Based Camp: Traditionalism Is Not the Answer

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In this eye-opening video, we explore the two prevalent factions within the conservative movement - the traditionalists and those advocating for adaptation. We debate whether it is possible or even wise to revert to the 'way things used to be', especially in light of major issues like infertility and technological advancements. Using the lens of history, we discuss how traditionalist groups have fared during civilization collapse and how some groups have found strength in adapting rather than resisting change. Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion about survival, adaptation, and the tension between clinging to the past and embracing the future.

(Bad) Transcript:

within the conservative movement there are two factions. There's the traditionalist faction, which is to say let's just go back to the way things used to be. And then there's the other faction that says, you know, this progressive super virus has screwed everything up yet. We need to, we need to learn from tradition.

We need to harvest truths from tradition, which can help us through this situation, while also understanding that people who blindly clinging to traditionalism are likely going to be as swept away by the sands of time as the extremist progressive mind virus zombies.

So what I'm getting is basically you can't turn back time.

You remove technology? Not really. I mean, if you, you can try, but there will always be some groups that continue to use it and they will outcompete you, right? So there, there is no option to go back to full pure Traditionalism really with some exceptions I suppose. Like you could go Amish and find a niche that kind of works for you, that's symbiotic with society as it progresses.

one of these social changes that we're dealing with is humans are becoming increasingly infertile and you can't outrun infertility with. Just having sex more often? Not anymore, not at the levels to which you, you're looking at a 50% reduction in sperm count over the past 50 years.

Over, over that, you know, a 30% reduction in testosterone rates in what, the last 20 years or something? Eventually, if the trends can trend you, which everything seems to indicate that they are continuing, humans will become increasingly and increasingly infertile. And the more you hold to IVF bad, you know, because with IVF you're losing access to some embryos. The more. You as a cultural unit are going to struggle against the cultural units that are aggressively using I V F one to not only combat this fertility collapse, but also to expand their own fertility windows.

that's the, that's the

core trap of traditionalism is that it is more effective, the more extreme you go with it.

Okay. And effectiveness increases linearly with how extreme you take it. So you are always. So like if you talk with like a Catholic traditionalist, right? Like they're actually not that much of a traditionalist. If they were more of a traditionalist, if they moved more like on the Amish side of the spectrum, if they disengaged with technology completely, if they went off the grid, they would see a rise in mental health.

If they would see a rise, infertility rates, they would see a rise in all of the things that show vitality within their culture.

.

why can't.

Traditionalist group end up being the group that survives, right? Yes. And, and the answer is, is because the effectiveness of traditionalism is linearly correlated with how traditionalists you become with groups like the Amish being the most effective forms of traditionalism. The problem is, is it technology?

Uh, uh, Quease you with many advantages, whether they are health advantages or just the advantage of one group having automatic weapons and the other group not having automatic weapons being able to produce, or one group having automated drones and the other group trying to fight those drones with automated weapons.

You, you cannot fight a group that technologically leans in. If you're a group that technologically leans out, you, you can, you can. Maybe like passively fight them for a bit, but at the end of the day, you always lose.

Would you like to know more?

Hello, Malcolm. Hello,

Simone. It's wonderful to be here with you today.

Are you speaking more softly because you are afraid Wake the approaching civilizational collapse.

Well, we did, we did have a podcast on that recently and we're going to be talking about it again today. Yeah, so today we are going to talk about the way people react to civilizational collapse.

And fortunately because we've seen civilizational collapses before, we, we know how it always, it turns out like the different ways that people react to it.

So naturally civilizational collapse typically looks the same because Civilizational peaks looks the same. , throughout history, whenever you had a group that was more urban and educated, they were almost always in universally seen as more a feat. And uh, sorry for people who dunno what that means, sort of feminine.

A you saw this in the way that the, the Romans saw the Greeks, but even if you go further back than that, you can see the way that the people around some of the first cities saw the people in the first cities as very iffy. Maybe the only notable exception of this I can think of is the Assyrians.

But, but we don't even know what their rural population thought of them. So it, it could just be an overreaction. Like these could have been, it'd be really funny. The, as Syrians are just seen as like wildly effe and yet we see them as like these over bloody people because they were like a guy having a midlife crisis.

Like drawing all this bloody stuff on the, the wall like, or like a teenager, like, mom, I'm so tougher. This is so harsh. I guess you could argue that some of the meso American civilizations, like the Mayans might be an exception too. But anyway, generally speaking, and this creates, I think, an illusion for people.

That is one of the big problems, I think in how conservative movements today see civilizational collapse is they, correctly see that leading up to a collapse. You get higher rates of Often L G B T acceptance, you get higher rates of female participation in the workforce. You get higher rates of many things that today are associated with generic progressivism.

Of course, the the counterfactual here is what is a collapse. It's a decline from a peak of civilization. So all of those things are also things that you see more of at the peak of the civilization than at any of the troughs of a civilization. So it is hard to say that they caused the collapse.

However you know, there, there does seem to be some evidence, right? You, you know, you keep seeing this pattern of these things right before the collapse. So they, they may be correlator. Right. So civilizations regularly go through this cycle where they become more accepting, they become more innovative, and they become more urban.

And as a result of that, social institutions change and it changes the way parents are interacting with their children. And it changes the way society interacts with other people. And you begin to see social institutions collapse. This is just like a historic thing. We've seen this multiple times. You saw this was the height of Athens to the fall of Athens.

You saw this was the end of the Renaissance. You saw this was the end of Rome. When these collapses happen there is one natural reaction to them, which is we need to go back to the old ways. And then there's another reaction to it, which is, well, let's look at the, the social changes that we've had recently.

And accelerate them to see what comes next. And we'll use Rome.

Yeah. Hold on though, because I don't think