Based Camp - Has South Korea Fixed its Baby Bust？ (Gov Paying $1M+ Per Marginal Kid)

00:00:00.000 hello malcolm i'm so excited to be with your sorry let me try again hello malcolm i'm so

00:00:05.680 excited to be here with you today because we are going to talk about some trending news about

00:00:10.180 south korea's fertility apparently they're seeing a little bounce upward oh but everyone's like oh 0.93

00:00:16.340 why this is relevant okay because south korea for a long time has had a rapidly declining fertility

00:00:21.440 rate it has the world's worst fertility at their current fertility rate for every 100 south koreans

00:00:26.980 there would only be five great-grandchildren and their fertility rate has gone down almost every

00:00:31.140 year for the past 20 years except for this year and in 2024 there was a little bit of a bounce and

00:00:38.640 then there's even a slightly bigger bounce in the first half of or at least the spring of 25 and this

00:00:44.760 brings up a couple of very important questions for the rest of the world one is a lot of people said

00:00:49.900 there's a bottom floor to collapsing fertility rates there is a number that when you get so low and what 0.95

00:00:55.880 i always said historically is well where is this floor if nobody has hit it yet you know how is

00:01:01.940 south korea still going down if this imaginary floor exists and so the question is has south korea

00:01:10.080 hit this imaginary floor and simone is going to argue it's pretty compelling evidence no they haven't

00:01:15.600 yeah we're going to talk about this yeah because i mean i think this is this is really just a fart in

00:01:21.680 the wind i'm going to walk you through what actually changed with fertility in south korea

00:01:25.640 whether south korea's present strategy is sustainable given also what they paid for this

00:01:30.660 change because it is no hold on you gotta you gotta start this at the start they paid over a million

00:01:35.920 dollars for every edition let me stop with the spoilers but i want to give you one more spoiler

00:01:40.360 actually because at the end i want each of us to kind of freestyle on what we would do if we

00:01:44.380 personally were put in charge of south korea's fertility and mine boils down to three words

00:01:49.480 all right k-pop chapelle sorry k-pop chapelle oligarchy i'm excited go for it go for it go for

00:01:57.080 it all right so as a lot of people have seen in the news especially if you follow fertility south

00:02:01.560 korea has recently experienced a notable though still modest improvement in its fertility rate

00:02:06.180 and number of births reversing a long-standing decline so what happened ultimately was that the

00:02:11.740 total fertility rate in south korea rose from a devastating 0.72 in 2023 to oh 0.75 in 2024

00:02:22.880 and then in the first quarter of 2025 the tfr further increased to 0.82 which is i mean like

00:02:28.920 kind of wow i mean because we just it kept plummeting so this is nice to see

00:02:33.480 it's the highest quarterly figure since early 2022 so there's that but the this is this is kind of

00:02:43.360 encouraging because it is the first annual fertility rate increase for 2024 that's the first one in nine

00:02:48.880 years it was just in continuous decline since 2015 and the fact that the rebound is becoming a little

00:02:55.280 bit more pronounced from 2024 to 2025 is nice like i'm not gonna i'm not gonna poo-poo that like it's

00:03:02.240 really nice to see but let's talk about how many extra babies were actually born in 2024 there were

00:03:08.040 a total of 238 300 babies born good for them that's awesome we love it that's an increase of just

00:03:15.340 8 300 compared to 2023 so we also have to consider like this is a fairly small population meaning that

00:03:22.220 like it doesn't take a whole lot to make the numbers look really different meaning that really

00:03:28.300 small things could be at play here and and then it this doesn't change the fact that south korea's

00:03:37.820 even their improved birth rate is still the worst in the world so i want to talk about how bad it is

00:03:44.560 their improved birth rate is still in the sevens the the 0.7s that is well for the year it went up to

00:03:51.920 0.83 in the first quarter we're going to see how the rest of the year plays out

00:03:54.980 where's 83 okay but the point here being is 0.83 is basically nothing like

00:03:59.520 even if they they they they kept like rising or they they got a bit up they would still

00:04:07.220 already be at a collapse level economic collapse in 2023 a breathtaking 40 percent of south koreans

00:04:16.680 over 65 live below the poverty line but in 2060 this number may seem lovely in comparison 1.00

00:04:23.320 today south korea has one of the largest pension funds in the world but it's projected to be

00:04:28.820 completely depleted by the 2050s so in 2060 pensions will have to be paid by the working population

00:04:35.660 the minimum a society needs is between two to three workers per retiree paying for them with 0.72

00:04:41.380 their taxes but even if we assume that all south koreans over 15 will be working in 2060 the country

00:04:47.920 will have less than one worker per senior so not only will poverty among the elderly be common

00:04:53.260 but a big chunk will be forced to work except they may not be able to find jobs because by 2060

00:04:59.980 the south korean economy may have collapsed okay wait this is all a bit much is there no way back 1.00

00:05:07.320 why there really is no way back the problem with the demographic freight train is that once it

00:05:13.640 hits things become irreversible let's say fertility in south korea magically triples to the replacement

00:05:19.520 rate of 2.1 children per woman and stays there in 2060 it will be an inverted pyramid on top of a 0.93

00:05:26.040 barrel and there would still be only 1.5 people of working age per senior over 65 even in the best made

00:05:32.940 up scenario south korea has to pass through an unavoidable bottleneck before it will recover

00:05:37.760 yeah because even though they've increased the fertility rate among the young population

00:05:42.080 you have to keep in mind that 60 of the population is over the age of 40 and can't even have kids

00:05:47.160 yeah so here we're talking about the fertility rate within the smaller population that can still have

00:05:53.700 kids and in addition to that we're dealing with the issue that there's already this huge missing

00:06:00.720 population within korea it takes yeah the damage has been done and and we also need to remind people

00:06:06.240 who may not like may be new to this concept of fertility rates and whatnot a replacement fertility

00:06:11.200 rate like if we're going to keep a population stable is 2.1 like per mother there have to be 2.1

00:06:17.540 children okay because you're kind of replacing the mother and the father and 0.8 is nothing to be

00:06:23.980 proud of but it's important to note here that even if tomorrow south korea's fertility rate went

00:06:30.240 back up to 2.1 okay they would still if you look at the math to support their aging population before

00:06:37.820 those 18 year olds could come of age yeah their systems are still going to collapse before that

00:06:42.620 date their social security welfare medicaid well and i think to your point also they're still at

00:06:46.720 risk of like let's say even it went way up suddenly they're also like their culture is also to a great

00:06:52.020 extent being lost because thank you pointed out to me when we were just talking about this offline that

00:06:55.600 a lot of these these births are resulting from marriages to women who are foreigners one in four

00:07:01.840 rural south koreans who is married and has a kid married a foreign wife so they're bringing in 0.98

00:07:07.440 they're importing people from other countries to have as their wives when they are having kids yeah 1.00

00:07:12.100 and that's that is gonna that is gonna shift culture i mean like one of the things that we're

00:07:15.120 concerned about with demographic labs i'm not like oh we have to keep like ethnic purity but i i don't

00:07:20.740 want to lose the unique south korean culture or perspective i want there to be a broad variety

00:07:26.740 ideally even broader than what we have now of cultural perspective so maybe there's some mixing

00:07:31.040 here but like i mean i like that like some creation of new like you know korean plus vietnamese or

00:07:35.600 whatever else is popular in south korea among passport bros but yeah anyway like this isn't this

00:07:41.700 isn't exactly like a win for like south korean people will make it to the future because also like

00:07:46.800 their their passport growing their way into these marriages but marriages are a key factor behind 0.99

00:07:51.940 this rebound and one of the reasons why i think it is going to be short-lived because it is thought

00:07:55.960 that this this surge in marriages that has has preceded these births it has to do with people kind of

00:08:01.920 making up for lost time in the pandemic so it's a little bit artificial all the people who didn't

00:08:07.180 date during the pandemic then dated after and have now reached that point at which they have dated

00:08:12.020 they have married and now they're having kids meaning that after this point we're gonna see

00:08:17.400 a drop off again because all those people making up for lost time who are like at that point in their

00:08:21.480 lives where they're like i'm going to get married no matter what just couldn't do it at the same like

00:08:26.380 the time they planned to due to lockdowns and then of course you know the korea still hasn't done

00:08:31.140 anything about all the sort of cultural headwinds that make parenting unsustainable the work-life

00:08:36.160 balance problems etc but let's go into what south korea paid for the change that you have to go into the

00:08:41.960 numbers here yeah so just a reminder in 2024 238 300 babies were born that's an increase of 8 300

00:08:49.440 compared to 2023 and i'm i'm doing back the napkin populate calculations here but in 2024 the ministry

00:08:56.280 of health and welfare budget was 122.5 trillion won that's about 92 billion usd and a significant

00:09:05.260 portion of that went toward child rearing support fertility treatments and expanded parental benefits like

00:09:11.040 that's a lot of money um and keep in mind like in terms of things that are being paid to families

00:09:16.540 basically about 22 000 is given for each child born um like to families regardless of family income or

00:09:25.140 composition which i mean that'd be great like it's not helping but that'd be great we wouldn't say no

00:09:29.940 to it um then the monthly stipend for parents having kids you know yeah if you want to give me money

00:09:36.100 the monthly stipend for for parents having kids uh uh sorry for parents of newborns increased

00:09:42.000 to 1 million won about 740 for the first year and then 500 000 won about 370 for the second year

00:09:50.260 in terms of like lump sum birth vouchers because they're just giving cash payments like direct cash

00:09:54.700 payments to parents as an incentive here so not only have already like a lot of funds been allocated but

00:10:01.160 they're like upping the ante i think out of desperation so let's just assume that of this

00:10:06.220 92 billion u.s dollar budget for 2024 that the ministry of health and welfare was given let's just

00:10:12.980 assume conservatively 10 of that went to fertility boosting efforts which i think is conservative

00:10:19.180 considering how much money is being given to families would you say 10 is fair i'd say 10 is fair yeah

00:10:25.120 okay so if we do 92 billion dollars times 0.1 and then we divide that by 8 300 we get 1.1

00:10:33.380 1 1 1 1 million 108 000 and 133 so so that's over 1.1 million dollars per extra child like if we if we

00:10:44.260 you know ask the ministry of health all right well so what did all of your fertility spending get you for

00:10:49.060 these you know this growth that you are so proud of yeah they paid a lot for that when it's sort of

00:10:54.860 sustainable it's obviously not really not this is why the solutions have to be cultural and so when

00:10:59.260 people come to me and they're like oh look south korea has hit the floor i'm like no they haven't

00:11:03.160 they've hit the floor of panic not on the floor of like real social change yeah exactly yeah that

00:11:10.220 and it's hard because i mean as has been discussed i mean in many other podcasts we've done by many

00:11:14.960 people south korea is one of these places that developed really rapidly in terms of economic

00:11:19.840 development but then socially developed much more slowly so in terms of like women have gotten 1.00

00:11:26.100 empowered in terms of education and career and all these sort of very modern expectations they've

00:11:31.080 gone really far but there are still these social expectations that they do the majority of the

00:11:35.620 housework they do the majority of the child rearing and so they're sort of stretched between these

00:11:39.900 things and that builds a ton of resentment and they're just like screw that and you end up with

00:11:44.040 movements like the 4b movement where women refuse to date or get married or have kids or have sex and 0.95

00:11:50.260 and they just just reject it because the terms are not good so south korea has to sort of reconcile

00:11:56.820 these really fundamental issues before they get to a point where it becomes okay and that's that's what i

00:12:04.560 wanted to discuss it's like well what would actually save south korea i want to point out before we get to

00:12:09.580 what would save south korea yeah is it even if this is a real floor that's been discovered in south

00:12:15.860 korean fertility rates what it tells us is the floor happens after a society has already dipped 0.98

00:12:22.300 because it's too little too late yeah even if this is sustained it's too little too late but like i said

00:12:28.000 i really think this is people making up for lost time but it's not no i mean like i'm saying even

00:12:32.700 if everything they're saying is right even if it turns out that the floor is around like 7.5 and then

00:12:36.780 it bounces and begins to go back up it's irrelevant because the time it takes to go down and keep in

00:12:42.060 mind south korea was going down faster than other countries what this means this was a 15 year streak

00:12:47.200 of going down again yeah like this is is that it takes too long to get the next generation in the

00:12:54.160 pipeline and that the next generation will not be in the pipeline before the country's economic system

00:13:00.920 collapses yeah because you need you need us like so a lot of people have seen these you know

00:13:05.980 population like graphs that sort of show like oh look that this this pyramid is growing as is you

00:13:13.840 know future generations get bigger and bigger and then you know some like china are going in like this 1.00

00:13:17.800 and it's ah like that's when you know governments are going to start to collapse and social services

00:13:22.020 are no longer going to work because you have what malcolm calls a dependency ratio cascade where you have

00:13:27.180 an insufficient number of actively contributing taxpayers paying for a growing number of dependents

00:13:34.900 and and that's what we're trying to to deal with here that's what we're trying to avoid is is this

00:13:39.160 kind of ratio the dependency ratio cascade so already like even if like let's say the pyramid

00:13:44.260 you know it was growing and then you have this like you know 15 years of shrinkage and then it grows

00:13:49.080 again you still have to deal with the 15 years of shrinkage like that next booming giant baby boom 1.00

00:13:54.900 population let's say somehow you like you figure it out really quickly that's that's a period of 15 years

00:14:00.840 yeah like what's going to happen for that 15 years where there's an insufficient number of taxpayers to

00:14:04.860 pay for everything like you still have to figure that one out and let's let's let's be like even if

00:14:09.020 it's not a full let's assume it's a five-year window let's assume it's an eight-year window okay how do you

00:14:13.520 get through that window literally how do you get through that window the math doesn't work well and

00:14:19.220 also like at that point you know people with the kids are maybe going to be fleeing the country you

00:14:23.840 know they're moving out because yeah it's not safe all the all the promises of the child care are no

00:14:30.580 longer being you know met anymore you're out of there i know is kids who are like high performing

00:14:36.320 south koreans are raising their kids to live in other countries yeah like singapore or united states

00:14:41.440 or yeah like they're out of their kids well they don't want their kids to grow up in south korea

00:14:45.660 because the the core thing that needs to be reformed in south korea is the culture

00:14:48.820 yeah yeah there's this few i mean for those not familiar with south korean culture there's this

00:14:53.420 really intense upbringing where it's just like tests and they'll what do they do when there's

00:14:59.320 like the big test day like this test sort of determines your entire future you can't get

00:15:03.960 sick during the day you just have to go no matter what you have to be able to take your test they

00:15:07.060 stop the freeways they stop the planes so nobody can be distracted they it's like everything is

00:15:12.840 dependent on this one test but what i said because you go how do you how do you fix this i said you've

00:15:18.580 got to modify the grade that students get on this test by how many siblings they have

00:15:22.760 so this is right this is your solution for south korea yes not by the test i don't know i mean

00:15:29.960 like but what you say is it is you say look these people had less money to send their kids to

00:15:35.220 after school camps and everything like that they had less money like this is this is about the

00:15:40.220 children's you you're not getting an accurate judgment of their intelligence you're getting their

00:15:44.780 ability to memorize and perform quickly and go to camps and stuff right so if that's the case

00:15:49.720 then it's only fair that the in terms of accurately measuring competence that you downwards modify

00:15:57.360 them based on how much time and money their parents had to spend on them in relation to this stuff

00:16:01.900 i kind of feel like though this test is kind of a has-been when you and i were in south korea

00:16:06.960 one of the people who was showing us around was saying that yes it used to be that the goal of

00:16:13.260 the typical south korean youth would be to work at one of the big prestigious companies after

00:16:19.100 going to one of the big prestigious schools and you can only get to one of those big prestigious

00:16:23.180 schools of course if you score well on one of these tests because those tests are everything

00:16:26.640 but then the new even then and this was back in 2018 that we visited south korea 2019 the the new

00:16:35.240 top desired jobs among youth were social media influencer like youtuber and cook like these

00:16:44.020 aren't things that require schooling anymore so i just don't know i mean maybe it would be

00:16:48.900 compelling to parents who are delusional about the kids desires but i don't i don't know how much it

00:16:53.560 would make a difference i disagree in america your top desired job can be you know a youtuber which

00:17:02.300 is in america as well as far as i know yeah it doesn't mean harvard no longer matters you know

00:17:07.480 harvard will eventually no longer matter but it doesn't no longer matter yet and the the systems that

00:17:13.440 make harvard matter are falling apart more slowly than the systems that make the top universities in

00:17:20.240 south korea matter because this is dependent about everything in terms of your role in society

00:17:26.200 perhaps but i would suggest something a little bit more okay dude and weird yes of course you would

00:17:35.900 simone i married a dystopian and weird woman we were talking about this today where i was like

00:17:40.640 i you're like i love processed foods i want more science in my foods and i was like you know you

00:17:47.500 other than me are one of the only people i've ever met who likes the world more processed when other

00:17:52.620 people like walk through a city and they're like oh they tore down a you know a park to a forest to

00:17:57.820 build down a parking lot and i'm like well the parking lot's a sign of industry look at these

00:18:01.980 beautiful rows in our local grocery store look at the diversity of products the packaging the

00:18:09.320 everything everything on the shelves here how do you not wonder at this it is a marvel of human progress

00:18:15.780 yes yes when i it's about knows when i drive by the big you know like like industrial cities right

00:18:23.300 like plants right i'm like oh if only we could buy one of these like run down turn it into like a giant

00:18:28.600 he cannot pass yeah like you know your typical like trope of a man is they can't walk by like a

00:18:34.160 busty gorgeous woman without you know rubbernecking her and and malcolm's rubbernecking problem his his

00:18:40.420 neck whipping around issue is every time we pass by some large industrial looking factory with all

00:18:49.040 the smoke pipes and the giant tanks and the blinking lights he desperately wants to buy it i want to live

00:18:58.180 i want to have that be our headquarters and everybody sees we are industry you know anyway continue

00:19:05.740 you've had fantasies about having different like you know purple smoke coming out from the you know

00:19:10.680 just like changing the smoke colors that come out from the how did i meet a weirdo who doesn't think

00:19:15.480 that i'm a weirdo for this he's like oh i actually agree with you on the processed foods in the industry

00:19:21.020 i bet a lot of people are going to chime into the content comments and be like yeah i mean when you

00:19:26.120 look at consumer behavior people are overwhelmingly choosing highly processed foods and snack foods of course

00:19:34.260 this is changing a little bit with osmbic and we are kind of seeing the markets shift in response to

00:19:38.340 that but still if you if you're not undergoing medical intervention you are you're going to be

00:19:43.660 okay okay okay okay so what is your dystopian plan here simone what people are missing when it comes to

00:19:50.160 prenatalist policy and incentives is most of the governmental interventions that are encouraging people to

00:19:56.460 have kids are just blanket incentives for everyone you know i will give money and you know like this

00:20:02.420 22 000 to parents you know per child regardless of your level of income like we will just give it to

00:20:08.320 you no matter what we just want everyone to have kids and one like the cool thing about the cause of

00:20:15.620 prenatalism is that to save an entire country an entire culture an entire religion or ethnicity

00:20:21.660 whatever it is that you care about saving this doesn't address the dependency ratio cascade but i'll get to

00:20:26.800 that next necessarily but it can make sure that there is a future for whatever this perspective

00:20:32.460 that you want to see in the future it will make it survive is just if if between eight to 17 families

00:20:38.600 manage to develop a version of their culture that is intergenerationally durable meaning that they have

00:20:43.860 a lot of kids like we'll say like five seven ten like per per descendant and each descendant raises

00:20:51.020 their kids so well and passes on their culture so well that their kids in turn want to have five to

00:20:55.820 seven kids and raise their children in that culture and if you keep that up you're good like you know

00:21:02.120 this is this is really not an issue anymore and i love that element of prenatalism because that's

00:21:08.580 saying okay only the super enthusiasts about having families and raising kids need to be involved with

00:21:15.720 this and everyone else who wants to be a dink and live their lives and not have kids is super free to do 0.99

00:21:20.940 that and i really like that i want people to not be shamed or coerced into doing anything i also want

00:21:26.820 people who are super into doing something to have the freedom to do it and to be awarded for doing it

00:21:31.120 so one that is one factor that goes into my south korean fertility policy the second factor is the key

00:21:38.640 issue with dependency ratio cascades and with demographic collapse and with governments failing to be able to

00:21:43.640 pay for the social services of the most vulnerable people in society isn't a warm bodies issue

00:21:49.620 it's a taxpayer issue and just paying any old family a ton of money to have kids isn't necessarily

00:21:56.460 going to solve your problem just bringing in immigrants isn't going to necessarily solve your 0.99

00:22:00.380 problem because immigrants are eventually going to get old and not everyone is going to be the same 0.70

00:22:05.660 level of a tax contributor i mean like in new york city that the top 10 or 1 pays for like 50

00:22:11.880 percent of the the city's income right in taxes like it's it's insane when you look at who actually

00:22:17.360 contributes most of the tax revenue whether you're looking at a federal level or you're looking at a

00:22:21.960 city or state level the top percentage of earners are paying the vast majority of the taxes so i also

00:22:28.240 think that fertility policies that focus disproportionately on taxpayers especially when you're looking at

00:22:35.280 governmental stability and your ability to meet the commitments be it debt service or social security

00:22:42.700 food aid health care etc like you should be looking okay how do we get more taxpayers not how do we get

00:22:48.480 more people and i'm not seeing countries do that and and so here's where i just think and and and

00:22:54.180 there's a culture factor too do you as you said yourself right like they're they're focusing too

00:22:59.100 much on like you know child care and all this stuff and we're not resolving the cultural issue right

00:23:03.480 that having kids is not this aspirational desirable thing most south koreans when they think about

00:23:09.560 having kids is oh god i don't want to subject them to the terrible childhood that i experienced

00:23:13.540 i you know i i don't want to now be torn not only between this really demanding career with no work

00:23:19.320 life balance and but also raising a kid and being expected to do most of it like it just sounds so

00:23:25.220 right you also need to make it socially and culturally that desirable hence hence oh and i just i just

00:23:33.860 let's walk through the math i also want to point out like back to my first point just if you have

00:23:38.800 just seven families and they they all had seven kids each and then those grandkids had seven kids 0.99

00:23:44.400 and those great grandkids had seven kids and then the great great grandkids had seven kids now you've

00:23:48.840 already got 16 807 people and if you repeat that whole cycle again you've got 282 million 475 249

00:23:57.280 people and keep in mind south korea's current population is 51.71 people sorry sorry 51.71

00:24:03.560 million people so in just in just you know a couple cycles in the longer scheme of things obviously

00:24:10.360 this takes a long time if like one generation comes every 30 years but if you manage to make

00:24:15.940 just seven families be intergenerationally durable you've got something that is is basically you skip a

00:24:22.680 generation with every exponential amount of families you get at the beginning something that's 49

00:24:27.560 families you get you know no that's true yeah yeah and and and so you could have not just south korea

00:24:33.360 maintained you could have south korea taking to the stars and so much bigger than than it ever ever was

00:24:40.600 and that's kind of like but that doesn't solve it before systems start to collapse and this is important

00:24:45.800 that's true but no no this is this is why we we introduced the the perfect simone solution that

00:24:50.900 everyone should just listen to in south korea which is my k-pop chable oligarchy all right tell me about 0.99

00:24:56.920 the k-pop chable oligarchy yeah so just to define chables south korea is kind of known for having

00:25:03.100 what what are called chables which are like these huge business conglomerates which are associated with

00:25:08.820 very wealthy and powerful families like there is a samsung family and these families are like very

00:25:15.640 very wealthy and very famous and there's a little bit of like a hereditary monarchy thing going on

00:25:20.260 which works really well with the very hierarchical sort of social class sensitive south korean culture

00:25:27.340 right i mean like what was your experience with chables in when you were working in south korea

00:25:31.060 and venture capital well i mean they controlled everything as i said the thing that really

00:25:35.080 shocked me about the chables and the way north korea related to all of this south korea what south

00:25:39.440 korea south korea not as different as you would think when you go to the chables headquarters which i've

00:25:44.620 toured some they have shrines to their glorious leaders that are you know and i've often said of

00:25:50.220 south korea if you understand south korea as a capitalist democracy you don't understand south

00:25:54.520 korea what south korea is is a number of fascist states competing amongst each other in a facsimile

00:26:02.640 of capitalism and and i remember they look down so much on entrepreneurs that if you're in a marriage

00:26:10.080 market that's looking oh what what score does it get me my career in a marriage market it's under

00:26:14.860 fishermen what yeah yeah that's right under fishermen actually they have these right where

00:26:20.300 like if you're trying to like use a dating service they do score you like you're not just talking

00:26:24.840 abstractly here social work and value you're like no if i literally pay someone to be a matchmaker for

00:26:30.620 me i'm getting a score and my score is fishermen but it's worse our fund i mean we constantly got in

00:26:38.360 trouble with the government because we did the horrifying thing of investing in people who

00:26:42.760 didn't go to top universities and i didn't say didn't go to universities i didn't say dropped out

00:26:47.040 of university i said didn't go to the top universities and it's not korea this is like investing in like

00:26:52.160 meth addicts right like you are a social harm and this led to my boss being arrested this led to other 1.00

00:26:58.740 people in my company being arrested like we were constantly for political points because you know

00:27:04.140 everybody agrees with the show well if somebody just makes their money out of nowhere then something

00:27:08.880 is wrong in society they were they were disrupting the social order that's yeah and that's the thing

00:27:15.380 is i think that you know when you when you look at fertility solutions for a country you can't disrupt

00:27:21.040 the social order you need to yes and the social order and i'm gonna yes and it all right do it do it

00:27:27.380 so i'm like okay chables yeah like they're a thing let's not try to undo them let's lean into them

00:27:35.020 so i'm saying this this project of mine this could either be government funded so you know the south

00:27:39.640 korean government can kind of ease this along or it could be privately organized but what i want is in

00:27:45.960 korea you could say it's creating a new aristocratic class or it's just leaning into it to ultimately create

00:27:53.600 eight to seventeen high fertility families so there has to be some kind of like either america's got

00:27:58.740 talent style like audition to become one of the new seed families because we need more chable families 1.00

00:28:04.680 than there are now right like you need i would say minimum of seven families it's like super high

00:28:09.520 fertility you know to solve this fertility cascade this dependency ratio cascade problem so like either

00:28:15.560 america's got talent style thing or like the government like literally providing exclusive contracts

00:28:22.220 to the chosen families who also have to be commercial magnates in some way right so you have eight to

00:28:29.760 seventeen high fertility families they need to be regarded as aristocratic basically royalty and

00:28:35.580 members who have fewer than seven kids get disinherited and shunned um outsiders can marry in but they

00:28:41.940 have to accept south korean culture i think that's really important but each family should be run like a 0.94

00:28:48.040 a korean pop band because this is also like a huge thing in south korea is this like manufactured

00:28:54.500 run by the state what are they run by a company one of the chibalds yeah either no i would say this is

00:28:59.660 either no and you're creating new chibalds so i each each of these families needs to have a private

00:29:05.180 business specialization so already you have like samsung it does like tech what i want south korea to

00:29:11.540 create with its new additional chibald families because you need to have this like you need to have 1.00

00:29:15.300 enough aristocratic families for there to be like genetic variation maybe one specializes in

00:29:19.900 reproductive technology you know it's it's starting to clone people it builds the artificial wombs it's 0.78

00:29:24.320 it's doing that's our family's job simone i know i know no i mean it would be great if there's a

00:29:29.000 couple families across many countries then there's the human augmentation family south korea is already

00:29:33.560 famous for its its its plastic surgery just like but but you know take that a step further you know

00:29:39.160 they're already so good at plastic surgery they've got the infrastructure they have the like

00:29:42.580 educational pipeline let's bring it to like okay now there's a heads-up display inside your eyes now

00:29:49.840 your skin has tattoos that are animated now like you know all the like let's let's build a night vision

00:29:56.720 like you know just so a human augmentation family or collection of families one should obviously be

00:30:01.620 military tech because north korea ain't going away for a while like yeah you know i mean there isn't to

00:30:07.720 my knowledge i mean maybe like samsung makes military tech but like you know just really

00:30:12.360 specializes in that because also it would make the country stronger but yeah basically have like

00:30:16.580 you know these are these are strategically useful specializations but you're also at the same time

00:30:22.120 creating a new royal family and a new table and and bonus points if if the lives of each of these

00:30:27.620 tables is extremely public like they they each have a reality tv or they're all extremely active on social

00:30:33.580 media and like everyone desperately wants to marry into this family to work at one of the companies

00:30:39.660 to make their way up and maybe fully democratize this whoever said that democratization was an

00:30:46.460 important part of this the important thing is it one you are making high fertility families high profile 0.96

00:30:53.680 you're giving them a lot of commercial power and they're having a lot of kids so you're you're having

00:30:58.640 a lot of really high taxpayers being born they lose all of their favor and advantages that give

00:31:03.700 them an unfair advantage if they don't maintain their high fertility as a family and because they're 1.00

00:31:09.360 so prominent and because they're both like chables and like k-pop chables so they're like made famous

00:31:14.540 and they're romanticized and they're like yeah you can't do this intergenerational oh so you think

00:31:18.580 other people would want to copy them yeah no and we've seen this so i want to cover this in another

00:31:23.820 episode on pronatalist propaganda but there was a series of soap operas that played out in various

00:31:29.700 regions in brazil that sort of depicted this very aspirational middle class life and they affected

00:31:34.820 fertility significantly unfortunately they they allowed they allowed people to have fewer kids because the

00:31:40.540 families in these in these soap operas had like one or two kids and people and brazil at the time had more

00:31:46.220 kids but it's clear that when you make a certain family format aspirational and high class

00:31:53.060 people are going to conform with that and and this was shown like in regions where where this network

00:31:58.820 didn't show there was no change in fertility fertility is absolutely shaped by propaganda and culture

00:32:05.460 and when you make things like your celebrities and your aspirational royalty very high fertility i

00:32:13.420 absolutely think it will affect the average korean but what you're also doing is making sure

00:32:18.240 that the people who are literally required by law to be high fertility in order to maintain

00:32:23.060 their strategic advantage and commercial advantage you're also getting a lot more taxpayers which

00:32:28.820 i think is great and keep in mind that right now korean pop stars are like even if they're dating 0.79

00:32:37.700 someone and sometimes i think they're contractually not allowed to date anyone yeah they're not well i

00:32:42.020 need they'd often lose their as i pointed out in the episode that we did on like japan and stuff like this

00:32:46.380 they can they can lose their like jobs not just their jobs because of the company but like the fans

00:32:52.600 will turn on them if they're seen as dating anyone or anything like that and how that is extremely low

00:32:58.140 fertility like no where are the aspirational people in south korea that are having kids like

00:33:02.980 the number one celebrities in south korea are like perpetually young and single this is not modeling

00:33:12.240 anything that's going to give people an aspiration of what married life could be like and and that's

00:33:17.760 crazy and so you have to i think a really underrated element of of what's going on in south korea and

00:33:24.300 what they really should be looking at is hey like what can we do in media to promote to make families

00:33:31.560 not even something that's like desirable but like literally something you can wrap your mind around

00:33:37.140 because i think a lot of people it's just like the most obscure thing in the world i mean keep in mind that

00:33:42.100 kids in higher fertility families you know they're around babies all their lives you know they have

00:33:46.940 younger siblings they see this a lot maybe they're in a church community where they see a lot of babies

00:33:51.060 south korean kids are typically growing up only kids i i imagine that most adults who are having

00:33:58.720 children in south korea now like all these parents who are having babies yeah this is their first time

00:34:04.160 holding a baby this is their first time seeing a baby in like recent history for i mean yeah that's

00:34:10.920 that's that's the problem right and so like if you don't have exposure through media or through some

00:34:15.800 other program that's a problem and i am intrigued by what russia is doing because russia does actually

00:34:21.320 have like literal active bans on media that it sees to be antinatalist yeah so like they're they're

00:34:29.120 actively really trying to shape i mean it's too little too late to them you know again to the point

00:34:33.100 of south korea for sort of a different flavor of reasons and we'll get into this in another episode but

00:34:38.120 yeah i think it's just it's underrated i think the solution for every country is very different

00:34:42.920 but i i really think that south korea would benefit from a k-pop chable oligarchy of like really

00:34:49.440 desirable royals i mean come on have you like watched the k-dramas about like the royal families

00:34:54.520 and the drama and like i love it i love it but they gotta yeah they gotta have all the kids

00:34:59.080 like imagine if google and in amazon and tesla were like royal families and like the executives

00:35:07.280 were these really beautiful like brothers and sisters who were single and who had to marry

00:35:12.800 someone at the company um and you're like not only like there would be all these like young men and

00:35:18.520 women who not only are like doing the very best to be like the smartest most high achieving most 1.00

00:35:22.740 professionally adequate person but also like hoping hoping to catch the attention it's kind of like

00:35:28.620 all those girls who were like super keen to go to saint andrew's when prince william was there

00:35:32.640 like i have a shot i went i went right after he was there i i wanted a shot i mean we all want it but

00:35:39.540 wouldn't that be cool i'm not i'm not even like bisexual and i would have been like

00:35:43.740 but it's a prince but to be yeah i mean like if you have a shot at royalty you gotta take it and

00:35:49.960 imagine an unfortunate accident before we consummate anything it would be like imagine if elon musk's

00:35:56.000 kids all worked at like spacex and like tesla and like you had a shot it you know like if we knew

00:36:02.500 like our kids had a shot at like marrying into like tesla royalty oh my gosh like have you entered

00:36:08.580 the tesla family we're a teslas now we're a spacex family now families like elon wouldn't pass that

00:36:17.280 down to his kids right like this isn't the way no and that's that's why you have to create this

00:36:21.260 whole new like conspiracy you have to you have to like you have to have families audition into this

00:36:25.080 to be like i am by the way simone you're gonna love this the new york times did this piece right

00:36:31.680 here you see this this image here yeah you saw this on the zizians yeah i'm gonna talk about it i

00:36:36.700 also have an episode outlined on the rise of new secular religions she wanted to save the world

00:36:43.020 from ai then the killing started i love that they don't they don't mention that she has

00:36:48.320 wasn't always a she well the new york times wouldn't even think to question that this might be a male 0.65

00:36:55.060 sex pest um but they they have killed people a number of them in their quest for self-aggrandizing

00:37:02.920 well i think what makes ziz an impressive cult leader is i don't believe that any of the murders are 0.93

00:37:10.240 are actually ziz murders i think that they are ziz follower led murders for my understanding so 0.71

00:37:15.760 and and the level it's like that's that's mob boss level right like you know are like somebody asked

00:37:22.300 them to pay rent or something like that like god they're never about like their actual goal like

00:37:27.920 why won't you die so i can get my inheritance parents yeah like they're very how dare you stop me 0.92

00:37:34.140 on the side of the road immigration enforcement officer like i'll kill you for that and they did right 1.00

00:37:40.140 like they're they're very but it was funny as they talk about all these grand goals and how

00:37:44.580 uncompromising they are and yet every murder they commit is about their own convenience

00:37:48.280 we're gonna get into it i'm excited to talk about the rise of secular religions we're gonna

00:37:53.720 we're gonna talk about that and it's sort of its role in fertility too but yeah i really i think that

00:37:59.160 there there are two big takeaways i want people to have from this i mean in terms of like beyond the

00:38:03.640 okay we we don't really care that south korea has a fertility bump because they still have serious 0.97

00:38:07.420 problems the under underrated under discussed elements of fixing fertility are one malcolm's

00:38:14.300 concept of the dependency ratio cascade where we need people to pay for the dependence and

00:38:19.940 people have gotten jezebel got very mad at us they're like they let the cat out of the bag

00:38:24.560 that they not all babies are the same someone on someone on x was just criticizing us that that

00:38:30.100 they imply that there are certain people who should you know there there are certain people who are more

00:38:34.680 desirable to be born than others and we're like no man like we're just looking for someone to pay the

00:38:39.080 tab like i don't i mean like is that nice i don't know how nice that is that's kind of exploitative if

00:38:44.940 you ask me but whatever i just don't want millions of people to die and suffer it's not millions it's

00:38:51.480 hundreds of millions hundreds of millions not millions hundreds of millions and then the other

00:38:58.000 underrated factor here is is the role of of culture and status and if you do not make

00:39:04.740 families and and this and this stuff like high status and i agree that there's like a creepy way

00:39:11.500 to do it like the china way where there's someone knocking on your door being like hey is it your

00:39:15.960 where are you in your cycle when are you gonna have kids you know they're like being the creepy

00:39:19.700 mother-in-law when you already have a creepy mother-in-law like you don't need more yeah you're in china my 1.00

00:39:24.180 gosh yeah the government's just gonna make that's like that's gonna backfire but i really think that

00:39:28.520 if there's just like aspirational royal family like again like if if you could marry in i don't buy this

00:39:34.860 at all this would not work it's not scalable you can maybe force you can say this is what is scalable

00:39:40.840 saying no one can be a k-pop idol unless they already have a kid you are you are not malcolm

00:39:46.520 that is how you have to start you've got to have a kid but then people be like oh then two then three

00:39:52.240 like you have to have three kids to be a k-pop idol you gotta have four kids to be a k-pop idol

00:39:56.420 then it becomes high status right yeah oh and then i mean then you're gonna have all the south

00:40:03.040 korean beauty treatments for like postpartum so then south korea is gonna be yeah and for your

00:40:07.720 kids of course as well you gotta have them look like the most beautiful baby in the world

00:40:11.400 that's no i just i really want there to be like a south korean shable that just does like human body

00:40:16.800 augmentation because they not only yeah like because i mean i feel like there's some cultures

00:40:21.980 or like groups or families or whatever that will do human body augmentation but it's going to be

00:40:27.620 like that like mechanicus you know it's like like let's skull and it's like blah and it looks weird

00:40:33.580 but like koreans it's just going to be like these like elven beautiful like they'll find some way to

00:40:40.040 make your hair look weightless even though you're in like earth's gravity you know like it's just going

00:40:43.980 to be of course yeah well i mean in the ai in the ai environments we're going to be in you know our

00:40:49.040 kids will be dating was in virtual environments using avatars i'm almost certain yeah but i mean

00:40:54.760 irl still matters maybe maybe not in korea probably not you look at you look at korean society and how

00:41:03.000 quickly it's descended into the internet they're going to be dating avatars oh they still they still

00:41:08.760 judge your ability to either look gorgeous or pay to look gorgeous so sure in current korean society 1.00

00:41:16.660 but keep in mind we've got to create i don't want them to give that up i like it i like it's such a

00:41:21.900 beautiful place everyone i loved when you and i were like walking down the streets of seoul and in

00:41:26.640 gangnam and we're like we are the ugliest people in this street like everyone here everyone is beautiful

00:41:31.780 yeah you're so pretty you're so pretty all right so what are we doing for dinner tonight so you're

00:41:36.820 gonna do the rendang with rice and i'm going to make pizzas for the kids because i think that

00:41:41.840 slip and slide action they had today before the thunderstorm will have worked up an appetite

00:41:45.880 assuming they haven't been fed copious amounts of junk food after that which i'm a little well

00:41:50.560 cook up the the rendang very excited for that do you want me to saute it with extra garlic or

00:41:55.700 anything else we don't have any onions we're gonna just cook it down i want to see how it tastes

00:41:58.760 and then it's cooked down a bit okay so just summer it i'll simmer it for like one fact i learned today

00:42:03.680 which really shocked me and i i sent you a map of this i don't know if you saw this

00:42:07.640 but the summer camp that flooded oh god you did it was in a flood pane it wasn't just in a flood

00:42:16.160 pane it was in a dried river bank like literally built into exactly in the center of a dry they even

00:42:25.540 appeared i would not have thought to look at that as a parent and now i'm going to be looking at that as

00:42:30.240 apparent well no but what's crazy about it is is they seem to even own the property that wasn't

00:42:35.820 within the dried river bank they just decided to build it come on i'm sure it was prettiest within

00:42:42.000 the you know dried river bank well because oh i guess you get the views of the hills and everything

00:42:45.940 but the point being is if you've had a house that has been anywhere near a flood zone like ours right

00:42:51.840 like we see the water creep up i would have immediately looked at this location and been like

00:42:56.580 are you guys effing insane and they had a by the way a 12 hour warning i love that people are 0.60

00:43:03.500 blaming this on trump and elon musk and everything like that they had a 12 hour flood warning for the 0.91

00:43:08.200 national services and everyone was like trump and elon did this with their cuts no who did this was the 0.96

00:43:13.360 idiot counselors who didn't move the kids when they had a 12 our house every time you and i get a flood 1.00

00:43:21.400 warning and they are very rarely 12 hours in advance they're usually about six hours in advance 0.99

00:43:26.080 we move everything in our in our house we prepare to leave we like because i understand what flood

00:43:33.380 warnings mean right like you have to fundamentally be kind of retarded about flood warnings to get a 12 0.97

00:43:39.640 hour flood warning for something and say i don't care like we're not gonna so so there what disturbs me

00:43:46.040 even more is on social media there are all these like influencer stuff who are like giving links to

00:43:51.960 fundraise for like the the the girls in the camp and i'm like this money is just going to scam artists

00:43:57.640 like it's not going to help the girls get found like they're being looked for now by everyone who

00:44:03.080 can possibly look for them i don't know they're 100 percent dead if i'm sorry if if a if a pre-teen

00:44:09.880 girl disappeared in a flood they're dead well that there was that one woman who floated 20 miles and

00:44:17.460 got into a tree like there are people who've survived for amazing periods of time in these

00:44:24.520 floods so i don't the the missing girls are dead i don't understand how anyone could not

00:44:31.680 they would have they would have they would have gone to the shore then gone to somebody with a phone

00:44:36.340 and then they would have called somebody right like they're not retarded no i mean the woman who was 0.95

00:44:40.780 found in the tree like the tree was surrounded by floodwaters like the floods are still there there was

00:44:45.840 more rain so they they have to be found within the flood water or within the floodplains but

00:44:52.540 but if you just looking at the map of this i'm like this is not chump or elam first of all it's

00:44:59.300 they have the warning that they needed and second of all whoever built this camp here you don't even

00:45:05.980 build if you if you are a camper like a regular no i and i disagree with you i think a lot of people

00:45:11.080 build camps on floodplains because they're like well it's okay everything gets washed away in a

00:45:15.900 flood it's a temporary camp and they just it there there's just people aren't thinking seriously about

00:45:21.740 it i was taught not to build camps on floodplains like do not build and it's not floodplains you're

00:45:27.880 calling it floodplains it's a dried riverbed that is very different from floodplains a dried riverbed is

00:45:35.060 where the water regularly flows whenever it gets hot it is notable that the camp like

00:45:41.940 had they not received any severe flooding in the past but and this is texas as well so i grew up in

00:45:48.780 texas and at my family's ranch we i mean i always remember my family every time we'd walk by it they'd

00:45:54.440 be like that's where the floodwaters went and they point to like marks on trees and i showed you the

00:45:58.880 marks on trees i don't know if you remember me saying like you see that white mark way up there

00:46:02.780 you can even see them around where i mean where we live like literally where we walk you can see

00:46:06.580 where floodwaters went and it's high yeah like this is something that should have been ever present for

00:46:11.860 everyone in this situation and people can be like how dare you say it's their fault i am sorry i

00:46:17.460 wouldn't build a temporary camp in a in a dried riverbed well so what what is advice that parents

00:46:23.260 can take home from this to just if they're like devastated by this and well i mean if i was a

00:46:30.020 if i was a parent i was like i want to be safe with my kids when you send your kids to camps or

00:46:36.600 something like that like conduct a basic sanity check of safety like our it is every building in

00:46:45.420 the camp was built within this floodplain like i i would honestly ask yourself like until we knew

00:46:51.620 about this would you be checking camps that we'd send our kids to yes planes yeah given that every

00:46:57.280 couple years our house has floodwaters come up around it and we've had to deal with the consequences

00:47:01.260 you and i are acutely aware of floods in a way that other people may not be you know and i think

00:47:06.880 that some people don't realize if you're near a lake or a river or a stream or if you're buying a home

00:47:12.520 near a lake river or stream you need to pay attention to this octavian's probably trying to get into the

00:47:16.480 house now so i love you i love you too now of our kids and i'm really sorry for the families

00:47:20.720 did you learn anything interesting today yeah i was listening to a really interesting

00:47:27.740 podcast called decoder ring no no no sorry called articles of interest about

00:47:34.020 school uniforms and catholic school uniforms and like kind of how they came together and

00:47:41.620 you know how they came to be and i love stuff like that i'm a sucker for clothing history

00:47:47.240 it's so funny that so many items of catholic religious significance or that came out of

00:47:55.440 catholic communities i think when people hear them within our modern culture the first thing they think

00:48:01.640 is oh that's a sex thing when i hear the catholic school girl school girl yeah when i hear catholic

00:48:08.320 school girl uniform i'm like oh it's a weird sex thing right or you know when i when i see one of

00:48:14.420 those flagellates or whatever when i you know oh yeah but yeah no but what's what's interesting

00:48:20.660 actually is so the reason why those plaid skirts specifically sort of became normalized in catholic

00:48:26.800 schools only after you saw the rise of parochial catholic schools which were in response to the

00:48:33.260 pervasion of public schools also developing a reputation for being more unruly so this led to

00:48:39.620 this rise especially when they stopped prayer in schools of people flocking to parochial catholic

00:48:46.220 schools which cost a little bit but were still affordable because before that catholic school

00:48:50.660 was really more for like people who are quite wealthy and then it was seen that like people

00:48:54.860 were better behaved in catholic school but the reason why plaid skirts sort of became the de facto 0.94

00:48:59.140 thing was because it was there were a lot of irish catholics and it's thought that the plaid

00:49:03.720 probably was influenced by that but the earlier catholic schoolgoer uniforms actually looked a lot more

00:49:08.240 like kind of like my clothing like which dresses like a long black skirt and long black sleeves 0.79

00:49:14.620 kind of like a sort of nun in training uniform but made with really nice fabrics because you know this

00:49:20.560 was for wealthy young women and often the you know these not parochial schools but what came before for 0.84

00:49:26.560 catholic schools were convent schools like basically schools out of convents and the uniforms are very

00:49:32.540 different in that way but what even predated those were uniforms for other catholic institutions like

00:49:39.120 asylums or like orphanages where the uniforms were more helpful in one you just kind of had this

00:49:45.400 population of people who needed to be clothed but also it was helpful to identify runaways

00:49:50.320 this kind of connection between school uniforms and like fascinating imprisonment but what's also

00:49:59.060 interesting is several people in this podcast were interviewed who'd grown up like who both had very

00:50:04.160 distinctive styles but had also grown up in catholic schools one in nepalese catholic schools the other

00:50:09.800 one in american catholic schools and they hated and rebelled against the uniforms but also really

00:50:15.320 appreciated having the uniforms because the uniforms enabled them by their very restrictiveness to develop

00:50:21.360 a distinctive sense of their personal style and i really see that like with our kids right our kids

00:50:27.440 wear uniforms but they have extremely distinctive personal style and i think when you grow up sort

00:50:32.200 of wearing anything especially in this age of like disposable clothing and it's just so much choice

00:50:36.680 you kind of you end up thinking that you're expressing yourself when you're really just expressing like

00:50:43.020 the whims of consumerism well and we've seen this within youth culture dress recently becoming so

00:50:48.080 unattractive yeah and really a lack of ownership of of attempting to present a unified style anymore

00:50:54.440 yeah and i think that when our kids do start you know when they when they do deviate from the family

00:51:00.320 uniform it's going to be in much more interesting ways and very intentional instead of just being

00:51:04.000 like i'm just gonna like people don't think about it and then they think that they're being 0.91

00:51:07.880 unique when they're really being basic bitches or whatever the male equivalent of that is so that's 1.00

00:51:13.080 interesting the other thing that i was listening to just now was a decoder ring podcast about the 0.95

00:51:18.620 boston cinematic universe how like there are all these movies where boston is almost a main character

00:51:23.940 you know and it's like boston culture and these boston accents and boston people really yeah and

00:51:29.480 like why is that the case and it was pointed out near the beginning of the podcast which i haven't

00:51:33.560 finished that you know there are many cities that have bigger populations than boston like i think san

00:51:39.420 san antonio was an example they gave san jose and i realized yeah there are all these cities in the

00:51:44.040 united states that have very big populations but no cultural cachet well they're not i mean it makes a lot

00:51:52.640 of sense if you think about it for a few seconds the the main reason is because harvard and mit

00:51:58.420 and and are in boston and that means a lot of elites have lived in boston for a period of their life

00:52:04.940 which means that it gets disproportionately featured in media the same way anywhere where

00:52:10.040 there's not a lot of elites coming out of those other cities i can't even remember anymore

00:52:14.900 so they're not particularly relevant from the position of the type of people who write

00:52:19.340 movies or tv shows well there's also a lot of narrative richness when you when you contrast

00:52:24.440 the elites of boston which is definitely a theme that they pointed to in the podcast with the lower

00:52:30.720 classes in boston specifically like the the irish catholics of boston you would find that in these

00:52:37.220 other cities as well the difference is and you could say oh well then you don't get the narrative but

00:52:41.920 if you look at tv historically like older movies and shows they actually showed these other cities

00:52:49.280 much more in places like boston much less i mean consider like dallas right like the famous show and

00:52:56.000 stuff like that like this was really common back then and it contrasted the elite culture and the

00:53:00.460 non-elite culture and this was normalized but with the consolidation of harvard and elite universities as a

00:53:07.660 class status authentication mechanism particularly within the media industry as the urban monoculture

00:53:13.220 consolidated within that industry it became very rare keep in mind if you are writing movies at a movie

00:53:20.580 studio today i would bet like a good like 25 of your friend group spent a portion of their lives in boston

00:53:28.740 and so it may seem like a small city to you but from the perspective of people who are writing stuff it is

00:53:36.200 not a small city yeah yeah okay interesting so like the rise of credentialism could be yeah plus also

00:53:44.320 there's like is there a san antonio like are there the same amounts of stereotypes it seems some cities

00:53:49.960 are really good at developing stereotypes and others there absolutely are think about cities that you are

00:53:55.200 san jose you don't know much about that city but you have lived in other cities like dallas and you

00:54:03.320 would say does dallas have as many stereotypes about people from it as boston has about it

00:54:08.200 yeah i doubt maybe fort worth dallas has become you're familiar hold on you you you remember the idea

00:54:14.700 of the 100k what is it millionaire oh the 40k millionaire 40k millionaire and this idea of

00:54:21.160 that's that's like a whole structure of a way of living that's built out of that which is as built up

00:54:28.280 is any bostonite social structure or way of living but maybe not as universally recognized

00:54:33.980 and people yeah but that's the point why is it not as universally recognized because it's not

00:54:38.140 generating people who have control over major studios that's that's and it used to you know

00:54:44.300 like tex avery and as we pointed out like a lot of the old cartoons came out of like dallas and stuff

00:54:48.880 like that but again with credentialism people like that who grew up in in texas just couldn't get jobs

00:54:55.200 in the way that you used to within the media industry could be and it was pointed out in this

00:54:59.320 podcast decoder ring by the way totally recommend it that this was a a novel thing relatively speaking

00:55:07.200 like goodwill hunting was probably one of the first to really make this more of a thing like just ben

00:55:12.820 affleck's stuff but and matt damon stuff but before that boston would show up in movies but like

00:55:19.440 no accent no mannerisms like no nod to bostonian culture so yeah maybe maybe that's a factor i have

00:55:28.480 to finish listening to the episode but yeah i thought it was interesting all right

00:55:32.440 can you tell me why you're dressed like an elf

00:55:55.400 what else do do do they help the future police

00:56:02.720 are you shocking me with no fun

00:56:14.320 what's up buddy

00:56:23.740 what's up buddy

00:56:24.440 what's up buddy

00:56:28.560 what's up buddy

00:56:35.160 how about you

00:56:39.320 how about you

Based Camp - July 09, 2025

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