Wokes Don't Want You to Know Dissociating is Scientifically Beneficial (The Data)

In today’s episode of Based Camp, we dive deep into the controversial topic of dissociation — why it’s constantly framed as a trauma response or mental health red flag on the left, but the science shows it’s one of the most powerful tools for emotional regulation, wiser decision-making, better relationships, and long-term planning.

From third-person self-talk (talking about yourself like Elmo) to temporal distancing (identifying with your future self), the research is clear: proactively dissociating reduces stress, lowers cortisol, prevents rumination, boosts ethical behavior, and makes you a better spouse, parent, and human.

We argue that constantly “embodying” your feelings and obsessing over “me, myself, and I” is the root of modern misery, victimhood culture, and urban monoculture brain rot. True freedom comes from dropping the ego and viewing yourself as a temporary vessel for your values and future generations.

This episode is part of our Techno-Puritan religion series — dissociation as spiritual practice. Calvinism meets pragmatism.

As this was a Simone-outlined episode, we can share the episode outline below. The transcript for this episode follows. Happy New Year!

Episode Outline

Based Camp - The Case for Disassociating

* Occasionally, I’ve heard of people talk about disassociating

* ESPECIALLY when people are talking about abuse

* And invariably disassociation is framed in a negative context

* But this strikes me as add, as whenever I come across research on the effect of perspective taking, I find that what I would imagine to be disassociation—basically the equivalent of thinking of yourself in a more abstracted way, e.g. in the third person, as an outsider)—is a very POSITIVE thing

* And for a while, I have been operating under the assumption that we basically should be thinking like Elmo talks

* So I dedicated to educate myself on what people mean when they negatively talk about disassociation and also check whether my memory is deluding me and see if contextualizing oneself as a third party is not actually productive

* And ultimately, I think we should ALL disassociate

* And people who frame it as a bad thing are missing the point

This matters because a recurring theme in our discussions has been contextualization:

* How we view ourselves and consciousness

* Where we draw the definition of “self”

* Identity politics and the damage this emphasis has caused

* Victimhood mindsets and the external locus of control versus the internal locus of control

So I think we all need to think more carefully about how we play around with the word “I” and experiment with how dropping it may serve us well.

Disassociation: What are People Talking About

The Definition

People are usually describing dissociation: a mental “shut‑off” where the mind disconnects from feelings, body, or surroundings to get through something overwhelming or unsafe. It is a common, often automatic trauma response in ongoing abuse.

What dissociation is

* Clinically, dissociation is a process where thoughts, feelings, memories, or sense of identity become disconnected from one another.

* It exists on a spectrum from mild “zoning out” to more severe states where a person feels detached from reality or from themselves.

Why it happens in abuse

* Trauma and abuse can overwhelm the nervous system; when fight or flight are impossible, the brain may “check out” to reduce the emotional and physical impact.

* This can offer a kind of internal escape when there is no external way to leave, which is why it is especially common in children or adults who are trapped in abusive situations.

What it feels like subjectively

People use language like:

* “I was watching it happen from outside my body,” describing depersonalization, or feeling detached from their own body, thoughts, or actions.

* “It felt like a dream / like a movie,” describing derealization, where the world feels unreal, foggy, muted, or separated by a glass wall.

During vs. after the abuse

* Dissociation can occur during abusive episodes (e.g., going numb, going blank, “leaving the body”) and also after, when reminders or triggers bring back that detached state.

* There may be patchy or missing memories of events, difficulty feeling emotions, or a sense that what happened is far away or happened to “someone else.”

When dissociation is frequent, uncontrollable, and interferes with daily life, it can be diagnosed as a dissociative disorder (e.g., depersonalization/derealization disorder, dissociative identity disorder).

* BTW: Dissociative disorders are mental health conditions in which a person has ongoing problems with memory, identity, perception, or sense of self because of repeated or severe dissociation, often linked to trauma. They go beyond ordinary “zoning out” and start to interfere with daily life, relationships, and functioning.

* Main types

* Dissociative amnesia: episodes of memory loss about personal information or life events (often traumatic) that are too extensive to be ordinary forgetfulness, sometimes including “fugue” states where a person may travel or wander with no memory of it later.

* Depersonalization/derealization disorder: persistent or recurrent feeling of being detached from one’s own body or experiences (depersonalization) and/or feeling that the world around is unreal, foggy, or dreamlike (derealization), while still knowing intellectually that it is real.

* Dissociative identity disorder (DID): formerly called multiple personality disorder, involves two or more distinct identity states or “parts,” along with recurrent gaps in memory for everyday events, important personal information, or traumatic events.

What I Think is Actually Happening

First: Obviously it’s horrible when people are mistreated, but what I think may be happening is that extreme hardship has uncovered a survival mechanism that is both useful in these extreme scenarios AND useful in more mundane, everyday life.

And here’s the thing: The research backs it up.

The Research

Several lines of research suggest that taking a third‑party or “distanced” perspective on one’s own life (third‑person writing, future self, age‑progressed images) can help with emotion regulation, planning, and some health‑relevant behaviors.

(The following is from Grok, cross-checked against Perplexity, which found mostly the same research)

Self-Distancing—i.e. Taking a Third-Person Perspective or Visual Fly-on-the-Wall View

Research led primarily by Ethan Kross and Özlem Ayduk demonstrates that adopting a self-distanced perspective (e.g., thinking about oneself in the third person, using one’s name, or visualizing from an observer’s viewpoint) reduces emotional reactivity and promotes adaptive reflection on personal situations, including pain, conflicts, and stress.

* Kross et al. (2005) and Ayduk & Kross (2008): Participants reflecting on negative experiences (e.g., anger or depression) from a self-distanced perspective showed lower emotional and physiological reactivity (e.g., blood pressure) compared to a self-immersed (first-person) view. The self-distancing facilitated reconstruing events rather than recounting them, reducing distress.

* Ayduk & Kross (2010): Spontaneous self-distancing during reflection on conflicts predicted less rumination, lower emotional reactivity over time, and more problem-solving behavior in couples’ interactions.

* Kross et al. (2014): Third-person self-talk (e.g., “Why is [name] upset?”) reduced emotional reactivity under stress, including in socially anxious individuals, without requiring extra cognitive effort. This was supported by ERP and fMRI evidence, showing decreased activity in brain regions linked to emotional pain.

* Moser et al. (2017): Silent third-person self-talk quickly (within 1 second) lowered distress when viewing aversive images or recalling painful memories, aiding emotion regulation for pain-like experiences.

* Grossmann & Kross (2014): Self-distancing enhanced wise reasoning about interpersonal conflicts, reducing bias and promoting balanced perspectives.

These effects extend to reducing reactivity in PTSD veterans (though subjective distress persisted) and improving interpersonal criticism delivery.

Temporal Distancing—i.e. Thinking About Future Self or Broader Time Perspective

Temporal distancing involves viewing situations from a future-oriented or broadened temporal lens, often by connecting to or visualizing one’s future self.

* Bruehlman-Senecal & Ayduk (2015): Adopting a temporal distance (e.g., “This too shall pass”) reduced emotional distress and stress reactivity by focusing on impermanence.

* Chishima et al. (2021): Writing letters to/from one’s future self during COVID-19 increased temporal distancing, immediately decreasing negative affect and boosting positive affect.

* White et al. (2018): Self-distancing from future stressors (visualizing from afar) reduced vivid negative imagery, facilitating adaptive coping.

Visualizing Aged Future Self—i.e., Future Self-Continuity

Research by Hal Ersner-Hershfield focuses on enhancing continuity with one’s future self, particularly through visualizations of an aged self.

* Ersner-Hershfield et al. (2009): Higher future self-continuity (feeling connected to one’s future self) predicted less temporal discounting and more saving behavior, with neural evidence linking it to long-term planning.

* Hershfield et al. (2011): Interacting with age-progressed virtual renderings of oneself increased future-oriented decisions, such as delaying rewards.

* Rutchick et al. (2018): Enhancing future self-continuity via letter-writing promoted healthier behaviors (e.g., exercise) and reduced unethical choices by prioritizing long-term benefits.

* Related interventions (e.g., Van Gelder et al., 2013): Vivid future self-visualization improved ethical and health-related planning.

These approaches are particularly effective for planning future-oriented behaviors like diet, exercise, and health improvements, as stronger future self-connection motivates sacrificing immediate gratification for long-term gains.

Overall, self-distancing (including third-person and temporal forms) consistently aids emotion regulation in conflicts and pain, while future self-continuity techniques support proactive planning for health and diet by making long-term consequences feel more personal. Benefits are supported across lab experiments, daily life studies, and neuroimaging.

Why the Disconnect?

Basically, disassociation is reactive and self-distance is proactive.

The difference in framing I have encountered seems to come down to perspective, and specifically perspective based on an internal versus external locus of control.

The biggest criticism of disassociation is that it can be SO EFFECTIVE that it contributes to PTSD symptoms and/or can increase the risk of revictimization, but I would argue that those problems don’t have to do so much with disassociation so much as they have to do with not intentionally addressing the source of chronic trauma.

What Would I Recommend?

Disassociate PROACTIVE—and not because it creates better internal results in terms of mental and physical health, but also because it produces good social results, as people who keep bringing the conversation back to them are absolute bores.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Some leftist is gonna clip it and be like, you know that Simone chick, she’s,

Simone Collins: she’s in a constant state of trauma response.

Malcolm Collins: She’s in a constant state of disassociation being married. .

Well, so Simone, you’re telling me that the only way you get through life with me is being in a constant state of disassociation?

Well, I think what I want, what I want is when we have the documentary, okay. I want that to be one of the themes. Like we don’t believe in love. You’re in a constant state of disassociation, dissociation. Our kids live in

Simone Collins: terror every day. I part of me, though, part of me thinks it might be the way that my mind is.

Is set up

would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: Hello, Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today because I have been really mulling over the concept of disassociation, and you don’t even seem to be that familiar with it.

I think it’s because I consume a lot of left-leaning content, but I frequently hear people talk about disassociating. And, and especially when people are talking about abuse, they’re like, oh, like I disassociated. And it’s like in the [00:01:00] context of going through something terribly traumatic and it’s, it’s invariably framed as a bad thing that it’s happening.

Disassociation bad. And this strikes me as really weird. Because whenever I come across research on the effect of sort of different perspective thinking or taking, like if, if you think in terms of the third person it’s only positive. I’ve never actually seen research that frames thinking about yourself or a situation you’re in from some distance is coming out negative, and yet all these people on the left.

I only talk about it in negative context, but in a sort of very different context. So for a while I’ve been operating under this assumption that basically we need to be thinking like Elmo talks. And, and yet all these people think it’s bad. So I, I decided to educate myself. You no, I’m,

Malcolm Collins: I’m, I have no idea where you’re going with, because I’ve always heard dissociation is bad.

Only heard of it in a, when you wrong, when you say disassociation, I think of grape. I’m like, oh. She said disassociation is good. It’s good when you’re being great. Yeah. [00:02:00] That’s the only, no, but it is,

Simone Collins: I mean. Would you rather be in yourself while you’re being bumped in a bad way, or would you rather not?

Malcolm Collins: Simone, you are a, a messed up person are a, I’m just saying messed up person.

Simone Collins: Good. It’s a good psychological technology.

Speaker 4: Good. You’re gonna feel a little pitch now, motors.

Speaker 5: Don’t worry Mr. Stach, whatever traumatized your son in his past will find it.

Simone Collins: We gonna get into people like I’m

Malcolm Collins: the bad guy on the show and I am totally not. You are. I, well, I’m wearing my,

Simone Collins: my war hammer.

Malcolm Collins: Today? Oh yeah, you got your, your, your war hammer out.

Someone pointed out that

Simone Collins: all I needed was an inquisitor’s hat in my outfit would be complete. And I’m like, oh, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: I get, we need to get you an inquisitor hat. Me do. Come on. Like, actually,

Simone Collins: I just, I looked, there’s not a lot of good, I, I, I, maybe I need to commission something, but yes. A war hammers inquisitors [00:03:00] had, would be appropriate.

And thank you for that comment. Well, they’re very puritan looking. Come on. They are, they’re extreme. I know that’s why it works. That’s what techno Puritanism is. Okay. We didn’t invent it. We just discovered it. Okay. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s been out there now. Hold on.

Malcolm Collins: No, they’ve got some good ones here. I’ll send you one right now.

Oh really? Oh,

Simone Collins: I just. We need, we need to think like Elmo talks. All right. And, and you know, it just, Malcolm needs to take a break. Okay. That, that is how our life needs to be. Okay. Explain this

Malcolm Collins: to me, why I went through the research.

Simone Collins: So I’m gonna walk you, you’re driving me to

Malcolm Collins: disassociate right now, Simone, because you don’t have your inquisitors hat to own yet.

Simone Collins: I know, I know the trauma you’re going through. So I, I, I looked into it though because I’m like, okay, well, am I getting disassociation wrong? So I looked into what that is. I looked into the research on, you know, different perspective taking interventions. And ultimately I think all of us should disassociate always and proactively.

And I think [00:04:00] people who frame it as a bad thing are missing the point. And also are are more like classic leftist progressives who take a victimhood mindset. Who take a Simon, you

Malcolm Collins: do you know what’s gonna come with this podcast? Yeah. Some leftist is gonna clip it and be like, you know that Simone chick, she’s,

Simone Collins: she’s in a constant state of trauma response.

Malcolm Collins: She’s in a constant state of disassociation being married. Well, here’s

Simone Collins: the, here’s the thing actually, when, when we’ll go into it, but, a lot of the, the symptoms of disassociated identity disorder are like. Common traits of mine. So this is great fodder, but you gotta, you gotta dish it grist for the mill friend.

But anyway, this, this really matters is like a broader meta based camp thing because a recurring theme in our discussions has. Been about contextualization. How do we contextualize this self? What is consciousness? Are we conscious? What are we, you know, this whole ship of thesis thing, right? Like, can you actually live forever when your, your views constantly change when your cells switch out.

You [00:05:00] know, like we, we constantly talk about this. In the context of that, we, we, we talk about where we draw the definition of self, right? How like, conservatives have a sort of circle of self closest around like your core family and then your community or religion. Whereas progressives, you know, the self is like, you know.

Foreigners especially migrants who are, are refugees, et cetera, and like much less your own group. If, if you’re white, then it’s hatred of your own group. So we talk about that kind of contextualization of identity. We also talk about how identity politics have. You know, sort of ruined society and how, and how, and people are even commenting on the episode that we ran as we’re recording today, which was on why there’s been this rise of antisemitism and that a lot of people are, are kind of blaming reformed Jews for inventing identity politics and, and just talking about how damaging identity politics as a concept has been.

And it really is very damaging to society to get people to associate more with like groups like my group, I, I, I think.

Malcolm Collins: And I would note for that [00:06:00] episode, I, I do think that reformed Jews played a role in inventing identity politics, but I don’t think a bigger role than like the Unitarian Universalists.

Yeah. And you pointed that out. Comments. And I think blaming you know, real Jews for what were reformed Jews are doing. Is about as bad as blaming like real Christians on what Unitarian Universalists are doing. Right. That’s a very

Simone Collins: valid point. Yeah. But anyway, identity politics are bad. I don’t care who invented them, they suck.

So, you know, we need to have a lot of different conversations about the contextualization of. Self and me and, and how we view ourselves and our lived experience to use a term commonly used on the left. Because it’s important and it is profoundly, it has a profound effect on our life and on society.

And so this is an important conversation to have and that’s why we’re getting into it. You’ve never even thought about it. So let’s first start with what people are talking about. When they talk about con disassociation, especially with regard to disassociation in moments of trauma and abuse so people are [00:07:00] usually describing disassociation as, as a mental shutoff, where the mind disconnects from feelings and the body or surroundings to get through something overwhelming or unsafe.

It’s a common, often automatic trauma response when someone is, is, is going through something really tough. So. Clinically, it’s, it’s a process where thoughts or feelings or memories or a sense of identity become disconnected from one another. And it exists on a spectrum of mild zoning out to more severe states where a person feels detached from reality or themselves.

Like you’ll, you’ll hear people say things like that. You know, I was, I was watching myself. Go through this or something they’ll, they’ll use language like I was watching it happen from outside my body or it felt like a dream or like a movie. And then during versus after the, the traumatic experience where disassociation happens, it can, it could occur are basically while it’s happening, but it can also happen after where you might have patchy or missing [00:08:00] memories or, or difficulty feeling emotions.

And basically when disassociation is, is. Frequent or uncontrollable. And if it interferes with daily life, though this is a very subjective evaluation, in my opinion, it can be diagnosed as a dissociative disorder. For example, depersonalization or derealization disorder, which I’d never heard of before.

Disassociated identity disorder, which I had heard of before. And these are actual mental health conditions in which a person has ongoing problems with memory or identity or perception. Or a sense of self because of repeated or severe disassociation, which is typically linked with trauma, and it goes beyond ordinary zoning out and, and starts to interfere with life and relationship and functioning.

So that there are multiple types of it. There’s disassociative amnesia where episodes of memory loss and, and. Just basically like, I don’t remember this happening or I don’t remember this thing about me, or life events that may have been traumatic, like they just have no [00:09:00] memory of it. Or forgetfulness or people enter like fugue states where they could travel or wander with no memory of it.

Later, there’s also depersonalization or derealization disorder, which I’d not. Heard of, like I said, persistent or recurring feeling of being detached from one’s own body or experiences, which is depersonalization. And then there’s the feeling that the world around you is unreal or foggy or dream life, which dreamlike, which is derealization.

Even though technically you understand like on an intellectual factual level, you know that the things that are happening around you were real. And then there’s disassociated identity disorder or DID. Which is also called multiple personality disorder, which I think you’ve said isn’t really real.

Yeah. So

Malcolm Collins: the, the, the preponderance of evidence is that this is like being trans or something. It’s one of these co up disorders.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So I don’t, I don’t really think that has that much to do with this, but what I think is, is one, I think this is funny ‘cause as, as you know, from just living with me, I, I don’t remember like anything.

You’re like, do you [00:10:00] remember we talked about this on our podcast? And I’m like, Nope. No memory. Or like, do you remember this movie we watched? And I’m like, I don’t remember any of that. And I have to write everything down or take pictures of things where I just don’t.

Malcolm Collins: Well, so Simone, you’re telling me that the only way you get through life with me is being in a constant state of disassociation?

Well, I think what I want, what I want is when we have the documentary, okay. I want that to be one of the themes. Like we don’t believe in love. You’re in a constant state of disassociation, dissociation. Our kids live in

Simone Collins: terror every day. I part of me, though, part of me thinks it might be the way that my mind is.

Is set up like my operating system like or, or just, I think it could be, it could have a genetic factor and I don’t know, maybe this isn’t true. Other parents can chime into the con comments, but like our kids claim to have a bunch of memories that aren’t real, like tourist and talking about learning karate in the jungle with his grandfather.

Like I learned Kuwait. What toted. Come on. He, he comes up with all these stories.

Malcolm Collins: He always [00:11:00] says if he doesn’t know where he learned something, he’ll just say, well, I learned it when I was a baby from my grandfather.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Or like, or he’ll have some kind of backstory. But my favorite was about learning karate in the jungle with his grandfather.

I’m like, what kind of back story are you building, man? With my grand like, yes, you did Torsten. We are going with that now. Like 100 freaking percent. That was just amazing. But I think maybe it’s, it’s it’s just genetic or it’s, it’s the way that I, I like, I don’t ruminate on things and I think I’m a lot less stressed and happier because of it.

And so maybe I’m such a fan of this concept of disassociation ‘cause I’m like. Yeah, what’s the problem with that? Like, and you know how like sometimes I reboot, like you’ll find me like literally zoning out uhoh, like staring at an open fridge and then I’ll be like, my name is Simone and I am, and then I reboot and I’m like, oh, I’m looking for string cheese for toted.

And like, oh, I’ll find myself again. But I have to reboot with my name is Simone and I am, ‘cause I forget. But I don’t know, like I. I don’t know what’s going on, [00:12:00] Malcolm. But what I think is happening is it’s, it is obviously horrible when people are abused or mistreated. It, it’s not, I’m not, I’m not trivializing that, what I think may be happening is that the extreme hardship people have experienced that, that leads them to.

Innovate or responsibly develop disassociation as a coping mechanism has, has uncovered a survival mechanism that is both useful in these extreme environments, but also could be very useful in everyday mundane life. And here’s the thing, the research backs it up. What? Come on. No, it does. No, it does, it does.

Because I’ve come across all these different studies and like I didn’t really put it together until I really started. How rumming and thinking about all these people talking about disassociation negatively, because you know how I used to save all these studies? I sort of stopped doing it when I could just ask AI and find any study I was interested in.

I used to save studies that I was like, oh, this is useful. This is useful. And a bunch of the studies that I’d found there was a very common [00:13:00] theme of. Oh, like if you’re having a conflict as a couple you know, just, just have the couple, like, outline it or discuss it as though they’re discussing another couple’s problems and they’re gonna build a better solution.

Or like, you know, if, if you’re trying to get yourself to say, okay,

Malcolm Collins: okay, I’m agreeing with you more here. You’re, you’re persuading me. I, I do. Plus the thing is, it’s,

Simone Collins: it’s framed in such a different context that you don’t connect the two, but they’re the same thing. So here’s the thing. So several lines of research.

Not just the whole like conflict resolution among couples, suggested taking a third party or distanced perspective, but distance is just another word for disassociated. Third party is just another word for disassociated from one’s own life. So that’s third person writing, or future self age progressed image interaction, that kind of thing can help with emotion regulation.

It can help with planning and it can even help with some health related behaviors. So the, the following one to summarize is, is just, just as, and you can ask any ai, just ask any AI about this. And, and for those who [00:14:00] follow us on Substack or on Patreon, I’m gonna include all my, my notes in this and links to sources and in the show notes.

I, I asked both Brock and Perplexity, they pulled up a bunch of studies. Here’s what Brock found that, that they found mostly the same research, but okay. Let’s, let’s go through some of it. So there’s one sort of cluster of themes, which is just self distancing, like in other words, taking a third person perspective or visual fly on the wall.

View disassociation, right. Oh, it was like watching a movie. Except when you do it proactively, it’s actually really effective. So research, research led primarily by a guy named Ethan Cross and then Oslo. I. I duck demonstrates that adopting a self distance perspective, like thinking about oneself in the third person using one’s name or visualizing from an observer’s viewpoint, just the Elmo approach.

Elmo thinks this reduces emotional reactivity and promotes adaptive reflection on personal situations, including pain and conflicts and stress. So in both 2005 and 2000. [00:15:00] Eight research that cross was on. And, and IDEC was on one of them. They, they found that participants reflecting on negative experiences like anger or depression from a self distance perspective showed lower emotional and physiological reactivity like lower blood pressure.

So like your actual cortisol levels here are lower compared to a self immersed first person view. The self distancing facilitated reconstructing events rather than recounting them reducing stress so you’re not reliving. The trauma, which is exactly what was described in, in that one of two forms of disassociation where it’s happening after the effect where people are distancing themselves from the traumatic event.

But it doesn’t have to be traumatic. It could be that time where you had road rage, or that time you relate to class, or that time you bombed on a test or that time you embarrassed yourself in front of friends or colleagues, right? So in 2010, I duck and cross found that spontaneous self distancing during reflection on conflicts predicted less rumination, lower emotional reactivity over time, and more problem solving behavior in couples interactions.[00:16:00]

So this can make your relationships more productive, which is very different from the way that people talk about. Disassociation in the, in the context of relationships, they always talk about it in terms of like, oh, this enables the abuse to keep happening because it allows you to tolerate it, essentially, is what they’re trying to argue.

But this points out that when properly applied, it helps you problem solve and resolve the conflicts. So it’s, it’s like saying, you know, like, oh. Like she drank water and she died of water poisoning. Like it’s a tool. You, you, it’s, it’s, it’s not good or bad. Yeah. In 2014, they found that third person self-talk, like, why is Simone upset if I were doing it for myself?

Why is Elmo upset, reduced emotional reactivity under stress, including in socially anxious individuals? Hello? That’s. Me without requiring extra cognitive effort. And, and this was supported by ERP and FMRI evidence showing decreased activity in brain regions linked to emotional pain. So people can’t [00:17:00] just be like, oh, this is just subjective reports.

No, like they’re doing functional mri. Some

Malcolm Collins: people. It’s so good that I forced you to dissociate. Thank God horrendous, horrendous behavior towards you. You’re gonna run wild with this. How do so many people

Simone Collins: get the

Malcolm Collins: idea that it’s a bad

Simone Collins: thing? Like God? In the moment though, it’s also really useful. So we’re not talking just about reflecting on other events, but they in this case, Mosser, Atal in 2017 found that silent third person self-talk quickly, that is within one second lower distress when viewing aversive images are recalling painful memories.

Eating emotion regulation for pain, like experiences. So like if you’re going through something rough and you immediately try to recontextualize yourself in the, like, if you sort of proactively disassociate like intentionally, it’ll, it’ll, it’ll be less painful as it happens to you. And then Grossman and Cross in 2014 found itself distancing, enhanced wise reasoning about interpersonal conflict, reducing bias, and promoting balanced perspectives.

So it’s making you a better. Colleague, friend, lover, [00:18:00] spouse, whatever, a parent like, it’s just, it’s a smart thing to do. And these effects extend to reducing reactivity in PTSD veterans, though some subjective distress. Duds did persist. But I mean, obviously if you’ve been through something crazy, of course.

But it does improve also interpersonal criticism, delivery because you know, when, when you, when you detach things from yourself emotionally, obviously they get better. Another thing, and this is not, this is a little different, but you know, this is something that I do a lot and I wanna get into it a little bit, is the concept of temporal distancing.

Like thinking about your future self or a broader time perspective. So right now. We’re recording this in January. This is the month of future day in our, in our techno Puritan family. That’s our religion. And this is one in which we try to get our kids to begin thinking about the long-term future and future generations and the future police, and identifying with the long-term future and throughout my entire life.

I have done things like write to myself in the future and really contextualize myself as just one link in an unbroken chain. Like I’m just serving the [00:19:00] concept of future Simone, which is in turn serving the concept of future generations and human flourishing. Like I. It, it’s very disassociative. But on a more granular level, just in terms of like, oh, can we make people happier or like healthier?

There, there is really interesting research on this concept of temporal distancing. So it’s not just a weird techo purin thing to be super into stuff like this. So it, it really just broadly involves viewing situations from a future oriented. Or broaden temporal lens and brun, helman and cynical and I, I duck again, the same guy who did the other like distanced studies in 2015 found that adopting a temporal distance like this too shall pass reduced emotional distress and stress reactivity by focusing on in.

Permanence. You know, when you know that you’re just kind of like going through this blip in time and that times, are you saying

Malcolm Collins: that this is what incel should be doing? I mean, I can imagine no one in society that’s more traumatized than our incel fans and

Simone Collins: But but they don’t, they can’t necessarily say, this too shall pass.[00:20:00]

It’s dark,

Malcolm Collins: but Well, their life will pass one day. I mean, that’s

Simone Collins: true. That’s true. And they can also just make ow it like we go, go see our, our, our episode on, on Men just choosing to raise kids on their own. I, I think it’s just so based. It’s super cool. And then Shima et al in 2021 found that writing letters to or from one’s future self during COVID-19, in this case, increased temporal distancing and immediately decreased negative affect, and it boosted positive affect.

So it can really help to just put things in perspective if you’re going through something. Stressful. Like say, I don’t know, a global pandemic. And then white etal in 2018 found the self distancing from future stressors, like visualizing them from afar, reduced vivid negative imagery and facilitated adaptive coping.

So just in general of like being less stressed, thinking with that temporal distance is really helpful. And then sort of along those lines, I remember reading about these and I found them really interesting studies that had people see like. AI age [00:21:00] diversions of themselves caused some interesting effects.

So research by how Esner Hirschfeld focuses on enhancing continuity with one’s future self, particularly through visualizations of an aged self. So in 2009, he found that there was higher future self continuity, like feeling connected to your future self. It’s funny,

Malcolm Collins: this used to be something that you like had to pay a bunch of money to do or have, especially software.

I know. Now you could just like

Simone Collins: throw your image into rock and be like, show

Malcolm Collins: you all. I wanna show, I wanna see myself bald. I’ve been wanting to see that since you Well, no, because your

Simone Collins: family’s never gonna, no,

you just need to see yourself like old with white hair. ‘cause you’re never gonna go bald. I’ll

Malcolm Collins: never be bald in my life.

Maybe I should see what I look like with a beard. I’ll never have a beard either. I don’t. I don’t. Okay. Well, yeah, do it and put it in this video. I don’t know. Don’t, so people can say if I, if I look better, like should I have had. A beard or be bald. And you know what I’m gonna do? Oh,

Simone Collins: I would, yeah. I’m curious to see what our audience says about you having a beard because everyone’s like, he, well, all he needs to do is just [00:22:00] present as more masculine and then your audience will respect you.

And. I guess birds are masculine. I think it’s

Malcolm Collins: funny is a lot of people don’t realize, like, when I don’t have my glasses on, I actually have a lot of features that like, look maxers go for. I know. You just

Simone Collins: take them off and I know, like I did some title cards to photos of you. Yeah. When, when you didn’t have your glasses on and people were like, oh.

It’s literally like those stupid B movies where like the boy takes the teenage girl’s glasses off and is like, you’re beautiful.

Malcolm Collins: You, you look, you look masculine. Then we went we did the viral rounds recently. One of the tops comments was, looks max jaw. Or you have an

Simone Collins: amazing jaw. I forget, in your cheek box are fantastic.

I think the

Malcolm Collins: term in the looks max community.

Simone Collins: Oh, mo yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Which, which is funny that they, they could see it, but through the glasses and people white, they always looking at, they, they’re

Simone Collins: able to look at actual morphology, like they’re looking at the pieces. I think a lot of people just can’t see beyond thick glasses.

Malcolm Collins: I, I, I think they too, and I, and I wear them a intentionally, I want people to think I’m a nerd. They’re very, no, [00:23:00] we,

Simone Collins: we, we want to trigger people. That’s the thing is people like, we’ll just get rid of the glasses. I hate the glasses. Well, tons of people on Twitter have even gone to the, the, and I’ve sent you some of the photos of texts and triangle glasses.

They’re like, well, he needs thick triangle glasses if you’re gonna do this. Wow. Like the, the glasses practically have their own lore. Cutler and Gross. By the way, guys, amazing brand. Love them so much. You know

Malcolm Collins: my signature glasses, people don’t know this. They used to be circular wire framed. Yeah, they were barely

Simone Collins: visible.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I only started these glasses right before this show. Yeah, yeah. So if you go to, well, because you

Simone Collins: got these for me, first at Cutler and Gross, and then your mom was like, I love these glasses. And then she got you those as a gift. Hmm. They’re a gift from his late mother. People get off his, but also they troll people, so we’re not gonna stop anyway.

Malcolm Collins: But, but anyway, the, the point I was making is, is this digital manipulation of pictures and stuff like this. What, what, how does it help you go, go through that? So

Simone Collins: it, it, it, it helps, it, it encourages long-term planning behavior. Hirschfeld found in 1 20 11 [00:24:00] piece of research that interacting with age progress versus virtual renderings of oneself increased future oriented decisions, such as delaying rewards.

So that’s amazing. And IC Etal in 2018 found that enhancing future self continuity via letter writing promoted healthier behaviors like exercise and reduced. Unethical choices by prioritizing long-term benefits. And then other related interventions like vivid future self visualization, so like cheaper before the age of ai ‘cause they didn’t wanna pay for money.

So you’re basically sociopath maxing it improved ethical and health related planning? No, it made people more ethical. Not less ethical.

Malcolm Collins: You, you’re, you’re an ethical sociopath. This is like the ethical slut, like, yeah. Yes.

Simone Collins: I’m the ethical sociopath. That’s, that’s called pragmatism. Malcolm Pragmatism is, is ethio socio ethical sociopathy?

I think broadly. But the, the point is that it just across a bunch of different domains, it’s super clear the disassociating from who you are right now, like associating with your [00:25:00] future self or looking at yourself in the third person, just elbowing yourself. Is good. And the, the basically disassociation is reactive and self distance is proactive.

And the difference in framing I’ve encountered seems to come down to perspective and it’s, and specifically perspective based on an internal versus an external locus of control. And, and the biggest criticism of disassociation, like I said, is that it, it basically, it’s just too effective. It’s so effective that it contributes to PTS.

D symptoms or can increase the, the risk of revictimization. Like, oh, you’ll stay with this partner who’s causing trauma because you’re able to endure it, right? Because like,

Malcolm Collins: well, so the reason why it’s so useful, I think Uhhuh is because it prevents the greatest sins, but also the. Core motivations of people who are in the urban monoculture.

Hmm. Which is to say, attempting to sort of maximize self-acceptance or in the moment, like personal [00:26:00] experiences like pleasure, et cetera. Right. Oh. And a lot of the quest that you see on an urban monoculture life is this. You’re embodied. Very ignorant. You’re an body. Very, I’m looking to find myself, accept myself, self actualize.

And we say just at step one, no. None of that matters. No, no, no.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. Like drop I, drop me drop the concept of self. You are nothing. You are, you are a, a conveyor, a vector of your values. Your intentionally chosen values, your objective function. You exist only to serve it. You are an ephemeral blip.

In, in the, the continuous chain that is humanity or whatever it is that humanity eventually becomes humble yourself. Before that totally. So I, I, I, yeah, I’m, I’m just, here’s me saying everyone should proactively disassociate and not just because it creates better internal results in terms of mental and physical and, and financial health and [00:27:00] better ethical decision making, but it also just produces good social results.

Like when you, when you read. Classics like How to Win Friends and Influence People. Dale Carnegie just goes on and on about how people’s favorite word is their first name and like all the social, like how to be charismatic experts, talk about how you should focus on other people and what they’re doing and what they’re thinking.

And, and the worst kind of bore in any social context is the person who always brings it back to themselves, who’s just so obsessed with themselves. And we also talk about people who, who have brain rott, who just constantly talk, well, I’m gonna take a shower and I’m gonna do this. Or like, I’m, they just talk about.

Their, their stuff in them all the time. No one cares about those people. So no one’s even gonna like you if you’re that kind of fully embodied person who just can’t get away from I and me. What, yeah. I guess we even talk about this, we even have to talk about this in the context of sexuality, how bad it is to identify with the things that arouse you.

Again, you, you already were disassociation, pilled. You already were all about disassociating. You, you just didn’t realize it. [00:28:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hmm. Well, okay. So, no, I, I agree that, that that, that this overly embodied sense, you, it is important to be maximally disassociated at all times Yes. In all decision making. Yes. So, yeah, I, I agree with that.

And I even wonder if I should, yeah, it’s great that I don’t remember

Simone Collins: anything that happens because I’m just equally delighted by every time we watch a movie for like. The 11th time. See, this is why I can watch home alone with the kids like endlessly during the holiday season and you can’t take it more than twice.

‘cause I’m like, oh, I can’t believe that just happened. I can’t believe it. He got hit in the face with an iron and he survived this movie, defies it defies biology. That would be, since now we’re doing homeschooling, that would be an amazing, like he has to be older for this, but like to do a detailed, we’ll have him do like a YouTube video on this like.

The detailed biology of home alone, like exactly what would actually happen if all of these things took place. I, other people [00:29:00] have done YouTube, like the temperature at which skin burns and what degree burns would he have and what would actually, anyway, and also the physics. The physics of home alone.

We’re gonna have so much fun homeschooling. I can’t,

Malcolm Collins: like, I, I can’t believe it. You are the weird one, Simone and the wrong one. Honestly, I’m not

Simone Collins: Simone.

Malcolm Collins: No, you are not Simone. No. You are a third dimensional entity.

Simone Collins: I am, I am. I’m operating the puppet that is Simone, that exists to serve our objective function, which is long-term human flourishing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I like that. No, I mean, I, I I think that you’re broadly right with all of this. Why do you think progressives hate it so much?

Simone Collins: I think because progressives. Or deeply embodying the, in the concept of me and my feelings. And, and they’re way too much in their heads about everything. They make everything.

They’re, they’re just, they’re so shoved into their brains and their internal rumination, and this is how you end up with everything from spoons to trans people because they’re overthinking [00:30:00] it. They’re like, ah, like, I kind of like. Ah, I like, you know, women’s shoes and they’re like, I’m a woman. When like, no, you’re, you’re just overthinking it.

You’re way too much in your head. Get outta your head, disassociate, stop it. And they’re like, yes, I’m disassociating. It’s bad. And I’m like, no, you’re disassociating. And keep

Malcolm Collins: going. You’ll make sure that anybody who works for us disassociates it’s the only way they’re gonna

Simone Collins: survive if they No, no,

Malcolm Collins: I, I think you’re right is that it’s so antithetical to the urban monocultures value set that they can’t understand because it’s not actually like a negative experience to disassociate.

Simone Collins: Well, no, but again. The reason why people disassociate, the reason why it happens spontaneously is it is a survival mechanism. It makes the intolerable tolerable, and it it, how can it be so illogical? Or like, how, how is it so crazy to extrapolate from that? Like, okay, well if disassociation makes. The, the intolerable, most horrible experiences possible.

Like your leg is being cut off, you disassociate, right? Like terrible things do happen to people and they do disassociate in very intense ways. So, okay, so then, and but also then now you’re waiting in a [00:31:00] grocery store line and you’re pissed off ‘cause someone is wearing stinky perfume and you, you, like, you disassociate a little and it becomes a lot less stressful.

And here’s the thing, like people but there’s this, there’s this like reverse hedonic treadmill where like. Thing. You know, good things, like the best thing possible happening to you, you normalize to it, but also the worst thing possible happening to, to you, you normalize to it. But also people start also equally making the worst of really stupid, bad things, right?

Like the most privileged people in the world. And this is all like, this is why we have spoons. This is why we have the most wealthy societies ever that have the best amenities ever being miserable. Right? Is they still are. Stressed and miserable and afraid. And so I think they should be reacting to things with coping mechanisms that allow them to, to, to not like.

I feel like the cortisol level that people are experiencing driving to work is not that different in many cases from the cortisol level, people were experiencing like. [00:32:00] You know, run, running from bears in the woods, or like, possibly dealing with even some warlike scenarios, like people are just, they, they have such bad mental health these days that they’re having that same level of reaction.

I mean, people weren’t being treated with, with severe anxiety disorders the same way in World War ii. I mean, they were still experiencing severe anxiety, but I don’t know, they weren’t coping with it as, as, as, as well. I feel like people are coping worse with far easier problems today than they were in the past.

So again, disassociate.

Malcolm Collins: So, I, I, what was I gonna say? It’s interesting that the prenatal list movement advocates, right? The ones who are like, well, humanity is good, that we’re saying, well, and of course we say this from an external perspective, like I don’t actually. You know, embody myself. And I think that this is an interesting point that the antinatalists often heavily embody themselves.

Mm. Which is in part, I think why they have such hatred for their own lives. Mm-hmm. Whereas the ISTs typically search [00:33:00] for meaning in something other than their subjective experience of reality. Yeah. Which makes meaning very easy to find. And I think that that’s what comes with disassociation and that sort of core to this philosophy.

Is that meaning in life comes through something other than your subjective personal experiences of reality?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: See this is more interesting than you thought it would be, isn’t it?

Malcolm Collins: It, I’m actually gonna make this one of the religious episodes, so I’ll put it on the Techno Puritan website and everything.

Simone Collins: That’s so cool.

Malcolm Collins: Yay. I think you did a good enough one. I did a religion, part of the religion disassociate all the time. That is, that is the most Calvinist thing ever. Just the total. Check out. Just

Simone Collins: I love it. I love it. Well, I also love you very, very much. And I’m excited to do another episode with you, another conversation.

I, I love our talks. Thank you.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Alright, have a good one, Simone. Love you. Love you too.[00:34:00]

Simone Collins: Okay. Actually. By the way, I, I heard this from the, oh God,

what is it called? What’s that podcast? That’s about

fertility. Ill conceived the one about Natal that I’ve, I’ve started listening to. They mentioned in one of their podcast episodes, sperm racing, and I need to look into it like some young kid raised.

Maybe more than $10 million to do competitive sperm racing events.

Malcolm Collins: S sport racing, bird racing. What? Sperm

Simone Collins: as in the stuff in ejaculate. Sperm racing. Oh, yes, I heard about that. I had not heard about that. I guess I can kind of see the investment case for it in an age of sports betting and celebrity like, well, [00:35:00] content creator culture, like who’s would win?

Joe Rogan or Donald Trump. You know, that kind of thing. Right? Like, I, I could kind of see it, but there are some issues with it in that the, the actual races are not live. They are. Recorded and then played at the live events. So it’s not, it’s not even like, it’d be, it would be way too easy to rig and, and that’s my biggest issue with it.

But that’s your biggest issue? Yeah. I mean, what I, how is it that di I mean, I think it’s, it’s better than, for example, dog racing. I like, I like horse racing, but mostly. Because of the names. The names are fantastic. I think what adds an appeal to this is among men. Any man can participate and they don’t necessarily have to train for it, right?

Like you can’t you know, there have been all these instances in which like Elon Musk will challenge mark Zuckerberg to fight like an MMA fight. [00:36:00] And they always get canceled because, oh, you’d have to train and like. You know, you have to be in really good condition. You have to know fighting technique, all these things, like it’s way too much work.

Whereas the way that most men report preparing for things like this is, okay, well I just won’t get any in any hot tubs and I won’t drink for a little bit and I’ll eat better. You know, like there’s not a whole lot you have to do. To improve sperm quality. I think you do need to do it, what, six months in advance or something?

I just, anyway, I, I could see it because we like to see famous people compete and this allows famous people to compete in a way that is very tied to their identity and masculinity, but I don’t think they would. Okay. Why? ‘cause they’d be afraid of their, their, you don’t

Malcolm Collins: know how good you are at this.

You have no idea from looking at yourself.

Simone Collins: Just go to an embryologist and be like, Hey, please. Or just, I mean, there, there are tons of, of services that will test your sperm motility and sperm count and all sorts of things like that. So you could, you could already self-assess [00:37:00] before you ever. Promise, like, well that’s a lot of effort is faster than like 80% of other sperm.

And you’re like, okay, yeah. Like I, I’ll take my chances against.

Malcolm Collins: That’s, that’s too much effort to self-assess and keep No, it’s not,

Simone Collins: it literally

Malcolm Collins: is

Simone Collins: into a thing and send off your sample kit. I don’t get, what’s so difficult to it is, it’s not

Malcolm Collins: a sample kit thing. You’d have to go to a lab and it’s worse than all of that because the category that overlap with celebrity.

Like being older being often, you know, slightly sedentary are also gonna overlap with lower sperm quality, especially being, well, that’s one of the reasons

Simone Collins: I think why maybe it has some prominent backers, is that people wanna raise awareness about the fact that male fertility does fall off. This.

I think it came up in the Ill-conceived podcast because they felt it had strong natal list undertones and that like, oh, this is actually just na list propaganda, mur murmur. And I, I realized why I like that [00:38:00] podcast so much. Yeah, it’s a snark podcast. It’s, it’s really just snark, but make it about natal and there’s snark about everything.

I mean, you and I both love Fundee snark. There’s lots of tra snark that I love. I mean, who doesn’t love snark? And, and I feel like snark is more fun when it’s adjacent to something that you actively, like I love royal gossip, for example. Mm-hmm. So royal snark is something I listen to a lot and there are lots of YouTubers whose full-time career is just being pissed about royal.

Just, oh, I can’t believe the Harry and Meghan’s latest PR agent quit. They’ve gone through 11 PR people in five years. Can’t you believe? They must be terrible people. Snark, snark, snark.

I think it’s just so great. But like, isn’t it wonderful though when you can hear the snark and it’s about people you know, you know when they’re like, oh, I can’t, I hate those columns.

Oh, apology. He’s so terrible. Oh my god. Kevin Dolan. And it’s [00:39:00] like, oh, like, you know, it’s

Malcolm Collins: just, they won’t even talk about us. We’re like bort to them.

Simone Collins: Yeah, they, they were, they’re like, we’re never gonna do a full podcast on them. Yeah. I actually wrote to them and told them if they ever need to cover anything adjacent to us they should just search AI because we, we make our content really easy to index on, on ai.

‘cause it’s, it’s obviously gonna be too hard for them to actually real research. Yeah.

They would die. They would, they would. They would disassociate to use. You know, another podcaster

Malcolm Collins: I regularly listened to covered our viral interview. Did you see that one I sent you?

Simone Collins: Not beyond just the Romanian guy.

No, the black

Malcolm Collins: lady. Which name? One. I’ll pull it up here. Her name is Amela, e Kanobi.

She got 2.5 million followers. Wow. I don’t know. Is she conservative? Most of the, yeah. She’s a black conservative woman. Young, younger than us.

Simone Collins: Than everyone’s younger than us. We’re old. [00:40:00]

Malcolm Collins: Well, she’s quite young. I get the impression.

I think she’s in her twenties or something.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay.

Malcolm Collins: And very reasonable takes very like center line.

Simone Collins: Nice. Very nice.

Okay. Sorry for chatting with you. I just, it’s nice to chat with you, but I, I’ll, I’ll get into the podcast now. So here we go.

Speaker 6: A brush and a bowl of mush. Yeah. And a quiet old lady Whispering Mush. Right. Wait. Good night rooms.

Good night, moon. Good night. Cow. Jumping over the moon. Good night light. Where’s the light there? Need to fix your face. Goodnight. Red balloon. Where’s your red balloon? Where is it? Right there. There, there. Oh. Goodnight bears. Goodnight Chase. Goodnight Kitchens. Goodnight. Goodnight. Goodnight. Goodnight. Gloves.

Good gloves. Goodnight Gloves. Goodnight. Goodnight clocks. Goodnight stars and Moon. Goodnight, stars and Moon. Goodnight socks. Goodnight [00:41:00] socks. Goodnight house and goodnight Mouse. But we don’t say goodnight to our mouse, do we? Do we kill them? Yeah. Yes, we do. Good night home.

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