Latest news with #Malcolm
ABC News
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Why Donald Trump, Elon Musk and JD Vance want to 'Make America procreate again' through pronatalism
Simone Collins is making pizza, sourdough and banana bread while juggling a toddler on her back when a fight breaks out between two of her three older children that inevitably ends in tears. "Every night is the Hunger Games," she jokes. "Every night is chaos, battle royale, flat-out disaster zone." With four kids under six and a fifth on the way, you'd think her and husband Malcolm Collins just love children but Malcolm says it's not really about that at all. "Kids do not exist for our pleasure, right? If you want that, get a pet. Kids, we have to pay to the future the debt we owe the past," he says. The Collinses — who ultimately want at least seven children and preferably up to 12 — have become the poster couple for the pronatalist movement, which promotes having more babies to address falling birth rates. Malcolm believes it is an existential issue that could have an impact on the future of the human race. "Our greatest threat is fertility collapse," he says, while his youngest daughter Industry Americus squirms in his lap. "If fertility collapse does lead to a collapse of human civilisation, eventually all of life dies, because humans are the only life form on this planet that can take life to the stars before the sun eventually and inevitably consumes our planet." Pronatalism is a cause they believe is so grave that Simone is prepared to die for it. After complications with her first birth, she's getting ready to have her fifth C-section, a potentially life-threatening procedure. "Before I met Malcolm, I would do things like base jumping and skydiving, and that also was a pretty risky thing to do, but it didn't make the world a better place or create a new life," she says. The former Silicon Valley couple use their tech connections to grow their family, testing and selecting embryos based on intelligence and future health to have not just a big family, but an optimal one. That's drawn accusations of eugenics, which Malcolm strenuously denies. "When we do polygenic selection or gene modification, everyone's like, 'Oh, people are going to use that to get rid of groups that are seen as disabled, like autistic people'," he says. "And it's like 'bro, my wife is autistic, my two older kids are autistic and we could have selected against it, and we didn't'. "Because with polygenics, rather than the government deciding what are good genes and bad genes, the people who experience those genes get to decide." The couple admits they deliberately troll the left, with controversial statements and Simone's outfit of choice — a pilgrim-style dress topped off with a bonnet and Handmaid's Tale hat. "It's funny because the only way we can avoid a Handmaid's Tale future, is for feminists to have more kids," she says. "Our primary means of raising awareness about demographic collapse has involved making people angry, making people outraged, because that's the only way they're gonna take this issue seriously. "We don't care if we become the punching bags of the movement, if at least people are aware of the fact that this is a major issue." But their willingness to become human clickbait for the cause has taken a toll, with death threats and doxxing a semi-regular occurrence. Simone proudly shows off an AR-15 assault rifle and Beretta mounted on the walls of their 18th century home, in part to protect against the growing threats they face. "We have guns for the death threats but also we have guns because we love guns," she says. The pronatalist movement is spearheaded by someone even more polarising and controversial than the Collinses — billionaire Elon Musk. Fox News asked him what was the biggest thing that keeps him up at night in March. "The birth rate is very low in almost every country and unless that changes, civilisation will disappear," Mr Musk said. Earlier this year — when the father of 14 brought his four-year-old son to a White House meeting with US President Donald Trump — Mr Musk's nose-picking, face-pulling child stole the show. The number of progeny Mr Musk has produced is a source of pride for him. "You've got to walk the talk, so I do have a lot of kids and I encourage others to have lots of kids," he said in 2024. Even though the two men have since spectacularly fallen out, pronatalism is having a moment under the Trump administration. Mr Trump has declared himself the 'fertilisation president', vowing to make IVF more accessible. When campaigning for the presidency, he declared: "I want a baby boom. Oh, you men are so lucky out there, you're so lucky." Earlier this year Vice-president JD Vance told a crowd, "Let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America." Mr Trump's recently passed Big Beautiful Bill included a $US1,000 baby bonus and the Trump administration is reportedly considering several other measures to encourage a baby boom. They include a 'motherhood medal' for women with six or more children and government-funded programs to teach women about their menstrual cycles, so they can work out when they're ovulating and try to conceive. Experts like Associate Professor Catherine Pakaluk from the Catholic University of America are sceptical those measures will make any difference. "I think a fair reading of all of the countries that have looked at this problem squarely, including Australia, is that you can get a little bit of lift by sending out cash to people — baby bonuses, tax credits, subsidies — but that lift in the birthrate seems to be mostly temporary and short-lived," she says. The researcher and author also has a deeply personal connection to the issue — as the mother of eight children herself. Unlike the Collinses, her Catholic faith played a big part in her decision to have a big family and she believes it's religious communities who may hold the key to boosting birthrates. "If you want to encourage child-bearing, have a hard look at the way in which your policies affect or don't affect living church communities," she says. The movement has seen an unlikely convergence of trad (traditional) wives and tech bros — religious groups who oppose things like IVF and abortion and tech advocates like the Collinses, calling for genetic selection, surrogacy and artificial wombs to grow their families. "At the end of the day, the traditional family form folks are not going to be able to get in bed, proverbially, with the tech-genetic-selection-surrogate birth situation," Ms Pakaluk says. "So I don't know what it spells about the future, but I don't expect there to be tight alliances between these really deeply intellectually different positions." Other experts are sceptical that population collapse is even a legitimate concern. Demographer Philip Cohen from the University of Maryland doesn't believe population decline is a real risk for the US or other developed societies, but that aging populations are. "As birth rates fall, the number of old people in society increases and that's expensive," Dr Cohen says. "We have to address that, but what we don't need to be worrying about is population decline as something that must be fixed by more births now or else we're going to be in trouble. "That's just not the case. "At some point in the future, if birth rates don't rise, our populations would decline if we don't reinforce them with immigration, which of course is something we can do if we want to." He believes there are a number of factors behind the current pronatalist push and why its proponents are reluctant to embrace immigration as a solution. "On the political right, the motivations are a combination of nationalism — 'if we don't breed faster, our competitors will outbreed us'," he says of the mentality. "[There is a] sort of a chauvinism or racism, that is a certain kind of people — the wrong kind of people — are having all the children these days so we will be replaced by new populations of people who have higher birth rates, people who aren't as good or desirable for some basically racist reason. "And then there's also a gender component, which is sort of a nostalgia for a patriarchal past." Simone Collins disputes that there's an element of racism within the movement. "There are racist groups that call themselves pronatalists, but they're not, they're white nationalists," she says. "A pronatalist just believes that the future is bright, humanity is good, and everyone should, if they want to, have children." She argues the movement is actually about preserving diversity, not just Western cultures. "A lot of ethnicities, groups, cultures are going go extinct because they're reproducing below repopulation rate," Simone says. When asked why Australians should care about the pronatalist movement, Malcolm Collins is clear. "We will replace you," he says. "The game of who wins human civilisation has entirely changed. Watch 7.30, Mondays to Thursdays 7:30pm on ABC iview and ABC TV Do you know more about this story? Get in touch with 7.30 here.
Scotsman
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
The Man on the Endless Stair by Chris Barkley review: 'an ambitious first novel'
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... This is a first novel, and an ambitious one. This means that one should treat it carefully, indeed gently, neither hailing it as a masterpiece (which very few novels are) or condemning it as pretentious and confused. In truth, it's a mixture, now compelling, now irritating. Chris Barkley The publishers describe it as 'Agatha Christie meets Italo Calvino' – certainly an attractive idea. Still, the detective side of the novel lacks Christie's ruthless morality, while the Calvino side doesn't quite achieve the Italian novelist's ability to make the fantastical appear as natural as our home town. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad However, the somewhat extravagant comparison does say something about the novel. It is set on a Scottish island, murders take place while there is no communication with the mainland, and there is fantasy presented as realism. The novel is set a few years after the end of the Second World War. Euan, a veteran of the Normandy Campaign and now an aspiring Scottish novelist, has caught the attention of Malcolm Furnivall, a successful author of highbrow crime novels. (They sound like the sort of thing that CS Lewis's friend Charles Williams used to write.) Euan has written an article about Malcolm in Cyril Connolly's magazine, Horizon. All this is excellent fooling and agreeably done, even if Malcolm is an absurd and unconvincing character. The same may be said of his island, where he has built a mansion, already falling into disrepair; his books are written in a 'writing shed' in the grounds. Fair enough, though the shed with its tunnels in the basement is not very convincing. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Malcolm, finding his powers failing, drenched in whisky too, is seemingly stuck on what should be the final volume of what sounds like a sadly pretentious sequence, and so he invites Euan to the island, where he will be, as it were, consecrated as his heir. Malcolm has a son and daughter, also a wife and various hangers-on, all of whom may resent Euan. But Malcolm makes it clear that Euan is to be entrusted with the work of completing his last manuscript. This is not a popular decision. Then Malcolm is shot and – the Christie touch – the telephone line to the mainland goes dead. Moreover, the manuscript cannot be found. Euan has to search for it and try to solve the murder. He sets about it energetically, if not all that intelligently. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad So The Man on the Endless Stair becomes a quest novel, as Euan tries to find a way through the maze. His method is not the best: he throws out accusations without evidence. Well, he is of course confused, and his own mind is as disturbed as Malcolm's for he is obsessed with a sister who vanished years ago. Still, even if his quest teeters at times on the brink of absurdity, as other characters disappear and his own life is threatened, it's all entertaining enough. Sometimes Barkley writes very well, sometimes badly; he has the tiresome habit, one even school teachers warn their pupils against, of saying 'I decided to do etc'. Don't say decide, one tells pupils, just do it. The plot is extravagant, conversations often absurd, and yet one keeps reading and doing so with pleasure. Barkley has imagination and talent, and one has to remember this is only his first novel. It's confused and confusing at times, but he is richly talented and, with self-discipline, will write better.
Tom's Guide
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
HBO Max just got a live sports upgrade for every tier — here's what's coming
HBO Max is giving us another reason to keep it our top pick for the best streaming service out there — Banana Ball. Yes, the baseball sensation that's sweeping the nation is coming to HBO Max. Starting with The Savannah Bananas vs. The Firefighters at Rate Field in Chicago (home of the White Sox) on Saturday, Aug. 16, at 8 p.m. ET, you'll be able to watch Banana Ball live on TruTV and HBO Max. For those of you who've heard of the Bananas, you already know this is awesome news. The one-time collegiate summer league baseball team has transformed into the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball, ditching traditional baseball for fast-paced, two-hour games featuring everything from dancing grandmas (the "Banana Nanas") to iconic 2000s pop-punk band The All-American Rejects performing an impromptu concert during a game. As someone lucky enough to attend a game in person, I promise you that the hype around this sports sensation is earned. My wife does not like baseball in the slightest, and she had a blast, as this live sporting event is easily as much about the entertainment as it is about the baseball, if not more. And when I say "lucky," I mean it. These games sell out fast, so watching on TruTV or HBO Max might be the best chance you have at seeing what all the fuss is about. Unlike with most live sports, everyone will get access to these Savannah Bananas live broadcasts. Back in February, HBO Max announced that its Bleacher Report Sports add-on, which gives subscribers access to live sports streaming, would become free for most users. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. HBO Max gives you tons of hit shows and movies, from HBO Originals to A24 movies and more. But there was a catch: only Standard and Premium subscribers got this free perk. If you had the Basic with Ads plan, you wouldn't get it, including those who get HBO Max through the Disney Plus, Hulu, HBO Max Bundle With Ads Plan. Not this time, though. All 19 Banana Ball games on truTV will be free to all HBO Max subscribers, including those on the ad-supported plan. So tune in on Aug. 16 and get ready to go Bananas. If you don't have HBO Max, don't worry. As these games are on TruTV, you can also get them through most of the best live TV streaming services. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button. Malcolm has been with Tom's Guide since 2022, and has been covering the latest in streaming shows and movies since 2023. He's not one to shy away from a hot take, including that "John Wick" is one of the four greatest films ever made. Here's what he's been watching lately:
Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
AC/DC fans are only just realising unlikely inspiration behind band's name after 51 years
AC/DC fans are only just figuring out where the rock legends got their name ahead of a sole UK appearance from the Back in Black rockers, whose name comes from an unlikely machine An unlikely inspiration led to the naming of rock legends AC/DC. Fans are only just figuring out the origins of the group's name, 51 years on from their founding. The hitmakers behind Thunderstruck and Back in Black are still touring as of 2025, with a sold out show at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh set for this year. But listeners are only just figuring out the strange origins of the band's name, and are delighted to hear of the oddity. A post to the r/ACDC Reddit page had fans share the origin story, with some truly impressed by where the band picked up their name. A post to the subreddit reads: "What was the reason for AC/DC 's name? I always though it was something that had to do with maths or geometry." Neither is true for AC/DC, with fans correcting the listener. One user shared: "Alternate Current/ Direct Current, something to do with electricity, apparently Angus and Malcolm's older sister would make the bands stage clothes in the early days and they saw it on her sewing machine." Malcolm Young, who passed away in 2017, and his brother Angus, who is now 70, are the founding members of the iconic rock band. Another fan added some extra detail on the "simple suggestion" which made for the "greatest, most catchy name a rock band can have." They wrote: "Wasn't it that their sister came up with the name after seeing it on her sewing machine. "Quite funny how Angus and Malcolm were struggling to come up with a catchy name and then their sister comes up with a simple suggestion, yet it's the greatest, most catchy name a rock band can have." AC/DC has since confirmed the origins of their name. Dave Evans, who as part of the line-up from their formation in 1973 and was replaced by Bon Scott in 1974, explained the story to Podpokas: "When we all arrived together, Malcolm Young said to us, 'Look, my sister-in-law' [wife of his older brother, George] has suggested a name… AC/DC'. And I thought it's an easy name to remember and it was on the side of a lot of electrical appliances. "AC/DC means alternate current and direct current [and] a lot of appliances were AC/DC. I thought: 'Free advertising… free advertising on the side of all these appliances, and it's easy to say, and it means power.' It all went through my head very quickly. And I said yes." Critics have since praised the AC/DC name, which also features a lightning bolt after the first two letters. Gerard Huerta would design the logo for the band, which first appeared on Let There Be Rock. Adam Behr added: "[its] type font conveyed the sense of electricity implicit in their name." The Australian band has been touring since the 1970s, and are set to perform later this year at Murrayfield in Edinburgh. Fans were left livid during ticket sales for the now sold out show, which is the group's only UK date this year. One fumed: "Here you are in line for AC/DC at Ullevi. 22316 before at 10.00 "When you got down to 4911 you were kicked out and had to start over with 23000 before. What the hell kind of f**king system do you have? You can shut down your f**king business because you never learn. Hell, sitting in a 30-minute queue and getting kicked out. Yes, I'm so pi**ed off. #Ticketmaster."
Daily Record
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
AC/DC fans are only just realising true meaning of band's name after 51 years
Australian rock band AC/DC have been touring since the 1970s, with the group's name a hot topic of conversation amongst fans who are just realising the origins of the rock outfit's name An unexpected source of inspiration sparked the naming of rock legends AC/DC. Fans are only now discovering the origins of the group's moniker, five decades after their formation. The masterminds behind Thunderstruck and Back in Black continue performing into 2025, with a completely sold-out gig at Edinburgh's Murrayfield Stadium scheduled for this year. However, listeners are just now uncovering the peculiar backstory of the band's title, and are thrilled to learn about this curiosity. A submission to the r/ACDC Reddit page prompted supporters to share the origin tale, with some genuinely amazed by how the band acquired their now legendary name. A message to the subreddit reads: "What was the reason for AC/DC's name? I always though it was something that had to do with maths or geometry." Neither assumption holds true for AC/DC, with fans setting the record straight. One user shared: "Alternate Current/ Direct Current, something to do with electricity, apparently Angus and Malcolm's older sister would make the bands stage clothes in the early days and they saw it on her sewing machine." Malcolm Young, who died in 2017, and his sibling Angus, now 70, established the legendary rock band. Another enthusiast provided additional insight into the "simple suggestion" which created the "greatest, most catchy name a rock band can have." They penned: "Wasn't it that their sister came up with the name after seeing it on her sewing machine. "Quite funny how Angus and Malcolm were struggling to come up with a catchy name and then their sister comes up with a simple suggestion, yet it's the greatest, most catchy name a rock band can have." AC/DC have since verified where their moniker originated from. Dave Evans, who featured in the original line-up from their formation in 1973 before being succeeded by Bon Scott in 1974, revealed the tale to Podpokas: "When we all arrived together, Malcolm Young said to us, 'Look, my sister-in-law' [wife of his older brother, George] has suggested a name... AC/DC'. And I thought it's an easy name to remember and it was on the side of a lot of electrical appliances. "AC/DC means alternate current and direct current [and] a lot of appliances were AC/DC. I thought: 'Free advertising... free advertising on the side of all these appliances, and it's easy to say, and it means power.' It all went through my head very quickly. And I said yes." Music experts have subsequently celebrated the AC/DC moniker, which also boasts a lightning bolt following the opening two letters. Gerard Huerta would craft the emblem for the group, which initially emerged on Let There Be Rock. Adam Behr noted: "[its] type font conveyed the sense of electricity implicit in their name." The Aussie rockers have been performing since the 1970s, and are scheduled to take the stage later this year at Murrayfield in Edinburgh. Fans were left absolutely furious during ticket sales for the now sold-out gig, which marks the band's sole UK performance this year. One raged: "Here you are in line for AC/DC at Ullevi. 22316 before at 10.00". "When you got down to 4911 you were kicked out and had to start over with 23000 before. What the hell kind of f**king system do you have? You can shut down your f**king business because you never learn. Hell, sitting in a 30-minute queue and getting kicked out. Yes, I'm so pi**ed off. #Ticketmaster."
