Why Give Our Kids a Backup Religion？ & Why Judaism？
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 4 minutes
Words per Minute
178.95222
Summary
In this episode, we discuss why we chose to celebrate Hanukah as a family for the first time, and why it matters to us that our kids are raised in a Jewish community. We talk about the benefits of having the option to be Jewish, and the challenges of doing so.
Transcript
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If we want to give our kids the best shot in life, you know, you want to look at religious traditions that have favorable outcomes.
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It's doing something quite cruel to a kid to be putting them and raising them in a new cultural group that you have created yourself and raise them feeling like you won't appreciate them if they do anything other than this really insane, weird thing you set up for them.
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And a lot of people, when we present our cultural group, they're like, why don't you just go to our group, right?
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Like, this is what we constantly hear. They're like, our group is traditional. Our group has done this a long time.
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And the answer is likely, and I don't mean to say this harshly, but it's probably because your group is failing.
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Hello, Simone. Today, we are going to talk about a fairly interesting and nuanced topic, which is this year, one of the things we did is,
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we celebrated Hanukkah as a family for the first time.
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And a lot of people are really surprised by the fact that we raise our kids with the option to be Jewish.
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And they're like, what? Why would you do that? Like, why would you think you'd be accepted?
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Like, this is a weird thing to do, especially given all of your religious beliefs.
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At the end of this video, I'll play the little, you know, Manorah lighting with the kids and everything.
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But I will say that our oldest son, Octavian, got super into it.
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Like, we let them watch stuff on their iPads for, like, a little bit every night.
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Anyway, somehow, and we don't know how, our son, Octavian, like, found a bunch of, and
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he's four years old, videos on YouTube about Hanukkah for kids.
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And he just was, like, watching them on repeat.
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And then each night, he was like, oh, like, let's do it.
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And then, like, after it was over, there were, like, at least three nights of great disappointment
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Like, we, he'd always say after a reading, he'd go, mom, what does that even mean?
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Yeah, except every time I would finish, I would finish part of, like, the recital, like, both
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Like, after each, you know, like, you know, so, you know, the Lord encourages us to, like,
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light the menorah and the Lord performed these miracles.
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But anyway, so, like, they were actually really into it.
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Like, like, one is, so there's, there's sort of two large strategic reasons for doing this.
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We believe really heavily that one of the big problems with a lot of conservative tradition
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families today is that they raise their kids believing that the, the alternative to following
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the culture that they are outlining for the kids is the urban monoculture.
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Whereas we are trying to raise our kids with a choice between two conservative extremes
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where they feel that the alternative in the way that they are raised to be sort of intergenerational
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in the way they think about things is going to be the Jewish community.
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So one is, why do we think we'd be accepted by that community in terms of how we do this?
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Well, the answer is actually pretty interesting and unique to us.
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And I've mentioned this on other things is that we found out, I, well, maybe a bit before
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we first met each other, but I certainly didn't know it until after we were dating is that Simone
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And within conservative Jewish communities, that makes her and our kids.
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So I would say technically Jewish, whereas to them, it's just fully Jewish.
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Whenever we, we say to like, at least some Jewish people that like, oh yeah, we're technically
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And then we're like, well, yeah, our kids are matrilineally Jewish.
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And we're like, I mean, like, I don't feel like you deserve it.
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It's cheating if you're from any other cultural group.
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Also, we did not know until like maybe a couple of years ago.
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A couple of years ago that, that literally like that was the requirement.
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We thought that they were, we heard, you know, about like, you know, people trying to convert
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your, your sister tried to convert, you know, turned away multiple times, like a ton of like
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So, I mean, to be Jewish, then you have to put in a ton of work.
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And at least like, even for like non hard to convert to religions, good religions that
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like, if we, you know, in 30 seconds wanted to convert, we could be welcomed with open arms.
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You're still really not considered that like a part of that religion, unless you're like
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leaning into it, you identify with it, you signal, you go to church, you know, or at least
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And it's a very weird technicality, but it's also like an option to us.
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So when we are raising kids within our weird religion and cultural framework, if we are
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preventing or we are presenting one other backup for them to turn to the other than our
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weird version of Christianity, you know, what is that backup going to be?
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And a lot of people, when we present our cultural group, they're like, why don't you just go
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And the answer is likely, and I don't mean to say this harshly, but it's probably because
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If I could choose what cultural group my kids go in and Jew is an option, let's just like
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Now, before we go into this, it's important to remember that we are not arguing against the
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We believe that every one of the religious systems, I mean, this is why we are considering
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them, is true from the perspective of a tesseract god.
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But, and this is a concept we go into in another video, where we believe that trying to fall
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the conservative revelation of specific Judeo-Christian religious traditions, which are direct revelations
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from God, is God's will for certain groups of people.
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So, when we're choosing between these traditions, what we are choosing is the one that most realistically,
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if we had as a backup for our kids, we think that kids would choose that over the urban monoculture
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if they do not choose the tradition that we are raising them in.
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So, that means that these are the traditions that we can most logically convince somebody
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That said, a lot of people will look at this and they're like, oh, well, this is too analytical
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You know, can't you just approach religion with faith?
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When you are choosing between religious traditions, saying just have faith doesn't work.
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Just have faith only works when you are choosing between a religious tradition and no religious
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tradition, or a religious tradition and a weaker, less conservative iteration of that
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Because you can have faith in any individual religious tradition.
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And then an individual might say, well, just pray to God and have him tell you which
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And then the problem is, yeah, but people of all of these traditions have already done
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that, and clearly God has returned to them that their tradition is the correct.
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And if he didn't return that answer to them, then there's somebody like Joseph Smith or
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something, and then everyone will say, oh, he started a cult, you know?
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Which, you know, you could say that that's what we've done.
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In our way, we prayed to God, said what's the correct answer, and he gave us this really
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So, I don't think that that is effective to us either.
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So, keep in mind, there is a reason why we are approaching this logically.
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It is because we care for the fate of our children's soul, and we need to choose a tradition
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that we think is, one, both true, but also is easy to logically argue to our kids that
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they should choose if they don't choose our own.
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The average fertility rate in a majority Catholic country in Europe right now is 1.3.
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And culturally, it just is probably the biggest mismatch with us possible, in terms of our
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And to keep in mind when we point out how distant we are, if you look at my family background,
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I'm a direct descendant of Oliver Cromwell, very far from that cultural group.
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Now, before I go further with this, I need to really clearly say that this is not me arguing
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against Catholicism as a true representation of God within this Tesseract God framework.
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I am simply going over why I personally could not get behind it, and I do not think it would
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be a good system for me to raise as a backup system for my own children.
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Also, logically, I have trouble with Catholicism versus other Christian traditions.
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Specifically, it differentiates itself by saying, we have this system for choosing the one individual
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who is the key representative of God on earth, the Pope.
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However, I brought up the Cadaver Synod flippantly earlier, and I really don't take it flippantly
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when I'm looking at Catholicism from a logical consistency standpoint.
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In this incident, one Pope dug up the body of another dead Pope, his predecessor, put him
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on trial, saying that he was both immoral and that the system had inaccurately put him in
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the papacy, and then threw his body in the river.
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Then, after that Pope was assassinated by his own clergy, he then had his own actions repudiated
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So, this is not like me as an outsider saying by whatever outside moral standards I have
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that the papacy has been a bad system at choosing God's core representative on earth.
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It is God's core representative on earth as chosen by this system saying it's a bad system
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for choosing God's core representative on earth.
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Now, of course, the standard Catholic response to this is none of this situation happened
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So, ex cathedra is a special set of circumstances that's required for something a Pope says or
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writes to be considered the direct word of God or directly inspired by God.
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The problem I have with this counter is that ex cathedra was not a concept when this trial
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Ex cathedra as a concept was not fully delineated until almost a millennium after this trial at
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So, when the Great Schism happened, in which the Patriarch of Rome claimed that his system
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for choosing a patriarch was innately and categorically superior to the systems all of the other patriarchs,
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were using, and he then excommunicated some of these other patriarchs, potentially damning
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their souls to hell, he was doing that with all of the power invested in him that was invested
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in the Popes during the cadaver syndrome, which was before ex cathedra had been developed.
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And keep in mind, ex cathedra was developed with all of these events in mind.
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This would be like saying, oh, me as an investor, my investment decisions are ordained by God.
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And then somebody comes to me and they're like, look, you've objectively lost tons of
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You see, it turns out that all of the decisions I made on Tuesdays and Wednesdays don't count.
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Now, I am making this carve out after knowing that those days were my bad trading days.
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That is not a compelling argument for this being a good system or for me being a good
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However, this ex cathedra argument, which again we don't think is very compelling, did not
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even exist during the time of the Great Schism as a concept, where it had to differentiate
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its system as being innately superior to the Orthodox system.
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And this then comes to another problem, which is all of the events of the Cadaver Synod had
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actually happened fairly recently before the Great Schism.
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So when the Patriarch of Rome is telling all of the other patriarchs, my system is innately
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superior to all of your systems, recently within their memory is the Cadaver Synod.
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And I mean, look, if God actually intended us to use this system to choose his representative
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on Earth, then he would not have allowed this to happen.
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However, if he was trying to tell us, don't choose this system, choose another, and God
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wanted to send a very loud signal to anyone who was investigating it that it is not his
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voice on Earth, this seems like the way he would have signaled something like that.
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In addition to that, though, and as we've talked about before, aesthetically, Catholicism
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does not seem to be a representation of the true word of God as laid out in the Christian
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For as the true grail will bring you life, the false grail will take it from you.
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This certainly is the cup of the king of kings.
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So, when coming at this choice of what system would be a good backup system for my own kids,
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because Solacism is the one I can easily rule out.
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Like, it seems like the obviously wrong choice.
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But that doesn't mean that it is the wrong choice for other people.
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So, for example, Catholicism might be a uniquely good and powerful system for any family that is really moved by ritual and really moved by grandeur and really moved by authority instead of repelled by things like ritual and grandeur.
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I think that orthodox is the original Christianity.
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I think the orthodox groups of Christians are the original Christianity if you're like, I want to be original OG Christian.
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And we can do another video on this because a lot of people think that's the Catholics and it really isn't the Catholics.
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But, I mean, in the early days, if you look at the early church, if you look at the church writings, it was a group of heads of various cities who would meet with each other and were broadly equals.
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The idea of one person being above all the others really only came into play when Rome, like, really began to dominate the political scene.
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And then, you know, after Constantine made it the Roman Empire, they were like, okay, this one city is more important than the other cities.
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But that doesn't really flow as, like, the original intentionality of the church.
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It would be so fucking weird to convert to orthodox Christianity.
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We have no genetic connection, no cultural connection.
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Well, I mean, technically, my Jewish ancestors converted to orthodox Christianity because they were renting their upper apartment to the SS.
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Yeah, so we do have a family connection, but, yeah, nothing realistic.
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We also run into the same aesthetic problem that we run into with Catholicism when we're dealing with the orthodox traditions.
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For context here, Vladimir I of Kivan Rus, the guy who basically sort of founded the Russian Orthodox Church,
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he chose orthodoxism over other iterations of Christianity because he was so impressed with how beautiful the Hagia Sophia was.
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In the same vein, I also think I would have a hard time if I had to try to convince my kids to believe that there was any sort of theological import to things like relics.
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Which, from my tradition was in Christianity and my beliefs around iconoclasm,
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that's basically worshipping a corpse someone took a bedazzler to.
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Transform your ordinary blue jeans into an expensive designer look.
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Bedazzle your socks, mitts and gloves, hats and scarves.
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If you believe that the Bible is the only and total revelation,
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but, you know, obviously we've talked about on other podcasts we don't believe that.
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We don't even believe that the Bible really states that it notes there's going to be future revelations.
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So, the advantage of things like the Orthodox tradition and the Catholic tradition is they have systems in place that allow adherence to those traditions to easily identify how God's word is elucidated upon or added to with additional prophets.
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Because they have these central hierarchies which allow them to say,
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this is an accurate prophet, this is an inaccurate prophet, and through that the traditions can evolve with God's continuing revelation.
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And as to why we believe God has a continuing revelation is because that's what the Bible says.
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Jesus says there are going to be prophets after me.
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Whereas within Protestantism you have no system for doing that or within the traditional Protestant faith,
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which means you're sort of frozen in time at the point when the Bible was written,
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which to me seems incongruous was what I think God would want.
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Like, I don't think God would have given his whole and complete revelation to an obscure group 2,000 years ago
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and that that message wouldn't reach a huge portion of the world's population for like 1,000 years after it was delivered.
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So, to me, I think God has always been trying to, as holistically as he can,
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reveal himself in the way that every group is meant to understand him.
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But that being the case, it means that we have no system,
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if we go as a traditional Protestant strand, of determining these additional revelations.
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And since our family's existing faith is essentially Protestant plus additional revelations,
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there is no advantage to having a traditional form of Protestantism as a backup to it.
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That stuff is already encompassed in what we teach our children.
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Like, so, so when we're looking at things, and it offers us no advantage,
00:19:52.800
like, if you look at the Protestant cultural groups in the world today,
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they are some of the most underperforming of the Christian cultural groups.
00:20:01.740
Yeah, and like, what cultural amenities are they offering?
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Like, at least Mormons have like this amazing community and lifestyle and, you know, all that.
00:20:09.860
And then people will say things like, well, then why don't you go back to your ancestral tradition,
00:20:16.720
And that's because the Calvinist group that exists within any population today in America
00:20:20.700
is almost the antithesis of the historical Calvinist group.
00:20:26.240
You know, they're evangelical hardliners like Ayla's dad, for example,
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which doesn't lead to good outcomes in today's society.
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Whereas you look at the iteration of the Calvinist group that is our actual cultural group,
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it's the one that Scott Alexander slash Starslate Codex wrote about
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And we would almost appear to be an offensive stereotype of this group,
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Atheist DS Freethinker wrote a book about their heterodox religious views,
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invented a new religion, invented a new Christian heresy,
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obsessed with religious tolerance, founded their own school,
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had really weird names, had a bunch of kids, wrote a list of virtues,
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had a plan to immunitize the eshteton, social reformer,
00:21:15.000
waged a crusade against an abstract concept, ideals that were utopian yet racist.
00:21:20.740
And I don't think our views are racist, but we get accused of racism all the time.
00:21:24.500
Abolitionists, my family famously very involved in the abolition movement
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and fighting for African-American rights, famously involved in philanthropy.
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We were also involved in the prohibition movement.
00:21:33.720
I love it, rabidly anti-war, yet rabidly supports every specific war that happened.
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So you can see that, like, this is clearly the group we're from.
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We're not even acting out of line with this group's cultural traditions.
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And yet they have no community for us to go back to.
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And even what we're doing with the religion we're creating for our family
00:21:53.320
is very much something somebody from this group would do.
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So we haven't left this group in terms of our primary religious system.
00:22:01.760
The core real choices for us to raise as an alternative for our kids are Jews and Mormons.
00:22:08.580
They seem like they're going to be major players in the future of humanity.
00:22:11.320
And theologically, I think they both have a claim to being total and complete revelations from God.
00:22:17.180
Jews, because, well, pretty much every group in the Judeo-Christian tree says that Jewish texts have some real importance or weight to them,
00:22:27.580
which is not something we can say for virtually any other religious system.
00:22:31.100
In addition to that, it's a religion that seems to be able to continue evolving and continue updating itself.
00:22:37.500
And as you know, as we think, we don't think any religion that is ever frozen in time or any theological structure that's ever frozen in time
00:22:43.900
can be theologically correct, as it would be impossible for God to give a full revelation to people, you know, early, early, early in human history.
00:22:54.600
And yet it would be capricious and evil for him to give those people no revelation at all.
00:23:00.240
So when we're looking for a true religion, we're looking for an evolving religious system.
00:23:03.940
With Mormons, it's because they believe that they can continue to get revelations up to today,
00:23:09.700
and they don't really take super hard stances on almost anything in terms of a metaphysical understanding of the universe
00:23:17.340
because of this continued revelation framework, which really fits with our framework for how we think things likely actually work theologically.
00:23:25.280
So when I'm looking at those two groups, Jews just seem to have their act together a lot more right now.
00:23:30.840
Yeah, I would say they are an appreciating asset showing signs of, like, these guys are doing something right.
00:23:39.180
Well, I think that's what people need to be asking themselves.
00:23:41.500
And again, I want to emphasize how meaningful your observation is that, like, the de facto option that hardline conservative religious families are giving to their kids
00:23:53.840
are either follow our specific religion or join the progressive urban monoculture.
00:24:00.560
Like, and, like, if you really care about your children's mental well-being, thriving as humans,
00:24:09.520
like, both, like, economic, social, and mental and spiritual well-being,
00:24:14.460
do you really want their other option to be completely, like, religiously, morally, like, mentally bankrupt?
00:24:22.300
Or do you want to, like, at least give them a shot at thriving?
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Yeah, well, and so an interesting thing is a lot of people will see what we're doing and they'll be like,
00:24:29.740
yeah, but even if you send them to, like, Chabad summer camps and stuff like that,
00:24:33.440
even if you do the Jewish, they're never going to be full, like, ultra-Orthodox Jews, right?
00:24:41.100
The idea here is not that if they don't like what we're doing, they convert to ultra-Orthodox Judaism.
00:24:46.480
They convert to some form of, like, modern Orthodox Judaism.
00:24:50.420
You know, they maybe follow the traditions, but they do not play in the ultra-Orthodox status games,
00:24:56.320
which are involved around, you know, having to study all the time.
00:24:59.240
Like, they really require a level of an investment that you need to be committed to 100% from birth.
00:25:07.800
Yeah, it would be very, very hard for an outsider.
00:25:09.760
It's like joining the Olympics, but, like, starting to train for it when you're in late high school.
00:25:14.780
Yeah, and, like, joining a group of, like, you know, Russian Olympic gymnasts who've been, like, training since, you know.
00:25:21.540
But exposing them to that community, so long as they like that community,
00:25:25.180
then they go down the regular Orthodox pathway within Judaism, or, you know,
00:25:30.520
we would call, like, secular Orthodox Judaism, particularly the one in the U.S. or Israel,
00:25:34.740
which gives them a network of spouses, which gives them a network of business partners,
00:25:39.100
you know, people that are willing to help them and everything like that.
00:25:41.220
So, of course, we're providing them with an advantage there.
00:25:48.000
But what we're also trying to do, and, you know, we have our lifetimes to do this,
00:25:54.260
is to, for our own weird philosophical and religious framework that we're building up,
00:25:59.060
is to build enough of a community of disparate groups that are vaguely connected with this,
00:26:04.940
that they also, if they go that route, have a network where they can get spouses,
00:26:10.160
Like, we basically have our lifetimes to try to build a network that competes with Judaism for
00:26:19.060
business connection, spousal attainment, and moral, what's the word I'm looking for here?
00:26:26.860
And a lot of people can be like, that is a fool's errand to attempt that.
00:26:30.380
That is the sign of grandiose fantasy to think that you could do that,
00:26:38.480
Also, we strongly believe in the power that competition has to enable you to achieve things
00:26:45.420
you never thought you could achieve, and the power of exposure to extremely accomplished peers.
00:26:51.780
If you raise a kid surrounded by very accomplished friends and peers,
00:26:56.800
they're going to ultimately, I think, end up, even if they, like, just are lower caliber in general,
00:27:03.740
they're going to end up higher than if they were with peers of their own level, you know?
00:27:10.980
No, and we've worked really hard to do this, to ensure that even at a young age,
00:27:14.280
the families that they are socializing with are the, you know, one, was in our cultural network,
00:27:19.840
and two, like, absolutely impressive and setting their expectations really, really high
00:27:32.780
I'm just, like, in the confidence that our kids show about their convictions and their judgments.
00:27:39.620
Well, this also comes from how we raise them in our parenting style,
00:27:41.980
this idea of stroking their will rather than breaking their will.
00:27:45.640
Everything about our parenting style is meant to increase the strength of their will.
00:27:52.580
and I think that that's the core thing that we should focus on.
00:27:54.720
When they disagree with us or something like that,
00:27:56.920
the last thing I want to do is to break them like a wild horse, right?
00:28:04.200
You don't want them to just be able to do whatever they want like a spoiled brat.
00:28:07.060
You want them to understand the moral responsibility of being somebody who lives by their own will
00:28:11.160
while also strengthening and testing that will as much as possible to make it as strong as possible.
00:28:17.760
And that's something that we, you know, are consistently focused on within our parenting techniques.
00:28:26.940
and the best backup network we see right now in the world is the Jewish community.
00:28:34.420
And I think for a lot of people, if they were like, okay, if my kids weren't of my culture,
00:28:40.000
and I had to choose one other culture as a backup culture, and I was accepted by that culture,
00:28:55.100
and the thing that most distances me from the Mormon community is when they're overly nice.
00:29:06.820
My bigger problem with it, actually, is that, like,
00:29:10.020
most of the Mormon content that I get, that even makes me love the church,
00:29:14.660
is from people who have left the church and are very openly publicly salty about it.
00:29:20.940
Like, it's bad if your major, like, online brand ambassadors are your detractors.
00:29:29.960
So what we mean by this is when we want to intellectually engage with a community,
00:29:35.620
that means we want to see people from within that community, you know,
00:29:38.820
nitpick every little nuance in terms of how different groups of that community are different,
00:29:43.040
how different people in the community see things differently,
00:29:45.480
and all of the theological debates within the community,
00:29:48.460
what they don't like about the community, what they do like within the community.
00:29:51.720
Now, you can understand, this is something we get in spades within the Jewish community,
00:29:55.780
but almost not at all within the Mormon community,
00:29:58.800
which makes it very dispositionally hard for us to engage with the community,
00:30:03.200
outside of people who have left the community and are willing to, like, drop the tease.
00:30:07.980
Well, the best brand ambassadors, because I think culturally,
00:30:10.840
when somebody is raised within the Mormon community,
00:30:14.260
If you look at, like, the leaders of, like, the new ACS community,
00:30:19.640
Yeah, and one, I think, I think maybe the problem is that there are also many practicing Mormon influencers,
00:30:25.220
but they don't, you don't realize, they're not talking about their religion.
00:30:30.360
No, I don't think that's it, it's that they don't engage with metaphysical debates
00:30:34.340
as much as I would find, like, mentally stimulating to me.
00:30:38.440
Like, to me, Mormons have a sophisticated metaphysical system, which is interesting to me,
00:30:45.920
and we've talked about this in our Mormon video,
00:30:47.920
but there is a denial within the Mormon community of the diversity of beliefs within the Mormon community,
00:30:53.700
and that denial makes interesting debate within the community,
00:30:59.580
much rarer than it is within the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community,
00:31:05.000
where, like, metaphysical debate is the core of the community,
00:31:11.140
which is going to engender me, like, or the next iteration of me,
00:31:15.260
probably more to that community if I'm trying to build an alternative to them.
00:31:19.100
And if you're here as an outsider thinking, like,
00:31:21.040
yeah, but you should be choosing which religion you want at the back of religion,
00:31:24.400
just based on which one is most likely to be true,
00:31:27.480
you've got to see our video on the Tesseract God concept.
00:31:31.460
We believe some, not all, but some of the Judeo-Christian tree of revelations
00:31:38.000
to be holy and complete revelations that are simultaneously 100% true.
00:31:45.000
And if you follow a conservative interpretation of those traditions,
00:31:55.380
yeah, but aren't you worried that your kids might be studying, like,
00:31:58.260
religious texts by studying Jewish texts that are antithetical to your belief system?
00:32:02.740
And it's like, no, because of the way we view these different religious systems,
00:32:06.480
one of our kids studying Jewish texts are studying, like, real, non-heretical information.
00:32:12.920
In the same way, I think most Christian groups would feel the same way about Jewish texts.
00:32:16.840
And the second is, is if Mormons had successfully created a desert state or a strong desert isolated community,
00:32:25.200
I would be much more, like, considering Mormonism as the alternative we raise our kids with.
00:32:40.020
Having these sort of isolated communities, where the world's headed,
00:32:44.180
where we're looking at this vast economic collapse and the primary asset in the future,
00:32:48.640
being high fertility, high competence, high agency groups,
00:32:53.700
you're just not seeing that the Mormons have the potential to create something like that.
00:32:57.420
Like, it's very obviously in the DNA of Mormonism to attempt to do something like that,
00:33:12.660
Catholics could as well, but they'd have to create some sort of a new exclusive order
00:33:17.860
that allowed priests to breed, and that's unlikely.
00:33:21.660
I could see Catholics creating, like, isolated communities in the U.S. that do this.
00:33:27.660
There may already be some that we just don't know about.
00:33:30.100
Yeah, there already might be some that we just don't know about
00:33:34.400
Would it not be fascinating if a Catholic group converted some of these,
00:33:38.660
you know, you increasingly see these old monasteries getting abandoned
00:33:43.440
converted one of these into a residential child-focused community?
00:33:52.000
Although, Orthodox are just getting absolutely rammed right now.
00:33:57.360
Yeah, you don't hear about them thriving a lot right now.
00:34:07.260
and they haven't done a good job of maintaining intergenerational fidelity.
00:34:11.420
And by that, what I mean is they have a really high bleed rate.
00:34:13.560
Like, they do not keep people in their religion at high rates.
00:34:16.460
Like, after Mormons, probably the next group I would choose for our kids,
00:34:21.020
if I had to choose a group, would be some form of Anabaptists.
00:34:34.440
I feel some, like, cultural distance when I engage with the Orthodox Jewish community.
00:34:39.860
I'm like, yeah, I can see that, like, we get along.
00:34:42.040
I can see, like, why my ancestors did business.
00:34:44.000
Because typically Calvinists traditionally did a lot of business with the Jewish community.
00:34:48.320
That was, even my grandfather, like, he was a big advocate for the community.
00:34:51.960
And, like, it's something that just they're known for.
00:34:55.460
You know, well, your great, great, great uncle, George Washington, you know,
00:34:58.960
when he took over the country, he did a lot of stuff with the community.
00:35:02.140
So it was a really well-known thing that they engaged really heavily with the community.
00:35:17.020
And not portion up in their world perspective in a way that just doesn't fit with my world.
00:35:23.300
Well, not debate, but, like, conversation we have with, like, Carl Youngbud
00:35:28.200
Is there, you know, they're unwilling to see, for example, God as an uncompassionate entity.
00:35:34.380
Whereas, from our perspective, God is just so obviously not compassionate.
00:35:39.280
Like, unless you define good as the thing that God does, God is a amoral entity from the perspective of our existing humanity.
00:36:03.060
But when you use words like compassion or love to describe God, from my perspective, you are manipulating people.
00:36:11.360
Intentionally manipulating people because you mean words differently than what humans mean when they say compassion or love.
00:36:19.880
Yeah, because I think when we were speaking with.
00:36:21.800
Why are you saying, you know, like, an unknowable, unknown thing that we can't even begin to comprehend its morality or its moral core.
00:36:31.500
Well, I think Lincoln and Carl were, when we were discussing this with them, like, their Mormon definition of compassion was, oh, but God is giving humans the potential and the opportunity to achieve so much more.
00:36:45.860
And that was their definition of compassion rather than, like, look at all the suffering that God is permitting.
00:36:56.660
Through what is red and tooth and claw, like, through death and intergenerational improvement and horrifying, horrifying means.
00:37:09.700
And I think that that is the gift that God has given us that allows us to improve, which is the ability to suffer and die and improve intergenerationally.
00:37:18.760
But that is not, like, from the perspective of the zebra that's being eaten alive by a lion or something or eaten alive by a bear.
00:37:30.520
But the deer that's being eaten alive by a bear or the human, the human child that's being eaten alive by a bear, because that has happened many times, that does not seem like what I consider compassion from a human perspective.
00:37:41.960
And I think this is where we differ most from them, because within the Calvinist framework, you're not going to be, like, God is compassionate in the way that humans use the word compassion.
00:37:52.040
But Mennonites, when I talk with Mennonites, I really get that.
00:37:55.940
Like, they just seem culturally very, very, very close to me.
00:37:59.320
I feel almost no difference between myself as Mennonites or even Amish.
00:38:03.340
And they're in our local communities and stuff like that.
00:38:06.820
I remember, you know, I was watching a video, a great video of Amish people talking about it.
00:38:12.080
And they were bitching about the money they got from the government for having additional kids.
00:38:16.460
And they were like, oh, there's these child subsidies.
00:38:18.140
And it's disgusting that the government is giving us money for this.
00:38:20.960
But, I mean, of course, we're going to take it if they're handing it to us.
00:38:23.740
And I just felt such a, I was like, yes, I really get you guys, you know.
00:38:27.780
But you feel like a disconnect between what's going on here and what's going on out there.
00:38:40.620
So this last year, COVID, all the craziness that's gone on with the politics.
00:38:46.920
The worst part of it for us was the annoyance of having to wear a mask everywhere.
00:39:10.920
So I call your attention to a few things in these conversations that I find really interesting.
00:39:15.800
And I would suggest you go check out this guy's channel and his other stuff on Amish and Mennonite
00:39:19.100
communities if you want to experience more of what those communities are like because he
00:39:23.220
does, I think, a very good job of portraying them.
00:39:25.980
The first is how insularly focused the community is and how they status signal within the community
00:39:34.180
through their humility in terms of how they relate to each other.
00:39:39.620
The way that they are flexing is through humbleness, which is really in accord with the way that
00:39:48.620
You know, when we're talking about anime or the lower arts, we are doing that to flex how
00:39:56.340
unpretentious we are in the things that we signal liking.
00:40:00.280
The second thing that you see within these communities is while men and women have different
00:40:06.000
roles and systemically different roles based on biological gender differences, women are not
00:40:15.700
And this is really interesting, I mean, like, conversationally, ideologically.
00:40:20.660
Like, women may not have a place in the church because of what the Bible says, but in terms of how
00:40:25.300
they're treated in general conversations, there isn't, they talk over men, they share their
00:40:33.920
And this is something that I really notice when I'm around different groups is the way that
00:40:41.600
And I just find this aligns much more with my cultural heritage and the way that I would
00:40:48.180
want my kids to be treated, you know, 100 years from now, they end up going down some
00:40:53.320
Now, what we're going to go to next is a clip of them talking about technology use, because
00:40:58.240
I think it also shows how clear-headed they are.
00:41:01.680
Well, we'll also give you an opportunity to look to see if you can notice some of the things
00:41:13.320
So, I have a, I erased the browser, and it's intentional.
00:41:19.180
I have a smartphone so that I can call and text.
00:41:26.620
But I don't have access to the internet on my smartphone.
00:41:38.340
And I have a blocker on here that blocks all pornographic and all, you know, all of that
00:41:45.340
But, and I can customize it to what apps I can have.
00:41:52.560
But then, it's just, it's up to the individual then.
00:41:56.980
And then, I have a blocker on here, and we have accountability groups in our church.
00:42:00.300
And I'm accountable to what I use on my phone to other brother from the church.
00:42:22.480
And so, what I can do with my phone is I can call.
00:42:26.620
But, like, I cannot receive any pictures or even group messages because all the data is
00:42:40.280
We don't have any internet access on the phone.
00:42:42.460
And we actually don't have any internet at all at our house or anything.
00:42:48.980
By ourself, we choose to live that way because we enjoy being simple and, I don't know.
00:42:59.320
So, I think that that's where I have the least cultural distance.
00:43:02.340
But the problem is, is that they're not economically productive.
00:43:05.240
And that's really, really important to me in being able to join in a high economic productivity
00:43:09.660
group if you're going to be one of the people who gets off planet.
00:43:12.220
Like, our goal for our kids, like, if you're like, what are you really aiming for
00:43:17.260
Cultural fidelity is nice, but I want them to be part of that group, part of that movement
00:43:22.120
and through how we improve them and through how we create this intergenerational improvement,
00:43:27.080
whether that means going to another cultural group or some improved iteration of our own
00:43:31.060
that is taking to the stars, that is conquering the universe.
00:43:35.620
It is creating the imperial of man, this vast human empire.
00:43:41.000
You know, future days coming up and we have these projectors on our ceilings of galaxies,
00:43:49.140
And when we point to this, we're like, you know, Simba and the, at the beginning of the
00:43:52.860
Lion King, everything you see is, is your domain.
00:43:55.580
Look, Simba, everything the light touches is our kingdom.
00:44:03.320
A king's time as ruler rises and falls like the sun.
00:44:08.280
One day, Simba, the sun will set on my time here and will rise with you as the new king.
00:44:20.620
That's what we're doing when we are engaging them with this galaxy, this galaxy that you
00:44:25.400
see, you know, and in some future days, we're going to take them, talking to Simone about
00:44:30.080
this, to the woods so they can see the stars, you know, they can see all the stars in the
00:44:41.420
This was given to you by God as something that, that is your duty and your responsibility to
00:44:52.540
And that, that is a, a deeply vast and, and should be humbling responsibility.
00:44:59.140
And, and you are starting so early, you know, we haven't even conquered one planet yet.
00:45:04.140
You know, you, we are starting so early in this cycle, but I hope that they play a role
00:45:11.960
And if we unfortunately use Mennonites as our backup culture, very unlikely that that's
00:45:20.000
Well, I think we're like very, very clearly too technophilic to ever really pass.
00:45:29.080
Although there could be an interesting version of like AI safety Mennonitism.
00:45:36.040
Uh, well, they never developed, they basically freeze civilizational development at our current
00:45:40.180
stage instead of at another stage and they, they kill everyone else and they ensure that
00:45:47.200
And they're just like, right now, this is when we need to stop.
00:45:49.280
Like for them, it was buttons for Eliezer Yukowski.
00:45:53.680
It's one of the things that famous Douglas Adams quote, you know, the guy who wrote
00:45:57.620
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that was so prophetic that the moment when the average
00:46:02.100
member of the EA community turned over 30, or it wouldn't even say the average leading
00:46:06.760
member, like basically as soon as Eliezer turned over 30, the EA movement became rabidly
00:46:14.640
And what he said is anything invented after the age of 30 for you is, is wrong and must be
00:46:22.660
And I'll put the full quote on the screen here because it's brilliant that he had this
00:46:26.560
He said, anything that's invented between when you're born and when you turn 30, that's,
00:46:30.780
that's like something you're going to get a job in.
00:46:34.060
And isn't that what they were with crypto and stuff like that?
00:46:36.660
They loved all that, but then they're like, but, but anything after I'm 30 is like a,
00:46:44.380
So, you know, you could see something like that, but no, I, I think the reality is, is that
00:46:48.340
our best shot with AI is to merge with AI to, to do what humanity has always done, which
00:46:52.720
is to be a merger of the biological and synthetic.
00:46:56.940
When I say merge, I do not be downloaded into AI.
00:46:59.420
I mean, upgrade themselves with AI and technology and continue to advance as a species until,
00:47:08.760
in the words of Wynwood Reed, we as, as humans can become something that if explained to us
00:47:14.500
today, we would not understand in the same way that if we explained electricity to the,
00:47:19.960
the savage, they would not understand that we will become you, you pure radiant beings
00:47:25.320
of which now we cannot even conceive, which is, you know, what we see as the, the agents
00:47:32.900
But this is why we raise our kids partially Jewish.
00:47:37.480
And two, I think one of the most logically consistent religious frameworks.
00:47:41.340
Well, but also like healthy, if we want to give our kids the best shot in life, you know,
00:47:45.920
you want to look at religious traditions that have favorable outcomes.
00:47:50.540
And, and Christians will say things like, well, yeah, but Jews predicted a future Messiah,
00:47:57.420
Like they predicted a future prophet, which then clearly happened and they ignored.
00:48:02.540
And if you read the Christian Bible, it also clearly predicts future prophets, which you
00:48:08.200
So I, you know, if I'm going to be like, let's go back to one of these systems of ignoring
00:48:12.940
future prophets, okay, we'll go to the Jewish system.
00:48:16.760
Basically, we're taking the position that the Judeo-Christian tree is almost certainly
00:48:22.340
And if it isn't the correct one, then why did God allow the timeline to play out as it
00:48:27.140
You know, if he's from one of the other traditions, he really messed up with this planet.
00:48:31.200
So if we take the position that Judeo-Christian tradition is the correct tradition, we can either
00:48:39.820
They're just no prophets, only the legalistic system and the community.
00:48:45.240
And the way that legalistic system and community evolve in a secular context is God's will and
00:48:52.660
In which case we are Jewish, or we take all additional prophets, in which case we're in
00:48:59.020
Another huge advantage of Judaism from our perspective is it gets around the problem that
00:49:03.420
we keep mentioning of, why would God give a revelation that is meant for everyone to
00:49:09.700
people in one isolated part of the world and not allow that message, which is required for
00:49:15.040
salvation, to not reach most of the world for a thousand years or so?
00:49:19.840
You know, Jesus is in historic Israel, and yet that message can't reach the Americas for
00:49:27.620
That strikes me as logically inconsistent to the level where I would have trouble convincing
00:49:34.800
However, with Judaism, I don't have the same problem because Judaism is not all-encompassing.
00:49:40.140
Judaism doesn't say, oh, this message is meant for everyone.
00:49:43.100
It says, oh, it's meant for this specific population group, which fixes this hole in the
00:49:47.780
logic when I'm trying to convince my kids of this system.
00:49:50.480
Judaism, the Old Testament God, is a God that is very clearly not a good entity from the
00:50:07.040
He's only a good entity insofar as you define everything done by God as good.
00:50:12.580
And I think that that's also a much more easy and realistic God to convince kids of than
00:50:19.200
a all-powerful, all-good entity actually created the world that we live in today.
00:50:24.800
There is suffering to exist that no positives come out of.
00:50:28.840
And I think it's pretty objectively true that that type of suffering does exist in the world
00:50:33.740
And this is one of the problems that we had when we were in the debate with the Mormon
00:50:37.000
transhumanists where they're like, well, God is compassionate.
00:50:39.280
And I'm like, very clearly not by what we as humans mean when we say the word compassionate.
00:50:46.280
And then it's like, well, then you, why would you even use that word?
00:50:48.960
Why would you even say that if you're just defining compassionate as the things that God
00:50:54.060
And here I should note, when I say that God is not good from the way that we like normal
00:50:58.480
people define good, I think God is better than that.
00:51:02.500
But I think that that's because the way that we as normal humans define good is bad.
00:51:06.680
And we should study God's will to try to understand it better.
00:51:10.680
And that that will is much more read in tooth and claw than we would pretend in the kumbaya
00:51:18.560
We'll add one more note, though, which is that it's not just that we're only going to expose
00:51:27.900
Now, we're not going to go like take our kids to like Easter mass or something like we're not
00:51:33.180
going to practice other forms of religion, I think, unless our kids like really want to
00:51:38.760
You know, they're willing to organize the holiday.
00:51:40.660
Yeah, they're like, I'll handle the organization.
00:51:44.080
I'll have us, you know, I'll do the recitals or whatever.
00:51:46.780
But we do want our children to be educated in every major religious tradition.
00:51:51.780
We want them to understand the stories, the philosophy they should have read, you know,
00:51:57.780
I mean, certainly they should have read the whole like all the New Testament, clearly.
00:52:01.640
But then also like no excerpts from major religious books from other traditions as well, and also
00:52:07.700
understand like the moral and metaphysical frameworks of these other religions.
00:52:12.760
And so, you know, I think it's also important for that to be made clear, because otherwise
00:52:18.960
it just seems like, well, oh, they're just going to like do Judaism.
00:52:22.860
I also say like when it comes to that, if you look at the skill tree we're building out
00:52:26.900
in our education system, you know, one religion we focus a lot on was in it is Islam.
00:52:31.780
But I think today a lot of people are really sleeping on Islam as a religious tradition because
00:52:39.620
But if you look at Muslims today, you're essentially looking at what would be the equivalent
00:52:54.120
They had a shining empire that was so magnificent that when Europeans would write books on chemistry
00:53:03.020
or physics, they would write them under fake Muslim sounding pseudonyms because nothing else
00:53:11.320
That is how dominant they were as intellectuals, as people moving civilization forwards during
00:53:19.300
But they just flamed out more recently and are right now in a dark age, which leads to
00:53:28.700
And I will agree with this, you know, in our show, we're often like when we talk about the
00:53:31.920
future enemies of pernatalism, we talk about you have right now the urban monoculture, but
00:53:36.600
you also have groups that are antagonistic to anyone other than them existing in the
00:53:42.920
And a lot of these groups right now, like the most populous of these groups in terms of
00:53:47.880
fertility rates right now in the world, or not even fertility rates, just total population
00:53:55.320
But these these groups, they do not represent what is actually in the Koran.
00:54:01.380
And and then a lot of people are like, well, we need to be antagonistic.
00:54:07.040
Like Jews need to understand that the United States is withdrawing from the Middle East.
00:54:11.420
The Middle East is no longer relevant to the United States.
00:54:13.860
That means your future key allies are going to be Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
00:54:21.920
OK, so so so be aware that a lot of these mindsets we have towards Muslims today are going
00:54:27.460
to need to evolve and really understand that there are multiple groups that wear the mask
00:54:35.860
Well, you have to look at the monsters where it doesn't mean that everyone who wears it
00:54:42.540
The questions to ask also when looking at like not just which groups will be present in
00:54:48.240
the future, but which groups will have power in the future is who is able to maintain at
00:54:53.640
least a stable or ideally higher birth rate and is technophilic.
00:54:58.920
So I think what the problem is, is a lot of people are looking at really high birth rate
00:55:04.440
groups from many different ethnic and religious traditions and they're like, oh, my God, look,
00:55:10.460
They're going to be the only people in the future.
00:55:18.800
These people are like basically like they are anti-society agents and they are not going
00:55:23.340
They're only going to destroy at their like current societal trends.
00:55:26.740
So what you need to look at is any groups that are building, that are both having kids
00:55:32.640
and contributing to culture, following and creating laws, designing things, building enterprises,
00:55:41.020
And those, yeah, totally the ones to watch and the ones to ally with.
00:55:46.840
And I think this all comes down to something from our cultural groups perspective, which is
00:55:51.860
for your kids, if you're of a conservative tradition, I would have a backup tradition for your kids.
00:56:01.060
And so you might think all of our religious nonsense here, if you're like, actually, that
00:56:04.840
kind of sounds like a good idea, this future day stuff and stuff like that, that could make
00:56:10.520
for a good backup tradition for you in terms of at least.
00:56:15.860
Yeah, at least having a backup that's not the urban monoculture.
00:56:22.880
No, but seriously, I actually, we are beginning to celebrate really seriously for the first
00:56:35.900
I mean, like I'm really excited to celebrate Lemon Week this year too.
00:56:38.700
But like, yeah, future day is like the one we splurged on the decor.
00:56:44.220
We're getting our, like our kids ramped up for it.
00:56:46.560
We're, we're starting the music and the movies and like, it's, you know, it's a fun religion.
00:56:56.340
You can terminators, a holiday movie and stuff like that.
00:56:59.080
Well, there's not many religions that get, they got to like develop holiday decorations
00:57:03.200
in a post like projector or post Tesla coil world.
00:57:16.120
And if you talk about the ages of Providence that I happened to marry somebody who somehow
00:57:28.040
And you didn't particularly care or identify was the group when I met you.
00:57:32.380
I probably cared more about Judaism than you did.
00:57:37.100
And you were like, oh, so, so I, I, I think that these things are interesting.
00:57:42.060
Another way to think about why we raise our kids with a backup culture is somebody can
00:57:46.140
look at everything we're doing, you know, especially even all the work we're putting
00:57:48.780
into like building up this religious and cultural system for our kids and think, oh, that must
00:57:53.640
mean that they really want the kids to feel indebted.
00:57:56.440
Like they're definitely going to pick this up because of all the work and sacrifice that
00:58:02.000
I mean, it's doing something quite cruel to a kid to be putting them and raising them
00:58:06.740
in a new cultural group that you have created yourself and raise them feeling like you won't
00:58:13.880
If they do anything other than this really insane, weird thing you set up for them, it
00:58:19.040
would be, I mean, it's just, it's, to me, it's obviously, it would be a cruel thing to
00:58:23.340
So to give them another option outside of just the urban monoculture that they feel that
00:58:29.320
they were to some extent raised within is very important to us.
00:58:34.240
Another thing I'd, I'd add to the end of this for any of our listeners who are interested
00:58:39.420
is the school system that we're developing is about to reach a next critical stage.
00:58:45.640
Any of you who are open to helping with it, reviewing it right now, what we really need
00:58:52.300
is eyes on the big skill tree that we've built.
00:58:55.080
So if you have domain expertise in any area, like physics, chemistry, something like that,
00:59:02.380
and you could review a skill tree, like think of a video game skill tree and be like, is
00:59:07.100
this an accurate representation of how I would build this out from my field of domain expertise?
00:59:11.080
But, you know, do email us, let us know, and we will talk to you guys and send you a copy
00:59:17.280
and you can be like, Hey, this is how I change this.
00:59:20.700
Because that could, that could help us a lot in making this as high quality as possible.
00:59:24.780
You know, when I, when this launches, I want this to be a full skill tree, basically of all
00:59:31.820
You guys, like I'm insanely proud of what Malcolm has put together.
00:59:35.440
And I don't think, you know, I mean, you've, you are combining an incredibly sweeping knowledge
00:59:41.400
base on your own personal front with the help of AI, which is just like super powered this
00:59:47.180
in a way where it gets me really excited about, I want to go through it personally, because
00:59:51.860
it, the most important thing about the skill tree, isn't like the knowns that it will show
00:59:57.020
you, like, you're like, oh, grammar and English is there, but like the unknowns, you're like,
01:00:04.160
Like, and, and school, I'm learning schools, universities, even the very best, the most
01:00:09.540
elite institutions, the most big institutions do not have the capacity to teach you everything.
01:00:15.520
They just don't have, they don't have the money.
01:00:18.940
Here's the course on aquaculture pharmacology, you know, like this, I mean, and I'm sure
01:00:24.120
there are, there are like three universities that have good programs for that.
01:00:27.400
But like, you know, usually you don't have access to that.
01:00:32.640
So guys, you have to reach out to Malcolm about this, because it's kind of a big team.
01:00:36.180
We do look at the comments, and we try to read all of them.
01:00:39.960
But I do, I, we do always go through the comments, and we really appreciate it.
01:00:43.640
And we feel like we do have a personal relationship with our, with our fans that is much stronger
01:00:49.380
than the personal relationship we have with our fans, friends.
01:00:51.920
Because you guys don't force us to meet you or talk to you.
01:00:57.760
What a blessing to have a friend that is, I don't need to talk to or meet with, but is
01:01:02.520
like intelligent and well-considered and often says nice things to me.
01:01:06.780
It does get even better when we get to meet them though.
01:01:08.840
Like we've met some of the, some of you who are watching, we've met in person.
01:01:14.820
And I'm looking forward to meeting, to meeting, weirdly, because I don't, I hate meeting people
01:01:19.600
in person, but somehow like the people who watch our podcast are really cool.
01:01:26.000
At least someone's capable of also meeting in person, I guess.
01:01:28.580
So yeah, anyway, thanks to all of you for watching, but I'm also extremely glad to be
01:01:34.100
hidden away in our little farmhouse just with you, Malcolm.
01:01:38.940
And it's funny, one of the things that Simone has always said that has made her most resistant
01:01:42.960
to joining these religious communities is having to engage with other people.
01:01:46.860
Oh, I mean, if our kids are as autistic as us, they'll just be like, screw all other
01:01:52.140
I mean, just, you know, one of the things we're going to do for our kids, like if you guys
01:01:54.740
are like, well, what would it look like to be like ancillarily flirting with this cultural
01:02:00.220
We'll probably be putting together like some sort of a summer camp for kids so that our
01:02:04.760
Oh, and eventually I think we're going to do like an illustrated like holiday book with
01:02:13.200
So, you know, like we're going to outline stuff like there will be, you know, if you
01:02:18.560
want to understand our holidays and what we do, we will eventually provide materials,
01:02:26.880
Speaking of which, we need to return to our movie lineup for future day.
01:02:32.160
We're going to continue watching Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you know, so let's
01:02:37.520
You are the best wife that anyone could ever hope for.
01:02:41.240
And you clearly were meant for me because I don't think anyone else would tolerate you.
01:02:49.420
Like we are so uniquely like just love everything that's weird about each other.
01:02:56.020
You made me into who I am, but also that person was who I wanted to be.
01:03:00.280
I'm your Pygmalion, but I wanted to be that person.
01:03:04.240
Thank you for making everything so perfect and wonderful.
01:03:11.320
If you die, one of our friend's wife died recently.
01:03:21.100
And it's okay with like four or five kids from another wife, because I'm not going to go
01:03:28.260
But I also don't want my kids to grow up without a mom.
01:03:37.540
This is why I'm always, you know, even though it takes my death.
01:03:42.780
You promise to not carry so much when you go up and down the stairs?