Ill Conceived

By Josh Boerman & June SternbachSociety & Culture News Politics

Ill Conceived episodes

April 18Ballerina Farm / Hannah Neeleman: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived
--------------------------
Fox News has reported on the "problem" of teenagers not getting pregnant anymore. We're talking about it, and reading your letters because it turns out that a lot of you had a lot to say about Hannah Neeleman, including:
The cultural specifics of Mormonism and how they're reflected in Ballerina Farms
The sinister overtones of her husband's whole deal
The economics of farm tourism vs. functional scale farming
Natural births and why many people prefer them
Ballerina Farm-style natalism as a reflection of European settler-colonialism
As always, our babies stay winning!
24 min
April 11Ballerina Farm / Hannah Neeleman
Natalists have an ideal life and an ideal wife: rugged, individualistic, and dedicated to self-sufficiency. Perhaps nothing epitomizes this ideal better than Ballerina Farm, the popular social media account of dancer and pageant queen Hannah Neeleman that is growing into an influential direct-to-consumer food and lifestyle brand that no longer sells raw milk. This week, Josh and June look at the history of Ballerina Farm and try to understand how its strange brand of seemingly apolitical tradwifery serves as a stalking horse for the natalist movement and reactionary politics more broadly.
CHECK OUT OUR RECENT PODCAST GUEST APPEARANCES!
June on Anime Sickos
Josh on Lions Led By Donkeys
Josh on Well There's Your Problem
***WANT MORE ILL CONCEIVED? Every other week, we release B-side supplements to the main episodes where we read your e-mail responses and discuss things further. Come check us out at Patreon.com/illconceived!***
***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WORLD FAMOUS MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to [email protected]***
EPISODE ART: Hannah Neeleman in a professional headshot. After graduating from Juilliard's dance undergraduate program while pregnant, Neeleman moved to Brazil then back home to Utah, where she and her husband Daniel purchased a farm along the east side of the Wasatch Range. Her Instagram account Ballerina Farm has over 10 million followers.
AUDIO CLIPS:
1:01:48 – "Strength at Every Stage" protein powder advertisement from Ballerina Farm
1:27:12 – Response to the Sunday Times article from the Ballerina Farm Instagram account
SOURCES:
Ballerina Farm website
Ballerina Farm Instagram
“Meet the queen of the ‘trad wives’ (and her eight children)” by Megan Agnew (The Sunday Times, July 20, 2024)
“She Gave Birth Two Weeks Ago. Now She’s in a Beauty Pageant” by Madison Malone Kircher (The New York Times, January 30, 2024)
“Tycoon or Tradwife? The Woman Behind Ballerina Farm Makes Her Own Path” by Julia Moskin (The New York Times, December 3, 2024)
“The Business of Ballerina Farm” by Liz Flora (Business of Fashion, May 27, 2025)
“When Ballerina Farm Comes to Town” by Erica Schwiegershausen (The Cut, September 10, 2025)
“Park City Creamery to sell business to Ballerina Farm” by Katie Hatzfeld (The Park Record, December 23, 2025)
“Ballerina Farm pauses raw milk sales after samples fail health tests” by Grace Doerfler (KPCW, January 29, 2026)
Hannah Neeleman’s feature spread in Evie magazine
“Audio Recording From Ballerina Farm Times Interview Exposes Dishonest Journalism” by Nicole Dominique (Evie, July 29, 2024)
FOLLOW THE SHOW:
Website: illconceivedpodcast.com
Bluesky: ‪@illconceivedpodcast.com
Tumblr: @illconceivedpod
FOLLOW JOSH:
Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench
FOLLOW JUNE:
Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack
ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)
1 hr 39 min
April 08 BONUS - The Worst of All Possible Worlds: Beast Games StrongSmart feat. Kill The Computer
Beast Week continues as the gang from The Worst of All Possible Worlds join with June and Caleb to dig into season 2 of Beast Games. This is the first half of a full-length episode; to get the whole thing head over to Patreon.com/worstofall!
1 hr 7 min
April 06 BONUS - Kill The Computer: The Smile Merchant feat. The Worst of All Possible Worlds
We're so back. The next Ill Conceived, about Ballerina Farm, has been recorded and will drop this coming Friday.
To tide you over until then, we've brought you some extra goodies. Our other shows, Josh's The Worst of All Possible Worlds and June's Kill The Computer, are doing a full crossover collaboration that we're calling Beast Week, dedicated to celebrating Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson. And it kicks off today.
In this episode of Kill The Computer, the gang from The Worst of All Possible Worlds talked with June and Caleb about a number of videos MrBeast released in 2025. Then we dug into his theme park Beast Land, a temporary pop-up in Riyadh that was open for 45 days as part of the annual Saudi entertainment festival known as Riyadh Season.
Next up, on Wednesday, Kill The Computer will be joining Josh, Brian, and A.J. on The Worst of All Possible Worlds Patreon for a premium episode about season 2 of Beast Games. We'll also upload the first half of the episode here so you can get a taste for it.
Finally, on Friday, alongside new Ill Conceived we’ll be concluding Beast Week on the Kill The Computer Patreon with an in-depth conversation about what Jimmy’s been up to so far this year and where we think he might go next.
Thank you as always for being our beloved babies.
Love, Josh
1 hr 49 min
March 13Tucker Carlson: The End of Men: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived
--------------------------
We try to clarify some of our thoughts last week on weight and health, then dig a bit more into some claims made by the Bro Scientists. Plus, June gets a bit loopy and we spend a solid 10+ minutes on ball tanning. We also read your emails about:
Avoiding plastics because your dad is afraid of estrogen
Jobs with lots of physical activity that are bad for your health
Finally, here's a link to the GIF that June was cracking up about.
26 min
March 08Tucker Carlson: The End of Men
Testosterone is lowering. Sperm counts are shrinking. Men, a once proud and noble half of the human race, are accelerating down the road to extinction. So say many natalists, who tie their fear of demographic decline into their anxieties about gender. But how much of what they claim has any basis in truth whatsoever? This week, June and Josh take a look at Tucker Carlson's 2022 Fox Nation short "The End of Men" to see how it both set a template for and propagated narratives about declining masculinity that have since become ubiquitous.
***WANT MORE ILL CONCEIVED? Every other week, we release B-side supplements to the main episodes where we read your e-mail responses and discuss things further. Come check us out at Patreon.com/illconceived!***
***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WORLD FAMOUS MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to [email protected]***
EPISODE ART: Tucker Carlson in an ABC News press photo. After spending years as a mid-level host of various news shows, Carlson became a leading star of Fox News' primetime lineup with the debut of Tucker Carlson Tonight in 2016. Carlson was fired by the network in 2023 for spreading falsehoods and misleading video about the January 6, 2020 riots on the United States Capitol and has since become a leading voice of right-wing new media.
SOURCES:
Why Tucker Carlson's 'The End of Men' Is So Disturbing
Why Are Testosterone Levels Decreasing?
Secular trends in testosterone- findings from a large state-mandate care provider
Environmental Toxins Likely Cause of 50% Decline in Global Sperm Count
Male fertility is declining – studies show that environmental toxins could be a reason
Low t and fertility
Low Testosterone & Fertility
Endocrine Disruptor
What are endocrine disruptors?
What Are Ultra Processed Foods? How Diet Impacts Health
Seeding doubt: The truth about cooking oils
Trump executive order on a weed killer chemical didn’t do RFK Jr. any favors
RFK Jr. post agreeing with Trumps EO
Red Light Therapy: Benefits, Safety and Things to Know
Is Eating Raw Eggs Bad?
Cold Plunge Benefits: The Science Behind Ice Baths for Recovery
Beef Tallow: Doctors Group Shares Consumer Health Alert Warning
“Unapologetically Bomb” Whitehouse post
The Myth of the New Man in Italian Fascist Ideology
FOLLOW THE SHOW:
Website: illconceivedpodcast.com
Bluesky: ‪@illconceivedpodcast.com
Tumblr: @illconceivedpod
FOLLOW JOSH:
Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench
FOLLOW JUNE:
Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack
ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)
1 hr 43 min
February 28Jeffrey Epstein: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived
--------------------------
The new CEO of Xbox is worried about birthrates and thinks AI might have the solution. We're talking about it, plus we read your letters from the Jeffrey Epstein episode regarding:
How "pregnant people" provides more specificity as a term than "pregnant women" and why natalists don't like it
The emails that Sarah Ferguson, the then-wife of then-Prince Andrew, sent to Epstein
How Epstein associate Nick Bostrom's obsession with superintelligent AI reflects a faulty consensus among tech industry types
Also, here's a link to the official music video for Jimmy MacMillan's song "Ain't Nothing To Talk About" in its entirety.
37 min
February 20Jeffrey Epstein
On January 30, the U.S. Department of Justice released over 3 million pages of new information about Jeffrey Epstein. Among these documents are thousands of new emails detailing Epstein's links to technologists and academics in the world of evolutionary biology, eugenics, and artificial intelligence. This week, Josh and June dig into the history of Epstein's connections with these people and discuss how his bizarre plans for his own offspring reflect the ideas and objectives of the tech natalist agenda.
***REMINDER: WE HAVE A PATREON! Every other week, we release B-side supplements to the main episodes where we read your e-mail responses and discuss things further. Come check us out at Patreon.com/illconceived!***
***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to [email protected]***
EPISODE ART: Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and human trafficker, wearing a Harvard university sweatshirt. One month after being indicted on federal child sex trafficking charges in 2019, Epstein was found dead in his jail cell, leaving his likely thousands of victims without justice for the crimes he committed.
SOURCES:
“Harvard closes evolution center after finding connections to Jeffrey Epstein” by Edward Helmore (The Guardian, March 27, 2021)
“Martin Nowak Sanctioned for Jeffrey Epstein Involvement” by Lydialyle Gibson (Harvard Magazine, March 25, 2021)
“How Jeffrey Epstein Captivated Harvard” by Michael Massing (The Nation, July 24, 2023)
Harvard report concerning Jeffrey Epstein’s connections to Harvard University
“Professor Corina Tarnita on the Epstein Files: ‘I Wish I Had Never Known Him’” by Lia Opperman (Princeton Alumni Weekly, February 10, 2026)
“Jeffrey Epstein Raked In $200 Million After Legal and Financial Crises” by Matthew Goldstein and Steve Eder (The New York Times, October 3, 2019)
“Epstein files reveal deeper ties to scientists than previously known” by Dan Garisto (Nature, February 6, 2026)
Epstein testimony before the Economic Development Commission, USVI
“Jeffrey Epstein: International Moneyman of Mystery” by Landon Thomas Jr. (New York Magazine, October 28, 2002)
“Jeffrey Epstein files shed light on ties to Santa Fe Institute scientists” by Clara Bates (Santa Fe New Mexican, February 11, 2026)
“Jeffrey Epstein E-mails Reveal Depth of Ties to High-Profile Scientists” by Dan Vergano (Scientific American, November 13, 2025)
“The DIY designer baby project funded with Bitcoin” by Antonio Regalado (MIT Technology Review, February 1, 2019)
“Jeffrey Epstein Hoped to Seed Human Race With His DNA” by James B. Stewart, Matthew Goldstein and Jessica Silver-Greenberg (The New York Times, July 31, 2019)
“Why did Jeffrey Epstein cultivate famous scientists?” by Dan Vergano (Scientific American, January 20, 2026)
“Jeffrey Epstein had a 'Frankenstein'-like plan to analyze human DNA in the US Virgin Islands, and it reportedly pulled in $200 million” by Erin Brodwin (Business Insider, October 4, 2019)
“Texas GOP politician Don Huffines plans Christian retreat at Zorro Ranch” by Clara Bates (Santa Fe New Mexican, February 16, 2026)
“Former MIT scientist funded by Epstein made racist and sexist claims in private emails” by Kate Selig (Boston Globe, November 21, 2025)
“New Mexico House unanimously enacts Epstein ‘truth commission’” by Danielle Prokop (Source NM, February 16, 2026)
“How Jeffrey Epstein Bought His Way Into An Exclusive Intellectual Boys Club” by Peter Aldhous (Buzzfeed News, September 26, 2019)
“How Epstein Infiltrated the Silicon Valley Network Behind Trump’s New Tech Order” by Nafeez Ahmed (Byline Times, December 3, 2025)
“How Epstein Channelled Race Science and ‘Climate Culling’ Into Silicon Valley’s AI Elite” by Nafeez Ahmed (Byline Times, December 5, 2025)
DIRECT LINKS TO EPSTEIN FILES QUOTED IN THIS EPISODE:
Exchange between Epstein and Stephen Kosslyn where Epstein requests the name of a psychologist for a 15-year-old girl
Epstein’s pitch to Martin Nowak for “commercial evolution”
Nowak’s first reply
Nowak’s second reply
Nowak’s third reply
Exchange between Nowak and Epstein about “a polish beauty”
Exchange between Nowak and Epstein about a “captured spy”
Exchange between Nowak and Epstein concerning Nowak’s “Korean friend”
Exchange between Nowak's assistant, Epstein, and Epstein's accountant concerning a wire of $10,000 to "the girl from Romania"
Journal that appears to document a young woman’s experience as a “human incubator” for Epstein
FOLLOW THE SHOW:
Website: illconceivedpodcast.com
Bluesky: ‪@illconceivedpodcast.com
Tumblr: @illconceivedpod
FOLLOW JOSH:
Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench
FOLLOW JUNE:
Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack
ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)
1 hr 49 min
February 14 Surrogacy: The B-Side (PREVIEW)
THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived
--------------------------
We didn't get a lot of mail about surrogacy this week. But you wanted to hear more about weird Silicon Valley Christians and we wanted to talk about them, so we read from an interview with the founder of a Peter Thiel-connected organization called ACTS 17 that hosted the "Code and Cosmos" event we mentioned in last week's main feed episode.
Plus, an update on Trump Accounts.
23 min
February 07Surrogacy
An increasingly popular childbirth option for couples who cannot easily naturally conceive is to utilize a surrogate who gestates and births the pregnancy on behalf of the intended parents. And as of late, surrogacy is also being used by some especially wealthy people, particularly in the tech industry, as a way for them to avoid pregnancy altogether. This week, June and Josh look at the history of surrogacy, the moral disagreements among the religious right about the practice, and some of the ethical and legal complications that can result.
***REMINDER: WE HAVE A PATREON! Every other week, we release B-side supplements to the main episodes where we read your e-mail responses and discuss things further. Come check us out at Patreon.com/illconceived!***
***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to [email protected]***
EPISODE ART: Cindy Bi, a venture capitalist who attempted to give birth via surrogacy. When the pregnancy resulted in a stillbirth, Bi sued her surrogate and went to the press to disparage her further.
AUDIO CLIPS:
1:15:47 – Epic Church promotional "About Us" video
1:22:49 – Ben Pilgreen, pastor of Epic Church, delivering a sermon called "What Maturity Demands"
SOURCES:
Man into Woman: An Authentic Record of a Change of Sex (1933)
The History of Surrogacy: A Legal Timeline
Baby M and the Question of Surrogate Motherhood
Surrogacy Laws: The Best States For Compensated Surrogacy
Severe Maternal and Neonatal Morbidity Among Gestational Carriers: A Cohort Study
Americans want biological children but prefer adoption to surrogacy
The Difference Between Love and Surrogacy
Gestational Surrogacy Success Rates
Common issues with surrogacy and IVF
Surrogates 20 years on: long-term psychological health, contact with surrogacy families, and thoughts and feelings about post-birth contact
The Baby Died. Whose Fault Is It?
The billionaire obsession with surrogacy
Christianity Was “Borderline Illegal” in Silicon Valley. Now It’s the New Religion
The Chinese Billionaires Having Dozens of U.S.-Born Babies Via Surrogate
Artificial womb robot promises cheap surrogacy but sparks deep ethical fears
Silicon Valley wants to help me make a superbaby. Should I let it?
Suggestion to use brain stem dead women's bodies for surrogate pregnancies sparks huge backlash
Regulation of Genetic Tests
Perspectives on Surrogate Motherhood
FOLLOW THE SHOW:
Website: illconceivedpodcast.com
Bluesky: ‪@illconceivedpodcast.com
Tumblr: @illconceivedpod
FOLLOW JOSH:
Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench
FOLLOW JUNE:
Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack
ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)
1 hr 39 min

About Ill Conceived

From the publisher's feed

A podcast about natalism. Hosted by Josh Boerman (The Worst of All Possible Worlds, Traditional Scrench) and June Sternbach (Kill The Computer, The Onion).