Based Camp - How Sociopathic Nerds Plot Out New Years Goals

00:00:00.000 Well, we put them in a spreadsheet and we, at the end of the year, highlight in green,

00:00:06.700 orange, or red, the parts of each goal that we've either achieved or kind of achieved

00:00:12.620 or not at all achieved.

00:00:14.160 So it's really helpful to go back in time and sort of see where you are shooting a little

00:00:19.100 too high or going a little too easy on yourself.

00:00:23.440 We've done very well in the biology category this year, and we've done very well in the

00:00:28.540 mission category this year.

00:00:30.240 Last year, you mean?

00:00:31.640 Last year, last year.

00:00:32.600 Yeah, and then we did abysmally in the career category.

00:00:36.400 Yeah.

00:00:37.740 Would you like to know more?

00:00:40.100 Hello, Simone. 0.69

00:00:41.000 It is wonderful to be here with you today.

00:00:43.300 I am very excited.

00:00:46.140 So a lot of people might be surprised.

00:00:47.940 In the book, we said that we'd planned to have Future Day on New Year's Eve.

00:00:51.540 Like, why haven't we done a Future Day?

00:00:53.160 You've seen more Future Day stuff.

00:00:54.680 It's because we actually decided to.

00:00:56.200 This is the first year we're doing a full test run of this, you know, with all the decorations

00:00:59.660 and everything and the kids being old enough to remember it, to push it back into later

00:01:03.220 in January.

00:01:04.280 You get a whole month thing.

00:01:05.240 I mean, like Christmas basically is a whole month thing.

00:01:08.600 You know, you get the decorations for a whole month, if not more, right?

00:01:12.680 If this is our most important and favorite holiday, then it deserves some time.

00:01:18.520 Yeah.

00:01:19.080 So we wanted to give it a bit more time.

00:01:20.760 But I think talking more about traditional New Year's type things, traditional New Year's

00:01:25.540 resolutions, and just sort of the way that we personally keep track of if we are where

00:01:31.880 we want to be in life.

00:01:33.200 Yeah.

00:01:33.480 Because I think it's unique and it is highly efficacious.

00:01:37.540 And it's something that I was taught to do from a young age.

00:01:40.980 But I think that you developed a very similar system completely in parallel to me.

00:01:45.640 And it's played a large part in us being able to get to where we are in life.

00:01:50.300 Yeah.

00:01:50.880 No, we've both been very systematic.

00:01:53.680 Yeah.

00:01:53.860 We'll also go over our own New Year's resolutions this year while checking in on where we were

00:01:59.040 last year.

00:02:00.340 So the key to doing this, the key to handling New Year's resolutions is to divide them into

00:02:07.080 categories.

00:02:07.660 And these categories are tied to, well, I could just go through the three big categories we

00:02:14.920 have of resolutions, which helps us think, you know, in a one-year time frame, a five-year

00:02:19.740 time frame, and a 10-year time frame, where we want to be with each of these issues.

00:02:23.820 Okay.

00:02:24.020 Exactly.

00:02:24.680 So one is what we call biology.

00:02:28.120 This category is tied to our biological success.

00:02:32.500 So this is health, this is relationships, and this is children.

00:02:39.420 So the biology category, if you are in high school, for example, is likely going to be

00:02:47.520 learning to date, learning to interact with other people in a way that's going to be useful

00:02:53.740 to you when you are looking for a spouse.

00:02:56.200 And some level of health.

00:02:57.980 But, like, you really don't need to go overboard with the health aspect of this when you are

00:03:02.540 young, so long as you aren't, like, addicted to something.

00:03:05.380 I don't know.

00:03:05.860 Like, when I was young, obviously, I was starving myself to the point of, like, oh, she's probably

00:03:10.600 going to die. 0.95

00:03:11.600 So, like, my early biological goals in my spreadsheet, which I can see because I've been keeping track

00:03:17.040 of this in a spreadsheet, were, like, you know, maintain this healthy weight range.

00:03:21.120 Please don't die.

00:03:22.320 That kind of thing.

00:03:23.060 And so there's, you know, it could be, like, if you have, you know, are trying, like, you're

00:03:28.140 a wrestler and you're trying to get into certain, like, weight classes or, you know, you're

00:03:31.980 trying to be able to lift a certain amount of weight.

00:03:34.100 Those are all very common.

00:03:35.640 And I think this is among the most, like, mainstream of goals, to have biological goals.

00:03:39.420 Like, I want to weigh this amount.

00:03:41.100 I want to be able to run a marathon.

00:03:42.580 I want to be able to play with my kids without being in pain.

00:03:45.560 That kind of thing.

00:03:46.240 And keep in mind, a key thing about your biological goals is every biological goal that you have

00:03:52.320 should have some level of utility and not be a vanity goal.

00:03:56.280 So when it comes to something like weight ranges, this can be very useful for partner attraction.

00:04:01.820 And this can be very useful for long-term health, you know, being able to achieve other goals.

00:04:08.160 This is less true when it comes to something like I want to work out more or something like

00:04:12.160 that, right?

00:04:12.580 Like, there is a level of exercise.

00:04:13.920 And it's super measurable, right?

00:04:16.000 So it's not perfect either.

00:04:17.660 Well, it is to some extent.

00:04:18.900 But, like, the level to which a person is working out, for example, there is some level

00:04:24.000 of muscle which is of utility in terms of attracting to partner.

00:04:28.080 But it is a fairly low amount.

00:04:30.220 Like, as soon as you get above a fairly low threshold, at that point, you're really only

00:04:34.580 getting an advantage with people with a specific fetish around this.

00:04:37.600 Or at least a discernible advantage when compared to other tasks which move you further towards

00:04:43.440 your actual life goals.

00:04:45.260 The same with weightlifting or any other exercise for health and longevity.

00:04:49.540 Like, there are diminishing marginal returns and sometimes even growing liabilities after

00:04:54.800 certain levels of excess.

00:04:57.000 But it also helps you with ideas like, I want to have sex with this many people.

00:05:00.220 Like, if you're a young person, you might think that could be a goal within this category.

00:05:03.380 And that is likely not going to be of significant utility to you in finding a partner.

00:05:07.500 And may even decrease your possibility of securing a good partner.

00:05:11.900 So everything you do as a youth in terms of this category of the goal should be in terms

00:05:18.260 of training and improving your quality on the marriage market and improving your ability

00:05:23.540 to navigate the market of long-term partners.

00:05:26.580 So that's how we look at that.

00:05:28.820 Now, do you want to go over our goals this past year around health?

00:05:33.620 Yeah, sure.

00:05:35.300 Okay, well, we won't go too deep.

00:05:36.800 But I can give you some examples here.

00:05:39.220 So we had a kid.

00:05:40.220 You know, we'll be trying for another kid soon.

00:05:42.860 But other ways you can organize these goals is, I want to get this many embryos extracted

00:05:46.900 by this date.

00:05:48.160 Yeah, like, definitely our past goals have been, like, bank this many embryos while we're this

00:05:53.020 age so that we can have the number of kids that we want to be able to have.

00:05:56.820 This year, though, it's not just that.

00:05:58.980 I mean, obviously, it's like have our fourth child, you know, safely and, you know, successfully,

00:06:04.660 which involves investing in, you know, not doing unhealthy stuff right now and then investing

00:06:10.780 in a newborn properly.

00:06:12.580 But we're also planning on returning to getting CT scans every other year.

00:06:19.440 We work with a company, Ezra.

00:06:21.140 They are great.

00:06:21.800 We know the founder.

00:06:22.380 And they basically do so much more than, like, your typical general practitioner is

00:06:27.940 going to do.

00:06:28.480 So I want to really promote this company.

00:06:30.340 If you're listening to this half-heartedly, pay attention to this part.

00:06:33.380 It could save your life.

00:06:34.840 Yeah.

00:06:35.120 Actually, we know friends who've gotten CT scans for other purposes and were fortunate

00:06:41.420 enough that the technician looking at, like, whatever was, you know, the primary issue,

00:06:46.400 they got that prescribed.

00:06:47.340 And they were like, oh, noticed a, you know, weird blotch here.

00:06:51.040 You should get this biopsy.

00:06:52.120 And then they end up in cancer treatment and they end up cancer-free because it was detected

00:06:56.260 really early.

00:06:57.420 So the reason why people take these preemptive and not covered by insurance, typically CT

00:07:04.440 scans, is what Ezra does, for example, is normally you get, like, a CT scan.

00:07:09.180 The technician or doctor is only really going to look at, like, the one area they're supposed

00:07:13.520 to look at, you know, just to make sure, you know, they know what's going on and diagnose

00:07:18.220 or prescribe, whatever, around that thing.

00:07:20.720 What the Ezra team does is they get your CT scan, they do a detailed analysis, and then

00:07:25.840 they tell you all about what they see.

00:07:28.100 And, you know, they'll tell you innocuous stuff and they'll also tell you serious stuff.

00:07:31.540 So when they did my last one, they could tell that I was congested that day.

00:07:36.140 They could tell that I just had egg retrieval procedure because they could see the, like,

00:07:42.820 sort of ruptured, like, I don't know the right word, like, egg sacs, like, around my ovaries.

00:07:48.640 So, like, I mean, the level of detail there.

00:07:50.960 We don't tell them any of this.

00:07:52.560 So they're looking literally at everything, you know, inch by inch.

00:07:56.120 Yeah, the most common thing you're going to get coming out of an Ezra scan, if you're

00:07:59.760 lucky and you don't have any issues, although, say the luck of catching early stage cancer

00:08:03.740 is extreme.

00:08:05.540 Catching early stage cancer is literally the difference between life and death for a lot

00:08:09.840 of people.

00:08:10.380 100%.

00:08:10.580 So you go to an Ezra scan, one of the most common things is, and this has happened too

00:08:15.060 because we suggested my brother and his wife did it, and they did it as well, and this

00:08:17.360 happened to them, is they'll be like, oh, you probably have a weird pain in your neck when

00:08:21.220 you do this sometimes or something like that, and they'll say this, like, oh, you probably

00:08:24.480 have a weird pain that occasionally happens here, and they'll be like, I've had that pain

00:08:28.820 my entire life.

00:08:30.040 Now I know exactly why.

00:08:31.500 Now, the most important thing about Ezra, because you've likely been hearing all this

00:08:34.840 and are like, I can't afford this, Ezra scans are around $1,500, if I remember correctly.

00:08:41.360 Yeah, I can double check that.

00:08:44.260 So for, like, the base level scan, it's like $1,500, and the clinics for them exist in most

00:08:49.580 major U.S. cities.

00:08:51.020 So we are increasingly moving to a world where so much of our healthcare needs to be taken

00:08:57.720 ourselves.

00:08:58.120 Like, going to doctors, for us, has basically become pointless since AI has come out.

00:09:02.760 We almost always get better advice from AI than we do from a doctor, and doctors are really

00:09:07.400 just used to order tests and prescriptions at this point.

00:09:10.540 If you are doing this sort of like...

00:09:12.400 Oh, I'm sorry.

00:09:12.660 It's not a CT scan.

00:09:14.680 I mean, you can get a CT scan in Ezra, but an MRI, because you don't want to do too much

00:09:18.840 CT.

00:09:19.620 They say it's a five-minute low-dose CT scan, but still, like, you don't want to do that.

00:09:23.040 So it's actually $1,950 for the full-body CT scan.

00:09:27.120 It does not include your lungs.

00:09:28.760 Did you do an MRI scan, or are you confusing the words again?

00:09:31.700 For a full-body MRI.

00:09:33.140 And then for the full-body MRI and CT scan that includes your lungs, it's $2,500.

00:09:39.240 So this is very...

00:09:40.360 It's very expensive.

00:09:41.960 But you can also pay monthly...

00:09:42.680 Hold on, hold on.

00:09:43.960 If you're talking like $1,900 or something like that, and you're doing this once every

00:09:47.900 five years or something...

00:09:49.420 Especially when you're younger.

00:09:50.280 I mean, they encourage, like, I mean, I want to do it once every year for both of us once

00:09:54.960 we hit 40, or maybe 50, depending on where we are financially, because, you know, my mom

00:10:00.100 died of cancer, and it was detected so late.

00:10:02.120 That's why she died of it.

00:10:03.220 You know, had she had access to something like this, it would have been found so early.

00:10:07.760 It would have been taken care of.

00:10:08.900 Not an issue, you know, like...

00:10:11.480 Yeah.

00:10:12.180 So this is a...

00:10:13.960 If you got nothing from this, today's episode, do check out Ezra.

00:10:18.280 Have it on your radar.

00:10:20.780 If you're young, it's something to do once, and then you may not need to do it again for

00:10:23.600 another decade.

00:10:24.800 But if you are older, it can make sense to invest in doing this more frequently.

00:10:29.680 And when you talk about this cost, you know, Simone, you're looking at something and you're

00:10:32.780 like, this is $1,900.

00:10:34.260 It's like, that's a lot.

00:10:35.780 But the difference in terms of cost of medical care, when you look at how much medical care

00:10:39.500 costs in this country, it's going to be astounding, catching something early versus

00:10:43.860 catching it late.

00:10:44.500 I might even have a discount code link.

00:10:47.380 If I do, Malcolm, can I send it to you and you can put it in the comments?

00:10:50.820 Absolutely.

00:10:51.400 Yeah.

00:10:51.600 10% off or something.

00:10:53.340 They also have a couples package.

00:10:54.960 So I think the couples package is an even deeper discount.

00:10:57.800 So if you're married, get that.

00:10:59.680 And if not, I think I have a discount link.

00:11:03.540 You could always just ask the founder.

00:11:04.920 We know him and we're promoting him on an episode.

00:11:07.720 Yeah.

00:11:08.240 No, I at least have a referral link for $150 off.

00:11:12.080 And I can ask him if he can give more.

00:11:14.300 So yeah, we'll find out because like anything that takes money on this.

00:11:17.720 All right.

00:11:18.080 We did manage to wrangle you guys a discount code from him.

00:11:22.080 You can get $200 off with the discount code BASED.

00:11:27.500 And that's all capital.

00:11:28.760 So B-A-S-E-D.

00:11:30.720 And then the letter is 200.

00:11:32.060 So 2-0-0.

00:11:33.400 So it's B-A-S-E-D 2-0-0.

00:11:37.300 And that should get you $200 off, which is a pretty decent discount.

00:11:42.700 So now that we're done promoting another product that we think has value.

00:11:46.940 I like that.

00:11:47.860 You know, we don't do ads, but if we can save somebody's life, who's one of our watchers,

00:11:52.080 you know, that's a nice thing to do.

00:11:53.520 Yeah.

00:11:53.660 No, seriously.

00:11:54.100 We've introduced friends to this and they've been like, then they're telling everyone about

00:11:58.040 it because it's.

00:11:58.760 Yeah.

00:11:59.340 Yeah.

00:11:59.920 And we, I also like have in our biological goal for this year to start doing that whole

00:12:05.280 Peter Atiyah thing where you get detailed blood work and then you start sort of adjusting

00:12:10.000 your diet, lifestyle, and maybe supplement regimen based on that.

00:12:14.940 Because I just, I've been so frustrated by doctors and general practitioners recently

00:12:20.180 where like, if they're a specialist, obviously, like if you're being treated by, you know, an

00:12:25.380 oncologist for a very specific thing, like, yes, they really know what they're doing.

00:12:29.900 When I go in and I get a C-section, you know, the people who are doing that work are just

00:12:33.480 stellar, you know, but then I'll hear from like a random nurse or a physician's assistant,

00:12:41.060 you know, like, oh, you know, I heard blah, blah, blah.

00:12:43.860 And I'm like, oh, where did you hear that?

00:12:45.280 Like, I'd love to look up the study.

00:12:46.440 And they're like, no, I heard it on this Facebook group for moms.

00:12:48.620 And I'm like, oh, you're treating me.

00:12:51.660 You were just, you were just dosing me with medicine.

00:12:54.080 And, oh my God.

00:12:55.360 And, and just like missing really key things and that you and I have found so many more

00:12:59.560 solutions through like use of chat GPT than actual like doctor visits.

00:13:03.980 And this brings me to another lifesaver that might be a lifesaver to one of our audience

00:13:07.280 members.

00:13:07.680 So I will mention it.

00:13:09.200 If any of you deal with addiction to alcohol, look up the Sinclair method.

00:13:14.520 It is, it can be an absolute lifesaver.

00:13:17.980 You don't need to quit alcohol to, to go off alcohol with it, to go off like extreme amounts

00:13:23.220 of alcohol, which makes it very different from other mechanisms of quitting.

00:13:26.900 And it, it is very, very, it's effective in 80% of people.

00:13:31.080 Basically it's, it appears to be effective in everyone who is addicted for purely biological

00:13:36.260 reasons, as opposed to there's some sort of externality or lifestyle reason for the

00:13:40.600 addiction.

00:13:41.300 No, ask covering.

00:13:42.620 We're not doctors.

00:13:43.300 We're not giving medical advice.

00:13:44.460 We're not giving investment advice.

00:13:45.400 We're not doctors, not giving medical advice.

00:13:46.620 And the Sinclair method is next to illegal in the United States.

00:13:50.640 Yeah, basically.

00:13:51.440 Yeah.

00:13:51.980 Why is that?

00:13:53.100 So because naltrexone, the medication that accompanies it is known for being a little

00:13:58.820 bit hard on the liver.

00:13:59.760 And of course, who is really at risk of having, you know, a liver that doesn't need any more

00:14:04.440 stress?

00:14:05.120 Well, alcoholics, right?

00:14:06.360 You know, so doctors in the U S are typically like, well, I'm not going to give you medication

00:14:10.180 medication that is going to put your liver under more strain if you're already having 0.85

00:14:14.620 trouble with drinking, which is like ridiculous.

00:14:16.920 Cause okay, well, so they're going to drink themselves to death or like, you know.

00:14:23.000 Yeah.

00:14:23.500 And it also can work with things like porn addictions and stuff like that.

00:14:26.940 If that's a major problem that you're dealing with, the only type of addiction I know it

00:14:30.240 really doesn't seem to work for is nicotine addictions because the pathway is a little

00:14:33.840 different for nicotine addictions and it doesn't work on that pathway as well.

00:14:36.340 Yeah.

00:14:36.540 But hypothetically, this may be a true thing.

00:14:40.900 Well, what's the, how, what's the Amazon documentary there's on Amazon prime.

00:14:44.240 There's a documentary.

00:14:45.380 One little pill.

00:14:46.640 Yeah.

00:14:46.960 Check that out.

00:14:48.100 Don't listen to us.

00:14:49.320 Just watch that.

00:14:50.520 Yeah.

00:14:50.720 Yeah.

00:14:50.980 So let's go to the next category of things that we focus on every year.

00:14:56.180 This category is career, which, you know, when you're younger, these are things like your

00:15:02.620 grades.

00:15:03.360 This is school.

00:15:04.360 This is getting into a good university when you're our age.

00:15:07.380 It's about setting up income streams, but also about managing your investment portfolio.

00:15:12.020 Everything tied to having a stable source of income and, and expanding that source of

00:15:18.540 income.

00:15:18.780 So this is just 100% like your broader income goals.

00:15:24.540 And this is really important for me to split out into its own category because in this world

00:15:31.000 where everyone's like, well, your passion should be your job or something like that.

00:15:34.160 Well, even if that's true, that is not a reason to stop focusing on your, your finances and

00:15:41.000 stuff like that, as well as investments, debt, economic opportunities, separating this out at the

00:15:46.960 beginning of every year and being like, what economic opportunities are available to me this

00:15:50.820 year.

00:15:51.140 And these can be independent entrepreneurial endeavors.

00:15:54.140 These can be tied to your personal investment portfolio.

00:15:58.260 These can be even how you engage with your community sometimes, you know, are really important.

00:16:03.120 And it, and it matters another like branch of this when you have kids is how am I going

00:16:08.300 to manage childcare?

00:16:09.120 Because, you know, this becomes a very important financial question.

00:16:13.280 And one of the most important financial questions where it can be, there's many creative solutions

00:16:18.220 to it.

00:16:18.560 And I think the only realistic solutions for large families anymore are the creative

00:16:22.520 solutions.

00:16:23.500 One thing that we forgot to mention in the biology category, child education also falls in

00:16:27.900 the biology category for us.

00:16:29.120 By that, what I mean is effective child education, i.e. are your children hitting their developmental

00:16:33.400 milestones?

00:16:34.360 Have you been checking that they're hitting their developmental milestones?

00:16:36.720 Are you aware of what you broadly need to do to educate them and to help them to thrive

00:16:40.820 that year?

00:16:41.040 Like, are the kids healthy?

00:16:42.340 Yeah.

00:16:43.120 Yeah.

00:16:43.620 And so this often involves just checking in, like, have I done the research on this?

00:16:47.520 You know, and taking an inventory of all of these things can be very useful in terms

00:16:51.000 of a, have I done the research recently?

00:16:53.480 You know, where am I?

00:16:54.420 Has time gotten away from me?

00:16:56.060 But unless like really special emphasis is needed, we don't make goals into those.

00:17:00.620 Like the reasons why we have Ezra scans, blood work on, on our goals for this year

00:17:06.300 is that there are things that we are, they're not part of our routine now, that these are

00:17:10.980 new additions that we want to make routine.

00:17:13.460 So I would look at it that way.

00:17:14.980 Like, obviously every day of your life, you should be working on these like major aspects

00:17:20.620 that we're discussing in terms of goal categories.

00:17:22.600 But when it comes to setting like New Year's resolutions, like a new goal for the year,

00:17:27.540 it should be, how are you going to augment that particular sphere of your life?

00:17:32.640 Yeah.

00:17:32.820 And that's the point of resolutions.

00:17:34.540 And that's the point of approaching goal setting like this.

00:17:37.780 It is, it is, it is an opportunity where if you build a ritual around this, you know,

00:17:43.880 as we do with Future Day or with some people do with some forms of New Year celebrations,

00:17:47.620 then you force yourself to revisit your daily habits because so much of life can just become

00:17:55.240 a, a, a chain of daily habits.

00:17:57.440 And we can remember, oh, I need to interrupt this habit because it is specifically negative

00:18:02.400 in this way, or I need to interrupt this habit because it has this effect, right?

00:18:06.820 So we can become overly focused on specific daily habits while forgetting to take inventory

00:18:12.720 of all of the different categories of daily habits that we need to revisit, which is, which

00:18:18.140 is really important.

00:18:18.840 And it's why we structure things this way, as well as to think about where do, where do

00:18:24.360 I end up in five years of I'm keeping these daily habits and with career, this can be really

00:18:29.560 important.

00:18:30.080 You know, if you're working at something like a large company, you can predict, are you actually

00:18:34.380 going to get a promotion if you're doing what you're doing today?

00:18:36.700 Every day for the next five years.

00:18:40.460 If not, then you may need to rethink, you know, keeping a job, for example, can be a

00:18:45.080 bad habit in a way.

00:18:46.560 It can prevent you from looking for other economic opportunities.

00:18:50.580 Well, yeah, you have to think about how likely you are to be laid off.

00:18:53.220 Layoffs of even very high qualified, like, you know, you would think high value people are

00:18:58.240 more common today than ever, it seems.

00:18:59.820 So, yeah.

00:19:01.440 And with the career pathway, we always sort of divide our career and I think into three

00:19:06.260 categories.

00:19:07.340 One is sort of the investment and investment opportunity category, which we treat pretty

00:19:11.480 uniquely because sometimes we will use investments to secure the second category, which is stable

00:19:17.700 long-term income.

00:19:18.720 And this can be surprising to people, stable long-term income.

00:19:21.840 They're like, what do you mean by that?

00:19:23.360 Well, sometimes if you do, for example, an early stage venture capital investment in somebody,

00:19:27.560 that venture capital investment isn't just to ensure that, you know, the actual capital I have in

00:19:34.700 their company expands. 0.98

00:19:36.020 But it is also to open the door in terms of getting a job at that company if, you know, shit ever hits 0.99

00:19:42.100 the fan for us. 0.97

00:19:42.800 And we do this a lot with individuals where I will make an investment in something they're

00:19:47.960 working on, both in order to gain some equity, but also to keep the door open a bit in case I need

00:19:55.840 a career path there or introductions there.

00:19:59.120 So that's one thing to think about in terms of how you make investments.

00:20:01.920 This can also be relevant.

00:20:02.980 So in terms of like child rearing or something like that, you know, in terms of investing in

00:20:09.140 setting up your own school or setting up your own daycare as a way to ultimately lower the overall

00:20:14.940 costs of childcare or investing in helping somebody else set that up.

00:20:19.200 Now, the second category is sort of stable income streams.

00:20:23.100 These are going to be, you know, your office job or other terms of stable income streams.

00:20:27.340 And I do believe that a person should always have at least one stable income stream for a family

00:20:31.300 unit.

00:20:32.040 And then the final one is moonshots.

00:20:33.660 And moonshots are entrepreneurial ventures or other things that could have a huge outsized

00:20:38.840 impact.

00:20:39.360 And I think when you're dealing with a couple, you should have your stable thing and then some

00:20:43.920 sort of outside thing operating or being attempted at all times.

00:20:49.600 And then if you were going to create a final category that worked for some people, and we

00:20:54.100 do this sometime, I would call them hustles.

00:20:56.140 So these are short term opportunities.

00:20:58.340 Like one area where we're looking at potentially getting involved in this year is helping investing

00:21:02.200 in a friend and helping with sort of the online part of this for him, buying used cars

00:21:07.440 and then doing them up like van life cars and flipping them because, you know, interesting

00:21:11.840 economic opportunity right now.

00:21:14.180 And, and yeah, so that's, that's how I would handle anything else you talk about in terms

00:21:18.040 of the, the career side of things.

00:21:20.160 Well, because it has to do with stable income, just, and you mentioned investment, savings can

00:21:25.200 also be a part of that, which is also a really common form of New Year's resolution.

00:21:30.140 So in insurance, I'd say the important part of this to revisit when you go through this

00:21:34.920 savings, insurance, like maxing out tax deductible savings accounts, that kind of thing.

00:21:40.900 Definitely.

00:21:41.600 If it's not part of your existing habits, that something you might want to add.

00:21:46.020 And then the next category, probably the next category is potentially the most important

00:21:51.700 one.

00:21:51.980 And this is mission.

00:21:54.060 This is what, what, how will my life matter?

00:21:57.180 Like what, like, am I living in a way that is efficacious and will have whatever sort of

00:22:02.680 impact I value?

00:22:04.120 So if you go back to like our pragmatist guide to life series, the very first books that we

00:22:08.100 wrote, you know, we take a very disinterested, we're like, you know, you get to choose why

00:22:11.700 you exist as an individual, you know, now we have more firm beliefs about this, but if

00:22:15.580 we're just even going back to this sort of broad, very, very open idea around this,

00:22:20.560 right, if you have chosen why you exist, like if you have chosen why it matters to continue

00:22:24.540 existing into tomorrow, then you have some reason for being.

00:22:29.520 And this reason for being should be a big part of what you're doing every year.

00:22:34.480 I'd say it should be about a third of what you're doing every year.

00:22:37.580 Now, for some people, they're blessed enough to be able to loop that into income streams

00:22:41.720 for them.

00:22:42.460 We have never taken that pathway.

00:22:44.360 I've always thought that that's really dangerous to do.

00:22:47.760 And it can lead to perversion of a person's mission, where when their mission also becomes

00:22:53.620 their source of income, then, you know, whether it's donors or other sorts of funders begins

00:22:58.320 to corrupt and pervert an individual's mission.

00:23:01.380 And you can get much more, you know, audience capture, as they call it, right?

00:23:05.280 But not just audience capture, but all sorts of like, and then you begin to convince yourself

00:23:09.700 that whatever you need to do for your economic situation is what you actually believe.

00:23:14.740 And then it begins to really corrupt your internal ideology, like when outside capital

00:23:19.080 is corrupting individuals like that.

00:23:20.800 But it's like a really big bugaboo of ours that like many people are like, oh, I want

00:23:24.940 to start a nonprofit.

00:23:26.120 And we're like, oh, you know, like, how much are you raising and what are you raising for?

00:23:29.520 They're like, oh, you know, just enough to like cover my salary.

00:23:32.000 So it's like, oh, so you want someone to pay for you to do this thing that you care about.

00:23:39.120 But then you're going to have to be focused entirely on getting people to pay you to do

00:23:43.740 that again when the money runs out.

00:23:45.840 And then you're going to become focused on that and not on actually solving the problem

00:23:48.760 that you care about.

00:23:49.780 It's because raising money is actually pretty hard.

00:23:52.040 It is easier to have a, I would say, a side entrepreneurial venture that makes money

00:23:57.820 than it is to go out and beg for money.

00:23:59.780 And then you just donate to your own nonprofit.

00:24:02.160 It's just a different mindset around this.

00:24:04.060 Not that we, you know, wouldn't benefit from donations and we don't have donations in our

00:24:08.120 nonprofit, but we, for example, to give an idea of how much we care about our mission,

00:24:11.440 this was actually recorded in the Telegraph piece on us because they looked at our finances

00:24:14.760 to confirm this around 45% of our yearly income goes to our nonprofit or at least that

00:24:20.040 year it did.

00:24:20.820 So we put a lot of our personal money into our philanthropic, I guess you could call it,

00:24:26.640 I call it mission-based.

00:24:27.520 I don't like philanthropy because philanthropy is often used for personal vanity.

00:24:31.220 Whereas we believe, you know, we have a reason to exist in something that gives our

00:24:37.120 lives purpose that they wouldn't have if we were not spending a huge chunk of our internal

00:24:44.680 effort on these goals.

00:24:46.540 And you guys, this channel right here that you are watching, you know, the reason you're

00:24:50.480 getting an episode every weekday of this is because that is how important this mission

00:24:55.920 is to us, reaching this community is to us.

00:24:59.120 And, and, but it's the same, you know, it's not just this, you know, we're also working on

00:25:01.980 the school really hard.

00:25:03.400 It's, it's really coming together.

00:25:05.100 Anybody who wants to play any sort of help in that, you know, something that we could

00:25:09.460 really use on the school is people who have domain expertise to review those parts of the

00:25:14.400 skill tree.

00:25:15.080 Although it's mostly firmed up at this point.

00:25:16.920 So you wouldn't have as much impact as you would have before.

00:25:19.160 The other thing that we're working on is improving the channel's quality.

00:25:23.280 You might've noticed that the video quality, I think it's hopefully going to get a bit better.

00:25:26.840 It turned out it wasn't the camera's problem.

00:25:28.380 It was the computer's problem.

00:25:29.340 So we switched out computers.

00:25:30.400 So we're, we're always working, like where can we improve this?

00:25:33.220 The other area is press.

00:25:34.200 So we do a ton of press outreach.

00:25:36.180 One of the things I'm trying to commit to this year is to do more op-eds.

00:25:39.220 You know, we've done some op-eds before.

00:25:40.700 I think Wall Street Journal, I don't know.

00:25:41.980 I can't remember where we did an op-ed.

00:25:43.700 New York Post.

00:25:45.580 New York Post.

00:25:47.180 I mean, we're going to do one for, anyway.

00:25:49.020 Yeah.

00:25:49.240 So we do, we do op-eds and stuff.

00:25:50.700 So I want to do more of that.

00:25:51.720 I also want to try to get some sort of feature links thing done on us this past year.

00:25:55.180 We spent about half the year trying to get a documentary made about us.

00:25:57.740 Not us, like we were in contracts with a documentary team that was pitching us to various studios.

00:26:02.900 They had some bites, but they ran into issues.

00:26:05.140 And so we're looking at potentially switching out the team that we're working on.

00:26:08.520 Basically, the more coverage we can get for demographic collapse and prenatalism, and also like demographic collapse and prenatalism in a context that we don't think is toxic, is really, really, really important to us.

00:26:20.340 Because so many of the other solutions, like we keep saying, are just like, oh, so let's just either like insert super impractical solution that's not going to work here.

00:26:30.920 Or like, let's remove people's reproductive rights, or let's just, you know, stop educating women and take away their rights. 1.00

00:26:40.700 Like it's just, the solutions that are otherwise being posed are terrible.

00:26:45.460 And we really, really, really want to contribute to like people's understanding of the problem and solutions that work.

00:26:51.740 So that is another really big goal.

00:26:54.000 Yeah, like our two really big mission-driven goals are raise awareness about demographic collapse and realistic solutions to demographic collapse, and get the school live in incremental bits.

00:27:05.660 Building a realistic alternative to the public education system.

00:27:08.040 And then we have the final big project of the year, which is you running for office, which is, for us, you know, a large part of it is about understanding how the political process really works, which will allow us to more competently interact with it in the future, because it is something that we're going to have to be able to manipulate and push in specific directions to achieve our goals around demographic collapse and around the educational system.

00:27:33.460 Yeah, like our odds of winning in the district we're in are actually pretty low, because it leans pretty Democratic, and I'm running as a Republican.

00:27:40.460 But we'll learn so much that we can then scale to other people's campaigns, or maybe be running for office someday.

00:27:47.760 I think, well, I think that we could go either way.

00:27:50.820 It really depends on what's happening on the top ticket.

00:27:52.880 I think it's almost out of our control.

00:27:55.860 But we'll put the effort in, because everybody knows we always go overboard whenever we're doing something.

00:28:00.860 Like, people who have gone to the skill tree I've made for the school, they're like, whoa, this is so much more in-depth and so much larger than I had any expectation of what you were creating.

00:28:10.460 Like, this is actually an outline of, like, all human knowledge, period.

00:28:15.820 And I'm like, yes, that was my goal, a big web of all human knowledge that can help our kids improve.

00:28:21.860 So this is another area where, you know, we're helping our kids improve, but also hopefully making a really high-quality education system accessible to people at a dramatically lower cost than you would see otherwise.

00:28:33.420 So if you don't know, like, in terms of admission, if you, like, are like, I don't know why I'm alive, right?

00:28:39.940 Like, read The Pragmatist's Guide to Life.

00:28:42.360 It really doesn't try to push you in any one direction.

00:28:44.500 If you look at us, you know, we have some crazy ideas about things.

00:28:47.760 It doesn't include any of that, except that, you know, you should likely structure your life around whatever you think has value.

00:28:54.160 But I think that that's something that would be pretty obvious to most people.

00:28:57.540 So it can help you there.

00:28:59.000 If you're like, I know what has value in life, but I don't know how I can contribute it, then I would suggest some blue sky thinking, particularly with somebody who you trust.

00:29:06.580 So this means, you know, sit down and think, what are the areas where I can contribute the most to the difference I want to see in the world with an understanding that the way that you apply yourself within these areas has arbitrage.

00:29:23.220 By that, what I mean is, even if you think, like, environmentalism is a big issue and the environment is a big issue, everyone's doing that.

00:29:30.920 Like, in fact, I say, if you think, like, 90% the world's problem in the future is the environment, 10% the world's problem in the future is this prenatalism, if you look at the amount of funding and the amount of competent manpowers going into prenatalism versus going into the environment, you would probably still be better off going into prenatalism as a cause area.

00:29:49.540 And people have come to us, they're like, I value prenatalism, like, what can I do? 0.63

00:29:52.360 I'm like, literally, it's wide open.

00:29:54.040 Like, one person was like a student.

00:29:55.080 I was like, you could create a network of student groups in this area.

00:29:57.240 Like, try to create a group on your local college campus and then spread that network out.

00:30:00.220 No one's doing that right now.

00:30:01.820 We help people.

00:30:03.260 No, you didn't decide to do it because a lot of people, when they say, like, I want to do something in a space, what they really mean is, I don't know, they just want to be validated or something.

00:30:12.460 They don't mean I actually want to take on some big task.

00:30:15.560 But that's really what unfortunately is needed with a lot of these things is actually taking on these tasks.

00:30:19.940 But what's beneficial, especially if you're a male, but I think to a lesser extent if you're a female, is when you're younger, you're like, well, I don't want to be focusing on this stuff right now.

00:30:29.100 When I need to be out there finding a wife.

00:30:30.820 When I need to be out there getting a girlfriend.

00:30:32.860 It is the things that you believe have value in this world that you dedicate yourself to and you have passion for that will secure you a high-quality partner.

00:30:42.940 Yeah, totally.

00:30:43.460 I'd say just always when I found a really high-quality woman who was interested in me, you know, they are the women who just like want to go out there and sleep with people and then end up who they're marrying because it was somebody they wanted to sleep with are generally not the type of women who you want to end up marrying. 0.82

00:31:00.180 The women who are like, you are doing something that I personally find inspirational and I want to be a part of and I want to be a part of your life because of the things that you're working on and because of the passion you have for them.

00:31:11.820 Those are the women who become really, really great wives. 0.99

00:31:14.440 And it's the same with men, you know, if you're a woman and you're working on something that has a lot of passion.

00:31:18.020 However, I often see the opposite here, which is really interesting.

00:31:21.020 And it's just a phenomenon you often see where when I see high-potentiality women who don't have a partner yet and I'm like, well, you know, you could go out there and work on all these sorts of cause areas.

00:31:30.780 They're often like, but I'm going to be honest here.

00:31:33.000 I really just want to find a guy who inspires me with whatever he's working on so I can dedicate myself to that.

00:31:38.240 And a lot of women feel this way.

00:31:40.620 And I think that a lot of guys, when they're out there and they're using like these red pill tactics or whatever, they are missing this.

00:31:48.260 They are entirely missing that there's this giant pool of girls out there desperate for a guy that just inspires them so that they can put all of this effort that they had toward wanting to do something meaningful with their lives towards bolstering that other person's mission.

00:32:03.140 But no one has come to them selling them a mission.

00:32:05.420 Guys have come to them selling them their body or selling them, I don't know, negging or something like that, right? 1.00

00:32:11.440 Or selling them dominance when that's not what they're interested in.

00:32:15.220 What they're interested in is a mission that they can help contribute to.

00:32:18.400 And historically, everybody knew that this is how you dated.

00:32:21.140 Like if you go historically, that mission was often like their religion or their, you know, a cultural way of life or something like that.

00:32:27.120 But yeah, it's obvious, historically speaking.

00:32:29.840 We just forgot about this because a lot of people have been optimizing how they secure long-term partners.

00:32:34.460 It was how they say off of techniques that are effective in securing short-term, often sexual partners, because those techniques are easier to test and easier to see in efficacious scenarios because these partners, this is just something that happens much easier.

00:32:49.340 It's a much lower barrier to succeed in.

00:32:50.840 So that is how we divide up our yearly goals.

00:32:55.740 And any parting words you would have, Simone?

00:32:58.080 Well, we also put them in a spreadsheet.

00:33:00.680 And we, at the end of the year, highlight in green, orange, or red the parts of each goal that we've either achieved or kind of achieved or not at all achieved.

00:33:12.700 So it's really helpful to go back in time and sort of see where you are shooting a little too high or going a little too easy on yourself.

00:33:21.740 So we've done very well in the biology category this year.

00:33:25.480 And we've done very well in the mission category this year.

00:33:28.840 Last year, you mean?

00:33:30.220 Last year, last year.

00:33:31.140 And then we did abysmally in the career category.

00:33:34.240 Yeah, which is interesting.

00:33:37.620 So, you know, this helps us think about where we reset things, where we think more about how we can do better in those areas.

00:33:45.440 Yep.

00:33:45.800 And then I would also add that I, so these are like our shared goals.

00:33:51.060 Independently and personally, I have also a behavioral goal every year and a lifestyle goal every year.

00:33:57.940 That is just totally for me and not related to me.

00:34:00.500 Talk a little bit about that because people want to understand what you mean by that.

00:34:02.740 Yeah, so behavioral goals is like, well, what is a habit that you want to start enacting behaviorally?

00:34:10.060 Like what is something that you do or a way that you react to things that is not optimal?

00:34:16.980 Or what is something you wish you did or a way that you wish you reacted to things?

00:34:20.020 What's your behavioral goal this year?

00:34:22.000 My behavioral goal is to focus instead of on like things that stress me out on making you and the kids happy.

00:34:30.340 So, like every week to do something nice.

00:34:34.400 You're doing a spectacular job.

00:34:35.880 You've got this horrible girl right now.

00:34:38.120 She is barely alive right now.

00:34:39.920 Yeah, I'm on day eight of pneumonia fever and I feel like I'm going to die, which is not good.

00:34:47.660 But yeah, like so, but I think focusing instead on how can I make you and the kids happy has actually made this an easier period of intense and very painful sickness.

00:34:58.820 So, I think that's a good goal so far.

00:35:01.580 And then in terms of lifestyle, that's much more like aesthetic and hedonistic.

00:35:06.240 Like, you know, like one of my lifestyle goals from like a long time ago was like get my own bedroom.

00:35:13.780 Like I just wanted my own bedroom so badly and I did.

00:35:17.220 And another one was like when we really hated living in Miami was, you know, get our headquarters moved out of Miami to anywhere, anywhere.

00:35:28.700 And we did.

00:35:30.400 So what's your goal for this year?

00:35:31.860 Um, this year it is to get rid of stuff, something every week.

00:35:38.120 Get rid of stuff?

00:35:38.780 Yeah.

00:35:39.360 To like have something non-trivial that I've removed from our house every week because with three and soon four kids, the amount of accumulation of stuff that we have is deeply disturbing.

00:35:52.920 Deeply disturbing.

00:35:53.700 You, you, I love how ordered you are about all this and I would encourage anyone who's doing this to do it on a one, five and lifetime timescale.

00:36:01.140 You can also add a 10-year timescale in there in terms of thinking about how the various projects you're looking at will play out.

00:36:06.500 Oh, like there's spreadsheet.

00:36:07.600 I have like anticipated goals for the future.

00:36:10.320 I do.

00:36:10.760 So yeah, like where, you know, like, like, you know, have, have kid five, have, you know, frozen embryo transfer kid five, have kid five, you know, move like biannual CT scans to, or sorry, MRIs to annual MRIs, all sorts of things like that.

00:36:26.880 Like get colonoscopy screening screenings when we're, when we're older, you know, like, like these are things that we, there are goals that are appropriate for certain times in life.

00:36:35.920 And they are definitely changes in our habits that we should remember to not forget.

00:36:42.520 Because I think a lot of people like they hit age, you know, like for example, whatever age you hit where you're supposed to start getting an annual colonoscopy and people miss that and then they don't do it.

00:36:52.900 And then it becomes a big thing.

00:36:54.640 And yeah, anyway, so yeah, I would say definitely keep a record of all your past goals, but then like outline anticipated future goals.

00:37:01.900 And the really cool thing is if you're like, yeah, in 10 years, like I want to start my own business or I want to be, you know, this kind of person, you know, you can, you can set that as a milestone for that year.

00:37:13.180 And then it'll get you thinking like, well, then what do I have to achieve in the years leading up to that to get there?

00:37:18.900 And it may help you get more inspiration for your imminent goals.

00:37:23.380 One goal I would love to have for my brother is I'd love his, his little app to take off.

00:37:29.120 So if anyone is interested, you can get it on the Chrome web extension store.

00:37:33.160 It's called Bunbox, like bunny box, Bunbox, B-U-N-box.

00:37:37.040 And it has an AI that automatically summarizes your emails and can automatically reply to your emails.

00:37:43.120 And it's free.

00:37:44.260 And you just need to remember to, after you install the widget, to click it and activate it.

00:37:48.220 And anyway, Simone, I've had a fantastic day talking to you.

00:37:52.460 Love you, Malcolm.

00:37:53.380 I love you too.

Based Camp - January 19, 2024

How Sociopathic Nerds Plot Out New Years Goals

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