My wife Simone and I discuss why the pro-natalist movement seems to be drawing many people on the autism spectrum. We share our thoughts on why autistic people may be attracted to intense affiliation and dedication to causes they believe in.

We also talk about the future of the movement, keeping relationships healthy in the public eye, managing our mental health as quasi-public figures, and more with our usual sense of humor.

https://manifold.love/

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Next time we're talked to by a reporter or something like this, we need to have you subtly drop that you want to replace the rest of the population with autistic people. Um, We need to have you.

Simone Collins: What do we call it? The greater replacement. The greater replacement The complete solution.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, you gotta say it's the greater replacement theory.

Simone Collins: I really like that, the greater I have a greater replacement theory.

Malcolm Collins: I'm a greater replacement theorist, where the autists are trying to replace us, and Simone here, you affirm, you as an autist are trying to replace them now, right?

Like, that's what the pronatalist movement's really about. Yeah, we need some progressive to freak out about this.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Great. By the way, one thing you would've loved is when the repair guy came, you know, because I was managing the call, so I wasn't able to stand next to the repair guy, and I couldn't keep Octavian away. He wanted to watch the whole time. Oh boy. So he got his iPad and he sat down right next to the repair guy with his back leaning against the repair guy.

You know, like he know and I'm like, on the bat or something. Oh my. So the guy standing there doing stuff and Octa and this kids like coddling with him, like [00:01:00] leaning against him? Yeah. . Oh,

Simone Collins: no. Octavian is, has zero fear of any strangers. One

Malcolm Collins: of my favorites as a, yeah, he, there were like guys out working by our place.

And Octavian goes, Hey, can I go up and give him a hug? And I was like, Oh no, Octavian, I don't think like the random guy wants a hug. And Octavian goes, Everybody likes hugs.

Simone Collins: This guy was like, he clearly wasn't a morning person. He was smoking a cigarette and like, drinking a Dunkin coffee and like, just looking like he wanted to die.

Malcolm Collins: Octavian was like, I want to go give him a hug. Even when

Simone Collins: he was really, really little, we'd like go hiking and walk past a group of people. And he would just like veer off from us and follow them because, you know, they looked like more

Malcolm Collins: fun, I guess. The new family's more fun. So Speaking of all of this, one thing that was really interesting at the pronatalist conference, because we got a better understanding of like what the base of the movement is actually like.

And at one point I was like, this [00:02:00] really feels a lot like the early effective altruist movement. You know, lots of really competent entrepreneurs disproportionately highly educated, disproportionately entrepreneurs, disproportionately tech people, disproportionately successful. And somebody was like, and we were like, how can we move this in the direction of the EA movement?

Not like in the corrupted direction, but in the direction of actually having tons of societal influence instead of just being a subculture that is four people of a subculture are seen as like a weirdo thing, right? Somebody goes, well, the reason why that culture works so well was because, it appealed to disproportionately autistic people.

And then

Simone Collins: like out of the woodwork, someone like sprang up and was like, did someone say autism?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And then like five people in the room raised their hand. Literally. It must've been. 40 percent of the room was autistic or 30%?

Simone Collins: There were a lot of autists there.

Malcolm Collins: It was, it was higher than I expected. And as people know, like Simone is autistic, right?

So this was like, yes, the EA movement was disproportionately autistic and still is. And the pronatalist [00:03:00] movement is disproportionately autistic. And the question is why? What's going on here? Now, before we get further with that question, I'm going to do like a little free ad for a product I want to support because I always support any interesting autistic focused dating products that are maybe going to get more of you guys wives.

So Manifest. It is a prediction

Simone Collins: manifolds. Hold on. No. So there was a prediction market called manifold. That is really cool. We went to their inaugural conference this year called manifest in Berkeley. And shortly after that conference, they were, they released a dating app called manifold love. You can access it at manifold dot

Malcolm Collins: love.

Yeah. And so, I don't know exactly how it works. Maybe you can read on the thing, but I, my understanding is that people will put up like profiles of themselves and then other people will bet on who you would be a good match for and they win [00:04:00] betting pools. If you end up with the person who they're betting, you're going to be a good match for

Simone Collins: now.

Basically, it's crowdsourced matchmaking via prediction markets. So they're combining matchmaking with prediction markets. And. Basically, you can create a dating profile, a lot of it's like typical dating platform stuff where you upload photos and you answer questions from a long list provided, you know, this includes like, do you want to have kids?

What's your personality like? And then basically this creates a collection of highly detailed profiles. And then anyone who joins, of course, can act as a matchmaker between profiles. So this isn't just a platform. Where people actively looking for a partner would want to be. This is also a platform where someone who's like, I feel like I can predict a good pairing between some people.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's good gossip if it's going on in your community. Oh yeah. Right now I hear it's mostly just used in Silicon Valley.

Simone Collins: No, they're like, I'm looking at it now. There's there's someone in London, New York [00:05:00] city, Beijing, Washington, San Jose, Fairfield. California city, greater London Berlin game, like all over.

I mean, yeah. Okay. It's like San Francisco Bay area. There is a lot. Singapore though, more New York city, Calgary. So Paris, so it is, it is actually, I think it's, it's starting out with a nice spread of people. And what I like is that matchmakers playing with this, this data aspect of manifold can profit with mana, which is there like in, in.

world currency. If they correctly bet on whether two individuals will last in a six month relationship or not. And I love that betting. I just, I like, I wish. We've got to do this. Like I want there to be like a running like thing in our family where we're betting on like all sorts of inappropriate

Malcolm Collins: things.

I would love that. I mean, it'd be so cool. Something like it's got popular on like a college campus or something. Well,

Simone Collins: even like, with dating too, like, I think one, one thing that actually came up at the pronatalist conference in, I think that same conversation [00:06:00] where autism came up was The fact that like family and social approval of partners of people, people were dating had sort of fallen by the wayside.

Whereas like in the past, your parents and your brother and sister would all have like a whole lot of things to say about the woman or man that you were dating and they, you know, it would be like, well, here's what I think of them. And I love the idea of like bringing it back and being like, Yeah, I'm going to place this bet that you're going to last, like, you're going to last for five weeks.

It was very interesting how that

Malcolm Collins: came up. The guy was like, My brother brought home somebody to meet the family and it was like very clear this was a bad match. Yeah. But we couldn't tell him. Try to subtly tell him like this is a bad match, but it didn't mean much to him that the entire family thought that and historically and within most cultures, that would be a very, very loud signal that you probably shouldn't get married to somebody.

Simone Collins: But I think it's different. I think it's different when the family's like literally putting money on the line. Like, here's how long I think you're going to [00:07:00] last. And of course that can happen like if that happens to the wrong type of person. They might pursue a relationship or a string in a long longer than they should just to, you know, out of spite.

Malcolm Collins: We don't want them colluding on these bets, you know, that'd be so easy to do. But I,

Simone Collins: I still, I still love this, this idea. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I'd also love it if we did little ads like this occasionally and things for. products that we stan. I was thinking about that earlier when I was watching YouTube videos and they had like sponsored segments.

I was like, Oh, it'd be cool to like sponsor little products or people who are working on things in

Simone Collins: the community. Not for pay or the greater good.

Malcolm Collins: Not for the greater good. That's what the Tao empire would say. And there are a bunch of commies. Oh, we do it for community cohesion and utility. Okay. Simone efficacy, efficacy.

But I,

Simone Collins: I actually do think it's a legit good place to look for a partner though, because you have to think about, this is one of those things where, in, in business, you need to look for an [00:08:00] arbitrage opportunity. You need to look where there's a lot of value that is untapped. And what we learned after attending Manifold's inaugural conference was just how smart everyone there was.

And like, we're like, Oh my gosh, like I am ready to like move into a neighborhood full of these people. I would happily live in that neighborhood.

Malcolm Collins: That's where we finally met Scott Alexander.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and saw a bunch of other really awesome people and made a lot of friends, like ridiculous.

Like even, and we've been to a lot of different like societies and groups where we really love the people there. And we're like, Oh, everyone's so intellectual. This wasn't just intellectual people. It was like intellectual doers, intellectual, thoughtful people like who, yeah, I don't know. I just, I think they're great.

So this is why I think it's uniquely worthwhile thing to plug is because right now. Before it becomes like overblown or too well known, it is a very curated network of very smart, thoughtful, but also like impactful, employed people. So, [00:09:00]

Malcolm Collins: yeah. But now to the topic of the video. Why is this community disproportionately drawing autists?

The type of people who would be engaged by something like that. Yeah,

Simone Collins: and autists, you'd think, would have a lower birth rate than the average person. So why would autists not only be, like, keen to have a kid, but like, six? And we should call

Malcolm Collins: them hottists, because that's the new thing. They're hot autistic people, the hottists.

Why is it that hottists are disproportionately drawn to pronatalism? I am asking you, the autistic woman.

Simone Collins: I think, well, yeah, I mean the, the classic easiest answer is autistic people don't just do something. They like really go overboard, you know, they're not just like into trains, they like know every f*****g thing about trains.

Right. So like, I think once you get an autistic person into kids, they're like, kids, bring all the kids and I'm going to raise them perfect. And they will. They're going to be autistic about it, which is such an [00:10:00] ironic twist from like the classic image of the refrigerator mom. For a little bit of color for a while, people thought that people became autistic because they were raised by overly cold mothers who, you know, didn't show them love and were incapable of expressing love.

Whereas like when we see the, the autists who are raising kids you know, they, they may not, it may not be natural to them to like express affection in certain ways, but they have studied it so much and they care about doing it right so much that they are way better at showing affection than the

Malcolm Collins: average person.

You're very good at simulating it.

You can't replace family with a robot, Richard. We need real human affection. That's why Huggy's programmed to simulate its sweetness. ,

Malcolm Collins: but

Simone Collins: yeah, so. Well, honestly though, here's my, here's my thing though about, about simulating love. I think that someone who's quote unquote faking it when it comes to love and affection is the best.

Ultimately going to show much more love and affection to someone than someone who's really acting it out because people who are, who act as they [00:11:00] actually feel are way less, like way, way more likely to get irritable, way more, less likely to act patiently, way less likely to act picturesquely all the time.

This is important! What could be more important than your family, Richard? Ssssssssssscience?

Simone Collins: And I think both you and I, like a lot of the time when we do super wholesome stuff and it's, you know, being really cute with the kids and being really loving with them. Like it's right after they just vomited slash shat slash spit up all over us. You know, it might be after they just screamed in our faces or had a tantrum or like, we're kind of tired, but we choose because we're being really autistic about it to be more affectionate.

So again, ironically, I would also say not only are autists like extra enthusiastic about parenting when they get into it, but also like they're better parents than neurotypical

Malcolm Collins: people. That's an interesting theory. That is not the theory that I was in. Okay. The theory I would have chosen goes like this. Why were autists [00:12:00] disproportionately in the early effect of altruism movement? It was because the movement combined two things, something that was obviously a problem in society that most philanthropic money was mostly about social signaling and not actually helping people.

But that also a person with good. emotional, like, intelligence of other humans, and, and, and who could read other humans and social cues really well they would know that you're not supposed to say that, that people are just spending philanthropic money to self aggrandize themselves and make themselves look better, because that's a really hurtful thing to tell somebody, and that's you know, disruptive to society, and so we have, broadly agreed on this mass delusion.

And they're like, no, but look, seriously, it's not working. And everyone else is like, well, and I think that with the pronatalist movement, it's the same sort of a thing. It's a movement that is based around an obvious statistical trend. Anybody who's looking at statistics is going to see That fertility rates are falling

at a rate [00:13:00] that makes it inevitable that it is not going to be the biggest issue that humanity faces over the next century, much bigger than things like global warming and stuff like that. When you're looking at just the numbers and the speed of of what's happening. And so. They recognize that this is a problem, but they also lack the social graces to recognize just how much blowback they're going to get from the urban monoculture, which controls most pathways to power in our society, most pathways to income and stability in our society, pathways and access to sexual resources in our society.

So they just go out and say it. Hey guys, do you not see the problem? Do you not see the, the train that we're about to hit. And I think that that's what it is. It's a obvious thing with a social filter in front of it that most people know not to cross. And I would say that this is also true when I think about like the people who were autistic at the conference or were heavily on the spectrum there.

They, they were just genuinely like, I am concerned about the statistics here, [00:14:00] whereas I think the people who weren't like that at the conference, they more like had some other agenda that they were using this to promote to some extent. Right. They weren't

Simone Collins: pronatalists. They were first and foremost Catholics or whatever religion they were.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, where the autistic people were more like, Hey, this is a problem, why aren't people talking about it? Like, I came here to try to figure out why no one was talking about this. So I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry I do my little impression there. But it is, it is really interesting. And I think if the movement stays this way, or it has this as sort of its founding community, that's going to heavily shape it going forwards.

But it also speaks really positively towards the direction it's going. Because it has the capability of moving up in society and moving up was in sort of income brackets and then taking over apparatuses in our society in the same way the EA movement did. And so. That's a really positive direction.

And [00:15:00] that's one of the things with the EA movement. As the EA movement began to incorporate more and more people who were not autistic, that's That's

Simone Collins: where it started to fall

Malcolm Collins: apart. It sort of began to fall apart and lose its way, especially within leadership

Simone Collins: roles. Although, wouldn't you say Sam Pink and Freed is almost certainly on the spectrum?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah, I'd say that it is still the old, old guard heads of the movement are still all pretty much on the spectrum. I mean, it's insane. He still did,

Simone Collins: like, really. Performative

Malcolm Collins: stuff. Right. But he was doing it with the goal of manipulating political players. Mm-Hmm. I don't know how much of it, like, like his goal was manipulating political players for personal financial gain.

Mm-Hmm. That was, you know, what motivated that behavior. And then you know, particularly lacking social. Awareness that the EA movement has now become an aggressive Luddite movement is, is absolutely hilarious to me. For people who may not know what the word Luddite means, it means an anti technology or like a technophobic movement.

But as they say, and I think that this is [00:16:00] really funny there was a Quote that I'll put on screen by what's his name? The guy who wrote Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Oh, okay Like anything that was invented before I was born is like old news boring Anything from when I was born to the age of 30 is exciting and I might get a career in it Anything after the age of 30 is like against the natural order of things and must be destroyed and it is hilarious to me that like right as the leadership cast of the EA movement turned over 30.

Like that was the moment when they decided all technological innovation must stop right now. Everything else is blasphemous and must be destroyed. A

Simone Collins: little on the nose.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it was shockingly on the nose. It was shockingly on the nose and, and very depressing to me. And I'd like to think that the pronatalist movement, and I hope that the movement can commit to this going forwards, aggressively will raise young people [00:17:00] to positions of influence earlier than other movements do and not develop sort of an encrusted sort of.

elite of, of intellectual elite within the community.

Simone Collins: If any movement can do that, I do think it is the perinatalist movement, especially because those cultures that are going to be sustainable in the long run are those that empower youth, not those that disempower you. I also think that when Silicon, sorry, I shouldn't say Silicon Valley, when autists decide to become obsessed with something and specialize in an industry they take it over and make it very effective.

We saw this with like. tech companies. They were basically like predominated by autistic people. And look, now tech companies like run a huge portion of the global economic system. I think, you know, with autism taking over pronatalism, if that is indeed what happens, you are going to see a very effective movement.

Now, of course, we've heard people talk about how much they hate how autistic people run these tech [00:18:00] companies, because they have no idea how social. Justice works and they ignore all these things and they're just bullied little children who are now taking it out on all of us normal people. I don't know.

I mean, like, whatever, like, sorry, you can cry into your free Gmail and all you want, and then watch YouTube videos that you don't pay for. And then like, I don't like deal with it, you know, and like these people, these same people are going to be like, Oh, all these young people that are wiping my butt is I'm really.

Oh, they're so weird. I hate them so much. But then like, who else is going to wipe your butt lady? So, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: What, what was that rant about? That seemed oddly specific. Did you read something somewhere?

Simone Collins: No, I, I've heard multiple times. People who consider themselves neurotypical, who I wouldn't even say are neurotypical, complaining about autists being in charge of like Silicon Valley, like, you know, being CEOs of companies.

I've seen

the

Malcolm Collins: reporter class complain about this. They're like, yeah, we need to make more known. Not just the reporter class. Yeah. Oh, yeah. [00:19:00] But I, well, and it's important for us. Like we talk about, like, I'm glad that I think the movement's going to end up making a lot of money and it's good for us to, that that happens because pernatalism as a cause area.

has one real like downside to it, which is one of the great ways to get money as a movement and then use that to grow the movement is when people who care about the movement die and don't have any descendants. And you were just

Simone Collins: talking, I think in another episode recently about how the Catholic church started pro prohibiting cousin marriage in an attempt to make sure that they got those inheritances from wealthier families.

Malcolm Collins: And we want this, right? Like, we want, we would love that, but I mean, if, if that's ever happening with us, it's

Simone Collins: going to be a failure for it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We actually have a way, more clever solution, and don't you dare underplay it, because I think it's very smart, and I love that you made it up.

Or that you designed it, which is specifically that people in our family, in our cultural house do not inherit money as a matter of course. They do not have trust funds. They did not have inheritances. Instead, there [00:20:00] is the house fund. They house fund will help to pay for your fertility treatments.

It may help to pay for some of your education and it may match funds that you raise for a startup or nonprofit from other respectable third party organizations, but it is not going to pass on money to you. Influence within the governance of that house and the distribution of its wealth is driven by, to a great extent, those who contribute the most new money to it, which is so important because right now you see in most family offices and when you see basically anything with inheritance, Those who drain the most from it have the most influence over it.

Whereas with

Malcolm Collins: our house is model, but this is different from the nonprofit pronatalist foundation, which is referring to, but I hear

Simone Collins: the same time though, like our, our philosophy with any sort of nonprofit effort is frankly a nonprofit that does not ultimately find a way to make its own money or that is at.

at the very least, not dependent on outside [00:21:00] parties for donations is the only nonprofit you really can believe is virtuous enough to pursue its original mission. Because any nonprofit that sticks around long enough that doesn't make money from anything but donations clearly has become specialized in raising money and virtue signaling and not in actually solving its problems.

So again, like.

Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah, true, but look at the anti natalist movement, how easy they'll have a time raising money. I mean, they, they get all of people's money when they do their job right. And, and I, and I think the anti natalist movement is actually going to do a lot to buoy the pro natalist movement right now.

Like, they are If anything, a boon to us as they are growing because they're just so insane. I, well, I mean, to me they just come off as transparently evil. They're like, yeah, let's kill all life on the planet. Let's Venus the planet. You know, that's not an uncommon thing within the negative utilitarian side, which is sort of the leaders of most of the antinatalist community.

I think,

Simone Collins: I think it is very virtuous within their perception of reality. It is, it [00:22:00] is logically consistent and virtuous.

Malcolm Collins: No, and I agree with that, but it's high utility to us because I think it drives normies, you know, when they're choosing, well, which side of this debate am I on towards our side of things.

So long as you can keep any of the racist voice from getting too loud then you can win the, the normie medal, which, which I feel like, you know, in terms of, of public messaging, like we've really begun to do. I, the, the, the, I, the fertility rate problem, I think it's really beginning to break into mainstream narratives.

Simone Collins: I agree. Yeah, it's happening.

Malcolm Collins: And this is awesome for us.

Simone Collins: Because yeah, I, I, I just, I guess it actually like the, the, the awareness and the extent to which people care about it is part of the solution because we are seeing people just completely breaking away from many of the broken elements of dating markets, of not getting married, of not having kids.

And they're just like having kids really young. They're, they're starting families really young and [00:23:00] economically economically productive at the same time. So I guess, yeah, awareness actually is more of a cure than I even thought it was when I, now that we've met people in the movement, right. And now that we see like what awareness is producing, because I thought awareness was going to produce just frustration.

Like, yes, I know it's a problem, but no, there's nothing we can do about it. Whereas actually. Thank you. I think

Malcolm Collins: it's more than awareness. I think it's a self identity as a pronatalist that they now see publicly and they can accept for themselves. So I think that people really work around sort of pre packaged self narratives in our society.

And the problem is, is a lot of people didn't have a pronatalist. package of personality that they could adopt. That did not come with either racist or religious extremist connotations. And so because they felt that way, they're like, I don't get to do this because this isn't who I am, you know, especially if they were successful entrepreneurial or autistic eat.

Like we were talking about, you know, why are they disproportionately [00:24:00] drawn? It might be. Partially because you're one of the heads of the movement. It might be because they see you, and they see this self narrative that you Oh wait, me? Simone? Yeah, this self narrative that you and I are pushing, and they're like, this is a self narrative that I personally can identify with, and not feel ashamed about this identity, and then they make life choices that are aligned with the community.

I mean, having kids is a bit like a Having kids young, especially, is a bit like the face tattoo of the pronatalist movement. It's the way that you show, you know, you are on board with this movement and a very serious long term commitment. And a lot of also the wholesome imagery around the movement and stuff like that, I think has also been really appealing to people, where it's like really technophilic and successful, but otherwise wholesome.

Which I actually think it's part of why pronatalism didn't really take off when it was just Elon doing the advocacy for it. Because he started talking about it even before we did. [00:25:00] Yeah, but he wasn't

Simone Collins: talking about it in a way where it was like, I could do that. I never saw his lifestyle and thought, oh well of course, that's something I can

Malcolm Collins: do.

do. Yeah. Yeah. Where I think we offer an image that a lot of people feel is both aspirational yet attainable. Which is also interesting because you and me as like a healthy couple, like, that actually likes each other. Like that's pretty rare for any kind of influencer where that is not their core.

Like there's a lot of influencers where they're

Simone Collins: There's where it is their core thing. Cause you know, I love watching critiques of like happy families and like wholesome families. And there's so much footage of like both sitting next to each other, like looking kind of resentful and passive aggressive.

And it's sad.

Malcolm Collins: It is sad. Yeah. I don't like to, and when it becomes a real problem in those relationships, because they develop self nerve because that's income. [00:26:00] Oh, they see themselves certainly masturbating the self narrative and so they cannot accept even within themselves that their relationship may not be good for them long term or that they may need to work on something in a very serious way because it is who they are.

I'm the person who's in a good relationship. Where for to us, this is really ancillary to our advocacy work. It's just I guess it's useful for advocacy work, but it is very ancillary to it.

Simone Collins: Oh, like. We don't have to be happy together in order to be effective as

Malcolm Collins: a yeah, I mean, I don't think we have to be like a great couple to be good advocates for this.

Although, maybe we do. Maybe it's before advocacy

Simone Collins: work. Sorry, you're gonna have to keep up the charade, my

Malcolm Collins: friend. The charade of pretending I love you and I think you're amazing? Okay, I'll keep it up. I'll keep it up for a few days. Is this how you trapped me? Is this how you trapped me? You got me into this situation.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I made you super path dependent on being a perfect, wholesome husband, so now you just have to dig [00:27:00] into it.

Malcolm Collins: I can't possibly leave you or treat you poorly, or I would

Simone Collins: But this is the thing, it's like, no, legit, I think that people who fake affection and are invested in faking affection are way better than people who actually just express how they feel all the time.

And that's part of our philosophy too, is feelings and emotions are. kind of dumb and often maladapted.

Malcolm Collins: I agree with that to an extent, but the Gottmans are supposed to be faking that they're in a good relationship. You know, their whole shtick is relationships, right? Like it doesn't come across like they're in a happy relationship.

Simone Collins: I see. I don't know. I, I still, I actually hold to your view that the Gottmans are really more. about keeping bad relationships together. And that is the image that they're trying to share is that, don't worry, we too have a bad relationship and we've managed to become a power couple together. You can too.

And still hate each other just like

Malcolm Collins: they're like the number one relationship coaches for boomers. Right. John

Simone Collins: Gottman became famous from his research where he felt [00:28:00] like he was able to, after watching some like five minute clip of a couple talking, say how long that marriage was going to last. And then they, they made this whole like.

thing. And we went to one of their retreats once because we were generously offered free attendance to this retreat. And it was terrifying.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I mean, and to the point that you were making earlier, I did have somebody who is, was in the pronatalist movement and runs a popular Twitter account.

And this is at the pronatalist conference, like take me aside at one point. And he's like, you really know, like one, he's like, you know, you, you really. Need to stay healthy. You need to, like, you need to, you do welcome great terms with your wife. You know, you, you have to stay together because you do not understand how impactful it would be for the movement if you guys end up splitting up and getting into some messy divorce or something

Or if you ended up dying at this stage. And I was one, I really made me feel good 'cause this is a popular Twitter account that I had heard of before and everything like that. And it made me feel really good that he. felt that way, like that I was that important. But it [00:29:00] also was like, oh s**t, for this movement to work out, I guess I have to keep pretending to love you, Simone.

But it's so easy when we're both so autistic. I'm not actually diagnosed autistic, she is, but I guess a lot.

Simone Collins: No, yeah, but you were definitely not autistic. Like I've, I'm, a lot of commenters have been like, Malcolm definitely should be tested. He's certainly autistic, but no, like you are definitely not neurotypical.

We know that, like that is obvious, but the actual. Signs and giveaways of autism. You just do not have a

Malcolm Collins: very, very easy time reading people. It's oh, I'd say it's one of my strongest skills is

Simone Collins: reading people. Yeah. I'm on the autist spectrum and you're on the schizoid spectrum, but you're also not schizophrenic.

So like I don't and also there's all these other weird things about you that like are not on the schizoid or autistic like spectrum. So like I don't. I don't know what it is. You're, you're, you're wonky. I don't, I honestly don't think you're human. I think you're some kind of God like entity that has descended from the heavens.

And like, I, I either am in a coma and I've dreamed of some kind of hero [00:30:00] or you are like, I don't know.

Um, You know, your mother used to tell you and your brother that you were like, you know, she had a vision from a psychic and you would be born to do

Malcolm Collins: great things. So my mom's whole like childbearing strategy for us, if you're familiar with Olympia's child childbearing strategy for, that's the mother of Alexander,

Simone Collins: the

Malcolm Collins: great Alexander, the great, where she'd be like, your dad isn't really your dad.

I was actually impregnated by a snake that was Zeus in disguise and stuff like that. Like that is not far off from the stuff that my mom would constantly tell me when I was a kid. Always about, oh, I've gone to a psychic and I had visions and I had dreams and that you two were supposed to take over the world.

And she would just over and over and over again. And I remember she told me a story once about somebody at one of my preschools, like the teacher was like, Malcolm has like a problem where he thinks he's supposed to become like a and, or an emperor, you know, and my mom was like, what's What's the problem there?

And the teacher was like, no, you don't understand. Like he thinks literally like that's going to be his job when he grows up. [00:31:00] And my mom was like, yeah, of course I raised him to believe that. Why would I raise him to believe less of

Simone Collins: himself? Why would I raise a mediocre, normal son? So maybe that just has made you not neurotypical in a way that's not diagnosable

Malcolm Collins: in a simple way.

I think that that's the type of thing. I think that might be an inherited. Sense of grandiosity that I probably got from my mom. If we're going to be realistic here where it's, it's like bipolar, but only the manic's phase, only, only low grade manic.

Simone Collins: Only the

Malcolm Collins: highs, only the highs. No, this has actually been, some people look at the way I act and they're like, Oh, you must be bipolar.

Like. Yeah. Or

Simone Collins: like on something. Yeah, or on something.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, or on something or something like that. And I was like, no, I'm just happy. I'm excited about where things are going and, and how efficacious. I do get into these slums when I've like, haven't achieved something for a while, which Simone gets me.

Another really interesting thing about my biology, when she talks about me, like overanalyzing, have a very good ability of reading people. Is that this ability is also [00:32:00] incredibly taxing to me. It's super stressful, yeah. I yesterday, I finally left the house. I hadn't left the house in a long time, and I was in New York, engaging with people, and I met with three people.

And the next day, I had to sleep, like, half the day.

Simone Collins: Just to like Yeah, like, literally, your need for sleep increases intensely. Like, when we're out, like, traveling and entertaining and doing meetings, like You, you have to go to a room and pass out and sleep somewhere. And there have been times where you've been at events and like, you've had to like crawl into a corner and pass out and sleep because like, just literally your mind can't take that level of like heavy compute without taking a breather and like clearing out.

Malcolm Collins: This is why a lot of people like us, like we prefer to not like work in offices and stuff like that. I gotta find that clip from the, the new Santa Claus where the Santa Claus is saying he's the evil Santa Claus, the evil Santa Claus. I should be clear. It's explaining why open workplaces are so taxing on people like us.

Where I think for both you and me, for [00:33:00] different reasons, we find being around people incredibly taxing. But I like that we so efficiently avoid it and we do not allow ourselves to become burdened by friends or acquaintances without having a clear utility to be gained by them.

Ken Gemberling was sucked into the internet. Burdened with new friends and tormented by the bounty hunter chains, he desperately seeks a way home.

Malcolm Collins: And what's really interesting is that Simone, potentially because she's autistic, she does not trigger this mental taxation in me.

Because there is never anything going on with her that is not at the surface. She always tells me what she is thinking without any you know, background goals or motivations or gains. Well, there's

Simone Collins: never a, you know what you did wrong. I shouldn't have

Malcolm Collins: to tell you. Yeah, you would never say something like that to me.

It's always immediately, like, this is what's, I'm telling you what I'm feeling. And so there is no need for this sort of background processing. Which makes it really easy for me to be around you all the time.

Simone Collins: Which is [00:34:00] not, by the way, I should make it clear. Like, Malcolm is Mother Teresa level. Thank you for dealing with me.

I'm actually really difficult to live with. So he makes it act like that's not the case, but I can't open doors and I freak out when my schedule is interrupted and I can't handle a billion different things. well, I

Malcolm Collins: mean, we do this podcast. I want to do the podcast in the same room. I can't handle that.

Sample, but we do it in different rooms because she finds it difficult to think when other people are around, especially me, like you find it uniquely hard to think when I'm around and we're in a social context.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You're, you're very stressful. All humans are very stressful. But like,

Malcolm Collins: Well, you, you, you've described it as being very afraid of disappointing me, and this fear, like, increases when I'm near you.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I think that's something that like autistic people feel a lot anyway. Like, they, it's exhausting to have to actively emote for people and then like try to, you know, play by their rules. I think [00:35:00] especially if you're the kind of autistic person, you don't, here's the thing. Okay. I've noticed a pattern with autistic people.

There are autistic people who love spending time around groups. And I, we, we know a couple personally, and then just like informationally who tend to actually be weirdly social, like weirdly prefer to be surrounded by people. Those autistic people are typically not very good at masking at all.

They're not mirroring facial expressions. They're not like, they're not auto responding LLM style in a way that they think will please other people. Like they're literally just being themselves and not being very expressive and not accommodating other people. And then there are the autistic people who.

You would never know are autistic who are really good at masking who mirror facial expressions and they hate being around people because it's so mentally taxing and exhausting just to like accommodate them and try to make them happy and like to [00:36:00] fake being. a good companion or like decent socially.

And that, I think that's a big differentiating factor. And I am one of those people who grew up masking and therefore being around anyone, even especially, actually, especially if it's someone that I love and really want to make happy. And you are that, like, if you are not happy, the world is broken. I, I can't, I

Malcolm Collins: can't do it.

We got to do the line, people, what a bunch of b******s put that clip in here. Cause that is, that is, you're like, I've met enough of them. I've met enough of them.

You should get out there and meet other people. Other people? Yes. You mean people other than Roy? Well, yes. And these other people, where do they congregate? Well, I don't know. You could try and do an evening class or something like that. Whoa, whoa! Hold on a second now. And what exactly am I supposed to do while she's out gallivanting at her night classes and whatnot?

Well, you could meet other people as well. Yeah. I don't like people. [00:37:00] Oh, well, now that's not fair, Roy. Have you met all of them? I've met enough of them. People. What a bunch of b******s.

Simone Collins: Talk about a show with staying power. I'll tell you what, the IT crowd is just amazing.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, I recently edited a clip from the IT crowd into one of the episodes, and I might edit in this clip here.

Cause I just love it so much. It's a wishy thinking clip.

Space. What is it? The simple answer is, we don't know. Or at least we didn't know until now. Hello, I'm Douglas Renham, and I'm not a scientist. But I do have a better understanding of what space is than any scientist living today. Where did I gain these insights? From this man. The founder of spaceology, Beth Gaga Shaggy.

 Is the founder of spaceology. A religion, not a cult. In other words, when it comes to space, he's the man with his head screwed on tight. This is what he told me when I met him on [00:38:00] holiday two weeks ago. Space is invisible mining dust, and stars are but wishes. I mean, think about that.

That means every star you can see in the night sky is a wish that has come true. And they've come true because of something he calls Space Star Ordering. Space Star Ordering is based on the twin scientific principles of star maths and wishy thinking.

If that doesn't convince you, well then, maybe you just don't deserve to get what you want.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, that's great. Hour of Wishes! This was in the episode on the Tesseract God. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Why conservative iterations of faith are more likely to be true than more progressive interpretations of faith. Because well, we go into it in the episode.

You should check it out if you want to see it because it is very interesting. And we do a lot of quotes in it too, from like the Bible, the Quran, all sorts of stuff. Because I argue that [00:39:00] even from the perspective of these traditions, they would be arguing this as well. Which is always fun.

Simone Collins: But anyway, I enjoyed this conversation and I'm going to actually hold my guns.

I think you're completely wrong about autistic people and prenatalism. And I think that honestly, if you went into any affiliative movement be it like a church, like go into a nunnery, go into like, you know, a really weird priest order where they're all silent go into like, a really obscure engineering business or like an anime circle.

The people who are most enthusiastic and passionate are autistic because autists go all the

Malcolm Collins: way. I just had a great idea. Next time we're talked to by a reporter or something like this, we need to have you subtly drop that you want to replace the rest of the population with autistic people. Um, We need to have you.

Simone Collins: What do we call it? The greater replacement. The greater replacement The complete solution.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, you gotta say it's the greater replacement theory.

Simone Collins: I really like that, the greater I have a greater replacement theory.

Malcolm Collins: [00:40:00] I'm a greater replacement theorist, where the autists are trying to replace us, and Simone here, you affirm, you as an autist are trying to replace them now, right?

Like, that's what the pronatalist movement's really about. Yeah, we need some progressive to freak out about this. Um, greater replacement, greater replacement. You are the best. You are hilarious.

Simone Collins: Not as hilarious as you as you are and our kids, but. You know what? I love you to bits.

Malcolm Collins: Thank you so much. Love you too.

And I, I, you guys have no idea how lucky I am to have a wife who says such nice things about me. You really do have immense gratitude. And as I say, that's always the number one thing to look for in a spouse these

Simone Collins: days. Well, and the sign of a true gentleman is that you will end up believing that his wife is a truly wonderful woman.

despite the fact that all women are absolutely horrible. So, I love you. Oh, no! Oh,

Malcolm Collins: Walt! Oh, Walt! I should have known! Wait until

Simone Collins: you divorce

Malcolm Collins: [00:41:00] me! It's going to be terrible! You'll convince all my kids to hate

Simone Collins: me! I mean, it's inevitable, obviously.

Malcolm Collins: And then I'll show them these videos and you'll say, Oh, it was all an act.

Simone Collins: It was an act. Yeah. It was 100 percent a lie. Didn't you see all of the writing on the wall?

Goodbye to you and your beautiful face. I love you. Your

Malcolm Collins: stinky, silly face.

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