We discuss why many wealthy and powerful people seem to be building bunkers and making end times preparations. We explore the frontier instinct towards apocalyptic fantasies, how this varies by ancestry, and why it persists generationally. We cover bunker features like AI kill drones, the risks of private security forces, concerns around climate change and social instability, and why islands are not actually that safe. We argue this preparation makes sense given fragile infrastructure but warn against the Marxist perspective of the ultra-wealthy wanting collapse.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. You sent me an interesting tweet by our friend,

Diana Fleishman friend of the show, done a few episodes with us. What was it on? Talk a bit to this

Simone Collins: bunkers. So essentially she posted a Twitter poll recently asking her followers.

If they received 3 million, would they put some of it toward building a bunker, you know, for like end times or whatever? And the vast majority of responses was no, they would not. The average person is not thinking about this, but I have noticed that on the side of Very wealthy people and also some of our friends who are not necessarily like insanely wealthy, but they move in those circles are totally thinking about this and totally want the bunkers and totally have their getaway plans.

And then there are some like articles coming out about fairly prominent people, either attempting to or planning to build their. Cool, scary times bunker. So apparently Peter [00:01:00] Thiel had plans to build a bunker in New Zealand. I think it might have been rejected. I don't know what the current status is, but Sam Altman had at some point, he's the CEO of OpenAI said something about like, you know, kind of being in on that. And like, you know, his plan was to go to that bunker, to Teal's bunker, if things went bad.

Malcolm Collins: You know, Simone, I don't know if you know this, we have two different bunker invites. We do? Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to go into who they are or anything.

Simone Collins: Well, I wish you were from Mark Zuckerberg because he certainly has the coolest bunker. I just want to read a description from Wired Magazine because It is so fun.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: According to plans viewed by Wired and a source familiar with the development, the partially completed compound consists of more than a dozen buildings with at least 30 bedrooms and 30 bathrooms in total and is centered around two mansions with a total of four area comparable Oh, sorry.

With a [00:02:00] total floor area comparable to a professional football field, 57, 000 square feet, which contain multiple elevators, offices, conference rooms, and an industrial sized kitchen, in a nearby wooded area, a web of what, 11 disc shaped tree houses are planned, which will be connected by intricate rope bridges, allowing visitors to cross from one building to the next while staying among the treetops.

A building on the other side of the main mansions. We'll include a full size gym, pool, sauna, hot tub, coal plunge, and tennis court. The property is dotted with other guest houses and operations buildings. The scale of the project suggests that it will be more of a personal vacation home. Zuckerberg has already hosted two corporate events at the compound.

And the plans show that the two central mansions will be joined by a tunnel that branches off into a 5, 000 square foot underground bunker. So not all of this is underground, like a lot of it's sort of above ground, which many of these planned things appear to be. They're not all like these super underground [00:03:00] nuclear fallout bunkers.

And many of the compound's doors are planned to be keypad operated. or soundproofed. Others, like those in the library, are described as blind doors made to imitate the design of their surrounding walls. The door in the underground shelter will be constructed out of metal and filled with concrete, still common in bunkers and bomb shelters.

So, What I love about what Zuckerberg is building, the very least, is that like, he's clearly making a mixed use place. Like, I love, I hate the idea of building a bunker that you're just not going to use. And I love that he's like, you know what, if I'm building a bunker, I'm going to make it like the coolest vacation house as well.

You know, kill two birds with one stone. Even if the end times don't come, at least I get to like You know, have some fun, some good parties, good vacations in Hawaii. I,

Malcolm Collins: I, I absolutely love this as well. And so something that you had mentioned is, is not a lot of people are doing this. That has [00:04:00] not been my read at all.

I would say it was in the billionaire circles, almost every single one of them that we know of. All the billionaires are doing it. And, and within our wider friend group, like if I think of our friends who work in VC and stuff like that, I'd say 80 percent of them have some sort of bunker system or off the grid plan.

And if they're conservative, I'd say 99 percent of them do. Which is interesting, and so the question is like, what do they know that you don't know? And I actually think that the answer is going to be a little bit of a bummer to people. And it comes from hold on a second. To actually address something that some people were talking about because they want to use the resident J O O's comments on the situation in Manhattan. Where the, the tunnel Jews, where it was found that they had dug these, the teen boys had dug these tunnels or like built out these tunnels underneath one of the I think it was synagogues or something like that.

Um, [00:05:00] And, and they're like, Oh, look, it's proof. And they had like creepy old like beds in them and stuff like that. And they, Oh, they went by like the girls, basically the girl's dorm. No,

Simone Collins: a woman's bathhouse, a woman's ritual bathhouse.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Okay. Basically the girl's dorm. Okay. I'm sorry. The funny thing is, is people, like, they look at this.

And they're like, Oh, this is sign of something nefarious going on. And I'm like, actually, this is more of a sign of like, you're out of touchness with traditional masculinity. No, it's true. Like, like a traditional boy childhood. I had forts in the woods. I had, and when I was in the city, there was like at various places, I always had some sort of like fort in a derelict building or something like that.

There was a derelict building by ours that we would go like explore and we had like little areas that we knew about. And of course you take the little like doll heads and stuff like that and all of the creepy things. Well, one of the ones near us was an old, hospital, and there was a children's wing of the hospital, [00:06:00] you know, you had all the decaying toys and all of that.

It looked extra creepy, but of course, that's the home base when you're setting up and making it, you know, look that way. And of course, anyone he grew up in the movie era of like the 70s. Every single male coming of age movie had a, you know, them drilling a hole in the side of the the wall on the girl's dorm.

You're starting to leave s**t! Hey, beat it, midget! But I'm missing it, man! Would you shut up and you stay on your side?

Malcolm Collins: Like, is it gross? Yes. Is it something that they should have been doing? No. Is it normal male youth behavior and, like, not the sign of, like, child, like, whatever smuggling? No, it's not like that. It's the insane conclusion to draw from that. Yeah. People

Simone Collins: are like, Oh, like these, these disgusting child sized mattresses who's been forced to sleep on them.

And it's like, dude, their little sister probably like aged out of it. And they were like, Oh yeah, mom, dad, I'll go dispose of it. [00:07:00] And they're like, Oh, finally we have something soft to sit on down here. You know, this is the desire of

Malcolm Collins: young men to build little forts in hidden areas. And then of course, because it was a religious extremist, you know, community like these.

They probably associated it with some form of like religious purpose as well.

Simone Collins: Everything's through that filter, you know, and if it wasn't that it would have been like Marvel movies or something, right? Like,

Malcolm Collins: whatever. Right, right. Well, I mean, when you're young, you know, you do that sort of stuff. I mean, if you don't have a religious tradition, I don't know, it's like a Wiccan spot or something like that, or it's that, you know, Oh, I'm doing these little.

Like special magic things that like other people don't have access to. It is normal kid stuff. And it was the kids who did this. So this wasn't like older people in the community. It was like a group of young men. So, yeah, whatever. Right? Like I, but I think that that's sort of what we're seeing here.

Okay. Is. I think you have an instinct within some populations to build little fortifications. And I think that this instinct, you know, it comes from an episode that we were going to do, which [00:08:00] is the frontier people's instinct to crave apocalypses. I think when you're talking about the general population you know, you ask them, about you know, do you have a bunker?

No, they can't afford a bunker. You ask them, do you have a zombie plan? Like, when was the last time you thought about your zombie plan? I, I think especially if you're talking to conservatives, probably 80 percent of men have spent. Some time, like a lot more time than they need to, given the actual probability of a zombie attack, thinking about their zombie

Simone Collins: plan.

Yeah, are you asking like, how many MREs do you have? Like, you know, or even like you, you can see this built into some religions, like, you know, the, the Mormon Norm of having a certain supply of food all that, you know, like, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: well, and a lot of people don't know, but the, the, the because your grandfather worked on one, the, the the bones of

Simone Collins: the bunker.

Yeah. At the bottom of some

Malcolm Collins: large temples. Yeah. So a lot of these frontier religions have this, but I actually think it's [00:09:00] a genetic. instinct in the same way that I think that like sort of, the men, the young men of a tribe before they come of age, like building little traditions together and building little forts together, it's likely a traditional instinct because that would have really helped you bond with your kinsmen in a historic context and still does.

But I think in addition, in developing secret rights and everything like that, you know, you see this, what is a fraternity if not that. All the boys get together, they, they have a A place that's disgusting often and they have secret little rituals and everything like that. This is a very conservative instinct, you could say.

But then in addition to that, I also think the prepping for like things that can never happen is interesting. One of the most interesting things is if you ask people What's their velociraptor plan? Now this isn't as popular today because the Jurassic Park movies aren't as popular as they used to be.

Okay. Something like 20 percent of men would have a velociraptor attack plan of their house, like in their house was surrounded by velociraptors. Just like not a scenario that's going to remotely happen, but there's still planning

Simone Collins: around. It's fun to fantasize [00:10:00] about, right?

Malcolm Collins: Right, but I don't think everyone does this.

I think people who are from areas that have been civilized for a really long time don't have apocalyptic plans as much as people who lived in frontier areas for a long time. So Yeah,

Simone Collins: because surviving in the frontier Is surviving in the apocalypse.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, no, an apocalypse can happen at any day, you know, basically an apocalypse.

Right. Yeah. You know, you're building, then what do you have? You're back to square zero again. Right. No, I

Simone Collins: mean, you don't think about it. No, just even on a nice sunny day you know, food is limited. Locusts could come through, you know, some kind of pests could come through and completely wipe out all your food.

A snowstorm could come raiders, you know, like, you know, in some cases, like, local tribes that are very antagonistic or sometimes just like, like thieves on the road, you know, could just come and like attack your house at any time. Like it's, it is 100%. It is the, the frontier. It's an apocalyptic scenario.

So to a great extent, the [00:11:00] kinds of concerns that people are planning around are exactly the same concern their ancestors survived around.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And the people in these contexts who didn't have this instinct to have like a hidden store of food away from their house to have like a backup house that's like uniquely defensible to have like, they.

Just died when these things happen. That's why this instinct is so strong in these populations. It's also why if you look at the frontier, like if you look at the best apocalyptic movies, they are coming out of frontier areas. So you look at like good Hollywood movies, good, like like, Road Warrior, where did that come from?

Australia, right? You know, all of the good apocalyptic stories typically come from the Americas or from Australia. And if you look at anime, they honestly just don't do a very good job with apocalyptic stories. I, I've never had a good apocalyptic anime that I really liked. High School of the Dead is probably the closest.

I think it's the best zombie property I've ever watched. But it wasn't [00:12:00] really told like an apocalypse story. Yeah. Which is much more you know, an instance where you're forced to like prove your mettle and like everything. Yeah,

Simone Collins: it's a survival story. An apocalypse is very different from survival scenarios.

It's about a sustainable life going forward. It's about having a defensible property. It's about having a food supply. It's not about making it from one day to the next as the zombies try to kill

Malcolm Collins: you. Yeah, which is what you often see more in the Japanese stories, right? Like it's not about building a settlement, building the defenses around the settlement.

This is what the people from these apocalyptic traditions start fantasizing about. And I also think that there's different colors of apocalyptic tradition that people fantasize about given the environment that their ancestors had to adapt to. So if you look at me, like my apocalyptic fantasy, when I look at it, when I listen to the songs associated with it,

I, I love it.

A part of my heart longs for it. And you could say, well, who would ever long for this? It's the Frostpunk universe.

Are those [00:13:00] who would defy us Who choose oppression over ascension For the pie is dizzy and ends without regret Depend a bend on questioning the direst twisted I am this pariah's and their heretic messiah Winter blizzards to infinity, so sing the hymns and legionaries Hand in and skin the sinners if you wish to skim divinity Each shiver will deliver us, deliverance in time Earn the innocence for penitence if we preempt the crime This battlement of sacraments has chatteled to our right The sacrilegious and recalcitrant shall vow of this night Non believers shall not deceive us, we shall greet their cheek with grievance In this ceaseless season we redeem the meek with bleak obedience I'M SEEKING A It's unheeding heathens, either bleed or bleed allegiance.

Blessed be relief from freedom, lest ye feel the need for treason. Since the precept was decreed, its certainty was be determined. Mere herds of sheep are people, thus they need to be subservient. Be so turbulent a firmament, the worst of men survive. Pray their mercy may preserve us once we touch the other side.​

Simone Collins: [00:14:00]

And here you are complaining about our interior temperature being 51 degrees. Come on, Malcolm. Right?

Malcolm Collins: Yes. You need to edify the spirit.

Simone Collins: Would you know, I know Octavian the other day, I just have to say this.

The other day, he was like, I love the cold. And I'm like, yes,

Malcolm Collins: yes. Our house is a cold house, not heat in the winter with our belief system, right? You know, constant , self deprivation. Yeah. So, It, I think what we're seeing here is an evolved instinct and I mean,

Simone Collins: yeah, we also frame it as something that people enjoy.

It doesn't seem that all of the people involved with this enjoy it. Like they're actually worried and you know, some of our friends when they've spoken about it, don't talk about it like they're enjoying it. They talk about it like it's keeping them up at night. So I wouldn't say I do agree. It's an instinct.

Just like a, a squirrel having the instinct to hide away food. I don't think that these people [00:15:00] enjoy it. Now there's this one Marxist media theorist, self styled I should say, I'm not just calling them that who wrote this piece in the Guardian about how, oh, these. Rich people just keep reaching out to me and asking for my advice because they think I'm a futurist, even though I'm a humanist.

And then sometimes I just go anyway, because I won't say no to the money, of course, and maybe I can convince them to be better people. And the general gist of this person's thesis is that the apocalyptic mindset that these wealthy people have is a danger to society because it's kind of this fantasy that they.

They want to come true. Like there can only be one, they, they want this future where only they survive. And, like, they might, the article doesn't, I think, explicitly say this, but, like, they might manifest it because they're the powerful people and they'll make it happen or they won't stop it from happening because they kind of want it to happen.

These are Marxist fever

Malcolm Collins: dreams.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. I [00:16:00] mean. I don't know what to say. Like I

Malcolm Collins: would only do that. I mean, they have their power because of the existing system. Exactly. Rich in the powerful in a society are those individuals who are often most threatened by ideas that counter The society and the mainstream ideals.

This is why you have individuals who are often clearly smart enough to understand the concept of the urban monoculture, understand the negative value sets. It's, it's, it's giving to a population, you know, like Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates or something like that. Like if they. Applied the most small modicum of thoughts to the way the world is structured today.

They would realize how unjust it is and how dangerous it is, but they can't, they can't afford to because of the world structure changed, they would lose what they have.

Simone Collins: I don't know. I think, so, it, among the threats that they were planning for that were listed, there was climate change, obviously. So like a lot of concern over that, but also social instability.[00:17:00]

And no, well, I, I, I think so there's some people who are covering this whole billionaire bunkers thing are also talking about people getting golden passports and all these other, like, you know, like, you know, buying islands. I totally don't think this has anything to do with apocalyptic planning. They're buying islands because they want to have a fricking island.

Like buying an island is like the worst place to be in an apocalypse. You're going to get taken out by the next hurricane. This is when I

Malcolm Collins: grew up, my family had a private island, the Bahamas. that we would go to and we would spend, you know, I'd spend a few months there every year. And you know, pirate raids and stuff like that.

They are, people think islands are much more defensible than they are. Yeah. The

Simone Collins: house that Malcolm lived in with his family, that they'd built on that Island, literally riddled full of bullets. It is like, it was so sad to walk through it. And it was so disturbing because it was like

Malcolm Collins: stuffed animals that have been

Simone Collins: stuffed animals, these kid beds.

Yeah. Like just. Yeah, caught up bullets, bullet holes everywhere. So anyway, yeah, no, these people are just buying islands because they want party islands and then, you know, other people are covering it saying, oh, they [00:18:00] think the end of the world is coming and the passport saying, come on, that's not going to do you any good in a real apocalypse.

I think people just kind of. For some people, it seems like a kind of hobby to pick up more passports. I think it's the bunker people that are actually thinking about this, but I think one of the reasons why I think they are planning for social instability is that a lot of the, the conversations are circling around the, like private security forces, for example, this, this Marxist who was, was flown out to advise a group of a small group of like five millionaires and billionaires about their bunker strategy rights.

Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked, how do I maintain authority over my security force after the event? The event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, solar storm, unstoppable virus, and malicious computer hack that takes everything down.

The single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be [00:19:00] required to protect their compounds from raiders as well as angry mobs. One had already secured a dozen Navy SEALs to make their way to his compound if he gave them the right cue. But how would he pay the guards?

Or, once Even crypto was worthless, what would stop the guards from eventually choosing their own leader? The, the billionaires considered using special combinations of locks and food supply that only they knew, or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe, Building robots to serve as guards and workers, if that technology could be developed in time.

So like, okay, so these, at least these people who are dumb enough to hire a Marxist to help them with their survival strategy Who are building bunkers and stuff are really concerned about security. Yeah, they are concerned about social unrest. They are concerned about people attacking them

Malcolm Collins: When we would say I mean, I hope anyone who knows our channel would say what we would say if we had a lot of money is that the skills needed in a good leader are going to change during this time period and you should build a system that [00:20:00] allows the society that you're building to elect the best leader.

It doesn't need to be you. You, you don't need to control, you're just lucky to survive the apocalypse. And after that, it's about building a strong culture and you should be happy if one of the Navy SEAL guards is running everything, if they're a benevolent and good leader, you should focus much more on good governance than you should focus on, and we did write the pragmatist guide to governance.

Then you should focus on trying to maintain power yourself. And great example of this. So in China, by the way, this is a, this is a great story. So when the CCP was coming to power there was, you know, the, the government before it, I forget what they were called Shanghai Shek's government was falling apart.

And one of the mayors, I want to say was the mayor of one of the major cities, took all his money. And put it in his car, like, in gold bricks, right? Oh, I love this story. And he, he, he just filled this, like, limousine with gold bricks, and he got in, and he had his limo driver drive [00:21:00] him out of the city, apparently, like, right at the city limits.

The limo driver Took him out of the car, shot him, and drove off with a limo full of gold bricks. Because that's why! You don't matter anymore! I got a limo full of gold bricks here! You've been a dick to me! And this is the problem with these people. If they haven't engendered the respect of the people around them in terms of how they've made their money and how they spent their money.

Which is very antithetical to the way we live. It, like, if you look at the way that we put money into our community and stuff like that, the idea that anyone in our community would betray us like this, and it's not like small amounts, like, this is the problem. You don't give your community, like, a pittance or something like that.

Because if you do that, then, you know, they still have a lot of So, one, never give your community Less than what they deserve to have the same advantages as somebody was in your family, right? Because then you're building a community of people who are like, I genuinely appreciate you guys. But on top of that, and we, we've had this, like we've mentioned to the community, [00:22:00] like, it'll come up sometimes like, oh, this person has, has mentioned killing us online.

And they're like, I, they better not f*****g come here. So that's, that's, you know, one thing is, is, is your. You, you need to actually be a good person and actually reinvest in your community. Well, at least on a meritocratic basis. But the other thing is don't have things that are worth taking. Within a system like this, like within our house, we have nothing that's worth stealing.

We have computers that will be like, like literally the most expensive things we have in our house or our technology. But it's

Simone Collins: like even our laptops are not like Like mine is four years old, three, three years old. Like, yeah, none of it. Like even our, our, our screens, like our bigger like screen, like in the kitchen is, is so shitty.

I don't think anyone would even take it. Cause it's like, I could imagine them trying to turn it on and like waiting the five minutes it takes for it to load, you know, and being like.

Malcolm Collins: We have like five sets of the same [00:23:00] outfit. That's not particularly useful. You don't have no one steals clothes or jewelry.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess a lot of it's just, but I mean, but hold on like in the apocalypse though, what these people are afraid of having stolen is just like literally their food, their clean water, their supplies, like the stuff that people need to not die.

Malcolm Collins: And I think what you need then is the thing that really protects you is by having a system centered around you or your property or something you have built that is stable and that people want to participate in.

Hmm. That's the thing. You want to be the one, if not stable democracy, because I actually don't think democracies are particularly good governing systems, and again, read the Pragmatist Guide to Governance if you're interested in this, but be the system where people can be fairly certain that they, that the best People that the most meritocratically competent people are going to be promoted was in that system to the to to a good position and that people was in that system were want for less than other systems and then people are [00:24:00] like, well, what about the angry non meritocratically competent people?

Well, the great thing is that if you like, if you. Sap the surrounding area of all the meritocratically competent people, then you don't need to worry about the other groups in the area because the meritocratically competent people will find ways to defend your settlement. So at that point, it's mostly just about having the ammunition and the guns and stuff like that, that can be distributed competently by whatever governance system you set up.

I will say one of the, the, I know bunkers that we have been invited to use is AI kill drones. So they wouldn't have this problem. We'd have to.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I mean, I think we're really like me just a few years away from most people being able to like commercially set up AI drones to defend their property, which is like, and that would change a lot like that.

Plus a good solar flare protected solar energy system and, um. You know, some other like energy supplies would probably do the trick. Right.

Malcolm Collins: [00:25:00] No, but I mean, I do find the AI kill drone thing. Interesting. It's a system where they've got a an area of farmland and did that's enough to support the people who would be coming there.

And then like a silo and the silo has the drone flying. Kill drones to protect the area, which makes a lot of sense. I mean, people would be like, well, that can't be operational constantly because they need to recharge. And it's like, well, it doesn't need to be operational constantly. It needs to be operational a few times before people realize that you do not attack this settlement.

And you put the people who you care about dying less on the outskirts of the settlement and the people you care about dying more on the inside of the settlement. very different settlement planning practices than you would have historically. And you, you can earn land and stuff like that by labor or by, by contributing to the settlement schools.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: But here's, okay. Here's the big bust that I think this group is missing. That like, I think you and I always bring up with our friends when they tell [00:26:00] us their bunker plans is that like, Realistically. Yeah. I mean, it's good to have an emergency plan. And I think this is part of just being like, everyone should have a good emergency plan as a part of a healthy balanced diet.

You should know what to, you know, you should know CPR. You should know how to get your kids safe if they start choking on something and all that, right. Put out a fire. And you should know what to do. If suddenly like global infrastructure collapses or, you know, there's a climate apocalypse or whatever, but like the real, thing is demographic collapse.

The real thing is the future of human civilization. The real thing is all that. And I think, you know, another group that gets put into this category of doomsday preppers are people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk who are trying to get humans off planet, right. Who are like, let's go to Mars. Let's, let's go to the, you know, let's get off.

The earth and that is, that is not the thing. Like [00:27:00] these, that is not, that is about saving civilization. That is not about saving their asses. Right.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. People are like, Oh, they want to scurry off this thinking ship was like, like rats off of, and it's like, I'm sorry, you idiot Marxists are the ones who thunk this ship.

Okay. You are the sign of the rot in society and that they have chosen not to take you shows that and when this comes to one of the things of, of, of wealth. And in our society, and it's something that I just, it disgusts me that people don't get this. So there are ways to make wealth that is unethical.

I agree with that. There are ways to like play the market where it's just, you know, showing intellectual superiority over other people. Okay. I get that. If you look at the wealthiest people in our society and you're not including women It's mostly people who earn their own money. So what does it really mean to earn your own money in our society today, outside of a few isolated scenarios?

It's like saying, okay, you can, you can get paid for one of two things. You can be a factory worker, like an [00:28:00] incremental factory worker, and get paid for the incremental productivity that you, as a factory worker, gave to that factory. Or you can be a person who allows Five people to do the job in the factory that 10 people used to be able to do.

And people are like, well, how can this person be making, you know, more hours of work than I could work if I was working from the time of Jesus to today? And I'm like, that's how, that's how, because they're literally adding more productivity than you could add to the world working from the time of Jesus to today.

And they deserve that money because of that. That is how the vast majority of ultra ultra also wealthy people are making so much money.

Simone Collins: This is super underrated. I just want to emphasize this because like there are all these shows out there about like rich families and rich people. And a lot of them just sort of frame them as incredibly dumb, incredibly unethical.

Like it's clear that these are written by people who hate capitalism and hate wealth. And like, I'm thinking about these are the most irredeemable unethical, terrible [00:29:00] antisocial people out there. And like the vast majority of wealthy people, certainly the ones that we've met are Good pro social people who care about making the world a better place, who are kind and patient and good to others.

They're a little

Malcolm Collins: burned from being constantly attacked by society, but it's clear that they at least started with a positive heart for society. And like, okay, for example, Jeff Bezos, right? Like a lot of people are like, oh, what a horrible person. Amazon, like the, the quality difference. If you didn't live in the pre Amazon world, the quality difference that Amazon makes to my life.

Every day. If you're talking about, like, time saved, if you're talking about, like, the amount of incremental, they're like, how could he make as much as, like, like, like, like, like, literally, I think he probably gives every American citizen two hours extra time every day compared to the pre Amazon world.

Simone Collins: That's a big claim. 20 minutes. Well, maybe

Malcolm Collins: not two [00:30:00] hours. 20 minutes a day. 30 minutes a day, at least. 30 minutes a day for every American citizen is enormous if you're talking about like productivity increases in our economy. To, to, if you gave him 30 minutes of our salary every day for every American citizen, then that gets a lot more interesting because you're like, oh, Less than what he's probably actually making, you know, and at that point you're like, okay, I get it now.

Right? Just people are unwilling to recognize how little they add to the world compared to other people. I think that's the real problem. If they want to pretend that everyone's adding the same things to the world and that's just not true. And in a communist system that distributed wealth fairly, people like him would still be getting stupid amounts of wealth.

Yeah, but communist didn't communist systems intentionally end up sabotaging more competent people. And there's like a whole, you can read the pragmatist guide to governance

Simone Collins: for describing communist as in the ones that [00:31:00] have actually been executed. Like we've, we've come to understand that. Communism in theory, the concept of communism is, it actually requires like a science fiction world that doesn't exist yet, which is basically like post AGI, post scarcity, post singularity, and then totally you can have communism.

I think the problem is that like, a bunch of people decided that they were going to try it without like the fundamental necessary principles being there. I agree. That's

Malcolm Collins: what you're describing. I mean, obviously you have the telescoping history concept that was invented by Lenin, which shows to an extent you're right there, but I, I don't think that's, like, I don't think that those things are necessary for communism.

I'd like, like, I think that communism works on a small scale.

Simone Collins: Oh, it totally does. Yeah. But I don't think communism as described by the great communist thinkers was meant to be applied only at the family level, for example.

Malcolm Collins: So. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, it was great. This is a great conversation, Simone. We'll see how many people we piss off with it.

That's how we judge the [00:32:00] quality of, of how based we are. You know, I think we've already

Simone Collins: gotten rid of most of the Marxists at this point, but we'll see. Hi guys. If you're here,

Malcolm Collins: you're still around. We,

Simone Collins: we can't say we love you, but we tolerate you, but I love you, Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: I love you too.

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