Episode Details

Queen Victoria was basically the 19th-century version of a hardcore weeb… but for Scottish culture.

She fetishized tartans, kilts, and fake clan traditions so hard that she forced visiting nobles to show up in made-up “clan tartan” outfits — and they actually did it. Today, huge numbers of Scots genuinely believe this stuff is ancient… because Scotland’s education system is apparently cursed.

Meanwhile, Nassim Taleb fans keep preaching the “Lindy Effect” (longer something survives → longer it will survive) as gospel in crypto, culture war, and trad circles. But in 2025–2026 reality — with hyper-rapid technological, economic, and memetic change — the Lindy Effect has basically inverted.

In this episode we cover:• Queen Victoria’s Balmoral weeb arc and how she single-handedly invented the modern Scottish aesthetic• Why almost nothing you use or celebrate is actually “ancient” (spoiler: most traditions people call timeless were invented 1850–1980)• The original Lindy deli comedians meant THE OPPOSITE of what Taleb claims• Survivorship bias, Fortune 500 churn, disappearing classics, collapsing orchestras…• Why rigid “antiquity = virtue” thinking is suicidal in the modern world

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] So Queen Victoria

Simone Collins: Imagine a weeb invented our modern perception of Japanese culture, even as believed by the Japanese. That’s what Scottish culture as we understand

Malcolm Collins: so she then. Starts telling any of the Scottish nobles who visit her house, that they have to come in their clan tartan

Simone Collins: and in their, and

Malcolm Collins: they’re like and they’re like, my what? And so it’s like, it’s like a weeb. Goes to Japan and he says that everybody’s daughters have to come in their magic girl costume.

Simone Collins: He’s come in your formal Goku hairstyle, sir. .

Malcolm Collins: And these, and these Japanese people are like, like, and they’re like, it’s the, it’s the queen. I’m gonna dress up my daughter like a matching girl. We’re going, we’re going all in on this. And the funny thing is this, since Scottish people today, the country has such a terrible education system that many of them believe that all this stuff,

Speaker 9: We saw the lochness monster. When all of a sudden this huge creature, this giant Ste from the Pete Lithic air comes out of the water. I yelled. I [00:01:00] said, what you want from US? Monster? And the bent down and said, I need about three 50.

Simone Collins: How much of a weave Queen Victoria was. She also allegedly would, would while visiting Balmoral slip into this fake Scottish brogue. So you can imagine like a weeb going to like spend their summers in Japan, like speaking in ic, Japanese accent.

And you would imagine

Malcolm Collins: built their entire culture off of her we fantasy.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: . Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about one of the ideas that has become popular in pseudo intellectual circles. And I want to talk about how wrong it is.

Simone Collins: Are we, so intellectuals, is this one of our circles?

Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah, it’s, it’s called the Lindy Effect. And it often comes up in the concept of something being anti Lindy or a heuristic where the longer, a non-perishable thing like an idea [00:02:00] technology, cultural practice, book or institution has survived the longer its expected remaining lifespan as its proven robust against time and disorder.

So this concept is really, really, really popular in the conservative space. So they’ll look at something like techno puritanism, right? Like our family’s