Based Camp - How Wokes Stole Pod People from Conformist Religions： Mormon Case Study

00:00:00.000 we are going to be exploring the pod person reaction. This is the emotional response of

00:00:04.100 unease combined with an uncanny valley feeling that some people experience when they encounter

00:00:09.420 individuals who exhibit a specific set of behavioral patterns. This reaction has been

00:00:13.300 used to build an entire subgenre of horror. I don't remember him being that friendly. He's

00:00:18.320 obviously one of them. We are going to explore why people who elicit this reaction have historically

00:00:25.020 been drawn to specific religious communities with a focus on Mormonism. Hello ma'am. My goodness you

00:00:31.480 have such an attractive little garden here. It is so much better. There's no fear or pain. It's

00:00:38.560 beautiful. We want you. And why most of the individuals within those religious communities

00:00:44.580 who elicited this reaction have left over the past decade or so and become extremely woke.

00:00:55.020 Hello Simone. I am so excited to be here with you today. I am genuinely so excited for this

00:01:10.160 episode because I have had a realization that has changed so many things about how I see fertility

00:01:17.680 collapse, about how I see the U.S. culture wars, about how I see shifting political alliances in

00:01:24.220 this country and about how I see cultures can protect themselves from fertility collapse.

00:01:29.580 And it came from a very unexpected place and it is a topic we have been building up to for these

00:01:35.700 past two days on this lecture. And the unexpected place is pod people. What? As in that trope of

00:01:45.120 sci-fi scary creatures that make you conform? Yes. We will get into the trope more in just a second.

00:01:54.220 But what actually had me realize it was this moment where I was talking with one of our Mormon fans and

00:02:00.700 he was asking a question about a part of history that Mormons, some Mormons are aware of, but most

00:02:06.320 Americans wouldn't be aware of because generally if it didn't take place on the coast or within Black or

00:02:12.220 Native American culture, nobody recorded it happening. And he's like, why did the Backwoods people, 0.67

00:02:18.300 my cultural ancestors, usually end up killing Mormons whenever they tried to migrate to their territory?

00:02:24.620 It's a good question because Mormons didn't have a fun time. 1.00

00:02:28.060 And to me, it just seems so blindingly obvious, just so outlandishly and loudly obvious.

00:02:36.980 We came back and he's like, what do you mean the pod person instinct? And I was like, you know,

00:02:43.840 that thing that makes you think like certain groups look kind of creepy and culty when they

00:02:48.720 approach you. And I realized he and maybe many other Mormons don't have the pod person instinct.

00:02:58.560 And of course they wouldn't. Like, why did I assume they would? Like, you wouldn't give off

00:03:05.220 that vibe if you were aware that this was a vibe that you could give off.

00:03:09.660 I don't, I don't even know if I'm aware of it. Maybe this is like gaydar where some people have it and

00:03:15.160 others don't. Do you, when, do you get this feeling when you go to Japan, they have a very

00:03:20.860 conformist culture, but it's too different from mine. Okay. So it has to be close to your own

00:03:27.480 culture, but it has to be uniform in a way. So I'll give you examples of people who trigger

00:03:34.880 pod person instinct in me. Okay. Okay. Great examples would be Mitt Romney, big pod person

00:03:40.420 energy. Most Scientologists I've interacted with, big pod person energy. One who's not in any of

00:03:45.920 these groups who get big pod person energy is Chris Williamson, a very big pod person energy.

00:03:50.860 Catholic preachers is another group that triggers this instinct. Not all Catholic preachers,

00:03:55.140 but some Catholic preachers, like the good boy Catholic preachers, they trigger it really hard.

00:03:59.940 And I should note that this instinct isn't unique to me. There's like a whole genre of horror

00:04:04.780 around this instinct. There totally is. I will post on screen here, a scare tactics episode that I

00:04:11.940 think does a very good job eliciting it. So before you see this, for people who aren't familiar with

00:04:15.880 the premise of scare tactics, they take like a real person and then they built a sci-fi

00:04:20.320 or horror set around that person to try to freak them out. And they are specifically trying to

00:04:26.220 elicit this person's pod person instinct. Hello, hello. Welcome to the neighborhood.

00:04:31.260 Hello, we're the official welcoming committee. We brought you a little bit of pie.

00:04:35.480 Hi, man. I heard there's warm pie.

00:04:39.260 Oh my goodness. Good to see you again.

00:04:40.960 Can we run back there and take a look?

00:04:43.860 Can we have a quick tour?

00:04:44.520 Right ahead. And remember, the individual must suffer for what?

00:04:49.360 Not to be done.

00:04:50.380 Sacrifice to the individual is good for the community. 0.87

00:04:55.040 Let's take that. We like to say that once you've tried our pie, life becomes a piece

00:05:01.900 of cake.

00:05:02.520 Really?

00:05:03.200 Good.

00:05:03.660 Let's go.

00:05:04.540 Let's go.

00:05:06.140 Yeah.

00:05:07.060 So what happened?

00:05:08.100 Good news. Someone enjoyed some pie.

00:05:10.440 That is delightful. I'm very happy.

00:05:12.980 You have to try the pie.

00:05:14.940 Oh, please. Try the pie.

00:05:16.240 You know, I just had a lot.

00:05:18.620 I really think you should have more pie.

00:05:20.220 Have more pie.

00:05:20.460 Try some pie.

00:05:21.940 Try the pie.

00:05:24.060 Try the pie.

00:05:25.560 Try the pie.

00:05:26.220 Try the pie.

00:05:27.060 I'm not.

00:05:27.300 You can be on scare tactics.

00:05:29.420 Oh my God. 0.99

00:05:30.840 Holy f***. 0.99

00:05:31.780 Oh my God. 0.99

00:05:33.080 But, you know, if you're talking about the horror genre around it, it's the near human,

00:05:38.760 sometimes more perfect than human.

00:05:40.320 So you've got the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the Stetford Wives, Us, They Live.

00:05:46.780 All of these would be very odd person shows.

00:05:50.160 The Faculty is also a pretty good example of one of these.

00:05:52.940 Well, and isn't it even parodied in Rick and Morty with Unity?

00:05:57.160 Yes, it's parodied with Unity in Rick and Morty.

00:06:00.200 Good example here.

00:06:01.640 And the sort of thing that typically delineates a pod person entity in horror is once you join

00:06:09.240 it, most of your conflicts go away, you become much more calm, you become much more polite,

00:06:15.960 you become much better to interact with, but you also become much more conformist.

00:06:20.680 I don't remember him being that friendly.

00:06:22.840 He is obviously one of them.

00:06:25.420 How can he be?

00:06:26.060 He remembered me.

00:06:26.880 Or maybe they have selective memories.

00:06:28.480 Yeah, like, what's his name?

00:06:29.880 Me.

00:06:30.320 Maybe it's one of the others, like the Reverend.

00:06:32.140 So to address the claim earlier of why Mormons would have faced disproportionate violence

00:06:37.000 when proselytizing to these backwood areas that may have had a much stronger instance

00:06:43.600 of this pod person instinct, I will play two clips which will contrast the way Mormons thought 0.93

00:06:50.100 they were coming off to these people to the way they were actually coming off to these

00:06:53.900 people.

00:06:54.200 Hello, ma'am.

00:06:59.540 My goodness, you have such an attractive little garden here.

00:07:02.380 Oh, thank you, young man.

00:07:03.760 I just planted those flowers last week.

00:07:05.900 My, how they grow.

00:07:07.120 Yes, ma'am.

00:07:08.120 We're from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

00:07:11.160 Oh, the Mormons. 1.00

00:07:12.200 That's right.

00:07:13.140 I'm Elder Young, and this is Elder White.

00:07:15.920 Stand, take the drug, man.

00:07:17.300 Prove it to us.

00:07:18.020 Okay.

00:07:21.800 Open the door.

00:07:24.200 It is so much better.

00:07:26.560 There's no fear or pain.

00:07:29.260 It's beautiful, and you will be beautiful.

00:07:33.440 No problems or worries.

00:07:36.380 We want you.

00:07:39.560 No pain, Stan? 1.00

00:07:41.920 We're in here, and I'll show you some fucking pain! 1.00

00:07:44.940 Well, you two boys can just fuck right off. 1.00

00:07:49.260 Ma'am? 1.00

00:07:49.680 You heard me. 1.00

00:07:50.780 Take that Book of Mormon and shove it so far up your righteous asses, then choke. 1.00

00:07:56.060 You soul-soliciting pig fuckers. 1.00

00:07:58.140 This instinctual reaction is why the Mormon cultural group, and you can see it very clearly on this population map, never crossed either into the greater Appalachian cultural region or the Midlands cultural region, which probably have a similar instinctual reaction. 0.99

00:08:16.000 And you can see it, like, night and day on this map.

00:08:20.220 It's like there was a wall that prevented Mormon culture from moving in that direction.

00:08:24.180 And here I would note something if you're coming into this episode without seeing the last one.

00:08:27.520 There was a weird phenomenon over the past, I'd say, maybe eight years or so, where almost all of the Mormons who coded as pod person left the church and became woke.

00:08:39.040 So I haven't met a Mormon personally who coded pod person in maybe eight years.

00:08:44.940 But this doesn't change that historically Mormons were the group that most commonly coded pod person.

00:08:50.120 Note, within Mormon culture, the words that are used for somebody who triggers the pod person instinct are Zuby, Peter Priesthood, or Molly Mormon.

00:09:01.340 If you happen to be a Mormon and you're like, which Mormons are triggering this instinct? 0.90

00:09:04.760 The ones that Mormons use those words for derogatorily, those are the ones that are triggering the instinct.

00:09:10.300 I heard there's warm pie.

00:09:13.100 It turns out that ultra-wokeism was just a much stronger lure for people with this pod person mental framework than, well, really any religion.

00:09:25.520 And I think Mormonism is probably better off for it. 1.00

00:09:28.320 And so if the Mormons are like, why would we be triggering whatever, like, unity from Rick and Morty is supposed to be parroting, parroting, like, in other people, like, whatever the deep, like, shiver up the spine that this is meant to trigger as, like, a horror trope, I think as soon as you see that these are the signs that are most associated with the truth, you're like, oh, yeah, that's why we're triggering it. 0.85

00:09:51.420 Then I found this world where I was better able to focus on my passion for unification.

00:09:56.140 You mean stealing people's bodies?

00:09:57.720 Summer, rude.

00:09:59.480 This world will be invited into the Galactic Federation.

00:10:02.400 From there, I'll have access to countless planets and species.

00:10:05.760 One by one, I will unify them, and I will be what the single-minded once called a god.

00:10:10.440 Oh, that's pretty sexy.

00:10:11.540 Where can we get a drink around here?

00:10:13.100 Recreational substances were phased out here.

00:10:15.540 There's no need for escape from the self when your world is one.

00:10:18.580 Unity, unity, who am I talking to?

00:10:20.800 I'd also note here something you saw in both of these clips that is really common in pod person tropes.

00:10:26.020 Is that pod people neither drink alcohol nor do drugs.

00:10:29.700 Also, just as a quick side note here, if somebody who's from a culture that doesn't drink alcohol wants to understand why cultures that drink alcohol value it so much,

00:10:39.900 The core value of alcohol is it allows me, when I am getting to know an individual, to see the parts of their personality that they might be suppressing, you know, through their inhibitory pathways in their prefrontal cortex, because it lowers their ability to inhibit certain behavior patterns.

00:10:57.360 Which is the saying, drunk words are sober thoughts, comes from.

00:11:02.140 This is why individuals from drinking cultures often don't trust or have an intrinsic distrust of individuals from non-drinking cultures.

00:11:11.080 And I think individuals from non-drinking cultures may sometimes be confused by this distrust if it's not explicitly spelled out to them.

00:11:19.460 Gary thinks we should keep up with the crawl, because they know what we're doing, but they don't know that we know what they're doing.

00:11:25.660 And basically, no one else has a better idea. 1.00

00:11:28.180 So fuck it. 0.99

00:11:30.200 Well, I think what the weird thing is, when I... 1.00

00:11:34.020 There are two different parts of it.

00:11:35.700 One is this concern that literally your entire self and identity are basically being killed and you're being worn like a mask or a costume.

00:11:44.060 But then there's the version of it where, like the Steppard Wives version, where you're just kind of corrected.

00:11:51.160 There are versions where you're corrected or sort of given the equivalent of a lobotomy, but a little bit more refined.

00:11:58.200 Yeah.

00:11:58.520 And then there's the versions where you're essentially killed.

00:12:01.220 And the lobotomy versions, I'm watching and I'm thinking, God, that looks great. 0.79

00:12:05.520 You know, and I think that's why some people see pod cultures and they're like, where do I sign up for this?

00:12:12.340 And maybe this is why, maybe it's a more feminine reaction to this. 0.99

00:12:16.860 Maybe it's a more like female, like conformist. 1.00

00:12:19.220 Well, the Mormon church does keep more women than men. 0.98

00:12:22.040 Well, and that's the thing.

00:12:22.720 And we know women who've converted into it because they see the lifestyle and they say, I want that.

00:12:28.700 And maybe that is, this pod person reaction is on average more male.

00:12:35.980 And I noticed that you're delineating a separate sub-genre of the pod person movie, which is what I call the medicated pod person, which is like they try to give you some medication that makes you like this other group of people that is all really like, doesn't have a lot of emotions, you know, is otherwise really like clean, conformed, doesn't break rules.

00:12:56.760 And this is another sub-genre of the pod person trope.

00:13:01.980 On the next all new episode of Sliders, imagine a world where the government regulates drugs.

00:13:08.760 What did you give?

00:13:09.680 Trent Call, a standard mood elevator.

00:13:11.520 Everybody's on something.

00:13:12.920 Everybody but us.

00:13:14.700 Drop in, people.

00:13:16.180 A brand new season of adventure.

00:13:18.460 A video game that recently did it was, it took place in the UK.

00:13:21.880 I'll add it in post.

00:13:22.560 I'd also note here, if you're a little confused, you're like, wait, I thought the pod person trope was associated with abstinence from alcohol and drugs.

00:13:42.120 And yet here you're saying there's a sub-genre of it that is focused on using a specific type of drug.

00:13:48.160 And I would note here that the specific type of drug that's used is always coded to be the type of drug you would get from a psychiatrist, not coded to be a recreational drug.

00:14:00.200 So when the pod person trope is coded as pod people don't do drugs, the type of drugs that they don't do is always something like alcohol or very light narcotics.

00:14:11.460 It's never like hard drugs.

00:14:13.100 But so what is triggering it, okay?

00:14:16.440 What are all these things associated with?

00:14:18.200 They are associated with individuals who try to normalize to some sort of communalist value set.

00:14:27.080 I.e. they are trying to be like, well, everyone else around them, right?

00:14:33.980 Like they see the group norm and they say, that's what I should aspire to.

00:14:39.780 And it creates this sort of pod person reaction.

00:14:43.560 You could say, well, then why do groups like the Japanese not trigger it, right? 1.00

00:14:47.100 And the answer is, is because I was acculturated outside of their cultural norms.

00:14:52.160 So to me, when I'm interacting with a Japanese person, right, they appear just as different as any weirdo on a U.S. street corner, right? 1.00

00:15:02.840 I will say that after a while of living in Korea, Koreans began to trigger my pod person instinct. 1.00

00:15:08.820 But it took a long time of normalizing to that culture before I saw what they were doing as normal.

00:15:16.700 And I think, you know, you say that you don't have this instinct that much, but you seem to act very much like somebody who does.

00:15:23.840 When I met you, you wore like a foot tall bows in your hair every day.

00:15:31.480 You were dirndles that were brightly colored.

00:15:34.640 You did not.

00:15:35.440 And this is the thing.

00:15:36.220 People can be like, oh, this is standard urban monoculture.

00:15:38.400 But it really isn't.

00:15:39.540 There are standard scene and urban monocultural outfits that are built to fit a trope.

00:15:46.920 People with a strong pod person reaction or are from one of these cultures like this, when they're going through their teen rebellion phase, they typically dress in a way that doesn't fit any of the mainstream tropes.

00:16:00.220 Like they become hypersensitive to not fitting any of the mainstream tropes.

00:16:04.640 I can post pictures of myself from when I was a kid.

00:16:07.020 One of the examples is, you know, when I go to other countries, I pick up a lot of like rice picker hats or whatever, like other weird things, just so I couldn't be accused of trying to fit in with any specific trope.

00:16:19.060 And so I find that really interesting as well, that it seems to lead to these specific subcultural patterns.

00:16:26.740 But I don't want to spoil the lead here.

00:16:29.500 So I want to keep going down.

00:16:31.740 You know, when he's like, okay, why would they react so strongly to my ancestors like this?

00:16:38.120 Like your ancestors react so strongly to my ancestors.

00:16:40.380 And I know the sort of sub-emotional class that I am repressing when I'm interacting with certain groups, it very much to me felt a bit like, you know, when a non-passing trans person is like, why do these people, you know, not just treat me like I'm a woman?

00:16:56.620 And I, you know, I'm not going to say to them, you do not understand how much I am repressing, like an evolved instinctual part of me that is screaming run in the back of my head when I am interacting with you or when you're interacting, not just like, like to remove common politics today, like a leper. 0.54

00:17:14.280 Like if you are talking with somebody who has very serious deformities, there's a part in the back of your head that's like, you could catch a disease, run, run, run, you know, kill it with fire.

00:17:23.980 And you silence that part of your head because we have a cultural framework and a moral framework that operates above sort of our pre-evolved, this thing could be diseased or this thing could be a cultural threat.

00:17:51.540 And I think that if you don't realize, and I suspect some people must transition without knowing that a lot of people have this really, really strong and visceral emotional reaction to trans people who aren't passing.

00:18:06.520 Because I don't know if anyone who felt that would transition.

00:18:10.520 Well, I don't know, you have to ask though, how do they feel?

00:18:16.540 I'm sure most people who have transitioned have encountered someone else who is in the act of transitioning who is not passing.

00:18:25.080 How could they not?

00:18:26.840 No, but the point being, Simone, and this is a, this is the key point of this, is you're assuming that all humans experience all of the emotional subsets of all other humans.

00:18:36.900 So what you're saying is, is that people who transition are among those who wouldn't have that reaction to people who are poorly transitioning?

00:18:44.340 Yes.

00:18:44.940 So they just don't see what the problem would be.

00:18:46.520 Or they have it at a lower volume than other people.

00:18:49.400 They may not fully recognize how loudly some people have this reaction.

00:18:56.140 And that it's not a socialized reaction, it's an evolved reaction.

00:18:59.640 It's, you know, used to keep us away from, well, somebody that could be diseased.

00:19:05.200 As a quick side note here, the last episode we did on this subject did draw out one person in the comments who was clearly of this pod person mentality,

00:19:13.140 demanding that we go along with the church name change from Mormon or LDS church to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the Church of Jesus Christ,

00:19:27.340 which, of course, no one's going to do, that, like, pretends like it's the only Christian church because it's, quote-unquote, offensive to say Mormon.

00:19:34.420 And, of course, here I am, like, well, I bet you say Quaker. 0.98

00:19:36.960 Like, do you even know what Quakers are really supposed to be called?

00:19:39.980 It's friends, by the way.

00:19:41.340 That's the correct term. 0.80

00:19:42.300 But, of course, you're not going to call them friends because that's ridiculous. 0.90

00:19:45.100 And so you call them Quakers. 0.93

00:19:46.680 But as a side here, this to me really reminded me of the whole trans thing.

00:19:52.400 It's like, you know, when I'm talking to a trans person, if they just want to be called he, him, or she, her, I'm going to go along with it. 0.64

00:20:00.900 That's a reasonable request.

00:20:03.060 I may, while I'm talking to them, have to constantly be thinking, remember, remember, remember to use the right pronouns.

00:20:09.880 And I don't really believe this person is a she, her, but I try my best to be polite. 0.97

00:20:14.960 However, when they come to me with something absolutely ridiculous, like some made-up pronouns that I need to remember just for them,

00:20:22.400 there's a line where I'm like, no, I'm not going to do that.

00:20:25.280 If the Mormon church had said something like, okay, you can't call us Mormon anymore, but you can call us LDS, I would have been like, okay.

00:20:33.680 Every time I said LDS, I would have been thinking Mormon, but I would have gone along with it. 1.00

00:20:39.680 But when they came up with the absolutely insane, the Church of Jesus Christ, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I'm like, no, I'm not doing that.

00:20:49.380 And that's basically the way everyone was reacting to that.

00:20:52.340 And the reason I say that this is a good sign of a pod person is expecting people to go along with this name change shows a complete inability to model other humans.

00:21:02.460 And carries very strong energy of that kid who bought one of those land titles in Scotland off of YouTube and now goes around demanding everybody call him Baron.

00:21:12.180 So not all of the pod people have left the Mormon church, but the vast majority have.

00:21:17.100 Or the, the, I think a lot of these reactions that, that sort of target the uncanny valley for people who aren't familiar with that.

00:21:24.600 That's something that looks like a little too close to human, but isn't fully human.

00:21:27.940 And that is the emotional subset that's being triggered here.

00:21:31.140 It's the uncanny valley emotional subset.

00:21:33.400 I don't even know if it's just that.

00:21:34.980 For example, both you and your brother, so this is why I think maybe it's genetic, are extremely squeamish around blemishes, like unpopped pimples. 0.99

00:21:46.000 And you cannot hear yourselves think over one on your face or that face of anyone around you.

00:21:54.560 Well, that's a loud, for example, this is, this is the thing.

00:21:58.500 Everybody is squeamish to an extent around you.

00:22:00.860 And no one wants to look at them, but you guys can't unsee them.

00:22:04.280 You know, you're, you're like volumes of this.

00:22:07.080 Okay.

00:22:07.580 Our volume on this is super high, but I would say that the emotion I'm experiencing, right?

00:22:13.980 Like in the same way that like, if you don't experience this emotional subset, it's useful that somebody is like, no, the emotion doesn't feel like a disgust.

00:22:21.740 It feels more like a fear.

00:22:23.280 The emotion that I feel around blemishes is a disgust emotional subset.

00:22:28.380 This is an uncanny valley emotional subset, which is very different from the disgust.

00:22:35.380 It's like, is this similar to the fear you feel when you are sitting next to a woman in like full contour makeup where you're like, she's creeping me out where it's like that. 0.99

00:22:45.840 Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

00:22:47.620 Yes. So an uncanny valley emotional subset, not disgust emotional subset.

00:22:51.880 Now I, I, I then had a second realization that was really, really big for me is we started going through, because I was going through pictures of Mormons.

00:23:02.220 We were looking at like the thing that we mentioned in the last one that actually middling religion Mormons are the Mormons that fertility is increasing as time goes on.

00:23:10.640 Whereas extreme religiosity Mormons are the Mormons who fertility is decreasing as time goes on. 0.54

00:23:16.180 So I've been trying, you know, what's going on here?

00:23:19.360 Are there specific subgroups of extreme religiosity Mormons that are not having their fertility decrease?

00:23:26.760 And what I basically found when going through pictures and talking more with this guy is that there are the ones who don't activate the pod person instinct in me are not having their fertility decline.

00:23:40.360 And then that got me really interesting.

00:23:43.180 I'm like, okay, so what's the core difference between these two groups, right?

00:23:47.680 And previously, I believe I had mischaracterized it.

00:23:50.640 I thought the core difference was deontological versus consequentialist ethics and that religious systems that pushed for behavioral patterns through deontological frameworks were doing poorly.

00:24:02.280 And once it pushed through patterns for consequentialist ethics, we're doing well.

00:24:06.980 And then I realized I might be thinking about this all wrong.

00:24:10.620 It might be moral systems based around conformity, moral systems that are based around conformity to the group of the whole conformist moral systems are doing really poorly and clan based moral systems are doing really well.

00:24:26.980 And then, so to word this differently, it turns out if the thing that was causing your ancestors to have lots of babies was that they were given a set of very strict rules that they had to follow, also a deontological framework, in the past that was good at motivating fertility rates, in modern times it's not.

00:24:48.880 If the thing that was caused if the thing that was causing your ancestors to have babies in the past was that they had a degree of pride in who they were and a degree of cultural pride in their family or some small group to which they're part of, not some large, giant religious organization, that seems to be very, very good at resisting fertility collapse.

00:25:10.980 And so then I took this hypothesis and I started asking people I knew in different religious enclaves, I asked a Catholic I knew, the Catholics you know who were like really strict about all the deontological rules, are they the ones having the most kids or is it the ones who take a lot of pride in a family and then likely national, like I am an O'Sheen and I am an Irishman and I am a Catholic, right?

00:25:34.140 Like is it a, I am a Catholic, I am an Irishman, I am an O'Sheen, or is it a, I am an O'Sheen, I am an Irishman, I am a Catholic?

00:25:42.200 And it turned out that the clan-based one, where their primary identity with the smaller group, was doing really well across every single religious tradition.

00:25:55.040 And then I began to look at this more on a global scale, right?

00:25:58.700 So it's not just the regions of the United States, because I'll put a map here, and the greater Appalachian region had the most clan-based culture, which was backwards, and you'll see it overlaps highly with fertility rates.

00:26:07.040 But then if you look globally, which are the cultures that are suffering the most?

00:26:11.080 It is the collectivist cultures, the Koreans and the Japanese and the Chinese.

00:26:16.560 And I'd make a note here, if people are like, oh, the Asian cultures are very clan-based, they have things like shrines to their ancestors and stuff.

00:26:23.280 And it's like, superficially, yes, but if you look at the cultural norms, even in a historic context, when a Japanese person or a Chinese person or a Korean was attempting to determine what should be the social norms that their family acted within,

00:26:40.200 they did not look primarily to other family members.

00:26:42.800 What was happening at the court or at the higher levels of the social hierarchy mattered a lot more to determining what their family culture should be like and what their own morals should be like.

00:26:53.280 than their parents specifically or their siblings specifically.

00:26:56.840 And then if you look regionally, which sub-regional areas, if I put a map of Asia on here, are doing really well, the Mongols. 1.00

00:27:04.400 The Mongols have a clan-based cultural identity system.

00:27:08.220 And note here that this is not talking about individualism.

00:27:11.900 The problem with individualist systems is many people used to see identity as being either collectivist or individualist.

00:27:18.000 The problem is, is that wokeism and the urban monoculture basically found out how to co-opt individualist moral systems into a collectivist framework.

00:27:27.840 A great way that one of the people I was talking to put it is the horror of it is the reaction against hyper-NPC-ism and the Koskaetska-like state of existence.

00:27:40.360 It's that these people look like us, but are not us.

00:27:44.420 Whites also experience this to some level interacting with Russians, but clearly there's obvious differences.

00:27:49.520 It's the uncanny valley but with real people.

00:27:51.980 Two groups of people oppose the wokes.

00:27:54.040 Ones in the religious communities, which sort of feel that these people are other or different from my religion and my cultural framing.

00:28:03.420 But then the others just hate anyone who's telling other people to conform.

00:28:09.760 And that was really interesting to me when I was like, that makes perfect sense.

00:28:16.520 And it also explains the political realignment in the country.

00:28:19.580 Which is to say that the right used to be made up of a collection of religious communities that wanted everyone to conform to their values.

00:28:28.320 And so they sort of cross-referenced all of the religious communities and they're like, okay, what values can we agree on?

00:28:34.440 Now we're going to call these the Judeo-Christian set of values and we're going to try to get everyone to conform to them. 0.99

00:28:39.480 And then the wokes rose and all of the Klan-based people were like, oh my gosh, I hate you, you know, kill it with fire.

00:28:52.100 And then they moved over to the right coalition and this is why they're the core of Trump's base.

00:29:00.300 So if you look at a voter map that divides the different American like sub-national groups, I'm going to put it on the screen here.

00:29:06.400 A lot of people think the Republican Party's key is the Deep South, but it's not.

00:29:11.040 That's only mildly read.

00:29:12.600 It's actually rural Appalachia, like the greater Appalachia region, which is the key of Trump's base and by far the hardest Trump voters.

00:29:21.600 He comes from, it's where a lot of his new support comes from as well, from the Klan-based peoples. 0.96

00:29:28.120 Now, hold on, I'm just going to check this.

00:29:29.540 Oh, and I would note here for Mormons who may have trouble telling like what Mormons are triggering this instinct.

00:29:34.720 So I went through as a Mormon and was like, this person triggers it, this person doesn't.

00:29:39.140 Wow.

00:29:39.680 This person doesn't.

00:29:40.760 And he goes.

00:29:41.060 Even from pictures, you're able to get this feeling?

00:29:44.580 Oh, very, very quickly.

00:29:46.120 He said what Mormons would call the type of Mormon who triggers it a Zuby. 0.99

00:29:50.480 And coming from Utah, so I looked it up.

00:29:53.940 And Zuby's coming from the Ute mouse, however, the term means wimpy goody two-shoes, says Mark Christensen, an avid Utah fan.

00:30:02.420 A BYU student, a usage might connote the epitome of an orthodox letter of the law, quote unquote, Peter priesthood.

00:30:09.860 And I actually think Peter priesthood works well for the Catholics who elicit in me.

00:30:15.240 Would you call a Catholic priest who you met Peter priesthood in a derogatory fashion?

00:30:21.220 Then they're probably eliciting this instinct.

00:30:24.040 And so there's a lot of things to talk about here.

00:30:26.620 One is the new political realities of this and understanding it and how to cater to it.

00:30:31.480 But then the other is, why is this so protective of fertility rates?

00:30:34.660 And the third is, is what is it actually like to be raised in a clan-based family?

00:30:39.120 Yeah.

00:30:39.440 What do you have thoughts?

00:30:42.420 I'm no, no.

00:30:43.460 This is fascinating to me, especially because I don't feel this, like, strong, aversive response to unified-seeming cultures.

00:30:52.000 Even though I apparently, I think I'm just incapable of being a part of them.

00:30:57.280 You know, it's very much Little Mermaid, part of your world.

00:31:00.360 What drove you to wear a two-foot-tall bow on your head when you were speaking at your graduation?

00:31:06.760 What drove you to wear a...

00:31:07.860 Well, I'm a weird freak that is incapable of interacting with them, but they seem to be...

00:31:14.000 No, no, no, no, Simone.

00:31:15.960 I'm asking you.

00:31:16.880 Genuine, something.

00:31:17.940 These are things that you did that didn't align with any social community, okay?

00:31:23.760 Any mainstream social community.

00:31:25.840 What...

00:31:26.360 Yeah, I'm allergic.

00:31:28.060 I'm allergic to other people's rules and standards, but that doesn't mean that I can't find the concept of a cohesive community to be attractive.

00:31:38.940 Then why did you resist it your entire life?

00:31:41.540 You were around Mormons... 1.00

00:31:43.040 The idea seems nice.

00:31:44.980 I just don't...

00:31:46.040 I just don't want to dress, look, behave, or like them or be held to their standards.

00:31:53.460 Oh, I think I'm understanding this well now.

00:31:56.540 Okay, so I know why you don't feel it strongly.

00:31:58.820 Okay.

00:31:59.060 And it comes from something else that's happened between the two of us.

00:32:02.380 There have been multiple instances when, like, someone at a table has been crying, and afterwards I go to Simone, and I was like, oh my god, could you believe?

00:32:07.600 Like, what was wrong with that?

00:32:08.540 I didn't see anything.

00:32:09.460 You, due to your autism, are very, very, very bad at modeling other people.

00:32:14.700 It might be some degree of modeling other people when you're in a culture that has this ultra desire to not conform that triggers this instinct.

00:32:24.180 Because you don't model people, you aren't sitting there being like, there's something very wrong about the model I'm building of this person.

00:32:33.540 That would make a lot of sense.

00:32:36.140 I think this is exactly it.

00:32:38.020 I've been thinking about this line more as I was editing this, and that's what creates a feeling of unease.

00:32:44.860 It's when you mentally model somebody, you're essentially creating an emulation of that person in your head to attempt to predict how they will react to whatever you say.

00:32:55.480 Mental models are something that people create every day. 0.98

00:32:57.540 Like, when you have an argument with somebody, and then later you go and you mentally argue with them in your head, you have created a mental model of them.

00:33:06.800 A sort of sub-process in your brain that's essentially an emulation of their mind.

00:33:11.740 Different people build these emulations with different amounts of clarity.

00:33:16.240 And some people are just sort of always building emulations, some people almost never build emulations.

00:33:22.320 People with some forms of autism, like the type that Simone has, seem to be completely incapable of building these emulations at all.

00:33:29.140 When I create emulations of people who have this pod person mindset, the emulations create this intrinsic feeling of unease within me.

00:33:42.140 Because they feel shell-like.

00:33:44.800 They're so easy to predict, it's almost like there isn't a full human operating underneath them.

00:33:52.020 In Warhammer lore, this would be like trying to read the mind of a psychic blank.

00:33:57.380 You would just get reverberation feedback that would cause you great mental pain and feel very sort of hollow and desolate.

00:34:05.660 And worse than that, they are extremely interchangeable with other individuals from their sort of pod tribe when you try to model them.

00:34:16.880 So, if I'm trying to model two people from the same group and they fall into this, they will, for all intensive purposes, be operating under the same model.

00:34:26.340 Which feels very inhuman if you're not used to being around these groups.

00:34:31.720 It feels very much like, well, I guess that's why it triggers that pod person.

00:34:35.520 That's why in the pod people movies, they create these pleasant, simplistic entities to trigger this.

00:34:43.400 And I'm curious if the listeners slash watchers that are on the spectrum feel the same way, where they're like very confused about this whole pod person thing.

00:34:52.880 But then the higher modeling ability, more schizoid people watching are really like getting what you're saying. 1.00

00:35:01.060 I would be so curious to see if it comes down to that.

00:35:04.660 That it's more the fear that emanates from being able to kind of model very conformist people on a societal basis.

00:35:14.220 And not so much the fact that they're behaving cohesively.

00:35:18.300 And I think that would also explain why this doesn't trigger when you're traveling in a foreign land that's very conformist.

00:35:25.640 Because you're not really able to model them.

00:35:28.260 But then after you get a little bit more time around them and you're modeling, like algorithm comes online for that new group, then they freak you out.

00:35:37.300 Well, they also don't feel like an infiltrating group.

00:35:40.340 I mean, one of the things that's common in all of the horror around this is a new family comes to town where everyone is pleasant and everyone is cheery and they don't seem to have any problems.

00:35:50.880 And then over time, more families start acting like this and more families start acting like this.

00:35:55.900 It's also a degree of like they're taking over.

00:35:59.600 And you can also see why.

00:36:01.280 Oh, a feeling of invasion.

00:36:02.520 Yeah, people who have this fear or this background sort of instinct probably have such an intense reaction to the urban monoculture.

00:36:11.100 And it's why the greater Appalachian region has moved to be such an cohesive base for Trump.

00:36:16.700 Right, because the urban monoculture really is a strong pod person.

00:36:21.080 It's more blatant than Stepford Wives. 1.00

00:36:49.880 Because Stepford Wives are just really put together women that are very, you know, polite and gregarious. 1.00

00:36:59.600 But then woke people are like, my pronouns are they, them, and, you know, they look different.

00:37:06.660 And yeah, that's interesting.

00:37:07.880 Yeah, and the, well, so one thing that's important to note about this, because it was something I noted when I was thinking more about it,

00:37:16.520 is there's a weird sort of tradition among the Klan cultures that is essentially used as like a pod person test.

00:37:26.520 So in the movie, The Faculty, there is a scene where they have a dehydrated that they're using to see if one of the people has become one of the pod people.

00:37:36.160 And they're like, you have to do the dehydrated so I know if you're really one of the pod people or not. 0.99

00:37:40.280 How do we know you're not one of those fucking things? 0.99

00:37:48.200 I'm not putting that hack drug up my nose. 1.00

00:37:51.260 It's so 80s.

00:37:52.560 A memetic virus is...

00:37:54.480 Taken over the earth.

00:37:55.920 Weigh it.

00:38:00.300 You have to take it. 1.00

00:38:09.040 Oh, shit. 1.00

00:38:10.240 And the thing that is the dehydrated of, like, this real-life pod person instinct is vulgarity. 1.00

00:38:18.700 It is used as a sign of authenticity within an individual.

00:38:25.280 And it is, I think...

00:38:26.240 Everyone on 4chan being so vulgar and mean to each other is really an inoculation or a weeding effect, getting rid of anyone who would be an outsider.

00:38:39.500 That's part of it.

00:38:40.520 Yeah.

00:38:40.820 I mean, you would have a very hard time as a pod person spending a lot of time on 4chan.

00:38:44.800 It would be like constantly having the dehydrated thrown in your face.

00:38:48.740 You're not going to be able to be there for long.

00:38:50.640 But I actually think 4chan is a different thing that causes that behavior pattern.

00:38:54.020 People can check out one of our earliest episodes, which is on 4chan, and why different online platforms have different cultures.

00:39:00.320 But this is why Mitt Romney struggled so hard to connect with sort of this new Republican base.

00:39:05.300 But Donald Trump, not despite being vulgar, has done such a good job, but because he's vulgar, has done such a good job.

00:39:14.640 And keep in mind, vulgar doesn't mean cussing.

00:39:18.060 It means grab him by the...

00:39:20.280 It means saying stuff.

00:39:22.360 It means low culture.

00:39:23.200 It means hamburgers.

00:39:24.560 It means saying things that are inappropriate, et cetera.

00:39:27.900 Yes, and keep in mind, inappropriate can shift.

00:39:30.360 So people can be like, why do so many people in the new right, you know, talk about catgirls?

00:39:34.860 Like saying catgirls are hot, right? 0.99

00:39:36.620 I mean, I did promise the internet that I would make catgirls.

00:39:38.920 We could make a robot catgirl.

00:39:40.920 I mean, how much of a buddy do you like to do?

00:39:43.040 How many applications do you thought is that, you know, can you have a romantic partner, a sex partner?

00:39:47.140 I mean, it's probably inevitable.

00:39:48.740 Like, it's because it's a very good example of this form of vulgarity.

00:39:52.460 It is something that if you were a pod person, you wouldn't be able to do because you're so concerned about what the conformity of society thinks about you.

00:40:00.820 But that most normal people are, most men think are hot.

00:40:06.380 And if you didn't, like the natural reaction of a clan person to one person in a friend group being catgirls are hot is not, if they don't think catgirls are hot, to say, I don't think that and only a weirdo would think that.

00:40:20.740 It's to find something that is equally taboo to admit about themselves that's vulgar.

00:40:27.100 Something they find hot that might break some taboo.

00:40:29.500 Because then it becomes sort of a competition around saying a taboo thing to prove you're not actually a pod person.

00:40:38.260 And then the other person responds to something slightly more taboo.

00:40:41.340 And it's a little ritual that's done.

00:40:43.480 And you don't see it in these groups all the time.

00:40:45.680 And it's how you gain entrance often into their communities.

00:40:48.720 In the last episode, you may remember, I mentioned that at a couple of the late night VC parties that were focused around this clan-based culture,

00:40:54.880 that there were fights where a couple of the women who were high-powered VCs themselves or otherwise prominent figures would fight for the men.

00:41:05.800 And you wouldn't want a pod person at one of these events.

00:41:12.880 Because they would immediately go, quote unquote, tell on you, say, oh, they did something naughty and vulgar at their event.

00:41:20.540 So you check them before they come.

00:41:23.040 And I think that I'm realizing now that some people just never gain interest.

00:41:26.740 Like, if you are lacking this knowledge that, like, this is the game that's being played,

00:41:31.580 I would be turning you out of a community that I was a part of politely, but without you realizing it.

00:41:38.340 Like, there's like a whole section of society that these people don't realize that they're just being denied access to.

00:41:44.080 They're being shadowbound from entire sections of society.

00:41:47.360 Yeah, but I will say that the clan-based people who can't code switch well, they get shadow banned from another section of society.

00:41:55.320 So, you know, keep that in mind.

00:41:57.640 The thing to keep in mind, though, is it actually really matters now that you're getting shadow banned from this section of society if you don't know how to code switch.

00:42:05.600 Because, as I've mentioned, the venture capital world is increasingly being taken over by these clan-based cultures. 0.99

00:42:11.100 And so vulgarity is used as a shit test, basically, within a lot of these Silicon Valley-type cultures to make sure you're not a narc. 0.97

00:42:20.700 Like, not a narc-nark, but you know what I mean. 0.98

00:42:22.740 Like, if you go to a party, are you going to be a problem later?

00:42:25.280 Are you going to be, you know, horrified?

00:42:27.380 Uh, that is, that's one of the, uh, better Jesus sports-themed paintings I've seen.

00:42:33.260 It's very good.

00:42:35.160 Nice.

00:42:35.840 Are you a narc?

00:42:36.600 I'm sorry? 0.99

00:42:37.780 A narc.

00:42:38.580 I'm going to sound it out for you. 0.91

00:42:40.360 Are you, or are you not a narc?

00:42:46.680 Like Johnny Depp in 21 Jump Street. 0.55

00:42:48.500 Ah, I see, I see.

00:42:49.760 Okay, a narc. 0.96

00:42:50.920 A narc.

00:42:51.380 What are you doing? 0.52

00:42:52.000 I'm a federal agent.

00:42:53.160 I'm a special agent.

00:42:54.040 Are you a boy or a girl?

00:42:55.700 It's a fair question.

00:42:56.600 Uh, I'm, I'm female.

00:42:59.240 No kidding.

00:43:00.240 All woman. 1.00

00:43:01.520 From the get-go?

00:43:02.740 No operation?

00:43:04.540 Um, from birth, yes.

00:43:07.560 Why would one of these people be seen as a threat, aside from the fact that there's an

00:43:13.400 instinctual distrust of them?

00:43:16.080 Oh, because they genuinely, so there's a lot of reasons he would see them as a threat.

00:43:19.700 So, I, I'd, I'd say, you know, Sil, Ayla, for example, one of our friends, gets invited

00:43:24.260 to a lot of high-level Silicon Valley parties, and there's, there's social reasons for that,

00:43:28.660 but you could also see it as sort of a pendant on those parties that keeps away pod people.

00:43:33.640 So, you know, you can't pass the door because it's got an Ayla on it. 0.56

00:43:38.140 Ayla as protective talisman. 0.53

00:43:40.140 Yes, and you can say, why would the Ayla protective talisman be so important?

00:43:45.220 Well, because twofold.

00:43:47.480 One is, if these people come in and they are of the woke variety of pod person, or they

00:43:52.920 are of the, some form of, you know, conformist religious group, if they disapprove of the

00:43:58.140 actions that happened at that party, then they can go back and narc to their community

00:44:02.360 in a way that could lower the statuses of everyone who was at the event.

00:44:06.680 Like, they are a genuine threat.

00:44:08.440 And that's one of the ways that conformists use to attack non-conformist groups, is they

00:44:13.740 look for non-conformist things they do, then they try to publicly air those things in order

00:44:18.960 to hurt those people's status.

00:44:20.480 And it's why this has been so ineffective in the Republican circles for a very long time.

00:44:27.840 Like, since the Republicans basically become a predominantly Klan-based organization. 0.52

00:44:31.940 Because it used to be, if you go back to the, you know, the 90s and the 80s, when Republicans

00:44:35.600 used disgust-based morality, you could signal that something somebody had done, you know,

00:44:40.060 violated some social norm, and then they'd be like persona non grata in Republican circles.

00:44:44.000 And some people have been like, oh, you guys talk about furries.

00:44:46.820 Oh, you guys talk about, you know, orgies.

00:44:49.640 Oh, you guys talk about, like, this must mean that you're never going to be able to run

00:44:53.520 as a mainstream Republican politician.

00:44:55.120 And I'm just like, you are clearly, don't have your finger to the wind with where things

00:44:59.740 are going, the next generation, or even the current voter base.

00:45:02.520 Donald Trump was the Howard Stern candidate.

00:45:05.620 Like, he had been on Howard Stern for years.

00:45:08.080 Howard Stern was, now, you might think that by today's standards, Howard Stern is tame.

00:45:13.880 Howard Stern was as extreme of a show as you could have for its time.

00:45:18.940 And stay on air.

00:45:20.480 It was so extreme, there's no way it could have been on network television.

00:45:23.560 It was just constantly signaling, we are vulgar, we are vulgar, we are vulgar, honesty signals

00:45:29.020 every five seconds.

00:45:31.300 Like Howard, I was on Howard Stern's show as much as anybody.

00:45:34.700 And he was great at that time.

00:45:36.820 And then he went woke.

00:45:39.160 Yeah.

00:45:39.500 And since he's gone woke, his ratings have gone down the two.

00:45:42.180 He has a best of.

00:45:43.880 Did you ever see the best of?

00:45:45.040 Best of Howard Stern?

00:45:45.960 I don't want to promote it necessarily.

00:45:47.680 But I was there for just about all of them.

00:45:51.780 The best of.

00:45:52.380 We had good shows.

00:45:53.360 It was good.

00:45:54.040 But he's changed.

00:45:54.900 And, you know, he doesn't do the ratings anymore.

00:45:56.980 No, he doesn't.

00:45:57.640 And every time that you, you know what I'm talking about, someone.

00:46:00.380 Like you remember how genuinely vulgar Howard Stern used to be seeing it.

00:46:04.640 Yes.

00:46:05.560 But I want to talk first.

00:46:07.860 I'll start by talking about what it's like to be raised within one of these cultures and

00:46:10.680 how morality is taught to you.

00:46:12.500 Because I think once we understand this, we can understand why these cultures' fertility

00:46:16.520 rates have been so protected.

00:46:18.080 Okay.

00:46:19.040 So when you are being taught morality, like when I was being taught morality, my parents

00:46:26.860 would say, you should do this, or you should do that because you're a college.

00:46:34.460 It was never taught to me as a universalized morality.

00:46:38.740 It was taught to me as a morality that applied specifically to me because of the clan I was

00:46:46.660 a part of.

00:46:47.780 And I think that when religion is taught to a lot of people in a clan-based structure,

00:46:54.280 it's, oh, you're Catholic because you're an O'Hare, not like you're Catholic because

00:46:59.920 you're Catholic and then the O'Hare thing is some ancillary side thing.

00:47:04.000 And it's also taught that when you are educated in this way, it's not like, oh, everyone else

00:47:11.820 is evil or something like that.

00:47:13.780 It's more like everyone else holds themselves to a lower standard and more is expected of

00:47:19.080 you than is expected of other people.

00:47:20.980 Yeah.

00:47:21.200 Now it's just, I'm starting to relate to this.

00:47:23.160 It's making sense because on the flip side of it too, my parents raised me to do certain

00:47:29.840 things, but if I didn't see other people do those things, I wouldn't be even remotely

00:47:33.940 surprised.

00:47:34.760 In fact, I would kind of expect that people wouldn't do those things, but that I need to

00:47:38.860 do them anyway.

00:47:39.720 Like you always have to leave wherever you've been, campsite or whatever, better than it

00:47:44.920 was when you first got there.

00:47:46.780 And we do this and we do that and we have all these knives.

00:47:49.940 And I would be surprised if other people did too, um, like just genuinely surprised.

00:47:55.720 And if, for example, I saw that I arrived at a campsite and it was a mess, I wouldn't

00:48:00.720 be like, well, I can't believe they haven't left the campsite better than when they arrived. 0.97

00:48:04.560 Like, I just feel like, yeah, people are, you know, shits and well, we're certainly going 0.97

00:48:09.780 to clean up the campsite. 0.97

00:48:11.120 So I think the other flip side of it that I don't see in other people, and maybe this

00:48:15.180 is only a pod person thing is this, the Karen reaction of like, you have to do this.

00:48:23.500 Why didn't you do this?

00:48:24.680 You like this, this insistence or outrage when other people do not behave in accordance

00:48:32.440 with their culture or values or expectations.

00:48:36.120 Yeah, absolutely.

00:48:36.760 Only, only really pod people do that.

00:48:38.980 Like, yeah.

00:48:39.400 Or even, even service expectations, like not being happy with the service you received.

00:48:44.220 I think a non pod based person kind of just expects everyone else to be kind of disappointing

00:48:50.120 from a service perspective and of course it's not great.

00:48:53.380 Yeah, I was trying to be disappointed by everyone else.

00:48:55.840 Like they are just, and, and people can be like, well, that's elitist.

00:49:00.120 And it's like, yeah, it might be elitist, but having pride in who you are appears to be one

00:49:06.860 of the key things that's required to have a high fertility rate.

00:49:10.600 You know, you have to like who you are to want to keep existing.

00:49:13.560 And so, you know, and this is something that the urban monoculture tries everything it

00:49:17.300 can to erase.

00:49:17.960 When you go to the school system, it tries to get you to hate Western civilization.

00:49:21.620 It tries to get you to hate your own ancestors.

00:49:23.960 It tries to get you to hate everything.

00:49:26.460 And it, if it can effectively do that, like why would anybody try to get you to hate your

00:49:32.740 own, your own culture, right?

00:49:34.660 Well, because they have an alternative they want to offer you.

00:49:36.960 And so if they can break you from your birth culture, then they can pick you up and take 1.00

00:49:41.760 you in.

00:49:42.180 And so that's why they need to constantly denigrate your own culture and constantly hide your own 0.66

00:49:48.280 cultural history from you.

00:49:50.040 In the Pragmatist Guide to Crafting Religion, you describe domineering versus symbiotic cultures

00:49:55.360 with domineering cultures being those which kind of have ultimately a mandate to save everyone

00:50:02.220 and for everyone to be of that one culture or religion.

00:50:05.500 And then symbiotic cultures are those which don't believe everyone can be saved and therefore 0.99

00:50:11.500 are more supportive of pluralism, but at the same time are kind of assholes because they 0.99

00:50:16.280 just expect that a bunch of people are going to go to hell. 0.99

00:50:18.860 Cultures are different than this dichotomy.

00:50:20.620 Like it's related to the dichotomy, but you can be from a domineering culture and come

00:50:25.060 from a clan-based subclave or like ethno phenotype of that culture.

00:50:30.400 Right, because technically Catholicism is a domineering culture and you want to save 0.96

00:50:34.600 everyone, but at the same time, there are very clan-based subsets of Catholicism where

00:50:40.720 there isn't...

00:50:41.040 That are doing really well for T'Lyde Road Rides.

00:50:43.040 Yeah.

00:50:43.240 So they might logically understand that their goal is one day to convert everyone, but that

00:50:47.780 doesn't mean that that's how they frame Catholicism in their heads.

00:50:51.200 Interesting.

00:50:51.760 Okay, I just wanted to clarify that because I was curious if you considered them synonymous

00:50:55.380 or not.

00:50:55.960 And another thing to note about clan-based cultures is a lot of people assume, and I

00:51:01.460 had mentioned this when I was talking about clan-based cultures before, is one of the key

00:51:04.400 features of clan-based cultures is you are judging yourself off of your clan system.

00:51:09.900 So like I don't judge myself.

00:51:11.880 I was never taught and I never have really judged myself off of wider society.

00:51:15.920 It's what is my brother doing?

00:51:17.540 What is my sister doing? 0.96

00:51:18.840 What are my cousins doing?

00:51:20.040 What did my parents' generation do?

00:51:21.940 And my aunts and uncles do.

00:51:23.360 You know, like that's where cultural norms are set.

00:51:25.540 And if I'm breaking cultural norms, I am specifically thinking, okay, this is a cultural norm of

00:51:30.460 my family and I am consciously choosing to break that cultural norm or setting cultural

00:51:35.740 expectations.

00:51:36.300 This is the cultural expectation that my family sets and I think it's poorly chosen.

00:51:41.080 But that's where I grabbed all of my cultural norms and expectations was from my family network.

00:51:46.420 And I have chosen to significantly deviate from some of the cultural norms of my family.

00:51:50.320 The biggest one being an air of respectability is supposed to be expected of all Collinses.

00:51:56.280 Like we are supposed to be respectable and high class acting and very squeaky clean and

00:52:03.240 never controversial.

00:52:04.340 And obviously I have gone in a very different direction and I have talked in link on episodes

00:52:10.900 like the episode media baiting about why we have chosen to go in this controversial direction

00:52:15.560 because I think it's the only way to have relevance in the current political discussion.

00:52:20.620 And so I understand why my family set respectability as a standard when they were running for office

00:52:25.100 a generation ago or the generation before that.

00:52:27.840 But I don't think that if we are to stay with the same consequential goal, which is public service

00:52:34.040 and having an impact on the direction society is going, that it is a good hypothesis to try to strive

00:52:40.700 for this air of respectability, even though everyone else in my family still works really hard to strive for it.

00:52:46.020 And I should note that within clan-based family networks, people fall out of that.

00:52:50.520 Like if somebody doesn't do something right, they fall out of it.

00:52:53.860 Well, so why is this so protective?

00:52:55.800 Well, if I am a Mormon or a Catholic and I am normalizing to cultural norms, not based on what

00:53:05.700 is the temple saying or for Catholics right now, why it's so protective, what is the Pope saying?

00:53:09.580 Because the Pope's gone, you know, woke, woke, woke right now, right?

00:53:12.820 I don't look to the Pope or the centralized organization for what is, you know, my norms of the Catholic.

00:53:20.900 I'm looking for my, either my clan or my chosen subgroup of the Catholic community to set those 0.96

00:53:26.920 doors.

00:53:27.600 When I am a Mormon and I'm looking for this, I am looking for that subgroup or that family.

00:53:33.380 And yeah, one family member may have like deconverted, but now I just no longer consider

00:53:38.540 them among the people I am comparing myself to.

00:53:41.860 And then this explained why it was the Mormons who were considered themselves of middling religion

00:53:46.920 that were going up in fertility and the Mormons who consider themselves extremely Mormon

00:53:50.880 who are going down infertility.

00:53:52.500 It's because if you are a clan based individual, you're going to have certain rules that are

00:53:58.920 rules for normal Mormons, just not rules for your family, because your family had like collectively

00:54:03.420 decided we're not going to follow those rules, but we have these other extra rules that you

00:54:07.980 might have to follow.

00:54:08.580 And so they would normally not consider themselves at the extremist, but they would take a lot of

00:54:14.680 pride in their family identity and Mormonism.

00:54:17.720 And Mormonism is actually very good at facilitating that.

00:54:19.960 So while the Backwoods people were typically very hostile to the Mormons when the Mormons

00:54:23.760 went into their territory, when the Backwoods people moved into Mormon territory, a huge 1.00

00:54:27.120 number of them converted to Mormonism.

00:54:28.640 And a lot of people can be like, why were there a huge number of Backwoods converts to

00:54:31.520 Mormonism?

00:54:32.100 The answer is, is because, and I've mentioned this before, Mormons offer the best heaven for 0.84

00:54:38.200 somebody from a clan based culture.

00:54:39.920 Getting to spend all eternity with your family, with your clan is a very easy sell to one of these

00:54:48.520 people.

00:54:50.520 And it's not a sell you get with most heaven systems.

00:54:51.980 So, and then Mormonism also, it's all into genealogy.

00:54:55.840 It's all into family history.

00:54:57.260 Like, of course it's going to appeal to these people, right?

00:55:00.080 But they're just going to relate to Mormonism very differently than other people relate to

00:55:04.580 Mormonism.

00:55:05.380 And when we were going through pictures, if you're like, what's the difference between

00:55:07.940 these two Mormon churches, if you're looking at the non-clan based Mormons, they're the

00:55:11.580 ones who look very sort of, I guess I'd say preppy, very similar, all sort of in similar

00:55:17.020 outfits.

00:55:17.900 If you are looking at the clan based ones, they typically dress more like you'd think

00:55:22.340 a typical Trump supporter would dress with a pickup truck and, you know, a lot of American

00:55:26.400 flags everywhere and a lot of that sort of stuff.

00:55:29.260 Not all the quiche, but more like Western or more Southern, somebody might say, even though

00:55:34.340 they're not really talking about Southern culture.

00:55:35.760 They're talking about greater Appalachian culture.

00:55:37.220 A lot of people confuse the two Southern culture is very, I'd say sort of dandy based.

00:55:42.180 It's not the, the, the mud wrestling and stuff like that.

00:55:46.200 But anyway, now I wanted to get to, oh yes, the two types of these systems, because this

00:55:53.000 is another thing I noted.

00:55:54.120 So the Mormon guy, one of the Mormons I was talking to, this is actually a separate Mormon

00:55:58.880 and they were very disappointed that their parents were more involved with their local church

00:56:03.480 than coming and helping with their grandkids.

00:56:05.760 Right.

00:56:06.220 And this is when we were talking about this topic of, of, you know, do you care more about

00:56:09.940 the family or do you care more about the church?

00:56:12.180 And I was, you know, obviously I felt sympathy for them, but then I had this realization,

00:56:15.920 my parents don't help me, but like, I never had any feeling like they ever might come and

00:56:21.100 help me as an adult.

00:56:22.080 And if anything, I see it as a relief that they don't help me as an adult.

00:56:25.760 And so then I started focusing on this feeling more.

00:56:28.160 And Simone, when I brought this up with you, you're like, yeah, I feel the same way.

00:56:31.700 Or do you want to elaborate?

00:56:33.580 Yeah, there was, there was zero expectation that there would be ongoing support or close

00:56:40.980 involvement from my parents growing up.

00:56:42.920 And the hope was that I would just succeed and be out of the nest.

00:56:48.680 And definitely, I think what always surprised me was hearing from people who fully expected

00:56:56.520 on like ongoing childcare from their parents or continued support, because to me, that would

00:57:05.600 feel like meddling and stress and obligation.

00:57:10.140 And it feels nice to not have that.

00:57:12.380 And it feels nice to have the freedom.

00:57:13.940 And I also think that my parents enjoyed the freedom that they have not having to care for

00:57:18.100 children. 1.00

00:57:18.380 So it's just everyone saying like, fuck off. 1.00

00:57:21.700 I love you. 1.00

00:57:22.440 Bye.

00:57:23.040 And it's nice.

00:57:24.220 Well, it is something that I looked at to see if this is something that had been historic,

00:57:28.820 because I have a lot of biographies of my ancestral family members.

00:57:33.220 So I was able to think through those, think through tons of interviews I've done with my

00:57:37.100 dad and my grandfather, because I like recording family history.

00:57:40.240 Again, that's a normal thing that some people are clan-based culture.

00:57:42.420 They're going to record their family history a lot.

00:57:44.360 And a lot of people, when they look at like my family, they're like, oh, you guys have

00:57:47.620 intergenerational wealth.

00:57:48.820 And I'm like, well, insofar as each generation is wealthy, not insofar as each generation has

00:57:55.300 passed on their wealth.

00:57:56.720 I didn't inherit anything from my dad.

00:57:58.900 And my dad not only didn't inherit anything from his family, but his grandfather took out

00:58:02.680 a million dollars in debt against him.

00:58:04.720 The one area where my family has a tradition of helping the family is always finding a way

00:58:09.120 to pay for education when they can.

00:58:11.200 But even that, where I looked at where the family was helping in like my great, great,

00:58:15.320 great grandfather's time and his father, the parents didn't help.

00:58:19.640 It was the siblings that helped.

00:58:21.640 The siblings would help pay for things.

00:58:23.740 And then you talked about Thomas Jefferson's biography, how it was a similar situation.

00:58:28.640 No, this brought to mind Benjamin Franklin's biography for me, where yes, his father contributed

00:58:35.940 to his education and encouraged him to think about careers.

00:58:39.020 But at age 12, he was on his own.

00:58:40.880 And what did he do?

00:58:41.640 He worked for his brother's printing shop, one of the colonial America's earliest newspapers

00:58:48.340 where he then contributed anonymously as a letter to the editor-writer under the name

00:58:55.640 Silence Do Good until his brother discovered him.

00:59:00.240 And there was such a huge conflict over it that it got to the point where it was, it became

00:59:04.460 violent, just hilarious.

00:59:06.760 But then again, you have this, this rough and tumble, a competition between siblings.

00:59:10.680 And then another brother gave him money to invest, right?

00:59:13.640 Yeah.

00:59:13.900 That's what I remember from the biography.

00:59:15.740 I was asking Aya about it today, just for the specifics of that having to reread the biography

00:59:20.800 and it couldn't remember that.

00:59:22.500 But I recall after he had relocated to Philadelphia, a brother or a cousin giving him money to deploy

00:59:31.000 as investment.

00:59:31.880 And there being an issue, actually, because a friend with whom he was working on that was

00:59:36.540 spending the money poorly and wasting it instead of investing it.

00:59:40.700 So, yeah, I was under the impression.

00:59:43.020 And I think that basically Benjamin Franklin relied on a broader network of siblings, but

00:59:48.400 not so much his parents, understanding that his parents had a lot of kids and just didn't

00:59:55.440 really have resources for him, which is fine.

00:59:58.660 Right?

00:59:59.260 16?

01:00:00.900 I think, yeah, I think there were 16 kids total and he was the youngest son.

01:00:05.980 And then, of course, this brother's brawling in an early startup environment immediately

01:00:10.820 made me think of Elon Musk and his brother, who also seemed to have succeeded and thrived

01:00:18.620 despite their parents, their father at least.

01:00:22.460 Benjamin Franklin, remember, I've always said that the Puritans ended up merging with

01:00:26.780 the backwoods, backcountry people.

01:00:29.000 And this is why.

01:00:29.780 Their cultures were very similar in many ways, or at least a subsection of them were.

01:00:34.240 And this was a subsection that Ben Franklin represented.

01:00:36.940 He would always do deals with them.

01:00:38.420 When the backcountry people, what group was it?

01:00:41.700 The Something Boys sieged Philadelphia and almost took the city. 1.00

01:00:44.700 He was the one who had to do a deal with them because the Puritans kept treating 1.00

01:00:48.580 the backcountry people really unfairly and not giving them votes.

01:00:51.400 And so they basically said, OK, well, then we'll take over your city.

01:00:53.920 And they came with weapons and they almost did.

01:00:56.120 It's one of the only times that the American population has sieged and almost conquered 0.93

01:00:59.800 an American city just out of frustration.

01:01:01.920 And he was the one who had to handle that.

01:01:04.060 But anyway, back at hand here.

01:01:06.040 So what I'm saying is as many people, when they hear Klan, what they may think of is

01:01:10.000 the cliche like hillbilly family, where you have some old matriarch or patriarch that 1.00

01:01:16.060 is ruling everything and then, you know, beneath them is like a family network.

01:01:20.640 But actually, you may get that occasionally.

01:01:24.420 But because Klan-based people are so anti-hierarchical, it's actually usually a lot more flat than that.

01:01:30.540 And the parents' role is often seen as more of a trial than a like we're giving you stuff

01:01:37.200 or we're making it easier for you.

01:01:38.620 Like every time I've been around my parents, my sort of understanding of our relationship

01:01:44.220 is their role was to make my life artificially difficult so that when they weren't around,

01:01:50.360 my life would be easier.

01:01:51.900 Cue broccoli dropping the weights here.

01:01:54.360 And so when I was thinking about this idea of like, do I want my parents around helping with my kids?

01:01:58.900 I was like, I can think of no instance ancestrally.

01:02:02.060 Like remember in the family diaries, the first one, this is of the great-great-grandfathers,

01:02:06.740 he left home as soon as he was like 12 or 13 and moved from like Mississippi to Texas

01:02:12.120 and then only went back to bring his wife back.

01:02:14.460 And then his son got mad when he was like 15 or 16 because the dad took his hog

01:02:20.320 and killed it at the wrong season.

01:02:22.180 And he's like, I'm never working with him again.

01:02:24.220 Untimely hog killing.

01:02:25.520 That's the end of the relationship.

01:02:27.200 The big thing for him, he needed the wrong time to sell his Bitcoin, okay?

01:02:31.880 He sold his Bitcoin in the wrong market and he was very upset about this.

01:02:35.700 And he said, I will never work with him again in business.

01:02:38.680 And so again, there was no intergenerational help there.

01:02:41.940 It was in intra-generational help.

01:02:44.580 And people can be like, well, that seems really hard, right?

01:02:48.160 Like, I guess it is hard, but it puts like additional, I guess you could say pressure,

01:02:53.700 whether it's evolutionary pressure or additional ability to survive

01:02:56.840 and in hard environments and motivation to push outwards.

01:03:00.720 Which explains why these people were so common on the frontier because, you know,

01:03:05.700 they would often leave their family environment when they came of age simply because there

01:03:10.020 was, because there's no nepotism, there's no benefit to staying there.

01:03:13.180 And, and worst case scenario, you might be accused of achieving something nepotistically.

01:03:17.360 So you look at me, like I started my career basically in Korea, about as far away from

01:03:21.180 my family as you could get.

01:03:22.140 And my dad started it.

01:03:23.060 His first job was in Central and South America, driving around doing business deals in that area.

01:03:29.820 But anyway, so we're going to get to the, the final point here, which is about, well,

01:03:37.060 I mean, I sort of already talked about why it's so protective of fertility rates.

01:03:40.000 It's so protective of fertility rates because pride is a very good motivator of fertility rates

01:03:44.480 and a much better motivator for why you do certain things than, than, than a strict set

01:03:49.560 of rules, believing that that pride is tied to a certain degree of elitism.

01:03:53.540 Like I do X because I'm better than other people.

01:03:55.860 It turns out in humans is a very good way of convincing them to do something.

01:03:59.860 And it's much less sensitive to dominant societal pressures.

01:04:05.340 So if we see the dominant social group doing X in our area, we're going to say, well, let's

01:04:10.740 stay away from that.

01:04:11.600 I actually think that this is in part why the Catholic subculture has been so impacted

01:04:18.780 by the urban monoculture.

01:04:19.920 You know, why 60% of Catholics vote Democrat, why so much of the Catholic church and so many

01:04:24.000 Catholic schools have just become like urban monocultural centers is because a lot of cultural

01:04:29.760 groups, subcultural groups under the wider Catholic umbrella were communicate.

01:04:35.200 What's the word I'm looking for?

01:04:36.320 Communitarian influencer, collectivist.

01:04:38.620 Oh.

01:04:39.760 And they, that worked when the Catholics were the majority in the areas that they were, which 0.68

01:04:44.520 Catholics often were. 0.99

01:04:45.460 But it also meant that they got crushed the moment the urban monoculture came to town.

01:04:50.640 But that doesn't mean that all of the subcultural groups within Catholicism were collectivist.

01:04:55.660 I mean, those groups have done well.

01:04:57.020 And then the wider collectivist societies like China, Japan, Korea are just getting absolutely

01:05:02.740 brutalized by fertility collapse.

01:05:04.580 And so I guess my, and when I was talking to people, there's actually a lot of immediate

01:05:10.760 to do items from this realization, which is to focus a lot on building pride in family

01:05:17.560 identity and how your family is different from other groups and what your family does and

01:05:24.240 what it means to be a member of your family.

01:05:27.040 And so this is something that you can carry out, whether you're a Catholic or a Mormon

01:05:32.640 or a Jew or a anything, and to not succumb to the risk of primarily affiliating with a

01:05:40.680 cultural identity.

01:05:42.000 The second takeaway I would have if I was somebody watching this who didn't have the pod person

01:05:47.280 instinct is to recognize that other people do have this instinct and to be very wary of

01:05:56.620 when you might be triggering it, especially if you might be triggering other things that

01:06:00.860 could offend those groups.

01:06:02.480 So as I've mentioned, the backwards people generally don't attack people unless they think 1.00

01:06:06.780 those people are patronizing them, like putting them down, seeing them as less than, et cetera.

01:06:13.420 Unfortunately, the pod person instinct almost intrinsically can feel like being put down by

01:06:18.980 somebody if they're dressed nicer than you and everything like that.

01:06:22.720 And yeah, so it's very wary to be aware, am I broadcasting this in the way I'm acting,

01:06:31.700 in the way I'm dressing, or do I appear? 0.98

01:06:35.280 And also to know sort of the vulgar keywords, to understand that you're being shit test when 0.99

01:06:40.920 something like that happens, and there is actually a purpose behind that shit test. 0.99

01:06:45.780 It's not like doing it for shits and giggles. 0.99

01:06:48.100 It has utility even in a modern context.

01:06:50.780 It is being used essentially to determine authenticity.

01:06:54.820 Right.

01:06:55.280 You may think it's degeneracy when it's really a search for authenticity or virtue by different

01:07:03.680 standards.

01:07:05.020 Yeah, virtue by different standards.

01:07:06.340 By willing to stand to your own beliefs about the world and moral systems in how, or your

01:07:12.740 families or your clan systems in so far as those differentiate from the dominant culture

01:07:18.160 systems.

01:07:20.140 So any final thoughts, Simone?

01:07:23.360 Oh, I like this.

01:07:24.480 It seems intuitively to be very protective from cultural technologies and memes that are inherently

01:07:33.280 dangerous because when your internal measuring stick is all about your internal family, you

01:07:40.120 just aren't going to be as susceptible to those outside contagions, which is cool.

01:07:45.620 Yeah.

01:07:46.940 And I would note one final thing, which is interesting, is that clan cultures don't rely on churches

01:07:52.140 as much as other cultures, which is something to note.

01:07:55.520 Some do, but most just don't need them to maintain cultural cohesion, whereas communalist cultures

01:08:04.960 often need something like a meeting place with non-members to feel like they're part of

01:08:11.420 it.

01:08:11.920 I think people overthink that clan-based cultures are like constantly having family meetings

01:08:16.520 instead of like having family meetings once every couple of years.

01:08:19.760 They don't need as much check-in.

01:08:22.380 They're much more atomized in that respect.

01:08:24.480 And a different video can be on how did the urban monoculture basically erase individualist

01:08:31.060 cultures, because they basically got completely wiped out.

01:08:35.520 Well, and by individualist cultures, do you mean clan-based cultures?

01:08:40.140 No, there were three cultural types.

01:08:42.000 There's collectivist, there's clan-based, and there's individualist.

01:08:45.840 Individualists believe in totally atomized individual autonomy.

01:08:49.680 I am a Malcolm.

01:08:51.000 I am not a Collins.

01:08:52.100 I am not a Catholic.

01:08:52.940 I am Malcolm first.

01:08:54.480 An individualist culture was the first one to fall.

01:09:01.760 It was incredibly susceptible to the urban monoculture.

01:09:05.100 Almost nobody who has an individualist mindset still exists.

01:09:08.260 I don't know.

01:09:09.260 I have this feeling like individualistic culture is what the urban monoculture is all about.

01:09:23.940 It's about isolating people into something where they don't have anything larger to adhere to.

01:09:29.940 It's only them, and it's only their immediate feelings.

01:09:32.160 So what you're noticing is, first, the urban monoculture has to turn somebody into an individualist before it can erase them.

01:09:40.300 Or it has to conquer their bureaucracy, which means it can conquer collectivists really easily as well.

01:09:45.180 But once somebody's an individualist, then the urban monoculture, which is very anti-individualist, the urban monoculture doesn't say, be whatever you want to be.

01:09:53.760 It says you have to think this, you have to do this, you have to have this value set.

01:09:57.700 But basically, it's a divide-and-conquer strategy.

01:10:00.380 The individualists, because they have to fight alone, basically, end up getting wiped out really quickly by it.

01:10:09.660 Okay, that makes sense.

01:10:11.200 Yeah, that makes sense.

01:10:12.680 And they can think, oh, well, we'll all fight together.

01:10:15.540 But it turns out that because the urban monoculture is like, well, but we're just about enabling new types of individualism and new ways of being affirmed.

01:10:24.980 It's very easy to sort of get in that back door and split off the factions of the individualist culture so that there is no fighting back against it.

01:10:36.000 Okay, I like that.

01:10:37.920 Love you, Simone.

01:10:39.200 I love you, too.

01:10:40.080 You're welcome.

01:10:41.400 You, too.

01:10:42.820 I wanted to do some final thoughts here on the future of Mormonism because we've sort of had a three-episode arc that talked a lot about Mormonism

01:10:51.540 and was inspired by statistics of what's going on within the Mormon church.

01:10:55.880 One is, like, what's the future of Mormonism going to be?

01:11:00.480 And I think that right now we are at an inflection point for the Mormon identity that is as big,

01:11:07.900 and the types of people who are Mormons will change as much as the changeover from the original Joseph Smith days

01:11:17.260 to the settlement of Utah days or the polygynous days to the post-polygynous days.

01:11:23.580 And I think that it's driven by two things.

01:11:26.440 First was when the Mormon church decided to promote the COVID vaccine, 0.98

01:11:32.420 and a lot of Mormons were—and this is what we were talking about.

01:11:37.240 The Mormons who seem to have more kids are the Mormons who take pride in Mormonism and utilize Mormonism, 0.52

01:11:44.220 but when the church tells them to do something that goes against their own identity or conscience or clan morals,

01:11:51.420 they're like, no, F off. I'm not taking the vaccine.

01:11:54.580 And so a lot of these individuals ended up temporarily sort of splitting from the church,

01:12:00.280 not going into bad standing, but re-changing how they think about and interact with the hierarchical system of the church.

01:12:07.920 And I think that this was actually very healthy for the church,

01:12:10.640 because I often hear my Mormon friends be like, well, what's going to happen to the church

01:12:14.560 if the central bureaucracy goes woke or gets captured by wokeism?

01:12:19.240 And here I would point them, I'm like, well, you have people like Pichy Keenan,

01:12:22.700 who, you know, we interviewed recently who is a Catholic,

01:12:25.220 and her community of Catholics feels like the pope, compared to their value set, is a far woke extremist.

01:12:32.040 And yet they are still staying within the church.

01:12:34.520 And I suspect that Mormonism might have a similar thing.

01:12:37.460 They just change how they relate to the central hierarchy.

01:12:40.680 And I think that you sort of had this prototyped with the COVID mandates,

01:12:45.600 which is to say the church did something that was woke and people didn't leave.

01:12:49.980 They didn't split off and start some new church.

01:12:52.260 They're like, okay, we'll tolerate this until we can recapture the central bureaucracy.

01:12:56.620 So I think that the Mormons can learn a lot from the Catholics in that respect,

01:13:00.300 in terms of how they related to that event.

01:13:02.740 Now, would I handle it that way?

01:13:04.420 No, but I'm not a Mormon or a Catholic.

01:13:06.040 Like, I have a different set of, like, genetic pre-coding that's going to cause me to splinter.

01:13:11.720 And if you look at the interview we did with Redeemed Zoomer, you get a sense of this,

01:13:18.160 where the Protestants, whenever one of their churches goes, even a little woke,

01:13:22.220 everyone who's not woke, even if it turns out that it's the majority who's not woke,

01:13:26.640 just ends up splitting off and starting a new organization.

01:13:29.840 And this is what I'm talking about, where it's sort of as a slight level of culture and maybe genetics

01:13:35.940 leads to the Protestants to always split off.

01:13:38.980 But I suspect the Mormons are going to act more like the Catholics. 1.00

01:13:42.300 Now, here I would also note, like, what's the future of the Mormon religion

01:13:46.560 was a question that was posed to me recently.

01:13:49.060 And I started thinking, you know, I know a lot of Mormons don't watch the Mormon influencers.

01:13:56.020 However, I think the Mormon influencers may be the vanguard of a new direction the church could take.

01:14:04.860 So, essentially, the image of what a Mormon is, if you look at people who grew up in my generation,

01:14:11.400 it was of this nerdy sort of pod person.

01:14:14.640 If you look at people who are growing up in this next generation, you know, young kids today,

01:14:21.260 it's the ultra trad wife who's baking pie and, you know, may come off as unrealistically perfect, 0.90

01:14:29.420 but is essentially a form of jock, you can almost think of.

01:14:33.040 Like, they sort of transitioned from a nerd image to a jock image.

01:14:37.720 And this isn't just a transition in image.

01:14:41.240 There genuinely used to be a lot of nerdy pod people Mormons, 1.00

01:14:45.280 and most of them left the church and went woke recently.

01:14:48.640 And even the ones who are staying in the church, if you go around,

01:14:53.120 and one of my friends was showing me pictures around Utah recently,

01:14:55.920 if you look at the ones who are breeding, they are of this jock variety now.

01:15:00.460 They're not the nerdy pod people anymore.

01:15:02.280 They're just not having many kids.

01:15:04.240 Where this next generation, like, remember how I said, like, 0.99

01:15:07.720 where the Mormon church is going could be as different from where it was historically

01:15:11.740 as the post-polygamous Mormons were from the pre-polygamous Mormons, culturally speaking.

01:15:18.240 Mormons for a long time have been a weird religion.

01:15:21.480 However, the Mormons on the cultural vanguard now,

01:15:24.760 the Mormon wife influencers, are trad. 0.99

01:15:28.920 They're like, Mormonism historically was antithetical to trad, 0.58

01:15:32.680 at least in the eyes of the American public.

01:15:34.940 And now they are seen as the vanguard of trad.

01:15:38.220 They are seen as the trad foot soldiers in the culture war.

01:15:42.320 And this sort of completely transforms part of the Mormon self-identity

01:15:49.940 as being not just mainstream and normal, but the vanguard of mainstream and normal,

01:15:56.040 but also what it may mean to be a good Mormon for some individuals,

01:16:01.620 where these Mormon influencers often break the deontological rules of the Mormon tradition,

01:16:08.840 i.e. they won't wear their garments correctly, they might hike up their legs a little bit,

01:16:13.740 but they are breaking rules not to appear more urban monoculture,

01:16:19.960 but to appear more perfectly aesthetically trad.

01:16:24.240 They're having a lot of kids, and they are presenting an aspirational figure

01:16:28.520 that makes people want to join the church.

01:16:31.220 And it may change Mormonism from a religion of overwhelmingly deontological rules, 0.67

01:16:38.840 into a religion of aesthetic rules.

01:16:42.460 And by aesthetic rules, I mean there is an aesthetic image of what it means to be a Mormon,

01:16:46.540 and that is what one can aspire to most.

01:16:49.880 And in a way, that would be an iteration of the religion,

01:16:53.740 because Mormonism, unlike other religions, has an iterative revelation,

01:16:59.120 meaning to say Mormonism's going to change.

01:17:01.860 That's not—if I say Catholicism's going to change, Catholics are like, 0.98

01:17:05.220 Catholicism would never change.

01:17:06.640 How could it? You say Mormonism's going to change to a Mormon, 0.99

01:17:08.900 and they're like, yeah, that's the point.

01:17:10.260 Like, that's the point of iterative revelation.

01:17:12.040 Of course it's going to change.

01:17:13.600 That Mormonism might actually be evolving into almost sort of the perfect social media religion,

01:17:18.420 which is really interesting to me,

01:17:21.080 because I was noting when I was talking to someone recently,

01:17:23.400 that there are not, you know, trad Jewish influencers,

01:17:26.720 trad Catholic influencers that are seen as aspirationally trad to people outside their religion.

01:17:34.140 But there are lots of trad Mormon influencers who are seen as aspirationally trad to people outside their religion.

01:17:40.180 And that's really fascinating.

01:17:42.020 And then some Mormons are like, no, this is like the cultural outsiders,

01:17:46.000 this isn't the mainstream Mormons. 0.61

01:17:47.640 And I'm like, okay, who the F are you kidding?

01:17:50.680 Ballerina Farms is probably the most famous.

01:17:53.320 This is, and I know this family, as I mentioned, I know the JetBlue guy,

01:17:57.680 I know that line of the family.

01:18:01.120 They are like King Mormons.

01:18:02.940 This is like King, Normie, Mitt Romney status almost Mormons, the JetBlue family. 0.81

01:18:09.700 She's married into that family. 0.99

01:18:11.220 They aren't like some cultural outsider or some deviant.

01:18:14.220 This is the core of the church culture that's being advertised here.

01:18:20.140 And then in spite of all this, in spite of these influencers who was in a generation,

01:18:25.380 transformed the public perception of Mormonism to a group of weaselly nerds

01:18:31.600 whose primary controversies were that they used to be polygynous and racist,

01:18:35.800 to a group of beautiful trad wives whose primary controversy is that they're too traditionalist. 1.00

01:18:45.780 They'll say, oh, but they're not Mormon enough in the way that I identify as Mormon.

01:18:50.940 And so they want to turn on this group that has put up this Herculean effort.

01:18:57.260 And to me, this just feels so Order 66.

01:19:01.640 Thank you, Cody.

01:19:02.560 Now let's get a move on.

01:19:03.840 We've got a battle to win here.

01:19:04.820 Execute Order 66.

01:19:22.020 Like, what are you guys thinking?

01:19:24.160 As a final note here, I mentioned at the beginning that it was the Mormons who were of this overly 1.00

01:19:29.700 deontological perfectionist variety who ended up deconverting,

01:19:33.640 generally ended up going woke.

01:19:36.600 This actually created a very favorable phenomenon to Mormonism,

01:19:40.220 which saved them from something that could have been a major problem for the religion.

01:19:44.340 Which is to say that early in the days of the online atheist movement,

01:19:48.260 a huge chunk of the leadership of the movement was Exmos.

01:19:53.680 I think this was due to cultural reasons and is likely due to the same reason that Mormons 0.75

01:19:58.480 out-compete other people was in social media platforms.

01:20:01.340 They're just uniquely culturally good at social media.

01:20:05.040 Well, if you look at the current online skeptic and atheist community, there are almost no Exmos 1.00

01:20:12.400 in the leadership groups.

01:20:13.960 And the question can be, what happened here?

01:20:16.280 Well, what happened was, and you can go watch our video on how the atheist movement was the

01:20:23.100 birthplace of the modern online right, is that the atheist movement ended up having a split

01:20:28.180 with the individuals who were more interested in just dunking on conservatives, i.e. the

01:20:32.080 Wokies going in one direction, and the genuine skeptics going in another direction, and most 0.99

01:20:37.720 of the genuine skeptics coming back around and being like, hey, maybe religion wasn't that

01:20:41.480 bad an idea after all, well, all of the Exmos, or the vast majority of them, ended up getting 1.00

01:20:46.740 pulled off by the Wokies.

01:20:48.480 And so the Woke side of the skeptic community ended up integrating with the general Woke movement

01:20:55.920 and lost a lot of its cultural relevance.

01:20:57.720 Oops, professors right in, oh, it got a light.

01:21:00.780 Oh, it did.

01:21:01.040 The professor's inside, saying hi to you.

01:21:04.320 Do you, do I have lips?

01:21:07.380 You, you do have lips, yes.

01:21:09.740 Do you not see them in the camera?

01:21:11.480 And you have teeth?

01:21:14.520 I don't see them in the camera.

01:21:17.200 And what's your favorite part of your face?

01:21:21.220 Yeah, I think we can, we've confirmed that you have a mouth, which is good.

01:21:27.460 My hair is like yellow, right?

01:21:30.660 Yeah, your hair is, we call it blonde, but yes, it's yellow.

01:21:34.260 And what color is Titan's hair?

01:21:37.500 I really don't know what's graphed to me.

01:21:40.240 It's brown.

01:21:42.280 What color is Torsten's hair?

01:21:45.960 Yellow.

01:21:47.520 No, it's not yellow like yours.

01:21:49.700 It's orange.

01:21:51.260 Oh, orange.

01:21:53.540 Blue.

01:21:56.160 Blue?

01:21:58.720 No, his hair is not blue.

01:22:00.620 Octavian, what, can you tell me a joke?

01:22:06.920 Tell me a joke.

01:22:08.480 Why did the chicken cross a road?

01:22:12.300 Why did the chicken cross the road?

01:22:14.760 To get food that was electronic that pooped him.

01:22:20.180 To get food that was electronic that pooped him.

01:22:23.820 Yeah.

01:22:25.340 Okay, let's try this again.

01:22:27.000 Tell me a joke.

01:22:31.460 Why did the chicken cross the road?

01:22:34.140 Okay, why did the chicken cross the road?

01:22:36.980 To get some food on cars.

01:22:39.720 To get some food on cars.

01:22:42.260 Yeah, and poop on a pumpkin.

01:22:44.480 And poop on a pumpkin.

01:22:47.280 I love you too, buddy.

01:22:53.060 Love you, Simone.

01:22:54.840 Octavian's attempts at humor were...

01:22:57.000 Not good.

01:22:58.560 He's really trying.

01:23:00.160 You know, one of these days he's going to get it.

01:23:03.080 I love you so much, Simone.

01:23:05.160 I hear him approaching.

01:23:07.040 Oh, you hear...

01:23:07.500 Come on, Toasty, you want to talk to the fans?

01:23:10.140 The audience?

01:23:13.280 You get to walk by yourself?

01:23:15.940 Hi, buddy.

01:23:18.580 You want to be all by yourself.

01:23:21.760 Can you hear me?

01:23:24.620 Yeah, they can hear you, but you won't be able to hear them.

01:23:28.580 Hi, Dad.

01:23:31.460 Hi, Titan.

01:23:32.480 Hi, Toasty.

01:23:35.560 Titan, what are you wearing?

01:23:39.020 What?

01:23:40.500 I can't hear you, guys.

01:23:42.120 So he wanted to walk by himself, so Stacy let him for the first time, and he ended up just

01:23:47.560 walking away and going to the neighbor's house, and he knew.

01:23:52.820 Daddy, you're just a dog. 0.70

01:23:55.880 Come on. 0.99

01:23:57.220 Get out of here.

01:23:59.680 What?

01:24:01.700 Am I at the audience?

01:24:04.900 Are you at the audience?

01:24:06.620 Yeah.

01:24:06.940 I'm kidding.

01:24:09.160 I'm just kidding.

01:24:12.580 I'm kidding.

01:24:14.520 Dad, I said you.

01:24:18.280 I'm all here.

01:24:20.220 I'm all here.

01:24:20.720 I'm the computer.

01:24:21.220 I'm the computer.

01:24:29.560 Indy's staring at him like, what is even happening?

01:24:33.200 Like, she's like, what?

01:24:34.400 What?

01:24:34.900 What?

01:24:35.000 What?

01:24:35.500 What?

01:24:35.900 What?

01:24:36.000 I'm going to get him out of the mommy room. 1.00

01:24:46.340 Oh, we got to get him out of the mommy room? 1.00

01:24:48.440 Yeah.

01:24:48.940 What do you think I should do to get him out of the mommy room? 1.00

01:24:56.140 What should I do to get him out of the mommy room? 1.00

01:25:03.380 Should he be punished?

01:25:07.160 How much should he be punished for it, then?

01:25:14.860 Well, I'm going to come down and make dinner.

01:25:17.000 Yeah.

01:25:17.340 Gorset, snitches get snitches. 1.00

01:25:19.420 That's right, Toste.

01:25:20.740 See what that means, Kirste?

01:25:21.680 Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.

01:25:23.460 You don't get to ask her to be punished.

01:25:31.700 Nope.

01:25:38.140 Do you want to talk to Octavian?

01:25:41.100 Why do you want to talk to Octavian?

01:25:42.540 quick aside here but i noted earlier in the video that one of the reasons why people

01:25:55.500 from certain cultures drink is so that they can see what you are like with lower inhibitions

01:26:01.540 and kids also present that to an extent a person's kids shows the way that they are sort of

01:26:09.980 genetically pre-coded to act if they had lower inhibitions and frequently when people see me in

01:26:16.060 media they're like malcolm you seem like you are incredibly high energy you must be on drugs or

01:26:23.360 something like that or it must be an affectation you put on for the camera and here i would just

01:26:28.780 direct your attention to octavian for the past five minutes that is what i is going on in my brain

01:26:36.660 all day 24 7 that's being suppressed

01:26:39.820 okay come on do you want to say anything to the subscribers

01:26:48.160 come on down

01:26:58.100 okay

01:27:00.260 you

01:27:00.760 you

01:27:01.340 you

01:27:01.460 you

01:27:01.780 you

Based Camp - September 30, 2024

How Wokes Stole Pod People from Conformist Religions： Mormon Case Study

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