Iran Doesn't Have a Future: The Most **** Country on Earth?

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dive deep into the current state of Iran in this episode of Based Camp. From air pollution and water crises to demographic shifts and government censorship, we explore the many challenges facing Iran today. Discover why Tehran is sinking, how water shortages threaten millions, and what the future might hold for the country’s people and politics. We also touch on Iran’s surprising strengths, from advanced drone technology to unique social policies. Whether you’re interested in geopolitics, environmental issues, or just want a candid, sometimes humorous take on world affairs, this episode is for you.

Episode Transcript:

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be discussing just how effed Iran is along so many metrics. Okay. So, we have done other episodes where we’ve talked about the rapid secularization that’s been happening in Iran and their fertility crisis because they have a fertility rate way low the united below the United States, despite being.

A theocracy and much poor than us, so usually means higher fertility rates. Yeah. And, and so obviously they’ve got all the demographic stuff, but we’re gonna be talking about stuff that might be even more important to have than people like water, air. Oh. Air, air. So an estimated 30,000 deaths nationwide every year in Iran from air pollution.

They have some of the worst air pollution in the world. We’ll, we’ll be going over this, but they’re capital city tyran. You know how in some cities you go to like Mexico City is sort of this way where because they’re surrounded by mountains [00:01:00] they, they they keep in all of the pollution. Yeah.

They get the,

Simone Collins: they call it like a, they have a word for it, like some kind of inverted vortex of.

Malcolm Collins: Death. Yes. So Tyran is uniquely one of these areas, tyran. And it’s also uniquely bad at dealing with it. Oh. And also the, the, the floor, like the streets like randomly collapse and you can like have sinkholes or what.

Giant sinkhole where you can have like entire buildings or blocks disappear. And I remember, ‘cause I was like freaked out when I saw this. ‘cause sinkholes are like one of my greatest fears in life. They really are idea that you could just be deriving and then falling to your death or sleeping. And then your house is gone and all your kids are gone.

So I ask, I’m like, okay, Google, like, how, how frequently do these sinkholes happen? And it goes. Oh, well in Teran you get a few of them a week and I was like a few a week.

Yes, in their [00:02:00] capital city, it was like parts of the road disappearing and stuff.

Simone Collins: So they kind what happens? Chi? Like do they have underground river? Like ess like in Mexico, they had

Malcolm Collins: an underground river until they drained it.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: So, oh, okay. And, and, and you know, I’m talking about hold on, hold on.

There’s so many more problems that they have. I’m sorry. Wait. No, no, no.

Simone Collins: You did. It’s

Malcolm Collins: over. If, if this is sinkhole city, it’s already over, they’ve lost their entire geopolitical footing. We’re gonna talk about that as well. Like, Iran’s situation may be worse than China’s, right? Like, like, and this is coming from a lot.

And we’re also gonna talk about. How would they censor information on the internet? How would they censor information on phones? What information they target, what society they’re trying to build and why? Like sand slipping through fingers. They have nothing and will be nothing. It is a very sad place, but we’ll also talk about a few.

Winds [00:03:00] they’ve had recently. Okay. Yeah. Their drone systems specifically have been pretty popular. Okay. Which is like a, a, a, a technical thing that is going to be important in future wars. Are they selling

Simone Collins: their drones to Russia or something? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: The Shahi drone which we’ll go into, we’ll go into the Shahin drone.

Okay.

Simone Collins: Good for them. Alright. I feel now I just don’t want them to have something.

Malcolm Collins: So, let’s just run some projections on their current water rates, for example, by the Wes. Even. If current practices persist, only 20 to 30% of the current crop production will remain viable by 2045.

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh. So they’re gonna need mostly imports.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Not, not awesome. Gosh. They also for water another fun one here is the term zero day. Came up for their capital city recently. Now they were able to get around it, but as of October, teran avoided a full day zero through emergency cuts, 20% reduction in urban use and [00:04:00] rationing, but the risk persists into 2026.

If winter rains fail, residents already face 12 to 24 hour cutoffs in the suburbs with tanker trucks flying to poorer areas. Yeah, this just

Simone Collins: sounds like Lima, Peru. Remember when they just be like, we’re shutting off the water today. No electricity

Malcolm Collins: today. Yeah, no. Yeah, whatever. So, so, Lima’s also gonna run out of water in the next 20 years.

Yeah, so

Simone Collins: that’s, well honestly, like a, a YouTube video I saw of where someone just walked around, like to run and like met a lot of people. You know, one of those, like, I spent 24 hours. It looked so much like Lima to me. Even the air pollution. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, and Lima has horrible air pollution too. Yeah.

Even though

Simone Collins: it’s right by the ocean. You, you have, it’s, it’s like, you know it’s bad when your boogers are black.

Malcolm Collins: Oh God. Yeah. I, I saw in, I was watching videos about Iranian doctors and they were talking about how bad the situation is and they’re like, I can get a kid in, in my clinic and I can be like.

Here’s what’s, what’s hurting this kid, Uhhuh, you know? And [00:05:00] he’s going to have long-term ramifications or die if this is not resolved.

Simone Collins: Okay. And

Malcolm Collins: I can do my best to address it. And then I open the door and the thing that was killing him just comes wafting back in. ‘cause his family can’t leave the city.

Right. They can’t go somewhere else. They can, they take

Simone Collins: the waters and b.

Malcolm Collins: I ran is they promised that they were gonna give houses for everyone.

Speaker: Don’t have windows, just dark rectangles where glass should be. Monuments marking and unfinished. Ghost city partisan only alone though. Head 70 kilometers out west and you’ll find hashed. Gerd. Built for half a million people home, two 50,000. Reverse course and head Northeast. There’s Gha ni Rashard, three decades old.

Still waiting for residents who never came at this rate. Likely never will.

Malcolm Collins: And so they just built these random housing things all over the country. But all of the money was grafted because, you know, it was taken by the you know, the Imams, whatever.

So these, these, how these apartment complexes are giant things of empty apartment complexes all [00:06:00] over the country that nobody’s living in that don’t really function. Because they didn’t think that, oh, we need to build the mirror where the jobs