Based Camp - Gulf States Reveal How Post-Scarcity Luxury Melts Your Brain

00:00:00.000 Hello, Malcolm. I'm so excited to be speaking with you today because we are going to talk

00:00:04.600 about universal basic income again, but from a very different perspective. This is one of

00:00:08.400 the really important things because AI is coming for our jobs. We're going to get to this point

00:00:12.920 where I don't know where people are going to make their money. And we've already talked about how

00:00:17.480 the initial UBI experiments that have been run in the United States where cash transfers have

00:00:22.600 been made in varying amounts to Americans have yielded very disappointing results in terms of

00:00:29.000 basically while people report that they make their lives better, they don't have any measurable

00:00:34.080 improvements in health, time spent with kids, or even savings over time. Yeah, they have lower

00:00:39.180 savings after UBI. And then anecdotally, I mean, well, not anecdotally, but also when you look at a

00:00:44.840 lot of the cash programs related to various indigenous American tribes, they also have

00:00:50.860 terrible outcomes. So basically just giving cash to people doesn't look great. But suppose you have

00:00:57.420 an infinite money well, and you wanted to try to uplift your people. Is that what you're going

00:01:02.640 to be going down here? Yeah. Yes. Imagine. Yeah. But I mean, like people are arguing, well, but this

00:01:06.300 isn't, this isn't how it will work with AI. I mean, AI can give you so much more money. So what would

00:01:11.640 happen in a world in which people just have so much money, they can give a ton of money and in-kind

00:01:18.340 services to their citizens. Surely these people will be the ultimate thriving society, the Star Trek

00:01:24.960 of our future. Okay, well, great, because we have a natural experiment where this has taken place. And

00:01:31.160 it's a lot of those really wealthy Middle Eastern countries. So yes, thanks to someone pointing this

00:01:37.000 out in the comments on our other UBI episode, we're going to take a look specifically at the most

00:01:43.080 generous countries in the Gulf States. So we're going to look at especially Qatar, but also the UAE

00:01:49.620 and Kuwait, because they're also pretty spendy when it comes to support for their citizens. And

00:01:55.960 let's be clear, it's for their citizens. And for people context here, this isn't something I'm

00:02:01.860 talking about without a degree of personal experience and having, you know, been to these,

00:02:06.380 some of these countries. Yeah, and I haven't. So I'm going to depend on exploration of them,

00:02:10.420 knowing people from these countries. And I pointed out to Simone, and she didn't

00:02:13.060 even know this, that in Qatar, there is a common word in the business world called

00:02:18.920 Qatarted. And it is the name for, they call it, you talk about Qatari, token Qataris being 0.91

00:02:27.860 really, really stupid. It's basically like a country where everyone is a trust fund kid. 1.00

00:02:33.540 Right. Well, it's more than that. If you want to operate business in a lot of these countries,

00:02:38.020 50% of it has to be owned by a Qatari or Emirati or, you know, depending on, there's different

00:02:45.040 ways of structuring it. But basically all of the major companies that operate in these countries

00:02:49.680 are forced to hire, give equity to, and give often sort of token managerial positions to some

00:02:58.240 of the native population that really hasn't earned it. And so it leads to, note here, I'm not saying

00:03:05.040 people in Qatar are stupid or like Emiratis are stupid. This is not the case. 1.00

00:03:10.400 Some of our favorite people are Emiratis.

00:03:12.400 Yeah. One of the smartest people I know is an Emirati. Actually, like genuinely really smart 1.00

00:03:17.940 person. Scary smart. Yeah. But also like based in cool and fun.

00:03:21.500 Yeah. Based in cool and fun. She's like, yeah, I'm gonna have to marry one of my cousins or, 1.00

00:03:24.980 you know, sometimes you just need to put down a rebellion or whatever.

00:03:28.540 I would note here that I don't actually see the cousin marriage thing disparagingly.

00:03:32.560 I actually see it's pretty based to admit that your culture has preferences that are

00:03:38.120 non-normative with the urban monoculture and would be shamed by it and just be like,

00:03:42.640 yeah, that's part of my life. That's my tradition. That's the way I'm different.

00:03:46.060 And as far as the genetic effects, you can watch our videos on this. They're not as big

00:03:49.520 as people pretend they are.

00:03:51.160 But anyway, so very, very cool. Also really cool looking. She's, she's got this, she wears 0.99

00:03:56.440 the full head thing and perfectly circular glasses that look like super nerdy and like work

00:04:01.320 really well on her. So like your only friend though, they're other and like great.

00:04:05.400 Oh yeah. I have, I have, I mean, one of them is a famous YouTuber who I've talked about a

00:04:09.300 number of times, Colin, who's one of the top YouTubers.

00:04:12.240 Is that the Colin who was always like Malcolm, what's my name?

00:04:14.780 Yeah.

00:04:15.720 I love him.

00:04:17.080 So, yeah. So, so his channel, by the way, gets like 5 million views per video. I mean,

00:04:22.400 like famous, famous, right?

00:04:23.680 And so there's a lot of really smart people in these countries. The reason why you get

00:04:30.420 this stereotype is it's a stereotype that's downstream of being forced to hire people when

00:04:37.200 you do not have people qualified for these sorts of positions.

00:04:40.280 Well, or, I mean, this, you could say this is just another example of affirmative action.

00:04:44.280 It just happens to be that this is affirmative action in favor of the, the dominant group in

00:04:50.800 your country. Like the people I know, they don't need to take the token position at whatever firm

00:04:56.460 in, in their country. Yeah. Because they, they have merit and, and on their own, you know,

00:05:00.740 they're on their own. They can succeed anywhere. Right. You know, and keep in mind, like Colin,

00:05:05.260 for example, that YouTube doesn't have an affirmative action program.

00:05:09.140 Yeah. You can't, you can't get anything for that. Right. You know? So, so the point being is,

00:05:13.440 is that when you get people who are hyper-competent from these environments, they do end up

00:05:19.840 in positions of, of power and influence. The problem is, is that the hyper-competent people

00:05:25.880 from these environments, as would be true of any base population, make up like 0.5% of the

00:05:32.420 population. Yeah. And the question that we need to ask is the question, what happens with the

00:05:36.160 mids? What happens with the lower ranks? Not just with the mids, because you get a separate

00:05:39.620 phenomenon, but you need 5% to fill the, like the, the, the top positions at these companies.

00:05:46.340 And so you often get incompetent people put in these positions and it's, it leads to a

00:05:51.480 perception and then a stereotype around people who have to work in these environments. It's like,

00:05:56.200 oh, it's the, the lazy Emirati coming in again. Right. Like who didn't actually earn his position, 1.00

00:06:01.620 like everyone else here, who didn't actually, even people who have merit may not be taken as

00:06:05.240 seriously. And I remember how comical it was. Cause I went to a startup pitch competition in the,

00:06:11.040 in the Emirates to see like what it was like. And there were like people who had like gone

00:06:16.400 through, like gotten money, built like a product and gone up and pitched and they didn't even have

00:06:24.760 URLs, like working URLs. Like this would be like at the end of like, you know, Y Combinator not having

00:06:32.560 even a website, like the level to which like for a certain class of people in these countries,

00:06:40.340 life is just a LARP is really sad. Yeah. And it was so interesting as well, because the whole

00:06:48.220 place was styled like Silicon Valley, right? Like it, it felt like a Silicon Valley pitch place.

00:06:53.520 Like, no, I think in, in that case, like in that startup pitch competition, and this,

00:06:57.400 this is the case with many of the industries that they are trying to jumpstart. They're kind of

00:07:01.640 building a set and attempting to jumpstart it, but that doesn't mean that it's, it's homegrown,

00:07:08.080 you know, they haven't like, this is not a geographical area built around a unique elite

00:07:13.580 world-class university that has for over 100 years through various, like literally geological events

00:07:23.340 and also various economic events attracted various risk friendly autistic people who are

00:07:31.520 going to do brilliant, strange things. Like San Francisco. Yeah. San Francisco. I mean, first

00:07:35.980 there was the gold rush and then there was the 1906 earthquake. Both of those attracted very

00:07:41.440 risk friendly entrepreneurial people who are like, here's an opportunity. I can strike it rich panning

00:07:46.680 for gold or selling to the people panning for gold, or I can strike it rich rebuilding the city.

00:07:51.680 And then it was, I can strike it rich working in the tech scene. Yeah. These are people who,

00:07:55.940 and by the way, I would say for people who haven't, you're talking about how like San Francisco ended

00:08:01.360 up, it drew from all over the world because of the gold rush. Yes. People who were into high risk,

00:08:06.500 high reward opportunities. Um, and not like, it wasn't like drawing like one ethnic group or

00:08:10.760 something. Yeah. And, and now you see a cycle of that was in that region. Um, and one thing I note,

00:08:15.620 if you don't know people from these regions, like what are they, like, you're like, what's their general,

00:08:19.300 my read from having met a lot of them is the general sort of personal personality vibe. I gave

00:08:24.880 a personality vibe of French people recently, which was not very positive, but Asian people

00:08:29.740 specifically. Cause you haven't really. Yeah. Yeah. Is, is that they are generally very cunning,

00:08:36.240 pragmatic, and very hospitable, like, like very like focused on being a generous and good host.

00:08:43.420 And other than that, they're kind of bro-y is I guess the word I'd put it. And, and that's sort of 0.97

00:08:50.000 the, the bundle of personality, which is actually very similar. And actually I, I had one of my

00:08:55.340 friends from the region come see where I lived in Texas and they were like, they were surprised at

00:09:00.680 how much the people in rural Texas really reminded them of the people in the Emirates. And I, and I

00:09:08.620 agree. Like, I, I think that the two cultures actually do have a lot in common. So I, I would

00:09:13.320 note here, I think that like, naturally this is a people that could do really well. I think one of

00:09:20.220 the things that holds them back the most is the infinite money generators and the ways that those

00:09:25.040 have been handled by the state. Yeah. But I still think they make a really good object lesson,

00:09:29.420 allowing us to investigate and explore this concept of generous in-kind services and things

00:09:36.260 approaching universal basic income in a context that's more similar to what we could get in

00:09:41.820 certain AI timelines and not all keep in mind that this is, this is what we would get in the

00:09:46.560 very, very optimistic AI timeline, where for whatever reason, those who end up getting the

00:09:51.720 concentrated small amounts of like immense power, like that, like 0.001% of people and or AIs and or

00:09:58.620 businesses decides, okay, we are going to give a post-scarcity paradise to people. This is what

00:10:08.780 we're looking at. This is not the timeline that we personally expect. We personally expect societies

00:10:15.420 and groups to largely be left behind and for the very wealthy and very connected to coalesce into

00:10:22.440 walled gardens that are highly secure and very isolated, meaning that most people should prepare for

00:10:27.940 permaculture and basically living off the land and depending on the graces and support of a

00:10:33.300 community that is very tight knit that they themselves also support a lot. However, this could

00:10:38.180 happen. This may happen in some areas and it is already happening in a lot of gold states because

00:10:43.160 they have had basically the, the, the false jumpstart via oil money of a post-scarcity society. They have

00:10:51.100 so much money they can just support life. So let's kind of go over what exactly people are getting in

00:10:57.380 terms of lifestyle support in countries like Qatar, because I didn't know exactly how it worked. I

00:11:03.140 was like, is it UBI? Is it something else? And to be clear, Qatari citizens don't receive a universal

00:11:09.620 basic income in the sense of an automatic regular cash allowance for every citizen, but instead they,

00:11:15.700 they get a lot of social benefits and subsidies that significantly improve their standards of life.

00:11:21.260 So let's go over what they do get. They get free healthcare. They get free education, including,

00:11:27.480 especially for Qatar. And we've talked about this in other episodes, education abroad. They're,

00:11:31.820 they're one of the biggest, what, like donors to us universities, right? They get heavily subsidized

00:11:37.920 or free in, in many cases, electricity, water, and other utilities. Imagine just having all your

00:11:43.720 utilities paid for. They have generous pensions. So they still receive retirement benefits.

00:11:49.560 They get retirement, or sorry, newlyweds get additional financial support. This includes

00:11:55.860 some very interesting in-kind benefits, like free villas upon marriage for some.

00:12:02.760 And I had to, yeah, I had to double click on this because I was like, what, what do you,

00:12:07.780 free villa? Like sign me up.

00:12:09.660 What did they look like? Did you, did you find pictures?

00:12:11.340 I did. Yeah. So just, just to, for those listening, the, the villas for newly married Qatari couples,

00:12:16.920 they're modern, they're spacious, they're family oriented. They reflect both contemporary

00:12:21.520 architectural design and higher standards of comfort. To your point about hosting, like they

00:12:25.900 have really nice hosting spaces. They're located within planned communities, featuring amenities

00:12:30.880 for families, often with green spaces and play areas and convenient access to schools and shops.

00:12:36.760 So they have three to five bedrooms, plenty of room for a family. Like talk about pronatalist,

00:12:42.480 separate living and dining rooms. They have a kitchen, several bathrooms to accommodate the

00:12:47.080 growing families. Like definitely this is a focus on families. They have a big focus. They feel kind

00:12:52.700 of compoundy. So there's a big focus on privacy and convenience and they're very modern and they

00:12:57.840 look, you know, anyone who lives in Los Angeles, like they'll see these new houses that crop up

00:13:04.720 whenever someone buys a teardown, like in San Diego that are very like sort of blocky and compoundy.

00:13:10.640 So the architecture is very sleek and contemporary like that, but it also references Qatari cultural

00:13:16.140 aesthetics through some of like the arches and local materials. And they're, they're like,

00:13:22.340 like I said, in these, in these very new planned communities in many cases. So some of the

00:13:26.720 government developed communities, such as bliss villas in Hazum and Abu Sidra are described as being

00:13:32.720 designed for comfort and joy and modern living for Qatari families. I'm going to send you a link

00:13:37.420 to the development website for Abu Sidra because it looks like maybe it's not done yet.

00:13:43.260 And I have to be, I will note that the thing that she's not mentioning that is actually by far the

00:13:48.300 biggest benefit that you get within these countries is the legal regulations I mentioned around when you

00:13:54.640 need to hire Qataris or you need to have stock ownership by Qataris. Same with the Emirates. That

00:13:59.220 is by far, oh, that's, that's really nice.

00:14:01.540 Yeah. Well, that's the really big thing is instead of UBI, you basically have government guaranteed

00:14:06.000 high paying jobs, especially in the public sector. And to your point about there being like an issue

00:14:10.820 of merit, that is something that people have alleged and has is and has been an issue, but

00:14:17.000 apparently there is more focus on reform now. Like people are being held to higher standards of

00:14:21.120 accountability. Yeah. And my, my experience with this is like a decade ago. So yeah. And these rules

00:14:26.740 do involve real work and ongoing modernization policies are making the jobs more merit driven and

00:14:32.360 results oriented. So something I'd note about the sort of elite Arab communities that I have engaged

00:14:38.960 with because the elite Arab communities are very different from the non elite Arab communities.

00:14:44.200 There's quite a, it's a very high power distance sort of area in terms of cultures, which means you get

00:14:49.400 more cultural distance. And so when I talk about Arab culture right now, I'm talking specifically about

00:14:54.440 the, the culture of the elites. And we have another episode where we talk about how rare democracies have

00:14:59.100 been in Arab majority countries. And I think part of the reason is, is because the elite culture is

00:15:03.020 so differentiated from the mainstream culture and more competent. Yeah. But back to the villas though.

00:15:08.460 I just want to show you one more. I'm sending you photos from one of the Hazoum villas, like,

00:15:13.380 cause I actually found a property listing. This one is for about 1.4 million us dollars. So I think

00:15:18.340 you can also buy properties. Oh my God. They're all like marble and stuff. These are, I know it's,

00:15:22.180 yeah, it's, it's actually like it to me, the interior feels very cold and soulless, but it is. Oh no.

00:15:27.700 All the nice stuff there feels that way. So like when you go to like a, like a princess palace

00:15:32.620 there or something like that, cause I know a few actually, they're, they're like giant rooms that

00:15:37.980 feel very empty and covered in gold often and like really high beams and everything.

00:15:43.140 Yeah. It seems like a very, like a very high scale hotel room, just marble. Very, very high scale.

00:15:48.740 Millennial gray, kind of beige gray. Yeah.

00:15:51.980 Grage. It's grage. It's very grage. Lots of marble.

00:15:54.900 But the point I was, I was making there is one of the, the things about these cultures

00:15:59.380 is, remember the first thing I said is that they're very cunning is what, and cunning, pragmatic

00:16:05.720 and hospitable. When you get this sort of cunning pragmatism of which you do get was in these

00:16:10.380 cultures in a disproportionate amount. They are like, if, if you go to one of them, right? Like

00:16:15.820 back, back when I, you know, back then, right. If I, back when this was more of a problem,

00:16:21.160 presumably, and you were like, Hey, there's this problem where people who aren't competent

00:16:25.400 are getting into these positions and it's leading to like lower outcomes. Yeah. They're not going to

00:16:29.800 be like an American, like DEI person. They're like, yeah, I mean, that happens. And what's a better way 1.00

00:16:37.620 that we could structure things so that our people continue to have disproportionate power. And, and in

00:16:42.760 the West, people would be like, what do you, what do you mean? It's like, well, I mean, it's our money

00:16:47.160 and our country. Why wouldn't we attempt to lift up our people? You knob like right now,

00:16:54.640 that's not working well. What's a better way to do it without handing power to outsiders,

00:16:59.580 right? Like that's not a, that's not a, like, I think there's people who might hear this and think

00:17:05.360 that they, they were in this situation because of some degree of incompetence in the way things

00:17:10.500 are structured. And what you seem to be indicating is even past then they have been trying to make

00:17:15.620 things better. And you do, you do absolutely see this in these, in these cultures around their

00:17:19.940 elite population is they are aware of these problems. And unlike the American, like DEI scene

00:17:25.340 or something, there is long-term strategy behind it. You know, this is, yeah, this, this doesn't come

00:17:31.360 from some kind of like, how do I, so it's not like Venezuelan, like Venezuela just ruined, like they 1.00

00:17:39.200 were like, oh, we have stupid money. Like, and then they ruined it all. Whereas in these Gulf States, 0.99

00:17:43.760 it's like, oh, we have stupid money. Like, let's try to turn this into a long-term, long-term 1.00

00:17:49.220 strategic advantage for our people. And I really, I admire that. And I appreciate that. And again,

00:17:54.260 this is why I want to look to these countries as a case study and, and look at their success,

00:17:58.060 like learn from their successes, but also learn from their failures. And they're going to get to

00:18:01.100 the failures. Yeah, but it's not a case study. And I want to point out here where anyone was acting,

00:18:04.540 and this is what makes it such a good case study without pragmatism, without practicality,

00:18:09.560 without a long-term plan and without a degree of, I would say, intelligent ruthlessness.

00:18:15.360 Absolutely. Yeah. And keep, like, you know, these villas aren't dink villas. These are three 0.99

00:18:20.220 and five bedroom. They're like, you're going to have kids, right? Have kids, make sure that you

00:18:23.380 have kids. And keep in mind, while Qatar gives most of its benefits, it's like in kind, like,

00:18:28.100 oh, you will get a job and you're going to work for it. And that was another thing that we talked

00:18:31.500 about in our UBI episodes was that people who received cash transfers, even ones that weren't like

00:18:36.340 that big, worked less. And it wasn't good for them. And same with Native American groups. Like, 1.00

00:18:43.060 some people chimed in the comments with anecdotes in response to that episode and pointed out how

00:18:47.640 one person was talking about a Native American community that he was aware of that was just,

00:18:52.900 like, floundering in addiction and just tons of social problems. And then the tribe changed their

00:18:59.660 policy and required more merit to justify any cash payments. And it really started to turn things

00:19:04.820 around. It's clear, and you can also see this with the New Deal, and especially the Civilian

00:19:10.580 Conservation Corps in the United States history, like during the Great Depression. People who

00:19:15.300 participated in that experienced very long-term benefits. And it's clear to me from the data

00:19:20.380 that working for your money and your benefits gives you a sense of empowerment, gives you a sense

00:19:27.680 of purpose. Like, you do really need to work for this. So what I really appreciate about Qatar here,

00:19:31.920 too, is that while they'll give you free education and healthcare and electricity and water and homes

00:19:38.380 and all these things, they're also like, no, man, you have to work. Like, get a job. I'll give you a

00:19:42.300 job, but you have to work. However, you know, on the cash transfers front, they do nevertheless give

00:19:47.920 pretty generous allowances for people who can't work. So widows, orphans, the elderly, like people over 0.98

00:19:54.700 60, they get, let's see. So for the elderly, they get 6,000 Qatari reals, which is around

00:20:01.580 1,600 US dollars. For children with disabilities, families get per child just over 1,000 US dollars

00:20:10.800 per month. And for a dependent wife, about 550 per month. And just for normal child who's not disabled,

00:20:17.820 about 274 dollars a month, that'd be huge for us. Like, that'd be great. You know, I wouldn't mind

00:20:23.960 it. So in terms of other countries in the area that, I mean, and the most generous Gulf countries

00:20:29.080 and a lot of like most of them that are wealthy have benefits like these. Kuwait's the most close

00:20:35.980 to giving on universal basic income. They give more direct cash allowances. Some proposals have

00:20:42.800 included sums as high as $50,000 per working age adult per year. But in practice, the direct stipend

00:20:48.740 coupled with employment guarantees and generous government jobs is really how most citizens get

00:20:53.720 their income. And again, I think that's really important. It's jobs. But they do, again, provide

00:20:57.420 health care, housing allowances, educational supplements, subsidies for energy and food, and

00:21:01.900 again, guaranteed public sector employment. And I do think that if UBI or some like post AI thing is

00:21:08.820 going to work, it's going to have to be through jobs. An Emirati system, citizens in the UAE also

00:21:13.700 have free health care, free education, including university, subsidized or free utilities,

00:21:18.020 residential land, housing, interest-free loans to build homes. Can you imagine marriage and birth

00:21:23.420 grants? Because remember when we talked in our, in our Muslim fertility rates, one, they were the ones 0.99

00:21:27.440 who were like, yeah, we'll give you $16,000 for a wedding. Please get married. Yeah. Yeah. Well,

00:21:32.100 I think it's so funny to talk about these countries because there's been a lot of countries that have

00:21:36.560 like stumbled into wealth in various ways. Yeah. And these countries, I mean, obviously one of the

00:21:42.340 best in terms of how they handled it was, I can't remember if it's Norway or Sweden was their local

00:21:46.320 fund, but the Saudis have done a pretty good job and the UAE has done a pretty good job and Qatar has

00:21:50.420 done a pretty good job and, and, and like exceptionally good when you contrast it with, with other countries

00:21:55.500 where it's like, just like the warlord and his family, uh, suck everything up. Whereas in these

00:22:00.580 countries, like they did like the least, they sat down and they're like, okay, so I want to use this

00:22:07.140 to like increase the quality of life of my people. And then DEI guy comes in and he goes, you mean

00:22:12.300 everyone who lives in your country? No, no, no, no, no. We'll treat them like slaves. Yeah. My people, my 0.95

00:22:17.620 people, but what he, you know, they, they can live like they live wherever they're coming from. Okay.

00:22:24.840 It is really, really tough for non-beneficiaries in these countries, you know, prices are, are really

00:22:31.540 high for them for food and groceries. It really sucks. I did check to see, cause a lot of people 0.96

00:22:36.880 have said, not necessarily. I mean, as a, as a non-native, if you're like hyper-competent, like

00:22:41.240 if I wanted to, like if I wanted a good, like really reliable income, I could probably get it in,

00:22:48.060 in the UAE because no, no, no, no. It's not like a maybe thing. This is like for like Stanford

00:22:54.580 MBA type people. It's like a known thing, right? Like if you did very well in the Americas and you

00:23:01.040 are like elite class in the Americas, there are certain places that you can go where they always

00:23:06.540 need like a really good, like someone to actually work. Except again, I think that they're, they're

00:23:12.440 getting better at, at really focusing on merit. Right. They are, but they always still need to bring

00:23:17.100 in and, and they're smart about it as well. Like a lot of these countries, they don't have so much

00:23:21.540 pride that they're not like that. It blinds them again to pragmatism and cunning. They're like,

00:23:26.680 okay, but obviously we're not going to have the final decisions being made by, you know,

00:23:31.700 the, the people who are here on like the DEI hire. I like our freezing stone, Pennsylvania

00:23:37.540 farmhouse. I mean, I'm looking at that house. Oh no. Yeah. The villa, like it feels like a sterile

00:23:44.780 Barbie dream house. Like I would just feel existentially depressed in it. And I like the struggle.

00:23:50.460 I like the fact that like, we can't really afford to pair like, no, no, I agree with all that. I

00:23:55.240 mean, it's not the only place in the world that's like that. Like Singapore is another really good

00:23:59.120 place if I wanted to get a decent, reliable job. We're not going somewhere so hot. Oh my God.

00:24:03.600 No. Well, the UAE is pretty hot as well. So is Qatar. Yeah, but they have free energy. So you can

00:24:08.300 just do air conditioning forever. But you know, you know why I can't live in any of these countries?

00:24:13.000 I don't know. You just called them Qatar-ded maybe? No, no.

00:24:16.260 Because you've, you've, you've thrown China under the bus a million times. 0.96

00:24:19.720 These, as I've said, these people are, are very pragmatic. I know, I know. They just

00:24:23.880 want competent people. Why can't you work there? They don't really have any tolerance for a lot

00:24:28.040 of the DEI stuff of the West, but. Oh, I thought you were going to say alcohol. Sorry.

00:24:32.260 It's alcohol. Yeah. Alcohol is incredibly expensive in every single one of these countries,

00:24:36.320 including Singapore. You'll be a copper. Yeah. Yeah. It won't work. Yeah. I mean,

00:24:40.740 God, I mean, we, we can barely, I mean, with the alcohol taxes here, I, I, the Pennsylvania

00:24:44.760 alcohol industry is such a weird racket. Anyway, by the state, what we need to do. Yeah. What we

00:24:51.740 need to do though, is discuss now, does this paradise of post scarcity for citizens in these

00:25:00.080 countries produce better outcomes? Cause that's again, what we need to be asking. And that is

00:25:05.200 what, you know, we, we talked about in our universal basic income episode, because while

00:25:09.120 people were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm definitely better off by measurable policy outcomes. And in the

00:25:14.280 words of Kelsey Piper, who wrote the blog post that we read, not really. No. So let's start with

00:25:20.520 happiness. Cause everyone just cares so much about happiness. We don't, but people do. Um, so if we

00:25:26.100 look at the world happiness report, cause of course there was one in recent rankings, the USA score in

00:25:32.300 2025 was 6.72. It was ranked around 23rd globally, which is pretty good. Qatar. It has the latest reported

00:25:40.400 score of 6.37. It's ranked about 36th globally. So while both countries are well above the median,

00:25:49.420 which is around 5.4 USA consistently outranks Qatar in the happiness surveys, which is very

00:25:55.720 interesting because you can imagine, you know, describing the benefits I described the villas,

00:26:01.280 the free education to most Americans. And they'd be like, that's all I need to be happy. That's all I

00:26:05.380 need. So it's interesting that while Qataris benefit from national wealth and safety and 0.60

00:26:10.140 generous government support, Americans still tend to report higher subjective happiness. And maybe this

00:26:15.700 is due to some broader personal freedoms. Maybe it's, it's just higher satisfaction. Americans are

00:26:22.220 happier than they are. Yeah. America. Yeah. Like I said, Americans rank around 23rd globally and Qataris as 1.00

00:26:28.820 2025 are around 36th globally. So maybe. I, I, I can, I can see why. I mean, I haven't like in, in my time

00:26:40.680 there, the people I met are not as happy as the people in the United States. Yeah. I mean, it's,

00:26:46.980 it's interesting though. Cause when you ask. Well, also keep in mind the responsibilities they feel.

00:26:52.000 So I think that this is also like, when I talk with UAE friends and stuff like that, their, their life is

00:27:00.040 often much more sort of planned out from day one than people in the United States.

00:27:05.440 Well, and where's the struggle? Like where's the tension?

00:27:08.240 No, no. That's where the struggle is. It's an actually stressful stuff. You got to marry one of your cousins.

00:27:13.400 You got to build up that relationship from like day, which is super important because you got to marry the

00:27:17.960 right person to build family alliances. And you've got to, you know, you hold all of these

00:27:24.220 traditions and you've got to host guests in just this way with just these plates being brought out

00:27:30.600 in just this procession. And then you've got a fast for like fricking half the year. And then you've

00:27:37.140 got to do, do this and this, and you can't even drink and you can't, I don't think they're allowed to

00:27:42.980 gamble either. You can't say, so you're, you're, you, what do you, how are you recreating was at

00:27:48.100 hookah bars, which just gives you the jitters? You, sorry. Welcome to Muslim sensitivity training. 1.00

00:27:55.960 It is important for us to understand why the Muslims feel the way they do. First of all, 1.00

00:28:01.720 there's no sex until marriage in the Muslim world. Now this would be fine, except that in the Muslim 1.00

00:28:06.780 religion, you also can't jack off. And what do we know about the places Muslims live? They live in 0.65

00:28:14.660 sand. Now put yourself in the shoes of a Muslim. It's Friday night, but you can't have sex and you 1.00

00:28:22.520 can't jack off. There's sand in your eyes and probably in the crack here. And then some cartoon 1.00

00:28:26.880 comes along from a country where people are getting laid and mocks your profit. Well, you know what? 0.66

00:28:31.860 I'd be pretty pissed off too. I don't know. What I, what I always think of is, and I'm sending this

00:28:36.300 picture to you on WhatsApp, is that famous photo of the Falcons that the Saudi prince bought seats for

00:28:42.080 on, on a plane. And I'm just like, I don't know, like are, are buying seats for your Falcons on an

00:28:48.600 airplane? Is that a sign of human flourishing? Like, are you thriving if you're, if you're flying around

00:28:55.040 your birds? Oh my God. I had no idea it was like this. It's so literally the entire middle row is

00:29:02.380 just Falcon seats. Yeah. Falcons on what the heck? And these are the Falcons that are flying in coach.

00:29:10.020 It's just like a big thing there. I've heard, I don't know the full story here because it's been

00:29:13.460 a while, but my sister almost married a prince from the region who was really into falconing.

00:29:18.440 Now part of me wonders if it was this guy. No, not almost. There's a lot of people into falconing.

00:29:23.320 They weren't like, it was like a proposal or something. I don't understand the specifics of

00:29:28.040 it. I just remember hearing this story at one point. I'm just saying like, I don't,

00:29:32.920 I don't think I would be happier if I had that level. Yeah. I would not be happier with 20 Falcons.

00:29:40.160 That does not make me happier having, it doesn't even seem like a particularly fun hobby. I mean,

00:29:45.720 different people are into different things, but. Yeah. I'm just, you know, money, money only goes so far.

00:29:50.160 So anyway, happiness, they're not, that's not necessarily the thing. So let's go to health,

00:29:55.300 right? Okay. So a lot of people in it, we've covered a lot of different surveys on what people

00:29:59.840 value the most and health is, is up there really ranked high, especially among Gen Z, Gen Y,

00:30:05.760 millennials show. Let's look at that. Let's compare the Gulf States that have all this money with the

00:30:10.800 EU, with UK, Canada, and, and also in the U S. So broadly let's keep in mind first for context,

00:30:16.980 healthcare is universal and high quality in the Gulf States and the EU, in the UK and Canada,

00:30:22.200 they have nationalized healthcare. You can get healthcare. It's, it's just part of the package

00:30:25.960 in the U S health insurance is patchy. It's really expensive. Not everyone has it. It's sometimes if

00:30:32.380 you're at the poverty level and you get free healthcare, it's, it's confusing. You know,

00:30:36.640 if, if you're asthma gold and people think you're homeless, they're just not going to bill you.

00:30:39.920 I love that that happens to asthma gold on multiple occasions. Hospitals, not charging him.

00:30:46.560 Everyone just thinks he's a homeless man. I love him so much.

00:30:49.920 Homeless privilege. So anyway, it's so weird. Like all of these weird, like libelous attacks and

00:30:54.800 slanderous attacks I've seen against him recently that I didn't see before. I think that's because

00:30:58.100 he's, his profile is rising and people now see him as a threat. They're like, because how do you,

00:31:03.780 how do you compete with him? You can't, you can't know, especially if you're a leftist,

00:31:08.300 cause you can't paint him as like a rich elite, right? Like you may have money because of his

00:31:12.760 streaming now, but he still lives in a place that looks like a crack house. You know, he's,

00:31:16.840 he doesn't even like put all of his teeth in because he's like, ah, they don't see that on

00:31:21.160 camera. He just doesn't get the side that shows up on camera anyway. So I'm just, anyway, so I just

00:31:27.120 want to say like, because obvious spoil alert, the U S doesn't rank the best for health,

00:31:32.180 but also we don't have universal healthcare and all the competition does. And I actually

00:31:36.060 think we're doing pretty well. So the, the life expectancy in years for the U S is 78 to 29.

00:31:44.260 And then the best ranking one is the EU where it's 84 to 80, but honestly, like 78 versus 84,

00:31:52.240 like, honestly, like you're old, your quality of life isn't that great anyway. Like I'm not mad

00:31:58.260 about that, especially considering that, that healthcare is more spotty in the United

00:32:02.100 States. So in Canada, it's 83 UK, 81 EU, like I said, 80 to 84 in the UAE where we have all this

00:32:10.760 money. It's 79. The USA is 78 to 79. All right. So in, in post-scarcity, futuristic AI utopia world,

00:32:21.320 they're not necessarily living longer. Qatar 80, that's one year more than 79 in the U S Kuwait,

00:32:27.740 78. All right. At the, the lower end of the U S. And then this is the thing is that these are the

00:32:33.060 countries where it's managed the way we would manage it. If you had the top minds working on

00:32:38.320 it. Right. Because if you were to ask like a person in the U S like, well, what would it take

00:32:42.320 for us to get to 84? Like in the EU, they'd be like, well, of course, universal healthcare,

00:32:47.240 it just needs to be paid for. Well, guess where it's paid for the most generously. How are they doing?

00:32:52.780 The same as us. Okay. And when, I think the big factor here though, do you want to guess what it

00:32:58.740 is, Malcolm? What? Tell me. It's obesity. They're fat. They're fat like us. Well, especially if your

00:33:05.540 whole body can be covered easily. That's true. The billowing clothes, you know, you got to introduce

00:33:11.020 the star Trek uniforms. They already have the post-scarcity society introduced the spandex.

00:33:15.560 You're going to shame them into being thin right away, right away. I mean, one of the things I love

00:33:21.260 about these, these environments, if you're not familiar with them is in the United States,

00:33:26.320 pretty much, and this is true across Western cultures, when you are in upper class environments,

00:33:32.060 like at an office or something like that, especially like an elite office, you're often

00:33:36.440 expected to come in a uniform, like suit and tie, right. In very few cultures in Texas, where I'm from,

00:33:43.220 you can, if you are Texan, get away with modifying that, you know, with jeans and belt and a bolo and

00:33:50.540 stuff like that. Minor modifications, but, but, you know, they're, they're one usually reserved

00:33:55.600 for Texans. You'd be seen as pretty weird if you were non-Texan and you did that. And you, you,

00:34:01.460 but in Texas, I think it's one of the few cultures where they, on the broader side, think it was kind

00:34:06.900 of cool that you were that into Texas culture. They're not going to be like, you're appropriating

00:34:10.920 my culture. They're like, ah, that's cool. But in the UAE, when you are in, and this is also too,

00:34:16.440 in Qatar, but it's like different outfits when you are in like high society, very like wealthy,

00:34:21.820 like business office or whatever, they wear their traditional outfits, which they look pretty

00:34:26.900 awesome. I think it's really cool. Uh, I think, but you're right. They're a little forgiving when

00:34:32.000 it comes to those. Quite obese in these traditional outfits. Killer. Yeah. It's still, yeah. It reminds me

00:34:41.380 St. Andrews where at the end of winter. So I went to school at St. Andrews, which is in Scotland.

00:34:46.480 And at the end of winter, they do this thing called May Dip, but obviously over winter, everyone's

00:34:51.340 dressed in very like layered puffy clothing. And at May Dip, I remember being shocked about how many

00:34:59.600 of the girls had become quite fat without me realizing it because of all the puffy clothing 1.00

00:35:05.620 that they were wearing. And this is why when you normalize outfits that hide how obese people are,

00:35:12.660 people just naturally become more obese. Moto Moto would have had a field day. It may dip.

00:35:18.760 I like them big. I like them joking. I like them big. I like them big.

00:35:26.780 If you, if you look at the male ones, they're sort of like robe thing drab, drabbed over you.

00:35:31.960 Think Jedi. They all, they all walk around dressed like Jedi. Um, yeah. And so it is really a sci-fi

00:35:40.260 post-scarcity world. Yeah. How fat does the Jedi need to be before you notice? And you're like,

00:35:46.540 well, you notice in the neck and it's like, no, they've got things that cover the neck. So you

00:35:49.420 wouldn't even see that. Tell you what, but yeah, so that's, it's, it's the obesity, it's the nutrition,

00:35:55.740 both the Gulf states and the U S diets. They're, they're much more calorie dense, whereas EU diets

00:36:00.980 are healthier overall. Also the men, the mental health situation in the West is actually much

00:36:06.500 better, or at least like they, it's hard to kind of read this. Maybe you could argue, maybe that the

00:36:12.540 Gulf states are better because they have a stigma against mental health problems and just don't treat

00:36:16.800 them. But as far as some people are concerned, the Gulf is improving. There's less stigma, but it's

00:36:22.820 still far behind the Western countries. And I'm not sure if that's good or bad. We're talking

00:36:26.360 about the happiness rates though, that like, they're not as happy. So let's talk about the

00:36:30.160 We often say that the U S mental health industry is a bit of a scam, which mostly perpetuates

00:36:34.380 mental health problems rather than makes it worse. I mean, I would imagine that they probably

00:36:38.580 deal with this stuff much more directly in not up, not up. Stop acting sad. You win for matter.

00:36:47.640 Stop hyperventilating. So mental health, we're just going to whatever, but birth rates. Okay.

00:36:52.780 This is, this is kind of the key, key indicator of health, right? Like, are you perpetuating

00:36:56.800 your genes? Like you're fit or you're not, you know, that's ultimately what it comes down to

00:37:00.620 kind of, I mean, it's not as bad as I thought. So Kuwait, which has like, you know, the closest

00:37:08.220 to the UBI situation, it's 1.5 to 2.2. That's kind of a huge range. So I don't know what to do

00:37:14.740 with that below the U S though. Yeah. So the USA is 1.6 ish. So like 1.5, we don't get paid to

00:37:22.000 marry in the United States. I know, I know. And you, well, you don't get like everything taken

00:37:25.740 care of, you know, get subsidies for kids. So like, I'm not impressed given everything that

00:37:31.040 they offer in Qatar. It's 1.4 to 1.9. So something you're forgetting in these countries

00:37:37.600 is if you are from like an elite family or something like that, or you are like an extremely

00:37:43.960 high performer, who you marry is much more difficult to organize in the U S because you're

00:37:50.560 typically marrying into a family network. Oh, so you're saying it's kind of the Catholic

00:37:54.680 situation here where like, because so much thought and effort gets put into getting married that

00:37:59.980 they're overthinking it, getting married too late and then not able to have as much kids

00:38:03.180 as they otherwise. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I suspect is really going on. So if you look

00:38:06.900 at the United States, I mean, you just need to find somebody who like, you're like is hot

00:38:10.900 and you want to spend time with, you don't need to like go into who they're, you're not first

00:38:16.300 limited to only people within. And we've noted this isn't like bad genetically speaking,

00:38:20.600 especially if you're talking about second cousins, which is actually the highest third

00:38:24.260 cousin, third cousin, but, but in these countries, these are things that you actually pay attention

00:38:30.280 to. You know, you are marrying within it's sort of your population group. Second is a much smaller

00:38:34.960 population. Like for me, when I'm dating, it's just broadly white people, right? Like there's a lot 1.00

00:38:41.440 of white people. Well, have you not dated a lot of non-white people? I did date non-white 0.95

00:38:47.060 people, but not that frequently. It wasn't actually, I didn't even have a preference really

00:38:51.020 for white people. It's just, I happened to date them more. I don't know why. I felt like 0.72

00:38:55.500 white people responded more to my outreach on dating platforms. Yeah. I like, I definitely

00:39:01.680 dated Indian, Asian, black, that's it. And white. Yeah. But in these countries, I'm saying like,

00:39:14.220 even, even if you have a preference, right. You're still like broadly, I can go to the UK

00:39:19.600 and find somebody and I'm not, no one's going to think that like, none of my family is going

00:39:22.880 to have a problem with me marrying somebody from the UK, right. Or Germany or France or really

00:39:28.280 any part of the United States. If you are in, you know, one of these countries, your like global

00:39:34.500 population of people you can marry without your family throwing up a, a, a banana is going to be 0.75

00:39:41.520 Muslim, still Muslim by the way. So not deconverted Arabs likely within your family network.

00:39:49.040 Yeah. That makes it more complicated. That's a logistical nightmare. Yeah. Anyway, continue

00:39:54.840 birth rates, Qatar 1.4 to 1.9. So like I would put that at roughly 1.6. Like they're, they're not

00:40:02.200 beating us despite having all these things. The UAE is even worse. It's, it's, it's at approximately 0.97

00:40:07.840 1.4. Again, compare that to 1.6 in the USA where we basically offer no help at all to parents.

00:40:15.280 And keep in mind when we talk about differential fertility rates in religion, and I'm like Muslim

00:40:20.740 countries and Muslim cultures have a very low fertility rate when you adjust for religion.

00:40:24.500 When you address for income, that's what we're seeing here. It's, it's, it's the cultural

00:40:30.180 system and note this cultural system isn't necessarily just their beliefs. When I talk

00:40:35.000 about why their fertility rates are likely lower, I talk about the logistical difficulty

00:40:39.520 in getting married in this sort of clan-based system. And that's, that's not like an inherently

00:40:46.660 Muslim thing, but it is an Arab thing, right?

00:40:49.020 I wonder if it's also a little bit downstream of all these benefits. Keep in mind that, that education,

00:40:53.720 high quality education, often international, sometimes university could also be suppressing

00:40:59.640 this by again, shifting marriage from being a cornerstone to a capstone element of life where

00:41:05.480 like you get married after you get your education and that's moving things back instead of having

00:41:10.080 them get married before they go off to university. So that could also be a factor here. Also because

00:41:15.580 it's government subsidized. You're like, well, I'd be stupid to not make sure I get this in before I 0.62

00:41:19.320 start my family. You know, there's something like that, especially if you're going to leave the 0.77

00:41:22.820 country, it gets complicated. I don't know. But anyway, so the USA is at 1.6 and again, so Canada,

00:41:30.060 the UK, the EU, while they're not the Gulf States giving you like a free house and free electricity,

00:41:36.280 they still have free healthcare and they're at 1.5 in Canada, 1.5 in the UK and the EU averages 1.4.

00:41:44.160 So they're doing worse than the United States at 1.6. So again, not really seeing the results we're

00:41:50.180 looking for in terms of birth rate. So let's look at innovation. Okay. You know, a big sign that you

00:41:56.160 and I would count with human flourishing beyond birth rates is like, are they contributing to

00:42:01.920 the advancement of humanity? Are they moving us forward technologically, entrepreneurially,

00:42:07.300 economically? Are they uplifting the human race? The 2025 Global Innovation Index, this is something

00:42:13.080 created by the World Intellectual Property Organization, which I figure probably does a

00:42:18.100 pretty good job at like tracking people, introducing new tech. The USA ranked third globally. That's

00:42:24.960 after Switzerland and Sweden. The UK ranked sixth. Canada ranked 15. Top EU nations were just in the top

00:42:33.240 10 to 20 worldwide. The UAE is 31st globally. It's best in like the Gulf States. It's rising rapidly, 1.00

00:42:40.540 but that's 31st. Qatar is 51st globally. And Kuwait isn't even in the top 60. And I can send you the

00:42:48.980 beautiful ranking graph that shows sort of 2021 to now to 2025. And you can kind of see how they

00:42:55.340 fluctuated over time, but you're not, you're not seeing Gulf States in there that just throw money

00:42:58.700 at people. Maybe they're too busy flying their Falcons around. I don't know, but they're not,

00:43:03.420 they're not using their money to innovate. And that's also something that I think about,

00:43:07.560 you know, is, is when you make people comfortable, you know, are they going to invent new things? Are

00:43:14.240 they going to move us forward? Or are they just going to kind of, like you said, it can be like

00:43:17.960 bro-y, you know, cunning and like, like pretend entrepreneurship. And that's the problem with

00:43:23.940 projects like Neom, right? Is it's all pretend entrepreneurship. It's a good idea on paper.

00:43:29.300 If anybody actually, it's a cool idea on paper. I don't know if it's a good idea.

00:43:32.900 I, I, I don't hate the idea of trying to create a special economic zone with unique laws that is

00:43:40.320 closer to Israel, which is really what they're trying to do is to create a, create like a 0.90

00:43:44.080 tourist sort of a hotspot and tech bro hotspot. I mean, Dubai's done a really good job at becoming

00:43:49.880 like tech hotspot. Like it can be done. Like Dubai exists, you know, so don't, you know,

00:43:57.320 I wouldn't, I wouldn't poo poo. I'm just saying like, it's not showing up as an export of these

00:44:06.560 regions, despite the fact that I would have hoped that in this post post scarcity, Star Trek style

00:44:12.480 world where everyone walks around like Jedi and has money for things and gets free education

00:44:16.640 that they, they would then. And I think people have this, this delusion that that's what happens

00:44:21.400 is you just, when you have, you know, when the government is your patron, you have free time

00:44:26.480 to just sit and invent new things and make the world better and produce gorgeous art. And we're

00:44:31.940 just not seeing that. I mean, even just look at the designs of these houses. It is like literally

00:44:36.160 millennial grayish everywhere. It's so soulless. And I just, it looks great. It looks great in a very AI 1.00

00:44:43.560 kind of way. Not that like cool, funky, weird AI where like, you know, build a mansion, but make it on a

00:44:49.180 cliff and all pink and rainbow unicorn themed, but just like generic, optimal. So also we need to look

00:44:56.840 at entertainment. You know, maybe I thought maybe, okay, it's not innovation. It's entertainment, but

00:45:01.500 no, I mean, like India has Bollywood. Of course we have Hollywood. South Korea is able at being a, you

00:45:07.860 know, top tier in terms of cultural exports and very little cultural exports come from this part of

00:45:14.520 the world. It's like actually kind of shocking. It is a regional player is sort of how

00:45:19.040 it's, it's, it's categorized in, in indexes, you know, USA is a world leader. UK is top tier,

00:45:25.120 Canada, Switzerland, and Germany are seen as strong. I don't really, but I mean like the best

00:45:31.900 that they, that the, the, the Gulf States can be diplomatically categorized as, as a regional player.

00:45:38.820 So in the end, that really shouldn't be the case. I mean, I'm pretty sure like, for example, Israel 1.00

00:45:45.880 outputs, like pretty successful movies. Like it's, it's not that you can't, if you're a smaller

00:45:50.820 country like that output, high quality. Again, South Korea outputs. South Korea, like they're super

00:45:56.900 small. Yeah. Japan has produced amazing stuff. So yeah, I, I really don't, I don't think it's that.

00:46:05.040 I just, yeah. So in the end, what I'm taking away from this is it is possible to keep your people

00:46:13.740 afloat with jobs based and in-kind support, not cash transfers. And that's kind of, if you're going

00:46:23.340 to do UBI, if you're going to create a utopia for some select group of people using your AI superpowers

00:46:29.900 and resources, give them guaranteed jobs and support and education and healthcare.

00:46:36.620 But let them suffer and fail if they're going to suffer and fail.

00:46:39.400 Yeah. Yeah. Or, well, I don't know. Like I actually think you need to give people more

00:46:43.340 hardship and struggle if you want them to actually keep, to, to produce cool things. I, I, I don't

00:46:49.640 know.

00:46:49.780 Failure needs to be a possibility in a system for thriving to happen.

00:46:53.100 Failure. Yeah. Failure needs to be a possibility.

00:46:54.600 If the whole thing can just be done again, if there's no real cost to anything.

00:47:00.060 Or if you introduced, I mean, maybe it's more of an attitudes thing. Like, I feel like maybe if

00:47:04.500 this existed in America, we'd have a shot because Americans would still be so competitive with each 0.98

00:47:08.800 other that like we would see a down and out in the magic kingdom by Cory Doctorow situation where

00:47:13.880 while everyone has their luxury villa and their free education and their perfect healthcare,

00:47:18.920 they're, they're still ruthlessly fighting for attention on social media. They're still ruthlessly

00:47:24.520 fighting for whatever the lullaboo of the time is, you know, for this, the few scarce resources that

00:47:31.560 exist for the Basquiat that, that, you know, everyone wants to collect. Like they're still going to fight

00:47:36.920 for things that are artificially or just circumstantially rare. And, and, and hopefully that,

00:47:43.320 that Thorstein Veblen style of, of status and security never leaves us because I think it is

00:47:50.280 a huge contributor to both American happiness and innovation. So I'm hoping for that. I'm hoping that,

00:47:57.640 that maybe, maybe that is the ideal scenario is that maybe when certain populations like an American

00:48:04.680 population is, is given these kinds of post-scarcity resources, they actually do keep fighting. But my

00:48:11.400 intuition is that they won't, and it will get situations where no one is necessarily happier,

00:48:16.840 the birth rates aren't necessarily better.

00:48:18.360 I think we need to build a family culture, you know, you need to build an environment where like,

00:48:21.960 as I said, when I was growing up, it was always just me versus other people in my family, right?

00:48:25.880 Like that, that was my benchmark of success. And I was told to not benchmark myself against the wider

00:48:31.400 world.

00:48:31.640 Yeah. You, you, you genuinely didn't care. You could not care less about what other people were doing.

00:48:37.800 You were like, or really like you benchmarked, like many of history's greats benchmark against

00:48:44.440 Alexander, the great, you know, they weep at the thought that like, Oh no, like I'm,

00:48:48.520 I often felt very bad that Alexander had accomplished more than me.

00:48:51.720 Yeah. Like benchmarking, not to a local peer group, but rather to either your own high achieving

00:48:58.280 family or historical figures that profoundly.

00:49:00.760 I lecture to more people than Alexander did every day. Okay. You know, more people get to listen to

00:49:07.400 me and my ideas and that's what I care about most. So in a way I'm doing better than Alexander the great.

00:49:13.720 I would say in many ways, you know, I, I think it sucks to be a leader that's surrounded by yes men 0.99

00:49:19.880 and simultaneously a bunch of people who would benefit from you being dead. It would be a very 0.97

00:49:24.360 stressful lifestyle. I mean, he came from a family where like people just kept dying. Like, I, I don't

00:49:33.240 know. I'm glad you're not Alexander the great, just as someone who cares about your well-being and happiness.

00:49:40.680 Plus he was such a drama king. I cannot believe it was because he learned from like the, the,

00:49:46.120 I know he was trying to model Achilles. I just think it's, but what a bad role model. They talk about

00:49:52.120 like bad celebrity role models today. Achilles worst celebrity role model. Yeah. Yeah. Seriously.

00:50:00.440 Like just trying to like, to ape his, his toxic tantrums, but whatever. That's how you be manly.

00:50:09.320 Throw a toxic tantrum. Yeah. It's very strange. So whatever, but yeah, I'm glad that our audience,

00:50:18.600 which is so smart. You guys always humble me with like your insights encouraged us to look at this.

00:50:24.360 I think it is a good case study. And I think the biggest thing that I'm taking away from this is the

00:50:29.320 smartest thing they did was you have to get a job. I'll guarantee you a job, but you have to give a

00:50:34.200 job. And this is where we see a repeat of what we saw with the civilian conservation corps of the,

00:50:40.680 the new deal in the United States and the great depression, which really did produce lasting

00:50:46.920 good outcomes for those who participated in it. They had better health, longer lifespans,

00:50:51.160 more wealth over time, I think if memory serves. And I really do think that empowering people through

00:50:55.800 work is, is the way that it goes. Work will set you free. Yeah. Work work. Oh God, Simone. 0.64

00:51:05.640 Is that what we're going to end this on? Going to get us in big trouble?

00:51:08.120 You just love throwing those grenades out.

00:51:14.440 I love you, Malcolm. What am I making you for dinner tonight?

00:51:17.240 Well, we've got the curry that is out. Oh crap. Yeah. But do you want me to like dress 0.98

00:51:21.240 it up in something? You want me to make like- Actually, I was going to say,

00:51:24.520 do we have naan that we can like heat up? We do. Do you want me to, ooh,

00:51:28.920 do you want me to like make a pizza of it? Or do you just, just with naan?

00:51:34.440 Actually, that's a good idea. And then you put some like mozzarella on top.

00:51:37.080 That's what I was thinking, but I could also just do it the way we've been doing Bulldog,

00:51:40.600 where I just heat it, like a basically kind of dry it out into a curry meat pancake in the air fryer

00:51:46.360 on a silpat. And then we, with cheese on top, then it will probably put the cheese on top after I dry

00:51:52.440 it out. And then I serve it to you like a curry meat pancake pizza with mozzarella cheese on top.

00:51:57.560 Okay. I, the one thing I change about it is I put honey on top of it.

00:52:01.880 It's clearly- Don't you have that sweet honey that, that got trendy and that no one actually

00:52:06.440 uses. It's supposed to go on pizzas. Like spicy honey. Oh yeah. Hot honey.

00:52:11.240 But we can also just drizzle. We have real honey too. So like-

00:52:14.200 I'd rather use- Do real honey. Real honey. 1.00

00:52:18.040 And because the, the like sweetness of the mangoes isn't really tasteable in it anymore.

00:52:21.960 Interesting. And so I thought that honey might help. And

00:52:27.400 yeah, cook it however you want. I love the idea of having some mozzarella in it. That,

00:52:30.760 that could work really well.

00:52:31.720 Okay. So we're going to do a- I'm hearing slamming. We're going to do a curry pizza. 0.93

00:52:39.240 I don't know if I would cook it on top of the naan. I will put it on the naan.

00:52:42.120 Oh no. Oh, I was just thinking like, if you want to do it bulldog style.

00:52:45.880 Yeah. Like bulldog style and then, and then scoop it with the naan. 0.94

00:52:48.760 Okay. So you still want naan. Okay. Yeah. I guess that's fair. Cause bulldog has the rice

00:52:53.960 things. What are those called again?

00:52:56.600 Yeah. So you don't need the pizza with the bulldog, but you do need it with this,

00:53:01.480 the pizza crust, which is what we're doing with the naan.

00:53:03.800 Yeah. That makes sense. Good. I love you. I'm going to go get the kids. I'm going to

00:53:10.200 play with them and bathe them. And then when everything's ready for dinner.

00:53:13.720 Hi Octavian. You want to say hi to the- Hold on.

00:53:17.560 Hey Octavian. Yeah. What are you up to?

00:53:21.240 I want to say, I want like and subscribe for everybody. Like and subscribe. If you like

00:53:29.080 and subscribe, give us a comment down below. Did you just fart?

00:53:32.680 No. Oh, all right, buddy. You're a butt.

00:53:39.960 He just came over here and farted. All right. Game over, man. Simone over and out. I got to get out of 1.00

00:53:46.600 here. Oh boy. And I am loving you to death, my beautiful, beautiful princess.

00:53:53.000 You are so wonderful. I love my new mic set up so I can go.

00:53:59.640 No hands guys. Fancy. So very fancy. And you've got a baby, a new one. But you've

00:54:05.720 got a baby on you for five years at this point. I love that. And I never wanted to change. It is

00:54:12.280 the best. And it's nice. He's more awake now. He's more alert. Such a luxury that so many women 1.00

00:54:19.320 would do anything for. I know. That's the thing is, as we know, having struggled with infertility.

00:54:25.400 Done with the last of these. So we will have three bonkers for the kids. I noticed that this bottle

00:54:30.680 makes a very good bonker. So we've been washing them and we're going to store them and then set them

00:54:35.000 all up so the kids can wail on each other with them.

00:54:37.000 Yeah. They've already had a lot of fun with them. I mean, what, what Indy insisted on doing that,

00:54:43.560 why one of them got so messed up last night and so dirty was that she kept walking like she walks

00:54:49.320 like a, you know, a cowboy. She kept sidling around the kitchen and then like trying to drink out of 0.88

00:54:55.160 it and just looking super proud of herself. So. Cause she's still how we drink and she doesn't drink 0.97

00:55:01.640 from cups yet. Yeah. She wants to clearly. So yeah. All right. I will kick us off.

00:55:10.280 Okay. Okay. Now you've got your shields. Let's see.

00:55:18.280 Hi.

00:55:20.280 No, no shields. Shields will make it hurt less. 0.59

00:55:42.280 Let's go get a tiger. 0.75

00:56:08.280 Okay.

Based Camp - October 28, 2025

Gulf States Reveal How Post-Scarcity Luxury Melts Your Brain

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