70% of Gen Z Incorporates a Mental Illness Into Their Identity

Join us as we navigate the evolving landscape of personal identity in younger generations, with a focus on the role of mental health, societal changes, and cultural frameworks. From the alarming rise in mental health diagnoses to the merging of gender and mental illnesses with core identities, we delve into the psychological and societal impacts of these trends. Explore the challenges of self-diagnosis, economic barriers to professional help, and how structured ideologies like cultural heritage and personal responsibilities can shape a healthier self-concept. Through various examples, including the use of AI in creativity, we offer insights into crafting an empowering and balanced personal identity in today's dynamic world.

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] 73 percent of boomer males. No matter what psychological challenges I face, I will not let them define me. 72 percent of Gen Z females. Mental illness is an important part of my identity.

Malcolm Collins: This chart right here that we're looking at is absolutely shocking to me. What the, what it's looking at is quote, mental health challenges are an important part of my identity in quote. And then it's looking at how this has changed over time, where if you look at males who are boomers, only 27 percent would say that mental health challenges are an important part of their identity.

Whereas if you look at. Gin Z emails, a full 72 percent say mental illness is an important part of my identity. Now I want to point out here, not even 72 percent of the population has a mental illness or a real mental illness, I guess I and yet 72 percent of young women are [00:01:00] identifying with a mental illness as an important aspect of who they are.

Simone Collins: And I

Malcolm Collins: really wanted to dive deep on The negative psychological effects of this to an individual. Why this is a really dangerous thing that this is happening. How this comes downstream from the destruction of our religious systems and understanding. Because I think for a lot of people as they destroyed and eroded the concept of a soul.

They needed something to replace it. Something that described, Who they were and that they could identify with in sort of a deeper sense. And I think for many people that became either gender or a mental illness or gender and a mental illness. Well,

Simone Collins: or you can say intersectional identity and victimhood as well.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And for people who are like, well, how bad is it for males? 67 percent of males in Gen Z identify with a mental illness as a major part of their personality. If you were looking at millennials, [00:02:00] it's 67 percent of women. So the same as Gen Z males and, and for males 56 percent now, this is interesting to me, even if you're talking about millennial males, Over half of them identify with a mental illness as being a primary part of their identity.

Simone Collins: That checks out given the young, younger people that we've spoken with and people in our own generation.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And where was the big jump here? Well, the big jump started with Gen X. So our generation. No,

Simone Collins: just above our generation is Gen X. We're millennials. And then below us is

Malcolm Collins: Oh, Gen X is above us.

Simone Collins: Yeah, Gen X is, is, so we have the greatest generation.

These are the people who fought in World War II, the last generation. This is the generation that was too young to fight in World War II in the United States. Then we have the boomers who were the children of the World War II war heroes. Then we have Gen X which came after the boomers. Then we have millennials.

Then we have [00:03:00]

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Well, then in our older generation, there was a big jump from boomers to gen X, where it went from in boomers 27 percent of males to 47 percent of male gen X. And then it for boomer females, it was 34 percent to 53 percent of female gen X. So already within women of our generation you're seeing this set and I would put all of this was in the caveat of Simone.

You are autistic. You've been diagnosed with autism much, much later in life, not as a young person, but what basically happened is we took one of our sons in to get diagnosed. They were like, Oh, here is why he's autistic. And then Simone was like, Those aren't autism symptoms. Those are all normal things.

And then they're like, have you ever been tested for autism? And then they tested you and you were like, Oh, I guess I am. And before autism, you thought you had OCD.

Simone Collins: I have been clinically diagnosed with OCD.

Malcolm Collins: But did you [00:04:00] ever make the OCD or autism diagnoses a major part of your identity? Like, would you have answered mental illness as an important part of my identity?

Simone Collins: No, and I tried to hide it, as you know.

Malcolm Collins: And okay, so first I want to talk about, I think partially why this is happening and this comes from something that I noticed. We have another episode where we go over this, like the, the, the turning of gender into a concept of a soul,

Where especially when you have these huge ranges of genders that you can identify with.

And when you talk to somebody about this, you're like, well, what, what is this thing that you're calling gender? Because clearly it's not like. What I mean when I think gender, I'm like, do they have a penis? Like, that's what I'm asking when I say gender, right? They mean something else when they say gender.

And they're like, well, it's like the way you relate to reality. It's the way you see yourself. And I'm like, Oh, so it's like your genetic, like, sociological profile. Right? Like you mean, and they're like, Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not genetic. [00:05:00] You can't be, yeah, because then, the people who you know, then you become what they call a true scum is the term.

This means that you can only consider yourself trans, i. e. choose your gender if you have a form of dysphoria. And if you don't have a form of dysphoria you, you, you, they basically see it as like a form of gatekeeping and the, the anti true scum movement has largely won, which means anyone can identify whatever you want.

So they're like, Oh, it's not genetic. And then I'm like, Oh, so it's like your personal preference. And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! It's not a preference either. Okay, that's a very offensive thing to say. And I go, okay, so it's not a preference. But it's not like, genetic, and it's not something that I can like, put my finger on, and it's like, core to how you self identify, you've like, reinvented the soul, but like, gendered it.

Simone Collins: Exactly.

Malcolm Collins: And I think that mental health issues for people who aren't fortunate enough to be able to [00:06:00] decide and when I say fortunate enough, I mean, this was, you know, within this generational context where this is like sort of an elite class that gets access to special privileges. And I

Simone Collins: would say that having a formal mental health diagnosis.

Is a product of privilege because the amount of money you have to pay to get one is, is quite high. We spent a lot of money just to get an autism diagnosis for our sons. And yeah, but I'm sure you

Malcolm Collins: could do it through state services.

Simone Collins: No. because we tried to do that. I would, I

Malcolm Collins: would actually go so far as to say that the mental health diagnoses these days are a form of a separate type of privilege, which is yes, it might be a monetary privilege.

But I think that the bigger privilege is having a mental illness at all within this new cultural context equates you as higher status than people who don't have mental illnesses. And I think that that is. Partially why individuals have chosen to identify with them. And if you say, well, what do you mean by higher status?

You know, I, [00:07:00] I would say that you have the ability to shut down other people's one criticism of you was in certain areas, you can say, well, I'm autistic. You know, you don't get to say I'm not allowed to act this way. So basically if you look historically, like if I go to like court culture or something like that status was largely like, what are the things that I'm allowed to do that other people aren't allowed to do?

You know?

Simone Collins: Yeah, no, very true. Yeah. Pulling rank,

Malcolm Collins: pulling rank. Yes. And it gives you the ability to pull rank. It gives you the ability to do things that are like socially shunned by other people. Right. It gives you the ability to pressure other people into things they're not comfortable with. This is very much where you see the, you know, Oh, you're not sleeping with me.

Are you ex phobic? Yes. You often see, you know, the trans community pulling for example. And that's a form of privilege. You're basically saying, well, my class outranks your class. And to deny me what I am asking you to is a offense. To someone was in my [00:08:00] class. Like, like you saying no to me is not something that's allowed.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And, and so I think that having a mental illness in an ironic way within our current context is a privilege. Fortunately, we seem to only create autistic children so far, all of them that have been old enough to be diagnosed have been diagnosed with autism. So that, that maybe. Maybe we're breeding true.

For people who don't know what breeding true means, it's when two dogs of the same breed are having children. But I've never been diagnosed with autism and I don't, I don't think I have many autism symptoms or Yeah. No. So, and I, by the way, have reached out to the people who did this. If anyone here knows anyone in this group they're called the

skeptic. com. And they ran a 2024 presidential election study, which is where this data came from. And I really want to split this data further. I want to split it along political lines. I want to split it along religious affiliation. I want to split it along whether someone's a parent, cause I'd be very interested to see you know, where this.

This is coming from, but I also [00:09:00] want to point out that there also has been a huge explosion in mental health diagnoses recently from 2012 to 2018 with a 34. 6 percent increase in the prevalence of mental illness diagnosis in the United States in 2021 at 22. 8 percent of U. S. adults experienced a mental illness.

Now, this is where this gets really interesting in 2021, 22. 8 percent of adults. are listed as having a mental illness. Yet, even in these lower demographics, 47, so this is in Gen X, 47 percent of men are identifying with a mental illness strongly, and 53 percent of women are. Or in Millennial, 56 percent of males are, and 67 percent of females are.

So much

Simone Collins: more Well, that's basically discussed online. Most of the people who are talking about having a mental condition of some sort, or a special mental status, are self diagnosed. Even people who really heavily talk about it. I remember at one point on RedScare, Anna and Dasha had a guy, there was an entire episode on autism and it turns [00:10:00] out this guy is completely self diagnosed.

Autism LARPing. Autism

Malcolm Collins: is a class. I mean,

Simone Collins: maybe he was really autistic. Who knows, right? But it's one of those things where a lot of people who are extra vociferous about it also seem to be self diagnosed. I don't know. It's a double edged sword because on, on one hand, it's incredibly expensive to be diagnosed for things.

How expensive? Does the state not cover this? Like how much does it cover this? It doesn't cover this for our children. So unless we were on completely state supported health insurance or healthcare,

Malcolm Collins: how, how, how much per kid you're just giving around 500 per kid. That is, that is not a lot of money these days.

500 per child. Who is 500? Simone, for a class status, 500, even for somebody without a ton of money is not this big. Keep in mind, you're [00:11:00] not talking about like, this is something you need to have done every year or every month. This is something you need to have done once in your life. 500. I'm sorry. I don't buy that.

That is not,

Simone Collins: that's expensive. I think it's expensive. I think it's not

Malcolm Collins: getting people out of this for economic. There are

Simone Collins: also in some cases up to six month waits. Now, I think after the pandemic sees this has become a lot easier. It's for example, it was easier for us to book an appointment for our second son to be evaluated than for our first son.

So I do think that it is easier to get a diagnosis now than it was before, but most people are still just not bothering. And they're choosing perhaps because they're worried that they wouldn't receive a professional diagnosis. I'm going to push back. They're real.

Malcolm Collins: These numbers just aren't real. It's not that these are people who are going undiagnosed because they don't have the money.

There is no way 72 percent of women in Gen Z have a mental health condition.

Simone Collins: Well, but again, I guess I could push back and say the DSM really isn't about [00:12:00] like, Oh, do you have something that's broken? It's more about, Behaviors that deviate from societal norms. And maybe we are receiving a surge of behaviors that deviate from societal norms.

Malcolm Collins: This is interesting. And I, I actually think that this is part of what's going on here is that people are saying, in what ways am I different from what I think society expects of me? And then they're defining that the things about them that are different from societal expectations. Oh, as being the thing that makes them them.

As a mental illness, but it's also just to, you know, previous generations. It's just, this is how I'm unique. Right. But to them how they're unique needs to be medicalized because through medicalizing it, it is given tangibility.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So clinically depressed is the new emo. You used to just be goth and now you're just depressed.

Malcolm Collins: It's I'm depressed. But I'm depressed like [00:13:00] as an aesthetic because I think they mean something more than what it meant historically. Historically, it would be like, okay, this might color like some of your choices. I think now a lot of these mental illnesses are associated with fashion, with music choices, with it is a subculture.

And let's talk about why this is. Desperately unhealthy. First of all, you, when you medicalize the ways that you are different from mainstream society, you remove personal responsibility from them and you remove your ability to modulate them or choose among them. And I think that this is actually really critical because, you know, I can, for example, be like, Hey, I am an incredibly confident person, for example.

Right. Being an incredibly confident person can lead me to sometimes doing things which inconvenience other people or cause damage in social situations. Now, if I've medicalized my confidence I [00:14:00] get to now say, well, I don't need to address the negative. Externalities of this personality feature because it's a medical condition and therefore no one can say don't do it.

Simone Collins: Yeah. If anything, you should accommodate it. You is the average person around you,

Malcolm Collins: but also in the way that we relate to our own challenges in life. So you look at something like anxiety and let's see, 43 percent of adults say they feel more anxious than the previous year in 2024. This is up from 37 percent in 2023 and 32 percent in 2022.

So like, look at something like anxiety, right? I say that I, as a personality have. Anxiety sometimes. And I categorize anxiety as something that I don't want and that isn't effective in my daily life. I would just work on ways to be less anxious. If I have an anxiety disorder, now the anxiety [00:15:00] is, and as I said, an important part of who they are.

To remove the anxiety is to genocide this community in their minds, to genocide the community of the anxious, of the medically anxious.

Simone Collins: Yeah, well, actually, this is something that I felt when I was first diagnosed with OCD and then told that I could medicate it. I was really against the idea because I didn't want to remove what I consider to be part of myself.

Like, if I didn't have the things I did that that were categorized as OCD by clinicians. I felt like it wouldn't be me. And I mean, I, I think, you know, you, you could probably actually agree with the fact that if I suddenly stopped doing all the things that we now know are associated with my autism, I would be a very different person.

Would you, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I, I guess I would say that I would be dramatically more worried about you as a wife. I mean, one of the good things about your [00:16:00] situation is that there really is no risk of you ever cheating on me or even having a desire to cheat on me because she doesn't like when people touch her other than me.

Or, or

Simone Collins: ever getting fat because Or ever getting fat, well that's a big one, yeah. I

Malcolm Collins: have a, um Uh, and I've mentioned this on other podcasts, but it is, I think one of my greatest personality flaws, which is an instinctual, really high level of disgust towards fat people.

Simone Collins: Well, I'm also unlikely to ever get unfit because my my manifestation, my autistic manifest manifestation of stemming has apparently always been some form of exercise.

And when I was a teen, it was just constantly swimming and not stopping. And now it's just constantly walking and not stopping, which is why I have my treadmill desk. So, again, like, this is. If suddenly all of these things disappeared, I would become a very different person. So I don't know if you're, if these people are wrong in equating elements of, but I mean, I also see the other side.

So let's say that you choose to identify with your anxiety. I mean, the problem is the, the, it seems practically speaking, the [00:17:00] best way to deal with your anxiety is you just. Learn to care about something else a little bit more and face the thing that makes you anxious. And as you get used to it, you'll discover it's not so bad.

And if you instead act as though your anxiety is something that just like is a signal that has to be listened to in the form of, Oh, don't do this. Therefore, then the anxiety will only get worse and you will, your circle of life will become smaller and smaller until literally you're choked out of existence.

And I know this because I. have dealt with anxiety in both ways. And right now we're in the, Oh, you're anxious about this thing. Let's do way more of it. Turn the volume up to 11. Whereas before it used to be, Oh, I just won't do this thing.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and I've noticed with your own, you know, mental proclivities that they have significantly decreased as your responsibilities have increased.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: We pull this stuff has on you. Is intrinsically higher when you are in environments that are more privileged, which is, I think, and a lot of these people don't realize [00:18:00] how privileged their environments are because they don't realize how little real work they do. Because I, I just don't think that they know how much people who work hard actually work.

I think that's one of the big things in society these days is, you know, we, for example, like you and I. I was thinking how blessed I was earlier today that we get to eat a meal every day. And other people would be like, A meal every day? Surely you have more than one meal a day. And it's like, not even from a diet perspective, like, who has the time to have two meals in a day?

Let alone three. You know, or, You know, when I wake up, I wake up at 2 a. m. to 1 a. m. every morning and people are like, oh, well, you must take long. I take like 30 minute naps to an hour nap sometimes during the day, but you know, not even every day. And I, Feel like I have to do all this and I'm also really strict with Simone About any sort of indulgent activity whether that is cleaning and people are like wait Cleaning you see [00:19:00] as an indulgent activity.

I'm like, yes cleaning is an indulgent activity. It can always be done faster It can be batched and it's not necessary all the time and I think that A lot of these people who are dealing with these issues just have so much genuine, when I say free time, I don't mean totally free time, but like your brain finds ways to occupy the tasks that are allotted to you.

And as you take on more tasks, your schedule, I think naturally finds a way to accommodate them. And the thing that is most pushed out is the mental discomfort and second guessing and anxiety and stuff like that.

Simone Collins: Would you agree? Yeah, you could think of your Life as a vase and the, the anxiety that you have or all of your, your worry as sand.

And if you just fill your vase with really large rocks first, like much bigger things and more important things to care about, there's less room to put sand in. And if you just like throw in one or two rocks, your vase is full of sand. Like I just, if you [00:20:00] just crowded out. It seems to make a big difference.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and I think that, I mean, so for people also keep in mind, you know, we have four kids right now, you know, so we're at this stage where kids just don't give you a lot of time to indulge in these emotional states. And I think also as a parent, you're likely undergo some biological changes, which lower things like anxiety and stuff like that.

I don't know. I've seen some parents who are really anxious, but they usually have like one or two kids. I don't know if I've ever seen a parent with a ton of kids be super anxious or helicopter.

Simone Collins: Yeah, most of the parents that. I know who have a lot of kids seem relaxed. If anything negative, it's just exhausted, but not even, not even mad because they're just too tired to be mad.

They're also

Malcolm Collins: less judgy as people. This is another thing I've noticed. They're very much less judgy of other people. The ones I know, like other people that I get, it might be because they're like intrinsically, they understand like the high school social game just doesn't matter to them anymore. Like once you get to like.[00:21:00]

5 kids or whatever for kids.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of it's because also you have this huge social network within your own house and there's enough politics to kind of keep you occupied there. But yeah but so, so, so going back to identifying. With your mental illness, I do agree that that when you choose to identify with it, rather than see it as just, ah, here's this thing that maybe I have to deal with, it can cause you to not attempt to overcome it with the rigor.

You otherwise would, right? That's the issue?

Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah, and I think that we choose what our primary identity is. And I think that anything that you are born with, choosing that as your primary identity identifying with something that you didn't choose, I think is always intrinsically toxic. So whether it is an identity that you have gotten because you think, oh, I have these personality characteristics which are associated with this mental [00:22:00] illness in my mind, or I am white and therefore being white is a core part of my identity, I think is really not toxic.

Because these things fundamentally aren't really who you are, who you are are the things you chose to believe. And for that reason, I think that the core identity that people should be choosing in terms of like who they are is threefold. I would say one is what you believe about the world. I think that's a really important category of identity.

This can be religion or it can be a set of philosophical beliefs or it can be a way of ordering your thoughts. I think having that as a core mechanism of identity is meaningful because it's what you chose, right? So it is really you. I. Unless you didn't choose it and some people are just sort of born into a tradition and don't really take any ownership of it and in that case Maybe I think it makes sense to make it.

The the other thing i'd say [00:23:00] is your cultural ancestry or a chosen cultural ancestry being part of your identity i've seen people Who choose some degree of cultural ancestry and note this isn't necessarily an ethnic ancestry So for example when people look at my cultural ancestry and I am choosing a cultural identity they will note in terms of the naming of my kids or myself I I do a lot of roman stuff roman and greek classical greek and rome and this is not who I am I am not Greek or Roman, but I identify with those cultures because I want to continue to build on the greatness they achieved.

And so it's sort of like, what Lego set am I playing with? Am I continuing to build upon? I'm choosing that as an aspect of the way I see myself. And the, the final one I would say is with your family [00:24:00] and people can be like, well, why is that so important? I think that, and this is my, my core core identity is as a member of like.

I don't really see myself as a different, independent entity than you anymore or the kids. I am sort of like one part of a pie chart, I guess you'd say, in terms of my identity and. I think the kids really struggle with this when they're younger because they have this instinct to rebel and create their own new pie chart and it can cause them to undervalue what they can draw.

from their parents and grandparents and great grandparents what they went through. Yet, I think as a young person, seeing yourself as an intergenerational entity is also very mentally healthy. And a lot of people are like, Oh, no, how could you say that? You know, putting so much and I'm like, not [00:25:00] really. I mean, it's just true one and then two.

It explains things about yourself. I think one of the most important things that I learned from seeing myself as an intergenerational entity is it makes it easier to look at things that your parents do that through different eyes you don't want to repeat. And you're like, ah, I must have that tendency in me as well.

How do I circumvent it? But what are your thoughts on this?

Simone Collins: I still defer to the form of self identity creation that we outline in the pragmatist guide to life, where we basically say, choose your objective function. That is to say, choose that thing or that collection of things that you wish to maximize with your existence.

Then set out your ideology, which is a series of hypotheses on how you think you can maximize that thing or those things. And then three, based on what you've been dealt, that is to say your body, [00:26:00] your circumstances, your appearance, your intelligence, your connections, whatever it may be using those tools.

And those materials craft an identity that will maximize your objective function per your ideology. And that seems to me the, the most practical you're right thing to do.

Malcolm Collins: I'll hold to that. I'll hold to that. That doesn't have to

Simone Collins: do with, and and of course for us, seeing ourselves as part of an unbroken family change certainly plays into that objective function and, and also the way we see the world because our ideology is one of techno puritanism of.

future worship of long termism and pronatalism. So yeah, it makes sense for you to do that, but I don't know if it makes sense for everyone to do that. It depends on everyone's unique set of

Malcolm Collins: pragmatist guide to life life is that I think that having more structure that somebody else just gives you is important for a large part of the [00:27:00] population.

People like you and me, we are capable of rethinking everything from scratch with every possible challenge that we come across. I don't think that the average human has the capacity to do this effectively. And I think that if you, it reminds me of the pragmatist's guide to life, where people go through it and they come to like the dumbest subjective function, which is generally utilitarianism.

And I'm like, Oh, that's the obviously wrong choice, but they're like, this is what the book is arguing for, right? And it's like, if you give. Somebody too many choices. If you force them to think through too many things, they default to the societal norm. And for that reason, I think it is useful to lay out.

Yeah, but at the end of the day, these identities, they're probably going to be best for achieving what you want to achieve. Yeah. Do you agree or?

Simone Collins: I somewhat agree. I mean, I do think some, well, I mean, so I would say. If you're part of a culture or religion that gives you preset templates that are already aligned [00:28:00] with your objective function, and that already match with.

What you've been dealt, for example, if you are Mormon, you're given an objective function or a series of objective functions. You're given ideologies and based on who you are, for example, a man or a woman, you're given a clear identity to which you are kind of expected to conform. So, you know, who to be.

And you know what to identify with and none of those things as it happens. That's

Malcolm Collins: why I'm saying like, as we build a system for our kids, I don't think the right thing is to tell our kids, you need to figure all this out on your own, your identity, everything like that to maximize your objective function.

I think giving them frameworks before that is going to be more effective. And then allowing them to modify those frameworks to create the optimal one for their objective function.

Simone Collins: It depends. For those kids of ours who really opt in to and really like our family culture, absolutely. [00:29:00] We'll be like, well, you know, this is the way you can go with our family culture.

But for those who want to explore their own thing, I think we should give them the tool set to do that adequately instead of just encouraging them to randomly. No, I think, you

Malcolm Collins: know, and I think having a great deal of family shame for, for capitulating to the urban monoculture value set in these forms of identity is really important to protecting and awarding them in wording our children against them being, being placed on them what I wanted to get to here was something that I think humans have an addictive tenant, like addictive tendency towards doing this, or like a really strong mental tendency towards doing this.

And we write about it in some of our books and we mentioned on some of our podcasts, but I can't. I cannot help but restate it is that people want to be told who they are. This is just something you see over and over and over again. Yeah, horoscopes,

Simone Collins: blood types blood types by the way, Sorry,

Malcolm Collins: you were

Simone Collins: [00:30:00] saying

Malcolm Collins: what was the next one?

Simone Collins: Myers Briggs profiles. Oh yeah, Myers Briggs

Malcolm Collins: profiles. So, zodiac signs. And these are always more common among women. Women seem to have an intrinsic desire to be told what their identity is. And some men do as well, but it's just obviously stronger in the data we presented here. And, and, and, you know, if you know zodiac sign people, they're usually women.

If you know blood type people, they're usually women. If you know Myers Briggs profile people maybe a few more autistic men, but women in the EA community seem to care a lot more about it than men do. Men mostly use it for dating purposes. But why is this the case? I don't know. I suspected something that's sort of wrong was maybe our mental coding is a We expect society to tell us who we are and what our roles are.

And when society doesn't, when society says, choose anything, you know, you do a [00:31:00] sex in the city quiz and you're a Samantha and that's who you are for the rest of your life, you know, you, you choose to and I think that this is actually, when you look at books that do well, like the Harry Potter books, I think they explicitly do well because they presented a framework like this, like the house selection process and everything like that, there is an escapist fantasy.

to be told and categorized by who you are. I mean, this is something you keep seeing in girl teen dystopias that are targeted at women primarily. Are you a X or are you a Y? And that's how we know. When you were a kid, Simone, did you ever fantasize about like being told who you were or any of these worlds where they, they give you an identity?

Simone Collins: Probably. But I don't have any distinct memories of it, and I imagine you never did, because you're just so strong about who you want

Malcolm Collins: to be. No! Even I find these concepts alluring. Really? I would kind of, especially as a teen, if I could be told, You're an X house. Like, you're a [00:32:00] Slytherin, now have pride in being a Slytherin.

I would love that. And I think that, okay, new hypothesis forming here.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: I am. I think what we're seeing here is because we have erased people's pride in their family and in their own cultural history. Yeah.

Simone Collins: They want to say

Malcolm Collins: I'm a Scotch Irish, you know, greater Appalachian cultural group. I'm a Irish

Simone Collins: Scots, not

Malcolm Collins: whatever.

You know, they, they, they, They don't have anything to have pride in or any cultural group to identify in. Whiz, when historically you would have, you know, if you were growing up in Manhattan, you would have been like, Oh, they're the X group and they're the Y group and they're the Z group. Or if you were growing up in, in, you know, rural Scotland would have been like, well, that's X clan and that's Y clan and that's Z clan and they're like this and they're like this and they're like this.

And I think that when we took that away from people, they needed to create new clan identities. And this [00:33:00] is, is part of what we're seeing here, because at the end of the day, while there are some cultures that are truly individualist, I think the clan cultures have always been sort of a bit more common.

And when you take away the right to identify with your family and cultural group you sort of force the need to identify Something new and have pride in it and have immediate kinship with people within it

Simone Collins: And you've made this argument, for example, about LGBTQ groups as well, that it's like the last group of, if you want to have some form of white pride, you just choose to identify as.

Yeah, we

Malcolm Collins: watch our video laundering of white pride, but like, I'm like, they, they, they took the white pride parades and they dropped the word white, but they, they have changed nothing else. This is not. As much as they will pretend like this culture is downstream of like native culture or something. It is not.

It is a purely derivative of European cultural groups and they are celebrating European cultural conquest of [00:34:00] native individuals or recent immigrants when they, they make these celebrations.

Any final thoughts? A lot of people really love it when you say things cause you're the smart one.

How are you going to keep our kids from identifying as autistic?

Simone Collins: I am not against the idea of identifying with a mental illness when you identify with that mental illness in a way where you like lean into it, into a strength. So I think that mental illness identification is a double edged sword.

And I am all for. Unholstering your autism, as long as you use it as a deadly weapon for good. I think most people unholster their autism or whatever, and they shoot themselves in the head. If you just, instead do something meaningful with it, that's amazing. And I think that there are plenty of fictional characters, even, that show autistic people using their autism in a way that, that bestows them with superpowers.

Like Monk, Monk's, a great

Malcolm Collins: example

Simone Collins: of this actually, like [00:35:00] Monk like Elizabeth Lander from the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Series. She's highly autistic and definitely like a superpowered female. So I, yeah, I don't. I don't think that these things have to be toxic, and that's why I feel very conflicted about this.

Malcolm Collins: I think, I think that they are. If it's not something you chose, don't identify with it. Identify with maybe an iteration of it, but always keep it positive. When you identify with something that's a cage, you are building a cage around yourself.

Simone Collins: Well, sure, and I, I, it's hard for me to think of scenarios, for example, In which people identified with their anxiety and it went well for them, for example.

So I understand that, but I think you have to think about these things tactically and go back to our whole argument about constructing a strong identity. It has to have [00:36:00] very good virtues and very good vices, and you cannot have a complete public identity without very clear vices. And sometimes a vice is, A mental illness.

And I, you know, that's okay. You know, I think it's okay to have, and you need to have vices or you're not believable. You're not seen as consistent. You're not seen as trustworthy if people don't know immediately and clearly what is wrong with you. So. I agree with that. Yeah, okay,

Malcolm Collins: okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

I'll agree with that.

Simone Collins: What was the Churchill line? He has all of the virtues I detest and none of the vices I love. Something like that. I'm a big vice person. I love a good vice on someone. A potty mouth, a weird, a weird disorder, a tick you know, weird, over judgmental behavior. Weird behavior. over the top behavior.

I, vices are the new [00:37:00] virtue. But only if they're managed in a way that is not genuinely disruptive or, or annoying. So it's, it's this is a dangerous road to travel.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I love you to death, Simone. You are a very special woman.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I love you. Thanks.

Malcolm Collins: I love you too.

No. So stable diffusion is one of these models where I'm actually running it locally on my computer.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay. And I did that and

Malcolm Collins: I can use lots of different like sub models that I can put on top of it so I can use it to create. Much less filtered images, i. e. Like, because you know, that's a huge problem whenever we're creating title cards, cause we do spicy topics and they're always like, Oh, Microsoft, Oh, you're disparaging someone or this looks naughty or violent.

And that gets me into trouble. But with stable diffusion, because a lot of people use it for not safe for work content. Oh, they do. Yeah. [00:38:00] Yeah. Yeah. Because it's done locally on my GPU.

Simone Collins: Oh, I see. So they're not afraid of being sued or something. Because of their

Malcolm Collins: yeah, so you can get looser models and then models that are trained on different things.

Anyway, so it gives me a good opportunity to Expand the types of title cards that we're putting together. By the way for anyone who wonders what I use for title cards typically if it's a cartoony one I'm using microsoft studio, which is one of the best for that. They're not the beginner

Simone Collins: one

Malcolm Collins: The DeviantArt one does the more artsy styles or more stylized things.

It actually turns out that, however, for the 1950s Atomic style, you know, with like the Housewives and stuff, Microsoft Studio is best for that.

Simone Collins: Oh, I bet. Yeah, DeviantArt can't really do it. Black Forest can't really do it. So black force

Malcolm Collins: I use for a lot of stuff whenever I'm doing something realistic, but it's not really good at anything non realistic.

Like it can't take a concept and make something,

You know, but Microsoft is very good at that, but we'll see if I can bring stable diffusion into my repertoire because it [00:39:00] should, you know, Also, because I can load different models that sort of change its presumptive training structure it's going to give me more precision in terms of the types of images I'm creating, and I eventually want to get to a point where I can even do training myself.

Ooh. Because I would really like to try and a model, and if any of our fans know how to do this and could do it for me on 1950s atomic style images. Yes. You know, like advertising, like ads in the 1950s, like housewives house, husband, stuff like that. Yes, yes, yes. I think that I could create a really interesting one and I, I'd prefer to just go with that style for all our images if I could.

Simone Collins: Mm-Hmm. Just always, always. I know. Sometimes

Malcolm Collins: just always housewives. Yes. Housewives

Simone Collins: always, no, always. 1950s atomic optimism.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I, yeah, I like their, their future optimism in that time period. Yeah. Techno

Simone Collins: futurism or no, what it was a retrofuturism. That's the term. Do you remember the old blog retrofuturism?

Did you ever follow it? [00:40:00] It was a great, like from, we'll say 2009, 2008.

Oh, yes. I liked that. Yeah. Okay. You read it as a nice

Malcolm Collins: old book. I remember the age of blogs, by the way, Simone, where you had God, what was the one that I, I loved so much in it?

It's so woke now. Can't even remember. I remember when

Simone Collins: I can has cheeseburger worth was a thing.

Malcolm Collins: The guy who founded, I can't have cheeseburger by the way. Deep.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And Simone was an advisor in our first startup art Corgi. And we met with him a lot and he's a really cool guy. Oh yeah. We've

Simone Collins: since, at least I saw him at ETH Denver.

Cause now he works in, or at least when I saw him at ETH Denver, like two years ago, he works in crypto, worked in crypto. I think he's still does. Yeah, that's what,

Malcolm Collins: From memes

Simone Collins: to meme coins, I guess. Makes sense.

Malcolm Collins:

And by the way, I decided to [00:41:00] look up to see if they had 1950s style creators.

And they do. So, I might be able to see if I can get one of these to work well. That would be really exciting.

Simone Collins: Start your engines, Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: Well, if I can make, if I can make better title cards, more thematic title cards, more iconic title cards, I am going to be very, very excited.