Based Camp - Should We Revive Dowries and Bride Prices？ (Why Selling Your Kids Increased Their Value)

00:00:00.000 hello malcolm i'm so excited to be here with you today because i have something on my mind and we

00:00:06.840 need to talk through it because i don't know should we return to selling women as brides

00:00:13.120 and should we be selling off our children as partners you also told me that this happened

00:00:18.160 frequently like way more recently than i thought like yeah no we're gonna go into it we're gonna

00:00:22.420 go into it i mean also like can it be so wrong if like literally this practice gave birth to santa

00:00:28.440 claus wait what hold on wait oh saint nicholas became famous for secretly providing dowry money

00:00:37.020 to three impoverished sisters saving them from a life of destitution and prostitution that is where

00:00:41.940 saint nicholas like it's one of his famous things and the stocking tradition comes from this this

00:00:48.660 this myth perhaps or story of him having put gold coins in their shoes or stockings that were drying

00:00:57.440 by the fire at night you didn't know this come on you know your christmas lore i didn't know that

00:01:03.520 this was women so that they could buy husbands i didn't know that's the thing it's like this is so

00:01:09.780 pervasive and what our whole thing about culture is as a culture if you want to maintain relevancy and

00:01:17.080 strength you should look to traditions that other cultures have widely adopted that appear to correlate

00:01:22.340 with thriving in some way and ask yourself hey should i maybe be doing this and keep in mind that

00:01:29.220 in higher fertility rate countries which are developing countries 65 to 75 percent have bride prices or

00:01:37.580 variants of that tradition whereas in developed countries virtually zero percent have these now

00:01:45.160 although i'm going to argue actually that's not quite true yeah in rich silicon valley culture is quite

00:01:49.920 common but basically like both historically and presently the most wealthy and educated people

00:01:54.680 are still doing it so yeah but like what what academics will probably tell you is like well it's

00:02:00.040 lower than five percent in developed countries and only those are like backwards immigrant communities and

00:02:04.480 i don't know about that guys the the fertility rates of cultures that still practice this are

00:02:09.340 they're higher there are obviously a lot of things that are wrong with these things but what they do do is

00:02:15.340 actually kind of it has me you and i need to have a talk on whether or not we're going to do some

00:02:20.180 variant of this because think about it they they legitimize marriage you know you're you're when you

00:02:25.100 add a cost to something you make it a bigger deal you increase commitment and switching costs like

00:02:30.800 divorce is a much bigger deal you know i mean so i think a huge part of this is switching costs

00:02:36.220 yeah i think that that's why it develops so frequently as a as a practice because you know you're much

00:02:41.400 less likely to get divorced or go off and try to marry multiple people if you have to pay a bunch

00:02:45.600 of money to do it but like also like it gets the family involved so it wasn't it's not just that

00:02:52.760 money was attached to this it's that like your mom and your dad and maybe your grandparents and maybe

00:03:00.100 even your broader like family has contributed to your marriage like happening financially and they're

00:03:07.400 gonna be pissed if you cheat or you you know or bad spouse or you screw it up somehow and like i think

00:03:13.280 that that pressure is really good and we need to have parents become more involved in their kids

00:03:18.220 matchmaking anyway plus in many of these traditions the money actually goes to the couple and gives them

00:03:24.720 a nest egg which is one of those like sort of sticking points these days where you know couples feel

00:03:29.920 like well i can't get married i can't start a family because i don't have you know i can't buy a house i can't do

00:03:35.120 money and one of the more common forms of dowries and bride prices is is indeed property is is is most

00:03:42.240 commonly money this is the stuff that can really get a family started so i'm like oh my gosh yeah well

00:03:47.000 so first just to clarify for those who are not very familiar with bride prices or dowries dowries are

00:03:52.820 what parents of a woman like a young lady will pay to the husband's family or the the husband for

00:04:00.040 basically marrying off their their daughter bride prices are what grooms families or grooms pay for

00:04:07.860 brides and the difference in when there's a bride price or a dowry comes down to some interesting

00:04:14.520 factors and just to be clear most cultures practice bride prices dowries are actually pretty unusual

00:04:21.880 but i actually think that based on the criteria that we're going to go over that maybe dowries are what

00:04:27.160 more developed countries should be considering so bride prices are more common in polygynous cultures

00:04:32.960 where you have multiple wives versus dowries where it's it's more common to be in monogamous cultures

00:04:40.240 where there's a scarcity of wealthy women and then bride prices in contrast they're more common where like

00:04:46.540 manual labor is valued over capital um so they're more like rural pastoral agricultural and where women's

00:04:53.520 labor is really crucial for the family survivor survivals so you're paying for women because

00:04:58.980 they're rare and you really need them and you're kind of desperate to get a lot of sense so yeah when

00:05:06.240 i think about where dowries are more often paid they're like in like wealthy medieval european

00:05:10.800 nobility right we're like the girls are not out working a farm and you're getting into monogamous

00:05:16.120 relationships yeah you're really sort of paying for the monogamy yeah and where bride prices are most

00:05:21.840 common now are still in africa for the most part like they're super pervasive in africa and that's

00:05:28.320 a friend who told me about a wedding she went to when we were in college together and she went down for

00:05:32.480 a wedding and she said what they would do is they would lay out all of the things they had bought as a

00:05:39.880 bride price in front of all the wedding guests oh you showed all the wedding guests get to go up and look

00:05:46.320 and inspect to see like how much like nice fabric was this woman worth like that's one of the big

00:05:51.920 things she said is you have like yeah help yeah because yeah in some cases traditional clothing is

00:05:55.980 given jewelry goals etc and so the guests could go up and inspect the things that were given for the

00:06:02.980 bride price it's actually a quite fun thing to do in a wedding and quite like in your face flex so you

00:06:08.960 can't really cheat it right like yeah you would you have to put it on the table and everyone gets to

00:06:14.600 see it i think it's like a son are gonna be like mom dad i'm gonna look very bad in front of her

00:06:21.140 entire family if you don't put this stuff up there like it's not handled in secret i mean it's still

00:06:25.660 functionally done i think in many modern western weddings where they just like blow money on the party

00:06:31.520 i'd rather end up with like really nice stuff that you can use as a new couple yeah instead of blowing

00:06:37.760 it on the party to show how good it is and i think that's like a form of a bride price that still

00:06:42.760 exists because remember the the woman's parents are often expected to pay for the wedding yeah

00:06:46.560 yeah right culture yes the the man's parents pay for the rehearsal dinner and the woman's parents pay

00:06:53.740 for the wedding i think which is akin to a bride price given how much weddings can cost but if you're

00:06:59.420 talking about actual like bride prices in western cultures that you keep referring to what she's

00:07:05.060 referencing here is the frequency in silicon valley and rationalists and tech elite culture

00:07:11.300 of marriage bounties yeah so i can give you one example i i was thinking about reading off some

00:07:18.300 more like private marriage bounties in fact even there are people who listen to this podcast who

00:07:22.180 have open marriage bounties out yeah they're extremely common and i think they're a great idea

00:07:26.520 they also allow they're typically marriage bounties as practiced by people in or adjacent to the

00:07:32.120 effective altruist irrationalist communities who are pervasive in these in these circles throughout

00:07:37.980 europe and the united states they put up the bounties themselves new york times has done articles about

00:07:43.800 them both men and women put them up they're often typically they range from like ten thousand to a

00:07:49.520 hundred thousand dollars i decided i wasn't going to read any of the more like you know personal ones

00:07:54.820 but but ayla has recently put out a one hundred thousand dollar marriage bounty and she put it

00:08:00.880 very publicly on her sub stack so i feel like we can talk about that that's a very public bride price

00:08:05.700 like that's not a trivial sum that's a hundred thousand and i've seen other for ten thousand

00:08:10.300 hundred thousand fifty thousand this is the price range that you typically get yeah and here's how

00:08:14.800 it's presented because i think the way she presents it is fairly representative of what they look

00:08:18.800 like in terms of a cultural custom within this community today she wrote i have a one hundred

00:08:24.620 thousand bounty on my marriage if you introduce me to someone who i end up marrying i'll pay you

00:08:29.500 100k upon marriage here are some details one they shouldn't already be on my radar as someone i might be

00:08:36.060 interested in two you must make the intro explicitly in the context of this is for your bounty if i casually

00:08:42.640 meet them at a party you threw this or that you threw this doesn't count three send me a small blurb of

00:08:48.560 why you picked them and why you think we'd get along for you have to be the first person to make the

00:08:53.200 recommendation if things hit this if things hit this part way like maybe it's a gray area on how much of

00:09:00.080 an acquaintance that person was to me before or if i'd already had the intention of asking them out

00:09:04.880 then i'll give a portion of the bounty that feels equivalent to the degree to which you increased my odds

00:09:10.740 i can confirm the fraction it feels equivalent to me after you make the recommendation but before i meet

00:09:16.720 the person or if we go out on our first date or whatever it also counts if you get them to fill

00:09:21.820 out my date me survey you can go to knowing less and fill out her date me survey just make sure they

00:09:27.400 remember this counts as us introducing you yeah she writes make sure they list your name in the who

00:09:32.380 recommended you question so please recommend simone collins or and or malcolm collins because you know

00:09:37.640 they could use the money recommendation no but this is this is i i think a very fair way to do it

00:09:42.980 right yeah yeah and and i it's i mean ayla is is much more organized about it like in her date me

00:09:48.200 quiz like she checks a whole bunch of things about your personal you know anxiety levels your income

00:09:54.080 level how you know your sexual proclivities because she she knows herself really well the bounties that

00:09:59.880 people put out more commonly they'll like post something on facebook of all places that seems to be

00:10:04.780 the most common place where they post them and it will be in the form of a google doc that a lot of

00:10:09.560 people can see it's a publicly posted google doc so anyone can click through to it and see

00:10:13.760 and it's typically a list of like sort of criteria and here's some stuff about me and here's what i'm

00:10:18.940 looking for and here's the bounty and you know here's how to here's how to specify that you are

00:10:24.320 making the introduction or here's how to reach out if you think that you are this person and i i love this

00:10:31.860 i wish that we had more organized data on how effective it is but a lot of people are doing them

00:10:37.700 and you know i think there's there's some i want to create a dating site that was just for them

00:10:44.760 and the reason it would work so well is because you could have the dating site get a portion of the

00:10:48.580 price so you have an inbuilt monetization method and you don't actually need to find people to sign

00:10:54.800 up at the site you could give a portion of the money to whoever posted it on the site so you can have

00:11:01.000 people go out and scour for these posts about uh pitches to the general public put the post on the

00:11:07.980 site and then they in the site get a portion if somebody finds the person through the site that's

00:11:11.840 a fun idea yeah we should we should consider doing that because yeah i also want these people to find

00:11:18.800 their partners like these are are very awesome people who i want to see if i love and have cute

00:11:24.340 children cute nerdy children who are terminally online who can marry our children maybe for a bride price or

00:11:31.000 salary so the the money shall flow it's going to be great but also this is not the first time elite

00:11:39.140 groups that are also technophilic and capitalistic and all that have have practiced this this tradition

00:11:45.540 of of selling off their children have you heard malcolm of the dollar princesses no tell me about this

00:11:51.820 so the era of the dollar princesses spanned roughly from the 1870s to the early 1900s

00:11:57.460 and it peaked during the gilded age so because that hbo shows out right now a lot of people are

00:12:01.700 actually talking about the dollar princesses online the period saw wealthy american heiresses

00:12:06.200 often from newly rich industrialist or financier families marrying into european aristocracy particularly

00:12:11.900 the british nobility and this was sort of a it was it was there were all marriages of convenience for

00:12:17.160 the most part because what you had was this this marketplace of noble families in the uk

00:12:23.660 who could not make money from their properties the same way the industrial revolution kind of

00:12:29.060 ruined their ability to like make money from their land the way they used to and they're just being

00:12:33.220 crushed by taxes and they couldn't afford anything and their manners were falling apart so they were

00:12:37.760 penniless but prestigious and then you had all these zero prestige but money rich people in the united states

00:12:47.080 industrialists who were like well i want to be fancy i'm just going to marry off my daughter to like

00:12:51.960 a duke and then she'll be really fancy and you think well okay whatever like this wasn't very

00:12:56.620 influential but no these these marriages produced very culturally significant effects consider there

00:13:04.340 was a lady randolph churchill that's winston churchill's mom we have winston churchill thanks

00:13:10.260 to dollar princesses and dowries so not just santa claus malcolm winston bloody churchill okay

00:13:16.260 churchill was the product of one of these sold women yeah so her dowry by the way which was

00:13:21.560 reportedly 50 million dollars at the time that's or sorry 50 000 at the time is roughly equivalent

00:13:28.580 to 1.3 million today so you're saying oh it was a hundred thousand dollars no 1.3 million is a lot

00:13:34.240 there there's also another notable person who was produced by dollar princesses is late lady well

00:13:41.420 princess diana diana really yeah she was the daughter of or sorry she was a descendant of francis

00:13:49.280 ellen work who married in 1880 she's the great grandmother of princess diana so they're all these

00:13:55.560 like notable and very impactful people like one of the dollar princesses nancy langholm's shaw lady

00:14:00.760 astor became the first woman to take a seat in the british parliament a lot of these women went on to be

00:14:06.180 very influential like activists and whatnot so you know these these were pretty cool and they were all

00:14:12.760 again the result of um dowries and it's it's just so interesting to see these traditions

00:14:17.780 compared to kind of the the traditional way of doing it or the way that it's still practiced

00:14:23.480 in places like india pakistan bangladesh sri lanka afghanistan nepal indian or sorry iran egypt

00:14:31.900 turkey azerbaijan like it's actually there are a lot of countries where this takes place

00:14:36.720 and it pretty much all ends up being the same thing it's sort of like these gifts that are

00:14:41.740 transferred but let's talk about like how we might do it and and how they're done right and wrong

00:14:45.940 because i think that china and you can get into this is one example of how they are really done wrong

00:14:51.660 and how they can actually suppress fertility create a big problem yeah so go go into the the problem that

00:14:59.020 they create in china are you what i mean are you i can tell i can go over it it's just we've talked about

00:15:05.540 it a lot how it's it's screwed up the real estate market oh well so it became really common in china

00:15:11.540 like that you as a man to marry a woman you're supposed to have a house right and the problem

00:15:19.320 is is that in china this is a core store of wealth that they had 73 percent of wealth is stored in real

00:15:24.960 estate and the price of real estate versus the average daily wage is in like yearly wage i think it's

00:15:32.200 like you can look it up for like in in mainland china someone you should with ai i think it's like

00:15:38.000 okay i decided to look this up in post shanghai it's 35.8 years you'd have to work on average to

00:15:44.660 buy an apartment beijing it's 35.6 years you'd have to work on average that's a 35 around 36 years you

00:15:54.860 the average person in that area would have to work to pay off their apartment full year's wage

00:16:01.300 yeah it's insane so even if you did nothing but save like for most of your life you wouldn't be

00:16:06.200 able to afford one in a major city and a lot of this is because in in the case of china too

00:16:10.700 the the scarce resource is women so like when you have men competing over women

00:16:15.980 yeah because women are a scarce resource so you get more and more because not as many women are born

00:16:22.200 as men because they're viewed as worth less i mean because this version of a dowry sort of

00:16:28.380 goes to the woman in a way when she gets married and so it created a situation where it became

00:16:33.920 unrealistic for most people who are going to marry to actually buy a house in the cities they begin to

00:16:37.420 buy houses outside of cities that they never intended to live in as like a token to basically

00:16:43.440 be like i technically own a house and in china houses are worth more when they're unfurnished than

00:16:48.980 when they're furnished because it's bad feng shui it would like if no one has ever lived in them and

00:16:53.120 they've always stayed empty and so they leave the apartment like that just as like almost like a

00:16:59.380 chinese bitcoin i call it like the chinese worse because because it inherently devalues these these

00:17:05.920 are now crumbling yeah they're they're abandoned and after 99 years you lose your lease on it so yeah

00:17:12.260 and i'm not getting a straight answer but like here's here's just one intro from the economist it

00:17:17.320 also shows in cash terms because in in china it's not just necessarily property it could also be cash

00:17:22.580 just how like out of control it is this this article titled bride prices are surging in china

00:17:28.720 why is the government struggling to curb them it starts marriage in china can be mercenary quote is

00:17:34.740 380 yuan a lot for a bride price a woman in guangdongs asks on a social media site she's thinking of

00:17:40.760 getting married and wants to know how much her fiance's family should pay for her hand the sum she is

00:17:45.320 suggesting equivalent to nearly 53 000 is more than seven times her annual wage thousands reply many

00:17:52.660 say she should demand more sis your life is your own don't wrong yourself at least ask for 888 800 says

00:17:59.420 one oh and all of these women like brag about asking for so much and everything like that and

00:18:04.700 they're and guys are like what's even the point right this is like a random woman in in china she's

00:18:09.920 not fake i mean ayla's ayla's dowry is 100 000 and this random woman is like well it's 58 that you

00:18:18.260 know us dollars equivalent enough so this is just how out of control it gets on december 18th 2024

00:18:24.680 ao yang wei wei a 38 year old single woman sparked outrage at a matchmaking event demanding a bride price

00:18:31.940 of 880 000 un around 121 000 and made it clear that her price would only go up this year it's 880 000

00:18:42.740 when next year it'll be 1 million i'm 38 this year someone mocked her laughing just wait another 10 years

00:18:50.800 but after a series of failures she publicly admitted her regret i'm the woman who asked for 800 000 when

00:18:58.400 as a bride price i truly regret it now i've wasted my chances an internet user commented in jiangxi province

00:19:06.940 the average bride price is 380 000 when about 52 000 usd but in places like lingang village it's far worse

00:19:17.140 the bride price there ranges from 97 000 to 110 000 usd now compare that to what most people actually earn

00:19:27.160 the annual income is 16 700 usd so i wouldn't want to create a cultural practice like if we for our

00:19:37.440 family religion were to adopt this where basically people are going into debt or their family's going

00:19:44.480 into debt or like entering some form of insolvency or delaying marriage because what also happens is a

00:19:49.580 lot of people just start cohabitating and they just don't get married because they're like i can't afford

00:19:53.580 to get married it's kind of like it's as bad as unsustainably expensive weddings for example

00:19:58.800 you don't want to do that so i wouldn't want to do that i wouldn't want to do any any um like

00:20:05.400 insinuation that one partner owns the other but like the you know common complaint especially about

00:20:10.360 dowries which is what we're looking at in china here or sorry no that that's a bride price about

00:20:14.780 bride prices is that they devalue women and turn them into commodity commodities but here like you were

00:20:20.200 saying these women are bragging i would much prefer to be the commodity come on i i prefer that

00:20:24.740 directionality yes no i mean like that that sounds like so i i really think this whole thing about like

00:20:30.640 this devalues women remember turns people into products that are bought and sold like one

00:20:37.500 we kind of seem to enjoy it and two we should be looking at marriage as like a financial alliance

00:20:45.320 and transaction that that you know where money does change hands what ideally in favor of like a nest

00:20:52.160 egg for the couple that gets them started but still like people should be reminded that marriage is

00:20:57.080 commercial arrangement and this is a great way to prime it that way and you know i should point out

00:21:03.320 that like at least in some countries there's still like a lot of there's actual like disputes and

00:21:09.760 demands that that have led to cases of domestic violence and abuse and even murder there are dowry

00:21:17.640 deaths in south asia where brides are harmed or killed over insufficient dowry payments so i don't

00:21:23.620 know i just figure you should say no deal i don't know why people are being killed over this but i just

00:21:27.480 want to point out right they're killed because the husband didn't give the family enough some examples

00:21:32.220 of this happening we have this ma case this was in 2021 in india a 22 year old woman in carla was

00:21:40.440 found dead in her husband's home shortly after marriage her family alleged she was abused over

00:21:45.440 demands for more dowry including gold in a car despite already receiving significant payments

00:21:51.240 then we have the prajari family tragedy india 2024 an utter prajari a woman named anjali gupta

00:22:00.460 was allegedly killed by her in-laws over unmet dowry demands her family claimed that she was

00:22:07.560 strangled and her body was staged as a suicide in a horrific twist her brother later sought revenge

00:22:13.300 by attacking the accused leading to further deaths i'm not going to go over more because obviously it's

00:22:17.720 pretty grisly and most of these cases are in india or pakistan no because the dowry is where the

00:22:24.840 the wife's family gives the husband's family so in china which one is common though i thought i thought

00:22:29.100 in china now every deaths are in south asia i don't think that in china there is much of an issue

00:22:35.280 we're probably talking about other south asian countries for example in thailand there's a form

00:22:41.160 of of of payment to the groom's family that's called sinsod that is in cash or gold and i'm i'm thinking

00:22:49.200 it probably takes place more there so it's insane but i mean it's it's also i can't emphasize enough

00:22:58.140 just how insane to me it is how much this is practiced and how high the prices are in places

00:23:02.920 where people's wealth is much more constrained than the united states like i would consider

00:23:08.260 sending tens of thousands of dollars for a bride price to be like a lot that's like a big deal

00:23:14.920 but in papua new guinea that's not uncommon papua new guinea like where are they getting this money

00:23:23.060 i don't know man no i mean bride prices are a lot and that's one of the reasons why i do not like

00:23:28.560 them from a pro natalist perspective because it puts the genetically successful families intrinsically

00:23:33.960 on the back foot the the more kids you have like a family like ours especially because we're the gender

00:23:39.600 equal we'd never be able to get enough mates for our children oh yeah unless saint nicholas

00:23:45.140 yeah you know they're they're the the the boy you're having now is what like the fifth prince

00:23:53.340 right like kid number five right we yeah want to go for at least seven right yeah well so here's

00:23:59.260 here's what i i think is right though and here's what i would like to look at creating i think that

00:24:03.920 one just this concept of because keep in mind also bride prices and dowries are often used in

00:24:10.320 cultures as a form of like early inheritance because it's kind of lame to like wait until you

00:24:16.060 die to give money to kids and in cultures where kids are more likely to take care of you in your old

00:24:22.160 age anyway like you want to invest in them younger because then they will be more wealthy when you

00:24:27.260 actually need them to take care of you does that make sense so these are more common in places that

00:24:31.080 have crumbling social services because parents are actively investing in their social safety net and

00:24:37.900 that means giving their kids the best early start possible does it so because what do you mean by

00:24:44.940 this okay so if i know that i'm going to depend on my son or daughter to take care of me in old age

00:24:51.760 i'm not going to want to wait until i die to give them money oh because i'm going to be living in their

00:24:57.220 freaking house i'm going to be dependent on either them having the time or staff to take care of me

00:25:04.520 and buy me medicine and our children are going to need the staff to take care of us we require many

00:25:09.820 staff i yes we we need good care and so if we were to wait until we literally died to give them money

00:25:16.160 one like already that's too little too late like they're so far like the cumulative advantage that

00:25:22.240 early money gives to people i mean just alone considering compound interest but if you're also

00:25:27.180 thinking about education and early career games i mean everything snowballs when when you're talking

00:25:34.520 give them that money at the beginning of their adulthood not late and that's something that's

00:25:38.820 really smart especially about dowries and bride prices that go directly to the bride and groom and

00:25:44.300 i you know it it doesn't have cash is the most popular way for this to be but even giving them a place to

00:25:50.020 live livestock which could be like their economic means of starting a business for example um or even

00:25:56.200 clothing that means they don't have to buy the clothing so i don't really care what the form is but if it

00:26:00.080 gets them a head start a jump start especially if you're going to depend on them anyway in the future

00:26:05.260 there is an incentive for that and so i love i love this idea of of front loading your financial

00:26:11.700 support to children at least sorry to young adults so that they are more likely to get those cumulative

00:26:19.680 benefits in the future the money is going to go further if you give it earlier so part of me was

00:26:24.220 thinking like well maybe instead of like creating education savings accounts or like 529 accounts or

00:26:29.460 even like you know trust funds or whatever giving like creating funds that like give grants to

00:26:35.900 your children upon their marriage that are you know contingent on on that one motivates them to get

00:26:44.200 married um like imagine if trust fund kids only got their money if they got married and started having

00:26:49.880 kids they'd get married you know like now they're just like sluts at coachella like think of all the

00:26:56.800 wonderful things there's no point you're right it reduces the point of getting married if you don't

00:27:01.180 get some big boost like you're basically getting a proto inheritance at the point of marriage which you

00:27:08.700 don't get today which encourages early marriage yeah exactly and you could even make it you could make

00:27:15.720 it a trust and you could make trust payments very contingent on things like this has to be for

00:27:21.060 education fertility maybe a down payment on a house like the kinds of things that would lead to

00:27:28.080 a family's long-term flourishing and we've already talked about like if if we ever if we ever do

00:27:35.000 savings that we can allocate to our descendants that we would want to be able to cover things like IVF

00:27:41.420 and egg freezing and embryo freezing and and that kind of thing on and also matching funds for starting a

00:27:47.020 business remember how we yes one of the things we fantasized about is having like a trust for

00:27:54.280 descendants but also like people who come into the family essentially where you don't just give a kid

00:28:02.060 money like a grandkid or whatever money for starting a business if they come to you with a business

00:28:06.940 proposition you can agree to match funds raised from other parties like legitimate third parties that do

00:28:14.100 not you know that are not friends and family that are literally investing in them because they think

00:28:18.380 it's a good idea that's what we've decided to do yeah but i think that that dowries in the form of

00:28:24.640 investments like this are are great that you know you have to be married and then as a couple

00:28:29.440 you will then unlock access to things like university education that's paid for things like IVF embryo

00:28:38.280 things like maybe housing subsidies or matching funds for investment in business because that would

00:28:45.740 encourage people to start their families when otherwise they'd be like oh well i'm gonna wait

00:28:50.500 i'm gonna wait to start my family until after i have a house or my college education and here you need to get

00:28:57.560 married to get those things and you just need to find ways in society to like flip that around

00:29:02.360 so i i think it's a i'm excited i like that if we have the wealth to do it yeah i think it's better

00:29:11.040 just to give them arranged marriages and well we're doing that anyway but like that's the other thing

00:29:16.700 though is that dowries bride prices and arranged marriages all go hand in hand i mean many of these

00:29:23.740 are are negotiated between the families this isn't like a like just putting it out there like sign in the

00:29:30.640 window 58 000 for my daughter well that's that's the way ayla's works you know find a guy who's good

00:29:38.780 enough for me and you get the money well yeah because she doesn't have her family's involvement

00:29:42.980 but like at least traditionally like the cultural technology that appears to have been pervasively

00:29:48.660 practiced across like literally across the world i mean like again saint nicholas this is the whole

00:29:53.540 tradition this was in europe you know dowries were very popular in europe until you could argue fairly

00:29:58.040 recently and then of course we still have dollar princesses in the united states so dowries are

00:30:01.260 totally still a thing so that they've been in the united states that they've been in europe they're

00:30:05.280 still very active in africa they are they're pretty common in east asia in the middle east i mean there

00:30:12.400 there's kind of no region of the world in oceania as well in freaking papa new guinea so when you see a

00:30:19.560 cultural technology like this that is so pervasive you have to ask yourself okay yeah if this many if

00:30:28.120 this many cultures have spontaneously evolved this amenity we should take it somewhat seriously even if

00:30:36.060 it has a bad rep because it it's you know again winston churchill santa claus princess diana

00:30:44.460 good things have come from this okay i'm a little too excited about it yeah i think that the way that

00:30:53.940 it's practiced in rationalist circles right now is a very good thing i mean it's sort of a sign of the

00:30:59.700 breakdown of marriage markets to be honest it's totally desperation to try to find somebody and

00:31:05.160 i've seen it work we know a couple who got married based on this who had been trying to find a wife for

00:31:09.680 a very long time and she'd been trying to find a husband for a long time and i think they both had

00:31:13.060 prices out very i i had actually looked at one of their like sheets no he did he did and i looked

00:31:19.180 at a sheet before and i knew this woman and i never thought of her because you know she was older and had

00:31:23.660 a kid already but apparently somebody else did and they were right so i could have had that one

00:31:28.280 we could have been rich could have been rich we just have to find ayla's future husband you know

00:31:37.120 her special some pony is out there i promise if we get this money we will spend it all on drugs

00:31:43.400 that's the point that's the point we i have never seen a hundred thousand dollars of cocaine and how

00:31:51.180 how much how big would that be i literally have no idea i've never bought cocaine i have no idea what

00:31:56.540 cocaine is yeah like a brick i i don't know i always thought it'd be really fun to win the nobel prize

00:32:03.020 and to blow it on cocaine take a selfie with it you know like no more friends baby oh my god

00:32:10.440 we're gonna be partying for a week yeah that would be it would be i'm i come on what are the odds that

00:32:18.880 someone hasn't already done that though very high i i do not think that many people who have the

00:32:26.440 mental cogency and facilities to win a nobel prize are doing enough drugs to blow the entire

00:32:34.100 nobel prize no there was that famous some famous scientist or something who went cold turkey for

00:32:42.960 like a month or something because his friends bet that he couldn't um and then he wrote something

00:32:49.040 about like clearly i'm able to do it but the cost to humanity is so grave you know something along

00:32:54.640 basically they were like you can't actually quit this and he's like i did but i wasn't productive

00:33:00.260 during yeah it's like well now cancer isn't cured you idiot i needed that you know okay okay maybe

00:33:08.520 you're right you know we got we got elon's thing here that every the news is complaining about

00:33:14.940 and clearly he's productive it's working for him whatever it is he's doing power to the people

00:33:20.880 you know he's he's got his he's got his mix keep it up right and on all these people there's they're

00:33:28.180 so they're such hypocrites like don't talk to me before i've had my coffee come on i love it i i by

00:33:34.940 the way take uh narcotic everybody they see me take it sometimes as well which is an opioid agonist

00:33:40.400 that prevents me from feeling happiness the opposite of any narcotic that a normal person would take

00:33:45.420 but i take it to dull my emotional state so i'm not as prone to addiction and i i love that that

00:33:50.880 is our families like could you be more puritan right you take you take illicit drugs to block

00:33:58.500 opioid pathways so that dopamine cannot cause you too much happiness but that's the thing is is the

00:34:05.060 we'll just say so we don't use this keyword too much the supplementation that you choose to take the

00:34:09.940 substances you imbue are a reflection of your cultural values and 100 can help you lean in to

00:34:16.080 what you think is most important i mean here you had benjamin franklin convince a bunch of staff

00:34:22.400 members that he was working with at one point to switch from their daily beer rations to like bread

00:34:28.380 because he's like it's going to make you more productive you're all just too sloshed to work and

00:34:32.720 he was just so adamant about shifting them away from that and then you're proud of himself of course

00:34:37.520 being who he is he was proud of himself for freaking everything he did that is like everything

00:34:42.380 his autobiography yeah you you guys if you've not read benjamin franklin's autobiography

00:34:47.340 you've missed out eddie and prideful that it actually loops around on likability every stupid

00:34:55.300 little thing from like the loaves of bread he the rolls he's stuck in his pockets when he first went

00:35:00.660 to philadelphia funny because you know history reminds me of this great figure if he could have known

00:35:06.620 that history would remember him this way oh my gosh he'd be even more insufferable but i don't

00:35:11.760 know if that's possible because during his lifetime he was also he would have been like it worked out

00:35:16.420 well but no this is one of these things where people wonder there's some people out there who who

00:35:22.240 worry if they did right or if they did enough you know and and i always feel bad for that those

00:35:28.720 famous people because i'm like what you went down in history like your van gogh's and stuff like

00:35:32.120 that you know what i mean yeah you want to like go back and give them a pat on the back and say he

00:35:36.340 did good old boy yeah actually things work out you know benjamin franklin you know no it's like

00:35:42.280 i am the greatest and the best that's everything i do he was kind of the trump of his time

00:35:47.760 yeah you know what i mean actually very i i'd say he was more trump than trump oh

00:35:52.400 probably freaking probably actually yeah probably actually because trump has inside some level of

00:35:58.340 insecurity that you could often see yeah benjamin franklin doesn't seem to have had this that's so

00:36:03.920 true uh and then you have the one other figure figure in history and i i will go down as a figure in

00:36:10.080 history me hey come on the the pronatalist movement i think basically we've already won in terms of

00:36:17.700 public recognition it's very obvious there's going to be a continued threat i'm seen as the leading

00:36:22.760 voice was in the movement yeah i mean the numbers are there that will be written about like

00:36:28.160 when a history book is written in 20 years or 30 years they're going to be like oh and during

00:36:32.600 this period was the beginning of the pronatalist movement with prominent advocates like simone and

00:36:37.580 malcolm collins that's like the very least that would be written about us also the first people to

00:36:42.420 publicly genetically select for iq you know so that's that's something that will also be written

00:36:47.920 about and obviously how expansive that becomes is it a footnote or is it you know and then they

00:36:55.900 became well-known philosophical influencers of their era or they started a new political coalition

00:37:02.180 or were key figures in building it that that hasn't been written right like obviously there's things

00:37:08.180 we're trying for but if we do achieve those and i am remembered in history be it known that i am

00:37:15.840 quite pleased with myself simone knows this i'm not one of these i'm not a van gogh over here

00:37:22.780 you know looking at some tortured soul am i the greatest and the best it's like

00:37:27.400 well people realize i'm the greatest and the best yeah when will they figure that one out

00:37:32.680 but here's the thing is a lot of people are like that you actually walk the walk i i observe you

00:37:41.740 i see you and i i like what you got sir i mean we're already there in terms of being like

00:37:48.560 you know the ben franklin of his period where he did a lot of stuff i mean we literally have

00:37:54.440 inventions he made in our house yeah we have two franklin stoves in our house and it's kind of

00:38:00.640 wild that they're there that our kid constantly our kids constantly shove things in there interacted

00:38:05.300 with all of the intellectual influencers of his time like he knew a lot of them they were friends of

00:38:10.640 his and i feel like we're already at that stage right like yeah he was going to whatever the

00:38:16.360 hereticon of his time was i guess kind of the palace of versailles was kind of like heretic

00:38:20.960 i know i think the hereticon of his time was the national congress of that period i don't know

00:38:26.300 though no that was just it was too much arguing it wasn't sufficiently indulgent and fun

00:38:32.720 you have to go to a french salon in that period and the ultimate fancy french salon essentially was

00:38:41.300 at the time i think so yeah and one of the things we frequently talk about it this is it's always

00:38:47.080 surprising to me how few intellectual influencers actually matter oh you mean yeah right so this

00:38:52.580 this whole thing something we talk about a lot internally when making strategic decisions about

00:38:57.580 where our time should be applied is is this something that is going to be filled by any competent

00:39:06.300 person who will just make the most optimal decision or is this something where depending on who does

00:39:12.640 this thing it will change the trajectory of our timeline of human history because there are so many

00:39:19.140 people in the media who are only famous media figures because they're saying the thing that people want

00:39:25.380 to hear at the time when they want to hear it and so they get this big platform and what they're saying

00:39:30.420 isn't changing anyone's view and then there are these very rare influencers who are saying stuff that

00:39:36.900 really no one asked to hear but is actually changing people's minds and those people are are quite unusual

00:39:44.040 like jordan peterson all this like daddy stuff i mean he's just saying you make your bed like he's

00:39:49.760 he's saying stuff that people want to hear at this time that makes him feel really good he's not

00:39:56.540 he's helping some people get their lives together for sure but he's not changing the trajectory of

00:40:02.920 human thought or philosophy or history yeah and the people that are that the interesting thing about

00:40:08.980 them and i didn't expect this growing up is that they find each other within any generation and they

00:40:14.420 have a network like they all know each other it was interesting like you had these like people who

00:40:19.560 hung out in in venetian cafes at the turn of the century from the 1800s to the 1900s and you have this

00:40:25.420 this period in colonial america where all these people are writing the federalist papers yeah you're

00:40:30.480 right it's just these weird clusters where they like all know each other weird and like artists who

00:40:35.280 all knew each other at like the same time and yeah it's very weird yeah when you talk to somebody who

00:40:41.100 you know is very influential and they're like oh and i've watched all your podcast episodes this

00:40:44.160 happened to me recently and i was like you've you what like you're what you you're famous why have you

00:40:50.880 watched all of my podcast episodes you know and i and people i think are surprised by they think that

00:40:58.140 the level of like influence somebody has somebody who i i mentioned who has an extreme level of

00:41:03.300 influence within this sphere like the influencer influencer sphere but very low influence in the

00:41:08.360 public is sam obersha sam obersha branch how very like these people are changing

00:41:14.780 shockingly low if you go to his youtube channel because i've been watching some of his recently

00:41:19.560 he's got like 3.6 000 followers me too yeah but he has like the thing is so people like scott

00:41:26.300 alexander sam obersha branch how these are people who may be like your average normie on the street

00:41:31.920 isn't hearing so you might be like well they're not changing the trajectory of history but the problem

00:41:35.700 is that like the people in the room where the stuff happens and the people with the money

00:41:39.800 and the people making major geopolitical decisions are reading these people's work and they're reading

00:41:46.740 it not yeah like trying to make decisions and they're not reading and they're not reading jordan

00:41:53.060 peterson i love that you even laugh at the idea that they might it's a sweet idea yeah that's not

00:42:01.040 happening that's not happening no that's right that's very sweet no but so people act like i

00:42:06.160 think there's this perception that the people who are creating these big cultural waves it was in the

00:42:11.760 zeitgeist have a lot more influence than they do in sort of the the actual deal makers which has been

00:42:18.280 very interesting to me as well to sort of see all of this and i think of the people who are in this

00:42:22.960 group we're probably the most introspective about the culture of this community and everything

00:42:26.860 because it's been very weird to me to watch it develop and congregate and and and how it i don't

00:42:33.760 know i think brian chow is very he's way more plugged into to like the ea rat well no like so

00:42:40.880 scott alexander is way way more plugged into ea rat brian chow is way more plugged into like

00:42:45.660 younger emergent ventures diaspora like ai tech hikikomori idiot savant world you know what i mean

00:42:55.440 like i don't know i think that there's there's a lot of hyper a lot of them they have their

00:42:59.540 individual like dutchdoms or whatever fiefdoms but we've got fiefdoms too i mean we our discord is

00:43:07.020 incredibly active it's um yeah like you just don't go to our fiefdom you don't visit yeah i wouldn't

00:43:14.380 know because you live in the capital and you don't visit your duchy and it's been growing out of

00:43:20.180 control that people are mad at you and everything you know they're they're so many discords have

00:43:25.900 like revolted against the people who originally created them i heard ruby yards did that to him

00:43:29.540 oh no after the incident or just after the incident you know if it's well i don't know people have

00:43:36.660 gone back to like people love him people love him they just they understand you know everyone has a

00:43:40.960 moment i i've heard it's been pretty and not just after the incident i think even before the incident

00:43:45.980 he had unfortunately and this is one of the things he had unfortunately reached a level of fame

00:43:51.220 where he became normie-esque and the normie-esque branding i think caused people to be looking for

00:43:58.180 opportunities to turn against him um because the brand that you and i appeal to is counter-cultural

00:44:06.940 it's a brand that rubyard appealed oh we get criticism all the time what this is not beast enough

00:44:12.580 and we may even get that on this episode white selling women not not sufficiently based

00:44:18.340 no the point that's not that it's not just what i'm talking about i think you look at why you know

00:44:23.500 sam albergia has had a long shelf life or munchess mulbug you know another one of these people

00:44:28.460 we've had on that's one of our episodes it did really well curtis yarvin you know he he i think would

00:44:34.040 have his audience eventually turn against him if he became too famous because part of his branding

00:44:39.340 is underground curtis yarvin is probably one yeah he's definitely one of those people

00:44:43.180 and if he became like a normie youtube channel that gets millions of views like rubyard people are

00:44:50.160 going to start to turn against him and that's what i think happened to rubyard is rubyard's branding

00:44:54.620 was partially underground well what i'm what i'll say though is that the comments that i see about him

00:45:01.960 online now and i'm really happy to see this very positive love his recent stuff he's i think that

00:45:09.320 he did the thing that you should do in these situations which is just keep putting out good

00:45:13.580 content share your insights like as long as you keep putting out good stuff that's inherently

00:45:18.600 interesting and it gets people thinking you know you you can you can recover you know as long as you

00:45:25.240 just don't keep going off the rails and he has returned to doing some really great stuff so yeah

00:45:30.980 but anyway yeah sell your children um really i think my big thing here is

00:45:37.520 front load their the economic benefits that you pass to your children don't don't wait and also make

00:45:47.620 it contingent on becoming an adult and we define becoming an adult as getting married and seriously

00:45:55.720 starting like a family yeah okay i mean it's just so weird when i reflect on my life these days so

00:46:04.120 thanks for helping me build this simone this has been really cool i'm here for you and we can't talk

00:46:08.920 about everything we're doing right now i i often say that maybe in a few weeks we can ask them when we go

00:46:15.740 what they're comfortable with us saying but i don't want to burn future opportunities yeah well

00:46:23.980 and stuff always ends up leaking with us which really frustrates me like in the in the past we've

00:46:29.520 said like oh we like people have been like oh you don't actually they're like nobody actually cares

00:46:34.360 who you guys are and then you know leaks like a year later oh they were actually meeting with elon

00:46:38.740 you know and it's like okay and we i just i have no idea how that comes by the way i think yeah i

00:46:46.240 don't i i literally think the new york times may have made it up and it just there was nothing we

00:46:52.340 could do about it

00:46:53.140 yeah i don't know at any rate keep your mouth shut mel i'm keeping it shut thank you beautiful

00:47:03.860 i'm keeping i'm gonna edit all of it out all of them i've already packed my eggs for them if they

00:47:08.400 cancel on us you know for some you know well it's a waste of eggs they're already in my basket

00:47:13.780 a little yeah you bought little baskets to bring them eggs and yeah of course if they let it if

00:47:19.680 they let us through security we'll see anyway i love you i'm gonna go get toasty bye

00:47:24.560 tonight with sourdough flatbread so we're doing curry tonight yes with sourdough flatbread do you know

00:47:32.680 what type of curry or just gonna grab one i mean so i can try to pull out i i know that we have

00:47:39.940 rendang i know that we have like a pineapple or mango curry but do you have like there's also just

00:47:47.200 the mystery surprise curries mystery surprise curries so are we by the way have we gone through

00:47:52.880 all the chicken teriyaki no there's a whole other bag of it it's just that i'm making you

00:47:57.700 flatbread tonight oh no i'm not asking for it i'm just wondering how much more i have to eat

00:48:02.040 before you have three more nights of it you have three more nights of it and then just so much i'll

00:48:06.740 note on other dishes by the way because i need to as we go through the mystery stuff because you

00:48:11.920 haven't made it this day so i'm not like you know just seeing it for the first time i can better

00:48:16.740 reflect on how much i like it yeah the the best of the dishes has been the what appeared to be

00:48:22.540 minced either oh that's all gone yeah we're gonna need to do more or basil chicken yeah it was the

00:48:30.240 burmese mint chicken that you really loved and we need to get more thai basil what i recommend is

00:48:35.560 next week we go to that asian market get a ton of thai basil and then i just make a very large batch

00:48:42.340 of minced burmese mint chicken and then we save it so you you can have lots because the problem is it

00:48:51.700 seems like we can only get that really good basil in bulk and you know yeah well and we can get some

00:48:57.160 there too no what i might do when we get it in in bulk is i think you can probably preserve it given

00:49:03.000 that turning it into pesto preserves it in a way just by putting the leaves in olive oil and to create

00:49:08.880 an olive oil basil so basically to make pesto just don't add anything to it you just want me

00:49:15.000 to grind up the leaves and put them in olive oil yeah and then we can use them on i mean that should

00:49:22.160 work right like then we'll have pesto is just i mean you usually freeze pesto if you're not going

00:49:26.840 to use it in like a week but i can freeze small batches of it yeah either in ice cubes or whatever

00:49:33.000 so that's not a problem it's more just a question of how you want it prepared and frozen on its own

00:49:41.260 just with olive oil or with a little bit of salt with a little bit of garlic so that's up to you

00:49:45.120 i might be just putting a little bit of garlic and you know i mean i can always add garlic

00:49:49.760 separately though so i feel like i wish you would do more which you haven't done and i'm somewhat

00:49:55.440 surprised about is you have not put in god what is it a flavicon instead of regular flavicon no

00:50:02.820 no it's it's it's bright orange fine dust it's not meant for curries i know you wanted me to put it in

00:50:12.540 in in your tom ago last night i no why why you won't even try it doesn't check out for me i i can

00:50:20.760 i'll try it at some point for something for you you won't even try simone you can't say it doesn't

00:50:26.560 work if you don't try it yes no you're absolutely right you never know yeah you're really good at

00:50:33.400 fusion cooking just like throwing in things in a way that actually works really well so i should

00:50:40.000 trust your intuition the thing is is i know you you you know in your head it seems like a terrible

00:50:44.780 idea right but you know keep in mind that what was i gonna say a lot of these cultures flavicon is

00:50:50.780 like a new invention that's used in a very niche area which is popcorn for movie theaters so i can see

00:50:58.700 other people not being aware of how good it might be as an alternative to salt yeah yeah flavicon is just

00:51:05.880 yeah so so path dependent in people's minds at this point of like this is just for movie theater

00:51:11.220 style popcorn that has to be popped also in a very specific way like you need to mix it in with

00:51:16.340 your oil as it's it's melted you don't add it after so air popped popcorn which is really popular now

00:51:23.340 is just not something that seems to use flavicon so yeah no okay just in still like cooking with it

00:51:31.980 i'm like i don't know if this bright orange super fine powder is the right thing but

00:51:38.420 syvonne i do you i like it on popcorn i don't see why i wouldn't like it on a curry

00:51:44.740 yeah i yeah i just i have to be super careful with proportions because a little goes a really long way

00:51:51.980 do you salt my curry no typically not actually well then i wouldn't put it on the curry i put it on as

00:51:59.700 an alternative for salt when you use salt okay i will do so now keep in mind though salt salt isn't

00:52:07.740 always just salt salt sometimes it's like a texture agent like consider salt on giant pretzels

00:52:13.260 you want those crunches that adds to the feature of it so you know the reason you want flavicon is you

00:52:22.880 want a kernel that is coated in flavor but oh and for the full tip for everyone apparently how movie

00:52:30.280 theater popcorn is made is they pop the popcorn in a mixture of coconut oil and flavicon so if you do

00:52:37.340 like a third of a cup of popcorn you're also adding in coconut oil and like half of a tablespoon of

00:52:46.460 flavicon or maybe half a teaspoon you have to be careful with your proportions but you can get it

00:52:51.020 out easily you eat on amazon not at a typical grocery store but it made a big difference for

00:52:56.460 our popcorn so well and all the reporters come because you you make it most nights for the kids

00:53:01.680 and so they always try it and they're like wow that's actually really good popcorn yeah they're

00:53:06.200 surprised by it yeah i love that you like know all this stuff about how to make these amazing that's

00:53:12.800 youtube shorts like you pointed out like youtube shorts are great for cooking tips so

00:53:17.520 we're just a youtube family now people people who can't cook i don't understand it like it's such

00:53:23.020 an easy thing like you just follow the directions right well you don't but it still comes out good

00:53:29.400 well i don't but i i just like throw everything in and take two countries dishes try switching them out

00:53:36.680 i think it's great oh and start with something like you know why don't we buy and sell women anymore

00:53:49.100 yeah is it useful to do that yeah okay ready

00:53:55.020 can you sing what what about your other voice what was that other way you were singing

00:54:10.740 you were singing like oh my dear can you do that

00:54:16.020 oh now you're getting all sweet again

00:54:25.640 i see how it goes

Based Camp - August 15, 2025

Should We Revive Dowries and Bride Prices？ (Why Selling Your Kids Increased Their Value)

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