Based Camp - Based Camp： Why Mormons Won't Inherit the Earth

00:00:00.000 I will describe this graph. It has two axes. Okay. This axis is progressive to conservative.

00:00:05.500 Okay. Progressive means more like the dominant urban monoculture. Conservative means more

00:00:09.820 deviant from the dominant culture. The other axis is traditionalist versus accelerationist.

00:00:15.180 Okay. It's easy to confuse these two axes and think that accelerationist means progressive

00:00:22.040 and traditionalist means conservative. Yeah. They're two completely unrelated things. And in

00:00:28.260 fact, generally the most accelerationist cultures are also the most conservative cultures and

00:00:36.120 the most conservative cultures are often the most accelerationist cultures because they

00:00:39.280 need to protect themselves from the dominant societal culture. That's goal is to stamp out

00:00:44.900 anyone who's doing their own thing. Any signs of true diversity within society. This progressive

00:00:50.640 monoculture will eventually inject itself into the central church. It will eventually eat

00:00:57.140 the central church. This virus is incredibly good at corrupting everything, especially large

00:01:05.720 bureaucracies. The larger and more entrenched the bureaucracy is, the more susceptible it

00:01:10.180 is. And it is a miracle that the central church hasn't been eaten yet, but it will be.

00:01:15.780 Would you like to know more?

00:01:17.700 Hello, gorgeous. How are you doing today?

00:01:19.740 Absolutely spectacular. So this video is in relation to a user comment who is something like, I'm

00:01:27.060 a Mormon. What do you guys think of Mormons? Now, we know enough about Mormons to know that the

00:01:33.400 church deemed that term offensive. Was it like eight years ago? What did they call it? One of the

00:01:37.740 Yeah, but members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doesn't exactly roll off the term.

00:01:44.120 Yeah, you're not allowed to use LDS either.

00:01:45.940 And you know, my friends who, so for context, from soup to nuts, I've been adjacent to Mormon

00:01:53.100 communities in preschool. I went to a Mormon preschool. It was called Class A Tiny World, 1.00

00:01:57.720 and I loved it. And everyone was Mormon, except for like me and a few other kids. And then I went to

00:02:04.380 college.

00:02:04.500 And her parents pulled her out, because she started asking them about Bible stuff,

00:02:08.640 and they freaked out, because they're like extremist progressive.

00:02:11.440 Well, no, that's just when they started sending me to Dharma school. They didn't take me out of

00:02:17.320 that daycare, because it was the best ever, because Mormons are the best ever. And then I 0.89

00:02:21.420 went to college, and pretty much only had Mormon friends, because my roommate out of freshman year

00:02:27.920 was Mormon. I tend to avoid people, and only like befriend people that I work with. So I just had work

00:02:33.500 colleagues, and then my like recreational friends were Mormons, and members of the local singles

00:02:38.460 ward. And I loved it. And I love Mormons. But also, like, even within that community,

00:02:44.340 they refer to themselves internally, like as, like, they'd be like, are you a Moe? Like,

00:02:51.020 like, they don't even say Mormon. So how can we be at fault for not calling, you know, people,

00:02:57.340 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint, when they're all like,

00:03:01.140 are you next Moe? Are you Moe? Like, you know, come on, guys.

00:03:03.900 Well, and you also did, you didn't drink when I met you, and stuff like that.

00:03:07.000 No. Well, I mean, when all of your friends were Mormons. Yeah. Why would you? 0.97

00:03:11.040 I told her on the first date, I go, this isn't going to work unless you drink. So I ordered her

00:03:14.440 a cocktail. I was like.

00:03:18.040 That was your loss, Malcolm. You paid through the nose for that. Cocktails in San Francisco. I mean,

00:03:22.740 God knows now you can probably buy like, you know, for the price you'd get a cocktail you could have

00:03:27.720 gotten a car like 10 years ago. But yeah, so we're going to call them Mormons because that's, 0.97

00:03:38.020 that's just what people do.

00:03:40.080 It's actually a very interesting community and a very interesting culture that we really highlighted

00:03:45.300 in the last video. So I think one of the things that we admire about Mormonism as a cultural

00:03:52.440 tradition is it is such an accelerationist cultural tradition. And I think that this is where

00:03:57.600 society, we see things as Simone often mistakenly does on a spectrum of conservatism to progressivism,

00:04:04.360 but conservatism to progressivism is really just a spectrum of how much do you bend the knee to

00:04:12.820 whatever the prevailing social norms are of your society, which right now is the mind virus.

00:04:17.920 So that is one axis of a spectrum and Mormons do not bend the knee very much. So they are on the 1.00

00:04:23.440 far conservative side of that spectrum. But then the other axis of the spectrum is traditionally

00:04:27.520 traditionalist versus accelerationist. And the traditionalist versus accelerationist is how

00:04:32.520 much do you, and how aggressively do you adapt your traditions and change your traditions to try to

00:04:39.320 compete with a changing environment, changing technology, and to react to what often are the

00:04:47.560 progressive threats to more conservative movements. So what you will often find is that the most

00:04:53.660 accelerationist movements are often some of the most conservative movements because they are the

00:04:58.940 movements most aggressively under threat from the progressive hive mind that wants to attack anyone

00:05:06.120 in any culture that deviates from it and deviates from its sort of approved ideas, morality, and way of

00:05:13.000 doing things. So Mormons are very accelerationist in that respect. What would you say your general read of

00:05:19.840 Mormons is? And I can give you mine as well. So as an outsider, my TLDR is Mormons among modern

00:05:29.560 US-based religious communities have the best lifestyle. It's like, they're kind of like the

00:05:35.880 Disney of lifestyles. You know, you can really get into it. It's very appealing. It's very warm and

00:05:41.260 friendly and family friendly. And you may not agree with all of it. Like you may, you may be a Disney

00:05:46.320 family and not like the prices they charge or not like the way that they run their corporation or

00:05:51.160 think that they killed Star Wars, but you still just, it's a great place to go on vacations. Your

00:05:56.140 kids love it. You know, you like a lot of the movies. So you just become a Disney family. And I think a lot

00:06:01.460 of people stay with the church or even join the church because of the lifestyle and they don't

00:06:08.860 necessarily buy into the religious doctrine. Though I do think that many more people are leaving the

00:06:15.800 church now because both the religious doctrine isn't holding up, I think really that well in the

00:06:21.540 age of the internet. And also because especially like women, I know read a lot of the, well, like

00:06:29.620 hear a lot of sort of the stances on women and their positions. And it just, it's really hard to both

00:06:34.380 become educated and to be ambitious and to be, to be down with the way the church says women need 0.98

00:06:41.240 to be or should be. Right. So this is really fascinating to me. And I think the Disney analogy

00:06:49.500 is pretty apt because I can look at Disney and be like, well, there still are aspects of Disney

00:06:54.680 products that I am able to engage with, but I can also see the direction things are going and the size

00:07:00.740 of their bureaucracy is just so large and so unchangeable that I know that where Disney is

00:07:06.360 going is a place I cannot follow. Um, and it's going towards collapse basically. And I, and I,

00:07:12.220 I think that the Mormon church is very far from that, but I do think it's heading in a negative

00:07:17.000 direction and that is very worrying to me. So when we talk about religious traditions, we talk about

00:07:25.980 them as sort of cultural units, like collections of memes that often co-evolve with individuals and

00:07:32.500 they can create a culture, which can be very strong after somebody leaves the church. And so this is

00:07:38.420 something where, when I look at a secular Jew who is no longer theologically Jewish, but now a secular

00:07:44.100 Jew, I can still see a lot of their cultural practices and a lot about them. Mormons, this is

00:07:49.040 something that you see it really strongly. When a person deconverts from Mormonism and becomes

00:07:55.140 secular, especially if they don't, if they aren't just like a reactionist against the church,

00:08:00.660 they are, yeah, some of the like mentally healthiest people I know, or in some of the,

00:08:07.160 the best people I know in terms of cultural fit with our cultural traditions. And they also are

00:08:13.840 unusually successful. So you see them just absolutely dominate in terms of online spaces,

00:08:21.320 a lot of top influencers or Exmos. So in this leads to, I think, one of, if we're going to be 0.99

00:08:28.040 critical of Mormonism, one of the things I would say, which is the most critical is that unfortunately

00:08:37.000 the theology, and I think this is what you meant in terms of the age of the internet, it's really hard

00:08:42.120 to believe. It's like trans people don't have an advantage at sports, hard to believe. And because 1.00

00:08:48.520 of this, some level of psychological sectioning is prevalent within many of the more educated

00:08:56.240 Mormons I know, which leads them to become susceptible to things that other communities

00:09:03.820 aren't as susceptible to. Right. Like I've heard that in Mormon communities, MLMs are pervasive, 0.99

00:09:09.000 for example. MLMs is a big one here. So yeah, Mormon communities are incredibly 0.96

00:09:15.280 susceptible to certain types of mental viruses. MLMs being one of the most damaging to the Mormon 1.00

00:09:21.780 community. Because so to work within the church, so much has to be sectioned off in terms of like,

00:09:30.900 these are things we don't question, that sometimes things fall into that preserve that shouldn't be on

00:09:37.960 the preserve. MLM type ideology being injected into it, being one of these things. And so this isn't an

00:09:45.340 intrinsic thing with Mormonism, but it is tied to the level of intentional suspension of disbelief

00:09:52.800 that I think is needed to believe some of the things in the Book of Mormon. Especially some of the

00:09:58.580 historic things that we just have so much evidence that you can easily just like, look at. And it's just

00:10:03.760 not, it is not like modern progressive history that's at odds with it. It's like the history that

00:10:13.260 all other conservative groups agree on. You know, whether you're talking about like conservative

00:10:17.320 Catholics or conservative Protestants or conservative, you know, many, many other conservative groups,

00:10:22.920 they all agree on this history as well. And it is just like strictly at odds with the Book of Mormon.

00:10:29.880 And you can do apologetics and you can look into it. But I, as somebody who's, who's, who's not a

00:10:35.420 member of the church, I can say that it's clear that this sort of preserve of things we don't question

00:10:42.100 within the Mormon tradition is much bigger than the other conservative Christian denominations.

00:10:49.840 I think you and I both really enjoy watching video interviews with people who have deconverted, 0.99

00:10:55.340 either from the mainstream church or from more, we'll say aggressive factions, you know, splinter groups

00:11:03.680 that are not, that the main church doesn't endorse. And one of the really common threads that seems to

00:11:10.800 show up again and again is they really, really, really want to believe. And every, every time someone

00:11:17.920 like a church elder gives them advice or coaching on how to address it, it's just so insulting.

00:11:25.260 Like it, you know, it, it just really doesn't work. They're, they're, they're not good resources.

00:11:30.380 And then, you know, this sort of forces people to look things up online where they just find

00:11:35.060 damning, like reams of damning information. And I, I really wonder what's going on with internal

00:11:41.300 church governance there because they have to be looking at their rates of attrition. They have to be

00:11:44.960 looking at, which are high. So something to note about the Mormon community is it looks like they 1.00

00:11:49.080 fallen below repopulation rate and they have really high attrition rates. So like what, you know,

00:11:54.020 and, and the other thing is you pointed out that, that the LDS church has adapted in the past,

00:12:00.040 you know, and they are accelerationist in many ways. They are, they're happy to develop new social

00:12:04.940 technologies. They've changed, for example, their stances on race in the past. So why aren't they

00:12:09.360 adapting more now? This is the answer. It's because the central church now is more bureaucratic

00:12:14.960 and larger and there is more inertia. So it's a very interesting mix where you have a naturally

00:12:20.260 accelerationist cultural group paired with a hierarchical theological structure, like, like

00:12:28.180 a structure that determines what the theology is, which is the, the governing structure and

00:12:33.480 that determines what the rules are. And so this, this is where I think the Mormon church is going 0.57

00:12:39.000 and the iterations of the Mormon church that'll be successful. I think the ones that follow the 0.88

00:12:42.220 central church are going to be the ones that eventually die at. Well, what worries me about

00:12:46.760 that though, is pretty much the only ones that, per my knowledge, don't follow the central church.

00:12:52.600 Don't do it because they're polygynous for some reason. It's because they're polygynous. No, 0.98

00:12:56.580 there's, there's other groups that are talking about it right now. Non-polygynous splinter groups.

00:13:00.680 Okay. So there's within the, so this is the interesting thing. Within the Mormon intellectual

00:13:05.120 sphere where I come close to it, there is talk of different ways of relating to things,

00:13:11.940 different ways of relating to monumentism, like monumental building and stuff like that,

00:13:17.040 different ways of saying, can we still technically be under the central church,

00:13:21.200 but like change things within our community and like these distinct ways. So you're beginning to

00:13:26.960 see this branch out happening, but it's not happening as an open revolt. Yes. The, the

00:13:33.080 polygynous Mormons are in active revolt against the central church. I don't expect it to be that

00:13:39.480 disharmonious. I expect it to be some groups increasingly do things that are additional rules

00:13:49.100 maybe that sort of change the nature of things or different interpretations of teachings that make

00:13:55.140 them more resistant to information online, but that makes them more and more deviate from what people

00:14:02.360 consider like a traditional mainstream, like central church Mormon. I mean, I think that many of these

00:14:07.660 groups will be more conservative. And when I say conservative, I mean that in the accelerationist

00:14:12.520 fashion. What I mean is they will be more differentiated from the sort of mainstream progressive value set,

00:14:20.560 which is dominant in urban centers throughout our society, that the central church beliefs and

00:14:26.440 teachings will be closer to that than the splinter groups. What I find interesting in what you're

00:14:32.780 describing is that if what you're saying is true and there are a broad range of different splinter

00:14:39.220 groups, not all just like sort of polygynous cults, but also just different groups and communities

00:14:45.440 that are still trying to tap into the network effects of the LDS church, which I think it's one of the

00:14:51.800 strongest selling points while also maintaining, we'll say more sustainable philosophies.

00:14:59.060 So why I think that's interesting is I think one of the primary selling points of this Disney Mormon 0.97

00:15:04.020 lifestyle, right? Is that one, it has one of the best modern solutions to dating markets that we've

00:15:09.820 seen, right? It's, there are several different. And again, we've mentioned this in another video.

00:15:14.320 We know somebody who converted to Mormonism just to find a husband and did.

00:15:18.740 Right. And so, I mean, between singles wards, between people knowing to go to BYU to find a

00:15:24.900 partner because people converging upon this university are far more likely to be looking

00:15:29.720 to marry someone. And then between that and other conferences that are held among single young

00:15:36.260 Mormons that we've only just been told about, thanks to helpful YouTube commenters,

00:15:41.020 that's like incredibly valuable. But if the church splinters into a bunch of different factions and it's no

00:15:47.540 longer unified, then you're not going to get that. And you really need the network. It's just like a,

00:15:52.320 it's a key marketplace problem. So I worry about that because I really want, I want someone to prove

00:15:58.700 that you can have functioning relationship markets in the modern world without coercion. You know,

00:16:04.200 all of this is often, you know, people aren't forced. There may be some social pressure,

00:16:08.180 but you know, whatever. And, and yet like, I do think it's possible.

00:16:12.060 You're seeing that. Yeah. I do think it's possible. And I think we're seeing that already in the church

00:16:16.160 and that you are seeing these differentiations. You are seeing these groups within the church

00:16:20.480 that are saying, I think there are pretty different ways we could do things. And they

00:16:26.300 aren't being fully kicked out yet. Now, admittedly, they aren't like going up and

00:16:30.420 telling their church elders this stuff. So part of it is it's, it's working because they, at least what

00:16:37.540 I've seen, there's this understating that, Oh, well within our community, most of the young people

00:16:40.980 know about these problems and things will change when we get older and we have more power, but it

00:16:45.720 may not happen. And you may just see a reaction. I mean, especially with life extension technologies

00:16:49.420 and people living longer to the other thing that you were talking about, which I actually think is

00:16:52.860 really interesting to go into. So this guy was talking about dating markets at BYU or girl, I guess

00:16:57.040 actually people may be surprised to hear this. The majority of our audience is female. It's like 53%

00:17:02.640 female or something. So anyway, they were saying you go to BYU and it is not uncommon within your

00:17:08.800 first three weeks to like find a partner and, and, and get engaged because people, especially women go 0.86

00:17:15.020 to BYU with the intention of finding a spouse. And the cultural norm there is that you should find

00:17:22.300 your spouse before you graduate college. That is what you are in college for. Whereas the cultural norm

00:17:27.840 among the, you know, progressive urban monoculture is that you really shouldn't start looking for 1.00

00:17:34.060 a husband until after college, which is just clearly stupid. Or even if you've met the person 0.99

00:17:38.240 that you want to marry, like maybe wait until your thirties to get married, which was how I came

00:17:42.600 into our relationship. You remember? Well, yeah, that's what you thought was normal when you came to

00:17:46.460 me and I was like, no, we're not doing that. You're like, no, we have to wait. It's too fast. And I was

00:17:50.540 like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like you're already an old maid. You're what? You're out of college? 0.98

00:17:54.100 Gross. Um, we gotta, we gotta lock this down and start pumping out kids. 1.00

00:18:01.000 You weren't interested in kids at that time. You know, we, we, we felt still, I think both of us

00:18:05.420 were in that cultural mindset that we needed to have kids, which is another thing that the LDS

00:18:09.080 church really gets right. You know, it doesn't one, I think it has a much more supportive community

00:18:13.940 for people who want to have kids young. And it also encourages people to have kids young. I mean,

00:18:20.880 I, I'm not crazy about the fact that like it, I think there's more pressure to be a stay-at-home

00:18:26.120 mom, even if you don't want to be, which is, I'm not crazy about. I think people should only do that

00:18:30.080 if they're stoked for it, but it's awesome that people are having kids a lot younger. And, you

00:18:35.780 know, when, when we see like when we're out and about and we're traveling and we see, you know,

00:18:40.080 a family of four kids and, you know, parents who are having fun with the kids and playing with them

00:18:44.560 and looking healthy and young and happy and not stressed. It's very clear that they started having kids in

00:18:49.600 their early twenties, you know, and like, I look at them and I feel so jealous, you know?

00:18:53.700 So. I think something that you pointed out, that's really interesting. So people have read

00:18:57.680 the Pragmatist Guide to Crafting Religion. One of the things that we're building is something called

00:19:01.460 the Index, which is essentially a pluralistic religious community that allows for a central

00:19:09.420 organization to create the kind of the network effects that you see in other religious communities

00:19:14.020 where people who are part of this religious community can do things like dating markets and stuff like

00:19:18.140 that and get those benefits while still having very different belief systems. So long as those

00:19:23.460 belief systems are conservative and by conservative, what I mean is differential from this urban monoculture.

00:19:28.020 And so like we would happily welcome in Exmos and stuff like that, or even iterations of Mormonism 1.00

00:19:32.860 that want to break from the mainstream church to try to rebuild a network effect. I think one thing

00:19:40.040 you pointed out that's very interesting is, is so many of the benefits of Mormonism right now come

00:19:44.600 from this large network effect, which is facilitated by the central church. And the one pathway that

00:19:51.000 could be a really successful long-term pathway is a higher degree of pluralism and social

00:19:56.520 experimentation among different Mormon sects still operating under the central church. I think that

00:20:02.160 that is one path the faith could go down that will lead to enormous success.

00:20:06.860 So a sort of like if, what if like the LDS church sort of WordPressized, right? Like there's like a

00:20:14.740 platform and everything works through WordPress, but it's all like plugins and add-ons and things like

00:20:20.320 that. Right. Well, and I think one thing that's important for people who are listening to this to,

00:20:24.840 to, to make sure that they're not making this mistake is when we say, when we're talking about these

00:20:30.660 groups that are socially experimenting, they are socially experimenting in conservative ways,

00:20:35.260 in ways that would lead to progressive say, Oh my God, how could you do that?

00:20:39.320 Well, is conservative the right, I mean, wouldn't you say in, in values and

00:20:43.340 doctrine aligned ways, or at least values aligned ways, culturally aligned ways?

00:20:49.220 I don't understand the point.

00:20:50.980 No, I mean, I don't know if that means it's inherently conservative. I just think it's inherently.

00:20:56.240 We're going back to the, the graph that I described earlier, and I will describe this graph again.

00:21:01.920 It has two axes. Okay. This axes is progressive to conservative. Okay. Progressive means more like

00:21:08.480 the dominant urban monoculture. Conservative means more deviant from the dominant culture.

00:21:13.480 Okay.

00:21:13.800 The other axie is traditionalist versus accelerationist.

00:21:16.740 Okay.

00:21:17.080 It's easy to confuse these two axes and think that accelerationist means progressive and

00:21:23.960 traditionalist means conservative. Yeah.

00:21:26.160 These are two completely unrelated things. And in fact, generally the most accelerationist

00:21:33.600 cultures are also the most conservative cultures and the most conservative cultures are often the

00:21:38.840 most accelerationist cultures because they need to protect themselves from the dominant societal

00:21:43.540 culture. That's goal is to stamp out anyone who's doing their own thing. Any signs of true

00:21:48.700 diversity within society. Fair. Okay. And I think that this progressive monoculture will

00:21:55.880 eventually inject itself into the central church. It will eventually eat the central church. This virus

00:22:02.920 is incredibly good at corrupting everything, especially large bureaucracies. The larger and more

00:22:12.080 entrenched the bureaucracy is, the more susceptible it is. And it is a miracle that the central church

00:22:17.060 hasn't been eaten yet, but it will be.

00:22:19.560 All right. So we're done discussing that. I think another thing that I really want to talk about

00:22:23.160 with the LDS church and that I love, and I think is such a smart innovation is their, I don't know,

00:22:30.980 what do we want to say? Like fashion ways, their dress ways. Okay.

00:22:34.180 So I, I feel like if we're going to talk, use an analogy, everyone's talking about the quiet luxury

00:22:42.080 style. You know, we're like, you dress in a very high luxury way, but only in a way that

00:22:47.140 other people who are very wealthy will recognize, right? Because it's all very subtle. It's about

00:22:52.300 having really high quality materials, et cetera. What I love about Mormon traditions around dressing 0.99

00:22:58.860 is that you have to know what to look for in order to tell, but you can fairly easily tell,

00:23:07.260 especially if there's like, it's a couple or, you know, you spend a lot of time, like a couple of

00:23:12.120 days with someone over a period of time. If someone is in the LDS church, at least if they're like 1.00

00:23:16.620 adhering to this element of that culture because of their garments and because of, you know, some

00:23:20.620 other sort of just cultural trends. And I think that that's really cool because, you know, on one

00:23:24.700 end of the spectrum with fashion among like cultures or religions, you've got, you know, super,

00:23:31.220 super like Haredi Jews, you've got Amish where it's like, whoa, you're wearing a costume, you know, 1.00

00:23:37.520 like looks super like obvious and like you're turning heads and people are looking around at you.

00:23:43.740 Whereas here you have the quiet luxury. Cultural cohesion. It creates, you know, a sense of

00:23:48.680 belonging to a community, an ability to identify members of your community. Continue. Yeah. So what I

00:23:53.680 like with Mormon dress is that you, you can, you can tell quite often, and this is like to a lesser 0.99

00:23:59.080 extent names, like not everyone has like stereotypical, like Mormon names, but there

00:24:03.220 are like Mormon names. And I liked that there are these subtle signalers that I think add like a

00:24:08.180 booster effect, you know, like imagine that someone had like a kind of obscure, like Star Wars tattoo

00:24:14.120 or I'm not, I'm going to disagree with you on this. I actually think that you think it's too subtle,

00:24:17.900 a softened failure of the church to, you think they should dress more extremely? Yes. Here's why.

00:24:24.620 Okay. When you grow up and you are othered by the urban monoculture, when it tells you you're

00:24:30.300 different and you're weird. And this is something we intentionally do as our kids, give them weird

00:24:34.500 names, weird ways of dressing, stuff like that. Like our family does things where we are intentionally

00:24:39.120 and really specifically othered by society. Like society is like, oh, you guys are weird. You guys

00:24:44.900 are different. You are a different thing. And through that, our kids and me growing up specifically,

00:24:51.100 who also was this way to an extent, realize I'm different. I'm not whatever this mainstream

00:24:58.040 cultural thing is. And in a society where that mainstream cultural thing has obviously failed,

00:25:03.940 where like rates of depression are really high, rates of suicide are really high, you know,

00:25:07.340 like that's a great thing to be like, yeah, I'm different. They're like, aren't you worried your

00:25:10.900 kids will be bullied? It's like, oh, they'll be rejected from the mainstream culture. Like, okay,

00:25:16.460 that's the point. That's the idea. It's a feature, not a bug. Yeah. Yeah. That they will

00:25:22.240 develop an identity and a cultural identity that is deviant from that. Now with Mormonism, 0.94

00:25:29.080 I think their beliefs are differentiated enough that they do separate. Well, I think what you're

00:25:35.580 missing here though, is that, yes, I understand your point. And I think being othered and weirded

00:25:39.980 is great. And I think that Mormons definitely do enough things to make them othered and weirded, 1.00

00:25:44.520 you know, in a way that makes them know that they're different. I think what you're missing

00:25:48.240 though, is that there's a secret club thing that makes people feel really good when they see like

00:25:56.600 the secret handshake or the secret wink or like the secret tattoo that someone has, you know,

00:26:02.020 we're like only they know. So what you're missing here is, yeah, it's great to have that othering

00:26:05.920 effect. I totally agree with you. That's great. But, but what you're missing is that there's just

00:26:09.500 totally separate phenomenon when you get an in-joke and that in-joking is very powerful.

00:26:16.380 You've convinced me. Delta. You've convinced me. I think it rarely happens. Oh, the satisfaction.

00:26:21.660 It doesn't rarely happen. You've convinced me all the time.

00:26:26.340 Not always. You're, you're the smart one in this relationship. So.

00:26:30.340 I, I, I love the, but again, you know, we talk about willful suspension of disbelief, right?

00:26:35.300 That's what she needs to do to constantly believe that I'm the smart one with all the ideas.

00:26:40.800 Constant suspension of disbelief. Nice try.

00:26:45.400 I love it. Yeah. So I guess what I'd say is, is Mormonism. I mean, would you,

00:26:51.000 or do you have any other points you wanted to talk on about this?

00:26:55.520 Yeah, I do actually. So it's the, the only culture I know of, like if it's a religious culture,

00:27:02.080 so what we would call a cultivar where it's a mixture of culture and religion that includes

00:27:07.820 a very practical level of safety, practicality, and survivalism, you know, that it's encouraged to

00:27:14.280 have six months worth of food supply that, you know, you should have an emergency plan. You should

00:27:19.060 rotate through that food supply and, you know, cook what's about to expire and et cetera. The fact

00:27:24.020 that that's done, you know, yes, there are, there are doomsday preppers in the U S like that's a

00:27:30.380 total thing. It's a total subculture, but that's more like an identity, like a fan community to me

00:27:37.260 than like a cohesive culture. You know, there isn't like a, there are, there are correlatory

00:27:41.620 factors and correlatory values among doomsday preppers, but nowhere does it come close to

00:27:46.480 what you see with the LDS church. And I also really admire that. And it's not just, you know,

00:27:51.200 imparting useful practices to people in the church, you know, like temples also have resources for

00:27:59.860 disasters. You know, like this is a, this is a culture that wants to create civilizational level

00:28:06.720 resilience. If like shit hits the fan, that's really cool. And I think that's underrated when 0.99

00:28:14.220 people think about religious or cultural innovation, you know, they, they think about

00:28:18.900 maybe dating markets, maybe better aligning with values, but especially in an age in which people are

00:28:26.560 losing essential life skills, like crazy. I think it's, it's a notable point that that's something

00:28:33.260 that's encouraged within that culture. So one thing, yeah, that I'd add to this, which I think

00:28:37.640 is something that a lot of people don't know is one thing I really like that Mormonism does is it is

00:28:42.280 something that we've actually taken for our own kids is I believe that intense hardship is really

00:28:47.560 needed at certain parts of a kid's life and that they need to experience what these things feel like,

00:28:52.820 what starvation feels like, what really having to figure out your own stuff. Cause that's something

00:28:56.680 I went through as a kid, you know, and I think if we raise our kids without any of that, I think it

00:29:00.760 creates a lot of negative psychological effects. So one practice that exists within Mormonism is they

00:29:06.920 will do the Mormon trail or the, the thing that their ancestors did. Like with the covered wagons and 0.70

00:29:13.060 all that fun stuff. So this is something they'll do in the late teen years where they will try to

00:29:17.740 recreate this trail that their ancestors went on through the desert, pulling these, these carts

00:29:24.820 with low water supplies, with low food supplies, and really experience this extreme hardship that

00:29:31.640 almost no one in society today gets the opportunity to experience. And I think that this has, and I

00:29:38.800 think we'll see that it has permanent changes in the way a person's brain works as they get older,

00:29:44.080 if they experience one of these extreme, extreme hardship moments during specific developmental

00:29:49.260 milestones. And so I think that this is very beneficial. And I really admire that element

00:29:53.880 of their culture. I'd actually go so far and to say that I think they should lean into it more.

00:29:58.500 I think it should be longer. I think it should be more recurring during a person's childhood.

00:30:02.880 So if you look at like what we're trying to build for, for our kids in our community,

00:30:06.440 one of the things we've looked at building is, is there's some land up in Northern Canada where we're

00:30:11.280 looking at essentially creating a station where the kids have to learn to survive. And now, of course,

00:30:15.820 the whole thing will be wired with cameras and stuff like that. So we can make sure they don't

00:30:19.980 end up killing themselves or a bear doesn't like come on to the territory and end up creating problem.

00:30:25.460 But I think this sorts of extreme survivalism and having to figure it out on your own and experiencing

00:30:31.680 that is, is really important culturally, especially if you're moving into a civilization where many of

00:30:37.560 the luxuries that we've come to expect today, maybe our kids shouldn't expect is being as common

00:30:42.340 during their adult life. And what we also haven't talked about in terms of hardship is missions,

00:30:48.220 which, you know, few women go on, but like a lot of men do. I mean, I think one of the super

00:30:54.120 underrated aspects of that, of a, of a mission isn't, I mean, one, I guess it can get, it can get you

00:30:59.880 to double down on your culture, but I feel like these days, a mission is equally liable to make you

00:31:04.400 your culture. No, I think missions are a primary failure point of Mormonism, but we can get to 0.98

00:31:09.780 that. Continue with what you were going to say. So, well, but they have an upside. I think they

00:31:13.160 could be redesigned. And, and one thing that I think makes them uniquely interesting is they make

00:31:18.440 especially Mormon men uniquely attractive in certain facets of the job market. I totally understand the

00:31:26.300 point you're making here, Simone, which is, you know, especially in sales positions, Mormons are just 1.00

00:31:33.280 incredible because when you need to sell something that to a non-Mormon sounds pretty ridiculous and 0.95

00:31:38.800 you need to constantly deal with that rejection, that's one of the biggest parts of being a good

00:31:43.060 salesperson and developing those techniques and that resistance to rejection. But more importantly,

00:31:48.460 sales isn't just an important job for sales. Sales is an important job for raising money. Sales is an

00:31:54.060 important job for doing a job application or a university application. There's a saying at Stanford

00:32:00.760 and Harvard Business School that most of the students fall into the three M's, which is Mormons, military,

00:32:08.300 or children of millionaires.

00:32:10.380 Wait, children of millionaires. Why would they have an advantage?

00:32:15.100 Because of Nepo babies? 1.00

00:32:16.580 You could say that they're Nepo babies. You could say it's family culture or whatever, but it is true that 1.00

00:32:20.640 those three groups are, and millionaires today, you'd probably say billionaires or, you know, quarter billionaires or

00:32:26.220 whatever.

00:32:26.340 I feel like they would perform way worse. I get Mormon. I get military, but anyway, that's interesting. 1.00

00:32:31.360 It was definitely something you see is kids from wealthy families are disproportionately represented

00:32:35.780 at top business schools. Mormons are disproportionately represented, and so are people from the military.

00:32:42.120 It's just a classic thing at top business schools. So you do see the advantage of this. Now let's talk

00:32:46.840 about why I think mission trips are a failure in today's environment. Almost always when I meet

00:32:55.000 a Mormon who has deconverted, the deconversion started on their mission trip. And almost always 1.00

00:33:02.600 they were incredibly fervent believers before the deconversion started. If you have a practice within

00:33:09.720 your cultural tradition that is causing disproportionately the most fervent believers to deconvert,

00:33:15.900 then that's something you need to work on. And it is really interesting to contrast

00:33:22.540 with Rumspringer. So both the mission trip and Rumspringer serve similar functions, which is to say

00:33:32.040 during the portion of a person's life where they are in this rebellious teen phase, they are coming

00:33:37.340 into their own as an adult, and they are likely to deconvert. One organization essentially says, okay,

00:33:42.700 let's put you on constant supervision of another member of our cultural group, and separate you

00:33:48.340 from friends and family, and you know, all of the things that might cause deconversion, and then put

00:33:53.080 you in an environment where you are constantly, through sunk cost fallacy, reaffirming your belief

00:33:57.740 system. Like, theoretically, it sounds like a good idea. The problem is that the human brain just doesn't

00:34:02.720 really work that way. Now you could say that mission trips are about conversions. If you actually look at

00:34:06.640 the numbers, and in the Fragment Sky to Crafting Religion, we go through this, mission trips are not really

00:34:10.220 good at converting people. When people convert to Mormonism, it's through other mechanisms often.

00:34:14.600 Like, they boast high conversion rates, but if you look at the number who stay in the church,

00:34:20.020 like, if you're just looking at baptisms, yeah, mission trips seem really effective. If you look

00:34:23.880 at actual growth in those regions of the Mormon tradition, they're not very effective. They're mostly

00:34:30.440 about, from a cultural evolution perspective, keeping members. But the problem is you look at the exact

00:34:36.120 opposite of all of those things I just mentioned, which is Amish Rumspring, right? It's like during

00:34:40.480 the period where you're most likely to deconvert, we say, yeah, if you want to, you can just like

00:34:45.640 leave the community and do whatever you want for a period. But no, I mean, there are consequences to

00:34:50.580 it, but mostly just go do what you want. And to people who are in one of these communities, where

00:34:55.360 there is a high social support network, where there is high in-group, what actually ends up happening

00:34:59.220 with Amish Rumspring, so a lot of people assume that Rumspring is like, kids leave, they go out,

00:35:03.780 they have a bunch of sex, they do a bunch of drugs. Not really. Actually, what happens is

00:35:08.820 they're told, you can do whatever you want. And this knowledge that they can do whatever they want

00:35:15.240 leads them to instead be like, okay, why don't I go get a buggy? Like, that'll be my big crazy thing

00:35:20.000 that I'll do. But otherwise, I'm basically not going to do anything that rebellious because why?

00:35:26.380 Like, when you can all of a sudden do whatever you want, what you realize, especially when you start

00:35:32.360 engaging in it is how hollow, you know, again, we define the world as progressive versus conservative

00:35:38.220 here, how hollow all of these things that this urban monoculture is offering are, how hollow all

00:35:44.720 the partying is, how hollow all the sex is, how hollow all the drugs are. You can engage with these

00:35:50.280 things, but if through engaging in them, you lose the community support, you lose, all of a sudden,

00:35:55.160 you're like, no, screw that. To the extent where I think a lot of progressives are like,

00:35:58.200 oh, but what if they're gay and they have to live out their whole lives, you know, as living 1.00

00:36:04.580 this straight lifestyle? You can read about Amish people who like, and this is the thing about

00:36:09.000 conservative cultures, like progressive cultures act like they pretend like gay people don't exist. 0.71

00:36:13.540 They don't pretend like gay people don't exist. They just have different social constructs for how to

00:36:20.160 deal with it when a person is born with a predominant same-sex attraction. Within Amish communities,

00:36:25.020 and you can read blogs of this, they know, they're like, look, I am predominantly same-sex

00:36:29.380 attracted. I know this is an aspect of my life I will never be able to fully participate in,

00:36:34.960 but I have engaged with that within the progressive world and I have lived an Amish person growing up

00:36:40.940 and I can tell you the Amish lifestyle is better even if I am forced to marry someone I don't find

00:36:47.160 sexually attractive because I can build a caring relationship for them. I can raise kids. It's the

00:36:52.240 part of my life that will never be as fully fulfilled as it is the other people in my community,

00:36:56.180 but that doesn't mean that the only solution to having been born same-sex attracted

00:37:02.980 is just complete engagement with progressive culture, complete engagement with their ways of

00:37:09.640 solving this.

00:37:10.600 I do wonder is actually how there's an interplay between this and the belief that the person that

00:37:19.820 you marry, you're like perma-married to, you know, after you die, you will be united again and you

00:37:24.940 will spend all of eternity together.

00:37:26.600 Oh yeah, this is great.

00:37:27.580 Yeah.

00:37:27.720 What I think is interesting about that is the reframing of marriage like that. I mean,

00:37:31.820 I don't think that people are picturing like, I mean, maybe they are, but like, I don't think

00:37:36.120 they're picturing like super hot sex, like as they're, you know, off in the afterlife or whatever

00:37:42.100 comes next, you know, building new worlds and everything, right? Like being like gods.

00:37:46.220 And, and so I wonder if perhaps a lot of it just takes the hedonism and the sexual, like

00:37:53.620 focus out of marriage and instead refocuses it into...

00:37:57.840 It's a really healthy one, I think, which is to say that when a Mormon, it's funny, 1.00

00:38:02.280 within progressive culture, it would be seen as unhealthy. They believe that when you get

00:38:05.900 married, you are with this person forever, like after death forever, forever, forever.

00:38:10.440 And it passed your physical corporeal existence. The vast minority of your time with this person

00:38:17.760 will sex be an option. And one, that means you don't really like fights are not an option.

00:38:24.360 You have to figure out how to work this out.

00:38:26.380 Fights, fights are an option. I think what's different is that...

00:38:29.180 Fights are an option, but, but long-term systemic disagreements, like you can have conflict,

00:38:35.740 but the goal is to work it out because eventually...

00:38:38.720 Well, because it's not about you anymore. It's about you as a team, as a united unit,

00:38:44.820 as you together forever. And I think you're going to look at conflict very differently

00:38:49.860 when it's what, what do I want? What makes me happy versus like, how are we going to fix this for us?

00:38:57.300 And I think that it's a really interesting framing. And I think it would change the way,

00:39:00.840 like, if I lived in a culture, like I'm, I'm attracted to dudes, kind of, kind of only attracted

00:39:07.780 to you, Malcolm. But like, if someone, if I like grew up in a culture where they're like, Simone,

00:39:11.700 you have to marry a woman. Like, you know, my focus would be on finding a woman who I was 1.00

00:39:16.720 ideologically aligned with. And like, you know, we got along and like, we were ready to take on

00:39:21.140 the future and the world together. And we knew that we worked well together, you know, and like,

00:39:24.860 it wouldn't be about the sex. And that's okay. You know, and I think that that for many,

00:39:30.060 many cultural groups, that does sound very, very wrong, right? Like,

00:39:35.900 Yeah, like, how can you have a life without enjoying sex?

00:39:39.080 Yeah, right? Like, here's the thing, right? It's like, so Mormons are getting married, 0.78

00:39:43.580 Mormons are having kids, etc. And then you like, look at these plummeting sex rates

00:39:47.000 of the predominantly atheistic culture, right? And so it's like, well, you know, but who's really getting,

00:39:54.280 you know, getting sex now anyway? Who's sexually satisfied now anyway? Although I guess maybe

00:39:59.520 like, gay male communities are doing all right.

00:40:02.880 Oh, yeah, they're doing okay.

00:40:04.100 I don't know. I don't know how the church deals with it.

00:40:06.520 No, that's one cultural solution. And we don't try to like, we can try to give a honest take

00:40:11.060 about different cultures. But we always say that every cultural solution is up to them. And all we

00:40:17.280 want to do is see as many and as diverse cultural traditions surviving into the future. Now, to the thing

00:40:22.500 you were saying earlier, one thing that we praise Mormonism on in our books is, it has the best

00:40:27.180 afterlife, from our perspective, the best conception of an afterlife. The idea that one, you're spending

00:40:32.380 your afterlife with your spouse, like, I can't imagine not spending my afterlife with you.

00:40:36.120 If you love your spouse. Yeah, same.

00:40:37.980 You also get a meaningful project to work on with them, where you're like, oh, it's a big,

00:40:42.240 meaningful project. Because yeah, I mean, just an afterlife in bliss or complacency,

00:40:46.660 like, I really wouldn't like that. I like the idea of continuing to work with you after I die,

00:40:52.120 not just being around you and blissing out or something, or being around people we like or

00:40:57.260 something. I like the idea of having a project. But to that extent, when you talk about the

00:41:01.980 combined identity, it is very similar to our own theology in that way. Whereas we believe that

00:41:06.900 when a person gets married, they meaningfully become the same entity, they stop being two genders, 0.86

00:41:13.280 they stop being two different things. They are one thing. And a goal of marriage is to an extent,

00:41:21.020 the dissolution of the self. And that the way we live forever is through our kids and through our

00:41:28.080 family culture. And they really are a combination of the two of us. And that being the case, when we

00:41:37.940 think about how we live far into the future, it is as a combined entity. And we do like that

00:41:44.720 similarity we see with the Mormon tradition, even if the two things are very differentiated.

00:41:48.880 Another big similarity we have as a Mormon tradition is we are a highly derived and highly

00:41:53.580 accelerationist iteration of the Christian tradition. And where many would call us non-Christians,

00:42:00.260 many would call Mormons non-Christians. Like, yeah, we believe in a God, but like,

00:42:04.360 lots of caveats if you're going to try to call that a traditional Christian God. And it's the

00:42:10.680 same with the Mormon tradition. Do we think of ourselves as Christians? Yes. Do Mormons think

00:42:14.960 of themselves as Christians? Yes. But from the boundaries on Christianity that many other groups

00:42:20.680 place, I think both of us fall pretty squarely outside of that. And that's just another differentiation

00:42:25.660 there where we do have a lot in common with Mormons.

00:42:29.500 So the final thing I really admire, just as like a final note is I really appreciate it when new

00:42:37.400 cultures or religions and, you know, like the LDS church is relatively new, take mainstream holidays

00:42:43.100 and just punch them up or make them better. And for me, like, man, you know, Mormon Christmas is one 0.92

00:42:50.200 of the best flavors of Christmas. Like they take it, they make it a big deal. It's just amazing and

00:42:55.920 wonderful. And I really miss Mormon Christmases. And so, I don't know, there are just so many things

00:43:01.260 about the LDS church that are great. I hope what you're saying about the fracturing, like subunits 0.98

00:43:06.140 working in this, in this, this collaborating marketplace comes to pass.

00:43:11.760 Or, or one sliver of it will be so successful that it won't matter that it doesn't have the

00:43:16.240 market effects. It will be expelled from the central church, but it will be expelled in a way that

00:43:21.820 allows it to be even more innovative than it is right now. And you will come up with interesting

00:43:27.180 solutions. And if you are from a faction of, of, of the Mormon culture like that, please read the 0.86

00:43:32.500 Pragmatist Guide to Crafting Religion. Like it's like a playbook on how to adapt and better fight the

00:43:37.860 progressive mind virus, because eventually it will take your church just like it does everyone else.

00:43:42.980 Yeah. Well, Mormons, we love you. You're amazing. Don't disappear, thrive and succeed. We are not one of

00:43:51.300 you, but we deeply admire you. So yeah, we'd love to hear what you think of our hot takes

00:43:56.240 and Malcolm though, sadly, we will not probably be spending eternity together aside from through

00:44:03.600 our children. Yay. At least we can have future conversations like this. So thanks for this.

00:44:08.160 And I love you a lot. I love you too. And I do wish we, we got to live literally together forever,

00:44:15.400 but I think in every meaningful context, we do get to like who I am today changes, see our video

00:44:20.940 on determinism. I might even link to it on, on, on, oh no, life extensionism. That might be the one

00:44:26.060 where we talk about this. You know what? I'll lead to both of them because we talk about it in one of

00:44:29.160 them. Good. All right. I'll see you soon. Have a good one.

Based Camp - June 06, 2023

Based Camp： Why Mormons Won't Inherit the Earth

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