Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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Oct 30, 2025 • 58min

Iran Doesn't Have a Future: The Most **** Country on Earth?

Explore the pressing crises in Iran, from alarming air pollution causing thousands of deaths to severe water shortages threatening agriculture. Discover how Tehran's sinking city and demographic shifts complicate its future. The hosts dive into the intriguing contrasts, such as Iran's advancements in drone technology and unique social policies like free IVF. Unpack the impact of internet censorship and military spending, while pondering the potential for reform amidst the chaos. Laugh along with their humorous takes on a serious geopolitical landscape.
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Oct 29, 2025 • 55min

Disney Abandoned America for the 1%

Delve into Disney's transformation from a family-friendly destination to a luxury brand. The skyrocketing costs of tickets and merchandise are explored, revealing how families often go into debt for a visit. Discover the psychology behind the Disney experience, the shifting focus towards affluent guests, and the questionable future of accessibility for children. The discussion also highlights how rising streaming costs and recent failed experiences like the Star Wars hotel impact cultural relevance. The hosts urge opting for meaningful family experiences over corporate luxuries.
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Oct 28, 2025 • 56min

Gulf States Reveal How Post-Scarcity Luxury Melts Your Brain

What happens in a society with unlimited resources? Explore the Gulf States' attempts at a utopia with free healthcare, education, and guaranteed jobs. Discover how this impacts happiness, mental health, and creativity. Delight in anecdotes about falcons on planes and the intricacies of local business culture. The hosts ponder whether a post-scarcity society really enhances innovation, or if it stifles ambition. Dive into the complex relationship between government support and personal fulfillment, raising questions for the future of welfare in an AI-driven world.
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Oct 27, 2025 • 1h 3min

How Did It Become Cool to Belittle Your Husband? (An Anthropology of Sassy)

The hosts dive into the rise of the 'sassy wife' trope, exploring how it's normalized in media and relationships. They discuss shocking celebrity examples of public belittling, such as Jada Pinkett Smith and Hilaria Baldwin. Historical roots of this behavior are traced from classic literature to modern sitcoms. Practical advice follows on maintaining respect within partnerships, emphasizing private communication over public criticism. The conversation wraps up by considering the cultural impacts and the importance of reinforcing positive dynamics in marriage.
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Oct 24, 2025 • 50min

Black Births Fell Below Whites: Why No One Told You

The hosts delve into the alarming trends of declining black fertility rates, revealing they have dipped below white rates for the first time. Key factors influencing this change include socioeconomic status, educational levels, and shifting cultural attitudes. They also discuss the historical impact of organizations like Planned Parenthood and the effects of immigration on overall statistics. Insights into regional disparities, marriage dynamics, and the influence of progressive narratives provide a thought-provoking analysis of this critical issue.
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Oct 23, 2025 • 45min

Anti-Woke Movie Sneaks Past Media Execs to Smash Records (KPop Demon Hunters)

Dive into the animated sensation 'K-Pop Demon Hunters' and discover how it shattered streaming records and sparked cultural conversations. The film's unexpected Christian themes and refreshing portrayal of female characters stand out, contrasting with typical Hollywood narratives. Explore the impact of K-pop stars in boosting its appeal and the thematic focus on self-improvement over victimhood. With a unique art style and moral storytelling, this discussion reveals insights on what Hollywood can learn from its runaway success.
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Oct 22, 2025 • 1h 22min

Nick Fuentes Fan Girls & Female Gooner Trends

Explore the wild world of Nick Fuentes fangirls, where fandom intertwines with politics and romance. Delve into the rise of fan fiction, including hijabi-themed narratives and monster romance tropes. Discover the psychological allure behind female fans and their obsession with bad-boy personas. Uncover how platforms like Tumblr and TikTok shape these communities and their intriguing dynamics. With historical roots traced back to the Brontë sisters, this discussion reveals fascinating intersections of modern fandom and its quirky, often transgressive content.
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19 snips
Oct 21, 2025 • 1h 13min

Taking "Degrowth" Seriously: What is the Actual Ideology/Logic of Those Who Want to Shrink the World?

Dive into the intriguing world of degrowth ideology as the hosts dissect the controversial global proposal for population control, touching on family planning, technocratic governance, and ethics. They explore how automation impacts low-skill labor demand and the implications for economic stability. With critiques on environmental strategies and cultural autonomy, they raise crucial questions about technological advancements and collective welfare. The conversation challenges our perspectives on innovation and the future of human society.
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Oct 20, 2025 • 50min

France is Boned ... But How Boned?

In this episode, Malcolm and Simone dive deep into the current state of France, exploring its pension crisis, demographic challenges, immigration policies, and political turmoil. They compare France’s situation to other European countries, discuss the impact of government benefits, and debate the effectiveness of recent reforms. The conversation also touches on cultural differences, personal experiences in France, and broader themes of government dysfunction and societal change. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Today we are gonna be talking about just. How cooked France is, just for some statistics that people might be surprised about is in France, your average pensioner makes more money in terms of like cost of living, adjusted money than your average worker in the country. In. In France, 57, sorry, 57% of people are net beneficiaries of the government.43% pay into the government. Oh no. France is already past the point. And I said this is a point where democracies begin to break down where the average citizen is being paid by the government to exist. And we’re going to look at where this has led to downstream collapse, in just a second here.Also very fun. What I love about diving into France and we’ve had episodes diving into the UK and diving into Germany, and now we’re diving into France, is each country is completely cooked in like its own way. It’s almost like Europe got to be like [00:01:00] the captain planet of evil and country vices. And you know, the UK is like.I’ll arrest people for memes. You know, like there was the guy who was arrested in Scotland for literally painting Islam can be questioned on his wall. And they, the police were like, no, it cannot the girl who, who well, we’re not gonna go into that. All of that. You can, you can go to our video where we point out that the only reason a country would ban the flying of its own flag is if it was under occupation.There’s no other reason to ban the flying of your own country’s flag, because presumably you do that in support of your government, right? If the government sees that as an attack on them, and this usually happens under occupation, like France under occupation, you ban it. So the UK has got its draconian speech laws and, and, and all of that.Then in Germany you have like a secret police force of like brown shorts that literally label mainstream political parties as terrorist organizations and monitor in harass mainstream like people [00:02:00] who are to the left of like the United States president or us, for example, as being. Political. Mind you, this is a political party, the a FD that is run by a lesbian in an interracial relationship.So yeah, not exactly that extreme, right? Then we get to France, right? And what is their nature of terribleness? They’re actually pretty good about not arresting people for stupid things. And they’re actually pretty good about not like spying on the quote unquote far right party, which we’ll go into like lap pen’s party or bullying them.But they have the curse of the French, which means, oh no. The problem with France is that it’s full of French people. And French people have completely unrealistic expectations around what to expect and. They are treating. Like if, if you, if you watch, and what we’ll go into a bit is this recent OD of you know, Francis current Prime Minister Macron [00:03:00] constantly trying to get the retirement age raged from 62 to 64.Now 64 would be a very young retirement age, globally speaking. And yeah. What,Simone Collins: let’s see, was it, is it in the USA,It is 67 for social security.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so the point being is he wants to raise it a a moderate amount, and we’ll go into the data here, but like anyone could tell you that the system’s gonna be insolvent in just like a decade and a half if they don’t raise it. And literally this is what keeps breaking the government.And when I say break, I mean literally they’ve been through like four sitting whatevers like head of the governments in like the past few years because they, they pee everything to like step down the ministersSimone Collins: right.Malcolm Collins: You know, whatever, because France isSimone Collins: a president and a Prime minister and it’s, they’re, they’re churning through Prime Ministers this point.Yeah. We’ll, we’llMalcolm Collins: get to it. Yeah. And, and the core reason is, and the core reason that everything about Macrons blew up, even though he tried to side with the lefties, is just over this retirement age thing. And what makes this so funny to me. [00:04:00] Is the system won’t even exist in like a decade and a half if they don’t make this change.Right. And this change will, I feel like even ifSimone Collins: they do two years doesn’t seem this yearly enough. Yeah. What change EstimatedMalcolm Collins: to increase its lifespan by one decade. Maybe if they do it immediately. And so they’re not even like arguing for like this being a permanent thing. They’re arguing for a thing they would hypothetically want if money grew on trees.But like you go to the French people and you’re like. Here is the data. Money doesn’t grow on trees. And they’re like, ah, whatever. So let’s get into this. So right now in, in, in France retirees per workers, so we’re not even talking about dependences, remember I talking about they’re already past the dependency ratio with 57% of the population taking its money from the state, not giving to the state.Yeah.For 43% of French is already retirees. Gosh, that’s gonna be 55% by 2070. And keep in [00:05:00] mind their birth rate fell 20% in the past 10 years.Simone Collins: So yeah, this is only gonna get worse. Are there many developed countries that have that proportion of old people or is this is France? Yeah. France is actuallyMalcolm Collins: one of the best countries in Europe for demographics.Oh. They have one of the highest. Fertility rates and all of fertility rates. Yeah.Simone Collins: But still proportion of old people. I mean, like I, I thought most countries hadn’t gotten to that point of being. Most countries don’t that dependency ratio don’tMalcolm Collins: have, most countries don’t have a retirement age at 62.Simone Collins: Yeah, that is really young.Okay,Malcolm Collins: so France actually has, like, if you’re talking like fertility rate flies, France is great. And if you wanna know why France is great despite being a Catholic country, ‘cause that’s unusual for Catholic countries, is it actually secularized way earlier than other countries in Europe? And as we have pointed out collapsing fertility rates is largely about the urban monocultural belief system.And the longer you have been exposed to that, the more resistance you’ve been able to culturally and perhaps even [00:06:00] genetically evolve to its lures. And France has about a hundred years on most other European countries because they underwent their first fertility collapse about a hundred years before, for example, the UK did.Which is why France, I would argue, has such robust fertility numbers. In its native population. But it, but it doesn’t matter because they’re completely unreasonable. I, I should note here, by the way, and people can ask you know, if I’m speaking derisively about French, people know, like, one of the jokes on the show is like, I don’t like really like French people very much.Like the country very much. You know, I, I make jokes on that and people are like, why? Why, why do you feel this way? Have you been to France, Simone? Been?Yes. Yeah.Yeah. I’ve been there multiple times too. And I have never been to anywhere on Earth, and I’m not even talking about by like a, a margin, like nowhere comes close to being treated with.As much rudeness and derision as I was treated for no reason. [00:07:00] And, and people can be like, well, it’s a cultural difference. And I’m like, fine then I don’t like that culture. Right. Like, and people in Europe, they talk about this. Like I know French people when they come to the US and they’re like, everyone is so nice.In inauthentic. And I’m like, no, that’s not inauthentic. You don’t have to like, like somebody to treat them with basic human dignity, right? Like, you, you don’t need to, like if you’re, if you’re doing your job and they’re not like actively resisting you, right? It doesn’t cost you anything to smile and try to make the day of like a random other person who you don’t know anything about, marginally better.And did you, did you have this experience in France as well, or is this unique to me?Simone Collins: I can’t say I interacted a lot with people because I generally avoid people whether I’m traveling or not. Yeah. So I guess I don’t really care. And if they leave me alone, I’m pretty happy about it.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Also it was a constant, I, I mean, this is not unique to France.It also happened when I’m traveling in Italy. But the constant harassment of young women walking around is also [00:08:00] really gets to me. But again, this is just where I’m culturally different, right. And, and people can be like, well, you know, different cultures be different. Right. And, and that’s true around the world.And I’m just like, from my cultural perspective, I think that you should, you know, give other people that you meet randomly the benefit of the doubt and be nice to them. And people will be like, well, that’s just Paris or whatever, right? And it’s like, okay, great. Maybe it is just Paris, but like we go to Manhattan all the time and people in Manhattan are perfectly nice to strangers.Like, and, and Manhattan? No, no. Well, Manhattan’s known as being one of the less nice places in the United States and it’s still fairly nice. The only city I go to in the US where I like regularly see people be mean to people out of nowhere is San Francisco, but that’s mostly because they’re on like drugs or clearly mentally ill.And that’s more just like random a, a attack, homeless, I’ll call them. Attack the, the attack homeless that San Francisco has, has cultivated and pushed into. Its its most dense tourist zones. But anyway. So to continue here [00:09:00] deficits are already emerging post 2023 reform, COR estimates 1.7 billion deficit by 2025, potentially rising to 6.6 billion by 2030.Even with the retirement age hike pension spending holds at around 13.7% of GDP until 2030. But could climb of of gross slows September, 2025 Financial Times reports based on Luxembourg income study data highlighted that retirees over 65 now have a higher standard of living and disposable income relative to working age adults.However, this isn’t because raw pensions exceed full-time salary. So let’s talk over a bit how this works.Simone Collins: Yeah, I’m curious.Malcolm Collins: So, they have a median standard of living when, when you cost adjust of 2,310 euros a month per household versus for workers 2,100 and and 10. So this is slightly higher.Wait, 2010Simone Collins: versus 2010. Did, did you get those numbers right? They’re the sameMalcolm Collins: 2,300 versus 2,100. [00:10:00]Simone Collins: Oh, okay. So basically a 200 Euro difference.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But the, the reason for this is they have fewer, fewer dependents. They have lower taxes because people on Yeah, that makes sense. Have lower taxes.Yeah. And they often have supplementary income from like assets they’ve built up over their house, like houses or whatever. But still that’s, that’s absolutely wild. That is. In, in terms of like what France is paying on immigrants. France actually has a significantly better immigrant situation than most of Europe.I think despite most people’s perception I think it’s, so maybe they justSimone Collins: concentrate in Paris. ‘cause I see a ton of YouTube videos on just yeah. Paris being completely different now than it was five or 10 years ago.Malcolm Collins: Well, Trump even said this, right? He got in trouble for saying it, but he goes, oh, Paris is like a, a dirt place to live now.Nobody wants to be there anymore. Oh, no. And this is a, a situation we’re having all around the world. I’ll note like Manhattan, for example, is a garbage city today compared to 15 years ago.Simone Collins: It is not the sameMalcolm Collins: even [00:11:00] five, six years ago. It’s not the same. And it’s just empty and, and, and boarded up.And and you see this, it’s, again, it’s not just France. There’s many places in, in the UK you can go through where, you know, it is, it’s clear that you are not welcome there based on your ethnicity. And it’s, it’s a very uncomfortable thing, especially if those, those neighborhoods were important to you growing up, or, or, you know, you saw they were important to you at some point.In, in your life. But the funny thing is, is like. All of my best French friends, because I actually have like a collection of like French friends I’m pretty tight with. Are immigrants African, you mean theySimone Collins: are immigrants to France?Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they’re, they’re African immigrants to France. Like when I go to France, I stayed at, at their house.And this is, you know, all, all black family, all you know, white, black community. And that’s where I was hanging out and they were all. Way nicer to me than any of the French people I’ve met. So, so like this is my thing where I might have a bit more ambivalence than [00:12:00] than other countries to, to what is happening in, in France right now.But France actually doesn’t have as bad of an immigrant situation as either in terms of how they influence policies as you see it in the uk or in terms to just their sheer percentage of the population as you have in Germany.Hmm.But their immigrant situation is bad in another way, which is that immigrants in France are a net tax drain.Unlike a lot of other countries, like in the United States the immigrants are generally argued to be a net tax benefit. Yeah. But in France so this is from Le Figaro. Nicholas Pvo Monte concludes that immigration represents a GDP loss in France of 3.4% per year. Keep in mind, they’re only spending 13 like 0.4% on retirees. Wow. So if, if you, if you what is it? If immigrants had the same employment rate as natives, the national wealth generated each year would be 3.4% higher, and tax revenues would be 1.5 percentage points higher as well.[00:13:00]He says, quote, this loss in gross in this cost to the taxpayer, contribute to high tax burdens on businesses, which in term hampers the entire economy. In other words, encouraging immigration to fill shortages in the few strain sectors amounts to sacrificing gross in all of our sectors. So. France again, even though it’s got like the fertility rate problem, it’s very bad at setting up a system that selects for productive immigrant populations.And if they could you know, then immigrant, and this is the thing like immigrants, like, it’s not a like falling fertility rates and falling demographics is not a warm body problem. It’s a taxpayer problem. If you are taking people into your country who are. Tax drains that’s going to hurt your country.Yeah, and, andSimone Collins: again, people, they like to frame that as. Oh, these ISTs want certain types of people to reproduce. That is such a terrible misrepresentation when what we’re talking about is the ability to maintain social services for society’s most vulnerable [00:14:00] people. When you are bringing in non net tax paying immigrants or any citizen that is not a net taxpayer, you are actively throwing the vulnerable people already in that country.Under the bus you’re saying. I don’t care about them anymore. Let’s accelerate their minds. Yeah. WelfareMalcolm Collins: explodes, who cares? You know this is. Mm-hmm. And I, I will note my wider stance on immigration, and I think it’s something. So, so I have a few points here. I think immigration in Europe is very different than immigration in the United States.The United States is dealing with a majority Latin American immigrant population which is culturally not that dissimilar from the native population. In fact, every single one of the vices. That people associate with the Latin American immigrant wave that the United States is dealing with right now are vices that we complained about in equal amounts during past Catholic majority immigrant waves.When the Irish came, you had the Irish mob, you had all the, the terrible crime waves and everything like that. When the Italians came you had the Italian Mafia. You know, this is, this is just a. [00:15:00] Catholic immigrant wave thing. We have different episodes on why you see organized crime in Catholic populations more.It, it was specifically Catholic immigrant populations more because it’s, it’s not unique to Catholic. You also see it in Eastern Orthodox communities which you have the Russian mob as well where you don’t see them importing their, their criminal organizations very effectively if they’re from other cultural groups, like for example, like, like the, the Japanese and Chinese have big organized crime waves within their country, but they didn’t import them in an, the, the, the degree to which, like MS 16 or the mafia or the mob. Yeah. I’ve not heard of the,Simone Collins: about being,Malcolm Collins: In the United States. Yeah. So, so the, the, the, the whiter point I was I was making here is that the United States can more easily adapt and integrate its integrate.Population. I mean, as, as we saw, over 50% of Hispanic males voted for Trump, right? Like they’re adapting pretty quickly. But. And I think that we have less of a moral argument against immigration than other countries. Given that, you know, we all did come here at [00:16:00] some point, right? To a country that was dissimilar from US cultural history, like it is a, a nation of immigrant.I do love though,Simone Collins: you kind of get the tone that I mean theming with France and their immigrants and apparently them bringing in net drains and the statue of Liberty’s slogan of like, bring me you’re tired, you’re, yeah. All masses. In China, or sorry, France giving us that statue and being like, send the trash over.It’s in the trash every here. Yeah, yeah. Go, go to America, guys. But then they, they, they keep bringing in their own Right. But it’s such a passive aggressive thing. I don’t know. I find very strange.Malcolm Collins: I, I think that they have less of a, you know, it’s literally like their native. Land and country, right? Like if, if a group wants to say, I’m uncomfortable with letting unchecked immigration into my native lands th that I think should be treated very differently.And the United States.Simone Collins: But yeah, literally you have indigenous peoples in. France,Malcolm Collins: the French are theSimone Collins: indigenous people.Malcolm Collins: The indigenous [00:17:00] people. Yeah. And, and I’d point out in America, like the waves of immigrants weren’t awesome for the indigenous population. No, they weren’t.Simone Collins: Yeah.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Not, not a, a lot we can do to reverse the situation right now.But the, the point I’m making. And, and you could be like, well, you could give reparations. And it’s like, actually, that would only make things worse. In the indigenous communities in the US where they do have really high amounts that come from like casinos and stuff like this, and we’ll do a separate episode on this.You have like really high rates of like drug addiction and, and lack of education and poverty. Just in part because of this, look at any of our episodes on UBI like giving out reparations. Seriously. Disadvantages of populations that receive the reparations intergenerationally. That’s a whole other thing.Mm-hmm. The point being is, is I will say that France does though, and they’ll say like, well, we take immigrants because they’re from countries that we previously colonized often. Right. Like, and maybe I understand like the logic there, but to me it’s not like that’s, they still have the right to say, I want toSimone Collins: sort of, I [00:18:00] don’t know.‘Cause doesn’t, isn’t it the case that with, e English colonialism. The countries did really well. French colonialism. They didn’t, so France could? No, no. The FrenchMalcolm Collins: were garbage colonialists. That’s another I know. They kindSimone Collins: of owe them, they kind of owe them if theyMalcolm Collins: screwed up their countries. Yeah.Like the, the, the British really don’t have that much to be embarrassed about colonialism. Why? OhSimone Collins: yeah. They, they can be like, no man, like. You’re welcome. We, we made you better off the French,Malcolm Collins: The, the yeah, and, and, and people can be like, oh, well what about these atrocities? And it’s like, even if you account for the atrocities, the England spent like half a century paying for a giant fleet just to stop other countries from doing slavery, right?Like. Nobody had done that sort of international moral policing at that point. That was like a completely new idea. Like let’s take a portion of our national budget and just police everyone else’s slaving roots, right? Like Britain really has nothing to be embarrassed about in regards to that stuff. But anyway, I should continue here.So. [00:19:00] Recent analysis, including adaptations of fiscal space concepts, indicate that without further reforms, the system’s funding from labor taxes could hit limits where sustainable taxation can’t cover expenses. We’re talking here about the social security system pre 2023 based selling projection suggested exhaustion by 2030.So, so their pension. System in France exhausts in five years. Five years, okay. Mm-hmm. They’ve got five years,Simone Collins: which, and that’s so interesting to me because when, for example, it was proposed that retirement age would be raised forefront among the protestors were young people, people who were like, no,Malcolm Collins: you got this wrong.I really, I looked this up. Yeah. So the, the yellow shirt riots were yellow vest riot. We’re not about this issue specifically, I’mSimone Collins: referring to more recent protests,Malcolm Collins: the ones that, well, the reason why that they’ve been able to get the protestors out there, even the young ones who no way by the math are [00:20:00] going to see these patients.That’s why I find it so strange is that the young people are being manipulated by the unions. Which have a lot of members who are pensioners, so basically French has like really strong, we’re kinda being liedSimone Collins: to. Like, they may not even be aware of the fact that they’re being explicitly liedMalcolm Collins: to. So I, I was actually looking at this and they went through and they would like ask the protesters why they were protesting.And it was things like, well, why should I have to work when the environments burning and stuff like typical leftist slop it, it, it really, they don’t understand why they’re protesting. They just hate Macron and they hate. Quote unquote business where Macron isn’t even like pro business. He’s pro like basic rationality.And I don’t even think he’s a good guy. He’s not like my guy, like I’m a Lapin guy, right? Like, but CRA’s things that he’s fighting for are like basic things to keep the pension system working for 15 years rather than five years. Right? Like, this is, this is basic stuff, right? Like what are other things that he’s fought for that are like really.You know, just absolute [00:21:00] ns you people are arguing for like, I want an infinite money tree. Well, I’m sorry we don’t have an infinite money tree. Well then I’m gonna burn down your car and city and murder people in the streets maybe don’t do that, right? Like, anyway. So, at the, at that stage we’re talking the 2040 stage pension deficits could escalate significantly.Current pension deficits are mod 1.7 billion euros in 2025. But they could rise by 2020. 30 to 6.6 billion. Contributing to overall, and keep in mind a debt that is always increasing is not a debt that is serviceable and will eventually be called on. Right. And there really isn’t much you can do about this.The other thing that he wanted to do that everybody complained about, where they go, it’s big business and really it’s just practical, is the insane tax, like wealth taxes that they tried to do in France.Mmmm. That would’ve basically kept people from investing. And was thisSimone Collins: [00:22:00] recent, because the last time I remember reading about France and taxes was that France was just slurping up all of the Yeah, because mostly British people, when the UK raised taxes,Malcolm Collins: Macron’s reforms.Oh. And everybody freaked out about that, when really he was significantly helping the French people. They were just too spoiled to see it. Mm-hmm. So, by the way, the, for, for the first time in 2024, deaths out outpace bursts in France. So they’ve already hit like the beginning of the plateau. And now it’s, we down all the, they, they’ve been like tick going up the rollercoaster before they hit back down.So, what was I gonna say here? Oh, yeah, I was gonna talk about the unemployment gap among immigrants in France. Oh. Non-EU foreigners face 19.5% unemployment versus 8% for natives in France.Simone Collins: Oh, yikes.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Poverty rates are 34% in immigrant populations compared to 14% within the native population.Simone Collins: So is this due to some form of. Employment discrimination whereby it’s really hard to get a job as an immigrant. [00:23:00] Hmm. Because that, that is the case in many countries.Malcolm Collins: I don’t think so. So I’ve pointed this out a lot, and this is like a mantra that everyone needs to like, like globally, we need to grok this.And I love it came from my grandfather who was a congressman actually. And I only read it because somebody read it back to me was a slur that he had used while, while explaining it. And I was like, wow, granddad, I had never considered that. Thank you for this gift of knowledge from a different age. But he said.Famously that you, you cannot have generous social welfare systems and porous borders. He said you have to choose one of the two. Because if you have generous wealth, social welfare systems and porous borders, like very, very easy to cross borders you are going to just draw the people who want to live off of those systems into your country.Until like osmosis you, you get equalization and you no longer have those systems functional anymore. You know, they, they’ve been completely milked. To, to saturation point, that’s why I use the [00:24:00] osmosis. So, do people know what osmosis is? Should I explain what osmosis is? You know, it doesn’t even matter anyway.Do you, do you know, do you need a.Simone Collins: I, I know it’s about equalization between cell membranes typically. Okay, great. Yeah. With concentrationsMalcolm Collins: of,Simone Collins: ofMalcolm Collins: material to, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So anyway so the point here being. And because if you do, then you get equalization. The, the, the two ways around that is to have generous social welfare systems then keep your borders very tight.Or you can, but, but France tried to have both. And what that means is because France is more generous to its immigrants than other countries like the United States, if I am an African. Right. And I am deciding do I want to go immigrate to the United States or do I want to go immigrate to France? Right.I’m, I’m making the choice. Suppose I’m one of two people, [00:25:00] right? In case one I have a, a Harvard graduate degree or a Stanford graduate degree. I am a, a well-known engineer. I’m really like productive. Obviously like the choice wouldn’t even be a a, you go to the US. So you, you got Nigerian guy, super, super smart you know, could get a job at any company.There’s no way on earth he’d immigrate to France and unless he just happened to speak like French and have a family connection there or something, right?Probably, yeah. Butgenerally speaking. Outside of other factors, he’s gonna go to the United States. Now, suppose I am a refugee or I am you know, somebody who, you know is, is comfortable living off of state welfare systems.Which country do I go to? Oh my God, no. I would not look or touch the United States with a 10 foot pole. I’d be, especially with, with Trump and knowing the sentiment about immigrants now in the United States, I, I would just be like, f that. No, but the, the funny thing is, if in the United States there isn’t.Particularly bad treatment of like high talent [00:26:00] immigrants especially in anywhere where they would immigrate too. The United States is being sane in how they’re handling this. Totally. So the reason why France deals whiz immigrants who are a drain on state resources is in part because of their generous social services.Mm-hmm. And I will note that the United States has broken this.Where you saw many of these immigrant talents and immigrants were getting like, literally more money from the government than, than recipients, like native welfare recipients on like credit cards and, and getting nice hotels and stuff like this. This was happening in the UK as well. And really messed up.Really messed up because then that draws the types of immigrants that cause problems. And it’s often the immigrants in these sorts of setups where you have the problems of, you know, the crime waves and the greats and the assaults and all of that. You know, and, and I think that this is one of those things that the left can’t really deal with.It’s like there was a case recently where somebody living in one of those nice hotels and getting money every week in the [00:27:00] uk to some girl. And people were like, but he had a place to live and he had all the money he needed. And why did he like we, we, the left acts? I’m not the left acts like the reason why.Immigrant populations sometimes do bad things, is simply because of bad economic conditions or lack of material goods or something like that, not because they have set up a system that would actively draw in the type of grifters who’s comfortable living that life when most people just aren’t. And in fact you often see this even in countries that offer these things like I know this about Asian immigrants I know from who, who grew up in Canada and they were like, oh yeah, my parents could have taken from those government systems, but they actively chose not to because they thought it was dishonorable.And like that’s the type of immigrant you. Right. Like, where they’re like, well, I could live off the government. I, I fit all the qualifications to, but like, I’m a guest here and I have to earn my place in society. And those are the types of people who are gonna be really anti-immigration in the next wave.Right? There was a bunch of [00:28:00] anti-immigrant way riots in Australia recently. And I noticed a bunch of people rioting looked like visibly Asian. And I was like, oh, you see, oh, you see this in the, in the United States as well. A lot of the anti-immigrant protests have a lot of black and Hispanic participants.But. What was it that Macron put into place that caused everyone to turn against him and led to this incredibly, because he was like the king for a bit and then his coalition completely sped up and then he had to cheat to beat the right. Oh. So for people who don’t know, this is why he had to end up cheating to beat the Right.So what he did is he teamed up with the, the far left groups and he’s sort of a more centrist party, and he’s like, we won’t run against each other in the districts where we’re running against Lapins party. Just. To ensure, because she was gonna get the plurality and be able to control the government and likely right, the ship.We’re gonna talk a bit about her party’s politics in just a second. If people tell you they’re far right, you can, you can judge whether you’d support them all right. But what he tried to do was a retirement agent increase of 62 to [00:29:00] 64. He and, and people just freak the F out basically. And.That really gets me right? Like it really gets me that what he was attempting to do was keep a system solvent for more than five years That they, that they were, they were rioting over an imaginary thing. It, it, it, it reminds me of that Monty Python scene where the guy wants to be a woman and the other guy is like, sure fineSpeaker 2: I want to have babies. You wanna have babies? It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them. But you can’t have babies. Don’t you oppress me. It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression. Symbolic of his struggle against reality.Malcolm Collins: .And I feel like that’s what’s happening in France. They just wanna protest. So.When asked, by the way, because you’re wondering why they, the, the Yellow West protesters like young people were protesting they, they said it symbolized deeper frustrations with Macron’s Pro business. Read that pro reality. Policies, which they saw as favoring the wealthy while [00:30:00] eroding social protections.Issues like precarious job markets, eg. Gig economy, short-term contracts, high use and employment around 17 to 20% for under 25. And education reforms fueled a sense of general discontent. Okay? And getting rid of the wealth tax that’s gonna make all of those things worse. Sorry. Adding the wealth tax, uh uh, him getting rid of it helped all of those things.It caused a flood of new taxpayers, business starters, everything like that. And then if you, other things that they said they had a chant, which was why work longer on a dying planet? Which is sort of crazy. Right? Alright. But I wanna talk a bit about Lapins party.Simone Collins: Yeah.Malcolm Collins: So I’m sure you’ve heard that there are four right extremists.Right. What are, what are their far right and insane beliefs? Right. Right on me. They are against birthright citizenship. Okay. That means that somebody automatically becomes a citizen ‘cause they’re born in a country in a country that has an indigenous [00:31:00] population like France. That makes perfect sense to me.In the United States. I might question ending that slightly more. But in France I have no problem. Was, was getting rid of that. That’s totally a, a rational thing, especially if there’s people abusing the system to abuse your generosity as French people. I mean, if immigrants are a net drain on your economy, what that means is they are essentially like a guest that you are giving money to rolling out the red carpet for.And if they then. Treat your country with anything other than the utmost respect and your heritage with anything other than the utmost respect.And, and I, and I doubt even many people in Lapins party would want to kick out immigrants that are treating French culture with respect. And we’ll see this as well, right?Like this is more to prevent people from abusing the system who do not really care or like French customs and ways of life. Ban dual citizenship and strip nationality from foreign criminals. That sounds pretty reasonable to me.Yeah.National preference for jobs, housing and welfare reserve. Social benefits, eg.Family allowances, RSA and minimum incomes to be [00:32:00] exclusively for French citizens non-free. Must work in France for five years to receive them.Simone Collins: That seems,Malcolm Collins: why is that not already the law? How is this the for right party? Yeah. Moratorium on immigration and deportations. Immediate halt to immigration into family reunification, re regrouping, familia no regulation for undocumented immigrants and deport illegal immigrants.No deport illegal immigrant. Asylum applications must be filed at embassies abroad, not in France. All of that is perfectly reasonable. Restrict healthcare for foreigners. Again, perfectly reasonable. And Deis Islamization Matters specifically a ban on veils in public spaces. Which you know, something that I ideologically am like I, I have more trouble with, and that,Simone Collins: that, that impinges on people’s cultural sovereignty,Malcolm Collins: but.The French people have a right to their own cultural sovereignty, and there are many places in Muslim maturity countries. This is what I would say. If these [00:33:00] populations were the majority, the populations where people are wearing veils right now. Mm-hmm. Would you French people, women be allowed to go outside without veils on?Likely not. In most countries where they’re the majorities, that’s, that’s a law. Or you, you face where it’s not a law. You face the risk of violence in, in, in, in grape. When, when you do go out without it. Mm-hmm. So why is it unjust for them to ask that of these other people? I think that, that it’s their right as a sovereign country to demand that of people who are their guests.Simone Collins: You make a fair point. Yeah, I could see that.Malcolm Collins: I would, I would feel differently if there was no other country that these women could live in, where that was the norm or allowed, or in many cases, legally mandated. Right. So yeah, I, I, I, I, I can’t understand why they, they literally are like, how dare you force this on these people?And it’s like, there are countries where people who think like them are the majority, and we can look at the laws in those countries. Mm-hmm. The, the famous dune line that everyone likes to quote,When I am weaker than you, I ask [00:34:00] for freedom because that is according to your principles. When I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles. Okay?Malcolm Collins: Basically saying that the, the, the groups only say, oh, I want this stuff right now because they can benefit from it, right? Um hmm. Exit key EU framework.So they want to leave nato. They want to leave the eu. Wow. They’re claiming that France is overpays by $7 billion annually. They wanna hold a public vote on leaving the eu. I think that’s totally irrational. The EU has been a complete disaster and it’s gonna be quite dangerous to France in the near future.‘cause France for a long time was Annette. Drain on the eu. Basically Germany paid into it. France took out of it. That was the way it mostly worked. It was basically a form of war reparations on Germany. But now that Germany’s population is crashing out faster than France’s is France has no reason to continue to play with this, basically to scam system.They set up. Drain German coffers so that Germany could play like it was ruling Europe. Which I guess they kind of were for a period. Yay. [00:35:00] They got what they wanted in imposed their totalitarian mindset on everyone. They want more protectionist trade and nationalization of specifically they want nationalization of a lot of public utilities.It’s sort of like their version of like the B-B-C-N-P-R, that sort of stuff. Totally reasonable. They want anti tech fraud ministry. Ooh, a lot of French people are gonna be mad about that. Hmm. They want tax incentives for youth and family to try to get the birth rate up. Good for them.Simone Collins: Not gonna make a difference, but, well, I guess if it’s income tax incentives, it really could actually.That’s the one thingMalcolm Collins: weSimone Collins: really support.Malcolm Collins: They want to stop giving like family allowances and, and welfare to families that are committing crimes or in other ways delinquent and like doing bad things, which again great. They even want to enact the death penalty. Oh no, I’m pro death penalty if you do it cheaply in the US we do it too expensively, that’s the thing.Yeah. I don’t know if they would be doing itSimone Collins: financially sustainably.Malcolm Collins: I, I think most people when they initially set it up would do it sustainably. I think the only reason the US is so unsustainable about it is because we’ve had it in for so long, [00:36:00] but they want to ban. This is the only policy I really hate about theirs.Is they want to ban assisted unloving.Simone Collins: Mm.Malcolm Collins: Which I think is not smart.Simone Collins: That’s so off theme for a free problem? Well, no, it’sMalcolm Collins: like the appeal to the traditional Catholics.Simone Collins: Oh, okay.Malcolm Collins: Keep in mind, they also have like ridiculous IVF policies in France, where’s basically illegal. Yeah. And people are like, no, it’s not illegal.It’s, you have to implant the embryos immediately. That makes it functionally like really difficult to do at above replacement rate. Mm-hmm. Which to me means that you, you know, you’re functionally sterilizing any family that’s having trouble basically. Okay. Just for some ca roll into of how, how bad the situation in France is right now.France has been in a prolonged political crisis since President Emmanuel recall Ruon called Snap legislative elections in 2024, following his citrus alliances, poor showing in European parliamentary elections. The elections resulted in a hung national assembly. It was no single block securing the majority.And blah, [00:37:00] blah, blah. Lapins party would’ve won the plurality with about 33%, so they cheated to, to win. I could go over the specifics of, of what’s been going on there, but I don’t think it’s particularly interested. I thinkSimone Collins: r is, they’re basically unable to form a functional government right now. One of the primary reasons why.A coalition can’t be formed that would be sufficient to do so is that none of the politicians given the time left before the next scheduled election want to put their reputations on the line and get involved with this dumpster fire when it would probably preclude them from being able to win when they run next.So they’re like, no, I’m sitting this one out. Totally not tying myself to this mess. And two years away from your next big election. Not touching this. So basically no one’s stepping up to the plate because they actually wanna get reelected and the system demands a certain amount of consensus in order to function.And so you have this deeply divided government that has no incentive to form or be [00:38:00] functional, which means really, this is just another example. I mean, we’re, we’re recording this at the time of a government shutdown in the United States. What we’re starting to see is an age of. Dysfunctional governments have governments unable to even spend the, the money they still have at this time.And I think people are going to be increasingly accustomed, if not functionally, at least mathematically to the idea of their governments not really working anymore and, and, and recontextualizing their private communities, their own families, and also just private businesses as being the new sources of ultimate governing power.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And I, and I point out here with France, IBF policy, we wouldn’t have any kids if we lived in France. Like we, we, we like literally would be sterilized by the state. Well, we’d haveSimone Collins: to go to other countries and that’s what most people are doing in Europe. Well, you know, they’re going Netherlands, they’re gonna Mexico,Malcolm Collins: they’re going.It’s very hard. It’s very hard to do. It’sSimone Collins: expensive. It’s not fun. Especially if you’reMalcolm Collins: doing it for a lot of kids. Like we would be, you know? Yeah. So, you know, and you’ve gotta go for the checkup appointments, you’ve gotta go. So, [00:39:00] in France today, like I’m just pointing out my larger. Themeing here in France today, we would be sterilized by the state.Under Sharia law, we wouldn’t all of my like best French friends are black Muslims so like, and like literal African black Muslims. So they’re all my, my best friends and friends. And so like, my ambivalence towards France’s situation right now is high. Because they’ve always been nicer to me.Like the, the, the, the, the African Muslim community in France has always been nicer to me than the French community. Now this isn’t, by the way, true of all Muslim populations. Like in the uk for example, the Muslim population there has always been ruder to me than the native British population. But they’re getting Muslims from different parts of the world.I, I don’t know what the whiter, like, obviously I have. Disproportionately spent time in one Muslim community in France, and I don’t know if this is true for all the Muslim communities in FranceSimone Collins: and for what it’s worth, I had good friends who were college students at France when I was in college and [00:40:00] visited France a ton and had a great experience.So it’s, I don’t know. I also feel like part of this is your text and heritage and there’s something also that seems to be uniquely. Texan about not liking France and mispronouncing Oh, everywhere.Malcolm Collins: Everyone I knew grew up hated French people. Yeah. Like I, it was like a normal thing. Like, you guys might not understand this if you’re from Texas but it was seen as like a normal patriotic thing.Like it, it was part of being patriotic, like yeah.Simone Collins: Guns. Whereas my grandmother was a French war bride. My mother was, she wasMalcolm Collins: not a French war bride, Simone. She called,Simone Collins: literally her biography is called Memoirs of a French War bride. She really wanted to be French.Malcolm Collins: To be French ‘cause she thought it was high class.Okay. Yeah. She was a F-ing Jew from Russia. Okay. She was not a French war bride. She triedSimone Collins: to brand herself as such. Okay. Like, quite literally. But anyway, like I know whatMalcolm Collins: she did because she was hiding from Nazis.Simone Collins: Yeah, but I mean, I grew up with Francophiles, so I, you know, I, I’m okay with it. If you, if you’re French and you watch this podcast, [00:41:00] please don’t think we all hate you.No, weMalcolm Collins: haven’t. We’ve, we’ve done something. There’s this great community in France, which I wish we had in the us. Which is like, an investment group. That Oh, that one? Yes. Yeah. That specifically is trying to, they’re like a vc, but they are like aligned with like the lain party and like trying to bringFrances birth rates back up, bring back heritage in ways that they can also capitalize on.You also keep inSimone Collins: mind, French culture is extremely divided Parisian culture. Is extremely different from the culture in the French countryside, for example.Malcolm Collins: Yes. I, I, I always hear that, right? Mm-hmm. And so, maybe if I spent more time in the French countryside, I’d have a very, and I haven’t been to the French countryside, actually.Simone Collins: I think people in the French countryside also have like a similar attitude toward Parisians that you do. I kind of hate them like getMalcolm Collins: rid of ‘em.Simone Collins: Yeah. So, you know, I’m just saying,Malcolm Collins: Well, no, it’s, it’s one of those things where like there’s just no reason to be rude to somebody for no reason. Like, unless you’re a Parisian it makes a day worse.I think. I feel like theSimone Collins: [00:42:00] Snobbiness is part of the cultural cachet, you know, to be the mean, popular, fashionable girl that, that coldness, you know, just how the studies have found that waitresses that are more cold get higher tips.Malcolm Collins: Oh, really? Mm-hmm. I had no idea. That seems very unfair. I know. It,Simone Collins: it really frus, like all the waitresses who participated in these studies were like completely outraged by this.Like, I bent over backwards to be accommodating and nice to you and you tip me less. So yeah.Malcolm Collins: Anyway you want, you know,Simone Collins: you want the approval of the person who’s like, aloof.Malcolm Collins: I just don’t understand the purpose of acting that way. Like it puts other people in a bad mood and then they act bad towards other people, and it’s like a cycle that spins outta control.Yeah.I, I just don’t, I don’t, I understand it’s their culture and like if they’re leaning into it, Parisian culture specifically, I, I, I note that it, it’s not that way in the countryside. I’ve heard.Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I will also say like in in German cities I’ve gotten [00:43:00] much more like glares and, and brusque responses in German cities, like checking out at the grocery line and stuff like fumbling with money and whatnot, and them just being like, and Germans are nice for that, and I love Germans.You know, just ‘causeMalcolm Collins: people are,Simone Collins: doMalcolm Collins: I, I, Germans are, are fine, they’re too authoritarian. Like, no, theirSimone Collins: language is the cutest language. How can you call a language? That has words like wa vasal.Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I should point out by the way, I have also dated both French and German girls. Very seriously dated a German girl.She was a hardcore communist. She argued to me that, cuba was a better place to live than America. And I was like, cut one. Why are people risking their lives in little dinghies to try to get to America then? Nobody does that going in the other direction. You know, I knowSimone Collins: Greta’s risking her life in a little dingy to try to get to Gaza, so you never know people.Oh, that, that wholeMalcolm Collins: thing’s over. Now, like, I’m wondering like for everyone on the Flatella, they like look around and they’re like, okay, so this is no longer an efficient way to [00:44:00] get aid to Gaza. Like, no, it’s justSimone Collins: a party boat, you know?Malcolm Collins: What do we do? I, I actually genuinely wonder if they did party afterwards or were they too shocked by it being Trump to actually partySimone Collins: The boats looked like group houses in Silicon Valley, like the interiors of them from the photos I saw, I just feel like it’s a bunch of young people hanging out, mostly going on in an adventure like your dad did in his college days.But yeah, no, France is, man, I mean, just like considering the timelines of this, you know, that, that this, this is going to become an install program and. Five years. We are very close to seeing the world teetering on very profound instability. And it’s gonna be interesting to see how it plays out, especially as AI rises.So buckle up friends.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, buckle the F up. Oh, by the way, people are wondering, they’re like, Malcolm, why? Why have you dated people from all of these different countries? My undergrad, where I went for four years to get my graduate degree was St. Andrews in Scotland. Which being in Europe [00:45:00] and being one of the best schools in Europe has a hugely diverse population in terms of like what countries and what nationalities which is why I have.So many friends from different countries around Europe. Yeah, theSimone Collins: UK schools are extremely international because they get demand from foreign students and they love accepting them because they pay much, much higher tuition. So foreign students are able to supplement the tuition of, of the local ones. And so it’s a lot harder for local students to get in, but there’s a lot of foreign students there.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Anyway I absolutely love you, Simone, and have a spectacular day.Simone Collins: YouMalcolm Collins: too.Simone Collins: Okay. Gimme five minutes. I changed her her.Malcolm Collins: the episode today. How, how, what do people think?Simone Collins: I haven’t had a chance. I was outlining, trying to outline the episode that I was gonna contribute today. So I plan to get to it when I’m with the kids.Malcolm Collins: Oh, that’s fantastic. No problem at all.Anything new you learned today or any new information? I told you though, the fact I learned today is immediately upon the, the withdrawal of these Israeli early forces, the IDF [00:46:00] Hamas starts executing civilians in the street, just lining ‘em up, shooting them in the back. I love it when people are like, oh, the people of Gaza, like the people of Gaza are being unceremoniously massacred.People are like, oh no, what do we do? Buy Hamas?Oh, that’s fine. They were probably gay or something. Whatever. Oh my God. Do we knowSimone Collins: whatMalcolm Collins: theySimone Collins: were?Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So they, they said they, they were not like sufficiently pro Hamas during the, the war whatever, basically anyone, and this is the reason why I personally had a lot less negative thoughts towards the, the casualties that were happening there than I would in a normal war.Because Hamas made a pretty good showing of trying to kill anyone who wasn’t pro Hamas. You know, there weren’t a lot of. People left who were not pro Hamas. Well, apparentlySimone Collins: they were enough.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but, well, I, we don’t even know if these people were anti Hamas. I mean, it could have just been a terror campaign or anything like that.You know, this is a, the way these things work,Simone Collins: I think the [00:47:00] broader theme is that Hamas was. Perfectly willing to indis almost in indiscriminately kill its own or use its own as human shieldsMalcolm Collins: or, well, no, the, the, the, the wider point being is that while the IDF were occupying there you know, in many ways it was a safer place to be than it is today.Mm-hmm. Which it’s a shame, but that’s, you know, I, I think what everybody expected, who wasn’t completely brainwashed, and it’s, it’s wild to me that we’re not seeing the protesters mention this. And as we mentioned in the episode today, just nobody cares. Like, it’s, it, the war is over. And all of those college people who literally like celebrated October 7th, October 7th.Seventh, October 7th, and they were cheering about this and there was all of these, these things they didn’t cheer when the war ended. When they said that that was their goal. And I think for a lot of people and a lot of progressive in coming out here and saying this, they’re like, oh, like, it really was like about murdering people.Like it, it really was about killing [00:48:00] the Jews. It was not about what they told me it was about. Right. Because they would be cheering right now, there would be holding celebrations on these college campuses. They would be in all of the cities where they marched the streets holding celebratory marches, and they just aren’t because they didn’t care.And I think that there’s been some videos of like some leftist, like. Oh my God. Like, so this was really about antisemitism. I thought that was like a right wing grift. So this is a wake up call for a lot of people. And, and, and for a lot of you, if, if, if you saw people who were actively pushing this stuff and, and whining about this stuff and they’re not actively celebrating the end of the war I, I would, you know, seriously, like if you thought that they were genuine in their beliefs, like, like reflect on that, right?Like, reflect on what that says about what their actual goals were. Anyway, pretty dark. Yeah, pretty dark. But I, I mean, it’s easy when you’re fighting against evil. Like, I, I like our side on all of this because it just feels like the other side is so nakedly evil.Simone Collins: Anyway, [00:49:00] makes things simpler.Speaker 4: I poop.Speaker 3: Hey, do you guys wanna get me? Uh, I can get you some bonkers. Okay. What about you sweetheart? Itsay like, and subscribe. Um, not quite there yet. Hey, Octavia, do you wanna say it like and subscribe? Yeah. This is a public episode. 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Oct 17, 2025 • 36min

Why Are Famous Communists Usually Rich Nepo Babies?

Why do so many prominent socialists and communists come from wealthy backgrounds? In this thought-provoking episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into the surprising trend of rich kids leading leftist movements, from historical figures like Marx, Engels, and Lenin to modern influencers and activists. Discover the stories behind famous leaders, the psychology of privilege, and the recurring patterns that shape revolutionary ideologies. The Collinses explore whether wealth and upbringing influence political beliefs, and what this means for the future of social movements. If you’re curious about history, politics, or the sociology of power, this episode is for you! Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be exploring the phenomenon that you may not be aware of, which is most socialists and communist leaders, and I really mean most socialists and communist leaders.Oh, likeSimone Collins: actual, like world leaders. Like, yeah, this is going intoMalcolm Collins: distant history of two modern times we’re born to incredible wealth. What? And, and the question is, is why, why does this trend happen? And it’s something I’ve seen as well with, you know, all the wealthy kids especially the ones who didn’t have to earn it being incredibly like the most communist socialist people I know.Speaker 3: rude boy living in the shanty dorms. Please guide me from,Simone Collins: yeah, no, there’s, there was this one like trust fund kid conference that you. You, it’s called a summitMalcolm Collins: or something. Not summit. What was it called? Not Summit Ter,Simone Collins: Nexus Global. Nexus.Malcolm Collins: Nexus Global. AndSimone Collins: everyone in it was, it was really like kids [00:01:00] of, of, of very wealthy families who have basically family foundations that were charities talking about how they’re gonna spend their family foundation’s money.Malcolm Collins: And it was all, all woke nonsense. And it was all, it was allSimone Collins: like socialists too. Marxists and communists and, which is so weird. Yeah, becauseMalcolm Collins: I, and it wasn’t like meant to be a Marxist conference. No. It was meant to be a rich kid conference. Yes. Okay. Yes. So you see this constantly. So let’s go over where we see this phenomenon playing out.I’m just gonna. Read to you names here. Right? Okay. Okay. ‘cause see, this isn’t just a historic saying. This is a modern thing as well. Okay. Zhan, Ani. You know the guy who’s the communist running for the man of the people.Yeah. What?Born to Oscar nominated filmmaker, Miar Na and Colombian Professor Mohamed Mandi Young Zhan enjoyed a jet setting lifestyle before New York, India, and Uganda.What family Vacations included film sets and academic conferences. Perfect prep for fighting capitalism. Right. But hey, at least he traded red carpets for red politics.Simone Collins: Oh boy.Malcolm Collins: Fidel Castro Fidel’s Co Fidel’s [00:02:00] father owned a 25,000 acre plantation with 500 employees, where little Fidel rode horses attended elite Jesuit schools and Boston around servants one advent goat.He once staged a quote unquote revolt against his strict boarding school by locking himself in with candy, foreshadowing the real revolution, minus the sweets. From Castro’s family wealth in early Life stories Hassan Piker Hassan’s father was a VP at a billion dollar conglomerate and a board member of multiple forms.Affording a posh Istanbul upbringing was private schools and family trips. Funny bit. Hassan once joked about his uncle Sikh hugger, the Young Turks founder, who we’ll go into next as a Nepo baby but skipped mentioning his dad’s empire. Talk about streaming from a glass house. Sec by the way, grew up in East Broad Wick, an affluent suburb with strong cool before the family settled and blah, blah, blah.He, he also had a fantastically wealthy family, but less wealthy than Hassan. Hassan’s family was a, from what I can read. [00:03:00] Multi-billionaires wow. Or not multi-billionaires, but they ran multi-billionaire corporations. CEX was probably few hundred million. Either way, neither of them have to worry about money, so clearly that’s why they don’t care about lying about.Do you think that bothSimone Collins: Jen and and Salon are trust? Kids.Malcolm Collins: Yes. They never have to worry about money in their lives. Wow. If, if something went wrong or anything, they wouldn’t have to like, if, if Hassan really loses it for shocking his dog, like a psychopath.I America Kaya, please just go. Just stop.God Hassan, stay on the bed. It won’t stop. Yeah, well, neither will chat. I’m busy.Malcolm Collins: And here’s the thing, I actually don’t even mind shot colors for people who aren’t aware of this.So Hassan’s one of like the leading like, lefty streamers, right? And he got caught after. The dog had sat in a corner for four hours like yelling at his dog and then shocking it so [00:04:00] that it like yelped and went back in the corner when it just tried to get up and walk around. I’m actually like, shock colors, whatever.Like for me, you know, like we do corporal punishment, like whatever. But forcing a dog to sit in one corner for four hours as a prop. And we can see on earlier videos, he used to chain it up to do this. Like we have a dog. We could use it as a prop, but we don’t like, that’s a psychotic thing to do. Yeah. I don’t have like my kid in the corner like shot collar to make sure they don’t, they don’t move from their spot like we should I under?WeSimone Collins: should. Oh my gosh. No. But also next, next episode. Just expect to see Octavian in the corner with a big ass collar on.Malcolm Collins: No, but I also love, oh, we gotta do that for Halloween. What are you Zo love son’s dogSimone Collins: ta would love just sit him back on this window sill. He will just die, right? No. SoMalcolm Collins: the, the funny thing is, is like we have the whole like bop gate for us, like when we do light corporal punishment with our kids and, and, I so wanna be like in an debate with Hassan about this, and I’m like, yeah. And you know what the difference between you and Maria is, is I am [00:05:00] honest about the things I do as punishment because I’m willing to stand behind them. You are not. This is the difference between you and me and my friend. There you go.When that came out, we didn’t go out there and be like, no, we, we would never do that. I’m like, we told you we were doing this beforehand in our episodes. Mm-hmm. Here’s all the science that shows that it’s a good thing to do. Probably. I mean, here’s our logic behind doing it. So I just love what a, what a and what I hate about Hassan most right now in, in terms of how he’s handling this, is he is forcing other people to put their reputations on the line and lie for him.Simone Collins: I don’t think he’s forcing him. I think they’re voluntarily doing it.Malcolm Collins: I mean, obviously my favorite was the one recently where the girl came out and she goes,Speaker: I’m not No, no, no. There’s no shock. Like the electric prongs are taken out of it. ? Like it’s only a vibrates, like there’s a setting for vibrate and there’s a setting for shock.True. That’s a fact. That’s a fact. Yes. SoSpeaker 2: he, there’s only the, like since the prongs are in it, it only vibrates.Malcolm Collins: . And then she said, and that had been taped over, and now we know that Hassan was showing one with shock prongs taken out and taped [00:06:00] over.If you’ve never used one of these shot colors before. The prongs are removable in any of them. It’s a standard feature, right? You just take out the prongs. Because the idea is, is that once you use it for a certain period of time the dog gets used to it and then it only needs the beep and the rumble, and you don’t actually need the shock.Things to contact the dog anymore. But Hassan had said that it wasn’t a shot caller, it was a rumble version. And a friend goes, oh, I went to his house. It was a shot call. He just took out the prongs by that point. But the dog’s not gonna yelp on the rumble setting, right? So Uhoh Anyway, side there.Frederick Engles. Engles grew up in a sprawling family estate with mills across Europe. Think of Victorian downtown, Abbey downtown.Simone Collins: Oh boy.Malcolm Collins: Anecdote as a teen, he skipped business lessons to party in Manchester’s elite circles. Then used his inheritance to bankroll Marks irony. And the guy who co-wrote the anti-capitalist Bible was basically a trust fund kid subsidizing the proletariat.Someone’s gotta do it. Linen [00:07:00]Simone Collins: what? Sorry? You got thoughts here? I, I don’t, I mean, who’s gonna bankroll the socialists, if not Nepo babies though.Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, this is, they don’t haveSimone Collins: the means of production.Malcolm Collins: It’s not a, i i I, without getting, ‘cause people know I didn’t get any family wealth from my family.I could have not exactly my family’s choice, although had always told me I wouldn’t inherit money, but it was all stolen as well. So like, it’s, it’s very public that there’s no way I could have gotten any money from my family, which is good. I like that everyone knows, you know. I could be a communist if I want to, but self-made people very rarely want to become communists.That’s, that’s the problem, right? Like people who are successful within the capitalist system rather than just handed their money. And this is one of the reasons why I think you get this pattern. They see the value in the capitalist system. The people who are just handed everything, they have nothing but guilt and they wanna frame themselves as good guys.Vladimir Linen Linn’s father with a high ranking inspector was hereditary nobility, affording elite schooling, and a family of state childhood tale. Young Vladimir [00:08:00] both hosted quote unquote revolutionary games in the garden, bossing siblings like a mini czar until his brother’s execution flipped the script.From noble picnics to proletarian purges. Cha’s, upper middle class family owned estates. He grew up playing polo rugby at elite clubs and traveled Europe. Cha was a polo kid, polo kid. Oh no. As a kid, he staged quote unquote battles at the family ranch. They had a branch of course complete with toy guns and servants as quoteunquote enemies foreshadowing his real life.Oh my God. Hmm. I love the sociopathy. The servants have to play the enemies. All of my friends on my side, and we’ll just gun down the sermons, which is what he did in real life.Simone Collins: Good practice.Malcolm Collins: Well, what we see is what Communist Revolution is really almost always are, is idiots who think they’re fighting for equality that these types of illegally educated people are [00:09:00] using.And then a cabal of wealthy elites who are utilizing those idiots to centralize their power and assure an even less what’s the word I’m looking for here? Society where people can move between class distinctions. It’s really about solidifying elite power structures. Oh, and you see this with current communists as well, like that’s, that’s clearly what they want, right?They do not want. They do not want, like if you go to your average Antifa rally and you’re like, great, we’re gonna help, like, the, the, the forgotten rural Rust Belt community. Oh that’s not who we were talking about. Uplifting. I was thinking more the, the, the Trans Trust Fund kids who, who literally, as I point out, like I don’t understand how anybody falls for you got these trans people who dress likethey’re literally like from the Capitol and the Hunger Games pretending that they’re like allied with like the, the, the working poor, right?Like, no, you hate them and it’s very [00:10:00] clear when you talk about them that you hate them. Right? And it’s very clear that you don’t live in these communities. Despite the statistics I’ll give you. And we have another episode on this, I’m gonna do another episode on it in more detail. But like the trans murder rates are like super, super low, especially if you take out trans black people, which make up like 50%.That blew my mind.Simone Collins: Yeah, because it, it was typically discussed that like trans people, especially because many of them enter sex work to support their transition and whatnot, like are, are disproportionately exposed to risk, et cetera.Malcolm Collins: It’s because they’re, they’re, they’re in upper class communities often and leaching off of upper class communities, even if they themselves don’t have jobs.And, and this is what I’ve noticed is people will act like, well, I’m really poor when they’re living. It’s like their rich friend in Manhattan or something like that, who’s helping to pay for everything, right? And it’s like. Okay. I mean, you might technically be poor, but you are living in Manhattan.Right. And I know for a fact if you were actually, everyoneSimone Collins: feels poor in Manhattan. Yeah. To be fair, you wouldn’t be doingMalcolm Collins: that, right? Yeah. So clearly you’re getting money from [00:11:00] somewhere. Next one, pull pot. I dunno if you knew this one. Pole pot was a wealthy family was royal court ties. He grew up with French tutors and lived in the King’s palace as a page boy French tutor.Page boy. Pull pot page boy pull pot. This is the one who did the Cambodian revolution where they had the killing fields and they just like, one of the most brutal communist dictators in in history. My gosh. French tutors page Boy. This does not check out. These people are good at rebrands. So the peasant utopia, the architect enjoyed elite scholar scholarships in Paris studying radio tech while shipping cafe lattes, oh, sorry.Sipping cafe lattes before banning all that burg and cheese burgundies stuff back home. I can’t even say these comedy words. Bourgeois. That’s what what it is. Comedy words for Paint my American tongue for.Simone Collins: You gotta the burgundies burgundy. Oh my god, Malcolm so much. Oh, it kills [00:12:00] me. It kills me so much.Malcolm Collins: Jessica Milford from Burton’s eccentric mil fort nobility. Jessica grew up in a sping estate with servants debutante balls and fascist siblings. She once carved a hammer and sickle into her bedroom window to troll her dad. Then he eloped with a communist cousin to fight in Spain. Carl Marx. By the way, Carl Marx was also not poor.Marx’s lawyer dad owned Ryan Vineyards funding Carl’s posh schooling in Bon, where he painted dued and racked up debts. Dued. Alright. You know, you know you’re classy young. Carl once got jailed for a drunken night out bailed out by Daddy’s cash. Later on he lived in Ingalls Mill money while writing manifestos.So literally it’s like the law doesn’t apply to me. I’m so rich. Level of rich there. Right.Simone Collins: I mean, I, yeah, to, to be socialist or communist though, you have to be subversive and, and [00:13:00] subversiveness often requires a, a pretty sizable level of personal empowerment and confidence, which is easy to get when you’re wealthy.Malcolm Collins: Well, if you look at what happened with Marx, it’s very clear. He wa grew up super wealthy. So wealthy, the rules didn’t apply to him. He never had to worry about working or a job or anything like that. And as soon as that stuff was required of him, because he didn’t expect it ever would be required of him, he’s like, well, I need some alternate system to pay for my lifestyle.Right. Mm-hmm. And that’s when Engles started to support him.Mm-hmm. Butthe, the, the point here being is that he and a lot of these wealthy kids simply do not have a worldview where they are ever going to work. That, that. That is antithetical to to hear. Sorry, my, alright, we’re gonna keep going here, but we’re getting, we’re getting every name on the list here.Mal is a don. This is insane. This is insane. So. Mao’s father was a prosperous farmer money lender with vast lands [00:14:00] afforded private tutors in elite schools. Teen Mao staged hunger strikes against his dad. Strict rules hiding in barns with books. Ironic for the guy who’d later starved millions in the great leap forward.Well, he tried it. It wasn’t so bad. Yeah. Okay. Leon Troskey Trotsky’s. Dad owns massive farms with laborers. Young Leon had private tutors and summer horseback rides. He once commanded farm kids in mock battles prep for leading real armies, but was way more privileged than the proletariat sea championed.Oh, now Pete Capone and an I know, and he’s a, what’s the word, anarchist, communist back in the 19th century. Oh. A Russian aristocrat and proponent of Anarchical communism was born into a noble land owning family descending from the ancient Warwick family. His father owned surfs across three provinces and kin, grew up in Moscow mansion with, with, attached estates educated at the Greek court and serving as a personal page to Emperor [00:15:00] Alexander ii. Good. Okay. On We’re not done here. Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh. Born Ang Kun to a Confucian scholar father who was an imperial magistrate ho, grew up in the rural Vietnamese village with some family star status perks, like private tutoring in classical Chinese texts.Goodness. He flew kites. Fished in rivers and enjoyed a relatively carefree childhood in the elite college in ho, a top French academy for Vietnamese nobles for future leaders like Fa Von Don and Vo. Y Guan also studied at around age 10 he got expelled or nearly so for protesting French teachers, treatment of Vietnamese students for shadowing.Sorry, I mute myself. Next here, Bertrand Russell, born into Britain’s Elite, the grandson of a two-time prime minister. No, these aren’t like kind of rich people. These are these super wealthy, super elite, super old blood [00:16:00] people. Is what we keep seeing here. You know, like in the Imperial family playing polo as a kid, et cetera.Young Bertrand was orphaned early and raised by his strict Victorian grandmother at her luxurious pin book lodge in Richmond Park. A sprawling estate fit for royalty withs and servants and gardens galore. His private tutors. No need for regular school. Lived in isolation from other kids until 17, leading to a lonely but intellectually loaded childhood where he contemplated un aliveness, but was saved by books and mass.I love, he’s so close to modern people. Bertin Russell. At 11, his brother introduced him to Euclid Geometry, which he called as dazzling. His first love. It’s working a lifelong package. He, he. Secretly ditched Christianity becoming an atheist at 18. After reading mills bonus as 18, he jetted to the 1989 Paris Exhibition and climbed the brand new Eiffel Tower, climbed it all funded by family wealth.It has [00:17:00] stairsSimone Collins: for the, he, he walked up the stairs, Malcolm.Malcolm Collins: Oh, that. Okay. Alexander Knik, Colney daughter of a Russian General from a Noble family. I’ve been to the top of it by the way. I just thought it meant he just took theSimone Collins: elevator.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe he did. A Noble family was Ukrainian and finished roots grew up in luxury estate, servants, elite education.Actually, I’m not even gonna say any more of these if I already recognize them. We’ve got a. Well, this one could be relevant to our Eastern European Inver Hoa. He’s an Albanian Communist leader, set of wealthy Muslim Landover and Kloss Merchant was ties to the Ottoman Elite. We got Tony Ben, I’ve heard of him.British Socialist politician born Anton Woods Wood Ben. That’s aristocratic name if I’ve ever heard of one. The aristocratic son of a vi count and the grandson of a barronett lived off of inherited wealth. Jessica Milford, British writer and activist from the aristocratic Milford family Philip Tony b British com Communist journalist and writer, son of renowned historian, Andrew to Tony b from the intellectually [00:18:00] elite family benefited from nepotistic connections and Esmond Rahmel.Lee nephew of Winston Churchill. He was a British communist and he was Winston Churchill’s nephew. Born to aristocratic privilege, youth, family wealth and education for becoming a communist fighter in the Spanish Civil War. So Churchill goes and has this Africa adventure and this guy goes to the uh, so thoughts on this?‘cause this is really a full list. This is modern to ancient from the beginning of this to Zhan Ani, right?Simone Collins: Yeah. So it makes me think about, the, the sort of other angle that a lot of people have looked at the systematic disempowerment or wealth redistribution of wealthy families in. Typically like communist and socialist regimes and how over time, both in like Eastern Europe and in in Asia, descendants of those families that were systematically disempowered just end up in very influential and wealthy positions again.Yeah. So, and I just feel like you get ba this is just another element of disproportionately wealthy and intellectual families [00:19:00] producing disproportionately wealthy and influential people. It just so happens that they chose to use the. Government corruption slash like socialist scam to obtain their power and wealth in this case, but like are using the same tactics that a capitalist would use.Malcolm Collins: I want to expand on your point before I disagree with your point. Okay. Okay. So, and to expand on your point, the study she’s citing, which I personally find fascinating and show how much of competence is genetic. Couple studies that in China they did a fairly good job of consolidating wealth among a few elite families and then disenfranchising all the other elite families and putting them on the.Society and then the bottom of society with raised, it’s like higher class and it was much easier to get jobs and positions. If your ancestors had been farmers and if they had been like you, you were treated with active derision in your daily life. Well today, you know, a hundred years later, if you look at the people who are in leadership positions within the Communist party I think it’s something like.45% of them or something are descended from those very people who are put on the [00:20:00] bottom of society at the beginning of the Communist revolution. And so it just sort of like re resource itself. This is part of why Cambodia has never really economically recovered when other regions have economically recovered like Vietnam and China.Because in China and Vietnam, they just treated their wealthy elite during the communist period. Like underclass citizens in Cambodia, they were systematically eradicated. And because of that, Cambodia has never been able to really re industrialize them the same way because they just don’t have that class of people anymore.And I think in Cambodia now, a lot of wealth is, is just owned by Chinese. Who, who came in because they still had that class of people who could come and soak everything up. I’ve heardSimone Collins: that. Yeah.So one number that I was able to find on this is that Chinese people own, uh, 92% of the business assets in Cambodia. This is what happens if you eat the rich in your country, the rich from another country come and take over. .Simone Collins: Well, and there’s actually, that’s the case a apparently in a lot of a lot of,Malcolm Collins: well, we have another episode on this, the [00:21:00] Jews of Asia.But the point is, is you benefit from this elite class enormously. And, and what, what communism really is, is a revolt. Of a few factions with that elite class against the rest of that elite class using the poor to achieve that end. Mm-hmm. It is not and people can be like, oh, well, real Communism’s never been tried.That’s not the way communism is supposed to be done. And I will say that communism may work in a world with ai. We can talk about that. We’ve talked about that. That’s the point, is thatSimone Collins: the, the, the, the actually respectable leaders in, in communist theory pointed out that this is a post scarcity.Arrangement system only. Right? Butthis makes sense in a post a GI super prosperous world. Sorry, but just,Malcolm Collins: just quickly here, I agree with what you’re saying, but I wanna explain why it doesn’t work. Pres scarcity. Okay. Where you still have any degree of scarcity? Well, it’s obvious because the whySimone Collins: you basically need just infinite resources created by people who aren’t people so that no one has the word.Malcolm Collins: That’s not why. [00:22:00] So like on paper, communism could work like this idea that you could give ownership of the means of production to the people, right? And then sort of decentralized power entirely and have everybody sort of a agree on this decentralized worker owned world, right? Like this.Could hypothetically exist. The problem is as many people have tried to create this before, like not all communist efforts were disingenuous, but when you decentralize power to that extent, the extent that it exists within quote unquote real communism.Mm-hmm.Anyone who. Is willing to subvert that system, say, actually I’m not going to let go of my decentralized power.Can concentrate power and then take it from the decentralized architecture. Which is why communist systems always turn into because if you’ve said, oh, well, we’re all giving up all of this and all of this and [00:23:00] all of this, and one person’s like, well. I’m gonna be running the, let’s just say like, and you could do this from any position of government, eventually centralized power.Whether you are checking to make sure the supply lines are working correctly or running the supply lines or running you know, quota checks or running, you know, anything like that. You, you can easily, or you determine, you know, the exchange rates are you, you know. Anything where you have a degree of power, you can just further concentrate that power and then create a crony system where everyone under you, because they are getting disproportionate wealth because of you, and disproportionate power because of you has a, has a, a, a vested interest in maintaining this new system.I do not think that many of the communists who go and start these systems realize that that’s what’s gonna happen. They think that they are actually going out and redistributing wealth in, in some sort of meaningful context. And what ends up, and, and the reason I think they hold these beliefs is when you are incredibly wealthy and you grow up, you are not.[00:24:00] Punished for wrong beliefs. You are not punished for making mistakes. You are not punished for I, when I mean punished, I don’t mean like by your parents, I mean by reality, right? People who make their own money if you make a mistake, like right now, like we don’t have a job. Like we’re working on a startup.We’re trying to make this work. We just got turned down by Andreessen. So, and we, we were, you know, on our way with them. So now we’ve gotta find out what we’re gonna do next. And, this is, you know, five kids, right? Like, I get punished for my mistakes if I don’t perform. I can’t create something that people wanna use with, you know, parisa.io, our school system, or our fab.ai, our you know.Online agent system for like chat bots or the new system we’re building with our fab AI that will allow you to have like persistently online bots that are just sort of always running and can like, give you phone calls and answer your texts and send you texts and send you emails and do coding for you.And, and we’ll have like persistent personalities which evolve over time. Think of it like a. [00:25:00] Tamagotchi human, I, I don’t know how to put it right, like a, a, a pocket human. Very excited to start releasing those onto the world because the ones we have in our test environment are really cool. But where am I?Was this stuff? Yeah, I’ve, I’ve had to, and, and we’ve, we’ve built it before. You know, we’re basicallySimone Collins: saying trust fund kids and nepo babies. Are, are, are doing bowling, but with the bumpers on. Yeah. And if you’re doingMalcolm Collins: bowling with the bumpers on, you choose the, the, the thing that makes you look, you’re just throwing the ball.Simone Collins: You’re just throwing the ball. You’re not, you’re not really aiming in any meaningful way. Whereas with the rest of the world is, is playing with the gutters and they end up in the gutters when they screw up and, and that changes everything and they quickly learn.Malcolm Collins: For example, how incompetent the masses are.One of the, the first things you learn if you’re managing lots of people is how incompetent your average person is. And that, that it is really hard. I mean, that’s what makes management hard is you can’t just handle everything yourself. Right. And fortunately AI has fixed that for me because now I just [00:26:00] use more and more AI employees and I’m working on building more and more AI employees.Yeah.Simone Collins: Well, it enables you to, to you, you now only have to work or. Can choose to work with the top 0.1%, which is so nice. You don’t have to depend on anyone else.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Which is going to potentially make a system like communism, well not traditional communism, maybe some sort of like UBI system, but that will have huge negative effects.Watch all our videos on how bad UBI is. So like, I don’t know where humanity is going. We’ll probably need some sort of like simulated hardship, especially once we enter aSimone Collins: Yeah. People are gonna need to have jobs.Malcolm Collins: That’s it. Yeah, he’s gas. But what I can say is we’re not headed to gay space communism.It’s, it’s very unlikely when you look at fertility rates because people who accept these types of ideas have incredibly low fertility rates. And they have historically, as well as we pointed out, like East Berlin have much lower fertility rates than West Berlin East Austria, which, by the way, one of our fans didn’t realize that Austria was divided like Germany.It was had much lower fertility rates than West Austria. And the Soviet states had lower fertility [00:27:00] raise. And so the, the, during the baby room, and so the question is, is like, how do you, people and I, and you know, within most countries, the more leftists you are, the fewer kids you have, so they’re just not gonna exist in the future. And so we’re much more likely to have like the austere techno Puritan like spaceships and, and, and Catholic spaceships and the, we’ll, we’ll say, right? We’re, we’re heading much, much more to the war hammer future.Okay. Than the I, I, I’d say even Starship troopers or star Trek futures. So it. I, I think that that’s it. I think it’s if that, I also think that if you are born into wealth and privilege and you expect to inherit money, and I have noticed this, the kids who go communists are the kids whose parents set up systems for them, where they inspect to inherit wealth.If I look at my wider family, which I’ve often pointed out is in incredibly successful you know. The we, I, I, I know the way I was raised, I was always raised with the expectation that I’d inherit nothing. And not only have we been incredibly successful financially, like most of them, I am the, the big failure in the [00:28:00] family.I, I literally have three siblings or cousins that run. A fund that’s like around a billion dollars. And then others that run like major AI studios and stuff like that, that you’ve heard of. And he means each, they’re, it’s not theSimone Collins: same.Malcolm Collins: These are all separate funds. It’s not the same. No, it’s, it’s separate funds that they other people gave them control of, not like family money or something like that.And so, and they’re usually pretty conservative. Most of my family’s pretty conservative except for one of the uncles who used to run the Fed, but he wasn’t raised in the family. So, the, or at least they’re not like far woke or whatever. Right. And so, I think that what it is, that it depends on how you’re raised as a family.Are you raised with sort of the expectation of a life of luxury without and this is, I’ve noticed this with rich families as well, which can create this problem, is the family will. Give disproportionate attention to and disproportionate money to whoever is the loudest member of the family. And whoever is willing to do the most, you know, work on trying to gain control of the trust and everything like that.And these are often the least competent [00:29:00] individuals. Because they, they don’t have another way to make money, right? Like if you, if you’re competent, you go out and you make money in some other way, and if you’re incompetent, well then you stay within the family. And so, their lifestyle structurally looks like communism.And I think the reason they argue for communism is because. They think, could I go out in the world and like, make something useful that people want and will pay for? And that helps other people. Like, no, like I don’t wanna do that. So I will play a game that doesn’t have metrics, right? Which is the game of revolution and a game that can make everybody’s life like my life.So I don’t have to live with this cognitive dissonance without really thinking about the actual consequences of what they’re doing. Any thoughts, Simone?Simone Collins: I am curious to know if there are any major communist or socialist leaders who came from a background of poverty? Did you look that up?Malcolm Collins: I can look that up.I mean, I’m sure it’ll find at least one.Simone Collins: Sorry, I’d look it up, but he’s gassing. I’m trying to get him [00:30:00] to. Let it out. Trying The stomach massage, the, the the foot thing, the, the back pats, the burping bubbles. Gotta go.Malcolm Collins: I mean, I, I need almost all of them in that list, right? Like there are, yeah, yeah. There’s not many left after that list, but like, potentially.I just wanna see how long, how far down it has to go in terms of being Stalin.Simone Collins: Did you mention Stalin?Malcolm Collins: Stalin, I’ll, I’ll look up Stalin might be, but Stalin was the consolidator, right? He was the guy who had to make things work. He wasn’t actually like a communist, communist, you know? He was like I’m gonna take advantage of these rich idiots and have them all murdered.So that I can rule things my way. Let’s see. Well, I’ll, I’ll check out Stalin here.Simone Collins: You asked Rock. No, heMalcolm Collins: was impoverished. Yeah,Simone Collins: Stalin. There you go. That makes sense. ‘cause he was a tough mofo, likeMalcolm Collins: Right. But he also wasn’t like motivated by communist ideals either. He was motivated by power and well killing the, the rich bergon Jeep people or [00:31:00] whatever.Simone Collins: The bourbon beans. JosephMalcolm Collins: Stalin kyle Gorbachev, but again, he like worked his way up. So that’s not really Hugo Chavez, that’s a, that’s not a, a, a great way. See there were aSimone Collins: couple,Malcolm Collins: but these, these are more people who worked, they were not ideologicalSimone Collins: pioneers. They were more famous leaders.Malcolm Collins: Yeah.Yeah, this is interesting.Simone Collins: Yeah, no, I mean, I, I, I’ve noticed the trend, I’ve really wondered about it. The, maybe this, this is, this dovetails with the concept of luxury beliefs as well. That, especially in a, in a pre singularity world, socialism and communism is a luxury belief and it’s not practical and only more resourced people can have.Malcolm Collins: What, what socialism and communism are, is they’re functionally a monopoly of the state by one company. Yeah. Like that’s what they always turn into. We try to keep them decentralized. This is why I often say that extreme [00:32:00] libertarianism and extreme communism. Are functionally the same belief system.Yeah. Because both systems end is with, and, and this is the thing, when I say functionally the same, neither of them intends on this being the outcome, but both of them lead to this outcome by decentralizing power too much because we decentralize power in a systemic way. You allow anyone who is willing to.Play counter to the system to recentralize power among themselves. Mm-hmm. And so with extreme libertarianism, you end up with one company owning everything, or maybe in a better case, like three or four companies owning everything. And then in communism you end up with just one company owning everything.I mean, what is. A state that decides where things go, like where food is distributed, where housing is distributed, any different from a company, factory town.Simone Collins: Yeah. In the end, right.Malcolm Collins: And you can say, well, the company, factory town, at the end of the day yes, it decides how you [00:33:00] eat, how you get your food, it manages all that.But at the end it’s exporting profits to the owners, right? Yeah. And I’m like, well, communist systems functionally do the thing for the leadership. I mean, look at the way. You know, they’re living in North Korea, and you could say, well, it’s not supposed to do that. And it’s like, it doesn’t matter that it’s not supposed to do that the, the person with the most power in the system.Basically, even if they didn’t want to abuse that power, they’re forced to because the people under them with the next most power are gonna want their payoff. They’re gonna be like, where’s my, so you don’t just need one person to be like perfectly moral for a communist framework to work. Yeah. You need an entire chain of leadership to be perfectly moral.And that’s not realistic. No. Outside of a world with ai. If AI was managing that leadership and checking so it could work.Simone Collins: It could work Well, this was interesting. ThankMalcolm Collins: you.Simone Collins: And I love you a lot.Malcolm Collins: ISimone Collins: gotta go take care of this noodle.Malcolm Collins: All right. Love you so much. I’m sorry you got a a cry baby there. He’sSimone Collins: [00:34:00] gassy.He’s a gassy giant.Malcolm Collins: And as you say, like I feel, I do agree that I think communism and stuff like that is gonna come back to the left. And I think one of the things they’re gonna be surprised about a lot of people on the right is we’re like, well, I mean was ai It could work. Yeah. I mean, AI really is probably gonna take most jobs.We should be looking at how we’re gonna, economically speaking. Yeah.Simone Collins: All right. I’m gonna go help him fart. I love you. Love you too. I’ll see you downstairs later. Bye. Bye.Malcolm Collins: Okay, just go for it. All right, let’s have a look here. It’s being weird for me. Sorry.Simone Collins: Oh, what am I making you for dinner, by the way. Oh, we have one more night that curry. I was thinking maybe some kind ofMalcolm Collins: your enchiladas are always really good if you make them with something like this. Taquitos.Simone Collins: Is it okay if I do taquitos with mozzarella?‘cause we, we only have American cheese and mozzarella left. We don’t have any.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that works. But I, you’ve gotta cut what’s in it. Into smaller pieces if you’re doing taquitos, because it’s pretty big chunks in this one.Simone Collins: Okay, then I, I will, I will finally chop it [00:35:00] hands in. Gloves?Malcolm Collins: Yes, you will put your hands in chain mail because I do not want another finger coming off.I am sorry Simone, that I am such a strict task master as a husband. The ketos we’re good to go. I’ll, I’ll do it.Fight the Titan? No. Why does Titan have to fight us? Titan? Why a b***h or no? Toasty? I’m trying Torsten. She’s trying to help your sister. What do you Torsten? Torsten? No. What do you think mommy is doing? How do you think that makes me feel buddy? Look like the twin us. In what way Get you dressed and warm for outside, buddy.Simone Collins: Oh, excuse me. Why would you do this? Excuse me. I don’t think that’s trying to tricky take, take a picture of You look great, buddy. I, yeah, you look very. See I wanna swipe your hair to the side, oc.[00:36:00]Yes, you. Oh, Torson, what is the trick that you think that we’re playing on you? The trick that are playing on us is putting evil socks that, and putting evil shirts on us. But these are just regular shorts and socks that you need for like life. Torson. What the, can you put your boots on please? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe

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