Based Camp - January 23, 2025


Can Women Be Convinced to Have Kids？ (Probably not)

Topics
Omega rights activism bobinification of women pregnancy and bone health
Hosted by
Malcolm Collins Simone Collins
Mentioned
Trump Malcolm Omega Hermione Granger Phyllis Schlafly Simone Catherine Collins Onigiri Torsten Omegas Guilty Hannah Toasty Zyler Indy Thor
Trump's Inauguration, Conquering Greenland, & Political Updates Tract 9： A God of the Gaps Is a God of Ignorance

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 5 minutes

Words per minute

182.89

Word count

11,939

Sentence count

901

Harmful content

Misogyny

64

sentences flagged

Toxicity

23

sentences flagged

Hate speech

45

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we respond to a listener's question about whether or not women should be allowed to have kids, and why they don't want to have them. We also talk about the Omegaverse, a fictional fictional world where women can have more rights than in the real world.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hello, Malcolm. I'm really excited to be speaking with you today. Today, we're responding to
00:00:05.600 actually a Basecamp listener email and comment. He basically interacts with, through his friend
00:00:11.980 network and through dating, a lot of what he describes as upper middle class, college educated
00:00:17.300 women in New York City who typically went to school around or near New York or upstate New 0.91
00:00:23.840 York. Many of them went to elite schools and they don't want to have kids or they're nervous about
00:00:29.280 having kids. And the question here is, can I effectively counter the arguments that he is
00:00:35.880 getting from them pretty consistently? And he outlined them, I think very well. The arguments
00:00:39.900 map very closely to what I experienced or like what I was concerned about before I met you when
00:00:45.380 I was still a single ambitious young woman. Not that I'm not ambitious anymore. I think I'm more
00:00:50.280 ambitious now, which is part of the discussion here. So let's just dive right into his compiled
00:00:56.380 complaints of these young, ambitious, successful women. 1.00
00:01:00.380 And hold on, before we do any of them, I will be laying out my premise, which is going to be what
00:01:05.000 I'm repeatedly going to go back to in this. Okay.
00:01:07.860 Because I think the questions miss the point in terms of how do you convince women to have kids or
00:01:14.060 be okay with having kids? Okay.
00:01:16.160 Because many people are like, oh, if you create like one that focuses on female empowerment or like 0.55
00:01:20.660 an iteration of the movement, they're basically like, make the movement illogical. Because I'm like,
00:01:24.520 well, you can just explain to women that if they do not do this, like if people who believe that
00:01:28.880 women should have a choice around having kids, if those people can't find a way to motivate above 1.00
00:01:33.700 reproductive populations, people who believe that won't exist in the future, you know, women will 0.97
00:01:38.200 not have these choices. If people who say, oh, women should be allowed to be educated, they're 1.00
00:01:43.100 breeding well below replacement rate, then people in the future won't believe that women should be 1.00
00:01:46.560 allowed to be educated. And this argument is just completely uncompelling to this group,
00:01:52.400 I think shows how very non-serious that they are. And they're like, no, come up with a way to
00:01:58.000 convince me that is compelling to, to what, like that makes your own life better. Like, that's not
00:02:03.480 the point. It's like when people are like, tell me about how great having kids is going to make my
00:02:07.880 life. It's like, well, no, having kids isn't about making your life better. Okay. And if you think
00:02:13.000 though, it does though. And so that's why I'm going to disagree with you on some of these points.
00:02:16.780 That's the secret. That's the secret, the hidden secret. We can't let them know that the people who
00:02:20.800 want to have kids just to improve the quality of their life. But I, I, I here want to say that why,
00:02:26.240 how has society gotten into this place? Oh my God. It's, it's like that, that really annoying Zen 0.52
00:02:30.660 monk thing where they're like, no, you won't achieve enlightenment until you give up trying to
00:02:34.560 achieve enlightenment. That's so fricking annoying, but it's also kind of true in this case.
00:02:38.260 So, yeah. So I was playing in an AI scenario around the Omega verse. And so people who don't
00:02:47.800 know, the Omega verse is a popular online fiction used by women in a lot of like erotic artworks 1.00
00:02:55.860 where like men can get pregnant and it's weird. It's like, there's the two genders, males and females, 0.99
00:03:02.400 but then within the two genders, there's alphas, which are like extra dominant iterations,
00:03:07.180 betas, like normal humans, and then omegas, like an extra submissive iteration. Anyway. And the,
00:03:14.620 this, this genre is used as a super normal stimuli for many women around like ultra dominance in a 1.00
00:03:22.240 culture. And so I wanted to explore one of these worlds. I'm like, that sounds interesting. I'm
00:03:26.240 going to explore one of these worlds. Okay. What comes up in these worlds and I, you know,
00:03:32.080 the concept of Omega rights is a really big part of these worlds, right? Like should Omegas have
00:03:37.700 more rights? Why are Omegas treated as second-class citizens? And yet what I love is that these women, 1.00
00:03:44.880 right? They are fantasizing about a world different from our world where like some humans are born
00:03:51.060 wanting to be submissive and sort of treated like second-class citizens, but like, it's a good thing 0.53
00:03:56.640 because that's just how they're born. Well, some of them are dudes. Some of them are dudes. So it's
00:04:00.640 not just, it's not just us. Oh, no, but the point I'm making is they have basically reinvented the
00:04:06.980 concept of a male-female split and then built it into a fantasy world where it's all- But it's not,
00:04:13.820 it's not, it's not anti-feminist because- It's not anti-feminist because they can have male-male 1.00
00:04:18.760 romances. Yeah. But the funny thing about Omega versus is that the genders otherwise are generally 0.99
00:04:24.760 equal, that males and females are generally otherwise equal. It's just that sometimes
00:04:28.880 they're born having a pension for dominance. Sometimes they're born having a pension for
00:04:34.500 submission. Anyway, so when I was talking to an Omega rights activist in one of these,
00:04:40.080 and I was saying to it, you know, they're like, well, you know, we should have all of these,
00:04:44.320 these things, all of these freedoms, all of these abilities to work, all of these blah, blah, blah,
00:04:47.980 blah, blah. And I was like, but you only decided that those are things of value because in this
00:04:56.440 world, most of the works that are published, you know, most of the famous books in history,
00:05:02.060 most of the world's philosophy was determined by alphas because they're the ones who everyone saw and
00:05:08.320 heard. And this is where I realized, oh, the patriarchy created feminism in a way. 1.00
00:05:14.080 By that, what I mean is the fact that men have been the dominant gender on earth for so long 0.95
00:05:20.980 and written so many of our foundational philosophical works, so many of our foundational narrative works,
00:05:29.640 so much of our foundational religious beliefs, that those things were written with an assumption
00:05:35.580 of a male's desires and life path in mind. And women, when they began to achieve,
00:05:43.720 freedom and the ability to act independently, instead of having some big backlog of women written 1.00
00:05:50.620 literature, they could turn to instead determined what had value like freedom and independence and
00:05:59.740 career and from male literature, literature that was written by males. And so they didn't have
00:06:08.060 so much deeper philosophical well that they could mind that was female coded. 1.00
00:06:14.960 Like, what would we want to do if we had full autonomy?
00:06:19.300 Right.
00:06:19.880 Theoretically, with like a male-dominated world, we can see through male literature and actions and
00:06:24.980 behavior under power, what they will do if they have their druthers. But because women historically have 1.00
00:06:31.680 been in this more suppressed, more secondary, more submissive role, we don't know what they would
00:06:38.420 do if left to their own devices.
00:06:40.320 Well, and they didn't build the philosophy, I guess is the way I put it. Like, philosophy more broadly was
00:06:46.500 built by men for other men.
00:06:49.380 Yeah. So what is the female philosophy? 1.00
00:06:52.680 Well, here's the thing. I think that women had such an unevolved and unadvanced philosophical 1.00
00:06:58.740 framework to fall into, that the framework that they slipped into is what we would call
00:07:02.600 super soft culture. You know, the sort of pre-evolving...
00:07:05.720 Just devolving to the most basal human instincts and sympathetic magic, folk religions.
00:07:11.940 This is why I'm not thinking about magical spells and it's not good.
00:07:15.380 Magical thinking, you know, souls and zodiac signs and all of this represents the types of
00:07:24.840 religious and metaphysical beliefs, a group of humans would likely independently evolve
00:07:29.560 if you just left them on an island, you know?
00:07:31.160 Without civilization. Yeah.
00:07:32.860 Yeah. Without a civilization to build on because women didn't have a civilization to build on 1.00
00:07:38.000 because women historically did not write. And the civilization that was given to them when people 1.00
00:07:43.920 were like, okay, but... And you do have some, you know, early female literature. You're like, look, 0.97
00:07:48.780 y'all be satisfied if you find a man who you respect to spend your life supporting and have a bunch of
00:07:56.580 kids. That's... Yeah, there's these different... There's that. There's the, you'll be happy by
00:08:00.620 serving men. And then there's also the other philosophy of you'll be happy by being a man,
00:08:05.500 which is also not really working out. No, no, no. But the happy serving man, I mean,
00:08:10.180 that's what they had to go on. And they're just like, wait, why does this look so different
00:08:15.300 than what the male codebook is? What the developed codebook is? And it's very much like an Omega 0.80
00:08:22.520 talking to an Alpha in Omegaverse. Like, why do Omegas get pushed towards these pathways? And it's
00:08:29.980 like, well, because you're evolutionarily optimized for these pathways. You find satisfaction in
00:08:35.520 submission the way other individuals could not. You find satisfaction in child rearing in the way
00:08:42.040 other individuals could not and do not. So to pass this on to fiction that is more
00:08:49.200 widely read, there's this whole kind of annoying arc in the Harry Potter series where Hermione Granger
00:08:56.900 tries to free house elves, who find it extremely insulting, this idea that they would be freed.
00:09:03.300 They really don't want to be freed. They really want to serve their house. And this idea of giving
00:09:07.860 them rights is totally not what they're into. And you're kind of this within our house elves
00:09:15.020 is what maybe you're kind of saying. It's funny that you mentioned this because a lot of people
00:09:21.480 don't know this today, but the anti-suffrage movement, i.e. voting for women movement was
00:09:26.520 by women. Women were like, this is a bad idea. I decided to Google this just to make sure I wasn't 1.00
00:09:34.540 bullshitting. And here's the first search result I got. And I will quote from Wikipedia.
00:09:38.860 While men were involved in the anti-suffrage movement in the United States, most of the
00:09:42.260 anti-suffrage groups were led and supported by women. In fact, more women joined anti-suffrage
00:09:47.780 groups than suffrage associations until 1916. While these groups openly stated they wanted
00:09:53.840 politics left to men, it was more often women addressing political bodies with anti-suffrage arguments. 0.97
00:09:59.820 During the fight to pass the 19th Amendment, women increasingly took a leading role in the 1.00
00:10:04.020 anti-suffrage movement.
00:10:05.140 So the suffragettes are Hermione Granger and the... 1.00
00:10:09.600 Right. And they're fighting against other women. A lot of people don't realize this. 0.99
00:10:14.060 Yeah. Phyllis Schlafly and her earlier predecessor. 0.99
00:10:18.260 Well, and what do we see? Were they right? As women have gotten more rights, and you can see this
00:10:23.400 on charts of female happiness over time, female happiness goes down. Female happiness has been 0.99
00:10:29.260 going down dramatically since...
00:10:30.900 And it keeps showing up in all these different ways. I mean, you have one generation, there's
00:10:34.800 Phyllis Schlafly, the next generation, you have stay-at-home girlfriends, and you have 1.00
00:10:38.460 frad wives, and you have, yes, this glorification of a softer, slower life. And yeah. Yeah. It's
00:10:48.720 interesting. It's something that... And it feels so toxic to succumb to it or to wrap yourself in that
00:11:00.480 warm blanket because we've been normalized so much to male standards of success that the average male
00:11:09.740 would find it insulting to enjoy or appreciate that. And I think many women have been raised,
00:11:16.200 I certainly... To hear that myself, I'm like, oh no. No. My entire programming has been built around
00:11:24.540 very masculine standards of success. Have a business, make a lot of money, get powerful,
00:11:30.180 get famous, change politics, change the world, do it myself. And this idea of, hey, maybe you can take
00:11:38.840 care of kids and partner up. Even just the idea of partnering up with a spouse, male or female,
00:11:47.680 but a husband, certainly. Oh my God. It just goes against so much programming. And for context,
00:11:54.780 I grew up in the heart of the Silicon Valley Bay area, right next to San Francisco. I definitely grew
00:12:00.040 up in what you describe as urban monoculture culture. But again, this is why I think I'm very
00:12:05.040 qualified. You're answering this question of why should an ambitious young woman have children 0.99
00:12:11.720 in a very Malcolm way, which is you don't answer the question and you just say what you want to say,
00:12:16.940 which is not speaking to the audience. I can answer these questions speaking to the audience.
00:12:21.380 I can speak to the audience because you did it. You now have this life and you seem to like it. You find
00:12:26.960 it more satisfying, I think, than the life you would have had. Well, yeah, but I'm also kind of
00:12:31.760 cheating because who actually is making the money in this family? You know, who actually is controlling
00:12:37.880 all the finances? Who actually, yeah, that's kind of the problem. I'm not very trad wifey, right?
00:12:43.700 Like who's the stay-at-home partner who is, you know, engaged in the arts?
00:12:48.040 Actually, you say this, but I have found that this is the norm in a lot of relationships I know today
00:12:53.260 that work is we talk about sword and shield partnerships. The wife is typically in charge 0.99
00:12:59.080 of the stable job and stable income streams. And the husband is in charge of things that
00:13:06.300 could move the family up. Yeah. Yeah. The venture capital versus the stocks versus the bonds, the
00:13:13.560 no, the, yeah, the stocks versus the bonds, the venture capital versus the bonds, right? Like the
00:13:18.020 man, the Viking versus the homestead farming. Yeah. Starting, starting, you know, the, the
00:13:24.180 entrepreneurial venture, they might be starting a podcast, you know, like those sorts of things.
00:13:29.060 Yeah. Whereas the other person has like a salary job with benefits. It's, I mean, who does all the
00:13:33.420 work for this podcast, right? You know, you do the talking. Yeah. But anyway, continue, create exact
00:13:39.900 arguments against theirs. Yes. Yes. Because I'm, I'm very grateful for the arguments that this
00:13:44.180 Basecamp listener compiled because they definitely were the concerns that I held as an ambitious
00:13:49.820 young career woman working in San Francisco, you know, 23, 24 years old, who was absolutely vehemently
00:13:57.500 against the idea of having kids. So let's go into it. So he says, I've heard concerns like
00:14:02.100 pregnancy makes you give up your old goals that make you cooler. So you become a boring mom. 1.00
00:14:07.020 I definitely felt that way. Now my answer to that is, okay, just what were these old goals and how cool
00:14:14.340 were they? And that's the thing. People aren't thinking about the counterfactual and just how boring
00:14:19.240 basic people are. I would also argue it's here is defined by distance from the dominant cultural
00:14:25.760 group. Yeah. Or, or just relatability to you. So like, if suddenly someone just starts talking about,
00:14:30.660 you know, their kids and family logistics and you have no relation to that, of course,
00:14:35.120 it's not interesting to you because you, you, you, you don't engage with that.
00:14:39.140 You know, logistics of the orgy. Now that's cool. Yeah. Right. That's weird and subversive.
00:14:45.200 Well, but I would also argue that most people who become boring moms were boring before they 1.00
00:14:51.280 became moms. Like maybe now all they do is talk about parent stuff, which by the way,
00:14:56.720 is bad etiquette. Like no one should just talk about the boring. I think you're making a fundamental
00:15:00.420 mistake here. They are defining cool. And this is important. And I think it's a big problem why women 1.00
00:15:05.500 have a big problem in terms of engaging or getting through fertility collapse is men. Generally speaking, 0.98
00:15:13.300 if you're talking like the difference between male and female brains, what they're cued to
00:15:16.980 determining is the objective truth of reality. A depressing number of people are not cued to
00:15:24.040 determining the objective truth of reality, but what is this socially normative of you on reality,
00:15:30.460 reality, morals, everything. At the end of the day, that's what wokeism represents is a desperate
00:15:38.120 drive to both determine untethered from actual reality, but what are the normative views on reality?
00:15:48.420 Okay. You're not answering in terms of their language though. I would just argue that one,
00:15:52.860 they're probably already boring if they're like that. And there are many women who become extreme 1.00
00:15:58.800 and stay extremely interesting after having kids. I think it's more just like the people who become
00:16:02.960 boring as moms were boring before that. I don't know. I don't know very many interesting women 1.00
00:16:08.300 who don't have kids. Oh, I can name, I can name, well, I can, I can name plenty and I can, I can
00:16:13.960 name plenty of boring moms and I can name plenty of not boring moms. I would say this is, this is a
00:16:18.720 factor independent of it. Let's move on though, because there's tons of subjects here. So concern
00:16:23.580 two, I've heard people cite family members who used to be cooler and then became less independent
00:16:28.360 and started supporting Trump. To them, they looked up to this family member, but it seems like they
00:16:37.560 did an ultimate betrayal of their old independent personality within their culture by urban monoculture
00:16:43.340 pill, right? They literally think of supporting Trump as uncool when what is more subversive in our
00:16:49.920 existing society than supporting Trump? Like for me, even if I like wasn't rich or anything like that,
00:16:55.800 I'd be like, yeah, that's a subversive, cool thing to do, right? Yeah. That's the independent
00:17:00.600 minded thing to do. The non-independent minded thing to do is to do what every other single woman is 1.00
00:17:04.960 doing. And here, what you can see is, I think there's a part of them that's afraid that they'll
00:17:09.520 become this other kind of entity. Yeah. They'll become someone like you who's satisfied supporting
00:17:15.940 her husband and who finds satisfaction in raising kids and who, you know, you are different from them.
00:17:22.340 And it is true that the average married woman does support Trump. You know, white married women
00:17:26.840 support Trump overwhelmingly. White women support Trump on average anyway, but white married women 0.97
00:17:31.840 overwhelmingly. It's only single women who are still really stuck in this alternate reality bubble 1.00
00:17:37.800 and they are shattered that they will have this bubble burst around them.
00:17:43.640 Out there, it's nothing but heartbreak. But in here, who wants Pug Sundays?
00:17:47.920 Hand me a microphone, Zyler. 0.52
00:17:55.720 Totally righteous, bro. Are we brothers?
00:17:58.260 What I'm saying here is that the key is to get women to open up to logical arguments. But the key to 1.00
00:18:04.080 getting them to open up to logical arguments is getting them out of their alternate reality bubble
00:18:09.260 that they're living in. And I understand that this is a challenge people of previous generations
00:18:13.540 didn't have to go through. We are simply dealing with harder times than they dealt with.
00:18:18.980 But because a huge part of both the genetic and memetic and cultural pool is being washed out this
00:18:25.360 generation, the rewards for successfully accomplishing this are greater than they've been
00:18:30.380 in previous generations. So it's not a question of how you develop an argument that works for them
00:18:38.300 while not forcing them to exit their alternate reality mindscape. You need something that makes
00:18:44.680 them want to exit their alternate reality mindscape, whether that's a relationship with you
00:18:49.920 or a purpose or anything.
00:18:52.740 Mabel, listen. I might not have all the answers. I'm not stylish and I'm not cool and I can't make
00:18:59.820 pugs appear out of thin air.
00:19:01.480 Mabel, boo! 1.00
00:19:03.200 Guilty!
00:19:03.700 But I know one thing well, and that's you. And I know that even though you might act like it, you don't want to be in
00:19:10.200 this fantasy world.
00:19:11.200 Uh, yeah, right.
00:19:13.940 You're scared of growing up. And who could blame you? I'm scared, too.
00:19:19.440 Uh, la la la la la la.
00:19:21.140 Look, real life stinks sometimes, okay? I'm not gonna lie. But there's a better way to get through it than denial.
00:19:26.820 Leave this fantasy world.
00:19:28.320 I'd also point out here, the fans of the show where I'm like, oh, this person is definitely gonna end up finding a good wife.
00:19:34.460 They are doing really extreme stuff to make this happen for them. Like, one that I know is converting to both
00:19:41.800 Catholicism and Mormonism and using both of those religions' dating markets to find, like, a broadly sane wife,
00:19:51.320 and I think he'll just stick with whichever religion he finds a wife in. That is commitment in a world where so many of the women have been brainwashed into urban monoculture, and then once they are, there's just very little you can do that doesn't make them an existential risk to you going forwards in your relationship. 0.97
00:20:09.320 Unless you're able to break them out and help them develop a new framework for relating to purpose in their lives, and this is where The Pragmatist's Guide to Life, I think, would be very important.
00:20:20.320 But also, it's just useful because The Pragmatist's Guide to Life is a great for dating book. It's basically Simone and mine's all of our first conversations on our, like, first five dates, and the shortest of our books, and 99 cents.
00:20:33.320 And those worlds are sickly and toxic, and you should be trying to break out of it. And so their fear, and what almost needs to be argued to them, is, like, actually, forget about this whole, you know, have kids things. Why do you still think Trump is bad in 2025?
00:20:50.320 Well, but also, if you're wrong about something, wouldn't you want to be right? I think part of the fear is, like, maybe getting married or having kids will expose me to information that will make me change my mind about something that currently,
00:21:02.320 a position I hold very strongly. If, ultimately, you don't encounter compelling evidence that that is a stance you should shift to, then you won't change your mind. Don't worry about it. Like, you're only going to change your mind and culture if you find that that's genuinely a better way to live and be, and they're better ideas.
00:21:20.320 So I would also say, don't worry about that changing. If you do change those stances, it's going to be because they're better stances. But, yeah.
00:21:29.580 I would also encourage these young ladies to consider other people who didn't have kids but also became less cool. 0.98
00:21:37.140 Because you can also consider, like, that childless dog friend.
00:21:40.120 No, no, no. This is what you're missing here, Simone. You're missing what they mean by cool. That's what you're missing.
00:21:44.960 Is it that they became Trump supporters?
00:21:47.620 Yes. What they mean by cool is they broke out of the urban monoculture.
00:21:53.540 Yeah.
00:21:54.280 That is a part of it. It's obviously thrown in there because he used the word Trump in this example. But, yeah.
00:21:59.640 Okay.
00:22:00.300 Another concern. 1.00
00:22:01.540 Pregnancy makes you stupider. 1.00
00:22:03.140 Similar to the first point, they cite people they know that they think got stupider after having children. 0.99
00:22:07.860 So let's just take a quick look at the actual, like, what happens when you get pregnant. 0.75
00:22:15.500 So several studies have documented mild cognitive impairments during pregnancy, particularly in memory, executive functioning, and attention.
00:22:25.000 So meta-analysis and studies have found that pregnant women often experience declines in general cognitive functioning, like memory and executive functioning, compared to non-pregnant women.
00:22:34.540 But the effects are most pronounced during the third trimester.
00:22:38.120 So one meta-analysis reported significant reductions in these areas, with memory performance declining between the first and second trimesters, but stabilizing afterward.
00:22:46.480 And the primary thing that's going on, aside from the fact that your body's being taxed by pretty hard work, is that you're experiencing some pretty serious hormone fluctuations, like cortisol and prolactin, that can contribute to these changes.
00:22:58.400 And despite these findings, the cognitive declines are generally subtle, and they remain within the normal ranges of functioning.
00:23:06.600 So it's not like you're getting lobotomized by having a pregnancy.
00:23:10.280 And they're typically just something that, like, the pregnant woman or their spouse notices.
00:23:14.580 And then I would point out, so, like, these are things that happen, but, like, if you're, for example, running a marathon, or, like, we talked about in a previous episode, climbing Mount Everest.
00:23:25.100 Climbing Mount Everest causes permanent significant mental damage.
00:23:29.520 With these pregnancy and cognitive impairments, they pass when it's over.
00:23:34.180 You recover.
00:23:35.220 And, of course, like, it's almost like being jet-lagged for a while.
00:23:37.880 Like, okay, when you're jet-lagged, you're sleep-deprived, you know, because you were partying for a week, or because you were traveling, you're going to have some mild cognitive impairments, and they will pass.
00:23:46.760 So this is one of those things that I think I was worried about this.
00:23:49.480 Well, the other thing that I've noticed changed, I just think about you and the other mothers of lots of kids that I know, is you're, and we've talked about this in an unreleased podcast episode, but becoming a parent fundamentally changes your brain in the way you relate to reality.
00:24:01.560 When I say a parent, I don't mean one kid.
00:24:02.880 I mean, like, a real parent, like, three, four kids.
00:24:04.760 No, the changes really seem to take place, and we were talking about this on the Discord, it's three-plus kids is when you get the pretty big changes.
00:24:12.440 Research has very concretely shown that during pregnancy, even a first pregnancy, the brain experiences reductions in gray matter volume, particularly in areas associated with social cognition, like understanding emotions and intentions of others.
00:24:27.240 So that happens the first time around, too.
00:24:31.480 Like, these are actual changes, but they're not so much more efficient.
00:24:34.760 And they're better equipped, not worse. 0.97
00:24:37.140 Like, they assume that these changes mean that women are dumber, which fundamentally haven't been shown. 0.97
00:24:41.660 It's changing the way they socially relate to things, the way they relate to the world. 0.97
00:24:44.980 It's about, like, resource allocation efficiency.
00:24:47.960 Understanding that the, like, the brain is shifting gears and preparing for different types of terrain.
00:24:53.680 So, yeah, the biggest change I have noticed in women who have, like, a real number of kids, like three-plus, is that they typically lose almost all of their anxiety and almost all of their borderline, like, personality features.
00:25:07.280 It's amazing.
00:25:08.340 Yeah, as it was put in Hannah's children, there was, like, one quote from one of the interviews that Catherine did.
00:25:15.460 Something like, having a certain number of kids burns the selfishness out of you.
00:25:21.300 And I just love this metaphor.
00:25:23.480 It really is, like, it just burns it away.
00:25:25.960 Like, this cleansing fire.
00:25:27.520 So cool.
00:25:28.460 But also, yes, anxiety, too.
00:25:30.420 Women who don't have that, they're in this state of constant, I'd almost say, mental collapse after especially a certain age, which is why they need all these therapists and everything like that. 1.00
00:25:40.220 Like, you don't see any therapists.
00:25:42.260 You're not on any psychoactive medication.
00:25:44.360 You're not.
00:25:44.800 And you're perfectly happy with your life, you know?
00:25:47.880 No, way happier than I was before I met you and before I had kids, like, incrementally.
00:25:53.540 Like, I was definitely happier after we got together, and then I got even happier after having one kid, and then way happier now after, like, four.
00:26:02.800 Well, and it's because it's how your brain is structured.
00:26:05.400 Yeah.
00:26:05.680 But, you know, I remember before we had our first kid reading this one book about specifically what happens to women during breastfeeding.
00:26:14.620 And I described it as, like, the bobinification of women. 0.93
00:26:19.300 Like, it did have some, like, mild kind of drugging effects.
00:26:24.920 Like, it made kind of women blissed out and happy. 0.54
00:26:27.520 But kind of, I mentally equated the effects to, like, to cannabis consumption of just kind of blissing people out and making them comfortable with the fact that they're, like, being a cow.
00:26:41.160 As you know, I'm not very into breastfeeding.
00:26:42.740 But, yeah, I mean, that's, that, that is the thing.
00:26:47.900 Bobinification of bobin, I love it.
00:26:50.060 Bobinification of women. 1.00
00:26:51.360 Yeah, I mean, I'll be into that.
00:26:53.060 So there, there are, there are things that, yeah, maybe could kind of do that.
00:26:56.120 But I would also point out, and here's the thing, is there is research indicating that having children actually, especially as someone who's not doing it in a really resource-constrained way, will stave off cognitive decline later in life.
00:27:10.320 So women with two to three children tend to have better late-life cognitive performance compared to childless women.
00:27:17.440 Having two or more children has been associated with modestly lower dementia risk compared to being childless.
00:27:23.120 And this pattern is observed in both men and women, but is particularly notable among women.
00:27:28.280 And then research using brain imaging has found that women with two or three children tend to have younger brain age compared to childless women, which correlates with better cognitive performance.
00:27:39.200 So that, I think, you know, you have to look at the big picture.
00:27:45.100 And while there are certainly, like, short-term.
00:27:47.480 Look, look, look who's here. 0.99
00:27:48.720 Oh, shit. 0.99
00:27:52.060 Hi. 0.99
00:27:52.780 Hello.
00:27:53.100 I am so sorry.
00:27:54.860 Oh, no problem.
00:27:55.920 You're good.
00:27:57.460 We had started a different episode, but hey, we got enough of this and we can finish it up later, Simone.
00:28:02.240 Exactly.
00:28:02.540 So we'll do this episode now, then we'll do dinner, all right?
00:28:05.340 That sounds good.
00:28:06.380 Yeah, we're doing, I'm doing my first experiment of Szechuan chicken.
00:28:09.500 We're back. 1.00
00:28:10.580 We were talking about how pregnancy, young, ambitious women think pregnancy will make them more stupid. 1.00
00:28:16.480 And while, yes, obviously anything that is physically taxing is going to have some effects on you, duh. 0.99
00:28:23.340 Like, let's say you're running a marathon.
00:28:25.140 At the end, do you think you're going to perform really well on, like, executive function and cognitive reasoning?
00:28:30.520 Maybe not.
00:28:31.380 But maybe that's because you're running a marathon.
00:28:33.840 Maybe that's because you're climbing a mountain.
00:28:35.920 And maybe that's because you're growing a human.
00:28:37.760 But guess what?
00:28:38.300 It passes after you give birth.
00:28:39.800 And there's research that indicates that women who have children have lower cognitive or lower dementia risk later in life and improve cognitive performance.
00:28:51.060 So, again, I think this is really huge, especially the research that found that women who have two to three children tend to have a younger brain age as gauged through brain imaging is super interesting to me.
00:29:03.660 One thing that's also interesting to me, which shows the nuance of this argument that I'm not just, like, universally, like, yes, have kids no matter the resources, is that often this research that found that women had lower risk of dementia and better cognitive performance later in life found that that was primarily for women with two to three children.
00:29:22.660 And that women who had more than three children were more likely to show signs of, like, either no improvement.
00:29:30.340 And I think that's because, and the researchers theorized, that's because these women were in lower socioeconomic stratas of society and more resource constrained. 1.00
00:29:39.860 So these people were living with stress their entire lives.
00:29:43.100 So I was going to go through, I thought you'd find this interesting.
00:29:45.660 I collected a number of stats on how pregnancy changes the body and in positive ways.
00:29:50.620 We were going to do an episode on just this, but I can quickly run through it.
00:29:53.280 We should do a separate episode on just this, by the way.
00:29:55.980 A 2017 study involving 1.5 million Swedes found that people with one or more child, regardless of gender, tend to outlive child-free counterparts.
00:30:06.580 Adoptive parents saw even larger longevity benefits.
00:30:09.780 Adopting one child added three years to your lifespan.
00:30:12.300 Adopting two to three children added five.
00:30:14.200 Women who had their first child after the age of 25 were more likely to live to the age of 90 compared to those who had their first child earlier.
00:30:20.620 Women who had their last child after 33 had twice the odds of living to the top fifth percentile.
00:30:26.560 Now, I would assume that this is probably a health correlatory issue here.
00:30:30.200 Okay, mommy brain. 1.00
00:30:31.380 All right.
00:30:31.900 Mommy brain. 0.99
00:30:32.400 The often cited research when a mother forgets something is real, but it's actually fantastic.
00:30:36.560 Research has found that having kids makes women's brains bigger in certain areas, particularly those related to motivation, reward, and emotional processing and reason and judgment. 0.85
00:30:44.980 A pretty good compensation for occasionally leaving the keys in the fridge.
00:30:49.820 Studies have shown increased acute pain tolerance during pregnancy in both animals and humans.
00:30:55.100 And a first-of-its-kind study has revealed that the architecture of women's brains changes strikidly during their first pregnancy in ways that last for at least two years.
00:31:04.920 In particular, gray matter shrinks in areas involved responding to social signals.
00:31:09.640 We found most pregnancy-related gray matter volume reductions persisted six years after partition, but you get benefits in other areas, particularly emotional processing, multitasking, and efficiency, and long-term cognitive benefits.
00:31:24.640 One study suggests that parenting multiple children over a lifespan, they'd benefit brain health, particularly in later life.
00:31:31.800 I think that if there were a vitamin or a supplement or a pill that you could market to people that said, this will increase your acute pain tolerance and also make you a little bit less concerned about social stuff as a woman, a single child as a woman would be like, what?
00:31:47.740 Where can I get this pill?
00:31:49.400 This sounds great because it is.
00:31:51.600 Basically, what we're actually seeing here is a transformation, and we've talked about this in another episode, I don't know if it'll go live before this one, of a female's brain, because this happens to men as well.
00:32:01.580 Like, when you get over three kids, your brain seems to significantly transform in how you're relating to things.
00:32:05.960 And it would have made sense biologically that this transformation would make sense, would be selected for, which is women stop caring about what other people think of them as much. 1.00
00:32:16.520 They stop caring about social games.
00:32:19.220 They stop caring about, like, the Machiavellian parts of-
00:32:22.220 Again, you could take a pill for this, you would.
00:32:24.700 And that is what is being lost.
00:32:26.920 It's a transition to a mindset that most women would prefer. 1.00
00:32:32.480 Yes.
00:32:33.340 And as we know now, all those things that were like, oh, a woman is less satisfied if she's married, but you need the husband out of the room for this to be recorded. 0.53
00:32:41.520 Well, it turned out that what that was asking is not like a husband had left the room.
00:32:45.020 It was, has your husband died?
00:32:46.460 They were less satisfied when their husband had died or had left them.
00:32:50.180 So, women are more satisfied if they're married. 1.00
00:32:53.800 Yeah.
00:32:54.100 Now, I do, so I don't want this to be propaganda video, all right?
00:32:58.780 I want to be realistic.
00:32:59.840 And I think it's important for us to point out that, yes, pregnancy can increase the risk of certain health conditions, like hypertension, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia.
00:33:07.680 But it also prevents certain health conditions, a lot.
00:33:11.220 For example, I have pretty bad, well, I came into my pregnancies, my childbearing years, having pretty severe osteoporosis.
00:33:19.400 And this is a result of having an eating disorder in my youth.
00:33:23.180 And this is a common thing for young women who had eating disorders and lived for a long time with low birth rate or had hypothalamic amenorrhea.
00:33:30.160 I took Fosamax to attempt to ameliorate this and took regular DEXA scans to check my bone density in response to the Fosamax dosage.
00:33:39.960 Didn't really do a whole lot of good, to be honest with you.
00:33:42.360 Plus, it has a lot of risks associated with, like, you have to tell your dentist even when you get, you know, dental cleaning and you're on Fosamax.
00:33:48.800 So I had to stop taking it because you're not supposed to take it while you're pregnant because typically this is for, like, very old women who have osteoporosis, not women who are going through pregnancies.
00:33:58.400 Had to stop taking it.
00:33:59.940 Was really worried about things like pregnancy and breastfeeding because these things are known to leach calcium from your bones.
00:34:06.500 Well, it looks like the body kind of has some, you know, measures to make up for that.
00:34:10.940 So, though, yes, it can leach calcium from your bones and a lot of other things, pregnancy can leach a lot from your body, it seems to also sort of reopen your body to restoring itself much more effectively.
00:34:23.640 Kind of like bringing back adolescence.
00:34:25.420 My bone density is better now.
00:34:28.080 In fact, most of the areas in which I had severe osteoporosis in my lumbar spine around my hips has now changed to just osteopenia, which is a much like it's not great bone density, but it is actively improved.
00:34:40.100 And I am no longer in super dire straits in several parts of my body, which is huge.
00:34:46.760 So, like, again, like, to Malcolm's point, pregnancy can also help.
00:34:51.300 It's not just you.
00:34:52.280 So, another great example here is the other famous pronatalist Collins family.
00:34:56.460 They're not explicitly pronatalist, but they have, like, nine kids and she's a mommy blogger.
00:35:00.000 It's an interracial couple.
00:35:01.780 They're, like, she seems like a sweet person, honestly.
00:35:04.560 The fundy bloggers love to rag on them.
00:35:06.340 But anyway, it appears that now she doesn't appear to be drawing this connection, but she's been having kids pretty much constantly for, like, the past nine years or something like that.
00:35:16.400 And before this, she had pretty severe multiple MS, I want to say, or one of those.
00:35:22.620 I'll change it in post if it's something else.
00:35:24.280 But it's a neurodegenerative disease that we know from research pregnancy stops.
00:35:29.560 And so, one of the fears that some of the people who watch her have is if she stops having kids, she's going to immediately die.
00:35:37.020 Oh, my God.
00:35:39.420 When you stop having kids?
00:35:40.840 It's, like, her body right now is, like, speed.
00:35:44.360 Like, you can't go under 90 miles an hour.
00:35:46.420 The body explodes.
00:35:47.680 It's like speed.
00:35:48.980 That's, yeah.
00:35:52.580 And so, it's just, like, I think the research says, for, like, in terms of just aging people, I think a lot of young women are really concerned about advanced or premature aging.
00:36:01.100 So, and it is true that several studies suggest pregnancy can accelerate biological aging.
00:36:05.320 For example, markers of cellular aging, such as telomere length and pregnancies may be, sorry, such as telomere length and epigenetic shocks indicate women who experience multiple pregnancies could age biologically faster.
00:36:18.500 But this effect has been observed mostly in young, high-fertility women and is linked to the physical stress of pregnancy. 0.58
00:36:25.880 And a lot of these effects also seem to sometimes reverse or recover after pregnancy, like we've been discussing.
00:36:30.560 But I just want to give some perspective to this because, basically, what we're looking at is a stressful event having an effect on the body.
00:36:37.720 Oh, like, wow, being physically demanding on your body has effects.
00:36:41.580 But keep in mind, so, for comparison, alcohol, all right?
00:36:45.860 Most young people like to drink a little.
00:36:48.840 Drinking more than 100 grams of alcohol per week, which is about seven drinks, is also linked to shorter life expectancy and increased risks of cardiovascular diseases, such as stroke and heart failure.
00:36:58.580 Even one drink per day could slightly reduce your lifespan compared to a complete abstinence.
00:37:05.540 And, okay, let's say another thing.
00:37:07.120 You know, people are really concerned about giving up because they're going to have kids.
00:37:10.000 Travel, right?
00:37:10.740 Oh, I just want to travel the world.
00:37:12.160 I want to go to Europe and Asia.
00:37:13.900 Well, keep in mind, chronic jet lag from frequent time zone changes can disrupt circadian rhythms, which are crucial for regulating biological processes.
00:37:22.760 And the disruption can be associated with increased risks of cardiovascular disease, cognitive decline, and even cancer over time.
00:37:31.100 Plus, really, really frequent flyers, even, like, especially airline pilots, also accumulate radiation levels comparable to those who work at nuclear power plants, which has been linked to, obviously, like, severe cancers like melanoma and breast cancer and flight crews.
00:37:46.860 I'm just saying, like, a lot of the parentless life isn't without its perils as well.
00:37:52.320 Drinking and traveling and having fun can also accelerate aging.
00:37:56.360 But we also know, as I said, that the people without kids die earlier.
00:37:59.740 So, yeah, it makes sense.
00:38:00.900 But I point out here, and I think that this is a really big point, which is that you, and it's one that you made really well there, which is that everything you decide to do is a trade-off in terms of your life.
00:38:13.080 And everything, everything kills you.
00:38:15.440 Like, there's microplastics.
00:38:18.060 I don't know.
00:38:18.540 Like, everything's going to kill you.
00:38:20.640 But what are you afraid of for?
00:38:22.300 Actually, I think we can even make this argument.
00:38:24.340 One big problem of eating out is that there are extra microplastics in all the food that you get when you're eating out.
00:38:29.900 Because, one, like, in many public health regulations, you have to use plastic cutting boards.
00:38:33.800 That gets more plastic in your food.
00:38:35.000 They're microwaving stuff in plastic bags.
00:38:37.300 Things are being stored in plastic containers.
00:38:39.260 So, like, okay, your eating out habit is also going to kill you.
00:38:42.100 I don't know.
00:38:43.060 But the point I was making is that you have to consider what you are trading that sliver of your life for.
00:38:49.320 Are you trading it for a whole additional human life?
00:38:52.680 Or are you trading it for personal indulgence?
00:38:55.320 Keep in mind, it's like, oh, my God.
00:38:56.720 Even if it turned out that every kid you had lowered your lifespan by two years, you're trading those two years for somebody else's 90 years.
00:39:04.740 Like, how is that?
00:39:06.000 Ooh, there's also the point, and this is something that we have spoken with each other a lot in the past.
00:39:12.640 But in terms of, like, how to make a life feel long versus feel short, and a monotonous uniform life where not a whole lot changes.
00:39:21.140 Like, you kind of do the same thing every year.
00:39:22.520 Like, you take a trip and you work and you take, you know, whatever.
00:39:24.920 Where it's all just kind of the fun same thing that doesn't change a whole lot can just suddenly, like, collapse and seem like it just was over in a second.
00:39:32.600 Yeah, but these people, they don't even want to live that long.
00:39:34.380 I mean, like, this is the other thing, right?
00:39:35.960 Like, a lot of these people plan to, like, off themselves when they reach a certain age.
00:39:39.820 It's like, it's...
00:39:39.920 Like, who actually wants to be 90 anyway?
00:39:46.440 And if it gives me cancer when I'm 80, I don't care who the hell wants to be 90 anyway.
00:39:51.760 So with a heidi-lidi-lidi and a heidi-lidi-lidi...
00:39:54.960 Well, but there is a pretty significant group of people who don't want to die and who want to be young forever.
00:40:00.260 My argument, though, is that if you want to feel like you had a really, really long life, a really big way to do that is to have lots of really, you know, striking changes in your life.
00:40:11.600 And nothing makes every day feel new, like being with a person who's constantly growing and changing and evolving and getting older.
00:40:17.960 It just makes it feel like one year was multiple lifetimes because of just all the new things that are happening and developing.
00:40:24.600 So let's get back, though, to the grievances and concerns.
00:40:27.760 And another one, which I don't think you can answer to at all, but I can, is that pregnancy is scary and painful.
00:40:34.340 And I would argue that it is only scary and painful if you make it so.
00:40:38.900 Anything can be made scary and painful.
00:40:41.420 Travel can be made scary and painful.
00:40:43.600 Leaving your house can be made scary and painful.
00:40:45.880 So I wouldn't worry about it.
00:40:47.260 And I would say, and I was talking with someone else about this recently,
00:40:50.660 that giving birth in modern hospitals, if you don't want to feel pain, oh my God, you will not feel a thing.
00:40:59.920 In my last, when I delivered Indy here, I was in insane pain, but you know why?
00:41:07.020 Because, you know, I'm like splayed out, getting a C-section, right?
00:41:09.640 Like, the most pain I felt was I tried to crane my neck so much to see, like, beyond the curtain in surgery that I hurt my neck.
00:41:17.520 And then I'm like, oh, my neck hurts, you know?
00:41:20.400 Like, that was my biggest grievance.
00:41:23.480 That was what hurt the very most in the entire process of getting and recovering from a C-section was, oh, I twisted my neck a little bit trying to see a surgery, to see the gore.
00:41:34.500 So I think that that's another really important point, is that in a world of modern medicine, it doesn't really hurt that much.
00:41:41.580 If you are afraid of pain, you can just get the epidural.
00:41:45.000 It's fine.
00:41:45.900 All right, keep going.
00:41:46.580 Next question.
00:41:47.560 All right, next question.
00:41:48.640 Okay, so another big concern is if they have kids, they won't be able to devote enough time to their kids because they're focused on their career and they feel like it's not fair to their children.
00:41:58.000 They comment – the comment was paired with them saying they don't really value having kids that much and that they give up their career, which was a career-advancing science they valued so much.
00:42:10.320 Okay, I'll reword this.
00:42:12.340 Basically, the concern is that they really, really value their careers and they're not going to give them up to raise kids, but they feel guilty that the kids are not going to get what they need because they're so busy focused on their careers.
00:42:22.560 So this needs to be disintermediated as a question?
00:42:25.540 Yeah.
00:42:25.840 And specifically the point that they were making, which is a logical point, which is to say that I do more for the human race.
00:42:32.060 I do more net good through promoting science or through moving science forwards in my profession than I would do having kids.
00:42:41.120 And the core argument against that – and if you want to be logical about this, be like, yes, and how many people who have scientific competency are still having kids?
00:42:51.400 If you are one of those rare, rare humans that shows a natural talent for the sciences, that category of humans is the category that is disappearing fastest.
00:43:02.460 And anyone who is interested in participating in a pronatalist family or a lifestyle could end up having a huge impact on the future of civilization. 0.98
00:43:11.540 If you have, as I said, eight kids and they have eight kids and they do that for 11 generations, that's more descendants than there are humans on Earth today.
00:43:17.880 Yeah, just to like re-more this in reality, so many people that we know and I'm sure that you can find in your own life have chosen their career paths or found what is within the bounds of their reach as a person based on the people they grew up around.
00:43:34.600 And just being a career-oriented woman, a marine biologist, a nuclear scientist, whatever it is that you care about that's your career, just exposing your kids to that is increasing the odds that people in the workforce will end up doing that as well.
00:43:49.500 And you value that, including your kids' friends.
00:43:51.780 Like just having, oh, well, my friend's mom worked for the CIA, I could do that too.
00:43:55.660 And this is shown in studies kind of obliquely.
00:43:58.720 Like there's some research that has shown that children of parents who used government assistance were way more likely themselves to use government assistance just because they kind of know.
00:44:08.880 Yeah, like because they know how to navigate that system.
00:44:13.060 They know how to depend on it.
00:44:13.800 And they also realize it's an option.
00:44:15.140 You can do the same in the opposite direction of like, oh, you can show people how to have successful careers in an area, a domain that you think should be given more attention, and you can create that.
00:44:27.100 But more importantly, I want to point out that let's say that the big concern is, oh, these kids aren't getting the helicopter parenting, the high-touch parenting that they deserve.
00:44:35.540 Okay, that's not actually necessarily so good for kids.
00:44:39.380 And also, it can be very helpful for a mother to have a career. 0.98
00:44:42.600 So, daughters of working mothers tend to pursue higher education, are more likely to hold supervisory roles in their careers, and earn higher income compared to daughters with stay-at-home mothers. 0.52
00:44:53.200 Also, sons of working mothers are more likely to contribute to household chores and childcare, promoting gender equity in future households.
00:45:01.440 So, that's great.
00:45:02.500 And working mothers often serve as role models for achievement and independence, like I was saying, which can help children, especially daughters, aspire to professional careers and success.
00:45:11.620 So, it's, even if you didn't necessarily have a super engaging career as a mother, it might be worth it to kind of take one on just to increase outcomes for your daughter or to show your sons how to be really supportive to any, you know, women that they marry in their lives.
00:45:30.820 Like, if you care about feminism, if you care about female achievement in the workplace, you shouldn't give up your career. 1.00
00:45:36.360 It's a good thing.
00:45:37.740 So, let's see what are the other complaints.
00:45:41.020 But I think this one here is really about, if somebody's in this mindset, you're likely just not going to be able to convince them.
00:45:47.360 Like, if they're in this mindset, they can either accept reality that certain traits are heredible, right, or not.
00:45:53.320 This, like, religion of blank slate-ism, I don't pass anything on to the next generation, it's very difficult to convince them of this stuff.
00:46:02.220 But I would, you know, if I was talking to someone about this, and I was like, it's so weird that, like, you identify as a scientist, yet you deny, like, scientific reality.
00:46:11.340 So, it's clear you're not a scientist.
00:46:13.260 You're something else.
00:46:14.360 You're promoting some religion.
00:46:15.760 You're, like, a nun of this weird religion and not actually promoting scientific ideology.
00:46:21.660 If what you cared about was that, for example, female scientists exist in the future, if it turns out that we have created a world where being a scientist, it's completely incompatible with being a mother, then we are not going to get people who are both scientists and mothers in the future. 0.93
00:46:43.200 Did you get to the?
00:46:44.800 Sorry, she's, like, she needs a nap, but she doesn't want to take a nap. 1.00
00:46:48.720 Let's see.
00:46:49.380 A big issue is they feel like they're not even ready to start thinking about it.
00:46:53.660 But I think that's just a sign of, like, not mentally having their life together.
00:46:57.480 You know, there are many things that people are not ready to start thinking about, but they should think about their inherent values, their retirement, their finances, their personal health.
00:47:06.760 And, yes, they should think about kids.
00:47:08.140 But I think this is just, like, part of a list of things that people are, like, very avoidant in thinking about.
00:47:13.180 And kids are just one of those things.
00:47:14.900 You know, like, finances are another thing.
00:47:16.620 Retirement's another thing.
00:47:17.680 And especially your inherent values and what you genuinely believe.
00:47:22.740 Yeah, I think The Fragmentist Guide to Life, our first book, you can get it for less than a dollar, the e-book version on Amazon.
00:47:28.340 It's got an audio book if you prefer that.
00:47:30.380 The conversation outlined in that book, I think, is the conversation that gets you to having kids.
00:47:36.180 And a conversation that I would have with almost any girl early on a date.
00:47:39.300 What do you value?
00:47:40.740 Why?
00:47:41.300 How do you structure your thoughts?
00:47:42.820 How do you structure your thoughts about reality?
00:47:45.060 Because when you think logically through everything, kids always are an obvious thing to do.
00:47:50.280 It's just that a lot of people, this, I'm not even ready.
00:47:53.140 I'm not even ready to think about it.
00:47:54.500 What they're saying is they haven't really structured their lives.
00:47:57.140 They're sort of acting on autopilot within a particular life stage that isn't geared around child rearing.
00:48:03.180 And these people really are NPCs.
00:48:07.020 You can sometimes wake them up from it, but it's hard if you've waited until, like, your 30s to find a wife.
00:48:12.920 Well, and just because you're not ready to think about something doesn't mean that's okay.
00:48:16.360 You know, people can be like, well, I'm not ready to think about getting treatment for my cancer, but sweetie.
00:48:21.140 I'm not ready to think about, yeah, the fact that my mom's dying.
00:48:23.340 It's like, well, maybe you should.
00:48:25.480 Yeah, I mean, I don't know what to tell you, but, like, there's the ticking clock there, buddy.
00:48:29.360 Yeah, like, this is a train hurtling straight toward you, and you're going to have to deal with this and many other things that aren't necessarily easy to navigate.
00:48:38.340 Another big concern is that they weren't necessarily thrilled with how their parents parented them, and they fear that they will not be good parents.
00:48:45.740 My most common thought and response to this is, if you're worried about being a good parent, like, if you're like, oh, well, my kids get something, you know, good enough,
00:48:54.240 you're one of the few that actually is going to make sure they get good enough.
00:48:57.580 The really bad parents are typically like, I'm the best parent, I'm a wonderful mother, I'm perfect, or they're not thinking about it at all.
00:49:06.260 And if you're worried about being a good parent, you probably are going to do a pretty good job.
00:49:09.960 Oh, God, that's a big red flag for me, because I'm the greatest and best parent ever born.
00:49:15.920 Oh, God.
00:49:17.320 Well, our kids have me, so.
00:49:20.560 Oh, no, did you just realize?
00:49:22.140 No, you are so amazing.
00:49:23.820 The kids love you.
00:49:24.800 You are this beautiful, warm force in their lives, and I think you're totally just the same.
00:49:30.200 I don't know, they say they love mommy more whenever they're the only one around.
00:49:33.680 No, they just play, they play us off each other.
00:49:35.480 It's always, well, daddy said, I'm going to ask daddy.
00:49:38.660 But, you know, that's because they're doing their job.
00:49:41.080 You know, you've got to play both sides.
00:49:42.880 And then there's, of course, the classic, life is just suffering.
00:49:48.340 But, again, and we've had, you can watch all our episodes on antenatalism, whatever, but this is just not true.
00:49:55.500 Surveys suggest that the majority of people report being relatively happy.
00:50:00.180 For instance, a study in the U.S. found that about 31% of adults describe themselves as very happy, 57% as pretty happy, and only 12% as not happy at all.
00:50:12.340 Also, research shows that happiness can coexist with suffering when individuals find meaning or purpose in their struggles.
00:50:18.780 This aligns with the idea that enduring challenges can foster a deeper sense of fulfillment.
00:50:23.260 And so I would also say that, especially if you're raising your children with a strong culture, a good religion, you know.
00:50:29.580 No, but also, I'd ask them, like, first, you know, if somebody poses BS, it's like, why? 0.99
00:50:34.300 Why don't you just kill yourself? 0.98
00:50:35.580 Like, I'm going to put that scene from Team America with the hammer. 1.00
00:50:39.660 Like, it's not that hard, okay?
00:50:44.320 Why are, if you really believe this, these people don't really believe this, first of all.
00:50:49.300 They are taking, like, a nihilistic, edgy philosophy where, because within the urban monoculture, you achieve social status through self-flagellation and nihilism.
00:50:58.520 You know, it's hard to attack someone, it's hard to make fun of somebody who's being nihilistic, right?
00:51:05.020 Like, it's, like, dark and edgy, you know.
00:51:07.300 This is the female version of being that, like, male alpha broodlord who comes out dressed in, like, the trench coat and the, you know. 0.87
00:51:16.900 You remember this, right?
00:51:19.040 Edgelord, get down here. 1.00
00:51:21.020 It's almost time for prom.
00:51:22.980 Time is a construct.
00:51:24.220 A clock is a prison.
00:51:25.400 I'm happy Edgelord found a date for prom.
00:51:27.400 I'm, I right, you're the mate for mom.
00:51:29.920 You look good in your tux.
00:51:31.340 You look good in a body bag. 0.99
00:51:34.140 Edgelord, one day you're gonna wish you never said that, because I'm gonna be dead. 1.00
00:51:38.760 Dead or just dead with an extra E.
00:51:41.140 Yeah, it's, it's so cringe, but I love it, you know, in a way.
00:51:46.360 Because I, I'm not gonna say that, like, you shouldn't lean into this stuff when you're doing it vitalistically.
00:51:51.440 But when you're just doing it indulgently like this, yeah, whatever, you know.
00:51:55.860 And I'd also point out here that, please watch our videos on antinatalism.
00:52:03.600 This philosophy wants you all dead, but it's weirdly logical about it.
00:52:07.240 We go over all of our arguments there in Chain, all of our arguments against negative utilitarianism.
00:52:12.600 They are, again, though, logical arguments, so that they might not be effective on women.
00:52:17.660 I know you're not like other females. 1.00
00:52:23.200 You like to think about things.
00:52:25.260 You have opinions.
00:52:26.660 Is that a compliment or an accusation?
00:52:29.760 It's a fact.
00:52:31.500 I, I know, I, but I, I, I think the, the, the bigger things, if I'm coming away from this, is there's a couple different things here.
00:52:38.560 One is, people just not wanting to give up their current identities.
00:52:43.440 I think there's fear in that.
00:52:44.720 And a part of you, you know, the old you does die when you become a new you.
00:52:48.220 And becoming a parent makes you a new you.
00:52:50.540 I think that's, that's scary.
00:52:53.000 I mean, like, even I, as, as a kid was afraid of going on, like, antidepressants.
00:52:57.180 And I never ultimately did because I was like, well, but if I don't have, like, my severe OCD tendencies, who am I even, you know, like, I don't want to not be that, even if it was damaging to me because I was starving myself to death at the time, right?
00:53:11.540 So I see that fear and I understand it, but it's also illogical.
00:53:15.240 And no matter what, you are going to change in life.
00:53:17.220 You're not going to be the person you are now.
00:53:19.000 So one, don't resist that.
00:53:20.500 Two, I think there's, there's this fear specifically of pregnancy, like from a sort of medical standpoint, like it will take away my youth.
00:53:26.460 It will make me older.
00:53:27.460 It will, you know, it's, it's dangerous.
00:53:29.480 It's painful.
00:53:30.400 It's scary.
00:53:31.480 I think that pregnancy should be seen more as like choosing to run a marathon, like choosing to become a marathon runner and not so much as like, like undergoing gender transition.
00:53:44.380 I think that, like, that's kind of how people look at it.
00:53:46.980 Like, oh, there's surgeries and, and, you know, hormone changes.
00:53:51.300 And it's, you know, like, it's going to change me forever in, in like a bad way. 0.97
00:53:55.560 And I'll get dumber. 0.91
00:53:56.240 Like they literally kind of see what you and I see as the effect of transitioning your gender. 0.98
00:54:02.720 They see as the effect of pregnancy, which is scary.
00:54:05.320 We're like, no way.
00:54:06.040 I don't want to like have, you know, IQ effects and osteoporosis and, you know, stunted growth and premature aging.
00:54:11.340 Except in one case they're real.
00:54:12.860 And in the other case, it's mostly beneficial effects.
00:54:15.260 That's, yeah, that's the thing.
00:54:16.200 And so I think, I think that the important thing.
00:54:18.300 What you're absolutely right about is when you have kids, you transform as a person.
00:54:24.140 You enter a new stage of your life.
00:54:25.600 Like when you get to three or four kids, it's as big an effect as puberty is in terms of who you were before and after that.
00:54:31.300 You care dramatically less about what other people think of you.
00:54:35.180 You care about social things dramatically less.
00:54:37.520 You care dramatically more about, you know, living, I think, a life that is, what's the word I would use for this?
00:54:45.220 Like, like a purposeful life more.
00:54:47.380 You're, you're not as focused on the self anymore.
00:54:50.240 The insecurity is gone.
00:54:51.700 Yes.
00:54:52.180 It burns the self.
00:54:52.820 In society.
00:54:53.600 And I can understand if you look at this from an outsider, you're like, oh my God, that's a horrifying.
00:54:58.680 Like I'm, I'm a caterpillar.
00:55:00.020 I don't want to become a butterfly.
00:55:01.620 Right?
00:55:01.920 Like I am a caterpillar.
00:55:04.220 I stop. 0.99
00:55:05.020 Let's not kill you. 0.89
00:55:05.940 I don't want to like vaporize the caterpillar.
00:55:08.800 I'm sorry, but butterflies are better.
00:55:11.640 Don't you want wings? 0.57
00:55:13.100 Don't you want the wings?
00:55:14.640 Taita wants the wings.
00:55:15.500 She loves her little butterfly wings. 0.99
00:55:17.380 Don't worry.
00:55:17.940 I have three replacements because I know she broke hers right away.
00:55:20.380 So yeah.
00:55:21.020 So the pregnancy stuff, the medical concerns, that's basically just myths that need to be busted.
00:55:25.800 The identity changes, like, like grow a pair of balls and figure out that like, that's a good thing.
00:55:31.280 And then in terms of the career stuff, you don't have to give up your career.
00:55:36.320 It's good for your kids to be ambitious and a woman and to have a career and then to also raise kids.
00:55:44.020 And you will not be the first person to make it work with childcare.
00:55:48.900 It's not going to be easy, but nothing in life is, you know?
00:55:52.660 And in the end, you either get a career that was, you know, ambitious and great and wonderful and a retirement that feels empty and kind of meaningless.
00:56:02.120 As you discover that, you know, once you retire and leave the office, no one cares and no one follows up with you and you don't have anything else in your life, aside from some hobbies, which kind of get stale quickly.
00:56:11.480 Or you have a successful career and then, you know, retirement or next state, like post-work stage of your life, where you have this amazing family that you get to help support and watch grow and flourish and mentor.
00:56:24.800 And that's really cool.
00:56:26.000 You can probably live longer because of it.
00:56:27.380 So, I think that the two answers to this question I'd have fall in two buckets.
00:56:34.140 Bucket number one is, like, the real thing that's most likely to convince them.
00:56:38.080 The real thing that's most likely to convince them is for you to read or listen to The Pragmatist Guide to Life.
00:56:42.660 Go through the logical structures there and use these on your early dates to build sort of a logical structure for your interactions for their – so that they can begin to build, like, a framework for how they're relating to reality.
00:56:55.160 And then once they have a solid framework, you can begin to use logical arguments on them instead of these, like, weaker arguments.
00:57:02.500 So, that's thing number one.
00:57:03.900 That's what really works.
00:57:04.800 But then the secondary thing is, is I don't even know, like, if this conversation frame is worth having if a person isn't going to grab onto that.
00:57:15.760 And a lot of women aren't. 1.00
00:57:16.820 Like, the reality of this generation is a lot of people are just going to be washed out of the gene pool.
00:57:22.160 And they're just – a lot of men who try and did their best are going to be washed out of the gene pool who may have, like, sanity and everything.
00:57:30.380 Like, I can't change that.
00:57:32.220 It's just the reality of the situation that we're dealing with right now.
00:57:35.820 We are on extra hard mode.
00:57:37.780 This generation is on extra hard mode.
00:57:40.320 But I don't stop playing a video game because it's extra hard mode.
00:57:43.580 I get more excited about it because it's extra hard mode.
00:57:46.640 So, the question is –
00:57:48.600 If it's a good game, you keep playing it.
00:57:50.420 That's the thing.
00:57:52.020 Yeah, well, for some of these people, yeah, they haven't made this good game.
00:57:54.700 But I think the game is getting better every day.
00:57:57.200 I mean, people are like, oh, what about the economy?
00:57:59.540 What about the – yeah, and I'm like, yeah, but now we have work from home, buddy.
00:58:01.540 Do you know how –
00:58:03.100 The privilege to have work from home.
00:58:04.960 Thank you very much.
00:58:06.160 Yes.
00:58:06.980 The work from home world is a dramatically better world than the world before the work from home world.
00:58:12.480 The world where, you know, you don't have to go to cities anymore.
00:58:15.340 You don't – you can live almost entirely online.
00:58:18.000 Like, this is so awesome.
00:58:19.480 Other people see it as dystopic.
00:58:20.800 I'm like, no, I don't have to –
00:58:22.120 People are like, oh, Malcolm, you should, like, go have friends and do more parties.
00:58:25.240 And I'm like, I –
00:58:26.480 How about not?
00:58:28.000 Yeah, why?
00:58:29.240 And people following up with me on our episode, why do Jews have friends? 1.00
00:58:33.040 And very Jewish, they're like, but of course you want friends.
00:58:36.100 And I'm like, no.
00:58:36.960 No.
00:58:37.440 I'm a wife.
00:58:38.220 I've got kids.
00:58:39.140 I really do not want friends.
00:58:41.500 I think that we as a society have been, like, brainwashed into wanting friends by, like, the power of friendship in media and everything like that.
00:58:48.600 That's – that's the nefarious Jewish stuff going on here, right? 1.00
00:58:53.100 That's the Jewish conspiracy. 0.98
00:58:55.380 The power of friendship, okay?
00:58:57.260 Because I am happy living alone on a farm with my wife and kids and a shotgun to keep out trespassers.
00:59:05.500 Some people who don't like visitors.
00:59:08.280 Some people like –
00:59:09.640 Hey, you! 0.99
00:59:10.460 Get off of my property! 0.99
00:59:12.100 No!
00:59:12.960 The friends get shot when they attempt to get on our property.
00:59:19.180 Is that it?
00:59:20.300 Yeah, yeah.
00:59:21.460 That's my actual –
00:59:23.540 By the way, if you're confused about what we're talking about here, what we argue in that episode is that Jewish culture is much more oriented around having large friend networks than traditional American Christian culture.
00:59:33.860 One of the weird follow-ups from that episode that I've been thinking a lot about is when a Christian invites me to a religious celebration like Christmas or something versus when a Jew does it. 0.99
00:59:46.940 When a Jew does it, my assumption is that they want to talk to me, like that they find me – 0.99
00:59:53.340 Yeah, it'll be an engaging conversation.
00:59:55.200 Exactly.
00:59:56.160 When a Christian does it, my assumption is generally that they pity me. 1.00
01:00:00.880 Or they're trying to convert you.
01:00:02.640 No, it's much more often that they pity you.
01:00:04.440 Yeah, I guess you're right.
01:00:05.660 It's a pity thing.
01:00:07.380 This is why if you looked at the comments, a lot of people were like, oh, yeah, but I know someone's alone on Christmas.
01:00:11.500 Oh, you're right.
01:00:12.580 Yeah, yes, yes.
01:00:14.020 You know, I know recently that somebody broke up with them or like – it's always like a, who's sad on this Christmas?
01:00:21.260 Who I can invite to feel better?
01:00:21.780 Oh, yes, this act of charity.
01:00:23.300 It's the act of charity to like –
01:00:25.060 It's to feel better about yourself, yes.
01:00:26.960 Yeah, we help those less fortunate than us on the holidays.
01:00:30.540 Yeah, it's such like an underhanded insult for somebody to invite you to Christmas with them or Thanksgiving.
01:00:37.080 It's a backhanded compliment, you mean?
01:00:38.920 Underminded?
01:00:39.440 I guess, yeah.
01:00:40.140 No, no, no.
01:00:40.760 It's not a compliment at all.
01:00:42.080 It's an insult.
01:00:43.440 Backhanded.
01:00:44.020 It's back.
01:00:44.680 Insult.
01:00:45.540 Okay, it's an insult.
01:00:46.380 It's a fronthanded insult.
01:00:47.740 I don't know.
01:00:49.720 It's an open palm insult.
01:00:51.720 It's a roundhouse.
01:00:53.480 You know and I know that you think that I'm at home crying alone on Thanksgiving and that's why I got there.
01:00:58.580 Seriously.
01:00:59.860 Oh, my gosh.
01:01:00.560 Like, yeah, the extrovert's vision of what introverts do on holidays is like sit at home, like crying into a bowl of microwave Campbell soup.
01:01:12.320 And, like, what's actually happening is they're, like, at home binging on anime and video games.
01:01:17.740 I know.
01:01:17.840 What's actually happening is I'm going to put that scene from Home Alone where he's, like, dancing with all the cars.
01:01:21.720 Yeah, that's it.
01:01:23.620 That's it.
01:01:36.860 That's it.
01:01:37.140 You told me about how you used to, on Christmas in D.C. when you were alone and not with your family, go and look at all of the families through the windows.
01:01:44.860 That's true.
01:01:45.380 Yeah.
01:01:45.540 If someone, like, saw me walking, I would, like, walk around the really nice neighborhoods in D.C. on Thanksgiving, like, looking into the windows, seeing all the happy families.
01:01:54.400 And I would just sit there and be so happy.
01:01:57.600 I was not with them.
01:01:58.960 Like, this is so pretty.
01:01:59.960 I'm so glad I'm not there.
01:02:01.240 And then I would go home and, like, make my own little dinner in my own little way all by myself and be so happy because it was so quiet on campus.
01:02:09.180 Oh, that was.
01:02:11.940 Yeah.
01:02:12.400 Okay.
01:02:12.660 Well, we'll wrap this episode up.
01:02:13.780 It's too long already.
01:02:14.760 But I think introverts, unite, find that woman that you will never need to talk to anyone else again because you will be talking to her multiplicatively throughout your life.
01:02:26.740 Keep in mind, not just all the little quirks about her that you are compromising on.
01:02:33.280 Your kids are going to have those, too.
01:02:35.240 Oh, God.
01:02:35.760 My kid, when he takes it, you gave him the little cute Japanese rice ball thing you made, and he eats it grain by grain.
01:02:43.220 That is something my wife would do. 1.00
01:02:44.960 It's called onigiri.
01:02:46.520 Can you say onigiri?
01:02:48.580 Onigiri.
01:02:49.300 Okay.
01:02:52.500 No, no, no.
01:02:53.100 You take a bite.
01:02:54.540 It's a rice triangle. 0.87
01:02:56.420 No.
01:02:58.200 That was, yeah, he eats, yeah, I give him grated cheese, and he eats it shred by shred.
01:03:02.900 I give him noodles, like ramen, and he eats it noodle by noodle.
01:03:07.840 He'll never, I don't, I, Toasty, though, he's so funny, and he has all the names for his rocks.
01:03:12.940 Okay, last night, he was so cute.
01:03:14.900 So, Toasty shows me his bag of rocks at the end of the evening, our dear Torsten, nominative determinism here, and he has a name for all of them, and he's showing me, and he's like, this is my, of course, he's the pizza rock.
01:03:29.500 You know the pizza rock, right, that he and Titan, but it's the pizza rock.
01:03:33.600 I'm like, oh, the pizza rock, and this is the black and white rock.
01:03:37.760 Oh, the black and white rock, and this is the rolling bowling rock.
01:03:43.420 He has just names for all of them, and this is a spiky rock.
01:03:46.880 I'm like, oh.
01:03:47.260 How excited is he going to be when he's able to understand that his name is Thor's stone?
01:03:51.760 I know, right?
01:03:52.920 And he pulls out another rock, and I'm like, oh, what's this rock, Torsten?
01:03:57.280 And he's like, I think it's Quartz.
01:03:58.820 And I'm like, I think it's Quartz.
01:04:02.760 I think it's Quartz.
01:04:05.100 I love how you have these two ages next to each other in his brain.
01:04:11.200 The rolling pony.
01:04:12.740 Oh, this one's Quartz.
01:04:14.060 I think it's Quartz.
01:04:15.580 I'm like, okay, Torsten.
01:04:18.540 Oh, my God.
01:04:19.500 I love him so much.
01:04:20.700 I got to put something of Mod Pie here, playing with rocks.
01:04:27.600 Do you know a lot about rocks?
01:04:31.020 Yes.
01:04:32.620 Have you ever come across some kind of super powerful stone that can store the cutie mark
01:04:37.000 magic of, I don't know, an entire village?
01:04:40.920 Yep.
01:04:41.800 In the big cave.
01:04:43.840 Anyway, loved you.
01:04:44.920 We got to wrap this up.
01:04:45.920 Okay, bye.
01:04:49.280 What?
01:04:49.680 Did you smash so well that it got all?
01:04:52.080 Oh, my gosh.
01:04:53.540 Okay, you smashed very effectively.
01:04:55.800 There we go.
01:04:56.700 All right.
01:04:57.360 Let's do another one.
01:05:00.600 Good job, smashed potato man.
01:05:04.080 Okay, I'll scrape that off for you.
01:05:08.440 All right, we'll do another one.
01:05:11.960 You are great at this, buddy.
01:05:14.620 Can you get this off?
01:05:16.240 Yeah.