Shinzo Abe, the Man, the Meme

<p>Join us as we delve into the multifaceted legacy of Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest-serving Prime Minister. This video explores Abe's significant political impact through his pronatalist policies, military reforms, and deep ties to the Unification Church. We'll analyze his efforts to foster women's participation in the workforce, reinterpret Japan's pacifist constitution, and strengthen alliances through the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. Additionally, we discuss Abe's influence on Japanese media and culture, including anime. The video also covers Abe's relationship with Donald Trump, the complex history with the Unification Church, and the circumstances surrounding his assassination. Engaging and insightful, this is a comprehensive look at Shinzo Abe's celebrated and criticized legacy.</p><p></p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> [00:00:00] Hello, Simone! Today occasionally I will go down a rabbit hole and I'll be like, this is something I really wish I could find a good succinct video on because now it's a topic that interests me.</p><p>And this topic is The Harambee of pronatalism, Shinzo Abe. I have just seen so many pronatalist Shinzo Abe memes of him trying to promote fertility. And then after the recent thing happened, which we'll go into where people in Japan became convinced that Shinzo Abe from the dead had told Trump to move to avoid being assassinated.</p><p>And it's just amazing. So first I'm going to bring the audience along with me. On a journey through some memes about Shinzo Abe. Then we're going to go into who he actually was, like what did he accomplish in his life? How pronatalist was he really? And then we're going to go into the assassination.</p><p>And then we're going to go into the, what [00:01:00] led to the assassination.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> All right,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> then. So we're starting with meme number one of Shinzo Abe here, which is him holding a gun out. And what does it say, Simone?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> . It says, stop watching VTubers, you stinky neets. Do your duty, have sex. I'm no longer asking. I</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> love this.</p><p>The next one I love, and this is something that as I first started, like, going into Shinzo Abe, I really realized how well liked he was within like, meme community. So here's one that's a political compass that shows a former Former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe shot dead, and it shows people on all sides of the political compass sad about this, but then the next political compass one, which I think is more true, shows everybody horrified except for the authoritarian lefties who are Hooray, death to Japan.</p><p>I'm coming. It says, and it shows from China News, like from one of their main sources. And all of the, you know, far, far [00:02:00] commies, they're being like you know, don't be stunned, celebrate stuff like that. So horrified. But I think what this shows is that the only people who were really happy that he died were the Was the crazy like pro china people which again if you're not pro china should make you love him even more And this was something that a lot of people were saying the analysis of him that made me want to learn more about him Is that one longest serving pm in the history?</p><p>I think of japan so very very popular person and people were like they don't understand like Japan losing him and some of the analysis I saw they said could significantly hurt the country because he was so effective at everything he did. For the next meme here this takes place in the friend universe.</p><p>And it starts with the character saying</p><p>Elves may live a long time. Oh, that's good! But across the board, we lack romantic feelings and reproductive instincts.</p><p>Wait, hold on.</p><p>We're quietly going extinct.</p><p>Huh?</p><p>Last time [00:03:00] I met a fellow elf was more than 400 years ago.</p><p>Sigh.</p><p>Perhaps we're closer to the end than I thought.</p><p>We're too late this time. You doing a girl voice, by the way, is so out of character for you. Here, do the next meme.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Well, I read that a boy and a girl can create new life by joining their bodies together. Can create new life by joining their bodies together</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> She's</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> like</p><p>yes It's</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> korobo and mitsubo are having their fourth and then it shows senzuabe My job here is done. And then this is one of my favorite where this was after the assassination and it shows a picture of like the scenery of Japan with Shinzo Abe's face fading out.</p><p>And it just says have sex in big letters. And then on the, the, the bottom, right. It says see you space cowboy,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> which was the outro from cowboy bebop.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yes, which was really got to [00:04:00] me So now I'm going to talk a bit about the the really funny thing that happened. Well, not funny, but I guess touching and there's memes about like women, like I cry at the Titanic men don't cry over anything.</p><p>And it shows the band like crying over memes of Shinzo Abe protecting Trump from the assassination. But this makes sense. They were, they did have a very, very strong relationship and we'll get into why this was the case in just a second.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> don't know. But here in a Japanese Twitter post, it says during his speech, Trump heard Shinzo Abe's voice calling him to attention in his ear.</p><p>When he tilted his head to listen to the voice, he heard the sound of a bullet cutting through the air and the bullet penetrated Trump's right ear. And he heard a gunshot. If Trump had not tried to listen to Abe's voice, he would have been killed by the bullet. And for people who are like, wait, why would a lot of people in Japan actually believe this?</p><p>Well, a big group of that liked Shinzo Abe was extremist Christians, specifically the Unification Church, specifically the Moonies, who would have believed something like this was possible. And people were memeing about this in the [00:05:00] West, and they thought it was serious. Well, apparently that was</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> why Shinzo Abe was shot, right?</p><p>It was this, the guy who shot him was Yeah, it was the Unification Church. It was against the church. And I</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> mean, in light of all these memes, you can think, Oh, these memes are so silly, etc. One of my favorites has always been the what I watched, which it shows Franks and it goes what I expected, which is Gurren Lagann and then it's a gif of what I got.</p><p>It's Shinzo Abe's face pointing at the screen and occasionally it flashes, have sex.</p><p><strong>Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-1:</strong> My very favorite Shinzo, Abe meme. I found after we recorded this episode.</p><p>It shows a post from our Reddit, which is verse the patriarchy,</p><p>some other witches have mentioned that doing spells directly against Trump are not as effective as we might hope. And he seems to have some kind of protection around him. And then they brought quote, unquote, some kind of protection around him and it shows Cynthia Bobby's face in the background.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> And here's a great one, which is a political compass one, which shows why Shinzo Abe was so well liked [00:06:00] show. It shows you know, people being shocked at his death and it shows people at every side of the political compass sad, but shows why they're sad.</p><p>So the authoritarian left, he oversaw 15 percent real increase in minimum wage while dropping unemployment to under 3%. That was left the authoritarian. righty authoritarian. He worked to ensure Japan could stand with America and protect democracy in Taiwan when the day comes. And then because he rebuilt Japan's military and then at the libertarian right, it just shows the economy going up under his leadership.</p><p>And then in the Libertarian left. It shows his policies open the door to ensure millions of women were able to join the workforce. And I just think that that's really cool. This, this guy who is so universally liked and I wanted to understand, and I will say that when I dug on him deeper, I didn't necessarily come away universally liking him.</p><p>Interesting. Well,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> that's what I was just going to ask you. Was he universally liked because he was shot because he was assassinated? No,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> it was universally liked before that, [00:07:00] but unfortunately his reputation took a hit in the investigation of the person who shot him. Because the person who shot him had, he didn't have no point.</p><p>He should, he</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> should have written a sternly worded letter, you're saying, maybe a</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> sternly worded letter, but Shinzo Abe may have facilitated a cult that destroyed a lot of people's lives and used the cult to stay in power, really. Yes. Now whether you consider it a cult or a religion, I mean, it could be like people saying, well, you guys do the same with like, I don't know, you know, being overly positive about Mormons, people who are like really anti Mormon and think of it as a cult,</p><p>and I'd be like, one, I don't think we're that overly positive Mormon, but like if they became like a major voting block for us and we were running and then they blamed us, like I could see, I don't know. Because I don't think the, the unification church is a much more culty cult than the, the Mormons, but we'll get into them in a second.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah, well then it would have to be if Tom Cruise was president, but then someone assassinated him because, you know, [00:08:00]</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Well, he wasn't in the unification church.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I know. Oh, he wasn't. Oh, okay. The</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> unification church. Okay. So I'll go quickly into this right now,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> please. Yes. I don't know this before</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> he was ever in his party, actually during the age of his dad who helped the unification church a lot, get established in Japan.</p><p>They began South Korean, right? Yeah. Which is a South Korean. cult or religion. They began to help the party a lot with local organizational stuff. And when he took over the party, he didn't like clear them out of the party and they still had a big role in helping with, you know, like flyers and door knocking and all of that in a very, very big way.</p><p>And people think that the party wouldn't have as much power as they had if they didn't have this free resource of human</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> labor. Hmm.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Okay. So his pronatalist initiatives. So womanomics in 2013, Abe called for a society in which all women can shine, setting a target that 30 percent of leadership positions should be held by women by [00:09:00] 2020.</p><p>This was a conservative, by the way. This policy aimed to increase women's participation in the workforce, which Abe believed could potentially improve both Japan's GDP and fertility rate. And so, right away, when we've gone into other countries fertility rates, and we've, like, laughed at their, like, extended maternity leave and stuff like that.</p><p>And he's like, get them to work! This is the first time I've heard one where I'm, like, one, counterintuitive, and two, probably right. And I will note, what is Shinzo Abe's legacy? The by far highest fertility rate in the region is Japan. So I mean, he was kind of right. Yeah. Women working does help fertility rates.</p><p>Childcare expansion, Abe planned to spend 2 trillion yen, approximately 17. 6 billion on education and child care. This included promises of free preschool for children aged 3 to 5, free child care for children aged 2 and younger from low income households. He did labor reforms.</p><p>He attempted to break down Japan's two tier employment system, which often excluded temporary workers [00:10:00] from the regular workforce. These reforms were aimed at creating a more flexible labor market that could better accommodate working parents. And then Abenomics and Abenomics 2. 0 in September, 2015. The first one is called Abenomics.</p><p>This is Abenomics 2. 0. ABE announced an updated platform that centered on raising the birth rate and expanding social security. This included creating new cabinet positions dedicated to reversing Japanese demographic decline</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Abe, huh?</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Now, a lot of people think that he sponsored anime that had pronatalist themes. Right. And I have</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> wondered that, when we've watched recently released anime, I don't know if you only watch pronatalist anime shows? No, I mean, the studio</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> that did, for example, Frank's, which is seen as having hugely pronatalist message,</p><p><strong>Speaker:</strong> Yeah, I'm gonna find another female partner. Fine then! What?! You think in the real world your perfect girl will just come falling out of the sky Hey, you. Wanna help me bang this robot? You mean pilot this robot? I know what I said.</p><p><strong>Speaker 2:</strong> Never! Time to fight [00:11:00] some monsters! So no one besides me thinks this control scheme's a bit weird. Why would anything about this be weird? Now spank me hard and I'll shout out Daddy to get the engine started. Does anyone not have a partner to ride? Fair enough. You see, I've always thought of you as a brother.</p><p>You mean like the normal kind or the anime kind? The anime kind. Aw, eww, eww! Don't you have anyone else that likes you anyway? Well, now that you mention it I do! I wanna make a baby! Uh, how do we do the That was amazing! Yeah! What's child support? I'd like to declare that we're getting married! BAKAKAKAKAKA</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> is also the studio that did Gurren Lagann, which came out a long time before anyone was freaking out about demographic collapse.</p><p>And Gurren Lagann's very antinatalist. Or at least an anti But,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> wasn't, I mean, Gurren</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Lagann was Well, that was Gurren Lagann talking about it with the same team.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah, well, no, yeah, Gurren Lagann is, yeah, but no, sorry, but they were [00:12:00] also sorry, they were also Evangelion, which is Antinatalist, and Evangelion was pre Abe.</p><p>I think Gurren Lagann, did that overlap with Shinzo Abe? That was pre Abe.</p><p><strong>Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx):</strong> So I was rolling on this one, Shinzo RV. First served as prime minister of Japan in 2006 to 2007. Then again from 2012 to 2020, well, his 2006 to 2007 run, that is when Garan log-in was released. Garan log-in was released in 2007. Not that there is any chance that he influenced its development, but,</p><p>Yes, the motor was right on this one, weirdly.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Gurren Lagann is old and then they did a, um, like other, you know, pronatalist anime that I've shown on here, like the one about old people and stuff like that. It's not that the Japanese government never sponsors anime or manga, but they're typically one off projects and not full series.</p><p>And it was doing that before Abe and it doesn't appear that there's any documented evidence of like super pronatalist stuff being pushed. It appears that most of the pronatalist anime was just created because people love their country and love [00:13:00] their culture. And I think that that shows in part why Japan has been more resistant to fertility collapse than other countries in the region.</p><p>Is that there's just much more pride in the Japanese identity than there is, um You know, and ask somebody who spent time in Japan and Korea, for example, there is simply more pride in the Japanese identity than there is in the Korean identity. And I suspect it's you know, people just pushing this into their own media in an attempt to save their culture.</p><p>And I think it's sad that we don't see more of this in U. S. Media. But I think it's because in U. S. Media there's Very few actual conservatives because the far left in the urban monoculture sort of acts as a cabal, keeping them out of positions, whereas in Japan you don't have the same extent of conservatives just not appearing in media, which didn't used to be as extreme in the U.</p><p>S. as it is today. Now let's talk about other big things he did. Constitutional reinterpretation in 2014, Abe's government reinterpreted Article 9 of Japan's pacifist [00:14:00] constitution to allow for collectivist self defense, enabling Japan to come to the aid of its allies under attack. Now, this is really big.</p><p>He really, really began to turn Japan into a military power again, to put it on a military footing. And I think that as an American, this is something I am really glad that he did because he also pretty much unilaterally rebuilt quad or the quadrilateral, quadrilateral. Security dialogue which is an alliance between Japan, U.</p><p>S. India and Australia. And if you're wondering who would those four countries be allied against specifically, this would be against China. They really only kick into action against China, but it would be incredibly damaging to China. Especially if you had the U. S. and Japan plus Australia and India involved in any sort of a boycott because China imports around.</p><p>I think it last I checked was 83 percent of their energy needs and something like 86 percent of that is coming through the Strait of [00:15:00] Malacca, which basically means past India. So like there's very little they could do. They could take it into the deep ocean, but then they need to go all the way around Australia.</p><p>But if you go all the way around Australia well now you need to get through the island chain that Japan and the U. S. control. So there's really no way to supply China by water if there was ever a blockade and the Quadrilateral Alliance was at play. And he increased military spending to one to 2 percent of GDP.</p><p>And he also pushed through controversial security laws that allowed the Japanese self defense force to deploy overseas and engage in combat to defend allies when it used to be defense only. And the ally in contest here is very obviously Taiwan. Any thoughts before I go further? Simone, will you like this guy so far, or he's sounding.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I mean, for any elected politician, he sounds pretty solid. And also, just the fact that he made some pretty meaningful changes, too.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Mm</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> hmm.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> No, he's a I mean, in terms of He's a man of action. Yeah, he's one of those characters where, like, the way he got elected may have been [00:16:00] shady. But as a politician, he was God tier and really only did good.</p><p>A good example of this in the United States would be Nixon. And Nixon is generally considered one of the best presidents in American history by people who like know their presidential history stuff. Building our current relationship with China and building. Globalization was really important in securing peace and making America as prosperous today as it is,</p><p>However you know, he did cheat intellectual cycle.</p><p>Well, basically cheated. And to give you an idea of how well like Nixon is in the U. S. Stephen Colbert, you know, far lefty Stephen Colbert. He said that out of all American presidents, Nixon is his favorite. So that should show you that he really does appeal across the aisle. So another thing to note here is he did a very good job building a relationship with Trump.</p><p>And he had a close personal friendship with Trump from what we've seen, you know, with Trump saying after he died, something along the lines of, No one will ever [00:17:00] understand how much Japan has lost, you know, with Abe's passing. You know, like, he knew more from his position to know just how important he was, which is probably true.</p><p>From the position of President of the U. S., you have more information than other people have.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Well, but I think Abe also demonstrated the first time Trump Flew out to have a major meeting with him, just how much he wanted to invest in a good relationship with Trump. And that, what did they do? First thing after they land, go golfing.</p><p>What did they do? They eat American beef burgers. They, he had special hats made, played on the make America great again, slogan, but it had something to do with like their partnership. Yes.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> And he gave Trump a golf cart. That was the gift that he gave to him. And he was the first person to call Trump of world leaders.</p><p>And I'll, I'll be a parent to genuinely like golfing as well. So, you know, Trump always loves just golfing all the time.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Like Trump really works well for the Japanese mindset. [00:18:00] Cause he's a larger than life character and they really like characters that, that ham, you know, what's that? What, how do you use the term?</p><p>Oh,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> I love it. He also gave Trump a gold colored driver. That's perfect. Let's see. He gets</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> it. It's Trump. And he, he, he spoke with Trump and Trump words. And that is.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> And he kept the meetings private, which was another thing that he did to build. People were always trying to like Trump's foreign policy team was always trying to protect him from forming too close a personal relationship with people because that's what he would always go for.</p><p>He'd get their personal phone numbers. He just called them up. Yeah. Yeah. And H. R.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> McMaster's biography or autobiography keeps talking about how Trump would say things like, stop by the White House and everyone's freaking out like, no, no, no, that doesn't mean you've just received an official foreign like visit invite.</p><p>And he'd be like, here's my number. Like he'd just give people his cell phone number and they'd stop by. Freak out about that too, because they needed to monitor all the calls or something.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> He also didn't, one of the interesting things is, you know, how Trump loved trying to play like hard mall with these deals [00:19:00] that he would make with countries.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Japan didn't really push back and basically took one of Trump's like fairly one sided deals to flatter his ego, which was probably the right thing to do. It's also so</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Japanese. Like it is the proper thing to do at this point, you know, out of courtesy, we will do this.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Well, I mean, I think it showed an understanding of Japan's relation with the United States today and the importance on having it be incredibly strong.</p><p>And that is what he was able to accomplish.</p><p>Now the downside was Trump is one of Shinzo Abe's things was the TPP and Trump did still torpedo that. So he wasn't like always going along with what Abe wanted, but broadly speaking, Oh, by the way, for people who don't know my thoughts on the TPP. I actually think Trump's torpedoing the TPP turned out for the best, and a lot of people are very surprised by this.</p><p>Because they're like, oh no, it was an Obama era thing that could have like, built this great relationship and caused us to be an economic superpower [00:20:00] in the region. But it was very, very, very heavy handed. It was just</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> bloated regulation or something. And what was it? Yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> IP regulations. A lot of it was like Hollywood lobbying to try to make the IP regulations super strong around pirated stuff and things like that.</p><p>And it led to something that could have, so let's. See, because we do know what happened to post TPP blowing up and we can talk about what ended up happening in the region post TTPP blowing up China at first looked like they had gained all of the strings. They started really forming a tight relationship with the Philippines.</p><p>They started really forming fixing relationships with Vietnam. They started. Really expanding their influence. Well, then what happened? Because the U. S. wasn't there to act as a counter influence, China immediately began to overplay their hand massively and began to really push this nine dot line thing.</p><p>Basically just claiming huge, huge swaths of territory from like the Philippines and [00:21:00] Vietnam. And All of the people who they had just made friends with and then began to basically threaten Taiwan. Well, what did this do? Is it basically pissed off that basically because we didn't have this economic fenced in area in the region, China immediately overplayed their hand and turned, the Philippines right now has an extremely pro US head, who grew up in Hawaii.</p><p>You know, Vietnam is becoming increasingly pro us to the point where both countries, I guess you could say are basically in our pocket at this point. Same was the only country they've really made any headway was this maybe South Korea, but not even really there in Japan has become increasingly pro us because they don't like the moves that China is making around Taiwan.</p><p>Basically, It ended up making the entire geopolitical region extremely strong allies of the United States from goading China into overplaying their hand with economic sanctions and land grabs. [00:22:00] But I, I think that here you see like with the Trump thing, just an incredible amount of strategy and charisma in terms of building the relations he needed to build.</p><p>Now let's talk about the assassination because this is something, anything you want to talk about before we get to the assassination.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> No, let's dive into it.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Shinzo Abe was shot twice from behind with a homemade shotgun while giving a campaign speech near Yamato Saidaijya Station, Nara, Japan. The attack occurred around 11.</p><p>30, hitting Abe in the chest and neck. Despite being rushed to a local hospital, Abe was pronounced dead at five, five o'clock, just five hours after the shooting. So the gun that was used was like a homemade thing that somebody, he learned to put together actually from YouTube videos. And people said even somebody without a lot of knowledge could learn to make one of these.</p><p>It used a battery for the ignition and some wires attached to the battery. And then 2 tubes for the barrels and likely some sort of. bought propellant [00:23:00] in the region or something like that. It was all over the table, showing the factlessness of laws against guns and, and the complacency it can cause.</p><p>The suspect, the shooter identified as Tetsu Yamanagi was immediately arrested at the scene. Yamanagi is a 41 year old former member of the Maritime Self Defense Force, admitted to shooting after his arrest. He was formally charged with the murder, violating gun control laws. And motive his motive was that his mom had donated tons of money to the Moonies or the Unification Church.</p><p>And this led to his family being in poverty and his brothers unaliving himself. He blamed all this. Well, I mean, cults could do this. They can be incredibly like, we're going to take all your money. We're going to take everything you own. We don't care about you at all. Sure. The moonies as a community are kind of known for that in the United States, by the way, if you don't know who the moonies are, if you've ever seen a cult in like a 70s movie or stereotype where everybody went to work at a plantation [00:24:00] and then was like tricked and kept hostage.</p><p>Those were moonies. That was what the moonies were famous for. was these big plantations were like yuppie college kids would go thinking like, Oh, I'm going to learn to live off the land. And then they'd spend a extremely long hours working fields. They would be sleep deprived and when they were doing that, they were exposed to constant messaging.</p><p>Wow. Are you, are you familiar with these cults? Like, did you hear about them or?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I'm not, I think in media I've seen references to creepy cults that involve agricultural work, but I didn't know that was a Mooney's thing. So yeah,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> they don't do that as much anymore. They do other things now, but there is still an incredibly high demand religion.</p><p>The unification church's relationship with the Japanese conservative politicians dates back to the 1960s when Abe's grandfather, sorry, I said, dad, grandfather, former prime minister Naboke Kisha helped the church establish itself in Japan. This connection was based on shared anti communist ideologies during the cold war.</p><p>The Unification Church provided [00:25:00] valuable political support to LDP politicians, this was the party of Abe, dispatching believers to volunteer in election campaigns, mediating organizational votes for LDP candidates, and providing a volunteer army of campaign workers. In return, many LDP lawmakers, including Abe, gave speeches at church meetings and related organizations, effectively acting as promoters of the church.</p><p>The scale of the church's influence in Japanese politics was revealed on a After Abe's assassination, almost half of the LDP's 379 diet members, Congress members basically, admitted to some form of contact with the Unification Church. At least 180 of 379 LDP lawmakers in Japan's national diet were found to have ties with the church.</p><p>23 of 54 members appointed as vice ministers and parliamentary secretaries in second Kishida cabinet had connections to the church. So 23 out of 53.</p><p>So,</p><p>Yamaniga alluded to the assassination before the incident posting on his blog, [00:26:00] Mr. Abe was one of the most influential unification church sympathizers.</p><p>And yeah. Now, what about Abe's role? Abe was alleged to have overseen LDP's relationship with the Unification Church, using it to help the party win office and yeah.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> That just sounds like they were a major donor block and he treated them like he would treat any other major donor block.</p><p>What's shady here? That's</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> basically, I don't feel like he did anything wrong. Like, even as a politician, would I have done that? If a religion, like, suppose, like, Jehovah's Witnesses. I think Jehovah's Witnesses do some shady things, but like, if I became the presidential candidate for like the US Republican Party and the Jehovah's Witnesses were like always behind me a hundred percent, am I going to advocate for their policy positions?</p><p>Yeah. I mean, that's called a democracy, right?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Well, but yeah, that's what happens with politicians and unions, with politicians and corporations, with politicians and any big supporter. That's,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Absolutely. Yeah. And people think that they might be influencing the [00:27:00] policy that his government did, specifically that Japanese still hasn't legalized same sex marriage could be downstream of this church.</p><p>But I mean, come on, the Mormons have pushed for that in the U. S. for a long time, right? Like, And I don't think that somebody deserves to be assassinated over that. And the church's name change to the family federation for world peace and unification in 2015 was approved by the government during Abe's tenure.</p><p>And this is why, by the way, it was our name</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> change. Wait, why is that notable?</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Oh, I think a normal government would have said, we're not going to call you the organization for world peace and unification. But I think that also when people look at our religious, beliefs in the unique religion we're creating.</p><p>One of the things I really appreciate about it is that it isn't pro unification, unification which sounds really nice on paper, world peace and unification, you know, the Baha'is are also about this and they think that like we have similarities to them. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> no, no, no, no, no no, I just think of unity from freaking Morty unification is not.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> [00:28:00] It's not a good</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> thing.</p><p><strong>Speaker 8:</strong> Where I was better able to focus on my passion for unification. You mean stealing people's bodies? Summer, rude. , this world will be invited into the Galactic Federation. . From there I'll have access to countless planets and species. One by one, I will unify them.</p><p> And I will be what the single minded once called a god. Oh, that's pretty sexy. Where can we get a drink around here? Recreational substances were phased out here. There's no need for escape from the self when your world is one. Unity, unity, who am I talking to?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> No, it's not. It's a creepy thing. It's a pod person thing. It's a homogenizing thing. We do not want. But,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> but I will say that also if I get myself in the mind of the, the Moonies acid, right? So think about him, you know, you grow up, your brother has unalives themselves, your family grew up in poverty.</p><p>You feel like they were scammed out of everything. And who do you blame the most? You know that the Unification [00:29:00] Church played a large role in this. You can ask, well, who has done the most to aid the Unification Church's agenda in the country?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Hardly, though, no.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> He needs to</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> blame the members of the church who give the church the money, who donate to political campaigns.</p><p>No, this is in the hands of the, of the church itself.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah, I would agree with that. He</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> made a wrong, he shot the wrong guy. Abe should be with us here today.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Very sad very much Harambe situation of pronatalism. I really like that he has been seen as sort of the face of pronatalism because the, the memes are really sweet, I would say, like, they do a good job of conveying a positive sentiment in a way where, like, suppose we became the meme face of pronatalism.</p><p>We're known as, like, the pronatalist people who speak on the topic all the time, but we've never had many memes of us. around perinatalism. And I really appreciate that because [00:30:00] I think they'd come off like the Eliezer memes around AI apocalypticism. Are there</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Eliezer memes around?</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> They just make the movement look like deranged to like a bunch of fat neckbeards.</p><p>Whereas Abe comes across as very sincere and worried about his people.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> That's how they chose to frame them. They could have framed him very differently, but they chose to frame him that way.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Any final thoughts Simone?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Japan is great, isn't it great? I love Japan. People</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> who don't know, she was born in Japan and her middle name is Haruko because she was named after well, being born in Japan.</p><p>So</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> named after being Yeah, we don't want to go into why, why Haruko's my name.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Hey, there's a lot of great anime characters with the name Haruko.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Just from Fooly Cooly, wait, who else's name Hutter Girl?</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> The character from the show where, I'm pretty sure it's this one, where the main character is a god.</p><p>It's a really interesting [00:31:00] show, actually. So, the main character is a female girl who is a god. And she doesn't know she's a god. But she creates the world around her in the world that everyone is in. Oh, no. So it's so she's</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> living in the simulation.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> She's living in a simulation that she's creating around herself of being a high school character.</p><p>What's interesting about the show is that her best friends who are created as members of the simulation begin to realize this as the show goes on and they begin to realize how dangerous their situation is. Like, If she gets on to some conspiracy, that conspiracy will start happening. Like if she thinks, gets into anime girls and anime girls start appearing, if she thinks that there's like robots replacing people, robots start replacing people.</p><p>And so like one of her friends will turn out to be a robot or something like [00:32:00] that. And so her friends have to constantly guard this girl who is otherwise. Very much. I almost want to say like a manic pixie dream girl type character, like change her hair color every day. Like really wants to believe all these crazy things they have to constantly be trying to ground her because if they don't, it fundamentally breaks the nature of their reality.</p><p><strong>Speaker 4:</strong> Maybe this isn't the old world anymore. Maybe this world is a new one that Haruhi created. And if that's the case, how would I go about confirming it?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> That's man. Why are anime plots? I don't</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> like it, but it's a classic.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I feel like with anime and manga, they nail the premise, they nail the aesthetics and then execution is 25 to 30 percent of the time. Okay. 7 percent of the time, God tier, but the rest,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> I'm actually gonna maybe be controversial here, but I think with [00:33:00] anime, what I've noticed is almost always when the theme and ideas are interesting, the execution is mid When the theme and ideas are boring, the execution is really good.</p><p>Okay. Let's play this out.</p><p>Well, here's examples. No food wars,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> food wars, which is one of our favorites. Pretty lame concept.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah. Excellent. Yeah.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Something like darling with Franks, which I think is a really interesting concept of mid execution. Dears, which I've mentioned before is a really interesting anime mid execution.</p><p>Like. Yeah, usually when the ideas are good, the exit goblin slayer, right? Actually kind of a boring concept. What about the one that you really</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> like? That's depressing. With the, that everyone's very smart,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> grandma and grandpa turned young again, again, very, very boring, but great execution. The one that you're thinking of is code.</p><p>Yes. Code. Yes. Might be one of the rare instances [00:34:00] of, well, okay. I'd say could Geass is. Interesting, very interesting ideas. Okay, execution, but I wouldn't say it's like in terms of like execution and flow of a show one of the better shows I've seen where I just like love all the characters or anything like that.</p><p>If anything, it just like holds me kind of. Oh, here's another example. God to your execution would be high school of the dead. Very mid theme. Generic zombie world.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah, yeah, you would think, what's, what's the point? Okay, well then, so in, you, you kind of get Japanese culture. You've traveled a little bit there, and you've watched a lot of anime.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> I've met with a lot of heads of companies there, and I've met Yeah, if</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> you, if you were working with the Japanese government on pronatalist policy, Where would you take things? Because I would say the solution that works best for the United States, say, or France or Germany, [00:35:00] very different from what I think would work in Japan.</p><p>Oh, I've</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> got a solution for Japan. I've got a solution. I think what Japan needs to do is if you look at like latent parts of Japanese culture, which make it unique when contrasted with other culture,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> pronatalist</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> animes do well in Japan. In Japan, a lot of people act like spy wars has been like pushed by the Japanese government.</p><p>No, not spy wars. What's the word I'm saying? Spy. Spy family. Grandpa</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> and Oh, spy Family. Yeah. Spy What? Grandpa and grandma turned young Again. That just felt,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> no, that's a good anime, but it's not like super famous, like Spy Family is like one piece level famous now in Japan. Oh wow. That's good. Like on every billboard, it's like I go to Walmart in the US and it's a quarter of the manga.</p><p>And it's a very pronatalist. It's like about the joys of being a family basically. And then it tries to spice it up a little, but that's, that's the core idea of it, wholesome family. I think that the market in Japan loves wholesome family. The other thing that goes really popular in Japan is.</p><p>Is [00:36:00] animes that are about how awesome the Japanese military is God, a great one. I want to say is something portal. I'll put a clip from it here, but I love it as well, where they open a portal to the like a fantasy world in the middle of Tokyo and then the Japanese military goes in and starts, like, Cleaning up dragons and stuff like that, you know, cause of course they would.</p><p><strong>Speaker 5:</strong> Do your best and fight! If you don't want to do it, then</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> And they get to like nerd out about all the weapons. And I don't feel that Japan has ever lost its order focused, imperialist focused identity at its core among my like Japanese friends who are really patriotic. I think that Japan needs to combine the wholesomeness that it has at the core of its culture with the militarism and imperialism that it [00:37:00] had historically to build, I'd say, almost a militarized iteration of pronatalism.</p><p>Maybe something like units that are dedicated to cultural Basically build an infrastructure for cultural warriors</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> to</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> protect the culture, to meet with other people, to dress in little uniforms. These are things that Japanese people love to have their kids dress in. You know, uniforms go to events, maybe create like scouts, but make it a bit more military, make it a bit more ordered, get the parents more involved and more focused on the number of kids you can have getting you specific badges, military awards for parents who have a certain number of kids.</p><p>I think that's the direction Japan needs to go. If it's going to hyper ignite the existing Japanese cultural core and people like me, like, well, that's not going to work for [00:38:00] everyone in Japan. Yeah, but it'll work for the most Japanese people in Japan, and I think it would do a good job of creating One of the unique cultural solutions that might make it through the valley of the lotus eaters But what is your thought simone?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> No, I could I am actually doing that a lot</p><p>Yeah, I I think I think going I I would say a part of it culturally speaking would be to Make it feel like They're going back to tradition, but really they're switching out an improved version of tradition with the context of modern technology and greater gender equality. But make it seem very traditional.</p><p>Well, kind of like putting it to my Yorkism</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> not focus on it being tradition, but to focus on it being pro Japanese.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> And I think that sort of, yeah, well, but what I'm saying is I'm thinking about, for example, office culture in Japan. I'm thinking about how marriages treated in Japan. And there is a much more [00:39:00] the, the, the, the.</p><p>Issues that are dealing with are not as toxic as the, the inter gender issues that we're seeing in South Korea, for example, but there are, there is some mismatch and there's, there are different expectations between men and women that. I don't think you can just say, okay, well now we're going to completely ignore them and they don't exist anymore.</p><p>La la la la la. Instead you have to lean into them, but redirect in a way that makes it. Is</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> you make it something like a man's, like in one of these units, duty. To treat women with I'd say honor, not IE, I'm going to be like a simp for women, like Western feminism, but like an extremified version of manners in terms of women in the workplace and bringing women into the workplace.</p><p>And I think that this in the same way that Abe was like, Oh, well, You know, it is actually conservative to want to promote women because, you know, it helps Japan. It helps our economy. It [00:40:00] helps our nation, right to have these organizations not focused on old ways. And Japan has actually been very good at modernizing historically and while maintaining its unique identity.</p><p>I mean, look at anime, right? Like is anything more modernized, but culturally unique. And so one of the things that I think that they need to fight against is the stoji. We have to keep things the way they were people, I. E. Whether it's gender roles or things like in Japan now, they still do like whale meat in school because people are like, it's our culture.</p><p>It's our culture. You can't take it out. Which is just horrible. Like they should not be doing this. And so I think that fighting against inefficiencies for the goal of preserving into, or until we become an intergalactic civilization, Japanese culture to ensure that they are one of the cultures that are part of this alliance.</p><p>And I also think turning Japanese culture, if you want to make this easier to fight for into. [00:41:00] A unique cultural avatar was in the ecosystem we're going into, but a cultural avatar that is pluralistic. I think that that when I say pluralistic, what I mean is they are fighting to preserve an advanced Japan, i.</p><p>e. for Japanese people in the Japanese island, and no one else was in that environment, but alongside people like the Americans, alongside people like the Koreans, when they can. build into their honor system, protecting global pluralism as one of their duties, which is something that America did a fairly good job of historically.</p><p>It's not like it doesn't work. I think that that can do a very good job in terms of this redirection.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah, that's interesting. I do have this hopeful feeling that Japan can pull through. But I don't know how delusional that is.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> I think of the East Asian countries, it's by far the most likely to pull through because they have the best fertility rates right now.</p><p>And this all happened to it earlier. Like it basically went into the collapse that China hasn't even gone [00:42:00] into yet. You know, a few decades ago and it got to deal with that before things got as bad as they are right now. So that's one reason why Japan's in a really strong position. The other reason is that they've been a very, very successful cultural exporter.</p><p>Which is in the grand scheme of thing going to earn them a lot of friends that want them to pull through and friends in high places specifically their cultural exports So this is what makes japan as a cultural exporter very different from korea as a cultural exporter So korea has been as successful as japan as a cultural exporter.</p><p>Yeah, korea has disproportionately hit Well, basically dumb commie high school girls in the U. S. And it's disproportionately hit countries where American media is partially banned, like Pakistan, like a lot of countries in Africa, like a lot of the Middle East. I think Ibrahim has a lot of Korean stuff.</p><p>Really?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Interesting.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah, yeah. Korea does really well in Islamic countries that partially ban US media. So they've done really well in [00:43:00] these environments, but none of these people really matter. Japan, on the other hand if you, for example, were to take a polling of the people who work to develop things like open AI's model and topics model and ask how many of them are big anime fans, I bet the number is 90.</p><p>Maybe even like 95%? Oh,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> nah, no, there's, there's a lot of bro ish people in Silicon Valley now, but it's high. It's higher. Yeah, if you look</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> at those companies You have friends who work at these companies, right? Like you remember from the events, like these are not Silicon Valley bro people. These are Silicon Valley nerd people.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Thank goodness. Thank goodness.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Anyway, I love you to decimone. This has been a fun conversation. And I think Japan can pull through. We've actually looking at holding a conference in Japan, tied to perinatalism that's going to focus on like the U S Japanese and maybe the rest of the quad Alliance.</p><p>In, in, in the ways that they are fighting [00:44:00] fertility collapse, mostly just to dunk on China because I think it can create a lot of good press and China will get very angry when we talk about, okay, what are we going to do with China when they're no longer here? You know, maybe have a picture on the screen was like a divided map of a depopulated China.</p><p>Like the, the Paris Accord. What, what, you think that's too much? It could cause</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> major diplomatic incidents, like, so much for us hosting that</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> conference. That's my goal. That's my goal to get, get people free. Cause I think that would get a lot of Americans excited. When you could turn this into a national defense issue and a patriotic issue.</p><p>I think that's when a lot of people are like, hell yeah. Hell yeah.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I could see it. Yeah. Well, you know, I honestly could see pronatalism becoming the new space race. Once demographic collapse really starts to hit in. It's kind of the, the national signal of</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> vitality [00:45:00] on this, the pronatal space race.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> There's something there because I know how much the space race and especially this whole Russia us thing really captured the public imagination. And I feel like this is one of those things that would be even more powerful because every individual family could be involved. It's a whole, I doing, I'm doing my part thing.</p><p>Could be pretty great.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> I love that, and I love you. Have a good day, Simone.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Bye bye. By the way, am I making you pizza</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> tonight, or what? Oh, yo, do I have any meat left? I guess pizza.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I, so I can get from the freezer and quickly thaw out. One smaller packet</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> of actually kind of in the mood for pizza</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> No, I feel like the kids are in the mood for pizza.</p><p>So pizza it is pizza friday. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah All</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> right. Oh, yeah I don't have any pernatal [00:46:00] Hold on, I'm sending you some stuff on WhatsApp.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Looks like, oh, you have a bunch of your curtains down, don't you?</p><p>Let's see if I do Alexa, first plug on. Does that help? Maybe a little.</p><p>Maybe if I</p><p>It's a little chilly, you see. Sorry, you feel that way? Oh, are you kidding me? The cold, our children. I love the cold. So when I, when I make her shower warm, not hot, mind you warm, she says too hot, and then she insists that I give her like what I would consider cold shower, cold</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> shower. Yeah. All of our kids.</p><p>And I love the news. It's like, they [00:47:00] deprive them of even the warmth in the, I'm like, no. And this is why I'm about to go to a sci fi podcast. So to talk about sci fi, Frostpunk. Is the genre, is the, the, the post collapse world I most want to wake up in.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> As long as you're well dressed. As one of our friends would say to us, there's no such thing as being cold.</p><p>There's just being poorly dressed. So, bundle up, I guess. Speaking of, of being dressed. Everyone makes one of our glasses, Malcolm. Cutler and Gross, who makes these glasses, they had two actors in the Kingsman Secret Service wearing Cutler and Gross glasses.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Oh, they did?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah, Colin Firth's character, and then also Samuel L.</p><p>Jackson's character were wearing Cutler and Gross glasses, because they're awesome.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> So, we are going to start with go down to the [00:48:00] first of the,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Sorry, I just saw, like, the latest meme thing. You just sent me, like, a wall of</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> memes.</p><p><strong>Speaker 9:</strong> I'm gonna go. I don't like it! I don't like it! It's a battle! It's a battle! Ahhh! Here you go! And then I push it against them real deep! Get me! Get me! I feel! I [00:49:00] feel! I can't get them. I can't get them! I can't get them!</p> <br /><br />This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_2">basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe</a>