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. The "Boomer Right" Abandoned The West (With Basic Logic)

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    The "Boomer Right" Abandoned The West (With Basic Logic)

    In this conversation, Malcolm Collins sits down with Basic Logic — one of the fastest-growing right-wing YouTube channels — to discuss his rapid rise, Christian conversion story, critique of boomer conservatism, and the unique challenges facing Gen Z. Topics include: how Basic Logic went from stubborn atheist to Christian (and converted his friend), why personal religious experiences aren’t enough for most people, the failures of modern churches, the lack of real mentors, dating as a Christian in your 20s, new right vs. old conservatism, and rebuilding culture through truth-seeking. A raw, high-signal discussion on philosophy, faith, generational collapse, and what it takes to actually change minds in 2025. Episode Transcript [00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Hello, everyone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today, we are here with Basic Logic. And if you don’t know who Basic Logic is, he, within the right-wing YouTuber space, is probably one of the fastest growing channels I’ve ever seen. Y- I think in just a few months you went from something like 20,000 to over 100,000 subscribers. [00:00:20] And your content is really solid, like short form both data and philosophy heavy. Not that I agree with everything, but it’s definitely like thematically aligned with a lot of the topics on this channel. And I decided to reach out ‘cause I always try to have conversations with anyone in this wider intellectual space because we’re all having what I sort of call an asynchronous conversation with the world, with our watchers, with everything like that where a lot of us are watching a lot of other creators out there. [00:00:52] We’re getting ideas from them. We’re spinning those ideas into something new. And so, bringing people together to have these conversations can be really interesting. What I wanted to start with is what was the context of starting the channel for you? What was your goal with the channel, and how did that goal evolve as you’ve gone on? [00:01:14] Basic Logic: Th- thank you for having me. The way I started this channel was as a dare actually. So it’s- I’m not the only person on this channel. My friend is an editor for this channel, and we, we co-own the channel. It’s 50/50. [00:01:26] Malcolm Collins: Okay. [00:01:27] Basic Logic: And the relationship I had with this friend for a very long time is that I like to go deep into certain topics. [00:01:32] In particularly, I converted to Christianity some years ago, and he was the first person I started talking about to Chris- about Christianity with. And then he converted shortly after. I think like a week or two after I converted. [00:01:43] Simone Collins: Whoa. [00:01:44] Basic Logic: And so we’ve always had this dynamic of I go deep into a certain topic, and then I explain it in a very concise way. [00:01:51] And he started telling me, like pestering me, like, “Man, you have to write a book about this because everyone I talk to takes like an hour to explain something simple.” And h- he has ADHD, and he doesn’t like, you know, sitting down for an hour for something that can be explained in three minutes if you really focus. [00:02:08] And then at some point I was go- I was getting bored with my own personal life. I had some spare time to kill because s- there were some professional ambitions that I had that didn’t go as intended. Which had to do with me start, trying to start a startup out of college. But then the people who I was relying on, they didn’t really follow up with the promises that they made. [00:02:28] Malcolm Collins: Hmm. [00:02:29] Basic Logic: And so I had some spare time left over as, as I was waiting, and I was bored, and I was like, “Okay, let’s make a video.” And we posted the video, and it was zero views for like 12 hours. And then afterwards it started getting some traction, and then started getting a lot more traction. It’s like, okay, let, let’s try this seriously. [00:02:45] And so now we are at at the time of recording, we are at 96,900 subscribers. It hasn’t even been 11 months yet. [00:02:53] Malcolm Collins: So- That is completely demoralizing. I, I’ve been doing this for every day, an hour edited episode for what, th- three years at this point, Simone? Yeah, it’s three years. I think so, yeah ... and, and we’re, we’re at 75,000. [00:03:10] I mean, we’ll probably hit 100 before- The end of the four-year period. I know it took Nutsoner four years to get to 100,000, so you’re doing incredibly well. But I see why when I look at the form of your content which is as, as, as quick and with nice animation to the point of a philosophical concept, which I am just terrible at doing, right? [00:03:32] Like, it would take me so long to create videos that short. But that’s also why I’m glad to have you on here so people can get the wider context on you, because that’s not gonna come through on your videos. The, the big question I would have is what convinced you to convert to Christianity so much so that when you talked to your friend, he also converted? [00:03:50] Like, what was the argument or the trepidation you had beforehand? [00:03:57] Basic Logic: Well, there was no argument. I was an extremely [00:04:00] stubborn atheist before. I respected Christianity. I, I started studying Christianity probably an hour... No, not an hour, a year or two before I converted, because I was realizing, okay, everything’s going wrong in society. [00:04:12] The Christians seem to have some good ideas. Let me learn from them. And I did, and I thought a lot of the wisdom there was very good. However, I, I wasn’t convinced until I, I kinda had to be convinced by a How can I say this? I’m, I’m not even sure if I should say this, because every time I do, it gets a lot of people like demoralized in trying to convert. [00:04:35] In the sense that I had the religious experience, and that’s what finally converted me. [00:04:39] Malcolm Collins: Hmm. [00:04:40] Basic Logic: And the reason I don’t always share that is because the common response I get when I, when I tell them that I have a religious experience, like, “Okay, I’ll convert when I have one.” It’s like, great. But [00:04:50] Malcolm Collins: how did you convince your friend? [00:04:51] Did he have a religious experience [00:04:52] Basic Logic: or did he convert? He did not have, no. So very quickly I realized I can’t just tell people I had a religious experience and then they’re gonna convert. That doesn’t make any damn sense. [00:05:01] Malcolm Collins: Hmm. [00:05:01] Basic Logic: But after all these [00:05:02] Malcolm Collins: years of- By the way, I w- I wanna say how much I appreciate th- that was immediately obvious to you. [00:05:07] Yeah. You do not know, because I also converted from being an atheist for ages, how many times a Christian would just be like, “Well, you know, God just started talking to me. But that’s how I know. And that’s why you should know too.” And I’m like, “But he doesn’t talk to me.” Like, what are you ta- ... that, your personal religious experience doesn’t, does not impact my belief, right? [00:05:28] So I really appreciate that that was obvious to you. But go on. [00:05:32] Basic Logic: Yeah, so like people from different religions have their own religious experience, or they claim to. People- Yeah ... can also go insane, and people can go temporarily insane. So it did cross my mind, “Hey, maybe I just went crazy for like one morning. [00:05:43] That might have happened.” So I decided, okay, I’ve already been studying this religion. I like the ideas. Let’s actually go deeper into the philosophy of it. Let’s see if I can understand to prove it or debunk it. And this was like my fixation for one or two weeks, I don’t remember exactly, where all I cared about doing was studying the Bi- [00:06:00] I hadn’t told anyone that I had converted by this point. All my fixation was on just studying the Bible itself, learning about what theologians believed. I would be listening to theology podcasts while doing everything or anything. And so I, I ended up adopting like a mix of beliefs of different Protestant denominations especially, but I also respect the Catholics and the Orthodox. [00:06:21] I’m not militantly Protestant. [00:06:25] Malcolm Collins: Yeah Like, like- And so I, I understood that ... like we, we are, we have a reputation for being, so. But okay, so that’s really w- I, I find it interesting that you were able to get so much from studying theologians. So I guess like this actually makes sense to go into my history on this. [00:06:39] I really enjoyed, when I was an atheist Christian radio. And I listened to tons of Christian radio. But what’s really funny is if you’re super into Christian radio, which is probably not good for me, I, I approached this wrong you get really into arguments that are never gonna matter to an atheist’s conversion. [00:07:03] Like pre- versus post-millennialism, right? Like- [00:07:06] Basic Logic: Right ... [00:07:07] Malcolm Collins: that, that, yeah? [00:07:09] Basic Logic: Yeah, yeah. I know what you’re talking about. [00:07:11] Malcolm Collins: And I would get super into like all of the arguments on both sides of that ‘cause I just loved the lore, I guess. But I never came in on the more practical things that I had never had somebody sit me down and give me good arguments for. [00:07:29] Actually, this could be a fun thing for us to go into in this, is how would you today... First, how did you convert your friend, and how would you go to convert your younger self before the experience? Because there are so many tactics that I think a lot of Christians seem to default to when they’re attempting to convert people. [00:07:50] And they don’t, like i- it’s as they c- do n- does not pass go. And I think one of the big ones that we sort of touched on is not just personal religious experien

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  2. Support For Islam Goes Up After Terror Attacks (More Among Rep then Dems!?)

    1 dag geleden

    Support For Islam Goes Up After Terror Attacks (More Among Rep then Dems!?)

    In this episode of Based Camp, Simone and Malcolm Collins dive into one of the strangest social phenomena of our time: why does public sympathy for aggressors often increase after horrific attacks? From 9/11 to Charlie Hebdo to October 7th, they examine the shocking data showing spikes in pro-Muslim and pro-Palestine sentiment right after major acts of violence. Simone lays out her theory: the concept of “victim blaming” was originally created to address real systemic injustices but was hijacked and weaponized in the 2010s by feminist movements (SlutWalks, MeToo, “Believe All Women”). What began as a tool against unfair bias became a reflexive shield that makes it taboo to assign any responsibility to victims — even when they are the aggressors. They also discuss the rise of external locus of control, cultural shifts on the right, demographic realities, and how women helped turn “victim blaming” into a societal mind virus. Show Notes WHY * Did muslim sentiment in the USA improve after 9/11 * Did muslim sentiment in France improve after Charlie Hebdo’s offices were subject to a terror attack? * Did pro-Palestine sentiment spike after the October 7th attacks on Israel? It may come down to a concept that was created to address unfair bias against people who were genuinely screwed over by societal forces but ultimately co-opted and ruined by… women. So let’s discuss how women appropriated and ruined the concept of victim blaming. The Mystery of Victim Blaming Since when did victims become beyond reproach? Our immediate hunch is that this happened because the urban monoculture elevates victims and holds victims to be blameless, but WHY WOULD SOMEONE DO THAT? We checked Google ngram viewer for “victim blaming” and were kind of shocked: * The term “victim blaming” only emerges around 1970 * From 1970 to 2010 Victim blaming shows modest linear growth * And after 2010 its trajectory changes into exponential growth, which only after 2020 started showing signs of a shift to mere exponential growth Google Trends shows similar results (the term would only spike with incidents, then go back to zero, before 2010). To add to this: @NotAldousHuxley had observed that pro-muslim sentiment spiked after 9/11 and anti-Israel sentiment spiked after the October 7th attack Palestinean attack on Israel This suggests some sort of pathological favoritism toward whoever might be seen as a potential victim, but I found this hard to believe so I double checked: Victim Blaming Ideology in Action Pro-Muslim Sentiment What’s Pew research found that pro-Muslim sentiment rose in the US after 9/11 and in France in 2015 after the attack on Charlie Hebdo’s offices (the publication that published an illustration of the prophet Muhammad). From their article: “A new Pew Research Center survey finds that 76% in France say they have a favorable view of Muslims living in their country, similar to the 72% registered in 2014. Meanwhile, the percentage with a very favorable opinion of Muslims has increased significantly, rising from 14% last year to 25% today. Attitudes toward Muslims tend to be more positive on the political left in France, but ratings improved across the ideological spectrum. The pattern is similar to what we found in the U.S. following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Favorable views of Muslim Americans rose from 45% in March 2001 to 59% in November of that year. The increase took place across partisan and ideological groups, with the biggest improvement occurring among conservative Republicans.” Pro-Palestine Sentiment After the October 7th attacks, Gallup found that Americans shifted toward being more sympathetic toward palestineans: The change is most pronounced in young people: And least pronounced in old people: The Creation and Appropriation of Victim Blaming Before Victim Blaming Genuine victim blaming is old: There are plenty of religious texts that frame victims as sinners. Before the term was popularized, people sometimes pointed to the “just world hypothesis”: That people want to believe the world is fair, so they sometimes assume victims must have done something to deserve their suffering. Origins Psychologist William Ryan introduced the phrase “blaming the victim” in his book of the same name, published in the 1970s * He developed the concept to critique explanations of poverty and racism that shifted responsibility from unjust social structures onto marginalized communities themselves. * Ryan’s work specifically responded to Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s 1965 report on Black poverty, arguing that such analyses implicitly blamed Black families for structural inequalities. * So Ryan’s critique there is pretty fair, as it does seem that after 1950 a bunch of policies changed that did really screw over black families and we’ve covered them in various episodes * 1950s Black Families Where Twice as Stable as Their White Counterparts: The Theft of Black Culture Exponential 2010s Growth What happened starting in 2010??? TL:DR Victim blaming got primarily hijacked by women about women who then reflexively internalized that it was NEVER acceptable to blame women. Specifically: * 2013: SlutWalk framed victim blaming as a central injustice * The 2013 SlutWalks were a series of global, grassroots protest marches held in cities worldwide—including New York, Chicago, and various university campuses—to protest rape culture, victim blaming, and slut-shaming. * The movement first originated in 2011 after a Toronto police officer advised university students to “avoid dressing like sluts” to prevent sexual assault. By 2013, the marches had expanded into a massive, worldwide phenomenon * The movement first originated in 2011 after a Toronto police officer advised university students to “avoid dressing like sluts” to prevent sexual assault. By 2013, the marches had expanded into a massive, worldwide phenomenon * Demonstrators, primarily young women but open to all genders, took to the streets in clothes that were conventionally considered “provocative” or “slutty,” alongside signs with slogans like “Still not asking for it”. * 2017: #metoo became a global phenomenon when actress Alyssa Milano encouraged women to use the phrase following the sexual abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein. Broadly: * Universities, NGOs, and government agencies began publishing extensive material on “rape culture” and “victim blaming,” making the term standard in training manuals, awareness campaigns, and policy documents * Psychological and criminological research on victim blaming expanded, including studies of attribution, just‑world beliefs, and rape myths, so “victim blaming” appeared more often in titles, abstracts, and key terms. * Professional bodies (e.g., police oversight offices, social services, health institutions) issued formal guidance documents on “ending victim blaming” or “reducing victim blaming in investigations,” further institutionalizing the term. * Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and later Instagram and TikTok enabled rapid diffusion of feminist and social‑justice terminology; calling out victim blaming became a recognizable move in online debates. Victim blaming was literally censored * Facebook’s Community Standards defined bullying and harassment as content that “purposefully targets private individuals with the intention of degrading or shaming them” (e.g., targeted shaming, altered images, doxxing, or repeated unwanted contact). Victim blaming would be categorized as bullying or harassment so long as it entailed direct, targeted degradation of a specific victim (e.g., shaming a named survivor in a harassment campaign), * Twitter’s Rules prohibited abusive behavior, targeted harassment (e.g., one-sided insults, threats, incitement), and hateful conduct. Wait—is this about a rise in an external locus of control? The most direct and frequently cited peer-reviewed evidence comes from a 2004 cross-temporal meta-analysis published in Personality and Social Psychology Review: * The researchers analyzed 97 samples of college students (N=18,310) and 41 samples of children ages 9–14 (N=6,554) from 1960 to 2002. * Locus of control scores became substantially more external (about 0.80 standard deviations) over this period. * The average college student in 2002 had a more external locus of control than 80% of college students in the early 1960s. * Birth cohort/time period explained about 14% of the variance in scores. * This pattern held in both student and child samples and was consistent with an “alienation model” involving rising cynicism, individualism, and self-serving biases. * Implications noted as mostly negative: externality correlates with poorer school achievement, helplessness, ineffective stress management, lower self-control, and higher depression. Episode Transcript [00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: after the September 11th attacks- Mm-hmm ... the most profound increase in sentiment by like, at least double is the Republican increase. [00:00:10] Simone Collins: Just as a reminder, Charlie Hebdo is a satirical publication, still is. They published a drawing of Muhammad, and then they were subject to formal proper Islamic terror attack. [00:00:20] Well, what’s fascinating on, in, in France is- Yeah ... you also see this on the right, and you see- Yeah ... a big jump on the right. Yeah. That’s wild. [00:00:29] Would you like to know more? [00:00:30] Simone Collins: Hello, Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today because we are going to explore mysteries. Why did Muslim sentiment in the USA improve after 9/11? [00:00:40] Why did Muslim sentiment in France improve after the Charlie Hebdo offices were subject to a terror attack? Why did pro-Palestine sentiment spike after October 7th attacks on Israel? Th- this is bizarre, and this is a very [00:00:56] Malcolm Collins: re- [00:00:56] Simone Collins: repet

    56 min.
  3. The Left Stopped Fighting Back: How The Culture War Got Weird In 2026

    2 dgn geleden

    The Left Stopped Fighting Back: How The Culture War Got Weird In 2026

    In this episode of Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone Collins break down the Revenge of the Chud — the astonishing wave of woke flops across Hollywood and gaming. From Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey getting destroyed in reactions, to Disney’s Snow White bombing, Marvel flops, Ubisoft’s collapse, and more, they explore why “go woke, go broke” is finally hitting critical mass. They dive deep into the cultural shift: the explosion of right-leaning AI creativity (Skybrow Cinematic Universe, Leaflet vibe-coding, based AI music/videos), the mysterious disappearance of woke consumers and leftist counterculture, and why the right is building new artistic languages with no real opposition. Plus: homeschooling chaos, Reality Fabricator (RFAB) updates, techno-feudalism, and why the future of culture belongs to those actually creating. Episode Transcript [00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be talking about the year of the chud. W- I thought last year was the year of the chud in terms- ... of woke flops. But a lot of other channels, they’ll do an episode on every woke flop, every big conservative win. [00:00:16] I wanted to cluster all of these together because now- ... their frequency and scale has been genuinely astonishing. And I think to a point where people are beginning to, even in the industry, be like, “Oh, we can’t do this anymore. Like, we cannot cast these types of individuals anymore. We cannot lead with X types of characters anymore. [00:00:44] Like, the market simply does not tolerate it.” [00:00:47] Speaker: such as Christopher Nolan’s, , Odyssey, which has just been absolutely destroyed in reactions on YouTube with videos attacking it or mocking it, getting more views than it has, , with a huge negative like to dislike ratio. , And, , especially for a movie that like this mainstream, this big. , And, , I think what Hollywood may take away from this is you cannot cast black people in non-black roles going forwards and you cannot cast trans people as cis people going forwards. [00:01:19] I think not that you can’t cast these people more broadly, but those are things they should have known. I mean, like we learned you can’t cast white people as black people a while ago. Why did it take them so long to learn that with white people? Or maybe they won’t learn. As you know, I said in the Kirsha thing, , we had to literally shut down all of Ubisoft to \ get it through their sick skull, , that we didn’t want that slop. [00:01:44] , So maybe we’ll have to shut down a lot of Hollywood as well. [00:01:46] Speaker 10: Love the women 87% like dislike ratio for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Oh my God, 446,000 dislike a ruskies [00:01:58] Malcolm Collins: And what’s interesting about this, and, and this is what I’m going to start with, ‘cause I think it’s the, the most interesting part other than just cheering every individual victory, is it sort of feels like we don’t have anyone playing against us, and I want to explore why. We have another episode where we go into this, called, like, The Mystery of the Missing Woke Customer. Oh, [00:02:23] yeah ... [00:02:24] because if we look at the number of people, even number of people who, like, I know of in my life who are still very urban monoculture- [00:02:33] Mm-hmm [00:02:34] um, there should be a buyer base for woke-ified products. And yet- [00:02:41] Simone Collins: Right ... [00:02:42] Malcolm Collins: we are seeing numbers that are, like, 50 people bought it or something. You know, like, in some of the instances it’ll be like a, you know, 5,000 people bought something that cost 300 million to make, right? Like, it, there are numbers that simply do not make sense. [00:02:59] But I had this realization. [00:03:01] Simone Collins: Well, no, there was one other detail that you said in that episode that really stuck with me was that when you looked into it, a lot of the developers of these w- woke audience targeted games that no woke people are buying, themselves don’t even eat the dog food, as we say in Silicon Valley. [00:03:15] Like, they don’t, they wouldn’t even buy the games they’re developing, if fact they’re just- Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, [00:03:18] Malcolm Collins: a number of [00:03:18] Simone Collins: woke games- ... consuming 90s media, right? [00:03:20] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like, if you even look at a game l- like Concord or whatever, when that bombed, or, or Mixtape, like, if, even if the development team was playing it, they would have better numbers, right? [00:03:29] Like, the, the, the numbers are so low, they almost don’t make sense. And w- I had this realization that changed a lot of this for me, which is I was talking with a reporter, a trans reporter who writes on us sometimes. I actually think she’s quite a based individual. I have no negative feelings towards this individual. [00:03:49] Y- you- ... she’s one of those, you know, based trans people, if you, if you know any of them. They, they actually exist. But she was like, “Anything new going on in AI? [00:04:00] Like, what are you thinking about in AI? What is your community talking about in AI?” And I was like, “W- w- like AI is everything in my community right now. [00:04:08] Like do you know about the Skybrow Cinematic Universe?” Right? And she I mean, obviously she didn’t, but I started to walk her through it, and then I had this realization and I started researching it, and there isn’t. If you look at the, the right-leaning community online, you’ve got you know, Leaflet will be on a stream, and she’ll be like, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we made a video game about what the tribe of warrior women in Africa who are actually like super involved with slaving and the people trying to stop them were the British, if we made a video game about that tribe?” [00:04:43] And so she’ll just start like vibe coding it on the screen in the background while she’s streaming. [00:04:49] Simone Collins: That’s so fun. [00:04:51] Malcolm Collins: Or the other game she made when she was streaming last time. I mean, I keep seeing her make ones a lot. The other one was on trying to catch Mexicans crossing the border with a lasso. [00:04:58] Oh my God. Oh, my God. The other one was going to the Anthony trial and selling a pineapple that you had you know- Oh, no ... kept in the, what do you call it? Kool-Aid or whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever the, Something about Kool-Aid and pineapples ... the funny viral drink is. [00:05:13] Simone Collins: Whatever. [00:05:13] Malcolm Collins: And then people would try to rob you. [00:05:15] And just fantastic. I love it. But it’s, it’s- Mm ... you see that. You see, the shared... And this, this is very interesting to me because I realized when I was talking to the reporter about it and they’re like, “Well, that’s interesting.” And I go, “No, no, no, no, no. Like, you don’t get it.” Like, they’re like, “Oh, y- now that this is cheap, there’s people making stuff with it.” [00:05:36] And I’m like, that’s not really the fullness of what’s going on here. That’s a bit like looking at early 4chan and being like, “Oh, people have started, found, found a place where they can anonymously share stuff. And so th- now they’ve begun to like iteratively share images.” And it’s like, yes, that is true. [00:05:53] But more important, a unique language and artistic style began to be developed in the way that those lang- images, those macros communicate. And this language and artistic style ended up being a dominant force in American politics you know, about 15 years, 10 years after it originated, right? And having been around during that period What is happening in the artistic language of the right and how we use AI- [00:06:30] Simone Collins: Hmm [00:06:31] Malcolm Collins: feels incredibly similar. It feels like this type of ... And I think if you’re on the right, or this broader community, you do not notice just how frequently you are hitting AI art, right? Mm. Like, I this happened to me when at first what I’m thinking is, like, Sky Brown stuff, and then I thought oh, well, you know, the only person who really opposes us is Dog Shocker Hasan, and then I was like, oh yeah, I should send them the, the video where Hasan raps about shocking his dog. [00:07:05] And then I was like, oh yeah, that’s an AI video. It had actually gone out of my brain that the dog, the dog shocking video was made with AI because it wasn’t done in the stylistic language of the things that I am used to being made in AI. [00:07:23] Simone Collins: Oh, that’s so funny. [00:07:24] Malcolm Collins: But it is, you know, on the the secondary stylistic language. [00:07:28] In the same way with, like, as memes were first developed, you had your Wojaks, you had your Pepes, you had your, ... The dog shocking video, in terms of its artistic meme category, falls into the same category I’d put the Spencer Pratt for, for mayor ad. Which again, is something made with AI. [00:07:46] And what’s important to note is if you’re on the right, you’re like, “Well, of course we’re using AI to make things.” [00:07:52] The left isn’t. I actually went into this with y- w- well, with AI to try to find [00:08:00] is there any equivalent online, like, creation, collaborative creation with AI community on the left? And the best it could find was somebody who was politically neutral and made, like, s- a, a sci-fi universe with AI which was a cool product. [00:08:17] I, I thought it was actually- That does [00:08:18] Simone Collins: sound really cool. Yeah ... [00:08:19] Malcolm Collins: neat. Yeah. I, I, I tried to watch it and it was f- unfortunately for me, boring. I didn’t really like it. But- [00:08:27] Simone Collins: We’ve obliterated- Not like- ... our attention spans. It’s fair, you [00:08:30] Malcolm Collins

    53 min.
  4. BDSM + Catholicism: It Almost Happened

    3 dgn geleden

    BDSM + Catholicism: It Almost Happened

    In this explosive Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins break down the German Catholic Church’s controversial Synodal Way — a major national synod that responded to sex scandals by pushing radical progressive reforms with overwhelming 90%+ bishop support. From blessings for same-sex unions and transgender record changes to women’s ordination, reevaluating celibacy, and even creating a parallel “permanent synod council” governance structure, the German bishops openly defied the Vatican. The Collins compare this to the recent SSPX excommunications, dive into Catholic history (including crusader popes, corruption, and institutional capture), discuss BDSM/queer Catholic events, and explore whether the Church can be saved or if a new path is needed. A must-watch for anyone following religion, culture wars, fertility, and institutional decay. Episode Transcript [00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so when I say coup, this is... This really happened. [00:00:05] Simone Collins: Yeah. [00:00:07] Malcolm Collins: If you’re like, “How far will they go?” [00:00:09] Look at these 90% votes we’re seeing here. And the reason we’re talking about this right after the SSPX thing is I want to show the way the Vatican reacts when progressives do something demonstrably worse, but in the ex- same, same directionality as what SSPX is doing. When I say we, I see the Catholics who do not want this as our genuine allies in this journey, right? [00:00:36] Would you like to know more? [00:00:37] Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simona. I’m excited to be here with you today. I had a shocking event. So we did an episode on the Catholic Church expelling some of its most devoted bishops- Yeah [00:00:50] well, when they were ordained bishops, for being SSPX. And, you know, we were like, “This is fairly mainstream conservatism within the Catholic Church. They don’t really hold that many radical beliefs.” And somebody was like, “Oh, you don’t know anything about Catholic history. [00:01:06] You need to read more about recent Catholic history to really have a perspective on this.” And I think that that was the dumbest thing you could have told me to do, if you wanted me to have- Oh, no ... like- [00:01:15] Simone Collins: Yeah. What were you [00:01:17] Malcolm Collins: thinking? Literally every time I look at Catholic history, it’s like, [00:01:20] [00:01:24] Malcolm Collins: when you put a cucumber next to a cat, and it, like, turns and looks at it and flies in the air like, “Oh, my God.” [00:01:30] [00:01:33] Malcolm Collins: But today- Oh, no ... we’re going to talk about the craziest event that I’ve ever heard of, where they basically tried to create a break-off gay Catholic church that r- had sort of a different governing system than the main Catholic Church, different beliefs and different rules than the main Catholic Church. [00:01:54] Hold [00:01:54] Simone Collins: on. This sounds really fun. [00:01:56] Malcolm Collins: And it all started in the craziest way possible, too. [00:02:01] Simone Collins: So [00:02:02] Malcolm Collins: they had all these sex scandals, okay? Yeah. And so in response to the sex scandals, and this was the second-biggest convention in response to the sex scandals. This was not, like, some small whatever thing. This was for the entire national priesthood in, in Germany. [00:02:18] Mm-hmm. So they, they put on this giant Germany-wide, like, for what Catholics believe in Germany event about what to do about all of the you know, child situation, right? [00:02:30] Simone Collins: Wasn’t this a South Park episode? [00:02:33] Malcolm Collins: B- South Park basically had a thing on this. Now, the biggest thing they did in response to this was the thing they did at the Vatican, but this was the second biggest. [00:02:39] Simone Collins: Okay. [00:02:39] Malcolm Collins: And so what they decided to do, and what this conference turned into, and I kid you not, we’re gonna go into the details. If you’re Catholic and you already know, you’re like, “Oh, no, “ they immediately started... And I, and I like Catholics. I’m, I’m pro-Catholic. [00:02:56] I like gays, okay? But I think that w- if you were looking at these events- [00:03:02] So they got them all together to solve this issue. [00:03:05] And the things that they started drafting were things like we should change trans people’s genders when they get in their like confirmation files. Uh-huh. We should start blessing same-sex unions. We should start normalizing priests having sex even recreational sex. And- Wait, [00:03:27] Simone Collins: but within marriage or not within marriage? [00:03:29] Malcolm Collins: Just sex. They, they- Just- ... weren’t interested in, in priests getting married. They were interested in removing the celibacy stuff. We should start- But [00:03:37] Simone Collins: isn’t it sinful per the Catholicism to have sex outside marriage? [00:03:41] Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. That was another thing that they wanted to address- [00:03:44] Simone Collins: Uh-huh ... [00:03:44] Malcolm Collins: to remind people very clearly that it is not a sin to have sex outside of marriage. [00:03:49] Simone Collins: Remind? [00:03:50] Malcolm Collins: They, well, they believed that this was the correct teaching. And they w- wanted to start a separate... And I should note here, if you’re like, “Oh, this was like some [00:04:00] fringe loonies or whatever,” there, there were two cardinals involved. One cardinal basically ran this. There were hundreds of bishops involved. [00:04:08] And despite all of this, S- SSPX says we want Latin mass and think that you’re being a little too ecum- ecumenical. They get excommunicated. Okay? Oh my God. This event, they ran this multiple years. [00:04:21] And I want to point out that the Vatican told them at one point, like, “Hey, you guys are saying the quiet part out loud a little too much.” Because at this event, many of these crazy things I’m talking about had over a 90% vote from the bishops. [00:04:36] Simone Collins: Oh, [00:04:36] Malcolm Collins: wow. But, but the Vatican said, “You cannot keep doing this. [00:04:40] This is a threat,” to the same thing they said that SSPX was a threat to- Oh, no ... the church’s unity. This is a threat to the church’s unity. And they just ignored the Vatican and kept doing it, no excommunications [00:04:52] Simone Collins: Okay [00:04:53] Malcolm Collins: So- [00:04:54] Simone Collins: Was it, what, did, did you see anything about their justification where they like, “Look, whatever it takes.” [00:04:59] We’re gonna go over- “We’re hemorrhaging numbers.” Quotes. [00:05:01] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. We’re gonna go over quotes of their justification. [00:05:04] Simone Collins: Okay. [00:05:04] Malcolm Collins: We’re gonna go over like why they thought they were doing this, where they thought they were getting the backing for this stuff, like why they thought this was an okay thing to do at all. [00:05:13] Mm-hmm. How close they came to creating a counter Catholic government to specifically oppose the norm set up by the Vatican. And we’ll also look at with current voting numbers in terms of, because I think Catholics sometimes forget how far left the bishop class of the church actually is. [00:05:31] Simone Collins: Hmm. [00:05:32] Malcolm Collins: What would happen if they actually tried to do a Vatican III? Because a lot of people think it would push back. We’ll go into the numbers and see if it actually would. And I wanna go into all of this by pointing out- We as people are fairly pro-gay for conservatives, right? Like, I’m like, I don’t think that it should be outlawed. [00:05:47] Do what you wanna do, whatever. That, g- that said while I think that, that’s from my reading of the Bible. That’s not a traditional Catholic interpretation, right? Yeah. Like, and to say that this should be normalized within a traditional Catholic context is quite different than me being like, look, I like gays. [00:06:07] I like Catholics. Do I think that this should be pushed to be normalized in the church? Especially the trans stuff, when we now know how harmful this is. See any of our other episodes on that. That’s where I’m like, wow, this is crazy. And if you wanna get an idea of how crazy all of this is in Germany, I will read to you a article that came out, I think just, like, two days ago. [00:06:30] Major Catholic event in Germany features BDSM and lesbian groups. [00:06:36] Simone Collins: Wait, like, an act- m- not that, like, the Catholic Church also appeared at an event where there was... [00:06:43] Malcolm Collins: no. A number of Catholic bishops, including Bishop Franz Wong Wo- Woensberg co-host an event. So a major Catholic event in Germany will feature BDSM and lesbian Catholic groups. [00:06:53] The German Katholiktag, or Catholics’ Day, will take place from, literally called Catholics’ Day, M- May 14th to May 16th in Woensberg, and will prominently feature several heterodox groups. Now, again, I’m okay with BDSM, right? Like, I’m totally okay with it. Well, [00:07:09] Simone Collins: and if there’s a religion that wants to pull off the aesthetics of BDSM, I mean... [00:07:14] Malcolm Collins: You do have a point there with mortification- Can [00:07:15] Simone Collins: you do better? Yeah ... and everything. [00:07:17] Malcolm Collins: It’s perfect. Have the mortification tent and the BDSM tent right next to each other. [00:07:21] Simone Collins: It’s perfect. Come on. For [00:07:22] Malcolm Collins: 50 bucks. They’re, they’re selling the same good. [00:07:24] Simone Collins: It’s [00:07:25] Malcolm Collins: perfect. And you can s- you can see who’s adding a margin on the traditional, no for people who are unfamiliar with mortification, some traditional, more extremist Catholic s- groups do forms of like, self-flagellation. Or the more common stuff today

    1 u 22 m
  5. New Pope Speed Runs Schism By Excommunicating SSPX

    4 dgn geleden

    New Pope Speed Runs Schism By Excommunicating SSPX

    Malcolm and Simone Collins break down the Vatican’s aggressive excommunication of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) after they consecrated bishops without papal approval. They discuss why the Church is cracking down on the Latin Mass, traditional Catholics, and the fastest-growing, highest-fertility segment of the faith — while selling off convents and schools. Topics include: the capture of the Vatican, Vatican II reforms and contradictions, the Latin Mass vs. Novus Ordo, demographic collapse in mainstream Catholicism, monetary incentives for decline, parallels with the Anglican realignment/GAFCON schism, and why institutional recapture through demographics may be nearly impossible. Show Notes AP News on July 2nd: “VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican responded aggressively Thursday to a traditionalist group that consecrated bishops without the pope’s consent, declaring the Society of St. Pius X had formally broken with the Catholic Church. It excommunicated its bishops and priests, and warned its faithful that they too face the harshest sanctions in the church. By declaring a schism and extending excommunications to potentially thousands of Catholics, the Vatican’s doctrine office went above and beyond the minimum sanctions foreseen by the church’s canon law to respond to the consecrations Wednesday of four new bishops. The society, known by its acronym SSPX, celebrates the ancient Latin Mass and opposes the modernizing reforms of the Catholic Church, which it considers to be rife with heresies and errors. While a fringe movement on the Catholic right, the SSPX has been a thorn in the Vatican’s side for five decades because it claims to be even more Catholic than the Holy See. During a ritual-filled, five-hour Mass on Wednesday at its seminary in Econe, Switzerland, the SSPX consecrated four new bishops in direct defiance of Leo, who had urged the group to hold off for the sake of church unity. An estimated 15,500 people and their children attended, a sign that the SSPX has plenty of supporters who came from around the world knowing full well they were defying Rome.” The Excommunication In Catholic teaching, excommunication does not equal being condemned to hell, nor is it understood as a declaration that a person is damned (Official theology has long insisted that only God judges the soul definitively; excommunication addresses external communion, not the internal state of grace.) * The current law treats it as a “censure,” not expulsion from the Church; an excommunicated person remains a baptized Catholic, still bound by obligations like Sunday Mass, but barred from receiving or administering sacraments and holding church offices * Its purpose is medicinal: a severe wake‑up call meant to prompt repentance and return to full communion, not a spiritual “execution.” * Most excommunications can be lifted by going to confession and receiving absolution from the appropriate authority (sometimes any priest, sometimes a bishop, sometimes the Holy See, depending on the offense). * Also, what is your take on the Vatican’s excommunication SSPX members? https://www.facebook.com/reel/776390925518377 * https://www.disclose.tv/id/8klgxp4icx/ * The decree promulgated in response was by far the harshest one yet * Leo hasn’t walked back traditiones custodes either * The clergy in Charlotte just appealed to Rome * The bishop took away the thriving Latin masses, restricting it to one small chapel in a corner of the diocese that can’t hold everyone * Banned altar rails * I think you are mistaken that high fertility means anything in the immediate term * I used to live on a block that had a public school that was a former Catholic parish school * The diocese sold it due to low enrollment * Selling off properties as they are shuttered makes money * I think a lot of religious leaders feel their job is quietly managing decline and not making too much fuss About SSPX - Society of St. Pius X Origins of SSPX The Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) originated in 1970 in Switzerland as a priestly fraternity founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to preserve traditional Catholic priestly formation and liturgy in the wake of Vatican II. Ecclesial approval and early status * The local bishop of Fribourg, François Charrière, approved SSPX in 1970 as a “pious union of priests in the diocese,” initially on an experimental basis. * This early approval meant SSPX initially existed within the canonical structures of the Church, not as a breakaway group. * Rome initially sent visitors who gave favorable reviews of the seminary’s formation, underscoring that early tensions were not immediate. Rapid growth * As of 2025, SSPX reports about 1,482 members total (bishops, priests, seminarians, brothers). * Of these, around 733 priests (excluding bishops) belong to the Society. * Estimates place 600,000 or so faithful attending SSPX Masses worldwide. * Internally, SSPX news sites emphasize that the Society “has experienced constant growth” since 1970, with new locations opening every year. * In the United States, SSPX lists 20 priories and 103 chapels, plus retreat centers, which is “quite small” compared with hundreds of non‑SSPX parishes offering the TLM. Commentators sometimes point out that, by priestly headcount, SSPX would rank among the larger priestly religious congregations if fully recognized: one claim placed them around 5th after Jesuits, Franciscans, Benedictines, and Augustinians, based on ~700 priests. That’s meant to highlight how unusual it is for a group of that size to remain canonically irregular. The Birth Rates There is strong evidence that Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) Catholics as a whole have higher fertility than other Catholics, but there is no hard, SSPX‑specific dataset that cleanly isolates “SSPX parishioners” from other TLM communities. The best quantitative data are for TLM vs. Novus Ordo Catholics, not SSPX vs. non‑SSPX: * A widely cited U.S. survey of Latin Mass attendees reported an average of 3.6 children per woman among TLM Catholics versus 2.3 among Catholics attending the ordinary (Novus Ordo) form. * Commentators describe this as “nearly 60% larger family size” for TLM participants relative to ordinary‑form parishioners. * Social‑science work on religiosity and fertility generally finds that more devout, frequently attending religious adherents have higher fertility and intended fertility than nominal believers, which fits these numbers. Points of Divergence from the Vatican 1. Episcopal consecrations without papal mandate * SSPX consecrated bishops without the required papal approval, most notably Marcel Lefebvre’s consecrations in 1988 and the new consecrations in 2026. * The Vatican has repeatedly declared these consecrations a “schismatic act,” stressing that choosing bishops without a papal bull crosses a definitive canonical boundary. * The latest decree explicitly states that this act created a formal schism and triggered automatic excommunication of the bishops involved. 2. Rejection of key aspects of Vatican II * SSPX was founded explicitly “in opposition to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council,” and continues to reject major elements of those reforms. * They object to the Council’s promotion of the role of laypeople, ecumenism, and interreligious dialogue, seeing these as harmful concessions rather than legitimate developments. * The group has accused the post‑conciliar Church of being “rife with heresies and errors” such as modernism and liberalism, positioning itself as the sole guardian of the “true faith.” 3. Liturgy and the Roman Rite * SSPX insists on celebrating the pre‑Vatican II “ancient Latin Mass” and rejects the ordinary form of the Roman rite (the post‑conciliar Mass in vernacular languages) as a theological and pastoral mistake. * They explicitly oppose the move to allow Mass in local languages, a reform the Vatican understands as legitimate and binding. * In practice, they treat the new liturgy with deep suspicion or outright rejection, sometimes describing it as harmful to the faith. 4. The push for unity and interreligious dialogue * Vatican II and subsequent popes have pursued structured dialogue and “thawing of relations” with Protestants, Orthodox, and non‑Christian religions; SSPX rejects this orientation. * SSPX holds that the Catholic Church is the “one, true faith” and regards interfaith dialogue as unnecessary or positively dangerous, criticizing official policy of building inroads with other Christian communities. * This stance conflicts with magisterial documents that frame ecumenism and interreligious dialogue as integral to contemporary Catholic mission. 5. Teaching on religious freedom * A core doctrinal dispute is over Vatican II’s teaching on religious freedom (e.g., Dignitatis humanae), which SSPX critics often portray as incompatible with prior Catholic teaching. * SSPX-associated arguments frequently claim the Council’s stance on religious liberty represents a rupture, not a development, and see this as evidence of near‑apostasy outside SSPX. * The Vatican, by contrast, has consistently defended the Council’s teaching as authoritative and binding. 6. Attitude toward the post‑conciliar magisterium * SSPX has long suggested that Church authorities since Vatican II “have been animated by a spirit that is contrary to that of the faith and have been acting against holy tradition.” * This includes a practical distrust of recent papal teachings and doctrinal offices, leading them to set their own doctrinal interpretations against official magisterial documents. * The Vatican’s latest decree characterizes this stance as an “intentional rupture” in communion, hence schism. 7. Canonical status and sacramental discipline * The Vatican now explicitly declares SSPX bishops and priests to be schismatic and excommunicated. * It has invalidated or declared illici

    1 uur
  6. Luddites are BACK: This Time They’re Spoiled Rich Kids with Artisan Websites

    3 jul

    Luddites are BACK: This Time They’re Spoiled Rich Kids with Artisan Websites

    In this Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into the modern Luddite movement — from NYC’s “Summer of Ludd” festival (complete with puppet spokesfrogs, offline flirting workshops, saddle-stitching classes, and panels that somehow turned into “how to build your own website” tutorials) to the surprising privilege, aesthetics, and contradictions behind today’s anti-tech trend.We compare Gen Z and millennial “Luddites” (flip phones, Moleskine notebooks, and performative offline living) with the original violent 19th-century machine-breakers, explore why deep, hours-long online friendships often feel more meaningful than awkward park conversations, and critique the expensive ecosystem of minimalist phones and typewriters. We also highlight more practical approaches from Mennonite communities and make the case for Solar Punk — using AI and technology intentionally to reclaim traditional skills, build sustainable futures, and live better rather than rejecting progress altogether. Show Notes “The Summer of Ludd” * A cultural high point for the movement’s analog/anti-alienation wing. * An eight-day (June 28–July 5, 2026), mostly offline festival and series of events in New York City * Centered on Tompkins Square Park and Lower Manhattan * It features over 120 free, public, participatory activities like: * Workshops (e.g., saddle stitching, shortwave radio, mending, flirting/dating offline). * Talks and panels (e.g., on indie web alternatives, privately owned public spaces, fighting data centers, “Google in Real Life” human Q&A). * Gothamist: “At a Monday panel discussion on NYC event calendars, an array of neighborhood characters, older punks, fresh-faced flip phone users and various others packed the stone steps of East Village community garden La Plaza Cultural to discuss ways to learn of IRL happenings without social media.” * “Overall, the evening was largely a technical discussion on how to build and maintain your own website or newsletter. It never got particularly ideological.” * ““It’s not a digital versus analog thing. It’s a question of who controls how your community operates itself. Is it Mark Zuckerberg or you?” explained Thomas. “You are not an idle passenger of history. You get to control the impact that technology has on you and your society.”” * Cultural events: Plays recreating Luddite history, concerts, film screenings (analog/16mm), zine-making, rituals, and phone-free dance parties or jam sessions. * Orgs represented: * NYC Off Tech NYC events to connect outside of big tech * Unplatform: The definitive guide for escaping social media (and joining the indie web.) * Red Cal: Posters of offline events * Nonsense NYC: Nonsense NYC is a discriminating resource for independent art, weird events, strange happenings, unique parties, and senseless culture in New York City. * Technoqueers: Technoqueers.com is the home of “Techno Queers,” a weekly email newsletter and community focused on techno/club events, culture, and queer nightlife, primarily in New York City. * Moon Bulletin: events and happenings in (mostly) nyc, according to moon cycle * The People’s Circuit: and an encrypted, Proton Mail-based email newsletter Organizers (anonymous or using puppets like “Gowanus” for media) promote it as a “movable feast” to encourage IRL community, reject algorithmic control, and build alternatives to Big Tech monopolies. Marketing relies on wheatpastes, printed guides, and word-of-mouth—no heavy social media presence. Reports as of early July indicate strong turnout, energetic crowds (including Gen Z, locals, families, and older activists), and success beyond expectations despite minimal online promo. It’s tied to broader “Luddite Renaissance” efforts and overlaps with events like the Luddite Conference on Participatory Futures at The New School. The New Luddite Movement The forms it takes: * Anti data center activism (we did a whole episode on this) * Protests * Mostly peaceful (rallies, marches, “Luddite tribunals,” app-deletion events, coning self-driving cars). * There are reports of escalating tensions (archived), vandalism, sabotage threats, or isolated violence (e.g., attacks on data center supporters, self-driving vehicles, or symbolic targets like OpenAI exec homes), though the core movement distances itself from outright destruction. Insurance and security discussions highlight rising risks to AI infrastructure in 2026. * E.g. “an Indianapolis city council member who supported a data center development told local outlets someone fired 13 shots at his home and left behind a note reading, “No data centers.”” * School clubs (high school andcollege): * NY Times: Now in College, Luddite Teens Still Don’t Want Your Likes (archive link) * Members use flip phone and advertise human connection * One teenage luddite club in Brooklyn that the NY Times profiled in 2022: “they sketched and painted side by side. They read quietly, favoring works by Dostoyevsky, Kerouac and Vonnegut. They sat on logs and groused about how TikTok was dumbing down their generation. Their flip phones were decorated with stickers and nail polish.” * Years later, most former members maintained their relatively offline ways and were turning their club into a nonprofit * One detracted: ““It’s constant access again,” Ms. Shub said. “It’s the relief of knowing I can do things easier. I got Instagram, too, and it’s been nice reconnecting with people on it.” * ““We’ve even got a mission statement now,” said Ms. Lane, who is studying Russian literature at Oberlin College. “We like to say we’re a team of former screenagers connecting young people to the communities and knowledge to conquer big tech’s addictive agendas.”” * There’s a weird undertone of privilege in the article: * “Winter Jacobson, who was in town from Colorado to visit Ms. Butler [one of the former Luddite Club members], was sitting next to her. He started a Luddite Club at Telluride High School last year. He said it has a dozen members. * “Colorado is very different from New York,” Mr. Jacobson, 17, said. “There’s not as much to do in Telluride. People are reliant on their phones as their connection to the world, so some of my friends think the club is a joke. I’m still trying to spread the message, though.”” The Capitalization * Light phone: The flagship minimalist device. E-ink or simple touchscreen, limited tools (calls, notes, music, basic maps, camera on III), no browser/apps/social media/email feeds by design. Premium build, expensive (~$300–$700 range). Widely seen as the gold standard for “going light” and digital detox; strong cultural cachet in Luddite/analog communities. * Mudita Kompakt ($399): E-ink screen for calmer use, excellent battery, privacy switches (kill GSM/mic/etc.), offline maps, basic apps. More flexible than Light Phone but still minimalist. Popular for privacy-focused users and long battery life. * Minimal Phone: ($449) E-ink touchscreen + QWERTY keyboard, some Android apps (controllable). Good for balanced minimalism. * Punkt MP02: ($299) Ultra-minimal button phone focused on calls/texts. * Freewrite (Astrohaus) typewriters (Gen 3 Smart Typewriter ($699), Traveler, etc.): These have E-ink screens + full mechanical keyboards, they sync drafts (Postbox/cloud) but lack internet/distractions during writing. * Premium pricing (~$500–$1,000+); popular among writers seeking analog feel with digital convenience. Strong following despite cost; seen as a modern “typewriter” revival tool. What’s odd is one can just set one’s phone to black and white mode Also, you can get a razor flip phone for $35-100 USD on eBay How Mennonites Do It According to MennoNet.com: Within conservative Mennonite/Plain circles, you’ll see tools that look very similar to what evangelical or family‑safety communities use: * Accountability apps such as Covenant Eyes and CloudVeil, which log activity or filter content and send reports to an accountability partner or family administrator. * “The Security Appliance,” a content‑filtering solution developed “for and by the Plain Community,” used at the network level in some fellowships to restrict categories of sites and manage what devices can access. * Other web filters like OpenDNS FamilyShield and similar DNS‑based filters, which can be configured on home or business Wi‑Fi to block entire categories of content. On top of community-specific tools, many Mennonites simply use the native controls in Android and iOS the same way cautious parents do: * iOS Screen Time and Google Family Link to set app limits, “downtime” schedules, and block certain categories (social, games, entertainment). * Content & privacy restrictions to block adult content and prevent installing unapproved apps. In practice, a phone may be configured so only a whitelist of “necessary” apps (phone, text, perhaps WhatsApp/Signal, maps, farm/business software) is accessible outside of designated work times. General social norms are also super effective: * Mennonites are super clear about when and where devices may be used (e.g., no phones in bedrooms, at church, or during meals; only in the office or shop). * They often use hared or supervised devices: a single smartphone for a household or business, kept in a central location rather than carried at all times, limits impulsive and private use while allowing work contacts. * There are expectations around accountability (elders, employers, spouses) so misuse is a social issue as much as a technical one. The Original Luddite Movement The Luddite movement (1811–1816) arose among skilled English textile workers (primarily framework knitters/stockingers in Nottinghamshire, croppers/shearers in Yorkshire, and weavers in Lancashire) during the Industrial Revolution. (Brittanica) * They protested machinery (e.g., wide knitt

    48 min.
  7. Most Should Not Get Married Or Have Kids

    2 jul

    Most Should Not Get Married Or Have Kids

    A Based Camp listener encouraged us to read Performative Bafflement’s post Against “more marriage” as a solution to the fertility crisis and while we came in with our mockery sneers at the ready, we came away radicalized. Is this the beginning of our Dark Pronatalist era? Oh no… Episode Transcript [00:00:00] Simone Collins: This big Ponzi scheme we like to call the American economy isn’t just going to make it without a bunch of kids cranked out en masse to keep the wheels spinning, right? [00:00:08] Well, friends, I’ve got news for you here too. You do not approach the net neutral in taxes paid versus consumed unless you are in the top 10% of income for 40 plus years. Oh. Interesting argument here. So only the rich people have to get married [00:00:23] Malcolm Collins: Okay, I buy this. [00:00:25] Yeah, let’s get rid of- Sterilize all- ... the average person. Ster- and Leaflet has said this as well, that we should offer money- Yes ... for people to sterilize themselves. Yeah. Let’s move to le- what do we call this? Twist. Like, dark pronatalism? [00:00:36] Simone Collins: Twist. [00:00:37] Elitist pronatalism. We’ve always been accused of elitism. [00:00:40] You know, oh, the Collinses, they want people to have kids, but only the right people. And they want everyone to think that we’re like white people or like, Christian people, but we’re like, no, just like competent, happy people. Well, wow. I mean, yeah, I, I like that it’s always really fun when something fundamentally changes our view of something, [00:00:58] Speaker 3: So for context, today’s episode is actually one that I had not planned on releasing to the general public. We had planned on doing this as a paid private episode. and throughout most of it, what you will see is us being rather snarky and dismissive of the ideas being presented because we’re like, “Well, what’s the alternative? [00:01:17] What’s the alternative? What’s the alternative?” And at the end of it, I was convinced, I think that this person makes a pretty good argument. And so this has been a major sea change in how I see reality, , which is to say it could be actively harmful and selfish to fight for the vast majority of people to get married and have kids. [00:01:40] , [00:01:40] Speaker 4: Because the vast majority of people make bad partners, they make bad parents, they make bad children, and they would live a worse life if they were married and had kids [00:01:54] Speaker 3: Whereas the virtuous thing is to just replace them [00:01:58] But see if it convinces you as well [00:02:01] Would you like to know more? [00:02:02] Simone Collins: Hello, Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today because today we’re doing a listener request. So those are always really exciting. We have a lot of people with excellent taste. And I- Do we? [00:02:15] Malcolm Collins: Do we? Yeah. Yeah, we do. [00:02:17] Simone Collins: Yeah, we do. Yeah. [00:02:17] Malcolm Collins: I actually quite like our fans. They, they’re, I, I like you guys because you typically are living productive lives and doing interesting stuff, which is neat. [00:02:24] Yeah, [00:02:25] Simone Collins: like s- smart people who always give us new ideas and push [00:02:28] Malcolm Collins: us further. And the number of you who have found partners and started making kids since we started this podcast is astonishing. [00:02:34] Simone Collins: It makes us really happy. Yeah. So if you’re still looking, don’t give up. There’s a lot of hope, and you could be next. [00:02:40] So- [00:02:40] Malcolm Collins: And I, I promise you guys, it gets better as they get a bit older. [00:02:44] Simone Collins: Oh, yeah, ‘cause... Yeah, Malcolm has been reading my old diaries from early in our pre-married and newlywed days, and apparently it sucks. Wait, that’s gonna dissuade people. [00:02:55] Malcolm Collins: Not the women- Ignore ... the babies. [00:02:57] Simone Collins: Oh, the babies. Okay. [00:02:58] Malcolm Collins: But the women also get better. [00:02:59] Yeah, we got in fights all the time in the early days. [00:03:02] Simone Collins: Not fights. We disagreed about things strategically, but sure, fights. What we had been s- encouraged to read is a, a Substack post by an excellence name- excellently named Substack, Performative Bafflement. I’ve always loved the name of this Substack. [00:03:17] Haven’t read everything in it. Haven’t read this. The title of this particular article that we’re gonna read is Against More Marriage as a Solution to the Fertility Crisis: Let’s Create the Torment Nexus to Pump Out a Few Incremental Taxpayers. All right, let’s go into it. It has 66 likes, 48 comments, and 15 restacks, so did pretty well. [00:03:37] They write, “Okay, so we all know about the fertility crisis, right? All the developed countries are going extinct. Many consider this bad or worrisome idea, et cetera. Said crisis is happening for hundreds of interlocking reasons, but the big KPI people like to point to here seems to be marriage. /Marriage directly tracks fertility, and the decline in relationship formation and marriage drives [00:04:00] most of the fertility gap since 2000.” [00:04:02] He inserts graphs showing the clear... what looks to be causation. Okay, okay. It is correlation, but looks like it. “One of the main solutions,” he writes, “to the fertility crisis that most folks seem to like is pro-marriage incentives and initiatives. I am here to argue against this. These people are basically advocating for creating the torment nexus for megafolks of people,” megafolks, “to pump out a few incremental taxpayers. [00:04:29] My position: Let’s not create a torment nexus, please and thank you. Aren’t I being totally histrionic and ridiculous here?” What? Let’s see. Okay, I wanna see where they’re [00:04:36] Malcolm Collins: going with this. I have no idea. I have no idea where they [00:04:38] Simone Collins: could be going. Yeah, my guess is they’re just gonna be like, “I don’t know, let the system break. [00:04:41] I don’t wanna grind for some boomers to have more Social Security.” [00:04:47] Malcolm Collins: Is this a leftists or a right? I don’t even know. I, I, they [00:04:49] Simone Collins: could be like a big toe It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care because Performative Bafflement is a great Substack name, and I’m not gonna color your view of this person. [00:04:57] Don’t click on their Substack. Be good. [00:04:58] Speaker: So I decided to check and they are, , center right, , and of the based variety. They talk a lot about genetics, stuff like that, , working out, that sort of stuff, but not, you know, as, probably as far as us, , and male. , So at least I didn’t have my mind changed by a lefty woman as I thought [00:05:17] Simone Collins: Okay, let’s go into the argument. Sexual, sorry, sexual. Where is my mind today? Secular marriage trends. First, they’re absolutely right that marriage is declining. It has been declining every single generation since the ‘40s, when we hit a local peak of 90% marriage rates, which have, which drove the baby boom. [00:05:37] 90%. I didn’t know that, actually. Can you imagine living in a society where nine out of 10 people were married? [00:05:44] Malcolm Collins: No [00:05:45] Simone Collins: It’s crazy. Okay, I continue. Literally every single generation on generation since then, each cohort of women has looked out at the world, said, “Well, nope,” and opted out of marriage at higher rates than the one before. [00:05:59] And they show a graph of women in the US by decade of birth who are getting married, and it, it ain’t looking, it ain’t looking good. The, it’s, it’s, it looks like a rainbow that’s dying. And I continue, and just as a note, I am framing this as primarily women’s choice because one, women are traditionally proposed to and say yes or no. [00:06:22] Two, historically women are the sex that wants and pushes for marriage while in a relationship more often. Three, women getting educated and having jobs and careers of their own is a big part of the fertility crisis in the sense those things all reduce fertility when first introduced to a society. And indirect- [00:06:41] Malcolm Collins: Wait, that doesn’t sound right. [00:06:41] Do women push for marriage more than men? I don’t think so. [00:06:44] Simone Collins: So these days definitely men are pushing more for marriage, so she’s, I mean, she’s right that women are, are driving the decline in marriage. You can see it in the polling. We’ve done plenty of episodes that cite this polling. So I, that is true. [00:06:56] When you look at at least historical tropes, ‘cause we didn’t live in this time. I [00:06:59] Malcolm Collins: mean- Yeah, I know historical tropes, but I think the reality is, and, and potentially even into history, that’s been the men, I mean, in a lot of the stories that, you know, I remember from my childhood, the romance stories, it’s the man pushing for marriage. [00:07:11] It’s the- No ... I’ll go to Ipswich for you. It’s the- Mm ... you know, like- [00:07:16] Simone Collins: That’s, those are romances. That’s not reality. Reality is men want to maintain as much optionality as, look, sexually, like from a sexual strategy perspective- Not men who want to have [00:07:25] Malcolm Collins: babies. I pushed you to get married. [00:07:29] Simone Collins: Right. Your mu- your game of musical chairs was rapidly ending. [00:07:33] You, you felt like you’re, I guess m- m- [00:07:37] Malcolm Collins: And I was like 24 at the time when I felt like I was waiting too long. I [00:07:38] Simone Collins: know, but you felt like an old maid or whatever the male equivalent of that is. You, you’re a very unusual case. The, the male strategy has almost always been, look, maintain maximum optionality, string women along, don’t actua

    44 min.
  8. Why Do Commie & Socialist States Kill Gays But Capitalists Don't?

    1 jul

    Why Do Commie & Socialist States Kill Gays But Capitalists Don't?

    Why have communist regimes throughout history consistently persecuted, imprisoned, and killed gay people? In this Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins examine the pattern across the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, and more — backed by direct quotes from communist leaders and historical records. They break down the ideological reasons: homosexuality framed as “bourgeois degeneracy,” linked to fascism, rejected as hedonistic “gooning,” and clashing with extreme pro-natalist policies that viewed childless people as unproductive. The episode also contrasts this with capitalism’s unmatched track record as the most gay-friendly system in global history and explores the ongoing political shift of gay men toward Republican voting. If you’re tired of revisionist history that ignores communist crimes against the LGBT community, this is the conversation you need to hear. Episode Transcript [00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be asking a question, which is why do communists usually kill gay people? And it’s an interesting question. There’s two groups that communists generally like to kill and that is gays and Jews. Um, Which surprises a lot of people if they haven’t studied history or only look at the weirdos approach. [00:00:26] I mean, most Jews are aware of this, but there are a lot of gays who are completely unaware of this. And they have done this over and over and over again throughout history, and the only group that seems to do it as frequently as communists do it is socialists. Is this- They also really like killing gay people [00:00:46] Simone Collins: is this because both gays and Jews accumulate wealth? [00:00:50] Malcolm Collins: No. Gays typically produce less wealth than the average citizen. It’s just that on the outside curve, gays basically just have a wider distribution curve of talent- Oh ... than average humans. Okay. So in the same way [00:01:02] Simone Collins: that like with- Oh, so they’re like hyper men. [00:01:03] They’re like extra men. [00:01:04] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, in the same way that men, like, on, if you look at like the average man and you look at the, the, the curve, like women have like a [00:01:10] Simone Collins: trigger bell curve. Yeah, the bell curve is more flattened, whereas like the male bell curve is- In terms of IQ ... yeah. [00:01:13] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and with gays, the bell curve is flattened and shifted away. [00:01:18] Mm. But it’s flattened [00:01:18] Simone Collins: enough- Yeah, so that tip of the, the tip of the bell curve giant ... [00:01:20] Malcolm Collins: the tip of the bell curve. If you’re like, “Who are the top 10 chefs in the world?” Five of them are gonna be gay. “Who are the top 10 fashion designers in the world?” Five of them are gonna be gay. “Who are the top 10 AI designers- I mean, not average [00:01:33] in the [00:01:33] Simone Collins: world?” Gay. I mean, gay. Gay. But I mean blind. [00:01:36] Malcolm Collins: Well, no, you see this especially in creative fields. Yeah. You, you see a disproportionate number of gays. And actually I almost wanna like study this, like what the f**k causes that? But it’s also a reason why it’s, it’s, it’s a good idea to not burn the gay community be- [00:01:49] Simone Collins: Isn’t that the higher levels of testosterone? [00:01:52] It could be the higher levels of testosterone. So gay, gay men have, on average, higher levels of testosterone. What’s different from men? Higher levels of testosterone, like higher risk, high reward, like they’re going all in. [00:02:00] Malcolm Collins: That and they’re not having their brains polluted by constantly talking to women. [00:02:05] Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean- They’re not being henpecked. I mean, God, boys, [00:02:07] Malcolm Collins: right? Imagine, imagine what you [00:02:09] Simone Collins: would be able to accomplish. You would be unleashed, Bianca. You would be unleashed if you were blessed with dickness. If you [00:02:14] Malcolm Collins: didn’t have to, the, you know, yeah. There, there is, there is other ancillary benefits to the wider gay... [00:02:21] And not to say that nothing negative comes, but we’ll have that conversation later in this. But what I wanted to start by focusing on is like the, the m- ma- the majority of gay community, and this is changing. Like as we’ve pointed out, the gays are moving to Trump, right? Like in, in the voting. If they continue to move at the rate they have moved over the past few election cycles I think by the election cycle after the next, the majority of gay men will be voting Republican. [00:02:47] And I think by the next election cycle, the majority of gay white men will be voting Republican. [00:02:51] Simone Collins: Ooh ... [00:02:52] Malcolm Collins: so, yeah, guys, g- keep in mind the, the, this is a community that we can win. But historically, you look at the protests, you look at all the flags, and no, these flags don’t even really represent gayness anymore. [00:03:04] They represent like an opt-in identity at this point, the colonizer’s flag as we call it, the progress pride flag. I’m not gonna go into that right now, but so they, they, they, they have these flags, and they yell at people about Palestine. I recently saw them yelling at, A, the guy who replaced Nancy Pelosi, he was kicked out of a gay pride event when people followed him into [00:03:23] Simone Collins: it and- Oh yeah, there’s a picture of him on the front page of Drudge, like soaked in... [00:03:26] No, that’s Mamdani, never mind. But yeah yeah, there was a picture of him looking real mad. [00:03:29] Malcolm Collins: But it was, it was he wasn’t enough anti-Israel for these people and they- [00:03:33] Simone Collins: Not, oh, not enough. Never enough ... they were [00:03:35] Malcolm Collins: carrying their, their, the, apparently that’s a huge gay rights issue. And I’m like, gays, you and your natural predators, right? [00:03:41] Like communist, like the two groups that like have it in their mission statement to kill you, like Islamists and communists, right? Like Guys But let’s get into this. I wanna get into the stats, I wanna get into the facts, and I also wanna point out here that there has been [00:04:00] no governing or economic system that has been friendlier to gays throughout global history than capitalism. [00:04:08] Not one. Not one comes close to being as friendly or as open to gays than capitalist systems [00:04:17] Simone Collins: yeah, actually. Ac- I mean, look at some of the most successful capitalists today. [00:04:23] Malcolm Collins: Well, as to why, and, and there haven’t been many at all, and we can even get into it at the end if you want to purges or genocides of gays in capitalist systems. [00:04:33] It just doesn’t happen really. Happens in socialist, happens in communist- Wasn’t there the- ... doesn’t happen in [00:04:37] Simone Collins: capitalist ... the I wanna say pink scare around the time of the Red Scare? [00:04:43] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but we didn’t kill them. [00:04:45] Simone Collins: Well, that ... Yes. Yes. Well, they- We didn’t send them to the gulags ... then, then AIDS came, and they killed themselves. [00:04:51] So there was also that. But that, that wasn’t capital- ... Well, it could’ve been capitalism’s fault because it was ... Patient Zero was a, an airline attendant, and if we weren’t so capitalistically abundant- If we weren’t so economically prosperous ... we wouldn’t be flying around the world on our little sexual romps, bring us, would we? [00:05:08] No. [00:05:08] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. If, if we weren’t so economically prosperous, [00:05:10] Simone Collins: So capitalism killed the gays really at scale- At scale ... when you think [00:05:13] Malcolm Collins: about it. No, it was orgies that killed the gays at scale. Oh. Hmm. Th- they could’ve, they could’ve just not done that when they knew a deadly disease was spreading through their community. [00:05:24] Simone Collins: Was it known to be sexually transmitted from the very beginning? [00:05:26] Malcolm Collins: It wasn’t from the very beginning, but people figured out pretty early. And it was very interesting for a lot of gay people to experience because it killed off a huge portion of gay culture, and the gays who survived it they were typically the, like, nerdy introverts. [00:05:45] And it- Yeah ... really transformed gay culture because with all the party guys who ended up dying off and all of the nerdy introverts who survived- Oh ... it sort of defined the way gay culture transformed itself. Where if you look at older gay culture, it was way more you could actually see this in stuff. [00:06:03] I wanna say, like, jockey, biker gangy. [00:06:05] Simone Collins: No. [00:06:07] Malcolm Collins: Y- you’ve seen the old videos and stuff. Like, it was, it was pretty tough, I guess you’d call it. And then it became sort of, effete and, and weird, but that was downstream of AIDS killing off the non-nerd gays, leading to gays to get more into nerdy hobbies and stuff like that. [00:06:25] Al- also, just as a side note here, one reason why capitalist systems are generally pretty pro-gay is it’s this flattening of the curve thing that ends up helping gays. It’s also why capitalist systems are generally pretty pro-Jew. Any group that’s disproportionately going to be in high-profile positions a, in a system that rewards meritocratic behavior like, e.g. Being genuinely more creative or genuinely more productive or being able to, like, build big companies or whatever it, it, people with those skill sets end up in positions of power and then prevent- the, you know, big attacks on their community and everything like that, right? Like- Mm. Mm ... the, both the gays and the Jews have done a very good job with this in

    47 min.
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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

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    Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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    2023 - 2026
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    821
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    © Simone & Malcolm Collins
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    Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

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