Elon Musk is a professional exaggerator and liar. From lying about founding PayPal and Tesla (he didn't), to lying about the death of his son and divorce from his second wife. Looking at his family history we get a little insight into the man - his father had two children with the stepdaughter he raised since she was four years old. What really defines Elon Musk though, is his capacity to wield his enormous wealth to sway public opinion and influence the democratic process.

Materials you might find helpful:

The Guardian, 2024. Elon Musk expected to join Trump administration as an adviser, 9 November. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/09/elon-musk-trump-administration [Accessed 10 November 2024].

The Guardian, 2024. X (formerly Twitter) stock drops following Elon Musk's controversial statements, 2 January. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/02/x-twitter-stock-falls-elon-musk [Accessed 10 November 2024].

NBC News, 2024. A timeline of Trump’s shifting positions on abortion. Available at: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trumps-many-abortion-positions-timeline-rcna146601 [Accessed 10 November 2024].

Rolling Stone, 2023. The big list of Elon musk’s hyperbole, evasions, and outright lies. Available at: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/elon-musk-twitter-zuckerberg-lies-1234808808/ [Accessed 10 November 2024].

Financial Times, 2024. Musk, Thiel and the shadow of apartheid South Africa. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/cfbfa1e8-d8f8-42b9-b74c-dae6cc6185a0 [Accessed 10 November 2024].

Truthout, 2024. Musk pledged $6 billion to solve world hunger, but gave it to his own foundation instead, Truthout. Available at: https://truthout.org/articles/musk-pledged-6b-to-solve-world-hunger-but-gave-it-to-his-own-foundation-instead/ [Accessed 10 November 2024].

Mamamia, 2023. Errol Musk started looking after his stepdaughter when she was four. Now they have two kids together. Available at: https://www.mamamia.com.au/errol-musk/ [Accessed 10 November 2024].

New Yorker, 2023. J.D. Vance and the Right’s call to have more babies, New Yorker. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/j-d-vance-and-the-rights-call-to-have-more-babies [Accessed 10 November 2024].

The saying goes that there's no such thing as a free lunch - if you are not paying, usually it is because you are the product. Every day we interact with platforms to read articles, share thoughts, upload our posts, make purchases, conduct research or otherwise just leisurely scroll. These platforms often have required billions of dollars of investment and many years of hard work by the brightest minds to be developed, yet we pay nothing to use them. If you have ever thought this is too good of a deal to be true - you are correct. "Free" apps and services exploit our personal data, often without us fully realising the consequences on our privacy, autonomy and decision-making.

Materials you might find helpful:

Thompson, S.A. & Warzel, C., 2019. How Your Phone Betrays Democracy. The New York Times, 21 December. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/21/opinion/location-data-democracy-protests.html [Accessed 3 November 2024].

Wylie, C., 2020. Mindfuck: Inside Cambridge Analytica’s Plot to Break the World. Paperback ed. London: Profile Books:

BBC News, 2023. How WhatsApp became the 'app for everything' in Brazil. BBC News, 17 August. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8j7nrppny2o [Accessed 3 November 2024].

Few have been through as many public controversies as Kanye West. During the last ten years the public has had a front row seat to Kanye's erratic, impulsive, and emotionally unstable antics. Many of these have not only been deeply offensive to many people, but they have left in their wake a destruction of his personal and business relationships, an alienation of his fanbase, a loss of credibility and increasing isolation as many in his circle publicly distance themselves from him. What is often glossed over however, is that these antics are driven by Kanye's mental illness - namely bipolar disorder - and in this context it is clear the untold story is that of Kanye as a victim of his fame and wealth.

Send your thoughts and comments to [email protected].

Materials you might find helpful:

Huberman Lab (2002), The Science & Treatment of Bipolar Disorder, Spotify. Available at: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7MX5KoUpR3Ulo2OGDc8gCE [Accessed 25 October 2024]

F.D. Signifier (2021), The Tragic Fall of Kanye West (Pt1), YouTube. Available at: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wvgehVhF9D4&pp=ygUYa2FueWUgd2VzdCByaXNlIGFuZCBmYWxs [Accessed 25 October 2024].

F.D. Signifier (2021), The Tragic Fall of Kanye West (Pt2), YouTube. Available at: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e7e5BFJa-Ug [Accessed 25 October 2024].

Daniel Rodrigues (2018), 2005 - Kanye West Wins Grammy Best Rap Album: The College Dropout (Speech), YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2-bjGkcaJI [Accessed 25 October 2024].

Petridis, A. (2022). Jeen-yuhs: A Kanye trilogy review – a heartwarming, sometimes heart-rending biopic. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/feb/16/jeen-yuhs-a-kanye-trilogy-review-a-heartwarming-sometimes-heart-rending-biopic (Accessed: 25 October 2024).

Age gap relationships have existed since the dawn of time. There are many appeals for both parties - often the younger partner is looking for financial provision and protection, and the older partner is looking to hold onto their youth for a little longer. Whilst they're not necessarily always inherently predatory - they often are. Sometimes the younger partner only comes to realise this years later, long after the damage has been done.

Send any questions and comments to [email protected] and they will addressed in a future episode.

Materials you might find helpful:

Vouloumanos, V. (2023), Women Who "Dated" Older Men As Teens Are Sharing How They Realized They Were Actually Predators, And It's Heartbreaking', BuzzFeed, 21 September. Available at: https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriavouloumanos/teen-girls-date-older-men-predatory (Accessed: 14 October 2024).

Shapiro, L. (2023), The Age Gappers', The Cut, 27 September. Available at: https://www.thecut.com/article/age-gap-relationships-couples.html (Accessed: 14 October 2024).

iNews. (2023) 'Older men dating younger women isn't automatically predatory', iNews, 10 October. Available at: https://inews.co.uk/opinion/older-men-dating-younger-women-isnt-automatically-predatory-3267630 (Accessed: 14 October 2024).

Heterosexuality as the standard, strict gender norms and negative LGBT societal messaging create in LGBT people feelings of shame, self-hatred and a deep desire to conform to the straight world - often at the expense of their own psychological well being. This episodes focuses on the symptoms of internalised homophobia and how to deal with it.

Send any questions and comments to [email protected] and they will addressed in a future episode.

Materials you might find helpful:

Williamson, I.R., 2000. Internalized homophobia and health issues affecting lesbians and gay men. Health Education Research, 15(1), pp.97-107. Available at: https://academic.oup.com/her/article/15/1/97/775710 [Accessed 9 Oct. 2024].

McGlotten, S., 2016. Can lesbians be misogynistic? The answer is yes — here’s why it happens. Bustle. Available at: https://www.bustle.com/articles/147623-can-lesbians-be-misogynistic-the-answer-is-yes-heres-why-it-happens [Accessed 9 Oct. 2024].

Stafford, A (2010). Uncompromising Positions: Reiterations of Misogyny Embedded in Lesbian and Feminist Communities' Framing of Lesbian Femme Identities. Core. Available at: https://core.ac.uk/download/322497442.pdf [Accessed 9 Oct. 2024].

Cooper, A., 2016. Get Your Internalized Misogyny Away from My Dildo Collection. The Link Newspaper, [online] Available at: https://thelinknewspaper.ca/article/get-your-internalized-misogyny-away-from-my-dildo-collection[Accessed 9 Oct. 2024].

Ryle, L., 2013. Butch Please: Butch with a Side of Misogyny. Autostraddle, [online] Available at: https://www.autostraddle.com/butch-please-butch-with-a-side-of-misogyny-174442/ [Accessed 11 Oct. 2024].

The Guardian. (2024) 'Why the Tavistock gender identity clinic was forced to shut – and what happens next', The Guardian, 31 March. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/31/why-the-tavistock-gender-identity-clinic-was-forced-to-shut-and-what-happens-next (Accessed: 14 October 2024)

Sex, power, and corruption are inextricably linked. Control over others becomes easier when their deepest secrets are at risk of exposure. P Diddy and Jeffrey Epstein are examples of men who used people's vices against them (often through extortion and blackmail), before finally becoming victims of these same vices. They are the tip of the iceberg. Sexual blackmail and extortion is deeply baked into the deepest recesses of government and power structures, and sex has always been leveraged by both victims and villains alike to gain control. The most enduring and powerful of these vices is sex - which moral leaders such as Martin Luther King and political leaders such as John F Kennedy equally fell prey to. There are important lessons to be learned about the nature of power, sex and our vices.

While it's generally understood that high-end fashion brands market prestige and status, it’s less obvious how this same manipulation is mirrored in military recruitment, which primarily targets people from low-income backgrounds. Both these industries prey on people's insecurities and their need for self-worth, offering false promises of value and social mobility. By commodifying both goods and lives, luxury brands and the military create illusions of empowerment, when in reality, they profit from the sacrifices of the working poor and disadvantaged.

Send any questions and comments to [email protected] and they will addressed in a future episode.

Materials you might find helpful:

BBC. (2018, July 19). Burberry burns bags, clothes, and perfume worth millions. BBC. Retrieved April 11, 2024, from https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44885983

Ilaria, M. (2018) 'The Chinese workers who assemble designer bags in Tuscany', The New Yorker, 16 April. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/16/the-chinese-workers-who-assemble-designer-bags-in-tuscany(Accessed: 28 September 2024).

Workers World (2022) ‘How the war machine ‘recruits’ poor, oppressed youth, 20 December. Available at: https://www.workers.org/2022/12/68299/ (Accessed: 28 September 2024).

Mass psychology is used to shape our beliefs, desires, and actions. Whilst we may be aware that the advertisement and public relations industries are specifically designed to manipulate our desires and behaviours - we sometimes don't realise that propaganda is endemic in our educational system, our politics and that we often don't know that we have been propagandised.

Send any questions and comments to [email protected] and they will addressed in a future episode.

Materials you might find helpful:

Achbar, M. and Wintonick, P. (dirs.), 1992. Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media. National Film Board of Canada.

Chomsky, N. and Herman, E.S., 1988. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books.

Lippmann, W., 1922. Public Opinion. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.

64Facets, 2023. Iconic Diamond Marketing Campaigns. 64Facets Fine Jewelry. Available at: https://64facets.com/blogs/64facets-blog/diamond-marketing-campaigns [Accessed 22 September 2024].

Imposter Syndrome is that nagging feeling that you don’t deserve your achievements—that you’re a fraud, only succeeding due to luck, charm, or being the "best of a bad bunch". For women, people of colour, and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds, this can be a natural consequence of working in hostile environments with deeply entrenched systemic biases. Either way, the net effect is feeling out of place, second-guessing yourself, and downplaying your contributions. This episode discusses how to overcome imposter syndrome.

Send any questions and comments to [email protected] and they will addressed in a future episode.

Materials you might find helpful:

Clance, Pauline & Imes, Suzanne, “The Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention”, https://www.paulineroseclance.com/pdf/ip_high_achieving_women.pdf

Tulshyan, Ruchika and Burey, Jodi-Ann, Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome, Harvard Business Review:

https://hbr.org/2021/02/stop-telling-women-they-have-imposter-syndrome

Bravata, Dena M et al. “Prevalence, Predictors, and Treatment of Impostor Syndrome: a Systematic Review, Journal of general medicine, vol. 35,4 (2020): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7174434/

Martins, Julia “Unmasking impostor syndrome: 15 ways to overcome it at work”, Asana: https://asana.com/resources/impostor-syndrome

Jamison, Leslie “Why Everyone Feels Like They’re Faking It”, The New Yorker:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/02/13/the-dubious-rise-of-impostor-syndrome

Nance-Nash, Sheryl, “Why imposter syndrome hits women and women of colour harder”:

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200724-why-imposter-syndrome-hits-women-and-women-of-colour-harder

The myth persists that the way to get the love or friendship you desire is by pouring into the person you care about - whether that be energy, emotions or financial resources. Nothing could be further from the truth - it is the giver that becomes entangled in the relationship the more they give, making it near impossible for them to walk away as they fall prey to sunk cost fallacy. Meanwhile, because of the law of diminishing returns, the recipient appreciates the giver less with each act of care and kindness that is given. The only way out for the over-giver in this dynamic is to find a way to reverse the roles.

Please send your thoughts to [email protected] and they will be addressed in a future episode.

Some materials you might find helpful:

Women Who Love Too Much by Robin Norwood

Generous Person, or Over-Giver? Always Gift-Giving? by Andrea M. Darcy, Harley Therapy: https://www.harleytherapy.co.uk/counselling/generous-person-or-over-giver.htm#:~:text=Over%2Dgiving%20tends%20to%20come,or%20with%20the%20other%20person.

The Wound That Causes You To Over Give by Amy Chan, Heart Hackers Club:

https://hearthackersclub.com/the-wound-that-causes-you-to-over-give/