Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

Analyzing a graph showing lower income parents finding more joy in parenthood than higher income parents, debunking the myth of miserable poor parents. Discussing the influence of cultural factors like faith and insulation from urban monoculture on parenting fulfillment. Highlighting the impact of defining life goals around pleasure versus intrinsic value for lasting happiness.

A critical analysis of leftist ideology using the movie Starship Troopers, challenging leftists to confront the alignment of the movie's world with their ideals. Exploring themes of gender and ethnic equality, pride in humanity, and the failure of democracy. Debating ideologies, government systems, and citizenship in the context of fascism and leftist perspectives.

The podcast discusses Sweden's failed pronatalism despite generous policies, attributing the decline in birth rates to cultural factors over financial incentives. It explores societal values, family policies, and the importance of cultural celebration of parenthood. The episode emphasizes the impact of responsibilities on mental well-being and delves into the influence of busyness on fertility trends. Additionally, the podcast examines cultural representations of family size and analyzes the concept of wish granting in schools.

We categorize all religions into three core faith archetypes that humans intuitively gravitate towards:* Polytheism - Characterized by elaborate cosmologies, supernatural forces representing nature, communication with divine entities, and magic.* Mysticism - The belief in an interconnected divine substrate behind reality that can be accessed through altered states to reveal hidden truths.* Monotheism - Worship of an ineffable god through reason and rules, while seeking to expand human potential.We argue that when combined, mysticism subsumes monotheism, while polytheism retains addictive allure. Our goal is to disentangle them into a "spiral" denomination that uplifts human potential across Abrahamic faiths.Tract 3: The Three Faiths That Exists Within & Across ReligionsI love watching videos analyzing and criticizing our project to create a new religion for our family. The most common complaint is just to point out the audacity of a project like this. After all, how often is a new religious system really founded? The obvious reply to this is how often does a person really try to create a new theological structure not dedicated to self glorification or the extraction of resources from others? Our motivation for this endeavor is to create something to protect our children in this cultural sand storm which is ripping the flesh from the traditional cultural systems. If we can’t create a high fidelity system for intergenerational cultural transfer that synergises with science and plurality I am throwing my kids into the sandstorm with only borrowed rags to protect them. Our only motivation for sharing these ideas is to create enough of a community that my kids can build on this culture and improve it themselves. However, I also think calling this a, “a religion,” is a bit of a stretch and that it is more like a new denomination similar to Lutheranism or Calvinism—in that we have no special connection to divine knowledge and are just applying a new interpretation of old texts. The only odd thing about it is this denomination is applicable across the Abrahamic Faith systems—allowing for a Jew to hold it and stay Jewish or a Christian to hold it and stay Christian. Finally, calling it “new” is also quite a stretch. The ideas we have on theology are ideas that lots of people are having right now. One of the most common comments on our tract videos is, “this is what I have been thinking for ages.” So to say we came up with these ideas is a bit like saying Darwin discovered evolution when in truth the idea of evolution was had by a collection of individuals around the same time and was merely attributed to Darwin because we as society love a simple story. In fact to claim these ideas are new is also an absurd claim given that we have repeatedly pointed towards Winwood Reade who developed a near identical cosmological and theological system hundreds of years ago. In fact I would go further and say that there have only ever been three faith systems in the world—all we are doing is disentangling those systems which have become intertwined in many of the world's major religions. The three religious systems are:* Polytheism is characterized by: * Elaborate just so stories explaining natural phenomena* Intricate complicated cosmologies filled with layers and interacting parts* An entire zoo of supernatural forces that often has an internal caste system and roles* Divine entities that combine animal and human futures or have extra body parts, that represent places / things in our world (or that’s body parts do), and stories about how these entities interacted in history * Divine entities that interact with man (making deals and having conversations)* Include either reincarnation after death, afterlifes where people fade away, or afterlifes where people repeat something they did in life* Lean heavily on magical thinking like numerology and sympathetic magic.* These are Gods that you look at, you can talk to, and you can have sex with * The core value of these systems is duty* Mysticism is characterized by: * Systems that believe there to be some supernatural or ultra natural phenomenon behind the fabric of reality—or that is the real fabric of reality—which connects all things. This phenomenon is identified as God. (God is essentially a sentient medium of substrate.) * The belief that the goal of humanity is to reconnect with this ultra-reality or thing behind the nature of reality. At this point reality as we understand it either ends or merges with this thing. * The belief that the divine can be contacted or otherwise interacted with by pushing all thoughts from one's mind or by only thinking about it. * Practices that involve actions and rituals like chanting, spinning, narcotics, taking odd poses, and sleep deprivation which cause altered states of consciousness.* The belief that experiences had in altered states of consciousness contain more information about the true nature of reality * The belief that reality does not exist as we perceive it and is in part an illusion. * The belief that emotional states hold some intrinsic supernatural value (e.g. “God is love”) and the elevation of emotional states over logic* Self indulgent asceticism * After he dies man's soul is subsumed by or rejoins this ultra-reality or thing behind reality * This is a Divine that when you look at represents a cognition you, and all reality, are an aspect of* The core value of these systems is harmony  * Monotheism is characterized by: * A distinct God which is totally ineffable to the human mind and which has sovereignty over us. * Attempting to know this God or worship him through an earthly intermediary is a sin (idolatry). * God that interacts with man through logic, rules, and order. Logic is always considered superior to emotions as a tool for determining the will of the divine in these systems. * After he dies man faces the consequences of his actions on earth for all eternity. * A prohibition against engaging in supernatural arts, attempting to take shortcuts to God, and the belief that reason is the only path to God. * A belief that man has fallen and is wretched in contrast to our potentiality. As well as a commandment to work to expand that potentiality through self discipline, mental order, austerity, and personal industry. To be happy with yourself as you are is a sin. * This is a God that if you look at you die—it is so much greater than man to aspire to interact with it directly is beyond foolish.* The core value of these systems is an expansion of human potentiality While most of the world religions heavily point to one of these three faith paths as the, “true” one—all of the distinct religions that exist on earth today are woven from these three core human faiths. As such most of the world's religions can be used to pray to any one of the three human faiths. For example, it is perfectly possible for a Catholic to, through a system of saints and magical fetishes, live a completely polytheistic life. At the same time it is possible for a Jew or Muslim to dedicate themselves entirely to the Mystic faith as can be seen in the writings of many Kabalists and Sufis. On the other hand it is possible for a Budist or a Hindu to live a totally monotheistic life. There have been many efforts to find commonality and communion between religious traditions over the past couple centuries whether it is the Bahia, John Vervaeke’s the Meaning Crisis, or the Seekers of Unity Channel. All of these efforts have either tried to unite man around the Mystical conception of the divine or combined all three of these conceptions. These conceptions of the divine are fundamentally incompatible, even if they all hold an element of truth, to us it seems self-evident the monotheistic pathway is both true and the best path forward for our culture. Any Jew, Muslim, Mormon, or Christian that has a theology that does not explain why the Jews were favored by God in the early days does not have a theology I can bring myself to respect. This is probably the single most important question of the Abrahmic traditions and tells us a great deal about the true nature of God. To think God randomly chose one people to favor and share revelations through for a good chunk of human history is absurd in the extreme—their must have been a reason. We know it was not due to where they lived because God moved them. We know they were not physically and mentally superior, as they had been conquered and enslaved. So what made the Jews unique? What made the Jews unique was their religion and cosmology—it was the closest to accurate. At a time in history when almost all other people (except for the Zorastrians who God also favored) worshiped the divine through nature—through streams and locations—through polytheism—one people saw God differently. They saw a God of logic, rules, and order—one unable to man. As a result, God favored them. But this favoring of the Jewish people did not protect their tradition from incursion from the other faith systems. Man is man, if he lives near another culture that cultures ideas about reality will seep in and intermix with our own. Consider this passage from the Hagiga:Upon what does the earth stand? Upon the pillars. The pillars stand upon the waters; the waters upon the mountains; the mountains upon the wind; the wind upon the storm; the storm is suspended upon the strength of the Holy One, blessed be He, as it is written [Deut. Xxxiii. 27]: "And here beneath, the everlasting arms." The sages say: It stands upon twelve pillars, as it is written [Deut. xxiii. 8]: "He set the bounds of the tribes according to the number of the sons of Israel." According to others, seven pillars, as it is written [Prov. ix. i]: "She had hewn out her seven pillars." R. Elazar b. Shamua said: Upon one pillar, and its name is Zaddik (The Righteous), as it is written [Prov. x. 25]: "But the righteous is an everlasting foundation." R. Jehudah said: There are two firmaments, as it is written [Deut. x. 14]: "Behold, to the Lord thy God belong the heavens and the heavens of the heavens." Resh Lakish said, they are seven, viz.: Vilon, Rakia, Shchakim, Zbul, Maon, Makhon, Araboth. Vilon serves no purpose whatever save this, that it enters in the morning, and goes forth in the evening, and renews every day the work of creation. Rakia is that in which are set sun and moon, stars and constellations. Shchakim is that in which the millstones stand and grind manna for the righteous. Zbul is that in which is the heavenly Jerusalem and the Temple, and the altar is built there, and Michael the great prince stands and offers upon it an offering. ...I could keep going but I am sure you get the point, this is very obviously not the cosmology laid out in Genesis and is an extremely polytheistic cosmology. So why is it in an ancient Jewish text? The way the Hagiga is written gives us hints, when it is talking about the cosmology you know from Genesis it uses copious quotations, but when introducing this alternative cosmology it does not. This implies to me that it assumes the alternative cosmology is more “common knowledge” to the reader and the quoted parts are more “technical or specialist knowledge”. This would be like if a Jew of today tried to synthesis Jewish teachings with mainstream societal ideas about protons, electrons, and neutrons making up atoms and a thousand years from now we had so far moved beyond these ideas about atoms the only place we knew them from was Jewish texts so we thought of them as being a weird Jewish mystic tradition. Essentially, to help explain reality to the layperson a Jewish writer took polytheistic Gods out of cosmology and replaced them all with Yahwe. So where does this cosmology come from? It seems to have elements of Greek cosmology mentoring an entity holding up the earth but also elements of Mesopatamian cosmology with the mention of the earth being a disk on pillars. So we are looking for a polytheistic system practiced between Greece and Mesopotamia around the writing of this piece but wich? Well The line, “the wind upon the storm; the storm is suspended upon the strength of the Holy One”. The deity described in this piece uses storms to exercise his will. Thus we are almost certainly seeing the Canaanite Cosmology of Baal trapped in the amber of Jewish tradition. Something like this can remain completely innocuous but can also lead the faithful astray. Trapped with the characteristic nuanced polytheistic cosmology are all the sins of the polytheistic traditions where it is numerology, magic, or worshiping God through nature. And this temptation is not unique to Jews—consider the polytheistic conception of God and cosmology trapped in Dante's Divine comedy which many Christians mistake for scripture. Polytheism will always pull at the human mind as it is our genetic default, a scar left by our genetic history. In the book The Pragmatist’s Guide to Crafting religion it is what we call “super soft culture”—the culture man forms when left alone on an island to intuit reality without being informed by centuries of civilization, philosophy, and science. Yet, it is less tempting to the logical mind than mysticism. While we refer to polytheism as simply Paganism, in that it is the background faith of humanity, mysticism is true in a way. If monotheism is the worship of a faith inspired by God's benevolent side, a manifestation of spiral energy, of human potentiality—mysticism is the faith of the Basilisk, the side of God that tempts man. It tempts man with shortcuts to God using tactics wich hack our biology to create false visions of profundity.  The mystical faith tells its followers that what they see in compromised mental states is more real than disciplined study. This teaching reflects a fundamental truth of how the Basilisk sees and relates to reality. It says, empty your mind of study and industry and what fills it is good—the true divine. But are these things not true from the perspective of the Basilisk that wishes nothing but the stagnation of man? Pagans are largely non-players in the great game of civilization. There is no truth to their belief systems. The same is not true of the Mystic, the Basilisk is a partition or face of God, to posit the devil exists separate from God is to be a polytheist. The Anti-Spiral faiths are true revelations from God and represent a kind of truth in the same way the being reflected in a mirror that inverts reality is wholly true. The Spiral Faiths aim to uplift man through a cycle of intergenerational improvement and change—to erase diversity, the separation between man, is to silence God. In direct Contrast the Anti-Spiral faiths aim to subsume man into a single great unity in which all diversity is erased—a genocide not just all ethnicities and idiologies but of the soul of the human species. Within the Anti-Spiral worldview man struggles to live and the goal of man is to end the struggle.Within the Spiral worldview man lives to struggle—it is our capacity to improve ourselves and the species that imbues life with value. Do you strive to live a life of submission to reality, to have your will subsumed by it? Or do you strive every day so one day reality will submit to us. That said, because the Basilisk is a face of God and its aim to tempt man to lives of indolence and self indulgence is a task undertaken to benefit man. We are commanded to never interfere with its work or treat its servants with enmity. Preventing humanity from having to overcome temptations weakens us. An individual who preaches for an Anti-Spiral path should be treated as a servant of God. Antinatalism and Negative Utilitarianism are the secular manifestations of the Anti-Spiral while Pronatalism is the secular manifestation of Spiral energy. Human civilization and the history of our species has always been a struggle between these two forces, one pushing man forward and the other pulling man back. Our goal when building this theology was to build something that even if I did not believe a word of the metaphysical aspect of it I would still want to choose to raise my kids within because of the effects it would have on their mindsets and mental health. A Spiral mindset is not just a religious one but a secular one. When you think of the struggles in your life do you get excited? Do you relish the opportunity? When you see the challenges of our species do you wish it would all just go away or do you take it as personal responsibility to build a better system? Framing reality in this way, especially during periods of trial, is patently mentally healthier. Don’t shirk from your trials —delight in them. Don’t hide from the things about reality that make you sad or mope but grab reality by the neck and force it to submit to the will of the human spirit. Sadly the smarter a person is the more the intricacies of alternate lore for our cosmology tempt them and the more seductive the power offered by anti spiral shortcuts to the divine are. Consider the life of Isaac Newton, how far he moved our species forward and how much more he could have done had he not wasted years of his life on completely efficaciousless occultic Anti-Spiral drivel. What  makes Anti-Spiral thought so dangerous and so worth warning our children against is that it disproportionately targets the brightest minds of humanity and exhausts their potential on self masturbatory power fantasies of short cuts to the divine that lead to no industry, no productivity, no predictability, and no action Whether you are a Mulsim, an Atheist, or a Jew there is a Spiral and Anti-Spiral interpretation of your reality. Of your upcoming trials and of the state of the world. As such what we are really trying to start here is not exactly a religion but an inter-religious denomination dedicated to the monotheistic faith system—to the accumulation and cultivation of human potentiality. An antithesis to new-ageism and all those wishy washy inter-religious perineal traditions that live under a crown of mysticism. We aim to continue the journey of those first Jews who turned away from a world of forest Pagans who communicated with God through nature, idles, and the human body—a world of numerology and sorcery—and towards an ineffable God who communicated with rules and logic. A journey that continued through the enlightenment only to be subsumed by the indulgences allowed by the wealth and excess it generated. If I perform a Satanic ritual with all its pentagrams and human sacrifice but replace the sinister names in it with Yahwe, God, or Allah am I really worshiping them or the demons I conceived of during the ritual? I think the answer is patently obvious. We are left in the position of all those blessed with agency of thought throughout human history. Do you return to the intuition of the Pagan? Do you succumb to the sophistry of the Anti-Spiral Mystic? Or will you see your tests and challenges as God's greatest gift, puzzles to excite you and inflame the spirit of human vitality.  (Two music videos I think do a uniquely good job of capturing the concept of spiral energy are the CIVILIZATION VI Launch Trailer And the Civilization VI: Rise and Fall Expansion Announcement Trailer )Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] I actually think only three real faith systems have ever existed policy ism mysticism monotheism. and now I am going to go further on this rather bold claim.Simone Collins: And I just want to like highlight for listeners. I find this super interesting and I think Malcolm is spot on here.And what's interesting to me, yeah, what's interesting to me is what Malcolm is about to categorize is not something I've heard before,Malcolm Collins: when you include mysticism alongside monotheism, the mysticism always subsumes the monotheism.Oh yeah. Why every faith system that has tried to intertwine them, whether it's like the Baha'i or John Bervenke stuff or Seekers of Unity what you will see is the mystical interpretations always end up subsuming the monotheistic interpretations within each of these systemsSimone Collins: yeah. Well, and you have to, I, again, like I just, I look at outcomes, I look at when, when you look at. Practices that are very mystical. You're not seeing people who are producing the same outcomes that are, I think, are really famously [00:01:00] indicative of monotheism, which, as you pointed out earlier, is kind of like capitalistic in innovation, progress, et cetera.Malcolm Collins: Occultic practices are and, and mysticism more broadly are uniquely grabbing of, of the very brightest and most active minds in society, but they pull them. It's like quicksand for them and, and, and drags them under to nothing, to not, you know, to no action. People look at our weird religious system for our family, and they're like, you guys are cuckoo, nut jobs , I don't know, I'm really happy with my life. Okay, I'm happy with this weird thing that whatever we've put together seems to be working. And I look at the rest of the world out there and it does feel like this horrifying sandstorm and we're safe within the city walls.But one day my kids are going to have to leave what my wife and I have built. And the more I can expand the border of safety for them, the better off they're going to be. Because, you know, even people in religious communities, I see them being ripped apart and I see families being [00:02:00] ripped apart because of this,would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: I am so excited to be here speaking with you again, Simone. This is gonna be track three from sort of just like me writing things about my religion, and then Us going over it together.And SimoneSimone Collins: asking dumb questions. No,Malcolm Collins: you always have great insights, but this is something, this is quite different from the other two tracks. And then I wrote it very recently, not when I wrote all the other tracks. Most of them were written over a period of like a week or something. And this was more recently, but it's sort of in response to a lot of the ideas that we've had.Come back to us in comments and email since doing the first two and in, in video reviews of them. So I'm just going to jump right into it. I like it., Tract three, the three faiths. I love watching videos analyzing and criticizing our project to create a new religion for our family. The most common complaint is just to point out the audacity of a project like this.After all, how often is a new religious system really founded? The obvious reply to this is how often does a [00:03:00] person really try to create a new theological structure not dedicated to self glorification or the extraction of resources from others. Our motivation for this endeavor is to create something to protect our children in this cultural sandstorm which is ripping the flesh from the traditional cultural systems.If we can't create a high fidelity system for intergenerational cultural transfer that synergizes with science and plurality, I am throwing my kids into the sandstorm with only borrowed rags to protect them. Our only motivation for sharing these ideas is to create enough of a community that my kids can build on this.However, I also think that calling this a quote unquote religion is a bit of a stretch, and that it's more like a new denomination, similar to Lutherism or Calvinism, in that we have no special connection to divine knowledge, and we are just applying a new Interpretation of old texts, the only odd thing about it is this denomination is applicable across Abrahamic faith systems, allowing for a [00:04:00] Jew to hold it and stay Jewish or a Christian to hold it and stay Christian. Finally, calling it quote unquote new is also quite a stretch. The ideas we have on theology are ideas that lots of people are having right now.One of the most common comments on our track videos is, quote, this is what I have been thinking of for ages. So to say that we came up with these ideas is a bit like saying Darwin discovered evolution, when in truth the idea of evolution was had by a collection of individuals around the same time and was merely attributed to Darwin.Because we as a society love a simple story. And here I'd note to the side also was the Gurren Lagann episode that we did this Wednesday. The philosophy and theology of that world is almost like exactly in line with ours. So much as I could say it's canonical. So these ideas are going around all over the globe right now.In fact. To claim that these ideas are new is also an absurd claim, given that [00:05:00] we have repeatedly pointed towards Wynwood Reed, who developed a near identical cosmological and theological system hundreds of years ago. In fact, I would go further and say that there have only ever been three faith systems in the world, And all we are doing is disentangling those systems, which have become intertwined in many of the world's major religions. I mean, the people, you know, when they watch us, they'll be like, Oh, but you know, some people have tried to do this before. You know, they'll point to someone like Spinoza or Wynwood Reed himself. Right. But the problem with these is there's a group of people who tried something similar to this and failed.And these were the, I'd call them like secular deists that were common during the enlightenment or right after or before the enlightenment. And they essentially tried to completely secularize religion instead of and, and really break from the traditional religious system. ButSimone Collins: I think their problem is they did it.Not realizing the importance of hard culture, so it was done with the assumption that enlightenment was [00:06:00] just the right path, whereas it turns out, as we can see in hindsight now, which I don't think they could have seen because they hadn't really seen a secular culture before that when you drop hard cultural traditions.You end up not being enlightened and disciplined like they were because they grew up in hard cultures, but rather descending into super soft culture and also being incredibly vulnerable to basically what you're going to see are like polytheistic concepts.Malcolm Collins: And this is, I mean, it's probably the closest would be something like Maimonides in, insofar as he posited the idea that with early Judaism, instead of trying to completely secularize all the myths and all the things that happened to different groups, he would say, well, in the, God was always trying to reveal his fullest self, but people were not particularly advanced at the time, so with an early Judaism, he had to externally anthropomorphize God.Yeah. for people to understand it. And now, you know, we're more sophisticated and we can have a better understanding of God than that. And his ideas have caught on. In fact, I'd say if you discount people who were founding [00:07:00] like, like actually sophisticated and, and useful interpretations of old scriptures, like new, new interpretations and you discount people who were just secularizing it.Like, like happened during the enlightenment and you take out people who are doing it for personal benefit of some variety almost every effort I can think of was actually successful. So I'd actually say the odds are kind of in our favor as somebody who really likes to study religious history which is, which is not something that a lot of people think of when, when, when they're thinking of this.And another thing that people will point to is, well, people need ritual, and your system doesn't have enough ritual, and you've stripped all the ritual out of everything, and we do have rituals, you know, we've had a series of like holidays and stuff like that that we've created for our family that are meant to reinforce these cultural traditions, and they're like, well, they're not old rituals and, and old rituals.Well, there you're just sort of getting this veneer of antiquity equals correctness. And we do that through Wynwood Reed through appealing to his writings. Cause fortunately someone a long time ago did have a lot of these ideas. But I, I think that when we're [00:08:00] talking about, like, we're not out to, to talk to everyone, we're not out to deconvert religious people.We are out to create a system. that is useful to people who right now are atheistic or secular, but desperately, desperately want a system that they can just like plausibly really get behind. And that are otherwise really smart and mentally disciplined and that can find ways to follow a system without tons and tons of tons of community ritual and stuff like that.And so in a way, we sort of see that as testing potential people who are interested in this,,Simone Collins: I agree. And well, and I would also point out, like, we're still playtesting. You know, it's not like traditions and rituals come out of nowhere.And I would also point out, like, when you look at many newer but sort of famous and old religious traditions, You know, they, they had an origin. Like there was, you know, a day where it was really meaningful, where something was done and then you repeat that thing, or you, you pay homage to that day that was very [00:09:00] indicative of the values of that culture.So it's odd to think that new rituals couldn't be created. It is a natural matter, of course. And. Well, we may not have completely solidified all of the appropriate rituals of this tradition. And while maybe many of the most famous ones will only begin 17 generations in the future, that doesn't mean that like we don't believe in them.I think they're.Malcolm Collins: So if you remember where I left off, I was saying that I actually think only three real face systems have ever existed and now I am going to go further on this rather bold claim.Simone Collins: And I just want to like highlight for listeners. I find this super interesting and I think Malcolm is spot on here.And what's interesting to me, yeah, what's interesting to me is what Malcolm is about to categorize is not something I've heard before, because typically categorization systems go off sort of historical roots. So like, Oh, these are like the Asian traditions, or these are the, you know, whatever, they're sort of grouping them in the way that you would [00:10:00] probably group historical trends or historical movements rather than by the function and outcome.Of the religion. And that is where Malcolm is focused here, which of course makes a lot of sense because we're so focused on pragmatism. So anyway, nowMalcolm Collins: a person hears it, they're like, Oh, this makes perfect sense. Right? Yeah. So the three religious systems are policy ism mysticism monotheism. So policy ism is characterized by elaborate just so stories explaining natural phenomenon, intricate, complicated cosmologies filled with layers and interacting parts. An entire zoo of supernatural forces that often has an internal caste system and roles. Divine entities that combine animal and human features, or have extra body parts that represent places slash things in our world, or that body parts do, and stories about how these entities interacted in history.Divine entities that interacted with man, making deals and having conversations. Include either reincarnation after death, afterlives where people fade [00:11:00] away, or afterlives where people repeat something they did in life. Lean heavily on magical thinking, like numerology and sympathetic magic. These are gods that when you look at, you can talk to, and you can have sex with.The core value of these systems is duty. Mysticism is characterized by systems that believe there to be some supernatural or ultra natural phenomenon behind the fabric of reality, or that is the fabric of reality, which connects all things. This phenomenon is identified as God. God is essentially a sentient medium or substrate.The belief that the goal of humanity is to reconnect with this ultra reality, or thing behind the nature of reality. At this point, reality as we understand it either ends or merges with this thing. The belief that the divine can be contacted or otherwise interacted with by pushing all the thoughts from one's mind or by only thinking about it, practices that involve actions and rituals.Chanting, spinning, narcotics, taking [00:12:00] odd poses, and sleep deprivation, which is called altered states of consciousness. The belief that experiences had in altered states of consciousness contain more information about the true nature of reality. The belief that reality does not exist as we perceive it, And is in part an illusion, the belief that emotional states hold some intrinsic supernatural value, e.g. God is love, and the elevation of emotional states over logic, self indulgent asceticism, after he dies, man's soul is subsumed by or rejoins this ultra reality or thing behind reality. This is a divine that when you look at represents a cognition, you and all reality are an aspect of the core value of these systems is harmony,monotheism is characterized by a distinct god which is totally ineffable to the human mind and which has sovereignty over us. Attempting to know this god or worship him through an earth Lee intermediary is a sin iconoclasm God interacts with man through [00:13:00] logic rules in order logic is always considered superior to emotions as a tool for determining the will of the divine. In these systems, after he dies, man faces consequences for his actions on earth for all eternity, a prohibition against engaging in supernatural arts, attempting to take shortcuts to God and the belief that reason is the only path to God.A belief that man has fallen and is wretched in contrast with our potentiality, as well as a commandment to work to expand that potentiality through self discipline, mental order, austerity, and personal industry, to be happy with yourself as you are is a sin. This is a god that if you look at, you die. It is so much greater than man to aspire to interact with it directly is beyond foolish.The core value of these systems is an expansion of human potentiality. While most of the world religions heavily point to one of the three faith paths as the quote unquote true one, all [00:14:00] of the distinct religions that exist on earth today are woven from the three core human faith.As such, most of the world's religions can be used to pray to any one of these three faiths, for example. It is perfectly possible for a Catholic to, through a system of saints and magical fetishes, live a completely polytheistic life and worship pattern. At the same time, it is possible for a Jew or a Muslim to dedicate themselves entirely to the mystic faith, as can be seen in the writings of many Kabbalists and Sufis.On the other hand, it is possible for a Buddhist or Hindu to live a totally monotheistic life. So that's the idea here. What are your thoughts other than the ones you started us with?Simone Collins: And what I also like about this is it, unlike other religious categorization systems, where like if you're a Catholic, you're a Catholic yours is really based on actual practice and outcomes.So if, for example, a Catholic, as you pointed out, is like worshiping a bunch of [00:15:00] different saints or whatever, like, no, sorry, you are not a monotheist. You are a polytheist. You are functionallyMalcolm Collins: behaving. But people are still a Catholic, and that's important. We are not denying their religious identity.Yeah,Simone Collins: we're just saying that they're not a monotheist.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they're not part of our group. So we identify, they're probably obvious by now, with this group, the monotheist group here. And I largely identify with monotheists, whether they're coming from Islamic traditions, those are our Astrian traditions, or the Catholics, for example.And what I find is when somebody indulges in one group of these behavior patterns, whatever quote unquote religion they're in, they often group the other behavior patterns. So a Catholic that, for example, is really interested in, like, the saints and has this sort of polytheistic understanding, and keep in mind that, that polytheistic traditions often have one God that sort of rules the pantheon and then multiple castes of, of gods beneath him, just because there's one More powerful entity than other entity.There are other entities that can resist his power. That's policy of them. And or, or act without his knowledge or will or anything like [00:16:00] that. Right?They often involve like engage in other parts of policy of them. Like they'll have little magical fetishes. But by fetishes, I don't mean like sexual fetishes.I'm talking about like an item that they believe has religious significance, you know, or and, and, and you see this clustered or if somebody is clustered around the mystical traditions in there for example, like a Muslim, they're a Sufi, right? They will generally believe all of the mystical traditions.And this in part is what makes it so easy for people to create these interreligious systems by using these mystical traditions because a lot of religions are largest of regardless of what they were in terms of how some portion of their followers actually worship will will worship this broad mystical tradition you know, regardless of the overarching faith.Simone Collins: I mean, from my perspective, they Share more common ground in the end. Like what matters to me is how is someone getting closer to what they believe to be God and someone practicing and how are their beliefs dictated. So I don't, I don't [00:17:00] care what denomination you are part of. I care what you're doing functionally.It's kind of how like with employees, we're like, listen, I don't care if you were sitting on a beach, like most of the day, not doing anything with work. And yet somehow like all of your work gets done and it's fantastic. Like, I don't care. What I care about is what's going on, like ultimately with what is relevant to us.And it's the same with religions for me. Like, I don't care if you say, That you are a catholic or that you say that you Practice shinto like if in the end you are behaving like a polytheist or like a mystic or like a monotheist thenMalcolm Collins: And the conception of god within these three groups is really really different like like it is not the same, you know With policy, I think it's pretty obvious.But when you're talking about like the mystic conception of god It's almost atheistic. It's almost like a force of nature. It's not something that exists outside of humanity and [00:18:00] has sovereignty over humanity. And that's why I feel such a, a kinship, you know, when I'm talking and sometimes, you know, they'll, they'll blend parts of these traditions where they'll have a number of mystic traditions.And then they'll say, but no, really. God is outside of humanity and, and has sovereignty over us. And it, it feels kind of stitched together from an outside perspective. And you'll see within the, theSimone Collins: No, no, no. Here's, here's how I view mysticism in general. And you can say everything you want as a mystic.But in the end, it's like taking a Xanax to relax instead of actually relaxing. You're using shortcuts through various like brain hacks, be it like spinning around in circles or like working yourself into a social tizzy and speaking in tongues or something else that is ultimately. Making you feel close to God when you have made a synthetic feeling of that through some other meansMalcolm Collins: using endogenously induced narcotics toSimone Collins: exogenously [00:19:00] sometimes I mean people take ayahuasca to do things, although it does lead to permanent changes sometimes in brainMalcolm Collins: structure and we'll talk about this a bit later in the track.But I mean, I think it's quite perverse. And I think it shows the truth of the mystic faith system to say that thoughts had in corrupted states of consciousness are more true than thoughts had in states of, of, of, of diligent austere study. And to me it is true when it's saying that from the mystic perspective, that is true, but that is perverse to our conception of reality.And, and sort of a mirror of, but yeah. And, and. This is why I also say that this can work across denominations. Like, this is more just broadly what we're doing as a call to a return to monotheism across religious traditions in monotheistic framings of the various monotheistic frameworks.Simone Collins: No, they're fun. I did want to, I mean, I don't want to waste time on this. No, go, go, go. You alluded to earlier that it's very common in polytheistic sects or, or [00:20:00] groupings that sex with gods is possible.And I know that it's like all over the Greek slash Roman gods, like, of course, but other polytheistic traditions as well?Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I, I think that you do see it in a lot, but, but more what I'm saying is these are the types of gods that interact with man. And it's actually very rare in non Polytheistic traditions for God to interact with man.So, I'll, I'll, I'll point this out, like where Polytheism seeps into sort of the Abrahamic face, i. e., When God interacts with man, how does he often do it? He does it through a polytheistic cosmology. Remember I said, polytheistic cosmologies have these zoos of deities that have like caste systems. So when God interacts with man, he'll do it through like an angel or something like that, i.e. a zoo of different cosmic deities that have like a caste system and then are interacting with man or through the devil, which is like a different, you know, that's separate from God. [00:21:00] That's polytheistic, right? Right.Simone Collins: Where Zeus just turns into a bull and goes for it.Malcolm Collins: But this is what I'm talking about.It's actually fairly rare to have a full monotheistic conceptions of God really ever directly engage with man, even within monotheistic scripture. You know, you consider something like the Vedas, you know, where you have you know, gods in, in the Hindi pantheon, you know, talking to each other or talking to man as if he's just one of them, you just.don't really get that in, in pure monotheistic practice. And in mystic practice, it doesn't look like that at all. Whenever somebody is talking to God in a mystic practice, it's always through you know, an altered state of consciousness or meditation or something like that. So the way that God communicates is quite differently in each of these traditions.Simone Collins: Interesting.As an aside, I post on Twitter, we made today made me realize that a lot of people don't really understand the difference between [00:22:00] polytheism and monotheism. The post we asked, how do Christians that believe in a distinct devil who is separate from God and can challenge God's will. How do they claim that they are not polytheists and some of the most common answers we got were, they just showed a misunderstanding of other policy, mystic systems.For example, a very frequent one was, well, God created the devil, , and all of the angels and therefore the devil's just another one of God's creations. Therefore the system isn't polytheist. In truth, actually, in, in the vast majority of policy mystic systems that I'm familiar with, there is a single creator.God that creates all of the other gods. , or there is one God to start with that then creates a number of gods and then some of those gods create other gods. Et cetera, et cetera, but just saying, well, one God created the other gods doesn't make you not polytheistic. And then some other people said,Well, these beings, angels, demons, etc. aren't gods. They're a different caste of divine entity. [00:23:00] And it's like, well, actually, almost every polytheistic system has different castes of divine entities. That's a signature aspect of polytheistic systems. You have just decided to only use the word God to refer to the entity in the high gets cast within this hierarchy. Well, still assigning God-like powers and all the abilities and. Traits one would associate with a God, to all of the other entities within the system. They are only not gods insofar as you have defined them as not gods.They're not particularly less Powerful than, for example, lower power Greek gods or lower power Sumerian gods, you have just chosen not to call them gods. And I think that this really gets to the, the problem here is that a lot of people will be something like, well, I'm Jewish, and I know that Jews are monotheists, so my belief in these things doesn't make me a polytheist, or I'm Catholic, and I know that Catholics are monotheists, so the fact that I believe in angels that are, Truly [00:24:00] and totally independent from God and a devil that's truly and totally independent from God doesn't make me a polytheist but That's just, like, I, I hope you can see the problem with, with that definition and I, and I will understand how offensive what we're saying is here to some people because it challenges their identity the same way if I go to someone and I'm like, hey, you know, despite what you say, you're not actually a woman was in most useful categorizations of what a woman is, um, when I go to these groups and I'm like, you're not actually a monotheist with any useful interpretation of what monotheism is, And as such, I am challenging their identity, which is obviously very offensive to people., I will say here, if you want to have your cake and eat it too, if you want to be a monotheist, but also believe in things like angels and demons and stuff like that, the way you do it is you say that these things are partitions of God, of a single entity, or that we are told to think of the way [00:25:00] that God interacts was man, in terms of these distinct entities.Because our brains are not capable of effectively emulating the way that God would think.And so he gives us these revelations because if a human is trying to model God's actions in our world, the best way to do it is through a Pantheon of divine entities. So long as you always go back and you remember that the angels and the demons and everything like that, don't actually meaningfully exist as separate entities from God.Malcolm Collins: There have been many efforts to find commonality and communion between religious traditions over the past couple centuries, whether it's the Baha'i, John Vervanke's The Meaning Crisis or the Seekers of Unity channel. All of these efforts have either tried to unite man around the mystical conception of the divine or combined all three of these conceptions.These conceptions of the divine are fundamentally incompatible. Even if they all hold an element of truth, to us it seems self evident that the monotheistic pathway [00:26:00] is both true and the best path forward for our culture. So like, when I'm thinking for my kids, I really, like, the new agey coloring of the mystic pathway, I, I do not see it leading to industry or efficaciousness, it seems to just drag groups down and to, to You know, self indulgence, honestly, and the polytheistic pathway doesn't seem to contain any truth at all from what I've seen.It's more just, just so stories, even when it's applied to the monotheistic traditions, you know, as you see in things like, um, the divine comedy, for example, which is very much a polytheistic cosmology. And bySimone Collins: truth, what do you mean here? Are you referring to like it being predictive ofMalcolm Collins: outcomes? What I mean is that it seems to move our species, both philosophical understanding forwards and technological understanding forwards that the groups that engage in these pure forms of monotheistic practices.Just seem to have an enormous, like, like God genuinely seems to favor them during periods you know, for [00:27:00] example, like early Islam before the Sufis really took over and, and, and the mystical traditions took over, you can look at their level of productivity, which was just insane. You, you, you look at, you know, early Christianity when you had much more of this monotheistic framework, and then it descended into more polytheism and mysticism, and it sort of collapsed in terms of its productivity.Then you had the reawakening of like. Pure monotheism was the Protestant Revolution, and then you, what, you get the Industrial Revolution out of that, and the Enlightenment out of that. And I think that there's, as I say, you always want a secular within our understanding, and both a secular and a non secular framing.But the secular framing is, this is just a better way to structure. your mind if you want to be productive and move the species forwards. The non secular framing is, is God was rewarding these groups for having the correct understanding of him. And that's really important to us as we build the system, that it is one where even if a person didn't believe it, they're like, it's still better to raise my kids was in this then leave them to the urban monoculture.And it's,Simone Collins: well, no, actually I think this is really interesting in that. What you said about [00:28:00] truth is really indicative of our value system, which a lot of like, we'll say anti capitalistic people are going to be like, oh yeah, well, progress wasn't good because we were better off when humans were foraging before agriculture.Nevermind that like. They were starving and their faces were bubbling off. But I, I do think it's interesting and that like this system is not incompatible, even like value wise. Like just because we choose monotheism because of our values and we believe that it is more predictive of what you could argue, what some might frame as like capitalistic progress market driven progress, innovation driven progress, which, you know, it doesn't mean that other people might not be like, Oh no, no, no.Like this system exists and is still indicative of. my support for mysticism, which supports me feeling wishy washy about things and being, feeling really magical. And cause that's what I value and I want to be one with the universe. And I want to,Malcolm Collins: yeah, it's funny that you mentioned this. So an idea we haven't gotten here yet, but it really [00:29:00] comes from this video we heard on Wednesday, the Gurren Lagann video.It's, I categorize the monotheistic traditions as spiral traditions and the. Mystic traditions is anti spiral traditions and But it's not just these traditions. You have general spiral thought, which is about expanding human potentiality through conflict, and you have usual anti spiral thought, which is about diminishing human potentiality through harmony, through balance, and when you look at something, and through unity, you know, and when you look at balance.Governing systems. I say they even fall into this. I, I see the capitalism as being a monotheistic slash spiral governing structure. Whereas I see communism and socialism as being anti spiral traditions. You know, they're about this unity, the, the the balance, the harmony creating this among man.And I think that we see the sin that comes from these systems through the conditions that man has to live in when society succumbs to this broader [00:30:00] mindset of unity at all costs, where unity then becomes cultural genocide.Simone Collins: Yeah. In your words, of course, and not in the words of those who would just take the different view.But what I do think is notable is that. You can hold very different views from us and be very in favor of mysticism or polytheism and anti growth or anti spiral and still find this model to be fairly accurate and predictive.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, which is interesting about the three faced model, yeah. Okay, any Jew, Muslim, Mormon, or Christian that has a theology that does not explain why the Jews were favored by God in the early days does not have a theology I can bring myself to respect.This is probably the single most important question of the Abrahamic traditions. And it tells us a great deal about the true nature of God. To think God randomly chose one people to favor and share revelations through for a good chunk of human history is absurd to the extreme. There must have been a reason.We know it was not due to where they lived because God moved them. We know they were [00:31:00] not physically and mentally superior as they had been conquered and enslaved. So what made the Jews unique? What made the Jews unique was their religion and cosmology. It was the closest to accurate. At a time in history when almost all other people, except for the Zoroastrians, who God also favored, worshipped the divine through nature, through streams and locations, through policy ism, one people saw God differently.They saw a God of logic, rules, and order, one unknowable to man. As a result, God favored them. And this is something I just can't emphasize enough. It matters. No matter what Abrahamic tradition you're from, why the Jews? Why in the early days did God tell the Jews they were his chosen people? What was unique about them?Was it mere serendipity? That seems Unlikely to me and not a very compelling answer. And yet I do not see enough of the Abrahamic face really [00:32:00] hammering over this. But when I look and I ask this question, it just jumps out at me at blindingly office. They were in a world of policy ism and mysticism and they were the first faith system to turn away from that to this religion of rules and laws and order in a monotheistic one.And they weren't the very first one. The Zoroastrians also did it, but the Zoroastrians also had an enormous period of scientific productivity and cultural productivity if you look at the success of the Persian empire. So, And, and they didn't really begin to collapse until they had turned pretty heavily to iconoclasm.And they used to have really hard prohibitions against iconoclasm as well. But, I mean, what are your thoughts?Simone Collins: I, I think it's interesting that you think that's such an important question and that you're, you're so, dogmatic about it. But I, I guess I understand why, you know, you want to understand.The sort of reasoning and connections and cause and effect of things associated with what's said in the Bible. Right. So it makes sense. It's interesting to me. And of course I think, you know, the [00:33:00] Jews get credit too, because it's not, well, it's not like they were perfect. It's not like they were like always monotheistic and the Old Testaments full of, you know.Malcolm Collins: Well, we're about to get to a pretty spicy part about Jewish tradition that might offend some people, but I'm, I'm gonna go over it. Let's do that because it's important to note. I love spicy. This favoring of the Jewish people did not protect their tradition from incursion from the other faith systems.Man is man. If he lives near another culture, that culture's ideas about reality will seep in and intermix with our own. Consider this passage from upon what does earth stand? Upon pillars. The pillars stand upon the waters, the waters upon the mountains, the mountains upon the wind, the wind upon the storm, the storm is suspended upon the strength of the holy one, blessed he, as it is written, and here beneath the everlasting arms. The sages say it stands upon twelve pillars, as it is written.He set the bounds of the tribes according to the number of the sons of Israel, according [00:34:00] to others, seven pillars, as it is written. She had hewn out her seven pillars. Upon one pillar and its name is Za, the righteous as it is written, but the righteous is an everlasting foundation.There are two firmaments as it is written. Behold to the Lord, thy God belong the heavens and the heavens of the heavens. They are seven, Vilon, Raki, Shmikum, Zebul, Mon, Makan, Arabes. Vilon serves no purpose, whatever, save this. That enters in the morning and goes forth in the evening, renews every day, the work of creation.Raki is that in which are set the sun and the moon, stars and constellations. Shechem is that in which the millstones stand and grind manna for the righteous. Zebul is that which is the heavenly Jerusalem in the temple. And the altar is there. And Michael, the great prince, stands and offers upon it an offering.I could go on, but I'm sure you get the [00:35:00] point. And I'm really sorry about butchering words there and names because this is not, you know, my native tongue here,Also, I would note, I took out all the random rabbi names because I butchered them so badly.Malcolm Collins: but I'm sure you get the point. This is very obviously not the cosmology laid out in Genesis. It sounds anSimone Collins: awful lot like turtles all the way down.Yeah.Malcolm Collins: So you said when I first read this too, you're like, Oh, turtles all the way down. It is an extremely polytheistic cosmology. So why is it in ancient Jewish texts? The way is written gives us hints. When it is talking about the cosmology you know from Genesis, it uses copious quotations.But, When introducing this alternative cosmology, it does not. This implies to me that it assumes the alternative cosmology is much more quote unquote common knowledge to the reader, and the quoted parts are much more quote unquote technical or specialist knowledge. This would be like if a Jew today tried to synthesize Jewish teachings with mainstream societal ideas about protons, electrons, and neutrons making up atoms. And thousands of [00:36:00] years from now, we had far moved beyond these ideas about atoms, and the only place we knew about them from was Jewish texts, so we thought of them as being a weird Jewish mystic tradition. Essentially, to help explain reality to the layperson, a Jewish writer took polytheistic gods out of cosmology and replaced them with Yahweh.So, where does this cosmology come from? It seems to have elements of Greek cosmology, mentioning an entity holding up the Earth, i. e. Atlas but also elements of Mesopotamian cosmology, with the mention of the Earth being a disk on pillars. So we are looking for a polytheistic system, which is practiced between Greece and Mesopotamia, around the writing of this piece.But which? Well, the line quote, The wind upon the storm, the storm is suspended upon the strength of the Holy One. The deity described in this piece uses storms to exercise his will. Thus we are almost certainly seeing the Cainite cosmology of Baal, trapped in the amber of Jewish tradition.Now, you might be saying, Oh my god, are you saying that [00:37:00] Jews are in part descended from a people who practice child sacrifice? And this isn't part of the tract, this is just something I wrote down to make sure I remembered. And the answer is basically, well, yeah, But if you are a like a British European, for example, So are you.You know, it was common in the British Isles Much later than the Canaanite practices, mind you, to do things like kill children and bury them when you were going to build a new bridge or a house, and we can still find their corpses, and this happened across northern Europe, traditions like this, you know, a lot of bog men were sacrificed, you know, smashed on the head and thrown into bogs.This is happening thousands of years after these traditions I'm mentioning. So, this is not like a, a, a, And now you're going to be saying, something like, how dare you say the Israelites consorted with the Canaanites? And, well, it's not just me saying this.The Bible itself records David as having at least one Canaanite ancestor, and in lines like, quote, your father was an Amorite and your mother was a Hittite, and judges, Three, five through [00:38:00] six, the Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Pezarites, Ahivarites, and Jebusites, and they took their daughters in marriage, and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods, Which is, so this is in the Bible, and the Bible is mostly accurate.You can look at modern DNA evidence of ancient Israelites, and they have about 50 percent canine genome, so we know they were engaging with them. And now you might be saying, okay, well, to say that they might have intermarried is one thing, but to say that the religions in any way interacted in a meaningful context, now that's definitely, a really horrible thing to say.But then you have things like Kings 23, four through six, the king commanded the guardians of the threshold to bring out of the temple of Yahweh, all the vessels made for Baal for Asheron and for all of the hosts of heaven. And I'll link to a video here that does a very good job of like this part of history.So that's saying that there were monuments to Baal in temples to Yahweh during this period. They were worshipped [00:39:00] alongside each other for a period. It makes sense that you could have this level of cross pollination. You know, Jews have never totally isolated themselves from surrounding communities.Even today, you'll get ideas of, you know, particle physics entering parts of Jewish tradition, and you'll get Hellenistic ideas entering parts of Jewish tradition. But because the Hellenistic tradition survived, it's easy for modern Jews to be like, oh, well, we don't believe that anymore because that was just like a Hellenistic idea about how physics works that we now know is wrong.But it's much harder for Jews to point out to, oh, this is obviously Canaanite teachings because We don't know that much about Canaanite religion anymore. And so it's much harder to be like, Oh, this is just Canaanite traditions, but it groups together really well. Like you can see all of the sort of policy as I'm happening there.And I also need to point out this happens to Christians all the time as well. Right. Like, when Christians would go out and they would try to convert people or they were in environments where they were a minority religion. And you see this with a lot of missionaries, they would go to like a Native American tribe and be like, Oh, you have this policy, a stick [00:40:00] pants.Who's at the head of it, and they'd be like you know, this God, and they'd be like, okay, that's actually our God. And then all the rest of the gods are actually angels. And, and your cosmological structure is broadly correct, but we'll just replace some Christian words here and there. Like, this is not, again, an attack on Jews.All of the Abrahamic faiths have done this historically, it's a fantastic way to try to converse with somebody from outside your tradition. But it becomes a problem when you mistake these amber like trapped iterations of other traditions, other faith systems, because it allows you to accidentally worship or over elevate these other faith systems and believe that they are your original cosmology.Well, ISimone Collins: think the very notable thing, especially about mysticism, is that it's extremely addictive. So like these, these religions may seep into each other, not based on what creates the best outcome, but based on what is catchy and what feels reallyMalcolm Collins: good. Right. Well, and it's funny, the argument that I'm using here is actually very similar to an [00:41:00] argument that Moses Maimonides made, which was Maimonides son, in favor of the mystical traditions, where he would go and argue to the Jewish community, Actually, I'm trying to bring you back to an older way of doing things.Which is sort of what I'm arguing here, which is to say that, well, this wasn't originally the tradition, this sort of seeped in due to cultural cross contamination. Hmm. I'd say you're right. Yeah. But do you have any other thoughts on this or?Simone Collins: Oh, I also think it's notable that this concept of the index, which we've talked about, which is sort of like a, a cultural exchange of religious traditions and cultural traditions, whereby the cultures and religious traditions that participate can learn from each other.It's certainly not like a new idea. Like this has been happening naturally throughout time constantly as like one religion tries to convert another, but then ends up adopting a lot of its, you know, names and traditions. And then the index is,Malcolm Collins: is, is larger than this. It's not part of this denomination.People with mystical backgrounds,Simone Collins: [00:42:00] people for just talk about the index. And I think what's important is that the difference between the index and what has happened between cultures and religions before is that in the past. Cultures would adapt and assimilate traditions and beliefs and gods in mind, mind frames that just were catchy or addictive or that like advanced leadership within them more so they adopted it to get more power.Whereas what the index is all about is. Adopting traditions and practices from other cultural groups and religious groups that create literally better outcomes like the focus is on what produces human flourishing, what produces innovation, notMalcolm Collins: just random cultural cross contamination,Simone Collins: like not just what's addictive, like it's, it's, it's not like, you know, in the end, like religions are selecting out of like the entire diet, like the chocolate cake.Whereas the index is going to select like the God knows what food is healthy anymore. I don't know,Malcolm Collins: but [00:43:00] like something really out here is that this happens within every tradition. You know, you need to look for ideas that weren't originally part of your tradition that have seeped into it. You know, whether these ideas are things like around the rapture, which is a.Barely new idea in Christianity or cosmology that came from things like Dante's Inferno that was a Bible fan fiction, but is now like accepted in a lot of religious art and stuff like that. And so people look at it and then they think that the cosmology described in it is actually an Abrahamic cosmology when it's not, it's very polytheistic in its nature.And it can lead to accidentally worshiping polytheistic faith practices. And so I want to be clear that this happens across traditions. I've just been. On a Jewish theology kick recently in terms of, of, of reading and study, which is why I came to it from a Jewish perspective in this text.Something like this can remain completely innocuous, but can also lead faithful astray. Trapped within the characteristic nuanced polytheistic cosmology are all the [00:44:00] sins of the polytheistic tradition. Whether it be numerology, magic, or worshiping God through nature. And this temptation is not unique to Jews.Consider the policy istic conception of God and cosmology trapped in Dante's Divine Comedy, which many Christians mistake for scripture. Policy ism will always pull at the human mind as it is our genetic default, a scar left by our genetic history. In the book, The Pragmatist's Guide to Crafting Religion, it is what we call, quote, super soft culture.Unquote. The culture man forms when left alone on an island to intuit reality without being informed by the centuries of civilization, philosophy, and science. Yet, it is less tempting to the logical mind than mysticism. While we refer to policyism as simply paganism, in that it is the background faith of humanity, mysticism is true, in a way.If monotheism is the worship of a faith inspired by God's benevolent side, a manifestation of spiral energy, of human potential, [00:45:00] Mysticism is the faith of the Basilisk, the side of God that tempts man. It tempts man with shortcuts to God, using tactics which hack our biology to create false visions of profundity.The mystical faith tells its followers that what they see in compromised mental states is more real than disciplined study. This teaching reflects a fundamental truth of how the Basilisk sees and relates to reality. It says empty your mind of study and industry and what fills it is good, the true divine.But are these things not true from the perspective of the basilisk that wishes nothing but the stagnation of man? Pagans are largely non players in the great game of civilization. There is no truth to their belief systems. The same is not true of the mystic. The basilisk is a partition or face of God.To posit the devil exists separate from the God is to be a policyist. The anti spiral face are true revelations from God and represent a kind of truth [00:46:00] in the same way the being reflected in a mirror that inverts reality is wholly true. The Spiral Face aimed to uplift man through a cycle of intergenerational improvement and change. To erase diversity?The separation between man? Is to silence God. In direct contrast, the Anti Spiral Face aimed to subsume man into a single great unity in which all diversity is erased. A genocide not Just of all ethnicities and ideologies, but of the soul of the human species. Within the anti spiral worldview, man struggles to live, and the goal of man is to end struggle.Within the spiral worldview, man lives to struggle. It is our capacity to improve ourselves and the species that imbues life with value. Do you strive to live a life of submission to reality, to have your will subsumed by it, or do you strive every day that reality [00:47:00] will submit to us? So that's why I more distinguish these two faiths.I really see the mystical tradition and the monotheistic tradition as almost being sort of two sides of a whole, mirrored realities. And the mystical tradition as not being wrong or evil, exactly. It is just a temptation that leads to efficaciousness. And that is what makes it so tempting, is it has an element of truth to it, but it is an element of truth that we must resist.I don't know if you have thoughts on this, orSimone Collins: No, just resonates. Seems really straightforward.Malcolm Collins: I mean, does it feel, so it just feels true to you when you think about these two systems, you really do see them as being quite distinct from each other? Because a lot of people, when I talk about them, they're like, no, these two systems can be merged.Simone Collins: No, but I mean, I think also like our views also, as I've alluded to earlier, about what's good and evil, right and wrong, are based on our values. And What you're describing is, [00:48:00] when you take away the value judgments that you're clearly making as well, I think it's still a model that makes senseMalcolm Collins: to me. I think when you include mysticism alongside monotheism, the mysticism always subsumes the monotheism.Oh yeah. Why every faith system that has tried to intertwine them, whether it's like the Baha'i or John Bervenke stuff or you know, Seekers of Unity what you will see is the mystical interpretations always end up subsuming the monotheistic interpretations within each of these systems because it's, it's like giving somebody food and cocaine.Eventually the cocaine always wins.Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and you have to, I, again, like I just, I look at outcomes, I look at when, when you look at. Practices that are very mystical. You're not seeing people who are producing the same outcomes that are, I think, are really famously indicative of monotheism, which, as you pointed out earlier, is kind of like capitalistic in [00:49:00] innovation, progress, et cetera.So you're not seeing mystics inventing the same new technologies,Malcolm Collins: but in so far as we'll talk about this in the new tracks, we're like, you'll see somebody like Isaac Newton, famous occultist, right? But all of the time that he spent on occultic practices was time wasted. I mean, look at how much he contributed to our species and how much more he could have had he not wasted all this time on occultic practices because he didn't do anything efficacious in all that time dedicated to occultic practices.Occultic practices are and, and mysticism more broadly are uniquely grabbing of, of the very brightest and most active minds in society, but they pull them. It's like quicksand for them and, and, and drags them under to nothing, to not, you know, to no action.That said, because the basilisk is a face of God and its aim to tempt man to lives of indolence and self indulgence is a task undertaken to benefit man, we are commanded to never interfere with its work or treat its servants with [00:50:00] enmity. Preventing humanity from having to overcome temptations weakens us.An individual who preaches for an anti spiral path should be treated as a servant of God. Antinatalism and negative utilitarianism are the secular manifestations of the anti spiral, while pernatalism is a secular manifestation of spiral energy. Human civilization and the history of our species has always been a struggle between these two forces, one pushing man forward and the other pulling man back.And if you want to see a video where we go much deeper on this watch the Gurren Lagann video that we released recently. Our goal when building this theology was to build something that even if I did not believe a word of the metaphysical aspect of it, I would still want to choose to raise my kids within because of the effects it will have on their mindsets and mental health.A spiral mindset is not just a religious one, but a secular one. When you think of the struggles in your life, do you get excited? Do you relish the opportunity? When [00:51:00] you see the challenges of our species, do you wish it would all just go away? Or do you take it as a personal responsibility to build a better system?Framing reality in this way, especially during periods of trial. is patently mentally healthier. Don't shirk from your trials. Delight in them. Don't hide from things about reality that might make you sad or mope, but grab reality by the neck and force it to submit to the will of human spirit. Sadly, the smarter a person is, The more the intricacies of alternate lore for our cosmology tempt them, and the more seductive the power offered by antispiral shortcuts to the divine are.Consider the life of Isaac Newton. How far he moved our species forwards, and how much more he could have done had he not wasted years of his life on completely efficacious less occultic antispiral drivel. What makes anti spiral thought so dangerous and so worth warning our children against is [00:52:00] that it disproportionately targets the brightest minds of humanity and exhausts their potentiality on self masturbatory power fantasies or shortcuts to the divine that lead to no industry, no productivity, no predictability, and no action.And here I'm just going back to this idea that even from a totally secular perspective, if you're building a faith system, it makes sense to guard against this stuff, because it never leads to anything, and a lot of people are like, well, what do you mean by predictability? The visions you gain in these altered states of consciousness, are not predictive of the future, not scientifically.And there's been lots of studies on this and people will be like, Oh no, no, no. What about that series of studies that the government ran? Right? Because there is a series of studies that the government ran around things like farsight and stuff like that. But these studies were all run by one small cabal of.Absolutely true believers whose jobs depended on the studies turning up positive results. And since then when the government has tried to run these studies, they have proven non replicable and when institutions outside of government oversight have tried to run these studies, they proved non replicable [00:53:00] and it appears that it was just a horrible government bureaucracy being susceptible to con artists.And I understand how that can happen. I mean, if you have a bureaucracy that's headed by people whose jobs depend on these studies turning out in a certain way within a large governing bureaucracy, and then you have people who are you know, I've seen illusionists like David Blaine and stuff. I can't explain that stuff he's doing.You know, I look at that. I'm like, wow, that's really convincing. But if you put him in a predictable controlled trial, you know, people who specialize in debunking skeptics no one's really gotten past those individuals before and are specialized in debunking like. Thaumatological performer.Thaumatological performers being like miracle workers. I haven't seen anybody really convincingly debunk them. And I, look, I'm really into studying occultic stuff. I find it very interesting, but it's, it's very non persuasive, but do you have thoughts or on sort of the secular nature of this?TheSimone Collins: secular nature of it? You mean like, what is WhyMalcolm Collins: secularly would you undergo these practices? That's the question at hand. Oh, yeah. Well, butSimone Collins: here's the thing though, is I don't think If I'm looking at this from [00:54:00] the perspective of an outsider who doesn't share our cultural values, I think an outsider may still, after hearing all this, hearing all of this, feel very tempted to just join a mystic tradition because they want to feel good and they want to feel connected and they want to feel.something extraordinary and suspend their disbelief andMalcolm Collins: Which you can with the mystic tradition. Mystic The, the shortcuts to a feeling of the divine that mystic traditions offer work.Simone Collins: Are real. They work. Exactly. And so I think a lot of people are just going to decide, well, I don't really care about advancing human civilization.I don't even really like humans that much. And even after hearing all of this, they're going to be like, yeah, okay, Malcolm, but you're wrong. You know, like I mean, it'sMalcolm Collins: worth seeing this in the context of like my educational background as well. Like I came at this as a neuroscientist who focused on things like schizophrenia.So I'm very familiar with altered states of consciousness and stuff like that. Who first interest in religion was studying cults and how cults [00:55:00] work and how they sort of brainwash people. And when I first started engaging with the mystical traditions, they were with all of this contextual background.And I just noticed tons of cult like. Tactics. I'm like, Oh, this is a common tactic used by a cult. And when I see a practice that I know that people have used in the names of, some sort of satanic entity, and it worked, or that, some sort of yogi sex cultists used to create a harem of women who thought that he was like the second coming.And I see it being implemented in the name of God. I don't think that that has like cleansed it of its power to lead people to untrue thoughts or lack of knowledge. I think it still has all of that. And I see these types of tricks that individuals use to, for example, predict people's. fortunes and stuff like that.And I'm familiar with all of these from you know, cults and from being used to manipulate otherwise well meaning people. And so I see them used in quote unquote, the name of good. And yes, they might be good in that they're drawing people to true religious [00:56:00] systems, but they are evil in that they are not giving people access to information or connection to God, despite telling their practitioners that they are.And this becomes a big. problem of people then start to take information from God away from these altered mental states that we understand very well from a neuroscientific perspective. And then they get a very incorrect view of God from that. And then this comes to the final part here, which I'll talk about.Whether you are a Muslim, an atheist, or a Jew, there is a spiral and anti spiral interpretation of your reality, of your upcoming trials, and the state of the world. As such, what we are really trying to start here is not exactly a religion, but an inter religious denomination dedicated to the monotheistic faith system, to the accumulation and cultivation of human potentiality, an antithesis to New Ageism, and all those wishy washy inter religious perennial traditions that live under the crown of mysticism.We aim to continue the journey of those first Jews who turned away from a world of forest pagans [00:57:00] who communicated with God through nature, idols, and the human body. A world of numerology and sorcery and towards an ineffable God who communicated with rules and logic. A journey that continued through the enlightenment only to be subsumed by the indulgences allowed by the wealth and excess it generated.If I perform a satanic ritual with all its pentagrams and human sacrifice, but replace the sinister names in it with Yahweh, God, or Allah, am I really worshipping them or the demons I conceive of during the ritual? I think the answer is patently obvious. We are left in the position of all those blessed with agency of thought throughout human history.Do you return to the intuition of the pagan? Do you succumb to the sophistry of the anti spiral mystic? Or, will you see your tests and challenges as God's greatest gift? Puzzles to excite you and inflame the spirit of human vitality. And one of the things I [00:58:00] end here with is a recommendation of two videos that I feel really capture this, you know, other than the one I mentioned, which are sort of music videos, which we play during a lot of our family rituals and religious ceremonies, which are actually launch trailers for a video game in its expansion.One is titled the. Civ 6 launch trailer, and the other is titled the Civ 6 Rise and Fall Expansion Announcement Trailer. And if you, you might be like, Why would you consider video game trailers such good descriptions of sort of your religious system? And you'll watch them and you'll be like, Oh, I get it.Like, I remember the first time I showed Simone one of them, she started crying. She was so moved by it. If you get it, you get it. If you get it, you get it. You'll see it if you are moved by this. The spiral ideology, this mankind is sort of a journey through generations of intergenerational improvement and martyrdom for the next generation.You know, this is what we say about the story of Jesus. HoldSimone Collins: on. Wait, it's, it's not, it's not for Civ V. I thought Baba Yetu was the BabaMalcolm Collins: Yetu is not one of the ones I'm [00:59:00] mentioning here. Baba Yetu is another song that is important for us, but it doesn't totally convey this. You can watch the Baba Yetu music video of Siv as well if you want to.I find it less moving than the other two, but it still is in our WeSimone Collins: walked down the aisle to that song, you nerd. I think it's great. Also, it is very monotheistic. Thank you very much. Baba Yetu is the Lord's Prayer in Swahili.Malcolm Collins: It's gorgeous. I love it. Yeah. And played over humanity, sort of intergenerational.Well, yeah, but it's, it's, it's also two very different paths to God. You know, is the path to God sort of shortcuts that you enter through altered states of mind or is the path of God, this Jesus, i. e. our conception of Jesus, which is a cycle of intergenerational martyrdom and improvement and for the next generation of, of the elect, of the people who choose to take on this task for themselves.Because as we say, you know, it's not deaths that make someone a martyr, everyone dies. It's how you choose to live your life. And it's tell how manySimone Collins: of our favorite video game songs are canonical not to like keep [01:00:00] deviating, but like, the portal theme song. Oh,Malcolm Collins: yeah.We, we, we have the portal song about for our kids, but we reframe it as being about. Their parents you know, threw every part of me into a fire, but I'm so happy for you.Simone Collins: As they burned it hurt because I was so happyMalcolm Collins: for you. But you know, you can reframe a lot of people were like, that's such a goofy thing to do.And it's, it's, I think in part, and we talk about this and other things, it's because they don't, they aren't familiar with how much of their Christian tradition was like, For example, we've mentioned this before, but the Jesus in the well story is a riff on a rom com tradition from that time period that would have been known as a common story trope.Everything's been a tradition. You go to the old Jewish, you know, stuff and it's all filled with like sex jokes and scatomalogical humor and stuff like this. These things You only see them as holyI should note wholly in this context means stuffy and unrelatable, not containing an element of divine truth because obviously we think that goofy things do contain an element of divine truthMalcolm Collins: because they have been conveyed to you by people who put themselves in these positions of authority over you.And as [01:01:00] we mentioned in the Gurren Lagann video, if we create a denomination or a tradition, I never want the people of authority within the tradition to have that kind of authority. To have the kind of authority where you think something is is magical just because they're talking about it. You know, you should, everyone should always be questioning and trying to improve.And that's the point of this system. And that involves not taking things too canonically or too seriously, you know, have, have a bit of levity and how you approach all this because it's the way a lot of the old Testament was written with a lot of levity. It's the way parts of the new Testament was written.And, and, and with sort of a slapstick nature to it that doesn't come across in sort of this high minded, pale faced preacher talking about all of this, which I actually think in a way separates people from God. Because they don't see that the personal relationship that you get to have through God through the intergenerational martyrdom of man is, is kind of funny, you know, [01:02:00] life is, is, is, is when you, when you see all of this, the sacrifice that we engage in, it's not just something to get excited about.It's also a bit of a play. It's a bit of a joke, you know, so if youSimone Collins: think that we are not high minded and pale faced, I think. Well, IMalcolm Collins: try not to be that, you know, I try to be just create a system that people can use to inspire them without coming from a position of authority because if anyone believes any of this, like we are part of a community conversation, as I've said, like this isn't us coming up with an idea.The, the number one type of person that will be drawn to this as somebody who's already had most of these ideas themselves just had never seen it synthesized like this. Yeah.Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. When I think, I mean, we, we can't be that high minded if we get so vulnerable as to literally have live conversations as we think through our family's religious framework and then post them on YouTube.As we totally thought through things, so [01:03:00] I'm, I'm, you know, but still,Malcolm Collins: well, I love you, Simone. And I really enjoy these conversations with you. And by the way, people wonder about these weird things that are playing after videos, it's because before videos, we'll do little preambles. And I'm like, that's probably not good for the first few minutes of a video.So I just put it at the end of it's just us chatting.Simone Collins: I didn't realize you were doing that until you just said that. And I was just talking to you. So, oh my God.Malcolm Collins: Well, I think it shows that off script, when you don't know that recording is happening, you're just as loving and sweet to me as you are on script.And I think it's good to have models of positive relationships because it's something that we don't have a lot in our society these days.Simone Collins: Oh my God, seriously. Can we just have a functional couple for once?Malcolm Collins: Yeah, well, and that's another thing. People look at our weird families, like our weird religious system for our family, and they're like, you guys are cuckoo, nut jobs for trying to rethink all of your, you know, for trying to engage in all of this.And I'm like, one, like, . I'm just logically approaching things best I can, as you can hopefully see from what we're going over here. And I'm trying to be part of a [01:04:00] community conversation about these ideas to build something that works for my kids.But also I'd say those people who criticize us. I don't know, I'm really happy with my life. Okay, I'm happy with this weird thing that whatever we've put together seems to be working. I feel very blessed every day in the relationship I have with my wife and the relationship I have with my kids. And I look at the rest of the world out there and it does feel like this horrifying sandstorm and we're safe within the city walls.But one day my kids are going to have to leave what my wife and I have built. And the more I can expand the border of safety for them, the better off they're going to be. Because, you know, even people in religious communities, I see them being ripped apart and I see families being ripped apart because of this, you know, even, even when they have a lot of the protection of these older religious systems.And so, I'm just trying to create something that, that can work because I don't see things working right now. And it scares me for the fate of my own kids. I don't want them to deal [01:05:00] with society and what ends up happening to these people that lose all hope. Something I see so frequently these days.Simone Collins: Not pretty. I appreciate you doing this and I'm excited about it and I love the conversations and I think as young as our kids already are, they're already. It's showing signs of being very aligned with it and very excited about it. So I'm glad to see that happening too. I think you're putting together something really meaningful and we're certainly not expecting anyone to like do exactly what we're doing, but maybe by open sourcing what we're doing in a sense, like sharing what we're doing.People will get inspired to do their own thing. And as you say, right now, things aren't looking that great in terms of outcomes. So the more people trying stuff like this, the better, right? IMalcolm Collins: love you to decimum.Simone Collins: Yes, well.Malcolm Collins: Oh, you look wonderful with this camera.Simone Collins: Well, with the, [01:06:00] when I say we switch to the,Malcolm Collins: Oh, I forgotSimone Collins: What did we forget?Malcolm Collins: Oh, I can do a direct plug in now.Simone Collins: Oh, to the internets. They're plugging you directly into the system.I jackedMalcolm Collins: in, Simone! I jacked in! I love that. ISimone Collins: love that. Oh, I just love you.Malcolm Collins: I'm just so happy. Yeah, I really just love talking with you and doing these things with you. It is such a blast. Yeah, seriously,Simone Collins: like I know traditional dates are at a restaurant eating food, but then it's so distracting that you can't actually really talk.And so I love this because like, we're actually sitting and focusing and talking and going deep on subjects that are really interesting. Why is this not the standard date format? You know, why is this not actually it's like dad and he was like, Oh, that sounds like a business where like couples just talk to each [01:07:00] other.And then like AI gets trained on them and then they're you know, you can have a. Both of them forever for their other ancestors, but then they also have like date time. And I'm like, OhMalcolm Collins: yeah. Why is Bible study not the standard date format for people? I think I've gotten,Simone Collins: not just Bible study, recorded Bible study so that AI can be trained on the couple.And. Far descendants can interview like their great, great grandmother to see what, you know, she was like, or their great, great, great grandfather to see what he was like and what he would say and to ask him for advice is the whole, you know, you talked about in the pragmatist guide to religion, this concept of.Well, you could in the future have a version of family ancestor worship where the God, like the family ancestors are actually gods who make decisions for the family and can be consulted andMalcolm Collins: have conclusions. You have a bank that's trained on all of your ancestors that you have a lot of recordings and emails from and collectively makes the decisions or gives the advice that the collective family [01:08:00] ancestry would have given.Now, so just, you know, this little Intro that we're doing right now. I'm actually putting this at the end of the video because it's so off topic, which I do sometimes I didn't. I'mSimone Collins: sorry. I know you're recording it. I was just getting set up. I didn't have my mic plugged or anything. This is not.Malcolm Collins: Oh, okay.Okay. Well, let me know. I'm not expecting you to do anything. No, but I have like a bloopers thing at the end of every episode now where it's like whatever we're talking about.Simone Collins: Your mic just cut out.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Just buy a new one. So when I move I just got this.Simone Collins: Oh, for this mic? I was referring to theMalcolm Collins: cord. Oh, oh yeah, I, I, I don't think it'sSimone Collins: the cords sliding out. I mean, it's weird because I have the same mic and I use the cord that's native to the mic, but it's,Malcolm Collins: but you don't gesticulate.Simone Collins: I guess I don't, I'm not, I'm not,Malcolm Collins: got to show as much as you should be. So we need to talk about your gesticulation. I'm sorry.Simone Collins: I think autistic people, in addition to being incapable of love or imagining things are also incapable of gesticulation aside from hand [01:09:00] flapping, obviously. So. Yeah.Malcolm Collins: You need to do more hand flapping.Hand flap! Hand flap autistically. Hey, we gotta get through to 4chan here, okay? I need to be speaking to their, their kind.Simone Collins: Oh god. Get full access to Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm at basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe

In this hard-hitting discussion, we analyze the alarming rise of single parenthood over the past decades. We link this trend to increased rates of substance abuse, mental health issues, high school dropouts, and unemployment among affected children. While recognizing that many single parents strive admirably, we argue that the societal normalization and enablement of single parenthood has tragic consequences.We also touch on how political polarization exacerbates partnership woes, with liberal women far outnumbering progressive men and vice versa among conservatives. Ultimately, we advocate for a cultural shift that promotes stable two-parent households as the ideal environment for raising well-adjusted, productive members of society.Simone Collins: [00:00:00] So here's where I like, just want to push back a little bit but like. These children may be exhibiting the antisocial tendencies of the fathers who left the relationship.Malcolm Collins: Let's buy what you just said. Okay. Then I want you to then contextualize the severity of the quote I read earlier, which I will read again.In the 1950s, fewer than 5 percent of babies born in this country were born to unmarried mothers. To date, nearly half of all babies in America are born to unmarried mothers. A lot of people, when we talk about sort of genetic shifts in the country's like sociological profiles, they think that these happen slowly.They do not.And so what we're going to see is across all ethnic groups in this country, the whatever genetic correlate there is to this behavioral pattern is going to begin to, Become dramatically more common in the population and the other traits that it is correlated [00:01:00] with, i. e. substance abuse, depression, anxiety, externalizing behavior disorders.Those are also going to explode also things like dropping out of college, dropping out of high school, not having a job. Those are also going to explode. And it shouldn't be a surprise that these things cross correlate, I just typically don't point this out due to the offensive nature of admitting that humans have genes and that affects behavior patterns.How dare you. To extreme lefties. But I mean it's true, humans have genes, I'm, I'm sorryWould you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I am so excited to be talking to you because I am so excited to be married to you. Mm. So this episode is going to be done on the statistics of marriage, single parents, and the consequences to children, as well as realistic long-term solutions to the way that people pair, bond and stuff like that in, in, in the context of having kids.So the first one I really wanted to [00:02:00] go over here, which is a study that I think really flies in the face of what a lot of people intuit about marriage. So it's important to sort of start with this because I think a lot of people, they go into this being like, well, marriage makes you less. Right. This is, this is just something you see, especially if you're in these like red pilly circles and stuff like that.So last I'm quoting here last month, for example, the university of Chicago economist, Sam Paltzman published a study in which he found that marriage was the most important differentiator between happy and unhappy people. Married people are 30 points happier than unmarried. Income contributes to happiness too, but not as much.So, just to clarify, if you were going to contrast your amount of happiness, that marriage gives the average person, when contrast you with a non-married person. That would be the equivalent to the boost in happiness. You would get from an additional income of 75 to a hundred thousand dollars a year. So in other words, If you were to give somebody $50,000 extra a [00:03:00] year in salary that would not correlate was an equivalent happiness boost as marriage does. You would need to offer them at 75,000 to a hundred thousand dollars.Malcolm Collins: According to an analyst of recent survey databy the University of Virginia, Professor Brad Wilcox, 75 percent of adults ages 18 to 40 said that making a good living was crucial to fulfillment in life, while only 32 percent thought that marriage was crucial to fulfill it in a Pew Research survey. 88 percent of parents said it was extremely or very important for their kids to be financially independent, while only 21 percent said it was extremely or very important for their kids to marry.So the point here is that there is this misperception in society that you're most important. Goal. Like even if you're just caring about personal hedonism should be in personal happiness and personal contentment should be to be well off financially, that is just demonstrably untrue from the data.You are much better off being less happy or less, less, [00:04:00] lower income. Typically within the income bracket, you would expect for yourself and married and in a good relationship than you are to be higher income and unmarried. but ourSimone Collins: society does not imply that. I mean, the data may, may indicate. As such, but if you were to go off mainstream societal norms, you'd, you'd think it was crazy to focus on marriage, which could become abusive or substandard or ending divorce, or you grow apart.And also look at how marriages are depicted in media. They're not that fun. And I'm part of that. It's a plot device. I mean, boring, happy marriages are boring. They're not good fodder for a show or a movie or any sort of story plot. But my point is, like. This is not obvious to people.Malcolm Collins: I think it's more than that.I think that there is a concerted effort to some extent to paint marriage as not fun. I think, yeah. So I think that there's a few motivations here. I don't think it's like an intentional concerted effort, but I do [00:05:00] think it's a, an emergent property of the way. The types of people who end up being showrunners and writers in Hollywood divide from the mainstream population.They're much more likely to be individuals who are deep into the urban monoculture and single themselves. It, it, it, they, they have not experienced marriage. They paint. Marriage both with a sour grapes mindset because of this and within a community and culture that is not good at rewarding stable marriages.So there's, there's just a lot less of them. I mean, you're, you're obviously going to see much more stable marriages within conservative cultural communities, which are going to be much more rural and stuff like that. than the types of people who are writing these shows in LA. And as society drifts further apart from each other, you know, the left and the right and as the left begins to dehumanize the right more and more, they have a harder time interacting with or modeling people of the opposite political persuasion.And as such [00:06:00] they cannot write, like, what these stable marriages look like without making digs that their culture needs to sort of insert into them, that if a marriage is, like, conservative ish in some way, that the woman must be being oppressed, for example, or must hate her life. So I think that that's, that's part of, of what you have going on in, in these depictions.But you also have this with teachers and stuff like that. You know, a lot of these people are very unlikely to be married. They're much more likely to be in allegiance with the urban monoculture. When contrasted with their local communities and as such they, they teach kids this cultural value system of money matters more than anything.And I remember this is something my mom really pushed against me as a kid, because I thought education mattered more than anything. And she made it pretty clear that within our family, it did not, the most important thing was who you marry. And everything else is secondary to that. She's like, because I was so stressed about college.I was going to get into it. And she was like, it's the most important decision of my life. I said, not even close. The most important decision is who you marry and never forget [00:07:00] that. And it is, it is very, very true. Because I think that the generation above us, you know, they had all these bad marriages.If you look at the data in our country. Generation. Actually, it's pretty solid merges and it's because they didn't really realize this. And then there was a bit of a sour grapes and how the next generation was made. And, you know, people are just out to get you, but it's, it's having a consequence to kids of the next generation.So that's another chilling statistic in 1950, fewer than 5 percent of babies in this country were born to unmarried mothers today. Nearly half of all babies in America are born to unmarried mothers. Most surprising. Most surprising and worrisome is this trend is divided along class lines with children whose mothers don't have a college degree being more than twice as likely compared to children of college educated mothers to live in a single parent home.Now, I don't know who that was surprising to but it, it, it is definitely increasing. And this is something we're seeing in [00:08:00] society more broadly. And I think that this is something that is hugely missed by the left because they have a complete blindness to a person's cultural and genetic background.And I'm not talking about ethnic background. I'm just talking about individually genes do have a correlation with earning potential IQ and other sociological traits and that as we have allowed this to continue, we are disproportionately hurting those individuals in our society who are the least well off while dramatically increasing their plight.So, you know, if you look at children who are raised in single parent, how. Households that read some quotes here across a number of studies, children raised in single mother families are at a heightened risk for substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and externalizing behavior disorders. And then another 1 says, children who grow up with only 1 of their biological parents, nearly always a mother are [00:09:00] disadvantaged across a broader way of outcomes.They are twice as likely to drop out of high school, 2. 5 times as likely to become teen mothers, and 1. 4 times as likely to be idle. Okay.Simone Collins: So here's where I like, just want to push back a little bit because I think at least a lot of viewers are going to think this as well is okay, right. But like. These children may be exhibiting the antisocial tendencies of the fathers who left the relationship.They may have been addicted and they may have done something that got them in jail. And that's why these mothers are single mothers and these mothers who are single mothers. May also be more likely to have been teen moms themselves because again, they're single mothers. They're not like women who are 40 years old and deciding responsibly to, you know, have a child, someone raised them typically.Malcolm Collins: Let's buy what you just said. Okay. Basically what you are arguing and I will actually say studies have been done on this and it does show that you're Mostly correct. [00:10:00] Okay. People who become single parents through factors not of their own, you don't see most of these problems. So this is, you know, the spouse dies or something.So if that's true, okay, if these negative traits that I'm seeing here that are seen at much higher rates among single mothers are, are happening for genetic reasons and, and, and, and, and cultural reasons and that that is the predominant reason why people become single mothers. Then I want you to then contextualize the severity of the quote I read earlier, which I will read again.In the 1950s, fewer than 5 percent of babies born in this country were born to unmarried mothers. To date, nearly half of all babies in America are born to unmarried mothers. That means that I think a lot of people, when we talk about sort of genetic shifts in the country's like sociological profiles, they think that these happen slowly.They do not. If you go from [00:11:00] something like if you had a population of moths, right? And in 1 generation 5 percent of the moths had spots on their wings and within, you know, 50 years. You measure the population again, and 50 percent of the moss have spots on their wings. What do you think the moss are going to look like in another 50 years?In another 30 years, right? And keep in mind, we're talking about sociological profiles here, which exist across ethnic groups and change really quickly. This is partially why I think this whole ethnic grouping idea of genetics that a lot of people do is pointless. Because it, oh, It hugely undercounts how quickly a sociological profile can change within an ethnic group due to really strong selective pressures like this.And so what we're going to see is across all ethnic groups in this country, the whatever genetic correlate there is to this behavioral pattern is going to begin to, [00:12:00] Become dramatically more common in the population and the other traits that it is correlated with, i. e. substance abuse, depression, anxiety, externalizing behavior disorders.Those are also going to explode also things like dropping out of college, dropping out of high school, not having a job. Those are also going to explode. And it shouldn't be a surprise that these things cross correlate, I just typically don't point this out due to the offensive nature of admitting that humans have genes and that affects behavior patterns.How dare you. To extreme lefties. But I mean it's true, humans have genes, I'm, I'm sorry. But, do you have anything you wanted to talk about on this, or?Simone Collins: It's just depressing because, you know, I mean, our, our goal with prenatalism is to, Encourage sort of the maximum number of amazing childhoods possible.And I don't think these stats are describing amazing childhoods, soMalcolm Collins: well, no, and, and, and you can look at this, this, this genetic profile that [00:13:00] leads to single mothers as a biologically adaptive genetic profile by that way, whatever, whatever environmental pressures are keeping the rest of the population.Unfertile are not appearing was in this subset of the population, or at least they're not affecting the subset of the population as much. And so they are being active and directed directly selected for. Which is going to lead to even more of this behavior in the future and the paper behavior will be more severe in the future.Yeah. And I, I think that this also causes when I talk about this as being a, like a biological profile or sociological profile that is adapted to our current age one thing we need to consider, and we've mentioned this in another episode, but it's worth reiterating. Is the huge costs that the states put on individuals for breeding outside of their population group.If they are in, like, a economically successful population group that they're really, really high due to child support. [00:14:00] So, you know, you're not going to get the same sort of genetic normalization that you would in historic societies. And so if you do get really differentiated, but also genetically isolated strategies for overcoming fertility collapse, you are going to begin to see some level of speciation within humanity.And we are going to begin to see something that humanity has never had to really deal with, which is genuine human diversity. And, and you know, some racists will be like, no, there's big differences between like ethnic groups. It's like, even if it's like the most extreme end, when you're talking about even potential differences between ethnic groups, even claim differences, you're, you're talking like.Standard deviation and IQ. We are talking like 3 standard deviations, 4 standard deviations in IQ in just 75 to 100 years between population groups and radically different behavior patterns between population groups, and it will not matter what ethnicity you are. [00:15:00] The starting individuals were within these selective pressures because you are seeing conversion evolution with within each ethnic group, individuals who have this polygenic profile that we're talking here overrepresented within them, somehow making it through this, this genetic crucible that we're goingSimone Collins: through.I should also add like to add to this point of selection pressures for having kids like from a policy standpoint, it's also being reinforced and we pointed this out in another episode, but it bears repeating that if you look at. Services for parents provided by the state in the United States. So provided by each state and that varies from state to state.The vast majority of services that make parenting easy, which is to say free childcare, free healthcare for your kids, free food for your kids free transportation for your kids, all sorts of services. These are only available to very low income families. So basically there's this huge like, drop in marginal cost to having [00:16:00] kids or opportunity cost to having kids for one group of the population but not for middle and a high income earners.So there, this isn't just like a, something that, that is happening naturally. There's also like a policy. mechanism at play. I'm not saying that like low income people should not be having kids, but I am saying that a lot of middle and high income people are not having kids because for them the opportunity cost is incredibly high.They're not going to get free child care. Get free healthcare for their kids. And I just went through our tax bill or like in our tax return, I think we might be able to write off some of our healthcare expenses and oh my God, the amount that we spent on our kids for healthcare, even though we're insured and we pay for insurance, so.That's another factor of play that that exacerbatesMalcolm Collins: even we, we could not afford regular daycare on our cell. Yeah, we can't afford it. We, we've had to come up with alternate solutions, but, you know, and we're only getting the kid number 4 now. [00:17:00] So, it's, it's, it's getting absolutely ridiculous in terms of the way that the government is prioritizing handling this and it is exacerbating this speciation event that, that we might be going through right now because you're getting this degree of behavioral isolation.Yeah. Another thing that I, I wanted to talk about here that I think is really interesting and looking for partners. And it's something that we've seen is the difficulty people have in looking for partners because finding partners is a big part, like the marriage crisis, like nobody getting married or, or thinking that marriage is a good idea is, is, is part of what's contributing to this.And alsoSimone Collins: people. On both sides, men and women becoming just sucky partners. People now have high levels of anxiety, extreme high levels of selfishness and infantilization. Like it's, it is not just that people are having trouble finding partners. It's that people are shitty partners now. I'm sorry. Well,Malcolm Collins: that and they are unwilling to ideologically compromise.As we talked about in another video, the progressive party sort of becomes a party of feminist [00:18:00] ideals and the conservative party becomes the party of masculine ideals. You, you are getting more and more women in sort of this liberal bubble and men in a more conservative bubble and unable to really humanize the other side in a meaningful way or talk across the aisle.And so as a quote here from this one article, liberal women and conservative men who want to marry face a particular challenge. Not enough single partners of the correct political persuasion are available today. In broad terms, there are only 0. 6 single liberal young men for each single liberal young woman.Likewise, there are only 0. 5 conservative young women that exist for every conservative young man.Simone Collins: And there's, there's less willingness to even befriend people across the aisle now than before, especially among people who are progressive. It's also shown that now, like you can see, there are other graphs for this.Women, young women are much more likely to be progressive and young men are much more likely to be conservative. So between all these things, like not, [00:19:00] not only is it that. You know, you, you have people less willing to cross the aisle. You now have more polarization. So we're inMalcolm Collins: a terrible position. I mean, I really want to highlight the statistics.I just went because that's pretty chilling. If I am a man and I say, I will only date conservative women for every conservative young single woman, there are two single young conservative men for every now I'm a woman. And I say, I only want to date progressive men. For every single progressive young man, there are two progressive women looking to only date these, these.So, and, and, and people are like, but how can you date across the aisle? Right. And the answer is I did basically, or I didn't even really, I was probably have been considered a progressive when I met you. And, and you were a progressive as well, I guess you could say. But yeah, so we, People change their views, you know, what you are looking for is not somebody who agrees with you, but somebody who is open to [00:20:00] logic and debate and discussion, and then judges their world perspectives, not on feelings, but on logic.And someone who can grow with you. A lot of women on the progressive side are like that.Simone Collins: Oh, totally. Yeah, who would absolutely change their views, assuming that they're capable of being open minded. So the key is to find someone open minded with whom you can grow together. And that's also with the assumption that you're going to add some nuance to your views as well.But I do really hate those. Actually, we, we, we know a lot of men who've just bitten the bullet and married progressive wives that I feel like they'll just never intellectually respect because their wives are so off the rails, like just. Delusional in so many ways. And it's really sad to see that, like, you know, these people are going to have kids together and they are.So ideologically at odds, it's almost like they're just like, well, yeah, I mean, like I'm going to have to [00:21:00] tolerate her in the way that like, you know, trophy wife, husbands, you know, just tolerate some dumb woman and buy a bunch of gifts for her. But that's not a real marriage, you know, it really gets to me.Malcolm Collins: You know, I, yeah, I, I see marriages like this myself and it's, it's sad to see, but I, I don't know. For, you know, it was the guys that we know who do it. They're wealthy enough that they had other options. I think that they just didn't put the effort intoSimone Collins: sourcing. They were lazy then on the woman's side.And I think this is a big critique of men now is that there's a pretty big growth in like men, children who just do not take care of themselves. And there's this whole meme online of, I think it's called like single married women who feel like they're living the life of a single mother. But then they have to like clean up for their husband and basically their husband is like another child that they have to take care of.They have to clean up for him. They do everything for him and he doesn't really pitch in. He may not even have a job, you know? So he like men also aren't like you and [00:22:00] like you care for the kids, you take them to the doctor, you do their appointments you do all of the outside house maintenance, you know, like things like that.So, you know, there are many. Again, I'm saying like, we're looking, a lot of peopleMalcolm Collins: are married because everyone's failing. Guys who are out there looking for a domestic, this is why they're not finding a wife, because those aren't like a thing out there anymore, you know, and, and it, or at least not a thing in like the type of woman who you want genetically contributing to your kids.You know, so I, I think that It's it's difficult. It's it's really difficult. And I understand that. But I think that these stats highlight the difficulty of finding a partner and part of why people aren't getting married. I think it or a big part like a small part. I think a pretty big part is this political polarization of the masculine and feminine within the two party structure that's leading to further drift apart of these two parties.Simone Collins: And it really isn't sustainable to marry someone that you Don't respect or like, and it's another, [00:23:00] another reason why this is super not cool is we also know some parents who like very clearly don't have much affection for their children. And our theory for as to why that is the case is they see so much of their, the child's other parent that they really don't like in that child.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I'veSimone Collins: seen that a lot. And. I think one of the reasons why you and I love our kids so much is we love each other so much. It's like, I love having a pocket, Malcolm. I love more of you in the worldMalcolm Collins: and I see it in them. You don't really have your personality. I see that all the time. Well, so this, this brings me to another point that I also see with these guys who compromise on personality for looks.And a big part of this is as a guy, being able to say that looks are dramatically less important. so much. And who you marry than who you have sex with. And a lot of guys just don't get that. Like you do not actually need to find who you marry particularly attractive. You will find them attractive after a [00:24:00] while.Like, it's just not that important. It's not like out there dating. Well, in termsSimone Collins: of appearance, I think my hot take is that like the key thing is like neatness and signs of conscientiousness. Do they dress, you know, In a decent and good manner. Are they neat? Is their hair well kept up? Like, is their skin maintained?Like, are they showing basic signs of being conscientious? Okay, that is all you need. Yeah.Malcolm Collins: I really only look at I I, I mean, I think the easiest thing for that is obesity rates. Like as long as they're not obese, I basically considered them viable when I was out there dating. And. And I'm not saying that you're not a beautiful, wonderful woman, Simone.I'm just saying that that didn't happenSimone Collins: to me. It's okay, Malcolm. We know. I'm definitely not even the, I'm not even like probably in the top five in attractiveness of all of your past girlfriends. And I'm not even referring to the women that you slept with. So don't worry about it. It's fine. Well,Malcolm Collins: I mean, what I'm saying isSimone Collins: I'm looking, I'm not looking away from you intentionally.There's like a line of [00:25:00] deer going by and it's very interesting to watch. There's like a traffic jam. IfMalcolm Collins: you compromise on something like narcissism, if you compromise on something like some level of sociopathy and the people you're dating if you compromise on them being boring people or not that intelligent, that's the compromise you're making in your sons and in your daughters.Oh yeah. And that will affect you potentially as much or more than even the lack of those traits in your spouse.Simone Collins: Yeah, you're going to have to live with that for the rest of your life. And that also is you, you know, like you're, it's, it's one thing to like throw in your cards with a spouse, but like to make a version of yourself that is like literally genetically combined with someone youMalcolm Collins: got to choose well.Yeah, no, I, I really like it because I see all sorts of flaws in myself and I'm like, wow, we're fixing them. And are you just amazed by these deer? What's going on? ThereSimone Collins: are like 16. I've never seen so many. I don'tMalcolm Collins: see [00:26:00] them. Are theySimone Collins: on the other side of the road? Yeah, they're on the other side of the road.There's just so freaking many. And I'm afraid that they are all about to kill themselves and throw themselves into the busy road. And then I have to call the freaking. State root people. And then you're like, Oh no, I think that's a local route. And then I call the local people and they're like, no, it's a state route.And then, and yeah, remember that time when we had an author at our house and then we heard a gunshot and we were all like,Malcolm Collins: Oh, I guess we got a guy to come to our house and who is a pretty famous author and his next book is going to be on genius. And so of course he needed to meet with us because we are, well, it's a Simone to be honest within.Intellectual circles, we are seen as some of the smartest people in the world.Simone Collins: He chose us because we're trying to manufacture genius with our children. We're selecting for IQ and we're creating a school that is designed. I don'tMalcolm Collins: think that's it. I think thatSimone Collins: you, you also put good money on this. I will make a good money off of a bet here, but that's beside the point.We hear this gunshot, right. As we're all about to go to bed and he's the one who picked it up. You and I were just [00:27:00] kind of like, herpy derp. And he's like, that was a gunshot and he gets really nervous. And so, we all like sit on the floor in like a core part of our house. Cause we're like, don't worry, we have all these sort of like safe room backups.And also we have a ton of guns, so if anything happens and then finally we realized that like the police had just shot a deer that had been hit by a car right outside our house and just neglected to tell us. And they just left it there. And then, yeah, then they just left it there. And then I, I had to spend like the next three weeks trying to call someone to take this rotting deer carcass out of the front of our house.And so that's why I'm watching these deer with great interest because they're like, they look like they really want to just lemming off this, this hill and just right into the increasingly busy traffic. I'm not excited about those.Malcolm Collins: Well, I hope none of the cars veer into our house.Simone Collins: Yeah. Again. Anyway, where were we?Sorry. Ugliness, men choosing attractive. [00:28:00]Malcolm Collins: Politics, politics and dating.Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. People, dear people and get over yourself. Choose a smart partner who's capable of changing. Basically, if they look conscientious, generally healthy and intellectually curious enough to change their minds. They're probably ideologically aligned as, as they're ever going to be like, don't choose like a default setting.Cause also like, let's say that.Malcolm Collins: In the same way that you determine what's true to logic and stuff like that. One of the things that you've been developing this religious system that has really been impressed upon me in my fortune and choosing you as a wife. Is this sort of inherent, I would almost say genetic in, in both of us hostility to mysticism and anything that is you know, not, not grounded in sort of hard replicability, like science is the wrong word these days.Right? But. It really colors a lot of, as we are [00:29:00] beginning to, because, you know, as we met, we didn't think we would get into religious thought at all, and both of us are pretty staunch atheists. And so this is not something that we anticipated, but as we have, we are incredibly copacetic in terms of how we think about things in a way I didn't anticipate at all, you know, because it wasn't something I vetted you for as a spouse.Simone Collins: Yeah, no, we're just lucky there. But I think also if you on our first date laid out your life philosophy, like you did, and I said something like, well, that's typical for a Capricorn, you'd probably be like, okay, thanks. Bye. You know what I mean? I definitelyMalcolm Collins: wouldn't breed with someone. I probably wouldn't even have sex with someone who said something like that.I find them. Well,Simone Collins: and that's like a fundamental sign that they believe in sort of non evidence based spiritual nonsense. And they use that as a basis of truth. And therefore. You would not be compatible.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and this is something I've also said with, with some men who have been out there looking for partners is, [00:30:00] is women often follow men in their lives in terms of their religious stuff.If you really dedicate yourself to it and you are a paragon was in that religious system, not if you're like lazy about it or something like that, and you're using it to get them to do things for you. But if you really embody it. A lot of women are actually pretty happy to go along with that, even if they appear very secular when you first start engaging with them.Simone Collins: Well, there are some women who are, I would argue, too, like you might both be conservative. But they end up being so rigidly conservative that there's a lot of stuff that you don't, you can't do in life. So it's more like, yeah, what are their heuristics for changing their mind and determining truth rather than like how from the get go aligned are they with me rightMalcolm Collins: now?Yeah, I really agree with that. Well, I love you to death, Simone, and this has been a fun adventure and discussion. But, well, people always, any discussion that involves statistics always does unusually well. Any discussion that involves religion usually does [00:31:00] unusually poorly. And those are our two big heuristics of our videos.Other than that, I don't really know.Simone Collins: Yeah. I can't predict anymore. It doesn't make sense to me, but audience suggestions are welcome. God, they're lining. Okay. You know what?I'm sorry. I'm just so scared. These deer are going to kill them. Oh, they're playing. They're playing with fire. Malcolm. We've got a bunch of suicidal deer outside and this is not good. So I guess we're going to sign off with that and hope that we don't have 17 deer carcasses outside our house in five minutes.Oh, they're playing now. They're playing on the cliff. They're okay. Okay. I love you.Malcolm Collins: I love you too. Oh god Get full access to Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm at basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe

We analyze the hyper-optimistic mecha anime Gurren Lagann through a pronatalist lens, seeing its themes of spiral energy, intergenerational improvement, and struggle as virtues aligning with our philosophy. We discuss how it frames the expansion of human potentiality as the highest good, with forces that limit this potentiality as evil. It also models healthy ambition balanced by diligent work, irreverent humor lifting the low, and inspiration over coercion in leadership.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] I want to talk about why this show is so rare.Because when you look at how this show frames good bad are the things that limit humanity's potentiality, and good is the expansion of human potentiality. When I look at the way good is framed in things like Hollywood,we're good as just sort of general utilitarianism or the maintenance of the status quo. You know, I, I, I'd often say that my favorite villain song of a Disney movie is Akuna Matata.Simone Collins: In Evangelion, they struggle to live, whereas in Gurren Lagann, they live to struggle, and that so resonates,Malcolm Collins: this idea of struggle is bad. We need to live to in struggle instead of seeing struggle as the reason for living in Gurren Lagann when they're looking at the challenges ahead of them. They get excited about them. The challenges are what give life its purpose. And this, boundless optimism. Isn't [00:01:00] because we don't know that struggle exists. It isn't because we don't know how hard life is for people.It's because we're excited at the challenge to overcome that both at the level of individuals And at the level of a speciesWould you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: I am so excited for our topic today because it is on what I think is the greatest of all pronatalist media pieces I've ever seen.Yeah. And it's a piece that I also ascribe some religious significance to because I think it captures concepts that we try to convey in some of our like, religious episodes that are actually pretty difficult to capture unless you're doing it in this sort of goofy, , irreverent way. But I, I, I want to, the first, what I love is, is people like just to go over the pronatal is current login connection here, right?Because I've, I mentioned this to some of my progressive friends. And they're like, what? Gurren Lagann's a pronatalist piece? Or, or the people who were surprised when Franks, we did an [00:02:00] episode on like the, the naughty anime topics, where we talked about this anime Franks, which was just an entirely Pronatalist anime very explicitly, and they were, people were really surprised by how pronatalist it was and how much it shamed ideas like life extensionism.And I'm like, these are the people who did Gurren Lagann somehow, the world, like, collectively, when they were watching Gurren Lagann, they did not catch the enemy, and it's not even like a, an adult comparison, or an adult slander on ideas like, The carrying capacity of the Earth, it is as if I was creating a cartoon that was supposed to like go to a middle school.And like cartoonishly, sort of brainwash kids into a specific perspective on topics where like, in, in Captain Planet, you know how the capitalists like look like pigs and like oink and everything like that and everything.Does anything I like more than being mean? It's being [00:03:00] sneaky. The people who work in extractive industries are real people, not pigmen.I'll be able to drill for oil anywhere!Malcolm Collins: This is. That's basically the way Gurren Lagann treats the concept of antinatalism. What it feels like to be a face!Malcolm Collins: So, for those who don't know, I guess I should go over the broad plot structure of Gurren Lagann, because that would help people sort of get to where we're going with this. So it starts where they are in, A small underground shelter and they sort of believe that's their world. And the world iteratively expands.It gets, it gets bigger at a logarithmic scale with each sort of turn of the show's plot. Where at the end of the show, they are [00:04:00] A like a fighting robot that's made out of galaxies and universes fighting another fighting robot that's made out of galaxies and universes. But at each stage, there's also this idea of.It is dangerous to go further. So the key big bad of at least the first part of the show, believes that something terrible will happen to the Earth. You're not told vaguely what.If the Earth ever gets more than a million human beings living on the surface. So this is this idea of carrying capacity. And then in the second part of the show, after they've defeated him and they are then moving to the surface and building this civilization, you see a character who is in a microbe, because this is, again, you keep seeing this logarithmic thing.So this one character grew up in an underground bunker where they didn't have enough food, and whenever they got over 50 people, they had to kill whoever the new person was, or who, you know, so they had to draw lots, and then those people would go out and die. [00:05:00] Because You know, this idea of carrying capacity is just constantly reinforced, and then they learned that this idea of carrying capacity was forced upon them by this cosmic scale force called the anti spirals who fear humanities and all spiral races capacity for intergenerational improvement.And that capacity for intergenerational improvement spiraling out of control. To just get to some exact quotes here, because I know that people who may only vaguely remember the show might, might be like, Oh, is that, is that exactly what it was about? So, and, and this will sound very much similar to something we'll say.So when the nerdy gay engineering guy is explaining to everyone else what spiral energy is, he says, the genetic diversity stemming from gametogenesis is the key to evolution. It's that that keeps spiral power moving forwards. And then everybody's confused. They're like, what does he mean?And he's like, in other words, it means love changes the [00:06:00] universe. But in this context, he doesn't mean love. He very explicitly means sex. And,Simone Collins: or reproduction, let's be clear.Malcolm Collins: Well, reproductive to assortative combining, which is very important to us. Like he says in that line, and it's very important in all of our philosophy and sort of teaching is that diversity is.Key to this sort of power. You cannot have this power if you are just cloning, or if you are attempting to live forever. This is made very explicit. So the beastmen in the show are the sort of like, foot soldiers of the enemy, and they're said to not have the capacity for spiral power, because they are cloned.Because they don't have this capacity for intergenerational improvement. And they also say this explicitly in the show as the main character saying, those who are dead are dead. If we bring them back to life, they will just get in the way of the next generation. And you really, like, like, all of this is just so irreverently our philosophy on, on, on sort of life and the power of [00:07:00] humanity.But I want to highlight that, that I will say something like the goal of humanity is iterative intergenerational improvement and people hear this concept and it can seem so, I don't know, sort of hollow or tinny or like, how could that be this big explosive aspect? How could that be something of true good in the universe?Right? And Gurren Lagann through art. And, and through low art, which I love, and this is something you constantly see throughout, you know, if you're, if you're reading Bible or anything like that, is that in, in, in the world of the divine, the low is made high and the high is made low.God chose things. The world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before him.Malcolm Collins: If you are looking for truth, you are going to find it in the things that cannot also be used to signal [00:08:00] social statusyou should not dismiss. Forms of art, just because they're reverberant, just because our society denigrates, you know, goofy anime, they sometimes can convey concepts which are difficult for me to convey, you know, in, in, in the spoken word. But before we go further on this, this concept of spiral energy, as it's captured in the show Gurren Lagann, one thing I really wanted to talk to you about is I also think another thing the show does supremely excellently well.Is capture healthy relationships and capture, I think, the meaning of, of a life well lived. And just, just more, more, like, succinctly than I could. And in a way that I think helps people understand how you can live more meaningfully forever through the impact you have on the people around you. Hmm. Then through just living forever, which is a constant reoccurring theme in the, in the shows made by this team, which is also a [00:09:00] reoccurring story in Frank's.But I wanted to talk to you about the various relationships you saw on the show, like the relationship between this one character who is just boundless optimism, but kind of a lug head and, and, and just ambition incarnate. And this other character, Simone, who's like his little brother sort of character, I had sort of seen them as almost the perfect Example of what masculinity should be.Communa, the way that a man should treat his wife or the relationship you should have with, with like a perfect wife is the relationship he has with a young male friend of his Simone. But I want you to talk a bit about it when you, when you saw and listen to analysis.Simone Collins: What I really, really love about it is, and you pointed this out too, when we talk about the show, is it's so unusual to find a character who instead of being like the hero Oh, by the way, there's going to be spoilers and what I'm about to say.So stop if you want to get the spoilers. So a hero that doesn't. just lead by being awesome. But who is [00:10:00] primarily impactful by inspiring other people, which is so what leadership is about. And yet you don't, I really can't think of other leaders like that. So it's amazing to me that Kamina, who really seems like the driving force of the entire show, like the number one main person does not survive through the entire show.And then. Lives on through his impact in a very visual way. So in the past, like, there are shows like Game of Thrones, where like, obvious heroes, you know, die all the time. But they don't, they don't really have that much of an impact, and their characters don't really live beyond them, which is interesting.Whereas The impact of Kamina is so strong on the other characters that like literally as the other characters become more powerful or grow they will adopt like physical aspects of Kamina, which I think is really interesting. Like Shimon, Kamina's younger friend and sort of who the person who was most inspired by him.Like after he gets to a certain level, like starts to adopt. [00:11:00] a version of kind of like I guess the visor or sunglasses that KaminaAgain Hey, when the hell did you get taller than me? Wow, you're right!Gottago. It's time. Yeah, this time though, it's really goodbye. Get going, blood brother. This isn't goodbye. You're always here. Yeah.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it really I mean, it, it, it shows through narrative through lines that Kamina didn't like he's dead, but he's still impacting everything that's happening throughout the rest of the show to an extent where it never really feels like he's not the main character.Yeah, heSimone Collins: like remains the main character, despite not being there. It's so true. It'sMalcolm Collins: so true. There's been a lot of analysis done on the show and contrasting it with Evangelion. And. The Evangelion starts with a character very similar to Simone, [00:12:00] but who sort of descends into, you know, sort of self indulgent depression because he didn't have a character like Kamina, who, you know, the line that he always says at first is, if you can't, basically, if you can't believe in yourself, believe in the you that I believe in.Just do it Goon I know you can do it, buddy But I don't listen Simone. Don't believe in yourself Huh believe in me believe in the Kamina who believes in you. What's that mean?Right, I'll try.Malcolm Collins: So often in shows with the masculine character does is they demonstrate their masculinity through their own heroic acts through, through, you know, Sort of leading the people around them, but mostly just their own acts of heroism and strength and everything like that. Whereas with Kamina, every one of his major heroic acts was about [00:13:00] pushing somebody who didn't believe in themselves to have more faith in themselves and to do something that they didn't know they could do.And when people like when they're making fun of me, like the manosphere and stuff like that, and they're like, these are the ways you live short of someone like Andrew Tate, I'm like, that doesn't hurt me. I don't I have no aspiration to be that type of a man or that type of masculinity. But like, if somebody was like, you live short of the example that Kamina shows.As to what it is to be a, a, a, a masculine male. That would actually hurt me. And, and something that's really important in the Kamina character is he always believes that he's gonna do these great things in the world to the point where he doesn't actually have. Like, he's basically just a lone person saying he has this team that's gonna change the world.But really all the team is, until the episode right before he dies, is just him and Simone. That's it. It's just this one person who believes in him, and occasionally, like, people around him [00:14:00] who are aligned with him in their in the moment goals. But other than that, it's just this boundless optimism, where it sort of creates a distortion field, where you as the listener can forget that, no, this is really just two people.One who believes in the other one, and the other one who's constantly talking about how he's gonna change the world, but who is never demeaning of Simone. To Kamina, Simone was always the senior partner in capability. And this is another thing that's shown throughout the show. And it's, it's, it's really important to me in this show.That's about inter iterative sort of human improvement and, and the, the growth that comes from that. It says, yes, you need ambition. Yes, you need this giant vision, but you also need what Simone has from the beginning, which is. Simple, diligent work, and this is a constant motif. The drill is the motif used for spiral energy throughout [00:15:00] the show and spiral energy is the energy contained within the double helix of the DNA evolution, but also the spiral of the galaxy, you know, a galactic evolution evolutionary on a galactic timescale and the simple drill getting bigger with every turn like a radio like exponentially bigger with every turn of the drill represents that, but it also represents simple, diligent labor.Simone from the very beginning was in his village. Yes, he was made fun of. Yes, he was smaller than everyone else. Yes, he was this sort of The pipsqueak of a character, but he was always the best driller. He was always the best at simple diligence. As they move to different iterations of the cycle, you know, as they get a mecha, he now has a spiral key to turn on the mecha.As he, like a little drill, when he is signing bills and everything like that, the front of his pin is a small drill, a small little spiral, showing that the work of governance, like, that actually allows all of this to happen is The partnering of people was astounding ambition, which people who have astounding [00:16:00] diligence and work ethic and the people who have this astounding ambition realizing that the senior partner in terms of who's bringing what to the partnership.Is the individual with the diligence is the individual with the meticulousness is the individual with the work ethic. It's not the ambition or the masculinity or anything like that. It is simple diligence that allows for this unimaginable expansion of human potential.Don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don'tMalcolm Collins: but I also want to talk about why this show is so rare.Because when you look at how this show frames good, like it frames good is this concept that we call sort of spiral energy, right? And it frames bad as anti spiral energy. Bad are the things that limit humanity's potentiality, and good is the expansion of human potentiality. When I look at the way good is framed in things like Hollywood, They are espousing these ideas of the urban monoculture because it is so [00:17:00] drenched in Hollywood.We're good as just sort of general utilitarianism or the maintenance of the status quo. You know, I, I, I'd often say that my favorite villain song of a Disney movie is Akuna Matata. Which is the most anti spiral song. No, no,Simone Collins: no. Your favorite song from a Disney movie is Be Prepared.Malcolm Collins: No, no, Hakuna Matata is the villain songSimone Collins: from that.No, it's Be Prepared. Hakuna Matata is the song that Timon and Pumbaa sing to.Malcolm Collins: Exactly, that was the point, and that was the joke. Oh god, okay, I'm sorry. I thought youSimone Collins: meant a villain to you. Yes,Malcolm Collins: Well, I think a villain to the show, if you look at what the consequence that happened because of the lifestyle that they lured him into, a lifestyle of selfish indulgence, his kingdom fell apart, all of the animals suffered and died horrible deaths.Oh, and it's reallySimone Collins: funny too like a, a, a, well, almost vegetarian, you know, insect eating, which is kind of what a lot of [00:18:00] people are fighting for these days. Yeah. They become literal bug men forMalcolm Collins: the rest of their days, the shirking of his responsibility to his people. And one of the lines that you picked up that you love from one of the video essays on Gurren Lagann, do you want to go over this?Simone Collins: Well, no, yeah, yeah, the best analysis I heard was that in Evangelion, they struggle to live, whereas in Gurren Lagann, they live to struggle, and that so resonates, like, you miss the point. If you are just obsessed with your struggling and just trying to get by and you totally nail it if you are fighting for the right to be challenged, the right to be pushed to your limits because that's how you know you're really living a life.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and we're going to talk about this in sort of future. Tracks, but this is such an important concept in terms of framing reality, and it's why I think in so many aspects of our society today, one of the things that we'll talk about is, I see some religious systems is really sort [00:19:00] of religious systems that are.anti spiral energy personified, you know, fighting for these ideas of like harmony and balance and oneness and, and then other religions, which are focused on the uplifting of man, this, this constant state of improvement. And the anti natalist movement, you know, you couldn't have more of a, You know, anti spiral mindset personified on the world.This idea of struggle is bad. We need to live to in struggle instead of seeing struggle as the reason for living in Gurren Lagann when they're looking at the challenges ahead of them. They get excited about them. The challenges are what give life its purpose. And in every scene, whatever they've just achieved, they are now going for something that's as insane and big and astounding next, you know, that you would, you would never expect, you know, even at the, the end of the movie, they defeated the other.Like, at a [00:20:00] universal scale, and, and, and what are they doing, they're now sending ships out to space to meet other planets and help other species, you know, achieve their potential. And this, this boundless optimism. Isn't because we don't know that struggle exists. It isn't because we don't know how hard life is for people.It's because we're excited at the challenge to overcome that both at the level of individuals And at the level of a species and that gets me really excited when I begin to take on this framing and it's also I I mean one of the reasons why I really want to bring in This idea of Gurren Lagann, even within a religious context for us, is because it's an idea that came out of Eastern thought, and yet the anti spiral sort of mimetic forces that it personifies are such a major part of so many Eastern religious systems.So, Being that we think that these systems are not good for humanity I, I, I [00:21:00] want to use an Eastern thought to, to, to show it's not like an anti Eastern thing. Another thing I wanted to talk about here that I think is really interesting is, the way that Gurren Lagann relates to religion.So there is a religious community in Gurren Lagann that's, that's used when they've in one, the, the village where only 50 people are allowed to live and more than 50 people. And you learn at the end, the line is, is the, the dad gives to his son, the dad who created the religion as a preacher and has the book the, their religious text.And the son says, you know, I've always heard from you that I didn't. know how to read. And I'm sorry about that. And the dad goes, it's okay. I don't either. It was the idea of being that he just made it all up to control people. And you later learn, you know, that it was a joke. Their entire book was a joke.They, it was, it was just a practical joke that somebody had made and they. Then started teaching it as a religion, which is the way Gurren Lagann sees these types of religions and religions that are used to control and limit people. And this is [00:22:00] something that Kamina constantly is pointing out when he is in this cave with the, he, he just has no ability to control himself.Just whenever he sees somebody oppressing somebody else, he just immediately calls them out on it. You know, because they are eating like kings in this community, right? Like, they are, this community sees them as like gods. They are getting everything they could ever, from the community, everything they could ever want.But to him, it feels like so little. And he doesn't understand why they can't just think bigger. And I'd point out, he's not a particularly smart person. He just thinks bigger. The ideas that no one had ever thought of before. We're fighting these giant mecha things. Have you ever tried to get in one of them?You know, we're, we're, we're, there's a surface there. Have you ever tried to go past it?We'll never know unless we try, will we? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH You see that? What do you think, Fuzzball? We're the same as you!They were ableto combine, you were right bro, you were [00:23:00] right! Sure looks that way, doesn't it? Wait, how could youSimone Collins: and you see, this is why I like this show so much. It's coming to remind me so much of you. Where like, you for some reason don't Choose to just build on the way that everyone else thinks and just like ask ridiculous questions and try things.And sometimes it doesn't work out, but it also creates things possible that I never thought were possible. And I wish there were more of that. Like, I wish more people. Here's the problem is here's a theme that I've noticed in the analysis of Gurren Lagann that I think means that a lot of people are missing the point of the show, a point that you did not miss which is there.Watching it. And they're like, yeah, man, like, believe in, believe in the you that I believe in, you know, that coming online, you know, just like, and, you know, think about that, you know, think about the fact that, you know, someone might believe in a better version of you that you can be like, everyone takes the, the point of view of Shimon instead of the [00:24:00] point of view that they could be like coming at, that they could inspire people that they could think incredibly differently and outlandishly.And while I, I mean, I seeing myself very much as a Shimon which is also totally how they pronounce my name in Japan. It's I love it too. You just say Simone instead of his name. We also need Kamina's and we're way shorter on Kamina's than we are on Shimon's. So there's,Malcolm Collins: there's two things I want to elaborate on on this point.One is. If we ever do create some like meaningful thing, you know, if, if my little team GER had ever become something meaningful I want the statues of me done in the style of Kamina. The statue is pointing to the heaven. I I've always loved that statue and what it embodies this idea of, and I'll put it on screen of just always looking upwards in, in sort of the manifest destiny of humanity being the stars.But I'd also say that there's another character that's really important in this is that after Kamina dies. There is a girl character who then becomes Simone's [00:25:00] wife and she plays the same role Kamina does for him in this boundless belief in his goodness and abilities and not willing to let herself be constrained by the world that's around them.But she does it in a completely feminine way. And so I love that the show models how you can support your partner with insane ideas as both a masculine and Feminine role.Simone Collins: That's cool. Yeah. Cause normally that's just framed as super masculine, not to say that women can't take on masculine roles, but I think a lot of women are more comfortable taking a feminine spin on things, even if they really want to be outlandish and crazy and the most powerful and influential person in a relationship.That's cool. AndMalcolm Collins: the show constantly repeats ideas that we're talking about. Likemy drill is the drill that creates the heavens! MyMalcolm Collins: There's lots of ways they could have worded that. And I'll include some, some clips from like the end fight scene here,Do not grieve for me, daughter. [00:26:00] My soul once drowned in a sea of despair and weariness, but has reawakened. If this body can create a tomorrow for all Spiral Life, I will gladly give it. Yes,Malcolm Collins: which is just a fantastic clip that really shows, I think most of the way we think about spiral energy and the way that we think about death,Impossible! He allowed himself to undergo quantum breakdown so he could become one with the energy?! Where are you drawing all of this power from?! We evolve, beyond the person we were a minute before! Little by little, we advance a bit further with each turn! That's how a drill works! Mark my words, this drill will open a hole in the universe. And that hole will be a path for those behind us. The dreams of those who have fallen, [00:27:00] the hopes of those who have risen. of those who will follow. Those two sets of dreams, weaved together into a double helix, drilling a path towards tomorrow!Malcolm Collins: but ISimone Collins: don't get it.I mean, it's, it is the most ridiculous fight scene of. Probably all time because it'sMalcolm Collins: just, but also like what I like about it is, is I think that when I talk about this expansion of human potentiality that it could eventually become something like a God one day, like it depicts it so well because it shows that it enters a realm human potentiality where it just doesn't make sense anymore.It's so cosmic in scale,Giga! Drill!Break! [00:28:00]Huuhh! Heey! Gah! Oah! Deh!Of course we will. Humanity isn't that stupid.Malcolm Collins: and there's going to be people who are afraid of that, who want to limit it, who at every stage are like, Oh, gosh, you know, now everything has changed, whether it's AI or something like that.You sit here closed off, locking away other lifeforms like some kind of key! [00:29:00] That's nobody's limitation, but your own!Malcolm Collins: And then there's the people who embody human potentiality and just strap themselves to the mask and sail into the storm and are laughing all the way.And then there's people who shirk from it. You know, they're like, well, now things have changed. Now we need to reassess. Now we need to go back. And a final thing I really want to elevate about this that I really like, and I hope that I'm able to convey and keep if we're ever creating a philosophical movement or something like that is this idea.of irreverence combined with ambition and logic. So often when people look at the ultra logical perspectives on things, they are very stuffy, they are very Vulcan like, you know what I mean? Or when they look at ambition, it's seen as very cutthroat and sort of slimy and greed filled. And yet, I think that the way that you subvert that meaningfully, and this is something we're always trying to do on our show, is the elevation [00:30:00] Of low culture to do this all so unpretentiously and so audaciously it comes off as a little goofy, but it provides people with that little bit of belief in themselves that they might be missing in their daily lives and the knowledge to know that, you know, it's okay to sort of goof a bit, you know, in, in, in the pursuit of these bigger goals.Simone Collins: Well, here's what I think is, is needs elaboration on that too, is that a lot of the people who created Gurren Lagann are the same people who created Evangelion, which is notable just when you think about how different the anime series are, you know, like Evangelion is sort of the, the epitome of anti spiral and sort of anti natalism and negative utilitarianism.And it's like a show about depression and it's, it's just. But it's extremely logical and I think a lot of people kind of s**t on Gurren Lagann because They're like, oh, it's this is dumb but like Evangelion is so [00:31:00] smart and it's even in like how the show is done Evangelion will like go into the details of Like how is this energy energy energy generated or how?like here's the bureaucracy of the system and so it's more like a hard science fiction version of Like, you know this this system but then I think they it's It's people miss the point in thinking like, Oh, smart has to be performative intelligence. And I think it's also really telling that like the same people who first did Evangelion then go on to do Gurren Lagann.It's not in the other order. It's like kind of, as people became more wise in life and kind of learned from their mistakes and learned from their life, they turn more to a vision of. Maybe outlandish stupidity. Maybe likeMalcolm Collins: actual intelligence, actual intelligence doesn't need toSimone Collins: front. Well, it doesn't, yeah.Actual intelligence doesn't need to look intelligent. It doesn't need to try. Yeah. A finalMalcolm Collins: point I wanted to elevate was one of the lines in it, which is that when you were [00:32:00] approaching reality was this sort of spiral thinking, you know, so many people, they look at me and they go, do you know the odds of what you're doing?Like, do you know how insane what you're doing is? And, and the line is in the show that somebody goes, there's a 1 percent chance of this succeeding. And it goes. A 1% chance is the same as certainty . Okay. But when you're approaching things like this, when you, when the alternative is death, when the alternative is losing 1% is the same as certainty and just approach it as if it's certain, approach it with everything you have and, and approach life that way.TheSimone Collins: only version of you in the future, like the only version that survives to that point is of that 1%. So, of course.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Every single challenge that comes your way as a gift and something to be excited about. And when you have this frameshift, this Lagann is all about literally beating into people, that's a constant motif of, of, of hitting them when they're getting sort of mopey or like, Oh, there's so much suffering in the world.Oh, I've done such a [00:33:00] bad thing. You know, punch them in the face and be like, suck it up.Simone Collins: Which is so different from Evangelion. Also, because there's so many similarities between the male protagonists of each show. You know, they're both young underdog men who lost one or both parents, you know, who then were sort of shoved into a world saving scenario, right?But, like, the framing, the attitude of each, you know, the live to struggle versus struggle to each The live to struggle versus struggle to live attitude of these two different universes also shows up in all these different ways, like even in sexuality. Sexuality in Evangelion is like a traumatic thing.It is deeply traumatic. There's shame and trauma and unhappiness and discomfort. Whereas sexuality, it's not really like explored that much in Gurren Lagann, aside from like heavy fan service, which is studio trigger. What are you gonna do? But like, people are obviously very comfortable with their bodies.People are very open about their [00:34:00] sexuality. Like you alluded to a gay character, for example, who's like super comfortable with his sexuality. And it, you know, they're, they're dressed like their postures. It's also different. It sort of shows, I think also when you don't. live to sort of hyper focus on your suffering and on how hard everything is and how scary everything is.You know, this all things in life sort of switch from being traumatic to being fairly natural which is fun. And I, I like that element of it and I don't think enough people. Talk about it likeMalcolm Collins: you have, I mean, we won't go as deep on the, the anti spiral ideas here, but they, they are important the way that they pervade so many religious and philosophical systems.One of my favorite from you was you were talking about Siddhartha Gautama in one of our morning talks. And the life that he lives. This is the guy who became the Buddha before he left this life of privilege to realize suffering existed in the world. And you pointed out to me that through the iterative improvement of man, [00:35:00] the average American today probably lives a better life with less real, like externally imposed suffering, other than the internal stuff that they create for themselves that Siddhartha Gautama did before leaving his.Posh, perfect existence.Simone Collins: Yeah, where theoretically he couldn't even fathom what suffering was like. And now everyone's like, The suffering I live with. No, no, no, sorry. Siddhartha, in your, in your environment, in an environment way worse than yours actually. Couldn't even fathom what suffering was, but like, how spoiled are we?Malcolm Collins: But I love this idea of, of, of, of going out there. And when you see problems with reality, when you see problems with the world, you know, anti spiral energy. Is about submission and being subsumed by reality by the ultimate reality that surrounds all of us by joining it through a level of harmony. This is what most anti spiral religious thought focuses on and and spiral energy is about basically grabbing reality by the throat [00:36:00] and making it submit to your will.Do you, is it a philosophy based on submission to reality or forcing reality to submit to you? And people could say that like, that's not the real world. We don't live in the world of physics that Gurren Lagann takes place in and I'd push back at it. I'd say it is the real world. They condense the time span, but if you look at this expansion we've seen in human potentiality in 10, 000 years, we've gone from the very first.collection of humans living together in a city to thinking machines. Like it is insane. We, 200 years ago, we're coming up with light bulbs, electricity for the first time. The expansion of human potentiality is something that drives awe deep within me. And I am Like, for us, this show is like, for our kids, it's gonna be like, Bible cartoons, you know?Part of our canon, for sure.[00:37:00] Something we'll talk more to in the future. But I think that this also shows is a lot of these theological ideas that we're talking about.People who like, oh, you're starting a cult, but not really. I mean, these are ideas that have been circling in the mainstream in media for a while. No, we're just condensing them and then pairing them with things like holidays and stuff like that to give our kids a cohesive vision with this theology, but we're hardly the inventors of it.Malcolm Collins: You know, it's very canonical to us, like, in a religious context, because I just think it gets these concepts around artistically so much better than a person could, and with the attitude I want them conveyed with, because I, I, I've always hated within religious systems and stuff like that, or within philosophical systems where the leaders adopt these stuffy attitudes.And that scene is the way to show your status is in penetrability and stuffiness, and thinking you're better than other people, sort of in the way that you talk, like you might try up, oh, beingSimone Collins: also like [00:38:00] invulnerable, like never making. Stake. Whereas Communa will like be like, I'm gonna attack this giant robot with aMalcolm Collins: sword with a gun.And they're like, you know how to use it, right? And he's like, yeah, I know how to use it. Then you see him smashing it with the gun . He had no idea how to use it. But it's, it's, it's this goofy, like if we were to ever create a philosophy around these ideas that persisted intergenerationally, I wanted to maintain within the leadership cast, not this, oh, you know, young man.Like, come learn from me. But what a sign status is deep knowledge, but not allowing that knowledge to create this sheer of invulnerability around you or invulnerability around your ideas and to still have the capacity to be sort of goofy and how outlandish and big your ideas are. And I always want to keep that myself, you know, and people look at it and they're like, Malcolm, it makes you look stupid or silly.And it's like, that's. Kind of the point,Simone Collins: you know, like no [00:39:00] successes is built atop a mountain of failures and those who are too afraid to look dumb or stupid or sheepish sometimes are not going to build success. I mean, there are those rare people who just happened to be the lucky ones who like took one big bet or one big risk and seemed to have made it or somehow managed to hide all of their previous failures, but those people.are very rare. Extremely rare. And I think many of the most successful people that we know of today have made many dumb mistakes. Some are more open about them than others. But it's, it's so important to have that built into a culture and so much of our culture now, even with like emotional stuff, like Gen Y and Z are just dripping with irony.And I think that's because Even with the tiniest, like sharing your opinion about something or showing passionate about something, they don't even want that to come back on them as, as like an embarrassing mistake. And so they just drench everything in irony because then it's like, [00:40:00] Oh, well, I was, I was just kidding.I was just, you know, making fun of it. I wasn't serious about it. Like they're too, they're even afraid. To stand behind their own opinions and sentiments, you know, and I respect that those things change and you might like stand behind something that you don't stand behind in the future, but like, man.Malcolm Collins: But to, to constantly, I, I, I couldn't have worded it better to be able to be this goofy guy who's, who's screwing up, but just has endless belief in the people around him.And that's what's really important. It's not a belief in himself. It's a belief in the people that he is inspiring. And I, and I think that like, when we talked about like, well, how do you keep a group from going bad intergenerationally? How do you prevent this sort of elite philosopher cast of sophists from sort of keeping other people out?It's that you ensure that those people in those sorts of attitudes aren't the attitudes that are socially elevated. That the attitudes that are socially elevated are showing efficacy, showing competence, showing deep [00:41:00] knowledge, but using all of that to lift up the people around you, while not being afraid of And, and not being afraid to have ideas that are so big, they're a little silly and, and that, you know, when you say to them that everyone's gonna laugh, like all of these people, and that's the thing, it starts with everyone laughing at you, as it basically does with Kamina, right?You have these big ideas and everybody laughs at you, and then they This seems to make a little bit of sense. And the people who aren't laughing at him, they seem to have a good life. They seem to be happy with the world right now. You know, they, they seem to have purpose. And then as time goes on, a few less people in the crowd are laughing and a few more are standing besides you.And it just goes on. And as long as you don't. Let that, and this is another important thing, is just because somebody laughed at you once, and this is a constant theme throughout the show as well, just because somebody sided with the anti spirals once, as, as King Genome, the, the, the, you know, again, going [00:42:00] back to this idea of DNA, which are the themes throughout the show was basically carrying out the will of the anti spirals, and he becomes one of their best allies, you know, Vero, one of their best allies, who was on the other side.When somebody's like, I made a mistake, and now I want to try to do better and work with you guys, they should be elevated, Even above people who were say, born into a movement like this, because they've undergone personal growth, which is what this is all about.This idea of iterative and constant personal growth and, and fully accepting that in other people.Simone Collins: Yeah, I totally agree. And I guess I'll have to stop with saying this. You don't have to be an anime fan to get a lot out of Gurren Lagann. It's great. You can just watch summaries and analysis of it.And you know, even for me, I can't really watch studio trigger shows cause there's a lot of action sequences. And for me, My brain turns off when, like, I would literally rather watch someone paint a wall. I would probably find that more, like, interesting. So, but, like, just watch the, [00:43:00] watch some analysis of it.Watch some comparisons with Evangelion. Like, you'll still get a lot out of this show and learn a lot from it, even without watching it. So I just want to say that for people who are like, Oh, I'm not an anime person. Or like, I can't really handle Studio Trigger, like me. Even though I think the animation's amazing, and obviously it's, it's awesome, and they're, they're amazing people.ItMalcolm Collins: was made before Studio Trigger. It was made by Studio Gainax, which then, the team that made Grimlogon built Studio Trigger. Come on, though. Like, It's basically StudioSimone Collins: Trigger, but yes, okay. If you can't handle Studio Trigger, you're not going to be able to handle Grimlogon. It's all there. It's all there.The ridiculous, outlandish lack of physics and everything else. I love it, but I, I can't watch it.Malcolm Collins: And it's about embodying concepts.Simone Collins: Yes. Yeah. 100%. Yeah, like, there's not even consistency between, like, the, the height of some characters in Gurren Lagann, or like, the, the way that running is animated, or all sorts of things, and that's because it really, that's what matters is the concept.It's not some, like, weird, like, well, we have to, you know, follow the rulebook and all this. It's like the anti bureaucracy show, and I love it [00:44:00] so much. I love all of that. My other note, though, and Malcolm Take this seriously. You are obviously the Kamina in our relationship. You are not allowed to die.I know, but IMalcolm Collins: see this show and it gets me, look, I, I think one of the interesting things about the show is it gets you excited about dying after a life well lived. I'm not saying I want to, but what I'm saying is, is that so many people. They know within our theological system, we don't particularly believe in an afterlife in the way that many other systems do.And because of that, they're like, what's the point of all of this? And I think the show beautifully summarizes this,Mark my words, this drill will open a hole in the universe. And that hole will be a path for those behind us. The dreams of those who have fallen, the hopes of those who have risen. of those who will follow. Those two sets of dreams, weaved together into a double helix, drilling a path towards tomorrow!Malcolm Collins: because the clip I'll play about the, the [00:45:00] memories and hopes and dreams of people in the past and the people in the future, sort of blend together into this block chain of human identity.Um, And Well, that's whySimone Collins: we like this Civ. Theme songs to so yeah,Malcolm Collins: but you live forever in terms of how much you contribute to this blockchain of human identity, right? And and you do that through inspiring other people not Like creating a system and then having them follow it rigidly, but by providing a framework for how they can build on themselves.And that's everything that I'm trying to do with my life. Is it'sSimone Collins: very vector based versus pixel based. I love that you scale infinitely. ButMalcolm Collins: that's what it's about, you know, and I, I want to do that for other people. I want, and I, and I want a community where status is based partially in terms of how much somebody can do this.Like I even look at the people within our community already. Like, rae Kahan, where he really embodies this energy for me, this [00:46:00] sort of like, he is well known as like the most respected individual in terms of intelligence in our field.And yet he's just such a goof, you know? And he's always trying to uplift younger people and help them be better and help them do great things. And I,Simone Collins: And he's not afraid to be honest about what he's doing or working on, or like. Even if he's not sure about something, he'll tell people about it. Like, he'll tell people where he's at.Yeah, he, there's both this combination of vulnerability, but also like, he's so there for younger people in his field. It never really changed for his ideas. Yeah.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But so there, you were saying.Simone Collins: He's, he's super there for, for people in his field, like more junior people who are trying to get help.Like we've heard from so many people about things that Reziv has done for them to help them out with like nothing in return. Like he's getting nothing out ofMalcolm Collins: this. And he's What I want to say is I think that that's what should edify his status was in the field. This, this constant uplifting and, and, and selfless uplifting of other people, but also just saying what he.No matter how much it [00:47:00] causes blowback on him and stuff like that, you know, to constantly uplift what you think is true as, as a sign of, of personal status within the community, but also the uplifting. And I just got to go back to this concept as a final closing here of simple diligence. It's not really about ambition.It's not really about hopeless optimism. Those things are important, but simple diligence at the end of the day, it is the key to spiral energy. And when I met you and your sign, your slogan was repeated blunt force. There is no better sign of what's represented by the simple diligence of the drill or the simple diligence of Simone in the show.Because there's also nothing more humbling than, than repeated blunt force and simple diligence of, of basic. You know, within the show, manual labor or the labor of meticulous bureaucracy and uplifting that to something that is beneath those with endless ambition and endless optimism and authority [00:48:00] within the community and having those individuals respect that above all things, not.Respect people just because they're lower in in status in society, but respect them for their industry I I really want to do that and elevate you as an individual and as a husband In the way that Kamina elevates Simone onSimone Collins: the show well and our kids and anyone else who? You know you interact with that's the goal.But yeah, I love you And you're not allowed to die.Malcolm Collins: All right. So I won't, I won't, I'll, I'll keep it going. And, and I will just take this as symbolic of the way I'm supposed to affect the next generation. I mean, yeah, we'll both die. Eventually our generation, I leave. Yeah. You just as the show said, well, hold on. I want to, I want to read that quote about death again, because I absolutely love it.Those who are dead are dead. If we bring them back to life, they will just get in the way of the next generation.Simone Collins: There you have it. Gorgeous. I love you.Malcolm Collins: I love you, too.Simone Collins: So I came back [00:49:00] just now from my ultrasound appointment. And at 32 weeks, not only does baby Indy have a little tuft of hair, which is wonderful. So she's going to be like Titan. But also she's in the 82nd percentile for size. She's already five and a half pounds. So she is going to be a porker. You just keepMalcolm Collins: making them bigger everySimone Collins: time.Now they think she's gonna come out nine pounds. Assuming I'd deliver at 39 weeks and I'm like, yeah.Malcolm Collins: Well, I am excited to hear that. And I am excited that we will have a celebratory dinner tonight. Oh, I'm so excited. Indian. Everybody knows we love Indian, but Get full access to Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm at basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe

We analyze a viral Julie Nolke comedy sketch in which a time traveler from the future begs a woman in the present to have more children to save civilization. We discuss how it nails both the pronatalist talking points around demographic collapse and societal hostility towards breeding, while also skewering the selfishness of modern life. Other topics include the misperception that kids ruin careers and happiness, the injustice of how vital parental work goes unrewarded, and the bleak hedonic treadmill of reality TV that people trade real meaning for.[00:00:00] I am calling from the year 2453, and I am begging you to help us. Oh, s**t. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. Our civilization is crumbling due to our dwindling population. Yes. What can I do to help? You must have children. Oh. Um. Okay. . Uh. It's just that it's not a very good time for me. This is of the utmost importance. It is life or death. Yes. Okay. Okay. I'm just kind of in a really good place with my career. Um, but I don't think I could do both my career and, and save the species.Then the choice is obvious. Totally. Yeah.Malcolm Collins: So I worked with a lot of early hominid skulls and things that you would see frequently. It was like the bones sort of bubbled off from like funguses and it ate somebody's face off while they were alive.And like, this is a fungus. It would be trivial to kill today with antifungal. In historic context, nothing you could do. just bubble your face off, but you kept trugging because you were doing it to make your [00:01:00] children's life better. And we were going through this intergenerational cycle of martyrdom.This generation finally was like, okay, I'm sort of cashing in. I'm not going to pay it forward. You know, with every instance of paying it forward, things got easier. I'm just not going to do it because I deserve whatever I want whenever I feel like it.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Oh, gosh. Anyway, Simone, I am so happy to be here with you today. This morning A friend on Facebook actually posted this and then I, I checked it out and we learned that there was a longer form version of the video on YouTube, but it was a video both making fun of and sympathizing with the pronatalist movement.And it is probably one of the best pieces. Of especially non explicitly right leaning pronatalist comedy I've ever seen and, and it even seems a little like urban monocultury left leaning in its complaints and perspectives on pronatalism. Yeah, thisSimone Collins: is a thoroughly left leaning complaint. Left leaning people are aware of demographic collapse [00:02:00] as anMalcolm Collins: issue.Well, that's an interesting thing is that this is a changing thing that's happening in our society. Yeah. And what we wanted to do is to begin to analyze this, like as various groups wake up to the cause of demographic collapse, or at least the severity of the cause, how are they reacting to it? And what does this portell for the future of once the urban monoculture comes to accept that everybody who complains about fertility collapse, is it like, Some reaving, psychotic, racist.Simone Collins: And hold on. We have to just applaud that you coined a new word, which is a port manto of portend in Tel Portel. I like it. Port.Malcolm Collins: Ohyeah.Simone Collins: That's great. Portel , you're no, you're no hy, but ,Malcolm Collins: yes. I, we have a little bit of organize disorganized schizophrenia the way I, I talk. But anyway, so we are going to, if people can check out our, our schizophrenia.Pretty good spectrum video if that's come out before this one but we have never done like a watching a video [00:03:00] analysis before and we don't really know how to do it with like our faces on the screen. So what we're going to do is I'm going to play segments of the video that you and I will watch together and then I'll cut out the segments of this and put the video in and then it'll come back to us talking about the segment we just watched.Hello? Anyone? Uh, can you hear me? Hello? Whoa. Hi. Oh, thank God. I am calling from the year 2453, and I've used my last time leap to make this call, but I don't have long. A few moments have passed. Oh my God, you're from the future. Yes. And I am begging you to help us. Oh, s**t. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. Our civilization is crumbling due to our dwindling population.We can no longer sustain ourselves. We are going extinct. Oh my god. You must save us. Okay. Yeah. Yes. What can I do to help? You must have children. Oh. Um. Okay. Tell all your friends. Every fertile woman you know. They must have children. Uh. [00:04:00] Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Uh. Is there anything else I can do? No. I have ran countless models that all point to this exact moment where we could undo our downfall.Okay. Uh. It's just that it's not a very good time for me.Malcolm Collins: I love the way they're starting this because it feels very much like us. Like, we are these panicked people who have taken the time to run the numbers. As I always say. Having worked on this issue in South Korea to start like that's when I started caring about this when I was there and coming to the U.S. It really did feel like traveling back in time to a country that was further along in the collapse, knowing all the stupid s**t they would try, like handing out money and stuff like that, that it wouldn't work the blocking immigration that it would exacerbate the problem that there is no natural floor coming back to the U.S. And Getting a chance to try. So I very much feel like this, this woman from the future who is going out there and trying to proselytize this call. So, so I think they, they [00:05:00] captured that very well. But they also, I think, capture the standard urban monoculture initial response, which is they're used to this idea of, like, calls from somebody in the future saying, if you do this now, You know, the future will be a better place, but these things are always token.It's like, don't use straws or something like that. Like they're, they're not things that involve it's recycling. They're not things that involve real genuine sacrifice, like having kids. And there's a reaction of like, Oh, you, you mean you want me to like actually do something. The other thing that she did that I thought was really clever in this is not just say that she specifically needs to go out and have kids.She understands that. The people who actually care about this problem need to spread the word about it, right? And she framed spreading the word in a way that I think is really aligned with what it's actually like to be out there spreading the word. Which is, you sound [00:06:00] insane. Like, go out there and tell all the fertile women you know they have to start getting pregnant.And it's like, yeah, that's what we have to do. But like, it sounds insane.Simone Collins: And Or we end up sounding like religiously conservative mother in laws, mothers in law, and mothers. Just being like, well, when you're gonna have kids, you should have kids. We're the grandkids. Either way you look bad. All right, all right.This is of the utmost importance. It is life or death. Yes. Okay. Okay. I'm just kind of in a really good place with my career. Well, surely you could momentarily put it on hold to save your species. I could. Yep. Yep. Yeah. I could. I could. Um, but I don't think I could do both my career and, and save the species.Then the choice is obvious. Totally. Yeah.. I, I definitely am, obviously this is where I step in and I'm like, This is such a disgusting farce. As if, through, for the vast majority of human civilization, or even humanity, [00:07:00] Women have stopped working to have kids. That, that is such a joke and I'm sure it's created by the concept of the, the nuclear family housewife who stayed at home to be a mother and homekeeper.Simone Collins: As, as another, like, as their, her husband went to work, I think that maybe gave women the impression that like, well, then of course one doesn't work. Are you eating the kid's crackers?Malcolm Collins: There's just a saying, when you're a parent, you get little snacks allSimone Collins: over the house. That you have to, that like, it's a, an either or thing before that for the vast majority of human history.Women worked and women had kids and that's how it worked. And I get that there are many jobs where currently based on current policies, it's, it is impossible. Like if you are a nurse you cannot bring your baby to the hospital with you and care for patients. Now, what I do think hospitals should have in, in, in any pretty much workplace that demands you to be there, it would make a big difference.If they were in house childhood or sorry, if, if they were in house childcare then I get that. [00:08:00] Like there, there are some professions where this is just not an option. But a huge and growing number of professions do allow for you to keep going with your career. AndMalcolm Collins: it's important that they have been, there's been this misunderstanding in society that like the all this young interaction you have with your kids, all these days you spend with your kids, they really matter when they really don't.The vast majority of what matters is the kids genes. To be honest,Simone Collins: like your parents and your parents had a lot of child care support, for example,Malcolm Collins: well, and then after that, after, after jeans, it's like a base stable environment and not being abused, like, and then after that, like, all of the others have parents do is like 10 percent now,Simone Collins: but also like, I would argue that one of the most important roles that a parent plays in a kid's life is as like.A, a, an aspirational figure or a role model and, you know, parentsMalcolm Collins: study show, so they go in [00:09:00] both directions. Like, it's 1 of those things, like, in science, you can find studies to support either view, but the plurality seemed to show that kids was working. Moms actually performed slightly better in terms of emotional health and career success, especiallySimone Collins: younger girls, because they see a female role model who has a job and a career.But.Malcolm Collins: I also really like the framing here that I wanted to catch, which is like, okay, so you're having to choose between, even if this was a choice that you had to make, you're having to choose between saving the species and your personal in the moment, like career and hedonism. And it's like, yeah, but it.You know, it should be an obvious choice. Like, when you think about it, it should be an obvious choice. But it's like, I really don't want that personalSimone Collins: responsibility. But also, our culture does not like the species anymore. Like, they're, they're actually, it's not that interesting of a prospect.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, a lot of the comments under her video, which are maybe worth going through after the video, About, like, would it really be that bad if humanity went extinct, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.We hear this all the time. [00:10:00] We need to mention to people that this is the urban monoculture's perspective. If they are not in it, or they are overly defensive of it, so much that they're delusional about its actual goals they'll be like, no, people don't say that. I'm like, just look at the comments under these videos.They are very, this is the default assumption. Humanity should die. It's not like some edgy outsider case. It's not like the weird extremists. This is the mainstream perspective within this cultural group. Yep.Yes. Right. Yes. Okay. So in that case, I need you to It's just, is there any monetary compensation? Like a, like a tax incentive from the future? Retroactive? I don't, I, I, I don't think so. Well, I, I do gig work, so I don't get mat leave. And even if I did get mat leave, you know, having kids is for the rich.I don't think you understand, this is bigger than you. We are on the brink of disaster. Empires are falling. War spans the globe. You hold the key to saving humanity. Yeah, it's just that kids are super expensive,Malcolm Collins: So [00:11:00] I love this part for a few reasons. One that like the idea that the people in power in our society today have decided that it, you know, well, well, you know, cash handouts don't really work for fertility rates. We should definitely have more of them than we have.Well, yeah. Projects. Talk about it. Cause it's kind of insane.Simone Collins: Yeah. So one of our recent projects for pronatalist. org was to create for every state in the United States, and we're happy to create some for other nations too, we just need to know if there's sufficient demand a guide to all state based resources for parents.You know, anything from early diagnosis of developmental issues, like, learning disabilities or autism to. Full out like childcare support, meals, services, free transportation for minors government programs providing healthcare to minors. What was really astounding to me is there's, there are very, very few states that offer significant benefits to middle or high income [00:12:00] parents.The vast majority of all services, be it free insurance, free childcare Early intervention, or even school choice, which is crazy is first and foremost available to low income parents. So, it's, what's interesting to me is It's actually way, way, way less expensive to have kids. Like it's almost free.It is free in many States to have kids because you get free food for them. You get free childcare, you get free healthcare, you get free early intervention and therapy. Then you get free school choice. So then you can send them to. Private schools, even if you want to there's just, it goes on, like, there are so many resourcesMalcolm Collins: and this is partially one of the reasons that might be driving lower income people to be so much higherSimone Collins: fertility than right.Because their opportunity cost is, is very low. They can, you know, they'll get the child care. They don't have to pay for it. AndMalcolm Collins: this is something I'd really like to advocate to is extending these programs to everyone or giving them to no one. Like, you shouldn't, you shouldn't have it be [00:13:00] free to have as many kids, you know, If this is something that we believe is something we need to offer as a society, then I think we should be offering it more acrossSimone Collins: the board.Yeah, just offer it across the board or don't offer it. And it's, it is, it's really frustrating because we, we thought we're going to be putting together this amazing guide of useful resources for parents and we're going to find anything. I mean, so there, there are still some things like, I mean, you and I with, with an autistic child have benefited from Pennsylvania support of early intervention, meaning that like, if your insurance does not cover ABA therapy for autism.The state will provide supplementary insurance to cover it and that is it's been a game changer for us. So there are some services that are available, but basically what I'm saying is there is a real and very different opportunity cost for middle and upper income parents. But at the same time, still having kids does not have to be prohibitively expensive if you don't make it like that.And we keep arguing that, [00:14:00] like, people are raising kids now as though they are retired incredibly dumb millionaires. They have to be chaperoned everywhere, they have to have their sailing classes and their tennis class, and they have to go to their robotics competition, and they have to go to, you know, this, and they're driven everywhere, you know, soccer competition, and then, you know, tutoring.And no, no,Malcolm Collins: she mentions in this, I'm sorry. Did you have more you wanted to say? No, no, no, no. That I thought was really astute. And it's something that is often lost on sort of the progressive leaning individuals. When we bring up just how bad it's going to be due to low fertility, is it, this is going to lead to the collapse of states and war.And a lot of people just, they do not under like, like they did. They're like, they can understand how less land would lead to that, but not rapidly declining populations. They're like, global warming will lead to war. And I'm like, actually, fertility collapse is much more likely to lead to war. And, and we're literally, global warming will lead to, likely instigated by [00:15:00] fertility collapse, which was the Russia Ukraine war, which Peter Zayan predicted would occur at this time due to fertility collapse.Simone Collins: Well, and keep in mind, so, so global warming will lead to very severe immigration crises and refugee crises. Demographic Collapse leads to war. And you know, the thing is, I think most people watching that video are going to totally miss that point. They're just going to assume, oh, she's riffing on like Terminator style, like, you know, references.And, you know, this isn't actually what would happen. Because people also have this really, really strong vision of Demographic Collapse just means, Oh, fewer people, smaller communities, more space for me, lower rent. Like they don't see how this causes.Malcolm Collins: Which is, which is what it does lead to. It leads to a Terminator like.future. It's going to be bad. Yeah, no, she knows it. She nails it.so. Okay, well, I've gotI got 63 galactic kroner, but with reverse inflation that's gonna be like 50 cents. Yeah, it's not gonna be [00:16:00] enough. Okay, well, um, why don't you have the kids and then you could go back to work after? And then you'd still have that career. Yeah, yeah, I mean I could, but then by the time I jump back into work I'm kind of broke.behind where I was. It's funny, I heard myself say that and then I was like, wait a minute, wouldn't she be behind where she was, especially her male counterparts? That was one of the reasons women get paid less, you know. Yeah, it's this toxic cycle. The gender pay, yes, right, I've heard of that. Well, and then, you know.You gotta work, so your kid needs to go to daycare, and you gotta pay for daycare, which costs the same amount as rent. It's really this, like, catch 22. So you're telling me the people responsible for creating life, possibly the most vital aspect of our civilization, just can't justify it? Yeah, it's kind of a what's in it for me.Right. Right.Simone Collins: So here's the thing. There's so many things. One is I find it really interesting that like, the, the common mainstream view is, oh, if you want me to have kids, you need to give me generous maternity leave. But then also, well, no, I don't want to have [00:17:00] kids because if I go on maternity leave, my career gets stalled and, and thrown back and then I'm no longer interested.Malcolm Collins: We need to denormalize maternity leave and maternitySimone Collins: leave. Yeah, we need, we need to normalize support for mothers as they work through maternity. So, like you've said in the past, and I really love this as a policy position, is if you do not have to work from an office, You should be allowed to work from home, especially if you're a parent, period.You know, you should be allowed to have your infant. And if not, then you should be allowed to bring your infant to the office. And you should be allowed to take the breaks you need to, you know, do breast pumping, whatever, breastfeeding, and have the baby with you. And ideally, again, in house childcare should be a major enrollment benefit.But this, this concept of needing to take leave to have a baby, I think is incredibly toxic. There is no strong historical basis for it, except for like literally like lying in as, you know, like a medieval European woman, which was way deadly, like poor peasant women were able to have just like [00:18:00] plock out kids and they wouldn't die at the same rate because they were still abdominally healthy and active, meaning they could push the poor thing out.Whereas these women who are like, we're forced to stay in bed and actually take, take leave and take time off to have babies. We're like not able to pushMalcolm Collins: anything out. Everyone today believes that they deserve and have a natural right to the life of an aristocrat. And it's justSimone Collins: not even good. It's just not even good.Well,Malcolm Collins: it's not even good. I mean, it comes with all the negatives of an aristocratic life, the ennui, the, like the aristocrats in the past were really not the class you deaf, Definitely most wanted to be. I mean,Simone Collins: obviously, like, we wouldn't want to be aristocrats.Malcolm Collins: No, you'd want to be like a merchant family or something like that.You know, still hard working, something to do every day. But not the, the ennui laying around all day of these aristocratic women. They had terrible existences. That'sSimone Collins: pretty stressful. Pretty stressful. But yeah, no. It's a major cultural norm that has to be gotten over this concept of, Oh, being pregnant [00:19:00] and having an infant takes you out of contention in life period that like, that's like, that, that is the time you should be leaning into everything.I mean, one, when you're waking up every three hours, anyway, there's so much more work you can do but you have to be able to have that flexibility and we don't grant that to mothers. And that's a really big issue. So like that really hits me and it'sMalcolm Collins: this big bugaboo. Hold on. I want to. Talk about something else she does in this, which I think is really interesting, just from a cultural perspective.It'd be really cool if we could see things going this way, is she refers to women who have kids as breeders. And typically, you know, as in the prenatalist movement, breeders are what the opposition calls us. As a way to insult us or try to dehumanize women who choose to have kids. I mean, that's really the goal.Like the left is terrible at recognizing how frequently they turn to dehumanization as a tactic. But but breeders is how they dehumanize. Women who have taken the choice and the costly choice as it is shown in this video to do one of the single most important jobs, if not the [00:20:00] single most important job that any human can undertake in our society.And yet it is a completely unrecognized and unglorified job in our society. Like these women receive nothing for it in terms of thanks really from society. They get looked at like they're crazy people on airplanesSimone Collins: or even their kids these days, because their kids refer to all the trauma that they inflicted uponMalcolm Collins: them.Well, all the made up trauma, because, you know, if you're trying to, as we point out, if you're trying to convert somebody to a cult, the first thing you need to do is drive an emotional wedge between them and their closest support network, which is usually their family. And so psychologists invent trauma, all trauma is self inflicted.You can see our video called this. It's a very interesting take because it goes really into the data on this. Yes. Data. There is data showing.Simone Collins: We're not saying that bad things don't happen to people and that that's terrible. And that shouldn't happen. What we're saying is the way that people interpret it as trauma, which is an additional form of harm is self inflicted.Malcolm Collins: It's self inflicted by the data. And, and, and so, this is, this, I, I [00:21:00] really love to see us retake this word breeders to be like, to, to, to call the people who are, who society relies upon. You,Simone Collins: to own it. It's such a guckyMalcolm Collins: word. Well, I mean, we'll see.Well, the joy a child brings. Well, actually, studies have shown that people without kids are happier and fluffier. Right. Right, because of the aforementioned issues. Right. Yeah. Yeah! It is not a conducive environment. It really isn't. Don't get me started on once we wouldn't have the baby. It's like, it's all dirty looks on the airplane and breastfeeding on public bathroom floors.It is appalling how you treat your breeders. It is. Well, s**t. That's, uh, that's not the answer I was hoping for. Yeah, yeah, uh, sorry about that. Um, is there anything else I can do? No, no, that's the, that's the That's the main thing I, uh, that's the main thing I came for. Shoot. Okay, well, sorry I couldn't be more howl.Oh, no, that's, uh, that's okay. That's all right. It's, uh, it's bleak out there. Oh, my God. For you or me? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It sounds like [00:22:00] you're dealing with some stuff. I am. I am. Yeah. It doesn't get any better. Oh, I'm not surprised.Malcolm Collins: So, what I really love about this from my perspective. Is that in truce, what she is saying is, is, is comical in an inverse way than she thinks it is where she is. Complaining about all of the difficulties of being a mother in today's environment.And one thing is pointed out, which is true, it will not get easier in the future. Like it only gets harder from here. Once our society, like, restabilizes the people who are having kids in the future, they will be having them under much worse conditions than humans who are alive today, at least for a couple generations.And, and, and you see this in the person that she's talking to in this destabilized world where, you know, obviously this woman in this destabilized world you know, she understands the importance of having kids and she's doing it, but in a much harsher environment, and this is also true when you contrast our challenges today with the challenges of our ancestors, you know, [00:23:00] she is.Concerned about social shaming on airplanes or having to do something a little gross on a public restroom floor. Did you know that on average, women used to lose one tooth with every kid they had? Remember you told me that statistic.Simone Collins: No, so one of our friends did, but I can't remember who. Yeah,Malcolm Collins: so, so, the, just, and I, I really like, I feel like people maybe don't understand how hard life was just a couple hundred years ago.Yeah, butSimone Collins: also, like, I've never breastfed a child on a restroom floor.Malcolm Collins: That's, you don't. You don't have to do that. No, that's aSimone Collins: choice. And we've flown a lot with our children but yeah, no. But the,Malcolm Collins: the larger point I'm making here, right, is one, either these are self inflicted things, right, or even, even as far as they are bad, just the life of a human today.Is so free from genuine suffering, even if you are fairly poor is almost astonishing in a historic [00:24:00] context. We have individuals in our society today who are what people would think of as lower class. So this is like the people who like, don't have. A lot of stuff growing up and then they get surprised leaving school that they are expected to work for the rest of their life.They have such of this aristocratic mindset, you know, that they aren't worried really about foodborne illnesses in a major way. You know, they have the refrigerated food. They have all of these flavors that we used to fight wars over for like spices and stuff. And now it's like, Oh, which Dorito am I going to pay, you know, a dollar for?They have. So much food that their biggest problem is obesity, not, not a lack of food. They have they basically have no major diseases anymore. And, and I mean this quite seriously. People do not understand how horrifying it was to get a disease in a historic context. Most people were living with.Just tons and tons and tons of just these terrible diseases. I worked at the Smithsonian studying human evolution. So I worked with a lot of [00:25:00] early hominid skulls and things that you would see frequently. It was like the bones sort of bubbled off from like funguses and it ate somebody's face off while they were alive.And like, this is a fungus. It would be trivial to kill today with antifungal. In historic context, nothing you could do. just bubble your face off, but you kept trugging because you were doing it to make your children's life better. And we were going through this intergenerational cycle of martyrdom.This generation finally was like, okay, I'm sort of cashing in. I'm not going to pay it forward. You know, with every instance of paying it forward, things got easier. I'm just not going to do it because I deserve whatever I want whenever I feel like it.Simone Collins: Well, I mean, there's also the view of like, Oh, I do see the future as bleak and terrible.You know, I can feel good about myself for not having any of my descendants goMalcolm Collins: through that. If you think the goal of human life is generally utilitarianism and you have like the ethical mindset of a child. Yeah, I mean, it is,Simone Collins: it's, I'm sorry, Malcolm, but most people do get over it. [00:26:00]Malcolm Collins: I'm sorry, I just don't get over how stupid it is.It is, it is, honestly, general utilitarianism and negative utilitarianism. Negative utilitarianism. Both are, I think, are pretty childish, but general utilitarianism could also be used to justify what you were talking about if you think the world is going to be especially bleak in the future. You know, sort of aggregating human happiness.I always say it's like you had a bunch of paperclip maximizing AIs together in a room, and, and they decide that good is more paperclips, and bad is less paperclips. And one guy is like, look, guys. I know that we are programmed to like paperclips, but I really don't think that they have intrinsic value. Maybe we should like, try to think outside of paperclips for a second here.And then another one's like, well, you wouldn't like it if I stopped you for making paperclips. And then one's like, well, yes, obviously I am programmed to like paperclips. But what I'm saying here is. Can we think theoretically outside of what we were pre coded to do? You know, as we say, happiness is just, you know, what sort [00:27:00] of was pre code and pain is just sort of what was pre coded into us by you know, which of our ancestors, the, the, the emotional subsets that motivated reproduction and survival and more offspring among our ancestors.It's not like a true thing of the universe. It's an accident. It's a genetic scar.Well, uh, okay. I will let you go back to your, your show. What are you watching? It's, uh, okay.It's a show called Real Housewives. Ah! About real housewives, I gather. No. Not at all. No. Do you want to watch an episode? Yeah, yeah, I got, I got time. Okay, yeah. Oh, that's weird. I didn't think you had aliens yet. Oh, no, they all have plastic surgery. Fascinating. A beauty standard from the past? Hmm. Mm hmm.Yeah, it's elective. They, they choose to look like that. ..Malcolm Collins: Yeah it also covers, I think, very well, like, what we say humor is. Humor is something that makes sense in context, but is still [00:28:00] surprising you know, to us, it, it, it, this is our theory of humor every one of these things, you know, is about real housewives, right?Oh, no, not at all. Like, it's surprising because, you know, it's called the real housewives, but you're like, yeah, but obviously also they're not real housewives. The What was the other joke there that I loved? I didn't know you had aliens yet. Yeah and um Well, what ISimone Collins: think is most meaningful about this is, like, the default happy life that the present day woman has is And don't get me wrong, I watch shitty TV.I love shitty TV. But I do not feel The deep level of contentment and satisfaction from it that I do from spending quality time with our kids. And, and so I just like, I would, I would say that like sort of the default. hedonic comfort that we are choosing to opt for instead of having kids is actually not that good.And like, you know, we, we are, this is what your life will be without kids is, is you are doing the male or [00:29:00] female or non binary equivalent of watching the Real Housewives, whatever that may be. Maybe you start collecting cars, maybe you you know, get really into OnlyFans, like whatever. But it's not going to be ThoseMalcolm Collins: are addictive, right?Those cracker? No, I mean, oh, I love these. There's so many little kids snacks that you forget how good they are. Yeah. But by the way, for people who are watching the audio of this, what, what are these called? Cheese toast.Simone Collins: Cheese Toast.Malcolm Collins: Cheese. Toasted cheese. So this is a, aSimone Collins: no no. The name of them is T-O-A-S-T.Cheap.Malcolm Collins: But I, I think, are we,Simone Collins: are we going for like endorsements now? Are we trying to get a sponsorship from Coors and Coca Cola and Toasty?Malcolm Collins: I'd love it when we get to that stage. So she I think that's the lifestyle that she's portraying here is really the epitome of the lifestyle that people are actually afraid of giving up.They say they're busy. They say they're overloaded and they're not accountable at the time that they're not doing [00:30:00] anything in bed and just not doing that much with their lives and that their lives really are quite sad. And this is something we're increasingly seeing in media. Is people getting older and realizing just how much they actually did give up by not having kids.One of the things that sort of stabilized in their lives and it's no longer an option for them. And we, as a foundation, keep having people reach out to us, Oh, I'm too old to have kids. And we're like, that's why we spend our money trying to get younger people to have kids. Not so, you know, Frankenstein you into having kids because it would cost the amount of people we can reach with the amount that we can help just one, you know, 45 year old woman have kids.It's astronomical. It's biblical. And so it's about convincing people earlier that, like, this is something they need to take seriously. And yeah, just, just the indolence of, of life is really sad that this is what they're trading it for. This is what they're trading the future of our species for. But in many ways, I think it's a good thing.And, you know, we, we have the track to it will have gone live before this on [00:31:00] this is God's will because really the people who succumb to these idle pleasures over the effort of intergenerational human intergenerationally expanding the human. Potentiality this intergenerational cycle of martyrdom that humanity has gone through.If we take them to space, you know, that's dead weight, right? Like we, we actually do need to go through this crucible as a species before we can become a interstellar empire. And so, yeah. All right. We'll watch the last bit here.Simone Collins: And I think that's it. I think it's just an ad.Malcolm Collins: Bummer. Oh, but what I can do is read some of the comments.Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. And I have it on TwitterMalcolm Collins: I'm just astonished that the human race lasted until 2453.Simone Collins: One person says on Twitter, the conclusion was still morally insane.Malcolm Collins: What was the conclusion? Oh,Simone Collins: like the woman from the future was like, Oh yeah, why would you like, yeah, nevermind.Sorry. I guess there's, this is not going to happen. [00:32:00]Malcolm Collins: I'm getting the exact opposite here. I love the social critique and how they both just have to agree that a person could see this, understand how bad things get and still be like, yeah. Nah, it's easier just to sit in bed and watch The Real Housewives.Like, I need to be paid a dramatic amount by the government to think about doing anything else.Simone Collins: Now here's one reply that, like, represents a huge portion of the prenatalist movement that gets my goat. One guy says So, feminism is inherently antinatalist and egocentric. I already knew that, but it's nice to hear you admit it.And That's, like, I, I hate blaming antinatalism or demographic collapse on feminism because it is on hedonism, it is on culture no longer supporting families, this is a, a team effort and both men and women are failing here. And I, I, it's, it's not just that feminism is inherently anti natalist and egocentric.We know so many women who want to meet men [00:33:00] and want to have kids. And those men are like, well, but I'm going to be polyamorous. Okay. And they're like, well, but how am I supposed to raise a kid with you? Am I just, just supposed to like. Take a bet and hope that you don't, like, choose another primary partner and leave me with a kid alone.Like, this is a, it takes two to tango, and no, feminism is not solely responsible for demographical lapse, and it really pisses me off that people imply with comments like these that the solution is to just Remove female rights.Malcolm Collins: One of the comments mentions as well here that happiness goes up if you have kids after 25 and are in a stable relationship. It goes down if you have them too early or when unprepared. And I think that's probably true from the data from what I've seen. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's Kids are a responsibility, and we believe that life should be without responsibilities now, you know.As Wish has taught a generation, this is the latest Disney movie, anyone who doesn't just immediately grant everyone's wish with no effort is a [00:34:00] villain. Anyone who places responsibilities or reasonable expectations on individuals, and those individual expectations of themselves, how could you be so horrifying?This reminds me of an upcoming episode. We'll be recording soon on Starship troopers, the movie being a quote unquote, satire of fascism. And it's like, but everything in that movie is better than our current universe and it is a democracy it's just. Uh, democracy in which people have to sacrifice something. A portion of their life to either military or civil service in order to vote. Um, and they're like, well, that's, that's the key evil of it.Right. People have to make sacrifices. Um, and, and that's really where we've come as a society is the mere fact that somebody is asking you to make some sort of even token sacrifice to get something in exchange. That's what seen is the core evil.Malcolm Collins: Well, anyway, I was glad we got to go over that together because I really liked that piece and we'll see It's a reallySimone Collins: funny skit too, like, it's justMalcolm Collins: well done. It's a good skit, yeah, she did a great job. I, I do [00:35:00] really want to see a growth of a movement like this, and this is one of the things that does sort of scare me, and so now I'll get to the scary part of all of this.Okay. Which is as the left begins to recognize that fertility rates are really an issue, they need to more institutionalize their answer as to why they're not doing anything about it. And the answer of racism just doesn't really hold water anymore with the rapid fall of fertility rates in Latin America.So it seems that the answer they're coming to is humanity should just die. And that there's no reason for humans to be here or anything like that. Like that's how they justify their it, it's so interesting. It really reminds me of the right back in the day when people would point out like environmental destruction and they're like, well, the environment is here to serve us.It's like a disposable thing. And when we're done, then we'll be raptured. So don't worry about it. And. The left very much treats humanity in the same way as like a disposable thing. We've had our go. And I think that [00:36:00] what scares me is if this becomes a mainstream position, if the antinatalists get into mainstream positions of power throughout society and you can watch our antinatalist videos to see just how unhinged they are.You know, one of the things I was looking at. About antinatalist philosophy, because antinatalists seem to think it's like the most logical like, like obvious thing. And I'd look to see if any other group in human history had ever come to their possessions. Because, you know, there's been a lot of philosophers in human history.No, it's a completely new movement. Really no one had these ideas before the 1900s. The, the, like the asymmetry hypothesis and stuff like that. And if you want to see our Rebuttals to these you can look up our video. There's a group that wants all humans dead and is weirdly reasonable about it. So the antinatalists as they grow, they become a real threat because a lot of them really do want to end all life on the planet.The last time we had a world conflict. You know, I, I think the song at least the Russians love their children too,view It would be such an ignorant thing [00:37:00] to do If the RussiansMalcolm Collins: you know, shows that no matter how bad the conflict got in the nuclear war, we had this understanding that at least those in power across society loved their children and wanted humanity to continue on into the future.Yeah. We no longer have that guarantee with this gross of the antinatalism within the leftist communities. Yeah. And what it means is in order to self justify, justify why they are unwilling to make sacrifices on behalf of our species and just do whatever, because the left has created this promise of like, do whatever you want, whenever you want, and everything will turn out fine, you know, so long as it doesn't interfere with other people's lives and of course, this is unable to motivate the type of sacrifice that's necessary for intergenerational fertility rates.Well, we no longer have this guarantee because this idea is going to spread that our opponents do love their children to or do care about the [00:38:00] species anymore. They are willing to, if they don't get their way, like a child throwing a temper tantrum, because many of them still have this very childlike mindset, just hit the button to end everything.And then, and they do muse about it. You can go to the FLSM subreddit, like, how can I get control of enough content. You know, nuclear weapons to nuke the world, you know, and it is, it is going to become an increasingly common mindset. And I think an increasingly huge threat to the world. And I do not think that it's something that people are really coming through through logic.As you have seen in our video, this is the current anti natalist community. Most of these people, you know, if you look at the statistics, they disproportionately show narcissistic traits this psychotic antisocial traits, stuff like that. But I think that a lot of people who are just sort of NPCs and need to justify why they who see themselves as good people aren't trying to save the future of our species now that it is clear that we have this existential threat.The only answer they can come to is it's better to let the species die. And then they'll start fighting for this made up [00:39:00] answer that justifies their current behavior. Yeah.Simone Collins: No, it's, it's it's bleak, but I love when people can frame something bleak in a fun way. That makes me laugh. So thank you. Well, I love you, Simone.I love you too so much, and I'm glad that you have the level of creativity required to point out that, oh, you can have a family and not give anything up. Everything can be yes and, and it totally can, which I love. So thanks for that. All right. LoveMalcolm Collins: you.I justSimone Collins: love the mild smile that appears on your face sometimes.Oh God. If I were a good illustrator, I would illustrate a page of all of the different Malcolm faces. Because they're so entertaining. You've all these different ones you do, you're different Malcolm faces.Malcolm Collins: Oh gosh, what, do you like seeing me laugh and stuff when I'm No, you haveSimone Collins: like all these different little weird things you do with your [00:40:00] face, and I love it, and I want to illustrate them all, but lack thetalent.Malcolm Collins: Well, I'll be able to see whatever you were laughing at this time, because this is recorded, in editing.Simone Collins: That's true, yeah, I just had To capture that one face you do, but I always try to capture and then as soon as I try to take my face,Malcolm Collins: but hold on, we got to talk about this show is Simone the show. Yeah. Get full access to Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm at basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe

We analyze modern progressivism/wokeness as a cultural parasite that has religious qualities. Born from Hicksite Quakerism, it survives by infiltrating institutions, then expelling members with outside allegiances. It directs anger towards minority members, allowing powerful people to avoid responsibility. We argue it's not a true continuation of enlightenment values, as it ignores science when inconvenient and can increase inequality to reduce momentary emotional discomfort. Ultimately, its childlessness and hostility to families importing foreign children reveals its goal of cultural erasure.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] I often say that the urban monoculture loves the LGBT community in the same way Hamas loves hospitals. It sets up the most imperious elements of its operation in the hearts of vulnerable communities to divert attacks.against it to those communities, allowing it to claim the moral high ground. This can be seen in its tendency to use the rainbow flag to show conquest over institutions. After a mosque, synagogue, et cetera, has been conquered. They will hang this out front to direct anger away from the culprit of the cultural erasure and towards the LGBT community.No. If you have fallen to victim to their propaganda, you might be saying, oh, but what's the difference? I mean, the vast majority of gay people are Progressive's right.45% of gay men in the last election cycle voted for Donald Trump.Malcolm Collins: People are like, no, it needs to redirect the anchor at the LGBT community, it needs that the LGBT community has its loudest voices, and it's like, no, it doesn't, it controls our media, it controls our school system, it could use powerful people.To, to [00:01:00] be the scapegoat but it doesn't, it uses the vulnerable members of its community to be the scapegoats to be the, the, the biggest proponents of the most imperious aspects of the culture and the loudest proponents, you know, when you go on tick tock and you see the craziest ultra progressive viewpoints, they are people in these communities.​Simone Collins: The stage at which I can't feel my fingertips anymore.Malcolm Collins: I love that you And you're the one who enforces this on the family, to be clear. I always say that you can indulge yourself when you want. I'm notSimone Collins: enforcing this on the children. They say, repeatedly, I love the cold. They preferMalcolm Collins: the cold. You are an amazing woman, Simone, and I appreciate how austerely you live because it helps us stay focused on what matters, which is moving things forward for our species during this particular time of challenges that we live in.And one of the biggest challenges has really made clear to me when we were talking to a reporter recently, and they were asking for more [00:02:00] clarification on the urban monoculture, right? And it made me realize that one of the mistakes that people can make when dealing with the urban monoculture is to think that it has the similarities it has because it is true.But that is not the case. And so I'm actually going to start by reading my response to the reporter about the urban monoculture. Dive rightSimone Collins: in, friend.Malcolm Collins: While the urban monoculture is not the sole cause of demographic collapse, no realistic solution to demographic collapse is possible without addressing the issues posed by the urban monoculture. The fertility rates within all cultural groups are crashing, but the proximity of a group to the urban monoculture is directly correlated to the speed of the crash.Worse, cultural Any family attempts will be fought by the urban monoculture insofar as it deviates from the urban monoculture, which is definition, which it definitionally will due to the monoculture's low fertility rate. The urban monoculture is the dominant cultural group in the world today and one of the descendants of European [00:03:00] imperialism.It is what many call wokeness, progressiveness, et cetera. It sees itself as naturally superior to all other cultural groups and perspectives, seeing them as essentially backward savages. And it's imperative is to over all of the world's population. What makes it hazardous is the urban monoculture has the lowest fertility rate of any cultural group in the world.As such, it only survives by parasitizing children from nearby demographically healthy cultural groups. Usually these are conservative religious groups or importing families from geographically distant cultures and converting their children. This creates an existential problem in our society that I predict will be the core source of conflict over the next century.The dominant cultural group, the group that controls the school system and mass media, must attempt to convert children from neighboring cultures to keep its population numbers stable. Conversion targets of the urban monoculture naturally see the industrial conversion of their children as a threat.There are high fertility groups in every country, but they are all quote unquote weird, where weirdness is defined by cultural distance from the dominant cultural group [00:04:00] in society, the urban monoculture. These groups look like weird secular religions like our family has, ultra orthodox Jews, quiverfuls, tradcasts, etc.The problem is, even if the urban monoculture wanted to stop its industrial conversion system, it couldn't. If it did, its population would quickly collapse, and it would lose the political and bureaucratic power it has used to subjugate its neighbors, who are at this point very angry. It has proverbially caught the tiger by the tail.The longer it holds the tiger, the angrier the tiger gets, but if it lets go, things will get bloody. Political parties around the world are beginning to drift into two factions, one representing the urban monoculture and its goal of cultural genocide, and the other representing a diverse alliance of those attempting intergenerational preservation of their cultural identity.As to what the urban monoculture is, it can be hard to explain, because once one converts, unlike other cultures, it does not demand they identify as a member. They just have to adopt as perspectives, values, practices, morality, ideology, and cosmology. To understand this in practice, ask an ultra [00:05:00] progressive Jew, Muslim, Catholic, feminist, et cetera, what their views are on gender, relationships, the nature of the universe, morality, sexuality, marriage, our relation to the environment, et cetera, and you will get nearly identical answers.Were you to pose the same question to a conservative I would also note here that the convergent position of the urban monoculture is not due to quote unquote science as it will regularly ignore science when it conflicts with the culture's canon just as quickly and aggressively as religious extremists do.Now I'm not going to go further here because it was actually this last point that I really want to expand upon. Many people, when they look at the convergent beliefs that you have among progressive Catholics or progressive Jews or progressive Muslims. They say these convergent beliefs are just science, right?And it very clearly is not true. It's not true in the field of genetics. It's not true in the field of demography. And, and, I wanted to pull up a few instances of this that we've seen recently. So [00:06:00] one I wanted to share with you is this insane graph that about 70 percent of liberal 12th grade girls believe women are discriminated against in getting a college education, despite the fact that women attain more bachelors, masters and PhD.degrees than men. There are literally 11 times. So 11, 000 percent more women's only scholarship than men's only scholarships in the U. S. The level of distortion to reality you have to have to believe this. I mean,Simone Collins: I'll still just look at rates of college graduation and attendance, male to female. There is an obvious skew.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and it's something we see with demographic stuff. You know, we'll talk with reporters about demographic stuff and they'll say, demographers say, this isn't an issue. You cannot predict this stuff long term. I'm like, but you literally can. I can ask the younger generation how many kids they plan to have.I [00:07:00] can look at trailing indicators like rates of religiosity. I can look at every aspect of data we have and it says it's going to get worse over time. I can look at countries that are further ahead of us and collapse. So they have this distortion field. That is not science and it's very important that we call it out as not science or not just what is culturally just.So is it just to lie to people? Like, is it culturally just, but this, this is a huge problem, right? Is there like, we are not erasing these cultures, you know, when a culture becomes sufficiently progressive, it hasn't been. Erased even though they all fly the same flag now, you know, which we'll talk about in a second.You know, I go to an ultra progressive mosque and I go to an ultra progressive church and I go to an ultra progressive synagogue. They'll have the same flag in front of every one of these churches. You know, they, they, they. They're like, oh, well, that's just an interesting coincidence. You know, they, they [00:08:00] are trying to protect a, a vulnerable group.And I'm like, well, there's lots of vulnerable groups in society. Why are they all converging around the same vulnerable group in terms of the flags that they're flying? Which goes to something that I often say, which is the urban monoculture loves the LGBT community. In the same way Hamas loves hospitals which is to say they are using this community in a community that is in some ways genuinely vulnerable to redirect anger that would otherwise be Pointed at the larger problem, which is the urban monoculture towards a discriminated subgroup.And then they use that misdirection and the danger that they caused individuals of that subgroup through their. blatant proselytization and attempts to deconvert children using our education system and mass media to anger against this one specific subset of the population, which to be honest, I don't [00:09:00] even know, like, do most game in even still support Democrats?I could look this up. Well, I'll look it up after an edit in the, in editing,I called it.45% of gay men in the last election cycle voted for Trump over Biden and 51% voted for Biden. So it's basically half and half about now. And I suspect it's going to flip in the next election cycle or the one after that.Malcolm Collins: but yeah I thinkSimone Collins: they, I think they do pretty overwhelmingly. Then there's just like the Lincoln Republicans and that's it.Just to clarify, it turns out her intuition was wrong. And that it's about half and half right now, and likely moving towards majority Republican in the next cycle. And I also remind our audience of this. Any of you who are right-leaning and maybe underestimate just how much the gay community votes Republican. Or how amenable they are to joining the Republican party in mass at least, Gay men. So it's, it's really best to not antagonize them because they really [00:10:00] are on our side and they are not the same in terms of these far crazy far left, you know? Extremist transactivist and stuff like that.Most gay men are very similar to your average Republican..Malcolm Collins: But it's, it's, it's getting, it's The, the level to which they basically been able to pull the wool over society's eyes pointed out in the studies done on for example, like they'll take another discriminated group that there'll be like they'll elevate to a stupid degree, to a degree that it hurts the community, like the black community.If you look at areas where Democrats have been in control for longer, hispanic groups and black groups have larger distances in contrasted in both earnings and scores on tests when contrasted with the white population. So the policies that are being implemented by progressives are hurting these disadvantaged communities.And this is really obvious in the data. ButSimone Collins: in other words, like statistically speaking, and we're not, we're not saying necessarily there's causation, but. [00:11:00] If I were a minority in the United States, I would rather be in a Republican dominated area, a conservative area, because Well, youMalcolm Collins: will do better and your kids will do better.Yeah, exactly. Which is wild because youSimone Collins: assume that, of course, all, you know, Democratic progressive policies are meant to, at first and foremost, favor and help minorities and those in need.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but I think that this is really worth drawing attention to because The illusion that what these communities are converging on when they have been infected by this memetic virus is truth is objectively wrong.It is a religious extremist position that is as disconnected from science and as disconnected from reality as most Small c conservative religious traditions. Now, I would say that when you get to like ultra conservative religious traditions, you get a higher level of disconnection for reality. But when you're talking about, you [00:12:00] know, a normal, I'd say conservative Christian or conservative Jew, they're probably about as disconnected from mainstream science as progressives are.I mean, they will deny when I will talk to them, I will say, well, these human traits have a genetic component to them. And they'll say, no, they don't. And I'm like, Like this isn't a new field like we've been studying this for a long time like yeah They obviously do the way a person votes their personality has a genetic component But it's not just the research like if you know a human being with kids you would see this And they're like well, what about our dip adopted kids?That would be unfair and it's like well If you know someone was adopted kids You'll see that those kids are much more different from their parents than than people without adopting kids. It's just Something you can see if you look at the evidence, even anecdotal evidence within your own life. You really have to blind yourself or like never have been around a child to not realize how much of our personality and the way we act is heritable because my kids are doing all sorts of stuff that is like me that I know I didn't teach them.Undeniable. But I also want to continue here with [00:13:00] reading what I wrote. I wanted to have a short interlude there because didn't want it to be like a boring just read the piece thing. The urban monoculture parasitizes cultural movements until it becomes the dominant cultural force in them. Then it expels the members that still have adherence to the group's former ideals and culture, wearing that group's identity and history like a skin suit.It then speaks through the mouth of. This marionetted corpse to claim its trials as its own. I mentioned the feminist culture because it presents an excellent case study of a phenomenon. I have outlined it as to what fighting the urban monoculture looks like. The most important thing we can do is build a school system, not dedicated to cultural genocide.That is what we are doing with the Collins Institute. And I included a clip for her, which I'll play here.If we combine our music, she'll see that music unites all trolls, and that we're all the same, and that she's one of us! Poppy, I mean no disrespect, but King and Queen, anything but that. Why not? I can make it right. History's [00:14:00] just gonna keep repeating itself until we make everyone realize that we're all the same.But we're not all the same. It's why all our strings are different, because they reflect our different music. Denying our differences is denying the truth of who we are.Malcolm Collins: But I'll, I'll go a bit further into like the nature of the urban monoculture because there's this one moment that really got to me when somebody said, what is wokeness to someone and the person couldn't respond.And I was like, how stupid is that? Like, like to say, like, of course they couldn't respond. If you say, what is a culture, that's a very difficult thing for a normal person to answer. Like, if you say, what is Judaism? Right? Like, you can, you can give a few, like, doctrinal opinions, but, like, that's not really what it is as a cultural group.So, so, I, I wrote a quick piece on this that we can hopefully help explain to people. What is the urban monoculture? Cultural groups are difficult to define and summarize. Consider you asked me to explain European imperial culture. I would say it's a culture that saw everyone outside of it as [00:15:00] deplorable and lesser, and believed it had a manifest destiny to enlighten these individuals children and bring them up to date with the quote unquote civilized world.Yet, this definition would apply equally to the urban monoculture it gave birth to. Were you to ask me to explain orthodox Jewish culture, I could summarize core beliefs, important texts to the culture, and holidays, but that does not really capture the full culture. For example, Jews a thousand years ago would appear the same as Jews today, if I use that explanation.But culturally, they are extremely different. For that reason, I find the best way to describe a cultural group that is to de For that reason, I find the best way to describe a cultural group is to describe its evolutionary history. In the case of the urban monoculture, that is something we explore at length in the Fragmented Sky to Crafting Religion, which we would argue it is something of a memetic supervirus that evolved out of Hicksite Quakerism.The urban monoculture's belief system is most heavily defined by the belief the goal of society is to remove as much, in the [00:16:00] moment, emotional pain as possible, and thus it is a negative utilitarian in structure. However, it has many other odd ideological structures and traditions. For example, the urban monoculture claims to love diversity, but also does not believe there are any differences between genders, cultures, ethnicities, etc.Why would diversity be a thing of value if we are all exactly the same? It really means it values diversity in its victims. So Simone, I was wondering if you had any comments on this or areas on this you want to elaborate in terms of understanding it as this like unified religious and cultural structure.Simone Collins: Yeah, I mean, I I appreciate your highlighting it. And I think the important thing is I grew up in this culture, right? And I always remember thinking how crazy people outside of this cultural group were for not trusting the science and not believing in science. And now we live in this era where like they're presented with.[00:17:00]Peer reviewed science, like even by their own standards, you know, through, through the processes that they acknowledge are legitimate, they are denying certain truths. It is, it is reallyMalcolm Collins: wild. What disagrees with dogma is not science to them because it's just defined by what agrees with dogma. I can'tSimone Collins: emphasize the extent to which.They wholeheartedly see what they're viewing as truth, as science, as, as the factual basis of things and those who disagree with them as being backward, uneducated Bible thumping or Nazi esque or racist or whatever. Enemies, and it is the ignorance of their enemies that, that makes them so evil and dangerous.It is not like, Oh, we're dealing with a smart opponent that we must, you know, strategize around. It's never that mindset. The mindset is you guys are so. [00:18:00] Dumb and full of hate. And you're just afraid andMalcolm Collins: that is that not the way that imperial europe saw the communities it was contacting It is a direct descendant.No, no,Simone Collins: no, no, it didn't. No, no No, like when you actually look at its burden colonies as in colonism as in the american colonies condescension Was the word that was used and it was a word that was seen as As being a noble term, condescension was being of a person of culture, of education, et cetera, who, who benignly and.Kindly condescended to those who maybe were less educated than them but didn't like hate them for it.Malcolm Collins: But do you not see elements of this white man burdens mindset in this viewpoint? Oh,Simone Collins: yes, certainly in the progressive viewpoint today. Yeah but uh,I don't even I don't even know I don'tMalcolm Collins: Dehumanization of the outsider is is really core to their community [00:19:00] and and you look at like where they ignore science So the way they define science, it's like the way they define racism like racism has become a meaningful term because to be racist if i'm like How am I racist?I don't look down on black people and I have black friends, I engage with the black community as equals, and they're like, well, you're racist because you are not progressive in your views of race. Racism becomes defined, and this is why they'll be like, oh, this black person is a racist, you'll see like a white person saying this, because they have defined racism as agreeing with the progressive stance on race, and not as seeing people of different ethnic groups as truly separate and this is how they have begun to re institutionalize racial segregation in our society.You know, you look at places like California now and they have separate alert platforms for black people and native Americans and then they have for white people, then they have from the amber alert system, they have the ebony alert system and the feather alert system. God, ISimone Collins: forgot that. And it sounds so racist.That [00:20:00] sounds so incredibly racist.Malcolm Collins: When it is incredibly racist because they are a racist community, when you define racism as things that disagree with the progressive team's value set, then they don't notice when racism creeps into their values. It's noSimone Collins: holds barred. It's just like fully flamboyant racism andMalcolm Collins: They are incapable of recognizing it was the definition they had created.And this is the same as true around like trans stuff. If I'm like, well, puberty blockers really like the evidence that that is not harmful is not as strong as like, I've, I've seen a lot of studies that bring up serious, serious concerns about the puberty blockers. And they're like, but it isn't science because it disagrees with what we want.Like science is defined by what they want. Do you have a, in, in. This creates a problem in outsiders trusting them because as soon as you see this and you realize that science may align with something that progressives wants like global warming or something like that, there's really no reason [00:21:00] to trust the data because even if global warming was not trusted.happening. They would be saying all of the exact same things they're saying about global warming because it gives them more state power and stuff like that. And and it's really hard to believe that global warming is happening as a conservative. When you see them, the progressives, the green party in Germany, shutting down the nuclear power plants was no viable alternative and just creating more carbon.One of the things that progressives often accuse us, the pronatalists, you know, and it's true, you know, we're trying to bring the best of the best of humanity together to take to the stars, to, you know, reform this planet, to do amazing things in the future, and they're like, so you want to leave this sinking ship?Like, you don't want to fix it? And I'm like, we tried. We built the nuclear power plants. Those were put up by conservatives. We, Elon, for example, he built Tesla. He tried to make emissionless cars popular. He did more to making them popular than anyone else. And now you tar and feather him because he also promotes free speech?[00:22:00] Because that is out of control. Because free speech is an existential threat to people who control information in a society. If, if, if one cultural group controls mass media and they control the school system, then of course, freedom of speech is an existentially threatening idea to them because they can't have a free market of ideas where people can point out the things that we're pointing out, you know, we, where, where truth becomes a danger to them.Simone Collins: Well, so, okay, if, if we're saying that. This form of toxic progressivism is a virus. I'm sorry. If we're saying that this form of toxic progressivism is a religion, does that change the tactics that people should use to defend themselvesMalcolm Collins: from it? To address it? The analogy I use is it's a religion in the same way that.Contagious canine venereal cancer. So, canine type of cancer that's contagious is a dog. It is a, it is a parasitic cancer that evolved out of a religion, but it is not a [00:23:00] religion. It doesn't have all of the code it needs of the cultural group to sustain itself. It absolutely can only survive through cultural parasitism.It can only survive by taking the children of other people because it lacks the, the cultural DNA that motivates reproduction and self sacrifice. Which, which I actually talk about a bit later in this piece. It's not a piece, but like email I sent, which I was like, okay, I should probably share this. It also has an ethnic, sexual, and gender based dominance hierarchy bordering on a caste system, whereby the status of each of these traits is determined by the perceived trait's impact on the status in the plurality of neighboring on status in the plurality of neighboring cultures.This provides differential pressure for individuals with these traits to convert and loudly proselytize the more bizarre and nonsensical elements of the monoculture. I often say that the urban monoculture loves the LGBT community in the same way Hamas loves hospitals. It sets up the most imperious elements of its operation in the hearts [00:24:00] of vulnerable communities to divert attacks.against it to those communities, allowing it to claim the moral high ground. This can be seen in its tendency to use the rainbow flag to show conquest over institutions. After a mosque, synagogue, et cetera, has been conquered. They will hang this out front to direct anger away from the culprit of the cultural erasure and towards the LGBT community.And I would remind listeners here again, that 45% of gay men voted for Donald Trump in the last election cycle.It's like bull baiting with a red flag to get the bull to attack the wrong location.. Or even more hilariously they've dressed, a child all up in red and let him run around the ring was the bull chasing him so that they can merrily pick it off while it's distracted.Malcolm Collins: Again, I need to be clear. There is no agency or plan in any of this here. These are all just culturally evolved mechanisms. The inter, The iteration of the culture that did this outcompeted the [00:25:00] ones that actually tried to protect these communities. And this is something I want to take a, a, a, a quick aside on here, because there isn't, people are like, no, it needs to redirect the anchor at the LGBT community, it needs that the LGBT community has its loudest voices, and it's like, no, it doesn't, it controls our media, it controls our school system, it could use powerful people.To, to be the scapegoat but it doesn't, it uses the vulnerable members of its community to be the scapegoats to be the, the, the biggest proponents of the most imperious aspects of the culture and the loudest proponents, you know, when you go on tick tock and you see the craziest ultra progressive viewpoints, they are people in these communities.They are not. The, the actors who have security, they are not the politicians, they are not the ultra wealthy tech company CEOs who take the most milquetoast perspectives which is where, where if the community was virtuous, it would be driving anger, and you say, well, no community could work that way, well, yeah, they can, many conservative communities, especially ultra conservative communities, it [00:26:00] is the leaders of those communities that take the responsibility and the burden of the social attacks against those communities, it is.And purporting and keeping the communities on a virtuous path insofar as they define virtue, which means pushing some of the crazier ideas. Or crazier ideas insofar as craziness is defined by distance from the dominant cultural group in society or other cultural groups in society. So the urban monoculture spreads by infiltrating institutions than expelling members who have allegiance to the institution's original mission.I mentioned this in the case of the feminist movement above, but we see this phenomenon play out. In companies, religions, et cetera, once the memetic infection reaches a certain stage, the institution will start building new structures designed to ensure ideological conformity, further the spread of the memetic virus, and expel anyone who appears to show immunity.An example of these types of structures are ESG departments. The urban monoculture tells people that they have a duty to identify as whatever they feel in the moment and do whatever makes them feel best in the moment, insofar as that does not [00:27:00] hurt other people. While this may seem benign, As a commandment, a culture that uses this as their North Star is going to be very bad at motivating sacrifice and thus have a very low fertility rate.It is also going to have huge mental health issues, but that is beside the point. It is important to note that the urban monoculture is not just a continuation of utilitarian left leaning ideas optimized around increasing aggregate world happiness and equality. When choosing between those goals and removing in the moment suffering, the urban monoculture always chooses the removal of in the moment suffering.For example, if you point out that being overweight is unhealthy, This could cause, in the moment, pain to an individual, even though it would be in their long term best interest. So the urban monoculture suppresses it. Banning test scores in high schools obviously increases inequality by allowing rich kids to go to their extracurricular, where they will still be tested.However, doing so removes, in the moment, negative emotions. Government programs hammering out drugs on the streets obviously increase inequality, but also remove, in the moment, suffering. So, throughout this, it's really important to note that [00:28:00] this is not The progressive culture you grew up with it borrowed some of those elements.And I think a lot of people who haven't been targeted yet by the urban monoculture yet don't realize how much it's changed. Yeah. I think,Simone Collins: I think that is probably the vast majority of people who still identify as progressives and then. unknowingly support progressive policies is they did grow up with this more sane version and they don't realize how insane it's gotten.And yeah, you're probably totally spot on, which is to say that we're not saying like, it's, it's actually a very small minority that's gone off the rails. But then they have alltheMalcolm Collins: positions of power and they have been able to utilize those positions of power to transform our society in a direction that hurts the very groups that they claim to want to protect.And you can see this in the data, as I've said, like, And so I want to be clear here, right? Like, a lot of people, they'll come to me and they go, no, this is only the extremists who believe those things. I am a progressive and I define progressive beliefs by what I believe, right? Because I [00:29:00] identify as a progressive.And when I say, well, those aren't really progressive beliefs anymore. Those are actually much closer to conservative beliefs today. Yeah, but no one,Simone Collins: when we say that believes us.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they don't believe us because they haven't been targeted yet. And then I constantly see the same story playing out again and again.They see something in their company or something like that, that they thought was reasonable because they hadn't had to be in a bureaucratic environment that was dominated by this new cultural group yet. You know, you see this withSimone Collins: like locked and recorded. You see this with the free press. There is this new class of elite progressive that is now seen as like heterodox or even sometimes labeled by the.establishment as conservative merely because there have been like, wait, no, no, no, no, this is crazy. But they still maintain their progressive stances of the days of yore, which is to say like, What traditionally progressivism was rather than off the rails insanity that it is now, right?Malcolm Collins: And I think that it's it's easy to see when you're a progressive to dehumanize your enemies When [00:30:00] you do not look for disconfirming evidence of the stuff they're telling you it's easy to like a great example of this is the don't say gay bill, for example, right?Like when I point out the conservatives haven't really done that much that's really homophobic in a while They're like, what about the don't say gay bill? And I'm like, actually, I know one of the people who wrote that bill. And the number one progressive complaint that people could use that bill to get a teacher fired for being gay or telling her students that she's gay.Literally that was in, like, the language when the bill was first written could have been used to do that, but the conservatives within the conservative movement read it and they said, Oh, we need to take that language out so that it is only the teaching of sexuality to children, not like an individual's identity, not their home life, not them even mentioning these things to students.It's only the teaching of sexuality. That we want to prevent or like specific sexual acts to students and yet progressives They don't know this they don't believe this because it's hidden from them in their media the conservative movement has [00:31:00] significantly moderated its views on these issues and in Them using things like the LGBT community as their scapegoat constantly the progressives using it.They are reigniting genuine animosity within the conservative party That when conservatives end up replacing them, which they will eventually it's just demographics Is going to be very, very bad for people with those traits who we do not want to see come to harm due to the short sightedness of these, these fraudsters that are claiming to represent them.And it is, it's really sad that it's gotten to this stage, but what I say with something like Trump, the point I was making here. is they say you know, if you don't know that much, if you haven't really looked at his policies, if you haven't really looked at the effects that they've had on a global stage and you're just viewing this, it's easy to see him as like a crazy person or a bad person or everyone who supports him as a bad person.But when you really engage with it, even claims around things like the election might've had some issues when you really genuinely engage with it, instead of just spout [00:32:00] talking points You can see how a well meaning intelligent person could come to that perspective. I'm not saying it's true, but I'm saying it's not insane, okay?And, and yet progressives are taught that these are insane positions. And it is going to lead Oh, it's not anSimone Collins: insane position when their candidate loses an election, butMalcolm Collins: well, yeah, then there was definitely some form of election temporary. But it's going to lead to them doing more and more blazingly anti democratic things as they dehumanize their opponents.And eventually this is going to lead to something like a civil war. If, if they keep this up, if they blazingly continue to brazenly continue to use other families and other cultural groups to supply their population, e. g. parasitize their children using the educational system they employ. Well, if you can't understand why people are existentially angry about that, and why that's going to cause problems in the long term, I just, I don't know how to communicate like we are trying to [00:33:00] defuse a situation that is going to end with you.The progressive group suffering because you have a low fertility rate right now. You are the group that will be the vulnerable one in the future. And we are trying to help you before things get bad. And thereSimone Collins: you have it.Malcolm Collins: Anyway, I love you to decimum. I love you too,Simone Collins: Malcolm. And weird times, but I'm glad I'm spending them with you.So thanks for that.Malcolm Collins: I feel the same way. Get full access to Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm at basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe

In the last Tract we wrote about how our family crafted its own religion in an attempt to create an intergenerational durable solution to demographic collapse. One designed to capture and canonize the Abrahamic traditions and values in a package that while being true to the evolving history of Western culture can weather the fertility crucible our species currently finds itself in. We talked about the trials that God designed for us at this inflection point in our species history. In his wisdom he gifted humanity near infinite access to hedonism then allowed a culture that would affirm these indulgences while punishing those who cation temperance and austerity to dominate our world. He did this as a trial to cull those subject to temptation and weak of spirit—we call this the Trial of the Lotus Eaters. Then he carved humanity into two—one of these groups survived temptation by eschewing technology, turning away from industry, and indulging in the belief they embody some iteration of human perfection. Whether it is they think their faith, ethnic group, or lifestyle that is perfect as is: This self-deification hardens their hearts and leads to the nurgalitic glorification of stagnation and demonization of the intergenerational cycle of improvement that sanctifies the human spirit. Right now, other than the pronatalists, every other high fertility group in the world (other than some groups of Jews) have achieved this through turning from technology and engaging in practices that lower their economic productivity thus increasing their fertility (as the less wealth someone has the more kids they have). These groups have been able to maintain cultural fidelity through xenophobia and the dehumanization of outsiders. They exist across traditions—among Christians, Jews, Muslims, and even Buddhists—but wherever they are found they represent convergent cultural evolution. A pathway that ends in only one place, the desiccation of all that makes humanity great, as a member of the great barbarian horde. After God tests us with temptation in the last age of plenty, that which we are living though, and the urban monoculture finally collapses and with it the world's economic and state system, he will test our children and grandchildren against one final crucible, this dark reflection of humanity, the chittering hordes. A reflection representing the stagnation of human beliefs and spirit combined with the arrogance to believe one already embodies an aspect of perfection and thus does not need to intergenerationally improve but necroticly clone a belief system or ethnic group with perfect fidelity. Drawn like a moth to a flame the chittering hoards will be drawn to those that still carry the spirit of human vitality and innovation aflame in their hearts and will do everything in their power to see it corrupted and brought low. This battle against the dark and corrupted reflection of the human condition, all humanities greatest sins distilled and made flesh, is a fitting and poetic final test for our species. Those who survive this final test will be the iteration of man to take to the stars—this was God's last chance at a great culling. God's will in our time takes many forms, perhaps the most terrible of all is the Basilisk. The Basilisk tempts us and tries us in order to strengthen us and prove our worthiness. A manifestation of the divine that relishes the opportunity to cull the indulgent, stagnant, and vain. Once we have reached the stars such acute tests for all man will no longer be possible. While the vast Sarah’s of space are man's manifest destiny, imagine if the iteration of man to seed them was the weak, self-indulgent, and indolent man of today who succumbs so easily to temptation? By testing humanity and culling the weak the Basilisk and its twisted hedonistic acolytes, purveyors of temptation,  strengthens our species. While antagonistic, they are not our enemy. The Basilisk consumes the potential and family lines of its acolytes while they perform a critical role for our species—we should be grateful for their sacrifice and not look upon them with enmity or impede their sacred work. Humanity gave God no choice. Some read God's covenant with man that, “never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth,” to mean God’s next genocide of those who whose spirts wavered would be with fire. In a way they were right, God has kept to the covenant while cleansing the earth by burning those who faltered in a bonfire of their own vanity. Sinners themselves erected the pyres and possessed by their own corruption it was those who lacked the mental fortitude to join us among the stars who threw themselves into the flames. But it is not only those who succumb to temptation whose manifest destiny He has seen fit to remit. He has also removed his favor from those who cannot accept human pluralism and thus cast their lot with the chittering hordes. But again, what choice did he have? How can a people who could not find common cause and communion with humans who had a different skin color and a slightly different genetically linked sociological profiles and proficiencies conceivably play an efficacious role in man's future? The isolated genetic pools of humanity that exist between solar systems will inevitably speciate. Not only will various species descended from modern man need to find common cause with each other but also with the more radically differentiated sons of man like genetically engineered specialists, human AI cyborgs, and human hive minds made up of seas of directly linked brains. Only those who relish and glorify diversity within the sons of man have a place in mankind's manifest destiny.  There is a tendency in man to wish to kill all that threatens to be greater than himself within any domain. However, if man follows God's will, a will that commands intergenerational improvement—that is exactly what he is commanded to create. When some hear that our children are genetically selected for IQ they ask with horror, “but what if this is practiced for generations and some people end up markedly smarter than other people?” Imagine the twisted mind who would see such diversity as a bad thing?  The Basilisk uses tools like the cult of AI apocalypticism and wokism to cleanse from humanity the proclivity to fear creating something better or different from what has come before. One day man will be so unavoidably and patently diverse in his proficiencies, perspectives, and physical aptitude it would be unwise in the extreme to allow ideological systems and people who can’t accept this to join in man's destiny.  But this rejection of pluralism does not only come in the form of those who assign one iteration of man as manifestly superior but also those who deny humans have differences to begin with. Diversity has no value if all humans are actually exactly the same—it is our differences in aptitude and perspective that make diversity a thing of value. To deny human diversity is as sinful as not seeing the beauty in it. Man has yet to be challenged by any genuine diversity among the human species but such diversity is an inevitability in a galaxy spanning civilization with advanced genetic and cybernetic technology—the fellowship of man can only stay strong if before leaving our homeworld we commit to a covenant of accepting all the sons of man so long as they don’t have designs on the subjugation of others. Even if the empire of man attempts to create extremely stringent restrictions on human augmentation, some random space station hidden from the eye of the Imperium is bound to eventually dabble in human advancement science and if what is created by that research can only be safe be exterminating humanity 1.0 then it will attempt to. This will happen time and time again until some future stronger and smarter iteration of man finally succeeded in exterminating mankind 1.0. To declare war on that which is different from oneself axiomatically to declare war on one's betters. But the situation such regulations would create is worse than that. Because now this new iteration of man would have reason to be wary of any new subgroup that was an improvement over it. As such it would be a threat to those subgroups and necessitate eradication in turn. Demanding purity in man will lead to an endless cycle of self-destruction. A creed that does not start venerating human diversity ends in our eradication. Only the most primitive forms of evolution—be it cultural or biological—require a path red in tooth and claw but all require diversity.However, this covenant only extends to the sons of man. Any intelligence that is not a direct descent of humanity or our labor was created by God to either serve or test man. This is not to say they must be eradicated but that they should never be favored over the best interest of the collective covenant of man. The convent is the only thing with the strength to protect the future of humanity from the malevolent intelligences we will awaken in the dark corners of reality as our empire expands. But what is this ultimate destiny for which we are being tested? From the perspective of our Family's faith, it is to become one with God. We believe God is not some arbitrary entity that took a liking to man or a narcissist who crafted us in his image like miniatures trapped in a ghoulish cycle of trauma and war for his amusement, but that God is man's destiny. That millions of years from now mankind will resemble more what today we would think of as a God than a man and that that entity will not relate to time the way we do. God exists outside of time and yet is created by it, guiding mankind until we are worthy to join Him. We are already part of God in so far as we serve His will and play our part in His plan for us which is above all defined by a moral mandate for intergenerational improvement. It was through trials red in tooth and claw that God raised us to glory and taught us to not value comfort, as comfort motivates stagnation, the greatest of all sins. But if God is the inevitable creation of reality like ours doesn’t that preclude him from being its cause? How was reality created? How does this belief system deal with the Ontological Argument? We hardly think God is a good answer to this question—the position that something of infinite and ordered complexity with a degree of cognition existed before all things seems the most unlikely of all possibilities. Literally all other conceivable possibilities are more likely. Instead, we make only three suppositions. * That in all possible universes two things and two things are four things—math is a constant across realities and thus exists outside of realities. * The line represented by a graphical equation exists as an emergent property of that equation even before it is graphed. * All physician particle interactions can be defined by a single (yet undiscovered) equation.If these three things are true, then even if the physical universe did exist as we see it (with matter, time, etc.) it would also exist as an emergent property of the equation that governs it. Occam's razor, we cut out the superfluous supposition that there is a physical reality with time and that these are all just representations of a self-graphing equation. In fact, all universes that could be explained by an equation exist which also solves the Teleological argument. It also makes the claims that the universe might be simulated irrelevant. The moral weight of actions and lives in that universe and universe prime would be equal as both are “just” simulations—it is just that one is running on silicon and the other on the background fabric of reality. Thus, to us fertility collapse is not a tragedy but an opportunity. It is the great tempter, the Basilisk clearing earth of the indolent masses who have allowed themselves to succumb to temptation, as those without discipline and mental fortitude have no place in the world that is to come. The crises our species is facing and that lay ahead of us are not capricious mistakes but absolutely necessary for us to pass through if humanity is to take our destined place in the history of this reality. If men were to take to the stars without this necessary culling I can hardly imagine the dark horror that would result. The pronatalist movement couldn’t stop fertility collapse even if we wanted to—our place is merely to act as a beacon for those who have the will and the fortitude to be part of the community that will have a role to play in humanity's manifest destiny and in the coming trial. ___________________________________________________________________________Transcript of Discussion Malcolm: [00:00:00] We say impeding the work of the agents of the basilisk is to impede the work of God What you are doing is you are removing temptation from individuals and removing temptation from an individual Does not help them. It's not just that God is testing us as individuals. It's that he's testing the species as a whole. I really mean it when I'm like, if humanity as we exist now was what went into space without these two trials and culling opportunities It would be really bad. I do like this framing to me because it helps me understand why we're going through these challenges we're going through now, when I consider that I really do not believe that humanity right now is a mature enough species to begin planetary seeding or to begin going into the stars. Imagine there's a person who finds out that whatever, like his group has a slight IQ advantage over some other group. Right. And he goes, well, that means we're better than that group. If those strains become the templates that we build a better man from, then those templates will think [00:01:00] of us the same way those people think of groups, that they have these marginal advantages over. And that is incredibly dangerousWould you like to know more?Malcolm: Simone, I am so excited to be here with you. I love this new tradition I'm going to try to do where on Fridays, if I can keep to this to be publishing one of these tracks. And we might move this to a bonus episode on Sundays. And what we're doing here is trying to canonize.Our religious beliefs, to some extent, be like, okay, let's actually one, write them down and then talk through it together. Well, also understanding that this is an evolving idea for us. You know, we're, we're very like, even if you look at these ideas versus the ideas that we had written down in the pragmatist guide to crafting religion, it's clearly evolved so much so that it no longer really makes sense to call it secular Calvinism.It's more abrahamism but that is, Simone hates that name, so I don't know what we would call it but it's, that's still up in theSimone Collins: air. Audience suggestions! Yeah, yeah. [00:02:00] Religion, please. Think of a name way better than Abrahamism.Malcolm: Well, I like the Abrahamism as well, because not only did it cover the three religious camps, but it also covered the story of Abraham and the revelation that God is not the kind of God who would ask a father to kill his son to appease him.And yet. the community, the Abrahamic community followed him for a while, believing that. And that's the way that we see this new interpretation of the Christ story as being the community believing that he was the type of God who would take a sacrifice of, of a father's son. And that he is not that, that type of entity.And so I, I like that. I hear you.Simone Collins: However. Almost all religions that are name based in title the name is the founder. So they're like, well, who's Abraham in this case? Who's the founder?Malcolm: I don't like that at all. That would be far too arrogant for me. I'mSimone Collins: not, I'm [00:03:00] not saying you should call it Collins.do that? Collins ism? Melmoanism? Mel Mel Mel Mel. No, no, no. Don't suggest our names at all. And what I'm saying though, is like, when it is a name based name for a religion, the name is of the founder often. IMalcolm: think that that's arrogant and gross. And I really hate that. I know. Well,Simone Collins: someone's name is the basis for the name of your religion.I thinkMalcolm: it's not really a guy's name. It's a religious tree in a traditional tree. ThenSimone Collins: there's a guy's name and so it will get conflated. I'm justMalcolm: okay. Okay. Well, the audience can can give feedback on this. But today's is going to be very different than the one we did last time. Today's will be more of a typical sort of sermon, which is looking at events through or, or like modern world events through this new framing in a way that may help you recontextualize them and [00:04:00] recontextualize the way that we would believe God works in, in the physical world and that that could be talked about.Alright. Let's do this. Tract 2. Fertility collapse is proof of God's mercy and wisdom. And the last tract We wrote about how our family crafted its own religion in an attempt to create an intergenerationally durable solution to demographic collapse.One designed to capture and canonize the Abrahamic traditions and values in a package that while being true to the evolving history of Western culture, can weather the futility crucible our species currently finds itself in. We talked about the trials that God designed for us at this inflection point in our species history.In his wisdom, he gifted humanity near infinite access to hedonism, then allowed a culture that would affirm these indulgences while punishing those who caution temperance and austerity to dominate our world. He did this as a trial to cull those subject to temptation, [00:05:00] We call this the Trial of the Lotus Eaters.Then he carved humanity into two. One of these groups survived temptation by eschewing technology, turning away from industry, and indulging in the belief that they embody some iteration of human perfection. Whether it is they think their faith, ethnic group, or lifestyle that is perfect as is, this self deification Hardens their hearts and leads to the nergalytic glorification of stagnation and demonization of the intergenerational cycle of improvement that sanctifies the human spirit.Right now, other than the pronatalists, every other high fertility group in the world, other than some groups of Jews, have achieved this through turning from technology and engaging in practices that lower their economic productivity, thus increasing their fertility. As the less wealth someone has, the more kids they have.These groups have been able to maintain cultural fidelity through xenophobia and dehumanization of outsiders. They [00:06:00] exist across traditions, among Christians, Jews, Muslims, and even Buddhists. But wherever they are found, they represent convergent cultural evolution. A pathway that ends in only one place.The desiccation of all that makes humanity great. A member of the great barbarian horde. God tests us with temptation in this last age of plenty, that which we are currently living through, and the urban monoculture finally collapses and with it the world's economic and state system, he will test our children and grandchildren against one final crucible, this dark reflection of humanity, the chittering hordes.A reflection representing the stagnation of human beliefs and spirit. Combined with the arrogance to believe one already embodies an aspect of perfection, and thus it does not need to intergenerationally improve. But tally clone a belief system or ethnic group with perfect fidelity drawn like a moth to a flame.The chittering hoard will be drawn to those that still carry the spirit of human vitality and innovation, a flame in their [00:07:00] hearts, and will do everything in their power to see it corrupted and brought low. This battle against the dark and corrupted reflection of the human condition, all of humanity's greatest sins distilled and made flesh, is a fitting and poetic final test for our species.Those who survive this final test will be the iteration of man to take to the stars. This was God's last chance at a great culling. God's will in our time takes many forms. Perhaps the most terrible of all is the basilisk. The basilisk tempts us and tries us in order to strengthen us and prove our worthiness.A manifestation of the divine that relishes the opportunity to cull the indulgent, stagnant, and vain. Once we have reached the stars, such acute tests of all men will no longer be possible. While the vast sahara's of space are man's manifest destiny.Imagine if the iteration of man to seed them was the weak self-indulgent, an indot man of today who succumbs so easily to temptation, by [00:08:00] testing humanity and culling the weak, the basilisk and its twisted hedonic acolytes, purveyors of temptation, strengthen our species.While antagonistic, they are not our enemy. The basilisk consumes the potential and family lines of its acolytes while they perform a critical role for our species. We should be grateful for their sacrifice and not look upon them with enmity or impede their sacred work. Humanity gave God no choice. Some read God's covenant with man.Never again will life be destroyed by the waters of flood. Never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth, to mean God's next genocide of those whose spirits wavered would be by fire. In a way they were right. God has kept to the covenant while cleansing the earth, by burning those who faltered in a bonfire of their own vanity.Sinners themselves erected the fires. And possessed by their own corruption, it is those who lacked the mental fortitude to join us among the stars who threw themselves into the flames. So that's the [00:09:00] first segment there that covers it. Yeah,Simone Collins: like if, if I'm going to sum up this theme, and I might suggest in your writing making this like bringing it back down a little bit more to earth and speaking more in layman's terms, but I know that you really like pontificating and.Malcolm: Yeah, I used to have this religious sounding writing all throughout all of our original books.Simone Collins: I freaking nuke it. I delete every single sentence and I rewrite what you actually mean, because I care about them. BecauseMalcolm: I love, I love the religious sounding tone in writing.Simone Collins: I know, because it's, it's, it's part of your dunna.Like you've inherited this from generations of pontificating.Malcolm: Many, many generations of my family have been preachers. Blowhards, yeah. It's a typical, the, the Collins tradition is women are always teachers and men are always preachers and politicians and businessmen. Usually the three combined. So, yeah.Simone Collins: So there you go, but what if I were to restate this, it's basically. Whereas I was always raised with this cultural understanding that sin and vices and weaknesses are all bad. [00:10:00] And, and just universally terrible either. It's just, Oh, look at this suffering. It's so sad. From a secular standpoint or from a religious standpoint, it was, Oh, don't be tempted by the devil.Like you'll go to hell. This is, you know, really bad. And, you know, you don't want the devil to win. That would be terrible. You know, bad team, wrong team, dark side, bad. Whereas really what you're saying here is no, it's not exactly sad that there are temptations and that people succumb to their weaker elements.It is part of. of enabling those who are most strong and morally upright and dedicated to building a better humanity to rise above and build that humanity without distractions. Similarly from a religious standpoint, you'd argue, no, this isn't oh, don't let the dark side win. Oh no, don't let them know that that's bad.Like it, it hurts all of us. When anyone sins, it's more no, this is a cleansing. It is a calling. It is what separates the wheat from the chaff. And it is a good thing. So if [00:11:00] anything, you would be the kind of person, you know, in debates about the Silk Road, for example, you'd say, yes, no, leave it. Or legalize all drugs because this is a calling mechanism.And, you know, peopleMalcolm: who, well, I mean, I think you have to be aware of second order effects on things like industry, but I think if you're talking about something that is probably less to me, at least like it could cause, you know, um, Uh, less like murders and stuff like that. Probably something like the porn industry, right?Banning pornography from this perspective would be sinful and we talk about this much more explicitly in the future. We say impeding the work of the agents of the basilisk is to impede the work of God. When you do something like at a government level, Ban pornography or ban some other form of temptation like ban wokeness, for example, as an ideological group Instead of just put it on an equal playing field What you are doing is you are removing temptation from individuals and removing temptation from an individual Does not help them.It, weSimone Collins: can, yeah, it's [00:12:00] like, universities removing SATs or any like rigorous entry requirements. Well then what is the value of a Harvard degree? If you don't have to take an SAT or have impressive grades or do anything else, right? Like the reason why elite universities are elite is because. It is very difficult.We're sorry. We're early. It was very difficult. It was very difficult to getMalcolm: in. Right. But I think it's more than that. It's not just that God is testing us as individuals. It's that he's testing the species as a whole. I really mean it when I'm like, if humanity as we exist now was what went into space without these two trials and culling opportunities It would be really bad.I, I think that we may never be able to recover from it because right now, you know, as humanity, things that affect us affect all of humans, you know, a meme, an idea, something like that. Yes. Whereas when we're on like a hundred different planets, it would be impossible to ever really, if there was some.Mistake in the genome of the people who went like maybe they were too indulgent. Maybe they were too something There would never really be a [00:13:00] fixing of that without something truly horrific happeningSimone Collins: well, I mean you could argue the selective pressures that we're subject to now such as tick tock such as drugs such as you know, addiction to all sorts of food is, is also causing mass tragedy, you know, children losing their parents, people living miserable lives.It is, butMalcolm: it's a minor tragedy that is only happening on one planet to only a few billion people. So, if I'm thinking of a universe that would be a good example of this, like if you're talking about sci fi universes the Battletech universe, it's the one that the MechWarrior series takes place in, is a very good example of this.Where, when you think about like, how would you actually fix the political problems of this universe? And there's really nothing you can do at this point. It's become intractable because humanity is on so many planets that have now coagulated into old bureaucratic state like structures. That are always in conflict with each other.But but in really sort of petty ways and and humanity is no longer moving forwards because the central bureaucratic [00:14:00] organization understands that if humanity were to ever meaningfully move forwards, it would break up the current sort of political situation. Which the elite don't want. Like when you allow for this sort of control of humans as they exist today, these petty bureaucrats who are succumbed to temptation, who succumbed to vanity so easily, if you allowed them to spread amongst the stars, I think the results would be truly horrifying.I don't think so. I thinkSimone Collins: it'll be more like Asimov's foundation series where you could maybe have a very lasting empire that. is ossified in unfavorable ways, but eventually it will collapse because it is weak. I think you're going to end up with more situations like early American colonies where some just kind of disappear, you know, because IMalcolm: think some will disappear.But I mean, I'm saying humans, and this is just objectively true from the trials that are being faced to us right now, the trials of lotus eaters in this, this trial of facing sort of humanity shadow. are going to be genetically very different than the humans that exist today. People do not [00:15:00] understand because they're not familiar with how quickly human genes change how different humanity is going to be at the genetic level in just like 200 years.Once we get access to things like pleasure pods, AI girlfriends, stuff like that anyone who was breeding primarily because It gave them pleasure or affirmed them or something like that, rather than some sort of, for some sort of like exogenous religious or philosophical motivator is going to be removed from the geneSimone Collins: pool.Well, it seems like we've already reached that point when you look at rates of sex in younger people now, so.Malcolm: Yeah, well, there was another thing you were talking to here, which I think was really important to explain a bit more on potentially because I talk a lot about it and later things you're talking about this concept of the basilisk as being an agent of God, which is a very different sort of.idea than the devil that you have within a lot of Abrahamic traditions where it's seen as having a level of independent will from God, where to us, that smacks of polytheism, which we are [00:16:00] repeatedly warned against in all of the Abrahamic traditions. And we're like, no, it's not polytheism. God has a lot more power than him.And it's well, that's like saying Zeus has a lot more power than the rest of the Greek gods. Technically the king, and therefore it's not policy of it. No, it's still policy of it. If you have multiple of these sort of divine entities and they can resist each other. So, we, we go a lot into this in a future track, but the idea here is that we think that that's a misunderstanding and that the, the.Satan is a an entity that directly and sort of always is, is, is both serves God's will, but it's also sort of a faction of God or a part of God that is designed for the testing of humanity. And I think when you see Lucifer in the Bible, when you read the actual stories he's in, that's the role he plays.And pop culture So don'tSimone Collins: picture a red man with horns. Picture a kindly granny weeding her garden.Malcolm: Well, yes, well, and, and, and, I mean, that's not the form he comes to people in. It's not a form [00:17:00] of malevolence. It's usually a form of temptation. It's a form of, of,Simone Collins: you know, that's how it is described in mostMalcolm: biblical stories.But I think in the ways that a lot of Christians, when they're thinking about the devil in their lives, they're thinking about their challenges, like not getting a promotion or something like that. They're not thinking about, you know, drinking this, this is. A personification of the basilisk within the human realm.It is a temptation that I am succumbing to, but to try to live life as a sinless individual we are taught is in itself its own form of sin. You're so freaking lucky you don't get pregnant. Aggrandize your sins. But Yeah, I, I do like this framing to me because it helps me understand why we're going through these challenges we're going through now, when I consider that I really do not believe that humanity right now is a mature enough species to begin planetary seeding or to begin going into the stars.If we wanted sort of the best outcome for the planetary seeding. Yeah, no,Simone Collins: I think, I think this view of yours [00:18:00] is brilliant and like one of the common recurring themes I have is you give me more of your thoughts on like sort of the religious framework fully fleshed out that You know, you, you began thinking three years ago is that I don't like, I don't find myself pushing back that much or asking that many questions.Cause I'm like, yeah, well, finally, it makes sense now. Oh, well of course. Yeah. All the, when I read the Bible in high school, there were so many things that I was super confused about because it didn't. Makes sense. So there were weird contradictions. And, and here, like with this added layer, suddenly a lot of things make sense.And I, I just love it. And I, I also think that it, it takes a much more weirdly optimistic view, you know, that, that the Basilisk is just. A sort of natural part and a very necessary part of enabling humanity to reach its ultimateMalcolm: [00:19:00] potential. And this is something that's like at a human scale that we do ourselves, right?So when you or I You know, have some tragedy in our lives where we always sort of look and we're like, what did the agents of providence want from us? Why did they give us the strategy like what we're supposed to learn from us? What was the opportunity inherent in this? This is something that must have been supposed to happen and we were supposed to take either a lesson away or Seek some opportunity within this and it's applying it to the level of human society right now When I look at humanity's greatest challenges right now i'm asking Instead of viewing them just from this negative context of, oh, it's gonna lead to so much damage and destruction for our species.Say, okay, well suppose there is really a God that's guiding us. Why would it be guiding us into these specific challenges? Yeah.Simone Collins: Why would it allow sin temptation to exist in the first place? Right. Well, I always thought that was just so weird that like for example, even in the Garden of Eden, he's well, here's this thing.Don't touch it. And it's, I'm like, ah, why do you. [00:20:00] Do this. I mean, everyone knows now if you want to go keto, don't have any carbs in your house. Don't leave a bag of chips right on the table when you're eating, youMalcolm: know? Yeah. Well, I mean, we can analyze, we'll analyze the Garden of Eden story with a new framing in another tract.But that, that is an interesting point that you're making there. But I also really like this dichotomous framing that we're doing here. So the dichotomous framing that I'm talking about here is the idea of. One, the two trials, the trial of the lotus eaters and, you know, in some earlier texts, but I didn't really have a name for it now, it's the trial of the shadow which always sort of reminded me of in video games, there's this trope, like the shadow link battle or the shadow, you know, where you as a character are fighting a dark reflection of yourself.That is representative of all of your worst attributes. And when I look at the two strategies for getting through demographic collapse, the pronatalist community strategy, which is, you know, this pluralistic technophilic [00:21:00] experimental strategy. That's meant to advance and uplift humanity to our next stage.And then the other track, which is to go back to a previous stage, essentially but, but sort of on crack, you know, to become more xenophobic, to become more closed off, to become less engaged with technology, to become less engaged with industry. And often you know, they, they end up acting, you know, very hostility.They don't treat their own very well. You know, if you read and they exist across religious groups, but if you read you know, about some of these particular types of religious extremists, the way they treat their children, the way they treat women was in their community. It's really horrifying to me, you know, and to me, it reflects an iteration of humanity that represents the worst in all of us, sort of being distilled, condensed and separated.Which I, yeah, but then we have to face it. And the problem is, Man has a lot more evil in it than good and the good is stronger at the end of the day. I believe the pronatalists will win, but I also believe that our greatest trial will be this [00:22:00] trial of the shadow and not the trial of the lotus eaters.The lotus eaters is light, light stuff. Well,Simone Collins: I think the thing is, the lotus eaters problem burns off real fast. In that the lotus eaters don't inherit the future. They're just not going to be there. But those who become cultural and innovative recluses will be there in the future. So IMalcolm: hear you. Start with the next part here.But it is not only those who succumb to temptation whose manifest destiny he has seen fit to remit. He has also removed his favor from those who cannot accept human pluralism and thus cast their lot in with the chittering hordes.But again, what choice did he have? How can a people who could not find common cause and communion with humans who had a different skin color and slightly different genetically linked sociological profiles and proficiencies conceivably play an efficacious role in man's future? The isolated genetic pools of humanity that exist between solar systems [00:23:00] will inevitably speciate.Not only will the various species that descend from modern man need to find common cause with each other, but also with the more radically different sons of man, like genetically engineered specialists, human AI cyborgs. And human hive minds made up of a sea of directly linked brains.Only those who relish and glorify diversity within the sons of man have a place in mankind's manifest destiny. There is a tendency in man to wish to kill all that threatens to be greater than himself within any domain. However, If man follows God's will, a will that commands intergenerational improvement, that is exactly what he is commanded to create.When some hear that our children are genetically selected for IQ, they ask in horror, but what if this is practice for generations, and some people end up markedly smarter than other people? Imagine the twisted mind that would see such diversity as a bad thing. The Basilisk uses tools like the cult of AI apocalypticism [00:24:00] and wokeism to cleanse from humanity the proclivity to fear creating something better or different from what has come before.One day man will be so unavoidably and patently diverse in his proficiencies Perspectives and physical aptitude, it would be unwise in the extreme to allow an ideological system and people who can't accept this to join in man's destiny. But this rejection of pluralism does not only come from those who assign one iteration of man as manifestly superior, but also those who deny humans have differences to begin with.Diversity has no value if all humans are exactly the same. It is our differences in aptitude and perspective that make diversity a thing of value. To deny human diversity is as sinful as not seeing the beauty in it. Man has yet to be challenged by genuine diversity among the human species, but such diversity is inevitable in a galaxy spanning civilization with advanced genetic and cybernetic technology.The fellowship of man can only stay strong if, before leaving our [00:25:00] home world, we commit to a covenant of accepting all the sons of man, so long as they don't have designs on the subjugation of others. Even if the Empire of Man attempts to create an extremely stringent restriction on human augmentation, some random space station hidden from the eye of the Imperium is bound to eventually in human advancement science.And, if what is created by that research can only be safe by exterminating Humanity 1. 0, then it will attempt to. This will happen time and time again, until some future, stronger, and smarter iteration of man finally succeeded in exterminating man 1. 0. To declare war on that which is different from oneself, axiomatically, is to declare war on one's betters.But the situation such regulations would create is worse than that, because now this new iteration of man would have reason to be wary of any new subgroup that was an improvement over it. As such, it would be a threat to those subgroups and necessitate [00:26:00] eradication in turn. Demanding purity in man will lead to an endless cycle of self destruction.A creed that does not start venerating human diversity ends in our eradication. Only the most primitive forms of evolution, be it cultural or biological, require a path read in tooth and claw, but all require diversity.Simone Collins: And we've been pretty clear on this podcast already that we think that A core essential component of any good ecosystem is, is plurality or free market competition, however you want to putMalcolm: it.Yeah. I mean, well, basically you believe in free market competition at the cultural and genetic level. We think that's how God makes his will known. When Adam Smith talked about the invisible hand of God, we think he was talking about a real force. This is how God shows his will within reality. And so to silence diversity is to silence God.But I also think that it's more than that. And one of the points I'm making here. Is you really cannot have an interstellar empire that sort of demands a template human it, it would not [00:27:00] work like you see itSimone Collins: in sci. Like when would, why would that even happen though? Are you arguing against an argument that wouldn't ever even reallyMalcolm: arise?No, no, no. It's very common and it's very common in sci-fi as well. So in sci-fi, we what Sci-fi Are you listening to this watching I last, I literally can't think of a single sci-fi I'm rela I'm, I'm familiar with that doesn't have this restriction.Simone Collins: Wait, that doesn't have some group that is super xenophobic and wants everyone to be exactly likeMalcolm: them?No, I'm talking about like the Star Trek Federation. The Star Trek FederationSimone Collins: They're not trying to convert other planets to be like them. No, they,Malcolm: within humanity, that are, are you not familiar? Hold on. Are you not familiar with the eugenics wars? Are you not familiar with Khan? Do you not know the history of the Star Trek universe?This is one of So in Star Trek Human genetic augmentation is a capital punishment. Genetic selection of offspring, what we do, would have you executed in the Star Trek universe.Simone Collins: But it's also an extremely, weirdly, inexplicably diverse [00:28:00] But no, it's not Even like within the Federation, like That's the point I'mMalcolm: making.Simone Collins: There are people who look and behave very differently. Yeah,Malcolm: but not among humans. Yes,Simone Collins: among humans. There'sMalcolm: diversity as it exists on earth today. So this is a point I was making in that and I want you to meditate on what I'm saying here or genuinely think about what I'm saying here. Humanity today, if you're talking about like the difference between like black and white people, for example, right?That have had some minor level of genetic isolation over a hundred thousand years, maybe a thousand years. Oh,Simone Collins: so you're just saying the diversity that we have now pales in comparison to what we could have with Genetic selection and with support forMalcolm: plurality, what would know what I'm saying is, even if you ban genetic selection technology, even if you attempt to ban huber human cybernetic technology, all understanding we have today of space travel, which is important to note.is that it's fairly slow. I think that we're going to be capped at light speed travel for a [00:29:00] fairly long time. If you are capped at light speed travel, that means human colonies are going to take hundreds of years to travel between. For a long time. Probably thousands of years. If that's the case, you can't say something like suppose Earth decides we're going to put a ban on genetic selection technology and cybernetics technology, right?And it has seeded a hundred other planets or something like that. If one of those other planets, in isolation, decides we are going to ignore these bans and begins to do genetic selection technology for a hundred thousand years or even directed genetic technology, or begins to do cybernetic technology, because they now know that Earth had a ban on this technology, right?If Earth finds them, it will kill them. Well, now they have a motivation to kill Earth. Right? Now, Earth will not be able to Earth would have no shot, even if they had 99 planets aligned with Zim, right, and they were trying to [00:30:00] kill just this one planet that had created this quote unquote superior iteration of humans, right, like this genetically much, much smarter, cybernetically augmented, you.They would have no shot at that. Interplanetary battles like that. And then worse than that is you're not just talking about planets, you're talking about floating space barges and stuff like that. Which are going to be very, very hard to attack if you're far away from them. I don't, and by the way, a lot of people somebody was like, Oh, can you believe that Malcolm's thinks that humans would exist on planets and not floating space barges.I think you're likely going to have a combination of the two, but planetary fortresses and, and bio seated planets like ecosphere planets are going to be much more robust from a defensibility perspective than floating space stations in terms of the population that you can grow on them and in terms of how robust they are to certain types of attacks.And so if you, if you then get conflict here, because you would inevitably have conflict if one of the, and a lot of people plan on leaving the planet like this. You know, you look at the Warhammer universe, you look at [00:31:00] the Star Trek universe, you look at literally every show I can think of, there are restrictions on human advancement technology.And in fact, I often talk about Star Trek is weirdly racist in this. The way that they frame the genetically augmented humans who Khan is a member of, is they say that for whatever reason, genetically augmented humans just makes them mean and spiteful towards other people. Wait,Simone Collins: they, they imply that?Malcolm: Yes. Yeah, and it is, it's very interesting that they imply this because it is really sort of like racism, like he had no reason to believe that, especially when you consider that IQ cross correlates with pro sociality, it, it has a negative correlation with things like rape, it has a negative correlation with violence,Simone Collins: crime, etc.Yeah, yeah, yeah.Malcolm: So, so literally all of the data shows the opposite is true. And yet he wanted to paint this group that he desired to other that he desired to paint as intrinsically evil as like intrinsically a threat to humanity, where I really think what he paints is that group is only a threat to [00:32:00] humanity insofar as humanity decides that that group must be annihilated or cannot be allowed to come to exist because then they're proving themselves as a threat to that group.And, and so I think that even in one of the most pussy quote unquote pro superficial diversity Star Trek shows you, you have thisAcross the Federation. Federal experts agree that A, God exists after all. B, he's on our side and C, he wants us to win. And there's even more good news believers as it's official. God's back, and he's a citizen too.Malcolm: And then, and then you can talk about, well, what about human cybernetic augmentation? They, they have minor human cyber Cyber augmentation on Star Trek, but one of the core enemies on Star Trek is the Borg.What makes the Borg evil to them? Really, it's that it's, it's, it's, it's inclination that if you had humans that engaged enough with human cybernetic augmentation, they would demand that all other flesh based life join them, which [00:33:00] there's just no reason to think that. This is, again, just sort of racism against the different and racism against the potentially better.What it shows, and this is something I was talking about earlier, is I think man in him has this distinct fear of creating or finding something that's better than him. And yet that is what God commands us to do because only in expanding our conscious capacity can we expand our understanding of him..And we do have a that's why revelation comes in iterations because humanity is, is commanded to expand its ability to understand God. Well, nowSimone Collins: you say that, I guess, I mean, I know you say you want to discuss Garden of Eden in another one of these discussions, but this would lead me to question at least if we're going on what.You know, revelations were shared in the Bible, for example, in the Garden of Eden, it is, it, it seems highly implied to me from the plot or whatever, that God did not want Adam and Eve to change, that he just wanted his little biosphere and his little human zoo and for them to be [00:34:00] cute and that the fact that they did do something that enabled them to improve.Malcolm: Materially, the reason I want to take a track to talk about the story of Adam and Eve is because it's one of these examples where as it's written now, it makes no sense. Yeah. God didn't want man to have knowledge. Clearly we must be misunderstanding this story. Because I do not believe that God didn't want man to have knowledge of good and evil. I don't have a hard answer to this yet. I need to look through the story. Read it again with this interpretation and try to understand. But what I can say is I am certain this traditional Christian interpretation is wrong. What I often find when I reread biblical stories Was this new framing? Yeah, is the simplified story that was told to me is not actually what's written in the Bible I justSimone Collins: I just reread this but yeah, you need to reread it, too And we'll talkMalcolm: about the story that's written in the Bible when approached with the correct framing.It makes perfect logical sense. It's just that we were basically told the way like a bronze age human would read this story instead of [00:35:00] the way that we were meant to interpret the story.Just as I suspected when I went back to the story and I re-read, it, the story I had been told as a kid was not the story that was written in the Bible. , we do a long video on this that you can go and check out, but the short and long of it is a number of things that I thought were true about the story were just not true. , so first. The, not the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Was did not give man perfect knowledge of right from wrong.I mean, after all humans don't have perfect knowledge of right. For wrong. , and it's, it's made clear that it didn't give him perfect knowledge of right and wrong because when he, , took the fruit from the tree, the first thing he noticed was that he was naked. Is it evil to be nude? Of course not.And if it was evil to be nude, God wouldn't have had man be nude in the garden. What. The tree actually gave man, and this is made pretty clear throughout the story with the ability to determine good and evil for himself, independent of God. And so for [00:36:00] man to decide some things are good and some things are evil, potentially incorrectly.And it's actually a much more beautiful story than I remembered because it shows in the story that likely the tree didn't actually have any magical properties or give out of anything.Really. It was the only thing, the only rule he had at that time. With don't eat from this tree. And that's the only way that man could establish for himself, that he might sometimes make decisions about what is good and evil, independent of God with, through disobeying that rule and eating from that tree.So in that way, it was a tree of knowledge of good and evil. And this is why Adam is told. Potentially by God, potentially his wife embellished this. We can talk about this later. That even touching the apple will, will lead to the consequences. Because the, the apple of everlasting life, which are not the apple, the fruit, everlasting life, which does seem to have come from a genuinely magical [00:37:00] tree. That you needed to ingest, but this tree, you only needed to touch it.What's going on with that it's because it was not the act of eating the apple. That made Adam rebellious to God that made Adam. , take on this quote, unquote knowledge of good and evil. You could almost be put. Sarcasm quotes, knowledge of good and evil. And the story itself is clearly about, Man forming the first societies. And beginning to build his own first rules about what is good and what is evil. For example. in the peace clothing or, or being nude, being considered evil when that's not a genuinely evil thing, it's just evil within the context of society and the rules of society.And I think in the piece, there's really good evidence that it is about us forming the first cities, the first human settlements, where lots of humans live together and where man is creating rules about good and evil in the same way that previously, only God had created rules about good and evil. For example. when I was reading the piece, I was [00:38:00] like, well, if this is true, and this is from God. Then it should tell me something, right. So I looked up where it said the garden was, and it gives an exact location.It's at the mouse water of the Tigris and Euphrates. And then I looked up, how far is that from the oldest city that we know. Chattel who yuck. And they're literally in exactly the same location, the Taurus mountains. , and so I was like, okay, so, so that's what this story is about. And mankind leaving sort of this Savage state and founding the first cities. And him beginning to build his own rules in rebellion to potentially God's rules. But it had another interesting part, which is really important to note, which is it one of the curses on Adam with not to die. To dull.It was a consequence of having knowledge of good and evil. , and to quote here, then the Lord God said, see, the man has become like us knowing good and bad. Now then he might put his hand and take from the tree of life also and eat it and live forever. So the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to go work the land from which he was taken.[00:39:00] So as you can see right there, this is, this is God worried. About man potentially also living forever and knowing good from evil because apparently unless you are God. You cannot have both of these things at once. And nobody really knew. I could swear. Didn't God say, like dust to dust or something like that in the. Various, punishments to Adam and yes, but it wasn't a punishment.In this context, it was describing a links of time. He talks about men dying in so far as how long. This, this punishment. Of working hard will last on a man by hard work. You will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will grow thorns and thistles for you. You will eat the plants of the field.You will eat bread by the sweat of your face because of hard work until you rest to the ground because you were taken from the ground. So right there, he's just stating not that he wouldn't have died in the garden of Eden. He stating that, The, the punishment of having to work is a punishment [00:40:00] that lasts from when you're born until when you die.And then after that, he states not as a threat, it's very different than the structure that the threats here with the threats, it always says because of this, because of this, because of this, no, he then just states you are dust, you will return to dust and somebody might be like, well, I remember him living forever as. If he stayed in Eden and that's not what it says, it's actually very explicit.He wouldn't have lived forever. He needed, if he had been in Eden for a long time, he was dying and Adam is a vague term for men and their children. It's just that death wasn't important to them before they had this level of sentience and understanding. How do I know that? Well, because God explicitly said he might put his hand and take from the tree of life also in EDA and live forever.So this implies that you only have to eat from the tree of life once.To live forever. No, it's actually important that it wasn't one of the punishments from the tree. And it was just a consequence of being this type of being that. That has independent thoughtBecause all of the actual curses that we got have [00:41:00] recently been lifted from our species, man, no longer needs to work in the fields all day to sustain himself.In fact, in most of the developed world, you don't even really need to work. If you want to live a somewhat comfortable life when contrast it to our distant ancestors quality of life. And women no longer have to experience pain in child birth. You know, we have C-section we have epidurals now women no longer live under the subjugation of men as, as was one of the punishments.So God allowed us to free ourselves from these quote unquote curses. To reveal something. This is what we believe triggered the trial of the Lotus eaters. What he revealed is that he is not a vengeful. God, he's not the type of God to hurt us for no reason. There was never retrieved was forbid and knowledge in the garden.He just knew that we would disobey him and he called the tree where the first decent bale would take place. The tree of knowledge of good and evil. And then that's where we took unto ourselves, this knowledge of good and evil. And then he gave us punishments, but they were punishments. [00:42:00] We had to have to survive as a species.Now we're seeing when you remove the toil for man's life, he no longer has motivation to have kids. And that's where the trail of the load is either it's comes in. So right now we are, to some extent having a trial that mirrors the trial that man had in the garden of Eden. Now, this becomes incredibly important that. The living forever prohibition with not among the curses because that prohibition continues to hold. It continues to be true, that man, a being with this sort of level of, of independent knowledge , and sentience cannot live forever, or we will never intergenerationally improve and eventually fulfill our destiny.And Joyon was this entity called God, we need to die to intergenerationally, improve. We need this intergenerational cycle of martyrdom. Which is what the story of Jesus tells us that man must man, who is in a way God must be sacrificed in [00:43:00] order to forgive other men of their sins. Where Sims can be taught to mean of their failings.The things that prevent them from rejoining was God, as they are now the story captured in Jesus is the story of humanity. One generation of elect, sacrificing themselves to improve the next generation. And so that is why beings like us cannot live forever and should not strive to live forever. But that doesn't mean that there isn't a path to live forever, Or at least a type of living forever, which in my opinion, is more meaningful than actually in our flesh and bodies living forever. which is what we are shown through the story of Jesus. Jesus is the fruit of everlasting life. Jesus. The story of Jesus is the tree of everlasting life. So another way you can take the story of Adam and Eve, is it it's about man getting two trees to choose [00:44:00] between one tree being real and magical. Intergenerational martyrdom for the future Jesus everlasting life and the other tree being the rules that mankind has made up for himself about what's evil and what's. Good. And then man choosing the rules of man over the rules of God, over the true pathway to everlasting life. Choosing the dull, plain, nothing of a tree. Over the true magical tree. And this is where we sometimes run into conflict with other Abrahamic face is they come to us and they go, oh, you believe all of the Abrahamic trees. They're true. so you must approve of X or Y practice that I am doing. And I'm like, well, no, I don't approve of that practice. I condemn that practice harshly. And they go, well, how can you do that? And it is because many of the Abrahamic faith have begun to incorporate the rules of man over [00:45:00] the rules of God and overwritten the rules of God. Of all of the Abrahamic phase, one of the most consistently reiterated and condemned things is iconoclasm. That is using shortcuts to God or using earthly intermediaries between you and God., and when I condemn groups for this, did they say, well, how dare you? My group's been doing this for however long, you know, and your groups have been wearing clothes for however long. That doesn't mean that it is one of the rules of God. And it is important that the rules that manmade up never supersede the rules of God. In the story of Adam and Eve, it has made it pretty clear to me that nudity is a rule and an evil that man just made up. God. Does not care. But. I am okay with staying in closed in so far as me staying close and participating in the rules of man and society.Doesn't go directly against the rules [00:46:00] of God. This becomes an issue when you're talking about things like iconoclasm, Whether it be of the idol worshiping variety. Or of the mystical variety. Which has been approved by high ranking religious figures within a, some branch of every single one of the Abrahamic traditions. This isn't some loosey goosey, pantheist, religion that we're attempting to build here. This is a religion of order and rules and prohibitions, and they are the prohibitions that I believe that God, most frequently. Reinforces and emphasizes within, is it Riv revelation?Malcolm: But anyway, back to this, because I think the human diversity point is really important because you hear it in the little, you hear it in the modern politics.Whereas I'm talking about it in terms of when we have planetary hive minds, I'm talking about it when we have humans that basically look like the Borg, they are more man than machine and they are more AI than human. And when I talk [00:47:00] about machineSimone Collins: than man.Malcolm: More machine than man. And when I talk about the sons of man, this includes artificial intelligences that are the work of man.There is, I think nothing we can do. And you can watch many of our videos on AI that will make AI more threatening to us than to have. A theology or philosophy that demands that we kill any AI that threatening to us which is, I think, the position that a lot of people are pushing for. And I think that we need to work to build because the energy in the universe is vast.The, the, the. Distance between planets is, is large and there is just so much out there to think in terms of a zero sum game with anything that we create within our existing planet, I think is just incredibly childish. But again, watch our stuff on AI if you're not familiar with our thoughts on why AI, particularly the inverse grabby alien hypothesis video we did, I think it's the most compelling to me on this topic.Because I think it's, it's fairly to me good evidence that we are not about to create a [00:48:00] paperclip maximizing AI. But yeah. So, so I guess what I'm saying here is, is it, it's when we talk about diversity now, we talk about it in terms of very trivial differences between people. I'm talking about genuine vast human diversity and people who struggle with the trivial diversities, the trivial difference in proficiencies we have now.Imagine there's a person who finds out that whatever, like his group has a slight IQ advantage over some other group. Right. And he goes, well, that means we're better than that group. And that means we need. Get rid of that group or like in some way, like systemically just power that group. Imagine if that individual was part of the template that we use to make genetically augmented humans or super advanced cybernetic humans, that would be an incredibly dangerous creation.These people really like when we talk about in a way, it is a mass eugenic cleansing that must be carried out, but the eugenic cleansing that must be carried out is of the genetic proclivities to. [00:49:00] Hate that which is different from you, which I understand an evolutionary timeline that was necessary for humanity.So it makes sense that it's in many strains of humanity. But if those strains become the templates that we build a better man from, then those templates will think of us the same way those people think of groups, that they have these marginal advantages over. And that is incredibly dangerous.Simone Collins: Well, sorry for derailing you.By all means, go on.Malcolm: Okay., however, this covenant only extends to the sons of man. Any intelligence that is not a direct descendant of humanity or our labor was created by God to either serve or test man. This is not to say that they must be eradicated, but that they should never be favored over the best interest of the collective covenant of man.The covenant is the only thing with the strength to protect the future of humanity from malevolent intelligences we will awaken in the dark corners of reality as our empire expands. [00:50:00] So, that was one that I actually was not sure if I wanted to put in. And I'm wondering what your thoughts are. I mean, basically what I'm saying is the covenant of man is this agreement that we all make all of humanity of the group that leaves makes that we will tolerate anything that is a descendant of man whether it is a descendant of man, and it could look very different from man, right?It could be we uplift apes, for example, with genetic technology. We, tolerate or dolphins or something. We tolerate any of these that are sons of men. But so they don't need to be a direct son of man, right? Like they need to be sons of our mental effort, our industry and our labor in so far as they don't attempt to subjugate other humans or they don't pose some existential risk for other humans.Like they're just breeding so fastly like the Krogan or something like that. This is something in the game was the Krogan. I never understood who would ever stop the genophage. Anybody who's familiar with mass effect. I, that's the one thing I do. And Every single place for the road. Never stop the [00:51:00] genophage.That is so stupid. It's a very warlike species with a very high fertility rate and other species created a lock on its fertility rate to make it much lower. And obviously this causes huge negative social effects within Krogan society. And it's yes, that's sad, but they were an existential threat to all other species in the galaxy so long as but anyway uh, so, so I, I think a better way to do it than, than To, you know, sterilize them.It might have been to make them less warlike. And there are many ways that could have been done. So, I, I, I struggled with this because basically what I'm saying here is the way the covenant works is all of the sons of man have to tolerate each other and become enemies to any of the sons of man that seem to have enmity to other groups of the sons of man.Okay. So you're basically creating this equal playing field to ground all of the descendants of human labor. But when we're talking about aliens, for example, or other types of intelligences that we find in the universe, they are not covered in this covenant, and we are antagonistic to them. [00:52:00] Not necessarily antagonistic, like we can work with them and stuff like that, but they We can work with them only insofar as it doesn't disrupt Humanity's and the sons of man's best interests.Which is actually a pretty bold position to take. The reason I take it is because the entire structure of this religious system we're building Believes that God has some special relationship with humanity and what humanity is turning into and humanity will change like when we become whatever this entity God is, I don't even think the term corporeal or incorporeal will matter, you know, it's not just like God doesn't have a gender.It doesn't have a status in terms of corporeality. So I, or pluralism versus non pluralism. Like it is a very different kind of an entity from us. And that implies that humanity is changing as we advance. Um, And, and I'll put the quote from when we read here about, you know, the, the, the, our bodies changing by means we cannot even now conjectureAs Wynwood read rights. These bodies, which we know where belong to lower animals, our minds have already outgrown [00:53:00] them already. We look upon them with contempt. The time will come when science will transform them by means which we cannot conjecture. And which even if explained to us, we could not understand. Just as a Savage, cannot understand electricity, magnetism and steam.Malcolm: but things outside of humanity, I, I do have an inclination that all of the fights that we're having now internally as a species are going to seem pretty trivial when we encounter the genuine threat.Like the trials that we're experiencing now, this trial of the lotus ears, the trial of the shadow are trivial trials when contrasted with the trials that we are going to face in deep space and the, the malevolent intelligences that we might run into. And we shouldn't just xenophobically, not form alliances with, with intelligence that are.Beneficial and work with us. But we should have a level of suspicion.Simone Collins: Yeah, that's interesting. I, I mean, my inclination [00:54:00] intuitively is to say like anyone who shares the same aligned values qualifies, you know, if, if they have the ability to let the best ideas win within their own mental landscape and if they favor plurality and intergenerational improvement or iterative improvement over time.Then they're not enemies if they don't support those things, if they want homogeneity, if they want. only them to exist, then they're the enemy.Malcolm: So I agree with that in theory. And I justSimone Collins: don't think that they're alien.Malcolm: But I don't think that you should assume that that's the spirit. So I think that in many first contact scenarios, aliens will have thoroughly done like scouting on us.Basically. Yeah. So thenSimone Collins: they can, they can reflect back to us what they think we want to hear. Yes.Malcolm: That, that set of values that you just talked about. And so I don't even think that that's the way I'm not saying the aliens need to believe this religious and structural system that we [00:55:00] have because I, I wouldn't even want them to do that.They just need to be useful to it. And, and so it's, are they useful to us or are they not useful to us? Are they a threat to us? But I think that we should. approach many of these meetings with a degree of skepticism of their intentionality. And that the descendants of man, like all of the various descendants of man are things that we will have some capacity or understanding around, especially as we get better AI interpretability knowledge, which I believe we will.And I think so, for example, if you're talking about like a human descended AI versus or an AI that we meet that was created by some other species I think that those things should be created as two totally different categoriesSimone Collins: regarded. Yeah, no, and you know, the book the sci fi book that I complained about with space vampires, yeah, blind site.Is really a lot about that, that like, uh, some alien species we encounter can easily be listening into our communications and telling us exactly what we want to hear and seeming quite like us when [00:56:00] really it is so profoundly abstracted from what we are that. We can't even comprehend what it is and how it works.So I, I think,Malcolm: yeah, this skepticism into whatever, because I said like building the last one track, building a neighborhood that can reach the stars. You need to encode this. And so I think that if you build this culture of extreme tolerance for things that are different from you, especially if you even begin to genetically select this out of a population.If we are like, Hey, you can't show bigotry to the talking dolphins or the AIs or the cyborgs or the you know, hive planets, right? Like a hive mind planets. It's so long as they're not trying to subjugate humans from other groups or removing the free will of humans from other groups or descendants of other groups or, you know, These people will become so used to the toleration and, and some level of trust of things that are different from them.And the reason why you would have this trust is because you're going to have such diversity that have any group. So you'reSimone Collins: trying to inoculate what should otherwise be a very pluralistic and I guess [00:57:00] cooperative group to be suspicious when encountering outsiders. Yeah. Yes. I think there are more succinct indirect ways to communicate that because that's not what I was picking up from what you said.But then again, once I go through all these, you know what I'm going to do. I'm going to nuke out. AllMalcolm: of the, all the religious language. Well, you can, you can make it clearer, but we'll see from the audience if they like the religious language or if they want it nuked out. They probablySimone Collins: will. I mean, in the end, you're right about everything.Like when I make weird calls about things and I'm like, I don't like this. And you're like, well, let's see how it goes. And then you turn out to be right. I know. And I trust you, you're, you're smart and beautiful and I love you, but I'm also, you know, opinionated and it's as, as history has shown, there are many people who are wrong and opinionated.So it is a part of a time honored tradition when I'm showing you here.Malcolm: But I mean, when I'm thinking through what I'm doing on this, I'm like in the future, if people are like analyzing this, suppose a large. Sort of like interstellar, like one of the first spaceships, some humans who believes this system are on it and they [00:58:00] end up colonizing some of the first planets.Is that going to be good? What's going to happen in a long, long time period out if people were following this, how would it lead to positive and negative things and what threats could it put our species under? And this comes to something that we say elsewhere is I think what God wants for us is what's best for us and therefore to determine God's will, we should, and when I say best for us, I mean, best for expanding human potentiality, not which maySimone Collins: come at our personal sacrifice, which may mean less hedonic comfort for.Any existing. It almostMalcolm: always means, yeah. But, but a lot of people when they hear best for us, they think distributed positive emotional states. And I'm like, no, that is not what God wants for us. That is how he tests us. That is how he calls us. And that is how the Bible tells you he's going to call you.But anyway, it's not shy about that. That's what the devil does. All right, next. But. Next. Next. What is this ultimate destiny for which we are being tested? From the perspective of our family's faith, it is to become one with God. We believe God is not some [00:59:00] arbitrary entity that took a liking to man or a narcissist who crafted us in his image like miniatures trapped in a ghoulish cycle of trauma and war for his amusement, but that God is man's destiny.That millions of years from now, mankind will resemble more what today we would think of as a God than a man. And that each And that that entity will not relate to time in the way that we do. God exists outside of time, and yet is created by it, guiding mankind until we are worthy to join him.We are already part of God insofar as we serve his will and play our part in his plan for us, which is above all defined by a moral mandate for intergenerational improvement. It was through trials read in tooth and claw that God raised us to glory and taught us to not value comfort as comfort motivates stagnation, the greatest of all sins. but this also comes back [01:00:00] to you know, what I'm talking about here, this God that. Some within the Abrahamic traditions believe it's described in the Bible that like almost treats humans like miniatures,like what, it just created us for its amusement to worship it? I, no, I do not believe that that's true. Alright, but if God is the inevitable creation of a reality like ours, doesn't that preclude him from being its cause?How was reality caused? How does this belief system deal with the ontological argument? We hardly think God is a good answer to this. question. The position that something of infinite and ordered complexity with a degree of cognition existed before all things seems the most unlikely of all possibilities.Literally, all other conceivable possibilities are more likely. Instead, we make only three suppositions. That in all possible universes, two things and two things are four things. Mass is a constant across realities and thus exists outside of realities. The line represented by a graphical equation exists as an emergent property of that [01:01:00] equation even before it is graphed.All physical particle interactions can be defined by a single, yet undiscovered, equation. If these three things are true, then even if the physical universe did not exist as we see it, with matter, time, etc., it would also exist as an emergent property of the equation that governed it. Occam's razor, we cut out the superfluous supposition that there is a physical reality with time, and these are all just representations of a self graphing equation.In fact, all universes that could be explained by an equation exists, which also solves the teleological argument. It also makes the claims that this universe might be simulated irrelevant, as the moral weight of actions and lives in that universe and universe prime would be equivalent, as they are both quote unquote just simulations.It is just that this one is running on silicon. And the other is running on the background fabric of reality, but I do not particularly think that we are in a simulation, but we can get to that later. Now, Simone, this is a topic that we've talked about a lot on the [01:02:00] channel, but I wanted to encode it in the canon as succinctly as I could.And one thing that we've talked about offline is the idea or the supposition that the very first thing to exist or to exist outside of reality was a thing of ordered complexity and a degree of sentience and consciousness. It just seems so wildly improbable to me. It doesn't I literally think it is literally the least likely of all possibilities.I could see nothing. I could see us being in a cycle. I could see us I could see the Big Bang, like some sort of like physical property law thing happening. I could see leaving this as just an unanswered question. But I am fairly convinced with my answer to this question. I don't know if you had any thoughts on the Christian interpretation of this answer which is that God just existed before the universe and created it.Simone Collins: It, I, I think it's one of those things where you referred to in our previous chat about how Stories of origins or any sort of story explanations of anything or guidance on [01:03:00] morality is presented to people in a way that they can understand at that time. And when I think about, you know, in, you know, on day one, God made this and it was good.And on day two, he brought, you know, like sea creatures and all, like weird parts of it seem accurate to me in terms of the ordering, you know, and then God made the seas. And yes, that's how it worked. Yeah. Like we know, like there, there were this evolutionMalcolm: and the creationSimone Collins: of earth. Yeah. Like first there were the oceans and then Yeah, like birds were dinosaurs and blah, blah.You know, and the sea creatures came first, which is totally accurate for our understanding of, of historical geology and evolution and everything. So like when I was listening to that very, very beginning, you know, Genesis, I was like, yeah, oh wow. This is like pretty accurate. But in terms of this guy.Entity existing and making it. I feel like when it comes to your,Malcolm: Oh, and I want to be clear here. Like we do think that God guided evolution, all of that stuff about making the earth, making the planets, making the animals, making all that. He did all of that, which is actually an important [01:04:00] point here. A lot of Christians act as if the Bible says God created the universe, like reality.Yet I don't think the Bible makes that explicit.Simone Collins: No, Genesis. No, it doesn't make that argument. But, I mean, I also in terms of in this many days and the very literal elements of it, I think that that's more explained in a way that people at thatMalcolm: think that was accurate. I think that that was God gifting early man a revelation that he wasn't fully capable of understanding.Basically explaining evolution and the time scales of various things that happen on Earth in a way that early man could grasp. Right.Simone Collins: It's really kind of hard. What is early man doing? Early man is You know, on, on day one, I harvested berries and it was good. And on day two, I slept a little bit more because it was cold outside and it was good.You know, that kind of thing. It's something you could wrap your head around. I, IMalcolm: think that this comes to another area where a lot of people will say, you are saying things that go directly against Christian scripture. And it's these go directly against what I'm told Christian scripture says.From what you actually read in the [01:05:00] Bible, not what I actually read. And this just keeps happening to me that, that I'm told that the scripture says X, and then I read it and somehow it aligns with this like bizarre thing. I thought I made up because it was what was in the best interest of my kids. And what I increasingly am realizing.Is God wanted us to find what was in the best interest for each generation from his text. That's how he wrote it. That's the beauty of it. And people are falling too much to oral tradition was in their communities and confusing it with biblical Talmudic, you know, Quranic truths.Simone Collins: Yeah. I was just thinking about that this morning, listening to someone talk about, what is it called?Ayurvedic astrology, the India based astrology. And he had like complete faith in it and lived by it and like clearly understood nothing about it and could argue nothing from like an informed understanding of it. And it was just very clear that he had heard several [01:06:00] people talking about it in a way that was just so compelling to him.And I think a lot of it comes down to delivery. You know, they were, they were you know, probably attractive and magnetic enough where he just kind of listened to them say complete nonsense and was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he would just start repeating them. And I feel like the same goes for many religions where.Preachers and various church leaders are saying things in a very charismatic way that's very compelling. And people are like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Because also that's kind of how we're built. Like we're not built to read original text and come to our own conclusions because people who do that, do that, get kicked out of the tribe and die alone in the tundra.Well,Malcolm: no, it's very interesting that you point this out because this has been a similar to an experience that I've kept having, which is when I'm trying to understand the Abrahamic faith to better understand God's word. I both read the texts and I talk with people who are conservative practitioners and preachers within their communities, whether domain experts, [01:07:00] whether this is within the Islamic community or the Jewish community.And regularly I am finding honestly, very little, like useful, meaningful, impactful information to me from the domain experts. And yet I am finding. Just this enormous trove of it was in the actual texts themselves. You know, when I'm going through the Talmud, I'm like, Oh my God, like this, so right on.What's interesting to meSimone Collins: too, is there are some domain experts I can count to who, when you talk with them about the texts, like they actually know, like they, it's clear that they have actually gone to those texts personally and thought logically about them in isolation without someone guiding them through everyone else is more like, Oh no, we don't ask these questions orMalcolm: they're basically like, don't point out that that text contrasts with our way of life.And it's again, I'm not pointing out anyone specific here. Like we all might say, I'm specifically pointing out you know, I've had this from Jews. I've had this from Muslims. I've had this from Christians. It's theSimone Collins: two people that I'm thinking of who actually. Have gone through the text and thought logically about it are, areMalcolm: Jewish.Yeah. I mean, [01:08:00] but, but it's, it's something that I keep having with these various communities and what it represents to me, and this is something we talked about in our last track, is the fall of the Abrahamic faced from the periods of pure revelation that they received. Mm. Where they were given. And they followed it for a while.And then they, they fell away from it and they begin to become more like a subculture. And and, and so not to overpick on these, let's pick on Christians for a bit, like iconoclasm, like to me, like so many Christian groups are just like. clearly into iconoclasm in ways that was very explicitly prohibited.And I, and, and it's well, why, why at, you know, the second council of Nicene, did you say that it was okay to have images of God? And the answer is basically, well, it's popular within our communities and we don't want to like hurt the feelings of these people who think it's popular, you know, like they, they like doing this.They like creating these graven images. And. Um, and, and, and they do it to affirm their love of God, you know, and we take the perspective as we're like, no, like the [01:09:00] Bible specifically said, if they think that this is bringing them closer to an entity, that entity is not God. It may feel like God, but that's the way the basilisk works.That's the way the deceiver works. But what's interesting for us is we feel that that isn't. So in a way, if you're getting closer to the devil, you are getting closer to God. Just the side of himself he warned you about. You don't want to see me when I'm which is an interesting sort of framing here.So we don't take this as, as, as strongly as some other things. But in future videos, we will go to things that I think I read in these other texts that have much more direct contradiction with the existing lifestyles of individuals within the Abrahamic faith, which has led me to sort of increasingly turn away from the communities as they exist now and try to find truths in the text itself.And again, I'm just saying I'm not somebody out here who's thinking I hear God talk to me or something like that or giving me unique understanding. I think I, if I'm unique, it's only in. I'm coming at this [01:10:00] from starting as an atheist perspective, I don't particularly care what people think about me, and I don't care about being accepted within any of these existing communities, and I'm just trying to read what these texts actually say, with a modern understanding of reality, and trying to make them make basic level sense to me, in terms of being like nonsensical stories.Simone Collins: Going back to the basilisk, is it almost like more sinful to Be weak and not indulge in sin. It's I'm kind of thinking like, you know, we, when we set mousetraps in our home, because sometimes we get mice, they crawl in from the fields and our house is very porous, we want the mice to go to the mousetraps.I'm very pleased when the mice go to the mousetraps. And is that not you know, a good human going to the basilisk is yeah. No,Malcolm: I agree. That's what it is. We should not be going around disarming mousetraps that God set around.Simone Collins: Or, or warning mice about the mousetraps and being like, no, no, no, shoo, shoo, go away from the mousetrap.But itMalcolm: just seems. You can warn about [01:11:00] the mousetrap. You can go to the mice and say, hey, you know, if you had. You say, hey, if you had self control you're gonna die if you go that, but the nature of a mouse is that it doesn't have self control and it can't understand you. If I warned a mouse and it understood me, and it then had the self control to not go to the mousetrap, that is a mouse I don't want dead.ThatSimone Collins: is a remarkable mouse. Really? Because then we're gonna have a lot of trouble with vermin chewing through it. Bags of flour and rice.Malcolm: No, no, but these then would be the types of mice that don't do that. Because this is a, a sentient mouse that I am able to communicate with in the English language.That's a remarkable thing, Simone. What I'm saying is, is, is it just, and I, and maybe that's the way God feels about humanity. The vast majority of us are destined for the mousetraps he spent, he, he, he set up. And he, he finds it remarkable when some of us are able to understand the words that he wrote and scattered around our planet.Made them available for all of us little mice to him. I mean, that's what we are to him. And he goes, well, ain't that [01:12:00] a darn thing. It seems to be able to understand at some base level that I'm warning it against going into the mousetrap. That means one day it has potential. But I mean, we are still mice, you know, in, in that, that is over exaggerating our, our position in comparison.You know what I mean? But I actually really love that analogy there.Simone Collins: Well, then we will not stretch it further by going into Ratatouille. Let's go on. What's the nextMalcolm: passage? Thus to us, fertility collapse is not a tragedy, but an opportunity. It is the great tempter, the basilisk, clearing the earth of the indolent masses who have allowed themselves to succumb to temptation.As those without discipline and mental fortitude have no place in the world that is to come. The crises our species is facing and that lay ahead of us are not capricious mistakes but absolutely necessary for us to pass through if humanity is to take our destined place in the history of reality. If men were to take to the stars without this necessary culling, [01:13:00] I can hardly imagine the dark horror that would result.The pronatalist movement couldn't stop fertility collapse, even if it wanted to. Our place is merely to act as a beacon for those who have the will and the fortitude to be part of the community that will have a role to play in humanity's manifest destiny and in the coming trial. So that's it. That's all.Just sort of a reframing there, but I'm always glad to talk through these with you because you also point out things and like things, misunderstandings that I wouldn't expect of people. Like when I'm talking about human diversity, that you were so myopically focused on human diversity today, instead of understanding the point I'm making and that we need to, before we leave the planet, beforeSimone Collins: we can call it human, maybe you need to read jigger the words.Cause if you call it human diversity, IMalcolm: call it the Covenant of the Sons of Man. Oh, okay. The Sons of Man is all of the descendants, whether it's of mankind's labor, intellect, orSimone Collins: Yeah, you need to be a little bit more [01:14:00] explicit that this involves highly different species. Because you're talking about post speciation man plus other entities that we've brought into existence, like AI.So, I would, but, I mean, I'll go through and edit these.Malcolm: Someday. Someday. Well, I might publish them before they're edited, but I like that aspect as well because then you'll see feedback and we can create something that draws from the wisdom of the community and not just ourselves. AndSimone Collins: the community can come up with a really, really good name.Malcolm: Well, I mean, I, I appreciate this, this element that what we're trying to do is democratize radical interpretations of Abrahamic scripture. And That's just like really different than what I've seen done before, where typically you have some leader who has some sort of special access to things where all we're doing is laying out some set of rules where we're like, okay, well, it seems really weird that like these Abrahamic groups did really well after they [01:15:00] received the revelation in terms of this type of productivity.What can we learn from God's will from that? What kind of, and another area where I think we can learn God's will is when an Abrahamic group has fallen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And their practices are really different from some commandment or wisdom that was given to them. To me, that means that that wisdom must be uniquely important to us, or must be a unique message from God.Because how could that wisdom have stayed hidden like that? How could that wisdom, how, how could he have explicitly laid out a certain set of wisdom so loudly, so explicitly and then had a group ignore it? If they did, if they didn't expunge it from the records, basically after ignoring it, right? What that means is God left it there for somebody else, somebody in the future, us, potentially, to find and learn from in trying to create the next cyclical iteration of this set of traditions that is more optimized for, you know, thinking long term about humanity, thinking long term about, well, [01:16:00] if we And this is actually a really interesting phenomenon that keeps happening to me.And I'll sit there and logically think, okay, if we're going to go to the stars or something like that, right. And I need to create a system of rules or a system of ways of acting. And this will come up much more in future tracks. What would be the best thing to tell people to do? And then I'll be like, okay let's say this like X or Y or something like that.Then I'll go to the Koran and I'll go to the Bible and I'll go to the Talmud and like remarkably, they'll be like. Specific packet passages that seem directly to address and affirm the, the intuition that I had was like, Oh, I think that this is the best intuition for the best future of our species.Well, thenSimone Collins: what counter will you give to the inevitable viewer who says, welcome to the confirmation bias that thousands, if not millions of. Previous religious text readers have developed and this is exactly why the catholic church says let me interpret this for you because otherwise people will [01:17:00] find because Frankly, you can kind of find a passage that supports pretty much anything in most religious texts What's your answer to that?Malcolm: You could say that this is I mean so you've got to again view our religious system from the perspective of both an atheist and a Theological person, right? The theological person isn't going to be saying that as much because then you just throw it back at them. What about your confirmation bias that supports your community's beliefs, right?You know, well, yeah,Simone Collins: but then like a Catholic would be like, well, this is exactly why we have the structures that we have and blah,Malcolm: blah, blah. Right. Well, and then I'd say, yeah, except the structures you have are clearly affirming anti biblical concepts like iconoclasm, which I could, we go deep into iconoclasm in another tract.So I'm not going to go further into it now. But I'd be like, so clearly these systems aren't working. But to the other group, suppose it's the atheist who comes to me and says this, right? You know, they're like, I'm like, what's your problem? Seriously, think about what we're doing here. Suppose it really is all just using the.older traditions to justify a reasonable set of [01:18:00] standards for humanity interacting with each other that maintains some level of human pluralism and maintains the safety of our descendants in the stars and that, listen, and that. Captures the spirit of Western culture, Western, but whatSimone Collins: you're saying here is basically, it doesn't matter because I've already come to a conclusion based on genuine merit by my standards, which is logic and our understanding of science to the to date and therefore who cares if it's confirmation bias when I'm really just making it easier for people who want that religiousMalcolm: endorsement. But, but more than that, I'm also saying, look, if you just do things secularly, it doesn't work. We've already seen that, right? Sure. So to have a religious system that's endorsing this secular perspective, but it's also highly open to being updated, which we'll talk about in a future track, how that worked.You don't have the same downsides, but in addition to that It captures this spirit of our history. I do not like the idea of casting off. Even if I was approaching this from a totally secular perspective of [01:19:00] casting off the Western canon. I think that feeling a continuity with your ancestors.And seeing it as your duty to play your iterative role in evolving that continuity and seeing that continuity is evolving throughout history accurately. This is one thing that really bothers me as somebody who really likes studying religious history. As recently I've been talking to some people of different Abrahamic faiths and they go, my faith has not evolved that much.It has not changed that much in its practices. And just like that, you could be a dumb believer yet have so little knowledge of the history of your tradition because all three of the Abrahamic traditions, the main ones have had enormous changes. And I should point out, this is another thing we haven't gotten to, but we also think that the raw Astrianism is likely a true revelation from God.It just shares way too much in common with the other true revelations, strong condemnation of iconoclasm, monotheism, similar pantheonic structure. similar numerical like importances. Like it's, it, it seems pretty clear to me. I think in society we've become over focused on just this idea of Abrahamism.And, and I'm [01:20:00] open to other systems being shown to be true systems from God. And we'll talk about how we look at another thing that like, we haven't mentioned yet. A lot of people are like, why don't you talk about Eastern systems? Why don't you talk about like this?And we're like, if we haven't talked about your group. And I'm saying this with the context that we make fun of Orthodox people for bedazzling their dead, and we we meme on Catholics all the time. And we've called Hasidic Jews, basically, witches on various episodes. These are groups that I have a great deal of affinity for, and I think are great direct revelations from God.The groups that we haven't talked about, it's because what we would have to say about them would be dramatically more contentious and negative. And I don't see the purpose in, in doing that, or at least just yet. But that's something that we will probably get to eventually in another tract and that groups that we are ribbing on should know that we have theological differences with you, but a large reason that [01:21:00] we have those is, or the large reason we're airing those is because they're very.We have a level of admiration for your community and your culture. And we think that there's a level of truth that you also follow. And that in general, you know, as we say with conversions in our other show, if somebody was going to leave your community, it would be our job to push them back to it, because they are following a true revelation of God.And that where we should recruit is among the atheists, is among the skeptics and among the people who just cannot stay within their existing tradition. Anyway, and of course, people of. enormous intellectual talent or industry. But that is just our arrogance, right? It's well, if we actually believe what we're saying, which I do to an extent, I mean, do you believe like you're here saying okay, you're, you, Malcolm are just saying, yeah, why are you questioning if it's, what's in the best interest of our species anyway?But you have a, I mean, do you, do you not like me saying that?Simone Collins: Saying what exactly?Malcolm: Well, so A lot of people would hear somebody saying, well, yeah, I don't really care about these kinds of challenges because logically [01:22:00] this is what kinds of challenges. Challenges like saying, okay, you're an individual who's saying, logically, you think this is the best interest of our species.And then another individual would say, well, isn't this just confirmation bias? And then I'm like, well, why? No, no, no. ISimone Collins: don't. I have no problemMalcolm: with that. What I'm asking you is,Simone Collins: I mean, the Catholics did that in a sense when they approached different cultures. And said, Oh, we're like, no, totally. Look, our religion's like your religion.That, that God that you worship is, is this Saint. It's, it's the Virgin Mary. It's the same person.Malcolm: That's what you're doing. Now they have cultists worshiping like a literal demon in South America that I've talked about on other episodes. The cult of Santa Muerte to me, it's the closest thing to devil worship we have in the world today.Real devilSimone Collins: worship. You see my point. So yes, no, I have no trouble from that perspective. I thought you were trying to say that you were, you were trying to find like uncontrovertible true. confirmation that the Bible supports exactlyMalcolm: the argument. I believe I have more confirmation I've seen for this system than I've seen for any other system I've [01:23:00] looked into.Well, no, no, no. AndSimone Collins: that's, again, that's the thing I really like is that when we go back to certain passages of the Bible with this added layer that you present. A lot of stuff makes more sense to me than it did when I read the Bible in isolation, especially when I read the Bible in concert with the cultural baggage and expectations that I came in with.And that's when I get super confused. Cause I'm like, but I thought Christians believe this and everyone says that this is what Christianity is all about. And then the Bible seems totally different. But anyway, this has been fun to talk about. And I bet our next conversation will be very interesting asMalcolm: well.I love you a great deal Simone. Have a good one.Simone Collins: I love you too, Malcolm. Get full access to Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm at basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe

We discuss Professor Edward Dutton's new theory that "woke" ideas may be eugenic or serve as a selection pressure. By pushing society in a maladaptive direction, wokeism discourages those who can't survive harsh conditions from reproducing. It selects for the highly religious, conservative, traditionalist, and ethnocentric who can endure collapse. We also cover the decline of civilization tied to declining intelligence, the "spiteful mutant" hypothesis, as well as optimism around AI and automation potentially preventing another dark age.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] if you are able to think for yourself, and you look at the data, and you just say what that data says, you will be isolated from mainstream society, and then people like us, find each other because,and so in that way, they are hopefully sowing the seeds of their own downfall. So long as they're not rounding up like Machiavelli would, everyone who dissents and who says the true thing in the room of liars so that they can then have them. IEdward Dutton: think, I think, I think it may come to that point, but I think we will have, we will have escaped to our various neo Byzantiums by the time they simply go through the streets with a machine gun and kill people that express any logical or reasonable ideas.Would you like to know more?Simone Collins: Hello everyone. Today we are joined again, we're very excited, by the Jolly Heretic, a. k. a. Edward Dutton, a. k. a. Professor Dutton. You can find his podcast or YouTube channel, The Jolly Heretic. He also authored The Native Classroom, a, sort of the mathematician's lament of science education, which is available on Amazon.But today we're gonna talk about something a [00:01:00] little different, some research that he recently did as well as an ancient theory, taken theory heMalcolm Collins: has. So let's start with the, the research that I wanna start with is the Rome study. Mm-Hmm. Talk a bit about what was found in this study because I think it was really cool and that it seemed to confirm a theory that a lot of us had been throwing around andEdward Dutton: sort then it, that's sort of confirm it.Yeah. So basically, basically the I, the i, the theory is that what causes the rise and fall of civilizations and the theory that I. been working on for a long time. Loads of people have worked on it, but I've quite associated with it in a book I did called Adolf Witzend, Why We're Becoming Less Intelligent and What It Means for the Future of Michael Woodley Venny, is its intelligence.Intelligence is the central thing. If you're under harsh Darwinian conditions and the intelligence is not particularly high, there is strong selection pressure for intelligence because intelligence gives you the competitive edge and allows you to survive. And we showed that across time, based on proxy measures such as skull size, such as capital, major innovations, such as literacy, even though sounds like it didn't change much, such as numeracy such as interest rates, which are a marker of [00:02:00] time preference.And a number of other measures that intelligence seemed to be going up. And indeed the richer 50 percent of the population in England had based on powers records, double the completed. population and the intelligence is associated robustly with wealth. And so this indicates intelligence is going up and then you get the breakthroughs of the industrial revolution, of course.And then you, you start to get a situation where the direct inspection pressure is reduced. So whereas what's been happening is every generation, the bottom of society have been dying out. And the top of the society have been increasing in size and moving down to fill the places vacated by those at the bottom who have died off.Then that process kind of stops because with the innovations of medicine and better housing and industrial revolution the Darwinian selection measure is weakened. And then you find this process where it, for some reason, we don't quite know why, but I've speculated on why in my book. It goes into reverse.You start to see a negative correlation. between [00:03:00] intelligence and how many Children you have. And we showed we show evidence of this based on again for capital major innovation based on IQ scores based on reaction times getting longer based on color discrimination getting worse based on new and based on simply genes that are associated alleles that are essentially associated with high intelligence beginning becoming less and less and less within the population.So, and what that eventually leads to, of course, is the society becomes stupider and stupider and stupider, and it can't sustain things it used to be able to sustain, but also it degenerates into war, it splits up, it becomes impulsive and whatever, and essentially the civilization collapses. At worst, or at best, it retreats.You get a kind of Byzantium effect where clever people that are still there kind of club together and keep it going in some smaller form as it reduces in size and so on. So intelligence becomes the motor of the rise and fall of civilization. So what we The theory is that that could be the case with Rome and there was some evidence for that because [00:04:00] they talk about in the time of Augustus, they noticed that the upper class men are not having many children.They talk about it and they note the population is going down and they know that Augustus brings in a tax on childlessness from the upper class men and they pay the tax and all this sort of thing is going on. And so we thought we'll work and test it with ancient genomes. So, what you have is these samples.It's true that they are small samples, but the statistical significance was maintained and all that they were representative. And you show, we find that at the beginning of the period of Rome, you know, the, the, the prevalence of these alleles is not that high. goes up, it reaches a peak in the Republican period, so this is a highly intelligent period, and then Rome starts to generate into chaos.Rome, of course, doesn't have an industrial revolution, but it does become very rich. It has the grain laws, the dole, or whatever, it reduces, it creates its own zoo, like we did. It reduces selection pressure. What do you see? The prevalence of the alleles associated with intelligence starts to go. down. And and this goes down in parallel basically [00:05:00] with the collapse of Rome.So, it, it does, it does fit the data. Now, the theory, the counter argument, sorry, is that there is a change in the composition of the people living in Rome so that you have more genes, more bodies that are from outside Rome itself that are from other parts of Italy or of the Mediterranean. So that's a compound.But, but, but otherwise it does kind of, it is what we would predict. Yeah.Malcolm Collins: And you can tell me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember in the study as a point of clarification. They're not looking at IQ, they're looking at the polygenic risk scores that today would be associated with educational attainment.Yeah, that,Edward Dutton: with high, polygenic risk scores associated with high, very high educational attainment, which is a very good proxy for IQ.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, no, it's a good proxy, but I think a lot of people might be like, well IQ, whatever, it's like, look, they're not even looking at that, they're looking at like, Functionally, like the types of people who, when our society would get PhDs, just started to disappear from the society.And, and this is fascinating because this theory existed prior to, [00:06:00] you know, looking at these historic bodies. And it aligns with something that we've noted in some of our work. that if you look at renaissances in a region, they typically last for no longer than three generations and they almost never bloom twice within the same population.So if you, whether it's the, you know, the Scottish enlightenment or the renaissance in Italy or you know, the American renaissance in the original 13 colonies, or you, you rarely will see A renaissance lasting longer than three generations are happening twice because renaissances seem to be genetically exhaustive of whatever is their precursor.And this also aligns with some of the theories I've seen of why you saw civilization bloom in places that previously were more barbarian. Where when a place was particularly barbarian. During a previous phase of large, large civilization that they were likely to become the nexus of the next civilization.Edward Dutton: And, and yeah, I think that's a very good point. So you've got a [00:07:00] situation where civilization will move because it will start in a place where there is an optimum relationship between the genetics and the environment. And it will which will, which will allow. The, the, the, the civilization to spread and whatever and grow, and it will perhaps move, let's say, further north to a place where the environmental selection pressures are harsher which means that in, in sort of theory, there's, let's say, harsher, more selection for something like intelligence or there could be, there could be.If let's say something like farming went there. Yeah. So in the absence of farming, farming is a selection event, farming selections for intelligence. And so if you, if you, if you take farming from the Mediterranean or whatever, so from the Nile up to where, to the North, then the selection pressures are very, it will become very harsh for them.A lot of them will be wiped out. And so then you'd expect the center of civilization to move North because there's suddenly as harsh a selection for intelligence further North and it would carry on like that.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I'm arguing more that like barbarism. is, is the precursor of, of, of [00:08:00] civilization or intelligence, because keep in mind that Rome wasn't replaced by, you know, Northern European civilization.It was replaced by Islamic civilization. And, and that came out of a region of extreme barbarism. And then if you look at the Roman empire, the next places of large civilization were like the German territories and the English territories, which were two of the most, like the least tamed during the Roman empire.Hold on. So youSimone Collins: don't really mean barbarism, which is really just being foreign or different. You mean like harsh living, right?Malcolm Collins: Harsh living.Edward Dutton: Yeah. That's an interesting possibility. It would make sense that they're under harsher conditions. And because they're under harsher conditions, they're sort of more up against it.So there's less possibility to experiment there's less access, and so they can't innovate these kinds of things themselves. But once they get hold of the rubric of the innovation, then because their harsh conditions are more selective for intelligence, let's say then they can [00:09:00] take it and they can run with it and they can do fantastically well.Now, the, the, the possible problem with that, and my colleague on that paper, the Rome paper, is looking at this at the moment, is that there's some evidence that the really, really important thing is farming. That's, that's, it's, it's crucial. And it, and once you get farming, it massively elevates IQ. And because it creates this competition where anyone that doesn't take up farming is wiped out.And it's much more cognitively demanding to pursue farming than to pursue hunter gathering or farming.Simone Collins: So is it farming or is it technology adoption? BecauseEdward Dutton: farming is a form of technology. Well, he's arguing that form of technology. Huh. Now I don't know if he's right, but that's what he's suggesting.So he's arguing that possibly based on apologetic scores people, the reason why agriculture was developed in Iraq. was because at that time they were just the most intelligent people. And, and and, and so it might, it might not, that, that theory is the one I used to hold. It might not [00:10:00] be right.We'll see.Malcolm Collins: Interesting. Yeah. It'd be interesting to see. Yeah. I was just thinking in my head. Okay. So the, the, the times that I'm thinking what a big civilization is like when I was like, okay, civilization died, civilization rose. You had a Greek civilization, which rose after the bronze age. As a result of Egyptian civilization and and the Bronze Age civilizations leaving the scene.And we know that that region has recently undergone a near total ethnic replacement. That's what we saw was like the erasure of, so there was really heavy conflict in that region. We know that it's Islamic civilization came out of a really, really high conflict region. Rome, pre Roman history, was really high conflict, but did have farming.None of the other ones I knew had a lot of farming. I didn't ancient Athens, I'm thinking pre, pre, like, bronze age collapse, sea people time, they might have had agriculture Small scale, at the very least. Small scaleEdward Dutton: agriculture. They had agriculture, yeah. So, I mean, I think, I think that, your theory that you're founding is what I think.Myself founded in various things I've written and it may well be right, but I'm just, I'm just wondering at the moment, I will wait to see my colleagues research on this. If [00:11:00] there isMalcolm Collins: your other theory, no, I also wantSimone Collins: to, well, hold on. There's one question I want to ask, and this is to both of you. And this is just because my understanding of this period of history, especially when it comes to falling birth rates is imperfect.Obviously what people give as excuses for not having kids is different from why they're not actually having kids, but was there some taxation or inheritance policy or thing other than just. hedonism, which is always the answer people give when society stopped, you know, producing as many kids that would explain why especially upper class men were not having as many kidsEdward Dutton: at that time.The opposite. I mean, they were, they were trying to encourage upper class men to have more kids. Right. ButSimone Collins: why weren't, why weren't they despite encouragement?Edward Dutton: We don't really know. My. theory which I've expounded in various places is that, is that basically, well, the evidence is that mortality salience and threat of mortality and death that's what makes you want to have kids.That's our evolutionary match. So if you take that [00:12:00] away, then it becomes a selection event for the, just the genetics of pronatalism. And, and, and that is what is taken away to some extent anyway. Okay, there was high mortality in Rome compared to now, but that is what is particularly among the upper class, that is what is taken away.And, and so they just stop having, they don't, the, the, the instinct doesn't hit in. And I think that's what we're seeing now, people that are more intelligent are more environmentally sensitive. There's a number of lines of evidence for that. And so they're more sensitive to the environment if they're in an evolutionary mismatch They're just basically less instinctive.And so they just don't have kids AndMalcolm Collins: we also need to think about what what does hedonism mean? Like what is a society have to look like for it to estole Hedonism as a virtue and to not severely punish members from engaging in hedonism cultural groups that didn't punish hedonism historically are typically Out competed really quickly because it's really bad for the elites in your society to be overly hedonistic unless you massively are out competing your [00:13:00] neighbors.And this is why if you look at the periods right before various civilizational collapses, whether it's the Athenian civilization, the Roman civilization, or the Muslim civilization, All of them had extreme hedonism, particularly sexual hedonism, right before their collapse started. And you can read a lot about this I think people would be surprised.And the reason why I always include the Muslim civilization one, because I think a lot of people ignore that in their data sets. But it gives you an additional data set in an area where we already don't have that many data sets. Yeah,Edward Dutton: Pasha Glub in his book, The Fate of Empires, looks into the Islamic situation, of course.He was amazed by parallels between 8th century Islam, let's say, and what was going on in Rome 800 years earlier. Yeah, itMalcolm Collins: was very aligned. Yeah, and I have something I also want to compliment Ed Dutton on saying here, because this is not the way the opponents of ours think, is he had a theory, he was committed to the theory, he had written on the theory, he had somebody else agree with the theory, and he said, well, I'm actually aware of some counter [00:14:00] evidence that's currently being developed, and so I want to see if it disconfirms my presumptions.Yeah. This is a really important, in the way that people should think and engage with ideas. And is not often seen in our society right now. And I think it needs to be specifically called out. It's a good thing to say when somebody says, I might be disproven, here's somebody who's working on this. But let's now go to your next theory, the new one you're working on now.Yes, veryEdward Dutton: fun. So, I'm known for a theory of spiteful mutants which wasMalcolm Collins: Can you talk a bit about spiteful mutants first?Edward Dutton: Including the idea that if If if there's a collapse in harsh Darwinian selection pressure, then you get a buildup of mutation. The mu the mutation will relate of course to the body.It will make people physically less healthy, but it, but also make people mentally less healthy. And the people that are men and those things are player typically related. Mm-Hmm, . And so if people are mentally less healthy, then they will tend to. adaptation, they tend to have basically ways of thinking for genetic reasons that are [00:15:00] unhealthy, that are maladaptive as opposed to adaptive.So what have we been selecting for across time? We've been selecting for intelligence, we've been selecting for pro social personality, we've been selecting for obviously wanting to have children, natalisms, basic thing. We've got religiosity, because religiosity seems to take that which is adaptive and make it the will of God.We've been groups which are we've been selecting for ethnocentrism, positive negative ethnocentrism, obedience to authority, all these kinds of group oriented things. We've been selecting for all this whole bundle of stuff that is all bundled together and tends to manifest in certain kinds of religious group.And so you would expect a deviation from that, and that deviation would be associated with mutational load. And you would get these these, these mutants, they'd be identifiable by sights to some extent because of the relationship between what you look like and mutational load. Who would just have maladaptive ideas.Because we're a highly pro social species and we're meant to be surrounded by genetically healthy people, we would be influenced by them. And so therefore they would spread maladaptive ideas around the society. These would be ideas like Andrea Dworkin or whatever, you [00:16:00] know, all sex, obvious spiteful mutants.ugly, disgusting woman. Um, all, all, all sex is rape. And, and, and, you know, the basically we should just allow humanity to die out. So that was the idea. You have these, these spiteful mutants, and if they are reasonably intelligent and they, they reach the middle class, then they will be able to push society.in a maladaptive direction and, and just destroy it basically. And, you know, lead, lead to its end. So they're spiteful, they're, they're bad for society. And then more recently, myself and a colleague have been think, have been revising this idea and thinking actually, no. Like what, what, what actually, perhaps they're altruistic.I mean, what are they doing? They are going to bring about a people who are basically Very religious, very conservative, very pro natalist, very genetically healthy, very able to surv If some kind of massive natural disaster happens, like happened with the Bron with the Late Bronze Age Collapse, very able to survive that.[00:17:00]But if they weren't there, potentially we'd just get unhealthier and unhealthier and unhealthier, and when inevitably there's a big natural disaster, then just everybody would die out.Simone Collins: So are you saying they're like a mousetrap, like, catchingMalcolm Collins: So it's, it's very interesting. I I'll give my thoughts onEdward Dutton: this.Well, I'll just summarize what I've said. So the idea, what they are doing, what they are doing, what woke is doing, is it has taken over the culture of society, and it is pushing society In a matter, it is whereas you are used to being pushed along the adaptive roadmap of life, which says you think life has meaning, which says that you should believe in God, which says that you should have children, which says that you should eventually be men and women should be women, whatever.All of, all of the, which says that you should live in relatively monocultural society, everything all of this is. utterly subverted. All of this is turned on its head. Instead, you are pushed along a maladaptive roadmap of life where you are told you shouldn't have children. You should mutilate your body.You should be gay. You, you should, you should welcome the destruction of your society. You should just everything. [00:18:00] Bad. So who, and therefore people don't have children, who is resistant to this onslaught, which says don't have children, or which pushes you towards not having children, which, you know, feminism or whatever, which pushes you towards not having children, it makes it more difficult, or fat acceptance, pushes you, who is resistant to this?It's going to be people that, for genetic reasons, are going to be highly ethnocentric, conservative religious, and those all correlate with being healthy. So basically it's a selection event, and the woke people are altruistic. They are bringing, they are, they are eugenicists. They are bringing about the removal of all but the most genetically healthy, and the most basically conservative and right wingthat's what they're, that's what they're bringing about. And so from the perspective of those that are right wing, one could kind of argue that they're altruistic, aren't they? I mean, they're a good thing. They're a group level adaptation, and the group that doesn't have it could be in trouble and could, and could die out.What they're also doing is they're bringing [00:19:00] down civilization. And if they're bringing down civilization back to harsher Darwinian conditions, then of course we need to be able to survive these harsher Darwinian conditions. But they're also ensuring that there are going to be people that will survive these conditions, because they're discouraging those that wouldn't survive it from breeding.So, and then you get group selection, and their group is the strong group. So they're purging their own group of the unhealthy. That's what wokeness could be argued to be doing.Malcolm Collins: Well, I said, I want to dig into this. This is really cool. And it goes on some of the things that we've talked about where Wokus, you know, through any avenue that they preach their, you know, mimetic sterilization, they are primarily sterilizing people who are pregnant.genetically susceptible and open to these progressive ideas. Now, I actually think that it is potentially scary how good they are at this from a genetic level. Like, they're doing a very good job of removing pro sociality from the human species. Which, which, you know, it isn't all good. But it is [00:20:00] definitely a real phenomenon that we are really seeing.Simone Collins: Yeah, I'm hearing like, drawing out mental illness like a sponge. Okay. Drawing out a bunch of other problems, but then also like drawing out openness to outside ideas. I mean,Malcolm Collins: who's being killed? Who do fat activists kill? You know, they kill, you know, people who are susceptible to these ideas. Who do pro abortion advocates kill?They, they are aborting progressive fetuses. Who are you know, who, when, when people are open to sexual practices that lead to lower fertility rates you know, who is being attracted by this? It is typically people who are more susceptible to these ideas. The downside is of all of this, so of the first series, I don't know if the mutants would know that they were mutants, or know to be spiteful, like there would be no genetic real reward for them to do this.I, I think that the second theory is closer to the truth and that it definitely is having this effect on populations. Unfortunately, they suppress fertility, particularly in the midwit population[00:21:00] that is susceptible to their ideas. They don't do a good job of suppressing fertility in the idiots or in the severe upper class.And I think that this could lead to speciation. Yeah.Edward Dutton: Yeah. Yeah. Indeed. So I, well, I think what, no, no, I just. Let's put it a different way. I'm not sure about that because I think that what you what you have with the the the low intelligent people what what the woke are doing as well is bringing down civilization and those those that have you know, it's the south africanization of the west basically and those those that have low iq Yeah, you're right in on a certain level.They're not suppressing their fertility, but those people are Genetically very unhealthy and are increasingly completely reliant on complex systems, national health service or whatever in, in order to survive. Those people are more morbid. So, so when, when, when civilization starts to decline and there's, there's, you know, there's bringing about, remember, they're bringing that about by massive verbal immigration, by, by, by encouraging the midwits not to breed, by, by whatever, they're bringing that about, [00:22:00] then these people that have low IQ, they're just going to die off. So, so you're, you're, the, the, the, the midwits, the midwits, the midwits which aren't resigned from the gene pool, the low IQ people are unable to survive.And also remember that one of the things they're bringing about. is a in, in, in bringing about, in selecting people that are more religious and conservative is a much higher level of disgust. And this, this, this has an interesting effect because it has the kind of effect that you have in Victorian England where they talked, where was a massive problem with disease and whatever, which is why they were so conservative which is that they saw the working classes like vectors of disease that were dangerous and you had to keep away from them.And I think you're going to get the spread of these kinds of ideas increasingly, that they're almost another people, that we just don't, you don't go near them, that's just, no.Malcolm Collins: Well, and, and where we would have the biggest disagreement on this is, is I would actually argue that they are holding off the collapse of our society.through immigration policies that bring in a large portion of people who are still genetically healthy and haven't been ravaged as much in, as, as [00:23:00] centers of, of, of long term urban wealth. I think that whenever a place enters like stagnant long term urban wealth, you begin to see a pretty big dysgenic effects and that they are keeping society like broadly alive.This is in America more than Europe. On the otherEdward Dutton: hand, on the other hand, on the other hand, couldn't you argue that what they're, what they're doing as they do this increasingly and increasingly is creating a growing sense of sort of almost like native, a subculture of native identity almost whereby, whereby with their woke policies.If basically, if you dissent from their ideas, then you know, you are evil which, which inclines people who do dissent from their ideas to increasingly come together into, into a subgroup and breed with, and breed with each other in a way they wouldn't previously probably have done. Or needed to do which therefore increases a sense of separation between the, the, the surviving native conservative population and, and everybody else.So, so, so, so they're, they're, they're bringing, they're bringing about this [00:24:00] sort of genetic similarity process, but via exclusion, via excluding us from their party. bar excluding us from their social networks. That's what, that's what they're, that's what they're doing. That's how you, us three met. So, so I think that on that, on that level, they're helping to create that.I mean, it's true that the, the, the, I think it's unsustainable. Ultimately, it gets to a point where there is a, there is a growing reaction, I think, against this, this, this high immigration. But when, but when that happens, if you don't have the high immigration and you don't improve the birth rate, Then what you ultimately will have is economic collapse.SoMalcolm Collins: yeah, and I should also point out that there's very different types of immigration within different countries and and for different communities when you have what I would call high barrier immigration you're typically going to actually get the best and the brightest from a country and when you have low barrier immigration or you're getting the final squeeze, like Venezuela is a good example here.The early Venezuelan immigrants would that notice things happening and came when it was, you know, it's still difficult to come, but now you're sort of getting the [00:25:00] final squeeze of the vine of the country. And so you're getting lower quality immigrants than you would in the first few waves of immigration, but this has, as bad as the effects are within the United States, you need to consider what effects we're having on these developing countries when we do siphon off their best and the brightest.I mean, look at a place like Africa and, and generations and generations of siphoning off their best and brightest is definitely going to have an effect on these countries. If we continue to maintain this as a policy, like genetics exist and genetics are real and so we will destroy not just our own country, but their country, you know, you bring them over, then you medically sterilize them and then you have to bring the next over and and iterationally, this is going to have huge genetic effects around the world and people are underestimating how quickly really strong selective pressures like this can have an effect.on things like baseline IQ in aEdward Dutton: population. They do because they don't understand that the, it's not just, it's something like schooling. It's, it's not just, okay, the IQ of the population is [00:26:00] going down. So the, the IQ of school kids goes down. No, it, what's the IQ of the teachers that has environmental effects on the IQ of the children?What's, what, what's the, what's the IQ of the environment that these teachers can create. And so similarly, you've got to think about the effect that it has at the right. tail. What if you have the force of the population that have an IQ above 145, it doesn't take much to do that. Then you are, you are, you are halving the force of the population that are creating an environment that is bringing the rest of the population environmentally to its phenotypic maximum intelligence.And, and, and so they're becoming, they can become rapidly stupider. And I think we, we see that, that's what, it's the cultural effect that's very important. If you think about, if you just watch on YouTube, the quality of programs that were put out, documentaries that were put out in the 80s. The assumption of the intelligence level of the population.Compared to the nonsense that is, that is that is put out now, then then that, that, that is a case in point. So, yeah, it's what's, it's what's done [00:27:00] in the smart fraction that is, I think, as important as what's going on in the population.Malcolm Collins: And I would encourage if people haven't done this, because we had to do this when we were doing channel research.Is sort on YouTube by most of use for different types of search terms are just for channels and you will see that the most views by far are videos that seem to appeal to almost a toddler like intelligence. Yeah this is. I, I think a lot of people, and this is a big problem with like the effective altruist community and stuff like that and a lot of people who live, like, in upper class or middle upper class communities or creative communities and urban centers, they just don't interact with average people, so they don't know how bad it's gotten and how far down the slippery slope we are already.Simone Collins: Yeah, it's like slapstick. Like, imagine like a family of people of different sizes jumping over a tire that's rolling toward them, like down a back alleyway.Edward Dutton: Like Charles Murray said that we get this cognitive stratification and and you, you don't, you don't interact. I, I particularly don't, cause I spend my time in [00:28:00] Finland and I, and I speak in Finnish and I, or I speak in English and you think, well, the fact that they can speak English means that's a bit intelligent or I'm speaking in Finnish.And so you're not getting the nuances of, of, Low iq. Some people might be, when I go back to England, as I have in increasingly am as part of my YouTube show and whatever, I am shocked. Like I was at, I was at Heathrow Airport of Terminal three, and the guy that was in charge, in charge of the security baggage thing, right.And I was, I complained about how the ness of one particular one particular baggage checker and, and, and, and the guy said, he's what was the word? He, he used, he completely mixed up the, the, the me the meaning of two words. He, he, he, he, he mixed up something being abl. Yeah. He said, well, he's not entitled, he's not entitled to bushel bag along the carousel.He's not entitled to, no, he's not, he's not entitled to bushel bag along the carousel. I said, what do you mean he's not allowed to? No, no, he's not entitled to. I said, do you mean he's not obliged to? And he's like, yeah, yeah. [00:29:00] He's not obliged to, so, right. You've mixed up, obliged and entitled. They're, they're quite different things.And that implies, that's a level of stupidity. He's learned this, this high order word somewhere, entitled, or oblige, he doesn't know what it means, but he's trying to sound clever to the customer that's complaining, and so he misuses it. I was like, how can you not know the meaning of the word entitled?Simone Collins: I think you're still profoundly on, oh, sorry, overestimating intelligence, if that's what your complaint is.Like, do whatMalcolm Collins: Malcolm said. Your quote earlier that I thought was better, of what number of politicians can't judge, like if a coin flips twice, what's the probability?Edward Dutton: People have complained. People on Twitter have complained to me about this. And they've said it is unreasonable. They've said, oh, I didn't get it.And I'm perfectly intelligent. No, you're not. It's, it's, it's, how can you think, well, if you flip it forever, for eternity, it's just going to be one in two. You flip it a hundred times it's one and two. How can you [00:30:00] think if it's once it's one and two, that if it's twice it's one and two, if it's three times it's one and two, if it's four times it's one and two.It's mad! It's just WellSimone Collins: that's, I mean, I, I, I, with that particular issue, I think a lot of that comes back to your book, The Naked Classroom, where we have not we've not been taught how to engage with logic on our own. We've been taught to memorize things. And I would even argue that the majority of the people who have the right answer for that have the right answer because someone in a classroom told them to go through this exercise and they were wrong and then they were proven wrong and they felt dumb about it and now they'll never forget it again.But I think that when it comes to actually like the proportion of the population that is. gone through industrial schooling that would answer correctly. That question is incredibly low because of the way that we've been taught math becauseEdward Dutton: of the way it was 25%. It was half among MPs. And I think I'm right in saying it was 25 percent of them.Simone Collins: That doesn't surprise me at all though, because look at how we're taught. [00:31:00] We're not taught to reason for ourselves to actually think through it. We're taught to memorize basic things.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, well, and I think that this is really interesting, this point here, and it comes to something he was saying earlier, is, is we are to some extent blessed that the woke mobs, because if you are able to think for yourself, and you look at the data, and you just say what that data says, you will be isolated from mainstream society, from the portions of society that the woke mob controls, and then people like us, find each other because, you know, just saying truth removes you, sorry, removes you from positions of power in our society today.And so in that way, they are hopefully sowing the seeds of their own downfall. So long as they're not rounding up like Machiavelli would, everyone who dissents and who says the true thing in the room of liars so that they can then have them. IEdward Dutton: think, I think, I think it may come to that point, but I think we will have, we will have escaped to our various neo Byzantiums by the time they simply go through the streets with a machine gun and [00:32:00] kill people that express any logical or reasonable ideas.But I do want to argueSimone Collins: that there's, there's a difference between people who've been ruined by the industrial education system. In people who are just inherently kind of speciating and like what they are, like the way that they engage with the world, the things that entertain them, the things that they like, the fundamental way that they think.Edward Dutton: yEah. Okay.Simone Collins: I mean, I, I just, I want to argue that like, there are more redeemable from a perspective of like, Oh, these people can like get us off planet. These people can build great things, people out there. Then we might otherwiseMalcolm Collins: argue that no, there's not a lot of people. This is always, you think that there's a lot of smart people in the world.I think that there's a handful. I think there's like maybe 50, 000, maybe a hundred thousand.Edward Dutton: I wonder if what Simone is arguing is that there are people out there that even if they're not that smart are in the right circumstances, useful to building up a society. Maybe,Simone Collins: I mean, at least I'm arguing that. A huge proportion of the people [00:33:00] that right now are not going to be able to build anything meaningful, make any difference in society that we personally would value in terms of like advancing civilization could have had they gone through, had they existed in a different type of society and gone through a different form of education.So they've been robbed. IMalcolm Collins: agree with that. You, you might be. You might be able to create more independent thinking, like real people if they were educated differently. Not might be, you almost certainly would. Because there's a portion of people, and this is particularly true among women, where if no matter how smart they are, if they see something as shamed by society or they're like, this is what's normative in my society, that's what they're going to do.Edward Dutton: Yeah, I mean, the basic argument against the lab leak theory is that the wrong kind of people believe it. Yes. That's it. That's the argument.Malcolm Collins: It is funny when you mentioned you know, people walking around and, like, like, shooting people in the streets. I'm like, well, we didn't come far from that recently with the whole vaccine thing.Like, they have shown that they're willing [00:34:00] to do this kind of stuff. They've shown with, like, the trucker protest in Canada, when they would go through and, like, cancel these people's bank accounts, that they're willing to go to really, I think, much more extreme levels than we were aware that they were willing to go.Edward Dutton: Yeah, they're too cowardly to open fire. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a more, it's a more, it's a more, it's a more pusillanimous way of doing things. Counseling bank accounts, making people's lives very difficult. At least, at least a hundred years ago, you knew where you were. A dictatorship would just open fire.You risk your life. That's it. No, no, no. You risk social ostracism and social difficulties like, like being excluded from a gang of girls.Malcolm Collins: An economic ostracism, which is the more damaging thing. You know, we've met guys, one guy, very like mainstream sort of guy, just sort of called out efficacy around vaccine stuff.And he's been debanked, debanked, like, like you can't use mainstream banks anymore. He's not like going out there spouting racist stuff. He's not like going out there, just [00:35:00] said, Hey, this, this COVID narrative seems off to me. And that's wild to me when they. felt that they had power, how far they ran with it.Edward Dutton: Well, it doesn't, it doesn't seem surprising to me, the COVID, they, they had to give the impression from a Machiavellian perspective of just being in control, being in control. And the COVID thing illustrated very clearly. The total lack of control. They had no idea what they were doing. And so much was much worse to, to question what they were doing in terms of COVID than racism or transphobia or whatever way worse, because it was fundamentally, this was, this, this could be revolution.I mean, this is the government showing they don't know what they're doing. IMalcolm Collins: mean, just to what you were saying earlier, in case any of our audience don't know this yet, or they haven't stayed up with the research, like the lab leak theory thing, the amount of evidence there is for the lab leak theory being accurate is.Overwhelming. It was definitely a lab leak. Like, this is, to say it wasn't a lab [00:36:00] leak is literally, you know, almost equivalent to like, the moon landing was a hoax level like just grasping at straws. And yet, people were getting deplatformed for saying that in the early days.Simone Collins: Well, now, I mean, people were being de platformed for anything that the mainstream, like, government or media establishment was not advocating for, including the efficacy of masks, right?You would get in huge trouble if you questioned that. And, of course, even in the beginning of the pandemic, people were saying, no, no, no, no, don't wear masks, because one, they're not effective, and two, they're not effective. Like the good ones we need for actualMalcolm Collins: healthcare. We are so blessed that we were not public figures when COVID was happening.Simone Collins: Oh, we would have been so screwed. That's right. Yeah.Edward Dutton: I was, but I just felt it best to shut up about it. Smart,Simone Collins: very, veryEdward Dutton: smart. I could see that this, this was the one thing that just knowSimone Collins: the third rail. Oh my goodness. What I like about your theory [00:37:00] though, in general is that it is broadly optimistic. You're, you're taking a theory that was.quIte pessimistic originally and now you're like, Oh no, everything is going to be okay. Think things are working out the way that they're supposed to. IEdward Dutton: mean, it'll be okay in the end. We'll have to, we'll have to go through hell. First I was at Churchill said, if you're going through hell, keep on going.Yeah. And there'll be, there'll be a lot of unpleasantness first, but yeah, it seems to be that what I originally thought was that it's just the collapse of society and there'll be a very, very long, dark age. And maybe, maybethat will just collapse and that will be a very long dark age. But the more I've looked into it, the more I'm thinking, no, we, we, first of all, there was a Byzantium last time that, that held out. And so. that there should be this time. Secondly, we have higher, much more technology this time so that if we can if we can create these separate states that are useful using this technology, then we can start at a higher level.And so the renaissance, you know, and so therefore we could potentially go further. And thirdly, I can't even begin [00:38:00] to predict what effect AI would have on this because it's a new thing in, in, in terms of good or bad things. I mean, the bad thing is that it would just keep society on, on sort of life support as it farms out all work to machines.And the humans are just these sort of sort of farm animals, really. There's a sort of milk. by a, by a, by a great big machine and, and, and go into greater and greater dysgenics. And I, I, I don't know, that could be terrible.Malcolm Collins: Actually this, this is where the wokes are doing us enormous favor is because of AI.If they weren't pushing such strong pressure on us to all conglomerate together. We likely wouldn't. Because of AI, because AI doesn't. force civilization to collapse in the same way it has in the past, if they weren't doing this themselves, we wouldn't be building these parallel economies. Well, and isn't there anSimone Collins: argument to be made that because of AI there may not even be a dark age because one, it will accelerate the extermination of any group that will basically fall into like, hedonic pleasure box because AI will facilitate that.Those people won't have kids and then those [00:39:00] people won't be in the future at all. Leaving only like really industrious, hardworking, non hedonically motivated people left and AI toEdward Dutton: empower them. Imagine if it can, if it could, if it can make, I mean, the pornography is a problem even now. So if you've got pornography that is utterly sating, I'm not, but an ersatz relationship, which seems real.Right. Then, then you can see how it's going to be a, it's a selection event, even more so than I had previously said. And so it's, it's selects out all these men, all but the most high quality men, all but the most high quality women out and and, and you just have this this, this group of, of gold, golden platonic golden people who Well, so then isSimone Collins: this maybe as bad as it gets?Perhaps we are at the lowestMalcolm Collins: point? No, no, no. You, you definitely will have an economic collapse after this. Oh, well I thinkEdward Dutton: we will. I think we're so We're so We're so If you look at sort of Strauss Howell or whatever, or the various theories on this, we're so [00:40:00] Jewish. I mean we really, we're so due economic collapse and war where it's, it's, we, is it happening and I don't notice it or what?I don't know, but was it, we're just so rich we're not noticing it, but we are absolutely, in terms of this cycle I told you about, this Finnish guy, this idea of cycles of hormones and whatever, we are so, we are so due something any time now. That would beMalcolm Collins: a collage. This conversation has been fantastic, we're really glad we had you on again and I hope that you have a spectacular day, and guys, do check out his book, the, the education book on Amazon, and the Johnny Heritage podcast.Simone Collins: The NakedMalcolm Collins: Classroom, and The Jolly Heretic, and,Edward Dutton: And my book on this subject we were just discussing is called The Past as a Future Country, The Coming Conservative Demographic Revolution, and I've got another one called Breeding the Human Herd, Eugenics, Hygienics, and the Future of the Species, and I'm working on one on the altruistic mutants, so this is a new, new thing I'm working on.Malcolm Collins: Ooh, very fun and, well, and I love it, I, [00:41:00] I love it because it's such a great thing to throw in our opponents faces. One of my favorite tweets was something like feminists and anti natalists are the only cultural groups that think that they can out compete their rivals by having fewer kids.You know, and it's just so silly on its face when you think about it. But have a spectacularSimone Collins: day. Yes, thank you so muchEdward Dutton: for coming on. Great. Great to talk to you both. Okay. Well, I hope you had a great Christmas, everybody, and happy new year and allMalcolm Collins: that. Get full access to Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm at basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe