Mennonite Migration: Cross-Continental Journeys

Join Simone and Malcolm as they delve into the fascinating world of targeted immigration and its historical and modern implications. From Mennonites being lured to Canada and Mexico with special privileges to modern-day initiatives like the Tulsa Remote program and network states like Balaji's Charter City, discover how demographic shifts and fertility collapse are reshaping global migration patterns. Explore the unique characteristics that make certain populations highly desirable and discuss how future communities can thrive amid changing promises and regime changes. Don't miss this in-depth exploration of what makes a family or community attractive enough for governments to compete for their settlement!

Simone Collins: Hello Malcolm. I'm so glad to be with you today because we are going to talk about something I found quite intriguing the other day.

Picture this. What if countries and cities started fighting over you, offering cash, land, and even your own laws just to get you to move there? From Canada and Mexico, luring Mennonites with special privileges to Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma, paying remote workers to relocate targeted immigration is actually quietly reshaping the world, and it has been for.

Maybe hundred years. Yeah. This is a

Malcolm Collins: huge thing. I see many as, as fertility collapse is going on. Mm-hmm. And what a lot of people you know, misunderstand about fertility collapse is they think it's a problem of warm bodies. It's not a problem of warm bodies that we, no. This is about getting

Simone Collins: the people that you want.

To your country to do certain things. Right. But you, the, the whole thing that we need to talk about here is what makes a family or a community so desirable that governments compete to track them. Like people don't realize that this isn't just like, oh, we're opening our borders to, to solve this problem.

No, it's, we want Mennonites, we want bougie couples. Do or jinx we want, but

Malcolm Collins: let's, let's talk about how this problem creates itself, okay? Mm-hmm. So the problem creates itself. It, it's uniquely bad now because it is the communities that are more economically productive and the groups that are more economically productive that are undergoing fertility rate collapse the fastest.

Yeah. But in a historic context, you also had this problem luring one immigrant group into your country was not seen as the same as luring another immigrant group into your country. Totally. Some immigrant groups were seen as. More desirable because they were more desirable. Mm-hmm. They created more economic prosperity.

Mm-hmm. Or did more development than other groups. Mm-hmm. So let's get into which groups are which.

Simone Collins: Yeah, absolutely. And well, and how in a post demographic collapse world, you want your family culture to be such that you basically have your pick of the litter in terms of what. Country or charter city or techno feudalist empire you go to because you want, you want the keys to the kingdom.

You don't wanna be that deformed, post-apocalyptic family living in the borderlands. So just, I wanna also like this is. I think one thing that's important to talk about before we move forward is we recently had a podcast talking about how Hillary Clinton sort of espoused this idea that, well, it's immigrants who have all the kids and the obvious solution to.

Demographic lapse is immigration. And isn't it so crazy that the Trump administration is deporting people? And then one of our podcast followers tweeted us a report in 2000 by the UN Population Division. It was, it was titled Replacement Migration is a, is it a solution to declining in aging populations?

And this is definitely one of the most common rebuttals that we get to. Oh no. Population declined. And then the answer from so many mostly uninformed people is. Oh, just solve it with immigration. There are many, many, many issues with that. But I do wanna point out that even this 2000 report from the un, which I would say is one of the more bullish groups on like immigration solving the problem.

Yeah. Plus also the graphical options from the problem. It's going down slowly and then they're always wrong with their projections. But basically that report explored the the potential role of international immigration and migration and addressing population decline in aging. And the conclusion actually of the report is that while immigration can help mitigate the effects of the trends, the scale of migration required to significantly alter population size and age structure is likely unrealistic and potentially unsustainable.

Now, that coming from the UN is basically them admitting it's not gonna work at all. For them being like, well, it might not, it might not be sustainable to like really solve the problem means that it really isn't gonna work. But that doesn't mean that countries aren't going to try. And also a, again, just because this is something that, that countries have turned to for a long time, and this is what I had no idea about, was these like niche examples also of targeted migration.

So let's talk about Canada and Mennonites. Okay. Because this is, I, I just had no idea about this until yesterday when I started digging into it. Yeah. So in the 18 hundreds, so this is a long time ago someone in Canada's government was like. Those dudes. We want the Mennonites. How do we get these Mennonites?

And they made this package of, of special privileges just to attract them. So they actively recruited Mennonites in the 18 hundreds pr, particularly from Russia. Interestingly, by offering what they called it, a pum. A formal agreement, just like I mean, really targeted for them. It guaranteed exemption from military service, the right to run private schools, religious freedom and land grants for settlement.

And, and they were designed both to attract hardworking agricultural settlers to develop Canadian West, which makes sense. Why, like targeted Russian Mennonites. 'cause they're like, these, these dudes can handle the cold. They'll be okay.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. Makes, makes sense. Yeah. I was looking for a group of people to develop like Canadian agricultural land.

Yeah. Russian Mennonites. Yeah.

Simone Collins: They're like the the, scottish cows, oh, sorry. People who, dunno

Malcolm Collins: what the Mennonites are. It's like a br They, they're an Baptist, which means they're related to the Amish. They're basically Amish.

Simone Collins: They're, they're slightly less strict than the Amish, so depending on the Mennonite group.

And a lot of the groups that I've been looking at recently are much more conservative, almost Amish, like in, in, in how strict they are. But you, you're more likely to see Mennonites owning cars, some select machinery, like they're, I think they're more consequentialist than deontological when it comes to anti baptism, where they're like.

All right. Like, this machine actually isn't that worldly. It's just helping me do my job, so I'm gonna be okay with it. But anyway the, the long-term impact and changes this, it's interesting over time. So a bunch of, a bunch of Mennonites came over to Canada and there still are a lot of Mennonites in Canada.

But then over time, Canada started to. Erode these privileges, like especially concerning private education, which also was a problem with indigenous populations, but no one talks about Canada and their immigrant populations. Those also had some rights to private education eroded. So I think that's also interesting that.

Canada was equal opportunity and it's taking children and trying to homogenize them. So yeah,

Malcolm Collins: no, and I think they basically betrayed their Mennonite population. They totally

Simone Collins: did, which led to significant Mennonite immigration from Canada to Mexico and South America in the 1920s. Also, during World War I, anti-German sentiment led to a temporary ban on Mennonite immigration.

So Canada just got like. Super mean Mennonites. But the original pum that like set of, of that 1873 set of, of privileges that they used to target Russian Mennonites remained a touchstone for Mennonite claims to conscientious objector status during both world wars. So they still got to use parts of it, just not all of it.

And this I just wanna highlight for later discussion as we talk about what you need to be to be a desirable population and have the keys to the kingdom. Is that you also have to be prepared for an erosion of promises made, and this is a theme that's just gonna come up again and again. So listen now.

Now, okay, it's the 1920s, right? Canada's being a dick to the Mennonites. Where do they go? Well, Latin America's like. So these guys develop land and are productive and they, they, you know, produce good agricultural goods like I want them. So they started offering privilege and Mexico was one of the first to really get on the bandwagon.

And also, like the Mennonites didn't have to go as far to get there. So like Mexico was a really popular first destination for them, and a ton of Mennonite settled there. So Mexico's offer of state finance migration, which is kind of how, like some ais were describing it to me and I'm like, what is state finance migration?

The, the offer of state MI finance migration to Mennonites in the 1920s was not direct financial support in the form of cash payments or government funded travel, but rather a comprehensive package of incentives and privileges designed to attract and facilitate Mennonites settlement. Here's how the Mexican government supported Mennonite migration.

So one, they offered land access and sales at very favorable terms, so they're like. You know, here's this big tract of land like it's yours. We're gonna make it easy. We're not gonna, I mean, 'cause buying land in foreign countries can be very difficult. I just wanna lay that out there. So the Mexican government agreed to sell large tracks of land to Mennonite settlers at very reasonable prices, and specifically in northern states of Chihuahua and Durango.

Which is where you'll see, still see some of these populations. And that's because these were actually at the time and we're talking 1920s, suffering from. Economic and demographic decline

Malcolm Collins: really well. The 1920s did have a major demographic issue that we talked about before that was only really solved by the baby boom, which seems to have mostly been a result of improving medical talent.

Yeah,

Simone Collins: well this, this specific one, especially in those regions, was resulting from the Mexican revolution, but still, like also this, just to be clear. Countries experiencing demographic decline and e economic decline in regions or even universally is not a new concept. And immigration is like the first thing where they're like, oh, let's just import the prob.

Like, we'll import a solution. But then just, yeah, go ahead.

Malcolm Collins: Solution mites are an action if you're gonna import a group to like develop a region. Yeah. Mennonites are a great group to import because they are pathologically pacifistic. Yeah. While they will not acculturate into your culture they also will not prey on your culture and attempt to take converts.

Yeah. They're a group that is pacifist, that won't seek converts and will just grow and develop land and contribute economically. I

Simone Collins: won't see comforts. Yeah, for the most part. We'll, we'll get into that. We'll get into one instance

Malcolm Collins: in which they did convert giant

Simone Collins: population two. Well, two, two. So yeah.

But, so Canada sim, sorry, Mexico similar to Canada also offered the legal and social privileges that Mennonites really need to be able to settle somewhere. So. Through a formal agreement with President Al, sorry, Alvaro Obon. Mennonites were granted exemption from military service. Very important freedom to operate in their own schools and teach their own language, full religious liberty, the right to dispose of property as they wished, and no taxes for 100 years.

There's some speculation about it, but that's a fricking huge. Draw because I think they were just, wait, you don't

Malcolm Collins: have taxes for a hundred years for, for Mennonites.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And I've, I have three citations on that. I can give them to you if you want. Like this. There's, this is documented. There. There is, there's, this is according to some accounts, but I mean, I bet that, I mean, at least some government officials were like, yeah, don't worry about it.

Just don't, don't pay taxes. There's such insular communities that I could see like. Them. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well let me guess. They like immediately went back on that after like a few decades,

Simone Collins: Maybe. So here's another important thing though, is the, the government also provided military and police protection for Mennonite colonies when conflicts arose with local populations and bandits.

So when they first came over in the 1920s, despite the Mennonites being pacifist, because they were going to fairly like wild West regions. They even got protection from the government. And that's pretty big too. And I mean, that, that's a, that's a wonderful privilege, but we'll see how that, how that ended up.

Beyond that though, they had a political

Malcolm Collins: in rural Mexico. Not, well,

Simone Collins: I mean, you know but officials at both the local and federal levels often intervene to resolve land disputes in favor of Mennonites. Sometimes using force to remove other claimants from lands that were purchased by Mennonites.

So this is like, they were really going above and beyond to be like, nah, man, these dudes are gonna like. Actually do something productive with this land. It's theirs. You are out and this is their own citizens. So this is this, I think this is a really good illustration of how far a company's, or sorry, a country or company that becomes a nation stakeholder will be a wingman for you if they think that you are desirable.

Like, screw their citizens, they'll take you. And, and there's historical precedent for that. And then the, the, the government also viewed Mennonite agricultural expertise as a means to boost regional food production and economic stability. So they prioritize their settlement as part of broader national development goals.

So that, that helps to explain why. They, they did that, but so I mean, as, as you can imagine, the primary reason why this like kind of unraveled in Mexico was that there's just like this explosion in gang violence in Mexico. So from 2012 to 2017 alone, an estimated 30,000 Mexican. Mennonites relocated just to Canada, but a bunch of Mennonites also have emigrated from northern Mexico to safer regions within the country, such as Campeche or abroad to countries like Belize, Paraguay, Argentina, and Bolivia.

And the, the reason I fell down this rabbit hole in the first place was I watched this documentary on a Mennonite community that was quite conservative in Northern Argentina. And I'm like, how the hell did these low Dutch speaking? Mennonites, they were clearly like of a Polish origin in Northern Argentina.

I just like, it was so confusing to me. But now it all makes sense and. A bunch of these countries did the same thing in trying to attract Mennonites. They're like, oh, those dude, everyone fighting over Meite, those dudes,

Malcolm Collins: but hold on, hold on. So, so now they, they come over from Canada, Uhhuh, then they go to Mexico, Uhhuh, then they go to Argentina.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And like, and so like, and again, like so Argentina, Paraguay, and Mexico, Bolivia and Belize all of them offered land grants. All of them offered military exemption though in Argentina, that's just informal. All of them offered educational autonomy and all of them, except for Argentina, offered poor formal pum.

So the same thing that Canada started in, in the 1870s. So while there's, there's no formal deal in Argentina, like basically off the books, they're totally autonomous. In Paraguay, they have more of a kind of a sovereign state thing. They, they have embedded sovereignty. As, as it's explained. That

Malcolm Collins: is absolutely fascinating.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And so they're basically like the they're basically a charter city. The Prospera? Yeah. They're, they're a charter city. Mennonite

Malcolm Collins: Prospera.

Simone Collins: Yeah, Mennonite Prospera. And in Mexico they, they had all those privileges which are now eroding because basically the state can't even take care of its gang problem.

But in Bolivia they have large land holdings. And in Belize they have lots of formal agreements. But here's what blew my mind, because I was like, okay, so I guess all the Mennonites now live. Mostly in South America, but that's not actually true. No.

Malcolm Collins: Actually the two biggest thing, out of the top three Mennonite countries, two of them are in Africa.

Simone Collins: Yes. This blew my mind. So for very similar reasons to why South America was like, yeah, move down here. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia were both like to, in response to the interests of some Mennonite. Missionaries like, sure, come here. As long as you develop infrastructure, we could, we could use it a very belt and road.

Like, fine, come here. Like, I'm not gonna do anything for you, but like, if you're gonna build something fine. What happened though was like, among the, the local population, a version of an baptism just kind of took off. And I thought, so I, I googled like Mennonite community, Ethiopia. I was expecting to see

like.

You know, Ethiopian families and straw hats and you know, because honestly like the reason I clicked on the Argentinian Mennonite video on YouTube was the hats these girls wear are high fashion, they're couture, they look just so great, like white brand ribbon. I'm just, okay, hold

Malcolm Collins: on, I'll look this up.

Argentinian me.

Simone Collins: I was, I was here for it. At least in this one documentary, it's just like this one community really just like nailed it. Chef's kiss kind of, kind of wear. But yeah, it's, they more just wear, I would say, oh my God, these hat are awesome. I know, right?

Malcolm Collins: I know. I'm like, no, they're really good at hats.

Yeah. It's just they say, they say they're not a proud people. Me think they dress with a little too much fried. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Actually I was, I was watching another Mennonite on a YouTube video today talk, talking about like permitted fabrics and clothing, like stuff that her mom would be cool with her getting and stuff that her mom would get mad about her getting.

I love that everything was like filtered, not through like. This is what my culture says. It's like what her mom would've let her buy. But she was, she introduced the concept of of something being fancy and something that was fancy was too worldly. But those hats are fancy. I. They,

Malcolm Collins: they don't, that, that's far too fancy.

Yeah, they're extreme,

Simone Collins: but all, they're so good. Anyway the, the Ethiopian Mennonite communities and, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, they're, they look much more like just Congolese

Malcolm Collins: from their country. Yeah. They just, yeah. But like,

Simone Collins: but, but coordinated, coordinated, Congolese, you know, like coordinated and that like family photo ready, you know, like so really pretty good.

But anyway, yeah. Democratic Republic of the Congo. And 35,000 Mennonites Ethiopia, 224,000 Mennonites. Now the United States has more with over 390 Mennonites. And then Canada has over 137 'cause they just screwed the pooch. India, and I haven't looked into this. I need to figure out what's going on here.

Nearly 150, so 150,000. So that's more than Canada. Yeah. And then in Paraguay, 33 K, Mexico, 30 2K. Bolivia, 20 5K, Brazil, 12 K. So like, it's really not that much in Latin America, but I think that just considering how difficult it is. To migrate. Like just the incentives, it's, it's pretty impressive. So. I just like, oh, it's

Malcolm Collins: interesting actually, the Indian Mennonites they dress like pretty, like traditional Indians, I guess.

Oh, do they? They are Indians. Oh,

Simone Collins: oh, like, like Ethiopian and, and whatever it Yeah, they like, like

Malcolm Collins: Ethiopian and af Yeah.

Simone Collins: I see. The, the thing is like if I was converting to become a Mennonite, like 80%, it would be for the fashion.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: I'd be like,

Malcolm Collins: come on, what

Simone Collins: are

Malcolm Collins: you

Simone Collins: even doing? You're not a Mennonite. Like you're missing the point.

It's a sartorial choice. Whatever. You do you, I guess, you know. But I, I guess I can also see like the, the point isn't the particular style of clothing, it's that it is traditional clothing. So I mean, I I get it. Yeah. You know, don't be worldly and it would be fancy to wear foreign clothing. That is cool.

So it is un un anabaptist to do that. And I am just being sacrilegious and this is why we're tech puritans and

Malcolm Collins: yeah, we're techno puritans. We're gonna, we're our religion's gonna spread. It's gonna be the best, it's the best religion. If you haven't checked it out, techno, it's the best.

Simone Collins: Everyone knows it.

It's the best

Malcolm Collins: religion.

Simone Collins: So this, this, this brings an end to our Mennonite soliloquy. We, we are now going to discuss. Basically places doing this in modern times, aside from just like Argentina and Yeah. And you know, these people trying to siphon off the, the Mexican refugees from, you know, the failure of Mexico to protect their precious Mennonite population.

There, there is still lots of targeted immigration happening or like targeted recruiting attempts happening on behalf of, of countries. And the funny thing is, Malcolm, you and I have been directly involved with two of them in terms of applying and being interested.

Malcolm Collins: Oh really? Oh yeah. Yeah. You have actually the one in Chile.

Simone Collins: That's right. Yeah. So Chile's startup program, it specifically targets tech entrepreneurs and digital nomads, and it offers startup funding in a streamlined visa process to build the company's reputation as a tech hub. And we actively applied to that. I don't know if we got in, we did. I think we might gotten in.

We. I refused to get in. I refused to go. Was that it?

Malcolm Collins: Well we got in, but we had gotten some other opportunity and it just wasn't that much money and worth going. Yeah. Because we would have to relocate to Chile for a while and you were like, it's not worth it for the money they're giving us. Yeah. I was like, no, Chile, you're not.

And then we ended

Simone Collins: up in Peru. I didn't wanna go to South America at all, but like, no. The, the future police, the agents of Providence wanted me

Malcolm Collins: there. You're going to South America lady. Yeah. I don't care that you didn't want to take that money. Yeah. Also,

Simone Collins: Ireland and England have re programs to attract teachers, remote workers, graduates with financial incentives and relocation payments.

So they, they've done it too. Not, not as much. I, I also recall, speaking of English people, France. Really catching a lot of heat from its own citizens for changing its tax law to attract like billionaires from England. Do you remember that? Yeah. They were mad, but absolutely like this again, is, is targeted.

It's like what can we shift? What incentive will only draw in? The desirable population. And as we saw with Mexico's alleged promise of no taxes for a hundred years, which I love that one of the ways is to be like, oh, for this tax bracket, oh, this population, no taxes. So I think that's interesting.

And then, so what's the other program that we, the, the other targeted immigration program that we, we flirted with?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, was it Singapore? We were recently looking at was Balaji Company. No,

Simone Collins: that's different. That's, that's, I didn't, I, yeah, I mean, that, that is, I would say an a really good example. I.

Of and, and he's, he's, he's referring to, what is it called? Network school or network university biology. Bang something. We're in the process

Malcolm Collins: of applying. I haven't done the test yet because they want me to do it like a dumb, an IQ

Simone Collins: test. Yeah. Which

Malcolm Collins: I, I'm like, I'm a genius. I don't need to do an IQ test.

Just take my work word. They're gonna be

Simone Collins: like, who is this potato named Simone that is attempted to not, I'm

Malcolm Collins: just gonna try any math questions. I'm like, come on guys.

Simone Collins: Just, yeah. I, I finished one of them. I'm just very, like, I'm with a pen. They, they, they don't, yeah. Anyway. People, people, someone commented on one of our recent videos that I'm very smart.

Malcolm Collins: They don't realize they said that and they said that Simone's smart. So yeah. And I'm like, Hmm. I'm sorry to tell you this. My wife is basically retarded. Yeah. You know, I don't think,

Simone Collins: basically, I think I. I think retard is the this is, this is why it's not even offensive for us to use the term retard.

Yeah. It's, it's okay for

Malcolm Collins: me to say it because I, 'cause my wife is a retard. I am, I'm a

Simone Collins: retard.

Malcolm Collins: It's true. I can't

Simone Collins: even open doors. Malcolm knows this all too well.

Malcolm Collins: And that is why every morning I wake up and I just look at her and I'm like, disgusted. And I'm like, get out of bed. You're disgusting retard.

And, and, and make me my effing money and then make me dinner and care for my kids.

Simone Collins: Because that's what retards do.

Malcolm Collins: This is this is why she stays married to me, is because I've been able to train her into believing she's a retard.

Simone Collins: It's called, let's see, I just wanna make sure I get the, the name of it. B Island Paradise.

It's Network School Paradise.

Malcolm Collins: Network school. My question for you is, what's this other one that we applied to? 'cause I don't remember it right yet. Yeah. Network school. Anyway,

Simone Collins: but no, I, I, I just, I do wanna highlight the fact that, that Balaji is trying to build this network school on this island adjacent to Singapore and what I think is kind of a charter city.

I, I'm not, it's part of the Belt

Malcolm Collins: Road initiative,

Simone Collins: is it? But like, it, it feels very much like what I expect this to look like in the future, which is these techno futile charter cities. Where you have specifically, not like a collection of investors or, or an incorporation even, but like maybe you have those, but like they're led by a figurehead like Balaji, like a sort of Jesus like figure.

Yeah. Yeah. I could see Andrew Tate have one. I could see Jordan Peterson have one. I could see Elon Musk have one. I mean he's building one eventually on Simone, you

Malcolm Collins: and I will have one Austin.

Simone Collins: That'd be pretty cool. We have our Tundra one in the far north. Or Subterranean Tundra Charter City make it miserable to live in, just called Frost Punk.

We just, yeah, we just don't even get creative with it. Yeah, right. But no, so like, I think it's really exciting to see that we're, this is already here, that we're already starting to see targeted immigration and to your point, right, we're just talking about how we applied to network school and in addition to like.

Submitting a pitch deck related to our startup. Hold on. What's the

Malcolm Collins: other one we applied to?

Simone Collins: You said we applied. I'll tell you after we talk about this. So after, after doing that, the next stage of the application was literally taking an online IQ test with like the shape rotator questions. Yeah. And the vocabulary questions.

And the math questions. So that is like it. This is, they are only targeting. Top tier intellect that is also entrepreneurial. Like there's a very targeted population here. And if you are mid or retard like me, you're gonna get kicked out. Like you're not gonna be accepted. And this again, is this very targeted immigration.

So tag this in your mind as you think about how do I cultivate a population that has the keys to the kingdom? Anyway, the final one that you're, you're forgetting about. And I think this is also important because this is an example of a contemporary that, that's been around for a decent amount of time now.

Private family led. Targeted immigration program. Not to a country, not to a broad region or a state, but literally just to a city. Tell me you're not remembering this.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, Tulsa. Yeah, you're right. Tulsa. They tried it. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Tulsa. Yeah. So they have, there's the Tulsa remote program. It offers 10, 10,000, but they were so racist.

Well, we can talk about that. But they offer 10,000 as a grant to eligible individuals, only targeted people who are willing to relocate to the city and work remotely from there. Other programs designed to attract remote workers from outside Oklahoma and help reverse population decline in brain drain by bringing in talented professionals.

So what they're really looking for is like bougie dinks. To go and live there. And, but

Malcolm Collins: everything is framed around DEI, everything is framed around. That's what really

Simone Collins: turned us off. Yeah. We're like, wait, so you want us to come here, but then be second class citizens and like.

Malcolm Collins: No, they made it very clear if you are white in Tulsa, you are a second class citizen.

Yeah, that is what it felt odd. Like also they,

Simone Collins: they did a lot of things that felt very futuristic to attract families like you. You get like free access to this really nice coworking space. There are these like. You know, bougie dink apartments that you can move to. They set us up in this gorgeous, cute, boutique hotel that was all automated when we stayed, that overlooked this beautiful park and was right next to this.

Oh my God. Oh, I was pregnant at the time. So they had this amazing Mexican restaurant and you know how I'm always craving enchiladas? I can't even, yeah. And they also have the most utopian futuristic over the top park. That is like, I've never seen a park like this anywhere in the world and we've been to a lot of incredible parks.

But this park was like, am I in a sci-fi right now? Like what is going on here? And it was all developed by this one really wealthy family that also is behind the Tulsa remote program. That's just like, we're gonna make Tulsa great again and we're gonna do this. But again, this is, I think this is very.

Similar to what we're going to see in the future is these powerful families, these powerful people, these groups, these syndicates, building city states and saying, this is my land, this is my kingdom, this is my fiefdom. I want, I want the right kind of people, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna be very generous to them if they come.

I'm gonna attract them with all sorts of treats. Mm-hmm. So they, they will be charter cities, they will be network states. They, they will maybe, like you say, you know, leverage countries, programs like Belt and Road or other like Charter City legislation. And there's obviously like plenty of examples of these now, but they're getting off to a rocky start.

And that rocky start is really helpful in enabling families to know what they can depend on in the future as an attractive family and where they need to also protect themselves and sort of like always make sure they have their backs on something. So consider, for example, Prospera and in Honduras, right?

They are a, a charter city. They have tax autonomy, labor autonomy, legal autonomy, and regulatory autonomy, which is why tons of cool medical experimentation is taking place there. Yeah. Anything from gene therapy to getting a chip inserted into your wrist that can open up your Tesla. That's just super fun.

I just love it. It's so cool. But the problem is that when there was a regime change in, in Honduras. The, the next president who was super socialist was like, oh, I wanna undo this. And so there's, there's all this, like, who knows if pros, like, I think now Prospera is suing Honduras for like three times.

Its GDP or something like, some, some insane amount. Yeah, because they're like, you broke your promise, but like, who knows how that's gonna go? And that is a problem, is you, you have to feel confident that whatever you're setting up isn't just going to be. Like knee capped by which why you, Eugene

Malcolm Collins: should not set.

I like, I would not set this up in Latin America. I would set this up 100% in a northern European country

Simone Collins: maybe. So I wanna hear your thoughts on, on another charter city. We really haven't engaged with much intellectually or logistically, I don't think we know anyone involved is there? The Dubai International Financial Center in the UAE, they're a financial free zone.

So they have their own commercial law, they have their own courts and their own regulation. It's just sort of like this, just different kind of thing. What are your, what are your thoughts on like the Middle East for something like this? Do you just think you're too ingroup favoring? I wouldn't.

Malcolm Collins: They are too ingroup favoring, and I wouldn't wanna live there and I would.

Trust it. Like Mm. If I was going to the, the place that we looked at doing this, which has been leaked is the Isle of Man. Yeah. You know, like that's a great place to assess. They're dealing with a major brain drain. They have a degree of autonomy. Yeah. They're not able to the eu. Yeah. But they're near all of that.

So people could easily migrate. It would be

Simone Collins: amazing. The is of man would be amazing. Plus it's our kind of weather. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: overcast.

Simone Collins: Kind of

Malcolm Collins: cool. Oh, and then what said that, that one that Aria Babu wanted to target that was a small island between the UK French Sark. Yeah. Yeah. Sark or the Isle of Man is where I would be dreamy.

Simone Collins: Dreamy. I mean, I, I would work about like, worry about Sark and severe weather. I love, man has the same problem, but like No, totally in favor of those. I think another good example of like cautionary tales is Hong Kong. 'Cause they had their own legal and economic and immigration systems, but, Hmm.

China's like tick backs. It's under China, so. Yeah. Then there's, I think this is, is a really great example is the, the special economic zone that was shut up. Set up, shut up. That was set up in Shenzhen in China that just revolutionized China and it's. It's, it's hard. So they, they offered regulatory and economic freedoms, but they did things that only China could do.

Mm-hmm. I'm, I'm probably gonna flub my attempt to very succinctly summarize this, but it used to be before this zone was set up that people couldn't just up and move from their local villages to work anywhere. And what changed with Shenzhen is that suddenly they were allowed to go work there and this enabled this massive floating working population that would sweep into Shenzhen and work and often like live in company towns, but on a sort of migrant labor basis.

So their kids would stay at home with their parents and they would just work. It to the point of, as we know from like the Foxconn suicide nets and everything, they'd worked to the point of like their minds breaking, but make a ton of money that they would never make it home in their local village and go home every year for New Year's, and then eventually just go home to their families and like survive.

You know, like go back to life. But it enabled these huge, like labor to sort of slosh around and respond to demand. And I, I think it's really interesting, it's an example of, of China using targeted immigration in its own way to sort of get value out of a population that wasn't really valuable to it before because they were basically taking sus subsistence farmers and subsistence families and turning them into slave slaves.

Yeah, like the, the, the force that enabled. Sort of apple to, to become apple, but also apple to make China into the industrial powerhouse that it became during that period. And if you're interested in this, I think there's this author that wrote about how apple and China sort of rose together. He recently

Malcolm Collins: enslaved the Chinese people.

Simone Collins: I mean, kind of. Yeah. And then also

Malcolm Collins: there's gone from the region, even though they should have a long time ago due to, you know, risks and their, and they're freaking out over trump's tariffs and everything. They don't have a plan. And everyone told them, get outta China, get outta China, get outta China, get outta China.

Get outta China.

Simone Collins: And they're trying. And, and apparently the, the the journalist who wrote this book upon interviewing many people actively working at Apple, he thinks they're delusional. But Apple is actively trying to shift a ton of its production now to India. And while he thinks that they're, they are being way overly optimistic about how quickly they can shift over they are very.

Intent on shifting away. India is our friend, China is not. I know. And they're trying, I'm just saying they're trying Malcolm. So give them some credit. Not that we are huge. Apple stands I mean, I freaking love my mouth. Yeah. Whatever.

Malcolm Collins: Let Apple crumble. Right. But no, but I mean, I think America should, should always try to be growing ties with India.

And India should work to drop its stupid neutrality thing. Neutrality thing. India is obsessed. Oh. With trying to be neutral. They're so in global power. Chicago, China's right there. What do you want them to do? No, no, no, no, no, no. They, they, they, I mean, they're anti-China and neutral. Yeah. Like for example, they bought a ton of Russian oil during the Ukraine conflict.

Right? Like they,

Simone Collins: they need the oil. Wait,

Malcolm Collins: during the, the, during the communist versus capitalist saying of the, the, the, that period, they never really became a client of the us mm-hmm. They always tried to play the US and the SSR off each other. And while it sounds smart, look at where you are now, Andy.

It clearly hasn't worked out for you, you know, choose a side. Mm-hmm. Yeah. America will work with you and China will turn you. Well, it is not great what China does to the people who try to befriend China.

Simone Collins: I mean, yeah, I. Anyway these, these are just some of the examples, but I think we're gonna see a lot more of this.

So, as demographic collapse plays out, even though immigration is not the answer, people are totally gonna turn to immigration and, and we should be exploiting that to our advantage. So how do you become an IT girl? Population and people are saying, how do

Malcolm Collins: you become an IT girl population? What's your think?

Yeah. How do you become

Simone Collins: a that girl? Well I think the big things is create jobs, generate tax revenue by making money, buy from the local economy, build infrastructure and produce useful products like agriculture, like develop the area. And I, I think, you know, doing things like that. Would be great.

That's why we're so obsessed with building a no holds barred medical research community that brings in medical tourism, that brings in academic researchers that sort of becomes this essential place for the, the wealthy and resourced to get experimental medical procedures that they can't get anywhere else.

That, that, that fosters academic research. But I mean there are lots of different specialties you can have that do that. And also just becoming entrepreneurial and, and knowing how to generate tax revenue and both contribute to and hire from the local economy. I mean like obviously one way to generate tax revenue is to make money yourself, but another way to generate tax revenue is to.

Bring jobs to a population. You know, sort of have this, like, if you build your fiefdom and then there's these villages around you that are, that are selling to you and buying from you, then you know, the, the country benefits even more, or the larger area that's attracting you benefits you even more.

So I think that's a really big thing, but that it's not just about being attractive. And I think this is an equally important part of this equation that people need to be looking at and talking about. That they're not talking about, which is what do you do when there's a regime change? What do you do about your personal safety and what do you do when these countries can no longer handle basic things, like not only security, but also maintaining infrastructure?

Well, I mean if you look at

Malcolm Collins: what's happening in in Peru right now, people are like Amish and Mennonites are destroying the Peruvian, Amazon, and stuff like that, right? Like. There. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Like the, you know, deforestation claims and stuff, right? Like

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: If you, if you let the wokes get too much power, you gotta run again.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It's, yeah. And, and you see, you wanna, you wanna choose. I, so I don't know how much you can choose or, or predict the continued friendliness of an area. Probably the, the more isolated you are in an area and the less desirable that area is gonna be. Like, we've always had this theory that if we were going to build a, a fiefdom or a city state or, or a charter city, it would be somewhere that's not desirable.

That that isn't gonna be where suddenly people are like, okay, now it's mine. You've developed it. Now I'm gonna

Malcolm Collins: take it. Yeah. I mean that's why we were looking at SARC in, in the Isle of Man, these are areas where you can actually do a degree of farming, but it requires technological intervention. Right.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And they're not like oil rich. They're not. They're not, you know, there, there are not huge reasons why people are gonna wanna go there for natural resources. So that's, I think that's also really important. Or surrounded

Malcolm Collins: by unstable governments that are gonna change their mind in a day.

Simone Collins: They're also more defensible.

You're less likely to have like, roving gangs because they're literal islands. So the island part is good though. I, I, I like even more. I mean, Canada's is attractive in so far as. Aside from maybe interest in oil or logging, like there's just not that much. You know, de desire to, to settle there, I think.

But I, I think a lot of it is if you can control your own energy production and defense, you are in a much better position than just a group that happens to be very economically productive. Does that make sense?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, no, no, no. I completely agree. You've gotta eventually get to energy production and defense.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Well, and I'm hoping that small scale nuclear just becomes a thing. And so just, you know, well your compound is gonna have its little reactor and you're fine. You don't need to depend on,

Malcolm Collins: you know. Yeah, I agree.

Simone Collins: And I think when, when we look someday, we will turn our eyes again to investing in companies and technologies that enable sovereignty from a technological standpoint.

So like AI systems or other systems that enable any independent group that decides to organize and settle land. To like, with a lot of help, like maybe with the help of drones and a couple of types of robots and a bunch of ai like sort of preloaded to help to set this up. Like a kit. Yeah, a kit to set up small scale nuclear septic systems.

Like a, a, a well insulated settlements, maybe connected by tunnels, things like that, that like just will work pretty much anywhere. And then some permaculture that works at the local environment. Like I, I really wanna invest in technologies like this because as much as I appreciate what AI dors are attempting to do to like.

Prevent things from happening. Like the more we can enable people to live off the grid successfully in communities and be independent and take care of each other the, the, the more I think humanity, sovety, we're gonna be able to

Malcolm Collins: build and safety. Yeah. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So I think that's, that's really important.

Malcolm Collins: I'm so excited you brought this to everyone's attention. Simone. This is a Mennonite fascinating topic. Because it, it did you read about where this was happening in Korea, by the way, because I had mentioned that in Korea they're doing this a lot more where. Oh no. So one of the phenomenons in Korea is they keep doing these programs to try to get people to new regions, because obviously they have this massive depopulation problem.

Simone Collins: Oh no. Yeah, no, no. This is also happening in Italy, Greece, Switzerland. But this is for like internal citizens, so it's less interesting to me.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, where they'll change what they're offering people to get them to move to a new part of Korea and then everybody moves there and then they'll change what they're offering again.

And then all the people who just moved to the new region moved to wherever the best benefits were. Oh, so it's, it's,

Simone Collins: it's as if we as a couple had like done startup Chile, but then we moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, but then stayed there for the requisite year and then move to like somewhere.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Just wherever else the next incentive.

Whoever's offering the best benefits of story, just incentive chasers.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And I, but I bet there will be those. Like just sort of you could call them like mercenary it girl populations that just like go to the highest bidder at any given time.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And they're just like, oh, we'll be high popul, you know, we'll have a ton of kids and we'll just go to whoever is giving us the best benefit at the time.

And that's, that's what we're seeing in Korea right now. I almost wonder

Simone Collins: if you could kind of think of Jews as that kind of population that like. A, a lot of countries had, if by

Malcolm Collins: benefits, do you mean least killing them, I guess?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, kind of. I mean, there are various ways to look at this, Malcolm. I mean, also like, maybe the best benefit we're gonna get from various city states is like, we won't and we won't even

Malcolm Collins: kill you.

I

Simone Collins: know, but like, I don't know that there's the fun timeline and there's the dark timeline. Not, not to be

Malcolm Collins: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I, I, I absolutely hear you. So I. Yeah. I, well in Korea, a a a lot of people know that we, we did an episode on this. When I first saw this number, I was like, this is wild.

One in four men in rural Korea has married a, a, a non-Korean woman. Mm. In who's married. Like, is there, is there a

Simone Collins: big gender differential or is it just that like all the women are choosing to be single and women are

Malcolm Collins: choosing to be single and, and, and overly picky in Korea and men are just like, okay, I'll marry a foreigner.

And that is how the Korean population is replacing. I mean,

Simone Collins: okay. Maybe you're not giving women the benefit of the doubt though, because one of the big issues in Korea and in other countries that have developed more quickly than

Malcolm Collins: Western companies, these, these men are more misogynist,

Simone Collins: more, yeah, more misogynistic in that they.

Have sort of double standards for women. Like yeah, we're gonna be a dual income household, but also you're gonna do all the child rearing. Right? Yeah. Which is, is not, you know, so I mean, of course they're gonna go to women who are willing to do that, but those women who are doing that also aren't gonna be as educated and aren't going to make that money.

So I guess that

Malcolm Collins: makes sense. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, I, it's not all on the men. It's, it's on everyone. It's, it's on an unfortunate, you're so kind and magnanimous,

Malcolm Collins: Simone. Magnanimous is a good word. So what are we doing tonight? Warmed up. Panang. You made it great. Pineapple this

Simone Collins: time. Pineapple this time. Oh.

Malcolm Collins: Go heavy on the pineapple, but cut it smaller than in the way you'd normally cut it so we could get, do you want it

Simone Collins: confetti small or do you want it like, not confetti small,

Malcolm Collins: just like a quarter, the size of those giant chunks. Okay.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And what would I want for, I definitely do not want that rice again.

Whatever that rice was even made. Oh, no,

Simone Collins: because I froze a bunch of it. I know. I just, I, you kept talking to the journalist and I just kept slicing and zesting lemons and it just kept going into the rice cooker. It just didn't stop.

Malcolm Collins: I thought it wasn't that bad.

Simone Collins: I tried some. It's fine. No, it is

Malcolm Collins: that bad. If, if you want to eat it, you can eat it.

If you want me to eat something, I could just eat the pang directly or we can try dumpling. I

Simone Collins: have rice. I, I guess I just have to throw away. It's sad.

Malcolm Collins: Well give, give me other rice. Okay. Or, or maybe it will taste good with something other than panang, but right now it just tastes like ultra limine.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It, it, yeah.

It's good for you Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: But we could try like dumplings or something with panang I think would work really well.

Simone Collins: Oh, I have rice. I have other rice.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Plain rice. That works. Okay. Alright. You made great pinning by the way. And when you reheat it also put in a bit more spice. Yeah, obviously we were trying to make it bland for the journalists.

Simone Collins: I mean, Germany's not known for,

Malcolm Collins: we told him that we're glad that German people are going extinct. So although he,

Simone Collins: he, I think he maybe identifies more as Swiss 'cause he talked about growing up in Switzerland, but also like Swiss food. Do you remember Swiss food? It was like, it was not good. What flavor of bland do you want?

Do you want fish flavor of bland or do you want like bland?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Oh my god.

Simone Collins: That was, that was a thing.

Malcolm Collins: The bland police.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, don't, don't be too loud and don't you dare. We got in trouble so many times. Not think about doing your laundry on a Sunday. No. No. Do you

Malcolm Collins: remember we kept having people call like on me for laughing too loud.

Like in my room, someone just

Simone Collins: knocked on our hotel room 'cause they were like. You shouldn't. They called the management.

Malcolm Collins: They're like, stop laughing. You're, you're laughing too loud. Yeah. And I was like, what the heck are you the saddest country on earth? Yeah. No, don't, don't

Simone Collins: laugh. Don't do laundry on Sundays.

Don't.

Malcolm Collins: But I think this show's like who we are as a family. It's not like you're beating your wife too much.

Simone Collins: You're

Malcolm Collins: laughing. I was like, what kind

Simone Collins: of delicate snowflake do you kind, do you have to be, to not handle noise? Like, are these just all extremely like sensory sensitive artists? I, I, it's a really struggle.

No,

Malcolm Collins: no, no, no, no. I don't say, I think it's that they, they hate other people being happy. I, I do not think it's a noise thing.

Simone Collins: Weigh in in the comments if you understand why it is that Swiss people hate fun.

Malcolm Collins: Why? Why do they hate? Why do they hate the fact that that Malcolm poor little Malcolm here just laughs and laughs and they say, you can't laugh like that.

You laugh too loud, you stupid American. And I say, well, you're stupid because I'm having fun and you're gonna die alone. And sad. Sorry. Maybe that's a.

Simone Collins: I mean,

Malcolm Collins: whatever. All right. They make their watches, by the way,

Simone Collins: just in terms of good food, you need to know this, although you'll, you'll never watch it.

There's literally a genre on Instagram, like there are multiple accounts that have a lot of likes, like a lot like one post will get 320,000 likes. Who knows how many views are getting the only shows people going around to buffets and often like office buffets, but also random buffets. Wedding buffets in South Korea and just filling their plate.

Oh, buffets in South Korea? No, hold

Malcolm Collins: on. That's different.

Simone Collins: I've had

Malcolm Collins: wedding buffets in

Simone Collins: South Korea. Red buffets, wedding buffets, work office buffets. Oh yeah. Yeah. And it just, it just goes from like Trey to Trey and then you just see a hand loading up a plate and you are just like, it is, it is a good genre, like of all the.

Random. You know, there's the restock, there's the buffets

Malcolm Collins: have like a huge problem when you're in Korea. Oh. Which is that They over, so the Korean people are a thrifty bunch. Okay. And so what this means is that when they go to all you can eat buffets, there are specific meals that they know cost more to make.

And so buffets will always load up on these. And a lot of these are like big crab meals. So it's like everything at the buffet is ignored. But this one thing that like all the Koreans recognize is the best cost to stomach space ratio. At the buffet and everyone's just getting that, and I'm like, come on guys.

It's like defeats the purpose of a buffet.

Simone Collins: Well, the, the Instagram genre, I assure you, they just go to every single tray and load up a little bit. So you get to see everything. They label everything. It all looks amazing.

Malcolm Collins: You are an absolutely princess. And by the way, if you were wondering, I was, I was cleaning out the cracks on my mouse.

It was my little. Thing here for, for, for doing folks. Is that, is that

Simone Collins: really what the people need to see Malcolm? Well,

Malcolm Collins: that's why I was looking down. They're probably wondering why is he looking down and my mouse was getting dirty, so I wanted to, to clean it.

Simone Collins: I mean, I'm in favor of a clean mouth. I love that our kids are hooked on toothbrushes right now.

I never want that to be a fight. Yeah. Anyway, okay. I love you. Yes. Goodbye.

Malcolm Collins: You are amazing. Bye. Good day. Good day, good day. You retard. Okay, let's. News for me. Oh yeah. It was just that. Well, vibe Camp is four weeks away. If we wanted to, if I wanted to drive down to Maryland again are we driving up to Maryland? Maryland is below us, sweetheart. Marin's right next to DC

Simone Collins: Oh yeah. New York's above us.

Malcolm Collins: Geography You can too. On the longest day of the year.

That sounds great. You can't buy it's most evil to us

Simone Collins: with our reverse seasonal affective disorder. Always For me, some are solstice, I'm like. This is the Evil day Winter solstice. I'm like, no, it's only gonna get longer from here. But it's a beautiful, blessed day.

Malcolm Collins: They say jump into solstice. Rituals, musical battles, impromptu debates on AI philosophy, folk dance, handcrafts, and mind expanding sounds, sounds, childhood.

It's so all of it oriented around can, connecting with others, wandering around strange paths of the soul. Mm-hmm. Meme and myth collide and something new and magical will be bored. Oh, there's also recreational waterboarding. Oh, I bet ALA will be doing that.

Simone Collins: Do you think so? Oh, I, she's five camp because I thought, I mean, she's gonna be in less online.

She was at Vibe Camp last year, but I

Malcolm Collins: didn't like talk to her much because it felt like trying to walk up to like the main celebrity of the red. Yeah. No, she's busy and important. Yeah. Oh no. Very busy and important. No, she's always like, open with us, but she is, you know, a lot of people have demands on her time.

Oh, and who else did I meet the last time I went is I ended up playing board games, A tabletop game

Simone Collins: with Robin Hanson. Yeah, Robin Hanson and Friends and company.

Malcolm Collins: So, but

Simone Collins: that was two years ago, Malcolm. I don't think he went last year.

Malcolm Collins: I'm not even, that involves

Simone Collins: crowds of people and being outside.

Malcolm Collins: What if somebody who things we don't talks to me or touches me, like, I definitely don't wanna risk making a friend. You know, it would be

Simone Collins: unfavorable. And there is a lot of touching at Vibe Camp. There's a lot of like, do you remember like, there was like stretching, sparring? Yeah. A lot of, just, a lot of touchy, touchy, feeling, mystical kind of stuff.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, these are people very into indulging in alternative outlets for their sexual desires that they contextualize as non-sexual or adjacent to sexual, but not passing sexual norms within the community. And I, I, I've, I've always found that to be super gross. You, somebody's welcome to my c childhood.

It's just a cuddle party or something. It's like, mm-hmm. How is that not infinitely worse than just. Having sex.

Simone Collins: Well imagine though, and just, just how toxic it was for me to be raised in an environment like that where, oh, explain. I was, well, I was like raised in an environment where cuddling and all of this was like really normalized and I was fully convinced that none of it had any sexual insinuations that nudity, cuddling.

All of that was like 100% just natural and that it wouldn't. Wouldn't confuse people.

Malcolm Collins: Wait, so did you ever go to like a cuddle party? Would you ever have indulged in that?

Simone Collins: There were instances in groups of people where like everyone was cuddling and I'm like, I guess I have to like, snuggle in, you know, or like, yeah.

And, and, and then, and then this led to people getting the wrong idea about me and like, it just, yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't produce good results. I don't like it. Also, I don't like touching people, so like, these are very from stand. So you're stand glad you get to live

Malcolm Collins: with me. Who's like,

Simone Collins: not my bag.

Yeah. All

Malcolm Collins: right,

Simone Collins: shall we?

Malcolm Collins: Alright. Now what is the interesting thing you're going to say? I read you the

Simone Collins: hook and you were like, that sounds good. Okay,

Malcolm Collins: great.

Simone Collins: Let's go. So, all right. Jesus.

Toasty, what are you doing?