Prepping for Collapse vs Building the Future

In this thought-provoking discussion, we analyze why apocalyptic and “prepper” mindsets have taken hold more than acknowledging the coming “dark age.” Apocalyptic visions absolve personal responsibility, making them memetically potent yet useless. Preparism feeds individualist control fantasies, not actual resilience.

In contrast, “dark age” outlooks force confronting the future to shape it for one’s community and posterity. We see figures like Curtis Yarvin and some organized religious groups taking this road less traveled. Ultimately more people must build alternative structures, not just bunkers, to inherit the future.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] He thinks that that individual should be chosen based on their proven competence and if they're capable to be cycled out that that would cause negative effects on, on the society, like they would be cycled out for the wrong reason.

And he's not insane for thinking this. I mean, if we look historically, like the two, I think greatest figures in demographic history were both betrayed by their own countries.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: By the way, did you know that the, the phrase toxic masculinity came out of the mythopoetic men's movement.

It was actually a description of the type of bad behavior that comes out of a society that suppresses masculinity.

Malcolm Collins: Interesting. Yes. But, we're here to talk about something else.

But I am very excited to be here with you today. Yeah. So, what I wanted to talk about, because this is something I was thinking about, where we often point out that humanity is heading into a dark age, but we also often really complain about apocalypticism in the Judeo Christian canon, [00:01:00] right? So if you look historically within the Judeo Christian tradition, there have repeatedly been trends towards apocalyptic approaches to the world.

Yeah. Which is to say you can look at the Millerist movement early in the U. S. There was this movement in the seventies. It was some like number code in the Bible. There was Y two K, there was and this number coded the vitals, the, the Mayan calendar one after that. Oh yeah, the Mayan calendar one.

Yeah. We just as, as the Judeo-Christian culture is incredibly, and it doesn't seem to happen with Themic culture as much as specifically, which is part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. So what I really mean is Jews and Christians really, really, really, really susceptible to apocalyptic. We love

us

Simone Collins: some edge times.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And these memetic sets of somebody who's like, well, aren't your views apocalyptic? Because you say we are headed towards the dark age. And I actually pointed out something that I don't think a lot of people realize, which is that dark ages, the belief that we are about to head towards a significant and dramatic [00:02:00] decline in culture.

is actually fairly rare historically in the Western canon. thEre are people who have said things are worse today than they were in the past, that it's very different than dark ageism. Warning that things are about to take a dramatic decline downwards, but one that you have power over and can affect.

Simone Collins: Right, because instead the view is that there's going to be a dramatic End. Just an end. It's end times. It's not, it's not dark times.

Malcolm Collins: And so why is this? Because I, because I think this is very interesting. Why, why there's this, this huge split here. And I think it's because of well two things. The mimetic viability of each of these ideas.

And two, what they imply for the individual. Right. So the biggest, if I was going to like sum it all up in one little piffy quote, it's that apocalypticism removes [00:03:00] responsibility from the individual. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas dark ageism increases the responsibility on the individual. Oh,

Simone Collins: that's where you're going with this.

Okay. Nice.

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, it's, it's, it's true, right? If you believe that society is about to head in a dramatically downwards direction, Yeah. You don't

Simone Collins: need to save money. You don't need to build anything. You don't need to invest in the future. You know, you, you can invest all in the now.

Malcolm Collins: Well this, no, sorry.

That's if you believe in apocalypticism. That's if you believe in apocalypticism.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Sorry. Yeah, so if you believe in apocalypticism, you don't have to do s**t, like, you can do whatever you want, right, like, because the world is either going to be destroyed, or, the only thing you need to invest in, if you're an apocalyptic, is spreading the apocalyptic

Simone Collins: message.

Yeah, getting attention, oh, that's so hard.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's not just getting attention. Like, obviously that appeals to the individual, but it also is memetically useful. Mm hmm. A memetic set that is spreading via apocalyptic messaging is going out there and telling people, Okay [00:04:00] just believe in the message.

That's all you need to do to prevent it, is believe in the message. And the number one place you see this AI apocalypticism. And if you want to see our videos on how unlikely AI apocalypticism is, you can look at our grabby, our reverse grabby alien theorem video, which I think to me is the most compelling argument I've ever seen on the point which is basically to say, if it was this easy to create a a paperclip maximizing AI.

We would see them out there in space everywhere. And if the reason we don't see them is because of the anthropic principle, i. e. we only wouldn't see them in a planet that hadn't been destroyed by them, well then we're about to see them, so it's irrelevant that we're working on them. Right? And there's a bunch of other answers, but, you know, watch the video if you're interested in that.

But anyway, uh, the, the, the point here being is that if I, for example, think that, that AI apocalypses are inaccurate, right? Then I don't need to invest in the future. I don't really need to do anything other than general hedonism. And [00:05:00] I can spend all of the money I raise at the financial organization, all of my time as an individual attempting to convert people to this movement.

But it's quite the different from, from dark ages. People who are like, society is declining right now, we are about to enter a dark age. Because there, I am burdened with both. Raising the, the flag about this while also building my own family to be stable in this environment and promoting social policy, technological policy, and technological innovation in a way that lowers the either extent of the dark age or the severity of the dark age.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I, it, I wonder is, is there like a. Catholic versus Protestant. No, because there's tons of apocalyptic Protestant groups. I'm just trying to get this American tendency specifically. And I haven't really seen this [00:06:00] in other cultures of the, perhaps that's just due to my cultural ignorance. They get like really excited about survivalism.

I mean, in the United States, there are. There are entire industries around, you know, the, you know, building up years worth of supplies of food with your MREs that you have in your bunker and all your guns and your bullets. And like, you know, people are like, they enjoy, there is an industry that is definitely built around the enjoyment of preparing for a dark age.

I'm being ready to go through it. What, what did you, what did, what culture