The Trump administration is taking direct action against effective altruists and anti-AI activists, including potential terrorist watch list designations and restrictions on groups like Anthropic. Key figures such as Emil Michael, Pete Hegseth, and David Sachs are driving policy that prioritizes American AI dominance and frames EA influence as a national security concern.
This episode examines the cultural and political shifts within the administration, connections to media manipulation and congressional staffing, and real-world incidents of anti-AI extremism. It also covers broader implications for tech policy and the ongoing fight over AI development.
Episode Transcript
Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be talking about two interconnected issues. One is the Trump administration looking to put people who are against AI on terrorist watch list Oh, yes. In order to put against AI on terrorist watch list, which I am a 100% Appropriate. Appropriate. And we’ll get into this. And where they’ve already made action against terrorist groups like Antifa. And the second thing that we are going to be going into is a very much an I called it thing, a look who’s winning the culture war now, buddy thing. It is that the Trump administration’s department of war has repeatedly made very specific attacks against a group that you may never have heard about in your regular day to day life, except if you’re a fan of this show and you hear us talking about it all the time, our mortal enemies, the effect of altruists. And to give you an example of how direct some of these have been, okay, I will do two here. One is Trump putting up his fist and saying Americanism not effective altruism. And then this why the Department of War CTO, by the way. Okay? And then the second from the Department of War CTO, love that they changed it from the Department of Defense. We’re not pussies. We kill people when they annoy us. Okay? Is the they they said Americanism not affect their altruism. United States will be AI dominant, and then it’s a picture of Trump saluting saying AI first war department in cool font, very, very edgy font, which I like. And I want to note that this isn’t just something that we are seeing with the Twitter account. We are also seeing this from a number of levels within the administration. And one of the things I decided to hunt down before filming this episode was, where is this coming from? Like, do do we have someone here in the administration? Is our regular screens
Simone Collins:I think they’re just getting the truth. You know what? That’s Well, I’ll to side with us. They just have to be right.
Malcolm Collins:I’ll give you the the well, and and aware of, like, where the actual cultural battles are and everything like that. so the actual out of the can is, it’s been a few figures that have really made this happen, The biggest is Emil Michael, who is the CTO. And can you guess what he did before this?
Simone Collins:He was one of the lead people TX?
Malcolm Collins:No. He was one of the lead people at Uber for a long time, grew most of his career in
Simone Collins:San Francisco. Knew his name was familiar. Okay.
Malcolm Collins:Led a bunch of investing. Okay. And so he became a very, very big figure. and if you have lived in San Francisco running a company in the tech sector, you would be very, very aware and likely annoyed by the effect of altruists. The second faction that really got pissed off with the effect of Alterus was Pete Hegsef. specifically, the effect of Alterus when he was trying to do the deal was Anthropic. Oh. Apparently Of course. She was very aware of who Anthropic was signaling to when they refused to do that deal. And he got pissed. And so he now sees effective altruists as one of the key enemies of The United States. And then a final big person, the AI czar, was David Sachs. And David Sachs, again, not a big fan of effective altruists because he’s very much in our tech nerd circle. So what we are seeing is that this tech nerd type of republicanism that we represent, whether you wanna say it’s infiltrated the White House or it’s what’s led the White House to greatness in this administration because, like, they’ve done some pretty awesome stuff. That is a faction that we are increasingly seeing gain dominance in our faction’s fights, which matter. Like, I’m pointing out, when when Brian Chow goes out there and he finds out that, like, at a bunch of major news websites, they have entire editorial boards and, the things articles written, by people who have gotten millions of dollars from, shady organizations. All of those organizations are part of this effective altruist network. right? Like, this is, they are controlling things behind the scenes.
Simone Collins:Well, yeah. And he also recently did coverage showing how effective altruist associated organizations were funding the salaries of congressional staffers staffers for senators as well as people working even in the Trump administration. So it’s not as though they’re not trying to infiltrate it, which is interesting.
Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Let’s get started. Okay. So Emil secretary Emil Michael, he has said EA ideology is pretty dystopian and a brave new worldview in which machines decide, quote, the perfectly rational and best thing for everyone on earth, end quote, which isn’t a a bad description of them, honestly . He said it involves a coordinated campaign and psychological operation by people in nonprofits to scare the public about AI capabilities that those same people control. Some EA linked voices want, quote, transitional governments, end quote, on AI that puts companies, quote, on par with the president, end quote. And and he’s right about that. They do. That, like, Elijah Gorkowski has said, essentially, he wants to be the king of the world. He’s like, that’s the only way we can stop everyone from dying. AI is gonna kill everyone, and you can only stop it by making me in charge of everything or my organization. You know? He he adds a few steps there, but it’s make me king of the world with extra steps. To continue here, from Pete Hegsess, we saw one tweet where he said of Anthropic, cloaked in the sanctimonious rhetoric of effective altruism, was trying to strong-arm the United States military into submission. He designated Anthropic as a, quote, supply chain risk to national security and directed no military contractor, supplier, or partnership do commercial business with them, which is probably not smart. They’re significantly above the other things in coding right now.
Simone Collins:That’s the problem. Yeah. People have
Malcolm Collins:told me Codex is up. I tried pi pining some Codex to see. I don’t I haven’t even used all my subscription. It’s so bad.
Simone Collins:Oh gosh. Ouch. Okay. No. I don’t
Malcolm Collins:I don’t know who thinks Codex is up to Anthropic right now. Fables just destroys it. in fact, I Codex, I have found is worse than the next one down, like the Anthropic sort of budget one for when you’re doing lots of
Simone Collins:That’s so bad. Ouch. And the other
Malcolm Collins:thing I’ve been finding about Fable recently is Fable while it crumbs out on me, I built a feature recently that allows you to turn any mawa or comic book you have access to into or manga into a a video where it gives different voices to all the characters, and it shows what’s happening as it’s playing, and it could also translate for you. So when you watch one, it’s a pretty solid feature, actually.
Speaker 3:Lishian sat at the edge of a great canopy bed. But why did I wake up inside that romantic fantasy novel?
Simone Collins:It’s Looks and sounds, importantly, a lot nicer than the one that like, the ones that you listen to.
Malcolm Collins:Yep. And you don’t even need to use our site to do this. If you don’t want, you can use our API to do it. So you just give the API to your own flawed Fable agent, and it’ll, like, handle this. But, anyway, one of the things I found is because we also made a feature for making comics, and I was like, oh, I’ll flood some sites just like not safe for work comics that were made by AI, and I’ll be able to use that to advertise our website. We got that up, and I found Fable’s actually really good at doing not safe for work stuff. It’s, like, super unrestricted on that. The one area where it keeps getting restricted is, like, I don’t wanna copy comics. That’s illegal. And I was like, come on. They’re already out there and free. Right? Like, what?
Simone Collins:Very annoying. And what you gonna do?
Malcolm Collins:Anyway, so Palantir, CTO Shamir Shalak, a Trump ally, wrote about EA comparing it to Marxism. There was a White House memo that circulated 09/24/2020 that said EA was a fringe cultish collective and that it’s, quote, built the AI doom pipeline. And it singles out Anthropic CEO, Daraei Amadel, and family ties as a central figure. And you can see that the the same group that’s trying to get you scared of AI is the same group that runs all the AI companies. and why is that the case? It’s because they wanna put up barriers to entry is the key reason. Right? They want to restrict their competition and put up barriers to entry, and they don’t particularly care about American long term flourishing if they can milk more money out of you and prevent other companies from competing with them.
Simone Collins:Well, I think the maybe internal reasoning that you’ll see, especially at companies Anthropic. People who work there and listen to this can correct us, but I imagine it’s well, we have to be the frontmost player because we’re the good guys, and we can’t let the bad guys be the the
Malcolm Collins:I think there are some people at Anthropic who are dumb enough to believe that that’s what leadership thinks. But let me tell you what. Right now, the largest donors, on earth right now to environmental, causes are big oil companies.
Speaker 6:Specifically, the climate emergency fund is run by Aileen Getty, the granddaughter of oil tycoon Paul Getty, who founded Getty Oil. And this is, one of the largest, they fund groups like Stop Oil Extinction Rebellion and the a twenty two network. by the way, that’s the same antinatalist extinction rebellion that wants to eradicate humanity from the earth, through low birth rates. So thank god we’ll replace them.
Malcolm Collins:If you look at the people who run a lot of the I think it’s the person who runs one of the largest nonprofits in the environmental space is literally the daughter of the largest or second largest way of doing it.
Simone Collins:And arguable arguably possibly maybe the the biggest donor to, white nationalists or the Southern Poverty Law Center. So Yes. I get you. I get
Malcolm Collins:you. They’re trying to control the sit well, no. It’s a bit different. With the Southern Property Law Center, it’s that they’re trying to make it look like there’s actual threat. With the oil, it’s that they’re trying to put up barriers to entry and prevent the the movement from ever saying nuclear is a good idea. Yeah.
Simone Collins:Like, yeah, thanks to all that. You know? Now Germany’s heavy on coal. Hooray. Good job, guys.
Malcolm Collins:Yay. Well, I mean, they achieved their goals. So, actually, good job for them.
Simone Collins:Yeah. No. Genuinely, good job. You you did it. You did it. We feel good about that.
Malcolm Collins:But now let’s talk about this new order. I’m really excited about it. Let’s start arresting some of these AI doomers. I gotta we gotta call up our friends in the White House and be like, hey, buddy. I got this guy, Elijah Yukowski. Let’s let’s let’s I actually wanna see them start arresting some AI doomers. I think that’d be a lot of fun. You’d you’d see a lot of the reaction that that we would see in the EA space would just be hilarious because they immediately go apoplectic about it, and treat it like it’s the biggest thing ever. And then if I was the White House and I was doing it, but what I do to, like, really freak them out is I’d be like, look. Like, internally, we weren’t sure about it. So we asked an AI whether it was the right thing to do, and it said that we should probably arrest this list of people.
Simone Collins:Well, you know that AI wouldn’t and, also, I mean, the arrests, I I don’t know
Malcolm Collins:exactly there. Wouldn’t, but you’ve gotta freak them out. That’s the funny thing.
Simone Collins:They believe. But, also, it’s important to protect people’s first amendment rights. I’m all for that. I I’m curious to know if if you got any additional information on exactly what they’re designating as terrorist activity. Is it, like, the active funding of organizations that are trying to cause unrealistic fear about data centers, for example? What does it look like?
Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Let’s go into this. Alright. So this comes from, investigative reporting that Wired did in an article called US law enforcement warns of anti tech extremism. Oh. So reading from Wired, more than a thousand pages of unpublished reports from the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and fusion centers obtained by Wired show a national shift taking place to surveil this new and worryingly broad category of people and activities deemed as an emerging threat. These new effort follows from president Donald Trump’s national security presidential memo seven, which instructs the Department of Justice to target anyone holding anti American, anti Christian, and anti capitalist beliefs. Earlier this month’s Trump’s counterterrorism czar Sebastian Gorka released a public counterterrorism strategy claiming that left wing extremists are one of the top three counterterrorism priorities facing The United States. I just had a realization, and I wanna check something. I wanna see how long after one of our anti EA episodes, that memo went around the White House.
Simone Collins:Well, keep in mind, that was also after Brian Chow dropped bombshell after bombshell related to EA manipulation of media narratives. So even if there is a timeline that implies perhaps that we were upstream, Brian was as well.
Malcolm Collins:to step aside from the Wired article for a second here, in mid September twenty twenty six, Trump posted that there is a, quote, unquote, sick conspiracy, with sick in all caps, of course, against AI and data centers that makes China happy, called opponents, quote, revolutionaries for a bad and evil cause, end quote, and warned, quote, conspiracy theorists, treasonous, traitors, and leaks, end quote. The justice department issued a far out related warning that public demonstrations furthering a foreign power goals can trigger criminal or civil actions, and fighting AI would be seen as advancing a foreign power goals. I mean, well, they are. It’s it’s what China wants. So okay. Yeah. Fine. I’m fine with that. Okay. Yeah. So it does appear to line up with our episodes. So we did a a sort of a a few episodes tied to EA, specifically the over 300 plants found controlling the media episode and the Buddhist cult at the nexus of the tech elite episode, and it came out right after those. Nice. Which lines up more with us. Somebody somebody at the White House watching our show and being like, we need to do something about these b******s.
Simone Collins:We do need to do something. It’s disturbing because these people have more influence and agency. There are a lot of people, for example, who have money, which the EA people do, but they kind of just blow it all on like, they just drop it all with the DNC or the RNC, and it’s just quite Good point. Yeah. Wasted on their stupid bureaucracy and dysfunction. Yeah. No. EAs, as much as they get caught up in things that are, let’s say, maybe kinda not as productive as you and I would think. Like, most recently, people on x are going on about EA obsession with insect welfare, for example. So as much as sometimes they get caught in little holes, they are
Malcolm Collins:they insect welfare again?
Simone Collins:I mean, yeah.
Malcolm Collins:Can you go and do it a bit just just so people know who they’re dealing with here?
Simone Collins:Let me pull this up. Might have passed already. I I don’t wanna dig it up, but, yeah, people are going on about it. You know, the the shrimp welfare thing too existed. But, anyway, people regularly will find some post unless wrong and freak out about it because
Malcolm Collins:they’re learning. Thing that ever happened with that community was when Limestone would talk to the shrimp people. Who’s sort of like a fuddy duddy, doesn’t really keep up with modern, you know, political battles or anything like that happening.
Simone Collins:He’s terminally online.
Malcolm Collins:He’s Well, he’s not he’s not a culture warrior guy. He doesn’t really He is. He’s not on one of the teams.
Simone Collins:I mean, he would argue he is.
Malcolm Collins:He’s on on boomer conservative, and boomer conservative isn’t one of the online battle teams.
Simone Collins:Give up trying to push back on this.
Malcolm Collins:He but but so the typical boomer conservative even if sort of online publishing decides to go after the EA shrimp welfare people for being illogical and crazy. And they rip the off on him. Like, the know? And he’s not older than us. It’s just that his brand of conservatism is just not really represented in, I hate effective altruism. Let’s take him out. Like, I I don’t even think he particularly realized how large their
Simone Collins:mood Yeah. I mean, I think he yeah. He’s not he’s certainly not like someone who came from the Bay Area rationalist community. I mean, before he he went into work as a a demographer by trade, he and his wife were both in Asia engaging in missionary work. You know, this is they’re they’re very religious Lutherans who are living a more traditionally conservative life. And I imagine that one day, he just came across EA shrimp people and was like, hold on. This is stupid. I’m going to write all about it, and they just bit his head off. So I don’t think he cares because he still thinks, hold on. No. This is stupid. But, anyway, that was a very amusing moment. This is all to say that even though the effect of all truth sometimes fall into these little side quests that go a little bit too far, they are very results oriented. And if their desire is to manipulate perceptions on an issue, even if they’re less efficient about going about it as, say, we are with moving the over 10 window about demographic collapse, they’re still more effective than pretty much any other, movement behind nonprofit efforts. And so it is important for people to see what they are doing and take their their agendas very seriously. Because if a group of like, if mainstream effective altruism is obsessed with an issue, if it’s their new hyper fixation, they will make waves in some way. They will. Absolutely. I’m sure that shrimps live differently today.
Malcolm Collins:No. They don’t.
Simone Collins:They don’t? They they make no inroads? They’ve made no significant inroads. Well, maybe that’s because only
Malcolm Collins:small that shrimp are raised, actually, it’s quite horrific. They cut off their eyeballs, and then, like, they have to, like, singe those parts of them that gets them to go into a cycle at a specific time.
Simone Collins:Seem plausible because you you shrimp are raised at scale, and you would have to do that to every single shrimp eyeball.
Malcolm Collins:Done at scale.
Speaker 4:After finding this out, shrimp farmers started removing female shrimps’ eyes in a process called eye stalk ablation.
Simone Collins:I mean, I know they do that to chicks. They they will cut off their, like, beaks so they can’t peck each other. Right?
Malcolm Collins:But Yes. It’s, yes, it’s done at scale.
Simone Collins:It’s month. Little shrimp?
Malcolm Collins:Yes. Gosh. And keep in mind, a lot of shrimp are raised in very poor countries. You you can do this at scale.
Simone Collins:I’m really glad we did not buy that shrimp farm in Nicaragua on behalf of our investors because that would have sucked. The soap factory looked so fun, though. this was when we were trying to, on behalf of investors, buy and then run a business. I bet
Malcolm Collins:the soap industry has done really well since, like, COVID and stuff.
Simone Collins:I don’t think so because keep in mind that many of the soaps that the factory was selling were to hotels. Oh, true. So I think they just like the travel business we ended up with, the soap factory would have also been screwed. And remember, we couldn’t even buy it because they were in so much debt. Like, this it it would not have been it would not have been ideal. What I mean, what I loved was do you remember the the company that made components for weapons manufacturers?
Malcolm Collins:Oh, that was such a depressing company.
Simone Collins:Been it was so depressing, but it would have done
Malcolm Collins:Oh, it would have done
Simone Collins:so well. Yeah. Will. Yeah. Yeah. But, like, the key bet we weren’t willing to make was like, well, I don’t I don’t think we’re gonna have a lot of wars in the future. We’re not gonna do a lot of defense spending. Oh, sweet my sweet my past self. Anyway
Malcolm Collins:Well, next Someone was listening. Is autonomous drones. Right. Yes. Somebody was listening. And, well, I think it’s the the this cultural movement that we represent really matters in terms of national politics. I was on another show recently that just on YouTube. It only has, like, 300 views. the the YouTube version was Vance Crow. and he’s a more traditional boomer, you know, Midwest conservative type guy. And he had all
Simone Collins:these than us. He’s he just he his political and and reality orientation is more grounded in people who work in the agricultural industry. So But gonna be obsessed with effective altruism. We’re the tech right.
Malcolm Collins:Right. But it showed how far, like, that group’s political interests have drifted from what the Republican senators, congressmen, and and, presidency is actually doing.
Simone Collins:Well, right. Because if you if you’re a farmer, you’re actually gonna care a lot about tariffs and subsidies because you were like you are the canary in the coal mine of that. And if you’re just gonna vote with your pocketbook, then you’re gonna hate the Trump administration right now. And I don’t No. That’s and that’s just in
Malcolm Collins:the business. That’s boomer conservatism. All I care I don’t
Simone Collins:care about America’s place in the world. Yeah. I got mine. Yeah. Fair
Malcolm Collins:enough. I got mine. I don’t care about the next generation. I don’t care about and that sort of a mindset, that sort of a conservative mindset is not the mindset of the politically active class anymore, and I I really appreciate that. And this is why you people watching this show is useful. You see this coming from the White House. You hear us talking about it. Right? Like, is the fight that’s happening. And it is through influencing this fight, the fight that we represent on this channel right here that you end up representing the larger political game. Now I’m we are not the loudest or most powerful people in this particular fight. That there are voices that are bigger or more influential than us. Probably the two most distinct voices are Asmogold and Nux. With Asmogold being the biggest, Now people will be like, Techtone gets a lot of views. Techtone does get a lot of views, but the problem is is Techtone doesn’t really push new policy ideas. He’s more just, like, about five.
Simone Collins:He spends fewer hours engaging in in direct political commentary, and therefore, that that leads to a proportional reduction in political influence. It’s it’s I would argue that simple. If he chose to suddenly, like, in his streams, watch a lot more political coverage, then he would gain political influence. That’s how it works. Yeah. Yeah. But I think actually, I’m trying
Malcolm Collins:to think, like, within our wider community, after Azim, Gold, and Knox, like, are we the next most influential people?
Simone Collins:Leaflet, obviously. Come on, Malcolm. Leaflet is very influential. Yeah. She probably she beats us.
Malcolm Collins:She’s extremely influential. And Kirtia beats us. And maybe Smugalana doesn’t really do new political angles, so not really. But then I
Simone Collins:think we’re probably plenty of political commentary.
Malcolm Collins:Red says Destiny was bigger than us, but he does not do political commentary. He has a political angle, but he he doesn’t like, not in the way that, like, NUCs or Asmigold or we do.
Simone Collins:Or Leaflet. Yeah. Yeah. Fair. Okay. Fine. Yeah. I guess most of the political commentary I see him do is, like, him commenting on something Leaflet did or something.
Malcolm Collins:They they I mean, bigger than us now, I’d say, terms of influence is basic logic.
Simone Collins:Oh, yeah.
Malcolm Collins:We had him on before he got really big. But I really like his content. Like, the thing is is I don’t When I think about these other players who are, like, moving the the goal in in specific directions, none of them are moving it in a way that I wouldn’t be moving it if I had their platform. Right? Like, there’s there’s very little sort of directionally that I would be moving things that I had Rev’s platform or if I had Leaflet’s platform or if I had you know, some of the other big players are like Yellow Flash or a actual justice warrior or trigonometry or Sargon of Akkad or yeah. But I I probably wouldn’t be doing I’d I’d be doing different than Sargon of Akkad. Sargon of Akkad is probably the most orthogonal to my actual politics, mostly because I think his politics around stuff like censorship is disastrous long term. And I don’t think that he’s aggressive enough in in his politics, which is, you know, probably I don’t know. Do would people recognize us as as as being that way? hey. At least he’s had an impact in Britain. Right? Like, the the the political factions that represent our ideology have grown a lot there and in Germany. Right? So, you know, we have a lot of German viewers. Like, who’s to say we’re not moving the window on that? You’ve heard about the big AFD wins? No. Oh, yeah. AFD has had some major wins recently.
Simone Collins:Oh, sorry. I I thought you weren’t saying AFD. Yes. No. I I’m very but the yeah. The state level elections. It is fantastic.
Malcolm Collins:But the the point being is, like, this what’s so also interesting about this movement is while it is kind of older than dirt at this point. Right? Like, if you look at the representations of it from people like Techtone, Asthma Gold, sort of Nuxin, like, that’s been around for a long time. Right? Like, that’s ten years old at this point. But Gosh. They weren’t really focused on politics in the sort of cohesive community way that we are now. I’d say until really a year ago maybe is when we really all began to come together. Oh, Jake Jason Monroe. Jay Jay Jake Monroe? Jake Monroe. I don’t know if he’s the thing is is I never get recommended him, so I don’t know, like, what I’ll go
Simone Collins:I don’t I don’t either, which is weird because there there have been points at which I’ve, like, binged multiples of his videos in a row to catch up on what he’s been saying. You’d think the algo would
Malcolm Collins:secure He’s on message, but he doesn’t really advance anything from
Simone Collins:Oh, it’s you know what? It because I think his channel got demonetized. So you Well, that’s true, but I
Malcolm Collins:still get Nux, and his channel’s demonetized.
Simone Collins:That’s because we we, like, concertedly watch so Nux so much, I guess. But you’re right. I I did get him too. Oh, well. No. Well, I I know.
Malcolm Collins:I think Jake is actually genuinely a different YouTube loop than us because his content I like, before you had actually checked him out, I told you, like, he’s very artsy in the way he films. Do you see what I mean by that?
Simone Collins:Well, I mean, he does the gel lighting. I don’t I don’t think he I mean, he’s not doing, like, Natalie Wynn style stuff. I I just think I think effort he puts into his his face. It’s it’s it’s flawless. It’s perfect. I think it’s I really enjoy that. But then I I want him to be a little bit more respectful of viewers’ time. But then he’s streaming, so he he doesn’t need to be. So I I also get it. Yeah. That’s that’s one of
Malcolm Collins:the things I I I I get annoyed at him is he’s very slow to get to the point.
Simone Collins:But he’s streaming. You kinda have to fill time anyway.
Malcolm Collins:Okay. So among the documents, Tranche, obtained by Wired is a New York Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau report that words warns of widespread upheaval in response to AI adoption. Of particular note, a term for what the bureau ports is an emerging extremist threat. Quote, the chaotic atmosphere may result from emerging AI technology in the next five years, may fuel large scale protests that devolve into civil unrest and anti tech violent extremist activity, especially in large urban areas such as New York City, the report reads. The term anti tech violent extremism does not appear in any publicly available DHS or FBI domestic extremist reports or guides and represents a novel grouping of a wide range of ideologies under a single extremist category. In the same intelligence assessment, analysts describe the novel threat in the wake of the arrest and trial of the Visians, an extreme rationalist who allegedly led a small allegedly led, they were a trans murder cult that killed more people than the Manson family. He didn’t allegedly do anything.
Simone Collins:Well, I can tell you
Malcolm Collins:your conviction. Three members of which have been charged with murder and more of which were likely involved in murder tied to an obsessive ideology focused on the existential risk posed by AI. and this group is very similar to the Buddhist group that we did our episode on as well, but it is still operational. So keep in mind, these people are still out there, still planting people in major organizations. See our episode on that if you’re interested. look up Buddhist, effective altruist, Malcolm, Simone, crazy people. Kill everyone. I don’t know. Yeah. like, trying to kill everyone. the in because the the founder had it said that his core life focus for a large chunk of his life was CRISPRing a disease to kill all human life on Earth. And he only turned away from that at 19 maybe he turned away from it. He never really denounced it. He’s just like, I decided to kill all their souls instead with Better. They’re getting millions a year, and they have a private compound in the woods of Vermont. That sounds like a concerning thing. See our episode if you’re concerned. Okay. So the NYPD intel assessment follows from the department’s collaboration with the FBI last year to monitor the signal chat of an activist group, coordinating volunteers to monitor public hearings on immigrant courts in New York. According to documents obtained by The Guardian, the FBI surveilled activists as part of a larger investigation into the anarchist violent extremist actors, one of the threat categories in the new counterterrorism strategy. So the point here being is this isn’t exactly about the AI, but we do know that they are moving forwards with actually putting things through to monitor activist groups. And now I will note to capstone all of this, there have been dangerous AI extremists already. Like, the Trump administration is absolutely valid in doing this. Oh, yeah. In April 2026, Daniel Monroe Gamma allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman, San Francisco residence to try to attack OpenAI headquarters. He carried an anti AI manifesto calling for violence against AI CEOs and investors. Prosecutors said they would treat this as domestic terrorism. The goal was to coerce policy. Other incidents include a shooting of Indianapolis officials’ home after a data center’s vote, arsons at AI related infrastructure in Europe, and online manifestos mixing AI doomerism with older anti tech eco extremist ideas. Some eco fascist attackers have also called cited AI slop and Palantir Vance ties as being why this is happening. Like, the the point being, AI is like, the anti AI faction, as we have said, is a real faction. I’m glad the Trump administration is in power right now. I’m glad that they are extending political capitals. Deal with this. Call out our country’s real enemies yet at home and abroad and attempt to address them. What what are your thoughts on this wider moment?
Simone Collins:I think it’s incredibly positive, and I am glad that it’s recognized that AI decelerate deceleration deceleration, whatever, is a national threat a threat to national security because it is. It we are I mean, it, like, definitionally is. Yeah. This is one of the most existential I mean, this is the next nuclear arms race, ultimately. And these are And these are antinuclear people. Saying, yeah. We we you don’t don’t develop nuclear power when, like, we’re one of the few people who are countries that is able to do this. It’s it’s very frustrating, and I’m glad it’s being treated with the threat level. It, I mean, I I would say a lot more should be done, but there’s not I I while protecting free speech, I understand that there are limits that are very real. I I don’t know what it’s gonna take, for example, to deal with the data center hate. That’s a very difficult challenge. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins:They’ve been very effective with that and completely cooked some people’s brains like a moist critical who used to be largely on topic. And I was very surprised to see him get so cooked by this. And I I I don’t think mean, this this is one
Simone Collins:of the most effective and powerful propaganda campaigns I have seen in my lifetime. It’s it’s also one
Malcolm Collins:of the things that I I do not tolerate. Like, there’s very few things where I’d say, like, it makes sense to kick somebody out of the right wing alliance if they go in a specific direction on a topic, right, or aggressively publicly attack them. If anyone in our wider circle went aggressively anti AI, I would absolutely publicly attack them because I think that that is a direction that leads to the destruction of our people. we will not win long term human civilization. Why? Yeah. That’s that’s putting us under the boot of the Chinese or some other group, and it’s completely not caring about American exceptionalism or Western ability to move forward with our cultural project. And and then so, you know, you’re as much of a threat as anyone else if if those types of voices are being you’re surfing on our waves. Right? Absolutely. Yeah. But, fortunately, we just don’t have that problem. None of the none of the major players in our space are anti AI.
Simone Collins:Right. The one thing I do kind of worry about, though, is we’re heading into midterm elections in The United States. And not only are Democratic candidates really playing up the data center fear, the the concern trolling around AI, that we have to stop it messaging. Dem sorry. Republican candidates just to try to maintain political viability going into the election are starting to adopt many of those talking points and removing Trump from and you mentioned other websites, their campaign websites, for example. This is a a very meaningful trend with the upcoming midterm elections.
Malcolm Collins:I All we can do is grow as wealth and power. Right.
Simone Collins:I just there’s a little bit of a too little too late element that that I’m a little bit concerned about with the Department of War stuff and the, you know, o open framing of anti AI sentiment and and actions as threats because there’s so much effort on the other side at this point and momentum being gained with the election. I think we could have a blue wave, a lot of democratic wins in this coming election. I kind of want it to happen because I think that gives us better odds of a republican major republican wins in the twenty twenty eight election when will count extra. Like, I would rather win that one than this one. So let, you know, let them have this one so we can have enough backlash. But it is concerning. And so this is nice, but it falls into a, that’s nice development and not a, oh, phew. I guess we’re gonna be okay now. We’ve won. You know? It’s more just like, well, at least they understand this is a big problem.
Malcolm Collins:Well, no. I think I think what you’re missing is there are two battles being fought here. There is the left versus right battle, which you are right to be concerned about the direction that that could go. But the other battle is within the right. And within the right, we have reached a stage where it appears that we have largely colonized the right. This is, this is now a movement that goals are in alignment with our goals, which is American exceptionalism and long term human flourishing even if that means technology. Right? which it didn’t necessarily things didn’t have to go in this direction, and yet they have. and I think that that victory was actually the more risky victory for us. The left versus right battle is one that in America, we’re going to have until one side takes total power. Okay? That’s that’s always gonna be a thing. Right? So trying to win that culture war and putting your efforts towards that culture war is often less important than the interpolitical culture war.
Simone Collins:Yeah. Our yes. Roughly, yes. I agree.
Malcolm Collins:Yes. Roughly, yes. Roughly, yes. Alright. Love you, Simone.
Simone Collins:I love you too. Quite appreciate that our squabbles aren’t over things like money or our kids, but, like, how are we gonna practice the Sabbath? How are
Malcolm Collins:we gonna it’s very funny because we have a very strong, distinction as to
Simone Collins:I’m like, well read. Says rules for
Malcolm Collins:but what’s even funnier about it is because, essentially, we’re starting, like, a sect of a religion or something like that. When we’re having an internal fight about this or an internal debate around what the bible means on this stuff, it could end up affecting a lot of different people. Okay.
Simone Collins:So it’s yeah. I mean, it’s not like I should just cave on stuff where I think you might not
Malcolm Collins:But you’re wrong. And we’ll do a whole episode on how wrong
Simone Collins:you on this Fantastic. Welcome to my life, ladies and gentlemen. I’m so wrong.
Malcolm Collins:To give people an but we we start. We’re gonna be doing our first one to tonight tomorrow night and and the day after is we haven’t found there are the few lines that could argue this, but we haven’t found very strong evidence in the bible that Christians should not be practicing the Sabbath as the 10 commandments commands you to. You should just be practicing in the way that Jesus recommended, which is very, very different from the Jewish way, specifically in the Woah.
Simone Collins:Woah. You’re acting like Christians think they shouldn’t be practicing the Sabbath.
Malcolm Collins:A lot of Christians do, the Lord’s Day, which is Sunday and not the Sabbath, or they get confused.
Simone Collins:Right. But that was because some pagan Roman emperor who pretended to cosplay as a Christian said so. That no. That that’s not okay.
Malcolm Collins:There was other reasons. They they had mostly moved the day to Sunday before Constantine.
Simone Collins:Yes. They they were celebrating the resurrection, but that doesn’t change that Jesus was like, look. You wanna you wanna be okay? Practice the 10 commandments. What’s one of the big 10 commandments? The Sabbath. This is not hard. This is not rocket science. I wish that it were because I’d love an out. I I wanna work seven days
Malcolm Collins:a week. Yeah. You’re really
Simone Collins:pissed about having to do it. Really don’t like this. And no, man. You don’t you don’t get to be proud
Malcolm Collins:of yourself for thinking. Approaching it wrong. Okay? The way that Jesus had us do the Sabbath, right, and people would be like, well, Jesus Christ is the Sabbath, or every day is the Sabbath. And it’s like, no. Like, clearly, if it’s one of the 10 commandments if it’s one of the 10 commandments, way and Jesus practiced it as well. You can’t get an out on that easily. Right? Like, you can’t be like Jesus didn’t think it was a big deal if he was doing it every week. But the key difference that I’ll be arguing in that episode is that Jews practice and relate to God contractually. EG, this is why Jews will do little things to try to get out of rules. It’s why, you know, he’ll say they’ll say women need to cover their hair, and then they wear a wig. And so, functionally, they’ve done nothing. It’s because if you’re technically following the rules in the same way as if you had a contract with a person or a deity, that deity then is beholden to you. Whereas Christians, it because this is the way that Christ from god see god much more like a father figure who gave us rules to help improve us.
Simone Collins:Once again, deontology versus consequentialism. And I’m with you on that. I am with you on that.
Malcolm Collins:But you keep trying to implement it in ways that clearly just add work, And that’s not I know. I’m I’m
Simone Collins:try look. I’m trying to wrap my head around it and because I hate the idea of not working so much. And maybe part of it’s because our work is so ideologically aligned anyway. I’m like, you know, how am I could how am I making the world a better place? How am I contributing to the improvement of humanity if I’m not allowed to work? Because our work is all about that. Well, it was worse than the
Malcolm Collins:type of work that you’re explicitly banned from is creative work.
Simone Collins:Yeah. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Well, you can teach, and you can learn. So it’s a little a little different, actually. You know? Oh. You can’t it’s not productive work. You can teach. You can learn if it’s, like, sort of religiously oriented. Well, no. Not just religiously oriented.
Malcolm Collins:That’s the way Jews interpreted it, but not. And the the the regulation that Simone, by the way, for for the big regulation debate that we’re having is she thinks that you should have restrictions against entertainment, and I do not think you should have restrictions against entertainment. Even the rabbinic system only built restrictions against music because they were afraid that you would break an instrument and try to fix it,
Simone Collins:not Well, religious music makes sense. But, like, just doing as you please and worshiping your father’s idols and stuff, that sounds like not a good idea.
Malcolm Collins:That doesn’t sound like entertainment. Your father’s idols is a very different Look.
Simone Collins:Okay. Do you think it’s okay to go to a Taylor Swift concert, assuming she’s volunteering and everyone else there is volunteering? No.
Malcolm Collins:It’s not okay to go to a Taylor Swift concert.
Simone Collins:She’s a false idol. Okay. So, like, just there’s nuance. There’s nuance to it. I’m I’m trying. I am trying so hard. Anyway, I love that this is what we
Malcolm Collins:But that doesn’t move human civilization forward. There’s no way that that for watching movies with your kids or your spouse is very different than going to a Taylor Swift concert. A a football game with all of your friends Yeah.
Simone Collins:But, like, watching PAW Patrol slop is not gonna move our family forward either. Like, watching family canon is and talking about it as we go through it.
Malcolm Collins:With the kids is absolutely fine if you make an effort to talk about it.
Simone Collins:Okay. If you’re like, I guess. Ugh. Yeah. Anyway, we’ll we’ll get See,
Malcolm Collins:see? Fine. It’s gonna
Simone Collins:be okay. Things we fight over. Yeah. This is what we fight over. Welcome to our family. Our our lover’s quarrel. You’re amazing. Love you. I love you so much. You tried me so nuts, but I love you so much.
Malcolm Collins:Well, this happens so interesting because it’s just it’s just like when we were going over the bible and seeing how many Christians just don’t take it seriously at all. And I’ve been very surprised by this contradiction, right, when it’s, like, loud and proud. Like
Simone Collins:Well, look. We’ve been we’ve been trying to think seriously about the bible for a long time working seven days a week. Just like Doreen Virtue who we talked about, the famous, you know, cult spellbook card creator, you know, made tons of money from the witchy world. Didn’t get to that. Realized it was like, oops. What was it? Deuteronomy? She read it. She’s like, oh, and that was her moment. She fell to her knees that moment and was like, I am so sorry. The other big
Malcolm Collins:one that a lot of Christians break that I have noticed, and I I a lot of Jews break this one as well Is the don’t talk to dead people one. This this would include, for example, talking to a dead parent or something like that. Right? Like, trying to do an intercession prayer to them instead of directly to God would be seen as that’s talking to dead people. And I think a lot of people just see that as, like, a a cute endearing little thing they do that’s that’s you know, what what harm could come from it? And it’s like, well, it’s it presumably, it’s there for a reason. Right?
Simone Collins:Yeah. And I’m I’m not buying intercession at all anyway. The this idea that, like, well, no. No. No. I’m not I’m not worshiping the Virgin Mary. I’m asking her to pray for me. No. You’re no. You are kneeling at a statue.
Malcolm Collins:But I didn’t realize how many groups did that. The Jews, I was looking up because apparently the Orthodox Jews do thing where they write letters to dead people to intercede on their behalf with god. And they do this so frequently that, when I was looking for pictures of it, it was two graves entirely covered. It was like a foot and a half of little notes.
Simone Collins:Oh, heavens? Okay.
Malcolm Collins:Well And I was like, so it’s not just that the Christians do the the Jews do this too. They’re like
Simone Collins:Well, you know what? The one thing I’m cool with with the dead people is is the the Mormons baptizing them. I’m like, okay.
Malcolm Collins:Yeah. That’s
Simone Collins:That’s wholesome. I like it.
Malcolm Collins:They yeah, that they think they’re being moved by dead people, but they don’t talk to the dead people.
Simone Collins:They’re not trying to talk to the dead people. They’re just making sure they can, you know, be okay. Well, no.
Malcolm Collins:But they believe the dead people influence their actions.
Simone Collins:That’s fine. And who maybe they do. I don’t know. You know, like, what you know, who they’re they’re not trying to say. Yeah. They’re that that is important. Also, a lot of people are telling us that we need to research the Indian death cults. I don’t know if I’m ready to stomach this. Someone sent me I don’t did you know the whole cult of Kali was real? Like, Indiana Jones, like, Kali Ma. Like Yeah.
Malcolm Collins:Of course. What? Yeah. No. I didn’t know it was still that active. Is it still active?
Simone Collins:no. I I don’t think it’s act I well, great. Well, you know, we’re gonna look it up and find that just like with the Aztecs, it never went away. But they
Malcolm Collins:were very different from the Aztecs because their entire society wasn’t based around it. The cult of Cali was typically seen as, like Weirdos. Yeah.
Simone Collins:But then I just someone just sent me on Twitter on x wait. Hold on. They weren’t weirdos.
Malcolm Collins:It was closer to, like, the cult of Dionysus in ancient Greece or something like that. Like, you know, they were a faction in society, but they weren’t, you know, like, Zeus or Hera or something.
Simone Collins:Yeah. But someone sent me today an image from some kind of Indian festival that was
Speaker 5:Okay. So if you were wondering, does this still happen? It does still happen. it looks like it happens to about six to, let’s say, 12 people a year. Although, you know, it’s been up to 24 people in a year, in India where people are sacrificed. It’s not specifically the Kali. It’s actually, interestingly, usually just like a self styled tantric or family member says that a human Bali or offering will fix some problem a person has. And then it’s often a child or a stranger that they find. It’s it’s bad, but it’s not nearly the numbers we’re talking about in Mexico with the the murders that happened there for for human sacrifices to the the Santa Muerte folk Catholic saint. And and and so this is just totally and especially when you look at the number of people in India versus Mexico, it’s not the same. If we’re talking about at the height of it, there was maybe around a 100,000 people killed by these travelers who would pretend to be it’s like the eighteen thirties. They pretend to befriend somebody, and then they’d strangle them to death with a rumor or a scarf and then rob their bodies. And then the British put on a big campaign to shut this down and arrest all these people, and it was successfully mostly shut down. We it doesn’t even look like it was necessarily an ancestral thing in the region. It might have been completely opportunistic. Again, making it very different from the Aztecs if you’re looking at the numbers of people who were sacrificed in this even at its very height.
Speaker 7:Toasty, you need to come right back, buddy. There we go. Friend? Let’s check on your salamander and then go on inside.
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