South Korea's Fertility Conundrum

In this episode, we delve into the intriguing bounce in South Korea's fertility rates after decades of decline. Join us as we explore the reasons behind this shift, the sustainability of the current strategies, and the cultural impacts. We also discuss the geometric potential of human reproduction, the challenges of demographic collapse, and propose innovative solutions like a K-Pop Chaebol Oligarchy to address these issues. Additionally, we cover cultural influences on fertility perceptions, dependency ratio cascades, and much more.

Simone Collins: . [00:00:00] Hello Malcolm. I'm so excited to be with your, sorry. Lemme try again. Hello, Malcolm. I'm so excited to be here with you today because we are going to talk about some trending news about South Korea's fertility. Apparently they're seeing a little bounce upward ho, but, and everyone's like, oh,

Malcolm Collins: why this is relevant.

Okay. Yeah, because South Korea for a long time has had a rapidly declining fertility rate. It has the world's worst. Fertility rate at, at their current fertility rate. For every a hundred South Koreans, there would only be five great grandchildren, and their fertility rate has gone down almost every year for the past 20 years, except for this year.

And this brings up well, in

Simone Collins: 2024 there was a little bit of a bounce, and then there's even a slightly bigger bounce in the first half of, or at least the spring of 25.

Malcolm Collins: This brings up a couple of very important questions for the rest of the world. One is a lot of people said there's a bottom floor to collapsing fertility rates.

There is a number that when you get so low, and what I always said historically is, well, where is this floor if [00:01:00] nobody is hit it yet? You know, how is South Korea still going down? Yeah. If this imaginary floor exists. Yeah. And so the question is. Has South Cria hit this imaginary floor? And Simone is going to argue it's pretty compelling evidence.

No, they haven't. Yeah, we're we're gonna talk about this.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Because I mean, I is, this is really just. A fart in the wind. I I'm gonna walk you through what actually changed with fertility in South Korea, whether South Korea's present strategy is sustainable given also what they paid for this change.

'cause it is, no, hold on. You gotta, you gotta start this at the stu, they paid over a million dollars for every addition. Lemme stop with the spoilers, but I gotta give you one more spoiler actually. 'cause at the end I want each of us to kind of freestyle on what we would do if we personally were put in charge of South Korea's fertility and mine boils down to three words.

K-Pop cha. Sorry. K-Pop cha bull oligarchy. I'm excited. Okay, go for

Malcolm Collins: it. Go for it. Go for it. Go on. Do it. Alright.

Simone Collins: So, as a lot of people have seen in the news, [00:02:00] especially if you follow fertility, South Korea has recently experienced a notable, those still modest improvement in its fertility rate and number of births reversing a longstanding decline.

So what happened ultimately was that the total fertility right in South Korea rose from a devastating. 0.72 in 2023 to oh 0.75 in 2024. And then in the first quarter of 2025, the TFR further increased to 0.82, which is, I mean, like, kind of, wow. I mean, 'cause we just, it kept plummeting. So this is nice to see.

It's the highest quarterly figures since early 2022. So there's that. But the. This is, this is kind of encouraging 'cause it is the first annual fertility rate increase for 2024. That's the first one in 90 years. It was just in continuous decline since 2015. And the fact that the rebound is com becoming a little bit more pronounced from 2024 to 2025 is nice.

Like, I'm, I'm not gonna. [00:03:00] I'm not gonna poo poo that, like it's really nice to see. But let's talk about how many extra babies were actually born. In 2024, there were a total of 238,300 babies born. Good for them. That's awesome. We love it. That's an increase of just 8,300 compared to 2023. So we also have to consider like this is a fairly small population, meaning that like.

It, it doesn't take a whole lot to make the numbers look really different, meaning that really small things could be at play here. And, and then it. This, this doesn't change the fact that South Korea's even their improved birth rate is still the worst in the world.

Malcolm Collins: So, well, I wanna talk about how bad it is.

Their improved birth rate is still in the sevens, the, the zero point

Simone Collins: sevens that is well, for the year. It, it went up to 0.83 in the first quarter. We're gonna see how the rest of the year plays out.

Malcolm Collins: Eight three. Okay. But the, the point you're being is, is 0.83 is basically nothing. Like [00:04:00] even if they, they, they, they kept like rising or they, they got a bit up, they would still already be at a collapse level.

Kurzgesagt: Economic collapse in 2023. A breathtaking 40% of South Koreans over 65 live below the poverty line. But in 2060, this number may seem lovely. In comparison, today, South Korea has one of the largest pension funds in the world, but it's projected to be completely depleted by the 2050s.

So in 2060. Pensions will have to be paid by the working population. The minimum a society needs is between two to three workers per retiree paying for them with their taxes. But even if we assume that all South Koreans over 15 will be working in 2060, the country will have less than one worker per senior.

So not only will poverty among the elderly be common, but a big chunk will be forced to work, except they may not be able to find jobs because by [00:05:00] 2060, the South Korean economy may have collapsed.. Okay, wait. This is all a bit much.

Is there no way back why? There really is no way back. The problem with the demographic freight train is that once it hits, things become irreversible. Let's say fertility in South Korea magically triples to the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman, and stays there in 2060. It will be an inverted pyramid on top of a barrel, and there would still be only 1.5 people of working age per senior over 65.

Even in the best made up scenario, South Korea has to pass through an unavoidable bottleneck before it'll recover,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. 'cause even though they've increased the fertility rate among the young population, you have to keep in mind that 60% of the population is over the age of 40 and can't even have kids. Yeah. So here we're talking about the fertility rate within the smaller population. They can still have kids. And in addition to that mm-hmm.

We're dealing with the issue that there's already this [00:06:00] huge missing population within Korea. It takes

Simone Collins: 18 years. Yeah. The, the damage has been done. And, and we also need to remind people who may not like, maybe new to this concept of fertility rates and whatnot, a replacement fertility rate, like if we're gonna keep a population stable is 2.1.

Like per mother, there have to be 2.1 children. Okay. 'Cause you're kind of replacing the mother and the father and 0.8 is nothing to be proud of, but it's important

Malcolm Collins: to note here that even if. Tomorrow, south Korea's fertility rate went back up to 2.1. Okay? Mm-hmm. They would still, if you look at the math, to support their aging population before those 18 year olds could come of age.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Their systems are still going to collapse before that date. Their social security welfare Medicaid

Simone Collins: system. Well, and I think to your point also there's, there's still at risk of like, let's say even it went way up suddenly. They're also like, their culture is also to a great extent being lost.

'cause think you pointed out to me when we were just talking about this offline, that a lot of these. These births are resulting from marriages to women who [00:07:00] are foreigners.

Malcolm Collins: One in four rural South Koreans who is married and has a kid married a foreign wife. So they're bringing in, they're importing people from other countries to have as their wives when they are having kids.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And that's, that is gonna, that is gonna shift culture. I mean, like, one of the things that we're concerned about with demographic labs, I'm not like, oh, we have to keep like, ethnic purity, but I, I don't want to lose. The unique South Korean culture or perspective, I want there to be a, a broad variety, ideally even broader than what we have now of cultural perspective.

So maybe there's some mixing here, but like, I, I mean, I like that like some creation of new, like, you know, Korean plus Vietnamese or whatever else is popular in South Korea among passport bros. But. Yeah. Anyway, like this isn't, this isn't exactly like a win for like South Korean people. We will make it to the future because also like their, their passport growing their way into these marriages.

But marriages are a key factor behind this rebound. And one of the reasons why I think it is going to be short lived, because it is thought that this, this surgeon marriages that has, has preceded these [00:08:00] births has to do with people kind of making up for lost time in the pandemic. So it's a little bit artificial.

All the people who didn't date during the pandemic then dated after and have now reached that point at which they have dated, they have married, and now they're having kids. Meaning that after this point we're gonna see a drop off again, because all those people making up for lost time, who are like at that point in their lives where they're like, I'm going to get married no matter what.

Just couldn't do it at the same like the time they'd planned to due to lockdowns. Yeah. And then of course, you know, the, the Korea still hasn't done anything about all the sort of cultural headwinds. That make parenting unsustainable, the work life balance problems, et cetera. But let's go into what South Korea paid for the change that you Yes.

Go into the numbers here. Yeah. So, just a reminder, in 20 24, 230 8,300 babies were born, that's an increase of 8,300 compared to 2023. And I'm, I'm, I'm doing back the napkin, popula cal calculations here. But in 2024, the Ministry of Health and Welfare budget was 100 and. [00:09:00] 22.5 trillion one, that's about 92 billion USD.

And a significant portion of that went toward child rearing support, fertility treatments, and expanded parental benefits. Like that's a lot of money. Mm-hmm. And, and keep in mind, like in, in terms of things that are being paid to families basically about $22,000 is given for each child born.

Like to families regardless of family income or composition, which, I mean, that'd be great. Like, it's not helping, but that'd be great. Yeah. We wouldn't say no to it. We won't. The monthly stipend for parents' money by having

Malcolm Collins: kids, you know? Yeah.

Simone Collins: If you wanna gimme money. The monthly stipend for, for parents having kids of, sorry, for parents of newborns, increased to 1 million, won about $740 for the first.

And then 500,001, about 370 for the second year in terms of like lump sum birth vouchers. 'cause they're just giving cash payments, like direct cash payments to parents. Mm-hmm. As an incentive here. So not only have already like a [00:10:00] lot of funds been allocated, but they're like upping the ante I think out of desperation.

So let's just assume that of this 92 billion US dollar budget for 2024, that the Ministry of Health and Welfare was given, let's just assume conservatively. 10% of that went to fertility boosting efforts, which I think is conservative considering how much money is being given to families. Yeah. Would you say 10% is fair?

I'd say 10% is fair, yeah. Okay. So if we do $92 billion times 0.1 and then we divide that by 8,300, we get 1.1, 1 0 1 1 $1,108,000 in 1 33, so, so that's over $1.1 million. Per extra child. Like if, if we, if we, you know, ask the Ministry of Health. All right, well, so what did all of your fertility spending get you for these, you know, this growth that you are so proud of?

Yeah. They paid a lot for that. Wait, it's not

Malcolm Collins: sustainable. It's obviously not. It's really not. This is why the solutions have to be cultural. And so when people come to me and they're [00:11:00] like, oh, look, South Korea has hit the floor. I'm like, no, they haven't. They've hit the floor of panic, not on the floor of like real social change.

Simone Collins: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That, and it's hard because, I mean, as has been discussed, I mean, in many other podcasts we've done by many people. South Korea is one of these places that developed really rapidly in terms of economic development, but then socially developed much more slowly. So in terms of like, women have gotten empowered in terms of education and career and all these sort of very modern expectations. They've, they've gone really far, but there are still these social expectations that they do. The majority of the housework, they do, the majority of the child rearing, and so they're sort of stretched between these things and that builds a ton of resentment and they're just like.

Screw that, and you end up with movements like the four B movement where women refuse to date or get married or have kids or have sex, and, and they just, just reject it because the terms are not good. So South Korea has to sort of reconcile these really fundamental issues [00:12:00] before they get to a point.

Where it becomes. Okay. And that's, that's what I wanted to discuss. It's like, well, what would actually save South Korea?

Malcolm Collins: Well, I also wanna point out before we get to what would save South Korea.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Is it. Even if this is a real floor that's been discovered in South Korean fertility rates, what it tells us is the floor happens after a society is already duped.

Simone Collins: Mm. Because it's too little, too late. Yeah. Even if this is sustained, it's too little, too late. But like I said, I really think this is people making up for lost time during, but it's not, no, I mean,

Malcolm Collins: like. I'm saying even if everything they're saying is right, even if it turns out that the floor is around like 7.5 and then it balances and begins to go back up.

Mm-hmm. It's irrelevant because the time it takes to go down. And keep in mind, South Korea is going down faster than other countries. What this means, well, this was a 15 year streak

Simone Collins: of going down again. Yeah. Like.

Malcolm Collins: Is, is, is that it takes too long to get the next generation in the pipeline and that the next generation will not be in the pipeline before the [00:13:00] country's economic system collapses?

Simone Collins: Yeah, because you need, you need a, like, so a lot of people have seen these, you know, population like. Graphs that sort of show like, oh look, the, this, this pyramid is growing as, as you know, future generations get bigger and bigger. And then, you know, some like China are going in like this and it's, ah, like that's when you know governments are gonna start to collapse and social services are no longer going to work.

'cause you have what Malcolm calls a dependency ratio cascade, where you have an insufficient number of actively contributing. Taxpayers paying for a, a growing number of dependents. And, and that's what we're trying to, to deal with here. That's what we're trying to avoid, is, is this kind of ratio, dependency ratio cascade.

So already, like even if like, let's say the pyramid, you know, it was growing and then you have this like, you know, 15 years of shrinkage and then it grows again. You still have to deal with the 15 years of shrinkage, like that next booming giant baby boom population, let's say somehow, like you figure it out really quickly.

Well, and that, that's the, that's a period of [00:14:00] 15 years. Yeah. Like what's gonna happen for that 15 years where there's an insufficient number of taxpayers to pay for everything? Like, you still have to figure that one out. And

Malcolm Collins: let's, let's, let's be like, even if it's not a, a full, let's assume it's a five year window.

Let's assume it's an eight year window. Okay. How do you get through that window? Literally? Yeah. How do you get through that window? Yeah. The

Simone Collins: math doesn't work well. And also like at that point, you know, people with the kids are, are maybe gonna be fleeing the country. You know, they're moving out because.

All the all are as we, yeah. It's not safe. All the, all the promises of the childcare are no longer being, you know, met anymore. You're outta there. All of

Malcolm Collins: Koreans I know is kids who are like high performing South Koreans are raising their kids to live in other countries.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like Singapore or the United States or, yeah.

Like they're, they're outta there. Do not

Malcolm Collins: want their kids to, well, they don't want their kids to grow up in South Korea because the, the, the, the core thing that needs to be reformed in South Korea is the culture.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. There's this few, I mean, for those not familiar with South Korean culture, there's this really intense upbringing where it's just like tests and they'll, what do they do when there's like, the big [00:15:00] test today?

Like this test sort of determines your entire future.

Malcolm Collins: They, you can't get sick during, they, you just have to go no matter what. You have to be a degree test. They stop the freeways, they stop the planes so nobody can be distracted. They it's like everything is dependent on this one test. And what I've said, 'cause you go, how do you, how do you fix this?

I said, you've got to modify the grade that students get on this test by how many siblings they have. Oh, so this

Simone Collins: is right. This is your solution for South Korea.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Just modify the test. I dunno. I mean, like, but what you say is it, is, is you say, look, these people had less money to send their kids to afterschool camps and everything like that.

They had less money. Like this is, this is about the children's. You, you're not getting an accurate judgment of their intelligence. You're getting their ability to memorize and perform quickly and go to camps and stuff, right? Yeah. So if that's the case, then it's only fair. The the in terms of accurately measuring competence that you downwards modify them based on how much time and money their parents had to [00:16:00] spend on them in relation to this stuff.

I kind

Simone Collins: feel like though this test is kind of a, has been when you and I were in South Korea, one of the people who was showing us around was saying that yes, it used to be that the goal of. The typical South Korean youth would be to work at one of the big prestigious companies after going to one of the big prestigious schools.

And you can only get to one of those big prestigious schools. Of course, if you score well on one of these tests. 'cause those tests are everything. But then the new, even then, and this was back in 2018 that we visited South Korea, 2019. The, the new top desired jobs among youth were social media influencer like YouTuber.

And cook. Like these aren't things that require schooling anymore. So I just don't know. I mean, maybe it would be compelling to parents who are delusional about the kids' desires, but I don't, I don't know how much it would make a difference.

Malcolm Collins: I disagree. In America, your top desire [00:17:00] job can be, you know, a YouTuber, which is in America as well, as far as I know.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It doesn't mean Harvard no longer matters. You know, har Harvard will eventually no longer matter, but it doesn't, no longer matter yet. And the the systems that make Harvard matter are falling apart more slowly than the systems that make the top universities in South Korea matter. Hmm. Because this is dependent about everything in terms of your role in society.

Simone Collins: Yeah, perhaps, but I would suggest something a little bit more.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Do to, to tell dystopian, dystopian, and a

Simone Collins: weird

Malcolm Collins: Yes, of course you would. Simone. I married a dystopian and weird woman. We were talking about this today where I was like, I, you're like, I love processed foods. I want more science in my foods.

And I was like, you know, you other than me are one of the only people I've ever met who likes the world more processed. When I other people like walk through a city and they're like, oh, they tore down a. You know, a park to a forest to build down a parking lot. And I'm like, well, the parking lot's [00:18:00] a sign of industry.

Look at these beautiful rows in our local grocery store. Look at the diversity of products, the packaging, the ma, everything we love. Everything helps to get everything on the shelves here. How do you not wonder at this? It is a

Simone Collins: marvel of human progress.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. When I, Simon knows when I drive by the big you know, like, like industrial cities, right?

Like plants, right? I'm like, oh, if only we could buy one of these. Like run down, turn it into like a giant No, he

Simone Collins: cannot pass. Yeah. Like, you know, your typical like trope of a man is they can't walk by like a busty, gorgeous woman without, you know, rubbernecking her and, and Malcolm's rubbernecking problem.

His, his neck whipping around issue is every time we pass by some large industrial looking factory with all the smoke pipes and the giant tanks and the blinking lights, he desperately wants to buy it. I

Malcolm Collins: want to live. I wanna have that be [00:19:00] our headquarters. And everybody sees we are industry you know, anyway, continue.

You've had fantasies about having

Simone Collins: different, like, you know, purple smoke coming out from the, you know, just like changing the smoke colors that come out from the, how did I meet a

Malcolm Collins: weirdo who doesn't think that I am a weirdo for this? He is like, oh, I actually agree with you on the processed foods and the industry.

Simone Collins: I bet a lot of people are gonna chime into the content comments and be like, eh, I mean, when you look at consumer behavior. People are overwhelmingly choosing highly processed foods and snack foods. Of course, this is changing a little bit with Ozempic and we are kind of seeing the markets shift in response to that.

But still if you, if you're not undergoing medical intervention you are, you're gonna be answer.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So what is your dystopian plan here, Simone?

Simone Collins: What people are missing when it comes to prenatal list policy and incentives is most of the governmental interventions. That are encouraging people to have kids are just blanket incentives for everyone.[00:20:00]

It, you know, I will give money and, you know, like this $22,000 to parents, you know, per child, regardless of your level of income. Like, we will just give it to you no matter what. We just want everyone to have kids. And one, like the cool thing about the cause of Tism is that. To save an entire country, an entire culture, an entire religion or ethnicity, whatever it is that you care about saving.

This doesn't address the dependency ratio cascade, but I'll get to that next necessarily. But it, it can make sure that there is a future for whatever this perspective that you want to see in the future. It will make it survive is just if, if between eight to 17 families. Managed to develop a version of their culture that is intergenerationally durable.

Meaning that they have a lot of kids like, we'll say like 5, 7, 10, like per per descendant. And each descendant raises their kids so well and passes on their culture so well that their kids in turn want to have five to seven kids and raise their children in that culture. And if you keep that up, [00:21:00] you're good.

Like, you know, this is, this is really. Not an issue anymore. And I love that element of Tism because that's saying, okay, only the super enthusiasts about having families and raising kids need to be involved with this. And everyone else who wants to be a dink and live their lives and not have kids is super free to do that.

And I really like that. I want people. To not be shamed or coerced into doing anything. I also want people who are super into doing something to have the freedom to do it and to be awarded for doing it. So one that is one factor that goes into my South Korean fertility policy. The second factor is. The key issue with dependency ratio cascades and with demographic collapse and with governments failing to be able to pay for the social services of the most vulnerable people in society.

Isn't a warm bodies issue, it's a taxpayer issue. No. And, and just paying. Any old family, a ton of money to have kids isn't necessarily going to solve your problem. Just bringing in immigrants isn't gonna [00:22:00] necessarily solve your problem because immigrants are eventually gonna get old and not everyone is going to be, be the same level of a tax contributor.

I mean, like in New York City, that the top 10% or 1% pays for like 50% of the. The city's income, right, in taxes, like it's, it's insane. When you look at who actually contributes most of the tax revenue, whether you're looking at a federal level or you're looking at a city or state level, it, the top percentage of earners are paying the vast majority of the taxes.

So I also think that I. Fertility policies that focus disproportionately on taxpayers, especially when you're looking at governmental stability and your ability to meet the commitments, be it debt service or social security, food aid, healthcare, et cetera. Like you should be looking, okay, how do we get more taxpayers?

Not how do we get more people? Yeah. I'm not seeing countries do that. And, and so here's where I just think, and, and, and there's a culture factor too. You, as you said yourself, right, like they're, they're focusing too much on like, you [00:23:00] know, childcare and all this stuff, and we're not resolving the cultural issue, right?

That having kids is not this aspirational, desirable thing. Most South Koreans when they think about having kids, is. Oh God, I don't wanna subject them to the terrible childhood that I experienced. I, you know, I, I don't wanna now be torn not only between this really demanding career with no work life balance and, but also raising a kid and being expected to do most of it.

Like, it just sounds horrible. Yeah. So, right. You also need to make it socially and culturally that desirable. Hence, hence, oh, and I just, I just, let's walk through the math judge. I also wanna point out, like, back to my first point, just if, if you have just seven families, and they, they all had seven kids each, and then those grandkids had seven kids, and those great grandkids had seven kids, and then the great, great grandkids had seven kids.

Now you've already got 16,807 people, and if you repeat that whole cycle again. You've got 282 million 475, 249 people. And keep in mind, south Korea's current [00:24:00] population is 51.71 people sorry, sorry. 51.71 million people. So in just, in just you know, a couple cycles in the longer scheme of things, obviously this takes a long time if like one generation comes every 30 years, but if you manage to make just seven families be intergenerationally, durable.

You've got something that is, is, is basically, and you

Malcolm Collins: skip a generation with every exponential amount of families you get at the beginning. Something that's, so you get 49 families, you get, you know,

Simone Collins: yo, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and so you could have, not just South Korea maintained, you could have South Korea taking to the stars in so much bigger than, than it ever, ever was.

And that's kind of like, mm-hmm. Just

Malcolm Collins: how easy, but doesn't called it before systems start to collapse. And this is important to do. That's true,

Simone Collins: that's true. But now, no, this is, this is why we, we introduced the, the perfect Simone solution that everyone should just listen to in South Korea. Okay. Which is like K-pop, chabo, oligarchy.

Malcolm Collins: Alright. Yeah. Tell me about the K-pop. Chale oligarchy.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So just to, [00:25:00] to define Bels South Korea is, is kind of known for having what, what are called BLEs, which are like these. Huge business conglomerates, which are associated with very wealthy and powerful families. Like there's a Samsung family and these families are like very, very wealthy and very famous.

And there's a little bit of like a hereditary monarchy thing going on, which works really well with the very hierarchical sort of social class sensitive South Korean culture. Right. I mean, like what was your experience with Chabos in when you were working in South Korea in venture capital?

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, they controlled everything.

As I said, the, the thing that really shocked me about the Bels and the way in North Korea related to all of this,

Simone Collins: South Korea, what

Malcolm Collins: South Korea, South Korea, not as different as you would think. When you go to the Chabos headquarters, which I've toured some they have shrines to their glorious leaders that are, you know, and I've often said of South Korea, if you understand South Korea as a capitalist democracy, you don't understand South Korea, what South Korea is.

Is a number of fascist states. [00:26:00] Competing amongst each other in a facsimile of capitalism. Hmm. And, and I remember they looked down so much on entrepreneurs that we, if you're in a marriage market that's looking, oh, what, what, what score does it get me my career in a marriage market? It is under fishermen being what?

Entrepreneur? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Under fishermen. And actually they

Simone Collins: have these right where like if you're trying to like use a dating service, they do. Score you like. You're not just talking abstractly here. Yeah, you're talking abstractly, not social worker value. You're like, no. If I literally pay someone to be a matchmaker for me, I'm getting a score and my score is fishermen.

Malcolm Collins: But it's worse. Our fund, I mean, we constantly got in trouble with the government because we did the horrifying thing of investing in people who didn't go to top universities. And I didn't say didn't go to universities. I didn't say dropped out of university. I said didn't go to the top universities and it's not Korea.

This is like investing in like meth addict, right? You are a social. Harm and this led to my boss being arrested. This led to other people in my company being [00:27:00] arrested. Mm. Like we were constantly for political points because, you know, everybody agrees with the show. Well, if somebody just makes their money out of nowhere, then something is wrong in society.

They were, they were disrupting the social order.

Simone Collins: That's the thing. Yeah. And that's the thing is I think that, you know, when you, when you look at fertility solutions for a country. You can't disrupt the social order you need to Yes. And the social order. And I am gonna, yes. And it, alright. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Do it, do it, do it.

Simone Collins: So I'm like, okay, bels. Yeah. Like they're a thing. Let's not try to undo them. Let's lean into them. So I'm saying this, this is project of mine. This could either be government funded. So, you know, the South Korean government can kinda ease this along or it could be privately organized. But what I want is in Korea.

You could say it's creating a newer aristocratic class, or it's just leaning into it to ultimately create eight to 17 high fertility families. So there has to be some kind of like either America's Got talent style, [00:28:00] like audition to become one of the new seed families. 'cause we need more Chabo families than there are now.

Right? Like you need I would say minimum of seven families. It's like super high fertility, you know, to solve this fertility cascade, this dependency ratio cascade problem. So like either in America's Got talent style thing, or like the government, like literally providing exclusive contracts to the chosen families who also have to be commercial mags in some way.

Right? So you have eight to 17 high fertility families. They need to be regarded as aristocratic, basically royalty. And members who have fewer than seven kids get disinherited and shunned. Outsiders can marry in, but they have to accept South Korean culture. I think that's really important. But each family should be run like a, a Korean pop band.

'cause this is also like a huge thing in South Korea. Is this like manufactured run by the state?

Malcolm Collins: What are they

Simone Collins: run by a

Malcolm Collins: company? One of the tribals, one of the, yeah. Either.

Simone Collins: No, I would say this is [00:29:00] either no. And you're creating new tribals. So I, each, each of these families needs to have a private. Business specialization.

So already you have like Samsung, it does like tech. What I want South Korea to create with its new additional tribal families. 'cause you need to have this, like, you need to have enough aristocratic families for there to be like genetic variation. Maybe one specializes in reproductive technology. You know, it's, it's starting to clone people.

It builds the artificial wombs. It's, it's doing that's our family's

Malcolm Collins: job, Simone. We don't I know, I know.

Simone Collins: No, I mean it would be great if there's a couple families across many countries. Then there's the human augmentation family. South Korea is already famous. For, its, its its plastic surgery right there.

Go just like, but, but, you know, take that a step further. You know, they're already so good at plastic surgery. They've got the infrastructure, they have the, the like educational pipeline. Let's bring it to like, okay, now there's a heads up display inside your eyes. Now your skin has tattoos that are animated now.

Like, you know, all the, like, let's, let's build a night vision. Like, you know, just so a human augmentation family or collection of [00:30:00] families. One should obviously be military tech because. North Korea ain't going away for a while. Like, you know, I mean there isn't, to my knowledge. I mean, maybe like Samsung makes military tech, but like.

You know, just really specializes in that because also it would make the country stronger. But yeah, basically have like, you know, these are, these are strategically useful specializations, but you're also at the same time creating a new royal family and a new table and, and bonus points if, if the lives of each of these tables is extremely public, like they, they each have a reality TV or they're all extremely active on social media and like everyone desperately wants.

To marry into this family, to work at one of the companies to make their way up, and maybe you

Malcolm Collins: can't fully democratize this.

Simone Collins: Whoever said that democratization was an important part of this. The important thing is that one, you are making high fertility families, high profile, you're giving them a lot of commercial power and they're having a lot of kids, so you're, you're having a lot of really high tax.

[00:31:00] Pairs being born they lose all of their favor and advantages that give them an unfair advantage if they don't maintain their high fertility as a family. And because they're so prominent and because they're both like Chas and like K-Pop Chas, so they're like made famous and they're romanticized and they're like,

Malcolm Collins: you can't, you can't do this Intergen.

Oh, so you think other people would wanna copy them?

Simone Collins: Yeah. No. And, and, and we've seen this, so I, I wanna cover this in another episode on prenatals propaganda, but there was a series of. Soap operas that played out in various regions in Brazil that sort of depicted this very aspirational middle class life, and they affected fertility significantly.

Unfortunately, they, they, they led, they allowed people to have fewer kids because the families in these, in these soap operas had like one or two kids and, and people, and result at the time had more kids. But it, it's clear that when you make a certain family format, aspirational and high class. People are going to conform with that.

And, and this was show like in regions where, where this network didn't show [00:32:00] there was no change in fertility. Fertility is absolutely shaped by propaganda and culture. And when you, I. Make things like your celebrities and your aspirational royalty, very high fertility, I absolutely think it will affect the average Korean.

But what you're also doing is making sure that the people who are literally required by law to be high fertility in order to maintain their strategic advantage in commercial advantage, you are also getting a lot more taxpayers, which I think is great. And keep in mind that right now Korean pop stars.

Like, even if they're dating someone, and sometimes I think they're contractually not allowed to date anyone,

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they're not well, and they'd often lose their, as I pointed out in the episode that we did on like Japan and stuff like this they can, they can lose their like jobs, not just their jobs because of the company.

But like the fans will turn on them if they're seen as dating anyone or anything like that. And how that

Simone Collins: is extremely low fertility. Like no, [00:33:00] where are the aspirational people in South Korea that are having kids like. The number one celebrities in South Korea are like perpetually young and single. Th this is not modeling anything that's gonna give people an aspiration of what married life could be like.

And, and that's crazy. I, I And so you have to, I think a really underrated element o of, of what's going on in South Korea and what they really should be looking at is. Hey, like what can we do in media to promote, to, to make families, not even something that's like desirable, but like literally something you can wrap your mind around.

Because I think a lot of people, it's just like the most obscure thing in the world. I mean, keep in mind that kids in higher fertility families, you know, they're, they're around babies all their lives. You know, they have younger siblings. They see this a lot. Maybe they're in a church community where they see a lot of babies, south Korean kids.

Or typically growing up only kids. I I imagine that most adults who are having children in South Korea [00:34:00] now, like all these parents who are having babies,

Malcolm Collins: yeah.

Simone Collins: This is their first time holding a baby. This is their first time, which might be their

Malcolm Collins: first time seeing a baby in like recent history for a lot.

I mean,

Simone Collins: yeah. That's, that's, that's the problem, right? And so like, if you don't have exposure through media or through some other program, that's a problem. And I am intrigued by what Russia is doing. 'cause Russia does actually have. Like literal active bands on media that it sees to be antinatalists. Yeah.

So like they're, they're actively really trying to shape I mean, it's too little to lead to them, you know, again, to the point of South Korea. For a sort of a, a different flavor of reasons, and we'll get into this in, in another episode, but. Yeah, I think it's just, it's underrated. I think the solution for every country is very different, but I, I really think that South Korea would benefit from a k-pop, shabel, oligarchy of like really desirable royals.

I mean, come on. Have you like watched the KDRs about like the royal families and the drama and like, if I love it, I love it, but they gotta, yeah, they gotta have all the kids. Like, [00:35:00] imagine if Google. And Amazon and Tesla were like royal families and like the executives were these really beautiful like brothers and sisters who were single and who had to marry someone at the company.

And you're like, not only like there would be all these like young men and women who not only are like doing the very best to be like the smartest, most high achieving, most professionally adequate person, but also like hoping, hoping to catch the attention. It's kind of like all those girls who were like super keen to go to St.

Andrews when Prince William was there like. I have a shot.

Malcolm Collins: I went, I went right after he was there. I, I wanted a shot. I, I mean, we all

Simone Collins: wanted, but wouldn't it be cool? I'm not, I'm

Malcolm Collins: not even like bisexual, and I would've been like. But it's a prince.

Simone Collins: But to be, yeah, I mean like if you have a shot at royalty, you gotta take it.

And imagine you an unfortunate accident

Malcolm Collins: before we consummate anything.

Simone Collins: It would be like, I imagine if Elon Musk's kids all worked at like SpaceX and like Tesla and like you had a shot. [00:36:00] You know, like if we knew like our kids had a shot at like marrying into like Tesla royalty. Oh my gosh. Like have you entered the Tesla family?

We're at Teslas now. We're a SpaceX family now.

Malcolm Collins: But the family's like, Elon wouldn't pass that down to his kids. Right? Like this isn't the way. No, and

Simone Collins: that's, that's why you have to create this whole new like conspiracy. You have to, you have to like, you have to have families audition into this to be like, I am,

Malcolm Collins: by the way, Simone, you're gonna love this, the New York Times.

Did this piece right here. You see this, this image here? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you saw this on the Zian?

Simone Collins: Yeah. I'm gonna talk about it. I, I also have a, an episode outlined on the rise of new secular religions. She wanted to

Malcolm Collins: save the world from ai. Then the killing started.

Simone Collins: I love that they don't, they don't mention that she has.

Wasn't always a she. Yeah, no,

Malcolm Collins: no. Mean New York Times wouldn't even think to question that this might be a male sex pest. No. But they, they have killed people, a number of [00:37:00] them in their quest for self aggrandize. Well, I

Simone Collins: think what makes ZZ an impressive cult leader is I don't believe that any of the murders are, are actually ZZZ murders.

I think that they are zzz follower led murders. From my understanding. So, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And, and the

Simone Collins: level of, it's like that's, that's mob boss level, right? Like, you know, all the murderers

Malcolm Collins: are like, somebody asked them to pay rent or something like that. Like, god

Simone Collins: forbid

Malcolm Collins: they're never about like their actual goals.

They're like,

Simone Collins: why won't you die so I can get my inheritance parents? Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Like they're very, how dare you

Simone Collins: stop me on the side of the road, immigration enforcement officer, like,

Malcolm Collins: I'll kill you for that. And they, they did, right? Like they, they're, they're very, but it was funny as they talk about all these grand goals and how uncompromising they are, and yet every murder they commit is about their own convenience.

Simone Collins: Yeah, we're, we're gonna get into it. I'm excited to talk about the rise of secular religions. We're gonna, we're gonna talk about that, and it's sort of, its role and fertility too. But yeah, I really, I I think that there, there are two [00:38:00] big takeaways I want people to have from this. I mean, in terms of like beyond the, okay, we, we don't really care that South Korea has a fertility bump because they still have serious problems.

The under underrated, under-discussed elements of fixing fertility are one Malcolm's concept of the dependency ratio cascade, where we need people to pay for the dependences in society.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, people have gotten, Jezebel got very mad at us. They're like, they let the cat out of the bag. That they, not all babies are the same now.

Someone on,

Simone Collins: someone on X was just criticizing us. That, that, that they imply that there are certain people who should, you know, there, there are certain people who are more desirable to be born than others, and we're like. No man, like we're just looking for someone to pay the tab. Like I don't, I mean like, is that nice?

I don't know how nice that is. That's kind of exploitative if you ask me, but. Whatever. I just don't want millions of people to die and suffer. Stop saying millions.

Malcolm Collins: It's

Simone Collins: hundreds of millions, hundreds of millions. Hundreds of millions. Hundreds of millions,

Malcolm Collins: not millions. Hundreds of millions.

Simone Collins: And then the other underrated factor here [00:39:00] is, is the role of of culture and status.

And if you do not make families. And, and this and this stuff like high status. And I agree that there's like a creepy way to do it. Like the China way where there's someone knocking on your door being like, Hey, your, where are you? Union cycle. When gonna have kids? You know, they're like being the creepy mother-in-law when you already have a creepy mother-in-law.

Like, you know, I mean more Yeah. You're in

Malcolm Collins: China,

Simone Collins: my gosh. Yeah. The government's just gonna make, it's like that's gonna backfire. But I really think that if there's just like aspirational royal family, like again, like if, if you could marry in,

Malcolm Collins: I don't buy this at all, this would not work. It's not scalable.

You could maybe force, you can say this is what is scalable saying, no one can be a K-pop idol unless they already have a kid. You are, you are not. It's

Simone Collins: Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: That is how you have to start. You've gotta have a kid. And then people would be like, oh,

Simone Collins: then two, then three. Like, you

Malcolm Collins: have to have three kids to be a K-Pop idol.

You gotta have four kids to be a K-pop idol. Then it becomes high status, right? [00:40:00]

Simone Collins: Yeah. Oh, and then, I mean, then you're gonna have all the south Korean beauty treatments for like postpartum. So then South Korea is gonna be the Yeah. And,

Malcolm Collins: and for your kids of course, as well. Mm-hmm. You gotta have them look like the most beautiful baby in the world.

That's,

Simone Collins: no, I just, I really want there to be like a South Korean shabel that just does like human body augmentation. 'cause they not only augmentation. Yeah, like, 'cause I mean, I feel like there are some cultures or like groups or families or whatevers that will do human body augmentation, but it's gonna be like.

That like mechanic is, you know, it's like, like this skull and it's like blah. And it looks weird, but like Koreans, it's just gonna be like these, like Elvin beautiful. Like they'll find some way to make your hair look weightless, even though you're in like earth's gravity, you know? Like it's just gonna be Of course, of course.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, in the ai, in the AI environments, we're gonna be in you know, our kids will be dating within virtual environments using avatars. I'm almost certain.

Simone Collins: But I mean, IRL still matters. And maybe Korean's a really good IRL

Malcolm Collins: maybe in Korea, probably not. [00:41:00] You look at, you look at Korean society and how quickly it's descended into the internet.

They're gonna be dating avatars.

Simone Collins: Oh, they still, they still judge. Your ability to either look gorgeous or pay to look gorgeous. So

Malcolm Collins: true. And, and current Korean society. But keep in mind, we've gotta create the next week.

Simone Collins: I don't want 'em to give that up. I like it. I, I like that. It's such a

Malcolm Collins: beautiful place.

Everyone's beautiful. I loved when

Simone Collins: you and I were like walking down the streets of, of Seoul and, and, and Gangnam and we're like. We are the ugliest people in this street. Like everyone here, everyone is

Malcolm Collins: beautiful. Yeah, you're so

Simone Collins: pretty. They're so pretty.

Malcolm Collins: Alright Simone, what are we doing for dinner tonight?

Simone Collins: So you're gonna do the reang with rice and I'm going to make pizzas for the kids. 'cause I think that slip and slide action they had today before the thunderstorm, we'll have worked up an appetite, assuming they haven't been fed copious amounts of junk food after that, which I'm,

Malcolm Collins: Cook up the the ang.

Very excited for that. Do you want me to saute

Simone Collins: it with extra garlic or anything else? We don't have any onions. We're gonna go

Malcolm Collins: to this. No, just cook it down. I wanna see how it tastes when it's cooked down a bit.

Simone Collins: [00:42:00] Okay. So just summer it, I'll, I'll simmer it for like,

Malcolm Collins: one fact I learned today. Which really shocked me, and I, I sent you a map of this.

I don't know if you saw this, but the summer camp that flooded. Oh God, you

Simone Collins: did. It was in a flood.

Malcolm Collins: It was in a dry river bed. It wasn't, it wasn't just in a flood pan, it was in a dried river bank, like literally built into Exactly in the center of a dry,

Simone Collins: they even appeared. I would not have thought to look at that as a parent, and now I'm gonna be looking at that as a parent.

Well, no, but what's crazy about it

Malcolm Collins: is, is they seem to even own the property that wasn't within the dried river bank. They just decided to build it. Well, come on. I'm sure

Simone Collins: it was prettiest within the, you know, dried river bank.

Malcolm Collins: Well, because, oh, I guess you get the views of the hills and everything, but mm-hmm.

The point being is if you've had a house that has been anywhere near a flood zone like ours, right? Like we see the water creep up, I would've immediately looked at this location and been like, are you guys effing insane? [00:43:00] And they had a, by the way, a 12 hour warning. I love that people are blaming this on Trump and Elon Musk and everything like that.

They had a 12 hour flood warning from the national services and everyone was like, Trump and Elon did this with their cuts. No. Who did this with the f*****g idiot counselors who didn't move the kids when they had a 12? Our house, every time you and I get a flood warning, and they are very rarely, 12 hours in advance, they're usually about six hours in advance.

Yeah. We. Move everything in our, in our house, we prepare to leave. We like, because I understand what flood warnings mean, right? Like you have to fundamentally be kind of retarded about flood warnings to get a 12 hour flood warning for something and say, I don't care. Like we're not gonna so, so there was that.

What disturbs

Simone Collins: me even more is on social media, there are all these like influencer stuff who are like, are giving links to fundraise for like the, the, the girls in the camp and I'm like. This money's just going to scam artists. Like it's not [00:44:00] gonna help the girls get found like they're being looked for now by everyone who can possibly look for them.

I don't know where this money going. Well, also

Malcolm Collins: 100% dead if, I'm sorry, if, if a, if a pre-teen girl disappeared in a flood,

Simone Collins: they're dead. Well, that there was that one woman who floated 20 miles and got into a tree. Like there are people who've survived for amazing periods of time. In these floods. So

Malcolm Collins: I don't, the, the, the missing girls are dead.

I don't understand how anyone cannot. They, they would've, they would've, they would've gone to the shore, then gone to somebody with a phone and then they would've called somebody. Right? Like they're not retarded. No. I mean, the

Simone Collins: woman who was found in the tree, like the tree was surrounded by flood waters's, like the, the floods are still there.

There was more rain. So they, they have to be found within the floodwater or within the floodplains. But,

Malcolm Collins: but if you just looking at the map of this, I'm like, this is not Trump or el. First of all, it it, they [00:45:00] had the warning that they needed. And second of all, I. Whoever built this camp here, you don't even build if you, if you are a camper, like a regular camper.

No,

Simone Collins: I, and I disagree with you. I think a lot of people build camps on floodplains because they're like, well, it's okay. Everything gets washed away in a flood. It's a temporary camp. And they just, it there, there's just. People aren't thinking seriously about it. They, I was caught

Malcolm Collins: not to build camps on flood plains, like do not build, and, and it's not floodplains, you're calling it floodplains.

It's a dried river bed that is very different from floodplains. Yeah. A dried river bed is where the water regularly flows whenever it gets high.

Simone Collins: It is notable that the camp, like had they not received any severe flooding in the past, but, and this

Malcolm Collins: is Texas as well, so I grew up in Texas and at my family's ranch we, I mean, I always remember my family, every time we'd walk by it, they'd be like, that's where the flood waters went.

And they'd point to like marks on trees and I showed you these marks on trees. I don't [00:46:00] know if you remember me saying like, you see that white mark way up there? That's great.

Simone Collins: You can even see them around where. I mean, where we live, like literally where we walk, you can see where flood waters went and it's high.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Like this is something that should have been ever present for everyone in this situation. And people can be like, how dare you say, it's their fault. I am sorry. I wouldn't build a temporary camp in a, in a dried river bed. Well, so what, what is

Simone Collins: advice that parents can take home from this to just if they're like devastated by this and,

Malcolm Collins: well, I mean, if I was a I, if I was a parent, I was like, I wanna be safe with my kids.

When you send your kids to camps or something like that, like conduct a basic sanity check of TA safety, like are and is it every building in the camp was built within this floodplain? Like I, I, I honestly don't, would honestly

Simone Collins: ask yourself like, until we knew about this, would you be checking camps that we'd send our kids to for floodplains?

Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, given that every couple years our house has flood waters come up around it and [00:47:00] we've had to deal with the consequences. You and I are acutely aware of floods in a way that other people may not be, you know, and I think that some people don't realize if you're near a lake or a river or a stream, or if you're buying a home near a lake, river or stream, you need to pay attention to this.

Simone Collins: Oh, . Octavian is probably trying to get into the house now, so I love you. I love you too. All of our kids, and I'm really sorry for the families.

Malcolm Collins: Did you learn anything interesting today?

Simone Collins: Yeah, I was listening to a really interesting podcast called Decoder Ring no, no, no, sorry, called articles of interest about school uniforms and Catholic school uniforms and like kind of how they came together and.

You know how they came to be and I, I love stuff like that. I'm a sucker for clothing history.

Malcolm Collins: It's, it's so funny that so many items of Catholic religious significance or that came out of Catholic communities. Mm-hmm. I think when people hear them within our modern [00:48:00] culture, the first thing they think is.

Oh, that's a sex thing when I hear, yeah. Hear the

Simone Collins: Catholic school girl, school girl uniform. Yeah. When I

Malcolm Collins: hear Catholic school girl uniform, I'm like, oh, it's a weird sex thing. Right. Or, you know, when I, when I see one of those flags or whatever when I, you know, see nun outfit.

Simone Collins: Yeah. No, but what's, what's interesting actually is so the reason why the, those plaid skirts specifically sort of became normalized in Catholic schools, only after you saw the rise of parochial Catholic schools, which were in response to the provision of public schools also developing a reputation for being more unruly.

So this led to this rise, especially when they stopped prayer in schools of people flocking to parochial Catholic schools, which cost a little bit, but were still affordable. Because before that, Catholic school was really more for like people who were quite wealthy. I. And then it was seen that like people were better behaved in Catholic school.

But the reason why plaid skirts sort of became the defacto thing [00:49:00] was because it was, there were a lot of Irish Catholics and, and it's thought that the plaid probably was influenced by that. But the earlier Catholic school goer uniforms actually looked a lot more like, kinda like my clothing, like which dresses like a long black skirt and long black sleeves.

Kind of like a sort of nun in training uniform. But made with really nice fabrics because, you know, this was for wealthy young women. And often the, you know, these not parochial schools, but what came before for Catholic schools were. Convent schools, like basically schools out of convents. And the uniforms are very different in that way, but what even predated, those were uniforms for other Catholic institutions like asylums or like orphanages where the uniforms were more helpful.

And one you just kind of had this population of people who needed to be clothed. But also it was helpful to identify runaways see this, this kind of connection between school uniforms and like fascinating imprisonment. But what's also interesting is, is [00:50:00] several people in this podcast were interviewed who'd grown up like, who both had very distinctive styles but had also grown up in Catholic schools, one in Nepalese Catholic schools, the other one in American Catholic schools.

And they hated and rebelled against the uniforms, but also really appreciated having the uniforms because the uniforms enabled them by their very restrictiveness to develop a distinctive sense of their personal style. And I really see that like with our kids, right? Our kids wear uniforms, but they have extremely distinctive personal style.

And I think when you grow up sort of wearing anything, especially in this age of like disposable clothing, and it's just so much choice, you kind of, you end up thinking that you're expressing yourself when you're really just expressing like. The whims of consumerism. Well, and

Malcolm Collins: we've seen this within youth culture duress recently becoming so unattractive.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And really a lack of ownership of, of attempting to present a unified style anymore.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And I, I think that when our kids do start, you know, when they, when they do deviate [00:51:00] from the family uniform, it's gonna be in much more interesting ways and very intentional. Instead of just being like, I'm just gonna, like, people don't think about it and then they think that they're being unique when they're really being basic b*****s or whatever the male equivalent of that is.

So that's interesting. The other thing that I was listening to just now was a decoder Ring podcast about the Boston Cinematic Universe. How like there are all these movies where Boston is almost a main character, you know, and it's like Boston culture and these Boston accents and Boston people. Really?

Yeah. And like why is that the case? And, and it was pointed out near the beginning of the podcast, which I haven't finished, that, you know, there are many cities that have bigger populations than Boston like. I think San San Antonio was an example they gave. Mm-hmm. San Jose. And I realized, yeah, there are all these cities in the United States that have very big populations, but

Malcolm Collins: no cultural cache.

They're not, I mean, it makes a lot of sense if you think about it for a few seconds. The, the main reason is because Harvard and MIT and yeah. And are [00:52:00] in Boston, and that means a lot of elites have lived in Boston for a period of their life. Yes. Which means that it gets disproportionately featured in media the same way anywhere where there's not a lot of elites coming out of those other cities I can't even remember

Simone Collins: anymore.

Malcolm Collins: So they're not particularly relevant from the position of the type of people who write movies or TV shows. Well, there's also a lot of

Simone Collins: narrative richness when you, when you contrast the Elites of Boston, which is definitely a theme that they pointed to in the podcast with the lower classes in Boston specifically like the, the Irish Catholics of Boston.

Malcolm Collins: You would find that in these other cities as well. The difference is, and and you could say, oh, well then you don't get the narrative. But if you look at TV historically mm-hmm. Like older movies and shows. They actually showed these other cities much more in places like Boston, much less I mean consider like Dallas, right?

Like the famous show and stuff like that. Like this was really common back then and it contrasted the elite [00:53:00] culture and the non-elite culture. And this was normalized. Yeah. But with the consolidation of Harvard and elite universities as a class status authentication mechanism mm-hmm. Particularly within the media industry as the urban monoculture consolidated within that industry.

Mm-hmm. It became very rare. Keep in mind, if you are writing movies at a movie studio today, I would bet like a good like 25% of your friend group spent a portion of their lives in Boston.

Simone Collins: Interesting.

Malcolm Collins: And so it may seem like a small city to you, but from the perspective of people who are writing stuff, it is not a small city.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. So like the rise of credentialism. Mm-hmm. Could be, yeah. Plus also there's like. Is there a San Antonio? Like are there the same amounts of stereotypes? It seems some cities are really good at developing stereotypes and others aren't

Malcolm Collins: there. There absolutely are. Think about cities that you are San Jose, you don't know much about that [00:54:00] city, but you have lived in other cities like Dallas and you would say, does Dallas have as many stereotypes about people from it as Boston has about it?

Yeah. It's not Dallas,

Simone Collins: maybe Fort Worth. Dallas has become,

Malcolm Collins: if you're familiar, hold on. You, you, you remember the idea of the the a hundred k, what is it, millionaire of a 40 K millionaire. 40 K millionaire. And this idea of, that's, that's like a whole structure of a way of living that's built out of that which is as built up as any Boston night social structure or way of living, but

Simone Collins: maybe not as universally recognized in people.

Yeah, but

Malcolm Collins: that's the point. Why is it not as universally recognized? 'cause it's not generating people who have control over major studio. That's, that's, and it used to, you know, like Tex Avery, as we pointed out, like a lot of the old cartoons came out of like Dallas and stuff like that. But again, with Credentialism, people like that who grew up in, in Texas just couldn't get jobs in the way that you used to within the media industry.

Could be, and

Simone Collins: it was pointed out in this [00:55:00] podcast Decoder Rink, by the way, totally recommend it. That this was a, a, a novel thing, relatively speaking, like Goodwill Hunting was probably one of the first to really make this more of a thing, like just Ben Affleck stuff. But, and, and Matt Damon stuff.

But before that, Boston would show up in movies, but like no accent, no mannerisms, like no nod to Bostonian culture. So I, yeah, maybe, maybe that's a factor. I have to finish listening to the episode. Yeah. I thought that was interesting.

Malcolm Collins: All right.

​

Speaker 6: Stinky.

Speaker 5: Oh, you're so fun.

Speaker 6: Yeah,

Speaker 5: I think so.

Speaker 6: No.

Speaker 5: Can you tell me why you're dressed like an elf? What el do

Speaker 7: [00:56:00] that,

Speaker 5: did they help the future police? Yeah.

Speaker 8: Bye.

Are you shocking me with your fun?

Speaker 10: What's up buddy?

Speaker 9: Oh,

Speaker 10: look at this.