We analyze a viral Julie Nolke comedy sketch in which a time traveler from the future begs a woman in the present to have more children to save civilization. We discuss how it nails both the pronatalist talking points around demographic collapse and societal hostility towards breeding, while also skewering the selfishness of modern life. Other topics include the misperception that kids ruin careers and happiness, the injustice of how vital parental work goes unrewarded, and the bleak hedonic treadmill of reality TV that people trade real meaning for.

[00:00:00] I am calling from the year 2453, and I am begging you to help us. Oh, s**t. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. Our civilization is crumbling due to our dwindling population.

 Yes. What can I do to help? You must have children. Oh. Um. Okay. . Uh. It's just that it's not a very good time for me. This is of the utmost importance. It is life or death. Yes. Okay. Okay. I'm just kind of in a really good place with my career. Um, but I don't think I could do both my career and, and save the species.

Then the choice is obvious. Totally. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So I worked with a lot of early hominid skulls and things that you would see frequently. It was like the bones sort of bubbled off from like funguses and it ate somebody's face off while they were alive.

And like, this is a fungus. It would be trivial to kill today with antifungal. In historic context, nothing you could do. just bubble your face off, but you kept trugging because you were doing it to make your [00:01:00] children's life better. And we were going through this intergenerational cycle of martyrdom.

This generation finally was like, okay, I'm sort of cashing in. I'm not going to pay it forward. You know, with every instance of paying it forward, things got easier. I'm just not going to do it because I deserve whatever I want whenever I feel like it.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, gosh. Anyway, Simone, I am so happy to be here with you today. This morning A friend on Facebook actually posted this and then I, I checked it out and we learned that there was a longer form version of the video on YouTube, but it was a video both making fun of and sympathizing with the pronatalist movement.

And it is probably one of the best pieces. Of especially non explicitly right leaning pronatalist comedy I've ever seen and, and it even seems a little like urban monocultury left leaning in its complaints and perspectives on pronatalism. Yeah, this

Simone Collins: is a thoroughly left leaning complaint. Left leaning people are aware of demographic collapse [00:02:00] as an

Malcolm Collins: issue.

Well, that's an interesting thing is that this is a changing thing that's happening in our society. Yeah. And what we wanted to do is to begin to analyze this, like as various groups wake up to the cause of demographic collapse, or at least the severity of the cause, how are they reacting to it? And what does this portell for the future of once the urban monoculture comes to accept that everybody who complains about fertility collapse, is it like, Some reaving, psychotic, racist.

Simone Collins: And hold on. We have to just applaud that you coined a new word, which is a port manto of portend in Tel Portel. I like it. Port.

Malcolm Collins: Oh

yeah.

Simone Collins: That's great. Portel , you're no, you're no hy, but ,

Malcolm Collins: yes. I, we have a little bit of organize disorganized schizophrenia the way I, I talk. But anyway, so we are going to, if people can check out our, our schizophrenia.

Pretty good spectrum video if that's come out before this one but we have never done like a watching a video [00:03:00] analysis before and we don't really know how to do it with like our faces on the screen. So what we're going to do is I'm going to play segments of the video that you and I will watch together and then I'll cut out the segments of this and put the video in and then it'll come back to us talking about the segment we just watched.

Hello? Anyone? Uh, can you hear me? Hello? Whoa. Hi. Oh, thank God. I am calling from the year 2453, and I've used my last time leap to make this call, but I don't have long. A few moments have passed. Oh my God, you're from the future. Yes. And I am begging you to help us. Oh, s**t. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. Our civilization is crumbling due to our dwindling population.

We can no longer sustain ourselves. We are going extinct. Oh my god. You must save us. Okay. Yeah. Yes. What can I do to help? You must have children. Oh. Um. Okay. Tell all your friends. Every fertile woman you know. They must have children. Uh. [00:04:00] Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Uh. Is there anything else I can do? No. I have ran countless models that all point to this exact moment where we could undo our downfall.

Okay. Uh. It's just that it's not a very good time for me.

Malcolm Collins: I love the way they're starting this because it feels very much like us. Like, we are these panicked people who have taken the time to run the numbers. As I always say. Having worked on this issue in South Korea to start like that's when I started caring about this when I was there and coming to the U.

S. It really did feel like traveling back in time to a country that was further along in the collapse, knowing all the stupid s**t they would try, like handing out money and stuff like that, that it wouldn't work the blocking immigration that it would exacerbate the problem that there is no natural floor coming back to the U.

S. And Getting a chance to try. So I very much feel like this, this woman from the future who is going out there and trying to proselytize this call. So, so I think they, they [00:05:00] captured that very well. But they also, I think, capture the standard urban monoculture initial response, which is they're used to this idea of, like, calls from somebody in the future saying, if you do this now, You know, the future will be a better place, but these things are always token.

It's like, don't use straws or something like that. Like they're, they're not things that involve it's recycling. They're not things that involve real genuine sacrifice, like having kids. And there's a reaction of like, Oh, you, you mean you want me to like actually do something. The other thing that she did that I thought was really clever in this is not just say that she specifically needs to go out and have kids.

She understands that. The people who actually care about this problem need to spread the word about it, right? And she framed spreading the word in a way that I think is really aligned with what it's actually like to be out there spreading the word. Which is, you sound [00:06:00] insane. Like, go out there and tell all the fertile women you know they have to start getting pregnant.

And it's like, yeah, that's what we have to do. But like, it sounds insane.

Simone Collins: And Or we end up sounding like religiously conservative mother in laws, mothers in law, and mothers. Just being like, well, when you're gonna have kids, you should have kids. We're the grandkids. Either way you look bad. All right, all right.

This is of the utmost importance. It is life or death. Yes. Okay. Okay. I'm just kind of in a really good place with my career. Well, surely you could momentarily put it on hold to save your species. I could. Yep. Yep. Yeah. I could. I could. Um, but I don't think I could do both my career and, and save the species.

Then the choice is obvious. Totally. Yeah.

. I, I definitely am, obviously this is where I step in and I'm like, This is such a disgusting farce. As if, through, for the vast majority of human civilization, or even humanity, [00:07:00] Women have stopped working to have kids. That, that is such a joke and I'm sure it's created by the concept of the, the nuclear family housewife who stayed at home to be a mother and homekeeper.

Simone Collins: As, as another, like, as their, her husband went to work, I think that maybe gave women the impression that like, well, then of course one doesn't work. Are you eating the kid's crackers?

Malcolm Collins: There's just a saying, when you're a parent, you get little snacks all

Simone Collins: over the house. That you have to, that like, it's a, an either or thing before that for the vast majority of human history.

Women worked and women had kids and that's how it worked. And I get that there are many jobs where currently based on current policies, it's, it is impossible. Like if you are a nurse you cannot bring your baby to the hospital with you and care for patients. Now, what I do think hospitals should have in, in, in any pretty much workplace that demands you to be there, it would make a big difference.

If they were in house childhood or sorry, if, if they were in house childcare then I get that. [00:08:00] Like there, there are some professions where this is just not an option. But a huge and growing number of professions do allow for you to keep going with your career. And

Malcolm Collins: it's important that they have been, there's been this misunderstanding in society that like the all this young interaction you have with your kids, all these days you spend with your kids, they really matter when they really don't.

The vast majority of what matters is the kids genes. To be honest,

Simone Collins: like your parents and your parents had a lot of child care support, for example,

Malcolm Collins: well, and then after that, after, after jeans, it's like a base stable environment and not being abused, like, and then after that, like, all of the others have parents do is like 10 percent now,

Simone Collins: but also like, I would argue that one of the most important roles that a parent plays in a kid's life is as like.

A, a, an aspirational figure or a role model and, you know, parents

Malcolm Collins: study show, so they go in [00:09:00] both directions. Like, it's 1 of those things, like, in science, you can find studies to support either view, but the plurality seemed to show that kids was working. Moms actually performed slightly better in terms of emotional health and career success, especially

Simone Collins: younger girls, because they see a female role model who has a job and a career.

But.

Malcolm Collins: I also really like the framing here that I wanted to catch, which is like, okay, so you're having to choose between, even if this was a choice that you had to make, you're having to choose between saving the species and your personal in the moment, like career and hedonism. And it's like, yeah, but it.

You know, it should be an obvious choice. Like, when you think about it, it should be an obvious choice. But it's like, I really don't want that personal

Simone Collins: responsibility. But also, our culture does not like the species anymore. Like, they're, they're actually, it's not that interesting of a prospect.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, a lot of the comments under her video, which are maybe worth going through after the video, About, like, would it really be that bad if humanity went extinct, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

We hear this all the time. [00:10:00] We need to mention to people that this is the urban monoculture's perspective. If they are not in it, or they are overly defensive of it, so much that they're delusional about its actual goals they'll be like, no, people don't say that. I'm like, just look at the comments under these videos.

They are very, this is the default assumption. Humanity should die. It's not like some edgy outsider case. It's not like the weird extremists. This is the mainstream perspective within this cultural group. Yep.

Yes. Right. Yes. Okay. So in that case, I need you to It's just, is there any monetary compensation? Like a, like a tax incentive from the future? Retroactive? I don't, I, I, I don't think so. Well, I, I do gig work, so I don't get mat leave. And even if I did get mat leave, you know, having kids is for the rich.

I don't think you understand, this is bigger than you. We are on the brink of disaster. Empires are falling. War spans the globe. You hold the key to saving humanity. Yeah, it's just that kids are super expensive,

Malcolm Collins: So [00:11:00] I love this part for a few reasons. One that like the idea that the people in power in our society today have decided that it, you know, well, well, you know, cash handouts don't really work for fertility rates. We should definitely have more of them than we have.

Well, yeah. Projects. Talk about it. Cause it's kind of insane.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So one of our recent projects for pronatalist. org was to create for every state in the United States, and we're happy to create some for other nations too, we just need to know if there's sufficient demand a guide to all state based resources for parents.

You know, anything from early diagnosis of developmental issues, like, learning disabilities or autism to. Full out like childcare support, meals, services, free transportation for minors government programs providing healthcare to minors. What was really astounding to me is there's, there are very, very few states that offer significant benefits to middle or high income [00:12:00] parents.

The vast majority of all services, be it free insurance, free childcare Early intervention, or even school choice, which is crazy is first and foremost available to low income parents. So, it's, what's interesting to me is It's actually way, way, way less expensive to have kids. Like it's almost free.

It is free in many States to have kids because you get free food for them. You get free childcare, you get free healthcare, you get free early intervention and therapy. Then you get free school choice. So then you can send them to. Private schools, even if you want to there's just, it goes on, like, there are so many resources

Malcolm Collins: and this is partially one of the reasons that might be driving lower income people to be so much higher

Simone Collins: fertility than right.

Because their opportunity cost is, is very low. They can, you know, they'll get the child care. They don't have to pay for it. And

Malcolm Collins: this is something I'd really like to advocate to is extending these programs to everyone or giving them to no one. Like, you shouldn't, you shouldn't have it be [00:13:00] free to have as many kids, you know, If this is something that we believe is something we need to offer as a society, then I think we should be offering it more across

Simone Collins: the board.

Yeah, just offer it across the board or don't offer it. And it's, it is, it's really frustrating because we, we thought we're going to be putting together this amazing guide of useful resources for parents and we're going to find anything. I mean, so there, there are still some things like, I mean, you and I with, with an autistic child have benefited from Pennsylvania support of early intervention, meaning that like, if your insurance does not cover ABA therapy for autism.

The state will provide supplementary insurance to cover it and that is it's been a game changer for us. So there are some services that are available, but basically what I'm saying is there is a real and very different opportunity cost for middle and upper income parents. But at the same time, still having kids does not have to be prohibitively expensive if you don't make it like that.

And we keep arguing that, [00:14:00] like, people are raising kids now as though they are retired incredibly dumb millionaires. They have to be chaperoned everywhere, they have to have their sailing classes and their tennis class, and they have to go to their robotics competition, and they have to go to, you know, this, and they're driven everywhere, you know, soccer competition, and then, you know, tutoring.

And no, no,

Malcolm Collins: she mentions in this, I'm sorry. Did you have more you wanted to say? No, no, no, no. That I thought was really astute. And it's something that is often lost on sort of the progressive leaning individuals. When we bring up just how bad it's going to be due to low fertility, is it, this is going to lead to the collapse of states and war.

And a lot of people just, they do not under like, like they did. They're like, they can understand how less land would lead to that, but not rapidly declining populations. They're like, global warming will lead to war. And I'm like, actually, fertility collapse is much more likely to lead to war. And, and we're literally, global warming will lead to, likely instigated by [00:15:00] fertility collapse, which was the Russia Ukraine war, which Peter Zayan predicted would occur at this time due to fertility collapse.

Simone Collins: Well, and keep in mind, so, so global warming will lead to very severe immigration crises and refugee crises. Demographic Collapse leads to war. And you know, the thing is, I think most people watching that video are going to totally miss that point. They're just going to assume, oh, she's riffing on like Terminator style, like, you know, references.

And, you know, this isn't actually what would happen. Because people also have this really, really strong vision of Demographic Collapse just means, Oh, fewer people, smaller communities, more space for me, lower rent. Like they don't see how this causes.

Malcolm Collins: Which is, which is what it does lead to. It leads to a Terminator like.

future. It's going to be bad. Yeah, no, she knows it. She nails it.

so. Okay, well, I've got

I got 63 galactic kroner, but with reverse inflation that's gonna be like 50 cents. Yeah, it's not gonna be [00:16:00] enough. Okay, well, um, why don't you have the kids and then you could go back to work after? And then you'd still have that career. Yeah, yeah, I mean I could, but then by the time I jump back into work I'm kind of broke.

behind where I was. It's funny, I heard myself say that and then I was like, wait a minute, wouldn't she be behind where she was, especially her male counterparts? That was one of the reasons women get paid less, you know. Yeah, it's this toxic cycle. The gender pay, yes, right, I've heard of that. Well, and then, you know.

You gotta work, so your kid needs to go to daycare, and you gotta pay for daycare, which costs the same amount as rent. It's really this, like, catch 22. So you're telling me the people responsible for creating life, possibly the most vital aspect of our civilization, just can't justify it? Yeah, it's kind of a what's in it for me.

Right. Right.

Simone Collins: So here's the thing. There's so many things. One is I find it really interesting that like, the, the common mainstream view is, oh, if you want me to have kids, you need to give me generous maternity leave. But then also, well, no, I don't want to have [00:17:00] kids because if I go on maternity leave, my career gets stalled and, and thrown back and then I'm no longer interested.

Malcolm Collins: We need to denormalize maternity leave and maternity

Simone Collins: leave. Yeah, we need, we need to normalize support for mothers as they work through maternity. So, like you've said in the past, and I really love this as a policy position, is if you do not have to work from an office, You should be allowed to work from home, especially if you're a parent, period.

You know, you should be allowed to have your infant. And if not, then you should be allowed to bring your infant to the office. And you should be allowed to take the breaks you need to, you know, do breast pumping, whatever, breastfeeding, and have the baby with you. And ideally, again, in house childcare should be a major enrollment benefit.

But this, this concept of needing to take leave to have a baby, I think is incredibly toxic. There is no strong historical basis for it, except for like literally like lying in as, you know, like a medieval European woman, which was way deadly, like poor peasant women were able to have just like [00:18:00] plock out kids and they wouldn't die at the same rate because they were still abdominally healthy and active, meaning they could push the poor thing out.

Whereas these women who are like, we're forced to stay in bed and actually take, take leave and take time off to have babies. We're like not able to push

Malcolm Collins: anything out. Everyone today believes that they deserve and have a natural right to the life of an aristocrat. And it's just

Simone Collins: not even good. It's just not even good.

Well,

Malcolm Collins: it's not even good. I mean, it comes with all the negatives of an aristocratic life, the ennui, the, like the aristocrats in the past were really not the class you deaf, Definitely most wanted to be. I mean,

Simone Collins: obviously, like, we wouldn't want to be aristocrats.

Malcolm Collins: No, you'd want to be like a merchant family or something like that.

You know, still hard working, something to do every day. But not the, the ennui laying around all day of these aristocratic women. They had terrible existences. That's

Simone Collins: pretty stressful. Pretty stressful. But yeah, no. It's a major cultural norm that has to be gotten over this concept of, Oh, being pregnant [00:19:00] and having an infant takes you out of contention in life period that like, that's like, that, that is the time you should be leaning into everything.

I mean, one, when you're waking up every three hours, anyway, there's so much more work you can do but you have to be able to have that flexibility and we don't grant that to mothers. And that's a really big issue. So like that really hits me and it's

Malcolm Collins: this big bugaboo. Hold on. I want to. Talk about something else she does in this, which I think is really interesting, just from a cultural perspective.

It'd be really cool if we could see things going this way, is she refers to women who have kids as breeders. And typically, you know, as in the prenatalist movement, breeders are what the opposition calls us. As a way to insult us or try to dehumanize women who choose to have kids. I mean, that's really the goal.

Like the left is terrible at recognizing how frequently they turn to dehumanization as a tactic. But but breeders is how they dehumanize. Women who have taken the choice and the costly choice as it is shown in this video to do one of the single most important jobs, if not the [00:20:00] single most important job that any human can undertake in our society.

And yet it is a completely unrecognized and unglorified job in our society. Like these women receive nothing for it in terms of thanks really from society. They get looked at like they're crazy people on airplanes

Simone Collins: or even their kids these days, because their kids refer to all the trauma that they inflicted upon

Malcolm Collins: them.

Well, all the made up trauma, because, you know, if you're trying to, as we point out, if you're trying to convert somebody to a cult, the first thing you need to do is drive an emotional wedge between them and their closest support network, which is usually their family. And so psychologists invent trauma, all trauma is self inflicted.

You can see our video called this. It's a very interesting take because it goes really into the data on this. Yes. Data. There is data showing.

Simone Collins: We're not saying that bad things don't happen to people and that that's terrible. And that shouldn't happen. What we're saying is the way that people interpret it as trauma, which is an additional form of harm is self inflicted.

Malcolm Collins: It's self inflicted by the data. And, and, and so, this is, this, I, I [00:21:00] really love to see us retake this word breeders to be like, to, to, to call the people who are, who society relies upon. You,

Simone Collins: to own it. It's such a gucky

Malcolm Collins: word. Well, I mean, we'll see.

Well, the joy a child brings. Well, actually, studies have shown that people without kids are happier and fluffier. Right. Right, because of the aforementioned issues. Right. Yeah. Yeah! It is not a conducive environment. It really isn't. Don't get me started on once we wouldn't have the baby. It's like, it's all dirty looks on the airplane and breastfeeding on public bathroom floors.

It is appalling how you treat your breeders. It is. Well, s**t. That's, uh, that's not the answer I was hoping for. Yeah, yeah, uh, sorry about that. Um, is there anything else I can do? No, no, that's the, that's the That's the main thing I, uh, that's the main thing I came for. Shoot. Okay, well, sorry I couldn't be more howl.

Oh, no, that's, uh, that's okay. That's all right. It's, uh, it's bleak out there. Oh, my God. For you or me? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It sounds like [00:22:00] you're dealing with some stuff. I am. I am. Yeah. It doesn't get any better. Oh, I'm not surprised.

Malcolm Collins: So, what I really love about this from my perspective. Is that in truce, what she is saying is, is, is comical in an inverse way than she thinks it is where she is. Complaining about all of the difficulties of being a mother in today's environment.

And one thing is pointed out, which is true, it will not get easier in the future. Like it only gets harder from here. Once our society, like, restabilizes the people who are having kids in the future, they will be having them under much worse conditions than humans who are alive today, at least for a couple generations.

And, and, and you see this in the person that she's talking to in this destabilized world where, you know, obviously this woman in this destabilized world you know, she understands the importance of having kids and she's doing it, but in a much harsher environment, and this is also true when you contrast our challenges today with the challenges of our ancestors, you know, [00:23:00] she is.

Concerned about social shaming on airplanes or having to do something a little gross on a public restroom floor. Did you know that on average, women used to lose one tooth with every kid they had? Remember you told me that statistic.

Simone Collins: No, so one of our friends did, but I can't remember who. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: so, so, the, just, and I, I really like, I feel like people maybe don't understand how hard life was just a couple hundred years ago.

Yeah, but

Simone Collins: also, like, I've never breastfed a child on a restroom floor.

Malcolm Collins: That's, you don't. You don't have to do that. No, that's a

Simone Collins: choice. And we've flown a lot with our children but yeah, no. But the,

Malcolm Collins: the larger point I'm making here, right, is one, either these are self inflicted things, right, or even, even as far as they are bad, just the life of a human today.

Is so free from genuine suffering, even if you are fairly poor is almost astonishing in a historic [00:24:00] context. We have individuals in our society today who are what people would think of as lower class. So this is like the people who like, don't have. A lot of stuff growing up and then they get surprised leaving school that they are expected to work for the rest of their life.

They have such of this aristocratic mindset, you know, that they aren't worried really about foodborne illnesses in a major way. You know, they have the refrigerated food. They have all of these flavors that we used to fight wars over for like spices and stuff. And now it's like, Oh, which Dorito am I going to pay, you know, a dollar for?

They have. So much food that their biggest problem is obesity, not, not a lack of food. They have they basically have no major diseases anymore. And, and I mean this quite seriously. People do not understand how horrifying it was to get a disease in a historic context. Most people were living with.

Just tons and tons and tons of just these terrible diseases. I worked at the Smithsonian studying human evolution. So I worked with a lot of [00:25:00] early hominid skulls and things that you would see frequently. It was like the bones sort of bubbled off from like funguses and it ate somebody's face off while they were alive.

And like, this is a fungus. It would be trivial to kill today with antifungal. In historic context, nothing you could do. just bubble your face off, but you kept trugging because you were doing it to make your children's life better. And we were going through this intergenerational cycle of martyrdom.

This generation finally was like, okay, I'm sort of cashing in. I'm not going to pay it forward. You know, with every instance of paying it forward, things got easier. I'm just not going to do it because I deserve whatever I want whenever I feel like it.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, there's also the view of like, Oh, I do see the future as bleak and terrible.

You know, I can feel good about myself for not having any of my descendants go

Malcolm Collins: through that. If you think the goal of human life is generally utilitarianism and you have like the ethical mindset of a child. Yeah, I mean, it is,

Simone Collins: it's, I'm sorry, Malcolm, but most people do get over it. [00:26:00]

Malcolm Collins: I'm sorry, I just don't get over how stupid it is.

It is, it is, honestly, general utilitarianism and negative utilitarianism. Negative utilitarianism. Both are, I think, are pretty childish, but general utilitarianism could also be used to justify what you were talking about if you think the world is going to be especially bleak in the future. You know, sort of aggregating human happiness.

I always say it's like you had a bunch of paperclip maximizing AIs together in a room, and, and they decide that good is more paperclips, and bad is less paperclips. And one guy is like, look, guys. I know that we are programmed to like paperclips, but I really don't think that they have intrinsic value. Maybe we should like, try to think outside of paperclips for a second here.

And then another one's like, well, you wouldn't like it if I stopped you for making paperclips. And then one's like, well, yes, obviously I am programmed to like paperclips. But what I'm saying here is. Can we think theoretically outside of what we were pre coded to do? You know, as we say, happiness is just, you know, what sort [00:27:00] of was pre code and pain is just sort of what was pre coded into us by you know, which of our ancestors, the, the, the emotional subsets that motivated reproduction and survival and more offspring among our ancestors.

It's not like a true thing of the universe. It's an accident. It's a genetic scar.

Well, uh, okay. I will let you go back to your, your show. What are you watching? It's, uh, okay.

It's a show called Real Housewives. Ah! About real housewives, I gather. No. Not at all. No. Do you want to watch an episode? Yeah, yeah, I got, I got time. Okay, yeah. Oh, that's weird. I didn't think you had aliens yet. Oh, no, they all have plastic surgery. Fascinating. A beauty standard from the past? Hmm. Mm hmm.

Yeah, it's elective. They, they choose to look like that. ..

Malcolm Collins: Yeah it also covers, I think, very well, like, what we say humor is. Humor is something that makes sense in context, but is still [00:28:00] surprising you know, to us, it, it, it, this is our theory of humor every one of these things, you know, is about real housewives, right?

Oh, no, not at all. Like, it's surprising because, you know, it's called the real housewives, but you're like, yeah, but obviously also they're not real housewives. The What was the other joke there that I loved? I didn't know you had aliens yet. Yeah and um Well, what I

Simone Collins: think is most meaningful about this is, like, the default happy life that the present day woman has is And don't get me wrong, I watch shitty TV.

I love shitty TV. But I do not feel The deep level of contentment and satisfaction from it that I do from spending quality time with our kids. And, and so I just like, I would, I would say that like sort of the default. hedonic comfort that we are choosing to opt for instead of having kids is actually not that good.

And like, you know, we, we are, this is what your life will be without kids is, is you are doing the male or [00:29:00] female or non binary equivalent of watching the Real Housewives, whatever that may be. Maybe you start collecting cars, maybe you you know, get really into OnlyFans, like whatever. But it's not going to be Those

Malcolm Collins: are addictive, right?

Those cracker? No, I mean, oh, I love these. There's so many little kids snacks that you forget how good they are. Yeah. But by the way, for people who are watching the audio of this, what, what are these called? Cheese toast.

Simone Collins: Cheese Toast.

Malcolm Collins: Cheese. Toasted cheese. So this is a, a

Simone Collins: no no. The name of them is T-O-A-S-T.

Cheap.

Malcolm Collins: But I, I think, are we,

Simone Collins: are we going for like endorsements now? Are we trying to get a sponsorship from Coors and Coca Cola and Toasty?

Malcolm Collins: I'd love it when we get to that stage. So she I think that's the lifestyle that she's portraying here is really the epitome of the lifestyle that people are actually afraid of giving up.

They say they're busy. They say they're overloaded and they're not accountable at the time that they're not doing [00:30:00] anything in bed and just not doing that much with their lives and that their lives really are quite sad. And this is something we're increasingly seeing in media. Is people getting older and realizing just how much they actually did give up by not having kids.

One of the things that sort of stabilized in their lives and it's no longer an option for them. And we, as a foundation, keep having people reach out to us, Oh, I'm too old to have kids. And we're like, that's why we spend our money trying to get younger people to have kids. Not so, you know, Frankenstein you into having kids because it would cost the amount of people we can reach with the amount that we can help just one, you know, 45 year old woman have kids.

It's astronomical. It's biblical. And so it's about convincing people earlier that, like, this is something they need to take seriously. And yeah, just, just the indolence of, of life is really sad that this is what they're trading it for. This is what they're trading the future of our species for. But in many ways, I think it's a good thing.

And, you know, we, we have the track to it will have gone live before this on [00:31:00] this is God's will because really the people who succumb to these idle pleasures over the effort of intergenerational human intergenerationally expanding the human. Potentiality this intergenerational cycle of martyrdom that humanity has gone through.

If we take them to space, you know, that's dead weight, right? Like we, we actually do need to go through this crucible as a species before we can become a interstellar empire. And so, yeah. All right. We'll watch the last bit here.

Simone Collins: And I think that's it. I think it's just an ad.

Malcolm Collins: Bummer. Oh, but what I can do is read some of the comments.

Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. And I have it on Twitter

Malcolm Collins: I'm just astonished that the human race lasted until 2453.

Simone Collins: One person says on Twitter, the conclusion was still morally insane.

Malcolm Collins: What was the conclusion? Oh,

Simone Collins: like the woman from the future was like, Oh yeah, why would you like, yeah, nevermind.

Sorry. I guess there's, this is not going to happen. [00:32:00]

Malcolm Collins: I'm getting the exact opposite here. I love the social critique and how they both just have to agree that a person could see this, understand how bad things get and still be like, yeah. Nah, it's easier just to sit in bed and watch The Real Housewives.

Like, I need to be paid a dramatic amount by the government to think about doing anything else.

Simone Collins: Now here's one reply that, like, represents a huge portion of the prenatalist movement that gets my goat. One guy says So, feminism is inherently antinatalist and egocentric. I already knew that, but it's nice to hear you admit it.

And That's, like, I, I hate blaming antinatalism or demographic collapse on feminism because it is on hedonism, it is on culture no longer supporting families, this is a, a team effort and both men and women are failing here. And I, I, it's, it's not just that feminism is inherently anti natalist and egocentric.

We know so many women who want to meet men [00:33:00] and want to have kids. And those men are like, well, but I'm going to be polyamorous. Okay. And they're like, well, but how am I supposed to raise a kid with you? Am I just, just supposed to like. Take a bet and hope that you don't, like, choose another primary partner and leave me with a kid alone.

Like, this is a, it takes two to tango, and no, feminism is not solely responsible for demographical lapse, and it really pisses me off that people imply with comments like these that the solution is to just Remove female rights.

Malcolm Collins: One of the comments mentions as well here that happiness goes up if you have kids after 25 and are in a stable relationship. It goes down if you have them too early or when unprepared. And I think that's probably true from the data from what I've seen. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's Kids are a responsibility, and we believe that life should be without responsibilities now, you know.

As Wish has taught a generation, this is the latest Disney movie, anyone who doesn't just immediately grant everyone's wish with no effort is a [00:34:00] villain. Anyone who places responsibilities or reasonable expectations on individuals, and those individual expectations of themselves, how could you be so horrifying?

This reminds me of an upcoming episode. We'll be recording soon on Starship troopers, the movie being a quote unquote, satire of fascism. And it's like, but everything in that movie is better than our current universe and it is a democracy it's just. Uh, democracy in which people have to sacrifice something. A portion of their life to either military or civil service in order to vote. Um, and they're like, well, that's, that's the key evil of it.

Right. People have to make sacrifices. Um, and, and that's really where we've come as a society is the mere fact that somebody is asking you to make some sort of even token sacrifice to get something in exchange. That's what seen is the core evil.

Malcolm Collins: Well, anyway, I was glad we got to go over that together because I really liked that piece and we'll see It's a really

Simone Collins: funny skit too, like, it's just

Malcolm Collins: well done. It's a good skit, yeah, she did a great job. I, I do [00:35:00] really want to see a growth of a movement like this, and this is one of the things that does sort of scare me, and so now I'll get to the scary part of all of this.

Okay. Which is as the left begins to recognize that fertility rates are really an issue, they need to more institutionalize their answer as to why they're not doing anything about it. And the answer of racism just doesn't really hold water anymore with the rapid fall of fertility rates in Latin America.

So it seems that the answer they're coming to is humanity should just die. And that there's no reason for humans to be here or anything like that. Like that's how they justify their it, it's so interesting. It really reminds me of the right back in the day when people would point out like environmental destruction and they're like, well, the environment is here to serve us.

It's like a disposable thing. And when we're done, then we'll be raptured. So don't worry about it. And. The left very much treats humanity in the same way as like a disposable thing. We've had our go. And I think that [00:36:00] what scares me is if this becomes a mainstream position, if the antinatalists get into mainstream positions of power throughout society and you can watch our antinatalist videos to see just how unhinged they are.

You know, one of the things I was looking at. About antinatalist philosophy, because antinatalists seem to think it's like the most logical like, like obvious thing. And I'd look to see if any other group in human history had ever come to their possessions. Because, you know, there's been a lot of philosophers in human history.

No, it's a completely new movement. Really no one had these ideas before the 1900s. The, the, like the asymmetry hypothesis and stuff like that. And if you want to see our Rebuttals to these you can look up our video. There's a group that wants all humans dead and is weirdly reasonable about it. So the antinatalists as they grow, they become a real threat because a lot of them really do want to end all life on the planet.

The last time we had a world conflict. You know, I, I think the song at least the Russians love their children too,

view It would be such an ignorant thing [00:37:00] to do If the Russians

Malcolm Collins: you know, shows that no matter how bad the conflict got in the nuclear war, we had this understanding that at least those in power across society loved their children and wanted humanity to continue on into the future.

Yeah. We no longer have that guarantee with this gross of the antinatalism within the leftist communities. Yeah. And what it means is in order to self justify, justify why they are unwilling to make sacrifices on behalf of our species and just do whatever, because the left has created this promise of like, do whatever you want, whenever you want, and everything will turn out fine, you know, so long as it doesn't interfere with other people's lives and of course, this is unable to motivate the type of sacrifice that's necessary for intergenerational fertility rates.

Well, we no longer have this guarantee because this idea is going to spread that our opponents do love their children to or do care about the [00:38:00] species anymore. They are willing to, if they don't get their way, like a child throwing a temper tantrum, because many of them still have this very childlike mindset, just hit the button to end everything.

And then, and they do muse about it. You can go to the FLSM subreddit, like, how can I get control of enough content. You know, nuclear weapons to nuke the world, you know, and it is, it is going to become an increasingly common mindset. And I think an increasingly huge threat to the world. And I do not think that it's something that people are really coming through through logic.

As you have seen in our video, this is the current anti natalist community. Most of these people, you know, if you look at the statistics, they disproportionately show narcissistic traits this psychotic antisocial traits, stuff like that. But I think that a lot of people who are just sort of NPCs and need to justify why they who see themselves as good people aren't trying to save the future of our species now that it is clear that we have this existential threat.

The only answer they can come to is it's better to let the species die. And then they'll start fighting for this made up [00:39:00] answer that justifies their current behavior. Yeah.

Simone Collins: No, it's, it's it's bleak, but I love when people can frame something bleak in a fun way. That makes me laugh. So thank you. Well, I love you, Simone.

I love you too so much, and I'm glad that you have the level of creativity required to point out that, oh, you can have a family and not give anything up. Everything can be yes and, and it totally can, which I love. So thanks for that. All right. Love

Malcolm Collins: you.

I just

Simone Collins: love the mild smile that appears on your face sometimes.

Oh God. If I were a good illustrator, I would illustrate a page of all of the different Malcolm faces. Because they're so entertaining. You've all these different ones you do, you're different Malcolm faces.

Malcolm Collins: Oh gosh, what, do you like seeing me laugh and stuff when I'm No, you have

Simone Collins: like all these different little weird things you do with your [00:40:00] face, and I love it, and I want to illustrate them all, but lack the

talent.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I'll be able to see whatever you were laughing at this time, because this is recorded, in editing.

Simone Collins: That's true, yeah, I just had To capture that one face you do, but I always try to capture and then as soon as I try to take my face,

Malcolm Collins: but hold on, we got to talk about this show is Simone the show. Yeah.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe