Nihilism, Dystopia & Purpose

The podcast episode from Based Camp with Malcolm and Simone Collins dives into alarming CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) data on youth mental health and suicide ideation (euphemistically called “youth in Asia,” “joining the euthanasia,” or “speed running life” to skirt filters). They discuss 2023 statistics showing persistently high rates of persistent sadness/hopelessness (especially among girls at ~53%), serious consideration of suicide (~27% for girls, ~14% for boys overall), planning, and attempts—rates that barely declined post-COVID lockdowns and remain shockingly elevated.

The hosts argue modern school culture, urban monoculture, social contagion, affluence/leisure, and lack of hardship (e.g., small families vs. large ones creating built-in resilience) contribute to this crisis. They critique mainstream parenting/schooling as dangerously “normal” and advocate for pronatalist, counter-cultural family strategies—like large families for forced hardship, framing your family as discriminated against by dominant culture, or custom holidays to instill gratitude and purpose.

They touch on related topics: higher rates in affluent/elite environments, comparisons to communities like trans or furries, gender differences (girls more ideation/plans, boys more completion when attempting), dystopian cravings in female psychology, nihilism’s social appeal, and the need for meaning beyond pleasure/validation.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about. The

Simone Collins: in Asia

Malcolm Collins: youth joining the youth in Asia. And we have to find creative ways to say this stuff so that we don’t get in too much trouble here

Speaker 15: You need to take a cold, hard look at your stance on youth in Asia.

Speaker 17: Oh, I don’t care about them. They’re conformists and they’re communists.

Who? The youth in Asia.

Simone Collins: to people who opt into the afterlife early.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Speed running life.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: The speed running generation. So we had done an episode previously on CDC statistics that were so shocking that they showed that the. 24%. So about one in four young women created a plan to join the euthanasia, not over the course of their childhood, but in any given 12 month period.

Simone Collins: It’s insane. That’s [00:01:00] insane.

Malcolm Collins: Insane. And this is CD, C, right? Like they have a reason to underplay this, right? So, I did that episode, and when we did that episode, the data that we had access to, that the public had access to was from 2021. And everyone was like, well, that was during the COVID Lockdowns.

Mm-hmm. And being during the COV lockdowns, I can understand why you might have higher rates. Right. So. Let’s go at the later numbers that have been released since then, and the latest we have is 2023 data. What is the rate for girls now doing that?

Simone Collins: Hmm,

Malcolm Collins: 21%, only a 3% decline. And still well over one in five young girls.

Makes a plan to join the euthanasia every 12 months period, not over the course of her childhood in any given 12 months period.

Simone Collins: That actually [00:02:00] surprises me. I would’ve honestly expected that it would be higher because I remember looking at some statistics around the pandemic that showed that people’s rates of severe.

Ideation of, of bad types increased right before school started, or like as school started and actually went down over the summer and during breaks, they were like just less stressed and they were not in the school system is a torture chamber for children. I do not. Yeah. So I’m actually surprised that now that people are now forcibly back in school at higher rates, that they’re actually doing a little better mentally.

That, that’s interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: But I, I think there’s also the effect of contagion when it comes to, you know, harmful social behaviors that include various forms of hurting yourself. Not just the ultimate form, but I. I, I think that that might have been a thing during the pandemic, just ‘cause a lot of people were talking about it, that maybe that was what pushed it over the edge and made it higher than normal because a lot of people were just being overtly dramatic online ‘cause they had [00:03:00] nothing else to do.

And now people are a little bit more busy doing other things like actually going to school.

Malcolm Collins: Well, we can talk about it. We can look at the differential rates.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: We which we will explore, we’ll see where there have been actual drops in the data. Mm-hmm. And I wanna talk about all this in the context of like, do you understand, you know, we have a you know, people filming about us and reporting crews here all the time.

They’re like, why are you guys so weird? Like, why do you do this in a weird way? Why don’t you punish your kids the way everyone else is punishing their kids? Why don’t you just send your kids to school like everyone else is sending their kids to school? Mm-hmm. Why do you do X and Y and Z that are also weird and different?

And it’s like if you knew that there was a. Cultural group.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And there was a or, or a type of school system right, like around you and everyone was like, well, did you know that one in five more than one in five [00:04:00] girls in that school system is making a plan to join the youth in Asia?

Simone Collins: Or if they thought it was like a.

An online social network or a social club. You know, if someone was like, oh, well, you know, one in five girls who joins the Girl Scouts wants to do this, people would be like, oh my gosh, it’s a Satanic cult. You know?

Malcolm Collins: I think that they’d say, I’m definitely, like above all else, my child is not going into the Girl Scouts.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Or if it were like a, a, a school district, right. They’d be like, oh, I’m moving out of there. Like, whatever it takes to save my girl. You know, th this is, this is huge

Malcolm Collins: above

Simone Collins: all. And then people are, they don’t bat an eye

Malcolm Collins: above all else. If there is a, there is a school around us that when kids go to it, one in five girls wants to end it on any given year.

Right. That school is every school.

Simone Collins: That

Malcolm Collins: is the culture that we are in right now.

Simone Collins: That school is called school.

Malcolm Collins: Cool. And I would point out that these rates are. Higher CR episode on this. ‘cause people can [00:05:00] be like, well, you know, this is for poor people or whatever. And it’s like, no, no, actually use in Asia ideation among young girls is higher for young girls who grew up in higher income suburb mm-hmm.

Environments than those who grow up in, urban environments. And,

Simone Collins: and this isn’t just again about literally trying to enter the afterlife early. This is also you see rates of spoons, which are people who often believe they have very serious medical conditions that they don’t actually have, but that ultimately lead them to have very real, symptoms that are torturous and awful. Those are, that is very much a, a, a new form of affluent. You don’t really see it happening with impoverished young girls that are resource strapped and watching their younger siblings and just trying to get by. You see it in middle class or upper middle class bougie girls who have too much time on their hands.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and I, I’d go further you know, as somebody who grew up adjacent to like the you know, sort of elite boarding school scene and everything like that.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Oh, those were [00:06:00] the girls who, you know, did stuff. And,

Malcolm Collins: and unlive. I, I’d, I bet if you could get the real statistics from a school like Andover or something like that.

Oh gosh, gosh. They’d probably be like twice the rate of your, your local public school. Awesome. And it, it, it’s just the culture in these places. Anybody who goes or was in those networks knew you, always heard about people unliving themselves. So sad in these sort of wider elite culture networks.

And so when a lot of parents, they think, oh, I’m not, I’m, I’m doing the, the premium version, therefore my kid is safe. And I’m like, you must have not been at the previous premium version when you were a kid. Yeah. That’s, that’s where all the cocaine is. Right? You know,

Simone Collins: for real though.

Malcolm Collins: No, I think it, I think it’s really dangerous.

I think it’s really dangerous. And if one of our kids wants to, you know, try to get a scholarship to go to one of those, I’ll be like, you, you, you can try. But,

Simone Collins: well, even, even on a more micro level. So, in, in, in the little, the island city where I grew up in the Bay Area called Alameda, there were two high schools.

There was Sen l High School where I went and there was Alameda [00:07:00] High School where the rich kids went, like they were sort of the richer side of the island and then the not as rich side of the island and. The, the, the joke was that our students sold the drugs to the Alameda High School students, like we were the drug dealers.

They bought the drugs and. The, the, like general sentiment was like they had the, the mental health problems. We also got their old textbooks. This is how poor we were as the high school. We would see like the Alameda High school stamps on the books and they’d be from like 1983 in like, you know, 2005.

It was bad Malcolm, but like we really didn’t have that many serious issues of mental health going around our high school. We didn’t have stories of like, people going through this or that, or, you know, really crashing out. Whereas that happened a lot. At the other high school, which I think is really interesting, you know, so it’s not, you’re not even safe if you are.

Oh, just, I’ll just keep my kid in public school then. No. There are also just school districts in general schools within the same school district that,

Malcolm Collins: yeah.

Simone Collins: [00:08:00] Could be seeing this problem.

Malcolm Collins: But what I wanna point that out is I get really worried when parents come to me and they’re like, I found an out, I found a, a secret way that I don’t need to worry about this.

Simone Collins: I send my child to a good classical Christian school and therefore everything’s going to be okay.

Malcolm Collins: Be okay. And I would bet. If you did an analysis on good classical Christian schools and the rates of these things, they’re gonna be lower, but maybe like 3% lower, not, that’s still at horrifying levels.

Mm-hmm. And it’s because they fundamentally buy in to the wider cultural framework, which is a leading to all of this. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, this is a problem you could be like, well they’re, they’re classical Christian. Its like the teachers there still all went to teacher education. Yeah. That’s like four years of brainwashing.

Right? They’re, and, and there’s been some great whistleblowers on this of like, what it’s like training to be a teacher today. And they’re like, [00:09:00] they’re like two out of eight classes have something to do with other than like one propaganda. And, and this is coming from the wokeness. Remember I said, oh, would you let, before we get into the sets here, your kid join a group that you knew how to, you know, one in five chance of, of making a plan to join the euthanasia.

Mm-hmm. Right? And then you look at like, the most urban monoculture groups, like the trans community and stuff like that. Yeah. And it’s like, for them it’s like 50%, 45%, right? Like, oh. A coin flips chance, you know, if, if that’s the case, of course, I don’t want my kid joining those communities. Right. Yeah.

Seriously,

Simone Collins: guys,

Malcolm Collins: to stay away from these communities you know, another community that has really high rates,

Simone Collins: no

Malcolm Collins: furries they’re at around, I think 35 to 40%

Simone Collins: freeze. Isn’t that worse than the trans community?

Malcolm Collins: No. That’s, that’s a little bit less than the trans community’s that.

Simone Collins: That’s surprising. I mean, I thought that they were like kind of known for being based in.[00:10:00]

Malcolm Collins: I think, well folks, communities represent something that is fundamentally unified, which is disliking who you are enough to want to create a separate persona that you can interact with

Simone Collins: the world through Oh to Yeah. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a dissociative coping attempt that. May not be as successful as one would hope,

Malcolm Collins: right?

Yeah. So like,

Simone Collins: like, so maybe the furries who have good furry local friend groups or online friend groups that they’re like great and supportive, like they’re fine. But then the furries who haven’t really been able to tap into that are the ones who end up.

Malcolm Collins: No, I think it’s okay. Why could I never be a furry?

Right. I couldn’t be a furry easily not because I don’t think that some anthro is hot. Mm-hmm. I can’t be a furry easily because I never wanna cover up my identity. I’m too proud of who I am. Oh. And I think that this is important, you know, if you tell a young kid, if you find any anthro character you’ve [00:11:00] ever seen attractive that you are now a deviant furry, and you might as well just join that community you know, you’re putting your kids at significant risk.

Because the reality is, is even if you. A parent may have never seen anthrop that you found hot or just don’t find it hot at all. The reality is, is that statistically a huge chunk of the population you know, like when like Luna Tunes whatever comes out and, and they made low Luna

Simone Collins: Tunes.

Malcolm Collins: No. Remember they’ve made Lola Bunny less sexy? No.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Lola Bunny was the that’s realization moment for so many people.

Malcolm Collins: Mainstream right wing, like Christian influencers were like, how dare you make Lola Bunny less sexy? Now you wanna tell me everyone

Simone Collins: loves Lola Bunny. Yeah. Come on. Don’t come for her.

Malcolm Collins: Well, the point I’m making here is you wanna tell me that. Everybody who can recognize that Lola Bunny is sexy and would be concerned about her [00:12:00] being less sexy. They’re all furries. And so now your mainstream, you know, right wing influencers who all freaked out when that happened. That’s why it’s important to differentiate between random arousal pathways.

Mm-hmm. And you know, going into, you know, actually

Simone Collins: acting on it and like identifying with it in a way that that’s, that’s very interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, no, and it’s, it’s, it’s important because it parents like, I’m gonna, you know, keep my kids out of the furry communities. I only show them Disney movies from the 1980s.

And I’m like, you mean like Robinhood? Mm-hmm. I wanna tell you how

Simone Collins: no one safe. Yeah.

Speaker: I owe my life to you, my darling. I couldn’t have lived without you, Robin.

Simone Collins: So, so true. A lot of those

Malcolm Collins: furries found out about this.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Made.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And go back a little, a little earlier to the 1950s like we talked about in our podcast and you know, maybe they had fewer anthro characters, but they were just, you know, doing things just in person with the donkeys.

IRL, you know?

Malcolm Collins: No. [00:13:00] What’s funny was made, Marianne is, oh, actually

Simone Collins: pronunciation

Malcolm Collins: conservative, like trad sexual, like a, a role within, in that original one. Like in, in all other

Simone Collins: respect. Yeah. I mean, she was wearing her s swaddling hijab for most of that, wasn’t she?

Malcolm Collins: Her, what is that?

Simone Collins: The she was wearing a veil.

I’m, I’m just referring, I think Trump talked about Iman Omar wearing a swaddling hit on. I just think it’s a really funny, the derogatory way to jobs. Anyway,

Malcolm Collins: anyway, anyway, to get started here.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So, persistent feelings of sadness are hopelessness, okay? Mm-hmm. If we’re looking at all students, this went from 42% to 40%, barely a drop for female, 57% to 53%.

For male, 28% to 28%. So no change in males. Let’s see if this pattern persists.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Now for females here, right? I, I actually wanna focus on this. This means that. [00:14:00] Well over half of girls in school have persistent feelings of lessness or hopelessness. Okay? This is not normal.

Simone Collins: No, Malcolm. Clearly you’ve never been a teenage girl.

Shining in the comments, girl, you know, we all just wanna die. I, it’s true. Do

Malcolm Collins: you have that these days? Do you have a per, I mean, in our marriage, persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness?

Simone Collins: No. No, no. Not since having kids. No, no, that puberty’s rough Malcolm. We just don’t understand, like it’s, it’s really rough.

It’s not. It’s not great. And there I always approached all my challenges and puberty was like optimism. I was like, well, yeah, yeah, maybe that’s ‘cause you were being like macro dosed with testosterone and I was being macro dosed with, with estrogen before I figured out the solution, which was just to starve myself so much that my body stopped producing hormones permanently.

And I fixed it. I fixed it. Malcolm, I may not be able to have [00:15:00] kids natural anymore, but I have the hormonal profile of a prepubescent male, so everything’s okay.

Maybe that’s only you got

Malcolm Collins: your psychological condition for a female, which is called sanity.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean that’s, I feel like it’s, it’s one of the best.

How do I, what, how do I not use this word? The thing where you don’t eat that, that female coping mechanism of youth. That one is great because while it does, cause what I do have osteoporosis persistent fertility issues, it does actually address the hormonal issues. Like it does take it away.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, being a woman.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So it takes the problem away, whereas like, you know, the other coping mechanisms don’t, I guess, gender affirming care, youth gender transition does kind of handle it, but our

Malcolm Collins: daughters are gonna be a nightmare

Simone Collins: when they go through puberty. This is why we had sons first. Like we intentionally, when you and I were like, oh, well should we start with sons or daughters?

I was like, well, we’re starting with sons because I’m not dealing with teenage girls. Setting the tone in our household though, I do really [00:16:00] feel like a big moderating factor on having very, very rough adolescent ears is being. In a small household, every, every family that I know of, a lot of children.

Or people I know who, who went through their adolescence in large families came through a lot more mentally healthy. And I think that a lot of the danger, and maybe this is one of those reasons why you see a correlary issue with like having leisure or wealth or some form of like, affluence or abundance in, in youth correlating with these high rates of attempting to join the youth in Asia is when there’s no space to get stuck in your head.

You’re gonna be okay. It’s the problem is that the demons are all in your head when you’re in adolescence. And if you’re allowed to just hang out with the demons. You’re, you’re screwed. They’re gonna take you over. It, it’s like demonic possession, whereas if you’re constantly being kicked by you know, your 7-year-old brother and you know, your [00:17:00] other, like 13-year-old sister con constantly steals all your little bras and stuffing them and taking them to school.

And you have to fight with her. And, and you know, if, if you are, you’re also waking up in the middle of the night to help your parents with an, your parents with an infant. You don’t have space. To get angsty and, and, and think about hurting yourself. You know, you’re too busy trying to kill your siblings out of rage.

The, the rage takes over and it’s a beautiful thing. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Alright.

Simone Collins: Sorry. Rant at all. No, I think

Malcolm Collins: it’s true. I think it’s true. I think being in a large family, you’re not gonna be affected one by external culture as much. And then,

well

Simone Collins: it’s the forced hardship, which is something we talk about sort of separately about how we think.

It’s just so important to have some version of hardship and youth. And you don’t have to manufacture hardship for affluent youth if you have it built in through the form of a large family, which just creates hardship every single day we see with our kids. ‘cause our kids have to navigate. Feelings of, of unfairness or violation or having [00:18:00] to put others first, which is really hard for kids every single day.

Malcolm Collins: So, yeah. And, and here I’m gonna note something because I’ve been looking ahead in the statistics and we’re gonna need to have a hypothesis around this, which is that. From COVID to not COVID lockdown female rates of unhappiness joining the euthanasia, everything declines marginally. Yeah.

Whereas in males it didn’t. And so the question is, is why, why

Simone Collins: was it, I think, I think we’re going back to my, my original high thesis, which is thi this is a social contagion thing. I think that during the pandemic just became vogue to talk about this. And that after the pandemic it was just less cool.

And also like girls had more things to gossip and titter about when they were seeing each other in person at school. And so there, there wasn’t as much need to get attention and, and gossip about entering the afterlife.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So [00:19:00] seriously thought about joining the euthanasia. Mm-hmm. For females.

This was 30% in COVID and then went down to 27%, so it’s 3%

Simone Collins: now, 27%, though that is still way too high. I don’t wanna play those odds.

Malcolm Collins: Four.

Simone Collins: I mean, like if, if we’re talking about school shooters for example, and it’s like, well, you know, like you’d be like, well, I’m getting my kid outta that school. I don’t want them to get hurt.

Like, it’s, I don’t know why we’re, so, we talk so much more about our children being at risk of being hurt by other people when like, just like with murder rates, right? Like most murders and kidnappings are performed by like family members or inside the house from people, you know. And the who do you know?

Who do you spend the most time with in your entire life? It’s you. You’re your own worst enemy. You are your own biggest risk. Why are we not more concerned about this? The, you know, the calls coming from inside the house, like the most inside part of it. Ah,

Malcolm Collins: to continue.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Go on.

Malcolm Collins: And, and with males it was 14% in, in, in both periods.

So

Simone Collins: still way too [00:20:00] much.

Malcolm Collins: Also, keep in mind how low it is for males compared to females. 14 to 27%, right? Yeah. Girls are significantly more at risk of this. Yeah. And, you know, everybody knows life is worse for young men these days in terms of the bias they face in from, from teachers, from society.

Simone Collins: The enemy within is worse for young women. Yeah. Young men are like, they just really wanna bang someone, right? Like, this is the worst thing that happens to them in, in youth, right? They become a little rebellious and they really need sex. Girls, it’s, man, it’s, it’s, it’s as different and it’s dark. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: No, no. I mean, it is, it is true what you’re saying. They want sex. That is what men want.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

I, if only I were so lucky. If only that were my problem in youth, I wouldn’t be, I wouldn’t have the bones of an aged woman.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway. Anyway so, if for the we, where we went over the made a plan so for women it went from 24% to 21%.

But [00:21:00] with males it 12% to 12%. Still way too high. Yeah. And I think your enemy within thing is right. Women are terrible to other women. And, and themselves.

Simone Collins: And themselves. A lot of it

Malcolm Collins: comes from a place of

Simone Collins: self hatred.

Malcolm Collins: The urban monoculture, which defines your purpose around seeking self validation and pleasure mm-hmm.

Is going to spread more within female communities because they are much more interested in conforming to societal standards, social pressures. Mm-hmm. And I think they might have even become more conformist to the general social pressure over COVID. Because now it’s not just their friend group that’s, that’s pressuring them.

It’s the online juggernaut that’s pressuring them, right?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. The, the juggernaut.

Malcolm Collins: The juggernaut and then attempted now this is interesting. Attempted actually didn’t go down post COVID for women. 13% to 13%. So what it may be is we’re actually seeing a decrease in the sort of [00:22:00] histrionic, I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it.

Behavior and not actual rates. Mm-hmm. Risk for minute went down 1%, which is statistically irrelevant, seven to 6%. Mm-hmm. Thoughts.

Simone Collins: Yep. Part, part of me is like, I, I trust men when they say it. Also, like when you look at the successful execution of, early exit men, men follow through. You know, women attend all time.

Well, actually, actually, no. Oh, I tried. Hold

Malcolm Collins: on. Simone, you’re, you’re, you’re just, I wrong statistically wrong here.

Simone Collins: Really? I thought it was men that just got the job done.

Malcolm Collins: No, no contrast. No, that is true. When they attempt. They die more often.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But contrast the male attempt rate which was 6% versus the male percent rate that said they seriously considered it, which was 14%.

Mm-hmm. So, it, you, you know, that’s like,

Simone Collins: and, and what’s the female attempt versus consider?

Malcolm Collins: Bit more than double. Right?

Simone Collins: I, I, I don’t see that as meaningful. Did they? Did they actually succeed? That’s what matters. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: No, obviously,

Simone Collins: obviously ‘cause a [00:23:00] female attempt doesn’t mean, is not always an national attempt.

It might just be the communication of the drama. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: The communication of the drama.

Simone Collins: Yeah. See, you’re

Malcolm Collins: saying women are histrionic, drama queens that will attempt to make it look like they want to end their lives for attention. You’re saying this about young women. Oh

Simone Collins: yeah. I mean, it’s, they’re

Malcolm Collins: like, well, yeah,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Well, okay, so look at it. Look at it from a woman’s perspective, right? It’s in vogue now. You know, everyone, everyone in high school is talking about it. One of them already followed through. You’re trying to get attention and, and love and people to care and worry about you because of this, right? But everyone’s talking about it and how depressed and sad they are.

So we have no choice. Situation. Yeah. Well, no, sort of, you have no choice but to show how you’re actually serious when you’re competing with everyone for attention on this one trendy issue.

Speaker 7: Sorry to hear about your friend. Thought she was your usual airhead . Guess I was wrong. We all were.

Simone Collins: So the only way that you can demonstrate your [00:24:00] seriousness is to actually show an attempt to actually get hospitalized, for example, you know, to, to, to actually be taken outta school for several days so that people talk about you in your absence.

Right. Yeah. And there are very easy ways to do this where, you know, it’s not really gonna, but you know, you can still work yourself up and, you know, get, this is very harmful. I’m not saying that like girls who are doing it performatively aren’t hurting themselves and also very, very miserable and actually kind of really thinking about it.

‘cause once you get into the it’s method acting to a great extent as well. Like they’re really feeling it.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I was also just thinking about the, the movie The Heathers, where a major plot theme is that Unliving yourself becomes trendy in school because the, it’s actually a chain of murders. Mm-hmm.

But the popular girls don’t know that

Simone Collins: it’s a perfect crime. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But the the, the male character in that had a very similar sort of persona to the one that I had in high school, which is funny. Yeah. In terms of like, the way he acted and dressed and everything,

Which is funny, you just trying to be like a little ife [00:25:00] while also being very irreverent.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That, no, that was very much the arbitrage game that you played in, in that

Malcolm Collins: and, and break rules for the sake of breaking rules, you know? Mm-hmm. Whatever. So many rules. I broke at that time in my life. Like literally only because I broke rules. I, I wanted to break rules. I remember like back then I used to smoke and then I stopped smoking.

The minute it was legal for me to smoke. I was just like, this is, this is lame.

Simone Collins: I’m glad you didn’t get addicted. That’s,

Interesting.

Malcolm Collins: People in my family seem pretty resistant to nicotine addictions. Yeah,

Simone Collins: that is, that is interesting.

Malcolm Collins: People in my family are very susceptible to alcohol addiction.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Firewater gets you guys, but not the, not the peace pipe. Interesting.

Malcolm Collins: No one in my family has died from alcohol. So

Simone Collins: yeah,

Malcolm Collins: not, not that kind of but, but my mom, if you didn’t know, was actually addicted to nicotine for a period.

Simone Collins: Oh, she was? So she had to actively try to quit smoking. Mm-hmm. Wow. Okay. I didn’t know

Malcolm Collins: that.

She [00:26:00] said she, she stopped smoking. And the only reason I even remember this is ‘cause I remember why she stopped, which is apparently in like kindergarten when we were supposed to make, you know, like little things for our parents in like art class,

Simone Collins: oh

Malcolm Collins: no. Ash tray holder. Like a little, you know. And seeing that like it got to her and she’s like, Ugh,

Simone Collins: mommy, I made you an ashtray.

So she wait. That implies that she might have smoked through her pregnancies.

Malcolm Collins: No,

Simone Collins: she didn’t. She stopped for that. She drank because a lot of, a lot of women just stop smoking because like, even men, like a lot of men, when they do quit smoking, it’s ‘cause they’ve been hospitalized for a series of days and they haven’t been allowed to smoke then.

And they’re like, well, I guess this is the time I go cold Turkey. You know? Yeah. Because the, the first days are the hardest. So I figured that she would’ve stayed. Cold Turkey.

Malcolm Collins: She never did it that much. I do not have any explicit memory of her ever smoking in my entire life. I only have a memory of the ashtray story.

Simone Collins: Oh, interesting. Yeah. Maybe she, I honestly imagine that she did it just for the aesthetics. I’d be [00:27:00] surprised if she struggled to quit, but I don’t

Malcolm Collins: know. But yeah. So, where is this coming from? Yeah. I mean, we’ve, we’ve talked about this in so many episodes but you know, just to go over, when you define your purpose in life as a search for pleasure and self affirmation, you.

Feel and experience everything that is fundamentally good that you are creating in this universe from your perspective, because that’s how you’ve defined your own purpose.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And there just isn’t that much positive feeling to life, especially when you’re a teenager. And so it’s a very bad reason to keep going.

Simone Collins: It’s worse than that though, and here’s why. I think also you saw more of a spike in this form of Id. Ideation during the pandemic especially is because I and I listen to a lot more leftist content than you do. A very, very common theme is just like, oh, this world is just so hard to live in. [00:28:00] It just, it just, it’s so dark and I, this world is everything.

Awesome. I know, I know. I love this timeline. Like that’s the problem is we’re having a blast, but it is a very, very, very common message in the mainstream urban monoculture, and for that reason. I think it’s even easier to begin thinking along those lines. You see this crop up with Antinatalism as well.

When people think about bringing a new life into the world, we often hear it too of like, oh, how could I bring a life into a world that’s so horrible? But this also has to do with people’s existing lives and can influence people’s tendencies in that direction to end their lives early.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I, I, I think that you’re, you’re put been on something really important here, and we’ve talked about it in our, you know, the, the, the seductiveness of nihilism, right?

Mm-hmm. Like being the nihilistic person is an easy social hack to look cool. Yeah. Within any context, right. You know, everyone else is, oh, you know, if I come into a room and I’m like, [00:29:00] unrightly enthusiastic about something, and somebody else is like, Hey, that’s lame. You know, they’ve now scored like a social point on me.

Yeah. Unless that’s actively punished. Or I just look at their,

Simone Collins: and I, by the way, that’s one of those like moves, like I, I imagine people who enjoy watching sports, like there are certain moves that they just hate that people do. To like get a ball from someone or, I don’t know. But like the, when girls do it for like their version of girl nagging, like a, a guy being like, oh, like, well, I got us a reservation at this restaurant.

Oh yeah. You know, it’s not, it’s not really good. Or like, they just act not impressed by everything. ‘cause they think that makes them look good. This is another version of that when people are like. Oh, the world’s just so terrible. Like, no, stop that. It doesn’t make you look good. I mean, it just, some people, I guess.

No,

Malcolm Collins: no. It does make you look good to a certain community is the thing, especially of women, especially of urban monoculture types. This idea of your status in part, coming from how distressed you are, how much of a victim you are, your [00:30:00] own weakness as we’ve pointed out. You know, you can either see the world through strength or you can see it through.

Weakness and the urban monoculture elevates a group or individual based on how disadvantaged they are in the perspective of the urban monoculture. You know, they’re, how many disabilities they have, how hard it is for them to get through an average day. And so, you know, if you’re some white middle class chicken, you’re hearing this, you’re now like, you know, this is where spoon come from.

You’re now like, oh, I gotta in invent all this for myself. And as, as you and I have pointed out, people like women, young women, see our episode if you’re interested. It’s, it’s something like they crave the dystopia. Women are sort of programmed to want to live in a dystopia. And you see this through the literature that they read, like dystopian literature is very, very common for young female audiences.

And if you read about the lives of young females, just a couple generations ago in that episode, we went through Simone’s grandmother’s war diary. You know, living in France under occupation [00:31:00] and it was a post apocalypse. It was a like, like they were living through. And you go

Simone Collins: back, they’re driving out of Paris and the roads are backed up and.

The, the Nazis are literally dropping bombs on the roads as cars are fleeing. She, at one point had like a pickup truck flip over her as she was hiding in a ditch by the side of the road. And the only reason she was spared was ‘cause she was like inside the indentation of the ditch, like horrible things.

And they, you know, they wander into abandoned villages and she goes into a, a, like a restaurant or bar trying to find. You know, someone to like get food from and just finds a dead body there and like walks back to where her parents were and just doesn’t say anything like genuine. Like scary movie stuff.

Not, not even just who, spooky dystopia. That kind of, you know, just horrible.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: And it was very recent. It was the

Malcolm Collins: same way. You go back to the Great Depression, it’s the same, you go back to the old West. The same, yeah. You

Simone Collins: go back

Malcolm Collins: to Europe during that time period. The same.

Simone Collins: Absolutely. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: [00:32:00] Women are genetically optimized.

To grow up in a dystopia. Mm-hmm. And when they do not have an external oppressor, they create a fictionalized oppressive force in their lives.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Actually, I want to think about this concept more. How can we structurally create something that helps our daughters not do this to themselves? So

Simone Collins: Malcolm Siblings a large family, it’s built in.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t think so at all. I think that it is still possible without traditions and contextualization to intergenerationally prevent this. And the way that I would do it is to frame our family as a discriminated group by the dominant culture in society, the urban monoculture, right? And say that you know, they will fight against us at every turn.

They will make your life. Harder at every turn because of who you are. There is an active conspiracy against us, which there is. You can just look [00:33:00] at the media. There is an active array of forces aligned against us, right? And that. We need to fight this. And, and I think that that can help them.

I think another thing is to maybe create a holiday a around this, right? The idea that young women will create fictionalized self oppression when they do not face it in their life. And I think that the, how, how would you structure a holiday to really hammer that home?

Simone Collins: I don’t know. I mean, off the top of my head, I don’t know.

I, I, I want to consult the holidays that other base camp community members have shared with us that they’ve built on their own. ‘Cause we’re not the only ones who believe in culture crafting as it just so happens, you know, we’re a good company. I think some of them have come up with some interesting rites of passage.

So I don’t know, could consult those for inspiration.

Malcolm Collins: [00:34:00] Well, somebody had a past day that I really liked. Yeah, maybe we could do something where like the past day is actually like a two day thing. And you do different eras, so you do, or maybe even for like a week every week you do a meal from like a different period in the past, and you talk about the challenges of living in that period and how horrible it actually was to be alive during that period.

Yeah. And how, and then reflect on how lucky we are for the society and world we live in and think with shame on the people who act differently.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: What do you think of that? We can do this over Thanksgiving as an alternative to Thanksgiving. ‘cause Thanksgiving sucks at the holiday.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. I do.

I do like that as a Thanksgiving thing.

Malcolm Collins: And then you get a week of unique dishes as well, so you can try,

Simone Collins: you know, always, always the dishes. Yeah. It ain’t a holiday if they’re in special food decorations, canned

Malcolm Collins: food from the 1950s. You know, what, what is that

Simone Collins: like, oh God, make up jello casserole [00:35:00] thing, blah.

Our kids would probably be into it, considering their taste in food. So, yeah. No, I, I, yeah, I, I hear you. I, I think the biggest thing is the urban monoculture. But the second biggest thing is, is the urban

Malcolm Collins: monoculture. You can’t just say, don’t join it. Your kids will still join it. You still end up trapped, right?

Like,

Simone Collins: well, and you still actually have a, a very, very long history of affluent girls living in abundance, having issues of hurting themselves and, and calling it different things. Sometimes calling it religious devotion, sometimes calling it. Sickness that they just report that isn’t real.

So I, I, yeah, I, I, I agree with you that it is not exclusively the urban monoculture. I think that the urban monoculture can, however, explain outsized variants and, and unique differences in some periods of time. But yeah, you’re, you’re right. But yeah you also, the, the larger picture is that people need a reason to live.

It’s not [00:36:00] enough to just be like, oh, I’m happy and like, I don’t know. I don’t wanna die. You, you, you have to. I, I think a lot of people only understand why they don’t want to die, when kind of that’s not, the living is the default that that’s a big factor when living is not the default or it doesn’t feel like the default.

They suddenly are really happy about. Not dying. And I think maybe actually another issue that that could be insufficiently discussed, and this can go back to holidays and also making Hall Halloween more about El de Los MUTOs, is that we don’t talk a lot about death. And I think a lot of people don’t even really understand the, the meaning of how short their lives are and how tenuous their lives are.

And, and how quickly they, everything could just end and you can lose a family member at any age.

Malcolm Collins: You can go to show our kids a dead human body. Like does the morgue let kids in? I I used lots of dead

Simone Collins: bodies. I’m sure we have a, a lot of, like, if you have good [00:37:00] connections, probably. But I, I even just talking with Octavian on Monday, like when it came up that like, I’m gonna die and he’s gonna die, and he really started wrapping his head around it.

He was like, oh God. Huh. He definitely came away from the conversation. I mean, the, the

Malcolm Collins: Puritans used to do that. They used to have their kids like, stand

Simone Collins: over

Malcolm Collins: Graves. Graves.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And I like it. Look at it. That’s gonna be you one day.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I, I wonder if that’s maybe also one of the reasons why people, I held open casket funerals.

You know, it’s, it’s not necessarily. To just honor the debtor, like have closure in some way that would really freak me out. But like, rather to be like, no, look at Itand.

Malcolm Collins: I think we should make a holiday for our family around showing the kids dead bodies. And see if

Simone Collins: that’s, or we could do the thing that like, you know, the depressed South Koreans do, where, you know, they, we make them, they, they, they, they write their will and they lie in a casket and think about the fact, I, I don’t know though.

I, I, I wonder if that kind of makes people [00:38:00] into it. Make them wanna go ahead, do it. I don’t know. I don’t know. We’re gonna have to think about this. I, I’d love people’s thoughts in the comments.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, that’s my thoughts on that. Which is to say this is not an artifact caused by COVID. The system really is that bad.

And stay the FOA like stay the FOA build something new. You have had kids for nothing if you then throw them in the grinder, right? Totally like a, a society, right? If you let them be normal. Right, because

Simone Collins: nor nor these days, Malcolm has given you one slice of what normal means and given those rates of interest in departing from the world so prematurely, normal’s not good.

You don’t want normal. Normal is a

Malcolm Collins: dangerous cult.

Simone Collins: You want freakishly weird. If anything that’s not freakishly weird, now is, is very worrisome. So, mm-hmm. [00:39:00] Get rid of that. Desire to be, to fit in. Not good. Not good.

Malcolm Collins: I love you

Simone Collins: so much. Special.

Malcolm Collins: You’re

Simone Collins: the I have the other half of the Bullock, but I know this was with a larger, I don’t know how to pronounce the noodle things.

Bki. So

Malcolm Collins: something’s wrong with this Bullock.

Simone Collins: It didn’t look right. Yeah. I was like, what is, what is, I think it’s ‘cause we, we, you, you asked me in subsequent batches to make, to chop the medicinal pieces.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. No. I mean, it doesn’t have any chicken in it for one, it doesn’t have any mushrooms in it.

It, I, I think, was the one that we made that wasn’t actually bulldog, but it was meant to be made by itself without cheese. It’s a different dish entirely.

Simone Collins: Do you want me to toss the rest of it, or do you want me to prepare it differently? I think you just don’t want, you don’t, dude, if it, if it doesn’t work, no, I wanna,

Malcolm Collins: Prepare it differently.

Prepare it without cheese or a little bit of butter. And cook it longer. It was like really [00:40:00] mushy when it needs to be a little bit

Simone Collins: harder. Okay. So you wanna dry it out and then So I’ll dry it out and like, in the air fryer, like sort of bake it for a while and then at the very end, melt cheese, cheddar cheese on top.

Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: that’s a good idea. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Okay, we’ll try that. And if you don’t like it, I can make you, it’s, it’s fine

Malcolm Collins: to eat, by the way, because Yeah, well, it’s not as tasty because it doesn’t have chicken or the mushrooms. It has nothing that can go wrong with it.

Simone Collins: Oh, well there’s that. Yeah. And if you have cheese, you have a little more protein.

I’m trying to keep it a,

Balance. I, I was just learning recently about someone who died at age like 32 of a sudden aneurysm. Left kids behind and stuff made me really sad. So now I’m like, oh God, I gotta get you healthy. Going to, going to get your blood pressure perfect and keep you alive forever.

And you need to sleep more. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: I slept a lot today.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But more. Okay. Just more. And are you like taking all your vitamins every day? We, we doing

Malcolm Collins: a lot. Sometimes.

Simone Collins: Mm. I’ve not refilled our two week little [00:41:00] flipper thing. For you in more than two weeks now. So, all right. God, I shouldn’t have to do every, I can’t like throw pills into your mouth.

Take your freaking pills. You’re an adult man. I don’t want you to die. Oops. I feel like Toasty understands his mortality of, his way of saying, I love you, is I love you and I don’t want you to die. But I think this is also, ‘cause I constantly am like, Torsten, don’t jump off the bed like that. I don’t want you to die.

And he just assumes it’s like this platitude of like, oh yes, and a good day to you too. Good day to

Malcolm Collins: you too, sir. I I love you and I don’t want you to die.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I just, just think it’s, it’s a thing you say sometimes. No toasty, you’re dangerous. Stop doing things anyway.

Malcolm Collins: I love you Simone. That works for me for tonight.

Also reheating you could even throw in some peppers or something to mix it up a bit.

Simone Collins: Sh peppers. So saute those and then,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, because we gotta use, actually, why don’t you just try sauteing it with shishito peppers.

Simone Collins: Okay. And then I guess at the very end I can throw it in the air fryer [00:42:00] and then or just not,

Malcolm Collins: just no cheese, no air fryer.

Simone Collins: I can also sprinkle shredded very finely shredded cheddar cheese on after plating it and it will not. Yeah. Okay. I’ll do that. Yeah. That spares me cleaning the air fryer. Thank you. And I love you and goodbye. You are. And don’t die. You’re

Malcolm Collins: amazing woman. I love you dearly. Thank you for this great wife and not wanting to die all the time.

Because that would be really sad. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Being around a bummer. Depression is contagious.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. By the way, did you get to r Fab’s deck in reviewing that?

Simone Collins: I need to but I will. I will. Okay. I gotta get, I gotta get the Love you. Bye

bye.

Simone Collins: [00:43:00] Nice. Okay. All right. Before we, you know, start. Because you don’t wanna trigger too many content filters. What are we gonna call this? What? The, the youth in Asia, are we gonna call it success rates? Are we

Malcolm Collins: the youth in Asia? Yeah.

Simone Collins: What are, what are, how’s this gonna go?

Malcolm Collins: The well, I think, I think self euthanizing

Simone Collins: determination rates

Malcolm Collins: I termination rates, unli is the word most people use.

Simone Collins: Ew. Yeah. But except if I were an obvious not re retard at Google I would. Include Unli as one of my content filters. It’s so stupid. You can’t use the term that everyone uses. You know, that that’s, what do they call it? The the euphemism, treadmill.

Treadmill. That’s not, no, no. We hit to

Malcolm Collins: Google above to be okay with the euphemism treadmill. Well, I, I, I like your euthanasia thing, so we’ll just call them the euthanasia. Okay. Okay. If we knew that they’d be joining the euthanasia, the

Simone Collins: rate of youth. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: the [00:44:00] red youth. Okay. Who’ve

Simone Collins: entered Asia.

Malcolm Collins: I just saw a thing.

Do you know Kular? He has a scale at his house for when women come in. Oh, and if you don’t have, oh, that’s adorable. Body bag, Xanex, you get kicked out. You’d make it thorough. That’s for sure.

Simone Collins: That’s adorable. Yeah. I’m 20% body fat. That is exactly where you could be if you wanna have an athlete’s body, but also carefully and like successfully healthfully carry pregnancies.

I, I, I had a dexo scan to actually check because I was like, I wanna be at exact, the minimum body weight that I can have while I was being pregnant. I wanna be the

Malcolm Collins: very best body.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Oh my gosh.

Simone Collins: To be thin is my greatest quest. Yeah. Anyway.

Malcolm Collins: But I like that about you because I am disgusted by fat

Simone Collins: rotund.

You are rot disinclined to

Malcolm Collins: No, I have a, a, a pretty strong natural aversion to it.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it’s just like some people are turned off by, you know. Big butts. [00:45:00] Some people are turned off by small butts. You’re turned off by excess body fat. Some people are turned on by excess body fat as we know, because the entire haze movement, the body positivity for women wasn’t invented by women trying to look good.

It was invented by chubby chasers. Okay? Like they’re out there. So that’s the things you actually pointed out in your book. The prag guided sexuality that people under index. On just appealing to the people who find you attractive. Mm-hmm. That, that we just need to, like, if you are, for example, rotund, look for dudes who are into that.

If you are a, a bony hag, like I love into that,

Malcolm Collins: filter out dudes who are into that by being like, I’m just a fetish to you. I

Simone Collins: know. No, no, that’s, this is your opportunity. Go for it, girl. Live your dreams. I also, I, you know, ‘cause I sent you that clip of the, the mom and her daughter looking at filter like Instagram filters of them that turn them into men.

Mm-hmm. I realized, and I I, I texted you this on WhatsApp this morning, but I was like, oh my God, like before any woman is allowed to date, she should look at a filter of her as a man. Yeah.

And

Simone Collins: [00:46:00] like, this is the level of, of man you could get because in, in, in the clip that I sent you, it showed like, you know, a woman who was like, I don’t know what, an eight or something or above, like, she was a, a hot, sexy woman, and like as a man, she looked really good and then the camera pans over to her mom who’s.

Not an eight. And she saw what she looked like as a man, and I think she, she would be the type of woman who would expect a, an eight plus, you know, who would expect a man who’s really attractive? And she would never give a second glance to a man who looked like she did under that filter. And I think that was part of what led her to start screaming expletives, et cetera, because like she had, would have deep disrespect for a man who looked.

Speaker 4: Oh my God. Christina, you are one hot looking man. Oh my God. Are you freaking kidding me right now? That’s awesome. What? Get that. Are you freaking kidding me right now? Get that off. That’s disgusting.

Simone Collins: The weight

Malcolm Collins: looks as

Simone Collins: a man. Yeah. That how AI is gonna help

Malcolm Collins: [00:47:00] the, the dating

Simone Collins: game. Yes. This is, you know, like Yeah. A dating app that before you sign up you have to see the filter review. Oh my god. A dating app that only allowed you to see the gender bent version of them. And they’re like, well, I guess if they look kind of like me, then I’m Brooklyn.

All women are

Malcolm Collins: beautiful. Don’t you know Simone?

Simone Collins: God no.

Malcolm Collins: All women.

Simone Collins: I know the same, this the case every time I look in the mirror though, our girls are gorgeous. It’s great. It’s great that my like dis dis body dysmorphia doesn’t pass on to them because I know some others really take it out on their. You know, girls are like, oh, you have to look beautiful.

You’re ugly. ‘cause because they themselves feel ugly. Whereas like now I’m like, damn. Like you’re beautiful. They are. Okay.

Speaker 9: Acts like a microscopic shock absorber, forcing any crack. To zig. Women were a long, old fashioned dress. Nobody seems to know or talk to [00:48:00] her every time. Fiona went to a different room, a strange lady was there waiting. She wouldn’t stop staring at Fiona. Why was she looking at. Is this pasta with sprinkles?

Speaker 10: Yeah, I just put rainbow rainbows, whatever, Fahrenheit. Yeah, it says rainbow sprinkles. Buddy. Did you learn about this from Elf Watch? And that 70 mile channel becomes 70 miles of fresh teeth. Follow a few hours behind. Close enough to transit. The did You know our teeth are bones? Yeah, their bones. You can see.

Speaker 9: But right now, someone that is a spooky lady, let’s see what she’s up to. Is that true machinery measured in thousands? I don’t think so. Enamel covered the engineering spaces. Yeah, I think they’re a different structure. They could be, I, I don’t know, [00:49:00] Alexa, our teeth considered bone teeth aren’t actually bones.

Speaker 10: There may have different tissues that originate from the odors, the outermost embryonic germ layer while both continue mineralized tissue

from the mesodermal germ layer. But here’s the thing, okay? They’re not bones. I’m sorry. I was wrong. This is why I speak to ES Alexa, right? They look a lot like B though, because they’re enamel prop.

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