Today on Based Camp, Malcolm breaks down a major unreported shift in the Iran conflict: the effective end of Iran’s blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. Oil exports from the Gulf have returned to pre-war levels and are set to grow further through expanded pipelines and coastal shipping routes.
The discussion covers how Saudi Arabia and the UAE rerouted flows via land pipelines, the role of smaller coastal tankers, added insurance costs, and why Iran’s strategy backfired by alienating neighbors and eliminating its own leverage. It also examines long-term economic damage to Iran, comparisons to Venezuela and Cuba, and the broader geopolitical fallout.
Episode Transcript
Malcolm Collins:Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be having a conversation that shows why it’s important that you watch podcasts like this instead of just the mainstream news because there has been a significant change in the state of the Iranian war that is not being reported on much at all. specifically, the blockade of the strait is over. well, not our blockade of Iran’s exports, but their blockade of the rest of the world’s exports. To give you an example of how over it is, prewar, this is roughly in the twelve months before the conflict began, 02/28/2026, Gulf Middle Eastern crude averaged at about 18,000,000 barrels per day. Okay?
Simone Collins:K.
Malcolm Collins:And 83% of its crude was going through Hormuz. Today... Now remember, it was 18,000,000 barrels per day. That was the average. The seven day moving average that we are at right now is 18,300,000 barrels per day coming out of the region, higher than the average before the war. Now you’re probably thinking, but how? Why? How were they able to block it so easily, and how did we get around it apparently so easily?
Simone Collins:Yeah. But they dropped mines in there or something. Right? Yes. I even heard one of the mines exploded recently.
Malcolm Collins:So let’s go over how we’ve globally gotten around this and the geopolitical consequences of us getting around it because what it means for Iran is astonishingly bad. I personally didn’t think this was possible. I didn’t think we would find a way around it this quickly. And we’re building out ways to get around it even more that will be live by 2027. So one of the big ways we got around it is... Remember how 83% used to go through The Gulf? That that means through Hermes? Now it’s only 40%.
Simone Collins:Okay. So it’s still significantly down.
Malcolm Collins:Well, no. It’s it’s up, but it’s that we’re not sending it through The Gulf anymore. We’re not not sending it through the straight anymore.
Simone Collins:We’re sending
Malcolm Collins:it through other pipelines. And those pipelines are actually being expanded at this moment, which is going to bring it so that only around 20% is estimated to still go through the straight.
Simone Collins:Okay. Yes. I I mean, which is inevitable. If if the one path does not work, you have to take another path.
Malcolm Collins:Live in 2027. This shows that Iran indiscriminately attacking ships was the dumbest they could have done. Because they’re
Simone Collins:rendering one of their big points of, leverage obsolete.
Malcolm Collins:The... Yes. Iran’s... Wait. Doesn’t just make their point of leverage obsolete. We didn’t start blocking their oil exports, which is 30% of their government revenue, until they blocked the straight.
Simone Collins:Oh, really? I Yeah. We were Oh, weren’t they subject to significant economic sanctions after a certain point before we just put it to war?
Malcolm Collins:Yeah. They they had sanctions, but they were still shipping oil.
Simone Collins:Oh.
Malcolm Collins:And it was making up a huge chunk of their government, and they don’t run out of, back payments for that oil until around December. But, like Oh,
Simone Collins:so they’re still getting income. That’s crazy.
Malcolm Collins:Yeah. But they’re incredibly boned long term from this. And if you’re like, I thought we were we were barely at war with them. As I pointed out in a recent episode, the HRANA, this is, like, the mainstream. This is... It’s some Israeli whatever mainstream estimate. The United States has killed 17... Sorry. A 700 civilians, since the start of the war. And Iran, by the same organization’s estimates, killed 7,000 civilians. And this is considered... People give really high numbers, like 30,000 or something. I don’t I don’t buy that. Right?
Simone Collins:Is it... I think that includes, like, all the protests that were leading up to Yeah.
Malcolm Collins:Yeah. The war. So we’ve killed... And and note here, even if we go with the Iranian official figure, which is 3,117 civilians that they killed During the crackdowns of people asking The United States to come in and save them That is still almost double the number of civilians The United States has killed since the start of this war. If you know anything about war, that means we’re not really fighting what anyone would think of as a traditional war. We’re... I don’t know. It’s it’s it’s as much of a war as whatever happened in Venezuela was a war, And and a lot of people don’t get that. They don’t get how asymmetrical and weird this war is, nor how badly it’s going for Iran now that we have found a way. And I’ll go into the economics of how we get oil around. It’s really fascinating, actually. But it’s really, really bad long term for Iran because they no longer have any leverage and have pissed off all their friends and are on a lifeline that’s eventually going to dry up. And the question is, what happens when it dries up? And they could become like Cuba. Cuba’s lifeline dried up a while ago, and they are just not really making it right now.
Simone Collins:Press coverage seems to have mostly fizzled out after just multiple headlines amounting to they’re out of power again. Oh, yes. Once again, they’re out of power. And I just... I don’t know what they’re doing. By the way,
Malcolm Collins:if you’re talking about, like, geopolitical victories, that one administration in, like, two years knocked out our three... Venezuela was one of our primary geopolitical enemies long term. Cuba was one of our primary geopolitical enemies long term. Let’s see if we can sink the deal on that. Iran And was one of our primary geopolitical enemies long term, which is going to take forever to... And and it’s... Well, Trump gave them this awesome deal, right, that I had talked about before where they would have gotten a bunch of money to... They... No one’s gonna be offering them that deal anymore.
Simone Collins:That deal deal that he offered to Maduro being like, I... You will be set for life anonymously somewhere.
Malcolm Collins:No. No. Not Maduro. I’m talking about Iran. He’s like, we’re gonna give you... Well, not we. We’re gonna have the the oil power, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etcetera, invest, like, $300,000,000,000 in it.
Simone Collins:Right. Yes. We did a whole podcast on that.
Speaker 17:And even crazier as part of that deal, if they had taken it, they could have, had unrestricted sale of their oil, which they haven’t had in decades and would have made them so, so, so much money. And they blew up the deal to maintain control of her moods, which they don’t have anymore.
Simone Collins:So, yeah, what happened?
Malcolm Collins:And Iran was like, no. Now these countries have no reason to. The only reason they were gonna make these investments was because they wanted enough political control of Iran to keep the strait open. Now they don’t care. Iran could be a failed state for all they care. They’re they’re they’re not gonna be dealing with refugees. They shoot them. You know, this... These aren’t these aren’t fuzzy European countries. Okay? So... And Iranian refugees, secondarily, integrate pretty well with European populations. They are Persian. They are not your... You know, Arab Muslims have integrated less well with European and American population. Persian Muslims have... Typically, they stop being Muslim pretty quickly. The the the religion doesn’t really seem to work with that ethnicity very well Or as well as it it does for other groups. We’ve talked about this in other episodes. And that’s a great example. You know, you wanna talk about a Muslim group within the other epithet. I was like, I don’t know Muslim groups that have made this The Persian immigrants in America, they have been able to maintain fairly high fertility rates and maintain cultural connections. They often drop being Muslim, though. But I’ve seen some that keep being Muslim and and and stay very American culturally speaking. And they can be they can be good. And I don’t think any American has a problem with, like, working with, like, inter... People who identify as Persian. And you... I mean, if you’re watching the podcast, you probably know a couple. They’re pretty cool. They, if if you don’t know... I... I’m probably gonna offend a lot of people here. They remind me a lot of Armenians. It’s gonna really piss some people off, I’m sure
Speaker 10:Armenians and Persians in LA try not to be identical challenge. Impossible. Both of these guys will try to convince you that they are completely different and that their culture is unique, yet each of them have a nose job. Weak of Dior Sauvage can spend all their time at the Shisha Lounge with their cousin who’s a dentist. The only noticeable difference is the color of their BMWs.
Malcolm Collins:. but just culturally, that’s what I’ve noticed when I’ve interacted with the two groups
Speaker 11:Or if you want to be more offensive and you’re like, I don’t know a lot of Armenians. That’s a deep cut. They’re basically cocaine Jews. It’s like you took Jewish culture, and you somehow infused it with about 25% cocaine. That’s Persian culture.
Malcolm Collins:very sort of mercantile. but
Simone Collins:the the point here being Mercantile but jovial.
Malcolm Collins:Mercantile but jovial and obsessed with partying. Like, really obsessed with partying.
Simone Collins:Yeah. Work hard, play hard.
Malcolm Collins:They’re the type of people where I’m like, you are why somebody is going to a nightclub, and I will never understand it. Yeah.
Simone Collins:Yeah. We’re work hard, work hard, and they work hard, play hard.
Malcolm Collins:Well, Puritan. Right? You know, you gotta you gotta keep with the traditions. Yeah. But the point here being, where where were that going with this? Yeah. So I was talking about why it’s so bad for Iran. What Iran should have done and what a smart country would have done is what Iran tried to do, but they are too fractionalized to do this, is done, tolls on the boats going through the strait. because if they had charged tolls on boats going through the strait, they would have, one, increased the global cost of oil, but, two, created a pathway through the strait that wasn’t worth setting up these alternate mechanisms. Because they didn’t do that, it was cost worthy to set up the alternate mechanisms. So let’s get into the alternate mechanisms and how bad they are for Iran long term, especially now that all their neighbors hate them, which is... I mean, if you’re wondering why, it’s because they bombed them all, even their closest allies like Qatar. Okay. So what they did is they take the tanker ships, when they get near the strait. And so the tanker ships get near the strait, and then they unload from the tanker ship to a smaller tanker ship that can go into shallower water. Then this shallow water tanker ship ends up moving, the oil just hugging the coast. That that was basically it. Just hug the coast, and they can’t do anything about it.
Simone Collins:That’s it? Wait. What about all the the mines?
Malcolm Collins:Well, the mine ships would have to come all the way right next to, like, The UAE. And The UAE isn’t gonna allow that. Right? Like, UAE is an armed country with, like
Simone Collins:And it’s deep enough? It’s not gonna run aground?
Malcolm Collins:Well, keep in mind, you’ve got, like, all sorts of islands on The UAE side of this and everything. Like, it would be really hard to do. And in addition to that, the the reason why the tankers went in the center area is because there were these giant tanker ships. Right? That’s that’s not an issue anymore. And in addition to that, The US has significantly defanged Iran. They just don’t have the munitions. They don’t have the people. They don’t have the organization to do something that sophisticated anymore.
Simone Collins:Yeah. Wow. Okay.
Malcolm Collins:So that was that was the trick. Use ferries. for wondering why the ferries allowed this to work, there’s actually logistical reasons. It’s not just that they can go into shallower waters, but they also don’t have to deal with the same insurance. They they remove the insurance from the typical insurance companies, and the country that’s operating them, specifically either The UAE, Saudi Arabia, or the US Navy slash US Central Command ends up insuring for, like, a price. So it’s actually a a way for these countries to make even more money. now you say, well, surely that affects the price of the oil, and it does affect the price of the oil going through. So war risk insurance adds about 7 to $8 per barrel, and the premium on hull insurance jumped from 0.1% of hull value to 1.5%, which is pretty significant.
Simone Collins:That’s a lot. Yes.
Malcolm Collins:Yeah. So how much is this affecting the end price? The end price on insurance is only a seven to 8% boost. But for the entire price of the oil going through the region, it’s 25 to 35% increase. Now you can say, well, that’s a meaningful number. It’s not, like, catastrophic, but it’s meaningful. And the problem being is, yes, it’s meaningful, but the economic impact it has isn’t as bad as you would expect it to be. because it’s a known increase in cost instead of the unknown increase associated with how long is this gonna be shut down. Now we know the upper limit of an increase in cost that Iran can impose upon oil coming from this region, and it’s 25 to 35%. And next year, when these new pipelines come out, it’s gonna be even less than that. So it’s just going to decrease from here. And in in relation to how that affects oil prices, actually, the biggest thing that’s affecting oil prices right now is not what you would expect. So this really got me when I
Simone Collins:was digging deeper into this.
Malcolm Collins:So right now, it’s adding, what’s happening in this region is adding $35 to... Per barrel. Okay? Now the average increase overall per barrel is $30. And you could say, wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Why why is the average cost increasing almost as much as the cost coming out of just this region? Right? Yeah. In terms of the cost to ship? The region is is actually very interesting. It it has to do with the number of VLCC fleets. So the the VLCC fleet that got involved in this is the specialized smaller freighter capacity. The the Oh. They’re they’re doing Smaller
Simone Collins:boats that can hug the shore, basically. Like, the super big honking ones can’t do this. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins:And so, this... For this shuttle to work, it’s using right now 14 to 40% of the VLCC global fleet. K. But what that means is they’re just gonna produce more of them. Right? If if this keeps going indefinitely, they
Simone Collins:Shipbuilding takes a while, though. And, I mean, at least they’re not dependent on The US for this because our shipbuilding capacity’s gone RIP.
Malcolm Collins:Yeah. That sucks. But Korea is great at shipbuilding, by the way. Yeah. The the supertankers and stuff like this.
Simone Collins:I just wish we were decent at it.
Malcolm Collins:We could be if the US government invested in local manufacturing and we weren’t tarred... I mean, some of the military ship designs, I don’t know if we should do a full episode on this, we’ve done recently have been basically useless. Like, some of The US’s most recently added
Speaker 12:Specifically here, I’m thinking of the Littoral class battleships where they tried to build them to be, a thing where you could swap out internal components, to make the ship for different purposes. But the swap out mechanism was too long to use. And so they’re they’re basically useless now, and they were the main thing we were producing for a period because somebody got excited by, like, that idea. Remember when there was a phone, and it was like, you could swap out the internals and turn it into different things? And they were like, oh, that’s so cool.
Malcolm Collins:No.
Simone Collins:We we can’t... Things can’t be built based on RFPs anymore. Just period. We can’t... We we can’t really have the government build things. We need to have private businesses. No
Malcolm Collins:more Boeing. Boeing needs to be cut... I know I might get shot for this. If Boeing lend a single more con... One more contract from the government.
Simone Collins:No. Any... No. Just like the entire process of of bid based... Like, the the the bureaucratic mechanism through which stuff is built and services are rendered to the United States government is so far gone that it is a wonder that we are able to get anything at all ever.
Malcolm Collins:By way, if you’re wondering how I would handle requisitions if I was a government official doing this Yeah. You have a department where it’s a department of, like, the best and the best in terms of, like, multiple past successes in venture capital. That’s what I would be looking for. Venture capitalists demand this department. Okay. So you take venture capitalists, and you say, no. Not industry insiders, which is a lot of what they do right now. It’s like, decides who wins the... Well, we’ll RFPs somebody with a ton of oil industry experience. I understand why that looks good on the outside. It’s not actually a good way to do things because it leads them to giving lots of kickbacks, working with their friends. Yeah. Take VCs, people from the startup industry. Then you tell them, you have to choose who you’re gonna give the money to to do this. and it can be a couple teams. and then there, they get scores based on the success of the project, that that VC. And that money that they get to distribute in the next round is based on their past scores. And this allows them to just be like, if Boeing really is the only person to do this, then they can go to Boeing. But they can also go straight to some small entrepreneur and be like, hey. you seem to be a unique expert in this. Or even an engineer at Boeing and be like, hey. You’re an expert in this. Why don’t you spin up your own thing? I’ll give you the money to do it. Yeah. You’ll get insider dealing with this, but it will be less bad than the existing RFP process.
Simone Collins:Honestly, anything would be better. I I don’t I don’t have an answer, but it cannot be what it is now.
Malcolm Collins:Yeah. So what about all of that oil that’s not going through the straight right now? How did they pull that one off? That seems pretty wild. Right? Do you happen to know? Because I could have answered this immediately.
Simone Collins:You you said they hugged the shore. What do you mean?
Malcolm Collins:No. No. No. That’s how they... Remember how it went from, I think
Simone Collins:it was 85% to to only 40%? 40%. Oh, so, yeah, where does the rest go?
Malcolm Collins:Yeah. 83% to 40%. Where does the rest go?
Simone Collins:Presumably, they’re using land bridges, like, you know, hauling on tankers across land, I guess. What what are they doing?
Malcolm Collins:Saudi Arabia’s East West pipeline for petroleum and UAE, Abu Dhabi’s crude oil pipeline for where these go. This... The Saudi Arabia one carries it to the Red Sea.
Simone Collins:Oh, so just using, like, physical oil pipelines?
Malcolm Collins:Yes. And The UAE’s Abu Dhabi’s pipeline, basically, it it carries it to the Gulf Of Milan.
Simone Collins:Why weren’t they using those pipelines more before? Because it was slightly cheaper. These add around 7% to the cost of the shipment. That’s nontrivial. Yeah. It’s not
Malcolm Collins:trivial, but, like, for being able to get around a blockade, it’s... It is Great.
Simone Collins:You’re glad you have the pipeline.
Malcolm Collins:Built these. If you’re like, why why why did they build these? It’s because Iran has done this and threatened to do this before, so they built them. That... That’s that’s why they have them. They they threatened them before, when they built them out, they used them in small amounts, but they made them so that they could be much, much bigger expecting Saudi Arabia to do this. And it just took a little bit of time to get them all up and fully operational because, you know, Iran kept trying to bomb them. And they did damage them at one point, but they’re they’re fixed up now. And they’re both set to be significantly expanded in the very near future, which we’ll get to in a second. I will note that this solution has a problem to it. Do you know the problem? And it has to do with AI, actually, Simone. You you you are familiar with this story. You just not might have put two and two together.
Simone Collins:No. I I have no idea.
Malcolm Collins:So you know how Iran loves funding terrorist organizations? Yeah. One of the terrorist organizations they did pulled a fun little trick on the
Speaker 3:The UAE and Saudi backed fraction in Yemen.
Malcolm Collins:which was they cloned his voice and then told all his forces to retreat.
Simone Collins:And it worked. Oh. And What?
Malcolm Collins:Really? Creates a problem because if you know where the city that they took It’s at the mouth of the Red Sea.
Simone Collins:Great. Fantastic. Of course. And it could
Malcolm Collins:be used to do a blockade. They haven’t successfully done this yet, but they could. What’s gonna happen if they attempt to do this? The reality is it’s nobody cares about
Speaker 4:about Yemen. Yemen’s been killing Yemenese people for a long time, and nobody cares.
Speaker 5:Saudi Arabia and The UAE.
Malcolm Collins:is, like most Muslim countries these days, incompetent as a military. I pointed... This is, an objective fact. Like, all of the Muslim world at the same time jumping a significantly weaker and technologically fairly incapable Israel multiple times kept getting their butts kicked in, by a very small Israeli force. We have a video on why Muslims are so bad at war, today or at least have been for a while. And you can be like, oh, they’ve they’ve been able to defend in, like, Afghanistan. It’s... Yeah. It doesn’t matter. Like, being able to to hide in... Anyone can defend themselves in that scenario. You know, that that... That’s just how long can you hide in the mountains game. Right? That’s not, like, durably taking land. I’m talking about, like, mill... Like, actually going out and and projecting force. That a super wealthy
Speaker 6:Coalition is failing to control. They don’t even need to take the country. They just need to control this one straight, that is practically or literally their neighbor is astonishing.
Speaker 7:And I’d point out here, they are claiming that they were not tricked by the AI. It was just a tactical retreat to which I would say, then that’s even worse. That’s so, so, so much worse. The people you’re fighting against have nothing, and they’re not, like, hiding in mountains or something like that where you could make an excuse for this or you can’t genocide them like America has to play by those rules. You can do whatever you want, and you’re just trying to hold a one city.
Malcolm Collins:by the way, and they have, like, infinite money to do this, and these people are nothing. Then they’ve got nothing. They’ve got no technology. They got little technicals with guns stapled to them. Okay? That they can’t hold this region should genuinely be embarrassing for them. That they’re getting tricked by... That they didn’t have, like, a good communication systems to prevent this that their forces didn’t. What’s gonna end up happening and what I expect to end up happening is just a genocide. Because nobody cares about
Speaker 8:Yemen and The UAE
Malcolm Collins:wants them dead now. And I think that a genocide is not above Saudi Arabia. and I think they might just come to the perspective of if forces do attempt to close the, Red Sea, they’re just gonna be like like, let’s get rid of them. It’s it’s it’s... Note here, it would be much easier than doing this in Iran where it’s just significantly more... As a country technologically competent and built up. It’s it’s it’s whatever Iran is to the United States military,
Speaker 9:The Hussies
Malcolm Collins:is to the Iranian military. Okay?
Simone Collins:Oh, okay.
Malcolm Collins:Not good. So there’s been an expansion process that... I’m trying to find where I wrote down the the dates for this, the overall scale and limits. Yeah. Okay. So The UAE New East pipeline to Farooja is already about 50% complete out of 2026, and it’ll be operational by 2027. It will allow 1.5 to 1,800,000 barrels towards 3,000,000 to 3,600,000, so significantly increasing it, like doubling it. And then the Saudi Arabia... So this is next year that’s operational. The Saudi Arabia East West expansion system is going to be a conversion that could add 1,200,000 BPD, and this should be done within seven to eight weeks at this point.
Simone Collins:Barrels per day? Is that what BPD means?
Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Basically, it’ll move it so that you’d only need 20% going through this this new system that they built, which is gonna dramatically reduce the cost of operating the system. It’s just... I RAM completely boned themselves on this one.
Simone Collins:Yeah. There is wonder if these... I mean, this does mean sustained higher oil prices, and I wonder if it will push more people toward electricity in The United States even though our charging options are not fantastic. I still think it might be decent. I’m just so annoyed by US car commercials, which fail to demonstrate any of the features of the cars. I I How are you seeing car commercials? Because I watch some... You know that stupid old lady mystery show where they’re gardeners and they solve mysteries? That’s on Amazon Prime, and they show commercials. And there’s so many car commercials. And the car commercials demonstrate that it’s a car. It drives, and it holds people. And I’m like, how are... What is... What are we doing in The United States? How
Malcolm Collins:The IQ of someone that that appeals to.
Simone Collins:I don’t under... Yeah. It’s like music, car. It’s like a perfume advertisement, which also I do not understand what people are being sold on here. Whereas I... Apparently, in China, when they advertise cars, they actually advertise their really freaking cool features that are in their cars. But US cars are so bad that they’re like, it drives. Come buy it.
Malcolm Collins:It drive in mud.
Simone Collins:It drive in mud. It drive in hot air. It drive in cold air. It drive.
Malcolm Collins:Oh, I didn’t know it could do that.
Simone Collins:Yeah. It... No. I’m not kidding you. Like, there’s one... And I really, really love Land Rovers and Range Rovers, but they have a commercial where it’s like, if they’re trying to use a baking analogy, and they’re like, you know, like, at 300 and, like, a 120 degrees Fahrenheit and frozen it below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. And I’m actually using the actual numbers for the commercial because I’ve seen it so many times. And it’s like, I don’t care. What’s inside it? Before before warring about cars. They actually... Like, I I I I drove Range Rovers when I was in The UK on on a course, like, on a professional driving course. It was, one of these weird things we did with the the the school of business. We did a whole case study with them, and they are really cool cars with a lot of cool features that can actually help you drive better, that will, like, show you the view of your car from all around. None of that’s being advertised. I don’t care. I’m... What are we doing? So... But, yeah, you think that more people would use electric cars going forward. I mean, I think maybe one of the reasons why this is not being covered in the media is people care about their pocketbooks. Their pocketbooks are not seeing relief. They’re not seeing gas prices go down. But
Malcolm Collins:you’re going to. Like Right. It’s basically over. Right?
Simone Collins:Like I know. But, like, the insulting thing is that, no. It’s, like, it’s not basically over because people are still paying more. They’re pissed about it. They didn’t ask for this war, and it’s all very removed for them.
Malcolm Collins:Until Iran... I mean, there is a case in which it isn’t over, which is Iran begins to panic and tries to bomb facilities, which they could do. It’d be incredibly stupid because it would give another country the ability to bomb their position at Kharg, which would financially devastate them forever. And everyone is very explicitly holding off for doing right now.
Simone Collins:You’re trying so hard.
Malcolm Collins:For people unaware, if you bomb this one little island, Iran wouldn’t be able to do its oil anymore. Right? Like, it... It’d be over for a very long time. And it would destroy their economy, and it would be horrible. And that’s the... You know, they they bomb someone else. Someone else is gonna bomb that eventually. And then what does Iran do? Right? Like, it’s over for them, which is not good. To understand how bad things are for Iran right now, the Iranian... Do you know what their inflation has been this year in... As of, like, now for the past year?
Simone Collins:No. Good, bad, what? 90% inflation this year. Is this just a thing that happens during war a lot?
Malcolm Collins:Well, if you have a economy as cooked as Iran’s, if you forgot our episode on how cooked it was to live in Iran, Iran has had for the past few years inflation of last year, 42%, the year before that, 32%, the year before that, 45%, the year before that, 43%, the year before that, 31%. Imagine how boned you are as a citizen in Iran. Like
Simone Collins:I feel really bad. I feel really bad. I... It’s not it’s not okay. And it sucks because I don’t know how they’re
Malcolm Collins:Food prices have more
Simone Collins:You can’t afford to get out of it. You can’t even... Like, if you could easily flee, how can you even afford to flee? And I get this is, like, the worst time to be a refugee internationally as all the countries start shutting down because they’ve seen what happens when they get refugees even though so many Iranians are really, really awesome people who would be an asset to any country that they were able to be a part of.
Malcolm Collins:I I think all you can do is you’re attempting to fight back in any way you can. Right? Like, there there aren’t many, and, obviously, the government will kill you, but they’re gonna kill you one day anyway. I mean, they they... The reports I hear of people’s sisters being, like, to death for not wearing a hijab in public the right way or whatever, like, it’s horrible. It’s a horrible place to live, and it needs to end. And my greatest hope is that we can end this regime, because, there is no reason that Iran, of all countries, should be a Muslim theocracy. see our episode on the atheist theocracy. I think goes over... And Islam is just not that big in Iran right now. It’s it’s been losing tons and tons of members. and, it would be very easy to, of, like, countries in the region. Iran is actually one that could convert to a more western style of government in operation.
Simone Collins:And it it was historically. Right? It just
Malcolm Collins:Yeah. So it’s it’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous that we’re dealing with any of this. It it it is... Well, not that we’re dealing with it. Like, I I think... Especially given how this war is going and where we are right now, I did not think we would have found a solution to the blockade. I did not think that was possible. And that the solution would be a measly, like, 25% boost on the cost of what’s being shipped through, and that wouldn’t even be for most of it. Most of would only be, like, a 7% increase because it’s going through these pipelines that would be finished within a year.
Simone Collins:Like, should be just little negotiating power Iran had from the start, which is
Malcolm Collins:Yeah. And now they got none. But I
Simone Collins:think the... So the reason why it... It’s not even worth it for them to, like, not hail Mary this, though, and and and be so antagonistic is they don’t have a future anyway. So the... From a perspective of what do they have to lose, I think maybe that influences some of this. You did a whole episode on just how dire it was in Iran from an environmental infrastructure standpoint
Malcolm Collins:that Yeah. Living in Iran is a living hell, and it has been for years.
Simone Collins:Well, and that their
Malcolm Collins:Government is also
Simone Collins:going to what? They’re going to run out of water in in many of the major cities. Right?
Malcolm Collins:And then Yeah. The the the city is collapsing. Like, the Tehran, it’s... Has these major sinkhole issues where, like, you just disappear one day.
Simone Collins:Yeah. So even if, for example, things were politically totally... Let’s say, okay. Suddenly, ping. I don’t know. Whatever. Iran westernizes, and and they have a government that’s... Cares about the well-being of their people. And even if they get, like, a bunch of aid money to restart things, that’s still not going to change the fact that their cities are built on fundamentally unsound foundations literally, that they’re running out of water literally, that all these other issues are there. I I I don’t know how to... Like, I... Because I thought that has a
Malcolm Collins:hard long term relevant country. Is is Yeah. I mean, I think
Simone Collins:the question really for me, if suddenly I was empress of the world, would be how can I safely resettle Iranian citizens in a way that would set them up to thrive? Because I I just don’t... I can’t
Malcolm Collins:No. I wouldn’t do that. They they they got themselves into it by allowing this to happen. Okay? It’s their job to either have a revolution and Yeah. But, Malcolm, what
Simone Collins:I’m saying is just literally the foundation they’re on environmentally, logistically, is not sound. If they had a revolution and took over, what would they do to make things okay?
Malcolm Collins:If they had a revolution and took over, you’d have a ton of foreign investment because there’s a lot of rich Persians around the world and a lot of people who would like the idea of being able to make money in a country that just... Do you know the money people made in Eastern Germany after the war, after the Berlin Wall fell? So many people became, like, billionaires. Because you could buy all this land for cheap, right, and and and all of this talent for cheap. Right? Because the... They were still Germans. They were just under a a bad government. And then how much money was made in the people who invested in Korea after the war, the people who invested in Japan after the war is insane amounts. That’s what people are going to think of Iran. Okay? It’s not like Afghanistan
Simone Collins:after after the the war war was started. Something. But it’s not like Gangnam was going to sink into the ground and run out of water Right.
Malcolm Collins:But I ran it already trying solutions, like moving its capital and stuff like this. It would get a bunch of investment. No. It would have no problem getting
Simone Collins:the money it needed. So just it basically would start new cities, and then people would relocate to these new cities. And there’s hope. Well, that’s one thing that we can do. Desalinization. And But a lot of
Malcolm Collins:the world is gonna be dealing with this. And I think the reality of the situation is is that Iran is a country that the world will forget when the demographic crisis starts to become a more of a reality and the AI crisis becomes more of a reality. By the AI crisis, I’m talking about the jobs crisis that will be precipitated from AI because the income is going to increasingly concentrate in just a few countries. And the countries that people are going to be focused on is, like, Latin America and stuff like this. Like, why care about Iran when Latin America’s starving? Right? You know? Like, there’s other places that are closer to home and I have more sympathy for. And I think for a lot of Europeans, they’re gonna immediately go to, like, Gaza and Africa because they’re stupid, and we’ll always go for the most victim y culture, and Iran isn’t the biggest victim either. So, you know, it’s gonna be forgotten. That’s that’s what’s gonna happen to Iran. It’s going to be forgotten in global history, and we’ll dry up in whatever happens in the oncoming demographic crisis. I mean, they already have this super low fertility rate. It’s lower than ours. So, like... And we’re, like, a developed country. So... And their their social security system, do you know how bad it’s
Simone Collins:Yeah. What social security system? Yeah. I... It’s I don’t know. I keep thinking about the the guy who makes videos that Asmongold covers, for example, who now ends up in Skybrows videos, who really shows the the human side of this, that there are people there who are like, look. Help. I’m like you. Okay. We watch the same shows. We we try. it’s really tough, and they’re given so few outs. It’s not like they allowed this to happen. It’s not like they made this happen. They grew up in us. They asked for us. Oh, yes. They did. They did ask for us, but I
Malcolm Collins:The protests on the streets, this costs us politically. This costs us financially. Yes. It’s in our long term best interest, but this is also a favor to the Iranian people
Simone Collins:in trying to I I don’t
Malcolm Collins:think overthrow the government.
Simone Collins:Yeah. The US The US did act and did step forward despite huge resistance to that. I just don’t see how There’s nothing we can do for them that is How do I get
Malcolm Collins:it out? There’s nothing we can do for them bigger than what we’ve already done. Okay? It is it is it is their moment to either take or just let pass by. And it it might just pass by
Simone Collins:The the most ideal scenario is Iran’s government falls, bunch of foreign direct investment, new cities spread up that are just basically, okay. Let’s just start from the ground up, build a new thing. And
Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Which happened in many countries. Yeah. You’re right.
Simone Collins:You’re right. It has happened in many countries. It has happened.
Malcolm Collins:Piece of countryside.
Simone Collins:Yeah. Look at South Korea. Absolutely. Okay. I hope that happens. Can that happen? Let’s have that happen. I would like that to happen.
Malcolm Collins:But it it requires, you know, people with a lot of courage, making a lot of risks. And this is this is something that, you know, we’ve we’ve done what we can at this point, and it’s... Whatever happens right now, I mean, we’re in a pretty good situation coming out of this right now, geopolitically speaking, with stronger allies in The Middle East than we had going into this
Speaker 13:For how we pulled off that crazy feat, we basically did nothing to accomplish this. It was Iran that did it for us by attacking all of their neighbors and closest allies the moment the war started for any reason. It was crazy. It’s... I... No one has ever offered anyone else for nothing that big a diplomatic victory. Like, the fact that this war could have improved our relationship with most Middle Eastern countries is absolutely nanners. It should not have turned out this way. I I... If you told me, oh, yeah. Iran’s gonna immediately start bombing Qatar. I’d be like, wait. What? Why? And then I think that’s the way Qatar felt as well.
Malcolm Collins:and a country that cannot threaten us anymore, either nuclear or cutting off the street. Like, what what what an awesome
Simone Collins:And Palestine has been significantly under undermined by this.
Malcolm Collins:Yeah. The only the only
Simone Collins:I mean, I I I shouldn’t say Palestine. Hamas has been significantly
Malcolm Collins:Well, all of the all of the very... The... Who... All of the groups because they’re not getting the same amount of money anymore.
Simone Collins:Right. Are... I mean, are they getting any money? I don’t imagine that the current regime in Iran is exactly feeling generous at this point funding their side projects.
Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Nothing.
Speaker 14:Of course, here, we are discounting all of the money that’s coming from American anime dubbing actors for the terrorist networks that Iran used to fund. It’s a joke in reference to yesterday’s episode. No. But, really, most of the terrorist organizations across this region were heavily reliant on funding from Iran, which isn’t coming anymore.
Malcolm Collins:Right? Or we’ll have nothing. They lose. They lost. Do I think... Now I’m in a tough position because my advice to the administration before was just we got what we wanted with Iran. We could stop now.
Simone Collins:Get
Malcolm Collins:out. But now that we can get around the blockade, it’s kinda like... And we can blockade them, absolutely. It’s kinda like, well, maybe wait them out. But that’s not politically palatable, but it it is the obvious right choice for American interests. So I don’t know what the administration’s gonna do, but this is where we are right now. Is is is now they’re just not able to inflict the same amount of pain, and we can just wait them out unless they go
Simone Collins:in, sir. Looks like... I just checked Polymarket and the current betting markets around a US Iran ceasefire continuing through October 15 is 97%, October 31, 82%. It seems like it... The expectation in general is that there will be a continued steady ceasefire more likely than not. And I guess... I don’t know what’s gonna happen. Is Iran just gonna continue limping forward indefinitely? I mean, how long can they last? Just... Are there models on that? Do people
Malcolm Collins:Consider how things... Bad things got in Venezuela. A country can get really, really, really bad before people
Simone Collins:You’re right. Cuba’s still going strong. Venezuela is still doing whatever it’s doing despite a devastating earthquake. That is... Yeah. That’s fair. And it doesn’t look like we’re gonna reach any sort of Really?
Malcolm Collins:The the best realistic cases of scenarios, we find out where this leader is and we do business with somebody else who’s willing to play ball and we get rid of them.
Simone Collins:I suppose. Yeah. There’s... I’ve been looking also the...
Malcolm Collins:We do the Venezuelan. Problem
Simone Collins:is market for The US,
Malcolm Collins:Iran Because of Iran wanted to take a more muted approach, and the generals basically overrode him because of their mosaic defense strategy
Simone Collins:Oh.
Malcolm Collins:Which we talked about in our last video on Iran or maybe the video before that where we pointed out that he clearly did not want these missiles sent at their allied neighbors. And then he had to backtrack. And he was the guy presumably in charge. So why is he having to backtrack and looking really scared for having said it was a mistake on our part? That’s because, likely, he’s got a bunch of, like, warlords who are like, we’ll kill you if you tell us to stop bombing people. We’re... We wanna do max war forever because I’m military guy, and now I control, and I... That’s that’s where things are.
Simone Collins:I don’t like it. But it is very interesting that the straight up formula is this is not at all what people probably... Most people think it is.
Malcolm Collins:Yep. Well, I love you, Simone. For dinner tonight, I would love bacon and sweet potato fries. I had and and and look up a recipe for, like, sugared bacon slightly.
Simone Collins:Yeah. Well, I’m gonna have to do it a little differently because it’s mostly cooked, but I have some ideas.
Malcolm Collins:Great. I love you.
Simone Collins:I love you too.
Malcolm Collins:You’ll you’ll come up with something great. And then we could try some other things with bacon. I was thinking bacon might do really well with oyster sauce if you put, like,
Simone Collins:a small amount on. I don’t know. But I trust you. Maybe.
Malcolm Collins:And... Oh, also keep the bacon grease for, like, dipping for the the sweet potato fries.
Simone Collins:Oh, sorry. Okay. Next time. Yeah. I I did not hold on to it this this last time. But there are two more packs, so don’t you worry. There will be more bacon.
Malcolm Collins:I might also look into what sauces you can make at home with bacon grease because I bet you can make some really killer, like, french fry sauce.
Simone Collins:I really should have thought of that. That was very wasteful of me. It’s just that, like, the past five times, we’ve had bacon grease. I’ve saved it. We’ve done absolutely nothing with it, and it’s
Malcolm Collins:Well, because we didn’t have AI to make up the perfect Collins family recipe for bacon grease.
Simone Collins:This is true. Yes. And they serve it to
Malcolm Collins:the kids if I don’t eat it. Yeah. They’ll they’ll they’ll... They love their sauces, the giant ketchup pile.
Simone Collins:They love ketchup. Okay. They eat nothing else that is in sauce form. There is one... Well, cheese sauce, I guess, could say on macaroni and cheese, but, no, they eat ketchup and also ketchup, and that is mostly just Titan and Octavian. No one else consumes ketchup.
Malcolm Collins:Tried pesto with them?
Simone Collins:Yes. They’re... Despite the fact that they love broccoli, they don’t like the green. They’re like, what is this witchcraft on my noodles? It’s not orange.
Malcolm Collins:Oh my god. I love our kids.
Simone Collins:They don’t make any sense.
Malcolm Collins:Okay. Okay,
Simone Collins:Malcolm. Okay. It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay.
Malcolm Collins:It’s gonna be okay. By the way, if guys haven’t tried it, bacon with sweet potato fries tastes really good. The the flavors go together really well.
Simone Collins:Anyway Yeah. It’s one of the few things Malcolm’s eaten, which is delightful. Yeah. I’ve I’ve really struggled
Malcolm Collins:to eat since the miscarriage. I’ve I’ve... As he’s... Mean, I eat maybe one every three days now. And even then, it’s not been my... It hasn’t been my usual meals either. I’ve really struggled. Like, my palate is... I don’t know.
Simone Collins:Yeah. That hit you hard. It hit all of us hard. Who knew? Actually, a lot of people who listen to this podcast know they get it. Yeah. Life is life, but it’s so worth it. So that’s how it is. Or making cool new Mudpuppy tablets for the kids. Guys, if
Malcolm Collins:you wanna check out the best chatbot site on the Internet, and please promote us on other sites or Discords or whatever. If you like using Artfab, let people know. You know, we’re we’re trying to grow, and I don’t know how. Okay? Like, I know that we’re better than the other sites because I’ve used them. I know that we’re cheaper than the other sites. Well, did you see what Bruno said?
Simone Collins:That Character AI declared bankruptcy?
Malcolm Collins:Did they?
Simone Collins:Let me just fact check because I saw the link you sent. Who did? Because, like, Character AI was using horrible models. And it was very exploitative. Oh, no. That was Candy AI. Candy was AI. Yes. Character AI’s parent company, Character Technologies, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware on Monday, 10/12/2026. It is pursuing a court supervised sale of its business and assets. Why? The company cited high development and operating costs, potential litigation and liabilities, and regulatory pressures that left it unable to generate sufficient cash flow.
Malcolm Collins:How? I’m in the same business, guys. It doesn’t take a big engineering cost to do this. It’s like two guys.
Simone Collins:That is wild. Disney has agreed to a 20,000,000 deal involving certain assets in a nonexclusive perpetual license to company intellectual property, not a purchase of the entire character.ai platform. That is interesting.
Malcolm Collins:So you’ll be able to interact with Disney characters and flirt with them, which
Simone Collins:is Else, I can tell you to renounce responsibility for everything and leave entire kingdoms to die. That’s great.
Malcolm Collins:Yeah. To just have your little shitty fit in the mountains and everybody’s dying, and that’s that’s apparently heroic now.
Simone Collins:Yeah. Look. This is our... What’s the name of the woman who horrifically killed our children? That’s very Elsa. You know? This is the era we live in. This is what we get when Elsa’s Clancy. Clancy. Clancy. Yeah. Sorry. I wanted to say Lindsay Ellis because I’m still watching her cruise ship video. She’s old Daria. She’s Daria once Daria becomes a parent. It’s amazing.
Malcolm Collins:Oh my
Simone Collins:god. Watching the show all over again, which is a good... I don’t know. I wanna say that Daria was a good show, but also it
Malcolm Collins:was so boring. It actually wasn’t a good show. So I remember thinking it was a good show when I was
Simone Collins:a kid because it was wear Daria glasses? I wear Daria glasses.
Malcolm Collins:Daria was edgy, and I thought that that made it good when I was a kid. And then I went back and rewatched it during a period where I went back and rewatched a bunch of older shows.
Simone Collins:Yeah.
Malcolm Collins:And it’s only edgy. It’s not actually funny. Like, the humor doesn’t Is it even edgy, though? It was edgy for the period. Okay? It was a girl who didn’t like her society and rules, and I was like, that’s cool. Not liking society and rules. And and then I and then I got older, and I was like, these plots are not very good.
Simone Collins:I just remember wanting to like the show so much and then being very, like, confused by
Malcolm Collins:a lot
Simone Collins:of things. Anyway, okay. I gotta pick this up, but I
Malcolm Collins:love you. Love you.
Simone Collins:Bye, Malcolm. This reminds me of Mario Kart. I don’t know why. You know? I
Malcolm Collins:should add that sound effect.
Simone Collins:Oh my gosh. That would be really fun. Just gives me that childhood feeling of, like,
Malcolm Collins:oh my god.
Simone Collins:My friend Valerie would always beat me at everything because she had the game console, and I would just watch her play half the time. But then when she did let me play, I would always lose except for Rainbow Road. I don’t know why. But for out of a reason. And she was always Princess Peach, and I was always Yoshi. And I love that Yoshi always sounded like he was hawking a Lugie. Who knows why? But what does that sound supposed to be if not Lugie hawking? Explain this to me. Who would you play in Mario Kart? Yoshi.
Malcolm Collins:Right? I didn’t play much. What?
Simone Collins:Okay. Wow. What did your friends play with you? It’s like group games. Are you vibe coding it right now? I can’t. I I can’t. I can’t.
Malcolm Collins:You can’t with me? This is how you gotta be so productive. A thousand things at once, recording episodes, vibe coding, everything here.
Simone Collins:I know. Alright. We’re all getting bricked, though. We need to defragment. I guess that’s what the Sabbath is. It’s your defrag day.
Malcolm Collins:I mean, I spend it having fun making new AI things as you do. Good. Always our opportunity to build something new because we made a rule that you can start building something new. You
Simone Collins:can’t Yeah. You can’t do productive work. You can’t do routine work, productive work, etcetera.
Malcolm Collins:You can’t just building something you’re already building, but you can build something new if you want.
Simone Collins:Yeah. If it’s just for fun, but then it turns out to be productive, then that’s terrible. Not... It’s actually not... It’s actually really awesome. I don’t know. We’re we’re working it out. Okay? It’s Okay.
Malcolm Collins:We’ll do our episode on that eventually. Yeah. I just
Simone Collins:I think we need to playtest it for longer. I think after six months of playtesting, we might have more data than three satellites.
Malcolm Collins:Works. Yeah. Alright.
Speaker 15:Why? It’s so hideous.
Speaker 16:I remember the But I want it. It’s video.
Speaker 15:It’s genuinely repulsive. Is this... Why why do you want this?
Speaker 16:Because I love having it.
Speaker 15:Because you love having it. Oh, what is that? Like, Leoplerodon? Okay. G. G is ultimate damage... Tliosaurus figure. Tliosaurus.
Speaker 16:Tliosaurus? But I want this one.
Speaker 15:Yeah? Okay. Tliosaurus. Pretty cool. We got Better than the one Titan was.
Speaker 16:Toy one was black. I want one. Oh. Oh,
Speaker 15:okay. That’s better. That’s better.
Speaker 16:Figure out to draw it on on a on a piece of paper so Santa can give me it.
Speaker 15:Oh, well, we’ll just write his name out. We’ll spell it out. Yeah? Okay. But I guess
Speaker 16:Santa’s red and has yellow stripes right here and
Speaker 15:Well, if we just spell the word t y l o,
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