The rise of Christianity is a great puzzle. In 40 AD, there were maybe a thousand Christians. Their Messiah had just been executed, and they were on the wrong side of an intercontinental empire that had crushed all previous foes. By 400, they were set to dominate the next millennium of Western history.
00:00:00.000Hello, Simone! Today we are going to be discussing a very interesting piece, Scott Alexander's review of the rise of Christianity.
00:00:10.700And in it, he goes through how Christianity spread as fast as it did.
00:00:17.100It is astounding how quickly Christianity was able to spread in its early days.
00:00:21.920And it was not through the tactic that most people think, which is widespread conversions based on either miracles or just the logic of what was in the text.
00:00:35.780Instead, it appears to have mostly been downstream of Christians having more children, having more surviving children, and having an ability to convert women at a much higher rate in the early days.
00:00:50.780But the children childbirth appears to be the core of this.
00:00:54.640Also, their plague surviving rates appear to have been quite different.
00:00:57.380So we're going to go over each of these in turn.
00:01:33.920Well, Andy, even that Christianity seemed to have spread through the kindling of Judaism, which had already spread, which is also fascinating.
00:01:42.780Yeah, the challenge with any Scott Alexander piece is he writes in a way where typically when we're reading a piece, we are throwing out 90% of it.
00:01:52.660This time we're keeping probably well over 80% of it with a number of factual and textual additions because there's a few minor errors he makes.
00:02:00.580And there are a few areas where I just happen to, whatever reason, know additional information that helps flesh things out a lot.
00:02:07.020Oh, that's fun, because what I love most about Scott Alexander's book reviews is you get a great summary of the book.
00:02:13.280Then you get additional research and annotation from Scott Alexander.
00:02:16.520And now I'm getting layer three from Malcolm.
00:02:33.120The rise of Christianity is a great puzzle.
00:02:35.700In 40 AD, there were maybe a thousand Christians.
00:02:38.560Their Messiah had just been executed and they were on the wrong side of an intercontinental empire that had crushed all previous foes.
00:02:45.700By 400, there were 40 million and they were set to dominate the next millennium of Western history.
00:02:51.300Imagine taking a time machine to the year 2300 AD and everyone is a Scientologist.
00:02:56.160The United States is over 99% Scientologist.
00:03:00.180So is Latin America and most of Europe.
00:03:02.060The Middle East follows some heretical pseudo-Scientology that thinks L. Ron Hubbard was a great prophet, but maybe not the greatest prophet.
00:03:08.980This can only begin to capture how surprised the early imperial Romans would be to learn of the triumph of Christianity.
00:03:16.420At least Scientology has a lot of money and cutthroat recruitment arm.
00:03:20.780At least they fight back when you persecute them.
00:03:24.420So I think that this is all really important to note because a lot of people do not realize how quickly Christianity basically came out of nowhere from a small persecuted group that was not seen as particularly different during Jesus' lifetime than other small roaming,
00:03:48.560So quick note here if you don't know what I'm talking about.
00:03:50.940Psalmatological performances is a type of magical performance which is like a miracle working as a magic trick.
00:03:59.220It was really common for random rabbis to roam around and perform these types of miracles.
00:04:05.100You know, you have like the circle drawer.
00:04:06.920You have the, I'll add a few in post here.
00:04:08.800You have Hani Bandoza, who performed numerous miracles including making vinegar burn like oil for Shabbat candles when his daughter mistakenly used vinegar instead of oil.
00:04:18.200He also extended the lengths of beams for a woman's house through blessing.
00:04:21.300Additionally, he was known for controlling rain with his prayers.
00:04:24.180He once prayed for rain to stop while he was traveling and it ceased immediately.
00:04:29.160He is famous for his miracle of praying for rain during a severe drought in Israel.
00:04:34.940He drew a circle in the dust, stood inside it, and bowed not to leave until God sent rain.
00:04:39.320Initially, only a light drizzle fell, prompting him to pray again for more substantial rain.
00:04:44.140Ultimately, God answered his prayers with a heavy downpour.
00:04:46.560Shimon Bar, he performed healing miracles and it was said that he could burn people with his gaze.
00:04:54.440One notable miracle involved the emperor's daughter who was possessed and he was called to help her.
00:04:59.500Additionally, during this time in a cave, he and his son were miraculously sustained by carob tree and a sprig of water.
00:05:07.460After emerging from the cave, it was reported that everything looked at a world burnt to ashes, indicating his extraordinary spiritual power.
00:05:15.560I say this because I think it actually undermines the amazing growth of the early Christian community to overstate how unique Jesus would have appeared to people of his time.
00:05:29.380And I would note here, the point I am not making is that all of these other miracle workers actually performed their miracles,
00:05:35.140but what I am saying is that it was widely believed that they had.
00:05:38.500So if me, a random person around this time, had a group of people come to me and say,
00:05:42.920Hey, there was this rabbinic miracle worker and here are some of the miracles he performed.
00:05:47.440I'd be like, yeah, a guy told me about another one yesterday and a guy told me about a different one the day before.
00:09:45.780The Great Courses series on the historical Jesus, aka Wunderham, describes Jesus as an apocalyptic
00:09:53.320Jew in an age where there were lots of apocalyptic Jews just kind of walking around and preaching.
00:09:58.840It might be akin to, like, seeing a life coach today.
00:10:02.000Yeah, we know this because of, like, the Dead Sea Scrolls community, which was around the same time period a bit before, but was also a group of apocalyptic Jews.
00:10:10.880Apocalyptic Jews means Jews who think the world is about to end.
00:10:15.260Not end exactly, but enter the next phase of existence, and that they are coming to bring this.
00:10:22.000And many of Christ's early followers believed that his second coming was going to happen within their lifetimes.
00:10:29.060We can see this in the letters where, I think it's Paul writing to a group who's like, some of our members are dying before the Messiah comes.
00:10:40.060And he goes, oh, well, their bodies will be raised.
00:10:42.860But the fact that they were worried about dying before the Messiah comes showed that they, like, rose from the dead again, shows that they saw that as an anathema, that as a weird thing.
00:10:53.380That this was a common belief in the early church.
00:10:56.060You can see in things like Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, where he says, quote,
00:11:00.180For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, by no means precede those who have died.
00:11:09.060For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with archangels call, and with the sounds of God's trumpets, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
00:11:19.240Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet with the Lord in the air.
00:11:26.280Therefore, encourage one another with these words, end quote.
00:11:29.840So you can see very clearly here, he says that we who are alive, he's talking about the people who are listening to him or reading this letter, are going to experience the second coming of Christ.
00:11:40.120As to why he would think this, well, you just need to look at Christ's own words, Matthew 24, 30-31, Mark 13, 26-27, and Luke 21, 27-28, where Jesus states, quote,
00:11:53.640Truly, I tell you, this generation, end quote, meaning his contemporaries, will not pass away until all these things have come to take place, end quote.
00:12:03.220Matthew 24, 34, Mark 13, 30, Luke 21, 32.
00:12:07.760I am here not trying to point out that the Bible is wrong or something.
00:12:11.460I think that they misinterpreted these words.
00:12:14.160That said, I don't think that they were stupid for misinterpreting these words.
00:12:17.760And I'm just pointing out here that it was a common belief in the early church that Jesus was going to come back before within their generation, and they weren't stupid for having this belief.
00:12:27.200And this becomes even more powerful when you look at the spread of Christianity because it makes even less sense.
00:12:33.720It becomes even more miraculous when you see that early wrong beliefs in the early Christian church did not invalidate its rapid growth.
00:12:43.220So you've got to think about what Jesus' group was, the followers of Jesus, who, keep in mind, we believe were actually true and correct and everything like that.
00:12:51.100But I don't think that they were – I'm very different from your average modern Christian who thinks that, like, anyone who saw what Jesus was doing would immediately have known he was the Messiah.
00:13:01.500There's other times in the Bible when we see people raise people from the dead, everything like that.
00:13:04.800I think that only a truly – because he just didn't have a big crowd when he died.
00:13:10.400He didn't have a ton of followers when he died.
00:13:12.140If you saw somebody perform these, like, absolutely undeniable feats of magic, and you're like, okay, this person is definitely the son of God, you're not going to turn your back on them just because the government is prosecuting them.
00:13:25.300And then you can be like, oh, well, you know, it was Rome.
00:13:28.200Like, what would people really go through for the Messiah against Rome?
00:13:31.480And we're going to get to that in a second.
00:13:33.520People were willing to be devoured by lions for Jesus.
00:13:36.840People were willing to have horrible things happen to them under the Roman Empire for Jesus.
00:13:40.500And yet the crowd that Jesus had built around him, who actually saw the things that he did during his life, were willing to rebuke him almost immediately the moment he came under fire of the empire.
00:13:54.020So the point that I'm saying is that this was originally a very sort of small group, a group that was not particularly differentiated from other groups in the period.
00:14:05.620And that's true differentiation came from it super fast gross.
00:14:09.480And I also love the crazy L. Ron Hubbard thing when he's like, imagine not only are like 99% of America, North America, Scientologists, but the Middle East is like, well, you know, L. Ron Hubbard was wrong, but he was one of the greatest prophets in human history.
00:14:52.880I mean, there were crowd issues, you know, when he came to certain cities.
00:14:57.740I think Roman officials were a little concerned about him.
00:15:00.680There were crowd issues, but here is my read on the 50 followers thing, okay?
00:15:04.520If you had a traveling miracle worker and healer, of which we know there were many during that period, you would likely get crowd issues when they went to a random town or something like that.
00:15:14.580That doesn't mean that they all followed him.
00:15:16.200They may have wanted healing and they went to the last miracle worker for healing and they went to him for healing.
00:15:20.860They may have liked that this guy was handing out bread and fish and wine in his events.
00:15:24.660Yeah, I'm sure like if Greta Thunberg walked into Berlin or something, you know, she would form dangerous crowds as well.
00:15:31.400But the moment the government turned against him, the fact that he didn't have some big crowd like speak out or prevent this or even just go remove him from the freaking cross.
00:15:42.240To me, that's always been pretty, he must not have had a really sizable community.
00:16:29.120Previous authorities assumed Christianity spread through giant mass conversions, maybe fueled by miracles.
00:16:34.920Partly they thought this because the biblical book of Acts describes some of these, but partly they thought it because, how else do you go from 1,000 people to 40 million people in less than 400 years?
00:16:48.960Suppose you start with 1,000 Christians in 40 A.D.
00:16:52.580It's hard to number the first few centuries worth of early Christians.
00:16:55.880They're too small to leave much evidence.
00:16:58.300But by 300 A.D., before Constantine, they were a sizable enough faction of the empire that some historians have tentatively suggested a 10% population share.
00:17:08.980That would be about 6 million people from 1,000 to 6 million in 260 years implies a 40% growth rate per decade.
00:17:18.040Stark finds this plausible because it's the same growth rate as the Mormons, 1880 to 1980.
00:17:23.320If you look at the Mormons' entire history since 1830, they actually grew a little faster than the early Christians.
00:17:28.500That is, I think, absolutely a fascinating point.
00:17:33.000That is, because it shows it, like, it could be, it could very well be.
00:17:36.520I mean, their growth rate still isn't great right now, but if Mormons manage to pass through, as you put it, the trial of the Lotus Eaters, they could be the next main faction of Christians.
00:17:46.740Yeah, actually, and that they're growing faster than the early Christians.
00:17:49.720And keep in mind, we say that, like, when I'm looking at, like, why do I believe Christ had a divinely inspired message, it is because of the efficaciousness of his message and the speed of growth of his message.
00:18:02.280And a lot of people, I think, are surprised that we consider the Mormons as one of the true faiths.
00:18:09.520We believe there's multiple, sort of, like, in a four-dimensional space.
00:18:12.380Like, you can't try to reconcile them on this earth, but in some way, if you had a broader understanding, you could reconcile them, and we consider Mormons as one of them.
00:18:21.320And a lot of people are very surprised at that, given how small a community they are right now.
00:18:25.100But given that we're very forwards-looking, it makes a lot of sense that we would do that if you look at their growth rate and other similarities that he's going to point out to the Mormons today of the early Christian community.
00:18:37.340But I also find it interesting that this, as we wrote in the Pragmatist Guide to Crafting Religion, can mostly be explained by higher fertility rates and not by conversions.
00:18:46.240Conversions are, in a historic context, fairly rare.
00:19:35.900Instead of being forced to attribute the Christians' growth to miracles, we can pin down a specific growth rate and find that it falls within the range of the most successful modern cults.
00:19:44.540Indeed, if we look at this as each existing Christian having to convert 0.4 new people on average per decade, it starts to sound downright doable.
00:19:55.060Still, how did the early Christians maintain this conversion rate over so many generations?
00:20:26.300Quote, at the time I arrived, dot dot dot, to study them, the group had never succeeded in attracting a stranger, end quote
00:20:33.520Stark theorized that, quote, the only people who joined were those whose interpersonal attachments to members overbalanced their attachments to non-members, end quote
00:20:43.260I don't think this can be literally correct
00:20:46.380Taken seriously, it implies that the second convert would have no other friends except the first, which would prevent her from spreading the religion further
00:20:53.560But something like, quote, your odds of converting are your number of Moonie friends divided by your number of non-Moonie friends, end quote
01:19:47.780while there is evidence of some elite converts especially after the second century
01:19:53.560they were a small minority among early christians during the first few centuries
01:19:56.960the highest levels of roman society such as the senatorial class were absent from early christian
01:20:02.440circles particularly before constantine's conversion in the fourth century so why was
01:20:08.500christianity so urban focused because that's what it was it was an urban focused religion not a
01:20:13.300wealthy focused religion which they sort of misconstrue here and a merchant focused religion trade routes
01:20:20.920cities were connected to the best well-established trade routes allowing for easier travel and
01:20:24.960communications between christian communities synagogues early christian missionaries often
01:20:29.160started their work in jewish synagogues which were primarily located in urban centers remember
01:20:34.760christianity was a version of judaism in the early days and seen as a version of judaism in the early days
01:20:40.380social networks cities offered dense populations and diverse social networks facilitating the rapid spread
01:20:47.640of ideas which if you look at like the way the ea movement has spread it's spread in group houses the
01:20:52.820fastest right like the sort of the population the faster the spread and then finally you have house
01:20:58.260churches where you had some wealthy individuals and wealthy christians who would host gatherings in
01:21:03.200nice homes the the early christians were not overly they they were wealthier than your average roman but
01:21:08.820that was because population was wealthier than the rest of rome not that they were a specifically wealthy
01:21:14.500group i think very similar to the scientologists they have some sort of upper class
01:21:19.400uh none of the real aristocrats in our society but like new money types uh a merchant class type
01:21:27.160and then a lot of like urban slave types that sort of make up their lower ranks
01:21:31.900okay shall i continue continue a possible synthesis if you imagine a city is having a constant population
01:21:40.660because it's walled plus its hinterland can only support a certain number of non-food producing urbanites
01:21:45.820and villagers as replacing urbanites on a one-to-one basis as they die then greater christian urban
01:21:51.860fertility rates can at least contribute to the cities and upper class becoming christian and once the
01:21:57.660cities and upper classes are christian you get constantine and lower classes can be forced to
01:22:02.700comply remember pagan originally meant rural which it did by the way i was really shocked to learn that's wild
01:22:10.220yeah one thing stark did not mention discovering in his study of cults but which i have heard
01:22:17.220anecdotally a lot of male cult members joined because the cult has hot girls okay here's malcolm's
01:22:22.200argument scott continues this seems to have been a big factor in the spread of early christianity as
01:22:27.720well stark collects various forms of evidence that early christians were predominantly women
01:22:32.480paul's epistle to the romans greets 33 prominent christians by name of whom 15 were men and 18 were women
01:22:39.480if it seems likely men were more likely to become prominent than women this near equality of the
01:22:46.100upper ranks suggests a female predominance at the lower a third century inventory of property at a
01:22:51.980christian church includes quote 16 men's tunics and 82 women's tunics unquote the book quotes historian
01:22:59.260adolph on harnack who says quote ancient sources simply swarm with tales of how women of all ranks were
01:23:07.120converted in rome and in the provinces although the details of these stories are untrustworthy they express
01:23:13.340correctly enough for the general truth that christianity was laid whole by women in particular
01:23:19.000and that the percentage of christian women especially among the upper classes was larger than that of men
01:23:24.980end quote why were women converted in such disproportionate numbers again stark sociological
01:23:31.080background serves him well he is able to find reports of the same phenomenon in modern religions
01:23:37.060here he quotes stark by examining the manuscript census returns for the later half of the 19th century
01:23:44.420bainbridge 1983 found that approximately two-thirds of the shakers were female data on religious
01:23:50.200movements included in the 1926 census of religious bodies showed that 75 percent of christian scientists
01:23:56.260were women as were more than 60 percent of theosophists swedenborgans and spiritualists
01:24:01.980the same is true of the immense wave of protestant conversions taking place in latin america
01:24:07.480end quote that's fascinating by the way that women are the first to convert women are the cult ones
01:24:13.200they're the cultists but women well the way it worked in the ea community because ea community is
01:24:19.580overwhelmingly male is that women would sort of convert because they'd get incredible status
01:24:24.460and then it sort of supported a number of i'd call them witless females who could get the cream of the
01:24:30.760crop of silicon valley men by converting and they'd be supported and they'd be everything like that so
01:24:35.560they were treated better than they were by the rest of silicon valley because if you join the eas well
01:24:41.280you get a place to live and you get your choice of the best men and you never have to work and then
01:24:47.060that's a really so it's it's almost sort of like an inversion of this phenomenon right
01:24:52.620where it's attracting virtuous women is attracting unvirtuous women
01:24:57.500anyway continues but along with a general tendency for women to convert stark notes that christianity
01:25:06.300was especially attractive to women the pagan world treated women as their husband's property and not
01:25:11.340particularly well liked property at that the book cites the athenian laws as typical quote the status
01:25:18.140of athenian women was very low girls received little or no education typically athenian females
01:25:23.160were married at puberty and often before under athenian law a woman was classified as a child regardless of
01:25:29.420age and therefore was the legal property of some men at all stages of life males could divorce by simply
01:25:35.660ordering a wife out of the household moreover if a woman was seduced or raped her husband was legally
01:25:41.980compelled to divorce her if a woman wanted to divorce she had to have her father or some other
01:25:47.020man bring her case before a judge finally athenian women could own property but control of the property
01:25:53.360was always vested in the male of whom she belonged or to whom she belonged oh my god okay that's not good
01:26:00.800okay are you not gonna want to like you're like oh i get to own my own property yeah this wow
01:26:08.120yeah yeah yeah he continues meanwhile christian women had relatively high status sometimes rising to
01:26:18.560the position of deacon within a church christian men were ordered to treat their wives kindly were
01:26:23.480prohibited from cheating on them and mostly could not divorce christianity unlike paganism did not
01:26:29.180especially pressure widows to remarry important since remarrying widow lost all her property to her
01:26:34.520new husband christian women were only a third as likely as roman women to be married off before age 13
01:26:40.620women noticed all these benefits and fought to christianity this is important to note christian
01:26:46.060women were only a third as likely as pagan women to be married off before the age of 13 they're just
01:26:52.260not being treated as chattel as much yeah as much and this means that the men the quote-unquote christian
01:27:01.140influencers who are telling you that women should be treated as chattel that women are like this
01:27:06.620corrupting influence on the male mind these are the modern pagans do not trust them they lead you to
01:27:14.400sour ends there is a reason that their wives all hate them or have left them or they're single
01:27:21.000because they are feeding you with poison it is poisoned directly into your veins the messages they preach
01:27:29.100continue aside from all this the romans were practicing sex-selective
01:27:35.720infanticide reducing their female numbers still further and making the christians even more
01:27:39.920proportionally female heavy if the christians like many modern cults were 65 percent female and the romans
01:27:45.880as some sources attest were about 40 to 45 female it is a pretty profound difference the romans
01:27:52.220grumbled about marriage but in the end most roman men did want wives if only to avoid government
01:27:56.980penalties but 1.4 men per women maybe even less among the upper classes puts young men seeking
01:28:02.580wives in a difficult situation for comparison modern san francisco is only 1.05 men per women and
01:28:09.700dating is already hell to any remotely heterosexual roman man the 65 female christian community must
01:28:16.360have started looking pretty good meanwhile the christians had the opposite problem too many women
01:28:22.220not enough men there is an obvious solution and it sounds like the pagans and christians had also
01:28:27.620figured it out from 1 peter 3 wives submit yourselves to your own husbands so that if any of them do not
01:28:36.160believe the word they may be won over without the words by behavior of their wives when they see the
01:28:42.480purity and reverence of your lives so it's basically saying be so good yeah your husband can't help but
01:28:50.000be humbled yeah by your diligence and faith and i'd say you've done that for me with a number of things
01:28:56.600i believe a number of things now that came from you i'm like well simone is more more faithful and
01:29:02.240diligent than me by my diligence yeah there we go history rec sorry history records many such
01:29:09.320intermarriages almost always ending with the conversion of the pagan husband if you are a
01:29:14.120christian of english descent you may owe your religion to queen bertha of kent who convinced her
01:29:18.960husband one of the early anglo-saxon sorry one of the early anglo-saxon kings to take her but
01:29:24.080rexandro teslo has a great post reviewing the work of historian michelle salzman who disagrees with
01:29:30.000all of this salzman has a database of 400 aristocratic romans during the fourth century
01:29:34.980period of christianity's fastest growth she finds a few intermarriages few examples of women converting
01:29:41.080their husbands and equal or slightly male biased conversion ratios granted this only is a small
01:29:47.600sample from one period but it makes us question how good our evidence really is doesn't all this hinge
01:29:53.960on one passage from paul which technically named more men than women plus one inventory of tunics
01:30:00.480which was so female biased it couldn't possibly have been representative of even a very woman heavy
01:30:05.480are we sure that we can make the leap from christianity promised women more rights to therefore women
01:30:10.960flock to christianity wasn't that just the same argument pundits used last week to predict a blue wave
01:30:16.240for kamala why didn't white women actually go for trump 53 46 salzman has one more concern which is
01:30:22.720that women had so few rights in ancient rome society that in ancient roman society that it's hard to see
01:30:29.300how they could have converted in all when unmarried they were under the care of their father who would
01:30:35.260hardly have let them go visiting churches full of strange men when married they were under the care of
01:30:39.880their husband who likewise a typical roman man wouldn't have cared about his wife's religious opinions
01:30:45.040which maybe is why so many of our stories are about intermarriages and conversions come from later
01:30:49.820periods like anglo-saxons i don't know enough about history to referee this dispute except to say that
01:30:55.640i think the answer could easily have been different for each of the early romans late romans hellenized
01:31:01.780jewish romans pagan romans upper class romans and lower class romans plus all combinations thereof
01:31:07.440but again i think he's underplaying no he's underplaying he doesn't get it yeah i think one the the the data
01:31:14.140that they're looking at do you really think a lot of roman men are saying oh yeah my wife's a
01:31:19.880different religion of me before they convert yeah no they're not saying that in the sense that i also
01:31:25.220think you know women were out and about more than you would think like they may be chattel level but
01:31:33.760you're going to send them out on errands they're going to gossip they're going to talk with other
01:31:36.920people in markets like memes will still spread women will still do stuff you know you can be like well
01:31:41.360i own my dog but like i still take my dog walking and that dog picks up a lot of scents and scent
01:31:46.020stories and like you know i'm just yeah yeah women can pick can pick up a religion even in a very very
01:31:54.140oppressive society i yeah i think that this does not understand how motivating seeing your baby drowned
01:32:02.640is yeah or or seeing you know your sister get killed in a botched abortion or beaten by someone
01:32:10.760you know just there's there's an there's plenty there's plenty motivation yeah and i think that i
01:32:17.720i just yeah i think that this is one of those things where historians can't imagine what it was
01:32:22.360like back then now this piece actually goes a lot further and we will cover the rest of it in a
01:32:27.780separate video but this video is already insanely too long but i hope that you guys really enjoyed
01:32:33.840this because i really enjoyed this and it changed a lot of my perspectives on totally yeah i i hadn't
01:32:38.380thought about the the women's rights thing it's also so funny that like now when people think about
01:32:43.480christianity they're like oh like you're here to suppress women with your christianity and an early
01:32:49.240christian woman would be like what this is the most insanely pro it's not like christianity was
01:32:57.400dramatic it's not like it was marginally more pro-woman it was dramatically more pro-woman than
01:33:03.740the most extreme feminist today is when contrasted was a modern conservative yeah no it's it's wild it's
01:33:11.240it's really it's people not drowning your babies if you don't understand how much that's going to freak
01:33:18.300out a woman i don't know like have a baby okay like get get on board here people and i think that
01:33:25.660the idea that oh these women because if you look at this roman census data it's not like they were
01:33:30.920asking women what your religion is they would go to a husband and say what's your religion and what's
01:33:34.940your wife's religion right you know yeah and the husband's not gonna be like oh my wife is part of
01:33:38.840this weird christian cult right and so of course not it's a little embarrassing you know it's like
01:33:43.340admitting your wife's in an mlm you know you keep the lula row a little hidden you know
01:33:47.900yes yes so i think that that's like a really silly reason to discount what seems to be like
01:33:55.180when i look at the tunics thing that's insane it was like 86 with female tunics like 20 male
01:33:59.880i'm like yeah but i get it like most older women are going to prefer something like this because they
01:34:05.440don't have any other support network most you know and and you're like oh when is a woman going to
01:34:10.200interact with an older maybe a midwife maybe a you know there's a lot of people who can be spreading
01:34:15.500this stuff and there will go over other ways it was spread and why it may not have been seen as
01:34:21.040nefarious or why people may have had trouble stamping it out when we get to the next part of
01:34:27.100this overview like the the morality differences between the two groups martyrs and disease survival
01:34:35.220race so cool yeah man yeah so solid it's a great i mean i want to read the book now but i feel like it's
01:34:43.100also a great summary astral codex 10 is just so good it's so good just you know whatever i'm glad
01:34:50.880we live in such a lucky age you know it used to be that only a small percentage of elite people would
01:34:57.260have access to the thoughts of people the leading thought leaders of their day yeah and now because
01:35:03.940of podcasts and sub stacks yeah it's just it's super cool i love it and i love you and i'm glad that
01:35:09.780you're sharing your thoughts with people because it'd be really sad if your thoughts were just
01:35:13.300isolated to the world i mean i feel the same way about you i'm so glad that your ideas are out there
01:35:18.440and you know like every night when you say goodnight to me i'm like malcolm no seriously like you need
01:35:23.760you need to no dying don't die yeah you need to not die so please don't die i love you to death
01:35:31.960your great wife we have to go check and see if the meat box was delivered yes the best christmas
01:35:38.980present ever a year's worth of meat i mean it's supposed to be one of our family members buys us a
01:35:44.500year's worth of meat every year it's not it's no it's a week's worth of meat but we managed to make it
01:35:48.680last for a year because it's so special you got you know combining deep freezer you stretch it out
01:35:54.680with the slow cooker meal where you like combine in a bunch of you know well there's some good squash
01:36:01.900that we can buy we'll cook it with so yeah you can go look for the box and i'll start i guess
01:36:08.220probably what we'd want to start with is assuming it's not for yeah i'm sure i'm sure it's fresh
01:36:15.200is whatever their nicest steak is pan seared yeah you're gonna have a good night tonight do you want
01:36:23.480that with any accompaniments or just like just plain or with any accompaniments no i got the
01:36:30.960sauces at trader joe's no i mean but like do you want to starch with it oh yeah it's a rice
01:36:35.840with rice with coconut rice rice or potatoes you choose oh yeah well no you could just reheat the
01:36:43.040frozen potatoes with the mushrooms oh those yeah the the trader joe's ones i was thinking about making
01:36:48.800like homemade not fresh potatoes i'd take a forever maybe i have to see how long it takes to
01:36:55.440like flash bake them but anyway yeah okay i'm on a welcome i love you
01:37:00.040and you see i'm respectful of our time right yes thank you because now i can get everything
01:37:08.640queued up and hopefully not go to bed super late tonight all right have a good one love you gorgeous
01:37:13.700love you too oh i'm gonna stop recording i learned anything interesting
01:37:19.020just that universities waste prodigious amounts of money i can tell when i go through
01:37:29.620rfps that they put out for travel management and they describe the way that they book travel i'm like
01:37:36.040oh you guys you guys waste a lot of money don't you oh yes you do oh
01:37:44.500that's how universities they're the heart of the whole bleeding broken system that we live in
01:37:53.000yeah i suppose universities can be cracked everything can that's why i'm so interested in
01:37:57.920the american academy project same here yeah going through rfp stuff all day today with a university
01:38:04.880i'm all the more convinced that this needs to be fixed the funny thing is my experiences recently
01:38:13.420doing bid related work with government agencies has made universities seem even more egregiously
01:38:20.440irresponsible which is crazy because you would think that government agencies would be the worst
01:38:24.720on this front but they're not they're actually quite in in many cases responsible the funny thing is
01:38:31.420pretty much every government worker i've encountered has been really responsible conscientious like
01:38:38.620really doing the best that they can universities totally different story that is where i'm seeing
01:38:45.420the classic bureaucrat who literally is just out to spin wheels and keep their job justified it is
01:38:55.000where the rot will spread from the universities outwards why why universities first um because they are the
01:39:03.340most they are sort of the generator of this culture so the disease that is now affecting sort of the deep
01:39:09.580state was lab grown in universities and developed in universities this was it's the they're the gain of
01:39:16.540function for yes their gain of function labs for harmful for a harmful memetic cult um dear me
01:39:24.460i i i you're so clever simone i love you
01:39:27.460in ancient rome where altar shone the pagan gods once ruled alone but quietly came a faithful breed
01:39:47.300not through big signs but with small seed they gathered in humble prayer
01:39:55.800no sweeping crowds or mass fanfare they built their homes with children glad
01:40:04.300more babes they bore than pagans had they didn't conquer hearts by force
01:40:13.000or cast the shrines in sudden course they simply grew in number c the cradle was their victory
01:40:26.000while statues loomed in marble halls they taught their young beyond those walls each brand new life a living call that soon outgrew the pagan throne