March 19, 2025

Ep 172 — All About Cults feat. Chris Shelton | Don't Look Up

3 hours 45 minutes

We have a guest for our main segment this time. Chris Shelton is a cult expert content creator who eats, breathes, and sleeps high-demand, coercive groups. We discuss everything from what makes a group a cult, how to identify them, is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a cult, and proper ways to approach conversations about high-demand groups. Be sure to check out our series collaborating on Chris's YouTube channel linked below. After that we discuss Don't Look Up, a 2021 movie about the cult of politics and a major natural disaster that affects everybody across the globe. To wrap up we have a brief chat about a gene-related study on mice and speech patterns before closing out with a review of all our listener mail from the Death Penalty series.

Next Live Show: Mon, March 31, 2025 6:00 PM (MT)

Bryce's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@bryceblankenagel7707

Show Notes:

Chris Shelton:

Chris's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChrisSheltonMsc

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Shelton_(author)

MOGP: Don't Look Up

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11286314/?ref_=hm_rvi_i_1

Where it's streaming: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/dont-look-up-2021

Happy News:

https://www.iflscience.com/scientists-put-a-human-language-gene-into-mice-and-curious-things-unfolded-78418

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56579-2

Listener Mail link: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-some-european-prisons-are-based-dignity-instead-dehumanization

Other appearances: Chris Shelton interviewed us in the beginning of a series on Mormonism: Speaking of Cults … Mormonism is a Compliance Culture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCeW3jvP-RE&t=2973s