20: The Second Wave: Pastel Q Goes Undercover (w/Ben Lee)

How does an elite Millennial politics reporter wind up having phone sex with and giving campaign advice to the 70-year-old emerging fascist she’s reporting on? Most of that should stay between Olivia Nuzzi and her therapist. What we do know is that American Canto, Nuzzi’s new book, is a memoir (or maybe novel) made for the conspirituality age, in which raging toxic roided-up hypocritical male charisma is always the center of attention. The domineering ghoul is the pole star of interest and fascination, always moving too fast and chaotically to understand—unless you know how fascism accelerates. We scavenge these pages for clues about Kennedy and how the hell this journalism disaster happened. Show Notes Zyn pouches and American Masculinity The Olivia Nuzzi Comeback Is Everything Wrong With Modern Media A Serious Journalism Scandal Hiding Inside a Frivolous Sexual One The Scandalous Rollout Was the Best Part of Olivia Nuzzi’s Memoir 119: We Are Slenderman (w/Kathleen Hale) The first-person industrial complex: How the harrowing personal essay took over the Internet. A Q&A with Olivia Nuzzi of New York magazine on her career, covering Trump and access journalism  Guests urged to be vaccinated at anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr’s party Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

11 Dec 58min

Listen to the full episode here Hasan Piker just spent two weeks in The People’s Republic of China. The famous streamer is often invoked as being a potential “Joe Rogan of The Left,” who might bring young voters, especially working class men, back into the Democratic Party.  But Piker’s livestreams from China raise controversial questions. Is he whitewashing Chinese human rights abuses? Was he paid by their government to propagandize his combined 5 million viewers? How else to explain first-class plane tickets, ultra-luxury hotel rooms, privileged access to forbidden Western social media, and carefully avoiding criticisms of the authoritarian state while waxing poetic about their country and Mao Zedong? Julian digs into Piker’s politics in the context of China’s tumultuous history. First stop: Tiananmen Square. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

8 Dec 5min

"Immortality influencer" Bryan Johnson recently livestreamed his second-ever psilocybin trip "for science." But was it, really? Derek and Julian break down the performative nature of this stunt and discuss the growing right-wing influence on psychedelics culture. Show Notes Bryan Johnson Has Discovered Shrooms, and He Really Wants You to Know It Silicon Valley’s Man in the White House Is Benefiting Himself and His Friends How the Right Coopted Psychedelics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

6 Dec 28min

RFK Jr is one of the greatest perpetrators of a firehose of falsehoods that we’ve ever covered. The stakes were raised when he was installed as head of America’s public health system. A new longform article in The Atlantic offers an inside look at the history and current thinking of this man, as insightful for what it offers as telling for what it omits. We discuss the role of journalism in an age defined by propaganda. Show Notes Scoop: The new #2 at CDC is a top ivermectin prescriber who ended Louisiana’s vaccine-promotion media campaigns Doctor Critical of Vaccines Quietly Appointed as C.D.C.’s Second in Command CDC Quietly Turned Off Its Vaccine Search Tool. It’s Not Clear When It’s Coming Back. The Olivia Nuzzi and RFK Jr. Affair Is Messier Than We Ever Could Have Imagined RFK Jr. and the Inexplicable Appeal of Repulsive Men RFK Jr. is overhauling the program that helps preserve Americans' access to vaccines Why Is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. So Convinced He’s Right? Nature: Pertussis, A Tale of Two Vaccines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

4 Dec 1h 8min

Listen to the full episode. With the CDC recently updating its website with anti-vax propaganda under the direction of RFK Jr, disgraced and disbarred physician, Andrew Wakefield, is back in the news. In fact, Senator Ron Johnson even tweeted out that he deserves an apology. He must be relying on short attention spans, given all the ways Wakefield manipulated the “study” that showed a link between vaccines and autism—even though the study itself found no such proof. Derek revisits the retracted 1998 study, as well as shows just how much proof exists to the contrary of the CDC’s new page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1 Dec 5min

Derek and Julian survey all of the incredible, life-changing deals going down this weekend in Wellnesslandia. Show Notes Influencers made millions pushing ‘wild’ births – now the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

29 Nov 34min

In the wildly popular biohacking and longevity space, Peter Attia is often cited as one of the leading luminaries. His straightforward, science-backed approach seems to cut through the noise in a space dominated by fit bros and wellness grifters who always seem to have a product to sell. But the man who dropped out of residency at Johns Hopkins to found a private clinic focused on longevity has his share of critics, who are a bit suspicious about his self-experimentations—and the millions he makes counseling Silicon Valley insiders about experimental medicine. This week we take a look at longevity broadly and Attia specifically. Derek kicks off the episode with a recap of his time at Eudemonia Summit, where, among other things, he got to debate another leading biohacker, Dave Asprey, about seed oils. As it turns out, longevity was the top buzzword there as well. I Went to Eudemonia – a Wellness Summit with the Industry's Top Thought Leaders – Here's What It Was Like Outlive: A Critical Review  A Review of OUTLIVE Critiquing Peter Attia Andrew Huberman and Peter Attia: Self-enhancement, supplements & doughnuts? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

27 Nov 1h 11min

This bonus episode is Part 2 of Graeber vs Bannon, Anarchism vs Leninism.  I start in the 1870s with Marx and Bakunin fighting over the joys and traumas of the Paris Commune. Marx sees it as an imperfect but historic prototype of a workers’ transitional state, cut down before it could consolidate power. Bakunin reads it as a betrayal of anarchist principles — too willing to replicate the machinery it meant to overthrow. Out of that conflict comes a rift that still haunts us: should revolution be disciplined, organized, and strategic, or spontaneous, horizontal, and permanently suspicious of institutions? I explore David Graeber as a hopeful modern anarchist, highlighting his idea of “everyday communism”—the mutual aid and cooperation we already practice—and his vision of Occupy as a revelation of our capacity to act as if we’re free. I contrast this with Marxist-Leninist critiques: the exhaustion of consensus, obstructionism, spectacle without strategy, and the refusal to make demands. A story about my late friend Michael Stone at an Occupy “mic check” shows how openness can invite opportunism. Finally, I contrast No King’s vagueness with MAGA’s fusion of mystical energy and disciplined technocracy—QAnon shamans backed by P2025 architects, vibes condensed to machinery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

24 Nov 4min