Conspirituality

Billionaire tech bro Marc Andreessen recently claimed introspection is a pathology. Derek and Julian discuss the Trump advisor's claims while the investor continues making bank from defense technology.

Show Notes

The Mind is Flat: Nick Chater

The Mind is Flat | Nick Chater | Talks at Google

Susan Blackmore Review of The Mind is Flat

The Tell-Tale Brain: VS Ramachandran

Consciousness and the Brain: Stanislas Dehaene

This Is Your Brain on Music: Dan Levitin

Musicophilia: Oliver Sacks

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New Yorker writer Charles Bethea recently decided to attend men’s retreats—well, at least those who would admit him. His expose on the modern men’s movement got us thinking about what’s happening over those very expensive three-day weekends, as well as the inspiration behind these groups dating back to the seventies. And even how a movement tracing back to the work of Robert Bly was co-opted by the right-wing “alpha male” crowd.

Today we discuss Bethea’s article in the context of modern men’s groups: where they come from, what function they serve, and what they might get wrong…and horribly wrong.

Show Notes

The Camps Promising to Turn You—or Your Son—Into an Alpha Male

The ‘alpha male’ myth, debunked

Inside the high-priced retreats promising to help men reclaim their masculinity

Brief: Galloway and the Mooch — The Lost Boys of Capitalism (Pt 1)

Scott Galloway and Anthony Scaramucci, Lost Boys podcast

Of Boys and Men

A Statistical Book Review for 'Of Boys and Men'

How a White Nationalist Club Thought It Found Safe Haven in a Montreal Gym

The Fallout from Reporting on White Nationalism in Canada

Active Clubs Are White Supremacy's New, Dangerous Frontier

White Nationalist 'Active Clubs' Are Who 'Proud Boys Wanted to Be'

Whom Is ICE Actually Recruiting?

Experts Concerned About White Nationalist Imagery in ICE Recruitment Materials

Male Fantasies, Vol. 1

Interview with Klaus Theweleit on Male Fantasies Today

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If you heard Matthew’s Brief from March 28, you’ll know longtime Conspirituality listener Joseph Baker died on Feb 4 at the age of 51.

Matthew recorded this conversation with Joseph on January 9, 2024. They explore Matthew’s allergy to A Course in Miracles and Joseph’s devotion to it.

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Mikki Willis recently joined Russell Brand to discuss a whole host of issues, including rather suspect rewritings of the histories of AIDS and Covid-19. Derek and Julian discuss.

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Early in this podcast we covered the Disinformation Dozen, 12 wellness influencers and contrarian health figures responsible for spreading the lion’s share of vaccine misinformation on major social media platforms.

On a recent MAHA Action weekly call, Tony Lyons got the group back together for a victory lap after a court settlement seemed to justify their actions. Or did it?

We break down the court case, then hear from the influencers who continue to inflate their own sense of self-importance while rewriting a history that only exists in their minds.

Show Notes

The Real Election Threat: Tech Oligarchs & Algorithms | The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

POLITICO: Do the Disinformation Dozen Still Matter

State Dept. Imposes Sanctions on Disinfo Advocacy Groups

Original Disinformation Dozen Report

CDC “Whistleblower’s Debunked Autism Claims

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The wellness industry has been repeating marketing strategies used by the fashion and diet book industries for decades. Influencers are just exploiting novelty-seeking cognitive behaviors deeply embedded in human psychology.

Derek reviews today’s product du jour, peptides, by first looking into those dopamine-seeking behaviors, then exploring the history and present of these amino acid chains everywhere in wellness downlines.

Show Notes

Everyone’s Doing Peptides. Is It All a Big Scam?

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Matthew eulogizes longtime Conspirituality listener Joseph Baker, who died on February 4 at the age of 51. They became online friends when Joseph reached out to say that maybe Matthew was being too harsh with people who found inspiration in A Course in Miracles. Expecting an irritating exchange, Matthew came to know an incisive political thinker who managed to radiate hope and forgiveness, and learned more about how a radical flank can develop in any spiritual community.

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Did we all need a streaming manosphere documentary? Many did. Did we need one made in the GenX stop-and-mug slacker analysis-avoiding style of Louis Theroux? Debatable. Today we review Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere: its aesthetic mimicry of manosphere style, a potential ethics issue, how monetizing misogyny interacts with the gigwork incentives of OnlyFans, how all the bravado covers for legitimate fears, but only pays out at the top. 

Many Mexican Americans this past week were devastated to learn that a hero of the UFW and the broader Chicano Movement, Cesar Chavez, was a coercive serial abuser and pedophile. I say many: because many women knew, connected and informed by a whisper network dating back over decades, and maintained by the pressure to not degrade the status and gains of the movement itself. Off the top today, we look at the influence of the Synanon cult on Chavez’s tactics.

Show Notes

Cesar Chavez, a Civil Rights Icon, Is Accused of Abusing Girls for Years

Oregon institutions reckon with removing Cesar Chavez’s name following sexual abuse report

From streets to murals, the erasure of Cesar Chavez is fast underway in California

Inside the Manosphere: Louis Theroux opts for superficial spectacle over serious scrutiny 

Myron Gaines releases private call with Louis Theroux after revealing he tried to get footage removed from doc 

My Family's Story Is Proof That Documentaries Need Ethical Standards 

Beyond "The Staircase": What happens when the documentary ends with subjects "left with the bill"?

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From a repurposed orphanage in the North of England, Abdullah Hashem tells his audience in five languages, across two satellite TV companies, and multiple social media channels that he is the successor of Jesus and Mohammed, the “one true Pope” for Christians. In his carefully staged and ominously lit “basilica,” he lectures to his 200 residential followers (who emulate his idiosyncratic fashion style) about angels, aliens, reincarnation, and a planet where giant rabbits keep humans as pets. Oh and all about the coming apocalypse and his divinely chosen role in it.

Who is this American-Egyptian cult leader? Hashem grew up in Indiana, and got his start in college making documentary films debunking cult leaders and UFO hoaxes. Some time in his early twenties he went full conspiritualist, made an eight-hour film about esoteric knowledge, Quranic-prophecy, the Illuminati, and the End Times. He moved to Egypt and declared himself the Mahdi—a messianic figure from Islamic eschatology.

Former members tell of bizarre loyalty tests, financial exploitation, and other forms of abuse. Meanwhile Hashem broadcasts that the fall of the Iranian theocracy clears the way for his ascension into his divine appointment as philosopher king.

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There's been talk about the "male loneliness epidemic" for years. Yet what about women? Derek reviews economist Corinne Low's recent book, Having It All, in light of this question, contrasting it with Scott Galloway's recent self-help book for men. The contrasts between the books couldn't be clearer.

Show Notes

Having It All: What Data Tells Us About Women's Lives and Getting the Most Out of Yours

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