Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
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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

  1. 21h ago

    Biological Traitors? Why Women Like Getting Conquered

    A detailed examination of historical records showing patterns of relationships between local women and occupying forces during major conflicts. The discussion covers data from World War I occupations in France and Belgium, World War II cases including France and Japan, and comparisons between hostile and allied occupations. It explores evolutionary psychology factors, cooperation studies, genetic ancestry evidence, and implications for group dynamics. The conversation also addresses male behavior in similar contexts, biblical references, and long-term strategies for post-conquest stability. It draws on primary sources, historian estimates, and experimental research to provide context on these recurring historical patterns. Episode Transcript Malcolm Collins:Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. In the, manosphere, one of the common topics is how women like to sleep with the enemies... The invading enemies during war. And I had heard this historically, and my take on it was... I mean, I guess, maybe, but I decided to do a bit more of a breakdown of this, get the actual numbers. How much of a population comes from this? Why do women do this? Why do we let a population that has a propensity for facilitating the enemy vote in our elections? What would these women likely do if asked to vote on policies like in Well, it’s just... Oh, boy. Simone Collins:Oh, why are we... Malcolm Collins:Oh. When I went into this data, the thing that really surprised me, because what you could argue is this is just a function of having a large army within a territory for a period. Right? But if we break down different instances, like the American occupation of France versus similar time window, the Nazi occupation of France, because America occupied France as we were pushing back the Nazis, the French women barely married or had kids with the Americans, whereas they did it in huge numbers with the Nazis. If we look in the case of Americans because the Americans were stationed in New Zealand, they were stationed in Australia, they were stationed in many places, if you’re talking about the Pacific Theater, barely had any marriages out of that. A huge number, orders of magnitude more when Americans were occupying Japan, like an actual hostile conquest even though they treated them fairly nice during that period. so what we’re seeing here is women seem to have a propensity to get with a specific type of male. But let’s go into it. You’re gonna say something, Simone? Simone Collins:This is bizarre to me because, of course, I only exist because a French boar bride married an American Okie and had my mom. Right? Malcolm Collins:I think that’s okay. I think it’s fine to marry into a force liberating your country. I think it is quite a different thing Simone Collins:to worry Didn’t the Nazis frame it as, like, I’m coming to liberate France from your Frenchness or something? Malcolm Collins:They almost did. They almost did. Say, lovey, look at France today allowing itself to be looted and massacred. Simone Collins:It’s not looking very good for them. You know, you gotta you gotta say it’s Malcolm Collins:You think about all these... Like, all the, Irish terrorist organizations to earn their independence only to sell out their country, like, a generation later. Simone Collins:Yeah. Malcolm Collins:For real. It is it is wild to me, these historic conflicts reframed. But let’s get into it. I’m gonna start with one of the lesser known examples so we can go into it Yeah. Which is a World War one interwar period between 1914 and nineteen thirties, the occupied Northern France and Belgium region, that led to the term femmes et broches. German occupation of Belgium, and 10 French departments precluded extensive contact between women and German soldiers. Diaries from the period mentioned these relationships frequently to the point where they are actually mentioned in two thirds of all diaries surveyed. Simone Collins:Are you serious? Malcolm Collins:That’s No. Mentioned, that doesn’t mean that they weren’t mentioned approvingly. Simone Collins:Oh, like, maybe their friend Yeah. He was But it was Malcolm Collins:a common part of life. Simone Collins:That is bizarre. I just figure you... One, if you were involved with a foreign invader male that maybe your entire community would think that you’re a spy and ostracize you? And then two, wouldn’t you get in trouble for doing that with the foreign invading? Malcolm Collins:Of these women were ostracized later, but let’s go into numbers here. Okay? Simone Collins:Okay. Malcolm Collins:So, there were roughly 6,000 in Belgium and 10 to 20,000 in the occupied French departments, often registered as father unknown or illegitimate birth. This is for how many children were born as a result of this. To understand how much of, impact this had, Douai, one of the districts, saw birth rates go from... In prewar, they were around ten percent, okay, to during the war, note, the local men are gone during the war, okay, to twenty to thirty eight percent. Simone Collins:That... That’s like a... That’s almost a third. Malcolm Collins:You mean that’s more than tripling, almost quadrupling if the 38% Simone Collins:is for a number of birth is right and at Malcolm Collins:least doubling the birth rate is. Well, all the local men are away. That’s So, again, not a simple phenomenon. no. No. Sure. This was a heavily occupied district where you didn’t see this as much in the rural areas where you didn’t have any... As many standing troops and stuff like this. So it didn’t have as big of a neg... Genetic impact. So historian Emmanuel Dettour estimates that there were 15 to 20,000 rapes during this period. That said, there were over 50,000 instances of sexual contact. So that means that the rape... You say this is downstream of rapes. It’s not downstream as a rape. Detroit’s core primary source with a corpus of 110 private diaries kept by civilians, about the intimate relationships with German soldiers, which, again, were in two thirds of them. the dominant mentions are, sort of moral panic, and they were thought of as traitors from a brochures or affiliates brochures or worse. a common, motif appears in the diaries where local girls or women are visibly upset when particular German units left. one formulation that surfaces is the observation of girls were seen crying when the soldiers departed. Simone Collins:Oh my gosh. Wait. Wasn’t this a theme in the sound of music? Wasn’t, one of the older girls super all about, what was his name, Hans or Frans or something? Malcolm Collins:Yeah. And what the women would often do is they’d flee to some town where they weren’t known afterwards, so the kid wouldn’t be known as the descendant of a Nazi. But in studies after this period, they represented the children as German fathers, 1.5% of the population. Simone Collins:Oh my gosh. It was the uniforms. Okay. Malcolm Collins:There’s see this in other instances as well. I’m just I’m just pointing out, this is more of a thing than people often lead on. Now let’s, contrast this, okay, with The United States numbers. Alright? So US soldiers in France and Britain and Rhineland formed relationship with thousands of marriages. While exact totals are uncertain, these range from only 5,000 to 18,000, with one number or in figure is 6,000 bona fide marriages. so very, very low when contrasted with the French. And what’s interesting is that the Americans wanted to get married and form families. Whereas with the Nazis, we only know of about 13, like, a handful, like, in the teens of Nazi soldiers who actually married a local person. Simone Collins:Could this be a timing thing? I mean, because my grandmother, for example, met my grandfather after the war was over when the Americans were still in Paris. Like, presumably, you’re into family formation when the wartime is over and not so much in the middle of the Malcolm Collins:It’s part a policy thing in American attitude thing. Simone Collins:Also, you’re saying, like, the Nazi party was like, you cannot form families with Well, they Oh, right. Because they were all about, you know, German supremacy. Malcolm Collins:War one. War one, we’re talking about here in sorry. Simone Collins:I thought you’re talking about World War two. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Malcolm Collins:Sorry. So World War one, it was still the Germans were like, no. Simone Collins:We’re... You’re Malcolm Collins:you’re not taking back the random locals seriously because... And their kids. Whereas American has always reacted very differently to immigration historically and had a different relationship with it. And I think very few Americans would seriously protest bringing back war brides from the European allied nations. Simone Collins:Oh, yeah. It was seen as as fancy. Malcolm Collins:Yes. contemporary newspaper accounts, e g the New York Times reporting on embarkment, noted the brides whose nationality recorded the majority were French followed by British with fewer Germans. Military authorities established bridal camps and transportation arrangements. The Red Cross and YMCA assisted. Some black American soldiers also married French women with an estimated 2,000 such, unions. Military and civil commentary often expressed paternalistic or anxious views. Official worried about foreign sirens and venereal disease and the suitability of such women. In the nineteen twenties, some of these marriages faced social or practical consequences. One 1925 assessment suggested a significant portion estimates around thirty percent or higher over time ended in separation or divorce. Now keep in mind, a moral panic over a divorce rate of only thirty percent. Oh, no. You have a thirty percent chance of getting divorced. I think even, like, the lower numbers today put in Simone Collins:That must have that must have been a record high. Right? Like Y

    Biological Traitors? Why Women Like Getting Conquered

  2. 1d ago

    Mystery! Blacks & Progressives Keep Getting Flagged As Using AI to Write? (Racism Only Explanation)

    This episode examines claims that AI detectors like Pangram unfairly flag writing by African and Black authors as artificial. Analysis of publication data from the Pan African Review and individual authors (most entertainingly by Cremieux) reveals a sharp rise in AI-generated and AI-assisted content coinciding with the availability of large language models. The discussion extends to similar patterns among other academics and journalists who publicly oppose AI while relying on it for their work. Examples include university administrators, book reviewers, and media figures facing scrutiny over undisclosed AI assistance. The conversation highlights tensions in elite institutions around transparency, performance expectations, and evolving tools for content creation. Broader themes include differing responses to AI detection across communities and the challenges of maintaining integrity standards as AI adoption grows in professional writing. Show Notes Hat tip to Cremieux for Does African Writing Sound Like AI? Black Academics Using AI And Lying About It From Cremieux: “If you read about Pangram, you’ll quickly see a bunch of people claiming that it doesn’t work. Worse, they’ll sometimes claim that it’s biased. Pangram allegedly discriminates against autistic authors, against anti-vaccine authors, against people I’d politely describe as ‘conspiracy theorists’ on both sides of the aisle, and, most prominently, against African writers. How? Well, it supposedly flags their work as AI! There are a lot of articles about Pangram and other AI detectors ‘mistakenly’ flagging Black and African authors as using AI to do or assist with their writing. The most prominent piece that comes to mind for me was published in the Pan African Review. The piece was an unusual breakout for the Review: the journal generally enjoys a pretty limited circulation. I suspect this is because of the import of the topic area and the utility of providing an example to point to when people want to explain why they were ‘wrongly’ flagged as using AI for writing. So, I’ll consider the perspective of this piece to be emblematic of a community’s wider concerns given how much it resonated. The piece is authored by one Timi Olagunju. Olagunju is “a lawyer and public policy expert working at the intersection of tech, governance, and development.” His claim is that writing in formal English will be flagged as AI-generated by AI text detector: “Consider an international student in the United States. She has spent years being told that her English must be grammatically correct. She avoids slang, checks every verb and structures each paragraph carefully. Then a detector labels her work artificial because it is controlled and predictable. First, the institution tells her to master standard English through IELTS and TOEFL. Then it treats mastery as suspicious.” This allegedly explains why “African (or black) writers” are liable to have their work flagged by AI detectors: “For many African writers like Falade, English is both a language and an inheritance shaped by colonial history. In Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and other former British colonies, generations of students were taught forms of English influenced by British education. Teachers emphasized correctness, formal composition and structure.” Is this the case? We can test this right away by inputting Olagunju’s own article into Pangram and… it receives a 100% AI score with high confidence. Surely he wouldn’t use AI to write, right? Let’s consider his thesis in good faith and perish the thought—for now. Surely the other writers in the Pan African Review wouldn’t use AI to write either, right? To test the extent of AI adoption in the Pan African Review, I looked at how much Pangram flagged articles there over time. Unfortunately, the site is currently down, so I had to extract whatever articles I could from the Internet Archive.1 What we see right away is a total rejection of Olagunju’s thesis: articles were never flagged as AI-generated before the advent of LLMs, and the share flagged as AI-written has rapidly crept up afterwards. This is not what we expect if African writing generally is to be considered liable to be flagged as AI. Another test of Olagunju’s thesis is to simply look at his writing. He wouldn’t lie about this stuff, would he? All of his past work before LLMs came out should return a 100% AI score with at least moderate confidence. Alas, quite literally none of it that I could find does. All of it shows up as human-written. It’s only after LLMs came out that his work started being flagged as AI-generated. But maybe we’re at fault here. Maybe Pangram trained on the Pan African Review and Olagunju’s work and they flag pre-LLM work as AI-generated because it’s in the training set. To get at this question, I asked Pangram CEO Max Spero if that was the case: was “Pangram trained on the articles in the Pan African Review?” “It was not.” Jason Arday The first thing I thought about when it came to matters of “prominently black academics who center discussions of race” and potentia * Academics Dave Harris and Martyn Hammersley raised concerns in 2023 about similarities between an Arday paper on minority students’ mental health and an earlier study by Anjum Memon and colleagues. Two journals subsequently published corrections addressing attribution or textual overlap. * More importantly, some quotations presented as coming from Arday’s own interview participants closely resembled quotations from participants in Memon’s earlier study. Retraction Watch documented examples and reported that Arday later removed or altered numerous participant quotations. * If substantiated, presenting another study’s interview material as one’s own would be a research-data issue, not merely inadequate citation. Cambridge initially defended him, but on August 5, 2026, announced an investigation into qualifications and honorary appointments, alongside ongoing academic-misconduct complaints. He resigned that day, explicitly saying his resignation was not an acceptance of the allegations Doing the Pengram Thing with His Work Fighting the tide: Understanding the difficulties facing Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Doctoral Students’ pursuing a career in Academia (2018) - 100% human written per Pangram Understanding Mental Health: What Are the Issues for Black and Ethnic Minority Students at University? (2018) - 100% human written per Pangram Couldn’t find solely authored 2025-2026 articles by Jason Arday (everything is co-authored; the only solely authored things in 2020 or earlier), but we do have: * 2026: “Same storm, different boats: the impact of COVID-19 on Black students and academic staff in UK and US higher education” (with Christopher Jones), Higher Education (2026). - 100% per Pangram * DOI: 10.1007/s10734-022-00939-0 * 2026: “The fragile future of EDI demands bold university leadership” — WonkheWritten by Arun Verma and Jason Arday. - 100% per Pangram * 2025: “The routes to intellectual authority in a prior colonial empire”A bibliographic index identifies it as co-authored with Dina Zoe Belluigi and Joanne O’Keeffe, rather than solely authored by Arday - 100% per Pangram Academics Using AI and Lying About It In August of this year, Santiago Schnell, Dartmouth College provost, published a Washington Post op-ed arguing that universities should ensure degrees reflect what students can do independently of AI (as opposed to with it). * According to Atlantic coverage of his subsequent kerfuffle, Pangram scored it 100% AI-written in a Semafor analysis. * A subsequent Dartmouth student newspaper investigation of nine of his 2026 publications (op-eds and academic pieces) found a median ~96% AI-written score; his pre-ChatGPT (pre-late 2022) works scored 100% human. * His emailed statement responding to the accusations was itself scored 100% AI-written by Pangram. * He acknowledged using AI chatbots as “assistive tools” for language, clarity, and efficiency while insisting the ideas and authorship were his. The case prompted campus controversy, faculty/student calls for review or removal, and a formal look by the university. Also this summer, Cath Ellis, the pro vice-chancellor for quality and integrity at Western Sydney University, published an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald (and The Age) urging students not to “cut corners” or outsource their thinking to AI. * The piece was flagged by Pangram as AI-generated and was retracted. Ellis denied it was written by AI, stating it was written with AI and that there is “a really big difference.” * She said she jotted ideas on the train and used Microsoft Copilot to structure them, drawing on her own prior research (she reportedly uploaded tens of thousands of words of her materials). * The university confirmed the process. * The irony was widely noted because of her role overseeing academic integrity. The Tension, Laid Bare by Journalists and Authors It’s inevitable that non-personality-centric publications shift to AI In November 2023, Futurism reported that Sports Illustrated had published product-review content under nonexistent writers’ names, with author portraits traced to an AI-image marketplace. Sources familiar with the production process also said the articles were AI-generated. One said: “The content is absolutely AI-generated … no matter how much they say that it’s not.” The publisher, Arena Group, responded that the allegation was “not accurate” and said its contractor, AdVon Commerce, had assured it that all the articles were “written and edited by humans.” It nevertheless removed the content and ended the partnership. And yet when journalists talk about using AI, they’re defenestrated Chris Quinn openly defended AI-assisted writing and faced calls to resign * In February 2026, Chris Quinn, editor of Cleveland

  3. 2d ago

    Baby Fever, Streamers, & What They Erased From Reddit + Know Your Meme

    This episode explores the rabbit clock meme frequently posted in female streamer chats and its dual implications around fertility timelines and career longevity in content creation. We examine quotes from progressive streamers including Pinkabina, Valkyrie, Norissa Ravencroft, and QT Cinderella as they discuss their own experiences with baby fever. The conversation also covers the meme’s apparent erasure from sites like Know Your Meme and Reddit, personal reflections on miscarriage and family planning, realities of egg freezing, and examples of graceful aging in online spaces. Episode Transcript Malcolm Collins:. Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today, I discovered a deep rabbit hole, if you will. Okay? Specifically... Okay. So here is the image. There’s this meme. This came up in a conversation with Simone because she’s been feeling intense baby fever recently. And I started to be like, well, it’d be cool to go into all of the progressive streamers who are feeling baby fever and sort of go over how their audience has reacted to that. And I was like, and, of course, we’re going to cover this meme. Now do you know why... To a lot of our fans, this meme Simone Collins:immediately means something to them. Yeah. Malcolm’s showing a picture of a rabbit pointing to a clock. And I know I’ve seen this before, but I don’t know Okay. So It looks familiar. What does it mean? Malcolm Collins:Frequently, it is posted to mean your time to have a baby is running out. Simone Collins:Isn’t it the rabbit from Alice Malcolm Collins:from Alice in Wonder. So this comes from two well known streamers, Valkyrie and Sina, who in a November 2025 stream said, post a selfie. One of those Instill accounts will post my photo with a rabbit clock. Seriously? Yes. Simone Collins:Like, every time? Malcolm Collins:I have personally seen it spammed in streamer chats before. Wow. It is very common. When a Simone Collins:female Like a thirst trap picture or just Malcolm Collins:a selfie? Anything. Basically, it’s just when a woman is... I mean, selfies are thirst trap pictures, Simone. These women, that’s their job. Okay? Simone Collins:Not when I take them. I’ll tell you what. Malcolm Collins:Well, you’re not an ethot. Okay? You don’t know how to be sexy. That is not in your vocabulary since the end you Simone Collins:were This is my sexy pose. She said Malcolm Collins:but they pose this alongside a picture of them. And it was enough of a problem that major streamers were crashing out about this. Right? Like, I... This is getting very frustrating. And you can imagine, you know, you start to talk about... This could really get to me if I was a woman, to be Simone Collins:Really? Malcolm Collins:You start talking Simone Collins:It’s just people chuckling to themselves about something that you don’t care about. Why should that annoy people? Malcolm Collins:What do you mean that you don’t care about? If you are a female streamer Simone Collins:Okay. Malcolm Collins:It means... And it’s two really big meanings for female streamers, and they’re both, like, apocalyptic for them. One, you’re talking about having baby fever, and somebody posts this, which basically is saying you’re never gonna have a kid. You’re not trying right now. You’re almost at the end of your cycle, so you’re gonna live your life barren. But then two, it’s pointing out that their career intrinsically has a timer. Simone Collins:Oh, but then they just become a VTuber. They create an AI version of themselves that never gets young. Malcolm Collins:That is I mean, old. Not something that happens. Rare. So, typically, in person streamer females Good example of this is, like, I think, Casey Tron. They just age and become old middle aged women doing middle aged woman stuff for their fans. Simone Collins:Is Casey Tron the one who wears a hijab? Malcolm Collins:Is she... Hold on. Which one is she again? Trying to think... The one that I’m thinking of is the stoner one who, like, looks actively old. Might be Casey Tron. Simone Collins:Oh, Casey. Yeah. Okay. Never mind. That’s not the one who wears a hijab. Yeah. Casey Tron looks like she would... She tries to be attractive. Yes. That didn’t... That’s in... Malcolm Collins:Actually, I have not seen any instances of them going and trying to be a VTuber of of real life YouTubers. They just sort of end up irrelevant. This has happened to major female stars. This has happened to... It’s sort of being like, you’re only here because of how attractive you are, and you’re not gonna be attractive forever. So it has a double meaning. Right? What is fascinating and what I found when I was doing this deep dive, Simone This double meaning, history that our fans will be familiar with from streams that they have watched is being erased within the year of the historic event happening. Simone Collins:Wait. What? Malcolm Collins:So this meme only became... I was actually surprised by this. It only became popular in 2020 No. Or 2024 because Simone Collins:Feels so much more familiar than that. With, yeah, with posting it. Malcolm Collins:So maybe maybe it’s a couple years old. But, yeah, it’s it’s... Right now, it’s being used in this way. If you go to know your meme Simone Collins:Wow. Malcolm Collins:Nowhere on know your meme does it mention that the meme is used in this way. It says that it’s a meme about running out of time, you know, for, like, getting to class on time and stuff. literally, completely scrubbed. But it’s not just scrubbed from know your meme. So if you look at the Reddit post on this, right, the Peter explains the joke from one year ago. What does this mean? I see it everywhere. Okay? It shows this meme. It’s got over 500 upvotes, so it’s like a... You know, for a medium sub that’s gonna hit pretty high up. Alright. So you then look at the comments. Right? And you’re like, Okay. So they’re not mentioning it in the first comment. They’re not mentioning it in the second comment. They’re not mentioning... Like, here’s an example of the third comment. How [bleep] look when you say quarter till 09:00 instead of just 08:45. Right? That’s, that’s not how the meme is used. And then you get to the fifth comment, and it’s removed. Simone Collins:Oh. Uh-oh. Malcolm Collins:Why is the why is the fifth comment Simone Collins:removed? I get that Who moderates know your meme? Wait. Someone who’s, like, very No. Defensive about female aging? Malcolm Collins:That’s not that’s not proof that the fifth comment was this particular explanation. And then you can look at the comments under it, and it’s, people use it on post talking about being x age without having had a baby, become a millionaire, etcetera, So, clearly, it it was talking about babies just, like, from the context of the comments under it. So even on Reddit, they’re going around and deleting any instance of people saying that it was used in this way? That is fascinating. That is interesting. I need to know more. so that then had me be like, why? Of all of the memes that I’ve seen... Like, I haven’t gone back to, like, try to dig into the history of many memes online, but why did they have to really erase this meme from the collective memory of the Internet? Why was it erased from know your meme? Why was it erased from Reddit? Why has it been so thoroughly erased from the Internet? that if you ask an AI about this, you have to explicitly prime it with this understanding and people having had crash ups about it that were public enough that now it’s aware that, like, people were crashing out about it. Why is it important that this meme was erased from history? What the heck? Why Yeah. Simone Collins:Camera Oh. Malcolm Collins:I’ll try to catch that the next time I see it. Simone Collins:Okay. Malcolm Collins:Anyway, why was it erased? and I think the issue is is exactly what I was saying with you. It’s it’s a few fault. One is the degree to which female streamers have crashed out about this particular meme being spammed is higher than other types of crash outs I have seen from streamers, which leads me to believe it is uniquely psychologically terrorizing to a particular group of people. I think you as a woman, Simone... And Simone’s a really interesting case study because she’s had five kids. This was your first miscarriage miscarriage, right, like, after it took and everything like that. And it’s been incredibly psychologically difficult for you. and not just that, but you’ve been having intense, like, crying baby fever. Like, you want babies really bad. Now you have a one year old, and you still want... You are the the Scrooge McDuck of women here. Simone Collins:Yeah. Yeah. Think it goes to show, yeah, that, like, even... Because I I thought previously first that baby fever maybe was just hormonal because I don’t have the normal hormones. So maybe that’s why I didn’t have it, but now I have it. And having... It doesn’t seem to be cured by any amount of children if I have five and I’m still dying for more children. So, like, also, I think that this change changes what baby fever even is for childless women because they’d be feeling it regardless. Malcolm Collins:No. You know? I think you’re missing something. I think you, a woman with five kids, simply is unaware of how hard these women are feeling this. You understand how bad it is for you. You aren’t thinking about living your entire life without children. Okay? Simone Collins:Mayhaps. Mayhaps. Malcolm Collins:For them, this is almost certainly, in many cases, many, many times worse. And it’s existential because when you realize what it really means, the being erased from human history, the dying old and alone, the not... You know, being able to have that type of impact on the next generation, especially while your friends are doing it. And the combined meaning of your worth

    Baby Fever, Streamers, & What They Erased From Reddit + Know Your Meme

  4. 5d ago

    The Bible: Marry A Tomboy (Real “Trad” = Tomboy)

    This episode examines what the Bible actually teaches about the qualities of a good wife, focusing on the Hebrew term often rendered as virtuous but more accurately conveying strength, capability, and valor. We walk through Proverbs 31 in detail along with supporting passages from Ruth and the New Testament to show how Scripture describes a productive, self-controlled, and resourceful partner. The discussion covers translation history, the emphasis on work and investment rather than appearance, the role of self-control, and practical applications for modern Christian households. It also addresses common misconceptions about traditional roles and highlights the consistent biblical picture of a capable wife who strengthens her family. Episode Transcript Malcolm Collins:Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be exploring what the bible says you should look for in a wife. Oh. And surprise, surprise, the bible being a great and wise book. The wisest of books says that you should look for a tomboy. Not a woman who dresses like a guy, but otherwise, most of the traits we today would associate with a tomboy. And I appreciate that the writers of the bible were men of culture. Oh my gosh. Simone Collins:Okay. Great. Malcolm Collins:And this has been hidden a lot from modern readings of the bible because the word that makes it especially clear Okay. Has... Essentially, it was it was really well translated for most of the bible’s history until we got to pretty modern translations. Okay. Like, how modern? Like, many of the English translations, for example. Simone Collins:Okay. So, like, Elizabethan, like, King James, they started messing with it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Malcolm Collins:They started translating a word that... Into into virtuous very frequently, but the word is not virtuous. And it’s a word that is commonly when it’s talking about, like, what a good woman is in in the Old Testament. And can you guess what this word is most commonly used to describe... Like, it’s it’s common normal usage. Rugged? It’s used to describe the power of an army. Like, it is a very aggressive word. It is a word that we will we will get into. Okay. Because when you when you understand that and we... And we’ll go through it in context, we’ll go through when it’s used to describe the strength of an army, you will see that what it expects of women. And then we’re gonna go through more of what the New Testament says about women and longer bits of the Old Testament, and the bible is not shy about this tomboy aesthetic. And you will realize, Simone, that you are closer than you would imagine to the true tradwife. Have you defined a tradwife by a Simone Collins:Oh, perfect. You really keep trying to make me into a tradwife. Malcolm Collins:The true trad wife is the tomboy trad wife, Simone. Simone Collins:You slept in my childhood bedroom for, like, three months when you were out on She painted it all pink. Yeah. It was it Malcolm Collins:was a very it was very small. Pink like all of your knives. You know? Your pink knife collection. It was so girly. Simone Collins:So not tomboy, obviously. Malcolm Collins:But she showed it to me on the first date I went to her house. She’s like, look at all my knives. Simone Collins:They’re super cute. I should display them around here. We can I have a a knife wall? That would be super cute. I... They’re just right up there in the attic. They’re, like, 30 feet from me right now. Do it. Okay. Malcolm Collins:Very on on brand for our culture. Yeah. So the... There’s four instances in which this happens, the the use of this word. We’ve got Ruth three eleven. We’ve got Proverbs twelve four. We’ve got Proverbs thirty one ten, which is the opening of the famous poem that we’re gonna get... Read through the whole thing Which does a... Is very explicit on this. It’s a a mom telling her son what he should look for in a wife and bemoaning how hard it is to find these tomboys. Where where where can I find these women? So the word Simone Collins:Oh, so nothing has changed because this is what I hear from the young eligible gentleman of base camp. Malcolm Collins:Yes. The Shaiol... Obviously, I’m pronouncing it wrong, is a masculine noun whose core meanings are strengths, efficiency, ability, valor, wealth, and or it’s often just directly translated as army or host. Simone Collins:I mean, that sounds good in any partner. Yes. That seems solid. I would I would encourage our sons to get that for sure. Malcolm Collins:Strength, efficiency, and ability. I’m like, yeah. Simone Collins:Go for it. Too. Like, I mean, any spouse, you would probably want those things. No one wants an inefficient spouse. Malcolm Collins:Any any... There there are lines that basically say you should not focus on a woman with lots of jewelry. You shouldn’t focus on a woman, which I also think is a pretty advice. Simone Collins:Isn’t that a representation of wealth? Malcolm Collins:However Who over gussies herself up. You shouldn’t focus on... Yeah. So we’re we’re gonna learn a Simone Collins:about that. Inefficient, and that is actually, if anything, a sign of weakness. Malcolm Collins:It is it is used, and it’s good advice. Like, one thing I’m gonna say that I like about this is I actually think if I was going to build, like, a guide for my own kids on what to look for in a wife, it’s going to look a lot like what the Bible says. Okay? Now note this word is used extensively for military forces, for mighty men of valor, or something. When the subject of the woman, English bibles often softened it to virtuous, excellent, or noble character. Simone Collins:Okay. Malcolm Collins:Where if you look in the Jewish tradition, it’s often translated as woman of valor or woman of strength, which I still think undersells it. Alright? Now to understand how this word is normally used, if you look at something like Exodus fourteen nine or fourteen twenty eight or fifteen four Pharaoh’s... Oh, s**t. This word, army, is is what it’s described as. The the the Oh, Simone Collins:so you... That you see the same word explicitly used to describe an army. Malcolm Collins:Yeah. In judges six twelve, the angel calls Gideon a man of mighty valor, and that’s the same word there. In Judges, Jeff... Jepheshin is introduced as a mighty man of valor. And you see this Samuel’s nine one. You see this Kings five one. It’s it’s a common. Okay. So... And you’ll see how when you look at these translations, if you look at a a common English translation, it’ll say something like, thou art a virtuous woman, where if you translated it more directly, you would say, you are a strong woman. Or a modern English translation will say, a virtuous woman is a crown to her husband, whereas a more direct translation would say, a courageous wife is a crown to her husband. or you will see a virtuous, who shall find a virtuous woman? and then better translation was probably who can find a courageous wife. Or we’ll say obtain wealth wrought valiantly. And then it might otherwise be translated as obtained wealth many did mighty things. So if you were asking when did it get fully translated, if you go to the Septuagint, which uses Greek, it was translated as a woman of power and strength, courageous, or a manly slash brave wife. A manly wife. Adara. Simone Collins:That’s pretty tomboy coded. Okay. Malcolm Collins:So this this comes from Adara relating to anor or man, meaning fortitude. So, like, the early translators knew, like, you know, when the... They were originally writing the the New Testament, they would have known that there’s been a manly wife. Simone Collins:Like you Malcolm Collins:want a a tough woman here. Speaker 3:So I double checked this just to make sure I wasn’t making any mistakes. And, yeah, the Septuagint was translated in the third to second century BC, and it renders the Hebrew as the word Andrea, which means man, the root manliness. but in ancient Greek and in Hellenistic periods, it was also used to mean courage, fortitude, bravery, as a result of the strengths of character. Malcolm Collins:In the Armeniac terrorism, it’s something like a skilled woman. In the Latin Vulgate, even going into the Latin Vulgate, it continues with the term strong woman, or or as virtuous. And then in Proverbs, in later English translations, especially the King James version, it was translated to virtuous. Alright? So I will now read you, the pope Proverbs 31, where the mom of a king is telling her son what to look like, what to look for in a wife. Okay? So she says, a wife, and then of this word character, who can find? She is worth more... Far more than rubies. So no. No. Going into it right here, it’s this it’s this doting Jewish mom. Like, god. If I could just find you a tomboy wife, that’d be worth more than all the rubies, which is true. Good advice. Worth more than rubies. Yeah. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. Again, this is when you say that your wife is subordinate to you, when you lack confidence in her or if you choose a woman who you expect to not have confidence in, you have failed. That is that is step number one in choosing a wife. Have confidence in this person. I think that’s actually really good. It’s not the advice that I would give off the top of my head, but when I think about it, yes, someone who you can have confidence in is probably the first thing you wanna check off on your wife search. Simone Collins:Well, especially if they’re subordinate to you. Because if they’re subordinate to you, you are delegating them tasks, and you can’t delegate things to someone in whom you do not have confidence. Malcolm Collins:And what’s cool about doing episodes like this is I think they can be useful even to our atheist followers or followers of other religious traditions. Sure. Simply because the bible gives suc

    The Bible: Marry A Tomboy (Real “Trad” = Tomboy)

  5. 6d ago

    Oil Blockade Ended Weeks Ago: The Media Blackout Is Terrifying

    Today on Based Camp, Malcolm breaks down a major unreported shift in the Iran conflict: the effective end of Iran’s blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. Oil exports from the Gulf have returned to pre-war levels and are set to grow further through expanded pipelines and coastal shipping routes. The discussion covers how Saudi Arabia and the UAE rerouted flows via land pipelines, the role of smaller coastal tankers, added insurance costs, and why Iran’s strategy backfired by alienating neighbors and eliminating its own leverage. It also examines long-term economic damage to Iran, comparisons to Venezuela and Cuba, and the broader geopolitical fallout. Episode Transcript Malcolm Collins:Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be having a conversation that shows why it’s important that you watch podcasts like this instead of just the mainstream news because there has been a significant change in the state of the Iranian war that is not being reported on much at all. specifically, the blockade of the strait is over. well, not our blockade of Iran’s exports, but their blockade of the rest of the world’s exports. To give you an example of how over it is, prewar, this is roughly in the twelve months before the conflict began, 02/28/2026, Gulf Middle Eastern crude averaged at about 18,000,000 barrels per day. Okay? Simone Collins:K. Malcolm Collins:And 83% of its crude was going through Hormuz. Today... Now remember, it was 18,000,000 barrels per day. That was the average. The seven day moving average that we are at right now is 18,300,000 barrels per day coming out of the region, higher than the average before the war. Now you’re probably thinking, but how? Why? How were they able to block it so easily, and how did we get around it apparently so easily? Simone Collins:Yeah. But they dropped mines in there or something. Right? Yes. I even heard one of the mines exploded recently. Malcolm Collins:So let’s go over how we’ve globally gotten around this and the geopolitical consequences of us getting around it because what it means for Iran is astonishingly bad. I personally didn’t think this was possible. I didn’t think we would find a way around it this quickly. And we’re building out ways to get around it even more that will be live by 2027. So one of the big ways we got around it is... Remember how 83% used to go through The Gulf? That that means through Hermes? Now it’s only 40%. Simone Collins:Okay. So it’s still significantly down. Malcolm Collins:Well, no. It’s it’s up, but it’s that we’re not sending it through The Gulf anymore. We’re not not sending it through the straight anymore. Simone Collins:We’re sending Malcolm Collins:it through other pipelines. And those pipelines are actually being expanded at this moment, which is going to bring it so that only around 20% is estimated to still go through the straight. Simone Collins:Okay. Yes. I I mean, which is inevitable. If if the one path does not work, you have to take another path. Malcolm Collins:Live in 2027. This shows that Iran indiscriminately attacking ships was the dumbest they could have done. Because they’re Simone Collins:rendering one of their big points of, leverage obsolete. Malcolm Collins:The... Yes. Iran’s... Wait. Doesn’t just make their point of leverage obsolete. We didn’t start blocking their oil exports, which is 30% of their government revenue, until they blocked the straight. Simone Collins:Oh, really? I Yeah. We were Oh, weren’t they subject to significant economic sanctions after a certain point before we just put it to war? Malcolm Collins:Yeah. They they had sanctions, but they were still shipping oil. Simone Collins:Oh. Malcolm Collins:And it was making up a huge chunk of their government, and they don’t run out of, back payments for that oil until around December. But, like Oh, Simone Collins:so they’re still getting income. That’s crazy. Malcolm Collins:Yeah. But they’re incredibly boned long term from this. And if you’re like, I thought we were we were barely at war with them. As I pointed out in a recent episode, the HRANA, this is, like, the mainstream. This is... It’s some Israeli whatever mainstream estimate. The United States has killed 17... Sorry. A 700 civilians, since the start of the war. And Iran, by the same organization’s estimates, killed 7,000 civilians. And this is considered... People give really high numbers, like 30,000 or something. I don’t I don’t buy that. Right? Simone Collins:Is it... I think that includes, like, all the protests that were leading up to Yeah. Malcolm Collins:Yeah. The war. So we’ve killed... And and note here, even if we go with the Iranian official figure, which is 3,117 civilians that they killed During the crackdowns of people asking The United States to come in and save them That is still almost double the number of civilians The United States has killed since the start of this war. If you know anything about war, that means we’re not really fighting what anyone would think of as a traditional war. We’re... I don’t know. It’s it’s it’s as much of a war as whatever happened in Venezuela was a war, And and a lot of people don’t get that. They don’t get how asymmetrical and weird this war is, nor how badly it’s going for Iran now that we have found a way. And I’ll go into the economics of how we get oil around. It’s really fascinating, actually. But it’s really, really bad long term for Iran because they no longer have any leverage and have pissed off all their friends and are on a lifeline that’s eventually going to dry up. And the question is, what happens when it dries up? And they could become like Cuba. Cuba’s lifeline dried up a while ago, and they are just not really making it right now. Simone Collins:Press coverage seems to have mostly fizzled out after just multiple headlines amounting to they’re out of power again. Oh, yes. Once again, they’re out of power. And I just... I don’t know what they’re doing. By the way, Malcolm Collins:if you’re talking about, like, geopolitical victories, that one administration in, like, two years knocked out our three... Venezuela was one of our primary geopolitical enemies long term. Cuba was one of our primary geopolitical enemies long term. Let’s see if we can sink the deal on that. Iran And was one of our primary geopolitical enemies long term, which is going to take forever to... And and it’s... Well, Trump gave them this awesome deal, right, that I had talked about before where they would have gotten a bunch of money to... They... No one’s gonna be offering them that deal anymore. Simone Collins:That deal deal that he offered to Maduro being like, I... You will be set for life anonymously somewhere. Malcolm Collins:No. No. Not Maduro. I’m talking about Iran. He’s like, we’re gonna give you... Well, not we. We’re gonna have the the oil power, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etcetera, invest, like, $300,000,000,000 in it. Simone Collins:Right. Yes. We did a whole podcast on that. Speaker 17:And even crazier as part of that deal, if they had taken it, they could have, had unrestricted sale of their oil, which they haven’t had in decades and would have made them so, so, so much money. And they blew up the deal to maintain control of her moods, which they don’t have anymore. Simone Collins:So, yeah, what happened? Malcolm Collins:And Iran was like, no. Now these countries have no reason to. The only reason they were gonna make these investments was because they wanted enough political control of Iran to keep the strait open. Now they don’t care. Iran could be a failed state for all they care. They’re they’re they’re not gonna be dealing with refugees. They shoot them. You know, this... These aren’t these aren’t fuzzy European countries. Okay? So... And Iranian refugees, secondarily, integrate pretty well with European populations. They are Persian. They are not your... You know, Arab Muslims have integrated less well with European and American population. Persian Muslims have... Typically, they stop being Muslim pretty quickly. The the the religion doesn’t really seem to work with that ethnicity very well Or as well as it it does for other groups. We’ve talked about this in other episodes. And that’s a great example. You know, you wanna talk about a Muslim group within the other epithet. I was like, I don’t know Muslim groups that have made this The Persian immigrants in America, they have been able to maintain fairly high fertility rates and maintain cultural connections. They often drop being Muslim, though. But I’ve seen some that keep being Muslim and and and stay very American culturally speaking. And they can be they can be good. And I don’t think any American has a problem with, like, working with, like, inter... People who identify as Persian. And you... I mean, if you’re watching the podcast, you probably know a couple. They’re pretty cool. They, if if you don’t know... I... I’m probably gonna offend a lot of people here. They remind me a lot of Armenians. It’s gonna really piss some people off, I’m sure Speaker 10:Armenians and Persians in LA try not to be identical challenge. Impossible. Both of these guys will try to convince you that they are completely different and that their culture is unique, yet each of them have a nose job. Weak of Dior Sauvage can spend all their time at the Shisha Lounge with their cousin who’s a dentist. The only noticeable difference is the color of their BMWs. Malcolm Collins:. but just culturally, that’s what I’ve noticed when I’ve interacted with the two groups Speaker 11:Or if you want to be more offensive and you’re like, I don’t know a lot of Armenians. That’s a deep cut. They’re basically cocaine Jews. It’s like you took Jewish culture, and you somehow infused it with about 25% cocaine. That’s Per

    Oil Blockade Ended Weeks Ago: The Media Blackout Is Terrifying

  6. Oct 14

    Muslim "Charities" Keep Supporting Terrorism: WHY?

    Join us today for a discussion on English voice actors from popular anime who participated in a charity fundraiser using character voices to raise funds for a group with documented ties to Hamas (a story we learned about via Leaflit). We examine repeated patterns of major Muslim charities diverting donations to terrorism, historical examples from the Bush era onward, and the challenges of integrating populations from regions with entrenched support for such groups. We also cover broader topics including refugee resettlement outcomes in multiple countries, comparisons to other global conflicts, the role of progressive organizations in overlooking these issues, and practical approaches to cultural coexistence. The episode closes with some updates from us on AI tools for education we’re building—plus what we built for dubbing. ;) Hat tip to Leaflit for this! Episode Transcript Malcolm Collins:Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be covering three stories. The first is Leaflet found out that a lot of, voice actors for doing, you know, English lines for anime Simone Collins:Oh. Malcolm Collins:Had begun, a charity event. And pretending... Like, using the IPs that, like, they didn’t own, like, the... As the voices. So we’ll get into, like, the weirdness of that. Simone Collins:Woah. But Like, okay. So, like, if, like, the the guy who played Zuko, like, his English And so one of the Malcolm Collins:people who did this is the person who plays Mao Mao, one of our favorite modern Simone Collins:characters. Yes. Malcolm Collins:Well, I mean, it’s a sort of bad thing that they got involved with, but... Yeah. so they would do it as Mao Mao. Simone Collins:Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, wait. That is... Don’t they sign things? Malcolm Collins:Yeah. No. They they were just incredibly stupid. I mean, the type of person who tries to change dubbing is incredibly stupid, but the group that they have donated to has been involved in they have been caught by the US state department funding Hamas. Oh, for And this isn’t the first time this has happened. What I think is the bigger story here is for decades in The United States, the single largest Muslim charity organization in The United States funded Hamas. And terrorization is that? Down under the Bush administration. And one of the questions we’re going to be focused on here is why does this keep happening? And we’re going to couch all this alongside another big leak that our friend Brian Chow, who we had on the show when he was launching his new news organization, and it has used AI to find all sorts of scoops. And one of the greatest and latest was brought to you by the McCarthy or t foundation or the... What what are they? T McArthur Foundation. You’re familiar with that from your NPR. Right? NPR would always be like, brought to you by the t McArthur Foundation. Simone Collins:Catherine t McArthur Foundation. Malcolm Collins:Yes. Simone Collins:The Catherine t Well, I wouldn’t recognize it if you don’t read it out the same way that they say it, but sure. Okay. The Catherine t MacArthur Foundation. Malcolm Collins:And and many other mainstream groups, such as the European AI and Society Fund, Civendes, Network of European Foundations, the Ford Foundation. Simone Collins:So this is what European AI does. It doesn’t actually help with AI development. It just gives money to Hamas? Malcolm Collins:No. They were giving money to groups... Well... Okay. So they were giving money to groups that then decided to stand in solidarity with a terrorist organization that was shut down for killing people in bombings, but they’re an antifa tied terrorist organization. and they’re like, well, you know, if it’s left wing, sometimes you just gotta kill them. You know? that’s that’s sort of, I guess, where they are at this point, in terms of ideological capture. So let’s go into this story. So break number one. Who are some of the voice actors who were caught up in this? And, I wouldn’t blame these voice actors much except for the fact that after it came out that this group is funding Hamas or had been caught doing that in the past. Like, we don’t know where their dollars went, but we know it had done this in the past. None of them have, like, recounted or been like, that was a mistake or this isn’t something that I would personally support, which concerns me. It shows in left wing circles, it’s more dangerous. And we’ll get into, like, why you might care about this organization of, like, institutionalized rape and torture that is, like, actively ongoing right now to the people in Gaza. It’s a bit like you think you’re giving money to help starving people in Mexico, and it’s going to the cartels. Like, there there is no way that this is like... The cartels are not pro Mexico. Okay? Like, Hamas is not pro the people of Gaza in any meaningful context. they are an exploitative organization that, did... It’s after the war ended was executing people in the streets. I I love the joke of, oh my gosh. They’re executing Hamas... Gazit citizens in the streets. Can you believe it? They’re like, no. I can’t. This is Hamas this time. Oh. Oh, okay. Whatever. Or, you know, get him some slack. So one was Johnny Lovasco of Genshin Impact. The other... Another is Alex Rontgen of the amazing digital circus and had minor roles in Poppy Playtime. I quite liked the amazing digital circus. I haven’t watched the whole thing, though, so I guess I don’t like it that much. But... And then the last one is Emmy Lowe of Apostecary Diaries, Cyberpunk Edge Runners, Genshin Impact, and Hanukkah Star Rail. This is the one that gets to me the most because I really like the... Both the character of Maumau in apostecary diaries and, apostecary diaries more broadly. And you do. It’s one of the only animes we watch together. Yeah. It’s so sweet. It’s so cute. But, anyway, so the gist of what happened here is a recurring annual fundraiser, raised by voice actress, Kawara Creed, who’s done approximately 120 English voice things in in anime, made a donation to operation branch or OOB. Now the reason why I wanna focus on these larger Muslim organizations and the repeated pattern of this is, in this instance, they only raised $6,000, which to me shows the lack of seriousness about this. I mean, given what they were doing, I’m actually kinda surprised they only did raise $6,000. Simone Collins:It’s a little embarrassing, but also... Phew. Malcolm Collins:Yeah. They had they had top level voice actresses on board, and, like, what they would do is you would donate an amount of money and then ask them to say what you wanted to say, like, you know, from the river to the sea or something like that. Right? And then they’d say it in the character’s voice. And I want to... This this gets interesting to a meta point here because I think for a lot of these people, they probably had good intentions. They’re, like, broadly aware of... Now I don’t know why they’re helping the Palestinians and not the much larger genocides that are currently occurring in, like, Darfur, but I... It’s it’s Muslims killing black people there, so who cares. Right? You know? Two oppressed groups doesn’t matter. but with the the case of the Palestinians, the the, you know, you can be like, okay. They’re they’re suffering. The challenge is is so often and so frequently, we see large respectable or have a veneer of respectability groups like this then end up giving the money to terrorism. and I think the... A lot of people are just very confused by this. Like, why is this happening, and how do we prevent this? Because it makes it very hard to help these groups. If there’s a community and, I mean, this happened even in The United States where they, god. Where were they... The Somalian immigrant population was scamming our government, but not just scamming it, but then sending the money to terrorist organizations. like, you give a starving person a dollar, and they decide they’re gonna give 50¢ to a terrorist organization. Like, what do you do about that? Like, how do you deal? And it’s not just at the level of donations. There’s also been a problem with any country that has taken in large numbers of Palestinian refugees. as people are aware, countries that have done the virtuous thing and taken in these populations have paid for it in the blood of innocent civilians. Yeah. They they they... In every instance. Simone Collins:So it’s not a good look. It’s really not a good look that Malcolm Collins:you try to take someone Jordanian Jordanian government in a violent coup after they graciously allowed them into their country and were paying to support them. they... In Denmark, there was a study on, like, how three generations in, there’s incredibly high rates of criminality in these populations. I think it’s 70% are involved in violent crime or or criminal organizations. Very, very high. Right? Like, they they just... It... It’s it’s systemic in the culture of of this region, and it makes it very difficult to help. Speaker 3:So I decided to ask AI if any region had ever taken in a significant number of Gaza refugees without their own civilians suffering and dying for it. And it said, which I think is indicative, Jordan comes closest to it, and that they couldn’t find other good examples. Now to understand how crazy this is, Jordan had Black September 1970 to 1971, in which cases, Palestinians arrived. The PLO and the Firidian built a state within a state. It was in refugee camps, running checkpoints, collecting taxes, and defying Jordanian authority. They hijacked planes at Dawson’s Field, triggered king Hussein’s army to act, and they killed thousands of Palestinian civilians. they they killed more Palestinian civilians than we’ve killed Iranian civilians since the start of this war. Just just Speaker 4:So after that, the same

    Muslim "Charities" Keep Supporting Terrorism: WHY?

  7. Oct 13

    The Islamic Golden Age Was Faked By Wikipedia: WTF!?

    Join us today on Based Camp as we wallow in the crisis of reality laid bare by yet another means by which people propagate fake historical claims: Inserting plausible claims “backed” by often-hard-to-check-but-proper-seeming citations into Wikipedia entries long enough for journalists, scholars, and museum curators to pick them up and essentially thread them in to the blockchain of reality. We examine how a single Wikipedia editor known as Jagged_85 inserted thousands of fabricated claims about Islamic inventions into the historical record (those edits spread into books, museum sites, and scholarly work through lazy sourcing and circular citations). We also cover the spider-swallowing urban legend, multiple other documented Wikipedia hoaxes, and the mechanics that allow plausible-sounding falsehoods to become accepted facts. Ultimately, we all need to more carefully examine why certain narratives persist and what this particular Wikipedia vandalism tactic reveals about verifying information online. Show Notes Spiders “The average person swallows 8 spiders a year” I heard on a podcast that “in a 1993 PC Professional article, columnist Lisa Holst wrote about the ubiquitous lists of “facts” that were circulating via e-mail and how readily they were accepted as truthful by gullible recipients. To demonstrate her point, Holst offered her own made-up list of equally ridiculous “facts,” among which was the statistic cited above about the average person’s swallowing eight spiders per year, which she took from a collection of common misbeliefs printed in a 1954 book on insect folklore. In a delicious irony, Holst’s propagation of this false “fact” has spurred it into becoming one of the most widely-circulated bits of misinformation to be found on the Internet.” Turns out they had lifted this fact from the Snopes page about the spider statistic HOWEVER, IT ALSO IS TOTALLY MADE UP. Click on the text from the Snopes page and they say: “tHis is a Big troLl Checking your sources is an essential part of the fact-checking process. It’s a good thing you’re checking this one specifically. While the 1954 book “Insect Fact and Folklore” is real, if you checked page 24 you would find that it says nothing about the “people swallow eight spiders per year” rumor, which likely originated decades after its publication. After failing to find any relevant material in the cited book, you may be led by your curiosity to discover that “PC Professional” and columnist Lisa Birgit Holst do not exist. The latter’s name, which many readers have successfully discovered, is an anagram of the phrase ‘This is a big troll.’ While some wish to credit us with the origins of this rumor, this urban legend pre-dated our own debunking. For example, the twelfth entry of a 1999 listicle titled “50 Top Pieces of Trivia“ states the “... average human eats eight spiders in their lifetime after they crawl into their mouths in their sleep.” This “easter egg” was created over 20 years ago in April of 2001 as wink to our long-time readers who were familiar with trolling we engaged in during the early days of the internet. We’re still on the hunt for the origins of this long-standing rumor. Let us know what the earliest instance of it is as you recall. Also, read more about False Authority and check out The Repository of Lost Legends.” This is a great example of some harmless “fact” spreading, but what about more insidious behavior? Jaggad_85 Check out Cremieux’s original post, The Invention of Islamic Invention. The opening: “Growing up, it was a common trope that cultures that we now associate with poverty, violence, and oppression were once world-leading in promoting prosperity and moral progress as well as the quintessentially human act of inventing. This popular belief was ultimately not driven by an earnest desire to promote awareness of empirically true but neglected facts. Instead, it was supported by anecdotes and quotations of dubious reliability and relevance, by scholarship that has turned out to be exaggerated or fraudulent, and by the promotion of these things in popular media. My favorite example of this has to do with the invention of many of the inventions credited to the so-called Islamic Golden Age by a rogue Wikipedia editor. Have you ever heard the name “Jagged_85”? If you’re a history buff, you’ve probably at least heard of some of his claims. For example: * Muslims invented funnels and sieves * Al-Razi invented dissolving substances and sublimation * Jabir ibn Hayyan invented cheese glue * Ibn Sahl first described the parabolic mirror * An Islamic water clock from the 12th century had the earliest copper pipes * Avicenna formulated momentum as weight times velocity * The Brethren of Purity proposed a heliocentric universe in the 10th century * Darwin drew on Ibn Miskawayh’s work to develop the theory of evolution * Al-Ghazali directly influenced Descartes’ later philosophical work There are many other claims I could add to this list: Taqi al-Din invented the telescope sometime in the 1570s; Avicenna discovered microorganisms; Muhammad ibn Musa discovered gravity between planets; Al-Biruni discovered elliptical planetary orbits; Al-Jazari invented flow regulators and feedback control; Raqqa had a major glass factory where 300 different glass recipes were used, or—most amazingly—Al-Battani discovered relativity a millennium before Einstein.” This is Another Angle of Vandalism Also see the manipulation of “Reliable Sources” on Wikipedia as chronicled by Trace Woodgrains: Reliable Sources: How Wikipedia Admin David Gerard Launders His Grudges Into the Public Record. Many Such Cases Wikipedia keeps a list of citogenesis cases—false or joke edits that left the site, were repeated by outside writers, and sometimes cited back. Some examples similar to Jaggad_85: * Alan MacMasters and the electric toaster. * In February 2012 University of Surrey students edited the toaster article to credit a fictional 1893 Edinburgh inventor named Alan MacMasters, complete with a manipulated photograph. * The claim lasted about a decade. It entered more than a dozen books in several languages, The Scotsman, The Mirror, a BBC cooking segment (a chef made a dessert in his honor), the Scottish government’s Brand Scotland site, a primary-school day, and a public nomination for the £50 note. * A teenager noticed the photo looked edited in 2022; the biography was deleted that year. * “Brazilian aardvark.” * In 2008 a student added “Brazilian aardvark” as a nickname for the coati. * The phrase spread to hundreds of sites, The Independent, the Daily Mail, and at least one University of Chicago Press book. * Editors later re-added it because outside sources now “confirmed” it. * The false name stuck long enough that some writers treated it as ordinary usage. * Jar’Edo Wens. * A 2007 joke edit created an Australian Aboriginal deity of “physical might” and “earthly knowledge” (the name is a play on “Jared Owens”). * It stayed up nearly ten years and was mentioned in books, including Theresa Bane’s Encyclopedia of Demons in World Religions and Cultures (McFarland, 2012), before being exposed in 2015. * The Washington Post covered the debunking. * Joseph Bazalgette’s sewer pipes. * A 2007 edit inserted a false anecdote about the diameter of London’s sewage pipes. * It was repeated by The Spectator, The Hindu, the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Museum of London (in modified form), and books on creative thinking, then cited back on Wikipedia into the early 2020s. * Catherine Hettinger and the fidget spinner. * Wikipedia attributed the fidget spinner to Hettinger on the basis of an unrelated 1993 patent. * In 2017 The Guardian and The New York Times repeated the claim. * The error remained on the article for years afterward. * Other circular cases. * A one-day 2007 edit crediting “Sir Malcolm Thornhill” with the first cardboard box reached at least two books and was later cited from one of them. * A false claim that Sacha Baron Cohen had worked at Goldman Sachs was picked up by news outlets and then used as a source. * After Maurice Jarre’s death in 2009, fabricated quotes were inserted and copied into obituaries, which were then cited. * A 2016 edit saying Mike Pompeo served in the Gulf War was repeated in news coverage and by Senator Marco Rubio before the CIA contradicted it in 2018. * An unsourced origin story for the Playboy Bunny name spread into books and newspapers. There are also some elaborate hoax articles, less clearly “believed outside.” * The Bicholim Conflict article (2007–2013) described a 1640–41 war between Portuguese Goa and the Maratha Empire that never happened, with footnotes to nonexistent books. * It was marked a Good Article and nominated for Featured Article before an editor checked the sources. Searches for the conflict mostly led back to the article itself, so it is a stronger example of internal failure than of outside republication. The formula for doing this is pretty consistent: * Make a false but plausible claim * Include citation (even if it doesn’t support it) * Hope it sits around long enough for a journalist, textbook writer, or museum website to copy it * Wait for other Wikipedia editors to then treat that claim as something that is independently confirmed Discussion What should this mean for our standards of evidence? My standard of evidence used to be “is in a peer-reviewed journal” but now I question that. Now we have to default back to a weird, weighted mix of things and see truth in terms of odds and not certainties, based on whether something is - Personally empirically provable - Multiply attested (extra points for chronologically/ideologically/etc. Different sources) - Not flattering to whoever shared the information - Plausible given other likely-true data Episode Transcrip

    The Islamic Golden Age Was Faked By Wikipedia: WTF!?

  8. Oct 12

    You Have Been Lied to About Stonewall (The Police Were Heroes)

    This episode examines the Stonewall riots through primary accounts and historical research, revealing the mafia-run bar’s exploitation of patrons via blackmail, stolen liquor, and unsafe conditions. It details how a small group of officers from another precinct uncovered police corruption and faced violent resistance while protecting lives without firing on the crowd. The discussion covers the bar’s operations, the limited role of certain figures in the events, the broader context of laws aimed at curbing disease spread, and how later narratives have rewritten the incident. It argues for recognizing the officers’ restraint and the raid’s focus on organized crime rather than the patrons themselves. Episode Transcript Malcolm Collins:Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Genuinely excited because digging into this subject has completely changed my understanding of the pivotal moment of the Stonewall riots, which is seen as a central part of the gay movement, but it’s sort of a founding moment. It was when the gays pushed back. Let me tell you what. We should absolutely be celebrating yearly the heroes of the Stonewall riot. Wow. The problem being the heroes were the cops. And I don’t mean this in a bombastic sense. I mean, the cops at the Stonewall riots genuinely were brave people saving lives, stamping out corruption, and in a genuinely harrowing situation. So, for people who are unaware, Stonewall was a mafia run bar. Okay? This mafia run bar ran on exploiting gay people, and we will get into this. We... They they would run campaigns where they would blackmail people. One admiral, ended up committing suicide because they were blackmailing him so aggressively. Simone Collins:Right. Because by the way, this is... This all happened in 1969, and this was when that could really, like, ruin your life. You know? Now it’s different. This was not then. Malcolm Collins:And all of the people... Everything you’ve heard, like, the transgender woman of color through the first break, she wasn’t even there. What? And and we have multiple accounts. Like Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Simone Collins:Wait. So she was just, like, later was like, yeah. It was there, and people believed her. Malcolm Collins:And and her her best friend who she said handed her the brick said, that didn’t happen, and she wasn’t there that day. Simone Collins:Best friend, former now, I guess. Ouch. Malcolm Collins:So, yeah, that’s all fabricated as well. It was almost all white men who were there. Oh, lord. Oh, I’m gonna paint a scene for you. Okay? Okay. So this bar had been paying the police, for cover protection, and they had been Simone Collins:Oh, wait. Wait. Wait. They they were paying off a corrupt police force. Malcolm Collins:They were paying off a corrupt police force. Simone Collins:Okay. Okay. Malcolm Collins:Okay. And the police force was letting them know whenever they were gonna do raids, and they would change the lights from blue to white, and everyone would change what they were doing because this was... So the the corrupt police were being paid off by this bar. And a internal... Like, a... Another precinct of police began to dig around. They’re like, Simone Collins:this Oh, but they were getting paid off. Malcolm Collins:Look really corrupt, and we need to figure out what’s going on. We need to break down whatever’s happening here. Simone Collins:And so Wait. Malcolm Collins:So they go in. They had only eight officers, including a couple of female officers. Oh. It was six male officers and a couple female officers. They entered a packed bar of around 200 people at 01:30AM. Okay? So they’re in this bar. You know, nobody expects to be, like, arrested or anything like that. Right? Yeah. Lot of these people who went in undercover to try to root out this police corruption are like, you know, we’re the police. We’re gonna start taking names. We’re gonna start arresting people. Now this bar is full of... You gotta understand who went to Stonewall at the time. A huge number of the people were homeless, thugs, gangsters. Keep in mind, this was a... Truly the worst of the worst. I mean, this bar was run by Catholics. I mean, the mafia. Goodness. Sorry. I’m choking there. but, no, truly, like, says, like, genuine dirty scumbags. People were not going there to find love. They were going there to find hookers and prostitutes. Right? Like, that’s what’s Simone Collins:big about. Enough to hold 200 people. I’m concerned. You’re just Malcolm Collins:a few police. Right? Six guys. 200 people. And then what happened is, obviously, because the bar was used to getting warned about this beforehand and you got a bunch of drunk gangsters in it Yeah. They decide, well, we’re gonna beat up these police officers who are trying to arrest people. So then the police call for backup. But the problem is is that the precinct that controlled that area that they were calling for backup was the one that they were busting for corruption. And so they didn’t send the backup. And so they ended up... Can you imagine how you are? And so the situation is getting worse and worse. They ended up getting everyone out of the bar and ended up like a zombie movie, boarding up the walls of the bar and stuff like that. Simone Collins:Oh my. What... Wait. Malcolm Collins:The the Simone Collins:ace hiding inside the bar? Malcolm Collins:Were what? Yeah. They were hiding inside the bar from Simone Collins:the How did they get... Did they, like, tear gas inside the bar to get it? What happened? Technology. Oh my god. Malcolm Collins:They they didn’t they didn’t have the preparation for what was about to happen. So, anyway, as the resistance started outside and the crowd grew, the officers ended up retreating inside the bar and barricading themselves. The crowd outside threw bottles, garbage, coins, and other objects. Somebody used a Coin Oh, no. Somebody used a parking meter as a battering ram to knock down the door. Oh, that’s where the coins came from. And there was attempt to set the building on fire while the police were barricaded inside, and it was set alight and apart, at a point. The... Pine, the officer, said it was more frightening than anything he had experienced in combat as a war war two vet. Simone Collins:Wow. When the gays and the mobsters are mad at you. Malcolm Collins:And you’ve gotta understand the restraint that the police are showing in this instance. These people are trying to beat them to death. No. They were severely injured. These people Oh, and Simone Collins:they get it. Were... Did they shoot? Did they Malcolm Collins:No. So the officer... Apparently, there was, like, an internal discussion, and they’re like, we really need to shoot our way out of this. Like, we’re gonna die here. And the officer was like, if we start shooting, this is gonna turn into a massacre. We have to hold out. So even from the perspective of the gay communities, they’re trying to shut down a bar that’s victimizing the gay community. The gay bunch of hoodlums who are looking for their prostitute that day are trying to break down the wall of of this particular building. Right? And they put their own lives on the line to protect the people trying to kill them, to not do what any sane officer... What I would have done in that instance, which is shoot my way out, which... I mean, holy... Really heroic stuff that we’re seeing here. They they literally lit the building on fire with them barricaded inside it. and we know for a fact that the... One of the trans... Plain trans people didn’t even come until the fire was already burning. and there was only two potential trans people that could have been a part of this, and neither was there at the beginning. Simone Collins:Only two? Well Yeah. It was really hard to be trans back then, to be fair. Were... Trans didn’t even exist. Weren’t they just called cross dressers Malcolm Collins:back cross dressers and and drag people, but they are... Have always been adjacent to gay culture and distinctly untrans. Wait. So they weren’t... Simone Collins:So these people were... Oh, did they call them did they call them transvestites? Is that it? Malcolm Collins:It’s a different thing. We’ll get to it later because we’re gonna talk about these two individuals because they were also terrible people. But Okay. We’re we’re we’re gonna Simone Collins:get into this more. So the injuries my gosh. Malcolm Collins:The police reports, one had a laceration on their eye. Another had a broken wrist, and there were bruises and other injuries, but a a broken risk trying to protect themselves at this place. Now this is all based on a book that Gay City News called the definitive historical account of the Stonewall event. That’s David Carter’s Stonewall, the riots that sparked the gay revolution. So the gay... Like, when we’re looking at stuff here, this is coming from the gay community. Okay? Okay. They did not see one of the trans people who we’re gonna talk about who claims that they started this. They weren’t even allowed to march at pride rallies. They were considered such a bad actor in the Simone Collins:Oh my gosh. Wow. But look at that. That was a time when the community policed itself and when they they, they expelled bad actors. That’s meaningful. We always talk about this. And a really core part of being successful community, especially if you’re a breakaway and weird or different in some way, is you have to police your own bad actors. And the... One of the worst things that happened to LGBTQIA plus whatever is they stopped policing their bad actors. Wow. Okay. Malcolm Collins:Yep. Well... And I’ve... And and and, I wanna be clear. And the, this is... And I mean very seriously. I I think that we should celebrate Stonewall every year with the kids as a celebration, and I think you should too. And I think that the conservative movement should ma

    You Have Been Lied to About Stonewall (The Police Were Heroes)
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About

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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