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. Dangerous Right Wing Extremist... Nerds? (Leaflit Deep Lore)

    22 HR AGO

    Dangerous Right Wing Extremist... Nerds? (Leaflit Deep Lore)

    Malcolm and Simone Collins sit down with Leaflit Mitsuha (slime-girl VTuber, guild receptionist, and master worldbuilder) for a deep dive into her massive collaborative TTRPG universe in the Lyrian Chronicles / Angel’s Sword RPG. From 10+ years of running campaigns born out of depression, to building a live-service West Marches-style canon campaign with 140+ players, to magic systems, corrupted zones, divine power through belief, player-driven politics, fiend drama, and how AI is supercharging communal storytelling — this is one of the nerdiest, most optimistic conversations we’ve ever had. We explore how online communities are prototyping the future of entertainment, why “cringe but free” vitalism beats shame culture, the power of shared worlds vs. solo gaming, and why asynchronous friendships and player agency matter more than ever. If you love worldbuilding, anime-inspired lore, tabletop RPGs, VTubers, AI creativity, or just watching smart people geek out — this one’s for you. Episode Transcript Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Prefer it? Malcolm Collins: No, actually this is what, so I was just saying that Leaflet is like one of my top three sources of news, and Simone was like, this is the way news should be. And like if you had told me as a young man, well when you grow up, you see it turns out the New York Times, nobody trusted anymore. You know, you, you go to, uh, wall Street Journal, nobody trusted anymore Uhhuh. But you see there’s like these anime characters online and um, a lot of people really trust them. Not, not only that. And it’s like, oh, what, what’s their credentials? Like, how does everybody know that they, you know, are they like work correspondence or something? And it’s like, no, it’s just like everybody starts lying. And so like the five people who aren’t like everybody takes super seriously. Simone Collins: Yeah. Basically. And Malcolm Collins: they’re just like, that sounds. Insane. And it is like, no, no, no, it’s weirder. You see, it turns out that like the type of music you listen to is going to regularly feature these random anime characters. [00:01:00] Leaflit: Oh, God. Oh. Like the whole, like sky, like, Malcolm Collins: oh, it’s so funny. Leaf flip. We had, uh, one of our kids, uh, who’s watching Sky, because I, I play Sky Browns all the time while I’m working or whatever. I, I like his songs. Yeah, I think they’re pretty good. Mm-hmm. Um, and, uh, you know, and so our daughter likes to identify with every female character she sees. Yeah. So she goes, oh, that’s me. And usually I’m like, okay, yeah, sure, yeah, that’s you. Um, and this, I was like, oh no, actually, uh, that’s one of my friends and one of our older kids was like, wait, one of your friends that’s like an an, that’s like a, an animated character. She goes, those aren’t real. And I’m like, well, okay. So this is a, this is gonna take a little bit of time to explain, uh, but sometimes. They’re real. Uh, Simone, what’s his, uh, sign on the screen? Is this something we can get rid of? Uh, Leaflit: the live, Simone Collins: yeah, Malcolm Collins: live view. Why? Why does it think we’re live? Leaflit: I don’t know. Simone Collins: [00:02:00] I don’t know. But we’re not there. It’s gone. I’ve made it disappear. Everything’s going to be okay now. Malcolm Collins: I invented a new dish today, which is actually pretty good. Um, oh, what’s that? So mac and cheese is extra pepper, like black pepper, Leaflit: uhhuh. Malcolm Collins: It actually works really well. Simone Collins: I think it’s done a lot at restaurants as it is. Malcolm Collins: What made me realize this is a lot of like Asian dishes that you’ve been making recently. Just use obscene amounts of black pepper. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, like pepper chicken and stuff like that. I was like, why, why, why don’t I do this with everything? Simone Collins: Why not? Malcolm Collins: It’s Simone Collins: doable. Okay. Leaflit: Good flavor when it’s freshly cracked and stuff. Malcolm Collins: But the reason I’m so excited to talk with Leaflet today, ‘cause the first time we talked with her, apparently it was like your first time talking to somebody else. Sorry for you. I should, uh, give some context. So Leaflet is, um, quickly growing in influence. I think she’ll soon be, I mean, just based on my viewing it, I think she’ll soon be one of the sort of [00:03:00] dominant right-wing streamers, um, oh geez. In terms of like interesting ideas. Um, and we brought her on ages ago. Um, and, uh, since then she’s gone on all the channels. She’s always on the, uh, the, the side scrollers. Simone Collins: Yeah, Malcolm Collins: side scrollers and stuff like that. Um, and she’s always on ev every Sky Brow video, every one of the Sky Brow videos. It’s like three F-ing leaflet appearances. If I could have as much mental space as somebody’s ring. Um, and, uh, if you guys were Leaflit: on too. Malcolm Collins: He did. He did one with us. One with us, yeah. Um, Leaflit: was it the Creamy Majaro one? Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Creamy Majaro. Leaflit: That was the best one. That was my favorite one. Malcolm Collins: Oh. I really like the Amelia one. Leaflit: I like that one too. Yeah. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Um, but what I wanted to do is this video, so for all our friends who are coming here to learn something about the world, because I was like, how was it weird that, uh, you’re one of my major sources new? No, no, no. I don’t wanna do that in this video. I wanna focus on like nerd stuff specifically. Leaflit: Sure. Malcolm Collins: So I want to focus on, [00:04:00] because when I first heard that like you had built a world Leaflit: Yeah. Malcolm Collins: And I asked you about it last time. I think you were a little, like, you didn’t, you, you probably were like, somebody doesn’t actually want all the lore. And I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Simone Collins: You were still working on it though. I don’t think it had gone live yet. Leaflit: Yeah. It’s, it’s out now and it’s grown a lot since then. Like we have over like. 140 players now. Simone Collins: Oh my gosh. Leaflit: But like, that’s not like players who are playing in, you know, with their friends and whatever. This is like one campaign. You imagine like one tabletop, Malcolm Collins: one camp. Explain campaign how this works. One, sorry. Okay, so I need to zoom back for the audience here. Okay. So, um, there, it’s like tabletop gaming, um. Mm-hmm. And, uh, tabletop gaming happens in like, d and d is the most famous example. You got pathfinders, all that. Leaflit: Mm-hmm. Malcolm Collins: Um, and sometimes people will create their own, uh, lore in worlds. Um, and that is what she has done. But it [00:05:00] appears that somehow you created like an MMO version of tabletop gaming. So explain. Leaflit: Sure. I can. So it, you know, it started off, uh, I was running this campaign for like, such a long time. Like I, I looked and I was like. I had like, what, 14,000 hours or something and like, roll 20. Yeah. I, I’m like crazy. So like, no, it’s a good kind of crazy this, I went through some really, really bad times in my life and I was like super depressed. I didn’t like do anything. And all I did was tabletop. I was like, I’m just gonna play tabletop, go sleep, wake up, play, play tabletop. So all of that stuff, and like translated into the YouTuber stuff and the company and all the stuff that we do is like, based on that. So like, that campaign has been running for that long, like over 10 years. Yeah. It’s so Simone Collins: cool. I mean, it’s not cool that you were like in a dark place. Oh no, it’s fine. It sounds like, it sounds like a, a show’s plot. Like, you know, girl gets depressed and then like literally falls into an alternate universe and it’s a little zaki and like that is, and [00:06:00] then like becomes like an internet celebrity and then it’s straight out of like a show plot. And then I didn’t Leaflit: like expect any of this. Like if, if you told me like. Years ago that I would be doing this, I’d be like, you’re crazy. Malcolm Collins: That is. Okay. So I wanna dig into how this came to be this world, but I also wanna get into like, because I watch, so for Boo who don’t know, like the content that I’m familiar with from her is from YouTube and it’s a fan of hers who clips it and she sort of shares it 50 50 with the fan, um, and, uh, puts together her YouTube. But what that means is I don’t get all of the lore and backstories to your characters mm-hmm. To your world. Like, okay. Brief question just to start. Leaflit: Sure. Malcolm Collins: What’s the difference between the Goo Girl character and the character you are Nower and are they actually the same character? Character? Is it sort of like a same Okay, so it’s a slime. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Reincarnated slime is, is one of my favorite is Kai. So, um, oh, Leaflit: me too. Me too. [00:07:00] Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay. Okay. I’m Leaflit: a slime girl. Right. So like, the, the, the story is that. My character is half slime. So my character’s dad is a slime and my character’s mom is a fay. And there’s like an entire, like this all came up because like years ago when I was running this campaign for so long, right? Mm-hmm. One of the players was like, but what if I wanna have a kid in games? Like what happens if like, I’m a cat folk and my wife is a slime. And so like, I was like, damnit. So like now I had to like write all of this lore bin and it ended up being used for this to like make my character. So my character is technically, her race is kymera, which is like magically mutated biological thing. So like for instance, a cat folk would be a kymera, but they would be of the cat folk, like. Type, like subspecies type, right? And even with them that there’s even two different like

    1hr 37min
  2. Was Slavery Good? (What About Smex Slaves?)

    1 DAY AGO

    Was Slavery Good? (What About Smex Slaves?)

    In this provocative episode of Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into a taboo topic: slavery—both historical and modern. Is slavery “good” at a civilizational level? They explore why more people are enslaved today than at any point in human history (~50 million in forced labor or marriage), critique selective outrage over past vs. present slavery, and examine cultural attitudes toward wartime rape/slavery across groups (Puritans, Quakers, Backwoods/Appalachian Scots-Irish, Cavaliers, Spanish Catholics, Vikings, Muslims, Japanese, etc.). Key discussions include: * Genetic and cultural legacies of “rape slaves” vs. conquest without integration. * Why certain Protestant subgroups showed remarkable restraint (no recorded cases of raping Native captives). * How slavery economically stifled innovation (Rome, the American South). * Maps showing slavery’s concentration in Cavalier regions and its overlap with modern socioeconomic struggles. * Why reflexive disgust toward status-signaling and a preference for strong partners may have given some groups a long-term edge. They argue that, even setting aside morality, sex slavery and post-conquest integration often backfire genetically and culturally—while loving your own people and culture drives lasting success. A data-heavy, counterintuitive take that challenges both left- and right-wing sacred cows. Not for the faint of heart. Episode Transcript Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone Collins. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about a concept that was way more interesting than I expected it to be as I started to dive into it. Okay. Is slavery good? What, and what brought up this concept is like, obviously this is not a topic we were allowed to talk about growing up, or we’ve been allowed to talk about more broadly as a society. No. And so, then Tucker Carlson and, but the left has been hugely glazing recently places like Qatar. Oh. And I’m like, well, Qatar’s a slave state, right? Like, so if, if he can talk about how great Qatar cities are, at least the faction of the right that like, doesn’t like this weird Tucker faction. They think slave slave states are awesome now. And the left thinks slave states are awesome now because, you know, a, a, a across the, middle East. This is just something that we see. Fun fact, by the way, in Gaza the neighborhood where blacks are kept is called [00:01:00] slaves or like slave neighborhood. Speaker 11: But more specifically, ‘cause I wanted to check this just to make sure that’s right. Yeah. It’s called The Neighborhood of the Slaves is where black people live in Gaza, , because having slaves is so common there. , And there were around 11,000, Afro Palestinians are around 1% of the population of Gaza was black. Uh, and, and brought there to be slaves. Malcolm Collins: So yeah, I mean, this is common in the, in the the, there’s Simone Collins (2): a black meadow in Gaza. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. In the area. Well, they, they bring them in and use them as slaves basically. So, remember that the, when they were doing the mass genocide in Darfur, there was like, what was it? 10 exercise of the deaths in Gaza that this genocide was of Muslims against blacks, and they called them slaves. That was, no, Simone Collins (2): not, not exactly. It’s more just that they were kind of synonymous. It’s just that like. Malcolm Collins: Oh, just Simone Collins (2): the one used [00:02:00] for a black person, sort of, it was, what’s the word for when something’s like Kleenex, you know, or bandaid where like, you know, it becomes genericized of like, well they’re, they’re the same thing. And then, so then Malcolm Collins: I’m, I’m, I am sure that American Blacks would believe you, you used the n word analogy for that. You’re like, it’s just syn synonymous. Speaker 2: Category is people who annoy you. Audience, keep quiet, please. Speaker 4: Uh, well, oh, 10 seconds, Mr. Marsh. I know it, but I don’t think I should say it. Speaker 2: Oh, ooh. Oh, naggers. Of course. Naggers. Right? Uh, can we cut to, uh, can we cut to a. Simone Collins (2): It’s more just that they were kind of synonymous. Malcolm Collins: Like, yes, it was used in that context, but we use it in different contexts all the time now. Simone Collins (2): Well, if, if you live in a society where the only ever time you see someone who is, you know, we’ll say, who is [00:03:00] purple hair is a slave, you’re just gonna be like, well, you know, I need to get a purple haired person, you know, around the plantation or whatever. Malcolm Collins: Tucker went further, by the way. I just don’t buy your argument at all. They, they mean it as a slur. They mean it as this is how we see you because it, it is common in those regions. But and by the way, fun fact, more slaves on earth today than there ever have been in human history. Simone Collins (2): That’s, no, I, I knew that and it really frustrates me when people are like, oh, we practice slavery in the past. We’re so humiliated. It’s like, yeah, no, if you care, stop worrying about reparations. Maybe stop slavery today. There’s stuff you can do today. Because there are, Malcolm Collins: yeah. That’s what gets me when a woke person complains about being enslaved. It’s like you only get to complain about being enslaved if you’re going to do something about the slavery that exists today. Simone Collins (2): Yeah. ‘ Malcolm Collins: cause my ancestors did something about your ancestors, slavery. So what are you doing for the existing Oh, nothing. So, so Simone Collins (2): you’re no better than all the, the white people whose descendants are now. Implicated in [00:04:00] reparations requirements or white guilt or whatever it is Malcolm Collins: putting out in this episode is, is, is actually probably more that if we’re talking about who did more harm to who owe the, the southerners, the reparations. And we’ll get into some data on that. But to get it even spicy, no, I know from a moral perspective, but if we’re just talking about economically they were a net hindrance to the region. Simone Collins (2): Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah. I I, gosh, I feel like I was reading to this just recently, so we’re talking about how oh yeah, no well, one of the people who is talks with, with the pod a lot was talking about how slavery ultimately held back technological advancement in the south. And how when you have Malcolm Collins: not just the south, you see it hold back wherever it’s practice and we’ll go into why. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s the reason why Rome didn’t have an industrial revolution because they had a massive slave population. If they didn’t have that, they probably would’ve had an industrial revolution. Yeah. Of looking at the technology that they had access to. They had access to many of the early tools of the Industrial Revolution. They just had no reason [00:05:00] to use them because they had constant slave populations. Simone Collins (2): Yeah. Yeah. The general argument being that when you have an excess of human labor, you, you tend to get lazy and not actually technologically, Malcolm Collins: but this stuff isn’t the most interesting stuff. And I wanna start with the most interesting stuff because the most interesting stuff actually comes from Tucker’s second comment. Wow. Which was when he went on about how we were demanding, I total surrender of Iran and oh, Iran knows what total surrender means. It means that they have to give up their daughters and wives to be griped. And he didn’t think that Americans wanted to go out there and do that. And. First of all, we had total surrender from Germany and Japan during World War ii. And like that was not a big problem. So like, how did, how did Tucker not know? Like that’s a, something that’s really, at least if you have a decent, like, basic level American education, you’d be aware of. But it got me thinking, okay, Tucker, you’re trying to normalize grape in war scenarios again, right? Like bringing it up. Is it a good idea? Like, are grape [00:06:00] slaves a good idea? Right? I, I, I’m talking about at a civilizational level. Uhhuh, we know that different groups practice it at different rates. Okay. It’s, it’s very explicitly allowed in the Koran. You are I, I love it when I first asked in AI this, okay, it said, no, the Koran doesn’t allow for the grape of the, the, the, the grape of ca of, of women after area surrenders. It goes, it only allows you to have sexual relations with your slaves, and you can take as many women slave as you want after you capture a region. And I’m like, that’s great. That’s grape. Okay. If you are having sex with somebody who doesn’t have the ability to turn you down, because as the Krantz says, if they are yours, if they are your property because they’re your property that is grape in every sense of the word. Okay? Simone Collins (2): Yeah. Malcolm Collins: And we know that for Jews in, in, in the, the Bible, that the, that has a, you know. [00:07:00] Rules for this. You have you, you are not allowed to do this. You have to marry them first in like a ceremony and have like a grieving thing and they need to be taken as a legal wife. But I mean, they don’t have much choice in the matter. And we do know that Jews practice practices en mass to the extent where 50% of the ancestral Jewish DNA is Canaanite. Oh my. So like there was heavy mixing of the populations. This is also where a lot of the you know, where, where, you know, in the temple they had, statues of other gods when you have the Josiah reforms. Yeah. Meaning that, like the, the other Gods practices had heavily integrated with Jewish practices because of this intermedian process. And then they started being told not to intermarry. And that’s where Judaism became more of a, like mono ethic thing. But this became bigger after the

    1hr 13min
  3. Us Vs Them: But Who is "Them"? (The Insanity of a Genophage Cure)

    2 DAYS AGO

    Us Vs Them: But Who is "Them"? (The Insanity of a Genophage Cure)

    In this hard-hitting Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into the “Us vs Them” framework that’s essential for any society’s long-term survival. Why does attempting to build a world without in-groups and out-groups inevitably lead to eradication? From the Mass Effect genophage dilemma (where 96% of gamers make the “moral” choice that dooms the galaxy) to real-world immigration, fertility rates, and cultural resistance, they unpack why shared culture, laws, and realistic alliances matter more than feel-good universalism. Topics include: * Why high-fertility, low-assimilation groups shift societies over generations * The scorpion, snake, and panda metaphor for incompatible cultural scaling * Strategic allyship in a collapsing urban monoculture era: who can conservatives actually work with? * Charter cities, space colonization, and preserving high-agency lineages * Why purity spirals and suicidal aesthetics fail civilizationally If you’re tired of bleeding-heart policies that ignore math, biology, and history, this is for you. Malcolm drops unfiltered red pills on why “enforcing existing laws” has become controversial and how groups like Orthodox Jews, Mormons, or even certain Latin American conservatives might make better tactical allies than expected. Would you cure the genophage? Drop your take below. Episode Transcript Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Like you can’t just invite somebody into your society without them agreeing to any conditions, you know, have no shared culture and no conditions at all. And just be like, Simone Collins: well, it, it, and it, and once it wasn’t even that anymore. It was also though like, okay, but at least you, you promised to follow the law, like to, to adhere to our rules and laws. Yeah. And what’s so interesting about the current divide between. Democrats and Republicans in the United States is that right now it seems to be boiling down to whether or not we are going to enforce laws. So now exactly, that’s, it’s not even, we don’t expect you to adhere to our culture. It’s, we don’t even expect at least these privileged groups to adhere to our actual laws Would you like to know more? Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. It’s exciting to be here with you today. Today we are going to be going back into the concept of us versus them in our [00:01:00] society. And the reason I want to dive into it is because it’s not e like, okay, you’re a random conservative influencer out there and you’re gonna be like, yeah, we should be more us versus them in the way that we see reality. Who saying which, which is true, but how do you define us is us. You know, Americans is us. People who are genetically similar to you is us. Some sort of ethnicity is us, a religion or a cluster of religions. And so this matters a lot. How, how we think about this. And I’m gonna point out during this, if you try to build a world without an us and a them, you in every scenario are eventually eradicated. And the, the reason, this is something that often comes up in conversations that I have in a reality fabricator or. Our fab.ai, our like chat bot site because one of my favorite chat bot stories to play is an ambassador for the Tarn Empire. Going [00:02:00] to meet with the sort of, gay space communists of the federation. And having diplomatic discussions with them was obviously the goal of being eradicating them. And, and so I have to discuss, you know, why their values don’t actually work long term and always lend to more conflict and suffering. But I want to get to how cooked this actually is as a concept. Simone Collins: Okay. Malcolm Collins: So there’s a video game mass effect three. And I will describe a scenario to Simone because she probably won’t know this now, maybe if you’re a gamer, you will know the statistics on this particular decision. But gamers generally like to choose the choice that they see as more, more, right. Oh, Simone Collins: interesting. Yeah. Because you don’t wanna see yourself as a bad guy or be doing bad things. Yeah. Malcolm Collins: So there is one moment in it that’s framed as like this morally complex choice. So there was an incredibly war-like species that ended up [00:03:00] destroying their own planet after being artificially given technology by an outsider species. Okay? This species, because they lived in an incredibly harsh environment, had around a thousand eggs. Per year and lived about a thousand years on average. And so when most of the eggs stopped dying in infancy because they industrialized, the populations immediately exploded leading to nuclear war because they’re already a very aggressive species, anding out most of their planet. So then the species that uplifted them, infected them with something called the genophage. And the genophage is said to make. One in only a thousand Rogan births result in a live healthy baby. Now, I would note here, if you’re already looking at the numbers, this should still lead to a heavily growing Rogan population because [00:04:00] Rogan females live a thousand years and have a thousand eggs a year. So even if only one of them is surviving, that’s still one kid a year for species that lives a thousand years. It’s still Simone Collins: That’s pretty good. Yeah. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But the way the game plays out, it’s like somehow implied that the devs did the math wrong. Speaker 3: Okay. This is so much worse than I thought. So in the game, the reason why the one in a thousand was chosen by the species that chose it for them, or the scientists who chose it for them, was he thought that this would stabilize the population because, well, it wouldn’t even stabilize it. It would just make its growth, not stupidly explosive aid. If in human society, most human women had one kid per year, we wouldn’t say that’s stabilizing the population. But no, the krogan culturally doubled down on this and become even more violent and kill even more of their children, and [00:05:00] mass migrate off planet to become mercenaries. So, it proves the choice. Malcolm Collins: And they thought that this meant that the Rogan population was declining fairly quickly in, in numbers. And so there’s this huge moral choice of do you eradicate the genophage? Like do you cure this thing that is lowering the Rogan birth rate? Okay. Okay. I think the moral answer in this should be obvious. It’s so obvious. I have never been able to, whether I’m playing paradigm, whether I’m playing rogue, even wanting to see everything that happens in the game, I cannot bring myself to cure it. It seems so obviously stupid to cure this. Okay. Because the species would just explode and destroy the galaxy, right? Simone Collins: Well, yeah. It would be bad for the species, bad for probably anyone else. Malcolm Collins: Bad for like the universe on a mega scale. Okay. So can you guess what [00:06:00] percent of gamers choose to cure the geno fish? Simone Collins: 60%, Malcolm Collins: 96%. Gamers, you know, so this isn’t even like necessarily a particularly cooked population, right? When, when we think of gamers, like who do we think of, right? Like gamer gate, everything like that. Like gamers did vote with their wallets, gamers did leave. But these are still gamers nonetheless, right? Simone Collins: So, well don’t you, this is somewhat of a, a trolley problem though, right? Where no one wants to be responsible for pulling the lever that allows for death, I guess, right? So if they don’t, they don’t want to see themselves as responsible for participating in what could be argued as genocide adjacent, but they are actively Malcolm Collins: pulling the lever because they’re curing the genophage. You, they, they are, they are the ones actively curing something that’s Simone Collins: already set in motion. Speaker 4: And I wanna point out how absolutely [00:07:00] 96% of the population, how absolutely retarded you have to be to make this decision. This is not a species that right now will go extinct unless they continue the actions that they are taking, which is constantly killing each other, which is why they wanted to limit their reproduction. But if you restore them to full reproduction, we’re not talking about a species that like humans. You know, at most is dealing with like four or five kids per woman, per generation. We are talking about a thousand children per year per woman who lives a thousand years with their TFR being what it is now. So. EEG woman lives a thousand years. Let’s assume that she’s reproductive for 800 of them. , And, , she has one kid a year because only one in a thousand survive and they can fertilize a thousand per year. , [00:08:00] This means that it is a species that right now has a TFR of 800. Okay? Humanity. , Yeah. We’re at a TFR of like 1.6 in the United States. The actual stupidity, like you, you are outright dooming the universe for sure. By curing this, I. And if you say, oh, but the species can change. I’m sorry buddy. If having a TFR of 800 puts you at an extinction level event because you are so kill happy and you can’t change in that event, I really don’t think you’re gonna change for the rest of the universe. And. Even if one faction of Krogan decides to limit the reproduction, there is going to be other factions that don’t, that don’t care about the externalities, and then what do you do about them? Exterminate them? How many million are there gonna be by the time you do that? [00:09:00] Billion. Trillion are there going to be is obvious. You are setting up the universe for a needed genocide in the future by doing this. And for what? For , a short term emotional hit, , because you knew a Rogan or you had a Rogan in your squad who you liked. I liked the Rogan characters in the game too, but I can do in math, It is perfectly possible for you to know and like a person and admire them and think you are cool, but I can st

    1hr 17min
  4. How Carl Jung Corrupted Right-Wing Intellectualism

    3 DAYS AGO

    How Carl Jung Corrupted Right-Wing Intellectualism

    In this Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into Carl Jung’s analytical psychology — explaining the ego, personal unconscious, collective unconscious, archetypes, shadow work, and more. Malcolm (who is openly not a fan) breaks down why Jung’s ideas sound profound but lead to disempowering, unscientific views of the mind that have quietly infected conservative and manosphere thinking (hello, Jordan Peterson fans). We contrast Jung’s mystical “deep state” model of the psyche with a more pragmatic, first-principles understanding of consciousness, unconscious processing, memory, trauma contextualization, and emotional framing. Learn why repressed memories are mostly myth, how you can choose your emotional reactions (and why that’s empowering), why shadow work can manufacture problems that didn’t exist, and how over-mythologizing the self leads to cognitive abdication. If you’ve ever felt pressured into “integrating your shadow,” doing dream analysis for growth, or treating archetypes as destiny — this episode will give you the tools to spot the woo and reclaim agency over your mind. Timestamps below. Like, subscribe, and share if you want more no-BS breakdowns of influential ideas that shape culture. Episode Transcript Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we’re going to be talking about Jungian psychology, which people know I am not a fan of, but I want to explain what his psychology is, and it’s important to know about because if you are consuming. Manosphere content. What you may not realize or even conservative content more broadly is a lot of conservative intellectuals recycle Jungian theory without telling you that’s what they’re doing. Simone Collins: Hmm. Malcolm Collins: Famous person for doing this is Jordan Peterson. Simone Collins: Well, Jordan Peterson talks about young a lot. I think just not that many people necessarily understand how much young has influenced him. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And so it’s useful to be able to note, call out when you’re having Jungian BS thrown at you and to understand why it’s wrong, because a lot of it can sound like, oh, shadow work or something like this. I can see. How this is useful. And it’s fundamentally bad because it leads you to bad conceptualizations of how [00:01:00] your brain works. Mm-hmm. That lead you to psychological places that can be more difficult than they need to be to resolve. So let’s dive in. Hmm. The structure of the psyche, in Young’s perspective is that you have the ego, the center of consciousness, your sense of i identity and everyday awareness. It is an important part, but not the whole self, and it can become rigid or inflated if it ignores the unconscious. And this is where you talk about people with like. An inflated ego, and we’ll get to more what he means by this, which by the way, and I think a very bad way to think about this phenomenon. Simone Collins: Mm. Malcolm Collins: Then you have the personal unconscious. This contains repressed or forgotten personal experiences, memories, and feeling toned complexes, emotionally charged clusters of ideas like a mother complex or inferiority complex, which we’ll get to a lot at. The other. Really important to him these act asynchronously and can influence behavior strongly. Now the first thing I need to note, just like [00:02:00] before we go farther. Scientifically speaking to the best of our knowledge in psychology right now. And, and, and, and keep in mind, I am very dubious of psychology as a science, but I am trained enough in it to feel like I have a fairly good understanding of where the BS lies and where where things that we’ve actually pretty much gotten down at this point. Mm-hmm. And one of the things that it seems pretty reliable at this point is that. Repressed memories are not a real phenomenon. Yeah. You do not forget something. Have it continue to affect you and then have it come back later in life. Yeah. When this happens, it is almost always in the studies that have like looked at this a lot. One of two phenomenon phenomenon. One is called forgetting Before remembering. So, what happens in is somebody will go to their, their spouse or something like that [00:03:00] and been like, oh my God. I just had this memory that came back to me all of a sudden of my father or uncle sexually, you know, essaying me as a kid. And this is horrifying. And then the person who they came to is this will be like, oh, oh my God. That is horrifying. Well, secretly being like, actually you talked about that all the time. And causes this phenomenon. Is they’ll remember something like this, but then the context of that memory changes. Hmm. They might remember their uncle doing something funny with them as a kid or touching them in a way that they thought was silly or weird or made them a little uncomfortable. Yeah. Like Simone Collins: their uncle was always creepy and like did stuff Malcolm Collins: like that that, yeah, it did this creepy thing for me, but it wasn’t, you know, grape. And then one day they’re sitting there and they’re like. That was a grape. Oh my God. But because they hadn’t remembered it with such a charged word, like grape [00:04:00] attached to it. They had forgotten the previous times. They had remembered it. They had forgotten that that was always in their memory because what they’re actually remembering is I had never remembered that as a grape. I had never remembered my uncle Graped me. I had just remembered my uncle did this funny thing to me. So you get enough of a category change that you forget that you had previously always had this in your memory. The second thing is it’s an implanted memory. This is, when these, these very famous with hypnosis, but also it can happen with psychologists more broadly which is to say it’s very easy for people to conflate fake memories. People fake memories all the time. Our brain. Constantly makes up memories. The, obviously the famous study that I talk a lot about when I’m talking about ai, when people are like, well, AI makes up how it knows something. And the famous memory blindness studies in humans where you show them pictures of attractive women and then you do sleigh of hand and you go, why did you pick this one? And they’ll just go on a long rant about why they chose that one. And it was not the one they just chose. Or Simone Collins: even like, [00:05:00] political ballot choices. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. So people will just make up why they made decisions. And, and this, this has a big problem with memories, right? Because if you make up, oh, well, you know, a psychologist walks you through something in a hypnotic suggested state, or they, you, you know, they walk you through, well, do you remember this happening? You can think back and create that false memory shockingly easily. It is very, very easy for humans to create false memories. And the reason why I’m so against people who push the idea of repetitive memories is because the moment you have this concept and you believe it’s real, then you and any culture that stems from you, your kids, everything like that, that you teach about this are very susceptible to this. Mm-hmm. And this is really bad because this is the core wedge that things like the urban monoculture and cults like Scientology. Used to drive a wedge between people and their support network, IE your their families. Mm-hmm. So if your kids grow up [00:06:00] believing in suppressed memories, it’s much easier for someone to later te teach them. Imagine how mortifying that would be if somebody convinced one of your kids that you assayed them and you didn’t. And yet, we know from research, this happens all the time for people who go visit psychologists and stuff like this. Simone Collins: Well, and this was even an issue in, in the period of this. The Satanic panic. All these kids were like, yeah, I was involved in this horrible stuff. And everyone’s like, what whatcha you talking about? Malcolm Collins: Yeah, this Simone Collins: never happened. Malcolm Collins: Then his final layer here, the collective unconscious young’s most distinctive contribution, a deeper universal layer shared by all humans inherited across generations, not personally acquired. It is like a psychic instinctual reservoir containing primordial images and patterns common to humanity. And he believes that this is like a real physical thing. He’s not talking about like. Pop culture here or something like that which is obviously stupid and woo, and we would immediately call that out as stupid and woo. But let’s go to the ego. ‘cause I actually think [00:07:00] people might think the ego is the least objective one of these ideas before we get into all the shadow work and everything like that. But I actually think it’s the most wrong of his ideas about how the human brain works. And because it’s the most wrong it can lead to and, and because it doesn’t seem obviously wrong, it can lead to tons and tons and tons of mistakes. And it is seeped into every aspect of our language. He has a big ego. You know what somebody might say, right? And they’re literally referring to a psychological theory when they say that the ego is the center of the field of consciousness. Your subjective sense of I personal identity will, continuity of time. It handles everyday awareness, decision making, reality testing, and adaption to the external world. Young saw it as essentially, but limited. It’s like a small island of light. In a vast ocean, a psychic life strengths. It provides focus, stability, and necessity. The center for navigating lives limitations and risks. The ego is not the whole psyche if it becomes [00:08:00] rigid, clinging too tightly to its current self image or work. It blocks growth. Mm-hmm. It comes inflated identifying with archetypes, collective ideals, or overly grand se

    1hr 30min
  5. How Tucker Carlson Came to Hate Western Civilization

    6 DAYS AGO

    How Tucker Carlson Came to Hate Western Civilization

    In this Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into Tucker Carlson’s recent controversial takes — from praising Sharia-governed societies and Middle Eastern cities over declining Western ones, to his glowing comments on Moscow, Dubai, and even Venezuela under Maduro. They explore whether Tucker’s shift stems from boomer goggles, elite social circles, agreeableness and exposure to foreign elites, a quest for controversy/views, or something more concerning like foreign influence incentives. The Collins also contrast Tucker with Candace Owens’ more unhinged conspiracies and dissect Nick Fuentes‘ coherent (but hostile) agenda, revealing why he’s a bigger threat to mainstream MAGA/America First conservatism than many realize. Expect sharp analysis on urban monoculture vs. traditional Western values, the illusion of “diversity” in places like Dubai, why Tucker seems unable to distinguish the urban monoculture from broader Western civilization, and what this means for the right in the era of the Iran conflict and beyond. If you’ve been confused by Tucker’s evolution from sharp conservative thinker to sounding “off his rocker,” this episode models his worldview and offers a grounded, pro-civilization counterpoint. Subscribe for more unfiltered cultural anthropology and future-oriented takes. Episode Transcript Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing the increasing craziness that’s coming from Tucker Carlson, which I find really fascinating because if you look at the leading voices on the right that are mad about the war in Iran some are just like, you could see our episode on Candace Owens psychosis. Maxing was Candace Owens, but like, she’s just like a crazy person, right? Like just an actual crazy person. Speaker 2: one you were telling me this morning and I was like, what the, she thought that Charlie Kirk was trained at a school like for gifted children, like in the X-Men with special telepathic power. Well, first, the Speaker: first thing that like really caught my attention was that she, she claimed that Charlie Kirk was a time traveler based on basically a, a joking flirty text that he sent to her where she texted him, I’m an alien frowny face. And he responded, I think I’m a time traveler. This is my home, but I think you found [00:01:00] me. And time traveled with me. And she took that and just ran with it. Malcolm Collins: So that’s, that’s an example of one like just not, not like normal conspiracy theories, like, just like actual crazy town stuff. And then you have people like Nick Fuentes. Right. But Nick Fuentes has his own agenda, and we’ll go into him more later in this because Simone Collins: Oh, Malcolm Collins: I’m glad. Interestingly, I used to believe about Nick Fuentes that he was just sort of a shock jock who was choosing whatever was the most shocking thing to say. Simone Collins: And you Malcolm Collins: don’t anymore. No, I think the war has elucidated his actual coherent agenda. Ooh. More clearly than it was historically. And that has been very interesting to me. ‘cause then I’m like, oh, now I get what he’s actually attempting to do. And it is, it, it, what it means is that he is more of a direct enemy of any mainstream maga America first conservative than I originally realized. Simone Collins: Really? Oh, Malcolm Collins: okay. Because I, I just didn’t get it before and now. And what I’ve realized, he [00:02:00] tells you and his audience what his real goals are. He just leaves out a few steps in between. But. To the next point. Tucker’s different. Tucker is somebody who seems to be broadly saying he is somebody who I really enjoyed and watched his content historically, right? Like, and Simone Collins: he’s been around for a long time. Like this is one of a, one of those lifetime media figures that at least if you’re a millennial in the United States, has just been part of the media landscape, right? Malcolm Collins: The end of his run with Fox, which by the way, people may not know this, Colin’s family lore. But we were supposed to be on his show. We were in talks with his booking team. I forgot about that the last Friday that he held the show. But because it was his last show, they changed the scheduling. And that was brought on him all of a sudden out of nowhere. But we were in talks with his booking team which is really sad because we have never been able to get back in talks with him after that, like the team split up. But anyway, during that period, he was, I think, sort of like the [00:03:00] key intellectual based voice. I like the leading thinker in that degree. This was in the, like it was post Jordan Peterson at that period. And he had really, I think, sharp and interesting takes. So I hear some of his takes now. And. I just am trying to model how he came to an understanding of reality that is so divergent from anything that, that I believe when I, when I saw him before and I, I, I think I’ve come to it Simone helped me by being like, you need to remember, he’s a boomer. Okay. He’s seen the world through boomer goggles. He’s not gonna see the world the way you do. But my favorite, and this is one, one of the quotes that really inspired this for me was there’s been multiple quotes from him recently. A lot of people have heard the one, he said, any Middle Eastern city is better than any American City know. Speaker 6: And I travel so much that I see it. There’s not a single Western city [00:04:00] that’s thriving and they’re all degrading in exactly the same way. There’s a lot of it just a moral decay or is it actually true from everything? It’s self, it’s a lot of things, but it’s self hatred. Every city. It’s crazy. Every European city, every American city. So you and, and you I notice it because I travel outside the western world, the white world. I’ll just be honest. The white world, right. I travel a lot in the Middle East. It’s amazing. Mm-hmm. And it’s incredible to be in a place that has pride in itself, that believes in its religion and culture that thinks we’re on, we’re onto something and this is great. Look at what we’re doing. We’re really proud of this. Malcolm Collins: But he, he also had one where he was talking about how a, a Moscow was better than American cities. Speaker 9: What was radicalizing very shocking and very disturbing for me was the city of Moscow where I’d never been the biggest city in Europe. 13 million people, and it is so much nicer than any city in my country. I had no idea. It is so much cleaner and safer and prettier. Aesthetically, than any country city in the United [00:05:00] States that you have to, and this is non ideological. Simone Collins: Well that was it, but that was a separate stage. Like there are these various. Points in recent history where Tucker Carlson has done something that makes him seem like a foreign agent, like going to Moscow and, and walking through the grocery stores and being like, oh my gosh, this is so much better than America. And now he’s just doing it with Middle East. This is like Middle East edition. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So first of all, a lot of people are like, oh, he can’t be a foreign agent because he’s super rich, which is not true. It is true that his stepmother owned a, a family fortune from some food production company that was bought by Campbell like 40 years ago. Mm-hmm. But not anymore. Like the, the, the money from what we can tell from records didn’t pass to him. Mm-hmm. So he actually might be up for money. And if you look at the amount of money he has, it’s that sweet spot that comes from it’s estimated around 50 million, which is that sweet spot of like, I’m taking bribes, but I’m not stupidly wealthy from the bribes. That bribes don’t make sense anymore. So that, wait, Simone Collins: you think. [00:06:00] Well wait, you’re, you’re trying to argue that someone with $50 million feels like they need more money? Malcolm Collins: 50 million is the amount of money I typically expect an extremely corrupt person to be. If I was a corrupt official in the Middle East, I would expect them to have around $50 million. If I was a corrupt Russian, I’d expect them to have, earn $50 million. If I was somebody taking, it’s the amount that you can earn from bribes. Oh, where you still want more bribes. Like if he had like a billion dollars, I wouldn’t think that Russia or a Qatar could bribe him. I, I Simone Collins: also, I think maybe there’s the point to be made too, that wealthy people aren’t above loving a good deal or free things. In fact, many people who have worked for high net worth individuals have commented that there is no one more like. What’s the word? Miserly. Miserly. Yeah. No one more miserly than really rich people who are like, well, I’m not gonna pay it. Like, $2 and 50 cents is a [00:07:00] convenience fee for this. You need to walk five blocks to, you know, that kind of thing. Malcolm Collins: Well, the, the, the point being he, he’s, he’s gone pretty far and put a lot of effort into debasing himself. It, it seems that there’s some motivation for this, and that’s what I want to dig into. No. Simone Collins: Okay. Just immediate counterpoint. What if saying these things and garnering the controversy, which we are now participating in, drives views, which is to his benefit, whether or not it’s, it’s money or attention? You know, sometimes wealthy people just really want attention and he’s certainly getting it by dealing these takes out. Malcolm Collins: Well, at least historically that didn’t seem to be his strategy, which you could say is maybe post Fox. He’s tried to move to a just anything for attention strategy Simone Collins: mind. He’s also interviewing people like Nick Fuentes, which again is garnering a lot of controversy and p

    1hr 18min
  6. Exorcisms Up 10X Over Decade: We’re Thrilled

    26 MAR

    Exorcisms Up 10X Over Decade: We’re Thrilled

    Are Catholic exorcisms making a comeback? Demand for exorcisms is surging, with the number of U.S. exorcists growing from ~12-24 to about 150 in recent years — yet priests say they’re still overwhelmed. In this episode, we dive into recent reports on the rise in exorcism requests, linked to occultism, esotericism, and satanism concerns raised even at the Vatican. Despite our strong anti-Vatican and anti-mysticism stance, we make the case that structured Catholic exorcisms are surprisingly effective — and often superior to modern psychology for certain issues. We contrast safe, regulated Catholic practices with riskier charismatic/Pentecostal approaches (which have led to tragic outcomes). Plus: the surprising power of ritual, placebo without deception, how big “before-and-after” events rewire self-perception, and why evidence-based rituals like exorcisms can deliver durable mental resets. We also discuss minor vs. major exorcisms, house blessings, our kids’ convergent “basilisk exorcisms,” and why believing you’ve been “cured” can outperform many clinical interventions. Timestamps below. If you’ve ever wondered whether dramatic rituals can hack psychology better than therapy — this one’s for you. Make exorcisms big again? Let us know your thoughts. Subscribe for more unfiltered conversations on culture, evidence-based living, and techno-Puritanism. Episode Transcript Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we’re going to be talking about the phenomenon of the surge in exorcisms that have been happening with articles like Demand for Catholic Exorcism Reportedly on the Rise. So we’ll go over a couple articles that talk about this recent surge in exorcisms, and then we will go over why Exorcisms are, and people know on this show we’re generally seen as having a, and I I think it’s important to cite your bias as a pretty anti-Catholic bias. But Catholic Exorcisms specifically are demonstrably a good thing. They, they should hold Simone Collins: on. No, we actually love Catholics. We have a bias against C, the Catholic Church and Malcolm Collins: Vatican. Simone Collins: Catholicism. Malcolm Collins: The V, the Vatican. Yeah. Yes. Simone Collins: Yeah. Malcolm Collins: We’re anti Vatican channel. Yes, Simone Collins: yes. Malcolm Collins: But, but this is one thing the Vatican does very well. Simone Collins: Yeah, we, we are weirdly, despite being very anti mysticism as well. We’re weirdly like, yeah, exorcism’s great. This is, Malcolm Collins: I think a lot of people would be surprised. I don’t [00:01:00] because they know that we’re very anti Vatican and we’re very anti, we’re anti mysticism. Many people would even call our form of Christianity secular in its nature. So they would be surprised that we would be like, Hey, that thing that, like even Catholics get kind of embarrassed about the whole normalization Simone Collins: of Yeah, you don’t hear them talk about it a lot. Malcolm Collins: Exorcisms. And I’m like, no, that’s really good. Like, Simone Collins: well, because we believe in evidence-based interventions and guess what? Placebo works Malcolm Collins: well. Yeah. Which is what I’m gonna go into. If you’re like, well, I’ve heard all these horror stories about exorcisms, where people died and where children were abused and none of those were carried out. By Catholics, they were all carried out by Pentecostals. Simone Collins: Oh, see, I told you Pentecostals, Malcolm Collins: that’s Simone Collins: who you gotta watch out Malcolm Collins: for. It was charismatic Pentecostals too. They’re they’re bad kind. Yeah, Simone Collins: they’re, they are witches. Just Pentecostal equals witch. I don’t know what to tell you, Malcolm, Malcolm Collins: that that episode went live on our private, where we point out that many of the practices in Charismatic Pentecostal [00:02:00] Christianity do not come from Christianity. But they were actually borrowed from AOC cultist in Theosophists of the 19 witchcraft twenties Simone Collins: witchcraft. Malcolm Collins: They, they literally just took witchcraft in, integrated it into Christianity. But I didn’t want to be too spicy with that one. So we, we shelved that episode. Simone Collins: Yeah. You were like, personally, I, I know why you were willing to go so hard on Catholics and you’re not willing to go hard on Pentecostal Pentecostals. Malcolm Collins: At least the Protestants. Anyway, anyway, I’ll, I’ll keep going here. I love your, your, it, it’s, it’s actually about voting. So if we were able to run for president, the Pentecostal vote is in a very important vote. Simone Collins: I don’t know. I feel like the, the Pentecostals are fractured enough because they’re also, they’re much more likely to be following individual charismatic preachers to be like, yeah, all the other Pentecostals are witches. We’re just not. And so they’re all gonna be like, yeah, Pentecostals very tic. My guy actually Malcolm Collins: vets everything he does. Simone Collins: No, my guy, yeah, my guy, they’re not [00:03:00] ma his magical spells are only from God, from Jesus, but everyone elses magical spells and there are speaking in tongues that is all satanic. And it’s, I dunno about that. It’s not with I speak in tongues, it’s just not, it’s fine. Malcolm Collins: Alright. All right. So, to go into this according to the Baltimore sun, requests for exorcisms are increasing and priests performing the ritual are in greater demand than ever with a number of exorcists in the United States growing from about a dozen, 15 years ago to approximately 150 today. So Simone Collins: that is insane to me because I thought they were, this still is very. When I was in college, remember I had that really embarrassing crush on the Catholic, who then became a priest. Yeah. And there were, there were on two occasions. He was like, oh yeah, like, I’m gonna go to an exorcism today. That, I think that happened at least twice. So I thought they were like way more common if, like, within one college campus. Malcolm Collins: Did he wanted to like go recreationally watch exercises. Simone Collins: He was, no, I think he was gonna help the priest, you know, like to be the assistant ex exerciser, I don’t know what the words are here, but like you, I [00:04:00] think he was gonna help the priest. Exercise the demon. And Malcolm Collins: I was, was like, but you know, was at the Vatican, so he was like on fast track to he Simone Collins: well, ‘cause he’s the best. Well no, the last time I saw him was at the Vatican, but I, I think he came back too. Like now he’s in the Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, he was on fast track to like church stuff anyway. Simone Collins: No, he’s, well, yeah, no, but like he’s, I mean, I would want him ‘cause he, he like really knew his Catholic stuff. But like. I wouldn’t want him at an exorcism, but Malcolm Collins: he’s actually a great example of how Catholicism can lower, like why they have a lower birth rate than other iterations of Christianity. Simone Collins: Yeah. Malcolm Collins: Because you would’ve wanted to marry him and likely would’ve converted to his religion and had lots of kids with him, but instead he wanted to become a priest. Simone Collins: Yeah. For the backstory, just so I, I relive the most embarrassing parts of my life on this podcast ‘cause you also won’t delete my old videos on this channel. When I was in college, there was this guy in my honors class on the divine comedy that had like a Jew and a, and a and a [00:05:00] pagan, wicked goth girl and me, the like raised Buddhist liberal and then some like Protestants in it. Talking about Dante’s divine comedy, which is of course very Catholic in its inspiration as hate fan fiction. And. Then he was the one Catholic. So I, I became very I, I’m like, I’m attracted to passion and intelligence and he had a lot of it for Catholicism. So then I got this big crush on him ‘cause he also looked kind of like Matt Damon, not retarded. Malcolm Collins: Dude, Simone Collins: like, like real Matt Damon, like good. And so I was like, okay. Like I, I, I’m like, I have a huge crush on you. And so I would I worked at a cupcake shop at the time. I worked closing shifts. So I would get all these free, very expensive cupcakes at the end of the day, and I’d walk home with these heavy bags until my fingers bled. And I would, he was an RA in his dorm, and I’d be like, oh, well I’m gonna deliver cupcakes for your, the students in your dorm. And then while there, you know, I’d show up in his room with all the cupcakes and I’d be like, oh, I have this [00:06:00] question. I just, can you explain to me why gays go to hell? And then like, he’d sit down and like, talk to me about like the hardest things about Malcolm Collins: over and over again. You asked him about Catholic doctrine because he found that that was the one thing that he’d get really nerdy about. Simone Collins: It would allow me to stay in his room longer. Yes. Malcolm Collins: Oh God. Malcolm Collins: And then one day he’s like, Simone, like, like, these, these meetings with you have really moved me and helped me decide my direction in life and I’m gonna join the priesthood. That is the worst. Simone Collins: This is how good my game is Malcolm Collins: ever. Simone Collins: But yeah, no, this is, this is maybe, maybe part of the reason why, it’s not best, Malcolm Collins: but, but think about this in another context. If he had been in another denomination, he would’ve gotten married to you to keep talking about that stuff. And, Simone Collins: well, and what’s what’s interesting actually is I don’t know how I came across it. Maybe it was like one of his other assignments or something that I reviewed in

    1hr 4min
  7. Cuckmaxing: If Better Men Exist Shouldn't You Raise Their Kids?

    25 MAR

    Cuckmaxing: If Better Men Exist Shouldn't You Raise Their Kids?

    In this provocative Based Camp episode, Simone & Malcolm Collins react to Nicholas Decker’s viral Substack essay and tweet: “When I have children, I do not want them to be genetically mine. Instead, I’ll have someone better than me be the sperm donor.” They explore the ethics of genetic self-removal, Spartan-style cuckoldry, polygenic selection, the power of family-level regression to the mean, why some men feel visceral disgust at raising non-biological kids, whether “good genes” and “good parenting” are the same thing, and the long-term cultural suicide risk of normalizing donor parenting. Malcolm argues this strategy is intergenerationally unstable because genes that make you want to reproduce genetically will eventually dominate. Simone pushes back with nuance around self-hatred, family dynamics, adoption, and the beauty of loving non-biological children. A raw, high-stakes conversation about love, duty, genetics, fulfillment, and what it really means to be a parent in the 21st century. → Read Nicholas Decker’s essay: Show Notes Today we’re going to discuss the choice to become a parent, but with SOMEONE ELSE’S GENES, even though one could reproduce on one’s own While we have friends who are very consciously and intentionally choosing to not reproduce genetically for fear of passing on problems they have We personally feel like it would be child abuse for us to raise kids who aren’t ours And we’re bigger believers in using science, rather than self recusal, to reduce or eliminate the risk of passing on heritable health issues or traits perceived to be harmful On March 23rd, Economics student Nicholas Decker wrote that he’ll use a better donor for his children, arguing genetics drive outcomes like intelligence and parenting should focus on nurture. He compares it to treating genetic diseases or specializing via comparative advantage, sharing how dating a man made surrogacy clear. NIcholas Drecker @captgouda24: When I have children, I do not want them to be genetically mine. Instead, I will have someone better than me be the sperm donor. My reasoning here: https://nicholasdecker.substack.com/p/why-my-children-will-not-be-mine Critics mocked it as neo-eugenics or cuckoldry, while some agreed he shouldn’t procreate with his genes; geneticist Razib Khan met him and softened his initial skepticism. His Substack Article Why My Children Will Not Be Mine, published May 23rd on his substack Homo Economicus (over 6K subscribers) “I would like to have kids. I’m quite set on this. I feel that I would be very happy raising them. I think that I would find joy and purpose in helping them grow and learn and do great things. I am filled with a great yearning that is not entirely in my control, the same yearning which I imagine must affect the salmon as they travel up the river or the goose to fly south for the winter. I also have a sense in which it is my duty to procreate – the world becomes richer as there are more people in it, and having more children would therefore make the world better. There is one thing, though – they will not be genetically mine. This does not mean that I would adopt. Rather, I would have someone else, who I consider to be genetically better than me, be the father of the child. I have thought about this a great deal, and not only do I think it is the right thing to do, but it is something which everyone should do. Here is why.” His why (summarized) * “To start, I think we can agree that it is bad to harm your children.” * “We also know that genes matter. They affect life outcomes. A substantial part of the variation in people’s outcomes is due to their genes.” * “If you would take actions which would definitely change your children’s genes for the better, you should also take them for actions which change them for the better in expectation” * He sees choosing someone else’s genes over yours as just an extension of something like gene editing * “They would still yet be your own children. Or else is an adopted child not your own? If someone is left an orphan as a baby, and then is brought up by a family who loves them, whose child are they? Would you love them less for not being your own? Or suppose that you learned that the person who you believed to be your son, whom you raised, was in fact conceived by another man. Would you cast the child out of your life? I would hope you do not. If you are unable to do this because you would only love your children if they were conceived by you, we should regard that as an unadmirable failing, not right and normal.” * He points out that just because ONE person is OK phenotypically, it doesn’t mean their genes are optimal for certain desired outcomes * An extremely valid point * “Further, your child’s outcomes are correlated not only with direct genetic father, but also with their parents. Outcomes are not a first-order Markov variable. If your family is mediocre, then your child will also be more likely to be mediocre. Even if two people’s phenotypes are the same, you should choose the one whose family phenotype is better. * He doesn’t much like his family * Another super valid point * “You might also think that I will relate to them better if they are more like me. I disagree with this. I would expect them to be like my family. I do not particularly care about my family. I do care quite a lot about other people, including those who I have asked. I would rather my children be more like them than like my family.” * He was prompted to think about this after thinking about gay couple reproductive logistics * I came to think of this because I have dated a man before. If we were to have children – and to actually create new children, not simply rearrange who has them – it would have to be through a surrogate. Only one of us could be genetically the father. We would have to choose who. The choice was obvious, though – it should of course be him. The children to come would have a better life if they were more like him, than if they were more like me. He is still open to being the genetic father if his eventual partner refuses to use a sperm donor: “I am unable to convince my partner of this scheme, I would still have kids the old-fashioned way.” The Response On X Richard Hanania: Having kids and seeing how much work it is has made the decision to adopt even more incomprehensible to me. No offense to those who do it, but I couldn’t imagine putting up with all the screaming and crying for someone else’s child. Michael Ebenstein @mebenstein7: “Why not have someone better than you raise them?” Along those lines: * Cruciform Ligament @CruciformLig: “Answer this Nicholas. If you truly love the children that aren’t yours, you’ll let someone that isn’t you raise them.” * And Chris @Alicoh1 responded “The supply of good parents is much more restricted than the supply of good DNA.” * And I heartily agree on that * And I wonder if we don’t talk enough about the difference between good parents and “fit people” Build/Boost @build_boost wrote: “Something has happened to drive a significant degree of Western society into a kind of suicidal cuckery. It is unprecedented, to my knowledge, and utterly bizarre. No civilization has welcomed its enemies inside its gates with open arms while denying what those enemies say they want to do every day. No civilization had men who preferred not to pass down their genes. Something is very sick with our society.” Thomas Pueyo’s Refutation Thomas Pueyo, of Uncharted Territories, wrote the following comment: I saw this idea in one of your writings, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I respect and admire you and your ideas enough that I think it’s very important I share how wrong I think you are here. 1. Not Lindy This is the least Lindy idea ever. Evolution has operated for billions of years under the force of having your own children. You are going against all these years of a proven mechanic. 2. Evidence Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Usually, in your other essays, you bring it to the table. Here, for a decision that’s so important, your essay is just a series of a few arguments, with no data to back many of the assertions. 3. Extremely high stakes Evolution has operated to give you fulfillment out of having children. The more you have, the more fulfillment you get. If you get this idea wrong, you will jeopardize one of the biggest sources of fulfillment you could ever have. 4. It’s better for your children if they’re yours One key way to optimize the happiness of your children is by loving them more, so if you love them even a bit less, they’re likely to be less happy. Your argument against this is weak: “I like some people more than I like my family” is logical, because you’re a young adult, programmed to actually not love your family as much, so you can go and explore the world. Then you have children, and they are by far the thing you love most in the world. Your parents, siblings, aunts, etc pale in comparison. Of course, that’s what evolution would do. Evidence suggests that if the children are not genetically yours, you’ll love them less. You’ve probably seen data on how the less related a child’s parents are, the more the child is likely to suffer from abuse (physical and sexual). Children from 2 biological parents are 2x less likely to get physical and educational neglect, and 4x less likely to get emotional neglect. (Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS–4), I think it’s chart 5-3. There was a better one but I can’t find it). You won’t abuse your children I assume, but this is very strong evidence that you’ll like them less if they’re not biologically yours. So they’ll be less happy. 5. Variance vs Expected Value A “better person genetically” than you might have a better expected value in the “quality of your

    1 hr
  8. T Pills Make Dems Vote Right?! (The Conservative Chemical)

    24 MAR

    T Pills Make Dems Vote Right?! (The Conservative Chemical)

    Did you know that giving men extra testosterone can make weakly affiliated Democrats shift conservative? In this eye-opening Based Camp episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins break down a 2025 study showing testosterone administration caused a “red shift” in political preferences—plus what it reveals about conservatism, declining T levels in modern men, AI attitudes, social vigilance, punishment of bad actors, risk-taking, and why high-testosterone mindsets align with enforcement, competition, and opportunity. They explore how testosterone isn’t just “rage”—it’s strategic dominance calibration, reduced performative niceness (without killing real benevolence), increased willingness to punish unfairness, and comfort with confrontation and disruption. From immigrant crises and benefit fraud to why low-T societies might fear AI, this conversation reframes conservatism as partly hormonal—and asks whether we should be subsidizing testosterone for the masses. Featuring kid interruptions, roid rage myths, soul debates, and plenty of Based Camp chaos. If you’re high-T (or want to be), this one’s for you. Show Notes In 2025, a group of researchers found that testosterone administration caused democrats to shift in a more conservative direction. This reveals a lot about conservatism and modern leftists and when I dug deeper into the effects of higher levels of testosterone in both men and women, I feel like I came away with a better understanding of the left, the right, and society in general. Also, now whenever I hear about people taking testosterone supplementation, I am going to think “they’re just taking their conservative pills” The Research In their paper, titled “Testosterone Administration Induces a Red Shift in Democrats”, these researchers took 136 “healthy males,” measured the strength of their political affiliation and their basal testosterone, gave them synthetic testosterone or a placebo, and then checked to see if their affiliation changed. They found: * That more weakly affiliated democrats had 19% higher basal testosterone than those who identified strongly with the party * That “When weakly affiliated Democrats received additional testosterone, the strength of their party affiliation fell by 12% (p = 0.01), and they reported 45% warmer feelings towards Republican candidates for president (p They also found that “Testosterone administration did not affect political preferences for strongly affiliated Democrats or strong or weak Republicans.” In short, their results demonstrate that testosterone induces a “red shift” among weakly affiliated Democrats, providing evidence that testosterone affects political preferences. Hmm.. is Testosterone Changing? Across many industrialized populations, average basal testosterone levels in men appear to be drifting downward over time, while data for women are sparse and less clear but do not show a strong, consistent upward trend. Just a note: * Typical female testosterone levels are far lower than male levels (roughly 10–20‑fold lower) * In both sexes, testosterone naturally declines with age within an individual, with an average drop of about 1% per year in adult men and a gradual decline in women that accelerates around menopause * So as populations age, their testosterone will drop In men: * Several large cohort and lab‑database studies from the U.S., Europe, and Israel report an age‑independent secular decline in total testosterone in men, after adjusting for age and often for BMI and other factors. * For example, a widely cited Massachusetts study found that men of the same age in the early 2000s had substantially lower mean testosterone than men of the same age in the late 1980s, and this drop was not fully explained by obesity or other measured health and lifestyle changes. * A large Israeli health‑system analysis (over 100,000 men, 2006–2019) likewise found a significant, prominent decline in testosterone across most age groups, again largely independent of BMI. * A newer analysis of “healthy” men has also reported progressive decreases in both testosterone and LH over recent decades, suggesting a true change in hypothalamic‑pituitary‑gonadal function rather than just obesity or assay artifacts. If More Testosterone Correlates with Conservatism, What Might That Say About Conservatism? In other words, what do increases in testosterone change about views and behavior? Across lab and real-world studies, higher or experimentally raised testosterone is less “rage hormone” and more “status and dominance calibration”: it pushes behavior in whatever way seems best to gain or protect status in that situation (which can be aggressive, but can also be generous or prosocial). Key Behavioral Changes Aggression and conflict response * Higher testosterone is linked to greater reactive aggression, especially when people feel provoked, treated unfairly, or their status is threatened, rather than indiscriminate hostility. * In experiments like ultimatum games, testosterone increases costly punishment of unfair offers, even when it doesn’t improve payoff, consistent with defending status or enforcing norms. Risk-taking and competition * Elevated testosterone is associated with more willingness to take financial and social risks and to enter competitive situations. * In trading and lab tasks, higher testosterone correlates with riskier bids and more optimistic expectations about outcomes, mediated by increased confidence rather than simple recklessness. * Randomized trials show that testosterone can increase willingness to compete, although effects depend on cortisol levels and context (who the opponent is, prior wins/losses). Trust, vigilance, and social reading * Single-dose testosterone in women reduced interpersonal trust, particularly in people who are naturally very trusting, interpreted as increased social vigilance for exploitation in competitive environments. * It tends to put people in a more defensive, “scan for threats/opportunists” mode, which is adaptive for dominance but can strain cooperative relationships if chronic. * Some studies find impaired cognitive empathy and reduced “strategic” or feigned prosociality under testosterone, meaning people may care less about managing how cooperative they look to others and more about direct payoff or status * OMG TESTOSTERONE REDUCES PERFORMATIVE NICENESS BUT IT DOES NOT NECESSARILY REDUCE ACTUAL BENEVOLENCE!!! Prosocial and status-enhancing behavior * Importantly, testosterone can also increase generosity when generosity enhances status. In bargaining games, men given testosterone punished unfairness more but were not less generous when offers were high. * Other work shows testosterone can eliminate strategic prosociality (acting nice just for image) but not genuine prosocial motives, reinforcing the idea that the hormone tunes behavior to real, not performative, status benefits. Cognitive style and decision-making * Testosterone administration makes men more likely to go with gut impulses and less likely to engage in cognitive reflection, leading to more errors on trick problems where the intuitive answer is wrong, even though basic math ability is unchanged. * This seems to operate through increased confidence and reduced self-doubt, which can be an advantage in some leadership/competitive settings but a liability when careful checking is needed. ​ Mood and personality correlates * Observationally, higher testosterone has been linked with traits like dominance, lower punishment sensitivity (less fear of negative consequences), more approach behavior, and in some cases irritability or uncharacteristic aggression, particularly at supraphysiologic doses (e.g., heavy anabolic steroid use). How this changes views * Other people: seen a bit more as competitors or potential threats to status, so you may feel less automatically trusting and more scrutinizing of others’ motives. * Fairness and respect: slights, disrespect, or unfair treatment feel more salient and more worth confronting or punishing, even at personal cost. * Risk and opportunity: downside risk feels less scary and upside feels more attainable, so risky choices can look more reasonable and attractive. * Self-view: stronger internal sense of certainty and correctness; more confidence and less second-guessing. ​ This explains why Republicans are more comfortable doing things like: * Enforcing immigration policy * Enforcing laws * Supporting capitalism Episode Transcript This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe

    51 min
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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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