Based Camp - Why the Breaking of Shame Will Save the Righteous

00:00:00.780 Hello, Simone! Today we are going to be discussing the topic of shame and its role in society.

00:00:09.180 As society, to a large extent, has lost shame.

00:00:14.740 Like, they broke the role that shame was supposed to play in society.

00:00:19.400 And I'm going to argue, maybe counterintuitive to what a lot of people would expect,

00:00:25.880 that I think that this is a good thing.

00:00:28.180 That we've lost shame.

00:00:30.000 That we've lost shame.

00:00:31.480 What? Okay, yeah, go on.

00:00:34.600 Okay, so, I mean, if we're talking about losing shame, one of the things you'll repeatedly see,

00:00:39.880 and you'll see this especially among the trans community,

00:00:42.700 that they will act and dress in ways that historically you would have been embarrassed to act and dress.

00:00:50.340 You would have had some shame around this. 0.96

00:00:51.780 You would have known, I am acting like a buffoon right now.

00:00:55.100 I, I, like, you, you should, historically, if you had walked into like a children's book reading, looking and dressing like this, you would have said.

00:01:35.560 To coerce society to act in a way that doesn't feel natural.

00:01:39.340 It's about the directionality of coercion.

00:01:41.300 In this case, people are coercing other people to do something without their consent.

00:01:45.900 That is to say, you know, pretend that someone looks like a woman or a man when they don't, which can be very difficult for some people.

00:01:53.200 And that's why there's all this misgendering versus just being allowed to do something with your private life that you'd like to do.

00:01:59.300 And I think worse than just being hard for some people, it goes against some people's cultural values.

00:02:03.880 There's a huge difference between a government allowing gay people to get married and a government forcing Catholic churches to marry gay people.

00:02:12.420 The trans movement is fundamentally fighting to force you to validate them.

00:02:17.420 And I understand the desire here.

00:02:20.180 What does anyone want more than to be validated by other people?

00:02:24.480 Even more so if you can force them to validate you for something that's obviously not true.

00:02:29.260 I mean, what a strong power play.

00:02:31.900 But, and I point out here, like, if it's clear from the way these people dress and look that the old line of, I just want to be seen as a woman isn't true.

00:02:41.800 They're not people who are desperate to look and act and be seen in public as women or they would dress in a way that looked remotely like a woman.

00:02:51.460 They are people who are getting off on forcing people to see them in a way that's obviously not true and forcing their self-perception onto another person in a way that is, if not sexual, clearly something adjacent to sexuality.

00:03:09.540 Because that's not any other recognizable emotional set that I can think of where you force another person to say something about you that is obviously not true.

00:03:22.100 And I can get it.

00:03:23.500 Like, if that sort of thing gets you off, what would get you off more than forcing someone to get their kid to say something that they know isn't true and exercising that power over them?

00:03:34.420 And I think you can see the joy in this, in these individuals' faces when they talk about how they can force parents to get their kids to do stuff like this.

00:03:45.740 And parents are waking up and saying no.

00:03:48.180 When asked about parents' rights, OJ says...

00:03:51.160 Well, actually, in Canada, parents' rights are limited.

00:03:54.640 So the child has the right to be protected from the parents when the parents behave badly.

00:03:59.420 Like village resident Dave Davey DiCarlo, support SOGI and limiting parental rights.

00:04:06.080 The change that we have to see is sometimes the parents.

00:04:10.700 My culture believes that if a little girl likes boys' toys, that she's just a tomboy. 0.98

00:04:17.500 That's a girl who likes boyish things.

00:04:19.960 And we hold that in high esteem.

00:04:22.560 If a little boy likes to do things that sometimes little girls like to do, we say whatever. 0.95

00:04:28.200 We accept them for the way that they want to act without demanding that they change their gender in relation to that or their gender presentation in relation to that.

00:04:38.700 Yet the dominant societal view of gender right now, the one that many school systems and educational programs are attempting to push on my kids, aspires to erase this cultural perception of gender.

00:04:50.700 And I think that that is highly colonialist, imperialist, and you could almost say genocidal of my culture.

00:04:59.260 And the little girl came home in tears because the teacher had told her since she was playing with some toys in the class that were deemed to be masculine in nature that she was likely a boy in a girl's body.

00:05:14.300 The mother went to the school the very next day, and instead of having any sort of tolerance or support or understanding, she was actually called names.

00:05:23.060 She was told that she was a homophobe, that she was a bigot.

00:05:26.720 Like, and there were trans people in the past, and I remember growing up, like, when trans people would interact with other people, the iteration of trans back then cared about passing.

00:05:34.600 Like, they would have felt embarrassed about not passing.

00:05:39.100 Yeah, you might, like, disappear for a year, maybe go to another country, work on it, and then come back.

00:05:45.900 Yes, this new group actively thrills themselves on not passing.

00:05:52.200 Well, I think it's a different group of people.

00:05:55.420 It's a different group of people with a different drive.

00:06:25.420 This other group is just a fetish.

00:06:26.740 And we used to know that both of these things existed at the same time.

00:06:29.680 We used to know that there were some people who wanted to be a different gender, and there were some people who liked doing perverted things in public and making people uncomfortable, especially children.

00:06:42.560 And somehow we made it, like, a huge problem to point out that the second group was using rights that we were trying to carve out for the first group.

00:06:53.780 A person who was just born in the wrong body would not care how they were gendered by other people.

00:07:00.200 The only people who would care how they're gendered by other people are people trying to force their self-perception onto other people without those people's consent. 0.55

00:07:11.360 Attempting to force their gender, their sexuality, onto others without their consent.

00:07:17.700 And if you only desperately wanted to be seen as a woman, you wouldn't be showing male genitalia to other women in the women's locker room as Lea Thomas did. 0.99

00:07:27.280 And I think it can be undersold how heartbreaking things like the Lea Thomas thing were for people who had supported the trans community,

00:07:50.600 believing this with a community that was just people born in the wrong bodies who wanted to be able to live as close to a normal life as was reasonable,

00:08:00.680 and not people who wanted to wantonly violate the consent of others, and not a community of, you know, sex pest flashers, for example.

00:08:08.880 I understand that there's going to be weirdos out there who will randomly try to take advantage of this stuff.

00:08:15.220 And so when one of them did, and you then turn to the mainstream trans advocate orgs, and you're like,

00:08:22.080 okay, like surely this isn't what you were fighting for.

00:08:25.400 You were not fighting for the right to violate other people's consent.

00:08:28.760 You're going to condemn this.

00:08:30.300 And they didn't.

00:08:30.880 What it showed me is, no, that's what they were fighting for. 1.00

00:08:35.720 And I, this entire time in supporting them, had been the idiot. 1.00

00:08:44.120 You dig it up! 1.00

00:08:47.020 You son of a bitch! 1.00

00:08:49.120 Yeah. 1.00

00:08:49.620 Yeah, like, I mean, with almost all special treatment policies, there are people who abuse them,

00:08:56.020 and those people should be called out, and yet we can't do that here, so.

00:08:59.740 Yeah, we can't do that here, which is going to lead to all of the rights being taken away,

00:09:04.300 and the entire group being discriminated against again, but like.

00:09:06.720 Hence, this is why we can't have good things.

00:09:09.240 No, it's not why we can't have good things.

00:09:10.660 It's their fault for not aggressively kicking these people out of the movement,

00:09:14.180 and not aggressively calling these people out as something other than, you know.

00:09:18.480 But that battle already happened.

00:09:21.060 Actually, really interestingly, and this was pointed out to me by a friend recently,

00:09:25.340 is that the trans community knows that this is a social phenomenon,

00:09:29.780 and has known for a long time.

00:09:32.180 Specifically, there was a battle, and I've mentioned this battle in the trans community, 1.00

00:09:35.260 between the two cutes and the true scum. 0.99

00:09:37.820 So, the two cutes were the people who said that anyone can choose to be trans, 1.00

00:09:43.820 anyone can choose any gender identity they want,

00:09:46.540 you can't ask for any sort of proof or medical verification, or anything other than that. 0.99

00:09:50.540 The true scum said, no, this is about gender dysphoria, 0.99

00:09:53.960 and an actual, like, issue with an individual. 1.00

00:09:57.500 The true scum ended up losing this fight. 0.99

00:09:59.640 Hard. 0.99

00:10:00.720 And I get that the argument, like, the actual argumentation that the two cutes were using 0.94

00:10:05.280 was quite powerful if you assume a progressive worldview,

00:10:08.320 which is to say that you are gatekeeping this identity, one.

00:10:13.140 And two, why are you keeping some people out of the identity?

00:10:16.120 You know, the more, the merrier, right?

00:10:17.480 Like, if anyone can identify as a different gender, isn't that even better? 1.00

00:10:21.620 And then, obviously, a lot of people, even people who weren't, like, weird perverts, 0.79

00:10:26.080 were like, oh my god, I'm not a middle-class cis white girl. 0.92

00:10:31.800 I am a middle-class white gay trans man.

00:10:36.780 I am not a white middle-class straight man.

00:10:40.600 I am a white, gay, queer, middle-class, they-them, you know? 1.00

00:10:47.720 You can just identify as whatever you want and gain all of the protections

00:10:51.980 that gay men had fought to achieve for themselves.

00:10:55.560 And it really feels like there's this scene in South Park

00:10:59.580 where Mr. Garrison is trying to get people to fire him so that he can get a lot of money, 0.82

00:11:05.300 and he's trying to get fired for being gay. 0.79

00:11:06.920 And so he does these over the top. 0.97

00:11:07.680 Oh, I remember, yes.

00:11:08.880 Okay, yeah.

00:11:09.340 Um, but they just feel like, oh, so brave, so proud, you know?

00:11:12.560 And then South Park predicted this so long before.

00:11:16.340 Tonight, we are here to honor an amazing fourth-grade teacher

00:11:19.360 with the Courageous Teacher Award.

00:11:22.860 Herbert Garrison has faced adversity.

00:11:24.780 He has even faced ridicule by some of his students.

00:11:27.320 Oh, Randy, I'm so ashamed of our son. 0.97

00:11:31.340 Get along, little slave. 0.98

00:11:37.460 Oh, my God. 0.84

00:11:38.180 That's what our boys were talking about?

00:11:40.540 Ding, ding, ding, ding.

00:11:43.460 He is so courageous.

00:11:45.700 Uh, I'm very happy to get this award,

00:11:48.860 but you know what makes me even happier? 1.00

00:11:51.140 Sucking balls. 1.00

00:11:54.860 It isn't working. 1.00

00:11:56.320 Sing your song, Mr. Slive.

00:11:57.880 I've got a little...

00:11:59.180 Oh, Jesus Christ.

00:12:01.120 What's happening in there? 1.00

00:12:02.300 Oh, I should have never shoved all those poor animals up my ass. 1.00

00:12:12.660 Courageous. 1.00

00:12:13.260 So courageous. 0.99

00:12:14.440 God damn it! 1.00

00:12:15.300 Don't you people get it? 1.00

00:12:16.500 I'm trying to get fired here!

00:12:18.040 Oh, that's courageous.

00:12:20.400 We actually have people, like, in the White House, like, generals in the Army basically doing this on stage.

00:12:27.780 And we're like, everyone else knows this is like a fetish thing.

00:12:30.700 You can say, okay, this community is exploiting this and acting in evil ways with this, right?

00:12:38.760 And I do think it's evil to use non-consenting bystanders to get off, especially if those bystanders are children,

00:12:45.740 because we broke shame.

00:12:46.840 Because shame is what used to prevent this, right?

00:12:49.640 Look, this kind of behavior should not be acceptable from a teacher!

00:12:53.740 Yeah, Jesus Christ.

00:12:56.160 But the museum tells us to be tolerant.

00:12:59.660 Yes! 1.00

00:13:00.420 Tolerant, but not stupid! 0.99

00:13:02.460 Look, just because you have to tolerate something doesn't mean you have to approve of it. 0.99

00:13:06.620 Tolerate means you're just putting up with it.

00:13:08.960 You tolerate a crying child sitting next to you on the airplane, or you tolerate a bad cold.

00:13:13.920 It can still piss you off!

00:13:15.320 Jesus, tap-dancing Christ!

00:13:17.700 He's right.

00:13:18.620 Our boys didn't hate homosexuals. 1.00

00:13:20.200 They just hated the way this asshole was acting. 1.00

00:13:22.320 Ugh. 1.00

00:13:23.180 So now can I please get fired and get my $25 million?

00:13:27.600 Okay.

00:13:28.680 Well, then why is it a good thing that shame broke, and where do we need to move as a society?

00:13:33.080 Yeah.

00:13:34.040 What was shame historically?

00:13:35.680 Shame historically was that we had a society that across the society had enough similarities

00:13:43.400 between cultural groups that you could shame people for acting in a non-normative format.

00:13:50.700 Yeah, I feel like it was shame was self-consciousness at failure to conform.

00:13:55.480 Right.

00:13:56.860 But that we had segregated ourselves as a society to a point where that made sense, right?

00:14:04.420 There are things that Mormons do, and especially things that Mormons did, that would have caused 0.99

00:14:09.700 shame in other parts of the country.

00:14:11.540 But Mormons lived in little Mormon communities, and so they were able to do and did these things 0.99

00:14:16.900 at higher rates.

00:14:18.060 There were things that Catholics did. 0.95

00:14:20.460 You know, you think about a Catholic, for example, walking around with a cross on their

00:14:25.320 head from, you know, Good Friday.

00:14:27.880 In a lot of parts of America, that would have caused a great degree of shame to be walking

00:14:32.360 around with that.

00:14:33.220 And so you would do that within your Catholic communities and Catholic circles.

00:14:36.580 Well, America, in a large part due to the way the job market worked, because now we're

00:14:43.660 no longer living and working in our communities, but living and working where we can have the

00:14:46.960 most impact was in the economy, sort of split apart into more mixed communities, okay? 0.96

00:14:53.880 And so when you think about shame, you think about the shame of the progressive, right?

00:15:02.840 The things they should be ashamed about from your cultural perspective or from the

00:15:06.420 cultural perspective of America in the 90s or in the 70s.

00:15:11.140 But you've got to keep in mind that the dominant cultural group, fortunately, while the urban

00:15:14.860 monoculture to an extent broke shame, they also did it at the same time as they were becoming

00:15:21.080 the dominant culture.

00:15:23.200 And so they try to instill upon young kids shame for being Christian, shame for being, shame 0.84

00:15:31.300 for modesty, shame for not sleeping around, shame for being a weirdo and saying, well, I

00:15:39.620 don't think that I should, you know, for example, is it not an invocation of this culture when

00:15:46.320 a guy says to a girl, you know, I really like you, but I would prefer to be with somebody

00:15:52.880 who is more chaste than you. 0.94

00:15:55.240 You know, that's what I'm looking for in a wife. 1.00

00:15:56.580 And then she's like, so what are you, gay? 0.88

00:15:59.420 Like, I'm interested in you. 0.98

00:16:01.220 You don't want to sleep with me? 0.99

00:16:02.240 What are you, gay? 1.00

00:16:03.660 That's shame, okay? 0.98

00:16:05.140 Because they forget that they're not the dominant culture anymore.

00:16:07.940 I mean, it's almost fortunate that the system broke at the time it broke, right?

00:16:12.740 So shame used to lead to broadly, and not all the time, but broadly more healthy outcomes

00:16:22.480 in terms of how you acted and how you engaged with the world. 0.95

00:16:26.080 But today, you know, as shame has broken, as the damn gates of shame have broken, we need 0.96

00:16:33.800 to find new systems for motivating behavior. 0.93

00:16:35.820 And so it's like, okay, well, then how do you motivate behavior if not through shame?

00:16:41.220 Because we're no longer the dominant cultural group.

00:16:46.560 First, thoughts on what I'm saying before I go further with this.

00:16:49.520 That's it.

00:16:50.080 I didn't expect you to bring up the danger that shame could have had, or did have, with

00:16:57.980 the urban monoculture.

00:16:59.340 Yeah.

00:16:59.680 So it's a double-edged sword.

00:17:00.940 You know, you could say, well, we need shame to make good culture safe. 0.63

00:17:05.080 But now you're pointing out, yeah, shame could be used by bad culture too.

00:17:09.620 Well, I mean, keep in mind, am I not sometimes shamed by urban monoculture types in our society

00:17:15.340 where they come to me and they're like, how dare you discipline your child?

00:17:19.340 How dare you, you know?

00:17:20.960 And that's the reason why shame left, by the way.

00:17:23.520 It's the urban monoculture's fear of any negative emotional stimuli.

00:17:26.840 Even without bopping my kids.

00:17:29.560 If I've even, like, taken my kid out of a play area where a kid did something wrong, so I

00:17:34.340 grabbed his hand, I took him to the car, I got shamed for that, right?

00:17:37.180 By the urban monoculture.

00:17:38.700 And they're like, how dare you show this kid any sort of negative experience?

00:17:42.280 How dare, you know, it's like, well, that's how kids learn, right?

00:17:45.720 Like, they've got, the Roomba has to bump into a wall or it's not going to learn the confines

00:17:50.460 of the room.

00:17:51.160 You know, this is part of the way kids learn their, but anyway, the point here being is

00:17:55.720 that, and this is what trigger warnings are, you know, removing of any negative emotional

00:17:59.600 experience.

00:18:00.680 They believe that if somebody is acting within the confines of the urban monoculture, they

00:18:04.900 can't be shamed for anything.

00:18:05.940 So, like, the individual who is in a flamboyant outfit that, you know, looks like Mr. Garrison

00:18:12.600 when he's trying to get fired, reading books to children, you can't call them out on that.

00:18:17.160 Like, you know, that you, that is them being afraid that that individual might experience

00:18:23.460 some sort of negative emotion, especially given that they're a protective class, especially

00:18:26.960 given that they're in one of these elite priest casts of the urban monoculture that deserve,

00:18:31.700 you know, additional rights.

00:18:33.380 I, for example, would, if I, as a cis male, went in front of a group of students and started

00:18:39.540 talking about the things that turn me on or the things I like to do as my wife, you know,

00:18:44.660 that would get me arrested.

00:18:47.080 Yet, if I am doing that as a sexual subculture, like some-

00:18:52.780 A protected class.

00:18:54.040 A protected class.

00:18:55.380 Yeah.

00:18:55.540 You can do that with complete impunity, even if it's clear that you're getting off to being

00:19:00.100 able to do this, right?

00:19:01.160 Like, there's a reason why we stop men from doing this.

00:19:03.320 It was because some creeps would use it to tell lurid stories to children.

00:19:08.700 And now we have that, like, literally happening.

00:19:11.600 I've got to find the case in Australia where, like, this would move wild.

00:19:14.940 But anyway, where the book, where it shows underage people doing this, that this is one

00:19:21.160 of the books that's the rights trying to ban, that shows somebody giving someone on their

00:19:26.320 dildo, because I think it's two lesbians, but one of them's identifying as a guy, as 1.00

00:19:30.620 a, yeah, it's messed up. 0.99

00:19:34.060 But they're like, ah, but it's lesbians, so it's okay, right? 1.00

00:19:36.320 Or it's not lesbians, it's a trans person, I guess what I would call lesbians. 0.99

00:19:39.460 You know, so you, you, with a lot of this stuff, it's like, as a protected class, so

00:19:44.420 it's okay.

00:19:45.120 So anyway, now to the next part.

00:19:47.060 So it's like, what do you do if shame as a tool is broken?

00:19:49.620 Because we, we, we now lack any sort of a virtuous group in the role of the dominant

00:19:56.840 cultural faction.

00:19:57.960 And what we need to move back to in terms of motivating actions is, I think, what the

00:20:04.220 early Christians used.

00:20:05.600 So the early Christians were not, if you, if you watch our video, was early Christianity

00:20:12.080 actually virtuous, or more virtuous than the pagans?

00:20:15.080 We released it on Christmas.

00:20:15.980 It was one of our worst performing videos, because it's a big deal, it came out on Christmas,

00:20:18.460 of course.

00:20:19.100 But I thought it was a great video, if you're into this.

00:20:20.720 Yeah, I really enjoyed the conversation.

00:20:22.640 Yeah.

00:20:22.920 So anyway, these, these early Christians, were they actually, you know, how did they motivate?

00:20:28.000 Because they would have been shamed. 0.55

00:20:29.000 Like the culture, they were weirdos, the early Christians. 1.00

00:20:31.960 But they would have been seen to very similarly, the way that mainstream society in like the

00:20:36.200 90s saw Mormons, you know, or the way they were depicted on South Park, you know, as being

00:20:40.380 like, okay, weirdly wholesome.

00:20:42.260 And like, maybe really nice, really inviting.

00:20:45.560 Yeah.

00:20:46.000 Here I can put the, the, the Mormon was the correct choice thing here. 0.99

00:20:49.100 And then there's the other episode with Mormonism, but weird and ominous and potentially dangerous 1.00

00:20:54.600 and something that we should have shamed as they did in that South Park episode.

00:20:58.140 They shamed him for being a weirdo Mormon and having weirdo beliefs, you know? 0.56

00:21:01.540 You guys were right, okay? 0.99

00:21:02.760 The new kid's a douche.

00:21:03.680 Now I just got to find a way to keep him away from me.

00:21:06.320 Listen, I just wanted to let you know you don't have to worry about me trying to be your

00:21:08.580 friend anymore.

00:21:09.660 I don't?

00:21:10.380 Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense.

00:21:13.900 And maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up.

00:21:15.980 But I have a great life and a great family.

00:21:18.400 And I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that.

00:21:20.400 The truth is, I don't care if Joseph Smith made it all up.

00:21:23.140 Because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice and helping people. 0.97

00:21:27.320 And even though people in this town might think that's stupid, I still choose to believe in it. 0.68

00:21:31.200 All I ever did was try to be your friend, Stan. 0.99

00:21:33.520 But you're so high and mighty you couldn't look past my religion and just be my friend

00:21:36.140 back.

00:21:36.800 You got a lot of growing up to do, buddy. 1.00

00:21:38.360 Suck my balls. 1.00

00:21:44.200 Damn, that kid is cool, huh? 1.00

00:21:46.460 And how do you resist that? 1.00

00:21:47.900 Whether you are a Mormon in a non-Mormon society or a Christian in a pagan society, right?

00:21:53.460 And it is through martyrdom.

00:21:55.280 Okay, what does modern martyrdom look like?

00:22:00.100 It means acting in a way that you know is just and honorable, even if you will be pilloried

00:22:08.560 for it.

00:22:09.240 And saying things that you believe are true, even if you will be pilloried for them.

00:22:14.800 But not in a way that needlessly brings attacks on your community.

00:22:18.820 Yeah.

00:22:19.440 Some individuals see that and they make the mistake.

00:22:21.540 They're like, oh, this is early Christians going around and telling pagans that they're 0.97

00:22:27.660 all going to hell or telling this one other pagan group that they're all... 0.79

00:22:31.320 No, any early Christian who did that would have been, you know, immediately attacked by

00:22:36.600 the early Christian community.

00:22:37.660 Because the point of the early Christian community was to win popular sentiment.

00:22:40.960 Where many people misunderstand, you know, telling truth and remaining honest, they're

00:22:45.100 like, oh, this means like attacking gays, right?

00:22:47.280 And I'm like, no, the gays are doing nothing to you. 0.96

00:22:49.240 Like, they're not trying to brainwash their kids, your kids.

00:22:53.020 They're not, you know, they're like the normal gays are not your enemy.

00:22:57.640 And when you go out and indulgently attack them, you're just engaging in an indulgent and

00:23:02.660 self-masturbatory impulse that's not actually for the greater good of your community or for

00:23:08.720 any community that you think is virtuous.

00:23:10.800 And that is not what the early Christians were doing.

00:23:13.700 They were spreading a message that made everyone's life better, not a message of we're going

00:23:19.840 to force you to live the way that we live as soon as we have power.

00:23:23.520 That is not what the Christian martyrs were doing.

00:23:26.500 And the early Christian church was so obsessed with martyrdom.

00:23:29.200 And it's something that we've completely forgotten.

00:23:31.560 To live our lives as martyrs, to live our lives for...

00:23:37.040 To me, what martyrdom means is everybody dies.

00:23:39.340 So you don't really make yourself a martyr by dying.

00:23:41.080 You make yourself a martyr by dedicating your life and by spending this one life you have

00:23:49.020 on something meaningful.

00:23:51.160 It's not the way you die that makes you a martyr because everyone dies.

00:23:54.020 It's the way you live that makes you a martyr.

00:23:56.200 And so sacrificing as much of this life as you can for the betterment of future generations,

00:24:01.480 to me, that's the martyrdom that I teach my kids.

00:24:04.500 But to have pride in this, to have pride in a, I have emotions that are telling me to go

00:24:12.900 out and do things, but I don't act on those emotions just because I feel them.

00:24:18.060 You don't have to do what your emotions are telling you to do.

00:24:21.520 In fact, we argue, and a lot of people, I think this is actually key to understanding

00:24:25.500 our bigger world philosophy is as a human, you are made up of a number of components.

00:24:35.700 You are made up of your culture, you are made up of your evolved instincts, and you are made

00:24:41.680 up of what also evolved alongside those instincts is reason and self-control, discipline and industry.

00:24:48.580 And those are the things that animals don't have.

00:24:51.960 Animals, the lower self, has pleasure, has pain, has suffering, has uncontrollable urges.

00:25:03.320 And individuals can be like, when people are like, we have genuine disdain to people who

00:25:09.960 think that their goal in life is to maximize like aggregate pleasure or aggregate positive

00:25:15.680 emotions, these individuals are not elevating or worshiping something that is just indolent.

00:25:24.560 It is something that actually represents within our minds the most evil thing that exists.

00:25:34.520 It is the animal part of our mind.

00:25:36.720 The part we didn't choose is the part of the result of random evolutionary chances that resulted

00:25:44.640 from some individuals having more surviving offspring than other individuals, and some

00:25:49.160 cultures having more surviving offspring than other cultures.

00:25:52.140 And so when somebody is like, I want to dedicate my life to maximizing pleasure, like throughout

00:25:57.840 a biosphere or like these pre-evolved instincts, to me, that shows that they still haven't escaped

00:26:05.260 the cage and become a real human yet.

00:26:07.260 They're still bound by the animal side of them.

00:26:10.960 They are still bound in the way that they're afraid of paperclip maximizers by the code

00:26:17.160 that says maximize the number of paperclips in the world, instead of saying, oh, yes, I

00:26:21.720 realize this is what I'm programmed to do, but there is something that matters beyond a

00:26:26.200 paperclip.

00:26:27.920 Okay, counterpoint.

00:26:29.900 Part of the impression I got about what motivated early martyrs was, one, life was so much suffering

00:26:35.600 anyway.

00:26:36.080 A lot of people were basically suicidal, and they realized they could basically, it was

00:26:40.880 death by cop, or suicide by cop.

00:26:43.080 It was a worthwhile way to go out and euthanize yourself, but also while maximally gaining fame

00:26:55.160 and glory, I mean, these are people who are being, basically going on tour in the attendance

00:27:01.000 of armed Roman guards who make you look super important, where you're allowed to preach to

00:27:06.700 other Christians on your way to go to the Colosseum to be brutally- 1.00

00:27:11.840 Wild, by the way, that Rome allowed that.

00:27:13.700 That's so, like putting like Luigi Mangione, like on tour in every major city.

00:27:17.180 I know, it's insane, but I mean, so part of me thinks, I mean, you're talking about

00:27:22.340 martyrdom by rising above, by sacrificing for future generations, by overriding your base

00:27:28.340 instincts, whereas I feel like at the time that martyrdom was a thing, especially in the

00:27:35.200 early Roman times, this was people catering to their basest instincts for adulation, for

00:27:42.980 attention, for glory, and also for an easy way out.

00:27:50.060 What's your counter to that?

00:27:51.260 I disagree.

00:27:52.420 If you look at the early martyrs, if that was all that they cared about, they could have

00:27:56.400 chosen less painful ways of martyrdom.

00:27:59.140 This is where the classic St. Andrew's cross comes from.

00:28:01.600 He's like, no, no, no, you can't martyr me the way Jesus was martyred.

00:28:04.720 It has to be more painful.

00:28:06.700 It has to be more gruesome.

00:28:08.960 You know, this is the Colosseum.

00:28:11.340 Oh, I want to go against the lions while praying, you know, and everyone else is fighting,

00:28:16.260 but I want to, I want to go out in a way that is so gruesome and over the top that everybody

00:28:22.260 understands.

00:28:24.280 And I think that this is what, this is what is, and you could be like, oh yes, but what's

00:28:28.440 asked of us is more than what's asked of them, right?

00:28:30.940 Their alternative was a life of pain and likely irrelevance.

00:28:34.720 And we live in a world of constant pleasures all around us, right?

00:28:39.260 You know, and, and so what we are foregoing to live a life for future generations isn't

00:28:46.600 the showiness of the original martyrs.

00:28:49.720 However, I, I, I think it is just that what is expected of us is in a way more than what

00:28:58.840 was expected of them.

00:29:00.060 You know, I, I think that every generation it's supposed to get harder.

00:29:04.160 And for us, I mean, are we not blessed that it has gotten harder and that we are tempted

00:29:08.080 by pleasure, you know?

00:29:10.020 Nice problem to have.

00:29:11.120 Or in this, this Valley of the Lotus eaters surrounded by temptations and that our children 0.99

00:29:16.020 will experience that, that they will have to, you know, and it, it, it, it find ways

00:29:21.640 to motivate reproduction outside of, oh, I want to see the hottest thing, or I want to

00:29:27.440 the, the experience of dating someone because, you know, they'll have AI girlfriends and they'll

00:29:31.360 have AI boyfriends and they'll have, and those things won't be shame, right?

00:29:35.280 If you're relying on shame to motivate conformity within your community, because your

00:29:40.760 community had sort of gotten lazy and, and got used to using those crutches when it was

00:29:45.340 the mainstream community and society, uh, your community is going to suffer.

00:29:49.860 And I think that that's something that happened with a lot of these communities is they got

00:29:52.840 used to, and this is a lot of these religious cultures, a lot of these Christian cultures,

00:29:56.500 they got used to being the dominant culture in their region.

00:30:00.340 And so when you're the dominant culture in a region, you can use shame very effectively 0.98

00:30:04.940 to motivate social conformity.

00:30:06.780 But when you are not the dominant culture in a region, it causes the exact opposite.

00:30:10.760 It causes people to leave your culture and then prevents them from ever wanting to interact

00:30:14.940 with it again, because they can find acceptance outside of that.

00:30:17.920 You need to be aspirational rather than punitory.

00:30:22.120 Punitory.

00:30:22.820 Yeah.

00:30:24.400 Yeah.

00:30:25.000 I, I like, I like that.

00:30:26.200 I think carrot is better than stick in general.

00:30:28.920 I prefer carrot to the stick any old day.

00:30:31.800 So I do like that.

00:30:33.020 And I also think that to a great extent, the stick is, is breaking in our society.

00:30:39.680 You point out that the primary group to leverage the urban or to leverage shame now is the urban

00:30:46.300 monoculture.

00:30:46.880 I'm sure there are plenty of very tight-lipped religious communities that also leverage shame 1.00

00:30:52.400 very health heavily.

00:30:53.860 And we just.

00:30:54.300 And potentially healthily if they are enclosed.

00:30:56.780 Enclosed.

00:30:58.080 Yeah.

00:30:58.640 Well, yeah.

00:31:00.320 Yeah.

00:31:01.100 Unless it makes life so miserable that people leave because they can.

00:31:05.180 You know, enclosed doesn't mean impervious to outside society being a tempting force.

00:31:10.800 To which people leave.

00:31:11.040 Well, I mean, I think that this is the thing is that shame is a really bad thing to use when

00:31:15.200 the internet exists.

00:31:16.380 Yeah.

00:31:16.600 Shame.

00:31:16.880 Shame is a really bad thing to use when people can just leave.

00:31:21.140 Yeah.

00:31:21.420 Yeah.

00:31:21.600 People can just leave.

00:31:22.340 Yeah.

00:31:22.680 But I would point out that I think the urban monoculture is largely broken shame.

00:31:27.980 I think shame is, to a great extent, a threat in the end, right?

00:31:32.180 I mean, it is that one.

00:31:34.100 Initially, it is cognitive dissonance in the face of failing to conform with social norms.

00:31:41.660 But if it turns out that those social norms aren't helpful, or that when you feel that

00:31:49.060 cognitive dissonance for a long time and nothing bad happens, if you don't take action,

00:31:54.860 then you're not going to feel ashamed anymore.

00:31:57.800 The cognitive dissonance is going to go away.

00:31:59.680 Because cognitive dissonance arises when you are of a split mind.

00:32:05.080 You know, you're like, oh, like, maybe I really should be doing this. 0.99

00:32:08.460 Like, maybe I do look ridiculous.

00:32:09.760 Maybe I am making a bad decision. 1.00

00:32:11.820 Maybe I am really stupid about this. 0.98

00:32:14.660 And I think the problem is, for example, parents freaking out around you when you take 0.99

00:32:21.080 our son away from an arcade because he's busking so much and stealing toys from other children.

00:32:26.360 And then the parents come and yell at you for doing that.

00:32:30.580 You don't feel shame because you know that they're wrong.

00:32:33.960 You've been harangued by so many people at this point that you know that their shame has no weight.

00:32:40.680 So I do think that when a broken society leverages shame so much, and the thing is,

00:32:47.140 it could have worked the first couple of times.

00:32:49.100 If you had been harangued, the first time I think you were castigated by a parent in public,

00:32:55.680 you felt really bad.

00:32:57.160 And you were really questioning yourself. 1.00

00:32:58.620 Like, am I the asshole? 1.00

00:32:59.920 Like, what am I doing wrong here? 1.00

00:33:02.140 And then it just, it happened enough where you were like,

00:33:05.400 no, actually, I'm doing the right thing for my kids.

00:33:09.300 Like, what my kids are doing is not okay.

00:33:12.660 And so, yeah, I think that that's the other thing is that shame has been broken as well

00:33:17.040 because we've discovered that the shame is being used illegitimately.

00:33:22.040 And shame should only be used illegitimately.

00:33:23.320 Here's the problem.

00:33:23.940 I mean, so think about the way that, like, our audience may use shame.

00:33:27.940 Or think about shame in relation to their kids and stuff like that, right?

00:33:31.260 And this is where it becomes a really big problem, right?

00:33:35.260 Is, consider something like the memetic virus that is this, like, social contagion of transness, right? 1.00

00:33:41.940 Okay. 0.66

00:33:42.220 Where it's being used as a trans identity, it's being used to get off a sexual fetish, right? 1.00

00:33:48.460 And historically, you would have said, oh, you can combat this with shame.

00:33:54.920 But if the dominant cultural group supports it and you attempt to combat it with shame,

00:34:00.860 you push anyone out who begins to adapt to it.

00:34:05.240 Because now there's no reason for them to interact with you anymore.

00:34:08.100 You are using a cultural tool that worked when you were the dominant culture but will not work today

00:34:13.920 and is, in fact, counter, like, pushes people out of your movement today.

00:34:18.820 So if you're like, well, if I don't have shame, if I don't have disgust in my toolkit,

00:34:24.160 what is in my toolkit to fight this for my kids, for example, right?

00:34:28.480 Like, help my kids understand that this is wrong.

00:34:31.240 And it is, again, honor and martyrdom.

00:34:36.660 Are you living for other people in the future?

00:34:41.020 Are you dedicating your life to making the world a better place?

00:34:44.000 Or are you wasting money on indolent surgeries, medicalization, and not just money, time, emotional effort?

00:34:52.180 Health.

00:34:53.120 What?

00:34:54.040 Health.

00:34:55.020 Health.

00:34:55.380 Yes, when you recategorize these things and you say, look at all of the costs.

00:35:01.800 When somebody is doing this, this is effort, money, time.

00:35:07.540 They didn't put to attempting to help other people, but they put towards the way they see themselves.

00:35:14.480 That this is what you should feel bad about.

00:35:17.380 This level of self-indulgence.

00:35:20.020 Not, and that's a very logical argument to make.

00:35:23.060 Like, if you go to a kid and you say, you should be ashamed of this because this is weird.

00:35:27.560 Is that argument really going to land with a kid? 0.99

00:35:29.880 It's a dumb argument, yeah. 0.98

00:35:31.320 And it's an argument that's really going to explode in your face if they've normalized to it. 1.00

00:35:35.040 Because then they think, no, dad, it's you and your outdated Christian views that are weird.

00:35:40.260 This is what's hip.

00:35:41.540 This is what's with it.

00:35:42.900 So why would they ever go back to your culture? 0.96

00:35:45.500 Yeah, that's not a good argument.

00:35:46.900 They can be like, well, maybe I shouldn't be ashamed of it.

00:35:48.640 Like, why should I feel this random negative emotion tied to this when it's something I want to do?

00:35:54.500 Like, can you give me a reason for that?

00:35:56.320 And a lot of these old philosophies really can't give a reason for that.

00:36:00.620 It's like, well, you may experience disgust at me doing this, but I don't experience disgust.

00:36:05.100 I like this.

00:36:05.680 So why are you burdening me with your negative emotions?

00:36:08.980 But if you create a very simple argument, which is to say you are hurting people because your job here on Earth is, well, martyrdom is to live a life for other people, to live a life for other people in the future, then that's a good reason.

00:36:26.140 Well, or just to reward that, I think the bigger thing I'm hearing you say is that we need to reframe what is good and not focus on punishing that which we think is bad.

00:36:35.880 And people, to a great extent, I mean, if we're going to talk about the, from a mainstream standpoint, but I don't think controversial to us, controversial concept of rapid onset youth gender dysphoria as being like a contagious factor in high school, people are doing it because, I don't know, they think it's going to lead to good things because they think it elevates them because they think that that's kind of the cool thing to do. 0.68

00:36:59.400 And if we can frame more pro-social for society, more beneficial for humankind in general behaviors, like martyrdom in favor of the future, like investing in future generations rather than your own life and hedonistic pleasures, then yeah, people will do it more because it's what they get rewarded for socially.

00:37:20.860 Sorry, what do you mean by that?

00:37:26.060 I'm just saying, what you're saying is basically make it cool to be good, to do good things for the future.

00:37:34.560 I guess that's not what I'm saying.

00:37:35.780 I'm saying make it righteous to be good.

00:37:37.980 Live a life that is obviously more dedicated to others than the other groups.

00:37:43.440 Righteous and cool are synonymous slang words.

00:37:48.500 But they mean different things.

00:37:50.860 So if you look at, Simone, if you look at the Mormons, right? 0.81

00:37:57.040 You know the stereotype of them being nicer than other people, of them being more wholesome than other people?

00:38:03.020 That wasn't cool.

00:38:04.920 That was righteous.

00:38:07.200 That's the difference, okay?

00:38:09.160 It was cool within their community to be.

00:38:11.680 No, but to outsiders, right?

00:38:14.080 Like that is how they brought people into their community.

00:38:16.700 That is how they kept their kids within the community.

00:38:18.920 Because there was a level of pride in being righteous over cool, okay?

00:38:24.960 But being, like doing the right thing, like being a genuinely good person requires not succumbing to indolent signaling, which so many people do, right?

00:38:35.740 The communities that fall into these deontological factions where they're like, I'm following all of the rules exactly, they don't look righteous to outsiders.

00:38:45.960 They look like rule-obsessed, like, well, rule Nazis, right? 0.70

00:38:49.840 Applying their rules both to themselves and aspirationally to others instead of saying, oh, well, you know, if somebody looks to you as an outsider, right, who's fallen to the urban monoculture or something like that, and they genuinely engage with their content, they're like, oh, they're making sacrifices to make the world a better place for all of us, right?

00:39:08.780 Whereas if you look at many of these other groups, they think that they are being righteous by constantly signaling, like a book of rules.

00:39:17.300 And that doesn't make you look righteous.

00:39:18.900 It makes you look like you are, like, being extra goth and therefore think you're better than other people.

00:39:24.620 And this is as important for the Christians to get as it is for the Wokies to get. 1.00

00:39:29.460 The Wokies who think that by signaling commitment to their group and their group's obscure rules, they are signaling their righteousness to outsiders. 0.99

00:39:39.200 Oh, this is how strictly I follow my group's rules.

00:39:41.560 You don't think, oh, that person's extra righteous, but they think that that's what you're thinking.

00:39:45.180 Now, try to use that to get some insight into how other people might see you if you are constantly signaling how extra masculine or Christian or et cetera you are.

00:39:55.660 They don't see that as righteous.

00:39:57.280 There is a common language of righteousness, which is doing something for others and not for yourself.

00:40:04.380 And transness fundamentally goes against this common understanding of righteousness, 1.00

00:40:10.940 which is what makes it so easy to battle so long as you don't accidentally battle it with shame.

00:40:17.580 Trying to outcompete the other groups based on how fastidiously you follow the rules just makes you look like a subculture.

00:40:24.500 It doesn't make you look righteous.

00:40:26.480 And the early Christians, as we point out in the other video, they were actually doing things like putting their lives at risk to help plague victims at a much higher rate than the pagans.

00:40:33.800 Right, and people did see that and they were clearly impressed by it.

00:40:37.640 And they were like, wait, they're actually, there were complaints from emperors, as we note in that one, where he's like, look, you need to start giving more to poor people because the Christians are giving more to our poor than our community is giving to our poor, right? 0.76

00:40:50.620 Like, it was clear to everyone that one group was actually the more moral group.

00:40:58.520 You need to be the more moral group where morality isn't just your values, but it's a clear thing that anyone can understand.

00:41:05.000 Oh, okay, okay, yeah.

00:41:06.980 So just be better.

00:41:08.440 Okay.

00:41:08.980 Well, no, not just be better.

00:41:10.220 In the same way, it's when you are attacking behavior, do not attack it because gross.

00:41:17.720 Do not attack it because shame, because that doesn't work and it can be used against you when you're not the dominant group.

00:41:23.220 Attack it because logically this is selfish and indulgent and hurts people in the long run.

00:41:28.240 Hmm.

00:41:31.480 Okay, so also then just, yeah, like get back to basics about what is good for people and what is bad for people and society.

00:41:38.540 Yes.

00:41:39.660 Okay.

00:41:40.060 Yes.

00:41:40.360 Okay.

00:41:40.920 All right.

00:41:41.340 I got you now.

00:41:42.520 Get back to basics.

00:41:43.740 Return to the, but I mean, what are your thoughts on this?

00:41:49.720 I'm just, I'm sorry.

00:41:51.180 I was like replaying old Animaniacs segments.

00:41:53.900 Do you remember the ones of good idea, bad idea?

00:41:55.940 Yeah, that's, that's what you're trying to do.

00:41:59.160 Yes.

00:41:59.740 Well, I mean, it's, it's shocking for a lot of groups because they were able to use these tools for centuries, right?

00:42:05.960 Because they were the dominant cultural force in their region for centuries.

00:42:09.380 And when you tell them, they're like, why can't I just do what people were able to do 60, 70 years ago to keep their kids within the faith?

00:42:17.100 And you, you explain, well, well, here's why.

00:42:20.640 And they're like, yeah, but why can't it?

00:42:21.760 And I'm like, well, you, you, you do see her in a completely different social context.

00:42:25.140 Yeah, we are.

00:42:25.940 Yeah.

00:42:26.460 But yeah, yeah, I guess.

00:42:27.500 Yeah.

00:42:27.760 Thinking back to that Scott Alexander review of the rise of Christianity and what caused people to turn to Christianity when they had more difficulty adopting Judaism, for example.

00:42:38.740 And Judaism had a lot of the same benefits, but you just circumcise yourself. 0.54

00:42:42.080 People were like, I don't know about that.

00:42:44.060 People were like, oh, I can have rights as a woman. 1.00

00:42:47.680 That sounds kind of nice.

00:42:48.700 And like, oh, we don't have to kill my children.

00:42:50.840 That sounds kind of nice.

00:42:51.920 And, oh, you guys take care of each other when you're sick?

00:42:54.580 That, that seems pretty nice.

00:42:56.100 Well, it's also important here to note the core cultural innovation of Christianity, right?

00:42:59.660 Which is in Judaism, you know, to be, you know, in, in, in good with God, you needed to follow all of the rules.

00:43:07.780 Okay.

00:43:08.040 Oh yeah, it was a bit much.

00:43:09.400 It was difficult.

00:43:10.400 Yeah.

00:43:10.620 In Christianity, you have to do things that are worthy of God's love and love God in return.

00:43:18.820 It's going to have to be a bro.

00:43:20.380 Yeah.

00:43:20.840 Right now, now there's different iterations of this rule.

00:43:22.980 Some people are like, well, if you love God, that means that you have to do the type of things that God would want you to be doing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:43:28.820 You know, but the point being is that in Christianity, they basically boiled the water of Judaism, which is to say they, they, they, what's the, what's the word I use here? 0.88

00:43:38.840 They, they roasted the vegetables of Judaism.

00:43:42.460 Okay.

00:43:43.080 No, not roasted.

00:43:43.760 No, no, no, no.

00:43:44.120 But I'm saying it's like, it's easier to digest and eat.

00:43:47.740 That, that, but it's, it's when you condense a program or software.

00:43:51.300 Oh, they compressed.

00:43:51.960 Yes.

00:43:52.480 Yes.

00:43:52.780 They compressed the software package of the Jewish rules, which is to say, what if we boil all of the rules down into just one rule, right?

00:44:03.060 Yeah.

00:44:03.640 And it allows it to be carried with a much, as we've mentioned in other videos, Christianity as a, as a religious system achieves much of what modern Judaism does, but it does it with a way lower source code.

00:44:17.040 Like the source code is just like way simpler, easier to read, easier to work with, which boils down to love God.

00:44:25.400 Okay.

00:44:25.900 So both easier to adopt, but also like quite attractive from the perspective of many people who also happen to be fairly influential in a very back channel-y kind of way, AKA women at the time.

00:44:39.260 Yes.

00:44:40.180 And then, and then if you look at our tweak on that, I mean, we don't disagree with the traditional Christian perspective, which is love God.

00:44:46.740 We just say love God, which is all future humans, which helps better morally align.

00:44:51.340 Because if you just say love God, the problem is, is then you can assign ideas or restrictions to God that may be cultural to your group and not in the Bible or not in other things, which I, we regularly see.

00:45:06.340 And I was actually talking to Simone about recently where I'm like, the Bible doesn't really make it clear that, for example, a heaven exists.

00:45:12.580 And yet a lot of Christians will use heaven and hell as like these obvious concepts from the Bible.

00:45:17.520 And, and, and I was telling her today, one thing I found really fun is I was trying to find any evidence that, that when you die, your soul immediately goes to this paradise, right.

00:45:29.440 Or that even that you have a soul at all.

00:45:31.340 And the, the, the closest line I could find was Jesus on the cross telling the, the thief, he's saying, well, you know, today we will basically, people argue that maybe he made it wrong.

00:45:42.160 Like I'm telling you today, we will be in paradise, which could mean that, you know, you'll, we'll be in paradise in the distant future, which is the way a lot of Jews thought that things worked is, and, and many early Christians that appeared also thought this is that everyone would be risen from the dead.

00:45:56.340 And from now until you're risen from the dead, you have no conscious experience, but this line is argued that, no, he meant today because of where the comma is in this.

00:46:04.480 Well, well, it depends on where you put the comma.

00:46:07.140 Even if you read it that way, I was like, okay, what does this word paradise mean?

00:46:11.200 And the word paradise, unfortunately, both in ancient Greek and ancient Hebrew means a walled garden.

00:46:17.880 And I was like, okay, so Simone, does a walled garden to you mean a place of endless pleasure more or a cycle of birth and death more?

00:46:26.680 And it's like, well, even Jesus used the metaphor of gardens to mean a cycle of birth and death pretty regularly.

00:46:32.440 So, oh no, he was probably talking about today, you and I will be in a cycle of birth and death, not a place where you never feel hunger or pain or anything like that, which I find really interesting.

00:46:45.380 Like, as Octavian said on that boat once, you're going to die, Torsten.

00:46:49.000 You're going to die, yeah, you're going to die. 0.97

00:46:50.860 Today, we're going to die. 0.99

00:46:52.120 We're going to be in a cycle of death and rebirth.

00:46:54.060 Yeah.

00:46:54.420 Which I think is really interesting that, like, when I go back to the Bible, it, like, doesn't say all of this weird stuff that many Christians assume it says.

00:47:02.560 And then they'll assign those things to God and they'll assign this world perspective where there's a heaven and there's a hell and there are souls that, you know, judgment is applied to instead of humans that judgment is applied to.

00:47:15.620 And this leads to them being able to act in ways that might be biblically very unaligned, but that are very aligned with their personal.

00:47:26.020 Now, here's probably my biggest change recently, and I want your thoughts on this, Simone.

00:47:30.180 All right.

00:47:31.360 Because we mentioned this in the previous episode, but recently I've become more, like, personally, I used to take this position of, like, trans is, like, there's some real group of trans people and I'm okay with that.

00:47:42.280 But what actually broke this for me was looking at historic examples of people who people said were trans.

00:47:48.640 And these were just gender fluid people.

00:47:51.000 Like, they were not, they were not trans. 0.99

00:47:52.600 They did not have an obsession with gender.

00:47:54.020 They did not have an obsession with the way people were seeing them.

00:47:56.800 They either would have been called cross-dressers or gender fluid if you look at, like, modern parlance, right? 0.84

00:48:03.260 They would not be seen as this trans community that, like, needs everyone to see them as this certain gender.

00:48:07.940 And then it made me think, well, okay, there might be this real group of people that's born with a different brain, but they just want to express themselves differently.

00:48:17.400 They don't, they're not obsessed with pronouns and people seeing them as a different gender and all that, which is, which now that I look at the negatives that come with this trans obsession, i.e. the really high suicide rate, the really high self-hatred rate.

00:48:32.020 They're really high, you know, I've moved quite, like, maybe, like, we shouldn't, and, and, and the moral license to have this obsession, which is created by the normalization of this.

00:48:43.200 Do you think it's wrong that I've moved into this position of, actually, I don't know if, at least it was in our own culture, saying that being trans is okay, is bad entirely?

00:48:54.180 I, I think what we're, we're larger as, as a couple, like, people talking about this a lot are coming to is, the conclusion that you need to do something about it is wrong. 0.99

00:49:06.800 And this concept that your gender is a part of your identity is stupid. 0.99

00:49:12.520 It shouldn't matter. 0.99

00:49:13.760 It's not, it's not, it's, it's, the problem in, with trans stuff now is it is, oh, you identify with these traits, which we largely group as male or female. 0.54

00:49:25.800 Therefore, you need to do X.

00:49:28.280 And we were like, no, no, no, delete the therefore part.

00:49:31.200 It's just like, okay, you know, that's it.

00:49:33.480 And actually we have, we have good gender fluid friends who, like, honestly are living that life now.

00:49:39.980 I'm not going to name this person.

00:49:41.300 There was like one in particular who's really, really cool, you know, who just like, you know, it was really funny.

00:49:46.960 This person is, is gender fluid, but not, never said anything about it.

00:49:53.500 Doesn't identify as it.

00:49:55.180 Yeah, doesn't say you have to call me by X, X way.

00:49:57.460 Doesn't say in any particular way.

00:49:58.520 And then at this one event where this, this friend was present and another one of our friends was present and one of our friends came and was like, oh, what, what are their pronouns?

00:50:08.360 And I'm like, I don't know.

00:50:10.280 Like, we, so-and-so.

00:50:13.020 Like, that's, like. 0.99

00:50:14.140 They don't fucking care. 0.99

00:50:15.500 Like, why, why? 0.99

00:50:16.860 Like, it just, it was weird.

00:50:18.100 And, and so I think that the thing is, there are a lot of people who already realize this and it's just like, nobody cares and they live their lives.

00:50:26.120 And even in this world in which a mainstream society is like, oh, we need to do something about this.

00:50:32.000 Like, we need to now classify you as you, you as this.

00:50:34.740 And we need to put something in your, in your email signature.

00:50:37.800 And you need to begin your soup calls by naming your pronouns, even when you don't care. 0.73

00:50:43.300 But there are still people who manage to maintain that level of, it doesn't matter, deep respect.

00:50:51.180 And I think it would be so healthy for society to get back to that.

00:50:54.080 I also think to, to a great extent, a lot of mental conditions are like that.

00:50:58.420 People didn't used to have bipolar or, you know, people that didn't used to have borderline personality disorder. 1.00

00:51:04.600 They were just bitches. 1.00

00:51:05.500 They were just cunts, you know, and people weren't autistic. 1.00

00:51:08.960 They were just weird. 0.99

00:51:10.340 People weren't schizophrenic.

00:51:11.520 They just spoke with God.

00:51:13.780 And why can't we just.

00:51:15.440 So the danger is, and the sacrilege here is, is, is, is, is, is, is not actually like identifying with a different gender than your birth gender.

00:51:24.900 It's caring at all.

00:51:26.720 Well, yeah, it's caring at all and thinking that action needs to be taken.

00:51:29.220 And I think that also more broadly with things like depression, you know, it's like, oh, you're depressed.

00:51:33.920 Therefore, now you're a depressed person.

00:51:36.660 And you're going to.

00:51:36.960 Yeah, no, I've actually seen it for other families is, is when other families have been struggling with this.

00:51:41.700 And I realized that they have allowed their kids to identify as autistic before identifying as, for example, in our family, a Collins.

00:51:51.600 Right.

00:51:52.000 Oh, yeah.

00:51:53.480 Yeah.

00:51:53.760 I think there's also this void of identity and people want identity.

00:51:57.620 Yeah.

00:51:58.000 You have to give them something.

00:51:59.480 I think back again to the, you need to fill the void.

00:52:02.620 You need to have carrots in society. 1.00

00:52:04.920 You need to have pride.

00:52:06.240 You need to have something there.

00:52:08.480 And also back to my, like, larger theory about anxiety and depression, which is that anxiety and depression fill a void when you don't have bigger things to care about.

00:52:16.900 And when those bigger things fill your life, suddenly the anxiety just kind of melts away because there's no space for it.

00:52:23.340 Well, and I note here was pride.

00:52:24.700 Pride is something that needs to come from sacrifice, right?

00:52:27.180 Like, so many people have pride in just accepting themselves for, like, nothing could be worse than accepting yourself for who you are.

00:52:34.500 Like, like, that is, that is.

00:52:35.520 The original way pride was that, right? 0.99

00:52:37.260 It was like, we put up with a lot of shit and we're proud that we still, you know, choose to live. 0.94

00:52:43.720 That's not what it is anymore. 1.00

00:52:44.620 Now it's about pride in just accepting the wretch that you are. 0.84

00:52:51.460 Like, I don't want to rag on fat people anymore than we already do on this podcast, but like fat pride. 0.64

00:52:57.180 That kind of thing.

00:52:57.940 Yeah.

00:52:58.460 Yeah.

00:52:58.860 Yeah.

00:53:00.200 Instead of pride in your sacrifices, the pride that a martyr would have, right?

00:53:05.940 The pride in somebody from a healthy culture that had done good things would have, right?

00:53:11.020 Yeah.

00:53:11.480 Instead of.

00:53:12.440 Pride in serving the military.

00:53:13.840 Pride in serving the military.

00:53:16.520 Pride in not, not, you should never be comfortable with who you are.

00:53:21.700 You should always be trying to improve yourself.

00:53:23.280 And I think that's another thing to work on here is, is, is understanding.

00:53:28.100 And, and, and, and I think rightfully so that you should not be, and, and to not elevate, not through shame, but just be like, you shouldn't have pride in whoever you happen to be.

00:53:38.640 You should be trying to improve yourself.

00:53:40.180 Whoever you happen to be is who you are without effort.

00:53:45.120 Right.

00:53:45.480 And people are like, oh, you don't know what I've been through, like trying to categorize everything in terms of past trauma.

00:53:50.300 And this is what I hate so much about trauma narratives is they try to recontextualize who you have allowed yourself to become indolently as a journey of hardship.

00:54:04.020 Oh.

00:54:04.800 Instead of actually saying.

00:54:06.940 A sign of you letting yourself go mentally.

00:54:09.200 Instead of looking into the past.

00:54:10.900 I don't care what happened to me in the past.

00:54:12.360 I need to focus on who I'm going to be in the future.

00:54:13.960 None, none of my past things matter.

00:54:18.840 I need to focus on how I am not being the best iteration of myself right now and work to improve that.

00:54:25.040 Yeah.

00:54:27.280 I like that.

00:54:28.340 A message of hope and a message of that, which is good.

00:54:32.180 Not that, which is bad.

00:54:34.140 Anyway, love you.

00:54:35.280 I mean, we're, we're taking a pretty big position shift here on the trans stuff.

00:54:38.880 I don't know.

00:54:39.660 Well, also in the shame thing, because in previous episodes, you've been like,

00:54:43.180 we need to bring back shame.

00:54:44.680 We need to shame people for not wanting kids.

00:54:46.980 We need to, you know, and I think you're probably now going to start to dither and be like,

00:54:50.780 no, I still want to shame people for not having kids.

00:54:52.700 I don't know.

00:54:53.360 I'm not sure.

00:54:54.760 But this will lead to more interesting conversations.

00:54:57.560 I love you to death.

00:54:58.720 Wait, should we shame people for not having kids?

00:55:00.860 What?

00:55:01.760 No, we should just, no.

00:55:03.080 I think I'm, I'm, I'm all for making high fertility, the new autistic special interest, 1.00

00:55:09.740 pursuing the greater replacement theory, which autistic people inherit the future, autistic 1.00

00:55:15.380 and highly religious people.

00:55:16.960 No, I think, no, families, families belong to those who really, really, really love kids.

00:55:22.520 The people who are going to have, you know, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,

00:55:26.500 10 kids. 0.79

00:55:27.340 Not people who are going to be shamed into having one and doing a shitty job.

00:55:32.100 And that kid doesn't have any kids of their own because they hated their upbringing because

00:55:35.340 their parent resented them.

00:55:36.300 No, shame is not the right thing.

00:55:38.600 So I'm hoping that you'll quit shame entirely, but we'll see.

00:55:42.160 We'll see.

00:55:42.660 I love you to death, Simone.

00:55:43.940 I love you too, gorgeous.

00:55:47.140 What are we doing for dinner?

00:55:48.940 Can't you smell the coconut rice cooking?

00:55:51.380 Okay.

00:55:51.660 So I'm doing coconut rice and some form of curry that you're going to make?

00:55:54.680 That's what I was thinking.

00:55:55.360 And then the next day with the, if there is any leftover curry and I can still do coconut

00:56:00.460 penang if you want, or I can do something else, but then I can make taquitos.

00:56:03.820 No, I was going to make, um, rendang, probably, or, yeah, rendang.

00:56:11.920 Is rendang?

00:56:13.020 It's the packets.

00:56:14.200 The packets.

00:56:15.340 Are they in a, in a, in a plastic container in the fridge or are they loose?

00:56:19.380 No, they are not.

00:56:20.080 Oh, no, it's the stuff that's in your, your cabinet.

00:56:22.560 Yes, but there's no one to open in the fridge.

00:56:24.880 The, the thing in the plastic container is a very spicy Chinese sauce.

00:56:28.300 It's an entirely different thing.

00:56:29.560 Okay, but the, the rendang is the stuff you order on Amazon that comes in those gold foil

00:56:34.660 packets, right?

00:56:36.440 Yes.

00:56:36.880 And it says rendang on the packet.

00:56:38.800 And it's in your food count.

00:56:40.480 Yes.

00:56:40.860 You don't use the whole packet.

00:56:42.100 You know that, right?

00:56:42.980 How much do you want me to use?

00:56:45.340 Typically about a third of a packet or a quarter.

00:56:47.720 Okay.

00:56:47.800 So one third of the packet with sauteed onion.

00:56:49.800 If you're making two days, where's a third of the packet?

00:56:52.080 A third of the packet with sauteed onion, coconut milk, and your stewed beef.

00:56:58.540 Yeah.

00:57:00.080 Okay.

00:57:00.720 All right.

00:57:01.260 I love you.

00:57:01.700 Bye.

00:57:03.860 You're so great.

00:57:04.960 You're so pretty.

00:57:06.220 Chau, chau, chau, chau.

00:57:07.460 Chau, chau.

00:57:08.960 You know what would be a shame?

00:57:10.400 Not going to NatalCon in Austin this March because it's going to be so freaking awesome.

00:57:17.400 So please, if you're thinking about going, you should probably register now because I think

00:57:21.840 they're starting to run out of spaces.

00:57:23.520 If you enter the code Collins at checkout, you get 10% off.

00:57:27.460 So I don't know why you would do that because it's going to save you money.

00:57:31.740 Use that money for something else.

00:57:34.000 Okay.

00:57:34.160 I love you.

00:57:34.520 Bye.

00:57:34.840 Bye.

00:57:34.900 Okay.

Based Camp - January 16, 2025

Why the Breaking of Shame Will Save the Righteous

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