Based Camp - March 12, 2025


Why Are Americana & Jews Resistant to Demographic Collapse？


Episode Stats


Length

55 minutes

Words per minute

171.32097

Word count

9,507

Sentence count

612

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Toxicity

39

sentences flagged

Hate speech

52

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Why is Americana culture so resistant to the urban monoculture? And why is it more resistant than Jewish culture? Simone and Simone discuss why, and how you can protect your culture from the monocultural world.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be discussing how you can better protect your culture, especially if you have a conservative or religious culture or in any way distinct culture from the urban monoculture.
00:00:16.200 And I wanted to do it within the context of, oh, why is Americana culture so resistant to the urban monoculture? And it really hit me today because it is more resistant than other cultures. Like America's fertility rate is like 1.66 now, whereas even like developing countries like Colombia, I was on a McKinsey call. And on that call, this is McKinsey's take, it had a fertility rate of 1.02.
00:00:42.440 You know, I was talking with some Italian reporters recently and they were like at 1.2 something. And I was like, this is just terrible. And you see this all over the world. So why is Americana culture alongside Jewish culture so resistant? And I will be pointing out that they are resistant almost in exactly opposite ways. 0.99
00:01:01.380 Like they both built a resistance. Like they both built a resistance, but that, well, there is one area in which it's alive. It is both fundamentally based on a pride in being different from the urban monoculture.
00:01:13.860 Hmm. But for Jews, this pride is in being Jewish. In Americana culture, this pride is in upsetting the urban monoculture, basically upsetting anybody who tells you what to do or who to be. That is the core of it. And I see it, you know, represented in things like truck nuts.
00:01:34.600 And where this was handed, no, it is like, what's more like Trump or like real red sanders? 0.61
00:01:40.160 Let me explain this because I hadn't, I didn't see them until my adulthood. Truck nuts for those who are uninitiated. Literally a pair of balls that people hang from the trailer hitch of their trucks. Proceed.
00:01:53.540 And it hit me when I had a T the principal from Octavian school was talking to me and he's always getting in trouble at school because he does things that he's not allowed to do, like make poop jokes, make fart jokes, make guns with his hand, you know, and the school is just apoplectic about all of this.
00:02:14.320 But all of this stuff is very much Americana, you know, Appalachian culture. Like that's the cultural region my family's from. I'm not going to shame my kid for doing this stuff.
00:02:23.600 So I explained to him the same way a Jewish family might, this type of behavior is for home and out in the world, you can't do this type of behavior. 1.00
00:02:31.920 But what's really important about what I'm doing here is so many cultures, when they realize that they can't do something at school, when they can't do something out in the world, they make bans against it at home to make lives easier for their kids out in the world.
00:02:48.380 But they maintain bans at home that they expect to also carry out into the world, i.e. maybe a ban on being slutty or a ban on same-sex marriages or something like that, right?
00:03:00.820 Don't, don't, don't. It's all about sacrificing. 0.97
00:03:03.220 Don't, don't, don't, don't. Because they're okay with adding don'ts, but they're not okay with taking away, gaining permissions that are unique to their culture.
00:03:11.620 So they're inadvertently taking away amenities.
00:03:15.520 Yeah, they're inadvertently taking away amenities. So my kids, because of this, they're learning a number of very important things.
00:03:22.720 They're learning, one, that the outside world is different from the Collins family.
00:03:27.400 There are things and behaviors allowed in the Collins family that aren't allowed in the outside world, but two, they're immediately having, with the very first ways where they see the outside world is different than our family's culture, see it as more restrictive, more authoritarian, and more controlling.
00:03:47.760 So they understand when they abandon my family's culture or like cultural groups that are adjacent to my family, they lose freedoms rather than gain freedoms. 0.62
00:04:03.040 And this is core to the way Americana culture has fared so well against the urban monoculture.
00:04:12.020 It highlights throughout it, the additional freedoms that you have by being a part of that culture that they do not have. 0.87
00:04:19.520 And here I wanted to read a piece that I thought really did a good job of explaining this and better explaining why Mormonism is in a state of collapse doesn't have this feature, whereas the Americana culture is doing so well.
00:04:34.980 And it aligns with a really great study that we'll be going over later that was done by one of our fans that showed that being a Trump voter boosts fertility rates as much as being a Mormon in Utah.
00:04:48.300 So if you are a non-Mormon Trump voter in Utah, you will have a slightly higher fertility rate than a non-Trump voting Mormon.
00:04:56.520 And Mormons are increasingly non-Trump voting.
00:04:59.060 So we'll go over that in a different video.
00:05:00.280 Oh, it's so interesting.
00:05:01.640 Yeah, I would put it so there there's this relationship researching slash coaching group called the Gottman Institute, which we largely hate.
00:05:10.260 There's one good point they have, which is a really good predictor of whether a relationship stays together is if the majority of the couple's interactions are positive versus negative.
00:05:20.660 And I think that kind of goes with pretty much anything.
00:05:23.360 It's not necessarily a married couple thing.
00:05:25.260 It's an anything thing.
00:05:26.200 If the majority of your interactions with a religion or a friend or a school or an employer are negative and about no and no, and you messed this up and you can't do this and you shouldn't do that.
00:05:38.420 And you, how, how dare you instead of, oh, guess what?
00:05:42.300 You get to do this.
00:05:42.960 This is a perk.
00:05:43.700 Oh, surprise.
00:05:44.720 Then you're going to break up.
00:05:46.400 You're going to leave.
00:05:47.200 You're going to detract.
00:05:48.440 That is absolutely perfect.
00:05:50.560 That's what's happening with the LDS religion.
00:05:52.980 And no, you, you can't wear this clothing.
00:05:55.540 No, you can't drink coffee.
00:05:56.840 No, you can't drink alcohol.
00:05:57.940 No, you can't watch rated R movies.
00:05:59.360 No, you can't, you know, take all your money home and not tie 10%.
00:06:02.900 There's so much sacrifice.
00:06:04.600 And then the benefits seem to start easing away.
00:06:09.020 But this is, this is what's fascinating to, to your point there is what we are doing with our family.
00:06:14.740 And what Americana culture does is it engineers a situation where my kids have additional negative events when they're in urban monocultural environments.
00:06:27.960 So they develop an intrinsically negative view of the urban monoculture from a young age.
00:06:34.060 When they go to school, it's teachers saying, no, you can't make poo jokes.
00:06:38.080 No, you can't make fart jokes.
00:06:39.840 No, stop making a gun out of Legos.
00:06:42.540 No, don't play this way.
00:06:44.180 No.
00:06:44.760 When at home, they know they have fun with their Nerf guns.
00:06:47.460 You know, they know that they rough and tumble play.
00:06:49.920 They wrestle and fight because kids love to do that.
00:06:53.240 Or at least kids of argumentative talk love to do that.
00:06:55.360 And at school, oh, I can't fight.
00:06:56.820 I have to follow all the rules.
00:06:58.380 And so, and Jews do this as well.
00:07:00.360 You know, that's why they dress weird. 0.88
00:07:02.040 That's why they look weird, act weird, everything like that.
00:07:04.440 Where weird is judged by distance from the urban monoculture.
00:07:06.960 An Orthodox Jew is going to have far more negative daily experiences interacting with the urban monoculture because of how they differentiate themselves than they will within the Jewish community. 1.00
00:07:17.520 People are like, why do you give your kids weird names?
00:07:19.760 This is why.
00:07:20.960 They're like, people will make fun of them.
00:07:22.440 Well, not the type of people I want them hanging out with.
00:07:25.460 Like, for example, you think Elon's kids are going to make fun of my kids for their unquote weird names?
00:07:30.680 No, they're not.
00:07:31.320 You think you're like normal, like intellectual online person who is exploring like how to make cultures thrive or could be a good potential mate is going to be like, oh, Indian, like your name is industry.
00:07:44.340 That's so weird.
00:07:45.560 Like, I don't, oh, Titan Invictus.
00:07:47.780 What a weird name.
00:07:48.640 They're going to be like, oh, dope. 0.69
00:07:49.920 You know, whereas the negative experiences they have within the urban monoculture are positive.
00:07:56.260 And you might say, oh, why would you engineer negative experiences for your children where they're told no or they're told whatever, right?
00:08:03.340 And I'm like, because in the long term, it helps them.
00:08:09.020 Not capitulating to the urban monoculture is great for your mental health.
00:08:13.140 Capitulating to the urban monoculture is terrible for your mental health, as any of the studies will show you.
00:08:17.480 Whatever you want, whenever you want, and constantly seeking affirmation and being affirmed for whatever you want to believe about yourself.
00:08:23.520 Well, while simultaneously pedestalizing anything negative you feel and making it a thing when otherwise it might have just been an ephemeral negative thing.
00:08:32.420 Yeah, yeah, surprise, surprise, this hypersensitizes you to negative stimuli and then causes you to have these anxiety and depression spirals.
00:08:37.920 But I want to get into a paper here that I found really fascinating, unless you had any final words.
00:08:44.040 This is by Catgirl Kulak, absolutely amazing writer, talked with them before, really respect this person as an intellectual.
00:08:50.660 And they wrote a piece titled, American Conservatism and Fertility Cult Your, on immunity in the cultural swamp.
00:08:59.920 And they have a map here that shows fertility rates around the world.
00:09:02.580 And you can see like, everywhere is crashing.
00:09:05.100 And I'll put up one that I use as a more detailed modern one by McKenzie, which I found really good.
00:09:09.820 Which shows that America is actually doing fairly well.
00:09:12.980 This is Catgirl Kulak writing now.
00:09:14.420 The only subcultures that have managed to achieve above replacement fertility at average incomes above 5 to 10K, and this is true, are Jewish conservatives and American conservatives. 0.93
00:09:25.820 There are some other like weird groups in like Kazakhstan or something, maybe.
00:09:30.700 But I don't think that they have particularly high incomes.
00:09:33.000 So the only groups in the world that I know of that are like large cultural groups are Jewish conservatives and American conservatives.
00:09:39.880 And American conservatives do have above replacement fertility.
00:09:42.440 Everyone else, Muslims, Hindus, Orthodox, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, secular Euros, Irish Catholics, everyone of them sees birth rates collapse below replacement when they become wealthy at 5 to 10K GDP per capital.
00:09:58.640 So not that wealthy, by the way.
00:10:00.640 5 to 10K per year is not that wealthy.
00:10:02.800 Even Africans and South Americans see birth rate collapse as soon as they become middle to upper income.
00:10:09.280 What makes these two exceptions so unique?
00:10:11.300 Many notice Israel is above replacement and immediately think, conspiratorially, the people behind the media, financial, globalism, progressivism, is making it harder to live, are somehow immune to anti-familiar poison.
00:10:25.120 Hmm.
00:10:26.180 But this doesn't explain why white Christian conservatives in America are somehow above replacement.
00:10:32.300 If there's one group, media, finance, globalism, progressivism, would want to die out, wouldn't it be American conservatives?
00:10:38.980 And here I will note about his hypothesis about the Jews.
00:10:42.140 The Jews who actually stay high fertility are not the ones involved in this cabal. 0.94
00:10:47.500 The cabal is the ones who are from the river to the sea and want them exterminated.
00:10:52.760 I mean, when I look, for example, my Jewish classmates who have capitulated to the cabal, you know, they don't have kids.
00:11:01.400 They support the from the river to the sea stuff.
00:11:04.040 They are not on Jew side. 0.87
00:11:07.800 Okay. 0.94
00:11:08.240 The Jews, the Orthodox Jews, the real Jews are as much an enemy to the cabal as you or I, American conservative is. 0.93
00:11:19.180 Well, maybe not as much. 0.93
00:11:20.440 I'd say that they're a degree less.
00:11:22.040 The urban monoculture may hate them, but it doesn't hold the special type of hatred it holds for rural, white, traditional Americana Americans.
00:11:33.420 Back to the text here. 0.98
00:11:34.460 The much despised white man, the loathsome Americana, the rubes, the flyover kulaks. 0.98
00:11:43.820 No conservative slash Israel aligned Jews and white American conservatives aren't the only two groups above replacement rate because of a conspiracy. 0.98
00:11:51.780 They're the only two above replacement rate because they're the only ones with adaptive immunity to global homogenized urban progressivism mind virus.
00:11:58.920 All cultures around the world, as they've developed, partially due to American empire, partially due to the logic of globalization, have adapted the same Anglo-inspired monoculture more or less.
00:12:11.120 Equality between sex, dual income household, urbanization, contraceptions, extreme educational investment during traditional marriage years, not getting married until financially established, which now only happens in your 30s when you're already well past prime child years.
00:12:28.000 Even Iran has been, has not been immune to this. 1.00
00:12:32.220 Despite the heroic and divinely guided effort of Supreme Leader Kamali, they're now below replacement.
00:12:39.820 And I'll note here before, they're well below replacement for over a decade.
00:12:43.180 And I'll note here on the style of Catgirl Kulak's writing here, it really follows this Americana irreverent style where it's intentionally written in a way
00:12:53.940 where it couldn't receive commendations from your traditional intellectual who wants to look better than other people.
00:13:02.120 You know, he'll make jokes about Jewish people.
00:13:04.500 He'll make jokes about like the Americana.
00:13:06.560 He'll make, he'll write in a way that is grammatically more fun.
00:13:09.900 And so when he has to choose between writing in a fun way and writing in a way that is, I guess I'd say like status seeking, he chooses the fun way.
00:13:19.000 You also see this with people like Bronze Age Pervert who have risen within the New Right. 0.98
00:13:23.180 And that's because the New Right and the New Right intellectuals fundamentally recognize this.
00:13:28.480 It is through showing that we are not interested in signaling to the traditional intellectual class that we can validate our authenticity among this new community.
00:13:44.920 The only peoples who are immune to this cultural virus are those that have been exposed to it since its inception, i.e. the conservative cultures who've been resisting Anglo monoculture for a hundred years.
00:13:55.180 Conservative Jews fought to resist modernizing liberal monoculture as conservative Christians and the Amish. 0.97
00:14:02.180 Notably, Mormons would have once been on this list as well, but their fertility has fallen off a cliff in the last five to ten years.
00:14:08.500 And I can actually identify the culprit for why their fertility finally fell off a cliff.
00:14:14.140 Oh, really?
00:14:15.700 And I agree with this thesis.
00:14:17.360 Okay.
00:14:17.840 Mormonism is a culture that is always on the outside of mainstream American life, but always wanted to be at the center.
00:14:23.360 Mormonism historically suffered great persecution and persecution at the hands of the American state and culture, but always aspired to be the quintessential American religion.
00:14:34.400 All of their founding events, revelations, religious mythology were set within America, and they always saw their face as something that should be Americana.
00:14:43.220 Even the Mormon earnest salesman, proselytizer, teetotaler, hardworking, go-getter, huckster attitude is quintessentially American, and he's absolutely right about this. 0.99
00:14:54.080 And tragically, they tried to make America love them back.
00:14:58.080 They remind Mormonism acts polygamy, they act racial theological commitments, no more racially barring from the clergy, bans on interracial marriage, or theological claim that faithful blacks would become white after death. 0.67
00:15:11.520 And faithfully, they sought out religious protection slash recognition, and then sought to work within the U.S. government.
00:15:19.620 After being a persecuted and excluded religious group, Mormons became amongst the core recruits for U.S. security, state, and bureaucratic jobs.
00:15:26.840 And this is true, they're overwhelmingly represented in the U.S. government.
00:15:29.780 Having little problem with drug testing or polygraphs, Mormons were quickly becoming what Cossacks had become to the Russian czar. 0.99
00:15:36.660 Oh, that's so interesting.
00:15:37.560 To the Soviet state, after the czar, a core ethnicity of regime-aligned enforcers, they had requested 180 years for respectability, their proper place as the most American of American religious groups.
00:15:51.400 And then Trump appeared, the embodiment of the rejection of all respectability.
00:15:56.500 The man who rallied the rage of the Americana folk cultures, the man who would have challenged the state and regime openly, the polar opposite of Mormon-cultivated niceness in Bergoi's decency, and their ties to conservative culture, and more importantly, their remaining exclusion of mainstream culture frayed and broke. 0.79
00:16:16.460 I saw this in the Mormons I knew, the ex-Mormons I knew. 0.97
00:16:20.140 Their horror, their restrained outrage, the indecency of the man.
00:16:24.460 Famously, in 2016, the Never Trump campaign ran an independent presidential candidate in the state of Utah, Evan McMullen, who was a Mormon retired, or maybe retired, CIA officer, undergrad at Brigham Young University, then went to Wharton business graduate.
00:16:41.520 Exactly the type of man Mormons believe should be president, respectable, experienced, proper, loyal to the American state, and proudly confused if you ask about the distinction between church and state, the nation and the country, or whether these loyalties might conflict.
00:16:56.360 Actually, this is a really good point that distinguishes the type of Christianity that is dying out versus the type that is going strong in America, is the individuals, and I've seen this in some of the conservatives I've been talking to recently who have no kids,
00:17:11.360 The types of people who are like, oh, America should get rid of the separation of church and state, these are the types of Christians that are dying out. 1.00
00:17:20.760 Whereas the types of conservatives and Christians who would immediately recoil in horror at the concept of combining the church and the state are the ones who are doing strong, because they are the ones who are intrinsically suspicious of imbuing the church with that kind of power, making it immediately untrustworthy.
00:17:42.460 You know, the church has value because it's something that we can explore ourselves, if it was just something we were told, this is what's true, this is what's not true, we the bureaucrats have made this decision, then that's a church without any value.
00:17:55.740 Or at least this is a perspective that is maintaining strength against the urban monoculture, because it is a perspective that holds a suspicion of authority, and suspicion of authority makes it very hard to force the dominant cultural value system onto an individual.
00:18:12.460 And of course, the Atlantic and other left-wing magazines loved him, just like they loved all never-Trumpers.
00:18:20.380 Even respectable Republican figure Evan McMullin thinks Trump is the death of the Republic.
00:18:26.900 And of course, once your culture and face drips into that vortex of progressive liberal urban monoculture, it's all over. 0.97
00:18:35.000 I imagine Mormon girls gasping in shock at how not-respectable Trump's grab-her-by-the-pussy take was, and slowly drifting ever outwards towards progressivism, buying contraceptive, and deciding to do just one more degree, or just get that much more established, or pursue an urban career just that much further, recoiling in horror at the improper aggression which was Roe v. Wade overturned. 0.98
00:18:59.000 Or the vulgarity of conservative politics, as she veers further and further, and Mormon birth rates decline further below replacement. 0.99
00:19:08.440 It's tragic. Mormon spent over 180 years wishing America and American state would love them back, not understanding that the second the affection was reciprocated, it would be their doom. 0.94
00:19:18.160 Like a praying mantis finally winning the heart of a red, white, and blue female.
00:19:22.680 They wanted to be quintessentially American people, was quintessentially American religion, and pursued civic duty and cultural acceptance with the earnestness to make a Roman city father proud.
00:19:33.960 Not understanding that if there was one thing that was quintessentially American, indeed core to its irrepressible folk culture, it was hatred of the government.
00:19:45.140 And an inherent suspicion of its major civil institutions.
00:19:49.220 And I would go further, it's hatred of the cultural norm.
00:19:52.640 Hatred of anyone telling you what to do.
00:19:55.140 And this is fundamentally what individuals like Matt Walsh will never understand about the standard American conservative.
00:20:01.000 When he makes fun of things like anime, when he makes fun of things like gooners, when he makes fun of things like video game players. 0.77
00:20:10.100 If he's out there doing this, hey, I have the back of what's respectable and normal, and you guys are weirdos. 0.90
00:20:18.660 America has always been about the weirdos. 0.94
00:20:23.000 That is fundamentally, it is us pissing you off that certifies our validity as Americans. 0.65
00:20:29.740 Because I don't give a, what you think about me.
00:20:34.260 And people like that think about me.
00:20:36.980 And that's how people know, and other Americans who were raised within the Appalachian American folk culture know, the one that's maintained a high fertility day, know that I'm legit or based or whatever word you want to say. 0.90
00:20:50.720 Whereas you are fundamentally a cuck-servative.
00:20:53.780 You may signal more to what you think of as standard conservative values, but you sold out the one thing that makes us quintessentially American, which is respect for the person who bucks the system and fights against authority.
00:21:09.740 And that's also what Mormons didn't contain.
00:21:12.040 And this is why individuals like Matt Walsh are part of the group of conservatives that are going to be outbred and washed out with the urban monoculture.
00:21:23.380 In the same way that like pus leaves a wound after all the antigen terms.
00:21:28.020 Good God.
00:21:30.040 Now mainline Latter-day Saints is going the way of American Presbyterianism without even the whiskey to hold on to.
00:21:36.780 And he has a graph here showing them disappear.
00:21:38.540 Conservative Jews and particularly Orthodox Jews persist because their culture has existed in the urban cultural cores of the most advanced countries and adapted themselves to maximally alienate the faithful from that culture. 0.99
00:21:50.260 The obsessive rituals, the bizarre maximally garish haircuts of a style reminiscence of Mongolian warlords and punk rockers that ensures one cannot switch clothes and choose to blend in for an afternoon or a trip on the town. 0.81
00:22:05.760 The intense ritualization of male-slash-female interaction.
00:22:10.260 Everything exists to break the possibility of true cultural interface with the surrounding culture.
00:22:16.380 Of course, if one looks at fully secular Jews, inevitably urban, outside Israel, they fall below replacement immediately. 1.00
00:22:22.160 Often their kids and grandkids even lose knowledge of their culture, being surprised they're quote-unquote Jewish. 0.94
00:22:28.340 Only adopting the identity like so many post-Soviet Jews, many only meet the vaguest definition when they see economic opportunity in Israel.
00:22:37.500 This Orthodox Jewish purposeful alienation, this embracement of cultural alienation, the cringe of a genuine cultural gap, a gap that can only be surmounted by betrayal, that is what maintains a culture. 0.99
00:22:50.920 And he is absolutely right about this.
00:22:53.820 You have to be cringe to have vitalism.
00:22:58.260 And truck nuts are like, I love this as a symbol of traditional Americana.
00:23:01.760 Oh my gosh.
00:23:02.740 Cringe.
00:23:03.760 It is gunner.
00:23:05.400 It is not this, this part of American culture.
00:23:08.080 This new right was always there below with the foot on them of the theocratic aristocratic right that many of these individuals like Matt Walsh represent that wanted to impose their culture on other people, silently outbreeding them in the background.
00:23:27.560 It's that aristocratic right was dying and dying and dying every generation, losing more of its kids to the urban monoculture because they didn't know how to fight it.
00:23:37.500 It desperately wanted to fit in, even if it wasn't with the urban monoculture, maybe it was with their conception of what a conservative is without understanding that rebellion is the core of fighting the urban monoculture.
00:23:53.220 Because my kids, like when they go to school, the core thing they need to drop, the core thing the urban monoculture has to get them to drop, to be allowed to fit in with it, is not to be a rebel, to not speak their mind, to not curse when they feel like cursing, to not like Trump's wear, to not be vulgar when they feel like being vulgar.
00:24:12.400 The urban monoculture cannot handle, like when I tell my kids why the school doesn't let them play with their hands like gun, I'm like, oh, well, they're not like our family. 0.99
00:24:21.380 They're so stupid, they think that you could shoot somebody with your handgun. 1.00
00:24:25.320 They think that this could hurt somebody, but you know the difference between this and a real gun. 1.00
00:24:29.460 And we laugh at that as a family because it's so funny to us how stupid you need to be to think a handgun could hurt somebody or a chicken nugget that was shaped like a gun. 0.99
00:24:40.020 One kid got like detention for that at one school. 1.00
00:24:42.400 Oh, God.
00:24:42.820 I think that this really helps understand the part of American culture that is going to go extinct was this old aristocratic branch of the conservative party that briefly held sway in America.
00:24:55.380 And many people, because they grew up during that time period, thought to be real American conservatism.
00:25:01.580 This was a branch that said, oh, well, if you are different, you're weird.
00:25:06.700 If you're doing X, you're weird.
00:25:08.680 It shamed people from deviation from what it saw as respectable, acceptable cultural norms.
00:25:16.960 Whereas the iteration of the Americana culture that is doing well fertility-wise and is doing well at keeping their kids within the culture is the branch that always saw any degree of rebellion against social norms as validating of an individual.
00:25:34.620 And so it made no sense to say, oh, this individual is weird or this individual is deviant.
00:25:40.240 And this is, you know, the culture that, for example, J.D. Vance comes from.
00:25:44.400 When you look at J.D. Vance as a kid, what are his hobbies?
00:25:47.120 There's things like Magic the Gathering, right?
00:25:49.160 And I remember this from my social groups that I hung out with in rural Texas growing up is nerdy hobbies like Magic the Gathering.
00:25:57.640 That's actually where I got into Magic the Gathering.
00:25:59.840 Those were the communities that were often most into them.
00:26:02.980 Those were the communities where if I wanted to jump into, you know, whatever sci-fi I was watching those days, whether it was Stargate SG-1 or Farscape, that those kids would be the most likely to be up to date on those shows.
00:26:15.980 Whereas I wouldn't expect that if I was talking was like the city Catholic conservatives.
00:26:20.980 J.D. Vance, he is the type of person who, if he was growing up today, would be an anime nerd.
00:26:25.940 The hobbies, which are seen as othering, are the hobbies that this category of conservative is drawn to.
00:26:35.000 Consider something like the MLP fandom.
00:26:37.400 That's the My Little Pony fandom getting its start on 4chan, which is a conservative bastion.
00:26:43.880 It was specifically a way to attack the normative culture within 4chan because, okay, now we've normalized to this attack everything culture.
00:26:54.540 Well, let's choose something garishly wholesome to be the new sign of rebellion.
00:27:00.900 And that happened for a generation and then washed out.
00:27:03.820 But that was what was going on with that.
00:27:05.660 And I think, in part, that's why things like comics and anime and video games have always been the purview of conservatives, as we see right now in the video game fights online.
00:27:18.920 The people who are repelled by, oh, this is weird, this is nerdy, you shouldn't do it.
00:27:25.340 If you can use that strategy to edit someone's behavior, then the urban monoculture is going to have an easy time editing your behavior.
00:27:34.000 So if you raise your kids being afraid of defying cultural norms, you know, like a Matt Walsh might in terms of like, oh, anime's bad, video game's bad, urban monoculture is going to be able to take the same strategy that you use to control your kids' actions, behaviors, and norms and use it to peel them out of your culture.
00:27:55.840 And this is what American white conservatives have uniquely developed.
00:27:59.620 Indeed, the progressive liberal monoculture works hard to integrate the traditions of almost every other culture and every other cultures, not having interacted with Anglo-progressive liberals, don't identify them as a threat.
00:28:12.820 Or at least don't identify them with outgroup hatred.
00:28:16.820 It's a wonder Irish Republican Catholics and Ulster loyalist prots can still somehow hate each other and be more worried about whether they're the Irish Republic or the United Kingdom when both are in identical drifts towards low fertility, low gross, Euro decline, but not the American conservatives.
00:28:34.320 Indeed, American conservatism uniquely has always been the outgroup of secular progressivism and has always seen itself that way.
00:28:41.940 It has sought out to create new ideas of cringe, country music culture, redneck, rock culture, of figures like kid rock or just the surface, backyards wrestling, megachurches, evangelism, and even truck nuts.
00:28:56.620 And when I wrote to this teacher, I was like, just tell the kids that like at home, they act one way and at school, they act another, like you would with any conservative.
00:29:03.000 I'm just like, you know, we're from the Appalachian, the greater Appalachian cultural group.
00:29:06.900 And of course, I know when she reads that, when she reads writer Appalachian cultural group, she's reading hillbilly, like mud pirate, you know, like whatever, like cannibals living in the woods.
00:29:18.380 And I'm okay with that.
00:29:20.160 The derision is what allows my kids to see themselves as different and where they can understand the benefits of my culture versus the urban monoculture.
00:29:29.200 In a world where the urban liberal internationalist respects all people's sexualities, religions, and nationalities, the Americana rural culture has worked incredibly hard to make itself intolerable, anti-respectable.
00:29:43.600 Yeah.
00:29:44.620 And like the concept of anti-respectable.
00:29:47.140 Anti-respectability.
00:29:48.080 Yes.
00:29:48.260 And that's what Trump did as well.
00:29:49.640 That's how he signaled to this culture.
00:29:51.160 I'm really one of you.
00:29:52.260 I'm a real American.
00:29:53.640 And the Mormons didn't get that. 1.00
00:29:55.060 They didn't get, grab him by the pussy, showed his authenticity. 1.00
00:29:59.320 It did not invalidate his position as a potentially high status person because we rank status by what you sacrifice. 0.99
00:30:07.980 By me being a Stanford MBA, but doing all of the stuff that makes me unemployable.
00:30:13.860 You know, I could have gone their route.
00:30:16.660 I had the chops to go their route.
00:30:18.420 But I would rather be authentic than that.
00:30:22.740 And authenticity is shown publicly through what I'm willing to sacrifice.
00:30:27.420 I mean, look at our podcast.
00:30:28.400 It's not that popular.
00:30:29.700 It's pretty popular, but it's not that popular.
00:30:31.400 It's not certainly not paying our bills, but it prevents us from raising another round, right?
00:30:35.560 It helped that the heart of the globalist culture comprised of their direct, immediate international political enemies.
00:30:42.180 That they have the animus to differentiate themselves, but the wider cultural ethos cannot be ignored.
00:30:48.480 There's no reason the second American culture couldn't have been equally antinatalist in its effects. 1.00
00:30:54.080 Instead, American conservatism exhibits culturally the adaptive traits one observes in the group of parasite and disease-heavy corners of the world.
00:31:02.680 Just as the natives of various jungles exhibit unique resistances and immunities to many of the diseases and parasites found there,
00:31:09.600 often allowing them to survive uninvaded until the 19th to 20th century, so too do American conservatives.
00:31:16.180 Natives of the disease-laden American cultural jungle exhibit a unique immunity to its most devastating mimetic disease. 0.99
00:31:22.840 If you're a member of European or East Asian or Persian culture trying to improve your birth rates,
00:31:28.320 one could do worse than start trying to import the Americana folk culture that global urbanites despise.
00:31:36.080 How does saying, thank God I'm a country boy fair, if you haven't watched country music recently, you should, because it's great.
00:31:42.680 And I love one of the top comments on this, where somebody said,
00:31:45.400 I doubt any other governments will import American redneck conservatism because they can't abide by the core belief that each individual holds. 0.80
00:31:52.840 You are not the boss of me. And that is so true.
00:31:56.060 Yeah.
00:31:56.500 And it doesn't matter who you are, a group of people who hold that belief make poor serfs to be ruled over, but a productive businessman.
00:32:05.480 Now, I will note here that this group fundamentally is at odds with what Mormons have because they have the central church hierarchy. 0.76
00:32:13.700 So there's always, you know, you're never supposed to say, well, who are you to tell me this?
00:32:17.900 You know, and the same way we treat religion.
00:32:19.160 Yeah, the Mormon church is super, super hierarchical.
00:32:22.260 And I think that's another element that you haven't really thoroughly discussed here, which is sort of the fundamental structure of the predominant religion of these different groups, that Judaism is not a monolithic thing.
00:32:36.140 Like there are all these sub-communities and all these different sort of rabbis and different groups.
00:32:41.620 It is not a centrally ruled hierarchy.
00:32:44.500 In fact, it's very much, as we've discussed in other episodes, a huge meritocracy where if you are smarter, if you are cleverer, if you can learn the sort of the knowledge and the memes better, and you can debate better, you can get to the top of the hierarchy.
00:33:01.340 There is no, like, you've got to work your way up, or this isn't your place.
00:33:05.020 Actually, if you point out other people are wrong, and you can back that up with argument, that elevates it.
00:33:10.740 You get status.
00:33:11.260 Yeah, you are celebrated for being anti-establishment.
00:33:14.540 You're celebrated for questioning the status quo.
00:33:16.740 And the similar thing exists for the backwoods people who are this combination of Calvinist, which, you know, in itself is a religion that's quite anti-establishment, at least vis-a-vis the Catholic Church, but also, like, these warring clans from Ireland and Scotland, which were also very independent and very sort of competitive with these blood feuds.
00:33:39.760 So, you have to have this lack of centralized hierarchy, whereas I think it's very difficult to be a Mormon and to pull a ring, because you just can't.
00:33:50.840 Even when you're, like, a really high-status person, like Mitt Romney, you're just given more and more responsibilities.
00:33:57.240 You're given more and more work by the hierarchy of the church.
00:34:00.660 And, in fact, you lower your status was in Mormonism by, I was talking to the Mormon recently, and they were talking about the cultural taboo they have against what they call deep theology.
00:34:08.960 Which is, like, getting into, like, the real nitty-gritty, deep stuff of, like, continued human—I forget the word here.
00:34:18.680 A great example of this is the concept of eternal progression.
00:34:22.360 I have literally had two different Mormons tell me on opposite sides of this issue, one arguing that no, humans don't eventually become gods, and the other arguing that humans do actually become gods.
00:34:35.520 And both of them told me that no other Mormons actually had the opposite belief, and that it was actually a super-fringed belief.
00:34:42.280 And they both 100% believed this, had gone on missions where they were around other Mormons the entire time, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:34:49.000 Just in case you're wondering, like, what the actual breakdown of who believes what in the Mormon community, I decided to ask Claude to see if I could get a straight answer on this.
00:34:57.400 And it says,
00:35:27.400 And then, unaware of the doctrine's historical importance, perhaps 10-15%, more common among new converts, are those in international areas with less exposure to Mormon theological history.
00:35:37.160 And I find this really fascinating, like, such a major part of—this isn't, like, a small thing.
00:35:44.080 Like, Mormons will be like, oh, you know, we don't focus on the mysteries, like, it's not important to debate, you know, I can maybe understand all of that. 0.98
00:35:52.460 But this is, like, the core thing of what happens to you after you die.
00:35:57.580 There could be such diversity of beliefs about this, and yet Mormons would not perceive this diversity of beliefs.
00:36:06.480 Two really interesting quotes from a Mormon fan of the show that I was talking to about this that I'd read here.
00:36:14.080 And this helps understand where Mormons draw the delineation about the type of stuff you're not allowed to talk about.
00:36:19.620 Mormons are very anti-mysticism in general and don't like strange ideas. 0.96
00:36:23.460 The difference between Jews and normal Anglos was coming up with cool new theories and interesting ideas is like the same distance as normal Anglos was LDS, as in ideas relating to the non-material world are taboo. 0.93
00:36:37.360 Let me make that distinction again.
00:36:38.940 Any idea that can't be explained by science is taboo.
00:36:42.000 That may come from a strong materialist bias within Mormonism.
00:36:46.560 Materialistic philosophical forms of Mormonism heavily suppress and like to pretend that non-materialist forms of Mormonism thought do not exist.
00:36:54.740 And this really helped me when I read that to understand the things you're not allowed to talk about or not encouraged to talk about was in Mormonism.
00:37:03.300 I was even asking AI this.
00:37:04.540 I'm like, if you're on like a Mormon mission with someone, like what are they talking about if not philosophy or debating the doctrine?
00:37:12.440 Because like if I was stuck, given my culture, on a mission with someone and it was focused around being religious, a core thing I would be doing is debating religious philosophy.
00:37:24.200 And apparently that's like specifically called out as something you're not supposed to do was in Mormon mission documents.
00:37:32.060 So they just never talk about these things with each other and thus do not realize their own internal diversity of beliefs.
00:37:39.900 And another thing that he wrote that I thought helps understand why it's considered so heretical for me to point out that there is this diversity of Mormon beliefs to Mormons is,
00:37:50.540 So finally, to answer your questions about how Mormons make decisions, they make decisions in unity.
00:37:56.300 Opposition, revulsion, and dissension are taboo.
00:37:59.740 You don't disagree directly to someone's face.
00:38:02.440 Decisions literally don't get made until everyone is on board.
00:38:05.860 Being unanimous is highly prized in Mormon culture.
00:38:08.780 Open internal debate and disagreement is frowned upon.
00:38:12.340 And this made me realize that the way that Mormon culture survives, basically, is through the illusion of uniformity and conformity of beliefs. 0.92
00:38:24.280 It is important to Mormon identity the belief that there is conformity and uniformity of beliefs, even though that's not true.
00:38:34.260 And the way that those two things are able to exist in conjunction with each other is Mormons just don't talk about the things where there isn't easy and hard proof, whether that is scientific proof or scriptural proof.
00:38:50.640 And that allows them to exist with this illusion in their heads.
00:38:56.200 But because they don't talk about those things, those things actually drift much further apart from each other than they would within a normal religious tradition where they do talk about these things.
00:39:07.480 I.e., even if there's disagreement within mainstream Protestantism, because we're regularly talking about what happens after death and stuff like that, we understand where that disagreement is and how vast those disagreements are.
00:39:20.080 But in Mormonism, because there isn't the same discussion or picking at these particular scabs, people are unaware of where they are.
00:39:28.440 And note here, I asked in AI if there was any other religious tradition in the world it could think of that had a similar sort of taboo against investigating deeper theology of something.
00:39:39.280 And none.
00:39:40.660 Mormonism is totally unique in world history for this.
00:39:43.560 And I would also note that this is totally unique to modern Mormonism.
00:39:47.360 Mormonism used to almost be the exact opposite of this, I'd say pre-1960s, where it had a lot more philosophical, metaphysical, and theological investigation and theorizing than other Christian denominations.
00:40:02.520 But I think out of fear of being seen as weird or individuals within the community who maybe went too far, this taboo began to develop fairly recently but spread very quickly.
00:40:12.960 And this leads to one of the strengths of Mormonism is Mormons believe a huge diversity of things, but they are all, like when I talk to them, absolutely convinced that whatever their personal beliefs are, are actually really, really common in Mormonism.
00:40:28.440 And that the other Mormons who have the diversity of beliefs are more, like, out there weirdos. 0.99
00:40:34.060 When, if you're like me, because I'm really into theology and I immediately start questioning people about their weirdest and deepest beliefs, if they actually asked lots of other Mormons about, like, their deep theology, they would see there's actually a huge diversity of thought about, like, basic metaphysical things in Mormonism.
00:40:49.800 Like, the nature of the soul, what happens after death, everything like that.
00:40:53.500 And I think that if you look at Mormon history, this wasn't the case.
00:40:58.160 So, in Mormon history, people would actually rise all the way to profit by having, like, really interesting theological ideas.
00:41:04.580 Really?
00:41:05.960 Oh, yeah.
00:41:06.620 I think of somebody like Orson Pratt.
00:41:08.600 Gosh, I mean, like, the only people I've really heard of as leaders in thought were Brigham Young and Joseph Smith.
00:41:15.400 Brigham Young had crazy ideas.
00:41:17.320 I know, I know, but it was just Brigham Young and Joseph Smith as far as I was aware as an outsider.
00:41:22.200 Oh, no, a lot of the early thinkers, like, when I study Mormonism, I'm typically looking at that, like, the Brigham Young and just after Brigham Young generation, that's where it's most theologically interesting to me.
00:41:30.300 But those are the ideas that have been most abandoned by the modern Mormon church in terms of, like, what they publicly will tell new members, what they do outside of their own internal study.
00:41:39.740 Because it's seen as, like, deep theology or, like, the weirder stuff, the stuff that really differentiates them from other Christians.
00:41:44.860 And I think that that is, if the church wants to survive, it needs to return to deep thought debate being common within Mormonism.
00:41:59.820 Because we have exited the era where, you know, Mormons went from this population that was so afraid of being seen as, like, a weird cult.
00:42:07.180 And even when old people, when they attack Mormonism, they still say that.
00:42:10.100 Young people don't see it as a weird cult, like, unless they're, like, really out of touch with mainstream culture.
00:42:14.420 Yeah.
00:42:14.760 They either see it as normal, like, normie to the point of being boring, like, not being particularly adventurous, maybe being a bit like that.
00:42:25.280 It's the Disney religion.
00:42:26.940 It's the Disney religion.
00:42:27.940 Yes, the Disney religion, right?
00:42:29.600 You guys could deal with a bit more spice right now in terms of, like, external views and external people engaging with your ideas.
00:42:37.040 Because they're not all terrible.
00:42:39.400 Like, Mormon, like, weird theology actually is some pretty cool stuff if you get into it.
00:42:45.140 But it's not theologically unsophisticated either.
00:42:48.100 It aligns a lot.
00:42:49.020 I actually say, like, when I go to old Mormon theology, when I look at old Mormon theologists, they're as good as, like, modern rabbis for theology.
00:42:55.440 Wow.
00:42:56.280 Rabbis live in this culture where they're constantly theologically debating and everything like that. 0.99
00:43:00.900 And that's part of what makes them really resistant to the urban monoculture.
00:43:04.800 One, that they intentionally set up, like, this is how I'm going to be othered by the urban monoculture.
00:43:09.120 Yeah.
00:43:09.940 And two, they have this culture of, I'm going to constantly debate, like, the most controversial parts of our theology.
00:43:16.860 And if I can prove someone else wrong publicly, I move up.
00:43:21.480 Like, I get more followers.
00:43:22.720 I get more respect.
00:43:23.620 If you did the same as in Mormonism, they would be seen as, I think, very inappropriate. 0.61
00:43:28.220 Especially if it was, like, a respected member of the church.
00:43:30.280 Instead of, like, oh, you know more than him about Mormon theology.
00:43:32.780 That would be fantastic.
00:43:34.480 But it's difficult for Mormons to do that today, given the way their theology is structured.
00:43:39.700 And it's because they have iterative prophecy.
00:43:41.760 So this means, like, whatever was said most recently trumps what was said before.
00:43:45.620 So you have a problem with iterative theology because to truly argue Mormon theology, you need to argue from a position of logic.
00:43:56.240 This is why the early Mormon theologians were so interesting.
00:44:00.660 They weren't like, let's look at the Mormon scripture, like, in the way I do. 0.84
00:44:04.440 It's like Protestantism. 0.59
00:44:05.240 Let's try to work back from there.
00:44:06.760 They'd be like, let's think how the soul could work.
00:44:09.720 You know?
00:44:10.440 And then they'd build a, and then let's build, like, moral logic around how the soul might work.
00:44:15.620 Oh, that's so much better.
00:44:17.320 Yeah, and they'd build some real, that's why their theologies were so interesting.
00:44:21.180 But now, if you're, like, I have a bunch of people arguing online about this, because the original texts have weight, but can sometimes be overridden by a more modern prophet, it's harder to choose, like, who wins a fight other than, like, by.
00:44:35.200 And so they're really forced into this ethnic-based religion.
00:44:39.620 I suspect we'll see a path through this, but it is going to be difficult for them.
00:44:44.240 Um, they're going to need to cave on one of these things.
00:44:48.660 Either they have to become anti-authority, or they have to become more willing to engage with the sharper, more interesting parts of their theology, or they, and at least accept the amount of diversity within their own believers.
00:45:01.360 Or, they need to, like, Mormons get as mad when I point that out as Jews do when I point out how much Jew and Judaism has changed over time. 0.97
00:45:08.840 I'm sure a Jew will, like, confidently claim, second temple Jews were exactly theologically like modern Jews, except the temple. 0.99
00:45:15.340 And I'm like, no, they were not.
00:45:16.680 Modern Mormons will be like, every Mormon believes almost the same thing, and anyone who doesn't is a no-truth god. 0.98
00:45:21.620 Um, but the final point here I was going to make was, yes, it was that these two other groups also do things that intentionally other themselves.
00:45:30.980 You, I, classic Americano, even Trump does things that intentionally other himself.
00:45:37.380 Well, no, no, no, I don't think it's, so it's not about intentionally, that's not how they look at it.
00:45:42.720 They look at, I'm going to show people how awesome I am.
00:45:46.020 I'm going to stand out.
00:45:47.260 I'm going to make my place in the world.
00:45:48.840 It's not, I'm going to make myself look like a freak.
00:45:52.080 Trump looks the way he does because he likes the way that looks, and he thinks it makes him look distinctive.
00:45:57.700 We look the way we look because we like the way that it looks, and we find a bunch of functional benefits.
00:46:02.720 But it is intentional and counterculture in both instances.
00:46:04.580 It is, but it's about standing out and being awesome.
00:46:08.720 It's not about, you're just coming at it from completely the wrong mindset, from the other side's mindset,
00:46:14.760 which is like, everyone else is thinking, how do I fit in?
00:46:17.940 How do I not fit in?
00:46:18.960 And this culture you're talking about isn't talking about, how do I not fit in?
00:46:23.740 Because how do I not look like these stooges?
00:46:25.480 Yes, but the point I was about to make was that, yes, you're right about the instinct that drives dressing in a way that intentionally causes you to look out of place in culture, create conflicts with that culture.
00:46:39.940 That's how Americana culture motivates it, but there's other ways to motivate that.
00:46:43.740 Jews motivate it through a completely different pathway. 0.99
00:46:46.680 Just they have a bunch of traditions around how they dress and act that are out of line with mainstream culture and give them weird looks within mainstream culture.
00:46:54.420 The Mormon problem right now- 1.00
00:46:56.140 Because they're different and special and better.
00:46:57.960 I don't think they do it because they're like, well, we want to make sure we don't fit in.
00:47:01.600 Yes, but that's the consequence.
00:47:03.900 Mormons right now cut off the, for example, recently they updated the garments for women so that now they can wear sleeveless dresses. 0.54
00:47:13.380 I mean, it's more, I think, about interpretations of the rules.
00:47:17.440 No, this is made by the church.
00:47:19.640 The garments are made by the church.
00:47:21.560 Oh, wait, so they actually, they changed to the physical garments?
00:47:25.560 Yeah.
00:47:25.980 To be tank tops for women instead of those long, longer sleeves? 0.98
00:47:29.880 Yeah.
00:47:30.520 Whoa, that's crazy.
00:47:32.680 It's like a huge and bad capitulation because it allows them to look more normal.
00:47:38.760 Well, women were already really heavily bending the rules because the rules were like, for example, if you were working out and, you know, it was, it could be really difficult to work out wearing garments. 1.00
00:47:49.400 They're kind of heavier and sweaty, you could wear just normal workout clothes, but then basically like Mormon, Mormon wives and influencers were kind of like always in between a workout, you know, just about to go work out. 1.00
00:48:02.460 So that's why they were all wearing like athleisure.
00:48:04.520 But also there's huge amounts of plastic surgery in Utah.
00:48:08.200 Like there's definitely this desire to fit in and homogenize.
00:48:11.820 And that is just the death knell of, of the religion. 0.70
00:48:14.460 Of any culture.
00:48:15.300 Yeah.
00:48:15.460 So have pride in how you're different and F the urban monoculture.
00:48:22.120 And when your kids are sent home from school for making finger guns, be like, I'm sorry, that's my culture.
00:48:27.860 Like anyone from a conservative culture, whether they're a conservative Muslim or a conservative Jew, I hope you can respect that we will have certain rules at home.
00:48:34.220 They might be different from the rules you have at school, but it is my job to protect my family's heritage.
00:48:39.720 You just got to teach your kid to code switch.
00:48:42.780 Code switch.
00:48:43.700 Yes.
00:48:43.980 Love you to death, Simone.
00:48:46.160 I love you too, Malcolm.
00:48:48.400 Oh, what am I eating?
00:48:50.040 Well, so you're having the Thai green curry leftovers.
00:48:53.000 Oh, so yummy.
00:48:53.880 But you wanted me to put in the coconut.
00:48:57.880 Did you want me to like cut it into very small like confitants?
00:49:00.580 It's already cut.
00:49:01.840 It's sliced into little.
00:49:03.720 Yeah.
00:49:03.960 I wanted it to be like a crunch in the curry.
00:49:06.240 Yes.
00:49:06.540 So you want me to leave the slivers intact or do you want me to cut it into small?
00:49:09.480 Leave the slivers intact. 0.98
00:49:10.380 Just make sure that it like boils down enough so that the, the, there's not a whole lot
00:49:14.900 of, it's a very small serving.
00:49:16.920 That's, that's left.
00:49:18.440 Let's not do the coconut.
00:49:19.500 Ignore the coconut for now.
00:49:20.640 You're just going to have a small, and then I'm going to make it with those dumplings that 1.00
00:49:23.300 you bought a while ago that you want.
00:49:24.940 Yeah, you're so good at making dumplings now.
00:49:26.940 Well, I don't know.
00:49:27.800 I've never prepared these before, but we'll see.
00:49:29.580 But it's the ones that you picked out.
00:49:30.920 So you sort of have an accompaniment with a small.
00:49:32.840 Oh, is this like the spicy whatever ones or the.
00:49:34.980 It's the ones that you looked at yesterday and you were like, oh, I want to try these.
00:49:38.780 Oh, those looked good.
00:49:39.860 Yeah.
00:49:40.620 I think, you know, that would be a good combination.
00:49:42.780 What I plan on doing since it's the first warm day of the year is I will just put the
00:49:47.000 kids dinner in their treehouse and they'll eat it there and we can enjoy this.
00:49:51.300 Did we build an actual treehouse for them?
00:49:53.240 No, no, no.
00:49:53.920 The tree, the little, the fort.
00:49:55.860 Don't you want to have like a ladder up to where they can really hurt themselves?
00:49:59.500 No, no.
00:50:02.120 The rule is, of course, you are free to do that, but then you are personally responsible
00:50:06.040 out of your discretionary income for the hospital bills.
00:50:08.740 So it is along with the trampolines.
00:50:11.260 The rule is trampolines.
00:50:13.620 I never said no to trampolines.
00:50:15.120 I just said that it's your discretionary income that would pay for the hospital bills
00:50:19.120 for any trampoline related incident.
00:50:20.420 Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
00:50:21.960 The one thing, if you ask emergency room doctors what not to do with your kids, it is invariably
00:50:29.740 do not let them play with four-wheelers, do not get a trampoline.
00:50:34.220 Are we, how old do they need to be before we can give them pellet guns?
00:50:37.060 You know, pellet guns just don't come up in those stories, which is interesting, but I
00:50:40.080 think that's just because pellet guns are so unusual.
00:50:41.800 But we have all the ammo.
00:50:44.600 I don't know where you put the actual pellet gun.
00:50:46.260 I use airsoft guns for the kids.
00:50:49.320 But I remember, like, pellet guns can actually cause, like, serious injuries.
00:50:54.020 You know that, right?
00:50:54.800 Pretty much anything can cause a serious injury.
00:50:57.100 I mean, a screwdriver, a hammer.
00:50:59.440 Oh, yes.
00:51:00.040 One of our kids is very good with that.
00:51:01.720 He loves finding anything sharp and just stabbing anything he can find.
00:51:05.460 The pokey thing, as he says.
00:51:07.660 Oh, he needs it.
00:51:08.700 He needs it.
00:51:09.000 He's like, I won't do it again.
00:51:10.540 It's like, you absolutely will.
00:51:12.040 Then why do you want the pokey thing?
00:51:13.560 Yeah, I think he defines, you know, I won't stab the couch to pieces again because I'm
00:51:19.080 going to stab something else.
00:51:20.800 I'm going to stab electronics again. 1.00
00:51:23.320 I'm going to stab. 0.99
00:51:24.760 Oh, my God. 1.00
00:51:25.300 These kids.
00:51:26.660 No. 0.98
00:51:28.120 They need punishment. 0.92
00:51:30.220 Like, they are wild kids, and I love it. 0.82
00:51:33.260 They don't respond to punishment.
00:51:34.480 They don't know.
00:51:36.040 Actually, a huge problem I've had, and people would be like, oh, like, Malcolm, like, you
00:51:40.840 use corporal punishment, like, you hate your kids.
00:51:42.860 That's so horrible.
00:51:44.040 I'm like, honestly, about half the time when I do it, I undercorrect, and they start laughing.
00:51:49.680 And I'm like, this is a huge problem.
00:51:51.900 That's what I said jokingly in another episode.
00:51:54.000 Like, how hard do you hate your kids?
00:51:55.340 Just hard enough that they don't laugh.
00:51:56.840 And that can sometimes be, like, pretty hard to get to that point with our kids because
00:52:01.260 they love roughhousing so much.
00:52:03.060 They always said harder.
00:52:05.580 They always said harder, yeah.
00:52:07.100 There was a reporter over once where we tested, like, throwing our fists at the kids to see
00:52:11.240 if they flinched.
00:52:11.480 Well, because there was, yeah, you missed that.
00:52:13.000 There was this whole viral thing where a parent put their hand close to the kid in a shopping
00:52:17.500 cart, and the kid flinched.
00:52:19.540 And then the whole internet was like, proof of abuse.
00:52:23.260 And we were with a journalist, and we're like, oh, I wonder what our kids are going to do if
00:52:26.820 we, like, go like this.
00:52:28.060 And they just look at us.
00:52:29.700 They don't move at all.
00:52:30.600 And they just smile and laugh.
00:52:31.920 Later in that same thing, I ended up flinching when one of the kids was doing something.
00:52:35.640 Yes!
00:52:36.340 She would take it!
00:52:37.400 It's actually, like...
00:52:39.080 You were the child in the shopping cart.
00:52:42.420 You were the child.
00:52:42.840 It hit me no whole bar.
00:52:43.820 Well, because I want to encourage them to be tough, you know?
00:52:45.920 Also, when I play fight with them, I never, like, tell them to, like, hold back.
00:52:50.880 They don't pull their punches.
00:52:52.280 They don't pull their punches. 0.97
00:52:53.560 Yeah, they're a little, like, monkeys. 0.59
00:52:56.020 They can do damage.
00:52:57.520 Monkeys are terrifying.
00:52:59.380 Yeah, they are. 0.99
00:53:00.060 My kid would rip your face off like an angry chimpanzee if you get him mad. 0.66
00:53:03.980 No, they're very, very scary. 0.94
00:53:05.880 I don't like tourist attractions with monkeys. 0.98
00:53:09.540 They're screwed up. 0.99
00:53:10.540 Love you to death. 0.98
00:53:11.500 I love you, too.
00:53:12.500 I will start dinner.
00:53:13.200 I was watching this YouTube video about an eco-village that had basically a covered street with very close townhouses.
00:53:24.040 So, the townhouses that faced each other were connected under a covered street, and it just was all sort of this one big, kind of like a mall.
00:53:31.200 You know how, like, there are shops to each other across from a mall.
00:53:33.980 That's what it felt like.
00:53:35.520 And they had set the design of the houses up so that your kitchen window faced, was, like, the storefront window of the mall.
00:53:46.460 And I'm just thinking about how miserable I would be there.
00:53:48.600 I think you can't hide from anyone.
00:53:51.300 Everyone knows everyone else.
00:53:52.900 And this woman who's touring it is being led around by this old woman who, like, queerly is up in everyone's business and just thinks this place is the best. 0.99
00:53:59.680 And, like, people are walking by, and she's like, hi, Brian, and, you know, they're sort of, like, trying to walk by.
00:54:05.760 And she's probably like, Brian, you left the vegetables out last night, and they were, you know, oh, God, it just seems so miserable to me.
00:54:13.680 To be there, but yet you kept watching it.
00:54:16.860 I want to know about all different ways of living.
00:54:21.480 Just want to know.
00:54:22.840 And what was this way of living?
00:54:24.340 I don't understand what was unique about it.
00:54:25.620 It was, like, a historic venue.
00:54:26.100 It was an eco-village.
00:54:27.100 No, it wasn't historic.
00:54:28.540 It was newly built.
00:54:29.380 Oh, of course, that's exactly the type of place for, like, a woman up in everyone's business would be. 1.00
00:54:33.100 I mean, yeah, basically.
00:54:35.500 Are you enjoying your dinner al fresco?
00:54:38.120 Yeah.
00:54:39.240 Yeah?
00:54:40.000 Do you know what al fresco means?
00:54:41.720 What?
00:54:42.820 Guess.
00:54:43.240 No, uh-oh.
00:54:44.880 It's an appointment.
00:54:47.000 It's the Naughty Captain.
00:54:49.500 Or is it the Professor Shark?
00:54:51.500 Uh-oh.
00:54:51.880 Wait, are you?
00:54:52.740 Who's the Naughty Captain, Torsten?
00:54:54.340 Am I the Naughty Captain?
00:54:55.620 Ah!
00:54:56.460 It's Professor Shark!
00:54:57.760 I'm the Naughty Captain!
00:54:59.320 I'm the Naughty Captain!
00:54:59.560 Thank you.