Based Camp - 38% of Stanford Students ＂Disabled＂ (I Was One Of Them) Disability-Maxing

00:00:00.000 Hello, Malcolm. I'm excited to be speaking with you today because we're going to be talking about

00:00:04.520 how disability accommodation at universities is getting insane, both in scale and in nature. So 0.80

00:00:11.100 from a recent Atlantic article on the issue, I'm just quoting, this year, 38% of Stanford

00:00:17.860 undergraduates are registered as having a disability. In the fall quarter, 24% of

00:00:23.040 undergraduates were receiving academic or housing accommodations. 27%? 38% have a registered

00:00:32.520 disability. 24% were receiving accommodations. One administrator told me that a student at a

00:00:39.660 public college in California had permission to bring their mother to class. This became a problem 1.00

00:00:45.180 because the mom turned out to be an enthusiastic class participant. Oh my gosh. Can you imagine?

00:00:52.440 Like, how does this not embarrass you? Who is this person? How did the student die of

00:01:00.440 mortification? And I can get into it, but these out of control numbers are mostly coming from

00:01:06.680 people who are gaming the system. I gained the system with disabilities. I got, well, I wouldn't 1.00

00:01:15.080 say gain the system. I mean, I feel like I definitely benefited from accommodations. We can put it that

00:01:20.620 way, right? That's fair. Yeah. Like, like, untimed testing, everything I had to do, everything on

00:01:25.300 computer. That one I actually really- The computer thing, yeah, you actually, like, his handwriting is

00:01:29.280 actually illegible, so that one was real. After yesterday's episode of me calling Garvism

00:01:34.580 Garavism and saying that he was a skill seller instead of a silk seller, I don't think you're gonna

00:01:41.940 disbelieve my dyslexia after that. I have to take all testing alone, never took it in a room with

00:01:50.080 other people. Yeah. Yeah. So, and I did this all the way through college and high school.

00:01:55.500 It's now, I think, way more out of proportion than it was before. And what's clear in the discourse on

00:02:01.600 X about this Atlantic article, which has been quite interesting, is that people have really pointed out

00:02:07.020 the reason why a lot of these numbers have ballooned, right? So, Stanford really has this insane

00:02:12.740 proportion, right? 38%. Like, at some point, you know, just everyone at Stanford is gonna be disabled.

00:02:18.380 But everyone isn't disabled. And when everyone's super, 0.98

00:02:23.720 no one will be.

00:02:31.580 Yeah. I mean, like, and that's a genuine problem that now universities are talking about, right? Like,

00:02:36.460 well, how do we even, like, when everyone is being accommodated, what does it even mean to

00:02:40.740 accommodate? But, so, it was, it's pretty crazy that, that many people already at Stanford are like

00:02:45.920 that. But, it, what's that quote about, like, you know, if, if you measure it, like, it's, it's going

00:02:50.820 to get manipulated somehow.

00:02:52.460 You're not using the disabled. 1.00

00:02:53.860 What? Why not?

00:02:54.600 You're not disabled. You'll get in trouble. 1.00

00:02:57.340 It's illegal.

00:03:00.000 I told you so.

00:03:00.860 I told you so.

00:03:06.460 Hello? Hello? You all right in there?

00:03:18.520 Um, do you need help?

00:03:22.040 I'm disabled.

00:03:23.200 I'm sorry for sorry, I'm sorry.

00:03:25.220 Move back.

00:03:26.320 What are you doing?

00:03:27.460 Don't panic.

00:03:30.460 From the door.

00:03:31.640 What? No.

00:03:32.300 So, uh, what happened?

00:03:36.460 I'm disabled.

00:03:38.140 How?

00:03:39.760 How what?

00:03:41.480 How are you disabled?

00:03:44.400 Leg disabled.

00:03:46.040 What, what, what, what, what, I'm being, do you have a wheelchair?

00:03:49.860 Yes.

00:03:51.280 Yeah.

00:03:54.800 Stolen.

00:03:55.200 Um, someone pointed out with on X that with Stanford, because you can use a disability

00:04:02.680 qualification to get a guaranteed single dorm.

00:04:06.060 That's one of the big reasons why Stanford specifically has these insane high numbers.

00:04:10.640 And I would 100% have done that.

00:04:15.500 Actually, you don't know this, but one of the reasons why I went to GW instead of UCLA or

00:04:23.260 UC Berkeley was the dorms.

00:04:25.940 The George Washington University in DC, at least when I went, probably still is, was famous

00:04:32.320 for its really nice dorms.

00:04:34.020 Like they just bought hotels in downtown Washington, DC.

00:04:38.080 I stayed in some of their dorms.

00:04:39.960 Maybe you stayed in crappy dorms, but like they bought old apartment buildings.

00:04:44.140 They bought old hotels and like for two years in a row, I just stayed in a converted hotel.

00:04:50.040 And it was like, still like the hotel wallpaper and the hotel, like kitchenette and like all

00:04:54.040 the, it was like, for me, for a college student, it was really nice.

00:04:57.640 My freshman year, I stayed in a pretty much like brand new, really nice accommodations.

00:05:02.380 Compare that to the dorms in UCLA.

00:05:04.640 And I remember like instantly when I saw the dorms, I was like, nope, just like seriously,

00:05:09.400 nope.

00:05:09.720 I just like, nope, I'm not going to UCLA.

00:05:11.760 Like I had a scholarship to UCLA.

00:05:14.240 I got into UC Berkeley, like, but the dorms.

00:05:17.560 Wait, would you have had a scholarship to Berkeley?

00:05:19.760 I did.

00:05:20.300 I had a very mild scholarship to Berkeley.

00:05:23.660 And then I had a decent, like pretty nice scholarship to UCLA.

00:05:27.260 And I got into a special program at the UC Santa Cruz.

00:05:32.280 So I could have gone to any of those.

00:05:33.980 Well, I'm glad you didn't go to Santa Cruz.

00:05:35.280 That'd be even worse than GW.

00:05:36.920 No, nice campus though.

00:05:38.160 But yeah, but like the, the dorms there, I remember walking into a dorm room and it was

00:05:43.160 like, I think it was four bunk beds or sorry, sorry, two bunk beds.

00:05:48.080 So four people in one tiny room, a shared bathroom down the hall.

00:05:51.140 Like just, it looked like a jail cell.

00:05:53.680 It was so awful.

00:05:55.140 And I'm like, absolutely not.

00:05:56.640 So I can, I absolutely understand why a student would bend over backward just to get a private

00:06:03.360 room.

00:06:03.980 And that's what the thing is that you get so much.

00:06:06.640 So let's talk about all the things.

00:06:08.000 I want to go over all the things that I was able to get with disabilities even back in

00:06:11.120 the day.

00:06:11.460 Yeah.

00:06:11.680 Break.

00:06:11.900 Yeah.

00:06:12.160 Back.

00:06:12.480 Yeah.

00:06:12.620 Break it down.

00:06:13.260 Break it down.

00:06:13.680 Right.

00:06:13.860 And I got all of this because my mom was an expert at the system.

00:06:18.380 Like this wasn't like my plan to get all of this.

00:06:21.560 She was the one who sort of started my past to getting like basically showed me that the

00:06:26.580 system existed and how to begin gaming it.

00:06:28.300 And then I just continued it.

00:06:29.340 Oh, she was a closer on everything.

00:06:30.980 She knew how to like zero and when she knew that something would give you a benefit, 0.68

00:06:34.920 anyone would benefit.

00:06:35.340 I took exams in private or at least in a room with only a few people, oftentimes not even

00:06:41.800 monitored.

00:06:42.460 So if I wanted to cheat, I could.

00:06:44.080 Oh my goodness.

00:06:44.860 Two, I did them on a computer because I have dysgraphia.

00:06:48.460 This is like very real.

00:06:50.180 I would have really struggled in school without that.

00:06:52.220 I cannot handwrite one for it.

00:06:54.720 No.

00:06:55.200 It's going to be a problem.

00:06:55.840 For our kids, when people start using handwriting as a way to get around AI or people may be

00:07:04.200 using AI.

00:07:05.080 So we'll see what happens there at the schools that restrict that.

00:07:08.540 But it doesn't really matter.

00:07:09.500 I mean, any school that's restricting that is not really educating kids because you live 0.73

00:07:13.520 in a world where AI is your companion.

00:07:15.540 So learning to get really good at doing something without AI is just pointless and destructive.

00:07:21.260 Actually, I've noticed this with coding where people who I've worked with who are like good

00:07:25.440 coders, I can often go faster than they can in the same amount of time and sometimes solve

00:07:31.100 issues that they have been unable to solve because they over rely on older ways of doing

00:07:37.300 it without AI, right?

00:07:39.200 Like with direct coding.

00:07:40.680 And I was talking to my brother recently, actually, and I learned, he learned to vibe

00:07:45.220 code, but he learned to vibe code before the era of cursor and windsurf.

00:07:48.820 So he does it by dumping the code directly into GPT, which is just like strictly a worst

00:07:54.500 way to vibe code.

00:07:55.580 That's OG vibe coding though.

00:07:56.980 That's how it used to be.

00:07:58.600 Yeah, no, it's how it used to be.

00:08:00.540 But like, he also can't keep up with people.

00:08:02.680 I learned how to do it within the ecosystem of the new vibe coding apps.

00:08:07.360 But to get back to the system here.

00:08:09.480 So doing everything on computer.

00:08:11.580 Now, oftentimes, especially early in my career, the computer would be locked or it wouldn't

00:08:15.260 have additional apps.

00:08:16.200 But by the time I was in college, I was just like on my own computer often.

00:08:19.540 Oh, you just bring your own computer?

00:08:20.960 Good night.

00:08:22.300 On my computer.

00:08:23.760 Hopefully my notes weren't on there.

00:08:25.520 Honor, scouts honor.

00:08:27.380 I mean, I did fall like I'm a paranoid person, but you know, not because I'm a moral person,

00:08:32.120 mind you.

00:08:32.720 Yeah, you were just sure.

00:08:33.920 And then I'd get extended time.

00:08:35.480 So I'd get extended time on, you know, pretty much all of my whatever exams, both like I

00:08:41.700 could get infinite time on regular exams.

00:08:43.660 And I typically got double time or 50% more time on things like my GMATs and SATs and stuff

00:08:50.340 like that.

00:08:51.080 That's must be nice.

00:08:53.780 So I like people like, oh, you know, you have all these fancy degrees and it's like, well,

00:08:59.080 yeah, and partially I game the system, right?

00:09:01.640 Like, and I think that people can be like, well, then, you know, you're not really at

00:09:06.860 the same level of quality of like the other people at Stanford Business School or St.

00:09:10.780 Andrews or anything like that.

00:09:12.420 And I'd point out, I'd be like, well, I've done more with my life than a lot of the other

00:09:16.160 people at these who are my classmates at these.

00:09:18.440 So clearly my ability to game the system was predictive of one category of real world skill

00:09:25.820 that has ended up serving me as an adult.

00:09:28.580 And note here, when I say game the system, I really did have disabilities.

00:09:31.640 Oh, and in addition to all of that, I was allowed to do the tests on amphetamines, which

00:09:35.660 is, you know, what Ritalin is and stuff like that, right?

00:09:37.940 Yeah.

00:09:38.020 So, so, so, you know, other people are just like raw dogging these tests in giant rooms

00:09:43.780 of students.

00:09:44.660 Yeah.

00:09:45.160 And here you are like hopped up extra time on your computer.

00:09:49.700 That is, that is insane.

00:09:52.220 But the point I'm making here is learning how to adapt to and game bureaucratic systems like

00:09:59.560 this is an important skill, like, like, and to, to have a more important skill and a more

00:10:07.780 important test that I think is, is accurately reflected in the higher score, because you're

00:10:11.040 going to game all of life to your advantage, you know, as, as you move forward.

00:10:15.040 Yeah.

00:10:15.920 You can't do that when you reach, when you get into Google.

00:10:18.660 Oh yeah.

00:10:19.080 You could do that when you get into Google.

00:10:20.560 Oh yeah.

00:10:21.000 You can do that when you're working it out.

00:10:22.320 I guess you make a really interesting point because, you know, a lot of people are like,

00:10:26.520 well, like this, this, this article has sparked a lot of really interesting discourse on X and

00:10:32.920 one person, Josh Barrow pointed out, if you have a condition like ADHD, anxiety or, or

00:10:40.100 depression, and it makes it harder for you to complete tests on time, that is something

00:10:44.520 the test should measure, not something you should avoid measuring.

00:10:47.660 And then Molly followed up saying, I wonder what happens to these kids upon graduation.

00:10:51.520 No employer is going to give you extra time on a deadline or let you bring your mom to 1.00

00:10:55.220 work.

00:10:55.520 And then I actually, even like, actually our buddy Razeeb Khan, right?

00:10:59.660 Friend of the pod chimed in.

00:11:01.540 Do you want your lawyer to get more time on their LSAT?

00:11:04.000 Do they get more time to bill hours when they work on your case?

00:11:07.300 Absurd.

00:11:08.100 Now these are all valid points.

00:11:09.800 And I think I want to sort of discuss them in context as well, but the point that you're

00:11:14.000 making, I think is also really valid, which is to say that like, if I'm hiring kind of what,

00:11:19.040 what makes a lot of competitive edge work for a company these days, or for a lawyer,

00:11:25.220 I would have is I want a lawyer who knows how to game the system, who knows how to play

00:11:29.560 the game, who knows how to manipulate laws and rules in my favor.

00:11:33.380 And someone who has manipulated laws and rules in their favor throughout their academic career

00:11:38.180 is more likely to be able to do so for me.

00:11:41.360 Same with sales, same with like coding, same with everything else.

00:11:44.520 Like you want, like if, if the world is now about cheating and about getting ahead through

00:11:49.760 this, this form of manipulation and exploitation and arbitrage, then yeah, you, you need people

00:11:55.520 who know how to play the game.

00:11:56.980 So I think that's a really interesting.

00:11:58.580 Hold on.

00:11:58.880 Let's, let's talk about the lawyer question here, right?

00:12:00.640 Like it part of being a lawyer is getting the case in front of the right judge of having

00:12:06.660 a relationship with that judge.

00:12:08.420 Yeah.

00:12:08.500 This is insane.

00:12:09.080 We actually were, I think, pitched by a startup at one point that had this really, I don't

00:12:14.380 know, like, I don't, I don't know what happened to them, but they, they had a database that

00:12:19.160 allowed you to see not a lawyer's success rate, but rather like how I think cases played out

00:12:26.620 in front of certain judges.

00:12:28.360 So you could see how often the lawyer won or lost to certain judges.

00:12:32.560 Mm-hmm because that's, that was kind of the key thing is that law firms might be able to say,

00:12:37.840 well, here's our track record.

00:12:38.860 But like, basically they were able to manipulate things in a way that really skewed their actual

00:12:43.960 success rates.

00:12:44.860 And what you really want to know is how do they do vis-a-vis a certain judge, which actually

00:12:51.580 matters so much more than their ability to argue or anything like that.

00:12:57.380 Like in reality, my response to me is I actually would care way more about a person's ability

00:13:04.120 to skirt systems as a lawyer than I would care about their actual argument skills or

00:13:08.840 knowledge of like legal proceedings because all of that stuff they can get from the internet

00:13:13.080 or whatever, right?

00:13:14.420 The skirting the system skill, that's an actual human skill, right?

00:13:18.560 Well, that's it.

00:13:19.220 And that's not just in law that that's in, in so, so many different systems with, with

00:13:26.340 sales, with marketing.

00:13:27.940 And this is actually really important.

00:13:29.180 The individual who tells you, I would rather make the job harder for myself than do the

00:13:34.640 thing that through my deontological lens looks like cheating is someone you don't want to

00:13:39.540 hire.

00:13:40.000 The person who in the early days of AI says, well, I just refuse to use AI because that's

00:13:45.000 cheating or I refuse to use a calculator.

00:13:46.960 I'm going to do it by hand.

00:13:48.240 That's a person who you don't want to hire.

00:13:50.740 And I'd say that culturally, some cultures are going to really struggle as society continues

00:13:55.020 to move forwards.

00:13:55.800 As I've mentioned in our Jackdales episode, if you look at Appalachian culture, you know,

00:13:59.740 the hero stories were the guy who looked for ways to basically cheat or outwit the people

00:14:07.480 who were much wealthier or smarter or larger or stronger than him.

00:14:11.640 And that's what makes you a hero was in this cultural tradition.

00:14:15.500 And so, you know, when I saw these problems for the first time, that would have been the

00:14:20.040 lens through which I saw them.

00:14:21.740 And I think a lot of people are going to really struggle in this new world.

00:14:25.640 Actually, I think I might have just hit on something.

00:14:27.720 I didn't even think of this until I was thinking about this episode in reflection afterwards.

00:14:33.260 And this could explain fertility collapse and the collapse of a lot of Western civilizational

00:14:38.280 structures.

00:14:38.740 And when I talk about some systems being more resistant, like Appalachian and Jewish culture

00:14:42.440 than other systems, and I was like, oh my God, I get it.

00:14:45.980 It is about the level of trust of outside systems.

00:14:52.440 So with Jewish culture, they are used to historically being a minority population wherever they are.

00:14:59.720 With Appalachian culture, they are used to dealing with a system that is set up to screw 1.00

00:15:05.360 them over.

00:15:06.300 And so they always looked at the system adversarially.

00:15:09.760 But if you are in an extremely high trust and homogenous society and your people have like

00:15:16.740 your culture evolved in a high trust, homogenous society, breaking rules like this is going

00:15:21.960 to seem extremely negative to you.

00:15:24.480 Whereas to someone with my cultural background, it just seems like the natural thing to do

00:15:28.640 because the system is, of course, adversarial to you.

00:15:31.000 And there's other groups out there that will exploit the system to try to screw you over.

00:15:34.900 And so a lot of these European cultural groups that had evolved to be incredibly high trust

00:15:43.100 because they're used to this homogeny are unable to compete within the new system.

00:15:49.400 And really, the only thing you can do is either reintroduce homogeny, which is just almost

00:15:54.300 completely unrealistic, or become lower trust, at least when you're dealing with outgroup

00:15:59.820 populations.

00:16:00.480 And I think even if these groups successfully tried to reintroduce homogeny along the metrics

00:16:06.780 that they think homogeny works, what they'd quickly find is that there are a lot of people

00:16:11.980 who look the same as them and might be technically the same religion as them that are from different

00:16:18.040 cultural frameworks that will exploit them.

00:16:21.360 And like, like, again, like my people might do that, right?

00:16:24.540 And yet you would look at me and think, oh, he looks just, you know, he's a normal white 1.00

00:16:28.900 Christian guy, right? 0.62

00:16:30.640 And that's just due to the nature of travel now and groups intermixing and it being so

00:16:36.820 easy at this point.

00:16:38.260 You really cannot have a society that relies on high trust anymore unless that society is

00:16:44.660 something that you have to earn your way into or is sort of like a gated community, which

00:16:49.540 you can do like a kibbutz or something like that, but you can't do at the level of a state.

00:16:53.560 One of the things that I think is the biggest challenge for a lot of these previously high

00:16:59.240 trust cultures is to determine what the in-group population is and what the out-group population

00:17:05.420 is because they don't know.

00:17:06.500 They don't know, is it other people who look like me?

00:17:09.260 Is it other people of my religion?

00:17:10.840 Is it other people who swear, you know, similar political affiliation to me?

00:17:14.800 The other thing I'd note about all of this that I think is really interesting is people

00:17:18.100 can be like, well, the disability accommodations were unfair to begin with.

00:17:21.920 So in a way, by opting into them, you are helping break an unfair system.

00:17:27.080 The final note I'd add that I'd been thinking about afterwards was people are like, oh, well,

00:17:31.860 you won't get extra time in real life.

00:17:33.740 And the truth is that you do actually get extra time in real life.

00:17:36.940 I happen to know, you know, from living with other people and everything like that, that

00:17:40.300 I work significantly longer on my homework than other people, literally probably two to

00:17:44.980 three times as much as a lot of the other people on a similar assignment.

00:17:48.620 And I just choose to, right?

00:17:50.960 When you, a weird thing about internalizing that it takes you longer to do things like

00:17:56.640 extra time on a test is that you also internalize that with everything else that you do in your

00:18:01.560 life, you're going to need to work harder and you don't feel as bad about it.

00:18:05.100 You've been programming, right?

00:18:06.460 Like I couldn't beat a programming exam.

00:18:10.060 And yet, you know, with this, hopefully as the site comes out, like hopefully we have

00:18:13.960 the new version.

00:18:14.520 We're trying to get it up stable today.

00:18:15.940 Like we're uploading the new version, but you know, I've been able to hire other people

00:18:19.880 with extensive programming backgrounds, as I've said, and I just can clearly outcompete

00:18:24.040 them without looking at the, the functional end of state product between the two of us.

00:18:29.200 Malcolm's talking about reality fabricator, our fab.ai, which is an AI chatbot site that

00:18:34.860 he's been working on with Bruno, a friend of the pod for a long time now.

00:18:39.140 Supposed to be like replica, character AI, et cetera, but way, way better with encrypted

00:18:44.520 local saving.

00:18:45.720 It's, it's amazing.

00:18:46.640 But anyway, yeah.

00:18:47.320 Like, and I think that's, that's a really great point that you bring up.

00:18:50.860 And it's something that wasn't discussed in the article and it's something that's not

00:18:53.520 being discussed in the online discourse, but the only discourse on this is still super

00:18:57.120 fun.

00:18:57.680 Like people are, are coming in as students or recent students, just showing how crazy

00:19:04.340 the problem is.

00:19:05.280 Okay.

00:19:05.580 How, how, how, what do they say?

00:19:06.480 Basil wrote in my high school AP chem class, there were 11 students and I was the only one

00:19:11.420 without double time.

00:19:13.080 So I had to hand in my test early while everyone else in the class got to continue.

00:19:18.460 Ah, which is insane.

00:19:21.700 And then Calder McHugh shared over a decade ago.

00:19:24.780 So to your point that this has actually been happening for a long time at the private New

00:19:29.140 York city high school, I attended in an 18 person math class.

00:19:33.320 There was once a quiz that only three of us took on time without accommodations, ADHD and

00:19:39.900 ADD tests were just ordered up.

00:19:42.160 And that's not to mention the tutors, et cetera, that we're writing everyone's essays for them

00:19:47.060 as someone with artist parents who didn't know how to, and didn't want to game the system

00:19:52.280 in that way, I felt constantly disadvantaged in the moment.

00:19:55.940 But years later, I'm so grateful that that wasn't my experience in high school or college

00:20:00.420 because I actually managed to learn something.

00:20:03.200 I'm going to push back here.

00:20:04.660 So because I was at the beginning edge of this, right?

00:20:08.960 When I was the one doing it, there would maybe be three or four other people in the entire

00:20:12.980 school system who had anything like this.

00:20:14.900 Whoa.

00:20:15.160 Like, not school system, I'd say within my grade, right?

00:20:18.440 Yeah.

00:20:18.780 Okay.

00:20:19.080 So if I was like, you know, alone, there'd be like two other, three other people in the

00:20:23.640 room with me and this was for the entire grade, right?

00:20:25.580 Yeah.

00:20:26.080 So those people almost always ended up in their professional lives out competing everyone

00:20:32.480 else at the school.

00:20:33.280 And I mean by significant margins.

00:20:34.760 Well, I mean, one thing that people, like an underlying theme of this is that this is

00:20:39.160 just, let's see, Bobby Fijin described this behavior on X as the upper class version of

00:20:46.260 subway fair jumping.

00:20:47.940 He said breaking rules just because you can and making everyone who follows the rules 0.93

00:20:52.080 into chumps. 0.62

00:20:53.660 And I mean- 0.88

00:20:54.800 That's the real life. 0.98

00:20:56.040 Life is chumps versus non-chumps. 1.00

00:20:57.940 Yeah. 0.94

00:20:58.520 That is the interesting thing.

00:21:00.260 Like on one hand, you have everyone who's trying to be moral about this, getting out

00:21:07.740 competed.

00:21:08.320 I guess like another person on X put it really well.

00:21:11.020 Armand Domolowski noted that, quote, one thing I feel like conservatives grok better than

00:21:20.040 liberals is if you create an honor code based on rules that give someone an advantage, don't

00:21:27.180 enforce fair collection most people pay, eventually even honest people feel compelled to cheat to

00:21:33.000 avoid being cheated.

00:21:34.560 And I mean, as he's pointing out, basically like once this sort of becomes a pervasive

00:21:38.140 source of strategic advantage, you have no choice but to participate.

00:21:42.200 And you're kind of, you're being, you're being willfully destructive or I don't want to say 0.93

00:21:49.620 dumb, but like it's a dumb choice to not do the thing that enables you to get ahead when 0.98

00:21:56.660 everyone else is doing it. 0.99

00:21:58.220 It's a, it's a dumb choice to not do the thing the moment the option to not do it is 0.85

00:22:03.300 there. 0.62

00:22:03.880 So what I'd point out here is it's very much like that scene in Indiana Jones.

00:22:18.560 Where, you know, the guy comes out swirling the swords and he's like, Indiana Jones just

00:22:22.620 pulls out a gun and shoots, like, I'm not playing that game.

00:22:26.100 Like I have a gun. 0.99

00:22:27.180 Like, why would I, why would I play by your dumb sword game where we both do a big like 0.98

00:22:32.540 show of it? 0.98

00:22:33.180 Right.

00:22:33.400 Like, but it's just, I don't want to get cut.

00:22:36.240 Yeah.

00:22:36.400 I mean, life is a battlefield, right?

00:22:38.740 Like when you, when you're, when you're playing in a multicultural society, right?

00:22:42.500 Like maybe if it was one culture and everyone I was competing against was essentially like

00:22:47.560 me and not playing across my rules and cross my value systems, which many are, then okay,

00:22:55.140 this makes sense.

00:22:56.280 But if you're, we don't live in a high trust culture.

00:22:59.500 We don't, yeah, yeah.

00:23:01.640 We don't, you acting high trust.

00:23:03.500 Basically these people are saying you should act high trust in a multicultural ecosystem

00:23:08.620 where other cultures are not high trust.

00:23:11.000 Yeah.

00:23:11.120 That is the easiest way to get your teeth kicked in by life.

00:23:15.620 Yeah.

00:23:15.800 Or as, as Michael Gibson, you know, also someone we've, we've met a bunch of times.

00:23:19.800 He's great.

00:23:20.320 He had a great zinger on this that I think sort of feeds into this.

00:23:23.140 He, which is exactly why socialism doesn't work in multicultural societies. 0.70

00:23:28.600 He writes to each, according to their need, creates a society where people compete to be 0.50

00:23:34.080 victims.

00:23:35.260 And that's.

00:23:35.760 That's a great point from each.

00:23:37.700 I never heard that one.

00:23:38.340 He's so, he's so articulate.

00:23:39.800 He's.

00:23:40.040 That's actually a, that's a really, we have an episode with him, by the way, if people

00:23:42.760 want to shout out.

00:23:43.620 Yeah.

00:23:43.980 Another friend of the pod.

00:23:45.540 Yeah.

00:23:45.720 Like, and I mean, everyone's weighing in on this.

00:23:47.760 Razeeb's in, Michael Gibson is in.

00:23:50.640 No, but I think it does.

00:23:52.620 Like that's actually what you're being judged on, like meaningfully judged on.

00:23:56.420 Right.

00:23:56.680 And I, I, I know that there's going to be people here because you know, you, when they

00:24:00.660 get rid of circles, you get deontologists who think that their deontological logic is

00:24:05.240 like actual morality.

00:24:07.780 And I'm like.

00:24:08.600 Never cheat.

00:24:09.120 Never lie.

00:24:09.820 Never game the system.

00:24:11.160 Never cheat.

00:24:11.780 Never lie.

00:24:12.340 And they get left in the dust.

00:24:13.920 Yeah.

00:24:14.280 Meanwhile, their people end up getting cucked out of reality. 0.92

00:24:17.440 Well, I think, yeah, like they're sort of missing that like, well, I'm sorry.

00:24:20.820 This is the new test.

00:24:22.140 The new test is, you know, can't, it's like a trick question.

00:24:25.580 Like the question was never like, can you answer two plus two?

00:24:29.460 It's, can you pick up the calculator that you're not supposed to pick up and not that

00:24:35.200 you need to add two plus two, but you know what I mean?

00:24:36.740 No, no, it's, it's, it's actually, you know, this, this again shows where, you know, even

00:24:40.840 in America, you're dealing with cultures that are, that are going to be different from you 0.99

00:24:44.820 and are going to have different ways of relating to this stuff.

00:24:47.020 And I've pointed out, you know, in the past, if you, if you want to understand the way my

00:24:50.380 culture would have taught me how to relate to this, you can look at our episode on the

00:24:54.800 Jack.

00:24:55.240 Jack tales, right.

00:24:57.020 Which are common within the, the greater Appalachian cultural tradition.

00:25:00.320 And in the Jack tales, you had Jack, you're probably familiar with one Jack and the Beanstalk,

00:25:04.240 but there's, there's many of these.

00:25:05.940 And it was about a, a young trickster male who would take people who are either wealthier

00:25:12.780 or bigger or more powerful than him and often trick them into killing themselves and then

00:25:17.860 take all their stuff.

00:25:18.520 That was, that was often the gist.

00:25:19.780 I mean, you can read, you know, we point out like you can read Jack and the Beanstalk and

00:25:23.920 be like, wait, did, did he just like murder?

00:25:27.020 Like in some versions of the more cleaned up versions today, the, the, the giant has wronged

00:25:31.660 him in the original version, the giant.

00:25:34.540 He's just living his life.

00:25:36.540 Yeah.

00:25:36.940 He's just like, Hey, the giant has a lot of stuff.

00:25:38.960 I'll take that.

00:25:39.560 Yeah.

00:25:39.780 But what I'm saying is, is, is if you grow up learning morality from these sorts of traditions,

00:25:44.580 this seems like the most natural thing in the world to you.

00:25:46.640 Like, Oh, if it works, you know, I'm, and better yet, I'm not even breaking any rule,

00:25:51.280 right?

00:25:51.540 Like I'm, I'm playing the system as it's laid out.

00:25:54.760 I'm playing a card and people are like, well, my parents are artists.

00:25:58.120 So I didn't have access to this type of stuff.

00:26:00.400 It's like, you could have learned, like you could have Googled, like, why did my mom know

00:26:04.100 about this stuff?

00:26:04.760 You know, not, not, she knew about this stuff because she investigated it and she, she woke me 0.97

00:26:09.240 up to it before other people woken up to it.

00:26:10.980 As soon as I was woken up to it, I was like, well, this is cool.

00:26:12.940 I should learn more about this.

00:26:13.980 Right.

00:26:14.140 What they talk about in the, in the article is that what often happens is, you know, in

00:26:20.400 high school, someone's classmate gets extra accommodation and they're like, well, my mom

00:26:24.540 just had me take this evaluation.

00:26:26.000 And like, no, I, and then it's like, well, Hey mom, like I want this.

00:26:29.480 And some people were like, it's like this, this rite of passage in elite high schools.

00:26:33.640 Like you turn 16 and you get your ADHD diagnosis and then you get an easier time on tests.

00:26:39.280 And I'd also point out to people, because I think that there's this myth that if you gain

00:26:44.060 access to this sort of stuff, that you're not going to be able to compete in top level

00:26:48.380 environments.

00:26:49.220 And that's just wrong.

00:26:50.380 You know, I've had access to this stuff since middle school.

00:26:53.500 And in college I went, you know, undergrad to St. Andrews, which is occasionally, I

00:26:58.780 don't know if it still is, but it's often on ranked the top school in the UK, but it's

00:27:03.040 almost always was in the top for, uh, you know, often beating Oxford and Cambridge.

00:27:06.740 And so I was there and I graduated with a two one, right.

00:27:10.140 Which is a very high score.

00:27:11.580 And regularly I was top of my class.

00:27:13.280 And then at Stanford for business school, which is another, you know, one of the top

00:27:16.920 graduate schools in the world.

00:27:18.200 By the time I graduated at first, I really struggled in year one.

00:27:20.860 I really struggled.

00:27:21.320 But by the time I graduated, I was in the top quarter or so.

00:27:24.040 I know I would, I was easily in the top quarter if I remember.

00:27:26.560 I might've been in the top eights.

00:27:27.700 But the point being is that like these people, I think that there's these smug fantasies that

00:27:32.280 people build for themselves, that the people who take the, the, these alternative options

00:27:38.880 of the system are going to be at some sort of like permanent life disadvantage because

00:27:43.780 they want to believe that if they play by the rules, that the people who are more creative

00:27:50.140 was how they engage with the rules in the system that are thinking outside the box of

00:27:54.300 the rules as the deontologist understands them.

00:27:57.280 And it's like, you know, as long as I'm not, you know, functionally or technically breaking

00:28:02.560 any rules, I'm allowed to, to, to move with this pathway that these people like just end

00:28:07.260 up like underleveled or undertrained.

00:28:09.200 And that is not both, not my experience and not what I've seen in the real world.

00:28:14.780 In fact, now that I think about it, what's really interesting is the number one, because

00:28:19.200 when I was young, before any of these systems existed, I was in the, the gifted program.

00:28:24.700 So this was in, in my public school.

00:28:26.140 Have you, did you, were you, do you have a gifted program at your public school?

00:28:28.840 Yeah.

00:28:29.700 Okay.

00:28:30.100 So did you, were you in it or?

00:28:31.540 Yeah.

00:28:32.300 So, you know, like the gifted program, it's for the people who store the highest on the IQ

00:28:35.940 tests.

00:28:36.580 I think they've gotten rid of those though.

00:28:38.120 Not at our school.

00:28:38.980 Our school has one next year.

00:28:39.900 Octavian will be tested for it.

00:28:41.280 No, he's not.

00:28:42.240 Cause we're taking him out of school.

00:28:43.920 Yeah.

00:28:44.220 But yeah, we stayed in school, but anyway, so gifted programs exist.

00:28:47.580 So you have a gifted program and this was before any of the accommodations, any of that

00:28:51.760 happened for me, right?

00:28:52.620 Like years before, cause it started in elementary school.

00:28:54.720 I want to say the gifted program batch of students was, I'd say 85% overlap with the batch

00:29:04.460 of extended time students when that started becoming a thing.

00:29:07.040 Well, and you know, now they've even invented the term two E twice exceptional, which is

00:29:12.520 to say that a child is both gifted, but also they have ADHD or they have autism or they're

00:29:18.200 which I always found.

00:29:19.200 But I almost, I remember there was a time and my mom was really mad at me where, while I

00:29:23.340 was in the gifted program, they thought about putting me in the special ed program as well.

00:29:26.880 At the same time.

00:29:27.940 Yeah.

00:29:28.540 The same time I would have been in both.

00:29:30.480 That's really twice exceptional when you're in the special ed.

00:29:33.360 No, that's literally what two E was on.

00:29:35.560 No, that's what he used to.

00:29:37.660 Now somebody will be like, oh, I have ADHD.

00:29:40.500 Not I'm in the class with the like literal down syndrome people.

00:29:44.320 Like that's, that's a bit different than the, oh, I, I sometimes take Adderall, therefore

00:29:50.800 I'm, I'm two E right.

00:29:52.260 Like that.

00:29:52.740 Nah, no, no, no.

00:29:55.200 Anyway.

00:29:55.980 Yeah.

00:29:56.400 I'll, I won't go too, too far on that, but actually I do think that there is a downside

00:30:01.160 to these diagnoses.

00:30:02.140 And it was pointed out by a couple of people on X and Catherine Boyle, for example, put

00:30:07.620 it pretty articulately.

00:30:08.540 She wrote parents encourage or let their kids opt into disability diagnoses because it

00:30:14.960 seems like there's little downside, more time on tests, better chances at college admissions,

00:30:19.960 optional performance, enhancing drugs, accommodations of all types.

00:30:23.500 I can't stress this enough.

00:30:25.000 The consequence is your child's character.

00:30:27.960 Many kids genuinely believe they're sick or that there's something wrong with them.

00:30:33.060 You tell a girl, she seems anxious and she'll believe she's anxious. 1.00

00:30:36.500 You tell a boy, he has a true disability in the form of ADHD.

00:30:40.660 And he starts thinking create creativity or daydreaming is a deficiency.

00:30:45.960 You can gaslight people into believing they're sick.

00:30:48.940 And we have entire systems and institutions encouraging this.

00:30:52.260 We've convinced young people.

00:30:54.260 It's fine to be weak and frail when we should be doing the opposite, convincing them they're

00:30:59.500 resilient, independent, strong people who can handle any challenge.

00:31:03.260 If there's one thing I believe as a parent, it's that you can will your children into greatness.

00:31:08.380 Society will encourage them to do the opposite, but you don't have to comply.

00:31:12.760 Now, I think the difference with what you experienced is while you got all these accommodations,

00:31:17.180 your mom also, like, threw you into prison camp and diagnosed you with a whole bunch of other

00:31:22.980 untrue things that she tried to medicate you for.

00:31:25.500 Because, you know, she's like, oh, you know, you're difficult.

00:31:29.900 I'm going to get you diagnosed with this thing to try to drug it out of you. 0.99

00:31:32.940 Every week it was some new drug. 0.97

00:31:34.220 You're a willful child. 0.96

00:31:35.640 Like, how do I, like, sedate you? 0.97

00:31:37.380 You know, like, so.

00:31:38.000 You know what's funny is all of those, like, extra diagnoses that, like, I clearly didn't have

00:31:43.360 that she was always trying to get me diagnosed with and get me medicated for.

00:31:45.980 Yeah.

00:31:46.540 She genuinely believed all of those things.

00:31:50.020 Yeah, she did.

00:31:51.060 All of the stuff.

00:31:52.200 You didn't.

00:31:53.100 And so you didn't also end up in this victim mentality.

00:31:55.840 Like, you weren't.

00:31:56.220 No, no, no, no.

00:31:56.640 But this is what you're missing.

00:31:58.100 All of the stuff for, like, extended time and everything like that.

00:32:01.240 Yeah.

00:32:01.420 She never believed any of that was her.

00:32:03.960 So that also helped.

00:32:05.260 Yeah.

00:32:05.440 Because she didn't.

00:32:05.980 She wasn't like, oh, you poor thing. 1.00

00:32:07.920 You can't focus. 0.99

00:32:08.740 She's like, shut up and tell them you have this. 0.93

00:32:11.440 Like, answer the questions. 1.00

00:32:12.000 She's like, here's what shit you can say when you get in that way. 0.99

00:32:13.660 Yes. 1.00

00:32:14.080 Oh, of course she does.

00:32:15.020 Um, you know, she's like.

00:32:16.160 And I think that's.

00:32:17.180 So that's.

00:32:17.760 So it's funny.

00:32:19.240 Because I.

00:32:20.080 Yeah.

00:32:20.200 Like, the quote unquote ethical or non-harmful way to do this to a child is to literally

00:32:25.440 have them cheat.

00:32:27.440 Yeah.

00:32:27.700 To literally be like.

00:32:28.740 And then the unethical way to do this is to be like, oh, sweetie, I think you have

00:32:33.620 attention problems.

00:32:34.480 I think you have anxiety.

00:32:35.520 Because then you're actually hurting someone in an unethical way.

00:32:38.500 What's funny is I probably really had, like, I obviously really have dysgraphia.

00:32:42.040 I obviously, I honestly, I'm also, I mean, I don't know what causes it, but I'm a much

00:32:46.140 slower thinker than other people at my intelligence level.

00:32:48.900 You may have ADHD.

00:32:50.640 It takes me a long time to do so.

00:32:52.200 Yeah.

00:32:52.340 You didn't leave the car on all day yesterday because you just forgot.

00:32:57.020 Well, okay.

00:32:57.740 So I'm, I'm a forgetful person.

00:32:59.720 The point I'm making here is my first, like, like, like interaction with all of those parts

00:33:05.860 of, of like my psyche was, oh, these are just things you use to get extra time.

00:33:11.000 Like, don't, don't take it seriously.

00:33:13.300 Like.

00:33:14.060 Yeah.

00:33:14.240 But that, and that was, that was the key thing because, and it wasn't just Catherine

00:33:18.100 Boyle chiming in to say this and an actual teacher also chimed in on X.

00:33:22.060 And I thought this was really interesting and insightful.

00:33:25.180 So her name, Neeraja Deshpande.

00:33:29.040 And by the way, this is a Simone outlined episode.

00:33:31.040 I did this.

00:33:31.620 So I have a linked outline that I'll put in our sub stack and Patreon articles for our,

00:33:37.360 our VIP subscribers.

00:33:39.540 Thanks guys so much for your support.

00:33:41.080 But she wrote lots of people assuming this is purposeful manipulation.

00:33:45.680 And yes, there are definitely cases of that.

00:33:48.820 EG the varsity blues.

00:33:49.920 That's the, the parents who like paid for those essays and sports things.

00:33:52.980 Remember the, but the reality from what I've seen first among my peers.

00:33:57.740 And then as a teacher is actually worse.

00:34:00.440 These kids actually believe they are disabled.

00:34:03.540 Yes.

00:34:03.860 It's ridiculous to the rest of us willing to plainly state that the emperor has no clothes,

00:34:08.580 but for these kids and their parents, the disability, she puts that in quotes, scare quotes

00:34:12.900 is very real, even if it's fake.

00:34:16.100 And that learned helplessness, which leads to actual crippling anxiety is why discussing

00:34:23.760 this is such a third rail in education.

00:34:26.100 And I think that's like another aspect of this that is, is really important to factor in because

00:34:33.240 while on one hand you have the, like, I guess this is like the midwit dangerous part of this 0.66

00:34:39.460 dynamic where you have like a bunch of people who like drink the Kool-Aid and they're like,

00:34:42.880 I'm disabled.

00:34:43.580 And then you have, then you have like the geniuses who are like, I'm disabled.

00:34:47.980 And then they're like gaming the system.

00:34:50.080 Yeah.

00:34:50.240 And then you have like the, the, the, the halfwit side, which is just like, I'm very smart.

00:34:56.540 And then they're like actually disabled. 0.99

00:34:58.160 The one group that actually is.

00:35:00.200 So I don't, I don't know what to make of it all, but it, I think these are, these are

00:35:05.260 really good points that everyone's been making and I love the additional skew that you, you

00:35:09.700 gave to it.

00:35:10.640 You're dealing people are like, Oh, I'm going to play by the rules.

00:35:12.920 Society then playing by these rules.

00:35:14.120 All this DEI stuff is going to work against you, but probably depending on who you are,

00:35:17.720 you know, all this, you know, you're, you're dealing with DEI has worked really, really

00:35:20.940 well for specific populations that have learned how to play the game.

00:35:23.820 So I love that you pointed that out, but this is more than this like competitive flywheel,

00:35:28.880 like tragedy of the commons issue.

00:35:30.820 And it's, it's more about, it's, it's more than also what some people were implying, which

00:35:36.380 was that this kind of, this accelerates the, the, the falling apart of legacy education

00:35:43.340 as well, because if we're no longer measuring like someone's actual ability to do something

00:35:47.700 like on a compressed time basis or whatever, then like, what are we even measuring?

00:35:52.980 I'd point out here that like the, the, I forgot, I talked about the disability stuff

00:35:58.860 I got for like testing that got me ahead, but that wasn't the only ways I would use the

00:36:03.980 bureaucracy to get around things.

00:36:06.180 I got out of having to do a sport.

00:36:08.720 And so I only had to go to gym for a certain amount of time, which was the shortest amount

00:36:12.720 of time I could dedicate to, to some sort of like exercise activity.

00:36:16.140 So I got like excused from sports.

00:36:18.160 So I'd have more free time during the day, got a, a private room when everybody went to

00:36:23.320 study hall.

00:36:23.820 So I was able to do that by myself and just sort of chill out, lay on the ground, get a pillow,

00:36:27.880 you know, set up my computer when everyone else is supposed to be studying and like video

00:36:31.840 game or whatever.

00:36:32.660 Chat, chat was girls was mostly what I did. 0.91

00:36:34.480 I got, Oh God, what were some of the other things that I was able to get?

00:36:37.500 Yeah.

00:36:37.740 I'd regularly skip classes and then just go to the nurse because I was at the nurse so

00:36:43.520 frequently, you know, for all the disability related stuff.

00:36:46.960 I could just be like, Oh, X happened and I need a pass.

00:36:50.040 And then I'd like go, go to class was like the, the nurse pass.

00:36:53.880 Right.

00:36:54.160 You know, and everyone can be like, Oh, like all of this clearly, it, it must've added

00:36:58.180 up and bit you.

00:36:59.120 And it's like, no, like it was an enormous. 0.71

00:37:01.520 Yeah.

00:37:02.220 Cause I, yeah.

00:37:03.040 A lot of people on X were like, yeah, well, how's it going to work for them when they actually

00:37:06.660 get into the workforce?

00:37:07.460 And you're like, just fine.

00:37:08.840 It was great.

00:37:09.580 Actually.

00:37:10.660 Exceptionally.

00:37:11.120 Hey, probably I I'm going to be honest.

00:37:13.680 It, it probably mattered more to my ability to navigate the workforce than everything else I

00:37:21.480 learned in high school.

00:37:22.340 Yeah, I guess.

00:37:23.080 Yeah.

00:37:23.280 The, the big, the big fantasy that they're still operating under is that at some point

00:37:29.320 you're going to get to this moral meritocracy when instead, no, like the whole world is

00:37:35.220 this debauched game of killer be killed.

00:37:38.480 Well, no, no, it's not just that they're the person who's sitting there diligently studying,

00:37:43.720 you know, 15th century French architecture thinking one day, this is going to help me get

00:37:49.780 past Malcolm.

00:37:50.480 And I remember, cause there were like the top students, like we had students who were

00:37:53.500 even above me.

00:37:54.480 Like I was.

00:37:55.040 Who hated you?

00:37:55.620 Who hated you?

00:37:57.060 But I was like, oh, they hate, like the top goody good two-shoe kids.

00:38:01.680 I was the like, because I was clearly exceptionally intelligent.

00:38:06.140 Um, but I also got into better colleges than they did.

00:38:09.620 I got into like better jobs than they did.

00:38:12.560 Oh, by exception.

00:38:13.280 I hope they don't see your social media posts.

00:38:15.440 Like the rage, the rage.

00:38:17.400 No, no, no.

00:38:17.760 They actually, I know because I, I would occasionally just cause I love following and seeing them

00:38:21.900 failing at life.

00:38:22.580 It made me feel good, but they blocked me mostly.

00:38:24.940 I, I didn't like anything.

00:38:25.900 So I just think that my existence, it's not good for their mental health, man.

00:38:30.320 They're just there.

00:38:31.320 I am going to study this subject.

00:38:35.100 I'm going to get this subject perfect.

00:38:36.480 And then, and then as an adult, people are going to care that I had a near perfect score

00:38:42.060 in 18, whatever.

00:38:43.560 I did it by hand.

00:38:45.140 I, yeah, no.

00:38:46.240 I'm like, I'm like, I, I would often, you know, play hooky and, and, and you'd have the

00:38:50.760 girls who I would hang out with.

00:38:52.200 Cause you know, you weren't allowed to leave campus where I was.

00:38:54.200 They, they come pick me up and we go off and we go hang out at the mall or whatever.

00:38:58.940 And I, I do like personal study.

00:39:01.480 Cause I was studying a lot of my own things, right?

00:39:03.280 Like a lot of teach one too.

00:39:04.840 Like that, that's the great courses series.

00:39:06.560 It's done by like college professors and everything like that.

00:39:09.260 And then when it came to studying for like the actual exams and everything, I just like

00:39:12.700 absolutely cram.

00:39:14.060 Right.

00:39:14.800 Yeah.

00:39:15.440 It's not like I never studied at all.

00:39:17.620 I just actually, I think someone was joking about that.

00:39:20.120 I think, I think it was even someone we knew on X who was like the

00:39:23.880 actual correct way to do this for ADHD is you give them like an extra hour, but that's

00:39:30.280 just like time to look at the textbook probably for the first time.

00:39:33.640 And then you give them an hour to do the test.

00:39:36.280 Yeah.

00:39:36.480 So I feel like the way it often works is like, you have absolutely no problem focusing

00:39:41.040 when like it's down to the line and you actually have to do it.

00:39:45.620 And this is why I'd suggest, you know, say, if you're a younger listener, you are going

00:39:50.920 to go to college.

00:39:51.840 St. Andrews is most much cheaper than American colleges.

00:39:54.140 Way more scenic.

00:39:55.080 You're literally going into like Hogwarts.

00:39:56.320 Way more scenic.

00:39:56.980 It's so beautiful.

00:39:57.720 But almost all of your grade is based on a test you take twice a year.

00:40:01.900 Yeah. 0.97

00:40:02.140 It's not stupid homework assignments. 0.94

00:40:03.940 It's not little pop quiz. 0.92

00:40:05.120 It's 90% of your grade or 100% of your grade, depending on the class.

00:40:08.560 And the other will be like one other test.

00:40:11.200 And then two weeks before the test, you have no classes.

00:40:14.420 So people just study all day.

00:40:15.760 And what I used to do during that period is I would close all of my windows.

00:40:19.540 So I wouldn't know what time of day or night it was.

00:40:21.820 And I had an alarm that would go off every two hours.

00:40:24.100 So I wouldn't accidentally fall asleep.

00:40:25.940 And there's like pictures of this from when I was a kid where you could see me laying down

00:40:29.680 on the floor with like all of my notes around me and just piles of Dr. Peppers.

00:40:33.620 Cause I was like caffeinated out of my mind on, you know, the Ritalin, right.

00:40:37.780 You know, like, gosh, this is that period of your life too, where like when you did

00:40:45.140 finally clean your house, you would put on a gas mask to do it.

00:40:48.560 Oh yeah.

00:40:49.040 Yeah.

00:40:49.220 Yeah.

00:40:49.420 Because I, you know, just let stuff brought in parts of the room because I've been studying

00:40:52.860 all the time and I loved it.

00:40:54.380 Cause that's normal.

00:40:55.700 Yeah.

00:40:56.240 But I like, like, I think that that's the thing.

00:40:58.420 People are like, how could somebody like this ever develop good study habits?

00:41:01.620 Now that sort of study habit wouldn't have served me in high school, but it did serve

00:41:04.660 me in college and as an adult.

00:41:05.960 Well, and that's, I mean, again, like when, when you come to any sort of real world work

00:41:10.100 environment, you know, people will work with whatever deadline they're given, you know,

00:41:16.380 like it, it doesn't really matter in the end.

00:41:19.600 And if you are trying to get into a job where you can't make the work requirements or sorry,

00:41:24.520 the time requirements, then fine.

00:41:25.900 You won't.

00:41:26.860 There, there is another element of this, what this article covers that I didn't see come

00:41:31.460 up in the discussion on X.

00:41:32.940 And that hasn't come up in our discussion yet that I do think is important.

00:41:36.220 And I want to highlight it.

00:41:38.160 I do have to read the opening paragraph of this, of this article though, because it sounds

00:41:43.560 like, like the premise of a South Park episode.

00:41:46.480 The article, by the way, is called Accommodation Nation.

00:41:50.240 America's colleges have an extra time on tests problem.

00:41:53.860 It's by Rose Horowitz.

00:41:55.160 And the Atlantic really does have some great articles and it's just about this big problem,

00:41:59.340 but it starts with, administering an exam used to be straightforward.

00:42:04.120 All a college professor needed was an open room and a stack of blue books.

00:42:08.520 At many American universities, this is no longer true.

00:42:11.080 Professors now struggle to accommodate the many students with an official disability designation,

00:42:15.960 which may entitle them to extra time, a distraction-free environment, or the use of otherwise

00:42:21.080 prohibited technology.

00:42:22.680 The University of Michigan has two.

00:42:23.960 Literally all of those I got.

00:42:25.100 I know, right?

00:42:26.560 The University of Michigan has two centers where students with disabilities can take exams,

00:42:31.420 but they frequently fill to capacity, leaving professors scrambling to find more desks and

00:42:36.860 proctors.

00:42:38.160 Juan Collar, a physicist at the University of Chicago, told me that so many students now

00:42:43.280 take their exams in the school's now distraction testing outposts.

00:42:49.100 Oh, sorry.

00:42:51.140 Told me that so many students now take their exams in the school's low distraction testing

00:42:55.520 outposts that they have become more distracting than the main classrooms.

00:43:00.260 I'm just like, it just, it seems like some, like an episode, of course, with, with Cartman

00:43:05.480 leading the clock.

00:43:06.380 I was the, I was the, what do you call this?

00:43:08.920 The pioneer of, of this sort of stuff.

00:43:11.860 Now, now, now, now the place to be is just in the normal class.

00:43:15.540 I think someone on X was talking about like their, their experience as a professor or something

00:43:21.080 where like a shock came to them when like, finally they got a really, like a real disabled 1.00

00:43:27.400 student in their class who was blind.

00:43:29.760 And they were the most low maintenance of all the students.

00:43:32.680 Like they didn't send any like barely coherent, full of excuses, 4am emails about why they couldn't

00:43:38.340 turn in their homework.

00:43:38.980 Like they just literally just did the work and they were actually disabled.

00:43:42.980 We need to be, that's a, that's a, that is a scab.

00:43:45.540 That is a line crosser. 1.00

00:43:47.020 They need to be beaten up. 0.61

00:43:48.500 Like they're, they're crossing the pit. 0.99

00:43:49.620 How dare they?

00:43:50.400 How dare they be low maintenance?

00:43:51.820 I got to get the disabled union together.

00:43:53.880 Yeah.

00:43:54.380 Yeah.

00:43:54.580 Someone, someone's got to tell them how it works.

00:43:56.800 Yeah.

00:43:57.720 But so here's, here's the thing that I think is really interesting is she, she, she quotes

00:44:04.780 in the article, a couple of disability advocates or people who work in the, the disability space.

00:44:11.240 And I think that a big thing that is not discussed sufficiently here and, and why this, in addition

00:44:17.080 to, of course, like the sort of competitive flywheel effect that's happening, a sort of tragedy

00:44:21.400 of the commons competitive flywheel effect is the fact that there is a, an unseen, largely

00:44:28.040 unseen, but extremely expensive and extremely lucrative for participants world of disability

00:44:33.960 support.

00:44:34.660 That is 100% backing this.

00:44:37.580 So I'm going to read some quotes from the article.

00:44:39.140 In 2008, the government broadened the definition of disability, effectively expanding the number

00:44:45.240 of people, the law covered.

00:44:47.220 It also included a list of major life activities that could be disrupted by disability, quote,

00:44:54.400 learning, reading, concentrating, thinking among others, which of course, like thinking

00:44:58.880 literally like points added to my score because my disability is I'm just not.

00:45:03.460 Yeah.

00:45:03.660 I have test anxiety.

00:45:05.060 Therefore don't give me tests. 1.00

00:45:06.880 You know, like it's just so stupid. 1.00

00:45:08.220 Like thinking that is insane. 0.98

00:45:09.700 Anyway, to continue from the article and clarify that individuals were protected under the ADA.

00:45:14.420 That's the Americans with Disabilities Act, the sort of key legislation that drives all of

00:45:18.700 these rights in America, even if their impairment didn't severely restrict their daily life.

00:45:24.480 In response to the 2008 amendments, the Association of On Higher Education and Disability, A-H-E-A-D,

00:45:33.000 an organization of disability services staff, disability services staff, okay?

00:45:40.700 The people who make money from people who claim disabilities and get government money for 0.74

00:45:45.500 it largely, okay?

00:45:46.540 Okay.

00:45:46.820 Released guidance, urging universities to give greater weight to students' own accounts of

00:45:52.780 how their disability affected them, rather than relying on medical diagnoses.

00:45:59.540 Quote, requiring extensive medical and scientific evidence perpetuates a deviance model of disability,

00:46:07.300 undervalues the individual's history and experience with disability, and is it inappropriate and

00:46:13.560 burdensome under the revised statute and regulations?

00:46:16.960 Wait, you don't even need to be diagnosed anymore?

00:46:18.920 You're just like, I identify as needing double time?

00:46:21.620 Well, the people who make the money as service providers to the disabled are trying to say

00:46:27.420 that anyone should be able to say they're disabled and partake of their services.

00:46:32.840 I think it's a much fairer system.

00:46:35.900 I think that if the deontologists want to screw over their kids by saying like, yeah,

00:46:39.820 just don't say you're disabled.

00:46:40.680 Well, but what I'm pointing out here is there's a massive adverse incentive where there's also

00:46:44.440 this really large group of people who make a lot of money from largely government-subsidized

00:46:51.080 but very expensive services.

00:46:53.240 I mean, keep in mind, like, we have kids who, one currently and one previously and probably

00:46:59.280 one in the future, get ABA therapy for their autism.

00:47:03.660 We can't afford it, but the state of Pennsylvania pays for it.

00:47:07.380 It is very expensive and they are absolutely motivated to help us get diagnoses for our kids

00:47:14.600 because they'll be able to hire more staff and have a bigger organization.

00:47:18.600 And I say this loving all of these therapists.

00:47:21.740 They're such great people.

00:47:22.640 Our kids love them.

00:47:23.460 Like, I don't think they're bad people individually, but they're absolutely incentivized

00:47:27.940 to loosen whatever they can with requirements on self-diagnosis.

00:47:32.880 So just to quote from the article, kind of show you how blatant this is.

00:47:37.340 Most of the disability advocates I spoke with are more troubled by the students who are still

00:47:43.540 not getting the accommodations they need than by the risk of people exploiting the system.

00:47:49.700 They argue that fraud is rare and stress that some universities maintain stringent

00:47:54.700 documentation requirements.

00:47:56.780 I would rather open up access to the five kids who need accommodation, but can't afford

00:48:01.860 documentation.

00:48:03.260 And maybe there's one person who has paid for an evaluation and they don't need it.

00:48:08.620 Emily Tarkonish, a special education teaching assistant professor at the University of Illinois

00:48:13.880 at Urbana-Shambi.

00:48:15.000 Well, no, you can always find a disability.

00:48:16.860 As I said, like my mom was gaming the system, but I had all the disabilities they found in me.

00:48:23.060 If you look hard enough, you're going to find a disability in anyone. 0.99

00:48:25.600 I know, but what she's saying is that basically she's okay with a bunch of people exploiting

00:48:32.260 the system as long as one person who would otherwise have trouble getting like the formal

00:48:36.200 diagnosis gets the support they need.

00:48:37.880 And I hear that, but also let's just read off her title again.

00:48:42.300 All right.

00:48:42.780 She's the special education teaching assistant professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

00:48:54.160 She benefits from this.

00:48:57.060 Like she won't have a job, you know, if there isn't sufficient demand. 0.97

00:49:02.620 There's another.

00:49:03.040 Tarconish sees a growing number of students receiving accommodations as evidence that the

00:49:07.240 system is working.

00:49:08.760 Ella Callow, the assistant vice chancellor of disability rights at Berkeley.

00:49:14.600 So assistant vice chancellor.

00:49:16.320 That means that there's a vice chancellor and a chancellor.

00:49:20.700 All right.

00:49:21.540 Like that's at least three people now whose full-time jobs just have to do with disability

00:49:27.100 rights at UC Berkeley.

00:49:28.600 Just, just pointing that out.

00:49:31.280 I just want to point that out.

00:49:32.540 How many, I got to know that.

00:49:35.480 I mean, and then they're a chancellor.

00:49:36.620 That sounds powerful.

00:49:37.840 I want to be a disability chancellor.

00:49:39.560 I want to be a disability chancellor.

00:49:42.320 The disability count.

00:49:44.280 Well, and maybe they're, yeah.

00:49:45.400 Remember, this is just the disability rights one.

00:49:47.500 Maybe there's also the disability accommodations chancellor.

00:49:50.540 The, yeah, the Viscount of disability, whatever, right?

00:49:53.800 Viscount of disability.

00:49:54.700 I am the most disabled.

00:49:57.320 Yeah.

00:49:57.720 I won't actually read her full quote, but I just, I also want to point out, this isn't

00:50:02.460 actually the dynamic that Tarlow pointed out in her quote of like, well, you know,

00:50:07.060 like maybe one, one out of six students is, is, is exploiting this because also quoted

00:50:14.280 from the article proof that the growth in disability is exploitative quote, no one is

00:50:19.340 more skeptical of the accommodation system than the academics who study it.

00:50:24.700 Robert Weiss, a psychology professor at Denison University, pointed me to a department of

00:50:30.840 education study that found that middle and high schoolers with disabilities tend to have

00:50:34.500 below average reading and math skills.

00:50:36.660 These students are half as likely to enroll in four-year institutions as students without

00:50:40.960 disabilities and twice as likely to attend a two-year or community college.

00:50:44.620 The rise in accommodations were purely a result of more disabled students making it into college.

00:50:50.380 The increase would be more pronounced at less selective institutions than so-called Ivy

00:50:56.740 public plus schools.

00:50:58.360 And where we're really seeing this ballooning of disability is at Ivy League schools where

00:51:03.080 we're getting up to like 40% of students.

00:51:05.640 No, it's because smarter people are more likely to play the system.

00:51:09.640 Exactly.

00:51:10.380 This is about playing the system.

00:51:11.740 And the point is that the people, the bureaucrats and the professionals who are making money from

00:51:18.480 disability related jobs are trying to argue that these, most of these people are legitimately

00:51:24.480 disabled.

00:51:25.580 Whereas most of these people are not, most of these people at elite universities are gaming

00:51:30.180 the system.

00:51:30.940 Going back to Stanford, for example, like obviously they want to have singles dorms.

00:51:35.080 So like, duh, of course they're going to say they're disabled.

00:51:37.580 Like no one wants to share a room with some stranger. 0.94

00:51:40.460 Like you don't know what you're going to get.

00:51:42.060 I mean, I was lucky.

00:51:43.800 I got someone who ended up being my best friend of all college.

00:51:47.400 Right.

00:51:47.680 But like, you really don't know what you're going to get.

00:51:49.980 We've all heard horror.

00:51:50.880 You had a horrible, I think, first roommate.

00:51:53.340 Yeah.

00:51:53.900 Yeah.

00:51:54.160 So like, yeah, like I, I, I, I, I think this is the wrong way to think about it.

00:52:00.300 And I think it's the wrong way to talk about it to say legitimate or illegitimate disability.

00:52:04.800 If you're talking about exceptionally smart people, as Simone knows, as our audience likely

00:52:10.340 knows is the thing about exceptionally smart people is they're typically mentally a bit

00:52:15.140 weird.

00:52:16.000 Yeah.

00:52:16.360 And so brain wiggles.

00:52:17.920 You got brain wiggles.

00:52:19.080 And so when you're talking about people who are exceptionally smart, they are typically

00:52:23.160 going to have as, as what did they say?

00:52:25.240 Non-neurotypical is the modern term, right?

00:52:27.440 You know, and if you're not neurodivergent, but that actually has to do with Asperger's and

00:52:31.600 not any other diagnosis in terms of its original roots, non-neurotypical.

00:52:35.560 And if you're non-neurotypical, like if you're a bit weird, well, that weirdness is, can be

00:52:41.720 definitionally a disability because it's a minority way of acting and thinking.

00:52:47.320 And so the reality is that these people both are getting these accommodations to out-compete

00:52:53.600 other people and are likely genuinely mentally weird in some way.

00:52:58.560 Totally.

00:52:59.260 Yeah.

00:52:59.580 The bigger issue is the way that we are handling tests and stuff like that, I think is the

00:53:05.000 issue.

00:53:05.600 Well, I also think that in the end, like sort of my bottom line on all this is that we

00:53:10.520 really just need to drop diagnoses and labels.

00:53:12.980 I mean, like one, the colleges have a good point when like there are some administrators

00:53:16.560 who are like, when we're accommodating everyone, like what, what do we even do?

00:53:20.700 That's what I say.

00:53:21.500 You should drop the diagnoses and labels and give everyone the accommodations that would

00:53:27.500 be given to the disabled people.

00:53:29.880 Yeah.

00:53:30.120 Like just, just forget it.

00:53:31.460 Like stop.

00:53:32.100 Also, this came up in our episode on sexual morality and like people identifying as gay 0.92

00:53:37.960 or certain genders.

00:53:39.180 Someone commented on, on that being like, man, I just wish people could just be, just, just

00:53:43.820 be, which is kind of how it has been historically.

00:53:46.200 You know, I always point to the example of Louis Philippe, the brother of King Louis the

00:53:50.980 14th, who was an amazing lawyer and military leader.

00:53:54.680 He also would wear fabulous dresses.

00:53:56.360 He had a very long-term male lover.

00:53:58.660 They would have probably been married in our modern time, but you know, people weren't

00:54:02.340 like, Oh, gay icon Louis Philippe.

00:54:04.100 No, he was just like, Oh, that's Louis Philippe.

00:54:06.200 Sometimes he wears really great dresses. 0.68

00:54:08.000 Sometimes he also kicks ass on the battlefield, like whatever, but he was known as being a very 0.97

00:54:12.340 good military commander. 0.98

00:54:13.120 That's amazing.

00:54:14.100 So amazing that his brother like would like redo paintings and make himself, like it was,

00:54:19.560 it was a problem for him.

00:54:20.740 He was like, man, he's like one of my favorite figures from history.

00:54:23.340 It's absolutely amazing.

00:54:24.580 Anyway.

00:54:25.520 Um, it really bothers me that today you need a label for everything.

00:54:29.540 Like why does everyone have a sexual identity, a gender identity, a DSM diagnosis, a physical

00:54:35.820 diagnosis, a Myers-Briggs profile as a star sign?

00:54:39.840 Like because they don't have personalities anymore.

00:54:42.480 I know it's insane that like, I see YouTubers like prominently and out of nowhere, bring 0.94

00:54:47.420 up the fact that they have pots.

00:54:48.940 Like, I don't need to know that you occasionally faint, like just be next to a chair.

00:54:54.040 You know, like I pass out at events sometimes.

00:54:56.540 Like it just happens, you know, like I'm not going to go out of my way to get diagnosed

00:55:00.380 to something and in the end, like where I'm going to leave this.

00:55:03.140 You have the vapors.

00:55:04.480 You, you do the Victorian style.

00:55:06.000 I mean, I'm a woman.

00:55:07.220 What do you expect?

00:55:08.440 Yes.

00:55:08.760 I need a fainting couch and a fan.

00:55:12.620 Yes.

00:55:12.880 And I'll be fine.

00:55:13.780 Okay.

00:55:14.100 But like in the end, actions speak louder than words.

00:55:17.420 And I want us to go back to a time or move into a time forward where it's just our actions

00:55:26.620 that matter.

00:55:27.140 Like we, we, we judge ourselves and other people by what they do rather than what they

00:55:32.560 say.

00:55:33.100 You know, we stopped trying, um, to signal to the world what we are through, like by

00:55:38.960 trying to signal things, by trying to dress a certain way or say things, but instead of

00:55:42.780 act.

00:55:43.140 It's great for the perinatalist movement, right?

00:55:45.360 We need to get, uh, you know, like the vasectomy fan outside the DNC.

00:55:48.840 We need to get a vasectomy fan, free one, sponsored by us outside of Harvard.

00:55:52.460 Say that, that it's, it's, we heard there's so many disabled people here and we just wanted

00:55:57.000 to give them the opportunity to.

00:56:00.320 Uh, no, they're, they're already in the IQ shredder.

00:56:04.400 Why not just make it official?

00:56:06.000 Yeah.

00:56:06.460 I feel like, uh, just make it official.

00:56:08.240 Get it done already.

00:56:09.300 It's fine.

00:56:10.800 Admit it to yourself.

00:56:12.360 You're, you're not going to try, you know, just take away the stress of, of hitting age,

00:56:17.840 you know, 45 and trying to start a family.

00:56:20.340 Or the disabled. 0.98

00:56:20.900 You put on the vasectomy van.

00:56:22.120 Vasectomy van. 1.00

00:56:22.980 Oh, God, you are going to hell. 0.97

00:56:25.020 Be like, we're giving it to the disabled for free. 1.00

00:56:27.360 How can you possibly be smirched us for this?

00:56:31.640 Third rail, third rail.

00:56:32.700 I love you, Milko.

00:56:33.580 I'm going to get Jim and I'm mad at us again.

00:56:35.020 I'm not good at this.

00:56:35.800 I'm not good at that.

00:56:36.260 Yeah, don't, don't even, don't even.

00:56:37.820 But would you like bulldog tonight?

00:56:40.160 Or I think you should have bulldog.

00:56:42.520 Or do you want a Burmese mint chicken?

00:56:44.760 I like the steak so much.

00:56:46.680 Okay.

00:56:47.040 So you want steak with noodles or rice?

00:56:51.060 Rice is easier.

00:56:51.840 And you want it with pepper steak sauce?

00:56:54.180 Yeah, but go lighter on the pepper so everyone doesn't cough themselves to death.

00:56:57.320 That was hilarious.

00:56:58.700 We like gassed our house.

00:56:59.440 That was terrible.

00:57:00.240 I don't want to see the fans.

00:57:01.460 Like literally everyone is just coughing their heads off in the kitchen.

00:57:06.360 Because we have, we, we, our house was built like over 200 years ago, like in 1790.

00:57:11.180 We do not have a kitchen with proper ventilation.

00:57:13.420 We use a warehouse size like fan to like try to clean the air, but we don't have a hood.

00:57:18.260 And so whenever we make something with peppers or like spicy and like I walk fry it, like

00:57:25.400 we are just, just dying.

00:57:27.460 Everyone's just coughing.

00:57:28.120 I'd really like to get to orange chicken at some point that we can do with mandarins.

00:57:31.900 Yeah, we'll, we'll get there.

00:57:33.520 Yeah.

00:57:33.760 I'll send me some recipes to look at, but don't send them to me when I'm already down with

00:57:38.140 the kids.

00:57:38.480 Cause I mean, it's just triage.

00:57:40.120 It's a war zone down there.

00:57:41.780 Speaking of which, I got to run and get them.

00:57:43.460 So I love you very much.

00:57:45.000 I love you too.

00:57:45.860 And you are a good wife.

00:57:46.880 So thank you for that.

00:57:47.860 You're a beautiful husband.

00:57:48.860 Not so much. 0.98

00:57:49.500 Your brain wiggles.

00:57:50.500 Everyone's coughing. 0.78

00:57:51.180 I don't want to gas the family.

00:57:52.160 Yeah, no, it'll be fine.

00:57:53.480 It'll be fine.

00:57:53.860 I know they're disabled, but I don't want to gas them. 1.00

00:57:56.180 Okay.

00:57:56.600 Let's do that.

00:57:57.440 Let's, let's not, let's not get.

00:57:59.400 Playtex will stay quiet.

00:58:00.480 He's having such a rough time.

00:58:02.840 Vaccinations are not fun for babies.

00:58:06.800 But how else will we give him autism?

00:58:09.680 Well, I mean, we've got to, you know, we've got to play into the new system.

00:58:13.360 He needs autism, right?

00:58:14.720 From this episode, we learned he needs autism.

00:58:17.280 How can we, how can he compete without autism?

00:58:20.640 I know, right?

00:58:21.500 It's, that's, that's the thing.

00:58:23.160 We're autism maxing our kids.

00:58:25.040 Seriously.

00:58:26.100 Because it's the best.

00:58:27.680 It's the best.

00:58:29.140 All right.

00:58:29.500 Let's get into it.

00:58:30.220 You ready?

00:58:31.320 Mm-hmm.

00:58:31.920 All right.

00:58:32.960 Wait, you want me to turn the TV on?

00:58:34.920 Really?

00:58:35.720 What about you, Titan?

00:58:37.500 Titan is a noob.

00:58:38.900 And what I, oh, she's a noob. 0.99

00:58:41.400 Oh, and look at this delicious poison butter chicken.

00:58:46.380 Thank you.

Based Camp - December 09, 2025

38% of Stanford Students ＂Disabled＂ (I Was One Of Them) Disability-Maxing

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