The Strain of Declining Birthrates and AI Growth

In this episode, Malcolm and Simone explore the onset and implications of demographic collapse. From dystopian AI-managed cities to the technological advancements in artificial wombs, the Collinses discuss the possible futures and scenarios we might face in the next 150 years. The conversation includes detailed insights into how collapsing demographics will impact everything from urban infrastructure to social security. By examining current examples from cities like Detroit and nations like China, they predict what life could be like in the coming decades. The couple also outlines practical steps to prepare for a radically changing world economy, including advice on financial diversification, medical self-care, and home security. Whether it’s the bizarre concept of humanoid robots carrying artificial wombs or the perilous future of nationalized healthcare and social security, this episode aims to provide a comprehensive guide to navigating the uncertainties ahead.

Episode Transcript:

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Malcolm. I'm so excited to be with you today because we are going to talk about what it's actually like to live through demographic collapse, which really matters because. It's already kind of starting. As William Gibson said, the future is here.

It's just not evenly distributed. We're gonna go through the good, the bad, the ugly. And I think we're gonna start off with the weird, like artificial wounds being developed in robot humanoid form. So it's gonna fun.

Malcolm Collins: This is in China, but this is happening and I, I'll argue that it's probably not real. It's 100% almost certainly not real, but still I'm very artificial ones are being developed.

But what I I, the core point of this episode that we're gonna be going over with you guys. Is, what does it actually feel like to live through a demographic collapse, apocalypse scenario? Mm-hmm. What does the world look like in 150 years? And what, and, and keep in mind we're we will be modifying this with what does this look like?

Positive AI timelines in neutral AI timelines because it's a huge modifier on how this plays out is ai. You know, you Yeah. [00:01:00] Although

Simone Collins: in some ways AI, I'm gonna argue is gonna make things worse, faster for people, so, oh, I agree. It

Malcolm Collins: absolutely will. But, but what I mean here is in my AI scenarios was in the original.

Timeline. AI doesn't come online enough to fix everything. And you get a post apocalypse. It'll create some for R Fab AI that, that have this scenario eventually. But anyway this is, this is like. My day SX world, right? Where, you know, our distant descendant 150 years from now is exploring mostly decayed buildings with like a, a slap drone, right?

And cities, you can't even walk in them because they're so dangerous. 'cause things can collapse. What if the AI comes online and decides to keep everything up and running? Right. And so it as a function of just, its, its maintenance function ends up keeping up all the roads in all the cities and you just end up with like eerily empty cities with like a very large in bustling like Orthodox Jewish quarter.

But like everything outside of that is, is, is mostly just empty [00:02:00] policed by AI drones. So you can't go out and like break the law or steal something. That could be the very weird and real future that our distant descendants could be living through. So let's talk about what these different futures could look like.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And since this just came out in the news and we've gotta talk about it because. This is how things are gonna get weird. Probably not through this method, but through others. Yeah. Some Chinese scientist has, has announced that he's going to create a humanoid robot that will gest state humans according to chosen Biz.

An article titled China Develops Pregnancy Robot with Artificial Womb to eight Infertile Couples. It reads, reports have emerged. The world's first pregnancy robot is under development in China. The robot is designed in a human. Human humanoid form and is equipped with an artificial womb in its abdomen, allowing it to carry a fetus for 10 months and give birth.

A prototype is expected to be released next year with a selling price of around one thou 100,000 Yuan, approximately one 19.3 million. Juan. So the, the scientist, sorry,

Malcolm Collins: sorry. Seems to be like for, for, for [00:03:00] context for our audience that's around 14,000 US dollars. Yeah. So like

Simone Collins: this is 100% not gonna happen.

One, it's insane. Like, why would you. Why would you put an artificial womb in a humanoid robot? I mean, one thing that, that, that's really weird is so the, the article also reads, the key to the pregnancy robot is the artificial womb technology where the fetus grows inside the artificial womb filled with amniotic fluid and receives nutrients through a hose.

Dr. Zang noted quote, the artificial wound technology is already in a mature stage and now it needs to be implanted in the robot's abdomen so that a real person and the robot can interact to achieve. Pregnancy, allowing the fetus to grow inside. I don't know if he wants people to have intercourse with the robot.

This is the most fake China thing I have ever seen, ever. It's beyond fake because I mean, if you're developing an artificial loom, really, like from embryo onward, like you are developing something where the, the, the placenta is also growing in there and the way that.

Malcolm Collins: For [00:04:00] context, we have a lot of knowledge about artificial womb development beyond what the art of normal person would, because this is a space we are very interested in potentially very passionate about it investing in.

And we're very passionate about it. And so I am aware of the state of the current technology, and this is like somebody comes out there and is like, I have a phaser, right? It's like.

Speaker 3: I am aware

Malcolm Collins: of the cutting edge technology. You don't have a phaser like we, we, I have teleportation or something, right?

Like, it's like No, you don't have teleportation. Yeah. We are at least I'd say maybe six years away from being able to do this in humans, from my knowledge of the current technology. Yeah. And it's

Simone Collins: not gonna look like a humanoid robot. This reminds me of those, those examples of early AI robots in China where like clearly there was just a person.

He's speaking to a mic also. Oh yeah. There's,

Malcolm Collins: there's this really funny thing. So early in China, they did the thing where they were doing like cutting edge AI at this. They were like, we've done it,

Simone Collins: people we've developed

Malcolm Collins: in, in Singapore. And the person went up to it, the ai and they could converse with it in English and they could converse with it was in the, the Singapore language, [00:05:00] but it couldn't talk in Mandarin, the Chinese language.

This is could only just a person.

Simone Collins: But anyway, that's great. Yeah. But also like the way that it spoke was kind of like, yeah, no. So like while this is totally bunk, one, there will absolutely be artificial wounds fairly soon, and two, China is absolutely gonna get on this kind of tech because it is going to probably be, we would, we would argue the first country that is going to start.

Printing essentially. Sure. Its own citizens. Oh, absolutely. So, so when people

Malcolm Collins: are like, no, China wouldn't do, China would absolute. That's exactly the type of thing China would do. Yeah. Come on guys. So for people who dunno during the one child policy, if you was in certain districts, if you'd go in for like a cold, they'd give you like a forced abortion.

Like why, why wouldn't they do forced inseminations if you go in for a cold or something like that? Right. Like, they, they, they, the, the. Government there when things get bad enough and when they finally recognize it. And keep in mind things are bad there right now. Mm-hmm. They have tried to force people to have more kids through [00:06:00] differential sort of government.

Like it's hard to move up in the government if you don't have at least three kids now.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But it's still super trending in the media constantly. In China. Is, is just sort of stuff that's going viral of people talking about why they can't have three kids, like most recently in this reality TV show this celebrity couple.

Was discussing how well they had originally pledged to only have one child, and then the husband's kinda like, well, I, I kind of like two kids. And the mother's like, listen, like you're not helping me at all. And like sort of this, this conversation that played out publicly on reality tv. And I'm kind of shocked the CCP allowed them to play this rush.

I would not allow this, they, the social media sort of erupted in support of the wife who was like, I'm not having more kids. And in criticism of the husband, like, how dare you say that you want more children, he argued like it would help with his artistic inspiration or something, and his dad died and it made him rethink, you know, the importance of fatherhood and stuff like that.

So constantly, like as much as the government's trying to shift the narrative, it's super not working in. Even mainstream media?

Malcolm Collins: No, it's

Simone Collins: their only

Malcolm Collins: [00:07:00] chance. It's their only chance. But then this becomes really scary because. You can get an entire society where the majority of children are born through artificial wombs under the government,

Simone Collins: and they can also be, they will be able to be genetically modified by this point too.

A scary thing that Malcolm has pointed out that governments may do in the future to not only print their own citizens, but also. Preventive brain drain, because that's also kind of a war that's gonna be taking place between countries, just like they're gonna be fighting over productive taxpayers and productive citizens.

To keep citizens captive, you can make people with certain deficiencies who depend on a very specific chemical compound that only like the CCP can manufacture. And if you don't get your monthly injection or supplement or whatever. You're, you just die, so you can't

Malcolm Collins: leave. Yeah.

So, and I'll know you, people can think that this is like sci-fi or whatever.

I, I need to point out. This technology is being developed. The c CCP has signaled that it wants to get into this technology and even, even though it, it did [00:08:00] arrest that guy who did the genetic editing in the past, the CCP is modifying its stance on a lot of this stuff. Mm-hmm. If you look at sort of what's going on under the hood based on the fertility collapse that they're dealing with right now, like they're having their population, every generation, they're gonna deal with an economic collapse.

Certainly because of this.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And they have the motive means and, and motivation to react to it in this way. Right? Like, or people are like, they would never, they would do that. And if you can't find a way to motivate fertility. Through something other than this or, or genetic selection that leads to better traits instead of just genetic traits.

You are going to lose to Chinese, like Chinese culture, whatever that is. It will be the culture that determines the future of humanity it takes to stars.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And this is why it's extra important for us to build successful societies that support things like bodily autonomy and reproductive choice.

So thi this is the sci-fi element of it. Note,

Malcolm Collins: note here you just said reproductive choice, which to us [00:09:00] means something different. She doesn't mean abortion. She means the ability to do things like embryo screening and augmentation. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Or to not do that if you don't wanna do it. Right, right, right.

Malcolm Collins: Your opinion. Literally do

Simone Collins: choose how you have a family and whether you wanna have a. A family like reproductive choice also means like, Hey, I wanna be a dink couple, and oh, great, okay. The government's not gonna force me to do it. Although I think that China will probably in the future just allow for dinks and like have them die out and tax them to high heaven.

And then just. Print their own humans that are compliant. But anyway, so that's the sci-fi element. I think a really underrated element of demographic labs and is that we can really see it, it's already happened or sort of the same after effects of demographic labs have played out in different regions of the world that allow us to see what it's going to look like already.

Like you can literally fly to these places and physically see what it looks like. And a really great example that we've cited before is Detroit. So Malcolm, I'm gonna send you on WhatsApp. Some images first and before and after. Here's the Michigan Railroad waiting depot. Well, I love that every, many [00:10:00] things that,

Malcolm Collins: what's going to happen as places depopulate is that they're gonna get really cheap, like cheap, cheap housing.

Yeah. Like, oh, finally

Simone Collins: like, we'll have affordable housing. This is gonna be fantastic. Like, no. What happened in Detroit after there was a big exodus of population was that housing. In some ways did become much more affordable. And we do have friends, for example, who moved there and got swanky apartments in like the few areas that got kept up.

But what happened more and more was that places got abandoned and then just no one could afford to maintain them. Because if anyone here who's bought has bought a house like, oh my God, these things are money holes. It costs so much an

Malcolm Collins: episode on this. And I'll put some of the pictures from that episode here where we show that houses in Detroit essentially deteriorated into RU rubble with modern building practices.

Yeah. In around 15 years. Of, of not being used.

Here you have an abandoned group of three normal looking houses in 2011. By 2013, you can see one has already collapsed in on itself, only two years after being abandoned.

2015 you [00:11:00] see there's basically nothing left. 2022, you can see it's as if they were never there. So keep in mind, 2015, that's only four years after these were abandoned. That they are just rubble

Simone Collins: Yeah. I'm sending you another, another picture of the, the Vanity Ballroom Theater. Or, but just ballroom before and after. Wonder. I'm showing you a picture of a classroom in, in Detroit. These are things that were like, you know, built in like the, the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, sometimes even the nineties that are falling apart.

Here's Cas Technical High School. In Detroit, it you're, what you're seeing is just the face of a building with a bunch of like broken empty windows and it just ruins inside. It's super creepy. Here's the, the house the former house of a wealthy banker. You know, people are building these houses thinking that they're just gonna last forever.

You know, this is my legacy. I'm gonna contract a famous architect for this, which is what was the case with this particular house, which you can see was a once great mansion. Yeah. That is now literally collapsing and it has since been demolished. Here is a [00:12:00] former synagogue. Actually, the Jews all left Detroit kind of around the same time apparently.

And then it got turned into a church and then it got abandoned. Super creepy looking. It, it was not built very long ago. Here, here's a dental office like offices. I mean, already offices are being abandoned. When Malcolm and I go to New York and host parties we do some high rise. You, we

Malcolm Collins: do like a looking through of the old core club offices, which is like a swipe club.

Simone Collins: Yeah, which is in the same building and then in the adjacent buildings, you can look into the opposite. They're just empty and you would, I mean, just like buildings just crumble so quickly, it's, it's terrifying. So that, that's, just to give you a picture of it, what's, what's important for people to be aware of is that it's not like people are gonna move in and be able to afford to pay for maintaining these buildings.

There's a factor, at least in the United States, that's going to accelerate this problem. Sorry,

Malcolm Collins: I need to explain why this happens. 'cause people might not understand why somebody wouldn't pay to upkeep a building. Oh. The reason why you pay and we bought real estate before to upkeep real estate, is because it has a lot of value, right?

[00:13:00] Yeah. It's good, you know, if you're like, I wanna buy a house. In a market where prices and houses are going down, that can seem like a great idea. But then keep in mind, you're spending a lot of money on an asset that's going to decrease in price. Yeah. Nobody buys an asset that they think is gonna decrease in price.

Yeah. Which means that houses. When people are pretty sure the market's gonna go down, it goes all the way down really fast. And this is why your houses in Detroit were selling for a penny. You know, they, they, they become a liability, not an asset.

Simone Collins: This is going to be exacerbated by insurance. So already in a bunch of states in the United States especially ca California and Florida to start though this is already happening in other states too is that insurance companies are going bankrupt and or leaving the state.

And whilst in some cases states like California are trying to create basically state based insurance programs, they're prohibitively expensive. Which means that some people just can't afford insurance or can't get insurance at all on their houses. And this does a couple of things. One. [00:14:00] It makes it impossible for some people to buy houses entirely because many mortgages, the loans that you get to buy a home require you to have home insurance.

They will not give you the loan if your home is not insured. And if you literally cannot get or cannot afford insurance for your home, that means you can't buy the home. So then there's this huge swath of a population that won't be able to buy homes. And then any

Malcolm Collins: home that they would buy at zero value immediately.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So home ownerships are gonna go, go down. The financial stability of families and communities is gonna go down. You know, people are, are, are, are not going to be able to sell their houses because no one can buy them. So we're gonna see. Both, like a lot of people in the United States, their home is their nest egg.

It's their savings. It's like that. They plan on selling it once they become empty nesters and that will fund their retirement and they expect to make, you know, that, that, that the, the price of their house will have appreciated and that that will pay for their retirement, which. Is important because social security's gonna stop working and their pension plans aren't gonna pay anymore.

But what

Malcolm Collins: happens is if the real estate market crashes at the same time as Social security [00:15:00] stops working, and it actually

Simone Collins: probably is. So jumping up to Social Security, at least in the USA the USA is projected to no longer be able to fully cover social security obligations by 2033 to 2034. And already some, like there are neighborhoods in Florida where basically most people have left.

Like they are empty, they're going to become Detroit eyes, you know, like completely crumble because literally people are leaving after floods and hurricanes because they, they don't have insurance and they, they can't pay out of pocket to repair their broken houses. So, already that's starting to happen.

It's gonna happen in more and more places. And at the same time, basically like fewer than 10 years away from now social security's no longer going to be able to. Defund its obligation unless lawmakers intervene to shore up the trust funds or overhaul the program's financing. The way they're most likely gonna do that is just by printing more money and printing more money to fund social security payments is likely going to result in higher inflation.

And this is going to increase everyday costs like food and healthcare. It's going to [00:16:00] reduce the dollars, global purchasing power, and it's gonna destabilize personal and government finances. So, you're also going to see as social, like let's say you're not even old when Social Security dies. You're not even dependent on it.

Suddenly you're paying a hell of a lot more for food, for medical care, for all the stuff that retired people are buying now with money that isn't worth as much. So also, you as a retired person expected to be able to live off your social security check, and you can't because now suddenly medical services cost a lot more, and technically the government's meeting their obligations to you, but.

They're not because you can't afford anything

Malcolm Collins: because the government money's not worth anything. But I've pointed out that the US is one of the best places to be a demographic collapse place out. Yeah. Only because everyone else is gonna be fleeing here. Well, yeah. And you

Simone Collins: have to consider, I mean, already is we one for one thing, A lot is already privatized in the United States, so to a certain extent we're.

Slightly more weaned off the tit of government which is, or tit, do we say tit when we're [00:17:00] talking about breastfeeding? I don't wanna talk about breastfeeding or

Malcolm Collins: tit. I, I understand that, that my mom and my sister-in-law, my, my half sister, not sister-in-law, half sister they got in such a fight about this on an airplane once.

What was the correct word that, that t versus Tet. Are you serious? Yeah. That she called her Tett was her nickname. Think it was Little Tet and Big Tet or something.

Simone Collins: Little tea and big. That is amazing.

Malcolm Collins: I just remember that growing up and hearing that word all the time and knowing the story,

Simone Collins: I think, I think Tet is used in the context of discussing breastfeeding.

So at least when we're weaned off the Tet of government services, for example, NHS people are already super unhappy with wait list times. With the services in general, they're having a lot of trouble. And most recently this is erupted in angry discussions on X because in July the Prime Minister, Kiir Starmer announced that they plan to bring over 300 gauze and children with their parents and provide them with NHS treatment.

Because they're really sick, which, okay, that's really nice. But then people got super mad 'cause they're [00:18:00] like, my 4-year-old has been on a wait list for NHS treatment for five years now, or no, that wouldn't work. But like for years, I, I, I, I saw for years, but it was like for a unreasonable, they,

Malcolm Collins: they brought the godins in and they're like, we're treating the, the, the immigration thing.

Within the next 10, 20 years as fertility rates really become obvious, it's an issue.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: People are gonna freak out way more than they're, if you're like, this is like the height of immigration as like a concern area for society.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: When people realize that they are. Unironically just being replaced by the wealthy.

They are going to freak the F out. You mean replaced by immigrants? No, no, no. That the wealthy is replacing them like that. They're like, oh, we have a problem. There's not enough people having kids. We'll just bring other people into the country to replace you. So a great example of this as a place like Italy, right?

Where I point out that at the current Italian fertility rate, which is 1.18, yeah. There's only gonna be. 20 great-grandchildren for every a hundred Italians. And this is assuming that the numbers don't go down further, which they have done like every year for [00:19:00] the past however many years. They almost certainly are.

Yeah. And then countries at the UN or the W, they'll say, we can fix this with immigration. So either you want to do one of two things with those immigrants, right? Like either you plan to completely erase their birth culture and make them exactly like you, Italian, German, whatever, which is cultural genocide.

Like historically we call that cultural genocide. It's bad.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Or you plan on replacing the existing population. So either you do plan to replace people or you plan to commit cultural genocide. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Speaking of genocide, I actually think this is what many nationalized healthcare services are gonna start to do, which in other words, they're going to do the same thing that Canada has started doing, which is introduce medical assistance and dying.

AKA, the MAID program. So when that was first so in 2023, there were o over 15,000 made cases representing 4.7% of all deaths in Canada. And that was a 15.8% increase over 2022. And. Then a little bit of like year over year growth has slowed, but it is, it is still going up and I feel [00:20:00] like it might just get to the case where basically the NHS and many other government healthcare services, which just can't afford, like, neither have the staff nor the money to pay for people's medical services or just like, well, we'll help you.

Transition out of your life easily. Like at least we'll do that. Well, we're seeing this, was it Mary Harrington on X, which is really funny. This was like a year ago when she said this, but she said imagine signing up for an NHS suicide chances. Or, oh, sorry. Imagine signing up for an n hs suicide.

Chances are you'd either die on the waiting list

Malcolm Collins: that, that on alive.

Simone Collins: Okay. So like a year ago Mary Mary Harrington said, imagine signing up for an NHS. Un alive chances are you'd either die on the waiting list or come out healthier on the other end, which is so true, I believe for that is

Malcolm Collins: is Canada is literally, you should watch our episode of should it be legal for Canada to kill poor people because that's essentially what this has become with a lot of these services.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: With, with the, with the Canada one, with the made one at least, is, is if you are [00:21:00] long-term on a lot of these government services, they basically recommend it to you. Well, they're gonna have to

Simone Collins: because they, they, they, one, they can't afford you like your liability. And so the, the, the best thing, the most responsible thing for them to do is to just try to remove you from their balance sheet.

Malcolm Collins: And other governments have already suggested killing old people. So this happened in Japan where a lot of people freaked out? No,

Simone Collins: no, just, yeah, just one guy was like the honorable thing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But, but what I will say is we are going to see this more and more because people are gonna be like these numbers.

And when you talk about like, what's the timeline for these numbers not working in many European countries we're looking at this timeline not working. Within 10 to 20 years systems are gonna start breaking. So even people are like, what's the timeline on the European system?

Simone Collins: So yeah, basically like, what we're going to see is, is if you are dependent currently on government provided healthcare, you need to start planning on alternate methods. And if you are in a place like the United States and you're dependent on [00:22:00] private healthcare and private insurance, you need to plan on finding alternate sources of medical care.

Because it is going to become unaffordable. So if, if you're on private medical care, it's gonna become unaffordable. Find ways to get like no doctors or train yourself in like self-treatment and know how to source medications. Outside working with a primary care physician get familiar with direct primary care.

I think what we're gonna see is, is probably a shift to direct primary care, which is where you, outside of insurance, outside of anything else, pay a doctor directly. For medical advice, they can prescribe medication and then get really used to finding and or possibly synthesizing and making the medications that you need to survive and hope that you, you know, save, you're gonna end up spending a lot of money just to be able to get lifesaving services.

So we're gonna see, of course, medical breakthroughs, but they're also going to be so unaffordable that like, it kind of doesn't matter. But I think that's, that's something that is really important to, to also think about. So let's, let's go back to what it's like to live. No, [00:23:00]

Malcolm Collins: I wanna talk about what it looks like when social security and stuff like that starts breaking down.

Okay. 'cause we look in and, and some of the European systems, they're actually slated to begin to become financially insolvent was in as little as half a decade. Well, we're,

Simone Collins: we're less than a decade away from our Social security faltering.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, when you look at these environments, right, what's I, I know you say that they'll just start printing money.

I don't know. We may see them increasing the age of retirement. We may see them that Zo

Simone Collins: Abe did that for Japan.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, there, there's going to be a number of changes to the way these systems work, but how can you, how will that

Simone Collins: happen in the us? Like I could see Japan may be working this out 'cause they can be responsible and honorable, but as you pointed out, you need

Malcolm Collins: boomers to vote for less stuff for themselves.

That's the difference. That's not gonna

Simone Collins: happen. Right. That's just not, and this is why you say that demographic collapse undermines democracy is mm-hmm. When you have a dependency ratio cascade and you get to a point where there are more people. Who are net drains on our tax system who cost more to the government than they bring in voting [00:24:00] than you have people who are net contributors to the tax system and those people who are net drains are not going to vote themselves fewer services.

You know, as far as boomers are concerned, I paid into the system. I did my part, I deserve. What I, you know what I did like so well. They had a

Malcolm Collins: uniquely flourishing economy. No, they don't. Yeah. But they don't

Simone Collins: look at it that way. I mean, and we've had conversations with boomers who were like, no, we're just being totally unfair.

Like they, they're pathologically unable and unwilling to take a hit, so we have to depend that that's not going to happen.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: That's why they're gonna start printing money because again, boomers aren't gonna vote themselves fewer services. And basically what's gonna happen in 20 20, 20 33 to 2035 is that social security, like we're only gonna be able to pay out like 75 to 80% of what people are entitled to, entitled to.

Unless we, we really start like fudging numbers and stuff. We're not gonna cut back like it, it's just expect inflation. I'm, I'm just telling people like, 'cause I wanna want, part of this conversation to be is like, what should you be [00:25:00] preparing for? So like, medically get used to taking care of your own medical stuff and sourcing your own medications and really owning your own medical care.

Financially, you know, prepare to live a lot leaner than you do now because money's gonna cost a lot more in addition to medical care. Once social security starts to falter, you have time to prepare. So in the us, like you have maybe. Seven years in Europe, you have maybe a shorter timeline, but that's something to watch out for.

And, and another thing that I wanna point out is just how, like, so I think some governments are gonna try to assist with housing. I wanna show you, here's some photos on WhatsApp that I'm sending to you that you can put on. The thing of this is a gated community in South Africa. And this is the Soweto Township that, that we had toured with your family.

And here's the school that we visited in the Soweto Township.

Malcolm Collins: So these are pictures we took?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well not Not the gated community. 'cause we didn't see the fancy stuff in Johannesburg. We went to the Soto Ghe.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Simone Collins: By the [00:26:00] way, here are the backpacks. That were at the kids' school in the Soto Township, which makes me feel excited.

Malcolm Collins: It looks like Walmart.

Simone Collins: Well, no, but it's like, everyone gives us shame for like not having like a branded kids' backpack for our son who's in, he's going into the first grade. 'cause we just. You know how like they give away really nice backpacks at conferences? Yeah. So we give one of those, like, it's a really nice backpack, but it's clearly from a conference.

And like everyone else is coming with their like Elsa backpack. And even in sota it's like all branded kid backpacks. And I'm like, oh God, I'm in the worst parent ever. Even in the slums out of like outside of Japan town, s**t. Yeah. But anyway, so like what's going on in these townships? Because even after apartheid, even after all these attempts to like, okay, well the government's gonna step in, the government will provide, because I think we're gonna see a lot of that too.

I mean, we're seeing this with mom, Donny in New York, all this like, well, okay, we have to start fixing that. Well, this is what it looks like when a government is like, oh, we'll provide you with housing. We'll fix this. No, the townships in [00:27:00] South Africa, often don't have electricity or running water. These are are houses that many people have just built on their own.

They, they are not nice. And then meanwhile, there, there are ways that the wealthy people in South Africa have found around the weird property ownership laws in South Africa to have these gated communities. And I, I fell down this rabbit hole today of all the random weird services and types of gates that you should be buying.

In in South Africa and the kind of private security that you could be getting. For example, you know how like a DT is like a home security company in the United States as well? Yeah. So here is fidelity, a DT in South Africa. I'm sending you some pictures of the dudes that will come out. Oh my God.

And then looking

Malcolm Collins: like a Rainbow Six game or something. They're, they're like,

Simone Collins: they're like a, a SWAT team, you know, that just comes and shoots the bad guys who inevitably are coming to your house. What has happened in South Africa because they're the government much earlier than ours. Has been unable to provide security that is reliable.

Is now basically you as a private citizen are paying a DT Fidelity. [00:28:00] Here's the plug. They're not a sponsor of this podcast, but they can be if they want to. I would. I'll totally take a private security sponsorship. But like people are gonna now feel obligated to pay for private security. Because when they call the police, the police won't come.

And as much as you might be like, oh, well, whatever, that's like a South Africa thing. Like they're having all these problems. No. Like police departments are already not working in the USA. So just, just for like a little perspective, about 44 to 47% of the New York police departments total annual costs go toward pension debt and benefits.

So, only like 53 to 56 currently supports active operations. So basically half of the NYPD is on, on like not providing services. They, they could barely pay for what they have. Mm-hmm. Our closest city in Philadelphia, the department is about 20% short of its full officer commitment. This is down 1,200 officers from s.

6,380. Okay. You should look at our,

Malcolm Collins: our thing on the, the, [00:29:00] the, the closed crime rate. We have an episode on this where it's gone down dramatically where many crimes just aren't even being pursued in the United

Simone Collins: States.

So to just give you some quick numbers on this, , violent climb clearance rates went from 48.1% in 2013 to 36.7% in 2022, a drop of 24% property climb clearance rates, including ses and burglaries, dropped from 19.7% in 2013 to 12.1% in 2022, a decline of 39%, so it dropped from 19.7%. To 12.1%. So we're only saving about one in 10 thefts and burglaries being solved anymore.

, Thefts and homicides rates have plummeted from around 91% in 1965 to around 50% in 2022.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You'll see why. Yeah, because this is, so, this particular in Philadelphia, it's impacting 9 1 1 response and cold case investigations, cold case.

Of course. This like, we

Malcolm Collins: are in the middle of an apocalypse right now. I wanna, I wanna make that clear to [00:30:00] people like it is happening in slow motion, but it is here already.

Simone Collins: Yeah. In Oakland, California, which is right next to the town where I grew up in, in California right across, across the little water I grew up in Alameda.

It, it is, their police department is very understaffed. It's dropped from more than 800 sworn officers to 678, possibly lower if they cut more costs. 'cause they kind of have to. So basically there's overspending on overtime because there's high demand. And they, they're likely to just not be able to respond anymore in Los Angeles.

Also, they're facing a yearly, $1 billion budget shortfall. They may la lay off 1,600 employees with about a quarter from l la. PD civilian roles like crime scene, photography and cybersecurity. So like, you know, good luck getting anything solved. And, and also it's not just big cities, they're also small towns.

And this is where it's gonna start first actually. So there are places like Morris, Minnesota and Washburn, Illinois where shortages have forced entire departments just disband. They're like, oh, like sorry guys. We don't [00:31:00] have a police department anymore. So these localities are now reliant on county sheriffs.

Good hue. Minnesota lost its entire force after the police chief and officers just, just resigned due to inadequate pay and benefits. So they're just like, yeah, yeah, it's not worth it anymore. So again, like get ready for a DB Fidelity and please sponsorships for private security are welcome to welcome to reach out to Basecamp because that's what's gonna happen.

So also. I think investing in home defense, in home security systems and better fencing, all these things like you, you actually need to think about these things aside from just a recreational prepper standpoint. Now it's more like if you think police departments are taking care of you you're, you're probably wrong.

And then there's all these sort of like underrated under the surface issues like food safety

Malcolm Collins: that are just gonna, this. The point I think that she's making here is the cra like. People think this is an intergenerational issue. Mm-hmm. M

Speaker 3: here. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Depending

Malcolm Collins: on where you live in the world

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: [00:32:00] Within your lifetime, systems are going to start to crack. Yeah. Within your lifetime, you're going to need to arm yourself and you can

Simone Collins: already go to places in the world to like field trip experience it. For example, yeah. We, we used to spend half our time living in Lima, Peru and. Pretty much every time I go, even the last time I went, like last year or two years ago in 2024, no, last year.

So last year there was a, there was just a power outage. I was in the most expensive part of the most expensive city, in the most expensive hotel, or like I was in the Marriott. There just lost power. Just they didn't have a backup generator, I guess. They're just like, oh, we don't have power right now.

Remember the whole, like for days at a time, there would be no water. They're just like, ah, water's off right now. Like, no water today. Yeah, no. Like this was just, it's a regular thing and you know, they're not falling apart yet. You know, brownouts and blackouts are also super common in South Africa to the point where these nice walled garden.

Housing developments have [00:33:00] backup generators in addition to their private security and everything. And that is where the wealthy are gonna go live. They're gonna go piece out. And whether or not governments have rules about how much they can like go off and live in their walled gardens, they're gonna find a way to make it work.

Like it. They're gonna do it and you're gonna be left behind. And, and already there are several US states. We're not just talking Peru that are experiencing not infrequent blackouts and brownouts. California and Texas are the most. Prevalent examples. A lot of the, the, these problems, and the same with insurance.

It's due to kind of global climate change related things like wildfires and hurricanes and things like that. Fortunately

Malcolm Collins: in Pennsylvania, we've been expanding our nuclear plants recently. Well, thank

Simone Collins: God, but get ready because also there's a lot of AI infrastructure development that is being discussed in Pennsylvania, so AI infrastructure.

Yeah. So several areas in the United States are now being directly affected by power demands of AI data centers which also affects water your availability of clean water because they're using. Literally potable water to [00:34:00] Cool. Not ours. We have a, well, I know, thank God. But all, I mean, like, it could, it could drain groundwater, it could, it could drain aquifers.

I don't think that we're pulling from a major aquifer, but still. So the growth and clustering of the facilities, it's putting substantial strain already. And you can go and watch YouTube videos on like communities that been, have been affected by AI data centers already. It's putting a lot of.

Strain on power grids, and this is causing both grid stability issues, so blackouts and brownouts, but also increased electricity costs. So not only does food cost more and medical it, it's also gonna be your electricity costs. So, in this is already an issue in Northern Virginia and Eastern Oregon and Central Wa Washington in, in Phoenix, Arizona, Texas, and California and Pennsylvania.

Is kind of next in line for this. And nationally, the US Department of Energy and Independent Grid Monitors have warned that the current system is not equipped to handle the boom in AI related power without rapid upgrades. Oh God. Also, like no one's [00:35:00] incentivized to, I love a world where humans live in poverty and AI get all the water and power.

No, but that's, that's actually what's gonna happen as, as the AI sector is. Celebrates more communities are going to be impacted by the surge in demand, and the AI companies are gonna have the resources and the lobbyists and everything else to, to demand that power water. What I, what

Malcolm Collins: I love is, is all of these, like trans people in the tech sector, they already dress like they're in the capital and the Hunger games you know, not contributing to the future of humanity just dedicating to consolidating wealth around themselves in this one generation.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, but what I want people to take away from this is. You need to be prepared with things Like who? Things like backup generators, maybe like, much more suspending. I dunno, I don't even think

Malcolm Collins: they need to be prepared. I'm, I think you're wrong about this. I'm gonna, I'm gonna be honest. Okay.

Simone Collins: Why?

Malcolm Collins: Because the price of a lot of these things is gonna fluctuate so much. I, I guess you should be prepared. Should we be getting one of those every year we talk about getting a big solar

Simone Collins: Generator. We have, we have. I mean, we should get more, we should get more solar [00:36:00] panels, but already, they're already in my Faraday box up in the app.

Oh,

Malcolm Collins: we got the solar one and you put it in solar box. Yeah,

Simone Collins: we got them on prime Day last year. That was my last like pregnancy prepping thing. We should probably every time that there's like, well, we should, I'll put it on my Black Friday list to get more solar panels. But yeah, no, I think. There are two things you should be doing.

One is you need to rapidly decrease the amount of like your burn. I think that's a really big thing. I mean, having massive saving reserves in dollars is probably not the safest thing to do, so I would diversify where your money is held, like summon us, like this is not financial advice. We are not.

Giving you financial advice. But what we're doing is trying to diversify where our money is. We don't want it all sitting in dollars 'cause we know that people are gonna start devaluing the United States dollar. So maybe, you know, we have a little bit in crypto, we have a little bit in real estate that we think is going to stay productive that we would actively rent out.

We have a little bit in, the stock market, a lot of it in the stock market, like, you know, in, in s and p 500 index funds. [00:37:00] But like, think about where your money is, knowing what is going to happen, and also think about things like security, energy independence food sustainability and, and all these things because.

Again, the future is here, is just not evenly distributed. We're gonna see blackouts, we're gonna see brownouts, pe. People in California are experiencing them. People in Texas and Florida are experiencing them. They're experiencing rapid drops in housing prices because insurance companies are fleeing and people can't get mortgages anymore.

Well, yeah, this is, this is happening now. And you need to expect it to happen and adjust your life accordingly. This doesn't mean that the future isn't bright and that you don't get to own the future, because this is one of those periods of rapid disruption where the people who play their cards, right.

Malcolm Collins: Just play your cards. Right. And you win the entire civilizational game. Right? Yeah. You know, that, that is what happen, isn't a bad thing. You can create high fertility, high technology families. Yeah. Real reality. Yeah. It's just like a choke

Simone Collins: point in, in, in a, in in humanity.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. We're at a choke point in human history.

Yeah. And those that play it, inly will [00:38:00] not exist in the future. And I, I, I really mean this, like these influencers and stuff like this who have no kids, no wife, and they're like 35 or whatever. It's like they're not actually gonna, if they're giving you advice, they're not gonna exist in the future, right?

Simone Collins: Well give advice from people who are living the life you wanna live. If we're not living the life you wanna live, don't take advice from us. But also, I think a lot of people are assuming that the world is gonna continue as it is, is for them, right? We.

Malcolm Collins: We, this is the thing. Collapses have been faster.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And, and suppose AI starts replacing people then it gets harder when you talk about something like being able to put a human in you know, like a, a, a completely AI automated environment. Right? Like, suppose we get. UBI all over the globe. Right? Yeah. And AI does everything for us. Yeah. Or at least regionally, which is the way I really expect it.

Yeah. I think we might get UBI in like China and the US and then nobody else gets it because our AI companies are being taxed and making money and nobody else has. The AI companies and the AI can easily really replace workers. Yeah. But even in these [00:39:00] environments well, but I,

Simone Collins: I, I mean, I point out that like, I think in South Africa.

They, they kind of promised UBI They promised free housing to people. Yeah, they did. They said, oh, you have, they just couldn't deliver. Yeah. And that's again, like, think of the pictures that I, I shared of the Soweto Township. Like this is what UBI looks like and massive unemployment. You know, children in these schools, I mean, and they did like the school we visited.

Those kids were so cool. The teachers are awesome. Like people are amazing and resilient and like, people are gonna make it work, but it ain't gonna be pretty. And I want you to plan for it.

Malcolm Collins: Well. As things begin to deteriorate, right? Like as governments begin to become unstable, you are going to get a lot of political movements.

I think that's one of the things that people dunno here which is basically just give us the money. Political movements, we don't wanna work. Like the urban Monoculture is incredibly entitled.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Why else do you think Mom, Don, mom, Donnie is, is. I can't. And then

Malcolm Collins: Europe is, and, and, and actually this is something I can say with some degree of, I think a lot of Europe is gonna look like [00:40:00] South Africa within the next 25 years.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And I mean, the scary thing is, you know, again, you can have a great life in South Africa. We've met people who are like, yeah, I'm excited to move back to South Africa. Like, you know, I, I, I have a place that's great, you know, that was in these skating communities spoon, whatever. However, the problem is that like.

It's gonna be harder if you don't have the money for that now to get the money. Oh, do you have the a BA therapist coming today? Yeah, I've gotta run. Bye. Love you. I love you too. Do you want teriyaki chicken with pineapple and rice or do you want curry with rice?

Malcolm Collins: Let's do curry with rice. Okay.

Simone Collins: I love you.

Malcolm Collins: Love you.

Simone Collins: Oh dear.

I'm so out of it. I'm barely conscious. Okay, ready?

A

can you sing? What? What about your other [00:41:00] voice? What was that other way you were singing? Do you were singing like, do a dear, can you do that?

A

Oh, now you're getting all sweet again. I see how it goes.

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