Plausibly Deniable

Welcome back to the Plausibly Deniable Experience. Lukas and Saila enter Soycast mode to reconstruct cooking from first principles, prove that bachelor slop is game-theory optimal, and explain why sharing food with roommates produces resentment instead of consumer surplus. We investigate the hidden fat tax, nuclear-powered dishwasher cabinets, and whether the government should pay your grandmother to cook for you.Then: why Twitter got boring, quote-tweet parasitism, synthetic OpenAI equity, and corporate jobs that have quietly become pensions. Doug Leone’s homelessness story becomes a debate about whether a long layover counts as adversity, Lukas gets trapped in an American Airlines Groundhog Day, and Saila discovers that “you can just do things” doesn’t necessarily extend to getting a menu. Also: getting a job as a self-improvement protocol, open-source software with a personal grudge, and the Balaji debate that never happened.If you didn’t need the money, what job would you do? Tell us in the comments.Sponsored by:Zcash: https://z.cashPolymarket: https://polymarket.comCitizenX: https://citizenx.comPassage Press: https://passage.pressBonus episodes + extended cuts: https://plausiblydeniable.substack.comPlausibly Deniable: https://plausiblydeniable.orgSubmit a question: https://plausiblydeniable.org/ask/Follow the show: https://x.com/PD_EXPLukas: https://x.com/SCHIZO_FREQSaila: https://x.com/sailaunderscore00:00 Get a Job Theory 00:37 Sponsors and Welcome to the Soycast04:45 The Hidden Fat Tax07:59 Cooking From First Principles14:13 One Bowl, Zero Chores: Bachelor Economics23:44 Why Sharing Food Ruins Roommates27:28 Put the Grandmothers to Work32:30 Downvotes, Groupthink and the Death of Comments36:00 Engagement Farming and Synthetic OpenAI Equity40:47 The Fed vs. the Trading Algorithms42:39 Why Twitter Got Boring51:09 Riding With Biden and the Gerontocracy57:00 Kale, Dieting and Supermarket Discipline1:00:00 Boredom and Get a Job Theory1:01:56 The People Who Never Leave the House1:03:58 Incels, Age Gaps and America A vs. America B1:08:17 Doug Leone and the Homelessness Origin Story1:14:20 Trapped at DFW: Complaining on Twitter Works1:18:12 Sponsor Wishlist and Open Source With a Grudge1:20:30 The Balaji Debate That Never Happened1:22:49 The Best Job When You Don’t Need Money1:26:53 Video Calls, Insurance Sales and Plumber Sponsorships1:31:05 Dream Guests and Podcasting as an Endurance Sport1:33:34 Open Mics and Birthday Scams1:35:57 “You Can Just Do Things” vs. the Restaurant Hostess

Brian Chau has figured out how to use AI for journalism without producing AI slop: make the models read mountains of documents, then make humans write the story.Brian is the founder of Effort News, a publication using long-context AI to comb through federal databases, financial records, legal filings, and other giant piles of public data for stories everyone else missed. He joins Lukas and Saila to explain the refugee-resettlement grant investigation that convinced him to launch Effort, why ordinary journalism is often built around stories sources want “placed,” and what changes when you can query an entire government dataset instead.They also get into why frontier models are becoming better at math and worse at prose; Claude’s sycophancy; the different sources models inherently trust; taxpayer-funded NGOs; the funding behind anti-data-center and anti-AI activism; SBF’s Anthropic investment; Nick Shirley’s fraud counters; the EU’s attack on the open internet; zoning, NIMBYs, giant trucks, and “full-force centrism”; writing separate websites for humans and AIs; why Brian’s p(doom) is negative; and whether Effort can become a new source of truth for the AI age.Guest:Effort News: https://effort.newsBrian Chau on X: https://x.com/brianchau57Sponsored by:Polymarket: https://polymarket.comZcash: https://z.cashCitizenX: https://citizenx.comNetwork Press: https://network.press_______________________________Plausibly Deniable: https://plausiblydeniable.orgBonus episodes + every new release by email: https://plausiblydeniable.substack.comLukas: https://x.com/SCHIZO_FREQSaila: https://x.com/sailaunderscore Brian Chau: https://x.com/brianchau5700:00 — “Unaligned NGOs” and the anti-AI money trail01:06 — Welcome and Brian Chau02:01 — From machine learning to Effort News02:47 — Why AI writing keeps getting worse08:21 — Sycophancy and models that instantly agree with you09:37 — Which sources different models trust13:54 — How Effort News finds stories15:34 — The refugee-resettlement grant investigation25:00 — Data-first journalism versus planted stories27:08 — A million AI agents versus government databases28:58 — Data centers, unions, and political extortion31:29 — Why Brian is optimistic about the next 20 years33:19 — Europe, censorship, and the open internet37:30 — A white pill wrapped in black pills42:22 — Taxpayer-funded media and manufactured consensus44:10 — What does it mean for discourse to be “fake”?44:57 — Who funds anti-data-center activism?50:13 — Nick Shirley, fraud counters, and due diligence57:49 — Full-force centrism58:28 — Zoning, NIMBYs, and the affordability crisis1:04:04 — “Things can just be better”1:06:43 — How regulation made trucks enormous1:09:03 — Rebuilding a shared political reality1:13:02 — Tucker, Candace, and the right-wing influencer problem1:15:13 — How Effort News is funded1:16:00 — Who gets to shape AI’s values?1:17:09 — Writing one website for humans and another for AIs1:20:16 — How much of culture is manufactured?1:22:50 — The anti-AI funding network1:24:47 — SBF’s attempted crypto regulatory monopoly1:27:06 — Why Brian’s p(doom) is negative1:29:01 — The UK, France, and nuclear instability1:31:01 — The accidental founding of Effort News1:32:25 — Subscribers, B2B data, and a future newswire1:35:24 — Building a new source of truth1:39:29 — The Plausibly Deniable exclusive1:42:48 — Publicists, the Vice mafia, and founder-led media1:47:13 — Effort’s team and the disgusting CTA1:48:13 — Pre-made Twitter threads and “we read AI text”1:49:36 — Why real scoops sit next to total slop1:54:24 — Substack, data visualization, and $80,000 subscriptions2:02:23 — Final plugs and farewell

Jakob Diepenbrock is running a hard-tech fund from El Segundo, backing young engineers building defense, manufacturing, robotics, energy, and other critical industries. He joins Lukas and Saila to explain how he skipped the credential ladder, built Discipulus Ventures, raised a fund by treating the process like a startup launch, and why Anduril’s breakout made defense tech the allocation everyone suddenly wanted.

They also discuss cost-plus military contracts, drones versus soldiers, DJI’s domination of creator hardware, automated American textile factories, why humanoid robots are TikTok bait, insectoid factory machines, American-made peptides, ethanol and farm lobbies, machine financing at 30%, the tacit knowledge trapped in aging machinists, lowballing retiring boomers for obscure industrial monopolies, founder bench-press requirements, a Vegas magician who broke reality, CIA remote viewing, UFOs as Space Force marketing, medical isotope enrichment, Russian shell companies, and Germany’s reverse house-flipping bureaucracy.

Sponsored by:

Polymarket: https://polymarket.com

Zcash: https://z.cash

CitizenX: https://citizenx.com

Passage Press: https://passage.press

_________________________________

Watch, listen, and join the discussion:

Plausibly Deniable: https://plausiblydeniable.org

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PlausiblyDeniableExperience

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3cU3OBRKnYGY7fyGF6x2Th

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/plausibly-deniable/id1866452505

Substack: https://plausiblydeniable.substack.com

X: https://x.com/PD_EXP

Jakob Diepenbrock: https://x.com/jakobdiepen

Discipulus Ventures: https://www.discipulusventures.com

Discipulus Cohort: https://www.discipulusventures.com/cohort

Lukas: https://x.com/SCHIZO_FREQ

Saila: https://x.com/sailaunderscore

Contact: [email protected]

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro and Sponsors

01:25 The Substack Payment Processor Is Finally Fixed

05:00 Turning the Podcast Into a Call to Action

07:08 Meet Jakob / Long-Distance Running Is Adult Self-Harm

09:19 El Segundo, Chamath, and the Defense-Tech Wave

11:17 Why Hard Tech Belongs in El Segundo

14:40 Starting a Fund Without Credentials

17:29 Venture Capital Is Crappy Beta

19:23 Raising a Fund Like a Startup

22:46 The 22-Year-Old Fund Manager Problem

24:36 Why Defense Tech Suddenly Became Cool

27:27 Elon, DOGE, and the $20 Million Missile

29:05 How Cost-Plus Contracting Broke Defense

30:00 The Defense Industry Is Smaller Than You Think

32:19 Political Risk for Government Contractors

35:17 Robotics Is the Next Bubble

36:29 Reindustrialization and the American-Made Premium

40:00 DJI, Drones, and the Captured Creator Economy

42:03 “Reindustrialized” Sweaters Made in China

43:47 Automated American Textiles

47:59 Humanoid Robots Are Boomer Bait

50:51 Insect Robots, Chemicals, and Ethanol

54:58 RFK’s Fitness Camps and American-Made Peptides

57:11 Bioreactors and Cheaper Drug Manufacturing

58:23 Lowballing Boomers for Strategic Companies

1:03:51 America Runs on Three Old Guys and a Notebook

1:08:37 Grants, Tariffs, and Supply-Chain Sovereignty

1:12:38 Wire Harnesses and 30% Machine Financing

1:17:08 El Segundo Culture and the Founder Bench Test

1:21:48 The Vegas Magician Who Broke Reality

1:24:49 CIA Remote Viewing, UFOs, and Space Force

1:28:33 Medical Isotopes and Russian Shell Companies

1:31:05 Germany’s Reverse House-Flipping Program

1:33:20 Mandatory Call to Action

Covfefe Anon returns to Plausibly Deniable to discuss the bliss of confirmation bias: how to engineer a viral take, why the edit may be the native medium of the 21st century, and why Angry Birds might be the most fascist movie ever made. Lukas, Saila and Covfefe review films they have not seen, explain why ironic criticism only makes its targets cooler, and consider whether Confirmation Bias is actually a better name for the podcast.

The conversation also covers Ryan Gosling, Barbenheimer, James Bond, public-domain superheroes and AI remakes, Joe Biden and the death of the presidency, girl-avatar growth hacks, GPUs and matrix multiplication, phonics and grade inflation, business-school arbitrage, solo-podcast psychosis, radicalized wives, Twitter jannies, boomer game, hair-loss hopium, live-editing reality, friendship simulators, freedom of association, and the “blood diamonds attack” on crypto.

Sponsored by:

Polymarket: https://polymarket.com

Zcash: https://z.cash

CitizenX: https://citizenx.com

Passage Press: https://passage.press

Watch, listen, and join the discussion:

Plausibly Deniable: https://plausiblydeniable.org

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PlausiblyDeniableExperience

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3cU3OBRKnYGY7fyGF6x2Th

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/plausibly-deniable/id1866452505

Substack: https://plausiblydeniable.substack.com

X: https://x.com/PD_EXP

Lukas: https://x.com/SCHIZO_FREQ

Saila: https://x.com/sailaunderscore

Covfefe Anon: https://x.com/CovfefeAnon

Contact: [email protected]

Timestamps:

00:00 How to Engineer a Viral Take

01:02 Intro and Sponsors

01:48 Reviewing The Odyssey Without Watching It

05:15 Spoilers, Millennial Slop, and the Last Shared Culture

10:40 Meta-Level Lying, LARPing, and Intrigue-Maxing

17:24 Ryan Gosling’s Drive and the Single-Mom Concession

20:28 Barbenheimer and the Fascism of Angry Birds

24:03 Ryan Gosling vs. Angry Birds and the Communist Sequel

30:00 James Bond Rides Bitch

32:55 Public-Domain Superheroes and AI Remakes

34:11 Activated Charcoal and the Final Original Podcast Episode

37:12 Patrick Bateman, Starship Troopers, and Failed Irony

39:44 GEOBODEN and Joe Biden’s Final Act

42:58 The Presidency Is a Puppet Show

46:49 The Edit Is the Native Medium of the 21st Century

50:02 One Reader and Ninety-Nine Edit Watchers

52:09 How to Manufacture a Viral Take

54:46 The Girl-Avatar Growth Hack

58:39 GPUs Accidentally Built Superintelligence

1:02:14 Schooling, Phonics, and the End of Reading

1:07:11 Harvard Sells Credentials, Not Education

1:12:03 Business School, Bar Prep, and Clicker Arbitrage

1:15:36 Solo Podcasting Causes Mental Illness

1:17:34 Candace Owens and the Radicalized Wife

1:22:20 Men Lead, Women Follow, and Soy Turns You Into a Deer

1:24:09 Should We Rebrand as Confirmation Bias?

1:26:30 Emotional Programming and Mental Illness as a Defense

1:29:18 The Brain-Damage Loophole

1:33:27 Mom Gets Banned and Twitter Jannies Get Rich

1:38:22 Boomer Opportunity Stories and “May I Meet You?”

1:42:46 Hot-Girl Signaling, Hair-Loss Hopium, and Recycled Tweets

1:46:15 Broken Twitter Search, Outsourced Editing, and Dog Clickers

1:49:48 Live-Editing Reality and the Ex Who Shrunk Seven Inches

1:52:33 The Bliss of Confirmation Bias

1:55:08 Friendship Simulators and the Blood-Diamonds Attack

1:58:54 Freedom of Association and Memetic Stink

2:02:20 Outro: Should We Rebrand?

America has become a coin-flipping economy—and the language we use now punishes anyone foolish enough to take things seriously.

Lukas and Saila discuss AI psychosis and a 76,000-contact CRM, the fragmented B2B SaaS economy, travel-authorization scams, tax software, W-2 employment, lawsuits, bankruptcy, fake sponsorships, macro investors with monkey pictures, crypto traders posting inspirational corn after blowing up, and Costco gold arbitrage.

Then they turn to the linguistic destruction of America: how “try-hard,” “glazing,” the IDGAF war, and “Woke One” made effort, admiration, accountability, and sincerity embarrassing.

Also discussed: DeepSeek’s immigrant work ethic, aggressive safety razors, safe-horny culture, podcasters as male sex workers, the office LARP keeping the American economy alive, and why titles and thumbnails matter more than the podcast itself.

Sponsored by:

Polymarket: https://polymarket.com
Zcash: https://z.cash
CitizenX: https://citizenx.com
Passage Press: https://passage.press

Watch, listen, and join the discussion:

Plausibly Deniable: https://plausiblydeniable.org
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PlausiblyDeniableExperience
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3cU3OBRKnYGY7fyGF6x2Th
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/plausibly-deniable/id1866452505
Substack: https://plausiblydeniable.substack.com
X: https://x.com/PD_EXP

Lukas: https://x.com/SCHIZO_FREQ
Saila: https://x.com/sailaunderscore

Contact: [email protected]

Timestamps:

00:00 “Try-Hard” Caused Societal Damage
01:06 Intro and Sponsors
01:17 Ransoming Product Recommendations
02:14 The Beach-House Food Disaster
04:32 AI Psychosis and the 76,000-Contact CRM
07:29 The B2B SaaS Lego Scam
09:11 Travel Authorization Scams and Private FCC Stings
16:31 Tax Software, Professional Cartels, and the W-2
21:02 There Are No Winners in Court
25:54 JD Vance, Europe, and Girlboss Diplomacy
29:35 Fake Sponsorships and the Prometheus Statue
33:13 Corporate Norwood Haircuts and Hormone Twitter
37:31 The Crypto Trader Starts Posting Corn
40:10 Gold, T-Bills, and Macro Monkey Pictures
46:17 The Coin-Flipping Economy
50:00 The Collective Psychic Force Field and the Big Kahuna
52:22 Outflanking Every Doomer by Going Further Back
53:51 Costco Gold Arbitrage
56:29 Shamelessness Is the Last Remaining Edge
57:49 Podcasters Are Male Sex Workers
1:00:54 Crypto Nostalgia and DeepSeek’s Work Ethic
1:03:00 The Aggressive Razor Ambush
1:06:19 Smoothness, Bottoming, and Safe Horny
1:09:44 “Woke One” and the Great Fugue State
1:15:16 The IDGAF War
1:16:20 How “Try-Hard” Damaged Civilization
1:18:40 The Office Worker Who Pretends to Be Busy
1:21:54 Your Breeding Fetish Came Free
1:22:43 “Glazing” and Linguistic Destruction
1:25:18 Titles, Thumbnails, and the Podcast Meta
1:29:47 The New Dating Gift Economy
1:31:48 Covfefe Anon Becomes a Permanent Houseguest
1:32:43 Childhood Obliviousness

Lukas and Saila talk about an accidental arsenic-poisoning bonfire, frustrating hospital visits, bizarre injuries, the Hunter Biden–Nick Fuentes interview, Gavin Newsom, European manufacturing, aging, astrology and viral internet tools, gender and dating dynamics, rural life, bulk food, FBI encounters, online anonymity, food quality, RFK Jr., AI culture, Silicon Valley politics, cats, dogs, strange neighbors, self-deception and AI-assisted coding.Sponsored by:Polymarket: https://polymarket.comZcash: https://z.cashCitizenX: https://citizenx.comNetwork Press: https://network.press_______________________________

Mert Mumtaz, co-founder and CEO of Helius, joins Lukas and Saila to explain why privacy is crypto’s unfinished business, why he sees Zcash as encrypted—or “better”—Bitcoin, and what the Ironwood upgrade means for the Orchard pool, supply integrity, formal verification and quantum recoverability.

They compare Zcash and Monero, unpack fungibility and tainted coins, discuss private finance on Solana and Helius’s work with Light Protocol, and examine why public blockchains risk becoming a global financial panopticon. The conversation then moves into AI, DeFi security, startup hiring, company names, Slavic relationship theory, emergency flowers and the collapse of straightforward Western dating.

Sponsored by:

Polymarket: https://polymarket.com
Zcash: https://z.cash
CitizenX: https://citizenx.com
Passage Press: https://passage.press

Plausibly Deniable: https://plausiblydeniable.org
Lukas: https://x.com/SCHIZO_FREQ
Saila: https://x.com/sailaunderscore
Mert: https://x.com/mert

Jeremy Kauffman joins the Positively Deniable Experience to explain how spending a few hours per week on libertarian politics helped throw the national Libertarian Party into chaos—and why he believes the Free State movement is succeeding in New Hampshire while the national party remains committed to losing.

Jeremy recounts the rise of LBRY and Odysee, the SEC case that destroyed the company, crypto’s early generation of true believers, and the attempt to build a censorship-resistant alternative to YouTube. He also explains how the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire grew its X account from roughly 4,000 to 110,000 followers and why political influence increasingly flows from culture, social media, and status rather than policy papers.

The conversation also covers the Free State Project, concentrating committed political minorities in one state, anonymity and trust online, New Hampshire’s economy and quality of life, prediction markets, AI-model bets, right-to-try laws, Lumina, biohacking, GLP-1s, housing, fertility, dating, Palantir, and the difference between efficient and ineffective government.Sponsored by:Polymarket: https://polymarket.comZcash: https://z.cashCitizenX: https://citizenx.comNetwork Press: https://network.press_______________________________Plausibly Deniable: https://plausiblydeniable.orgLukas: https://x.com/SCHIZO_FREQSaila: https://x.com/sailaunderscore Jeremy: https://x.com/jeremykauffman

Spandrell joins us to explain the “IQ Shredder”: how successful cities attract ambitious, intelligent people from across the world, place them into a hypercompetitive rat race, and then make it nearly impossible for them to reproduce.

We discuss why fertility is collapsing across virtually every developed society, whether Israel has escaped the trend, why financial incentives have repeatedly failed, and what governments could realistically do to make family formation prestigious again.

Spandrell also explains Bio-Leninism—his theory of how political systems recruit people with few alternatives and convert personal disadvantage into institutional loyalty. We connect it to the strange people selected by modern politics, why competent people tend to leave government, and why the political right struggles to build a durable machine.

Later, we get into Spandrell’s life in Japan and China, how China changed under Xi Jinping, the decline of Twitter, the possible return of long-form blogging, Substack’s monetization advantage, Urbit’s future, AI-assisted development, and why Chinese companies can conquer entire industries without making their shareholders rich.

https://spandrell.com

Sponsored by:

Polymarket: https://polymarket.com

Zcash: https://z.cash

CitizenX: https://citizenx.com

Network Press: https://network.press

_______________________________

Plausibly Deniable: https://plausiblydeniable.org

Extra content: https://substack.com/@plausiblydeniable

Lukas: https://x.com/SCHIZO_FREQ

Saila: https://x.com/sailaunderscore

Spandrell: https://x.com/spandrell4

The boys return under plague conditions to discuss why nukes might be less socially destructive than dating discourse, the ethics of height-maxxing children with growth hormone, the “ship it, I guess” approach to biohacking, trad life vs gene editing, Europe’s anti-AC death drive, Singapore, Yarvin, Nick Land, cats, prediction markets, bought accounts, World Cup confusion, and why prediction markets might just be manifestation markets.Sponsored by:Polymarket: https://polymarket.comZcash: https://z.cashCitizenX: https://citizenx.comNetwork Press: https://network.press_______________________________Plausibly Deniable: https://plausiblydeniable.orgLukas: https://x.com/SCHIZO_FREQSaila: https://x.com/sailaunderscore0:00 Nukes vs dating discourse1:26 Intro + sponsors2:46 Growth hormone for short kids6:00 Correcting disorders vs height-maxxing9:17 Short women, short sons, and dating math13:13 How tall is too tall?16:23 “Ship it, I guess” and gene editing18:35 Ted Kaczynski as meme philosopher23:15 The “media arena” problem25:04 Pets, illness, and irrational coping27:20 Copper peptides and supplement stupidity31:26 Remineralizing toothpaste and managing 100 trillion variables34:24 Everyone is a drug addict now38:36 When the Giga Chad opinion is dumb41:43 The green screen blanket era45:41 Nukes don’t matter theory47:59 Radiation poisoning vs modern dysfunction50:22 Compliment euphemisms and dating language53:51 The mommy-dommy tangent56:48 Do we actually want tradition?59:50 Trad or supercomputer gene editing1:02:18 Brian Johnson, rationality, and religion1:04:07 Europe’s heatwave and anti-AC ideology1:06:41 Singapore, order, and political realism1:12:00 America’s smaller future1:15:50 The K-shaped economy: AI or fraud1:18:23 Are consultants ready for AI?1:19:15 The singularity as a crash GIF1:21:00 Everything is destroyed and that’s beautiful1:25:24 Universal suffrage, kings, and weird politics1:27:03 Yarvin in San Francisco1:29:42 Becoming Nick Land1:32:22 Cats vs dogs1:38:54 Prediction markets and insider information1:42:17 Does paying people more change behavior?1:44:29 Americans pretending to care about soccer1:53:41 Millennials vs Zoomers1:56:26 Bought accounts and viral posting1:57:42 How much is an X account worth?1:59:23 Nikita, X payouts, and not drawing aggro2:02:21 2026 midterm markets2:05:30 Prediction markets as manifestation markets2:06:22 Bonus episodes on Substack2:07:42 Closing fever/green screen delirium