Starbucks Communism: Consumerism & Austerity in Communism and Capitalism

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they delve into the complex relationship between capitalism, communism, and the modern iteration of "Starbucks Communism." In this thought-provoking discussion, the couple explores the historical context of austerity within communist systems and how it has been replaced by a unique combination of communism and consumerism in contemporary times. They also examine the efficiency of capitalist systems and the importance of promoting austerity as a cultural value. Throughout the conversation, Malcolm and Simone shed light on the potential dangers of modern communist ideologies and the importance of understanding the consequences of implementing such systems.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] You and I, even though it may seem an anathema to people, we promote both and austerity. Why do we promote these in combination? It is because capitalist systems, are just more efficient than other systems. Alright? It isn't because we assign any sort of like, Theological or moral value to capitalism.

 And as to why we promote austerity, it is for the same reason. Psychologically and effectiveness wise as an individual, it promotes those things. Communist systems, historically speaking, for obvious reasons have always glorified austerity.

What is this? This rocket is decadent and wasteful. If you want to win contest, your mind must be hard and joyless, like a Russian turnip.

Malcolm Collins: And this made sense if you're actually trying to operate in any level economically functioning communist system. But the new communists aren't like this so you have gotten this [00:01:00] totally unique to modern times combination of communism and consumerism Starbucks communism, I guess we should call it. It's communism, but with polyamory and orgies and, and constant self affirmation.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! Hi. I am so excited to be here with you, pushing through another pregnancy.

Your

Simone Collins: upended turtle wife

Malcolm Collins: here. No, no, no, no. You are an amazing picture of grace, and I want to talk about something here because it was something that I was thinking about that is just so fascinating because I was thinking about us pushing austerity. Which we often push on our podcast, you know, austerity in your lifestyle.

And this isn't to say that we don't sin, you know, I know I drink, I know I shouldn't do that, I know I indulge myself occasionally. It's

Simone Collins: wine and water, you have to drink that or you'll

Malcolm Collins: die. I, I, yeah, right, I recognize, I, I'm like a robot from a, a Futurama,

 My God, [00:02:00] you're a mess.

Leave me alone. Look at that five o'clock rust. You've been up all night not drinking, haven't you? Please, Bender, have some malt liquor. If not for yourself, then for the people who love you.

Malcolm Collins: You know, I need alcohol or I'll go crazy.

European,

Simone Collins: you are a, a very European genetically. Like if you look at your 23 and me, you're extremely European. Your people have lived off beer as their primary, like, nutritional water

Malcolm Collins: source. So people may not know this, and we should actually elevate this point that she's making here because it is actually interesting.

During parts of European history, because especially after we began to urbanize because the water supplies became toxic often and you couldn't drink from them, the only thing that you could be almost certain did not, wasn't going to get you sick was Coors Light. Well, that quote is like, but watered down alcohol specifically because they would water down their alcohol historically.

A lot of people don't know this, like wine in for example, Athens, where you hear about them drinking wine all the time. In symposia, yeah. Heavily watered down. And [00:03:00] this, we, we know this because they called like the Macedonians barbarians for not watering down their wine. They were like those maniacs drink wine.

Drunken maniacs. Yes. Yes. And it was actually the same as beer in a historic context. It was mostly meant to remove the microbes from it. But, but, but they consumed prodigious amounts. So I am not that dissimilar from my ancestors.

Simone Collins: Well, your body's kind of built for it. I'm just saying. And Yeah, I'd actually say that Also, the, and I just, you know, people give, give you s**t for drinking beer flavored water.

But in the end, beer flavored water, just like furries is the most traditional path.

Malcolm Collins: It is. It is the most traditional path. I'm a trad for drinking Coors Light but anyway, this is a completely off topic.

Simone Collins: Yeah, sorry. It's, it's yeah, I've had a long day. I'm, I'm too pregnant for this, as Candace Owens has famously said. Because we

Malcolm Collins: get, well, I mean, on the topic of austerity, we often talk about austerity, and it is actually pretty rare these days for people to think about the combination of austerity and [00:04:00] capitalism.

As moral systems, historically, austerity was more associated with the communist system. Whereas consumerism was associated with the, I call it consumerism slash hedonism was associated with the capitalist system and in sort of a historic context. Well, and I would say

Simone Collins: you can tell me I'm totally off base here, but it occurred to me, even when you look and we're talking, you know, blur your eyes here, cross your eyes a little bit, but when you compare.

Historical cities like Athens versus Sparta or, you know, kingdoms, essentially Sparta was, you know, the more communist kind of place and it was definitely way more austere in comparison, you know, Athenians were these feet wealthy, you know, high class differentiation groups.

Malcolm Collins: So let's talk about why this is the case, first of all, because this is, I mean, if you are trying to functionally implement capitalism and you want to promise people something to get them to go along with the [00:05:00] system that leads to a level of inequality that you don't get within communist systems, you promise them that even the poorest will have a better life, or even like the, like, let's say lower third will have a better life than your average person in a communist system.

And this is. True, generally speaking. Also, when people historically have been implementing communist systems that are meant to practically work, well, you need to get them to be austere for the system to produce enough goods. You need to elevate austerity as a value system. The problem is, a couple fold here.

One is, is that today the communists, Don't actually plan to implement their system or are not seriously thinking about it. And so they can promise whatever they want. And so now you've gotten this weird mix of communism plus consumerism slash heathenism. Which in a historic communist concept is a complete historical anathema, which we're going to talk about in a second, but I'm going to take this, box it up, put it aside.

But first we're going to talk about the weird mix of capitalism and austerity, because you have [00:06:00] seen this in a historic context. And actually where you've seen this in a historic context, you got supercharged capitalism. This was in the, so for people who aren't familiar with this,

there's a famous book on the subject of Calvinism.

Do you read the Wikipedia entry on this book because its subjects are pretty important to this particular discussion. The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism is considered a founding text in economic sociology. At a milestone contribution to sociological thought in general. In the book Weber wrote. That capitalism in Northern Europe evolved when the Protestant particularly Calvinist ethic influenced the large numbers of people to developing their own enterprises and engaging in trade and the accumulation of wealth for investment.

 To make it quick quote from the book that will help you understand how the iteration of Christianity that the book describes your aligns very, very closely. With Simona and mind's own view of the world. Quote. Remember that time is money. He, that can earn 10 [00:07:00] shillings a day by his labor and goes abroad or sits idle one half of that day though, he spins, but six pins during his diversion or idleness. Not to reckon that the only expense he has really spent or thrown away. To be five shillings. Remember that money is the prolific generating nature. Money can be get money. And it's all spring can be get more. And so on five shillings turned is six turned again is seven and three peace. And so on till it becomes a hundred pounds, the more there is of it, the more it produces every turning so that the profits rise quicker and quicker.

He that kills the breeding. South destroys all her offspring to the thousands generation. He that murders a crone destroys all that it might have produced even scores of pounds.

Malcolm Collins: We call ourselves secular Calvinist, but it's important to note that like our value set is actually very similar to the historic Calvinist value set and Calvinists are often seen as inventing modern capitalism [00:08:00] because they did so under the context of austerity, which is to say you have a free market, but not just a free market, but a free market where you reinvest your profits in increasing productivity of the system, which was not done under non Calvinist Early historical systems.

So I need to give a bit of a history lesson here. So people understand why this happened and why it led to America as we know it today. So for people who don't know,

Simone Collins: majority

Malcolm Collins: Calvinist country, at least among its white residents, when it was founded, I think it was like 61 percent in one of the things I saw from the heritage report.

So, so, so like, you know, this is something that's. Like, well, no, like a lot of people don't seem to know this. I think it was like in a, one of the minority beliefs or like one of a few beliefs, it was one of the few beliefs that came together, but it was by far the dominant in, in colonial America. Well it held the belief in a kind of prosperity doctrine, which was to say If God wanted to show you that like you were meant for [00:09:00] heaven, he would reward you with success in your career, which would lead to financial success.

However, there's a big caveat that makes it very different from the modern prosperity doctrine. Spending any of that success on yourself proved that he didn't actually favor you. It proved that he tested you with that money and you failed. So you were supposed to make lots of money, but you weren't allowed to spend it on self aggrandizement.

Simone Collins: You resist temptation and only the most powerful can resist the amount of temptation you get from great wealth, right?

Malcolm Collins: Yes, and this temptation came in many forms. You were supposed to resist any form of overstimulation. This included dancing, but also any sort of food that excited the mind or something like that.

So they would often eat, this is where Kellogg actually came from in this early whatever movement, right?

Where, where it was like, we need to make a cereal that is the most boring cereal in the world for people to eat because we don't want them to be [00:10:00] overexcited by too many flavors. And we can, that's a whole different thing we can get into but the idea was, is that you would eat very plain food, you would not have servants, you would not dress in fancy outfits, through Very importantly, you would not donate to charities because charities were seen as a form of self aggrandizement because you know, whether it's the church or anything else, because keep in mind, Calvinist churches, anyone who's been to the traditional Calvinist churches, they were simple wooden buildings without art, any form of aggrandizement was seen as a idolatry.

So you wouldn't have that. So there was really nothing to donate to. Right? So what did the people do with all the money that their entire lives were dedicated to earning? You know, they weren't allowed to have any fun. They had to spend all their lives working and success in work was the sign of a gift to God, but you weren't allowed to spend it on yourself.

They reinvested it all into the system. They reinvested it all into their companies and they reinvested it into starting new companies. And

Simone Collins: that creates scientific advancement, amazing infrastructure, really cool things,

Malcolm Collins: right? [00:11:00] Well, yeah. Well, it ended up creating a hyper charged, ultra capitalist early economy.

And for people who are unfamiliar with the Calvinist trope of this period, Ebenezer Scrooge was the Calvinist trope of this period. If you read the book you know, when they talk about him, he ate gruel every day. He did not eat fancy food. kept all of his, he didn't even keep full candles on in his house all the time because he was trying to save money.

And he wouldn't give away money to charities or family members. This is all said pretty explicitly. I, I often joke that Ebenezer Scrooge is for the American Calvinist value system. Like a corrective grape story. So people who don't know what corrective grape is, it's like, Oh, that person's a lesbian, but if some, if they just had sex with a man, then they'd realize how great it was.

And so this is for this, this what would I consider a more Catholic? view towards wealth is to say, well, if he just gave it to the poor, he'd understand how great he would feel. And then he would be broken from this cycle, but Ebeneezer Scrooge was not keeping the money for [00:12:00] himself. It is made clear in the story that he actually lives incredibly frugally.

And that, that is, you know, with the end goal of, of this traditional covenant system. Anyway, also Ebenezer is one of the most Calvinist names ever. It would be

like calling a, a character like you know, Noah Greenberg or something, you know, it's like, in fact, in the, in the guide to Puritan spotting that surf slate codex, Scott Alexander wrote, do they have a relative with a name?

Ebenezer is, is one of the boxes. But anyway, You gotta go back to the story here. So, in early America, you had a combination of capitalism and austerity as a value system, and it led to an explosion of economic and cultural potential, but we as a country lost that. Why did we lose that?

Because surprise, surprise, people didn't like to stay in this state. system. Systems that urge this level of personal austerity and industry in combination do not do a good job of maintaining adherence [00:13:00] intergenerationally. Especially given how pro science the value system was in a historic context, which led to it secularizing About a generation before the Jews secularized.

So it was like more Jewy than Jews, which, which people often accuse the Calvinists of being because they were very tight with the Jews. You know, even to like, I'm going through my own family history and just again and again, we see our family being very close with Jews and Catholics. Which in our community was seen as quite a bad thing.

Like that was one of the reasons we were fighting the Klan so much. Is it actually interesting? Cause I was reading some family documents is, is when they were fighting the Klan the justification, at least if you're going two generations back, and so multiple generations back was the Klan's opinion of Catholics.

Anyway, don't need to get into all of this. We need to get back to topic here, which is very interesting from the whole communist perspective. So!

You and I, even though it may seem an anathema to people, we promote both and austerity. Why do we promote these in combination? It is because capitalist systems, [00:14:00] systems in which you allow independent things to compete against each other, are just more efficient than other systems. Alright? It isn't because we assign any sort of like, Theological or moral value to capitalism.

It is just the better working of systems for almost any goal. And as to why we promote austerity, it is for the same reason. Psychologically and effectiveness wise as an individual, it promotes those things. So this is our core drive. I mean, do you have thoughts on this further before we go into the communist side of things?

Simone Collins: I mean, I, I just like it. I think that when most people think about capitalism, At least when I think about what I was taught about capitalism as a kid, I think inequality, I think haves and have nots, and I think rampant consumerism. When you're right, I mean, the type of capitalism that gets us excited and the type of capitalism that we see being undertaken by at least many of [00:15:00] our, the, the business leaders we admire most is definitely this Calvinist form of, this is about building something bigger.

This is not about the money. This is about the vision.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's a capitalist system that temps the best in that system, the smartest and hardest work ethic in most industry people. It tests them. With temptation.

Simone Collins: Yeah, well you can argue in capitalism is treated in our and a general Calvinist framework similarly to how emotions are treated.

It's a signal. It's important to know because it tells you if you're doing well or not, right? Like if, if something generally feels good and it's not painful, it's probably a sign that you're not hurting your body. At least depending on the factors in the absence of modernity, I should say. But your job is to rise above the, that thing, be it in an emotion or money and accept it as a signal, but not let it run your life.

Right. So neither

Malcolm Collins: money, it's a system. Capitalism [00:16:00] is a system within this mindset to test the most industrious. With. The most temptation so that they can prove their worthiness as the most industrious through not succumbing to that temptation and redeploying that capital to improving society's overall efficacy and efficiency, which is very different from the way we view capitalism often in a modern context, which is that it tests the individual and then rewards them with hedonism.

Sorry, getting close to the, the birth year right now. Yeah. So, you're, you're going through a lot, which I appreciate. You know, you're still out there creating these videos despite the pain you're going through. And that's the type of austerity that I genuinely admire and, and will make my children better than me.

Maybe they won't succumb to this in the same way I have. No. But anyway. Next communist systems. Okay. Communist systems, historically [00:17:00] speaking, for obvious reasons have always glorified austerity. If you look at the communist propaganda, the perfect communist was the man who didn't take all of their rations, who didn't take all of their luxuries that was offered by the state.

He would eat his turnips raw, you know, and that was his favorite food was raw turnips because you know, that's the easiest to produce source of calories, right? That he didn't succumb to the consumerism that was seen as the core temptation that the bourgeoisie would use to try to bring him over. Mm hmm.

What is this? This rocket is decadent and wasteful. If you want to win contest, your mind must be hard and joyless, like a Russian turnip. I ordered from Meaty McMulligans. I hear it's awful, but if you don't like it, we'll just throw it out. Ugh, that's so wasteful. Nonsense. Your mom's enthusiastic spending is exactly what Jesus had in mind when he invented capitalism.

Malcolm Collins: And this made [00:18:00] sense if you're actually trying to operate in any level economically functioning communist system. But the new communists aren't like this because they don't actually have real aspirations of operating a communist system. They're mostly just complaining about the system they're in, or at least they haven't thought through, like they haven't thought through the consequences of what if I succeed with this message I'm telling people.

All they want to do is undermine capitalism. They don't. think about what happens next. And so you have gotten this totally unique to modern times combination of communism and consumerism where the communists are told you have the wealth so you can afford Your iPhones and Starbucks in your communist system.

You're still getting Apple products. Of course we wouldn't deprive you of that. You're still getting your fashionable, funky niche subculture [00:19:00] brands. Instead of having to dress in like, you know, rice sacks, basically. Because they're using this to, to, to lure people in to what has drifted from modern communism is now more like a cult because it's not really meant to work as an economic and political system.

It's meant just to convert and to tempt people.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It's so funny because yeah, there is this vision of communism that I feel like I kind of grew up with. With the, the Cold War, which is people making immense sacrifices for their nation and living very uncomfortable lives in service of a larger vision.

But yet now everyone I know who has a Marxist bent is more arguing that they shouldn't have to work and they should be given. Their fair share of resources and it's not about, well, I'm, what am I? I want to contribute. I'm going to take less than I need and give more, which is [00:20:00] really wild. So

Malcolm Collins: they're basically arguing.

I was in a capitalist economy is really what they're arguing for.

Simone Collins: But I mean, where did we go off the rails

Malcolm Collins: here? We do. I'm telling you where we went off the rail. Old communist systems were designed to work, not just designed to be popular. Yeah. New capitalist systems are just designed to be popular. To be popular.

And I should point out that we have moved so far that, that to be a communist these days, you have to be completely blind to reality. I mean, I think I've been watching a lot of chop slash Chaz videos recently, you know, the Capitol Hill autonomous zone or district or whatever you want to call it. And It is the, and we might do a full video on this, the perfect representation of why communism doesn't work.

Because the moment you begin to implement true communism, you know, communists will always say, well, real communism does, you know, does work. It just hasn't been tried before. We're like, no, people keep trying it. It just falls apart day in two, you know, they tried [00:21:00] originally to implement real communism in the USSR.

They tried to implement real communism in CHOP. But the moment they do, because it has no standing military, right, it's immediately taken over by a warlord, you know, Raz Simone in the case of Chop. And then it's immediately taken over by warring factions that lead to violence on the street with people trying to take resources from other people.

Because quote unquote, real communism as they define it, is a hierarchy less powerful. society, which unfortunately means you do not have people in positions to create the structured systems you need to prevent bad actors from manipulating the system to their advantage. And this is why whenever people try to create real communism, it always ends up being taken over by bad actors who say, Oh, well, some people are more important than others.

[00:22:00] Some, you know, economic systems are more important than others. And they're like, come on, this doesn't happen every time. It's like, well, okay. First of all, it literally does happen every time you, you can't even keep a Reddit threat without this happening. You know, Look at what happened with our anti work, right?

Where this ends up taking over and speaking on behalf of the community, you know, the community is like, how could you do that to us? And it's like the moment these people get the ounce of power, they take it and run with it. Because, you know, you're, you're not able to create systems where people don't abuse the power that you have handed them.

And so, and, and people are like, well, come on, what the far left in the United States is fighting for, they've already included a racial hierarchy in their ideology, okay, bro? Like, they've gone full, like, not so communism. Already? And they haven't even gained power yet. If you look at CHOP, they did things like put signs in the community garden [00:23:00] that said for black people only.

They did things like you can watch speeches from there where they said, okay, everyone in this audience has to give 10 to a black person in the crowd. They created a racial hierarchy. And, and like always happens, whether it's a Nazi or a communist system, the racist that they put at the bottom of the hierarchy, like, you know, there was that productive farmer ethnic group within the Soviet Union

I was thinking of the cost X here.

Malcolm Collins: that they had to completely demonize because an economically productive group Must be demonized by the communist system in the same way that the Nazis demonize the Jews for making more money or the progressive demonize white males for making more money and contributing more to the economy.

They need to demonize the individuals who contribute the most to the economy, because that's how these, these, these systems work is how they recruit endear themselves to the individuals they've recruited. And. Yeah, it is, it is [00:24:00] scary to me that we are getting a communist system that is somehow literally worse than any communist system that's ever been attempted before.

It's communism, but with polyamory and orgies and, and constant self affirmation. Well, no,

Simone Collins: no, it's, it's, it's Where the problem is, cause I don't care about the orgies. I don't care about the polyamory. It's communism without anyone doing the work. And that's They say

Malcolm Collins: it to make slaves do the work. They're, they're former capitalist overlords.

That's what communists always does. They take whichever groups they see as being in power and they treat them as a labor class.

Simone Collins: I mean, yeah, but that, that's, that doesn't work. And then it falls apart. You can't do that.

Malcolm Collins: Instinctively. What I mean, yeah, it doesn't necessarily fall apart. I mean slavery where you mentioned Spartan as a communist system, and it was it was this Communist system among the ethnic group that was considered human and then the rest were slaves the helots, right?

That's what you have within the [00:25:00] progressive movement today. And that's what they're planning on. Hmm, and I just The, the, the, like, white males who are fighting for this, or the, the white females, or the black males, like, anyone who is either male, or white, or cis, who is fighting for this system, and doesn't understand that they are meant to be the helic class in this system, is incredibly stupid.

They are signaling this to you as loudly and clearly as they can. You will not have rights. Your, your views will not be heard. And you will have everything taken from you, and everyone who thinks or looks or has the same sexual orientation as you.

Simone Collins: Yikes. Yeah. But yeah, that's I think it's important at least to highlight that, The Marxism being sold to people today is not, from my understanding, what [00:26:00] was supposed to be which is interesting.

Malcolm Collins: No, I know. It's, it's, it's, it's, I mean, you could say it's different from historic Marxism, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't matter. It's the way Marxism always turns out when implemented. And that's what matters. Okay, the real communism has never been tried TM thing. It's so disgusting to me. It's like, what, do you think that literally every attempt at implementing a communist system, even CHOP, even our anti work, was a bad acting, like, like, was just all bad actors?

No, they tried. As we say in our book, it's like trying to build an upside down pyramid. It's an intrinsically unstable structure that collapses into the same shape every time you do it. You are building an unstable governing structure. But what's worse is you are building it extra unstable because you are including within communism hedonism, And consumerism, [00:27:00] you're including all your brand name nonsense.

And so I think that if we can build a system, what's really interesting about this as a communist, we're not wrong about the uplifting of austerity as a cultural value system, right? Where people can earn cultural points and achieve higher cultural status through being a consumer. More austere. I think when you combine, that's, that's what the communist got things right.

They were right about that. When you can combine capitalism with austerity, that's the perfect economic system. Austerity is a cultural value. Whereas the perfect evil cultural system is communism plus consumerism slash hedonism and Starbucks communism, I guess we should call it. That's Starbucks

Simone Collins: communism.

I like that. That sounds fun.

Malcolm Collins: Starbucks communism or Apple communism. I don't know what I like more. You like Starbucks communism more

Simone Collins: or Apple communism? Starbucks communism. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And, and, and we, you know, they've been made fun of this for a long time. Like how can you [00:28:00] be communist and have your Starbucks cup?

Right. But I think that that was because people fundamentally misunderstood that these individuals were actually the perfect communist from their value set because communism's goal For these individuals is not to distribute equality across society is to distribute people like them, the things they want, which includes not working.

Yeah. The core difference between in reality, a communist economic system and a capitalist economic system is in a capitalist economic system. You go to work because they'll pay you in a communist system. You go to work because if you don't, they'll shoot you. And that's, going to be just as true now as it was historically.

And people can say like, well, what about AI? Can't AI create UBI? But if you're a total drain on the economic system, the AI has no more use for you than the other humans in that system. Okay.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, people would argue, of course, that AI would be programmed in this case to always take care of people [00:29:00] and just give them

Malcolm Collins: like, like wealthy people.

You say, who's, who's creating this AI. That's going to care about you. It will not.

Simone Collins: Okay. I'm just stating their position.

Malcolm Collins: Nobody within a system. People don't care intrinsically about the economically unproductive because they're not relevant to the health of the system.

And people are like, well, there's enough of us who want this stuff. We'll just force them to give it to us. And I'm like, this is the point you, you so often to be like, why do you focus so much on economic productivity of groups? And it's because groups without economic productivity do not have the power to push. Other groups to do things Or to resist more economically productive groups when those groups want to them to do something. you can say, well, there's a lot of us, but it doesn't matter that there's a lot of you.

If you can't go to war, if you can't [00:30:00] organize. And you can say, well, we can vote. And I think. You know, we, we should be at a point by now in the American system that you should know, just because you have a lot of people who will vote for something. And let's, it's the overwhelming plurality, which you don't have.

That doesn't mean what you want will come to pass. You have been convinced by your own ideology? That you were opinions and human dignity matter to other people when it is clear and plain to see when we look at the world today that. They just don't. I'm not saying this is a good thing. I'm just saying they don't. What matters to other people is your ability to produce things that they want. And if you can't do that, I E industry economic productivity. Then you have no power to influence the opinions of others. [00:31:00] This is going to become increasingly important and clear as AI replaces more and more of the population in terms of its productivity.

Simone Collins: Yeah, well, and that's, I mean, that's why in the end, I'm not terribly worried about a lot of these ideologies.

I mean, okay, they should, I should be terribly worried because they can cause immense amount of damage while they play out. But over the long run, there's just no way that they can sustainably exist because if you don't create value, if you don't advance human society, if you don't use the resources that you have, well, and conserve them and, you know, make the most of them and innovate better ways and more efficient ways to do things and empower people to do that and figure it out on their own, then you're going to fail.

So these systems are destined to fail and that should give me comfort, but I guess I should also be very concerned

Malcolm Collins: about, well, I mean, just hope that, that, that existentially that none of our descendants ever end up in a system that's [00:32:00] beginning to turn communist. Right? And we, we, we teach our kids to leave the US if it's moving in that direction, because people will die.

That's the way this always works.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that's, that's the part I'm not thinking about enough, and I should probably be planning around and worrying about a whole lot more. Yeah, you

Malcolm Collins: could read more books about the killing fields. You could read more books about The, the revolution in Cuba. You can read more books about the revolution in Russia.

There's plenty of books. I I just think that you would find them too disturbing because I know you Yeah. React so emotionally, especially

Simone Collins: if Yeah. Children or babies are hurt, which obviously I'm sure they were. So let's just not, but do you know what?

Malcolm Collins: I don't wanna go over the don't. Horrifying things don't to.

Simone Collins: Okay. Don't, don't. And I

Malcolm Collins: love you . Oh yeah. I won't go into it. I love you too, Simone. If people want to read about horrifying things happening to children, read the Killing Fields. A great book about, I think, pretty generic communism. And this is a agro agro communism, but it's, it's horrifying.

Horrifying. The red scarf girl [00:33:00] is also a pretty girl, but not quite as horrifying. Yeah. No,

Simone Collins: nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. I love you. Let's go hug our children.

Malcolm Collins: All right. Love you too, Simone.

Simone Collins: Alright,

Malcolm Collins: is this the right order, or do I move myself?

Simone Collins: Sorry, I'm waiting for Claude to explain. Oh god, everything hurts. I'm

Malcolm Collins: sorry.

Simone Collins: It's fine. Just prodigiously large.

Malcolm Collins: Well, you won't be soon, and then you'll be sad about it, because I know how you are.

Simone Collins: Honestly, I won't. After Titan was born, I was like, you know what, I'm not Sad about being, not being pregnant

Malcolm Collins: anymore and at this point.

But then I am happy you're in pain because I remember how sad you got after the first couple pregnancies.

Simone Collins: Yeah, well that's because both of our boys were like, I mean, Torsten was like five pounds, Octavian was seven, then we had Titan at almost nine pounds and I'm pretty sure industry is gonna be.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, easily 11 or 12 or something.[00:34:00]

Simone Collins: No, she's not going to be 10. She's going to be 9 something. She's

Malcolm Collins: significantly larger than Titan. She's freaking huge. Anyway, I love you to death, Simone. And I and you will survive. You'll make it through. But I'm going to start, I'm going to say,

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