Substance vs. Superficiality in Education and Politics

In this thought-provoking episode, we delve into the concept of "brain rot" - a specific type of cognitive decline that affects people across all age groups and social strata. We explore how modern lifestyles, social media, and changing social norms contribute to this phenomenon, and discuss strategies to combat it. Key topics include:

Speaker: It could be that the reason they're on these simple narrative loops is because they are unable to think or ask themselves, does this person care? Like, does this person, what, why is this person interacting with me from their perspective?

Speaker 2: what's interesting is his wife isn't like that. She's very sensitive to what people are saying.

Speaker: I think

Speaker 2: the key is I, I, she maintains a relationship with her old sorority friends. And I'm pretty sure they're pretty catty and mean to each other and very competitive. So it's funny because you can look at it from one perspective and be like, gosh, your in all these toxic relationships. But then from the other perspective, you'd be like, wow, thank goodness. Your in all these toxic relationships. Cause it keeps her sharp and entertaining.

Speaker: Because the internet allows for new forms of brain rot, i. e. you don't necessarily need to interact with other people in your daily life. You're not getting that

Speaker 2: feedback. The training.

Well, and we're so used to being through all these different scrolling consumption pathways , just passive information and entertainment being served to [00:01:00] us with no requirement that we serve anything back.

There's no reciprocity. It is unidirectional.

Speaker: Do you think people with deep brain rot are really sentient or do you think that it's like not a big problem for them to die?

Speaker 2: Yeah, not a big problem for them today.

Would you like to know more?

Speaker: Hello, Simone! It is wonderful to be here with you today. Today we are going to talk about a concept. That we internally call brain rot and it is something that I like proposed as a mechanism of action For a way that people, as they get older, begin to fall into a particular type of thought that makes it impossible for them to hold complex ideas.

And originally it was sort of a theory, like, it seems like this might be what's happening in their brains.

Speaker 3: Mm hmm.

Speaker: And since I have had that theory and interacted with older people again and again and again and see it play out exactly like this over and over again, I have now moved it from theory to fact, and it is weird to [00:02:00] me that other people don't seem to have noticed this.

What people will say is Well, as people become older, they become stuck in their way, or as people become older, there's some degree of cognitive decline. But what I am noticing in here is not a general cognitive decline, but a very specific type of cognitive decline that is very noticeable. Specifically, what brain rot is, is when an individual reaches a stage of brain rot and you talk to them, all they will be able to do, or what they will default into, is repeating.

Simple narrative loops that are about painting a picture for themselves, about who they are and painting a picture to you about who they are. And so what these will look like is if, for example, being infirmed is particularly important to their self identity, they will go into a narrative loop of something that happened to them around that [00:03:00] particular topic with Attempts to model the target of this loop.

So they will not be thinking, how will this modify your perception of them? They will not be thinking, how does this telling them this further my goals? They're all not be thinking, is this something individual wants to hear? It is and so the question is, is why does this act behavior pattern seem to happen so, so, so frequently?

Speaker 3: Mm hmm.

Speaker: So Simone, what are your thoughts and I can give my thoughts on this as well.

Speaker 2: Yeah, so I have a very strong belief that this is a use it or lose it dynamic. That basically, and this is regardless of age too this shows up across so much of the research I see. Basically, if you use something it will maintain fairly good condition.

Be it your muscles, be it your eyes, be it whatever. And if you do not use it, it will atrophy. This seems to be backed up pretty well in [00:04:00] research. For example, there's, there's one study called television viewing and cognitive decline in older age. findings from the English longitudinal study of aging that found that watching over three and a half hours of TV correlated with greater cognitive decline because you're just sitting there passively watching.

Whereas actually a different study found that playing a video game did not correlate, like sort of inversely correlated with cognitive decline in older people. So like more engagement. It specifically also like another study called cultural engagement and incidents of cognitive impairment a six year longitudinal follow up of the Japan gerontological evaluation study, a.

K. A. J. A. G. E. S. J. G. J. G. S. Found that engagement and intellectual and creative activities may be associated with reduced risk of dementia. Again, like, use it. or lose it. There's also another study called Cognitive Leisure Activities and Future Risk of Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Synthetic Review and Meta Analysis.

That also found once again [00:05:00] that there is increasing evidence that participation in cognitively stimulating leisure activities may contribute to a reduction of risk of dementia and cognitive impairment later in life. And when we're talking about brain rot, we are really talking about Forms of, of cognitive impairment.

You know, this, this is, it's, it's bad. So I think that's a really huge thing. And that's one thing that makes me so against the concept of retirement. This idea that like, Oh, I'll stop. You're

Speaker: consigning someone to death by allowing them to retire.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, unless their idea of retirement is like, okay, well now I'm going to go, you know, volunteer and build houses and support my community, which is what retirement used to be, I think at a time of more engaged communities.

Speaker: What I would push back on is you're like, okay, use it or lose it, but use what or use your mind, challenge yourself, learn new things. This type of cognitive decline that they experience is not general cognitive decline. It is very, very [00:06:00] focused and leads to a very narrow set of behavioral patterns to me.

It does not seem downstream. So I can give you a hypothesis here to give you an example of what I mean by this. But what it could be is specifically what leads to brain rot is the part of their brain that mentally, that does theory of mind of other people. Exactly. That is mentally emulating the people around them.

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker: Stops working. So. Because that's the specific thing that they're not using. It could be that the reason they're on these simple narrative loops is because they are unable to think or ask themselves, does this person care? Like, does this person, what, why is this person interacting with me from their perspective?

Well, you see

Speaker 2: this a lot from more senior, and I'm saying senior in a hierarchical perspective, people, where they just, Go on and have this problem where they're saying a bunch of s**t that you care nothing about because no one is pushing back on them. They've gotten past that point where they have to actually keep people engaged in [00:07:00] order to get them to do what they want or pay attention.

Speaker: Actually, I've noticed this as well. Yeah, brain rot. You do get early brain rot in people who are very senior in hierarchies. Yeah. I've also noticed it in people. If they're surrounded

Speaker 2: by yes men, you know, there are lots of people who are senior in hierarchies who are sharp as a knife and very good at mentally modeling others and very engaging because they, they force themselves into positions in life where they have to.

Where people are telling them to shut up sometimes.

Speaker: Yeah. Where people, yeah, keep them in line. But no, I've also noticed it disproportionately with people in bureaucratic jobs like people who work in government positions and stuff like that where they seem to fall into brain rot much faster than other positions.

And that would make sense if it's that you do not need to worry about mentally modeling others.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I wonder if it's important, like, I think also having a lot of, Kids or grandkids around is helpful because they, they let, you know, when they are [00:08:00] bored and you have to constantly fight to earn their respect and attention.

I

Speaker: mean, the thing is that some people are clearly resistant to it. So we were on a Jim ruts show recently. And he is my dad's age. He actually worked with my dad running the, santa Fe Institute. And they,

Speaker 2: he talks like a 20 year old.

Speaker: Yes. Whereas my dad has a pretty significant amount of brain rot already.

And do you want to say

Speaker 2: that? Because your dad listens to this podcast,

Speaker: barely ever listens to the podcast. He's not gonna listen to this episode. I'll tell you and even if he does he needs to get out of it He goes on simple narrative loops all the time. And it's not and it means that I'm at risk of it, too

Speaker 2: It's true that

Speaker: it probably

Speaker 2: has a genetic component does so many things do

Speaker: right but I suspect he also is somebody who hasn't had to interact with lots of other people that could turn him down for a very long time.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like, you know, what's [00:09:00] interesting is his wife isn't like that. She's very sensitive to what people are saying.

Speaker: I think

Speaker 2: the key is I, I, she maintains a relationship with her old sorority friends. And I'm pretty sure they're pretty catty and mean to each other and very competitive. And your mother was the same way.

She was surrounded by like Game of Thrones backstabber gossipy friends. And in such a world, yeah, you, yeah, zero brain rot, because the moment you have some, you are immediately eaten alive by these people. Eviscerated. They will, they will not only freeze you out and destroy you, but they will humiliate you along the way.

And I think that keeps you sharp. So it's funny because you can look at it from one perspective and be like, gosh, your mom's in all these toxic relationships. But then from the other perspective, you'd be like, wow, thank goodness. Your mom's in all these toxic relationships. Cause it keeps her sharp and entertaining.

Yeah.

Speaker: No, I absolutely think you're right about that. And it highlights one of the areas for people who are new to our podcasts. We're quite against radical life extension.

But a lot [00:10:00] of people are like, well, why? I mean, we could keep people younger through like, you know, they're like, it's not because they know.

I mean, I think everybody knows why a person would intuitively be against that for civilization reasons. People just have a harder time changing their minds, a harder time thinking after a certain age. And they're like, well, what if we could fix that biologically speaking? If this theory of brain rot is correct, brain rot is not a biological phenomenon.

It's a phenomenon that's caused by environmental conditions that are more common among retired people

Speaker 3: than

Speaker: retired people. That's what causes brain rot. And if that's the case in radical life extension, if this can happen to any human is a terrible idea because one thing about brain rot is that once it's set in, like if you at all, enter any stage of your life where like for five to six years, you're just not having people push back against you regularly.

It's probably permanent.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's terrifying. I, I think my [00:11:00] argument though, is that it's, well, it does correlate with age. I, and, and I think it also correlates with other physical aspects of cognitive decline that I have seen it in teenagers. I've seen it in 20 year olds and a really interesting place where we see it and started talking about it a lot was in our own toddlers when they first started learning how to speak, when all they could really talk about was like, I'm doing this.

I'm doing that. Our our almost two year old Titan only speaks in loops about her top thoughts, which is look a baby deer, look a baby deer. And what's that sound? Motorcycle. Like you're just hearing a continuous stream of her very, very basic thoughts. And that's exactly what you hear from someone who has brain rot.

They're like, well, you know, first I have to go get the groceries and then I'm going to take a shower. And then I have to talk with my friend. And you're like, I don't need to hear any of this.

Speaker: I was [00:12:00] doing like what's other common brainwashed stuff. Like just going through their schedule from yesterday.

Well, yesterday I did this and then I did this. Oh. And

Speaker 2: yesterday we spoke with someone who for like, I was carrying quite a few grocery bags in the street.

Speaker: And he went over for a long, he's a famous radio host too. The names

Speaker 2: of his childhood neighbors and their nicknames. Yes.

Speaker: And their names and what they ended up doing.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and he ended up dying of a stomach aneurysm and he died of a heart attack at age 40.

Speaker: And we're like

Speaker 2: We'd love, you know, you're a nice guy, but I'm carrying about 40 pounds. How could you plausibly

Speaker: think that we could care anything about this? You, you stopped us on the road while we were walking somewhere.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: You know, it was absolutely wild, but it's interesting

Speaker 2: that that can exist both in very old people, but we also see this basically in toddlers before they develop a theory of mind. [00:13:00] Before they can understand what we Oh, that's a good point. They don't have a degree

Speaker: of mind yet, so they're just going on about Well, because this is the interesting thing I've noticed about BrainRot, especially at the early stages.

So there's a later stage where it's like just narrative loops, right? Where it's just, I did X yesterday, or I did X growing up, or this thing happened to me, and here it is. thought as to whether or not that is useful information to the person who's hearing about it. Some is, is at the early stages, it is really, really, really focused on self identity reinforcement.

By that, what I mean is they will focus on narrative loops that are meant to try to reinforce the way they think about themselves through conveying it to you. Is they will tell you stories about themselves that are meant to reinforce a way that they desire to see themselves without any concern as to is this actually modifying the recipient's perspective of me in a way I wanted to modify their perspective of [00:14:00] me and without any concern of What does this other person care?

And you know, where you'll really get this frequently I've seen in elderly people is often in medical stores. Where they'll be like, I had X injury and I went to the doctor and the doctor did this, and then the doctor did this. And then I had this follow up and it's like, why would anybody care?

Why would anybody care? Well, I mean, to

Speaker 2: them, it matters a lot, right? It's something that's. forefront in their minds is their medical treatment. They just, they don't realize nobody, nobody cares. And it's one of the first things that I try to teach our children is. Not just about this, but about pieces of etiquette.

I don't say you should do this. Like you should, you must say thank you. I say, if you say thank you to people, more people will like you and be nice to you and you'll get more things you want. And I, I want to make it really clear to our children that we don't just [00:15:00] do manners because that's what you do, because you need to be conformist.

You do manners because if you want to get nice things from people, you have to. Make their lives more comfortable. You have to show them courtesy. And what's the Emily

Speaker: Post line about this? Doesn't she have something on like why manners exist or why etiquette exists?

Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, roughly speaking, I have this Malcolm knows there's this like 1942 Emily post book that I considered to be my Bible basically, but she basically explains that Etiquette and manners are not arbitrary, dumb rules like they were necessarily first invented in Versailles by King Louis XIV to imprison the nobility.

What good manners really are is making social transactions smooth. Making them happen efficiently and successfully. That's it. So I think a lot of people think about manners as unnecessary scraping and flourishing and doing all these dumb things that don't make a difference when really it's [00:16:00] about elegant.

Efficient, effective transactions between people. And I, that's how I want our children to understand etiquette and manners. And definitely throughout this 1942 Emily post book that I have, it constantly reminds people quite harshly that no one gives a f**k what you think or feel, and your job is to make them comfortable.

It is, and it's interesting that this is just not something that people talk about today. Maybe we have an epidemic of brain rot because everything has become, Oh, what you feel is the most important thing in the world. We've really shifted that from nobody gives a f**k what you think. what you feel, how, what you're worried about, you need to get what you need to get done.

And that's it. And now it's back to no, your personal experience experience is tantamount. Your mood is tantamount. That is your number one priority in life. And now it's [00:17:00] encouraging people. It's accelerating brain rot and essentially dementia. In all ages, terrifying.

Speaker: Well, no. And I think you see this in online comments, you know, a lot of the comments that are just like when they're just like attacking somebody randomly they come off as a form of like early brain rot, because that's not a thing that a sane person would do.

A sane person wouldn't think I have a negative emotional reaction when reading something this person wrote or, you know, seeing something this person did. Therefore I'll be like. You're a weirdo or, or you must be like an idiot, you know, like, yeah, you wouldn't do that. And to, to, to highlight how much you wouldn't do that, imagine if you were like talking to somebody and they responded to you as that.

You'd look at them like they were like they had a mental problem. Like they they do have a

Speaker 2: mental problem,

Speaker: but they know they do have a mental problem. But I think that people don't realize that in engaging in this type of behavior, they are [00:18:00] really just exacerbating mental problems that they've already built within their mind.

And they just get worse and worse and worse until. Because the internet allows for new forms of brain rot, i. e. you don't necessarily need to interact with other people in your daily life. You're not getting that

Speaker 2: feedback. The training.

Speaker: Stuck in self reinforcement loops entirely within a digital environment.

Speaker 2: Well, and we're so used to being through all these different scrolling consumption pathways and social media and in just like on Netflix and every other streaming platform. And through many games, just passive information and entertainment being served to us with no requirement that we serve anything back.

There's no reciprocity. It is unidirectional.

Speaker: Do you think people with deep brain rot are really sentient or do you think that it's like not a big problem for them to die?

Speaker 2: Yeah, not a big problem for them today.

Speaker: Yeah, they've

Speaker 2: become brain rot is NPC ism.

Speaker: Worse than generic NPC ism though. This, [00:19:00] so there's a form of NPC ism.

That's just like urban monoculture to the extreme. Well, you can think of

Speaker 2: it like stasis. So those people could be saved if they were presented with means that pulled them out of the loop.

Speaker: Right? Yeah. These individuals. Yeah. They're like in a stasis, but they like are reacting the way they're reacting because they're sort of afraid of judgment of society.

Yeah.

Speaker 2: Well, they haven't been given the mental and memetic tools that would allow them to get out of those defaults.

Speaker: Yeah. But the brain rot is different. Brain rot is not like they're acting this way because they're afraid of how you're going to judge them. They're literally not thinking about how you're going to judge them.

It is. Everyone else's mental state does not exist from their perspective.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it's, it's scary and it's bad. Now, one thing I wanted to ask you is the extent to which you think. Our brain rot epidemic is also manifest now in modern media. So we with our kids have been watching the magic school bus because we're trying to watch like find [00:20:00] shows that they like that we also think aren't just complete nonsense and my school bus is great because it teaches pretty good things about science and it's also Like pretty funny.

It's

Speaker: a decent show. The problem is the magic school bus actually. Which I didn't remember growing up, but every character in it is deeply unlikable, except that's a feature,

Speaker 2: not a bug, man. I think that's hilarious. Everyone is made fun of kids.

Speaker: It's not like they have a personality. Okay. Like in some shows, every character has a personality when you've got like a big, diverse cast.

Yeah. No. Every one of the kids has a. Specific reason that makes them annoying and unlikable. Oh yeah. It's

Speaker 2: interesting. Yeah. You don't, none of, none of the characters is a self insert at all. You, you are like this outsider watching everything happen, laughing, laughing at everyone. But also kind of wishing you were on the magic school bus.

Our kids, especially Toasty. He's like, I want to ride on the magic school bus. I just love it. When he said that, he says that all the time. I want to

Speaker: ride on the magic school bus. Yeah. [00:21:00] I, I, I, some of these kids are so like Arnold, for example, is so deeply punchable. I almost want to create like a simulator where I can just punch a grownup version of Arnold.

Speaker 6: Janet, you want proof? I'll give you proof! Here's proof of what'll happen to you if you stay here with your stuff! Arnold!

Speaker: Don't you like Carlos? Carlos is cute with his dad joke. All of them, all of them need to be punched. Carlos, DB with her and BD with her. I don't know. There's

Speaker 2: the, according to my research girl, who's super annoying, but at my old school girl is also super annoying.

Speaker: I just needed them to do their phrase.

Okay. That would be so cathartic.

I'd also say I'd really love to see like a Rick and Morty version of the magic school bus. I often think when watching the magic school bus, this would have been so much more than back to the future. Good source of material for a Rick and Morty, [00:22:00] like show. In that miss Frizzle has so little regard for the safety and life of her students just consistently throughout this show. She is so as psychotic in the ways that she treats them.

Speaker 7: Oh, the best thing about time travel is that it's easy on the tires.

Speaker 8: Faster! Is it just me, or is that a real, live Tyrannosaurus Rex behind them? Correct a saurus, Ralphie. And the T Rex was the biggest meat eater of all

Speaker 9: On the Magic School Bus! Here it is, kids! The Grand Canyon! Yay!! Seatbelts on, kids! No one else was already wearing a seatbelt?

Hey, we're running out of road! Where the road ends, adventure begins! Okay, do your stuff!

Speaker 10: See Arnold, adventure awaits in [00:23:00] heaven!

And there are episodes where she will just like, have the students doing something and be blatantly flirting with someone. She clearly has a past relationship with here. I'm thinking of the episode where they are on,

The, , school bus engineer, guy. There's also so many scenes in the show where when you watch it and you watch what miss Frizzle puts the kid through. You're like, Oh, my God. Like it's genuinely more horrifying than maybe your average, Rick and Morty episode.

Speaker 11: Can we please go home now?

Speaker 12: Sure thing, Ralphie. After one more egg sperience.

Speaker 11: Holy mackerel! The bus just laid eggs, and we're in them!

Speaker 13: Look at it this way, Ralphie. As soon as we hatch, this will be home!

Speaker 12: A salmon he went to court and he did swim. Mm hmm. Salmon he went to court

Speaker 14: There's your answer,

Speaker 12: Carlos.

Speaker 13: What? Is he some sort of car wash? [00:24:00]

Speaker 14: No. Don't eggs have to be fertilized

Speaker 11: and we're gonna be the next generation of salmon!

 Get ready to dig in, Liz.

Speaker 13: Is burying us alive!

Speaker 11: Becoming an egg? Okay. Getting fertilized? Okay. Getting buried in an egg? Not okay. ,

Speaker 12: Class.

Speaker 11: Ugh, let's see if hatching's all it's cracked up to be.

Speaker 13: Wow,

Speaker 11: I'm hungry.

I'm hungry. My yolk sack's history! Let's find food! Eggs?

Speaker 2: Well, anyway, what I think is interesting about it though, is watching it, I'm like, wow, there's, there's substance here. I'm, I am learning something. They're talking about something here. Whereas I feel like, you know what, it's vibes like, so we're, we're, we're in an election year right now.

This is not very evergreen to say this, but you know, it's, it's, [00:25:00] it's Trump versus Kamala. But also it's just like, I'm looking at what political candidates are arguing and they're not arguing substance anymore. They're not arguing policy. In fact, whenever policies are referred to, it's more fake meme caricatures of those policies is not even the real policies.

And. Well, for example, when Kamala Harris attacks Donald Trump, her running opponent, about his reproductive choice policy, she doesn't even refer to his policy, which is leave it up to the states. He refers to the policy that was outlined. In fact, she refers to a caricature of a policy that was outlined in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 where she says that there will be national abortion bans when really Project 2025's policy only refers to banning a specific pharmaceutical and not even, it's not banning all, for example, Plan B medications.

So it's, it's a lot more nuanced than that, but that's not what the substance is. And I feel like shows for kids and adults these days to a great extent are no longer about. [00:26:00] Substance. They're about a feeling they're about a mood. Even when I compare,

Speaker: is definitely mood driven.

Speaker 2: Yes. And, and so I feel like a lot of this also is just showing a general degradation of human processing power that we're not really modeling other people anymore.

That we're not really. Engaging with ideas and morals anymore, we're engaging with moods and feeling and becoming more like babies. We're not processing, we're not processing logical abstract ideas or other people's feelings or thoughts. We're just riding along like infants, smiling in reaction to a smiling face.

Am I, am I wrong here? This is just, I've been feeling this creeping dread for the past two weeks about this.

Speaker: I think you're right for a lot of people. And then the question is, is, well, how do you protect our children? And I think it's to put them in environments, online environments, where they're going to get pushback.

I mean, I think for example, something like [00:27:00] actively engaging in a discord server, and I'll try to remember to leave our discord link in here. Cause it's really good. Discord server is just a great way to keep yourself active and stuff like that. Or force them to

Speaker 2: only go on 4chan where everyone's going to call them a fag.

I, I just, I think griefing is really good and I love online communities that give you a hard time. Again, that's going back to like your your mom's backstabbing friends and gossiping and incredibly cruel friends who are also very fun. And your. Stepmothers like sorority friends who are probably very gossipy and, you know, very clicky, like keeping them sharp.

I think, and I would imagine I'd love to see longitudinal research on, you know, the, the cognitive sharpness and also ability to model like the, the modeling ability of people with, Large families, you know, someone who has four siblings versus someone who's an only child. How do they compare? I imagine much better of

Speaker: this.

Speaker 2: And again, I, it comes back to this theme of use it or lose [00:28:00] it. If you are not forced to be strong, if you are not subject to training, you won't develop that muscle. Your body doesn't, we, we are beautifully efficient and designed to conserve energy. Here's a

Speaker: great example of brain rot you see in an online environment, which is comments that are meant to reinforce an individual's view of themselves.

But not change any minds. So it's like, it's trying to show that they themselves are tough or masculine or something like, this is the common version of it. And so it'll be like, well, bro, do you even lift? Like there's somebody who's from a different cultural subset. That's not going to be like, I'm not going to look at that and be like, Oh, I'm ashamed that I don't live.

I'm like, why the would I lift? Like what that has nothing to do with any, anything. Why do I, why do I spend time with my kids rather than at the gym? Like, cause obviously that time is coming from somewhere. So it's either coming from the time with my kids or it's coming from my wife or it's coming from, like, obviously that's [00:29:00] a lower status than thing from my cultural perspective to spend my time on, then literally any of the things I actually spend my time on.

And so, well, they're not thinking about it like that. So in what way are they thinking about it? They're thinking about it in terms of they see somebody who society or other people online seem to be assigning some level of status or attention to. And now they need to you know, attempt to, because this person doesn't correlate with what they think.

Status should correlate with. They will throw something like that out there to try to raise their own status within this little hierarchy that they're fighting just was in their own minds, you know, like, and you see this all the time with masculinity challenges within an online context, which are just silly.

Speaker 2: That's true.

Speaker: I've noticed you don't get challenged in the same way as much, which is interesting, but I think it's because you're, I mean, people will say you look, I don't know, like a man, I guess, is the core. No,

Speaker 2: [00:30:00] they say that I look misshapen and I wear big glasses and I look old. And I look nerdy and weak and just like genetically unfit.

And that I'm a four and all sorts of things like that. Yeah.

Speaker: Well, those are not so, I mean, think about what's coming out with every one of those individual attacks. Like, what are they trying to signal with something like that? You go out like, like if you go, you ugly, like, Just to like a random stranger.

Like you look like a mentally deficient person. So like, what are they trying to signal by saying something like you're a four? Right. Now first I would say to people like, objectively, that's not true. If you want to see like what your average person looks like, go to an airport or a DMV, like. Clearly, Simone's in the top 1 2 percent of the population in terms of attractiveness.

When you consider the fact that she is in her late 30s at this point and has had four kids I really don't think that you get close to this level of looks with normal humans. But they, they are trying to signal [00:31:00] either that they can get a more attractive partner than somebody like you, or that they are more attractive than somebody like you, or that you should not be assigned status because you are not attractive enough to be somebody who is assigned status or.

I don't know, it's, it's very interesting. Like what or that they are angry that you have been assigned status in our society and therefore they need to attempt to lower your status. Those are the things that might motivate behavior like that. You know, none of them show a particularly high level of cognitive function in terms of like 40, like how you'd see society chess, but then.

Think about something like you're genetically unfit. Now that actually shows a bit more intelligence, right? They are trying at the most base and superficial level to understand our ideology. Like, okay, they're selecting for genetic And so if I insult her genetic [00:32:00] health and say that people like her should not be breeding because she's of low genetic health, that undermines their world perspective.

The problem here is that it also undermines their world perspective. If they're like, how dare you eugenicists be having children? You're genetically unfit. It's like, wait, what? What? Those that that's the eugenic, the eugenic statement. And I should note that we don't actually hold eugenic beliefs, but this is something we're characterized as holding in the media.

We do believe that humans have genes and that as a family, we will make genetically optimal choices. But that's no more eugenicists and like choosing sperm from a sperm bank that has good quality traits. Like, individual choices have never been considered eugenics. Historically speaking. It's only society wide decisions which is what makes it eugenic and not a choice in who your partner is.

But anyway they're, they're trying to sort of flip the script on you there without really thinking about it, but it shows again, a [00:33:00] fairly low level of cognitive function. But I think something we have to remember is how low the level of cognitive function of the average human is. Yeah,

Speaker 2: yeah, yeah.

Half, half of all people are dumber than the average person, as they say, which is sobering and disturbing to think about.

Speaker: But, but the thing about Brain Rot is it affects smart people. Like, it's not. Oh,

Speaker 2: yes, 100%, because we're primarily mixing with smart people. Smart people and speaking with smart people.

Our society is soberingly siloed based on intelligence. Yeah, I'd

Speaker: actually say, and I hadn't noticed this until you pointed it out. And this is going to change a lot of my perception. So I'm glad we had this talk. Brain rot really does disproportionately affect CEOs and people in uniquely high status positions, I think, especially

Speaker 2: people surrounded by yes men and people who are not like s**t talking.

Well,

Speaker: I don't know. I, I, I would say that people who are surrounded by yes men don't realize they're surrounded by yes men. And [00:34:00] therefore that is not a useful framing for this. Okay. Okay. So, So, I can think of one really good example whose YouTube channel we're always comparing ourselves against.

Who seems to have a pretty big, sorry, I often like to quote unquote compete with people who we have some sort of a personal relationship or history. Oh,

Speaker 2: okay.

Speaker: Yeah, this individual has pretty severe brain rot, but they don't, they wouldn't recognize that they have severe brain rot because they don't.

Constantly

Speaker 2: engage with other intellectuals. Yeah,

Speaker: they engage with other intellectuals, but they do it in environments that are very low risk to them. And so it allows them to just go on narrative loops and then leave. Right? Which is really, really dangerous. You can think you're engaging with other people, but the question is basically, are other people regularly telling you you're wrong and stupid?

That's a better way to know if do you have to genuinely worry about being backstabbed by the people you are engaging with in a [00:35:00] significant way?

Speaker 2: Yeah. And yeah, and meaningfully backstabbed, like expelled from the group. S**t talked supplanted from your position of authority. So yeah, I think, yeah, to your point about CEOs.

If you own or run something and no one can fire you and no one can take it all away from you, you are uniquely susceptible to brain rot. You may want to join some kind of community or do something else where you are a player, but a player at risk. There has to be some kind of game of thrones in your life.

If you don't, if you're not playing a game of thrones. You are the jester. No, jester is sorry. They're way too smart and intelligent. They're like, typically the most intelligent people in the entire court, weren't they? It's a bad, bad example. Undo.

Speaker: Undo. Well, do you have any final thoughts on this, Simone?

Speaker 2: How else would you stave it off? I mean, the top thing that I'm doing with our kids, for example, which [00:36:00] I want to just permeate their lives. And have,

Speaker: and have lots of guests. The problem is that I know people who run major radio stations and have brain rot, so Yeah, I don't think, I don't think having guests

Speaker 2: on a podcast or in media at all protects you from So that, that's, that's dumb.

That's not gonna work. I think maybe constantly trying to To go further than you should be going is a very

Speaker: large family that can meaningfully isolate you or push you away. If you're being stupid, like if, I think if we have tons of kids, that's going to protect us to some extent.

Speaker 2: Well, I'm wondering if we could design our like either family trust or religious trust, you know, the thing that like sort of governs wealth transfer all and everything can be built in a way that forces.

Is. Sort of heavy competition and merit. In a way that would force us to stay sharp. Like the moment we turn our backs. Yeah, no, I think

Speaker: that's important. Yeah, I agree with that. [00:37:00] For, for kicking us off our own boards and stuff like that in favor of our kids, if they are more competent or cunning or ruthless.

Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Cause also when I think about anyone I can think about who is brain rot, a very prominent feature in their life is a lack of threats, a lack of imminent threats.

But it doesn't have to be real, like with your mother, it's not like she was ever in physical danger or in danger of losing, you know, her, her security or safety or health.

It was always just these, these women will reject you and stop inviting you to their parties and you won't get to be co chair of this thing. I mean, one

Speaker: of the things that we've talked about putting together is a discord of like minded family, not like a discord, but like a group that meets, you know, every year once our kids are old enough, you know, of other competent, high level professionals.

Oh, we already

Speaker 2: have. I mean, like. When families reach out to us and they have kids similar to our kids age, I put them on the index list, which is basically a list of people from very different cultures, but who are willing to intermix and have their kids possibly date [00:38:00] once they becoming adults.

Speaker: And, and what we will do with the list is, is it will be, it will create an online environment for all of our kids where they can engage with other peers who have been pre-vetted for cultural similarity, but who also come from like successful families.

And by cultural

Speaker 2: similarity we mean commitment to hard culture. We don't mean shared culture or values. Yeah,

Speaker: yeah, yeah, yeah. Ba basically being weird and anti-Urban monoculture. Yes. And through engaging with this community. The kids will be able to do things like when we say date within the community, you will, instead of like, dating on normal discord, they would be able to go and stay with the family of one of the people that they met in this community.

Exactly. If they like a girl or boy or, you know, they come to our house and stay with us for a while, you know, the idea is if you have this sort of sending out as a process of dating but also in an environment that is to an extent controlled by one of the families. So you don't have a lot of you know, overly salacious behavior in polite behavior.

You know, [00:39:00] they know part of the point is impressing the family with their manners and work ethic and, you know, everything like that, right? So it really frames the beginning of the relationship upon the context. But to maintain this network, you know, if we do this right, there's gonna be a lot of judgment going on.

So I suspect that will,

Speaker 2: yeah,

Speaker: well, I mean, it was

Speaker 2: something you, you always talked about with your, your mother going to family gatherings where she'd be like, so and so is going to have our, you know, like there'd be singing competitions or something. And that, you know, the family was always judging each other, like whose children will be like the most talented and well behaved.

Speaker: thing about my family growing up and my family culture, which gave us a lot of cultural protection. And it's something I want to emphasize with my kids is there was this belief that, you know, it matters. Like you need to be better than other people, but the people who you needed to be better than were your family members.

Speaker 2: I love, yes. We talked about this once on a car drive that the point of comparison should

Speaker: be

Speaker 2: the insiders.

Speaker: Yeah. The people outside the family did [00:40:00] not matter. Like they, they were, they were there, it was not relevant. Like there was never, and this is actually really interesting and quite different from some other cultures where it's like people was in the culture.

So it was in some like, Jewish families, for example. Right. They'll be like, well, Sheila's kid got into X medical school, right? Like, why aren't you in X medical school? Right. My family would never do something like that. They, they saw It was not

Speaker 2: keeping up with the Joneses. It was keeping up with the Collinses.

Speaker: Well, yeah, the wider family network. It was okay. Their kids are doing X. Why aren't you doing X? The cousins are doing X? Why aren't you doing X? The cousins did Y. Why didn't you do Y? And this can seem or your siblings have done Y, right? And for people who don't understand why this is so useful, it's useful for a few reasons.

One, it prevents standards from slipping. of my extended family, of which I remember I did in the mass once it was something like of like 18 [00:41:00] cousins, aunts, uncles, everything like that. Only two didn't go to Ivy League, Stanford, Oxford or Cambridge for their, their college or graduate degree. Like, like, it's like, okay, that's the norm.

That's the standard to what's expected of you. Don't go lower than that. And so when you're, you're, you're doing it by society, you know, it allows for, for things to slip if people around you are slipping, right. You know, do you have you know, of my family, I'd say like the middling success level is probably runs a company that's worth over a hundred million dollars.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Middling is top point. 0001 percent probably not necessarily in terms of wealth, but I would just say broad success by our definition, like has several kids is generally happy is generally healthy is not in financial trouble and has a position professionally of non trivial influence.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, they all have positions of non triviality on films.

And even with our [00:42:00] podcast, I compare it. Like, I was, I was talking to my brother about our podcast recently. And then he, he snapped back at me that one of my cousins likely had over a billion views on his stuff. And I was boiling at that point. I was like, no, but you're right. I need to do better.

The, the one that he's, he's talking about does he's mostly now for like his impersonation stuff.

Speaker 18: Make it up as we go along. It's okay. I know nothing's wrong.

Speaker: But he actually started a company that does AI stuff and they have a, a movie coming out soon called what is it real? Or something like that where they did the technology for it.

We're around Tom Hanks. I'm going to put like a clip from it. It changes the time. So it's all filmed from like a single location, but like the time that things are happening is [00:43:00] changing. And, but it's all done with AI because obviously they need to have the actor age throughout it.

Speaker 15: I'd like you to meet Margaret. Nice to meet you, Margaret. Nice to meet you, Mr. Young.

Time sure does fly, doesn't it?

Speaker 16: His news His time

Speaker 15: I could spend the rest of my life here.

Speaker: And so obviously now this is like mainstream and we haven't even gotten our documentary deal yet.

And I feel, you know, I'm pretty humbled by that, but that's the thing. Like I don't. If I'm comparing myself to anyone else that's like classmates, right? Like which I've, I've done before. I'm like, okay, I have some sort of cultural relation to them because we went to Stanford together or something like that.

And therefore I have to judge myself relative to how they're doing. But the other big advantage of this is it prevents non family. Cultural framings from influencing my view of what a quote, unquote, good life looks like, or what status should look like. [00:44:00] So if somebody was like, well, look at what the Joneses are doing.

Look at what everyone else is optimizing around. I was raised in an environment where it wouldn't even think to me to consider. That is something like it would be like, I, yeah, I guess they're doing that, but what does that have to do with me? And I think this might be very similar to the way religious individuals grow up, who grow up like Orthodox Jewish or something like that.

If somebody was like, look at that person in secular world, look at what they're doing in the Orthodox, you know, the, the, the, the Hasidic Jew would be like, yeah, but Why would I, or like an Amish person, like, imagine trying to explain to an Amish person that they should be jealous of X person across the street who's like doing Y and who's not Amish, they'd be like, that's not the social environment I'm connected with.

Also for those who doubt the stories about my family. I told a pretty wild one in a recent episode about how, when we were kids, our family was called. By the other, , family in the neighborhood, the Adams family. I do two things like my brother and I [00:45:00] at like the age of five and four climbing up like three stories on the side of the house Because my parents just had zero regard for my safety. and believe it or not, we actually found a video of this recently.

Speaker 20: Rig was shut down. They needed some parts for it. Granddaddy, through customers, you're being paged to granddaddy

Speaker 23: with their,

Speaker 24: uh, the

Speaker: but it's also made me realize in terms of how I relate to you and our kids, how clannish my family is. Um, And that we come from, and you know, I've mentioned this, like the Backwoods culture which was a very clan like culture or combination of Backwoods and Puritan culture. But the Backwoods culture was very clan like.

The Greater Appalachian region was very clan like in how it interacted. And I've realized that I [00:46:00] was taught to, maybe in a slightly, like, sanitized, high class way, To always consider the clan is the only thing that mattered and everything outside the clan was it just, it wasn't even like not desirable.

It was just a desert, right? Like, which, which was very interesting. And I, I think that that's something that we should focus on recreating for our kids, which fortunately can do because one, we are broadly culturally aligned with our related family members and they all have tons of kids.

Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. But if you

Speaker 2: don't have that within your family I think that's another reason why we're trying to create the index is that,

Speaker: before I go, I have somebody here who wants to, to, to, to give his thoughts on this. Hey, Octavian, come here sit here. Oh, hi, Octavian.

Speaker 4: Hi..

Speaker 2: Octavian, what do you think daddy does when you are, are not at home when you're at school? [00:47:00]

Speaker 4: Then you just gotta wait for me.

Speaker 2: No theory of mind confirmed. So daddy just

Speaker: here waiting for you until you come back from school. Do you think that's what I do? What do you think that mommy does when you're at school?

Speaker 4: He does go inside and wait for me to come.

Speaker: Yeah. That's the world to these people.

Speaker 2: And what do you think your teacher is doing right now, Octavian?

Speaker: What's your teacher doing?

Speaker 4: My teacher's doing, hold on a second. I got to take a thumbnail. I got it.

Speaker 2: Active narrative, active narrative of what you're doing and no model of other people. That's what it is. It's a reversion to a childlike state.

Speaker: Show them what you painted.

Speaker 2: But I think the scary thing is that many people are never developing that theory of [00:48:00] mind at all. Whoa. That's scary. What? What on earth?

Speaker 4: I'll tell you what it needs to do.

Speaker 2: Okay.

Speaker 4: Okay.

Speaker 2: Okay.

Speaker 4: Okay. You put the

Speaker: mask on and then you sing a song.

What's the song?

Speaker 4: One monkey jumping on the bed. One fell off and bumped his head. Mama called the doctor and the doctor said, No more monkey jumping on the bed.

Speaker 2: That is not a monkey. That is a demonic being. Wait, when the

Speaker: monkey fell and bumped his head, what happened? Do you think he got hurt?

Speaker 4: Do you

Speaker: think he died?

Speaker 4: No, monkey died. The mama. The mama, the monkey dust called the doctor.

Speaker: Oh. 'cause the mama monkey called the [00:49:00] doctor. Okay, well that's good.

Speaker 4: The monkey doctor

Speaker: the monkey doctor. Are we all gonna have a cold soon? That's what I'm hearing here.

Speaker 2: I think so.

Speaker: All right. Love you so mom.

Speaker 2: Love you too. You're going to go get them.

I'm coming down. Yeah. What do you want for dinner?

What do you want for dinner?

Speaker: I'm not eating tonight. I ate a lunch. Oh, you went out? Yeah. When I was doing all the,

Speaker 2: thank you. Thank you for making those deliveries. All right. I'll see you downstairs.

Speaker 4: I'm I'm a pizza also. And I need everything. Do

Speaker: you want a big pizza or a little pizza?

Speaker 4: Big pizza.

Speaker: Okay. I love you.

Speaker 4: I forgot to tell you last night I was changing Indy and she had a little bit of spit up behind your ears. She needed a bath. I looked over and noticed that just gorgeous. Silver bathtub where we were staying and thought, you know, it would be so nice,[00:50:00]

you know, sat in this gorgeous bathtub and just really relaxed for just a second. And I got in with her and I'm sitting and I have her, you know, like sitting on my legs and she's facing me like this and I'm just looking at her and smiling and suddenly her face changes a little bit.

Speaker 3: Oh, no.

Speaker 4: Yeah, she There was poop everywhere. I was suddenly sitting in a toilet bowl Surrounded by turds

Speaker: in my worst nightmare being the germphobe that I am.

It's like my one attempt I mean, we had this chance. We're in this luxurious place this beautiful bathtub I'm like, oh, this will be such a nice moment and I am sitting in my worst night

Speaker 3: We should for the audience tell the story about the the The porta potty. So you should know how much Simone is a germaphobe and like a dirty a phobe.

She won't touch door handles. I have to open all the doors for her. She won't, she [00:51:00] doesn't really like, you know, handshaking with people. She's incredibly germaphobic. Okay, continue.

Speaker 4: Yeah. Touching doorknobs is really terrifying. Yes, I, this was Maybe a year before I met Malcolm, I was 23 or 24 years old and walking around San Francisco, as was my want, just to do for fun.

And I was up at Coit Tower where at the time, and I think they've taken it out. The San Francisco used to have these somewhat automated bathrooms with rounded corners. And I really, really had to go to the bathroom and I normally you

Speaker 3: ever use public restrooms.

Speaker 4: Oh, no, I will just go forever and just not.

Go to the bathroom and be an immense discomfort. It doesn't matter. But like, this was one of those situations where it was like, it's going to come out. So either it's coming out and I'm spending the next however many hours walking around with soiled clothing, or I'm using this public toilet and I get in and the door shuts.

It's completely dark inside and I'm like, Oh [00:52:00] crap. Like I guess there's no like activated light and I can't see anything cause there's no windows in this toilet. And suddenly water starts spraying everywhere. And I learned the hard way. That this toilet was in the middle of a cleaning cycle and I had somehow run into it just as it was shutting down for, I guess, a cleaning cycle, presumably because homeless people make it so gross in there that, like, they just created toilets with automatic cleaning cycles.

And so here I am in pitch dark in a public toilet being sprayed down with water. I stumble out of this in the light of day. Coit Tower is this lighthouse looking tower with really communist art at the bottom of it on this scenic hill in San Francisco. So I come out surrounded by tourists who are all just kind of staring at me, looking like I want to die.[00:53:00]

Speaker 2: Maybe that was the last time I've used a public toilet, actually. I don't think that's ever happened since.

Speaker 4: I just stopped drinking for a good 12 hours before I know I'm going to be outside for a prolonged period of time

Speaker 2: and or wear adult diapers. It's great. Let's do it. Let's do the episode. Yeah.