Front Matter
This Includes
The Pragmatist’s Guide to Life
The Pragmatist’s Guide to Crafting Religion
The Pragmatist’s Guide to Governance
The Pragmatist’s Guide to Relationships
The Pragmatist’s Guide to Sexuality
The Pragmatist’s Guide to Crafting Religion
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A playbook for sculpting cultures that overcome demographic collapse & facilitate long-term human flourishing
By Simone & Malcolm Collins
Copyright © 2022
Omniscion Press
Simone & Malcolm Collins
All rights reserved.
Special Thanks to Our Most Impactful Editors:
Lillian Tara
Ben Hoffman
Table of Contents
Culture as an Evolutionary Tool 4
What Motivated Us to Craft a Novel Culture for Our Kids 11
Why is Cultural Diversity Important? 43
Building The Index: A Cultural Reactor 46
The Fundamentals of Culture Crafting 49
Characteristics of Hard Cultures 57
Characteristics of Soft Cultures 62
Characteristics of Super-Soft Culture 64
Characteristics of Pop Cultures 72
Examples of Evanescent Youth Cultures 75
Characteristics of Evanescent Youth Cultures 76
Characteristics of Haven Cultures 77
Examples of Stable Cultures 78
Characteristics of Stable Cultures 79
Arbitrary Self Denial & Fasting: Hard vs. Soft and Pop Cultures 86
Characteristics of the Supervirus 91
What Makes the Supervirus Dangerous? 101
How to Overcome the Supervirus 108
Ancestor & Descendant Worship 118
Catholic vs. Protestant Standards of Evidence 127
The Unique Jewish Standard of Evidence 134
How We Understand Truth: Criteria of Authenticity 143
Relativism & Justice-Motivated Belief Systems 153
Abrahamic Justicle Cultivars 155
The Metaphysical Frameworks of Justicles 165
The Origins of the Supervirus 168
Permanence, Identity, and Creative Destruction 198
Castes & Which Lives Matter 217
Theology: Beginnings, Ends, and Metaphysics 234
End Times & Christian Cultures 251
The Cosmic Consciousness Illusion 254
A Call for Non-Obvious Designations 273
An Example of Non-Obvious Good and Evil 275
Starting and Managing a House 286
Mechanisms of Cultural Memory 295
The Draw of the Sorting Hat 300
“If Only We Could Recapture a Feeling of Community” 301
Teaching Fundamental Social Skills 302
Treating Underlying Causes of Loneliness 304
Secret Societies: Rediscovering a Cultural Technology 308
How Cultures Deal with Aging 315
Retaining Teens Through Rebellion 315
Puberty: Gendered Mental Susceptibilities 326
Post-Death Family Engagement 346
Cultural Approaches to Sexuality 375
J. D. Unwin & Sexual Liberation 384
Dating and Partner Finding 386
A Better Solution: The Season 400
Who to Marry and Contextualization of Marriage 406
Dating for a Corporate Family 409
Glorification of Motherhood 424
Genetic Traditions & The Future 432
Hard Culture Opposition to Polygenic Risk Score Screening 445
Institutional Families (Post-Artificial-Womb Family Units) 449
Ecological Niches and Convergent Evolution 456
Roles in Multicultural Ecosystems 460
The Mystery of Modern Jewish Urban Specialization 469
The Myth of a Large, Genetic Jewish IQ Advantage 485
Gun Ownership and Responsibility of Protection 504
Urban vs Rural Approaches to Charity 514
Pets & Domesticated Animals 522
Dogs, Our Evolutionary Partners 528
Emotion and Mental Landscape 531
Victimhood, Politicking, and Industry 532
A Case Study in Cultural Genotypes vs Phenotypes: American vs. Israeli Haredim 543
Relation to Pleasure and the Arts 554
Accidental Cults: MLMs & Life Coaches 568
Accidental Cults: The Mental Health Industry 572
How Culture Relates to Society 589
Immigration and Conservative Values 592
Psychedelics & Hallucinogens 598
What AIs Like to Do for Fun 644
The Logically Aligned Paperclip Maximizer 652
Why are Birth Rates Falling? 671
Decreased Utility from Children 671
Optimization for Happiness & Memetic Shifts 672
Broken Relationship Markets 675
The Capitalism Thesis for Birth Rate Decline 677
Detroit as a Model for Collapse 678
Is an Idiocracy-Style Future Possible? 681
Only Privileged People Can Have Kids! 695
Pronatalism is About Removing Our Reproductive Rights! 697
Forcing a Way of Life on Your Kids is Unethical! 701
Think of the Suffering! (Antinatalism & Negative Utilitarianism) 703
Calvinist Stereotypes in Media 721
On Houses Founded by Sovereign, Childless Individuals 723
K vs. r Selection in Cultivars’ Birth Rates 724
Tragedy as a Source of Opportunity 727
The Immortality of a Vision 729
Cultural Conceptions of Time 733
Stage 1: 0-13 (Up to Adolescence): 740
Stage 2: 14-18 (Up to Legal Adulthood) 741
Stage 3: 19-30 (Young Adulthood) 745
Stage 4: 30-50 (Adulthood) 747
Stage Transition Celebrations 752
Approaches to Play and Authority in Childhood 755
Approaches to Sexuality and Death in Childhood 759
Approaches to Creating Interesting Adults 760
An Honor Code Sample: House Collins’ Honor Code 775
But Surely the Problem will Fix Itself: Behavioral Sinks 786
Alternate History Jews: Samaritans 792
Hofstede’s Other Cultural Dimensions 804
Long-Term vs Short-Term Orientation 812
This book is dedicated to “radiant beings who shall succeed us on the earth.” As Winwood Reade wrote in 1872:
“You blessed ones who shall inherit that future age of which we can only dream; you pure and radiant beings who shall succeed us on the earth; when you turn back your eyes on us poor savages, grubbing in the ground for our daily bread, eating flesh and blood, dwelling in vile bodies which degrade us every day to a level with the beasts, tortured by pains, and by animal propensities, buried in gloomy superstitions, ignorant of Nature which yet holds us in her bonds; when you read of us in books, when you think of what we are, and compare us with yourselves, remember that it is to us you owe the foundation of your happiness and grandeur, to us who now in our libraries and laboratories and star-towers and dissecting-rooms and work-shops are preparing the materials of the human growth. And as for ourselves, if we are sometimes inclined to regret that our lot is cast in these unhappy days, let us remember how much more fortunate we are than those who lived before us a few centuries ago. The working man enjoys more luxuries to-day than did the King of England in the Anglo-Saxon times; and at his command are intellectual delights, which but a little while ago the most learned in the land could not obtain. All this we owe to the labors of other men. Let us therefore remember them with gratitude; let us follow their glorious example by adding something new to the knowledge of mankind; let us pay to the future the debt which we owe to the past.
All men indeed cannot be poets, inventors, or philanthropists; but all men can join in that gigantic and god-like work, the progress of creation. Whoever improves his own nature improves the universe of which he is a part. He who strives to subdue his evil passions—vile remnants of the old four-footed life—and who cultivates the social affections: he who endeavors to better his condition, and to make his children wiser and happier than himself; whatever may be his motives, he will not have lived in vain.”