Based Camp - The Anti-Baby Internet Cult： The Girl with the List

00:00:00.000 hello everyone i'm excited to be here with you today today simone has kept whatever this topic

00:00:04.260 is going to be a secret from me all day because she wanted to see my reaction for like a day and

00:00:09.060 a half at this point so what is it simone what what is it that you wanted to go over

00:00:14.420 what if i told you that there is there's a system for convincing women to not have children that men

00:00:24.500 don't know about because they don't consume girly content and it's just floating around on the

00:00:29.540 internet becoming quite influential and pervasive changing people's lives and it sounds like the

00:00:36.440 usual bad guys up to their usual stuff but why don't i know about this do i not know about this

00:00:41.240 do you know about the girl with the list i have never heard about the girl with the list she's

00:00:47.120 like batman she's summoned so there are two types of videos on which you might look to the comments

00:00:52.560 and you'll see where's the girl with the list and she gets summoned she will show up or be

00:00:58.860 summoned on super cute videos of babies or toddlers or on things going absolutely horrible

00:01:06.920 with pregnancy, with delivery, with breastfeeding, with raising toddlers. Because what The Girl with

00:01:13.100 the List does is provide you with a virtual form of birth control by taking any cute video you see 1.00

00:01:19.500 and just reminding you how horrible it is to be pregnant, to have kids, and to become a parent.

00:01:25.400 Wait, really? Is she a mom? What's the backstory?

00:01:28.160 No, yeah, yeah. I will tell you. There are actually, Malcolm, there are actually two girls with the list. One calls herself the OG girl with the list, but she has just completely disappeared from the internet.

00:01:40.180 And then the second is who I'll mostly focus on today. She's named Abigail Porter. She goes by Zoomy. She has 1.6 million followers on TikTok. And she's famous for curing baby fever by creating abundant shorts on pregnancy and delivery and body horror related to it, basically.

00:01:57.640 a plus frustrating experiences that parents have while they attempt to raise kids and even i not

00:02:05.440 being particularly interested in cute baby photos or pregnancy body horror because i live it i have

00:02:12.880 just this week heard of her twice in just my random girly content that i follow you wait so

00:02:19.820 you just have randomly seen it can you describe these yeah like in the most recent video i where

00:02:24.860 I was like, okay, I've got to do an episode on this. Just this week, I was watching a video

00:02:29.100 where a woman just said, she changed my life. I literally owe her everything, she said. And this

00:02:34.560 was in a video about, let's see, what was the video? I'm linking to all this in my show notes.

00:02:39.780 It was called about the real dangers of tried wife content, nine kids and counting. I mean,

00:02:44.760 I see this stuff and I'm like, I have to click on it. I have to know why apparently it's so bad

00:02:49.480 to be a mother so yeah she literally changed my life okay like i needed to find out who this was 0.59

00:02:57.480 and also i've heard there are lots of people in the base camp network who are dating young men

00:03:02.780 who would like to find a wife who would like to have kids and i'm hearing more and more from young

00:03:06.120 men that like the the women they are dating are like well i never want to become a parent like

00:03:12.440 i don't i don't want to be a parent i know yeah well the the psyop you you've got to groom your

00:03:17.100 wife leaflet said it best actually i think we said that first and then she copied it from us

00:03:21.260 but i like maybe i don't care who said it first look you got to do it

00:03:25.180 and and that's we're going to talk about this at the end basically how to deal with this but 0.97

00:03:38.060 i if to first address the problem be you a woman who is being subject to this

00:03:43.460 for lack of a better word propaganda brainwashing brainwashing or if you're a young man who's met

00:03:50.360 an amazing young woman who you think would actually enjoy being a parent but who's terrified

00:03:53.640 of it because of this content we we need to wait so to clarify this woman felt that she had had

00:04:02.460 like her life saved by the girl with the list yes so the the youtuber that i'm talking about

00:04:09.040 i think probably based on the fact that she said i literally owe her everything in my show notes i'll

00:04:14.800 send them to you i linked to the exact clip where she says this it very much insinuates that she

00:04:19.440 plans on not having kids because of abigail porter's content but okay just to be clear so

00:04:25.720 the sort of background the first person to do this was this other tiktok creator called uni and then

00:04:32.520 eventually this this creator created a list also linked to called uni's pros and cons of having

00:04:39.000 children and it has like 200 and something cons and then like 30 pros or something and the pros

00:04:46.080 aren't even like that good yeah like what do you even know that's not that's not why we have kids

00:04:52.920 and and so let's just we will replace you that's our goal come on that's that's what this is all

00:04:58.380 about winning the civilizational game basically they don't get that they never would get that

00:05:02.920 but yeah okay continue yeah i've i've watched over four hours of compilations over four hours

00:05:10.660 yes simone of abigail porter's content i've gone i mean she created on youtube this compilation of

00:05:18.440 a certain number of years worth of her content i've i've gone from watching her having a short

00:05:24.020 pixie cut to a shaved head to hair down to here like it's she's been doing this for a long time 0.74

00:05:29.600 i think you'd actually find her very attractive she's very much your type oh gosh she's a ginge

00:05:35.400 she's very beautiful so that that helps and she they're great i mean a lot of it's humor a lot of

00:05:41.820 it's like america's funniest film videos because i mean she's she's being tagged on viral content

00:05:45.900 and her job basically is to like open her phone every morning i mean this isn't obviously her 1.00

00:05:49.520 only work but what she'll do is probably presumably open her phone every morning see where she's tagged 0.97

00:05:54.160 on tiktok and then take those clips and make her own little commentary on them and publish them out

00:05:58.980 to her crowd and then her her followers she's actually her name is abigail porter you said

00:06:03.740 but she goes by zoomie yeah okay i'll look her up to see if i agree with your assessment

00:06:08.520 no you'll find her so cute this is her recent los angeles profile so this is what she looks 0.92

00:06:13.580 like today with longer hair she's cute she's my type for sure yeah absolutely i mean she looks

00:06:19.540 too old now i wouldn't date her like in real life she looks very young oh get over yourself malcolm

00:06:25.080 anyway i think she's very pretty but also that doesn't really matter and she has a boyfriend

00:06:29.500 and they're very happy they're very happy dinks but let's go oh my god her substack profile

00:06:32.940 reproductive rights advocate reminding you to take your birth control also known as the girl 0.57

00:06:37.040 with a list okay continue the girl with a list so in terms of how the content that she she presents

00:06:44.940 that will dissuade young women old women any woman from wanting to have babies is sort of

00:06:51.200 i'll start with some highlights let's start with some highlights okay because and these are like

00:06:54.760 original clips. These are women who've gone through this. This is actual firsthand video 1.00

00:06:59.460 footage. This isn't stuff that's made up because you can literally see it. There's one where a

00:07:03.720 woman's insides needed stitches after her baby scratched her from the inside on the way out

00:07:08.860 because it had its fingernails grew in. And they do that. A woman whose baby began to choke on her 1.00

00:07:13.860 nipple and then it just literally fell off because it was so infected at that point from mastitis 0.91

00:07:18.560 and other issues. A woman who grew a tumor on her lip the size of her pinky while she was pregnant 0.56

00:07:23.080 because one of the things that can happen 1.00

00:07:24.280 when you're pregnant is to grow benign tumors. 1.00

00:07:26.820 A woman who, well, of course, 1.00

00:07:28.520 women who've lost their hair, their teeth, 1.00

00:07:30.760 all their eyelashes.

00:07:31.800 A woman who developed a mutation during pregnancy 0.87

00:07:34.260 that made her insensitive to pain meds

00:07:36.300 who had to endure a C-section with no medication.

00:07:40.320 She just eventually passed out from the pain.

00:07:43.060 There's a woman who went deaf

00:07:44.140 after her kid kissed her on the ear,

00:07:46.220 causing what's called the kiss of death.

00:07:48.400 And I had to look this up.

00:07:49.400 This is actually a thing.

00:07:51.000 It's a cochlear ear kiss injury.

00:07:52.760 also known as readers ear kiss syndrome rex but yeah so like don't let your we need to like not 0.81

00:07:58.520 let the kids close to our ears anymore there's a woman whose retina is detached because she was 0.97

00:08:02.280 pushing so hard in labor women whose bodies have become both temporarily and permanently 1.00

00:08:06.600 deformed or uglified we're talking swollen hands and feet legs this is worth it for a human life 0.72

00:08:13.340 anybody would take blood vessels in the eyes for their child i had to pop blood vessels in the

00:08:18.040 I just remember that time where I never seen us in the podcast.

00:08:21.080 I know.

00:08:21.620 Yeah.

00:08:21.760 And the varicose veins, that's real. 1.00

00:08:22.940 But every woman has tough pregnancies from what I hear these days.

00:08:25.680 You know, almost, I occasionally hear of really easy ones, but generally speaking, pregnancies

00:08:31.040 are hard today.

00:08:32.320 And today, I think pregnancies have always had their things.

00:08:35.360 Yeah, they used to be a lot harder.

00:08:36.420 Did you know that on average, women lost one tooth per pregnancy?

00:08:39.340 I think that's apocryphal.

00:08:41.240 So I decided to research to see if this is an apocryphal old wives tale.

00:08:45.560 first of all this is way more common a historic story than i thought there are proverbs that

00:08:52.540 mean something like gain a child lose a tooth in danish in german in scandinavian in russian

00:09:00.740 and in japanese and there have been studies on this to see if this is accurate uh there was a

00:09:08.060 landmark 1998 study in the lancet there's a large u.s study by researcher stefan russell

00:09:13.760 There was a twin study on this, and basically what everything found is that it is kind of right.

00:09:22.240 It's basically right.

00:09:23.160 It's not exactly one child, one tooth, but it's more children, fewer teeth.

00:09:28.400 And the reason for this is pregnancy hormones make gums much more reactive to plaque.

00:09:34.500 This causes pregnancy gingivitis in a large percentage of women, often cited as 30 to 75% or higher.

00:09:41.940 and repeated episodes of gingivitis across multiple pregnancies can lead to deeper infections which

00:09:48.200 lead to the losing of teeth but i had no idea that this is wild but yeah i mean you know if

00:09:55.620 you're if you're the one who told me no i didn't i never said that i think that you did i think you

00:10:00.180 came home from natal con with that but i'm not sure but anyway the in her content there are

00:10:05.360 basically four themes there's relatively unusual medical conditions from pregnancy and lactation

00:10:10.160 like uterine prolapse. And apparently when that happens, by the way, you know what you're supposed

00:10:14.480 to do to fix it? What? Shove it back in. You're supposed to just push it back in. Okay. I mean,

00:10:21.760 it makes sense, but it seems very uncomfortable. So there's that. And you know, there are various

00:10:26.640 forms of body horror. Then also just the expenses of labor and delivery, you know, just how

00:10:30.880 ridiculous it is. And when people go through their itemized bills, that's an easy thing to go viral

00:10:35.140 on TikTok. It's a more, yeah. But with a lot of this stuff, it's like, this is why you shouldn't

00:10:39.140 drive and it's just a bunch of pictures of people who got killed in car accidents and you know one

00:10:42.840 and i'm going to talk about that yeah there's also poop and pee humor or well and horror of course

00:10:47.820 and then super common like parenting pregnancy and postpartum stuff like fussy babies were only

00:10:54.220 calm when they're bounced or the rectus abdominis being separated in pregnancy or swelling or using

00:11:01.080 an osferita to suck snot out of a baby's nose like that's terrifying or something yeah that's

00:11:05.920 That's something that we have to do with a lot of our kids.

00:11:08.060 Yeah, like every parent has a Nosferida.

00:11:09.900 Like, would you rather have your baby screaming in pain 0.54

00:11:11.840 or like suck out the snot with the tube? 0.97

00:11:14.480 There's a filter. 0.81

00:11:15.400 There's a filter.

00:11:16.700 Or having strangers on the internet jump down your throat 0.98

00:11:18.980 just because you mentioned the word breastfeeding

00:11:20.720 in a post online. 1.00

00:11:22.160 Or kids making messes around the house.

00:11:24.540 And like, we're talking the flooding, the vandalism.

00:11:26.920 A lot of the stuff that she posts,

00:11:28.460 it's like kids ruining houses or making big messes

00:11:31.240 is all stuff, honestly, that's the parent's fault.

00:11:34.060 Like, you have to learn the hard way.

00:11:35.920 to like childproof your home and all of these are their results of not proper childproofing so a lot

00:11:42.500 of this is actually kind of helpful content because it's like oh this is something to head

00:11:45.840 off but the reason why this is damaging and not just funny or informative is that there's there

00:11:52.660 like it just goes for like the the most common psychological trips you're in sorry tricks that

00:11:58.380 that will get you you know there's one like availability heuristic that yuri and abigail

00:12:03.220 with these lists are making the hazards of parenting and pregnancy look extremely visible

00:12:10.640 and available in people's minds they're just like super top of mind and it's it's going to make

00:12:17.200 people only think about the negative whereas it's extremely easy to do exactly the same thing

00:12:21.420 Abigail does with other life choices and that includes especially life choices of people who

00:12:26.460 choose not to have kids like I think you and I have we follow this this basically the equivalent

00:12:31.480 of this genre with hiking and going outdoors with oh my god yes mr ballin and everything like that

00:12:36.540 i genuinely think every time i go to the woods everyone's going to disappear i know i know

00:12:40.620 more on one lore lodge it's like one of my core categories of content yeah so like abigail and

00:12:46.700 the girls with the lists they are that but for her pregnancy so yeah and there's also cosmetic

00:12:53.540 surgery that's another version of this genre that i love like wani is a creator whose content i love

00:12:58.800 on this front because he specifically covers plastic surgery that goes super wrong in china

00:13:03.020 there's buying homes i don't know if you know there's this whole genre of home inspectors

00:13:07.500 uploading their videos and they'll just go through new constructed houses or just any house

00:13:11.860 and be like oh look this is broken like toilets not actually you have got me into something

00:13:17.620 interesting here i would assume like just hearing a lot of this to begin with is that this is a lot

00:13:22.520 of women who have secretly kind of want babies they secretly know that their lives will be

00:13:27.520 no they have baby fever the the point is they want to find some way to suppress it or make

00:13:36.420 their terrible life decisions feel justified no no that is not that is not a what if that is a

00:13:42.380 literally that's what's happening no no no no well you you you say videos often go like here's the

00:13:47.580 format she uses because again i've watched over four hours of these is cute baby cute baby video

00:13:52.660 that went viral on tiktok and then her being like nah uh-uh zoomy here to provide you with your 0.62

00:13:57.520 online birth control to stop you or cure your baby fever and like that's the whole thing and

00:14:01.120 then she goes into the horror story the point i'm making is i could have that impression and and it

00:14:07.940 is what i would jump to but i consume a very similar form of content and i clearly don't

00:14:15.860 don't consume it for that reason i do not consume mr ballin because i secretly want to jump out of

00:14:23.780 air oh because you crave that you want to go backpacking along or become a caver there's

00:14:29.980 actually because the caving videos are like one of my videos that i watch a lot of any of you cave

00:14:36.580 what's stop stop i have never in my entire life seen a tiny hole and felt an urge to shove myself

00:14:45.560 as deep as i can in the tiny hole there is a fetish actually wait hold on when you put it that

00:14:51.260 way i is it a fetish is caving a fetish i like can't imagine a real human emotion that would

00:14:57.880 lead you to want to do that well no but like so i i you can also look at those those vacuum bags

00:15:03.360 that people use for sexy times and i'm like okay well i can't imagine myself doing that i just now

00:15:08.860 that you put it that way i'm like oh that could be it anyway keep going because also they're wet

00:15:13.840 a lot of oh no sorry horrible ways you die when came yeah and this isn't the thing it's not that

00:15:19.740 i don't like caves like i've been spelunking to like big nice mapped caves to see a different

00:15:26.020 environment i have found that to be a very pleasant and fun have you have you scuba have

00:15:30.360 you scuba in i have i have cave dived i've done cave dives before which is a very dangerous form

00:15:36.880 of diving that is super dangerous diving oh my god i remember like snorkeling in the cenotes in

00:15:41.900 the yucatan and watching like i remember watching one guy go down with two extra tanks and then i

00:15:49.100 was there for like two or three hours and he didn't come out and i'm like sir but when i have

00:15:57.240 been cave diving when i have been spelunking when people die in these things at least the videos

00:16:03.800 that i watch it's always and then they saw a two-foot hole and shoved themselves in it yeah

00:16:09.740 like a freaking pelican or something what's a bird that sticks his head in the sand flamingo

00:16:14.700 a man was exploring the nutty putty cave in 2009 and he wanted to go through one of the tightest

00:16:22.300 stretches called the birth canal i don't actually ostrich yeah they're the apocryphy apocryphally

00:16:28.800 do that they don't actually do that i think this time sona is right and crazily this apocryphal 0.98

00:16:34.940 story goes back to plenty the elder well it's not an apocryphie that idiots in utah do this all the 0.92

00:16:40.780 time there's nothing interesting you're going to see in this little hole it's dark it's gonna look 0.97

00:16:47.600 dark and there will be darkness you're not gonna find some what like get your head out but the 1.00

00:16:55.140 thing is is i have to ask myself how many of the women watching this are trying to suppress the

00:17:01.120 instinct trying to cure fomo how many of the women who are watching this are like me and and 0.98

00:17:08.660 then there's another category there's a lot of schadenfreude for like dink couples you you will 0.97

00:17:13.860 enjoy your dink lifestyle even if you never want kids even more if you're just watching people i 0.98

00:17:20.360 have another type of schadenfreude that i watch videos all the time for which could be another 0.93

00:17:24.400 desire for this that could be okay okay you here go i love watching incredibly misogynistic red

00:17:31.520 pill content about terrible experiences men have had dating and being married you know like mgtow

00:17:37.500 content and stuff like that and you got sandman on and like i've watched his videos you know pushing

00:17:41.560 like mgtow lifestyles and stuff no don't come but there's other there's a whole category and we

00:17:47.600 we actually utilize it in our title cards where it is sad woman who made a mistake but are we doing

00:17:54.280 that for this no i i think i should just use a normal picture of this category of video i watch

00:17:59.800 not to like give myself like a lack of fomo around dating but because i like to hear how much better

00:18:07.300 i did in the dating market than all of these people and about their terrible lives compared

00:18:12.160 to just finding a good woman and treating her well right like you you you hear the stories you hear

00:18:18.160 i mean it's as obvious between the lines as it is when you have one of those women out there

00:18:24.220 screeching about why the this guy didn't like them just because x y and z totally insane things 0.91

00:18:30.240 and on a lot of these you know have you heard the new thing on x that's trending is hiplets 0.53

00:18:34.740 have you heard about the hiplet controversy what what is this i guess some women's hips kind of

00:18:40.640 divot inward above the hip bone and some men are like i don't i'm just not into that like i don't

00:18:46.800 want to date women with hiplets and women are like how dare you i can't control my morphology 0.99

00:18:52.320 that's how I'm born and men are like oh really because you didn't have that reaction when I was

00:18:57.460 under six feet and you wouldn't talk to me so there's a lot of smugness going on online but

00:19:02.040 yeah that's also a thing oh weird weird do I find it unattractive I can't even imagine what

00:19:08.040 they're talking about hold on let me see I'll make a judgment on just google I'm just sending

00:19:11.360 you an x post yeah you gotta send me an x post this is not it's not coming through it's it's

00:19:15.720 obscure enough where but anyway this is one of the it's been trending on x like all weekend

00:19:19.620 son what's up ew oh wow so that was a reaction yeah that is not good looking okay

00:19:28.520 okay i see stand on this yeah you you definitely don't have those i'll tell you no i don't

00:19:36.840 i don't where wow okay i like your theory though i i think that there's the i think her content

00:19:43.740 does really well because it does fit a bunch of different interests right there's the shodan

00:19:48.020 fraud. There's the smug. My life is so good feeling. There's the, I really want a baby. 0.97

00:19:55.040 No, I don't want a baby because I'm an independent woman who's never going to have a baby or I can't

00:19:58.940 have a baby because I can't find a good guy. So this, all of this, all of this can be satisfied

00:20:03.480 by girl with a list posts. And, and we have all these other genres that make us very happy with

00:20:09.680 our lives. I love to watch the hiking videos. I love to watch the cosmetic surgery gone wrong

00:20:14.400 videos i love to watch the buying home gone wrong videos there's also people who do like eating out

00:20:18.660 at restaurants like all the stuff that's going on behind the scenes you don't want to know about

00:20:22.680 and so you can you can effectively yeah are you glad we don't eat out very actually that you you

00:20:28.640 can basically though my point being you you can develop an aversion to or even a phobia of pretty

00:20:34.320 much anything by giving yourself to sufficient exposure to its hazards just because they become

00:20:39.940 so available in your brain. And this genre can be a form of opt-in brainwashing, though in a

00:20:49.620 worst case scenario, they could be a form of unintentional algorithmically led brainwashing.

00:20:56.400 And especially given the way that TikTok works, you get into it, you comment on this positively

00:21:03.540 at one point, and you end up getting in this engagement loop with this kind of content and

00:21:08.280 just seeing more and more of it even if you didn't necessarily want to brainwash yourself into being

00:21:13.140 afraid of having a baby then there's also yeah i didn't i didn't mean to become brainwashed of

00:21:18.140 going into american national parks but you watch enough you know lore lodge 411 mr ballin and

00:21:25.040 you're just like and i've had panic moments because of that like when we're playing with

00:21:29.380 our kids in the woods and one of them decides he's gonna go home without telling me yeah and

00:21:33.860 i'm running around screaming because that's always always with the kid ones it's like well the kid

00:21:39.280 was just with us one moment we're all walking down the trail and then the next moment they're

00:21:42.660 gone and we never heard from them again like that's always the way it goes the kid was right

00:21:46.480 there the kid was right there then they put up this massive search party i don't know if mr

00:21:51.520 ballin got a dollar for every time he said this massive search party he'd be he'd be a millionaire

00:21:57.880 i haven't watched much mr ballin in a couple years to be honest i had to stop watching his

00:22:03.060 content because i came across one video where a baby got hurt and you know i can't oh well i i

00:22:08.140 think he sort of ran out a good mystery that i'm gonna be honest yeah yeah it was like it got it

00:22:11.920 got to like very there's only he had to start digging into crime reporting and that's where

00:22:15.560 it just gets really depressing instead of like oh what happened in the national park yeah like if

00:22:20.580 you if you ever have your mystery phase where you like crime mysteries what you'll realize is you'll

00:22:27.040 kind of go through all the good ones in about a year and a half and there's only it's a way we

00:22:31.820 had a great run malcolm it was it was beautiful i remember yeah and then it's just like rehashing

00:22:36.700 or minor updates or new new theories and at that point it's the same with good conspiracy theories

00:22:42.440 there's only so many and everything with this genre plastic surgery that's botched all all of

00:22:47.600 the snark all of the fundy snark we went through that so fast there's only only so many very public

00:22:52.360 fundy families that people can make fun of oh like harry and megan snark i follow most of the major

00:22:58.720 channels i just i i was so into warhammer lore for a while and then i just knew all the warhammer

00:23:06.100 lore and there was nothing more to learn so you just started developing your own religion that's

00:23:11.880 very warhammer inspired oh what are we going to name one of our kids mechanicus oh you were

00:23:17.180 thinking cryptaea mechanicus cryptaea mechanicus our next daughter yeah okay all right anyway it's

00:23:24.460 a beautiful name, Simone. It's a beautiful name. Beautiful name. Beautiful name. I want to get back

00:23:31.380 to the point. So there's one availability heuristic. There's also loss aversion. And it's

00:23:36.260 just important to remind you that you don't need to be reminded, but people listening may not be

00:23:40.840 aware that humans are generally way more concerned about losses and gains. They generally weigh

00:23:47.520 potential loss is about 1.5 to 2.5 times as much as equally sized gains. So like

00:23:54.640 all this stuff isn't just like, oh, okay, well, I'm going to knock down my interest in pregnancy

00:24:01.940 by one. No, it's going to be by two, even though, you know, other things will only the viral kid

00:24:08.060 video that's so cute is only going to knock up your interest one. So Abigail is more than 0.86

00:24:12.660 canceling out any baby fever that she sparks or that is sparked by the viral baby videos that she

00:24:18.560 sent in where does she really is this like true or well i'm talking about how loss aversion works

00:24:24.480 in general oh yeah okay continue right because you know take take you know one token you have

00:24:31.040 a chance of winning one token or not losing two and a half tokens or sorry not losing two tokens

00:24:37.780 people are two and a half more times whatever you know what i'm talking i linked to a bunch of this

00:24:41.260 research in my show notes you can i mean she's helping us she's clearing out the gene pool for

00:24:45.800 our kids yeah well look if i spoiler alert but in the end i i think she's doing amazing work and i

00:24:51.260 think she's very ethical and i like her a lot so it's not just a parasocial relationship i think

00:24:56.020 she's doing good work but we'll get to that but anyway this means that people are are extra extra

00:25:00.960 influenced against this and it's it's kind of even worse than that because both abigail and

00:25:06.080 can't seem to even wrap their heads around like the the rewards of parenting at all abigail's most 0.99

00:25:12.460 commonly cited argument is kids are cute whereas yuri's list at the end of it she has her like 0.99

00:25:20.020 whatever 30 pros after 200 and something i think over 250 cons they include child and tax return

00:25:28.040 benefits and tiny everything which like first the tax return benefits are like very very little

00:25:36.020 considering the costs of children quote you cannot get drafted while pregnant end quote so

00:25:41.800 there's that you can't bribe them with candy or sorry you can bribe with him with candy it was

00:25:46.820 one of her pros but you and i both know that you can't you can't we actually one of our kids

00:25:51.520 hates candy we can threaten him with candy eat your candy no literally i should try to i'll try

00:25:59.740 to film him try to give him candy tonight yes from this episode so people can see we're not

00:26:05.120 yeah yeah i'll get proof i need to hold up like the day's newspaper it's real and also if you

00:26:12.280 raise them right people will praise you for it which is so crazy like that's to think that you

00:26:19.380 would want to raise kids right to get praise for it by other people yeah yeah they're just like

00:26:25.040 but they have no external reality no civilizational stake no plan for the future of humanity it is

00:26:33.080 literally just about how does this make me feel yeah or like how does it make other people treat

00:26:38.120 me they have no larger civilizational framework right like no sense of purpose really it's just

00:26:44.900 autopilot really it's gnarly yeah so i think like the the big thing here is that i think this is

00:26:53.180 part of the larger theme of why mental health is plummeting which is people are way too in their

00:26:57.980 heads and overthinking things. And I think Abigail more than Yuri fundamentally gets people

00:27:05.380 to overthink pregnancy and child rearing. Like I didn't think about any of the complications that

00:27:12.180 would come with pregnancy before I got pregnant. No, no. Like my, my plan with everything is just

00:27:19.120 like, I'm not going to think through the consequences at all, which I guess, I mean,

00:27:25.300 we're trying to be as responsible as we can of course but like when it comes to the downsides

00:27:28.440 or the risks or the fears i'm just like look i am aware of like the broad statistics those look

00:27:33.960 fine to me i'm willing to take those on and i'm not going to educate myself about everything

00:27:39.220 possible that can go wrong with this remember like with with childbirth and stuff for the first time

00:27:44.720 around when i was like i'm going to do unmedicated labor i was like well okay i'm not gonna i'm not

00:27:48.160 gonna like take childbirthing courses or read a book or anything like that's just gonna get me

00:27:52.740 tune to my head. Like, look, it's just going to hurt. It hurt a lot. I, you know, hurt so much

00:27:57.640 that I threw up and then all the other things. Well, you were in labor for like 48 hours. Like

00:28:01.560 you are a worst case example. Yeah. And, and yeah, like induced labor that was horrible.

00:28:06.240 And yeah, it was, but like, I think it would have been worse because I've learned this the hard way.

00:28:10.940 One of the worst forms of pain is anticipating pain. It's not like the thing itself. I can't

00:28:15.960 remember the pain. I remember throwing up from it. I remember thinking like, I, I only exist with

00:28:22.000 the pain and this, this will be everything forever. Like there, there was nothing in my mind

00:28:26.280 but the pain and I was sitting with it and it was, it was what it was. And I was just ready to just

00:28:30.560 keep going. But I don't remember, I don't remember what it felt like. Like, why, how could I remember

00:28:34.660 that? So I think that ultimately was a lot healthier for me. And all this overthinking

00:28:39.280 is really not helping people. And Robert Sapolsky, you know, who does the great courses,

00:28:43.820 course on stress and cortisol really insightfully explains how like our stress system was not

00:28:51.520 developed for humans who have like metacognition who can like literally build endogenous stretch

00:29:00.340 stressors merely by thinking about something right like the gazelle is chased by the what

00:29:07.020 lion lioness and it runs and it's very stressed and the cortisol is coursing through its veins

00:29:11.960 and then the the lion catches another gazelle and eats it and then the gazelle goes back to

00:29:16.280 eating grass and it's fine right like yeah that's and then there's no more cortisol whereas like

00:29:20.760 the human will just think about something that could possibly potentially happen in the future,

00:29:25.760 but there's no actual reason it will happen. And they're experiencing the same level of cortisol

00:29:30.040 in their system. And it is chronically very unhealthy. And I don't appreciate that there's

00:29:36.420 a lot of content out there that feeds into that and that people let themselves feed into that.

00:29:40.440 And I don't think you should, or anyone should indulge in that because it is, it is both

00:29:44.860 unhealthy, not productive. If you're concerned about something, build a contingency plan for

00:29:49.440 reduce the odds but like don't think about it but anyway overthinking about pregnancy could probably

00:29:55.940 be contributing to a rise in phobia about pregnancy which is known as tokophobia which

00:30:02.680 is a weird name but a lot of people have it i mean you again wanted to get your tubes tied for

00:30:07.640 no reason yeah that was more just like euphoria that wasn't like i was afraid of being pregnant

00:30:13.580 i mean clearly i've never been afraid of being pregnant i was just like i'm super happy to be

00:30:17.940 alone forever. And you know, you know how I hate people. So that was fun and it was a fun idea,

00:30:24.480 but no, like I did not have that, but it is actually pretty prevalent. This 2017 systematic

00:30:29.820 review of 33 studies looking at a total of 854,000 pregnant women worldwide estimated that

00:30:37.360 there's a sort of pooled prevalence of talkophobia between like around 14% with individual study

00:30:45.660 estimates ranging from about 3.7% to 43%. And I bet a lot of that had to do with the population

00:30:51.200 sampled. And I bet the populations that are consuming content from the girls with the lists 0.99

00:30:56.780 is closer to the 43% end of the spectrum. Wait, 14% of women have a fear of pregnancy?

00:31:04.160 Yeah. Just sort of like roughly per this like systematic meta review. And yeah, 14%. Keep in

00:31:12.360 mind. This is a 2017 systematic review of 33 studies. All those studies were conducted before

00:31:18.520 2017, obviously. And these two young women only began posting around 2021 and after. So

00:31:28.360 I bet it's a lot worse and it's not great. So, you know, it's interesting to look at her

00:31:35.020 sub stack as well, to get an idea of just like what goes through her mind, what she sits around

00:31:39.660 thinking about all day yeah so if we're just reading them like in backwards chronological 1.00

00:31:44.320 order it's girls don't want to be someone's wife anymore kids ruin everything everything that

00:31:49.640 happened in the world of birth control last month's pill pop culture the weekly dose every

00:31:56.140 thing that happened this week in the world of birth control the ultimate nude lord's new album

00:32:02.060 features her iud look okay i think abigail she's just living a very happy dink life and i think

00:32:09.380 she also could be an amazing parent. She had two siblings. She has ample memories of being pretty

00:32:15.940 naughty as a child, driving her parents pretty nuts as a child, doing pretty naughty things as

00:32:20.320 a child, stuff that would qualify for her own videos. So she, she knows what it's like to be

00:32:24.800 a demon child. Sometimes I think all children do except for me. Cause I was perfect. Oh no,

00:32:29.000 wait. I scared my parents crapless when I starved myself. Nevermind. But then she doesn't really

00:32:35.160 talk about teens she just talks about toddlers she lives in downtown los angeles she started

00:32:40.000 posting these in 2021 to give you a sort of like picture of her pain tolerance she thinks that

00:32:47.220 getting an iud was the most painful thing she has ever experienced which is not comfortable i've not

00:32:53.160 gotten an iud before but from what i've heard from other people could be it can be pretty

00:32:56.060 uncomfortable but it you know birth is more other things are more she she hates cleaning she hates 0.99

00:33:01.140 cooking so loves playing video games has a boyfriend as far as i understand she talks about

00:33:05.540 him sometimes and i will say uh she she does find interesting stuff i was unaware of this

00:33:10.500 that flow the period tracking app has been proven to be collecting user data and sharing it with

00:33:15.340 meta yeah i didn't know this seems reasonable she said she's been using flow and is disgusted by

00:33:24.040 this information oh yeah well i mean you know she's she's on like the she lives in downtown

00:33:28.460 i'm los angeles she's a she's a dink like she's going to have to say the progressive things

00:33:31.920 she also has merch they're they're all in the like their sweatshirts all of them some have 0.69

00:33:37.440 hoodies some are crewnecks there's the 60 divorce your republican husband xl crewneck sweatshirt with

00:33:43.920 a wolf on it sold out the 50 dump your republican boyfriend medium large hunting dump your republican 0.65

00:33:50.420 boyfriend oh also sold out the 68 dump your republican boyfriend xl green crewneck the 58 0.96

00:33:57.660 dumb Republican boyfriend XL pink hoodie what's weird is all of these are for larger people 0.98

00:34:03.220 there's not a single small item in the entire shop and she's an ex extra smell extra smell 0.99

00:34:09.240 she's extra small so I don't know she had a map of the best and worst states to have a baby

00:34:15.240 and it's just like all Democrat states are ranked as good all Republican states ranked as bad

00:34:19.920 Pennsylvania is ranked as good to have a baby yeah yeah because I think we're at like 24 weeks

00:34:27.640 for abortions oh that's why it's ranked that way yeah of course malcolm gee whiz gosh yeah how it

00:34:37.660 was calculated wallet hub ranked the best and worst states have a baby by evaluating all 50 states and

00:34:41.720 the district of columbia across four categories cost health care baby friendliness and family

00:34:45.060 friendliness using 31 weighted metrics scored on 100 points jail it's abortion malcolm i mean it

00:34:52.740 could also be i mean keep in mind like in the state in this state at least too and and this is

00:34:56.840 how it is in many states, not unnecessarily democratic states, but generally in the United

00:35:02.920 States, you, if you are at near or below the poverty level, especially as a woman, get food

00:35:11.800 assistance, free healthcare, housing assistance. So all of those labor and delivery charges from

00:35:18.420 the hospital are totally waived and that's really helpful obviously and yeah anyway but in terms of

00:35:27.180 how i feel about this how i imagine you will feel about this too is that what abigail is doing is

00:35:32.840 fine she's really clear one thing you don't know this but like in her content she is super clear

00:35:39.560 to not shame parents like any of the parents she's covering she's super empathetic toward them

00:35:45.160 And I really can't say the same about many parents online, even like very pro natalist and pro kid

00:35:51.940 parents. And she's also way more ethical than your typical content creator with the clips that she

00:35:59.380 uses. She told NBC quote, if I'm going to do a video about bodies in particular and show someone's

00:36:05.500 body, I'm going to make sure that I have consent from that mother first. Like if she posted a video

00:36:10.460 and she made this acknowledgement, like this is my body. It's pretty crazy. The things that have

00:36:14.760 happened to my body is wild. She also said, I have such respect and a reverence and admiration for

00:36:19.920 the people who do choose to go through with this because it's a huge choice, Porter said. I hope

00:36:25.580 people will stop treating having children as an impulse decision that everyone does. I think that's

00:36:30.660 better for us and also for the children because if every child that was ever born had parents that

00:36:35.260 really wanted them, I think the world would be a better place. I 100% agree with that.

00:36:39.700 yeah i mean her framework for understanding why somebody wants children is really messed up but

00:36:45.780 it's completely in line with the dominant cultural subset so you can't really blame her for it

00:36:50.340 people have no idea why they're alive why they should continue living what's the point of life

00:36:55.540 right like they're just like so they can only relate things and in or they only can relate

00:37:01.420 to things in how those things relate to their personal happiness basically yeah like is this

00:37:07.360 gonna be uncomfortable let's do it then which is a thing but i i genuinely believe that like i would

00:37:14.920 be fine if someone was like look you think you want to become a parent watch five hours of abigail

00:37:20.080 porter's content and then decide and if someone know about that that's that's that's because her

00:37:25.820 content isn't you haven't watched it yeah but if you had watched it earlier you may have had a lot

00:37:31.860 or trepidations about going into pregnancy no well i think you're a tough woman simone and i

00:37:38.100 don't think that you're representative of the average female i mean i again i i just gave my

00:37:41.820 whole spiel on how i think overthinking things and trying to figure everything out is not good

00:37:45.500 for you but in the end look malcolm i've been very clear that i'm willing to do pretty much

00:37:51.300 anything i mean i i'm not going to actively go into something like a pregnancy where i have a

00:37:57.040 high likelihood of dying because then i can't be there to raise the kids right but like i will go

00:38:01.100 through pretty much anything up to that and as long as i can keep caring for the kids obviously

00:38:07.200 and i i mean like i i i just i agree with abigail i think that if you're not willing to

00:38:13.780 undertake the risks and the hardship then you should not be a parent and that's just how it

00:38:21.060 is and i think that abigail's content is really useful in dissuading people from having kids for

00:38:26.480 trivial reasons. And she actually helps actual parents head off medical issues. In that same

00:38:31.480 NBC article, they wrote, Briggs Stewart, who is now pregnant with her second child, described

00:38:36.320 the list videos as a powerful tool for self-advocacy. She said, I was totally shocked

00:38:41.960 by all the things that could happen to you. And that's even in today's modern world, which is

00:38:45.820 shocking with the amount of research and access that we have at our fingertips, Briggs Stewart

00:38:50.040 said. There's so many different types of complications and it can be really brutal to

00:38:54.760 women. So I was like, this is empowering. And look, you and I were just talking about a case

00:38:59.360 in which someone we know has, has had to really do a lot of self-advocacy in a hospital situation

00:39:04.580 and only through their own self-advocacy did they get treatment that actually made a huge

00:39:09.920 difference in maybe the difference between life and death or a functional life and, and, you know,

00:39:14.120 forever not functional life. So, you know, it's, it's not bad for people to know what can go wrong

00:39:20.200 or like to recognize, Oh, like, for example, if I started getting a growth, the size of a fingertip

00:39:24.660 on my lip, I would not know what that was and probably wait longer than I should have. Whereas

00:39:29.520 now I know that there's such a thing as like benign pregnancy tumors. And I would just be like,

00:39:33.500 look, I think this is, and I'd go right to the right specialist and try to head it off before

00:39:37.440 it got giant, right? Like this is good. It's not bad. And in terms of our viewers or people

00:39:44.080 themselves. So let's say you're a young woman watching this, or you're a woman who wants to

00:39:48.460 maybe have kids watching this. Who's like, yeah, now I'm afraid of being pregnant or a young man

00:39:53.760 who's dating or interested in a young woman who's terrified of being pregnant who doesn't want to

00:39:57.180 have kids because of content like this i would just say because this is what you did with me

00:40:01.680 malcolm have a logical conversation about the actual risks and about equivalent risks that

00:40:07.000 they take or that you take in your everyday life through your hobbies yeah this is assuming you

00:40:13.580 have an autistic wife what a normal woman's going to do with this information is leverage it to get 0.96

00:40:18.760 crazy good treatment while she's pregnant which they do you want to marry that woman do you want 1.00

00:40:23.200 to enter that like a lot of guys are stuck because they were stupid and they didn't know 1.00

00:40:29.160 to only marry autists i love that we have this giant fan base of autistic wives isn't that 0.99

00:40:34.880 amazing that we're out there we are legion we are legion no they're like all of simone's like 0.99

00:40:40.320 best friends now are our fans who are like and you used to have like friends before we started 0.81

00:40:45.120 the podcast and now your friends since the podcast have all been these autistic women who

00:40:51.120 We found it through the podcast. 1.00

00:40:53.200 It's true. 1.00

00:40:53.660 All the women who live rent-free in my brain 1.00

00:40:56.340 are podcast listeners. 1.00

00:40:57.680 You may be listening right now

00:40:58.640 and not realize how much I think about you.

00:41:02.020 I just don't have time to write.

00:41:03.220 That's crappy of me.

00:41:04.980 But anyway, yeah, we're amazing.

00:41:06.900 But I really, like, really, 1.00

00:41:08.340 if you cannot have a conversation with a woman 0.98

00:41:11.000 and be like, look, 1.00

00:41:12.360 I know you'd like to get this cosmetic procedure done.

00:41:14.460 I know you'd love to backpack.

00:41:15.660 Like, let's talk about that.

00:41:17.660 You like to eat out?

00:41:18.600 You want to know what happens when people eat out?

00:41:20.060 I just think giving this for some perspective would be very helpful. And also doing the thing

00:41:26.020 that the, what, what is your objective function? What is your life actually about? In the end,

00:41:31.360 you just gave me bigger things to care about because you allowed me to decide for myself.

00:41:38.120 You empowered me to decide for myself what I actually cared about, what I valued and what

00:41:43.000 I wanted to maximize with life. And suddenly when my life wasn't any longer about, well,

00:41:48.100 I just want to avoid things that are unpleasant,

00:41:49.960 which is kind of the societal default, as you said.

00:41:53.640 I was kind of willing and able to do pretty much anything.

00:41:56.480 I mean, even this year, we've done a whole new level of stuff

00:42:00.000 that's otherwise would have been like impossible.

00:42:02.540 What I wonder is, does she have baby fever? 0.56

00:42:04.720 I mean, probably yes, because that's why she's still doing this.

00:42:07.140 She has two cats.

00:42:08.140 I think one's named Willow. 0.92

00:42:09.180 So she's masturbating the baby fever with the cats. 0.99

00:42:12.560 Maybe. 0.99

00:42:13.240 And well, I think there's plenty of rumors.

00:42:15.980 I think for a while, like in her videos, she's like,

00:42:17.820 And I still do not have kids.

00:42:19.180 So I think some rumor spread at some point of like,

00:42:21.840 oh, Abigail Porter had kids or had a baby.

00:42:26.040 That's such the thing though, for this sort of crowd, right?

00:42:28.800 We have a whole other crowd. 0.96

00:42:31.060 Where they're all like, men are terrible. 1.00

00:42:33.200 Men are the worst. 1.00

00:42:34.840 Yeah. 0.99

00:42:35.080 Uh-oh.

00:42:35.940 Well.

00:42:37.680 I know.

00:42:38.400 Anyway, though, I think it's good.

00:42:39.880 I think it's positive.

00:42:40.620 I mean, what advice would you give to a young man?

00:42:43.160 And aside from lowering his expectations, oh my God.

00:42:46.320 i mean if you're if you're with a woman who doesn't want to have kids that should be established early

00:42:50.840 in a relationship and just get rid of her and constantly make it clear to her early in the

00:42:54.020 relationship this is not a small thing for you this is like the core thing for you this is your

00:43:00.980 core purpose in life or part of your purpose in life and i was incredibly clear about this with

00:43:06.680 simone and it's been increasingly clear to me how clear i was from reading her diaries

00:43:10.540 yeah i was going through them again recently and you got it okay i got you have to put your money

00:43:15.760 where your mouth is and that's one thing that Malcolm did that like is look my my barrier to

00:43:21.560 entry here was high I was really unwilling super unwilling to have kids yeah I mean that's the 1.00

00:43:26.900 thing that really gets it for feminists if they're like well then you have to do all the work to take 1.00

00:43:32.800 care of the kid and it's like okay so you're gonna support the family right like because and if 1.00

00:43:37.480 they're like no no no no I need you as a man to support the family and at that point it's just

00:43:41.720 like now you know you can't budge like you want me to treat you like a child right like your entire

00:43:47.780 life right like but no no no but that's not that see that's the thing is that's not the way it is

00:43:51.780 for most women the way it is for most women is i have my career i love my career i don't want to

00:43:56.680 give it up that that this just is i be fair right i mean like i think women who want to be a trad

00:44:01.260 wife are no more comfortable i i disagree i think a lot of women just want like a rich guy and like 0.65

00:44:06.740 a nice life and that's really what they're in it for and they don't really care about like they 0.78

00:44:11.940 find the idea mortifying that they have to keep working actually with the rise of ai that's going 0.99

00:44:20.380 to be more common women are going to start treating their careers as fine attach yourself

00:44:26.220 to a man who is capable of making money with ai this is not to dunk on women with ai actually

00:44:31.540 there's a lot of people yet women who listen to this podcast who are amazing with ai but the

00:44:35.880 propensity of the average woman to take and run with ai are there most of our female fans i do

00:44:43.200 not think use ai that much we've got leaflet and that's about it people i talk to are okay yeah

00:44:48.520 like a lot but you know those are the ones who are online and chatting with me so i give me yeah 1.00

00:44:52.780 what's really cool women is ai can help you think shut up malcolm it can fact check 1.00

00:44:59.480 whether you're being rational if you use a based model with the right fact checking prompt 1.00

00:45:05.240 to not get you into a loop of self-affirmation

00:45:07.860 what nothing i love you um

00:45:15.560 what what is this why it's nothing it's nothing malcolm it's absolutely nothing you will see no

00:45:24.520 consequences for your actions

00:45:27.000 i love you and that's that's it for tonight i was thinking i can

00:45:34.580 make you green beans with some garlic and chili oil that's really good with maybe a couple just

00:45:41.520 like two those little vietnamese bun shot for dinner very good you know me i don't want that

00:45:46.000 much okay yeah i figured it kind of summery but not too heavy all righty yeah i love you oh and

00:45:52.400 we can make some other types of small meats because i've noticed that small meats are

00:45:56.520 something i want with a lot of dishes well you were looking at korean meatballs but they were

00:46:02.980 like pre-made and i was like well i still have a bunch of burmese mint chicken is like sort of

00:46:06.240 that fine distributed chicken but that goes better over like a rice or something yeah or something

00:46:10.880 heavier but like a small bunshaw type thing like other options that are like shut your

00:46:18.460 remember when our kids because we have it we it's for context in in our attic we keep baskets of

00:46:26.340 themed toys and malcolm learned that you can buy you can buy hot wheels cars in bulk off ebay like

00:46:32.540 by the pound and once you like shake out all the sand because they've all been like abandoned in

00:46:37.400 sandboxes and fished out by some families they like do an estate sale but once you like get all

00:46:41.980 the sand out they're really decent so we have like a bag full of hot wheel cars which we call

00:46:46.220 the small cars and then we have a bag of like big cars that we've accumulated over time and

00:46:51.220 they used to call small cars flaw cars do you remember flaw cars yeah why because they're 0.86

00:46:59.140 weird idiots okay remember they used to call they thought that the the word commercial they kept 0.97

00:47:05.580 being like it's a cover marshal and i had no idea what they were talking about until we discovered 0.99

00:47:11.260 that it was their word for commercial all right we gotta we gotta go i love you goodbye

00:47:18.560 not knowing what you're gonna get is i think what makes it so addictive with the video generation

00:47:25.560 you're like is this gonna work and then you realize oh i should have given this negative

00:47:29.480 prompt or i should have made this detail clear and then you can get really fun stuff yeah oh

00:47:36.100 god these glasses are just so messed up where are the where are my glasses have you checked the kid

00:47:41.400 room where you were all day yesterday taking care of the kids because that's probably where they are

00:47:45.560 you probably took them off in frustration at some point oh you're going for it okay okay oh my god

00:47:53.500 here they are wait where where were they they had fallen under a table

00:47:57.440 what that looked ridiculous my glasses what glasses which is out got completely the same

00:48:06.220 glasses um the other ones were just too i can clean them i seem to mind it more than i do i

00:48:15.020 swept out the like shed and the chicken coop yesterday and they are literally covered in

00:48:22.840 poop but i can still kind of see so i don't mind whereas like you have one bit of dust

00:48:27.500 on your glasses and you can't stand it i got you some candy toasty please eat the candy toasty

00:48:34.720 please eat it eat the candy toasty eat the candy yeah he has to eat the candy

00:48:42.860 yeah just you didn't eat your dinner so you gotta eat the candy

00:48:47.000 you will you promise you promised to eat your dinner you're gonna have to eat the candy

00:48:56.900 you promise to eat your dinner

00:48:59.300 okay

00:49:05.660 So you'll eat the dinner, you promise?

00:49:06.800 You're going to eat your cheese?

00:49:08.280 Okay, thank you, Toasty.

00:49:09.300 Put it in your mouth right now. 0.50

00:49:11.400 Otherwise, you'll have to eat candy.

00:49:12.400 Okay, here we go.

00:49:13.700 Okay, Toasty.

00:49:14.900 Wow. 0.80

00:49:16.840 Have another bite or you're going to have to eat candy.

00:49:19.000 You don't want...

00:49:19.440 Oh, thank you, Toasty.

00:49:21.480 We love you, Toasty.

00:49:22.940 You're a good kid.

00:49:23.680 I want to eat candy.

00:49:25.660 I want to eat candy.

00:49:26.540 I want to eat candy.

Based Camp - June 30, 2026

The Anti-Baby Internet Cult： The Girl with the List

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