:42:00] either party says and it's like, yeah, but that's not what you're being asked. Okay, we have to choose one side because this is an election because this is the democracy.

Okay. And if, and if you choose a throwaway candidate, like the Green Party or something like that, then you also need to take in mind, do I believe that the two major parties are so fundamentally corrupt that there isn't, I'm not saying that they're not corrupt, there is corruption within both of the parties.

Simone Collins: Oh, there's also corruption within small parties,

Malcolm Collins: but that there isn't a party that's better than the other party, that there isn't one. Because it matters in a democracy, if one party happens to be better than another party. It effing matters. Because, if, if, what do you think would be happening right now if Kamala had won, for example?

Simone Collins: I mean, we're of

Malcolm Collins: the same. I'm just assuming

Simone Collins: the same, like, deep state that's been doing everything as it has been doing everything in million

Malcolm Collins: in condoms going to Gaza [00:43:00] for a while. Yeah, it

Simone Collins: would just be the counterfactual, which was what was happening before, which was not good.

Malcolm Collins: 150 million in DEI contracts?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's not the counterfactual, it's the destruction of, of, of democracy.

Simone Collins: Yeah, but that's what was happening. That is the kind of factual, but anyway,

Malcolm Collins: I think you continue

Simone Collins: a big trend that I've seen in maybe with the rise of just online scrutiny and people being afraid of being criticized online.

Is a fear of doing or saying anything that can get you criticized. And I think a lot of what we're discussing has to do, not necessarily with a fear of endorsing certain people, but just a fear of being criticized for anything at all. And part of me fears that this is only going to get worse as people become more terminally online and have fewer offline sort of friendships and sources of [00:44:00] reinforcement and.

Happiness and connection.

Malcolm Collins: I think, I think what we need to do is we need to reward the people who risked criticism. If you don't Except,

Simone Collins: here's the problem is that people are much more loss averse than they are reward hungry. And that's just true, like it shows up in, in social science studies and research.

And the reward needs to be big enough. I guess, I, I just, I'm, I'm not really sure if this trend can be counteracted. As, as sad as that sounds. And I, I get that it's important for us to extol the virtues of supporting something and, and standing for something. And I would argue that, you know, like from Churchill giving.

That famous quote of something like, you know, you've, you know, so someone hates you, that means you stood up for something sometime in your life, something along those lines. Like, Churchill said that because it was rare for people to stand up for something, like, even then. And that was before there was this level.

of like online [00:45:00] criticism and scrutiny that there is now. So I would say that this is a very deep set human tendency, and it's very nice for us to say. I wish that people stood up for things more, but

Malcolm Collins: You could say it's nice for us to say that. We have put our f*****g money where our mouth is.

Whether it's in supporting political candidates, supporting unpopular causes, or anything. We have consistently put ourselves in positions to be criticized.

Simone Collins: Well, and I guess the final conclusion that I'll make is, here's the ultimate pitch for standing up for something. You will not matter in the larger scheme of history if you don't stand up for anything.

Because either you are riding a wave that is inevitable and that will happen regardless. With you, with or without you. Meaning that you didn't matter in that wave. You were just part of the wave. You were, you were a molecule within the ocean. No one cares. The only reason why you have made a dent in [00:46:00] space time and history Is because you have done something counter to the wave.

You've done something counter to what your normal intuition and default basal lazy instincts would do. So, ultimately, most people are going to say, it's not worth it for me to do this. And they're just not going to do it. But, for those few people who quote unquote want to matter which means you have actually made the world different because of your existence.

You really need to take this seriously, because if you don't stand up for anything, you literally will not matter. Sound good?

Malcolm Collins: If you don't stand up for anything, you stand for nothing.

Simone Collins: Bleh.

Malcolm Collins: Bleh.

Simone Collins: She, she stands. Do you stand,

Malcolm Collins: little industry? Aw,

Simone Collins: she's pooped a lot, so.

Malcolm Collins: Let's get that poop HANDLED! She, she invested in the poop [00:47:00] emoji, and it is, it is doing well.

Simone Collins: Yeah, she stands defecation. For sure. All right. I think our whole family does because now Octavian is obsessed with poop jokes. So

Malcolm Collins: he loves poop jokes. I just think it's so funny because I remember liking poop jokes.

Simone Collins: Oh God, it's genetic, isn't it? He's

Malcolm Collins: not even liking gay jokes. Okay. It's poop jokes. Like I was like being a fun head as a kid. Okay. Like, Octavian, like in poop jokes, whatever.

Simone Collins: God. No. I'm trying so hard. I at least I'm like, Octavian, you have to start using different types of jokes. You know? Like you can't just say the same thing.

You have to use variation. And then like, he just keeps using variations of poop and like, he's just gets diaper classes. Yeah. Like he can't, he can't. Nah, we gotta, we gotta work, workshop this. I'm like Octavian comedians train comedians. Comedians develop a craft. They work really hard. You know, you, you, you can't just say classmate is effing

Malcolm Collins: hilarious.

His teacher hates it. We get calls from his [00:48:00] teacher. I don't care. I'm like my five year old is making poo jokes. You deal with it, lady. Five year olds make poo jokes. He's not making jokes, like ethnic jokes or something.

Simone Collins: I need to teach him a few of those. No, no. I have a whole new world to be afraid of. Because she calls the mother, not the father, obviously.

I guess teachers have learned intuitively over all this time to call the mothers about the new girl's use. You gotta call the

Malcolm Collins: father, cause he'll be like, oh yeah, that's a good one. I

Simone Collins: taught him that one. Yeah, oh god. All right. Well, gird my loins for whatever new report he comes home with tonight. I love you, Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: I love you, too.

Simone Collins: Oh are we doing leftover Mapo Tofu for you tonight? I thought we were doing Dan Dan. Oh, yeah. Is there leftover

Malcolm Collins: Mapo Tofu? I don't think there is.

Simone Collins: There is. Yeah. But if you have that for lunch tomorrow. I think it's too late to freeze, but if you have it for lunch tomorrow, it's fine. So I'll do

Malcolm Collins: it for lunch tomorrow and tonight we'll do Dan Dan.

Simone Collins: Is it like, is there actually a [00:49:00] jar that says Dan Dan?

Malcolm Collins: I'm going to look to see if there is. I'm going to go down right now.

Simone Collins: OK, I will handle the poop and then I will be done. So you just love you.

Malcolm Collins: Love

Simone Collins: you.

Oh, gosh.

Speaker 4: What are they doing, Titan? It's start! It's starting! It's starting! It's starting! It's starting? Yeah! The quesadilla? Quesadilla! Quesadilla! A quesadilla! Quesadilla! Quesadilla! Toasty!