Based Camp - How Skull and Bones Went Woke： Identity Politics in Elite Societies

00:00:00.240 Hello, Simone! Today we are going to be talking about the Secret Society Skull and Bones.

00:00:06.720 And before anyone thinks that this title was clickbait, and that maybe this secret society,

00:00:12.280 one of the most famous secret societies in the world, didn't actually go woke,

00:00:16.660 I'll start with a quick excerpt for what I'm going to be reading.

00:00:20.840 In 2020, Skull and Bones had its first entirely non-white class.

00:00:26.640 Today, the idea of Skull and Bones selecting someone whose dad was a Republican president seems inconceivable.

00:00:33.920 The so-called tap lines, the tradition guaranteeing the football captain and the student president would end up in Bones,

00:00:40.860 are all gone, and few descendants of the alumni members get in.

00:00:45.260 Instead, the secret societies affirmatively select students.

00:00:48.080 The Bones class of 2021 had, quote-unquote, all kinds of people,

00:00:53.280 but the one thing they didn't have was a single member who was a conservative.

00:00:58.040 Oh, okay.

00:00:59.360 And to get an idea of just how woke they're going.

00:01:00.440 There's been a takeover, and that's a little saddest stuff.

00:01:03.080 An idea of how woke they're going.

00:01:04.540 Al Keynes recalls being tapped by a senior who wanted to keep the Latino line going.

00:01:09.180 So this was a person who was tapped by another Latino with the intention that they would go and tap a Latino themselves

00:01:16.020 to keep at least this Latino line going within Skull and Bones.

00:01:19.400 Okay, all right.

00:01:20.020 Once inside, he decided to focus on a different diversity metric.

00:01:23.900 I chose three trans people.

00:01:25.900 Oh, no.

00:01:26.600 That was my specific goal.

00:01:29.380 Oh, it's, yeah, wow.

00:01:32.640 No white people, three trans people.

00:01:34.780 It reminds me of those cartoons of, like, a little fish eats another tinier fish,

00:01:39.640 and then a bigger fish eats that one, and a bigger fish eats that one until, yeah, things are a big fish.

00:01:43.840 I wanted to go into this because I think a lot of people, when they look at these societies,

00:01:48.580 there's a few things that we can take away from this.

00:01:50.740 One is we're going to learn sort of how they took over these organizations and how this happens.

00:01:56.140 Two, we're going to see the strange parallel between the, if you look at the history of Skull and Bones,

00:02:02.760 you know, they were a supremacist in an ethno-supremacist organization at times.

00:02:07.380 Well, they still are.

00:02:08.080 It's fine.

00:02:09.440 Nothing has changed.

00:02:10.220 But it's literally, the racists are still the one in charge.

00:02:13.320 Yeah.

00:02:13.620 They are still deeply concerned with, and talk about the skin color, background.

00:02:19.180 Well, thank goodness.

00:02:20.380 Tradition isn't dead.

00:02:21.320 Sexuality of everyone that's being admitted to the organization.

00:02:24.680 This is great.

00:02:25.180 And it, to me, highlights the ethno-elitism of the leftist oligarchical class at this point.

00:02:31.480 It shows how these people get into positions of corporate power to continue to carry out their dastardly needs.

00:02:40.240 And it shows, I think, as well, when people think to these old pockets of secret societies.

00:02:49.900 And, you know, you famously used to be managing director of a secret society that was founded by Peter Thiel and Arn Hoffman.

00:02:54.840 We go to stuff like Hereticon.

00:02:56.080 That's one I can talk about.

00:02:56.920 We also go to a bunch of things I can't talk about.

00:02:58.980 Like I mentioned before, because it was found out by a secret undercover reporter that I've been to the Bohemian Grove.

00:03:03.180 But I can't say anything more than that.

00:03:05.060 I can only do quotes from other people.

00:03:06.480 Same thing with my knowledge of skull and bones.

00:03:07.900 I need to, I can talk around it.

00:03:10.220 I didn't go to Yale, so I'm, you know, not directly connected.

00:03:13.000 But I might be able to add some elaboration as I'm reading through this.

00:03:16.920 But again, I have to be very careful about what I say.

00:03:18.580 But I have a lot of insight into these things.

00:03:20.920 One of my favorite claims to fame, personally, is that the book, The Bloodlines of the Illuminati, which is like the major Illuminati book the CIA hosted on their website for whatever reason, says that my dad, like calling him out by name and the company he runs, is one of the supposed leaders of the Illuminati.

00:03:36.840 So I'm the oldest male child, so I wasn't born yet when this book was written.

00:03:40.700 So now I guess I'm one of the leaders of the Illuminati, too.

00:03:42.840 But what's humorous is, in terms of the secret societies that actually impact things, you and I actually are, like, significant players.

00:03:50.900 And I think what people don't realize is that the secret societies and parties that impact things are not the ones that you and conspiracy theorists are afraid of.

00:04:01.040 And most of them are on your side.

00:04:03.420 I.e., if what they were saying at these events was something that you could just say out in the open, then it would be what aligned with the urban monoculture's goal for our society.

00:04:16.080 It would align with what, like, the leftist oligarchs want for our society.

00:04:19.680 The reason they're meeting secretly is because they are in opposition to that.

00:04:23.380 Now, I'm sure that there is likely some mirror societies to ours that are the actual, like, PDA file stuff.

00:04:30.500 I mean, we know that, like, Epstein's Island existed and everything like that.

00:04:33.860 Yeah.

00:04:34.100 So, like, clearly there was an elite network of leftist PDA files, and they likely didn't disappear just because we got rid of the school teacher that hosted the stuff.

00:04:43.580 So, yeah, that likely exists.

00:04:46.960 But I don't know if those organizations have the power that they used to have.

00:04:50.900 And we'll see, likely, why they lost a lot of their power.

00:04:53.720 It's just because of governing inefficiency when you devolve into this DEI nonsense.

00:04:57.840 But any thoughts before I dive into this?

00:05:00.500 I really want to hear more.

00:05:01.420 I want to hear how this happened.

00:05:04.380 All right.

00:05:05.420 Skull and Bones, Equity and Inclusion.

00:05:07.700 This was a piece in The Atlantic a couple years back.

00:05:10.400 One evening in 2019 in a windowless building known as the Tomb in the center of Yale's campus, the members of Skull and Bones snapped.

00:05:18.060 There they were, having granted membership to the most elite secret society at one of the most elite universities in the world,

00:05:24.200 part of a rare group that for generations included individuals from the most powerful families on the planet, the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, and Buckleys have all been members of Skull and Bones.

00:05:33.280 Three Bonesmen would go on to become president of the United States.

00:05:35.580 Their traditions, including oaths of secrecy upon a mission and antics, stealing a gravestone of Yale's founders and the rumors about them that the Bones tomb contains a human skull are legendary and an intense source of campus gossip.

00:05:48.220 Just, you know, I've cut a lot out of this story, so I'm just reading the juiciest bits that assumes that most of our audience is going to basically know who the Skull and Bones are.

00:05:55.900 A lot of that expository stuff I took out.

00:05:58.680 But there in the tomb, surrounded by oil portraits of former Bonesmen, all white, all chosen by the society's alumni board, the current members felt overcome,

00:06:07.120 not by the achievements of those that had come before them or by the possibilities that lay ahead, but instead by the organization's long history.

00:06:13.280 So the students did what they felt had to be done.

00:06:17.060 They pulled the portraits down and replaced them with homemade signs criticizing the secret society's records of keeping people of color out of its rank.

00:06:25.880 Quote, portraits is a relatively straightforward and easy ask.

00:06:30.720 End quote.

00:06:31.500 One member who participated in the redecoration told me, quote, the way a place looks can have a large impact on somebody's psyche.

00:06:40.060 End quote.

00:06:40.960 This is somebody in the Skull and Bones.

00:06:42.480 My psyche was terrorized by the pictures on the wall of the people who built the society.

00:06:49.680 Oh, my goodness.

00:06:52.780 This was not the only act of Skull and Bones' rebellion in 2019.

00:06:58.240 During an all-expense-paid trip to meet with George W. Bush in Texas that year,

00:07:03.500 one of the members confronted the ex-president who wrote in his 1999 autobiography,

00:07:07.840 I joined Skull and Bones, a secret society.

00:07:10.360 So secret, I can't say anything anymore.

00:07:12.480 And criticized him for leading America into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to several people familiar with the trip.

00:07:18.880 More recently, young graduates of Brazilese, another of the ancient eight, these are other secret societies on Yale.

00:07:25.120 Yale's most elite secret societies pressed to change the name of the society's nonprofit legal entity from the Colony Foundation on the grounds that it evoked slavery and colonialism.

00:07:35.000 Students in LOE, a society named for LOE Yale, also tried to rechristen the organization over the namesake ties to the slave trade.

00:07:44.840 When the Bones clan of 2019 took down the portraits, some of their predecessors were aghast at the bad manners.

00:07:51.400 A former member of the Bones alumni board who graduated from Yale in the 1960s told me,

00:07:56.860 given that the society's former members were overwhelmingly white, he argued,

00:08:00.640 it didn't make sense to criticize Skull and Bones for accurately portraying its own legacy. 0.64

00:08:04.540 Quote, their historical protest was silly, end quote.

00:08:08.780 He said, still, the Bones board tried to appease students by putting up photographs of non-white alumni alongside the portraits. 0.66

00:08:18.820 This year, the former board told me the board will unveil the secret society's forced portrait of a black alumnus.

00:08:24.500 Similarly, Brazilese agreed to rename the Colony Foundation.

00:08:29.140 LOE, however, is keeping its name.

00:08:33.460 Okay.

00:08:33.900 Picture a gipper of Skull and Bones or any of the...

00:08:36.480 Anyway, yeah, continue.

00:08:37.420 What did you want to say?

00:08:38.340 Like...

00:08:39.840 I just...

00:08:40.600 At its point, you have to wonder why people want to join.

00:08:44.180 If they hate it so much, why do you want to join it?

00:08:46.920 You can see later it's because they don't actually hate what it represents.

00:08:50.880 They don't actually hate the exclusion and the special privileges.

00:08:53.080 They're like, oh, well, I hated it before I got in, but now I can use it to get a good job.

00:08:58.100 You know, fundamentally...

00:08:58.880 They're still breaking...

00:08:59.880 They're still taking down the paintings.

00:09:01.400 They're still criticizing the alumni.

00:09:05.540 Like, they're undoing those benefits.

00:09:12.040 What's the point?

00:09:13.780 Oh, no.

00:09:14.320 These individuals still get those benefits.

00:09:16.260 These individuals...

00:09:16.960 You'll see.

00:09:17.400 You'll see.

00:09:17.920 Still get...

00:09:18.360 The old people haven't learned their lesson about don't let these types of people into your organizations. 1.00

00:09:22.620 They were not let in because of their moral character.

00:09:25.500 They were not let in because of their, you know, integrity or work ethic or likelihood to be successful in the future.

00:09:31.820 They were let in because they're vile, frankly.

00:09:34.960 Because they identified with the cult that took over and destroyed your organization's history.

00:09:40.380 And I think that accepting this and trying to find a way forward from this place of acceptance is where these people can begin to think about fixing things.

00:09:52.380 And, yeah, it's just horrifying.

00:09:54.980 But I think it shows how quickly and how totally many of these organizations have just been completely destroyed from any historical root that they had.

00:10:02.600 And yet, this destruction is based in racist and racial elitism.

00:10:06.980 Picture a member of Skull and Bones or any of the other ancient eight societies, and you'll probably conjure a preppy white guy whose summer is in the Cape. 0.55

00:10:13.960 In fact, in recent years, the demographics of Yale's most elite organizations have been utterly transformed.

00:10:18.300 In 2020, Skull and Bones had an entirely non-white class.

00:10:22.820 Every year, the society admits around 15 rising seniors, selections must be unanimous and members have final say.

00:10:30.300 This was the key thing that allowed for the destruction of the organization because the admission had to be unanimous.

00:10:35.760 So you have one woke person.

00:10:37.460 You get one diseased member in your organization.

00:10:39.840 That's it.

00:10:40.220 All of a sudden, they scan for everyone.

00:10:43.340 And then it's just a war of attrition until everyone's like, yeah, fine.

00:10:46.100 Well, we'll select your person.

00:10:47.180 Fine. 0.97

00:10:47.540 And then it's all Black, extremely woke people. 1.00

00:10:50.420 Yeah.

00:10:50.840 As they said, they didn't invite a single person from a conservative ideological background.

00:10:55.080 These are not organizations that are interested in continuity with the past outside of racial elitism.

00:11:00.800 Interesting.

00:11:01.800 But this racial elitism is exemplified in woke culture in a way that really-

00:11:06.500 Oh, 100%.

00:11:07.440 That's the top place where it's alive now.

00:11:09.640 And you can see that in the way that suddenly the composition of Skull and Bones changed.

00:11:14.200 Many of the societies now have only one or two students each year who aren't from historically marginalized groups.

00:11:20.380 So it's very hard to get in now if you're white. 1.00

00:11:22.780 Today, the idea-

00:11:23.660 So you-

00:11:23.960 One to two white people every year.

00:11:26.580 That's it.

00:11:27.680 Today, the idea of Skull and Bones selecting someone whose dad was a Republican president seems inconceivable.

00:11:32.460 The so-called tap lines, the tradition guaranteeing the football captain, the student body rep, women, the Skull and Bones, are long gone. 0.85

00:11:39.560 Few descendants of alumni get in.

00:11:41.340 Instead, the secret societies affirmatively select for students who are their first in family to attend college, who are from a low-income background, or who are part of a minority group.

00:11:50.400 This has created something of a diversity arms race. 0.65

00:11:52.740 Quote, people are intentionally or not thinking, does this cohort have too many white people, end quote, said Al Keynes, a member of Brazilese class of 2020.

00:12:01.560 It's definitely an undercurrent, he said.

00:12:05.000 I graduated from Yale last spring, and I didn't belong to a secret society.

00:12:08.960 But when it came time for members in my year to select the next class, a friend of an ancient age society worried that the person she wanted to tap wouldn't get in.

00:12:16.860 He was a person of color, but came from a wealthy family and was not the first in his family to attend college.

00:12:22.720 She was the right to worry.

00:12:24.460 The society rejected him.

00:12:27.400 Well.

00:12:29.100 That's how bad this is.

00:12:33.240 Oh my goodness.

00:12:35.580 A history of progressive activism is an asset among secret society hopefuls.

00:12:40.380 Oh, so you need to be a progressive activist as well.

00:12:42.220 One of the leaders of Yale's Democratic Socialist chapter, Socialists, mind you, joined Scroll and Key, one of the oldest secret societies last year.

00:12:50.780 The Bones class of 2021 had, quote, people from all kinds of backgrounds, end quote.

00:12:55.400 One member of the class told me, but no conservatives.

00:12:58.020 Unless you count centrists as conservatives, which some members do.

00:13:02.380 Most members probably do.

00:13:04.460 Like Yale's student body overall, members of the secret societies mostly range from far left to left of center.

00:13:10.500 In short, Yale secret societies are now filled with students who, as a matter of political conviction, consider wealth and privilege indefensible, but who, as members of Yale's most elite clubs, enjoy enormous advantages.

00:13:23.760 Skull and Bones pair students with alumni mentors in the field they hope to enter.

00:13:27.600 It has an endowment of 17 million.

00:13:29.740 Bones members spend a week in late summer getting to know one another at the group's private island on St. Lawrence River.

00:13:35.740 Dinners at ancient eight societies are prepared by private chefs.

00:13:41.200 They used this 17 million endowment and all of these privileges and all of these mentorships to progress and further this cult that they're a part of.

00:13:49.820 Wow.

00:13:51.560 And this racist fundamental cult. 0.95

00:13:53.760 And I think that if I was a member of the alumni of this group, I would focus on attempting to create a parallel society at the university that focused on individual integrity and not this racist nonsense.

00:14:06.680 Oh, interesting.

00:14:08.240 Or find other ways to deal with this.

00:14:10.800 Like, just let the organization drain this 17 million dollar fund because they will.

00:14:14.300 Stop doing the mentorship, start doing the mentorships for people who deserve it and are actually being ethnically discriminating against, which these days is not these people.

00:14:26.160 As we can see from their acceptance into these organizations.

00:14:29.940 Yeah.

00:14:30.380 And that is what we're seeing.

00:14:33.320 Like, at the dinner parties we host in New York, the dinner parties we host in D.C., we always try to have young, rising stars at these events when we can.

00:14:42.480 And we connect these individuals with movers and shakers.

00:14:44.620 And it's done a lot to accelerate their careers.

00:14:47.480 And I think that this is something that is upon us and all, you know, same thinking individuals with ties to power to continue to do.

00:14:55.400 It's on you to fund and invest in the things that can't get investment in other ways.

00:15:02.120 To do donations to those types of things instead of, you know, what keeps you on the board of whatever that makes you look good.

00:15:08.320 In 2021, Caleb Dunson, then a Yale sophomore, published an op-ed in the school newspaper titled Abolish Yale.

00:15:15.960 Oh, fantastic.

00:15:17.240 In the essay, he described his discomfort attending an opulent holiday feast for students while homeless people suffered in the cold nearby.

00:15:23.860 Remember, they have private chefs, private islands.

00:15:26.380 The school operates, quote, under the assumption that only a small group of remarkable people can push humanity forwards, end quote.

00:15:33.040 Well, I mean, that's true, wrote Dunson.

00:15:35.060 And it's likely not you or the people you're associated with, to be frank, who is black.

00:15:39.660 Quote, it started off excluding women and people of color from its student body and now parades them around for diversity photos and social justice brownie points, end quote.

00:15:47.560 Quote, even if the university made marginal changes, which Dunson argued it had been reluctant to do, its nature would remain the same.

00:15:54.160 Quote, since we can't change Yale, we have to tear it down, end quote, he wrote.

00:15:58.300 So they're trying to destroy these traditions, these organizations and everything they stood for while using them to push their cult-like message.

00:16:06.460 Today, Dunson is a member of one of the ancient age societies.

00:16:09.660 That's the type of person that these organizations are admitting.

00:16:11.840 He knows how that looks.

00:16:13.800 When I asked him about the apparent contradiction, he said he decided to join in order to make new friends and be part of a community, but acknowledged that he was attracted to the status that being in a society confers.

00:16:24.320 Quote, once you get a tap for a society, it's funny how quickly you get invested in the preservation of that society, end quote.

00:16:31.360 He told me, ultimately, he said, given his political views are at odds with attending Yale in the first place, quote, there's already a bit of cognitive dissonance, end quote.

00:16:41.100 So joining a secret society isn't that big a leap. 0.99

00:16:44.340 Oh, what a hypocrite. 1.00

00:16:46.260 This is so annoying. 1.00

00:16:48.040 If you don't believe in Yale, don't apply to Yale.

00:16:51.120 Like, I hate this.

00:16:53.880 This is, oh, it's painful.

00:16:55.400 This is why I love when you talk to one of these lefties who want, like, communism or more socialism, and you're like, well, every time that's been done in the past, the people, as soon as they got power to manage the system, ended up abusing it, taking all the money for themselves, becoming elitist, creating a strict class system with an oligarchy that was even less pitiful than it was under capitalism.

00:17:16.860 And they're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:17:19.080 The next generation of elite communists, they're not like that.

00:17:22.000 They would give up the power as soon as it was handed to them.

00:17:24.740 And yet we see it even in the case of these kids at, like, Yale being given these giant endowments and private islands and stuff like that that we'll learn about in just a second.

00:17:34.880 They don't give it up.

00:17:35.640 They don't give any of it up.

00:17:36.440 They keep the system working for them.

00:17:39.560 Even individuals like Bernie Sanders, for example, number one, and has been for, like, 10 years, receiver of pharma donations among senators.

00:17:50.660 And Yale's like, oh, well, those are all small donations.

00:17:53.520 Those are all small donations, really, Bernie, buddy?

00:17:55.620 That's why you fought so hard against RFK getting appointed?

00:17:59.760 That makes no sense that you, when you're looking at an industry that has a vested interest in greasing the hands of senators, that you could beat every other senator in terms of donations by chance from small donations from employees multiple years in a row for a decade.

00:18:19.120 And that you would ardently campaign for their interests.

00:18:22.340 No, the point is, is that these individuals, whether it's Bernie Sanders or these DEI guys in Skull and Bones, the moment they get power, all of their values that they have been campaigning for disappear.

00:18:35.340 Are these people not the – this is the majority of the people at Yale now.

00:18:38.460 Yale now, on somebody's resume, just stamps them as this kind of grifter. 0.96

00:18:43.540 I mean, you really got to be like, and when did you graduate?

00:18:46.040 You know, I went to Stanford back when Stanford was still, like, a respectable institution.

00:18:50.220 A lot of people went to Yale in the past.

00:18:51.580 I know some friends who went to Princeton who are, I think, doing a lawsuit saying that the organization no longer has any – it's like a negative on their resume at this point.

00:19:01.400 No, the idea was, yeah, to file a lawsuit because their management of the school had degraded the value of the degree that they'd spent so much money to get.

00:19:13.820 Yeah, which is absolutely true.

00:19:15.840 These organizations are being horrific stewards because they have been co-opted by the cult. 0.99

00:19:20.140 And we'll see if the vibe shit pushes them back. 0.98

00:19:22.060 We'll see if the Supreme Court lawsuit making it illegal to discriminate against someone based on race. 0.98

00:19:26.420 Surprise, surprise that we had to do that in the United States and that these were the people fighting against that Supreme Court decision and screeching about it.

00:19:33.860 But they're also the elitists who control everything.

00:19:36.200 The Republican Party of today is fundamentally an anti-elitist party.

00:19:39.560 It is a party of the people because this is elitism.

00:19:44.120 You can't be pro-this stuff and anti-elitism.

00:19:49.120 Yeah.

00:19:51.840 DEI is elitism.

00:19:53.300 It's like a fundamentally elitist idea.

00:19:55.640 Yeah, yes.

00:19:56.360 The most common argument current and recent members give for preserving the societies is that by opening them up to groups that had previously been excluding, they can help diversify the elite.

00:20:07.740 Ali Canels recalls being tapped by a senior who wanted to, quote, keep the Latino line going.

00:20:13.180 Once inside, Canels focused on a different diversity metric.

00:20:16.020 I chose trans people, Canels told me.

00:20:18.340 That was my specific goal.

00:20:19.940 So three trans people, no Latinos. 0.63

00:20:21.600 Today's students believe that their values are better than those of the secret society members who came before them.

00:20:29.500 And thus they will use their positions in more socially beneficial ways, even if they're not yet sure exactly how.

00:20:35.820 The member of the 2021 Bones class had been uneasy about joining, but was convinced by a student from the year above.

00:20:41.960 Quote, yes, there is that baggage that we do have to reckon with, end quote, the older student told her.

00:20:47.460 But the fact that you are reckoning with it, the other people in your class are reckoning with it, that's a good sign.

00:20:54.640 Her class included many students from low-income families, and they often talked about how they would leverage their network to help their communities.

00:21:01.500 One recent Bones member used an alumni gathering to fundraise for a nonprofit she ran.

00:21:06.580 Nearly all of the current and recent members I spoke with said that it would be better if secret societies didn't exist at all.

00:21:18.080 But given that they do exist, they decided they might as well join to make it better.

00:21:23.320 The most full-throat critique of societies tends to come for people who didn't get in.

00:21:27.480 Elizabeth Zau, oh, she was Asian, she never had a shot, who graduated from Yale in 2023, felt confident in her odds to be tapped by St. Elmo's, one of the Ancient Eight. 0.95

00:21:38.060 But she spent tap day crying because she wasn't chosen.

00:21:41.180 Of course, she's Asian, doesn't she? 0.63

00:21:42.520 No, she's an underclass by the standards of DEI.

00:21:47.240 And comparing her qualifications against those of her friends who were invited in.

00:21:51.800 In Yale Daily News op-ed, she argued that secret societies should be torn down rather than open up. 0.65

00:21:57.700 By including more students from marginalized backgrounds, she wrote,

00:22:00.660 the society system merely diversifies the ranks of the worthy without transforming the underlying structures that deem others worthy, end quote.

00:22:10.340 Yes, it's exactly the same as it always was in that respect.

00:22:13.900 And yet she admitted, quote, I know in my bones that if I had gotten tapped by St. Elmo's, I would have taken it and likely wouldn't have developed a critical mode of participation.

00:22:24.800 End quote, they're all such immigrants. 1.00

00:22:28.120 Quote, everyone talked a really big game.

00:22:30.000 End quote, one member of the LA class of 2019 told me, quote, in the first months of my time in the society, there were people like, we got to burn this place down.

00:22:38.420 We need to mobilize the endowment to redistribute the wealth back to New Haven.

00:22:41.860 And then inevitably, we all just ended up doing what had been done in years previous, which is doing the bios, hanging out with each other and a few volunteer things.

00:22:50.820 But it wasn't anything radical, end quote.

00:22:53.720 As the 1960s bones alumnus, former member told me, quote, if you want things to stay the same, everything has to change, end quote.

00:23:02.320 In his view, the secret societies are thriving.

00:23:05.340 This is an old alumni member.

00:23:06.640 When students and alumni meet for the annual bone celebration in New York, the old guard gives a hearty applause to the new members.

00:23:12.980 And the kids are thinking, there's somebody in this room who's going to help me get a job.

00:23:16.920 And that's what the old board member was saying, the quotes there.

00:23:23.260 So they, and this is fundamentally what a lot of these people who were conservatives of the last generation and were taken in by the oligarch and are like the never Trumpers and everything like that.

00:23:32.080 They don't understand how much this new generation, one, does not care about integrity.

00:23:39.120 They do not care about actually making the world a better place.

00:23:42.560 They care about this redistribution cult.

00:23:45.180 If you gave Skull and Bones endowment to, for example, just redistributed it to Yale, it would be gone like that.

00:23:52.660 It's basically dumping it in the ocean in terms of the impact it would have, as we've seen from things like the UBI studies.

00:23:58.740 It might even make the situation worse.

00:24:00.460 These individuals do not care about any evidence-backed direction to make the world better.

00:24:09.240 Do you think these people are going to get jobs from the network, though?

00:24:12.440 Because if I were one of the senior... 0.96

00:24:14.780 How do the woke people get to the top of BlackRock and shit like that, Simone? 0.96

00:24:18.200 This person was one of the heads who said, oh, I think this is all a good thing in the 1960s. 0.94

00:24:23.660 A lot of elitist society, as you and I have seen, like if you talk about the reason why we do secret meetings

00:24:30.140 is because we're like part of the underground, right?

00:24:33.280 Yeah.

00:24:33.740 The overground, if you go to like the Met Gala or something like that, everyone there agrees with this ideology

00:24:41.300 without fully realizing that it plans to have them erased.

00:24:45.620 I'm not even concerned about that.

00:24:47.440 I mean, I guess, wait, maybe this makes sense because a lot, like this particular network,

00:24:54.300 which I guess used to be kind of an old boys network, hired almost like hereditary dynasties

00:25:01.200 into, we'll just say show positions that didn't actually need to perform necessarily.

00:25:06.520 Yeah.

00:25:06.620 Like, I think you saw this a lot with sort of the old garden Dallas where like kids would

00:25:11.600 expect to go into family businesses, but then like not actually do anything, you know,

00:25:15.500 they just like, they'd get a big salary and just be there.

00:25:17.960 And maybe that's what these networks are meant for was fulfilling these, these almost dynastic

00:25:22.820 positions that were, that didn't involve any actual work.

00:25:26.100 No, a lot of these positions don't work that way anymore.

00:25:27.180 Look, I think...

00:25:27.760 That's the point though, is when we moved to Dallas, you realized that all of your friends

00:25:32.720 who had grown up in that aristocracy weren't getting the jobs they expected.

00:25:35.640 Yeah, they thought they were going to get handed jobs, but now like boards exist and stuff

00:25:38.960 like that.

00:25:39.360 But these boards have been taken over by these types of people.

00:25:42.220 This is fundamentally a religious cult that is taking over things and it functions like 0.91

00:25:48.680 a cult, like a self-reinforcing mechanism.

00:25:51.400 Yeah. 0.96

00:25:51.720 So we basically went from old boys dynastic networks, putting useless people into useless 0.93

00:25:57.600 possessions to woke boards, putting people not based on merit into useless positions.

00:26:05.640 Forming the company's goals.

00:26:06.800 The goals of these organizations now, it's to promote the DEI mindset, this, this cult 0.63

00:26:11.860 mindset.

00:26:12.520 And they've said that very clearly.

00:26:14.160 I see my role at this organization as promoting this mindset in terms of what we accept, in terms

00:26:20.640 of how we leverage our money, in terms of what we do when we get into other companies.

00:26:24.060 They believe that this is like a moral North Star, that they build every action that they

00:26:30.000 take around.

00:26:30.580 Hmm.

00:26:32.900 Okay.

00:26:33.720 That makes sense.

00:26:34.460 And it is, well, I mean, how do these people get in places like BlackRock and stuff like

00:26:38.860 that?

00:26:39.020 You think that these people are smart?

00:26:40.460 Like they're not particularly intelligent.

00:26:42.420 Like we've run into them, whether it was, you know, given that I went to institutions like

00:26:49.040 Stanford for my MBA and stuff like that.

00:26:50.920 And St.

00:26:51.260 Andrew's for my undergrad, where you had this, the people, you know, and so I've seen the

00:26:55.360 people who do the DEI pathway and they're not your great performers.

00:27:00.820 They're, they, they are, you know, they, they often got there through a DEI pathway as

00:27:06.040 well.

00:27:06.320 And it's, it's obvious.

00:27:07.160 Well, I think that's the problem is they could be great performers, but the way that

00:27:10.020 they rose wasn't from learning how to be great performers.

00:27:12.880 It was from learning how to manipulate DEI oriented networks.

00:27:16.880 So they, they weren't given the opportunity, nor were they given the incentive to build

00:27:23.080 the ability to be, to, to yield a return on investment.

00:27:26.340 And that's a really, really sad thing is that these actually typically are very smart people

00:27:32.220 because it takes a good amount of savvy, cunning, and emotional intelligence to, to

00:27:38.340 get that far in these networks.

00:27:39.760 To manipulate other people.

00:27:40.480 Yeah.

00:27:40.620 And yet they're then going forward, they only use the cunning and savvy and Machiavellian

00:27:46.800 manipulation skills rather than complex problem solving and project management and data analysis

00:27:53.140 and all the things they should be using if creating good outcomes for whatever organization

00:27:57.780 they've chosen to join.

00:27:58.820 So it's a shame.

00:27:59.960 And I just want to make it clear that we don't think that these people are inherently less than

00:28:04.480 we think that they have been incentivized to play a game that makes them useless.

00:28:08.840 If somebody is the agent of a dangerous cult that, that, and it's dangerous, not just

00:28:15.160 in its racial discrimination and its implementation of a racial hierarchy, it's, it's dangerous

00:28:20.800 in a lot of the ideas it pedals.

00:28:22.660 You know, when you begin to push this stuff at like the FAA, where we talked about where

00:28:27.100 people were being hired to try to get more black people on board, they post the idea of,

00:28:31.760 oh, well, we need to have a test that like the wrong answer is science was my favorite

00:28:35.960 subject at school, or I take answers well.

00:28:37.960 And it becomes like a racist person stereotype of black culture because these people have

00:28:42.680 really, really harmful beliefs boast about, because I think a lot of them know that they're

00:28:47.820 not really from these cultures.

00:28:49.920 A lot of them know that they're not actually from a family that has deep roots within black

00:28:54.000 culture and stuff like that.

00:28:55.560 And that's what you often see by the people who grift on this system is they're often

00:28:59.440 not actually connected to the communities that they claim to represent.

00:29:02.960 And this creates a huge sort of like imposter syndrome where they then make up, they're like,

00:29:08.560 oh, what's, what's black stuff?

00:29:10.460 I guess it's, it's, it's being bad at science and math.

00:29:14.100 So we should make those the questions on the test.

00:29:16.160 Like what, what, like, and when you see people, cause we actually have a lot of like really

00:29:23.840 close black friends who like work to, and, and have sort of entered like real elite circles

00:29:29.260 to try to better the black community. 0.99

00:29:31.040 And I'd say the core difference between the black people who don't go crazy about this shit 1.00

00:29:36.660 and the black people I know who do go crazy about this shit is it's, did they actually 1.00

00:29:42.500 come from like a discriminated background? 1.00

00:29:45.740 Like one who we know, for example, uh, grew up an orphan and was raised in, in, in that

00:29:51.440 environment and grew up in like actual poverty.

00:29:53.660 I mean, he does like really cool stuff was like fixing education systems.

00:29:57.520 Whereas when I think about, you know, the, the ones I know that have gone the DEI grift

00:30:04.540 route, these are individuals who grew up to like wealthy parents who, or recent immigrants

00:30:09.980 from like royalty in Africa or something, and really have no connection to American black

00:30:15.480 culture or wanting to improve it outside of how they can utilize it to get money.

00:30:20.880 Like this one girl who's like, I used it to raise money for my nonprofit.

00:30:23.740 Well, let's see how much of that went to hurt.

00:30:25.540 You know, because that's, that's the way the grift goes.

00:30:27.680 I note here, when you read things that these organizations, like what we work really hard for

00:30:31.940 first generation, you know, college people who came from whatever background, you can

00:30:37.020 tell that they are not actually from these communities and they've just learned to do

00:30:41.280 the grift really well by where they are focusing their efforts and their buy-in to the DEI stuff.

00:30:48.200 Or they might have come from parts of these communities that have built their entire identity

00:30:53.800 around a DEI government welfare grift, which is something that I've also seen.

00:30:58.540 And a lot of these old people who go to the like Met and stuff like this for the yearly 0.99

00:31:02.140 gala or whatever, they're frankly too disconnected and bought into like this media lie ecosystem 0.99

00:31:08.660 to know how bad the grift has gotten.

00:31:13.380 What?

00:31:14.280 I think you're right.

00:31:15.480 It's just depressing.

00:31:17.380 But it also feels, you can't help but feel a little smug about it.

00:31:22.480 I mean, this wasn't a secret society without some flaws and certainly a lot of elitism.

00:31:29.800 And now it's experiencing the end result of all that.

00:31:35.380 Yeah.

00:31:35.620 And the cool kids club is now like way more dynamic, way more open.

00:31:41.900 Like for the cool events that we would be invited to, like Hereticon, I think is the best

00:31:45.600 secret society event that's ongoing right now.

00:31:48.980 They do it so well.

00:31:50.200 They do it so good.

00:31:51.100 How do you get an invite to Hereticon?

00:31:53.100 You have to be out there saying interesting, controversial, new ideas and be bringing them

00:31:58.560 to the scene and changing the world.

00:32:00.960 And that's like such a better criteria than these older systems.

00:32:04.940 And I really, by the way, if you go to Hereticon again next year, are you going to get a tattoo

00:32:08.760 this time?

00:32:09.340 They do free tattoos at Hereticon.

00:32:12.560 I mean, I still think you should get the gear tattooed on you.

00:32:16.340 I'll get the gear tattooed then.

00:32:18.000 Yeah.

00:32:18.360 Where should I get it?

00:32:19.600 What's your wrist?

00:32:22.460 Wrist?

00:32:22.900 Do you know how much that hurts?

00:32:23.740 Where it hurts the most.

00:32:25.160 Yeah.

00:32:25.720 That, you are intent.

00:32:27.380 That's where you do it.

00:32:28.160 That's where you do it.

00:32:29.600 You're technically Puritan, Malcolm.

00:32:30.880 You got to show it.

00:32:32.080 I got to show it?

00:32:33.020 I got to.

00:32:33.400 God, you are. 1.00

00:32:35.280 You are insane. 1.00

00:32:37.000 But hey, you know, it's a good souvenir from like a Hereticon or something like that. 0.99

00:32:41.440 God, my whole life without getting a tattoo.

00:32:42.920 Am I going to get one at 38 or something?

00:32:45.200 I guess.

00:32:46.040 I mean, I'm going to be with you.

00:32:47.320 I don't need to attract any other partners, I guess, to show.

00:32:49.860 Yeah.

00:32:49.980 I still would love for someone to explain to me why people get tattoos.

00:32:52.780 That would be helpful.

00:32:56.020 The last time we were there, they had a stall where you could genetically alter frogs to

00:33:00.480 glow in the dark.

00:33:01.380 And so we both did like.

00:33:02.880 Yeah.

00:33:03.020 To make a frog embryo.

00:33:04.320 That was so cool.

00:33:06.680 It's pretty cool.

00:33:07.520 No, it's like, you're like, what do people do at like the cool secret societies?

00:33:11.180 That's the stuff that's happening.

00:33:12.440 Yeah.

00:33:12.640 They genetically alter frog embryos.

00:33:14.940 We get tattoos genetically altering frog embryos, you know.

00:33:18.500 Stop your hair.

00:33:19.260 Eat delicious food.

00:33:20.360 Talk with fascinating, smart people.

00:33:22.660 Here.

00:33:22.800 The general premise of Skull and Bones, which I haven't really read much about it.

00:33:28.760 I didn't know that so much of it was sort of highlighted around getting a job and networking.

00:33:32.320 That in itself makes it, to me, pretty gross because I am definitely of the belief that

00:33:39.840 you should get your job based on merit and hustle instead of like, oh, well, I got accepted

00:33:44.500 into this club and therefore you will hire me.

00:33:47.320 And I felt the same way about sororities and fraternities, which also often sold it is like,

00:33:51.700 you'll find it easier to get a job.

00:33:53.340 And I just thought that was disgusting.

00:33:54.660 Like who hires someone because they're friends?

00:33:57.520 I mean, that's really an argument against hiring that person because then when you have

00:34:01.520 conflict or you need to give constructive criticism, it becomes so much harder.

00:34:05.380 It's just a terrible idea.

00:34:06.660 The entire premise of this society is fundamentally unsound.

00:34:12.980 Yes.

00:34:13.700 I, well, yeah, I like that things are changing and that this system has in a way destroyed

00:34:19.240 itself.

00:34:20.020 It was a system based on nepotism and then there's a cult that found out how to hack

00:34:23.960 nepotism networks and it is destroying the system.

00:34:27.020 And this is why we started an organization, DEI remediation.org.

00:34:30.420 If you need to hire people for one of your orgs to clean out DEI, you let us know.

00:34:35.140 We are a nonprofit as well.

00:34:36.820 So you can pay us in tax deductible money to come in and fix the, you know, the, the

00:34:43.140 inefficiencies and racism that are affiliated with this.

00:34:46.320 But I.

00:34:47.600 Not just inefficiencies, mission creep.

00:34:50.580 Well, let's talk about where the, I mean, you, you and I see the real like secret society

00:34:55.060 networks that are important now.

00:34:56.700 Right.

00:34:57.280 And I'd say they generally fall into a few categories.

00:34:59.940 The EA network, while being a giant peerage network is still very important.

00:35:05.360 The effective altruist network is probably in terms of like a global influence, the number

00:35:12.800 one sort of society that you can access.

00:35:16.480 The next big one is the counterculture network that we're like sort of organizing members of.

00:35:22.900 Like all heterodox related things.

00:35:25.720 Heterodox related things.

00:35:27.160 There's a few others that are matter.

00:35:30.000 Like there's that secret society that I think is still sort of old boy, the Catholic one 1.00

00:35:33.740 for getting Catholics promoted within the judge network, which is really important.

00:35:38.260 And conservatives within the judge network, which is really important.

00:35:41.660 But even ones like, you know, like the Coke network and stuff like that.

00:35:45.100 Oh, okay.

00:35:45.660 I think a lot of them have become less relevant as, as time has gone on because they're not

00:35:49.760 generating new ideas.

00:35:50.920 I think there's different types of secret societies.

00:35:53.700 So some are like, you could call them resource distribution secret societies.

00:35:57.620 And that's what it seems like Skull and Bones was.

00:35:59.480 That was what the Coke society was.

00:36:00.920 That's like, it's, it is of people, typically wealthy benefactors deciding where to throw

00:36:07.380 their crumbs and playing patronage games and sometimes ego games.

00:36:11.480 You could argue maybe that the Bohemian Grove was a little bit like that because it was supposed

00:36:15.520 to be very, very expensive membership for wealthy people balanced out by either subsidized or

00:36:21.620 free membership for artists.

00:36:24.080 And so that, that, I think that, that qualifies as well.

00:36:27.160 And then you have what I would argue are the power broker secret societies.

00:36:33.320 And I think this is where you get like, you know, Sun Valley and all the sort of more exclusive

00:36:37.780 corporate founded retreats, plus the heterodox meetings, arguably like a lot of the EA stuff.

00:36:44.040 It's about, Hey, we want to get these high agency people together because when they talk

00:36:49.080 and when they mix more, they build really cool things.

00:36:52.220 And we, the organizers of the society or conference or retreat series or community like that and

00:36:58.720 want to see more of that and also personally benefit from it.

00:37:01.580 But there isn't like some, there's no daddy war box.

00:37:05.180 There's no patron per se that runs those communities.

00:37:09.940 In fact, when there is some kind of patron that does start to turn those communities into

00:37:13.680 money grabbing places like Sam Bankman Freed did with the effective altruist community for

00:37:19.360 a while, I think they degrade significantly because you try entirely the wrong kind of

00:37:24.200 person.

00:37:24.940 That was when you saw the EA community becoming very corrupt where people were just vying for

00:37:33.000 attention and privilege to get funding for a nonprofit that basically just funded their

00:37:38.940 salary and lifestyle for them to do research on AI, which basically just meant like, pay me a huge

00:37:45.000 salary and I'm going to dick around on the internet all day.

00:37:47.460 Oh, I'm so good.

00:37:48.580 So I would, yeah, I think that's the important distinction here.

00:37:51.940 And clearly Skull and Bones is more for like entitled people who wanted to have their solutions

00:37:58.280 made for them rather than people who were already building things, would always build things and

00:38:02.820 would just be excited to meet other people who are building things and debate with them

00:38:07.960 and share ideas.

00:38:09.340 Yeah.

00:38:09.900 I think for me, the important thing is as this system crumbles, because it was never built

00:38:14.580 to be efficient in the first place, that for the first wave of defectors or the first few

00:38:20.520 waves of defectors that we've had so far, I think it's really important to accept them 0.99

00:38:23.800 in to the movement of like the vital society, the ones who are actually taking humanity forwards.

00:38:31.220 But I think for the later defectors, for the people who defect when it becomes like corporate

00:38:35.420 okay to defect, these people need to be sort of permanently frozen out because they are bad

00:38:41.180 actors who will turn bad again, if given the opportunity and means.

00:38:44.960 Yeah, absolutely.

00:38:47.140 And that's why I agree with creating lists and stuff like that, what the Trump administration

00:38:51.280 is doing.

00:38:51.860 And I think that other organizations, you know, as we go through and we work on this stuff,

00:38:56.160 I think having lists that organizations can share of anyone who's ever engaged in this sort

00:39:00.580 of activity is really important because we can't allow this to happen again. And if a movement

00:39:07.880 like this based on elitism and systemic racism ever grows again, they need to know that they will

00:39:15.160 be destroying their careers when the movement goes by. I think a lot of these people sort of assume

00:39:19.640 that no backlash was ever possible to the lifestyle that they were living. And we can only fight back

00:39:27.620 by making sure that there is actually a punishment so that the next class, the next crop is like,

00:39:34.120 oh yeah, I see what you're peddling, but I'm not going to be about that.

00:39:37.980 Even if there's only short-term potential, I still think people are going to go for it.

00:39:42.760 Unfortunately.

00:39:44.920 Sorry.

00:39:46.280 We saw this as like a BLM grift and everything like that. Hey, they still got those mansions out 0.93

00:39:50.580 of it.

00:39:51.040 I mean, yeah, that made it worth it for them.

00:39:54.360 All right. Love you to Decimum.

00:39:55.780 I love you too.

00:39:57.620 Okay. So what did you want to tell the subscribers?

00:40:01.300 Um, like I like and subscribe to somebody's channel too. And I got so happy that I like

00:40:09.600 them.

00:40:09.740 Do you think that they'll get happy if they like and subscribe to our channel?

00:40:12.920 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:40:14.620 Okay.

Based Camp - March 14, 2025

How Skull and Bones Went Woke： Identity Politics in Elite Societies

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