In this episode, Simone and Malcolm respond to mean comments made about them by people on Reddit. They talk about what they think of the comments, why they don t like them, and how they feel about the way they portray themselves online.
00:01:09.560I, I proposed to her on Reddit with like bronies and stuff.
00:01:17.200I love people are like, they think we have this like elite self image or something.
00:01:20.320It's like, we have been unapologetically nerdy from day one.
00:01:26.360I do not know where anyone started calling us elite.
00:01:30.540Elite gamers, maybe, as I say, but I don't think, yeah.
00:01:34.120All right. So let's go over these Reddit threads.
00:01:36.160Well, and it's so context, the Reddit thread that we're going over is one that posted a show them a picture you can see.
00:01:46.180Yeah. So someone posted a screenshot of, I think, a tweet about us and specifically a Telegraph article that framed us as the elite couples breeding to save mankind,
00:01:58.960which is how the Telegraph chose to frame our pronatalist advocacy.
00:02:04.140And I think what really got people about that is, by the way, this is their words, not ours.
00:02:10.160It's not like we show up and like talk to journalists about our pronatalist advocacy.
00:02:14.740And we're like, well, we'll only speak to you if you frame us as elites and breeders.
00:04:17.720Both of us have had very stressful lives.
00:04:20.020The answer is whether or not you allow the stress to eat at you or whether or not you choose just to not feel it and just move on with things.
00:04:29.420Well, they say we're either the most chill and laid-back people ever or so incredibly privileged we can't even imagine.
00:04:36.680They have a guess, of course, that we are so privileged and out of touch that we would never show age because like vampires who feast on the blood of the weak, we benefit from, you know, I don't know, the disempowered.
00:04:52.780More people emphasize that we look like we're in our mid-20s, but we dress like boomers.
00:04:59.840And some people think that we are trying to use the fact that we like having sex to justify-
00:05:12.780Like I guess that we are prenatalists because we need a reason to look intelligent for liking sex enough to have a lot of kids.
00:05:41.100Like our whole organization, everything we focus on is on preserving human diversity.
00:05:45.160I know that people like us are going to be okay because we'll make sure they're okay with our own breeding efforts.
00:05:50.920The only reason we're public about this is because we want people not like us to also exist in the future.
00:05:56.060You know, as we often say, if we have just eight kids, which we're definitely going to have, and they have eight kids,
00:06:00.520and you do that for just 11 generations, or we will unless something goes majorly wrong, you know, that's more descendants than live on Earth today.
00:21:28.020When Wikipedia defines eugenics, it has sort of two core components.
00:21:32.160One of those components is those practicing eugenics have concluded that there are some traits that are universally good in some way, universally desirable or not desirable.
00:21:44.220And then the second element is that they, in some coercive way, are trying to impose proliferation of that good trait or elimination of that bad trait.
00:21:55.400It could be through money, like maybe they give people money for people who have those traits of breeding.
00:22:01.040Both of those things are antithetical to everything our movement stands for.
00:22:06.700We believe some cultures believe that certain genetic traits are better than others.
00:22:11.420And within our family unit, we may select some.
00:22:14.120But what we like is that the utility of the genetic technology will allow for new forms of humanity and iterations of human diversity to emerge based on cultural preferences, which is what is so exciting.
00:22:28.800And in addition to that, everything we do is fighting against any of this technology ever being used in a coercive manner.
00:22:37.760We do fight to make the technology cheaper for people to use so that it's not only available to like the wealthy, but yeah, all of that is just so we're like anti-eugenicists is what I call our position, because it's one of the things where people are like, oh, you're on a soccer field.
00:22:55.780And it's like, no, we're on the blue team.
00:22:57.540Like, yes, we're both on the same soccer field, but we're literally on opposite teams.
00:23:02.880We're on the same soccer field in that we admit that humans have genes and that those genes affect things like a person's sociological profile.
00:23:11.960But I think that's just admitting like mainstream science at this point.
00:23:29.540Once humans developed consciousness, a bubble formed around our brains and no longer do genes matter.
00:23:35.160Actually, this is a side note where I often say here that it's really interesting that we pointed this out in our tweet thread that it is very racist to say that the genes that differ between human psychological profiles can only change over very long periods of time, like 100,000 years or something like that.
00:23:53.900Because that is the time span upon which, like the superficial ethnic differences that we recognize and like classify people into different ethnic groups differentiated.
00:24:04.180So that would mean that there were like persistent mental differences between ethnic groups.
00:24:08.320Whereas if you believe like we do and like the science suggests that these psychologically linked or sociologically linked genetic markers change over the span of 100 years or 200 years pretty dramatically, then there would be no meaningful ethnic grouping of them.
00:24:25.000Which is weird that these people think they're arguing against a racist position, but the position they're arguing, so long as you believe in evolution, is a very racist position to argue.
00:24:34.600One person says, Batman's parents died for looking like that, which I love.
00:24:42.820Can I? Yes! I love that we look like that.
00:24:55.220Multiple people are comparing you to Carl from Up, which I think is...
00:25:00.600Do I look like that? Are they saying that our...
00:25:02.200No, it's the square glasses, you know, the old guy from Up has very square or rectangular glasses.
00:25:10.380Oh, one person calls you Budget Kingsman. Again, I guess, but I think maybe, and this is interesting, that the only like contemporary like example we have of someone who wears a suit is the movie Kingsman, which is...
00:25:24.620Yeah, that's really surprising. I'm not like wearing...
00:25:26.820In this picture, I'm not like wearing something weird.
00:25:29.820Oh, you know what though? Maybe it's the chunky, it's chunky glasses and a tie. And it's like the only other place where people have seen chunky glasses and a tie. There's, there's that.
00:25:40.040And why did she only put on the suit because the photographer asked me to? I was wearing a t-shirt before that.
00:25:44.940Yeah, yeah. She wanted to, yeah, she wanted the top of that. I feel like it's very awkward to when photographers come to our house because then they, you know, post the photos on social media or whatever. And a lot of people comment on how like, oh, the photos look great, but how disturbing. I can't believe you were in the house of these Nazi eugenicists. What was it like?
00:26:06.200Like, and I feel like whenever photographers come to our house, you know, we're like chatting and having fun and like, it's all good. And then like, they come home and some article comes out and then a bunch of people are like, oh my God, I can't believe, like, what was it like? And they're like, oh, it was something, you know, like they can't say like, nah.
00:26:28.020The broader thing about our ideology is I often find that whenever somebody like sits down and talks to us about it, they almost always agree with like 98 to 100% of it. But they'll either say, well, you guys are right, but I can't say this publicly. Or they're just like, oh yeah, I thought you believed something totally different. And it's like, maybe Twitter isn't a great source. We say that that's like getting your news from news sources. It's like getting your nutrients from a human centipede.
00:26:57.540Well, wait, yeah, someone apparently who knew us posted in this thread. So one person wrote, I know these two dot dot dot grown. Oh, who could it be? And then one person said, oh God, I turned off my notifications because duh, and I was scrolling and I saw this. Anything you can tell us? Can you see many people have recurring comments? This person says, not really. They're really nice people as it happens. And they are very successful in what they do.
00:27:26.560They're self made with fingers and a lot of pies. They are both super eccentric in a nice way. And whilst I was a bit cringe to see them flouting their fertility all over the papers, I'm not entirely surprised. I met them a couple of years ago at a social event. They're a high performing couple who are very bright with lots of talent. Good luck to them, I say.
00:27:46.100That is us. And this is what I say when people meet us. They're like, oh, actually, you guys are really, your beliefs are eccentric, but not like, it's more the way that we word them as eccentric because we point out things that other people should be noticing, but they don't.
00:28:03.720The fact that we, as a species, haven't figured out how to make any culture prosperous, gender egalitarian, and high in education, and above fertility rate, like anywhere close to replacement rate fertility, that means that this whole society we aspire to is a bit of a con job that only works because it siphons people from other groups.
00:28:24.980And it's like, well, we're getting close to the point where the pyramid scheme is about to break. We should be paying attention to this, but you can't call out the emperor having no clothes, you know, because the emperor's tailors are the ones who run society right now.
00:28:40.300What did some people say to him saying that we were nice people? Did they have any comments under it?
00:28:45.360Yeah, no, the response is, the person was like, well, I can't believe they signed off on the language that the Telegraph article used about them, which is not how it works.
00:28:55.280You don't get to choose what people say about you.
00:28:57.580People randomly reach out to us, and they say, I'm covering demographic collapse, or I'm covering reprotech, or pronatalism, or whatever it is that we care about.
00:29:06.500And we are very open and transparent with everyone because we believe that if it's a balanced article, then at the very least, people will learn more about an issue we care about.
00:29:17.020If it's not a balanced article, hopefully we can share enough of our views where people will share it out of rage, but then reasonable people with good reading comprehension and sound minds will ultimately see, oh, this is a reasonable kind of important issue.
00:29:34.520And so we're still better off sharing it, but what happens is journalists talk with us, either they come in person or they call us.
00:29:41.960We are very open and honest with them, and then they go dark, and for weeks we have no idea what's going to happen.
00:29:48.020And then one day someone texts us, or we get a Google alert, or someone starts tweeting a bunch of hate at us, and we're like, well, okay, I guess some new articles out.
00:29:57.540And then we see for the first time what happens, and that's it.
00:30:27.780I think the best kind of article is one with a dishonest or sensational title, but honest reporting.
00:30:32.780And the Telegraph article was very honest about our actual beliefs.
00:30:37.160I was really impressed with it, because that gives both sides of an online fight the chance to argue about you.
00:30:42.460You know, the uneducated side that just reads the title, and then the educated side that reads the full article, and then you get this battle.
00:30:48.340Unfortunately, the educated side is always going to be smaller, but that doesn't matter.
00:30:51.980I mean, at least the ideas are getting out there, because if you look at the articles about us, yes, they're proliferating.
00:30:59.280But you look at the ideas that we're putting out there, hey, you need to start paying attention to fertility rates.
00:31:04.060Those are gaining enough attention that the UN recently put out a big thing saying...
00:31:28.640I actually really like when really unflattering stuff about us gets posted that makes other people want to cover us.
00:31:34.280Because what happens is then, like, other journalists reach out because they want to cover the shit show and the cringe.
00:31:40.620And then they get on the phone, and you actually have a chance to speak with them.
00:31:45.560And there have been multiple calls where I'm just, like, sitting there laughing because you're going through what we actually advocate for and what we're talking about.
00:31:52.820And, like, I just remember that you were on the phone with one woman with a TV station and just her being like, oh, God.
00:32:20.060And then in the end, a lot of very influential people who are able to share really important information with a lot of audiences for totally the wrong reason engage with us, but then end up learning about an advocacy issue that is actually a really big deal.
00:32:42.080Because that's how I know that we really got to somebody.
00:32:44.920We always call that Ayla Ng, because she does such a good job at that, and I really admire her ability to do that.
00:32:50.060It's very easy to be a social media person or a public figure that people support because you're saying things they already believe.
00:33:00.660You're not really doing anything if you're doing that.
00:33:02.440You're just surfing a wave of public sentiment.
00:33:04.320However, if you're a public media figure, like Aylin, that's one of the reasons I respect you so much, where people start by following you because they don't agree with you or they think they don't agree with you, and then they hear your perspective more, they engage with you more, and they change their beliefs based on that, very, very few public media figures are able to surf waves that they create themselves.
00:33:31.720Most people rise and become leaders because they represent a zeitgeist that's growing.
00:33:39.080It's very, very hard to come across people who change that.
00:33:41.300And then what you really want to do, I mean, I think when we know we've really made it, is when we have people surfing our wake.
00:33:46.260When we are the motorboat and the waves that we are creating are the waves that other people are surfing.
00:33:54.720Anyway, so what I, just to close this out, I am so lucky to be married to you because I wouldn't be able to do this on my own.
00:34:02.760Going out there, you know, you have the superpower of autism, which to some extent protects you from all of this hate.
00:34:09.740If I didn't have you filtering this for me, if I didn't have your constant support, I, emotionally, mentally, I'd not be able to deal with this.
00:34:21.200And I can't tell you how much every day I am grateful and I know that all of my success comes from you.
00:34:28.200That is so kind and so not true because you are the beating heart that makes all this run and I love you so freaking much.
00:34:36.200You are the spark in our whole household and yeah, none of this would be happening were it not for you because I lack the creativity and initiative and ability to think things through, to actually engage in things.