Based Camp - How They Hid The Economic Collapse of China (A 40% Collapse in Months)

00:00:00.000 Hello, Simone! I'm excited to be here with you today!

00:00:02.900 World-changing, civilization-changing information has dropped,

00:00:07.600 and no one is talking about it,

00:00:10.180 and so we need to talk about it for our fans here,

00:00:13.680 because at least they can be informed about it.

00:00:17.440 Guys, guys, guys, you think I am overstating things here,

00:00:20.760 so I'll just go through the data we're going to be looking at real quick,

00:00:24.780 and if you have an understanding of economics,

00:00:27.200 you're going to immediately be like happening so throughout the course of the war oil gas prices

00:00:35.740 didn't really go up that much the iran war the iran war and and now when when they had the brief

00:00:42.260 peace they were actually at a rate that around what they were at the beginning of the war i mean

00:00:46.900 we'll go over the prices but that's kind of crazy given that oil still not coming through the

00:00:51.500 straight of her moves. Now, what a lot of people are saying, because they want to dunk on Trump

00:00:57.500 without actually knowing globally, geopolitically what's going on, they go, oh, well, this is

00:01:04.380 because the US released their strategic reserves. The reality of the situation is that the US

00:01:09.440 releasing its strategic reserves really did not impact this situation that much at all.

00:01:14.740 What actually was the big impact on this situation was China reducing the oil that they are consuming.

00:01:23.840 In fact, 74% of the entire global decline in crude oil imports and trade came just from China consuming less.

00:01:34.160 all right the the amount less that china is consuming has been larger than and dramatically

00:01:42.760 larger than the impact of the u.s all of europe and japan releasing their strategic reserves

00:01:51.300 combined how sudden or gradual has this been because i know china's been investing heavily

00:01:57.220 in solar is that what's going on maybe and we're not at all no so their solar investments have

00:02:02.920 been major now around 50 of the cars sold in china are electric yeah which is pretty crazy

00:02:07.560 but that accounts for a around two percent reduction in the amount of oil they use every

00:02:13.860 year historically oh so i mean i man oh i thought that would be way more significant what's the

00:02:19.120 point of electric cars if that's all that they do that's that's where china is well i mean keep in

00:02:24.700 mind it's been happening for a while at this point but we're talking about something that

00:02:27.320 happened over the course of a few months now right so okay you are saying this is very sudden

00:02:31.900 It was like this, and they went like this.

00:02:35.540 Okay.

00:02:36.220 Now, what you could say is, well, this must be because China released or is using a lot of their strategic reserves as well.

00:02:44.140 But this would also be wrong.

00:02:47.000 Over the first few months of the war, actually, China continued to stockpile more into their strategic reserves.

00:02:54.820 Implying they didn't have demand.

00:02:57.280 Yes, which we're going to get to.

00:02:58.660 but then now they are using some of their strategic reserves but it's not like a huge

00:03:03.020 amount it doesn't account for a huge amount of this and on top of all of this china's seaborne

00:03:08.540 imports if you're like what does this mean for china how much less oil are they bringing in

00:03:13.380 have reduced by 40 percent and i will note here that the actual decline in demand appears to be

00:03:22.580 bigger than that specifically if we're looking at all of the oil both domestic and foreign oil

00:03:28.780 and we're looking at their refining capacity it has reduced to 66.3 almost a 40 reduction there

00:03:38.420 as well so we're just seeing significantly less oil being consumed or planned to be consumed in

00:03:46.020 the near future now if this is all confusing to you i've got to pull this up

00:03:52.660 you can show me a graph this is gonna help because i it's it's really hard for me to like

00:03:58.760 wrap my head around this so historically when we were looking at china like when economists were

00:04:07.920 looking at china because china always lies about its data or when it's not lying it doesn't release

00:04:12.820 it. Like in 2023, for the first time, they stopped releasing youth unemployment statistics and they

00:04:17.220 haven't released it since. And if China's not releasing something, it probably looks

00:04:20.640 catastrophically bad. And so the way that we historically attempted to judge how the Chinese

00:04:27.340 economy was doing was something called the Lai Kuandang Index. And what it looked at was

00:04:33.600 electricity consumption, rail and freight volumes, and bank loan gross. And this is something we also

00:04:40.420 do and we're trying to determine the economic state of places like north korea that are also

00:04:44.340 the fuzzy with the amount of data that they put out what this means for china

00:04:50.380 is for a long time everyone's like didn't china's like real estate industry completely collapse and

00:04:57.940 that was like 70 of personal savings in china and one of the biggest asset classes in china

00:05:03.460 why didn't their economy collapse this has been a big mystery for a lot of people

00:05:07.540 why doesn't it look like the chinese economy collapsed and i think the answer here that i'm

00:05:15.260 going to put is the key word in that is why doesn't it look like they collapsed so china 0.92

00:05:20.360 really hates looking bad they really hate looking weak all right yeah yeah they can't look like

00:05:26.940 they're losing ever and and they know that one of the core ways that the west judges

00:05:32.820 how their economy is doing is their oil consumption. So suppose their economy had

00:05:42.420 actually almost completely collapsed over the past few years. And as a result, the government

00:05:48.540 didn't want anyone to know what was one of the key things that they would have to do.

00:05:53.340 They would have to basically artificially stimulate oil consumption to make it look

00:06:00.320 like the rates remained constant sure now suppose all of a sudden china got a green flag to have

00:06:10.060 their oil rate consumption drop out of the blue an incredible amount and have people not say oh

00:06:17.380 your economy secretly collapsed oh they thought they could get away with this and they largely did

00:06:23.320 if it wasn't for you meddling they learned yeah if it wasn't for the meddling malcolm and simone

00:06:28.520 and how many people watch this podcast i get no credit for this one i had no idea i'm just watching

00:06:34.520 people you know break out in hives over the odyssey that's all that's all i can see online

00:06:38.620 meanwhile in china all the empty theaters for the odyssey i don't know i think it probably is doing

00:06:44.540 well ish and it's a big fancy imax film it's doing fine but let's get back to china because

00:06:50.140 what we should actually be talking about on the left is it the left i was like can you imagine

00:06:55.020 how hard this battle would be if our enemy was actually competent at things like if they made

00:06:59.400 good movies extra woke and now we had want one ever maybe and people are going to see it and now

00:07:07.400 people are going to take that as affirmation that they can be as woke as they want so let's hope for

00:07:11.920 a few more woke flops to teach the story again but anyway back to what's going on with china 0.89

00:07:16.540 because this is so much crazier so all of the potential well first let's look at the timeline 0.90

00:07:21.340 of prices here because it it actually blows out a few of the alternate theories which will also be

00:07:26.620 going over like are they doing war games are they doing is this to like put pressure on iran to get

00:07:32.900 oil cheaper are they which is really the way that this type of negotiation works but

00:07:37.980 let's go into this and and for anybody who's wondering like the big mystery of why the global

00:07:45.140 economy is doing so well right now, in large part, the global economy is doing well because

00:07:52.700 of this China collapse. Historically, when you've had oil crunches that happened due to wars in the

00:07:59.280 Middle East and stuff like that, because oil is largely an inelastic economic thing, right? That

00:08:04.080 means that the amount of demand is not variable based on the price. You still need to run an

00:08:09.480 entire country the price just goes up when the amount drops like the u.s would never even have

00:08:16.500 the capacity to say we just need 40 less oil now right like that that's a crazy thing just tell

00:08:23.120 everyone yeah just use oil 40 less going forwards even china doesn't have that kind of capacity the

00:08:29.420 the for me the only explanation is that the numbers of oil imports had been artificially

00:08:35.020 boost it because even the ccp without some form of like external like we all saw that they were 0.97

00:08:42.020 telling everyone to you know stop using their cars and stop doing this and stop doing that 0.95

00:08:46.980 yeah maybe then we'd be able to make out oh there's some big government campaign that's

00:08:51.400 getting everyone to consume oil a ton less or shutting down tons of factories or something

00:08:55.320 like that but we're not seeing that and because we're not seeing that the only thing that could

00:08:59.840 create this invisible drop out of nowhere demand in oil is an actual economic collapse and i'll

00:09:08.840 note here that oil is not the primary fuel driver in china the primary fuel driver is coal but it

00:09:14.720 would be way easier for china to be consuming less coal than they were telling everyone else

00:09:20.080 because coal in china is produced mostly domestically so they don't it's easier to hide

00:09:26.880 easier to obfuscate but with oil and that's also probably why they thought it was worse

00:09:30.960 doing this because they're like oh it's just our oil demand like we'll just fake this for

00:09:34.240 however long this economic crisis lasts so let's go over oil price so oil was at around 72 per barrel

00:09:44.680 right before the war okay the war starts it goes to 119 per barrel and at the time many analysts

00:09:52.400 where they thought like what normally happens to this they thought it could go to 150 to 200

00:09:56.060 but it only peaked at 126 and then it dropped sharply this was in like mid-june july so so

00:10:03.300 pretty quickly and after that it only sort of spiked again at 119 at one point and then as

00:10:09.980 the war owned down oh i didn't post 87 so yeah about what it was before the war started but the

00:10:16.540 war ran down and it hit about what it was beforehand this was okay you have 72 so this

00:10:22.440 was early july 2026 now this is really important because it then has shot up again since it started

00:10:31.160 uh you know conflict start striking the region but that it went back to pre-war levels the moment

00:10:37.540 the peace treaty was signed which is crazy because oil wasn't coming through the strait again right

00:10:43.680 like this is that sort of would seem like an artificially low price for oil during that period

00:10:49.600 unless you had grokked that china didn't plan to raise its oil consumption again and this gets

00:10:55.440 really interesting because when that happened china did not increase their consumption again

00:11:01.160 not only did they not increase their consumption again or raise intake capacity again they also

00:11:08.520 didn't pull up my notes here

00:11:10.560 they they also didn't increase the amount that they were producing or anything like it it's

00:11:20.020 honestly very strange behavior so let's go over the alternate explanations for this other than

00:11:24.800 china's economy secretly collapsed over the past few years and they've been pretending that it

00:11:29.620 hasn't first is this is a buyer strike or price negotiation where china stopped buying to force 0.77

00:11:36.200 sellers to lower prices. A pure negotiating tactic would usually mean pausing imports while

00:11:40.980 still running refineries hard using existing stock. Instead, they are aggressively cutting

00:11:46.120 refineries. This looks like actual weak demand rather than a temporary bargaining ploy. And keep

00:11:51.360 in mind, China has giant stockpiles of oil. So they could absolutely just keep their refineries

00:11:57.580 running. This is not the behavior we'd expect if this was part of price negotiations. Also,

00:12:02.420 it'd be a really bad and stupid time for china to do that as well because one of the things that's 0.98

00:12:07.580 obviously going to be on the table for trump when he's doing negotiations with iran is going to be 0.94

00:12:12.600 to lift sanctions on oil for iran like that's almost some certainly something that iran's going

00:12:18.420 to walk out of the the conflict with in terms of like the things that they want versus the things

00:12:23.320 that we want versus the things we don't really care about right and if we're ending the thing

00:12:27.280 that we were punishing them you know we're going to end that so now china iran all of a sudden has 0.86

00:12:31.240 access to global markets and china is attempting to punish them iran's gonna be like oh well screw 0.82

00:12:37.200 you guys i have tons of other customers now and frankly you you can't punish me like that like

00:12:42.760 it just it won't work right yeah so it's it's it doesn't even make like strategic sense from

00:12:48.060 china's perspective next is commercial margin protection refinery cut runs to avoid losing

00:12:53.720 money when crude was expensive while domestic fuel prices were controlled slash low even after

00:13:00.660 crude prices fell significantly later in the period refining runs stayed depressed if it was

00:13:05.880 purely about margins runs should have recovered once crude became cheaper they didn't again this

00:13:11.860 is you know it's like oh well you know we want to run this at an economic price yeah but then why

00:13:16.620 didn't you start when it fell back when it went back to the same price it was before the war

00:13:20.220 next this is i i think people might think the most plausible of them which is a war gaming

00:13:26.880 Taiwan endurance drill. China's greatest threat is a blockade of the Strait of Malacca because

00:13:31.800 they get, you know, 80% of their oil from afar. They get a good chunk of their fertilizer from

00:13:38.080 afar as well. And they also import food. So they'd be quite F'd, but like everyone's like oil

00:13:43.300 energy is the most important of the things that would be cut off in a blockade of the Strait of

00:13:48.880 Malacca. So it might make sense to them be like, yeah, let's, let's try these plans that we had

00:13:53.720 set up for that the problem is is the pattern doesn't match a stockpile endurance test they

00:14:00.020 cut off refining runs quite hard rather than carefully rationing or maximizing stock life

00:14:05.320 behavior looked more like responding to weak demand than basically okay you're you're trying

00:14:11.420 to do like a war gaming thing you would do rationing you wouldn't do cutting the refining

00:14:18.240 capacity and you certainly wouldn't leave it cut at the end of the war when assuming you want to

00:14:25.480 attack taiwan in the near future you want to maximize your oil stores for such a contingency

00:14:31.220 especially if you've just been drawing them down a bit so so that can't yeah that's not or i guess

00:14:38.140 less likely i still see that as more likely than everything else i've heard so far yeah well i mean

00:14:44.020 um the the i the the other thing is china would tell us if that's what it was doing

00:14:50.560 what do you mean why oh because they want to make us worried and yeah the core purpose of running a

00:14:57.860 a war game around a shutdown of the strait of malacca is to show the united states or one of

00:15:03.960 the core purposes that it wouldn't help or matter because if you could do that then you could you

00:15:08.480 know demoralize us into not doing it or show that like us doing it would actually last for a really

00:15:13.800 long time or something. So I just can't think of a lot of other potential things. People also need

00:15:23.920 to consider how the position China was in after COVID. China globally had positioned itself as

00:15:32.760 like part of the world's factory, right? Like you make the cheap parts in China and then the next 0.99

00:15:39.680 bit of the bobbit gets made in this European country and the next last bit of the bobbit

00:15:43.100 gets made in the United States, right? And that was how everything was done. And then China just

00:15:46.880 shut down tons of factories and cities and ports, right, for years at a time. And that everything

00:15:54.580 that required Chinese tooling, the Chinese factory ecosystem was basically like, oh,

00:16:00.560 let's build contingencies to China. And then everyone new who might set up something in China

00:16:06.440 is like, of course, I'm not setting up critical components. And generally, everything is a

00:16:12.020 critical component because you need all the pieces at the end of the day in china especially because

00:16:16.000 china isn't that inexpensive anymore it's it's cheaper now to set up a factory from start to

00:16:21.320 finish in terms of like a production line in mexico than china and mexico has like way better

00:16:26.820 trade deals with the united states than china does right and it's way closer and way cheaper and

00:16:31.500 less you know ways you can get effed because it's not you know a country that's friendly to you

00:16:36.500 so china is in a very weak position they had the crash of their housing system which is which is

00:16:43.380 still ongoing where 70 of individual chinese investors like individuals keep their money

00:16:50.380 their wealth in housing stuff and this can be like 32 times your yearly salary in like some

00:16:56.440 cities and stuff like this is like just like your one house this is like super generational wealth

00:17:01.160 and at the same time as all this see our episode about the secret coup in china that you weren't

00:17:06.480 told about yeah that was wild yeah China's very good at keeping a crackdown on things

00:17:11.440 the the central for people who aren't familiar with what happened during that the central

00:17:16.560 governing body of the CCP ended up having there were four people left in it everyone else had

00:17:22.840 been disappeared and two of the four people basically Xi Jinping and the secret service guy

00:17:28.880 arrested the other two overnight one night now that's actually illegal by CCP rules you needed

00:17:35.360 a majority and they didn't have the majority to vote the arrest of the other people they just

00:17:40.320 basically took over what was left after having die in mysterious circumstances or otherwise removing

00:17:46.840 i think three or four other people who were previously on the council because it used to be

00:17:51.140 like a like a like a six or seven person council to run the country and there are rumors and i think

00:17:57.020 very substantiated rumors that the night before one of the other guys had tried to have she killed

00:18:02.160 the the there was a a skirmish and i think it was something like 42 people died like an actual

00:18:09.380 almost attempted civil war but it was shut down so you know she even if you don't like she you

00:18:14.480 can say well he probably felt forced to handle this situation and that's why people within the 0.69

00:18:18.280 ccp didn't make a big stink that they went against ccp law to arrest half of the other half of the

00:18:24.020 ruling council that was left they got rid of much more than that but what this means is power has

00:18:28.380 hugely consolidated around Xi. And Xi is a famously incompetent leader. He is no Deng Xiaoping. 0.92

00:18:36.460 Again, people are like, Malcolm, he did the Tiananmen Square massacre. How can you say he

00:18:40.960 was incompetent? Those students were causing a mess. You know, he had done a lot for the people

00:18:46.500 of China, really worked on their, made it a much more capitalist system. You know, capitalist

00:18:52.180 fascism like that's that's a system that i don't always hate if it's making the lives of literally

00:18:58.880 hundreds of millions of people dramatically better which did happen under his reforms

00:19:04.320 he on the other hand has done nothing meaningful to handle the birth rate situation which is by

00:19:08.780 far their biggest problem or their water problem see our video on that um which is their next

00:19:13.920 biggest problem or really handle the real estate crisis which could have been deflated significantly

00:19:19.200 earlier it's like it's china isn't even planning for the future anymore it's just she trying to

00:19:24.560 extract as much as possible now the reason i set all this up is imagine you're a rich person in 0.92

00:19:31.340 china and if you're a rich person in china you either basically are subservient to the ccp look 0.85

00:19:36.240 at look at the alibaba guy who they basically scared into hiding or you are working with the 1.00

00:19:42.440 ccp now she's been disappearing people left and right recently what are you thinking you're probably 0.99

00:19:48.240 like, I want to get my butt out of China, right? Now, we've been seeing that. If people are 0.59

00:19:53.120 wondering why Chinese investors keep inflating the housing markets in whatever city you happen 0.97

00:19:58.240 to live near, Vancouver or San Francisco or London or wherever, it's because that is an

00:20:04.540 enormous amount of capital flight out of China. Well, and this is after years of using various 0.83

00:20:11.100 money laundering services. I think, what is it called? Money flying? Flying money? They're very

00:20:16.400 sophisticated networks that often integrate with drug cartels and other networks to get money out

00:20:21.040 of china and of course sometimes people are using surrogacy and having kids in the united states to

00:20:26.600 be able to move money it's like yeah it the the amount of investment there are multiple very large 0.78

00:20:33.640 dark industries around getting people out of china right but the the important thing is from

00:20:40.140 perspective of the Chinese economy is this is pretty much everyone other than Xi Jinping that

00:20:47.560 has a ton of wealth and I will note when Xi did the coup and got rid of those two other guys

00:20:53.200 these two guys were long time like you know there are various party factions in China

00:20:57.120 these guys were in the Xi party faction they were like yeah well one was a big time a long

00:21:02.140 time military expert right who presumably the only people in the company who actually

00:21:07.840 had a military history because China hasn't been to war in frigging ages. But the point I'm making

00:21:13.160 here is it's like even being a Xi ally doesn't get you safe in China right now. So if I was a

00:21:19.520 Chinese person with a lot of money, I'd be doing everything I can to get my money out of that 1.00

00:21:23.440 country. And you know what's not happening in China is the price of individual things in China 1.00

00:21:28.800 is like the Chinese housing market is not high because of Western investors. Okay, let me put

00:21:33.660 it that way right worse than all of this you have what what is bid up in china because of western

00:21:39.580 investors and whenever you see somebody shilling oh like china is going to be a great economy to

00:21:43.540 invest in or anything like that it's always because they have some like huge amount of assets

00:21:47.120 in china like blackrock got like exclusive rights to do stuff with china and then they started

00:21:50.920 talking about how great it was and elon is allowed to do business in china with tesla which is very

00:21:56.100 unusual so he's always talking about oh chinese economy so good oh it's so robust so you know

00:22:01.600 big motivation to not tell you how bad things might actually be on the economic ground was in

00:22:07.820 China. But yeah, that's where I am on what's going on in China right now. I think we can't

00:22:14.060 know exactly how bad this is, how bad of an economic collapse we're actually seeing. But I

00:22:20.000 think that this is the most plausible answer to how China was able to create a 40% drop their

00:22:26.520 factories down to low 60% capacity, basically overnight. Well, one thing that has me wondering,

00:22:34.020 because I do consume one type of content from Chinese content creators specifically.

00:22:40.640 And I'm like, Oh, wait a second. Like, why is this the type of content? It's young women who live

00:22:48.120 out of their cars. Like they're, I guess, technically homeless, but their cars are really 1.00

00:22:54.860 cool and it's so they're so cute and they've like tricked them out and they have the little like

00:22:59.420 hot pot things and they cook their cute little meals and everything's pink and some of them have

00:23:04.300 like inflatable things that they like put out the back of their cars it's all i love my cute little

00:23:10.120 dystopian well i mean like i just started seeing the content randomly on instagram alongside

00:23:35.120 everything else that i consume like new england summers and cleaning content but i don't know

00:23:41.500 it's it's kind of weird i guess i never thought to question like why is the only chinese creator

00:23:48.100 content that i'm seeing homeless women living out of their cars but being really cute about it

00:23:56.440 so i wonder if i'm seeing parts of this without realizing it i mean if you've seen videos of like

00:24:03.560 chinese streets and like the way that their creator economy has has begun to develop it is so

00:24:09.760 dystopian really how so how so okay so one really crazy thing is is there's chinese dating apps 0.87

00:24:16.480 that are based on i think they also have streaming apps based on this based on how close you are to 0.56

00:24:23.000 a person you know it's it's to ensure that like you know you're getting the rich women and the

00:24:27.660 rich women are getting the rich men right like that's you know how the china is right but it's 0.80

00:24:32.320 created these like entire like streets or like under bridge things where you will just see 1.00

00:24:38.660 rows and rows of women with lighting equipment and like fake room setups behind them just just 1.00

00:24:47.120 lying on the street these roads on the street to make it look like they're like in a house 1.00

00:24:52.160 streaming like nearby one of the one of these wealthy neighborhoods 1.00

00:24:56.560 oh so then he's scrolling and he sees this girl like streaming and she's hot

00:25:03.840 and she's she lives in the neighborhood yeah so this is kind of sad and dystopian

00:25:10.400 this huge group of people were seen live streaming under a bridge in china

00:25:14.140 dude that's so clever good for them get your bag girl like all the way i love it i that is the kind

00:25:32.420 of woman worth marrying right you don't want to marry some entitled trust fund kid and i've met

00:25:39.640 in not entitled for actually very nice and friendly and well-meaning but like i've met 0.99

00:25:44.300 chinese trust fund kids i would not marry them they're not marriage material no they i think 0.98

00:25:50.580 they are i think what you haven't met is a super ambitious and hungry western women versus super

00:25:56.840 ambitious and hungry no so those are great but i at least the trust fund kids i've met from china

00:26:03.000 are not ambitious they're like literally flunking out of their universities yeah but what you miss 0.99

00:26:08.820 okay is super ambitious asian women especially chinese of all the asian necessities 1.00

00:26:14.600 oh they're ruthless they're amazing they're wife material no no they're ruthless in exploiting 0.98

00:26:19.720 you oh they're not like a a ruthless super ambitious western woman typically wants to 0.66

00:26:27.260 work with you to exploit society yeah for your collective family advantage a super ambitious

00:26:35.280 chinese woman typically wants to exploit you maximally look i believe i think that 1.00

00:26:43.480 we're one to train one's wife to not do that both through like a strong prenup but also to be like 1.00

00:26:50.660 look it's really hard to do simone because they don't see themselves they're not exploiting you 0.76

00:26:57.780 just for themselves they're usually exploiting you for the sake of their family and their

00:27:02.460 But understanding that, wouldn't it make sense or work to explain to them that their upside is much higher if the whole family's net worth is higher, which she can contribute to, rather than her just basically draining the husband as a resource until he's no longer functional and then ending up back where she started?

00:27:22.040 they don't really see it that way the more resources their family takes from your family

00:27:27.980 the more set up their family is once you go broke to give her a good life still like that's that's

00:27:34.840 not really the way they would think about it i don't know if the i because i have heard of like

00:27:38.920 the wife training influencers are like that the influencers are trained women to find a trophy

00:27:43.480 husband not trophy husband sorry rich husband and be a trophy wife i mean and they're ruthless but 0.79

00:27:50.060 comment here people who have known like super ambitious chinese women but from what i've seen

00:27:55.200 generally they're much they're much less like you plus me against the world it's me and my family 1.00

00:28:01.240 versus you i mean i don't know i i think that the right woman on the street streaming with hustle

00:28:09.040 would be a great wife as long as you are on the same page about aligned incentives and i think

00:28:15.240 there are ways to align incentives just kill her family it's easy malcolm i i the the the i disagree 0.89

00:28:22.560 it's not that there aren't ambitious women in china who would make it you plus me against the 1.00

00:28:26.700 world but these women are like running businesses and stuff like this and not going to rich 1.00

00:28:30.380 neighborhoods pretending to oh right they're like if they're that competent they could just start a 1.00

00:28:34.880 business presumably yeah they wouldn't be their first instinct wouldn't be to scam right and i'll

00:28:41.040 note here i was saying in a recent video and i've noticed i think like we have some fans that i can 0.75

00:28:45.800 only say are morally retarded and i really want to talk them so one of our fans was saying in 0.79

00:28:52.500 relation to what i said in the last episode and i just have to talk people through this so they 0.90

00:28:57.100 can understand not gonna be saying this with love why is it so immoral to um pay for only fans

00:29:06.220 because of the negative externalities that has on society but it's not immoral to exploit social

00:29:12.540 systems to benefit your family and children and it's like how this is like saying how is it less

00:29:20.160 immoral for a woman to steal to feed her children than it is to rape someone both have negative

00:29:29.180 externalities and it's like yeah both have some negative externalities but they can also have 0.88

00:29:34.160 positive externalities that are greater than their negative externalities right like especially if

00:29:38.540 you and your family and your culture wants a better future and has a more realistic plan for

00:29:45.140 a better future than the aggregate person who otherwise might be draining those systems and

00:29:51.200 especially if you have no way to prevent them from draining then you're typically doing a net good

00:29:55.760 by decreasing the time in which those systems can stay stable so that people have to set up something

00:30:01.720 that can work in the long run instead of allowing other players to victimize your family like

00:30:07.840 there's a lot of ways that's actually potentially morally neutral morally good it depends on how

00:30:11.980 you're like genuinely your own productivity reach everything like that right like what whether you

00:30:17.720 have a family whether you know all of that stuff right the that you could ever not understand like

00:30:23.280 it's about what's net good for society in the long run that no positive comes to anyone

00:30:30.400 except your personal hedonism from you paying into holy fans that is that is literally like

00:30:38.300 rape right because it's it's one of these things that you're doing to sexually satisfy yourself

00:30:42.980 and does nothing but hurt other people in society literally no no benefit at all and i think a lot

00:30:50.840 of people really struggle who didn't grow up within a consequentialist culture with consequentialist

00:30:57.100 logic like i almost feel like somebody who can't see like why is it worse to steal food and then

00:31:03.540 gamble with the money than to steal food and give it to your children why is why is i just i can't

00:31:10.880 wrap my head around how one's worse than the other they're both stealing you know it's like

00:31:16.120 but yeah that's sorry just like it's like where i got so frustrated with i was like

00:31:21.060 how because i get these sorts of comments all the time and i'm like how can you not

00:31:24.420 like at the end of the day if you're playing by a rule set that's allowing you to be exploited by 0.69

00:31:31.540 other bad actors and this is true with china on like the global stage in the way that you know

00:31:35.860 some also i'd be interested to see if chinese people of my assessment of chinese women if they

00:31:40.800 would agree with it i know here i'm talking in aggregate obviously not every chinese woman or

00:31:45.160 something like that but the the type of chinese women who would go to a wealthy neighborhood and 1.00

00:31:49.340 try to get a boyfriend are they are they more ruthless than western gold diggers and when i 1.00

00:31:57.620 say western i'm thinking like american they might be at the same level as like latin american women 0.66

00:32:02.240 gold diggers they're pretty bad too well malcolm would you honestly expect a different result from 0.99

00:32:07.520 an american woman who's live streaming next to i mean we don't really have similar proximity based 0.99

00:32:12.140 social networks that are super popular but i mean you would expect the same result of an

00:32:17.340 american women who did that too i don't think you'd see that in america you got that level of

00:32:22.680 thirstiness i well i think the problem is is that your average american woman who would fall into

00:32:29.100 that category sees herself as above playing a game like that although you're the one who noted

00:32:35.300 the american women in manhattan going and stealing the stop and fresh salad yeah because they thought 1.00

00:32:43.120 if they stole healthy salads was men's names on them well especially double protein because that 0.99

00:32:47.560 means they must be hitting the gym but they're finance bros because they're only stealing these 0.79

00:32:51.400 from the sweet greens and fideye of course that was inspired by a joke but women actually started

00:32:56.600 doing it and women hitting on yeah it is and women hitting on guys and bars in in the financial

00:33:02.300 district i look i admire anyone who knows what they want and goes out there to get it all right

00:33:10.880 that's that is better than i would prefer that for a partner than someone who i just meet by

00:33:18.500 having chance at a party like someone sets us up those are low agency people i am not introducing

00:33:24.300 low agency people into my family's lineage okay at least you're right yeah but i guess what i'm

00:33:32.000 saying is every like economic indicator that i am aware of has said china should be doing a lot

00:33:38.420 worse than it appears to be doing and this could be sort of the gasket on that where china was able

00:33:45.020 to slip in a 50 to 40 reduction in energy use and keep in mind if you're like well no that's

00:33:51.060 only imported energy their refineries aren't only the the the low 60 capacity number is not only

00:33:58.380 imported energy that's total refinery capacity right like and it's also weird to me that china

00:34:04.480 hasn't like come up with some other explanation for the world as well like ah here's what we're

00:34:10.200 if it was something else i would expect an explanation yeah no this is extremely suspect

00:34:18.660 extremely although here's here's my problem with china i've you know that so many collapses have

00:34:27.840 been predicted you know always like oh they're months from collapse you know the real estate 0.98

00:34:31.700 market again and yet they always find a way to prop it up like in the way to make it look like

00:34:37.120 it didn't happen but that's not the truth to china like the the story that i always love to

00:34:42.220 tell because it's one of my favorites it's during the olympics they had you you would walk by streets

00:34:47.620 and they made it look like all of their stoplights were powered by wind power right because they put

00:34:53.000 these little wind turbines on top of them but it turns out that the wind turbines to spin were

00:34:57.820 actually drawing from the electrical grid to make it look like everything was wind powered right

00:35:03.760 using extra coal coal powered performing wind turbines that is that is the chinese economy it

00:35:11.040 is faked on the surface oh lord okay i will say i have seen major improvement in chinese ai models

00:35:19.920 my favorite not safe for work video model on rfab is cgen which is a chinese model

00:35:26.360 Is it C-Dance? 0.96

00:35:27.880 Sorry, it's C-Dance.

00:35:31.240 Right?

00:35:31.840 C-Dance?

00:35:33.900 No, maybe it is C-Dance.

00:35:35.120 I don't know.

00:35:35.620 I really like it.

00:35:36.760 It's really very good.

00:35:39.280 It sounds like the model, I mean, among the not-safe-for-work model, China just does a lot of the, they do some of the best not-safe-for-work image generation stuff. 0.86

00:35:46.140 They do like Juan and stuff like that.

00:35:47.820 So they've been really good with not-safe-for-work AI, which is-

00:35:52.300 I wonder, too, if that's probably because they're largely banning it within their own borders and then selling it abroad.

00:35:58.300 So I think, for example, yeah, well, they banned AI companions of any sort in China as of July 15th.

00:36:06.420 However, I imagine that they might have some form of porn ban as well.

00:36:12.040 And a problem that any American-based company is going to have with investors is they're going to be like, I don't want you developing this.

00:36:17.720 This is horrible. 0.52

00:36:18.680 whereas in china they'd be like oh you're going to produce titty tainment for our like 0.87

00:36:23.160 antagonists abroad and this won't affect our people at all okay you are doing god's work 0.71

00:36:28.160 go ahead you know well let's see it's not safe for work ai banned in china yes it is banned 0.91

00:36:33.880 see look at that that's look at that c dance they make it for america not safe for work 0.97

00:36:39.400 titty tainment that's what it is titty tainment your titties got to be tanned 0.87

00:36:44.880 rfab.ai people we got these models cheaper than anyone else yeah china's best so good they don't

00:36:50.700 even allow it in china the the mini version of c dance produces almost as good as anyone else

00:36:55.600 in fact even just porn is illegal malcolm in china just can't yeah production distribution

00:37:02.000 sale dissemination dissemination and other under recent rules private sharing of

00:37:08.100 coronagraphic or obscene materials are illegal so they're like well they're not going to be

00:37:16.680 resistant to this stuff and that's one of the things that ends up hurting them

00:37:19.320 if you just ban everything then you don't build up a resistance to it as a culture

00:37:24.200 even biologically and you get cooked over time which is you know you know where else

00:37:29.800 you know where else porn was banned

00:37:31.620 japan korea oh japan yeah nowhere in the world japan better at pornography or more prolific in 0.64

00:37:42.900 pornography than japan yeah you ban it you get a population that gets oversensitized and cooked

00:37:49.640 or you know true true creation like actually maybe there's a thing you know it's like the

00:37:55.300 best the best corn corn coming out of japan could lead to you know because it was banned maybe this

00:38:03.100 this is why we have such good nsfw video actually america like disproportionately doesn't produce

00:38:09.120 that much porn like in terms of its share of like the total not safe for work global ecosystem to be

00:38:15.540 absolutely clear the vast majority of porn in the world was produced in san fernando valley in

00:38:19.580 california between 1970 and 2000 this is a very modern phenomenon that the u.s is not the dominant

00:38:26.320 player russia is an outsized player china is an outsized player sorry china japan is an outsized

00:38:31.620 player korea is an outsized player hey korea again where porn is like just broadly the united

00:38:37.960 states christian culture being super not cool with it it's a cultural issue i i think it's maybe

00:38:46.180 maybe also like outlawed sex work could be an issue too i think it's outside it's downstream

00:38:51.540 of two things one for real humans it's downstream of the arbitrage earning potential of the industry

00:38:58.940 because you know if you're making that kind of material it's for global distribution generally

00:39:03.880 speaking and so what matters is how much will people pay for it versus how much does it cost

00:39:09.180 to make it which means it's going to be disproportionately valuable to spend your time

00:39:12.500 on that if you are i mean obviously gated by ethnicity but let's say like a you know you're

00:39:18.160 making it for the u.s market you're doing that in russia or the ukraine or in eastern europe

00:39:21.780 is going to be a better place economically to do that and then for drawn stuff japan and korea

00:39:28.140 just have more of a history of drawing not safe for work stuff in in the styles people prefer

00:39:34.020 and then outside of them because of latin america's dear episode on why are latin americans

00:39:38.460 such weebs because they are just a bunch of weeby nerds way more anime is consumed in

00:39:43.220 latin america than like anywhere else actually anywhere else in the world but see our episode

00:39:46.920 if you want to get the exact number breakdown on that but they got very used to the japanese

00:39:51.340 animation styles and so they began to produce a lot as well but yeah i think it's a lack

00:39:56.380 of good artists for that sort of stuff is is really the the the answer just not as many

00:40:01.280 people trained on the styles that people prefer and then uh cost to time benefit for real humans

00:40:08.460 well and i think the quote-unquote training is downstream of culture

00:40:13.960 as well it didn't used to be this way the u.s used to dominate i think when when the

00:40:19.100 the industry was like vhs's and stuff like that did we i think so oh yeah yeah yeah i could see

00:40:26.860 that i could see that never mind okay cool well anyway we just can't keep our minds off one little

00:40:32.460 thing that's okay though yeah well i mean this is this is one of those things when i talk about the

00:40:39.340 the debilitation thing i mean i think we see this even with an american culture the communities

00:40:43.580 that completely ban it are the communities where people seem to get the most cooked by it you know

00:40:48.680 when like a mormon's my life was completely destroyed by this i'm like well yeah i mean 0.82

00:40:53.080 like think about what have destroyed your life the most rapey cultures are not the cultures that 0.97

00:40:58.400 have the most she asked for it dressed women the the cultures where we have women dressing most

00:41:05.840 like what are you talking about what are you talking great that that happens the most in 0.78

00:41:12.080 cultures where people cover up the most oh yes yeah yeah yeah like this whole thing of like oh

00:41:16.360 we're just going to protect people from it by making it impossible to access or see well that

00:41:20.980 doesn't have a good track record of rape and in mormon culture you know you say oh no porn and 0.67

00:41:26.240 then you get like debilitating porn addictions where like they can't hold down a job because 0.92

00:41:30.720 they they like porn exists yeah which fascinating yeah yeah it causes like hugely negative

00:41:36.560 externalities well this is why again don't shelter annotate annotate annotate annotate

00:41:41.380 it's all about annotation sheltering does not work not in our world not in our world well

00:41:46.500 not in the world of the internet that exists right now yeah anyway very interesting global

00:41:52.640 phenomenon we're seeing here. Very interesting asides as well. China just making every wrong

00:41:57.540 decision it can. So hooray for us. What this does mean potentially is, okay, now that they're 1.00

00:42:04.620 drawing down their strategic reserves, they might be less likely to attack Taiwan or that they were

00:42:10.280 able to make it through a blockade without huge negative effects. And now they see other good

00:42:14.960 things they can do during an attack, like further reduce the refining capacity if this isn't a full 0.88

00:42:19.640 reduction to match the real economic demand, create another reason to attack Taiwan. So I 0.85

00:42:25.780 don't know if this pushes it away or it moves it closer, but it does change variables.

00:42:32.140 Agreed. That's fascinating.

00:42:35.400 All right. Love you.

00:42:36.820 I love you too.

00:42:37.760 What are we doing for dinner tonight?

00:42:39.540 Well, I still have all that mozzarella that we should probably go through.

00:42:42.220 Yeah, let's do something with that.

00:42:43.620 But I think you wanted to make quesadillas, so I can also just do that.

00:42:46.740 because i don't know what i'll do with the mozzarella i don't think i have any bulldog

00:42:50.920 left so why don't i just make you a quesadilla unless you want here's what we can do tomorrow

00:42:57.160 okay okay i would look up fun recipes was what we do have that involves mozzarella

00:43:01.860 okay well maybe even invent a recipe because i like mozzarella on just about anything it's true

00:43:07.000 oh mozzarella on french fries

00:43:11.160 you know it tastes really good melted mozzarella on top of french fries with that chicken dish

00:43:25.300 that's like crumbly that we make oh burmese men chicken yeah oh it's like a topping on top of it

00:43:32.500 like at the very end yeah like a topping on top of like melted mozzarella sweet potato or korean

00:43:40.640 i do korean for the bigger crunch okay we'll do i i mean tonight we i'm not as hungry so

00:43:51.020 actually i love quesadillas yeah okay we'll just do a quesadilla tonight and tomorrow we'll try

00:43:55.280 out the whole because yeah that'll that's a meal meal you're we're gonna need to get you tired out

00:44:00.220 all right love you i love you too what are you looking for my cup just drinking out of bathroom 1.00

00:44:08.120 you know me so well and what wives are famous for knowing like where things have been left where the

00:44:13.860 husband loses stuff but i think it has to do with different mental processing i think like the the

00:44:19.520 things that the brain is more attuned to like i remember listening to this thing about differences

00:44:25.160 between men and women in terms of performance and that women are way more attuned to repetitive

00:44:32.520 background noises for example whereas men tune it out so like a kid who's like mommy mommy mommy

00:44:39.500 mommy that will register with the mother and the dad will just be like oh whatever there's a reason

00:44:46.420 why i've never heard like in a cartoon a kid being like daddy daddy daddy because they just get

00:44:52.660 smacked yes this is true this is true and ignored the requests are not all right

00:45:07.780 i'll get started here

00:45:08.740 what is in here titan it's a fish yeah yeah okay it's i think it's a fish i don't think

00:45:28.020 that's a crawfish that looks like a tiny little

00:45:29.940 it's a big fish have you been eating dirt what's going on with your face

00:45:38.740 That's a little tiny.

00:45:40.140 A little tiny, yeah?

00:45:41.420 What do you think?

00:45:41.980 A little big and a little tiny.

00:45:44.120 For sure.

00:45:46.060 Yeah?

00:45:46.540 Okay, well, are you going to tell me what the fish's name is?

00:45:48.960 The fish's name is Joey because I caught him like a girl.

00:45:54.520 Okay. 1.00

00:45:56.140 Very good.

00:45:57.300 That seems appropriate.

00:45:58.480 I'm going to take him for a little. 0.66

00:46:00.940 You're going to take him for a walk and then return him to his homeland? 0.89

00:46:03.360 Yeah, exactly.

00:46:04.400 I'm going to take him for a walk.

00:46:05.600 Yeah.

00:46:06.160 Okay.

00:46:06.440 Okay. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's, okay, you're just tickling him, you weren't going to, okay.

00:46:16.400 You caught another one, I think? Yeah. And her name is Gurley, because she caught her like a girl, apparently.

00:46:23.100 Yes. 0.53

00:46:24.280 Is it little? Is it little? Is it little? I think it's a, oh, we're recatching it.

00:46:32.020 Horson, remember, that's the sharing bucket. Ah, the sharing bucket.

00:46:35.300 and look now you have a fish in there toasty so it's good yeah

00:46:39.640 the last one you did what are you retiring from your fishing career

00:46:45.900 she's retiring from her fishing career okay bye

00:46:53.180 okay

Based Camp - July 24, 2026

How They Hid The Economic Collapse of China (A 40% Collapse in Months)

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