Accents and Democracy: Cultural Reflections

In this thought-provoking episode, hosts Malcolm and Simone dive into the complexities behind the absence of stable democracies in Arab majority countries. Exploring historical, cultural, and geopolitical factors, they debunk common explanations like colonialism, war, and religion. Instead, they highlight the role of tribalism, the influence of Saudi Arabia, and unique social structures that differentiate Arab societies from other global cultures. Tune in for an enlightening analysis on why democracy fits some contexts better than others, illustrated through comparisons with Northern European countries and even touching upon differences in animal social behaviors.

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. Today we are gonna be talking about one of those controversial topics that I just walked into by accident. Oh no. We were on another episode and I was like, well, you know, no Arab country has a stable democracy or ever has.

And I just threw this out there 'cause I was like, just in my head when I thought about it, I was like, yeah, I can't think of any Arab majority country that has a stable democracy. And then I was, I, I rewatched myself saying that and I was like, wait. That cannot conceivably be true. There are 22 Arab majority countries.

The, the, the, the region is one of the oldest, you know, in terms of civilization, in human history. Yeah. Has there literally never been a single democracy in this region that lasted more than one human lifetime? And the answer is no. There really hasn't been. No. The longest democracy ever within this region was Lebanon, and it lasted for a [00:01:00] period of 32 years.

30. Oh my God. Not even. And that was the longest. The next longest was 11 years for Tunisia. Other than that, not a single country has had a democracy last more than 10 years. And give mind, this isn't like a, a, there are 22 countries in this region now to understand how Absolutely effing and insane this is.

Let's contrast this with Northern European countries, right? Okay. You can say, okay, okay. How weird is it really for countries that are Arab majority to never have had democracy. If you look at the 14 Northern European countries in the world today, all over the world, not a single one of them is in a democracy.

Oh

Simone Collins: God.

Malcolm Collins: Like this is one of these things where you gotta be like, this is not like [00:02:00] random odds or something like that. You know, this is not like, oh, we, we, we rolled the dice and we just, you know, weren't sure or something like that. So, so you could now say, okay, Malcolm. Okay, Malcolm, I know what you're getting at.

This is some sort of a Muslim thing. And I'm gonna say, actually no, the majority of non-Arab, majority Muslim countries. 35 out of the 40 total non-Arab majority Muslim countries

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Are democracies.

Simone Collins: No way. Whoa. Okay. Yeah. 'cause I mean like 90% of Arabs are Muslims, but then not all Mus, like actually maybe not even a majority of Muslims.

No, most Muslims are not Arab, so Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That makes, no, no, they

Malcolm Collins: might be semi democratic systems, but like if you're talking even full democracies Wow. It's still the majority of them that are democracies. Wow. Which makes it even crazier that the [00:03:00] Arab majority countries haven't had a single period of democracy in their entire history.

And, and, and then you can say, you know, you go to AI about this and, and, and, because I tried to like, talk this through with ai. Okay. And it, it gives me like. Terrible answers to start, right? Like at first it was okay. Like what? Of course, of course. Colonialism caused this. And I'm like, whoa.

First of all, the majority of Latin America now, which was all colonized, is democracies at this point. You know, all over East Asia, there are heavily colonized areas that are democracies. There are areas of Africa that far worse things happen to, than happen to the Arab countries. In terms of colonialization Absolutely.

Yeah. Their democracies. Mm-hmm.

I actually got , curious about this point and decided to look into it. And of the, , 14 never colonized countries, , seven are democracies and seven are not. Of the countries that were at some point in their history colonized, 43.8% are democracies. So the [00:04:00] probability that you're going to be a democracy does not appear to be considerably impacted by whether or not you were colonized.

There's there. That's, that's, that's not the answer. Okay. And the AI then said, well, it's war. There's just so much war in that region.

Speaker 5: Mm-hmm. And said,

Malcolm Collins: excuse me. Europe went through two world wars. Yeah. Which was much heavier conflict over a much you know, more condensed time period.

But still like extended, like the war, war, war, war, war was the two world wars. Mm-hmm. And most of its democratic institutions stayed intact.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So it's, it's, it's not Muslim. It's not, it's not, it's not Islam, it's not colonialism.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It's not instability.

Simone Collins: Right.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, it comes to me and it goes, well, it's Dutch disease.

So for people don't know Dutch disease. Dutch disease, I don't know what

Speaker 2: this is,

Malcolm Collins: is when you have too much wealth [00:05:00] from a single income source like oil

Speaker 2: mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And that leads to consolidation of power. And it makes it more likely that you're going to have a like,

Simone Collins: oh, but not all Arab countries are super wealthy.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I was like, okay. But

Simone Collins: two. And then what about the Nordic countries that are super wealthy and are that Dutch named after

Malcolm Collins: the Dutch and they're not. I, there have been plenty of instances of countries with touch disease not becoming autocracies, and there are plenty of Arab countries that don't have Dutch disease.

No. So that's clearly not an explanation either. Okay. And, and this I just detail like audience, if, if you're like bad with like statistics or coin flips or something like that and you're just like, oh, it's a, it's a weird coincidence. No, this isn't a weird coincidence. This demands explanation. You can't have a coin flip 22 times over.

[00:06:00] Millennium, or let's just say democracy is being popular, is new over centuries, never land democracy. You can't have that. Alright. And, and note here, people can be like, well, you know, there weren't that many democracies historically. And I'm like, actually there are a lot of democracies historically.

You can go back to the ancient Greeks. You can go back to other weird semi democratic systems you had throughout Europe at various periods. Or in, in, in small like islands over various periods. I think Malta was a democracy at one point. But anyways, so something there. Various countries have been democracies at some point.

Those don't exist anywhere in Arab history. So this brings us to questions that are difficult.

Simone Collins: Okay? Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: The first is, could it be genetic? So, so the question here is do we know of some species. That order themselves differently based on within the same species, based on minor genetic [00:07:00] differences.

And it's like actually we do like mm-hmm. Within most great eight great ape species, and we'll go into this in a bit like our closest genetic to sit, well, not just in this, but relatives. You will see with regional variations, which, which correlate with genetic variations different ways of structuring their tribal structures.

You know, you might have women on top, you might have men on top, you might have larger structures. Okay. You might have structures where dominance changes are handled this way versus this way. Mm-hmm. This appears to be in part cultural and in part genetic. So if we see this in monkeys, you probably see it in humans as well.

And I note here that when people are like, oh, how dare you say this horrible thing, you know that these people are different. I'm like, yeah. But think about how many people you killed by being unwilling to admit this when you tried to force Iraq to be a democracy.

Simone Collins: Well, I'm also thinking, I mean, so to be an Arab, it's, it's an ethnolinguistic identity.

So I think maybe we're also looking at the magnification of not [00:08:00] just genetic heritage, but also a choice to lean into that culture. So you're not just looking at people who may have Arab, like tribal roots in, in their lineage, but also people who've chosen to maintain Arab language and Arab identity.

Because it, it is not, it's not a, it's not a racial group. It's not like you can check Arab racial

Speaker 5: group, hold on. Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: It's, it's a, it's an ethnolinguistic identity. It is not racial.

My point though is that that would make this effect even stronger because when you're combining both genetics and opt-in culture, you're looking at something a lot stronger than if you're only looking at culture or genetics in isolation.

Malcolm Collins: Well, so I, I was actually asking AI this because I was so it says basically it's both.

But yeah, you're, you're right. But so I was looking at AI on this to understand exactly who the Arabs are, right? Yeah. Like where did they come from? Yeah. And why might they be so different from other groups at a, at a [00:09:00] genetic level or at ESO linguistic level. And the thing to note about Arabs is they were the group, like, I wasn't sure if they like, joined up with the Muslims early on or the Mohammed like, you know, basically the desert nomads and it's like, no, they are the desert nomads.

Yeah. They are the desert nomadic group as it spread out.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, to be, to be Arab, you need common Arabic language, shared cultural features and historical tribal links, which is so absolutely. There's a genetic component, like, and that's a big part of it. You know, you, I don't, I don't have tribal links.

Even if I grew up speaking Arabic, I, it would be very difficult for me to say that I was an Arab. But yeah, yeah, I mean, it, it, it's, it's, it, I I still think it's super important to point out that this is people who, like, it's, it's more than just being, for example, white, because I, I'm not like leaning into white culture, for example.

You know, walking around in Birkenstocks with my socks on or something, I, I am just, you know, just genetically white. Whereas like, if you're Arab, it's [00:10:00] because you're like really leaning into your genetic heritage

Malcolm Collins: so well, and this genetic heritage is very, very, very unique. And distinct.

Simone Collins: Yeah, super distinct.

Like, it, it actually is as offensive as it sounds to say on surface level. I, I can't be really surprised by this tendency, because if you are choosing to lean into this ethnolinguistic identity that came from tribal cultures, like tribal cultures and democracy aren't exactly. Compatible. Well,

Malcolm Collins: actually, we're gonna talk about this.

Okay. Because the question is, is why do Arabs suck so much at democracy?

Speaker 5: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: But clan based cultures, which have a lot of similarities to tribal based cultures don't seem to struggle with democracy as much. You know, whether it's the Irish or the backwards people or the Scottish why, why don't they have problems with democracy in the way that the Arabs do?

If, if the answer is just tribalism?

Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And, and note that what we're basically gonna fight it, their form of tribalism is very different than these forms of tribalism. The, the, the, [00:11:00] the reason why Arabs are so unique is they had this desert, nomadic tribal groups, which you've got to keep in mind how effing weird the genetic pressures on this group were.

Yeah. Historically speaking, no other group underwent anything like this. For as long as the,

Simone Collins: the, the environmental pressures alone are so unique compared to how other civilizations developed. Yeah. 'Cause Arabs include the Bedouins that like what a lifestyle. I mean, I guess they were like Mongolian to the kind of similar nomadic.

Lifestyles and hospital. So yeah, the Mongolians

Malcolm Collins: are the only group I can think of as having any similarity to this. But essentially it was a, a very what if, if it was a species, you would call them an extremophile species. Totally. And we, we've often mentioned this means that they specialize in an ex extreme condition.

Mm-hmm. That sometimes extremophile species not species, extremophile, ethnic groups when they get their act together and eventually interact with non extremophile ethnic groups, they have developed so uniquely that the non extremophile ethnic groups just. [00:12:00] Basically get creamed by them. This has happened a few.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, when we think about the way that we want to genetically modify and culturally shape our future descendants, we want to become extremophiles. We are not extremophile right now. We want to create an extremophile ethno in the far

Malcolm Collins: north. Yeah, yeah. In the far Yeah. But, but the, but the, what I mean by, but I mean, come on,

Simone Collins: the far north is a jumping off point for space, but whatever.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. If you're like, when has this happened in human history? We're an extremophile ethnic or cultural group ended up encountering a non extremophile ethnic group and it was just like, oh, shoot. These, these techniques we've built to live in these incredibly harsh conditions mm-hmm. Just make you no threat to us at all.

Well, it's not just with the Arab explosion, which was huge, like Arabs basically conquered, I, I, I think at at least half as much as Rome did at the, at the, the height of their empire, after like, Mohammad took like a bunch of warring desert clans and was. You know, I bet if we stopped warring with each other, we could take over the world.

And I think a lot of people [00:13:00] would've been like, no, that's crazy. But he did it. But we also, well also like

Simone Collins: the, if we could just stop warring, like imagine if Scottish people got to that point. Well, no, that's,

Malcolm Collins: that's basically what happened with the Vikings is they were like. Bro, it's so much easier to kill like the mainlanders than it is to kill other Vikings.

Yeah. Like let's just go do that every, every summer. And so the Vikings did that and they were basically completely unstoppable for a pretty big period, I think like a hundred years or something.

Simone Collins: Or yeah, maybe this is what's happening with the, the generally conservative coalition that has risen is because the left has fallen to prey to so much internal infighting.

You know, they're just like, well, what if we just got along for a little

Malcolm Collins: while? But if we just, no, that is literally like what the prenatal movement is, like religious extremists and like ProTech, people being like. What if we stopped fighting each other for just a little bit? Yeah. And raided all these juicy farms.

No, that's just

Simone Collins: too much winning.

Malcolm Collins: Too much winning. Too much winning. [00:14:00] But, but not just that. You also, you know, you mentioned the, the step people. This repeatedly happened with them. Mm-hmm. They lived in incredibly hard step conditions. They, they would encounter other groups, like as we saw with the various step people invasions of both Europe and China where they would just absolutely no one could stand against them.

So this is something that happened a few times, but one of the times it happened was with, the Arabs. And so this was an incredibly unique group. And I think that to, to just to treat them like, they're like, oh, well they're near the Persians, so they're kind of like the Persians. It's like, no, they're not.

Mm-hmm. Or, or, or they're, you know, adjacent to like Pakistan, so they're kind like Pakistan.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That's like, that's acting as though like Scottish clans are like basically the same as English farmers.

Malcolm Collins: No. Yeah. I mean, and, and culturally, and, and this is the thing, you don't need to be that genetically distant to be in a, the ways that genetics interacts with culture very different.

Yeah. [00:15:00] Because you have to

Simone Collins: think about the selective pressures that lead to successful reproduction and passing on of your genetic and cultural heritage in each of these different environments. You know, if you are in a, a tribe based culture, in a super harsh environment, the things that will make you successful in reproducing and having kids and raising them successfully and having them do that in turn are gonna be very different.

From a more urban civilization based culture that lives just like 50 miles away. Yeah. It's obviously gonna change outcomes and, and, and, and traits.

Malcolm Collins: So, but there's another big thing that point here. Okay. Okay. Because I was, I was going through and I was trying to like gr this myself and I was thinking to everything I know about local geopolitics and everything like that.

Why Arabs and Arabs only, why not other Muslims? What is at play here? What is at play here? Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is a major reason why this is the case.

Simone Collins: Okay. Why?

Malcolm Collins: [00:16:00] Saudi Arabia is a very, very, very, very, very wealthy monarchy. Saudi Arabia is filled with Arabs and the Saudi Arabian royal family believes.

Not, not just for, you know, s***s and giggles, but with like real good reason. Their lives and future could be at risk if a democracy ever establishes itself within other Arab countries. Oh, because the Saudi Arabian royal family sees the Arab cultural groups as being essentially their dominion.

And since nobody really has the money to push back on them and, and then you could be like, well, who might have the money to push back on them? Well, the Qataris or the UAE could have the money to push back on them, but both of those countries are also monarchies. So. The more money [00:17:00] a country has within the Arab Peninsula, the more like, like from Dutch disease or from, you know, capturing oil, the more stable the monarchy is within that country.

, So you have this small collection of incredibly stable monarchies within the region sort of led by Saudi Arabia. No. Saudi Arabia is in conflict with the Qatari and law, but both of them agree that they don't want non monarchies establishing themselves in the region. Saying was the UAE because if, if you are a monarch, I mean, imagine the way the monarchs felt in Europe when they saw the French Revolution happening.

Like, we have a lot of letters about this. They were freaked the F out. They were like, bro, this is bad. Like this could come here. We need to make this look bad. We need to frame this as bad. We need to stop this from happening. So you have a situation where, because you do have. Among and for cultural reasons among the economically most productive areas of the region, stable [00:18:00] monarchies that have a vested interest in preventing anything other from a monarchy from existing.

So whenever one of the other countries that, because it doesn't have as much Dutch disease, might be able to have a revolution and create something other than a monarchy. Yeah. Attempts at that. It's stamped down by the Saudis and their allies. And so if we're gonna go to, for specific examples of this you have Bahrain, 2011 Saudi led Gulf Corporation Council forces in invaded to quash pro-democracy protests, preserving the Sunni monarchy.

Against the Shiite Majority uprising. This was framed as countering Iranian influence, but effectively halted democratic movements. Egypt 2013 Saudi Arabia provided billions of dollars in aid to back the military coop against President Mohammed Marcy. Muslim Brotherhood linked stabilizing Adele Fta. L CZs authoritarian rule reports described this as part of a counter-revolutionary strategy to rollback Arab Spring.

Given 2015, the President Saudi military intervention against Hui Rebels seen as Iranian [00:19:00] proxies has prolonged chaos, preventing stable governance, democratic or otherwise, in ensuring eoin remains a failed state rather than a potential democratic model. Broader Arab Spring countering Saudi Arabia funneled funds too.

AU Autocrats and Jordan Morocco and Au Oman to buy off protestors with subsidies while supporting crackdowns in Syria and Lebanon. Analysts argued that this created a democracy free zone in the Gulf orbit was Saudi petro dollars enabling regimes to weather economic pressures that might otherwise force reforms.

And I noted, you know, when I was going over this with the ai they don't need to focus on non-Arab countries as much because they are not seen as really being similar to them. So Saudi influences geographically and culturally bound to the Arab sphere where shared language history and institutions, eg.

Arabs being amplifies leverage. Iran as a non-Arab Shiite power operates as a rival axis, Syria, Hezbollah, et cetera, resisting Saudi meddling through its own proxies. Saudi Iranian [00:20:00] rivalry has even in indirectly bolstered Iran. The three by framing reforms as Saudi backed threats. non-Arab Muslims, eg.

Turkey and Indonesia are outside this orbit. Turkey's democracy, albeit flawed, persisted despite ottoman legacies and indonesia's post 1998 transition faced no Saudi interference. Recent ex discussions echoes this, noting Saudi efforts to permit democracy in an Arab na as a survival tactic. So. I will note that it is in part artificial which is created in part by the Dutch disease of the region and the friendships and power plays of the regions focused around the Saudis that are doing this.

Not as some sort of big conspiracy, but it's an existential freakout in the same way that many European monarchs freak out during the French Revolution. They're

Simone Collins: just doing what they have to do. Yeah. They're just trying to not die

Malcolm Collins: playing the you know, in, in, in books the, the noble power games of, of, of Nobles, [00:21:00] because I read a lot of romance manga these days are framed always, you know, in this sort of underhanded.

But, but, but you know, its sort of romanticized way. But the reality is, is a lot of the, the power plays of nobles is preventing democracy. And a lot of the power plays of the monarch is preventing the nobles from getting more power, the aristocracy from getting more power. Now let's go to the question of tribalism because the tribalism in this region is very unique.

While tribalism exists globally, EEG clans in Somalia or Scotland, it's more pervasive and politically salient in Arab context, reshaping everything from family loyalty to state building. This stems from Bedouin nomadic roots where survival dependent on kin alliances in harsh deserts contrasting with more settled in urbanized non-Arab Muslim societies.

Islam moderated pre-Islamic tribalism, EEG emphasizing UMA and asab baba something or group solidarity. But in Arab lands, it fused with it, creating a hybrid structure that [00:22:00] prioritize and extended clans over national identity.

Speaker 2: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So in Arab societies, tribes, quala are core social units, often tracing patrilineal descent to ancient ancestors, EEG quish in Saudi Arabia.

Quish in Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 2: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Families are extended and hierarchical with loyalty to clan. Elders of a writing state. Institutions. This fosters patronage wasta where jobs, votes and resources flow through tribal networks undermining merit-based democracy. In places like Yemen or Libya, tribal Federations act as quasi-state vetoing central authority expos.

Highlight this noting Arabs pride and petro lineal lineage spanning centuries and larger extended families, non-Arab Muslims. Tribalism is present but diluted or transformed. And Indonesia cept is bilateral by both parents. Both para lines matter with village based not nomadic structures emphasizing community harmony over clan rivalry.

Hmm. Pakistan has aria brotherhoods similar to tribes, [00:23:00] but they're more cast like and integrated into feudal systems, allowing electoral competition. Turkey's Ottoman legacy shifted towards centralized bureaucracy eroding tribal power. Iran emphasizes Persian nationalism over tribes among Kurds and Bach overall non Arabs of weaker as abi enabling stronger national institutions and civil societies that support democracy.

This difference explains why non-Arab Muslims often score higher on social trust metrics per world value surveys. Oh, so you note here a Muslims also score very low on social trust. And, and then when I, I say, yeah, if you

Simone Collins: don't have high social, I don't know though. We don't have very high social trust in the us do we?

And we still have.

Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah, we, we will get to that in a second. Okay. The Ottoman context. So the ottoman had the milit system when they ruled these territories primarily for religious minorities, Christians, and we're all about that. Bring

Simone Collins: back the milit system. People

Malcolm Collins: granting them autonomy and personal law and taxation to maintain loyalty was out full integration at Arab provinces, EG, his Iraq.

They [00:24:00] layered this with Tribal pacs appointing Sheik as intermediaries to collect taxes and provide troops. Mm-hmm. Avoiding direct confrontation with sematic groups. This system worked because imposing centralized control on tribes often backfired, leading to revolts it. Preserve tribal autonomy, which later hindered Postman nation states.

Now on note here, this is what we should have done in Iraq. We should have done a millet system. Yeah. There are too many competing ethnic and tribal groups. 'cause in the region they just have no interest in getting along with each other. This also, this, this extremely tribalist framing also explains why Israel was able to essentially curb stomp dramatically larger, better funded, and more technologically advanced Arab armies.

Simone Collins: 'Cause they were a culturally an ethnic unified tribe. Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So, and well they just related to this differently if you go back to like the seven years war, the Yo Kippur War, many people see Israel and they think of those wars. As if Israel today was fighting those wars, you know, the technological and economic powerhouse, that realistic.

Oh yeah.

Simone Collins: But it was [00:25:00] not, yeah, it

Malcolm Collins: was not that. It, it had, it had worse equipment than the forces that were up against it. They were dramatically larger than Israel. They all attacked surprise on a holiday, nonetheless, just a, you know, really f with them. They, they really should have lost, I think it, like in, in, in some battles they were outnumbered, like a hundred to one and they still won.

Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And the, the large reason why people factor this in is extreme tribalism among the attacking groups. They, they saw the other groups that were attacking alongside them, even from within their culture as being as different from themselves as, as the Israelis were in many cases and more than that, within this tribal Arab structure.

The secondary thing is. Huge amounts of class divide.

Speaker 5: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: The generals would not have seen the forces serving under them as fully human often. No. They were just numbers. They're just like, you attack [00:26:00] and I tell you what to do, and I'm, no, this is a, an aristocratic if you, you. We have aristocratic Muslim friends.

Okay. I have aristocratic Arab Muslim friends. The way that they see the, the poor who live under them. I'm, I'm not even saying it's with animosity or anything like that. It's, they're a different type of human than them. It's a society and social structure that is much more comfortable with true aristocracy than Jewish culture is.

The Jewish Generals would've seen the people fighting under them not as numbers, but as, you know, mothers and fathers and brothers, and, and, and people that they prayed alongside and everything like that, where you wouldn't have had the same relationship between the, the higher ups, and I know this, this, this, this sounds bad, but it's just the way Arab society is structured and it has been since the time of Muhammad.

Mm-hmm. It is much more hierarchical, [00:27:00] much higher power distance. Some societies are just way higher power distance than other societies. And was in these societies, it's not even seen as like a bad thing like. If you're from a low power distance society, you get mad that anyone would ever see themselves as that degree of above you, because that's what being in a low power distance society is about.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: If you are in a high power distance society this stuff can seem bizarre to you. So, for example, Peru, where we operate our company, the fairly high power distance society. And we had a problem where when we were trying to replace one of the managers we had an entire team say that they would quit rather than take a promotion.

That wouldn't happen in the United States. It, it just wouldn't, somebody's gonna take that promotion, you know? And if no, it wasn't like they were mad or protesting the person being fired, everyone thought the person had done a bad job. It was

Simone Collins: more like they were like, I don't want that level of like the way that they saw.[00:28:00]

Being at that higher level, was it, they would be blamed for more things going wrong and they would have to do more work. So they were like, screw that. Yeah, I don't want that.

Malcolm Collins: Even if

Simone Collins: it meant, you know, higher pay, more control it very much

Malcolm Collins: like I'm lower casting, I'm happy about being lower cast. Why would I want all the problems of the nobility they have to manage so much?

Simone Collins: I'm so glad I'm not an alpha. Yeah, it was terrible. It was not, it's not even a really, it's not the craziest high power distance society. So even you, we, we couldn't even deal with that. Although we've gone also. To even lower power distance societies and been kind of creeped out by them and how, yeah.

I'm like,

Malcolm Collins: don't you know, I'm better than you? Like, I like the

Simone Collins: loveta, like all that. Oh yeah. I,

Malcolm Collins: I get creeped out by like, like stand societies. They, they do not, they, they, they, to me feel like a communist. It's like, can't you just admit that some people are like better at things than other people?

Like they have this rule [00:29:00] in the law of yonta, the, the tall wet grass gets cut. You know, don't, don't grow higher than the other grass. You know, that's a huge negative thing was in this cultural group, and I find that to be really gross and like antagonistic to, well, it just like,

Simone Collins: it, it, it, it, it, it stops people from pursuing exceptionalism and doing really amazing things, which annoys me because I want people to be exceptional in whatever ways they can uniquely be exceptional.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So what we're noting here is we're also not like extremely low power distance people either. Yeah. But the, the, the, that's, that's a part of this level of, I think

Simone Collins: this is all to say though that tolerance for power distance probably has some intuitive genetic component to it as well, but like we on a very intuitive level seem to wanna like vomit in the face of both higher and lower power distance.

Yeah. Yeah. There's

Malcolm Collins: probably a genetic component to this as well. Like, we're just like,

Simone Collins: yeah. And that there seem to be very in intuitive and instinctual responses to different forms of governance as [00:30:00] well, that for some people's, just like, this is not. And it is not for me. Different

Malcolm Collins: levels of technology power distances can provide different advantages for different groups.

It appears that these days economically low power, distance or at least medium power distance is the, the most optimal and high power distance is very bad for economic development. But you know, the, this is, they're here to list. Continue with how in other ways their, their tribal system is different.

Patrilineal lineage tracing, many Arabs recite their ancestry back 10 generations, plus often to pre-Islamic figures and even biblical ones. Like Adam and anecdote from Iraq, a man claimed his family had used tribal records kept by sheik or oral traditions to trace back to Adam. Via Abraham emphasizing tribal purity and status.

My family has one of those, by the way, tracing back to Adam when the, when the family members said it, all you need to do is, is trace to a biblical figure, and then it's very easy to trace back. Just, just so people know, you don't go all the way back to Adam. You just go to like Charlemagne, which I'm descended [00:31:00] from.

And then from Charlemagne because all these famous figures have and you traces back because it, it was just

Simone Collins: Charlemagne do. Adam, is that what you're saying?

Malcolm Collins: By the way, ancestry I have in common was Elon Musk. Elon Musk, descend from Charlemagne. Yeah. I have a bunch of more recent famous ancestors, but some cultures care a lot about ancestry and clan.

Cultures care a lot about it and tribal cultures care a lot about it. So this is something I share with them. Note here that this probably isn't just, it's not just pride, it's also functional. Lineage determines marriage, irritability, inheritance, and alliances. In contrast to nuclear families elsewhere, Arabic extended families, allahi include uncles, cousins, and in-laws as escort decision makers with elders holding veto power.

Cousin marriages bent am these, these are the preferred marriage to a family's brother sorry. A father's brother's daughter is common up to 50% in some regions reinforcing tribal bonds and keeping wealth. Internal anecdote. In Bedouin communities, groom's tribe displays power at weddings by firing guns in the air, signaling protection for the bride as she joins a new tribe.

[00:32:00] Oh, this is a sweet tradition. I, I guess that would come from another clan based culture of being like, oh yeah, this is, we're the signaling that won't protect you. But from what the other tribes in the region, because again, they are descended from regions where there was constant tribal conflict.

Tribal protection, iani, brotherhood, non-kin can be adopted via Kowa granting full tribal rights. Anecdote from Yemen, a man sought refuge with Sheikh Jorgen gal becoming his quote unquote brother. After the seeks death, the man's plea at the grave, you gave me brotherhood. Now your sons forsake me, prompted the sons to honor it.

Poetically quote, my father heard you from the grave and bids us to protect you. Even in hell sorry. Even to hell, I, I guess you wouldn't say his father in hell, even to hell no. This illustrates a shabi unbreakable loyalty beyond blood. Now. What I actually noted is at first I was like, yeah, but if this is the case, then why do clan based structures, like if tribalism with a [00:33:00] huge factor here, why do Klan based structures like the SCO or or the Irish or the backwards American, my cultural, the Ska Scots.

Simone Collins: Oh, the Scots. I thought that you were like trying to imply that the music genre was like some kind of ethnic group and I was like, is this a thing? Please. It's

Malcolm Collins: Irish and the backwards people, again, like the redneck greater Appalachian cultural group than I'm from, and Simone's from these are all clan based cultural groups where you really focus on the clan.

You don't have extended network it of friends. You, you, you are like, this is what matters. It is my clan that matter. And, and then I started thinking about it and I was like, oh, actually they adopted democracy kind of late compared to other people within their regions. Ireland really only adopted democracy because they were conquered by Britain.

And then they kept the democracy after the revolution. But they were. Pretty effing late to democracy. Scotland was earlier to democracy, but Scottish democracy was really quite defensive against the English structure. They were like, how can we get the [00:34:00] maximum number of clans on board with what we're doing?

And if you look at the backward cultures even as they lived alongside like American democracy, they often would have alternate democratic structures locally that, that were in competition with the American democratic structures. So the regulators are a good example of this. They farm their own police forces and, and local government.

Simone Collins: I'm checking to see if Appalachian cultures in the US have lower rates of voting.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, that'd be interesting. But basically the difference between these two groups has to do with how they relate. To larger hierarchy the, the Scottish Group and the Greater Appalachian Group. What, what did you learn, Simone?

You just did a, I learned something face. They do have

Simone Collins: lower rates of voting. And the 2012 presidential election, only 55% of the voting age population in Appalachia cost ballots compared to 60.5%. Naturally, or sorry, nationally. They do. And across multiple studies. [00:35:00] Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. Young voter participation can be even lower.

Yeah, that very interesting. Okay. Yeah, so maybe there's just something that, like, if you're in a, if you have clan based roots, maybe you're a little less into democracy in general, whether you're actually an Arab or not.

Malcolm Collins: Hold on. Because they have. In every one of these regions created very stable democratic systems eventually.

Hmm. And so the question is, is why in these regions was particularly Scottish and, and the greater Appalachian backwards cultural tradition? Both are related to each other. Like they're basically Scottish dissonants. They're called Scotch Irish, but that was because they were the Scottish s Scotts Irish, they went to Irish to conquer the Irish but they're still Scottish.

So they're, it's, it's confusing there. But it's, yeah. And

Simone Collins: Albian seed, David Hackett Fisher often refers to them as borderland cultures rather than Scots-Irish, since it's kind of not Yeah. It's not the best descriptive.

Malcolm Collins: It's not the best descriptive. But anyway, the point being is both of these groups are technically [00:36:00] the same and they actually seem to take to democracy pretty quickly.

And so the question is, is why did they take to democracy quickly? And the answer comes from looking at the motivations on the ground level as they decided to either fight in revolutions for democracy or as they decided to form the initial like Presbyterian communities which are really sort of proto religious democracies as opposed to the more authoritarian Catholic or Anglican structure, which comes to is, is basically closer to a monarchic way of, of, of organizing a church.

And the answer is because they have an intense hatred of authority. Which is not seen in the Muslim countries, in the Muslim version of tribalism was in these clan based structures. It was the Klan is first, and anything that tries to mess with the Klan or touch the Klan or interfere with the Klan's autonomy is something that you need to fight against.

And so if democracy looked like the form of [00:37:00] government that would mess with them the least, or impose the least external impositions on them, they're gonna fight for it. Basically small government extremists. Whereas, the, in, in the early days at least. Whereas in, in the Islamic countries it's quite different.

The loyalty to tribe is also loyalty to tribal alliances and a tribal alliance network, which fundamentally undermines a democratic state. Yeah. Because it acts as an alternate to the Democratic state. Yeah, it

Simone Collins: undermines it. Yeah. 100%

Malcolm Collins: worse. It's really bad when you combine it with Islam because as if you're in the backwoods cultural tradition and somebody comes and they say, you need to live this way or that way, I'd be like, on who's effing authority?

Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. And, and, and they'd be like. Oh, well, you know, on these, these rich coastal elitist authority. I'm like, I, I'm sorry. No. But if you go to, to the tribal groups [00:38:00] in Muslim regions, they say, on whose authority? And it's, oh, this, this theocratic leader, you know, this Muslim leader. And they're like, oh, of course.

And these, these Muslim leadership communities. And you're like, whoa, whoa. What about like the Scottish region and stuff like that? Like why didn't that fall to this? And this is what the Presbyterians were, the Presbyterian system, right? They'd say like, on whose authority? And they'd be like you know, well this Anglican bishop, right?

Or this Catholic bishop. And they'd be like, well, who the F appointed him? And they'd be like, well, some rich guy in Rome. And they're like, well, I don't, I don't care about him. We should be voting on this. You know, or they'd say The king in England. And they'd be like, what the heck does he have to do with, with God?

You know, we should, we should, we should be, we should be making this more local, you know, sort of ground up. And so I think that this fundamental difference between the two cultural groups is why democracy works within these types of clan based structures while more slowly than under the more futile [00:39:00] English structure.

Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And WWIE in the English structure, when you go to these early periods you would have a loyalty to your, your like region's sort of Lord over family or, or local clan. Whereas in the Irish, Scottish and backwards areas, it was clan over Lord. But within the Muslim areas, it is tribal network over basically everything else.

Because the way that you advance your clan is through the tribal network. And then in addition to that, it's don't disappoint. You know, your local religious leaders who sort of manage the tribal network of alliances and tell you when they're telling you what to do, they tell you, well, this is why this is what you do.

Simone Collins: Right? Yeah. All this is getting me to think about how, I mean, first I saw this in a very limited capacity, how? Context really, really matters when it comes to governing formats. Like communism works really, really well on [00:40:00] a very small community or family level. Like our family is communist and all of our chickens have communist names.

And it makes sense and it works perfectly. Communism, 100% works and has been tried and is tried every single day on the family level for millions and millions and millions.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, my kids don't work and I give them a portion of my income, you know, from to each, according to their needs. From each, according to their ability.

Simone Collins: Exactly. And, but now I'm, I'm, I'm thinking that you, this, this podcast, this conversation has got me thinking about how maybe also democracy really only thrives in certain contexts. And we need to just be aware of that, that like communism isn't inherently bad. You just need to apply it correctly.

Democracy isn't inherently good or bad, you just need to apply it correctly. Well, you and very clearly in

Malcolm Collins: many. It doesn't work for everyone. Yeah. And if you attempt to apply it to a group that is not adapted for it, yeah. You're gonna have math deaths. You know how

Simone Collins: state craft in some countries where clearly democracy [00:41:00] just wasn't meant to work, was doomed to fail from the beginning.

Just like communism on a super large scale in like Russia or in this us No, but I, I think

Malcolm Collins: that communism can work on a, at at least a small scale, was in some communities.

Simone Collins: Absolutely.

Malcolm Collins: And, and we saw this within and with

Simone Collins: certain levels of technology and post scarcity singularity potentially. But here we're

Malcolm Collins: talking about the real world.

What's, no, what's the, the, like the communist small communes they had in Israel? Kibbutz

Speaker 2: Kum k.

Malcolm Collins: Where, not not, but you can't scale it up bigger than that and it's not gonna work for every ethnic group. And, and this is also true of the millet system. The millet system may not work for every ethnic group, but it doesn percent, but it work for Arab groups.

Isn't that more of a Persian

Simone Collins: thing? Right. It was the

Malcolm Collins: per ruled the Arabs, and it was how they ruled the Arabs. Ah, okay. Okay. And if you're talking about no people of one species couldn't have multiple ways of genetically [00:42:00] structuring their society. And then here we're gonna get to chimpanzees. So we're gonna go to ev evidence.

Okay. Okay. So chimpanzees groups in Africa African regions exhibit distinct social behaviors. For example, west African chimps are more cooperative in hunting and tu use, not cracking with stones. While East African groups show more aggressive patrolling and infanticide. Oh,

Simone Collins: okay. Sorry.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. And then bonobos often called peaceful compared to chimps.

Warlike structures have matriarchal groups with high social tolerance, but this varies regionally eg. More alliances in the Congo Basin groups, genetic studies show minimum fixed. So, and then overall ape cultures, including social structures, evolve through a second inherited system of social learning which functions alongside the DNA and sort of reinforces how small genetic differences can create quite big behavior differences in terms of how you're socially structuring a community.

Speaker 5: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And I think it can lead to a huge amount [00:43:00] of, if you look at the number of deaths and dollars spent trying to stabilize an Iraqi democracy, when I think it was fundamentally impossible to begin with.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It, it, it, you see the horror that comes downstream of not just accepting that some people are different from you.

Yeah. It's like

Simone Collins: giving a medical treatment to someone who won't tolerate it.

Malcolm Collins: Right. It's like saying it would be racist to say that black people have different bodies than white people. It's like, well, actually this is something you really need to pay attention to when you're doing, like, treatments of diabetes or pregnancy.

Because they, they, yeah. Or just women and

Simone Collins: men. That's, that's a really famous example.

Malcolm Collins: The Yeah, they, well, I

Simone Collins: mean people that even car seats have just like crash tests and whatnot, not really been tested on women. Like women are kind,

Malcolm Collins: it would get really a big deal. Yeah. Because they're just like, it's tested on somebody,

Speaker 3: but

Simone Collins: it's fine.

Yeah. But like, they haven't really been tested on male bodies and or sorry, on female bodies. Like even the first female crash test dummy is didn't emerge until forever ago. And still car [00:44:00] seats are 100% optimized around male bodies. So women are kind of screwed in car accidents. Women, men are more likely to get into car accidents.

So I'm okay with the design being what it is, but there actually is you know, ride safer. The company that we got those kid harness car seats for, for four months, no. They also sell a special car seat harness that you can use to replace. Male designed car seats, especially as a pregnant woman, because pregnant women are kind of screwed in car accidents too, if they're not wearing the right car seat.

Malcolm Collins: Well, so, but this could really screw, I, I find that male female difference, because broadly could be like, I think different No,

Simone Collins: obviously. And like, I mean, we're really big on polygenic scores and a really big problem with most of the polygenic scores out there is like, okay, maybe this makes sense if you're of especially English or European descent, but if you're African, if you're East Asian, like you can't really use this the same way.

I think that's

Malcolm Collins: a lot. Not a very good analogy, because you're just talking about where this stuff has been collected and the point I'm talking about is the denial that we are different [00:45:00] leads to really bad outcomes often for minority communities. Oh yeah. So a much stronger example of this can be. Just saying black and white bodies are not different.

Well, this causes a huge problem when black women, and this is a big problem in the prenatal list movement learn that i, I think it's literally double, like black fertility problems are literally double white fertility problems.

Simone Collins: Yeah. We, I think we did a podcast on this, or we talked about it

Malcolm Collins: at one point and it was, it was shocking.

It's shockingly high or maybe 50% higher or something, but it's really, really bad. It's, it's notable if you don't tell black women, Hey, you need to prep for this. Mm-hmm. You can lead to really like, really screw over them. Culturally speaking, the, the other really big one with black people that is super offensive to mention and I'll explain why it's offensive to mention in just a second, is black people have shorter child gesta cycles.

It's about a week shorter. For a black [00:46:00] child to be born than a white child, and you can be like, oh, I don't understand where this could cause problems. It causes a very big problem in interracial marriages because when you have black fathers and white mothers you get no impact from this.

Because the mother's body just carries the baby extra long and, and that's good. But when you have a. White fathers and black mothers. There was a, an interesting study on this very, you know, obviously spicy that showed that the mother's body doesn't know it's carrying a baby that's supposed to ate breast, ejects

Simone Collins: a baby that's not quite ready for showtime.

So we give the

Malcolm Collins: baby that's a weak premature when it's born. And you can see this in the statistics of, of these children's development, like they are developmentally impacted by this as if they had been born a week early.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And we can attest from personal anecdotal experience at having kids born premature or has a knock on effects for years.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. We had a kid who was born premature and he's still like in the bottom [00:47:00] 1% of, of, of weight and height for his age. Yeah. He, he's

Simone Collins: the same size and he wears the same clothes and shoes as his younger sister who is 18 months younger than him. So, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, so, again, this isn't like us being like.

You know, this is something intrinsically bad about black people or interracial relationships. It's

Simone Collins: just a good heads up thing. I mean, it would be helpful to know, be like, especially, you know, if you, if you know that you're gonna have a kid that's more likely to be born premature, you can plan certain things that can help to ameliorate the effects of premature birth.

It's meaningful.

Malcolm Collins: Right? Yeah. And, and if, if we are different in some ways, you know, be aware of how we're different. Mm-hmm. And, and be willing to, I think within yourself, and this is always one of the big themes of our podcast, to look within yourself when somebody's saying, this is the way that we do things.

And be like, but will this actually, because a lot of people are like, multiethnic, right? And they're like, well, how do I know what my, you know, unique [00:48:00] biology wants? And I'm like, well, try to ignore what society tells you and ask yourself like, are friends actually an important part of your life? Do, do you actually need that?

Do you actually, I mean, like, I'm just talking about like the ways that we're weird, right? Like I don't need to look at my ancestors and see that all of their friends were clan based or family friends to know that I really don't get that much from social interactions, even though I'm told I'm supposed friendship is magic and all that.

It's

Simone Collins: not even that you can't, you don't get that much. It's that we, it actively stresses us out. It's painful. We have to recover after.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. I don't, I, I'm, my wife is my battery. It's only being around her. You know, they talk about like introverts and extroverts. It's only being around the clan that I recharge.

You know, it's, it's the same you know, or, or, or what else? You know, like sleeping in different rooms, right? Like, I don't need to know whether my ancestors slept in different rooms. I know it seems effing insane for husband and wife to sleep in the same room.

Simone Collins: Like, I mean, to be fair though, that one's a little weird because.

I mean, in the past everyone [00:49:00] kind of piled up on one bed, like everyone would be on this bed over here every night.

Malcolm Collins: That's not, that's not true for different groups and a lot of rural groups. That's true for urban populations, like a lot of Catholic and Irish populations. That was common for rural populations because land was basically free and all you needed to do.

Yeah. Heat

Simone Collins: sure wasn't though. Malcolm, come on. I watch a lot more like

Malcolm Collins: history,

Simone Collins: lifestyle stuff than you do if

Malcolm Collins: you, if you spent a day just building an extra room, you had an extra room. If you look at the size, no, seriously. You have, have you ever looked at the size of the houses that people used to live in back then?

No.

Simone Collins: I mean, I know, so like the, the colonial houses, and this is talked about in LB and seed when he talks about the folk ways of architecture that differed across cultures. Absolutely. Like Puritan culture. Had kids in separate rooms and when, when, when it was possible. Yeah. Yeah. I'll ask ai.

Malcolm Collins: You know what I'll ask right now?

Simone Collins: Oh yeah. You really wanna win this one, don't you?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, oh yeah.

Speaker 3: I want you to have to. Is this 'cause you

Simone Collins: lost the ethnolinguistic group? Oh,

Malcolm Collins: we'll see, we'll see.

Simone Collins: Oh, I miss, I miss when we did [00:50:00] bets. I, I don't think I ever took the money from you though when I won the bets, to be fair.

Did you know, by the way, I was just thinking about differences between animals and different geographic areas that birds have different accents.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. I knew birds had different accents. You didn't know

Simone Collins: birds

Malcolm Collins: had different accents.

Simone Collins: I, I, I knew it only in adulthood. I didn't know it as a kid. And I think it's so cool.

Oh, you

Malcolm Collins: got this right. They were more often single room structures, especially in the early stages of the settlement. No, even

Simone Collins: when they were multi-room structures though, the family would still sleep often in the same area because that's the place where it would be warm at night.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It had to do with heating.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: You are welcome. Ooh. If only we were still betting. 'cause I would've just made 20 bucks. But no, you just stopped doing that even after a bunch of times. I was wrong.

Malcolm Collins: You're never wrong, Simone. You're the perfect wife.

Simone Collins: [00:51:00] That's what the perfect husband says.

Malcolm Collins: But I see this is, this is what I'm talking about here.

You don't need to look at your ancestral heritage. You can know what works for you.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Because there are always gonna be deviations. Just do what's right, ancestral heritage, when you're gonna be like, yeah, just do what's right.

Simone Collins: Well, also, like, I don't, I don't think that families piled into one. You know, they didn't all sleep in the kitchen together because they wanted to.

They did it because they didn't have a choice. So, yeah, I, I'm not, I'm not super concerned about that being a, an inherited trait. I, I think our people's tendency to keep moving out to frontiers, away from cities, away from density of people is a larger indication of why we would enjoy separate bedrooms when given the opportunity and luxury, which, you know, it, it remains even in our time, a huge luxury that we use separate bedrooms.

Malcolm Collins: So,

Simone Collins: you know. Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Hello. Alright, have a great day, Simone. [00:52:00] And I was gonna start another episode. What are we, what are we doing for dinner tonight? Just, I guess reheating something or?

Simone Collins: Yeah, so we have a couple options. I can make sourdough that's not whole wheat for you 'cause I mean, that would be offensive to you.

And you can have that with jam or like dip it in curries or we can just do a mystery curry with rice this time.

Malcolm Collins: You know what I'm gonna do your, your sourdough with cheese again. And then, no, I

Simone Collins: don't, I don't have flatbread. That would have to be another night. I mean, like baked sourdough.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

You can't cut it and then bake it with cheese.

Simone Collins: Oh, you just want like a slice of sourdough with cheese on top. Like a What's that? A Welsh rare bit basically.

Speaker 3: I guess like, would that, like

Simone Collins: an open phased cheese sandwich on chunky sourdough bread?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But not chunky. I mean, cut it thinner. You, you, you cut it obscenely thick, which I think is causing me to become upset at my stomach.

Like you, well, I mean, [00:53:00] don't

Simone Collins: you wanna, don't you wanna do like one of your curries or something, or do you

Malcolm Collins: want pasta? Okay. Then let's do a Korean rice.

Simone Collins: Okay. Korean rice. We'll see what curry surprise you get tonight. There's so much to go through. Like, we have to do freezer farming for a long time. Yeah, because I think I just make batches that are too big and then we haven't been disciplined about using them, so thank you for we, because they got better

Malcolm Collins: over time.

So I'm typically dealing with

Simone Collins: like you're gonna wanna do? Yeah, I'll do a

Malcolm Collins: mix.

Simone Collins: Throw

Malcolm Collins: in some pineapple

Simone Collins: if there isn't any already. Yeah. Okay. I'll throw in to any. So it's, it's a booster to any curry for you. What if it's a non pineapple friendly curry?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, curry is pineapple friendly.

Simone Collins: Not really. Okay. You're strange.

But you did proceed to put jam on the cheesy flatbread last night, which was weird to me. It was

Speaker 3: really good. Don't you know?

Simone Collins: I mean, power to the people, you know. Okay. I [00:54:00] will, I will proceed with this. And I love you very much.

Malcolm Collins: I love you so much. Bye bye. This is right. You got things right.

Simone Collins: You opened my mind to a whole new thing.

Now I'm, I'm, I'm gonna look at democracy the same way I look at, at communism. Like, legit. I, and I, I think that this is a really helpful way to look at governing, and that it's a, you can't just look at it in the, in the format of like, is this a, you know, structurally sound thing? You have to look at the substrate to which you're applying it and, and are these compatible?

It's like blood types. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So anyway, thanks. That was really enlightening. Super interesting. I'm gonna be thinking about it for a long time. I love you. I was watching an old like commentary on an old Mormon movies. One of them was from the sixties and it just stood out to me how weird 1960s woman accent was, or like late, like, like I can't, I can't model it. I'll try to find a clip I can give to you. It just, it occurred to me [00:55:00] how weird it is. You know, there are time-based accents.

Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you're talking about.

Simone Collins: And I realize that if we went back in time, it wouldn't just be our colloquial English that would be difficult for people to understand, but merely our tonality, they would find it really off putting and weird. And I wonder if women in the Renaissance era or in the Middle Ages had really different tonalities, like the, the 19, like 1970s, late 1960s female voice was very.

Childish and high and weird. And I, I wonder if both men and women in the past had really different ways of,

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I think like if you go back, even, even if we went back to like the 19, like twenties or thirties, I think everyone would immediately be shocked and be like, why? Why are you doing the radio presenter voice from [00:56:00] like, they have that, you know, that very weird accent.

The

Simone Collins: transatlantic accent that was mostly just people in the media profession, not mainstream people.

Malcolm Collins: Well, people had more differences in their accents back then.

Simone Collins: Oh, no, for sure. Yeah. Where you lived would really dictate how you sounded. Mm-hmm. 100%. Which is cool. I feel really bad that we're losing accents, although then there's all these people discussing and you can totally hear it.

Especially since we're listening to our kids watch YouTube in, in the evenings when we bribe them with screens so they eat food. There is definitely a TikTok accent and a YouTuber accent. Oh, interesting. Oh my gosh. They're one. Yeah. Come on. You know it. I I, I can't Do you have the

Malcolm Collins: YouTuber accent? Well, I mean, we're big.

No,

Simone Collins: no, no, no. I, I'm talking like, you know, clip farmer, view Farmer. But are you saying

Malcolm Collins: that they're different? The two accents?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, interesting.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And there are different accents for women and men, very similar to how like, Japanese, when spoken by a woman or a man sounds very different. It's so yeah, maybe, maybe we're [00:57:00] not doomed.

We're just gonna see more subculture based accents and fewer geographically based accents. We'll see,

Speaker 3: I am looking this up. TikTok versus YouTube accents.

Simone Collins: I can't believe, come on. This must have stood out to you. It's such a thing. I, they all sound the same and they start aping each other.

Speaker: Watch the fingers. Oh, no. Oh, what's happening here? Are you beating in the box? Am I closing you in? No. What is this? What's that? Oh, are you boxed in? Are you, are you a package now? No. Oh.

Speaker 6: Oh my gosh. Boom. [00:58:00] Yeah.

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