Based Camp - Why Don't Jews Own Guns？

00:00:00.000 So, Jews and guns. 0.95

00:00:02.580 Yes.

00:00:03.060 So if our book, The Pragmatist Guide to Religion, used one of those cheeky titles where somebody, you know, like, why don't zebras get cancer or something like that, you know, where it's like one interesting thing that the book like goes too deeply into, it would be, why don't Jews own guns? 0.81

00:00:19.040 And this is a uniquely like vexing question.

00:00:23.620 So I'm not going to go into the stats.

00:00:24.920 If you want to go into all the stats and the citations, you can go look at the book.

00:00:28.900 So why is it to say, though, Jews?

00:00:30.840 If I was to expect, like, if you look at Jewish history, there are two things that I would expect of every Jew. 0.99

00:00:39.320 Okay.

00:00:39.980 Never live in a city and always have a gun.

00:00:43.380 Everyone has a gun.

00:00:44.560 And this is very interesting to me because if you look at our cultural background, like our cultivar, if you want to call it that, it tells us to do both of those things.

00:00:52.840 It tells us, you know, do arms training when you were a young kid.

00:00:56.160 Always have a gun.

00:00:56.900 You have a gun behind you.

00:00:57.780 We have a gun in almost every room of our house.

00:00:59.500 I decided to add a little screenshot here of Simone's standing desk where she works, where within arm's reach is an AR-15.

00:01:06.960 And right behind her in that shot is a Remington.

00:01:09.680 And right where I'm laying down to record this right now where I edit the videos next to my bed is a Walter CCP pistol.

00:01:16.060 There's almost nowhere in our house where we spend a significant amount of time where there is not a firearm within arm's reach.

00:01:21.660 You know, and if you look at modern times, it's a uniquely interesting question.

00:01:27.220 Like even in Israel, gun ownership rates are very low.

00:01:30.440 Yeah.

00:01:31.260 Weirdly.

00:01:32.120 Weirdly low.

00:01:32.820 I mean, like people in the army, they're trained in gun use, you know?

00:01:37.220 Yeah.

00:01:37.440 Like they should be one of the most gun literate and thus gun having people, I would suspect, in any population.

00:01:44.960 If you look in Israel and we keep, you know, I read these horrifying stories of what happened when Hamas first attacked.

00:01:51.060 And I keep wondering, why didn't this old lady have an AR-15 on her wall? 0.94

00:01:55.220 Like what was, why wouldn't she have that?

00:01:58.340 She lived right next to Gaza.

00:02:00.420 It's not like they didn't know that this attack may happen.

00:02:04.800 Well, and when you think about this attack, if these, if people in all of these areas, and I don't know what the concealed carry laws are in Israel, you know, like, but for example, if the people at this festival, if, you know, 25% of them had concealed carry, this would have played out very different.

00:02:18.820 If, you know, everyone had weapons in their house, if they lived in a kibbutz, especially if it was a kibbutz close to the border, like, this would have played out very differently. 0.68

00:02:26.960 You know, the story, these terrifying stories of, you know, two kids alone at home, you know, their mom in another place on the phone with them as their home is being.

00:02:35.080 I mean, if they had guns, again, this, this could have played out super differently.

00:02:38.740 And I'm saying here, you know, there are like progressive Jews.

00:02:41.240 They look at what happened and they're like, oh my God, I, I, I, I, I never expected the, the, the people of Gaza to do this.

00:02:50.040 And everyone else is like, what are you talking about? 0.97

00:02:51.460 They're like Muslims going around and beheading people. 1.00

00:02:55.160 That's so out of character. 1.00

00:02:57.180 What?

00:02:57.960 And then, and then of course everyone else is like, what are you, what are you talking about?

00:03:02.380 Everybody knew this could happen.

00:03:04.480 Everybody.

00:03:05.060 And they're like, no, no, no.

00:03:06.500 It must've been something we did.

00:03:08.220 I, I can't see any other reason this could have happened and, and worse.

00:03:13.140 And I mean, we're talking about this and we're not going to do a full episode on, on this particular topic, but I have just been so ashamed even with how little I think of progressives in the U S how they have treated these horrifying massacres.

00:03:26.660 I saw a top post on Reddit arguing that the, the, the massacre of the babies was their heads being cut off, was a fake stunt perpetrated.

00:03:38.800 This is on front page of Reddit, or at least my front page perpetrated by the Israeli government.

00:03:42.800 God, I wish that were true.

00:03:44.120 I like, I genuinely wish that were true.

00:03:46.560 It gets worse, Lloyd.

00:03:48.440 My parakeet Petey.

00:03:50.820 Huh?

00:03:52.020 He's dead.

00:03:52.880 Oh, oh man, I'm sorry, Harry.

00:04:00.220 What happened?

00:04:02.540 His head fell off.

00:04:04.880 His head fell off.

00:04:07.000 Yeah, he was pretty old.

00:04:09.080 Quick side note here.

00:04:10.480 Where this is coming from, the, the baby beheadings didn't happen thing, is it was reported that 40 babies were killed and some were beheaded.

00:04:18.900 And then some people started saying that 40 babies were beheaded and then people were like, what?

00:04:25.500 You're lying.

00:04:27.000 It's so weird watching progressives defend Hamas because it's like Hamas is trying their hardest to let everyone know like just how brutal they are.

00:04:35.740 And progressives keep covering it up.

00:04:37.520 And then Hamas has to like go out and do something over the top again because they're like, no, look, we really are.

00:04:42.420 Like, we want you to know what we're all about.

00:04:44.560 I saw, you know, classes at Harvard right now.

00:04:49.940 You know, we've heard about them being from, from our contacts who are at school there right now being canceled.

00:04:54.320 So all of the students, these are grad students, by the way, can go out and protest the bus that is protesting that horrifying letter that said that Hamas has 0% blame for this.

00:05:05.500 The state of Israel has 100% blame for this. 0.85

00:05:08.000 It's horrifying.

00:05:09.140 And if you look at the things leading up to this, people are like, oh, Israel was so horrible to the people of Gaza.

00:05:13.280 The very reason why Israel didn't expect to be attacked right now was because they had been so quickly and, and, and, and hugely loosening sanctions on Gaza and increasing work visas to the people of Gaza because they were trying to do this deal with Saudi Arabia.

00:05:32.180 They had been really focused recently on increasing quality of life there.

00:05:36.720 And so when they saw really huge troop movements in the area that were really obvious, they were like, oh, the one, these movements are so obvious that it must be something else.

00:05:48.160 Like it can't possibly be that they're about to attack us because they wouldn't make it this obvious, especially given, you know, the way the people would react, given all of the, the, the looser sanctions and stuff like this.

00:05:58.160 This isn't random or light.

00:06:00.000 Someone made a mistake. 0.99

00:06:01.520 Someone made a big goddamn mistake. 0.98

00:06:03.640 And I think that this is where this mindset where it's like, oh, they're attacking us because they're mad at us. 0.98

00:06:08.580 It's like, no, they're attacking you because it's like theologically mandated that you cease existing in this area.

00:06:14.000 It doesn't matter what you do for them.

00:06:15.880 They still have to kill you if, if they follow this cultural tradition. 1.00

00:06:19.860 And I should be clear, not all Islamic cultural traditions feel that way.

00:06:22.820 I mean, there's a reason why other Islamic countries have refused to take Palestinian refugees throughout this attack. 0.78

00:06:31.160 There's a reason why other Arab countries have refused to accept Palestine as a state under their control, because it is a radically different Islamic culture than other Islamic cultures. 0.76

00:06:43.000 Also, as another quick side note here, I want to dispel a misconception that has been going around a lot,

00:06:48.780 that Hamas was only supported by a minority of Gazans, or it was like, it's not a mainstream organization within Gaza.

00:06:57.680 Over 50% of the population in Gaza supports Hamas.

00:07:00.960 To put this in context, only 37% of Germans supported Hitler's rise to power.

00:07:06.140 I think it's important for people to ask themselves, why are people pretending like Hamas is this weird splinter organization

00:07:13.820 controlling the people of Gaza, and forcing them to do things they don't want to,

00:07:19.740 but we don't pretend that that was the case of the Nazis and the Germans during World War II.

00:07:26.280 And all of this, oh, they were in an open-air prison, they were being abused, and that's why they did it,

00:07:31.140 sounds very similar to talk about the Nazis, where, oh, the Treaty of Versailles was so abusive to them,

00:07:37.080 you know, look at the hyperinflation they were experiencing, look at the absolute poverty so many people in Germany were experiencing,

00:07:43.160 leading up to the rise of the Nazi party.

00:07:45.460 I also want to be clear, I am not saying that innocent people are not suffering.

00:07:49.220 There are many, many innocent people suffering in Gaza right now.

00:07:54.460 But, when we look at this in the context of other wars,

00:07:58.280 we are weirdly treating this very, very differently than we would, say,

00:08:04.220 think of the people of the southern United States during General Sherman's total war campaign,

00:08:09.100 which was absolutely horrifying in the number of civilian casualties,

00:08:13.720 or the bombing of Dresden during World War II,

00:08:16.960 which famously killed more civilians than the atomic bombs did in Japan.

00:08:21.080 The atomic bombs killed around 120,000 Japanese,

00:08:24.700 while the firebombing of Dresden killed around 135,000 Germans.

00:08:28.600 One of the themes of this episode is going to be the actual key to answering the question of

00:08:34.500 why do Jews own guns in such low numbers comes from understanding that Jews are not a monolithic entity,

00:08:41.440 and that there are many very different subcultural groups within the Jewish tradition.

00:08:47.520 Diaspora, tradition, yeah.

00:08:48.880 Diaspora, tradition, history, whatever word you want to use.

00:08:51.760 And some of them have actually been incredibly militaristic, just not the ones that survived.

00:08:56.640 But before I give anything away, something that is worth noting here,

00:09:00.780 because we made a tweet to this, and we can't do a whole episode on it,

00:09:03.000 but it actually is a very important concept to discuss, is why progressives hate Jews so much.

00:09:08.060 Right.

00:09:08.800 Because it seems so weird, right?

00:09:11.740 It doesn't seem weird to me.

00:09:13.160 It seems like the natural result of progressive philosophy,

00:09:16.420 but I think a lot of people don't think their philosophy through.

00:09:19.160 They're just like, oh, progressives are the nice ones, right?

00:09:23.280 And progressives, like anyone who's slightly different from the norm,

00:09:26.600 whoever has had a history of being persecuted.

00:09:29.540 So obviously Jews. 0.94

00:09:31.220 Plus, many Jews are super progressive.

00:09:33.440 So there's all these reasons why I assume.

00:09:35.200 Reform Jews are super progressive.

00:09:36.880 I know, I know.

00:09:37.380 But to the average nobody who knows nothing, those are the Jews.

00:09:41.720 Because those are the Jews you see, okay? 1.00

00:09:43.320 Yeah, and I think that this is actually one of the, this is a totally different tangent.

00:09:47.740 But I think the seeing Jews as a universalized entity rather than progressive versus orthodox Jews.

00:09:54.720 You know, in the U.S., we don't confuse, you know, Unitarian Universalist Christians with like,

00:10:00.540 I guess I'd call them real Christians, like Catholics and stuff. 0.92

00:10:04.440 But we conflate the actions of reformed Jews,

00:10:07.880 which are used to justify anti-Semitism with orthodox Jewish communities.

00:10:12.700 I think to a great extent, that's because you don't encounter orthodox Jews.

00:10:16.620 Like, you may see them, but you've never talked to one.

00:10:19.200 Like, they're not hanging out with you.

00:10:20.460 And they're also not talking, like normally, there's like a couple on YouTube who are like,

00:10:24.640 this is what it's like to buy a wig.

00:10:25.840 Or like, this is what an orthodox Jewish party is like.

00:10:28.580 But like, no one's really talking to you about like their day-to-day.

00:10:31.580 So it's, you just don't know.

00:10:33.220 This is maybe a whole other video that we might do on this and anti-Semitism.

00:10:37.980 Why?

00:10:39.120 Why?

00:10:40.120 Do progressive hate Jews?

00:10:41.480 Why?

00:10:41.880 Why is their philosophy always going to end up hating Jews?

00:10:45.160 Yes.

00:10:45.820 The reason why is because the progressive philosophy is based on a core assumption,

00:10:52.400 which is that all differences between success of groups, of groups of people,

00:10:58.220 whether they're cultural or ethnic or anything groups,

00:11:00.660 because of systemic discrimination and disenfranchisement combined with outright oppression.

00:11:08.220 Okay.

00:11:09.640 So, in other words, if there is a difference, if some group is different, it's because they've

00:11:14.100 been treated unfairly by some other factors.

00:11:16.560 Because underlying everything, all groups are the same.

00:11:19.000 As we say, to a conservative, diversity has value.

00:11:23.640 But diversity has value because we're different.

00:11:25.680 That's where the value in diversity comes from.

00:11:27.380 To a progressive, diversity has value only in that it increases the number of victims that

00:11:30.860 they have available for them to convert, not because they really believe that anyone's

00:11:34.760 different.

00:11:35.240 And this is, if you don't believe that anyone's really different, if you do believe that all

00:11:39.700 differences between groups are caused by systemic discrimination and oppression, if

00:11:43.740 there's a group out there, i.e. Jews, that is both wealthier than other groups on average,

00:11:50.240 more successful than like academia, you know, you look at the number of politicians who have

00:11:53.980 Jewish ancestry, or you look at the number of famous intellectuals that have Jewish ancestry,

00:11:58.600 or you look at the number of Nobel Prize winners that have Jewish ancestry, they always out-compete. 0.95

00:12:02.480 They are a very successful cultural group.

00:12:04.420 Right.

00:12:04.500 It's clear that Jews are doing well.

00:12:06.460 Right.

00:12:07.940 And so you see this cultural group, and then you also see that this is a cultural group

00:12:14.040 that claims that it was historically oppressed and that it even still faces oppression.

00:12:19.760 Of course, those two facts are unreconcilable.

00:12:23.560 And this is why, in progressive circles, it is so offensive to even point out that Jews are

00:12:29.540 successful and that they do disproportionately out-compete other groups, both economically,

00:12:35.640 academically, bureaucratically.

00:12:37.760 And it's because what's the logical assumption there?

00:12:39.980 Well, they must be lying about their oppression.

00:12:42.620 They, one, and you increasingly see this within progressive circles, they must be lying about

00:12:47.820 how actually oppressed they are, one.

00:12:50.460 And two, they must not be participating in the oppression of other groups.

00:12:54.280 They must be the architects of all oppression.

00:12:57.380 Right.

00:12:57.560 Because if you're successful, you're successful because of some zero-sum game that you've played

00:13:02.200 unfairly, right?

00:13:03.340 Yes.

00:13:03.800 Yes.

00:13:04.080 Whereas conservatives would look at those things and they'd be like, oh, these are things we

00:13:08.760 might be able to learn from.

00:13:10.240 Now, of course, there's some conservative groups that are just like ethno-nationalists

00:13:13.360 and just really only care about their own group competing, which is, you know, they're

00:13:18.360 not going to be long for this world, given the world that we're entering.

00:13:21.560 But, you know, obviously they'll be anti-Semitic, but they'll be anti pretty much all other 0.53

00:13:25.580 groups that they don't identify as their own group.

00:13:27.460 Yeah, equal opportunity hatred.

00:13:28.940 That's, you know, fine.

00:13:29.920 Well, they might have a unique hatred for Jewish people because they are out-competing 1.00

00:13:34.280 them.

00:13:34.960 And people often hate people more when they're out-competing them.

00:13:38.620 But there is a path towards acceptance within the conservative movement.

00:13:43.260 There is not a path towards acceptance within the progressive movement so long as they hold

00:13:47.900 on to this ideology that all differences between groups are due to oppression and discrimination.

00:13:52.360 And so it makes a lot of sense that we see these cultural power centers in the U.S. have

00:13:58.940 responded so bizarrely, from my perspective, to all of this.

00:14:03.200 And I think in a way that has really broken the trust of a lot of people who formerly didn't

00:14:07.880 realize how crazy and how hateful these groups were in terms of their, you know, like the

00:14:13.580 Harvard letter is found by 31 student organizations saying Israel was 100% at fault for this and

00:14:18.880 that classes are still being canceled so that they can go double down on their support for

00:14:23.480 that.

00:14:24.040 So with that all out of the way, you know, we're sort of giving the cultural context right

00:14:28.360 now as to why we're talking about this.

00:14:30.660 Why would gun ownership rates be so low in Jewish communities?

00:14:34.160 Well, first you have to look at the history here.

00:14:37.440 Judaism underwent something very unique after the Second Temple period, which can almost be 1.00

00:14:44.020 thought of as sort of like a Cambrian explosion or a, what's the word in biology?

00:14:50.720 Radiation.

00:14:51.300 So in radiation, if you look at the Cambrian, like some of my favorite periods in history,

00:14:55.080 you can look at like the Cambrian explosion or the Triassic.

00:14:59.120 If you look at the dinosaurs of the Triassic or all the animals of the Triassic, because

00:15:03.360 a lot of them weren't dinosaurs yet, a lot of them looked really weird.

00:15:06.700 If you look at the Cambrian explosion, the animals that came out of the Cambrian explosion,

00:15:11.040 a lot of them looked really weird.

00:15:12.840 These are called radiation events.

00:15:15.420 They typically happen after a mass extinction event.

00:15:18.240 So what it means is a lot of the ecological niches that used to be held by specialists

00:15:24.360 get wiped out and groups that weren't really built for those ecological niches quickly evolved

00:15:30.420 to fill them.

00:15:31.540 Well, that can happen with a cultural group as well.

00:15:34.700 When the Second Temple period happened, when the Jewish people were dispersed all over the

00:15:39.300 world, they began to fill lots of very unusual cultural niches if you look at the Jewish people 0.90

00:15:46.680 historically.

00:15:47.580 So before that, Jews were really sort of one cultural group.

00:15:52.200 You know, they were a people, a government, and everything like that.

00:15:55.200 After that, you had, like if we're talking about like weird Jewish cultural niches, one, 0.99

00:16:01.340 you know, to this topic was a mercenary cultural group that specifically specialized almost in

00:16:08.640 being like the 10,000 from like the Greek period, where it was Jews that you knew that you would 0.99

00:16:13.560 hire when you wanted specific functions fulfilled within your military.

00:16:17.060 And they basically lived on unmoored. 0.77

00:16:19.580 So like mercenary Jews. 1.00

00:16:21.360 Yeah, like professional unmoored mercenaries.

00:16:24.920 They could even like move between forces, like, oh, this king wants to hire us now, this

00:16:28.060 king wants to hire us now.

00:16:28.600 That's super cool.

00:16:29.380 Yeah.

00:16:29.840 Okay.

00:16:30.360 What happened to them?

00:16:31.840 Yeah.

00:16:32.740 So what happened to all of these groups?

00:16:34.580 I guess they weren't, I mean, if you're a militaristic group, you're probably not reproducing

00:16:37.460 at a really high rate.

00:16:38.180 Is that the problem?

00:16:38.980 No, that wasn't the problem exactly.

00:16:40.480 Actually, what happened to them is actually just a useful thing.

00:16:42.380 This is a specialization that has repeatedly evolved throughout human history for different cultural

00:16:46.400 groups.

00:16:46.600 As I mentioned, the Greeks did this for a period where you would actually get Greeks in different

00:16:51.020 parts of the world because their phalanx was with such a powerful, like military pattern.

00:16:55.800 Yeah.

00:16:56.200 Where Greeks would hire them to perform this specialized function. 0.99

00:16:59.740 And you see different groups sort of evolve this cultural specialization, and they never

00:17:03.980 last that long.

00:17:05.300 It's too specialized.

00:17:07.000 Whenever, okay, so again, we're going to go to great extinction periods.

00:17:10.160 Whenever there's a great extinction period and you're talking about biology, the groups that

00:17:14.460 die out are the groups that are the most specialized.

00:17:18.560 This is why the dinosaurs died out, but the like crocodiles and alligators didn't.

00:17:23.540 They were much more generalist.

00:17:25.880 So groups that survive are the groups that are more generalist.

00:17:29.560 And this is true of cultures as well.

00:17:31.740 When you're going through major societal change, the ultra specialized cultures are the ones that 0.98

00:17:38.100 are most likely to die out.

00:17:39.360 And the generalist cultures are the ones that are most likely to survive.

00:17:43.320 Okay.

00:17:43.820 Okay.

00:17:44.360 Okay.

00:17:44.880 Sure.

00:17:45.200 When a group is pro-gun, one of the things that is most associated with that is a rural

00:17:53.720 cultural specialization.

00:17:56.220 Oh.

00:17:56.760 This is pro-home self-defense.

00:17:59.440 And you typically see a cluster of behavior patterns that are associated with that.

00:18:03.380 One is being pro-gun.

00:18:04.900 Another is being pro-dogs.

00:18:06.340 And when a group is intergenerationally in cities and they really become city specialists,

00:18:14.560 you will get usually a hatred of dogs or a dislike of dogs or prohibitions against dogs.

00:18:21.280 And you will see them use guns less.

00:18:23.980 Now, why is that?

00:18:24.660 Why use guns?

00:18:25.340 Is that just because like the-

00:18:26.600 We're going to get to why.

00:18:27.720 Okay.

00:18:27.940 There's a very specific reason.

00:18:29.220 Actually, you can give a hypothesis.

00:18:30.800 My hypothesis is that cities have their own protective systems and are more closely governed.

00:18:36.020 And therefore, the administrators of the city don't like when people have their own

00:18:39.780 justice system.

00:18:41.460 That's partially true, but it's more than that.

00:18:44.480 So when you think about cultural groups that are city specialized, right?

00:18:48.780 Yeah.

00:18:49.040 The two that really jump out to me are the Jewish cultural group today.

00:18:54.320 And it's another cultural group that is anti-dog and often doesn't have guns as high

00:18:58.680 a rate as other cultural groups, which is some Muslim specializations.

00:19:01.320 And many people think of Muslims because early Muslims were not.

00:19:04.760 Early Muslims were entirely a martial specialization almost. 0.91

00:19:08.720 But they conquered a lot of regions, became very erudite, very intellectual, and some factions

00:19:14.960 lost those traditions and became more of city specialists.

00:19:18.400 Now, when I mentioned the dog thing, a lot of modern Jews who just aren't that familiar 1.00

00:19:22.220 with recent Jewish history do not know that Jews have historically, and if you want to go 0.99

00:19:26.860 into all the citations in this, you can look at the Pragmatist Guide to Crafting Religion

00:19:30.080 because we go really deep on this.

00:19:31.660 But I think a famous quote here, this is from a quote from the guy who wrote Fiddler on the

00:19:34.520 Roof, you know, famous Jew into Jewish culture. 0.92

00:19:36.900 If a Jew has a dog, either that dog is no dog or that man is no Jew. 0.93

00:19:44.960 You know, that's how extreme it was.

00:19:47.100 So if you look historically, this was something that a lot of Jewish people knew about Jewish

00:19:50.180 culture.

00:19:50.460 But recently, if you look at the more like Reformed Jews and stuff like that, where Jewish

00:19:54.680 culture is degrading faster, a lot of them have forgot these traditions.

00:19:57.820 We've also spoken with rabbis who are like well-known rabbis and are like, wait, what? 0.99

00:20:02.380 And then they like look into it and they're like, oh shit. 0.99

00:20:04.740 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 0.98

00:20:05.460 It's really interesting.

00:20:06.520 Yeah.

00:20:06.740 Yeah.

00:20:07.060 So what's interesting about both of these traditions is they are not encoded into Jewish

00:20:13.540 theological texts.

00:20:16.960 These are completely cultural preferences, right?

00:20:19.640 And so again, that makes it weird that these cultural references that are not theologically

00:20:24.220 encoded because there have been Jews in certain periods of history where both gun and dog 0.93

00:20:29.020 ownership was really common or other type of weapon like martial specialization and in

00:20:34.760 which living in rural areas was common.

00:20:36.960 So the pogroms, like when I'm like, I would expect all Jews to have a gun. 1.00

00:20:40.240 The thing that immediately went to me is pogroms, right?

00:20:42.520 Like they repeatedly get genocided.

00:20:44.900 Like Nazis were not the first time this happened, right? 0.98

00:20:47.420 Yeah, yeah.

00:20:47.940 So like they have a strong cultural memory of people coming in and killing them.

00:20:52.680 This was, so let's go over what a pogrom was. 0.79

00:20:54.940 So occasionally European monarchs would just be like, okay, we're going to kill all the 0.99

00:20:58.700 Jews or we got to get all the Jews out. 1.00

00:21:01.360 Or just like, I hate Jews. 1.00

00:21:03.520 It's probably the Jews again. 1.00

00:21:04.900 They were just a really easy group to scapegoat as, as were any group that were of minority

00:21:11.600 population was a significantly different culture than the mainstream population.

00:21:16.700 Another example there would be the Romani. 0.94

00:21:19.160 Yeah.

00:21:19.880 The offensive term would be gypsies, but it's a term that more people would know.

00:21:22.920 So, but anyway.

00:21:23.900 So when these pogroms happened, after this sort of radiation event in, in Jewish cultural

00:21:30.540 history, there were lots of different Jewish cultural specializations.

00:21:34.160 There were some Jews that had rural specialization.

00:21:36.760 There were some Jews that had martial specializations.

00:21:38.800 There were some Jews that had urban based specializations.

00:21:41.240 The difference is, is it the rural specialized Jews, if they say, Hey, we need you all out 0.77

00:21:47.880 of here, all your property, all your wealth, everything your family has is in the land.

00:21:55.300 If you leave, you need to then go like kill other people to get them off the land, to take 0.64

00:22:00.840 their land. 0.92

00:22:01.600 That's the only way you're going to be able to feed your family again.

00:22:04.440 And that's also like the odds of that actually working are astronomically low.

00:22:09.720 Yeah.

00:22:09.880 If you don't try.

00:22:12.140 Yeah.

00:22:12.460 Yeah.

00:22:13.120 So you, you actually sort of have to stay and defend your territory or you have to get

00:22:19.760 really good at hiding that you're Jewish. 0.93

00:22:22.040 You would have to become a crypto Jew. 1.00

00:22:24.880 Sorry.

00:22:25.480 People might not know what I'm referencing here, but there actually is a rural specialized Jewish

00:22:30.840 population called the crypto Jews, which were rural specialized Jews, mostly from the Spanish

00:22:36.460 area, which settled a lot in Mexico.

00:22:40.060 So there's a lot in the Americas that they've mostly lost their cultural traditions.

00:22:43.720 It's more like a cultural memory now, but they were called the crypto Jews because they hid that

00:22:47.740 they were Jewish during the pogroms.

00:22:49.980 Crypto, you know, meaning like encoded, hidden, right?

00:22:52.280 Um, of the rural specialized Jewish populations, that was the only group that survived.

00:23:00.240 These were the ones who got really good at hiding it.

00:23:02.080 But even then they didn't transfer it very well intergenerationally.

00:23:04.760 Whereas if you have an urban specialization, even though it's easier to target you, it's also easier to leave.

00:23:12.940 You can, you, you, you have a skill typically like jewel making or shoe making or something like that.

00:23:20.240 And often typically a skill because you would have been discriminated against by the local guilds,

00:23:25.100 that there aren't a lot of guilds around or the guilds around are more, you know, open to so that you can

00:23:30.640 then pick up, go to another city, take most of your wealth with you, like any, anything that you've accumulated

00:23:35.680 and, and set up in another city.

00:23:37.680 And this was actually core to this Jewish group thriving as much as they did.

00:23:42.500 Because every time one of these pogroms would happen, they'd all leave one city or one geographic region.

00:23:47.280 Probably mostly leave one city.

00:23:48.520 And then they'd go and settle in a bunch of other cities.

00:23:50.920 Yeah.

00:23:51.320 But they would have extended family networks in these cities because there was this similar cultural group

00:23:56.080 that this just, just kept happening to.

00:23:58.620 And so it was very easy for them to assimilate into these communities because they already had networks

00:24:04.300 in these communities that had a history of needing to take in this type of refugee.

00:24:09.020 And so it allowed for there to be kin networks where you would be as a Jewish person, much more closely related

00:24:17.500 to Jewish people in the other major cities than you would be related than like me as a British person

00:24:24.200 be related to an average, you know, guild specialist in something in, in France or in Germany.

00:24:30.200 Whereas the Jewish people in London would have fairly close relatives in Berlin and Paris.

00:24:35.420 Now this is really important for one specific specialization, which is banking.

00:24:40.880 If you were going to, to, so, so a lot of people think the only reason Jews became specialists in banking

00:24:46.120 during this period was because they didn't have prohibitions against usury in their religious traditions,

00:24:52.440 whereas Christians and Muslims did so that they were able to become bankers. 0.57

00:24:55.820 But that, while that was a reason, it probably wasn't the core reason.

00:25:00.220 The core reason was actually the close family networks, which were created by urban specialization

00:25:04.880 combined with regular pogroms.

00:25:07.380 But this, we still haven't gotten to why no guns yet, right?

00:25:10.280 Like, it seems like you would want to defend yourself during one of these pogroms.

00:25:13.960 Actually, not really when you think about it.

00:25:15.980 So suppose they come in and they're like, okay, it's the Jews' fault that like, we're not getting water, 0.99

00:25:21.060 like there's not enough rain or something, or, or there's too much corruption in government. 0.97

00:25:24.700 They'll find something and they'll blame the Jews.

00:25:26.580 People still do it today.

00:25:28.600 And they would go in and they would do like lynchings often, but they would get it out of their system.

00:25:35.940 It was rare for them to kill like more than 20% of a population.

00:25:38.420 And then the rest would, would leave, right?

00:25:41.660 If they had guns, if they fought back, they would kill 100% of the population. 0.91

00:25:47.400 Okay, I get it.

00:25:48.240 So the other reason why they weren't armed is basically if they were and they didn't totally nail it, 0.87

00:25:54.280 living in a city, then they'd be screwed.

00:25:56.780 But then I guess the problem now is you've got all these Jewish groups living in kibbutzim, 1.00

00:26:01.240 living in settlements.

00:26:02.880 So Israel and modern warfare changes everything. 0.84

00:26:07.020 And it should change traditions, right?

00:26:08.560 Do you think it's going to change after this incident?

00:26:10.400 Maybe it induces evolutionary pressures, but Jews actually have such an advantage in modern 1.00

00:26:14.960 warfare due to other cultural traditions.

00:26:17.700 That they may not rely.

00:26:18.640 But still, I feel like irrelevant.

00:26:20.120 So let's talk about this.

00:26:20.680 If you had a friend or relative who was kidnapped, who lost someone, who had someone killed,

00:26:26.140 even if you just like know someone's like third hand, I feel like I would arm my whole

00:26:30.760 household at that point.

00:26:32.000 Like, so that is your cultural tradition that's telling you to do this.

00:26:35.540 No, but we already ruined our house.

00:26:36.960 It's just not that Pogrom Jews have undergone. 1.00

00:26:39.780 You know, they've undergone.

00:26:41.140 You think every time a Pogrom happened in medieval Europe, this hadn't happened.

00:26:45.320 Everyone there didn't know somebody else, at least within two generations.

00:26:48.920 But they were living in, we'll say, enemy territory.

00:26:53.320 You know, they were surrounded by.

00:26:54.480 So the optimization function has changed with Israel.

00:26:57.180 Right.

00:26:57.420 Now there is no retreat.

00:26:59.220 You know, now there is no.

00:27:00.460 Well, they're not in enemy territory.

00:27:01.500 They don't have to get along with some other security force.

00:27:05.240 And, you know, like they.

00:27:06.400 Well, Simone, the point being, Israel changes everything, but it hasn't had time to exert 0.98

00:27:10.240 evolutionary pressure.

00:27:11.280 The reason it hasn't had time.

00:27:12.640 And we're talking about cultural evolutionary pressure.

00:27:14.340 The reason it hasn't had time to exert cultural evolutionary pressure is something very specific,

00:27:20.840 which is, it turns out that the other Jews.

00:27:24.260 So if you talk about Marshall specialized cultures, our culture is a Marshall specialized culture.

00:27:28.720 You, as a kid, were taught how to use firearms, bows and arrows.

00:27:32.360 When did you, I remember Simone was like, my family wasn't like that big into bows and arrows.

00:27:37.660 You were like, yeah.

00:27:38.900 Like, I remember there was like a year when we weren't allowed to use them because like

00:27:42.080 somebody got shot.

00:27:43.140 No, no, no.

00:27:43.920 There was just like the always told it Christmas family story of how like one of my uncles shot

00:27:49.400 my aunt in the eye accidentally.

00:27:51.980 And your family still use them.

00:27:54.040 Well, yeah.

00:27:54.680 But do you understand how insane that sounds to other cultural backgrounds?

00:27:58.200 Well, she didn't lose her eye.

00:27:59.880 A child shot another child in the eye was a bow and arrow.

00:28:03.700 And then the next generation is like, yeah, let's keep doing that bow and arrow training.

00:28:09.380 Because it's a good idea.

00:28:10.820 In fact, if you look at my family, I mean.

00:28:12.000 Well, I wouldn't call our culture Marshall because it's more the Scots-Irish.

00:28:15.340 I would call it like ruffian, you know, because Marshall implies like, you know, joining a 0.99

00:28:19.580 larger organized force.

00:28:20.640 This is more like rebellion.

00:28:21.740 All martial cultures are specialized this way.

00:28:23.320 And this is the point I'm about to get to.

00:28:25.340 Martial culture. 0.61

00:28:26.200 So you look at the training that Simone and I received as kids.

00:28:28.620 Me from like an erudite, I'd say fairly upper class family got training that as an adult,

00:28:34.120 I realized when I talked to people from other cultural groups, they're like, that's like

00:28:38.560 paramilitary training.

00:28:40.240 Like, why were they teaching little kids how to use a bunch of weapons?

00:28:44.720 Like, that seems very odd.

00:28:46.660 Why were they?

00:28:47.780 Why was it so normal for you guys to have to?

00:28:49.920 Doesn't that seem weird to you when like now a majority of parents are tracking their

00:28:54.400 children's locations on their phone?

00:28:56.000 Are they not also going to teach them how to defend themselves to use weapons?

00:28:58.940 No, they don't think like that.

00:29:00.000 No.

00:29:00.360 So consider like me, for example.

00:29:02.340 Like a core tradition in my family was learning how to, you know, take apart fireworks, build

00:29:08.140 them into bigger fireworks so that you could blow stuff up.

00:29:10.540 Actually, very similar to Simone's family.

00:29:12.460 This might be part of the way the tradition is meant to be passed down.

00:29:15.560 I remember when my family showed me one of our family friends, he came over and his hand,

00:29:20.680 he only had one finger on it and it was very mangled and he had got it by blowing up his

00:29:23.940 hand while playing with fireworks when he was a kid.

00:29:25.740 And they were like, okay, just keep in mind, you could blow off your hand and here are the

00:29:30.280 fireworks.

00:29:30.860 And then they let me go play alone with my brother.

00:29:33.800 You know, we were probably like, I don't know, seven and eight in the woods with fireworks.

00:29:37.380 And so I think that there might even be a tradition of talking about or showing injuries related

00:29:42.880 to the weapons right before they give them to you as like a way of like, don't kill yourself.

00:29:48.120 But they also let you play unsupervised with them, which I think is another thing that would

00:29:52.320 be very surprising to groups that are not from martial traditions, but for groups from

00:29:57.200 martial traditions, they would think of this as just completely the most normal childish

00:30:01.240 things.

00:30:02.300 They would just be like, this is just normal childhood fun.

00:30:05.140 What are you even talking about?

00:30:06.340 There is nothing weird about you playing with weapons as a kid.

00:30:10.220 And actually, if you even look at like my family history, so I look at movies made about

00:30:15.040 my family or groups that my family was involved with, and they always involved child soldiers.

00:30:20.820 They always involved armed children. 0.98

00:30:23.460 Girls, you know how to shoot one of these? 1.00

00:30:26.780 It's quite normal you got there. 0.99

00:30:29.260 Last time I checked the gun, don't care who's pulling the trigger.

00:30:32.120 Boys, listen to me.

00:30:33.440 I'll fire first.

00:30:38.320 I want you two to start with the officers and work your way down.

00:30:41.520 Can you tell the difference?

00:30:43.760 Yes, father.

00:30:44.540 Yes, father.

00:30:45.340 Good.

00:30:47.220 Samuel, after your first shot, I want you to reload for your brother, Nathan.

00:30:49.520 Like, and I can see a lot of people being like, why would you focus on teaching your kids how to use

00:30:55.860 explosives?

00:30:56.760 Why would you focus on making sure your kids know all these skills?

00:30:59.840 But if you look at all of these various things there are within our culture, which is a very

00:31:04.080 martial culture.

00:31:05.140 You, when you were courting me, you showed me your knife collection, right?

00:31:08.440 Pink knives.

00:31:09.220 So I knew you were feminine, but you were signaling something to me, right? 0.94

00:31:13.420 Like you were like, yes, I am from a martial culture.

00:31:16.100 I use weapons.

00:31:17.240 I have a collection of weapons.

00:31:19.000 Here are my weapons.

00:31:20.380 Can I defend the family enough?

00:31:22.200 And in martial cultures, like when you talk about the most extreme martial cultures, there's

00:31:25.720 typically an extreme within martial cultures.

00:31:27.820 The most extreme martial cultures, women are also engaged in the martial applications. 1.00

00:31:32.340 Right.

00:31:32.700 Middling martial cultures, women are not engaged in it. 1.00

00:31:35.220 Right.

00:31:35.600 Men are engaged in it. 0.85

00:31:36.640 And then the anti-martial cultures, neither the men or the women are expected to learn

00:31:39.720 weapons.

00:31:40.360 But in the most extreme martial cultures, women typically, and these are typically the 1.00

00:31:43.860 cultures that live in the most rural, most sort of dangerous areas.

00:31:48.720 Well, so what's so weird though, is that both men and women participate in the Israeli

00:31:52.220 Defense Force.

00:31:53.160 Both men and women are-

00:31:53.900 Hold on, I haven't gotten to this yet, Simone.

00:31:55.140 Okay, okay.

00:31:55.880 I guess no spoilers.

00:31:57.260 Fine.

00:31:57.740 Okay.

00:31:58.220 So if you look at martial cultures, where do they typically come from?

00:32:01.260 And these were the cultures that did really well in the old West in the US.

00:32:04.040 Rural areas.

00:32:05.220 Rural areas.

00:32:05.980 So Scots-Irish were in like the back country. 1.00

00:32:07.420 Not in rural areas, but rural areas without persistently stable governing structures.

00:32:11.900 Oh, yes.

00:32:12.300 That, so like, you know, Scottish-Irish territory, stuff like that, like where most of our ancestors

00:32:17.320 come from.

00:32:18.100 Or Nordic background, right?

00:32:20.700 Yes.

00:32:21.620 This is really interesting.

00:32:23.800 Okay?

00:32:24.140 So you see that, which is very different than the environments where the Jewish culture

00:32:28.140 was specialized.

00:32:29.000 Right.

00:32:29.340 High societal concentration.

00:32:31.020 Because, I mean, if you are making your money off banking, you need like civilization, like

00:32:35.120 fully functioning.

00:32:35.940 Exactly.

00:32:36.860 But martial cultures have a huge downside to them when it comes to modern warfare.

00:32:43.460 They are specifically specialized at home self-defense.

00:32:48.180 Yes.

00:32:48.320 So you look at like the skills that we have.

00:32:51.760 These skills are survivalist skills.

00:32:53.760 Yeah.

00:32:54.240 And these skills are protect your house skills.

00:32:56.580 Yeah.

00:32:56.840 But they often are much more tribal, much less trusting of command structures.

00:33:02.180 Yeah.

00:33:02.320 So if you look at Simone and I, we have an almost intrinsic disdain, like our entire cultural

00:33:07.040 background, of bureaucracies, of government, of hierarchy, these things are very, very bad

00:33:14.080 if you're going to be very, very good in a modern military context.

00:33:18.760 They are very good for society breaks down.

00:33:21.240 But when you look at modern military actions, they require bureaucracy.

00:33:25.800 They require top-down coordination.

00:33:28.080 They require taking orders.

00:33:30.140 They require this sort of complex organizational structure, which mirrored city life.

00:33:36.280 And this is what you see in the Yom Kippur War.

00:33:39.340 And I think this is what we're going to see in this war as well, that a lot of people

00:33:42.240 are like, oh, this is going to be really grueling for the Israeli defense forces, everything

00:33:46.520 like that.

00:33:47.340 You look at the Yom Kippur War, they were attacked.

00:33:49.480 So when we think of Israel now, we think of a force that is militarily more complex than

00:33:53.620 its neighbors.

00:33:54.620 When the Yom Kippur War happened, they were attacked by surprise, and they actually had

00:33:59.520 less military equipment than their neighbors, and the military equipment they had was significantly

00:34:03.560 less sophisticated than their neighbors.

00:34:04.940 They were being attacked by better-funded groups, with more troops, with more everything, 0.97

00:34:09.300 and they smoked their butts. 0.86

00:34:11.520 It was insane.

00:34:12.880 The level to which they crushed the people who were attacking them, given that they should

00:34:17.480 have been on the back foot, under-armed, under-technologied.

00:34:21.420 It was because their forces were much more internally coherent, whereas the forces that were attacking

00:34:28.300 them came from much more rural cultural traditions.

00:34:31.540 So these were more rural Islamic cultural traditions that lacked internal cohesion and

00:34:37.060 were much more sort of like war bands, I'm going to get my own thing.

00:34:41.420 And the military orders culturally that they were able to follow were similar to probably

00:34:45.520 the sophistication of the orders that our culture could follow, which were less.

00:34:49.080 I'm not saying this is an insult to their culture.

00:34:51.120 I'm saying that their culture is like my culture.

00:34:53.860 Right.

00:34:54.840 If actually, if you look at the sort of parallels with all of these militia groups that you

00:34:59.860 see in the U.S., they're far more likely to be associated with our culture and to have

00:35:04.520 that same level of decentralization.

00:35:06.560 So when you look at January 6th, I mean, they were just always going to be way too disorganized

00:35:11.760 to actually take over the U.S. government.

00:35:14.020 And I still hold that.

00:35:14.840 Like, I don't think we're ever going to see a very organized rebellion because of the

00:35:18.740 nature of our militaristic tendencies culturally.

00:35:21.520 However, you cannot, you cannot like take these people by storm.

00:35:26.300 You cannot force them to do things like, you know, you attack their ground and you're on

00:35:29.560 your back foot.

00:35:30.100 Right.

00:35:30.360 So like, it's this tension is very hard to hold, but they are not good at taking over

00:35:35.680 governments and running them.

00:35:36.580 Yeah.

00:35:36.800 So you couldn't invade their land, but they are not going to take over.

00:35:41.780 Yeah.

00:35:42.140 So, so it's just a different specialization.

00:35:44.960 And this is why, despite having a culture that encourages gun ownership at much lower

00:35:52.540 rates than other cultures, at much lower rates than I think would be sane, Israel and Jews 1.00

00:35:57.620 as a cultural group are so militaristically competent.

00:36:00.920 Also, technology is a huge part of military power.

00:36:05.020 A group that specializes in urban knowledge work is of course going to be more technologically

00:36:12.420 competent in terms of, and this is, none of this is like a genetic thing or anything like

00:36:16.440 that.

00:36:16.620 We're talking just about cultural specializations here.

00:36:19.460 And you can actually see these cultural specializations.

00:36:21.840 One of the things that we joke about in our book, as I wrap up here, is you go to Israel,

00:36:26.720 they, the Jewish groups that survived, most of them.

00:36:29.540 Now there were like the, the mountain Jews of Dagestan, for example, which were a militaristic 0.99

00:36:34.100 Jewish group that survived up until the time of the state of Israel and then moved into

00:36:38.000 Israel.

00:36:38.460 You know, so there were a few Jewish populations that survived that were very different cultural

00:36:42.900 groups that were militaristic, but are aware of these martial factions, but most of

00:36:48.240 them were urban specialists.

00:36:49.540 Was there a really place called Dagestan?

00:36:51.600 Because that sounds like something you made up from like Team America, World Police.

00:36:55.640 It's a, it's a thing, the mountain, hold on, I'm just Googling it.

00:36:58.520 Make sure I'm not speaking.

00:36:59.160 Yeah.

00:36:59.800 The mountain Jews of Dagestan. 1.00

00:37:01.440 Okay.

00:37:02.440 All right.

00:37:02.800 I really like weird cultures and studying.

00:37:05.160 Yeah.

00:37:05.600 No, love it.

00:37:06.520 Love it.

00:37:06.660 They were, obviously you hear about them in the, in the mountains of Dagestan, right?

00:37:11.020 Like obviously they're in a rural defensive area.

00:37:13.740 It would make sense to develop a cultural specialization around defending territory.

00:37:17.980 Like most mountain people do.

00:37:20.820 So, so what was really interesting and almost kind of humorous is if you go to Israel, because

00:37:27.560 this cultural group had recently been so recently urban specialized.

00:37:31.840 And if you look at like the U.S.

00:37:32.800 It's something like 98% of Jews live in like an urban center.

00:37:35.640 I don't remember exactly, but it's like a really high percentage.

00:37:38.260 You go and you look at, at their, the settlements when they do move into these rural areas.

00:37:44.380 And I'll, I'll put some, some screenshots of these.

00:37:46.620 They look bizarre.

00:37:48.000 They look like little miniature recreations of cities is very odd looking.

00:37:53.940 And this is a very similar to Korea.

00:37:56.340 The dominant Korean cultural group is an urban specialized cultural group.

00:37:59.400 And if you look at some rural Korean places, you'll see like these little clusters of

00:38:04.520 skyscrapers in like the middle of nowhere.

00:38:07.160 It's a very odd thing to see, but it's a different urban cultural group taking advantage

00:38:12.060 of, of rural areas.

00:38:13.260 So very, very, very fascinating.

00:38:16.360 I, and I think that in the question from all of this is, well, should Jewish culture change?

00:38:23.380 Like that's, that's what you were asking.

00:38:24.940 And I don't know, like, I guess we'll see.

00:38:27.380 I don't think that there is enough cultural evolutionary pressure.

00:38:30.620 There is just not enough incursions that kill enough people for the Jewish cultural groups,

00:38:36.920 because there are many cultural groups of Jews within Israel.

00:38:39.520 Like after the state of Israel was formed, you began to see this, this new blossoming

00:38:45.060 and speciation event.

00:38:46.640 Like we talked about a radiation event that is almost as big as the one that happened after

00:38:50.620 this period, because you're, you're moving a culture that was specialized for one type

00:38:56.380 of cultural niche into an environment where they need to fill all cultural niches.

00:39:00.040 So you're going to have a huge amount of cultural radiation, but there isn't enough pressure 1.00

00:39:04.080 to have some groups survive over other groups.

00:39:06.680 But you could say, okay, but what if I was intentionally designing like a Jewish cultural 0.95

00:39:10.560 group that was meant to survive in the future?

00:39:12.160 I would say that I, and you are too culturally biased.

00:39:16.060 Like lots of Jewish friends with our Jewish friends in the U.S.

00:39:18.940 Although to me, maybe this is the bias speaking, but like they already have the gun training.

00:39:23.740 They already have a gun safety training.

00:39:24.940 Like why not just buy, buy the fricking gun and just have it, just have it, just have it.

00:39:28.560 It's not like I'm planning on shooting someone with the Beretta back there, but like, 0.79

00:39:31.880 I mean, and now you've got, but you wanted recently, she demanded that we also, every

00:39:37.220 time you get pregnant, you get more guns. 1.00

00:39:38.780 It's a very interesting thing.

00:39:39.960 No, I asked for my bow and arrow.

00:39:41.520 I didn't ask for another gun.

00:39:43.020 And you asked for another weapon.

00:39:44.660 You said that you thought you could ready it quicker than a gun.

00:39:47.680 Well, yeah.

00:39:48.100 If they, if they're hanging right there, like, it's just, you know, you don't have to unlock,

00:39:53.080 you don't have to get the bolts.

00:39:53.960 You're just like, you're good to go.

00:39:55.580 Especially if it's strung on the wall.

00:39:57.020 I understand what you're saying, but I think it's very interesting that every time we've

00:40:02.260 had a new, like for people who aren't from a martial culture, one of the things, and

00:40:05.860 I think that this would be the antithesis of somebody from a non-martial culture, the 1.00

00:40:09.100 way they would answer.

00:40:09.920 Every time we've gone through a big gun or weapon buying spree or shipping spree, it's

00:40:13.160 been when you were pregnant.

00:40:14.880 When you first got pregnant, your family got a gun. 0.99

00:40:18.140 Next got pregnant. 0.99

00:40:19.740 My family said we should get guns, more guns.

00:40:22.400 They said, you got pregnant again.

00:40:24.100 You're like, I need better weapons.

00:40:25.700 Then we got the AR-15.

00:40:26.600 Yeah, but no, no.

00:40:27.680 Okay, so here's the thing.

00:40:28.860 Another really interesting thing is how people from martial cultures relate to self-dispence.

00:40:33.420 I mean, I just mean interesting from the perspective of somebody who's not from a martial culture

00:40:36.220 and hearing all this.

00:40:37.400 Because some people who aren't from martial cultures, like, pretend they're from martial

00:40:40.740 cultures because they think it makes them look more manually.

00:40:42.840 Like, Andrew Tate, for example, right, with his whole sword thing.

00:40:46.040 And yeah, we keep swords in the house, but the swords are toys.

00:40:50.620 Simone does make me keep, I guess you would call it in video game culture, a melee weapon

00:40:54.860 by my bed, but it is not a sword.

00:40:57.620 It is a sledgehammer because she says it would be easier to wield if our house was invaded

00:41:04.060 on short notice.

00:41:05.100 And I think that she's right.

00:41:06.420 I mean, it's about practicality versus impracticality.

00:41:08.620 And it's something that martial cultures often really value to the extent where, you know,

00:41:13.820 when my cousins found out that her family trained in throwing axes, they made fun of them for

00:41:19.080 the impracticality of the weapon.

00:41:21.880 They were like, this is a feat.

00:41:23.240 Like, it's feminine to really believe you could use something like a sword in self-defense 1.00

00:41:28.860 better than a sledgehammer or a throwing axe better than a gun.

00:41:32.020 Also, interesting side note here is I've noticed that martial cultures that were active recently

00:41:37.020 often look down upon or just don't actively laud as much physical strength and laud much

00:41:44.140 more knowledge of guns, improvised weaponry, stuff like that.

00:41:47.620 Whereas martial cultures that were more active in their martial phase, much further pack in

00:41:52.620 history, are much more interested in being physically strong and tough.

00:41:57.560 So an example would here be like our martial culture, which was active very recently during

00:42:00.940 the Old West, during the Civil War, versus martial cultures in Europe, which are much more

00:42:07.860 interested in like, okay, I've got to be tough and stuff like that.

00:42:10.100 And it's just because of the type of weapon that was used during these two periods.

00:42:13.960 Whereas, you know, in the Old West, you know, being tough and strong just wasn't as important

00:42:18.780 as improvised weaponry and gun skills.

00:42:21.900 Whereas if you're looking at like late medieval Europe, being tough and strong actually mattered.

00:42:27.080 They've already gone like 90% of the way.

00:42:29.760 They just don't own the guns.

00:42:31.060 Where are the guns?

00:42:31.660 The risk of a child killing themselves is higher than the risk of somebody being killed during

00:42:36.300 an adventure.

00:42:36.460 Not if it's properly locked and stored.

00:42:38.120 That's the thing is, is you keep your ammo separate, you lock your gun.

00:42:41.200 Like, and you know, I mean, these kids, keep in mind, you know, a lot of these kids living

00:42:45.640 in Cuba, they are doing way more, way earlier than kids here.

00:42:49.620 They're way less infantilized than they are in our culture.

00:42:52.240 So I don't even think that's the thing.

00:42:53.440 I mean, like if families that infantilize their children to an immense extent here will

00:42:58.540 still have guns in their houses, then like that is no excuse.

00:43:02.220 Your cultural bias.

00:43:02.840 But the point I was making earlier is that when we meet with our Jewish friends and you

00:43:06.160 can attest with this, because again, we have a lot of, you know, Jewish friends, like our

00:43:09.780 cultures historically have gotten along very well because they're both symbiotic cultures.

00:43:13.780 And we talk about this in the book, which means that typically they're going to get along

00:43:16.280 really well.

00:43:16.740 Like our parting advice is, please move out of the city, please get guns.

00:43:21.340 You're not safe, but that's just sort of the way our culture always feels.

00:43:24.880 You're never safe if you're in a city and unarmed.

00:43:29.240 And it's just a bias.

00:43:31.880 I think it's a bias because clearly they're doing better than us right now.

00:43:35.100 I'm just saying like.

00:43:36.620 They didn't do better when people raided their houses and killed and tortured and kidnapped

00:43:41.580 people.

00:43:42.200 No, they did not do better.

00:43:43.720 You can't.

00:43:44.080 Simone, on the whole, and this is how cultural evolution works.

00:43:51.840 It's not about the individual in these previous pogroms.

00:43:56.240 If you live in a martial society, you often live in a blood honor society.

00:44:00.060 So that means if somebody comes and they kill 10% of your population, they come in, they 1.00

00:44:04.880 kill even a few people in your population. 1.00

00:44:06.860 You then have like a blood oath against them and you are going to kill every one of them 1.00

00:44:11.620 for multiple generations and you are going to go out and make their life a living hell 1.00

00:44:15.460 as much as you can and as intergenerationally as you can.

00:44:20.140 Jews couldn't afford to do that given the frequency of pogroms.

00:44:23.660 And even today, suppose they did that.

00:44:27.000 Suppose they reacted to this the way you would have reacted to this.

00:44:30.880 And I know the way people of our cultural group would react to this.

00:44:33.500 It would have been.

00:44:35.220 I don't want to say it.

00:44:37.340 What?

00:44:38.200 Fire and fury.

00:44:39.120 I would say that their response has been very.

00:44:43.500 Measured.

00:44:43.900 Yeah, very humane compared to what my cultural group would demand and historically has done

00:44:50.540 in these sorts of environments, you know?

00:44:52.100 Yeah.

00:44:52.560 And I don't think it's like ethical or right.

00:44:55.080 I'm just saying it's what feels right, you know, because that's the way culture is.

00:44:58.540 Culture doesn't tell you what's right.

00:45:00.640 It tells you what you feel you're going to do.

00:45:03.080 And that's very much what you are talking about here.

00:45:05.160 And so the point being is it may be that what feels right for you isn't intergenerationally

00:45:11.780 what's going to lead a culture to out-compete other cultures.

00:45:14.960 You are absolutely right.

00:45:16.280 You are absolutely right.

00:45:18.060 Anyway, nuanced topic that I hope people don't take too harshly because it could be seen as

00:45:24.120 offensive just saying, ah, different cultures are different.

00:45:26.340 You know, this is something that.

00:45:27.500 I think we've already crossed that bridge.

00:45:29.620 We've rung that bell.

00:45:32.300 Jews are unique.

00:45:33.260 It's a cultural group.

00:45:34.260 Although they're not totally unique as a cultural group.

00:45:36.680 There's been different urban specialized cultures, which have sort of co-evolved into similar

00:45:40.640 sort of cultural ecological niches.

00:45:42.880 Jews are just really interesting right now because now they have their own country and 1.00

00:45:46.140 we get to see how that works.

00:45:47.620 Yeah.

00:45:49.160 Yep.

00:45:50.420 Long-term outlook, good.

00:45:53.100 I mean, long-term outlook, look, I'm very bullish on Israel and the Jewish people.

00:45:56.720 They are like, people are like, why are you so obsessed with Jews?

00:45:59.500 I'm like, we're.

00:46:00.620 Because we're obsessed with winners.

00:46:01.760 We have the thesis that different cultural groups are different and that wealth seems 0.73

00:46:08.680 to, across cultural groups, make people infertile.

00:46:12.440 Oh, except for this one cultural group that is somehow not entirely immune to this, but 0.99

00:46:17.160 dramatically more immune to this than any other cultural group in the world.

00:46:20.900 Wealth does not lower their fertility rate as much as anyone else.

00:46:23.180 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:46:24.000 And they are a very technophilic cultural group compared with other cultural groups with

00:46:29.320 similar fertility rates.

00:46:30.920 Why would that not fascinate us?

00:46:32.880 Yeah, seriously.

00:46:33.300 Why would we not be like, oh, there's something here that we need to learn from and we need

00:46:37.080 to study this?

00:46:38.380 Some people, get with it.

00:46:39.980 Get with it.

00:46:40.740 There's something that they're obviously doing right from a pronatalist perspective.

00:46:44.640 Yeah.

00:46:44.880 You don't have to like them, you know?

00:46:46.600 Just like, you got to respect.

00:46:47.840 Yeah, but the Amish don't have, you know, international relevance or influence.

00:46:53.520 Yeah.

00:46:54.540 The Amish aren't also known for producing some of the most influential, you know, spinoff 0.95

00:46:58.300 people in the world either.

00:47:00.100 So yeah, if the Mormons had maintained a high fertility rate, we'd be just as focused on 1.00

00:47:05.280 them, but they didn't.

00:47:06.380 Their culture was unable to compete with the virus and it crashed.

00:47:09.440 There are still many impactful and powerful Mormons in the United States, especially.

00:47:13.120 So, you know.

00:47:14.180 No, there are.

00:47:14.940 That's the point I'm making.

00:47:16.220 They can produce really competent, like their culture leads to a lot of competence, but

00:47:20.520 it was unable to motivate high fertility in the face of prosperity.

00:47:24.500 It appears to be.

00:47:25.360 It appears to be going through the faltering.

00:47:27.340 But I expect some Mormon cultural groups are going to survive and then explode afterwards. 1.00

00:47:31.080 And I do think that.

00:47:32.180 Yeah.

00:47:32.220 I mean, the Desnats are already showing basically like the fact that Desnats are becoming this

00:47:36.720 sort of trending thing.

00:47:38.180 I think the Desnet is the successful iteration of the Mormon. 1.00

00:47:41.820 Well, because it's, it's, it's basically where people.

00:47:43.780 Well, so then this is where Desnet is short for desert nationalists.

00:47:47.320 This is a group of Mormons that are essentially saying, no, we're going to keep this religion 0.99

00:47:51.460 hard while the religion in the mainstream sense as the institution is softening.

00:47:57.100 So as this, as this, as the Mormon culture becomes soft, which ultimately means it will 1.00

00:48:01.120 die out.

00:48:01.860 There is this faction that is saying, okay, well, we're staying hard. 1.00

00:48:05.260 So screw you. 0.99

00:48:06.180 And also we're going to like police you and shame you for going soft. 1.00

00:48:09.700 And the transhumanists might also do well. 0.94

00:48:11.300 The Mormon transhumanists. 1.00

00:48:12.260 Yeah.

00:48:12.600 Well, because they seem to also be going in a hard direction.

00:48:14.400 So anyway, like there's hope for them, but this video is running long.

00:48:16.880 Let's, I love you.

00:48:17.800 Goodbye.

00:48:18.740 I love you.

00:48:19.640 Bye.

00:48:19.800 Bye.

00:48:19.860 Bye.

00:48:20.480 Bye.

00:48:20.540 Bye.

00:48:20.580 Bye.

00:48:20.620 Bye.

00:48:20.680 Bye.

00:48:22.620 Bye.

00:48:22.680 Bye.

00:48:22.740 Bye.

Based Camp - October 27, 2023

Why Don't Jews Own Guns？

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