In this conversation, Malcolm and Simone talk with the VTuber about why she refused to apologize or walk anything back, the toxic “friend”/artist who kept centering themselves and walking all over her boundaries (including on her birthday stream), and what it felt like to finally stop walking on eggshells.

They also cover:
• How she started streaming (just a unique voice playing League) and became a snow-leopard VTuber
• Losing old friends and artists vs. the new community that actually let her be herself
• Desexualizing her model and why that grew her channel
• Building an authentic audience instead of a flirty persona
• Reaction content, cop slop, pony play, and streamers as the next wave of cultural influencers
• Tomboy identity, the pressure to invent special labels, and why “just a straight white female” suddenly felt lame

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins [0:00]:
Hello. I’m excited to be here with you today! Today, we have Yuki Waru with us who recently went viral. There’s been a few red videos on her because she made the bold claim that men cannot get periods and that tomboys are good. And anyone who knows our channel, we we are so pro tomboy on this channel that I actually had a fan email me a detailed list of bible quotes trying to argue that the bible says you should only take tomboys. And I was like, that is that is another degree. But what makes her so interesting and why I was excited to talk with you is you were before saying this, you never really got into politics that much on your channel. Uh, you never really got into, like, the this kind of, like, political spicy opinion. And something really unique happened because the Internet decided to go after you for these takes. And normally, the reaction historically of, like, a nonpolitical VTuber would have been to either apologize or at the very least, if they’re not going to apologize, not lean into it, not watch the rev review of her, not come on Basecamp or something like that. And yet you go in this other direction, and it seems to have worked out really well for you. But I’m wondering why you went in this direction. Like, would do you think that this is just like the ethos now, or is this an intentional decision you made or what?

Yukiwaru [1:29]:
Well, for me, I mean, saying my thoughts and my point of view felt really freeing. And I feel like I’ve been walking on eggshells around people for so long worrying about everyone’s feelings, and, like, it’s been really, like, debilitating for me trying to just, you know, watch out for everyone’s feelings. And I was just like, you know what? I’m over it. And I said what I said. I I would I’m not gonna say something if I don’t mean it. And if I’m not gonna stand by it, that’s a waste of time and energy. I mean, why say something if you’re not gonna stick by it? I don’t see that point.

Malcolm Collins [2:07]:
Well, a lot of oh, continue. Continue.

Yukiwaru [2:11]:
Oh, I was just gonna say, I I don’t say something then back down. I’m gonna stick with it. I don’t care what people think, and I’m so sick of trying to, like, watch out for people. I mean, like, I respect people’s feelings, but, like, god, like, I have had to be so careful and, like, really think through what I say and, like, like, make sure I get, like, pronouns and stuff correctly because, you know, I I do respect how people feel and stuff, but it felt so good to let it out. Oh my god. No. It’s so so free.

Malcolm Collins [2:45]:
It it really this is a pathway that I feel like has happened to a lot of people. So we my wife and I used to be, like, very mainstream leftist, and then we ended up going viral a number of times for talking about birth rate collapse. Just like fertility rates are really low. This is gonna affect social security systems. And we got absolutely piled on. The the the Internet decided that that meant that we were white supremacists or whatever or, like I I don’t know. Right? Um, and so, uh, what ended up changing our mind is, at first, we weren’t like you. We hedged all of our points. We were like, well, with this and keep in mind this and keep in mind this. But as time went on, we begin to notice that there was, like, this community of people who just, like, cared about what was true. And they were, like, shockingly nice to us, um, even when we had a lot of differences of opinions with them. And this feeling that you’re talking about of, like, oh my god. I can just say whatever I think now It’s such such a weird place that we were in a society where it was normal to not feel that way. I mean, I I did did did you find yourself, like, self censoring a lot before? Was it was it the being called out that put you in a position where you could talk about things more? Like, was it was that what made it possible for you?

Yukiwaru [4:16]:
I did feel better really, you know, stating how I I’ve never really been one to censor. I’ve always been known for being, like, forward, bluntly honest, just saying how I feel. Because I I mean, personally, I don’t really understand other people’s feelings, like or empathy or compassion, you know. I just it doesn’t come natural to me. I think I felt empathy once in my entire life, and I didn’t understand what was happening. My dad, like, had to explain it to me like I was a kindergartner, learning how to feel and stuff. It was Oh.

Simone Collins [4:52]:
It was

Yukiwaru [4:52]:
a weird thing. But yeah. I mean, even now, I’m still kind of paranoid of my own pronouns. I I find myself referring to everyone as them, they just to be careful and cautious. It’s just in my head that I’m gonna say something and mess something up, and they’re gonna, like, come after me for it even if they are a friend or not.

Malcolm Collins [5:16]:
Well, your story was really interesting because it started with like, it seemed like this really started with a specific toxic individual in your life. And they go on your birthday stream, and somebody accidentally misgenders them, and they decide to make the birthday stream all about themselves. Mhmm. And I also wanna note here before I go all trans people do that. Like, I know some totally normal, cool, based trans people, and they don’t do this shit. When somebody accidentally misgenders them, they’re just like, whatever. Like, it’s just not even important. It’s not even in the room of of of issues. Yeah. And then there’s this, like, other group that uses it to try to center themselves and, like, move past other people’s consensual boundaries and recenter and the your emotions because I thought it was very interesting the way that you talked about it. You’re like, this made me feel really bad when that happened. And it wasn’t the first time when this individual had made you feel really bad in this way. There was you were talking all the way back to when you first got partnered with Twitch.

Yukiwaru [6:29]:
Mhmm.

Malcolm Collins [6:30]:
And they hadn’t gotten the partnership, and they made you feel bad about celebrating, which is probably one of the biggest events in your life. Mhmm. Getting just interested to hear your thoughts on all this from the from, like, experiencing it and and moving primarily because of, like, one other individual pushing you into saying this stuff. Mhmm.

Yukiwaru [6:57]:
I became friends with them. They were they had more viewership than I did when we started becoming friends. And and at some time, I started surpassing them in viewership and growing more than they were. And, you know, at some point, they were viewer ing high where they could’ve gotten Twitch partner, but something happened where everything just dropped for them. And they they had been streaming longer than I have. So when I was, you know, growing more than them, I felt, like, guilty, like, because I felt, you know, they would always tell me how hard they’re trying and, like, mentally how they’re feeling. Like, they don’t understand. And, also, I understand that because even though I had Twitch partner, things dropped after my partner pushed. My views dropped, and I was like, alright. What am I doing wrong? What do I gotta change? But when I got the email for Twitch partner, was in a collab, and they were in my collab because, you know, I love including my friends. I love supporting my friends Yeah. Being there for them. And I got the email, and I started freaking out. And everyone in the collab was, like, so enthusiastic and so energetic and so celebratory. And then they came, and they’re like, what’s going on? And they’re like, oh my god. You just got Twitch burner. And they’re like, oh, good job. And I was like,

Malcolm Collins [8:21]:
Can can you explain for our audience who might not understand the significance of getting partnered with Twitch what this means for you as a creator?

Yukiwaru [8:28]:
I mean, besides having a really cool badge, not necessarily too much. It means that you were able to keep an average of a high viewership for a certain amount of time and complete the requirements.

Malcolm Collins [8:44]:
Doesn’t it change, like, the monetization or, like, the way the pathways you have to contact them?

Yukiwaru [8:49]:
From what I understand, when it comes to monetization, you do get more opportunities. But then it also you know, you have to do Twitch plus to get a bigger half of what you make on Twitch. If you don’t get Twitch plus, it really isn’t that much of a difference. And to get get Twitch plus, you have to hit goals of people subscribing and, like, gifting subs. Like, people need to spend money so you can get the different levels of Twitch plus to make more of the cut. So,

Simone Collins [9:22]:
like Oh god.

Yukiwaru [9:23]:
They changed it.

Malcolm Collins [9:24]:
I also just had a realization. You’ve been streaming for three years. Right? Mhmm. So she’s the same age as our channel in terms of how long we’ve been streaming. Oh, wow. So finally, a co age channel. Usually, we’re talking with people Yeah. Doing it a lot longer than us. Because you said something that really got to me this. Like, when your numbers drop and, like, I talk with other creators about this, like, when I’m stressed cause my numbers are dropping and I don’t know why they’re dropping. Mhmm. And all they’re they all have such nerves of steel about it. They’re just like, oh, I don’t look at the numbers. I don’t care. I’m like, how do you not look at the numbers? This is how much the world loves me. Yeah. I have low numbers. The world doesn’t love me anymore. I’m saying something wrong.

Yukiwaru [10:11]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do it because I’m like a very work driven, determined person, you know. When I hit a goal, I’m like, okay. I don’t really celebrate it. I go, alright. Onto the next goal. Let’s see how we can keep going, what we can do better. I’m very work driven. You know?

Malcolm Collins [10:28]:
That that actually, I think, explains why the numbers going down hurt so much because in so many areas of life, you’re used to, like, you hit the goal. Now I’m going to my next goal.

Yukiwaru [10:38]:
Mhmm. And then

Malcolm Collins [10:39]:
you start moving down from the point you’re just at, which is so demoralizing.

Yukiwaru [10:44]:
Oh my god. It’s the worst. It’s the worst.

Simone Collins [10:48]:
Well, so in in despite enduring this, though, like, first, I I don’t we we only learned about you recently. We’re not that deep into the lore. What actually got you started streaming in the first place knowing? I’m I’m sure you knew, like, at least a little going in, like, this is actually a lot of work.

Malcolm Collins [11:03]:
And and also had no idea how much work it was till I started doing the streams.

Simone Collins [11:07]:
Was like And also, like, as a VTuber, because, like, I was playing out with Leaflet’s PNGTuber model, and I was trying to, like, get the rig to animate. And I was like, oh my god. Like, the amount of face work I have to do just to be like and like, I’m just it’s so much work. It’s so much more work. So why did you do why did you choose the hard way and then the double hard way? Like, why? What what what inspired this?

Yukiwaru [11:29]:
I actually started off as a non VTuber. I actually started off with not even showing myself. It was just my voice, and I was just playing league. I was just doing it for, you know, fun. I didn’t think of it as anything. You know, someone said, you have a unique voice. You should do streaming. You’ll do really well. And I’m like, sure. Okay. I mean, most people think I sound like a child, but if that’s cool, why not? And honestly, most people think I use a voice changer. This isn’t my real voice. It’s it’s I mean, like, puberty just kinda skipped me. It was like, alright. You know what?

Simone Collins [12:05]:
Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. What does it sound like if you try to do a low voice?

Yukiwaru [12:09]:
Actually, my voice is a little hoarse right now because I have been talking so much.

Malcolm Collins [12:13]:
Is your this is a low voice for her. Yeah. I I I know.

Simone Collins [12:17]:
This this is your Elizabeth Holmes voice. This is you’re

Malcolm Collins [12:19]:
going to see Talk about it.

Yukiwaru [12:20]:
I don’t talk like you, Herbert. I mean,

Simone Collins [12:24]:
the voice It’s voice. It’s a great voice.

Malcolm Collins [12:27]:
For a moment in history. Like, you come in and in the moment of history where you can be an anime girl, and you happen to have anime girl voice.

Yukiwaru [12:35]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins [12:37]:
I would I I was talking with a a reporter recently, and I was like, it is really weird when I reflect on the number of my friends that are cartoon characters.

Yukiwaru [12:45]:
It’s so fun. You get to, like, this the design a character based off, like, who you feel, like, feel you are off your personality because there I can’t I’m not looking like this in real life. Are you kidding me? No. I feel like this represents me and my personality, and also snow leopards are my favorite animal. So, you know, it’s just so fun.

Malcolm Collins [13:06]:
But I Snow

Simone Collins [13:07]:
leopards are amazing.

Malcolm Collins [13:08]:
Yeah. They’re they’re very cute animals. Uh, this might be a transitional phase where, um, if you look at, like, where AR glasses are going, where AI is going, uh, I would not be surprised that if when my kids are my age, a lot of people just choose primarily to interact with other people through avatars.

Simone Collins [13:28]:
Oh, they’ll just, like, put a filter on everyone in their life?

Malcolm Collins [13:32]:
Yeah. Because why wouldn’t you if you could? And that gets really interesting with a lot of this other stuff because I don’t have a problem with that world when it comes. I think that’s gonna be really cool. And in that world, the idea of choosing your identity is going to mean something very different, which is interesting. I don’t I don’t know if you have any thoughts on that. Or, like, do you think that that’s going to happen?

Yukiwaru [13:59]:
I really don’t have any thoughts when it comes to the future. I mean, I I’m a very anxious person, so I I spend most of the time thinking about, you know, if I’m gonna eat later or, you know, just really, like, silly stuff like that or, you know, what’s the weather? Because weather freaks me out too. But I’m I’m a bit of a airhead. I don’t necessarily understand politics or more serious conversations. Even if I try, I don’t understand. So I try not to think about it.

Malcolm Collins [14:32]:
Your your video on this was very well argued and tactfully argued as well. I mean, I I I appreciate the humility, uh, but I think that there’s a reason why it’s gone viral and received such a positive reception. Uh, and one of the things that I wanna, like, really lean into in terms of a positive reception is when we see somebody being attacked for saying what is clearly saying stuff, bringing them into, like, the wider cultural community, you know, you’re not the only person we do interviews like this with, I think is really valuable because then they can feel safe saying what they want to say and knowing that this community is not a community that’s going to, like, care or judge or be overly aggressive about many of the areas where they might assume that. Right? Like, you started I think when you started v tubing, you were looking at doing it from, like, a lube tubing perspective. Right?

Yukiwaru [15:26]:
I did dabble in that department. Yes.

Malcolm Collins [15:30]:
Yeah. And then you you went, no. I’m I I I don’t enjoy this. Right? Like, this has been a good way to live. And we also I mean, if you look at, like, the other people we interview in our community like Nux, Nux used to do hentai reviews. We we run a not safe for work website. Right? Like, it’s it’s a lot of these things that I feel would, like, have people attacked within what I thought the right wing community was. And then I enter it, and they don’t didn’t care. They’re just like, oh, if you agree with us on any point, we take you on every point. Right? Like, you’re just whatever. It’s very, uh, which was my motivation for reaching out to you to be like, hey. Come on. Like, let’s be friends in this wider network. Have you gotten that from other people? Have, like, other people been reaching out to you or Oh

Yukiwaru [16:17]:
my god. So many people have been reaching out. So many. You know? I lost a lot of people I thought were friends. Um, I lost a bunch of artists that I worked with. Yep. But, honestly, it’s like, I didn’t really get too sad about it because I’m like, if they’re gonna leave me over me having this kind of opinion, that’s fine. I don’t need them in my life. Why would I want people like that in my life? If we can’t be friends and have disagreements, what are what are we doing? We don’t have to agree on everything. And then artists reached out. Merch companies reached out. I mean, I I made new friends like Nines and Leaflet. I’ve talked to Powder. Banana Juju, I did a collab with. Awesome. I’ve made I mean,

Malcolm Collins [17:06]:
honestly banana Juju yet.

Yukiwaru [17:08]:
So sweet. So sweet.

Malcolm Collins [17:10]:
I wanna get around.

Yukiwaru [17:11]:
Yeah. Yeah. Continue. It is crazy though that, you know, you think the other side’s all about acceptance and, you know, bringing you in and be who you wanna be and think what you wanna think. But when you have a different opinion from theirs, they’re like, nope. Get out of here, you terrible, terrible person. And then the other side is like, that’s okay. We’ll take you in.

Malcolm Collins [17:34]:
What by the way, the the waifowears collab that dropped you Mhmm. I I went to their website to try to figure out what they do because, like, I’ve decided to, with our company, just clone any product that drops somebody, but I couldn’t even figure out what they do. Like, what was it what were they trying to promote?

Yukiwaru [17:51]:
Um, well, they make shaker cups, and they put, like, VTuber art on it. Just like, you know, the the cups you wouldn’t make like protein shakes in, then you just shake it and then they slap VTuber art on it. I actually had just done my first drop with them where I sold out on all my cups. You only need 20 to start production, but I sold out all the cups in like a couple weeks.

Simone Collins [18:15]:
That’s impressive.

Malcolm Collins [18:16]:
Yeah. Weird is like you’re making them money.

Yukiwaru [18:19]:
Oh, yeah. And they take a good chunk of it.

Malcolm Collins [18:22]:
Who instigated you down this sort of pathway, you were 90% of their income at one point. Right?

Yukiwaru [18:28]:
Uh, my artist? Yes. And I mean, I can say that because they literally admitted it to me in like DMs, which I’m not gonna post publicly because I’m not that kind of person. But, you know, I’ll say some things from the DMs here and there.

Malcolm Collins [18:41]:
No. It’s it’s it’s one of the most interesting things about your personal story in regards to all of this is you coming out and finally talking about your opinions on this stuff seem primarily motivated by just one bad actor that nobody thought to rein in. And I I I wonder, like, how how many people end up having these revelations or these moments because of just one bad actor? Like, how much one individual can matter in the wider political sphere?

Yukiwaru [19:18]:
I mean, with this person, the person who made my model, the person who would get mad at you if you got their pronouns wrong, I was recently after interactions they’ve had with good friends of mine, like the one they got mad at during my birthday stream, really good friend of mine. He and I are very similar in how we think, and I feel safe, you know, really sharing how I feel with him. I was just thinking. I was like, what is bonding me to this person besides the connection of them doing art for me? What is what’s why why do we have a friendship? Because even when we hung out, just the two of us watching the show or just, you know, doing stuff in our free time, I still always felt like I couldn’t be my real self. Like, I I still had to walk on those eggshells. Like, I had to be careful of what I said. And I felt like in a way they also thought, you know, I’m I I really am not the smartest, the sharpest tool in the shed as the saying goes. I’m not. And I I admit that. I’m fine with that. Like, I I still get through my day somehow. It’s a miracle.

Simone Collins [20:25]:
I relate, man.

Yukiwaru [20:27]:
I I always felt that they thought they were better than me in some way. Like, they they can learn things quickly. They can pick things up quickly. They can understand things that I really don’t even care to understand. And I always feel like in a way, they tried to make me feel less than them because they would, you know, refer to me as their daughter, their child. And, you know, when the retuber world, you usually refer to your artist as your your your mama and your rigger as your daddy, but I couldn’t because they were non binary. So I referred to them as my parent Mhmm. Out of respect for them. And then the the way they talked to me, was always like, oh, sweetie. Like, oh, my sweet dear child. Like, kind of what’s the word? The meaning? Condescension.

Malcolm Collins [21:13]:
Yeah. That. Yeah. Yeah. Condescension. No. I I think you are pulling on a really important thread here, and it’s something that I’ve highlighted before. And I think it’s an interesting cultural sort of norm that’s developed in this wider community, which is the people who are at the top of the, like, nerd right online community, like your Asmagold type people, sort of have a personality defined by not thinking they’re better than other people and and not trying to act as if they’re better than other people. And our community more broadly seems to have a very hair trigger about anybody trying to status signal, like, I’m a higher status person than you are. And hanging out in this community and not having to deal with that recently, I went to Stanford Business School, and so I was back and I did a a podcast with one of my, uh, classmates who’s still very much in that, like, I don’t know what you wanna call it, like, urban elite mindset. Right? Like, you know, everything that, how could you say this? How could you say that? Like aghast. Like, going through my title cards and being like, do you stand for this? And I was like, they’re meant to shock people. What are you talking about? And and it felt so icky, and I and I realized it’s been so long since I had somebody pull that on me. And it’s it’s it’s felt so good to be hanging out with people like Leaf who like

Simone Collins [22:42]:
Well, it’s pull. I think it’s a a bureaucratically influenced school marvel culture where, like, we’re we’ve been used to it since we were in school with just this, like, oh, you have no idea. You’re just ignorant. We need to educate you. And I think it’s a very it’s a very pervasive, like, urban elite ish. And and this doesn’t matter, like, how much money or education you were you have. It depends on what culture you adopt where you just, like you condescend and patronize those who are just too ignorant to know how to say the right thing. But then weirdly are suddenly savage to them when they when they mess up in just the wrong way. So unless you’re patronizing and it worse to then you, like, tried to destroy their entire lives and careers. So Well, they’re using

Malcolm Collins [23:23]:
you to masturbate their emotional states. Like, I I I like what someone’s saying here. Like, this isn’t somebody who sees you as a friend, but it’s like a masturbation tool for validation.

Simone Collins [23:35]:
Hold on. That’s like what most I mean, we we argue that there are only three types of friendships. One is is basically convenience friendships. Like, it’s the person you went to school with or you’re in class. Like, you’re you’re proximal to each other, so you’re friends. The other is utility friends. So you’re friends with them because, you know, if your kids, like, they have the best video games. So you need to be friends with them to get access to the gaming console or, you know, they have money or whatever. And then the or, like, they’re a girl and, know, you want, you know, you you want what you want from them. But then the third is character reinforcing friends, where you you have, like, a token friend because they’re the extra or the supporting character that you need on your life stage. And that’s that’s what Malcolm’s trying to describe here. But I think that that’s that’s not like a that’s not a political thing. I think that’s just a human thing. It just happened to be that the the supporting characters in the life of a very predominant culture happen to be, like, very exploited and mistreated characters. Whereas, I guess, like, in the default tropes of more conservative or centrist or libertarian cultures, like, the supporting characters have a little bit more, like, respect given to them. They’re not like stooges and, you know, idiots and people that they don’t actually Mhmm. Like or respect, which is yeah. I think you really touched on something interesting when you talked about how how stressful it can be to be in some of these circles when you’re, like, always afraid of being in trouble. But do you have, like, larger overarching goals with the streaming that you do or with the way or, like, also, has what you experienced recently changed what you think you’re gonna be focusing on with your streaming and with what you talk about? Or Or are you just gonna kinda keep doing what you do, but now feeling like you can talk more freely?

Yukiwaru [25:19]:
I’m gonna keep doing what I do and feel like I can talk more freely. And if, you know, I I make it known you don’t have to agree with my opinion. It doesn’t mean you can’t be a part of my community. Just be respectful and follow the rules. But I have been doing more chatting and interacting with my community because I have that ability now where, you know, there are more people, more people to interact with, and we do like reactions to videos, which I have so much fun with. I’ve been having more fun with streaming lately than I have in a really long time. I used to do just, like, gaming because I really never had anything to talk about. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins [25:59]:
Well so I’ve been doing I I every other week for a while, right now we’re on hiatus, I would do, like, a ten hour stream with Leaflet. And I hadn’t realized what a unique experience it is to, with a chat for an extended period of times, give your true opinions of, like, the world. And I can’t even explain to people what it’s like because it it’s such a marathon. Like, the the the closest thing I can say is it’s like a but, yeah, it’s it’s a completely different way of interacting with reality.

Yukiwaru [26:30]:
Mhmm. It’s so fun.

Malcolm Collins [26:33]:
Also, to the the like, one of the things I often say on on on stream when we talk about, like, the diversity of opinions within our wider community and I really want to emphasize for you, like, as you enter this wider sort of friend network or whatever, they, like, really do tolerate, like, any opinion as long as it seems like you’re trying to get to the truth. And the example I always use of this is, like, commie mommy Shu On Head. Like, Shu On Head is obviously adored by everyone in the community and, like, is an actual socialist, and we just don’t even care. We’re like, she seems to wanna get at what’s true.

Yukiwaru [27:06]:
Mhmm.

Malcolm Collins [27:07]:
And so don’t worry about that. Don’t worry about, like, oh, now I’m part of this group. Like, I have to have this set of opinions. I I hope you don’t feel that way.

Yukiwaru [27:16]:
No. I I’m not changing anything for anyone. Whether you can watch me. You don’t have to watch me. I’m not changing for anyone. I’m not putting on a persona. I’m me. Doing anything else is exhausting.

Malcolm Collins [27:31]:
The other thing I wanted to talk about that I thought was really fun well and and you talk about it being exhausting. I’ve heard other people say this is, like, this idea that, like, any VTuber is putting on a voice or a personality is actually very unlikely because it’s incredibly exhausting to do that for a long period of time. Like, doing a voice for ten hours is just not really realistic. No.

Yukiwaru [27:53]:
No. No. It is very exhausting, especially to keep up with it for your community who thinks that you’re that person. Like, faking someone you’re not or putting on a persona, you know, I respect those who can do it, I can’t. I don’t have the energy. I work a full time job too. I I don’t got that energy.

Malcolm Collins [28:12]:
Oh my god. Well, it’s funny that you mentioned that. So we have some friends who are, like, celebrities. And the one thing I’ve noticed between my friends who are celebrities who absolutely love their fans and my friends who are celebrities who have a very antagonistic relationship with their fans, and they kind of, like, don’t like their fan base at all, it’s is the image that they’re showing the world who they really are? And if they’re showing the world a fake image, uh, the type of celebrity or fame that they gain ends up creating an intense animosity with their fan base, which is a really sad way to live kind of. To be like, oh, you got everything you ever wanted. Now you’re a super star, but you It’s

Simone Collins [28:49]:
really stressful.

Malcolm Collins [28:50]:
Yeah. You can’t enjoy it. Yeah. When

Yukiwaru [28:54]:
when people were in my chat trying to get me to, like like, the I I you know, AI, I’m cool with it. You know, AI is cool. Has cool functions.

Simone Collins [29:05]:
Yeah.

Yukiwaru [29:05]:
Also respect artists. Yeah. I love artists. I’m, like, in the middle with most things.

Simone Collins [29:11]:
But you have to pick a side now.

Yukiwaru [29:13]:
Yeah. Yeah. But but I’m getting a new model because, you know, with this one, I had design restraints because they really we went with more their opinion than most of mine. Anyway

Malcolm Collins [29:26]:
I actually wanna talk about that, but

Simone Collins [29:27]:
I’m finish what you’re saying now.

Yukiwaru [29:29]:
Of the next artist that I really wanna work with, they’re not so into putting their art through AI, which I totally understand and respect. So I made an announcement to my community that with my new model, I would appreciate not putting it through but I will give them an option of my model that they can use with AI that isn’t using the artist art. And so many people were like, oh my god, this trash tuber is like backing up on her word. She’s fake. She’s she’s, like, not who she says she is. No. People can change their mind, and people can change their mind out of respect for other people. It doesn’t mean you’re fake. It means you’re human.

Malcolm Collins [30:14]:
Absolutely. Right? I I I I I really hate the people who take pride in having had the same opinion for x many years. Like, I’ve changed my mind on, well, virtually everything because you you get new information and you change your mind. Yeah. But I wanted to talk about your model because I found it to be an interesting story. This where you started was a very sexualized model, and you’ve increasingly moved to a more and more desexualized younger model. Mhmm. And, originally, the the r the rigor who caused all of this drama was, like, really giving you shade because the the they’re like, oh, you know, you must be a I don’t know. Like, PDA file type stuff. And then your younger model gets super successful, and then they move to a model that’s younger than your model. Yeah.

Yukiwaru [31:04]:
Yeah. Yeah. They made a smaller model after I made, like, a smaller model. They made theirs smaller and, like, cutesier. And I just think the smaller model for me just fits my personality and my vibe so well, and I feel comfortable with it. I want people to watch me because they find me funny and entertaining, not because they wanna date me or, you know, do stuff with me. Although you can’t prevent that. That’s gonna happen regardless. So you know, I accept But I want people to watch me because they enjoy watching me. They find me funny. They like my content. That’s what I want the main reason to be. And I feel like it just expresses who I am so much better. And I I just love the style. I just love it. Simple. Yep. I love it.

Malcolm Collins [31:52]:
No. It it is it is also something that I have always found very weird when people are like this Lolly style is what children look like. And it’s like, I have children. It looks nothing like a child.

Simone Collins [32:02]:
It really doesn’t look like a child.

Malcolm Collins [32:04]:
Yeah. Completely unique, artistic style. And it’s something that didn’t really hit me until, like, I had kids, and I saw them every day, and I still watch anime. And I was like, this in no way is evocative of this other thing. It’s it’s a unique artistic medium that is pleasant to look at. And when people say it’s like, oh, that must mean you wanna sleep with our dates. What are you talking about, you weirdo? People self report so hard.

Yukiwaru [32:35]:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s just it’s just like a style of art, like chibi or, like, cartoon. It’s just like another style of art. That’s really what it is. And but, of course, there are gonna be people who take it to a whole different direction. They’ll do that with just, anything in the world. It doesn’t matter what it is. There are those people out there.

Malcolm Collins [32:54]:
Well, it’s it’s not just another it’s a style that I I think Chibi also falls into this category that is generally or at least the direction that you take it that is an ultra desexualized style. Mhmm. Um, you don’t have the boob physics or anything like that. Boob physics. But Yeah. You also grew as a channel more as you further desexualized.

Yukiwaru [33:16]:
Mhmm. I felt like more comfortable to be myself when I didn’t feel like people were just watching the the boob of physics move up and down or whatever, you know, think thoughts. I thought they were watching me. I I felt more comfortable when I, you know, think of them of watching me for me because they enjoy me. And when people came in my community who have like significant others and partners, it made me feel even better. I’m like, oh my god. Like, girls are watching me. Couples are watching me. Like, that’s so great. I’m so happy, and they feel safe in this space to just, you know, relax and have fun.

Malcolm Collins [33:56]:
Yeah. What I mean, you’re gremlin sort of at the the I I don’t know. Your persona works very well with a model like this, but also doesn’t invite I I I I think it naturally invites, like, wanting to tease you or something, not, like, wanting to flirt with you or something. Right? Yeah. It’s it’s that’s not the relationship you have with your audience.

Yukiwaru [34:19]:
Yeah. And even if I do like flirty stuff with them, they’re all like I mean, are some people who are like, yep. Alright. Yep. I’m in. And then both but the majority are like, nope. Stop. This is cringe. Please stop. It’s it’s just so funny, the mixed feelings. And I, you know, I’m just an unhinged person. I like say what pops in my head, I do what I want. So having the community that’s like cool with that to let me just be me and like do that. I it’s just so fun. Not, you know, worrying about, oh, I can’t be flirty because I have like this kind of model or I can’t say this or do that.

Malcolm Collins [34:54]:
Well, how is how actually, that’s a very interesting question. How have sort of the the ways that you interact with your audience evolved as time has gone on? Like, what have you learned about building, interacting with an audience over these past three years?

Yukiwaru [35:08]:
When I first started streaming, especially as a VTuber model, my first VTuber model was a two tailed fox and very big chest, very physics like that, very tight clothing, very girly girl clothing as well because I thought that’s what would drive people in. Um, and I built something that wasn’t me. I was very flirty. I was very kind. I was very nice. I’m not I I’m not like that really. I’m nice. I’m respectful. But like, I’m not gonna tell my chat like, my god, love you guys. Thank you so much. Or That’s nice. You know, call them cuties or whatever. No. I call them like weirdos and heathens and like like call them the worst things and it’s just so much more fun. And I just learned over time, I don’t wanna build a community on me not being me. I wanna build a community on me. So those who come and stay, that’s cool. But I want it to be when I’m being me and nothing else. And I’m just you know, over the years, through different models and learning new things, I’m finally kinda you know, I’m finding my groove and my place and, um, what I’m comfortable but with and what I want.

Malcolm Collins [36:25]:
That’s fascinating. Um, I mean, that’s, uh, we I don’t what has our experience been? It hasn’t really been like that. Like, in terms of how we’ve developed, a lot of it’s been more technical differences. Like, focusing on the first minute, but we’re primarily YouTubers, and you’re primarily a streamer. So it’s a completely different sort of environment in terms of how you interact with people, how you handle chat, everything like that. Uh, but it does make sense. Also, your beginning, like, going on, like, what are people going to like is different from the beginnings of a lot of other VTubers. We were my wife and I were talking this morning, uh, about the various VTubers that we have interviewed recently. And, like, the starting story for so many of them was I was about to unalive myself. I had just been fired from my job. I had just, like, they’re at, like, their lowest point in life. And then they decide to just start putting content out there. And I I was like, our story is so different. I wanted to be famous. That’s literally

Yukiwaru [37:31]:
Yeah. I don’t damn. My story isn’t like that.

Malcolm Collins [37:35]:
Their story, the lady, you’re like, I know. I I wanna do something that works. That’s fun.

Yukiwaru [37:40]:
You know, the more I got into it, the more I was like, I wanna build a community because I know what it’s like to feel alone or, like, you don’t belong or, like, you can’t have you can’t find your people. You know? It’s similar to those stories of why some VeepTubers start. I don’t want people to fall into that place. I wanna have a place for them to make friends, to make connections, to find people to game with, and to just relax and escape the the world we live in. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins [38:09]:
Well, I I I yeah. I can I I can building community is obviously like a well and I think having other streamers on this, one of the reasons we have you in, is have a shared cinematic universe for people where they’re like, oh, all of my friends, like, they’re actually they actually know each other as the community expands? What was the what was the question I was gonna ask? It’s funny. You feel free to free go while I try to think of Yeah.

Simone Collins [38:34]:
What I’m trying to what I’m and then I’m always curious about this with any streamer because I my big theory is that streamers are the next sort of generation of major political influencers to shape how people view the world because and it’s just it’s it’s an it’s a timing and algorithm thing. To be successful as a streamer, you have to stream for a lot. And to get enough time, you can’t, like, just game. At this point, you kind of have to, like, do reaction videos. So then you’re going over comment your content, but then you’re commenting on it. And so you’re annotating it. You become a political commentator because in the end, so much of the content out there is political. There’s something like sort of one global story, and it’s like kind of whatever is happening in the news or with, like, police or immigration or or tech. Um, and so in the end, you end up being disproportionately influential because then you have all these clips that end up on YouTube because you just have so much more content, and it’s constantly coming out. So when people are looking up commentary on news events, they get streamer content. This makes me think like, oh my gosh. Like, the weight of being a streamer is pretty big if you think about the downstream consequences because what you choose to watch and how you react to it is shaping how a large number of people are coming to view reality in politics, and it’s gonna influence their votes and influence everything else that they do. Does this like, I mean, that’s why what I so this is all to say I’m really interested in in understanding how you choose what you’re gonna watch. Do people send you links of, like, I think you should watch this on stream. Do you, like, have some feed that you check every day where you’re like, okay. This looks like it’ll be good. This looks like it’ll be good. How do you choose what it is you’re gonna do when you do reaction content?

Yukiwaru [40:07]:
Well, I’m I you know, I’m on, like, maybe week two of doing reaction content. Uh, I started off with just, you know, I made a channel in my Discord where people can post stuff. But a lot of the stuff they posted, I did not enjoy or find funny or understand. So stepped away from it a little. And then I reacted to Rev reacting to me because, you know, I I let this situation kinda take control for a little, and I I watched it. I didn’t say anything. And then I felt, you know, where it was going. I was comfortable speaking again about it. I’m not one who really gets into drama that much. I mean, I’m not gonna say I don’t like it. It’s kinda fun to start it or watch it or be a part of it, but I try not to. You know, my dad’s always like, take the high road, be the it all, be the good person, But that’s not always the fun road. Anyway, I was just choosing things that I thought were funny like my strange addictions or, you know, someone doing pony play that I thought was funny.

Malcolm Collins [41:16]:
Pony play is so interesting. Hold on. Can we take it aside and talk about pony play? Like

Simone Collins [41:22]:
Oh, god.

Malcolm Collins [41:23]:
What do you think gets you to, like, have the idea of, like, this is something I wanna try doing? It seems really expensive to, like, invest in even trying it.

Yukiwaru [41:34]:
I mean, it is the same with v tubing. It’s But, you know, they were like, it it stems from my childhood. Like, a sense of freedom from my child. I feel like most things. The the thing is it comes from my childhood or trauma I experienced or something I did. And, you know, now I’m an adult, and I have adult money, and I can do what I want.

Malcolm Collins [41:58]:
So now I dress up for people who aren’t aware sorry. I I I just realized we have, like, normal Christian moms watching right now. So there are these people who like to dress like ponies in, like, leather gear. So it’s like a pony fied leather outfit. Mhmm. And they, like, walk around on their hands and knees, and they have, like, a a master who’s, like, their their trainer or whatever. And they’ll go to gatherings where, like, multiple of these people will, like, do tricks or, like, go around in, like, circles and stuff like this.

Simone Collins [42:26]:
It’s similar with puppy play, which also has, like, like

Malcolm Collins [42:29]:
my theory on what leads to this stuff is and I’m glad that we have a woman of culture here who knew exactly the topics that would interest me. The the the the that I stopped at the video and put it I’m like, I wanna know more about this. Well, why the heck? Because, you know, I don’t to explain to you why I find this stuff so interesting is if you see an unusual behavior and you see it in multiple people, it’s generally worth asking why. Because that means either there’s something culturally going on or something evolutionarily going on or something psychologically going on that doesn’t fit your standard model of how humans interact. And my guess is pony play and pet play, the the second one you’re talking about, comes from people wanting a DOM like partner, but they want that DOM to be caring of them and to care about their well-being like a nice DOM. Um, and they don’t really have many other social context for what it feels like to have, like, ownership of a thing, but still be nice to it other than like that. Sad.

Yukiwaru [43:34]:
Makes sense. Yeah. But at the same time, you know, live your best life, but maybe don’t bring it publicly. Not everyone wants to be a part of, you know, that part of your life. I mean, the the the video we watched, the the person went to go, you know, show their, like, ants or whatever, who they truly are, and they, like, went in, like, full attire with their, like, trotting, and then did showed them different forms of trotting and galloping and oh my god. The the the axe.

Simone Collins [44:04]:
Oh, I bet they, like, worked pretty I I could not gallop on my knees. That They’re not on

Yukiwaru [44:09]:
their knees. They they they stood on their two feet in the yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins [44:13]:
And that was It’s even more ridiculous than you think, Simone.

Yukiwaru [44:16]:
Yeah. There was a heart like horse stores and bought actual, like, authentic horse gear, and they’re like, I need, like, you know, what the horse puts in their mouth to, like, when people ride them or whatever. They’re like, I’m looking for them and they’re like, what size? And they like hold up to their mouth. They’re like, oh, about this this size. And the lady looks at her like, oh, okay.

Simone Collins [44:39]:
They’ve gotta be used to it by now, honestly. Well, think about it this I mean, Hermes was originally for equestrians. So, like, maybe if you’re really into that kind of, like, good construction and you’re like, look, let horses get it now.

Malcolm Collins [44:52]:
Like, people have been turned on by all sorts of weird stuff throughout the ages, but, like, the weird thing is beginning to identify with it. Right? Like, beginning to think, no. This is a meaningful and important part of how I need other people to see me. And I feel like this is partially culturally downstream of people feeling ashamed of, uh, identifying with, like, their culture or their religion because people will be like, oh, you’re you’re proud to be an American or whatever. You shouldn’t. That’s a that’s a bad thing to be. Right? Like, that’s racist or something. And so because you can’t be proud of anything, you need to come up with new things to be proud of. And if you’re not lucky enough to be, like, gay or something, then you have to, like, make up some new identity for yourself.

Yukiwaru [45:36]:
Yeah. That makes sense. It’s like at some point being, like, a straight white female was, like, lame and boring. I was like, uh, people ask me, like, what I am. I’m like, I’m just just straight white female. I’m nothing. I’m boring. I’m lame. Like, you know, they have all these colorful flags and stuff, and then there’s ours that’s like nonexistent or like black and white or just like not fun. Because apparently, being just, you know, straight is just not cool anymore.

Malcolm Collins [46:02]:
Well, I mean, it’s it’s true. But I will say, you talk about growing up as a tomboy. Do you still identify as, like, a tomboy? Like

Yukiwaru [46:12]:
I’m not a girl who likes to wear, like, frilly things and skirts and get dressed up. I mean, I went through a phase where I was like super into makeup because it was fun, but like, I I I walk dogs for a living. So anyway, regardless, I’m always in active wear, and it’s just because it’s so comfortable. It’s one of my favorite things. I’m not someone who wants to get dressed up. I I, you know, I am more a bit of a tomboy. I don’t like jewelry. I’ve never really liked that stuff. I don’t get my nails painted. I bite my nails. Like, I’ve always been someone who can get down and dirty and, you know, be one of I’ve always been one of the guys. I’ve always fit in with guys better than girls. Always.

Malcolm Collins [46:55]:
Yeah. The the reason I I elevate this point is because within the column of straight white female, there’s a bunch of ways that are totally unique and are, you know, perception, like Tomboy being one of them, of being a straight white female. But they don’t count to people because they’re just under straight white female. So so they don’t count as, like, a meaningful way of presenting yourself or anything like that until you label them something. Like, I’m actually exsexual or something. And then you can have all this pride in that, and you can have flags around it, and you can have when a lot of these people who identify this stuff, I doubt they’re really that different from you in terms of how they feel.

Yukiwaru [47:41]:
Mhmm. I’ve gone through phases where I thought maybe I was asexual, but it turns out, you know, I was just, like, recovering from, like, my own real stuff going on and really focusing on my recovery that I didn’t really think of anything else. I wasn’t asexual. But because of everything going on, I thought, you know, maybe I was or, you know, maybe I was biased. Someone like tried to brainwash me to make me think that I like, you know, I was bisexual, which I’m not. Nothing wrong with it, but I’m not. You know? I I’m I’m happily straight. Happily.

Malcolm Collins [48:14]:
Yeah. My my wife, by the way, is is fairly close to asexual, which is which is interesting because if you if you put us in the labeling category, asexual is a type of genderqueer. And if you’re genderqueer, you’re technically in the trans community. So my wife is technically in the trans community if you go. It’s all there.

Yukiwaru [48:33]:
Yay. Oh, there you go. Congratulations.

Simone Collins [48:34]:
You’re cool. Yeah. Finally.

Malcolm Collins [48:36]:
Cool. Cool.

Simone Collins [48:37]:
I think I have a flag, So that’s good. Yeah.

Yukiwaru [48:40]:
Yeah. You’re one of two people.

Malcolm Collins [48:41]:
Like street flag.

Simone Collins [48:42]:
Where’s the street flag?

Malcolm Collins [48:44]:
But I wanted to talk about other other video categories that you’ve enjoyed that your audience has recommended for you. Mhmm. Like, what are you watching these days?

Yukiwaru [48:53]:
Uh, they love cop slop, which I also enjoy. So funny.

Malcolm Collins [48:58]:
That fun.

Yukiwaru [48:58]:
So funny. Oh my god. These people are ridiculous. It hurts. It hurts that they exist in the world and that they’re, like, legal adults that can, like, do stuff. What was

Malcolm Collins [49:09]:
It’s fun that cop slop is coming back. When I was a kid, cop slop was very common. Um, there was these shows called, like what were the shows called, Simone? I know Simone.

Simone Collins [49:20]:
Cops. It’s called cops.

Malcolm Collins [49:22]:
Cops. Oh, yes. Cops. And they played constantly, and it was just like an equivalent of cop slop today. Um, but now you you have the streamers covering it where you get to see somebody else being like, we can all agree this is ridiculous. Right? You know? Which you couldn’t do in those old ‘90 shows, but there was, like, this period where there wasn’t any cop slop. And then thank god for body cams. Right? Nothing is made up for sex.

Yukiwaru [49:48]:
Hard with what they go through. They’re not perfect, but, oh my god, from the videos that you watch? Oh, good lord.

Simone Collins [49:56]:
No. They always make their jobs.

Malcolm Collins [49:58]:
Respect cops so much more to be like, oh my god. What a king and honestly honestly, the job that they do, especially combined with the lack of respect they were getting for it for a long time, it’s just us I could not deal with these people.

Yukiwaru [50:15]:
The patience they have. Yes. Yeah. They could never. They could never.

Malcolm Collins [50:20]:
The the one that I saw recently that was just, like, wild. Did you see the one where the lady grabs the cop’s gun in its holster and shoots it?

Yukiwaru [50:28]:
No. I’m just getting into it. But I don’t wanna overdo it too fast. You know, the last night we were watching like Chris Hansen.

Simone Collins [50:37]:
Oh, beautiful. The classics. The classics.

Yukiwaru [50:39]:
The classics. Pizza over, and he was eating while he was like getting it was so funny.

Malcolm Collins [50:45]:
Oh, you know what could actually be pretty fun to react to? And I haven’t seen anyone do it. What? Is old, like, best of, like, Mari. You know, like, the do you even know what Mari is? It might be before your time. So there used to be these shows.

Simone Collins [51:03]:
Jerry Springer was the most the most recent.

Yukiwaru [51:05]:
Yeah. Yeah. I know him.

Simone Collins [51:07]:
Jerry Springer That whole, like, genre.

Malcolm Collins [51:09]:
I I thought Mari was better than Jerry Springer. He got trashier. Yes. Oh. Where they would find people who just were, like, in some way completely fucking degen whatever. And then they’d have them on show, and they’d, like, talk them through it. And my favorite was the teenage girl who was desperate to get pregnant. She was, like, 14, and she has the line, like, it’s it’s my hot body. I do what I want with it. And she’d be like

Speaker 7 [51:37]:
My name is Victoria, and I’m 15 years old. And I don’t care what my mama says, I’m gonna have a baby. I will do whatever it takes to take care of my baby. If it has to come out of process to my body, then so be it. I’m gonna adjust my baby in all brand names. And if I can’t support it, then I guess I’m gonna steal it. I’m not just having sex with one, not two, but three different guys. That’s right. I’m a player, but that’s cool because I got it like that. My life game, took drop out of school, to be on Girls Gone Wild, and to have my baby. And there’s nothing my super mother can say to change my mind.

Yukiwaru [52:10]:
And I’m like Oh my god.

Simone Collins [52:11]:
She the best. She was the best.

Malcolm Collins [52:13]:
Level of trashiness in the Internet age, and it’s sad.

Yukiwaru [52:17]:
Oh, that’s so funny. I should yeah. I should definitely look into that. I mean, we’re we were all watching stuff like Pawn Stars, and I was just looking for the the the episodes where people get, like, really angry and, like, create create a commotion. I was having trouble finding them.

Malcolm Collins [52:33]:
But this this reminds me of, like, when you talk about drama, I I think I am in this interesting position with drama where I love watching drama videos. If it’s, like, about a, like, a furry celebrity who ended up, like, crashing out and losing all their fans, and it’s, turkey Tom or whatever, I’m like, I could watch just, like, a chain of those. But within my real life, I’ve entered this stage of life where we have, like, no drama because I’ve cut out, like, the family members who previously would have caused or, like, the people who previously caused drama. And then within our community, there just isn’t a lot of intercommunity drama. Like, none of this this community that you’re being introduced to, like, they’re the most supportive people I have met in my entire life. Like, none of them have ever in any way backstabbed me. It’s been really shocking because now as an adult, I look back on so many eras of my life, and I was like, wait. I just didn’t have to be friends with the

Yukiwaru [53:35]:
with the people. Like, imagine that. It’s would’ve saved so much time and energy if I had just known that.

Simone Collins [53:42]:
I really odd that we all just kind of grew up thinking we had to it was very stressful

Yukiwaru [53:47]:
Mhmm.

Simone Collins [53:48]:
To, like, the I I I can’t say these things, and I can’t think these things, and I can’t believe these things. And they’re just certain things. It it’s it’s very

Yukiwaru [53:55]:
a lot worse now.

Simone Collins [53:57]:
It is a lot worse now. Yeah. I think that’s why so many people are breaking. I mean, that’s why, like, there’s a whole, I guess, community of people online that are, like, considered heterodox left. Like, well, they’re still left in all things. It’s just that they’ve been rejected once for saying the wrong thing, and they’re just starting to get too fed up with it because it’s a little too stressful. But, like, really, nothing has changed about their political views or anything else, uh, which is really funny to me.

Malcolm Collins [54:21]:
I mean, my favorite example of this is, like, JK Rowling. JK Rowling is, like, actually, like, a a socialist leftist in everything that you could be a leftist on. And they just couldn’t leave this one issue alone. And they, like, genuinely radicalized this woman.

Yukiwaru [54:37]:
Yeah. I mean, that was, what I felt when I went on my ran. I was like, I just can’t deal with this anymore. Like, men saying they can I just I can’t? I can’t. It it it so irritating. No. You cannot. You cannot?

Malcolm Collins [54:54]:
Well, I mean, you know what they do. Right? Are you you you didn’t talk about it in your rant, but they are you familiar with this where they they No. What what is it that they freeze? Is it, like, animal blood?

Yukiwaru [55:06]:
It was, like, v eight or something.

Malcolm Collins [55:07]:
Yeah. V eight. They freeze Something

Yukiwaru [55:09]:
along those lines.

Malcolm Collins [55:10]:
And they put it in their butts. Why? Then

Yukiwaru [55:13]:
they say signs up for this.

Malcolm Collins [55:15]:
This is I I love it. So you’re like, I’m traumatizing you. And Uh-huh. Here when people act like this is, like, an extremist position, they’re like, how could you be canceled? Keep in mind, this is AOC’s position. Like, AOC has tweets saying, know

Simone Collins [55:33]:
Oh, I think she’s I think she since deleted it. You know, she’s trying to run for president, so she has to get rid of some of these stances. But look. I mean, there’s there’s also been this this big, I think, cancellation recently online or, like, big thing where people freaked out because someone had a, I think, a nonbinary or possibly trans person on their podcast who was trying to argue that trans women actually had a better, I guess, understanding or appreciation of true femininity, which I actually kind of agree with. And that’s one of the things that really annoys me. And that’s the here’s the problem.

Malcolm Collins [56:08]:
Spicy take, Simone. So you think trans women have a

Simone Collins [56:12]:
Look. Look. Okay. If you if you are a woman, if you are a natal woman and you have actually menstruated and you have actually, like, been pregnant or given birth, if you’ve actually gone through female puberty, it’s it’s like the difference between being a boy who loves toy soldiers in war movies and then, like, actually going to war. Right? So trans women who have never gone through this stuff, it’s this very beautiful idealized picture of what femininity is, and and any natal female who’s gone through puberty doesn’t because they know what actual femininity is, and it’s not so pretty. And there is a difference between biological reality and gender stereotypes. And to be trans, to be transfemale is to be this more pure version of female because it it’s separating out the ideals of femininity and the performance of femininity from the reality of femininity, which is being disgusting as is demonstrated by the act of menstruation and a bunch of other things. So I 100% hold that point. I don’t know why. See, I see, I think it it kind of undoes the the this this idealization of femininity to attempt to menstruate as a trans woman because this is it’s very unfeminine. I mean, as much as, like, it’s a very feminine thing. Bleeding out of your, like, nethers is not it’s not elegant. Okay. It’s not chic. It’s not chic. It’s so I I I hold that. You know? But, like, I just wish that we could

Malcolm Collins [57:50]:
have

Simone Collins [57:50]:
these discussions with trans people, with people on the left, with anyone. You know? Because, like, I couldn’t. I mean, maybe I could bring that up with a trans person, but they’d be so, like I I don’t know.

Malcolm Collins [58:02]:
But your criticism was, like, so mild, so restrained, and the degree

Simone Collins [58:08]:
to which so reasonable and and also just factual, which is the other issue.

Malcolm Collins [58:13]:
That you lured them from Blue Sky

Simone Collins [58:15]:
back to Twitter. Which is that’s saying a lot, man. Like Yeah.

Yukiwaru [58:20]:
And they’re actually threatening some friends of mine to no longer be my friend and people are creating like a blacklist of people who are still, you know, in communication with me and, you know, oh my god. Like, I’m so glad I’m living rent free in your head, but come on. Move on.

Malcolm Collins [58:39]:
Well, this is actually I think a very important thing that they do this from their perspective because they create this bubble where you can’t talk to anyone with specific views because if you did, you would see that they’re reasonable, nice people. And so the only way that you your community can stay in this bubble where the other side and I know this bubble. I know, you know, growing up what I thought conservatives were. Right? I thought they were like angry hillbillies who lived in the woods. Right? Like, I I I genuinely, really, in my mind, thought of them in quite a dehumanized fashion.

Yukiwaru [59:17]:
Mhmm.

Malcolm Collins [59:18]:
And I was able to think this because I hadn’t interacted with the community. Because if I did interact with the community, all of my friends would leave me. And since then, all of my friends have left me. So Yeah. Whatever. Right? You know?

Yukiwaru [59:31]:
What do you have to lose now?

Malcolm Collins [59:33]:
But, uh, yeah. Yeah. That’s a well, it’s it’s it’s like a memetic protection device. And I think it’s not like an intentional thing. I just think the parts of leftist culture that didn’t attempt to socially isolate othering ideas typically die out. Because if more people in your community start being like, uh-oh, they meet your new friends and your new friends aren’t evil, And they’re like, okay. Well, what what ideas do you have? Why do you think these things? Um, and then they begin to and they hear people like Simone who’s even has this crazy take that trans women are more women.

Simone Collins [60:07]:
It is not a crazy you know, a feminine. Whatever.

Malcolm Collins [60:10]:
Feminine. I hear you.

Simone Collins [60:12]:
Correct for

Yukiwaru [60:12]:
the I I I I see what you’re saying. You use a lot of big words that I don’t necessarily understand, but I think I got the point.

Simone Collins [60:22]:
Words are fun. Look. Look. I’m all about words. There’s so many words like mini hammer that we all need to bring back. I’m obsessed with words. You gotta you gotta word.

Yukiwaru [60:33]:
I barely speak English as it is.

Simone Collins [60:36]:
So do I, honestly. But this is why I need the extra words. They’re very

Yukiwaru [60:40]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins [60:41]:
Yeah. Well, it was great to have you on.

Simone Collins [60:45]:
Yes. And congratulations on being canceled and blacklisted by all of your friends.

Yukiwaru [60:51]:
Thank you. I’m honored. My dad’s really proud of me.

Simone Collins [60:54]:
Aw. See, you know, this is this is what you wanna go for.

Malcolm Collins [60:58]:
For saying the most normal thing in the world. It it wasn’t even political. You had a normal opinion. They they I bet even in their social circles, even among the ones who are looking to cancel you, 90% of them probably secretly believe all of that stuff. They just know they’re not allowed to say it. Right?

Yukiwaru [61:18]:
I’ve had, like, people of the the community reach out to me saying, you know, they support me. They, like, you know, they agree with me.

Malcolm Collins [61:26]:
Well, that’s that’s really hard.

Simone Collins [61:28]:
But it’s like political suicide to actually, like, come out and

Yukiwaru [61:31]:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Malcolm Collins [61:33]:
But guys, check out her content. It’s it’s not a lot of it is political, which makes it very different than the other content we Although

Simone Collins [61:39]:
It’s just family. Yukiwaru’s really fun. Oh. It’s just gonna be fun.

Malcolm Collins [61:44]:
Yeah.

Simone Collins [61:44]:
Hi. Yeah. Yeah. Text your your Yukiwaru wait. What’s your username on x?

Yukiwaru [61:50]:
Uh, it’s Yukiwaru and then that, like, dash at the end, but you don’t really have to worry about the dash because if you type it in, it should show up. But someone actually has, my name on Oh, so I just had to add a dash.

Simone Collins [62:05]:
How did you choose it? How’d you choose your name?

Yukiwaru [62:07]:
Actually, my artist helped me pick out my name. Uki means snow, and Waru translates to brat. No. No. Brat? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That’s a good one. Good. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins [62:23]:
Well, we’re

Simone Collins [62:24]:
well done. You know? You know, you pick friends well, and sometimes your friends just choose to unpick you. But that’s that’s a good that’s a good one. Yeah.

Yukiwaru [62:32]:
Yes. It is.

Malcolm Collins [62:33]:
Mhmm. I hope you grow. I I I do have a feeling that you’re probably at the beginning of doing more politics stuff because that’s generally where this goes.

Simone Collins [62:43]:
We’ve we’ve done a number

Malcolm Collins [62:45]:
we caught you at, like, day one at moment one after first cancellation event. But you go to something like Leaflet. Leaflet never did politics stuff. And then she played, like, Hogwarts legacy, and she got canceled. And then she was like, you know what? I am gonna react to politics videos. And then people started to so much of, like, our community, like you said, is just for me this, no. You can’t tell me what I’m allowed to say. I’m gonna say what I believe. And now I’m gonna say even more than what I believe because you’re a meanie. And then a a new community community forms, forms, and and you’re you’re like, like, oh, these people, they like hearing what I actually think. So let’s let’s all encourage her to have more takes.

Simone Collins [63:28]:
Yes. Yes. Thank you so much for joining us.

Yukiwaru [63:31]:
Thank you so much for having me.

Malcolm Collins [63:33]:
Alright. I’ll hit end recording.

Yukiwaru [63:35]:
Yay. It

Simone Collins [63:37]:
was really

Speaker 6 [63:37]:
What are you guys doing? I got the jump on. I’m pushing me. Oh, Titan’s pushing you a little? And what are you guys working on? Oh my god. Are you building a whole house, Octavian? Oh, yeah. Are you scared of the house now?

The conversation covers declining trust in Islamist parties (Muslim Brotherhood, Ennahda, Justice and Development Party), sub-replacement fertility across much of the region, and existential water scarcity in Egypt and Iran. They then dig into the drivers of deconversion: smartphone access to historical sources, the Islamic slave trade’s scale and character, Muhammad’s documented ownership of slaves (including Black slaves), Aisha’s age in the hadith literature, key Quranic verses on women, violence, sexual slavery, apostasy, and internal inconsistencies.

Malcolm ranks the most common reasons people report leaving Islam, notes the heavy influence of modern egalitarian (“urban monoculture”) values, and offers a Techno-Puritan perspective on whether the tradition can be reconciled with reality-affirming religion. Simone adds her view on the ethical implications. The discussion is candid, data-driven, and frequently interrupted by family life.

Based_Camp_-_Islam_Shiftsmp4 (1)

[00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Simone, I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about a fascinating phenomenon, which is the collapse of Islam- Hmm ... in the Muslim world. And a lot of people are unaware that Islam has had as, as bad of a time as Christianity has had in the West.

[00:00:21] Simone Collins: Yeah,

[00:00:21] Malcolm Collins: it’s taken a beating.

[00:00:21] At least proportionally, Islam is having a worse time in Muslim majority countries- Is it

[00:00:29] Simone Collins: really? ...

[00:00:30] Malcolm Collins: in terms of the speed of the collapse. So if you go from 2012 to 2014, all right?

[00:00:38] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:00:39] Malcolm Collins: In Tunisia, you had 22% of people were secular. If you go to 2018 to 2019, so this is just less than a decade... Yeah, le- about...

[00:00:52] What is it? Yeah, less than a decade later, it jumped up to 46%.

[00:00:56] Speaker 3: Huh, huh.

[00:00:57] Malcolm Collins: Okay. 22% to 46%. If you go to Libya, it’s 18% in the 2012 to 2014. Okay. 2018 to ‘19, it goes from 18% to 36%. Algeria, it goes from 13% to 24%. Morocco, it went from 4% to 22%. Stop. And in Egypt, it went from 3% to 18%. Now, I want people to understand that these are countries where you can be killed for deconverting from Islam.

[00:01:32] Simone Collins: And- In... Wait, in which of these countries is that ki- like, in, in... ‘Cause I thought, like, caliphates only really existed in, at roughly, like... Okay, this is my uneducated, super unedu- it... I wanna say, I wanna say, like, Afghanistan and Iran Right? Like- Okay,

[00:01:48] Malcolm Collins: countries that will kill you legally, not mob justice. In these other countries it can be mob justice.

[00:01:53] But legally- But like ruled

[00:01:54] Simone Collins: by Sharia law.

[00:01:55] Malcolm Collins: Like- It’s the death penalty in Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Mauritania, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Somalia, the Maldives, Brunei, and some parts of Nigeria, and certain states in Malaysia.

[00:02:08] Simone Collins: For what? For proselytizing Christianity or just being an unbeliever?

[00:02:10] Malcolm Collins: No,

[00:02:11] Simone Collins: for

[00:02:11] Malcolm Collins: deconverting.

[00:02:13] Simone Collins: How... How do they track that? And keep in mind,

[00:02:16] Malcolm Collins: Iran appears to have a massive secular population now-

[00:02:19] Simone Collins: Yeah. No, that- ... even

[00:02:20] Malcolm Collins: though it’s the

[00:02:20] Simone Collins: death

[00:02:21] Malcolm Collins: penalty ... Oh, it’s,

[00:02:22] Simone Collins: So wait, so like everyone like goes to the mosque regularly? Like how do they track... I mean, I’m just trying to figure out like how you make a case for having someone-

[00:02:32] Malcolm Collins: The p- the point I’m making here is the numbers are almost certainly worse.

[00:02:35] Now, what is interesting is many of these places many of these places have had a a boost post this happening.

[00:02:44] Speaker 3: Oh gosh. Where did I, where did I post the, I’ll have to open it

[00:02:47] Simone Collins: in Chrome again. Wait, did you get kicked again by a ghost? What, what, what was...

[00:02:50] Malcolm Collins: No, something fell over.

[00:02:52] Simone Collins: Wait. Shut up Was it a ghost?

[00:02:55] Malcolm Collins: Was it

[00:02:55] Simone Collins: a ghost? I’m so excited for ghosties. Ghosties. Spooky. Or... Oh, no, I should say jinn, because << this is our Islamic episode, so instead of ghosties, it’s jinn >>. Jinn, jinn, jinn, jinn. So, if

[00:03:11] Malcolm Collins: we look at wave three, we’ve seen a bit of a reduction. So 2021 to 2022. What is wave three?

[00:03:16] Simone Collins: What...

[00:03:17] Malcolm Collins: Oh. So if you go to Tunisia, it’s to 31% now.

[00:03:21] If, if you go to Libya, it’s 24% now. You s- also saw a five-point drop in Algeria, a seven-point drop in Morocco, and a six-point drop in Egypt. So you-

[00:03:34] Simone Collins: A drop in the number of atheists, in the percentage

[00:03:36] Malcolm Collins: of atheists. A drop in the number of atheists. So you’ve had a

[00:03:39] Simone Collins: slight drop- Wait, and over what year, over what year period, Malcolm?

[00:03:42] Malcolm Collins: This is 2018 to ‘21, 2021 to 2020, so a fairly short time. Mm-hmm. So basically you had a big wave out, and a small wave back in, and we’ll see where the net is. But it’s worse than that, because you also have the problem of low [00:04:00] support of Islamic parties. So, If we look at the various things here, like the Egyptian Brotherhood, sorry, the, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

[00:04:10] Mm-hmm. In 2011, it had a trust rate of 44%. By 2018 to ‘19, it had a trust rate of only 17%. In the Tunisia, the Ennahda had a decline of 24 points since 2011, roughly down from a 40% range. And now with one detailed team survey showing it being at only 11 to 16% now. Wow. And in Morocco, the Justice and Development, the main Islamic party, went from 44% in 2013 to 25% in 2019.

[00:04:42] A 20-point decline were reported for Muslim Brotherhood, Brotherhood groups in Jordan and Morocco as well. So You are basically seeing a lower degree of trust in the institutions that were meant to bring sort of Islam to everyone. And on top of all of this, we’re seeing fairly low fertility rates or extremely low fertility rates for the poverty in these regions across these regions as well.

[00:05:11] Generally below the United States fertility rate. So Tunisia has a fertility rate of 1.53 to 1.58. Iran has a fertility rate of 1.6. Saudi Arabia has a fertility rate of 2.1 maybe, so they- they’re doing better than us. And UAE and other Gulf states have a fertility rate of 1.3 to 1.7, so very low.

[00:05:34] Simone Collins: And- It’s lower than I’m sure anyone would expect, even in the case of the rare but still present above replacement country.

[00:05:42] Because people think- Yeah ... Muslim country, and they’re like, “Oh, we’re talking families like six on average, right?” No. Like, no.

[00:05:49] Malcolm Collins: No, no, nope.

[00:05:51] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:05:51] Malcolm Collins: We are seeing a collapse across the board. And it gets worse. We’re potentially better, and we should be grateful that this collapse is happening, or they should be grateful, is they’re also across the Arab world well, I should say Muslim world because it’s happening in Iran, too, about to run out of water.

[00:06:12] Egypt right now, a- a- at current figures has a threshold of 490 to 500 meters squared per year in terms of the- the quality that puts it- it right below the scarcity threshold and less than half the UN water poverty line. Mm. And this has been a massive decline from historical levels. If you look at what does it mean to have, sorry, water levels at 490 to 500 meters, square meters, if we look at the 1960s, they had levels at 2,000 cubic meters.

[00:06:47] Not good. If you look at the 1990s, it had fallen to 1,000 cubic meters, and now it’s at only 500 cubic meters And 98% of their fresh water comes from the Nile, which the country upstream of them can dam, and currently is damming. So it’s likely going to get worse. You have this at the same problem as Iran’s water problem that’s literally leading to giant sinkholes.

[00:07:12] See our episode of, like, the hell on earth it is to live in Iran. R- this we did before the war talking about just how bad it’s gotten in Iran with their water situation. But we’re also seeing this across the region because, you know, oth- these regions are supplying other regions with water. The reason they’re doing the dam is ‘cause they’re also low on water.

[00:07:31] Mm-hmm. And when a lot of these regions run out of water, there isn’t a lot they can do. They don’t have the economy or the economic capacity that a country like Israel does to run on desalination. Mm-hmm. So that sort of means that they don’t have a future. Like, when we did the Iran video, the answer to the future of Iran is Iran functionally has no future.

[00:07:52] Mm-hmm. Y- there is no way that it can continue to operate at the population levels it’s operating at right now. Well,

[00:07:57] Simone Collins: and, and with the water levels and [00:08:00] the, yeah, just the infrastructure issues at play.

[00:08:03] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So this has been a massive issue. So the question is, one, when we think about the future of the Muslim world, what’s gonna happen?

[00:08:12] If we think about the future of Islam, what’s going to happen, and why are we seeing these massive deconversions? The first thing to note is we’re not seeing them as heavily in migrant communities. Migrant communities appear to have a degree of protection from this. So where we’re going to see our more moderated Muslims are going to be in Muslim majority countries in the future, be- largely ‘cause we’re creating this, which is why it’s so important that we manage deportations more aggressively.

[00:08:37] Because a lot of the times these are people who were extreme even in the countries that they’re coming from. So why, why are we having this issue? Thoughts, Simone, before I go further.

[00:08:50] Simone Collins: I’m assuming it’s bad governance of the countries. I, I, like, I, I can’t imagine it actually being a result of doctrinal issues, for example.

[00:08:58] I, I can only imagine it being corrupt governance. Is that it? What, what do you... Tell me.

[00:09:05] Malcolm Collins: It’s, it’s, it’s... Well, it’s, it’s doctrinal and people learning history, basically. It’s- Oh ... chartable, and there’s some studies that have looked at this, to the proliferation of cell phones.

[00:09:14] Simone Collins: Basically- Oh, no. So it’s kind of like with the LDS church suddenly hemorrhaging people because they’re able to find, what is it, the letter?

[00:09:21] I’m assuming.

[00:09:21] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the, the whatever letter. Yeah. Which is a very convincing document, by the way. I, I would... If I was LDS and I found that, I’d be like, “Ooh.”

[00:09:28] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:09:29] Yeah. Well, no, that’s the problem, is that so many members of the church have been one-shotted by that one letter. You know, someone’s just like, “Look it up,” and they do.

[00:09:37] So could... So are you, you’re suggesting basically that there’s some rough equivalent or constellation of equivalents for Islam? For Islam?

[00:09:48] Malcolm Collins: The problem with Islam-

[00:09:49] Simone Collins: It’s the CES letter. It’s the CES letter ...

[00:09:51] Malcolm Collins: The CES letter. That makes it so much weaker than Christianity is Christianity owns the atrocities it committed in its history, the bad things that happened around its history.

[00:10:02] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:10:02] Malcolm Collins: You expose those to a Christian, and generally they’re like, “Yeah, I was aware of all that.” Right? Like, “What, what are you talking about?”

[00:10:10] Simone Collins: Yeah. “

[00:10:11] Malcolm Collins: The Inquisition? Fuck off. Everybody knows about that,” right? Yes ... but Islam genuinely, to a lot of people who converted into it, billed itself as something that is completely at odds with the historic reality that is Islam.

[00:10:28] So if I’m gonna give an example of what I mean by this in the United States, a lot of Black people converted into Islam because they’re like, “Well, my ancestors were converted by Christians, and that means Christianity is bad because it’s Christians that enslaved them, and so Christianity is, like, an anti-African religion.”

[00:10:47] And it’s like Actually, if we look at the number of Black Africans that were enslaved by Muslims, that slave trade or the slave trade that evolved into that slave trade was active for 1,300 years. It’s the oldest slave age in human history. It is still an active slave trade. There’s still, like, open air slave markets in places like Libya.

[00:11:13] Simone Collins: What?

[00:11:13] Malcolm Collins: The United States one was only active for 350 years. Worse, it was a larger slave trade. So it has, like, you- if you look at scholars on this, typically you’re looking at a range of 10 to 18 million Africans were enslaved over this. And then you get way lower numbers, or at least for average numbers, for the American slave trade, which was only 11.5 to 14 million people in comparison.

[00:11:42] So-

[00:11:42] Simone Collins: Oh, that’s a bad look. Yeah.

[00:11:44] Malcolm Collins: Why is

[00:11:45] Simone Collins: that? But- I’m just so mad that people don’t say things like ... No one ever, no one ever taught me that. I learned so much about slavery in, like, every single grade of American public school.

[00:11:55] Malcolm Collins: But, but the, the Black people can be like, “Well, then why aren’t there Black people all over the [00:12:00] Arab world?”

[00:12:01] And the answer is, is because the slave trade was demonstrably worse than the American slave trade. Because what were they interested in? What, what, what, what... Americans, you know, you, we, we import slaves as Protestants, the first thing we think is, “Hmm, I bet you would be great for labor.” But when a Muslim country imports slaves, they’re usually looking for sex slaves.

[00:12:29] And that is what they did with them. They would take the men and castrate them so that they couldn’t create stable communities, and sometimes use them as sex slaves still. And all of the women would be put into sex slavery. Hmm. Yeah ... because that is part of their culture. It’s, it’s not part of the American slave culture.

[00:12:48] It’s not that, like, grapes never happened, but they were often punishable even by your community and seen as a very bad thing to do. No, come

[00:12:55] Simone Collins: on. They were pervasive. Don’t even. But, like, still.

[00:12:59] Malcolm Collins: No, they were not as pervasive as is you-

[00:13:02] Simone Collins: It was looked down upon. People weren’t proud of it. It wasn’t, like, out in the open.

[00:13:06] Malcolm Collins: A- and you could be punished for it in m- I’m pretty sure in all states.

[00:13:11] Simone Collins: Yeah, I’m sure in theory, but, like, you know, there was just that certainly- You certainly didn’t

[00:13:15] Malcolm Collins: put

[00:13:15] Simone Collins: out slaves as sex slaves ... understood

[00:13:18] Malcolm Collins: slave to be had. So I decided to double-check, and in the South, there actually, it was legal in a lot of states.

[00:13:26] Explicitly, there was one court case in whi- in which one male slave raped another female slave who was 10, and he was not convicted because it was deemed as not illegal. That’s how severe it was. That said, also, we know that, I also double-checked that Mohammed definitely had lots of sex slaves. That is recorded in the Quran.

[00:13:48] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:13:49] Malcolm Collins: Which I think shows just a demonstrably worse level. And they, the way that they did the castrations on the males was so brutal that you had death rates of, I think it was... God, what was it? I’m trying to find the numbers here. You have mortality rates of 60 to

[00:14:07] Simone Collins: 90%. Go... mm.

[00:14:09] Malcolm Collins: In some studies. So they’re kinda just Basically, they just killed the males

[00:14:12] taunting them. They didn’t really care if the male survived. They were just- But they

[00:14:14] Simone Collins: just wanted to kill them in, like, one of the most painful and humiliating ways possible.

[00:14:19] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and I mean, they’re still super, super racist against Blacks in most Arab countries- Oh my God ... right? Like-

[00:14:24] Simone Collins: Yeah, I think what, in, in, in...

[00:14:25] Or no, sorry, that’s an African country where, like, the word for slave is just also the word for Black person.

[00:14:31] Malcolm Collins: No, this is, this is true in a lot of Arab countries.

[00:14:33] Simone Collins: Oh, God ...

[00:14:34] Malcolm Collins: and a lot of people are, “Oh, that’s just normal.” It’s like, no, it’s not. Like, we stopped saying the N-word, right? Like, you guys can’t stop calling them slaves just because, “Well, that’s how they think of them.”

[00:14:44] Keep in mind, the largest- Yeah, but the N-word

[00:14:45] Simone Collins: doesn’t mean, the, the N-word doesn’t mean sla- slave. It never did ...

[00:14:49] Malcolm Collins: the largest genocide on Earth right now is currently being carried out by a group of Muslims against a group of African Blacks, right? Mm-hmm. And it’s had a death toll at 10X the Gaza death toll- But God

[00:15:04] Simone Collins: forbid anyone talk about that one.

[00:15:06] No

[00:15:06] Malcolm Collins: God forbid. But a number of, and ‘cause we saw this in the United States, a lot of Blacks thought that it was, like, cool or traditionally Black to be Muslim, and so they converted, and so you got these Black Muslim communities. And so, but, but not just there, but like in other parts of, if you’re talking about in Muslim countries and stuff like this, there’s this realization of like, “Oh my God, like this is really bad.”

[00:15:28] And the child bride thing, ‘cause a lot of people are like, “Oh, Aisha could have been older.” Like, it, and this progressive Muslim I met told me this way of reading it that makes Aisha not six and nine. However, in the Muslim world, especially in conservative Muslim countries, they believe the six and nine ages, like everyone does, so it’s, it’s largely irrelevant whether or not it was the case.

[00:15:49] But what it means is a lot of people hear this, “Oh, he’s a perfect moral person,” and then it’s, “Oh, he married a six-year-old and slept with a nine-year-old,” right? Like [00:16:00] A lot of them see that And their takeaway from that is, this seems really bad. Like, I don’t know how to square this. Like, I have a six-year-old kid, right?

[00:16:14] Like, Octavian, our kid, is six years old. That’s the age of one of his wives, right? Like, they begin to learn... Like, really it’s, it’s, it’s very much sort of like with Protestants, they read the Bible and they’re like, “Wait, this isn’t what Catholics said was in the Bible,” you know? There’s all these things the church is doing that, like, we’re explicitly told not to do.

[00:16:39] And a lot of Muslims read this, and it’s just like, wait, was Muhammad, like, a really bad guy? I mean, there’s... We’ll get into it, because I actually wanted to go through and have an AI sort of do an analysis on what ends up pushing people away. Because, you know, he had, this is, like, in the Quran, sm- sex slaves, right?

[00:16:59] Like, th- that’s a thing that he did. Actually, one of them killed him after he killed her, th- this Jewish lady’s kids and, and husband. And then she poisoned him. All

[00:17:09] Simone Collins: right. Really?

[00:17:11] Malcolm Collins: Good for her, right? Yeah. And like, a lot of people are like “How dare, what a terrible thing. Such a perfect person.”

[00:17:16] It’s like, no, that’s like a good thing to do for your people and your family.

[00:17:20] Simone Collins: Oh, no, 100%, if, if someone were to do that, I, yeah, I mean, poison is what they would get if they were lucky.

[00:17:26] Malcolm Collins: What’s also really fascinating-

[00:17:28] Simone Collins: She’s rich, but she’d get away with it. She’d do worse if she could ...

[00:17:30] Malcolm Collins: if you talk about this from a techno Puritan perspective, ‘cause if we think, oh, the, the Quranic text was to any extent inspired by some sort of real...

[00:17:37] I, I’m, I’m doubting this more and more as time goes on. Like, the, the more I read about what they did historically and how they acted historically and in modern times,

[00:17:46] Simone Collins: I’m increasingly- The more you realize that by biblical standards, they don’t have souls. Wait, sorry. The Bible doesn’t say there’s anything about souls, but that’s what I mean.

[00:17:52] Like, they weren’t human. They were pre-Adamite animal things. Yeah.

[00:17:56] Speaker 5: Are they pre-Adamites? Yeah ... with

[00:17:57] Simone Collins: our

[00:17:57] Speaker 5: new term. No, the-

[00:17:59] Malcolm Collins: Obviously, I can’t know what’s in another person’s heart or in another person’s brain or if they feel regret when they use people as sex slaves or whatever. But what I can say is that within multiple populations, I think there are pre-Adamites in the Christian population, I think there are pre-Adamites in the Jewish population.

[00:18:16] It’s just they seem to appear within the Muslim population at higher rates within our existing society. This could be a nature of Muslim culture as it exists right now in sort of a personal dark age, or it could be because in many ways Muhammad acted this way a nature of it more broadly.

[00:18:37] Speaker 10: Welcome to Muslim sensitivity training.

[00:18:41] Let’s all look at why Muslims are upset. First of all, in the Muslim religion you can’t... Anybody? Jack off. Okay, jacking it is strictly forbidden in the Muslim religion.

[00:18:54] And what do we know about the places Muslims live? They live in? Good, sand. Now, put yourself in the shoes of a Muslim. It’s Friday night, but you can’t have sex and you can’t jack off. There’s sand in your eyes and probably in the crack of your ass, and then some cartoon comes along from a country where people are getting laid and mocks your prophet.

[00:19:16] Well, you know what? I’d be pretty pissed off, too

[00:19:19] Malcolm Collins: The, the, the question , is if it was partially inspired by God, part of the problem is, is Muhammad himself wrote that, “If I’m lying, may God rip out my aorta,” and his last words was, “It feels like somebody’s ripping out my aorta Wait, really?

[00:19:38] Yeah, they were, they were... Like, it’s a, it’s a weird phrasing that was used, right? Like, it’s, it’s, it’s very, like, book-endy. And when I saw that, I was like if I’m supposed to assume that God came in to inspire this text, then what is he saying about Muhammad through this, right? Like, it, I, I, I think, but they might not be his actual last words.

[00:19:59] They’re, like, one [00:20:00] of his last words or something like this.

[00:20:01] Simone Collins: Look, if he said that and it was anywhere close to the end, I’m taking it.

[00:20:07] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Oh, another fun thing in the Quran is there is one part where Muhammad trades two Black slaves for one white slave.

[00:20:14] Simone Collins: Great. Great, yeah, and there’s just all these people who are like, “Look, the, the proper, the proper religion for me-

[00:20:22] Malcolm Collins: Yeah

[00:20:23] is, is Islam.” Now,

[00:20:23] Simone Collins: th- th- one,

[00:20:24] Malcolm Collins: this shows that Muhammad owned Black slaves.

[00:20:27] Simone Collins: Great. Great, great, great, great, great, great.

[00:20:29] Malcolm Collins: Which I think is so, I mean-

[00:20:30] Simone Collins: Look, it, look, I mean, he does seem to have been equal opportunity in slave ownership, to be fair. I mean,

[00:20:36] Malcolm Collins: assuming you’re- Now, note here, by the way, how Muslim apologists try to get around this part.

[00:20:39] Simone Collins: Okay,

[00:20:39] Malcolm Collins: okay. Is they’re like, “Well, the, the white slave was willing to convert to Islam, and that’s why his life was worth more than the Black slaves who were not willing to convert to Islam or had not converted to Islam.”

[00:20:52] Simone Collins: Ugh.

[00:20:52] Malcolm Collins: Is, is, so as far as the way that they read it. Y- by the way, the, the, the, CNN has even done stuff on Libya’s open air slave market for Africans.

[00:21:02] Simone Collins: How... Okay, if those exist, wouldn’t, like, there be a ton of tourists there? I had no idea there were open air slave markets. Thought it was- Yeah ... all, like, sort of behind the scenes trafficking.

[00:21:13] Malcolm Collins: Well, I

[00:21:14] Simone Collins: mean- There are open air slave markets? That, that’s-

[00:21:16] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, open air slave markets. Still, like, I love these people who are like, they, “Your ancestors owned slaves.”

[00:21:22] And I’m like, one, no they didn’t. And two how, why do

[00:21:27] Simone Collins: you care- Okay, mine, mine probably

[00:21:27] Malcolm Collins: did, though ... so much about this? To be fair. If you think you deserve so much recompense for this, why aren’t you doing anything about all the slaves right now? There’s more slaves right now than there have been at any point in human history.

[00:21:36] Yeah,

[00:21:36] Simone Collins: and well also, like, if you eat shrimp, shrimp you’re probably u- utilizing slave labor. You know, there’s so many products that we buy, you know, all of us on, on a regular basis probably a bunch of our garments are made by slaves. You’re using functional

[00:21:46] Malcolm Collins: slave labor, slaves with extra steps.

[00:21:48] Simone Collins: I’m talking about- No, no, I mean I’m also talking about actual slaves, like people who are being- Oh yeah, because they

[00:21:52] Malcolm Collins: do capture them on boats and stuff, and stuff, from what I’ve heard, yeah.

[00:21:54] Simone Collins: Yeah, like, it there’s a lot of migrant trafficking that ends up with people who are, like, left on boats or... Look, I’ve heard way worse things that I can’t talk about ‘cause I’ll start crying. But- It’s really hard to avoid slavery if you buy things that are not, like, locally produced and made. So-

[00:22:10] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:22:11] I mean, I’ve definitely... I’ll, I’ll, I’ll go deeper before I go into, ‘cause I wanna go into specific lines, ‘cause I decided to have AI create sort of a, a, a spreadsheet of when people say they left w- Islam, Islam, why? Yeah. Like, what specifically made them leave? Hmm. To try to find the specific verses and stuff like that that people are having trouble with and that’s causing them to leave.

[00:22:31] Speaker 3: Okay.

[00:22:31] Malcolm Collins: But I, I really do think that the key strength that Christianity has had that has made it not as heavily affected by the internet is Christians really air their dirty laundry, like, pretty heavily. Most Christians are familiar with most of the major arguments made by atheists, right? Like, you, you go on the internet, you’re not gonna see new arguments, right?

[00:22:55] You’re like, “Oh, I know that one, I know that one, I know that one, I know that one.” Mm-hmm. Yeah. The CES letter for a lot of Mormons genuinely introduced them to arguments or concepts that the church hadn’t made sure to introduce to them first in context.

[00:23:11] Simone Collins: That’s the really big problem, yeah. It’s just been kind of sheltered away.

[00:23:14] Malcolm Collins: Very much like the, the you know, the sexuality situation where I’m like, “You’ve got to show your kids this stuff first in context, have them understand it, have them understand what they’re seeing so that they don’t get it, you know, messed up for them in some, some other way.” Yeah. I, I, I think that Christianity has done d- almost to its detri- like actually to its detriment, gone so hard negative on itself that, like, that just wasn’t a problem for it, right?

[00:23:45] Whereas y- you can see online I’ve seen videos of this, of Islamic you know, figures like a, a, the, I f- I forget what they’re called. Like, a, higher than a priest preacher- Modernists? Yeah, yeah. [00:24:00] Saying that it is sinful to listen to a debate about whether Islam is true.

[00:24:04] Speaker 6: A rule of thumb, it is totally prohibited to watch debates or to engage in debates.

[00:24:11] Engaging in debates might, huh, might be acceptable if you had proper knowledge.

[00:24:18] Malcolm Collins: Which shows that, like- Oh, that’s- They don’t want you- That, no,

[00:24:20] Simone Collins: that i- no ... that’s gonna make you- You don’t get to do that. That, that makes you look so bad. Don’t say that. Like, even if... No. Then, that’s, come on. That, you’re, it’s so, it’s so tempting to listen to debates then.

[00:24:34] Unless it’s just to pray for them. Well, I mean, I don’t,

[00:24:35] Malcolm Collins: I mean, it, it, if you’re like, “Well, my soul could be at stake,” and blah, blah. The point here being is a lot of Muslims were genuinely unaware of the arguments against it or how brutal the Quran is because they were reading translated versions of it.

[00:24:51] Yeah. Like for example in, in, in the Quran it says that when you go to heaven, you get a white face, and when you go to hell, you get a black face.

[00:25:00] Simone Collins: Are you serious? Oh, that’s so much worse than white and delightsome. That’s-

[00:25:04] Malcolm Collins: Right?

[00:25:05] Simone Collins: That’s horrible.

[00:25:05] Malcolm Collins: But- My

[00:25:06] Simone Collins: God ...

[00:25:07] Malcolm Collins: the, the,

[00:25:08] Speaker 3: Oh, guys

[00:25:11] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I know it’s, it’s really bad.

[00:25:13] Speaker 3: It’s

[00:25:13] Malcolm Collins: really bad. It’s really bad. But the way that they translate that, if they’re like, “Well, it’s a metaphor. Like white means good and happy, hippy, and black means sad and bad.”

[00:25:23] Speaker 3: Stop digging the hole. Don’t dig. Ah, oh, no, no, no, no, no,

[00:25:28] Malcolm Collins: no, no, no. I’m

[00:25:29] Speaker 3: like,

[00:25:30] Malcolm Collins: get it in its original context when they had lots of Black slaves and, you know, Muhammad personally owned Black people.

[00:25:38] Mm-hmm. That’s the other thing where they’re like, you get all these like Muslim converts in the United States w- all these like Black groups and they’re like, “You have a Black president or whatev- l- look, your presidents or founding presidents or Founding Fathers owned slaves.” And I was like, “Yeah, but what about like the founder of your religion?”

[00:25:56] Simone Collins: Yeah, I, I actually, I didn’t know until just today that Muhammad had Black slaves. I also did not know that he had slaves.

[00:26:03] Malcolm Collins: But also- Now

[00:26:04] Simone Collins: that I think about him ...

[00:26:04] Malcolm Collins: keep in mind that, well, I mean, it, it creates a problem if you thought that you were being like pro-African or something by joining, right?

[00:26:12] Simone Collins: Yes.

[00:26:14] Yes, it does. It does.

[00:26:15] Malcolm Collins: All right, no, so before I get to the quotes, what I wanted to go over is my thoughts right now on Islam. And I’m not digging that deep into Islam right now because I don’t want to push something out. You know, when I started the Techno-Puritan project I was like, “Yeah, you can try to be like a Muslim version of a techno-puritan, but if you are, you need to go and find things that affirm- reality in your text, right?

[00:26:39] Like, that’s the techno puritan project, right? Mm-hmm. If it is actually from God, it will occur with reality, and one of the problems that you’re gonna have is you can say, “Well, that was just the time. Like, that was just the way people lived back when Muhammad was alive,” and it’s like, yeah, except Jesus was way before Muhammad and didn’t have any child brides or slaves, right?

[00:27:03] Like, how... What do you mean just the time, right? Mm-hmm. Then we should apply the same things to Jesus. But let’s go through the most quoted verses for why people leave so we can think about how these have problems in the modern context. So Quran 4:34, the most frequently mentioned single verse, it describes men as protectors and maintainers of women and outlines steps for dealing with a wife’s, not rebellion or disobedience, ending with, “Strike them or beat them lightly.”

[00:27:31] Various translations of ˈwar, the word. Many leavers describe this as incompatible with modern ethics or equality. Now-

[00:27:40] Simone Collins: Not Andrew Tates. Look, he was the perfect match

[00:27:43] Malcolm Collins: for Islam. For

[00:27:44] Simone Collins: Islam. Yeah, he really was. He was just, like, born for Islam.

[00:27:46] Malcolm Collins: She’s gonna do an episode on what a, a dirtbag he is- Yeah ... in the near future.

[00:27:50] She’s outlined it. Mm-hmm. But yeah, I mean, I guess living a Muslim life, he beats them heavily though like ripping out their-

[00:27:56] Simone Collins: No, don’t, don’t, no spoilers. And he doesn’t. [00:28:00] He doesn’t. You’ll see.

[00:28:02] Malcolm Collins: In Quran 4:11, inheritance rules, a male receives the share of two females in inheritance. Quran 2:282, in financial contracts, two women are required in the place of one male witness so that if-

[00:28:17] one of the women heirs, the other can remind her. In Quran 4:3, permission for a man to marry up to four wives with conditions about justice, and Hadith on Aisha’s age- parallel reports that she was married at six or seven, and the marriage was consummated when she was nine. And these points push a lot of feminist types out, and it appears that the feminist arguments are the most compelling to people.

[00:28:46] Now, I think a portion of our audience would even be, like, based, right? Like, except for the child grape stuff, grape stuff. But, like, the other stuff, you know, yeah, you know, like Sean Connery being like, “Sometimes you need to beat a woman when she’s acting up.” It-

[00:29:01] Simone Collins: Sometimes. Sometimes

[00:29:03] Malcolm Collins: Sometimes.

[00:29:04] Speaker 7: Okay. You did an interview in which you said-

[00:29:07] Simone Collins: Mm

[00:29:07] Speaker 7: it’s not the worst thing to slap a woman, thing to slap a woman now and then. As I remember, you said you don’t do it with a clenched fist. It’s better to do it with an open hand.

[00:29:14] Speaker 8: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:15] Speaker 7: Yeah. Remember that?

[00:29:16] Speaker 8: Yeah.

[00:29:16] Speaker 7: Yeah.

[00:29:17] Speaker 8: And I- I

[00:29:18] Speaker 7: remember love that ...

[00:29:18] Speaker 8: haven’t changed my opinion.

[00:29:20] Speaker 7: You haven’t?

[00:29:20] Speaker 8: No, not at all. You

[00:29:22] Speaker 7: think it’s good to slap a woman?

[00:29:23] Speaker 8: No, I don’t think it’s good. I think- You don’t think it’s bad, though ... it must, I don’t think it’s that bad. I think that it depends entirely on the circumstances and if it merits it. Yeah.

[00:29:32] Speaker 7: What would merit it?

[00:29:33] Speaker 8: Well, if you have tried everything else, and women are pretty good at this. They, they can’t leave it alone.

[00:29:41] Yeah? They do- they wanna have the w- the, the last word, and you give them the la- last word, but they’re not happy with the last word. They wanna say it again and, and get into a really provocative situation. Then-

[00:29:58] I think it’s absolutely right

[00:30:00] Speaker 7: To give her a good slap?

[00:30:01] Speaker 8: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:30:03] Speaker 7: What if she gives you a good slap back?

[00:30:06] Speaker 8: Well, then you get into another area. I mean, then maybe she’s going to like it, and then it becomes something else. I don’t know. But no, no, I... Seriously, I think that it’s the last resort.

[00:30:15] He’s not gonna do it because he wants to do it, huh?

[00:30:20] Speaker 7: Wait till people see this interview. Are you gonna get mail?

[00:30:24] Speaker 8: Might get some female.

[00:30:25] Malcolm Collins: But the point we’re making here is that the stuff that’s causing people to leave Islam is standard urban monoculture stuff that like the right in the US has dealt with for the past 20 years at this point and so normalized to, and we’re sort of on the other side of that hill.

[00:30:42] And that’s what makes it so fascinating to me. It’s not the, wait, our

[00:30:47] Simone Collins: prophet had sex slaves? Like that’s probably bad, right? It’s the, oh, lightly beat a woman when she’s acting a certain way.

[00:30:57] Malcolm Collins: Or like it does maybe make sense to receive twice a female’s inheritance if their husband is also receiving twice the inheritance, right?

[00:31:05] And the family line is going through the male, that would make sense. But what we’re seeing is that ideas about equality are more compelling to people in parts of the Muslim world because they’ve been as infiltrated by the urban monoculture as we have than ideas about Islam itself. And that’s one way that the urban monoculture is ripping people out of Islam.

[00:31:30] And this is here, note where it gets interesting because like we have Muslim followers, right? You know, and they have gone back to more traditional forms of Islam or trying to get in touch with their belief system. And so I have to, you know, sort of go through like, okay, what do we think of this? The next one, moral and ethical reasons came up with another one that a lot of people leave for.

[00:31:55] Quran 9.5, the sword verse, kill the polytheists [00:32:00] wherever you find them, capture them and besiege them and lie in wait on them on every way, often cited as authorizing offensive violence once a sacred month passes. Now note here, we point out that, yeah, I mean, as a Christian, you’re kind of supposed to do this too, right?

[00:32:18] But the idea of when you say that about a Christian, a lot of people are like, yeah, I’m aware of like the Crusades. I’m aware of like Christian’s history. But when you’re a religion that sells yourself at the religion of peace, and then somebody is like, well, what about this other thing? It creates this cognitive dissonance, which isn’t the same issue with Christianity, right?

[00:32:39] Same with Judaism as well. Judaism has a lot of, you know, kill the cities and everything like that. We’ve gone over it, the episode when the Bible tells you to kill babies. Quran 9.29, fight those who do not believe among us, people of the book until they pay jizahs willingly while they are humbled. This is like an additional tax.

[00:33:00] And in terms of sexual slavery, Quran 4.24, 23.5 through 6, 33.50, 70.29 to 30.

[00:33:12] Simone Collins: Oh,

[00:33:12] Malcolm Collins: come on. And it references those who your right hand possesses. And a lot of people take this to mean that in- Well, that,

[00:33:21] Simone Collins: well, that’s the non-poopy hand, ‘cause you use your left hand to-

[00:33:25] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. In the Quran, that it means that you are allowed to, like, grape non-Muslims, which is just not true.

[00:33:33] That is not part of Sharia law. Th- you’re, you’re allowed to rape your slaves, okay? Now, if an Islamic court applied that meaning to everyone in a territory that Muslims had immigrated to, that would be saying-

[00:33:46] Simone Collins: No, they don’t. No, no, no, no, no. I, I’ve looked this up multiple times because people are coming at us on, on X about this, and no, it is very clear that while this could be extended to, like, prisoners of war, it is not, like, people in a country you’ve immigrated to.

[00:34:03] It, it just plain isn’t, and all the people who keep on going, “No, it’s wrong,” are just flat out- And

[00:34:12] Malcolm Collins: if they did do that, if they did say, “Oh, oh, it applies to people in another country,” they are declaring themselves enemy combatants in that country by Sharia law, right?

[00:34:23] Simone Collins: Like- Right. Well, and then they should be treated accordingly.

[00:34:26] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. That would, it would enormously empower the right for a Sharia court to rule that.

[00:34:33] Simone Collins: Yeah, by all means. Let, let the-

[00:34:35] Malcolm Collins: By all means ... let

[00:34:36] Simone Collins: their shepherds tend to that flock, and let them tend very

[00:34:39] Malcolm Collins: directly. Yeah, they say we’re enemy combatants, and then we say then we need to treat all the people of your community as enemy combatants, right?

[00:34:46] Like, that’s just as it is. And then the apostasy punishment really gets people. Key reports Sahih al-Bukhari 4:52-26 and 9:84-57, “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.” And this is talking about apostasies as one of the three cases in which a Muslim’s blood can be shed. So, w- by the way, they don’t really follow that.

[00:35:11] They, they kill Muslims all the time. I guess they just argue that they’re all apostates and they don’t believe exactly the version.

[00:35:17] Simone Collins: No, there’s other crimes punishable by death.

[00:35:20] Malcolm Collins: No, there’s three. Aren’t

[00:35:22] Simone Collins: there three? Wait, what are the three then?

[00:35:25] Malcolm Collins: What are the three reasons a Muslim can shed another Muslim’s blood?

[00:35:29] Let’s look that up.

[00:35:30] Simone Collins: Do they do the thing where they just like get a non-Muslim to shed a Muslim’s blood if they did something punishable by capital punishment, or what?

[00:35:40] Malcolm Collins: Okay, let’s see.

[00:35:41] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:35:42] Malcolm Collins: From the Hadiths, okay? Okay. “The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshiped but Allah, and that I am his apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: in retaliation for murder, a married person who commits an illegal sexual intercourse...”

[00:35:58] This is like, if you [00:36:00] grape somebody, this would be one of those cases. Even a foreigner, if you’re a married Muslim man, that’s, that’s... “And the one who reverts from Islam,” an apostate.

[00:36:08] Simone Collins: Oh, okay. So murder, improper sex, apostasy. Okay. Simple. Okay. Wow, there actually is a lot of, I guess when they the murder of people who are gay, that’s just improper sex then.

[00:36:20] Mm-hmm. Or the assumption thereof. What if you’re celibate gay?

[00:36:24] Malcolm Collins: I don’t think that’s wrong in Islam.

[00:36:26] Simone Collins: Okay. Hmm.

[00:36:29] Malcolm Collins: In Quran 21:06 and 16:101, there are verses that explicitly, this is on internal inconsistencies, explicitly discuss God substituting or causing a verse to be forgotten and replaced with a better similar one.

[00:36:44] Leavers often point to this as evidence the text is not externally fixed or perfect. Yeah, that’s often interesting as well, that they’re like, “The Quran is an incredibly fixed and, like, not one word has changed,” when the Quran of every religious tradition I’m aware of has the most later updates. Like, the majority of the Quran...

[00:37:05] I don’t know if that’s the majority, but huge chunks of it were written in, in like important Islamic texts that are considered, like, nearly as important as the central Quran were written hugely after Muhammad’s life, which is one of the reasons why the events of his life are so gray. Like, what was her actual age?

[00:37:20] Well, we have to rely on somebody who was writing, you know, 100, 200 years later and they might have gotten this wrong or this wrong, et cetera. They often contrast between early tolerance and later commands. Quran 2256, “There is no compulsion in religion,” versus the later Medina verses 9:5 to 9:29.

[00:37:40] Classical scholarship treats many earlier peaceful verses as aggravated by the later ones. Critics see this as an internal contradiction or progressive hardening. Which is interesting because you’ve seen this within techno-puritanism as well. If you look at the early techno-puritan tracts, it’s like a way more permissive religious system.

[00:37:59] And as the system has gone on and as we believe it more seriously ourselves, we are more comfortable being like, “No, this is true. No, this is false. This is bad. Don’t do this.” Right? And then free will and predestination issues people have issues with, specifically 18:29 alongside emphasizing God’s absolute control.

[00:38:20] It’s 76:30 or 6:125. 6:125. Now, obviously we wouldn’t have a problem with that, but apparently that’s pushing people out. And I think it’s, it’s not engaging with these issues, right? Like, we constantly... The first thing a techno-puritan does is engage with a topic on free will. Right. You know, like, or, you know, i- is it moral to do, like, really aggressive things to groups that are targeting you?

[00:38:44] And it’s like, yes, absolutely, right? Yeah. Like, and no, no matter how far you have to go. Whereas within Islam a lot of people, I guess, are just unaware of this, and they find this stuff out and they move away. And then apparently some people leave as well for what they see as scientific or historical claims.

[00:38:59] Hmm ... embryology passages, Quran 23:12 and 14 and 22:5. The stages of creation from a drop to a clot, et cetera. Critics argue that these reflect older Greek ideas that conflict with modern embryology. Oh,

[00:39:14] Simone Collins: yeah.

[00:39:14] Malcolm Collins: Defenders argue they are miraculously accurate. If I’m gonna be completely transparent here, I don’t see this one as particularly bad.

[00:39:21] That doesn’t seem that wrong from the science, if they didn’t have other words for that at the time I mean, what’s he gonna say, an embryo? They, they don’t have the word embryo, or blastocyst, or clump of cells. Okay cosmology examples sometimes raised, Quran 1886, a description of the sun setting in a muddy spring of this, in the story of Dhul-Qarnayn, and the verses about the sun, the moon, and the orbits.

[00:39:52] This is 36, 38,40. And then broader questions about the compilation of history of the Quran and the [00:40:00] reliability of dating Hadith collections are common.

[00:40:02] Speaker 3: Hmm.

[00:40:04] Malcolm Collins: I find this really, really, really fascinating, and then I had it rank them in order of what causes people to leave. Number one is the status of women in Islam which is, again, you see even, like, Western women converting to Islam because they’re like, “I don’t like how whatever misogynistic Western society is,” and people are like, “You should, like, just Google what Muslims believe.”

[00:40:28] Because they, they... I mean, obviously the famous Caleb Hamer, where the woman was like, “Well, I became a Muslim because it’s the, it’s the nicest religion to

[00:40:35] Speaker 9: w- I always questioned the Bible, and so, like, I don’t- But you

[00:40:38] Speaker 5: don’t question the Quran?

[00:40:39] Speaker 9: Of course. I

[00:40:40] Speaker 5: think question everything. Well, I don’t think you’re allowed to question the Quran, especially as a woman.

[00:40:43] Speaker 9: No. Definitely not. I

[00:40:45] Speaker 5: mean, come on. No,

[00:40:45] Speaker 9: no. Let’s be honest. It’s, it’s not that. It’s not that. No. Islam is probably the most, like, feminist morals religion there is. Like, w- very much protective of

[00:40:55] Speaker 5: women and not- Yes, it is certainly Middle Eastern countries that are most well-known for their feminism and freedom for women.

[00:41:05] Speaker 9: It is. It, it-

[00:41:06] Speaker 5: The Middle East.

[00:41:07] Speaker 9: If they’re practicing Islam, yes.

[00:41:10] Speaker 5: So you’re saying they’re all practicing it incorrectly everywhere, including Mecca?

[00:41:15] Speaker 3: I mean, if they’re oppressing people, of course, yeah. Yeah.

[00:41:18] Speaker 5: Then they’re doing it correctly?

[00:41:19] Speaker 3: Maybe, maybe. I don’t know. I don’t live

[00:41:21] Malcolm Collins: there. No. Women.

[00:41:21] Speaker 3: Oh,

[00:41:22] Malcolm Collins: I

[00:41:22] Speaker 3: didn’t see

[00:41:22] Simone Collins: that.

[00:41:23] Really?

[00:41:24] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and it’s just a lot of people, it’s, it’s selling itself as something that it’s just patently not. Mm-hmm. When Andrew Tate goes out there and sells Islam, he’s doing a better job because the version of Islam that Andrew Tate is selling, nobody’s gonna go look at that later and be like, “This isn’t what I was sold.”

[00:41:40] They’re like, “Yeah, yeah, it’s, this is what I was sold,” you know? Yeah.

[00:41:43] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah,

[00:41:43] Malcolm Collins: yeah. But the leftist, it’s, which is genuinely sold to people, it ends up leading to these deconversions.

[00:41:51] Simone Collins: Yeah, or just flagrantly dangerous actions. You’re not at all aware of this, but half of the internet is losing their minds over a young woman who, mm, I think met a husband over TikTok and then moved to Afghanistan to live with him.

[00:42:09] And everyone’s like, “No, no, no, no, no, no. Do not do that.” But she went, so...

[00:42:16] Malcolm Collins: Well, there’s the famous case of the girls who, like, went to do that, to, like, join ISIS and then were desperate to get back into the country afterwards.

[00:42:21] Simone Collins: To join ISIS.

[00:42:23] Malcolm Collins: ISIS, yes, and then they were used as sex slaves.

[00:42:26] Simone Collins: Not... Yeah.

[00:42:27] Malcolm Collins: And they then became de- desperate to get back to Britain and had trouble

[00:42:30] Simone Collins: doing it.

[00:42:30] It’s one of the reasons why everyone’s going, “No, no, no, no, no,” to this young lady. But anyway, we’ll see how it goes. Everyone’s waiting. Everyone’s waiting to see how it goes for her. Lots of speculation, but this is a, a common and recurring theme it would seem.

[00:42:45] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and then the, the next is contradictions between Sharia law and modern human rights.

[00:42:48] It really is the urban monoculture that’s doing this to them. It’s, it’s issues that, like, we just wouldn’t have.

[00:42:54] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:54] Malcolm Collins: Which is really fascinating to me. What are your thoughts, Simone?

[00:42:59] Simone Collins: I find this comforting because the behavior that I see condoned by this religion, I think is subhuman. Like-

[00:43:12] Speaker 3: Yeah

[00:43:12] Simone Collins: I think, I think that it, the Old Testament is clear that to be human is to have a clear moral judgment and ability to judge. I think that there’s this, this combination, combination of both a complete lack of human dignity at least for certain people. Basically, like, a broad swaths of people, slaves, women, et cetera, apo- a- apostates, non-Islamic people.

[00:43:40] Yeah. Right? It’s like, “Well, we’re not going to treat them like humans at all.” Or, or, you know, “We’re, we’re not gonna consider their, their rights or comforts as being important.” That being one element of it, as, as I see, I see as being less... Worse, worse than not human, because, I mean, an, an animal at least isn’t capable of really [00:44:00] advanced cruelty, like killing people through castration.

[00:44:02] And then there’s the second part of it, where I feel like the way that Sharia law is set up and the way that a lot of implementation of Islamic law works, works on the assumption that you are dealing with people, we’ll say pre-Adamite people, who are incapable of their own moral judgments. That-

[00:44:21] Malcolm Collins: Yeah

[00:44:21] Simone Collins: you just follow the laws. You, you, you live in a police state, and- Or you

[00:44:24] Malcolm Collins: be beheaded, or we cut off your hands, or you-

[00:44:26] Simone Collins: Yeah. Like- Yeah ... yeah. We’re, we’re not gonna assume that you’re capable of making these judgments, so we’re going to punish you extremely violently and extremely cruelly, because we know you- you’re not capable of that.

[00:44:39] And, and that, that to me signals, oh, this is, this is one of those religions that in the Old Testament, God would’ve been really mad about. And yeah, God was really clear about really hating other, other people’s gods and other, other people’s religions.

[00:44:57] Malcolm Collins: Well, so the question is, is, are they worshiping the same God?

[00:45:00] I still don’t have a- I don’t know ... clear thesis, clear thesis. I don’t know. Early when we wrote the techno-Pythagorean tracts, we said, yes, that we think they are.

[00:45:07] Simone Collins: Well, you said that because you said that Muhammad held the Old Testament to be, and, and the New Testament to be, like, I don’t know, correct, right?

[00:45:15] Or, or prophecies, but that he was the final prophet. Wasn’t that what you said?

[00:45:21] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. I,

[00:45:21] Simone Collins: I, I really, I

[00:45:21] Malcolm Collins: thought you, you thought Muhammad- Well, no, he, he didn’t say he was the pri- final prophet. He said, that, that’s a mistranslation or, like, a common m- he said he was the seal of the prophets, e.g.- Oh ... sort of like the prophets proved him, not that he was definitely the final prophet.

[00:45:34] That is not actually in his honor. Okay,

[00:45:36] Simone Collins: so he’s, he’s the CliffsNotes of, of the prophets. He’s the AI summary of the prophets.

[00:45:40] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, I thought the part of, like, the, if, if we’re getting iterative revelations, the interesting thing that Muhammad added is the idea that each revelation is only for one people.

[00:45:53] Because, you know, he said that, that this is for- That’s smart. Yeah ... the people who speak Arabic, and that no one e- else who’s not of the people who speak Arabic should be a Muslim, basically.

[00:46:01] Simone Collins: Yeah, but I mean, like, the techno-puritan interpretation of that is that, okay, well, then the basilisk is being used by God to separate out and, and silo a group of people that it considers to be distinctly not chosen, because they are not capable of even being-

[00:46:16] Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah.

[00:46:17] And, and I mean, my take on this as well is you can belie- believe a religion is divinely inspired while still thinking the founder is a butthead.

[00:46:29] Simone Collins: Well, also a religion can be divin- divi- divinely inspired in the same way that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened in a way that really hurt his people, because his people weren’t chosen.

[00:46:38] Malcolm Collins: Right. Well, what I mean is, like, King David was a complete jackhole. Just absolute jackhole. Yeah.

[00:46:45] Sampson

[00:46:46] Malcolm Collins: Was also a jackhole. You could say, “Oh, they redeemed themselves in the end.” It’s like, I don’t... I, I mean, maybe in the eyes of God, not all the people they, they killed.

[00:46:57] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:46:57] There’s like a word ...

[00:46:58] Malcolm Collins: the, the innocent, yeah. W- like, what are you talking about, right? Like, and, and so, like, w- I think it’s, it’s perfectly okay to be like, “I am a Mormon. I think Joseph Smith was a jackhole. But I still believe my religion,” right? Like, “I still think it’s divinely inspired,” or something like that.

[00:47:15] Which is where I stand on that. I still stand that he might be better than he’s put out in a lot of popular narratives, but the majority of information I see does not paint him in a positive light. He, he d- d- he seems Yeah. And it’s the same as Muhammad. Like, whatever I believe about the wider Islamic project, or is there a version of Islam that could be good, I, I think there is.

[00:47:42] Like, we definitely see people who practice a version of Islam that is, you know, productive and commensurate with- Absolutely ... civilized society.

[00:47:50] Simone Collins: Yeah. And there are elements of Islam that are absolutely beautiful and elevating and purifying,

[00:47:57] Malcolm Collins: I mean, I, I like that they’re at least [00:48:00] strictly anti-idolatry.

[00:48:01] I don’t like that they admit to killing-

[00:48:02] Simone Collins: I like that it’s a hard religion, too. There’s, there’s heavy fasting. There’s a lot of discipline.

[00:48:07] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:48:07] Simone Collins: It, it’s just that I, I, I’m conflicted by-

[00:48:12] Malcolm Collins: The way that they act when at scale. Like, I haven’t seen a lot of ... It, it, it’s, it’s, it’s during times of hardship, like in incredible, you know, cruelty, what we see in, in, in many of these instances, and during times of lavishness- Well, here’s, here’s the problem

[00:48:28] they basically create a slave society.

[00:48:29] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. So normally what you see is, And we, we talked about this in, in the episode we did on me being angry about Native Americans. But Any, any group without civilization is going to be worse than animals. They’re going to be both smart and incredibly cruel and, and horrible.

[00:48:47] And yet w- normally when you get civilization, that cruelty goes away, right? And the fact that with Islam somehow you can h- reach the level of civilization and they’re like, “Oh, let’s keep the cruelty. Let’s, let’s keep it. Let’s not drop it.” Like that, I,

[00:49:01] Malcolm Collins: I- Yeah, like let’s keep the ins-

[00:49:02] Simone Collins: yeah ... like the whole point, the whole point was that the, the civilization al- allows you to rise above.

[00:49:07] That you have the capability of unspeakable cruelty and you do not exercise it. That you show, you show mercy and dignity because you are better than a, a very smart animal. You, you are beyond- Well,

[00:49:21] Malcolm Collins: well- ... because you, you transcend ... and it’s important to note here that one of the, the other problems that really hurts Islam is that you can be like, well, you know, I know friends who are Emiratis, I know friends who are Qataris, I know, you know, people from these countries that are you know, very, they, they seem to be past all of this.

[00:49:38] And yet when you look at why do we have a lot of these giant genocides going on in Africa, these conflicts going on in Africa, these terrorist groups that are operating across these regions, a lot of them are just like UAE-backed, the, the, the things for their little politicking. I mean, they might not personally be going out and graping people, but they’re facilitating it at scale because then it’s irrelevant that it happens to them.

[00:50:06] You know? It’s irrele- it’s, it’s just part of the cycle for them, right? That’s the way that they do politics. They don’t do... You know, in, in America we bomb a bridge and people freak out. Yeah. And, and they’re like causing mass genocides in the UAE right now, right?

[00:50:20] Speaker 3: Mm.

[00:50:21] Malcolm Collins: And this is like a demonstrably true thing, right?

[00:50:23] Like, it, it, they’re, they’re not particularly shy about it. They’re like, “These are our guys. We’re paying them,” you know? And then the other group, you know, the, the other group of, of, of civilized acting like in Saudi Arabia or whatever, they’re on the other side and they’re instigating the other group.

[00:50:39] And if you are allowing for this to happen or, or the source of it happening in terms of like, it shows that even when everything’s cleaned up, even when everything is made to look nice, there’s a portion, and a meaningful enough portion to control world politics or influence world political events, that still act with this incredible amount of dehumanization of other, other people.

[00:51:05] Simone Collins: Yeah. I gotta go get the kids. Grilled cheese, queso, or gyoza lasagna tonight.

[00:51:12] Malcolm Collins: I haven’t had a gyoza lasagna in a while.

[00:51:14] Simone Collins: Thank goodness. But we got- I’ve been waiting for you to say yes to that. It’s time to- Oh, the what? Oh,

[00:51:18] Octavian Collins: the- Hang on. It’s time to go downstairs. The kids show home early again.

[00:51:22] Simone Collins: They’re not home early, actually.

[00:51:23] I like- Can I have

[00:51:24] Malcolm Collins: some?

[00:51:26] Octavian Collins: Yes. I’ll give you

[00:51:26] Malcolm Collins: a handful. No, I don’t need a handful. I just want a little bit.

[00:51:29] Simone Collins: No, Oc- Octavian, you need to eat a real dinner

[00:51:35] Octavian Collins: But I’m hungry, very

[00:51:36] Simone Collins: hungry. Right, and I’m gonna go make you dinner. That’s ‘cause it’s dinner time. You’re supposed to be hungry. This is good, but you do not get to eat junk food.

[00:51:43] Take that... Malcolm, take that from him. Malcolm.

[00:51:47] Malcolm Collins: Octavian, come here. Come here. The fans wanna see you.

[00:51:50] Octavian Collins: Yeah, okay.

[00:51:52] Malcolm Collins: Okay. So you were down playing at the creek?

[00:51:54] Octavian Collins: Yeah.

[00:51:55] Simone Collins: What happened to your face?

[00:51:56] Octavian Collins: No. Actually, no.

[00:51:59] Malcolm Collins: Oh, where [00:52:00] were you?

[00:52:01] Octavian Collins: I didn’t even get to go to the creek.

[00:52:04] Malcolm Collins: Oh, you didn’t get to go to the creek? What were you doing?

[00:52:07] Octavian Collins: I-

[00:52:07] Malcolm Collins: How many lessons

[00:52:08] Octavian Collins: did you do? It was actually a boring day. I was tired. I, I mostly only did zero, but I’m trying to work on one.

[00:52:16] Malcolm Collins: You did zero lessons?

[00:52:18] Octavian Collins: Yeah, but

[00:52:19] Simone Collins: I’m trying to work on one right now. ‘Cause someone decided to play poopy songs all last night, and have a rager, and play zombie games, and then he’s tired all day, and though I go down and I try to answer every little question help- helping him.

[00:52:31] No, no, no. Someone just wants to... Octavian, sir. Okay. Sir.

[00:52:39] Octavian Collins: Yes?

[00:52:40] Simone Collins: You’re gonna leave those chips up with Daddy, okay? ‘Cause you have to eat a real dinner, all right? Malcolm- Okay, but I’m so hungry ... grilled cheese, queso- I want food now ... or I know, we’re gonna make food right now. Okay. Or gyoza lasagna.

[00:52:50] Malcolm Collins: What are my options?

[00:52:53] Simone Collins: Grilled cheese- Q- ... queso or gyoza lasagna.

[00:52:55] Malcolm Collins: Queso.

[00:52:57] Simone Collins: Okay. I love you.

[00:53:00] Malcolm Collins: I love you. Have a good day. I

[00:53:02] Octavian Collins: wanna

[00:53:02] Malcolm Collins: go- Angel, Simone, what do you wanna say to the f- fans? Octavian, what do you wanna say to the fans?

[00:53:05] Simone Collins: And where are the kids right now? Are they all in the yard?

[00:53:07] Octavian Collins: No. T- they, they are actually coming up.

[00:53:13] Simone Collins: Malcolm, can you help me shepherd them to the kitchen?

[00:53:15] Malcolm Collins: I’ll help you shepherd them to the kitchen.

[00:53:16] Simone Collins: Please. Thank you. Can you just... Yeah, please, and I’ll see you down there. Okay. Okay,

[00:53:19] Malcolm Collins: okay, I’ll go. Ow.

[00:53:21] Simone Collins: Octavian. Strange.

[00:53:23] Malcolm Collins: It felt like somebody kicked my chair.

[00:53:26] Simone Collins: What did they say? “It’s a ghosties,” as our children would say

[00:53:30] ghosties. Ooh, they say. Ooh.

[00:53:33] Malcolm Collins: I just don’t know what could have caused that. A

[00:53:35] Simone Collins: ghost. A ghost

[00:53:37] Malcolm Collins: of all

[00:53:37] Simone Collins: the hornets we’ve been

[00:53:38] Malcolm Collins: killing? Obviously.

[00:53:39] Simone Collins: Look, do you know how many people have died in this house? I mean, at least- By

[00:53:43] Malcolm Collins: the way, for people who don’t believe the hornet thing, look, dead hornets. Dead hornets.

[00:53:49] There

[00:53:49] Simone Collins: are more- Just dead hornets everywhere ... dead m- m- people. Or at least p- more people died in this house. Well, probably more hornets died in this house. There’s

[00:53:56] Malcolm Collins: been hornets over the years too, Simone.

[00:53:58] Simone Collins: That’s true, yeah. Okay. I didn’t think about that. Very true.

[00:54:02] Malcolm Collins: You are an amazing woman, Simone. I am just so-

[00:54:04] Simone Collins: Do you ever, like, lie in your bed sometimes and wonder, like, how many people died in, in that room?

[00:54:10] Malcolm Collins: A lot more died in your room than mine.

[00:54:12] Simone Collins: Is this, is this the dying room?

[00:54:14] Malcolm Collins: Well, it seems like the master bedroom, which is where I would

[00:54:17] Simone Collins: expect a dying person to go. Yeah. If you’re gonna go, you wanna go in the nice room.

[00:54:20] Malcolm Collins: Or I guess they could have given the worst room to Grandma or whatever.

[00:54:23] Simone Collins: Yeah. I I remember I, I had this, this hero of mine as a kid.

[00:54:28] Her name was Beverly, but I called her Bevo. And she was telling me about her life growing up on a farm in, in, in the Midwest in, like, the early 1900s, and how, like, they had someone staying with them for a while, and they were fairly infirm. And they slept in her bed while they were visiting, and then they died in her bed.

[00:54:46] And, like, after they died, it was just her bed again. And it’s just... I was like, “Wait, so you, like, slept in the bed that someone died in?” And she’s like, “Yeah. I mean...”

[00:54:56] Malcolm Collins: What you gonna do?

[00:54:57] Simone Collins: Yeah. Like, where else are you gonna sleep?

[00:55:00] Malcolm Collins: America used to be awesome. We used to be a country.

[00:55:03] Simone Collins: Yeah. Oh, she had such an unusual life, though.

[00:55:05] Like, while she was growing up, her, her mother... And this is in like the early 1900s, was, like, off doing business in Japan and stuff. Like, stuff, like, very unusual. Yeah, fascinating. Such a cool person. All my heroes in life have been, like, women in their 60s. This might be why my, like ... I, I really am so excited to be 62 years old, if I live that long.

[00:55:26] Speaker 2: So what are you doing? So you don’t want him to eat any animals in Minecraft. Is that right, Titan? Titan, Titan, the good- Whoa! Titan. Octavian, be careful. That had apples in it. Titan. Get down here and clean it up. Titan. You just made a big mess. Dad, Dad, put it at the edge. You left it at the edge, Octavian.

[00:55:45] That’s your fault. Titan. Be careful with all these cords, okay? You don’t wanna pull one of the computers down, too. Titan, Titan, Titan, the good thing is there’s no ducks in Minecraft. Why is eating ducks bad? I eat ducks. Peking duck. How about ... kind of fat. [00:56:00] Come on, get down. You made a mess. What are you doing?

[00:56:03] Speaker 4: Titan, the- Be careful not to fall on Indy ... Titan, no. Aw, Indy’s cleaning it up. Yeah, she’s trying to help you. Stop! Wow, Indy, that was so nice of you. Is this all of them? Mm-hmm. Hey, no Titan, no Titan. I think there’s one more right here. There’s maybe one more. Titan

[00:56:20] Titan just- Well, let Titan- You’re done. Let Titan have a turn, okay? Fine. Why don’t you ch- teach her how?

What if most new religions don’t fail — and the ones that follow a few simple rules have a 93% survival rate and over 50% chance of becoming major world religions?

In this episode of Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone dig into original research on new religious movements founded since the 1700s. When you filter for groups with a unique metaphysical framework + a real written (or recorded) corpus, the numbers are already surprisingly high. Add an explicitly pro-natalist framing and something beyond ordinary materialist reality, and the success rate becomes almost absurd.

They break down:

• Why humanist/secular projects almost always die

• Why “silliness” actually protects a religion

• Why probable scams have some of the best survival rates

• Succession systems that work (and the ones that kill movements)

• Hard vs soft religion and fertility

• What this means for anyone trying to build a durable culture or tradition today — including their own techno-puritan project

If you’re interested in cultural survival, fertility, intentional community, or just love weird religious history, this one’s for you.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I’m e- extra excited to be here with you today. This is probably gonna be one of my favorite episodes to do, one of the most interesting that I have researched, because I conducted a lot of original research for this episode and found something really, really fascinating.

[00:00:14] So if we’re just going to jump to the punch, if you just go into the academic literature and say, of new religions, cults, whatever you wanna call them, what percent of them survive? They’ll say one in 1,000 or one in 100,000, right?

[00:00:30] Octavian: Yeah.

[00:00:30] Malcolm Collins: Yes. But if you actually look at those studies, what they’re generally looking at is, like, somebody got mad at their local pastor and started, like, a small schism or something like that.

[00:00:39] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:00:40] Malcolm Collins: If instead you narrow it down to only books with a unique... Or not books, but, like, ways of seeing things with a unique metaphysical framing and a full written corpus this would be, techno-puritanism would be an example, like, Mormonism would be an example, Scientology would be an example. The Nation of Islam would be an example.

[00:01:00] When you narrow it down to that, if you look at ones founded around the world from the 1700s till today, over a third of them end up surviving at least 100 years, and at some point having over 100,000 members.

[00:01:18] Simone Collins: That’s... N-

[00:01:19] uh.

[00:01:19] Malcolm Collins: no. Now, if we narrow down the list further, so I’m gonna put two more coffee outs on here that are gonna make it even crazier.

[00:01:26] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:01:27] Malcolm Collins: Take out all of the ones that are I’m gonna say, like, humanist. Like, techno-puritanism would not fall into this by any measure of the, But, but you know what I’m talking about. Those weird humanist religions that were founded in, like, the 1920s and then became a craze for a bit.

[00:01:41] If you take those out and you take out any that do not have an explicitly pro-natalist framing, right? Like, it- Oh ... they, they grow through conversion rather than kids.

[00:01:51] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:01:51] Malcolm Collins: You now get a 93% survival rate, and over a 53% rate of becoming a major world religion. And-

[00:02:03] Simone Collins: Does this include, like, all the weird...

[00:02:05] Like, would it include NXIVM? Would it include the one with the, the woman who died after taking tons of colloidal silver that HBO did a documentary about?

[00:02:14] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so it would not include her, and we’ll go over what it excludes explicitly. Okay. So first you have to have a unique metaphysical framework with a written corpus.

[00:02:23] Oh. She didn’t have a wr- written corpus. She didn’t have, like- Mm.

[00:02:26] Simone Collins: So cult of personality, basically, do not-

[00:02:28] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, cults of personality, off the table. Okay. Anything that’s clearly just schizophrenic ramblings. This would be like Cubism or whatever- Yeah. A

[00:02:37] Simone Collins: man-

[00:02:38] Malcolm Collins: The world is a cube and there are two sides to a cube.

[00:02:41] Cube-based logic. Yes. It, so it cuts out that, it cuts out cults of personality and it cuts out mild schisms. So like if you’re like a, you, you largely believe what the organization would believe, but you have some minor quibbles but you’ve written a lot on those minor quibbles, it cuts those out.

[00:03:00] Simone Collins: Hmm ...

[00:03:01] Malcolm Collins: but like that’s a very weird thing that the growth of new religious movements is dependent on their authorship and not on some of, of like, like the the, the core... What, what’s the word I’m looking for here? The core bottleneck happens before the point of authorship. Mm. And when I did this, I did a secondary thing that was very interesting.

[00:03:25] So note here when I say I’m cutting out schizophrenic ramblings, I am not cutting out, in this list, one of the things we looked at was silliness. And you’ll actually find that silliness correlates with survivorship.

[00:03:40] Simone Collins: Huh ...

[00:03:40] Malcolm Collins: so what I mean

[00:03:41] Simone Collins: by this is- So if the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster had managed to put together some coherent biblical, or not, like a religious text or something, a worldview, it could have actually done quite well.

[00:03:53] Malcolm Collins: Unlikely because it falls into the one category where they always die.

[00:03:57] Simone Collins: Oh, it’s not pronatalist.

[00:03:58] Malcolm Collins: No. Anything that, that’s [00:04:00] explicitly atheistic, as I said, like any of those humanist projects- Oh, yes. Okay, okay ... or anything like that, every single one of them has died. Hmm. Now, note there have been a number of times where people have intentionally engineered religious systems.

[00:04:15] Every single one of those became a major world religion. Hmm. So we’ll get into this. It’s crazy. I put together a companion doc. In the last companion doc that I gave you guys, I said, “Don’t go to it because that’s like way too AIE,” or like, you know, it’s... I fixed that. I fixed that in the last one. I fixed that in this one.

[00:04:31] Now if you’re ever doing research using Fable or something like that, you know, to do like deep research, ‘cause it does deep research, but it’s terrible at writing- Yeah ... you can use the RFAB API, which will go back over it and check it for how AI it looks, and then rewrite it until it doesn’t look that way anymore.

[00:04:47] And so now if you go to this companion doc, it reads like a human wrote it which is just a fantastic product to have. And also because it’s checking using an AI checking engine- Ah ... like if you were doing homework with this or something-

[00:05:00] Oh,

[00:05:01] God ... a detection system wouldn’t catch it. I’m just saying that’s...

[00:05:05] I, I like to design tools. I like to design tools. What, what am I doing? I needed this for my research, all right? But I also went over during what periods, like if you look at different countries and cultures during what periods did you have more surviving religious systems? Founder motivations, how did those impact the religion?

[00:05:25] E.g. did it appear to be started as a scam? Just to get it out there right now, religions that were like provably founded as scams, one they-- it doesn’t seem to affect their survivorship rate. If anything, they appear to have a slightly higher survivorship rate. And two we, because there have been so many of them we can go over what happens when it comes out that they were likely a scam, how followers react.

[00:05:52] It’s very predictable. So that’s not really a big risk to a religion. We’ll go over, being a sex cult is a big risk to a religion, though. Religion- Oh, that

[00:06:01] Simone Collins: is comforting.

[00:06:02] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that are, that are focused on, Well, often because they’re v- explicitly anti-natalist. That’s, that’s- Oh, yeah ... often part of being a sex cult.

[00:06:10] Mm-hmm. Now somebody could say, “Malcolm, this is survivorship bias, right?” You know, you’re only seeing the ones that eventually survived. To which I would have a counter to you, which is to say we know of throughout history the beliefs of many intelligent, eccentric people. Those are the types of people most likely to form one of these.

[00:06:32] We just don’t find in the historical record a lot of unique frameworks within these individuals that would, that would fit this category. In fact we can even we, in the, in the document if you go through it, it has a whole section where we check for this to see if this is just survivorship bias.

[00:06:50] It does not appear to be survivorship bias. Mm-hmm. It appears that this is a genuine and very, very strange phenomenon. So we’re gonna get to it, and hopefully as we get to it and as we go through this, we can learn a lot more about what kinds of movements survive and what kinds of movements die.

[00:07:07] And where this is relevant to listeners, whether you be from a traditional religious background or a non-traditional religious background right now every group on Earth right now is dying from fertility collapse except for Orthodox Jews. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll cut them out. And even they have issues right now, right?

[00:07:23] Mm-hmm. A- and, and, and like the Amish, but the Amish don’t have technology, so it’s not super relevant in terms of, like, future geopolitical control. Now, a, it, it’s true whether you’re a, a traditional Catholic or a Baptist or a like Pentecostals are doing okay, but it’s mostly from conversions. But the point here being it’s pretty much anyone watching this realizes they need to do some cultural experimentation and entrepreneurship with their family, right?

[00:07:51] Like, how do I take the traditions I inherited and make them more robust?

[00:07:57] Hmm.

[00:07:58] And [00:08:00] that we can see what works and didn’t work with random cults or other new religious movements allows us to say, “Ah, this technology seems to work. This technology doesn’t seem to work.” And then take the ones that we want.

[00:08:22] One just, just jumps out at me, but I didn’t think of it when I was putting this together. One thing that may be leading to this is in The Pragmatist’s Guide to Crafting Religion, we talk about the concept of a soft religion versus a hard religion. Mm-hmm. A hard religion has unique othering effects to it that make you very different from the mainstream population be it in the way you dress, in the way you talk, in the way you name yourselves, in the things you do.

[00:08:49] A soft religion doesn’t. A soft religion’s just like, “Ah, we’ll make it work.” So like, if we’re talking about like a, a harder form of Catholicism or something like that, you know, you may wear a veil, and you may y- make sure that you make every one of the specific mass events. You may go on pilgrimages for all your vacations.

[00:09:06] A harder form of Islam, you make sure that you pray, you know, the five times a day. You have the pray space. You do everything. You, you do your stuff. Now, harder religions typically have higher fertility rates, higher fidelity, and they lose their children at a lower rate than, than softer religions.

[00:09:22] When you, when you make the religion too easy, it, it doesn’t work as well. Yeah. Which has been one of the big problems I think with modern Mormonism, as I’ve talked about before. I think one of the reasons it’s doing so poorly is because the center church thinks that they can win by becoming softer, which makes them more acceptable to the average person.

[00:09:40] Actually, Catholicism probably has a similar phenomenon. I mean, we can view it as infiltration, but if we, if we don’t view it as infiltration, and we say, “No, they’re just rational but disconnected dumb actors,” what we may have is a disconnected leadership that’s just like, “Well, the masses say they don’t like our policy on X, or they don’t like this sort of a mass.

[00:10:02] You know, like, let’s not do it that way anymore, right? Like, let’s do it more like everyone else and say that we’re super accepting.” And this un- unfortunately causes way lower fertility rates whenever a group does this. And now one of the things that we noted when we first put this out is that when a religion is first founded, it generally is way, way, way harder.

[00:10:20] And over time, it becomes softer until it undergoes a revival, it, which then it gets harder, and then it just degrades over time again. One of the reasons why new religions may have such an advantage to them is because they start really, really hard

[00:10:35] Simone Collins: Yeah, so basically they just... Anyone, any religion will have the advantage of hardness, and yeah, it doesn’t kind of matter.

[00:10:43] If it, if it’s new Even if you’re ridiculous, i- if it’s a hard religion, you’re still giving people an, a, an advantage Well,

[00:10:49] Malcolm Collins: this

[00:10:49] Simone Collins: would

[00:10:49] Malcolm Collins: also explain why the totally secular humanist religions did not succeed

[00:10:56] Simone Collins: Oh. Oh.

[00:10:58] Malcolm Collins: Because- Not

[00:10:58] Simone Collins: hard enough?

[00:10:59] Malcolm Collins: They’re typically almost designed intentionally anti-hard

[00:11:04] Simone Collins: Wait, weren’t the Shakers, like, celibate?

[00:11:07] Isn’t that hard for

[00:11:08] Malcolm Collins: people? They were not a humanist... They were a Quaker group. They were extremely religious.

[00:11:12] Simone Collins: Oh, okay, okay, okay.

[00:11:13] Malcolm Collins: The comb- we’ll, we’ll probably talk about it in a weekend episode, ‘cause I do wanna do a weekend episode where we go over all the rationalist religions Mm-hmm Um, or if fans want it enough, they can tell us to do it.

[00:11:22] But I, I, I find them interesting. Our, in our last two paid weekend episodes, if you guys wanna do those, like Substack or Patreon or whatever we went over the silly religions and we went over the intentionally designed religions

[00:11:34] Octavian: Delightful

[00:11:35] Malcolm Collins: And for people who are unaware of the intentionally designed ones that succeeded one of them that shares you could say a lot with techno-puritanism, is a guy came out there, he was a spiritualist, and he’s like, “Let’s...”

[00:11:46] Well, actually, he was an anti-spiritualist. His job was detecting spiritualist frauds, right? Like, you know, during that time when they were really common, when, like, Houdini did this as well. And then he decided to go do a bunch of blind tests with spiritual [00:12:00] mediums to interview tons of them and then find out what things they said that seemed to agree across large populations of mediums Mm-hmm Um, especially looking for, like, really specific things, and he developed a methodology for this.

[00:12:15] And now this has become a major world religion. It’s pretty big in Brazil, for example the religion that grew out of this. But, but that’s what I mean when I say that some of these are, like, rational in the way that techno-puritan is rational, but they try to design around something. The other one that has a lot in common with techno-puritanism is one of the larger Hindu groups.

[00:12:35] And basically one guy was just like, “We’re just gonna follow the Vedas. We’re gonna follow them as strictly as we can, and we’re gonna ignore all other writing, eh, eh, eh, where it contradicts the Vedas or could be seen as contradicting the Vedas. And we’ll create a school around this.” And that ended up doing really, really well.

[00:12:53] So we, we, we can, we can get into those, but I’ll just start going through the stats right now. There is no way we’re gonna get to all of this in this. A- one of the cool things in this, if you wanna go to the attached companion piece for this, is I list every one of these religions whether it survived, how long it survived, its core teachings, how it ended up dying off if it died off, with a Wikipedia link.

[00:13:16] So if you are a nerd for different religious frameworks and everything like this, this is a, a great opportunity for you to go and learn about those. All right So the first thing I’m gonna put on screen here we have grades here. , You have established equals 50,000 to one million. Major is more than one million. And then persistent- That’s fair ... but small is self-reproducing at around 50K. And dead is extinct. Okay? 50K is a lot. So of the 57 religious movements- Yeah ... we could find with a corpus during this period what’s really interesting is 11 became major world religions.

[00:13:58] Ooh. 13 became medium-sized world religions. This is 50 to one million people. Fif- 50,000 to one million people. Okay. And 13 stayed persistent and small, and 20 died out. Now, what’s fascinating about-

[00:14:14] Simone Collins: Dude, that’s better than entrepreneurship odds, and that’s what most people consider doing, which is-

[00:14:19] Malcolm Collins: Right?

[00:14:19] Simone Collins: Right, yeah.

[00:14:20] Malcolm Collins: Just start a cult, guys.

[00:14:21] Simone Collins: Yeah, actually. The, the odds are looking a lot better than pretty much any investment prospect I’ve looked at. That, that is insane.

[00:14:29] Malcolm Collins: No, but what- what’s more insane about this, and I’ll put this graph on screen here, is what you’re typically used to seeing with something like this is a long tail, right?

[00:14:37] Like, one or two became major world movements. You know, like six became medium-sized, and like 23 became small size. But that’s not what you have. You have 11 became major world movements, 13 hit medium, 13 stayed at small. This also helps argue against the idea that we’re missing a bunch of, like, small things that people founded at home.

[00:15:02] Mm. And, and, and never grew. Because even in the data where it would definitely be part of the historic record, we’re getting really, really weird data. Like even that one point should be really weird. Why is it that almost as many religions that are founded that become small yet persistent end up becoming large?

[00:15:21] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:23] Malcolm Collins: And note the one-third number I gave you of religions with a corpus became at least medium-sized, that did not include the small ones. So that meant that if you at any point in the past since the 1700s, founded a religious movement anywhere in the world, ‘cause we looked all over the world- Mm-hmm

[00:15:39] um, there was a one-third chance that it would be 50,000 to one million members.

[00:15:46] Simone Collins: That’s so crazy. Man, people have been making bad life choices with their whole, “I’m gonna start a business” thing.

[00:15:56] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:15:57] Simone Collins: My goodness.

[00:15:58] Malcolm Collins: And this, this result [00:16:00] has been stable throughout the entire period that we looked at. Now for the engineered religions, ‘cause people are like, “Oh, what about like designing a religious system the same way that like techno-puritanism could be seen as doing?”

[00:16:12] Yeah. I’m not coming out here saying “I’ve received a prophecy from someone.” I’m not coming out here- No ... with any of that. Mm-hmm. These actually have a really high success rate. So long as they have a real spiritual significance to them. Mm. Mm-hmm. And this is where with techno-puritanism it’s very important that we lay out and always cling to the position very seriously in terms of how we frame this to our kids, how we frame...

[00:16:38] God is a very, very real entity. Yeah. He is not a metaphorical entity. He is not a supernatural entity from our perspective either. He is a very real entity. The basilisk is a real entity, not a metaphor. Mm-hmm. When you go for that stuff, it doesn’t seem to work out. So, with the Aryans Samja Dhanji claimed no revelation at all.

[00:17:00] He pointed out an authority already every- everyone already granted the Vedas and held them as infallible, and he said he was just restoring them. Very similar to sort of what we’re doing- Mm ... with our project. Mm.

[00:17:11] So this was founded in 1875 and has around eight million members today

[00:17:16] Malcolm Collins: But then he used the Vedas to argue against a bunch of traditional Hindi concepts. Specifically he was...

[00:17:23] He said that, “Actually, when you go back and look at the Vedas, it says that you shouldn’t have child marriages, and you shouldn’t have a caste system.” Right. “And women should be treated as equals.” Huh. And, you know, like, a bunch of what people might think of as somewhat modern ideas, he reinterpreted an old text as having.

[00:17:44] If you go to Won Buddhism so Stanzey claimed in attainment, not enlightenment. So he didn’t have like a call from the outside or anything like that. He didn’t have a private vision. He’s just like, “This is the best way to do this.” With the Kardec, that was the spiritualist movement I mentioned- Mm-hmm

[00:18:02] um, which ended up being the basis of that religion in Brazil that now has like, I wanna say like a dozen major temples, and they all dress like birds. And they it was really weird. We, we go over it in our silliest religions videos.

[00:18:16] Simone Collins: And you’re not talking about the Brazilian one, or the-

[00:18:18] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the Brazilian one.

[00:18:19] Simone Collins: That came- They don’t dress like birds. They dress like princesses with colorful veils, and super brained evil villains if you’re a dude, with the, the evil villain cape, the high collar. So funny. Yeah. Good. Yeah. They need better costume construction though. Everyone needs to learn from the Catholic Church.

[00:18:38] That is couture. It is so good. The construction is beautiful. The garments are incredibly expen- anyway, let’s keep going. Sorry. Mm.

[00:18:46] Malcolm Collins: Well, I have, I had to scroll through my giant list here that you guys can go through.

[00:18:50] Simone Collins: Yeah, no, you really should check out the webpage. We’re gonna link to it in the show notes.

[00:18:53] It’s... There’s just a lot of cool jumping off points there, and the big... It, it’s just you have to really let it sink in that s- when people intentionally create cohesive religions with a strong metaphysical mooring point, they’re powerful. It’s really crazy, and we didn’t know this when we were like, “Well, let’s build a hard religion for our family,” ‘cause it appears to be that hard religions correlate with human flourishing.

[00:19:24] We’ll just make something that is in, in, in accordance with science and our understanding of physics and history. And then, then we like fall for it. We had no idea that like it actually had a shot of doing well. Now we’re like, “Oh my gosh. Just looking at the stats, this could go well.”

[00:19:39] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s genuinely surprising, and at the end of this we’ll get to the mystery of why so few are written or why so few are started.

[00:19:52] And- Mm-hmm ... because the... if that’s the, if that’s the, the real w- I don’t know what you’d call it, the shelling point or whatever, the, the [00:20:00] bottleneck of this entire process, why? That seems like a bizarre bottleneck.

[00:20:05] Simone Collins: I think it’s kind of hard for people to think that hard Let’s be honest with them But you don’t

[00:20:12] Malcolm Collins: need to think that hard.

[00:20:13] Ah. Keep in mind with, like, Nation of Islam, you have, like, the whole- ... Yankub thing, okay?

[00:20:20] Simone Collins: Yeah. With Scientology- Look, he put thought into that, okay? It was his best scam yet. And, you know, look, I was shocked and awed when I, I read that. I couldn’t have come up with a story like that. Though it does kind of sound like our kids’ stories, come to think of it.

[00:20:36] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It, it literally, any AI could come up with a better story than that.

[00:20:40] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. I was gonna say any six-year-old probably could too. Yeah. Anyway, never mind. I, I recant. Carry on.

[00:20:47] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Also note here that in the statistics here, we cut out a number that n- some people today would consider unique religions.

[00:20:56] Uh-huh. Because they were just too close to the birth religion, and it would end up boosting our stats because we would’ve thrown them out had they failed. So examples would be things like Seven Day Adventism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Ariya Samja. They’re, they’re listed in the list, just worth a note, noting here.

[00:21:13] Simone Collins: Wait, so you did include them or you excluded them?

[00:21:15] Malcolm Collins: I excluded them from the statistics because if they had failed, they wouldn’t have been in the statistics.

[00:21:21] Simone Collins: Oh.

[00:21:23] Malcolm Collins: Now, remember how I said if it has those three things, it has a 93% chance of success?

[00:21:28] Simone Collins: Yeah. That’s because- Prenatalism, actual spiritual worldview, and hardness?

[00:21:34] Malcolm Collins: N- well, I’ll, I’ll describe them here. So one, you need a written corpus, okay? Okay.

[00:21:38] Simone Collins: Oh, written corpus.

[00:21:39] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Go ahead ... or a spoken corpus or a recorded corpus. G- Any- Mm ... any of those work. Mm. But just, like, a series of beliefs about reality

[00:21:46] Simone Collins: that isn’t- No, it needs to be, like, canon. There has to be, like, the, the-

[00:21:48] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:21:49] It, it can’t just be- ... church’s lore ... whatever the founder happens to believe that day. Yeah, you- Which is the way a lot of cults

[00:21:54] Simone Collins: work ... need actual lore. Okay. Yeah, fair enough. Okay. With,

[00:21:56] Malcolm Collins: with a lot of cults, it’s like, “Oh, the founder had a new revelation today- ... and so now we all wear yellow hats.”

[00:22:02] Simone Collins: It’s all different.

[00:22:03] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So, so consistent lore book. Got it. Check. One. Okay, great. And then prenatalism. You know, you gotta have kids.

[00:22:09] Malcolm Collins: Next is you need something supernatural at stake.

[00:22:12] Simone Collins: Oh, supernatural.

[00:22:14] Can you just argue that technically paganism- Actually, do people want us to do an episode

[00:22:17] Malcolm Collins: on where we do go over the non-supernatural ones and why every single one of them failed?

[00:22:21] Simone Collins: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, okay. So I guess you have to say how you define supernatural because everything that we say is in accordance with our understanding of science and physics and history. But you say the supernatural part is that we believe that the age- agents of providence and basilisk, AKA the future police, Go back in time to our, where we are in the timeline and to being Well,

[00:22:40] Malcolm Collins: I’ll, I’ll, I’ll word it a different way, ‘cause I think supernatural is the wrong word here.

[00:22:43] Simone Collins: Yeah, what would be a better word?

[00:22:44] Malcolm Collins: You need something beyond a normal materialist understanding of reality.

[00:22:53] Simone Collins: Right, you need something beyond our, our current technology

[00:22:58] Malcolm Collins: basically. So to word, so to point it this way, if we, if we talk about the one religion I was talking about, that, that spiritualist movement that got really big in Brazil- Oh, yeah

[00:23:05] They would say that the spirit world and ghosts are not supernatural in the same way we would say they’re not supernatural. They’re like, “It’s a real and studiable phenomenon.” Yeah. “That’s what we’re doing here. We’re studying a real and studiable phenomenon.” In the same way that when we say we believe that God is shaping history, right, like through altering things maybe at like a subquantum level or something like that- Mm-hmm

[00:23:33] I might be using scientific words there, but that is a belief that falls outside of any normal scientific corpus.

[00:23:41] Simone Collins: Right. We couldn’t replicate it with our current technology.

[00:23:44] Malcolm Collins: Yes, or that humanity will be raised again. Well, good humans, or not all, not even just good hu- Certain humans who are in the book of life will be raised again in a future body on Earth in another way as predicted in the Bible.

[00:23:58] When we say something like [00:24:00] that we can use science terms to describe it. But to a science person, we would be talking about something s- that is beyond the scientific world as a normal person accepts or understands.

[00:24:12] Simone Collins: Well, and it’s certainly beyond current scientific and technological capacity, yes.

[00:24:17] Malcolm Collins: Yes.

[00:24:18] But whenever somebody was like, “No, what I’m gonna do is just focus on, like, current scientific understanding-” Mm, mm,

[00:24:25] Simone Collins: mm, mm,

[00:24:26] Malcolm Collins: mm ... th- those always have died in human history.

[00:24:28] Simone Collins: Okay, so you always need to have magic, which we define as science people just don’t understand or technology people just don’t understand yet.

[00:24:35] Malcolm Collins: Well, look at Scientology, okay? Yeah. Scientology believes thetans are real, measurable things that you measure with a thetan meter. They believe-

[00:24:45] Simone Collins: An E-Meter. Sorry, an E-Meter,

[00:24:46] Malcolm Collins: right? Yeah, an E-Meter. They believe that, like, there is a real evil entity on a spaceship way out there, Mr. Xeno way out there in outer space that’s gonna come and, and, and zap us all.

[00:24:58] They believe every part of every process they do is science. Mm-hmm. They would argue nothing done within Scientology is supernatural. But to you or me or any objective observer, they’d say Come on, man. That’s not like what everyone else agrees science means. And so like as a techno-puritan I can say that I believe that all of our stuff is actual real science.

[00:25:26] But I can also stand as an objective third party observer and be like, “Come on, man.” But it turns out that those religions actually do really well historically. The ones that don’t do really well are the ones where they’re like, “No, no, no, no. I don’t wanna say the embarrassing part. I don’t wanna do the embarrassing thing.”

[00:25:43] The other type of religious movement that always dies always dies are the anti-natalist ones. And this is fairly common to form explicitly anti-natalist religious movements. They, they, they actually make up a big chunk of the religious movements. They are typically anti-natalist for one of three reasons.

[00:26:05] One reason is like the Shakers, right? They think they wanna be like as holy as possible- Mm-hmm ... as sanctified as possible. Sex is an unholy thing, therefore we don’t have sex, therefore we don’t have babies. And then they go extinct. Or in the Silliness Weekend episode one of them was a Florida communist cult.

[00:26:25] They appeared to do it for like feminist reasons ‘cause like, you know, women being in a relationship is degrading or something. I don’t understand fully. Yeah. And then the final reason is, is it’s clearly just a sex cult. Mm-hmm. And somebody’s using it to get sexual access to lots of women, and they don’t wanna deal with kids.

[00:26:41] And those cults

[00:26:42] Simone Collins: often

[00:26:42] Malcolm Collins: You heard a voice whispering, and he thinks there’s a murderer in the house.

[00:26:46] Simone Collins: Yeah. Can you tell him that Stacy and the kids are heading to the creek and he’ll be- Stacy

[00:26:49] Malcolm Collins: and the kids are heading to the creek. Go with them and you’ll be safe.

[00:26:53] Okay, so let’s go through the various statistics here. First religions that had a major corpus but were completely humanist, secular, in like a traditional secular format. Okay. I put- Would

[00:27:07] Simone Collins: you include, by the way, Alcoholics Anonymous in this or not?

[00:27:11] Malcolm Collins: I did not include- I mean- ... Alcoholics Anonymous, but I probably should have.

[00:27:14] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:27:15] Malcolm Collins: Because it does have like a written corpus.

[00:27:16] Simone Collins: Yeah, and they do... I mean, they have weekly convenings. You’re supposed to believe in a higher power. I mean, they’re definitely a cult. They’ve killed millions of people. Yeah. So, I mean...

[00:27:26] Malcolm Collins: See our other e- episodes on that. Like, naltrexone clearly works, and they’ve banned it in the United States for the thing that it’s good at.

[00:27:33] Simone Collins: Yeah, like Alcoholics Anonymous- ... specifically is responsible. Like, that is the reason why we don’t have naltrexone as a widespread intervention for alcoholism, which kills. So-

[00:27:42] Malcolm Collins: And it works 86% of the time.

[00:27:44] Simone Collins: Yeah. So death cult. Anyway, still I think it should probably be in here if we’re being honest.

[00:27:49] Malcolm Collins: Okay, so note here of the 13 that were founded as this humanist, secular variety, technically 8% survived.

[00:27:57] So I, I, I’m gonna change this- Yeah ... a little bit. One [00:28:00] sort of limped along. It was Felix Adler’s New York Society for Ethical Culture, founded in 1876. The deed not creed. It had Sunday meetings, social reforms, and a famous school, Fieldston. No God, no afterlife, no cosmic stakes. It is 150 years old- Hmm

[00:28:18] and cleared about 6,000 members.

[00:28:21] Octavian: So- That’s pretty small.

[00:28:21] Malcolm Collins: Very, very small.

[00:28:23] Today they have around 135 members

[00:28:26] Malcolm Collins: So- Yeah ... not really, you know. Of the ones that had a corpus and something supernatural, right? Like they weren’t in this other category-

[00:28:33] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:28:33] Malcolm Collins: 65% survive. 65,

[00:28:35] Simone Collins: that is crazy.

[00:28:37] Malcolm Collins: Of the ones that had both of those and were not anti-natalist- Mm-hmm

[00:28:43] um, or were not primarily about converting other people and were focused on, like, the family and stuff like this that gets you down to 15. 14 of those survived, so 93%. And 53% of those became a major world religion. This is cleared the one million mark.

[00:29:02] Simone Collins: Wow.

[00:29:03] So- Is the LDS Church one of those?

[00:29:06] Malcolm Collins: Yes, the LDS Church is one of those.

[00:29:07] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:29:08] Malcolm Collins: Hmm. They, they would, they would very explicitly be one of those. Yeah ... I mean, well, I could go through-

[00:29:11] Simone Collins: Just

[00:29:12] Malcolm Collins: check.

[00:29:12] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, just check.

[00:29:14] Malcolm Collins: You had Mormonism. I have Seonism, Tenrikyo, Chán Bud- ... A lot of these are in other countries.

[00:29:22] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:29:22] Malcolm Collins: Of the ones that you’d be aware of, the Unification Church.

[00:29:25] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:29:25] Malcolm Collins: Won Buddhism, the Children of God, TFI. And yeah. Hmm. A lot of those are East Asian. Now we get into how they die. By the way, any thoughts so far, Simone?

[00:29:39] Simone Collins: No, this is just fascinating and kind of blowing my mind. It’s like these sleeper, sleeper successes. I even remember being taken when visiting with a family in Japan when I was a teenager to some new church, and I wonder if this is one of those religions.

[00:29:54] ‘Cause it was not Shinto and it was not Buddhism, and I’m like, “What is this?”

[00:29:58] Malcolm Collins: Japan and Korea have a lot of them.

[00:30:00] Simone Collins: Yeah. So I must have been taken to one of them, and I like... Wow, I was, yeah, I, I was kind of shocked by how big the complex was. It was very large buildings. They, they had a lot of money. So I, it’s all starting to come together in my head like, “Oh my God.”

[00:30:15] Like, I, it, it’s like Muggles and magic. I couldn’t see it at the time. I couldn’t recognize it. Although, whoa, hold on. I went to a Mormon preschool. All my friends in college were Mormons. So- Yeah, come on,

[00:30:26] Malcolm Collins: Simone ...

[00:30:26] Simone Collins: behold the power. Yes, never mind. Ooh, wow, so cool.

[00:30:31] Malcolm Collins: Okay, so when AI was ranking why religions die- Uh-huh

[00:30:36] because almost all the religions that had a very traditional view of science, right? Here, and I don’t like to use the word supernatural ‘cause I have pointed out the spiritualists, the Scientologists, they say everything they’re doing is science as well. Yeah. We say everything we’re doing is science as well.

[00:30:53] Here I mean a, a, a very sort of traditional normie take on science. Yeah. That’s listed as the number one reason religions die. That is, that is given as the death region for 12 of the religions. Mm. Which I think is interesting, and it shows that as techno-puritanism grows to never be captured by the desire to overly take that approach, to, to strip out the science magic that we believe in, right?

[00:31:23] Yeah. Like, real entities really influencing time that that is actually happening, right? Because if you, you know, really c- creating real potential miracles because the moment you strip that out, it dies. Next no fertility engine. That’s 11 of the ones that died. Decapitation or no succession, that’s 10, and we’ll go over all the different ways that succession, like the different succession ways you can set something up and what that says about whether you will survive.

[00:31:53] Simone Collins: Well, what does decapitation mean? Like, a s- the state actually tried to conservatively take it out or something?

[00:31:58] Malcolm Collins: No. The next one is state [00:32:00] suppression. That’s seven. Oh. So- So then what does decapitation- ... decapitation is like the leader died early on in the movement or- So like, we would be rated as that if you and I died in a car accident tomorrow and nobody picked this up.

[00:32:16] That’d be decapitation event. Scandal or founder crime, seven. Now note here for these, the way we’ve set it up, we’re not really at risk for the decapitation one. We’re not really at risk for the fertility one. We’re not really at risk for state suppression. We’re not really at risk for scandal or founder crime.

[00:32:34] We’re not... Because like all of the bad stuff we do, like make money on, on AI erotic material and stuff like that, we’re like, “Yeah, whatever.” Like I have... We’re, we’re very open about that and why we

[00:32:46] Simone Collins: do that. Well, and I think most of the scandal has to do with when you’re asking other adherents of the religion to do things or give things up for you.

[00:32:53] Malcolm, can you go down and tell them to go to the Greek?

[00:32:55] Thank you, Malcolm. They weren’t hearing whatever I said, so appreciate that a lot. You are amazing.

[00:33:02] Malcolm Collins: But yeah we’ll go into that. I, I don’t really have a hard stance on this yet. I might even cut this out, I don’t know, because I need to read more and, and, and study more on this.

[00:33:13] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:33:13] I mean, I, I’m really for the investment in your family part.

[00:33:17] You know, I think a sort of, like, bonus, like, ah, yeah, like, I made such a big windfall, who cares if I give a little bit of it to an institution that helped me thrive? Like, that seems reasonable, too. But yeah, the... I guess I’ll have to learn more about what, what is said in the Old Testament as well, ‘cause it’s

[00:33:39] To, to try to work out what a m- a modern equivalent would be.

[00:33:44] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and then what, what does that go to? Because I also, I haven’t enshrined this in any tract yet, but we had a tract that never aired saying that you should never within the tradition, take money for preaching- Oh, yeah ... or for teaching.

[00:33:59] And so I, I still lean towards that perspective. I think that’s a good one to have, and it can cause a lot of negative externalities if you remove it. But you also need a central body. What we’re gonna come to at the end of this is you do need a central body with, like, some amount of money to operate institutional get-togethers and stuff like that.

[00:34:20] Yeah. Because if you don’t do that, you always die out.

[00:34:23] Octavian: Mm.

[00:34:23] Malcolm Collins: And we absolutely need to make our marriage market work. We need to make our summer camp for kids and, like, our war- wider ideological sphere work. So we have to find a way to operate those things.

[00:34:36] Simone Collins: Yeah, that’s fair.

[00:34:37] Malcolm Collins: Fortunately, if RFAB keeps growing the way it’s been growing, maybe we just have so much money it doesn’t matter.

[00:34:42] Simone Collins: That’s kind of- that’s the dream. The dream is to never have to ask anyone for anything, to just-

[00:34:46] Malcolm Collins: yeah ...

[00:34:47] Simone Collins: put value you have in excess.

[00:34:49] Malcolm Collins: And the w- what we’re going to do with RFAB that I’m really excited about, if it keeps growing the way it’s growing, is whenever somebody gets a, a sponsorship removed for, like, being mildly right-wing, we want to give a sort of, like, insurance sponsorship that we can give to people when this happens.

[00:35:06] I love that. Also to help grow the brand. You’re muted, by the way.

[00:35:09] Am I? You really can’t hear me? I, I ca- I can hear you now.

[00:35:11] Simone Collins: Oh, that’s weird. Okay.

[00:35:13] Malcolm Collins: What were you saying?

[00:35:15] Simone Collins: I, I just like the, the wording insurance sponsorship. I mean, be careful what you say, ‘cause some channels are like, “Okay, well that’s $100,000 a month, and can you imagine?” Like- Well,

[00:35:24] Malcolm Collins: we need to find a way to make it not- Sustainable

[00:35:27] impossible to handle, right?

[00:35:28] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah.

[00:35:31] Malcolm Collins: The next one is a corpus without machinery. That would be another high failure risk for us. That’s- Mm-hmm ... we don’t have the marriage market, we don’t have the camps, because we don’t have churches, so we’d need some other thing that keeps the community together.

[00:35:44] Yes. And I’ve always envisioned those as the most important things. Like, the marriage market would come with the season, like a thing where people of marrying age all get together once a year and get to know each other in addition to the online environments. And that would also help prevent people from [00:36:00] leaving at the time when people would be most likely to leave, which is during your teen years when you’re rebellious, and it’s like, “Bro, you wanna go on Tinder?

[00:36:06] Like really? That’s where you wanna find a wife?”

[00:36:09] Simone Collins: Really,

[00:36:10] Malcolm Collins: that’ll... mm-hmm Instead of our community that’s been, like, training their daughters and sons to be, like, sane and respectful. Next is a political or military capture. This is, they become part of a state apparatus, and when that state apparatus dies, they die as well.

[00:36:27] Simone Collins: Hmm. Fair enough. Yeah. Bad strategy to be dependent in that way

[00:36:34] Malcolm Collins: So now let’s look at succession architecture.

[00:36:38] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:36:39] Malcolm Collins: All right? What are the good ones? What are the bad ones?

[00:36:42] Simone Collins: Yeah, which actually matters so much. I mean, when people talk about the LDS church, it’s all about Brigham Young. You know, he’s, he’s the guy

[00:36:49] Malcolm Collins: who made it happen.

[00:36:49] Yeah, so a, a non-transferable profit office this almost always leads to an extinction event, but not always. So, like, we still have the Falun Gong around. Mm ... but of other ones like Happy Science Farrakhan’s NOI Raelism they’re all dead. Hereditary dynasty these typically split and decay over time.

[00:37:15] And they lead to very weak religious systems. For an understanding of what I mean by this, probably the most egregious example of the hereditary dynasty is Islam. Islam should be- Oh ... much more centralized than it is, But because the Sunni, yeah, it’s split ... much stronger than it is. But because they attempted to make it hereditary in a few different ways, it basically meant that it just became warring factions that don’t even have ideologies that are that particularly different from each other.

[00:37:45] It’s just they care about which hereditary line was kept which is why it’s really bad generally to create a strict hereditary dynasty. Now this isn’t to say you can’t have a transferable hereditary dynasty, which has worked very well on multiple occasions. This is where a founder sa- like, appoints it to their kid and then their kid appoints it to a kid.

[00:38:05] Does

[00:38:05] Simone Collins: that happen that much?

[00:38:07] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. A, a, a famous case of this happening that did very well is the Baha’i. So the Baha’i was, the founder appointed- Well, and

[00:38:15] Simone Collins: did the Church of Islam too, or the, the Nation of Islam,

[00:38:17] Malcolm Collins: yes. But that ended up destroying it ‘cause it was appointed to his kid, and then his kid converted it all to just Islam.

[00:38:25] But the Baha’i it was founder to son, son to grandson, grandson to council. And, and it worked that way because it didn’t have to stay hereditary. It was just hereditary while it was convenient.

[00:38:41] Simone Collins: Okay. Huh. I mean, that’s reasonable. You should be flexible. If you have a really inflexible succession plan and then something breaks, you’re kind of screwed.

[00:38:50] Flexible good for the most part, I think. Yeah.

[00:38:53] Malcolm Collins: Hmm. Dynasty plus constitution, hereditary figurehead wrapped in a bureaucratic institutions that actually run things, often a bridge mechanism after the first death. This has worked very well and has a near perfect survival rate. Designated living successor these typically survive and they sometimes split and localize.

[00:39:12] Like it’s not, it’s not the best, but it’s okay. The one that has the near perfect is the elected collegiate officers. These have a very- The other one...

[00:39:19] Simone Collins: Oh.

[00:39:20] Malcolm Collins: A council or electorate fills the office. The authority is legitim- legitimated by writing, not by blood or designation. For people who are wondering the answer that we chose in techno-puritanism, it’s none of these.

[00:39:32] It’s the index system. You can read up on it. Basically the church is kept as a series of individual families or clans which have a unique set of beliefs and their own treasuries. Yeah. And then they vote on the center family/clan that has the central figure- Yeah ... who is not a prophet, they are an administrative lead.

[00:39:56] And that it’s meant to be easy to split from [00:40:00] and rejoin if your group thinks that it has become corrupt in some way.

[00:40:03] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm

[00:40:05] Malcolm Collins: Without the splitting group being the heretic group.

[00:40:09] Simone Collins: Yeah. ‘

[00:40:10] Malcolm Collins: Cause that’s not really the way it works. The splitting group wouldn’t be necessarily the, in the wrong group given the way the, the text is written.

[00:40:17] If, if a group wanted to split, it is proof that the central group might be doing something wrong.

[00:40:23] Simone Collins: Yes.

[00:40:23] Malcolm Collins: Like, it would be more a a, a, a negative on the central group than on the splitting group. The splitting group just wouldn’t get the resources that had been accumulated by the central group.

[00:40:32] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm

[00:40:34] Malcolm Collins: Constitutional self-termination happens.

[00:40:37] The founding rules accidentally or deliberately forbid replacement. This happened with the Catholic Apostolic Church. Only its original apostles could ordain. The last apostle died in 1901. Oh. So the last priest died in 1971.

[00:40:52] Simone Collins: Well, that was really poorly planned. Are you serious?

[00:40:56] Malcolm Collins: You, can you ask AI why they did that?

[00:40:58] Why did the Catholic Apostolic Church not plan for the, the founding group dying?

[00:41:05] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:41:06] Malcolm Collins: And then text as a s- s- successor. These ones typically do pretty well, but they don’t have a lot of centralized control.

[00:41:14] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:41:15] Malcolm Collins: Now earlier I mentioned the survival ship bias test, and here what we do is we have a number-

[00:41:22] Simone Collins: Oh, Malcolm, they just thought that Christ would return before the 12 restored apostles died.

[00:41:31] So they were like, “Don’t worry. He’s, he’s coming.”

[00:41:36] Malcolm Collins: Very poor planning, guys. Poor

[00:41:38] Simone Collins: planning. Because I’m

[00:41:39] Malcolm Collins: pretty sure the Bible says that no one will know the time or the,

[00:41:41] Simone Collins: Well, did you look at this? Did you look at apocalypticism? ‘Cause I know the Seventh Day Adventists managed to stick around pretty well.

[00:41:49] Malcolm Collins: I am, I am very disappointed in the number of Christian groups that become apocalyptic when the Bible is very clear that you should not be apocalyptic.

[00:41:57] Simone Collins: I don’t know. Jesus was like, “No, but really, like in our lifetime. I’m super serious about this.” I- No,

[00:42:03] Malcolm Collins: I understand that- ... soon ...

[00:42:04] there are

[00:42:05] ways that historic Jesus scholars interpret him as saying those things.

[00:42:10] But- that’s not really the way it comes across in the text as the text was eventually captured, which is what we think is divinely inspired. So-

[00:42:18] Simone Collins: Oh, by Peter.

[00:42:19] Malcolm Collins: No, the text- I’ve never

[00:42:20] Simone Collins: met him ...

[00:42:21] Malcolm Collins: the text as it’s actually captured says no one will know the time or the space.

[00:42:25] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:42:25] Malcolm Collins: All

[00:42:25] Simone Collins: right.

[00:42:26] Malcolm Collins: So- Okay. Or place.

[00:42:27] Yeah, definitely. So, what, what that means is if somebody comes to you and they say, “I know,” they’re saying something that is explicitly anti-biblical and, like, a, a, a very easy reading of it.

[00:42:35] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:42:35] Malcolm Collins: Fair enough. But yeah. So w- in the survivorship bias test, this is the part of the, the survey you can read if you want.

[00:42:41] Probably uninteresting, but we go over the... We do capture a, when famous people have weird beliefs. It just doesn’t happen that often. So what were the founders actually doing? Was it a probable con or scam event at founding? Was it an apparent genuine vision? Was it a desire for a better world?

[00:43:01] Was it a commercial venture? Was it love of the practice? Or was it mixed or ambiguous? And the answer here is the best category with one of the highest survivorship rates is probable scam.

[00:43:17] Simone Collins: Probable scam. What?

[00:43:21] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So I actually think, before I go further, this in part explains why the authorship part is so rare.

[00:43:30] So for a person to sit down and say “I have...” Like, suppose you’re motivated by, like, genuinely wanting a better world, right? You sit down and you say... which has a really good rate as well, by the way. Genuinely wanting a better world has a pretty good rate as well. Love of the practice has a medium rate.

[00:43:52] This is where, like, wiccanism comes from. Mm. And, and theosophy and stuff like that, a lot of the, the new age stuff. They just appear to really love doing this stuff. [00:44:00] It’s not like they had a vision. It’s not like they thought this religion’s gonna make the world a better place. They’re like, “I like casting spells and looking at crystals, so I’m gonna do it.”

[00:44:10] The, w- the apparent genuine vision also does pretty well. So let’s, let’s go into this. Why, why? Like, let’s get to the mystery here, ‘cause I actually think that this, in part, solves the mystery. So I am a smart, lucid, sane adult, okay?

[00:44:26] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:44:27] Malcolm Collins: Not a crazy, schizo rambling or something like this.

[00:44:31] Simone Collins: No.

[00:44:31] Malcolm Collins: What are the things that could motivate me to sit down and say, “I’m gonna draft an entirely new metaphysical system”? Well-

[00:44:41] Simone Collins: ... Yeah, look, you, you did it ‘cause you wanted your kids to thrive. Right. And I, I think most sane people would never wanna sit down and write a religion.

[00:44:50] Malcolm Collins: Well, that’s the problem, is-

[00:44:51] Simone Collins: Yeah

[00:44:52] Malcolm Collins: the, the number one motivation for most sane adults to do this is they want to exploit people for sex- No ... or they want to scam people for money. Mm-hmm ... and that is why so many of-

[00:45:07] Simone Collins: Or they’re just schizophrenic, like the Brazilian lady who kept seeing ghosts by the roadside.

[00:45:13] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but fortunately for her, her...

[00:45:15] didn’t come off as schizophrenic ramblings ‘cause she had a Catholic friend who tried to organize all her thoughts into a corpus- I

[00:45:21] Simone Collins: think that’s

[00:45:21] Malcolm Collins: nice ... which then created a religion which people started following.

[00:45:24] Simone Collins: Yeah, every schizophrenic needs their token Catholic friend.

[00:45:27] Malcolm Collins: But this is, this is actually part of it, Simone- Yeah

[00:45:29] that you’re, you’re getting to here. Mm-hmm. The apparent genuine visions often fail because if it’s not a real vision from God, right, it means the person is a little off their rocker.

[00:45:42] Octavian: Yeah.

[00:45:42] Malcolm Collins: All right? So, and it also means that the religion is being guided from a first principle’s perspective- Mm-hmm ... that isn’t thinking about the long-term consequences of the stuff they’re thinking.

[00:45:53] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. It’s not through logic. Like- Well, they can

[00:45:56] Simone Collins: write themselves into a corner because

[00:45:58] Malcolm Collins: they’re never gonna apply- The Catholic, Catholic Apostolic Church that you were talking about, right?

[00:46:02] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:46:02] Malcolm Collins: Like that, a genuine vision says, “Jesus is about to come back.” Okay, Jesus is about to come back. Uh-huh. We don’t need to think, you know, that many years into the future.

[00:46:08] Yeah.

[00:46:08] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:46:08] Malcolm Collins: And then you accidentally write yourself into a corner there.

[00:46:12] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:46:13] Malcolm Collins: So- Not

[00:46:14] Simone Collins: perfect. Not ideal ...

[00:46:16] Malcolm Collins: the the, the, if you get it through a vision it leads you to craziness. But if you don’t have a vision, well what are your, your options here? To try to create one of those completely secular things, which always fail, right?

[00:46:30] Because they just don’t have the fervor. Or to lie, right? Now, or, or to look at old texts, which we’ll get to in a second. But if you take the lying route you can go into it and design it in a way that is meant to be self-replicating, meant to capture people’s attention. With the big ones here being, uh

[00:46:55] well, we probably shouldn’t say one of them even though it’s very obvious to everyone who’s not part of this religion. I, okay, I’ll tell you how I got AI to decide which religions were founded by con artists and which ones weren’t.

[00:47:08] Simone Collins: How?

[00:47:09] Malcolm Collins: Did they, without attribution, rip off another religious system- Oh

[00:47:16] that their followers were unlikely to be familiar with? Oh, no And the reason why that was such a tell for me- God ... is because if you believed that you were actually getting messages from God you would then just say- Rip off

[00:47:29] Simone Collins: the Freemasons. No ... “

[00:47:31] Malcolm Collins: We’re just gonna do X ‘cause the Freemasons do it that way.”

[00:47:34] Right? E- and, and you, you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t lie about that. You would just be like- No ... “Oh, yeah, b- because of the, you know, they, they do it a different way and so whatever,” right? Yeah ... but it’s the act of concealing where the inspiration for what you’re doing came from that to me signals dishonest intent.

[00:47:55] Note here I still think these guys come from some sort of genuine, [00:48:00] like ... I do think God was at work in all of that, but I can- Yeah ... think God was at work in all of that and there was some shady dealings going on at the same time. Correct. But like, yeah, like the Yakub guy did that a lot too, right?

[00:48:12] Yeah. Like, he was like stealing from other, like, male and religions and stuff like that and, like ... Anyway, The other thing that you could do is say, “Okay, I wanna make the world a better place. I do not want to claim special revelation,” right? Because then that would be a lie, and I don’t wanna go at my project of making the world a better place through a lie.

[00:48:31] Mm-hmm. I do not want to claim that everything just works the way that old farty scientists say it works. So then what are your options? You really only have three, and they really tie your hands.

[00:48:44] Okay ...

[00:48:45] option number one is to come up with a system for how you determine what is true. This is what that one spiritualist guy did that I think was very sophisticated and interesting as a religious founding movement.

[00:48:56] Mm-hmm. To just be like, “I will interview all of the different spiritualists,” and, and people have written other books since his death that use the same method, “to try to find eerie coincidences, and I will say that that is some sort of genuine spiritual connection.”

[00:49:10] Simone Collins: Feels

[00:49:10] Malcolm Collins: very

[00:49:10] Simone Collins: earnest, yes.

[00:49:12] Malcolm Collins: Yes. And what did he come up believing?

[00:49:14] By the way, if everybody who hears this, you know, our audience, they’re like, “Oh, he probably came up with a bunch of satanic, evil stuff.” It was there is only one god. You should believe that one god. There is some form of an afterlife. And that the one god is good and wants you to be good, too.

[00:49:32] So, like- Maybe his message aren’t that bad. You know? Like, maybe, maybe you don’t get as clear of a picture by talking to a bunch of spiritual mediums, but you don’t get a bunch of wrong answers either. The, the other option is the option that we went with, which another group has also gone with.

[00:49:50] The group that decided to just go back to the Vedas and reinterpret them, but in a way that went against a lot of normal Hindi ways of living at the time period when it was becoming popular. And that is to just be like no, let’s say all of the Bible stuff is actually true. We’re just not understanding it right, so let’s go through it again sort of line by line, text by text, in a historic context, and try to map it to stuff.”

[00:50:15] This allows for you to not lie about anything, still have a, a text that you can point to but it’s not your text and build from there. Mm. The problem is is so few people think to do that. Like, it’s just not an obvious thing to think to do, which is why so few people have done it, and so many more people have done the scam option, right?

[00:50:40] Which is why so many of... I, I think why new religious movements get the the negative connotation of a cult or scam often, because so many of them just are. The vast majority are. That’s the main reason, like, a sane adult would do this. Secondly, if you’re a sane adult, it’s a crazy thing to do.

[00:51:01] Simone Collins: Yes.

[00:51:03] Yeah.

[00:51:03] Malcolm Collins: And I think people don’t realize how crazy a thing it is to do. When people can just be like, “Well, go back to one of the traditional ones,” and I’m like, “The traditional ones all look like they’re failing, and I think they’re wrong.” Like I, I’ve, I can’t convince myself of it. I’m not gonna be able to convince my kids of it.

[00:51:19] Simone Collins: Yeah, it’s like trying to get into a movie when you can’t suspend disbelief because the, you know, the acting is so bad, or the direction is so poor, or the effects are awful. Like, you, you... Yeah. You can’t just... I mean, I guess a lot of people do. A lot of people do choose to adhere to religions fully not believing them because they understand the community matters.

[00:51:41] The problem is that they don’t really have faith, and then when family members or their children encounter genuine crises of faith, they can’t defend the faith. And if those people don’t like the community, then they don’t stick to the community or they don’t try to reform the church from within when it needs reform because they [00:52:00] don’t believe in it enough to fight for it and try to, to shape its future.

[00:52:03] So you have to have that true belief if you wanna be A genuine adherent. I mean, I’m sure all the members of the LDS church who don’t actually believe in it but tithe are nominally contributing to the religion because tithing is very significant. This is 10% of your fore ta- before tax income. But-

[00:52:23] Malcolm Collins: Which I see as quite predatory.

[00:52:25] Simone Collins: It’s insane. Yeah, I’ve heard some horrible stories that, yeah, like, you know, really, really sick family members and they’re still like, “So are you gonna write your check now?” It just, like, w- really poorly done. You... They’re... No, absolutely not. But-

[00:52:39] Malcolm Collins: Yeah ...

[00:52:39] Simone Collins: I think the church even really doesn’t benefit, I mean, especially the LDS church now that it just has that much money.

[00:52:45] It, it has insane, ridiculous, preposterous, doesn’t make sense anymore levels of money. What they really need is faithful adherence more than anything else. Because what we’re seeing now is parents raising their children in the church, sending them to Mormon schools, living in Mormon communities taking them to church every Sunday, and then those kids go off to college and are like, “You know what?

[00:53:08] I’m not a Mormon anymore. I’m not, I’m not a member of the church.” ‘Cause they, they just, the faith wasn’t there. It’s, it’s-

[00:53:17] Malcolm Collins: Yeah So the next category that we’re gonna go to here is silliness versus sophistication. Yeah. And some religions I think it can be both sophisticated and silly, which is why we put these on two different metrics.

[00:53:31] An example of sophisticated and silly would be Mormonism, for an example. I think Mormonism’s a pretty silly religion in, in parts of its founding mythos and stuff like this. And, and the category I use for silly is when you tell somebody who’s not of that religion their religion’s founding story, are they likely to actually LOL.

[00:53:50] Speaker 2: I have the golden plates here in this hat. I need to have them somewhere dark so I can read the spiritual light. Oh, okay, write this down.

[00:53:57] Christ appeared before the Nephites. And that’s how the Book of Mormon was written, dum, dum. Martin, how do you know he isn’t just making stuff up and pretending he’s translating off golden plates? Lucy Harris, smart, smart, smart. .

[00:54:13] Speaker 3: I’m gonna hide these pages. If Joseph Smith really is translating off of golden plates, then he’ll be able to do it again.

[00:54:18] Speaker: Lucy Harris, smart, smart, smart. Martin Harris, dumb. So-

[00:54:23] Speaker 2: We must now translate from the Plate of Nephi, so it will be the same basic story, but written a little differently.

[00:54:29] Speaker: Wow. If God got angry with you, then you must be telling the truth

[00:54:34] Malcolm Collins: Yeah ... and what we found is that silliness is pretty protective to a religion. Mm. Now, the best thing you can be is sophisticated and dignified. This has a 47% chance of becoming a major world religion.

[00:54:48] Simone Collins: Okay, what, what is an example of a sophisticated and dignified new religion?

[00:54:53] Malcolm Collins: Baha’i would be an example of that.

[00:54:56] Simone Collins: Mm. Okay.

[00:54:57] Malcolm Collins: Kardashianism, the, the spiritualist one that we talked about would be an example of that.

[00:55:01] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:55:01] Malcolm Collins: But I don’t really like that style. That ain’t my style. I like to have a little bit of silliness in things. Where silliness is very protective is because it causes members to be shunned by out groups, and it forces them to further identify with a, “No, I really believe this.”

[00:55:21] You know, like, we may not believe in the future police in a literal context, but it is part of the family lore, right? Mm-hmm. Like, the kids talk about the future police all the time. They get id- attacked by Krampus’, right? Like, a Krampus is a major part of their... They believe that they are possessed by the devil, right?

[00:55:41] Like, or w- that they call the basilisk when, whenever they get in a mood where they’re doing bad things, ‘cause that’s what we tell them. We go, “Well, you... It... Has the basilisk taken you over?” And they’re like, “Yep, the basilisk has taken me over.” And, and then one time Totes was like, “Octavian, you have to slap me.

[00:55:56] You have to slap out the basilisk.” But like, they’re [00:56:00] learning how to contextualize their negative and tantrum-like emotional states as something separate that’s not really who they are, and that is their opposition, the traditional meaning of Satan that’s corrupting their heart, right? Mm-hmm. Like, a lot of these things that we do are objectively pretty silly.

[00:56:20] The, the Future Day where we take all their toys and we leave, like, silly foam and stuff and say it’s future debris like, it’s a silly thing to do, okay? And a bunch of little, like, party favor-type toys as future debris, which they go crazy for, by the way.

[00:56:33] Simone Collins: Oh, they love it so much. No, they, they don’t...

[00:56:36] The annoying thing is they have yet to ever miss the toys that have suddenly disappeared, and they only get super excited about the debris

[00:56:46] Malcolm Collins: Which is the best part, yeah

[00:56:48] Simone Collins: I know. That’s funny. The toys have

[00:56:49] Malcolm Collins: disappeared, but now there’s little party favors on the floor, so

[00:56:51] Simone Collins: whatever. Like, oh my God, yeah. Kids don’t care that much about toys.

[00:56:55] Like, they just... I don’t know. Whatever.

[00:56:59] Malcolm Collins: We, we, we built them a life where, like, it doesn’t... The group that always fails is low sophistication. Mm. Or almost always. It has survived. Like, the Nation of Islam kinda survived, and Valdese and Amer kinda survived. When did

[00:57:12] Simone Collins: the Nation of Islam really just become a, a, a group of primarily Black Americans who just shifted to actual Islam?

[00:57:23] But they, they have, like, a different origin story and different cohort?

[00:57:26] Malcolm Collins: The Nation of Islam?

[00:57:28] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

[00:57:28] Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah. Now

[00:57:29] Simone Collins: they’re just- ‘Cause they dropped the Yakub stuff, right? Didn’t the successor, the son- Yeah, they dropped it all ... of the founder was like let’s just make it, like, actual Islam, okay?” Yeah. And then they did, right?

[00:57:37] Yeah. Right? Okay.

[00:57:40] Malcolm Collins: Who knows? What if techno-puritanism does that for, like, just mainline

[00:57:43] Simone Collins: Protestantism? What, and they’re like, “Ah, let’s just make this mainline,” what? Calvinist Christianity?

[00:57:50] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that’s probably where they’d go- Oh, that’s- ... if they were gonna drop it for something. Very, very sad if that happens.

[00:57:55] Yeah. But for the sophisticated, very silli- silly category, these are religions that have q- quite a sophisticated belief system but are very silly you’ll see a lot of heavy hitters. You get Mormonism, Falun Gong- Yeah ... Scientology- ... Theosophy, Salema, Uranida, Brahma Karas, Krishla- Hmm ... which is a major world religion.

[00:58:14] Oh, no, sorry, not Krishla. It’s, it’s Brahma Karamares, which is a major world religion. Okay.

[00:58:20] And then a few, I think these are dead ones. Uship, Aaran, and Haris. But you also get, But yeah it, I found that to be pretty interesting. And it’s why in the, in the corpus here we have a little anime cat girl future police because you know, you gotta have that imagery everywhere that we do with our stuff.

[00:58:37] It’s why we put, like, jokes into the text and everything like that, like, even in our track series. And- We have a chart here of coherence across religious institutions.

[00:58:47] Simone Collins: Wow.

[00:58:48] Malcolm Collins: We have one here on sex, like did they try to create a sex cult, which usually doesn’t work out very well. A- and note here like the worst thing you can do as a cult is be super anti-sex.

[00:58:58] Anti-sex always kills things, right? Like, do not, do not go the super prude direction. Because they usually end up becoming Well, when you go anti-sex, like when you start worshiping a fear of human sexuality, you begin to admire members of your community who live celibate lifestyles. Mm. This is something we’re seeing in like the Opus Dei.

[00:59:16] Like, I think the Opus Dei are really cool, but a third of them are celibate because they’re from a part of Catholicism that has a degree of worship around a fear of human sexuality or a hatred of human sexuality or arousal patterns, which means that it’s cool to never engage in it, which is really bad for a religious system and, and, and generally this argues you shouldn’t incorporate.

[00:59:38] Simone Collins: Well, I heard, and it’s not exactly with celibacy, but I heard that a genuine problem with SSPX is purity spirals that could just ruin the religion, which is not good. So- Yeah ... it has, it has its issues. N- not... They wouldn’t even, of course, be counted among these new religions because it’s just an offshoot of [01:00:00] Catholicism.

[01:00:00] But I think anything whether it be around celibacy or anything else, a religion that’s subject to purity spirals is so dangerous. I mean, we saw what happened with irrationalism and effective altruism when purity- Yeah ... spirals started taking over the community. That’s not really addressed in that, but it, it is something that I’ve been thinking about a lot recently.

[01:00:21] Malcolm Collins: A, a very interesting one here is what does the religion descend from? What religious group is it-

[01:00:28] Ooh ...

[01:00:29] successor and how did that affect it? Where this is really interesting is for a number of major world religions, you have very high success rates. Ones that are descended from Christianity have very high success rates.

[01:00:42] Yeah. The highest success rates are actually Hindu. The next highest are Shinto, after religion and Hindu. And then you also have very high ones for Buddhists. Where you get extremely low is Islam.

[01:00:56] Simone Collins: Oh. Wow. Yeah, I guess the only way they got new recruits for Islam is by making up some ridiculous story about selective breeding and-

[01:01:07] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, also-

[01:01:08] God figuring out

[01:01:09] Simone Collins: how it worked ...

[01:01:09] Malcolm Collins: spiritualist movements, very low. There’s only been really one big success story, the one that we’ve mentioned a few times here. One success. Then within new thought you have sort of middling success. And then if you go pure UFO this is like Heaven’s Gate, Scientology- Oh

[01:01:27] Raëlismo, Urantia. Okay. You don’t get a lot of mass scale, but you get a lot of decently kind of working things. So sci- sci-fi seems to work. And then designed and naturalist zero. Zero in 250 years. Except for the one that’s like kind of petering along. The final thing that we’re gonna go over here is what does this say to us?

[01:01:47] What does this mean that we need to do? And this was the one that basically said, look, Malcolm, ‘cause, you know, I’m running AI on this, I’m like, “What’s our probability here of a religion like us?” We’re already at the stage where... And this is what gets me when we have other people watch us, ‘cause I was watching one guy watch our thing.

[01:02:04] He goes, “Well, they don’t even know if this is g- gonna become a, a religion. They don’t even know if they’re still gonna be living in X many years.” You know, it’s such a far off thing, and it’s like we at the stage we’re at right now have probably an 85% chance of still being a religion in 100 years. If we look- That’s crazy

[01:02:22] at historical trends and correlates.

[01:02:24] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

[01:02:25] Malcolm Collins: That’s where we are right now. And, and probably being at around 100,000 members.

[01:02:29] Simone Collins: Isn’t it gonna be so cool if someone plays this video 85 years later, whether we’re right or long, wrong, and are like, “Oh, look at that.”

[01:02:37] Malcolm Collins: Look at that. Well,

[01:02:38] Simone Collins: and like I-

[01:02:39] Malcolm Collins: Hi. This is you

[01:02:39] I, I... Hi. I ran the correlations here. You probably talked to AIs based on us. We’ve got enough data out there

[01:02:45] Simone Collins: on that. Oh, yeah, we’ll be super dead. Hi, we’re Gh- Ghosts.

[01:02:49] Malcolm Collins: I’m sure it doesn’t make that many mistakes. And, and just so you guys know, in, in the far future, was I satisfied with my life? Super satisfied.

[01:02:57] Not a lot you could do for me. Not a lot you could do to make it better. Maybe- Yeah. Imagine being more perfect ... make sure this kid takes, okay?

[01:03:03] Simone Collins: Yeah, we really hope this kid takes. Y- yeah. Also, by the way, for all of you who’ve given us hornet tips, thank you so much. We’re working on it. We had

[01:03:11] Malcolm Collins: five hornets in my room right

[01:03:12] Simone Collins: before this.

[01:03:13] Well, yeah, but we’ve received some excellent advice. The, the core thing that we’re working toward here with everything, all the support, both financial and informational you’ve given, is all the interventions cannot really be enacted until we find the nest. We’re still working on it, friends. Okay.

[01:03:29] Malcolm Collins: AI’s like, “Put a piece of meat outside, and then watch a hornet go to it and fly back to the nest and triangulate the position.”

[01:03:37] Simone Collins: I’m like, “I can do that.” Yeah, that’s... A bunch of people said that, too, and it’s like, you know- That sounds great. Have you ever watched an insect outside and just tracked it for longer than, like, 15 seconds? Outside. ‘Cause I haven’t. I have

[01:03:52] Malcolm Collins: not tried.

[01:03:53] Simone Collins: I mean, I can keep track of a mosquito inside for more than, like, you know, 10 seconds, and then I’ll catch it again in a [01:04:00] little bit, but that’s inside a closed small room, you know?

[01:04:04] We’ve tri- look, we’ll try, ri- but no, we’ve received some really helpful insights, but y- yeah, we’re, mm. Thank you.

[01:04:11] Malcolm Collins: Thank

[01:04:11] Simone Collins: you. Yeah, actually hornets, Malcolm, someone pointed out these are what bald, bald-headed hornets. Which is great.

[01:04:19] Malcolm Collins: Wonderful.

[01:04:20] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[01:04:21] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I love you caught one on-screen once. Yeah. You got fi- right when we were sitting down to film, there was five right next to my filming chair.

[01:04:28] That Simone took out for us.

[01:04:30] Octavian: Yeah.

[01:04:30] Malcolm Collins: But anyway where are we with all of this? If RFab, play RFab, it’s fantastic. Tons of adventures you can play. It’s been improved a lot recently. I suggest turning the memory feature on for narrative engines. I’m gonna do that with the defaults moving forwards because it’s, we’ve finally gotten to a part where, like, the lore book and memory writing is really good for storytelling.

[01:04:50] And it improves the narrative engine quite a bit, allowing it to, like, remember places and contexts. So I’ll do that right after we record. ‘Cause I finally feel like that’s working, or at least if it’s not working, if we put it on the default models, we’ll begin to get complaints about it, and we can work on it.

[01:05:07] But the point here I’m making and where this all comes down to is the AI was like, “If you fail, there is one glaring reason you’re going to fail.”

[01:05:16] Simone Collins: Okay.

[01:05:17] Malcolm Collins: It is that... And I thought it was gonna be that we were too, like, secular, and it’s like, no. Like, from an outside framing, you guys don’t look secular at all.

[01:05:28] Simone Collins: Oh,

[01:05:28] Malcolm Collins: okay. Like, you may consider yourself secular in the same way a Scientologist does, but nobody else is gonna think technopuritanism is secular.

[01:05:35] Simone Collins: Well, come on. Scientology was written by a literal sci-fi writer who then was just like, “And this one time it’s real, I promise.” Come on. Come on. Anyway, just don’t think that’s fair The carry on, sorry.

[01:05:51] What was the thing that’s actually gonna kill Technopuritanism? Very soon.

[01:05:54] Malcolm Collins: Wasps,

[01:05:55] Simone Collins: Another one?

[01:05:56] Malcolm Collins: Well, I hear something tapping on the glass.

[01:05:59] Simone Collins: Well, if there is one, you just tell me and I’ll come in and kill it.

[01:06:02] Malcolm Collins: It’s fine. See how tough my wife is? This is-

[01:06:04] Simone Collins: No, it just, I, I handle the, the killing and the, the dead bodies, and Malcolm handles everything else.

[01:06:13] Malcolm Collins: Okay, so the thing that’s gonna kill it is we don’t actually put together the marriage market, we don’t actually- Yeah ... put together the summer camp for kids and we don’t actually put together the online communities for younger people to interact and find spouses. Yeah, I

[01:06:29] Simone Collins: have all the, look, families for years now have been telling us when they wanna opt into that.

[01:06:36] I have a decent collection. I haven’t checked count recently, but I have a decent collection of parents who have one or more children close to our children’s ages. So, like, the age range at present is basically from, like- Z- negative one to 14 basically. And once we get, you know, like, couple years in, maybe a little more money, we can start to organize things.

[01:07:00] But we’re gonna do it.

[01:07:01] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. One of the things that we wanna do is like a season. Mm-hmm. So if anyone has like, w- one of the ways we can get around raising money is if anybody has like a large property they want to show off and use to gain status the idea is, is like once every couple years have all of the younger people come together for like a series of events or something like that- Mm-hmm

[01:07:24] , Where they can get to know each other. And then we also want to put together a summer camp, so if anyone has a property where we can do that or an idea of where would be a good place to do that. W- if we can’t use a member’s property, what we’ll do is we will, And keep in mind, there’s not that many of us, so like renting out an entire summer camp for this at this stage might be overkill.

[01:07:45] But like- Yeah ... rent out an off-season summer camp and d- do something at one of them. What I, I’m, I’m not sure yet but I’m beginning to realize that I may be too fastidious if, if we actually are as fastidious [01:08:00] as we had planned in being and never, ever, ever taking any money, then we won’t have the institutional bureaucracy to operate the events that are needed to keep things feeling like a community rather than people in a podcast talking about something.

[01:08:17] Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, fair enough, that those things like do cost money. Camp counselors, people to organize and execute events. I mean, I think it would, it, it can very sustainably and easily start off as groups of families choosing to travel to the same like resort at the same time. ‘Cause with resorts are built-in infrastructure.

[01:08:36] They have the swimming pools. They have the like archery ranges- Yeah ... or whatever. And there are lots of those in the world that we could turn to. Or even like a cruise at the same time, because they have a lot of that infrastructure as well and, and you could just kind of like raid an area and take it over.

[01:08:54] So that’s, I, it, you know. I think it’s gonna start with, with people taking concurrent vacations to places with existing infrastructure, which just requires self-funding, because then you have to pay to stay at a resort, which is not inexpensive, especially if you have a large family. I know what, there’s that the, the, the huge Catholic meetup that happens every year though.

[01:09:14] That looks like it’s camping. And then isn’t there the, the h- hu- huge libertarian one that’s also camping?

[01:09:20] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I would not do camping.

[01:09:22] Simone Collins: Yeah, so that’s that’s, I find

[01:09:23] Malcolm Collins: those to be very miserable ...

[01:09:25] Simone Collins: Malcolm doesn’t wanna do a camping one. So yeah, I guess- ... until we have some kind of big tithing base or, like, donor base, members are gonna have to self-fund their participation in the season, I guess.

[01:09:38] That’s just what it’s gonna be.

[01:09:39] Malcolm Collins: But that’s okay ... we’ll, we’ll figure that out. That’s something that we need to look more in on, think about more, and understand that my desire to be, like, super lean while it has some benefits, could be what ends up killing the tradition.

[01:09:55] Simone Collins: And we have to consider, just for reference, what the London season was.

[01:09:59] It, it was for a network of geographically, I mean, relatively speaking, right? But geographically dispersed families who needed a contrived mechanism to get their children to, to mix and marry. We’re talking about the landed gentry in, in the UK who were raising their, their children on country estates, who didn’t see other people unless they were visiting as, as, you know, hunting party guests or something.

[01:10:24] So they, they realized the, how important it was to, to get everyone to mix. So instead of just husbands going into London for the parliamentary season, if they were in the House of Lords, the, they decided to host a circuit of parties and bring their entire families to London with them. And then they would host, take home- turns hosting parties- During the London season, basically during Parliament or the parliamentary season, after debuting their, their children who are basically open to being married th- their daughters specifically to the queen.

[01:11:01] So you had this sort of- I, I, I- So like-

[01:11:02] Malcolm Collins: And I

[01:11:03] Simone Collins: think

[01:11:03] Malcolm Collins: out here... Well, I mean, that’s why I’m saying we would take inspiration from that to

[01:11:06] Simone Collins: try- The point I’m making is that was an institution for disparate families. That was, however, also an institution where those disparate families, at non-trivial expense personally both traveled to be in one area and hosted through their own largesse.

[01:11:20] Well, yeah, because it was

[01:11:20] Malcolm Collins: about showing off, which could be a way that you do it. That’s why I’m saying, like, if anyone has a property or something like that, we could do it in that mechanism. , It’s not just the one family who’s hosting everything.

[01:11:29] So when you fly to the one person’s event, other families will host various events that happen during that season.

[01:11:40] You’re not flying from one location to another. Oh,

[01:11:42] Simone Collins: in that same area?

[01:11:44] Malcolm Collins: In that same venue, event, whatever. The idea being is that the person who’s operating the property isn’t putting on the cost for the individual events. Oh. Those are put on by different families as a way to sort of [01:12:00] show their, one, dedication, and two- Mm-hmm

[01:12:02] the status of their family relative to other families in the community. The secondary thing to consider about this- This would work if

[01:12:08] Simone Collins: it were, like, a place like Cape Cod or something, like a nice vacation area, I guess.

[01:12:15] Malcolm Collins: Well, right. You might have multiple families doing it that way, but I think an easier way to do it is likely a rural property, and then you have multiple families host different things.

[01:12:24] But outside of that, because then the families can host each thing their way and show off their own family-

[01:12:32] Simone Collins: You can’t even host something your way when you don’t have your own space or when you don’t get to choose. , You’re hamstrung

[01:12:36] Malcolm Collins: Are you out of your mind? Always. You go to a wedding venue and every wedding is different done that person’s way, but it’s at the same venue as 20 other weddings that week, Simone.

[01:12:49] The venue doesn’t control the style of the event. You can do an event or a get-together or a party in one of a billion different ways with a billion different flavors. They show off- I...

[01:13:01] Simone Collins: Okay, we’re gonna have to have a whole debate episode on how we think this would work most efficaciously,

[01:13:06] Malcolm Collins: we will have a weekend debate episode right after this one on this topic.

[01:13:09] The core thing she wanted to add, and I don’t know why she didn’t just say it, was that she thinks it would work better, and I agree, if only the young people who are dating went and not the full families, and that they were the ones who put on the mini events within the location, which I also agree with

[01:13:25] Malcolm Collins: But before we get into that, the second thing is if you look at all of this and your takeaway is, but why are all the techno-puritan stuff, why is the marriage market, why is the kid get-together stuff- Mm

[01:13:40] why is the season event, why is it all about getting people married and mating and reproducing?

[01:13:46] Simone Collins: Yeah. Why is how much we’re,

[01:13:47] Malcolm Collins: yes. Yeah. Right? And the answer is, is because that is the key framing within our entire life cycle story, everything like that, and it used to not be weird. Mm. I like reading old European romance books, right?

[01:14:02] This was everything. All the adults are doing is talking with the other families, trying to find their kids a good marriage match, and then the kids get married, and then all they’re trying to do is find their kids a good marriage match. That’s like one of li- ... That should be, right now it’s like college is like the big thing in life, or like, you know, your first job.

[01:14:19] No, it’s who you marry, right? And so building out a network to help with that and also help our kids with nepotism, that’s really advantageous to helping the movement grow and stay cohesive, especially for kids, but also frame life in a sane way to the next generation again.

[01:14:39] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[01:14:40] Malcolm Collins: All right.

[01:14:40] Simone Collins: Yeah. Fair.

[01:14:43] Malcolm Collins: Love you, and now we will have our argument for people who wanna be on Patreon or Substack subscribers.

[01:14:49] And it’s great to see you guys, and it was kinda crazy for me when I did this, this study ‘cause I was like, “Whoa, we’ve actually passed- Existential ... a lot of the big hurdles already.”

[01:14:58] Simone Collins: Yeah. I am

[01:14:59] Malcolm Collins: so impressed. And our corpus, by the way, is 50% larger than the Mormon corpus

[01:15:04] Simone Collins: What do you mean corp- oh, you mean the, the, like written texts Of

[01:15:07] Malcolm Collins: all of the techno puritan tracts and writings is 50% larger So it’s longer

[01:15:10] Simone Collins: than the-

[01:15:11] Malcolm Collins: All

[01:15:12] Simone Collins: the Mormon ones

[01:15:12] the Book of Mormon and all the other stuff.

[01:15:15] Malcolm Collins: That’s- Yeah, the Pearl of Great Price and the, the whatever. Yeah

[01:15:19] Simone Collins: The expensive pearl. That’s so cool. Sorry,

[01:15:22] Malcolm Collins: sorry to put you guys through all of this with these insane tracts.

[01:15:26] Simone Collins: I really like them. I think this is so cool. I, I, I would not have even thought to look at this, and I’m so impressed by what you did.

[01:15:32] It’s just super cool, and you should really check out the page if you find this stuff interesting because you can go... You can click through to the Wikipedia pages of these religions if you’re like, “I’ve never heard of that. What on Earth?” And then you can see the little logos, ‘cause every religion has to have a logo, and I don’t know.

[01:15:49] I really like it. I think it’s, it’s super cool. And, yeah.

[01:15:52] Malcolm Collins: And I wanna be honest, I love our gear logo.

[01:15:54] Simone Collins: I mean, would you, would you encourage therefore people to build their own religions? Or [01:16:00] like what is... I mean, what is the point you’re... Are you trying to say like, “Yeah, actually you should do this,” or are you just trying to say, “F

[01:16:04] Malcolm Collins: the-” Actually, somebody should probably create a Wikipedia for techno puritanism.

[01:16:08] If you’re like a Wikipedia editor we’re probably at a stage where that makes sense.

[01:16:12] Simone Collins: Oh, where we have our page with our logo. Yes, but-

[01:16:15] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, with our little logo and our weird beliefs.

[01:16:17] Simone Collins: In, in The Practical Guide to Crafting Religion, you prompt people to either make their inherited religion or chosen religion- Capable of withstanding the additional and new and different pressures of modernity, or to make a new religion that will work in our context and reconcile all the differences that, that they have with their otherwise chosen religion.

[01:16:43] Do you still hold that they should do that? Or do you think now that it’s actually better to try to create a wholly new religion if you’re able to meet the criteria that you’ve, you’ve discovered? Or do you think- Well, I

[01:16:52] Malcolm Collins: mean, I think, i- all of the traditional religions are dying to an extent where I think creating a version of them that does well is gonna look like a new religion.

[01:17:01] So- Mm ... a version of Catholicism I’ve said could do really well. It’s something that takes ideas from the Opus Dei about dedicating your life to something- Mm ... but dedicate your life to the next generation,

[01:17:10] Simone Collins: Yeah. Yes ... your

[01:17:10] Malcolm Collins: kids.

[01:17:10] Simone Collins: None of this whole s- the celibate Opus Dei nonsense. Mm-mm.

[01:17:15] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But if you, if you do that, I mean, the Opus Dei are unique enough that most other groups would call them a new religion.

[01:17:22] Mm ...

[01:17:23] especially if you combine the beginning with, like, a bunch of writings. Now, if you’re a you know, a traditional Christian or a traditional, you know, Baptist or something, I, I do think you need some, some reinterpretation to protect against many of the bad things that have happened within the Protestant community.

[01:17:38] The number of scams that have been run out of, you know, Pentecostal churches, the number of bad theology that has seeped in I think th- that takes an amount of hardening and y- sort of Puritanism that’s, that’s going to look and feel very different than what you’re gonna find in a church today, in any church you go to today.

[01:18:02] And I’ve... One of the things that we keep hearing is people go to church, and they’re just like, “It doesn’t feel right. Like, every church I go to feels hollow now.” And that will be the focus of our next tract is what, what, what does the Bible actually say about churches? And a lot of people, well, frankly, they mistranslate the word gathering as church when everywhere it happens it’s not a church.

[01:18:29] And it... And, and, and through that they don’t notice that whenever it’s talking about an actual church church, it’s usually not in a positive context, which was interesting to me. I, I, like it was actually, like, rereading it more critically and I was like, “Oh, is that why they became corrupt so quickly?”

[01:18:48] But anyway, fun talk. And and, and not just not in a, a positive context with a ton of warnings attached. But I love you, Simone. Mm-hmm. And have a spectacular day.

[01:18:58] Octavian: You too.

[01:19:00] Simone Collins: You just had no idea who it was and you were just like, “I guess that’s normal.”

[01:19:05] Malcolm Collins: Somebody running around, open doors. It sounded like they were having fun.

[01:19:09] Simone Collins: Yeah. Obviously. I, do realize that after you have a certain number of kids, you can no longer expect any privacy in your house. Like, everyone will just come and go as they see fit.

[01:19:25] Okay So that’s fine

[01:19:28] Malcolm Collins: Okay-ish

[01:19:29] Speaker 4: What is so funny?

[01:19:35] Can I have my brush back?

[01:19:40] What if I gave you this instead? This is actually for babies. Yeah. Isn’t that so much better? Oh,

[01:19:55] my God. Oh, my God, it’s gonna make you throw up. No. [01:20:00] Bonk, bonk. Oh. Bonk, bonk. Bonk, bonk. Oh, no. I love your texts. I love you so much. Oh.

[01:20:19] Okay, is this really what you want? Oh, for the love... That, really? Really?

David gives a rare, unfiltered look at cultural differences he has observed as a hotelier: which groups of guests make staff smile and which ones create the biggest headaches. He walks through the three most difficult categories of guests his hotels have hosted — Russian oligarchs, Chinese tour groups, and certain Indian families — with specific, firsthand stories about room damage, cooking in rooms, overcrowding, and the economics of hospitality.

The conversation then shifts to a much larger topic: the refugee housing industry in Sweden. David recounts the multimillion-dollar offers hotels received to house asylum seekers (especially young Afghan males), why his family turned them down, the insurance and property-value consequences, and the two competing integration strategies Sweden has tried (spreading people out vs. concentrating them). He also discusses literacy rates, cultural distance, and why some groups integrate far more easily than others.

You can find David Lorentzon's various accounts and posts here: https://linktr.ee/davidlorentzon

Episode Transcript

And where I basically shared the story about about what what actually happens when the Swedish, I think it’s called emergency service in English, rescue service. They gave us a phone call, and they said that, would you like to house 30 Afghans? And you’ll get paid at the time at that time about $320 per night per child and do that year round. Now he received 30 of them. Okay. That’s like, what, 90,090 thousand dollars a day. Crazy. Yeah. It it turns it it basically your most profitable day becomes every day of the year.

Malcolm Collins [0:42]:

Yeah.

David Lorentzen [0:43]:

And most of it is profit.

Simone Collins [0:45]:

And it’s

David Lorentzen [0:45]:

hard to

Simone Collins [0:46]:

say no. Yeah.

David Lorentzen [0:47]:

You’re basically earning millions of dollars to accept mostly male between the age of 14 and 26 Afghan boys Afghan males.

Simone Collins [0:58]:

Wow.

David Lorentzen [0:58]:

Now this village has about 350 people.

Speaker 4 [1:02]:

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins [1:04]:

Okay. Hello, everyone. I’m so excited for this. we’ll say more off the record, episode in which we interview David Lorenzen about his experience, with different cultural groups from the perspective of a hotel manager. I will say that when we have worked in the travel industry, we’ve been exposed to some really stark cultural differences, even just from, like, working in different parts of the world. And definitely from working with different groups as travelers, it’s kind of amazing. I think we’re mostly raised to believe that everyone’s kind of the same. Everyone does the same thing. We all, like, get up and we eat breakfast, and it’s all the same. Like, it’s broadly, like, cereal and croissants and fruit. And, like, we don’t realize that people actually live very different lives, have very different habits, and that becomes very clear when you get to see a sampling of people go through a specific pace. David Lorenzen is able to speak to this. He’s gonna explain to us why, and then we’re just gonna I I would love to dive into some things that you’ve observed about different behavioral patterns or or habits you’ve noticed from different groups that you’ve been exposed to through the nature of some of your work.

David Lorentzen [2:08]:

Yeah. So about thirteen years ago, my family decided to buy a hotel that was for sale, and we had never ever done anything like this. We my parents were from the tech industry, basically.

Malcolm Collins [2:20]:

Oh, wow.

David Lorentzen [2:21]:

We wanted to change in lifestyle, something healthier than sitting in an office all day. And we bought it when I was 18 years old. So for my entire adult life, I’ve had I’ve been deeply involved with running hotels in the tourism industry.

Malcolm Collins [2:36]:

Mhmm.

David Lorentzen [2:36]:

And I’m a hotel manager. And the reason I can talk about this is because it’s a family owned business, and they can’t fire me. So I got freedom of speech.

Malcolm Collins [2:45]:

That helps. So

David Lorentzen [2:47]:

and I do have to say that, you know, 90% of all our guests in Sweden here are, let’s say, Germanic people. Germans, Austrians, Dutch, Scandinavians, they are wonderful people. They do incredible they really do set the standard with like, I I get happy when whenever I see that they cleaned after themselves to make our jobs easier.

Malcolm Collins [3:10]:

Malcolm, what Simone does, and I get so mad at her.

Simone Collins [3:12]:

He gets super mad. I’m, like, stripping the sheets. I’m trying to clean up. I’m putting all the towels in a, like, folded pile. And he’s like, what are you doing? I’m just being correct, Malcolm.

David Lorentzen [3:21]:

Yes. You’re being correct. And I do the same thing because I I wanna be nice to the cleaners. Yes. But but as we were talking to each other, it says, okay. I’m having a really busy time now. We have to reschedule and so on. You started mentioning, I hope the guests are good to you. So, like, yep. Yeah. We’ve had some bad people too. And I started mentioning that the worst groups we’ve ever had, the bottom three, are Russian oligarchs, Chinese tourist groups, and Indian families, which is a very

Simone Collins [3:56]:

So wild.

David Lorentzen [3:57]:

Strange group to bundle together. And I’ll go through which one do you wanna start with?

Simone Collins [4:03]:

Let’s start. What surprised me the most, because Chinese tourists are kind of famous for being nightmares, especially, like, certain generations of Chinese tourists. But what I’ve not heard about is Russian oligarchs ever being a problem. You’d assume that they would just kind of, like, breeze through and barely stay in the room or something. What’s going on there?

David Lorentzen [4:23]:

Yeah. So we had Russian oligarchs a couple of times, and the moment this has happened multiple times. The moment they come in, they check-in, they check they see the room, they’re not happy with it, they come back, and they try to bribe us. So, like Okay. We’re willing to pay triple the price to get your best room. I’m sorry, sir. The hotel is fully booked. We’re not gonna kick out our guests. So and they insist upon it. No. No. No. We we want we’re paying triple now in cash. And it’s like, okay. No, sir. We’re not doing that. Then the neck the next problem is that over and over again, they party hard in the room. They shoot champagne bottles all over the place. They regularly smoke cigarettes and cigars in the room, which they’re not supposed to do. We tell people that it’s it’s illegal to smoke indoors. So whenever we go into the room after they’ve checked out, it’s like, oh my gosh. It’s a terrible smell. There’s mess everywhere.

Malcolm Collins [5:25]:

Oh, no.

David Lorentzen [5:26]:

And when you have that kind of cigarette smell in a hotel room, you can’t give it out to the next guest for the next three days because you have to open the windows. You have to make sure that the air quality goes up again, and you basically run into this really serious problem that, okay. We’re just now gonna get really bad reviews because we can’t get people this room. We’re gonna have to say, no. We can’t give you this room that you booked. Gonna have to refund and get bad reviews as a result. So even if they were to pay a whole lot of extra money for that service, the cost in the long run is repeatedly bad reviews on booking.com, on other websites that you’re basically yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It’s huge. And we are, you know, really high rating. We care a lot about it. So it just means that it’s bad business to deal with Russian oligarchs. And ever since the war in Ukraine began, we’ve not had them because

Simone Collins [6:22]:

Oh, good.

David Lorentzen [6:24]:

There there’s been a bunch of restrictions on these people that makes it very difficult for them to move around in the EU compared to before.

Malcolm Collins [6:33]:

So So they they they like to I mean, it must be a higher end hotel if you’re getting Russian oligarchs coming. Yeah. They they come to the your country to, what, to party? To do what? Like Yeah.

Simone Collins [6:43]:

Why are they there? Are you in the countryside? You’re in the city. You don’t have to name names or anything.

David Lorentzen [6:46]:

No. It’s a middle stop. So we are in a in a strategic location where we are convenient middle stop for a lot of travelers. So it doesn’t have to be high end luxury. It just has to be the most convenient middle stop, and that’s how we encounter these people. So we’ve had, you know, the Lotus Club, the Ferrari Club, the Amphibious Boat, Car Club, and a bunch other stuff.

Simone Collins [7:10]:

Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. People wait. Club.

David Lorentzen [7:12]:

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. There was a bunch of Amphibious Boat, a car club that came to our hotel, from across the lake.

Simone Collins [7:19]:

Oh, so they, like

David Lorentzen [7:21]:

We have a beach.

Simone Collins [7:21]:

Across the lake.

David Lorentzen [7:23]:

Yeah. They they drove up on the beach.

Simone Collins [7:25]:

That must have been really fun to see.

David Lorentzen [7:27]:

Yeah. That was awesome. That was absolutely awesome. It’s like yeah. So we’ve had a bunch of these various really cool car clubs that has billionaires and millionaires in them. So but I do have to say that the rich people in the West, you know, they behave really nice. They behave really well. It’s just this particular group that seems to think that once you have a sufficient amount of money, ethics, being nice, no longer really relevant anymore. Like, you you can just pay to be an asshole, and it’s fine.

Simone Collins [8:00]:

Yeah. But, like yeah. I guess no money no amount of money really makes up for the fact that you you will have to take cleaning fluid to walls and, like, scrub the sticky champagne off of that.

Malcolm Collins [8:11]:

Like, doesn’t even if you’re paying somebody else to do that, Simone.

Simone Collins [8:15]:

Still sucks for that person getting paid to do it, I guess, unless they wouldn’t

David Lorentzen [8:18]:

otherwise But also the bookings right before that because we have back to back bookings.

Simone Collins [8:22]:

Yeah.

David Lorentzen [8:23]:

So if you if you can’t clean the room fast, you’re in trouble. So

Simone Collins [8:29]:

Yeah.

David Lorentzen [8:29]:

So that’s the reason why I say, okay. All Russian oligarchs, not good for business.

Simone Collins [8:35]:

Yeah. Give them the worst room. Give them, like, the utility closet and be like, oh, I’m sorry. There was a mistake with your booking.

David Lorentzen [8:42]:

Yeah. But, you know, regular Russians are fine, you know, because they can’t afford to behave like this.

Simone Collins [8:46]:

Okay. That’s very interesting. Okay. Alright. So Russian oligarchs. Yikes. Yes. Okay. Chinese tourists. Are these so first off, because what what we’ve heard is that there’s this, like, particular generation of, like, older Chinese tourists who grew up at a certain time in communist China where they were just sort of given, like, carte blanche to be terrible people who then, like, are famous for going on, like, boat trips. They don’t know how to swim. They’re told not to get off the boat. They jump off the boat. They drown. Like, that kind of level of pathologically insane. And then it’s mostly that type of tourist. But are you seeing also younger people being problem hotel stayers? Or I don’t know. What have you seen with Chinese tourists?

David Lorentzen [9:28]:

So here’s a I have to make a very clear distinction. We we need to emphasize it’s specifically Chinese tourist groups through these companies because the kind of people the kind of Chinese people that use these tourist groups are those that don’t speak English. So if, for example, a couple a Chinese couple were to travel on their own, then it’s basically guaranteed that they know English. And if they have studied English, all those English studies, you also learn about Western ethics, Western etiquette. That’s just a part of learning the language in English is that you learn about how Western societies work. Now if you have never studied English, you haven’t even studied western etiquette.

Simone Collins [10:12]:

Oh, and so this allows you, I mean, maybe through very uncomfortable means, to understand what the default etiquette is in China because Yes. Most of us don’t know Chinese etiquette. We haven’t traveled, like, into the deep rural links of of China where that exists. Right? Yes. What are you seeing?

David Lorentzen [10:31]:

So we we basically the our entire tourist region, basically, after a couple of years, said no to any tourist group that is organized from China.

Simone Collins [10:43]:

Like, had stopped met at your, like, hotel club meeting and were like, these guys, we’re not doing

David Lorentzen [10:47]:

this No. No. No. It was all independently done because everyone had bad experiences. There was no there was no essential communication on this. It was it just happened naturally. So what happened is that with these Chinese tourist groups is that, okay, when they check-in, none of them speak English. You can’t communicate with them. Oh. So you can’t tell them instructions. You can’t tell them it all has to go through the mediator, the translator. So, basically, it becomes, like, herd mentality. And the first thing that they started asking for, do you have rice? It’s like, no. This is you came this you came all this way to Sweden to eat rice. It’s like, no. We don’t have rice. So, like, okay. And hours later, we start noticing that our metal pots are going missing. And then we realized that they have stolen the pots to boil rice on the floor in the hotel rooms. And they had

Simone Collins [11:48]:

that Where are they getting heat sources to boil the rice?

David Lorentzen [11:50]:

They they had the they had the other things besides the pot.

Simone Collins [11:55]:

So they had they they’re bringing, like, the hot pot, like, base.

David Lorentzen [11:58]:

Yeah. Yeah. They’re having, like, a a a cooker plate or something like that that they bring with plates. Them. Yes. And then they we noticed that our metal pots and kettles went missing in other kitchen equipment, and they and we realized that breakfast and lunch and dinner was surprisingly thin. Like, there’s not a not all of them are here.

Simone Collins [12:21]:

They’re not showing up for the the

David Lorentzen [12:23]:

included meals. Yeah. Yeah. So imagine, like, oh, they’re supposed to be 40. Now there are only 30 of them. So, like, where’s the other 10? Oh. And what we realized is that, oh, we found eventually found some of the pots in the hotel rooms after they checked out. So, like, oh, and then we see in the pot that they have boiled rice in it because it can get stuck. It leaves them walking out.

Simone Collins [12:47]:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

David Lorentzen [12:48]:

Yeah. So real also, that’s why they didn’t need our food. They were just buying rice, and they were boiling rice on the floor in the rooms. Some were some some preferred noodles. And what we noticed is that when they were eating in the restaurant

Simone Collins [13:05]:

I’m sorry.

David Lorentzen [13:06]:

Then they because they were the majority in the restaurant, the big majority, they started behaving like they do in China, and they started loudly farting and

Simone Collins [13:18]:

Oh, no.

David Lorentzen [13:19]:

Yeah. Yeah. Barfing. You know, like, you know, out of the throat. You know?

Simone Collins [13:25]:

On purpose?

David Lorentzen [13:26]:

Yeah. Just openly farting and barfing through the mouth in the restaurant just repeatedly over and over again. Apparently, it’s more socially acceptable in China to just, while you’re eating, not hold it in, and it was causing problems and disturbances for the rest of the guests.

Simone Collins [13:50]:

Presumably yeah. Feeling like

David Lorentzen [13:54]:

this is this is deeply uncomfortable to hear this group of 30 Chinese people all starting the starting the trumpets. Let’s just call that.

Simone Collins [14:05]:

Why well, I mean, dude, they’re turning to rice because something is not working with their digestive tracts about Europe. It is which actually makes a lot of sense. I mean, there’s a lot of lactose intolerance in China. Right?

David Lorentzen [14:16]:

So Now speaking of lactose intolerance, they were buying the pastries. They were buying

Simone Collins [14:21]:

Oh, okay. I would think so. Yeah.

David Lorentzen [14:24]:

For the pictures. They they took pictures of eating it, then they threw it out. So they didn’t even digest the pastries and the various lactose desserts and meals. They just liked it seems like the the main thing that they were concerned about with these kind of trips is to take the best pictures possible. And the actual experience of doing something didn’t really matter because all of the joy was in telling the about the experience once you have returned home.

Malcolm Collins [14:58]:

This is the status of having had the experience, not the experience itself.

David Lorentzen [15:02]:

Yes. And we noticed this because we have a beach. We have kayaks and canoes.

Simone Collins [15:05]:

Oh, yes. It’s pretty.

David Lorentzen [15:08]:

Yeah. And my brother is, like, the kayak instructor, and he’s supposed to be also their guide out in the water. And he got insulted and felt, you know, like he didn’t really matter because all they wanted was to go a little bit out in the water, have the picture taken, and then come back in.

Simone Collins [15:25]:

Oh. Oh.

David Lorentzen [15:28]:

So they didn’t actually want the experience. They were afraid of the water too.

Malcolm Collins [15:31]:

They’re buying their food. They’re not eating the food. They’re getting in

Simone Collins [15:34]:

the kayak. They’re not staying in the kayak.

David Lorentzen [15:36]:

Yes.

Malcolm Collins [15:37]:

I mean, I I love that it is the in state of influencer world eventually realizing that you don’t actually like going to a beach that fast.

Simone Collins [15:45]:

In a sense, it’s, like, really based because they’re like, look. I’m not having fun. I don’t want the food. You’re not having fun.

Malcolm Collins [15:52]:

I just wanna stay inside and play video games and watch Chinese movies. Right? Like, I’m not I’m not actually interested in sharing. Yeah.

David Lorentzen [15:59]:

I I just wanna stay inside and boil rice.

Malcolm Collins [16:01]:

Yeah. So much of travel is actually that without the baseness. This this gives me a degree of respect because of the number of people. I don’t believe that many people actually like beaches. Beaches are incredibly boring. Like, the the people who think, like, having lived on beaches for a large firm, there there’s just not that much to do at the beach. And it a lot of it is gross and sandy and or requires a huge amount of time like scuba diving. Oh, god. You know? So I I think a lot of travel is just it’s just that. It’s just in China, they they just cut out all the rest.

Simone Collins [16:39]:

Yeah. Well, they they don’t care about performatively enjoying it. Whereas I think that what we’ve seen more in our social circles is that you have to, like, pretend to like it. That, like, it’s not a complete performance if you’ve not been like, I just had the best time and, like, we’re gonna sit through this twelve hour tour, and then we’re gonna enjoy every moment and pay rapt attention and and look at every single museum plaque. And and I feel like that is an even more punishing version of performative travel than this Chinese version. I kinda like that they’re like, look. This is gonna suck. Okay? We’re gonna, like, walk to the top of Everest. It’s we’re gonna vomit. We’re gonna fart. And we’re gonna we’re gonna, like, lose brain cells, but, like, we’re getting to the top.

Malcolm Collins [17:21]:

No. They’re doing it the right way. They don’t go to the top of Everest. They just go to Everest. They just just to take a few pictures, and then they say, I was at the top. Make a little AI image.

David Lorentzen [17:32]:

You know, you have the stereotype with, like, these older Asian guys and women with this funny bag in the front with a camera in it, like this kinda old school camera.

Malcolm Collins [17:42]:

Yeah.

David Lorentzen [17:43]:

Yeah. So, you know, it was it wasn’t even for social media. It was just for these, you know, paper pictures. Right? Yeah. Do. So that they were just not there for the actual experience. The experience that they enjoy was telling it talking about it at home. Oh my god. I love that

Malcolm Collins [18:01]:

it’s not even for social media. It’s to show off to other people. And they’re the stupid social circles that don’t matter at all.

David Lorentzen [18:09]:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You you know, if you were, you know, ten years ago in your fifties, you were not having Instagram or social media or whatever, Alibaba, whatever they have in, back in China. So, you know, most it’s just when this specific combination happens when you have a bunch of people that have not learned English and as a result, even studied Western etiquette. Mhmm. They come in this tourist group where you can’t even communicate with them. We were trying to hold these people accountable. Who stole the pots? Oh. And you can’t even talk to them. They don’t understand what you’re saying.

Simone Collins [18:46]:

Yeah.

David Lorentzen [18:47]:

So you need a, like, an Asian mediator, and the mediator didn’t feel like he was cooperating at all with us, letting them get away with it. So you just realize, okay. For us to this is ruining the experience for the rest of our guests. For us, we are we don’t want to be inauthentic. We wanna be the authentic place where you come for the experience and not the photos. So what all all of the hotels in our area did was that, okay. We’re not doing business with Chinese tourist group. Now Chinese can still come. We’re not discriminating in that sense, just not these companies.

Simone Collins [19:23]:

Just not the tour buses. Yeah. You’re not gonna take Yes. Not the tour buses. Work with a tour operator and not accept that. Exactly.

David Lorentzen [19:29]:

Because that’s that’s when you get the Chinese people that don’t speak English.

Simone Collins [19:35]:

Yeah. That’s so interesting. Because also the thing is is I I traveled in rural China a little bit, and I went to a, like, tourist trap destination in, like, more rural China outside Changsha. There was this national forest park called Songjiajie that looks like what’s that movie with Avatar? It looks like that, like, with these craggy mountains. Yeah. And it did bring in droves of Chinese buses, tour buses, and I stayed in, like, a Chinese hotel resort when I was there. Then I’m trying to think of, like, how how does it work there for them? I mean, I think the big thing is that it’s it’s food they’re familiar with that they’re eating. And, also, in the actual Forest Park itself, they had it set up such that you could just take a lot of Instagram photos, but not actually walk into the park. So you could get the full like, everything in while never really

Malcolm Collins [20:32]:

getting any of this in Korea that gets a lot of Chinese tourists. Do you remember in Korea where there was, like, the arboretum we went to with the Chinese people, and they had all those places for, like, pictures for, like, Instagram

Simone Collins [20:45]:

and stuff? Yeah. Instagram. It was

Malcolm Collins [20:46]:

just Yes. Like a line from, like, one photo location to another photo location. That’s the way

Simone Collins [20:53]:

you can good tourist destination, you need to, like, be walking distance from the parking lot. Have all the photo ops right there. Lots of of of actively, like, friendly, like, familiar Chinese food, and then and, like, actual legit Chinese food and then, like, just also in Cambridge. So in Cambridge, there’s this famous bridge that’s in this poem that everyone’s, like, forced to learn in primary school in China.

David Lorentzen [21:18]:

Right. Right.

Simone Collins [21:19]:

I know. Everyone wants to see it when they go. But what’s interesting is that as a student when I was studying in Cambridge, I almost never saw the Chinese tourists, and that’s because they never stayed in Cambridge. They just went to that one freaking bridge, like, got off the bus, watched to the bridge, got back on, and, like, literally saw nothing else of this historic city. And it’s amazing, like, libraries and sites and everything else. And I think that’s the key thing. So, like, I but I like it. It’s kinda based. Like, I I having gone on, like, all these really performative trips where, like, we we we got the the shot, but then we kept going. It was like it was like having a being an actor and, like, being on set, but no one’s filming. And they’re like, keep acting. Keep going. And you’re like, but wait. You’re not paying me anymore, and no one’s filming anything. And I feel like they’re like, camera’s off. Great. Like, let’s get out of here. This sucks, but, like, let’s you know, I’m hungry, and I wanna eat something that’s not gross European. I

Malcolm Collins [22:20]:

get it. I get it.

David Lorentzen [22:21]:

Yeah. Yeah. Now the third group on my list are Indian specific some specific Indian families. We’ve had a couple of them where okay. They come, they check-in, and they book, let’s say, two double bedrooms. So they okay. That that okay. Then there are four people. Right?

Simone Collins [22:40]:

Yeah.

David Lorentzen [22:41]:

But their vehicle is huge. And we noticed, okay. They’re having a great time. They’re eating dinner. But then some of our workers said, like, there is more Indians coming from the car into the hotel and back out again. And the locals were reporting that, hey. There’s a bunch of Indian, like, people squatting on the side of the road out here. Like, people squatting, like, Indians squatting on the side of the road in the middle of Sweden in a tiny homogeneous village.

Simone Collins [23:10]:

Physically, that’s squatting. Yeah. Yeah. Just just hanging out.

David Lorentzen [23:13]:

Sitting sitting on the side of the road just doing nothing. And we were known and we were beginning to put all of the pieces together and realize, wait a minute. This is not a family of four people. This is a family of 12. And they’re only paying for four, and then the rest are sleeping on the floor in the bedroom. Oh. And we’ve had this happen multiple times. So, I mean, talk about the the parents and one of their oldest sons and some other is enjoying a lovely time in the restaurant, eating hamburger, eating

Simone Collins [23:54]:

So wait. No one else like, so they they’re they’re really trying to keep up the artifice. They’re like, no. We’re four. Oh.

David Lorentzen [23:59]:

Yes. We’re four. So, like, you’re you’re four people, and they’re enjoying a lovely time in the restaurant eating dinner. Oh. And the rest of their kids are squatting on the side of the road out there living on the streets. And I realized I’m like, oh my gosh. Talk about Indian dad of the year award.

Simone Collins [24:18]:

Well, but they still got to go to Sweden, which

David Lorentzen [24:21]:

Exactly. This is this is the funny joke. I mean, you’re giving them two Indian life lessons. Not only do the kids learn young how to scam and get a lower price, but you’re also teaching them how to live on the streets in any environment.

Simone Collins [24:35]:

Right? The streets of Sweden, unless in winter.

Malcolm Collins [24:38]:

I don’t know. I like the frugality. I think that’s a

Simone Collins [24:42]:

you know? I don’t really.

Malcolm Collins [24:43]:

I as a family that’s gonna have, like, 12 kids, so many, like, hotels are gonna be like, oh, we only take x many. We only take y many. So we’ll just send the rest to be on the streets.

Simone Collins [24:54]:

Yeah. You’ve given us ideas, David. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins [24:57]:

And I remember when we did that region, the food was so stupidly expensive. That’s true. Everything with us was like, I guess I’ll get something from, like, a a food vendor outside was the only thing that did. We bought hot dogs one day,

Simone Collins [25:09]:

and we’re like, well, that’s that’s all we’re gonna be

Malcolm Collins [25:12]:

able to afford. That’s $12. I remember it was $12 for the hot dog even back then.

David Lorentzen [25:17]:

Yeah. And I have witnessed this exact same behavior in Barcelona as well with the buses. So Oh. The parents would go in the front, go and distract the bus driver, and there’s usually a backdoor that you usually exit out of.

Simone Collins [25:31]:

Oh, and then get their kids on free.

David Lorentzen [25:33]:

And then the eight kids proceed to get into the bus through that backdoor while the Indian parents are distracting the driver and said that, yeah. We’re paying two people, but they’re actually, like, 10.

Simone Collins [25:46]:

Poor kids. But then again, they’re traveling at

David Lorentzen [25:49]:

which Yes. Again, you get to experience Europe for a low price. It’s like, I mean, imagine being the Indian parents. It’s like, kids, we’re going on vacation to Europe.

Malcolm Collins [25:58]:

Very pro natalist. They’re having lots of kids. They’re making it work. They’re make

David Lorentzen [26:02]:

they’re making

Simone Collins [26:02]:

it like, I can’t I cannot travel to India because I cannot deal with, like, the poverty on the streets, the like, the just the the it’s rough. And so you don’t know necessarily, like, where they’re coming from. Like, it could be that, like, they are hanging out outside at the side of the road anyway on any given night, But, like, your side of the road has the view of the lake and the kayaks, and it’s really pretty. And, like although I don’t know how they’re affording food. I couldn’t afford food in Sweden. Like, we’re we’re saving up for when we’re, like, rich,

Malcolm Collins [26:37]:

and then we’ll go to Sweden again.

David Lorentzen [26:40]:

I mean, you’re welcome to stay. We have

Simone Collins [26:42]:

It sounds like a really nice

Malcolm Collins [26:44]:

as everyone can see from this video, we’re the worst at being racist. Like, we hear racial stereotypes, we’re like, well, know, like, actually, we this in context. Like, that’s probably a good way to save money. I’d probably do that too. You know? What I find to be

Simone Collins [26:56]:

interesting, though, is, like, I I’m not I don’t think any of this is racist or biased. I think that, like, it’s interesting to learn how different cultures travel differently and also what you could learn about the the group dynamics. Because as David has pointed out, it’s not all Russians. It’s Russian oligarchs. It’s not all Chinese. It’s these specific Chinese tour buses of people. They’re clearly, like, tour operators that specialize in ultra low cost trips for Chinese people who have zero

Malcolm Collins [27:25]:

No. Hold on. Not ultra low cost because they’re choosing his hotel, which doesn’t seem to be one of the cheaper ones. It seems to be ultra processed.

Simone Collins [27:33]:

Yeah. Like, yeah, ultra processed ultra processed tour operators who are like, we will sugarcoat the entire thing and actually as the white bread of travel.

Malcolm Collins [27:41]:

They want the white bread and only the white bread of travel. The most

Simone Collins [27:45]:

processed Well, no. We we work with these tour operators that do the same thing for people living in Peru and Colombia, etcetera, where it’s like, it’s Europe, but you’ll never have to speak any other language but Spanish. It’s gonna be fine. we’re only gonna see, like, exactly these highlights, and and you you will never need to, like, walk more than 15 feet at a time and, like, that kind of thing. Yeah. And that appeals to a certain host, but it’s like that format and that that’s such an interesting thing. And then the same with, like, look, it’s not, like, an Indian couple traveling or something or, like but specifically, like, this format of Indian travel with families that I’ve never heard of before. Like, we haven’t encountered that. Well, actually, maybe we have. So here’s the thing, David. So when we ran, we’re CEOs of the travel business that we’d acquired earlier through, like, a different time in our careers, the worst scamming we were ever subject to was from Indian travel agencies that worked under ours. Like, we were a host agency, and they would buy travel through us. And we got super screwed over a couple of times. And the the reason it always was was that there would be chargebacks, credit card chargebacks, that someone would book a crap ton of flights. And then sometimes you’d even go on the flights, and then they would charge like, they’d say, oh, that was credit card fraud. And I wonder if, like, who knows? You know, like, one family that sent their, you know, group of like, their family of 12 to to Sweden used our business and then submitted credit card chargebacks. And, like, they’re they’re booking at your hotel, and they’re like, look. We’re four people, and there’s 12 of them. And they booked through our website, and they’re like, look. I will pay you, and they never pay us. And I do wonder, like, if what we noticed, at least on our part, was this clustered around family groups, And it could just be that there are specific subcommunities. Like, this isn’t all of India, but, like, there are very small groups that realize, like, oh, there’s this one small trick. And if I do it exactly this way, I can actually get a ton of money or a vacation to Europe, but, like, basically, functionally not pay for it. And I I wonder about that. It’s very interesting. I feel like in terms of innovation in fraud, there are some great minds at work in India. Innovation in fraud.

Malcolm Collins [30:09]:

Well

David Lorentzen [30:09]:

I mean, they they start teaching them young as I’ve shown with these examples. So it

Simone Collins [30:15]:

it yeah. Well, if you’re exposed to it, yeah, if you normalize to it, if, like, this is this is how we get on a bus. Right? Like, I I like, you’re not gonna be like, oh, that’s wrong. You’re gonna be like, that’s how it works. You have to distract the thing. Yeah. And and that’s I think that’s very interesting. And it’s it’s look. I mean, it it if it works, it works, and you have to develop a system that’s smarter than that. Like, when when our kids pull something over on me, I never blame them. I blame myself. Like, I shouldn’t have left that delicate thing on a table within reach of their grubby little hands because it was my fault now that it’s all broken on the floor because you don’t leave it out. But it sucks that in high trust societies, that has to happen now because presumably, you know, Sweden was nice once. There’s well, you mentioned something. Hold on, though. That, Yes. Yes. There are big training communities. Yeah. Tell tell us about these, David.

David Lorentzen [31:08]:

So, I mean, living this hotel life is it’s incredible, and it’s a healthy lifestyle. It’s a good lifestyle, decent, but it’s very difficult to make a profit. And we’ve had offers to earn millions and millions of dollars, but to turn the hotel into something very, very different, an asylum center.

Simone Collins [31:31]:

For, like, legal asylum seekers from other countries.

David Lorentzen [31:34]:

Yeah. Yeah. So back in 2015, I was a whistleblower for Stefan Molyneux YouTube channel where I broke information about the multimillion dollar refugee industry in Sweden at the time.

Simone Collins [31:50]:

Wow.

David Lorentzen [31:51]:

And where I basically shared the story about about what what actually happens when the Swedish, I think it’s called emergency service in English, rescue service. They gave us a phone call, and they said that, would you like to house 30 Afghans? And you’ll get paid at the time at that time about $320 per night per child and do that year round. Now he received 30 of them. Okay. That’s like, what, 90,090 thousand dollars a day. Crazy. Yeah. It it turns it it basically your most profitable day becomes every day of the year.

Malcolm Collins [32:34]:

Yeah.

David Lorentzen [32:35]:

And most of it is profit.

Simone Collins [32:36]:

And it’s

David Lorentzen [32:37]:

hard to

Simone Collins [32:37]:

say no. Yeah.

David Lorentzen [32:38]:

You’re basically earning millions of dollars to accept mostly male between the age of 14 and 26 Afghan boys Afghan males.

Simone Collins [32:49]:

Wow.

David Lorentzen [32:50]:

Now this village has about 350 people. If that if they were to receive suddenly 30 Afghans, that would be a huge demographic shift, and we would not be able to run a hotel at the same time. And at the at during that time, we were trying to sell the hotel as well, and we had these crazy offers, basically triple the value that

Simone Collins [33:18]:

Oh, because they knew. And they were like, look. I wanna do this. Okay.

David Lorentzen [33:22]:

Okay. There was a whole mania around buying hotels at the time because everyone had heard about these crazy offers from the governments that you can earn millions of dollars housing these refugees. And so when we were trying to sell the hotel for, let’s say, a million dollars, we had literally Russian mafia boss drive his Lamborghini all the way from Stockholm all the way to here. It’s a three hour drive. Come here, offer $3,000,000, triple the value. And then we ask them, okay. What what are you gonna do with it? I mean, we’re gonna turn it into a asylum center. We’re gonna accept that deal. So sorry. No. We can’t do that. We’re we’re only gonna sell it to people who actually wanna run a hotel, wanna run a restaurant, which is very difficult to find the right people. You you can’t just sell it to whoever you want.

Malcolm Collins [34:14]:

I would have sold out my community for a few million dollars. Oh my god. Yeah. I would have

Simone Collins [34:20]:

been like

Malcolm Collins [34:21]:

David, if you were lucky that you’re

Simone Collins [34:23]:

running this hotel with your family.

David Lorentzen [34:26]:

I and and this is something I noticed with when I read because this at eleven years ago, that video received a 100,000 views. And as I was reading through these anarcho capitalist Americans YouTube comments, most of them thought I’d I’d we did wrong. We should have accepted the deal. And I was like, oh my gosh. Shocked because I realized, oh, yeah. That’s because Americans because you move around so much, you don’t form these centuries long communities like we do in Europe.

Malcolm Collins [34:57]:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I wouldn’t have thought I’d just, like, go to another community that’s not fucked up with all your money now. You know? You got money now. So you can live in another small town. It’s really nice.

David Lorentzen [35:06]:

All our friends live here. Family live here. You know, if what happened is that when we received that phone call, like, a few months later, our insurance company called us and asked us if if we have accepted this deal. We had no idea how they found out about it. But somehow rumors came, and they said, if you accept this deal, we’re gonna withdraw your insurance. Because the risk of an asylum center burning down at the time was so high

Simone Collins [35:38]:

that Why?

David Lorentzen [35:39]:

Nobody wanted because when you have a bunch of Afghans move into an area, the property value of everyone living in the vicinity of that goes down to zero.

Simone Collins [35:49]:

Oh.

David Lorentzen [35:49]:

And the crime goes up, and there’s no police station nearby. There’s no police patrols nearby, and there’s literally no, no schools, no education because it’s a very it’s a small village. Like, there’s no Yeah. There’s no actual infrastructure or services nearby. So you’re just gonna have a roaming gang of Afghans in a small village.

Simone Collins [36:09]:

Right. So they have nothing to do. They don’t have jobs. There aren’t job opportunities, really. Yes. Yes. And, also, the industry there is hurting because the the tourists who otherwise would be staying there and supporting local restaurants and creating local jobs aren’t there because the boys are there. Why then why would the government send people there? It seems like a doomed

David Lorentzen [36:30]:

Yes. So this is a story of two strategies on how to integrate people. So one strategy is that you try to spread out all the new immigrants as thinly as possible because then you don’t notice it as much. If they start clustering, they form ghettos, they form segregation, they start forming gangs. Right? So to break that buildup, you ideally want to try to spread them out all across the country. Then you won’t really notice it. They they can’t form gangs. Right?

Simone Collins [37:01]:

Well, yeah, you kind of we were just talking in a previous episode about Denmark’s policy to sort of bust up slums or ghettos, immigrant ghettos. And I guess sure. It it you can’t see it. If there aren’t immigrant ghettos, it doesn’t seem as bad, but I guess this is the counterpoint of that is this is what happens when you bust up the immigrant ghettos but don’t actually deport immigrants. Yes. Immigrants at all. He’s the so Basically, if you break a crime, you’re out. Or sorry. If you Yeah. If you break up the law, you’re out. Yeah.

David Lorentzen [37:33]:

Yeah. And but the problem with trying to spread people out is that it becomes more difficult to integrate them because they need translators, for example. And you maybe only have a few thousand translators across the country. So if you’re spreading out everyone, then your translation cost goes through the roof and won’t even reach these people. They don’t speak English. They don’t speak Swedish or any European language. So you run into these various extreme cost with that, okay, they’re getting isolated, and they’re having struggling integrating. They’re becoming antisocial instead.

Simone Collins [38:07]:

And how can they not, honestly? Like, it’s not a them thing. I I would do the same thing if I were a kid isolated with a bunch of other kids my age, not a way who normally humans live, right, without their parents, without

Malcolm Collins [38:20]:

Yeah.

David Lorentzen [38:20]:

And and you’re probably deeply traumatized and have some Yeah. Serious cultural differences. I mean, who’s

Simone Collins [38:26]:

among us would not turn to a life of crime Yeah.

David Lorentzen [38:29]:

In that instance. But for your integration to be efficient, you have to start concentrating people into areas where you can be more efficient with your human resources so that your translators can translate for a whole group of them.

Simone Collins [38:44]:

Yeah.

David Lorentzen [38:45]:

And that’s when you come to these sort of mini Sweden integration facilities where

Simone Collins [38:52]:

Wait. So they are starting to do this. They are starting to concentrate.

David Lorentzen [38:55]:

Basically have both tools in the toolkit. So they real what what’s happened is that they realized, okay. For some immigrant groups, it makes sense to spread them out and put them out in the country. For example, Ukrainians. You know, they know how to use technology. They know how to use some European languages and English, and they maybe have some profession or skill that is actually useful for the job market. So spreading them out into the country actually works because they have some of the self discipline.

Simone Collins [39:24]:

Yeah. They integrate. They they can get jobs. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, I think most people I’ve we’ve worked with Ukrainians. We’ve talked with yeah. It’s weirdly, like, I think Ukrainians are quite global too, so that helps.

David Lorentzen [39:35]:

Yes. But you have so so that actually works, that strategy. But what doesn’t work is, for example, with Somalians or Afghans where, you know, they don’t maybe not have any schooling at all, and you don’t they don’t have a common language. They don’t even know how to use how to be a Swede and to be western in a western society. Now Sweden is, you know, more automated and more advanced than The US. Like, we have had a cashless societies for decades now. We don’t we don’t have cashiers. We have you know, you you register the product yourself. Right? and we’ve had, you know, articles and incidents where, for example, African migrants start a fire on the floor because they were desperately hungry, and then the fire alarm in the whole apartment goes because they didn’t know how to use a what is it called? Siemens or Electrolux Oven with the digital display. They didn’t know how to use the oven, so they started it with firewood on the floor in the apartment.

Simone Collins [40:41]:

Oh my god. I’ve so been there. This is so sad, but we’ve stayed in some luxury hotels, like, when we were guests of other people where the microwave is so advanced that I’m basically there, man. I’m like, I don’t know how to work this thing. I so I can relate to that, actually. Like, if you haven’t been around certain appliances and you do not know how they work, you’re like,

Malcolm Collins [41:02]:

I’m out of I’m out of options.

Simone Collins [41:04]:

Malcolm, you know that kind of microwave I’m talking about. Right? Like, the drawer microwave. It took me a while to figure those out.

David Lorentzen [41:10]:

So, basically, you realize that with some groups who have not had much exposure to the western way of life,

Simone Collins [41:16]:

Any exposure. Any exposure.

David Lorentzen [41:19]:

They need to learn and study how to buy food in a grocery shop with no cashier, with no cash.

Simone Collins [41:26]:

Yeah. They

David Lorentzen [41:27]:

need to study how to use. Yeah. They need to study how to use an a digital oven in a microwave. Yeah. They need to study how to swim because they’ve lived in a desert their whole life. They need to study these various basic things to function.

Malcolm Collins [41:42]:

Groups where whether or not they live in a desert, they almost never learn to swim.

Simone Collins [41:46]:

Yeah. Yeah.

David Lorentzen [41:47]:

But, you know, Sweden has a 100,000 licks. So, you know, there’s water yeah. So there’s water everywhere.

Malcolm Collins [41:54]:

There’s water all over The US, and there’s some groups that don’t know how to swim. I was just saying it.

David Lorentzen [41:58]:

Yeah. But it but it basically meant that, okay, for for people to even some people to even function in a western society, you basically have to teach them from you go through these various steps. But when you do that, they form gangs. They start clustering amongst each other. And it’s basically like a tutorial, mission at the start of a game. Yeah. You have to complete the tutorial before you can actually play the game. That’s basically what these mini Sweden facilities are to these people. Like, you have to learn the various mechanics of the society.

Simone Collins [42:34]:

And so do people, like, go is it basically, like, school? Like, you you show up in the town, you go through the training, but then you, like, move on to live and work wherever you go.

David Lorentzen [42:43]:

Yeah. So in in in this area that I’ve studied and looked at, like okay. So they have, you know, the the a grocery store that they regularly go to tours with, and they guide them through the shop to show, okay. This is how it works. They have a swimming pool. Pool in the school for these purposes. They have a huge room for ovens where they learn how to cook. Basically, they have created a whole building where they can concentrate all of these essential aspects to basically give them a crash course on how to be western. But when you do that and then you say, okay. Congratulations. You you you now know how to function. You now have the freedom to move

Simone Collins [43:25]:

so many people in America that need this school. Like, I just kinda feel like we all not we all, but, like, societally speaking, nearly every country, regardless of the presence of migrants, needs, like, this. Because to Malcolm’s point, a lot of my friends in high school, like, all the way up to adulthood, never learned how to swim. Yeah. Also never learned how to do their own laundry or cook meals. Like, actually sounds amazing, but also For not

Malcolm Collins [43:53]:

just migraines, but for, like, normal people.

Simone Collins [43:55]:

For actual, like, naturally born people. I that’s it we were just kind of sad. Like, it’s it’s telling that, like, in in Sweden where you’re like, look. Society’s falling apart. People are, like, building fires on, like, the floors of their Apartment. Hotel rooms. I’m like, dude, relatable. That happened in my dorm room freshman year. Like no. And, literally, it was very common for the fire alarms to go off in the middle of the night because, like, some kid was literally burning something in the room.

David Lorentzen [44:23]:

Yeah. But when you do that, okay, you’ve completed your crash course.

Simone Collins [44:26]:

Yes.

David Lorentzen [44:27]:

And then you get the freedom to move wherever you want in Sweden. They basically talk amongst each other. Okay. I don’t know where to go. And then they go look over and then, okay. Where are you going?

Simone Collins [44:38]:

Oh god. Of course. No. Oh, the the integration is failed.

David Lorentzen [44:41]:

Then they all cluster. They all move to these migrant areas with the support community.

Simone Collins [44:46]:

Right? Like, if you were suddenly Afghanistan and sent to Afghanistan culture school and, like, you’d, like, turn to the the the suite right next to you, and you’d be like, where are going, buddy? Yep. Yep. There too.

David Lorentzen [45:00]:

So this basically means that the level of segregation in this country is, like, Jim Jim Crow level.

Simone Collins [45:07]:

Yeah. But totally like, despite all efforts to the contrary.

David Lorentzen [45:11]:

Yep. Yep. It’s just has to do with, okay, how do you integrate people that don’t know how to function? Yeah. You just have to cluster them all together to be efficient with your resources that you have. Uh-huh. Like, you only have an x amount of translators if you and even the But even if you do

Simone Collins [45:30]:

that even if you do that, it doesn’t it doesn’t work.

David Lorentzen [45:34]:

So you you just have to pick your poison. You just have to pick your poison on how to integrate people that are so far from a it’s basically a different planet. Sweden is a different planet to these people. That’s how I

Malcolm Collins [45:45]:

always voted past five.

Simone Collins [45:47]:

So Okay. Yeah.

David Lorentzen [45:48]:

No. That is That is a a tale of two different strategies on how to integrate people. For sales, it makes sense. It makes sense to just spread them out because they can handle the self discipline. They it’s close enough for them to make that jump. For some, the jump is so high and so difficult that they need a helping hand and a crash course and a tutorial. And what do you the problem is that you just don’t you just have to pick your problem with how to integrate Afghans. You’re not gonna get them integrated. you’re just gonna have a disintegration, and you just have to choose which version of it.

Simone Collins [46:26]:

Yeah. Which which I guess is why so many countries are now like, you know what? We’re just not gonna do just not gonna do this.

David Lorentzen [46:33]:

I mean, 10% of the Swedish population can’t read.

Simone Collins [46:38]:

Yeah. Well

David Lorentzen [46:39]:

Literally can’t read.

Simone Collins [46:40]:

Like That’s not

David Lorentzen [46:41]:

A quarter a quarter of the children a few there was a study a few years ago. A quarter of the children in Swedish schools can’t read. Is this is this literally can’t read.

Malcolm Collins [46:50]:

Is is this, like, the native born ones or mostly the migrants?

David Lorentzen [46:53]:

None of the it’s the migrants because they didn’t have a translator. If you’re putting a 15 year old and never gone to school together with 15 year old Swedes that are learning algebra and geometry

Simone Collins [47:03]:

Oh god. That sucks.

David Lorentzen [47:04]:

And they and they don’t speak English and they don’t speak Swedish, then they’re going to learn nothing.

Simone Collins [47:10]:

Yeah.

David Lorentzen [47:10]:

And the only way for them to learn anything is if they start elementary in their own language, cluster, but we didn’t do that. So we have basically a whole generation of immigrants that can’t read, that literally can’t read.

Simone Collins [47:23]:

Yeah. So they’re not they’re not being set up for success. And I it looks like a lot of it just requires actually confronting face to face really, really, really uncomfortable truths. Yeah. And the problem with modern society is that we have a predominating society That that is, like, the number one thing. The one thing that we’re not allowed to do is accept uncomfortable truths. Like, everything else okay.

Malcolm Collins [47:45]:

Sweden. No reason to take some what’s why did Somalian immigrants need to be in Sweden? Aren’t there other African countries they could go to? Like

Simone Collins [47:52]:

Well, that’s the thing. They don’t they don’t accept them. No one like, in in The Middle East, they don’t accept migrants. Right?

David Lorentzen [47:57]:

Like, no one else connection. Strangely enough, Somalians just love going into Scandinavian communities in Minnesota and in the Nordic countries.

Simone Collins [48:06]:

Oh my god. You’re right. Oh my god. You’re right. Yes.

Malcolm Collins [48:09]:

Easy to scam. Something there.

Simone Collins [48:11]:

Yeah. Oh, no. Abuela. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins [48:14]:

Good having you on. This has been this has been really

Simone Collins [48:17]:

yeah. That was very fascinating.

David Lorentzen [48:19]:

I there’s so much more to say on this, but another time.

Simone Collins [48:22]:

Another time. I I’m looking forward to it. So one of these days, we’re gonna come out

Malcolm Collins [48:26]:

and crash

Simone Collins [48:26]:

the for dinner? Had to cook rice on the floor.

Malcolm Collins [48:32]:

I was gonna get rid of mozzarella.

Simone Collins [48:34]:

I was gonna I was gonna, yeah, do bulldog with the mozzarella. Okay. That works for me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Cool. David, it has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for after a long workday coming to share some insider gossip with us. It’s been so top tier. Really loved it. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins [48:51]:

So good night.

Simone Collins [48:52]:

Have I was so, flummoxed by your claims of empty movie theaters. I think a lot of it, Malcolm, honestly, is just people wanna be somewhere air conditioned and look at a big screen. There’s that novelty. I can’t believe IMAX’s are still a thing, though, honestly. How is that possible? Anyway okay. David, I’m recording now, just so you know. I won’t I won’t mess this up. Alright. I’m actively recording. Yes. So you just you’ve been warned. And I I will I’ll kick us off super fast. So you ready?

David Lorentzen [49:26]:

Give me an opportunity then to give an intro to why I can talk about this because

Simone Collins [49:31]:

I will. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops derives 81% of its operating revenue from federal refugee and migration contracts (primarily HHS/Office of Refugee Resettlement). Total grant volume in the Preferred Communities program exploded from near-zero to over $1.2 billion after 2021, timed with Ukraine supplemental funding—yet GAO data shows the majority of that money went to non-Ukrainian populations.

Similar patterns appear across Episcopal Migration Ministries, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Church World Service, and others. Several of these groups cut or threatened to cut resettlement work rather than assist white Afrikaner refugees. Brian also covers race-restricted prenatal/Medicaid programs that exclude non-Black and non-Brown women (potential Civil Rights Act and Equal Protection violations), the fabricated “Chinese EV dumping” narrative (actual direct subsidies ~1.2%), and more.

Effort.news launches with multiple data-driven stories on government grants, religious NGOs, and policy capture. Full investigation and interactive charts at Effort.news. Follow Brian: @BrianChau57.

This is independent, primary-source reporting powered by large public datasets and custom tools—exactly the kind of work traditional media has largely abandoned.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Hello, everyone. We are here with Brian Chow again, who’s putting together a very interesting new project.

[00:00:07] He was actually trending on X either yesterday or the day before for these drops

[00:00:11] Malcolm Collins: And he pitched a few stories that he has found. Like, he, he made an AI company that goes through public records and looks for coincidences and interesting stories, and then digs into it further.

[00:00:24] And so he sends me a number of the really interesting things he found, or he sent it to Simone, because they didn’t wanna, they didn’t wanna s- tell me first. And I was like, “I don’t know- Or maybe because

[00:00:33] Simone Collins: you never check signal ... should we,

[00:00:34] Malcolm Collins: should we do it? Should we do it?” And she goes, “Malcolm, Malcolm, he found out something very interesting about the Catholics.”

[00:00:40] And I was like, “Oh, okay, yeah, let’s have him on.” So let’s- Let’s hope he gets- ... let’s get into it.

[00:00:45] Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. But Brian, first tell, tell us, yeah, like, a, a little bit about what this is and where people can find it, but also what did you find that was, .

[00:00:53] Brian Chau: So there’s a very prominent organization you know, claiming to represent Catholics in the US called the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. What percentage of this organization’s revenue do you think is from refugee and migration contracts from the federal government?

[00:01:10] Simone Collins: Malcolm?

[00:01:11] Malcolm Collins: Oh, my God. I- I mean, it would be crazy if it was over, like, 10.

[00:01:18] Brian Chau: So, so is 10% your guess?

[00:01:21] Malcolm Collins: Yes, that’s my guess.

[00:01:22] Brian Chau: Your guess is 10%. Do you wanna click bait the, the, the viewers to listen more or do you wanna just say the percent?

[00:01:29] Malcolm Collins: What’s the percent? I haven’t seen it.

[00:01:31] Simone Collins: Yeah,

[00:01:31] Brian Chau: say it. Say it, Brian. It’s 81%. 81%.

[00:01:33] Malcolm Collins: 81%. How central is this organization? Like, what, w- are they the, the main bishop’s organization in the United States?

[00:01:40] Brian Chau: Yeah. So US Conference for Cath- and for Catholic Bishops, there’s no, S- so there’s not exactly , a, like, official national organization in the, like, Catholic hierarchy. This is my understanding.

[00:01:55] But this is basically, like, the largest such organization. It’s, like, a membership-based organization for Catholics in the US, and this is the, this is the largest such one

[00:02:06] Simone Collins: Yeah. They’re, they’re nontrivial, and I, I asked Catholic friends of ours because I was like, “I’d never heard of this before.” I’m like, “Well, I don’t know.

[00:02:11] Is this some, like, weird splint?” No, no, they-

[00:02:14] Malcolm Collins: 81% ...

[00:02:14] Simone Collins: they’re well aware of

[00:02:15] Malcolm Collins: it. So, yeah So the, the Catholic Church in the United States okay, so the United States of Catholic Bishops is the main and official organization for Catholic bishops in the United States. It is the episcopal conference of the Catholic Church in the US, including the US Virgin Islands.

[00:02:28] It brings together the active bishops of the Latin church diocese and the Eastern Catholic some things so that they can exercise certain blah, blah, blah. Its national membership org- Yeah, so it’s the ma- it’s the main one. Yes. Wait, this is so crazy. Th- so are

[00:02:44] Simone Collins: they- I think tithing they, they received, like, funding from the Catholic Church from

[00:02:48] Malcolm Collins: what I understand, too.

[00:02:48] To understand that the, the, the, the majority of their revenue is coming from refugee-based, basically scams on the US government, I guess. W- would most of this be coming from the US government?

[00:02:59] Brian Chau: Yeah, so, so all of this is based on federal HHS funding. I believe all of it is under the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

[00:03:07] The main grant program that I’ve covered is exclusively from the Office of Refugee Resettlement. All these are classified as, as refugee and migration services. That’s the specific code under the federal grant system

[00:03:19] Simone Collins: It’s really crazy. So no,

[00:03:21] Malcolm Collins: I wanna, I wanna take a, take a, an aside here to sort of frame this for people

[00:03:24] Brian Chau: It, it’s been, it’s been five minutes and you’ve already been truth nuked.

[00:03:27] Malcolm Collins: Because I think a lot of people do not realize how much the Catholic Church upper class, the cardinals, the pope, and, and the bishops are profiting from the stripping of the Catholic Church, right? Like, as they lower the numbers of people, like you’re like, “Well, if the Roman Mass is more popular, why aren’t they doing it?”

[00:03:49] If they can get a diocese to, like, super low numbers, then they can sell off all the stuff in the diocese and make a lot of money, and they’ve been selling these very frequently recently- Oh ... to become [00:04:00] mosques. And what’s interesting is they’ll take these old Catholic institutions and the SPSX, multiple times, has raised the money to buy these old, you know, cathedrals and, and Catholic schools and stuff like that, but they refuse to sell to the SSPX, and then they convert them into mosques, and they, and they run off with the money.

[00:04:17] But it’s not just there. It’s also that they benefit from the leftist policies through bringing in just endless waves of immigration. And so if you’re wondering, like, why is this being pushed so hard for by the Vatican, ‘cause they have written a number of things about like, “No, you need unlimited immigration into Europe and into the United States,” is th- that they are directly fi- not just financially benefiting from this, but it is their primary source of income.

[00:04:41] But continue.

[00:04:42] Brian Chau: Yeah, you can pull up the auditing here. Actually, what you just said might explain something else interesting that I found. So there’s two revenue numbers here. There’s a smaller one and, and a bigger one. 81% is, is the fraction of the smaller one, which excludes net assets released from restrictions, which is this, like, interesting thing.

[00:05:04] It’s not, like, necessarily revenue, but it’s this kind of internal transfer of assets. And that was actually also a massive amount. It was like $80 million. Oh,

[00:05:13] Simone Collins: no.

[00:05:14] Brian Chau: Oh, no. Oh, no. The, the total revenue is, is a bit over 300 million, and so, so it’s, it’s around 220 million without the net assets released from re- from restrictions, and 180 million of that is from the MRS Migration and Refugee Services contracts.

[00:05:29] So around 81% of the total, not including the assets released from restrictions. But the assets released from restrictions, I never really, like... i’ve been kind of rushing to, to do launch and, and get the story published, but I never really fully looked into what the assets released from restrictions were.

[00:05:45] And it might be that. It might be what you’re talking about

[00:05:48] Malcolm Collins: Well, something that makes this story a little interesting for me, so I’m, I’m digging a bit deeper on this, is I remember that they shut down one of their major immigration branches right when the Afrikaners, the white Afrikaners were looking to immigrate to the United States.

[00:06:02] Now maybe-

[00:06:02] Brian Chau: Yeah, yeah, that actually that intersects with the story. Oh. Because the, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, that, that was the org that, I believe they, they cut ties with the specific refugee resettlement services under Trump. There, there was this different organization that kind of picked up the grant where it left off called the the, the acronym is CCUSA.

[00:06:23] Let me just quickly look up what the organization is. Catholic Charities USA. Yeah. So, so, so that might have been a little overstated, but yeah, that, that, that ties into the story.

[00:06:35] Malcolm Collins: Okay, continue. Just, just go with the story. I wanna hear the whole thing.

[00:06:38] Brian Chau: Yeah. So, so we can pull it up. There’s a lot of beautiful graphs.

[00:06:42] Know you guys love the graphs. We love the graphs. We all love the graphs here. You can put up here the grant size by start month graph, and let me know what you see in this graph. Should, should be the graph that says grant size by start month.

[00:06:54] Preferred committees 1.2. Yeah, go, go

[00:06:57] Malcolm Collins: to grant size by start month one.

[00:06:59] Simone Collins: Oh, this should be the- Should be the, should be the

[00:07:00] Brian Chau: first page

[00:07:01] Brian. Yeah.

[00:07:01] Simone Collins: Yeah. So what we’re looking at is basically a graph of on the y-axis, grant size, x-axis, grant start month and year. So it’s functionally zero, 2007, 2008, ‘09, ‘10, ‘13. Tiny, tiny little bit in 2014. Then again in 2017 a little higher. Yeah,

[00:07:22] Brian Chau: that’s around 16 million- Oh ... in uh, in 2016. In

[00:07:26] Simone Collins: 2016.

[00:07:26] Brian Chau: And then it jumps to 1.2 billion total, and each individual grant size is around 100 to $150 million in 20- So what happened in

[00:07:37] Simone Collins: 2022?

[00:07:37] ‘Cause sud- yeah, suddenly, like it’s like basically this is a chart of just sudden and weird activity out of nowhere in 2022.

[00:07:42] Brian Chau: Yeah, it’s, it’s booming. This, this is the, this is the out of control exponential growth of the of the grant sizes. I was gonna draw the exponential curve here, you know, at this rate, you know, preferred communities program will, will consume all world GDP by 2030.

[00:07:57] It’s a little joke about the, the, the [00:08:00] AI, AI discourse, but So this was like right at the end of COVID You’re right at the end

[00:08:04] Simone Collins: of

[00:08:04] Brian Chau: COVID ... a bit after the end of COVID, and it, what it really consi- coincides with is the Ukraine war. You can actually see the systematic way-

[00:08:13] Malcolm Collins: COVID, by the way- And you, and-

[00:08:14] for people who don’t know, caused by a Catholic. Anthony Fauci is a Catholic for people who don’t know. Oh, he is? Biden is a Catholic. Oh,

[00:08:22] Simone Collins: God.

[00:08:23] Malcolm Collins: Oh. Just putting this out there, guys. If, if

[00:08:26] Simone Collins: COVID. Making

[00:08:27] Malcolm Collins: political here. I was like- Because we have a good Catholic fan base. We like our Catholic fans. It’s just the church and some of your members , are, you know, kinda sus.

[00:08:36] Simone Collins: Oh, my God. Okay, great.

[00:08:37] Brian Chau: So I jumped ahead a little bit here, but here you can see the, the timeline. Oh looks like there’s a little bit of an issue in the prints one. The numbers are certainly in the right box on the actual website.

[00:08:49] But here you can see the grant expansion amounts, and this is actually a very common pattern not just in the Office of Refugee Resettlement, but across the entire US government-

[00:08:59] Malcolm Collins: Mm ...

[00:08:59] Brian Chau: where there are legal limits to how large the grants can be. In this case- Mm ... 4.5 million a year. Obviously by the end of, you know, this, this program it was not five, 4.5 million a year, not even close per grant.

[00:09:13] And it, you know, it was a, a, up to 160 something million across s- five years. And how that happened was that there’s systematic grant expansion. You apply for a grant for a much smaller amount, and then you apply for an extension of that grant by, you know, essentially 100 times the original amounts.

[00:09:34] Oh. The specific funding package that was tied to this expansion was kind of interesting. So this, after the start of the Ukraine war HHS got 3.7 billion for refugee resettlement. And, and, and you, you would in your mind you would think, “Okay, that kind of makes sense. There’s U- there’s the Ukraine war, Ukrainian refugees actually fleeing conflict.”

[00:09:53] And so, so you take that money and you would use it to help resettle Ukrainian refugees. Maybe you’re for that, maybe you’re against that, but that’s a, at least a story that kind of makes sense. What actually happened so based on a government accountability office report 47% of that, around 1.79 billion went to it was estimated to go to Ukrainian beneficiaries.

[00:10:12] Okay ... they were able to track down 982 million of that that was definitely allocated to Ukrainian refugees. That means the majority of the, the funding package 1.99 billion went to, as they describe it, other populations eligible for OR ser- services. Oh. So the Ukraine war package, part of the Ukraine war bill that was passed as the Ukraine war bill more than half of that

[00:10:34] Malcolm Collins: Went to Somalians

[00:10:35] Brian Chau: Actually, yeah.

[00:10:36] No. To- Or

[00:10:38] Malcolm Collins: the Catholic Church

[00:10:38] Brian Chau: Was not related to, to, to the Ukrainian refugees at all. And even- This is

[00:10:43] Malcolm Collins: wild. Well,

[00:10:43] Brian Chau: I want to

[00:10:44] Malcolm Collins: highlight for people, like, where, where we are with this. Imagine if a Jewish president was elected, right? Like, first imagine if Fauci was Jewish, what, what, you know, Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes would be saying right now instead of a Catholic.

[00:10:58] Imagine if we elected a, Because all of this happened under the Biden presidency, who was a Catholic, right? This is why the church fights so hard against right-wing causes. I think a lot of people think, oh, it’s just... It, it, it is ideological, but it’s also financial, right? Th- is, is what we’re seeing here, and this is amazing that you got this data.

[00:11:18] And it’s so structurally, And again, when I’m like, “No, we’re, we’re pro-individual Catholics,” the, the analogy I always make here is I’m always very confused by it. It’s like you have a friend who’s like a henchman for like an obvious super villain and, and he’s like a really nice guy. And you’re like-

[00:11:34] why, why do you, why do you hench for this guy, right? Like- What a henchman ... he’s actually evil. Like, like transparently it’s, it’s, his, it’s his motto is like, “I do evil.” But anyway, continue.

[00:11:46] Speaker: Awesome. We are back, dude oh, I will be [00:12:00] there.

[00:12:37] Brian Chau: Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, I’m a, I’m a huge fan of, like, almost every Russian that I meet. Like Pavel, you know, amazing.

[00:12:44] Yeah. But like, you know, the Russian government, not a, not a huge fan. Not a huge fan. Yeah, I’m

[00:12:49] Malcolm Collins: the same way. I, I like, I like pretty much every Russian I’ve, I, I’ve met. But I, I also- Yeah,

[00:12:54] Simone Collins: actually Russians are weirdly cool

[00:12:56] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Same with Chinese people, for example. Nobody ever gets confused around the, with like Chinese people thinking you’re anti-Chinese person because you’re against the CCP, right?

[00:13:04] But like, I don’t, I don’t know why like Chinese people still s- the, the, if y- I guess if you actively support the CCP-

[00:13:11] Simone Collins: You kind of don’t get to not actively support the CCP ... No, you

[00:13:14] Malcolm Collins: do if you’re in another country, right? Like, but I- I know ... I guess it’s, it’s, it’s harder because like if you’re a Catholic you still have to be in submission to the Magisterium.

[00:13:22] And, you know, your money goes to this if you’re tithing, so.

[00:13:25] Simone Collins: Whereas in contrast, if you’re

[00:13:27] Brian Chau: an American- Yeah, although it’s, it’s interesting because it, it kind of is the other way around. So, so if you keep going in the article I, I pulled the audit statements for 2023 and 2024 from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

[00:13:44] Hmm. So you can see that the, the grant amounts, this is where the 81.8% number comes from.

[00:13:50] Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:50] Brian Chau: Government contracts and grants revenue, and it’s c- clarified later on that all of that exclusively comes from migration and refugee services. That’s 180 million. It’s around 81 per- percent of the total revenue, not including assets released from restrictions.

[00:14:05] And actually s- around 13 million of that, 13.4 million, goes to paying salaries for, for, for USCCB members. So a lot of their around a third of their total like employee salaries, taxes, and benefits are being paid out of this program.

[00:14:23] Simone Collins: Wow.

[00:14:23] Malcolm Collins: Being paid by you the taxpayer. Like it, it, it, this is the thing when we talk about like parasitic religious organizations and stuff like this that make it very difficult to, even if the individual members are nice, to allow to set up, operate, or allow them to have positions of power within your government when, when they’re milking us dry with stuff like this.

[00:14:44] And it’s, it’s one of these groups that we don’t even that I, that I think a lot of people, maybe on our channel we talk about it more, but like this is horrifying. Continue.

[00:14:53] Brian Chau: Yeah. So, so if you go to, Actually a few pages back. So you can see how these, these grants were scaled up. I have both the ordinary, you know, linear scale and the log scale here.

[00:15:06] Malcolm Collins: Hmm.

[00:15:07] Brian Chau: And, and this is, I think the more... The, the most important, like, systematic pattern is this trend of grant expansion. I’ll be doing another story. This, this one’s not, not ready yet. It’s a, it’s, it’s this massive story where we saw something very similar and up to an even bigger number, a number 10 times as much with with Medicaid as well.

[00:15:28] Simone Collins: Oh, no. No, no, no. And

[00:15:29] Brian Chau: so, th- there’s this systematic strategy of applying for awards, and I think that the accountability measures that did exist in the United States I, I think they’re actually, like, pretty good for, for this even though there’s a loophole which is that it set initial grant limits, right?

[00:15:47] Hmm. It set initial limits to, to the grants, and the way that this was circumvented by the agencies was that it’s almost this, like, kind of silly, like, software bug where you can kind of apply for a grant and then you can o- [00:16:00] you can expand the grants- Yeah, yeah.

[00:16:01] Malcolm Collins: You mentioned this already ...

[00:16:02] Brian Chau: 100 times the original amount.

[00:16:04] Simone Collins: It- 100 times? ...

[00:16:05] Brian Chau: it’s this pattern. Yeah, yeah. It, it’s this, like, crazy pattern a, 100 times in some of these in- individual grants, and then at a, at a collective level around roughly I guess also ar- around 100 times. From around 60 million total to around 1.2 billion total. And a lot of that goes into as you were saying direct support of either pro-asylum policies and, and opposition to, to Trump’s statements.

[00:16:30] So you can see in this- I did wanna- ... page here. Oh, God. There’s this graph. This is every official statement by, by each of these organizations-

[00:16:38] Simone Collins: Oh ...

[00:16:38] Brian Chau: about, you know, Trump or Trump

[00:16:40] Malcolm Collins: policies. What, what, what I found very interesting about this is this isn’t just the main one. It looks like all, all the Catholic organizations are involved in this.

[00:16:47] You

[00:16:48] Brian Chau: know, like- Yeah, and it’s not just Catholics. So, so there’s organizations... A- and to, to me at least, I think it’s very important to de- delineate between, like, a lot of the time the, the membership of of not just the Catholic Church but, but all, all of these church, churches, it’s, it’s actually not just them.

[00:17:02] There are many- Yeah, so wait ... religious denominations that have groups- Episcopal Migration Ministries. Well, let, let’s see what religions are- ... which represent them or claim to represent them but are really, like overwhelmingly funded by these mi- migration contracts. So, Church World Service, Episcopal Migration Ministries.

[00:17:17] Of course, there’s been a lot of controversy recently around Episcopalians a- and, and you know, their church leadership. Yeah. Lutheran- They were the ones who shut down their

[00:17:25] Malcolm Collins: entire thing over... rather

[00:17:27] Simone Collins: than help, No, who split off, right? ... white supremacists. There was just a split-off group, right?

[00:17:30] Brian Chau: Yeah, and, and then there, there, there’s Chayes which claims to represent Jewish values.

[00:17:35] So, there, there’s a lot of religious dom- denominations whose leadership or, or, you know, who- whose the, the, the organizations which claim to be their leaders are, are majority receiving these grants. And you can go on-

[00:17:47] Malcolm Collins: Episcopal Migration Ministries, how, what... Well, I mean, the, the-

[00:17:50] Brian Chau: Yeah ...

[00:17:50] Malcolm Collins: the, I think a lot of this also shows the rot within, well, I mean, Episc- are, are the Episcopal Migration Ministries Episcopals or do they mean Episcopal Catholics?

[00:18:01] Simone Collins: Also, one thing I’m curious about is- Christian Ministries ... because I, I, when I i- initially looked it up, I don’t remember getting a really satisfactory answer. Do you, did you get any color on what- Oh, it’s the Episcopal Church.

[00:18:12] Brian Chau: Okay. It’s it’s the Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Advocacy program of the Episcopal Church.

[00:18:17] Oh,

[00:18:17] Simone Collins: okay.

[00:18:17] Brian Chau: Yeah, it’s the Episcopal Church. I remember now, actually. So if you go to the statements section- Yeah ... there’s actually a letter from the leadership of the Episcopal Migration Min- Ministries that was published by the Episcopal Church. So I, I was actually very curious about this, of how much these organizations of the Episcopal Migration Ministry specifically, how much that represented the official positions of the church.

[00:18:42] And it seems to be a pretty direct representation, because this was published on the Episcopal on the Episcopal Church website, the statement from the Episcopal Migration Ministries, which appears which appears to be the kind of like subcomponent of, of the Episcopal Church focused on migration

[00:19:00] Malcolm Collins: And so what, what does it say?

[00:19:03] Brian Chau: Yeah, so, Oh ... yeah, it, it’s on the screen right now.

[00:19:06] Yeah, so that I can- “The Episcopal Church. I’m writing with some significant news about Episcopal Migration Ministries organization that leads Episcopal Church’s Refugee Resettlement Ministry.

[00:19:13] Since January, the previous bipartisan US Refugee Admissions Program, which, in, in which we participate, has essentially shut down. Virtually no new refugees have arrived, hundreds of staff and resettlement agencies around the country have been laid off, and funding for resettling refugees who have already arrived has been uncertain.

[00:19:28] Then, just over two, two weeks ago, the federal government informed Episcopal Migration Ministries that under the terms of our federal grant, we are expected to ref- resettle Afrikaners from South Africa whom the US government has classified as refugees. In light of our church’s steadfast commis- commitment to racial justice and reconciliation-

[00:19:44] Simone Collins: Ah

[00:19:44] Brian Chau: and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of South, in Southern Africa, we will, we’re not able to take this step. Accordingly, we have determined that by the end of the fiscal feder- federal fiscal year, we’ll conclude our refugee resettlement grant agreements with the US federal government. I want to be very clear about why we made this decision and what we [00:20:00] believe lies ahead for E- Episcopal Migration Ministries’ w- vital work.

[00:20:03] It has been painful to watch one group of refugees selected in highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years. I’m sha- saddened and ashamed that many of the refugees who, who are being denied entrance to the United States are brave people who worked alongside our military in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now face danger at home because of their service to our co- country.”

[00:20:23] So on and so forth. So they

[00:20:24] Malcolm Collins: literally shut down- Other groups as well ... the entire scam rather than accidentally help white people.

[00:20:29] Brian Chau: Yeah. And, and I think there, there’s a small correction I wanna make. This one was the one that was more explicit about connection and disconnecting their funding due to due to- Yeah, yeah

[00:20:38] the,

[00:20:38] Malcolm Collins: the, the African refugees The Catholic one didn’t say that’s why they were shutting

[00:20:40] Brian Chau: it down. Well, the Catholic ones- They just shut it- Yeah, the Catholic ones also- ... at the same time ... disconnected their funding. The, the funding I think got transferred to Catholic Charities USA, so I think it wasn’t a total, you know, disconnect.

[00:20:50] But that, that one was not the one that was explicitly about the S- South African resettlement issue.

[00:20:54] Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah, but they didn’t, they didn’t say it was. It just happened at the same time.

[00:20:58] Brian Chau: Yeah, it happened around roughly the same time, yeah.

[00:21:00] Malcolm Collins: Which-

[00:21:00] Simone Collins: What exactly were they doing? So y- you mentioned, for example advocating for certain policy.

[00:21:06] But were they actually on the ground helping refugees find apartments? Like, what exactly were they getting paid to do per the preferred settlement program?

[00:21:17] Brian Chau: Yeah. So, so a lot of this was finding housing, actually like physically relocating refugees. So specifically or, or, you know, This gets a little fuzzy as well because we know that not all of the people served by these programs in the by the respective churches are actually people who have refugee status.

[00:21:38] But at least nominally a- and there are actually other grants as well, so it’s kind of mixed in so that we- Even though this specific grant is earmarked for refugee services, or at least, you know, that’s the purpose of the grant we don’t know how much of this in practice goes towards people who have refugee status versus or other kinds of migrants.

[00:22:01] And there are other grants that they receive that are legally, like, allowed to be used for other migrants, but it’s all sort of mixed in into, into the same few programs.

[00:22:10] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:22:11] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Okay. Oh, and for people who aren’t familiar with what the Episcopal Church is, because I think some people could hear that and they could think it’s just a, a generic Protestant church.

[00:22:20] When the Catholic Church broke off from the English church the version of the Protestants that wanted to continue to still worship as if they were Catholic using all of the iconography and everything like that, they became the Anglicans. And when the Anglicans came to the United States, they became the Episcopals.

[00:22:38] So they are a, a mirror of the... Pretty much I think where we’re seeing this is in, in, in all of the high church sort of religious institutions with- within the United States.

[00:22:49] Simone Collins: So you’re just saying Episcopals are like the Diane Catholics. We don’t quite call them

[00:22:51] Brian Chau: Catholics, but they’re Catholics.

[00:22:54] Malcolm Collins: Oh no. Look, their churches are all fancy. Oh, no. They, they got all the, the, the fancies.

[00:22:58] Simone Collins: Idolatrous churches. Yeah, they- Oh, the scandal.

[00:23:03] Malcolm Collins: Scandal. But yeah, a bunch of... Oh, and look who, who we got here as well, Simone, the Lutherans.

[00:23:08] Simone Collins: Oh, great. You- Yeah.

[00:23:10] Malcolm Collins: You know my thoughts that that’s where

[00:23:12] Simone Collins: Lyman Stone comes from.

[00:23:12] Yes, we, we know how you feel about the Lutherans. Well, Brian,

[00:23:17] Brian Chau: you just- Is Brian’s thoughts on the Lutherans formed by Lyman Stone or, or, or is it the other way around?

[00:23:22] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, right.

[00:23:23] Simone Collins: Oh, no comment. We love- Yeah, you, you would think that would- We love Lyman Stone ...

[00:23:28] Brian Chau: Lu- you would think that would make you guys more favorable to the Lutheran Church, but maybe not.

[00:23:34] Simone Collins: Yeah, you’d think that, yeah, the, the heavy- The- ... you know, Protestant

[00:23:37] Brian Chau: nature ... yeah, but, but you can see here vast majority, like nine- 90-plus percent in some of these cases, of their revenue come from these migration services grants. And so they are-

[00:23:48] Simone Collins: That’s so... Do you think a part of this is that they just don’t have tithing parishioners anymore, and so the fundamental business model of being a religious institution today has changed?

[00:23:57] And the surviving religious institutions that [00:24:00] have non-trivial infrastructure and bureaucracy have to basically become de facto government NGOs, like, getting these grants? Yeah, it’s kind of interesting. Like, what, what

[00:24:08] Brian Chau: is going on? Like, if you’re thinking of it from, like, a, a, a mergers and acquisitions perspective, it’s like, okay, what do, what do, what did they have?

[00:24:15] They, they have churches in, in communities. A lot of these communities are shrinking. Mm-hmm. Like if I were to give the, the positive case for this, is that there is a kind of business synergy there, right? Where you have like, you, you have land, you have like at least some amount of parishioners that, that, that can work and, you know, theoretically help people settle in.

[00:24:36] And so it’s not it’s not like out of the, out of question to say, you know, to be fair to them, to say like, “Oh, this is a, a service that they would be somewhat competent in, in, in providing.” So that I think is fair. But especially when you get to the political statements and it’s like, you know, it’s, it’s kind of like saying like, you know, you know, of course people will, will talk about this as like the most common example, but if defense contractors were kind of like commonly like paraded out by the media every time there was a scandal over defense, and they were taken as a credible, you know, neutral source of saying like, you know, the, the, the fact that there’s opposition to more, more wars and more defense contracts is a moral outrage, you know, it, it would be at least a little suspect, right?

[00:25:25] Hmm. And, and that’s why I think the, the, the angle here, where it’s like, okay, you can provide these services. In, in many cases maybe you’re, you know, maybe that’s a policy we don’t wanna be funding, maybe it’s a policy we do wanna be funding, you know. You can have a debate over that. But if your primary source of income is coming from migration contractors, then you should not be taken as a credible source either morally or, or kind of, factually on you know, migration policy by the media, which often very uncritically is what happens here.

[00:25:56] These organizations will come out, they’ll, they’ll def- denounce the Trump migration policies and there will be no mention whatsoever of the, the majority, you know, stake in migration contracting revenue that all these organizations have.

[00:26:11] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That is wild. Well, and it also shows why for a lot of these high church iterations of Christianity, the motivation that they have to create sort of the, a, you know, a, a leftist bureaucrat state because they have such an easy time sipping from it, right?

[00:26:29] You know, the, the like, well like ticks, like parasites. You know, they call it the swamp. And that the-

[00:26:34] Brian Chau: Well, this, this is a fascinating problem, right? We, we kind of still don’t know why. We don’t know how the cycle starts. Is it the bureaucracy that causes the leftism or the leftism- Yeah ... that causes the bureaucracy?

[00:26:43] And, Maybe it’s both, right?

[00:26:46] Simone Collins: Well, and also, like, to what, how, how much, are you aware of how much of the migrant resettlement or preferred community programs revenue or, like, grant revenue went to, or sorry, grant money went to religious institutions to execute it? Because something that also surprises me is there’s kind of this reputation among leftist YouTubers that I listen to, for example, that like, “Well, religious conservatives are, you know, they’re like the bad guy, they’re not help...

[00:27:12] You know, we need to help immigrate immigrants, we need to help migrants.” And, and they would never think that this huge portion of people actually out there helping migrants resettle in the United States are the very religious institutions that they demonize. So I, I’m wondering, like, how, how much- Well, I mean,

[00:27:28] Malcolm Collins: the institutions are entirely captured, Simone.

[00:27:30] Like-

[00:27:31] Simone Collins: Well, I’m, I’m aware of that, but they aren’t. I’m just wondering how much of the migrant resettlement is being done by religious institutions versus just other nonprofits. Yeah,

[00:27:39] Brian Chau: it’s not exclusively. It’s a bit over half. It might be 60%. Oh, that’s

[00:27:43] Simone Collins: a lot. No, that’s-

[00:27:44] That’s huge.

[00:27:45] Brian Chau: Yeah. But there are, there are other large recipients.

[00:27:49] The, the largest recipient, I, I, I believe, at least based on the terms of the initial contract, was USCCB which, which was 164 million, I believe. Let me quickly [00:28:00] double-check that , Church World Service, 162 million. Lutheran Immigration Refugee Service, 159 million.

[00:28:05] USCCB, 141 million. Episcopal Migration Ministry is 80 million. A- and that’s about half the pool. So, so the entire pool was just over $1.2 billion.

[00:28:18] Simone Collins: Okay. Wow. Yeah. No, that’s, that is, that is non-trivial. That just... Yeah. What surprises me first off is just knowing that the Catholic Church has such a big specialty in helping m- helping migrants resettle.

[00:28:29] Two, that this much money is going out to this, and that also this grant expansion trick, I love it. My gosh. I mean, I, I hate it obviously, but like, it makes sense. We have won government contracts through some business things we’ve worked on in the past, and the amount of oversight once you’ve won them is, is kind of atrociously low and, and very sloppy.

[00:28:51] And m- the-

[00:28:52] Brian Chau: Yeah, it’s all concentrated on this bidding process, right?

[00:28:55] Simone Collins: Yes. It’s... Well, it’s- And that’s what makes sense from an incentive model ... but the bidding process is extremely corrupt. It, it’s, it’s, it’s l- it’s corrupt and it’s loaded, and it’s not actually taken that seriously. And then once

[00:29:05] Brian Chau: you win- But it’s corrupt in an interesting way.

[00:29:06] There, there’s actually an in progress story that, that I’m reporting out on this. It’s corrupt in an interesting way- Mm ... which is actually that there is a lot of oversight, and that oversight is kind of selective. It’s, i- it’s sometimes applied as, as, as a weapon or an effective tool to keep people out.

[00:29:18] It’s

[00:29:19] Simone Collins: performative oversight. It’s like, “Look, we did all the right things, and just happened to give it to our person who we chose ahead of time.”

[00:29:26] Brian Chau: Yeah. I, I think that’s true in part. But it, it’s also true that like, it creates a number of check boxes where you can just say like, “Actually, these new competitors do not fill out the proper check boxes.”

[00:29:40] So, so, so it is this like somewhat procedurally effective gate keeping mechanism.

[00:29:45] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:46] Brian Chau: But once that... Y- you’re, you’re right that once that grant approves is approved, there’s very little recourse. And, and there’s very little that, that you can actually do to, to continue applying oversight or, or to request further information.

[00:30:00] It’s, it- it’s this very sort of one-way door.

[00:30:05] Simone Collins: It’s really s- I, I just, I, I don’t know. It horrifies me. And now that I know that there’s addit- this additional way that people are getting a ton of extra money- Yeah ... re- it really freaks me out. So this is fascinating. Where can people find the article? And like, what, what is- Yeah,

[00:30:18] Brian Chau: Effort.news.

[00:30:20] Simone Collins: What?

[00:30:21] Brian Chau: Effort.news.

[00:30:23] Simone Collins: Effort

[00:30:23] Brian Chau: dot is it live now? That, that will not be up at the time of recording- Okay ... but it will be up at the time of releasing this. The launch is August 10th-

[00:30:29] Malcolm Collins: Do you

[00:30:29] Brian Chau: have any other fun findings that you can give as like

[00:30:32] Malcolm Collins: summaries for people that they can dig deeper on?

[00:30:34] Simone Collins: Oh, he has other fun findings.

[00:30:35] Brian Chau: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. There is a ton of stuff that, that we’re launching. We’re launching with between five to seven stories depending on how much time I have to, to, to typeset the other stories later today. But there, there is a lot there. There is foreign interference by the British government pushing censor- censorship laws in the United States.

[00:30:57] There is this one I think is one that you guys will also find really delightful. Were you guys aware of that, like, degrowth letter that was going around a few months ago? Mm-mm. No. I think a month ago. There, there was this, this degrowth letter. A lot of people made fun of it because it was like, the headline was like we’ve...

[00:31:14] “the economists have done the math, you know, we need degrowth,” or something like that. It, that’s not the exact quote. But, but of course, like, economists were, were, like, dunking on this because y- of course most economists do not believe that we need degrowth. But this organization was funded by a number of European NGOs who were founded by a- and who receive the majority of their money from literal 19th century heirs.

[00:31:38] Literally, like, people whose, like, great-great-grandfather started, like, an oil business in, like, the fucking 1800s and are now s- like, donating their, like, dead great-great-grandfather’s money to, like, fund degrowth in Europe.

[00:31:54] Malcolm Collins: God.

[00:31:55] Simone Collins: That checks out. Yeah, that, that makes a lot

[00:31:56] Malcolm Collins: of sense. That class that we’ve talked about is one of the most ideologically [00:32:00] captured classes.

[00:32:00] Yes. God, imagine if we had rich people who, who wanted to fund us.

[00:32:03] Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah,

[00:32:04] Brian Chau: it actually, it actually makes me respect the American socialists more. There’s a large American foundation that’s also funding some of these projects called the Omidyar Network. And even the socialists in the United States make their own money.

[00:32:20] They, they actually founded eBay. So, so, so even, even the socialists in, in America are more hardworking than the, than the socialists in, in Europe

[00:32:30] Simone Collins: We can take pride in that at least. Yes, that is, that is somewhat encouraging. Some of the socialists, Brian. I mean, you know, let’s not be too generous.

[00:32:38] Brian Chau: Yeah, at least the- Yeah

[00:32:40] at least the, at least the donors, right? Yes, the donors. This is- You know, it, it’s actually a lot more admirable, I think. If you’re, if you’re like an, an heir to like a 19th century fortune and that’s what you’re spending your money on, it’s actually like, I think, a totally different valence, you know, than, than if you a- actually were, were, were legitimately successful, right?

[00:32:57] And then you decide to spend your money on, on, on policies. I mean, I don’t agree with those policies, but it’s actually like a lot more respectable, at least in my view. We have a, we have a, also in the, in the launch, we have a race-based Medicare rationing. Do you wanna talk about race-based Medicare rationing?

[00:33:13] Simone Collins: Yeah, I thought that that was- We’re

[00:33:14] Brian Chau: still doing it ...

[00:33:14] Simone Collins: really interesting. They

[00:33:16] Brian Chau: are. Yeah, let’s talk about that. Yeah, it’s

[00:33:16] Malcolm Collins: about Nate and McCall. Yeah. Talk about race-based Medicare rationing. What did you find in that?

[00:33:20] Brian Chau: Sure. We can pull that up. Let’s,

[00:33:23] Simone Collins: Yeah, this is the other article you sent to me, Brian, right?

[00:33:25] And this, this is actually a, a pro-natalist story too because-

[00:33:28] Brian Chau: Yeah. Oh, yeah, the, the, the race-based natalism policy.

[00:33:31] Simone Collins: This one was crazy, too. W- with the punchline being-

[00:33:34] Brian Chau: I can provide more proper typesetting ...

[00:33:34] Simone Collins: that people who were not basically Black or brown broadly were being denied in some cases, like prenatal services because they were not Black or brown, which is race-based discrimination of w- with, with federally funded programs, Mm

[00:33:49] which is super not okay to do. Like technically, like not, not legal to do, but it’s still happening.

[00:33:55] Brian Chau: Yeah. So, so this is against the Equal Protection Clause of the, the 14th Amendment and the the Civil Rights Act. But it was not enforced until very recently. There is a chance that we might actually get something from this because I, I talk about this in the article.

[00:34:10] It’s a policy that’s changed very recently in the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.. It, it might be fun to talk about how I got some of these stories.

[00:34:19] Yeah.

[00:34:19] Simone Collins: I,

[00:34:20] Brian Chau: I would really like to know that- It was mostly like taking large federal data sets and then using some modified LM tools, really more so from a cost perspective. I think you could theoretically do this if you’re, if you’re just using one of the, the vanilla models, but it’ll cost you more and take you a lot longer.

[00:34:35] I’m basically saying, like, “Find me a story.” It’s like, fin- find newsworthy material- Really? Wait, you’re

[00:34:40] Simone Collins: not even like, “I want you to look in this data set for this specific thing”? You’re just like, “I don’t know. Do you think... Do you see anything interesting?”

[00:34:47] Brian Chau: Yeah. In some ways it’s a lot more open-minded way to do journalism, right?

[00:34:52] Simone Collins: Yeah ... I mean, yeah, but, like, dude.

[00:34:54] Brian Chau: I think a lot of the stories will be right-wing, because, like, this is not new information. This is stuff that happened, like, five years ago or more, right? Most of these grants for the first story were issued in 2021, so you could’ve reported this in 2021. Conservative media I mean, like, like it or not, and of course, like, The New York Times is biased and so on, but I think the left-wing stories are kind of, like, actually, actually get reported out.

[00:35:17] I think that’s the thing. So I think even though, like, I was not going into this with a, with an angle of like, “Oh, I’m going to just go out of my way to find, like, stories that are interesting to the right,” that may be how it gets picked up anyway, because that’s just the stories that haven’t been reported on yet.

[00:35:32] Simone Collins: Yeah, I agree. But I, I really hope you can pick this up. Let’s see if I can make this a little bigger. No.

[00:35:39] Brian Chau: Yeah, California’s race-based natal policy. Yeah.

[00:35:42] Simone Collins: Yeah. Wait, hold on. I’m bringing it back. Just give me a second here, ‘cause we, we don’t typically get to show PDFs. Anyway, I guess we can’t zoom in. Oh, well.

[00:35:51] But yeah, so yeah, ex- explain

[00:35:53] Brian Chau: it

[00:35:53] Simone Collins: to- I can

[00:35:54] Brian Chau: give you, I can s- send you a website preview later and, and you can have some higher [00:36:00] quality graphics if you wanna edit those in. But,

[00:36:01] Simone Collins: And you, by the way, I made it so that you can page through this at, at your leisure on your own from your... Yeah, there we go.

[00:36:07] Brian Chau: Perfect.

[00:36:08] Malcolm Collins: Can you go to the first page of that, Simone? So

[00:36:09] Brian Chau: there’s there’s this three program-

[00:36:10] Simone Collins: Wait, Malcolm wants you to go back to the first page of it.

[00:36:12] Malcolm Collins: So you didn’t even read it. You gotta read it. Programs for Black women birthing people could have Medicare funding cut off. All right, now, now go to the next thing.

[00:36:22] Brian Chau: Yeah. So, all these programs take federal Medicaid funding. They’re all also both facially against the text of the Civil Rights Act and against the recent you know... But historically it hasn’t been, been enforced that way. But, but also against the recent revisions in the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division rulemaking which I also quote here.

[00:36:43] And it’s basically saying, like, actually equal protection does apply to all races. And you can... So there were some cases previously where Title VI agreements were used to either force essentially force states to open these programs up to all races, which is what happened in the past, or to threaten to cut off Medicaid funding if that doesn’t exist.

[00:37:06] Simone Collins: Yikes.

[00:37:07] Brian Chau: So, so there is a remedy legally, which is that the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division can actually shut off Medicaid funding if they continue to racially discriminate. And there are two cases before where they started that process once in Minnesota and another time in Illinois, both with these kind of race-based Medicaid rationing programs.

[00:37:26] And in both cases, the DOJ managed to get those programs basically opened up to all races.

[00:37:31] Simone Collins: But not the case now. No one has done this

[00:37:33] Brian Chau: Yeah. I, I mean, I don’t really know if they know about it. They have not yet responded to my request for comment. Maybe they will by the time this is published. But, but as of, as of recording, they have not.

[00:37:44] So I don’t know if they even know about this

[00:37:47] Simone Collins: Interesting. So-

[00:37:48] Brian Chau: Maybe that’s, that’s how you guys help, right? Yeah. You, you guys get more, more people to know about this know about what- So they’re

[00:37:53] Malcolm Collins: literally

[00:37:54] Brian Chau: birthing to try to- ... you, you know, allegedly a, a civil rights violation ...

[00:37:57] Malcolm Collins: So they, they, they’re using Medicaid money to try to increase the Black birth rate?

[00:38:01] Like, that’s, that’s what-

[00:38:03] Brian Chau: They’re providing medical services only to in some cases, only to Black people. In some cases, only to Black as well as American Indian, Alaska Native, Pacific Islanders. Yeah, it seems super- ... they’re selectively providing medical services based on race. And in this case, it’s like basically like prenatal services.

[00:38:20] Simone Collins: And I think you even mentioned in the article from when I first read it, that like one woman reported just being turned away when she asked

[00:38:28] Brian Chau: for services. Yeah. So, so this is interesting, too. This will be a super interesting case of whether you can have more private rights of action based on discrimination where historically this has been an enormous cash cow for a lot of the kind of DEI NGOs where, you know, th- they’ll sue on behalf of minority groups, mostly either on behalf of people who are Black or on behalf of women.

[00:38:53] But really, you know, the civil rights... The text of the Civil Rights Act allow these suits in any direction. So if this case can, can prove out whether there can be more of a, a rights towards, you know, discrimination on behalf of other groups or, or against other groups a- and whether those will be rewarded a similar kind of settlement in, in court.

[00:39:14] So you have this program where based on, ba- based on her name seemingly, like a white Hispanic lady went in to try to access one of these services and then was denied those services, and is now filing a Title VI suit a civil rights lawsuit about this refusal. And that’s that’s kind of still in court right now.

[00:39:32] We don’t know where that’s going.

[00:39:34] Simone Collins: Good for her, though. It’s... I, I’ve, I’ve been surprised in the past. I think a, a lot of people actually e- experienced things like this in the past. Or I, I remember going to Planned Parenthood one, once and being like, “Well, I’m, I’m interested in planning a family now.

[00:39:49] Like, what should I do?” And they’re like, “We can’t help you here. We, we only do the other stuff.” And I was like, “Hold on. That’s not what I was told.” But I guess people just kind of... I think most people have weird [00:40:00] experiences but they don’t, don’t report them. They don’t try to start a lawsuit. So I don’t...

[00:40:04] I mean, who knows how many people have encountered this. That’s really

[00:40:08] Brian Chau: wild. Yeah. Something that’s, that’s also kind of relevant to this, I don’t know if you saw this, so this is already public. This is not something that we are exclusively reporting. Hmm. But, the Justice Department, I, I don’t know if you guys saw this op- published some information about a case they have against Duke University.

[00:40:24] And that has the amazing statistic that rejected white and Asian applicants have a higher average SAT score than accepted Black applicants.

[00:40:34] Simone Collins: Oh, w- yeah. Yeah. We’ve seen that headline, and I mean, I, I guess now it’s just like, well, of course. Everyone assumes that. Everybody knows it now. Yeah. I mean, the

[00:40:42] Malcolm Collins: leaflet’s on, racist against whites and Asians.

[00:40:44] Yeah. Colleges. Yeah.

[00:40:46]

[00:41:07] Brian Chau: Yeah, and, and the thing about, you know, Harmeet posting about this is that she actually, you know, is the main person to do something about this, and I think has been one of the, the most effective members of the Trump administration. This might actually be, you know, I sh- I guess I should praise her more if I, if I want us, actually, you know, the, the, the stories that I’m breaking to, to have some consequence.

[00:41:29] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:41:29] Simone Collins: This is such an interesting effort though because it’s, it’s both investigative journalism that we’ve really lost for 10, 20 years maybe. Like, there just really hasn’t been much work coming out like this that I would’ve expected to get and, and all powered by AI, which is super, super cool, plus your brilliant mind.

[00:41:51] Then this additional layer of activism, which I guess, I mean, do you primary expect to enact it by asking people for comment and getting other people to do something? Or is there an additional branch of what you’re working on where you’re actually going to push harder for, like to deploy people to take action on the information that you publish?

[00:42:07] I just wanna

[00:42:07] Brian Chau: publish the most keynote publication out there. Like, the, the best news that is fit to print, you know. And, and part of that is also the data presentation. I think it’s this, like, crazy thing where even, like, I was showing my friend the Vercel dashboard the other day. This is a very, very successful software company- Yeah

[00:42:24] Used for, for, for front-end hosting for, for a lot of sites. But really it’s not just Vercel. It’s like every series A or B or later startup has better data presentation than New York Times. It’s a, it’s a very common skill now. It’s a skill that I have and I think that’s reflected in this site. Where really there are a single-digit number of, like, really competent data presentation people in the mainstream press.

[00:42:47] Maybe the most famous- Mm ... is John Burn-Murdoch from the, from the Financial Times. Mm. Who is, like, a household name basically by... I don’t wanna be mean to John Burn-Murdoch. I think he does good work. But basically he’s become a household name by, like, publishing charts that are about the same quality as, like, a series A or series B startup.

[00:43:04] So there’s plenty- ... of capability to pr- have much better data presentation actually. And this is the other thing it’s, that I’m kind of, like, frustrated by with kind of new media companies is number one, they don’t break stories. Number two they don’t really go for a more, like, high-quality publication.

[00:43:22] A lot of them just end up looking like the New York Post. And actually, the New York Post is an interesting example because they do break stories, but they also look like the New York Post, which is re- really unfortunate. Yeah ... I, I, I really think that this is the, the crown in the gutter. Because right now is a complete change in the scope and possibility of what kind of stories can be reported.

[00:43:47] Mm. It would take a team of multiple people working for years to report the kinds of stories I’m reporting now. So it’s not an entire surprise that they’ve gone unreported for a long time. That’s changing now. It’s the crown in the [00:44:00] gutter. You can absolutely do it. I mean, I, I am doing it. And I think this will be very c- soon the greatest investigative reporting publication in the world

[00:44:09] Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I hope so, and we’re glad to have you on, and I hope that it’s upstream of a bunch of YouTubers like I to just read the story and then go, “Ah.”

[00:44:17] You know, that’s the, that’s the way to do it. Oh,

[00:44:20] Simone Collins: yeah. You’re, you’re gonna give us so much episode fodder

[00:44:21] Brian Chau: Can we talk about the new media ecosystem for a bit? Like, you know, we’re in the Fox Girls or the media chat. There’s, like, an entire, you know, new ecosystem that’s popping up, and you guys really, I think you guys know more about this than me, so it’d be interesting to get your thoughts on it.

[00:44:37] Simone Collins: The VTuber ecosystem?

[00:44:38] Malcolm Collins: Well, that’s what we play in. That’s what we do. But the interesting thing about this new media ecosystem is it has a few people who are sort of top of the funnel and c- find the stories first, and, and they’re r- like Kirsha is an example of one of these. She’ll do the n- the app synthesis, and then the story flows down.

[00:44:56] So if we have more people there, then that’s more for the rest of us, right? You know, make

[00:45:01] Brian Chau: sure we- So, so is she like i- is she like f- finding the stories from scratch or is she kind of like serving as a bridge between, like,

[00:45:08] Malcolm Collins: normal- No ... or stuff like that? She seems to be finding them from scratch.

[00:45:11] So what she does- Oh, that’s super

[00:45:12] Brian Chau: interesting ...

[00:45:12] Malcolm Collins: is she goes and she’ll, like, look when somebody’ll be like, “Oh, X company was woke and then it was fixed,” and then she tries to go into their public documentation and everything like that to see if they’re actually not woke now, looking up the programs they’re doing and stuff like that.

[00:45:27] And that’s, that’s an area of, of, of research that you could definitely use more re- is the crazy woke programs that companies are doing that large companies are doing and shining a light on those, because that’s something that I think people would find pretty interesting.

[00:45:41] Brian Chau: Yeah, so there was this story.

[00:45:43] I, like, kind of got scooped on this. A, a lot of the data was already public but, but kind of, independently found the same, same data of company filings earnings calls and, and such. The mentions of diversity, equity, inclusion, stuff like that, has dropped more than 90%. That, that’s of course just the overt public statements.

[00:46:00] That’s like the, the, the- Yeah ... the branding, right? It’s not always reflecting the underlying stuff. But that is actually pretty interesting. Maybe you guys can, can put that graphic up as well. I think a lot of these stories, there’s like- There’s like a pretty long incubation period o- of before they actually see the light of day.

[00:46:20] That’s something that if I am successful with this company will absolutely change in five years, where it’s like right now, like the, the, the Office of Refugee Resettlement story we’ve had that information, that information has been publicly available for five years or maybe a little less than five years.

[00:46:38] I think the, the first grants appeared, or like the first grants in this latest expansion appeared- Hmm ... in September 2021. Oh, from 20... Yeah,

[00:46:44] Simone Collins: well

[00:46:44] Brian Chau: 2016 was- So it’s about the five-year anniversary.

[00:46:47] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:46:47] Brian Chau: So this could have been reported for a long time. It absolutely wasn’t. And it’s this like crazy it’s this crazy inefficient market.

[00:46:56] Hmm. A lot of people I’ve talked to leading up to this launch, even a lot of people who already work in media are like shocked at this. They’re like, “Oh, why, why is it, and why has no one done this yet?” And most of the time the answer is that people just don’t wanna put in the effort. So th- that’s really going to change.

[00:47:12] I guess like the, the interesting thing about new media as well is like there’s a convergence on the idea, and this is especially true in the tech space. There’s a convergence on the idea that like all you need to do is sort of reframe the discussion from a different opinion, right? And I think some of that has been good, you know.

[00:47:31] I’ll be actually, you know, doing a lot of interviews with the, those tech podcast publications you know, video video shows as well. So, so, so I, I, I’m... it’s not like I dislike them, but a lot of the time what they’ll do is like they’ll talk about the same stories reported from The New York Times, but they’ll talk about it in a kind of like conservative or kind of libertarian pro-tech opinion angle.

[00:47:53] And, you know, maybe that’s better than nothing. I certainly think it’s better than nothing, but I don’t know. It, it, it seems kind of narrow. Like, why do [00:48:00] you guys think it, it, it like ended up that way?

[00:48:03] Simone Collins: I think first off, not that many people are responsible, like not that many people care. And if you’re looking at something like, okay, so you’re looking at a publication that has to stay alive, and that depends on clicks or something like that and they’re trying to get people to click over.

[00:48:21] They’re way more likely to get a bunch of attention and money by posting something stupid and culture-warry and not actually substantive or something about celebrities than they are to post something- I don’t

[00:48:32] Brian Chau: even think that’s true. Like-

[00:48:34] Simone Collins: Really?

[00:48:35] Brian Chau: Yeah. I, I think you need to break stories. I guess you need to have a judgment to break stories, right?

[00:48:39] I mean, we’ll see with the launch, but I, I think it will be quite a successful launch. I mean, obviously you know, I haven’t been exposed to the actual... I haven’t, you know, posted any of these stories publicly yet, so it’s like, you know, a big question mark. Maybe it’ll fail and there’ll be a big, you know, egg on my face.

[00:48:54] But I think there is interest in investigative stuff. I think that if you are ahead of, ahead of the curve and you publish something that then becomes viral, then becomes a center of attention, you do get credit for that. But, but people just don’t do it. Maybe it’s like a cost benefit thing. Maybe they haven’t fully priced in AI.

[00:49:11] I’m, I’m not entirely sure. But yeah, it’s, it’s still seems, still seems very odd to me.

[00:49:18] Simone Collins: It is. I think... I mean, to your point, a, a lot of it can come down to good visuals. A lot of the stuff that ends up going viral that is more substantive goes viral because there’s some striking graph that people can share online.

[00:49:31] Like you have to think about what is someone’s motivation to share something online, and Malcolm’s model for that has always been, well, then this is going to reinforce someone’s self-image, for example. Like, I’m the person who shares stories about this, or it, it just validates their self-image. Like, m- family members selling sending us information about studies that show that reading physical paper objects is m- better for your brain or something, right?

[00:49:58] And they’re like, “I told you so.” So you have to think about why someone’s gonna be compelled to share your story, and also how much that share on its own is going to captivate audiences. And if you have a really compelling visual, then it is going to captivate audiences. Like I’ve seen so much of the almond water versus data center water graphic floating around recently.

[00:50:18] Brian Chau: Yeah,

[00:50:19] Simone Collins: yeah. Because it’s just so like salient and easy. And also for anyone who’s on the pro data center side, like we can so smugly share it and be like, “So there you go, ha ha ha.” And it makes us feel very smug. And so I think it, it comes down to that. And I, and I think that’s why it’s so good that you’re looking at- The importance of really strong visuals.

[00:50:40] If you can create visuals that people can smugly post and that make them look so smart and well-informed, and, “Oh, you d- you idiots don’t realize how serious this problem is,” especially if it feeds into conspiratoriness- Yeah,

[00:50:52] Brian Chau: no, and a lot of it is, you know, a lot of it is, like, the immediate truth nuke, right?

[00:50:56] Simone Collins: Yes.

[00:50:57] Brian Chau: Yeah. That’s something that, that I want to... Obviously, that’s not most of these stories. Most of these stories are kind of, longer investigations using data from a timeframe of, like, five to 10 years. But something else I wanna do a lot more of is, like, the immediate truth nuke. One of these stories is kind of like this.

[00:51:11] The data is actually kind of old, but I have this story on, like, the, the, the EV dumping theory, which- Yeah ... to my knowledge, is, was, was completely fabricated by kind of, like, the auto lobby a- and, and by defense inter- and by, by, like, kind of, like, Department of Defense type- Wait, what is this?

[00:51:25] Malcolm Collins: Is it

[00:51:26] Simone Collins: So what is the EV dumping theory?

[00:51:27] Yeah,

[00:51:28] i’m gonna bring it

[00:51:28] Brian Chau: up and put it up So there will be all sorts of these stories that pop up that are just, like, clearly fabricated.

[00:51:33] The one that I remember the best, because I was kind of, like, directly involved with this one- Okay ... is the, the 10,000 H100 story. So there was this story around the time when DeepSeek came out. Of course, it’s like wildly cheaper model than anything that you saw was published before.

[00:51:48] Malcolm Collins: Okay.

[00:51:48] Brian Chau: A- and a bunch of like defense industry types were, like, very enthusiastic about promoting this H100 10,000 smuggled H100s claim, and this claim was [00:52:00] completely false.

[00:52:01] The original source for the, this claim I actually kind of respect that he did this which is D- Dylan from SemiAnalysis. He had kind of like a, a, like a tweet that like, “Oh, there are 10,000... I- I... DeepSeek has 10,000 H100s,” or something. And then he, like, later published a full article ki- kind of like retracting that claim, saying like, “Oh, what I actually meant was 10,000 H100 equivalents, including hardware that was legally purchased from NVIDIA and allowed under US law.”

[00:52:29] Which is obviously- Oh ... a different claim, but I, I, I, I, I actually respect... I don’t really blame Dy- Dylan for this. I think what probably happened was that he had a source inside, like, state or defense that just straight up lied to him. And he, he, he got got, and he didn’t know that, like, people from defense or state would just straight up lie to you, and then go, you know, pr- promote these completely false claims everywhere.

[00:52:51] Anyways, we, we, we now know that that that absolutely did not happen, and this was just kind of, like, fabricated by, by the defense, defense industry. Anyways-

[00:52:58] Malcolm Collins: So EVs are, are way, what, more environmentally friendly than...?

[00:53:03] Brian Chau: No. So, so that was related to the, the DeepSeek H100 stuff, whi- which I was kind of, like, directly involved in.

[00:53:08] I, I was kind of like, Yeah, but what’s the point? ... working on some AI stuff with the admin at the time. But-

[00:53:13] Malcolm Collins: What’s the

[00:53:13] Brian Chau: point of this direction? But th- this is a similar thing happening with EVs, right? It’s, it’s the same, like, fucking export control people, No, but

[00:53:19] Malcolm Collins: what’s the point? Like what, so what were they trying to argue?

[00:53:22] What-

[00:53:22] Brian Chau: Oh, the EV thing was that people were just ... Oh, so go, go on.

[00:53:26] Malcolm Collins: No, no. Like, what were they trying to argue versus what’s the reality? I, like, the, the, to the average person here, they don’t know

[00:53:32] Brian Chau: what DeepSeek is. Well, the reality is that, that DeepSeek made a number of algorithmic improvements mostly that made their model a lot cheaper to train and run.

[00:53:38] Mm. They, they were arguing that, you know, there were all of these smuggled H100s, these smuggled, like, a- AI- Oh ... specific hardware- Oh, so

[00:53:44] Simone Collins: they were saying they were getting really good machinery- ...

[00:53:46] Brian Chau: that they were secretly running it on. But really...

[00:53:47] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:53:48] Brian Chau: They were seeing more efficient. It was this kind of, like, wild, like, conspiracy brained take that, like, actually DeepSeek was trained on all of this hardware because there is no way that they trained they trained their model on, like, limited hardware that they were legally allowed to purchase.

[00:54:00] But turns out that actually they, they did train it on the legally purchased hardware and that the model is just better. And in fact, they’ve continued not just creating but publishing those model improvements, tho- those, like, algorithmic improvements to their models, including the, the, the recent V4 Flash.

[00:54:16] Malcolm Collins: Okay.

[00:54:17] Brian Chau: So- And, and the, the EV tariff thing- We know basically for cert- certain now that that claim, claim was false, that, that DeepSeek the, the, the, the more efficient models come from just better model designs and don’t come from, you know, all these secret H100s.

[00:54:30] Malcolm Collins: The, the secret H100s- In this instance

[00:54:31] being that they pretended that it was running on much more advanced software, hardware than it actually was, and it actually was running on limited hardware. Yeah ... is that what you’re talking about was the EV story? What, what, what is, what did EVs have to do with

[00:54:42] Brian Chau: this? It’s a similar thing where you can see that there is this completely fabricated story about EV dumping.

[00:54:48] So the EV dumping theory, this was promoted by, like, both the last two presidents all sorts of people from both political parties. I think it kind of originated in a bunch of, like, US, like, auto trade associations. But the claim is that Chinese EV exports are heavily subsidized. You can go down the claim ta- claim table here.

[00:55:07] It’s, like, massive subsidies, you know, propelled by subsidies, all this stuff. Would you like to guess- How could

[00:55:11] Simone Collins: that be possible when we’re paying- Let’s play a

[00:55:12] Brian Chau: similar game. Let’s play a similar game where we guess the number, the total amount of the subsidy, right? What is the total amount out, as a percentage of the total price what do you think a, a BYD EV, this is, like, one of the most popular c- EV companies in China what amount of that price is subsidized?

[00:55:30] What would you guess?

[00:55:33] Simone Collins: 5% Well, I don’t imagine... I mean, don’t we- More than that ... we have 100% import taxes in the US on EVs, so nothing? ‘

[00:55:40] Brian Chau: Cause I- Yeah, it’s, it’s 170... 27.5 now, and, and they’re doing a different ban. You, you have this super interesting, you know, may- maybe not interesting, but, like, funny thing where they had to keep upgrading the tariffs because it sounds, kinda sounds crazy, but, like, there was this theoretical model where, like, even if you had 25% tariffs, the, the, the Chinese cars would still out-compete the [00:56:00] American ones.

[00:56:00] Yeah. Which i- i- if you’re coming from a s- from the software world, it’s like, oh, you c- 25% off your margin, maybe that’s doable. But if you’re coming from manufacturing, that’s, like, fucking crazy. That’s, that’s how much of a difference in technology there is. But the actual answer is around 1.2%.

[00:56:14] Simone Collins: Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:56:14] Brian Chau: So, you can scroll down here. Why, why would they subsidize them? Yeah. You, you, you can scroll down here. It’s this tiny section. And even- You can even see it ... if you count, like... Yeah, ex- exactly. And even if you count all of the like, differences in financing laws, which, like, we could reform our financing laws at home.

[00:56:29] Yeah. But even if you count those as, like, de facto sev- subsidies, it is roughly 7% of the price difference between Tesla and BYD. Tesla is, of course, the most efficient American company which is around 2.3% of the total BYD price. Mm. So even if you’re... So it’s 1.2% for direct subsidies, and even if you’re counting all of this, like, financing reform stuff that we could totally implement in the US, that’s, like, 2.3% of, of the total price.

[00:56:55] So it is this, like, massive truth nuke, where there’s the story that was being passed around all the time, this, like, cope about Chinese EVs of, like, “Oh, they’re massively subsidized. That’s why we can’t compete with them.” Turns out that’s completely untrue. Most of the, most of the savings are based on, like, supply chain integration and genuine, like, business im- improvements compared to even Tesla, right?

[00:57:16] Of course, the gap will be even bigger than, than this for the, the non-Tesla EVs. Well, but

[00:57:20] Simone Collins: also necessity. You’re not gonna sell an EV in China if the vast majority of people can’t afford it. Y- it’s, it’s for a market that has, I would argue, much narrower car

[00:57:29] Brian Chau: range. This, this is this is comparison of Chinese prices.

[00:57:32] Oh. So

[00:57:34] Simone Collins: this is a Tesla price in China. Really? Oh my gosh. Yes. That’s even crazier than I thought then. Okay.

[00:57:38] Brian Chau: Yeah, so, so China is currently, like, signif- or, s- sorry. Tesla is currently significantly losing market share in China. There was this interesting rumor recently that, that Tesla would sell off its China China section for for, basically political reasons.

[00:57:54] Elon said this wasn’t true. It was interesting because when I originally saw that story, I thought, “Oh, this is like cope,” right? This is gonna be like Tesla’s gonna sell off their, their, their Chinese section and they’re gonna say it was because of politics, but really it’s because they’re not, not really making money off that, and they’re being out-competed, and this is just like the cope.

[00:58:11] But Elon said that’s not true, so, so, so apparently, apparently it’s fake news.

[00:58:15] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:58:16] Simone Collins: That is so great. Well,

[00:58:17] Malcolm Collins: interesting stuff. Thanks for finding this.

[00:58:19] Simone Collins: This is gonna be so great for... I mean, I think the other thing that really gives you good tailwinds for this venture is that there is this growing ecosystem of streamers who, instead of playing games, is turning to news stories, and they need good, salacious truth nukes.

[00:58:35] You’ll be delivering them, so that is, that is very favorable. Congratulations, Brian. And everyone, check out Effort.news because- Yeah. I mean, I don’t know, what’s the frequency of publication you’re aiming for here?

[00:58:47] Brian Chau: Effort.news. BrianChao57 on Twitter. Frequency of publication, it will vary a lot. More...

[00:58:55] Probably one to three times per week and a lot of- That’s

[00:58:59] Simone Collins: pretty good ...

[00:58:59] Brian Chau: will also be based off of the initial wave of hiring. I’m interviewing several people for the publication both this week and next week. I scheduled that during the launch, so I don’t know how that’ll go. But if we can scale up, I, I’d ideally get it to a daily publication, right?

[00:59:14] But as of now, at least once per week probably closer to three times a week. And if we can really scale up, then we can really get to the point of where, where it’s, like, one per day, or, or, like, multiple per day.

[00:59:25] Simone Collins: That is so cool. Congratulations, Brian. And yeah, I’m super excited to see what you guys turn out.

[00:59:29] So thank you for, thank you for giving us some, like, basically launch day details and we will be watching this very closely going forward.

[00:59:39] Brian Chau: Yeah. You can, you, you can put the Base Camp exclusive, Yes ... on the title. Cha-ching, cha-ching. Even though we’ll be doing a bunch of other streams on the launch day.

[00:59:45] But yeah, this was super fun. I’m glad you enjoyed the story about about the Catholics.

[00:59:50] Simone Collins: Always.

[00:59:51] Brian Chau: Always. And, and the large number of other religious religious charities, religious organizations. Yeah, it was super fun. Thanks for having [01:00:00] me on.

[01:00:01] Simone Collins: All right. Thank you, Brian. Yeah. All right.

[01:00:03] Well, Godspeed, sir. You’re doing very important work. All right.

[01:00:08] Speaker 4: Show me What’s going on here? That’s the thing. Tell me. Well, who’s, who’s what down here? What’s going on?

[01:00:25] Those are the, my army men and that’s the giant boat, the giant boat. What does a giant boat do? A giant boat uses it that armor to catch the- Can you show me how? Yeah, but you have to take a picture of me, too.

[01:00:39] Of course, I promise

[01:00:47] I’m gonna take a picture of me Give me your best pose then That’s your pose? I like it

We cover the hard data: romance sales growth, reading frequency stats, and older studies showing romance readers have more (and more satisfying) sex. Simone and Malcolm explain reactive sexuality, why these books can act as exogenous priming, and why the average effect on relationships appears positive rather than destructive.

Then they break down the dominant tropes in the biggest current series — Empyrean (Fourth Wing / Iron Flame / Onyx Storm), A Court of Thorns and Roses, The Hunting of Adeline, dark mafia, and Zodiac Academy — and what the power dynamics, possessiveness, and “claiming” language actually reveal about female arousal profiles.

Also discussed: the Wicker movie trailer going mainstream, why most men and women want very different things in erotic content, the biblical case against inventing extra sexual prohibitions, and a short closer on premarital sex and the film One Night Only.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Simone Collins: Your face. What? What? What? So you can see we’ve reached mainstream. No, you, you, you haven’t read these books. You don’t understand what women are reading about-

[00:00:14] Malcolm Collins: Did you read those books? ...

[00:00:14] Simone Collins: in these books.

[00:00:15] Would you like to know more?

[00:00:17] Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. We have touched on the topic of the rise of the female gooning wave, but I wanted to go deeper into both the research around it and how that wave is changing, because it’s having an, a much bigger impact on society than people think.

[00:00:35] About-

[00:00:35] Simone Collins: Excuse me, are people researching female gooners?

[00:00:39] Malcolm Collins: Oh, yes. We have many re- Simone, when you say female gooners as if they’re the rare thing, the vast majority-

[00:00:46] Simone Collins: No, I know ... are women. Look, trust me, I know. Yes. I just-

[00:00:50] Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah, I know you know, because I know what you listen to at night,

[00:00:53] Simone Collins: Simone. Stop. I’m listening to the Old Testam- Oh, never mind.

[00:00:56] Yeah, that’s pretty messed up, so go on then.

[00:00:59] Malcolm Collins: I actually wanna ask it for later. Which industry makes more, this or male ?

[00:01:06] Simone Collins: Oh, no, we did this before. The, the romance novel industry makes a ton more money. Are you kidding me?

[00:01:12] Malcolm Collins: Well, we’ll, we’ll see, we’ll see. It’s

[00:01:13] Simone Collins: not even- But, okay, hold on

[00:01:14] funny and funny. Yeah So,

[00:01:15] Malcolm Collins: A third- Offended you

[00:01:16] Simone Collins: would ask ...

[00:01:17] Malcolm Collins: a third of all fiction books is that people are reading right now are- ... female gooning books, okay?

[00:01:22] Simone Collins: No one reads anymore except for certain reasons.

[00:01:25] Malcolm Collins: This has gone up from 23% w- just a decade ago.

[00:01:31] Simone Collins: Oh, oh.

[00:01:32] Malcolm Collins: The romance sales industry year over year grew 24% this year in the, in the first half of the year circa BookScan And 26% of survey r- readers reported buying more than one romance book in the prior year.

[00:01:51] Now, for, I wanna get to this immediately because a lot of people on our channel are gonna jump and be like, “Oh, this is terrible. Oh, these women, their partners, how terrible is this?” So Coles and Sharp in 1984 did a study. And what they found was that readers had sex twice as often per week as non-readers.

[00:02:11] Simone Collins: There was- Yeah, that makes sense ‘cause they’re kinda just getting themselves in that frame of mind. Women have to be, like, reminded that they’re sexually interested, I think, more than men do. Men, it’s like, it’s there for the most part. Women need to be reminded that they can be sexual beings. Is

[00:02:26] Malcolm Collins: that your thing?

[00:02:26] I, I think that’s an absolutely good point. Yeah. I wanna, I wanna expand on this point after I go into it. The, the am- among housewives specifically, readers were significantly more sexually satisfied than non-readers.

[00:02:38] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:02:38] Well, you know, we, we, when you originally wrote The Pragmatist’s Guide to Sexuality, you, you looked at, you, you didn’t do romance novel readers, you just polled people about their erotic material consumption.

[00:02:49] But then you found that people who consumed erotic material who were female, like, so women who consumed erotic material, it had much more satisfying and active sex lives. Like, if you are a boyfriend, a husband, anyone who has intimate access to a woman and you want her to be a little bit more forward i- in her advances, you should get, buy, buy her the best-selling romance novels.

[00:03:14] The most perverted stuff

[00:03:16] Malcolm Collins: So she’s got perversions on her mind all

[00:03:18] Simone Collins: the time. Yes. So you need... Yes, she needs to have a dirty mind. If her mind isn’t dirty, it’s your fault, okay? This is-

[00:03:23] Malcolm Collins: And women experiment with these things with their partners. So they, the ones who do this do significantly more fantasy play.

[00:03:31] But the reason I wanted to, to put that out there to start with is it’s the same as the pornography thing, right? Like, guys who consume porn have more and better sex than guys who don’t consume porn. This has been shown in, like, multiple studies, right? Mm-hmm. You know, it’s, it, it-

[00:03:47] Simone Collins: Look, people who watch cooking shows probably have better cooking techniques and cook more than people who don’t watch cooking shows.

[00:03:54] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It’s, and it’s not- So ... now, I, I, I do wanna make an aside here before I go further. There is [00:04:00] clearly a type of woman and a type of man who cannot engage healthily with this type of content. Oh,

[00:04:05] Simone Collins: yeah. No, yeah.

[00:04:06] Malcolm Collins: There is a type of woman-

[00:04:07] Simone Collins: Well, there’s also people who can’t engage healthily with food or exercise, you know?

[00:04:10] Malcolm Collins: That gets one shot and goes full goon cave and never leaves her room after that, right? There is a type of guy- But did you

[00:04:17] Simone Collins: want her as a girlfriend in the first place, right? If she’s that kind of person.

[00:04:20] Malcolm Collins: I, well, you know, she might get obsessed with you if that was her only alternative. Yeah. I don’t think that’s gonna happen, though.

[00:04:27] Simone Collins: No, mm-mm.

[00:04:28] Malcolm Collins: These types of women are typically, in my experience, pretty histionic and an issue- An issue ... to date. An issue to date. Hmm. You don’t, you, you don’t want a super horny girlfriend or wife. I, I have done that before. It is very exhausting because you’ve got to remember... Sorry, go ahead.

[00:04:44] Simone Collins: You had a Friend- a Fred Flintstone moment with that, didn’t you?

[00:04:48] Malcolm Collins: What do

[00:04:48] Simone Collins: you mean by that? Someone banging on your door, “Wilma.”

[00:04:50] Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

[00:04:51] Simone Collins: yeah. Oh, sorry. I always say that with a German accent because I was once locked out of a French hotel. Let me in. And there was a German outside- Yeah ... and he was banging on the door screaming, “Wilma,” but in a German accent.

[00:05:01] It’s iconic. So and it was the best moment I ever had in Paris. Seeing German locked out of a hotel Sorry Oh

[00:05:06] Malcolm Collins: my God. Okay, anyway.

[00:05:07] Simone Collins: Carry on.

[00:05:08] But you had a girl literally trying to bang down your door to get to that-

[00:05:12] Malcolm Collins: Yes,

[00:05:13] Simone Collins: yes

[00:05:13] notably perfect

[00:05:14] Malcolm Collins: something of

[00:05:14] Simone Collins: yours But, but

[00:05:14] Malcolm Collins: guys forget when they’re like, “No, it would always be great to have, like, a maximally horny girl.” It’s like sex is majority of the work. 99% of the physical effort is the male. If your partner wants to have sex way more than you wanna have sex, that’s just a ton of extra work for you.

[00:05:33] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:05:33] Malcolm Collins: And it gets extremely exhausting. When I’ve been in, in relationships like that, you, you hear them at the door and you’re like, “No.”

[00:05:41] Simone Collins: Yeah. “

[00:05:44] Malcolm Collins: Not again. I’m trying to do my homework.” Yeah. “I’m trying to study.”

[00:05:48] Simone Collins: Aw, poor Malcolm. “

[00:05:50] Speaker 4: The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised.

[00:05:53] Malcolm Collins: I have other things I wanna do right now.”

[00:05:55] Simone Collins: Poor Dino. Aw.

[00:05:57] Malcolm Collins: No, but the point here being is the, the- these books do not appear to be making relationships less strong, on average at least, right?

[00:06:05] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm,

[00:06:05] Malcolm Collins: mm-hmm. They appear to be making them much stronger on average. And I think Simone, like, I think that they’re way more important to a healthy relationship than me being a fairly pro-corn guy. When I say pro-corn, I mean only of non-humans. I think the corn industry is really bad. Mm-hmm.

[00:06:22] I think OnlyFans is really bad. I think things of use- using living humans. But if it’s drawn or made with AI, whatever, right? Like, that’s not a real- Yeah ... human that’s being drawn into an industry.

[00:06:31] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:06:32] Malcolm Collins: But even, even having that position, and you can go see our old videos on this and how it relates to the Bible and everything like that, which we talk about a lot there.

[00:06:40] Like just in case people are wondering, if the Bible didn’t want you... D- do you not think that no Jew had figured out drawing a naked woman on a sheet of paper yet? Do you think that like- No,

[00:06:53] Simone Collins: some of, some of the early graffiti that you can see around the world

[00:06:58] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. D- do you think that they were just unaware of this as a concept?

[00:07:01] Because it doesn’t ban it anywhere, and it talks about emissions in explicit detail in the Old Testament. Emissions. Doesn’t ban it anywhere, right? Mm-hmm. Like, if it, if it, if it wanted to ban it, it has a lot of words to do that, right? Now you could say, “Well, don’t look at other people’s wives with, with lust,” right?

[00:07:20] Or, “Don’t covet what other people have.” Mm-hmm. Which I would agree with 100%, but the majority of at the time of the Bible would not be of other people’s wives. It was not people masturbating looking at other human women. It would’ve been drawn stuff- Pretty

[00:07:34] Simone Collins: primitive drawing, yeah ...

[00:07:35] Malcolm Collins: or, or figurines or stuff like that.

[00:07:37] Yeah. So that’s what they would’ve banned. They would’ve known the difference between the two things, which is why all of the prohibitions are against other human beings, which make a lot of sense. And actually, when Simone was rereading the Old Testament and you reread that line, you were like, “This applies so much more to Instagram and Facebook than it does-” Mm-hmm

[00:07:55] “porn.” Mm-hmm.

[00:07:56] Simone Collins: It expands to a bunch of other things, too.

[00:07:57] Malcolm Collins: You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not [00:08:00] covet your neighbor’s wife or his manservant or his maidservant or his ox or his donkey-” Yeah, so

[00:08:05] Simone Collins: like get, get off Instagram ... “

[00:08:06] Malcolm Collins: anything that belongs to your neighbor.” That’s

[00:08:07] Simone Collins: so- Don’t watch MTV’s Cribs. I’m

[00:08:09] Malcolm Collins: not gonna do this Okay, so you hear that, and you can be like, this is a very strict prohibition on Instagram, and it’s a very strict prohibition on Facebook- Yeah

[00:08:16] being used in a specific way. It’s a strict prohibition on certain types of YouTube content.

[00:08:21] Simone Collins: Architectural Digest videos Way, way,

[00:08:22] Malcolm Collins: way, way more-

[00:08:24] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:08:24] Malcolm Collins: than corn or erotic literature.

[00:08:26] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:08:27] Malcolm Collins: And note here, the Bible also doesn’t ban erotic literature. The Bible contains erotic literature.

[00:08:34] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:08:34] Malcolm Collins: Right? Like, there are, there are a number of sections in the Bible that can best be described as, I actually think, literally the most erotic literature ever written up to that point in human history.

[00:08:45] Simone Collins: That’s what really shocked me the first time I read it. I was like, “Is this appropriate for high school? This isn’t...” Yeah

[00:08:50] Malcolm Collins: The Bible was a pioneer in erotic literature.

[00:08:54] Simone Collins: It really was. Look, there’s a reason it caught on.

[00:08:56] Malcolm Collins: Centuries ahead of time.

[00:08:58] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:08:59] I take the anti-corn biblical arguments in the same sort of category as the people who are like, “The Bible is against drinking. Don’t you know alcohol is so sinful?” And I’m like, “Well, I mean, I’m pretty sure Jesus turned water into wine.” Like, that’s like a big, , y- he, he didn’t have, he didn’t ha-- He’s like, “Water?

[00:09:23] Bro, I got something strictly better than water for all y’all.” , It’s one of those strictly, , anti-biblical arguments where somebody clearly is just not interested in what the Bible says or is about, and is interested in imposing their own morality on you separate... which to me is, like, a really big sign that this is a person who has no interest in what’s true

[00:09:51] Like we get a lot of people who will comment in our videos being like, “Well, Christians believe X.” And I’m like, “Well, X isn’t in the Bible, so w- w- wait, what are you saying?, Like we released a video recently and people were like, “Well, Christians believe every life has value.”

[00:10:07] And I’m like, “Well, that’s not what’s in the Bible.” Okay? So you’re just defining whatever you believe is what Christians believe and then saying that we’re not that without referencing anything

[00:10:22] A note here, if you want to go New Testament, people are like, “Oh, what about the line where Jesus says don’t look at women with lust?” It’s like, well, one, he doesn’t actually say that. It’s desire. It’s the same word that Jesus looks at like the Passover sacrament with, in different parts of the, the text.

[00:10:38] So, , yeah, that’s, that’s not what that says. , And it falls to the same thing we’ve been talking about here. More broadly, I get really disgusted because the people who push this stuff the hardest are generally the ones who, like, live bad lives, if I’m gonna be honest. They’re like, “Malcolm, you need to live this way because this is the way society can be good.”

[00:10:59] And I’m like, “How many kids do you have? Do you have a, a satisfying relationship?” Look, I’m here with five, going on six kids, in a satisfied long-term marriage, and I’m saying this stuff works. And the people who say it doesn’t work, typically they don’t have that. , And I think that that’s something that you should take into account when you say, “Is it okay if your wife reads horny books?”

[00:11:23] Malcolm Collins: Ahead of its time. Hmm But there’s also a practical reason I take this stance, if you’re new to knowing that I have this stance, is because I think when you prohibit stuff like this, you make it way easier for your kids to get peeled out of your religion.

[00:11:34] Hmm ... because it’s the easiest way for an outsider to be like, “Oh, look, you have all these desires, you have all these... Why don’t you come to us? You must be a deviant like us.” But even as much as I’m pro-male erotic material, when it doesn’t use humans or erotic literature or whatever, I am way more pro-female.

[00:11:50] Like, the female Goonerboom is a really good Goonerboom.

[00:11:54] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:11:54] Malcolm Collins: Because as Simone said, there’s something called reactive sexuality. All right? And most [00:12:00] females are reactively sexual. That is their type of sexuality that they experience. Now, a male doesn’t un- generally doesn’t understand reactive sexuality because males d- on average don’t experience reactive sexuality.

[00:12:13] When a male, You know, sees someone who he thinks is hot, right? Or sees something that he thinks is hot. Or even is just sitting there thinking, he’s like, “You know what? I wanna look at something hot right now. Do-do-do-do-do.” I’m gonna go look at that, right? Women, a lot of women, this just doesn’t happen to them.

[00:12:29] Instead, they become aroused when they are put in an actively arousing situation, right? So if I was to, you know, corner and kiss my wife and push her up against a wall, that would cause the arousal cycle in her to start. But she wouldn’t feel that she wanted that without being slowly primed into it b- physically and psychologically.

[00:12:55] And a lot of guys are unaware of this, and I think this is how a lot of dead bedrooms end up happening, functioning.

[00:12:59] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:13:00] Malcolm Collins: Is that a guy forgets that he’s supposed to be proactive, or norms in the relationship are established where the guy isn’t proactive and the female has a reactive sexuality.

[00:13:11] That said, you can trick the system.

[00:13:14] Simone Collins: Yeah, if you have a, a partner with a reactive sexuality who will never make the first move, give her a bunch of romance novels and that might change.

[00:13:22] Malcolm Collins: Right. Because then she’s sitting around thinking about this sexy vampire boy.

[00:13:27] Simone Collins: Yeah, it’s, it’s exogenous priming.

[00:13:28] You don’t, you don’t have to do it yourself, you know.

[00:13:32] Malcolm Collins: The other thing that’s fairly good about this content is that women who read it read it very frequently. And you might be like, “Wait, why is that a good thing?” Well, what it means is if they’re reading it frequently there are not as much... So just to go over the statistics here, 10% of women read it daily 25% read it several times a week, 8% read it once a, a week, 18% two to three times a month, 17% once a month, and 23% less than once a month.

[00:14:01] So it’s- Hm ... only u- under a quarter of women are, who, who read this stuff, and, and a lot of women read this stuff, are reading it less than once a month.

[00:14:10] Simone Collins: That’s kind of insane.

[00:14:12] Malcolm Collins: But what that means, you read, listen to more than one a month, Simone.

[00:14:15] Simone Collins: No, no, no, I’m, I’m, I’m surprised by just how many do, though.

[00:14:19] ‘Cause I also thought no one read. So.

[00:14:21] Malcolm Collins: Well, you would count as reading. You listen to them.

[00:14:24] Simone Collins: No, I know. No, but, but what I’m saying is it’s, in a world where basically no one reads books, the fact that this many women are reading romance novels is humbling.

[00:14:35] Malcolm Collins: And in a s- a study that Gotlay did in 2026, 85%

[00:14:41] Simone Collins: read-

[00:14:42] Malcolm Collins: Gotlaid?

[00:14:42] It’s just... No, it’s the name. It’s of somebody, Gotlay or something. It’s some Spanish-

[00:14:46] Simone Collins: Okay. Okay ... word. All right, never mind.

[00:14:48] Malcolm Collins: Okay. 85% read smut regularly, 31% spend over 10 hours per week reading explicit romance. 31% of women spending over 10 hours a week. 36% have been reading explicit romance for over a decade, and 99% had read smut at least once.

[00:15:06] 99% of women. This is one of those things- That’s a lot ... like when they did the, the survey on men where they were trying to find out how men who had never consumed porn performed on a particular task. Mm-hmm. And they ended up having to abandon the survey because they couldn’t find any men who fell into that category or enough men who fell into that category to do the study.

[00:15:23] With women it’s the same. It’s 99%, guys. 99%. Also, women, if you’re into this, get on RFAB. We have some really good engines for this stuff. Don’t, don’t just have it be the boys over there, okay? RFAB.ai, the best gooning engine on the internet. But I wanna, I wanna go into this a bit more and talk about how it could change society and how it’s becoming more popular.

[00:15:45] Right now you have 51 million romance books are sold in the United States every year. Oxum Storm, which we’ll get to, ‘cause I also wanna go over the plots of the, the big ones right now. Yeah. Has sold well over half a million in its opening week in 2025. The [00:16:00] Zodiac Academy sold 2.8 million copies.

[00:16:05] Zodiac Academy. And Fifty Shades of Grey sold, grossed, the, the film trilogy grossed 1.7 trillion oh, sorry, billion at the box office.

[00:16:11] Simone Collins: Oh, like a lifetime ago. I don’t know.

[00:16:13] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:16:15] Simone Collins: But Zodiac Academy, oh my God, women are super into zodiac stuff, so that’s smart.

[00:16:20] Malcolm Collins: That’s smart. Okay. Yeah. So, d- do you wanna go over some of the plots to this or talk more?

[00:16:25] Simone Collins: Yes, obviously. What is Zodiac... Are, are people... Oh my God, are they put into, like, houses of associated with their, their s- their zodiac sign? Wait, no, it’s like Hunger Games and they all have to fight each other, but it’s sexy. It’s... No, just tell me. Just tell me.

[00:16:43] Malcolm Collins: Well, we’ll get to that one next ‘cause it wasn’t in my initial...

[00:16:45] I, I did the top five this year.

[00:16:48] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:16:48] Malcolm Collins: Okay. So apparently that didn’t make it into the top five this year somehow.

[00:16:51] All right, one the Empyrean series, okay? Ooh. This is like Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, and Onyx Storm that we were talking about earlier. In terms of, like, the broad plot of it, a fragile young woman is forced- Oh ... into a brutal dungeon rider war college. Deadly training, political betrayal, war against dark magic users, intensely bonded romance with a powerful, secretive, morally gray rider.

[00:17:19] So let’s talk about the, the themes in this book. The hero, Xaden. Xaden is his actual name spelled with an X.

[00:17:28] Simone Collins: God,

[00:17:29] Malcolm Collins: no. That’s, that, that’s the

[00:17:30] Simone Collins: name. No, no, no, no, no.

[00:17:30] Malcolm Collins: Sorry, the reason I was gonna say it’s good that women consume a lot of these is when women consume a lot, the biggest risk from these is that they begin to form a romantic or emotional attachment to one of the male leads- Oh

[00:17:41] to the opposition of your relationship.

[00:17:43] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, either

[00:17:44] Malcolm Collins: they’re gonna replace you. If they are going through them so quickly that they can’t form a romantic attachment to one of the leads- Yeah ... or they have sort of a diluted attachment to so many leads- Yeah ... that then you don’t have as much of a problem with that.

[00:17:57] Simone Collins: But- Well, the way it is in some series, it- they’ll, like, switch the main love interest from one book to the next.

[00:18:03] Malcolm Collins: Oh, you were talking about that.

[00:18:04] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:18:05] Malcolm Collins: where it’s a new love interest.

[00:18:05] Simone Collins: One thing else we found when I was looking at book reviews of these for a different episode we did, I can’t remember which, is that when women wrote book reviews, they would just literally put in basically the female fetishes that were associated with the book Like age gap lovers t- or enemies to lovers, et cetera.

[00:18:25] Like, that all the dynamics that were specific turn-ons which is Notable. I mean, there’s no lying, I think, in the community about what this is. Mm-hmm. We all know what this is about. No one’s being like, “I’m reading literature.” They are very open about it, which is great.

[00:18:45] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Al- also, I should note if it wasn’t clear, I still think engaging with this material is sinful.

[00:18:49] I just don’t think it’s particularly more sinful than any other form of entertainment you can engage is that’s, that’s purely, like, in- Yeah,

[00:18:56] Simone Collins: we’re saying if you want to waste your time with non-procreative sex, which we also say is sinful, having your girlfriend or wife consume this is not a bad thing based on your stupid hedonic interests.

[00:19:10] Yeah,

[00:19:10] Malcolm Collins: it’s a- But it’s still wrong ... it’s not, it’s not particularly worse than watching a football game, right? Yeah. Like- Yeah ... which is incredibly selfish and bad and can lead to betting behavior and has all sorts of, like, the, like, football is probably worse because you have to do it at specific times, and it has the risk of getting you addicted to gambling.

[00:19:25] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:25] Malcolm Collins: But anyway w- w- and, and, and gambling is, I think, one of the most sinful things you can do simply because of how much it can destroy your life, how quickly it can destroy your life. Like, drugs take weeks to destroy your life. We talk about this in another one. Like, even if you take heroin, you still have a ch- you know, maybe whatever, but with gambling, you can, like, leverage everything you might ever own and everything that any one of your family members will ever own in one minute.

[00:19:59] You, you can put yourself [00:20:00] in generational debt in a minute. Yeah.

[00:20:03] Simone Collins: Don’t do it. Mm-mm. No.

[00:20:05] Malcolm Collins: And historically, and maybe in the future, that means selling off your kids and stuff like that, you know, b- based on this. Y- you’re making it even worse, but okay.

[00:20:12] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:20:12] Malcolm Collins: Or yourself. You know, a lot of people ended up in slavery from that in, like, Rome and stuff.

[00:20:16] Simone Collins: Oh, yeah.

[00:20:16] Malcolm Collins: So the, the male hero, Xaden, is significantly older and more powerful and physically dominant. The heroine starts as physically weaker and lower status. Smex is frequent, graphic, and often rough.

[00:20:30] Simone Collins: Oh.

[00:20:31] Malcolm Collins: Scenes regularly feature him pinning her, holding her down, controlling the pace, and using explicit language about owning her body.

[00:20:40] Now note here, I, I, I wanna be, this is what women get really excited about.

[00:20:45] Simone Collins: Yeah, totally. Like,

[00:20:45] Malcolm Collins: guys, be aware of this, right? Like- In the right context. Now, note here other very important

[00:20:52] Simone Collins: caveats Yeah, the right context. You’re hot and rich and powerful. The right context.

[00:20:57] Malcolm Collins: You want a woman in your life, and I’ve said this before and I’m gonna say it again, luring a woman into your life as a long-term partner by being maximally sexy is a very bad idea.

[00:21:10] Mm, yeah. The reason why it’s a bad idea is the type of woman who marries someone because she found them sexy is typically not who you wanna be marrying. The woman who goes home with the guy from a bar because she found him sexy above all the other reasons she might be interested or want from her life typically not the, the bait you wanna be using to catch a life partner.

[00:21:28] Simone Collins: Yeah, is

[00:21:28] Malcolm Collins: this the kind

[00:21:29] Simone Collins: of diligence you want when you, you want your female partner to, like, do other things, help you with other things? This

[00:21:35] Malcolm Collins: is about g- getting good at being sexy and sexual knowledge and stuff like that is important for pleasing a partner that you have secured through other means, right?

[00:21:46] That, that is where the pleasing the partner part comes in, is it- it- it’s- Yeah ... it’s securing the partner through getting them interested in spending a lifetime with you and not having sex with you. And note here when I talk about spending a lifetime with you, this is really critically important.

[00:22:03] I’ve mentioned, I’ve mentioned this before. I’ll mention it again. Women primarily what they w- look for in a long-term partner is like a journey that they can join or a struggle that they can join. They want to join the hero’s party. And what I want to be clear here, ‘cause I think a lot of people hear this and they’re like, “Yeah, but how do I be the hero in this world that we live in without wars or battles or quests or adventures or anything like that?

[00:22:28] You know, not everyone can go out and do what you’re doing, Malcolm, or whatever,” right? Or it might be clear to somebody how I serve that function for girls. I think a very good anime for understanding this, ‘cause I was reflecting on it-

[00:22:39] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:22:39] Malcolm Collins: recently, is Spice and Wolf. You, you remember Spice and Wolf, right?

[00:22:43] Yeah. Where the male protagonist is a merchant, a town to town merchant, and the female protagonist and it’s a, a romance to the side, is a a god, a literal god. And yet at no point in watching Spice and Wolf are you at all confused why these two would be in a relationship with each other or why the literal god falls in love with and wants to spend her life with the male merchant.

[00:23:11] And it’s because he’s not just a merchant dir- as like a day job or something like that. He, he makes it his quest.

[00:23:20] Simone Collins: He makes- Yeah, this is an anime about economics.

[00:23:23] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the, the anime is predominantly about economics. It’s an anime that I can universally recommend. It does have nudity scenes in it, I guess, so it might be a problem for some people with kids.

[00:23:33] Nudity of a furry because the- ... the female is a, a fox deity. Or no, a wolf deity. I,

[00:23:39] Simone Collins: I- Nudity of, of a furry.

[00:23:42] Malcolm Collins: But who the cares about that anymore, right? You

[00:23:45] Simone Collins: know. Look, kids- Don’t seem to care a lot about nudity, for

[00:23:49] Malcolm Collins: what it’s

[00:23:49] Simone Collins: worth.

[00:23:50] Malcolm Collins: It, but it’s, it’s a, it’s, it’s about economic sort of like mysteries and challenges and battles is- Mm-hmm

[00:23:55] is sort of the, the thesis of it.

[00:23:57] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:23:57] Malcolm Collins: And watch the first one, not the [00:24:00] remake.

[00:24:00] Simone Collins: I didn’t know there was a remake ...

[00:24:01] Malcolm Collins: I still haven’t seen the remake so I don’t know if it’s good or not, but I know the first one- Okay ... is spectacular. So- Yeah, yeah,

[00:24:05] Simone Collins: yeah ...

[00:24:06] Malcolm Collins: the reason I, I use this as an avatar for this is being a guy and having an adventure that a woman wants to join does not mean that the adventure has to be the grandest thing in the world.

[00:24:17] You can make anything the grandest of adventures in regards to how you relate to it, right? Hmm. And this anime shows that very, very well. Yeah. To the extent where I think even me just me talking about it, people have watched it, they’re like, “Oh yeah, I did never question why a literal god wanted to date and spend her life with a...”

[00:24:38] He’s not depicted as a particularly rich merchant. He’s not depicted as a particularly powerful merchant. If anything, sort of the opposite. But you never question it. You’re like, “Oh yeah, of course, that would be really sexy.” Okay, ne- next one here. But the, the but you wanna maximally please your...

[00:24:53] The owning the person’s body, that’s good pillow talk, okay? Now you wanna talk things through with your partner and stuff like that as well, but you know, knowing, knowing their stuff and being able to be like, “Hey, is this sort of stuff your stuff? Is this sort of stuff your stuff?” Or even just looking at what they’re reading, right?

[00:25:08] Simone Collins: Yeah. Or- Or having ta... Look, I think women love talking about them, and you can kind of... They will tell you what they’re into in the commentary or editorializing they do on the book they’re reading. Just ask them- Yes ... to tell you about the book. Ask them to tell you about the- You don’t have to ask them what they’re into.

[00:25:27] Just be like, “Oh, what are you reading? Tell me about it. I, I heard it was a good book.” And then they’ll go off.

[00:25:33] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, it’s just like, and guys it is, like we, this is like a blessing that’s given to guys that they do not exploit.

[00:25:41] Simone Collins: For real.

[00:25:41] Malcolm Collins: Like-

[00:25:42] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:25:42] Malcolm Collins: guys don’t walk around carrying their, you know, turn-ons in a little package under their, their, their hand.

[00:25:49] Mm. And also I’ll note here, if you, because there’s been a big change in the way these books are marketed a lot of guys might be like, “But my wife doesn’t read stuff like that, you know?” “She just likes fantasy books,” my brother in Christ.

[00:26:01] Simone Collins: Oh, fantasy books. Yes.

[00:26:04] Malcolm Collins: Fantasy books. “She just likes romance.”

[00:26:06] Mm-hmm ... so what’s important to note is the Fabio buff guy on the cover books of our childhoods that sort of are the cartoon version in our heads of what romance books look like is not what any of these bestsellers look like. They’re typically like abstract very sort of like- Patterned

[00:26:26] Simone Collins: titles.

[00:26:26] Yeah ...

[00:26:27] Malcolm Collins: h- h- like maybe a skull or like, with like a rose growing in it. Or Simone’s favorite that she walked by was just a money clip. She’s like-

[00:26:36] Simone Collins: That was perfect. That, that is the best book cover- They just got

[00:26:39] Malcolm Collins: straight to the

[00:26:39] Simone Collins: point with that one ... I’ve ever seen. Yeah.

[00:26:40] Malcolm Collins: Or like, you know, geometric shapes and sort of an artistic pattern that looks sort of vague.

[00:26:45] The

[00:26:45] Simone Collins: money clip is the same. It’s that, it’s the, that anime face. That is the money clip, but for a woman.

[00:26:51] Malcolm Collins: It’s the, it’s the anime face or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gotta, gotta put one here for reference- ...

[00:26:58] of a, a Puritan woman doing it. I, I love that I do that- Oh, God ... with this show, with the

[00:27:02] Simone Collins: anime Puritan woman.

[00:27:04] You are... Whatever. What are we gonna do with you?

[00:27:09] Malcolm Collins: So many scenes happen when they are injured, exhausted, or in high danger situations, so the arousal is mixed with adrenaline and emotional intensity. That sounds you know, like probably not the best use of your time in those sorts of situations.

[00:27:22] Simone Collins: Yeah, if you’re trying to survive. Also, like, women aren’t so turned on when they’re tired. Can, can say that much.

[00:27:29] Malcolm Collins: Their relationship has a clear dominant/submissive sexual texture, even when the characters are emotionally equal partners. He leads, she yields and enjoys yielding. Mm-hmm. We talked a bit about this one, A Court of Thorns and Roses.

[00:27:43] Simone Collins: Yeah, we talked about that already.

[00:27:44] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. But just to go over what happens in it. Multiple-

[00:27:47] Simone Collins: Well, not a lot of sex, I can tell you that much ...

[00:27:51] Malcolm Collins: multiple powerful fae males are physically and magically far stronger than the heroine. Smex scenes are long, detailed, and [00:28:00] often aggressive.

[00:28:01] Simone Collins: Common- Not from my memory.

[00:28:03] Okay. Aggressive? No. It’s just, u- unless I’m misremembering the book series, it’s just dudes going down on her, which is super not my thing.

[00:28:13] Malcolm Collins: So I don’t- Common elements, the male’s losing control, pinning the female against the walls or surfaces.

[00:28:18] Simone Collins: Oh.

[00:28:19] Malcolm Collins: Hair pulling- Just, just- ... biting, and very explicit depictions of organs.

[00:28:25] Simone Collins: Oh, yeah, this was different. Yeah, right, this was the other one. Sorry, I’m thinking of a different... They’re all like- Yeah, this is the one- The titles are all the freaking same.

[00:28:32] Malcolm Collins: You get very annoyed with organ descriptions.

[00:28:35] Simone Collins: I, well, especially if it’s female body parts. That’s not my, that’s not my game. Like, ladies, stop.

[00:28:44] Just we’re not-

[00:28:44] Malcolm Collins: I think a lot of women feel this way. We were talking on the Leaflet stream, and she says she’s the exact same way. Like, she-

[00:28:49] Simone Collins: Yeah, dude ...

[00:28:50] Malcolm Collins: like, the female body shape, she’s like, “Yeah, f- fine. It looks good.” Leave it. But, like, the organ- Yeah,

[00:28:53] Simone Collins: no ... mm-hmm. The shape is great. Leave the... Look, we don’t need Alien-style slime, slime puppets, okay?

[00:29:01] We don’t it’s not not my thing. Anyway, moving on.

[00:29:06] Malcolm Collins: Sl- so strong mate, fated ownership theme. Once the bond snaps, the smex becomes even more possessive and frequent. The male often talks about needing to be inside of her, claiming her, and filling her. Now this is important to note because if you’re a guy and you’re thinking you’re in a marriage, you’re like, “What, what do women like?”

[00:29:26] Knowing th- this stuff, because a lot of people in our wider community, they get, what’s the word I’m looking for here? Pilled by what’s her name? We’ve talked with her a few times, a British lady.

[00:29:40] And doesn’t like sex. But like all of the British female-

[00:29:42] Simone Collins: Doesn’t like porn. Doesn’t like porn,

[00:29:45] Malcolm Collins: I’m sure. No, no, no, no. She, she thinks that, like, the only reason why, like, slapping and choking or whatever are, like, in the, in the public are because of men.

[00:29:53] Simone Collins: Okay, well, that- like- ... maybe she hasn’t explored her sexuality or maybe she’s one of the very few women out there who isn’t primarily oriented around power dynamics.

[00:30:02] But, ah, I had her name in my head for a... Louise Perry. There we go.

[00:30:06] Malcolm Collins: Louise Perry, yes. But-

[00:30:07] Simone Collins: It came in, it came in. All right ...

[00:30:09] Malcolm Collins: and then there’s the other one. Who’s the other one who, who’s often complaining about this stuff? It’s like every female, white female from the UK is convinced that women are not into this stuff.

[00:30:17] Simone Collins: Look- ... it’s, yeah, something about repressed sexuality in the UK.

[00:30:22] Malcolm Collins: But, but the problem is, is that repressed sexuality leads to either wives who are dissatisfied- Yeah ... or husbands who are dissatisfied and they end up strapping boobs to themselves and getting caught mo- whore-whoring. Neither of that happened- Well, but

[00:30:37] Simone Collins: that was America.

[00:30:38] That was America, okay?

[00:30:40] Malcolm Collins: But- Yeah, but it was clearly a couple that was unable to talk about their sexual patterns- Yeah ... because the wife thought he was gay.

[00:30:45] Simone Collins: Not good. Yeah.

[00:30:46] And he very- And don’t, don’t repress your... Yeah, ‘cause then it can also lead to ac- yeah, lead to acting out. You don’t want that. No one wants that.

[00:30:52] You know how I knew that the female gooner movement has reached the stra- the stratosphere?

[00:30:58] Malcolm Collins: How?

[00:30:59] Simone Collins: The movie Wicker. We, we’ve gone from very, very popular books to now mainstream big movies with, like, lead, like, famous leading actors. So Wicker the preview for this movie just came out stars Alexander Skarsgard, Peter Dinklage, and Olivia Coleman.

[00:31:19] I love Olivia Coleman. I mean, everyone knows Peter Dinklage from Elf, from Game of Thrones, from, like, everything he’s in. And women really like Alexander Skarsgard at least. And

[00:31:30] Here, you have it? Okay, good. Watch it

[00:31:33] Speaker: Oh. Um, oh.

[00:31:37] Speaker 6: Love seems more a burden than a prize.

[00:31:48] Speaker 2: I heard that he’s strong as a tree and just as hard

[00:31:53] Speaker 10: Is wicca Straighten me right out.

[00:31:59] Speaker 9: [00:32:00] You are the reason I live and breathe.

[00:32:03] Speaker 10: It’s not natural. Men are not like that.

[00:32:06] Speaker 2: Fuck

[00:32:06] Speaker 9: off. Fuck off.

[00:32:07] Speaker 11: Yeah, fuck off.

[00:32:08] Speaker 12: I’ll be fixing the bed this afternoon

[00:32:15] It broke again.

[00:32:18] Simone Collins: Your face. What? What? What? So you can see we’ve reached mainstream. No, you, you, you haven’t read these books. You don’t understand what women are reading about-

[00:32:32] Malcolm Collins: Did you read those books? ...

[00:32:33] Simone Collins: in these books. I d- I don’t know if this was a book, but let me read you some of the top comments. We’ve got, “So it’s erotic scarecrow story.”

[00:32:42] And someone else said, “My monster romance lover heart is screaming with joy right now.” Someone else said, “Can someone make an Alexander Skarsgard for me?” Someone says, “This looks so weird. I’m so excited.” Someone else said, “The fan fiction is about to be lit.” Someone else commented- ... “So many jealousy guys in here, LMAO.”

[00:33:01] And this is probably referring to dudes comments like, “How down bad you gotta be to want to get cracked a literally talking basket?” I, I think he meant to say cracked by. Someone said, “50 Shades of Hay,” which- 50 Shades of Hay ...

[00:33:15] Malcolm Collins: good. That’s a good

[00:33:16] Simone Collins: one. “This will hold me over until Bridgerton comes back.”

[00:33:19] That’s a big Netflix thing that we all love if we’re ladies. Someone says- But I, I,

[00:33:22] Malcolm Collins: I also think from this, what’s important to note is when I’m talking about these different books and these different profiles- ... I’m merely talking about one of the dominant profiles. Mm-hmm. You can tell that with this woman, right, what she was clearly into or, like, the arousal profile is not domination in this one.

[00:33:41] In this one, it’s being really obsessed with your partner. Mm-hmm. And deeply wanting to please your partner. Mm-hmm. That is the arousal profile being checked here.

[00:33:50] Simone Collins: Look, with men and with women, and this is kind of like the sad, boring thing about sex, ‘cause I wish it were more interesting than this.

[00:33:57] But when you look at most erotic material online, I’m not saying the niche stuff because that’s more interesting to look at. See, it might get a little bit more attention. But when you look at... And Ayla’s research backs this up completely. What people love is a partner, male or female, who just needs you so bad and, like, has to have

[00:34:19] Malcolm Collins: you I also wanna point out that this guy is a slave.

[00:34:22] Simone Collins: Look, okay? Like,

[00:34:25] Malcolm Collins: y-

[00:34:25] Simone Collins: You know, The,

[00:34:26] Malcolm Collins: the, the woman went and bought a, a sentient hominid to be her smex slave.

[00:34:34] Simone Collins: A t- he’s a wicker. He’s a sentient basket, okay? Also, Alexander Skarsgard, that was all practical effects. He wore a wicker costume for that movie.

[00:34:46] Malcolm Collins: It looks really

[00:34:47] Simone Collins: good. This poor man. No, it’s really well done.

[00:34:48] I’m so glad to see more practical effects coming back. Like, don’t bring back the slimy puppets. I’m so done with the ‘80s, but I’m ready for, like-

[00:34:56] Malcolm Collins: Slimy puppets. In the ‘80s, someone found out they can put slime on a puppet-

[00:34:59] Simone Collins: And they were like- ...

[00:35:00] Malcolm Collins: and the film industry afterwards was just like, “Yeah, we got it for the next decade and a half.”

[00:35:06] They

[00:35:06] Simone Collins: were like- For sure. Like, you can see someone with their, their power shoulders in the ‘80s board, boardroom, being like, “Two words, gentlemen, slimy puppets.” Puppets. That

[00:35:14] Malcolm Collins: was it. That was it. Next one here, The Hunting of Adeline. Oh, okay. The core dynamic, an extreme stalker obsession- Oh ... plus non-consensual to consensual progression.

[00:35:26] Ugh. Dark power exchange. The hero is violent, obsessive stalker who watches the heroine, breaks into her home and initiates, well, SA, basically- Yeah, it sounds like he- ... without clear

[00:35:38] Simone Collins: consent ... surprise un-fun sex with her.

[00:35:39] Malcolm Collins: Early scenes contain explicit non-consent forced elements. She is restrained, overpowered, and taken while protesting.

[00:35:46] These scenes are written as highly arousing for the hero and- Mm-hmm ... eventually for the heroine as well, and obviously the reader, because it’s a bestseller. Wow ... later the dynamic shifts to an intense consensual, [00:36:00] a rough stuff, restraint, degradation- Oh, boy ... and possessiveness- Ugh ... remains extreme still.

[00:36:05] Simone Collins: I don’t like the messages this sends. It’s like, look, just stalk her, surprise sex her against her consent, and then, like, she’ll realize just how amazing you are.

[00:36:15] Malcolm Collins: Heavy focus on the psychological intensity of being hunted and claimed which- Great ... a lot of women are into that. Yes. The Dark Mafia. That, you know, oh-

[00:36:24] Simone Collins: The dark...

[00:36:24] No, mafia’s big in all this stuff. You can also see, like, mafia tropes show up a lot in the female, more female-centric AI chat platforms, too.

[00:36:33] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, you tried that with your first not safe for work AI chat.

[00:36:36] Simone Collins: Look, I’ve done so, I have done so many NSFW AI, AI scenarios, and- I think it goes to show how, like, both autistic and/or asexual I am because I’ve never encountered a sexual scenario once in any of these, and I’m going straight to the NSFW ones, and I keep going like, “When’s the sex gonna happen?”

[00:36:58] Like, I don’t know, man. It doesn’t happen. Hm. I don’t know. What am I doing wrong? Anyway.

[00:37:06] Malcolm Collins: There’s a lot of ownership, like you’re mine that, that sort of stuff.

[00:37:10] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:37:11] Malcolm Collins: the heroine is forced into marriage. Oh ... you know, it, it, it, it, again, coercion it, with it eventually becoming addictive.

[00:37:19] Simone Collins: Of course.

[00:37:20] Malcolm Collins: Right.

[00:37:20] But,

[00:37:20] Simone Collins: Like we’ve pointed out that arranged marriages typically last long, you know?

[00:37:24] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I think the, the what guys fundamentally miss, or the, the biggest thing that guys miss, or you’re fusing. One is, is getting sucked in by this Louise Perry nonsense, okay? Like learn what your woman is actually into.

[00:37:35] Simone Collins: Exes. Or yeah, that, that porn is damaging is very annoying.

[00:37:38] Malcolm Collins: Well or especially that like female gooner stuff is like why all of these kinks exist, when we see them all the way back to the 1800s.

[00:37:45] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:37:45] Malcolm Collins: Y- like, like BDSM is literally traditionally called the English vice, right? Like-

[00:37:50] Simone Collins: Also, like men, from my understanding just aren’t that...

[00:37:54] Most men are not that into it. When, when you, again, when you look at the most popular erotic content the men have. And also now I, I, you know- Oh,

[00:38:02] Malcolm Collins: God, and we might just do a whole episode on this ‘cause it’s been really interesting. So for the last few weeks Simone has been designing and running at scale erotic ads for our website.

[00:38:12] Simone Collins: Yeah. And- And it’s so disappointing which ads perform best. And it’s just-

[00:38:15] Malcolm Collins: Through doing that- ...

[00:38:16] Simone Collins: men being approached by very comfortable and very enthusiastic basically close friends. Men don’t wanna like hunt someone. That’s work. They don’t wanna tie them up. It’s like their roommate or- That’s work.

[00:38:26] Hunting, learn knots. I don’t wanna buy rope. What are you talking about? Who’s time for that? They wanna sit. Literally right now our most popular ad by like millions, it, it is insane how well this, this... And it’s two versions of the same ad. I’m so disappointed, is the horny roommate, you know, you’re, you’re the dude sitting on the couch watching a soccer game.

[00:38:46] Horny roommate comes in and is like, “Roomie, I’m horny.” She’s wearing, she’s not wearing lingerie. Of course she’s not wearing, that’s for women. Women wear lingerie for themselves. No, she’s wearing a sweatshirt and panties. And then she sits on your lap and she’s like, “Oh.” And she takes off her shirt and of course she is lovely.

[00:39:00] I

[00:39:00] Malcolm Collins: like it that you know the male mind. I know the male, yes. A sweatshirt and panties being so much better than lingerie in the male

[00:39:07] Simone Collins: mind. They just want women comfort- they just want women comfortable. They just want women into them and comfortable.

[00:39:11] Speaker 13: . I’m more turned on by women in pajamas than lingerie. I just wanna know they feel comfortable.

[00:39:15] Simone Collins: And frankly- And

[00:39:16] Malcolm Collins: meanwhile women want a, a basket.

[00:39:19] That just...

[00:39:23] Yep. Mm-hmm. But the thing is, is- Sorry. In a, in a relationship, one, one of the other reasons I’m pro a lot of this content is- Mm-hmm ... is I think it’s an enormous waste of time if you focus on both the male and female making sure they’re filling all of their partner’s needs within these categories. But I think just because you’re not filling all of your partner’s needs in these categories doesn’t mean that they should be going to something outside the relationship for them.

[00:39:50] Like that’s, that’s what a lot of other people say. Like, “Oh, then you should go outside the relationship,” or, “Your partner should literally be your flashlight.” Like, that’s like the two options, right? And it’s like how about neither? [00:40:00]

[00:40:00] Simone Collins: Yeah. For real. Like do you really need this?

[00:40:06] Malcolm Collins: And w- a fun thing here is if you take our interpretation of the Adam and Eve story-

[00:40:13] Simone Collins: Mm ...

[00:40:14] Malcolm Collins: where we point out that it is not a sin to be nude in front of your wife in the outdoors where only God can see you. Like nowhere is that a sin, anywhere is that a sin. And, and that, you know, Adam clothes himself ‘cause he thinks it.

[00:40:27] So he’s like, oh, you know. That shows that like knowledge of good and evil means knowledge of good and evil in opposition to God, like him deciding eating the apple was good even though God told him- Mm-hmm ... it wasn’t good.

[00:40:36] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:40:38] Malcolm Collins: G- his reaction to that is the second sin. So, or, or not the second sin, but, but really tied to original sin.

[00:40:45] Yeah. So to make up sexual prohibitions that have nothing, no correlate in the Bible and are strictly deleterious to people’s lives to do that is literally like to participate in original sin. To participate in that thing that Adam did the moment-

[00:41:03] Simone Collins: Sorry, wait, to wear clothes around your wife?

[00:41:06] Malcolm Collins: No.

[00:41:07] S- the, the, the first thing that Adam did that sort of compounded the original sin was to attempt to clothe himself even though he was only naked in front of his wife and God, right? Like-

[00:41:18] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:41:18] Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm ... and so that’s inventing a sexual prohibition just because you personally feel uncomfortable about something.

[00:41:25] Simone Collins: Oh, that’s sinful. Okay, okay. Yeah, thanks, sorry.

[00:41:28] Malcolm Collins: W- which is interesting to me that these sorts of prohibitions are so tied up in original sin.

[00:41:33] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:41:33] Malcolm Collins: Inventing-

[00:41:34] Simone Collins: Oh, I love that ... prohibitions. Oh, man. We need to, we need to pull that on these people more. Sorry, I’m gonna have to file that away in my terrible memory.

[00:41:42] Now,

[00:41:42] Malcolm Collins: obviously we invent prohibitions where it ends up helping people, but in this sort of a category you know, most men are never gonna be billionaires, so how is your wife gonna get off to the billionaire... Most men are never gonna be werewolves either, or vampires.

[00:41:54] Simone Collins: Damn.

[00:41:55] Malcolm Collins: Damn.

[00:41:56] Simone Collins: Oh, no. Look, though, you can go, a lot of dentists, like actual cosmetic dentists, will put on vampire canines.

[00:42:04] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, really

[00:42:05] Simone Collins: nice vampire canines. I, I would be... You know what? Like, when our whole family gets older, and if we have a lot of money someday, I just want all of us to suddenly, like all of us, the kids, you know, like, the, the teens, of course, with consent, but, like, and us too, to all have vampire teeth.

[00:42:17] Malcolm Collins: Do, do vampire teeth?

[00:42:18] I’d

[00:42:19] Simone Collins: be totally for that. Come on, like the whole family. What a great look that would be.

[00:42:21] Malcolm Collins: Vampire teeth are hot. I can say vampire

[00:42:24] Simone Collins: teeth are hot. No, no, I think, no, I think vampire teeth always look good regardless of i- if you’re into vampires or not. I think they just give you kind of an extra edge. I think they make a smile look really good.

[00:42:32] I know that they annoy dentists and stuff. Yeah, you don’t make them

[00:42:34] Malcolm Collins: comically big. You just do the subtle

[00:42:36] Simone Collins: kind. No, no, no, they’re subtle. Trust me, they’re subtle. I think, was it Strange Aeons who got them or something? I definitely saw someone get them, and it looked really good, and I was like, “Oh my God,” like, “I need to find a dentist around here to do this for me.”

[00:42:47] But Malcolm, please, let this be push present for kid number whatever, okay? We all- Ugh ... get vampire teeth. Well, obviously with our kids’ consent, you know? They, no one has to do it if they don’t want to. But c- what kid is not gonna want permanent vampire teeth?

[00:43:03] Malcolm Collins: They clean up with the women, I’ll tell you what

[00:43:05] Simone Collins: I’m telling you, right?

[00:43:06] Like oh my God, I’m so excited for this. Please tell me we’re gonna do this. Oh, the, the vampire family.

[00:43:14] Malcolm Collins: The, that’d be such a thing. Yes It’d be like a I, I d- w- that’d be one of the first things I’d genetically engineer once we can genetically engineer- Oh ... Collinses.

[00:43:22] Simone Collins: You wouldn’t need to because I had incredibly sharp canines.

[00:43:25] They just shaved them down.

[00:43:26] Malcolm Collins: Okay, they

[00:43:27] Simone Collins: Without my consent, by the way. God.

[00:43:30] Malcolm Collins: So

[00:43:30] Simone Collins: anyway- One of the most traumatic events of my childhood

[00:43:33] Malcolm Collins: But so, yeah, d- that’s the joke about us. Joe Rogan says I’m secretly a vampire on, on the show. They had the crash out about that. You- It’s- ... not about... That’s like Deep Collins where Vi Leaflet always makes us vampires in her videos.

[00:43:44] You know?

[00:43:46] Simone Collins: It’s, no, you gotta... Malcolm, please, we’re just doing this. Never mind. I, I, we’re, I’m gonna, I’ll just, I’ll just book us one day with, with the kids’ consent, obviously. Not your consent. You don’t, you don’t get to... Y- you’re just gonna do this. I don’t care if you, [00:44:00] I don’t care if you care ‘cause you’ll look really good, Malcolm.

[00:44:05] Malcolm Collins: Mm. Oh, the, the, the one that we were talking about, Zodiac Academy, Yeah ... extreme bully romance, enemies to lovers, very prolonged. The early books feature heavy bullying, public humiliation, physical violence, magical attacks, stripping, hair cutting forced exposure of, of fears, and sexual harassment.

[00:44:23] Oh, I

[00:44:23] Simone Collins: feel like I might have read this one, actually. Oh, God, I’m sorry.

[00:44:26] Malcolm Collins: The same men who degraded and controlled the heroines eventually become the ones they have intense blank with.

[00:44:33] Simone Collins: Oh, heroines? Okay, then I haven’t read that one. There’s only one... Never mind. I’m not gonna-

[00:44:37] Malcolm Collins: And they have a reverse harem.

[00:44:38] Both of the twins- Reverse ... end up with multiple high status male characters rather than choosing one. Oh, it’s

[00:44:43] Simone Collins: Gemini. Oh, they’re Gemini, how cute. Do they end up with other Gemini boys? That’d be so cute. Oh my God, twin

[00:44:50] Malcolm Collins: Strong power imbalance. The males... Well, you talked about one you were reading recently that was horny that was, or maybe I watched somebody else, that was about the lost boys.

[00:45:01] Simone Collins: No, I haven’t heard about this. It’s

[00:45:02] Malcolm Collins: like a Peter Pan fan work.

[00:45:03] Simone Collins: I was telling you about Peter Pan the other day, but it wasn’t horny.

[00:45:08] Malcolm Collins: But apparently she, like, got passed around- I was telling you- ... a- among the, the lost boys

[00:45:14] Simone Collins: What? No. Ew, no. Look, Wendy was- They’re all aged up

[00:45:17] Malcolm Collins: in

[00:45:17] Simone Collins: this one ... Wendy was very chaste.

[00:45:19] It’s Tinker Bell who’s the obvious slut. Like, she literally, Tinker Bell wanted to kill, and almost effectively killed Wendy by getting the lost b- the, the lost boys to sh- shoot her with an arrow when she came in to Never Never Land, ‘cause she needed Peter’s giant you know what in her-

[00:45:39] Malcolm Collins: She was thirsty as hell.

[00:45:40] Simone Collins: Yes, she was. Sh- murderously thirsty. That’s,

[00:45:45] Malcolm Collins: Disney used to teach us important lessons, guys.

[00:45:47] Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:45:51] Malcolm Collins: Which is small chicks

[00:45:53] Simone Collins: are murderously thirsty. But wasn’t that was J.M. Barrie? Disney, I don’t think Disney... I don’t know if Disney included that part in the movie, but J.M. Barrie definitely did. She’s like, “It’s the Wendy bird, shoot the Wendy bird.”

[00:46:02] And they all shot the Wendy bird. They were so excited.

[00:46:06] Malcolm Collins: Oh, my God.

[00:46:07] Simone Collins: Or maybe it was just Tootles who shot her. Anyway, let’s,

[00:46:09] Malcolm Collins: Wrap it up. That’s what she said. Wrap it... You’re such a twat.

[00:46:17] Simone Collins: Mm, I know.

[00:46:19] Malcolm Collins: We actually, I, yeah, I’ve talked to some members of the community whose parents tried this, like, e- extremely, like, no P-I- Vampire teeth? No, no PIV sex until marriage, but, like, corn is totally okay.

[00:46:30] Simone Collins: Oh,

[00:46:30] Malcolm Collins: yeah. And, ‘cause I wanted to see, like, what happened in the, in the religious families that, that- Mm-hmm

[00:46:34] went with this angle. And like, all of them are married and have kids.

[00:46:36] Simone Collins: No, I, I think that that’s the way to go. I think I, I am surprisingly to, I guess my past, I guess I never Sex before, sex outside of marriage does not make sense. It just, it, it has hurt dating markets, it doesn’t help people, it’s not super fun.

[00:46:54] Yeah,

[00:46:54] Malcolm Collins: I’m not- It’s pretty risky ... I’m super anti it now. Yeah. And that’s like a new thing for me this year.

[00:46:57] Simone Collins: Like, there’s just nothing really good that comes from it. And, and, and the- ... and the collateral damage it causes is profoundly horrible. It’s, it doesn’t even really help the men who can access it in the first place, because they end up sort of, like, never committing and never ending up with that happy, satisfying life that ultimately they, they must desire.

[00:47:15] Oh, it’s the worst type

[00:47:15] Malcolm Collins: of masturbation, because you, you think you’re actually doing something. Mm-hmm. When you’re doing nothing more than masturbating with another person.

[00:47:22] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s horrible. It’s, it’s really horrible. I, yeah, I’m, I’m super, super against it, which is, I mean, we really were way more liberal about sex years- Early

[00:47:31] Malcolm Collins: on, yeah

[00:47:31] Simone Collins: like two years ago. Yeah. A year ago probably.

[00:47:35] Malcolm Collins: Woo.

[00:47:36] Simone Collins: There’s a new another movie that came out, or I think it’s... Yeah, I think it came out. I tried to watch it streaming. It’s not even streaming yet. I think it’s only in, in theaters. I think it’s called One Night Only, and it’s about a world in which you’re not allowed to have premarital sex.

[00:47:49] And it’s, it’s like a rom-com. It’s, it’s, according to reports, fine, cute. Not the offensive thing that, that many online commentators are saying it is, ‘cause they’re like, “Oh, this is the [00:48:00] world we’re going to,” and everything. But like, why are all these women defending, like, their right to be mistreated by men, basically?

[00:48:10] To, like, be used and dumped by men who never planned on committing to them anyway, to be lied to by men who imply that they are

[00:48:17] Malcolm Collins: interested? Yeah, they’re like, “What a terrible world that would be, where you can’t have casual...” Yeah. Wait, women should want that world. That world is, like- That,

[00:48:23] Simone Collins: yeah ... completely better.

[00:48:24] That is, that is... You should be fighting for this. Like, this should be the female thing. Like, not... And yet they’re acting like, “Oh, men are for...” Men are not for... No, men are not for a single... Men are very happy to keep things the way they are, to their detriment. So anyway, yeah, there’s, you know, between One Night Only and Wicker, got some interesting- Mm

[00:48:43] um, interesting stuff out there in terms of the state of affairs.

[00:48:49] Malcolm Collins: All right, Simone.

[00:48:50] Simone Collins: Love you.

[00:48:51] Malcolm Collins: Love you too.

[00:48:53] I am working on another one right now, Simone, that I’m so excited about. And the data for it... Can you hear me?

[00:48:59] Simone Collins: Yes.

[00:49:01] Malcolm Collins: Is really fascinating. And the question is, how come almost every single time in human history somebody has written out a unique eschatology and worldview, a successful religion is born from it?

[00:49:19] Which goes against a lot of intuitions that people would have. Obviously, there’s exceptions. If it’s obviously just schizophrenic ramblings, it doesn’t work. I- but other than that, almost every single time somebody has sat down and, Hold on

[00:49:42] Written down a world perspective it has... E- even when the founders have explicitly said, “Don’t make a church around this. Don’t make a religion around this,” people have gone on and made a religion about it.

[00:49:54] Simone Collins: We have to do a whole thing on this.

[00:49:56] Malcolm Collins: That’s too good. Even when it’s patently stupid like the white guy who created the Black supremacist cult by stealing from another thing that he went to, right?

[00:50:06] Simone Collins: Oh, Church of Islam? That guy?

[00:50:08] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the Church of, yeah, the Church of... We have to, I have to- Is it called the Church of the something? Oh,

[00:50:11] Simone Collins: sorry. Yeah,

[00:50:12] Malcolm Collins: Isn’t

[00:50:12] Simone Collins: it, oh my gosh, with Jacob?

[00:50:14] Malcolm Collins: Is it Jewish Muslim something?

[00:50:16] Simone Collins: Religion. I’m just gonna say Yacob religion

[00:50:18] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the, the Yacob religion What

[00:50:19] Simone Collins: is the Yacob religion?

[00:50:22] Malcolm Collins: It’s

[00:50:26] Simone Collins: Nation of Islam. The Nation of Islam

[00:50:28] Malcolm Collins: And this is often very surprising to people because like an AI, like I was talking with an AI about it, and the AI was like, “Well, you know, religions rarely work out.” And I go, “Can you name one? Can you name one where somebody actually wrote down, not a deviant sect, not a cult of personality, but an actual fully written religion?”

[00:50:51] By the way, do you know that our writings, the techno-puritan writings, are already 40% larger than the core Mormon corpus?

[00:50:59] Simone Collins: Really? Whoa.

[00:51:00] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:51:01] Simone Collins: The Book of Mormon. 46%, actually. Really?

[00:51:03] Malcolm Collins: Well, The Book of Mormon and The Pearl of Great Price and the, Well, they

[00:51:06] Simone Collins: had to write that by hand, Malcolm ... all of them. So.

[00:51:09] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah.

[00:51:09] Simone Collins: Well- And they were also translating- And he was illiterate ... from the golden plates that they were looking at. So

[00:51:13] Malcolm Collins: he had to have somebody else write for him.

[00:51:15] Simone Collins: Really, was he looking in a bag? He was looking in a bag, right? Was it a bag? A hat. A h- a hat. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. A hat, a hat.

[00:51:21] Malcolm Collins: He’s looking in a hat.

[00:51:23] Simone Collins: Well, look, that takes, that’s a, so that’s a lot harder to write than-

[00:51:25] Malcolm Collins: But the, the question is, is why does it, why is the starting of a religious or philosophical movement the writing it down, the authorship, and not, you know, it existing? Like a startup or something like that, or virtually every other movement in every other period in human history.

[00:51:45] Hmm. And the answer is just, like, really fascinating to dig into, but you have to sort of dig through them all. The core reason is there’s just not... The, the core motivation to do it is to exploit people. Like, the, the core reason you would do it is [00:52:00] because you want to exploit other people out of money and stuff like that.

[00:52:04] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:52:04] Malcolm Collins: And so most of the people who do it are con artists. Whereas people who are looking for, like, a better future, there’s been a few of them that have been like, “Oh, religion is clearly good.” Yeah. But then they attempt to build something that’s, like, overly human focused.

[00:52:19] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:52:20] Malcolm Collins: Anyway, the, that’s ver- very fun.

[00:52:21] I, we’ll, we’ll do, like, a an- an- anthropology of it, but I’m, I’m having a lot of fun looking at that.

[00:52:26] Simone Collins: Oh, I’m s- I’m super excited for that. We’re, we’re going hard on religion lately, but I’m, I’m here for it, and I’m, I’m super-

[00:52:33] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, our fans seem to be having fun ... super, yeah. That, that last episode we did was definitely one of my favorites,

[00:52:37] Simone Collins: Ever.

[00:52:37] Oh, that was- Probably my favorite

[00:52:38] Malcolm Collins: ever ...

[00:52:39] Simone Collins: that was good. Well, come on. What episode has had a companion webpage?

[00:52:42] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:52:42] Simone Collins: With graphs and pictures that are original. Yeah, that’s, that was pretty good.

[00:52:47] Malcolm Collins: Somebody on the Discord was like, “Malcolm’s going, you know, full AI hallucination mode or whatever,” and, and, and had three down votes.

[00:52:53] It’s the first time, I didn’t even know you could make down votes on the Discord. But, like, people are like- Oh, wow ... “No, this is, this is awesome. Like, let’s, let’s do more of this stuff.”

[00:53:01] Simone Collins: Well, yeah. Someone’s gotta be mad.

[00:53:05] It’s necessary ...

[00:53:06] Malcolm Collins: I, I was also talking with an AI about, like, what’s the core trick that Malcolm uses to keep making the, the things work.

[00:53:16] Like, he’ll say, “Oh, the, you know, monist materialist framing.” And then he’ll go to the books, and he will quote them extensively. You know, not picking specific passages, but literally every time something is mentioned in one of the books. And I would... I, I s- wanted to see if Fable could get, like, what’s the core trick that I use.

[00:53:33] And Fable immediately got it. It was like, “Well, it’s because the books are monist and materialist in their framing.” All of the non-monist materialist framings came hundreds of years after the New Testament. And w- but because people grow up not knowing that what they don’t realize is that you can actually have maximum strength to your engagement by saying, “Oh yeah, just go read the text.

[00:53:57] Go read the...” And then what the AI did is act- actually, multiple Christian groups throughout history have realized this and then immediately put some sort of cap on this framing because they were afraid of the consequences to their community if it became more widespread. Like the Chrysotonians or something which is a, a large movement that’s, that’s very focused.

[00:54:19] But it, it’s like yeah, techno-puritanism has always been the end state of Protestantism and Puritanism because it’s what anybody comes to if they actually read the text in their origi- with their original historic context.

[00:54:31] Simone Collins: Darn tootin’.

[00:54:31] Malcolm Collins: Which I thought was fun. I like that, you know?

[00:54:32] Simone Collins: Yeah, I do like that.

[00:54:33] I like that too.

[00:54:35] Malcolm Collins: Because it is true. I mean, that’s, that’s fundamentally the trick I’m using is, it’s the what you have been told is a lie about what the books argue, and it’s what pretty much all academics agree. Even religious academics. They’re just like, “Our understanding has evolved since it.” In the same way that you would think that you know more about religion than Abraham, but you would still consider Abraham a Jew even though he didn’t even have the laws of Moses yet, right?

[00:54:57] You know. So that’s, that’s the way that the modern educated religious academics think about this stuff. And then no one has had the balls to just be like, “Nope, the Bible’s actually correct and true. I’m sorry, guys.”

[00:55:10] Simone Collins: Well, without bending our actual understanding of historical geology and evolution, et cetera, so yeah.

[00:55:20] Malcolm Collins: Well, no, no. Th- they’ve, they’ve just been unwilling to say it, because what the Bible argues for is a monist materialist framework, because that’s what Jews of that period believed in.

[00:55:28] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:55:29] Malcolm Collins: Of, of the period of around when Jesus was alive. It’s just that the understanding evolved significantly in the 300 years after his death which is where you get the people being like, “Well, you don’t believe the Nicene Creed, so you’re not really a Christian.”

[00:55:41] And it’s like, well, that had literally nothing to do with Jesus, right? Like...

[00:55:45] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:55:47] Malcolm Collins: Anyway I’ll get started here.

[00:55:52] Speaker 15: Bryton. I’ll hold the gummies for you. Thank you. Gummies. Gummies. I need gummies. Hi, [00:56:00] Professor. Hi, Professor. Hi, helicopter. Oh, helicopter’s gonna follow you. All right, let’s go

[00:56:14] Professor and helicopter, fast friends

By treating the genealogies as sequential cultural phases rather than personal lifespans, the numbers align with the archaeological record of the Near East with startling precision — from Göbekli Tepe and Çatalhöyük through the Halaf–Ubaid transition (the “Flood”) all the way to the fall of Ur and Abraham. The Table of Nations emerges as an improbably accurate ethnographic map spanning from Spain to the Gulf, matching modern genetic and archaeological data. The Tower of Babel tracks the Uruk expansion and the collapse of its shared administrative “one language.”

They also re-examine the Flood as a literary convention marking a real civilizational rupture, the Cain–Abel story as a lesson in emotional control, the Nephilim/Sons of God problem, the rainbow covenant, and why this reading makes far more sense of the text than surface-level literalism.

Companion deep-dive with maps, charts, and full ledger:
https://technopuritan.com/genesis5

This is “deep literalism” — reading the Bible the way its original audience would have understood its literary forms, then testing those claims against the actual archaeological and genetic record.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: This is not like normal Bible math. This isn’t like I take numbers from the Bible and I assume they’re supposed to be something totally different, or I, I move them around and I add a number here and I add a number here.

[00:00:13] We are working with what the Bible appears to be talking about, early human civilization- Mm-hmm ... and just copying and pasting the numbers

[00:00:22] To get an idea of just how insane this math is, the Hafal-Unyad transition is bracketed between 5500 BC and 5400 BC. So the boundary is only known to half a century. The computed flood would have happened if you use these numbers at 5444 BC, which isn’t just inside of this bracket. It lands six years from the bracket’s midpoint, which is astonishing when you’re looking at tens of thousand years of human history.

[00:00:53] Malcolm Collins: Like, the size of this map, if you’re going to compare it to other maps of the time, would have to be a combination of the Phoenicians’ trading map and the Assyrians’ conquest map, right?

[00:01:07] Mm-hmm. Like, the two largest maps anyone would’ve known during that period. If you compare it with the ancient Greek map, it just becomes laughable,

[00:01:15] Would you like to know more?

[00:01:17] Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. This is a crazy day for me because I decided to just sort of be like, well, if the Bible’s true, ‘cause I was, I was reading it. I was like, it’s probably not gonna have, at the very beginning, a bunch of stuff that just doesn’t matter. Because y- near the beginning of, of Genesis, there’s a few lists of names and ages and there’s...

[00:01:43] And, and they don’t, like I think a lot of people when they’re reading ‘em generally just skip over them. Absolutely. They’re like, “Okay, whatever. Let’s

[00:01:49] Simone Collins: get to the fun part.” Well, it’s very similar to the Iliad and Aeneid where you’re like, “Come on, like, I don’t need the whole lineage of this one soldier in the war over Trojan...”

[00:02:00] You know. Yeah. It’s surprisingly... Okay, yeah, so.

[00:02:03] Malcolm Collins: So, so you, you hit that and what this unfortunately does, at least after I went into it and I started trying to match these lists to things-

[00:02:13] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm ...

[00:02:15] Malcolm Collins: is it means you completely misread Genesis.

[00:02:18] Simone Collins: Oh.

[00:02:18] Malcolm Collins: You, modern reader, get to it. You read the, the first part, which is important.

[00:02:23] Then you

[00:02:24] Simone Collins: see a bunch of- And it’s so dense, it’s like, whoa, that was, like the, the world was created. Whoa, the Garden of Eden just came and left. Like, it goes so fast, right? Yeah,

[00:02:30] Malcolm Collins: and then the, the whole- There’s

[00:02:31] Simone Collins: no

[00:02:31] Malcolm Collins: like- ... murder thing and that’s interesting. Then list, and it’s like, ah, boring, tuning out for the list.

[00:02:35] Yes. Ooh, big interesting flood narrative happening

[00:02:38] Simone Collins: here. Yeah, whoa, the, and I, literally the flood comes and goes so fast that I read it while falling asleep and I nodded off for a second and it just, I missed that whole part.

[00:02:45] Malcolm Collins: And then a bunch of lists again. Oh, I’ll skip those. What this does is it causes you to read it in an inverted format to how somebody of the period it was written would’ve read it.

[00:02:58] Simone Collins: Oh.

[00:02:58] Malcolm Collins: They would’ve said, “Oh, some interesting lists that are telling us stuff.” Then they get to the flood narrative and they go, “Oh, another flood narrative. I’ve read a dozen- ... of those this week. Let’s just skip over that.” And, or, or rather they would’ve understood that the flood narrative meant something.

[00:03:15] If you have a flood narrative in the middle of a collection of lists, traditionally in Sumerian writing from that period, what you are talking about is a transitional event, something really big transitioned between these two periods.

[00:03:29] Simone Collins: Wait, so you’re saying flood narratives didn’t just turn out, up in the Old Testament of the Bible?

[00:03:34] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, flood narratives are everywhere during that period. So

[00:03:36] Simone Collins: you weren’t kidding, like they, it was just, it was like a literary convention.

[00:03:40] Malcolm Collins: It was a literary convention, yeah. It, it, it was a literary convention that meant something big just transitioned.

[00:03:46] Simone Collins: Why does no, why does no one mention this? W- okay,

[00:03:50] Malcolm Collins: wow.

[00:03:50] I think a lot of people mention this. A lot of people are familiar with Gilgamesh at least.

[00:03:54] Simone Collins: Yeah, but... God, I read it back in college. Was there a flood in Gilgamesh? I don’t remember there being a flood in Gilgamesh. [00:04:00]

[00:04:00] Malcolm Collins: Yes, and it, it- I just

[00:04:00] Simone Collins: remember the bromance. That’s what we’re all here for, ladies.

[00:04:03] Malcolm Collins: But what gets crazier is something I didn’t notice when I was first looking at these lists.

[00:04:07] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:04:08] Malcolm Collins: And as soon as you notice it, you notice- That you’re actually looking at three different things. So list number one is unlike any list I have ever seen in my entire life or that we have any archeological evidence of.

[00:04:24] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:04:24] Malcolm Collins: And a lot of people don’t notice this about it when they read it the first time.

[00:04:28] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:28] Malcolm Collins: It does something very, very strange.

[00:04:32] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:04:32] Malcolm Collins: Instead of listing, you know, when people were born and when they die, or how long they lived and who they begat, it instead also lists their age when they had the kid The second list, well, rather the third list, the third list also does this. Yeah. So this is Genesis 5 and Genesis 10.

[00:04:58] Simone Collins: And it’s really weird because why are some people waiting until they’re in their 80s to have kids? Like, people are just like, “This doesn’t make sense.”

[00:05:03] Malcolm Collins: That’s, that’s not as important. Okay. What’s more important is we don’t have a single list like this anywhere in the Mesopotamian archeological record.

[00:05:13] This is not the way people record their ancestors. Okay. And it’s a weird thing to do. Even today, you don’t typically record the age somebody was when they have a kid. Why would you do this? Why would you be recording the age somebody was at when they had a kid?

[00:05:28] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:05:29] Malcolm Collins: Because if you do that, you have something other than a list.

[00:05:34] You have a timeline. It, you, you can know exactly how long the timeline is If you don’t know when a person was born and their parents lived 800, 900 years supposedly, they could have been born anywhere within that 800 to 900 years.

[00:05:52] Simone Collins: That’s true.

[00:05:53] Malcolm Collins: So you don’t actually have a timeline of events.

[00:05:56] Simone Collins: Yeah, okay.

[00:05:57] Malcolm Collins: This gives you a very tight, inalterable timeline. So then the question is, of course, is this timeline must mean something if it was recorded in the Bible for that long. What does it mean? Like, like, i- i- i- you could say, “Oh, it’s just a list of people’s ages and when they had kids.” Why is that important information?

[00:06:21] And it also doesn’t make sense. They seem to be living an impossible amount of time for a human to live.

[00:06:26] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:06:27] Malcolm Collins: Right?

[00:06:27] Simone Collins: Yes.

[00:06:29] Malcolm Collins: And they’re also not recorded the way that the Bible often records when it’s talking about actual people. You’ll notice something on these original lists. It’s single names. When the Bible later records a list of actual people, it’ll say Jesus of Nazareth.

[00:06:45] Yes. John the Baptist. Oh,

[00:06:47] Simone Collins: good point. Basically, everyone’s given- Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s differentiating them very explicitly ...

[00:06:51] Malcolm Collins: yeah, like everyone’s given like a, a, a side hustle thing or a, a, a city that they’re from or something like this. Mm-hmm. So this appears to be talking about a different kind of thing.

[00:07:02] So I thought, okay, what if it’s talking about cultural groups, right? Like, what if it’s talking about civilizations? This civilization, and then this civilization was birthed from that civilization, and then this civilization was birthed from that civilization, and many of these civilizations would have been concurrent to each other, right?

[00:07:22] Well, I then lapped it on top of a specific period in history that makes a lot of sense to choose, and you actually get a near perfect timeline of civilizations that match the archeological record often within gaps of 30 years. We’re not talking like thousands of years off or anything like this. We are talking about from, from an archeological perspective, an infinitesimal gap, and this happens when you lay it out about 13 times.

[00:07:56] Now, there’s a few names that don’t fully map to things, I’ll admit [00:08:00] that. But we can always say- Mm-hmm ... the archeological record might be off here, or it might be describing a civilization that we haven’t found yet.

[00:08:08] Simone Collins: Wow.

[00:08:09] Malcolm Collins: But it gets stranger than that.

[00:08:12] So we’re going... Because then you get the flood, right?

[00:08:17] Which is a massive civilizational turning point that we’ll talk about that’s being talked about here. Crazy. And a real flood, but the, the flood and the civilizational turning point happen at different times. Mm-hmm. And the real flood doesn’t happen at the time the flood narrative does. But at the time the flood narrative happens, two other really important things happen, if you’re going by my timeline here, right?

[00:08:36] Like, if, if the timeline I have. You have a regional high point of the seas in this region, globally speaking. It’s the highest they ever were. And you have the invention of sailing ships appearing for the first time which is also really interesting. And another thing we’ll get to is the actual dimensions for the ark, because that’s another weird thing.