Plutopia News Network

On this Plutopia News Network episode, buildings archaeologist Dr. James Wright — founder of Triskele Heritage, author of the “Medieval Myth-Busting” blog, and writer of Historic Building Myth Busting: Uncovering Folklore, History, and Archaeology — joins hosts Jon Lebkowsky, Scoop Sweeney, and Wendy Grossman to unpack 25 years probing cellars, attics, castles, pubs, and church walls. Wright explains how he marries fieldwork, archival sleuthing, and dendrochronology to challenge cherished legends: ship timbers recycled from Spanish-Armada wrecks, mile-long secret tunnels, pubs claiming eleventh-century origins, spiraling castle stairs built to favor right-handed defenders, and the bawdy carvings adorning medieval churches. While his evidence-first approach can anger believers, Wright uses humor and detailed “show-your-work” transparency to bridge emotion and fact—demonstrating that, even in a post-truth age, rigorous archaeology can separate folklore from history without losing the stories that make old buildings matter.

James Wright:

People don’t like their truths, their entries, their stories being questioned, being queried. But I always try and do this by presenting all the evidence. In this anti-truth environment that we live in at the moment, a post-truth world, that doesn’t always work. Logic and reason and evidence are discounted by people — it’s feelings and emotion for most people at this point — which is why I do try and deliver some of these debunkings in a wry and exasperated and humorous sort of way. I do find that humor can sometimes help it across the line, trying to meet people halfway rather than just standing up and being bullheaded and trying to shout them down. That’s never going win any fans at all. But I always do show my working out. I always do show where the evidence comes from. I do think that the truth is fundamentally important.

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In this “Talking Heads” edition of the podcast, Plutopia News Network cohosts Jon, Scoop, and Wendy roam freely across a grab-bag of current issues and curiosities: airport security hassles, billionaire excesses, the politics of air-conditioning, ICE detentions, LA’s media myths, Juneteenth and U.S. travel fears, hometown highways, regime-change misadventures, MAGA culture wars, abortion and right-to-die debates, food safety, cannibalism lore, hot-pepper cuisine, and even Joe Rogan. It’s an unscripted, globe-spanning conversation that blends personal anecdotes, cultural commentary, and wry humor into an hour of eclectic Plutopian chatter.

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You might say Professor Chris French is a skeptic’s skeptic. He has published over 150 articles covering the psychology of paranormal beliefs and anomalous experiences. He emphasizes the importance of understanding why people believe in the paranormal, emphasizing psychological explanations for experiences often attributed to ghosts, aliens, psychic powers, or past lives. Professor French joins the Plutopia podcast this time as we discuss his latest book, The Science of Weird Shit, Why Our Minds Conjure the Paranormal. Drawing from personal experience and decades of research, he outlines how cognitive biases, memory flaws, sleep paralysis, and suggestibility contribute to paranormal beliefs. Chris shares his transformation from believer to skeptic, discusses the challenges of testing paranormal claims, and critiques popular yet unsubstantiated phenomena like alien abductions and reincarnation. The conversation underscores the importance of critical thinking in an age saturated with misinformation, conspiracy theories, and entertainment masquerading as fact.

Chris French:

Like a lot of post-graduates, when I was doing my PhD, I used to teach in an adult education college in Leicester. I would give an introductory lecture on psychology and then say, “what topics would you like me to prepare lectures on?” I must have had so much time on my hands. And I’d go away and prepare a lecture just for the following week. I remember doing one on parapsychology that was totally uncritical, and I look back now and think — now they’re probably sitting there thinking, well, he’s doing a PhD, he must know what he’s talking about. I did not know what I was talking about at all. But it was during that period when I was doing my PhD that a friend recommended a particular book, called Parapsychology, Science or Magic. It was by James Alcock, a Canadian psychologist, and it was the first skeptical treatment of all this stuff that I’d ever read. And not only did I really enjoy the book, I also found his arguments very persuasive and that’s what opened my eyes to the wonderful world of skepticism.

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Dr. Patrick Ball, a statistician and founder of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG), joins the Plutopia podcast to discuss how rigorous data analysis can expose and challenge human rights abuses — even when official data is missing or manipulated. Beginning with his work in El Salvador during its civil war, Ball explains how statistical methods, including multiple systems estimation, have been used to identify patterns of violence, hold perpetrators accountable, and support truth commissions worldwide. He emphasizes that governments committing abuses rarely provide accurate data, so HRDAG has developed tools over decades to uncover the truth, even in the face of lies and obfuscation. While Ball’s own focus is mostly international, HRDAG increasingly works on U.S. issues like police violence, missing data, and systemic racism, using AI to process large volumes of testimony and documents efficiently but with rigorous oversight. Despite rising disinformation and political secrecy, Ball remains committed to defending truth with data, underscoring the moral obligation to witness and document state violence — cheerfully and persistently.

Governments that commit human rights violations do not generally provide us with data about it, so our methods have been developed over decades specifically to respond to government obfuscation. People who commit violence and, even more so, those who apologize for people who commit violence, always lie about it — always. My experience is not mostly in the United States. My colleagues at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group mostly work on U.S. issues now. I do not. I wrote that one paper and I don’t really work much on the U.S., I work in a variety of other countries. But our methods, the methods that we use to figure out what’s going on even when there is no official data, and in the face of official lies, are useful in all these contexts. And so if under your hypothesis is that the Trump administration is going to hide data, misrepresent arguments, lie about it, well, our methods will be very useful.

  

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In this wide-ranging Plutopia podcast episode, Dr. Neil Baer — television writer and producer, physician, and public health advocate — discusses The Promise and Peril of CRISPR, a book he edited that explores the ethical, medical, and social implications of gene editing. While CRISPR holds transformative potential to cure diseases like sickle cell anemia and beta thalassemia, Baer warns of a slippery slope when it comes to altering human embryos, raising difficult questions about disability, human variation, and who decides what traits are worth preserving. The conversation touches on potential abuses such as eugenics, designer soldiers, bioterrorism, and corporate exploitation, while also examining CRISPR’s impact on biodiversity, animal welfare, and transhumanism. Baer emphasizes the need for public understanding, strong ethical frameworks, and compassionate storytelling in navigating the complex intersection of science, identity, and politics in an era where scientific facts are increasingly challenged.

Neal Baer:

You know, evolution is so long, and this is what makes me nervous when we start to tinker with evolution as well. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have CRISPR to alleviate suffering. I think we should have CRISPR to alleviate the suffering of sickle cell disease or beta thalassemia or many other genetic diseases. Should we use it to get rid of these these diseases? Well I think there would be no one who would argue that Tay-Sachs is a good thing. But in our book, Ethan Weiss, who’s a cardiologist at UC San Francisco, has a child with albinism. And he says that he and his wife would have probably decided to abort had they known that she was carrying a fetus with albinism. But once their child was born — they can’t imagine life without her. So should we get rid of albinism? Should we get rid of Down Syndrome? This is the slippery slope of CRISPR.

Background image by Elena I Leonova, license: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

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Cybersecurity expert Jonathan Kamens, a longtime technologist with a background in software engineering and digital security, was dismissed from his role at the Department of Veterans Affairs by Elon Musk’s Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE). Kamens, who had joined the U.S. Digital Service to serve the public, criticized DOGE for pursuing three main goals: profiting Musk and his allies through government contract manipulation; dismantling the federal government to remove constraints on elite power; and centralizing Americans’ personal data to support authoritarian control. In a revealing conversation on the Plutopia News Network podcast, Kamens discussed his career roots in digital activism, his work on early internet FAQ archives, and his dismay at the dismantling of functional government institutions. He warned of growing threats to democracy, including loyalty vetting for government hires, data misuse, and Project 2025’s goals, while holding out faint hope that economic backlash from Trump’s tariffs could galvanize public resistance.

Jonathan Kamens:

Doge is trying to do three different things. I think it’s important to lift this out of the weeds and to look high level at what the three things they’re trying to do are. The first thing is grift, right? They’re trying to steal money to benefit people like Elon Musk. You know, Elon Musk wants to rig how contracts are awarded by the government so he and Donald Trump can control who gets the contracts. And guess what? Funnily enough, a lot of those contracts are coincidentally going to go to Elon Musk’s companies and his friends, right? So that’s number one. Number two is they’re trying to destroy the government. I’m just going to be frank here. I’m not going to beat around the bush. I’m not going to equivocate. What Trump and Project 2025 are trying to do is destroy the federal government. It was Grover Norquist who said many years ago that he wanted to shrink the government down to a size that was small enough that he could drown it in a bathtub. These folks do not believe that there should be a federal government which constrains rich white Christian men in any substantive way. And therefore they are trying to destroy every aspect of the federal government which constrains them or their actions, which is most of the government, right? The whole, you know. And then the third thing they’re trying to do is they’re trying to amass all of the data that the federal government has on Americans in one place.

Image background via Martin Grandjean. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-SA 3.0

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation has worked for more than three decades to defend free speech online, fight illegal surveillance, advocate for users and innovators, and support freedom-enhancing technologies. EFF has fought to clear the way for open source software, encryption, security research, file sharing, and important new technologies.

In the latest episode of the Plutopia News Network podcast, Plutopians speak with Cindy Cohn, Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and Kevin Welch, President of EFF-Austin, about the history and evolving mission of EFF in defending digital rights. They discuss EFF’s ongoing battles against illegal surveillance, government overreach, and data misuse, especially under the second Trump administration. The conversation explores threats posed by the consolidation of government databases, the misuse of emerging technologies by law enforcement, and the need for decentralized, local activism. Emphasizing free speech, privacy, and the importance of empowering communities, the guests underscore both the urgency and the possibility of building a more just and secure digital future.

Cindy Cohn:

I take heart in the idea that we can change course if we want to. And we’re starting to see it. In some ways, the extreme moves of the second Trump administration have made a lot of people really recognize that they need to look for other ways. We hear from people all the time at EFF, just the list of people who want security trainings, who want to know how to use encryption, who want to know how to use technologies that stand with them and protect them has gone way, way up. And it’s not just human rights defenders and journalists who are always the canaries in the coal mine around these things. It’s a much wider range of people who want access to technologies that help protect them and that stand with them.

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The legendary Sandy Stone returns to the Plutopia podcast this time as we discuss “Girl Island,” an upcoming partially-animated film based on her life and early visions of gender identity. We also discuss gender roles, trans rights, political oppression, and much more. We dive into everything from gender roles and trans rights to political power, patriarchy, and the weirdness of independent media. Sandy shares sharp insights on how power imbalances shape our ideas about sex and gender, reflects on the resilience of the trans community, and takes some well-aimed shots at the forces trying to erase progress. It’s a wild, thoughtful, and deeply honest conversation—part personal story, part cultural critique, and all Sandy.

Sandy Stone:

When we talk about what is gender and where does it come from — one of the places — not the only place, but one of the places gender comes from, it’s a very powerful place — is from power imbalances. That’s a very strong way that in our society desire gets constructed, whether you know it or not, sexual tension. Anyway, that’s one way that we construct sexual difference, is through power relationships. And ultimately when I say that, what I’m getting back to is patriarchy, obviously, to the fact that most power structures are controlled by men, and therefore men generally get to say what sex and gender are.

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In this episode of the Plutopia News Network, Will Kreth—founder and CEO of HAND (Human and Digital) — joins Plutopians to discuss the future of identity, digital media, and the growing threat of deepfakes. Kreth, an early media pioneer and former first employee at Wired Magazine, outlines his mission to address the lack of source verification in a world where AI-generated fraud, such as unauthorized use of likeness and voice, is on the rise. He explains how HAND provides persistent, consent-based identity verification to help authenticate public figures and their AI-generated replicas. The conversation ranges from the early days of online media and metadata management to the implications of synthetic media, AI ethics, and cognitive overload in the post-internet age. Kreth emphasizes the need for robust identity frameworks, content provenance, and media literacy, drawing on examples from entertainment, technology, and cultural history to illustrate the urgent need for tools to preserve authenticity in a digitally manipulated world.

Will Kreth:

The threat of deepfakes is the number one thing that captures people’s attention. So, why does what I do matter – as a piece of the solution, of the provenance of the source verification, of the verifiable credentials of the individual? We provide a free to search and match, persistent, no-expiration-date unique [ID standard] to identify the [media] object – the person, and then a parent-child relationship to their replica — [created] with their consent. So, while there are many companies who’ve raised quite a lot of money to use AI to detect deepfakes, there are fewer companies engaged in the necessary work around source [provenance] verification — of what is real, and what is [created] with consent. In a world where fraudsters and scam artists and others have been appropriating, if not fully stealing, people’s name, image, and likeness (their NIL), their name, version, and [likeness], and sometimes their voice, which is even a more scary and dangerous area.

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This time on the Plutopia podcast, climate scientist Michael Tobis, our man in the Great White North, joins us to talk about U.S.-Canadian relations. As Canadians go to the polls this week to elect new members of Parliament, the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on Canadian tariffs and trade loom large. Michael describes how Trump’s aggressive rhetoric and trade policies have unified Canadians, strengthened national identity, and fueled a widespread desire to disengage economically from the U.S. He explains that while Canada has long relied on exporting resources like minerals, oil, and grain to the U.S., Trump’s actions have triggered a re-evaluation of these ties. Canadians are increasingly wary of American politics, committed to preserving their universal healthcare system, and prepared to resist any attempt at annexation. Tobis also highlights the deep cultural and economic interconnections between the two countries, the vulnerabilities created by globalization, and the stark contrasts in political stability, health care, and social safety nets. The conversation expands into broader concerns about trade, climate change, and the unpredictable impacts of populist movements, ultimately emphasizing that Canada’s relationship with the U.S. has been irrevocably altered.

Michael Tobis:

Nobody was kicking them out of Greenland. Nobody’s kicking them out of the north of Canada. Nobody was saying you guys can’t have our minerals. What we live on is shipping you guys our minerals. That’s why we’re a prosperous country. It’s because you guys want our minerals and we ship them. You want our grain and our oil and we ship them. What we’ve learned is that we’ve abandoned our manufacturing sector and a lot of the high-tech sector to America. And now that we’re saying, and I really can’t overemphasize how widespread this is. People do not want to do business with the United States.

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