Based Camp - How The Internet Prematurely Ages Our Brains

00:00:00.000 It could be that the reason they're on these simple narrative loops is because they are unable to think or ask themselves, does this person care?

00:00:10.580 Like, does this person, why is this person interacting with me from their perspective?

00:00:15.820 What's interesting is his wife isn't like that.

00:00:17.900 She's very sensitive to what people are saying.

00:00:20.440 I think the key is she maintains a relationship with her old sorority friends.

00:00:26.360 And I'm pretty sure they're pretty catty and mean to each other and very competitive.

00:00:30.960 So it's funny because you can look at it from one perspective and be like, gosh, you're in all these toxic relationships.

00:00:35.640 But then from the other perspective, you'd be like, wow, thank goodness you're in all these toxic relationships because it keeps her sharp and entertaining.

00:00:42.080 Because the internet allows for new forms of brain rot, i.e. you don't necessarily need to interact with other people in your daily life.

00:00:48.160 You're not getting that feedback, the training.

00:00:50.840 Well, and we're so used to being through all these different scrolling consumption pathways, just passive information and entertainment being served to us with no requirement that we serve anything back.

00:01:02.900 There's no reciprocity.

00:01:04.640 It is unidirectional.

00:01:06.600 Do you think people with deep brain rot are really sentient?

00:01:09.620 Or do you think that it's like not a big problem for them to die?

00:01:12.980 Yeah, not a big problem for them to die.

00:01:14.460 Would you like to know more?

00:01:15.860 Hello, Simone. 0.69

00:01:17.180 It is wonderful to be here with you today.

00:01:18.660 Today, we are going to talk about a concept that we internally call brain rot.

00:01:24.220 And it is something that I like proposed as a mechanism of action for a way that people, as they get older, begin to fall into a particular type of thought that makes it impossible for them to hold complex ideas.

00:01:37.920 And originally, it was sort of a theory.

00:01:40.480 Like, it seems like this might be what's happening in their brains.

00:01:44.040 And since I have had that theory and interacted with older people again and again and again and see it play out exactly like this over and over again, I have now moved it from theory to fact.

00:01:58.900 And it is weird to me that other people don't seem to have noticed this.

00:02:02.660 What people will say is, well, as people become older, they become stuck in their way.

00:02:08.160 Or as people become older, there's some degree of cognitive decline.

00:02:11.240 But what I am noticing here is not a general cognitive decline, but a very specific type of cognitive decline that is very noticeable.

00:02:20.760 Specifically, what brain rot is, is when an individual reaches a stage of brain rot and you talk to them, all they will be able to do or what they will default into is repeating simple narrative loops that are about painting a picture for themselves about who they are and painting a picture to you about who they are.

00:02:47.680 And so what these will look like is if, for example, being infirmed is particularly important to their self-identity, they will go into a narrative loop of something that happened to them around that particular topic with any attempt to model the target of this loop.

00:03:07.540 So they will not be thinking, how will this modify your perception of them?

00:03:12.700 They will not be thinking, how does this telling them this further my goals?

00:03:16.660 They will not be thinking, is this something individual wants to hear?

00:03:21.240 It is.

00:03:21.920 And so the question is, is why does this exact behavior pattern seem to happen so, so, so frequently?

00:03:30.380 So Simone, what are your thoughts?

00:03:32.380 And I can give my thoughts on this.

00:03:34.160 Yeah.

00:03:34.800 So I have a very strong belief that this is a use it or lose it dynamic.

00:03:40.100 That basically, and this is regardless of age too.

00:03:44.100 This shows up across so much of the research I see.

00:03:46.720 Basically, if you use something, it will maintain fairly good condition, be it your muscles, be it your eyes, be it whatever.

00:03:55.760 And if you do not use it, it will atrophy.

00:03:57.960 This seems to be backed up pretty well in research.

00:04:00.460 For example, there's, there's one study called television viewing and cognitive decline in older age findings from the English longitudinal study of aging that found that watching over three and a half hours of TV correlated with greater cognitive decline because you're just sitting there passively watching.

00:04:16.580 Whereas actually a different study found that playing a video game did not correlate, like sort of inversely correlated with cognitive decline in older people.

00:04:24.480 So like more engagement specifically also like another study called cultural engagement and incidents of cognitive impairment, a six-year longitudinal follow-up of the Japan gerontological evaluation study, AKA J-A-G-E-S, J-A-G-E-S, found that engagement in intellectual and creative activities may be associated with reduced risk of dementia.

00:04:46.360 Again, like use it or lose it.

00:04:49.140 There's also another study called cognitive leisure activities and future risk of cognitive impairment and dementia, synthetic review and meta-analysis that also found once again, that there is increasing evidence that participation in cognitively stimulating leisure activities may contribute to a reduction of risk of dementia and cognitive impairment later in life.

00:05:10.220 And when we're talking about brain rot, we are really talking about forms of cognitive impairment, you know, this, this is, it's, it's bad.

00:05:19.220 So I think that's a really huge thing.

00:05:20.980 And that's one thing that makes me so against the concept of retirement, this idea that like, oh, I'll stop working.

00:05:27.640 Yeah, you're consigning someone to death by allowing them to retire.

00:05:30.900 Yeah.

00:05:31.240 I mean, unless their idea of retirement is like, okay, well now I'm going to go, you know, volunteer and build houses and support my community, which is what retirement used to be.

00:05:40.580 I think at a time of more engaged communities.

00:05:42.860 What I would push back on is you're like, okay, use it or lose it, but use what or use your mind, challenge yourself, learn new things.

00:05:52.400 The type of cognitive decline that they experience is not general cognitive decline.

00:05:57.960 It is very, very focused and leads to a very narrow set of behavioral patterns.

00:06:04.800 Well, to me, it does not seem downstream.

00:06:07.640 So I can give you a hypothesis here to give you an example of what I mean by this, but what it could be is specifically what leads to brain rot is the part of their brain that mentally, that does theory of mind of other people, that is mentally emulating the people around them stops working because that's the specific thing that they're not using.

00:06:25.240 And it could be that the reason they're on these simple narrative loops is because they are unable to think or ask themselves, does this person care?

00:06:35.920 Like, does this person, what, why is this person interacting with me from their perspective? 0.97

00:06:40.580 Well, you see this a lot from more senior, and I'm saying senior in a hierarchical perspective, people, where they just go on and have this problem where they're saying a bunch of shit that you care nothing about because no one is pushing back on them.

00:06:56.180 They've gotten past that point where they have to actually keep people engaged in order to get them to do what they want or pay attention. 0.85

00:07:01.920 Actually, I've noticed this as well. Yeah, brain rot, you do get early brain rot in people who are very senior in hierarchies.

00:07:12.600 I've also noticed it in people in hierarchies.

00:07:14.000 If they're surrounded by yes men, you know, there are lots of people who are senior in hierarchies who are sharp as a knife and very good at mentally modeling others and very engaging because they, they force themselves into positions in life where they have to.

00:07:29.320 Where people are telling them to shut up sometimes.

00:07:30.960 Yeah, where people, yeah, keep them in line.

00:07:33.860 But no, I've also noticed it disproportionately with people in bureaucratic jobs, like people who work in government positions and stuff like that, where they seem to fall into brain rot much faster than other positions.

00:07:44.780 And that would make sense if it's that you do not need to worry about mentally modeling others.

00:07:50.680 Yeah, I wonder if it's important.

00:07:52.380 Like, I think also having a lot of kids or grandkids around is helpful because they, they let you know when they are bored and you have to constantly fight to earn their respect and attention.

00:08:04.080 I mean, the thing is that some people are clearly resistant to it.

00:08:06.880 So we were on a Jim Rutt's show recently and he is my dad's age.

00:08:12.020 He actually worked with my dad running the Santa Fe Institute and they.

00:08:16.580 He's so sharp.

00:08:17.920 He, he talks like a 20 year old. 0.87

00:08:19.960 But yes, whereas my dad has a pretty significant amount of brain rot already. 0.79

00:08:25.120 Do you want to say that?

00:08:25.820 Because your dad listens to this podcast.

00:08:27.520 He barely ever listens to the podcast.

00:08:30.100 He's not going to listen to this episode.

00:08:31.700 I'll tell you.

00:08:32.600 And even if he does, he needs to get out of it.

00:08:35.840 He goes on simple narrative loops all the time.

00:08:38.180 And it's not, uh, and it means that I'm at risk of it too.

00:08:42.080 It's true that it's probably has a genetic component of so many things do.

00:08:47.420 Right.

00:08:48.440 But I suspect he also is somebody who hasn't had to interact with lots of other people that could turn him down for a very long time.

00:08:57.380 Yeah.

00:08:57.840 Yeah.

00:08:58.060 I feel like, you know, what's interesting is his wife isn't like that.

00:09:01.560 She's very sensitive to what people are saying.

00:09:04.100 Yeah.

00:09:04.260 I think the key is I, I, she maintains a relationship with her old sorority friends and I'm pretty sure they're pretty catty and mean to each other and very competitive.

00:09:14.340 And your mother was the same way.

00:09:15.820 She was surrounded by like game of Thrones, backstabber, gossipy friends.

00:09:21.280 And in such a world.

00:09:22.880 Yeah.

00:09:23.380 You, yes.

00:09:24.020 Zero brain rot. 0.97

00:09:24.840 Because the moment you have some, you are immediately eaten alive by these people eviscerated. 0.59

00:09:30.700 They will, they will not only freeze you out and destroy you, but they will humiliate you along the way.

00:09:36.560 And I think that keeps you sharp.

00:09:37.860 So it's funny because you can look at it from one perspective and be like, gosh, your mom's in all these toxic relationships.

00:09:42.680 But then from the other perspective, be like, wow, thank goodness your mom's in all these toxic relationships. 0.76

00:09:47.040 Because it keeps her sharp and entertaining.

00:09:49.380 Yeah.

00:09:49.840 No, I absolutely think you're right about that.

00:09:52.700 And it highlights one of the areas for people who are new to our podcast, we're quite against radical life extension.

00:09:59.640 And a lot of people are like, well, why?

00:10:01.580 I mean, we could keep people younger through like, you know, they're like, it's not because they know.

00:10:06.700 I mean, I think everybody knows why a person would intuitively be against that for civilization reasons.

00:10:11.920 Yeah.

00:10:12.140 And people just have a harder time changing their minds, a harder time thinking after a certain age.

00:10:17.440 And they're like, well, what if we could fix that biologically speaking?

00:10:20.560 If this theory of brain rot is correct, brain rot is not a biological phenomenon.

00:10:26.060 It's a phenomenon that's caused by environmental conditions that are more common among retired people than retired people.

00:10:35.080 That's what causes brain rot. 0.98

00:10:37.740 And if that's the case in radical life extension, if this can happen to any human, it's a terrible idea.

00:10:43.120 Because the one thing about brain rot is that once it's set in, like if you at all enter any stage of your life where like for five to six years, you're just not having people push back against you regularly, it's probably permanent.

00:10:55.020 Yeah.

00:10:55.840 Yeah.

00:10:56.960 Oh, it's terrifying.

00:10:58.100 I think my argument though, is that it's, while it does correlate with age, I, and I think it also correlates with other physical aspects of cognitive decline that I have seen it in teenagers.

00:11:13.960 I've seen it in 20 year olds.

00:11:16.160 I have too.

00:11:16.820 Yeah.

00:11:17.020 And a really interesting place where we see it and started talking about it a lot was in our own toddlers when they first started learning how to speak.

00:11:25.540 When all they could really talk about was like, I'm doing this, I'm doing that.

00:11:30.660 Our, our almost two-year-old Titan only speaks in loops about her top thoughts, which is look a baby deer, look a baby deer. 0.96

00:11:40.340 And what's that sound?

00:11:41.860 Motorcycle.

00:11:42.560 Like you're just hearing a continuous stream of her very, very basic thoughts.

00:11:46.740 And that's exactly what you hear from someone who's brain rot.

00:11:49.380 They're like, well, you know, first I have to go get the groceries and then I'm going to take a shower.

00:11:54.040 And then I have to talk with my friend and you're like, I don't need to hear any of this.

00:11:58.260 I don't need to hear any of this.

00:11:58.940 Or I was, I was doing like what's other common brain rot stuff.

00:12:01.960 Like just going through their schedule from yesterday.

00:12:04.120 Uh-huh.

00:12:04.560 Like, well, yesterday I did this and then I did this.

00:12:08.840 And then.

00:12:09.020 Oh, and yesterday we spoke with someone who for like, I was carrying quite a few grocery bags in the street.

00:12:15.140 Yeah.

00:12:15.340 And he went over for a long, he's a famous radio host too.

00:12:19.040 The names of his childhood neighbors and their nicknames.

00:12:24.440 And their nicknames.

00:12:25.840 And what they ended up doing.

00:12:27.220 Yeah.

00:12:27.380 And he ended up dying of a stomach aneurysm and he died of a heart attack at age 40.

00:12:32.080 And then his daughters took over his company.

00:12:33.320 And we're like, we love, you know, you're a nice guy, but I'm carrying about 40 pounds.

00:12:39.080 How could you plausibly think that we could care anything about this?

00:12:43.460 You, you stopped us on the road while we were walking somewhere.

00:12:47.040 Yeah.

00:12:47.900 You know, it was absolutely wild.

00:12:50.860 But it's interesting that that can exist both in very old people, but we also see this basically in toddlers before they develop a theory of mind.

00:12:59.640 Before they can understand what we need to hear.

00:13:01.480 Oh, that's a good point.

00:13:01.880 They don't have a theory of mind yet.

00:13:03.420 So they're just going on about, well, this is an interesting thing I've noticed about brain rot, especially at the early stages.

00:13:09.740 So there's a later stage where it's like just narrative loops, right?

00:13:13.300 Where it's just, I did X yesterday, or I did X growing up, or this thing happened to me and here it is without any thought as to whether or not that is useful information to the person who's hearing about it.

00:13:23.520 Right.

00:13:23.620 Some, it's at the early stages, it is really, really, really focused on self-identity reinforcement.

00:13:31.700 By that, what I mean is they will focus on narrative loops that are meant to try to reinforce the way they think about themselves through conveying it to you.

00:13:42.940 Is they will tell you stories about themselves that are meant to reinforce a way that they desire to see themselves without any concern as to, is this actually modifying the recipient's perspective of me in a way I wanted to modify their perspective of me?

00:14:00.300 And without any concern of, does this other person care?

00:14:04.100 And, you know, where you'll really get this frequently I've seen in elderly people is often in medical stories, where they'll be like, I had X injury and I went to the doctor and the doctor did this, and then the doctor did this, and then I had this follow-up.

00:14:18.300 And it's like, why would anybody care?

00:14:22.040 Why would anybody care?

00:14:24.420 Well, I mean, to them it matters a lot, right?

00:14:26.120 It's something that's forefront in their minds is their medical treatment.

00:14:31.760 They just, they don't realize nobody, nobody cares.

00:14:37.360 And it's one of the first things that I try to teach our children is not just about this, but about pieces of etiquette.

00:14:45.960 I don't say you should do this.

00:14:47.920 Like you should, you must say thank you.

00:14:49.800 I say, if you say thank you to people, more people will like you and be nice to you and you'll get more things you want.

00:14:56.120 And I want to make it really clear to our children that we don't just do manners because that's what you do, because you need to be conformist.

00:15:04.420 You do manners because if you want to get nice things from people, you have to make their lives more comfortable.

00:15:11.300 You have to show them courtesy and respect.

00:15:12.780 What's the Emily Post line about this?

00:15:14.600 Doesn't she have something on like why manners exist or why etiquette exists? 1.00

00:15:17.640 Well, yeah, I mean, roughly speaking, I have this, Malcolm knows this is like 1942 Emily Post book that I considered to be my Bible basically.

00:15:27.640 But she basically explains that etiquette and manners are not arbitrary, dumb rules like they were necessarily first invented in Versailles by King Louis XIV to imprison the nobility.

00:15:39.540 What good manners really are is making social transactions smooth, making them happen efficiently and successfully.

00:15:49.220 That's it.

00:15:50.220 So I think a lot of people think about manners as unnecessary scraping and flourishing and doing all these dumb things that don't make a difference when really it's about elegant, efficient, effective transactions between people.

00:16:04.520 And that's how I want our children to understand etiquette and manners. 0.85

00:16:10.360 And definitely throughout this 1942 Emily Post book that I have, it constantly reminds people quite harshly that no one gives a fuck what you think or feel and your job is to make them comfortable. 0.93

00:16:26.360 It is.

00:16:27.400 And it's interesting that this is just not something that people talk about today.

00:16:31.740 Maybe we have an epidemic of brain rot because everything has become, oh, what you feel is the most important thing in the world.

00:16:40.460 We've really shifted that frame.

00:16:42.020 That's true. 0.98

00:16:42.880 Nobody gives a fuck what you think, what you feel, what you're worried about. 0.98

00:16:48.460 You need to get what you need to get done and that's it. 0.99

00:16:51.760 And now it's back to, no, your personal experience is tantamount.

00:16:56.140 Your mood is tantamount.

00:16:57.220 That is your number one priority in life.

00:16:58.940 And now it's encouraging people, it's accelerating brain rot and essentially dementia in all ages.

00:17:04.920 Terrifying.

00:17:05.660 Well, no, and I think you see this in online comments.

00:17:07.600 You know, a lot of the comments that are just like when they're just like attacking somebody randomly, they come off as a form of like early brain rot.

00:17:16.000 Yeah.

00:17:16.320 Because that's not a thing that a sane person would do.

00:17:18.720 A sane person wouldn't think, I have a negative emotional reaction when reading something this person wrote or, you know, seeing something this person did. 1.00

00:17:30.040 Therefore, I'll be like, you're a weirdo or you must be like an idiot, you know. 1.00

00:17:36.520 Freaks. 1.00

00:17:37.040 Yeah, you wouldn't do that. 0.76

00:17:38.940 And to highlight how much you wouldn't do that.

00:17:41.480 Imagine if you were like talking to somebody and they responded to you as that. 0.99

00:17:47.460 You'd look at them like they were like they had a mental problem. 1.00

00:17:50.560 Like they do have a mental problem. 1.00

00:17:52.740 No, they do have a mental problem. 0.77

00:17:54.120 But I think that people don't realize that in engaging in this type of behavior, they are really just exacerbating mental problems that they've already built within their mind.

00:18:04.400 And they just get worse and worse and worse until because the Internet allows for new forms of brain rot, i.e.

00:18:11.000 you don't necessarily need to interact with other people in your daily life.

00:18:14.460 You're not getting that feedback, the training.

00:18:17.760 You can be stuck in self-reinforcement loops entirely within a digital environment.

00:18:21.800 Well, and we're so used to being through all these different scrolling consumption pathways and social media and in just like on Netflix and every other streaming platform and through many games, just passive information and entertainment being served to us with no requirement that we serve anything back.

00:18:41.540 There's no reciprocity.

00:18:42.780 It is unidirectional.

00:18:45.040 Do you think people with deep brain rot are really sentient or do you think that it's like not a big problem for them to die?

00:18:50.660 Yeah, not a big problem for them to die.

00:18:52.920 Well, they've become – brain rot is NPCism.

00:18:57.260 Worse than generic NPCism, though.

00:18:59.740 So there's a form of NPCism that's just like urban monoculture to the extreme.

00:19:04.580 Well, you can think of it like stasis.

00:19:06.840 So those people could be saved if they were presented with memes that pulled them out of the loop, right?

00:19:11.500 Yeah, these individuals, yeah, they're like in a stasis, but they like are reacting the way they're reacting because they're sort of afraid of judgment of society.

00:19:21.160 Yeah, well, they haven't been given the mental and mimetic tools that would allow them to get out of those defaults.

00:19:26.260 Yeah, but the brain rot is different.

00:19:27.820 Brain rot is not like they're acting this way because they're afraid of how you're going to judge them.

00:19:32.800 They're literally not thinking about how you're going to judge them.

00:19:36.700 It is – everyone else's mental state does not exist from their perspective.

00:19:43.160 Yeah, it's scary and it's bad.

00:19:45.200 Now, one thing I wanted to ask you is the extent to which you think our brain rot epidemic is also manifest now in modern media.

00:19:54.700 So we with our kids have been watching The Magic School Bus because we're trying to watch – like find shows that they like that we also think aren't just complete nonsense.

00:20:06.060 And Magic School Bus is great because it teaches pretty good things about science and it's also like pretty funny.

00:20:13.040 It's a decent show.

00:20:13.960 The problem with The Magic School Bus actually, which I didn't remember growing up, but every character in it is deeply unlikable.

00:20:20.900 That's a feature, not a bug, man.

00:20:22.880 I think that's hilarious.

00:20:24.260 Everyone is made fun of.

00:20:25.740 It's not like they have a personality, okay?

00:20:28.340 Like in some shows, every character has a personality when you've got like a big diverse cast.

00:20:33.180 Yeah.

00:20:33.400 No, every one of the kids has a specific reason that makes them annoying and unlikable.

00:20:38.780 Yeah, it's interesting.

00:20:39.540 Yeah, you don't – none of the characters is a self-insert at all.

00:20:42.680 You are like this outsider watching everything happen, laughing at everyone.

00:20:48.440 But also kind of wishing you were on The Magic School Bus.

00:20:50.300 Our kids – especially Toasty, he's like, I want to ride on The Magic School Bus.

00:20:54.240 I just love it when he says that.

00:20:55.340 He said that?

00:20:56.300 He says that all the time.

00:20:58.080 I want to ride on The Magic School Bus.

00:20:59.620 Yeah.

00:20:59.880 No, but I – some of these kids are so – like Arnold, for example, is so deeply punchable.

00:21:06.880 I almost want to create like a simulator where I can just punch a grown-up version of Arnold.

00:21:12.440 Janet, you want proof?

00:21:14.320 I'll give you proof.

00:21:15.620 Here's proof of what will happen to you if you stay here with your stuff.

00:21:19.480 Arnold, no!

00:21:20.760 You're like Carlos?

00:21:26.360 Carlos is cute with his dad jokes.

00:21:28.460 I know.

00:21:28.480 All of them. 1.00

00:21:29.080 All of them need to be punched. 1.00

00:21:30.800 Carlos. 1.00

00:21:31.680 Dee Dee. 0.97

00:21:32.260 What's her in BD?

00:21:33.240 What's her – her – 0.52

00:21:34.140 I don't know.

00:21:34.540 There's the – according to my research girl who's super annoying. 1.00

00:21:37.040 But my old school girl is also super annoying. 1.00

00:21:40.060 I just need them to do their phrase, okay?

00:21:43.300 That would be so cathartic.

00:21:45.200 I'd also say I'd really love to see like a Rick and Morty version of The Magic School Bus.

00:21:50.260 I often think when watching The Magic School Bus, this would have been so much more than Back to the Future.

00:21:57.440 Good source material for a Rick and Morty-like show in that Miss Frizzle has so little regard for the safety and life of her students just consistently throughout the show.

00:22:11.380 She is so psychotic in the ways that she treats them. 1.00

00:22:15.200 Best thing about time travel is that it's easy on the tires.

00:22:18.380 Are those – faster!

00:22:20.960 Is it just me, or is that a real-life Tyrannosaurus Rex behind them?

00:22:25.480 Correct-a-saurus, Ralphie.

00:22:27.380 And the T-Rex was the biggest meat-eater of all time.

00:22:30.920 On The Magic School Bus!

00:22:33.440 Here it is, kids!

00:22:34.940 The Grand Canyon!

00:22:36.580 Yay! 0.99

00:22:37.580 Seatbelts on, kids!

00:22:39.980 No one else was already wearing a seatbelt?

00:22:43.100 Hey, we're running out of road!

00:22:46.920 Where the road ends, adventure begins!

00:22:50.720 Okay, let's do your stuff!

00:22:56.280 See, Arnold?

00:22:58.340 Adventure awaits in heaven!

00:23:00.740 And there are episodes where she will just, like, have the students doing something and be blatantly flirting with someone she clearly has a past relationship with.

00:23:11.360 Here I'm thinking of the episode where they are on the school bus engineer guy.

00:23:15.220 There's also so many scenes in the show where when you watch it and you watch what Miss Frizzle puts the kid through, you're like, oh my god.

00:23:23.120 Like, it's genuinely more horrifying than maybe your average Rick and Morty episode.

00:23:29.680 Can we please go home now?

00:23:31.860 Sure thing, Ralphie.

00:23:33.000 After one more egg-sperience.

00:23:36.120 Whoa! 0.71

00:23:38.360 Holy mackerel! 0.99

00:23:40.160 The bus just laid eggs and we're in them!

00:23:43.620 Look at it this way, Ralphie.

00:23:45.580 As soon as we hatch, this will be home!

00:23:48.480 A salmony winter courtin' he did swim, mm-hmm, salmony winter courtin'.

00:23:55.540 There's your answer, Carlos.

00:23:57.640 What?

00:23:58.420 Is he some sort of car wash?

00:24:00.540 No!

00:24:01.720 Don't eggs have to be fertilized and we're gonna be the next generation of salmon?

00:24:06.900 Get ready to dig in, Liv!

00:24:08.800 Hey! 0.99

00:24:09.420 The bus is burying us alive!

00:24:13.140 Cutting an egg?

00:24:14.360 Okay!

00:24:15.380 Getting fertilized?

00:24:16.920 Okay!

00:24:17.320 Getting buried in an egg?

00:24:19.680 Not okay!

00:24:20.460 Class?

00:24:22.060 Let's see if hatching's all it's cracked up to be!

00:24:29.560 Wow!

00:24:30.420 I'm hungry!

00:24:31.900 My yolk sac's history!

00:24:33.820 Let's find food!

00:24:35.200 Well, anyway, what I think is interesting about it, though, is watching it, I'm like, wow,

00:24:44.720 there's substance here.

00:24:46.660 I am learning something.

00:24:48.320 They're talking about something here.

00:24:50.280 Whereas I feel like, you know what?

00:24:53.920 It's vibes.

00:24:54.540 Like, so we're in an election year right now, and this is not very evergreen to say this,

00:24:59.240 but, you know, it's Trump versus Kamala.

00:25:01.160 But also, it's just like, I'm looking at what political candidates are arguing, and they're

00:25:05.800 not arguing substance anymore.

00:25:07.840 They're not arguing policy.

00:25:09.020 In fact, whenever policies are referred to, it's more fake meme caricatures of those policies.

00:25:15.260 It's not even the real policies.

00:25:17.480 And, well, for example, when Kamala Harris attacks Donald Trump, her running opponent,

00:25:23.140 about his reproductive choice policy, she doesn't even refer to his policy, which is leave it

00:25:28.900 up to the states.

00:25:29.500 He refers to the policy that was outlined.

00:25:31.860 In fact, she refers to a caricature of a policy that was outlined in the Heritage Foundation's

00:25:37.140 Project 2025, where she says that there will be national abortion bans, when really Project

00:25:41.520 2025's policy only refers to banning a specific pharmaceutical, and not even, like, it's not

00:25:48.660 banning all, for example, Plan B medications.

00:25:50.800 So it's a lot more nuanced than that, but that's not what the substance is.

00:25:54.580 And I feel like shows, for kids and adults these days, to a great extent, are no longer

00:25:58.980 about substance.

00:26:01.140 They're about a feeling.

00:26:02.820 They're about a mood.

00:26:04.620 Even when I compare-

00:26:05.860 I mean, Blippi is definitely mood-driven. 0.52

00:26:08.500 Yes.

00:26:09.500 And so I feel like a lot of this also is just showing a general degradation of human processing

00:26:15.900 power, that we're not really modeling other people anymore, that we're not really

00:26:20.540 engaging with ideas and morals anymore.

00:26:23.820 We're engaging with moods and feeling and becoming more like babies.

00:26:28.560 We're not processing logical abstract ideas or other people's feelings or thoughts.

00:26:34.760 We're just riding along, like infants, smiling in reaction to a smiling face.

00:26:41.720 Am I wrong here?

00:26:42.980 This is just- I've been feeling this creeping dread for the past two weeks about this.

00:26:48.360 No, I think you're right for a lot of people.

00:26:50.540 And then the question is, well, how do you protect our children?

00:26:53.080 And I think it's to put them in environments, online environments, where they're going to

00:26:57.880 get pushback.

00:26:58.540 I mean, I think, for example, something like actively engaging in a Discord server, and

00:27:01.800 I'll try to remember to leave our Discord link in here, because it's a really good Discord

00:27:04.680 server, is just a great way to keep yourself active and stuff like that. 0.81

00:27:08.220 Yeah, or force them to only go on 4chan, where everyone's going to call them a fag. 1.00

00:27:11.180 I think griefing is really good, and I love online communities that give you a hard time. 0.96

00:27:18.220 Again, that's going back to your mom's backstabbing friends and gossiping and incredibly cruel friends 0.92

00:27:25.480 who are also very fun, and your stepmothers' sorority friends who are probably very gossipy

00:27:32.020 and very clicky, keeping them sharp.

00:27:34.680 And I would imagine I'd love to see longitudinal research on the cognitive sharpness and also

00:27:42.660 ability to model, like the modeling ability of people with large families, someone who

00:27:48.680 has four siblings versus someone who's an only child.

00:27:52.300 How do they compare?

00:27:53.600 I bet you they're going to be much better if it's intellectually.

00:27:56.860 And again, it comes back to this theme of use it or lose it.

00:28:00.100 If you are not forced to be strong, if you are not subject to training, you won't develop

00:28:07.620 that muscle.

00:28:09.700 Your body doesn't...

00:28:11.460 We are beautifully efficient and designed to conserve energy.

00:28:16.320 Well, here's a great example of brain rot you see in an online environment, which is comments

00:28:19.100 that are meant to reinforce an individual's view of themselves.

00:28:23.040 But not change any minds.

00:28:24.460 So it's like, it's trying to show that they themselves are tough or masculine or something

00:28:30.820 like this is the common version of it.

00:28:32.540 And so it'll be like, well, bro, do you even lift?

00:28:35.040 Like, there's somebody who's from a different cultural subset.

00:28:38.680 That's not going to be like, I'm not going to look at that and be like, oh, I'm ashamed

00:28:41.620 that I don't lift. 0.95

00:28:42.220 I'm like, why the fuck would I lift? 0.78

00:28:44.060 Like, that has nothing to do with any, anything. 0.96

00:28:47.860 Why do I, why do I spend time with my kids rather than at the gym?

00:28:51.740 Like, because obviously that time is coming from somewhere.

00:28:54.220 So it's either coming from the time with my kids or it's coming from my wife or it's coming

00:28:57.260 from like, obviously that's a lower status thing from my cultural perspective to spend

00:29:02.940 my time on than literally any of the things I actually spend my time on.

00:29:06.800 And so, well, they're not thinking about it like that.

00:29:08.900 So in what way are they thinking about it?

00:29:10.640 They're thinking about it in terms of they see somebody who society or other people online

00:29:16.840 seem to be assigning some level of status or attention to, and now they need to, you

00:29:22.180 know, attempt to, because this person doesn't correlate with what they think status should

00:29:28.240 correlate with, they will throw something like that out there to try to raise their own

00:29:33.460 status within this little hierarchy that they're fighting just was in their own minds.

00:29:37.880 You know, like, and you see this all the time with masculinity challenges within an online 0.89

00:29:43.500 context, which are just silly. 0.80

00:29:47.540 That's true. 0.58

00:29:48.680 Yeah.

00:29:49.240 I've noticed you don't get challenged in the same way as much, which is interesting, but

00:29:52.780 I think it's because you're, I mean, people will say you look, I don't know, like a man,

00:29:57.540 I guess is the core.

00:29:58.580 No, they say that I look misshapen and I wear big glasses and I look old and I look nerdy

00:30:06.760 and weak and just like genetically unfit and that I'm a four and all sorts of things like

00:30:13.660 that.

00:30:13.920 Yeah.

00:30:14.680 Well, those are not, so, I mean, you think about what's coming out with every one of those

00:30:18.880 individual attacks.

00:30:19.960 Like, what are they trying to signal with something like that?

00:30:22.640 Uh-huh. 0.80

00:30:22.940 So you go out like, like if you go, you ugly, like just to like a random stranger, like you 1.00

00:30:27.180 look like a mentally deficient person. 0.99

00:30:29.060 So like, what are they trying to signal by saying something like you're a four, right? 0.98

00:30:34.400 Now, first I would say to people like objectively, that's not true.

00:30:37.080 If you want to see like what your average person looks like, go to an airport or a DMV, like

00:30:40.620 clearly Simone's in the top one to 2% of the population in terms of attractiveness.

00:30:45.020 When you consider the fact that she is in her late thirties at this point and has had four

00:30:50.400 kids, I really don't think that you get close to this level of looks with normal humans,

00:30:55.600 but they, they are trying to signal either that they can get a more attractive partner

00:31:04.460 than somebody like you, or that they are more attractive than somebody like you, or that

00:31:09.220 you should not be assigned status because you are not attractive enough to be somebody who

00:31:14.260 is assigned status.

00:31:15.280 Or, um, I know it's, it's very interesting.

00:31:20.100 Like what, or that they are angry that you have been assigned status in our society and

00:31:26.220 therefore they need to attempt to lower your status.

00:31:30.060 Those are the things that might motivate behavior like that.

00:31:33.140 You know, none of them show a particularly high level of cognitive function in terms of like

00:31:38.060 40, like how you'd see society chest.

00:31:40.960 But then think about something like you're genetically unfit.

00:31:43.520 Now that actually shows a bit more intelligence, right?

00:31:47.500 They are trying at the most base and superficial level to understand our ideology.

00:31:53.040 Like, okay, they're selecting for genetic health of their offspring, right?

00:31:57.580 And so if I insult her genetic health and say that people like her should not be breeding

00:32:03.560 because she's of low genetic health, that undermines their world perspective.

00:32:08.200 The problem here is that it also undermines their world perspective.

00:32:13.460 If they're like, how dare you eugenicists be having children, you're genetically unfit.

00:32:19.900 It's like, wait, what?

00:32:22.580 What?

00:32:23.580 Those, that, that's the eugenic, the eugenic statement.

00:32:26.940 And I should note that we don't actually hold eugenic beliefs, but this is something we're

00:32:29.560 characterized as holding in the media.

00:32:30.920 We do believe that humans have genes and that as a family, we will make genetically optimal

00:32:35.560 choices, but that's no more eugenicists than like choosing sperm from a sperm bank that has 0.99

00:32:40.540 good quality traits.

00:32:41.980 Like individual choices have never been considered eugenics, historically speaking.

00:32:46.680 It's only society-wide decisions, which is what makes it eugenic and not a choice in who

00:32:53.160 your partner is.

00:32:54.120 But anyway, they're, they're trying to sort of flip the script on you there without really

00:32:58.460 thinking about it, but it shows, again, a fairly low level of cognitive function.

00:33:01.760 But I think something we have to remember is how low the level of cognitive function of

00:33:04.820 the average human is.

00:33:07.720 Yeah.

00:33:08.500 Yeah.

00:33:09.560 Yeah. 0.99

00:33:10.260 Half, half of all people are dumber than the average person, as they say, which is sobering 0.99

00:33:16.920 and disturbing to think about. 0.99

00:33:18.540 But, but the thing about brain rot is it affects smart people.

00:33:21.640 Like it's not, oh yes, 100%, because we're primarily mixing with smart people and speaking

00:33:27.460 with smart people.

00:33:28.600 Our society is soberingly siloed based on intelligence.

00:33:34.220 Yeah.

00:33:34.620 I'd actually say, and I hadn't noticed this until you pointed it out, and this is going

00:33:38.460 to change a lot of my perception.

00:33:39.800 So I'm glad we had this talk.

00:33:41.760 Brain rot really does disproportionately affect CEOs and people in uniquely high status positions. 0.99

00:33:47.780 I think especially people surrounded by yes men and people who are not like shit talking. 0.99

00:33:52.920 Well, I don't know. 0.99

00:33:53.460 I, I, I would say that people who are surrounded by yes men don't realize they're surrounded

00:33:58.260 by yes men.

00:33:59.160 And therefore that is not a useful framing for this.

00:34:02.740 Okay.

00:34:03.480 So I can think of one really good example whose YouTube channel we're always comparing ourselves

00:34:09.500 against, who seems to have a pretty big, sorry.

00:34:12.620 I often like to quote unquote compete with people who we have some sort of a personal

00:34:17.240 relationship or history with.

00:34:18.720 Oh, okay.

00:34:19.500 Yeah.

00:34:19.780 This individual has pretty severe brain rot, but they don't, they wouldn't recognize that

00:34:24.580 they have severe brain rot because they don't.

00:34:27.780 Constantly engage with other intellectuals and famous people.

00:34:31.200 Yeah.

00:34:31.400 They engage with other intellectuals, but they do it in environments that are very low risk

00:34:35.800 to them.

00:34:36.480 And so it allows them to just go on narrative loops and then leave.

00:34:40.680 Right.

00:34:42.520 Which is really, really dangerous.

00:34:44.200 You can think you're engaging with other people, but the question is basically, are 1.00

00:34:48.320 other people regularly telling you you're wrong and stupid? 0.99

00:34:51.600 That's a better way to know if, do you have to genuinely worry about being backstabbed by 1.00

00:34:57.640 the people you're engaging with in a significant way?

00:35:01.080 Yeah.

00:35:01.380 And yeah. 0.99

00:35:01.820 And meaningfully backstabbed, like expelled from the group, shit talked, supplanted from 0.99

00:35:10.180 your position of authority. 0.99

00:35:12.140 So yeah, I think, yeah, to your point about CEOs, if you own or run something and no one

00:35:18.400 can fire you and no one can take it all away from you, you are uniquely susceptible

00:35:23.700 to brain rot.

00:35:25.440 And you may want to join some kind of community or do something else where you are a player,

00:35:32.820 but a player at risk.

00:35:34.180 There has to be some kind of Game of Thrones in your life.

00:35:36.460 If you don't, if you're not playing a Game of Thrones, you are the jester.

00:35:41.720 No, jester is sorry.

00:35:42.900 They're way too smart and intelligent.

00:35:44.640 They were like typically the most intelligent people in the entire court, weren't they?

00:35:48.380 It's bad.

00:35:49.080 Bad example.

00:35:49.840 Undo.

00:35:51.060 Undo.

00:35:51.420 Well, do you have any final thoughts on this, Simone?

00:35:55.080 How else would you stave it off?

00:35:56.780 I mean, the top thing that I'm doing with our kids, for example, which I want to just

00:36:00.700 play in their lives.

00:36:02.260 And have lots of guests.

00:36:03.940 The problem is that I know people who run major radio stations and have brain rot.

00:36:07.900 So yeah, I don't think having guests on a podcast or in media at all protects you. 0.99

00:36:13.340 So that's dumb. 0.94

00:36:15.260 That's not going to work. 0.98

00:36:15.940 I think maybe constantly trying to go further than you should be going is a good idea.

00:36:23.160 I think if you have a very large family that can meaningfully isolate you or push you away 0.99

00:36:27.620 if you're being stupid, I think if we have tons of kids, that's going to protect us to 0.99

00:36:32.700 some extent. 1.00

00:36:33.160 Well, I'm wondering if we could design our either family trust or religious trust, the

00:36:40.040 thing that sort of governs wealth transfer role and everything, can be built in a way

00:36:45.140 that forces the sort of heavy competition and merit in a way that would force us to stay

00:36:52.080 sharp.

00:36:53.680 Like the moment we turn our backs, we get stabbed.

00:36:56.840 Yeah, no, I think that's important.

00:36:58.100 And yeah, I agree with that for, for kicking us off our own boards and stuff like that in

00:37:03.740 favor of our kids, if they are more competent or cunning or ruthless.

00:37:07.620 Yeah.

00:37:08.440 Yeah.

00:37:08.980 Cause also when I think about anyone I can think about who is brain rot, a very prominent

00:37:14.380 feature in their life is a lack of threats, a lack of imminent threats, but it doesn't

00:37:18.740 have to be real.

00:37:19.560 Like with your mother, it's not like she was ever in physical danger or in danger of losing,

00:37:24.100 you know, her, her security or safety or health.

00:37:27.940 It was always just these, these women will reject you and stop inviting you to their parties 1.00

00:37:32.700 and you won't get to be co-chair of this thing.

00:37:34.620 Well, I mean, one of the things we've talked about putting together is a discord of like

00:37:37.880 minded family, not like a discord, but like a group that meets, you know, every year once

00:37:41.220 our kids are old enough, you know, of other competent, high level professionals.

00:37:45.100 We already have, I mean, like when families reach out to us and they have kids similar to

00:37:48.840 our kids age, I put them on the index list, which is basically a list of people from very

00:37:55.020 different cultures, but who are willing to intermix and have their kids possibly date

00:37:59.920 once they become young adults.

00:38:01.180 And what we will do is the list is, is it will be, it will create an online environment

00:38:05.300 for all of our kids where they can engage with other peers who have been prevented for

00:38:10.440 cultural similarity, but who also come from like successful families.

00:38:15.380 And by cultural similarity, we mean commitment to hard culture.

00:38:18.100 We don't mean shared culture or values.

00:38:20.780 Yeah.

00:38:20.900 Yeah.

00:38:21.840 Basically being weird and anti-urban monoculture.

00:38:24.740 Yeah.

00:38:25.020 And through engaging with this community, the kids will be able to do things like when we

00:38:29.920 say date was in the community, well, instead of like dating on normal discord, they would

00:38:34.720 be able to go and stay with the family of one of the people that they met in this community.

00:38:40.040 Exactly.

00:38:40.420 If they like a girl or boy, or, you know, they come to our house and stay with us for a

00:38:45.260 while.

00:38:45.520 You know, the idea is that you have this sort of sending out as a process of dating, but

00:38:50.380 also in an environment that is to an extent controlled by one of the families.

00:38:54.600 So you don't have a lot of, you know, overly salacious behavior in polite behavior.

00:38:59.740 You know, they know part of the point is impressing the family with their manners and work ethic and,

00:39:05.340 you know, everything like that.

00:39:06.900 Right.

00:39:07.560 So it really frames the beginning of the relationship in a positive context.

00:39:11.400 But to maintain this network, you know, if we do this right, there's going to be a lot

00:39:15.840 of judgment going on.

00:39:17.420 So I suspect that will.

00:39:18.880 Yeah.

00:39:19.460 Well, I mean, it was something you always talked about with your, your mother going to family

00:39:23.860 gatherings where she'd be like, so-and-so is going to have our, you know, like there'd

00:39:27.340 be singing competitions or something.

00:39:28.880 And that, you know, the family was always judging each other, like whose children will be like

00:39:33.060 the most talented and well behaved.

00:39:34.920 Well, this was a really unique thing about my family growing up and my family culture,

00:39:38.200 which gave us a lot of cultural protection.

00:39:40.660 And it's something I want to emphasize with my kids is there was this belief that, you

00:39:45.400 know, it matters.

00:39:46.160 Like you need to be better than other people, but the people who you needed to be better

00:39:49.780 than were your family members.

00:39:51.440 I love, yes.

00:39:52.400 We talked about this once on a car drive, that the point of comparison should be the

00:39:56.740 insiders.

00:39:57.660 Yeah.

00:39:58.140 The people outside the family did not matter.

00:40:01.560 Like they, they were, they were there.

00:40:04.780 It was not relevant.

00:40:05.800 Like there was never, and this is actually really interesting and quite different from

00:40:08.480 some other cultures where it's like people was in the culture.

00:40:11.220 So it was in some like Jewish families, for example.

00:40:13.300 Right.

00:40:13.540 They'll be like, well, Sheila's kid got into ex-medical school.

00:40:18.100 Right.

00:40:18.440 Like, why aren't you in ex-medical school?

00:40:20.900 Right.

00:40:21.200 My family would never do something like that.

00:40:25.000 They, they saw.

00:40:25.460 It was not keeping up with the Joneses.

00:40:27.120 It was keeping up with the Collinses.

00:40:28.980 Well, yeah.

00:40:29.500 The wider family network.

00:40:31.160 It was okay.

00:40:31.780 Their kids are doing ex.

00:40:33.780 Why aren't you doing ex?

00:40:35.240 The cousins are doing ex.

00:40:36.520 Why aren't you doing ex?

00:40:37.640 The cousins did Y.

00:40:39.000 Why didn't you do Y?

00:40:41.220 And this can seem, or, or your, your siblings have done Y.

00:40:44.840 Right.

00:40:45.200 And for people who don't understand why this is so useful, it's useful for a few reasons.

00:40:49.900 One, it prevents standards from slipping.

00:40:53.300 Of my extended family, of which I remember I did the mass once.

00:40:57.760 It was something like, of like 18 cousins, aunts, uncles, everything like that.

00:41:02.940 Only two didn't go to Ivy League, Stanford, Oxford, or Cambridge for their, their college or graduate degree.

00:41:11.240 Like, like, it's like, okay, that's the norm.

00:41:14.060 That's the standard to what's expected of you.

00:41:16.700 Don't go lower than that.

00:41:17.880 And so when you're, you're, you're doing it by society, you know, it allows for, for things to slip.

00:41:21.880 If people around you are slipping.

00:41:23.760 Right.

00:41:24.340 You know, do you have, you know, of my family, I'd say like the middling success level is probably runs a company that's worth over a hundred million dollars.

00:41:36.940 Yeah.

00:41:37.240 Middling is top 0.1% probably not necessarily in terms of wealth, but I would just say broad success by our definition.

00:41:44.420 Like has several kids is generally happy is generally healthy is not in financial trouble and has a position professionally of non-trivial influence.

00:41:56.000 Yeah.

00:41:56.620 Yeah.

00:41:56.780 They all have positions of non-trivial influence.

00:41:58.760 And even with our podcast, I compare it.

00:42:01.120 Like I was, I was talking to my brother about our podcast recently.

00:42:05.020 And then he, he snapped back at me that one of my cousins likely had over a billion views on his stuff.

00:42:11.280 And I was boiling at that point.

00:42:15.360 I was like, no, but you're right.

00:42:17.980 I need to do better.

00:42:19.260 The, the one that he's, he's talking about does he's most famous now for like his impersonation stuff.

00:42:25.500 Make it up as we go along.

00:42:30.260 It's okay.

00:42:31.600 I know nothing's wrong.

00:42:33.920 Nothing.

00:42:35.420 Hi, yo.

00:42:37.340 I've got plenty of time.

00:42:40.660 But he actually started a company that does AI stuff and they have a, a movie coming out soon called, what is it?

00:42:47.640 Real or something like that, where they did the technology for it.

00:42:50.620 We're around Tom Hanks.

00:42:51.840 I'm going to put like a clip from it.

00:42:53.180 It changes the time.

00:42:54.940 So it's all filmed from like a single location, but like the time that things are happening is changing.

00:43:00.560 And, but it's all done with AI because obviously they need to have the actor age throughout it.

00:43:05.340 I couldn't meet Margaret.

00:43:07.000 Nice to meet you, Margaret.

00:43:08.600 Nice to meet you, Mr. Young.

00:43:09.920 I'm sure that was fine.

00:43:14.120 It's been the rest of my life here.

00:43:15.980 And so obviously now this is like mainstream.

00:43:24.260 We haven't even gotten our documentary deal yet.

00:43:26.620 And I feel, you know, pretty humbled by that.

00:43:29.980 But that's the thing.

00:43:30.700 Like I don't, if I'm comparing myself to anyone else, it's like classmates, right?

00:43:35.260 Like which I've, I've done before.

00:43:36.840 I'm like, okay, I have some sort of cultural relation to them because we went to Stanford

00:43:41.760 together or something like that.

00:43:42.640 And therefore I have to judge myself relative to how they're doing.

00:43:46.080 But the other big advantage of this is it prevents non-family cultural framings from

00:43:53.240 influencing my view of what a quote unquote good life looks like or what status should look

00:43:59.360 like.

00:43:59.640 So if somebody was like, well, look at what the Joneses are doing, look at what everyone

00:44:03.820 else is optimizing around.

00:44:05.500 I was raised in an environment where it wouldn't even think to me to consider that as something

00:44:12.920 like it would be like, I, yeah, I guess they're doing that, but what does that have to do with

00:44:16.100 me?

00:44:16.500 And I think this might be very similar to the way religious individuals grow up who grow

00:44:21.300 up like Orthodox Jewish or something like that.

00:44:23.660 If somebody was like, look at that person in a secular world, look at what they're doing

00:44:27.080 and the Orthodox, you know, the, the, the, the Hasidic Jew would be like, yeah, but why 0.52

00:44:32.340 would I, or like an Amish person, like imagine trying to explain to an Amish person that they 1.00

00:44:36.420 should be jealous of X person across the street.

00:44:39.420 Who's like doing Y and who's not Amish. 1.00

00:44:41.600 They'd be like, that's not the social environment I'm connected with.

00:44:46.160 Also, for those who doubt the stories about my family, I told a pretty wild one in a recent

00:44:50.620 episode about how, when we were kids, our family was called by the other families in the

00:44:55.140 neighborhood, the Adams family, due to things like my brother and I, at like the age of

00:45:00.760 five and four, climbing up like three stories on the side of the house, because my parents

00:45:06.200 just had zero regard for my safety.

00:45:08.920 And believe it or not, we actually found a video of this recently.

00:45:12.740 But it's also made me realize in terms of how I relate to you and our kids, how clannish my

00:45:42.560 family is, and that we come from, and you know, I've mentioned this, like the backwoods

00:45:47.680 culture, which was a very clan-like culture or combination of backwoods and Puritan culture,

00:45:52.240 but the backwoods culture was very clan-like.

00:45:54.700 The greater Appalachian region was very clan-like in how it interacted.

00:45:58.220 And I've realized that I was taught to, maybe in a slightly like sanitized, high class way,

00:46:05.780 to always consider the clan as the only thing that mattered.

00:46:08.800 And everything outside the clan was, it just, it wasn't even like not desirable, it was

00:46:14.220 just a desert, right?

00:46:15.900 Like, which was very interesting.

00:46:19.440 And I think that that's something that we should focus on recreating for our kids, which

00:46:22.420 fortunately can do, because one, we are broadly culturally aligned with our related family

00:46:27.860 members, and they all have tons of kids.

00:46:30.080 Yes, absolutely.

00:46:32.380 We're lucky for that.

00:46:33.980 Yeah, yeah.

00:46:34.560 But if you don't have that within your family, I think that's another reason why we're trying

00:46:38.660 to create the index, is that-

00:46:39.880 Before I go, I have somebody here who wants to give his thoughts on this.

00:46:45.020 Hey, Octavian, come here. 0.95

00:46:45.900 Sit here.

00:46:46.820 Oh! 0.60

00:46:47.620 Hi, Octavian.

00:46:49.180 Hi.

00:46:51.820 Octavian, what do you think Daddy does when you are not at home, when you're at school?

00:46:57.980 Dad, you just got a wife for me. 0.99

00:47:05.120 No theory of mind.

00:47:06.740 Confirmed.

00:47:08.060 So Daddy just sits-

00:47:08.960 Daddy, I just sit here waiting for you until you come back from school?

00:47:12.980 Do you think that's what I do?

00:47:16.040 What do you think that Mommy does when you're at school? 1.00

00:47:19.280 He does go inside and wait for me to come.

00:47:23.620 Yeah, that's the world to these people.

00:47:25.400 And what do you think your teacher is doing right now, Octavian?

00:47:29.320 What's your teacher doing?

00:47:33.600 My teacher's doing-

00:47:35.560 Hold on a second.

00:47:36.960 I gotta take the mail.

00:47:39.040 I gotta-

00:47:39.740 Okay.

00:47:40.760 I gotta get the mail out.

00:47:42.400 Active narrative.

00:47:43.440 Active narrative of what you're doing.

00:47:45.300 And no model of other people.

00:47:48.300 That's what it is.

00:47:49.820 It's a reversion to a childlike state.

00:47:53.840 Show them what you painted.

00:47:55.400 But I think the scary thing is that many people are never developing that theory of

00:47:59.820 mind at all.

00:48:00.720 Whoa, that's scary.

00:48:02.520 What on earth?

00:48:04.300 I'll tell you what it needs to do, okay?

00:48:08.700 Okay.

00:48:09.580 I'll tell you what you're gonna do with this.

00:48:12.040 Okay.

00:48:12.640 I'll sing a song and do it to the mask, okay?

00:48:17.480 Okay, you put the mask on and then you sing a song.

00:48:19.380 What's the song?

00:48:19.900 One was a monkey, dumping on the bed.

00:48:24.320 One fell off and bumped his head.

00:48:27.960 Mama called the doctor and the doctor said, no more monkeys, dumping on the bed. 0.83

00:48:35.320 That is not a monkey.

00:48:37.560 That is a demonic.

00:48:39.740 Wait, when the monkey fell and bumped his head, what happened?

00:48:42.560 Do you think he got hurt?

00:48:44.040 Yeah.

00:48:44.740 Do you think he died?

00:48:48.640 No.

00:48:50.640 The mama, the mama, the mama, the monkey that's called the doctor. 0.99

00:48:57.580 Oh, because the mama monkey called the doctor. 1.00

00:49:00.020 Okay, well, that's good.

00:49:01.460 The monkey doctor.

00:49:05.020 The monkey doctor.

00:49:06.580 Are we all gonna have a cold soon?

00:49:08.100 That's what I'm hearing here.

00:49:09.560 I think so.

00:49:11.480 All right.

00:49:12.000 Love you some, mom.

00:49:12.900 Love you too.

00:49:13.600 You're gonna go get them?

00:49:14.400 I'm coming down.

00:49:15.020 Yeah.

00:49:15.460 What do you want for dinner?

00:49:16.100 I'm going to eat a monkey, dumping on the bed.

00:49:19.180 What do you want for dinner?

00:49:20.580 I'm not eating tonight.

00:49:21.700 I ate lunch.

00:49:24.060 Oh, you went out?

00:49:25.220 Yeah, when I was doing all the...

00:49:26.480 Thank you.

00:49:27.380 Thank you for making those deliveries.

00:49:29.040 All right.

00:49:29.280 I'll see you downstairs.

00:49:30.560 I made pizza also, and I made everything sweet.

00:49:35.220 Do you want a big pizza or a little pizza?

00:49:37.060 Big pizza.

00:49:38.180 Oh, no.

00:49:39.040 Okay.

00:49:39.680 I love you.

00:49:40.360 I forgot to tell you last night, I was changing Indy, and she had a little bit of spit up behind 1.00

00:49:45.780 her ears.

00:49:46.180 She needed a bath, and I looked over and noticed that just gorgeous silver bathtub where we were 0.52

00:49:53.220 staying, and I thought, you know, it would be so nice to meet her, you know, sat in this

00:50:01.460 gorgeous bathtub and just really relaxed for just a second, and I got in with her, and

00:50:10.120 I'm sitting, and I have her, you know, like sitting on my legs, and she's facing me like

00:50:14.820 this, and I'm just looking at her and smiling, and suddenly her face changes a little bit.

00:50:21.300 Oh, no.

00:50:22.980 Yeah, she... 1.00

00:50:23.980 There was poop everywhere.

00:50:24.960 I was suddenly sitting in a toilet bowl, surrounded by turds in my worst nightmare, being the germ

00:50:32.400 phobe that I am, just like, my one attempt, I mean, we had this chance, we were in this

00:50:37.660 luxurious place, this beautiful bathtub.

00:50:40.020 I'm like, oh, this will be such a nice moment, and I am sitting in my worst nightmare.

00:50:47.700 We should, for the audience, tell the story about the port-a-potty, so you should know 0.96

00:50:52.420 how much Simone is a germaphobe and, like, a dirty-a-phobe. 1.00

00:50:55.780 She won't touch door handles. 1.00

00:50:57.420 I have to open all the doors for her.

00:50:58.740 She won't, she doesn't really like, you know, handshaking with people.

00:51:02.840 She's incredibly germaphobic.

00:51:04.260 Okay, continue.

00:51:05.320 Yeah, touching doorknobs is really terrifying.

00:51:08.460 Yes, I, this was maybe a year before I met Malcolm.

00:51:12.420 I was 23 or 24 years old, and walking around San Francisco, as was my want, just to do for

00:51:18.760 fun, and I was up at Coit Tower, where, at the time, and I think they've taken it out,

00:51:24.220 San Francisco used to have these somewhat automated bathrooms with rounded corners,

00:51:27.760 and I really, really had to go to the bathroom, and I-

00:51:32.720 And normally, you never use public restrooms.

00:51:34.380 Oh, no, I will just go forever and just not go to the bathroom and be in immense discomfort.

00:51:40.280 It doesn't matter, but, like, this was one of those situations where it was like, it's

00:51:44.160 going to come out, so either it's coming out and I'm spending the next however many hours

00:51:48.420 walking around with soiled clothing, or I'm using this public toilet.

00:51:53.300 And I get in, and the door shuts, and it's completely dark inside. 0.97

00:51:59.040 And I'm like, oh, crap.

00:52:00.360 Like, I guess there's no, like, activated light, and I can't see anything because there's

00:52:04.400 no windows in this toilet.

00:52:05.720 And suddenly, water starts spraying everywhere, and I learned the hard way that this toilet

00:52:18.260 was in the middle of a cleaning cycle, and I had somehow run into it just as it was shutting

00:52:23.520 down for, I guess, a cleaning cycle, presumably because homeless people make it so gross in there

00:52:29.220 that, like, they just created toilets with automatic cleaning cycles.

00:52:34.740 And so here I am in pitch dark in a public toilet being sprayed down with water.

00:52:41.860 I stumble out of this in the light of day.

00:52:45.500 The Quaint Tower is this lighthouse-looking tower with really communist art at the bottom

00:52:50.260 of it on this scenic hill in San Francisco, so I come out surrounded by tourists who are

00:52:55.140 all just kind of staring at me, looking like I want to die.

00:52:59.220 Maybe that was the last time I've used a public toilet, actually.

00:53:04.080 I don't think that's ever happened since.

00:53:06.660 I just stopped drinking for a good 12 hours before I know I'm going to be outside for a

00:53:11.180 prolonged period of time.

00:53:12.880 And or wear adult diapers.

00:53:14.640 It's great.

00:53:17.520 Let's do it.

00:53:18.280 Let's do the episode.

00:53:18.900 Yeah.

Based Camp - September 20, 2024

How The Internet Prematurely Ages Our Brains

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