Based Camp - Why Did Parents Stop Giving Advice？

00:00:00.000 hello simone i'm excited to be here with you today today we are going to be talking about

00:00:06.440 something that was inspired to me by a conversation i was having with a friend actually

00:00:12.660 megan who is scott alexander's wife and i were talking about raising kids because they have

00:00:19.160 young kids and stuff like that and passing on ideas and sort of life systems intergenerationally

00:00:26.420 and one of the things that they noted and i started to note this as i recalled you know asking

00:00:32.960 other people is that people do not give their kids as much life advice as they used to and in some

00:00:41.240 cases gives their kids virtually no life advice and they they never set their kids down and are like

00:00:47.520 this is what you should structure this is the way you should structure your life this is what you

00:00:51.100 should expect from these stages of your life this is what you should want to do with your life and

00:00:55.620 i think the the areas i want to dig into this are what cultures stopped giving life advice first

00:01:02.980 like what cultural trends made it because most cultures historically did give children life

00:01:08.660 advice this was a very normal thing to do historically speaking two why did this stop when did it stop

00:01:16.060 and for people who grew up without being given life advice what is good life advice that i would give

00:01:24.300 generally to them and to my kids as well so opening thoughts simone before we go deeper into this

00:01:31.240 i'm super excited to talk about this because i feel like it's part of that larger trend that we talk

00:01:35.840 about that really precipitates the the beginning of the end for society and human mental health which is

00:01:42.300 the atomization of everything and i think a big tailwind here is a trend whereby we stopped getting

00:01:49.040 everything from within the family and the household and started getting it piecemeal from outside and

00:01:55.180 that a lot of people are now getting their advice from external sources who may or may not be aligned

00:02:01.120 with their best interests instead who are basically you're getting this information not because it's

00:02:06.820 going to help you because it's it's the information that was best marketed that was more likely to go viral

00:02:12.700 that was for whatever reason i actually go so far to see that many people structure their lives

00:02:18.720 around aesthetics of what they saw as a good life was in television shows while they were growing up

00:02:25.540 and there's that but there's also the fact that just to give you like a picture of how things have

00:02:30.920 changed even when you look at how parents are parenting a pew research center study found that only 27

00:02:36.980 percent of parents say they often ask a family member for parenting advice which indicates a clear

00:02:42.360 decline in the reliance on families they're now looking to parenting books and every time

00:02:47.560 i talk with someone who's pregnant and expecting to become a parent they talk to me about the books

00:02:52.920 they're reading and the podcasts they're watching and the videos they're watching they do not talk

00:02:56.320 about talking with their mothers or their parents in general about parenting yes it's not just about

00:03:05.100 like going for an aesthetic norm it's about shifting to the experts like we give our kids to child care

00:03:11.140 we don't give them to our family we give our our kids to school we don't homeschool them

00:03:15.960 things are being outsourced like the two groups that are going to try to take advantage of this if

00:03:20.640 you allow other people to implant a life vision in your kid's head they are either going to be

00:03:25.900 marketers who want to use this to make money yeah or they are going to be self-replicating memetic sets

00:03:32.020 that exist like the urban monoculture because they're good at turning people into basically

00:03:37.900 self-replication zombies and i wanted to start with actually i'm just going to read the the

00:03:43.780 interaction i had with and i asked megan for permission to share this as you as you saw so on

00:03:48.560 to be like do i need to anonymize it etc so i'll read it because i thought it was very insightful and

00:03:53.160 sort of how it framed this so she said came up when i asked scott if he wanted to discuss

00:04:00.000 quote which pieces of advice to pass on to the kids in quote and he went what are you talking about

00:04:05.600 scott's parents were supportive always eager to help with administration administrative navigation

00:04:11.600 but he thought dad sits you down and gives you life advice was an unrealistic thing from the movies

00:04:18.280 pretty confident malcolm and i were from advice giving cultures one and and she's from a culture

00:04:24.120 that's fairly similar to ours um whereas i don't know i i my understanding is scott's from a jewish

00:04:30.380 cultural background which was surprising to me because that's a culture that i always thought was very

00:04:35.080 high on advice giving at least in terms of the movies and stereotypes which means probably in

00:04:40.180 reality our jewish fans can say one way or the other if advice giving stopped and i know before i

00:04:46.340 continue reading this within my own family i saw this with one parent and not with the other parent

00:04:51.060 like my dad basically never gave me life advice oh yeah never my mom constantly gave me life advice

00:04:58.560 and i got life advice from my grandparents on my dad's side actually the grand mom as well my

00:05:04.500 granddad didn't give me life advice either which is interesting because the advice i got from my

00:05:09.160 grandmom was framed through this is something your granddad used to do or say well it was actually it

00:05:16.940 was a very consistent family doctrine that was passed and shared among many people so there was like

00:05:23.280 there was almost a family guidebook or rule book and these were norms that were shared across family

00:05:29.180 members right that i think was very good it was solid advice too yeah we'll get to this advice later in

00:05:37.180 this but to continue is what i'm reading here one of your books illustrates his mom's unmistakable

00:05:41.500 advice giving compulsion she's talking about me here and has a side-by-side comparison with his mom

00:05:47.220 doing a good versus bad job of targeting it ha ha ha not sure about simone but i'm predicting low

00:05:53.860 advice but not zero what about your parents did your parents get life advice simone

00:05:58.360 sparingly but yes oh yes i remember like the advice and this is actually kind of surprising to me

00:06:06.740 that your mom gave about sleeping around a lot yeah that's what i was just thinking like the the

00:06:11.800 one piece of advice that i really remember my mom saying so indirectly about sex was that

00:06:18.380 you that sex is like a precious gem and you should be really thoughtful about who you give

00:06:25.940 your gems to and it really went over my head i was like i actually think that's not bad advice to give

00:06:35.120 a young girl and what's fascinating call it it just you saying that to an asexual person

00:06:40.020 or someone who's only who's gay for malcolm and malcolm only apparently like it's just not

00:06:44.960 but what's interesting about it is and this this could be part of like trying to figure this out

00:06:52.660 for me is her mom met her dad when they were in what today would be called a polyamorous relationship

00:07:00.440 you know she is not somebody i think of as like she was very in with like san francisco

00:07:06.640 pro-sexuality culture and yet what seems like an older family tradition about how to relate to sex

00:07:14.920 and sexuality got passed down through her potentially she was repeating something that

00:07:20.480 an ancestor had told her and that's why it came out as sort of this pre-packaged narrative that goes

00:07:26.880 against even her own sort of life practices which i i found very fascinating but anyway to continue

00:07:32.900 reading here my mom's side had a very pushy for advice culture and fortunately for me my grandfather

00:07:40.060 on that side mostly gave good life strategy advice um and i'll note here when she was talking about my

00:07:45.840 mom giving good versus bad advice or or giving it in good versus bad ways is my mom both gave me

00:07:51.960 larger structured advice but also gave me advice almost every like day oh constant feedback can i give

00:07:57.660 you're gonna make simple i have yes great i stopped doing it because she just gave so many

00:08:01.960 of these but i i used to keep a google doc of her and funny emails so i'm just gonna read one because

00:08:08.460 it's irrelevant because it's about it's about us on youtube okay subject youtube channel and it just

00:08:16.880 starts out you two just don't seem to understand that you are adults and that you have virtually nothing

00:08:21.720 to fall back on and just a few brief years to strike your fortune youtube channel are you shitting

00:08:27.140 me this sounds even more pathetic than blogging for huff post and you look so sad and pathetic

00:08:32.980 hi guys and girls surf's up the others who have your education are working their asses off to get

00:08:40.220 somewhere and you two have more ridiculous excuses for not living adult lives than i've ever heard

00:08:45.420 shut down your failing company and get jobs as it is if i were an employer and i saw digital imprint

00:08:51.260 of all your striving i would not hire you i haven't seen anything so sad since heidi montag on

00:08:57.180 spencer pratt and it did not go well for them either buckle down and get jobs immediately when else

00:09:03.840 this is very common for the type of advice i got from my mom it was i i love when people are like how

00:09:13.080 come all of the public criticism doesn't get to you and it's like i was trained on criticism

00:09:19.320 for a very young age it's like the the bane quote

00:09:23.620 oh you think darkness is your ally you merely adopted the dark i was born in it molded by it

00:09:39.360 i didn't see the light until i was already a man her advice and i might speak of her in like

00:09:46.560 kind because sometimes the advice was good advice other times the advice was not good advice

00:09:51.920 and you could say oh well why aren't you mad about this or have any animosity about this

00:09:57.980 and it's like well but she's not wrong i mean starting a youtube is a huge time sink yes it's

00:10:05.320 gone well for us since then but in the early days huge variability and potential outcomes i i do have a

00:10:12.900 stanford mba simone does have a graduate degree from cambridge like we could get jobs at mckenzie

00:10:18.320 or something and just make safe money i understand why she might have frustration that we don't get that

00:10:25.000 i will say i love how good she was at explicitly trying to pick at my known insecurities

00:10:30.900 which makes her such a better troll than the random internets online and that emails like the one

00:10:37.240 we read here weren't unique here's another one i asked simone to send me some more i'm going to

00:10:41.740 stop following you and simone on facebook that video was tragic to see it reminded me of the sad

00:10:47.880 lonely videos simone did when she had nothing much going on in her personal life even the feathers were

00:10:53.460 back and there were of course no views just a couple people desperate to be noticed wasting their time

00:11:00.620 it's as though you two bring out the worst in each other the most vulnerable and weak parts

00:11:05.480 you should be bringing out the best in each other so sad to watch you losing your momentum in life

00:11:10.860 and making such disastrous decisions you will be left behind by your classmates and your brother

00:11:16.620 but what you can tell within that is what she would often frame the advice around is you will never be

00:11:24.100 rich if you don't do x and i was like mom i don't really care about becoming rich and she just

00:11:31.800 couldn't understand this she's like but of course and i was like no i care about influence and saving

00:11:37.280 the world and having lots of kids and trying to make the world a better place and she'd be like

00:11:41.620 what you know if you keep having kids you won't have as much money and you won't be able to give them as

00:11:47.820 nice of things and i'm like well i don't know if that stuff really matters but then other times she

00:11:53.000 would give me really great advice you know she's the one who gave me the advice when i was bemoaning

00:11:57.460 which college i was going to choose and i was like oh you know this is the the most important

00:12:03.480 decision of my life it's going to affect everything that sort of comes after this and she was like

00:12:07.920 pretty sternly like no it is not the most important decision of your life the most important decision of

00:12:12.880 your life is who you marry and at the time growing up within the urban monoculture i thought that that

00:12:19.660 was a ridiculous and potentially even a little misogynistic thing to say i was like no of course it's your

00:12:26.160 career that's the most important thing right we were raised like all i ever thought in high school

00:12:31.320 was all the only thing that mattered in my life was what college i got into and then that's what i

00:12:35.580 thought in high school in middle school it was like you're preparing for high school so you can

00:12:39.400 prepare to get into the best college and then you get into a good college and then your life is set

00:12:43.760 and so your mom your mom gave some really solid advice but we'll get to more of that in a second

00:12:48.720 like the advice i got from both sides but i'm gonna continue getting here i wanted to give that one

00:12:51.660 example of oh no it's a great example for our youtube fans yeah she would be quite happy with

00:12:57.300 how things have gone for us she died during our youtube career and we have an episode when that

00:13:01.700 happened and everything yeah she actually so yeah as much as she hated the idea of us being on youtube

00:13:06.420 to begin with yeah before her death she she was a huge fan of our podcast watched every episode

00:13:11.020 and at that point her feedback actually it was just following it today was much more tactical she's

00:13:16.600 like malcolm you need to get your lighting better and she'd send us all these tutorials on like

00:13:19.380 here's the camera angle you're supposed to have what are you doing with your background you're

00:13:23.340 too close to the camera i literally just put gloss on because she was like the matte lipstick isn't

00:13:29.120 good you have to wear gloss and so i still listen to her i still listen to her um but anyway to

00:13:33.780 continue here yeah a handful of young people i asked either didn't get advice from their parents at

00:13:39.200 all or they got seemingly blatant stale and self-centered quote go into my exact profession type stuff

00:13:48.440 oh interesting i saw this too with a lot of my friends kids you know you did yeah you know i go

00:13:54.120 the the the one that i saw the most was my friends kids was not going to my exact profession

00:13:58.520 it was a do what makes you happy that's i think the trend i saw was that advice shifted from very

00:14:05.980 tactical like here's how to live your life etc etc and it went from that into here's emotional

00:14:12.680 coaching here's how i want you to be happy here's it the values shifted the advice was no longer about

00:14:19.400 tactical practical stuff it was about feelings yeah which is you know where i'm thinking of the

00:14:25.100 career advice i got from my parents very different my dad's career advice he gave me one piece of career

00:14:30.920 advice consistently and over and over again which is if you are fortunate enough to make a large amount

00:14:39.000 of money when you're young don't expect it to be easy to make that amount of money for the rest of

00:14:45.420 your life um i.e if you you know come into a lot of money when you're young or you make a big business

00:14:51.000 play which he did when he was still very young and he made the mistake of thinking well i'll just be able

00:14:58.560 to do this again and again and again in terms of how he was spending money he kind of did though

00:15:02.900 he would like make a lot of money and then lose it all and then as an early lucky roll of the dice

00:15:07.980 instead of something that he would be able to persistently repeat which is actually really

00:15:12.500 solid advice i didn't end up needing it but because i didn't make a ton of money when i was young

00:15:17.300 but still really really solid advice the other advice that he gave on career stuff is do not overly

00:15:26.360 focus on the degree you get and that the degree you get should be for status and recreation and don't

00:15:33.720 let it sort of narrow the career choices you make or the starting career trajectory you make

00:15:38.500 i don't know if this was good no no i think that's that's solid advice creating path dependency with

00:15:43.040 careers i mean i got my degree my undergraduate in neuroscience but i got my graduate degree as an

00:15:48.560 mba and i i went into business so i i definitely did that i i went into neuroscience because i wanted

00:15:54.440 something that showed my intelligence but was also fun and so so i did neuroscience doing a i was going to

00:16:01.800 do a minor in philosophy but i found it was so stupid as soon as i started setting it at the

00:16:05.460 academic level i was like you couldn't take all the meds um it really is all semantics at the academic

00:16:11.420 level like i was like this no it that's i can't take it but i was like what what do you mean like

00:16:16.600 what does x mean like just define it how you want to define it i want to understand why i exist you

00:16:21.720 know but anyway to continue here and that it was often ignored soft cultures seem to lose advice

00:16:28.140 giving entirely advice assorted differently from support which i find slightly surprising though it

00:16:34.180 could make sense if you think of advice as pushing a cultural package for children to unpack after they

00:16:40.480 migrated elsewhere as adults and are no longer in touch probably too much of a story i don't know

00:16:46.140 i think less wrong and this is like the wider rationalist community is a young advice young advice

00:16:52.200 pushing culture but it might have a pretty weak quote only take advice from people that you respect

00:16:57.720 slash want to emulate in quote discounting meaning they don't do this which is something i was always

00:17:03.160 told by my mom and this is the piece of advice that you really adopted from her which is never take

00:17:07.900 advice from somebody who isn't in a position that you want to be um so if if somebody hasn't made a

00:17:14.960 fortune and they give you advice on making a fortune it's probably not going to be very good

00:17:19.300 if somebody isn't in a happy marriage and they tell you how to get a wife probably not great advice

00:17:24.300 and this is actually really important within like the youtube community as there are so many advice

00:17:31.000 givers on how to be like an awesome man for example who are you know single and childless or in you know

00:17:39.300 like divorce number three or like you know no no no no no you shouldn't be but people don't look at that

00:17:46.300 and and and so this isn't just a problem with less wrong culture doing this although i have seen this

00:17:51.060 was less wrong where they look at you know advice from people without proven track records yes that

00:17:57.640 does happen a lot what like like eliezer yukowski for example a lot of people take his ai stuff really

00:18:02.980 seriously even though he's like literally hasn't been successful at a single thing other than writing

00:18:07.860 fan fiction in his entire life it's nothing technical or ai related and and yet he's no he's

00:18:15.000 been successful at raising money i would take his advice on raising money i would take his advice on

00:18:19.520 raising money too and i would take his advice on making a fan fiction popular i would not take his

00:18:24.000 advice on the threat level of ais and yeah so anyway to continue here or at least i feel surprised by how

00:18:29.820 often i have to explain or justify some of this tendency in myself like that she's saying she feels even

00:18:34.860 weird and we've had this as reporters they go how dare you give your child expectations like you

00:18:40.000 want something from them they're like well do you want this or this a lot online like that it it was

00:18:46.020 tantamount to abuse that we had high expectations for our children any expectations for our children

00:18:51.960 yeah and and i was like what a psychotic thing i i think that there are a few signs from my cultural

00:18:59.020 perspective that are a sign of more disinterest and a lack of genuine love or care for someone

00:19:04.840 than to not have expectations of them if you care for your kids certainly you want a particular

00:19:13.360 outcome for them right you're like you just don't want you know whatever you're trying to because

00:19:18.460 because if you want whatever it means you can't even model who they are or what they might want even

00:19:24.600 for themselves right you know well but i almost i almost wish that people chose whatever over what i

00:19:31.120 think they actually are which is choosing which is happiness i just want my kid to be happy i think

00:19:37.620 that's the worst thing you can hope for for your kid and tell them yeah i well i mean because it shows

00:19:42.700 and my father has has pushed for that with me in terms of like what he wants for me and i see that as

00:19:49.800 not a sign of caring like i like my dad and everything like that but i don't see it like if you're an adult

00:19:55.220 and you do this with your kids like i just want them to be happy know that to a kid that comes across

00:20:01.500 as disinterest often wait i'm sure your parents gave you some i just want you to be happy speech

00:20:08.020 or something or did they not like do they have some bigger thing that they wanted from you i mean

00:20:12.600 they gave me what i would now contextualize as is please be more culturally like us advice you know

00:20:18.860 like tell me about that well because i only wanted to stay at home and study and be by myself and

00:20:23.740 they're like go out experiment stay out late you know be with friends and people and i didn't want

00:20:32.180 that i didn't want that so i do think that at least there are some people who are giving their kids

00:20:40.140 cultural advice where they wish their kids would conform more and i do think that there are different

00:20:45.440 forms of advice so i think that yeah i want to categorize let's let's delineate this yeah i'll

00:20:50.340 give you my categories or you start with your categories i think there's one there's the direct

00:20:55.220 advice like my mom telling me the story of the you know having sex is like giving away jewels and then

00:21:00.560 there is the i think the bigger form of advice my parents gave me and i think this is the most

00:21:06.100 important advice that every parent gives to their kids which is the what you do your actions and then

00:21:12.820 kids watch your actions carefully which helps them normalize to what is they expect of themselves

00:21:18.240 but also what they think ultimately is good or bad because if they hate something you do or they

00:21:24.320 they see how you live your life and that it doesn't work out well they're going to do something very

00:21:28.520 different so i think that's the most useful advice and when i think about the advice we give to our

00:21:32.660 kids i care so much more about what they see us modeling than what we ever say to them because that can

00:21:37.760 be really discounted by kids then there's the cultural institutions with which you raise your

00:21:43.100 kids so by choosing to put your kid in a certain school or to send them to church you are implicitly

00:21:48.220 choosing the advice that they're surrounded with i think this is a huge mistake people make today is

00:21:52.600 that they try to outsource to cultural institutions and there's a lot of people who like they send their

00:21:56.720 kids to like the lds church or catholic school and they're like okay they're covered like my kid's

00:22:01.400 going to grow up a catholic and then they're like shocked when they turn like wait the catholic school is

00:22:06.200 where a lot of this is coming from and it's like yes a lot of this is coming from catholic school

00:22:09.220 no like many parents have told us that like they thought they had it all right and they did all

00:22:13.060 the things and they sort of outsource the advice to that institution be it the church or the church

00:22:18.780 and related institutions and then their kids leave as soon as they leave the house so like yeah by the

00:22:23.380 way i'm an atheist and i'm because a lot of these institutions mimetic viruses have gutted them

00:22:29.480 and use them for recruitment processes and they still wear the face of catholic school or something

00:22:35.840 like that or lds school or something when in reality they're a pipeline out of these these

00:22:42.240 institutions and so i think not just vetting the school but i generally unless i was from a large

00:22:48.140 cultural institution that i really trusted like for example i think brigham young is actually pretty

00:22:53.800 good as a university system implementing lds cultural values yeah i would not trust 99 of catholic

00:23:01.260 schools implementing catholic values i think so i think when catholic schools were still run out of

00:23:06.700 convents i would trust them a lot more and like taught like literal nuns leading them but now there

00:23:13.740 are just so many more like maybe not even really parochial schools just like schools that call themselves

00:23:21.080 catholic and there's also a ton of classical christian schools and also just classical schools which i think

00:23:25.880 now a lot of parents when they decide that this is their version of like homeschooling light like well

00:23:31.300 i don't really have the bandwidth to homeschool my kid but i want to do the whole like western

00:23:36.220 civilization is great raising my kid as a non-progressive thing they choose classical schools

00:23:43.980 and i just don't you you just i think classical schools are retarded i'm sure i'm sure some are good

00:23:50.640 you just don't know no no i mean as an educational model and this is just my thought i understand some

00:23:55.500 cultures are different i actually do not think you do a good job of passing down cultural values

00:24:00.620 by forcing people to read the same books you read as a kid because those will be drowned out by wider

00:24:06.220 cultural influences and and this is what people believe they go well if you read the western classics

00:24:12.000 you will come to respect the western tradition and it's like the problem is is you're trying to create

00:24:17.860 a westernized maybe even christianized version of a yeshiva but this is a jewish college thing that

00:24:24.860 you go to for two years where you learn about jewish uh cultural history and religion but the

00:24:30.120 problem is is you don't pair that with pride that's no that's really huge i can give a good example of

00:24:36.100 this with shakespeare because i i was taught shakespeare in school obviously like a lot of us

00:24:41.020 where i don't know if they do it so much anymore but when i was taught shakespeare in middle school and

00:24:47.100 high school i would do things like write essays about how there's documented proof in romeo and juliet

00:24:53.200 that juliet was brain damaged and this is the most stupid story about a bunch of like retarded people

00:24:58.620 who literally are killing themselves because they're just literally like brain damaged and then

00:25:04.080 and i hated it and i hated everything about shakespeare but then my mom she loved shakespeare

00:25:09.660 and when she she would work with me to memorize sonnets she would go through various elements of it take

00:25:17.400 me to place and then annotate it with me and then i came to love it so the point i'm making here is

00:25:25.600 it is more important if you're trying to influence the directionality of your your children that you

00:25:32.180 teach them what to have pride in more than the specific things that you teach them well more than

00:25:39.500 that though and this has to do with our shelter don't shelter annotate rule which is that it's it's not

00:25:45.220 about exposing your children to information or not exposing them to information or sheltering them

00:25:49.460 from it it's about how you help them interpret it and your interpretation is really important like the

00:25:54.820 way you translate anything to a kid is super important but i i'll say i i do not like your your

00:25:59.440 taxonomy of advice categories i would categorize it quite differently okay go for it so category one

00:26:05.060 is advice that is taught about who you and your family are and what makes you different from other

00:26:12.960 families i got a lot of this from both sides of my family but it was always framed as well you're a

00:26:19.680 collins and that means x or y and it's often taught through and anecdotes about your ancestors so like i was

00:26:29.300 taught about the ancestor who had nine daughters and so he you know but he didn't let them get out of work

00:26:36.000 and so he built special harnesses so that instead of having to buy animals like like oxen and beast of

00:26:43.220 verdon his family would would pull the plow and and this was miles actually and then malcolm an ancestor

00:26:50.560 named malcolm uh was known for having an arm that didn't work because you know when they he was the

00:26:56.800 kid his brother fell off the roof but he was told to not be playing they were sent to the roof by their

00:27:02.740 dad who was about to have a very important business meeting and he said don't play and don't interrupt

00:27:06.100 the meeting but so he held him so long until the meeting was over that his arm ended up going

00:27:11.480 necrotic and dying to keep his brother from getting injured falling off the roof yes and and this is a

00:27:18.100 story i mean obviously these stories are meant to tell you things about our family our family is

00:27:22.300 ruthless in in in work ethic you know work ethic matters above all else and that they care about

00:27:30.500 family and they care about family above all else um and i was even told this all the time as a kid

00:27:36.100 it's a it's not about the iq it's the i will is what my mom always said and this was taught through

00:27:41.900 the way they relate to me so something i remember very vividly about being a kid is the only thing i

00:27:47.860 was never allowed to see was any iq tests or any major testing results when i was younger

00:27:55.420 oh interesting my mom would not let me see any of them i presume because i did very well on them

00:28:01.660 was was was sort of my understanding from my later scores on these tests i mean i did you know get a

00:28:08.100 stanford mba and a saint andrews undergrad and you did very well in both of those institutions

00:28:13.160 a lot if they started out as abysmal well i mean i was actually i was in the school the the they don't

00:28:19.200 even have these anymore but i was in what's called the program yeah where they would take you out of

00:28:22.820 classes and then take you with all the other smartest kids in the school in public school

00:28:26.920 they've shut most of these down which is sad because they were really good for these kids i

00:28:30.960 think a lot of research has found that that kids with uniquely high iqs are basically just another

00:28:38.280 version of special needs kids and when not accommodated they think they have higher rates

00:28:42.680 of behavioral problems higher rates of dropouts like they also need accommodation but screw them

00:28:48.360 because apparently iq gives you an advantage there's this form of like family you know what's

00:28:53.640 expected of you and everything like that and things that family do and the other pastor and through

00:28:57.720 family stories but also through expectations like as i said the not showing me the i my test scores

00:29:04.480 ever i think was very clearly my parents trying to say to me remember you know any anything you're

00:29:12.120 born with isn't something you should be proud of you know if you're born naturally talented that

00:29:17.100 only means you need to work twice as hard because the world deserves more you know the world needs

00:29:23.620 more from you and this was something i was i was actually regularly told as a young kid and not just

00:29:28.640 by my parents but by other family members was that like well you know you you were born in a position

00:29:34.720 of privilege because more is expected of you than is expected of other people and the the i thought that

00:29:42.880 that was really interesting then the next category of advice i would i would call like one off like

00:29:48.920 naggy advice which you see across many cultural traditions and i definitely got this within my

00:29:54.120 family this is the type of advice that my mom gave there right like you're gonna fail you're you're you

00:29:59.480 you look ugly simone is a vortex of failure as she called you you know i never got this by the way so

00:30:05.400 this was only something i think you ever got from your mom yeah and i've seen it in other cultures

00:30:09.980 i've seen it as depicted in greek and jewish culture as well which is very much just like you

00:30:15.520 know constantly calling you up and being like hey are you doing this right are you doing this right

00:30:20.020 like you you look ugly i saw you on the news and you didn't have your hair done right fix it you know

00:30:26.680 i'm collecting your hair if we got a dollar i remember growing up i had a lisp for example and so

00:30:32.120 she'd say something like if you don't fix that lisp you're gonna sound faggy and no girl will ever want

00:30:37.220 have sex with you and i love that that's the way she framed it as well right like i mean this has

00:30:43.100 transferred a little bit to the way we talk to our kids right which is that she didn't try to like

00:30:48.700 fancy up the communicative language she knows with me she was very because again we're from the

00:30:55.880 backwards cultural tradition particularly her which is basically american redneck culture and what that

00:31:01.480 means is is you you you don't you know overly formalize how you're communicating with your kid

00:31:07.540 right like and and you talk in terms of things that you think that they will care about like i bet you

00:31:12.920 know he's a young man he wants sex right so i will say if you do x you won't get y which is a thing that

00:31:21.220 presumably you want but you also show cultural values another category is in the things that people say

00:31:29.460 uh that chafe against the the system that you find yourself in so one of the you know i was at a

00:31:36.480 boarding school at one point and my mom was coming over and she heard i was on you know probation and

00:31:43.040 she's like what are you on probation for and i was like well i was caught was a girl in my room

00:31:46.680 and i was how were you that sloppy i had girls in my room a lot okay i you gotta sneak them in

00:31:56.660 right and then sometimes people will walk in or they catch you sneaking somebody in or they see

00:32:03.360 you walking towards the door and was a girl i mean if you're climbing through a window they can see

00:32:07.340 that right you gotta be quite you know one of my tactics was to dress them up like pizza delivery

00:32:12.240 oh my gosh yeah but then what if they don't see the pizza delivery leave do they start checking the

00:32:17.460 rooms you know but anyway i was caught with a girl in my room and my mom said to me what they don't

00:32:23.660 let you sleep with people or drink what do they think you guys are doing you're teenagers and and

00:32:29.700 that's very much like uh you know we within this culture don't you don't care about these types of

00:32:37.000 uptight rules so so that's one way that advice is given but then there's also and i find that naggy

00:32:43.500 advice doesn't really work well i've seen it in asian cultures as well i've seen in jewish culture i've

00:32:48.380 seen it in greek culture i i don't see it in most waspy cultures to be honest and or at least when

00:32:54.440 it's in waspy cultures it appears more and this might be a backwoods thing where i've seen it it

00:32:58.720 appears more aggressive and mean spirited or maybe passive aggressive is a better way no no no no no no

00:33:05.720 no and when i've heard it in jewish culture and greek culture it's comes off as very passive aggressive

00:33:11.520 like oh why i thought you were afraid i think in waspy culture it comes across as more

00:33:17.000 so so it at least was in the backwoods culture where my mom comes from right she'd never say

00:33:23.000 something like oh malcolm i i see you haven't brought a girl home you know that when are you

00:33:30.440 going to bring a pretty girl home or something like that like your brother or something you know

00:33:34.420 like i see that a lot was in jewish culture that's like when are you going to do x like x person

00:33:38.840 in asian culture they they do this a lot as well my mom would never say something like that it would

00:33:44.220 be something like oh i bet you're not getting any because you you come off like a puss like you know

00:33:51.340 if you stop and and what i really appreciated her advice around like finding a partner or something

00:33:58.480 like that is it was very outcome driven she never gave me advice like one like the passive aggressive

00:34:05.400 like why haven't you done x it's like oh you need to be doing more y so that you can get more c right

00:34:12.860 you you need to be yeah sometimes her plans were ridiculous like i i need to get invited to more

00:34:20.020 debutante balls but i wasn't friends was the type of people who had debutante balls she was that was in

00:34:25.380 her generation i can't go i i can imagine like more crazy advice to somebody who's going to school in

00:34:32.600 scotland at saint andrews and then went to high school in new england where they just don't do

00:34:38.100 that you know she was from texas right of course they do that in texas but i i also think that there's

00:34:44.160 another category of advice which i call like broad life advice and so you know the the best advice i was

00:34:50.600 given here that was traditional family advice that was something that my dad did and i was told by my

00:34:56.740 grandmother and this is advice i would genuinely recommend to anyone watching this if you're you're

00:35:02.420 a young person watching this and you're like what's what's really good advice because this is what you

00:35:05.240 were hinting at at the beginning it's that you should think of your life as divided into life

00:35:09.880 stages um and what you do and want within each of those life stages is going to change and society

00:35:18.660 today so doesn't prepare kids for this in fact it's so bad as i was reading the zizian article on

00:35:27.960 ziz who has this ea person who went on puberty blockers as a young kid and went trans and the

00:35:33.940 reason they really did this was because they're afraid of going through puberty would turn them

00:35:37.000 into a different person and and that they were so you know insistent on maintaining who they were

00:35:41.920 and i think that this also causes you know ea and rationalist fear that they're not taught about

00:35:46.400 these transitions that you go through in life of of of death right where i don't remember ever really

00:35:51.660 being particularly afraid of that at all in my life and the reason is is because i was taught that

00:35:58.920 well you know when you're young you have these goals like your goal is to build the best you you are the

00:36:05.820 tool that you will have access to throughout your entire life make that tool the best tool it can be

00:36:11.320 and i remember every day when i went to school that's what i was thinking after school when i would

00:36:15.720 study extracurricular things i was like i am doing this as simone knows i would listen to lectures

00:36:21.200 constantly like university lectures when i got tapes and and and courses of them and i'd go through like

00:36:27.180 48 hour lecture you know every every week on deep like phd level topics because i i was told to do

00:36:35.160 this i was like you are making yourself the best weapon possible as an adult don't waste your time

00:36:40.980 on anything that won't add to that so i really really really focused on that and then it was

00:36:47.200 okay well when you're a bit older you know then you want to be looking for a spouse then you want to be

00:36:52.560 having kids and building a career then you want to be dedicating yourself to public service and growing

00:36:58.260 your reputation within the community and the reason why even if you don't follow these individual like

00:37:04.100 life stages that's why i'm not going into the stages in detail if you want to read them you can read

00:37:07.300 the pragmatist guy to crafting religion is for like one dollar on amazon but uh the the the wider

00:37:13.180 framework here is that and this was so important to me being able to be as happy and successful as i am

00:37:20.880 now as an adult understanding that it's not just what i dedicate my time to at different life stages

00:37:29.100 but to let go of the last life stage like when you're a a a young person you know you might you

00:37:37.420 know get status or get self-affirmation by chasing sexual partners and then you become an older person

00:37:44.680 and you say and i see a lot of people they are still doing this when their biology often and i i can

00:37:52.220 sort of tell this no longer is rewarding them in the way it did when they were younger because our bodies

00:37:57.300 were built to shift it's not just at puberty that you shift it's when you get to like three kids we've

00:38:02.500 talked about this in other videos it's when you define a long-term partner your biology undergoes

00:38:07.700 many shifts and the things that you get satisfaction from and if you are searching from satisfaction in ways

00:38:15.140 that you found it in the past rather than the way that you are programmed to find it in the moment

00:38:19.620 you will often not find it and if you over invest in a form of satisfaction for a particular moment

00:38:27.860 like you know teenagers get a lot of satisfaction from personal validation and so many of them get

00:38:34.260 tricked into restructuring their lives around quests for personal validation which i think a lot of

00:38:40.420 the gender stuff and a lot of the trans movement comes downstream of and so they they search for

00:38:46.020 this personal validation or or pleasure and then they realize you know me as an adult who is kids

00:38:53.060 i see the way that they laugh at and interact with the world and i know that their whole ranges

00:39:00.180 of emotion that i will never be able to feel again and there's no reason to be sad about that because i'm

00:39:05.780 not that person anymore that person is functionally dead and it's good that that person is dead because

00:39:12.900 that's what it means to grow up it is a failure state you know when i was a kid i was like a hardcore

00:39:18.580 goth not like goss but like goss punky very jingo jeans i had my own thing going on you know and i

00:39:26.660 remember when i did all that i would look at the older punks slash goss and and the thought that ran

00:39:35.220 through my head was what a disgusting loser you know and i knew at that time while i was indulging

00:39:44.020 in that form of rebellion that it was not even a phase it was just a form of of culture that i was

00:39:51.060 opting into because i was young because i was youth maxing and that what i wanted from myself in my next

00:39:57.780 stage of life had nothing to do with what i was doing in this stage of my life at this stage i

00:40:04.100 wanted to be rebellious and sleep around i'm not saying that you should sleep around at this stage

00:40:08.580 but i was told actually by my mom that i should be doing this she's like you're a guy if you are high

00:40:14.580 status if you are successful you know you prove that by sleeping around which was bad advice but it was

00:40:20.900 it was advice that i got from my parents and i took to heart and i i will not be giving to my kids

00:40:26.180 but i i wonder is that like intergenerational like cultural memory there but i think that that's one

00:40:34.500 of the most important pieces of life advice that anyone can internalize is that who you are doesn't just

00:40:42.100 change in life it's a failure if it doesn't you have seriously effed up if you are still searching

00:40:47.860 for the things that gave you pleasure and validation in your mid-20s in your early 30s

00:40:54.020 or in your you know mid-40s right like you are supposed to go through a cycle of self-transformation

00:41:01.380 you know at least every decade you're not supposed to stagnate you're not supposed to optimize around

00:41:08.180 one particular outcome which i thought was always really good life advice i got from my parents the

00:41:13.380 other piece of advice i didn't get this to my parents but other the other category of life advice

00:41:17.140 i'd say is advice from an individual's own life so like my dad telling me hey if you make a lot of

00:41:22.020 money that's where's this thing that happened to me and here's how it played out yeah yeah here's how

00:41:27.540 you can avoid this thing uh and i would i would certainly i don't i don't have that much of that

00:41:33.140 type of advice for my kids i i guess the big category of advice that i would have there for my kids

00:41:39.620 comes from annoying things that my parents did that i'm glad that i don't do and i would be afraid

00:41:46.740 that i can't have that reference point for my kids where i was like oh my god i i so appreciative of my

00:41:53.140 parents for being so annoying in this way so that i never do that because clearly i have it in my genes

00:41:58.340 a tendency to maybe do that but this is stuff that may not be you know relevant to other people like

00:42:04.100 you know don't you know overly bring up in conversations you know your particular in the

00:42:10.820 moment challenges like other people don't care to hear about that right do you do you have thoughts

00:42:16.820 advice well i'm i'm curious to know what you think people should intentionally do with regard to

00:42:27.700 advice or lack thereof with their own kids because i think a lot of people either didn't receive advice

00:42:33.300 from their parents or felt like feel like the advice they received from their parents is no longer

00:42:38.020 relevant or they didn't really like it so what what do you think what would you see other parents doing

00:42:43.060 that you thought was meaningful because i mean i have strong opinions on these things like i don't

00:42:48.340 actually care that much about the i mean i give i guess i give our kids advice a lot because i will

00:42:56.180 tell them like hey if you're unpleasant to be around no one's gonna want to be around you and you won't

00:43:01.300 get things out of them so maybe you should try to be a little more pleasant or but i think what's

00:43:06.420 more important is is us modeling things like i said before i think and we've seen i think one one thing

00:43:11.300 that i really hate is when people try to outsource advice or or training like we've seen some people

00:43:16.340 say oh you know we've hired this cook and we've hired this maid and we've hired this fix-it person

00:43:22.420 and you know we we make a point of having our kids watch them work so that they learn from them

00:43:27.620 and what their kids are learning in my opinion is that hired help does this stuff and it's so funny

00:43:34.980 that somebody would because somebody you know told us this is parenting advice and and someone

00:43:39.540 told us this is parenting advice and we've seen parents actively do this and say that that's

00:43:44.420 proudly that they they have their kids observe them and learn it reminds me of there's a south

00:43:49.620 park episode that's making fun of this okay it has come to my attention lately that young people

00:43:54.820 today don't know how to do you got your phones and your ai and you kids haven't learned to be able

00:43:59.940 to actually do anything so we're going to take this morning to learn how to fix something

00:44:04.740 see this see this the oven door isn't working it's falling off the hinges so what do we do

00:44:12.820 shelly i don't know it's very simple you got to make the hinges tighter so the oven door is more

00:44:20.260 secure so what you do is you take out your phone and you call the handyman

00:44:26.580 hello hello it's randy marsh my oven door is not working please come fix it now we rest until the

00:44:37.140 handyman comes

00:44:45.780 are you following this at all guys is this seeping in but what i actually do and Simone knows this is i

00:44:53.380 i have a policy that whenever we call somebody to fix something in my house that they i get to watch

00:44:58.340 them and they have to explain to me how they did what they did so that i can always do it the next

00:45:02.660 time now what's really fascinating to me is that an individual like a man could come to me and say

00:45:12.580 this is advice i'm going to give to my kids and i would say but wait why didn't you do this why didn't

00:45:20.420 you know how to fix all of these things yourself because you had the people come when you were you

00:45:25.620 know now and you learned it from these people so that you could teach your kids when i teach my kid

00:45:31.940 how to fix a sink it is going to be because i personally called the fix it guy and watched him

00:45:37.300 fix the sink right yeah you don't have your kids learn from the fix it guy you have your kids learn

00:45:41.620 from you after you learned from the fix it guy right but the point here being is you are intentionally

00:45:47.220 signaling to your kids that this isn't actually a cultural value of yours or you would have done

00:45:51.540 it yourself yeah actions speak louder than words something i forgot to talk about here is why people

00:45:58.180 stopped passing down their cultural values and i think one of the core reasons is society developed a

00:46:04.180 narrative downstream of a psychologist culture that a lot of or pretty much all of a person's problems

00:46:11.380 could be blamed on somebody else primarily their parents and so when you can you know sort of

00:46:17.780 externalize any of your personality faults to being your parents fault then you begin to think that

00:46:23.700 parenting is this huge dangerous walking on eggshells saying where you might mess up your kids and then

00:46:30.580 you think okay well if anything i can do might mess up my kids what i should just do is tell them

00:46:36.420 nothing do nothing and then this becomes normalized so that's like that's my big thing but how what

00:46:42.740 other advice would you give to people as they contemplate intentionally guiding their children

00:46:48.500 through explicit or implicit advice what would i do i mean i i think that the most important things

00:46:57.460 are one tight easy to remember analogies or stories like the ancestors your ancestor did

00:47:06.260 x your ancestor did y very vivid and easy to remember yeah the the other thing that's very vivid and easy

00:47:13.140 to remember are simple it's not iq it's i will oh yeah quippy easy but but these come with other things like if

00:47:24.580 your son comes to you and they are proud because i remember you know like i get proud if i did well on

00:47:31.140 a test or something like that and what was always said is well i mean that's the minimum that's expected

00:47:37.380 of you like what have you done outside of school like and and also this this this belief that you're

00:47:43.540 supposed to show it in your work ethic not just in the results like it's not like they weren't results

00:47:50.820 focused it's that they wanted the results but they wanted work on top of the results and the results

00:47:58.180 weren't the purpose in and of themselves so like you know you you wouldn't be praised like in some

00:48:04.820 asian families i see people be like praised for good grades i don't remember ever in my entire

00:48:12.180 childhood being praised for good grades and and i did get you know good grades occasionally and i got

00:48:17.860 bad grades occasionally i remember being scolded for bad grades i remember being told which my mom

00:48:23.220 actually picked up from the movie clueless that grades were just a jumping off point for negotiations

00:48:28.180 and that was something that i i really took to heart in the way i related to grades and teachers

00:48:32.580 and i cannot tell you the number of times i got my grade up i'd say like 80 of the time when my grade

00:48:38.020 was bad and the teacher gave it to me and i go okay you know meet me after class we're going to work on

00:48:44.020 a way to fix this and improve this very you know depending on your environment many teachers if they have

00:48:49.700 a student who's like i want to improve this i want to improve myself you know meet with me when they

00:48:54.660 understand that you will work as long as it takes to to get that grade up eventually they just move

00:49:00.580 the grades up and they learn not to give you bad grades that's that's really what i think i i learned

00:49:04.980 with the teachers but it was a form of of sort of training you trained them yes but i i think with a

00:49:13.380 a lot of people they're the and then the other thing i'd say is the other most important thing

00:49:19.300 you teach with your kids is value what should they have pride in what shouldn't they have pride in and

00:49:24.740 and then the next is a life path it was very clear that my parents didn't have like a

00:49:32.020 oh you should you know follow this religion or that religion they really didn't care about that

00:49:36.980 they definitely didn't say oh you should want this or this from a life path it was more like well you

00:49:42.980 know we will be disappointed in you if you don't seriously consider why you're alive you know think

00:49:48.260 about what life paths you might want and then build a plan to achieve that but i think that that of

00:49:54.020 all the lessons i got from my parents is the most important thing through this is like i i think

00:49:58.660 adjacent to the you know life comes in stages is the think about what you want know why you want

00:50:06.660 those things why those things are ethical to want and then build a structured pathway from how you get

00:50:12.260 from where you are today to where you have those things and we've even built like holidays around

00:50:18.180 that i mean that's what future day is really about for our kids absolutely is thinking about the

00:50:22.580 future that they want and then understanding that they have agency over that and they're expected

00:50:26.980 to act on that agency that's good i like that that's good so i really appreciate megan kicking

00:50:33.620 off this topic and hopefully it helps some young people not exactly great for the algorithm probably

00:50:39.380 because it's it's not spicy or controversial but i suspect it is likely helpful to a lot of people

00:50:46.180 and it would be nice if in the comments or the discord when people are talking about this

00:50:50.100 if they could be like oh i was from x culture and i got advice in this category and not in this

00:50:56.580 category yeah we'd like to know like i genuinely want other people's opinions

00:51:01.460 yeah love you to death love you too gorgeous

00:51:06.180 yes you'll be vindicated to know that our harsh words about nurses were largely vindicated that one

00:51:14.740 person pointed out in the comments they were like you're being really mean to nurses which i don't

00:51:19.460 want to be i mean i have two family members who are nurses and they're great but i've also seen

00:51:25.380 nurses say really bizarrely you mean other people in the comments were like yes i agree with you on

00:51:30.820 nurses as as a retired nurse yes as a former male nurse yes like yes i'm finally someone's talking

00:51:37.140 about nurses and how bizarrely uninformed they are yeah i don't know what's going on there but

00:51:44.820 yeah at least i think at least three people who were current or former nurses chimed in to say

00:51:52.740 thank you for saying that which i would expect a nurse instead if this weren't true to come in and be

00:51:58.980 like oh maybe there's some field where this is a problem but in my field nurses are very well informed

00:52:05.860 and very thoughtful about their overall approach to medicine i i thought the the the take on discord

00:52:13.300 from a nurse that all that everyone they've met who goes into nursing is either a saint or a complete

00:52:19.700 slut is was very interesting as well but i can see nursing be appealing to both groups

00:52:26.820 individuals who want a stable a decent income job where they can just hit it hedonism max on their

00:52:33.300 spare time nursing works really well for that plus it had a bunch of shows that made it look really

00:52:38.580 glamorous yeah like that came out at the age where people our age would have been watching you know

00:52:44.340 scrubs and house and everything like that and making these decisions with those shows in mind

00:52:48.740 where everybody hospital shows yeah yeah but then for the saint person you know if you're somebody

00:52:54.020 who wants to dedicate your life to like treating the injured and stuff like that and is very dedicated to

00:52:59.300 that i can see a lot of people going into that but i was surprised to hear about all of the mysticism

00:53:04.500 in the nursing field and somebody was writing about the other thing is is the that it's it's like a

00:53:11.620 whole thing and the the that the autoimmune disorders they were saying that were weirdly almost always

00:53:16.740 caused by breast surgery implants i don't know anyway it was weird we're going over the the episode that

00:53:24.500 we did that you reviewed today which was which one was it it was the one on the progressives who think

00:53:30.260 we're living in a different timeline crazy to look into any other interesting trends in the comments

00:53:37.460 no just people being entertained by the delusional nature of many people on the left i mean you know

00:53:45.620 because it's satisfying and i i get it also people appreciating the chris chan references so

00:53:51.300 i've i've you know i sometimes check to see if we yet you know with all the press we get and all

00:53:59.540 the the the hate we get from the left because you know we're eccentric right if if we are yet seen as

00:54:06.660 wool cows like chris chan if we are on god what is that site where they they document them all the

00:54:12.100 time new i want to say new grounds but no it's not new grounds it's something else do you know what i'm

00:54:16.740 talking about where they yeah i'm so bad with names too that like ayla has a profile on there but we

00:54:23.140 we still don't oh yeah the low cows place kiwi farms yeah kiwi farms yes i'm shocked but i guess we're

00:54:30.580 probably not interesting to people like that because we're so self-aware and intentional about the way we

00:54:35.140 do all this and that they would find that boring and and unappetizing as a source of drama

00:54:41.380 it's good stuff wow are you a gentleman are you a good-looking dude

00:54:54.260 okay get the front get those bangs neat and tidy yeah all right i am what better yeah i have the

00:55:03.780 photos it's it's giving kevin from home alone what do you think yeah yeah okay looking good all right

00:55:11.220 now close it up and you can take it down to your room all right i cannot take it

Based Camp - July 25, 2025

Why Did Parents Stop Giving Advice？

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