Derek worked for nearly 10 months on a NY Times opinions video, "You Might Have Already Fallen for MAHA’s Conspiracy Theories," which was published this week. He discusses what it took to produce this video with his collaborator, Alex Stockton, as well as the role journalism has to play in dispelling health misinformation.
Show Notes
You Might Have Already Fallen for MAHA’s Conspiracy Theories
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274: Is Rogan REALLY Leading a Death Cult?
If it wasn't all so tragic, politics might seem like a bad joke. But how did comedy become so unfunny, so politically toxic?
From his hideout in a remote mountain cabin, anonymous video collage artist and essayist The Elephant Graveyard has finally cracked the code. According to him, Joe Rogan has created a doomsday death cult that feeds the dad-shaped hole in the hearts of its followers. In this allegory, his Comedy Mothership theater in Austin is like the alien spacecraft zooming in from behind the Hale Bop comet to take the Heaven's Gate group suicide victims home, freed from their earth-suits.
And it turns out tech oligarchs Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are really behind it all.
Show Notes
Vile Grifters Are Taking Over Establishment Media
How Comedy Was Destroyed by an Anti-Reality Doomsday Cult
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Bonus Sample: How Wellness Influencers Became Radicalized
Biostatistician Halbert Dunn's 1961 book, High Level Wellness, set the stage for the modern wellness movement. Derek reads it alongside some of today's top conspiritualists, noticing the themes (and differences) that run throughout Dunn's work.
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Brief: Conspiracies Down Under
The recent killing of two police officers (and wounding of a third) in Porepunkah, Australia has highlighted the dangers of sovereign citizen-style conspiratorial beliefs. The alleged shooter is still at large, but his social media footprint shows anti-vaccine, COVID-contrarian, and even QAnon-aligned beliefs, as well as a long history of violent threats against police.
Julian talks to journalists Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson, co-authors of an excellent new book, Conspiracy Nation: Exposing The Dangerous World of Australian Conspiracy Theories. As with everywhere else in the world, the pandemic poured gasoline on what would become a familiar set of incendiary false beliefs—but the sociopolitical and historical context down under has its own unique details.
The conversation spans claims of government false-flag operations, real legacies of institutional abuse, and Australia’s most famous conspiracy export and celebrity chef, Pete Evans.
Show Notes
Conspiracy Nation
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273: Trump Will Die
Trump is still alive, though a lot of folks are excited that won't last. Maybe it’s testimony to the allure of the fantasy that he really is powerful, that his strongman schtick has legs, that he really has cast some magical spell over everyone—and that if he drops dead we’ll all wake up to a different world…
Of course we won’t.
But we’ll go through the fantasies today: the wishes, the schadenfreude, the diagnosis-at-a-distance, and what it means to imagine the death of a king.
Show Notes
ŌURA Announces U.S. Manufacturing Operations in Support of Scaling Defense Business
Oura Ring makers working with military to open first U.S. factory in Fort Worth
What Does Palantir Actually Do?
Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel to lead 4-part series on the Antichrist
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Dismantling New Age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy-mad yogis. At best, the conspirituality movement attacks public health efforts in times of crisis. At worst, it fronts and recruits for the fever-dream of QAnon. As the alt-right and New Age horseshoe toward each other in a blur of disinformation, clear discourse, and good intentions get smothered. Charismatic influencers exploit their followers by co-opting conspiracy theories on a spectrum of intensity ranging from vaccines to child trafficking. In the process, spiritual beliefs that have nurtured creativity and meaning are transforming into memes of a quickly-globalizing paranoia. Conspirituality Podcast attempts to bring understanding to this landscape. A journalist, a cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic discuss the stories, cognitive dissonances, and cultic dynamics tearing through the yoga, wellness, and new spirituality worlds. Mainstream outlets have noticed the problem. We crowd-source, research, analyze, and dream answers to it.
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