Exploring Modern Hedonism and Self-Care Culture

In this fascinating discussion with journalist Suzy Weiss, Malcolm and Simone dive into a range of internet subcultures and trends, from "Hercule Derkle" and the death of wellness culture to tradwives and the rise of unwellness influencers. They explore how ancient concepts like Wu Wei and Shabbat are being misappropriated to justify modern hedonism and the implications of a society where basic needs can be met without leaving one's bedroom. The conversation also touches on the contradictions of feminism, the allure of communal living, and the future of reproduction in an age of womb transplants and artificial wombs. Throughout the episode, the trio grapples with the ways in which these online phenomena reflect broader cultural shifts and the search for meaning in an increasingly atomized world.

Suzy Weiss: [00:00:00] Yeah, there's also like this weird way that medieval debunked science is being repackaged in the wellness world. Hikikomori, for those who don't know are, mostly men in Japan who are shut ins, they don't leave their room for years, sometimes at a time, their parents bring them food, they play video games, they're totally addicted to their screens, Japan is 10 years ahead of us in everything.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, and fertility collapse

Suzy Weiss: fast food tastes like food enough, but it's not food and video games feel like problem solving and engaging, but it's really not doing those things.

And he described it as this slack noose around his neck where he technically forgot all of the things fulfilled. He was talking to people, he was eating, he was alive in the world, but at this really not at what's the word I'm looking for, like not at the level of.

Of actually living but not enough that he would go and change it. Like it wasn't dire enough.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: Hi everyone. We are so excited to have our favorite writer on the podcast, Susie Weiss. She's with The Free Press. You can find her on [00:01:00] Twitter slash x.

At Snoozy Weiss. And she has written some amazing pieces. We first discovered her through this mind blowing article on Spoonies. But more recently, she wrote about a different type of kind of self care culture that we thought would be really fun to discuss today. Particularly referring to hergaldergal as a trending term, but also like bed rot and quiet quitting show up in the article as well.

Suzy Weiss: Yeah.

Simone Collins: We'd love to talk about this with you because there's so much going on here.

Suzy Weiss: We're really going to, we're going to get into tradwives. We're going to get, everyone should buckle up for a ride through the internet.

Simone Collins: You had this great quote in there, didn't you say something like tradwives are the girl bosses of the home or something?

Tradwives are the girl bosses of the, they're not different. They are. They're just villainized women. 100%. We're trying

Suzy Weiss: to get what they want, which is, I thought, what we all want, but I guess not.

Simone Collins: Yeah, well they're having it all, they're having it all in the home, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: If you go what you want. Well, it's so interesting the way that society is so [00:02:00] politicized that every subculture has a team.

And depending on what team you are in, that subculture is either an evil or good subculture from the perspective of each team. Yeah, the hustlers

Simone Collins: versus the quiet quitters and the trad wives versus the soft girls and yeah, there's, has to be this

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it's actually almost odd when there are un teamified subcultures, like MLMs.

MLMs isn't explicitly a right or left thing. But if I think box shipping, when you were talking about hustlers, I'm like, oh, those are right wing nut jobs. That's what people would say about them, right? Like drop

Suzy Weiss: shipping?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Dropshipping. Yeah. Dropshipping. There's like a whole dropshipping culture, like Andrew Tate's in university really fights for dropshipping, right?

Yeah. They might, but a lot of things like that do. So it's very similar to MLM ism. So, okay. Obviously you have MLMs, which predominantly target women, but the ones that target men are typically not monetized through the traditional MLM model. It's more like a guru monetizes through [00:03:00] very expensive courses.

And then they try to target teaching people like actually how to start a company. But if you're going to teach at scale, how to start a company, there's really only a few companies that work on that model. Dropshipping is one of them actually doing lectures. Is dropshipping

Suzy Weiss: like MLM for men?

Malcolm Collins: Yes, I

Suzy Weiss: have to read about this.

I'm so excited. It's like raw milk and it's like anti vax. It's the middle of the horseshoe and you're you could, it's the Rorschach test. Like whatever in it reveals your But it's not as abusive

Malcolm Collins: as MLM because you can genuinely make a lot of money doing it if you do it right.

But it is like MLM in that it freezes. forms like these cults of personality. And yeah, and the whole

Suzy Weiss: vocabulary around it, like the vocabulary around Hey girl. Hey Hey babe. Yeah.

Simone Collins: I love that.

Suzy Weiss: Oh

Simone Collins: my God.

Malcolm Collins: Hey hon.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Let's go into, do you want to start with Hercule D'Urkel or trad wise?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Define Hercule D'Urkel for our sage [00:04:00] audience that probably has never heard this term before.

Suzy Weiss: Yes. Cause your audience is smart. And reads books, and I've never read a book, but Hercule Durkle is this 18th century Scottish term, and we could get into the whole like, trend industrial complex, but basically it's like an update to bedrotting which is an update to, I think, hygiee.

Which is that there's there's a, or hide, it's like the, it's like a Nordic Swedish word for getting cozy. And then there was like another term for staying in on a Friday night during like Norwegian winters, but it's like this umbrella term. It falls under self care, but herkle derkle is just apparently this Scottish phrase from the 18th century that means staying in bed longer than you should.

But of course when you combine that with the internet and the algorithm, it turns into this rallying cry for people not to feel bad about pickling under their duvet cover all day. And herkle derkle, which is stay in bed, but of course means stay on your phone and allow a stream [00:05:00] of garbage to go directly into your eyeballs and hold still while TikTok infiltrates your brain.

Malcolm Collins: Yep. So this actually reminds me of one of my favorite misinterpretations of a historic context. So people on the show know we're very into like religious systems and stuff like that. And we were talking with a friend of ours. And they're like, Oh we were like, how's your diet going?

And they're like, Oh, I came up with this amazing new diet system. That's based on ancient Eastern philosophy. And I was like, Oh no what do you think? I'm like, I, I knew things were new and no, they're like, well, I learned about this concept called Wu Wei. Are you familiar with Wu Wei? Okay. So it's a fairly complicated concept.

It is where you are elevating an aesthetic reaction. To your environment to a moral status it's often described as like in a river moving with the water to get to your destination. Go into it. If you,

Simone Collins: If you've read anything by the church of the subgenius, it strikes me as like their [00:06:00] concept of slack,

Malcolm Collins: which is very similar to the concept of slack.

You achieve a

Simone Collins: lot. But through a sort of natural elegance where you're not fighting against nature and society and everything. Instead, you are like an Aikido, using your enemy's opponent against them, or at least in your favor.

Malcolm Collins: So, but she heard of this concept. That was just a

Suzy Weiss: diet.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but no, what she thought it meant is eat whatever you want, whenever you feel like it.

Oh, yeah, what she thought it meant was

Simone Collins: basically just, yeah, just don't try To do anything, just eat whatever you want. And then she immediately started eating a ton of junk food.

All: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: But it's the same with this Herkle Derkle and concepts like this is people are trying to elevate base hedonism to a moral system of superiority over other individuals, which is really interesting.

Suzy Weiss: Yeah, there's also like this weird way that medieval debunked science is being repackaged in the wellness world. So, I have a [00:07:00] friend who gave birth and, er, my friend was talking to her friend who gave birth and she had this woo midwife who was, like, essentially trying to balance her four humors.

Simone Collins: Oh no.

Suzy Weiss: And it after a little bit of questioning, it was like, wait, what's the thing with the phlegm? What, but this was, like, the new age thing. But anyway, yes, it is like a misused. Scottish concepts. I don't know if Scottish people stayed in bed really late in the 18th century. I assume if they did, it was because they had just gotten back from like a land war.

Malcolm Collins: So I don't know. I don't know. I've read some books from England and they do say the Scots were lazy people. I can also see though,

Simone Collins: like

Malcolm Collins: it used

Simone Collins: in a derogatory fashion. Like a mother or a wife being like, you can't herkle derkle all day. That kind of thing. Totally.

Suzy Weiss: There is like a yiddish, like the sound of it matches what it is.

It's like an onomatopoeia or something that I appreciate. But this, the herkle derkle at this point, it's old news online, but it's in line with the trend.

Malcolm Collins: Before you go further, one thing I want to elevate here, which I think is really interesting [00:08:00] is essentially people are rediscovering old forms of hedonism, then building sort of an aesthetic theology around them.

And by this, what I mean is in a modern context, default hedonism is status hedonism, i. e. it's go on trips so that you can take pictures and show how much better you are than everyone else. It's a hedonism tied to affirmation from peer groups. Promiscuity. Data seeking. Yeah. Whereas in a traditional context, hercule durcle hedonism is just searching out pleasure which can often be achieved fairly inexpensively in an individual's life.

And I do think that there is some value in at least Recognizing this as an individual that I pointed out on previous podcasts, actually maxing out individual hedonism stats. When you disassociate from affirmation, it's pretty easy. Once you learn to cook for yourself, you can make like easily four or five tier.

Star, like chef meals [00:09:00] that are perfectly optimized for your taste buds that have access to spices that people like fought and died over historically.

Suzy Weiss: So there are four apps you could download to make your life like you, you would be like Genghis Khan level pleasure. What I mean, it's you can order sex, you can order the groceries, you can order the most gorgeous linen sheets.

You don't have to leave your house and you're like assaulted. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. One of my favorites was one of my very wealthy friends complained about being wealthy in this era. We've mentioned this on another show. Cause he's I just can't get anything that middle class people couldn't get. Like he's I used to be able to what, call a restaurant and have them deliver food to my house.

Now what Uber like eats does that for everyone. I used to have access to foods that other people don't have access to. I don't have that anymore. I used to, be able to. On demand have servants. Now everyone basically has TaskRabbit. I used to like, he's what do I have? I had access to maybe a band that can come [00:10:00] play for me, but now everyone has music players.

Yeah. Just like the most

Suzy Weiss: gorgeous, like high fidelity systems. Yeah. Like flatness and convenience culture. Has in this weird way, turned us all into kings while spiritually impoverishing us all. So you might as well stay in bed.

Simone Collins: The one thing that's interesting to me is in the article, you point out that a lot of this is potentially in, in a backlash or contrast to hustle culture and this feeling like it's a combination of response to girl boss and hustle culture and, try fight, fight.

And then this realization that we're not necessarily going to get Boomer level rewards for the work

Suzy Weiss: we do. It's okay, having it all was a lie. So in response, I will do nothing. I

Simone Collins: will have nothing and do nothing. Yeah. Weird reaction is, do you think that this was a reaction or do you think that they just happen to be at the same time?

And people reacting the. Like in different ways to the same thing. And do you notice [00:11:00] any patterns between the types of influencers or people online who go for one answer or another?

Suzy Weiss: I think there's a few. Ways this happened to take your question in parts. I think a big part of this and what I get into in the article is that this is the logical conclusion of self care culture.

I do think like the era of wellness is ending. It's I don't know, like yoga pants don't count as clothes anymore, which like I'm happy about. But self care as it became like kind of mass produced, commercialized, whatever you want to call it. It meant going to a yoga class. It meant skipping the yoga class and watching TV.

It meant spending a lot of money on food. It meant making your own food at home and making sure there were no seed oils in it. It meant going to a protest. It meant hanging out with your friends. It just is a word that means nothing. And so, like the end. Part of it is just I will be sedentary and do nothing and that is also self care.

I will do nothing for myself as opposed to I I guess the ideal of self care is I will curate this beautiful [00:12:00] life. So I see it. I, what Malcolm said, it's an update on an ancient I form of hedonism, but I also see it as like the death rattle of wellness culture.

And we're going to enter into whatever's coming next. I forget the other part of your question. Oh, the types of influencers who do it.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Who, how does this sort? Because I, there, there's still a lot of people who are heavy hustle and there's still a lot of people who are heavy, soft life.

Suzy Weiss: Yeah. I think. I don't know if it falls into a type. I think, something that was interesting is I keep getting fed all of these like Christian influencers and Christian podcasters. I don't know why they're really weird and interesting, but they were a few Christian. Girls on a podcast talking about how, when you want to go out and you, and, or, when you made plans to go out and you don't want to go out and you're really tempted to cancel the plans, this is like an annoying meme online.

Oh, nothing like sex is great. But if you ever canceled plans at the last minute or whatever and these girls framed it as [00:13:00] the devil was telling you to cancel the plans. And maybe if you went out, that was like, God had something in store for you. Maybe you were going to meet your husband that day or whatever.

I think, well, I think that is like a weird way to frame it. And I don't think there's like a demon who's stay in bed. So comfy cozy. There is something a little bit like feeding into this base impulse of staying in bed and like going out will like lead to more. I think it shows

Malcolm Collins: the value of these old religious systems.

This is something we're always a stalling on this podcast. I'm like many of these religious systems actually had utility to them. And here you're seeing that utility in action. They have created a framing that prevents them from falling into these. And I should be clear this form of hedonism.

create say spiral, which makes your life worse. Where I would have a different hypothesis. I don't not think we're at the end of wellness culture. I think we're at a [00:14:00] transformational moment in wellness culture where, and you mentioned this in the article, as I remember, is the COVID 19 pandemic. This is reminiscent of hi komori culture, right, in Japan, and that what we might be seeing is an evolution of a form of American Ko Mordo, which I can see becoming incredibly popular among Gen Alpha.

Suzy Weiss: Hikikomori, for those who don't know are, mostly men in Japan who are shut ins, they don't leave their room for years, sometimes at a time, their parents bring them food, they play video games, they're totally addicted to their screens, Japan is 10 years ahead of us in everything.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, and fertility collapse and everything, yeah.

And I think that we will get a form of America in Hikikomori. More of them. And I think what will lead it in reference to our last talk about Spoonies is an elevation of agoraphobia as a thing of status within certain elements of online culture and that they will then feel [00:15:00] emotionally rewarded and of for leading in to their agoraphobia, which will elevate the actual amount of agoraphobia, their feeling, which makes it much easier to end up locked in your house for 10 years.

And we've got an entire generation that started their lives in COVID and stuff like that, first job, stuff like that. So they got started on the tracks of staying inside all the time. And then they built their friend networks on discord. They're getting. their needs fulfilled. And they desperately now need to justify why they're making these decisions that are clearly against their best interest.

And now there's communities that affirm that like the antinatalists and the effortless let's say actually you're doing a good thing by, doing nothing with your life and being a drain on society. So long as you don't. Contribute to keeping that society going.

Suzy Weiss: There's a few things I want to pick up on.

One is you talked about getting your needs fulfilled. I interviewed an incel for a story about the for the 10th year anniversary of Tinder [00:16:00] who described yeah, it was, he was in England. He was really interesting. And he described how like fast food tastes like food enough, but it's not food and video games feel like problem solving and engaging, but it's really not doing those things.

And he described it as this slack noose around his neck where he technically forgot all of the things fulfilled. He was talking to people, he was eating, he was alive in the world, but at this really not at what's the word I'm looking for, like not at the level of.

Of actually living but not enough that he would go and change it. Like it wasn't dire enough. And I thought that was really interesting. I think

Malcolm Collins: it's he's living in a simulated version of a human life. Right. And we have created the things that we need. We don't need to go in VR to live a simulated life.

We can already have simulated love, simulated accomplishments, simulated adventures, and simulated food. But I would argue

Suzy Weiss: that is VR. That is like a virtual, it's not reality.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that is. Yeah. When we, I think the [00:17:00] mistake we made, and this is something I realized about when I first met Malcolm, he just assumed that all this would become a big issue when brain computer interface was a thing.

Like when we were like literally plugged in, but somehow like with just dumb screens and laptops and computers, like we are there already fully integrated.

Suzy Weiss: And that's what you keep bringing up, which I think is really interesting, these ancient concepts like Wu Wei. Or and people trying to bring those into the modern era where it's wait, it doesn't work when the food is like hyper palatable and extra salty.

And similarly with Herkul Derkel, I'm Jewish. We have Shabbat, you're, you are not allowed to work. You must rest. So I think people would be like, Oh, that's like Herkul Derkel. And it's no, if you're living like a Jewish life, you are working. In such a way where you need the rest.

And Shabbat actually isn't about isolating yourself. You're made to convene with your community, with your family, have meals together. So I think people take these ancient concepts and use them to justify this like ultimately pleasure seeking attitude.

Simone Collins: And it's there's a [00:18:00] lot of fasting more or less, there's so many things you can't do.

Right. Exactly.

Malcolm Collins: Well, now get into the tradwives part of this conversation.

Suzy Weiss: Oh, yeah. So, so Ah, so tradwives. I'm Are you a tradwife, Simone? Is that We call her a tradwife in some of the video

Malcolm Collins: titles to get clicks because she looks like one. But I don't think you are one by most traditional Well, so a lot of people call what we do I don't know.

I cook the meals and I clean inside. Technotrad, Technotrad or Neotrad?

Suzy Weiss: Yeah, Technotrad.

Malcolm Collins: Technotrad.

Suzy Weiss: Rad. Rad tra

Malcolm Collins: rad. Tra rad TRAs. Rad. Well, we'll see what they converge on as a name for it. But it's not overly tra like we're, right now we're really excited about these AI toys we're getting for our kids.

Yeah. So that they have somebody smart to talk with. . But we're gonna put them in their old toys and reprogram them to think that they are. the kid's old teddy bear, but now they have an imaginary, let's not try it in a traditional context, but then you dress like a medieval peasant.

Yeah, talk [00:19:00] about trad wives. Cause we, we talk about this a lot on the show as well. I don't think it's a holistically positive trend. I know that you would frame it as such, but I think one of the big problems with trad wives is women begin to define the aesthetic of trad wife as the reason why.

Is the heuristic they use to make decisions and judge whether or not they're living a good life. And that's a very bad, they're like, yeah, yes. My husband may not be happy with the decisions I'm making, but I am following this aesthetic correctly. Therefore I am a good wife or a good partner. Right. I

Simone Collins: think we also we have gripes with the way that many people define tradwifery and that.

We think that the true trad is the corporate family where everyone works, including the kids, and everyone kind of shares the burden, whereas a lot of people who go to trad wifery, they're working, obviously they're managing a household, but they're doing it in the modern age where we have dishwashers and washing machines.

And it's just, it's not the same to just. To manage a household and have that be your career. Well, I'd also

Malcolm Collins: point [00:20:00] out that, that think about this in the eight passengers context, right? With the eight passenger situation, you had a woman who in part identified as a trad wife to an extent, but then because the aesthetic of tribe wife really was her moral system.

She because she was a Mormon, but she was not, like this is how it works. This is how it infiltrates religious communities. She identified more as a trad wife than as a Mormon, more as a trad mom than as a Mormon. And because of that, More of a trad

Suzy Weiss: mom influencer. Yeah, right. No, but

Malcolm Collins: But because of that, when then she's well, if I'm a trad mom, right.

And that is, but this aesthetic is morality. Right. Where do trad moms compete within the hierarchy in terms of how they're different from non trad moms? Well, it's how strict they are with their kids, how strict they are about how their kids engage with pornography. Yeah. And then she began to spin like virtue spiral on these particular topics to the point where she ended up committing.

Real and pretty severe abuse of her children.

Suzy Weiss: Yes this was [00:21:00] crazy. I, it was so funny. I was talking about this with my cousins at Shabbat dinner. I think the overall trend of trad wives is just an interesting case study because it's where the theory of feminism of women should be able to do with it, whatever they want crashes in.

To the feeling like, well, not like that, it's do whatever you want, but it better look like this. It better not look like that. So it's like these kind of that like these values that are intention of I need this woman to want agency, but she needs to want it herself.

Malcolm Collins: Have you heard of a taken in hand marriage? No, what is that? Okay. Okay. Okay. So I better point you to this because this could be an interesting story. So taken in hand relationships are a concept that was in a relationship where the woman is completely it's basically a 24 seven slave Dom relationship.

But done within the context of traditionalism and a monogamous marriage, but also understanding the like it definitely came out of the [00:22:00] BDSM community. So people who are familiar with a 24 seven slave relationship, this is when a woman often lives in as a man's in a 24 seven sexual role play scenario.

Well in a taken in hand relationship, they are doing that, but with the aesthetic of a traditional wife.

Simone Collins: Yeah, so instead of like with Gorian relationships, where they were going in this dynamic off of a sci fi universe, they're going off of like the 1950s aesthetic of traditional marriage.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, and where these women want to be spanked when they make mistakes, they want to be like open hand slapped when they say something stupid.

And it is interesting to me, this recontextualization of, I think a stereotype of the worst kind of trad wife relationship built into a BDSM relationship for the satisfaction of women.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It's like feminist, but super not. We just shouldn't have ever gotten the right to vote. Yeah, [00:23:00] everything went wrong.

Everything. I say,

Malcolm Collins: I want to say crazy. Women should have the right to vote because like my ancestors fought for that and everything like that. Like they were, but then I look at who would be elected to office if women didn't have the right to vote. And I'm like, but functionally the country would be economically healthier and safer.

Oh my God.

Suzy Weiss: There was that amazing Grimes thing. It's what do you like about the patriarchy? It's like Rhodes. Wait, did he say that with this interview? She said that she, yeah. It was an interview and she's I'm into the patriarchy. I really like the roads. I really like the infrastructure.

It was just fine. Yeah. I, our tra wives supporting the patriarchy. Are they subverting the patriarchy because they're choosing it themselves?

Malcolm Collins: Oh no. I think that they're subverting it. I think that tra wives are like horrifying plates often. Yeah. The idea, as Simone pointed out, that there was ever a long period in history where your average wife could afford to not work and spend 24 seven looking after the kids.

This is a historical fantasy because people are [00:24:00] basing their assumptions about what historical marriages were like based on Hollywood from the 1950s. So there was a short period in American history from about the 19 Tens to 1970s where this was an aspirational lifestyle among the common people, but it was never really the norm except like maybe like right after World War II when we had that enormous economic explosion and among very

Suzy Weiss: wealthy people, but didn't the housewives in the fifties like go berserk and then they started, they basically did.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Suzy Weiss: But they had that cause they had the washing machine.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so now women are Have tricked guys into thinking they're living this conservative relationship when they're living like I, I don't know, like a harem lady would in a an old Islamic palace, but without the work, just like the raising of a few kids, and I've seen these women who like stop, I have seen trad wives stop after three kids because they said it was too much work and they had a live in [00:25:00] childcare.

Simone Collins: Well, and we see you, if you look at stay at home girlfriend videos online and stay at home daughters, I love them and they're not, they may do some laundry, they may clean up dishes and film themselves doing it. But. They are also completely, this is my expensive latte that I'm not having. This is me working out this.

It's a very indulgent life. So yeah. And somehow

Suzy Weiss: we've gotten to the place where it's you're a trad wife. If you make like a Buffalo chicken pizza from scratch, which just feels like beside the point. But anyway, I kind of love that they explode heads. I love that the girl bosses exploded heads.

Yes. And I think all of these people are in opposition to the self care regime, whatever we're going to call it, that tells you that the best thing you could do is whatever you are doing for yourself, whatever that means.

Simone Collins: Do we understand that one of your next pieces is going to be about the next stage, the non self care, the self destruction.

Suzy Weiss: Oh, the unwellness influencers. The unwellness

Simone Collins: [00:26:00] influencers. Yes.

Suzy Weiss: Yeah. Well, it's all, it's not my piece. I'm editing it. I have a, I don't know if you've read Freya India. She has this great subset. Yeah, we met her last November. She's super cool. She's so cool. And I was like, I need to bring in the big gun for this one.

So she's doing a deep dive into unwellness influencers. And and there, I guess maybe they're the opposite of tradwives. We need to like, we need some sort of. Visual chart to chart. I think Ayla is the opposite

Malcolm Collins: of a trad wife.

Suzy Weiss: Ayla is the opposite of a trad wife. I saw she was getting into it about surrogacy on Twitter today.

I was interested in that. You guys, you're pro surrogacy.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It's not scalable, but we're like, yeah, go for it. I'm allowing it. I prefer artificial wombs or Xeno pregnancies. What's Xeno pregnancy? Xeno pregnancies is using other animals to carry human fetuses, but genetically altering them so that they, creating a chimera.

So it has a human womb or something.

Simone Collins: We're more freakish than,

Suzy Weiss: yeah. You're like, surrogacy, that's crazy.

Malcolm Collins: Surrogacy, what? Come [00:27:00] on, that's unsustainable. I can't farm human women, at least legally anymore in the U. S., but I can farm cows and go to the, You wouldn't do it with cows.

You do it with a capybara or something like that. That's more closely related to us. I was having a phone call about this earlier today about how to make this real. Because I'm very excited about the potentiality of the mass production of children A lot of people are horrified by our, so we are trad, wifey to an extent, but we also want to, culturally speaking win, which I think requires some deviations where tra culture is breaking down.

Which brings me to a question, are you gonna be a trad wife? And in what ways are you not gonna be a trad wife?

Suzy Weiss: Oh, that's, so I think anyone who gets married is doing a trad thing. Like I think there's a big. Reflex, I think, especially among my contemporaries who are like, I'm getting married, but it's going to be different.

And it's you're wearing a white dress. You're doing the thing. You got a [00:28:00] sparkly thing on your finger. That's cool. That's fine. Like it's okay to want a thing that many other people want. It's annoying to me to reframe it as not that traditional thing. I think every wife is a trad wife. So in that way, yes, I hope to be a trad wife.

I bake bread every Shabbat. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Nope. Oh no. That's confirmed. You baked bread. I just have to

Suzy Weiss: hide my decolletage for my modesty for my husband. But no, I'd like to have a lot of kids, but I also really like to work and write and I would, everyone wants a life where they could do both,

Malcolm Collins: a lifestyle that we, some of our friends have gone into which. Is when the, is open to you. So you might consider it is the I call it secular Orthodox Judaism. Where they are not like theologically that into it, but they follow all the rules really strictly and post

Suzy Weiss: modern Orthodox.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That I think I am like been thinking lately more about like communal living, especially all three of my sisters had kids in the last two years. And I see how my middle sisters who live. Where my parents live in Pittsburgh or it's just like this [00:29:00] key books where it's like in and out and this kid and that kid and there's just something so incredible about it.

Yeah maybe one day, maybe I'll be like Simone on the eve of number four, hopefully. No, I, Oh, I hope,

Malcolm Collins: Or we'll have our big artificial womb factory and you can just pick one up. That's fine. Yeah, just pick one up.

Yeah, by the way, we're not close to this technology. I am joking about this for our audiences at edification.

Don't go off and say they're growing children in like pigs in their backyard. Yeah,

Simone Collins: rodents there. I'm sure there will be this whole status thing of yeah, well you grew in a human and humans are gross. I grew in a super cute capybara, so it's fine.

Suzy Weiss: Wait, but I think womb transplants, are womb transplants a thing or not a thing?

Simone Collins: There, yes, there has been at least the first woman to successfully have a baby after. Receiving a full uterine transplant has taken place. So there's at least one case of it that like we had a gestationally functional womb transfer, which is something I think about a lot because I'm like terrified. I get my c section this [00:30:00] Thursday and I'm like, I don't want to lose it.

I don't want to lose it. So if I do lose it, I'm going to be like, can I get a new one? Can I get a new one?

Suzy Weiss: You gotta get, remember when the most the most controversial thing was the death boards. What were they called? Oh yeah. Death panels. Death panels. Yeah. That was like the craziest thing. And now we're talking about God knows what who's in line for the first womb transplant.

natalist among us. Yeah. But yeah, we'll see. It's a weird world. I do think the story of reproduction. Breeding, IVF, IVF regret, birth control, getting off birth control, the world of fertility, toxicity, testosterone numbers going down that is what I'm focused on, I think, for this next couple months, because I think it's a really rich subject.

You should talk with Rye, Nationalist.

Simone Collins: If you haven't already. Who?

Suzy Weiss: Raw Egg Nationalist. Oh yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. I follow him on Twitter. He's really interesting. We can

Simone Collins: introduce you. He's been on our show before. Yeah. And he has like a font of great research. He will just send, [00:31:00] he'll email us like here, this study, I think you'll like it.

And it's, whoa. Like he finds really good stuff, so he'll be a great informant.

Suzy Weiss: Okay, cool. Because I, I'm also like raw eggs and like the status of the egg as like the perfect food, the evil food, cholesterol, the white's good, egg whites, white, like you can follow what we think of like fertility in a way through the story of how we regard eggs and milk.

Oh, that's good. And like we're out of the oat milk, soy milk era, which maybe was like Yeah, now we'll

Simone Collins: renegade raw milk now.

Suzy Weiss: You're, are you guys are on milkers? No,

Simone Collins: one now. No, God, no. Oh, you're not? Yeah.

Suzy Weiss: No, but that's, I think I got you guys pinned down.

Malcolm Collins: No, we are speed running life.

A lot of people are like, the things you do are really like unhealthy a lot of the time. And it's yeah, but we're not life extensionists or anything. I just want to live long enough to give my kids a good life and get the tasks that I'm working on done. Oh, you're like, get the

Suzy Weiss: two gallon whole milk and get in the car.

We're going home. You're not doing like the boutique, let's drive away Oh no, we go to

Simone Collins: One of those bulk [00:32:00] stores and we just get like

Malcolm Collins: BJ's pretty much all our food comes from BJ's and then goes in a chest freezer.

Simone Collins: But in our district where I'm running for office, there is definitely a big theme about raw, like this farmer

Suzy Weiss: tried to sell raw milk and they stopped him.

Oh yeah. Cause you're in Pennsylvania with a lot of Amish, Mennonite communities. I'm from Pennsylvania.

Malcolm Collins: We have a lot of eggs in our, we have chickens at our house. As we gave them out at the last party, but we're not like, it's so beautiful chicken supremacists. We're chickens as an aesthetic.

I don't actually think we're making our. health that much better by having our own chickens. It's, it helps

Simone Collins: me deal with the anxiety of the food that the kids always don't eat because then I just do to the chickens and then I feed the eggs to the kids and then it just the circle of life.

There you go. It's a circle of life. It's good. Yeah. But good. Okay. We're going to make some intros for you. Thank you so much for talking about this.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I

Simone Collins: can't wait for your next. Oh, we

Malcolm Collins: would love you to come on. Like every time you do a piece, if you want to come on and talk about it, just let us know.

You gave

Suzy Weiss: me so many ideas. Dropshipping of the MLM for men is really, that's gonna, [00:33:00] that's going to be fun for

Malcolm Collins: me. Ethelism you need to go deep on. That's the one that no one has done. It is so fascinating. What is it? Okay. Ethelism. It's a life spelled backwards ism. You can look up. It is a movement that is an extreme form of anti natalism that wants to erase all life on the planet.

So, not just get rid of humanity, but ensure that sentient life never evolves again on planet Earth. Because they think that sentient life is an intrinsic evil. And it's a pretty big movement now. It's probably So it's like

Suzy Weiss: pro mass shootings, I would assume.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, kinda. So they're about seven times the size of the pro natalist movement.

To give you an idea of like size of this movement and they are absolutely insane. And I think that they're going to be an increasingly big thing as pronatalism picks up steam because then people have to justify how they're not bad people. And so they come up with these moral frameworks or negative utilitarianism to justify their means.