] Malcolm Collins: actually I can just put this graph of chimps next to a graph of the political parties drifting apart.[00:00:06] Simone Collins: The interchange between these different cliques just ends, and then you just basically see red and blue. Just big old blocks of red and blue.[00:00:14] But I think a lot of it does have to do with the breakdown of communication between factions and really starting to view the enemy as not human, as other.[00:00:23] Malcolm Collins: And we’re seeing this radicalization happen with, like, the Anthony trial, right? Where the left is like, “It should be okay to kill white people, of course.” Mm. Right? Like, how dare you punish somebody for killing a white person? Ththey’re actually getting surprised about this, and this is in turn radicalizing[00:00:40] Simone Collins: the opposite- Oh, God, no, you’re right.[00:00:41] Like, the fact that they were up in arms about that goes to show, yeah, this complete lack of communication with someone who might hold a different perspective.[00:00:50] Would you like to know more?[00:00:52] Simone Collins: Hello, Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today, because we’re talking civil war. What if alt-hist speaks of civil war? You speak of civil war. I don’t see it. I think people are lazy, or at least that’s what I thought. I thought that our, you know, in our modern world, developed society tumbling into civil war just couldn’t happen, until I learned more about the chimp war that was trending in the news i- just for, like, a moment this spring, that I planned on doing an episode, totally forgot to.[00:01:19] The research on this chimp war suggests that civil war existed before humanity was developed, and what the researchers found might reveal fundamental shifts in social dynamics that almost mechanically produce civil war when the dominoes fall in just the right way, so to speak. So rather than- ... being about civilizational things like religion and governance and political systems or cultural i- identity, civil war is actually the product of very subtle but crucial logistical shifts in social clusters and in dominance hierarchies.[00:01:52] But crucially, this research implies that there are cultural and civilizational things that we could do to reduce our odds of hurtling towards civil war.[00:02:01] Malcolm Collins: Wait, do we want to reduce our odds of hurtling towards civil war?[00:02:05] Simone Collins: Look, I don’t want my electricity to go out. I need to be able to buy my Doritos popcorn.[00:02:10] Malcolm Collins: I guess it depends on who’s on top. Look, I- Simone has been wanting to tell me about this chimp war all day.[00:02:16] Simone Collins: Yes.[00:02:16] Malcolm Collins: She has gotten so excited about this idea. It w- it was the first episode she wanted to record- Yeah ... today. She’s like, “We have to do... I need to tell you,” so therefore she needs to tell you guys.[00:02:26] And she’s now saying that she thinks we might actually be heading towards civil war, that maybe Roubiyaard is right. Is that what you’re saying? Roubiyaard. Because Roubiyaard predicts the American left and right headed towards a civil war within our country. And you’re saying Roubiyaard-[00:02:42] Simone Collins: He’s on to s- no, he’s...[00:02:43] Yep. Based on the chimpanzee civil war, and what I’ve observed of human behavior related to-[00:02:50] Malcolm Collins: Well, we’ve also gotta keep in mind that there’s a lot of actors out there that would like an American civil war, right?[00:02:55] Simone Collins: Like- But it’s worse than that. It’s because, and this, this is crucially what this research reveals.[00:03:00] It’s not necessarily about them, and it’s not about religion or culture. It’s about this other factor that is extremely underrated, that played a crucial war in the chimp war. Sorry, a crucial role in the chimp war, and- Th- this, this could be the linchpin. This could be the thing that can trigger a war, ‘cause it is what triggered this war, and I think it’s super fascinating.[00:03:23] So you ready? Okay.[00:03:25] Malcolm Collins: You know what time it is. Yeah?[00:03:26] Simone Collins: Okay, okay. What time is it?[00:03:27] Malcolm Collins: W- w- what time is it? Is,[00:03:29] Simone Collins: is[00:03:29] it- Come on. Oh, chimpanzee that. It’s monkey news.[00:03:32] Malcolm Collins: Oh, you gotta do the monkeys- Yeah ... fighting the-[00:03:35] Speaker 8: Hold on now[00:03:56] Simone Collins: Oh, oh, like the whole[00:03:57] Malcolm Collins: time I’m like thinking about this ... the, the vaguely racist clip that’s [00:04:00] enough to trigger people.[00:04:01] It’s just, like, cavemen from the 1980s.[00:04:05] Simone Collins: Oh, God. I’m, I’m super excited about this. No, and also a really big hat tip to Gutsick Gibbon on YouTube, because she’s the one who got me thinking about this, and she does a lot of, like, stuff about evolution and creationism, but also covered the chimp war. So first off, I had no idea that people are really into studying chimpanzees, and I should’ve realized that they were because Jane Goodall exists and is a thing.[00:04:30] But they have been studied at roughly 120 field localities across 20 African countries, and it’s this really involved process where they will spend months, even years, just standing awkwardly around the chimpanzees to just get them accustomed to humans being around and not meaning anything. And then they also do what are called focal follows, where trained observers just follow one identified individual for extended periods of time, writing detailed notes every 15 minutes for adults, and every minute for mother-infant pairs talking about, well, what are they doing right now?[00:05:09] What’s the party composition? What are the social dynamics? Where are they located? What are they eating? Like, they’re just... I, I wonder how these... I really wanna... Like, what do these chimpanzees think of these humans? This is bizarre. And then they will get to know the, the chimpanzees. They’ll know them, like, multiple generations of families, and then they’ll also do more at arm’s length analyses based on cameras that they have triggered to notice motion, and they’ll even analyze their, their feces for shifts in their hormones.[00:05:42] So they’re, like, really into this. And in the earlier days of Jane Goodall, they were a lot I would say the research was really crappy. So actually this, this war that I’m about to talk about is not the first chimpanzee war. The famous Jane Goodall observed the first chimpanzee war, the Gombe chimpanzee war from 19- And[00:06:04] Malcolm Collins: did she, like, play it down or something ‘cause she wanted people to like chimps?[00:06:07] Simone Collins: It’s worse than that. So, this is a war that went from 1974 to 1978, and it, it’s the first sort of famously documented chimpanzee war that she was there for. And a lot of the people who criticized her, even her analysis of this chimpanzee war, was they were like, “No, she caused it.” Because she was feeding these chimpanzees food, and that created crowding and extra competition which then when these, these chimpanzees encountered resource scarcity later, both in the, the form of food- Mm[00:06:42] and in fertile females, it caused them to become extra aggressive. So a lot of people were like, “Well, we can’t even consider this war seriously and take good data from it because she got too involved with these chimpanzees.”[00:06:53] Yeah.[00:06:53] She, she was, she’s feeding them. And getting, like, way too emotionally invested.[00:06:57] And I’m sure everyone gets emotionally invested in these chimpanzees, but, like Yeah, anyway, it, I, yeah. So we can’t really, like, it wasn’t, the, the data wasn’t great. Though subsequent research did reveal that indeed there are conflicts and, and, and, and violent disagreements between chimpanzees. So it’s not like it’s all human caused.[00:07:17] It happens naturally. Even now with much better research, it, you know, and people are much more removed and not getting involved with the chimpanzees, it’s still happening, and it certainly happened here. But now they’re much better at tracking how it’s happening and why it’s happening. So this, this first this civil war, it happened in 2015.[00:07:38] It began in the Ngogo community in U- Uganda, and this is one of the... Actually, it is the largest known wild chimpanzee community ever studied. It is huge. It has over 200 chimpanzees, and it has been tracked and studied for over 30 years. So they have incredibly good data on these chimpanzees, and th- like, over multiple [00:08:00] generations.[00:08:00] And this war is kind of a big deal because it, the civil war started in 2015, and apparently it’s still ongoing. So this is a very serious conflict. And here’s sort of how it played out. On June 24th in 2015, this is when the war started, it has a whole lore members of the western and central clusters of this community encountered each other, and instead of reuniting like they normally used to, the western chimps ran away from the central chimps and w- the central chimps chased them.[00:08:36] And then this was followed by this unprecedented six-week period of mutual avoidance that escalated into controlled patrols and attacks in 2016. So sort of one year after they started acting real weird around each other and avoiding each other, they are r- rating each other. This is typically males- Wait, no, hold[00:08:56] Malcolm Collins: on, hold on.[00:08:57] So what used to happen before the avoidance behavior when they would in- interact?[00:09:00] Simone Collins: They’d just, like, hang out and start eating food and be cool around each other. They would not start attacking- Mm ... and killing each other.[00:09:08] Malcolm Collins: What they’re doing now- So this is what you’re saying it relates to our society right now, it’s the avoidance of two social groups from interacting with each other that spells, and this is true, the left and the right used to hang out together.[00:09:21] Mm-hmm. They used to go to events together. Mm-hmm. They used to be part of the same social circles- Mm-hmm ... same companies, and we’re not seeing that anymore. They’ve completely divided.[00:09:29] Simone Collins: And I mean, not to, not to be biased, but j’accuse the left. It, it is their fault because they’re the ones... And this even shows up in the data.[00:09:39] Like, I- I, you remember the, the research on friendships that found that people on the right were happy to befriend people who were left-leaning politically, but people on the left very clearly and distinctly in the data were unwilling to be friends with or would even end, terminate friendships with people who they sought to be politically conservative.[00:10:01] So this freezing out is, is unidirectional. And I mean, if we have a civil war, it’s going to be the fault of the left. It’s not gonna be- Mm ... our freaking fault. Because it’s clear from data that is not there’s no partisan agenda behind it. It was just like, “Let’s learn about friendship. La, la, la.” Th- they are definitely a big part of this.[00:10:21] But yeah, so w- just little peek into what a chimp war is like. Mm. I- in practice, it looks like groups of chimpanzees, usually males, though not always, patrolling their territory’s borders and then pushing into enemy territory. So this is very much warlike, very similar to human wars. Then when they encounter members of the opposing group, they attack them, often in brutal, prolonged fashion involving beating and biting and deliberate cruelty beyond what’s needed to simply kill.[00:10:51] So they, they’re aware of what chimpanzees will do in self-defense. They’ve been studying this particular group for 30 years. They’re going beyond, like, they’re just, they hate them. They[00:11:04] Malcolm Collins: hate[00:11:04] Simone Collins: them. They...[00:11:05] Malcolm Collins: Wait, the two groups hate each other?[00:11:06] Simone Collins: Or wh- The two groups hate each other. They’re, they’re not just killing people strategically in, like, self-defense or, “Oh, we need resources.”[00:11:13] They’re, they’re, like, enjoying it. In fact, females were also present during attacks that they, that they monitored, and they occasionally carried out killings themselves, which is unusual. They’re, they’re notably more aggressive during this fission period than females typically are during intercommunity pr- patrols.[00:11:31] So even- Even the women are chimping out. It’s, it’s bad. And then over seven years, the western group made 24 attacks, killing at least seven mature males and 17 infants. So there, there are casualties, and that’s non-trivial in a group of 200. Yeah. By 2017, two fully distinct territories and groups were established, and the civil war has continued on.[00:11:56] Like, it... There’s, there’s no sign of it ending. And [00:12:00] a lot of people are like, “Well, this happened because the troop was large.” And it is the, the biggest one ever studied, it’s true, but m- it’s very common, and apparently they call this fusion and fission. It’s very common to see fission in a large chimp group.[00:12:15] They will break up because they’re just too big. It’s, it’s, it’s... The, the dominance hierarchy kind of falls apart. But that is m- it’s usually peaceful. They just kind of go their separate ways, and there is no conflict like this. This is very unusual. And That’s why we wanna go into what caused this.[00:12:34] This is what’s so interesting. So it’s not that the group was getting too big. What the key thing is that key intermediary individuals died. So- Mm ... in 2014, at least two of these like a, a large cluster of important chimpanzees who used to be... You know, in high school, like with the cliques, there was that kid who, like, would float between, like, the drama kids and the stoners- Mm[00:13:00] or the popular kids and the nerds, right? And they would, they would sometimes get the groups together, like invite them all to their beach party. I don’t know. I wasn’t good at social things in high school. But that is what these intermediary chimps would do. They would get basically two of these subgroups within these groups together, and they were really good at connecting them, and this created this sense of familiarity and exchange, even if they spent the majority of time kind of on their own doing their own thing.[00:13:29] And it could be that there was some kind of sickness that spread through in 2014, but a, a bunch of these key males specifically died. Two of them, it’s, definitely died from diseases. So[00:13:40] Malcolm Collins: the bros that- The[00:13:42] Simone Collins: bros, yeah. Like the bros, yeah, who are just like, “Look, like, let’s all hang out.” I mean, I think you’re, you try to be one of these people within our culture, right?[00:13:49] Like, we reach out- Mm ... to people on the left all the time. We try to get people together. We host these parties to get people from different groups together. Well, I think[00:13:54] Malcolm Collins: it’s within the right I try to be one of these people, where we have many different factions in the right with many different goals, and I try to- Yeah[00:14:02] identify which ones can actually work together effectively- Yeah ... and then try to decrease tensions between those groups so that we can win.[00:14:10] Simone Collins: And that is exactly what those chimps did. But what happens if you die, right? And if like five other people who are doing the same thing die? You’re gonna get less of that exchange, less of the, the very crucial membrane permeation that leads to a little bit more osmosis and, like, stability between the membranes.[00:14:31] You know, other- it’s, it’s gonna become very brittle and strained if, if there- Mm ... isn’t this exchange. And so take this and then make it worse, because in 2015, the, the, there was a, a power transition. The, the alpha male- Mm ... shifted, and this coincided With the first sustained separation between the western and central clusters.[00:14:56] And then this likely amplified tensions, right? If there’s a new leader, there were probably a bunch of other males who were kind of, like, in coalitions that were angling for power for the alpha male position in his, like, orbit of supplemental alpha males. I don’t know how it works in chimp groups, I’m just guessing here.[00:15:12] But that must have made things worse. But then what really solidified all of this, is that a respiratory epidemic hit in 2017, and this killed 25 chimpanzees. Oh. And this ended up killing some of the last remaining key intermediaries. And then as those go- go-betweens just disappeared and vaporized, no, no one else, like, stepped in to fill that role.[00:15:35] Just- Well,[00:15:36] Malcolm Collins: what I find really interesting is if you look at what’s happened in our society, and you’re using this as a predictive sort of model-[00:15:43] Simone Collins: Uh-huh ...[00:15:43] Malcolm Collins: the sort of social virus that has infected the left is so terrified. In fact, the thing it’s terrified most of is the intermediary, right? Yeah, yeah.[00:15:52] Because the intermediary could allow ideas to enter the left that would defeat the social contagion-[00:15:57] Simone Collins: Yeah,[00:15:58] Malcolm Collins: and deescalate the isolation ... or negate the ability to [00:16:00] control people. Yeah. So they explicitly target intermediaries. Yeah. And then what the intermediaries have done, because if you look at many of the people who have become thought leaders on the new right they are people who previously filled the intermediary role in society.[00:16:19] Mm-hmm. People like myself or Leaflet or J.D. Vance or these were very much, like, the bridge between MAGA and the left, right? Yeah. Like, we talked with both of them, we hung out with both of them, we helped both of them communicate with each other. Mm-hmm. And I think one of the biggest challenges that the left is going to have going forwards is because it attacked the people willing to talk to both sides.[00:16:45] Mm-hmm. Is the intermediaries are now Applying their skillset to make the right more culturally cohesive. Basically to build a stronger faction against them, and we’re, we’re absolutely seeing that, right? Like, the, the right- Mm-hmm ... has been significantly less, especially the new right, as I’ve said, significantly low drama, significantly low infighting.[00:17:08] Yeah. Because ... Now, this isn’t all of the right. Obviously there’s parts of, like, the legacy right who don’t understand what’s going on, and we basically ignore them because they speak to- Mm-hmm ... boomers and they’re gonna be dead soon anyway. You know, they, they can rail against anime or, or hentai or whatever.[00:17:21] Well, actually,[00:17:22] Simone Collins: no, you, okay, so you’ve gotta look on WhatsApp and pull up the, the graph image I just sent to you, because what you’re describing, like if ... In fact, it doesn’t even say anything about chimps here. It says western group and central group, but you could just replace that with, like, leftists and, and rightists.[00:17:37] Yeah,[00:17:37] Malcolm Collins: actually I can just put this graph of chimps next to a graph of the political parties drifting apart.[00:17:44] Simone Collins: Yeah. And so what, what you’re, if you’re just listening, what we’re looking at is a graph from the research looking at this chimpanzee war. It goes from 1998 to 2022, and it visually shows how different cliques and coalitions interchanged and exchanged with each other.[00:18:02] And you can see in, in 1998 it was, it was both a smaller group, so there were fewer involved in this discourse, which a- is pretty analogous too, actually, to- Mm ... how things used to be in 1998 in our own time, when there literally were not that many voices involved in public discourse. Anyway, though then you start to see over time that there’s more population density, but then there’s still a, a lot of exchange.[00:18:32] And then after 2016 especially, just the, the interchange between these different cliques just ends, and then you just basically see red and blue. Just big old blocks of red and blue. And blue starts branching off a little bit. It might be going through some kind of fission event again around starting in 2021.[00:18:52] It’s unclear. But from 2018 until 2021 both of these blocks were basically uninterrupted, giant, isolated chunks, and that is what civil war looks like. And I, I do worry- Reading this and looking at this graph and just being like, “Wait, is this our political factions right now?” ‘Cause it really feels like it[00:19:14] That-[00:19:15] Malcolm Collins: No, after y- after I saw this graph, I was like, “Okay, okay.” I know,[00:19:19] Simone Collins: right? Like, we need to-[00:19:19] Malcolm Collins: Right? We need to talk about this.[00:19:22] Simone Collins: But then also, you should look at the one with the picture of the, the chimpanzees at the bottom. This is figure one from the research. It shows a different kind of visualization going from 2013 to 2018, where it sort of graphs out the social networks.[00:19:37] And they show them in, in red and blue again, and there’s sort of this, you can see the spikes of how the social networks connect. And in 2013, you really, it’s hard to tell what’s red and what’s blue. Yeah. It’s just this combined spiky ball. And then what you’re seeing over time from 2013 to 2018, it looks like sort of a weird spiky ball soot sprite from Spirited Away [00:20:00] undergoing some form of, like, cell division and then becoming just two distinct balls.[00:20:05] It just falls apart. And it’s just all about that interconnectedness, and it’s, it’s fascinating to me, and I think what this teaches us about human civil war is that the role of linchpin individuals who connect disparate groups is super underrated in our understanding of how they kick off. That when I was taught how civil war worked in history, it was like, well, you need to have this point where, like, people are so poor that they’re really angry, and then, like, some educated class is, like, in on it too.[00:20:35] But I think a lot of it does have to do with the breakdown of communication between factions and really starting to view the enemy as not human, as other. And that’s how you’re getting- Yeah ... even female chimpanzees coming in here and, and being hungry to, to kill the infants that, of, of groups that... You know, these are, these are chimpanzees that grew up.[00:20:55] They used to groom each other. Like, they knew each other, and they’re killing each other now. This is, this is really serious stuff, and this is exactly what happens in human civil wars. This is how you got brothers fighting on opposite sides.[00:21:07] Malcolm Collins: And I think- Well, I mean, you know, you, we’ve, we, the, the reason it escalates is because somebody else killed your infants, or did that, like, you know, last year, but-[00:21:12] Simone Collins: Well, sure, yeah.[00:21:13] No, it, it escalates real fast once killing[00:21:15] Malcolm Collins: starts ... and we’re seeing this radicalization happen with, like, the Anthony trial, right? Where the left is like, “It should be okay to kill white people, of course.” Mm. Right? Like, how dare you punish somebody for killing a white person? Th- they’re actually getting surprised about this, and this is in turn radicalizing[00:21:33] Simone Collins: the opposite- Oh, God, no, you’re right.[00:21:33] Like, the fact that they were up in arms about that goes to show, yeah, this complete lack of communication with someone who might hold a different perspective. Same with the way that people respond to ICE. Are just like, well, the, to, to both treat ICE officers as not human and then to just be so unthinking and, like- How maybe we should enforce immigration law or to hate them so deeply to, like, chase them around with whistles and just all these, and to, like, call them Nazis and everything.[00:22:11] Yeah, it, that’s very disturbing.[00:22:15] Mm-hmm.[00:22:16] But what I think we could do, and what I view differently now knowing this, is that I think we should both take the concept of the index more seriously. This is something Malcolm proposed in The Pragmatist’s Guide to Crafting Religion, or the, the book he wrote about culture.[00:22:35] Basically crafting culture or making your existing religion stronger in the face of modernity. Yeah. And this concept of the index is this idea of this loose network of families and cultures that respects the autonomy of other cultures and seeks to learn from them and exchange with them. To share certain cultural technologies, like maybe share dating markets, but to, you know, respect everyone’s culture, but also welcome the intermixing and iteration of, of their cultures.[00:23:06] It’s something that we’ve started to build up. There’s a lot of families that are already kind of listed as like, “Hey, we’re gonna be a part of this experiment when you have critical mass sufficient to kick it off.” And it, it is exactly formations of, of loose organizations like that that can create not only really helpful, safe alliances as things start to break down, but also stave off things like civil war, because it’s exactly that exchange that we need.[00:23:30] But this also makes me think of your techno-puritan covenant of the Sons of Man, which was designed sort of to fight off existential risk and threat from AI, but is also very much related to this, which is that we have to respect everyone’s right to sovereignty and the, the right to exist as long as you’re not putting others at risk.[00:23:57] And I think a core part of that involves [00:24:00] being willing to exchange with them and understand them and maybe pushing for that[00:24:05] Malcolm Collins: more- Well, and, and they’re ... The, the, the, the ... I mean, you could not, with this model of civil war, have played your cards worse than the left played their cards. Yeah. And I think when you look at, like, sensibilities and stuff like that, like how far the right is willing to go at this point in terms of getting things done- Yeah[00:24:23] You know, what ICE is doing looks quite violent to a lot of people, but m- the vast majority of people on the right, other than like Nick Fuentes who whines about it, I can’t even believe he whines about ICE being too violent. He’s such a f*****g weenus. Anyway I, I am just so glad that he’s left our party.[00:24:39] Such a weenus. But the rest of us are like, “Yeah, like ICE needs to do this,” right? Like we have seen what happens on the other side of this. The gang rapes of children where people aren’t even given prison sentences and stuff like that. Like this, it’s just mortifying at this point how bad things have gotten.[00:24:57] And how statistically bad things have gotten. And our side is just like, “We don’t care anymore. We don’t care about fairness or it looking bad.” And it’s even, I think, the same with elections, where the left is completely unconcerned with, like, no matter how much evidence you can show them that there was election fraud, it is irrelevant to them at this point.[00:25:16] Mm. Because they’re like, “Well, we should cheat in elections,” right? Like, that’s worth it for us. And I think that on the right, we should be taking this perspective as well, like much more aggressively. Just like we need to... No, really, I, I mean, I think what a civil war functionally looks like in this current day and age-[00:25:33] Simone Collins: Mm, and you said this, yeah[00:25:35] Malcolm Collins: is we need functional control of the tech lords that means the AI companies. And, and, and, and fortunately, we’re actually sort of, like, already well on our way to that. Most of the tech lords are new right adjacent or really sympathetic to our world perspective and ways of thinking and, like, wider cultural movement.[00:25:57] So like, we’re already there, just part of the key to winning that is stop attacking the tech lords, you doofuses. Right? Like, the tech lords are our friends. We, who, who owns the AI and the capital plays a lot of a role in who wins a societal civil war. That’s true. We don’t own the media, and we can’t own the media.[00:26:17] We’re never gonna win those institutions. We’re never gonna win the university system. We’re never gonna win academia. But we can win the tech lords in an era where their influence disproportionately matters. So, that means you need to be forgiving of the type of things that the tech lords do. The, the, you know, th- they will hold some perspectives that may be like, oh, you know, bunch of gays and stuff like this.[00:26:40] So then you’ve got to be more accepting of gay people, right? Like, if, if that’s what the tech lords are, we need them on our side. You can say that for your family, for your kids, that’s not right, but making them feel uncomfortable partnering with us is setting us up to lose, right? Like, that’s what a controlled opposition would do within our party.[00:26:57] The second thing that we need to do- is ensure that the left can never win an election again. And if that means transitioning governance models, if that means changing how the government is run, if that means transitioning, as I’ve often said, I think America, if we look at the length that an empire often lacks sorry, lasts or lives, we’re, we’re reaching sort of the end of that cycle.[00:27:18] If we look at Rome and its last days as a republic, it mirrors America a lot right now. So it’s are we looking at transitioning into the empire of America from the Republic of America? And I’m not, and I don’t mind that if it’s our side that has ga- grabbed power in this transition. And I know that, that, that, that on the right would have before, “Oh, how g- how dare you say that?[00:27:41] How dare you say that?” And it’s like, I’m sorry. Like, you, you don’t seem to realize how much the other side hates you if, if you, if you don’t feel that way, or how little your lives or the lives of your children matter to them and their goals. And I think if we can just capture those two things the tech lords and the United States [00:28:00] government then m- in terms of moving the world forwards, we’re in a very good position.[00:28:05] And the, the, the ... My plan would be once we got into that position, like had control of the US government the fight over politics in America right now has really been globalized to a large extent as we can see. Oh, yeah.[00:28:20] Simone Collins: No, absolutely ...[00:28:22] Malcolm Collins: so the American right and the American left fight is playing out in all these other countries, and a lot of them, like in Latin America and stuff now, are electing right-wing figures.[00:28:31] I would probably move to a position of beginning to build out a a, a, a, a, well, a true American empire, right? Like, to begin building a sort of pseudo-vasalitic relations with these other right-wing governments and help them maintain permanent power structures within their governments as well under a, a sort of Pan-American goal, right?[00:28:53] Fa- fanning out from American power interests. And I think that that’s completely realistic within our lifetimes to set that up. Mm-hmm. And it’s probably the best thing that many of these other countries can hope for because they’re gonna run out of money soon with their demographic situation and not having the same AI tech that we have or ability for innovative capacity.[00:29:12] And if you’re like, “Oh, everyone has the same ability for innovative capacity,” okay, live your f*****g dream. All right? But, like, functionally, that’s not the way things are playing out, right? So, that’s, that’s where I’d like to see the, the future go. I think that that’s, that’s the way that this plays out with the least amount of, of bloodshed and pain possible.[00:29:31] And I think a lot of people and, and this is where I think the Civil War is going, right? Like, I, I don’t follow the Ruby Ard style of Civil War. I think the Civil War is about control of the government and control of e- elite capital. Those are the two groups that really matter. And the, this, this doesn’t require, like, a full-scale battle where, you know, you’re arming yourself and you’re running at each other with guns and everything like that.[00:29:54] We don’t need to fight our battles that way anymore. It’s, it’s a new type of civilizational warfare. You just need to capture the institutions in a way where the, the power transition becomes more ceremonial and less of a, a true democracy, which was kind of a dumb idea to begin with that, that we should just do whatever the average person thinks.[00:30:15] Like, that made a lot of sense in our founders’ time when it was, like, the average educated person- No,[00:30:19] Simone Collins: no. Yeah, that was never, that was never their plan. Yeah. No. It was never... It was, it was, like, it was landholding normies would get to vote for an elite person to decide for them.[00:30:32] Malcolm Collins: Which I’m okay with that form of democracy.[00:30:34] Like, let’s go back to that, right?[00:30:36] Simone Collins: My God. Look, I like what you designed more in The Pragmatist’s Guide to Governance. This, this-[00:30:41] Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, the index allows for a system to grow slowly out of the techno-purit- the... So you don’t have to be a techno-puritan to be in the index. The index is a wider cultural network for basically everybody who’s looking to fight back against the, the woke system, find spouses for their kids, everything like that.[00:30:57] Mm-hmm. So the in- index isn’t explicitly a techno-puritan thing. It’s just maintained by the techno-puritan religious tradition because it was invented to be useful[00:31:08] Simone Collins: Okay, d- oh, I’m glad you found that. Make sure it’s charged. Don’t take it outside.[00:31:11] Malcolm Collins: If you’re interested in how it works, it’s not really relevant to most people how it works.[00:31:15] It’s a very complicated system. I designed it to be incredibly robust and th- have almost none of the problems of the existing governance systems that exist in the world today. It would be incredibly stable, like, basically better form of democracy. I, I, I’m really quite proud of the design of it.[00:31:31] But we don’t need to go into that in this particular video. All that you need to know is it is a very robust thing, but it, it was not meant to work at the level of the United States government, right? Like, it was meant to create a sort of a, a sub-governmental entity that could heavily influence voting patterns, everything like that.[00:31:52] But that was like a, a society under society, right? Like a, a, a type of aristocratic network almost. And yeah, [00:32:00] but I mean, this is, this is where I think we’re going with, with the quote unquote Civil War. And I think if we don’t get there, yeah, I think we’ve got, like, two to three election cycles to figure this out, right?[00:32:10] Like, that’s it.[00:32:11] Simone Collins: It just, it worries me To see how crucial, like and how key of a role that breakdown in communication was with these chimpanzees, and how strikingly that’s happening now. And I don’t know, I mean, so it ha- like with the French Revolution, it, it happened very naturally because of... I think maybe, okay, I think maybe a, a key reason why this wasn’t recognized as an issue in the past is that that communication didn’t exist to begin with.[00:32:42] So an easy cause of civil war could just be something much simpler. You know, like a, a, a breakdown in resources or, you know, the, the peasants not getting enough food or whatever it might be. Or a, a very distinct disagreement about governance. But actually, I wish I could go back and study the, the Civil War in the United States to see if, like, there was some breakdown in communication that could have contributed to that.[00:33:10] It, it’s just, I, I, I feel like this breakdown in communication is unprecedented and so weird in a time where communication should be easier than ever before. There are more people who are engaging in political discourse than we’ve ever had engaging in it. They have every ability to reach out to people on the other side.[00:33:30] We reach out to people on the other side all the freaking time. I just did, what, yesterday? We were like, reach out to, I’m not gonna name who the person is to have them on the podcast. They never get back to us. Like, we, we, we try to have people on other, in, from other like, we’ll say affiliative groups come on.[00:33:51] They won’t talk to us. So even when we try, it just, it’s It makes me very worried. But yeah, now, now I’m, I’m with you and whatifaltist, with Ruby- Mm-hmm ... Yard, as you call him. And-[00:34:03] Malcolm Collins: No, the thing is, is we don’t, we don’t need to... We need to win the civil war. We need to stop thinking like, “Oh, when’s the civil war gonna happen?”[00:34:10] And remember that the civil war- Mm ... is not with guns, but it is wo- by building a large enough coalition that you can maintain power structures. Yes. And this is why the people on the right who push people out, who say, “Oh, the, the base gays can’t be in our party-” That’s[00:34:26] Simone Collins: so true. “...[00:34:27] Malcolm Collins: the base atheists can’t[00:34:28] Simone Collins: be in our party.”[00:34:28] Yeah, yeah. The base- No, if you wanna lose, don’t communicate and try to freeze people out. That is the top way to make yourself not competitive.[00:34:35] Malcolm Collins: Exactly. And the, the people on the right who say this stupid, like, oh, the Colorado effect or whatever- Mm-hmm ... which is like, oh, you give them an inch, like you, you...[00:34:43] They, they went left on like marijuana issues and then they became much more left on other issues. And it’s, it like, no, they were like the first state to go left on marijuana so everybody moved there. Like, that’s not an effect that’s going to be replicated at the level of a, of a country you buffoon, you imbecile.[00:34:58] Like, how can you not, how can you not put that together? This is exactly like a conversation that you’re gonna see at the end of this where I say that a certain group seems to not be able to tell the difference between something happening in one location and then being like, but this other location isn’t...[00:35:15] Life isn’t a storybook with like rhyming plots or something like that. You have to[00:35:20] Simone Collins: look at- A certain group. Gold star to anyone who guesses who that group’s gonna be.[00:35:24] Malcolm Collins: You have to look at the actual reasons that a thing happened. And if it ha- if, if those reasons aren’t applicable in scenario B, then you’re being a cucking idiot and you’re shooting us in the foot, right?[00:35:37] And it’s important to remember that the people we need to win the most are the tech lords. And so knowing what their interests are and what their red lines are in terms of how accepting we need to be as a party- Mm-hmm ... is incredibly important. And, and, and, and like the two hard lines that they typically [00:36:00] have are well, they have a few.[00:36:02] One is being incredibly antisemitic. That will immediately wipe the tech lords out of your boat. You’re not gonna get them on board with you. Because just their world involves a lot of working with Jews, and if you’re a smart tech lord type person and you’re playing 3D chess, you’re like, “Obviously we need a high fertility, high technology population on our side,” right?[00:36:23] Like, th- that’s the group that matters, like a lot to the tech lords. You can say you’re not okay with gayness or even that gayness, like gay marriage should be illegal in the United States. But being specifically antagonistic or mean or having gay people or same sex attracted people not feel safe in your communities, that will absolutely lose you the tech lords.[00:36:43] And being anti-science will absolutely lose you the tech lords. Just being like, “Oh, I’m against genetic research. Oh, I’m against cloning research. Oh, I’m against...” You, i- it’s one thing to say, “I’m against it for my community.” It’s another thing to say it should be banned. And again, why do the tech lords care about that?[00:36:58] Not just because they use this technology, but because they’re not stupid and they know that any faction longterm that bans this sort of technology is going to fail at the civilizational game. They’re gonna get curb stomped by China in 100 years when they’ve continued to develop or whoever does continue to develop.[00:37:16] The, the, the, the tech refugee, you know, whatever charter city.[00:37:21] Simone Collins: Also- Well look, I, I do have a lot of hope for this. You know, I, I think the... And you, you talk about people, you know, grieving on this. The vast majority of the Criticism that I hear for things like science or IVF or whatever online typically are just people expressing their opinion in the same way that, like, the Red Sox would dunk on the Yankees.[00:37:42] Like, “I think you’re wrong and dumb, but, like, we’re all gonna keep playing the same game together, and we know that we need to.” So I’m not worried about that. Even actually trending just recently on X was a discussion of some people being like, “Well, anime is, like, a gateway to being weird. I don’t want my kids to look at anime.”[00:37:57] And then a lot of very prominent conservative influencers being like, “Dude, no, anime’s fine. Get over yourself. Like, this is fine.” Like Bronze Age Pervert being like, “I know a guy who really likes anime, and he sends me videos of him, like, banging women in, like, the bathrooms of nightclubs all the time.[00:38:15] He’s not an incel.” Like, he’s... I guess that was his, like, his sign that he’s okay. I don’t know if that’s a great sign. Wait, wait, who[00:38:20] Malcolm Collins: was this? Bronze[00:38:21] Simone Collins: Age- Bronze Age Pervert, yeah. Basically defending- Banging women in[00:38:24] Malcolm Collins: bathrooms?[00:38:26] Simone Collins: That was his sign that his friend who watched anime was not some basement-dwelling incel that couldn’t get, as he spelled it- Guys who watch[00:38:36] Malcolm Collins: anime clean up with girls[00:38:36] Simone Collins: these days[00:38:37] th- I know. That couldn’t get... And the way he spelled it, P-U-C-C-Y. I love his spelling. It is, it is a true form of art. He’s an artist. P-U-C-C-Y. Anyway yeah, no, the, the, the right is inclusive. It’s good that there are debates that take place. It is important that people disagree with each other and also have very different ideas.[00:38:56] But I don’t worry about the right because most importantly, those debates are taking place at all. Whereas what happens on the left is it’s just like, and there are these evil people who are doing these unspeakable things. And they don’t say it as in, like, “All right, come at me.” Like, “Let’s hear your argument.”[00:39:14] It... ‘Cause Malcolm, like, even the way you talk about Catholics, it’s like, “Yeah, come serve me your next dish. I will take it, and I will pan it.” Like, you’re excited for it because we talk with Catholics, and Catholics talk like with us. Whereas when I hear left-leaning influencers talk about anything that’s related to the right, it’s just from this extreme strawmanning, n- not even willing to engage with- Yeah, I[00:39:37] Malcolm Collins: mean, we promote Catholic influencers-[00:39:39] Simone Collins: as they ever talk with[00:39:39] Malcolm Collins: a conservative perspective ... all the time. We’ve, we’ve promoted what’s her name? P- Pete Chicanin, for example. We’ve promoted who’s very pro-Catholic we just recently had him on Basic Ideas. I, I was actually very surprised that he wasn’t Catholic because he’s so- Basic[00:39:50] Simone Collins: Logic[00:39:51] Malcolm Collins: Basic Logic, yeah, yeah, yeah. When I, when I[00:39:52] Octavian Collins: called[00:39:52] Malcolm Collins: the in, in his ranking of Christian traditions- ... when I tried to, ... he ranks it at the top. You know? ...[00:39:56] Simone Collins: yeah, I agree with you, and I don’t worry. It’s, it’s [00:40:00] going to be just fine on our side. I really worry about the left.[00:40:05] Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, no, the, the risk on our side is that our side feels like they’re winning, and they become more aggressive against the red lines that the tech lords have.[00:40:13] Simone Collins: Mm.[00:40:15] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But that seems increasingly unlikely given that people like Nick Fuentes have largely been pushed out and isolated. Like, he had that big bump where it looked like he was gonna become relevant, and then he just completely dropped off out into nowhere again.[00:40:25] Simone Collins: Yeah. I wonder what was going on there. He was so incredibly popular for a while. It almost felt manufactured, but I don’t think it was. So I don’t know. Well, still the people- I’d still love to have him on the show. It would be so great if he came on Base Camp ... who platformed him,[00:40:38] Malcolm Collins: the people who platformed him immediately fell into irrelevance.[00:40:41] Tucker Carlson- Oh ... sort of immediately went crazy after talking to Nick Fuentes.[00:40:45] Simone Collins: He’s still pretty prominent.[00:40:47] Malcolm Collins: He’s still pretty prominent, but he can’t platform somebody even like the way he did with Nick Fuentes. With that, would that mean he doesn’t have that much cultural power anymore that he did when he did the Nick Fuentes interview.[00:40:57] And then Piers Morgan also is a significant... Like, he could platform someone, but he’s platformed us before and stuff like that, and he just hasn’t got in an argument with us, right? You know? And the, so, so it doesn’t, it doesn’t go viral, right? Mm-hmm. But yeah it’s about winning, guys.[00:41:13] The, the, we’re in this, we’re in this for the species, boys and girls, okay?[00:41:17] Speaker 24: We’re in this for the species, boys and girls..[00:41:19] Simone Collins: We for real are. Yeah.[00:41:21] Malcolm Collins: So, you know, don’t let your you know, your, your desire to status signal how conservative you are destroy our ability to win.[00:41:32] Speaker 5: For you new people, I only have one rule: everyone fights, no one quits. If you don’t do your job, I’ll shoot you. Do you get me? We get you, sir. Welcome to the Roughnecks.[00:41:49] Simone Collins: Yeah. Oh my gosh, this actually just made me think also about that camp experiment that they had to cancel midway through where they separated the boys out and had them...[00:42:00] They, like, made them hate each other. And yeah, it just seems to be there’s this fundamental dynamic of, oh, hey, check it out, when you isolate groups from each other, and then also make them start to hate each other, they will start doing unspeakable things to each other. They hate, they will actually really, for real hate each other.[00:42:18] There’s no uniting humanity or something in, in all of us. So we should just be aware of that. I think that sometimes people get a little too highfalutin with things like civil war and what will cause them, when really it’s like, I don’t know, are they talking at all? No? Then it’s probably bad. Mm-hmm. Like, you can even tell if a divorce is gonna be extra bad, because if they’re not talking and only the lawyers are exchanging, you know it’s just, this is- Yeah[00:42:48] gonna be ugly. Yeah. Anyway, I love you very much.[00:42:51] Malcolm Collins: But the, the, a- again, the mistake they made is they pushed, what we see in the chimps, the thing that keep these group together are the people who are willing to look for potential alliances- Yeah ... and keep things stitched together. Yeah. Pushing out those people- Yes[00:43:03] those are your linchpins to winning. Yes. That is why America won. The, the, the Revolutionary War, we shouldn’t have won that, right? Like, w- all of these various groups in America hated each other. They had reasons to hate each other. Like we- They had longstanding grievances.[00:43:17] Simone Collins: Yeah. This was not an easy thing to pull off because these groups were like, “Dude, I’m doing my own thing.[00:43:23] I don’t wanna get involved in this. This is not my battle. I don’t care.”[00:43:26] Malcolm Collins: It was the compromise monkeys that win the battle for you.[00:43:30] Simone Collins: Yes. Exactly. Yeah. It’s not-[00:43:33] Malcolm Collins: Learn your American history, by the way. This is, like, extremely true of early American history. Yeah. This is not, like, my interpretation of early American history.[00:43:40] Yeah. Like, the core of the Revolution was really fought on getting the various colonies to work together.[00:43:46] Simone Collins: The compromise monkeys. Yeah, it, there’s too much emphasis on alpha males. And the, there, there was a crucial role that an alpha male played in the chimpanzee war of 2015 to t- now, but it was more [00:44:00] that that just increased tensions.[00:44:02] Well, and this has always- And when you’re already-[00:44:04] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, this has always been true. One of my favorite heroes from history is Themistocles.[00:44:11] Simone Collins: Themistocles. And The- And we really wanted to name one of our kids Themistocles, but it’s-[00:44:16] Malcolm Collins: Kind of an effeminate name.[00:44:17] Simone Collins: Well, it, it’s lispy sounding.[00:44:19] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it’s lispy sounding.[00:44:20] If you want a strong name, like- So, so, for people who aren’t familiar of the bad buttery that he pulled off, he got all of the Greek city states to work together against Persia in some real, like, awesome, awesome, Like, what he did was so much more impressive than what the 300 did.[00:44:37] Simone Collins: Oh, it was a masterclass, yeah- Which-[00:44:38] in, in manipulation of different groups and factions.[00:44:40] Malcolm Collins: A- and like, yeah, like one of my favorite things is, so they had this faction that he knew was really, like, not that committed to the war effort, but, like, had a lot of ships. And so he explicitly sort of navigated them into a trap where the other side, to spring the trap, put their ships on the outside of the basically their only escape route.[00:45:05] And so he manufactured a battle where the side that wasn’t that committed and otherwise would have run away had to stay and fight. And through that they were able to win the battle which is just astonishingly cool work on his part.[00:45:22] Simone Collins: And I’m so glad it was actually immortalized, ‘cause I bet that there are other people who’ve done incredibly clever things like that in the past, just no one knows.[00:45:28] No one knows. So I’m really glad- Yeah ... that he gets credit for it, ‘cause he so deserves it. It’s just so amazing.[00:45:35] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, really, really cool guy. Yeah ... we, we can do a whole, like, weekend episode on him. Anyway- Mm-hmm ... love you, Simone. Love you too ... and it’s, the, the Themistocles of the world are the ones who really win.[00:45:44] It’s not the big, tough guys- The Themistokles ... who die in mountain passes, okay?[00:45:48] Simone Collins: Yeah.[00:45:48] Malcolm Collins: It’s the guys who get a bunch of groups that have differences with each other to learn how to communicate to each other, where they acknowledge their differences, they acknowledge their grievances. Yeah. Like a lot of the Founding Fathers, it’s not about never saying bad things.[00:46:00] I say bad things about gay people on this podcast. I say bad things about many groups within our faction, like wider faction on this podcast, where we, we talk about them, we investigate those things. If we live in a society where you cannot investigate what’s wrong with other groups or the reason you have differences with other groups, you’re never gonna be able to build a true coalition.[00:46:18] And that was true in the Themistocles period, and it was true in the American coalition-building. Mm-hmm. The, the Puritans and the Quakers and the Cavaliers and the backwards people, they didn’t end up getting along because they stopped telling bad stories about each other, right? Yeah. Or explaining to each other why they don’t like each other.[00:46:36] It was because they found areas of mutual interest, and they realized that the fight was existential.[00:46:43] Simone Collins: Mm.[00:46:44] Malcolm Collins: And that was communicated effectively.[00:46:47] Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. They understood that their incentives were aligned and were able to put down their differences. But if they didn’t even have channels for communication, they never could have made that happen.[00:46:59] So civil war ho. Yay. Bye. Oh.[00:47:08] Malcolm Collins: I love you[00:47:09] Simone Collins: Hey, you wanna chat?[00:47:10] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, of course I wanna chat[00:47:12] Simone Collins: What’s,[00:47:12] Malcolm Collins: I like chatting[00:47:13] Simone Collins: What’s up?[00:47:15] Malcolm Collins: So, I am very excited to be talking with you about all of the things. I mean, I guess I can check to make sure the site’s still working, but oh my God, the site, so many cool features by the way now[00:47:24] Simone Collins: I’m real excited[00:47:25] Malcolm Collins: we’re getting the- Especially about[00:47:26] Simone Collins: the editing thing[00:47:26] Malcolm Collins: the video recording and editing thing working, which I’m really excited about[00:47:31] Simone Collins: And this isn’t just what- you really impressed me when I opened it up, that it is, it is podcast recording software that is better than what we are using, and then it seamlessly transitions to the editing software, which doesn’t just allow you to, like, delete all the ums and the likes and the pauses and delete entire paragraphs as you wish to move things around, but also literally fact-check.[00:47:56] There was a fact-check button that- Yeah, I know. That’s [00:48:00] so freaking cool. I mean, of course, like for us, that would make sense. For a lot of YouTubers that would make sense, but I think your typical people who develop video editing software- ... would never think, “Oh, I bet people would like a feature like that.”[00:48:15] ‘Cause one, no one thinks anyone[00:48:17] Malcolm Collins: cares about truth. Oh, I should update the fact-checker to not be just a this-isn’t-woke-enough checker.[00:48:21] Simone Collins: Oh, is that what it is now?[00:48:23] Malcolm Collins: Well, you know, sometimes I imagine it’s going to do that. Mm. So like let’s, I[00:48:29] Simone Collins: guess you have to just, like, I guess limit the engines it uses, or are you just gonna add additional prompts around that?[00:48:38] Malcolm Collins: Anyway. Oh, I’m just gonna, I’m, I’m just gonna change the prompting a bit.[00:48:42] Simone Collins: Hmm.[00:48:42] I’m, I’m so impressed. I think it’s great. I think it’s wonderful[00:48:47] Malcolm Collins: I genuinely think that you’re pretty freaking amazing. And what, what have, what have I learned today? Nothing new, ‘cause I haven’t really been paying attention. I mean, have you followed this Trump China election fraud stuff?[00:48:59] Simone Collins: No, not at all, actually. I, I don’t know. I’m tired about hearing about election fraud.[00:49:07] Elections are fraudulent. Elections have always been fraudulent. I wish we could go back. I remember some political cartoon from- Mm ... some of the earliest American elections where they’re buying beer for voters. Mm-hmm. Like, if we’re gonna, if it’s gonna be this fake, can’t we just... Can we get free stuff? I’d like the free stuff.[00:49:24] I mean, they basically[00:49:24] Malcolm Collins: do that for homeless people in LA. You know, we know about them going around and giving them money or giving them, like, what is it? Oh my God. Like, haircuts or-[00:49:30] Simone Collins: Cig- cigarettes. Cigarettes.[00:49:32] Malcolm Collins: Amazing. It’s the same thing. It’s the same thing. Nothing has changed.[00:49:36] Simone Collins: I don’t know. I think a, a better, a nice beverage is better than a cigarette, but I guess I just want to, like, euthanize them faster.[00:49:44] Though not really, ‘cause it’s putting more strain on the healthcare system if they get lung cancer Anyway. Set up with[00:49:52] Malcolm Collins: that- Well, that’s why you should just g- pull a Patrick Bateman. Th- that, that’s what it is, right? Like, just go, go to the... At, at the end of your workday, just go murder some homeless people.[00:50:04] L- lower the cost on the healthcare system and the social services system. That’s, that’s where you are right now, in terms of, like, I’ve had enough?[00:50:14] Simone Collins: No. I, I don’t know. I, I, I don’t know. I don’t know what to believe about homelessness anymore either.[00:50:24] Malcolm Collins: Well, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s mostly th- they, they shut down the asylums.[00:50:28] Simone Collins: That’s huge. Like- Yeah ...[00:50:29] Malcolm Collins: if, if we went back to having asylums where we could put, like, vagrants and stuff like that, like, we would solve a lot of society’s problems.[00:50:37] Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah. But we don’t, so.[00:50:42] Malcolm Collins: But, but Kennedy, that a*****e-[00:50:44] Simone Collins: Was that, was that Kennedy? Before he[00:50:46] Malcolm Collins: was- Yes, Kennedy. He shut down the asylums, and he said he was gonna come up with some other solution for where to put all the people, and he never did.[00:50:52] Didn’t his- And then society just- ...[00:50:53] Simone Collins: sister end up in an asylum, though? I mean, a private one.[00:50:56] Malcolm Collins: His parents paid for it I think so, yeah. I think well, society just forgot about it. Society’s just like, it, it didn’t used to be normal to have homeless people roaming around like this. We used to have a place where we put them.[00:51:04] Simone Collins: Hmm.[00:51:05] Malcolm Collins: But anyway.[00:51:05] Simone Collins: Well, before people, families were largely responsible for them. That kind of stopped. I do wonder what happened before that, though.[00:51:16] Malcolm Collins: Before what?[00:51:17] Simone Collins: Well, before basically before there were asylums, and when families were responsible for them, and if they decided they weren’t going to be responsible, would they just end up basically being subject to capital punishment by not following societal rules?[00:51:32] Like,[00:51:33] Malcolm Collins: what would- I mean, often- ... communities do with them? ... but there were other you know, underworld type things that people would join. Like the giant gangs of, like, orphans and stuff like that.[00:51:41] Simone Collins: Right. Well, that was, that was orphans, though. It’s different when it’s a mentally ill adult who can’t be directed, right?[00:51:47] Like, orphans and street urchins can kind of self-organize. They’re, they’re broadly l- logical and smart and resourceful in trying to survive, whereas someone suffering from schizophrenia is not. You can’t, like, bring them into [00:52:00] your criminal enterprise.[00:52:01] Malcolm Collins: Well, no, I mean, somebody suffering from schizophrenia is a witch, right?[00:52:04] Like, that’s, that’s what we have those rules for. Somebody going around muttering spells at people. Mm. You know?[00:52:10] Simone Collins: So they just got- They[00:52:13] Malcolm Collins: just got-[00:52:13] Simone Collins: They were just subject to capital punishment ...[00:52:14] Malcolm Collins: mar- yeah, that’s, that’s, that... I mean, I think for society, that’s probably the best solution There’s, there’s, there’s probably less painful ways to do it than they would’ve done it historically, but I, I don’t think that that was a[00:52:25] A- and then if you wanna do it, like, the most ethical way, you can do the asylum. But, like-[00:52:30] Simone Collins: Well, and keep in mind that was for the, the people whose families rejected them or for whatever reason unable to take care of them. That’s key. ‘Cause, I saw- ... presumably ...[00:52:40] Malcolm Collins: a really interesting case recently where somebody from the White House was talking to a reporter, and then she goes, “They said Deus Vult.”[00:52:47] And he’s like, “Yeah, you know, that’s what ex-pope said before the Crusades.” And she was like, “What? The Crusades? That’s where they killed, you know, Jews and Muslims.” And he goes well, it largely Muslims, and it was because they had invaded Christian territory and killed a bunch of Christians, and they were trying to take it back.”[00:53:04] And she goes, “Are you seriously trying to argue the Crusades were ju- listen, listen to him. He says the Crusades are good. Ah, ah, is this really someone you want in the White House?” And, like, everybody who’s watching this who’s, like, remotely ... Like, we don’t live in that game anymore. It’s so interesting that they’re still trying to play this game with us.[00:53:22] Like, can you believe-[00:53:22] Simone Collins: Well, one of, one of the people who watches this podcast had suggested to us that there’s this theory that right before bad behavior is about to be extinguished, it intensifies. Like, if a child is having a tantrum, sometimes a tantrum gets way worse, and then it ends, and that maybe what we could be seeing playing out in society either now or over the coming years is an intensification of that behavior before it ex- it’s extinguished No, I,[00:53:47] Malcolm Collins: no, no, I, I think that this is fundamentally looking at society like a Catholic which is to say that you see the world in terms of stories and themes instead of trying to think about what individual motivations are and what individual ideologies are.[00:54:02] So you expect society, it’s like children work this way, so society will work this way. It’s sort of like seeing everything through metaphors, but that’s not the way the world actually works. The world isn’t y- metaphors can help you understand a thing sometimes, but they’re not predictive. So what we would actually look at is be like, “Okay, I am a woke individual who has dedicated my life to this, who has lived with these social norms for X long.[00:54:27] What’s gonna make me change my mind? How will I behaviorally react to society as it becomes more based?” And part of the answer is, well, yes, they will start to scream louder, but that doesn’t mean they’re gonna stop. They’re gonna scream louder right up to their deathbed. Hmm ... it’s gonna be very har- well, which may not be that long from now when we look at the, the high rates of unaliving and, and panic we’re seeing among this community that is just, like, dysfunctional and becoming less influential, like, really quickly in our society[00:54:58] Simone Collins: I’m resetting my minutes since Malcolm has last railed against Catholic timer back to zero.[00:55:05] Zero minutes.[00:55:06] Malcolm Collins: No, but I say that because it’s one of the ways- Let’s see how far we can get ... that Catholics think differently, and it, it comes up a lot when I’m talking to them because it’s, it’s genuinely a different way of perceiving and interacting with the world.[00:55:18] Simone Collins: And we need different perspectives to be represented in the future because they are useful at different times and, and when we’re[00:55:24] Malcolm Collins: presented with different challenges.[00:55:25] I, I agree they’re, they’re different times, but it’s, it’s something that I would expect you would know better than to fall for. Like, soci- the, the mechanisms that would cause a toddler to do that are not likely to replay out at the level of society.[00:55:43] Simone Collins: Maybe? I don’t know. May- it, it depends. I mean, w- you can see, for example, with J curves in ecosystems that there can be forms of things that intensify before an extinguishing event. So like I, I’m not ... I, I don’t think you’re, you’re fair in saying [00:56:00] that patterns don’t sometimes repeat, like Fibonacci sequences show up all over the place.[00:56:04] Right, but[00:56:05] Malcolm Collins: you shouldn’t expect them to repeat. Well- Like, the, the ... I guess what I mean is, is you should expect a pattern to repeat when it is happening within a context. So if this pattern had happened with society after society or with previous social movements after social movement after social movement-[00:56:21] Simone Collins: Yeah,[00:56:22] Malcolm Collins: in context[00:56:22] but seeing a pattern in one thing doesn’t mean I should expect to see it in a different thing. Because, you know, I see a pattern among a pack of wolves doesn’t mean I should expect to see it-[00:56:33] Simone Collins: Well, but Malcolm, it’s, it’s all describing societal behavior, and perhaps the reason this, this behavioral issue happens is people are like my, so first, behaviors are learned by getting reinforced, right? Like, you throw the tantrum, you get the candy. And then after a while, you know, you, you are like, “Well, my tan- I’m not tantruming hard enough. I need to tantrum harder to get the candy.” And then eventually you tantrum so hard that you’re like, “Wow, I really can’t do this anymore,” and it stops.[00:56:57] Now, this could be happening also on a larger societal level of a movement being like, “Oh, I need to go harder on this because I’m not getting the same results. They’re stopping the DEI hiring. Maybe I need to go harder on the advocacy.” Like,[00:57:09] Malcolm Collins: it- Right, but then those two things are uncorrelated. Like, it’s not worse talking about the child talk.[00:57:14] It’s, i- i- the, the question about whether or not it gets worse is dependent on the people who hold these beliefs and who are pushing this, how will they react to societal changes and how much social power do they have?[00:57:28] Simone Collins: I mean, isn’t that similar to a toddler throwing a tantrum?[00:57:31] Malcolm Collins: No, because the reason why a toddler might escalate a tantrum before it stops is just either they’re tiring themselves out at the end there, but because they just did a period where they got extra angry or they’re trying one last gambit to see if they can get something out of their parents.[00:57:47] Whereas I don’t think that that’s the way anybody who would be making these sorts of decisions, these woke people, I don’t think they think in terms of gambits. They- there’s just, like, a way the world works to them[00:57:59] Simone Collins: I don’t know. Okay, well you- Look, you’re the thinker. You’re the thinker ... you c- I’ll,[00:58:02] Malcolm Collins: I’ll get us started with this one, okay?[00:58:04] Simone Collins: Really? Yeah. I have a whole intro. Let me do it. I outlined the episode, okay? Let Simone do it. Let your- You’re- Yes, dear ... generally not[00:58:12] Malcolm Collins: very good with it. Are you absolutely sure[00:58:14] Simone Collins: you want to do the intro? Look, I will do an intro, and then you can do your intro after that, after you pan my intro, okay?[00:58:19] Malcolm Collins: Okay.[00:58:19] Simone Collins: Okay. ‘Cause I have context for this. It’s chimp war. You ready?[00:58:24] Speaker 9: There’s a teddy bear. There’s a teddy bear. There’s a floating teddy bear[00:58:41] Speaker 10: Uh, Tex really likes it when you talk to him You’re a good big brother It’s a bear. It’s a flying bear. It’s a flying bear[00:58:56] Mommy’s trying to get pregnant with another baby right now[00:59:05] Speaker 9: Baby keeps crying Yeah, that’s no good This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe