The Zach Show

Budd Rodney used to work as a Corrections Officer, where his job was to uphold the law. Then, he descended into a gruesome, dark spiral of addiction in the largest open-air drug market in America: Kensington, Philadelphia. What started as occasional trips to Philly to find cheaper drugs grew into Budd becoming a full-blown homeless addict on the streets of Kensington.

Alongside Britiny, the love of his life, Budd navigated the depths of Kensington's underworld from the flesh-rotting realities of tranq to getting beaten to the brink of death in a Philly trap house to smoking crack out of a tracheostomy. Budd's decay unfolded before the world on livestream YouTube Kensington street cams. In that waking nightmare, he worked full-time as a “hitter,” earning drugs and cash by finding veins and injecting people who could no longer manage it themselves. Then, one morning, Budd woke up in a hospital bed to his harshest realization yet: he was going to lose his feet. The unforgiving, frostbitten winters of the Philly Streets combined with the tranq ravaging Budd's body led to him losing both legs below the knee.

Today, Budd has nearly 18 months of sobriety, walks on prosthetics, and is getting ready to be a father. Where so many have succumbed to the brutal nature of addiction, Budd has survived to build a life he once thought was impossible.

Purchase Kensington Beach: https://amzn.to/4At7kci

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Guest Bio: Budd Rodney is a writer and addiction advocate sharing his powerful story of addiction, survival, and recovery. He is the author of Kensington Beach: Loss and Survival on the Streets of Philadelphia, a raw memoir chronicling over five years of homelessness and addiction in Kensington.

Budd Rodney Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BuddRodney

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buddrodney/

Kensington Beach (Book): https://amzn.to/4At7kci

Website: https://kensingtonbeach.net/

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If you're like me, you've watched witches in movies and TV Shows, grown up reading stories about witches, and maybe even dressed up as a Witch for Halloween. But where does the witch come from? What's the history that forms the image of the witch in our mind's eye?

Today, we get into all of that. We dive into the European Witch Hunts, often overshadowed by the Salem trials in popular culture, but vastly more deadly, where over 100,000 people were put on trial and tens of thousands executed. We get into the Malleus Maleficarum, or The Hammer of Witches, a book that warned your neighbors could be working for the Devil, laid out how to prosecute them, and was a massive catalyst for the Witch Trials. My wife, a scientist who mixes mysterious liquids and isn’t afraid to speak her mind, would've been a prime witch candidate by this book's standards.

Then, from the earliest witch persecutions in Europe through Salem and the Witch Hunts of colonial America, we explore infamous witch hunters like Matthew Hopkins, prominent accused witches like Catherine Monvoisin, and how torture became a source of "proof." We end off looking at witches through the lens of cinema, with more upbeat portrayals like Practical Magic and darker takes like The Witch by Robert Eggers.

Although the barbaric witch trials of the past are long gone, modern-day witch hunts still infect our society. Accusations without evidence, good intentions as fuel for destructive actions, needing victims to be "likeable" or "compliant," these are all harmful parts of human nature amplified by the witch trials that still sink their hooks into how we treat each other today. And the only way to unlatch is to learn where that comes from.

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The Zach Show Links:

The Zach Show 2.0: ⁠https://thezachshow.supercast.com/⁠

Spotify: ⁠https://spoti.fi/3zaS6sP⁠

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Website: ⁠https://www.auxoro.com/⁠

Substack: ⁠https://thezachshow.substack.com/⁠

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On this episode of Zach Chats, Zach dives into seeing the Odyssey in IMAX, how Odysseus' men did the Cyclops wrong, Matt Damon getting yoked AF, how 600 soldiers manage to each get some "me" time, the woke outrage surrounding the release of the film, and why it's important to make space to digest art.

Zach Chats is a series where Zach joins you solo for a more casual episode to recap what's been going on in the world of Zach. Cultural Commentary. Life Happenings. Whatever crosses Zach's mind when the caffeine (or whiskey) kicks in.

The Zach Show Links:

The Zach Show 2.0: ⁠https://thezachshow.supercast.com/⁠

Spotify: ⁠https://spoti.fi/3zaS6sP⁠

YouTube: ⁠https://bit.ly/3lTpJdj⁠

Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/auxoro/ ⁠

TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@zachshowpod⁠

Website: ⁠https://www.auxoro.com/⁠

Substack: ⁠https://thezachshow.substack.com/⁠

If you’re not ready to subscribe to The Zach Show 2.0, rating the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts is free and massively helpful. It boosts visibility, helps new listeners discover the show, and keeps this chaos alive. Thank you:

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At the start of this year, watching a five-hour YouTube breakdown of a mentalist was nowhere on my to-do list. Then I found Stevie Baskin’s Metadeception: The Truth About Oz Pearlman and watched the entire thing.

Oz Pearlman is the world’s most famous mentalist. In his viral TED Talk, he says, “I don’t read minds, I read people.” The idea is that he can extract information by studying body language, verbal cues, micro-reactions, breathing, posture, and other signals most of us miss.

According to Stevie, that explanation is often the trick itself. He argues that Oz frequently relies on familiar magicians’ tools: sleight of hand, gimmicked notepads, fake Google searches, electronic chalkboards, and pre-show techniques that may reveal the answer before the apparent “reading” begins.

That is the heart of metadeception. You’re not just being fooled about how the trick works. You’re being given a false explanation convincing enough that you stop looking for the real one. As Stevie puts it, “Your assumptions aren’t confined to the stage. The stage exists within your assumptions.”

In this episode, we break down what may have happened when Oz revealed Joe Rogan’s ATM PIN, the hidden mechanics of mentalism, “dual reality,” and the ways that mentalism crosses an ethical line ordinary magic doesn’t. We also get into an NYU psychology professor who used a mentalism demonstration in class before realizing he may have been fooled himself, questions surrounding potential fraud with Oz’s book release, and Stevie sprinting face-first into a barbed-wire fence in the Australian outback while operating on a very flawed model of reality.

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Guest bio: Stevie Baskin is a Sydney-based law student and the creator of Metadeception: The Truth About Oz Pearlman, a five-hour video investigation into mentalism, perception, and the hidden mechanics behind Oz Pearlman's performances.

Stevie Baskin's 'Metadeception: The Truth About Oz Pearlman': https://youtu.be/FnwcU-XDyJ4?si=6vkBunUVhLFd7klM

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Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3zaS6sP

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Website: https://www.auxoro.com/

Substack: https://thezachshow.substack.com/

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Are you sure this life is real? How do we know this life is real? What does being “real” even mean? According to Blaise Pascal, everything we know, everything we think we know is real, is a matter of feeling. It’s not a matter of reasoning, ultimately, at the foundation. This concept anchors my conversation today with Yuval Avnur, a Professor of Philosophy at Scripps College and author of Why Read Pascal Today?We dive into Blaise Pascal, the 17th-century true polymath genius who believed that a human being is a heart with a belief-forming mechanism attached as an afterthought. According to Pascal, feeling something with your heart is a way of knowing. We get into why this idea provides the perfect lens to view everything from the escalation of political polarization to rabid online echo chambers to moon-landing conspiracies. Instead of getting trapped in those realities, Yuval argues that Pascal offers a way out. He lays out Pascal’s remarkably modern advice on how to actually persuade someone: stop dunking on them with red-faced, shrieking facts, and start asking why the world looks the way it does from where the other person’s standing. It’s amazing how a guy who died over 350 years ago understands the internet age better than most of us alive today. We also get into whether or not we live in a simulation, what most people completely get wrong about Pascal’s Wager, what a debate would look like between Blaise Pascal, devout Catholic, against staunch atheist Sam Harris, why AI art makes us feel alone, and The Experience Machine Dilemma: Would you abandon reality for a perfectly fake life?

Subscribe to The Zach Show 2.0 to gain early access to all future episodes, exclusive AMAs, the ability to suggest guest questions, bonus content, and more: TheZachShow.Supercast.Com

Yuval Avnur Links:

Why Read Pascal Today?

Scripps College Profile

Publications

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Website: ⁠https://www.auxoro.com/⁠

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Prediction markets are everywhere, but a recent Wall Street Journal investigation raises serious questions about how some platforms are marketed. Zach breaks down the report on Polymarket’s use of paid creators, simulated betting videos, and influencer campaigns, then explores the ethics of financial advertising, celebrity endorsements like Rick Rubin’s, regulatory gray areas, and whether prediction markets are becoming the latest—and most sophisticated—way to sell people false hope and fake wins.

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The Zach Show Links:

The Zach Show 2.0: ⁠⁠https://thezachshow.supercast.com/⁠⁠

Spotify: ⁠⁠https://spoti.fi/3zaS6sP⁠⁠

YouTube: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3lTpJdj⁠⁠

Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/auxoro/⁠⁠

TikTok: ⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@zachshowpod⁠⁠ Website: ⁠⁠https://www.auxoro.com/⁠⁠

Substack: ⁠⁠https://thezachshow.substack.com/⁠⁠

If you’re not ready to subscribe to The Zach Show 2.0, rating the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts is free and massively helpful. It boosts visibility, helps new listeners discover the show, and keeps this chaos alive. Thank you:

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AI was supposed to cure disease, solve climate change, and usher humanity into a futuristic utopia. Instead, some people are now asking ChatGPT if they should cheat on their spouse with their Pilates instructor. In this episode, I dive into Alessandra Ram’s incredible Wired article, “Meet The Sad Wives of AI,” and explore the strange psychological fallout of the AI boom: founders treating chatbots like children, relationships collapsing under nonstop “vibe coding,” and people outsourcing emotional intimacy to machines that endlessly validate them. We unpack why this tech boom feels different from the Gold Rush or dotcom era, why AI may be more psychologically dangerous because it talks back, and what happens when the people building “human connection” tools stop connecting with actual humans.

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The Zach Show Links:

The Zach Show 2.0: ⁠https://thezachshow.supercast.com/⁠

Spotify: ⁠https://spoti.fi/3zaS6sP⁠

YouTube: ⁠https://bit.ly/3lTpJdj⁠

Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/auxoro/⁠

TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@zachshowpod⁠ Website: ⁠https://www.auxoro.com/⁠

Substack: ⁠https://thezachshow.substack.com/⁠

If you’re not ready to subscribe to The Zach Show 2.0, rating the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts is free and massively helpful. It boosts visibility, helps new listeners discover the show, and keeps this chaos alive. Thank you:

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After 27 years inside the French Air Force working on the ethics of drone and autonomous weapons warfare, Dr. Emmanuel Goffi witnessed the shift from battlefield decision-making to remote killing, and now to a world where artificial intelligence may shape reality itself.

In this episode, he explains what lethal drone strikes actually look like behind the scenes, how responsibility quietly moves away from political leaders and onto operators, and how militaries carefully construct the narratives that make controversial technologies feel acceptable over time. We also explore Western dominance over AI ethics, the risks of exporting a single moral framework to the rest of the world, and how deepfakes and algorithmic media threaten public trust.

At one point, Goffi delivers his starkest warning: “Narrative being shaped by AI is a bigger threat than nuclear weapons.” The next conflict, he argues, may not be fought over territory, but over perception itself.

Guest bio: Dr. Emmanuel Goffi is a philosopher of artificial intelligence and a former French Air Force officer who spent 27 years working on the ethics of drone and autonomous weapons warfare. Now co-founder and co-director of the Global AI Ethics Institute in Paris, he studies how emerging technologies are reshaping responsibility, geopolitics, and truth itself. His work focuses on the ethical consequences of AI, and why the future of conflict may be decided as much by narrative as by weapons.

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Dr. Emmanuel Goffi Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmanuelgoffi/

Wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Goffi

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Emmanuel-Goffi

The Zach Show Links:

The Zach Show 2.0: https://thezachshow.supercast.com/

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3zaS6sP

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3lTpJdj

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/auxoro/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@zachshowpod Website: https://www.auxoro.com/

Substack: https://thezachshow.substack.com/

If you’re not ready to subscribe to The Zach Show 2.0, rating the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts is free and massively helpful. It boosts visibility, helps new listeners discover the show, and keeps this chaos alive. Thank you:

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Casinos don’t just rely on luck, they rely on psychology, design, and timing, and in this episode Dr. Sally Gainsbury explains exactly how.

Dr. Gainsbury, an internationally recognized gambling-harm researcher, Professor of Psychology at the University of Sydney, and Director of Australia’s only university-based Gambling Treatment and Research Clinic, walks through how early wins can reshape expectations, why “losses disguised as wins” keep people playing, and how modern platforms deliberately separate users from the feeling of spending real money.

The conversation traces her upbringing around Australia’s race-betting culture to her research on slot machines engineered with “random reinforcement schedules” that override normal learning and keep people returning even while losing. She also explores the rise of app-based betting, celebrity sponsorships, youth exposure through gaming economies, and how sports culture itself is being reshaped by wagering.

Finally, Dr. Gainsbury outlines evidence-based interventions, from smarter friction to personalized prompts, that can reduce harm while preserving autonomy.

Guest bio: Professor Sally Gainsbury is a leading researcher on gambling harms and digital behavioral risk. She is Professor of Psychology at the University of Sydney and Director of the Gambling Treatment and Research Clinic. Her work informs global policy on platform design, prevention strategies, and technology-driven interventions that reduce gambling-related harm.

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Dr. Sally Gainsbury Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallygainsbury/

Professor Profile: https://profiles.sydney.edu.au/sally.gainsbury

Gambling Research Page: http://bit.ly/4mr7M4W

The Zach Show Links: The Zach Show 2.0: https://thezachshow.supercast.com/Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3zaS6sPYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@auxoroInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/auxoro/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@zachshowpod Website: https://www.auxoro.com/Substack: https://thezachshow.substack.com/

If you’re not ready to subscribe to The Zach Show 2.0, rating the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts is free and massively helpful. It boosts visibility, helps new listeners discover the show, and keeps this thing alive. Thank you:

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Most people think the OceanGate Titan disaster was a tragic accident. It wasn’t. It was the predictable outcome of an egomaniacal mindset.In this episode, Zach and his brother Dave break down the OceanGate disaster through the lens of the Netflix documentary 'Titan: The OceanGate Disaster,' unpacking how Stockton Rush’s obsession with proving carbon fiber could work at Titanic depth slowly turned engineering into ideology. The film reveals that multiple experts warned the sub was unsafe long before the implosion, yet those warnings were repeatedly dismissed. From a monitoring system that couldn’t actually detect failure to whistleblowers who were pushed out for raising concerns, the red flags weren’t subtle. They were everywhere. Engineers described the hull as impossible to properly inspect and capable of failing without warning, but the mission continued anyway.We also explore how startup-style thinking, move fast and break things, collides with safety-critical industries, and what happens when a founder starts believing he alone understands the technology. Because the Titan didn’t just fail underwater. It failed years earlier, when doubt stopped being allowed inside the company and Stockton Rush's ego reigned supreme. Guest bio: David Grossfeld is a med student at Touro University, a content creator, and Zach's younger brother.

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DAVID GROSSFELD LINKS:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creativemedman/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@creativemedmanYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deaddogcomedy

THE ZACH SHOW LINKS:

The Zach Show 2.0: ⁠https://thezachshow.supercast.com/⁠

Spotify: ⁠https://spoti.fi/3zaS6sP⁠

YouTube: ⁠https://bit.ly/3lTpJdj⁠

Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/auxoro/⁠

TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@zachshowpod⁠

Website: ⁠https://www.auxoro.com/⁠

Substack: ⁠https://thezachshow.substack.com/⁠

If you’re not ready to subscribe to The Zach Show 2.0, rating the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts is free and massively helpful. It boosts visibility, helps new listeners discover the show, and keeps this chaos alive. Thank you:

Rate The Zach Show on Spotify: ⁠https://bit.ly/43ZLrAt⁠

Rate The Zach Show on Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://bit.ly/458nbha