Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

Based Camp is a podcast focused on how humans process the world around them and the future of our species. That means we go into everything from human sexuality, to weird sub-cultures, dating markets, philosophy, and politics. Malcolm and Simone are a husband wife team of a neuroscientist and marketer turned entrepreneurs and authors. With graduate degrees from Stanford and Cambridge under their belts as well as five bestselling books, one of which topped out the WSJs nonfiction list, they are widely known (if infamous) intellectuals / provocateurs. If you want to dig into their ideas further or check citations on points they bring up check out their book series. Note: They all sell for a dollar or so and the money made from them goes to charity. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08FMWMFTG basedcamppodcast.substack.com

  1. Some Girls Are Opting Out of Marriage; Others, Sex: What Determines Which?

    HACE 21 H

    Some Girls Are Opting Out of Marriage; Others, Sex: What Determines Which?

    Malcolm and Simone Collins dive into two fascinating (and very different) trends among young women: one group that’s happily dating but swearing off marriage forever, and another group embracing intentional celibacy in response to modern hookup culture. Why are so many high-achieving women rejecting marriage altogether? Do they have a point about autonomy, identity, and avoiding “unpaid labor”? And why are younger women opting out of sex entirely — claiming dating apps have ruined intimacy? We break down the articles, compare the two groups (with some brutal phenotype observations), discuss how media shaped different generations’ views on relationships, and explore why both paths ultimately lead away from family formation. From Tinder height discrimination to the rise of “divorced woman” as an aspirational identity, this episode examines the collapsing sexual and marriage marketplaces — and why pronatalism offers a radically different vision for fulfillment. Episode Transcript: Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] And I feel like women have unironically recreated that society on like Tinder and stuff like that. Speaker 6: Ah. You seem to have grown since last. You stood before a Redditer. Speaker 2: . You’ve been assigned to the planet Bloch, home of the slaughtering Borderline women. Speaker 2: Why would you trophy? Speaker 7: However, because of your increased height, we have decided to give you the planet Vort home of the universe’s most comfortable couch. And career women who genuinely believe you’re making a major sacrifice by being a stay at home husband. Speaker 4: Yes. Malcolm Collins: Go to the, the trash planet where you’ll be eaten by rats and no one will synthesize. Would you like to know more? Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be going over two articles that are covering two related phenomenon, but entirely distinct phenomenon. One is the large number of women who are dating still, but refuse to get married. And then the [00:01:00] other is the large number of women who are choosing to become intentionally celibate. And what’s really interesting about these two populations and it, it’s cool because I think that our audience will find themselves like, oh, this population may have a point. This population may not have a point. We’ll see. Right. Like civilization. Yeah. They phenotypically look very distinct. And I will put collections of pictures on the screen here. Oh, so you, the fans can try to guess which population is which. Mm. So I sent you pictures in two groups. We got group one and group two of women on WhatsApp. Okay. Simone Collins: Let’s, let’s take a look here. Let’s see. I, I’m sure I can my assumption is that I can guess in what. Whoa. Hmm. Huh, Malcolm Collins: interesting. So group two and group one, which one do you think refuses to marry and which one do you think is intentionally celibate? And if you’re looking at the screen here the number one thing you’re going to note about the two groups is one [00:02:00] is fairly attractive and one is quite unattractive. Simone Collins: Wait, which ones are the attractive ones? Malcolm Collins: Compared to the other group? Simone Collins: I, I don’t know. I, I, I guess all the faces just look like stick figure faces to me. Maybe I’m like, face blind one looks like they have too much makeup on. And I guess I have to associate too much makeup with, actually doesn’t interact with men. So then, then the second group with the too much makeup, which you would say is the more attractive group, is the. Intentionally celibate doesn’t interact with men group. Do I have that right? Malcolm Collins: Yes. Ah, so the, the group that wears more makeup, which is one of the things you’re noticing Yeah. The group that is celibate mm-hmm. Is wearing more makeup. Simone Collins: Yeah. Malcolm Collins: Which again shows that makeup is largely about interesting. No. When you’re wearing Simone Collins: drag queen levels of makeup, you are not trying to attract the male gaze. Malcolm Collins: I disagree. I just think that lady is a Latina from Florida, and a lot of Latinas from Florida look like that. No, Simone Collins: no. [00:03:00] Women wear excessive amounts of makeup for other women, not for themselves. It, it, and it also for like gender euphoria, which I think is negatively correlated with Malcolm Collins: fertility. And, and the other women specifically for me, the women who are refuse to get married just look like actively unpleasant, Simone Collins: In a lot of the pictures. Yeah. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like they, yeah. Just like Simone Collins: main, like attractive enough, but, but, very progressive women who are more maybe disagreeable. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Mean disagreeable. Mm-hmm. Is the core sort of look they have to their fa and you can tell a lot about somebody’s phenotype, but we’ve gone over this in a different episode is for novel brack with ai. But we point out that you can actually tell a lot about a person by looking at their face, right? Mm-hmm. Like looking at their facial structure. And people can make guesses with high probability. We go over all the studies in that episode. I’m not gonna like cite them all here. What somebody’s behavior is, and AI can do this exceptionally well. Like an AI can look at your face and tell a ton about, oh, oh, oh, [00:04:00] hold on. Simone, did you realize something? Take off your glasses for a second. Take off your glasses so I can get a picture of our face to put into AI while I’m editing this. Oh, God. And, and look straight at the camera. And I, I want to ask an AI what it thinks our personalities are from our face. It can do that. So I put in Simone’s face, the image you see right here and with her rather than me. I asked it to use like not facial expression at all, just based on physionomy, it says. It says she’d probably come across as intelligent, open-minded, intellectual, with strong communication abilities, and a diplomatic, harmonious approach to life, likely empathetic and tolerant with a logical bent that makes her organized and idealistic. Malcolm Collins: Well, let’s see. Simone Collins: All right. But I think if I, if I change my facial expression, it’s going to give a very different response, right? Like, if I look happy, I think, I think AI’s not sophisticated enough to tell the difference between a resting face and [00:05:00] a facial expression. Malcolm Collins: Well, you know what, let’s see, right now I’m gonna put this in. I, I, I can’t even wait. I’m gonna put my face in. What would you guess male’s personality is from their face characteristics? Oh, no. What? Oh, I’m even getting an ab response here. So, so, oh, Simone Collins: yeah. Grock was doing that for me today too, and I like it. Malcolm Collins: Okay. So, it says that I’m a male in his late thirties to early forties, which is accurate. Yes. The other one says late thirties to early forties, which again, is accurate. Yes. Okay, so, personality traits. Okay, so one says, friendly and approachable. The other says, warm and approachable. One says, kind and empathetic. The other says, outgoing and extroverted. The, it says intellectual and thoughtful. The other says optimistic and you weren’t even wearing your glasses. How did it know? Yeah. The other, the other says, optimistic and good humored. A bit [00:06:00] playful slash humorous. Creative or expressive reliable, steady pathetic. I, Simone Collins: all these things prove, but is it not just saying flattering things and then we just tap to agree with him? I’m sure it’s just this is too Malcolm Collins: flattering. Like, Simone Collins: say something Malcolm Collins: negative. No. Take, take Simone Collins: a picture of Hassan Piker and put it in. Malcolm Collins: I don’t wanna do that. I don’t, Gordon in Peterson. I don’t wanna risk saying positive things that, that could get us demonetized on our fan base. Simone Collins: Oh no. Malcolm Collins: Lose us subscribers here. Simone, I’m gonna keep going here. So me generation, I do not young women who refuse to get married and vow to never change their minds about it. Becoming somebody’s wife isn’t something New Yorker. Carly B 29 ever wanted for herself a 29-year-old New Yorker. I love, we’re jumping right into the deep end with this. Okay? Happily in love with her boyfriend of nine years. Check, marrying him. Absolutely not. That’s no reflection on Matt H 30, according to Carly, who works for a PR branding agency and asked that the couple’s last names not be [00:07:00] used before the pair met. The 29-year-old had always made it a point to avoid romantic involvements with the kind of men who wanted wedding bells and kids. Quote, it was a very prominent ground rule for me before entering any sort of relationship. The East Village Dweller told the Post, I don’t necessarily need a contract that tells me my status was my partner, or tells me that I love him more than I would without one. I know exactly how we feel about each other and I feel good with just that. Putting a ring on it, locking things down, heading to a city hall for a piece of paper, not Carly, whose parents divorced and aren’t the reason, and that’s not the reason she doesn’t want marriage. Mm-hmm. When the Pennsylvania natives met on Tinder, they are questioned about their plans for getting hitched 29-year-old was brutally honest with them. I usually say, that’s not something I want for myself. We’re never going to talk about that. Carly admitted, I think me saying that makes them think there’s something wrong with our relationship. But no, I made the decision. I’m going along with [00:08:00] it and that’s fine. So I find this really interesting so far. So basically you’re seeing a new culture emerge, which is almost going to immediately die out ‘cause none of these wome

    1 h y 4 min
  2. White Man Lives With Black Bear: Who Will Women Choose?

    HACE 1 DÍA

    White Man Lives With Black Bear: Who Will Women Choose?

    In today’s New Year’s Day episode of Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive into a wild (literally) real news story: a California man has been sharing his home with a massive 550-pound black bear for over a month — and the government won’t let him remove it! 🐻🏠 They connect it to the infamous “man or bear” debate, discuss insane wildlife protection bureaucracy (wrong bear trapped, noise devices abandoned, homeowner banned from scaring it himself), and explore parallels with protected bat colonies forcing people out of their own homes. The conversation spirals into fascinating tangents: * Future of genetically edited pets (talking dogs, odorless ferrets, domesticated raccoons & foxes) * Domestication experiments (Russian foxes, urban raccoons evolving cuter features) * Bat biology, dinosaur parasites, superior bird respiration, and WWII bat bombs 🔥🦇 * Why government inaction is exploding (qualified immunity, pothole-fixing lawsuits) * Self-defense fantasies, Home Alone cultural appeal, and Appalachian trickster vibes Plus: bear stereotypes, Tasmanian devil cancers, T-Rex diseases, and why humans have the best immune systems. Episode Transcript: Malcolm Collin: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. Remember when that thing went around that was like, would you rather run into a random man in the woods or a bear? Yeah. Or a bear. Okay, so what have I told you? And this is, I kid you not a real news story that right now in California. There is a white man being forced to live with a black bear. Oh, by the California government? I saw, no, I saw Simone Collins: a headline, but I didn’t click through to it. I think on Drudged it was something like man, man, still Living with Bear, or something like that. Man. Can’t get rid of bear. Speaker 18: . It’s been over a month since that 550 pound black bear moved into his home, . He can hear it from inside of his home. Malcolm Collin: Why? Why does it matter? That he’s a white man. I [00:01:00] don’t know, but it seemed to matter that it was a black bear. So I’m just telling the story as I read. ‘cause no, because Simone Collins: if it were a grizzly bear, it would be a dead person, a dead body and a house. It’ll be a dead body soon with a, a black bear. It’s a large black bear, bear attack. When they feel, when they’re approached aggressively or they perceive to be aggressively, or Malcolm Collin: Simone, it’s living in his house. It’s living in his house. I mean, a lot Simone Collins: of irresponsible people adopt tiger cubs and lion cubs. This is a wild adult bear. Yeah. Well define wild. You know, when, when, when you discover that, it, it’s been living around cities and people for so long that it, it has developed habits that have adapted to them. In fact, people have found that urban raccoons have developed different morphological traits from Oh, really? Yeah. They’ve, they, they actually have more dog-like traits now. They look [00:02:00] more approachable and friendly. They floppier ears and I think shorter snouts, they just look cuter. So yeah. Malcolm Collin: Oh, I’d, I’d be very interested to see you know, when we go to space, if we bring raccoons with us or something. I mean, I think, I think raccoon, I think Simone Collins: that that’s already been foretold by the Marvel cinematic Malcolm Collin: universe. Speaker 3: you stupid raccoon. Don’t call me a raccoon. I’m sorry I took it too far. That meant trash panda. Is that better?. It’s worse. It’s so much worse. Malcolm Collin: This is the thing it gives true, but like, if you, if you are as soon as we can start genetically editing animals. Yeah, it’s gonna dramatically open up the types of animals that make good pets. Yeah. And a few that like are lower tier right now Yeah. Are gonna move to high tier with genetic editing. So I know people Simone Collins: are talking about designer babies. The thing is people are already cloning their pet dogs. It’s first gonna be designer. And gene edited pets. Oh, right. If people are already CLO dogs, they’re going to [00:03:00] genetically modify pets super soon and already, like I can tell, our next generation is super open to that. Octavian was working next to me this this afternoon, and he’s sitting there and trying to think about what he can invent and he’s like, well. They already invented helicopters and they already invented humans. And I’m like, well, you can invent a better human. And then he starts asking about alligators and crocodiles and worm versus cold-blooded like I It’s ha, I see the gears turning. Alright, this is happening. We’re gonna have our talking dog soon. Well, professor two or the Commodore, whatever, we’re gonna name our next dog. It’s gonna be a talking dog. Speaker 5: . The Soviet put me on a rocket knowing full well I never to return and I’ll die. But one thing even Uck Soviets never do is call me bad dog. God, you just let it go. A bad dog. Oh, it never stop hurting. Malcolm Collin: But if you put pox P two [00:04:00] in dogs Yeah. It looks like you might be able to get a dog with fairly minor genetic edits that could understand human speech significantly better. Yeah. And, but what I’m saying here is I don’t even know if dogs are going to be the ultimate species to edit. I mean, I do think we’ll do a lot of edits to dogs, but I think that there’s other species examples here would be ferrets. Ferrets would be a much more amazing pet if they didn’t smell so bad. Oh, I was just gonna say it was like. But the smell, Malcolm, with genetic edits, you can remove the smell problem from What about the greasiness? Simone Collins: I don’t know. I feel like the, the greasiness and smelliness is a big part of their whole Malcolm Collin: thing. Physiology. Simone Collins: Yeah. Malcolm Collin: Well, I don’t know. Again, with raccoons, if you can, if you can make raccoons more domesticated, like a half dog, half raccoon, I think will be, well, we already have those. Like I said, we’re getting closer. They’re doing it on their own. But I’m thinking, you know, what do you have on? Yeah, we, yeah. In Simone Collins: other words, we can, we can do this. In one year rather than through tons of generations of raccoons living and dying. I mean, that, that’s your [00:05:00] whole point. Malcolm Collin: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, and they’ve tried to do this with other animals. It is hard to domesticate some species. Like there was an experiment to domesticate foxes in Russia. Hmm. Yeah. And they went back to a wild form fairly quickly and you, and you can still buy them by the way, if you wanna buy these like semi domesticated foxes really from Russia’s during the, the communist period. And they developed a lot of traits of dogs like floppy ears and stuff like that, similar to the raccoons. And the, do they Simone Collins: behave? Mostly like dogs as pets. Should we get a fox next? No, they’re love fox. Malcolm Collin: They’re smellier. Is the biggest downside. And I, I actually wonder if that’s one of the core things was dogs and cats that we brought out of them with smelliness. Simone Collins: That’s really interesting. I mean, if you’ve been around a dog that farts. And we all have, I think we can all beg to differ. The dogs are not stinky, but Malcolm Collin: but most, most non like dog and cat pets that have not been around humans for a long time are quite smelly animals. Yeah. Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and cats uniquely, I mean, I’m sure that some people have cats with bowel problems or something, but in, in my [00:06:00] entire experience having a childhood cat, I do not recall that cat farting once or making any bad smells once aside from like vomiting sometimes. Malcolm Collin: So anyway. Well, and, and of course we’ve gotta get to gene edited bears, right? Yeah. So anyway, back to the bears. Speaker 9: What is a multi bear? Oh, that’s a multi bear. Bear heads Malcolm Collin: yeah. Oh yeah. Well, so I’m Simone Collins: sorry. Wait. There’s a man living with a bear, but. The state isn’t letting him get rid of it. Doesn’t, does California have stand your ground laws? Can he shoot the bear in his own house? Malcolm Collin: So I, I, I did, I do not, I do not think the stand your ground laws apply to bears. Only humans. And I do not think California has them in the first place. Let’s see. California stand your ground laws. Does California have a stand? Simone Collins: I’m asking rock. Malcolm Collin: No [00:07:00] it doesn’t. Simone Collins: I am in California and there is a bear in my house. Can I shoot it? Will I be in legal trouble for shooting this bear? Malcolm Collin: The answer is from, from at least this case. Yes. You are not allowed to remove a bear from your house, so I want to talk about why you’re not allowed to remove a bear from your house. Okay. Actually going to be relevant to a lot of humanity growing forwards as bureaucratic institutions begin to break apart Simone Collins: as, as, as the bears take over. As the bears take over. They didn’t, didn’t you guys know the bear uprising? Malcolm Collin: This is step one. But this is the, I mean, the reason I wanna cover the survey is because it’s so emblematic of many things. He Simone Collins: hunting. He needs a hunting permit. Is it not hunting season? Malcolm Collin: It’s not hunting season. It’s winter. It’s, oh, Simone Collins: see, that’s the, this is bureaucracy at Malcolm Collin: its best. Simone Collins: Well, sir, sir, Malcolm Collin: you shoot summer, Simone Collins: you, and it’s not, it’s not [00:08:00] hunting season right now. Malcolm Collin: I, I would, I would arrange an unfortunate accident for the bear. It’s inside your Simone Collins: home, the Castle Doctrine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you reasonably believe it’s necessary to protect yourself or others from imminent death or great bodily injury, this falls under Ca

    43 min
  3. Wokes Don't Want You to Know Dissociating is Scientifically Beneficial (The Data)

    HACE 2 DÍAS

    Wokes Don't Want You to Know Dissociating is Scientifically Beneficial (The Data)

    In today’s episode of Based Camp, we dive deep into the controversial topic of dissociation — why it’s constantly framed as a trauma response or mental health red flag on the left, but the science shows it’s one of the most powerful tools for emotional regulation, wiser decision-making, better relationships, and long-term planning. From third-person self-talk (talking about yourself like Elmo) to temporal distancing (identifying with your future self), the research is clear: proactively dissociating reduces stress, lowers cortisol, prevents rumination, boosts ethical behavior, and makes you a better spouse, parent, and human. We argue that constantly “embodying” your feelings and obsessing over “me, myself, and I” is the root of modern misery, victimhood culture, and urban monoculture brain rot. True freedom comes from dropping the ego and viewing yourself as a temporary vessel for your values and future generations. This episode is part of our Techno-Puritan religion series — dissociation as spiritual practice. Calvinism meets pragmatism. As this was a Simone-outlined episode, we can share the episode outline below. The transcript for this episode follows. Happy New Year! Episode Outline Based Camp - The Case for Disassociating * Occasionally, I’ve heard of people talk about disassociating * ESPECIALLY when people are talking about abuse * And invariably disassociation is framed in a negative context * But this strikes me as add, as whenever I come across research on the effect of perspective taking, I find that what I would imagine to be disassociation—basically the equivalent of thinking of yourself in a more abstracted way, e.g. in the third person, as an outsider)—is a very POSITIVE thing * And for a while, I have been operating under the assumption that we basically should be thinking like Elmo talks * So I dedicated to educate myself on what people mean when they negatively talk about disassociation and also check whether my memory is deluding me and see if contextualizing oneself as a third party is not actually productive * And ultimately, I think we should ALL disassociate * And people who frame it as a bad thing are missing the point This matters because a recurring theme in our discussions has been contextualization: * How we view ourselves and consciousness * Where we draw the definition of “self” * Identity politics and the damage this emphasis has caused * Victimhood mindsets and the external locus of control versus the internal locus of control So I think we all need to think more carefully about how we play around with the word “I” and experiment with how dropping it may serve us well. Disassociation: What are People Talking About The Definition People are usually describing dissociation: a mental “shut‑off” where the mind disconnects from feelings, body, or surroundings to get through something overwhelming or unsafe. It is a common, often automatic trauma response in ongoing abuse. What dissociation is * Clinically, dissociation is a process where thoughts, feelings, memories, or sense of identity become disconnected from one another. * It exists on a spectrum from mild “zoning out” to more severe states where a person feels detached from reality or from themselves. Why it happens in abuse * Trauma and abuse can overwhelm the nervous system; when fight or flight are impossible, the brain may “check out” to reduce the emotional and physical impact. * This can offer a kind of internal escape when there is no external way to leave, which is why it is especially common in children or adults who are trapped in abusive situations. What it feels like subjectively People use language like: * “I was watching it happen from outside my body,” describing depersonalization, or feeling detached from their own body, thoughts, or actions. * “It felt like a dream / like a movie,” describing derealization, where the world feels unreal, foggy, muted, or separated by a glass wall. During vs. after the abuse * Dissociation can occur during abusive episodes (e.g., going numb, going blank, “leaving the body”) and also after, when reminders or triggers bring back that detached state. * There may be patchy or missing memories of events, difficulty feeling emotions, or a sense that what happened is far away or happened to “someone else.” When dissociation is frequent, uncontrollable, and interferes with daily life, it can be diagnosed as a dissociative disorder (e.g., depersonalization/derealization disorder, dissociative identity disorder). * BTW: Dissociative disorders are mental health conditions in which a person has ongoing problems with memory, identity, perception, or sense of self because of repeated or severe dissociation, often linked to trauma. They go beyond ordinary “zoning out” and start to interfere with daily life, relationships, and functioning. * Main types * Dissociative amnesia: episodes of memory loss about personal information or life events (often traumatic) that are too extensive to be ordinary forgetfulness, sometimes including “fugue” states where a person may travel or wander with no memory of it later. * Depersonalization/derealization disorder: persistent or recurrent feeling of being detached from one’s own body or experiences (depersonalization) and/or feeling that the world around is unreal, foggy, or dreamlike (derealization), while still knowing intellectually that it is real. * Dissociative identity disorder (DID): formerly called multiple personality disorder, involves two or more distinct identity states or “parts,” along with recurrent gaps in memory for everyday events, important personal information, or traumatic events. What I Think is Actually Happening First: Obviously it’s horrible when people are mistreated, but what I think may be happening is that extreme hardship has uncovered a survival mechanism that is both useful in these extreme scenarios AND useful in more mundane, everyday life. And here’s the thing: The research backs it up. The Research Several lines of research suggest that taking a third‑party or “distanced” perspective on one’s own life (third‑person writing, future self, age‑progressed images) can help with emotion regulation, planning, and some health‑relevant behaviors. (The following is from Grok, cross-checked against Perplexity, which found mostly the same research) Self-Distancing—i.e. Taking a Third-Person Perspective or Visual Fly-on-the-Wall View Research led primarily by Ethan Kross and Özlem Ayduk demonstrates that adopting a self-distanced perspective (e.g., thinking about oneself in the third person, using one’s name, or visualizing from an observer’s viewpoint) reduces emotional reactivity and promotes adaptive reflection on personal situations, including pain, conflicts, and stress. * Kross et al. (2005) and Ayduk & Kross (2008): Participants reflecting on negative experiences (e.g., anger or depression) from a self-distanced perspective showed lower emotional and physiological reactivity (e.g., blood pressure) compared to a self-immersed (first-person) view. The self-distancing facilitated reconstruing events rather than recounting them, reducing distress. * Ayduk & Kross (2010): Spontaneous self-distancing during reflection on conflicts predicted less rumination, lower emotional reactivity over time, and more problem-solving behavior in couples’ interactions. * Kross et al. (2014): Third-person self-talk (e.g., “Why is [name] upset?”) reduced emotional reactivity under stress, including in socially anxious individuals, without requiring extra cognitive effort. This was supported by ERP and fMRI evidence, showing decreased activity in brain regions linked to emotional pain. * Moser et al. (2017): Silent third-person self-talk quickly (within 1 second) lowered distress when viewing aversive images or recalling painful memories, aiding emotion regulation for pain-like experiences. * Grossmann & Kross (2014): Self-distancing enhanced wise reasoning about interpersonal conflicts, reducing bias and promoting balanced perspectives. These effects extend to reducing reactivity in PTSD veterans (though subjective distress persisted) and improving interpersonal criticism delivery. Temporal Distancing—i.e. Thinking About Future Self or Broader Time Perspective Temporal distancing involves viewing situations from a future-oriented or broadened temporal lens, often by connecting to or visualizing one’s future self. * Bruehlman-Senecal & Ayduk (2015): Adopting a temporal distance (e.g., “This too shall pass”) reduced emotional distress and stress reactivity by focusing on impermanence. * Chishima et al. (2021): Writing letters to/from one’s future self during COVID-19 increased temporal distancing, immediately decreasing negative affect and boosting positive affect. * White et al. (2018): Self-distancing from future stressors (visualizing from afar) reduced vivid negative imagery, facilitating adaptive coping. Visualizing Aged Future Self—i.e., Future Self-Continuity Research by Hal Ersner-Hershfield focuses on enhancing continuity with one’s future self, particularly through visualizations of an aged self. * Ersner-Hershfield et al. (2009): Higher future self-continuity (feeling connected to one’s future self) predicted less temporal discounting and more saving behavior, with neural evidence linking it to long-term planning. * Hershfield et al. (2011): Interacting with age-progressed virtual renderings of oneself increased future-oriented decisions, such as delaying rewards. * Rutchick et al. (2018): Enhancing future self-continuity via letter-writing promoted healthier behaviors (e.g., exercise) and reduced unethical choices by prioritizing long-term benefits. * Related interventions (e.g., Van Gelder et al., 2013): Vivid future self-visualization improved ethical and health-related planning. These approaches are particularly ef

    41 min
  4. 1 In 4 Youth Antisemitic Now: This Is Not About Gaza

    HACE 3 DÍAS

    1 In 4 Youth Antisemitic Now: This Is Not About Gaza

    In this in-depth discussion, Malcolm and Simone Collins tackle the dramatic rise in antisemitism among young Americans — now affecting over 25% of people in their 20s, compared to just 5% among those in their 80s. We examine hard data: skyrocketing antisemitic incidents since 2021, Holocaust denial rates (especially among young GOP voters), and stark generational and demographic divides. We argue that the surge isn’t primarily driven by the Israel-Gaza conflict or historical tropes, but by two distinct modern dynamics: • On the right: A cultural backlash against perceived entitlement, suppression of criticism, and lack of reciprocal gratitude for decades of U.S. support to Israel and Jewish communities.• On the left: The growing influence of Islamist or Muslim-sympathizing voices within progressive intellectual circles, reshaping “woke” priorities. We explore why traditional strategies (invoking discrimination, deplatforming critics) are backfiring in today’s media landscape, how cultural misunderstandings fuel escalation, and why even former strong allies are reevaluating their stance. Ultimately, we discuss practical paths forward for Jewish cultural resilience in a changing world — including dropping any sense of ongoing entitlement, building genuine intergenerational alliances, and rethinking how historical traumas are taught to skeptical Gen Z and Alpha audiences. This is a candid, data-driven conversation aimed at understanding a dangerous trend — not promoting hate, but preventing worse outcomes for everyone. 🔔 Subscribe for more discussions on demographics, culture, fertility, and the future of civilization.[00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about why everyone hates the Jews again. Oh boy. And it’s not, it is not Gaza. Actually, the rate of Jewish hate has gone up significantly since the war in Gaza ended. Right? Like what? So, and, and I think that there is a lot of mistake in, in terms of how people are trying to diagnose where this is coming from. Okay. Where it is either mistakenly put on the war in Gaza, where if you actually look downstream of where we see it, I’ll, I’ll bring a lot of receipts that that is not it or that it is put on historic reasons. And I also don’t think it’s happening for the reasons that Jews were hated historically. Good. I think that it is happening for new reasons and reasons. Even get to me. Like even I will say that over time my perception of the utility in standing Jewish culture has dropped pretty precipitously. And I will explain why, [00:01:00] but first I just want to document how high it is and how much it’s shifting. Wow. So I’m gonna put a graph on screen here that shows explicit antisemitism by age among registered voters. Now if you look at people in their eighties, you will see that this is hovering at around 5%. So very, very low for older people. Okay? If you look at people in their twenties from, from, it’s slightly higher among Republicans than Democrats, but you’re looking at between like. 24 and like it looks like 32%. So, and, and then on average well over 25%, so, over a quarter, one in four people in the United States now is anti-Semitic. Young people. Yeah. When it used to be at around 5%, and this has changed within like two generations, right? So yes. Simone Collins: Something that young people are reading and experiencing is making them. Malcolm Collins: Yeah, if you look at, anti-Semitic incidents in the United States. I’ll put [00:02:00] a graph here, which you’ll see is they were fairly low up until about 2021, and then they start to go up and then they shoot up in 2023 and then are higher still in 2024. If you look at there was another study here Holocaust denial or minimization, nearly four in 10 in the current GOP 37%. So this is in alignment with the antisemitism rates we saw there. Okay. Believe the Holocaust was greatly exaggerated or did not happen as historians describe, oh younger men are especially likely to hold this view. 54% of men under 50, 39% of women under 50. What? And this is of GOP voters among men, over 50, 41% agree compared to 18% of women over 50. Racial divides are particularly striking. And so what you can see is. Anybody who knows this, who are the most anti-Semitic Hispanic voters? 77% of Hispanic GOP voters. Oh, Simone Collins: I actually wouldn’t have Malcolm Collins: guessed that. Black voters, 66% of black GOP [00:03:00] voters. Okay. And it’s fairly rare among white GOP voters that only quote unquote 30%. So that’s still about a third. So this is obviously a real issue. Simone Collins: Yeah. But what is it that young people are seeing that boomers aren’t seeing that’s so profoundly affects their views of Jews? Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, I think what we’re actually seeing here, and I’ll just drop right to the point. So one, I’m gonna be arguing later in this, but I’ll go into it in more detail. When we get to it the, the reason why progressives have started hating the Jews very intensely recently is not the reason I thought historically, just because Jews were out competing other groups. And if your entire worldview is around equality and you believe that everyone is genetically identical and just somebody’s culture, like you can’t be like, well, if we’re all genetically identical, then some groups must be doing worse because of their culture. And then people are like, that’s victim blaming or whatever, you know? It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this or that group’s culture, why their children. Are, you know, not doing as well on tests and stuff. And so, if a group is [00:04:00] doing better, people are gonna say, oh, well that can be explained. This is what I historically thought, oh, it must be because they’re cheating. I’m actually gonna argue that it’s something different that’s leading to the current leftist antisemitism. But I wanna talk about rightist antisemitism. Simm or even my own internal calculation has sort of been changing recently. So first I’ll get to the broad rightest antisemitism and where it’s coming from. Okay. And, and, and why this doesn’t work intergenerationally. Why you don’t see it as hitting older people? Basically everyone in our society around the eighties and the nineties agreed that racism was bad. Like we just societally agreed. Racism is a bad thing. We shouldn’t be actively racist, right? Now woke, people in the woke cultural movement took this, right, and they, they then warped it to be like, well, discrimination against any perceived group is bad. I can self define as a minority discriminated group. And because, and [00:05:00] then, and then they abuse that. This is where a lot of the trans stuff came from. This is where a lot of the, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, came from. During that period of discrimination is bad happening. A lot of Jewish cultures and cultural groups basically learned how to hack this to get their way right. Mm. We try to shut down criticism by, as we’ve seen people do, and, and people can be like, well, every group does this, and I wanna point out that no, every group doesn’t do this. We have multiple times on our videos, so we did a video arguing that Jews are not genetically superior to other people. Right. Not at all an antisemitic take. If anything, it would be a proje take because it’s arguing that Jews are outcompeting other people in terms of like income and politically predominantly due to cultural advantages. Which is better than just having a genetic advantage. ‘cause then that would just be blatantly unfair. And I could see why other groups would be like, oh, well we don’t want them competing amongst us if that’s the case. But I [00:06:00] put that video out there and I literally had people reach out to me saying that it was anti-Semitic. Like, I can’t believe you did this, et cetera. I had the video saying that we should stop paying Military aid. Malcolm Collins: to Israel. Something we, we’ve been giving it. We, we literally, like if you look at America right? We freed the Jews, America freed the Jews from near complete eradication during the Holocaust. Um, That in the Holocaust actually happened. And we since paid for economic helping hands for a long time up until like the last five years and. Huge military helping hand for, for a long, long time period. Right. To just say, Hey, we should stop giving them aid now, you know, they’re a developed economy at this point and they’re not actively in a war is not an anti-Semitic thing to say. Simone Collins: Right? Yeah. Like we’ve, we’ve helped out and that’s great and now we’ve, we’ve helped the help isn’t definite be like, Malcolm Collins: Well anyone would do this if anyone who’s a long time fan of the show. Knows [00:07:00] that we are two Catholics. Whatever Nick Fuentes is to choose, like, and I don’t mean this by that, what I mean is Nick Fuentes doesn’t actually seem to individually hate Jewish people. He seems to sort of hate the religion more broadly and what he sees that as standing for. Whereas with us, like we like Catholics individually, but I think that the Vatican, and I’ve said this on shows, is. A, core enemy of the United States, our way of life, our long-term objectives. They have stated this pretty explicitly, and I think that the Vatican in their form of Catholicism, I mean like the heads of the Catholic face is incompatible with long-term human thriving. Like this is a stance that is as antagonistic to Catholics as anything Nick Foes has ever said about Jews. And yet never once. And I’m, I wanna be clear about this, to Jews who are like, well, you know, you can’t control what every Jew does or something like this. There are dramatically more just in terms of numbers, Catholics who watch the shows in Jews, never once has one of them reached

    1 h y 8 min
  5. What Really Happened Before the Viral Interview

    HACE 4 DÍAS

    What Really Happened Before the Viral Interview

    In this episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into the viral interview clip (now over 9.5M views) in which a mainstream journalist from MSNBC/Telemundo denies basic genetics — claiming there are NO genetic differences between black and white people, not even for skin color. What you didn’t see in the viral clip: the full context of a day-long filming session, the journalist’s “gotcha” moment falling apart, and why Malcolm deliberately played along to ensure the clip made it to air. We break down: * Why denying genetic differences (even skin color) is increasingly common on the left * The real science on population differences, fertility windows, fibroids, menopause timing, and medical implications * How this moment signals a cultural turning point: the right becoming the pro-science side, the left becoming theologically anti-science * Media manipulation tactics, viral strategy, and why shock moments spread truth faster than documentaries This isn’t about race supremacy — it’s about honesty in science, better medical outcomes, and fighting demographic collapse by understanding biological realities. Episode Transcript: Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] what we see is a turning point culturally, and, and that’s what this interview represents, a turning point culturally with the right, becoming the party of science Speaker: It’s science. Malcolm Collins: and the left, becoming the anti-science theologically motivated party. Would you like to know more? Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. We recently ended up getting in a debate against what I can only describe as a literal straw man of myth. And it went viral, super viral. I think the video’s at 9.5 million views. Now, one person was, was adding it up across the site. So really, really big and what we wanted to take this episode to do was to go over what you are not seeing from this film clip and the context of what we were thinking in this film clip. Mm-hmm. And how we were trying to talk with her, because I think a lot of people get the impression that I walked into a room with A-C-N-B-C Telemundo reporter, right. And I sat down. And she just started asking me questions and immediately I was like, what? What are [00:01:00] you talking about? For, for, Simone Collins: yeah, for context. It, it’s Paolo Ramos. She’s, she’s from like, she’s, she’s not, she’s, she’s not unknown. Okay. She’s 193,000 followers just on Instagram. Malcolm Collins: She has she worked in the Obama administration. She worked in the Clinton administration. Her dad is a very famous anchor at Telemundo and like one of Trump’s arch enemies. She is very, like, this is the environment she grew up in. This is her religion. It, it very much reminded me of me talking to people who have been in Scientology and grew up in Scientology. Just their conviction. The, their weird world beliefs are completely normal. And we’ll play the clip in a bit, but most of, you’re probably already seen it, so I’m not gonna go into that that much. Actually, Saron of ACA did a full episode dedicated to a breakdown of it because it was so emblematic of this. Simone Collins: I think you should start with the clip. I think you should start with the clip. Malcolm Collins: The point I was making is we didn’t just sit down and this was filmed, this was after a full day of shooting. It, it was, it was [00:02:00] actually near the end of the shoot that day, so. We had had her at our house, we’d been talking with her in a number of different environments, is the way it works. You go to one room, you go to another room, you do some filming. You talk about this, you talk about this, you talk about this. And and before I, I play the clip, I’ll give you context when she started talking about this, up until this point, while she had been like a little woke about some things, it was like normal, like, let’s discuss this. Like let’s find common ground. Let’s this was when I think she decided like, oh, I’ve got this Gotcha. Planned for them, right? And immediately her gotcha fell apart because she didn’t seem to understand very, very basic biology. And she didn’t, she thought that we were like racist or racial supremacists. When in the very clip we make it clear, we’re like different. Doesn’t mean better. We’re just saying that there are differences with specifically the one that I really couldn’t get over with her, and to give you a context of how we got there, was that, well, at the very least, the genes that code [00:03:00] for our skin color are different, right? Like we can at least agree on that. I didn’t jump there because I was trying to jump to a non-sequitur. I jumped there because I was sort of like, okay, you disagree that there are any genetic differences between black and white people? Like presumably you at least agree on this and then we can sort of work on, okay, well then maybe other genes have associations due to similar sort of ancestral environmental conditions leading to them being selected for, but no, we got to the, do genes cause skin color differences? And her answer was, and the other thing about this clip is this was not the full debate or like us pushing back and forth. It probably went on, I wanna say for 15 minutes or. Significantly. I don’t know. I dunno, it’s hard to tell how long something was, but what I can say is this was just a little bit of it, and it doesn’t fully show how crazy her position was. Her position was just for people who don’t know in the, in the context, all [00:04:00] differences. Between black people and white people are due to conditions that they experience in their life, such as discrimination. So she would say the reason why, and this is a contributory factor, that black women have more fertility complications or inter menopause earlier than white women. And we’ll go into both of these claims, ‘cause this is what I was talking about in context. The reason why I brought up that they, like it came up that they were different at all is because I was talking about, well, we need to understand this as a society that like we are actually different because if a black woman tries to have kids at the same timeline as a white woman having kids, she will not have as many kids successfully. Yeah. Due to biological differences. Simone Collins: And this matters in the bigger debate of demographic absentism because the primary driver of. F falling fertility rates. It’s not people not having kids at all. It’s people starting families later. And the problem is that many, including many of our black female friends are doing what everyone’s doing, the responsible thing, starting their families later. No [00:05:00] one tells them that, like on average, the fertility windows of black women and the fertility of black women in general is different from. The rest of the population, which often is more represented in scientific research in, in, in Western societies. If Malcolm Collins: anything, from their perspective, we were arguing against a Eurocentric medical perspective. Exactly, Simone Collins: exactly. Well, which is so funny because in some woke circles, it’s, it’s really commonly discussed, Heather. There’s not enough medical research that is specifically for women or specifically for certain racial groups that are on average different from other groups. Like it’s fully recognized there, but like in the context of this. It’s. Malcolm Collins: And in the, in the longer conversation we go into this and she goes, no, all of these differences are entirely and a hundred percent, even though there is voluminous evidence, this isn’t the case which we’ll go into. Not they’re due to discrimination in some way. And I was like, well, you know, if you have interracial couples, you still see the difference, but only when it’s women. And I like went into this and I was like, and if you control for wealth, which studies [00:06:00] have done, you still see the differences. And she just would not have it. And it’s interesting to me because if you actually go down to. Dream of her perspective. What she’s arguing is that like black people become black not due to genes or like even, even more than that, black people are, let’s say taller on average, not due to genes, but because of the discrimination they face. And I, and I’d point out another thing that will get into. Later in this is a lot of people are like, well, black isn’t a race or whatever. And I’m like, I never said black was a race. Like, I, I was not saying I I was merely saying if you’re looking at this one phenotypical characteristic, it is associated with specific other characteristics that may have medical implications, whether it be sickle cell anemia or diabetes, or the way you process vitamin D. Like. That, that was the point I was making. I was not, and I even clearly state this in the police, I say, I’m not saying we’re better. I’m not talking about IQ here. And I’m not like I I, there was no like, and I’m not even [00:07:00] saying like this race or this race or arguing for the concept of race or ethnicity. I was just saying that you can look at one phenotypic thing, and this matters a lot in hospitals. Like people die. When you don’t do this in a hospital context because if you, if you try to, for example, like even just looking at somebody broadly do a blood donation, like I can, I can have a well, let’s go from blood donations bone, bone marrow donation. You know, if I have like a black wife and I wanna donate bone marrow to her. Can’t because we are biologically incompatible in that context. And so do, it’s more Simone Collins: common, like just, how do you explain this if this isn’t true? Example that was brought up in discussions. Around this clip online was just then how do you explain sickle cell anemia? Anemia, sorry. And that’s just a really easy go

    1 h
  6. 26/12/2025

    Giving Poor Populations Money Lowers Their Birth Rate?

    In this eye-opening discussion, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into a shocking demographic shift happening in wealthy countries: the complete inversion of the traditional fertility-wealth relationship. For decades, poorer families had more children while richer ones had fewer. But starting around 2017, in nations with generous social services (free childcare, healthcare, education), higher-income and higher-educated people are now having MORE kids — while lower-income groups are having fewer. We explore: * Why universal free childcare and welfare might unintentionally reduce fertility among lower-income groups * How modern “poor” lifestyles increasingly resemble historical elite living (outsourced child-rearing, conspicuous consumption, work outside the home) * How modern “rich” lifestyles are starting to look like historical peasant life (homesteading, stealth wealth, focus on home/family, less external work) * The implications for fertility collapse, dependency ratios, and whether generous in-kind social services could accidentally “solve” collapsing birth rates by boosting high-earner fertility Backed by 2025 research from Western Europe, Nordic data, and real-world examples. Is giving people free services the unexpected key to higher birth rates among taxpayers? Or is something deeper happening with culture and household structure? Episode Outline What it means to be rich, and what it means to be poor, is fundamentally changing, and not like you’d think. Rich people are starting to live like poor people used to live, and poor people are increasingly live like rich people used to live And you can see this coming up in all sorts of places, but most notably in recent shifts in fertility This is a big deal and I think we should explore it. SETTING THE SCENE * In September, New Mexico’s governor announced that New Mexico will be the first US state to offer universal free childcare, regardless of income * Average household savings are estimated at around $12,000 per child, per year (major understatement; when we had just three kids, we were spending around $4K/month—so around $50K/year for a daycare with a terrible reputation) * This comes at a time when polling indicates Americans want the US to focus on measures like this to combat declining fertility rates * WHAT WE WOULD EXPECT FROM THINGS LIKE FREE CHILDCARE: * If the state covers major basic costs of having kids, rich people would have fewer kids as their standards for raising kids would be higher * Wynnell anecdote: $1M/kid/year * THE COUNTERINTUITIVE TREND * Starting in 2017, we’ve seen a shift in wealthy countries—that largely cover things like childcare, education, and healthcare—in which wealthier and more educated families are having more children than poorer and less educated families. * KEY QUESTION * Why does giving resources to poor people not increase their fertility proportionately to rich people? * WHAT PEOPLE ARGUE: * When the state doesn’t offer generous social services, wealthy families aren’t willing to pay for having kids (but somehow poor families are) * Having to work—as poor people do—competes with family demands * WHY I HESITATE * Wealthy people still work and have aggressive schedules * Wealthy people also generally choose to have kids in more expensive ways—i.e. Waiting until they are old and infertile and then having kids expensively—and they’re struggling with that cost * E.g. IVF is so expensive, people are traveling abroad to get it * E.g. One couple found a clinic in Bogota, Colombia “offering a dramatic price difference—a package of four IVF rounds in Colombia for $11,000 compared to around $60,000 for four rounds in the U.S. Medication costs were also less than half of those in the U.S.” * MY HYPOTHESIS * The issue is more that governments and societies are turning poor people into wealthy people—or at least people who live like wealthy people historically lived—and turning wealthy people into poor people (or at least people who live like poor people used to live) and that’s why we’re seeing the inversion * I’ll explain why at the end, but let’s go into the details first. First, a Caveat We’re talking about wealthy countries here, and wealthy countries (with one notable exception) have abysmal birth rates. @MoreBirths Thread The Thread: * Lower income had been associated with higher fertility but now that relationship has completely flipped in many developed countries. Higher incomes are now associated with higher fertility almost everywhere in Europe, for both men and women, a 2025 paper shows. * But this is only within countries. Across countries the correlation between income and fertility remains very negative. Wealthy countries continue to have far lower birthrates than poor countries. Also, fertility tends to go down for countries as a whole as they get richer. * Cool animation that amusingly resembles sperm: * /photo/2 But obviously as wealthy countries’ fertility rates are low, they need to work out what policies help to increase them. The Wealthy Country Shift We Must Investigate Back to this unexpected shift Historical and Current Trends For most of the 20th century, there was a negative relationship between wealth and fertility in Europe: wealthier individuals typically had fewer children while poorer families had more. However, starting around 2017, this pattern weakened and has even reversed in several prosperous European countries by 2021. In some places, the association is now neutral or even slightly positive.​ * Similar patterns hold when using education as a proxy for income: low-educated Nordic women and men now have the lowest fertility and highest childlessness (15-36% in recent cohorts), while higher-educated groups have stabilized near replacement levels (around 1.8-2.0 children per person). Variation by Region and Gender * In Nordic countries such as Sweden, studies show a clear positive connection between high lifetime earnings and having more children, especially among men.​ For women, the relationship shifted from women having more kids (up to women born around the 1940s) to positive or flat in the 1970s cohorts, with the poorest women now having the fewest children due to higher childlessness rates. * In Southern Europe, parental wealth is still related to lower fertility, while in Nordic countries, greater wealth is associated with higher fertility rates.​ Regional Differences and Welfare Regimes In European countries with limited social welfare support—such as lacking free childcare or universal healthcare—fertility rates among wealthier citizens generally show only a weak positive association or sometimes remain lower, especially in Southern and Eastern Europe.​ * In Southern Europe and some conservative welfare states (like Greece and Italy) with weak, higher parental wealth does not strongly compensate for limited public support.​ * In contrast, Nordic countries and regions with extensive social support show a clearer trend: high-income individuals, especially men, tend to have more children What Spurred Discourse About This: An Academic Paper A research note on the increasing income prerequisites of parenthood. Country-specific or universal in Western Europe? https://labdisia.disia.unifi.it/wp_disia/2025/wp_disia_2025_05.pdf (Brini, Guetto, Vignoli, 2025) TL:DR: They’re trying to argue that wealth is beginning to correlate with having kids more because “having kids is so expensive.” THEY ARE TRYING TO SAY WE NEED TO GIVE PEOPLE MORE MONEY FOR KIDS. Summary of Findings [not to be covered in podcast, but for show notes]: * Key Question: Has the role of income in enabling parenthood strengthened in Western Europe from 2006–2020, and are increasing fertility inequalities present between higher- and lower-income groups for both men and women? * Main Findings: * Higher individual income strongly increases the likelihood of having a first child for both men and women across 16 Western European countries studied; the effect is stronger and more widespread for women, especially in countries with robust welfare systems. * The role of income as a prerequisite for parenthood has increased over time: Income-based fertility gaps have widened, primarily due to declining birth rates among low-income men and women, not just rising births among higher-income groups. * Country Variations: * In most countries (France, Italy, Luxembourg, Sweden, Austria, Norway, UK, Belgium, Cyprus), widening fertility gaps are driven by declining parenthood among low-income groups—supporting the “increasing income prerequisites” hypothesis. * A few countries (Finland, Ireland, Greece, Spain) show weakened male income effects, suggesting evolving gender norms (”changing gender roles” hypothesis). * Only Portugal fits the “declining opportunity costs” hypothesis, with increasing parenthood among high-income women due to policy improvements. * Implications: Economic resources are increasingly critical for starting families, especially for women. Lower-income groups are increasingly excluded from parenthood, and the combined incomes of partners matter more than ever. * Evidence and Method: Analysis based on longitudinal EU-SILC data for individuals aged 18–45, modeling income (lagged two years), education, and employment status, with results robust across country and gender. * Sensitivity Analyses: The effect persists when considering partnered individuals and total household income, ruling out partnership exclusion alone as the explanation. * Conclusion: Financial barriers to parenthood have risen and become more universal in high-income countries. The income prerequisites of parenthood increasingly contribute to income-based fertility inequalities, with widening divides driven by falling birth rates among lower-income women and men. These trends are consistent with rising economic uncertainty, declining employment stabi

    37 min
  7. 25/12/2025

    Could All Debt Actually Just Be Canceled?

    Could a “debt jubilee” happen in the US? Malcolm and Simone dive deep into skyrocketing consumer debt, unsustainable government obligations (like Social Security insolvency by 2032-2034), and historical debt cancellations—from ancient Mesopotamia and Biblical jubilees to Japan’s post-WWII wealth confiscation and modern “Abenomics.” They debate whether America’s record-high credit card debt, buy-now-pay-later defaults, and cultural attitudes toward money could trigger a crisis, hyperinflation, or forced wealth redistribution. Is bankruptcy already America’s soft debt jubilee? What should you invest in (or avoid) if things get weird in the 2030s? Hilarious tangents include check fraud “hacks,” Caleb Hammer roasts, ramen lifehacks, and why Japan pulled off drastic reforms while Venezuela and Zimbabwe collapsed. As Simone outlined this episode, the outline (and links) follows! The transcript is at the end of the post. Merry Christmas, you filthy animals! Episode Outline * US consumer debt levels are currently at record highs in 2025, both in nominal and inflation-adjusted terms * Average credit card debt among cardholders with unpaid balances rose to about $7,321 in Q1 2025, up 5.8% from a year earlier * People are using buy now pay later services like Klarna and Afterpay at record levels and increasingly paying late * A LendingTree survey found that 41% of BNPL users made a late payment in 2025, up from 34% the prior year * April 2025, 31% of federal student loan borrowers were 90+ days delinquent on payments, * This comes at a time when… * People are beginning to view debt payoff, the concept of capitalism, and even faith in fiat currency with increasing skepticism * Loan defaults and late payments are on the rise * democratic socialist political figures like Zohran Mamdani are gaining serious traction and public attention * Even our governments are spending like someone with zero expectation of paying off their debt * US social security likely to falter in 2032-2034 * The UK is set to experience a social security crisis in the early 2030s * And this matters, because something’s gotta give, and in the past, this has involved various forms of debt jubilees * So we’re going to discuss: * The situation with consumer debt today * The situation with government debt today * How unsustainable debt has been dealt with historically * How this could go poorly * How this could go well and how we as individuals might prepare Banks and Fractional Reserves * The post: * Oct 21 trending discussion: https://x.com/i/trending/1980520651816341983 US Consumer Debt * Credit card balances hit another all-time high, reaching around $1.21 trillion in Q2 2025—matching last year’s record with annualized growth rates of over 9% in mid-2025. * Credit card interest rates are commonly averaging 22–24% in 2025, compared to around 15% just a few years ago. * Delinquency rates for credit cards and other non-housing debts have increased to levels well above pre-pandemic norms. In Q2 2025, about 4.4% of all debt was in some phase of delinquency. * Klarna reported a 17% increase in consumer credit losses in Q1 2025, totaling $136 million, with repayment defaults rising among users. * Student loan delinquencies are also rising, especially following the resumption of payments after long pandemic-era forbearance, adding further strain to household finances * In March 2025, just 35% of federal student-loan borrowers had made their most recent payment on time. The rest were at risk of (or already in) serious delinquency or default. It has actually been worse recently, though: * US consumer (household) debt has reached nominal record highs in 2025, but when adjusted for economic growth (e.g., as a percentage of GDP), it remains below pre-2008 financial crisis peaks and has even declined slightly in recent quarters. * This tracks with bankruptcy search trends (https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F01hhz&hl=en) * After adjusting for inflation, average household debt in 2025 is about 2.9% ($1,800) higher than in 2013 but 17.2% ($13,100) lower than the 2008 peak. * Also, bankruptcy is pretty soft on people * Basically bad credit for 10 years and non-essential assets can be frozen, but many don’t have much to lose in the face of that. * What has me worried more is the mindset * The surging skepticism around communism * The employment threat of rising AI * The increasingly absurdist interpretation of money and normalization of putting off money problems * E.g. BNPL usage is surging, with monthly spending up 21% year-over-year to $243.90 per user in June 2025. * 41% of users paid late in the past year (up from 34%), 24% faced late payments in 2025, and nearly 40% regret usage due to hidden costs. The gist: * Consumer debt is a problem * Government debt is a bigger problem Government Inability to Pay Obligations Social Security Set to Falter * The U.S. Social Security retirement trust fund is now projected to be insolvent by late 2032; if the disability fund is combined, around 2034. Benefits would be cut about 24% automatically if nothing is done * UK state pension is pay-as-you-go and generally funded from current taxes, but there are major concerns about the sustainability of defined benefit (private and public) pension plans and the adequacy of future benefits. A liquidity and solvency crisis in 2022 exposed the vulnerability of the system, and ongoing warnings suggest potential crisis if reforms aren’t enacted as liabilities grow * Other Western nations face sustainability crises from the 2030s, mostly driven by aging populations and shrinking worker/retiree ratios. * Canada is currently better positioned due to earlier reforms, but is still monitoring demographic risks. * All systems will require some combination of benefit reduction, tax increases, or later retirement ages to remain sustainable. Historical Jubilees TL:DR: Rules repeatedly cancelled debts (without consent from creditors) to end, evade, or calm rebellion, turmoil, class conflict, revolution, or societal breakdown. Misc * Ancient Mesopotamia: Kings of Sumer, Babylon, and neighboring regions periodically canceled debts for peasants and small landholders, often at the start of their reigns or during crises. * Athens, Greece – Solon’s Seisachtheia “sigh-SAK-thee-uh” (594 BCE): Solon forgave personal debts, banned debt slavery, and wiped out mortgage debts in Athens. * Initially controversial but eventually credited with preventing revolution and laying foundations for Athenian democracy. Credit eventually resumed as societal structures stabilized. Medieval Japan In medieval Japan, particularly during the Kamakura (1185–1333) and Muromachi (1336–1573) periods, the shogunate issued edicts known as tokusei (literally “virtuous government” or “benevolent rule”), which effectively functioned as debt jubilees. These were decrees that canceled debts, often in response to peasant uprisings (tokusei ikki) driven by famines, high taxes, epidemics, or exploitative lending practices. The concept dated back even earlier, with roots in the Nara and Heian periods (710–1185), but became prominent in the 13th–15th centuries. * The most famous early example is the Einin Tokuseirei of 1297, issued by the Kamakura shogunate. It annulled all debts contracted before that year, allowed vassals (gokenin, or samurai retainers) to reclaim pawned lands without repaying loans, and canceled interest on older debts. This was motivated by the need to bolster military strength against potential Mongol invasions (following attempts in 1274 and 1281) and to address widespread debt burdens among the warrior class. * Later examples include uprisings that forced similar measures, such as the Shōchō uprising in 1428 during the Muromachi period. Peasants in the Kinai region (around Kyoto) rebelled amid famine, high rice prices, disease, and heavy taxes. They looted moneylenders, sake merchants, pawnshops, and temples, destroying debt records to achieve “independent debt relief.” The shogunate did not issue a nationwide order, but local authorities like the Kōfuku-ji temple in Yamato Province responded with a formal tokusei law: pawned items could be redeemed for one-third of their value, and loans over five years old were annulled. A stone inscription (Yagyū no Tokusei Hibun) commemorates the full cancellation of pre-1428 debts in specific villages. Scary Post-WWII Currency Reform and Debt Resolution (1946) After Japan’s defeat in World War II, the government faced massive sovereign debt (about 267% of national income by March 1945), hyperinflation, and economic ruin. While not explicitly called a “jubilee,” the 1946 Financial Emergency Measures effectively wiped out much of the real value of debts through currency reform and wealth confiscation. What Exactly Happened * On February 16, 1946, the government announced surprise measures: All bank accounts were frozen, old yen notes were invalidated unless deposited, and a “new yen” was introduced at a 1:1 exchange rate. Withdrawals were severely limited (initially 300 yen per household head plus 100 yen per member, later 100 yen per month per person—barely enough for survival). * This was followed by a massive one-time property tax in autumn 1946, levying up to 90% on assets (including blocked deposits) held as of February 16. Tax revenues were used to repay government bonds and interest. War-related compensations to companies and citizens were offset by special taxes, amounting to a partial default. * Hyperinflation (prices rising over 500% annually in 1945–1946) had already eroded the real value of debts before the reform. Effects * Government debt was drastically reduced (from 446 billion yen in 1948 to 316 billion yen in 1950), taming hyperinflation and enabling postwar reconstruction. It paved the way for the “Japanese economic miracle” of rapid growth in the 19

    1 h y 4 min
  8. Manufacturing Our Designer Babies (Feat. Jonathan Anomaly)

    24/12/2025

    Manufacturing Our Designer Babies (Feat. Jonathan Anomaly)

    Malcolm and Simone Collins sit down with Jonathan Anomaly (Director of Research & Communication at Herasight) to finally reveal the company they’ve been quietly working with for years on embryo genetic selection. After years of secrecy, we dive deep into: * How Herasight achieves dramatically superior polygenic risk scores compared to competitors * The recent drama and plagiarism allegations surrounding Nucleus Genomics * Why selecting for higher intelligence correlates with better health, lower addiction rates, more cooperative behavior, and overall life success * The truth about pleiotropy: why selecting for positive traits almost never comes with serious downsides * How Herasight’s patented technology allows parents anywhere in the world (even where PGT-P is banned) to get polygenic embryo reports * The coming era of germline gene editing and why refusing these technologies may soon be seen as morally irresponsible * Why this technology is fundamentally pro-natalist and will help high-fertility families have healthier, thriving children This is one of the most important conversations happening right now about the future of humanity. Learn more about Herasight here Follow Jonathan Anomaly on X Episode Transcript: Malcolm Collins: . [00:00:00] Hello. I am excited to be here today because today we can talk about something that we have had to keep quiet for years which is, if you know the Collins family lore, it’s that we did a large batch of embryos because we had to, Simone was unable to get pregnant naturally, and we then did genetic sequencing on them to decide the order in which we did the implantation. Now. For a long time we just had to say that we did this with a group of scientists. And when people were like, well, so people use this company or this company, we say, well, the company that they should probably be using isn’t out there yet. And the reason why this is really important when we’re talking about independent companies with good genetic data on humans is as time has gone on, the genetic data that is held in the public sphere by scientists and everything like that is. Decreasing in quality. And specifically what I mean by this is there was a, the famous case where the national Biobank [00:01:00] in the UK ended up closing off their genetic access to a lot of publishers because one scientist accidentally found that one group was in the United States, was having daughter within the uk Your daughters Simone Collins: within the uk Yeah, Malcolm Collins: in the uk. Something like 14000% the rate of any other group. And that was a naughty fact. And so now they’re like, now we need to screen all research for anything that could be naughty facts. The problem is, is that naughty facts are the facts we really need for humanity to move forwards, which includes things like genetic correlates to intelligence. And the reason why I have been so impressed by this company, and, and it’s the reason we’re gonna be doing this and talking about this, not just about their work around intelligence and their work around the correlates to intelligence, which is really interesting because almost everything is correlated with intelligence. So if you’re selecting for, if you’re like. I as a country will not allow people to select for intelligence. I will only allow heart health. You are also selecting for intelligence because these, these things are highly correlated with each other. So we’re gonna go into that. We’re gonna go into intelligence associations with social behavior patterns and everything like that because [00:02:00] obviously that’s important. And we’re also gonna go into. Oh gosh.. I was just gonna say that now anyone can do this. So if you’re anywhere in the world, even if it’s illegal to do within your country, because Pgt PA is illegal to do genomics in country, they’ve got a unique technology that allows you to transfer p gt to BA stuff twofold, genomic stuff. So we’re gonna move ahead with Johnny Anomaly an old friend of ours who is working with these guys. Yeah. So Johnny Simone Collins: Anomaly is the director of Research and Communication of Parasite, which finally we can say is the company we’ve been working with on all these things that has been taking what we think is the most conscientious, thoughtful science, first detailed autistic in the best possible way approach to this. Johnny Naly is a background as a bioethicist, and he’s just an overall awesome guy. He’s a major proponent of this technology and he’s kind of the. The gateway person to anyone who wants to enter this sphere and learn more about it. So we’re really grateful to you joining us today, Johnny. Thank you so [00:03:00] much. And also, if we have a little bit of time to the end of this, I’d really love for you to dive in. Or maybe we could even start with it just ‘cause it’s like salacious drama, some drama that played out this week between sort of not just parasite and nucleus genomics, another company that gives apologetic risk or data to parents but also nucleus genomics and genomic predictions, which is another apologetic risk score company. So just maybe to start, would you mind just telling us, because it helps us understand sort of how parasite is different and, and what other companies in this space are doing possibly wrong. What, what played out on X this week about nucleus genomics and another company in this space? Jonathan Anomaly: Yeah. Well, thanks for having me guys. And Yep. We’ve been working together and we have many common friends here in Austin and other places where I am. But let’s see here. So there was quite a bit of drama, and I didn’t get into this business for the drama. As, as you know, I, I wrote a book about this. I was an academic, I’d been interested in this topic long before [00:04:00] I, I went into the private sector and joined this company a few years ago. So I really want things to be done well, and we stayed in stealth for a really long time, you know, more than three years. And the reason is we knew that, first of all, this is a nascent science. So the, the science of polygenic prediction that is using genomic data to predict traits about, let’s say embryos or, and by the way, this is why it’s not mysterious. Or using it to, we might say, retrofit traits about past people. So for example, the Reich Lab at Harvard, David Reich wrote a book called Who We Are and How We Got Here, and he recreates the ancient past and migration patterns and, and even, and even makes inferences about the traits that people had in the past based on polygenic scores. That’s so funny. This is not mysterious technology. We use it all the time in history and, and going forward in personalized medicine now for embryos. Nevertheless, I understood it was a nascent science. It’s, [00:05:00] it’s pretty new. It’s very complex. You need some of the world’s best statistical geneticist, and I’m not one, you know, I studied economics and philosophy. That’s what I taught. But we hired some of the best and it takes a while, right, to lure him from academia. They knew Alex Young, for example, who’s our true superstar. He’s still at UCLA, but you know, he got in a little bit of hot water as soon as he announced that he was with us. Mm-hmm. Even though it’s like, what are we doing? We’re reducing. Disease in the world and maybe marginally increasing intelligence a bit, but that’s considered controversial. So anyway, that’s just the background of why we were in stealth, why we wanted to hire the world’s best first. Do the best research, validate our predictors, and we can talk about how that’s done later. And it was only then that we emerged from stealth. Nevertheless a company that had been around for a little while called Nucleus decided to launch just before everyone knew we were about to come out the closet. My gosh. And yeah, they had done [00:06:00] that a few months ago, just about a month or two before us and announced they were now going into doing embryo scoring. And we took a look at some of their reports and found them, let’s just say lacking. And so we decided when we launched, we were gonna launch with a white paper. And Oh, I love hearing baby sounds. Only on your podcast. Is it one of the babies chosen the system. Yeah. I love it. This is beautiful. And we’ll talk about maybe Tism later too, but Nice. But anyway, we, before we launch, we really wanted to make sure that we had validated the best predictors on the planet, made it really clear how we did that, et cetera. And as part of our initial validation paper, we have an appendix showing what Nucleus genomics was up to. And it was, it was not kind, but it was accurate. Scott Alexander picked up on it and Scott also had talked about, you know, using us and, and that sort of thing. And he didn’t wanna be too partial. I mean, it was a, a partial endorsement of us, [00:07:00] but really a survey of the landscape, like what is the state of the art when it comes to this And mm-hmm. Anyway, that kicked off the initial controversy, but last week, last week, some anonymous blogger, I guess he’s a Chinese guy who lives in, in the Bay Area called Siwan Malala, like bad Sichuan. Yeah. He decided to do a pretty thorough takedown of Nucleus. Some of it was citing our earlier work. And then apparently Nucleus found our work so good, our white paper, that they decided to more or less copy and paste it without citation as, as their own. And so. You know, it’s, I’m not gonna say too much about that, but I guess that’s a great honor for us that they decided to do that. So, sit, so I’ll say this, so Malcolm Collins: you don’t need to worry about getting yourself in trouble. So basically what it came down to, if you read this guy’s take down, is this other company launched with a largely plagiarized version of this other company’s white paper, but with just worse data p

    1 h

Acerca de

Based Camp is a podcast focused on how humans process the world around them and the future of our species. That means we go into everything from human sexuality, to weird sub-cultures, dating markets, philosophy, and politics. Malcolm and Simone are a husband wife team of a neuroscientist and marketer turned entrepreneurs and authors. With graduate degrees from Stanford and Cambridge under their belts as well as five bestselling books, one of which topped out the WSJs nonfiction list, they are widely known (if infamous) intellectuals / provocateurs. If you want to dig into their ideas further or check citations on points they bring up check out their book series. Note: They all sell for a dollar or so and the money made from them goes to charity. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08FMWMFTG basedcamppodcast.substack.com

También te podría interesar