Based Camp - Gurren Lagann： The Anime That Hated Anti-Natalists & Life Extensionists

00:00:00.000 I want to talk about why this show is so rare, because when you look at how this show frames good, bad are the things that limit humanity's potentiality, and good is the expansion of human potentiality.

00:00:11.440 When I look at the way good is framed in things like Hollywood, where good is just sort of general utilitarianism or the maintenance of the status quo, you know, I'd often say that my favorite villain song of a Disney movie is Hakuna Matata.

00:00:26.820 In Evangelion, they struggle to live, whereas in Gurren Lagann, they live to struggle, and that so resonates.

00:00:36.280 This idea of struggle is bad, we need to live to end struggle. Instead of seeing struggle as the reason for living, in Gurren Lagann, when they're looking at the challenges ahead of them, they get excited about them.

00:00:51.360 The challenges are what give life its purpose. And this boundless optimism isn't because we don't know that struggle exists. It isn't because we don't know how hard life is for people.

00:01:05.140 It's because we're excited at the challenge to overcome that, both at the level of individuals and at the level of a species.

00:01:13.040 I am so excited for our topic today, because it is on what I think is the greatest of all pro-natalist media pieces I've ever seen.

00:01:23.820 And it's a piece that I also ascribe some religious significance to, because I think it captures concepts that we try to convey in some of our, like, religious episodes that are actually pretty difficult to capture unless you're doing it in this sort of goofy, irreverent way.

00:01:41.120 But I want to, first, what I love is people, like, just to go over the pro-natalist Gurren Lagann connection here, right?

00:01:49.040 Because I mentioned this to some of my progressive friends, and they're like, what? Gurren Lagann's a pro-natalist piece?

00:01:56.160 Or the people who were surprised when Franks, we did an episode on, like, the naughty anime topics, where we talked about this anime Franks, which was just an entirely pro-natalist anime, very explicitly.

00:02:08.980 And people were really surprised by how pro-natalist it was, and how much it shamed ideas like life extensionism.

00:02:14.800 And I'm like, these are the people who did Gurren Lagann.

00:02:18.100 Somehow, the world, like, collectively, when they were watching Gurren Lagann, they did not catch the enemy.

00:02:26.740 And it's not even like an adult comparison or an adult slander on ideas like the carrying capacity of the Earth.

00:02:36.200 It is as if I was creating a cartoon that was supposed to, like, go to a middle school and, like, cartoonishly sort of brainwash kids into a specific perspective on topics.

00:02:48.440 We're like, in Captain Planet, you know how the capitalists, like, look like pigs and, like, oink and everything like that and everything? 1.00

00:02:55.500 If there's anything I like more than being mean, it's being sneaky. 0.94

00:03:00.580 The people who work in extractive industries are real people, not pigmen.

00:03:04.860 I'll be able to build broil anywhere!

00:03:07.940 This is, uh, that's basically the way Gurren Lagann treats the concept of antinatalism.

00:03:12.580 So, for those who don't know, I guess I should go over the broad plot structure of Gurren Lagann, because that would help people sort of get to where we're going with this.

00:03:35.880 So, it starts where they are in a small underground shelter, and they sort of believe that's their world.

00:03:45.600 And the world iteratively expands.

00:03:49.000 It gets bigger at a logarithmic scale with each sort of turn of this show's plot.

00:03:56.520 Where at the end of the show, they are a, like, a fighting robot that's made out of galaxies and universes, fighting another fighting robot that's made out of galaxies and universes.

00:04:10.700 But at each stage, there's also this idea of it is dangerous to go further.

00:04:17.500 So, the key big bad of at least the first part of the show believes that something terrible will happen to the Earth, you're not told vaguely what, if the Earth ever gets more than a million human beings living on the surface.

00:04:30.420 So, this is this idea of carrying capacity.

00:04:33.800 And then, in the second part of the show, after they've defeated him and they are then moving to the surface and building this civilization, you see a character who is in a micro, because this is, again, you keep seeing this logarithmic thing.

00:04:46.140 So, this one character grew up in an underground bunker where they didn't have enough food, and whenever they got over 50 people, they had to kill whoever the new person was.

00:04:54.480 Or, you know, so they had to draw lots, and then those people would go out and die.

00:04:59.500 Because, you know, this idea of carrying capacity is just constantly reinforced.

00:05:03.620 And then they learned that this idea of carrying capacity was forced upon them by this cosmic scale force called the anti-spirals, who fear humanities and all spiral races capacity for intergenerational improvement, and that capacity for intergenerational improvement spiraling out of control.

00:05:25.760 To just get to some exact quotes here, because I know that people who may only vaguely remember the show might be like, oh, is that exactly what it was about?

00:05:37.260 So, and this will sound very much similar to something we'll say.

00:05:40.560 So, when the nerdy gay engineering guy is explaining to everyone else what spiral energy is, he says, 0.96

00:05:46.060 The genetic diversity stemming from gametogenesis is the key to evolution. 0.56

00:05:50.900 It's that that keeps spiral power moving forwards.

00:05:54.480 And then everybody's confused.

00:05:55.760 They're like, what does he mean?

00:05:56.520 And he's like, in other words, it means love changes the universe.

00:05:59.940 But in this context, he doesn't mean love.

00:06:02.000 He very explicitly means sex.

00:06:05.080 Or reproduction.

00:06:06.580 Let's be clear.

00:06:07.860 Well, reproduction through assortative combining, which is very important to us.

00:06:12.260 He says in that line, and it's very important in all of our philosophy and sort of teaching, is that diversity is key to this sort of power.

00:06:22.200 You cannot have this power if you are just cloning or if you are attempting to live forever.

00:06:28.240 This is made very explicit.

00:06:29.620 So, the beastmen in the show are the sort of like foot soldiers of the enemy.

00:06:33.360 And they're said to not have the capacity for spiral power because they are cloned.

00:06:37.440 Because they don't have this capacity for intergenerational improvement.

00:06:42.260 And they also say this explicitly in the show as the main character saying, those who are dead are dead.

00:06:48.120 If we bring them back to life, they will just get in the way of the next generation. 0.66

00:06:52.200 And you really, like, all of this is just so irreverently our philosophy on sort of life and the power of humanity.

00:07:00.360 But I want to highlight that I will say something like, the goal of humanity is iterative intergenerational improvement.

00:07:09.560 And people hear this concept, and it can seem so, I don't know, sort of hollow or tinny.

00:07:16.240 Or like, how could that be this big explosive aspect?

00:07:20.620 How could that be something of true good in the universe, right?

00:07:24.340 And Gurren Lagann through art and through low art, which I love.

00:07:29.800 And this is something you constantly see throughout, you know, if you're ever reading Bible or anything like that, is that in the world of the divine, the low is made high and the high is made low.

00:07:38.480 God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise.

00:07:43.240 And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful.

00:07:46.860 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before him.

00:07:55.460 If you are looking for truth, you are going to find it in the things that cannot also be used to signal social status.

00:08:00.620 You should not dismiss forms of art just because they're reverberant.

00:08:04.820 Just because our society denigrates, you know, goofy anime.

00:08:08.640 They sometimes can convey concepts which are difficult for me to convey, you know, in the spoken word.

00:08:17.180 But before we go further on this concept of spiral energy as it's captured in the show, Gurren Lagann, one thing I really wanted to talk to you about is I also think another thing the show does supremely excellently well is capture healthy relationships and capture, I think, the meaning of a life well lived.

00:08:37.200 And just more succinctly than I could and in a way that I think helps people understand how you can live more meaningfully forever through the impact you have on the people around you than through just living forever, which is a constant reoccurring theme in the shows made by this team, which is also a reoccurring story in Frank's.

00:09:01.780 But I wanted to talk to you about the various relationships you saw on the show, like the relationship between this one character who is just boundless optimism, but kind of a lug head and just ambition incarnate.

00:09:14.820 And this other character, Simone, who's like his little brother sort of character, I had sort of seen them as almost the perfect example of what masculinity should be, Kamina.

00:09:25.740 The way that a man should treat his wife or the relationship you should have with like a perfect wife is the relationship he has with a young male friend of his, Simone.

00:09:34.220 But I want you to talk a bit about it when you saw and listened to analysis.

00:09:38.260 Yeah, what I really, really love about it is, and you pointed this out too when we talk about the show, is it's so unusual to find a character who instead of being like the hero.

00:09:49.520 Oh, by the way, there's going to be spoilers and what I'm about to say. So stop if you want to get the spoilers. So a hero that doesn't just lead by being awesome, but who is primarily impactful by inspiring other people, which is so what leadership is about.

00:10:04.500 And yet you don't, I really can't think of other leaders like that. So it's amazing to me that Kamina, who really seems like the driving force of the entire show, like the number one main person does not survive through the entire show and then lives on through his impact in a very visual way.

00:10:21.900 So in the past, like there are shows like Game of Thrones where like obvious heroes, you know, die all the time, but they don't, they don't really have that much of an impact and their characters don't really live beyond them, which is interesting.

00:10:34.860 Whereas the impact of Kamina is so strong on the other characters that like literally as the other characters become more powerful or grow, they will adopt like physical aspects of Kamina, which I think is really interesting.

00:10:50.160 Like Shimon, Kamina's younger friend and sort of who, the person who was most inspired by him, like after he gets to a certain level, like starts to adopt a version of kind of like, I guess the visor or sunglasses that Kamina wore.

00:11:05.120 Hey, when the hell did you get taller than me? Wow, you're right.

00:11:09.660 Yeah, it really, I mean, it shows through narrative through lines that Kamina didn't, like he's dead, but he's still impacting everything that's happening.

00:11:39.640 Throughout the rest of the show to an extent where it never really feels like he's not the main character.

00:11:46.860 Yeah, he like remains the main character despite not being there. It's so true. It's so true.

00:11:51.360 There's been a lot of analysis done on the show and contrasting it with Evangelion.

00:11:55.440 And the Evangelion starts with a character very similar to Simone, but who sort of descends into, you know, sort of self-indulgent depression because he didn't have a character like Kamina, who, you know, the line that he always says at first is if you can't, basically, if you can't believe in yourself, believe in the you that I believe in.

00:12:16.500 Just do it!

00:12:20.420 Go on! I know you can do it, buddy!

00:12:23.560 But I don't!

00:12:24.840 Listen, Simone, don't believe in yourself.

00:12:27.440 Huh?

00:12:28.060 Believe in me! Believe in the Kamina who believes in you! 0.63

00:12:31.680 What's that mean?

00:12:35.100 Right, I'll try!

00:12:36.200 So often in shows, what the masculine character does is they demonstrate their masculinity through their own heroic acts, through, you know, sort of leading the people around them, but mostly just their own acts of heroism and strength and everything like that.

00:12:54.340 Whereas with Kamina, every one of his major heroic acts was about pushing somebody who didn't believe in themselves to have more faith in themselves and to do something that they didn't know they could do.

00:13:08.480 And when people, like when they're making fun of me, like the manos here and stuff like that, and they're like, these are the ways you live short of someone like Andrew Tate.

00:13:15.900 I'm like, that doesn't hurt me.

00:13:17.140 I don't, I have no aspiration to be that type of a man or that type of masculinity.

00:13:21.940 But like, if somebody was like, you live short of the example that Kamina shows as to what it is to be a masculine male, that would actually hurt me.

00:13:31.200 And something that's really important in the Kamina character is he always believes that he's going to do these great things in the world to the point where he doesn't actually have, like he's basically just a lone person saying he has this team that's going to change the world.

00:13:47.400 But really all the team is until the episode right before he dies is just him and Simone.

00:13:53.780 That's it.

00:13:54.680 It's just this one person who believes in him and occasionally like people around him who are aligned with him in their in the moment goals.

00:14:03.460 But other than that, it's just this boundless optimism where it sort of creates a distortion field where you as a listener can forget that, no, this is really just two people with one who believes in the other one and the other one who's constantly talking about how he's going to change the world.

00:14:20.420 But who is never demeaning of Simone to Kamina, Simone was always the senior partner in capability.

00:14:30.040 And this is another thing that's shown throughout the show.

00:14:32.360 And it's really important to me in this show that's about inter iterative sort of human improvement and the growth that comes from that.

00:14:40.620 It says, yes, you need ambition.

00:14:44.960 Yes, you need this giant vision.

00:14:47.100 But you also need what Simone has from the beginning, which is simple, diligent work.

00:14:55.080 And this is a constant motif.

00:14:57.220 The drill is the motif used for spiral energy throughout the show.

00:15:00.380 And spiral energy is the energy contained within the double helix of the DNA evolution, but also the spiral of the galaxy, you know, galactic evolution, evolutionary on a galactic timescale.

00:15:09.560 And the simple drill getting bigger was every turn, like a radial, like exponentially bigger was every turn of the drill represents that.

00:15:17.860 But it also represents simple, diligent labor.

00:15:20.960 Simone from the very beginning was in his village.

00:15:22.820 Yes, he was made fun of.

00:15:23.680 Yes, he was smaller than everyone else.

00:15:25.020 Yes, he was this sort of the pick squeak of a character, but he was always the best driller.

00:15:29.560 He was always the best at simple diligence.

00:15:31.600 As they move to different iterations of the cycle, you know, as they get a mecca, he now has a spiral key to turn on the mecca.

00:15:38.680 As he, like a little drill, when he is signing bills and everything like that, the front of his pin is a small drill, a small little spiral showing that the work of governance, like that actually allows all of this to happen, is the partnering of people with astounding ambition, with people who have astounding diligence and work ethic.

00:16:01.040 And the people who have this astounding ambition, realizing that the senior partner, in terms of who's bringing what to the partnership, is the individual with the diligence, is the individual with the meticulousness, is the individual with the work ethic.

00:16:16.300 It's not the ambition or the masculinity or anything like that.

00:16:19.840 It is simple diligence that allows for this unimaginable expansion of human potential.

00:16:25.920 But I also want to talk about why this show is so rare, because when you look at how this show frames good, like it frames good as this concept that we call sort of spiral energy, right?

00:16:42.520 And it frames bad as anti-spiral energy.

00:16:44.880 Bad are the things that limit humanity's potentiality, and good is the expansion of human potentiality.

00:16:49.920 When I look at the way good is framed in things like Hollywood, they are espousing these ideas of the urban monoculture, because it is so drenched in Hollywood, where good is just sort of general utilitarianism, or the maintenance of the status quo.

00:17:07.080 You know, I'd often say that my favorite villain song of a Disney movie is Hakuna Matata, which is the most anti-spiral song.

00:17:15.120 No, no, no.

00:17:15.860 Your favorite song from a Disney movie is Be Prepared.

00:17:18.700 No, no, no, Hakuna Matata is the villain song from that.

00:17:22.460 No, it's Be Prepared.

00:17:24.080 Hakuna Matata is the song that Timon and Pumbaa sing to.

00:17:27.800 Exactly, that was the point.

00:17:29.840 Oh, God, okay, I'm sorry.

00:17:32.320 You mean a villain to you.

00:17:34.880 Yes.

00:17:35.280 It means no worry for the rest of your days.

00:17:38.720 It's our problem-free philosophy.

00:17:43.820 Hakuna Matata.

00:17:45.860 Well, I think a villain to the show.

00:17:47.600 If you look at what the consequence that happened because of the lifestyle that they lured him into, a lifestyle of selfish indulgence, his kingdom fell apart.

00:17:59.220 All of the animals suffered and died horrible deaths.

00:18:02.620 Oh, and really funny, too, like a, well, almost vegetarian, you know, insect eating, which is kind of what a lot of people are fighting for these days.

00:18:11.760 Yeah, they become literal bugmen.

00:18:13.540 Like non-harm.

00:18:14.380 No worries for the rest of their days.

00:18:16.320 The shirking of his responsibility to his people.

00:18:18.800 And one of the lines that you picked up that you loved from one of the video essays on Gurren Lagann, do you want to go over this?

00:18:26.720 Well, yeah, yeah, the best analysis I heard was that in Evangelion, they struggle to live, whereas in Gurren Lagann, they live to struggle.

00:18:36.240 And that so resonates.

00:18:38.600 Like, you miss the point if you were just obsessed with your struggling and just trying to get by.

00:18:45.500 And you totally nail it if you are fighting for the right to be challenged, the right to be pushed to your limits, because that's how you know you're really living a life.

00:18:54.120 Yeah, and we're going to talk about this in sort of future tracks, but this is such an important concept in terms of framing reality.

00:19:02.240 And it's why I think in so many aspects of our society today, one of the things that we'll talk about is I see some religious systems is really sort of religious systems that are anti-spiral energy personified.

00:19:14.520 You know, fighting for these ideas of like harmony and balance and oneness and and then other religions, which are focused on the uplifting of man, this this constant state of improvement and the anti-natalist movement.

00:19:28.440 You know, you couldn't have more of a, you know, anti-spiral mindset personified on the world.

00:19:34.520 This idea of struggle is bad.

00:19:37.560 We need to live to end struggle instead of seeing struggle as the reason for living.

00:19:43.560 And Gurren Lagann, when they're looking at the challenges ahead of them, they get excited about them.

00:19:50.020 The challenges are what give life its purpose.

00:19:54.300 And in every scene, whatever they've just achieved, they are now going for something that's as insane and big and astounding next, you know, that you would you would never expect, you know, even at the end of the movie, they've defeated the other like at a universal scale.

00:20:11.300 And what are they doing?

00:20:12.820 They're now sending ships out to space to meet other planets and help other species, you know, achieve their potential.

00:20:20.220 And this this boundless optimism isn't because we don't know that struggle exists.

00:20:26.400 It isn't because we don't know how hard life is for people.

00:20:29.080 It's because we're excited at the challenge to overcome that, both at the level of individuals and at the level of a species.

00:20:37.420 And that gets me really excited when I begin to take on this framing.

00:20:43.200 And it's also I mean, one of the reasons why I really want to bring in this idea of Gurren Lagann, even within a religious context for us, is because it's an idea that came out of Eastern thought.

00:20:53.920 And yet the anti-spiral sort of mimetic forces that it personifies are such a major part of so many Eastern religious systems.

00:21:04.480 So being that we think that these systems are not good for humanity, I want to use an Eastern thought to to show it's not like an anti-Eastern thing.

00:21:15.320 Another thing I wanted to talk about here that I think is really interesting is the way that Gurren Lagann relates to religion.

00:21:22.300 So there is a religious community in Gurren Lagann that's that's used when they've in one the village where only 50 people are allowed to live and 50 people.

00:21:32.560 And you learn at the end the line is the dad gives to his son, the dad who created the religion, it's a preacher and has the book, their religious text.

00:21:41.480 And the son says, you know, I've always hid from you that I didn't know how to read and I'm sorry about that.

00:21:46.280 And the dad goes, it's OK, I don't either.

00:21:48.320 With the idea being that he just made it all up to control people.

00:21:52.520 And you later learn, you know, that it was a joke.

00:21:55.720 Their entire book was a joke.

00:21:56.960 It was just a practical joke that somebody had made and they then started teaching it as a religion,

00:22:02.120 which is the way Gurren Lagann sees these types of religions and religions that are used to control and limit people.

00:22:09.120 And this is something that Kamina constantly is pointing out when he is in this cave with the he just has no ability to control himself.

00:22:16.660 Just whenever he sees somebody oppressing somebody else, he just immediately calls them out on it.

00:22:21.440 And the most, you know, because they are eating like kings in this community, right?

00:22:24.760 Like they are this community sees them as like gods.

00:22:27.240 They are getting everything they could ever from the community, everything they could ever want.

00:22:30.960 But to him, it feels like so little.

00:22:32.400 And he doesn't understand why they can't just think bigger.

00:22:35.220 And I'd point out, he's not a particularly smart person.

00:22:39.060 He just thinks bigger.

00:22:40.760 The ideas that no one had ever thought of before.

00:22:43.380 We're fighting these giant mecha things.

00:22:45.340 Have you ever tried to get in one of them?

00:22:47.140 You know, there's a surface there.

00:22:49.300 Have you ever tried to go past it?

00:22:51.660 We'll never know unless we try, will we?

00:22:53.840 You see that?

00:23:01.300 What do you think, Fuzzball? 0.85

00:23:02.600 We're the same as you.

00:23:07.140 Wow, we were really able to combine.

00:23:09.040 You were right, bro.

00:23:09.840 You were right.

00:23:10.540 Sure looks that way, doesn't it?

00:23:15.040 Wait, how could you combine?

00:23:16.760 And you see, this is why I like this show so much, is Kamina reminds me so much of you.

00:23:21.700 Where, like, you, for some reason, don't choose to just build on the way that everyone else thinks and just, like, ask ridiculous questions and try things.

00:23:30.040 And sometimes it doesn't work out.

00:23:31.560 But it also creates things possible that I never thought were possible.

00:23:35.780 And I wish there were more of that.

00:23:37.880 Like, I wish more people.

00:23:39.280 Here's the problem.

00:23:40.080 Here's a theme that I've noticed in the analysis of Gurren Lagann that I think means that a lot of people are missing the point of the show, a point that you did not miss, which is they're watching it and they're like, yeah, man, like, believe in the you that I believe in, you know, that Kamina line, you know, just like, and, you know, think about that, you know, think about the fact that, you know, someone might believe in a better version of you that you can be.

00:24:04.820 Like, everyone takes the point of view of Shimon instead of the point of view that they could be like Kamina, that they could inspire people, that they could think incredibly differently and outlandishly.

00:24:17.940 And while I, I mean, I seeing myself very much as a Shimon, which is also totally how they pronounce my name in Japan.

00:24:24.680 And so I love it too.

00:24:25.320 And you just say Simone instead of his name.

00:24:28.060 And we also need Kaminas.

00:24:29.320 And we're way shorter on Kaminas than we are on Shimon's.

00:24:33.000 So there's two things I want to elaborate on, on this point.

00:24:36.420 One is if we ever do create some like meaningful thing, you know, if my little team girl had ever become something meaningful, I want the statues of me done in the style of Kamina.

00:24:46.180 Hundreds of years ago, I want the statues of me, the statues pointing to the heaven.

00:24:49.660 I've always loved that statue and what it embodies, this idea of, and I'll put it on screen, of just always looking upwards in sort of the manifest destiny of humanity being the stars.

00:25:01.100 But I'd also say that there's another character that's really important in this, is that after Kamina dies, there is a girl character who then becomes Simone's wife.

00:25:10.820 And she plays the same role Kamina does for him in this boundless belief in his goodness and abilities and not willing to let herself be constrained by the world that's around them.

00:25:23.140 But she does it in a completely feminine way. 1.00

00:25:26.160 And so I love that the show models how you can support your partner with insane ideas as both a masculine and feminine role.

00:25:36.020 That's cool.

00:25:36.860 Yeah.

00:25:37.220 Because normally that's just framed as super masculine.

00:25:39.720 Not to say that women can't take on masculine roles, but I think a lot of women are more comfortable taking a feminine spin on things, even if they really want to be outlandish and crazy and the most powerful and influential person in a relationship. 1.00

00:25:53.320 So that's cool.

00:25:54.180 And the show constantly repeats ideas that we're talking about, like...

00:25:57.480 My drill is the drill that creates the heavens!

00:26:01.140 There's lots of ways they could have worded that.

00:26:03.400 And I'll include some clips from the end fight scene here.

00:26:06.460 Do not grieve for me, daughter.

00:26:08.440 My soul once drowned in a sea of despair and weariness, but has reawakened.

00:26:14.960 If this body can create a tomorrow for all spiral life, I will gladly give it.

00:26:20.120 Yes, I agree completely.

00:26:22.760 Which is just a fantastic clip that really shows, I think, both the way we think about spiral energy and the way that we think about death.

00:26:29.260 Impossible!

00:26:41.440 He allowed himself to undergo quantum breakdown so he could become one with the energy!

00:26:46.060 Where are you drawing all of this power from?

00:26:50.240 We evolve beyond the person we were a minute before.

00:26:54.420 Little by little, we advance a bit further with each turn.

00:26:58.380 That's how a drill works! 0.72

00:27:00.340 Mark my words.

00:27:01.900 This drill will open a hole in the universe.

00:27:04.540 And that hole will be a path for those behind us.

00:27:08.500 The dreams of those who have fallen.

00:27:10.480 The hopes of those who will follow.

00:27:12.960 Those two sets of dreams weave together into a double helix, drilling a path towards tomorrow!

00:27:18.280 I don't get it. 0.92

00:27:20.640 I mean, it is the most ridiculous fight scene of probably all time. 0.89

00:27:26.120 Because it's just... 0.85

00:27:27.200 But also, like...

00:27:28.160 Conceptually, what I like about it is I think that when I talk about this expansion of human potentiality,

00:27:33.080 that it could eventually become something like a god one day.

00:27:36.660 Like, it depicts it so well.

00:27:39.140 Because it shows that it enters a realm, human potentiality, where it just doesn't make sense anymore.

00:27:44.580 It's so cosmic in scale.

00:27:47.480 Yeah!

00:27:49.460 Gladiator!

00:27:51.060 Gladiator!

00:27:55.000 Gladiator!

00:28:15.280 It is great!

00:28:17.480 if this is how it must be protect the universe at all cost of course we will humanity isn't that 1.00

00:28:40.120 stupid 0.79

00:28:47.480 and there's going to be people who are afraid of that who want to limit it who at every stage are 1.00

00:29:01.160 like oh gosh you know now everything has changed whether it's ai or something like that you sit

00:29:06.680 here closed off blocking away other life forms like some kind of king that's nobody's limitation

00:29:12.200 but your own and then there's the people who embody human potentiality and just strap themselves to

00:29:16.960 the mast and sail into the storm and are laughing all the way and then there's people who shirk

00:29:21.680 from it you know they're like well now things have changed now we need to reassess now we need to go

00:29:26.240 back and a final thing i really want to elevate about this that i really like and i hope that i'm

00:29:31.160 able to convey and keep if we're ever creating a philosophical movement or something like that

00:29:35.500 is this idea of irreverence combined with ambition and logic so often when people look at

00:29:46.920 the ultra logical perspectives on things they are very stuffy they are very vulcan like you know what

00:29:53.560 i mean or when they look at ambition it's seen as very cutthroat and sort of slimy and greed filled

00:30:00.840 and yet i think that the way that you subvert that meaningfully and this is something we're always

00:30:07.820 trying to do on our show is the elevation of low culture to do this all so unpretentiously and so 0.99

00:30:15.820 audaciously it comes off as a little goofy but it provides people with that little bit of belief in

00:30:22.320 themselves that they might be missing in their daily lives and the knowledge to know that you know

00:30:27.260 it's okay to sort of goof a bit you know in in in the pursuit of these bigger goals yeah um and well

00:30:34.620 here's what i think is is needs elaboration on that too is that a lot of the people who created

00:30:39.220 gurun lagan are the same people who created evangelion which is notable just when you think

00:30:44.740 about how different the anime series are you know like evangelion is sort of the the epitome of anti-spiral

00:30:52.700 and sort of anti-natalism and negative utilitarianism and it's like a show about depression and it's it's

00:31:00.100 just but it's extremely logical and i think a lot of people kind of shit on gurun lagan because 0.95

00:31:05.840 they're like oh it's this is dumb but like evangelion is so smart and it's even in like how 0.95

00:31:11.720 the show is done evangelion will like go into the details of like how is this energy energy generated or 0.86

00:31:18.140 how uh like here's the bureaucracy of the system and so it's more like a hard science fiction version

00:31:23.820 of um like you know this this system but then i think they it's it's

00:31:30.780 people miss the point in thinking like oh smart has to be performative intelligence and i think it's also

00:31:38.360 really telling that like the same people who first did evangelion then go on to do gurun lagan

00:31:44.680 it's not in the other order it's like kind of as people became more wise in life and kind of learned

00:31:49.700 from their mistakes and learned from their life they turn more to a vision of maybe outlandish 0.87

00:31:56.260 stupidity maybe like about actual intelligence actual intelligence doesn't need to front well 0.99

00:32:01.540 it doesn't yeah actual intelligence doesn't need to look intelligent it doesn't need to try 0.99

00:32:05.480 yeah a final point i wanted to elevate was one of the lines in it which is that when you were

00:32:09.840 approaching reality was this sort of spiral thinking you know so many people they look at me

00:32:14.600 and they go do you know the odds of what you're doing like do you know how insane what you're doing

00:32:18.640 is and and the line is in the show that somebody goes there's a one percent chance of this succeeding

00:32:23.540 and it goes a one percent chance is the same as certainty okay but when you're approaching things

00:32:29.500 like this when you when the alternative is death when the alternative is losing one percent is the same

00:32:37.000 as certainty and just approach it as if it's certain approach it with everything you have and

00:32:42.040 approach life that only version of you in the future like the only version that survives to that

00:32:46.720 point is of that one percent so of course you know every single challenge that comes your way as a

00:32:54.560 gift and something to be excited about and when you have this frame shifts this frame shift that

00:33:00.160 Gurren Lagann is all about literally beating into people that's a constant motif of hitting them when

00:33:05.760 they're getting sort of mopey you're like oh there's so much suffering in the world oh i've done such 0.55

00:33:10.120 bad things you know punch them in the face and be like suck it up which is is so different from

00:33:16.360 evangelion also because there's so many similarities between the like male protagonists of each show you 0.93

00:33:23.240 know they're both young underdog men who lost one or both parents you know who then were sort of shoved

00:33:28.920 into a world-saving scenario right um but like the the framing the attitude of each you know the live to

00:33:36.600 struggle versus struggle to each stroke sorry the live to struggle versus struggle to live

00:33:41.480 attitude of these two different universes also shows up in all these different ways like even in

00:33:46.900 sexuality sexuality and evangelion is like a traumatic thing it is deeply traumatic it's it's there's shame

00:33:52.980 and trauma and unhappiness and discomfort whereas sexuality it's not really like explored that much

00:33:59.220 in Gurren Lagann aside from like heavy fan service which is studio trigger what are you gonna do but like

00:34:04.800 people are obviously very comfortable with their bodies people are very open about their sexuality

00:34:10.260 like you alluded to a gay character for example who's like super comfortable with his sexuality

00:34:15.020 and it you know they're dressed like their postures it's also different it sort of shows i think also when

00:34:22.340 you don't live to sort of hyper focus on your suffering and on how hard everything is and how scary

00:34:29.280 everything is you know this all things in life sort of switch from being traumatic to being fairly natural

00:34:37.320 which is fun and i i like that element of it and i don't think enough people talk about it like you

00:34:42.640 haven't really talked about it we won't go as deep on the the anti-spiral ideas here but they are important

00:34:49.320 the way that they pervade so many religious and philosophical systems one of my favorite from you was you

00:34:56.340 were talking about siddhartha gautama in one of our morning talks and the life that he lives this is

00:35:01.060 the guy who became the buddha before he left this life of privilege to realize suffering existed in

00:35:05.360 the world and you pointed out to me that through the iterative improvement of man the average american

00:35:11.400 today probably lives a better life with less real like externally imposed suffering other than the

00:35:17.520 internal stuff that they create for themselves that siddhartha gautama did before leaving his

00:35:21.920 posh perfect existence yeah where theoretically he couldn't even fathom what suffering was like

00:35:26.860 and now everyone's like the suffering i live with no no no sorry that siddhartha in your in your

00:35:33.000 environment in an environment way worse than yours actually couldn't even fathom what suffering was

00:35:37.900 but like how spoiled are we but i love this idea of of of of going out there and when you see

00:35:45.920 problems with reality when you see problems with the world you know anti-spiral energy is about

00:35:52.160 submission and being subsumed by reality by the ultimate reality that surrounds all of us

00:35:58.340 by joining it through a level of of harmony this is what most anti-spiral religious thought focuses on

00:36:05.400 and and and spiral energy is about basically grabbing reality by the throat and making it submit to your

00:36:12.100 will do is it a philosophy based on submission to reality or forcing reality to submit to you

00:36:20.240 yeah and people could say that like that's not the real world we don't live in the world of physics that

00:36:26.420 that gurren lagun takes place in and i'd push back at it i'd say it is the real world they condense the

00:36:31.920 time span but if you look at this expansion we've seen in human potentiality in 10 000 years we've gone

00:36:38.140 from the very first collection of humans living together in a city to thinking machines like it is

00:36:45.280 insane we 200 years ago we're coming up with light bulbs electricity for the first time the expansion

00:36:54.320 of human potentiality is something that drives awe deep within me and i am like for us this show is like

00:37:04.160 for our kids it's going to be like bible cartoons you know we're like part of our canon for sure to get

00:37:09.900 across something we'll talk more to in the future but i think that this also shows is a lot of these

00:37:14.180 theological ideas that we're talking about people are like oh you're starting a cult but not really i

00:37:19.260 mean these are ideas that have been circling in the mainstream in media for a while now we're just

00:37:25.720 condensing them and then pairing them with things like holidays and stuff like that to give our kids a

00:37:31.960 cohesive vision with this theology but we're hardly the inventors of it you know it's very canonical

00:37:38.620 to us like in a in a religious context because i just think it gets these concepts about artistically

00:37:44.700 so much better than a person could and with the attitude i want them conveyed with because i i i always

00:37:53.480 hated within religious systems and stuff like that or within philosophical systems where the leaders

00:37:58.440 adopt these stuffy attitudes and that scene is the way to show your status is impenetrability

00:38:04.940 and stuffiness and thinking you're better than other people sort of in the way that you talk like you

00:38:09.200 might on being also like invulnerable like never making a mistake whereas kamina will like be like i'm 0.67

00:38:13.900 going to attack this giant robot with a sword with a gun and they're like you know how to use it right

00:38:19.020 and he's like yeah i know how to use it then you see i'm smashing it with the gun he has no idea how

00:38:23.960 to use it but it's it's it's this goofy like if we were to ever create a philosophy around these ideas

00:38:31.020 that persisted intergenerationally i'd want it to maintain within the leadership cast not this oh you

00:38:37.580 know young man like come learn from me but what assigns status is deep knowledge but not allowing that

00:38:45.820 knowledge to create a this sheer of invulnerability around you or invulnerability around your ideas

00:38:52.460 and to still have the capacity to be sort of goofy and how outlandish and big your ideas are and i

00:39:00.380 always want to keep that myself you know and people look at it and they're like malcolm it makes you look 0.97

00:39:05.100 stupid or silly and it's like that's kind of the point yeah like no success is built atop a mountain 0.99

00:39:12.120 of failures and those who are too afraid to look dumb or stupid or sheepish sometimes are not going 1.00

00:39:19.320 to build success i mean there are those rare people who just happened to be the lucky ones who like 0.98

00:39:25.000 took one big bet or one big risk and seemed to have made it or somehow managed to hide all of their

00:39:30.200 previous failures but those people are very rare extremely rare and i think many of the the most successful

00:39:38.040 people that we know of today have made many dumb mistakes some are more open about them than others

00:39:43.720 but it's it's so important to have that built into a culture and so much of our culture now even with

00:39:49.480 like emotional stuff like gen y and z are just dripping with irony and i think that's because even

00:39:56.120 with the tiniest like sharing your opinion about something or showing passionate about something they don't

00:40:02.200 even want that to come back on them as as like an embarrassing mistake and so they just drench

00:40:07.560 everything in irony because then it's like oh well i was i was just kidding i was just you know making

00:40:13.720 fun of it i wasn't serious about it like they're too they're even afraid to stand behind their own

00:40:18.760 opinions and sentiments you know and i respect that those things change and you might like stand behind

00:40:24.200 something that you don't stand behind in the future but like man but to constantly i i i couldn't have

00:40:31.000 worded it better to be able to be this goofy guy who's who's screwing up but just has endless belief

00:40:37.240 in the people around him and that's what's really important it's not a belief in himself it's a belief

00:40:44.040 in the people that he is inspiring and i and i think that like when we talked about like how do you keep

00:40:50.120 a group from going bad intergenerationally how do you prevent this sort of elite philosopher cast of

00:40:55.160 office from sort of keeping other people out it's that you ensure that those people in those

00:41:00.520 sorts of attitudes aren't the attitudes that are socially elevated that the attitudes that are

00:41:05.080 socially elevated are showing efficacy showing competence showing deep knowledge but using all of

00:41:11.960 that to lift up the people around you while not being afraid of failing and and not being afraid to

00:41:18.920 have ideas that are so big they're a little silly and and that you know when you say them that everyone's

00:41:25.720 gonna laugh like all of these people and that's the thing it starts with everyone laughing at you as

00:41:31.560 it basically does with commune right you have these big ideas and everybody laughs at you and then they

00:41:36.840 see what this seems to make a little bit of sense and the people who aren't laughing at him they seem to

00:41:42.440 have a good life they seem to be happy with the world right now you know they they seem to have purpose

00:41:48.840 and then as time goes on a few less people in the crowd are laughing and a few more are standing

00:41:53.240 besides you and it just goes on and as long as you don't let that and and this is another important

00:42:00.040 thing is just because somebody laughed at you once and this is a constant thing throughout the show as

00:42:03.400 well just because somebody sided with the anti-spirals once as as king genome the the you know again going

00:42:10.200 back to this idea of dna which are the scenes throughout the show was basically carrying out the will of the

00:42:14.280 anti-spirals and he becomes one of their best allies you know virile one of their best allies

00:42:17.800 who was on the other side when somebody's like i made a mistake and now i want to try to do better

00:42:22.680 and work with you guys they should be elevated even above people who were say born into a movement like

00:42:30.360 this because they've undergone personal growth which is what this is all about this idea of iterative

00:42:36.360 and constant personal growth and and fully accepting that in other people mm-hmm yeah i i

00:42:43.960 totally agree and i guess i'll have to stop with saying this you don't have to be an anime fan to get

00:42:50.040 a lot out of gurren logon it's great you can just watch summaries and analysis of it and you know even

00:42:56.360 for me i can't really watch studio trigger shows because there's a lot of action sequences and for me

00:43:02.360 my brain turns off when like i would literally rather watch someone paint a wall i would probably

00:43:06.520 find that more like interesting so but like just watch the watch some analysis of it watch some

00:43:12.120 comparisons with evangelion like you'll still get a lot out of this show and learn a lot from it

00:43:17.080 even without watching it so i just want to say that for people who are like oh i'm not an anime

00:43:20.600 person or like i can't really handle studio trigger like me even though i think the animation's

00:43:25.800 amazing and obviously it's it's awesome and they're they're amazing people it was made before

00:43:30.040 studio trigger it was made by studio ginax which then the team that made her login come on though

00:43:35.720 like it's basically studio trigger but yeah you can't handle studio trigger you're not going to be

00:43:39.400 able to handle gurren logon it's all there it's all there the ridiculous outlandish lack of physics

00:43:45.000 and everything else i love it but i i can't watch it it's about also concepts yes yeah 100 yeah like

00:43:53.560 there's not even consistency between like the the height of some characters and gurren logon or like the

00:43:59.160 the way that running is animated or all sorts of things and that's because it really that's what

00:44:03.320 matters is the concept it's not some like weird like well we have to you know follow the rule

00:44:07.240 book and all this it's like the anti-bureaucracy show and i love it so much i love all of that

00:44:12.040 my other note though and malcolm take this seriously you are obviously the kamina in our relationship 0.72

00:44:18.840 you're not allowed to die i know but i see this show and it gets me look i i think one of the

00:44:25.480 interesting things about the show is it gets you excited about dying after a life well lived

00:44:30.520 don't i'm not saying i want to but what i'm saying is is it so many people they know within our

00:44:37.480 theological system we don't particularly believe in an afterlife in the way that many other systems do

00:44:43.400 and because of that they're like what's the point of all of this and i think the show

00:44:47.480 beautifully summarizes this mark my words this drill will open a hole in the universe

00:44:53.480 and that hole will be a path for those behind us the dreams of those who have fallen the hopes of

00:44:59.400 those who will follow those two sets of dreams weave together into a double helix drilling a path towards

00:45:06.200 tomorrow that's the the clip i'll play about the the memories and hopes and dreams of people in the

00:45:11.800 past and the people in the future sort of blend together into this block chain of human identity

00:45:17.720 um well that's why we like the civ theme songs too so yeah but you live forever in terms of how

00:45:23.880 much you contribute to this block chain of human identity right um and and you do that through

00:45:29.560 inspiring other people not like creating a system and then having them follow it rigidly

00:45:36.360 but by providing a framework for how they can build on themselves and that's everything that

00:45:43.240 i'm trying to do with my life is yeah it's very vector based versus pixel based i i love that you

00:45:49.560 scale infinitely well and but that's what it's about you know and i i want to do that for other people i

00:45:56.040 want and i and i want a community where status is based partially in terms of how much somebody can do

00:46:02.840 this like i even look at the people within our community already like razib khan where he really

00:46:07.960 embodies this energy for me this sort of like he is well known as like the most respected individual

00:46:14.120 in terms of intelligence in our field and yet he's just such a goof you know and he's always trying to

00:46:19.400 uplift younger people and help them be better and help them do great things and i and he's not afraid

00:46:24.760 to be honest about what he's doing or working on or like even if he's not sure about something

00:46:29.240 he'll tell people about it like he'll tell people where he's at yeah he there's both this combination

00:46:34.600 of vulnerability but also like he's so there for younger people in his field change for his ideas

00:46:39.880 yeah yeah but so there you were saying he's he's super there for for people in his field like more

00:46:46.440 junior people who are trying to get help like we've heard from so many people about things that razib has

00:46:51.640 done for them to help them out with like nothing in return like he's getting nothing out of this and

00:46:56.280 he's what i want to say is i think that that's what should edify his status was in the field

00:47:00.200 yeah this this constant uplifting and and and selfless uplifting of other people but also just

00:47:06.520 saying what he thinks is true totally no matter how much it causes blowback on him and stuff like that

00:47:12.200 you know to constantly uplift what you think is true as as a sign of of personal status within the

00:47:19.560 community but also the uplifting and i just gotta go back to this concept as a final closing here

00:47:24.280 of simple diligence it's not really about ambition it's not really about hopeless optimism

00:47:31.240 those things are important but simple diligence at the end of the day it is the key to spiral energy

00:47:36.920 and when i met you and your sign your slogan was repeated blunt force there is no better sign of

00:47:43.400 what's represented by the simple diligence of the driller the simple diligence of simone in the show

00:47:48.600 because there's also nothing more humbling than than repeated blunt force and simple diligence of a

00:47:55.000 basic you know within the show manual labor or the labor of in meticulous bureaucracy and uplifting that

00:48:03.400 to something that is beneath those with endless ambition and endless optimism and authority within the community

00:48:11.400 and having those individuals respect that above all things not respect people just because they're lower

00:48:18.040 in in status in society but respect them for their industry i i really want to do that and and elevate you

00:48:25.240 as an individual and as a husband in the way that kamina elevates simone on the show well and our kids

00:48:30.920 and anyone else who you know you interact with that's the goal but yeah i love you and you're not allowed to die

00:48:37.640 all right so i won't i won't i'll i'll keep it going and and i will just take this as symbolic of the way

00:48:46.600 i'm supposed to affect the next generation i mean yeah we'll both die eventually generation i leave a

00:48:51.880 yeah you just as the show said well hold on i want to i want to read that quote about death again because i i

00:48:57.320 absolutely love it those who are dead are dead if we bring them back to life they will just get in the

00:49:02.120 way of the next generation there you have it gorgeous i love you i love you too so i came back

00:49:10.280 just now from my ultrasound appointment and at 32 weeks not only does baby indy have a little tuft of

00:49:18.760 hair which is wonderful so she's gonna be like titan but also she's in the 82nd percentile for size

00:49:26.200 she's already five and a half pounds so she is gonna be a porker you just keep making them bigger 1.00

00:49:32.440 every time yeah they think she's gonna come out nine pounds assuming i deliver at 39 weeks and i'm like

00:49:38.280 yeah well i am excited to hear that and i am excited that we will have a celebratory dinner tonight

00:49:45.960 i'm so excited indian everybody knows we love indian but

Based Camp - February 28, 2024

Gurren Lagann： The Anime That Hated Anti-Natalists & Life Extensionists

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript