Based Camp - The Economics of Witchcraft in Africa

00:00:00.000 Hello, Simone. Today we are going to be talking about a spicy topic, which is how belief in

00:00:05.920 witches economically holds back Africa. And we will be going over a number of articles on this. 0.93

00:00:13.060 One is a great aporia piece, which is how belief in witches holds Africa back or something like

00:00:17.740 that. We'll get to it in a second. Actually, I'll start with a quote from it because people might

00:00:21.380 be hearing this and I think the way their brain is translating it is poor, uneducated people in

00:00:28.060 Africa believe in witches. And these people are arguing somehow this affects everyone. That is

00:00:33.600 not what we are arguing here. So to quote from the article, one might assume that formal education

00:00:39.700 would provide a safeguard against magical thinking. However, research suggests that schooling alone is

00:00:44.300 not sufficient. In a 2014 study, Henry Reidman and colleagues compared cognitive ability and

00:00:50.120 epistemic rationality in Nigeria and Germany. They found belief in supernatural forces was prevalent

00:00:55.600 even among the educated Nigerians. Surveys of African university students have reached similar

00:01:01.080 findings. In a sample of Nigerian students, many argued that Western countries were more

00:01:06.000 technologically advanced because they possessed magical powers that they refused to share with

00:01:11.200 Africans. Now, I should note here, this came from a study called Witchcraft in African Development,

00:01:16.800 Eric Leischer, and it was published in 2014. So this is an academic study that goes and asks Nigerian

00:01:23.860 college students, why are Western countries wealthier? And their answer is, they have magic they haven't

00:01:30.940 shared with us. That this is college students in Nigeria. That's pretty wild. I want to clarify that. 1.00

00:01:39.060 The Afrobarometer survey shows that in some countries, educated people are more likely to believe in

00:01:46.140 witchcraft, not less. These results underline that the education system, so this comes from a study

00:01:53.360 called Power, Politics, and the Supernatural, exploring the role of witchcraft beliefs for

00:01:58.580 government's development by Joanna Selfie-Eldson, Dan Bakke, and Bob Face Delai, and specifically in

00:02:04.800 Malawi populations, they found 74% of the population believed that witchcraft is an integral part of

00:02:11.280 daily life, and educated residents were more likely to be inclined towards this belief than less

00:02:17.760 educated residents. More educated is more like, that's so interesting. And actually it's the same

00:02:23.940 with social status. More social status, but more belief in witches. Less social status, but less belief

00:02:28.720 in witches. That is completely the opposite of what I would think. How is this happening?

00:02:33.980 Well, what you are misperceiving is what is associated with social status and what is associated

00:02:42.500 with education. And that's what the West fundamentally doesn't understand. They think

00:02:45.880 if you go and you learn what they tell you in education, you know more of what's true,

00:02:52.520 not just more of the mindset of the dominant culture within that region.

00:02:58.280 And what's actually happening is when they are educated and they are not the country bumpkin,

00:03:04.080 you haven't even heard of witches? Let me explain to you the complicated nature of witchcraft.

00:03:09.040 Well, yeah, I mean, to your point, the universities of the United States are broadly speaking

00:03:15.000 where the urban monoculture reaches anyone who thus far had only gone to Catholic school or a

00:03:21.660 religious school or homeschool or whatever. Yeah. And I want to be clear that I don't think

00:03:25.340 that this is true of all African cultures and communities, but that it is true of any African

00:03:30.260 cultures and communities is telling and could mean a lot in terms of the development of economic

00:03:37.800 systems within these regions. And we'll get to how it ends up. And what I mean by this,

00:03:42.180 by brainwashing, there's actually a great Atlantic piece we have to do a piece on that's titled,

00:03:46.620 get this, the liberal misinformation bubble about use gender medicine, how the left ended up

00:03:52.940 disbelieving the science. Interesting. Okay. Atlantic. Wow. And specifically what the piece is on is

00:04:03.900 the belief that, you know, it increases a kid's risk of taking their life if they don't go through

00:04:08.320 gender transition. And they point out here that actually the Supreme Court case on this unveiled

00:04:14.980 that that is just completely without any evidence at all. All of the evidence for this is apparently

00:04:19.380 fabricated when, or not fabricated, but it just doesn't hold up to the counter evidence that this

00:04:24.180 isn't the case. And this is what's admitted in court. But what I mean there is that is a religious

00:04:29.740 belief, which is spouted by people who have been indoctrinated within the university system or

00:04:35.080 centers of power within our own society. So, you know, who are we to laugh at, you know,

00:04:40.720 Africans who are believing in witchcraft when we believe that, you know, the kids are less, 1.00

00:04:45.300 if you, if you, if you surgically mutilate a child and put them on puberty blockers,

00:04:50.580 that they will be less likely to take their life. That's something that anyone should be like,

00:04:54.500 that doesn't sound true to me at all. But apparently, and I would put this in the context

00:04:59.420 of, you know, gendered, non-contented use, the 2023 study that showed that of 13 year olds who

00:05:06.080 are not content with their birth gender, more than nine of 10 of them by the age of 23 are

00:05:09.980 completely content with it. So, you know, we know that, you know, at this stage, this is a phase

00:05:13.980 from the evidence. But to keep going with the witch thing, because let's talk about witches here, 0.66

00:05:19.420 arrests and evidence here. Now, this I found really fascinating to learn about. In mid 2024,

00:05:24.200 Zambian police, so this is mid 2024, December 20th, actually 2024, so I guess late, in mid

00:05:31.160 December 2024, Zambian police arrested Justin Matablis Kanabe, 42, and Leonard Fariv, 43,

00:05:38.920 Zambian village chief, at a Luska hotel room. Authorities seized ritual items, a live chameleon

00:05:45.080 sealed in a bottle, white powder, red cloths, animal tail, along with multiple containers of

00:05:49.660 traditional medicines. They were charged with practicing witchcraft. They were hired by Nelson

00:05:56.540 Banda, the brother of fugitive former MP Emmanuel J.J. Banda, who escaped custody. They were trying to

00:06:04.460 hex the president, okay? They agreed, sorry, the payment varied in reports, but they were paid at

00:06:11.040 $7,400, around 43 million Zambian Kawa. Although other testimonies suggested they could have been

00:06:18.560 paid over a million dollars to cast these hexes. So, you know, high, high, wealthy people, you know,

00:06:25.120 brothers of mainstream politicians are hiring expert witches to cast things on other politicians.

00:06:33.200 Well, and also, it's illegal, whereas I don't think witchcraft is illegal in the U.S., because,

00:06:39.900 or at least in most U.S. states, because I think most U.S. states don't think witchcraft is a thing. 0.96

00:06:44.300 I mean, the very fact that they were arrested for it means that there is some understanding that,

00:06:49.120 one, it's real, and two, it's dangerous. Well, if you're looking at Zambians, 79% of Zambians 1.00

00:06:54.920 reportedly believe in this. Oh, wow. But it's interesting that it's also illegal, so they believe

00:06:59.280 in it, but you can get arrested for it. Well, because they don't like it. They think witches 0.97

00:07:02.180 are evil, you know. Is it, though? I mean, when you and I were in Johannesburg and we went to that

00:07:07.540 traditional market, it was full of witchcraft stuff. They think that there's, like, a type of

00:07:10.860 dark witch that's evil, but then there's, like, regular witchcraft. Oh, so, like, the dark magic is

00:07:14.860 probably illegal, and then the, like, sympathetic magic and, like, healing magic is fine. And I will note

00:07:21.820 that I talk about all of this with a lot of consternation, because this is their culture and their

00:07:26.080 religion, and, you know, they have a right to this. But we will talk about how these cultural

00:07:30.600 beliefs, as we go further into this, prevent effective entrepreneurship within these countries,

00:07:37.000 and that this is very damaging to them. And it's also, you know, if you're talking about 79%,

00:07:42.880 79% of Americans don't believe in God, I would guess. You know, like, this is, this shows how

00:07:50.520 permeated these societies are. Yeah, it's a lot of faith in a world that is becoming increasingly

00:07:56.100 faithless. Then we'll talk about that, and I have outlined an episode on rising new secular

00:08:02.100 religions. But, yeah, it's a lot, though. Like, that's, there's something powerful here. If that

00:08:06.320 many people believe in something that is not backed up by science or physics. And the Zambian

00:08:12.260 traditional healer, Dr. Vogo, based in a wealthy suburb of Luska, admitted to serving mostly middle and

00:08:18.500 upper-class clients, especially women seeking protection from spiritual harm.

00:08:22.520 Wow. So what's interesting here is, who is buying this? It is the African version of the American 1.00

00:08:28.220 crystal lady. Yeah, well, crystal lady or person who pays for psychics or zodiac stuff or- 0.96

00:08:35.320 Which are often upper-middle-class women. Yeah. 1.00

00:08:38.760 No, it's white women buying from goop, but go on. 1.00

00:08:42.700 Well, is that not goop? Is this not the goop? But the point I'm making here is, again, 0.99

00:08:48.180 you see heavily upper-middle-class saying, and if you're like, again, how could this hurt an

00:08:53.100 economy? Even think about what I've said so far, that Nigerian students, and, you know,

00:08:57.300 would believe that the West was wealthier because they had magic they weren't sharing.

00:09:02.340 Well, yeah, and that's an external locus of control, and there are fewer-

00:09:06.200 It makes it incredibly hard to economic, to think about how you can economically develop your own

00:09:11.400 country if you misattribute why your country is in an economically challenging position.

00:09:16.120 Yeah, well, and especially if it's someone else's fault and out of your control, what are you going

00:09:19.600 to do? Well, it's not just what are you going to do, it's what you would do. Okay, I want my

00:09:25.420 country to be stronger. I need to find out the magic that they have that we don't have.

00:09:29.140 Oh, right. So even if you decide to take action, it's really not going to work out for you.

00:09:34.340 It's not going to work out for you. Right, yes. Before we get to the core piece,

00:09:37.940 let's keep going through some other examples here. In April 2025, CBS and AFP and MSG reported on

00:09:44.400 hundreds of mostly older or disabled Ghanaian women who have been physically attacked,

00:09:49.440 sometimes burned or stoned, after being accused of witchcraft. Keep in mind, this was in 2025.

00:09:54.080 Whoa.

00:09:54.260 Many ended up banished to witch camps as the only means of survival.

00:09:58.700 Witch camps?

00:09:59.280 Yes, and this is even though Ghana's parliament passed a bill in 2023, making witchcraft accusations

00:10:05.300 illegal, it hasn't been enacted yet, so daily abuse continues.

00:10:11.500 Okay, hold on. Do you know anything, like, is a witch camp a safe space for witches, or is this

00:10:16.280 like a concentration camp for people who've been accused of witchcraft?

00:10:19.920 Let's talk about one. Gambaga, located in Ghana's northeast region, now houses around 100 banished 0.57

00:10:26.600 women, and about 25 huts. So keep in mind how many women that is per hut. A lot. 1.00

00:10:32.240 Yikes. Yeah, not great.

00:10:33.640 Many are widows, long-time residents of towns and cities often known in urban areas. They include

00:10:39.400 educated women suffering Alzheimer's or dementia, whose medical symptoms are misinterpreted by

00:10:43.960 families and neighbors as witchcraft. So this is almost like...

00:10:47.460 Vulnerable women. This is not good. 1.00

00:10:49.660 That's so sad, right? Like, old ladies who get Alzheimer's and then are sent to, like,

00:10:53.960 concentrate. But it's their culture's version of, like, an asylum, almost, combined with, like,

00:11:02.160 actual, you know, dangerous individuals or whatever, right? You know, this is a really sad

00:11:07.480 situation that we're seeing here. In 2024, The Guardian highlighted that many people with dementia

00:11:13.540 across Nigeria, so keep in mind this isn't just there, are branded as witches. Across Nigeria,

00:11:19.140 people living with dementia are often accused of witchcraft. Symptoms such as forgetting basic

00:11:23.440 details and changes in behavior are seen as evidence of evil. People have been set on fire,

00:11:28.560 stone, beaten to death, or buried alive. Often they target the elderly, urban, or educated individuals

00:11:38.100 who erratic behavior or memory loss was blamed on evil curses. That is really sad. Although the most

00:11:46.720 documented cases occur in rural areas, witch hunts in Mali often involve educated villagers.

00:11:53.400 A notable case described a married couple accused of causing illness via witchcraft, promoting

00:11:58.540 villagers to call in a witch finder. Although they lived in a mixed community, modern education and 0.76

00:12:04.220 income did little to shield them from the collective in subsequent panic. So now we're going to go into

00:12:10.060 a Forbes article titled, we're just going to do a short excerpt from it, Magic Spells and Money.

00:12:15.040 A local television station in Kenya recently ran a series on witch doctors. At a witch doctor shrine

00:12:20.920 on the outskirts of Nairobi, expensive cars drove in and out. Politicians were looking to bewitch their

00:12:27.140 electorate and contractors were looking for charms to win huge tenders. All over Africa, people battle

00:12:34.520 remotely by using charms. The affluent worried about losing their wealth or seeking to suppress rivals

00:12:40.500 will pay a fortune for protection from their enemies to improve their luck. This witch doctor was clearly 0.98

00:12:47.300 not the kind found in villages who played in animals and food. So it's little wonder that he owns a huge

00:12:54.180 compound in an area that the middle class would need some magic to afford. Politicians are some of the biggest

00:13:01.060 consumers of black magic. Some pay $10,000 per visit. With elections on the horizon in a good number of

00:13:08.040 African countries, magicians and witch doctors are looking forward to even bigger boom in their 1.00

00:13:13.220 business. At Kenya's latest polls, presidential contenders were rumored to fly out to visit the most

00:13:18.520 potent witch doctors south of the country. A Pew Research survey conducted in 2010 showed that a quarter of

00:13:25.840 Kenyans believe in witchcraft despite being deeply religious. Kenya was ranked as the 11 most religious

00:13:32.280 nation in Africa and 16th in the world. 78% of Kenyans are Christian and 10% are Muslim. Close to 9 out of

00:13:39.160 10 people stated that religion played an important role in their lives. But most of them forget the

00:13:43.680 Bible or the Quran soon after worship and seek solace in shrines and witch doctor dens. According to the 1.00

00:13:50.480 report, a quarter of Kenyans, both Christian and Muslim, confess that they believe in the protective

00:13:55.500 power of juju charms and amulets and that they consult traditional healers.

00:14:01.660 This reminds me, I mean, it doesn't surprise me that you can both be Christian or Muslim and then

00:14:07.020 also believe in these things because it was such a thing that I saw in Japan. Like you could have

00:14:14.680 these two belief systems like Shinto and Buddhism live right next to each other. And it's like, well,

00:14:18.600 okay, of course, like if you have a baby or it's this holiday of the year, you go to your Shinto shrine.

00:14:23.340 If someone dies, you go to the Buddhist temple. Like there were just, there was a time and a place.

00:14:28.400 It was very context-based and people, I mean, they're very familiar with switching their,

00:14:33.480 everything about their identities based on their context, whether they're at work or home or with a

00:14:38.060 friend versus their kids. And I think that what we're seeing here, and we'll get into this more,

00:14:43.180 but it's this ability to externalize failures to supernatural forces or externalize wins to

00:14:50.660 supernatural forces that makes it harder for a region to economically develop. And the more normalized

00:14:56.820 this is, the more difficulty you're going to have. And now I'm not saying this is the only reason.

00:15:01.040 Africa has a lot of reasons having trouble with economic development, but I'm saying this is a 1.00

00:15:04.380 contributory reason that people just don't talk about because it's offensive to mention.

00:15:08.020 Well, yeah. I mean, I think the important thing too, yeah, we're not critiquing them for believing

00:15:12.380 in witchcraft. We're critiquing them for having an external locus of control. I don't care if you 0.68

00:15:17.360 believe in it. If like, for some reason it helps you take personal responsibility for things in a way

00:15:22.360 that's connected with reality, meaning you can actually solve problems, but this is not that.

00:15:27.340 But I'd argue we even see this in the West. If you look at, you know, Catholic countries, 0.61

00:15:31.780 which are more likely to have, you know, healing shrines, they're more likely to have saint worship,

00:15:38.020 they're more likely to have a lot of the sort of Christian magic, I guess I'd call it, 1.00

00:15:44.300 they are dramatically less economically developed than the Protestant countries that strictly banned

00:15:50.100 a lot of this stuff a long time ago. Even in environments where they probably should be much

00:15:55.520 more economically developed. And I think that this is probably the core, or one of the core reasons

00:15:59.980 why Catholicism leads to such slow economic development, is because of the tendency 0.78

00:16:05.580 and the, of the Catholic Church to incorporate local mystical traditions and shrines and stuff

00:16:13.540 like that. Yeah, it's the mysticism.

00:16:15.960 And I note here that this is actually way more of a problem for Catholic communities

00:16:18.920 in Catholic majority countries than it is in historically Catholic countries, than it is for

00:16:24.240 Catholic communities in the United States. Like, if I engage as Catholics in the United States,

00:16:27.860 I don't see them going to like healing shrines or, you know.

00:16:32.240 Yeah, they're, they're not praying to statues of saints.

00:16:35.840 But if I go to Catholic communities in say Mexico or Latin America, this is something you'll see 0.92

00:16:42.480 very frequently. Oh, this, this is where you go to put this on you to heal.

00:16:45.760 No, yeah. You can't walk down the street without passing a Catholic saint statue that people are actively

00:16:51.540 praying in front of. If you're riding in an Uber or a taxi, you know, half the time,

00:16:57.380 you're going to see the driver cross themselves at every stoplight. Like, yeah, it's, it's, it's deep

00:17:04.980 there. And so I'm saying this isn't me picking on Africa. It's just that in Africa, these beliefs

00:17:11.640 are more developed. And it leads to the negative externalities that are associated with these

00:17:17.460 beliefs. But more on that in a second. I'm going to go to another piece here. And this is by an aid

00:17:22.640 worker who was very surprised what he found when he went to Africa in a piece, he titled Malice in

00:17:28.180 Mali, a case study in modern witchcraft accusations. But I'm just jumping around this piece. So we're

00:17:32.980 only going to get a short segment from him. I asked how common the attacks were here in Karanga,

00:17:39.380 witchcraft accusation cases are rampant. Magari told me, maybe every day you see these conflicts

00:17:45.360 where someone is accused of witchcraft. He said it is very common, especially in the Karanga and

00:17:50.700 Sheptag districts in Mali's northern region. I was shocked. I'd expected maybe a case every month

00:17:56.200 or two, though outright violence against police officers is rarer than witchcraft accusations. There

00:18:01.700 is both a latent and explicit hostility towards police. Many accused witch cases remain unreported.

00:18:07.680 And when police are summoned, often the villagers don't trust or don't understand why. They see it as

00:18:13.020 an internal dispute that should be handled within the village. And they often will attack police

00:18:16.720 believing that they're sided with witches. The social dynamics of witchcraft accusations are

00:18:20.920 complex, and much more so in the context of rural Malin society and tribal alliances.

00:18:25.880 When I asked why the village chief had been unable to protect the accused witches, Wonderful explained

00:18:31.220 another nuance. Chiefs do have some power and authority in rural villages, but their position

00:18:37.240 is tenuous and fraught. They risk losing status if they are perceived as protected witches too much.

00:18:42.540 Like police officers, they much walk a fine line. A village chief who consistently and strongly

00:18:47.160 condemns mob justice against acute witches runs the real risk of being replaced by another chief

00:18:52.640 who has no such qualms about summary justice. In this case and in many others, the chief navigates

00:18:58.460 this by appealing to the law, insisting it's a criminal matter, and seeking police intervention.

00:19:03.480 There is an office that is supposed to handle these sorts of issues, the District Peace Committee,

00:19:07.240 but Wonderful was not optimistic. Like the police, they are often understaffed and underfunded.

00:19:13.020 The situation is complicated by the fluid and sometimes interchangeable roles of healers and

00:19:18.080 witch finders in Africa. After all, the afflicted or neighbors believe that a given injury or illness

00:19:25.060 is magical instead of biological in origin, they will seek remedy. In Imagining Evil Witchcraft Beliefs

00:19:32.040 and Accusations in Contemporary Africa, Catholic priest Hugo Hinfar notes that neighboring Zambia

00:19:36.720 in the northern provinces, most districts are regularly visited by shinagas, healers, and herbalists.

00:19:42.720 Through professional organizations, they have certificates that indicates the cures in which

00:19:47.860 they are known and specialized. A good number of them are inclined to go beyond the well-defined

00:19:52.440 limits of their profession. It appeared that 60% of the herbalists were prepared to exceed the limits

00:19:57.720 of their professional competence due to pressures from their client, who not only asked them to

00:20:02.180 diagnose and heal, but also to indicate through divination who had caused the particular disease,

00:20:07.340 ailment, or missing. This led to the witch hunting. So this is 60% when they go in, the herbalists are 0.89

00:20:14.840 like, okay, and this is who you should hurt for this illness you have.

00:20:18.660 This is so similar. I've, I've been listening to some podcasts that I've been listening to the

00:20:25.620 Textry podcast, which goes over some old texts. And she, she does a couple of podcast episodes on

00:20:31.580 like witch trial texts, like court, court records. And it's so similar to like the Guernsey witch trials

00:20:40.400 and other witch trial texts. Yeah.

00:20:42.480 Um, you know, it's like, well, this person got me sick. This person caused me to miscarry,

00:20:47.680 miscarry. This person caused my horse to die. And it's so interesting how this appears to be

00:20:53.520 the very instinctual human reaction. It's something bad happening to you. Whose fault is it? Yeah. Who

00:20:59.500 did it? Yeah. Like, well, clearly my neighbor, like there were, there were instances in these records

00:21:04.780 where like this woman, you know, like had, had a conflict with this neighbor a long time ago. And then 0.99

00:21:10.100 the neighbor's horse died and the neighbor's like, I knew it was her.

00:21:13.980 So Simone, I'm going to, I'm going to do you a favor here. You can take out your headphones for

00:21:17.460 a second and I'll let you know when you can put them back in.

00:21:19.540 Thank you. You just wave your hand at me. Okay.

00:21:23.060 So now we're going to talk about a spirit children in Ghana and traditional beliefs in Northern Ghana

00:21:28.380 see the disabled or chronically ill infants as spirit children, chicken or can you can you who are born 0.68

00:21:34.600 to bring misfortune villagers sometimes kill or attempt to exercise these babies ritual seen as

00:21:39.920 necessary to protect the family. And you might be like, how rare is this? Well, despite Ghana 1.00

00:21:44.820 criminalizing the practice in 2013, such practices have been linked to infant deaths at the rate of

00:21:51.660 22 to 27%. And this is from Wikipedia. Whatever you shielded me from, I'm assuming it was young

00:21:58.600 people getting hurt. I am. Yep. We're not going to talk about that. Nope. Shocking rates there though.

00:22:06.140 So now we're going to go into the main piece, which I found so interesting and brought me to

00:22:09.880 this, which is the Aporia piece. How belief in witchcraft holds Africa back. But I wanted to

00:22:14.100 start you as a framing. So you understand this isn't some crazy racist or something like that.

00:22:18.960 This is pervasive. And I mean, especially because it's even something that you and I saw

00:22:24.280 in the townships.

00:22:25.040 When I was in Africa, I remember flyers for like, which, which doctors you could hire and stuff like

00:22:31.100 that, like on the streets. Yeah. Cause otherwise would, I really wouldn't have believed it. So

00:22:35.500 we've also seen it in person, but yeah, these, these ample examples also demonstrate that this

00:22:40.680 is hardly isolated, which is what you're revealing to me, which is really surprising is how pervasive

00:22:47.240 this is at least in some countries among educated groups, which totally shocks me.

00:22:52.680 Well, and, and our guide, I remember he was telling us a story that had happened not long ago in the

00:22:57.300 region. So it was like really vivid for him of some people who got in a shootout with police and were

00:23:03.520 like very aggressive with stealing from the local area. And it was because a witch had told them he had

00:23:08.700 made them invulnerable to bullets. Yes. And then he had not, of course, and this did not turn out

00:23:15.740 well for them. And again, with this, I'm always reminded of the traditionalist Christians where 0.92

00:23:21.920 I'm like, your kids are at serious risk of the urban monoculture, deconverting them and turning them

00:23:26.960 against you. And they're like, no, no, no, don't worry. I have practiced Christianity in the way my

00:23:32.980 ancestors did. And I taught my kids the way my grandparents did. And so they're safe. And I'm like,

00:23:39.200 they are not safe. Nope. You are dealing with guns and you are using witchcraft.

00:23:45.240 You need to build stronger methods because your kids will be castrated and let off in triumphs.

00:23:52.540 I guarantee it. If you, if you send them with this magical armor on. So then I think that's

00:23:58.160 always important for all of us to be aware of is to not coat our own children in the magical armor

00:24:02.980 of our ancestors, or they will get in a shootout with police believing they're invulnerable to

00:24:08.260 bullets. But anyway, to continue here. One of the most significant ways belief in witchcraft hinders

00:24:13.220 development is by discouraging entrepreneurship and wealth creation. In many African societies,

00:24:17.760 individuals fear that economic success will bring trouble as those who accumulate wealth are often

00:24:22.460 accused of using witchcraft to prosper at the expense of their peers. Unsurprisingly, this fosters

00:24:28.000 an environment where capable individuals deliberately eschew success as to evade accusations of sorcery.

00:24:36.300 And here they are citing a study relationship between social status and witchcraft in Africa

00:24:42.300 by Christopher R. Maguasha or something. Oh my. Indeed, a study of rural TIV communities in Niger by

00:24:49.820 Nugtur Samba and Dajo Ugba confirmed the fear of the supernatural retribution discourages individuals

00:24:56.600 from engaging in business. It also found that wealthy individuals sometimes go to great lengths to conceal

00:25:01.820 their financial status, the better to avoid being labeled as witches. This has serious consequences. 0.52

00:25:08.400 When people refrain from entrepreneurship out of fear, societies are deprived of opportunity for

00:25:13.200 development. So again, you see this isn't just me saying, oh, they have these backwards beliefs and 0.52

00:25:16.700 this is hurting them. This is documented by African peer-reviewed publications. William Darley and Charles

00:25:25.640 Blankson also found evidence that superstitious beliefs suppress productivity, productive behavior

00:25:31.960 in Africa. Many aspiring business owners actually worry that envious individuals would use witchcraft

00:25:37.160 to destroy their ventures. Such worries act as a psychological barrier, discouraging risk-taking

00:25:43.320 and innovation. The entrepreneurial spirit is replaced by fatalism, leaving economic potential untapped.

00:25:49.580 Um, and so this is a piece titled Sub-Saharan African cultural belief systems and entrepreneurial

00:25:55.320 activities, again, and perspective that came out in 2020. Again, this is not somebody's perspective.

00:26:00.880 These are a bunch of African researchers who are writing this. What's more, people are less likely to be

00:26:07.620 held accountable under these conditions because failures can be blamed on external vices. The fear of

00:26:13.400 witchcraft can be so powerful that entrepreneurs choose not to expand their business, hoping to sort the

00:26:19.200 plans of suspected witches. A study in Cameroon documented that entrepreneurs not only reject

00:26:24.240 managerial solutions to business challenges, but frequently attribute those challenges to

00:26:28.440 supernatural forces, including ancestral spirits and witchcraft. And this study was another determinant

00:26:34.440 of entrepreneurship, the belief in witchcraft and entrepreneurship. To continue, even the financial

00:26:40.540 sector is not immune to the influence of superstition. Essene Essen has documented that some Nigerians

00:26:46.240 engage in ritual defacement of currency notes, believing it will ward off evil powers.

00:26:51.280 The problem is so egregious that it accounts for practically all of the defacement of NARA.

00:26:56.560 Others avoid using bank services altogether because they suspect that their money will be manipulated

00:27:02.020 through supernatural means. It is not only costly for the central bank to replace disfigured notes,

00:27:07.900 irrational behavior undermines the functioning of a modern financial institution,

00:27:11.980 and stymines integration with the global economy. Witchcraft beliefs also distort governance by

00:27:17.880 reinforcing authoritarian leadership. In many African countries, political figures exploit these

00:27:23.300 beliefs to consolidate power, silence opposition, and maintain social control. In a recent study,

00:27:28.120 Johanna Addison and colleagues examined how leaders use narratives surrounding witchcraft to justify

00:27:33.140 their rule. Leaders often claim supernatural protection or accuse rivals of engaging in sorcery.

00:27:39.040 Instead of evidence-based policymaking, they rely on mysticism to legitimize their authority.

00:27:45.180 South Africa's former president, Jacob Zuma, was known for exploiting the deep-seated revelance

00:27:51.480 for ancestor worship to manipulate voters into supporting his policies. And this was cited a piece here,

00:27:58.460 Zuma, vote ANC, are faced ancestral wrath. And then the study that was talked about here was power,

00:28:05.440 politics and the supernatural, exploring the world of witchcraft, believed in governments for development.

00:28:10.980 Superstition is particularly visible in electoral politics, where supernatural interventions are

00:28:16.260 frequently invoked for political outcomes. When a politician loses an election, it is not uncommon

00:28:22.420 for their supporters to blame the loss on witchcraft rather than ineffective campaigning or voter

00:28:27.220 disrespect. This erodes trust in the democratic process and elevates conspiracy theories over rational

00:28:33.260 judgment. And talk about the level of externalizing you get from this when political losses are blamed

00:28:39.040 on witches. A belief in witchcraft also fosters corruption in government. Public officials who

00:28:44.420 believe in supernatural forces may prioritize rituals and magic over accountability and transparency.

00:28:49.480 Some even divert state resources to traditional healers or spiritualists rather than investing in

00:28:54.900 infrastructure or social programs. At the local level, accusations of witchcraft are a major source of

00:29:00.460 violence. And here it is linking to a study by Suffolk University law, the problem of witchcraft and

00:29:07.520 violence in Africa. And the victims are usually women, young children, or marginalized members of the

00:29:12.760 community. An individual accused of witchcraft may be ostracized, attacked, or even brutally killed.

00:29:18.020 Such acts obviously erode trust and weaken social bonds, making it difficult for people to cooperate and

00:29:23.060 build a civil society. And again, if nothing's ever anyone's fault, if a politician could lose and it's

00:29:28.900 witches or a politician can win and it's witches, it's hard to attempt to learn from things. It's the 1.00

00:29:34.320 same with like entrepreneurship. If who's successful, it's not like I need to look at who's successful so

00:29:40.800 that I can study what they did that made them successful. It's, oh, I look at who's successful,

00:29:44.780 but they got there because of witches. Therefore, nothing that they did is particularly useful to learn

00:29:49.580 to copy. Yeah. Or their lesson was I just didn't spend enough money at the, like with the magician

00:29:55.420 or witch doctor or whatever it is that I, you know, like my, my, my opponent spent more. So his spells

00:30:02.200 were better. Like, I mean, I think even if you use magic, um, I guess the assumption is that the other

00:30:08.940 side had better magic and then you just don't, again, you don't learn anything. I don't know

00:30:14.860 if our own elections are, I mean, I guess you can, but I mean, I think often our own elections

00:30:22.000 are pretty poorly analyzed as well because they're like, well, the other side just raised more money

00:30:27.700 and did more ad spend, but I don't know how effective. No, look at Democrats right now, like

00:30:32.180 even as corrupt and bad as the party is and as dumb as they are, they realize they need to learn to 1.00

00:30:37.900 win the mail vote, right? Like they're like, I mean, to vote Democrat. Yeah. They've admit that 1.00

00:30:43.220 they've lost the mail vote. Yeah. Unfortunately, they give it to their version of witches, which

00:30:47.940 is like statisticians and analysts, they give them $20 million and then they come back and say,

00:30:52.700 we need more boots on the ball kicking machine. I love that freedom tomb skit on this particular topic.

00:30:59.060 All right. So let me go through some of our positions and you stop me where you feel uncomfortable,

00:31:04.880 a higher minimum wage, healthcare reform, the ball kicking machine, social safety nets.

00:31:19.780 Wait, could you repeat that last one? Sure. Uh, social safety nets. Before that. Hmm. Oh,

00:31:26.780 the ball kicking machine. I don't like the ball kicking machine. Not a fan. Yeah. I don't like that at all.

00:31:33.600 Oh, the machine we want in your house to kick your balls all the time. Yes. No, that can't be it. 0.99

00:31:40.280 Okay. So what does our $20 million study show? The machine needs more boots.

00:31:46.660 That is the, the, the, the, the, the, the, I can't believe that they built a commission to try to find

00:31:53.780 out why young men aren't voting for them. And they put a woman in charge of it. And it's like,

00:31:57.860 could that be why, could that be why, could that have anything to do with it? Is your systemic

00:32:03.940 discrimination against men? But anyway, the harmful impact of witchcraft belief extends beyond business

00:32:10.940 and government to the domain of public health misconceptions about the causes of different

00:32:14.960 diseases and how to treat them are widespread in Africa. This is particularly true when it comes 1.00

00:32:19.480 to HIV slash AIDS. Amar L. Kassari and Amir Bemnava studied Sanghali's people's beliefs about HIV,

00:32:27.560 revealing that many women believe the infection is caused by witchcraft as opposed to sexual

00:32:32.080 intercourse with an infected person. As a consequence, such women do not take protective measures like 0.87

00:32:36.640 using condoms or getting tested and the disease continues to spread. And this can be very damaging

00:32:41.300 economically to have these sorts of diseases spread within a region. In a similar study,

00:32:45.600 Eric Tekanaranga and colleagues examined how superstition impedes HIV prevention efforts in

00:32:53.140 Ghana, owing to entrenched beliefs that infectious diseases are caused by witches. Many people refuse

00:32:59.620 to- I wonder how much we would need PEPFAR if instead we invested in anti-witch. But that can't come

00:33:06.440 from outsiders. It has to come from within. I was referring to the, like, for people- Oh,

00:33:12.340 we're not talking about the other thing that we were talking about. Yeah. USAID used to provide

00:33:16.700 a lot of aid. This is where everyone is like, USAID is no longer providing to Africa. Well,

00:33:20.640 maybe convince them that it's not witches that are causing AIDS. Yeah. Like, I'm wondering how,

00:33:25.080 how many cases of HIV could have been prevented if instead this belief was targeted. But I also am well

00:33:31.840 aware of the fact that you can't have an external party, especially a bunch of white people.

00:33:38.020 If a bunch of American, like, progressives came in, they'd be like, you're 100% spreading.

00:33:44.600 They'd be like, okay, so it's definitely the witchcraft. It's 100% the witchcraft. Yeah.

00:33:49.220 Yeah. Refused- so- so- to entrench the beliefs that infectious diseases are caused by witches,

00:33:54.440 many people refuse to believe that behavior makes a difference and as such do not take preventative

00:33:58.840 measures. Some turn to spiritual healers for cues rather than seeking medical treatment. And this is

00:34:04.980 citing an article that is titled, I visited a traditional healer because I felt I wasn't

00:34:09.900 getting any better using active antivirals, understanding the cultural imperative in the

00:34:14.360 context of adherence to highly active antiretroviral therapy. This is the public health journal.

00:34:22.160 And such healers claim to possess supernatural abilities that can cure AIDS, convincing patients

00:34:27.020 to abandon retroviral therapy. Aside from reinforcing irrational beliefs, this puts additional

00:34:32.200 strange on the public healthcare system. Perhaps the most horrifying consequence of the superstition

00:34:36.660 is, and you probably want to take off your headphones again. Thank you.

00:34:40.240 The abuse of children. In some African cultures, those born with disabilities are considered spirit

00:34:44.560 children, as we talked about before, and are thought to bring misfortune on their families.

00:34:48.680 Emmanuel Aswale has documented how children suspected of being possessed are sometimes poisoned,

00:34:53.980 drowned, or simply abandoned. Despite its effort to curb these practices, they persist due to

00:34:58.440 deeply ingrained beliefs. Maswari Adaki studied the phenomenon of child witch hunts in Ghana,

00:35:04.060 where children are accused of witchcraft and tortured or exiled from their communities.

00:35:08.000 Tragically, it is orphans and those from impoverished backgrounds who are the most likely to be accused.

00:35:13.340 Thanks, by the way. You're so sweet. I know we don't believe in trigger warnings, but like,

00:35:17.760 also on- That is your trigger warning. She gets very sad when she hears about children being hurt.

00:35:21.900 Destroyed by it. Yeah, I just need to pretend that it never happens.

00:35:25.240 It never happens. But I found this really fascinating because I had assumed that, you know,

00:35:33.160 even having, you know, been to Africa, been, you know, to the townships, saw the witchcraft

00:35:39.840 being practiced at the townships, I never really put together. And I mean, we saw it. We went to-

00:35:45.320 Yeah, but we also, it wasn't in a wealthy area. So I think we were like, well, I guess this is

00:35:50.360 common among people who don't have high levels of education or who aren't.

00:35:54.980 But when I think about myself growing up, so I lived in Costa Rica on a reservation for a period

00:36:02.860 where there was like a wildlife reservation, right? And this is when I was in high school.

00:36:08.440 You know, I didn't live with my family in high school. So many people know I lived in a lot of

00:36:11.500 weird places. And one of them, oh, you know, I reached out to a scientist and I was like,

00:36:15.020 hey, can I help you with your work? It looks pretty interesting. They're like, yeah,

00:36:17.220 come on, come out here. So I went and I helped do science in Costa Rica. And so, you know, I got to

00:36:23.160 meet a lot of other people who did science in the region and many of them had been stationed in

00:36:28.420 other places. And I remember one of them who had been stationed in Africa talked to me about how one

00:36:37.140 of the, you know, people he worked with in some capacity, I can't remember the capacity exactly,

00:36:41.940 but it was clear that this was an educated high status individual, wasn't just like a believer in

00:36:47.840 witchcraft, but considered himself a dark witch from a family of dark witches. And they did really, 0.96

00:36:57.060 in Africa, this happens, you have murders associated with witches, not infrequently,

00:37:02.220 you have grapes associated with witchcraft, not infrequently. This, this is something that,

00:37:07.460 you know, I remember the stories he told me and I thought he was embellishing to sound cool or

00:37:12.720 something. And now I look back and I'm like, oh, he might've really known a guy who had people

00:37:18.760 murdered for, you know, witchcraft reasons. That's pretty crazy to think about.

00:37:25.240 That is pretty crazy to think about. And then you have the weird witchcraft that's practiced

00:37:30.020 in the United States where people buy spells on Etsy. So I don't know.

00:37:35.940 I can only imagine them going to one of these African witches. That's when you're getting in 1.00

00:37:39.120 the real stuff. And it's crazy how Christian these countries are as well. And yet they still engage 0.91

00:37:43.740 with this stuff. Yeah, I don't, I mean, it's, it's really clear to me that adhering to one

00:37:52.700 religion, unless that religion is really explicit about other religions, although Christianity is this

00:37:59.300 whole thing of like false idols and stuff. I, what do you do as a religion to stop people from

00:38:04.720 Christianity is spare, not a witch to live. You know, it's, it's very clear, like do not, 0.53

00:38:09.940 do not engage. How do you square that? It's just. Well, they say, well, I'm a good witch,

00:38:16.720 you know, I'm aligned with Jesus or something. Right. You know, a lot of people, they don't know

00:38:20.440 their Bibles that much. And it is local tradition. It is their local culture. I mean, what you are

00:38:24.800 asking is the eradication of a local cultural practice, which is a form of cultural imperialism.

00:38:31.720 Right. But what I'm trying to point out here is if they do not address this cultural practice,

00:38:38.660 economic development, even if all other things have been fixed, becomes incredibly difficult.

00:38:43.320 Yeah. Yeah. And this, this makes me a little bit nervous about the secular religions that are rising

00:38:50.420 in the United States and not just the secular religions.

00:38:54.340 Well, I mean, yeah. I mean, cause you would argue that, you know, charismatic Christianity

00:38:58.520 is a form of witchcraft. Yeah. I would.

00:39:01.900 We have a long episode where she argues that, that we may do for our Patreon subscribers. Cause

00:39:06.080 I don't want to piss off too many people. In Substack. Yeah. Any, any paid subscriber. Yeah.

00:39:09.700 You're just, I mean, I guess that's fair because charismatic Christianity is the fastest growing

00:39:14.380 type of Christianity in the United States. So we're going to get in trouble for me calling

00:39:19.240 them all witches, but. But you know, evidence. But they're witches. So. I mean, it is what we

00:39:26.660 would call witchcraft was in most other contexts. Dude. Yes. Hello. They're just like, but I'm doing

00:39:31.300 it for Jesus. So it doesn't count. And it's like, well, I don't know if that's how it works. No.

00:39:36.460 If you're doing things that we historically considered witchcraft and that were within the case of

00:39:41.220 charismatic Christianity, some case directly borrowed from the spiritualist and Wiccan movement and not

00:39:47.020 traditionally Christian. And they don't realize that they took these practices from the Wiccan and 0.95

00:39:51.080 spiritualist movement. They think that they're unique. And I'm like, no, no, no. This came from

00:39:54.520 the spiritualist boom in the 1920s. It feels like such a classic biblical, like it's the biblical

00:40:00.660 version of my cabbages. Like it just, it just is this theme that constantly comes up of like God to

00:40:08.400 humans. Hey, like stay focused. Just me. Okay. No, no false gods. Stick to the, stick to the plan.

00:40:16.240 And then humans are like, no, but can I have a golden cow? Can't I pray to some dead humans?

00:40:24.020 Just one. As a way to pray to you. As a way to pray to you. Yeah. It's really all about you.

00:40:31.120 But I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm buying this spell for you. For you. Of course. To cast on these

00:40:39.200 other people, you know, but I understand how it can become corrupted. It's just sad. And I

00:40:45.940 wonder, I have seen actually some people, one of my friends of African descent has actually

00:40:51.120 found a way to take these concepts and make them psychologically useful to him.

00:40:56.440 No, I don't think a lot of people have, have taken folk practices. So tarot, for example,

00:41:02.280 has become super popular. Yeah. This is one of my friends. He's not a direct African descent. He

00:41:07.820 picked up the religious traditions of, I want to say one of the Caribbean cultural groups,

00:41:13.260 I think Puerto Rican. And, you know, they have, you know, iterations of these practices within

00:41:17.780 those cultures often. And one of them that he, he picked up was when he is struggling to make a

00:41:25.040 decision about something, he rolls a like 10 sided dice that has spiritual significance for him.

00:41:31.820 And based on the number, he makes a decision. And he finds that because of this, he's much more likely

00:41:37.320 to go out to gatherings than he otherwise would be. Cause he's often like, I don't really know if I want

00:41:41.960 to go out. And then the roll of the dice leads him to going out much more than he would otherwise,

00:41:46.660 which I find to be really powerful because he knows he still has like an out. He's leaning on

00:41:52.080 a traditional cultural practice, but he's not using it to, you know, blame his failures on

00:41:57.700 successes or externalities. He's using it as a tool to get himself to do the types of things that he

00:42:02.760 would prefer not to do more frequently while still giving himself an out and still being able to play.

00:42:06.680 Yeah. Again, yeah. We're not hating on witchcraft. We're hating on practices that lead people to be

00:42:11.380 less productive, but you can absolutely leverage these things in a way that do make you more

00:42:17.060 productive. I think it's just the average person, just like we are with mysticism, right? Like there

00:42:23.860 are some people who can absolutely handle more mystical things. Like some people can handle the

00:42:29.540 Kabbalah. Most people can't like you, you know, I, in general would advise against it, but I would say,

00:42:39.920 especially if it gives you an internal locus of control that leads to your problem solving

00:42:44.080 process that tracks with science and physics, it's, I guess that's the problem is like some forms of

00:42:51.360 witchcraft can lead to an internal locus of control, but it's like, well, my internal locus of control

00:42:55.620 is to cast a spell. And like, that doesn't track with good outcomes. So, but that is, that is crazy.

00:43:04.760 I mean, well, what, what do you think is going to happen to Africa then? Are they going to get over 1.00

00:43:09.400 it? Demographic collapse is going to come to Western countries and it's going to collapse aid

00:43:14.040 networks. And as I've said, you can watch our video where we do a deep dive on what I think

00:43:17.740 I'll have in Africa. Africa might be one of the places that actually does quite well coming out of 0.98

00:43:21.400 demographic collapse, but it is, it is going to look like specific cultures and ethnic groups and

00:43:26.580 tribes doing really well and not all of Africa doing well. It is going to come downstream of the 0.99

00:43:31.400 atomization of Africa and the admission of what the colonialists should have admitted long ago,

00:43:37.240 which is Africa is about tribal networks and it's not about, you know, sort of collectivism.

00:43:42.440 These attempts to collectivize Africa seem to always lead to genocide and tragedy because Africa is not 1.00

00:43:48.620 a collective place. It is a network of, of, of tribal associations and, and cultural and ethnic groups

00:43:54.920 that are much more distinct from each other than we are. As I often point out, if you take any two

00:44:01.080 ethnic groups within Africa and you contrast them genetically speaking, they are almost always

00:44:08.280 dramatically more. And I mean like three or four times more distant from each other than, you know,

00:44:13.440 your average European is from your average Asian or native American. They're, they're just the amount 1.00

00:44:19.860 of genetic and, and as a result, cultural diversity in Africa is just hugely understated within the existing

00:44:25.420 narrative. As I say, if you, if you divided humanity into eight ethnic groups, seven of them would be groups of 0.55

00:44:33.300 Africans. And one of them would include white people, Asians, native Americans, medic people,

00:44:40.540 Middle Easterners, everyone else based on genetic distance. 0.58

00:44:45.980 That's yeah. That's so interesting. It blew my mind when you first pointed that to me. It's like, that can't possibly,

00:44:53.340 but of course it makes sense. When you actually look at like the, the, the time done.

00:44:57.820 One of them might be Australian aboriginals as well, but that also, that doesn't really break from

00:45:02.140 the wider narrative here. Yeah. They're, they're quite genetically distinct and, and make up a really

00:45:07.340 unique immigrant wave. And there's a few other groups like that in the islands around that. It's not 0.93

00:45:11.540 really the larger point still stands. Yeah. That is interesting. Huh? Well, I love you, Simone. Did anything

00:45:19.340 change about your, your world perspective? Yeah. I didn't know that educated populations in many

00:45:26.520 African countries also held to these traditional witchcraft beliefs that really blows my mind. So 0.58

00:45:34.020 yikes. But also, yeah, I, I have hope for many African groups because yeah, there's a lot of different

00:45:41.740 ones and a lot of different approaches and surely this witchcraft isn't completely pervasive and therefore

00:45:49.580 the ones that either figure out how to use it in a productive fashion or who don't use it will be

00:45:56.380 fine over the long run. And I'm, I worry more for where we're going because I feel like we're adopting

00:46:04.060 witchcraft and external locus of control associated religious affiliation, secular and otherwise

00:46:10.540 at a faster pace than we have since the very inception of the United States. Yeah. We,

00:46:16.380 the United States since the inception of our, oh yeah, not our family, but since, since it's beginning,

00:46:21.660 I disagree. I think the spiritualist boom of the 1920s was probably bigger, but okay.

00:46:26.300 No, no, because that also, you know, was taking place, you know, at a time of huge economic growth

00:46:35.340 at a time of, I mean, there was a surge of it. I mean, relatively speaking, but where we are now is,

00:46:40.940 is, is wild. Yeah. Relatively. And you include charismatic Christianity among the witch cults, 0.99

00:46:47.020 which you do. Oh yeah. But also secularization. No, like, so Pentecostalism only just was starting to get

00:46:56.940 like in very isolated churches. It began, I think in the 1920s in California. It was only just warming

00:47:04.060 up and, and yes, there was spiritualism, but that was mostly among, you know, like the weird elite,

00:47:11.660 like it's kind of how rationalism is, is big today among certain circles, but most people have never

00:47:17.660 heard of it before. I don't think it was as big as you think it was. And I, I think in the end

00:47:25.020 we are, we are at a huge all-time peak in mysticism, witchcraft, um, and in, in general,

00:47:33.660 external locus of control associated worldviews. And I will get into that. I have, I have an outline.

00:47:38.140 We need, we need to bring in the inquisitors to, to, to handle the witches.

00:47:42.940 To your point, I think they kind of handle themselves.

00:47:46.700 All right. So Simone dinner tonight, we are doing the pork things you made,

00:47:51.420 I guess in the air fryer or something, the pork bones. Okay.

00:47:54.940 Try to make them nice and crispy and hot. Yeah. If you want, I can, I can make,

00:47:58.780 I think there are two and I think we can make sliders with them.

00:48:02.620 If you want. Well, we got, you, you said we got noodles. No, those are, I wouldn't, I wouldn't,

00:48:09.340 they're like soggy and old now. Like vermicelli noodles don't last very long.

00:48:12.860 Okay. Well then reheat them and let's make sliders with them and chop up some,

00:48:17.420 what's the word I'm looking for here? Some, like a scallion.

00:48:20.140 Scallion. Okay.

00:48:21.500 To put it on top. And I think that'll be pretty good, right?

00:48:24.460 Yeah. Scallions, two Hawaiian bun sliders of bun ma sweet pork, tiny buns.

00:48:34.060 That'll, that'll go really well together. Yeah. Would you like, like a mapo dofu,

00:48:38.460 beef mapo dofu taku as well? Or, or we can also make a slider with that inside it.

00:48:45.100 Yeah. So if you don't like the bun ma sliders, 0.99

00:48:48.220 then I'll just like give you an assortment of sliders and you like leftover sliders and you can

00:48:52.860 decide which leftovers. So we have two bun ma and one mapo dofu. I don't like want that much

00:48:57.660 mapo dofu, you know, but the mapo dofu slider sounds good. I mean, just try, because it's

00:49:02.700 leftovers. I'm not going to have four sliders. I don't want you to stuff me. You know what I mean?

00:49:06.140 Three sliders. Oh God forbid. Okay. Three sliders. I will do that. I love you so much.

00:49:13.820 I love you too. Fourth of July tomorrow.

00:49:18.540 Ooh. Explode some explosives.

00:49:21.340 What are we going to, what are we going to blow up?

00:49:23.820 Well, fireworks, of course.

00:49:27.100 We're going to the family, where are you? And then maybe when we get back,

00:49:32.540 we blow something up or in the afternoon, whatever. It's kind of up to you. Cause you have the kids in

00:49:37.260 the afternoon portion during the morning. Okay. You want to check out, I'll call you when you're

00:49:43.580 ready. Make sure your phone. There we go. You know, the really funny thing, actually, when I'm thinking

00:49:49.580 about that really luxurious safari vacation and the, like how much we learned actually on the

00:49:56.300 luxurious safari at Mambo Camp in Vumbar Plains versus how much we learned from that one afternoon

00:50:01.260 touring the townships and like experiencing that. We got so much more from that than like the entire,

00:50:10.780 I mean, in terms of like novelty and learning and like talking with our guide about like,

00:50:16.300 what is South African property ownership like? And you know, what's this, like, what's up with this

00:50:22.380 market that we're walking through with all this sympathetic magic going on? Like, this is

00:50:27.740 interesting. It was really like, that was quite interesting.

00:50:33.020 That wasn't, I mean, we got to see like, you know, we've been to Africa. We've been not,

00:50:37.420 not just to Africa, but to the slums in South Africa and gotten to townships that we, I think

00:50:44.060 your mom had gotten like some kind of social media influencer documentarian who like specialized in 1.00

00:50:51.260 the townships. And like, he had a lot of like, I'm going to not pronounce this correct, but like

00:50:56.380 glossy friends and he was just like super connected. And so we went to visit a school

00:51:03.340 in one of the townships. We visited a traditional market and medicine in the townships. Yeah.

00:51:10.460 These are just like people's houses that he was taking us to that were like these little like

00:51:14.140 shack type things. Yeah. Like no, no plumbing, no electricity. And I mean, it was so, as you know,

00:51:19.820 like it's really colored the way that we look at how demographic collapses played out because he really

00:51:24.540 gave us a look at what you have in a society where government has sort of lost its ability to

00:51:30.780 adequately provide for the social services it promises. You know, he's like, well, yeah, we

00:51:35.180 promise housing to everyone here. Like there's no property ownership. People are just promised a house,

00:51:40.620 but therefore people don't take care of their houses and there's not enough housing supply.

00:51:45.740 Also, we have lots of brownouts and there's security problems. And like, we saw what that looks like.

00:51:51.340 And that is what demographic collapse after a dependency ratio cascade looks like.

00:51:56.460 And had we not driven around Johannesburg and the townships, and had we not seen that,

00:52:02.620 we wouldn't have, at least for me, it wouldn't have hammered home what demographic collapse is

00:52:08.700 going to feel like. Because seeing the contrast between that and then the walled gardens of

00:52:13.020 Johannesburg and then other parts of Africa that are like incredibly wealthy and sheltered and like,

00:52:17.980 you know, on their own, you know, out on the reservation, like to go from that to

00:52:21.500 Mambo Camp with its canopies and the little hot water pillows they put in the beds at night.

00:52:27.260 The hot water pillows? I don't remember that it was cold at night. So then in the little

00:52:30.540 canopy bed in our bags, they put like warmed hot water. It's like, what is this is the,

00:52:37.340 but that's the future. You're going to have like the 0.001%, you know, on their little, you know,

00:52:43.340 in their walled gardens and their luxury things, you know, getting their hot water bottles in their

00:52:47.980 bed. And then you're going to have everyone else living with brownouts and blackouts in the townships 1.00

00:52:52.540 promised everything given nothing. That's a really good point. And this is, you know,

00:52:57.740 the way the Democrats do it. Promise, promise, promise, give nothing. Yeah. Well, because they

00:53:02.700 can't, I mean, after demographic collapse plays out, unless, like you say, there's some deus

00:53:07.340 ex-machina with AI. And that's a big if, it's a huge if. I think what will happen more is

00:53:13.420 independent communities that manage to leverage AI to help with permaculture, to help with all

00:53:17.900 sorts of things, manufacturing, et cetera. AI will help those communities, but it's not going to be

00:53:24.940 this benevolent overlord that steps in and takes care of everything and provides universal supply.

00:53:31.820 Okay. We'll see you again.

00:53:37.740 See, I put a tower on top of my team and I'm going to jump.

00:53:41.820 Oh! 0.60

00:53:48.220 Whoa, it almost, my tower almost, whoa.

00:53:51.820 Put that, put that.

00:53:53.820 Now what are you doing?

00:53:55.820 Make the tower! 0.69

00:53:59.900 ер.

00:54:11.820 Okay.

00:54:12.460 Right here.

00:54:14.460 Here.

00:54:18.620 here.

Based Camp - July 08, 2025

The Economics of Witchcraft in Africa

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript