Based Camp - Why do Lower Income Parents Find More Joy In Kids？

00:00:00.000 What this graph demonstrates that both the percentage of parents saying that they find

00:00:04.420 being a parent is enjoyable or rewarding, highest among lower income people.

00:00:10.780 A lot of people don't realize that when you define your personal goals around hedonism,

00:00:16.300 like I am having a kid to be happier, that kid will always provide you with less happiness

00:00:21.280 than if you are having a kid because it is your ideological duty to have the kid.

00:00:25.340 The happiness that you get from tasks that you do because you think they are a thing

00:00:30.920 of intrinsic value and not to make yourself happy will always give you more durable happiness

00:00:37.700 than the person who is chasing hedonism in and of itself.

00:00:41.160 But the urban monoculture doesn't tell people that.

00:00:44.140 It tells people that the highest order goal in anyone's life should be sort of the mass

00:00:51.000 distribution of hedonism.

00:00:52.220 Would you like to know more?

00:00:53.280 Hello, Simone. 0.69

00:00:56.080 You sent me an interesting graph today that I want to talk about because it speaks to

00:01:00.540 a point that we often talk about within the prenatalist movement where we will say lower

00:01:05.080 income individuals have more children than higher income individuals.

00:01:09.880 This is true between and within countries.

00:01:12.400 So that means on average, the less wealth the country has, the more kids, the higher

00:01:15.700 fertility rate is going to be, but also within countries.

00:01:17.960 In general, like if you look at the US until you get to like really extreme levels of wealth,

00:01:22.720 which we've talked about in our other video, like the will child support cause speciation

00:01:27.820 video, you do get a high fertility rate again at extreme levels of wealth.

00:01:30.820 But generally, the less wealth you have, the more kids you have.

00:01:33.680 And I think a lot of people, like especially like wealthier people, when they hear us say

00:01:39.060 this are like, oh, well, that's just because these terribly uneducated people are just miserably 0.99

00:01:45.920 having children because of their dumb religious beliefs or because they're too dumb to use birth 1.00

00:01:51.280 control properly. 1.00

00:01:53.020 And they then would, of course, the assumption there is if that is really true, if that is

00:01:57.580 what is happening, these are the most miserable parents, right?

00:02:01.520 Of course, because they don't have the resources for their kids, right?

00:02:04.060 Because raising a child is so expensive these days. 0.99

00:02:07.820 And because of course, they're having children by mistake because they're so dumb to not use 0.99

00:02:12.660 birth control properly. 0.98

00:02:14.120 So these wealthy parents, yeah, they're the ones who are having the fulfilling parenting

00:02:18.920 experience.

00:02:19.740 One would assume, of course, because they were, they paid all the IVF to have their children 1.00

00:02:24.560 at age 55 and they wanted their children and they had the resources.

00:02:28.480 More than that, I think that there is a level of within the urban elite in our society today,

00:02:34.240 this urban monoculture we talk about, a dehumanization of the lower classes in America.

00:02:40.960 You don't think, you don't think.

00:02:42.600 Well, no, I mean, you say you think, but it's something that they, I do not think, realize

00:02:46.740 that they have done.

00:02:48.120 Well, especially the woke masses believe that they are the champions of the poor and uneducated.

00:02:54.000 Yeah, well, that's just what they say.

00:02:55.320 They're like, yeah, I'm the champion of the little guy.

00:02:57.100 And then you're like, the little guy is the people who you're like dehumanizing in these,

00:03:04.580 you know, and you see this in their language, you know, the quote unquote uneducated.

00:03:09.420 And, and, and the reality is, is that they don't champion the little guy.

00:03:13.880 They are a group that defines-

00:03:15.920 They've never freaking met the little guy.

00:03:17.540 Like the vast majority of these people.

00:03:19.840 Yeah.

00:03:20.480 They don't, they don't care.

00:03:21.780 They don't have an understanding.

00:03:23.240 They, they really, and their policies generally make things worse for the little guy.

00:03:27.880 And the little guy could tell them that, but they just don't want to hear it.

00:03:30.460 What they want is centralized control and an expansion of the bureaucracy, which is what

00:03:37.100 they're really fighting for because this expanded bureaucracy increases the number of

00:03:41.440 jobs that they can have, which actually, before we go into the graph that you sent me, we'll

00:03:45.960 go into a graph that I sent you that demonstrates this phenomenon.

00:03:50.440 This is the version of sex.

00:03:51.320 This is the graph.

00:03:52.520 We send graphs to each other and we're like, oh, look at my data.

00:03:55.600 Look at my data.

00:03:56.540 This is a graph called growth in education staffing has far outpaced student enrollment.

00:04:01.680 Oh yes.

00:04:02.480 When you, oh my gosh, you shared this to me the other day when I think yesterday when

00:04:05.920 I was out in Harrisburg, right?

00:04:07.460 And oh my God.

00:04:09.500 So if you look at since the 1970s, there has been an 8% increase in student enrollment in

00:04:15.360 the US, a 60% increase in teaching staff and a 138% increase in non-teaching staff.

00:04:22.560 And this is something we're seeing in the university system as well and stuff like that.

00:04:25.780 Wherever this ultra progressive movement has concentrated itself, they expand the number

00:04:32.300 of jobs that are in these essentially like cash for nothing programs, right?

00:04:37.620 And let's be very clear.

00:04:38.960 There is no correlation between this and improved student outcomes.

00:04:42.560 Yes.

00:04:43.140 Oh, and this is really true.

00:04:44.380 If you look at like the amount of money going into school systems and stuff like that, anybody

00:04:48.020 who is telling you we will pump more money into the school system and get higher outcomes

00:04:52.020 is just not relating to the data that we have right now.

00:04:56.640 No, and if there were massive reform in the public school system, this could theoretically

00:05:00.540 be possible.

00:05:01.160 But right now putting money into the school system means giving money to teachers unions

00:05:04.680 means basically feeding the bureaucracy and the adults, not the children.

00:05:08.320 But the bureaucracy is important for this quote unquote educated class that believes that they

00:05:15.600 deserve basically a dole from the state for existing.

00:05:20.240 And then when, you know, I love it.

00:05:22.040 So many people, they grow up so much in this class that you're now getting like this like

00:05:24.940 anti-work movement and stuff like that, where they're like even horrified at the idea that

00:05:29.760 humans have to work for a living because they have been grown up expecting that each and every

00:05:35.520 one of them is so upper class in their expectations that they get to live with a planted gentry. 1.00

00:05:42.280 Yeah, no, it is, it is completely insane.

00:05:44.700 It is, it is.

00:05:45.280 What they really mean when they say no work is they mean no work for the college educated.

00:05:49.620 They still expect someone to support them.

00:05:51.360 They still expect someone to support them.

00:05:52.180 Because yeah, someone has to deliver their food.

00:05:54.420 Who's going to do their doordash? 0.73

00:05:56.180 Who's going to pick their toilet? 1.00

00:05:57.020 Those aren't really humans to them.

00:05:58.440 Like they genuinely, I do not think see these people as humans.

00:06:01.020 No, no, no, no.

00:06:01.380 Like literally though.

00:06:02.160 Oh my God, Malcolm.

00:06:02.780 Cause I, I just spent like the, I just spent the past more than two weeks every afternoon

00:06:08.080 out door knocking freaking cold and the way that people treat you when you were like someone

00:06:13.020 who knocks on their door, it is insane.

00:06:15.040 And I'm like, I'm heavily pregnant now and it's obvious it is, it is completely wild.

00:06:20.260 Just yeah.

00:06:20.780 Like strangers or people seen as like delivery people.

00:06:24.660 And you know what though?

00:06:25.820 Like the, you know, who was the one consistent group of people when I was out door knocking,

00:06:29.780 who was incredibly nice to me and will always wish me luck, delivery people.

00:06:35.960 They're like, Hey, what are you up to?

00:06:37.300 You know?

00:06:37.560 And I'm like, Oh, I'm doing this.

00:06:38.500 I'm like, Hey, good luck.

00:06:39.280 You know, I don't live in your district, but you'd have my vote.

00:06:42.740 You know, just it's so weird, this striation.

00:06:44.900 And then I also saw how the delivery people were treated by the people in the neighborhoods

00:06:49.800 I was walking around.

00:06:51.260 Just like me.

00:06:52.380 It is wild.

00:06:53.260 Yeah.

00:06:53.380 So just, yeah, I, no, no, but it is shocking because you have this art student and you're

00:06:57.920 like, you, you could become a delivery person.

00:06:59.840 They're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:07:02.260 I am above that kind of work.

00:07:04.000 I have this degree that's now made pointless by AI, but hold on.

00:07:08.420 So let's get to this graph that you shared with me, because it was pretty surprising

00:07:12.020 even to me.

00:07:12.540 I mean, I'll admit that I was to some extent affected by this bias.

00:07:17.800 When people, and I think another reason why you are affected by it is if, for example,

00:07:22.500 we look at the fertility crash in Latin America and we see analysts saying, oh, well, the

00:07:27.040 reason why fertility is crashing is because all these unwanted children aren't being had 0.99

00:07:31.860 by these teen mothers in Latin America and therefore blah, blah, blah, which implies 0.96

00:07:35.660 that the people who had a lot of kids in the past really weren't ready to have them, really

00:07:39.620 didn't want to have them, weren't, you know, this was not their thing.

00:07:42.340 So you would assume that there's a lot of misery around the city.

00:07:44.760 You know, we just, everywhere the data implies that.

00:07:46.980 Hold on.

00:07:47.700 This data comes from the U.S.

00:07:49.200 And so I think that you're seeing something different here.

00:07:51.300 No, no, well, yes, because this is, we're talking about now and we're talking about

00:07:54.720 the U.S.

00:07:55.200 And, and, and as we point out, yeah, like more lower income people have more kids, but

00:07:59.860 yeah.

00:08:00.080 So let's go over this graph, what this graph demonstrates.

00:08:02.980 And of course it's not profound, but it shows that both the percentage of parents saying that

00:08:08.820 they find being a parent is enjoyable or rewarding highest among lower income people.

00:08:14.940 So 38% of lower income people and 36% of lower income people find parenting to be either enjoyable

00:08:23.800 or rewarding all the time, 38 and 36 respectively.

00:08:27.140 You know, you're getting, sorry.

00:08:28.760 I'm sorry.

00:08:29.180 And sorry, 38 and 43%.

00:08:31.960 So 38%, I'll, I'll read the graph here.

00:08:34.940 Thanks.

00:08:35.220 Yeah, go ahead.

00:08:35.680 So 38% of lower income individuals find being a parent enjoyable all the time and 49% in

00:08:46.680 addition to that.

00:08:47.700 So 86% of lower income people in total find being a parent, very enjoyable all of the time

00:08:53.420 or most of the time.

00:08:54.320 Now, if you contrast this with upper income people, instead of 38% all of the time, it

00:09:00.340 is 14% all of the time for upper income people.

00:09:03.780 And with middle income people, it's only 21% all of the time.

00:09:07.080 And you also see lower total levels of all of the time or most of the time.

00:09:12.280 So in contrast with the 86% of lower income people that find being a parent enjoyable all

00:09:17.660 of the time or most of the time, you only have 79% within the upper income community.

00:09:22.820 Now, if we talk about the amount that find it rewarding, you actually have about the

00:09:28.340 same rate across all groups.

00:09:30.620 If you're talking about all of the time or most of the time, it's 80, 79, 81.

00:09:35.060 So within one point of each other.

00:09:36.620 But when you talk about all of the time, do they find it rewarding all of the time?

00:09:41.080 The number of lower income people that find it rewarding all the time is 43%.

00:09:45.240 Contrast it with only 28% in the upper income community.

00:09:49.140 So what you're really seeing here is upper income people seem to pretty dramatically and

00:09:55.560 markedly find parenting both less enjoyable and less rewarding.

00:10:01.340 Yeah.

00:10:01.480 And, you know, if I were to like, let's say this graph was presented to us with only the

00:10:04.840 numbers and not the income levels, you know, they're like, okay, well now put the incomes.

00:10:09.120 I would first think to just invert it, right?

00:10:11.980 Because everyone's, oh, well, the reason why people can't become parents, the reason why

00:10:15.660 people are miserable as parents is they don't have enough money.

00:10:17.720 They don't have enough money.

00:10:18.820 And yet, look at this, look at this enjoyable and rewarding.

00:10:22.480 So I think that there's a few things going on here.

00:10:24.960 The first one is one that often isn't talked about, but I do not think that it is totally

00:10:31.380 causal, the correlation between income and parenting.

00:10:34.440 I think that there is a correlational element here, which is to say that if you're the type

00:10:39.000 of person that values family and parenting more, you are going to spend more time on

00:10:45.280 doing that than on maximizing your personal income streams.

00:10:49.920 Oh, no, no.

00:10:50.500 Okay.

00:10:50.720 So there's a, there's a different, the causation moves in a different direction.

00:10:54.320 You're not having more kids because you're poor.

00:10:56.080 You're poor because you're having more kids.

00:10:57.780 Like the Weasleys.

00:10:58.880 Well, you can see you have different life priorities.

00:11:00.840 Yeah.

00:11:01.180 Yeah.

00:11:01.400 Like you're, you're spending your time raising family instead of, you know, pulling.

00:11:05.460 It's not just how you're spending your time.

00:11:07.240 It's how you structure your life.

00:11:08.760 So a good example of this would be us.

00:11:11.380 Okay.

00:11:12.020 I have an MBA from Stanford.

00:11:13.940 It's for people outside of the world of degrees. 0.93

00:11:17.420 It's probably literally the hardest degree to get into in the world.

00:11:21.720 It's much harder to get out than a Harvard MBA, for example.

00:11:24.660 And MBAs are much harder to get than PhDs.

00:11:27.220 I remember one person who was like, you implied you had a graduate degree from Stanford, which

00:11:31.580 would you, which made me think you had a neuroscience PhD from Stanford because you had a neuroscience

00:11:35.860 degree.

00:11:36.380 And that's obviously a lie, like a scam.

00:11:39.260 And I got very frustrated with this because I could have gotten a neuroscience.

00:11:42.580 It would have been astronomically easier to get into the neuroscience PhD program at Stanford

00:11:47.400 than a Stanford MBA.

00:11:49.320 And less expensive.

00:11:51.080 It's literally probably about, if you're talking about the difficulty, the difference between-

00:11:57.280 Oh, no.

00:11:57.780 No, their entrance rates are-

00:11:58.980 Just Google entrance rates.

00:12:01.000 Just Google entrance rates.

00:12:02.080 Yeah.

00:12:03.200 Well, it's not only that, but if you look at like the average scores you need and stuff

00:12:06.740 like that.

00:12:07.220 Yeah.

00:12:07.500 So I was frustrated by that.

00:12:08.960 But what I'm saying is I could demand a very high salary.

00:12:12.680 Simone has a graduate degree from Cambridge.

00:12:14.680 Like, we could demand incredibly high salaries if we wanted to play that game, if we wanted

00:12:21.340 to live in like Manhattan and San Francisco, but we didn't.

00:12:24.400 We moved to rural Pennsylvania, right?

00:12:26.300 Like, we live on a farm, right?

00:12:29.180 Like, we do what we can and our education skills and network gives us some level of financial

00:12:37.340 security that a lot of people wouldn't have.

00:12:39.500 But we would probably be considered middle-income people.

00:12:42.940 I think when I look at the stats or upper middle-income family, whereas we certainly wouldn't

00:12:47.840 need to do that.

00:12:48.760 We are that because we are optimizing around what we value, which is really important.

00:12:55.280 A lot of these people who the chart is looking at as lower income might just be genuinely

00:13:00.200 like they're living in a suburban or rural area where their income is intrinsically going

00:13:04.760 to be less than if they're living in an urban area because of cost of living, for example.

00:13:09.680 And that enables them to have more kids.

00:13:11.720 Yeah.

00:13:12.100 Allowing them to have more kids.

00:13:13.280 So I think that that's one component that we're seeing here.

00:13:16.140 But then the other component I think we're seeing could be, and this is a component that

00:13:20.600 would be for the other side of the argument.

00:13:22.000 It could be that high wealth individuals have access to more compelling competing tasks.

00:13:30.200 Oh, sources of enjoyment and meaning.

00:13:32.060 Meaning that when you are lower income, you can't take fancy trips.

00:13:37.680 You can't engage in charity.

00:13:40.340 You can't join a board and become a big, big fancy person.

00:13:44.780 So this is where I disagree with it.

00:13:46.760 I really don't think that that many things that you could otherwise do are limited when

00:13:52.360 you're lower income.

00:13:54.380 Yeah.

00:13:54.660 To be honest.

00:13:55.720 There really isn't.

00:13:56.500 This is something that one of the...

00:13:57.620 And lower income people are super involved in their communities.

00:13:59.880 For example, when you look at rates of giving to charity and like proportional charity donations,

00:14:04.520 lower income people give the most.

00:14:06.620 Yeah.

00:14:06.860 So this is my roommate when I was at business school.

00:14:09.500 He, smartest person I've ever met, I think.

00:14:11.920 Like just a genuine, one of my favorite moments with him is the, there was this guy in the

00:14:17.840 classroom who was talking about building his app company.

00:14:21.360 He was a guest speaker.

00:14:22.980 Yeah.

00:14:23.120 He was a guest speaker and my roommate, I'm not going to say his name or anything because

00:14:27.320 he's a very private person and he does a lot of what he does through like shell companies.

00:14:31.120 So people don't know that it's all him, but the guest speaker was like, he said, he had

00:14:35.980 said something about how to get like, how their system for ranking apps works and stuff

00:14:39.840 like that.

00:14:40.380 And at that time it was like Apple App Store, right?

00:14:43.820 Yeah.

00:14:44.200 Right.

00:14:44.560 And he like dismissed him.

00:14:46.800 He's, I'm sorry, you, you misunderstand the system.

00:14:49.080 This is how it works.

00:14:50.300 And then the guy said snarkily to him, he goes, how many top 10 Apple App Store apps have

00:14:55.860 you had?

00:14:56.580 And he goes, how many do I have on the top 10 list today?

00:15:00.220 And the guy was just floored because he programs them.

00:15:07.660 He's got a number of shell company he uses to program them.

00:15:10.220 But really smart guy.

00:15:11.520 When we were talking to him about wealth at one point, because he just has an enormous

00:15:15.440 amount of wealth, very humble guy.

00:15:17.540 And he was complaining.

00:15:18.520 He's like, I don't understand the point of being wealthy anymore.

00:15:21.720 Do you remember?

00:15:22.060 He's like all of the things that I used to have exclusive or historically I would have

00:15:26.420 had exclusive access to as an ultra wealthy person.

00:15:28.900 And I, I, I, what I can't, I don't have a private driver anymore.

00:15:33.200 Like you have Uber now, right?

00:15:34.720 Like anyone can have like basically a private driver on demand.

00:15:37.960 I don't have, what was it like food delivered to me anymore?

00:15:40.680 Anyone can do that.

00:15:41.740 Right.

00:15:41.980 Like I don't, he was going through all of the things.

00:15:44.800 Like all these customized services, hiring someone at the drop of a hat to do something

00:15:49.240 for you as an assistant.

00:15:50.200 Oh, we'll just use Upwork.

00:15:51.640 Yeah.

00:15:52.200 Yeah.

00:15:52.440 Yeah.

00:15:52.640 Or, oh, you know, what do I have a band in my house?

00:15:55.120 I can listen to any band in the world, wherever, you know, constantly playing.

00:15:58.800 And he was just going through all of the exclusive things that used to be the realm of the ultra

00:16:04.000 wealthy and the ultra elite, which are now generally accessible to everyone. 0.93

00:16:08.280 In fact, when I look at the wealth gated hobbies right now, a lot of them either suck.

00:16:15.680 I don't know, like sailing or skiing or polo.

00:16:18.820 Yeah.

00:16:18.920 No one actually wants to do that.

00:16:21.440 It's more like a status signal thing or they are hobbies where honestly, the, the expenditure

00:16:29.440 of meaningless wealth is part of the point of the hobby.

00:16:34.640 So here it's collecting would come into a big part of this.

00:16:38.140 I'm talking to you, you Warhammer figure collectors and stuff like that.

00:16:42.840 Um, you know, it's true.

00:16:44.440 You know, all of these collectibles, all of these, you know, uh, I guess, you know, whatever,

00:16:50.160 like the things are going to conferences too, and you're buying all these baubles, which

00:16:53.240 have a increased price due to the scarcity due to all of the people who are collecting

00:16:57.700 them.

00:16:58.160 Yeah.

00:16:58.760 The, yeah.

00:17:00.260 I mean, I think about the hobbies that I have, I'm like, what competes was my time with the

00:17:04.060 kids.

00:17:04.320 Right.

00:17:05.180 Writing, which like, I guess I love writing.

00:17:08.460 I've been having so much fun writing recently.

00:17:09.860 So that's one thing that's not like a wealth gated thing at all.

00:17:13.020 And video games, um, and video games are one of those things where somebody might be

00:17:17.760 like, well, video games have been rising in price recently.

00:17:20.580 And I'm like, if you contrast video game prices today was what they were when we were

00:17:26.360 kids, you know, a new video game, when we were kids used to cost 50 bucks, what you

00:17:30.680 are not taking into account is inflation.

00:17:33.140 I remember I was talking with Simone during the pandemic where I was always shocked that

00:17:36.880 video game prices were rising so much more slowly than they were video games now where

00:17:42.300 you'll get AAA games that are selling for $70 or something like that.

00:17:46.280 Now, $75, uh, for a base game, which is more than they used to sell for.

00:17:51.640 Yeah, but I'm sorry.

00:17:52.360 Superbowl tickets are now $9,000 getting into Disneyland is like 4,000, sorry, $400.

00:17:57.400 It's really my enjoyment of it because another thing that's changed with video games is also

00:18:01.660 the indie game scene.

00:18:02.680 And frankly, I find the AAA games to be a lot less enjoyable than they used to be in

00:18:08.040 the indie games to be a lot more enjoyable.

00:18:10.280 And they're even cheaper than games used to be.

00:18:12.880 And I have things like Epic store that's giving out like a free new often pretty good game

00:18:17.100 like every couple.

00:18:18.740 Yeah.

00:18:19.400 It's not particularly a wealth gated hobby.

00:18:22.100 So I'm thinking like, where are these wealth gated things that are, they don't exist?

00:18:26.560 Well, basically, in other words, yeah, I don't think that that second hypothesis.

00:18:30.060 I want to be clear about this point because people might be misunderstanding me.

00:18:33.620 Yeah.

00:18:34.140 When people don't have a lot of wealth, there are things that they don't have access to

00:18:38.980 that wealthy people do have access to.

00:18:40.920 But those things are not in the category of entertainment.

00:18:45.140 They are in the categories typically of personal safety, personal health, personal ability to

00:18:52.240 do something like, I guess, travel the world on a dime or not have to work.

00:18:56.440 But all of those things don't fall into this category of competing for their entertainment

00:19:02.340 daily time.

00:19:04.580 Exactly.

00:19:05.940 So anyway, yeah, that was really interesting to me.

00:19:09.500 Sorry.

00:19:09.820 Yeah.

00:19:09.840 I just, I mean, the most important thing that I wanted to point out by doing a podcast on

00:19:13.820 this is just that you think that lower income people who are having more kids are doing this

00:19:20.400 by mistake and miserable.

00:19:21.580 No, they, they're finding this extremely satisfying.

00:19:24.420 And I mean, I think a lot of that's, I mean, a lot of the people have a hypothesis.

00:19:29.720 I think I know what the actual answer is, but I want to hear what you were saying.

00:19:32.680 I'm going to say.

00:19:33.740 I think that there's also a correlation between higher levels of, we'll say faith.

00:19:41.240 And that could be a hard culture, any sort of harder culture weirdly correlates with lower

00:19:47.600 income.

00:19:47.900 And I can't really say why maybe lower income leaves more room in your head for faith.

00:19:54.180 But I think that that's probably a big correlatory factor is people of faith in hard cultures

00:19:58.620 are more likely to be pronatalist, are more likely to find the enjoyment and meaning of

00:20:02.960 having kids.

00:20:04.120 And people who are wealthier are far more likely to be part of the urban monoculture and

00:20:08.240 therefore be, if anything, negative utilitarian antinatalists at heart who have children,

00:20:14.460 but then kind of, but I think you're on the fundamental point.

00:20:18.420 Okay.

00:20:18.640 So what is it?

00:20:21.120 Wealthier people are statistically much more likely to be in the urban monoculture than

00:20:25.700 less wealthy people.

00:20:27.160 Isn't that what I was just saying?

00:20:29.160 Well, no, because you were saying that the alternative was faith.

00:20:32.560 And I'm saying the alternative isn't faith.

00:20:34.180 It's just not being in the urban monoculture.

00:20:36.420 Now it often looks like faith.

00:20:38.440 Okay.

00:20:38.780 Faith is one component of this, but you need to keep in mind.

00:20:41.780 If you're less wealthy, regardless of your group.

00:20:45.080 So even if you're a less wealthy Democrat, for example, right, you are often not going

00:20:50.540 to be in the urban monoculture.

00:20:51.740 You're going to be in your local, often like a minority ethnic community. 0.88

00:20:56.520 Like you're going to be ingrained with your local Hispanic, you know, often like Catholic 1.00

00:21:00.480 church and family network or your local black community or your local.

00:21:04.500 And these culturally are very different from the urban monoculture, even when you are on

00:21:09.280 this democratic side.

00:21:10.200 And then when you're not on the democratic side, you know, it's not an issue.

00:21:13.380 And so I think what we're really seeing here is that the urban monoculture has created

00:21:18.760 a cultural system for relating to children where they are basically treated like pets

00:21:24.580 and children are very high maintenance pets.

00:21:28.080 If you are getting children like pets. 0.99

00:21:30.740 Children suck as pets, but they really do. 1.00

00:21:33.100 They suck as pets. 1.00

00:21:35.060 Well, when this is, yeah, this is one of the things that I, you know, I talk about here 0.99

00:21:38.140 is sometimes the way to be happiest.

00:21:40.460 And this is one of the things we talk about on our podcast.

00:21:42.220 Like you can see being happy, being unhappy as a sin, our episode on that concept, which

00:21:47.600 is a lot of people don't realize that when you define your personal goals around hedonism,

00:21:53.440 like I am having a kid to be happier.

00:21:56.660 That kid will always provide you with less happiness than if you are having a kid because

00:22:00.780 it is your ideological duty to have the kid.

00:22:02.860 The happiness that you get from tasks that you do because you think they are a thing

00:22:08.400 of intrinsic value and not to make yourself happy will always give you more durable happiness

00:22:15.180 than the person who is chasing hedonism in and of itself.

00:22:18.460 But the urban monoculture doesn't tell people that.

00:22:21.640 It tells people that the highest order goal in anyone's life should be sort of the mass distribution

00:22:29.000 of hedonism.

00:22:29.720 So first do what makes you happy and then try to increase pleasure and reduce suffering

00:22:34.700 in others.

00:22:35.600 So you're saying the very nature of the cultural monoculture makes it difficult to actually

00:22:39.880 enjoy having kids and find having kids rewarding because it does detract from in the moment

00:22:45.820 pleasure.

00:22:47.420 Yeah, because chasing after pleasure, defining your life around pleasure, both your own pleasure

00:22:53.640 and the pleasure of other people's, sort of disables your ability to really feel genuine

00:22:57.920 and pleasure.

00:22:58.380 And I think that that's what's happening here.

00:23:00.200 But then I also think that there's all of these, and we talk about like the psychologist

00:23:03.000 cult and everything like that.

00:23:05.040 I think the way that these individuals, when they're in deep in the urban monoculture, relate

00:23:09.700 to mental health and frame their own mental health around questions like trauma, the way

00:23:14.840 they interact with things is just really unhealthy.

00:23:17.700 And it causes them to interact with their kids in really unhealthy ways.

00:23:21.800 And hurt their kids ultimately, which does.

00:23:24.120 Well, as you talked about, they treat their kids like little princelings.

00:23:27.220 Well, and, well, and, but then they also apply this whole trauma mindset to their children.

00:23:31.740 And we've met, it's so interesting.

00:23:35.100 We keep meeting young people, right?

00:23:38.600 And then we've, we've met a decent number of young people from both more conservative,

00:23:43.900 traditional religious communities, as well as super woke communities.

00:23:48.780 And it's so funny.

00:23:50.120 I'm thinking of two people in particular.

00:23:52.460 One is like super to the point, like super regulated.

00:23:56.940 I've never heard about anything ever that happened that was difficult in her life or anything

00:24:02.440 like that.

00:24:03.140 Just, you know, her comments and thoughts on things.

00:24:05.120 And then I'm thinking about the other one.

00:24:06.480 And every single time I talk, there's some mention of trauma or difficulty or ideology,

00:24:12.920 actually.

00:24:13.360 Which is really interesting.

00:24:15.100 And it just shows how, like, how screwed up this culture is and how it's creating people 0.99

00:24:19.120 who are miserable. 0.96

00:24:20.620 So I mean, it really helps the kids.

00:24:22.040 You allow your kids to engage with this culture of, I don't know what to call it.

00:24:25.700 It's a culture that had disseminated from the psychology community, which was my, originally,

00:24:30.720 I started my career as a neuroscientist and I worked in psychiatry.

00:24:34.280 And so I'm saying this as somebody who is informed about how the community is structured

00:24:38.800 and the way it works and the way the human brain works.

00:24:41.120 It is really much more structurally similar to a cult now, what is taught as psychology,

00:24:48.260 than it is to historically what we called psychology.

00:24:51.160 It's actually much closer to what Scientology was in the 80s than what any real evidence-based

00:24:58.680 psychology is.

00:25:00.120 And we have episodes on this psychology cult episode, stuff like that.

00:25:03.600 But it has disseminated into all aspects of how these individuals in the urban monoculture

00:25:09.660 see themselves and relate to their own self-narrative.

00:25:13.940 And when a kid is raised in this, and it's funny, you've got the two people who you mentioned

00:25:17.700 were girls. 0.99

00:25:18.300 And I thought you were thinking of two guys who I know who had the same phenomenon happening.

00:25:22.260 Oh my God, you're right.

00:25:23.440 No, I'm now I'm thinking of those two guys, the two young.

00:25:25.780 Yeah, but I was thinking of that.

00:25:27.000 Yeah, it's really sad because these are really otherwise competent individuals.

00:25:30.960 Well, all of these people, yeah, are equally, I think,

00:25:33.600 they all have the equal potential as humans.

00:25:36.660 And yet, one of these groups, we've given up on their futures, honestly.

00:25:41.900 We've just been like, okay, we're writing you off.

00:25:43.680 Yeah, we've basically written them off.

00:25:45.260 I'm going to be honest.

00:25:46.380 Well, and it's interesting, the smart ones, when I think about the smart people who are

00:25:50.560 in each of these groups that I know,

00:25:51.740 the, the, and I think that people here, when we're talking about like conservative young

00:25:56.900 people, they, they probably think that we're talking about, I don't know, like white, what

00:26:01.760 they would think of as traditional, like, I don't know, like tradcasts.

00:26:05.480 Every one of the people I'm thinking about are the first generation immigrant descendant.

00:26:08.200 Yeah.

00:26:08.380 Those are the most, or children, some are children of first generation immigrants.

00:26:15.340 That's what I'm saying.

00:26:15.920 The ones who I'm thinking of, oh, the woke ones.

00:26:18.720 Yeah.

00:26:19.080 I don't know any woke.

00:26:21.100 Oh, you do?

00:26:21.640 Okay.

00:26:22.060 Well, then I don't know the one you're thinking of, but generally the first generation immigrant

00:26:25.400 kids who I know are less affected by wokeness because they're still, you know. 0.82

00:26:30.120 I think they have the ability to see in contrast to their home culture, just how like ridiculous 0.95

00:26:35.480 and unhinged woke culture is. 0.98

00:26:38.580 Yeah. 0.99

00:26:39.020 And they're like, no, this is ridiculous.

00:26:40.500 And then the ones who I know who have really succumbed to it, their families have been here 0.87

00:26:43.820 for generations.

00:26:44.760 Yeah.

00:26:45.020 And they, they succumbed to what culture and they had so much promise, but honestly, more 0.99

00:26:50.420 than like 50% of their mental effort seems dedicated to maintaining quote unquote mental health,

00:26:57.700 which is really just degradating of mental health.

00:27:00.640 Like just do yourself, get it.

00:27:02.760 Like, like the, the elevation of, of this sort of mental landscape that has come with

00:27:08.980 this mental health expansion within our society is both unnecessary and causes more mental health 0.99

00:27:14.620 issues.

00:27:15.420 It also pulls people totally off their career track.

00:27:17.720 Like I, I, you see all these people now who like want to be life coaches or want to be

00:27:22.020 therapists or want to go into all these sorts of, they just want to feed into this because

00:27:27.240 it's all they're ever thinking about.

00:27:28.420 And so then they're, they're becoming unproductive.

00:27:30.960 They're not getting jobs.

00:27:31.680 Like they're, they're not getting well-paying jobs.

00:27:33.340 It's, it's awful.

00:27:34.340 And they're also putting themselves into huge amounts of student debt to get degrees.

00:27:38.760 Yeah.

00:27:39.300 Well, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's an, and I think very, really an addictive process.

00:27:44.280 And it's interesting to me because people know that I really love studying religions,

00:27:50.020 but my love of studying religions really came from a love of studying cults.

00:27:53.760 I always wanted to understand how do people get enthralled by these ideas that seem just

00:28:00.720 completely pointless and feckless.

00:28:03.420 And how do we control our own minds?

00:28:06.340 That was something that I always really cared about.

00:28:08.300 I was like, well.

00:28:09.260 If a cult can make you give all your money to strangers and do all these crazy things,

00:28:13.240 well then what could cult tactics make you do if you, if you leverage them for good to

00:28:17.980 do what you actually want?

00:28:18.780 Like, could I brainwash myself?

00:28:20.580 Could I create a little, like, like my own mental landscape that would do well and move

00:28:25.640 me towards efficaciousness and happiness?

00:28:27.540 Yeah.

00:28:27.680 Seeing as powerful cult tactics are totally, you should be thinking that.

00:28:31.440 Well, I, I believe I've executed on it within my own life.

00:28:34.400 I'm quite, quite happy with my life as everybody always comments on there.

00:28:38.120 Like, it is wild.

00:28:39.540 Yeah.

00:28:39.620 Everyone is, is he on drugs or is this an act?

00:28:41.820 And it's no, this is just, I mean, by the way, guys, this is Malcolm at his low point.

00:28:47.760 He has been up since 2 a.m.

00:28:49.800 He is exhausted and tired now.

00:28:51.940 You should see him first thing in the morning.

00:28:54.220 I mean, my God.

00:28:55.320 Oh yeah.

00:28:55.680 I am very high energy first thing in the morning.

00:28:57.940 We've had some interviews.

00:28:59.100 The Chris Williamson interview with me earlier in the morning.

00:29:01.800 And people want to be like, what is Malcolm like when he's like earlier in the morning?

00:29:05.560 You know, I get really excited about everything.

00:29:08.960 Or right after I've completed a task, I'm really excited about.

00:29:11.280 So I think that you can actually brainwash yourself, basically.

00:29:15.260 Not brainwash yourself because it's really just you choose your mental landscape much

00:29:20.340 more than people realize.

00:29:23.420 And when you act like your mental landscape is something that you don't have complete

00:29:27.820 authority over and that you are not the authoritarian dictator of your mental landscape.

00:29:33.320 I love these people.

00:29:33.960 They're like, oh, I'm listening to all the little voices in my head and I'm trying to

00:29:37.180 create, what's the word I'm looking for?

00:29:39.120 Some sort of balance or harmony among them.

00:29:41.480 You know, this push by like inside out and stuff like that.

00:29:44.060 Don't listen to them.

00:29:45.260 They're wrong.

00:29:46.120 You're not the slave of your emotions.

00:29:48.140 You're the slave of your logic.

00:29:50.980 Your logic is the dictator of your mental landscape.

00:29:53.420 And if you want to feel happy, then you feel happy because you've got bigger things than

00:29:59.240 feeling good about yourself.

00:30:01.140 And we really we are dealing with a collapsing society right now.

00:30:04.720 We cannot afford these types of emotional indulgences.

00:30:08.100 And part of the reason society is collapsing is because so many people are indulging these

00:30:12.560 emotional indulgences.

00:30:13.740 Actually, very interesting.

00:30:14.700 If you look at historical periods right before societal collapses, you see a similar sort

00:30:19.820 of mental healthism under different names among the...

00:30:23.580 What, like temperance or what?

00:30:25.880 Oh, the vapors.

00:30:27.240 You know, I can barely think right now.

00:30:29.320 Oh, no, no, no.

00:30:30.060 Yes, yes, yes.

00:30:30.740 The hypochondriac women who are always swooning and they had these mysterious illnesses, etc. 0.98

00:30:36.100 Or always, yeah, competing in these sort of mental games or writing long poems about how

00:30:41.980 mentally anguished they were.

00:30:43.740 Right.

00:30:44.160 And how they, yeah.

00:30:46.000 Goodness gracious.

00:30:46.760 Well, I mean, so my takeaway from this graph is basically this, this thought that being

00:30:53.340 pure and being a parent will make you miserable is like just off that, you know, lower income

00:31:02.020 parents are, there are clearly fewer low income parents who don't find any rewarding enjoyment

00:31:09.380 from parenting than wealthy people.

00:31:11.720 And it's so funny, like when I actually look at, you know, the lower income families we

00:31:16.460 know who are parents and I look at how they are around the kids when we hang out in person

00:31:19.860 and I was just like, look at your, their Facebook posts.

00:31:22.020 And then I think of the higher income parents that we know and their children, I see how

00:31:26.380 they act around them and speak about them and post about them.

00:31:30.080 It actually kind of checks out.

00:31:32.420 There's a lot more sort of like cognitive dissonance around being a parent with the wealthy in

00:31:38.200 some way.

00:31:39.000 And also maybe this feeling like they're kind of above raising them so that like time spent

00:31:44.100 with them is kind of like, you know, it's, it's, it's very hard for me to articulate this,

00:31:49.480 but anyway, it does shape the way that I look at pronatalism and income.

00:31:53.580 And I mean, it certainly reinforces our thing, which is, yeah, this whole money, please approach

00:31:57.720 to pronatalism is incredibly dumb, but yeah, I'm glad that you indulged me in talking about

00:32:05.220 this graph. 0.94

00:32:05.840 I love you to death, Simone.

00:32:07.680 You are a wonderful wife.

00:32:09.700 You are a dapper and perfect husband.

00:32:11.700 I love you so much.

Based Camp - March 06, 2024

Why do Lower Income Parents Find More Joy In Kids？

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