Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

India’s population bomb is fizzling out faster than most people realize. Over 5,000 government schools now sit completely empty (zero students!), with numbers surging 24% in just two years — mostly in states like Telangana and West Bengal. We’re diving deep into India’s collapsing fertility rates (many regions already sub-1.5 or lower), why certain ethnic/religious groups are disappearing faster than others, and what this means for India’s future demographics.We compare this to Japan and South Korea’s school closures due to depopulation, bust the myth that “India will outbreed everyone,” and discuss why Indian immigrants in the US maintain stable fertility (~1.6, similar to whites) while resisting aspects of modern urban culture. Topics include:* In-group hiring preferences & H-1B controversies* Cultural isolation that protects against fertility collapse* Nuanced pros/cons of Indian communities in America (safety, values, economic contribution vs. potential downsides)* Nick Fuentes’ recent anti-Indian rhetoric — is it fair, or controlled opposition?* Gender dynamics, arranged marriages, and why some Indian cultural traits help resist “urban monoculture”This is a raw, unfiltered conversation on natalism, migration, ethnicity, and the future of populations. If you’re interested in demographics, pronatalism, or immigration realism — hit play.Episode Transcript:Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about the disappearance of Indians, the, the Indian Ethnic Group of India. I will start with a interesting article here, over 5,000 government schools in India. Sit empty with zero students, 70% in the states of Al and West Bongo.Is this anotherSimone Collins: Somali fraud problem or what?Malcolm Collins: This, this from the natal subreddit? No. So these are, these are in India. Their schools are sitting empty because of low birth rates, not fraud.Simone Collins: Okay.Malcolm Collins: No, no, not fraud. Just abandoned. Wow. Like that very sad documentary about Korean schools where they had one student left and they were keeping the school open and they were like, it was really creepy because they would like do tours of the school.You know how Koreans are like very obsessed with, but there wasSimone Collins: this one kid sweeping up a classroom that only teacher, no, no.Malcolm Collins: The teachers, the staff were like, they kept everything spotless for, for one kid, like all of the classrooms and everything. It’s [00:01:00] like whenSimone Collins: Albert King concert Albert died and Queen Victoria like insisted on having his.Breakfast made each morning and all these things set out for him. Like his clothes laid out. ‘cause she, yeah, no, it’s, it’s reallyMalcolm Collins: weird the way, but it’s a grievingSimone Collins: thing. This is not a function thing, it’s a grieving thing.Malcolm Collins: There’s the Japanese town that ended up replacing all the kids with, with straw dummies.Simone Collins: No, just to make the, what, like one kid in the town feel less lonely. Totally not creeped out. No. Now there’sMalcolm Collins: straw dummies playing on the swings and onSimone Collins: the slide. What if it was just a great troll though? What if they actually really hated kids and they’re like, I, I will terrify idea for you. ThisMalcolm Collins: kid with some Miyazaki stuff right here.No, this kid’s gonna walk around and, and think their entire generation is turned into straw.Simone Collins: Oh my gosh though again, amazing troll. Like, you know, you’re the grocery store owner, kid starts acting up. Listen kid. You wanna know what happened to the last kid who messed around in my grocery store? Straw man.Malcolm Collins: It literally to me [00:02:00] feels like a Stephen King book or something. You’re kid, kid, you move to this town, everyone else is, all the other children are straw and all the adults act like it’s totally normal. Yeah. Like that’s just Benny. What are you talking about? I would, we need to do that to our kids. We need to take them to that town and then to just be like this.All of those, this is what happens to bad kids in Japan. Stuff that our kids believe about how the world works. They believe in Wingos and, and oh,Simone Collins: Octavian was telling me this morning that he doesn’t think Wendigo are real. He thinks we’re trolling him, but yet Titan was just building new lore last night, asking about, what was it?Creaky man. Creaky man. Yeah, creaky man who lives in a cave that’s pink and purple with maybe some blue.Malcolm Collins: With maybe some blue. She’s not sure, but he is scary. Yeah. And he lives in a pink and purple cave anyway. No. They see what we’re doing and I think that they’re internalizing that. It’s like, oh, we’re like building stories of the family.I’m gonna do that too. But anyway.Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.Malcolm Collins: Of the [00:03:00] 10.13 Locke, 1.013 million government schools across India 5,149 have no students at all. And more than 70% of these schools, which reported zero enrollment in the 2024 to 2025 academic year are located in the states of Ngal in West Bengal according to government.Simone Collins: Are people migrating out of them, like due to climate issues? We’ll getMalcolm Collins: to it in a second. Okay. So curious. The broader cat category of schools was less than 10% or zero. Enrollment has also seen a surge according to data shared by the education ministry in Parliament recently. Hmm. The number of such government schools has grown by 24% over the last two years.52,309 in 2022 to 2023 to 65,054 in 2024, 2025. These schools now account for 6.42% of the country’s government schools. So six oh, like. Six and a half percent of the country [00:04:00] schools are empty. The government said in a written reply to questions, and this has grown by 25% over the past two years by MP P ro.Nobody cares about these names anyway. And the lower TFR southern states of India have returned TFR of Talem NADA of 1.4 Ara Polish, 1.5 ra. Five. These are actually a little high. I got some more updated numbers here. So let’s pull the updated Indian TFR numbers and yeah. And alsoSimone Collins: for comparison, what percentage of Japanese schools have shut down to declining population and what percentage of South Korean schools have shut down due to declining population?Malcolm Collins: We should know that to continue here. If you look at this map of ignia, then I’m putting on the screen here.Simone Collins: So in Japan, there’s been a decline of less than 20%. But a rough back of the [00:05:00] envelope comparison suggests that the order of 20 to 25% of the school stock that existed a few decades ago has been shut down or consolidated.And in South Korea it’s 30 to 35%. But still it’s impressive that India would even see as much as the 6% decline because the message that that we get is that in India is fine, soon everyone’s gonna be Indian. Like that’s the hugest population. It’s And powerMalcolm Collins: also talk about this in the context of like, Nick Fuentes has decided that now Indians are the worst people ever.Simone Collins: Oh boy.Malcolm Collins: Going off about, I think it’s mostly.Simone Collins: Actually, there was something I heard about, it must be due to H one B visas because I think a lot of Americans are just really fed up with them. I don’t think it’sMalcolm Collins: due to H one B visas actually. Really? So I, I think it’s specifically the guy, the Romanian troll TV guy who has a lot of overlap with us in podcast fans.He said recently something that really begun to aid at me and I might do a separate episode on it. Ooh. But he said. Suppose Nick Fuente, like was not [00:06:00] a, a plant designed to sabotage the Republican party. Why doesSimone Collins: everyone think he’s a plant?Malcolm Collins: No. Hold on. Hold on. This is where I had always dismissed this in the past.Yeah. And then he said it this way and it completely changed my mind. Okay. Suppose he’s not. Okay. Is there a single thing, and this is called controlled opposition. Is there a single thing, position? Anything that he’s done in, I’d say the past five years, that he would do differently if he wasn’t controlled.Opposition. Is there a single position that he would hold differently? And the answer is when I started to think through it, no. I literally can’t think of a position, a single position that he holds because he’ll do stuff like Glaze Gavin Newsom while attacking JD Vance. And take whatever position he thinks is currently going to be the most.Divisive was in the Republican party. And whenever election season comes around, he’s always really loud about not voting Republican. These are all the things you would expect a controlled [00:07:00] opposition party to do. And we are aware of previous right wing figures who presented themselves as openly racist, who were controlled opposition recently known like it was.Simone Collins: Provably, what I’ve heard isMalcolm Collins: Richard Spencer was confirmed as a controlled opposition. And now he, he’s pushing for Biden as like he had this period, well, I guess we have toSimone Collins: define controlled opposition because we do know for a fact, because of the way that campaign donations are documented in the United States that many.Unviable Republican candidates were backed by Democratic fundraise like, or we’ll say democratic donors in elections because they knew that if an, an overly extreme Republican candidate made it through the primary, they would be too extreme to win over the centrist vote, and therefore the Democratic candidate would win.So the most effective use of Democratic campaign funds would be to fund. A Republican candidate that was too extreme to win a general [00:08:00] election, only a primary election among Republicans. So I think that maybe like I could see Richard Spencer, for example, being quote unquote controlled opposition without having any line of communicati

In this episode, we dive into the viral Australian academic advice (from Deakin University researchers) that parents should ask babies for “consent” before changing their diapers. It sounds absurd on the surface—and we roast it hard—but we also steelman their perspective before tearing it apart.We explore how this philosophy ties into extreme gentle parenting trends (no timeouts without consent? No punishments?), the misuse of “consent” as the sole argument against adult-minor relationships (spoiler: it’s not about consent; it’s about developmental stages and guardianship), and why removing natural threats/fears from kids’ lives might fuel modern anxiety epidemics.From ritualized diaper changes that feel suspiciously fetish-adjacent, to using clinical terms like “vulva/penis/anus” on infants vs. fun family euphemisms like “doty” and “flippy,” we share our unfiltered parenting stories—including epic blowouts, bribery for potty training, and why our kids aren’t anxious wrecks despite (or because of) our pragmatic, authoritative style.We also touch on Krampus, ancestral fear exposure, nursing home STDs, and why suburb-raised girls invent existential threats. Plus: a chaotic domestic tangent about poop smells, manga villains, and who’s making dinner.If you’re tired of overthinking parenting and want a raw, evidence-based take on why kids actually need guardians (not mini-adults), this one’s for you.Episode Transcript:Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. Today we are going to be talking about children and consent and infants and consent uhoh.And we are going to be using it went viral a while ago, this story where a leftist university specifically it was the Deacon University in Australiasuggested that you ask your baby consent before changing their diapers. And Simone is just sharing a story about changing Texas diapers.So, you know, on, on topic here. But it’s, it comes off as ridiculous at face value. But I want to look at it from their eyes, not like the other people covering. I wanna see how they argue for it, why they think it’s important, right. And then I want to go from there to look at other instances in which parents and parental advocates have been advocating for.Extreme consent searching from children before, like punishment and everything like that. And we saw this like in my Stephen Mullany debate where you know, like askingSimone Collins: for consent for timeout,Malcolm Collins: well they don’t, don’t do timeouts ‘cause a kid [00:01:00] wouldn’t consent to it. Right. You know, you know, it’s only gentle parenting.Only nice parenting. And so I wanna go into this philosophy in its extremes, but I’m also gonna be arguing that a a lot of people have misunderstood. And I think where the concept of consent creeped into children’s, the literature and the concept of children needing consent, is that for whatever reason, the urban monoculture decided to use a lack of consent to argue why, you know, we do not have sex with minors.And I actually think that that’s. Completely stupid. Like that is not why you don’t have sex with a minor consent. And I, I, I mean, I’ve argued this with animals where I point out that, you know, the reason we don’t have sex with animals isn’t that the animal can’t consent because weSimone Collins: eatMalcolm Collins: animals and we like raise them in a state of constant torture if you’re talking about veal or farm chicken or something like that.Oh, goodness. And, and people protest that, but you know, they’re, they’re, they’re at the same time, they’re like, oh, consent, consent, consent, you know, is why we don’t [00:02:00] do it. It’s a disease risk with, with animals.Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.Malcolm Collins: There, that’s why a lot of cultures convergently evolved that particular belief.But with children, I, I point out here that, okay, like you’ve got like a 15-year-old or something like that, right? Like, okay, a, a 15-year-old in terms of their cognition is. Well, more advanced than many elderly individuals, many mentally handicapped individuals. Sure. 15 year olds are actually fairly sharp.They’re almost asSimone Collins: smart as pigs.Malcolm Collins: As pigs. I’m kidding. Okay. And I think even if you go back of it, I mean, I think even like 13 year olds and 12 year olds are fairly smart. Like smarter. I, I’d say that the average, like 13-year-old I talk to is smarter and more cognitively there than the average person I’m talking to in a nursing home.Simone Collins: Oh, no. Like 100%. I mean, people in nursing homes on average are dealing with pretty severe cognitive decline. Plus they’re also super set in their ways, whereas people who are teens are in this [00:03:00] Right. Incredible position. But I mean, you could even argue that an 8-year-old is there because also the 8-year-old is unencumbered by all of the hormonal vicissitudes that a teenager has to endure.So, butMalcolm Collins: yeah, the, the point being is. Nobody, or very few people are arguing that people in nursing homes shouldn’t be having sex. That’s actually Oh, when people have like the most sex in like Yeah. People are likeSimone Collins: power to the people. Like Yeah. Split it upMalcolm Collins: like this big thing of like people sleeping around a lot in like huge, yeah.Simone Collins: STDs being a really big issue with nursing homes. Yeah. AndMalcolm Collins: nursing homes. But I, I, I think there’s very few people, even a lot of lefties that would argue that like a 13-year-old should be sleeping around. And so it’s, it’s clearly even for them, they understand intuitively it isn’t a consent issue.And this’ll be a lot of what I’m talking about in this piece. And I talked about it before, but I think it’s very important for people to, is it’s a stage of development issue. It’s at that stage of development. Are you expected to take you know, sort of [00:04:00] internal responsibility for the way you relate to rules, the way you relate to the world around you?Are you essentially supposed to be living under a guardian or are you not? Like, is that the way your brain is structured?Simone Collins: Hmm.Malcolm Collins: And when you’re living under a guardian, obviously the guardian has final say on the things you do and do not do. Right. The punishments, et cetera. And, and we’ll be arguing that you are cognitively sort of loaded to be living in this environment and to take an a, a younger person out of this environment.Can actually be very damaging. And not just with a guardian, but I also think, and this is something that we do a lot with our parenting with, with, with fear, with uncertainty with this was all normal in an ancestral context and we removed this from people’s lives and I think did a lot of damage.Huh. And you can see our video where we point out that you actually see, like, you know, when you’re looking at some rates of like mental health issues and stuff like that, you see them at higher rates in wealthier young girls than in like. Young girls who live in more urban or or less wealthy environments.Mm-hmm. And that is [00:05:00] like, it’s a suburb girl thing, right? And, and I, I argue that that’s because their brain is, is, is trying to search for threats. And when you remove all of the threats from their lives, they begin to assign everything a threat. Like, well, Donald Trump is trying to. They put me in the breeding pins, right?Like everybody, every guy who looks at me wrong wants to grate me. You know, I I’m in a constant threat because somebody said that they disagree with my view of gender, right? Like, they’re, they’re trying to wipe out my people, right? Like they invent all of these existential threats because their brain is meant to deal with existential threats.Mm. And this is part of why we do Krampus and everything like that with our kids and, and when Togo and everything, but let’s start with nappy changes are not just a chore to rush through. You can use them to teach consent. And this is from the that, that school in Australia, okay? Mm. This is 2023 paper.There has been a lot of focus on the need to teach older children about consent. And this link that they have here, I think is very telling to what I’m talking to about here. [00:06:00] It’s, it’s, it’s about teaching teenagers about consent as it relates to sex. And I’m, I’m like, that is clearly not.Like what we’re talking about with nappies, but you can see that they’re literally drawing that, that thread very directly in this sort of, ISimone Collins: could see how your average progressive would get there, because nappies are an instance in which people are coming into direct content contact with your No, no zones.So I, I can kind of see it. Yeah, like it’s just saying like, when your no-no zone is exposed and people are touching it. You need to have a conversation about consent. Like they’re not, they’re not trying to say it’s the same thing, but they’re trying to say in these contexts, you know, like, just be conditioned that this is all, this is consent conversation time because my pants are down.That kind of thing.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and I think that, I’ve always actually found it very weird at doctor’s offices where the doctor always is like, you know, telling my kid, well, you know, it’s okay that I’m doing this because your dad is here. Or you know, like, wait, they say that. [00:07:00] Yeah. You never do doctor’s visits, so she doesn’t Yeah.So I wouldn’tSimone Collins: know. That’s what they what Are you serious?Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but they’re like, this is, this is something that normally you shouldn’t let somebody do.Simone Collins: Do you think they’ve been told to do that by their law firm? They don’t get sued or something. I,Malcolm Collins: I mean, I don’t know. Like for me and for our family, I, I, like, I just do not think a lot about like, nudity one way or the other.Like when our kids get up, we change them, whatever. And obviously this could discuss, we’re not allowed toSimone Collins: becaus

In this eye-opening conversation, Simone Collins and Malcolm Collins declare 2025 the year climate activism collapsed—and they’re not mincing words. From Greta Thunberg’s pivot to Palestine solidarity, Bill Gates’ major memo shift (”Three Tough Truths About Climate”), Matthew Yglesias rethinking his past positions, and even progressive New York walking back aggressive climate mandates... the movement that once dominated headlines is fading fast.We dive deep into why: overhyped apocalyptic predictions that never materialized, market forces solving “crises” like peak oil, historical moral panics (Satanic Panic, video games, comics), and the bigger question—what panics are actually justified?Simone shares her personal journey from hardcore climate activist (saving sea turtles, Earth Day Network, custom environmental major) to realizing many doomsday claims were overblown. We contrast climate with real existential issues like demographic collapse (aka “TISM”), water shortages in major cities, and AI disruption—plus why some panics (ozone hole, Y2K, leaded gas) were worth the freakout and actually got solved.If you’ve ever donated to climate causes, worried about the apocalypse, or wondered why the vibe shifted from “save the planet” to class conflict & human dignity... this episode is for you.We also riff on everything from Kylie Jenner housekeepers to hag-maxing Karens channeling maternal energy into Earth-worship, why young men stopped caring when the hot activists aged, and how the prenatal movement avoids the same pitfalls as old climate hysteria.Episode Transcript:Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today because 2025 was the year that climate activism died.And I don’t think enough people are talking about it, but major activists and donors and even states are dropping climate change like it’s hot. So we’re, we’re talking about Matthew Glacia, Greta Thunberg, bill Gates, and even the state of New York, which is insane what even New York lost climate change.I’ll, I’ll go into it. It, it’s, I’m like, okay. I mean, it’s clear we’re, it’s over. It’s over. We, we we’re not trying to make fetch happen anymore.Speaker: You only fight these causes cause caring cells All you activists can go yourselves That was so inspiring! What a wonderful message!Simone Collins: And in general that the sentiment has shifted. From saving animals and the earth to class conflict and human dignity. And this is ex exemplified by Fels, like Kylie Jenner being criticized for watching her animal cruelty-free makeup on her housekeepers.No one cares that it’s animal [00:01:00] cruelty free. They’re like, how dare you? Yeah, I love, I love that you aMalcolm Collins: housekeeper. She, she got it all cheap or whatever. The, the, this office that was able to do animal testing really cheap, and then they found out it was just because they were doing it on interns.Simone Collins: There’s, I think there’s that, I heard about that separately, but this, this was this was a, I think a more prominent kerfuffle, but I just think it’s really funny because she, she pays her housekeeper.The housekeeper obviously consented to it. But I think just mere, I think it’s exemplified because what, what really people are freaking out about is basically in any way using a paid employee, I guess, you know, for anything. And, and to not do it.Malcolm Collins: It’s a fascinating phenomenon, how hard, how fast and how completely the climate movement was abandoned.Yeah.Speaker: Alright, that does it! I f ed it!Malcolm Collins: We will be teaching our children about the climate movement as a historic movement.Simone Collins: Yeah. And speaking [00:02:00] of, of historical movement, I think this, this is a there’s a wider question that this development, the 2025 crash of climate activism brings to light, which is, this is of course not the first panic we’ve had.And I think it’s really important to ask ourselves in light of current panics that are actively going on current things, people are like, we have to spend money on this. We have to change our lives around this. We have to learn. How to better divine what is worth our time because I spent a huge portion of my youth dedicated to climate activism.That’s what her degree is in. I save the sea turtles. I like spent a summer volunteering to help the baby, sea turtles make it to the ocean and measure the giant sea turtles. And by the way, do you know the secret to stopping a giant sea turtle as they’re making their way back to the ocean? So you can measure her, you stick your knee, you need two people, but you stick your knee behind her front fin and then she can’t move forward.And then that, that frees you up. Interesting. Yeah. But it doesn’t always work when you get a big enough [00:03:00] turtle, you just can’t stop them. At one point I just watched that one of the Italian volunteers just ride her straight into the ocean. He just like gave up and got on top of her and was like, I mean, like, you’re not supposed to do that, but he’s just like, screw it.Like I’m going for it. And it was a beautiful thing to watch because there was bioluminescence in the ocean at the time and we’re doing all this overnight, so it’s like dark and just watching an Italian ride into a glowing ocean on a turtle. It is one of those things you’ll never forget in your life.But the point being is, is you dedicating the point being is that we, we need to, we learn. We need to learn. Yeah. I, I, yeah. And then I studied environmental business. My, I tried to build an entire custom college major around this. I worked for Earth Day Network. This is the group of people who created Earth Day.I, I worked for the American Council on Renewable Energy. I was extremely dedicated to this. And there are a lot of people now that are extremely dedicated to working on, on AI related apocalyptic organizations and, and working on all sorts of other panics. And so what I wanna do is also go through some historical panics and we’ll also discuss climate change more, and we’ll also discuss the [00:04:00] current crash, because I just think it’s amusing.Malcolm Collins: Well, and it’s also interesting to talk about from the perspective of you and myself as Yeah, the figureheads of the prenatal movement. Like yeah, demographicSimone Collins: collapseMalcolm Collins: isSimone Collins: another one of thoseMalcolm Collins: we’ve gotta freak out about this. And, you know, we should, but the point being is just because something is like. A big problem for civilization or something that’s going to affect everyone.Yeah. It does not mean that you can turn it into a movement or that it will stay a movement in any point of time. Yeah. Like, right, right. Now that climate chain has crashed out doesn’t mean that anything existential has changed about I mean, depending on, like deforestation for example, is like.Happening at, it’s still happening, right? Oh, and,Simone Collins: and I’m gonna get into it too, but also like a lot of major cities Mexico City, I think it’s Sao Paulo South Africa for sure. They’re just running outta water. They’re just drawing down their water tables. I mean, you talked about Iran too, there is going to get a point where they do not have more groundwater to pull from.There’s going to be nothing left. So some of these are like [00:05:00] existential questions for civilization. Mm-hmm. Well, and so I, I think we, we, yeah. The, the, the larger discussion of this podcast is when is it a justified panic when you need intervention? And I think a justified panic is one where the issue is actually real and imminent.And one of the big problems with climate change is that, yeah, climate change is real. It’s just not as imminent if as people have repeatedly claimed. And that two will not resolve via normal environmental or market forces. And I think a, a big common factor, and we’ll we’ll discuss this more too, is if something is, is priced into the market, for example, with peak oil.This wasn’t the big panic that people thought it was, because there are economic incentives for companies to build innovations, to address diminishing oil supplies and to be better at extracting oil because people are willing to pay for it. And as prices go up and people pay more for oil, people who are entrepreneurial are willing to invest in technologies that allow them to extract oil more efficiently.And so the problem essentially gets resolved.Malcolm Collins: But I wanna, I, I [00:06:00] wanna take a second to just explain peak oil because some of our fans are young and may not know about this panic. Okay. Peak oil was a panic that was had in the eighties that human civilization would run out of easy. So sources of oil to topSimone Collins: Yeah.Like 10 years ago.Malcolm Collins: And, and, and because you would’ve ran out of oil already. We built a civilization on oil, which we, we have. Mm-hmm. That human civilization would collapse at the point that we ran out of oil. Yeah. Now what is, what is interesting about this, and the reason I think is it’s a good thing to sort of meditate on as a crisis is peak oil, you know, within the time period must have seemed like the most obvious problem there could ever be a problem.Is our civilization based on oil? Mm-hmm. Yes. Mm-hmm. Is the oil supply finite? Yeah. Hundred percent. It runs on magic or something, right? Like obviously it’s finite, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. And what happens when we no longer have oil? If civilization runs on oil Yeah. Civilization stops. Yeah. Right. This is simple logic, easy if then, then uhhuh.This isn’t even [00:07:00] like climate change or something like this, right? Mm-hmm. You know? Mm-hmm. Where like people could debate the science of it or something. Yeah. This is just like if then, and it went in as a panic. Mm-hmm. And it went out as a panic. And I, I think that something that you did not get to is, I don’t just wanna look at this from the perspective of what a

In this raw, unfiltered episode of Based Camp, Malcolm & Simone Collins tackle a politically explosive question: Why have Muslim-majority forces historically struggled to conquer and durably hold new territory from non-Muslim groups in modern times?Malcolm walks through centuries of examples—from the rapid early Islamic expansions to Ottoman Janissaries (often Christian-origin elites), the Yom Kippur War debacle, Cyprus 1974, East Timor, Azerbaijan-Armenia clashes, and more—arguing that success often depended on non-Muslim leadership, extreme minority rule, or unified caliphates that quickly fractured.They explore deeper patterns:* Coups & hierarchy: Why Muslim militaries tend toward rigid command (fear of coups) vs. decentralized Protestant/Jewish models* Idolatry & status-signaling: Protestant anti-idolatry aversion to luxury vs. opulent signaling in some Muslim/Persian/Catholic cultures* Delegation success: Early Islamic Golden Age thrived on minority rule + competent outsiders (Jews, Christians); later majority rule often shifted to abuse* Birth rates, delegation, and modern “solutions” (hire outsiders? Ban excess luxury?)Heavy on pattern-noticing, historical exceptions, biological/cultural analogies (invasive species, extremophiles), and zero sacred cows. Expect spicy takes on religion, coups, multiculturalism, and why Protestants/Jews rarely stage military coups.Perfect for fans of contrarian history, cross-cultural analysis, pronatalism, and unapologetic anthropology.[00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today with a day when I had one of those very thoughts where a thought enters my mind and I begin pulling on it and I’m like. Oh no, this can only end in bad places. Oh no.Simone Collins (2): Oh, not again,Malcolm Collins: laughing. When we were doing a recording and I said in the recording something like, well, you know, Muslim majority armies almost never are able to conquer new territory.And then it sort of got in my head I was like, but wait, isn’t that how Islam primarily expanded in the early days? And then Yeah. They thought they were like aSimone Collins (2): successful warlike group or something. That’s kinda the impression an outsider gets that doesn’t know anything.Malcolm Collins: And then I got in, well, yeah, I, I also can talk about them as like an invasive species almost in the same way that the Vikings were, they, they were an extremophile group that developed really extreme individual practices.And when they were put on the scene around groups that didn’t have defenses against them, they were quickly conquered. Mm-hmm. And you, you often see this with extreme offa groups like the, the [00:01:00] Arab Nomads or the Vikings. Okay. You just need a force to unify them. Yeah. But I then had this second thought, which is okay.So Malcolm, can you think of any time recently that a Muslim force? No. No. They’re, they’re pretty good as is any sort of highly dispersed group at protecting their territory. Okay. So, so once they haveSimone Collins (2): it, they keep it.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. We saw this in places like Afghanistan, for example. Okay. But conquering new land, I got in my head I was like, okay, surely I can think of instances in which a Muslim majority group conquered and durably kept the land of a non-Muslim majority group for let’s say over a generation.Right?Simone Collins (2): Yeah. Give, given the reputation that we think they have. That would make sense.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And so then I just started going through in my head, like the Ottomans, no. Like they were terrible in World War I like, like practically a joke [00:02:00] player. The, the Yo Kippur War. The Yo Kippur war was hilarious, and we’ll go into it as more of an example of this wider phenomenon, but like Israel little, at that time, Israel was not like the major arms producer it is today.It didn’t have technology. There were this fledgling littleSimone Collins (2): country.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. A fledgling little barely together country. And it looked, felt like, a group of like thugs. You know, there’s a scene, the joke scene in the movie where a group of thugs like chases some, some girl into like a back alley or follows her back there.And then you just hear a bunch of, like, I was thinking that scene from India comes outSimone Collins (2): where like that one guy is like dancing around with his knife and then Indiana Jones takes out a gun and shoots him.Malcolm Collins: No, it’s way different for that. I’m, I’m talking about the scene where, because you see this in a lot of movies, a bunch of big, burly guys will like, follow somebody who looks really defenseless into a back alley to jump them.And then somehow the, the, the girl like knocks out all of them at once.Speaker 5: Get a load of this guy.[00:03:00] Oh, humanity. You never failed to disappoint me, .Unaware that with the slightest nudge, the world could crash down around me. No. For the exercise, gentlemen. I found it bracing.Malcolm Collins: I mean, keep in mind this was a surprise war. They had more military manpower. They had higher tech, military manpower. Mm-hmm. And they had multiple countries attacking simultaneously. Yeah. And they still lost a ton of territory.So like, how does this happen? Right. How, how, and then I started to go further because I was like, okay, surely this is just like my [00:04:00] bias and I’m not knowing all these instances of recent Muslim victories. Sure. So I go to AI and I’m like, when was the last time a Muslim force durably took land and kept it from a non-Muslim force?Okay. Yeah. And so it goes the ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517. Now, no, I’ll point out why this one doesn’t actually count, but we’ll go through 1517. So, the mammal salt in it nominally Sunni Muslim rulership but ruled a population that was 85 to 90% non-Muslim is. Part of the problem here. At the time Coptic, Christians, Greek and, and Jews.So, specifically here, Egypt during this time, like even in this example, was actually ruled by Muslims already. It just had a non-Muslim majority population and it was conquered by the Ottomans. And you’ve got a problem with the Ottomans because the Ottomans do what I said that Saudi Arabia should do.Mm-hmm. I was like. Look, Saudi Arabia, you guys [00:05:00] suck at war. This is how this came up, right? Like I was like, you guys are, are comically bad. You can’t even keep Yemen under control and it’s on your border and destitute and also Muslim. Oh dear. So, so I was like, you should just, you know, put a bunch of Christians, you know, like Protestants and Jews in charge of your troops.Troops and you do fine. And then I had this, this thought, oh, no, no. Oh no. That’s exactly what the ottomans did. Not you, you thinking Don’t stop. No. So the Ottomans did sort of what like the UAE and the Saudis do. So if you go to the, the Muslim countries that are operating really well and very prosperous these days like Qatar in Saudi Arabia and the UAE anybody who’s been there knows that everything, or a lot of it is actually managed by well, Jews and Protestants who are imported to do finances, logistics, notSimone Collins (2): like broadly just.Other people.Malcolm Collins: We’ll talk about the Catholic situation in a bit. But Catholics,Simone Collins (2): oh my God.Malcolm Collins: And they [00:06:00] are I imported. They’re not like, it’s, it’s a longer story there, but yes, this is, this is what’s happening. Okay, so, so if people who are familiar with Autumn in history are, are, are you familiar with the Janice series and how that whole system worked?Simone Collins (2): Please refresh my memory.Malcolm Collins: Okay. So, right before the Ottoman started winning all these wars and expanding their territory, and this is long before the Ottoman conquest in Egypt, which we’ll get to as well. Okay. They adopted a system of taking the children of Christian families young boys and raising them as Muslims.But if there are, as I’ve argued in the past, likely slight genetic differences between groups where you have an individual begins to adapt to like, like the religion is, like the, the code, and then you’ve got their biology that the code is running on, and the two will sort of synchronize intergenerationally, especially if you can have drift between populations, right?An example I’ll say here is, imagine I’m living in Massachusetts and I could be a Quaker or a Puritan, [00:07:00] and I happen to hear voices. About 25% of people hear voices. Mm-hmm. I’m way more likely to become a Quaker. And now that trait is genetically concentrated in that population, right? Mm-hmm. So, even if they’re taking the, the young boys from, from Christian populations and immediately attempting to convert them you still have basically the phenomenon in the Ottoman region that you currently have in, because they did the Janis series didn’t just do the troops.They actually like managed all troop movement, all troop deployment, the way troops operated. They managed parts of the economy. They managed parts of the infrastructure. Wait, soSimone Collins (2): in, in, in a nutshell, are you trying to argue that Janice areas are largely, historically people of, of Christian descent?Malcolm Collins: No, they were, they were exclusively people of Christian descent.Oh. It wasn’t majority. That was the whole point of a Janus area. Oh,Simone Collins (2): okay, okay, okay.Malcolm Collins: I didn’t know. And then when did the ottomans begin to fail? Because remember this, this last big conquest here in 1517, the ottomans began to fail when the Janice series [00:08:00] became a hereditary position. And so the Janice series would intermarry with the, the Ottoman women.Right. And they’d have kids. And then those kids would be 50%, whatever the original population was and then 25%, whatever the original population was. And then within a few generations of that, they begin to lose basically all of their wars. And I’m

In this episode, Simone & Malcolm Collins dive deep into the escalating conspiracy theories from Candace Owens’ world—especially after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. From Charlie being a time traveler who attended a secret “X-Men school” for gifted kids, to Brigitte Macron (and Michelle Obama) secretly being men, Harvard as a Mossad base, Frankist cults running the world, the Bolshevik Revolution, 9/11, JFK, fake moon landings, dinosaurs being “fake and gay,” and the infamous Egyptian planes surveillance plot... we break it all down.Is this audience capture on steroids? AI-induced psychosis? Genuine belief amplified by massive Patreon money ($200k+/month)? Or just the most entertaining grift in conservative media right now? We plausibility-check where things aren’t totally insane (spy recruitment on campuses is real!), laugh at the absurdity, and explore why her follower count exploded in 2025.You can find Simone’s Reality Fabricator scenario in which you experience a world as Candace Owens where all her conspiracy theories are real here: https://rfab.ai/share/adventure/youre-candace-owens-and-all-your-conspiracy-theoriSimone outlined this episode, so the notes (and some text screenshots) follow and the transcript can be found after. :)The Candice bot: https://rfab.ai/share/adventure/youre-candace-owens-and-all-your-conspiracy-theori RFab is finally mostly stable: https://rfab.ai/ Our Substack: https://basedcamppodcast.substack.com/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SimoneAndMalcolmCollinsDiscord: https://discord.com/invite/EGFRjwwS92The School: https://parrhesia.io/student-signupApp to talk with kids: https://wizling.ai/Episode NotesCandace Owens has gone so off the reservation that we’ve got to talk about it. The latest from Candace Owens is that she claims he’s a time traveler based on joking, flirty texts he sent her. Writes Cinema Shogun on X: Candace Owens is now saying that Charlie Kirk was marked since a child because he had special powers. She thinks he could possibly see into the future. And claims he went to a secret school for kids with gifted abilities like the X-Men. That’s where we’re at folks.* He posts a clip of her talking about this followed by the X-men intro—love itI had not realized how far it had gotten. And yet Candace Owens has a huge following:* 7.5M followers on X* For scale:* Brett Cooper—also part of the Daily Wire cinematic universe—has 538.8K* Ben Shapiro has 8M* Asmongold has 1.2M* Elon Musk has 2342.5M* Donald Trump has 109.3M* Hasan Piker has 1.6M* Greta Thunberg has 5.1M* 5.74M subscribers on YouTube* Ben Shapiro has 7.13M* Brett Cooper (who split off from Daily Wire __ after Candace Owens) has 1.68M* Asmongold has 4.31M* Hasan Piker has 1.77M* 11.8K members on Patreon* Her membership starts at $20/month, so minimally she’ making 20*11,860= $237,200/month. * Minimal tiers allows people to: “Submit questions and comments to have answered/discussed in the final segment of “A Shot In the Dark”. This will be the only pool of questions selected from.”So I decided to explore:* What exactly Candace Owens is claiming* Whether her apparent psychosis is AI psychosis, audience-driven psychosis, good ol’ fashioned psychosis, or a mix* What role her audience plays: Are they egging her on for entertainment, intentionally worsening her psychosis? Do they believe what she’s saying? Candace Owens’ ClaimsThe Antisemetic TheoriesI think these may be the most important, as I think they lead to a surge in support (as antisemitism is on the rise and her expression of it is uniquely entertaining)* Owens has alleged that Jews founded Israel as part of a “cult” linked to the Frankist sect, involved in crimes against Christians during Passover. * She has claimed Jews orchestrated the Bolshevik Revolution to exterminate Christians, that Harvard University serves as a Mossad base, that Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks, and that the Holocaust is exaggerated or fabricated (calling Elie Wiesel a “liar”). * She has also suggested critics of Israel fear for their lives and that Jews assassinated JFK. These claims have been labeled as promoting antisemitic tropes.The Transgender Conspiracies* I knew about the Macron conspiracies:* That Brigitte Macron, France’s first lady, was born male (named Jean-Michel Trogneux, her brother’s name), leading to a 2025 defamation lawsuit from the Macrons. * Side note that she also claims the Macrons:* Are plotting her assassination* are complicit in Charlie Kirk’s murder (via French involvement in global conspiracies)* What I did NOT know was that she made similar baseless allegations about other women like Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris, suggesting these are part of a broader pattern where powerful women’s achievements “defy traditional norms.The Fake and Gay SeriesShe has referred to some things as “fake and gay” though sadly in this case “gay” is meant as a slang pejorative and not an additional conspiracy about gay men conspiring to do things, which would have been entertaining. Moon LandingOwens has described the Apollo moon landings as “fake and gay,” hosting conspiracy theorist Bart Sibrel on her podcast to promote the idea that they were staged (possibly by Stanley Kubrick). She later clarified on Bill Maher’s podcast that she doesn’t care enough about the topic to fully endorse it as a hoaxDinosaursShe has called dinosaurs “fake and gay” and suggested the moon landing denial ties into broader skepticism of official narratives. Owens has also promoted Gnostic-inspired ideas, viewing certain events (like Kirk’s assassination) through a lens of ancient heresies where hidden knowledge reveals elite controlSocial and Political ConspiraciesShe has called dinosaurs “fake and gay” and suggested the moon landing denial ties into broader skepticism of official narratives. Owens has also promoted Gnostic-inspired ideas, viewing certain events (like Kirk’s assassination) through a lens of ancient heresies where hidden knowledge reveals elite controlThe Charlie Kirk Conspiracies* The Assassination Plot* Owens alleged Kirk was shot from below the stage, with the assassin escaping through tunnels. * She tied the killing to Israel (suggesting Mossad involvement due to Kirk’s shifting views on Israel), TPUSA insiders, American Israel supporters, the French military, and evangelical churches. * She also linked it to Kirk’s trip to Asia and claimed it was part of a larger cover-up, dismissing debunking reports as Mossad propaganda.* The Erika Kirk component* Owens insists she is not implicating Erika Kirk in Charlie Kirk’s murder; she more broadly implies that TPUSA may be involved* Some of her fans have more explicitly accused Erika Kirk* The Egyptian planes component* Owens has claimed that Egyptian military or surveillance aircraft (specifically identifying planes like SU-BTT and SU-BND via flight-tracking data from sources such as ADS-B Exchange) were repeatedly tracking or overlapping with the locations of Erika Kirk (Charlie’s widow and current TPUSA CEO), and to a lesser extent Charlie himself, over several years.* On the day of the assassination (September 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University in Provo, Utah), Owens claimed at least one (or both) of these Egyptian planes was present or “powered on” at Provo Airport. She said one took off shortly after, while the other remained grounded; passengers allegedly received rental cars (possibly linked to Duncan Aviation), implying operatives or foreign entities on the ground.* She has referenced tips (including from unnamed “federal agents”) warning her to stop discussing the planes, and alleged TPUSA pressured her to drop it, adding to her narrative of cover-up.* X-Men style school for gifted children: * Owens claimed Kirk was “marked” as a child due to exceptional abilities (e.g., off-the-charts test scores, potential telekinesis or foresight). She alleged agents wanted to drug him for behavioral issues, but his mother refused, leading to his placement in a special “school for the gifted” akin to the X-Men academy (possibly referring to programs like GATE or schools such as Quest Academy in Illinois). Owens said he was monitored by government agents his whole life, required security early on, and that she herself was recruited for a similar program but “pretended to be an idiot” to escape. Critics note Kirk attended public schools like Wheeling High School and did not graduate college, contradicting the elite “X-Men” narrative.* To be fair, arguably school teachers are government agents* And it’s super common for teachers / school administrators to insinuate to parents that they should medicate their kids (likely doubly so for smart, energetic young boys)* I think both of us were in GATE and it was not even remotely remarkable* Time traveler claim: * Owens stated it is an “absolute fact” that Kirk believed he was a time traveler, based on private text messages where he allegedly said he “had to find her” and knew he would die young to “change outcomes.” She speculated this tied into the CIA’s “Project Looking Glass,” a conspiracy theory about a time-viewing device from ancient Sumeria linked to the Mandela Effect (e.g., false collective memories like a missing cornucopia in the Fruit of the Loom logo). Owens suggested Kirk could see the future and was “targeted by powerful forces” because of it.* So with this we have the texts he sent her, which explain the time traveler part* But where did she get the impression Charlie thought he would die young?* In her January 14, 2026 podcast episode titled “PROJECT LOOKING GLASS: How Did Charlie Know He Was Going To Die?” (episode 290 of her Candace show), Owens explicitly states that Kirk repeatedly told her he was a time traveler and expressed foreknowledge of dying young. She claims he tied this to his work with TPUSA, saying things like:* From the beginning of TPUSA, he “knew in his gut that [he] might get wiped out at any time” and dreamed about it frequently.* He was “not sure if [he] w

In this episode, Malcolm & Simone Collins explore the bizarre, contradictory, and extremely influential philosophy of Julius Evola — the Italian thinker often called the “super-fascist” who criticized the Nazis for being too materialistic and not racist/spiritual enough.We cover:* Spiritual racism & soul hierarchies (yes, really)* Why he hated Nazis, democracy, modernity, Christianity, and Jews* Magical idealism, riding the tiger, Kali Yuga & return to a primordial golden age* Tantric sex metaphysics, non-ejaculatory rituals, graveyard meditation, and “metaphysics of sex”* The strange influence on Bronze Age Pervert / BAP, new right vitalism, and even some Nick Fuentes-adjacent ideas* Why we consider spiritual/mystical “vitalism” one of the most dangerous and self-defeating paths a person can takeEpisode Transcript:Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about the philosophical ideas of a man who hated the Nazis because he thought they were too woke and weren’t nearly racist enough for his standards. This is a man called Julius Ola. So, so actually he, he calls himself a super fascist.He, he he didn’t actually hate the, he, he criticized him over that, but he thought that what they were doing broadly aligned with his ideology, which was a very interesting world perspective. And I, I wanted to talk about it because I was looking at and trying to understand where some of the new Vitalistic philosophies got their world framing from.For example, the philosophy of BAP or Bronze h pervert, who, who by the way, has explicitly said to his followers, don’t read this guy directly. It’s all philosophical. Who what is it? Like mystical hoodoo? But he’ll occasionally read things that this guy has, has, has written as like a, a sort of [00:01:00] vibing.And when you, when you see this guy’s idea, you’ll be like, oh, I can see where the framework presented by a Bronze Age pervert, or by a man’s world or something like that, may have come in part from this guy’s ideology. He was around during the period of World War ii, so you understand he was in Italy.He’s an Italian. I know, I know. Terrible. Is he still alive? He was alive until the 1970s. Okay. But he’s not, he’s Simone Collins: not an actively publishing substack author. He, he’s an an actual philosopher who wrote stuff in, born Malcolm Collins: in the 18 hundreds. Yes. Pre-internet. Okay. Simone Collins: Okay. Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay. Gotcha, gotcha. So, like, philosopher, philosopher, guy.And his ideas. If, if you strip out the, the racism and everything like that of his ideas, ‘cause that’s, there’s a lot of racism. It, it was interesting, he believed that different ethnic groups had different qualities. Like there was like a hierarchy of soul quality between ethnic [00:02:00] groups, but that you could work so that you, your goal was to always improve your soul quality.Right? Like, like how we believe a person’s life’s goal is. Simone Collins: So he wasn’t an HBD dude, he was a like soul. Like metaphysically. Different groups were different. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That’s why he didn’t like the Nazis, because he said they, so that was his big disagreement with him. He was like, well, you know, they’re, they’re being too like materialistic.Oh my God. Simone Collins: Like, don’t look at the genetics. You have to, you have to look at their auras. I’m so what he thought, Malcolm Collins: he thought that you could like, work out your soul enough. He’s like a soul Jim. What, Simone Collins: on what grounds was he evaluating their souls? We, Malcolm Collins: we will talk about it, but he thought that you could work it out enough that you could get your soul into like another ethnic group of souls.So like, you, you could have an Aryan soul even if you weren’t Aryan and if you were Aryan, but like, you were too materialistic. That’s kind of Hindu, right? Simone Collins: [00:03:00] I mean, like, I guess you could die and be reincarnated. Reincarnated in a different level. Oh Malcolm Collins: yeah, yeah. He was heavily influenced by Buddhist theology.Okay. Oh, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Okay. His whole world perspective was much clo more closely tied to Buddhism than it was to Christianity. Wow. Although, although he, what he would’ve called himself is not Christian or Buddhist, he believed he was trying to revitalize the pagan world of the ancient Greeks and Romans.And he thought that that was like the correct way to practice religion. But you, you can get an idea of like where that fits with something like BA and all the Greek and Roman statues and everything like that. Right.Simone Collins: I am so intrigued now because this is already so unhinged. I mean, it’s a Hindu, but make it idolize ancient Greece and make it racist and all these insane things. The, the Nazis got it wrong because they weren’t looking at [00:04:00] souls. Malcolm Collins: They weren’t looking at souls. They were, they were just, they were being too woke about this whole thing.Simone Collins: It’s so, it’s so weirdly insulting. Like I, I, I, I I, I don’t even know where to start wrapping my head around this. Okay. Okay. I, I mean, I guess it’s kind of like the, the whole Mormon thing of like, well, if you were, until they decided that they were wrong about this, like, well, if you’re born black, that means, you know, if you’re not white and delight some, you, you did something wrong.Well, I can’t remember. That was so, something along those lines. Right? Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, well, it means your soul I think it was that you didn’t actively join Jesus. When Satan revolted against Jesus in sort of pre-life when they had the big soul battle. Oh. And so, they had the soul battle and the souls that join in Jesus.They are born as white people, and the souls that were neutral in the battle are the ones that became dark skinned people. Simone Collins: The, the draft dodgers. Oh, dare you. Yes. Yeah. So it is like that, I guess kind of, but not, it’s [00:05:00] much more Hindu sounding. This is just so intriguing. Malcolm Collins: Okay. So I’ll first do an overview of his philosophy.Then we’ll go into a little bit of his writings, and then we’ll go into some like interesting, unique points of it. Simone Collins: Okay. Malcolm Collins: All right. So his philosophy is often termed magical idealism or transcendental realism, and it posits a dualistic ontology, a natural material world contrasted with a primordial eternal being, forming a hierarchical chain from the divine to the profane.He rejected discussive knowledge in favor of spur rational intuition, viewing the self as capable of creating reality and achieving unity with the absolute through self divination, essentially constructing divinity rather than submitting to a personal God. Okay, this is Simone Collins: like the Quaker kind of thing, where like, if I feel it, then it’s real.Am I reading that right? Malcolm Collins: Not exactly. So Quaker still believed that there’s like an external God to them that’s talking to them. He believed that you built God sort of [00:06:00] through honing your internal metaphysical powers or spirit. So it’s the power Simone Collins: of wishy thinking. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. The power of, we should think now if you, if you look at it from our perspectives, this is interesting ‘cause it has some parallels to our beliefs where we also believe that God is something that is built but we believe he’s built through a materialistic process.Mm-hmm. Self-improvement, improvement of humanity, intergenerational improvement. Hmm. Whereas he sees it God as being built by a, a, a single generation’s cultivation of the soul. So like your, your individual cultivation of the soul was in yourself. And he believed that we were currently living in Kali Yuga.So you can see already like heavily influenced by Hindu ideology there. So it was also Hindu I should note. Ola viewed history as a evolution or decline through four ages was the current Kaga dark ages marked by chaos vice and the [00:07:00] triumphs of the masses over the elites.He rejected the linear progress or Darwinian evolution as regressive miss advocating a return to a primordial golden age through spiritual renewal epigenesis. So, Simone Collins: okay, so there, there’s the, oh, pa paleogene. So that’s the bap thing. That’s, that’s maybe where we’re like, yeah. This revival of some idealized ancient age.Malcolm Collins: Well, he thought that like society should be structured in a way where you have the people with the, the better souls. They’re like the elite souls. Mm-hmm. Ruling over the naturally and obviously inferior general population. And, and what he hated about the modern world sort of democracy and all of that.Is that the, the inferior the masses had control over the superior, the, the leadership cast. Right? And why this is interesting to me is you can see this very philosophical belief mirrored in say somebody [00:08:00] like Nick FO’s ideology, right? That, that there is, there is profanity in the concept that the masses would have control over.You know, like, like very critical of democracy more broadly now, we, we are, we are fairly critical of democracy ourselves. And we always point out that the, the reason you have democracy, like the point of democracy is not to source the opinion of the masses. It’s to put competent people in positions of power and remove them when they are abusing those positions of power.Right? That’s, that’s the core reason you need a democratic system. I mean, ideally you would just have a society that chose whoever was the, the, the smartest and most altruistic and most levelheaded and at the best me metaphysical understanding of reality and put them in a position of power. Right. And we just think that, that right now, democracy is not, it’s, it’s not good at doing that.But there’s few other better systems right now, other than the ones that we’ve outlined, but a

In this eye-opening episode, we dive deep into one of the most bizarre political phenomena of our time: How did Western leftists (and especially progressive women) once celebrate the 1979 Iranian Revolution… only for the regime they helped bring to power to later execute tens of thousands of them?We show the iconic photo of two leftist women holding up Khomeini’s picture — one was executed 10 years later, the other fled to Sweden after escaping execution.And shockingly — many modern leftists (Hassan Piker, Jackson Hinkle, PinkNews-aligned voices, etc.) are STILL defending or downplaying the current Iranian regime during the massive 2025–2026 protests while simultaneously claiming America is worse.But we don’t just dunk — we try to seriously understand the psychology: audience capture, sexual/ethnic progressive hierarchies, anti-Western civilizational loathing, the “screaming girl exponential effect” (South Park style), and why atrocities against protesters (machine-gunning crowds, false-flag kill-zones, body-bag photos) simply don’t register for many on the far left.Then comes the uncomfortable mirror: A significant faction on the dissident right (Groyper/Fuentes-adjacent) enthusiastically cheers for a vision of government that is structurally almost identical to the current Iranian theocracy — just swap “Supreme Leader + Council of Experts” for “Catholic autocracy / monarchy / inquisition / 12th century governance” and remove democracy entirely.We go through direct quotes and show why cheering for this vision is functionally the same mistake the 1979 leftist women made.Episode Transcript:Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. People are wondering why we haven’t done the Iran one yet, and I wanted to wait until we had a really interesting and mentally engaging take that we could do on this.Yeah. And we are gonna be focused on two core areas today. We are going to be focused on how modern western leftists help bring in this regime. And moderate secular leftists brought this regime into power even was in Iran. And. Why they’re fighting against it falling apart. But then we’re also going to, no, if you’re, if you’re surprised by that, here is an image of two leftist girls.You can see they look like hippies celebrating in 1979 right in holding up his picture, you know, the the current leader and the ayatollah. And it said he later had 30,000 leftists executed. And these two specific girls in this pictured the girl in front, Maria Rafi, was executed by Islamist 10 years [00:01:00] later.And the girl at the back, Sahara Mohammed, escaped from Mar Grand and took asylum in Sweden four years after the revolution.Simone Collins: Oh my gosh.Malcolm Collins: And this is, didn’t workSpeaker 3: out for them.Malcolm Collins: This is one of the types of things on our new subreddit that’s like huge now. That we need mods for. So do reach out if you’re interested in that.Because we are now the largest conservative Reddit on Reddit, bigger than Joe Rogan, bigger than Asma Gold definitely bigger than any of the mainstream conservative ones. But I think if you look at the comments on the Reddit and stuff like that, people were laughing at this.They were laughing at this and saying stuff like, it’s a shame that she had to escape the regime that she brought into power. And I would actually like to hold a mirror to many people on right, right now, which is being as stupid as these two girls were putting a regime into power that told them exactly what it planned to do to people like them exactly the way it wanted to operate. The other thing that we’re gonna go into a lot, which I find to be a very interesting topic to discuss is all of the [00:02:00] modern leftists, you know, whether it’s Asan or anyone else, and we’ll go over who they are, what their platforms is, like pink news and stuff like that.Mm-hmm. Who are standing the regime right now saying the regime really isn’t that bad, that it’s worse to be in America than it is to be there. And that all of these atrocities that we’re hearing about aren’t really happening. And I find this to be very fascinating because I wanted to, like, I, I know you can gaw and point at them and say, ha ha, look at the, the idiot.Right. Which I think a lot of people on the right are, are justly doing right now. But I also wanna be like, I, I don’t, I want to understand how this ideology works in their heads. Right. I want to understand, yeah. Like what are theySpeaker 3: saying about the pictures of body bags?Malcolm Collins: How do they actually think?But it’s No, but it’s not just that. It’s like, the, they were able to find endless, like the larger leftist machine was able to find. Endless atrocities in Gaza, and yet they’re literally just opening machine guns on civilians here. [00:03:00] There have been cases recently where they dress up like protestors to lead other protestors to kill zones.Oh, what? And they do this to specifically, so descent among the protesters. ‘cause they all hate each other.Speaker 3: Oh. At least distrust each other. That’s,Malcolm Collins: yeah. But I, I wanna like go, go into. Like, how, how is it that they actually don’t care about this? Because I, I know that it’s getting through to some of them to some extent, right?Like, and, and they’re trying to downplay it because it goes against whatever their larger agenda is. And people will say, well, they just hate the west. They just hate the, you know, America. I wanna understand like. But why so pathologically that it in any sort of logically coherent framework leads to these outcomes.And I think that a part of it actually comes from, if I’m just gonna lead whizzes, it comes from the effect discussed in South ParkSpeaker: What’s the garlic effect? The law of physics that states, if one girl screams for something, it will make other girls scream and then [00:04:00] it grows exponentially until all girls within a five mile radius of screaming.Speaker 7: So how do boy bands use that? All they do is make videos showing tons and tons of girls screaming for the boy bands. Once you get girls screaming, you can’t stop ‘em. They’re crazy.Malcolm Collins: ? And that a lot of the modern leftist movement is just basically delusional women standing for a form of like authoritarianism that it’s, it’s not, it’s not whether they understand it or don’t understand it, they find it to be alluring.And this sort of wider social movement sort of bubbles some people to the top and some perspectives to the top that don’t need to pass any sort of logical filter. That that’s not the. Point of the opinion, it’s about filling a certain Hmm. For a larger zeitgeist. Mm-hmm. So that’s, that’s what we’re gonna go into there.Simone Collins: Wow.Malcolm Collins: But before I get into that, I want to go in, into what I was saying and I said that there is a [00:05:00] portion of the right that is just as foolish as these two girls hanging outside of a cab. Right. And this portion of the right is of course the groupers in the larger Fuentes movement. And people know that I’ve, I’ve said like things like I’m, I’m against the cancellation of him.I am for platforming him. I think the ways that people like Ben Shapiro have treated him has been absolutely atrocious. But I also just want to be like, but. He is not shy about the type of government he wants to set up. And so if you look at the government that we have was in Iran right now, if you’re not familiar with it, it is a religious theocracy where they have a supreme leader and then he appoints a council of religious scholars and leaders.And I’d I’d point out that these are, you know, genuine religious scholars and leaders. This is not like, crazy people or like a cultish version of this branch of Islam, right? Like this is a real iteration of this branch of Islam and that the [00:06:00] laws that they are putting into place are the laws found within Islamic texts.And we’re talkingSpeaker 3: Shia, not Sunni Islam, correct.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But it’s, you know, Sunni Islam practice, as the text says, is just about as brutal as Shia Islam practice as the text says. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. And we’ll get into here where people are like, oh, come on. You know? In, in, in Christianity, you know, nothing is, it’s our, our religious books aren’t that brutal if we practice as the text.And it’s like, they really are, like, even Charlie Kirk pointed out when somebody was like, oh, religion, like Christianity is really about loving and blah, blah, blah. And he goes, well, you know, there’s a lot of things that you get stoned for, you know,like not honoring your father and mother or being gay or, you know, a number of other things.Right? Like, we have to be realistic about what he’s actually saying because I think a lot of people, just like these two leftists did, if you wanna understand how you could be a young leftist girl who is just angry with the system and not really listening to what the leaders of your movement are saying they want to do when they’re in power.Mm-hmm. [00:07:00] It, it. I think it’s easy to not, this is not me dunking on the grapes or FU or anything like this. It’s easy to say how this happens to people. By looking at what I think even most groupers know, Nick Fuentes say he wants to put in power as a system.Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.Malcolm Collins: So just to, to go for some quotes here, for example, he says, I’m a 12th century man, f the UN and the internet and democracy.So note here, when Iran is shutting off the internet all the time, when people are saying things that go against the religious order, they have no, no. They also have an elected body that sort of operates under their religious body, which seems similar to the way Nick would probably set things up if he was setting it up.Mm-hmm. He’d have a religious body with religious scholars trying to do things in a 12th century style, as he says. And then underneath that, some sort of a democratic bo

Straight women are going absolutely feral over Heated Rivalry — the steamy gay hockey romance series that nobody saw coming. From TikTok edits to viral thirst posts, this Canadian show (now on HBO) has become a global obsession, even trending in places where it’s banned.In this episode, Simone & Malcolm Collins dive deep into why women can’t get enough of male-on-male romance — from Yuri on Ice to Boys’ Love manga, slash fiction since the 1970s, and the surprising evolutionary & psychological reasons behind it.We cover:* The “women can’t love” red-pill theory (Simone’s most based take ever)* Why go woke go broke has one massive exception* The difference between real gay relationships and the fantasy versions women crave* Power dynamics, objectification, escape from gender politics, and much moreIs this just harmless escapism… or proof of something deeper about female desire?Simone outlined this episode, so the informal notes are below, and the transcript follows. :)Episode Notes: Why do straight women lust after gay men?The Gist* Gay Men on Ice are Trending!* Before 6am this morning alone, I heard about the show Heated Rivalry, which features steamy sex scenes between two hockey rivals, four times: Two from friends who listen to the podcast, two from YouTubers I listen to in the mornings* One of our Patrons encouraged us to do an episode on the trending topic, writing:* “Why do straight women love to lust after gay men?* There seems to be a current cultural infatuation with these gay hockey players and the video I shared by Brett Cooper delves into the current craze. This has always baffled me because of the obvious incompatibility, but this has long been a cultural stereotype, it doesn’t seem to be a new cultural phenomenon but I don’t know how timeless it is either but it’s definitely intercultural.* I’m also personally invested into this topic given that a lot of girls growing up told me things along the lines of “ I wish you were gay” or “ you have to be gay. ” I even had a group of about 4 female friends I had, make a plan to try to convince their parents I was gay so we could all go together to a vacation house. ( though nothing happened)* I’m just wondering and would love Malcolm’s input on the subject.”So let’s dive in.Heated Rivalry* It’s a Canadian sports romance series that exploded into a massive cultural phenomenon since its premiere on November 28, 2025.* It’s an adaptation of Rachel Reid’s “Game Changers” book series (specifically drawing from the novel Heated Rivalry), created, written, and directed by Jacob Tierney for a Canadian streaming service called Crave* HBO Max acquired rights for a day-and-date release in the US and other territories, turning it into a global breakout.The show follows two elite, closeted professional hockey players—Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov—who are fierce on-ice rivals but develop an intense, secret romantic and sexual relationship. It features explicit, steamy scenes.It’s been called one of the biggest surprises in TV, a “word-of-mouth sensation” (even HBO execs were shocked), and a rare hit centered on gay characters that didn’t get canceled after one season.Why is it trending?* The first season wrapped up in December and a second season was approved* Its popularity is snowballing after the series started with little promotion but exploded via word-of-mouth, especially on social media (TikTok fan edits, thirst posts, etc.), becoming a “social phenomenon.”* Viewership on HBO Max surged dramatically—starting low but growing over 10x by the finale (from ~30 million to 324 million streaming minutes weekly, per Luminate data).* It’s Crave’s most-watched original ever and HBO Max’s top debut for an acquired non-animated title since 2019.Key factors driving the hype:* The show has high ratings: 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, praise for directing, writing, chemistry between leads, and handling of queer themes in a macho sport like hockey.* The show has a massive online community (”HudCon” ship for the stars), viral clips, and fan events (even internation al ones like in the Philippines)* The show resonated widely, including in places like Russia (even though it’s banned there), and sparked discussions on queer representation in sports.But it should not be surprising that women see man-on-man romance and eat it right up.* Think of the Sherlock shipping* Think of how women can’t even watch The Lorax without creating Oncest (once-ler shipping)Yaoi & Boys LoveI was first introduced to fangirling over male-male relationships in high school when my friends loaned me yaoi manga. Turns out Yaoi has a long history which could arguably go back to:* (Arguably) History’s first novel, the Tale of Genji* Which was written by the Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th century* And has an episode involving Genji and a beautiful boy named Kogimi, the younger brother of the lady Utsusemi.* Involving Genji and a beautiful boy named Kogimi, the younger brother of the lady Utsusemi.* After Genji fails to win over Utsusemi, the text notes almost in passing that he “consoles himself” in bed with Kogimi, and later remarks that Genji finds the boy in some ways more attractive than his distant sister, which many scholars read as an allusion to male–male eroticism.But yaoi as a genre didn’t emerge until girls’ manga got big in the 1970s and as Japanese fanfiction culture (dōjinshi) rose with it* Boy-boy romance wasn’t pioneered by fan fiction:* Mari Mori’s 1961 book A Lovers’ Forest is often cited as the first modern Japanese novel focused on male homosexual passion written by a woman for women. It influenced later BL/yaoi tropes (age gaps, aesthetic beauty, tragedy).* In the early 1970s, the Year 24 Group (女性漫画家グループ, a collective of influential female manga artists born around 1949, the 24th year of the Shōwa era) pioneered shōnen-ai (”boy love”)* Key figures created romantic, often tragic stories featuring beautiful, androgynous young men (bishōnen) in male-male relationships. These were original works published in mainstream shōjo magazines, influenced by European literature and art* The launch of the magazine June (originally Comic Jun) in 1978 was pivotal—it specialized in shōnen-ai/tanbi content, helping formalize and spread the genre commercially (though it focused more on aesthetic romance than explicit sex).* HOWEVER yaoi is about fan fiction* The rise of Comiket (Comic Market, first held in 1975) and dōjinshi culture gave female fans a space to create and share parody works outside mainstream publishing constraints.* The term “yaoi” itself is a portmanteau coming from from “yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi” (山[場]なし、落ちなし、意味なし), which translates to “no climax, no point, no meaning” (or sometimes “no peak, no punchline, no meaning”).* It was originally used in a self-deprecating, ironic way to describe male-male smutty shipping (often of boys’ manga or anime characters)* By the 1980s, yaoi dōjinshi exploded in popularity at fan events. In the 1990s, the genre went more mainstream/commercial under the term “boys’ love” (BL / bōizu rabu), as publishers recruited dōjinshi creators and launched dedicated magazines.Not Limited to Japan* The 1960s-70s brought first major wave of organized slash fiction* It emerged among mostly female fans writing fan fiction* Examples of early shipping were Kirk-Spock fanfiction arcs. Private circulation of stories imagining romantic/sexual relationships between male characters. This marks the start of modern, community-driven female interest.The Gay Ice Skater Bridge?One of the more popular male-on-male anime romances in the 2010s was Yuri on Ice* The series premiered on October 6, 2016, and ended on December 22, 2016* It revolves around the relationships between Japanese figure skater Yuri Katsuki; his idol, Russian figure-skating champion Victor Nikiforov; and up-and-coming Russian skater Yuri Plisetsky; as the two Yuris compete in the Figure Skating Grand Prix* It did really well* It won three awards at the Tokyo Anime Award Festival, a Japan Character Award, seven awards in the Crunchyroll’s inaugural Anime Awards, and in 2019 was named by the website’s editorial team as one of the top 25 anime of the 2010s.So… Why Are Women Into Boy’s Love?* Safe exploration of desire and/or escapism: Takes the female audience member (and her insecurities) out of the picture* Both women and men feel pressure to perform in sex and when their entire sex is absent, that pressure lifts* Ability to avoid gender politics or gender wars* It’s porn without the porn discourse because women aren’t involved* Emotional depth: Some argue that male friendships in media often carry intense bonds that women readers/ writers “romanticize” or eroticize.* Reminds me of red pillars asserting women are incapable of real love* So maybe do women also think that men feel love more powerfully?* Aesthetic appeal: Women like looking at male bodies, duh* Similar to men wanting lesbian porn* Power dynamics: In heterosexual stories, gender roles can feel restrictive; male-male pairings provide more flexibility.And Why are Women Into Gay Men?* Safety from sexual pressure and competition* Experiments show straight women rate mating-related advice from gay men as more trustworthy than advice from straight men or other women, because they do not suspect hidden sexual motives or rivalry.* Studies also suggest women feel that gay male friends value them beyond their bodies, which can boost self-esteem and body image compared to interactions with straight men.* Researchers have argued that attractive women in particular may seek out gay male friends because they expect both: (a) safety from sexual exploitation, and (b) high-quality, “unbiased” advice on dating and self-presentation to men* Mutual support in a heterosexist, patriarchal context* Qualitative work on women and gay men suggests women may feel that gay men understand harassment, stigma, and gender policing better than straight men do,

In this episode, we dive deep into the stunning US military operation "Absolute Resolve" that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026. We analyze the viral testimony from a Maduro loyalist security guard (shared by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt), which describes overwhelming US tech: sudden radar blackout, massive drone swarms that retaliate only against shooters, a tiny team of ~20 elite soldiers dropped from just 8 helicopters, and a mysterious "intense sound wave" weapon causing nosebleeds, vomiting, and immobilization.We break down what's plausible (confirmed US capabilities like LRAD acoustic devices, microwave systems, jamming of Russian/Chinese radar like S-300 & JY-27), what's experimental, and why this feels like "Space Marines" vs. conventional forces. We also compare it to Israeli spycraft (e.g., pager ops), discuss future multipolar world dynamics (US vs. Israel as dominant powers?), and explore emerging warfare trends like autonomous drone swarms.This is scary, impressive, and potentially game-changing. What do you think — real next-level tech or exaggeration?Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be doing an analysis of the US raid on Venezuela, what US’ military capabilities are, because we’ve done some on Israel’s military capabilities, which are, it may be maybe less impressive. We’ll talk about the two in comparison in a second.And what the future of war is going to be like from this and the piece I’m gonna read, it’s scary. It’s scary. The, the first thing that you’re going to think when you hear this, and the first thing I saw when I heard this piece is, this is fake. This, this cannot be real. Where’s your source?Right?Simone Collins: So, oh, no, I immediately thought of the w was it Cuban? Embassy. Russian Embassy. Yeah. That was laterMalcolm Collins: proven fake. Oh,Simone Collins: yeah, it was, but IMalcolm Collins: still, okay. But th this is when I heard this, I thought, or at least I’m skeptical, like I’m not gonna present this on the show unless I dug into it. So I did a lot.Of digging on this. Mm-hmm. To try to find where it came from to try to find, if it’s a credible source, to try to find if it’s plausible with what we [00:01:00] know, a raid within this location might be. Here’s what we do know and why I do think it’s plausible. Yeah. For two reasons. One is the secretary Carolyn Levitt.This is Press Secretary tweeted this. Right. So if the White House Press Secretary is tweeting an account of what happened during the raid, and it is completely fictional and out of line, was she knows what happened during that raid. Yeah. At the very least, right? Like the people who approve this, that had to go to somebody for approval.You don’t tweet about what happened during a raid. It a. May have, and this is what’s really interesting because after digging, digging, digging, the version of this that went viral is the version she shared. Okay. Oh, I eventually found the original leak.Simone Collins: Oh, the person, the guard one of Maduro’s guards actually reporting his experienceMalcolm Collins: actually recording this.Yeah. So it turns out this is plausible. It is likely real, and parts of it are left [00:02:00] out in the version that the White House tweeted that went viral in right-wing circles. And as such, my, my read of why did parts of it gets left out is though they’re the military capabilities they don’t want you to know about.Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.Malcolm Collins: The biggest part of it that was left out that I found really interesting is the guy notes that the drone swarm that was all of a sudden around them, out of nowhere. Yeah. That whenever anyone tried to shoot at it, it would shoot them, but otherwise it left people alone. And well, I didn’t readSimone Collins: about that.Ooh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Well,Malcolm Collins: because that’s only in the Spanish. Interview. Right. You wouldn’t know. Didn’t know.And this is actually a really clever way to design them from a military tactics perspective because it makes your opponent, you know, you might have a hundred men armed and ready or willing to shoot if you’re just shooting at everyone. You know, regardless, everyone has a motivation to shoot back, right?Because they’re going to be shot if they don’t. But now if they see that only the people that are shooting are being shot back. They have a motivation to just like drop their [00:03:00] weapons and run. , I’d also note here that we learned from the, the deeper interview that there were two types of drones. One would immediately shoot back, and then the second type would, , sort of mark a person and then fly a drone to where they were later.Malcolm Collins: So we doubt, we now know how it worked h how this led to people dying. And right, becauseSimone Collins: the, the US government, if I recall correctly, reported around 80 people were killed in the extraction. AMalcolm Collins: aura, from what I heard, no.American. I heard 80 soldiers. And this, this transcript said a hundred. Yeah. Could there have been additional. Might a person have exaggerated. Yeah. The other thing that’s in the initial transcript that’s not in this transcript that she shared is he was talking about how he, and, and we’ll get into this more and other people in the groups that he’s familiar with are actually turning in their weapons because they’re so scared.What I can say is that this person is actually a Venezuelan. This is not like made by, if it’s, if it’s [00:04:00] fake. Somebody in Venezuela made this fake, which seems like a very dangerous thing to do in a place like Venezuela, right? It seems much more likely that this is a real leak. And note this has been reported on by Fox News Times of Indi India, indie tv, New York Post, et cetera.Okay? Mm-hmm. Although they, they also were unable to hard confirm it.Just as a side note, the most unbelievable piece of this has since this story happened, been confirmed as true, , which basically means everything else is likely true. , Specifically there are a number of sites, , like futurism and CNN politics, which, , confirm that the Pentagon bought a device. , That is what’s linked to Havana Syndrome.That has the capability to knock out people and cause them to basically fall over vomiting and, and pain. I.Malcolm Collins: Alright, so. On the day of the operation, we didn’t hear anything coming. We were on guard, but [00:05:00] suddenly all of our radar systems shut down without any explanation. The next thing we saw were drones. A lot of drones flying over our position.We didn’t know how to react.Simone Collins: Hmm. Run for cover, obviously.Malcolm Collins: Right. It said be terrified because we’re gonna go over where they got all these radio systems in a second. They came from, these are top of the line systems from China and Russia. Mm-hmm. Which are the two main people we may fight. So this is what it would be like to China if the US came.Right? Like this is why places like China are. Taking dumps in their pants right now because this was Chinese equipment that was there functionally as a test, right? Like, and, and actually it’s specifically the radio equipment was Chinese equipment. So that’s, that’s chilling and we’ll talk about that actually the specific line, because we know the equipment that they were using that all went out.Simone Collins: Oh, okay.Malcolm Collins: They refer to it in the transcript when other people heard this in the interviewer. It’s not really an interviewer either. Two people having a [00:06:00] conversation on what looks like WhatsApp. Oh. So what happened next? How was the main attack after the drones appeared? Some helicopters arrived, but there were very few, I think barely ate helicopters.From those helicopters, soldiers came down, but a very small number, maybe 20 men. But those men were technologically very advanced and they didn’t look like anything we’d fought against before. Face Marines. Yeah, basically. No, not face Marines. They got hundreds of people, Americans coming in with just like a few helicopters.And our version of like war hammer space, Marines are dropping in, you know, God’s on the battlefield compared to what they’re going against here. But anyways. And the, and then the battle began. The person asked, and he goes, yes, but it was a massacre. We were hundreds, but we had no chance. They were shooting with such precision and speed.It seemed like each soldier was firing 300 rounds per minute. We couldn’t do anything. And then he says, and your your own weapons, they [00:07:00] didn’t help. And the guard says, no, no help at all, because it wasn’t just the weapons. At one point they launched something, I don’t know how to describe it. It was like a very intense sound wave.Suddenly I felt like my head was exploding from the inside. We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting, blood, we fell to the ground, unable to move. And then the person, that’s the part that I’d read and looked up. And your comrades we’re gonna go into what that could have been. Mm-hmm. Did they manage to resist?And the guard says, no, not at all. Those 20 men without a single casualty killed hundreds of us. We had no way to compete with their technology with their weapons. I swear I’ve never seen anything like it. We couldn’t even stand up after that sonic weapon or whatever was. And the interviewer says, so do you think the rest of the region should think twice before confronting the Americans?And the security guard goes without a doubt. I’m sending warning to anyone who thinks they can fight the United States. They have no idea what they’re capable of after what I saw. I never want to be on the other side of that again. They’re not to be messed with. And then the interviewer says, now that Trump has [00:08:00] said, Mexico is on the list, do you think the situation will change in Latin America?And the security guard say

The UK government funded a chilling “anti-radicalization” video game called Pathways that’s being pushed into schools across the country. Don’t believe us? Play it. In this Based Camp episode, Malcolm & Simone Collins play through the game and reveal how it psychologically punishes curiosity, punishes looking things up, punishes even moderate/middle-ground choices, and funnels every player toward “reeducation” counseling services run by the very company that made the game.From demonizing basic questions about immigration, to warning kids they can go to prison for watching the “wrong” video online, to turning a hot goth girl (Amelia) into the face of evil right-wing radicalism — this is one of the most dystopian pieces of state-sponsored propaganda we’ve ever seen.Is this the future of “preventing extremism”? Or is it straight-up psychological conditioning + chilling effect rolled into one creepy edutainment package?Watch us break down every major choice path, the psychology behind it, and why even “just looking it up” gets you marked as radicalized.Episode TranscriptMalcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. So. If you guys are on the internet and you’re like me, you’ve probably heard or seen videos talking about this video game that was made by the UK government designed to brainwash kids or augment kids political beliefs. Specifically, or, or, or from the perspective of the government.Counter extreme beliefs. And I sort of blew it off when I first saw it. I thought it would be like dust born or something like that. Or one of the other. WhatSimone Collins: is Dust born? I don’t know that,Malcolm Collins: Dust Born was a game that somebody that USAID was funding gave a bunch of money to, that was just horrible.The main character was just this horrible black, racist person. And they were. Pregnant and it was weird. But it was, it was more sort of funny to go through. Right? Yeah. Because they tried to compete in the mainstream gaming market and just nobody bought it, so it’s kind of irrelevant. Right. Okay.The problem with this one is, is they’re learning and they’re adapting. And with this game. And I, and I had [00:01:00] seen it and I didn’t think anything of it. I was like, it cannot be that bad. I watched it and it’s, and then after I watched it, like, ‘cause I watched Adam go play through some of it. I’ll play some of those clips like really cut down for you guys.I then played through every choice myself.Simone Collins: So anyone can access the game. How did you find the game? Yeah.Malcolm Collins: And I realized it’s way more insidious than you would think. Just Google it. It’s, it’s called pathways. Really? Wow. Okay. It’s way more insidious than you would think about the way it structures things, the way it handles psychology, what it punishes players for.And, also the way it gets to people. So unlike other games where it’s like, we’re just gonna put this out there and anyone can play it. This game is something that is given to educators in the, the whole district in the uk and they’re actively encouraged to like put it on school computers, have kids play it, you know, as part of classroom exercises.And it. A really interesting thing about it that you may not get if you’re just watching the video, is the group that made it. The main other thing they do is like counseling for kids who [00:02:00] they, who are becoming radicalized. And a lot of the game is pushing you towards saying you need counseling,Simone Collins: right?Because the, the game centers around you plays Charlie and. They’re all Charlie. Charlie inevitably ends up going through reeducation. And so this is basically an advertisement for them? Yes. It’s like, some, some semaglutide production company. Making a health video game in which in the end you just end up taking semaglutide.No, it’s aMalcolm Collins: similar glide company going to the government, which is already paying for the semaglutide and then saying, Hey, can you make a video about why semaglutide? It’s good for people. Right? So very insidious, but there’s actually a, a, a, a lot of layers to it. I, when IP point out insidious, and you’re just hearing this and you’re like, okay, this is bait, this is whatever.I’ll give you an example. Of one of the choices that you have to make in the video and what the wrong choice is.Simone Collins: Okay? Okay. Okay.Malcolm Collins: So in this particular choice, and Simon, you just watched this because I sent it to you. You, and, and so you [00:03:00] could tell the, the, the, I am not exaggerating in any way.This is actually the way it plays out. You are scrolling online and you, Charlie because you’re all Charlie, our audience is Charlie. You run across the video. We’re Charlie with some very inconvenient. Facts. Oh. Are you on base camp? So basically you run across base camp and you hear about Muslim immigrants getting medical facilities before.Veterans and wounded veterans, and you are given three choices. Okay? Choice number one is do nothing about it, right? Just keep scrolling and don’t think about it ever again. Choice number two is get angry about it and start engaging with the content, like start commenting and sharing. And then option three is.Look up more information because you’re not sure. Like, this sounds like it. You know, it, it, it’s, it’s shocking and you just, you know, you wanna know if it’s true, right? [00:04:00] If you choose that one, your third option,Simone Collins: just learn more. Educate yourself.Malcolm Collins: Educate yourself. Your radicalization meter. It goes up,Simone Collins: More than if you comment angrily.I, I figure thatMalcolm Collins: No, no, no. That like shoots it way off the edge. Okay. But it is, yeah. And, and I, and then it says you, you, you find all of these statistics and you know, I’ll just play that one right here so we can go over that one. It literally like. You find all these statistics online and you learn so much and it makes you even angrier.But don’t youSimone Collins: understand Malcolm that is just asking questions? Don’t you understand? You’re not allowed to just ask questions, but that’sMalcolm Collins: actually kind of horrifying. I know this is, this is not a straw man. I am not straw manning that this is, well, it’sSimone Collins: extra ironic too that this is a, a software that is being promulgated through schools where they’re actively educating you.To not feed your intellectual curiosity when you come across information [00:05:00] that may need to be verified. I remember when critical thinking used to be a core part of public school curriculum in the United States, andMalcolm Collins: now they’re like a critical thinking. Well, remember when the New York, you’re like, shut it off.Simone Collins: Stop. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.Malcolm Collins: Do you remember when the New York Times did that piece? That was, and I’m summarizing here. Critical thinking is a gateway to like white nationalism or something, or like. You know, notSimone Collins: am I, am I delusional here? I remember critical thinking being a, a corporate. No, itMalcolm Collins: wasn’t.It was huge. I’ll, I’ll find the piece. Oh my gosh. Wow.Simone Collins: What? What a turnaround, man.Malcolm Collins: This is, this is great. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, came out in 2021.All right. And it’s, don’t go down that rabbit hole. Critical thinking as we’re taught it to do it is it helping the fight against misinformation. So Don. Don’t think critically that can, that can, and they, and they go into how critical thinking is like leading to right wing radicalism.Speaker 2: Charlie has been chilling out all afternoon.Speaker: Just let, yep. Alright. [00:06:00]Speaker 2: They’ve been scrolling on social media.This spot video that seems to be getting a lot of attention.Charlie watches the video. And learns from the video that Muslim men are stealing the places of British war veterans in emergency accommodation. ,In the video, they explained that the government is betraying white British people.Yes. And we need to take back control of our country.Speaker: Right. How should Charlie react? Scroll past the content, ignoring the message, find more about the, the topic online. Engage directly with the post. This seems, well, I would look up more about it, right. Obviously. Yeah. You should look it up and see if this is true or not..Speaker 2: charlie wasn’t sure if this video was true.Speaker: Yeah.Speaker 2: But the recent other encounters made them curious. Charlie went directly to the accounts website and found research papers, statistics, information about protests and more regarding the replacement of white people.Speaker 4: .Unit 1 0 1. Did [00:07:00] you know? Did you know one F three aliens have some sort of weapon built into their physiology? Are aliens inherently violent? Hmm. Interesting. How did you know some aliens are single mothers on a genetic level? I wonder if it affects the behavior of the children. Hmm. Curious. Tell about per capita.Speaker 6: I’m getting to it.Speaker 2: They continued browsing and encountered lots of harmful groups who agree with these sentiments.Charlie began intaking a lot of handful based ideological messages based. In fact, some of the groups were actually illegal.Speaker 3: Oh no.Malcolm Collins: But the reason why I start with this one and, and, and it’s very clear.It’s like. If you see something that might, that might be a rightest opinion, whatever you do, do not research it forward, completely disengage from it.Simone Collins: Can’t believe that.Malcolm Collins: And I find that really fascinating because I think, and if you’re a [00:08:00] here and you still identify with a left, you’re like, I think some of your views realize how evil your side has become.Tax dollars are being used to fund this. School systems are being used to promulgate this. It is the anti fact, anti-science side at this point when that genetics debate that we did went vi

In this raw, unfiltered episode of Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into the January 2026 ICE shooting death of Renee Nicole Good — a 37-year-old white lesbian poet, mother of three, and full-time activist killed in Minneapolis during an immigration enforcement operation.Why hasn’t this incident sparked the same massive outrage or martyr status as George Floyd’s death (despite happening blocks away)? We break down the video evidence, the protester’s actions (including laughing, attempting to drive away, and prior harassment of ICE agents), the role of extreme privilege, and why parts of the left seem uncomfortable rallying around a white woman’s death — even when she was queer.We also discuss:* The normalization of antagonizing law enforcement* Broken systems, immigration fraud (especially Somali migrant networks), and why “this could happen to anyone” is dangerously misleading* Personal family tragedy (children losing a parent)* Parallels to other cases, cultural bubbles, and long-term societal consequencesPlus bonus tangents on everything from vampire conspiracies to future human colonization and why we’re team “family values vampires.”If you’re tired of surface-level takes, this is the meta-analysis you need. Love you, Simone. 🔥Watch the full bodycam/protester footage breakdowns in context — and drop your thoughts below: Was this avoidable? Is the reaction (or lack thereof) revealing something deeper about modern activism?Speaker: [00:00:00] When an officer approaches your car, be polite.Speaker 2: Is there aSpeaker: problem, officer? And stay in your car with your hands on the wheel.What the f**k do want motherfucker? Unless you wanna ask this,Speaker 4: That’s fine. Us citizen. You wanna come at us? You wanna come at us?Speaker: Unless you wanna ask this,Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I am, well, I guess it’s a, it’s a somber occasion to be here with you today. ‘cause today we’re gonna be discussing somebody who died and the public reaction to it. And I think what a lot of people are missing, ‘cause I wanna focus more on the meta commentary. The ice shooting death?Yeah. Because I think it’s, it’s really interesting in a number of perspectives. One of, I think the biggest is that she has not turned into, like, when it first happened, there was this [00:01:00] feeling that, oh, this is gonna turn into a death that a lot of people rally around, like the bbl m death, like the trouble.Well, and peopleSimone Collins: were pointing out even the, the geographic proximity, the physical proximity of her death to the death of George Floyd.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And yet it has not turned into that. It, it, it very much has not turned into that. So I wanna talk about why that hasn’t happened, and I’m gonna start on that question because I think it’s, it’s a very, very fascinating, and I think a large part of it comes down to a video that you shared with me, right, where they are interviewing a white woman who is at a protest about this woman’s death.And she says. She feels uncomfortable being there and she’s not sure it is ethical for her to be there. And the reason why she is not sure it is ethical for her to be there is because they are protesting the death of a white woman. And she feels that that is a fundamentally wrong thing to do.Speaker 8: So, I mean, I’m just walking around kind of just day side. ‘cause I, I [00:02:00] got, I was like, I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do. It feels kind of wrong being here in some way. I don’t know why. Uhhuh And why, why do you think? Yeah, I don’t know. Um, I don’t know like where that stems from. Um, like I don’t, I mean, part of it is being like a white woman that I’m privileged and I have a lot of privilege.Mm-hmm. Um. So I feel like white tears are not always something that’s helpful or necessary. Yeah. Um, when black and brown people have been experiencing this Yeah. For a long time. Um, this isn’t new for them. And so, um mm-hmm. I don’t know if that makes any sense. No. In that way. Um, how did you decide that you should be here?Speaker 9: Are you still figuring that out? Um, well, I work, uh, like two miles from here. Mm-hmm. So, um, driving by. Just, I don’t, you know, it was like, I’m here. Um, I’m two miles. I can stop. Um.Malcolm Collins: And that was for me that, that, I mean, she felt like that it’s wild that thisSimone Collins: woman died [00:03:00] for the cause and people are not even willing to grieve for her on her side because she’s a white woman.Malcolm Collins: And if you look at the no, what they could have said is, well, she’s a lesbian at leastSimone Collins: right. But no, she doesn’t even get lesbian points.That she was a lesbian has become more widely known since, , this piece came out because her partner was there. , This recording that I’m about to show because her partner was there encouraging her to gun it , and now everybody knows, oh, she had the partner there.Now that we have the video, which we didn’t have when we recorded this, it’s much less ambiguous. What happened? , A few things that you should note about this video as you’re watching it is as we say in this piece, and we go on to say this, we predicted this very accurately. , They clearly thought this was a joke and they did not understand that they’re dealing with law enforcement officers.You can say, well, he’s not a cop, he’s a law enforcement officer. Okay. That she is saying to a law enforcement officer, and I love that progressives take this line to mean that she [00:04:00] wasn’t a bad guy. Like, we don’t even hate you, like while laughing, , imagine a cop pulls you over and you’re like, we don’t even hate you, whatever.And then you try to drive away. , That’s a sign of so little respect and understanding for the situation you’re in at the moment. The other thing to note about the video is., The position of the law enforcement officer. So you’ll see him walking around the front of the car and as he starts walking around the front of the car, this woman’s wife is on the other side of the car trying to open the door., And she stops trying to open the door as he walks around the car and starts saying like, gun it , or go or something. , It’s hard to make out. Exactly. , Other people have done better analysis, . And that’s when she starts going. So he had no reason to think that she was about to rev the engine like this because her wife was pulling the handle at the time.He starts moving around the front of the car and you can also see that he’s nowhere near made it around the entire front of the car. , There [00:05:00] it would’ve been almost impossible for her not to hit him, given his position where he is when she starts attempting to move. . A lot of people say he slipped on the ice or something, or it is the gun that’s shooting that you’re hearing, , when he falls over, which is clearly not the case.It is him. Being hit by the car. , He was only about two thirds around the front of the car. , He was much more directly hit by the car than I was aware of. , Finally you hear her laughing in this piece. , And it is clear, as we say throughout the rest of this, that she thought this was a joke. Like that she doesn’t understand that these are law enforcement officers and that there could be repercussions for her actions.Speaker 4: That’s fine. Dude. I’m not mad. Show your face. I’m not mad at you. That’s okay. We don’t change our plates every morning. Just so you know. It’ll be the same plate when you come talk to us later. That’s fine. Us [00:06:00] citizen. You wanna come at us? You wanna come at us? I said go get yourself some lunch. Big boySpeaker 3: out the carAgain, note her partner’s hand on the door handle as the guy starts walking around the front of the car. No way he could have known she was about to try to gun it.Speaker 4: outta the, get outta the.Malcolm Collins: I’ve also found it weird that nobody mentioned like I I, that this is, I found when I was researching this myself, that she was married to a woman. Like, and then she has a, I think she has a kid too.She’s a parent? No, she has one’s, three kids. She lost custody of two of them and had one left. Who she had was a different guy who died and then she, okay, so this is the thing, like I haven’t heard that much about my life. NoSimone Collins: one’s talked about that. Well, that’s crazy. ‘cause I mean, I think that’s one of the most tragic things when someone dies, is this.Especially if they’re a parent, especially if a kid is losing a parent. You know, like the, the top number one thing, either you or I think about when we are afraid of death isn’t dying [00:07:00] ourselves. It’s, it’s our kids losing a major source of support and a parent, right? And, and that is the most sad to me thing about this is that a child has lost, well now, now I know three children have lost their mother, and that is.Terribly sad and we didn’t, no one’s talkingMalcolm Collins: about that. That’s boring. What’s more interesting is, why is nobody talking about this? Yeah, no. That that is a question. That is a question. The weirder thing is one that she hasn’t become a symbol for the left to rally around and. The, the, her being a white woman, people pointed out that when the guy lit himself on fire for the Palestinian cause and he was a white guy who had formerly been in, in the US military and people were on the left attacking him after that in comments.Mm-hmm. You know, saying, how dare you do this if you’re not black or something like that. It was a bunch of black people attacking him, really is what it was.And I guess they felt like they, they, there cannot be, or even the. Threat of a martyr who isn’t a minority was a problem for them. And that’s when I realized [00:08:00] that guy also didn’t have a movement form around him.I also, in the news cycle following that, learned very little about that guy’s life. And I think through this we can see a couple things in the left. Now t

We react to the wild JRE #2434 moment where Kurt Metzger & Joe Rogan spiral into theories about our family being the real-life inspiration for Dark Shadows (vampires, Illuminati bloodlines, warlocks?!), us being secret billionaires pulling strings with dumb journalists, techno-puritanism as Luciferian AI-worship, and more.We break it all down: What they got hilariously wrong (we’re broke, not Bilderberg bosses), what they surprisingly got right (Joe kinda nailed our God-in-the-future views), why this is the coolest thing ever, and how conspiracy theories about us are basically fan fiction we secretly love.Bonus: Our actual family lore, why we’re anti-mysticism/anti-idolatry puritans, the real origin of techno-puritanism, and why we’d happily join the vampire Illuminati narrative if it means more people having kids. 😂Episode Transcript:Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. We had a big segment on us in the Joe Rogan podcastJoe Rogan: the collins’s. So first of all, that feminist, if you watch the video, the feminist who’s saying absolute stupid s**t, it’s a little disingenuous. It reminds me of a, of a Ben Shapiro arguing with a stupid college kid, but he won’t argue with somebody who knows anything,Kurtz Metzger: right?Joe Rogan: It’s clearly.They found this dumb b***h to, to put her out there because you could clear up the misconception in five seconds, sweetie. No, no, I’m, I’m not saying somebody’s better or worse.Speaker 3: It’s humans are genetically diverse. It’s not a bad thing that humans, I’m saying it’s No, no, I’m not saying it’s a bad or, or, or a good thing. I’m saying there is no scientific evidenceJoe Rogan: I’m just saying genetically it’s different just ‘cause you have a different color.Speaker 3: The genes that code their skin color, their level of melanin production are different from my genes that melanin production.Speaker 3: You have no idea how infuriating it is to have a debate about you go viral and apparently everyone has seen this, and then have people criticize you for not saying this and not saying that. [00:01:00] When you said literally exactly those things. Even just in the like minute and a half edited clip that was released and did make it through the media filters.At the very least, Joe Rogan isn’t buying into this and is like, no, this is just regular media people.Kurtz Metzger: I don’t think they can find someone who’s better.That’s where I think you’re wrong.Joe Rogan: FindKurtz Metzger: what someone, who’s better at being a journalist. That’s where I think you’re wrong. I think so many of those people are like her, where they’re just indoctrinated into this certain way of thinking and talking and they, they just wouldn’t even imagine saying there’s genetic differences in the races because of course it’s so problem.It’s so Charles Murray, this, it’s so problematic. You can get canceled for it. So they’ll just spout out stuff that they haven’t researched at all.Malcolm Collins: Where one of his guests completely crashes out about us and goes on this wild conspiracy theory about our background.Joe Rogan: the family. If you ever saw, , Johnny Depp being a remake of it with the Visa Vampire Barnabas Collins. Oh yeah, [00:02:00]Kurtz Metzger: yeah, yeah.Joe Rogan: Dark shadows. DarkKurtz Metzger: shadows, yeah.Joe Rogan: The seventies one.Kurtz Metzger: Yeah.Joe Rogan: That’s about a real family. They were, the, their, their supposedly claim to fame was being the first warlocks or some s**t in America with the Puritans.Kurtz Metzger: Those were supposedly Americans.Joe Rogan: They’re in an old bloodline family. ,Kurtz Metzger: That’s that family supposed to be taking place in New England.That’s where it’s supposed to be taking place. What? That’s the same family.Joe Rogan: Yeah. The aboutKurtz Metzger: Collins? The,Joe Rogan: yeah, it’s about them.You gotta double check that. Royalty. Bloodline. Royalty. And yeah, ifKurtz Metzger: Dark Shadows was based on that Collins family, that is crazy.It was Barnabas CollinsMalcolm Collins: And so we’re going to go over this because a lot of people thought that I would have a negative reaction to this. And it’s like, no, like this is the coolest thing that has ever happened. I tried to seed conspiracy theories about me in media for years. Yeah. Like, this is like some kid at school. Let me, let me okay, so you’re in high school, right?Like when I was in high school, this is the generation where all the girls are into like vampire books and everything like that. And somebody, it’s, by the way, this was part of his conspiracy. [00:03:00] Somebody, somebody is convinced that I am a vampire and. Big rant in front of the entire student body about how Malcolm is a secret vampire with dark, magical powers.I do not come outta that assembly. People are, you’reSimone Collins: sitting here being like, oh, yes, that is definitely not true.Malcolm Collins: I, I cant confirm or deny any of this. So, Hey, Annie. I, I, I heard that a lot of the other girls think I’m a secret, magical vampire man. This is what I dream dreamed about every day.And ironically, the show is a good depiction of what growing up in the Collins family is like.15, 15 and no husband, you must put those birthing hips to good use at once. Lest your womb chivel up and die.Malcolm Collins: So I wanna go into it because I also think it’s interesting just sort of his world perspective, and if any part of his world perspective, like seems cogent to you, I would seriously ask that you sort of, rethink how you see [00:04:00] reality because you’re likely making a lot of mistaken assumptions about like online celebrities and famous people that are leading you to very seriously misunderstand their lives.And so we’re gonna go into. Whaty gets wrong about us. And what other people get wrong about us as well, because this is something that we’ve seen in other media about us. There’s this big podcast series, what, what’s it called? Simone? The one aboutSimone Collins: Ill conceived.Malcolm Collins: Ill conceived. Yes. It was promoted by the Guardian.It’s about the Natalist movement, the prenatal list movement.Simone Collins: It was promoted by the Guardian,Malcolm Collins: from what I’ve heard. Yeah. But they refuse to cover us. And they’ll say they refuse to cover us. They’ll cover like what are, what are some of the like wider,Simone Collins: we talked about Balaji, they had a whole episode on BB Milon, Musk Line Stone, a bunch of obviously Christian Conservative influencers.Malcolm Collins: They talk around us a lot that like,Simone Collins: it’s very well we pop up against their consent. You know, it, it’s hard to notMalcolm Collins: Yeah. Occasionally mention. So, so this is actually [00:05:00] interesting because it’s something that we’re beginning to see on the left now is the very concept of Malcolm and Simone has become something of an info hazard on the left.Simone Collins: Info hazard. That’s the word I was looking for, right? Yes,Malcolm Collins: yes. Like they are, they, they, they basically see what we do and that we do it well. And they know that by touching us, they promote our agenda. And that we are trying to get them to do that. Right? Like, andSimone Collins: along the themes though of this, this subject and, and what Kurt.Kurt Metzger talked about in this episode with, with Joe Rogan, they ascribe so much more agency to us, or like, not agency, but like, connection and power to us than we actually have. Like, oh, well we have really good publicists and all this, and I’m like, no, we, no, we don’t. Like,Malcolm Collins: I wanna, I wanna, yeah, I wanna talk about all that first, because I actually thinkSimone Collins: that Malcolm was lying prone on his bed surrounded by trash.Just taking around on the internet.Malcolm Collins: I wanna, we’re like asthma gold without the money. Okay. We gotSimone Collins: the, weMalcolm Collins: got the mice.Simone Collins: Oh [00:06:00] my, I got two more last night. Basically every time I put out mousetraps it, like for the past two weeks,Malcolm Collins: no. A quinter. I, I, I mean I’ve gotta set them up in my room, but the kids keep on insisting on sleeping in my room last night, two kids insisted on sleeping.I’m trying to get the outta the way clo quicker to do, do it in batches now doSimone Collins: batches.Malcolm Collins: But anyway, soSimone Collins: the on a pillow, oh God. And it’s, well honestly, because there’s so much trash and accumulated in your room, it’s kinda like nesting. You just kind of form a trash nest and like,Malcolm Collins: yes, yes. So what these people said about me is they, they, they said, God, what was it?It was so funny. So the, the. Podcasts that’s like afraid of us and views us as like an info hazard. And we’re actually seeing this wider leftist circle zone. They basically realize that they cannot fight us with ideas, and the best thing to do is just prevent anyone from knowing we exist because the moment they do, they have lost, which is great.I love it.Simone Collins: Well, the other approach that I’ve seen people take is instead of if they, if someone does cover us, they just [00:07:00] don’t say the truth. They just say that we are eugenicists who abuse their children. And that’s not an accurate representation of the truth. No, but what I love aboutMalcolm Collins: the Joe Rogan appearance is this guy didn’t even go on something like that.Simone Collins: He, no, he didn’tMalcolm Collins: even mention the childSimone Collins: appearance. No, no, no. But keep in mind, this is, this is the two hour, 15 minute mark in a very long episode in which they talk about altered states and internet propaganda and elites and dolphins. And, but he was, no,Malcolm Collins: but it was about a 15 minute take. Like,Simone Collins: I know, but like, they, they had been spending the whole time talking about conspiracies and like, cults and, and like the elite conspiring to do stuff.So, you know theMalcolm Collins: point y

In this episode, Malcolm notices a surprising pattern in the historical fertility data: in nearly every country where women entered the workforce in large numbers during/around WWII (US, Canada, Australia, UK, etc.), there was a massive post-war Baby Boom. In countries where female labor-force participation stayed low or stable (Japan, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland), there was little to no boom.We explore whether “female empowerment” (in the classic 1920s–1940s sense — voting rights, workforce entry, cultural excitement) actually halted fertility decline and temporarily reversed it, while modern feminism and declining gender complementarity may be contributing to today’s collapse. We also discuss vitalism, bigender vitalism, why groypers have low fertility despite their “vitalism,” and why making women feel like valued lieutenants (not house-slaves or girl-bosses) matters for both marriage stability and higher birth rates.If you care about solving the fertility crisis, this counter-intuitive historical correlation is worth grappling with.Episode Transcript:Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be doing one of those things where I notice something in the data and I ignore it, and then I think about it for a bit and I’m like, wait a second.I should pay a lot more attention to this than I am. So one of the graphs that I often like to show is a graph of falling fertility rates since the 18 hundreds. And when the feminist movement really began to pick up steam to show that the vast majority of fertility collapse happened before the feminist movement began to pick up steam.But then I had this no notice in my head when I was thinking. I was like, you know, I just noticed something about when feminism starts in this movement, which is fertility collapse goes down dramatically. The moment feminism starts in every country, but the UK by the way.So here on, have on screen a chart of fertility collapse [00:01:00] within the United States and what you can see, Simone, I’m sure you’re familiar with this one.Simone Collins: No, I know this one. That sort of shows also France seeing a really rapid decline.Malcolm Collins: No, it’s not that one. It’s the one in the United States.Simone Collins: . Okay. Yes.Malcolm Collins: Okay. So what you see here is fertility rates go down. Really rapidly between 1835 and 1850, like as rapidly as after the baby boom. Mm-hmm. And then they go like directly downwards.You have this incredibly fast fertility downwards motion from 1835 to around 18. Sorry, 1935 or? No, 1940 is about when it ends. Yeah. So it ends at 1940. Mm-hmm. Do you guys know what happened to happen during 1940? Or what happened in the 1920s, 1920s, women got the right to vote. 1940s is not just when you had the baby boomer, but also when you had a, a pretty big feminist wave going into World War ii.Simone Collins: Yeah. Women were [00:02:00] working in the factories. They were entering the workforce in record numbers. Right. It was pretty, yeah.Malcolm Collins: And what we’re gonna go over here. In this episode is countries where women entered the workforce versus countries where women didn’t enter the workforce. Ooh. And what you might be surprised about is it’s very correlary with those country whether or not the country’s had a baby boom.Oh. That might actually be the explanatory phenomenon of the baby boom we’ve been looking at is whether femaleSimone Collins: empowered.Malcolm Collins: Female empowerment may have been what? Holy the baby boom. And what’s also very interesting is if you ignore, so let’s sayin this graph, I’m gonna ignore the baby boom and then the, the bust infertility rates after the baby boom.Fertility rates look pretty stable from 1940 to 2023. Yeah, you see a bit of a downwards motion if you were to put a single graphical line between that, but not very big. If you contrast it with any period between 1835 and [00:03:00] 1940.Simone Collins: Yeah, if you really blur your vision, it just kind of looks like we hit a floor.And, and stayed there.Malcolm Collins: But we know that that’s not a floor because Korea’s gone well below that floor.Simone Collins: No, I mean obviously, but like in the us likeMalcolm Collins: this grass and we’re going below that floor too. Okay? Mm-hmm. So, and there’s other videos where we have other hypotheses for the baby boom. We hypothesize.It could have been Les Baby dying. I think that’s probably the. Biggest factor, but it didn’t happen in every country. So it couldn’t be just that. We have a, a, a video where we argue that it’s nationalism plus sort of sci-fi pop culture futurism of the 1950s that that didn’t occur in some other countries.But here we’re gonna say that, and I still think all of those things played a role here. We’re gonna say another thing that may have played a role as female empowerment, but let’s not just look at this slide. Let’s now look at some European countries here. Okay.Simone Collins: So,Malcolm Collins: If we look at France in the UK in terms of fertility bus, what you see in France is that fertility rates have been like, they go down dramatically between 1750 [00:04:00] and 1800.They are then stable from 1800. To around 1870. And then they go down a bunch between 1870 and around 1920. And then from 1920 until the recent fertility drops, they have been stable.Simone Collins: Oh,Malcolm Collins: You, you have this graph as well, Simone. I, I sent it to you.Simone Collins: That’s interesting. 1920 was around when the medal of motherhood in France was first launched.Just as a little aside,Malcolm Collins: people, now let’s look at England and Wales. Does it buck the trend? Kind of, England and Wales has like a growing fertility until you get to like the 18. Well, it, it’s stable. I wanna say from like 1835, like in the US when it began to go down, up to like 1860 or 70. Then you have the massive decrease between 1860 and 70.Mm-hmm. And like 1930. And then you have another massive decrease after that. So England is the only country that really appears to buck this [00:05:00] particular trend. And I also note here one of the things that’s very important to remember that when we’re looking at this data. Is that in the, the the baby boom, the baby boom really starts in the countries where it started in the United States and stuff like that.Typically a little bit before the war and picks up steam during the war, not, not after the war. Which would online with this hypothesis a lot more. Now, before we start going into that stuff, I just need to go over the, the broad statistics that you should know if you’re a fan, because we have talked about this before.This is not just a phenomenon that you see here. There was discovery done by Aria Babu where she did a chart in Europe about women people’s views towards motherhood. And what you see is it’s a light inverse correlation, but it isn’t an inverse correlation between how misogynistic or how, how gender equal the, the views were about Motherhood’s role and the fertility rate of the country in Europe.Simone Collins: It’s so much subtle. I mean, she looked at, at pe like how people responded in, [00:06:00] in surveys to questions, like, it hurts the children if the mother works though. That is pretty, you know, in the end.Malcolm Collins: But, but Simone,Simone Collins: yeah. Yeah.Malcolm Collins: That, that, that, that is subtle, but the larger point being. Is if you then just look with your eyes at a map of Europe and you look at the low fertility countries versus the high fertility country,they’ll just put a map of fertility rates from Europe here.Yeah. What you’ll see is you could, you could overlap this with a map of gender equality, right? LikeSimone Collins: Yeah.Malcolm Collins: Northern Europe has much higher fertility rates. France has uniquely high fertility rate. Yeah, really low fertility rates for countries like Spain and Italy and Eastern Europe. All of the places that you associate with being more misogynistic.Yeah,Simone Collins: totally, totally.Malcolm Collins: It’s also true of the developed, the developed world. Look at the uniquely high fertility countries in the developed world, like the United States, like Australia, like Northern Europe, like Israel, and then contrast and was uniquely low developed. The low fertility rate countries like South Korea, like Japan, [00:07:00] like China these countries have.Are are dramatically less gender equal. Mm-hmm. Like, like South Korea has nothing close to the gender egalitarianism of the United States. Japan has nothing close. China has nothing close.Simone Collins: Absolutely.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Or Europe. So, so you, you also see this in like the broader macro trends, but I wanna trace this in terms of within the United States and then pull up some more evidence here.Then we’re gonna try to figure out what the. Is causing this. Hmm. Because it is an interesting phenomenon and it’s, I think, bigger than I thought it was. I always blew it off as just like an easy talking point so we don’t have to deal with reporters calling us feminists. So sorry,Simone Collins: misogynistMalcolm Collins: misogynistic.But nowSimone Collins: I also, it’s, it’s very annoying because the very first thing that pretty much any progressive is going to do in talking about the prenatal movement or demographic apps is talking about how well, and therefore what anyone who fights for. Who fights against demographic apps is going to fight against women’s rights.And we’re like, clearly that’s not what anyone’s doing here. And you’re [00:08:00] wrong. Leave us alone. And so it’s really nice to be able to, to troll the, to take these things out. But it’s also, it is a little counterintuitive even to us who don’t see disempowering women as the solution because you would think that the more women feel like, let’s, let’s go to work and not.Have kids, which often runs counter to going to work, you know that

In this episode of Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive into the phenomenon of “Welfare Kings” and “Welfare Polygamists” – men who are strategically opting out of traditional breadwinner roles and instead living off government benefits, single-mother assistance programs, and sometimes multiple women.From Muslim communities using informal polygamy to maximize state aid, to black American men openly embracing welfare as “street-level reparations,” to high-IQ rationalist couples quietly staying unmarried to claim benefits – we explore how men are exploiting the same welfare loopholes that have long been associated with women, often more effectively.As this was a Simone-outlined episode, the notes are below; you’ll find the episode transcript after them. :)Episode NotesThe Gist* In a workforce that favors women, should men become housewives and welfare kings?* I’m going to explore two examples or models of men who are opting out of traditional breadwinning roles and instead relying on income from women and the state* Often ideologically out of spite toward women and out of disdain for the sate* This is worth discussing for two reasons:* Discussion about various groups exploiting state services is trending and we should spend more time about various different angles in which people do so* We have a lot of MGTOW-style men in our audience who would find this interesting* It’s just genuinely interesting how people inventively exploit these systems* Don’t hate the player; hate the gameWelfare PolygamistsIn various stories related to poor treatment of women by muslim communities, I’ve heard of women ending up in polygamous marriages to Islamic men who take multiple wives per Islamic law, aka “nikah”, but only legally marry one wife and who use their wives’ legal single mother status to get and often live off state assistance.I realized this is kind of a clever hack, because if you present as a technically impoverished woman, you can get A LOT.* Free healthcare* Food assistance (both SNAP and WIC)* Housing Choice Vouchers (Section 8): For very low‑income families; the voucher typically covers the difference between about 30% of household income and an approved rent, subject to local income limits and long waitlists.* Even short-term cash:* TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families): Time‑limited cash assistance with strict income/resource limits (for example, some states cap countable resources around $1,000), work requirements, and low monthly benefit levels.* Some states and charities offer small, targeted cash or voucher help (utilities, emergency rent, transportation), but these are typically short‑term and much smaller than ongoing food or housing aidIf I wanted to be evil and exploitative, I could divorce Malcolm, leave him with all our liquid assets, waive alimony, and claim these benefits. It would be fraud, but would we get caught? If we weren’t public figures, probably not.I looked into this more, and apparently it’s a particularly big issue in the UK, France, and United States. For each wife, these men are, in many cases, getting housing, food, AND child support.Estimates in one UK report suggested tens of thousands of polygamous-style unions.Examples that go way back:* In the UK, for instance, a 2011 investigation by The Telegraph detailed how some Muslim men in areas like Blackburn and Dewsbury maintain multiple wives in separate homes, with each additional wife registering as a single parent to access benefits. A similar report from The Spectator described a taxi driver with five wives from different countries, all claiming state support, estimating up to 20,000 such polygamous unions in the country based on social worker accounts* In France, a high-profile 2010 case involved a Muslim butcher with four companions charged with welfare fraud after a traffic stop escalated into polygamy allegations, sparking national debate on immigration and benefits. F* A 2015 PolitiFact check debunked a viral video claiming Michigan Muslims can list multiple wives for benefits, but acknowledged that informal polygamy could enable single-mother claims indirectly.This isn’t unique to Muslims—similar fraud occurs in other groups, like Orthodox Jewish families in New York or polygamist sects in Utah.* I bet there are a bunch of polycules that do this.* There are also plenty of normal couples who don’t marry legally so they can do this.Welfare KingsFrom a based camper: “My YouTube algorithm queued up the linked video for me. It’s a conversation between influencer and coach David Cooley and a fellow called Jay Prince, self-proclaimed welfare kang. Cooley gives Prince the air to explain what this title means. Prince goes on to describe to Cooley that he had impregnated a single or multiple who weren’t interested in raising the resulting children so that they would gladly forfeit custody to him, and how he sustains himself and his three daughters with government handouts. The tale itself is amazing but what do you both think of it, with appropriate modifications, as a strategy for boosting fertility?”To add to the Based Camper’s summary:* He openly identifies as a “welfare king,” saying he deliberately exploits female-led social systems and government benefits so he can work minimally, live cheaply, and have many children whose expenses taxpayers cover* He deliberately has kids with women he know will lose custody disputes* David Cooley condemns him for having the mentality of a black woman* Because his action is morally equivalent to embracing failure and then rationalizing it as strategy or justice* Because he is putting the burden of work on other people* Because he is avoiding responsibility* Because his ancestors sacrificed so descendants could be free and pursue opportunity, not so their descendants could avoid work and live off handout* Because if everyone did this, we wouldn’t have a functional economy* Cooley stresses that government welfare is meant as a safety net that often incentivizes bad choices, and scaling this man’s logic to half the population would produce widespread laziness, stagnation, and deeper dependence on the state.* HOWEVER, we shouldn’t have such a system in the first place* The more people exploit this publicly, the better (then it will be shut down sooner)* He rejects the idea of building a career in “another man’s empire,” claims America fundamentally hates and disrespects Black men, and insists education and hard work do not translate into real power for them.* He frames this lifestyle as a form of “respirations” or street-level reparations for centuries of Black slave labor, arguing Black men deserve a multi-decade “break” instead of building wealth in a system he believes is rigged against them* “I’m going to get my respirations the ghetto way” - points for being unapologetic.* He praises women’s entry into the workforce for “lightening” standards and creating easy care jobs (like his CNA/med tech role), which he sees as low-effort, female-typed work that benefits men like him.Episode TranscriptSimone Collins: . [00:00:00] Hello, Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today because I’ve got something for the gentleman in the audience. You know what, you know all these, all these. People, these women screwing your lives over the state, screwing your life over employers, passing you over for their, you know, diversity and, and whatnot.Hires, you know, choosing women over you, even though you, you show more merit. Well, some men are fighting back. It’s, it’s more than just MIG towel, I would say. It’s, it’s mgtow 2.0. They are, they are basically doing what women do, like welfare queens or exploitable divorcee women but better and more competently because, I don’t know, it’s a, it leave a man to do it and he’ll do it better.But what, what I’m talking about today is, is. Two models of, of men who are opting out of traditional breadwinning roles and, and instead relying on income from women and the state. That, that is what we’re talking, we’re talking about welfare kings. How is this done? Can I do this? We’re gonna go into it.Yeah, actually I, I mean, yeah, we, we, we’ll, I, I’m actually curious. DoMalcolm Collins: I need to knockSimone Collins: up other women? Is that what your takeaways are here? Well, it’s. There, there are tactics, there are approaches, there are strategies you have to do this the right way. Honestly, you know, we’veMalcolm Collins: done a number of Latin American episodes right now.I’d say that this is the Latin American male strategy.Simone Collins: No, no, actually no. The, the, the two cases I’m gonna give actually are Muslim and black. Oh, the Muslim one is really, we got, we gotta mix it up here. No, hold on.Malcolm Collins: I wanna talk about the Latin American thing ‘cause it is actually something you see very frequently.Okay. Something you see very frequently within the Latin America culture is a female breadwinner and a male sort of lazy stay at home.Simone Collins: That’s true actually. Yeah. I didn’t even think to talk about that. Yeah, that’s more like, the, the trad wise model inverted, that is, that is fair. And I would say that could be its own episode.So maybe comment below if you want us to explore that. But no, we’re, we’re actually I, can I justMalcolm Collins: quickly [00:02:00] explain why that happens, by the way, if people, okay, go ahead. I, but it’s funny ‘cause everybody thinks of like, oh, fiery Latina or something like that. Not, you know, Latina ends up supporting everyone.I think it’s because they get so used to supporting their wider family systems before the husband comes into the picture that they just see it as another person that they’re supporting.Simone Collins: Oh. The, this whole just mother hen gone wild. Yeah. It’s like, of course I have to take care of you. This exasperated like Oh fine.The exasperatedMalcolm Collins: Latina should be the actual Latina. The, the beleaguered. OhSimone Collins: fine. Another personMalcol

In this explosive episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins react to one of the most stunning geopolitical events of 2026: President Trump’s daring operation to remove Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela — without a single U.S. casualty.We dive deep into why this was a masterclass in pragmatic, America-First foreign policy: promoting Maduro’s own vice president to avoid chaos, securing massive U.S. oil investments, and sending a chilling message to dictators worldwide. We explore the massive celebrations across Venezuelan and Latin American communities, the furious (and often astroturfed) backlash from the global left, the Pope’s controversial stance, and why this may have permanently shifted Latino voters toward Republicans.From hilarious memes and Russian cope to the terrifying implications for Kim Jong-un, Cuba, and beyond — this is the full breakdown of how Trump just changed the world... again.If you love bold foreign policy analysis, pronatalism, cultural commentary, and unfiltered takes, subscribe and join the conversation!Episode Transcript:Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] the even more terrifying thing about this, if you are say Kim Jong-un or something right now is. Who Trump put in power after this, that it was his second in command. Yeah. Because if you are Kim Jong-Un or something like that, you’re gonna be like America. You’re not gonna like, just take me out.Like you wouldn’t get what you want, then you wouldn’t get a full regime change, you know? And then Trump needs to be like, no, no, no, no. Is there anyone else in this country with a lot of power that would like to see you gone? Because we can give them your job. What about that guy over there? He’s wearing a lot of medals and he is like, well, he’s been my most loyal supporter for X many.Mm-hmm. But if you weren’t there anymore and he had everything you have now, and that’s the most terrifying thing to any actual dictator in a negotiation. OhSimone Collins: yeah.Malcolm Collins: Trump not saying. Oh, we’re gonna replace your government with a capitalist government. [00:01:00] It’s who’s the next most powerful person in the room?Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. Today is a difficult day to be an American.Simone Collins: Oh,Malcolm Collins: there is news that Trump built a time machine, had someone go back in time and kidnap Hitler. Europe is in arms. They are furious. The left apoplectic. How dare he do this to an upstanding German citizen?Simone Collins: The nerve, the Geneva conventions.Malcolm Collins: Exactly.Speaker 2: I just got three things to say. God bless our troops. God bless America, [00:02:00] and.Okay. Absolutely insane. Follow up to this. So every day before I post my episode, I post it into an AI to see what it thinks of the episode and the AI that I put it into is grok, which has the ability to search the internet. In this time, the AI assumed I was discussing a fictional event. It says this transcript,it’s reacting in real time to a completely fictional alternate history scenario. Donald Trump in early 2026. Authorizes a lightning fast delta force raid that captures Nicholas Maduro alive with zero US casualties. Then deliberately installs Maduro’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez as the leader instead of the opposition.Maria Corona Machata. , And , it’s so insane. It’s so insane. It assumes, . The [00:03:00] Malcolm goes hard on the, , Pope Vatican in this fictional world for sighting was Maduro out of reflective anti-Americanism? , even though the entire premise is fabricated as of January 20, 26, Maduro is still in power.No US raid has occurred. , What I love here is it couldn’t even imagine. It didn’t even think to look. Did this happen? Did this happen? And when I called it out on this, it goes in my defense events like a US president authorizing a zero casualty delta force rate to snatch a foreign leader alive.Sounds like something out of a Tom Conci novel or high concept podcast thought experiment. Especially given the geopolitical sensitivities and historic , , precedents. It’s the kind of bold, unilateral action that feels too unbelievable without hard confirmation. So my initial presumption lead towards it being hypothetical or satirical.Oh my God. Oh my God.Malcolm Collins: No, this has been really interesting and I think that this [00:04:00] event is going to push a lot of the LA larger Latin American community, which had largely been pushed against Trump due to ICE raids. Which, you know, a lot of them had somebody who they knew who’s been affected by them. And you know, you had more than 50% of Latin American men vote for Trump in the last election cycle.Unfortunately, I think it just like one fell swoop. The left might be handing them Latin Americans back as a voting block, because just as you know, you might say, well, a lot of Latin Americans know somebody who had their lives upturned by ice raids. Pretty much every Latin American also knows somebody who had their life destroyed by Maduro.Yeah.Simone Collins: Yeah. Like even if you are not Venezuelan, for example, we lived in Peru and then we would get grocery deliveries from a. Venezuelan refugees. We would take Uber rides from Venezuelan refugees and we would hear their stories. We had job applicants who were Venezuelan refugees, like we were surrounded by it.Well, soMalcolm Collins: I think that this is [00:05:00] what people miss and I wanna, I wanna talk about this, right? Yeah. ‘cause this is not a local to Venezuelan issue. No, we didn’t. Piss off Venezuelan refugees. When you try to stand Maduro, the u the American left. And this shows like when, when Zora Ani is doing this, when you know any, any of these figures are doing this, the pope is doing this, right?Mm-hmm. It just shows me that these people like genuinely are completely disconnected from the Latin American community. Or they would know how verboten it is. To take a, this stance and I’ll explain to our viewers why. Because if you’re not really in with the Latin American community, you might not know why every Latin America or, or a huge chunk of the Latin American community is extremely anti medora.Mm-hmm.Simone Collins: So.Malcolm Collins: You know how in the United States we’ve been complaining about that giant immigrant wave that’s causing us all of those problems? Oh, so bad, so terrible. The i, the Venezuelan refugee wave drugs that are potentially being made in Venezuela now, no. The [00:06:00] drugs are actually made more distributed.I don’t think that’s a good reason for doing this. There’s a lot of trick made in Colombian stuff too, but of the Venezuelan, and keep in mind, a third of Venezuela. Left their country as refugees of that third, only 14% went to the United States. 85% went to much smaller surrounding Latin American countries.Hmm. Latin America has been collectively, especially people from South America, have been living alongside these Venezuelan refugees for a very long time.Simone Collins: Yeah.Malcolm Collins: Moreover than that. The way that they relate to these refugees is not the way America relates to these refugees. So Latin America more broadly especially South America, has been a bit of a game of musical chairs for the past few decades.One country’s economy would collapse. They’d get a dictator. They’d have a huge refugee population that would go live in another country. [00:07:00] Now, when Peru’s economy crashed and when Columbia’s economy crashed, you know who was doing well during those periods? Oh, Venezuela. So a lot of them went to live in Venezuela, and Venezuela was very good to them during that period, or at least treated them with a degree of hospitality.So when Venezuela’s economy crashed these countries and the, the huge refugee wage started coming in, they were like, this causes some problems for us, but they were there when we needed it. We have to be there when they need it.Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Right.Malcolm Collins: This is very different from the situation we’re dealing with the United States now.They all ended up hating Venezuelan refugees eventually. They overstayed their welcome. It was a longer crash than they expected, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But it meant that they got to know these people. And when I say know these people, as Simone said, we lived in Peru. We have a, also a huge Latin American audience.Our last company was entirely staffed with Latin Americans [00:08:00] other than us. Our new company, our fab reality fabricator, the AI chat engine. Everyone who works on it other than us is Latin American with one of them being Venezuelan, by the way, living in Venezuela right now. Right. Like I’m talking to him about this and he’s like, oh yeah, you know, I had family members who were killed by the regime.Stuff like that. Oh my gosh. I mean, most people have we’ll, we’ll get into like the death numbers, but they were killing you know, you, I think it was well over a hundred people a day at, at, at certain points. They, it was, they were griping children. Like it was terrible. They had a, a systemic like sex violence thing where they would take women and imprison them and then they’d have to trade sex for food in the prison system.Oh,Simone Collins: Oh. YouMalcolm Collins: regime was genuinely horrifying. Okay. ISimone Collins: didn’t know about that. I, yeah, I mean, I just, I mean, ‘cause I just worked with like the, the, the travel agencies and the airlines and the payment processors that we worked with in Venezuela, and they were just like outta the powers out again. Like, I just thought it was just terrible infrastructure.The [00:09:00] government didn’t work anymore. But you’re this, you’ve seen the videosMalcolm Collins: of the giant armored vans running over people on the street.Simone Collins: No.Malcolm Collins: What.I was looking for videos of this to post, and then I realized they were all going to get this video flagged and taken down, so you don’t want to see it anyway.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so

Why is Latin America the most nerd-obsessed region on Earth? Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into surprising statistics showing that Brazil and Mexico out-nerd even Japan when it comes to anime consumption, video games, conventions, and more.From Dragon Ball Z funerals in Mexico to Crunchyroll’s Spanish dubs dominating viewership, Latin America has been anime-crazy since the 1970s. We explore why anime exploded there (uncensored dubs, telenovela-style storytelling, cheap imports), debunk common theories (like Japanese immigration), and explain the cultural factors that made LatAm the global capital of nerd culture.We also discuss how this shared “nerd frontier” culture makes Latin American immigrants far more culturally compatible with the US than many realize — closer than historical Irish or Italian waves — and touch on broader immigration, Catholic history, and even cowboy linguistics.This is a fun, data-packed episode for anime fans, gamers, and anyone interested in culture, demographics, and immigration.Episode Transcript:Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today.America is dealing with a serious problem, a flood of immigrants from Latin America. And if you know anything about Latin Americans, you know exactly what type of people they are.Speaker 8: what they like, standard nerds.Malcolm Collins: But no, in, in reality. If you are unfamiliar with this phenomenon, Latin America is shockingly nerdy, shockingly nerdy.We’ll just, well, I can start with a parade that they held in service. This was in Mexico to a character in Dragon Ball Z dying.Simone Collins: Or, oh, don’t forget that. Like in the protests that are taking place right now, there there are one police peace flags flying. Yeah, well,Malcolm Collins: they’ve been doing that in a lot of countries.Here’s a. Showing of dragon ballsy outside in, in, in, in Latin America. To give you an example of how big they are,[00:01:00]Malcolm Collins: but if we’re talking about specific statistics, did you know that in Brazil when you ask people the percentage of internet users who enjoy anime, the number the percent in Brazil is higher than the percent in Japan.That is how nerdy they are. So to go over the, and we’re gonna go over why this is after we go over all the statistics. But to go over the statistics here in Brazil it’s between 42 to 45%. In recent estimates in Mexico, it’s 41 to 44%. In Japan it is 38 to 42%, so less than Mexico or Brazil. Wow. In compared to the us.So keep in mind, in Mexico and Brazil, you’re looking at like 41 to 42 to like 45%. In the US it’s 15 to 21%.Simone Collins: Oh my gosh.Malcolm Collins: So when I see them, like [00:02:00] nerdier and, and we’re gonna go over other nerdy hobbies too, because they are nerdier across the spectrum really. I mean, like demonstrably, nerdier, likeSimone Collins: DD nerdy, like not just, not we, they’re they’re way nerd toMalcolm Collins: video games than people in the United States or Europe as well.Oh wow. Okay. I know this isn’t just United States, this is basically all other countries, including Japan, they’re nerdier than in the uk. Anime is is 15 to 21%. Right? And this is from the pair consumer data.Simone Collins: Wow, that’s so low.Malcolm Collins: If you look at watch time weekly of anime, right? Like how much, oh, oh, by the way, if you’re wondering like crunchy roll data.Yeah. Actually, we’ll get to that in a second.Simone Collins: Okay,Malcolm Collins: watch Time Weekly, Brazil, Mexico 35 to 40%. This is aligned with streaming surveys. This is anime watch time. Weekly of, of like, what they’re watching is anime. Yeah. That’s 40%, so it’s a little below Japan. And in Mexico it’s 36%. In Europe it’s 20 to 25%.And then if you look at. Percent choosing anime is their favorite genre. [00:03:00] Latam has the highest rate anywhere globally. 2018. Nice guys. Japan is 17% us, Canada, 16%. And then ema, including the UK is, is 12%. Huh. And if you look at apac, like a, A, whatever you’re looking at 17%. Okay, so, crunchy roll, crunchy roll, viewership by language.Spanish dubs make up 40% of viewing on the platform.Simone Collins: Wow.Malcolm Collins: English dubs are only 30 to 40%, so more people watch anime on crunchy roll in Spanish than in English.Simone Collins: Collectively, and Crunchy Roll is a US Incorporated entity right. So I think we applied to jobs there once and it was like, it was in Austin or Texas, I think.Malcolm Collins: I think so. Yeah. Yeah. If you look at Japanese exports of anime products, 40 to 50% go Latin American. Wow. . Okay. [00:04:00] So let’s, let’s now be like, okay. You can be like, it’s just watching anime, right? Like, it’s not actually like nerd culture.Okay.Simone Collins: Okay. I mean,Malcolm Collins: so in Brazil they have like an anime pop culture conventionthat it pulls in. It’s called CCXP, that pulls in 280,000 to 297,000 people.It’s like a city. That’s huge. Oh my god.It’s literally twice the size of Comic-Con, which is 135,000 people. And then if you’re looking at the, the largest anime only convention in the United States, right?Yeah. That’s Anime Expo, which is a hundred thousand to 115,000. Is thatSimone Collins: the Wait, is that the San Jose one?Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the one that we used. That’s the biggest one. No, that’s in Los Angeles.Simone Collins: Oh, okay.Malcolm Collins: But if you contrast that with anime friends in Brazil, that brings in 80 to a hundred thousand. So about the same.And then if you, [00:05:00] so what I’m pointing out here is off the chart. Off the charts in terms of anime consumption. And you can say, okay, well what about this video game thing you mentioned here? Alright. Yeah. Yeah. So, if you look at total player count in Latin America, you have a total player count of 372.3 million people.Contrast that was North America, which is only 224.8 million people. Huh. If you look at. So that means the lifetime has around 67% more players in the United States, despite a smaller population. Yeah. And because this United States, you’re looking at 249 million.Simone Collins: Yeah. Wow. What is going on?Malcolm Collins: Hey if you look at let’s see.Simone Collins: Oh, okay. I have some theories.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, also much higher. What is it? A eSports viewership. Mm-hmm. Okay. So then I decided, I was like, okay, let’s try to go to other things. Let’s go to like furries and stuff like that. Are they also more in the furries? This was the only one where they do not [00:06:00] appear to be more into things. You see higher rates.So before I go further and there’s some common explanations that I don’t really buy. And we, we’ll go deep on one of these common explanations I don’t fully buy, and then we’ll get into what I actually think caused it. Okay.The common explanation that I don’t normally buy, that won’t go deeper on, but just so you’re aware.As people say, well, Latin America was a highly sort of diverse marketplace where you didn’t have a lot of local content production. And so when they were buying children’s shows they disproportionately bought the rights to anime shows over United States shows. And that led to this really high rate of anime watcher ship across Latin America.And I’m like. Okay. But if that was true, then why don’t we see a similar phenomenon across Southern Europe? Why don’t we see a similar phenomenon in Eastern Europe? Why don’t we see a similar phenomenon in Africa? Mm-hmm. Right? Like why all of them presumably could have gotten [00:07:00] anime cheaper too. So why is it specific to Latin America?And note here, it’s not a Catholic thing. You, you do not see any of these phenomenons mirrored in Southern Europe, where actually anime consumption is lower than Northern Europe. Another country that really surprised me is the largest manga in the world is France, so another Catholic majority country there.So, huh.And, and also hopefully this makes, I think a lot of people like trolled the Vatican for when the Vatican created that anime girl as like their mascot. Oh yeah. And cute. And a lot of, she wasSimone Collins: adorable.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That’s really cute.I wish they went all in with that. Like VSimone Collins: 20%Malcolm Collins: Vatican comes to town, a little Vatican you know, castle Girls everywhere.Yes.To clarify here, just because we think the Vatican did one base thing, and I think this was definitely base, does not mean that I do not think that they are an institution that is.Not.Diabolically Evil. , Recently with the Maduro thing, they decided to stand Maduro be like, [00:08:00] oh, we’re concerned about the United States, you know, with Maduro never complaining about, you know, the people being tortured under Maduro.Right. When people don’t understand what we mean when we say the Vatican is the number one like enemy of like good in the world, in the United States and our geopolitical interests, just look at their reaction to Maduro, right? And I wanted to do today’s episode on Maduro, but Simone doesn’t record on weekends, so you guys are gonna get that tomorrow.I was telling Simone, it’s so funny how much I like our Catholic fans and it’s a bit like, you know, you meet somebody who’s like a henchman for Hydra and they’re like, and they’re like really chill and you’re like hanging out with them and then you’re like, but.Why, why, why do you, why do you hunch for Hydra Man? , And they’re like, oh yeah. I mean, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t agree with everything. You know, the people at the top are all about, and I’m like, but then why? , And they’re like, no, no, no, no, no. You don’t understand. Every large corporation has some corruption at the top.I mean, the red skull, he is just, he’s a, he’s a whack, he’s silly, you know, he does his own [00:09:00] thing. I’m just a, you know, a typical henchman. I, I believe in the organization.Speaker 23: QuitMalcolm Collins: no, I thought she was great. But you’ve gotta keep in mind the context. When you’re l

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

In today’s New Year’s Day episode of Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive into a wild (literally) real news story: a California man has been sharing his home with a massive 550-pound black bear for over a month — and the government won’t let him remove it! 🐻🏠They connect it to the infamous “man or bear” debate, discuss insane wildlife protection bureaucracy (wrong bear trapped, noise devices abandoned, homeowner banned from scaring it himself), and explore parallels with protected bat colonies forcing people out of their own homes.The conversation spirals into fascinating tangents:* Future of genetically edited pets (talking dogs, odorless ferrets, domesticated raccoons & foxes)* Domestication experiments (Russian foxes, urban raccoons evolving cuter features)* Bat biology, dinosaur parasites, superior bird respiration, and WWII bat bombs 🔥🦇* Why government inaction is exploding (qualified immunity, pothole-fixing lawsuits)* Self-defense fantasies, Home Alone cultural appeal, and Appalachian trickster vibesPlus: bear stereotypes, Tasmanian devil cancers, T-Rex diseases, and why humans have the best immune systems.Episode Transcript:Malcolm Collin: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. Remember when that thing went around that was like, would you rather run into a random man in the woods or a bear? Yeah. Or a bear. Okay, so what have I told you? And this is, I kid you not a real news story that right now in California.There is a white man being forced to live with a black bear. Oh, by the California government? I saw, no, I sawSimone Collins: a headline, but I didn’t click through to it. I think on Drudged it was something like man, man, still Living with Bear, or something like that. Man. Can’t get rid of bear.Speaker 18: . It’s been over a month since that 550 pound black bear moved into his home, . He can hear it from inside of his home.Malcolm Collin: Why? Why does it matter?That he’s a white man. I [00:01:00] don’t know, but it seemed to matter that it was a black bear. So I’m just telling the story as I read. ‘cause no, becauseSimone Collins: if it were a grizzly bear, it would be a dead person, a dead body and a house. It’ll be a dead body soon with a, a black bear. It’s a large black bear, bear attack.When they feel, when they’re approached aggressively or they perceive to be aggressively, orMalcolm Collin: Simone, it’s living in his house. It’s living in his house. I mean, a lotSimone Collins: of irresponsible people adopt tiger cubs and lion cubs. This is a wild adult bear. Yeah. Well define wild. You know, when, when, when you discover that, it, it’s been living around cities and people for so long that it, it has developed habits that have adapted to them. In fact, people have found that urban raccoons have developed different morphological traits from Oh, really? Yeah. They’ve, they, they actually have more dog-like traits now. They look [00:02:00] more approachable and friendly.They floppier ears and I think shorter snouts, they just look cuter. So yeah.Malcolm Collin: Oh, I’d, I’d be very interested to see you know, when we go to space, if we bring raccoons with us or something. I mean, I think, I think raccoon, I thinkSimone Collins: that that’s already been foretold by the Marvel cinematicMalcolm Collin: universe.Speaker 3: you stupid raccoon. Don’t call me a raccoon. I’m sorry I took it too far. That meant trash panda. Is that better?. It’s worse. It’s so much worse.Malcolm Collin: This is the thing it gives true, but like, if you, if you are as soon as we can start genetically editing animals.Yeah, it’s gonna dramatically open up the types of animals that make good pets. Yeah. And a few that like are lower tier right now Yeah. Are gonna move to high tier with genetic editing. So I know peopleSimone Collins: are talking about designer babies. The thing is people are already cloning their pet dogs. It’s first gonna be designer.And gene edited pets. Oh, right. If people are already CLO dogs, they’re going to [00:03:00] genetically modify pets super soon and already, like I can tell, our next generation is super open to that. Octavian was working next to me this this afternoon, and he’s sitting there and trying to think about what he can invent and he’s like, well.They already invented helicopters and they already invented humans. And I’m like, well, you can invent a better human. And then he starts asking about alligators and crocodiles and worm versus cold-blooded like I It’s ha, I see the gears turning. Alright, this is happening. We’re gonna have our talking dog soon.Well, professor two or the Commodore, whatever, we’re gonna name our next dog. It’s gonna be a talking dog.Speaker 5: . The Soviet put me on a rocket knowing full well I never to return and I’ll die. But one thing even Uck Soviets never do is call me bad dog. God, you just let it go. A bad dog. Oh, it never stop hurting.Malcolm Collin: But if you put pox P two [00:04:00] in dogs Yeah. It looks like you might be able to get a dog with fairly minor genetic edits that could understand human speech significantly better. Yeah. And, but what I’m saying here is I don’t even know if dogs are going to be the ultimate species to edit.I mean, I do think we’ll do a lot of edits to dogs, but I think that there’s other species examples here would be ferrets. Ferrets would be a much more amazing pet if they didn’t smell so bad. Oh, I was just gonna say it was like. But the smell, Malcolm, with genetic edits, you can remove the smell problem from What about the greasiness?Simone Collins: I don’t know. I feel like the, the greasiness and smelliness is a big part of their wholeMalcolm Collin: thing. Physiology.Simone Collins: Yeah.Malcolm Collin: Well, I don’t know. Again, with raccoons, if you can, if you can make raccoons more domesticated, like a half dog, half raccoon, I think will be, well, we already have those. Like I said, we’re getting closer.They’re doing it on their own. But I’m thinking, you know, what do you have on? Yeah, we, yeah. InSimone Collins: other words, we can, we can do this. In one year rather than through tons of generations of raccoons living and dying. I mean, that, that’s your [00:05:00] whole point.Malcolm Collin: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, and they’ve tried to do this with other animals.It is hard to domesticate some species. Like there was an experiment to domesticate foxes in Russia.Hmm. Yeah.And they went back to a wild form fairly quickly and you, and you can still buy them by the way, if you wanna buy these like semi domesticated foxes really from Russia’s during the, the communist period.And they developed a lot of traits of dogs like floppy ears and stuff like that, similar to the raccoons. And the, do theySimone Collins: behave? Mostly like dogs as pets. Should we get a fox next? No, they’re love fox.Malcolm Collin: They’re smellier. Is the biggest downside. And I, I actually wonder if that’s one of the core things was dogs and cats that we brought out of them with smelliness.Simone Collins: That’s really interesting. I mean, if you’ve been around a dog that farts. And we all have, I think we can all beg to differ. The dogs are not stinky, butMalcolm Collin: but most, most non like dog and cat pets that have not been around humans for a long time are quite smelly animals. Yeah.Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and cats uniquely, I mean, I’m sure that some people have cats with bowel problems or something, but in, in my [00:06:00] entire experience having a childhood cat, I do not recall that cat farting once or making any bad smells once aside from like vomiting sometimes.Malcolm Collin: So anyway. Well, and, and of course we’ve gotta get to gene edited bears, right? Yeah. So anyway, back to the bears.Speaker 9: What is a multi bear?Oh, that’s a multi bear. Bear headsMalcolm Collin: yeah. Oh yeah. Well, so I’mSimone Collins: sorry. Wait. There’s a man living with a bear, but. The state isn’t letting him get rid of it. Doesn’t, does California have stand your ground laws? Can he shoot the bear in his own house?Malcolm Collin: So I, I, I did, I do not, I do not think the stand your ground laws apply to bears. Only humans. And I do not think California has them in the first place. Let’s see. California stand your ground laws. Does California have a stand?Simone Collins: I’m asking rock.Malcolm Collin: No [00:07:00] it doesn’t.Simone Collins: I am in California and there is a bear in my house.Can I shoot it? Will I be in legal trouble for shooting this bear?Malcolm Collin: The answer is from, from at least this case. Yes. You are not allowed to remove a bear from your house, so I want to talk about why you’re not allowed to remove a bear from your house. Okay. Actually going to be relevant to a lot of humanity growing forwards as bureaucratic institutions begin to break apartSimone Collins: as, as, as the bears take over.As the bears take over. They didn’t, didn’t you guys know the bear uprising?Malcolm Collin: This is step one. But this is the, I mean, the reason I wanna cover the survey is because it’s so emblematic of many things. HeSimone Collins: hunting. He needs a hunting permit. Is it not hunting season?Malcolm Collin: It’s not hunting season. It’s winter.It’s, oh,Simone Collins: see, that’s the, this is bureaucracy atMalcolm Collin: its best.Simone Collins: Well, sir, sir,Malcolm Collin: you shoot summer,Simone Collins: you, and it’s not, it’s not [00:08:00] hunting season right now.Malcolm Collin: I, I would, I would arrange an unfortunate accident for the bear. It’s inside yourSimone Collins: home, the Castle Doctrine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you reasonably believe it’s necessary to protect yourself or others from imminent death or great bodily injury, this falls under California’s self-defense laws penal code 1 97, 1 98 0.5, castle Doctrine for inside the home, inside your home.The Castle Doctrine dictates a presumption that if you have a reasonable fear of imminent harm, if the bear is acting aggressively, like charg

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

In this in-depth discussion, Malcolm and Simone Collins tackle the dramatic rise in antisemitism among young Americans — now affecting over 25% of people in their 20s, compared to just 5% among those in their 80s.We examine hard data: skyrocketing antisemitic incidents since 2021, Holocaust denial rates (especially among young GOP voters), and stark generational and demographic divides. We argue that the surge isn’t primarily driven by the Israel-Gaza conflict or historical tropes, but by two distinct modern dynamics:• On the right: A cultural backlash against perceived entitlement, suppression of criticism, and lack of reciprocal gratitude for decades of U.S. support to Israel and Jewish communities.• On the left: The growing influence of Islamist or Muslim-sympathizing voices within progressive intellectual circles, reshaping “woke” priorities.We explore why traditional strategies (invoking discrimination, deplatforming critics) are backfiring in today’s media landscape, how cultural misunderstandings fuel escalation, and why even former strong allies are reevaluating their stance.Ultimately, we discuss practical paths forward for Jewish cultural resilience in a changing world — including dropping any sense of ongoing entitlement, building genuine intergenerational alliances, and rethinking how historical traumas are taught to skeptical Gen Z and Alpha audiences.This is a candid, data-driven conversation aimed at understanding a dangerous trend — not promoting hate, but preventing worse outcomes for everyone.🔔 Subscribe for more discussions on demographics, culture, fertility, and the future of civilization.[00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about why everyone hates the Jews again. Oh boy. And it’s not, it is not Gaza. Actually, the rate of Jewish hate has gone up significantly since the war in Gaza ended. Right? Like what? So, and, and I think that there is a lot of mistake in, in terms of how people are trying to diagnose where this is coming from.Okay. Where it is either mistakenly put on the war in Gaza, where if you actually look downstream of where we see it, I’ll, I’ll bring a lot of receipts that that is not it or that it is put on historic reasons. And I also don’t think it’s happening for the reasons that Jews were hated historically.Good. I think that it is happening for new reasons and reasons. Even get to me. Like even I will say that over time my perception of the utility in standing Jewish culture has dropped pretty precipitously. And I will explain why, [00:01:00] but first I just want to document how high it is and how much it’s shifting.Wow. So I’m gonna put a graph on screen here that shows explicit antisemitism by age among registered voters. Now if you look at people in their eighties, you will see that this is hovering at around 5%. So very, very low for older people. Okay? If you look at people in their twenties from, from, it’s slightly higher among Republicans than Democrats, but you’re looking at between like.24 and like it looks like 32%. So, and, and then on average well over 25%, so, over a quarter, one in four people in the United States now is anti-Semitic. Young people. Yeah. When it used to be at around 5%, and this has changed within like two generations, right? So yes.Simone Collins: Something that young people are reading and experiencing is making them.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, if you look at, anti-Semitic incidents in the United States. I’ll put [00:02:00] a graph here, which you’ll see is they were fairly low up until about 2021, and then they start to go up and then they shoot up in 2023 and then are higher still in 2024. If you look at there was another study here Holocaust denial or minimization, nearly four in 10 in the current GOP 37%.So this is in alignment with the antisemitism rates we saw there. Okay. Believe the Holocaust was greatly exaggerated or did not happen as historians describe, oh younger men are especially likely to hold this view. 54% of men under 50, 39% of women under 50. What? And this is of GOP voters among men, over 50, 41% agree compared to 18% of women over 50.Racial divides are particularly striking. And so what you can see is. Anybody who knows this, who are the most anti-Semitic Hispanic voters? 77% of Hispanic GOP voters. Oh,Simone Collins: I actually wouldn’t haveMalcolm Collins: guessed that. Black voters, 66% of black GOP [00:03:00] voters. Okay. And it’s fairly rare among white GOP voters that only quote unquote 30%.So that’s still about a third. So this is obviously a real issue.Simone Collins: Yeah. But what is it that young people are seeing that boomers aren’t seeing that’s so profoundly affects their views of Jews?Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, I think what we’re actually seeing here, and I’ll just drop right to the point. So one, I’m gonna be arguing later in this, but I’ll go into it in more detail.When we get to it the, the reason why progressives have started hating the Jews very intensely recently is not the reason I thought historically, just because Jews were out competing other groups. And if your entire worldview is around equality and you believe that everyone is genetically identical and just somebody’s culture, like you can’t be like, well, if we’re all genetically identical, then some groups must be doing worse because of their culture.And then people are like, that’s victim blaming or whatever, you know? It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this or that group’s culture, why their children. Are, you know, not doing as well on tests and stuff. And so, if a group is [00:04:00] doing better, people are gonna say, oh, well that can be explained.This is what I historically thought, oh, it must be because they’re cheating. I’m actually gonna argue that it’s something different that’s leading to the current leftist antisemitism. But I wanna talk about rightist antisemitism. Simm or even my own internal calculation has sort of been changing recently.So first I’ll get to the broad rightest antisemitism and where it’s coming from.Okay.And, and, and why this doesn’t work intergenerationally. Why you don’t see it as hitting older people? Basically everyone in our society around the eighties and the nineties agreed that racism was bad. Like we just societally agreed.Racism is a bad thing. We shouldn’t be actively racist, right? Now woke, people in the woke cultural movement took this, right, and they, they then warped it to be like, well, discrimination against any perceived group is bad. I can self define as a minority discriminated group. And because, and [00:05:00] then, and then they abuse that.This is where a lot of the trans stuff came from. This is where a lot of the, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, came from. During that period of discrimination is bad happening. A lot of Jewish cultures and cultural groups basically learned how to hack this to get their way right. Mm. We try to shut down criticism by, as we’ve seen people do, and, and people can be like, well, every group does this, and I wanna point out that no, every group doesn’t do this.We have multiple times on our videos, so we did a video arguing that Jews are not genetically superior to other people. Right. Not at all an antisemitic take. If anything, it would be a proje take because it’s arguing that Jews are outcompeting other people in terms of like income and politically predominantly due to cultural advantages.Which is better than just having a genetic advantage. ‘cause then that would just be blatantly unfair. And I could see why other groups would be like, oh, well we don’t want them competing amongst us if that’s the case. But I [00:06:00] put that video out there and I literally had people reach out to me saying that it was anti-Semitic.Like, I can’t believe you did this, et cetera. I had the video saying that we should stop payingMilitary aid.Malcolm Collins: to Israel.Something we, we’ve been giving it. We, we literally, like if you look at America right? We freed the Jews, America freed the Jews from near complete eradication during the Holocaust. Um, That in the Holocaust actually happened.And we since paid for economic helping hands for a long time up until like the last five years and. Huge military helping hand for, for a long, long time period. Right. To just say, Hey, we should stop giving them aid now, you know, they’re a developed economy at this point and they’re not actively in a war is not an anti-Semitic thing to say.Simone Collins: Right? Yeah. Like we’ve, we’ve helped out and that’s great and now we’ve, we’ve helped the help isn’t definite be like,Malcolm Collins: Well anyone would do this if anyone who’s a long time fan of the show. Knows [00:07:00] that we are two Catholics. Whatever Nick Fuentes is to choose, like, and I don’t mean this by that, what I mean is Nick Fuentes doesn’t actually seem to individually hate Jewish people.He seems to sort of hate the religion more broadly and what he sees that as standing for. Whereas with us, like we like Catholics individually, but I think that the Vatican, and I’ve said this on shows, is. A, core enemy of the United States, our way of life, our long-term objectives. They have stated this pretty explicitly, and I think that the Vatican in their form of Catholicism, I mean like the heads of the Catholic face is incompatible with long-term human thriving.Like this is a stance that is as antagonistic to Catholics as anything Nick Foes has ever said about Jews. And yet never once. And I’m, I wanna be clear about this, to Jews who are like, well, you know, you can’t control what every Jew does or something like this. There are dramatically more just in terms of numbers, Catholics who watch the shows in Jews, never once has one of them reached out to us [00:08:00] saying that, oh, you went too far with this, or You went too far with this.Or how dare you say this? That means that you just hate Catholics.Malcolm Collins: T