Serious Inquiries Only

Well, what do you know - it's a day that ends in y so the internet has a woman to hate. You might have seen some of the chatter about child-hating Chappell Roan lately, and it's just so depressing every single time one of these hate campaigns rears its ugly head. Lydia joins the show as resident Chappell Roan fan to discuss what actually happened, and why society so quickly jumps on these opportunities to hate women.

• The Chappell Roan Harassment Campaign Is Plain Old Misogyny (Alex Nguyen - Mother Jones, 4/14/2026)

• X profits from turning Chappell Roan into a viral villain (Kat Tenbarge, 3/30/2026)

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Popular media will tell you that placebos, inert inactive substances taken as if they're medication, can work miracles. …Placebos don't "work". But what does that even mean? And if that's true, why would we include a placebo group in a study? Is there anything remotely like a "true"'placebo effect, where belief in a medication could influence the body? Jenessa walks us through scientific study design, statistical artifacts, and one study that shows maybe just maybe there's a little something like an actual placebo "effect"… but it's still not magic! Tune in to hear how on earth that could be possible.

• Nolan, T.A., Price, D.D., Caudle, R., Murphy, N.P., & Neubert, J.K. (2012). Placebo-induced analgesia in an operant pain model in rats. Pain, 153, 2009-2016.

• Brissonnet, J. (2015). Placebo, are you there? Science Based Medicine.

• Studeman, D. (2007). But I regress… The Hardball Times.

• McCambridge, J., de Bruin, M., & Witton, J. (2012). The effect of demand characteristics on research participant behaviours in non-laboratory settings: A systematic review. PLoS One, 7.

Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here!

Everyone's favorite biologist and dinosaur enthusiast Dr. Eric Jaffe is back! Project Hail Mary is a very fun, and quite good, sciency movie that is cleaning up at the box office right now. You should see it! Eric is going to take us through the biology of the movie (and book) and what it gets right, and what it gets quite wrong.

"Yes we can" vote and protest our way out of authoritarianism.

It's a classic case of academic literature never making it to mainstream consumption. Hang around social media long enough and you'll hear that we're basically screwed. A complete fascist take over is either extremely likely, inevitable, or it's already here. And there's not much we can do about it. Unless some other country invades us, we'll be waiting for a civil war or a bloody military coup to hopefully maybe turn things around. That's what history teaches us, right?

Literally the opposite. An incredible data set that a team of thousands of academics have been assembling for over a decade provides a unique opportunity to examine these questions with fresh eyes. To look at wannabe dictators and see how many succeeded, how many eventually lost power, how democracy returned (if ever), and why. With this systematic approach, we see that strengthened democracy specifically because of authoritarian episodes is increasingly common. In fact, in the last 30 years it's the most common response to autocratization, and most often achieved by internal democratic actors. Taking this into account, events once viewed as episodes of successful stand-alone autocratization, with resistance ultimately futile, are actually better characterized as failures that caused a wave of democratic sentiment in the populace. Successful civil resistance that just took time.

Jenessa takes us through the paper that has her jumping for joy this week. Resist!

• Nord, M. Angiolillo, F., Lundstedt, M., Wiebrecht, F., & Lindberg, S.I. (2025). When autocratization is reversed: episodes of U-Turns since 1900. Democratization, 32, 1136-1159.

• Frequently asked questions. Varieties of Democracy Institute.

• The Episodes of Regime Transformation (ERT) dataset. Varieties of Democracy Institute.

• V-Dem. Electoral Democracy Index, 2024. Our World in Data.

• Sato, Y., Lundstedt, M., Morrison, K., Boese, V.A., & Lindberg, S.I. (2022). Institutional order in episodes of autocratization. The Varieties of Democracy Institute.

• Armitage, C. (Aug. 13, 2025). I researched every attempt to stop fascism in history. The success rate is 0%. The Existentialist Republic.

Further reading:

• Nord, M., Angiolillo, F., Good God, A., & Lindberg, S.I. (2025). State of the world 2024: 25 years of autocratization – democracy trumped? Democratization, 32, 839-864.

• Anti-Pluralism. European Center for Populism Studies.

• Coppedge, M. (2023). V-Dem's conceptions of democracy and their consequences. The Varieties of Democracy Institute.

• Lührmann, A. & Lindberg, S.I. (2019). A third wave of autocratization is here: What is new about it? Democratization, 26, 1095-1113.

• Croissant, A. & Lott, L. (2025). Democratic resilience in the twenty-first century: Search for an analytical framework and explorative analysis. Political Studies, 0, 1-28.

• Tomini, L., Gibril, S. & Bochev, V. (2023). Standing up against autocratization across political regimes: A comparative analysis of resistance actors and strategies. Democratization, 30, 119-138.

• Wiebrecht, F., Sato, Y., Nord, M., Lundstedt, M., Angiolillo, F., & Lindberg, S.I. (2023). State of the world 2022: Defiance in the face of autocratization. Democratization, 30, 769-793.

• Gamboa, L. (2017). Opposition at the margins: Strategies against the erosion of democracy in Colombia and Venezuela. Comparative Politics, 49, 457-477.

• Laebens, M.G., & Lührmann, A. (2023). What halts democratic erosion? The changing role of accountability. In Lührmann, A. & Merkel, W. (Eds.), Resilience of democracy: Responses to illiberal and authoritarian challenges (pp. 40-61). Routledge.

Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here!

It's part 2 of the Minnesota fraud stuff. We get a little more Nick Shirley, dumbest person ever to testify in congress. And then I debunk the main claims against Gov. Walz and AG Ellison. Did Walz un-stop the payments to Feed Our Future? Did Ellison meet with, and then get campaign donations from the fraudsters?

So now that we've covered a real hearing with brave whistleblowers that got NO attention, it's time to look at what happens over on the other side of the aisle.

Last month, there was a devastating hearing featuring a victim of ICE, an ICE whistleblower, and a previous DHS attorney. It revealed what, in any other time, would have been a massive scandal likely resulting in multiple firings. But we live in the bad times, which means this hearing took place in a maintenance shed barely on Congressional property during lunchtime put on by a ragtag team of the few remaining people who give a shit about constitutional rights. I take you through the hearing, and then next episode we're going to compare this to the Minnesota fraud hearings, of which the MAGA controlled congress has had... 3? 4? There is a marked difference in the seriousness of the people involved.

Part 2! Even more fun Quibbies.

• Allergies

  • Bansal, A.S., Chee, R., Nagendran, V., Warner, A., & Hayman, G. (2007). Dangerous liaison: Sexually transmitted allergic reaction to Brazil nuts. Journal of Investigational Allergology and Clinical Immunology, 17, 189-191.

• Testosterone

  • University of Zurich (2009, December 9). Testosterone does not induce aggression, study shows. ScienceDaily.

  • Eisenegger, C., Naef, M., Snozzi, R., Heinrichs, M., & Fehr, E. (2010). Prejudice and truth about the effect of testosterone on human bargaining behavior. Nature, 463, 356-359.

• ADHD and TikTok

  • Verma, S. & Sinha, S.K. (2024). How evidence-based is the "hashtag ADHD test" (#adhdtest). A cross-sectional content analysis of TikTok videos on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) screening. Australian Psychiatry, 0, 1-7.

Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here!

It's Quibi Time (tm) with Jenessa! (Don't worry, I'll explain...) It's 2 debunks for the price of 1, or actually 5 debunks for the price of 2, because this is a two-parter! Here are the first two:

• AI girlfriend

  • Caramela, S. (2025, January 31). Most Men Would Marry Their AI Girlfriend if it were Legal. Vice.

  • Fiorillo, C. & Bartlett, S. (2025, January 28). AI girlfriends could be a thing of the future as men admit they would marry robot lovers. The Mirror.

  • Koetsier, J. (2025, April 29). 80% Of Gen Zers Would Marry An AI: Study. Forbes.

  • Mashable. (2025, May 22). Majority of Gen Z would marry an AI, survey says. Yahoo!Life.

  • (2025, May 11). GenZ Believes They Could Marry AI, Replace Human Connections: Report. NDTV World.

  • Ulanoff, L. (2025, May 22). Would you marry an AI? A recent survey says most Gen Z-ers would - here's why that's a ridiculous idea. Techradar.

• Texas voter registration

  • (2025, August 7). Texas. Independent Voter Project. (Thomas saw this viral Reddit post about it)

  • Texas by the Numbers. L2.

  • January 2025 Voter Registration Figures. Texas Secretary of State.

  • Turnout and Voter Registration Figures (1970 - current). Texas Secretary of State.

Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here!

I had a lot I needed to say about the ICE murders of Rene Good and Alex Pretti. And about the fascists who lie to our faces and know we can't do anything about it. And the concentration camps we already have. I did video because there was so much visual element to this, so watching would be best.