Episode Details

The podcast episode from Based Camp with Malcolm and Simone Collins dives into alarming CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) data on youth mental health and suicide ideation (euphemistically called “youth in Asia,” “joining the euthanasia,” or “speed running life” to skirt filters). They discuss 2023 statistics showing persistently high rates of persistent sadness/hopelessness (especially among girls at ~53%), serious consideration of suicide (~27% for girls, ~14% for boys overall), planning, and attempts—rates that barely declined post-COVID lockdowns and remain shockingly elevated.

The hosts argue modern school culture, urban monoculture, social contagion, affluence/leisure, and lack of hardship (e.g., small families vs. large ones creating built-in resilience) contribute to this crisis. They critique mainstream parenting/schooling as dangerously “normal” and advocate for pronatalist, counter-cultural family strategies—like large families for forced hardship, framing your family as discriminated against by dominant culture, or custom holidays to instill gratitude and purpose.

They touch on related topics: higher rates in affluent/elite environments, comparisons to communities like trans or furries, gender differences (girls more ideation/plans, boys more completion when attempting), dystopian cravings in female psychology, nihilism’s social appeal, and the need for meaning beyond pleasure/validation.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about. The

Simone Collins: in Asia

Malcolm Collins: youth joining the youth in Asia. And we have to find creative ways to say this stuff so that we don’t get in too much trouble here

Speaker 15: You need to take a cold, hard look at your stance on youth in Asia.

Speaker 17: Oh, I don’t care about them. They’re conformists and they’re communists.

Who? The youth in Asia.

Simone Collins: to people who opt into the afterlife early.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Speed running life.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: The speed running generation. So we had done an episode previously on CDC statistics that were so shocking that they showed that the. 24%. So about one in four young women created a plan to join the euthanasia, not over the course of their childhood, but in any given 12 month period.

Simone Collins: It’s insane. That’s [00:01:00] insane.

Malcolm Collins: Insane. And this is CD, C, right? Like they have a reason to underplay this, right? So, I did that episode, and when we did that episode, the data that we had access to, that the public had access to was from 2021. And everyone was like, well, that was during the COVID Lockdowns.

Mm-hmm. And being during the COV lockdowns, I can understand why you might have higher rates. Right. So. Let’s go at the later numbers that have been released since then, and the latest we have is 2023 data. What is the rate for girls now doing that?

Simone Collins: Hmm,

Malcolm Collins: 21%, only a 3% decline. And still well over one in five young girls.

Makes a plan to join the euthanasia every 12 months period, not over the course of her childhood in any given 12 months period.

Simone Collins: That actually [00:02:00] surprises me. I would’ve honestly expected that it would be higher because I remember looking at some statistics around the pandemic that showed that people’s rates of severe.

Ideation of, of bad types increased right before school started, or like as school started and actually went down over the summer and during breaks, they were like just less stressed and they were not