42: Deradicalizing From Digital Hate (w/Caolan Robertson)

In the spring of 2017, Jordan Peterson first went viral by writing this in Canada’s National Post:  I will never use words I hate, like the trendy and artificially constructed words “zhe” and “zher.” These words are at the vanguard of a post-modern, radical leftist ideology that I detest, and which is, in my professional opinion, frighteningly similar to the Marxist doctrines that killed at least 100 million people in the 20th century. Remember that horseshit, or things like it? Did you guffaw because he was obviously absurd? Did you try to reason with his stans online? Did you see him as a crank influencer, or a dangerous political figure?  Did you hope his ideas would be beaten down in the marketplace of ideas? Or did you seek him out at a public event and shout him down with a bullhorn? Today, word salad like this is everywhere—including in Project 2025, now driving the Trump admin.  Matthew visits the antifascist woodshed to investigate the liberal manners, free speech naivety, and lack of community alliances that dissuaded him from grabbing the mic during a Peterson Q&A in 2017 and shouting:  “Your ideas are fascist and you should STFU. You are endangering trans people with your bullshit. Why do you care about how they experience their bodies, you whining pervert? Why are you inciting hatred against young people who want a better world?” Because… look where we are now. Show Notes Read the Memo Pausing Federal Grants and Loans - The New York Times  President George H.W. Bush on political correctness (1991) The History of Political Correctness—Lind The Pitfalls of Liberalism — Kwame Ture The Forgotten History of the World's First Trans Clinic | Scientific American  Jordan Peterson: The right to be politically incorrect | National Post  Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code (gender identity or expression)  Jordan Peterson is trying to make sense of the world — including his own strange journey Postmodern Neo-Marxism — Jordan Peterson’s Shadow   Doug Ford met Jordan Peterson, appointment calendar reveals | CBC News  Why are the Proud Boys so violent? Ask Gavin McInnes — SPLC   Jordan Peterson revealed he once earned $400,000 a month Antifa by Mark Bray Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

8 Feb 45min

Edward Snowden is largely only a public name thanks to Glenn Greenwald’s reporting, for which he was one of the contributors to a Pulitzer Prize-winning series for The Guardian in 2014. For a while, Matt Taibbi was considered the heir to Hunter Thompson when his gonzo journalism tore open the 2008 financial crisis and gave the public the term “vampire squids.”  Yet in more recent years, both men have swerved right: Glenn became a darling on Fox News and Taibbi was recruited by Elon Musk as one of the Twitter Files “journalists.” How did that happen? We’re joined by journalist Eoin Higgins, whose new book, Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left, dives into the career arcs of both Greenwald and Taibbi, and how they confuse and distort right-left alignments. Show Notes Sharath Jois, Heir to Founder of Ashtanga Yoga, Dies at 53 - The New York Times Sharath’s Statement on Pattabhi Jois’s Assaults: Context, Links, Notes – Matthew Remski  Surviving Modern Yoga - North Atlantic Books  Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left Eoin Higgins Morning Brew | Bluesky Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

6 Feb 1h

Part 2 of Matthew’s sit down with sex-work veteran and social justice advocate Esme Providence Brown to discuss New Age / wellness antifeminist, Kelly Brogan, and how her craven politics bolster the permission structure for Trumpian misogyny. They track her political and aesthetic journey from labcoat wearer to wellness pole dancer to BDSM cosplayer—a spiral through deepening layers of appropriation, disavowal of responsibility, and cringe-tastic ideas. Esme concludes with some deep insights on what it means for artisanal BDSM to be stripped of its political and consent-culture context, and who Brogan’s “feminism is a psy-op” argument really serves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3 Feb 6min

When asked if he thought Mark Zuckerberg’s effective ending of fact checking was in response to threats that he would “put him in jail for a very long time,” Trump replied, “Probably. Yeah, probably.” A week later, TikTok voluntarily disabled their app for users, then put up an announcement saying that Trump was going to bring them back.  Julian talks to digital disinformation expert Renee Diresta about the massive Big Tech realignment with MAGA, which now means Meta, X, and TikTok may become more like TruthSocial. If fact checking is biased, content moderation is censorship, and combating foreign propaganda is anti-free speech, where does that leave us now? Show Notes If you Give A Mouse a Cookie: Renee Diresta Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1 Feb 29min

What the ever loving fuck. That’s our intro today. But we do have a structure. Julian’s going to review the Executive Order chaos, including the pardoning and deputizing of fascist street gangs. Derek’s going to explain what the ever loving fuck it means for health agencies to turn off access to health data. And I’ll look at two Xtian responses to fascism: one hypocritical and one poetic… but maybe toothless. Show Notes Freed Capitol riot ringleaders regroup - and vow 'retribution' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

30 Jan 52min

Full episode available here. The alien from Venus in George King’s head said: “Prepare yourself. You are to be the voice of interplanetary parliament.” It’s 1952 and the Englishman has been meditating deeply. Eight days later, a famous yogi from India materializes to explain what’s going on. These experiences became the basis for the Aetherius Society—an organization that still has 35 chapters around the planet today. They claim the world’s governments are covering up their communication with a spiritually enlightened galactic federation, so as to maintain control over humanity. If that sounds like 2020 red-pilled Instagram grift, you’re right! Everything old is new again. Julian’s series, The Roots of Conspirituality, a history of new age conspiracism, is now conveniently organized under the “Collections” tab at the top of our Patreon page. Each episode is self-contained—but listen from the start if you want to trace the journey from the 1840’s “burned over region” of the American North East to today! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

27 Jan 5min

On Jan 10, the Oregon Nurses Association launched the largest healthcare strike in Oregon state history. Some 5k frontline caregivers from 8 Providence hospitals and 6 clinics have been holding the line in freezing temperatures as they fight for basic rights that their employer—a Catholic nonprofit healthcare system whose C Suite members make millions of dollars every year—refuses to give them. Derek discusses why such strikes, and unions in general, are so important as the new administration takes office. He breaks down some of Providence’s past legal problems, discusses his own experience as a Providence patient, and talks to some of the nurses on the strike line. Show Notes Dr Jennifer Lincoln Oregon Nurses Association Resources for striking healthcare professionals It's Time for Providence to Put Patients Before Profits  Providence, striking Oregon health workers remain apart on key issues They Were Entitled to Free Care. Hospitals Hounded Them to Pay. Hospital System to Refund Poor Patients Who Were Entitled to Free Care Wealthiest Hospitals Got Billions in Bailout for Struggling Health Providers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

25 Jan 33min

One of the top podcasts in the world—even beating out Rogan for a few hours—is popularizing a well-meaning intervention for non-speaking autistic people. Unfortunately, that intervention happens to be a proven failure, and may set autistic and disability rights discourse back by decades.  Filmmaker Ky Dicken’s The Telepathy Tapes podcast delves into the world of Facilitated Communication, in which non-speaking people are believed to miraculously gain access to complex written language after lives of silence. According to Dickson, non-speaking people can also gather in transdimensional spaces and channel spiritual knowledge. But there’s a problem. Every controlled test shows that the messages produced through letterboards and iPads are coming from the facilitators—not the non-speaking persons. In this episode, Matthew interviews experts in pseudoscience and autism, including Janyce Boynton, a former (now dissident) practitioner of Facilitated Communication who explains how seductive and promising it was to practice, but how it ultimately steals agency and dignity from the autistic client. And... this is also a story about parents dealing with crushing levels of unpaid and invisible labour. They are already doing miraculous work. A fantasy is no replacement for true support and recognition. Show Notes Podcast About 'Telepathic' Autistic Children Briefly Knocks Joe Rogan Out Of No. 1 Spot   Ky Dickens Director | Filmmaker  Facilitated Communication—what harm it can do: Confessions of a former facilitator MD25438 - Powell, Diane Hennacy, MD - OR License Verification - 01/12/2025 11:07:47 AM  The Telepathy Tapes: Separating Science From Pseudoscience In Autism Communication  Stolen Voices: Facilitated Communication Devalues Autism | Psychology Today Canada Multiple method validation study of facilitated communication: II. Individual differences and subgroup results - PubMed   The Telepathy Tapes Prove We All Want to Believe "The Telepathy Tapes" is Taking America by Storm. But it Has its Roots in Old Autism Controversies.  Mixed Messages: Validity and Ethics of Facilitated Communication | Disability Studies Quarterly  Is There Science Behind That? Facilitated Communication  Controlled Studies — Facilitated Communication Served people with severe communication impairments — Obit for Rosemary Crossley More Doubts over Disability ‘Miracle’  Katharine Beals Jonathan Jarry MSc - Science Communicator   FCisNotScience - YouTube — Janyce Boynton’s awesome YouTube channel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

23 Jan 1h 11min