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 species
Would 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 status
you 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 Kamina
Again Hey, when the hell did you get taller than me? Wow, you're right!
Gotta
go. 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, he
Simone Collins: like remains the main character, despite not being there. It's so true. It's
Malcolm 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 Go
on 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't
Malcolm 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 song
Simone 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 you
Simone 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 really
Simone 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 for
Malcolm 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 able
to combine, you were right bro, you were [00:23:00] right! Sure looks that way, doesn't it? Wait, how could you
Simone 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. And
Malcolm Collins: the show constantly repeats ideas that we're talking about. Like
my drill is the drill that creates the heavens! My
Malcolm 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 I
Simone Collins: don't get it.
I mean, it's, it is the most ridiculous fight scene of. Probably all time because it's
Malcolm 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 shit 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 like
Malcolm Collins: actual intelligence, actual intelligence doesn't need to
Simone Collins: front. Well, it doesn't, yeah.
Actual intelligence doesn't need to look intelligent. It doesn't need to try. Yeah. A final
Malcolm 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.
The
Simone 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 like
Malcolm 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, being
Simone 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 a
Malcolm 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.
It
Malcolm 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 Studio
Simone 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 I
Malcolm 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 why
Simone 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's
Simone Collins: very vector based versus pixel based. I love that you scale infinitely. But
Malcolm 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 of
Malcolm 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 on
Simone 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 keep
Malcolm Collins: making them bigger every
Simone 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
Gurren Lagann: The Anime That Hated Anti-Natalists & Life Extensionists