Why is the Pro-Natalist Movement Disproportionally Autistic?

My wife Simone and I discuss why the pro-natalist movement seems to be drawing many people on the autism spectrum. We share our thoughts on why autistic people may be attracted to intense affiliation and dedication to causes they believe in.

We also talk about the future of the movement, keeping relationships healthy in the public eye, managing our mental health as quasi-public figures, and more with our usual sense of humor.

https://manifold.love/

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Next time we're talked to by a reporter or something like this, we need to have you subtly drop that you want to replace the rest of the population with autistic people. Um, We need to have you.

Simone Collins: What do we call it? The greater replacement. The greater replacement The complete solution.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, you gotta say it's the greater replacement theory.

Simone Collins: I really like that, the greater I have a greater replacement theory.

Malcolm Collins: I'm a greater replacement theorist, where the autists are trying to replace us, and Simone here, you affirm, you as an autist are trying to replace them now, right?

Like, that's what the pronatalist movement's really about. Yeah, we need some progressive to freak out about this.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Great. By the way, one thing you would've loved is when the repair guy came, you know, because I was managing the call, so I wasn't able to stand next to the repair guy, and I couldn't keep Octavian away. He wanted to watch the whole time. Oh boy. So he got his iPad and he sat down right next to the repair guy with his back leaning against the repair guy.

You know, like he know and I'm like, on the bat or something. Oh my. So the guy standing there doing stuff and Octa and this kids like coddling with him, like [00:01:00] leaning against him? Yeah. . Oh,

Simone Collins: no. Octavian is, has zero fear of any strangers. One

Malcolm Collins: of my favorites as a, yeah, he, there were like guys out working by our place.

And Octavian goes, Hey, can I go up and give him a hug? And I was like, Oh no, Octavian, I don't think like the random guy wants a hug. And Octavian goes, Everybody likes hugs.

Simone Collins: This guy was like, he clearly wasn't a morning person. He was smoking a cigarette and like, drinking a Dunkin coffee and like, just looking like he wanted to die.

Malcolm Collins: Octavian was like, I want to go give him a hug. Even when

Simone Collins: he was really, really little, we'd like go hiking and walk past a group of people. And he would just like veer off from us and follow them because, you know, they looked like more

Malcolm Collins: fun, I guess. The new family's more fun. So Speaking of all of this, one thing that was really interesting at the pronatalist conference, because we got a better understanding of like what the base of the movement is actually like.

And at one point I was like, this [00:02:00] really feels a lot like the early effective altruist movement. You know, lots of really competent entrepreneurs disproportionately highly educated, disproportionately entrepreneurs, disproportionately tech people, disproportionately successful. And somebody was like, and we were like, how can we move this in the direction of the EA movement?

Not like in the corrupted direction, but in the direction of actually having tons of societal influence instead of just being a subculture that is four people of a subculture are seen as like a weirdo thing, right? Somebody goes, well, the reason why that culture works so well was because, it appealed to disproportionately autistic people.

And then

Simone Collins: like out of the woodwork, someone like sprang up and was like, did someone say autism?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And then like five people in the room raised their hand. Literally. It must've been. 40 percent of the room was autistic or 30%?

Simone Collins: There were a lot of autists there.

Malcolm Collins: It was, it was higher than I expected. And as people know, like Simone is autistic, right?

So this was like, yes, the EA movement was disproportionately autistic and still is. And the pronatalist [00:03:00] movement is disproportionately autistic. And the question is why? What's going on here? Now, before we get further with that question, I'm going to do like a little free ad for a product I want to support because I always support any interesting autistic focused dating products that are maybe going to get more of you guys wives.

So Manifest. It is a prediction

Simone Collins: manifolds. Hold on. No. So there was a prediction market called manifold. That is really cool. We went to their inaugural conference this year called manifest in Berkeley. And shortly after that conference, they were, they released a dating app called manifold love. You can access it at manifold dot

Malcolm Collins: love.

Yeah. And so, I don't know exactly how it works. Maybe you can read on the thing, but I, my understanding is that people will put up like profiles of themselves and then other people will bet on who you would be a good match for and they win [00:04:00] betting pools. If you end up with the person who they're betting, you're going to be a good match for

Simone Collins: now.

Basically, it's crowdsourced matchmaking via prediction markets. So they're combining matchmaking with prediction markets. And. Basically, you can create a dating profile, a lot of it's like typical dating platform stuff where you upload photos and you answer questions from a long list provided, you know, this includes like, do you want to have kids?

What's your personality like? And then basically this creates a collection of highly detailed profiles. And then anyone who joins, of course, can act as a matchmaker between profiles. So this isn't just a platform. Where people actively looking for a partner would want to be. This is also a platform where someone who's like, I feel like I can predict a good pairing between some people.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's good gossip if it's going on in your community. Oh yeah. Right now I hear it's mostly just used in Silicon Valley.

Simone Collins: No, they're like, I'm looking at it now. There's there's someone in London, New York [00:05:00] city, Beijing, Washington, San Jose, Fairfield. California city, greater London Berlin game, like all over.

I mean, yeah. Okay. It's like San Francisco Bay area. There is a lot. Singapore though, more New York city, Calgary. So Paris, so it is, it is actually, I think it's, it's starting out with a nice spread of people. And what I like is that matchmakers playing with this, this data aspect of manifold can profit with mana, which is there like in, in.

world currency. If they correctly bet on whether two individuals will last in a six month relationship or not. And I love that betting. I just, I like, I wish. We've got to do this. Like I want there to be like a running like thing in our family where we're betting on like all sorts of inappropriate

Malcolm Collins: things.

I would love that. I mean, it'd be so cool. Something like it's got popular on like a college campus or something. Well,

Simone Collins: even like, with dating too, like, I think one, one thing that actually came up at the pronatalist conference in, I think that same conversation [00:06:00] wher