Based Camp - Sub-Cultures With High Fertility： In Japan, UK, and Australia

00:00:00.000 Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be discussing a

00:00:06.320 phenomenon where a certain convergently evolved cultural subgroup that is derivative often of

00:00:14.100 American cultural subgroups and popular with the lower classes within a number of countries

00:00:20.040 is staying or becoming one of the core high fertility communities.

00:00:26.200 It shall inherit the future.

00:00:27.380 Exactly. And the first of these is going to be the Yankees of Japan. I'll put a clip of one here. 0.74

00:00:49.800 I want daughters who act like that, by the way. That is my plan. It is 100%.

00:00:56.620 But it's a culture that if you watch anime, you're likely familiar with, in which people sort of dress

00:01:03.400 like greasers and they form gangs, greasers being the 1950s American subculture, and they focus on

00:01:10.600 a lot of Americana. This, and then...

00:01:15.200 So not exactly. So yeah, Yankee culture is more just kind of like this. Yes, there's the greaser 0.99

00:01:21.440 hairstyle in many cases, like perms and little bouffons and stuff. But there is just general,

00:01:27.040 like, as younger kids, they were hooligans. They had bike gangs. They caused destruction to property.

00:01:33.960 But the movement now has evolved into what is referred to as mild Yankees, which are basically

00:01:41.600 the grown-up version of these people. And they've kind of switched out their souped-up biker game 0.95

00:01:46.440 bikes for... What are they called? These weird-looking Toyota cars that they spend way too much money

00:01:52.040 on. The Toyota Velfire. It's like this really boxy van. Just look it up. It's a thing. And

00:02:00.340 they're actually now known for being, like, fairly responsible, but they still kind of maintain a

00:02:04.400 little bit of that rebellious streak.

00:02:06.320 So basically what happened, and we're going to go into a tweet that I think gets into this really well,

00:02:10.500 is they picked up this greaser, rebellious-for-rebellious's-sake culture that ended up

00:02:17.660 being very similar to sort of redneck culture in the United States, truck-nut conservatives in the 0.98

00:02:23.140 United States, as we pointed out. This is a uniquely resistant to fertility collapse group.

00:02:26.980 And being reactively anti-authority and anti-trend following, like mainstream trends,

00:02:34.240 is in the US, and for obvious reasons, protective of fertility rates.

00:02:37.840 And it has acted protectively for this subculture and other subcultures as they've aged out of their

00:02:42.980 pointless, rebellious phase.

00:02:44.560 Well, but I think what's really interesting about this group, and also the other groups that we're

00:02:48.600 going to explore in the United States, Australia, the UK, that bear a lot of similarities, is

00:02:54.260 this rebelliousness also is correlated with or just exists alongside a fundamental mistrust in,

00:03:04.380 like, mainstream societal institutions being plugged into mainstream news, and also believing in things

00:03:10.640 like the lifelong corporate job and going to university. So these groups also tend to either

00:03:15.500 not even finish high school, but at least definitely at very low rates, go to university,

00:03:20.640 so they're not in higher education. And the man who actually coined the term mild Yankee, his name is

00:03:28.260 Harada Yohei. He wrote this book called Yankee Economics, The New Conservatives, As the Leaders of

00:03:33.220 Consumption. He described them as the last Japanese generation to have parents who enjoyed

00:03:40.860 permanent, regular employment in a normal way. And it actually, as they aged, their rebelliousness eased up a

00:03:49.520 little bit, because fewer and fewer of their parents had jobs and incomes that sort of allowed them to, like,

00:03:54.060 wield social control that they might even, like, buck up against. So I think that also this generation

00:03:59.360 are at the lower ends of the economic spectrum to begin with, also was the first to see the crumbling

00:04:05.220 of the lifelong corporate job, which was a really big thing in Japan, but certainly a big thing everywhere else, too.

00:04:10.380 So they also, like, I think are among the first cultures to start going off the grid. 0.78

00:04:16.780 And by going off the grid, I mean, not buying in to something that has turned out to be a fundamental lie,

00:04:24.180 and that buying into also correlates with low fertility, in that the lifelong corporate job,

00:04:31.260 or buying into that kind of fantasy of, like, I'm going to make a lot of money, I'm going to go to

00:04:34.800 university, is the IQ shredder. It is the moving to the cities. It is the going to university and getting 0.90

00:04:41.300 the demanding job and not having time to live close to your family network and raise kids and

00:04:45.800 just spend time with friends and live within your means. And so this group is sort of naturally

00:04:52.400 high fertility, because these are the ones who aren't entering the fertility shredder. Does that 0.98

00:04:57.020 make sense? Well, they're also not as economically disadvantaged as you would imagine, given their

00:05:01.400 life choices. At the same time, they decided to get out of the university pipeline, focus on the

00:05:07.760 trades. In Japan, especially, those types of jobs were increasing in value or what they paid relative

00:05:14.880 to the types of lifelong corporate jobs that were really sort of breaking apart. Yeah. And what's

00:05:20.240 interesting is some people have posited about soft Yankees in Japan that, oh, they're going to

00:05:25.020 disappear. They're not going to last for long because they're not very educated. And, you know,

00:05:28.600 they won't be able to afford houses. They will totally be able to afford houses. There are these

00:05:32.280 just like emptying out towns in Japan where they can buy houses, although they're typically sticking 0.99

00:05:38.240 close to home and living within their means and using family for support and childcare. So no,

00:05:43.360 these people will be just fine. So to go into the original tweet thread that brought our attention to

00:05:48.220 this, it said, Miles Yankees are the winners of Japanese society. Skip high school and uni, several 0.96

00:05:53.700 years head start, and earn way more than a graduate in their 20s. Marry a gyro, buy a new house, have kids, 1.00

00:06:00.580 this is the way. And it has some images of, of this culture. And we should put some images on

00:06:05.200 screen of like what this culture looks like. It says then they tend to stay within a 10 kilometer

00:06:10.500 radius of their hometown. So they keep strong family friendship bonds, making it easier to start a

00:06:16.200 family. And it shows, you know, a meme of them grilling with, with, and it says, yeah, the mild Yankee

00:06:27.080 statue was their van. The boy was the soft Mohawk barbecue on the holidays. My eldest daughter is

00:06:33.900 learning to dance beautiful wife. And they have, I think it's not a van. I think again, it's a Toyota

00:06:40.680 Vellfire. And I want to understand the obsession with this vehicle. That is so strange. And there's

00:06:45.140 another thing here where it's, it's mild Yankee, where it's a guy and his girlfriend and they have a

00:06:49.700 baby. And it says, but, and he says, this, this messed up delicious. That's really bad. This,

00:06:58.020 eat it if you like. And she's giving, an old lady's giving her like food. And of course in Japan, 0.98

00:07:02.780 this would happen if you moved to a town and had kids.

00:07:04.920 Oh, basically it's, it's a cartoon showing a husband enjoying his wife's food, a wife accepting

00:07:09.180 local produce from a family member or neighbor. And then the, the family and their kids expressing

00:07:15.840 thanks to that local community member. Like this is the archetype of sustainable family rearing,

00:07:22.880 living in a supportive community, showing them gratitude, the young and old and, and working age

00:07:28.780 all have a role and they enjoy small and simple things. And that's the thing about this.

00:07:34.080 It's about building an alternate culture where the dominance hierarchy is not, and people don't

00:07:40.520 like that. I use the term dominance hierarchy. They're like, call it the prestige hierarchy. I use

00:07:43.580 dominance hierarchy because I'm comparing it in an anthropological context to like an eight tribe

00:07:48.280 or something like that is not the unified, the dominance hierarchy. The problem, one of the

00:07:53.480 biggest problems with the urban monoculture is that everyone's playing was in the same dominance

00:07:57.500 hierarchy. So you're always going to feel near the bottom, unless you happen to be like famous or

00:08:01.780 something where it was in both the Yankee and the mild Yankee dominance hierarchies. You can, for a much

00:08:07.960 lower cost and much lower investment, really invest in that culture and be like your own person that

00:08:15.500 you can have pride in. And then a tweet under it. Oh, actually, before I go to the tweet under it,

00:08:23.140 do you want me to read about the evolution of Yankee culture?

00:08:26.660 In Japan? Yes, I will. Okay. So the term Yankee in Japan doesn't refer to the American baseball team

00:08:34.480 or the historical U.S. group, but rather to a distinct subculture that emerged in the late 20th

00:08:39.580 century. Japanese Yankees are typically associated with rebellious youth, often characterized by a

00:08:44.520 distinctive style. Think pompadour hairstyles, modified school uniforms, and a tough anti-establishment

00:08:50.000 attitude. This subculture has roots in the post-war period, influenced by American pop culture like rock

00:08:55.700 and roll and biker kings, but it evolved into something uniquely Japanese. Over time, it's been

00:09:00.680 linked to working class communities, particularly in urban and semi-urban settings like South Osaka

00:09:06.340 and parts of Kishu. Is it associated with higher fertility rates? There's no hard data from official

00:09:12.500 sources like Japan's Ministry of Health or academic studies specifically tying Yankee subculture to

00:09:16.440 higher birth rates. However, some observations and sentiment on platforms like X hint at a connection.

00:09:22.120 For instance, it's been suggested in areas where Yankee culture is strong, like South Osaka or

00:09:28.600 Kishu, families tend to have more kids, two to three, compared to Japan's national average total

00:09:34.060 fertility rate, which dropped from 1.2 in 2023. Okinawa with a TFR of 1.6 and parts of Kishu, like Miyazaki,

00:09:43.580 1.49, do stand out as having higher fertility rates than, say, Tokyo, 0.99. These regions also have a

00:09:50.940 reputation as being more relaxed, community-oriented lifestyles, which some associate with lingering

00:09:56.360 Yankee influence. The theory might go like this. Yankees historically from working class backgrounds

00:10:01.940 may have prioritized family and traditional roles over career-driven urban lifestyles that dominate

00:10:07.500 cities like Tokyo, where fertility rates are lowest. Their mild modern counterparts could still carry a 0.58

00:10:12.880 countercultural tendency towards earlier marriage and large families, bunking Japan's broader trend of

00:10:18.680 delayed and foregone parenthood. For example, Kishu's relatively high fertility rates, around 1.8 in

00:10:24.100 some areas, and its reputation as a Yankee stronghold could suggest that correlation.

00:10:30.600 So one thing that I was looking at today was the connection between Yankee culture and another

00:10:38.040 high fertility culture, which is the Appalachian culture, which we constantly talk about. And in that

00:10:42.780 Twitter thread, they don't even mention Appalachian culture, but two separate people are like,

00:10:46.680 oh my gosh, you're just describing the UK phenomenon of the Dino.

00:10:51.340 And we're going to go over these two other phenomenons in a second.

00:10:53.140 Oh, you're just describing Aussie tradies. But I want to talk about the similarities between

00:10:57.320 Yankee culture and Appalachian culture. And the reason why is there's this movie that I love that

00:11:05.140 you will never, ever watch because it's basically the Japanese Amelie called Kamikaze Girls that I

00:11:09.600 have probably spent like hundreds of hours watching again and again, like before I met you,

00:11:14.920 because I love it so much. It's about two girls. One is this girl who's really into Gothic

00:11:19.520 lollia clothing named Momoko and a friend she makes named Ichigo. And Ichigo is a Yankee. She's a, 0.98

00:11:26.840 she's a Yankee girl. And like, when I rewatch the scene where she's introduced, I'm just like,

00:11:32.440 oh my gosh, there's, she is like the Japanese, like Appalachian Tom girl, because she shows up on 0.99

00:11:39.600 what is basically a rideable truck nut. It's like this insane, like souped up scooter motorcycle

00:11:46.220 thing. And because she's the member of this, this, this Japanese biker game called the Ponytails. 0.99

00:11:51.520 And she's actually showing up at this young girl's house because her father sells bootlegged Versace,

00:11:58.260 like super trashy clothing. And like, as she's like looking at the clothing that's available for sale

00:12:03.340 later in the scene, she's like, oh my gosh, universal Versace. Cause he'll just like starts 0.96

00:12:07.960 combining logos. It's like just totally trashy taste, but like fantastic. And as she's approaching

00:12:13.780 Momoko, Momoko's like thinking like, oh, a Yankee drawn on eyebrows. And she spits on the ground and 1.00

00:12:20.500 she has like very male mannerisms and it's just like, whoa. Okay. So we've got the tomboy, 0.99

00:12:24.840 we've got the truck nuts, we've got like the toughness and this sort of like unabashed enthusiasm

00:12:30.960 for things and lack of concern for what other people think. And I absolutely love it. And I

00:12:38.200 never watched that movie thinking like, oh, this is a lot like another type of American culture,

00:12:43.840 but it totally is. And it makes so much sense to me that this would evolve into one of the

00:12:49.580 high fertility Japanese cultures. And I'm thrilled about it.

00:12:52.540 If I can get away with posting this culture, it's this video, because it's part of a music video

00:12:57.120 that it's from the country song, When It Rains. And I think that many people, when they think of

00:13:03.540 American country music, or they think of this like uniform sort of Republican American cultural group.

00:13:10.820 And I keep pointing out that no, the Appalachian cultural group is very distinct from the aristocratic

00:13:17.040 Southern group or the aristocratic and very religious Southern group and proper and the Mormon group.

00:13:23.360 And I think that the intro to this video does a very good job because you see this family coming out

00:13:28.080 going to church and you assume if you're approaching country music with stereotypes that they are the

00:13:33.820 protagonist. And no, it's not, it's not them. It's the guy who fell asleep partying on his, his roof and

00:13:39.440 who's just, you know, was, was having a fun time. And you can tell that this individual would be very

00:13:45.620 aligned with this cultural group.

00:13:48.480 100%.

00:13:48.960 Everybody got their Bibles?

00:13:51.260 Yes.

00:13:53.360 Come on, we got to go.

00:14:06.580 Watch like a video of the, the girl in it, who is being a very like, at her lunch with the other girl.

00:14:14.300 And she's showing a lot of manners that remind me a lot of our daughter.

00:14:17.720 No kidding. Yeah. If it was like, if that scene was our family, it would be me

00:14:22.640 dressed like the frilly girl and it would be our daughter Titan sitting across from me 100%.

00:14:28.640 But also like another thing that's demonstrated in that scene you're referring to is like this

00:14:46.160 distinct lack of education. Like, I think she's listening to some classical artist and Ichigo's

00:14:52.220 like, never heard of that band. Like, no.

00:14:55.520 But, but you see here that this is also something you see with this Appalachian group culture.

00:15:00.020 When you see them stereotyped, they're always stereotyped as the women particularly as being

00:15:05.360 uniquely tomboyish. Just think of like Applejack for My Little Pony. He was like hardworking and,

00:15:10.300 and, and, and tomboyish. Or you could think of, well, any girl from, you know, I'm trying to think

00:15:16.620 of good stereotypes. Oh yes. I'm a redneck woman. Or the, the girl from, I didn't need no high 0.96

00:15:23.080 class man. The Beverly Hillbillies. I think she's great. Oh yes. The Beverly Hillbillies where she's 0.86

00:15:27.900 incredibly strong. Is, is like the gyaru archetype. So the, what Roko on Twitter said when talking

00:15:49.180 about this movement wasn't implying that like Yankees marry Yankees and definitely like female 1.00

00:15:54.420 Yankees as depicted by Ichigo and Kamikaze girls is less common. You're more likely to get like the

00:15:59.740 girly girl version of that subculture, which is gyaru. They're like way back in the day, the way that 1.00

00:16:07.000 you knew you were looking at a gyaru was basically if you saw like a Japanese stereotype of like

00:16:12.360 Malibu Barbie. So bleached blonde hair, super tanned, and then extremely girly pink accessories. 1.00

00:16:20.800 That's how you know you're looking at a gyaru. 1.00

00:16:22.680 They look overly tan and they're like, now, now they're, now they're just toned down. Now they

00:16:26.160 just look like the Japanese equivalent of trailer trash. Like they're, they're attractive. They're 1.00

00:16:31.980 sexy. They, they like dress in a sort of like sexy, attractive way. And I think social media

00:16:36.460 has kind of had that effect where it's like toned everyone down a little bit and also taught everyone

00:16:40.660 how to style themselves. Both in like a more classy and more trashy way. Right. Cause everyone has,

00:16:45.740 everyone has adopted drag makeup online. Like everyone's contouring now. And yet like,

00:16:50.260 we're trying to like, even it out. There's tempering taking place.

00:16:54.360 I sent you a like super wholesome hentai of, of one of these girls. So you can see that

00:16:59.740 this is a popular enough archetype.

00:17:01.700 Leave it to us to describe hentai as wholesome though. 1.00

00:17:04.280 Well, this one is clearly just made for like, look, you can masturbate different parts of your brain. 0.99

00:17:11.680 And one thing that people like to masturbate is the wholesome part. Like, yeah, like a fantasy about 0.99

00:17:15.520 like a loving, wholesome marriage. Yes.

00:17:18.480 Who actually loves you and cares about you. Can you imagine?

00:17:22.620 Yeah. Like the, the, just as basically a childhood friend who doesn't feel like she's done anything with

00:17:26.700 her life is really just completely plussed and over the moon. And she's become a gyaru or like a mild 0.98

00:17:32.720 gyaru, I guess you'd say. It was like big pink animal print, like broth, like small top thing.

00:17:40.960 Malibu Barbie trailer crash edition. Yes.

00:17:43.600 Yeah. And, and you, you, she's like sad about her life and she's really excited that somebody

00:17:49.580 loves her and cares for horror. And that's the, the gist of it. But it's, it's, it's common enough

00:17:54.660 that even when these characters are used in Japanese pornography, like hentai, they are used

00:18:00.760 as like a, I'm going to be a sweet, good, and loving wife. Who's going to give you lots of

00:18:07.540 babies. Yeah. Yeah. That's very much the, the, what you can tell is like the fantasy that's

00:18:14.020 represented here. And it's interesting that it transitioned from delinquent to, I am going to

00:18:19.800 be delinquent by being a sweet wife, but not in a traditional Japanese way, which is like,

00:18:26.840 I guess like out of subservience or something like that, just because I appreciate you so

00:18:31.460 much, you know, and I think that a lot of guys in Japan may feel that way. And they may look

00:18:36.560 at a girl like that and see her as more attainable, which was what would create this like genre of

00:18:43.300 hentai. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's just also such a contrast to, I watch a lot of,

00:18:51.160 I guess you could call them ambiance videos on YouTube made by single women who live in tiny 1.00

00:18:57.700 little apartments in Tokyo and have salary woman jobs. And in these videos, they're just like 0.85

00:19:03.000 silent. They never show their faces and they just do their evening routines. They make dinner for

00:19:07.000 themselves. And it's just such this weird contrast between this like completely asexual, highly

00:19:12.760 educated, professional woman. Um, and I'm sure that they're male equivalents, you know, doing the 0.98

00:19:17.840 same thing. And then this, this, this family, you know, these people who actually want to have kids

00:19:23.580 young. And this is what we have to like, this is, this is what post globalization, post tech high

00:19:29.560 fertility culture looks like. It looks like people who marry their high school sweethearts or who marry 0.98

00:19:33.720 during university and start having kids in their twenties and have a support system. I mean, it doesn't

00:19:38.740 have to be as an, is the case with the soft Yankees family members, and they don't have to stay

00:19:44.180 within 10 kilometers of where they were born, but it helps.

00:19:50.200 So am I free to move on to the next cultural group?

00:19:53.140 Ooh, which one are we going to do? Are we going to do Aussie tradies?

00:19:56.060 Yeah, we're going to continue with this. It goes, this is wild. There's the exact same archetype

00:20:00.220 with differences in execution, obviously in the UK called the Dino, a lower middle-class types,

00:20:05.420 extremely misunderstood. The commonality they have is their positive outlook. They need few things to

00:20:12.060 make them happy, laugh easily, et cetera. So let's talk about the Dino group.

00:20:16.880 All right.

00:20:17.400 Dino isn't an organized group or a former subculture in the UK, but rather a satirical

00:20:22.480 stereotype that's emerged online, particularly on platforms like Twitter, now X and 4chan to

00:20:27.420 describe a specific type of person or lifestyle. The term paints the picture of a lower middle-class,

00:20:33.340 often suburban or small town British couple, typically in their 20s or 30s, who embody a mix of

00:20:39.160 aspirational consumerism and what some see as tacky mainstream tastes. Think of this as a modern

00:20:45.380 evolution of the older British stereotypes of the Essex man or Mondio man, but with a sharper-

00:20:52.580 What about the Chavs? Like, are they just totally different? 1.00

00:20:54.760 What?

00:20:55.500 Are they different from the, are they Chavs? Shavs? I don't know how they are. 1.00

00:20:58.120 Yes, totally different from Chavs. 1.00

00:20:59.400 Okay. Although to point back to like Kamikaze Girls, like this obsession with like Versace knockoff 1.00

00:21:04.580 stuff, I think that's the thing. It's like lower middle-class, like thinking, for example,

00:21:08.300 that designer brands are-

00:21:09.520 Prior to being lower middle-class.

00:21:10.980 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unapologetically.

00:21:13.240 Dino is usually imagined as a guy named Dean, hence the name, working a decent but unglamorous

00:21:19.740 job. Say, a call center supervisor, estate agent, tradesperson. He lives in a new building

00:21:26.620 housing estate, often called Barat Britain, after a major UK developer, drives a finance

00:21:32.820 car like a Vauxhall Astra and enjoys lad hobbies, FIFA, Love Island packaged holidays to Marbella

00:21:41.420 and nights out whiz banter.

00:21:44.300 Cruiser humans! 0.91

00:21:44.940 Yes. His partner, sometimes jokingly called Miss Fiat 500, matches him with white and teap,

00:21:53.000 lift fillers, and wardrobe of fast fashion. Their home might feature gray carpets, a sophology 0.60

00:22:01.700 sofa, and an astroturf garden, all proudly shared on Instagram. The stereotype leans hard into their

00:22:08.620 perceived obsession with appearances and status, despite their relatively modest means. The Dino

00:22:13.900 meme started as a piss take on 4chan and spread through British Twitter, where it's been dissected

00:22:18.680 with both humor and disdain. Some see Dinos as happy and fulfilled in their straightforward lives, 0.99

00:22:24.680 owning a home, having mates, and enjoying the odd pint, while others mock them as shallow conformists

00:22:30.000 or oblivious to their precarious financial situation, big mortgages, little savings.

00:22:35.340 Posts on X often highlight their aesthetics, slicked back hair, half shirt buttons undone,

00:22:40.280 and blonde hair dye and eating disorder for the women. It's less about real subculture and more 0.99

00:22:46.340 about a caricature of the normal British outside the urban elite. 0.99

00:22:50.380 Oh, screw them. I'm here for it. I'm here for it. 0.98

00:22:53.060 I think it's people who are proud to be themselves outside of this other culture, which is what's

00:23:01.220 necessary to fight against this. A pride in being something other than the other urban monoculture,

00:23:06.060 and an immunity to urban monocultural ridicule of you, whatever that culture looks like.

00:23:11.620 Well, there's some tension there because there's absolutely keeping up with Joneses taking place 1.00

00:23:15.900 with the financed vehicle, with the house, with everything posted on Instagram, the lip filler,

00:23:20.980 the blonde hair, the whitened teeth, the eating disorder. I think that they're among their

00:23:26.540 internal, there is keeping up with the Joneses. It just happens to be that the Joneses aren't

00:23:30.760 like this distributed international group. It's like literally the people who live next door to

00:23:36.640 you, just like it was in the fifties and sixties. Yeah. But there, there is still, there's,

00:23:40.500 there's sensitivity, but also it is more financially realistic keeping up with the Joneses because

00:23:45.320 you're playing a different game than the urban monoculture game. Yeah. This is like what they're

00:23:48.780 saying. They're like, they're so surprised that these people seem proud of things that aren't of

00:23:53.320 status within the urban monoculture. Like why do they have pride in these modest mean things? And it's

00:23:58.520 because they're playing a different dominance hierarchy than you're playing with it. Yeah.

00:24:02.700 But anyway, goes on and tweets to say, I have a lot of friends like this. All they do is drink and

00:24:08.740 party all day, but they go overseas every year. And here I am working overtime at the office as a

00:24:13.580 humble salary, man. Maybe I should have taken the, and I think it's something in Japanese pill after 0.99

00:24:19.080 all. And then it says under the shortage of blue collar workers is so extreme that wage wise,

00:24:24.360 you can earn much more than the average salary, man. The flip side as your body will be

00:24:28.380 broken by your fifties and you'll probably die of lung cancer early. And then the next says that

00:24:32.980 they can live at least decent lives. If their father refrained himself from spending his whole

00:24:37.840 savings on verifier, or if they're becoming too Pachinko addicted. And then a person says today,

00:24:44.660 I learned mild Yankees are just like Aussie tradies. Like Pachinko addiction is, is no different 1.00

00:24:50.140 from problems with sports gambling in the U S like there's so many similarities here,

00:24:55.280 but yeah, we can, we can go here to this next culture, the tradies in Australia. Do you want

00:25:01.060 to learn about them? Yeah. I want to learn about the tradies. Absolutely.

00:25:04.460 In Australia, tradies is a widely used slang for a term short for tradespeople or tradesmen

00:25:09.960 refers to skilled manual workers who specialize in a particular trade, such as carpentry, plumbing,

00:25:14.880 electrical work, bricklaying, or mechanics. And you can tell that they would fall into this category.

00:25:18.780 These other people who we're talking about, these folks typically are hands-on professionals

00:25:22.220 who've completed apprenticeships or vocational training to master their craft. They're the

00:25:27.480 ones building houses, fixing pipes, wiring homes, and keeping cars running, essentially keeping the

00:25:31.820 country running. The terms got cultural weight down under. Tradies are often seen as embodying a rugged,

00:25:37.380 practical, no-nonsense Aussie spirit. Think high vests, steel capped boots, and a ute utility vehicle

00:25:44.620 loaded with tools. They are a big part of the economy too, especially in construction, which is a powerhouse

00:25:49.840 industry in Australia. Posts on X and Web Chatter sometimes paint them as a hardworking blokes,

00:25:54.340 and increasingly women who enjoy a beer after a long day, though that's more of a stereotype than 0.99

00:25:58.600 a rule. Unlike the UK's Dino stereotype, which is more about a lifestyle or a class jab, tradies are 0.98

00:26:04.020 defined by their skills and jobs. They're not a subculture in the rebellious sense like Japan's

00:26:08.440 Yankees, but they do have their own lingo and camaraderie. Think smoko, break time, or hard yaka,

00:26:14.520 tough work. Some tradies earn solid money, 75 to 95k on average, but they're specialized or run their

00:26:22.540 own gig, though it varies by trade and experience. So yeah, apparently a lot of cultures are seeing

00:26:32.240 this in different regions or something that they see as similar with the core difference being

00:26:37.720 a different life path and different dominance hierarchy and different things that they value.

00:26:45.340 And then this person here did a podcast on it. They say, this is a fascinating, generated,

00:26:50.860 a whole AI podcast about the subject. But they did a picture, which I thought is really nice looking

00:26:55.420 of this. And then somebody here also said, there's also the work and Ezekiah and then open a kitchen

00:27:02.180 car pipeline, allows lots of time for surfing, et cetera. Yeah. And an izakaya restaurant is

00:27:09.440 basically Japanese tapas. So I could, I could see someone like having maybe a pop-up restaurant and

00:27:13.520 using that to create a sort of flexible lifestyle. So only the malcontents of Japan 1.00

00:27:19.260 are also the only people who thrive. The only people who couldn't fit in, in a brutally conformist

00:27:24.900 country are also the only ones to find happiness. The only winners of Japanese society are the people 1.00

00:27:30.360 with a good sense to stay out. What were you going to say? Sorry, I interrupted you there.

00:27:35.740 No, go, go ahead. I mean, so, okay, I'll just jump in then and say one thing that gives me a lot of

00:27:42.780 hope about these subcultures is that one, they may be underrepresented as inheritors of the future

00:27:49.720 because they've chosen so much to opt out of the internet, to opt out of mainstream culture,

00:27:55.620 and to be pretty hard to measure. So I was, I was reading some news stories on this group and

00:28:01.920 they're like, well, people are trying to like find them, but you can't really find them in online

00:28:05.500 surveys. You, most of the interviews that people are doing on people on the streets are in places

00:28:10.980 like Tokyo, like in really high traffic neighborhoods. So they're not finding them

00:28:15.300 because these people, even when they vacation, they typically vacation close to home. So my understanding

00:28:20.120 is that basically they are off the grid to a great extent. And when you and I were looking at data

00:28:26.340 of groups that seem to be high fertility in the United States, we kept seeing yes, high levels of

00:28:33.620 religiosity, but also xenophobia and extreme sensitive sensitivity to hierarchy and sort of like a lot of,

00:28:39.980 a lot of scary fascist, but not in a good way. And it's sort of closed minded, scary way

00:28:45.080 tendencies. My impression is that these groups are not as much like that. They might be somewhat

00:28:51.680 suspicious of outsiders. I get that, but I'm, I'm less concerned about groups like this

00:28:57.920 inheriting the future because they're community minded. They sound pretty pro-social at least since

00:29:05.320 they've sort of evolved out of their hard Yankee days where they used to actually cause a lot of 1.00

00:29:10.380 property damage and be kind of troublesome people in their communities. Now they're, they're seen as

00:29:15.540 being much more responsible community members. So they're, they seem to be broadly pro-social.

00:29:20.600 They care about kids. They care about family. They're grateful for the community health they get.

00:29:25.740 This doesn't seem like a bad group to be inheriting the future.

00:29:28.680 It seems like living for a delinquent aesthetic where that is also high fertility. And that's one of a way 0.97

00:29:35.200 of thumbing your nose at society is high fertility. And another thing that's high fertility 1.00

00:29:40.140 is being both frugal, but not good with financial decisions. That's another thing that seems to be

00:29:46.640 high fertility is that they don't fold. They're just like, okay, I'm going to keep having kids and

00:29:49.700 it's going to work out. I think people who are overly concerned about being able to afford things

00:29:53.200 like the people who are like, well, don't they know how precarious their life is? People who think

00:29:58.940 like that never end up having kids. Yeah. Like they, well, they, they both are happy living within

00:30:05.360 their means, but they seem to for cultural or perhaps lack of education reasons are both

00:30:11.140 blow the money that they do have on things that they don't necessarily need like cosmetic surgery 0.92

00:30:17.840 and cars and maybe sports gambling or pachinko. And that's maybe, I mean, we, we see it as not great,

00:30:26.100 but at the same time, the lack of savings and also that lack of concern. Oh, I can't afford this.

00:30:32.220 So I'm not going to do it. Yeah. Does seem to be really, it forces people to lean in more to

00:30:40.040 family, more to community. And I do think there's a synergistic effect there where the more you lean

00:30:44.120 into family and community, the more you're likely to have kids and also support your family and

00:30:48.700 community. You know, the more everyone needs each other, the more they help each other and the more

00:30:51.620 they lean into that again. And so it would only create more children, more loving communities.

00:30:56.600 And we can, we kind of need that. So rut row. All right. Well, Simone, this has been a fun

00:31:05.680 conversation. I hope our daughters grew up to be as fierce as, as that Yankee girl who you liked 0.84

00:31:11.960 growing up. What did you think of her character growing up? Did you like, like her or did you

00:31:15.460 identify more with the other girl? No, I definitely identify with Momoko, the sweet Lolita girl who's

00:31:22.680 obsessed with frilly dresses. Some of the, I was watching other scenes from the movie today and

00:31:27.280 I realized like in one scene, she's wearing a dress that looks so much like what I wear every day.

00:31:34.260 Like she's a white bonnet and a black jumper, a white petticoat. And I'm like, Oh God,

00:31:39.900 Lolita. Like, is that like actually your thing now? Is this Puritan Lolita? What have I done?

00:31:46.720 Oh, that's what I like. When we go to conferences and she dresses up in her traditional outfits,

00:31:50.400 the people who like come up and gush over them are often like skunking goth girls. They're like, 0.98

00:31:56.340 Oh, that's so cool. You look crazy. Like I love it. And it's so fun that you can be so trad 0.94

00:32:03.040 that like the big goth. It's the horseshoe theory, just like you have the, you know,

00:32:08.640 the crunchy to all right horseshoe where, you know, they, they end up being connected in the end.

00:32:15.060 It it's, it's great. I love it. But wait, so you basically now as a grownup,

00:32:20.680 I have a daughter who's like the punk girl who's like Momoko and you know, sorry, I'm like Momoko

00:32:25.640 and I have a daughter like Ichigo. Yeah. 100%. Did you, did you expect that? We'll see if she

00:32:30.340 keeps it up as she gets older, but right now, Oh my God, she loves trolling. Like

00:32:35.000 such a troll. She's such a troll. She will like, even with her siblings, it's not just us. It's 1.00

00:32:39.620 like Octavian will be like, please don't touch my, my Google device while I'm gone. And then she'll

00:32:44.840 be like, as soon as he leaves, she has no interest in it. Yeah. She just wants no desire to play with

00:32:49.880 Dexter's lab or something. 100%. She lives to troll and I love it. I respect it. I didn't know that

00:32:55.560 that was a real genetic compulsion. Yeah. Trolling heritable. Someone can make apologetic score

00:33:01.720 around that with enough data. Is she going to be Deedee to Torsen's mad scientist? The short

00:33:08.200 little brother who's shorter than her and really smart. They're the same size now, pretty much.

00:33:28.040 He has bigger feet than her. Thank goodness. He's, he's growing something.

00:33:31.560 I'm going to get that kid to grow. We're going to move ways. Okay. All right. I love you to

00:33:38.360 Desimone. It's been a joy talking with you. And we just submitted our Andreessen Horowitz

00:33:43.720 applications with two of the Collins Institute and the video game that we've been working on.

00:33:50.040 If you're buddies with them, put in a good word for old, for old Collins. Yes. Or if you know another

00:33:57.960 VC we should be looking at or talking to, who's interested in AI games or AI education, let us know

00:34:04.280 because warm intros apparently matter. And what's the point of having fans if we can't get warm intros?

00:34:11.640 Yeah, actually social batching is everything. And these are big projects that we really believe in, but

00:34:17.640 I, yeah, we'll see. Oh, we should, we should put the pitch decks here so people can be like,

00:34:22.440 oh, this is what you're working on. Oh, that would be cool. Yeah. If you want to learn more about these

00:34:26.040 projects, see the pitch decks below. And if you have ideas for us, please share, because actually

00:34:32.360 our listeners are super smart, incredible people with some. Yeah. Okay. Not all of you. All right.

00:34:40.440 Which one are you listener? Are you, are you mid or are you based?

00:34:48.440 Are you, yeah. Are you smart enough to, to have been a Yankee who have known to be a delinquent 0.99

00:34:52.200 from the beginning? I was definitely a delinquent growing up. So you married the, the grownup

00:34:56.520 delinquents. Yeah. Well, I mean the, another one of the themes that I really like from this is, 0.91

00:35:01.640 is a lot of people identifying, or at least referring to them as misfits, you know, like

00:35:06.280 it's the misfits in the end who could get to inherit the future. And that's totally it. It's the 0.98

00:35:09.720 people, as you keep pointing out, who deviate from mainstream society.

00:35:14.360 They're misfits is that they don't care about the fact that they're perceived as misfits.

00:35:19.800 It is the not caring about other people's judgment of you as a misfit.

00:35:27.000 Anyway, and that's what you got to raise your kids to think like. And it's, it's, it's a big,

00:35:31.240 so many people, I think that this is, is going to be one of the biggest things that Mormonism 0.99

00:35:34.920 is going to struggle getting around is a fear of being seen as misfit or others, which is one of

00:35:41.640 the reasons their particular fertility collapse, even though it's not as bad as other denominations

00:35:47.400 like Catholicism may be more intractable because I think that many Catholic groups are okay. It was

00:35:52.360 looking weird. Whereas I don't know many Mormon groups that really embrace the idea of being weird. 0.53

00:35:59.240 Yeah. 100%. That's a big problem. Okay. Bye. Bye. I love you. Goodbye.

00:36:04.280 Bye. I said, good day, sir. Good day. I love the aesthetics, the subject. I absolutely adore it.

00:36:14.440 It has just all these like tiny little aesthetic moments and references. And the main character has

00:36:22.680 sensitivities to stupid little things that I really identify with, but it's definitely, it's like even 0.96

00:36:28.920 down to lighting choices made. It is clearly the Amelie of Japan and you will never watch it and 0.99

00:36:33.640 you will never like it. And that's okay. It's totally okay. I mean, that was a common thing in

00:36:38.680 Japan to pair characters who have those two acts. The contrast. Yeah. Yeah. You had it with Puffy Amiyumi,

00:36:44.360 for example, the cartoon about the popular band. The Tom Girl and the Girly Girl.

00:36:49.880 Tom Girl and the Girly Girl. Everybody wants to hang out with Tom Girl and the Girly Girl.

00:36:53.240 You know what? Watch them fight each other. Oh, that's so silly. So silly.

00:37:18.680 They're beautiful. Shall we pick some? 0.99

00:37:23.240 I want flowers. You want to pick the flowers too?

00:37:27.960 Yeah. They have baby flowers.

00:37:31.240 Baby flowers? All right. Well, do you see any?

00:37:38.840 Okay. If you can stay out of the mud, you can pick some. They're called swamp marigolds. Go get some.

Based Camp - April 11, 2025

Sub-Cultures With High Fertility： In Japan, UK, and Australia

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