In this unique episode, we dive into the transformative Replicator Program initiated by the United States, which aims to revolutionize modern warfare through the mass production of autonomous AI-controlled drones. We discuss how the evolution of drones in the Ukrainian war has shifted the focus away from traditional military assets like tanks. The program's various components, including maritime, land-based, and even space and subsurface drones, are explored. We touch upon China's advancements in drone technology and the implications for global military dynamics. Additionally, we delve into methods of countering these drone swarms and their strategic significance. Join us as we unpack how autonomous systems are reshaping the battlefield and what this means for future conflicts.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. Today we are going to be doing an episode that is quite different from our normal content, but we're gonna be talking about a program.

And the moment I heard about this program, I was like, I need to think about this. Like potentially a lot because it changes a lot. I mean, what happened with drones in the Ukrainian war is we learned that drones changed the face of warfare

Simone Collins: 100%.

Malcolm Collins: And they in a large way have made things like large tanks and stuff like that, which used to be what countries were investing in obsolete.

Simone Collins: Hmm. And

Malcolm Collins: countries specifically. The United States has started something called the Replicator Program, and this is a program where the United States is beginning to outfit battleships to be able to build hundreds of autonomous AI controlled drones every day. A kill drone printer. A, A AI is not controlled by humans either.

These are autonomous [00:01:00] K drone printers for the sea.

You okay with the program? Don't worry. It's not limited to the sea. They've also talked about how they want to build versions of this that can go on land and for the army and stuff like that. So we're gonna have killed drone printers everywhere.

Simone Collins: It makes me think of those. The, the big ships in Star Wars, the, the crappy new ones that had all the droids come off of them.

You know, they were just Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Unfolded and came out. I'm picturing those now. Hopefully they won't have really bad dialogue. At least we know our LLMs of our universe and kids. Roger, Roger, Roger, Roger. Oh my God. They were the worst. Well, no Jar Jar banks were the worst, but at least we have like this STH Lord theory, right?

There was nothing for them. They were just awful. Like, like, oh no, don't even get me started. Let's keep going. Kill drone ships. Tell me more.

Malcolm Collins: No. What's funny about the [00:02:00] drones in, in Star Wars, I remember it was like the earlier versions were better and those were like a cost cutting measure. But what's weird is like we now know from our world, and apparently it's in our same timeline because it takes place a long time to go in a galaxy far away.

Yeah, sure. That like those drones, those, those droids were dumber than like deeps seek. Yeah, deeps

Simone Collins: seek is really dumb.

Malcolm Collins: That's somebody reached out to me and they were like, oh, well have you changed your mind about like, China's position? Oh yeah. Because of deeps seek. And I was like, deeps seek is a scam.

Like, do you guys, have you used it? Like, I feel like exclusively people who think deep seek is impressive is. Is is a completely different bucket than people would you met one very smart and

Simone Collins: successful person who uses deeps seek. Is their chosen? Yes,

Malcolm Collins: but it's for a very, very narrow task. If you need

Simone Collins: an open source,

Malcolm Collins: LM, if you need a totally open source, LLM, deep, it's apparently better than llama.

So marginally better, but that doesn't give China any power. Because anyone in any country can take Yeah. And use [00:03:00] it open source. Yeah. So you get no additional marginal power by having a fully open source LLM, and you only need a fully open source LLM if you're doing like absolutely massive scale stuff.

And generally what matters more is good LLMs and not open source lms. Yeah. By the way, if you're like, how did Deep Seek become the number one app in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The China Fact, take two. Do a good video on this. It appears to be mostly faked. Because they've traced the accounts, they were promoting it to China, CCP influencer accounts.

I'm super not, I, I do not believe having used Deeps seeq, that there's a lot of people using deep seek records that, you

Simone Collins: know, didn't the didn't that. Viral cycle around deep seek also correspond with this short-lived period when the YouTube algorithm weirdly favored Chinese propaganda videos. It's still doing that.

I'm now getting the critical stuff again. Maybe because the algo realizes I refuse to watch the propaganda, but.

Malcolm Collins: No, it's still doing, it's still doing the [00:04:00] propaganda. Like somebody needs to talk to YouTube about what's going on because it is very clearly punishing channels like China seekers and like, I don't like if anybody has any connections at YouTube, like whatever this pro c CCP thing they have going on.

So I've noticed that two types of videos are getting artificially sublimated by YouTube right now. Mm-hmm. One is anything that is critical of the CCP, which is literally a, a regime that's engaged in genocide. Yeah, like, like they have an active genocide campaign against the, right now what are doing, this is not a

Simone Collins: mystery at present

Malcolm Collins: and anything that is, is critical of trans people.

These are the two categories

Simone Collins: really. Wow.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Suppressed

Simone Collins: despite Trump's your executive well, it

Malcolm Collins: hasn't been implemented. Bias against need to, to they need to do a, a law around this or something. Yeah,

Simone Collins: they're a little busy. I know.

Malcolm Collins: And they're doing lots of stuff, you know, they're doing more than I expected some to in the Trump administration, but Yeah.

Yeah. So let's talk about this replicated program. Okay, what we're all here to talk about. Why are, why are you

Simone Collins: the only one who's told me about this? I would feel like Drudge Report being the [00:05:00] liberal bastion it is now, would be having an aneurysm. Liberals

Malcolm Collins: are pro-war, don't you know that? They're the party of Cheney?

Trump's the person who's trying to end the war. And everyone can see now that he was completely sincere about this because now he's gotten mad against Putin and is writing 25 to 50% oil tariffs on Putin and like, look. The, the people are like, oh, he was in Putin's pocket. But that when Putin started belittling Zelinsky and saying Zelinsky wasn't legitimate enough to hold the negotiations, Trump got furious.

Furious, which I think shows to everyone that anyone who's like, oh, he's in Putin's pocket. No, he just wants people to stop dying over, literally nothing at this point. Mm. There is. Literally no gain to have. People are like, well, it will teach Russia a you. They're not gonna win back that land. They're not gonna win back that land.

They have had plenty of time to win back that land. They're not winning it back right now. It's just how long before we accept that they might get a few miles. How many hundreds of thousands of lives is a few miles worth? [00:06:00] We haven't had a big breakthrough in years.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Or not years, but like a year, like it's, it's clear that there isn't the capacity for that anymore in terms of manpower.

OO on the Ukrainian side and on the Russian side it's like, well, well, Russia attack other countries still, they don't have the manpower left to do that.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. They've

Malcolm Collins: been completely bled dry by this war. There, there isn't really anything like I, I, I was actually pro the war at the beginning, but now I'm just like, now they've been blood dry.

He, he did the Zach Branigan style.

The ?

Ukrainians.

A trifle. It was simply a matter of outsmarting them. You see,

Ukrainians.

have a preset kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them, until they reached their limit and shut down.

Kif, show them the medal I won.

Malcolm Collins: That literally was his war tactic. Yeah. Anyway so, the initiative is structured into two lines of effort with replicator. One focused on all domain at triple autonomous a DA two [00:07:00] systems encompassing aerial, ground surface, subsurface, and subspace capabilities.

So, note they what subspace,

Simone Collins: aside from the version I'm thinking of.

Malcolm Collins: In the, in the in the orbit orbital. So they want oh, okay. Autonomous orbital drones. They want, what I found interesting was subsurface. So this is underground drones. That's crazy. Underground automated kill drones. Yes.

Simone Collins: Kind of like the, the, I'm, I'm picturing something akin to the boring machine, but clearly much smaller. Something that burrows theoretically, right? Not moving through underground waterway or something. But that could also No,

Malcolm Collins: no burrows is my understanding here. Yeah. That,

Simone Collins: that seems any 50 The benefit is this not

Malcolm Collins: horrifying.

We've got the space drones now in the underground drones now and the, anyway replicated. Feel like,

Simone Collins: can, can we get an EMP machine? It's like a great, it

Malcolm Collins: wouldn't work against [00:08:00] these.

Simone Collins: Why not?

Malcolm Collins: Because you can, in the same way that they're mass producing

Simone Collins: these, they can't afford to make all of them EMP proof.

These are like disposable.

Malcolm Collins: No, they, they can, and you actually sort of need to with drones because you have to worry about like, WA radio we're, we're gonna go over into the techniques that people can use to fight them. But yeah, they're almost certainly being made em p proof.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: So, yes. I'm sorry, Simone.

Damn. Now there's likely versions that are not EMP proof. Sure. But I imagine that you're getting a bit of both depending on the, the context or whatever, but you wouldn't be able to use MPS as like a useful defense.

Simone Collins: I.

Malcolm Collins: Replicator two announced on September 27th, 2024 shifts focus to countering small unscrewed aerial systems. Th th this is what the Army calls automated drones. I. Like flying drones. Okay. Addressing threats to critical installations and force concentrations. This phased approach ensures alignment with war fighter priorities and operational needs.

So basically they're working on [00:09:00] building them and they're working on building defenses against them. Most. And, and this program is meant to end or be completed by 2026. So soon

Simone Collins: hold on.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: The

Malcolm Collins: gosh.

Simone Collins: Now all I can think about with do is how much are we overpaying for this?

Malcolm Collins: Well, they've engaged over 500 companies as part of the project.

Mm-hmm. So a lot probably. But I, I'd like them to continue working on this because I think that this is probably necessary for any potential conflict we may have with China. Anyone who doesn't have a replicator program is pretty screwed by anyone who does. I. The DOD program launched in August, 2023 with the goal of rapidly fielding thousands of autonomous systems across multiple war fighting domains By August, 2025, it is led by the Defense Innovation Unit, DIU, and aims to leverage innovative technologies to address operational challenges, particularly countering China's military capabilities.

That is the core person that they're focused on was this mass deployment [00:10:00] autonomous systems. So the, the, it's focused on low cost expendable systems designed to disperse combat power and reduce risk associated with losing expensive platforms. These systems span aerial ground maritime and space domains.

It's mostly being counter China and operational applications. Examples include fleets of self-propelled sensor pods for intelligence gathering, ground-based systems for logistics support and space-based platforms for secure communication. Is strategic importance. Why are they doing this?

Replicator is inspired by lessons from U Ukraine's use of low-cost drones in its conflict with Russia. Mm-hmm. By adopting similar tactics, the US aims to enhance deterrence capabilities against potential threats such as Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The initiative represents a shift. Towards scalable, adaptable military technologies that can be updated or replaced quickly to maintain operational superiority.

Okay. And I note that we are now seeing a shift in the way wars play out. And every time we've seen one country just like [00:11:00] absolutely erode another country and, and, and, and go through it it was because they developed a new unit or a new way of fighting mm-hmm. That made it much harder to defend than to be on the offense.

Specific instances of this were Alexander's war he had. The phalanx, which was just like really good in the way he used it and nobody could really counter it. He always,

Simone Collins: or at least in a lot of famous battles, he used geography to his advantage. Or like the local, like,

Malcolm Collins: yes,

Simone Collins: Hills,

Malcolm Collins: rivers, he, it's not that he was a bad general.

I mean, I'm not saying that he wasn't a genius there, but it was his troops in the way they fought there was very little the enemy could do. It was just like a wall of spears, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: What do you do against a wall of spears? That can easily defend itself from arrows? And, and then the it was Napoleon.

I forgot exactly what it was. I remember it was something to do with like a, a berserker gun charge. This was interest early in sort of musket days, and it was incredibly effective. And then with the Hitler. What you have is [00:12:00] the first modern tanks, which just allowed him to, you know, before that it was trench warfare.

It was like, oh, this is how you drive over trenches. Yeah. Yeah. So much for that line. And it did nothing against tanks. And, we lived in a tank based world order, I think, up until today, really. And the tank based world order was overcome by drones because it turns out that you could just send out these little cheap drones and they can delete, you know, a few hundred thousand dollars to million dollar tanks really easily.

And so. Now we need to think of, okay. Now. And it, and it wasn't just drones by the way, like in air and on land. You also had the end of the age of like battleships. Because what Ukraine has been doing is attaching explosives to like, these are, these are human controlled, so they're not fully autonomous.

We haven't entered that area, which is obviously gonna be the next era. Mm-hmm. Human like remote controlled like jet skis with like explosives on them and then driving them up to big ships. [00:13:00] And they cost very little to put together. The ship has struggles to target it. And it hits the ship, the ship explodes.

And that's a, you know, mini million dollar investment, many of which Russia can't replace because they were made during the Soviet days sometimes in Ukraine. And they lack the capacity to easily replace it. Not easily ever replace anything from that era. They just don't have the industrial capacity to do that anywhere.

Mm-hmm. Dry docks, et cetera.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: They, they really are a ci a civilization, like modern Russia is one of those civilizations operating. On like ancient tech that they don't know how to make anymore.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Or

Malcolm Collins: the capacity to make anymore from a military perspective which is really wild to think about.

'cause ev everything they lose is something that can never be replaced. That's not true for everything, but it's true for a lot of the technology, especially the large projects like the ships that they have.

Simone Collins: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: and there's, there's been cases of ships that Russia has like operating, using, like.

Only one of like, originally like oh two four engines [00:14:00] that were built. What was the name

Simone Collins: of that hilarious ship?

Malcolm Collins: Laser Pigeon Story's funny on this.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And is, is this the same one where if we just started lying down or something? I. Such there was fun. So she's

Malcolm Collins: thinking of the hilarious Russian military attempt, so there's a good video, tales from the Bottle.

Go watch their video on the Russia invasion of Japan. And the, the ships had so many problems, like they were approached by like fishing ships and everybody like dove on the ground and like, was praying for their lives. And they were like, it's, it's wild. And they ended up like doing this huge operation to sneak up to Japan and then just.

Told like another ship, oh, we're here to sneak up from Japan. And just went off and told everyone like it was so bad, so bad. Maritime war has ever been Russia's strong suit for obvious reasons. I mean, it's, it's, it's, there, there country is so separated from maritime sort of conflict areas.

Why would they be super awesome at it? But, I'll keep going, is what I'm reading here. So as of 2025, [00:15:00] the initiative is on track with the first iteration expected by July aau to August, 2025, focusing on lethal swarms of unmanned vehicles and software to bind them together. Particularly to prevent Chinese invasions.

Confirm systems include Arrow vs. Switchblade, 600 loitering, munition, and Andrew dies. DIVE ld. Unscrewed, undersea vehicle. The Pentagon aims to invest about $1 billion in 2024 to 2025, reflecting significant financial commitment. So let's talk about this switchblade, because I find it really interesting.

The switchblade, it's like comes in a tube. And it can be carried by a human and they drop it and it creates, not like a a, a drone like this, but like a little airplane that flies super fast. Whoa. And can drop bombs that can get rid of like tanks and stuff.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay. And

Malcolm Collins: then other [00:16:00] one is like a small undersea submersible that shoots, it looks basically like a giant torpedo that shoots smaller torpedoes.

And, and, and works on set. That's the other one that they've built recently. So these are, and, and it in 2021, so a while ago there were almost 700 variations of artificial intelligence related projects, was in the DOD

Simone Collins: well. At least it's cool sounding pretty sci-fi. I, I wanna bring back, like I have always really appreciated military spending with the knowledge that so many cool things we have are the product of military spending, like the internet and a bunch of other cool stuff.

Yeah. But the internet's for porn. Yeah, true. But we wouldn't have had it were it not for the military. So we're not for

Malcolm Collins: killing people. This, everyone thinks the internet is for the internet's for killing people. Porn was just a nice side effect.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That came after beautiful externality. Yes. But I, I, I appreciate [00:17:00] that, that we've, we've received quite a few Cool, of quite a few cool things from the in military, but I've also had this impression that.

All the cool stuff we've received has been from a long time ago, kind of due for more stuff and there was a lot of stagnation and a lot of that had to do with very, very inefficient spending. At least. This is interesting. At least I feel like this is maybe what it's gonna take for us to get delivery drones that really work.

Because I,

Malcolm Collins: this, this, I don't know because smart people don't work in the government anymore, and they used to, and I think that that's what you, these are

Simone Collins: government contractors, so they are, they are private citizens, mostly buildings.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And they're all like DI messed up nonsense. Yeah. I mean, look at Boeing, right?

They can't make basic anything anymore because it's been operating so much on DEI like too. I don't know if I trust until, until we get our boys in there to clean everything out. I don't know.

Simone Collins: It's happening. Look, they're, they're getting there. Boeing is, I feel like super on its way out. 2024 was the year that everyone [00:18:00] concluded.

Okay. You can't do anything. You, you can't pick people up in space. You can't fly a plane. Yeah. It's just over for them.

Malcolm Collins: We, we just need all government contracts to go to Elon owned companies. I know, I know. The left Good freak out about that look like I would feel so

Simone Collins: much better. Well, yeah. Right. Like just No, he just, he does a better job.

Malcolm Collins: I suppose SpaceX is actually pretty impressive. SpaceX made planes, I don't know.

Simone Collins: It's not just SpaceX, it's it's Tesla. It's, it's the fact that a bunch of people have solar panels. Like my dad, he doesn't just have, and he doesn't even have a Tesla. He's a rivian, but he uses Elon Musk solar panels and charging systems at his house.

He uses starlink for his internet at the ranch.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, he does.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that we used it and it was good. Like, I don't think when we were visiting him,

Malcolm Collins: no, I didn't notice anything was great for Gwen's

Simone Collins: wedding, that it was bad at all. It was [00:19:00] good. So it's good stuff. And that's, you were, you were just talking about speaking not starlink, not all the solar stuff, not the like, it's just, it's and Twitter, he is honestly Ironman

Malcolm Collins: of our world.

Like why, why is all of the technologies that like. He, Tony Stark, the modern version was modeled after him.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I guess Progressives used to love that he was like, you know, pro environment and everything like that. Well, no,

Simone Collins: he was the, he was the Joe Rogan before Joe Rogan, you know, he was the, you know, green energy.

Yeah. Billionaire, philanthropist. I mean, keep in mind also like he, he 100% had. He supported LGBT LGBTQ rights. He had this one tweet that had so many freaking like rainbow hearts in it that it was practically unhinged. He

Malcolm Collins: he helped his daughter transition

Simone Collins: a lot of people that well, and, and, and I think that that was the same, that was the same daughter who also was not comfortable with capitalism, and that really, I think, influenced him to live like a homeless [00:20:00] man for years.

He didn't have a home. Yeah, he just slept on people's couches. This is well documented. He, he, he didn't have anything. He wasn't materialist, just like, no. Oh, I wish we had an Elon Musk of the left. And you had it, you had Joe Rogan. You had Elon Musk. No, they do. You had JK or RFK had

Malcolm Collins: they had, they had what, what was her face?

JK Rowling. You know, they, well, so was Elon Musk the Elon Musk of the left is what's his face that, that Mark Cuban who So could have been something, you know, but he just.

Simone Collins: What is Mark Cuban built that we use? Nothing. Of

Malcolm Collins: course. That's why he's Elon Musk of the left. He's done nothing. But he is just sort of like aesthetically, no, come on.

There has to be an Elon Musk

Simone Collins: of the, the

Malcolm Collins: left.

Simone Collins: Well, like LinkedIn guy's, big, like d nnc supporter. But what has he built since LinkedIn And who, who likes LinkedIn?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, LinkedIn the [00:21:00] worst. It, it's like an actively retarded social media platform.

Ed.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I, I swear. I swear.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway. Anyway so what can you do to fight against this stuff, right? Like what? Yes. Okay. So let's say,

Simone Collins: yeah, now I'm concerned how do we, you know, defend our house from these drone swarms because they burrow. Yeah. So I didn't plan on burrowing.

Malcolm Collins: Microwave, you can use Thor or Mid knee.

They emit our radio frequency energy to overwhelm drone circuitry causing crashes. Thor is a moly assembled two people, sorry. Thor is mobile assembled by two people in two hours. Midjourney extends range with detection. They have proven effectiveness but they cost millions of dollars. Oh, well that's

Simone Collins: not an option.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Lasers, high powered lasers, heat drones to cause component failure, pure this tracking radar for accuracy unreliable and dense weather, fogs, cloud smoke, or with reflective coatings on [00:22:00] drones. So not that effective in many. So we cover

Simone Collins: our house in a giant mirror. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Jamming. Well, the point is, is that we can't fight the drones with this.

We can shoot the lasers at the drones, but if the drones just like release smoke into the air, it stops working.

Simone Collins: I thought if we release smoke into the air, the drones have trouble seeing

Malcolm Collins: No, this is about what the drones can use for defense. So you can destroy Trump. No. And then

Simone Collins: now they have smoke. When did you mention smoke?

Malcolm Collins: Yes. If you use a laser and automated tracking system, you can use that to go drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, drone, heat, the components and have them fall down dead, right? Mm-hmm. The problem is, is that the drones can use smoke to prevent this from working or they can use just reflective shielding.

With the microwaves. Yes, you could do it. You can overwhelm drone circuitry, but it costs millions of dollars and the systems are pretty big. Then you've got drumming systems, which obstruct radio frequencies to disrupt drone [00:23:00] control effective against low quality drones. These are like the anti drone guns you see, but they're less effective against drones with inertial navigation or jam resistant communication.

These are basically like as soon as. The drone gets jammed, they go into like an automated setting and it, it doesn't work on them. Mm-hmm. And the final one is building underground facilities and weapons. To avoid aerial detection requires contributable time and financing. Less viable for organizations under immediate threat.

But the borrowing drones, yes. And now we'll have the boing drones. You think you're safe And they come from underneath like Starship Troopers. Yeah, it's really hard. I mean, like, basically, and this is why the drones have to be automated. Like somebody's like, why would you put automation in your automated drone factory?

Like that sounds horrifying that you're controlling this with ai. Mm-hmm. But how, like if you are in a drone dog fight where you have hundreds of treat drones, or not hundreds, they want thousands of interworking cheap drones fighting thousands of other [00:24:00] cheap drones. Yeah. A human operator, it's gonna be out competed by an AI operator.

Any day of the week. 100%. Because the AI operator can take into account information from 360 degrees around the drone. Mm-hmm. Keep in mind if the drone's using something like a laser or a gun that can pivot a hundred and it's, and imagine if it has multiple on it, right? Like, a human's never gonna be able to control that, but AI will.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lot.

Malcolm Collins: So what it means to me is if you like your autonomy and I think many people when I talk about automated drone swarms, and I'm like, if you are a culture that has maintained high fertility by a shoeing technology, you are effed. And I think many people don't realize how dominant groups with these automated AI drone factories are going to be over groups that don't have them.

It just will not be a competition. And these will be able to move into territory. I think many Americans sort of live with this idea [00:25:00] of, well, we can't be under attack here in the United States. Yes, you can. You could have CCP drones patrolling your house. You could have CCP drones patrolling your streets.

If you don't develop counters to that and you're not able to project force back towards them, if we don't prevent their ability to develop enhanced chips or enhance ai, I mean, fortunately deep seek such a joke, but like one thing that isn't a joke is China's capacity with drugs. Yeah. China is easily the world leader with drugs

Simone Collins: and they're investing a lot more in it too these days.

Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So yes, their AI may not be particularly sophisticated, but their drones are. And in the US there's been a number of, like in Ukraine. There's been people on the ground who have talked about this and they're like, yeah, we basically only use Chinese drones. Mm-hmm. We've tried some of the American ones, but they have this or this problem.

And the Chinese outta the box ones are just better than the best of the AM American like defense ones, et cetera.

Simone Collins: [00:26:00] Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Which is worrying. Now I think we can get above that. I believe in American innovation. If, if we keep bringing Indian immigrants in but sorry if I, I, I, I understand the H one B visa concerns and I, I, I get it.

But what I'm saying is, is that we need to keep running. We are in a red Queen's gambit with this stuff. This is run as fast as you can and you know, you, you're never ahead because they're running as fast as you are. Mm-hmm. Now, China is fortunately not. Running as fast as we are. But they, they, I don't know.

Simone Collins: Th this, they're building this new giant, what is believed to be military defense facility that makes the Pentagon look like a dollhouse. They are,

Malcolm Collins: oh, more bureaucracy. I'm so scared. They'll out bureaucracy us.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Why?

Malcolm Collins: What is

Simone Collins: still though? They're, you know, it's their bureaucracy versus ours now. It's not as though they're private.

Drone swarm companies that I'm aware of. Yeah, I

Malcolm Collins: suppose. Yeah. So we'll just have to clean out our [00:27:00] bureaucracy. Thank God we're doing that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. People are really discounting how important Doge is for the survival of a lot of things we care about. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Freedom, gender equality, I mean, living under ccp little bit.

You know, this is, this is why you know, we gotta keep standing. This, it is the only path forward for our civilization.

Simone Collins: But who cares what we

Malcolm Collins: think? I mean, yeah, who cares what we think? But yeah, drone swarms, I think automated drone swarms are the future. Yeah. In terms of how to deal with it. Like they're just, I really struggle.

I'm not

Simone Collins: seeing a way to deal with this. I think it goes back to our interest in living in a place that is so remote and undesirable and unusable to anyone but us that. There would be no drones there because they have no interest in us. Plus having utility to the majority of the world, like being, you wanna be like Jews have [00:28:00] historically been, which is, no one wants to be you.

No one wants to mess with you and you provide a service that they're, they just don't wanna bother to provide themselves and that they use. Yes. And that's why I really wanna get our family into bioengineering because I think a lot of. A lot of societies, especially as demographics, make society skew more conservative, are not gonna have the stomach for it.

But the elite always, she wants

Malcolm Collins: us to become the Ty lacto, but she refuses to,

Simone Collins: no. I want us to create super humans, okay? In machine sense answers, artificial wounds, thank you very much.

Malcolm Collins: Machine artificial wounds. It would use some biological components slightly.

Simone Collins: Yeah, but not sentient ones.

Malcolm Collins: They're not sentient.

In the original books, it was only the son's books where they were sentient. If easy to make something without a brain, we already do that.

Note here, she's referencing a debate we are having about our next son's [00:29:00] middle name, and I want it to be Ty lasu and she wants it to be a tradies.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I know. I know. I just, I don't want our son to start dating and have some, you know, he finds finally his nerdy girlfriend, but for some reason of bad taste, you know, some oversight on her part.

She considers the son's works cannon, right? And then she's like, wait, so you're standing the loss of female bodily autonomy? Your family stands this, you know, and like, you know, we're gonna be super close with our kids girlfriends and boyfriends. It's just not gonna go well. I, I don't want to hamper our children's.

I think I, not that Paula Tradies was the perfect partner either. He was, she, this is a, our debate kind of. He was a bad partner all around really. This

Malcolm Collins: is about our debate between the names a tra my lasu as a middle name for our next kid. A

Simone Collins: tradies [00:30:00] for, yeah. For our, but no, but

Malcolm Collins: what, what would I do if I was building an anti joinin defense?

Yeah. This is the way my anti Joinin defense would work.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: It would shoot up something you could say like a grenade that would have a timer that could be set before it shot. So it's basically a fairly dumb ammunition. It's an ammunition that shoots out of a tube with a timer that explodes after a preset amount of time, which is describing fireworks shot.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Wait, think of it like a grenade being shot out of a, a mortar, basically.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: But it doesn't work like a typical mortar because the, it, it's a variable timer that's on the grenade.

Simone Collins: Oh, now

Malcolm Collins: these tubes are controlled on a, a pivot right here. And they have an AI system controlling them that also controls the timer on the dumb ammunition.

So what it allows it to do is a ground-based system, so you don't need the ai. In anything flying, in any of the ammunition or anything like [00:31:00] that, it's just going ka ka ka ka ka. Okay. At any drone swarms it sees in an area. Now this would create obviously some potential damage on the ground, like you wouldn't want people to be around this, but I think that this could eliminate even fairly large drone swarms at a much lower cost than it costs to create those drone swarms.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and I guess when we talk about. Yeah, you have to think about long-term cost. When I think about, for example, Israel's Iron Dome system, it is so much cheaper for Houthis or Palestinians to create really low cost ammunition that could hit Israeli targets than it is for Israel to use the Iron Dome.

Like I think each, each intervene in each intervention costs. What? I mean at least tens of thousands of dollars. I think a lot more. I've got million, thousands. Yeah. Like hu Huge, insane amounts of money that are deeply disturbing to me.

Malcolm Collins: Well, but [00:32:00] fortunately is Israel is so productive. You know,

Simone Collins: you gotta pay for the Iron Dome somehow.

Malcolm Collins: But I, I, I, I, I think my system would do very well against Drone Forbes. So I suggest investing in it. Darpa I'm here if you want me to build it for you. It's much, it could be so fun to

Simone Collins: work with darpa.

Malcolm Collins: I don't think, I think it'd be so much bureaucracy, but we'll see Post. Do

Simone Collins: darpa maybe post,

Malcolm Collins: do darpa?

Yeah. Or he's saying that, you're saying we fire you, darpa. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, love you Toone. You are amazing. We're having red curry tonight, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. What do you want? Is your carb, do you want non, do you want lime rice or do you want well,

Malcolm Collins: lime race is just so much easier for you, so let's do that.

Simone Collins: Okay. Yeah. Considering the time, I think I will do that. Thank you.

Malcolm Collins: And there's, there's underwater sink. I was just reading about it. Yeah. They are supposed to be artificially intelligence controlled. They're [00:33:00] long wage, persistent underwater sensors. And they, they, so, so they basically can like live underwater?

Simone Collins: We're in for it. Yeah. It's

Malcolm Collins: buckle up. I don't Oh, and they're anti-submarine. Oh. Terrifying.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I feel like the age of submarine is coming to,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. The age of submarines makes no sense. When you have deep sea automated like things looking like all over the ocean, looking for anything and to shooting.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Just doesn't, submarines make no

Malcolm Collins: sense.

Simone Collins: Doesn't do it for me.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I wouldn't want to be in one when the enemy can take me down with something like that,

Simone Collins: nor would I. No. But I also would never want to be in a submarine. I think it takes a really. A special kind of person to not panic just upon being inside a submarine

Malcolm Collins: water.

Simone Collins: Well, you know, one of our water

Malcolm Collins: or one of your cousins through Sandy used to be like a, a high level person, right? Yeah, yeah,

Simone Collins: yeah, yeah. He's such a nice guy. Went to the GSB, right? Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: [00:34:00] Yeah. He went to the sets, the Stanford for graduate school business after. Yeah. He he lived on one for years.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. He's a very special person, like I said, exceptional. Not me.

Malcolm Collins: Not me, not me, either not Was this technology out there? Don't see the point. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. All right.

Malcolm Collins: Love you to DeSimone. I love you too.

Simone Collins: Ending recording. This is a fascinating Malcolm. Oh my gosh, my stomach is like so upset and like thinking about anything makes me wanna vomit. And yet this is also the same person who just hours ago, was eating hummus out of a tin with a spoon. She's

Malcolm Collins: pregnant, by the way. For people who don't know, that's

Simone Collins: deeply wrong with this process, something deeply wrong.

Malcolm Collins: I'm so sorry. I know you're working so hard to make babies.

Simone Collins: Well, I always used to joke that, you know, the PETA would just existed as a conveyor of hummus, but now I'm like, wait, no. A spoon can also exist as a conveyor of hummus. We can just cut out the middleman, [00:35:00] be more efficient. Have you thought about making your own hummus yet?

I have made my own hummus. It's ideal to make it with tahini. And we, I don't think, actually you might have some tahini, so I can do that. Yeah, our, when we've made our own hummus, it's really good.

Malcolm Collins: Oh wow. Okay. Yeah. Well, I wouldn't mind having some, oh your salsas are really good.

Simone Collins: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: You make delicious salsa.

She took, she roasts everything. It's way better than like the best Mexican restaurants. You wouldn't even believe it. You're so nice to me.

Simone Collins: Wouldn't it be cool if we could make guac though? The, I think the problem with guac is it's really. I guess where we live, at least hard to buy an avocado and know you've got a good avocado.

Malcolm Collins: No, it's, it is hard anywhere. I'm good at making good guacamole. The problem is, is getting ro good avocados. It's avocado roulette. Yeah. Adds roulette. Yeah. And we, we

Simone Collins: tried buying frozen avocado that one time, like, okay, well if this is just consistently good and we all you have to do is thaw it, then it should be fine.

No, yeah. Gross. No, it's very annoying.

Malcolm Collins: [00:36:00] Well, I will, we should, we should try again with, with avocados. Oh, I love Not frozen only so much. Yeah, I know. We'll see how much they cost. I remember them being cheaper than I expected at the store and the kids would have a lot of fun with making it.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And it's very healthy to eat, especially if the kids end up liking it.

Simone Collins: Totally. Well, and especially if we, if we bought like a proper mocha hit thing and like grounded up in it, the kids would love, I mean. Torsten would love a, like grinding rock, you know what I mean? Like going for it.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I, it'd probably be easier. Just use a blender.

Simone Collins: I know. But I feel like traditional guacamole is pretty freaking awesome.

We could just season it. Always wanted to season a mocha hete, you know, like proper,

Malcolm Collins: you want a mocha? Is what she, she wants may

Simone Collins: maybe just a little bit. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: I don't room for it is, yeah. So we got a blender.

Simone Collins: Okay, fine. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I'm so, [00:37:00] I'm so excited for your curry tonight. 'cause I tasted the extra spiced one and it was really good.

Okay. But the first version just wasn't that

Simone Collins: spice. Yeah. I, I just batch froze most of it. And you have three days worth of it for the fridge, so.

Malcolm Collins: Ooh. You know me. Mm-hmm.

What does graph to the channel, if that is really fancy? If you don't like us, s scratch the channel. Well, you can still, I'm gonna comment way down below.

Tell us what you think about this and the comment below in our bedroom. Bye.

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

What's in Project 2025?

Project 2025: From Plan to Reality

Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts