Based Camp - Low Effort Parenting is Pronatalist (& Random Chat)

00:00:00.000 But I'm thinking, you know, in 20 years, I imagine we will have AI avatars, i.e. robots that are in your basically AI slaves that live in your house that help with like parenting and stuff like that.

00:00:11.500 There's already one for kids.

00:00:13.240 There's like the this it's it looks kind of like a doll and it's an AI that talks to your kid.

00:00:17.960 Would you like to know more?

00:00:19.340 By the way, we're at 105 now.

00:00:22.060 105 what?

00:00:23.680 Followers.

00:00:24.180 9,105.

00:00:27.980 Getting close to that 10K number.

00:00:30.360 Oh, gosh.

00:00:31.620 Yeah, I'm excited about that.

00:00:33.440 Well, okay, as as when you were younger, or even like when we first met, did you think you were going to be a high effort or a low effort parent?

00:00:45.080 Interesting.

00:00:45.700 It never occurred to me.

00:00:47.340 You didn't think about how you were going to approach things you just knew you were going to have a lot of kids.

00:00:53.660 I kind of always thought I'd be super rich and super successful in like a major world figure.

00:00:59.440 So it never occurred to me.

00:01:03.480 Because what you would just have somebody else raise your kids?

00:01:06.600 Yeah, if I needed to.

00:01:08.040 Yeah, I never occurred to me growing up that I would be in any way constrained in anything I did as an adult.

00:01:13.640 That's actually really interesting because I think that you and I, I think you more by temperament are a low effort parent.

00:01:25.260 Like you just, you outsource as a sort of natural part of your management of any project.

00:01:30.940 You know, you're not about putting in maximum effort, performative, or otherwise you try to do things elegantly and efficiently.

00:01:37.480 And I admire that deeply.

00:01:39.080 And so you never would naturally be a high effort parent.

00:01:42.480 But I think that if you were really wealthy and you did have nothing but like nannies, like one nanny for each kid and like a lot of people on them, those kids would experience a high effort parenting environment growing up.

00:01:58.340 Meaning that there would be someone micromanaging and helicopter parenting them all the time.

00:02:02.500 Why?

00:02:03.340 Even if you tell a nanny or a babysitter or whatever to like, hey, be hands off, you know, let them make their own mistakes.

00:02:10.400 It's okay if they fall down.

00:02:11.740 Like, you know, don't make a big deal out of everything.

00:02:13.800 They know that they will be fired or they will be...

00:02:19.660 Well, and this is something that we've seen was a lot of the wealthy parents that we know, and it's a big problem that they have with child rearing, is when they create environments where they have somebody else like living in their house and helping raise their kids.

00:02:33.000 Especially if they have multiple people who can sort of watch each other to an extent.

00:02:37.120 These people are almost sort of forced to overindulge the child because, you know, it's quite one thing to say, oh, I won't give in to a child's tantrum.

00:02:45.620 But when you know the mom is looking at you and seeing this child just like absolutely destroyed, it can be really hard to not do anything about it.

00:02:55.280 Yeah, or the kid makes a mess and you're like, hey, you know, Jimmy, clean up the mess.

00:02:59.040 And Jimmy doesn't clean up the mess.

00:03:00.400 And then, you know, you try to make a big thing about it.

00:03:03.380 And then, you know, the parents come in and the house is a complete wreck and the kids are having a tantrum.

00:03:08.500 You're going to look really bad as the nanny, you know?

00:03:10.680 And so we've seen this happen.

00:03:12.300 We're like, okay, they're just now they're cleaning everything up for the kids.

00:03:15.140 Now the kids are getting super spoiled and entitled.

00:03:17.500 And they're also being watched at every second.

00:03:19.640 Again, also like we say this to babysitters all the time.

00:03:23.240 Like, you know, our kids get bumps and bruises.

00:03:24.900 Like they fall down, they roughhouse.

00:03:26.420 Like this happens, but they do not want to be the kind of babysitter or nanny that returns, that it sees the parents return. 0.58

00:03:34.560 And like the kid is a black guy, you know, like you're not going to get hired again. 0.99

00:03:37.820 And even we would probably be like, oh, what happened here? 0.78

00:03:41.180 You know, like this is not great.

00:03:43.000 Actually, we're pretty chill about that.

00:03:44.440 We understand because we know how rambunctious our kids are.

00:03:46.760 But yeah, so I think that's really, that's an interesting observation here.

00:03:50.420 Just specifically that even low effort style parents who like know better or parents who understand that a helicopter parenting or coddling a child is really damaging.

00:04:00.400 If they choose to pay other people to raise their kids or they send their kids to a public school, a private school, daycare, et cetera, that kid is going to be coddled.

00:04:09.460 I think daycare and public and private school are quite different.

00:04:11.540 So one study that people may not be familiar with is typically the kids who get sent to like kindergarten earlier, they did a great like controlled study on this recently because they couldn't take all the kids into this like state paid kindergarten program.

00:04:24.320 The kids who got in actually did much worse in terms of their academics long term, their emotional development long term.

00:04:30.540 And even though the stereotype is homeschooled kids do worse socially than non homeschooled kids, the reality is that if you look at the meta studies on this, while you'll get things on both sides of the line, the majority seem to trend towards homeschool kids have better social skills than non homeschooled kids and better leadership skills and better emotional control.

00:04:49.060 And this is because they learn their socialization from watching adults, whereas the rest of the kids learn their social abilities from like this weird Lord of the Flies situation in this evil bureaucracy you've thrown them in the two.

00:05:04.720 I mean, our school system in most of the world is this weird totalitarian bureaucracy you have to like live a portion of your life under, like almost like living in a prison system.

00:05:15.760 It is absolutely bizarre that we think that this would have positive social and emotional outcomes.

00:05:23.220 Yeah, well, and the kids are also in a highly regimented environment because they have to be to like make everything work.

00:05:29.520 And they are being micromanaged a lot more.

00:05:31.560 And there are a lot more like sort of strict rules and like here's how it's going to go and I'm going to watch you and I'm going to tell you what to do.

00:05:36.860 And that again.

00:05:38.480 Yeah.

00:05:38.760 I mean, in public schools these days, you have very low student to teacher ratios.

00:05:41.980 I think that, yeah, but there's still, I'm sorry, you never went to public school, your classes.

00:05:46.560 I did go to public school and most of the pressure on kids to behave in certain ways within public school comes from their peer group, not from adults.

00:05:55.600 No, I totally disagree.

00:05:56.900 In a classroom environment, you've got, you know, 31 kids.

00:06:00.140 Says this is well-de-Victorian.

00:06:01.980 You, of course, had extra attention from the teachers because you were always there.

00:06:04.880 I didn't know.

00:06:05.520 What I'm saying is like no one is allowed to get up.

00:06:07.460 There have to be rules to go to the bathroom. 1.00

00:06:08.860 There have to be rules for everything because without that structured regimented environment.

00:06:13.240 That's not what messes kids up.

00:06:14.880 Whether or not you can get up in a room, what are you talking about?

00:06:17.340 It's about the way you relate to them emotionally.

00:06:19.880 And that is primarily done from their peer group, not from the authorities.

00:06:23.840 If you're in a class of like 500 kids to one teacher, the teacher is basically irrelevant in terms of the social and emotional lessons they're teaching the kids.

00:06:31.660 Yeah, but the student is subject to a system which is like a big brother.

00:06:34.600 And that's why you have all these kids who are constantly appealing to authority instead of actually like.

00:06:39.560 So, for example, we have this issue of a lot of kids now who don't know their own limitations and boundaries and don't know others limitations and boundaries.

00:06:46.740 Why is that?

00:06:47.520 Because when they get hurt by someone or wronged by someone, they get to appeal to this bureaucratic system of rules.

00:06:54.700 And that person gets a timeout and every time something goes wrong, they don't have to figure out how to navigate that interpersonally as kids.

00:07:01.340 They get to figure out how to navigate that bureaucratically as parts of the system.

00:07:06.120 And that's what I would really agree with this.

00:07:08.360 I agree with this.

00:07:09.300 And I would say that this is a huge problem right now in society as far as you're talking about appealing to bureaucracies.

00:07:14.780 Because the bureaucracy teaches them, you know, how do you get the teachers involved?

00:07:18.420 How do you call somebody over?

00:07:19.600 Or if somebody has hurt your feelings in any way, then they get punished.

00:07:24.380 And so kids learn to utilize this as a tool at a very young age.

00:07:29.760 If I can convincingly argue to a person in a position of authority that somebody hurt my feelings, then I get to use the violence of the state, basically.

00:07:37.980 The violence of the authority, i.e. the power of the authority on whoever I can convince hurt my feelings.

00:07:44.440 And so it creates this mindset where – and also keep in mind, like what do kids get punished for?

00:07:51.020 They get punished for, quote-unquote, hurting other kids, whether that's their feelings or their bodies, which for kids makes them believe that in a society the number one thing of value is not being hurt.

00:08:02.980 This is where you get was in this left community, like ultra-lefty community-minded individual, this belief in negative utilitarianism because that's a belief that's implicitly taught through the power structures of our school systems.

00:08:16.040 The way that you call down upon the ultimate authority, like power on someone, like your God in this system, like I'm going to call down lightning on somebody else, is by claiming to have been hurt physically or emotionally, which then to an individual makes them think, like I deserve as a right in society to never be emotionally or physically hurt, like even after they leave the school system.

00:08:39.140 Exactly.

00:08:39.520 And that's when you get this mindset we see right now in our society.

00:08:42.800 But it's worse than that because they don't understand how to deal with being hurt themselves.

00:08:48.420 They literally don't have the tools for it.

00:08:50.020 So when you look at animals, like mammals especially, when they're young, they play.

00:08:55.280 They nip at each other.

00:08:56.340 They bite.

00:08:57.000 They jump.

00:08:57.660 They push boundaries.

00:08:59.060 And they push each other's boundaries.

00:09:00.400 And they often hurt each other and get hurt.

00:09:02.360 What is the point of that?

00:09:03.440 They are learning internal resilience and they're learning where other people's boundaries are, at least like other – not species, but like other people or other –

00:09:12.780 similar kinds boundaries are.

00:09:16.240 And when you don't learn that, like if, for example, you don't get a chance like a homeschool kid might to like get punched by a brother and the mom's too busy to like realize it and have to deal with justice on your own, you aren't going to learn how to deal with that.

00:09:32.340 You're only going to learn how to appeal to authority.

00:09:34.140 So that's the other important thing is I think that there is some level of emotional regulation that also comes out of this.

00:09:39.140 It's just learning that like, hey, sometimes life isn't fair.

00:09:42.100 I don't always get to file a complaint and have justice take place when I'm wronged. 0.72

00:09:46.220 Sometimes I just have to figure out how to deal with the fact that people can be dicks to me and I'm going to, over time, learn from that and avoid people who are going to punch me when mom isn't looking.

00:09:56.700 So I think that's another really big problem of that. 0.70

00:09:59.840 But I do think this is an interesting thing in that we – what we came into this conversation planning to talk about was that low-effort parenting is inherently prenatalist.

00:10:09.180 But actually it can be difficult to actually gift your child with low-effort parenting in modern society, even if you yourself are a low-effort parent.

00:10:20.380 Yeah, like with our kids, right?

00:10:22.760 Like we let them do basically what they want to do as much as we can.

00:10:26.320 But, you know, we've had CPS called on us that we've done a video about, right?

00:10:29.280 Like by letting our kids play outside alone with us watching them from inside, that was considered a CPS callable event.

00:10:36.760 Inside a locked yard, by the way.

00:10:38.720 Yeah, in a locked yard.

00:10:39.680 But this is also a problem for us.

00:10:41.420 I mean we live on a farm, right?

00:10:42.840 Like if you leave our house and you walk from our house, you can walk into the woods and you can walk into like a national park, right?

00:10:49.620 Like it's dreams, everything like that.

00:10:51.480 It's a fun place to play.

00:10:52.840 But we can't let our kids play there.

00:10:54.920 Like if it was a generation ago, kids our age by now would be running into the woods all the time.

00:11:00.980 Yeah, I mean I grew up reading Calvin and Hobbes.

00:11:02.880 I know you hate Calvin and Hobbes, but like this vision of this boy going out into the woods with his wagon and his toy tiger.

00:11:09.340 Also by himself, mind you, not even without like siblings to kind of, you know, keep him honest.

00:11:14.260 Can you imagine?

00:11:15.760 You know, like –

00:11:17.140 No, it's wild, yeah.

00:11:18.140 Yeah, and I'm hoping that in a few years, you know, our oldest will have to bite the bullet.

00:11:21.760 But then once they're old enough to watch their siblings, we can send them out.

00:11:24.460 I mean we do need to be wary.

00:11:26.500 There are – I mean I have seen large coyotes in the woods here that could easily kill a kid.

00:11:31.260 So we do need to be aware of that and keep them in safe areas.

00:11:37.620 But – and I watch enough Lost 401 stories for people who don't know the Lost 401 phenomenon.

00:11:43.880 People know I really like my like occult like mysteries and stuff like that.

00:11:49.320 I just love listening to them.

00:11:50.820 And so I'm terrified.

00:11:52.160 Mr. Ballin, we love.

00:11:53.680 Like Lore Lodge, we love.

00:11:55.580 Like I could go – Mr. Grimley, like anyone who does like anything tied to cryptids or missing 401s or other types of mysteries, I absolutely love listening to.

00:12:07.180 So – but it also terrifies me of like letting my kids go play in the woods because so many of us like, well, I was watching them and I turned away for a few seconds.

00:12:14.140 And the next time I looked, toddlers were all gone.

00:12:17.940 No, that happens a lot.

00:12:19.260 Like many stories begin with my toddler was playing in the backyard while I watched from inside.

00:12:24.660 Or we were hiking and the toddler ran ahead a little bit.

00:12:28.060 And then that's the last time they were ever seen.

00:12:30.740 Not good.

00:12:33.640 Yikes.

00:12:34.280 Yeah.

00:12:34.700 That's why we lock the gate and they stay in there for now.

00:12:37.640 But it also requires a level of like – I don't know.

00:12:40.320 I think part of this might even just be genetic that you are even able to be a low effort parent.

00:12:45.840 Because I remember, you know, we had some friends over at our house once and all our kids were playing together.

00:12:50.720 And they were – they had a lot of kids.

00:12:52.500 They were a high fertility family.

00:12:54.180 What, four or five kids?

00:12:55.000 Anyway, and their kids and our kids were playing in the local creek because we have a creek by our house with an area where it pools.

00:13:01.600 So you get like a natural pool where the kids can swim.

00:13:04.560 And, you know, one of our kids fell in and they just started sinking and they were freaking out.

00:13:10.360 Like I was like – I like casually –

00:13:13.000 Keep in mind, Malcolm is standing like two feet from this kid.

00:13:16.200 Yeah.

00:13:16.720 I did not act with any sort of a panic or worry.

00:13:20.960 I was pretty relaxed in going, pulling the kid out of water and then, you know, putting him on the shore.

00:13:27.980 And like, I mean, the kid, you know, sinking in a pond, like, you know, they're terrified, right?

00:13:35.000 And the kid was fine.

00:13:36.560 You know, he got up and then he kicked at the water and he was angry at the pond for annoying him.

00:13:41.140 But – and with me, people are like, oh, you're such a horrible parent.

00:13:44.380 It takes a kid a while to drown.

00:13:46.540 Like I saw him from the moment he fell in.

00:13:49.360 I had plenty of time to walk over and not get wet.

00:13:53.060 And he wasn't going to drown in that period of time.

00:13:56.620 And he was learning a valuable lesson about falling into ponds.

00:13:59.940 But, you know, I think a lot of people are just like anything that threatens, you know, you must immediately go out and run and panic and have a huge emotional situation over.

00:14:09.800 And I don't think that would have served his benefit at all.

00:14:12.560 But I think that that's, you know, probably not a conscious decision I made.

00:14:16.820 It was just like the way I'm genetically coded to, like, look at the situation and be like, is this going to kill him?

00:14:22.000 Yeah.

00:14:22.280 No, we both have this sort of reaction where your reaction is just sort of practically pick them up and take care of them and, like, dust them off but, like, not freak out.

00:14:31.260 And my natural reaction is to do the same thing but then laugh hysterically at them.

00:14:37.140 Like, one of our sons last night thought he would be absolutely hilarious when he was taking a bath, like, taking a little cup of water and then, like, drinking it in a really weird and annoying way.

00:14:49.120 But then immediately this backfired because he inhaled a ton of water.

00:14:52.660 And then he just starts, like, coughing like he's an old man, like, and I'm just, like, dying of laughter. 0.96

00:15:00.460 And, you know, I think a lot of other parents might be like, oh, no, my son is, he swallowed water the wrong way.

00:15:07.340 Like, he's choking on it and I'm just sitting here, like, dying.

00:15:10.260 I mean, historically, lots of families have, like, 15 kids.

00:15:15.160 I'm not okay with any of our kids ever getting hurt or dying.

00:15:18.140 I mean, I am very safety conscious, as are you, which is why you're so paranoid.

00:15:21.660 I mean, watch all this, like, 401, like, missing person.

00:15:23.980 Yeah.

00:15:24.420 But, I mean, I think that, you know, if you're not raising your kid in a way and you're not treating them with the level of care that they would receive in a family of 15,

00:15:32.560 then you're not treating them in a sustainable way or in a way that is aligned with our evolutionary history.

00:15:37.700 Well, yeah, no.

00:15:38.140 So let's go into it.

00:15:39.200 Like, why is low effort parenting prenatalist and important?

00:15:43.500 I think the big one is we've already talked about this here and we've already alluded to this a lot.

00:15:48.220 When you have low effort parenting, you are giving children an opportunity to develop their own sense of internal regulation, socialization, and independence.

00:15:57.860 And if you don't do that, you're not going to have independent kids.

00:16:00.460 Second, it is the only way to make parenting sustainable for parents.

00:16:03.600 And we say to our friends all the time, there is nothing harder than having just one kid.

00:16:07.660 Because with one kid, everything's a big deal.

00:16:10.320 You also kind of feel obligated to make everything a big deal.

00:16:12.780 I think two is slightly harder than one.

00:16:13.880 I think where it really starts getting easier, three, four, et cetera.

00:16:16.680 Well, but with one, it's like you're really freaking out about it, about everything.

00:16:21.860 You know, oh, the tiniest rash.

00:16:23.540 Whereas, like, with two, you're like, I don't know.

00:16:25.860 I've seen this before.

00:16:27.180 You know, this is fine.

00:16:27.880 Yeah, and now that you're at two kids, because, you know, you grew up an only child.

00:16:31.520 I think a lot of people, you know, before they have a couple of kids, they don't realize how, I would see it as abusive it is to only have one child.

00:16:38.600 Yeah, because as soon as they also start entertaining each other.

00:16:41.860 Even if they look like they're fighting, they're entertaining each other and they're not clinging to you for momentary needs of entertainment, which is really important.

00:16:50.660 But, yeah, also, yeah, the mindset of just knowing that you're going to have a lot of kids, which causes more low effort parenting, is incredibly valuable because you start asking yourself, even if you've only at that point had two or three or four kids, is this something that I'm going to be able to handle when I have five, six or seven kids?

00:17:08.900 And if the answer is no, well, then we're just not going to make a really big deal out of this.

00:17:12.620 You know, we're just going to have to, you know, be chill.

00:17:16.340 And it makes you much calmer as a parent.

00:17:20.660 And then, of course, we've always argued again and again that the amount of money that parents spend on kids is absolutely insane between the camps they send them to, the schools they send them to, the products they get for them, the brand new clothes.

00:17:36.120 And this happens at every level of income, I've noticed.

00:17:38.280 This is not just something that, like, wealthy or middle class families do.

00:17:41.500 Like, everyone spends unreasonable amounts of money on kids, especially on, like, special kid foods.

00:17:46.020 And I think when you are a low effort parent, you're instead thinking about, like, crockpot meals and you're thinking about buying in bulk and you're thinking about, like, cooking the same way I learned how to cook as, like, a river guide when I was a kid where you're, like, cooking these bulk meals.

00:18:00.480 And they're actually very healthy and they're very affordable and they're probably healthier than, like, the hyper-processed baby food that you used to buy when you had only one child, right?

00:18:08.380 And our kids love going to the toy store, except they don't know that the toy store that we take them to is just the local dollar store.

00:18:16.640 So we know that they can't accidentally get attached to anything that's too expensive.

00:18:21.060 But, I mean, this is just like...

00:18:22.880 Which is actually...

00:18:23.620 Hold on.

00:18:24.080 I just want to point out, this is an extremely traditional thing.

00:18:26.940 And the concept of getting kids expensive toys for the holidays is completely bonkers.

00:18:32.100 The song, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

00:18:34.560 Christmas, there's this line where they say, take a look at the 5 and 10, glistening once again with candy canes and sugar lanes aglow.

00:18:42.260 Now that, the 5 and 10, that's the dollar store.

00:18:45.320 That's a 5 and 10 cent store.

00:18:47.240 People were not shopping at high-end stores for gifts for their kids.

00:18:51.780 And they were still having a very magical Christmas, enough to be memorialized by, like, 1950s Christmas songs.

00:18:58.700 Yeah, I mean, you can easily get all your kids' stuff from a dollar store for Christmas and still give them a pretty magical Christmas.

00:19:06.200 Which is, you know, and we've so moved away from that.

00:19:09.440 We have these expensive, insane toys I see people giving now.

00:19:12.800 And it's like, why?

00:19:14.400 Oh, and it's not just that.

00:19:15.360 I mean, also, like, birthdays.

00:19:17.420 Have you seen birthday cakes?

00:19:19.080 And even, like, our peers.

00:19:20.040 I'm referring to our peers.

00:19:21.000 I'm not just referring to, like, Instagram influencers are getting for their kids.

00:19:24.340 They are fancier than our wedding cake.

00:19:26.320 I kid you not.

00:19:27.280 You know, traditional Calvinist families, birthdays are a sin.

00:19:31.660 To have a holiday themed around an individual.

00:19:34.960 And, I mean, we've talked about maybe not doing birthdays for all our kids once we have a lot of them.

00:19:40.220 We have extremely chill birthdays to start.

00:19:41.920 We've yet to have a birthday party for any one of our children.

00:19:44.580 You know that, right?

00:19:46.240 Well, we kind of have.

00:19:47.380 We've had a few birthday cakes.

00:19:49.320 We make birthday cakes because that's fun.

00:19:52.080 Oh, yeah, we haven't did a birthday party.

00:19:53.880 Oh, yeah, we've certainly never invited anyone over.

00:19:55.860 What a chore that would be.

00:19:57.620 Some parents also seem to do birthday parties.

00:19:59.640 But, like, just parents come and they buy, like, a bunch of decorations and a really expensive cake.

00:20:05.620 And then they post a photo of it to Facebook or Instagram or whatever.

00:20:08.720 So.

00:20:08.880 I'd have to make it a new tradition.

00:20:10.360 I'd have to do that, Simone.

00:20:11.200 I don't want friends.

00:20:13.940 Do you have any idea what a burden that would be?

00:20:16.660 Oh.

00:20:17.020 Or a long time.

00:20:17.820 Terrifying.

00:20:18.360 Genuinely.

00:20:19.260 But, yeah, I mean, it's.

00:20:20.200 So that's the other element.

00:20:21.180 It's the financial element.

00:20:22.020 A lot of people do not have more kids now or do not think they can have kids or wait too long to have kids because they expect to spend insane amounts on their children when, in reality, children really don't cost that much.

00:20:36.580 Number one, our biggest expense for kids is what do you think?

00:20:40.520 Diapers.

00:20:41.240 No, medical stuff.

00:20:42.100 My God.

00:20:42.640 Medical stuff.

00:20:43.840 Yeah.

00:20:44.400 Yeah.

00:20:44.760 Medical stuff.

00:20:45.440 And then probably after that, probably whole milk because they just, in formula, of course.

00:20:50.440 Whole milk is so expensive now.

00:20:51.400 It's like $6 a gallon.

00:20:52.420 It's pricey.

00:20:52.900 Yeah.

00:20:53.140 And they chug it.

00:20:54.260 So that is our, like, but yeah, I mean, aside from that, and if you have good insurance through an employer and we have kind of shitty insurance, so it's super, super high deductible or, you know, they're like, oh yeah, spend $10,000.

00:21:08.460 And then maybe we'll talk about covering your health expenses.

00:21:11.760 Yeah.

00:21:12.080 But we don't even, like, do anything for our kids, like, we do regular stuff, but we don't have kids with, like, medical issues.

00:21:20.300 I know.

00:21:20.660 We take them to checkups.

00:21:21.580 They get vaccines.

00:21:22.320 Well, if they have, like, a rash or they're sick, we take them in.

00:21:25.100 And that adds up.

00:21:26.760 Plus, we got those ear thingies a while ago.

00:21:29.260 We should probably get better at home medical care.

00:21:32.180 Well, yeah.

00:21:32.920 And that's one of our plans for this year also for ourselves.

00:21:35.400 It's just, like, switch to chat GPT plus, like, those really detailed blood panel lists, like, where we get, like, a very detailed blood panel from ourselves, for ourselves at least to start.

00:21:45.620 We're going to experiment on ourselves first before we do this with our kids.

00:21:49.000 But then use that as, like, a marker plus, like, really detailed analysis plus, you know, things like Ezra scans where we're getting, like, a-

00:21:55.780 And to point out here, anyone who thinks you're being irresponsible, I have a degree of medical training because of my academic background.

00:22:01.300 And doctors are profoundly less educated than you imagine them to be.

00:22:05.860 They are not that smart.

00:22:08.960 Or if you – it's one of those things where when you know about a profession and then you see people on air and you can immediately tell, like, how much they don't know about the profession.

00:22:18.380 And you're like, oh, wow.

00:22:19.760 The moment I learned about this profession at, like, any sort of, like, academic level, then I see people in mass media or, like, a famous person on, like, a show talking about it.

00:22:29.920 And you're like, ooh, he's pronouncing all the words wrong.

00:22:32.240 And he's, you know – you know, it's the same with doctors.

00:22:34.660 Well, that – I think many of the medical professionals people come into contact with have extremely specific and narrow ranges of focus where they are incredibly good and they have amazing pattern recognition, but only in one specific area.

00:22:51.100 Like, a nurse that was helping to take care of me after I delivered one of our kids, like, started just veering the tiniest bit outside of, like, labor and delivery and, like, very, very newborns and abysmal advice.

00:23:06.220 And I'm like, wait, like, where are the studies about this?

00:23:08.760 And she's like, oh, no, no, I heard this in, like, a parenting book or a parenting Facebook group for moms.

00:23:13.560 And I'm like, oh, of medical professionals?

00:23:15.220 She's like, no, no, no, moms. 0.68

00:23:16.240 And I'm like, oh.

00:23:20.440 I'm a mom, so I know.

00:23:23.020 As a mom on Facebook, I think.

00:23:26.000 So, yeah, I mean, I think there's just also that, that, like, it is – there's so much to know in the medical profession.

00:23:32.780 And then you kind of get into your niche and you really, really know it.

00:23:35.600 But that doesn't mean that you know everything about the human body.

00:23:38.500 But AI is actually really good at answering questions like that.

00:23:40.720 But, yeah, no, so kids don't have to be that expensive and a major, major, major pro-natalist issue has to pivot around this concept of shifting the way that people parent from expecting to be a helicopter parent who spends insane amounts of money on their kid to being a parent who trusts their kid to learn really important lessons while still providing guide rails so they don't die or get really hurt.

00:24:04.260 And who, you know, doesn't spend a ton of money on them because, frankly, you know, when we give our kids presents, half the time they prefer the box.

00:24:12.720 Yeah.

00:24:13.260 Well, I mean, I'm just thinking about where parenting is going to be in, like, 20 years because I was thinking about, you know, you're mentioning AI in terms of, you know, helping with this advice on parenting.

00:24:23.900 But I'm thinking, you know, in 20 years, I imagine we will have AI avatars, i.e. robots that are in your, basically AI slaves that live in your house that help with, like, parenting and stuff like that.

00:24:35.580 Well, there's already one for kids.

00:24:37.260 There's, like, this, it looks kind of like a doll and it's an AI that talks to your kid.

00:24:41.940 And, like, as a parent, you can tell the AI to, like, get your kid excited about brushing teeth.

00:24:47.540 Wait, what?

00:24:48.480 Are you serious?

00:24:49.380 Show this to me. 1.00

00:24:50.940 Oh, shit. 1.00

00:24:51.720 Okay, yeah, I will. 1.00

00:24:52.480 Why don't we have one of these?

00:24:54.480 Are they expensive?

00:24:55.460 I saw, like, Grimes on her Instagram, like, promoting this a while ago.

00:25:01.160 I'll dig through it and find the company that she was in partnership with.

00:25:03.940 I mean, of course, like, Grimes is both, like, a parent of children and, like, a super futurist is going to be someone promoting something like this.

00:25:11.780 We have immense respect for Grimes.

00:25:13.980 Anyone who thinks that she is not an absolute genius is out of control.

00:25:19.140 They're just believing public sentiment in the same way that, like, the press likes to, you know, smear people.

00:25:23.700 Yeah.

00:25:24.240 But anyway, there's that.

00:25:25.540 And I saw an ad for another one, too.

00:25:26.880 I will send you the ad so that you can splice them into this.

00:25:29.960 Hey, Kroc, can you tell me about how they make rocket ships?

00:25:34.340 Absolutely.

00:25:35.580 Rockets are made with strong materials like titanium and designed by highly trained rocket scientists.

00:25:40.360 I'm so excited for you to tell me about the dentist.

00:25:43.220 I've never been to one.

00:25:44.860 You don't have teeth.

00:25:46.100 But I can still smile.

00:25:49.100 And then what happened?

00:25:51.300 He said he didn't want to play with me anymore.

00:25:54.640 Thank you for telling me about your day.

00:25:56.840 Sometimes holding a friend's hand makes me feel better.

00:26:00.000 Do you want to try squeezing my hand?

00:26:02.040 Because, no, we're already there.

00:26:03.180 So, like, if we're already there, we're also going to get...

00:26:05.840 And, of course, you and I have talked about creating AI friends for our children.

00:26:10.100 No, but I think it would be better for kids.

00:26:11.580 Because the core reason, like, with a lot of our kids, I can just leave them to do nothing and they're mostly going to be fine.

00:26:16.160 But the younger ones, I have to worry about them, like, choking on a rock or something, right?

00:26:19.080 Like, I have to...

00:26:19.920 We're sticking their hands in an outlet.

00:26:21.720 So I have to keep a level of watchful eye over them.

00:26:25.620 But as soon as I get an AI that can identify these behaviors and prevent them, then I can leave the younger children.

00:26:33.460 They're on their own.

00:26:35.360 No, even, like, going into the woods.

00:26:37.900 The core reason I'm afraid of them going into the woods would be just, like, an AI, like, monster truck thing that follows them around.

00:26:44.140 And maybe even...

00:26:45.340 I mean, I know that the commercial ones won't come armed for, you know, animals that could attack the kids.

00:26:50.580 But, you know, we have...

00:26:51.740 We know some people who could modify them to follow the kids into the woods and keep them safe.

00:26:55.720 I think this sci-fi that I read once with, like, teens that were highly irresponsible in it, they wore belts that would kind of inflate into giant bouncy things when they were ever, like, fell off a building or something, which they, you know...

00:27:11.200 I mean, when you were at St. Andrews, like, a certain number of students would die each year falling off the cliffs when they got drunk, right?

00:27:16.520 Yeah, which was, you know, really useful.

00:27:19.240 Even from the gene pool.

00:27:20.220 I know...

00:27:21.180 So, this was a...

00:27:22.220 Seven and eight was the line that everyone wants to hear.

00:27:25.240 So, in the last eight years at the school, when I was there, seven kids had fallen off the cliff.

00:27:30.640 She was.

00:27:31.500 And before that, even more had fallen off.

00:27:33.700 And I remember at my orientation, they were like, okay.

00:27:36.940 Like, parents have called me to be like...

00:27:40.460 But, to understand, below the cliff is the ocean.

00:27:45.040 Craggy rocks.

00:27:45.860 Well, no, craggy rocks.

00:27:47.140 Craggy rocks in the ocean, right?

00:27:48.140 But I'm just giving this context.

00:27:49.180 And he's like...

00:27:49.900 And I get calls from parents, the guy who's running the school all the time, and he's like...

00:27:53.460 And I'm like, what am I supposed to do?

00:27:56.100 Fill it in?

00:27:57.040 Like, there's nothing you can do.

00:28:00.100 You could build a giant wall around all of the cliffs around the university.

00:28:03.500 I think what they expect is those Golden Gate Bridge-style suicide barrier gates.

00:28:07.320 The kinds that, like, you know, go over.

00:28:09.460 They, like, bend over.

00:28:11.460 So, just, you know, completely ruin the landscape.

00:28:13.300 If you jump off a cliff, then I'm sorry.

00:28:17.120 I just don't have that much sympathy.

00:28:19.920 And people are like, did you get...

00:28:21.480 Yeah, I got drunk.

00:28:22.580 And I never jumped off a cliff.

00:28:23.940 I never came close to jumping off a cliff.

00:28:25.740 Well, and it's actually really impressive when you think about it, how few people in St. Andrews are dying.

00:28:30.740 Because there's traditions like the May Dip, where you stay up all night, you get crazy drunk, and then you run into the ocean with a giant crowd of people.

00:28:39.060 And, okay, when we saw it...

00:28:41.900 Yeah, I went and you happened to see the May Dip, so you've...

00:28:44.900 I saw it, yeah.

00:28:45.380 Although we did not see any paramedics.

00:28:46.740 Oh, actually, no.

00:28:47.400 Sorry.

00:28:47.640 What I meant to say is we did see a ton of paramedics just standing around just waiting.

00:28:51.600 Yeah, that wasn't a thing when I did it.

00:28:53.760 Come on, Simone. 1.00

00:28:54.700 We were pussies back then, you know. 0.99

00:28:57.160 We froze our butts off. 0.99

00:28:58.740 It was with the clubs.

00:29:02.140 So the local university clubs would...

00:29:04.560 This is actually an interesting change if you talk about, like, the degradation of our society.

00:29:09.360 Where we understood it was the job of the prestigious clubs on campus, and they could earn additional social status by setting up protective and comforting things around May Dip.

00:29:20.900 So they do things like hand out toasties, which are like little grilled sandwiches.

00:29:24.900 Basically grilled cheese sandwiches, yeah.

00:29:26.300 Grilled cheese sandwiches with ham, yeah.

00:29:28.180 And they would hand out, you know, they'd hand out warm towels.

00:29:32.260 They'd have little paramedic things set up.

00:29:34.840 But these were the high prestige, basically, within St. Andrews, I guess you could say frats and stuff that would do this.

00:29:39.320 Well, this is what happens when you allow young people to develop a sense of independence and responsibility.

00:29:43.480 Yeah, but now you go, and it's all, like, the university-funded adult paramedic booths all over the beaches, you know.

00:29:52.100 And everyone's fat.

00:29:52.960 Well, okay, sorry. 1.00

00:29:53.620 All the women are fat. 1.00

00:29:54.480 Yeah, no, this was shocking. 0.96

00:29:55.580 When I went to see May Dip again, for anyone who's from St. Andrews, if you haven't seen it, like, recently, there was not a girl at that school I would snog.

00:30:04.640 And this is me, like, as a 30-year-old man looking at, like, younger college women where you'd think I'd be interested.

00:30:11.620 Like, I was looking, and I'd be honest, my genitals were afraid of what I was doing.

00:30:17.780 Well, my assumption, too, by the way, was that you just weren't drunk enough, and, like, back in the day you were.

00:30:25.260 But then we checked with your brother and sister, and they were like, no, no, no.

00:30:28.000 Like, yeah, everyone was super hot when we were there, because you were there at the same time as your brother and sister.

00:30:31.620 Yeah, well, I mean, we were there right after Will and Kate were there, so within, like, a couple years.

00:30:35.700 So, you know, we were, people don't know, like, the Prince and the, yeah, anyway.

00:30:41.240 I met at St. Andrews.

00:30:42.260 No, no, no, there is an episode on The Crown about just that, that I'm watching right now with great enjoyment, because I get to see St. Andrews.

00:30:48.000 I think there's even a shot of the Sainsbury's.

00:30:51.220 No!

00:30:52.040 Yeah.

00:30:52.680 And fun aside, so on this night of May Dip, everyone, of course, goes to the local grocery store, Sainsbury's, and completely clears out all the alcohol, obviously,

00:31:02.740 because you have to get immensely drunk to be able to stay up all night and then get into the ocean.

00:31:06.440 Oh, Tesco.

00:31:07.160 That's right, it wasn't a Sainsbury's.

00:31:08.380 Yeah, did you?

00:31:08.840 And we're walking down the aisle, and we didn't realize it was May Dip Night until we walked past the alcohol shelves, and it was only, like, 5 p.m.

00:31:15.880 And they were all empty.

00:31:17.160 And then there were these two St. Andrews guys who, in the most posh English accent you can imagine, one turns to the other and says, this is Daya.

00:31:25.740 Hey, like, this is Daya.

00:31:27.840 May Dip Dip.

00:31:29.820 And we were like,

00:31:31.120 And you're like, oh, this is special.

00:31:34.120 We're going to find enough alcohol.

00:31:35.240 I love it.

00:31:37.680 Yeah, only, like, the chintziest, like, low-class alcohol.

00:31:41.720 But the other St. Andrews story we should probably tell is the one about me and the window.

00:31:46.000 Yes.

00:31:46.880 Yes.

00:31:47.500 So I had this, you know, St. Andrews is like a tourist town, right?

00:31:50.620 And I was in one of the old historic buildings that I had rented a room in, right?

00:31:54.760 But it was right on the road, right on one of the main roads that everyone would walk by.

00:31:58.380 And it had a big, like, plain glass window to the road so they could see in pretty easily.

00:32:03.500 But I had recently bought, like, a sword.

00:32:06.960 Like, you know, Andrew Tate's sword, right?

00:32:09.500 Except this is the activity that continues to be.

00:32:10.760 I would never get one.

00:32:11.920 He has, like, an officer sword, like some sort of tool.

00:32:14.760 Sorry, we have a great sword at this house.

00:32:16.660 But back then I had a gladius, which is a classic Roman sword that's, like, a single-handed.

00:32:21.080 But it was a good replica, actually.

00:32:23.360 Anyway, so I, of course, do what you do when you are a man and are playing with your high-quality replica swords.

00:32:31.560 Which is, you know, swing them around and you put on music.

00:32:36.640 And me being me, you know, something you know about me, Simone, is I don't always put on my clothes.

00:32:41.660 You know, it's always.

00:32:43.020 But Jefford, right?

00:32:44.420 You know, and so I was, I think, like, Footloose was on or something.

00:32:50.520 Dancing around with my sword.

00:32:53.540 And what he forgot was that St. Andrews is actually an incredibly popular tourist destination.

00:32:59.200 And also constantly being toured by prospective students.

00:33:02.700 Yes.

00:33:03.060 And so I had been doing this for God knows how long.

00:33:06.300 Like, people were like, Malcolm, are you this carefree and energetic all the time?

00:33:10.020 You always do.

00:33:10.860 But yes, for a long time.

00:33:12.720 And so I was in the middle of my partially new, like, boxers-only sword dance routine.

00:33:20.240 And I turned around and I noticed that there is a giant crowd that has been building on the street watching many of tourists.

00:33:35.620 And at the moment I saw it, I immediately dove under the couch.

00:33:41.020 Which I can only imagine was funny and all of them.

00:33:43.960 Oh, my God.

00:33:47.040 I imagine that someday somebody watching this video is going to be like, oh, my God.

00:33:53.420 He's that guy.

00:33:54.820 He's that guy.

00:33:56.140 I remember that.

00:33:59.060 But yeah, okay.

00:33:59.580 So, like, just to recap here.

00:34:01.760 Like, you cannot have pronatalism in helicopter parenting.

00:34:04.800 And I think there are some people out there who believe themselves to be pronatalist who are also helicopter parents.

00:34:10.700 And if you do not come to terms with the fact that you're going to have to get way more chill in order to be not only a pronatalist parent, but also a good parent that does not raise emotionally stunted, infantilized children, you're going to have to learn low effort.

00:34:29.920 And I will say, I have tendencies toward this. 0.82

00:34:32.500 And, Malcolm, sometimes you have been, not sometimes, sorry, frequently, you have been the one to encourage me to not be such a tight ass about things.

00:34:41.860 I'm sorry if I ever press you too hard. 0.69

00:34:44.880 No, you don't.

00:34:46.120 It's very necessary.

00:34:48.200 And quite frankly, the reason why I personally did helicopter parenting stuff was not because I genuinely believed it would create better outcomes.

00:34:58.660 I did it because I was neurotic and parents should not be imposing their neuroticism on their own children.

00:35:05.400 That is evil.

00:35:07.820 I know it's true.

00:35:08.620 You definitely are.

00:35:10.100 I don't mean to say this. 0.95

00:35:11.600 I am neurotic and evil.

00:35:13.120 I'm glad you finally admitted it.

00:35:14.420 I love you too.

00:35:15.120 I think you're an amazing father.

00:35:16.500 And I would love for people in the comments to share their favorite low effort parenting tip so that we can learn from them.

00:35:25.640 Because I bet there's some low effort parents out there. 1.00

00:35:27.240 Oh, also, God, okay, I hate doing this.

00:35:30.160 But if anyone has access to some kind of Apple device and can leave a five-star review for our podcast on Apple, it would probably make a big difference for us and or like this video and or subscribe.

00:35:42.920 Because we never ask for this.

00:35:44.140 On YouTube, we're doing okay.

00:35:45.820 But on a lot of the podcasting sites, it's a lot harder to get reviews.

00:35:49.320 So one review on one of the podcasting sites matters like 30 or 40 subscriptions on YouTube.

00:35:56.100 Yeah, I'll tell you what.

00:35:57.260 I go to Apple Podcasts now, and I have to say, this is dire.

00:36:01.880 It's dire.

00:36:02.820 Anyway, I love you to dash them on.

00:36:04.320 You are a sweetheart.

00:36:06.120 And it's not just Apple.

00:36:07.800 Any of the podcasting services that you can leave reviews on, those are really helpful to us.

00:36:11.980 And I appreciate it.

00:36:12.680 Because, you know, we don't want to look like an obscure nobody.

00:36:15.080 I mean, we are obscure nobody podcasters.

00:36:17.480 But I don't want to look as obscure.

00:36:19.600 But not really.

00:36:20.220 Actually, if you look at our view numbers, we're probably up to about, between the various platforms, around 1,000 hours a day now in terms of watch time.

00:36:27.600 Which I know people, you know, they see these small channel numbers in the context of a social media age.

00:36:33.320 But this is a lot.

00:36:35.100 This is like a lot of people's time.

00:36:38.060 We were looking at something like consecutive watchers.

00:36:40.540 And we're at like something like 40 consecutive watchers at any point in time between the various platforms.

00:36:45.000 You know, it's pretty wild.

00:36:47.800 So, you know, helping us on the podcasting platforms helps a lot in terms of what it takes for us to grow the channel.

00:36:55.360 And us growing the channel makes sure that you keep seeing episodes.

00:36:58.660 Because at a certain point, you know, we need to be realistic about this.

00:37:03.320 You know, given our careers, we could probably do something else.

00:37:05.940 And if we're not growing fast enough, probably doesn't make sense for us anymore.

00:37:10.180 But I don't think we're anything close to that right now.

00:37:12.200 Right now we're growing at the clip that we would like, but anyone who is, is willing to help with that, it means a lot.

00:37:19.040 Yeah.

00:37:19.820 Thanks everyone.

Based Camp - March 13, 2024

Low Effort Parenting is Pronatalist (& Random Chat)

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