In this episode, we delve into the dynamics of relationships and how raising the status of one partner can create unforeseen challenges. We explore concepts of fairness using the famous Capuchin monkey experiment, discuss historical and modern relationship structures, and compare these situations to international aid scenarios. We offer advice on how to navigate these dynamics successfully and share personal reflections on our journey together. Whether you're in a traditional or modern relationship, discover insights on managing status differences, the impact of shared goals, and strategies to ensure long-term harmony.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] This morning. We had a conversation that reminded me how unfair life is as a man. We were noting that early in our relationship.

There was a very big because I told you I was like, I really wasn't that nice to you early in our relationship. I was not like as good of a partner as conscientious as a partner as I am now

Simone Collins: and I pointed out that like it didn't really matter because. You were way out of my league and there was a huge power distance and I gave him some examples.

Of other very powerful men who have women who are great and very happy to be mistreated by him just because he's that high end status.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. So then she, she pointed out, but she goes, Oh, but don't worry. Like you've elevated my status since then. So I actually require more of you. And I was Thinking about this, right?

Like she's not wrong. When I first met her, she was a social media manager, was a degree from GW, you know, now she's got a graduate degree from Cambridge and everything like that. And it's [00:01:00] done all this big stuff. But back then she basically ran a Facebook account and had a degree from a mid tier university.

And I was getting a Stanford MBA, right? And I ran more than

Simone Collins: a Facebook account, but yeah, I mean, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I was working in brain computer interface, stuff like that. I can see the difference there. And this is a problem that a lot of guys face is they raise the status of the woman that they are dating.

And they expect her. To show a degree of appreciation in the same way that maybe we expected Zelensky to show some degree of appreciation for all the money that we've been funneling him. Exactly,

Simone Collins: that there should be

Malcolm Collins: some gratitude, some sense of indebtedness. And, and this is exactly, interestingly, not just a problem with women, but with like USAID and stuff like that is people don't really build like enduring gratitude.

for shoveling the money or doing them favors unless your fates are somehow intermingled. So, you know, whether it's with like USAID, this idea that we're actually building gratitude in these [00:02:00] countries, that's just not the case.

Simone Collins: And it brings me back mentally to Those capuchin monkeys that there was that famous experiment where there's video of a capuchin monkey being given some kind of treat and in return for doing a task and he's super cool with it.

It's all great. And then he sees his compatriot given a much nicer treat.

Malcolm Collins: He's being given cucumbers and the compatriots being given grapes. Oh, the nerve! The nerve!

Speaker: Getting grape and you will see what happens. So she gives a rock to us. That's the task. And we give her a piece of cucumber and she eats it. The other one needs to give a rock to us, and that's what she does. And she gets a grape and she eats it. The other one sees that she gives a rock to us, now gets again cucumber[00:03:00]

She tests the rock now against the wall. She needs to give it to us and she gets cucumber again. Oh my god.

Malcolm Collins: And he

Simone Collins: loses his mind. And this is a really great example and illustration of how fairness isn't some kind of higher moral good. It is a, a, an instinct that we have evolved , is species that deal and group .

Dynamics and small group environments, but I think that this shows how this concept of fairness, which is also showing up here, right? That you invested in bettering me. And then I just expect you to treat me better once I'm at a higher social [00:04:00] strata and that we give aid to other countries and that we expect them to be nice to us is just us expecting like that capuchin monkey that we're going to be paid in grapes in return, right?

Like, where's my grape? And then we freak out when, no, that's once you leave a small troop of monkeys or a tiny clan based village. It's over. You don't get that dynamic anymore. Fairness is not going to happen.

Malcolm Collins: And, and here I note that you do get it when you're in small groups. So historically, suppose we were in a small medieval town and she like attempted to trade up or something like that.

It would significantly hurt her reputation to the extent that it wouldn't be worth it. from her perspective. And this is why relationships used to be basically on a much easier difficulty mode. If you're talking about earlier in history. So what we wanted to lay out in this video is one how you can correct for and control for this inevitable change.

How you can spot this change, where it becomes a [00:05:00] problem for different types of relationships, where people are expecting different things from each other that even the oh, so moral Simone is subject to you know, you think, oh, she's not. No, she's totally subject to it. And Finally, we're going to talk about well, I guess how you can make relationships work in the modern age.

Yeah. So first, why don't you detail how this works for you and how you justify it within yourself?

Simone Collins: Yeah, and this is interesting for me to realize that this happened because I want to point out that I'm a pretty mercenary person. Like if someone compliments me, I feel the need to immediately compliment them in return.

Because otherwise in my mind, there's this pending debt on my ledger to them. And I really don't like that. So when anyone does me a favor, I get deeply uncomfortable because I have to find a way to return it. Otherwise there's a debt that is outstanding. And I can't, I can't work

Malcolm Collins: for your long term partner though.

So explain,

Simone Collins: I know. So yeah, what's going on there? I feel like there may be some kind of subconscious. Social status [00:06:00] or value. I bring to the table meter within people that overrides their sense of indebtedness and maybe when you feel like you bring more to the table. That offsets some of the debt, like maybe again, I'm just reasoning here.

And when people are asked to reason why they intuit certain things, they're just making it up. There's no, I don't actually know what's going on. I

Malcolm Collins: can, I can see what you're saying being true. But I don't know if that's it. I think it's that it's a slow, like you, we were looking at pictures early in our relationship and we were like, wow, we were like kids when we started.

When we started dating over 10 years ago at this point, 12, yeah,

Simone Collins: yeah, we met in 2025

Malcolm Collins: so, so a long time ago, so anyway when we started dating and I say, I was not nice to her. I was, yeah, I just I won't say I remember thinking actually really explicitly. I was like, yeah, [00:07:00] Wow. This woman like literally would do anything I tell her to.

This is an enormous asset to have around. Now there, I think you

Simone Collins: saw me as very like. Disposable or like a thrall.

Malcolm Collins: Absolutely. Absolutely. You had no

Simone Collins: respect for me.

Malcolm Collins: You were absolutely a thrall who I was using for my purposes at the time. You were not the first one either, but you were particularly obedient.

And, and I was fully

Simone Collins: aware that this was the case. And that's why I wrote letters to myself in the future past our. Yeah, nobody, none of the reporters heard this part of the

Malcolm Collins: story. They're like, oh, it's so romantic. You said you'd date him if you promised to break up with her. But when there's actually this other layer of like, if you know, Malcolm was Malcolm really like romantically attached to Simone at that point?

Like, no, Malcolm is ruthless and self serving if amicable. And I wasn't going to. For you over, right? Like, even if you're acting, [00:08:00] you did some things early on, which put you in a position where I wasn't able to treat you as, as disposably as I otherwise was because you made enormous sacrifices. In terms of like wealth for me like investing in things and putting yourselves in like changing career, putting my job.

Yeah. Yeah. Quitting your job. And that's where I was like, Oh s**t. Like I really have to like vampire the masquerade bloodline for you accidentally get the thrall. You're like, Oh, now she's like living at my house. I got to take care of this person. Actually feel bad if she gets murdered. I got to deal with this.

So anyway it created this dynamic where, and early on, I don't know, very early on in our relationship, you proved yourself to me where I was just like, wow, like she is incredibly efficient, incredibly effective, and has an incredibly high fortitude for work ethic and hours which is what I wanted in a wife.

And so I was like, okay, we can think about getting married. Let's, let's have that discussion. So that was within like. Four, five, [00:09:00] three months maybe of us knowing each other? Four or five months of us knowing each other? Seriously talking about marriage?

Simone Collins: Well, basically we were together from March through July.

of 2012, broke up July 31st. And then when we were back together by like late September, it was clear that we were going to get married if we got back together. It

Malcolm Collins: wasn't a super long period. And I'll even say early in our relationship, I wasn't as kind to you either, but the thrall period was fairly short, only a few months.

Fairly. But it was, and so you were right to write the letters to yourself in the future. Yeah, I

Simone Collins: feel like this is not, In your best interest long term.

Malcolm Collins: I was going through photo albums to find some photos for a recent video I was editing and I found the album for when she first started dating me and it was titled something like, is this real life?

Is this real life?

Simone Collins: But you know that that was an internet reference, right? I mean both. I was charmed by you, but you know what I'm was referring to? What were you referencing that boy who's tripping after a dental visit? Charlie was what? Is like [00:10:00] Charlie

Speaker 3: Yeah, this is real life.

Speaker 2: I have two fingers.

Speaker 3: Good.

Speaker 2: Four fingers,

Malcolm Collins: still. So David, you wrote that then, and then I reflected some of the standards you have held me to recently

And I was grasping the two Malcolms , you know, old dark triad Malcolm. Yeah. It's like modern Malcolm, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah, modern takes care of the kids drives them everywhere, takes them to the doctor, puts them to bed at night.

Malcolm Collins: And I go to her and I go, why this difference in standards? And you're like, well, my value wasn't very high when she started dating me and now it's really high.

And the reality is, is she is. Functionally correct about this. Now I'd also note here that I also don't really have to worry about her leaving me or betraying me because of how we structured our [00:11:00] relationship. And this is where we need to come to relationship structures and types of relationships. So the reason I don't need to worry about that is it would be an enormous, I think probably irreconcilable costs for you to leave me.

To

Simone Collins: leave each other. Well, I mean, one. Because we, we have chosen a, a life path and we have a set of values that are the same and we are stronger together than alone. So, There's sort of no way that we could maximize our objective functions more than by being together and working together.

Malcolm Collins: I think a better way to put it for a red pill guy is no guy, like even a very rich guy, could bring incrementally more to the table than me.

Absolutely not. Because then you're dealing with the kids, you know, who you've had with me, but you've got to raise with somebody else. You're dealing with all of the companies that, you know, you built your reputation building with me, the podcast, the public image of, well, all of that would just get destroyed.

Simone Collins: I mean, not the kids [00:12:00] obviously, but all, all the businesses and stuff that we've done together would just get obliterated.

Malcolm Collins: Then you can be like, yeah, but what if the guy was like a billionaire, right? Like what if it was Putin or something, right? I, I'd say Elon, but I'd be like, ah, that's not like, you're not getting, you're not nailing down Elon.

Like no one's thinking, oh yeah, he's going to stay married to me. But whoever it is, you would have no reason to believe that they would stay invested in you long term. So even if they were enormously wealthy even if they had an enormous amount of status, it still wouldn't be worth it because you wouldn't know if they would stay vested in you long term.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Which is another

Malcolm Collins: thing, which is why I say it's useful to own your partner. But even when you own your partner, they can still leave you, but there is some like mutual vested interest. Yeah. The other thing. Well, continue.

Simone Collins: Well, I think that the bigger thing is sometimes it doesn't make sense to invest in bettering your partner because let's talk about

Malcolm Collins: what makes sense to better your partner before we get to this.

Cause this is like, [00:13:00]

Simone Collins: when it does make sense to better your partner is when you and your partner share an objective function in life. That is to say. You share values and morals and the thing that you want to maximize in your life. And you also more or less agree about the way you want to maximize it.

This is a scenario in which the two of you working together in tandem on this cause on this thing will be much more effective than one of you focusing on that. And the other one, like handling life admin and house and kids. So it's worth it to invest in that. And you can trust that they will. Utilize the power that you've given to them to do to work with you.

And I think that's another really important thing is I would be a little bit more cagey about improving my partner if we had totally separate careers. But I think the fact that we've always worked together. Has made it a pretty safe bet for you to go out on a limb and invest so much in bettering me because if I perform better, we [00:14:00] could raise more money or get more clients or expand our reach more successfully than if you were just doing that by yourself or if I was just doing that by myself.

So a raise for me is a raise for you and not just in terms of our blended income, but in terms of our shared projects.

Malcolm Collins: And the fact that we have what we describe the pragmatist guided relationship as a double Pygmalion relationship, which means that both partners core value to the other partner is that they're focused on improving that partner.

Simone Collins: Yeah, in other words in a Pygmalion relationship, one partner, or this can be both partners too so the promise is to help you become the version of yourself that you want to be. Which

Malcolm Collins: is how our relationship started was just me helping you improve.

Simone Collins: And then, and then I, I switched around to helping him become his full potential self.

The key important thing with Pygmalion relationships is you need to make sure there's alignment. Between your ideal self and your partner's ideal you. And I think there are a lot of relationships where, and I've, we've seen this [00:15:00] firsthand. The one partner's idea of a perfect spouse is not what that person wants to be.

And that is. A really uncomfortable situation.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, no, you're absolutely right. So I think that we've sort of laid this out in general. If both of your core values to each other is working to improve each other and you work closely together, or you find ways to work together on the things that are actually important to you the more separated your lives are, the more raising your partner status or investing in raising your partner status can blow up in your face.

Especially if you're a male.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But now let's talk about relationships where you don't want to invest in raising your partner's status. Do you want to go into that?

Simone Collins: Yeah. 100%. I think if you have different objective functions, it's obvious that. You wouldn't

Malcolm Collins: benefit. Okay, I'll, I'll cut to the point here.

Okay. Please. The most common time when this is the case is if the woman wants to be, as you [00:16:00] said this morning, a, a maid and a sex slave. Or which a lot

Simone Collins: of women just kind of wanna be, they just wanna chill at home and be with their kids and make food and make their house pretty and. Not have to go to work or do anything else and, and be beautiful themselves.

And I think a lot of husbands would love that. So that's, that's a fine match.

Malcolm Collins: So these relationships can work spectacularly. They have a few major drawbacks, but one is. It is not expected for the woman herself, for example, that the guy raises her status within, I guess I'd call it like secular society.

Like, when I say secular society, I don't mean non theological society, I mean like within the general world, like within business or politics or anything else. And actually a problem that I have seen in these relationships is when the wife decides to get a hobby like social media and then gets famous on her own while the husband is supporting [00:17:00] her and it augments her status.

I see a lot of divorces after that happens.

Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. I was wondering if that happens.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like social media influencer, like trad wives and stuff like that they end up getting too famous and then they are like, Hey, I'm famous now and I could significantly upgrade and my fame really doesn't have anything to do with you.

And we have what, like two kids, so it's not that hard to trade for somebody else. And yeah,

Simone Collins: like technically she did it without her husband and so she doesn't need him at all.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, this is a not a great position to end up in. And so it is useful if your partner is building social media even if you are out working and stuff like that, that you ensure that you are part of that brand.

Because the more integrated into the brand you are, the more costs there is to her attempting to trade up.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like I think good examples of this. are obviously ballerina farms where you have a couple that is promoting a family business, their, [00:18:00] their dairy and their protein powder and their farm and their meats and their flowers and their frozen croissant dough.

And another example is Like comedy YouTuber named Jane Williamson and her husband, Chris Williamson he features frequently in her videos and skits, but also he runs a like fintech bro influencer agency company. So it's adjacent. You know, he manages the monetization of finance influencers online, but that also enables him to, I think, really skillfully queue up monetization and sponsorship deals for his wife, Jane.

And that makes them work together really well. And I think her cachet as an influencer gives him credibility as well. But like he even lives with an influencer. He does content with an influencer regularly. So when finance influencers are talking with him, they're not like talking with someone who doesn't even know what they're doing.

You know how much work they put into everything. [00:19:00] So I think these are really good examples where. And I think otherwise, it Jane and actually both are Mormon. So Hannah Nealman with Ballerina Farms and Jane Williamson, they're, they're all Mormon. So they, the, the wives started out as housewives.

They didn't plan on necessarily getting a degree. So this is, I think is a really good example of how they started to develop careers organically by posting online and just enjoying it. But I think it is an example of how that dynamic can be made. sustainable and quite profitable for the entire family while also bringing the couple closer together.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I also think that the status difference between partners is something that some women who are choosing this role prefer and it makes following orders. Or doing things for the husband more satisfying

Simone Collins: than it

Malcolm Collins: would be if it didn't exist.

Simone Collins: Well, I think the status difference that needs to remain is the husband still has to somehow have more control or power with money.

Because this is just kind of a different version [00:20:00] of the woman being beautiful and the man being resource rich. But in, you know, in the case of ballerina farms, you have a husband who is from a wealthy family and with Jane and Chris Williams. And Chris is the one who handles sponsorship and money and, you know, I think that's the whole thing is I disagree with what you're saying

Malcolm Collins: here.

I think what you need is a perception of power difference. And I think what you are undervaluing is for many women in this position sometimes a thing can be a sex thing without being a sex thing. What? By that what I mean is things like the amount of internal bristling that you feel when somebody gives you an order or tells you to do something or expect something of you in terms of like, you know, making dinner or something like that is going to be correlated to what is related to an arousal pathway, which is the dominance of submission [00:21:00] pathways.

Like they're all, yeah, the

Simone Collins: wires are. Right there next to each other.

Malcolm Collins: If you don't see them as Well, that's why it ends up moving into the bed, moving into the world, moving into the bed. They're very It's the same basic neural circuitry. If you do not see your husband as differentially statused than you, then you are going to get negative emotional stimuli When he expects things of you or expects to be treated as if he is a different status.

Yeah. It feels

Simone Collins: gross. It feels gross and pathetic. And then resentment is built. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing how resentment doesn't, doesn't even have to be a result of, I guess, a legitimate grievance. It could be the result of merely asking for something, but being lower status. That's really interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, and these women, they don't necessarily mean to feel this way, but it makes them less happy with their lives that they are given more status.

And I think as a result of this, and this is one of the interesting things for me, while I do [00:22:00] think that housewives should be respected in like a broad sense, I think that Treating the career as significantly lower in status than going out and working during the day is actually in the best interest of the well being of most housewives.

Like,

Simone Collins: suppose Oh, yeah, to make them feel satisfied with their relationship, because otherwise they won't be.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So like, suppose your husband works at the patent office or something like that. He supplies for the family. It's a safe government job, but like, that's not high status was in society. Right. And that might lead to a wife expecting things or concessions from the husband that can cause fundamental issues with their relationship.

Simone Collins: That resonates. Yeah. I, I simultaneously struggle with that because of course on the. Prenatalism front. We're trying to make parenthood a higher status and more desirable.

Malcolm Collins: No, I think what you're missing here [00:23:00] is we need to erase the stigma around wanting to be a subservient housewife. The, the problem is, is you see only High status is the only thing that women would want.

And that's just like objectively not true. There are multiple pathways that women might desire from life. As you see, if you look at things like Well, I guess

Simone Collins: within religious communities too, that are conservative being. A properly, properly subservient housewife is a source of status.

Malcolm Collins: And I think a lot of feminists, if you watch videos of them, like crying over the fact that, oh my gosh, like, I just want to be a wife.

I, I, like, why am I being a slave and humiliated by my corpo boss who doesn't care about me when my husband could be treating me half as bad? And this is the thing when I talk about like differences in status. That I think is, is really when you talk to your average progressive female, you're like, you would want like a husband to like [00:24:00] sometimes like, expect things of his wife or like give her orders.

And I'm like, yeah, but keep in mind that this is a dramatically better treatment than she would be getting in just about any office job. That, that's, that's what we're talking about here. We're not talking about like 1950s or whatever but we're talking about at least having expectations, which are differential within the household environment

Simone Collins: or like a level of deference. Yes. And I mean, the, the way, for example, it works in our relationship is you have the final call on everything and we know that because we, we know your judgment is more reliable there and more trustworthy. Like it's, it's merit based as well.

Malcolm Collins: But if your judgment was better, I still wouldn't.

You have to listen to me. I'm sorry, Simone. That's what we agreed to when we signed the marriage contract. That's where we are. We agreed to it for a reason. Now,

Simone Collins: here's the, here's the problem though. And I think this is another reason why, it. People are having more trouble forming marriages [00:25:00] is women can't just be like, Oh, I'm gonna marry a guy and just let him take the wheel.

She has to know that he's trustworthy. And men do actually have to earn that. And there's no closing your eyes and just kind of hoping it's okay.

Malcolm Collins: this is a huge problem with trad relationships. As we pointed out earlier this morning is especially for women, they can be incredibly vulnerable. If the guy plans to just trade you out or dramatically increase expectations of you as the relationship goes on.

Yeah. Cause here's

Simone Collins: the problem. So there's that dynamic of. Okay. Well, when women are younger, if they, if they see a jump in status, they may leave in, in a flight of hypergamy, but there's the other issue of once the kids are out of the house, what is stopping the now very resource rich end of career or end mid of career husband from leaving her.[00:26:00]

With nothing. After she's had the kids and raised them. Well,

Malcolm Collins: there's another problem, which I think this is what happened to Laura Thuzdern, is you get a really bad economic situation in which the longer the woman is with the guy, even if she hasn't been with him for a long time, like let's say two years, three years, five years, now she's got a five year resume gap, her economics reliance on him increases basically logarithmically the longer she is in this role.

And some guys utilize that to increase the demands and decrease the treatment of the, of the wife.

Simone Collins: Yeah, good point.

Malcolm Collins: So there are a lot of challenges with this, and the key defense against these challenges are communities that will hold the other individual to account, like being in a Orthodox Jewish community or being in a, you know, a strict Catholic community or something like that.

And I mentioned this phenomenon in some Orthodox Jewish communities, like if a guy divorces too easily. Other women will go on sex strikes with their husbands to try to force the other men to force this guy to treat his [00:27:00] wife better or follow the rules better or not, like randomly divorce. It's, it's weird.

And it's hard

Simone Collins: to believe, but you point out this is a common thing. It's like something that's

Malcolm Collins: happened like a number of times recently, and there's been news stories about it, but anyway,

Actually, the episodes I was thinking of are for the inverse reason. Orthodox Jewish women typically go on sex strikes to, , force husbands to allow other women to divorce who want to divorce because, , in Orthodox Jewish law, only the husband can decide on the issue of divorce. , so they do this to try to pressure other men in the community to, , forcibly make the divorce happen.

there, there, there is some value here, but the big problem is just how easy it is to like scram like, okay, so suppose I'm in a Catholic community.

In one neighborhood that's like really devout. And I divorced my wife or leave my wife. And I can just like fly to London and go to another devout Catholic community or fly across the state and go to another devout Catholic community, find a new [00:28:00] wife. And there's not going to be the same, you know, actual external punishment for this or loss of status for this about the only religion that really effectively implements this loss of status are Mormons because they've got the central church, which I think sort of notifies people you know, this person left his partner where they don't think you also can't.

Simone Collins: Really easily divorced people, you're kind of sealed to them

Malcolm Collins: for life. Yeah. Yeah. That's why Mormons would be like, Hey, it's sealed for life. Like, yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I don't know if Orthodox Jews are good at this. I feel like their communities are a little too disparate where you just go to a slightly different faction of Judaism and now there's no connection.

That would

Simone Collins: be my concern. Absolutely. Yeah.

So I don't know. What would you do? Like, what if our daughters, is Wanted to focus on being a homemaker and raising and homeschooling kids at home, which is a very valuable thing to do. I mean, if you're homeschooling and you have a lot of kids, one of the parents has to be [00:29:00] home,

Malcolm Collins: there's no way around.

You have a real value differential, right? You, you have, how, how do we have her protect yourself? What does that mean? What does it mean? You have, you have the husband, you'd be like, look, if you're taking this lifestyle, you need to be a fairly dedicated member of the church. The techno Puritan church.

Simone Collins: Okay. So you need to enforce social punishment on the,

Malcolm Collins: remember the way that the church works. If you watch the pragmatist guide to governance, which we haven't really talked about this in any of the tracks or anything like that is voting power is gained through the amount that you're investing in it.

And, and, and status is gained with the amount that you invest in it. So an individual who was close to the church basically the church would have a control of some portion of their wealth. And would be feeding it back to them in a way that is of the high utility to them in terms of upward social mobility, but they wouldn't be able to just cut and run on a partner.

Like there's multiple reasons you build systems like this.

Simone Collins: Okay. Yeah, we need, [00:30:00] we need to work on it, but I, yeah, we need that. Definitely. We can't. This is an imperfect system and, and policing it is, is hard. I don't

Malcolm Collins: think it's an imperfect system at all. I think it's actually a really good system. If a couple's income is still controlled by them while they're together.

But it goes to the one who was effed over, not by the state, because the state is very bad at deciding this, but by a religious organization, that's going to be really powerful at preventing couples from splitting up.

Simone Collins: I could see that. Yeah. Yeah, if the religious community lives and works close together, especially, I think if, you know, this is a remote living and working couple or family that lives in a totally different part of the world, and they don't have much I

Malcolm Collins: disagree.

You need to increase the externality on splitting up. Having like having, like losing wealth or losing status because you broke up is a huge way to implement that. [00:31:00]

Simone Collins: Yeah, but I'm saying if this is a, he said, she said situation and the church in this case doesn't have much access to. The couple's lives and inner workings then it's really hard.

I think I disagree

Malcolm Collins: with this.

Simone Collins: Yeah, why?

Malcolm Collins: I I do not think anything is ever a he said she said situation I think generally you can get a fairly good idea of what was going on And you are always gonna be better than the state.

Simone Collins: Oh Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: that's the woman. Well, no,

Simone Collins: I think more broadly to The state will do what is necessary to reduce its odds of having to pay for any children that are involved.

And I think one of the reasons why it basically forces the man to pay for the woman and gives the children to the woman, is if the woman doesn't have the children, I think the state sees higher odds that the kids end up in the foster system and the state has to pay for them.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Does that make sense?

So [00:32:00] they're just trying to reduce financial liability. So by essentially Making the man fund the care of the child while the woman does the care of the child. They can guarantee that they're not going to have to pay for the care of the child and handle it themselves.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Whereas a church could say, actually both of you are a holes, the children and the money are going to some other family.

Oh my god. Um Well, no, I mean, I think that that's an important, like, you need divorce to be costly.

Simone Collins: Yeah, no, divorce, divorce should be more costly. I don't know if threatening to take away children is the right thing. And I think getting upstream of divorce is also really important.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's interesting.

Anyone here who's like, I'm thinking about getting married because we know some people are considering to get married within techno puritan tradition and you want to utilize this. And I point out it's a service. It's not like we're taking your money or something like that. It's a service because it is useful in increasing the cost of [00:33:00] divorce.

And because it is a religious institution there actually may be some tax benefits to doing it this way. Basically, well,

Simone Collins: I guess you're putting the assets of the family into a trust making the religion or you could choose any person you want the executor of that trust

Malcolm Collins: in the event of a divorce, you could do it as a trust or you could do it as nonprofit donations that would have a disproportionate likelihood, given the way things are structured of going to your kids, education, your kids, well being your kids, like whatever you wanted for your family.

Basically, you would section it off like these non profit donations are dedicated to this clan or this faction of the tradition. And the money goes back out, which would allow it to be. Basically donated into a non profit religious institution but in a way where the family still benefited from the donations, so long as the benefits were not for hedonism.

Like, you would have you know, regulations on how [00:34:00] the benefits could be doled out which would make it religious in nature but it's also probably what the family would want anyways for, like, long term nest egg stuff, like, only for, like, education, self improvement, businesses, and health related stuff.

And then you could have it go out intergenerationally, especially with large amounts of money. So that you wouldn't have to deal with a death tax.

Simone Collins: Yeah, well, I mean, in general, what we see some people doing is. To whatever extent they can, circumventing their income, so almost nothing actually goes to them.

And when they're paid by other entities, those payments actually go in the form of equity or cash to other organizations. So this person isn't paying tax, they don't technically have a high net worth and yet they control these organizations. That have received the money.

Malcolm Collins: I, I'd also point out, sorry, this may not be clear to people.

We, the, the church is actually approved by the the I-R-S-I-R-S is [00:35:00] a

all right. Well, I love you, Simone. I know that you have no allegiance to me anymore. You're only with me because of the cost to you.

Simone Collins: No, I think the more important thing is, is I am you and you are me and people don't realize. That culture and religion can do that to people that I think everyone's so stuck in their own identity and their own brand now that they don't realize that you're not necessarily looking for a spouse.

You're looking to expand the concept of you. Exactly. No, as I say,

Malcolm Collins: she's just like my female avatar. Like, even the idea of being trans is so weird because I've like, I've got a girl body. It's right there. I have a

Simone Collins: girl body. I have a boy body. Like, what, what's the problem here? What's

Malcolm Collins: the problem here? I want to be a girl avatar in a game.

I just make my wife like, I got a girl body. I have full access to like, what, what's the issue here?

Simone Collins: Yeah, it's, it's weird. So I [00:36:00] guess the bigger thing is, is how also you and your partner grow together and it's, I think it's really, really hard when you're looking for someone older, because it's really hard to grow into one identity with someone.

But I do think it happens. Like, I think that for example, my dad and his girlfriend have sort of melded into one person. You know what I mean? And they met after my mom passed away, so it can still absolutely happen. I think it just kind of comes down to personality, compatibility, shared values, and the way that you live together and what you want to do with your lives.

So I would say though, basically the gist of this is don't ever expect someone to think that they owe you because you made them better. Whether you are a country giving aid to someone else or you are a partner making your other partner better

Malcolm Collins: I have a question for you. Yeah status now. Am I less hot now because I'm not higher status than you differentially

Simone Collins: Mmm,

Malcolm Collins: I think you're still higher status [00:37:00] No, no, but the differential status difference is lower than when we started dating

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: most women that would make me less attractive.

So I'm less attractive now than when we started dating.

Simone Collins: Well, no, cause you got hotter like physically. So it's complicated, Malcolm. You're

Malcolm Collins: in the wash.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You're yeah. And you're more, you're more successful now. So that's also very attractive. Like you've been very successful at what you. That's what you said you wanted to do when we first met, it's kind of crazy.

So you are definitely more desirable. I said, I wanted

Malcolm Collins: to take over the world. How far are we from here? Baby steps. Baby steps. Okay. I love you to decimone. Have a great day.

Simone Collins: What is going on? Are you wading through the pile of cans in your room?

Malcolm Collins: Everything in my room is neatly organized by pile based logic.

Simone Collins: Pile [00:38:00] based logic. Simone,

Malcolm Collins: Simone. There's a reason why people don't trust women anymore.

Simone Collins: Of course.

Malcolm Collins: I can't believe Octavian's note for the teacher. I love you and I want to kiss you.

Simone Collins: Why did you, is that actually what he wanted to say to her?

Malcolm Collins: That's what he wanted to say. I was like, okay, sure, whatever.

Simone Collins: Oops. We're on the wrong side now. Sacrilege.

Malcolm Collins: Are we recording?

Speaker 4: We are, look at that. I'm terrified of forgetting I'm basically narcoleptic right now. Okay, okay, okay.

ThAt's the letter Q! Now where's P? It's right there! That's not P. That's E right there. P? No, that's E! E? Yeah, right there. It's That's just the letter Q. It's just the letter [00:39:00] Q.

Speaker 5: Can you feel it on top?

Speaker 4: Can they see that? Oh, hey! Let's talk

Speaker 5: about something fun!

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