In this episode of Based Camp, Simone and Malcolm Collins explore the plight of men who choose to embark on parenthood despite the myriad challenges they face finding wives and having children in the modern age through the lens of recent social media controversy surrounding a programmer named Ben Orenstein. Join the Collinses as they discuss the criticisms Ben faced and dive into a guide to surrogacy and single fatherhood created by Based Camper Revy. We hope you find the conversation interesting!

For quick access, here’s Revy’s Guide.

As this was a Simone-presented episode, here’s the outline! The episode transcript is at the end.

Based Camp - Men Parenting Their Own Way Get Hate

The X Controversy

Ben Orenstein Controversy on X

* Ben: “I’m giving myself about another year of searching for a partner, but will then pursue single fatherhood. I’m still hopeful it won’t be necessary, but in the end I can’t allow myself to miss out on raising children. Even having gone this long without them is an agony”

* This is in response to a post by Romy Holland: “i know two guys who are considering having kids via surrogate bc they badly want children but haven’t been able to find partners to do it with. they’re both extremely successful and love kids. i dunno what’s going on with dating but i don’t think it’s just men being anti-commitment and women being too picky.”

* IN FAIRNESS, BEN IS ONLY “kind of” (his words) COMMITTED TO MONOGAMY

* “Before I send your profile to a friend, and just based on the water you seem to be swimming in, I have to ask—are you looking for a monogamous relationship?”

* “Kind of. Gonna add a section about this in my doc shortly.”

* Jesse Genet weighed in: “Kind of? I gotta be blunt as a pregnant lady who has children… this is disqualifying… child rearing requires monogamy, full stop. Children need a strong partnership, adults that don’t grasp that family formation comes before keeping intimacy options open aren’t cut out for it.”

* Ben: “Strong partnership and monogamy are *not* the same, and people confuse this to their *extreme* detriment.”

* Supporters

* Captain Weak Hands @drysvictim my baby sister was born via surrogacy and we have a lasting, close relationship with not only the surrogate but her family as well. i have yet to hear from a surrogacy critic with any lived experience

* Illaria DiMar @IllariaDiMar My neighbor loved being a surrogate. I’m pretty conservative but don’t see how surrogacy is any different than infant adoption. The surrogate is often using someone else’s eggs... whats wrong with gamete donation. Humans have been raising non biological offspring for a very long time!

* Critics:

* Ben: Dude is almost ready to give up on his *wife search* and buy a baby but is he looking for a monogamous relationship? “Kind of” Sure, being a dad is the greatest thing but buying a baby is DARK. Earn the love of a good woman and turn that love into kids.

* Schrödinger’s Lesbian ⚢ Another reason why I changed my position on Surrogacy. These people do not care about the welfare of the babies or mothers. To them a baby is a mere commodity.

* Emma O Connor: I changed my position as well. Ben is acting like he’s owed a child.

* Victoria @VictoriaLandy2 The problem people have is that these babies are created with the purpose of being adopted for money, not the adoption itself

* Eric @Eric85Astoria Donating eggs is dangerous for the woman donating. The donor and surrogate both take high doses of hormones. The egg removal procedure can cause ovarian scarring and leave the egg donor infertile. Surrogate pregnancies have x3 the complication rate and can cause health issues.

* Simone Checking: Do gestational surrogacy pregnancies have higher rates of complications? Is there a reporting bias at play?

* Multiple large studies and recent meta-analyses indicate that gestational carriers experience substantially increased rates of severe maternal morbidity compared to natural conception and even standard IVF.

* For example, a Canadian study reviewing over 863,000 births found that gestational surrogates had a 7.8% rate of severe maternal complications—over three times higher than those pregnant without assisted reproductive technologies (about 2.3%) and almost twice the rate found in IVF pregnancies. These risks persist even when controlling for age, health history, and other demographic variables.

* Katy Faust: The adults- intended parents, the surrogate (and if applicable sperm/egg sellers)- are all often very happy with the surrogacy arrangements. But surrogacy always asks children to sacrifice someone they need, deserve, and have a right too.

* This is a retweet of Mars {the style oracle} saying: “part of my calling has always been “talking about my experience as an adoptee at all costs.” many people have NO idea what the average adoptee/surrogate child experiences, especially when separated from the mother. even when separated at birth (or, tbh, ESPECIALLY separated at birth). it can leave an insane void.”

* They proceed to go into it with a whole essay

* even growing up with an objectively good childhood, my attachment issues were insane. 7 years of therapy of several modalities were able to get me to the point where my boyfriend at the time could go out for the night and i wouldn’t be crying and calling him 60 times, begging him to come back because i couldn’t physically get out of the fetal position or move. any hint of abandonment and my body would completely lock up. my life was hell. i could not sleep alone. i made his life hell, too.

* i think this is something to consider when looking at adoption or surrogacy. do i think it would be better for me to not exist at all? no, i think it’s fine that i’m alive. but i wish my parents had looked into attachment issues, that the adoption had been more open, that i had had more than 1 hour of contact with my birth mother before i was thrust into an unfamiliar environment where i didn’t know anyone who looked or acted like me at all.

* there are ways to mitigate this, i believe. one of the biggest ways to address this level of trauma is for any prospective parents to come to terms with the possibility of these issues, and steel themselves emotionally for what their child might come to them with.

* among adoptees, i’m kind of considered a “success story,” in the sense that i didn’t experience reactive attachment very strongly. but it can be a tough road emotionally, and parents need to be ready to LISTEN to their children and other people who are children of adoption and surrogacy.

* Mason: I don’t think all surrogacy is strictly unethical but I do think the birth mother should obviously have an ongoing relationship with the child, something that is apparently unfathomable to most people interested in using a surrogate

* I don’t think there is any way around the fact that carrying a baby is the closest and most intimate relationship between two people that can exist It can never be solely a service, nothing more. That will always be kind of a farce, and I think most people know that deep down

* Ben: This seems reasonable to me. In my ideal world, a surrogate would be a close personal friend.

* Mason: I think this bodes very well actually and pretty dramatically changes my impression of your plans

Is Adoption Actually Screwed Up?

Let’s ask Grok:

Yes, research consistently shows that **adoptees have higher rates of mental health problems** compared to non-adopted children raised in intact biological families. The differences are substantial and persist across countries, study designs, and decades of research.

### Key findings on adoptees vs. non-adoptees

- **Meta-analyses** (e.g., 2021 meta-analysis in *Psychological Medicine* of 62 studies, N > 100,000 adoptees):

- Adoptees are **2–4 times more likely** to have externalizing disorders (ADHD, conduct disorder, substance abuse).

- **2–3 times more likely** for internalizing disorders (depression, anxiety).

- **4–5 times higher risk** of suicide attempts and completed suicide (Swedish total-population studies).

- **Large registry studies** (Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands):

- Even after controlling for parental education, income, and parental psychiatric history, adoptees still show **elevated risk** (odds ratios ~1.5–3.0).

- The risk is **dose-dependent**: international adoptees > domestic infant adoptees > non-adopted.

- **Reasons commonly cited** (not mutually exclusive):

- Prenatal environment (higher rates of maternal substance use, stress).

- Early adversity (institutionalization, foster care placements before adoption).

- Genetic risk (biological parents of children placed for adoption have higher rates of psychiatric disorders).

- Identity struggles and feelings of abandonment in adolescence.

### Egg/embryo donation children vs. adoptees

Children conceived via **donated gametes** (egg, sperm, or embryo) are **not equivalent** to adoptees in mental health outcomes. They generally resemble children conceived naturally within their families.

- **Major studies**:

- UK Millennium Cohort Study & Avon Longitudinal Study (2020s):

- No elevated risk of behavioral problems or psychiatric diagnosis in donor-conceived children compared to naturally conceived peers when raised in stable families.

- Swedish total-population registry (2023, N ≈ 1 million):

- Donor-conceived children had **similar or slightly lower** rates of psychiatric contact than naturally conceived children.

- Meta-analysis (2022, *Fertility and Sterility*):

- No significant differences in emotional/behavioral outcomes between donor-conceived and naturally conceived children up to age 18.

- **Key difference**:

- Donor-conceived children are **planned and wanted** from the start, raised by their intended parents, no separation trauma.

- Adoptees (especially domestic/international) often experience **early separation**, sometimes institutional care or multiple placements.

### Direct comparisons

A few studies directly compare the three groups:

| Group | Relative risk of psychiatric disorder (vs. naturally conceived, same-family) |

|--------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| Naturally conceived | 1.0 (reference) |

| Egg/embryo/sperm donation | 0.9–1.2 (no significant elevation) |

| Domestic infant adoption | 1.5–2.5 |

| International adoption | 2.0–4.0 |

| Late adoption (>12 months) | 3.0–6.0 |

(Compiled from Swedish, Danish, Dutch registry studies 2018–2024)

### Bottom line

- **Adoptees**: Yes, significantly higher mental health risks, even in “best-case” domestic infant adoptions.

- **Egg/embryo donation children**: No elevated risk compared to naturally conceived children; outcomes are essentially identical when raised in stable families.

The difference is driven primarily by **early separation and adversity**, not by “not living with biological parents” per se. Donor-conceived children never experience that separation.

Do children born through surrogacy show higher rates of mental health issues?

No evidence of adverse psychological outcomes for children.

* Medical and mental health implications of gestational surrogacy (2021)

* https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33839094/

* Based on this review, we found no evidence of substantial adverse medical or psychological outcomes among women who are gestational carriers or among the children they give birth to. The literature suggests that gestational surrogacy is a safe and increasingly popular option for families as long as rigorous screening and medical, psychological, and social supports are equitably provided.

The WIRED Article

https://www.wired.com/story/the-baby-died-whose-fault-is-it-surrogate-pregnancy/

The Baby Died. Whose Fault Is It?

When her son died in utero, a venture capitalist went to extremes to punish her surrogate.

* Cindy Bi, a venture capitalist, hired a surrogate to carry her only male embryo. The baby (Leon) died in utero, leading Bi to wage an intensive campaign against the surrogate, Rebecca Smith, including lawsuits, doxing, and regulatory complaints.

* Smith (the surrogate), a single mom, was selected for her profile and underwent extensive vetting; she hoped surrogacy would help pay off debt.

* The pregnancy was complicated by insurance changes, medical stress, and contractual disputes.

* After the baby’s stillbirth at 29 weeks due to placental abruption, Bi pursued multiple legal avenues, blaming Smith for alleged unsafe behaviors and contract breaches, and leveraging her resources for public and private retribution

* Smith faced unemployment, disability, mounting medical debt, legal harassment, and online threats. She suffered severe emotional distress and suicidal thoughts as Bi continued her campaign.Bi later had another child via a different surrogate, who also experienced significant medical complications

* The case exemplifies how lack of regulation, confidentiality, and extreme inequality in surrogacy can turn the “miracle of life” into a venue for trauma, litigation, and financial ruin, with few protections for surrogates.

* https://archive.is/MC8ng

How do Children of Single Fathers Fare?

Family Type

Academic/Emotional/Behavioral Outcomes

Intact Marriages

Highest outcomes, greater stability

Single Fathers

Better than single mothers, below intact

Single Mothers

Slightly lower outcomes than single fathers

Lesbian Mothers

No systematic difference vs. other types

Gay Fathers

Equal or better outcomes vs. other groups

* Children raised by single fathers tend to have somewhat better academic, emotional, and behavioral outcomes than those raised by single mothers, but both groups generally fare less well than children from intact marriages

* Recent well-controlled research broadly finds that children raised by lesbian mothers or gay fathers do not systematically differ in emotional, behavioral, social, or cognitive outcomes compared to those raised in different-sex parent households, once socioeconomic status and family stability are accounted for

One MGTOW’s How-To Guide

* Revy / MGTOW Single Parenting: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IBxfNtZpds8PK8sPiDjKiklSl6NmVE5Zbn4X5JlWtsc/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.pqgrwixwc6rr

* Great resource!

Episode Transcript:

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Malcolm. I’m excited to be with you today because we’re seeing a really good trend, but also it’s complicated in that men are going baby crazy, they’re getting baby fever, but now everyone hates them for it, so screw them.

Right? And this could have exploded across X earlier this week when poor bore Ben Orenstein shared his sentiment. In,

in response to Roy Holland tweeting, I know two guys who are considering having kids via a surrogate because they badly want children but haven’t been able to find partners to do it with.

They’re both extremely successful and love kids. I don’t know what’s going on with dating, but I don’t think it’s just men being non-commitment and women being too picky. To which Ben responded. I’m giving myself about another year before searching for a partner. But we’ll then pursue single fatherhood.

I’m still hopeful it won’t be necessary, but in the end, I can’t allow myself to miss out on raising children. Even having gone this long [00:01:00] without them is agony. So this is the tweet the sparked the storm, which inherently,

Malcolm Collins: but I get. If I didn’t have kids at this stage in my life

Simone Collins: mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: I would be living in an existential agony every day.

And I mean,

Simone Collins: and that’s, isn’t that what women are complaining about? Like, oh, these men, they don’t want kids. Like I just. Wish I could find a man who wants to have kids. And, and here’s a man who’s, who’s saying that not having kids is agony in, in a world of demographic collapse and people not having, it’s

Malcolm Collins: funny, I hear the exact opposite.

I think I hear a lot more men’s who want kids struggling to find a woman who is willing to have kids.

Simone Collins: Well, that’s what shows up in the data for sure. It’s not what shows up in women’s complaints when they’re dating. But in the data, when you look at polling as we’ve covered extensively, it’s men who report wanting to get married and have kids and women don’t.

And certainly also culturally, women talk about the mental load and how women fare better after divorces, whereas men fare worse. And how, you know what, marriage is just a scam for women. So you’re, you’re right. [00:02:00] And, but you know, still, I, I just feel like it’s, in general, it’s great that men want to have kids, but screw them for that.

So. While a lot of people initially responded to his post saying, oh, you know, I hope you find your person. Like, this is, this is wonderful. I’m, I’m sorry you’re struggling with this. Then the criticism came in, which is what X is great for. It’s not as as good since Elon took over because all the super liberal people went to blue Sky and stopped.

You know, all the hate went there, which is a little annoying. I thought it was better with more people. Yeah. We joked

Malcolm Collins: that they ‘cause they trump trapped them in a crystal. Yeah. And that’s blue sky. And now they’re just like yelling Yeah. That nobody could hear them. Banging on the walls of the crystal dimension.

Simone Collins: [00:03:00] Yeah. So, you know, a lot of people were, were supportive, but then some details came out that people found irksome. So one of the biggest problems that came out initially was that in fairness, Ben is only in his words. Kind of committed to monogamy. Someone had posted before I send your profile to a friend.

And just based on the, the water you seem to be swimming in, I have to ask, are you looking for a monogamous relationship to which Ben responded kind of. Gonna add a section about this to my doc shortly. I guess he probably has a marriage bounty. I haven’t found the doc yet. And then Jesse GT weighed in, kind of, I gotta be blunt, as a pregnant lady who has children, this is disqualifying childbearing requires monogamy.

Full stop. Children need a strong partnership. Adults that don’t grasp that family formation comes before. Keeping intimacy options open aren’t cut out for it. To which Ben responded, strong partnerships in [00:04:00] monogamy are not the same, and people confuse this to their extreme detriment. So already there’s disagreement that it’s not true

right

Malcolm Collins: away.

They, they are highly correlated. Like, but I’d also point out here, and this, this is one of these, you know, poly things and so you always are like, and they’re like, you can be just as committed to your partner. As a monogamous couple.

Simone Collins: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: And it’s like you really actually can’t, if you are having to split your commitment, especially if you have kids with someone between multiple families Yeah.

You are not actually dedicated to that person. Yeah. But it’s, it’s more than that. It is that once you, and this is the thing, I don’t think that this should be disqualifying for him because I’ve seen it over and over and over again. When, when people who. Are sort of committed to polyamory or even quite committed to polyamory, have children that commitment evaporates really quickly, especially for guys.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Because they’re, as, as we’ve covered extensively, their testosterone plummets. This was recently tested to I think, a new research as well that showed just how much testosterone plummets after men have kids. And yeah, [00:05:00] then they just have less of a desire to go out and, and have you know, a lot of.

Additional partners. I would also though, I, I would say that there, I, there is a little bit of, of criticism that I think is due to Ben because if you really do wanna prioritize having kids and most women aren’t really comfortable having kids outside of a monogamous marriage you might need to let that go for a little bit and, and, and maybe renegotiate later in your marriage.

When you got married to me this was something we discussed. I think you certainly like Ben, going into the concept of marriage. Did not intend to be monogamous. In fact, for a while, yeah. Before we got married, you were like, oh, Simone will be my side piece after I get married. That was like, I, I really think it was something you were entertaining mentally because I think it’s just something that men at that age will entertain.

But then when we got serious and when we got committed, I was like, listen, like I’m not comfortable with an open relationship or a monogamous relationship, and you respected that. And then it was [00:06:00] after I felt more secure in myself, and then in our relationship there was like, dude, I don’t care. You do what you wanna do.

Like, I’m confident enough in myself that I don’t think that you are having. And by that time I was

Malcolm Collins: like, I don’t

Simone Collins: see the point anymore. See, and that’s the thing. And so it all resolves itself. But the thing is, is that you knew what your priorities were. Your priority was having a family and having kids.

And a and, and to get that, that’s

Malcolm Collins: actually a great way to put it. Yeah. When we got married, I still wanted to sleep with other people.

Simone Collins: But you didn’t because you had something you wanted more.

Malcolm Collins: I have

Simone Collins: the thing I working more and here’s him saying I don’t, I’m not willing to concede on that, which is a signal that he isn’t as committed as.

He should be if he actually, if, if having, if not having kids is actually agony to him. Should I just wanna for audience,

Malcolm Collins: basically you knew that I wanted to sleep with other people. Yeah. I

Simone Collins: found

Malcolm Collins: other women

Simone Collins: attracted explicitly. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I decided not to. Yeah. Because you were more important. My

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Family was more important than that.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And then one day you come to me and you’re like, you know what? I’m feeling very secure. And if you, if you, if that’s still [00:07:00] something that would make you happy. You can do that if you want to. And I was like, well, I don’t really want to do it anymore. Maybe that’s why you feel secure.

Simone Collins: And still, still, I think again. You gotta put your money where your mouth is. And, and that is, that is an issue. Still though, I, I wanna point out it wasn’t just people, hold

Malcolm Collins: on, hold on, hold on, hold on. I wanna point something out here. So,

Simone Collins: all right.

Malcolm Collins: You’ve got people like me who are like, not that dedicated to the polyamorous lifestyle, but I wanna talk because, you know, we’ve had ‘em on the show and it’s, this is a pretty documented change of theirs.

You know, like, Joffrey Miller and, what’s her face? Diana

Simone Collins: Fleischman.

Malcolm Collins: Diana Fleischman. They’re married. They have kids now, and they have things that they have like written on, like the philosophy of like polyamory, right? Like if you go back to some of their earlier works like this is, they, they weren’t just like polyamorous.

They were like the promoters of it, right? And now they are. I, I think quietly and eventually likely publicly moving towards a much more monogamous structure that they have

Simone Collins: kids, oh, they’re raising kids. I mean, like, these things ebb and flow and, and that’s how you should treat it. But anyway there, there were plenty of [00:08:00] people who still nevertheless were supportive.

Captain Weak Hands said, my baby sister was born via surrogacy and we had a. Lasting close relationship, not only with the surrogate but her family as well. I’ve yet to hear from a surrogacy critic with any lived experience. And then Aria and DeMar said my neighbor loved being a surrogate. I’m pretty conservative, but don’t see how surrogacy is any different than infant adoption.

The surrogate is often using someone else’s eggs, wants what’s wrong with gae donation. Humans have been raising a non-biological offspring for a very long time. But then the critics came in again Ben, a different Ben said Dude is almost ready to give up on his wife’s search and buy a baby. But he is looking for monogamous relationship, kind of.

Sure, being a dad is the greatest thing, but buying a baby. Dark, earn the love of a good woman and turn that love into kids. And then most, so Ben was a male critic here, but most of the critics here were actually women, which I think [00:09:00] is just notable Schrodinger’s lesbian chimed in to say, women

Malcolm Collins: be mad that men have

Simone Collins: other options.

Yeah, exactly. Chimed in to say another reason why I changed my position on surrogacy. These people do not care about the welfare of the babies or mothers. To them, a baby is a mere commodity. Emma O’Connor, I have seen

Malcolm Collins: nothing that suggested he

Simone Collins: feels that way. No, absolutely not. No, no, because he, he’s saying not having kids as agony for him.

Right. Emma O’Connor. Chimes in to say I changed my position as well. Ben is acting like he’s owed a child. Victoria. No,

Malcolm Collins: no. Hold on. These women are the reason why. This is the thing where, where the dudes may get out there, conservative man.

Simone Collins: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: Or like surrogacy or surrogate, surrogacy, evil, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I, I understand surrogacy is not sustainable. I, I wouldn. You know, I don’t think it’s the greatest thing ever. However I am very confused when it’s like, but you know that there are not enough good women for the good men in this world. Like when I was taking every guy who I thought was like mentally sane and stable and had a good job and would be a great dad I would [00:10:00] bet there are probably double the amount of them as there are women that would match them.

Or at least a third

Simone Collins: one. Well, yeah, and we’re not even in China, you know, it’s like literally fewer women. And then the few that exist as, as see our episode on like dating in China falling apart like realistically. Yeah, continue. What, what, what I, I don’t have quotes from, because I just didn’t wanna even delve into this, but like there are also little sub conversations within this whole storm about women being like, you know, and women should have the right to abort and all this.

And so like, women are complaining about this man, quote unquote, buying a baby. But then they’re also being like, and I have the right to kill babies whenever I want. You know, if it’s my body, my choice, and I’m just like, ah. Like I don’t, you’re casting judgment in a weird way. Another woman Victoria, wrote the problem.

The problem people have is that these babies are created with the purpose of being adopted for money, not the adoption itself. So people are really uncomfortable with the idea of surrogacy [00:11:00] and men paying for babies. But again, so here’s, here’s where men are right now. They’re being put in this position where there aren’t women who are willing to embark on a relationship with them, especially if they’re not willing to do exactly the type of relationship that these women want.

And then when they just choose to then find a way to. Put money to the problem and solve it. You know, pay someone to help them make this happen, then they get charted for that as well. Then Eric weighed in to say, donating eggs is dangerous for the woman donating the donor and surrogate both take on high doses of hormones.

The egg removal procedure can cause ovarian scarring. Leave the egg donor infertile, surrogate pregnancies have three times the complication rate and can cause health issues. Now this is interesting, and this is something that I as a man who would be considered considering surrogacy would be like, oh wait, what’s this?

So I did look into it. I didn’t, I didn’t know this, but I asked both grok and perplexity if, if gestational surrogacy pregnancies have higher rates of [00:12:00] complications and if there’s a reporting bias at play. ‘cause I imagine that there would be.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: And long, long story short, yeah, actually multiple large studies and recent meta-analyses that, that.

Would control for these things indicate that gestational carriers experience substantially like three x An increase in your body

Malcolm Collins: is designed to hold your

Simone Collins: children. Right, exactly. That, that’s, that’s what people think. Yeah. That, that the, the primary theory is that this is not your genetic material and therefore.

Yeah, there there’s gonna be problems and studies looked at large numbers of pregnancies. So there was one Canadian study that reviewed over 863,000 births, and they found that gestational surrogates have a 7.8% rate of severe maternal complications. So like one out 10. You as a surrogate are gonna have a severe complication.

That’s, that’s pretty serious.

Malcolm Collins: I understand that. People are like, that’s pretty serious. That’s pretty big, but that’s one out of 10 for, you know, and then nine out of 10 bring a healthy baby into this world that lives an entire [00:13:00] life. Right? Like the, the, the denying someone of life. Is a big, big thing to do.

Yeah. And to say that, well, the woman risked her health so that you could, of course that’s a, that is a very sane trade off one person’s health for another person’s life. Right.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That’s actually, it’s, so that’s a really good point because another, another person was pointing out that like their issue with this was the adoption part.

Katie Faust wrote The adults Intended Parents, the Surrogate and If App applicable. The sperm and egg sellers are all often very happy with the surrogacy arrangements, but surrogacy always asks children to sacrifice someone they need, deserve, and have the right to, to which this, this, basically this person called Mars, the style Oracle.

Said part of my calling has always been talking about my experience as an adoptee at all costs. Many people have no idea what the average adoptee slash surrogate child experience is, especially when separated from the mother. Especially when [00:14:00] separated at birth, it can leave an insane void.

They proceeded to go into this whole essay on how miserable they were, and I just wanna show you like how, how like messed up this person is, but even they are really glad that they’re alive still, and that’s the point. But they wrote, even growing up with an objectively good childhood, my attachment issues were insane.

Seven years of therapy of several modalities were able to get me to the point. When my boyfriend at the time could go out for the night and I wouldn’t be crying and calling him 60 times, begging him to come back because I couldn’t physically get out of the fetal position or move. This is her,

Malcolm Collins: did she do, this is the therapy that’s causing this nonsense.

This is, I know, right? Behavior. It’s

Simone Collins: probably, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: This is, I, I, as I said, like. Of all of the things that happened to me in my childhood, the least traumatic was boarding school. And yet there are entire communities of people who are, who will have these things. Like, oh, I had to leave my family. And I felt, oh, and it was so terrible.

And I’m like, boarding

Simone Collins: school dude. There’s, there’s a trauma support group for everything. There’s a trauma support group for the people who discover [00:15:00] siblings of, you know, IVF donors that they find sexually attractive and they’re like, ah, now I’m traumatized ‘cause I’m attracted to my brother. This is actually

Malcolm Collins: really messing with me because you get people saying this.

Yeah. And I think it’s a disgusting thing to say when people say a child deserves two parents, I’m like, it would be great if children got two parents. Right? But yeah. There are very few people on this planet who would say,

Simone Collins: I’d rather not live.

Malcolm Collins: I would not be alive.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Than have. Well, and this person wrote, they said, do I think it would be better for me to not exist at all?

No, I think it’s fine that I’m alive. Well still, but they’re, they’re glad they exist and they just, they’re just trying to raise awareness about this. And I do wanna like,

Malcolm Collins: no, no, no, no, no. This isn’t a small point. This. Because I get this within conservative communities all the time, and people act like they’re saying something that is sane and good when they are not.

They are saying something that is evil and shortsighted. They are saying that [00:16:00] certain humans should have life denied to them. If they can’t live life within this person’s preferred parameters.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That is a disgusting thing to say. And, and you go out there and you think, you look cool saying this, you don’t look cool.

You look like a psychopath because,

Simone Collins: well, and let’s, if we look at the research, if

Malcolm Collins: we look at the.

Simone Collins: Malcolm, you’ve made your

Malcolm Collins: point right to life is equivalent in value to the right, to having two parents. And these two things are not equivalent in value at all. Not not

Simone Collins: to

Malcolm Collins: any living human.

Simone Collins: They’re not. But you’ve made your point.

So in, in, in terms of men being like, listen, I’m just gonna make t be a single father. Like, let’s actually look at this though. Yes, adoptees and we’re talking adoptees you know, do, do have higher rates of mental health problems, but there’s a lot of reasons why that’s the case. You know, like the people who give children up for adoption often have a lot of issues.

You know, maybe. Their mothers were on drugs or, or, you know, had alcohol problems and also all sorts of other things really [00:17:00] complicated. But yeah, absolutely. Adoptees have higher rates of mental health problems compared to non adopt children. However, children conceive via donated gametes are not equivalent to adoptees from mental health comes.

They, they, they basically resemble children conceived na naturally. So all these people who are trying to equate. This, this guy’s decision to have a child via surrogacy to a child via adoption? No. Like the, this is totally not fair comparison. Yeah. Also, and also there is

Malcolm Collins: not a big negative effect for single parents if the single parent is a male.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah. So, there’s, there’s that too. So how do shingle children of single fathers fair? So obviously the highest outcomes with greatest stability come from intact marriages. And that. It, it really is. I, it helps a lot to have two parents. There’s no systematic difference when it’s lesbian mothers once they control for a lot of factors.

Yeah, yeah, sure. Same for, same for gay fathers, though. The [00:18:00] data shows that the outcomes are equal or better for gay fathers, and then single fathers are better than single mothers, but they are below intact marriages. But here’s the thing is that. Ben, the original Ben of the, of this thread and the storm wants to find a partner and he says that even if he does take this path of having a child via gestational surrogacy.

He is going to hopefully find a life partner eventually and raise the child with them. In the interim, he plans on having a lot of help. He wants to have just even for starters, a full-time live-in nanny. Which of course made everyone freak out even more because. He doesn’t plan on raising the child all by himself.

But then of course if he said he was gonna raise a child all by himself within a nanny, people would be like, the child needs more support than that. So like, there’s nothing that he can do. Right. And I think this is the thing is we have a decent number of MGTOW people in this, in this audience. Many, many of whom have we know for a fact had their kids on their own, who are planning [00:19:00] to have kids on their own and don’t wait for approval from society, basically, like no matter what you do.

You are going to be derated and this whole Twitter storm around Ben absolutely shows that

Malcolm Collins: We’ve had fans of the show reach out to us about their journey on this, and we’re gonna go over one because he goes over all the finances of doing it and everything, and it was really cool.

Simone Collins: Yeah. In fact, let’s, let’s just dive into that because I, I think he created a really cool guide.

So one, we have obviously like the, the, the coolest audience ever. And one of our audience members he goes by re. He’s a meg tail and he created after going through the process himself, he now has a newborn or maybe a little bit older than that now, who he had through surrogacy. We’re gonna, he created a surrogacy guide, a Google doc, which we will share.

I’ll, I’ll put it in the description of this video. And on the Substack and Patreon. It is called a Revy Surrogacy Guide for Single Men. And he has his son, I think he plans on having more kids. And he goes [00:20:00] over the whole process of how to do it. And actually affordably. This is, we’ve, we’ve done a lot of looking into surrogacy.

We have friends who are trying to go through the surrogacy process. This is the best guide that I have seen because we’ve also, like, really, we, we’ve had friends who’ve struggled, desperately spent. Tens of thousands of dollars just in their search for a surrogate in the us Yeah. And Re’s just nailed it.

And now we’re sharing re’s guide with our friends personally. ‘cause we’re like, okay,

Malcolm Collins: I, I love it. Re’s guide. No, we need make this a thing in the community. Yeah. How

Simone Collins: would to have

Malcolm Collins: kids on your own

Simone Collins: Re’s guide? Re’s guide, so he, he, he writes at the very beginning, my kid is born, he’s super durable to, and fun to cuddle and hold.

I’m planning to have at least two more like, good for you, Revy. We are so

Malcolm Collins: good for you.

Simone Collins: Excited.

Malcolm Collins: I, I, I think, you know, as a single dad, three kids, it, it’s gonna get harder, you know, if you’re a single dad. Yeah. But if you face it out, the kids can help and Yeah. They’ll appreciate helping. They’re, they’re growing up in like a total.

The thing is, is I think in previous generations. If you, as a single dad told your kid, look, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t find a [00:21:00] woman sane enough to be your mom. Mm-hmm. A lot of kids would be like, well, then you didn’t try hard enough. Or, you know, whatever. I think a lot of boys growing up in today’s environment, you know, when they get to middle school and they get to high school, they’re like, dad, I hear you.

Like,

Simone Collins: yeah. Well, and we have, we’ve, we’ve, yeah, we’ve plenty of, of parents, of, of teen kids, men and, and women, young men and women who are both like, I can’t be bothered to date. Like, it’s too much of a liability. So I appreciate that Revy starts off as guy just saying, listen, for single men that don’t want kids, they don’t want kids.

But for the ones that do want kids, there’s a way to do it without. The, any of the downsides of dating slash marriage and no risk of having kids taken away and or indoctrinated. So he goes through the process and he, he says, assuming you don’t want international surrogacy, here are the logistics.

$65,000 for the whole process as the 2025. That is a fraction of what we’ve seen through. Like, we’ll say mainstream leading American [00:22:00] surrogacy agencies, by the way, which are at least $120,000. So Rey’s already saving a lot of money for people. He says, add an extra 10,000 for travel expenses, some optional legal expenses, some optional medical expenses.

The whole process takes about a year. If anyone asks, you just took a one week vacation, followed by a one month vacation, a year later. That is incredible because he’s also apparently then doing this kind of on the down low. And I think that’s the smart way to go. As we can see from this Twitter storm with Ben, like Ben got de fenestrated Revy didn’t, you know, he’s just quietly building his family and maybe kind of what’s going on with male single fatherhood is it’s a bad two pay problem.

Like you see it when it goes terribly wrong. Same with the surrogacy thing. So what happened most recently? In terms of public discourse about surrogacy was wired, released to this article that just really threw surrogacy under the bus as, as a, a thing to do because it was about this really prominent venture [00:23:00] capitalist named Cindy by in Silicon Valley, who hired two surrogates to carry children for her.

And sadly, she lost one of one of her babies during the pregnancy. One of her surrogates experienced a stillbirth at 29 weeks, and Cindy just went after this woman publicly, online, legally, is just trying to destroy her. And this is a woman who chose to become a surrogate in the United States to pay off debts.

She was a vulnerable person. And part of the stress that she went through, like throughout this pregnancy was she changed jobs. You know, she was having trouble with medical insurance because, you know, the, the surrogacy wasn’t covering like her, her, I

Malcolm Collins: thought you said this is bs It was a bad instance.

Like, like

Simone Collins: something bad happened. That’s the bad to pay things. So when, when you hear about surrogacy and when you hear about per parents going through surrogacy, you hear these nightmares, you don’t hear about the rees. And that’s why it’s so crazy. He’s,

Malcolm Collins: My brother and his wife this is, you know, pretty public knowledge.

They sold and built one of the [00:24:00] largest IVF clinics in the United States. My little brother, mind you just to rub in the salt here I haven’t built a giant international company yet. Anyway, so they built this giant IVF business, and so they work a lot with surrogates and they know a lot of surrogates and they’re like, you know, we’ve got surrogates where it’s like their ninth time or whatever, right?

Like. This doesn’t have no,

Simone Collins: there’s a, there’s a limit to the number of times a, a

Malcolm Collins: circuit, I can’t remember how many times, but they’re like, it’s, it’s often repeat people. This is not a lot of people having negative experiences and the surrogates have a lot of control. You know, we’ve had friends who’ve tried to get this and, and no surrogates has chosen them, right?

Like, they’re just like, yeah, I’m not interested.

Simone Collins: No. Yeah, no. Yeah. Typ typically surrogates have a lot of choice. Surrogates are, are almost always mothers who typically are married. So they just, you know, they, they have very stable lives. It was unusual that the surrogate in the Cindy BI case who experienced a stillbirth and was attacked was a single mother.

Normally they’re married, they have kids, they’re super happy. It’s extra money for them, and they consider it a service that really, you know, helps other people. And that’s, yes. But anyway, let’s go back to re’s guide. So the [00:25:00] process and, basic thing that he goes through is if you decide to do surrogacy, you are referred to as an intended parent.

You pick an agency, this is a business that takes your money and then manages all the details of the surrogacy process. They have a medical clinic that they work with, a roster of egg donors and a roster of surrogates. So you pick your egg don. He says, at least for foreign countries, they’re pretty much guaranteed eights, nines and tens.

Mm-hmm. No matter the metric. I’m MinMax for IQ plus work ethic, so I found someone who was a 10 based on education and career and a seven based on looks. There are some fives in there, but there’s no reason to pick them, obviously. He says, including this comment, the census is super important to you.

White nationalist racists. Most large surrogacy agencies have ton of European donors since they’re typically located in large international cities. There’s lots of wealthy immigrants and foreign students. Also, white people tend to make up the majority of upper class and Latin American countries, so even if they’re nominally has.

Hispanic, they’re ethnically white. You can also pick [00:26:00] frozen eggs in the US or whatever country with frozen egg bans, banks and have them shipped in. I love the heat because you know, there there is that subset that’s like, wow,

Malcolm Collins: there is, you

Simone Collins: gotta,

Malcolm Collins: you gotta work it for everyone. Yeah,

Simone Collins: yeah, yeah, yeah. So that’s the next step.

Flying to deposit, to deposit. For YouTube, I’ll also genetic material. If anyone asks, you’re just taking a one week vacation. Then there’s egg extraction, IVF surrogate match and implantation takes about three months, followed by a nine month pregnancy. You don’t actually have to do anything at this stage.

And that’s key because a lot of people will get this impression that you’re supposed to like communicate with and micromanage your surrogate, which is what Cindy BI did, for example, and that’s probably the worst thing you can do. It’s a

Malcolm Collins: bad thing. Like

Simone Collins: don’t Yeah, don’t do that. Don’t, don’t do that. Do what Revy did.

If you want, you can pay a few thousand dollars extra to do a genetic test to make sure the kid doesn’t have any super messed up diseases. It also allows you to choose by

Malcolm Collins: the genetic testing now, which really changes a lot of the science around this. Mm-hmm. So in China for the first time. A child was going to have an extra pair of [00:27:00] chromosomes, so it was going to have Down Syndrome, and they were able to remove this extra pair of chromosomes.

And so far everything’s proceeding perfectly healthily. Yeah. And what this means, you know, as this technology proliferates, because you know you have access to it now if you have money.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: If you have a child with Down syndrome now that is a choice. That is a, a, a choice.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, but also if you’re doing IVF typically, you know, you can screen for that anyway.

Also, you could do polygenic

Malcolm Collins: risk for selection. No, no, no, no, no. I mean, even from a Catholic perspective. ‘cause the Catholic would say,

Simone Collins: oh yeah,

Malcolm Collins: I’m not going to screen. I don’t need to know this stuff because I’m gonna use every embryo I create Anyway.

Simone Collins: If the child, yeah. But here, if the child has down syndrome, you can un down syndrome them.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Yeah. The point here being is that you, and, and you’ll have to explain that to your kid. You’re gonna be like, I could have had you without Down syndrome, but, but my vanity, the, the, the aesthetics of your birth and doing it the quote unquote natural way.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I chose to have you in a way that will shorten your life.

Fan, you’re welcome. You’re welcome. And reduce your independence, you’re

Malcolm Collins: think changes a lot of the moral

Simone Collins: argument. It does. [00:28:00] People, how much we should do a separate episode on that. Let me finish this up though. Okay. Okay,

Malcolm Collins: okay.

Simone Collins: Okay. Thank you. Because we’re running outta time. So next up he obviously, so he’s saying you can do genetic testing.

We would encourage polygenic risk score selection because if you’re gonna, you know, in, for diamond, for dollar, especially if you’re saving this much money by doing it in a place like Mexico, like he did. I think this is, you know, a great way to go. Then he says, approaching nine months, you go on a one to two month vacation to the country be there for the birth of your child and handle the legal paperwork, getting the US citizenship for your child, finalizing the birth certificate and while raising your child than then you fly back to the US two weeks later.

Why it’s better to do this in a foreign country. In the US it’s $150,000 or more, which is totally what reflects what we’ve seen and what we know from Malcolm’s family connections in the industry. If you’re willing to do a little extra paperwork in traveling, you can save $75,000. That’s $75,000 you can leave to your child.

Surrogacy agencies in the US , just don’t have their acts together. Long wait lists for [00:29:00] surrogates. Surrogates aren’t pre-screened. This is actually a really important point is that Miles’, brother and sister pointed out that they found many surrogacy agencies ‘cause they ran, one did not rigorously background checks.

So women might attest to something that wasn’t true at all and no one checked. Like they’d be like, oh, I went to Harvard. No one checked Harvard for transcripts. They did, but, but they found that basically other people just didn’t. So you don’t really know what you’re getting in the US which is really scary.

Anyway he goes on mostly because of the supply demand balance in the US There are more intended parents, so you get the wait list and less screening for surrogates Overseas, there are more surrogates, so there’s no wait list and surrogate screening and requirements are way higher, so you’re getting better quality basically.

In lower cost. He continues, depending on the country, your kid gets an extra passport. They will get their passport from the foreign country through birth soil. Also the US passport through inheritance. It will also significantly reduce your timeline to citizenship if you want to pursue [00:30:00] it, basically reverse anchor baby.

That’s really cool and I’d never thought about that. Isn’t that interesting?

Malcolm Collins: Yes,

Simone Collins: he says Better healthcare. Most non-Western countries have a parallel public healthcare and private healthcare system. The public system is obviously bad. The private healthcare system is as good or better than the US system and even uninsured costs or fraction of the US insured copay.

And that was a key plot point of the whole Cindy by debacle with her surrogacy that the Wired covered is that. The health insurance that the circuit had fell through, and then there was this concern about who’s gonna pay for healthcare bills now that like she has to switch and oh my gosh, what’s gonna happen?

And she wasn’t getting really good healthcare and all these things in, in a country like Mexico, you can just afford it. Like, it’s fine, it’s not a problem.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: He goes on. If you’re capable of working remotely or you have parental leave, I would recommend staying in the foreign country longer to take advantage of cheap but high quality private healthcare and childcare [00:31:00] maybe even indefinitely, at least for the first few months.

It’s not like you’re gonna have time to work anyway. Now. I mean, I would beg to differ. We work through all of our newborn phases, but also we’re on number five for this specific country. At the moment of writing this, it’s Columbia, Mexico, or Argentina. Previously it was Ukraine. India and Thailand expect the country to change depending on the political situation of the world.

When one country bans it, another country legalizes it, but guaranteed at least one country will allow it. Just to find that one country. Re’s done his research. I I just really love this guide. Legal safety worries about the egg donor or surrogate claiming child support. All the egg donor knows is that they donated eggs.

They, they’re not told anything about you. They will not even know the child exists, as in they’re not told their eggs resulted in children. As for the surrogate, they will know that the child is born. Obviously, you’re allowed to talk with them. For whatever, but you don’t have to. If you want, you can cut the surrogate off completely after the child is born.

You also don’t have the to [00:32:00] reveal anything about yourself. All communication is facilitated by the agency to ensure that neither of you does anything stupid. If she tries to threaten you, the agency will just tell her, yeah, we’re not gonna pass on your threat. Surrogate mother’s name will not be on the birth certificate.

The result is the birth certificate with only one name, yours. The D-N-N-T-S test is taken after the birth surrogate is required to already have at least one child as well as a husband, and that’s obviously not the case in the us. Again, much better to do it in the Mex. In Mexico we did it, at least for now.

Malcolm Collins: No, I think it’s, by the way, I think it’s technically illegal to do it in Mexico.

Simone Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins: you’re an American citizen. Mm. That’s why you have to hide a lot of this.

Simone Collins: I don’t, I don’t know because he worked with an agency, so I don’t think so. Okay. And he can suggest agencies, people DM us if you want his email.

Also his email’s in the guide. Currently it’s a Google doc, so he might change it if he gets flooded, but you can DM us partly to make sure she has a track record of giving birth successfully, partly because she loves the child she already has. So it reduces the probability she’ll develop an attachment to the child.

Note that this is not a requirement for [00:33:00] surrogates in the US as a result. Of the supply demand balance. Again, US risky, don’t do sur in the us You’re right. Yeah. It’s,

Malcolm Collins: it’s not illegal. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Okay. There you go. So it’s fine. In Mexico, surrogates go through a ton of health screening once when being accepted as a surrogate and another after matching note that surrogate in the us, surrogates in the US are only screened once they are matched as a result of the supply demand imbalance.

Again, I’m like, oh my gosh. Screw, screw surrogacy in the us. Oh, screw it. Yeah. And then he, he has additional tips on like, well, should do, have a kid through surrogacy. Well, so, so what, how much does it cost total to do it in Mexico? So he, he actually, yeah, he, he has a cost breakdown. My own opinion is that the cost of surrogacy is very little.

Obviously, $70,000 is a lot of money by itself. That was what he said. Basically, legal fees was $10,000, and then the surrogacy itself and, and egg donation, everything, everything is $60,000. Isn’t that incredible? Yeah. But he, $60,000. For versus 150 in the us. I’m just like so shocked. Yeah, because I was like, that’s what it is in the us.

Direct cost [00:34:00] of raising a child. $300,000. Although obviously there are minimalist methods. Colleges around $200,000 though obviously there are alternatives. Reduction in income from spending time at home or public school. $200,000 reduction in income from spending time at home Homeschool. A million dollars, assuming homeschool and saving for college, the total cost is $1.5 million.

So $75,000 is really basically nothing. He’s basically saying like surrogacy versus, you know, like, I don’t know, getting a baby mama or something. But I mean, that also has its own risks and expenses as any Meg child will tell you. So, I mean, as Ravi points out, surrogacy is a really smart way to go, especially if you’re doing it in a place right now like Mexico.

And he also points out that like if you’re rich, basically, like there’s no reason not to do this. Like if, if you care even marginally about kids.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: And he has addit. It’s, there’s a ton more in this guide. He’s. Sort of thoughts on raising kids, how to decide if you want kids, you know, sort of thought experiments, things to [00:35:00] consider.

You know, he, he even has a section on pragmatic philosophy, ethics and public perception. It’s, it’s, it’s a great guide. So again, check it out in the, in the links. But yeah, I mean, in general, here’s where I stand. Like it’s very clear from this, this Twitter storm that. Men going their own way and having kids are gonna be demonized, but also men going their own way who wanna have kids who are conscientious enough to go through this process and raise kids on their own are gonna do a bang up job on average.

Way better I think, than probably, you know, a lot of single women. ‘cause I think a lot of single women really take this for granted and like ex expect, they expect kind of the state and their family and their friends to kind of come in and just swoop in and save things. Whereas men, no one’s gonna help them.

And so they are forced to be more conscientious and we’re, we’re good parents. I think there’s, they’re better forcing functions I think with equally competent people. Like if, if I were me, Simone, the female, raising a, a single child, I think I’d be a worse parent than if I were [00:36:00] me, Simon, the man raising a single child, like same me, just like different gender.

So, just, just do it. Just do it. Read the guide. Yeah. Don’t, don’t tweet about it if you don’t wanna get hate. ‘cause poor Ben, man. I don’t, I mean, I poor being bad.

Malcolm Collins: They just wanna have kids, you know. Well, the thing that I love, and this become popular online these days for when, like attractive girls are streaming and stuff.

Mm-hmm. They, people post a picture of the, the rabbit from alice in

Simone Collins: Wonderland,

Malcolm Collins: Alice in Wonderland, pointing to a clock. Oh God. And then they’ve also started putting a picture of Nick Fuentes pointing to a giant clock to be like, your time’s running out the world runs around fertility. Now people, people understand,

Simone Collins: oh my God, you’re holding

Malcolm Collins: your little parasite.

You see our parasites come out looking like us. It’s so weird.

Simone Collins: Yeah, one of my gay college friends recently had a newborn just around the time that like one month before Tex was born, Tex here. And it’s so fun to see his posts. Like I, I, I can’t tell if he has a partner or if he’s being a single.

I think he’s being a single dad [00:37:00] actually. And it’s just really fun. Like I, I’m realizing that that single dads who have their kids through surrogacy. They’re doing a bang up job. Their kids are adorable and they’re happy, and I, I kind of wonder if we’re seeing a silent revolution of single men, gay or otherwise, having kids.

Who are just gonna like, take over the world. Like this is the new, this is Patriarchy 2.0,

Malcolm Collins: patriarch.

Simone Collins: It’s big top patriarchy. They’re gonna build the future.

Malcolm Collins: My parents got divorced when I was young. I lived sometimes with my dad, sometimes with my mom. I’d always like living with a single dad is actually pretty effing dope.

That sounds ‘cause they cry parent very differently than single moms do. Yeah. They actually don’t really care what you do that much. They’re just like, yeah, do whatever you want to do. And as a kid. That’s really fun.

Simone Collins: That’s what you want. Also, like that’s, that’s where we, I think, well also, as is pointed out in the data men parent more today than they ever have before.

Like I think society has pushed everyone toward [00:38:00] high touch helicopter parenting. So now probably the kind of parenting that you’re getting from a man or single dad, whatever, married or otherwise is. More akin to what you would get from a full-time housewife in the fifties, which is the perfect balance.

You, they, they nurture more than they ever have before just because of high societal standards.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: But they are, by the nature of their gender, on average, more likely to be more chill, which is desperately needed. So yeah, I agree with you. I mean, like if I were born to a single parent now and I had to choose, like Mgtow dad versus wake ow mom. I would probably choose mgtow dad. Yeah. So not that we, we know, we know we town moms who are absolutely crushing it as well, but like,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Well, you are awesome. I love you Simone for dinner tonight. Do you have more of the sauce that we need to cook down for

Simone Collins: no

Malcolm Collins: Mongolian beef?

Simone Collins: So, would you like some Bullock? Would you like some I [00:39:00]

Malcolm Collins: would love

Simone Collins: some beef, chicken, some What

Malcolm Collins: If that’s, if is beef Flo Maine too hard for you to make tonight?

Simone Collins: I can make you beef lomain. With

Malcolm Collins: extra chives ‘cause we’ve got so many extra.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. We gotta use those chives. Okay. I’ll make you beef flamin.

I just have to remember to soak the noodles first. It’s so weird to soak the noodles in cold water for 10 minutes and then boil them. Don’t

Malcolm Collins: overuse soy sauce.

Simone Collins: I won’t. I’m gonna, I’m just gonna, likem gonna have soy sauce and I’m gonna double oyster sauce. Just,

Malcolm Collins: No. What I would do is have soy sauce and then add in hoisin sauce because the oyster sauce might end up tasting too fishy and

Simone Collins: hoisin sauce.

Okay. So then instead of, okay. Yeah. Instead of doubling oyster sauce, I’ll, I’ll do oyster sauce and then the same amount of hoisin.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: How about that? Okay. Well,

Malcolm Collins: I’ll

Simone Collins: f**k

Malcolm Collins: maybe, maybe two thirds or half the amount of poison. ‘cause hoisin has a stronger taste and so oyster sauce.

Simone Collins: Okay, then Okay. Yeah, half.

Malcolm Collins: Thank you.

Simone Collins: I

Malcolm Collins: love you. Love you. Good episode.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Fascinating stuff. Also, re’s guide is just,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, I really appreciate that somebody did this [00:40:00]

Simone Collins: and I’m really happy for him. Well,

Malcolm Collins: his kid’s gonna appreciate it, I’ll tell you that.

Simone Collins: Well, and, but, and also the additional kids he’s gonna have, hopefully, God willing, I really hope he, he, he’s got, I mean, but he seems to really act together.

So I’ll tell you

Malcolm Collins: guys a guy, babies, I hate. Well, he

Simone Collins: supposed to be nailing it. You’re not a

Malcolm Collins: does, but I’m telling you what, when your kids get a little bit older, like

Simone Collins: it

Malcolm Collins: gets much

Simone Collins: better.

Malcolm Collins: You’re fantastic because then you’re not worried about them dying anymore, like year two or three. They have like personalities and stuff, but then you’re like, oh my God, it, I made a human.

Like I love babies. The heck,

Simone Collins: I love babies. Anyway, okay, gotta run. Love you.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, so here’s what I wanted to ask you. Okay. And sort of the, the pre part of this episode, okay?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Kid names that we’re thinking about for our next kid, so our fans can give us some advice. ‘cause we’re actually struggling with this one. And maybe you guys will be like, oh, this is Ed. Here’s the right name.

Okay,

Simone Collins: we were gonna do Rex Dyson. But it turns out that that’s way too basic.

Malcolm Collins: Well, you’re afraid because if you met another kid in our [00:41:00] generation called Rex, I mean like the young person,

Simone Collins: well there there’s also a kid named Tex at at Octavian school, but I don’t really care as much ‘cause it, it’s a cool name.

Whereas Rex, as someone pointed out to us, sounds like a millennial trendy name, whereas text is more timeless. And also text is is kind of a family name. So there, there are lots of reasons why we like text for reasons that are timeless and it’s not seen as a trendy millennial name Rex is. So we just had to drop it

Malcolm Collins: right next.

Tus. I love cus I love the name Tus. Tus is a famous Roman who wrote sort of the western version of Zus Art of War is where our word tactics comes from. And we could do like Tus Dyson we’re, we’re quite like Dyson as a middle name. But there were some other op options I had for middle names.

I don’t remember. For tus, what, do you remember what they were?

Simone Collins: No, I don’t. But other names that we have and, and like Kaiser, Kaiser, Bismarck, Hadian you always, you, you recommended igneous [00:42:00] many times. But I don’t quite like it. We’re saving Artis for a girl.

Malcolm Collins: You really like Artis for a girl.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: art Janus was the first thing we wanted for a kid, but I moved away from it because I don’t know. You guys can tell us if you think Art Janus is a bad name.

Simone Collins: It was the, the former

Malcolm Collins: capitalist, the girl that we’re having, and I’m very convinced on this. Crypta

Simone Collins: Crypta,

Malcolm Collins: no, the Spartan practice of going out and having to live on your own.

Simone Collins: And kill some hets, you know, whatever.

Malcolm Collins: Kill or survive. Yeah. Hey, that’s a, that’s a bad a name for a girl.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Crypta is a pretty good name for a girl.

Malcolm Collins: That’s, that’s Adam’s family s**t right there. Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: That is, yeah. Crypta is exactly what Wednesday, little Wednesday’s little sister would be named.

Malcolm Collins: Right? Mm-hmm. And then yeah. Is there, are there any other names that you’re like really liking right now?

Simone Collins: No, I’m stuck. I don’t know what we’ll name our next son.

Malcolm Collins: Alright, well you guys can let us know [00:43:00] among these and we might share some others with you because I’ll review the next time we ask you.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: All right, let’s go.

Simone Collins: All right, here we go. Guess I have to be, I need at least one hand for my notes. Oh. Well.

Speaker: What the heck’s happening over here, guys? You The one done I can see. Do you not point those at me? Yeah, I’m not going, I’m not gonna sue you. Don’t worry. Do not point it at me. I didn’t say don’t sue it. I said don’t point it. Oh, I’m sorry.

And are you guys gonna take over the world?

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Why the Democratic Party is Losing Voters on Social Issues – Ramesh Ponnuru, 11/14/25 (3182)

Issues, Etc.

When Democratic Voters Become the Problem

Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review

The AI-powered Podcast Player