Malcolm and Simone discuss the concept of "pragmaxing" - dedicating your life to maximizing a purpose bigger than yourself. They talk about why trying to improve the world, even if you won't experience the results, is worthwhile. They cover martyrdom mindsets, generational progress as a relay race, and leaving the campsite better than you found it. Malcolm argues this drive is innate to humans and that competent people uniting can create positive change. He emphasizes realizing you are flawed but still striving for a future "radiant beings" deserve.
Malcolm: [00:00:00] one person in a comment, he goes, why are you trying to make the future a better place if you won't experience that future? And it's bro, you are so missing the plot. So what Simone said, we have a different iteration of how we see ourselves. And that's cute.
If I lived for, let's say, a hundred thousand years, right? I would be such a radically different person at the end of that period, that there is no way I would have any meaningful connection to who I am today.
Yeah, it's
Simone: pointless. It's pointless. The person you're going to be in even ten years is not going to be you. So why are you trying to preserve
Malcolm: it? Yeah, and if I did try to preserve it, if I did successfully preserve it, if in a hundred thousand years I was meaningfully the same person I am today, well then I didn't improve.
I didn't better myself, and I shouldn't still be around. I am a pointless, wretched thing if I improved so little over a hundred thousand years that I am still recognizable as a Malcolm. That is sad and sickening. And so why do I care that I can't see the better world that I'm trying to create?
It is a world not meant for me. It [00:01:00] is a world that I would sully with my very presence. Moses on the mountain, you are not meant to live in the promised land. Because you are wretched, you are trying to lead the way for the people who will get to experience the Promised Land because they deserve it in a way that not a single person alive today does.
Would you like to know more?
Simone: Welcome to Base Camp where one person has a conversation with themselves two times over. One says themselves and one's in drag. I'm Malcolm Collins dressed as a woman. And this with me here today is
Malcolm: also Malcolm Collins, but this time dressed as a man. I would love it if we pretended that's what our show was.
Like we convince people that it really is just one person with a synthesizer talking to themselves. Yeah. So we wanted to talk about Maxis. Because this has really become a thing recently, you know, whether it's looks maxing or trans maxing or we see it across society and when I want to talk about [00:02:00] the allure of it, and if we could create an iteration of it, that is healthy because a lot of it is just almost intrinsically unhealthy whenever you are, so I understand why it's emotionally appealing.
Right? This idea of, I'm just going to go 100 percent whole hog into whatever thing it is I'm doing. I'm just going to say, okay, at every level, how do I optimize the outcome, right? That I'm trying to achieve. And that can create this sort of Zen state. Yeah. It's a sort of forced hedonistic stoicism where it's hedonistic in that you're maxing a thing, but it's stoic in that you are As intelligently as possible trying to think through how do I actually maximize this thing?
And as disinterestedly and soberly as possible, and that [00:03:00] can create you to view things in a very different way. And it's much easier to apply that to a specific modality than it is to say, well, what if I took this maxing mindset and applied it to my entire life? So that's one thing that we wanted to talk about with this, but then we wanted to say.
All of this within the context of if we're creating healthy maxing, well then we need to think about maxing as a cultural group, like how do you max our cultural group and this comes to defining our cultural outside of just our religion or whatever, right? I mean, like the wider group, the type of people who watch our videos, the type of people who are part of this sort of new conservative movement in America.
And I think a really good acronym for engaging with this group is not one that applies to it, but one that applies to another group, which is Tessacralism. Have you heard of
Simone: this? What? No. I'm picturing weird hats. Is this okay?
Malcolm: , it's used to explain like the [00:04:00] cluster of things that EAs are into.
. Transhumanism, Singulitarianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Affective Altruism, and Long Termism. I mean, you definitely see some of these. Transhumanism, Singulitarianism, Rationalism, Affective Altruism, and Long Termism definitely like cluster together within this community.
And one of the things that I've noted is that within... Our community, you get a separate area of clustered interests which are education reform or working on alternate education systems space travel, like interested in making us an inter Planetary species bio accelerationism you know, so sort of like trying to do like our use of genetic technology with our kids or artificial limbs or stuff like that.
AI accelerationism I'd actually argue with the other community, anti AI ism or AI panic is a [00:05:00] core aspect of their philosophy. Yeah. Anti censorship economic liberalism, so... Basically economic side of libertarianism like looser government controls and stuff like that. Often this is seen in like city state interests, like being interested in like creating outside city states.
Poverty. Yeah. Yeah. Pro sexuality but not engaged in sexuality hedonistically, but just yeah, interesting from like a study perspective. Like they're not afraid to engage with it, but they don't engage with it to hedonistically please themselves and nerd culture. And maybe somebody can come up with some sort of acronym.
For this group. But I was like what could you create through combining these different philosophies and why this group has these different philosophies? So what's actually like driving this group to have all these different philosophies that differentiate so much from the EA community? I think the EA community, above all things, is driven by [00:06:00] a terrified fear of death and not existing anymore.
They're so afraid of AIs killing them all. They're so afraid of progress. They're so afraid of... Dying, you know, life extensionism is critical for them. Like digitizing the human mind is critical for them.
This focus on both maintaining stasis and then within that stasis, making it as pleasant as possible. Whereas this other group. They are much more interested in moving forwards as quickly as possible and in intergenerationally improving as much as possible while seeing themselves as disposable.
One of the, you know, obviously I'd say one of
Simone: the avatars. No, I would, so I would word that a little bit differently. I would say, you know, by having a very different definition of what self is. That is more expansive than the individual biological being or some kind of continuous consciousness.
Malcolm: The point being is that, all of these ideologies are [00:07:00] based on one specific outcome which is building a Sort of a pluralistic, intergenerationally improving and robust humanity.
So robust means multi planetary almost intrinsically and expanding, right? Creating the seeds of what becomes the human empire. The great interplanetary human empire. And that, This is something that can be maxed. Dedicating your life to this philosophy is something that can be maxed. And, I guess I'll call it pragmaxing.
And I'll make a little thing. Because it's something that I think a lot of people would feel is worth spending their lives on. You know, as we've said, one of the books that is core to our ideology, probably the most core other than The Pragmatist Guide to Crafting Religion, is The Martyrdom of Man.
This book, all the parts that you would want to read from it are quoted in the Pragmatist Guide to Crafting Religion, so you don't need to buy it separately. It was written a really long time ago. [00:08:00] In fact, it was canonically Sherlock Holmes's favorite book. And in the real world, it was the favorite book of people like Cecil Rhodes, who created the Rhodes Scholarship, but also less, more ignominiously most humorously,
Simone: Campbell's.
Malcolm: So, you know, there's a lot of like big deal like people throughout history have really taken this book and I think we've forgotten it because the author died so young but he did contribute to other books. Like he contributed to the descent of man, Charles Darwin's, you know, book on the evolution of humanity, which is really interesting.
I didn't know that until I was reading about this recently. I didn't either. Wow. So, But the core thesis of the book is that mankind is constantly martyring themselves for future generations. And he has this whole passage in the book, which I absolutely love, basically written exactly to you, the reader in the 21st century saying, don't you dare question us for what we're doing in our time in the same way that we wouldn't question our ancestors because we live such privileged lives [00:09:00] because of the sacrifices that they made for us.
And this intergenerational process is something that we can all indulge in. Martyrdom is always something an individual can indulge in, but it's very important. And this is something that you were making clear to me earlier today, that indulging in martyrdom is not indulging in suffering. If you are truly pragmaxing, you are both eschewing, indulging in suffering or indulging in happiness. Both emotional subsets can lead to just as much inefficiency. Do you want to talk about this? Cause you were really passionate about that this morning.
Simone: Oh yeah. I, we were talking, you and I were disagreeing about the fact, I argued for example that that suffering isn't important or doesn't matter in the same way that pleasure doesn't matter. And that there are lots of people who totally miss skip a beat.
And they're like, Oh, pleasure is bad. It's sinful. Therefore suffering is good. And I'm going to achieve purity. or somehow become morally better by suffering and they become obsessed with suffering and showing that [00:10:00] they're suffering. And like genuinely, I think you can become obsessed with suffering and sort of just like accidentally masochistic.
So like you become a suffering maxer. And there are lots of, I think people throughout history, especially in the Catholic church who kind of can be seen as doing this. And I think that is just as sinful as maximizing pleasure for sure, because you're missing the point. You've lost the
Malcolm: plot.
Yeah, and we should point out the Catholic sects that engage in that many people would think engage in suffering actually don't that much in the way that she's saying. So if you talk about the Opus Dei, they're the Catholic sect that's famous for whipping themselves and stuff. They do that to have better emotional control.
They are supposed to always smile and always act happy around anyone that they're engaging with and to always feel happy because that is something that they are supposed to be able to emotionally control. And that if you actually around Opus Dei people, they are remarkably cheery people because they do have this.
Emotional control. So it's more just people who lose the plot. This isn't actually Catholic teaching that you should do this, but sometimes people miss it. They see the aesthetics of suffering [00:11:00] and they're like, Oh, I'm gonna go all the way with that. And this is something that, that anyone can accidentally end up doing.
So what does it really mean to pragmax it? If we're framing it this way, like living for this value set, the human empire the pluralistic. thriving multi planetary humanity that has become you know, this outwardly expanding force in the universe. And this force of good in the universe for a form of humanity that is, you know, as he calls it in the martyrdom of man, you radiant beings.
Of which I cannot even imagine you know, that it's become something that is perhaps even alien to us today. How do you dedicate yourself to that? What does it look like to Max around this? Right. And I would say this is what it looks like. It's basically four simple steps, and we actually out like this in the pragmatist guide to life.
First, you determine what has value. In this case, you know, we sort of laid it out, but you could determine slight iterations of this. This is the thing that has [00:12:00] value in the universe. Then you say, how do I maximize that thing in the universe? And this will involve different things at different stages of your life.
When you're young, it might be wife finding maxing, it might be education maxing. How do I actually maximize myself to be the ultimate educated tool when I become an adult? How do I maximize myself to find the perfect spouse before I become an adult? In our age, it could be parent maxing. Okay, freeze all the eggs during the year of the harvest.
Go through them. Genetically select them. You know, The output is many humans as possible. Give them the perfect environment. Oh, the education system is not good. Let's create a new one. This is something that we can all do together because when we create one of these resources like the school that we're creating, hopefully it's usable by all other people who are pragmatic.
And the people who are pragmatic saying one of the key things that I think is important to the concept of pragmatic, which we've talked about in other videos is [00:13:00] that. Yeah. Not every individual is born the same. Some people are actually born smarter than other people, taller than other people, with more resources than other people.
And depending on your circumstances, a different path may be the optimal path to pragmax. Having kids isn't the way that everybody pragmaxes. There could be other ways you could support the development of this human empire and the forces that are arrayed against it in the world today. I mean, what's so great about pronatalism in this larger movement is Our enemies, like as I say, I actually think ethilism is logically consistent.
This is the negative utilitarian beliefs that we'll discuss in a video I'll link to. It's a video on these academics want to kill all life in the universe
they basically believe that suffering is the only thing that matters, and the goal of every human should be to end any potential of suffering in the future. That means killing all life in the universe and any [00:14:00] potential for life coming to exist in the universe. And what's fun is we have these two diametrically opposed movements, the one this side to the pronatalist movement, one this side to the anti natalist movement.
And it feels so nice to have an opposing force that I can be so assured is evil. That they have an authoritarian philosophy. It only works if everyone believes what they believe. They have to be raised They would never say, they would
Simone: never say they're authoritarian.
Malcolm: Yeah, but it's intrinsically authoritarian because they do say that it only works if everyone believes this or they kill everyone who doesn't believe it.
Whereas, the pragmatist movement is totally happy with their movement existing so long as they don't mess with us. It's an intrinsically pluralistic movement that thrives on our differences. It's a movement that says, oh, we're okay with you guys. It's a movement that wants to make humanity... Better happier, even though happiness doesn't matter.
It's an intrinsic part of the things that we're doing a thriving [00:15:00] more complicated in more places and able to assist other species as we run across them in so far as they are not a threat to us . And this divide between this open, optimistic, forward thinking, pluralistic movement, and this movement that is authoritarian and wants to erase all life in the universe, it's fun that we're living in an era, I think, of real heroes and villains and that you can choose to dedicate yourself to this.
The key and what makes it different from other types of maxing is that you are. You want to understand that there isn't one way to maximize for it. You know, an individual who is born in a circumstance where you know, finding a partner isn't in the cards for them can still 100 percent participate in it, but in different ways, , an individual. Throughout your life, you're going to have different mini games that you're playing. And the great thing is your biology is adapted to this, man. [00:16:00] Like when, one of the saddest things I ever see is that so many people, they're playing the games from earlier ages, you know, they're in their thirties and they're trying to like maximize sexual partners.
And it's bro, that's sad because you're still going to be doing that when you're in your eighties. You know, you get to play different games at different parts of our life. And, yeah, okay, you lost a game at one part of your life. And now that sort of changes the path that you're on. For example, you didn't get into this until you were 50.
That means, okay, you don't have a spouse, or something like that. Or you're never gonna have kids that are biologically yours, or something like that. Because technology's not gonna catch up. Whatever, man! You got your own game you can make! focused on the end goal was the question being, what am I trying to maximize?
What do I think is a good path for our species? And then what can I personally do and who can I personally become that best maximizes that outcome while understanding that it's important. Whenever you absolutely attempt to do something without [00:17:00] a single flaw in your plan, you end up destroying yourself.
You know, I know that I do things that are antithetical to my goals, like drink beer, for example. But I also know that I am a flawed human being. You know, I am wretched. I am bad. And that is part of our nature. We shouldn't expect more. We can try for more than that because future iterations of us won't be the future radiant beings of which we can only dream in the words of Lin Manuel Miranda who wrote The Martyrdom of Man.
And I am excited for that. And people are like, one person in a comment, he goes, why are you trying to make the future a better place if you won't experience that future? And it's bro, you are so missing the plot. So what Simone said, we have a different iteration of how we see ourselves. And that's cute.
I don't think I'm meaningfully the same person I was 20 years ago. And I don't think I'm meaningly going to be the same person I was in 20 years. I think I am about as close [00:18:00] to who I was at the age of four. As I am to my kid, who's four, like we intergenerationally travel through our cultural group, through our cultural clusters and through our genetic lines sometimes, and that's fine.
You know, every human is to an extent, a reflection of ourselves insofar as they are like us and. That, to try to stay the same, to try to, if I lived for, let's say, a hundred thousand years, right? I would be such a radically different person at the end of that period, that there is no way I would have any meaningful connection to who I am today.
Yeah, it's
Simone: pointless. It's pointless. The person you're going to be in even ten years is not going to be you. So why are you trying to preserve
Malcolm: it? Yeah, and if I did try to preserve it, if I did successfully preserve it, if in a hundred thousand years I was meaningfully the same person I am today, well then I didn't improve.
I didn't better myself, and I shouldn't still be around. I am a pointless, wretched thing if [00:19:00] I improved so little over a hundred thousand years that I am still recognizable as a Malcolm. That is sad and sickening. And so why do I care that I can't see the better world that I'm trying to create?
It is a world not meant for me. It is a world that I would sully with my very presence. Moses on the mountain, you are not meant to live in the promised land. Because you are wretched, you are trying to lead the way for the people who will get to experience the Promised Land because they deserve it in a way that not a single person alive today does.
Simone: Right, but it's extremely hard for someone who grows up in today's society that speaks exactly the opposite. message to wrap their head around something like that.
Malcolm: I think it might be hard to wrap their head around it, but when you let go, when you say, look, what this [00:20:00] world is presenting me with isn't working.
Like clearly it's not working. I see it in my friends. They're all depressed and seeing all these psychologists and have all these mental health issues. And Society isn't working, the one that I'm a member of. When you see that, you think, well, maybe I can just try a different way of looking at the world.
I can just try a mental framing for a while, try pragmaxing for a while. You might find it works remarkably good. And it. It fits remarkably snugly because I believe it is how we were made to pursue life as humans because we know that we are actually living as meaningful a life as we can.
Simone: I mean, is that, I would say like as post industrial or post tech age humans. I mean, in the past, really humans were just trying to survive. Let's be honest with ourselves.
Malcolm: I don't think that's true at all. Really? Oh, you look at the Victorian period where this book comes from. Whenever somebody was able to escape the grind was in these older periods.
Yeah, whenever
Simone: they were wealthy or privileged enough, [00:21:00] whenever they weren't trying to survive, but most people were just trying to
Malcolm: survive. Right, but those were the ones moving society forwards. We, the blessed ones who have inherited all of their sacrifices and the benefits of all of their sacrifices.
Most of us live in a world where we don't have to dedicate our lives to just trying to survive. That's true. Most of us, most of the listeners of this podcast, yeah, you might have a grueling nine to five or longer, let's be honest today, but almost everyone can do something to try to move society forward, to try to move the world forward in a way that historically people couldn't do.
Because I think one thing, if you haven't studied history is we vastly underestimate how horrifying the lives were of the average person. And as Wynwood Reed wrote in this was like in the 1870s, 1860s, he pointed out that even in his age, the average British person lived a life better than the Kings of the Anglo Saxon period.
And he was right about that. And I'd say today, the average person lives a life better [00:22:00] than the Queen, during that period you know, this is the cycle that we are a part of and I am excited for that and I understand you can be like, well, it can be hard to reframe yourself around it and I know not everyone is meant to but some people will see this as a potential message that they can optimize around.
They get maxing, but they don't want to max something pointless like looks. Like, why do looks matter? I,
Simone: okay. Yeah. He's saying why it looks matter is like saying why does intelligence matter? Why does he matter? Why does money matter?
Malcolm: Help Saying why does he, why does intelligence matter? Looks helps.
Yeah. Maxing, educating yourself does matter because it can help you see the world better. It can help you see the world more true. And through that, you can better choose what you're maxing for. Maxing for looks, gives you no additional real utility. What?
Simone: Attractive people are [00:23:00] treated differently.
Malcolm: So? Women are treated differently.
This is why these two communities overlap so much. The people who are like, well, I'll be treated better potentially. Yeah, it, no, come on, Simone. Be realistic here. Yeah, they're treated better. You get an easier life. That's a hedonistic objective function. Hedonistic objective functions always destroy. You know, what if,
Simone: yeah, but if you want to influence society in various ways, if you want to rally people around a cause that is important, like all these things are easier
when
Malcolm: you're attractive.
, so that could be a form of pragmaxing. If you are looks maxing for the influence it is giving you, but then. You are only looks maxing was in certain parameters. You are not infinitely looks maxing. You are looks maxing with a specific goal while keeping in mind that there are types of looks maxing that may not be attractiveness, which can achieve that in you look looks max to look like a certain stereotype of a certain person was in society that people listen to.[00:24:00]
You can achieve more reach.
You can looks max. To be like Gorlock, the destroyer, you know, everyone's familiar with that. Me, I'll post a picture of it. People will pay more attention to her than every other woman at that table. So long as she's saying interesting things because she looks maxed in an interesting way while combined with personality maxing and everything like that, drag maxing is about understanding why you are doing this, not just so that things can be easier for you, but so that you can achieve some greater goal in the world.
Simone: Yeah, that's that's broadly fair. So,
Malcolm: But while also understanding that what you are maxing for is going to shift as you age to achieve this outcome and that again, you shouldn't try to achieve what the, you know, everyone else in your community is doing, you play a specific role. We all play a certain role in this design.
And you are best positioned to know what [00:25:00] role you are most likely to be able to maximize. And I'm excited for that. I'm excited that we live in an age, as you said, historically yeah, there were people in the Victorian period who were able to move society forward because they were born with wealth and privilege.
We live in a world today where, you know, 80 percent of Americans Functionally born with that level of wealth and privilege that they have the option to think on their own. I think we, that is part of why we're having this awakening that, Oh s**t, the powers in our society are lying to us. The media is lying to us.
These organizations. are lying to us because the average person can speak for themselves now and can help defeat these organizations that had hoped to imprison humanity in an age of stagnation. And that is fundamentally what I think the traditionalist EA movement was all about. That's what they meant when they say, you know, I'm afraid of AI advancing.
I am afraid of I am afraid of dying, you know, so I've got to [00:26:00] do life extensionism. I am afraid of the world really changing. We talk about this in our villain video, which is interesting, that so much of our media today, the person who wants to change the world is the villain. And then the person who is attempting to maintain the status quo Is the hero.
I mean, this is constantly the theme of Kingsman. I'm not saying I agree with all the villains of Kingsman. It's status quo versus change the world. They have to drill this into your head,
those with power in
Malcolm: any system, always benefit from the status quo. That is what allows them to maintain their power. Thus people with power in a culture will always frame anyone, trying to make things better, trying to change things as the villain. But, and I can tell you this. We certainty. The real heroes in this world are never, the people fighting to maintain the status quo. They are people with a vision for how they can make the world a better place and [00:27:00] who act on that vision. , I know it's possible to try to make the world a better place and still be a villain. , but it is impossible to be a hero and fight for the status quo. When we look through history, when we look at the people who have really moved our society forward, these were people who were most often hated by the people of. In positions of power within their lifetime and framed as villains by the people with positions of power in their lifetimes. And as at one person said, Malcolm, how can you do all of this when you won't receive any of the rewards for your actions when you won't? Get to live in that world that you are potentially creating or receive any accolades from the masses.
I'm already receiving. All of the benefits, any human actually fighting for? Good can hope for. Which is to know that if they succeed. That in the future, people will be appreciative of what they've done or did or sacrificed. And if they fail. Then they are undeserving of any appreciation. So [00:28:00] i should work every day to be among the elect those who do make the world a better place those whose lives did have a positive impact on human history and human flourishing I don't choose whether or not my life matters, but I do choose whether or not my life might matter. And my efforts control the probability as to whether or not my life might matter. And that is a great thing because not every human in human history had that potentiality when they were born. But almost everyone listening to this podcast does. So. The question is, do you take that burden? Do you bear that responsibility or do you shirk it? In the pursuit of vanity and hedonism
but enough people are waking up now. They've just. The competent people who are free from the system work together and decide for themselves how to best impact this change that we could see in the world.
We can do it. We can do it. We can really do it. It's a winnable battle. If the channel [00:29:00] had a motto, it would be thank God our enemies are not as competent as they are malevolent.
Simone: There you go. Yeah. I mean, I agree with you max for a purpose.
Malcolm: And I'm sorry for your coughing. That looked really painful.
Simone: I am dying
Malcolm: again.
But you see, you are showing happiness to our audience, because they don't need to suffer for your suffering. They do not. I don't need to suffer for your suffering. No, you don't.
Simone: to
Malcolm: create this constant heaven that I live in.
Simone: As do you. And it's 100 percent worth it. I love it. Very
Malcolm: satisfying. And I want you to answer the question that the person asked. I think it's an important question. Why are you trying to create a better world even if you won't be able to live in it?
Simone: It's such a bizarre question. I mean, right? Because that's the game. [00:30:00] You leave the campsite better off than when you came. You want to create a better world for your children. Everything is iterative. You're trying to. Get better. This is a relay race where you're trying to, you know, end up with someone a little bit further ahead.
Move us
Malcolm: along. I think it's, it shows. When you have framed the world from this ultra progressive, you know, urban monoculture virus, the cult, whatever you want to call it, mindset, things that we would think are just obvious can seem like insane. Why would I want to improve things for anyone? That's not me.
Yeah. Why would I like
Simone: when we see in the inverse, when we look at antinatalists or LFS, they couldn't understand a world in which. A complete obsession with suffering and or pleasure is not paramount. It's just cultural differences. That's all. You know, we don't see ourselves the same way that other groups see ourselves.
We don't see pleasure or pain the same way other people see themselves. And we have extremely clear values that are not. What you would [00:31:00] call normative. So
Malcolm: I think you're wrong. I think everyone who thinks about it comes to our value set. I think this is why we see it bubbling up. I think, you know,
Simone: most people who have kids, especially if they have kids not as props or pets to make them happy.
Hold this view. Definitely. They, you know, everything becomes about giving them a better shot. 100%. But I also know that a lot of people have kids as hedonic pets or props as part of a
Malcolm: Absolutely. You're right. Yeah. And this is what he says in the martyrdom of man. He says that regardless of whether or not, and I'm paraphrasing here, regardless of whether or not you're in a position where you can engage with philanthropy.
or advanced science. That doesn't matter. You have lived a good life in so far as you have tried to make the next generation better than the last. Yeah. That's our thing. I love you, Simone.
Simone: I did. I love you too.
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