One of the biggest myths in politics today is that Donald Trump’s supporters are just a gigantic monolith, a group of people who will say whatever he says and believe whatever he tells them to believe.

While there are many Americans who will change their opinions to suit Trump’s, it’s also true many people support Trump for their own reasons and reasons, which may not be compatible with his form of governance and the agenda that he has been imposing since he became president for the second time.

It is certainly the case that a lot of Trump voters are super fans of his and really do view him as some sort of blunt instrument to attack a culture gone awry in their opinion.

But there are plenty of people also who don’t pay attention to news and who may not be religious at all who supported Trump in 2024. That matters because these people are, in many cases, up for grabs this year and in years to come.

So why did they vote for Trump? Joining me in this episode to discuss is Stephen Hawkins. He is the global director of research at More In Common, which is a research organization that does political polling and psychological analysis of voters to analyze why it is that they have certain opinions, and what opinions they might have in common with other people who vote differently. They released an extremely large survey earlier this year called “Beyond MAGA” that’s very much worth your time.

This is an audio-only episode. Access the episode page to get the full transcript. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.

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Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

10:11 — ‘MAGA hardliners,’ the hardcore Christian nationalists who see Trump as divinely destined

15:51 — ‘Mainline Republicans,’ party loyalists who don’t follow news much

17:47 — Politics as a cognitive style and deeper antagonistic divisions

22:50 — ‘Anti-woke conservatives,’ a more secular group that is oppositional more than affirmative

32:27 — The ‘reluctant right,’ a younger group that knew little about politics

36:51 — Did Elon Musk’s ads in Pennsylvania win the state for Trump?

42:43 — ‘New traditionalists,’ young men with very strongly misogynist viewpoints

53:48 — Younger Trump supporters favor more extremist media figures

58:03 — Reactionary religious identity as an act of youthful rebellion

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: So, before we get into the findings that that you guys have been compiling over the past several months on this report, tell us about your organization. Where’s the name come from and like what, are you guys doing?

STEPHEN HAWKINS: There’s a member of Parliament in the UK named Jo Cox, who was serving a district in the central north part of the United Kingdom, and she was a vocal proponent of the country accepting Syrian refugees and other Middle Eastern, North African refugees at that point. This is in 2016, and as a result of that support, she was publicly attacked and ultimately murdered by a white nationalist, effectively a neo-Nazi.

And as he was killing her, he was saying Britain first. Britain first. And so there was an outpouring of support across the UK. It was a historic moment, somewhat similar to the Gabby Giffords moment in the United States, but obviously with a sadder outcome. And the phrase more in common was taken from Jo Cox’s maiden speech in Parliament, her first time taking the floor of House of Commons, where she talked about her constituents having more in common despite their religious and ethnic and other differences.

And [00:04:00] so since 2016, since her passing More in Common has been working in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, the United States, and now in Brazil on understanding these forces of division. Why are we so divided relative to. Relatively quieter periods in her past? How do those differences relate to views on subjects like identity?

How do they relate to our beliefs, and especially to our psychology? And we work with social psychologists and political scientists to bring the language of those domains into polling. And then we conduct national studies. We do a lot of focus groups, and we try to help make sense of our time so that government leaders, business leaders, civil society, can better communicate with the public and better understand what’s happening during very confusing and concerning times.

SHEFFIELD: Well, and, yeah studies in cognitive psychology have pretty conclusively demonstrated that political ideologies and attitudes and partisanship they are manifestations of deeper values and even cognitive styles themselves. So in other words, the, epistemology of someone, in many ways, epistemologies, they are really what most prolonged controversies, social controversies are about.

And that’s not something that I think conventional political analysis has realized yet. People tend to think that, oh no, it’s just about the issues or just about the candidates, but that’s not what the, that’s not what the data suggests, right.

HAWKINS: Well, actually, it’s a really interesting point that you raised because I don’t think that there’s a static answer to that question. I think that, and this is my hypothesis that we’re gonna be exploring over the coming year with a revisiting of. Questions that we posed for our foundational study in the United States, which was [00:06:00] called Hidden Tribes.

We released that in 2018. And I think that the hypothesis that I’m curious to explore is, it the case that in an earlier period in the United States, in the earlier 20th century, we had common picture of the country, or similar pictures of the country, but different values. For instance, some people had a strong value towards authority and loyalty and wanted to see a harsher, more draconian, more orderly immigration system.

And others want to see a more empathetic, more universalist approach, more forgiving approach to immigration. But both are kind of seeing the same image. And now we might have seen that as the conflict has become more hostile. And we do know also from the political science that affect polarization has risen in the United States, meaning that the.

The emotional register of the conflict has gotten much worse between Republicans and Democrats in recent years. Do the underlying values matter as much anymore or has the conflict taken on a more tribal nature where it’s just that group is one I dislike, I know my team and I prefer it. And the underlying psychology of values takes on a secondary role when the conflict becomes about the group hostility as opposed to the underlying things that maybe brought the conflict into being.

SHEFFIELD: Well that is, I mean, it’s definitely worth exploring. And there are some pieces in, in, in the, report that we’ll discuss today that I think I have some, relevance to, what you’re saying.

So, okay, so the report though, that we’re gonna be talking about today though, is one that your organization released a couple months ago that is exploring the idea of that people who supported Donald Trump in 2024 that they did so for, differing [00:08:00] reasons. And that while people might want to, label all Trump supporters as sharing the same beliefs or sharing his beliefs what your findings suggest is that there’s a lot of people who may not even know fully what Trump believes or, wanted to do. And that they voted for him, just because they didn’t like Joe Biden or for, a variety of other reasons.

So let’s if you could talk about the four groups generally, but before that talk about how it is that you guys ascertained that there were four groups and how many people you were, pulling in the survey here.

HAWKINS: Great. So this Beyond MAGA project was very extensive and did a lot of repeated polling. So all in, we had 18,000 survey participants, including almost 11,000 Trump voters. We conducted, we’ve now conducted eight waves of polling within this framework. The original poll where we did the classification was among 2,500 or so Trump voters.

We included questions in what’s called a cluster analysis, so the input variables that went into cluster analysis related to attitudes towards constitutional questions, orientations towards President Trump and descriptions of him questions of loyalties between President Trump and the Republican Party and other questions of sort of that vein.

And then what we used is a method called K-means Cluster Analysis, which allows you to identify similarities in the responses across your sample, and then group people together on the basis of that similarity. And so there’s an observed homogeneity across the subgroups that we identified here.

And so we identified four: MAGA hard liners at 29% [00:10:00] anti woke conservatives at 21%, 30% that we refer to as mainline Republicans. And then the final 20% who fit into a group we call the reluctant, right?

‘MAGA hardliners,’ the hardcore Christian nationalists who see Trump as divinely destined

SHEFFIELD: L et’s talk about these, the four groups here. So I think the, group that is probably most famous and most devoted to Donald Trump is the MAGA hardliners as, you call them which is obviously a very apt name. So this group is, tends to be more evangelical than the other groups.

It tends to be older. And it tends to have a very, what scholars now pretty much call a Christian nationalist viewpoint about politics. So tell us a bit more about the findings with this group please.

HAWKINS: So the MAGA hardliners, that’s a good introduction, are distinct relative to the anti woke conservatives in that they are not as likely to have a college degree. They’re less likely to live in suburban or urban areas, and they are three quarters, gen X or baby boomers. So they skew older. About nine and 10 are white.

And this is a group for whom MAGA is not just their political preference, it’s not a transactional thing, it’s part of their identity. They say that being MAGA is an important part of their identity. A majority of them say that. And as you alluded to with the Christian nationalist point, they’re also likely to say that supporting President Trump for them as part of living out their faith.

They believe that God intervened to save President Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania when assassination attempt happened. And they trust President Trump more than any other messenger or commentator in general when it comes to understanding American politics, what’s happening in the country. They have a strong antipathy towards progressives, Democrats undocumented or illegal immigrants protestors, the L-G-B-T-Q movement.

And so President Trump plays a very interesting and important, arguably central role in the lives of [00:12:00] many MAGA hard lidars because he is defining the moment for them, we refer to him as playing a kind of grand narrator role in their lives.

The MAGA hardliners are a group that would’ve been derided, perceived to be derided by the coastal elites, whether it’s the Hollywood class, whether it’s the Ivy League professors in academia.

And this is a group that Hillary Clinton referred to as a basket of deplorables. And they’re aware of that. Evangelical white Christians not feeling like they’re respected by progressive left at all. And so President Trump also plays this kind of redemptive role in the sense that he is powerful, he’s wealthy, he’s part of the elite, and he says, I respect you. And they feel that way.

They very much feel that they’re respected by President Trump and not by Democrats. And they transgression that President Trump plays in opposing progressives and defying their social norms is very much part of the appeal for them too. We had a great quote from one of our participants in this survey who said, President Trump is like a giant flashing orange middle finger, and I love that.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, I literally have that in my notes as quote. And that role as you guys characterize it, is that, that Donald Trump is a blasphemer for them. And and, it’s because, they do see, non traditionalist Christianity as-- they see it as a religion.

Even if the people, who are not religious, they don’t see it as such. and so that’s, I think that’s a, huge part of, what they’re doing.

They also, as you mentioned, with regard to his the assassination attempt on him in Butler, Pennsylvania that was, I mean, the, number is striking. It’s 94% said that God had saved him for that moment. And it was much lower for everybody else. So 56% of mainline Republicans are only 44%. [00:14:00] Anti and then 9% the reluctant right. So these are the people that are, the floor in his support base is, what it looks like because they see him as their instrument against modernity in a lot of ways it seems like.

HAWKINS: I think it’s a bit harsh to say an instrument against modernity in the sense that modernity encompasses technological advancement and a broader set of social changes. And I don’t think that they’re opposed to the wholesale arrival of modernity, but I do think that they’re frustrated with the cultural direction, especially that the progressive left has defined.

I think this is a group that would be very compelled, for instance, by the critique that Curtis Yarvin has made in referring to the Cathedral which he refers to in his writings, which are, which is effectively the idea that Silicon Valley, Hollywood and academic worlds and the publishing worlds-- basically our cultural sense-making institutions and the information, infor, the information economy as well as our moral direction-- has all been defined by a kind of common agenda of secular liberals, and that’s been the case effectively for about 60 years in this country. I think that is the critique that would be maybe not formulated in those terms, but that’s the frustration, maybe more narrowly than modernity wholesale for the MAGA hard liners.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, I think that’s perhaps what they might say, but you know, it’s also manifesting in terms of what they think about vaccines and other topics like that. So, yeah, broadly speaking though, it’s, yeah, it’s this idea that ‘the world has gone mad and that departed from the, righteous beliefs that we have,’ generally is what it seems like.

‘Mainline Republicans,’ party loyalists who don’t follow news much

SHEFFIELD: Okay. So then the other group which is the largest group the mainline Republicans, so, talk about those. I think to some extent [00:16:00] people might think that people who oppose Republicans might think that this group doesn’t really exist anymore, but in fact, they do.

HAWKINS: That’s right. They do. And they’re among the largest groups at 30% mainland Republicans. I also think of them as default Republicans in the sense that I think they would’ve supported Romney in 2020 or 2024 or 2016. I think that they would have supported Nikki Haley had she gotten the nomination.

These are people who just lean conservative. They are more, they’re religious on average. They transcend generations and racial groups. This is the most racially diverse of the four segments. They’re not especially politically engaged. And so when they express support for President Trump, unlike with the MAGA hardliners, where they would be able to say, here’s the reason, and this is, Trump said this, and this is the issue.

And I heard Trump say this is a rally. But the mainline Republicans, it’s more that they trust the president, they like him, they’ll speak in briefer terms. They have a general attitude towards things. They dislike Democrats. And it’s, kind of, it’s less informed because politics just isn’t a part of their day-to-day.

And so they make up a really crucial constituency though because they’re numerous, right? They’re three in 10 of his voters, and they are going to be slow to break from the president, not because they agree with everything that he’s doing, but because they’re not paying attention to everything that he’s doing.

And they’re, orientation towards conservatism and towards being a Republican is in their minds, likely something that they will always embody. And so they’ve kind of made up their mind about the basic question of who they’re gonna support, and they’re gonna be slow to move away from that.

Politics as a cognitive style and deeper antagonistic divisions

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, that it, their conservatism is, a cognitive style more than it is a, an affirmative political ideology. It’s just, there, these people are not out there reading Breitbart or, [00:18:00] watching Newsmax or something. These are people, if they would look at news at all, they’re, what, reading the New York Times if that,

HAWKINS: can you say more about cognitive style? What? What do you mean by that?

SHEFFIELD: Well, I mean in the sense that so there, there was a study that came out a, couple of years ago, I think it was 2024, I believe, and that was talking about the importance of authority. that’s, so it was a meta study looking at cognitive modes and it, was comparing it to value based ideas.

So, they were, it was saying that, well, actually, it’s just simply the idea that there’s a natural ranking to the world and that’s the way it is. And, so therefore, anything that kind of departs from that is going to be inherently wrong and also ultimately unjust. And so that, that’s manifest in, in, in with, in political ways, but it also manifests in a number of other ways in terms of, like people who were like, organizational members in some other capacity that they resist change or resist new members or new ideas just because they think that it’s risky.

HAWKINS: Very interesting. We’ve, been exploring this idea of natural hierarchy as well. And we’ll be writing about it in the coming year.

SHEFFIELD: Okay. Yeah. Well, and I’ll, put the link to the study in the show notes, but I’ll send it to you separately as well. I think that’s probably the, it seems to be the most data-driven of the research because, like there’s, there, there are a lot of. People that have, argued, for things like right wing authoritarianism or moral foundations and, generally speaking, these frameworks tend to be externally imposed from the top down rather than based on the bottom up through data aggregation, I would say.

HAWKINS: And so top down in this case, meaning from by the scientists.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. [00:20:00] So it’s using the, it’s, these are operating within degrees of freedom of the analysts rather than emerging from the data set organically, is what I would say. So this, idea of hierarchy is, it is an emergent belief in the meta study that, that I’m thinking about here. But if you haven’t read it, then I, it’s hard to have a, substantive discussion about it.

But maybe we’ll we’ll have to do another one once you

HAWKINS: We will do another one. Yeah, I’d love to opine on that. We’re with Hidden Tribes. We’re, doing a systematic analysis of different theories, including Moral Foundations theory, including work by Karen Stenner on authoritarianism. We also included some questions that relate to hierarchy. We’re looking at questions that measure in group identity, strength, things like this as predictors of where people land on questions that are very salient to our political division today. Whether that’s support for Trump, that’s views on immigration, views on trans issues, et cetera.

Because we’re, trying to figure out what is, what are the strongest psychometric variable relationships to the questions that are most divisive now? And it’s, not obvious that the questions about values are the ones that are most predictive, as you’re suggesting here on, with the critique of Moral Foundation’s theory.

We have used Moral Foundations theory historically, and in our 2018 report, found that it was correlated very well with our seven tribes. Particularly the foundations of authority, loyalty, and purity, which are the ones which define conservatives, relatives to relative to liberals.

But what seems most alive in the data to us now are these intergroup hostility measures, which are really showing the strongest relationship to where people land on political questions today, which is, it’s an alarming signal. And I’ll just share one other data point that we just, we haven’t published this, [00:22:00] is just data that we collected in the last six weeks or so.

But we asked a question about whether Americans think that the other side of the political side is a cancer and whether it needs to be extricated from society. And 52% of Americans roughly identical levels across Republicans, Democrats and Independences opted to describe their political opponents as a cancer.

And we see high levels of people expressing support even for reeducation camps. We’re gonna do some work to make sure we know what people believe Regie reeducation camps are before we publish that. But the. The emotional hostility is what seems to be in the foreground right now, much more so than values differences based on our preliminary analysis.

‘Anti-woke conservatives,’ a more secular group that is oppositional more than affirmative

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, that’s definitely the case with the third group that we are, we can talk about here, which is the anti woke conservatives. That this is a group that is extremely negatively polarized like that’s seems to be their primary motivation. They, don’t necessarily know, many of them don’t know what Trump’s agenda is, or they don’t really care about it, except as a way of, stopping the Democrats who they see as evil.

I mean, literally let you guys poll on that question. And, they’re the ones that were the most likely to agree on it. And, the concept of wokeness is, I think. Has been really effective for for Trump and his supporters. and it’s interesting though, because this, label, it, is, I mean, it is just a relabeling of previous belief systems that have, that they, it is like every few years re Republicans will come up with a new label and say that this is this new type of, liberalism and it’s different from the ones before in a [00:24:00] uniquely terrible way.

And it’s a threat to America, so before it was political correctness. And then before that it was multiculturalism. And then before that it was, hippies just generally speaking. So it’s like there, this, but, it always gets, just slightly tweaked a little bit differently so that it can be put forward as a, unique different threat. And, I think that’s seems to be, really effective for these, anti-woke conservatives in terms of their motivations.

HAWKINS: I think I view this question a little differently than the way you framed it there. I, think that with our hidden tribe study in 2018, we differentiated between traditional liberals and progressive activists and traditional liberals, I think could be fairly described. As the inheritors of the hippie worldview, and many of them themselves may have been hippies, traditional liberal skew older, and it’s a universalist worldview.

Everybody should have peace. Everybody should have their rights. Everybody should be respected. It’s a multiculturalist worldview. They don’t differentiate, well, differentiate meaningfully between religions or racial groups. They, they, believe in humanity and they’re the sort of people who would have the coexist stickers on their bumpers.

And they believe in the scientific process and they believe in the large role of government to try and bring about better conditions for everybody. Progressive activists, I think are a different variety of it’s a different variety of worldview in that it looks very much at group identity and power as the primary lens through which to understand society and the primary lens through which to intervene to make society better.

And so the, primacy of racial identity, of gender identity of sexual orientation is more reminiscent of a kind of Marxist way of thinking where you’re policing people into a hierarchy of lower power, higher power, oppressed, [00:26:00] marginalized, and then doing the sociological thinking and the policy thinking in those terms than it is simply a continuation of the traditional liberal perspective.

And so I, think that it’s, and I say this as somebody who worked on the progressive left professionally for several years, having sort of converted. I grew up in the conservative worldview. I grew up in a Republican home and then I was an active Republican in into my college years here in Washington dc And then I.

In the Obama years, became a Democrat and a liberal, and then went to work in progressive activism. And something happened between the, in early Obama years and the activists activism of 2016 through early 2020s. That felt like an inflection point, not just the continuation of previous trends. So I, think that there’s more to it than simply a rebranding exercise by Christopher Ruffo and others to make everything be about wokeness.

And I think it’s, been challenging to define wokeness because of how. Well, I just tried to do it and it took, it’s taken me about 10 years to get a good definition going. And so I think a lot of Americans, a lot of conservatives couldn’t precisely define it. But I think the anti woke conservatives probably could, and their frustration would be at a sense that there’s too much emphasis on group identities and that’s counterproductive.

SHEFFIELD: Although, they have that sense about people on the left, that they believe that’s a, their viewpoint, but they also don’t feel like that’s bad, that Christian identity politics is wrong or that they can’t even see it. It seems like. And so, yeah, I, so I’m not saying, so when I say that it, this is a rebranding of previous labels.

I’m not saying that it’s that there’s not nothing that there’s not anything there. I’m saying that these are just labels that were used. So if you go back and look at.[00:28:00]

HAWKINS: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: Russia Limbaugh transcripts, where you look at, 1970s or eighties books by Alan Bloom. He had a Closing of American Mind book.

It was basically this same critique. So it’s, like, yeah, there it is. Like they’ve discovered that there are people on the left who do have a different viewpoint of what liberalism should look like, and that they see that as uniquely threatening. And not incorrectly necessarily as tied somewhat to, some post post Marxist viewpoints or epistemologies.

HAWKINS: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that’s right. I mean, when we ask, we have a chapter on wokeness in the report, and we ask about whether people think that our, culture broadly including our media, has been ruined by the progressive left. And the numbers are very high among anti woke conservatives and my hardliners.

But almost regardless of how you formulate questions around wokeness, whether it’s about cancel culture, whether it’s about transgender issues, you see a big drop off with the mainline Republicans in the reluctant right, who just, they’re not as engaged on the culture war issues. They’re not listening to Ben Shapiro, or reading Breitbart, or Dan Bongino, or any of the other Daily Wire guys, for instance. And so they’re not versed in this. And if you talk to ‘em about wokeness, these less politically engaged Republicans, they have a story to tell you about something that happened at their daughter’s school, or they’re not sure why this Marvel character has been cast by someone from an ethnic minority, or it seems like you can’t say this word anymore, but they haven’t stitched it together into a philosophy and defined that and then said that they’re against it.

But for the anti-woke conservatives and the MAGA hardliners that’s been done, they have an opponent and it’s been defined.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. [00:30:00] Well, and suggest also that in terms of the change that you were talking about that, it seemed to happen during the Obama years on the left in your observation. I think it, it, it might be that, that the activists of, these groups, they, they overestimated the public support and familiarity with their epistemologies, and with their political issues.

And so they thought, okay, well now, like, and the best example would be about trying to move immediately into transgender rights without having had this explanatory movement that existed before that laid the groundwork for same-sex marriage rights. So in other words that, a lot of people were, in the closet who were lesbian or gay. And so people didn’t know that they knew people who were that. A lot of heterosexual people.

And so, it, it took a while for them to become comfortable, people who might have had these mainline Republican viewpoints to realize, oh, well, if this person, my colleague, is not trying to convert me to homosexuality like that’s, that is a, like, I, I know a number of, elderly people who had that viewpoint for, a number of years that they thought that it was something that could happen.

And and you see that also with this belief that, being trans is contagious somehow. And like it’s literally just a re recapitulation of it. and so many of the arguments that are used against trans rights, I mean, they are literally the same arguments that were used against people who were gay or lesbian.

HAWKINS: Right. I mean, I do think that the, age component really does matter here. I mean, we’re our most recent analysis. On, I mean this has changed the subject a bit, but on Iran and Israel and inflation, like all of those issues correlate well with [00:32:00] generation and across the four types. Just something I want to emphasize is that the MAGA hardliners and anti-war conservatives, their median age would be somewhere in the sixties likely.

And then as you move to the mainline Republicans and reluctant right. It drops down considerably. And so yeah, generation is really important here. And I do think for these questions around gays and lesbians and transgender people, the generally racial differences are really important to, to underscore.

The ‘reluctant right,’ a younger group that knew little about politics

HAWKINS: I think that just leaves us with a reluctant right. To define, right?

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, that’s right.

HAWKINS: So the reluctant right. Is did you wanna say something about that?

SHEFFIELD: Oh no, you can go into it to go.

HAWKINS: Okay. Sorry. Didn’t wanna pre up you. One fifth of the Trump 2024 Coalition. They’re the ones that are in discussion right now because it’s a dynamic group. We did some polling at the end of 2024, right after the midterm elections actually, that showed that among across the whole population actually there was a significant misperception of the priorities of the Democrats, where significant numbers or actually on average, Americans thought that the priorities for Democrats were in this order, abortion L-G-B-T-Q issues, and climate change, and they thought Republicans priorities were immigration, inflation, and the economy.

And of course, most Americans top concern in 2024. And indeed their top concern today is economy inflation. And so that mismatch between seeing Republicans is focused on the right big picture questions. And Democrats being focused on activist issues was something that for the reluctant right, helped them see President Trump as the right answer to their concerns in 2024.

And so the reluctant right, is disproportionately represents those younger voters, young men, of color, who decided who to vote for in [00:34:00] 20, 24 weeks, or even days before the election, and did so in a pretty transactional way. They thought Donald Trump would bring back a better economy, lower unemployment, lower prices, and that Harris had some kind of progressive agenda, or at least wouldn’t be as competent on the economy.

And so now 18 months later, the question is whether those voters are happy with the economic performance that Trump has provided, and they’re increasingly disillusioned with the war in Iran and what that has done on questions of inflation. And so we’re seeing that now over a third of the reluctant right, are expressing some regret about supporting President Trump.

And they describe him in critical terms when we ask them to grade President Trump’s performance across issues. And overall he gets grades in the fifties or the low sixties. So he’s getting Fs on average from the reluctant right now, who are underwhelmed by his performance, and see him as increasingly as an irresponsible decision maker.

I’m happy to get into the Iran questions more, but I think that might be further afield in the conversation.

SHEFFIELD: Well, yeah, we can get into that, but I did, yeah, want to just touch about their, inclination a bit further though. So like, last year the Pew Research Center came out with a study looking at how Americans consume news. And one of the findings that they had was that younger Americans, they don’t look for news that they’ve happened upon it essentially because they’re not, it’s not something that’s an, interest to them.

They say that they don’t have time for it. And, that matches what you guys are talking about here with the reluctant right, that these are not people who are, as you said, are, consuming right wing media and they have no idea, might not have any idea who Dan Mino is.

Probably not. And, I’ve never heard of Laura Ingraham or, so, but they like, watching comedy. And so [00:36:00] they they, might happen to, like Joe Rogan or one of these other people, like the Theo Von and, those people, they were pro-Trump in 2024, and it was so it was, a, vibes based viewpoint of, rather than an issues based viewpoint, except, in terms of like the broader, more specific things.

Well, who, what’s your plan on, social security or taxes or whatever, it was just more, and maybe not vibes entirely, but some of it was, well, I think Kamala Harris is, an airhead or I think, Donald Trump is a good businessman. And he says he’s going to, I mean, he had a sign literally that said Trump low prices, Kamala high prices. Like that’s, it is as easy as you can get to explain what the message that he was trying to push.

Did Elon Musk’s ads in Pennsylvania win the state for Trump?

HAWKINS: Yeah. and the big, message that he was pushing in the final stretch before the election was the $450 million that he and Elon Musk put into the, he’s for you. She’s for they, them. Ad campaign, which you know, very successfully in my interpretation, painted her as someone who was ideological to the point of surrendering her critical thinking and supporting something like incarcerated illegal immigrants, having access to gender reassignment surgeries that were publicly funded.

And it was an effective putting of the finger on the scales against her that I think helped tip the election in his favor. And that was, I don’t know this for certain, but it been the most well-funded presidential campaign ad in history.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, I’m not sure that particular ad was that effective, just because television ads are not effective in the scholarship. Like they generally are not. But on the other hand, I, [00:38:00] that’s a, larger, it’s part of a larger overall message which I do think was effective. Just simply because like that was a thing, a message that the, the, anecdotal political people, like the guys that talk about guns on YouTube, or driving around in the mud, like hiking or whatever, weightlifting, like the, that was a simple message that they could use. And then push to their audience.

Because I just don’t, I think, people have ad blockers now, like they love ‘em. I love them. And the internet’s a lot nicer when you have an ad blocker. And so, but not to say there weren’t any effects on it, but generally speaking, the scholarship is pretty clear that in presidential elections, they don’t have much of an effect.

HAWKINS: I think I’ve just seen that the, testing of that ad somehow got released and showed that it swung certain swing voters towards him in a meaningful way. But then, the question is whether the at a sufficient scale, people saw the ad and, then whether those are the people who changed their mind or not.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and I guess the other thing that that I say on it, on ads is that when you test an ad, you are automatically altering the perception state. So you, in other words, you are getting people who are volunteering to watch an ad. Like most people hate ads. So like, to the extent that it does anything on them in a controlled setting, in a lab environment, if you will, that’s an altered state and it’s not a field appropriate.

But it, but of course all pulling is that way. So like, I mean, it’s, you can’t, it’s hard to say. I like, that’s when, when you look at in the polling industry, it is a common topic and I think that journalists who talk about polls tend to overstate the degree to which the certitude can be ascertained especially if it is [00:40:00] involving self-assessment.

Because opinions change rapidly, on a given day, especially for people who have inco beliefs. That, so it might be effective in that moment, but on the other hand, if they don’t remember it, did it have an effect? And how could you measure it if it had an effect? It’s hard to say, like, and so that’s why I, would say that, like these, more advocacy type media, so like if you look at, this point now, video, political video is now dominated by the right.

So you’ve got, Ms. Now, which, and then, which is, a full service channel. And then I think you’ve got a democracy now, which is a further left channel, but they’re not full service. And that’s pretty much it. Like there is no alternative really to Ms. NBC or sorry, Ms. Now. Got it. That right. Whereas on the right, you’ve got a bunch of alternatives to Fox and that, collectively they, they produce a volume of output and then you got talk radio and, YouTube hosts and whatnot. So it’s just, there’s just this massive flood of content into YouTube and other social media sites that the broader left just doesn’t, seem to be interested in it. In doing this kind of advocacy media, from what I’ve seen.

HAWKINS: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think establishing causality and interventions is really challenging for the reasons you mentioned. And of course, we know there are decay effects of things that are reported seconds after watching a video aren’t sustained a week later. But in any event, the, three data points I’m just tethering together are one.

An awareness that in, those lab environments, flawed but best available data we have, that showed meaningful relative to other types of interventions and other types of a high degrees of efficacy and persuading people towards Trump to the overwhelming scale of the intervention in the final weeks of the [00:42:00] campaign, as I said, half a billion dollars.

And then three is just the data point that we know that there was a strong association with between Democrats and trans issues that carried through the election there. So we’ll never know entirely whether it was the causal factor, but when you, when, Trump won by such a narrow margin, like 1.3, 1.5% of the popular vote the right way to think about that is that anything that had any appreciable effect had a decisive effect because any of the 50 things that mattered, down the final stretch, it likely was, enough to make the difference between him winning and losing.

SHEFFIELD: Well, there’s just any number of things that could have done something and, they’re all worth considering.

‘New traditionalists,’ young men with very strongly misogynist viewpoints

SHEFFIELD: All right, so one of the other big findings in the report beyond MAGA that you guys did what we’re talking about here is you did a, focus on younger Trump supporters.

And we’ve talked about that many of them are kind of reluctant right people, so they’re not very engaged and not particularly aware of, of what he’s doing or, what he wants. But there is another subset of people that that you guys are calling the new traditionalist. And that these are people who, especially younger men who have much more negative attitudes toward feminism, toward women in some cases and to, or women’s independence.

And this is research that, a research topic that a number of organizations have been trying to delve into. But it is difficult to do this type of research. So tell us a little bit about that, if you would.

HAWKINS: I would sure. Yeah. So we’re, we refer to it as an emergent new traditionalism. And the distinction might seem superficial, but the reason we decided to call it emergent new traditionalism rather than new traditional lists. So rather than a group of people, but it’s a broader trend, is that it’s not, [00:44:00] there aren’t clear boundaries around this phenomenon.

And we found it hard to identify people who matched a lot of criteria at the same time. So for instance, gen Z Americans show a kind of frustration and fatigue and underwhelm with American democracy, and that’s a pretty general trend. There is a very low level of active hostile feeling towards Jewish Americans and Jews more generally in the American population, but it’s there at choice levels three, four or 5%.

But that’s much smaller than, for instance, the level of support for a strong president who, challenges the limits of his power and does things that that might take away power from Congress or that might ignore a Supreme Court decision. and then, so there’s, a lot of converging threads here.

I’m mentioning too, anti-Semitism and a kind of loose level of commitment to the Constitution. And then you’ve mentioned a third, which is this thread of a reconsideration of gender norms. And it’s been hard to get the right language on this because part of what we’re seeing is people saying that they think that the man should lead and the woman should follow.

And that just feels like a reversion to traditional gender norms, but we also see it pretty high levels. An affirmation of the idea that women should have the freedom to choose whether they go into a career direction or into a home and family direction. And so it’s getting the right language around the gender questions has been challenging.

And then the fourth thread I’ll just put in here as well is this belief in religion and a return to religiosity, which is something which there’s been a lot of discussion about and it’s been very hard to measure as well. And I think I just wanna mention [00:46:00] from a methodological point and data collection point, part of the challenge here is that the way that polling is working now is primarily through convenience sampling, data collection processes where you’re paying somebody some amount of money to, on their phone or on their browser, take a 10 or 20 minute survey.

And across panels across not just the United States, but across the world really, there’s been a challenge of getting younger men to participate in these surveys. And countries might only have 1% of their population on these survey panels, and so you use demographic controls to try and get good representation, but it’s challenging to one, get survey participants who are younger men to join onto panels.

And then two, it’s challenging to ask younger people to have sustained attention towards an activity for 15 minutes that’s not that interesting to them, which could be like a long political survey. So I think in general, the data collection effort to understand the precise levels at which we are seeing things like.

A reconsideration of constitutionality, a return to gender norms that are more traditional antisemitism. All of these questions have some error bars around them. I think because of the challenges with the data collection effort.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and a, some of those challenges probably are relating to the idea that younger people have less of a sense of community especially if they’re not in school. So like that’s, was the, is obvious ready source of community right? And you have to go to it. But once you’re out as a young adult and you’re not in school for, whatever way the, there.

So there is a pretty strong sense of that, that there isn’t community where, I am in the sample. So, 28% of the younger Trump voters in the [00:48:00] sample said that they agreed with that, that they didn’t feel community where they live, but also the non-Trump voters, that 27% said the same thing.

HAWKINS: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: and this was a, notable difference between older Americans who, who did seem to have more of a connection with their community.

HAWKINS: That’s right.

SHEFFIELD: And so this, and then the isolation is even higher with young men. There were, it was 30% as, I noticed. And then there also is the, a profound sense of precarity among a lot of younger Americans.

this is also an in income based scenario here that we’re talking about. That, people who have lower income obviously have a more precarious existence. Some people have said, oh, well, there’s no truth to the idea that the Trump supporters are motivated by economic anxiety. That is true that many of them are economically comfortable, like the, anti woke conservatives in particular.

But you know, they’re absolutely is the case that, the younger Trump supporters. Do seem to, feel at risk. And now it is. And we should say also that, I mean, the, for the non-Trump voters, feeling anxiety was even higher. So 43% of them said that they felt anxiety whereas only 29% of the Trump younger people said that.

HAWKINS: Right. And that anxiety doesn’t only relate to economic wellbeing. I think you’re, right on when you say that lack of community is, generates a sense of anxiety too, because there’s just less affirmation, community, less of a sense of companionship throughout daily life and the challenges that it brings forward and more time on social media, which I think the evidence will bear out, has generally been harmful to people’s cognition and psychology and emotional wellbeing.

But I think that this is among the most important [00:50:00] overall trends for the country to be watching is, Gen Z in general is not a continuation of millennials. I mean, there’s some arbitrariness about where you define a generation as beginning and ending. So we’re using Gen Z and millennials and baby boomers as because they, tend to be used by pollsters and by other demographic researchers and so on as shorthand for different categories of people.

But those Americans who grew up in the 21st century have not known military success, have not known a functional American politics that was not defined by division and polarization, and ideological conflict, have not known an economy that seemed fair to them, and have less confidence in general in our institutions.

Because whereas millennials were raised by baby boomers who believed in our institutions on average, especially in the fifties and sixties and into the seventies, for Gen Z, they’re growing up in an era where Americans broadly have lost a lot of trust in our institutions, including in our news media, but also in Congress.

And that trust in our institutions, broadly across three branches of government, across the private sector, across the military, is on the decline. And so they’re the inheritors of the disillusionment that has been on the sort of this characterized the last 50 or 60 years in this country. And while some of the data suggests a kind of revolutionary energy in the air, for instance, sympathy with the murder of the United Healthcare CEO by Luigi Mangione. And 20% of younger voters, millennials and Gen Z saying that there could be [00:52:00] cause for political violence.

Something we found in this study we, in qualitative research, when we do focus groups with folks, we don’t find them actively trying to advance or supporting a kind of revolutionary energy. But the dissatisfaction is a dangerous condition, and the, potential for it to be harnessed in negative directions is concerning.

But it’s concerning for its own sake that we have an emerging generation that does not feel that its institutions are serving them and is reconsidering everything from the constitution to how men and women work to work together, because of a lack of confidence in what they’ve been raised into.

SHEFFIELD: I think that’s that sense of institutional failure, it’s something that people who are in charge of social institutions don’t seem to be aware of, I think.

Because institutions worked well for them so well, that in fact that they’re in charge of them that it’s hard for them to put themselves into the mindset that, well, actually tens of millions of people think you have failed. And it’s an uncomfortable viewpoint. And so I can see why they might resist it.

any in-depth polling or focus group study or, other method that looks at Trump supporters in a very significant detail, it always finds this and it always finds this in particular with younger people across ideology. and, it also, this, discontent it does also surface in terms of the media figures that younger Trump supporters tend to admire.

Younger Trump supporters favor more extremist media figures

SHEFFIELD: So you guys asked them about specific individuals and of who, do they agree with? And 10% of them said they agreed with Nick Fuentes, the rate, the [00:54:00] neo-Nazi activist and live streamer, 17% said Candace Owens was somebody that they agreed with, another person who was explicitly antisemitic. But, they were not the number one Joe, Rogan was at 25% as someone who they agreed with.

But Elon Musk actually was their number one person, although in, that’s un unfortunate also because he also has made a number of racist and anti-Semitic statements. Although I think perhaps people may not know that about him as much ‘cause he doesn’t do that as constantly as Fuentes or, Owens.

But, these figures like Owens or, Tucker Carlson, that, that tend to push conspiracy viewpoints, they’re reflecting a suspicion of institution that their audience is feeling and that’s, that is what draws them to them. if that makes sense. That, and then they, absorb the more extreme beliefs after that, or alongside the general discontent.

HAWKINS: Yeah, I mean, when you’re anti-Semitic, I don’t know that’s necessarily a reflection of institutional distrust so much as.

SHEFFIELD: Oh, well, no, I’m saying they get that later. So in other words, they don’t come into it in many cases having any familiarity or, interest in antisemitism. In other words, yeah. So like they just are dissatisfied with, societal institutions and they hear someone saying, oh, life sucks and these people are bastards.

You are right to be angry at them. Then, that then they get the more extreme beliefs handed to them after that because it makes a, a in its own logic, they’re, giving you a progression to say, well, if you believe this, then you should believe me on this one, and you should believe me on that one.

Like that’s the, method of, how it seems to be working. And it’s, and, I think it’s why people [00:56:00] often look at the audience of Nick Fuentes, I mean, his audience is filled with, Hispanic young men and black young men that on its surface, you wouldn’t think that would be possible.

But, it happens because of, I think, because of what I’m saying, that, he gives them narratives that, that are broadly at least arguable and then, pushes other stuff on them later.

HAWKINS: I, yeah, I think in the particular case of Nick Fuentes, what I have heard him say is that he discovered that there was a real taboo around antisemitism and anti-Zionism when he was, I think, in his college years. And that was a kind of moment of revelation for him that there was some transgression and some energy to be had around violating that norm specifically.

So I think it’s pretty deeply entrenched in who he wants to be and what he wants to talk about. And it’s disturbing that he’s cultivated any following at all, and we’re still, that others are willing to. Help raise his profile and validate him or dismiss his viewpoints as merely being naughty and not dangerous.

And the distinction needs to be made. It’s dangerous to be an active celebrant of Adolf Hitler or to say that you celebrate Joseph Stalin’s birthday and it’s disturbing and we should not be trivializing these viewpoints.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. And and not underestimating them either because I think there is some people who, do try to say, oh, well he just has a few thousand people, ‘cause there was a report that came out a couple of I guess a couple weeks ago that, was arguing, well, well he’s only got, a few thousand people who pay for him.

And it’s like, well that’s pretty much how any creator works. That’s how any publication works, the people who read the New York Times are vastly outnumber the people who paid for the New York Times. So [00:58:00] you shouldn’t miss that point. I would say.

Reactionary religious identity as an act of youthful rebellion

SHEFFIELD: So the, other thing though about this, group of the emergent new traditionalists is that they in line with what you were saying about Fuentes, seeing antisemitism as a an act of rebellion, is that this group generally seems to view religion in that way, at least a significant percentage of them.

That the act of, being religious is in their mind an act of rebellion. Compared to what other groups say either older Trump supporters or non-Trump supporters, they. They don’t really agree with that. and I, that’s very significant and I think that’s what drives, there’s there has been a lot of discussion about, whether younger people are becoming more religious, but, I think what your findings, and Gallup and some others have, added some additional precision here, which is to say that no, it’s young Republicans who are becoming more religious.

And it, and for some of them it’s an active oppositional defiance. And just as an example, there was a somebody who was a more of a right-wing atheist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who announced she was converting to Christianity because she hated liberals. And that, that seems to be a viewpoint that a lot of people in this demographic that you’ve, that focus on here seem to agree with that in some sense.

HAWKINS: Well, well, I, think that there’s it’s not one storyline only. I spoke to a recent Stanford grad who had converted to Catholicism and is part of this kind of burgeoning, emergent new traditionalism. And for him it was very sincere. And it was, I think, operating in the backdrop of a culture which has been described as lacking meaning.

And I think that for younger Americans, maybe younger people in the West, broadly. There’s a lack of orientation [01:00:00] towards what the good life is, how to have it, what matters in the world, who you are, who you should be. And religion offers answers to those questions. I think that there’s a transgressive element to it in that for people who’ve grown up in the 21st century, multiculturalism, pluralism, secularism have been the waters that they have grown up in, especially if they grew up in coastal areas or elite areas.

And so there is this element of defiance and rebellion in what they’re doing. But I wouldn’t underestimate also the degree to which they’s this sincere desire for a substantive orientation in life that they’re not getting elsewhere. And I think particularly with young men who I think are floundering and failing in a lot of ways, a bit of structure is something which they’re looking for in addition to just the motivation of it being rebellious.

SHEFFIELD: So it wasn’t even the majority, but you know, for a good chunk of ‘em, it is an active rebellion as they see it. But yeah, like, for the, a lot of people are deriving community from it and they’re deriving philosophy from it and, as in, more economically prosperous times, conspicuous consumption might have been the way that a lot of people found meaning in life, if you will, or at least made them stop thinking about whether there should be meaning in life. But that’s not even accessible for a lot of people.

So, people, if you can’t just buy stuff, then you’re gonna start looking elsewhere for meaning. And so these are all things that people who, want, to protect, democracy, need to start thinking about more. I, not just having more economic opportunity, but also offering real coherent worldviews other than just simply well get a job and buy stuff.

Like if that’s doesn’t seem to be working for a lot of people because number one, they can’t get a job. And then number two, if they can, in a lot of cases they can’t afford anything, so. There has to be more than just [01:02:00] simply trying to get, people’s stuff.

HAWKINS: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: So, all right, so this is I, we’ve, I think hit, this is such a comprehensive report here that we couldn’t possibly have talked about everything that you guys noted in your findings here. So we’ll have the link to the full report. So if anybody wants to keep up with you personally though where, would you direct them?

HAWKINS: Me personally, you can follow me at shawkins on X and you should go to the MoreInCommonUS.com website and sign up for our newsletter.

SHEFFIELD: Okay. Sounds good. All right. Thanks for joining me, Steven.

HAWKINS: Thanks for having me, Matt. It was a pleasure.

SHEFFIELD: All right, so that is the program for today. I appreciate you joining us for the conversation, and you can always get more if you go to theoryofchange.show, where we have the video, audio, and transcript of all the episodes. And if you are a paid subscribing member, thank you very much for your support and you have unlimited access to the archives if you would like to become a free or paid subscriber. You can do so on Patreon at patreon.com/discoverflux. Or you can go to flux.community to subscribe on Substack.

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Since the public release of ChatGPT in late 2022, large language model artificial intelligence systems have become the most rapidly adopted technology in human history. Last March, ChatGPT’s website had 5.7 billion visits, while its competitors Claude and Gemini combined for another 3 billion.

Despite how much people are using these services, however, AI still has many critics who argue that they are nothing more than simplistic pattern-matchers that are vastly overhyped.

While the critics are underestimating what you can do with these systems, they do indeed have a point. LLMs excel at many abstract reasoning tasks, but because they have no somatic, embodied connection to reality, there is still a lot that today’s models struggle with. Full cognition depends upon the ability to designate “this” in the world and to compare “what it’s like” based on lived experience.

Love it or hate it, this technology has already changed the economies of every country, and this process is only just beginning. No one can say what will happen everywhere, but one thing seems evident: As abstract knowledge of facts becomes commodified, human somatic adjudication will become more valuable than ever before. The future will belong to people who can think across multiple disciplines and who understand what truth looks like, both broadly and in particular.

All of this is the topic of a recent essay that my friend Nils Gilman, the former associate chancellor at the University of California–Berkeley and deputy editor of Noema magazine, recently published about future-proofing your career in the age of AI that is the focus of today’s discussion.

The video of our conversation is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.

Related Content

• Big business and government are adopting artificial intelligence, what can it do for the rest of us?

• AI is not the main problem—how people use it can be

• How you think about minds influences how you treat others

• Richard Dawkins and his Claude Delusion

• AI content is here to stay, laws and norms need to change accordingly

• Why mediocrity just might be the key to innovation

• An ancient Greek philosophical tradition has become extremely relevant in the social media age

• To build a better future, we must never stop imagining and working for it

Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

06:56 — Large language models’ limitations are where future jobs will flourish

15:41 — AI supplementation and the human role in improvement

26:14 — Analogies for AI adoption and disruptive technology

34:50 — Art, reproduction, and the value of authenticity

41:11 — The jobs of the future will be at the intersection of somatic and abstract reasoning

46:44 — Liberal education and metacognitive skills

54:14 — Porting knowledge from within time and other disciplines

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: And joining me now is Nils Gilman. Hey, Nils. Welcome back.

NILS GILMAN: Glad to be here again.

SHEFFIELD: Yes. And your article is about a very important topic that will only become more important, I think in the intervening months and years especially. But it has a premise though that I think some people, perhaps many people on the political left, would strongly disagree with. A lot of people seem to think that large language models are not capable of anything, that they’re all just a big scam, and that they don’t they’re not able to do anything.

GILMAN: Yeah. Look, I think it’s worth noting that there’s no technology that’s been adopted this quickly ever in history. And there’s a reason for that. The post-ChatGPT 3.5 models that have been rolling out over the last three years are capable of things that are really, really extraordinary.

Things that for a long time were seen as almost impossible holy grails of achievement pattern recognition [00:04:00] activities. And most notably with the most recent generations of large language models, the creation of text, whether that’s code the whole vibe coding trend prototyping, but also writing for many purposes.

I’m not sure that LLMs have yet to create a great piece of literature. That requires some imaginative additions that we can talk about a little bit about what those things are. But, for things like answering emails, various kinds of agentic purposes, drafting boilerplate for legal purposes or for, regular corporate communications, things like this.

These are really extraordinary tools that are rapidly accelerating the ability of people to produce content. Not necessarily always the most elegant or creative content, but a lot of content we need to create does not necessarily need to be elegant or creative. And for that kind of stuff, it’s massively increasing productivity and output.

And so I think anybody who says these are just stochastic parrots or mediocrities, they may [00:05:00] be on one level correct, but it may be irrelevant because for many purposes, those technologies, these technologies are going to be more than good enough for the purposes that people are, are using them.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, I think that’s right. And in a lot of ways in-- from a, just from a calculation standpoint and some other text processing standpoints, software was already capable of doing this before LLMs. But of course, the only people who were really having access to that were computer programmers.

So if you, if you knew how to do various programming languages, you could do this stuff, a lot of it. Whereas what we’re seeing with the large language model is that this is kind of a-- it’s an expansion of capability to regular people. Because most people are not wizards at Perl or have a lot of experience in PHP or some other language.

And these chatbots can write that code also. So like, there’s-- I think there’s a, there-- To some degree, people are judging them on the initial [00:06:00] ChatGPT 3.5 that they had heard about and which was remarkably less capable.

GILMAN: Yeah. And, look, I mean, people have talked a lot about AI hallucinations, and those things are very real. I mean, I personally, in my own, my own practice, I use AI a lot to do research, and you always have to double-check the work. Because sometimes they do make up... they do this less than they did a couple generations ago but they still sometimes either, either make up articles or citations from whole cloth or don’t necessarily have the best take on what the article or the book in question that they’re citing is.

So you always need to check your work. But I will just note that, insofar as this might be a substitute for an undergraduate research assistant or graduate student, graduate research assistant, those things can happen with human research assistants as well. So, you can’t necessarily-- You always have to check the work of anybody who you’re outsourcing a function to, whether it’s a machine or a human being.

LLM limitations and cognitive science

SHEFFIELD: And there, there is still some truth though, of course as you touched on, [00:07:00] that a large language model is inherently limited in certain things. And that’s what the focus of the discussion here will be about.

But so within the cognitive science framework that I’m developing that which is based on the dual process theory of Daniel Kahneman and others they lack what I call somatic reasoning.

They are not embodied, and so therefore they-- there, there are certain things that they cannot have reference to. But also they do not have a stake in the world, and so therefore the their ability to both visualize the world and model it for, especially illustration or conceptual purposes, is limited.

But, most of the text that people are generating in their own life isn’t really about, well, which thing is above this one on the picture? Or where is the red handlebar in the bicycle? That’s not-- those are not questions that for a lot of purposes that people are having to deal with, [00:08:00] unless you’re an artist or something like that.

GILMAN: Right. I mean, look, one of the terms that people throw around in computer science to describe this is that the current generation of large language models lack a world model. That is an ability to understand the broader context in which they’re producing the texts that, that they are in response to prompts.

Melanie Mitchell, the CS researcher, has described this as a lack of embodied knowledge. That’s one way in which one can say why these machines lack a model of the world, because they don’t have a body that places them in a specific phenomenological space. and so they create strings that of words or tokens that will be coherent in themselves, but may not actually be in direct correspondence with whatever they allegedly are describing in the outside world, because they have no way of actually verifying whether the thing that is in the outside world actually that they purportedly are describing or purportedly trying to work on, actually [00:09:00] is the way the textual stream that prompted them to produce this content, suggests.

And that, that is one major source of mistakes and hallucinations and, stylistic infelicities and so on that these machines continue to do. But again, I think you and I are in agreement that even though they have these kinds of limitations, they still can be very useful for a great number of purposes.

And they clearly are going to be changing the way people do their jobs, because many jobs involve things that involve rote production of text in one way or another, and those things are going to become rapidly commodified in as these technologies are rolled out into, into workplaces and, and into people’s r- everyday lives.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And the other thing is that, the, the technology was primarily just about statistical relations with the lexical tokens within the model originally. That’s mostly what it was. But now there’s a-- the-- it’s-- there’s a lot [00:10:00] of supplementation to that core technology using things called retrieval augmented generation. So where they go out and search the web for the specific topics or where they are relying very heavily on training. So that’s where they are interacting with humans that correct outputs.

And so like-- and then a credit-- a lot of credit has to go to, to the people who are doing those corrections because that’s really where the core of the improvement has been has been made.

And, and, and there is, there is some interesting promising research out of a new company by one of the early founders of AI, Yann LeCun, who is working on a world model generation. Although it’s not tied to robotics, so I don’t know if there may be limitations on that as well.

But on the other hand, sure looks like there’s a-- they’re, they’re going in the right direction there.

GILMAN: Yeah. I mean, so I-- Yann LeCun’s a very interesting example. Your listeners will probably know that he used to be the head of AI for Meta, [00:11:00] Facebook, and recently left to start his own company specifically because he feels like the current generation of large language models, because they lack this idea of a world model that we were, we’re referring to here, are going to hit some kind of a limitation in terms of their capacity.

And so he wants to think about a really, a different kind of architecture. This is at, at this point, Yann is a brilliant guy, and if there’s anybody who can accomplish this, it’s probably him. But it is experimental research at this point, so we don’t know, I mean, I think he would be the first to admit this.

We don’t know for a fact that this is going to work and what it actually would mean to build a n- new generations of artificial intelligence that did have a world model. And how exactly that will be instantiated, I think remains to be seen.

SHEFFIELD: But in any case, this is I think perhaps the comparison is the early automobile that, and in a lot of ways they were unreliable and a lot of-- they had a lot of limitations in terms of how far they could go. They didn’t have a lot of horsepower, but you know what?

They were still incredibly useful and that was a rapidly [00:12:00] d- d- adopted technology. And it’s, that’s, that’s where I see where we’re at right now.

GILMAN: I always like whenever I think about a new technology to make a car comparison, because everybody kind of understands what cars are and what they do and how they have radically changed the way we live our lives. And I do think that, obviously it’s an analogy, so you don’t want to exaggerate it.

But I think that there’s a number of things that the analogy actually helps us to understand. One is that, was there a lot of technological disemployment? Well, yeah, people who were, breeding horses a lot of those jobs went away. The number of horses in New York City fell from a couple of million to a coup- a couple tens of thousands in the course of the first two decades of the 20th century.

Obviously, that was a dramatic transformation. If your business was horse breeding, you were going to be put out of business. But lots of other jobs were created: auto mechanics, gas station attendants, obviously car, automobile manufacturing workers, the commodity supply chains to produce all of that.

Like, so there-- new, new things came along. [00:13:00] So that’s one thing that’s worth noting. So there will be some technological disemployment from certain categories of work. But then the other thing that I think the automobile example really highlights is it’s not just that the automobile with the internal combustion engine, let’s just say, changes the way we move around mobility for individuals, is they end up, it ends up changing everything, about our economies, where we work, the kinds of jobs we have, the morphology of our cities, the rise of suburb- suburban living people’s sex lives. Like, automobile-- the rise of the automobile changed a great many things beyond just the direct employment implications of changing mobility services, if you want to put it that way.

And I, I think there’s every reason to believe that LLMs are likely to be similar. It’s likely to change, the way we w- the way we work, the way we relate to each other, our, our sex lives. Like, there’s lots of things that are going to be changed as a result of this technology. And this brings me to my third point, [00:14:00] which is a general point that I think I always want to underscore when everyone talks about trying to-- or when everyone tries to think about forecasting the implications of a technology.

And that is that what a technology does in the lab, and the way an individual uses it, particularly an early adopting individual uses a technology, doesn’t necessarily tell you very much about what the larger social implications are going to be of that technology when it’s rolled out at scale. So let me just give a different analogy or a different example that can show you what I mean.

Airbnb was originally dreamed up as a way to sort of meet people when you’re traveling in a couch surfing application, so that it would change kind of, for people who, after the pandemic, wanted to be able to travel but couldn’t necessarily s- afford to stay in hotels. And I think it worked great, and th- there was a lot of early adoption for precisely that kind of reason.

But as it scaled up, it started to have all sorts of implications that went beyond what anybody at Airbnb had even contemplated, which is that, at scale, it suddenly meant that many, many [00:15:00] apartments were being taken off the market in central-- desirable central city locations because, people who owned those apartments figured they could make more money, with a series of short-term rentals than they could with renting to long-term-- for long-term people.

So this ended up hollowing out the residential structures of many central cities. And that’s had deleterious effects in, particularly in smaller cities and tourist popular cities. It’s been quite malignant, which has, then required more kinds of legislation to be able to deal with those sorts of things.

So in general, what I would just say on that, on that point is that it’s really important not to think that just the way in which something gets used initially is going to tell us directly what the implications are when rolled out at scale.

AI supplementation and the human role in improvement

SHEFFIELD: Good point. And it’s also a reason why people who are concerned about the abuses of this technology, it’s important for them to be involved in how it is conceived and how it is regulated and how it’s discussed in the public mind. So, [00:16:00] but yeah. So specifically though, there, there-- We don’t know for sure, as you’re saying, how, what kind of changes the much broader application of, of LLMs is going to be within society.

There will be many that are not even being done right now. For sure, that’s the case. And it raises the, the question that I think is worth considering in terms of the personal applications, which is kind of what the focus of what we’re going to be talking about here today, is that some people I think very rightfully refer to AI not as artificial intelligence, but as intelligence augmentation.

That is that it is-- you should think of it in that way. This is not some int- alien intelligence that’s going to take over the world. No, this is just a way for people to augment their own minds and to do a lot more things with their own thinking. And that’s probably something you agree with, I presume, right?

GILMAN: I, I largely agree with that. W- another way to think about it is as a [00:17:00] prosthesis. I think that there are two implications of that that are worth teasing out a little bit though, right? One is that the augmentation will allow you, all of us, to do things much more quickly. Just think of a thing like a calculator, right?

Calculator allows us to do... if you’ve got a scientific calculator, quite advanced things in terms of the crunching of numbers that doesn’t re- used to require-- would’ve used to required long, laborious, working out numbers by hand if you want to multiply or divide large numbers or, take a cosine or a sine or what have you.

These were com- relatively laborious calculations that now can be done literally with a c- push of a couple of buttons. And so it can rapidly increase the rate at which one does these kinds of calculations, which can accelerate all sorts of processes, right?

But there is a downside to this anytime you’re talking about the ability of technology to augment a particular capacity. And that is that it often means that, like, the native capacity, if you want to call it that, that the humans [00:18:00] had, will atrophy, perhaps quickly within an individual and certainly over time as the either social or maybe even biological affordances for being able to deal with the pre-technological situation no longer exists.

And, I’ll just give an example that everybody who is, let’s say, 35 or older will remember. We didn’t used to have Google Maps, right? And so all of us had, when we lived in a space, to have some kind of a mental map of what the city we were living in is or the city we’re visiting is.

Maybe we had to have a physical map in order to look it up if it was a new place. But we all began to make mental maps as we walked around a city. I mean, I moved to several new cities, in the 1990s after I finished college and, one of the things I had to do in each case, it, it wasn’t something I even really thought about, but it-- I just naturally created a mental map of cities when I moved to them or when I, when I visited them.

I don’t really do that anymore because I have the map in my pocket, and I’m not even sure I could do it with the same facility that I was able to do it in my 20s because I haven’t had to do it in so long, right? So [00:19:00] there is this risk whenever you create a, an extension of a, of, of a particular human capacity that if you o- automate the technology that allows it to be done with relatively low effort, that you’re going to lose the native capacity to do it.

Now, is that a bad thing? Maybe, maybe not, right? The need for the kinds of strength that other primates have declined as humans developed tools for all sorts of physical things, right? So that’s why human beings are much less strong than, a gorilla or a chimpanzee or, our, our other near neighbor primates evolutionarily speaking.

Did that make us worse? No. We figured out other ways to use tools and to socially cooperate in order to be able to achieve the ends we wanted to as social primates, right? But it did mean that over time we lost some of the physical force that we would have had that our ancestors probably had, a couple million years ago.

So I think that those are all things we do need to think about whenever we roll out a technology that, like, one does lose... the technology that augments [00:20:00] or extends some particular capacity can also, over time erode the ability of that, that, that capacity, that native ability within, within a particular human being or certainly within a community that comes to rely on that technology.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, that’s definitely true. And, and that’s extremely relevant in the context of primary education because, you, you see so many students who are just farming out their assignment to a chatbot rather than doing it. But although on the other hand, that raises the other question, which is maybe that assignment wasn’t a very good one to begin with.

Because, like, there is, I think in not just education, but, like, a lot of certifications for professional certifications, they rely on the memorization of things that are of absolutely no relevance to anyone. So, like, just as an example, so from my background in i- in computer technology, like there’s some [00:21:00] certifications where they would require you to memorize some obscure command flag on a, on, on a command that which you do use frequently, but you would almost never use that particular command.

And so what, what value have you gained by, by memorizing that flag? Not really anything. Especially because you can-- most people don’t even use that command in that way. And so, like, and, and, and there’s just, just a variety of things where that is the case. And, and then you’ve also had the what, what one could call a cartelization of a number of different professions, such as the legal profession.

Many states, they don’t require you to go to law school, and I think that that’s the right, the right attitude. But a lot of states do. Most states do.

GILMAN: Right. I mean, look, let’s just give-- to use the mapping example of this sort of forced memorization credentialization requirements. Time was that London [00:22:00] cabbies... london is this enormously vast city, right? This, scores of villages that grew together. And it’s very complicated figuring out how to drive around in London.

It used to be that if you wanted to be certified to drive a cab, a black cab in London, you had to pass a test of what was known as The Knowledge, which is the ability to drive from any one place in London to any other place with the shortest possible route, and you would be tested in order to be able to be certified for that.

And because London is so big, this was like, often took years. It typically took two to three years for s- for somebody who wanted to become a, a taxi cab driver in London to basically have the entire map with the shortest route between any two spots within London memorized inside their head. And this it’s actually a really interesting classic example of neuroplasticity because the part of the brain that does that kind of mapping would actually physically grow in these London cabbies.

The posterior hippocampus, I believe, is the part of the brain that that is affected by, and it would actually grow. And, this was-- there was a reason for this originally, right? Before you had mapping apps, [00:23:00] you wanted to be able to rely if you got in a cab in London, that the cab was going to take you across town in the most efficient possible way so that they wouldn’t ring up extra charges or what have you.

There’s a reasonable quality to that requirement. With the, rise of mapping apps, anybody can drive an Uber and it’ll tell you, Google has solved that problem, and now people don’t have that kind of knowledge. I wonder how many people there are who are, who ha- you know, will ever have that knowledge again.

Now, is that a human loss that we no longer have black cabbies in London who have The Knowledge? I wouldn’t say so. I would say that was two or three years of their life where they weren’t making any money. They were investing in growing their posterior hippocampus as a job requirement, and it was a job requirement.

It was a real job requirement. But we don’t need that anymore, and that’s going to save several years. You can become a taxi cab driver who can efficiently get across town in London overnight with the technology. That seems to me a straightforward improvement in the productivity of taxi cab driver, uh um, recruitment in London.

[00:24:00] And similar things I think are going to happen for, yeah, as a result of LLMs in all sorts of other fields. There’s going to be much lower barriers to entry because you don’t need to have that kind of knowledge. I’m not sure I totally agree about the law example though, because in the case of a law degree, the stakes are really high.

It’s not just that you’re going to get across London more slowly if the, L- if the LLM, driven mapping app, s- doesn’t give you the shortest route across town. But, you may incur, tremendous amounts of civil or criminal liability if you hire a lawyer who’s not qualified for the job.

And because there’s a lot of-- there is in fact a lot of specialty knowledge that one needs in order to be an effective, litigator, lawyer in general I would think it would be rather risky for one to rely entirely on LLMs. On the other hand, I think many of us have, before we go to a lawyer now, or before we go to a doctor, or before we go, to a therapist, we may start by asking an LLM, “Give me the basic outlines of this.

What do I think [00:25:00] this contract ought to look like? What are typical pieces of boilerplate that I should probably discuss with my lawyer about whether I need to have this in the contract?” So that you can go in as a more informed consumer when you’re dealing with a professional lawyer or or a doctor or what have you.

So again, like I think this is just going to not displace the doctors or the lawyers or other kinds of people who have specialty knowledge, so much as it’s going to change the relationship between how-- or, or the relationship that clients have to those practitioners and also change the way those practitioners mobilize the knowledge that they have, right?

So, I remember something my mother used to say to me when I was a kid. She said, “The second best thing to knowing something is knowing where to look it up.” And it’s sort of a quaint phrase at this point, but you know, now we all know where to look things up. You start by going to an LLM, and you always gotta be m- you always gotta be mindful that maybe there’s going to be some sort of hallucination going on.

But again, could you really always rely on Encyclopedia Britannica to tell you what was, what was what about a particular subject? It was pretty good, but like, there’s been a lot of evidence now that it’s not as good as, the [00:26:00] crowdsourced Wikipedia in many cases, right? So, I, I would say that we should take these technol- these technologies are radically going to reconfigure the way we relate to various knowledge bases, but we shouldn’t assume that it’s going to m- you know, wholesale displace those things overnight.

Analogies for AI adoption and disruptive technology

SHEFFIELD: yeah. Well, and, and the encyclopedia context is, is another good comparison because I re- I remember when Wikipedia was first coming online and I was indirectly in the orbit of Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of it. And like it was controversial when Wikipedia first came along. Like people, they thought, “No, this is, this is wrong.

An encyclopedia that anyone can edit, this is, a way that the world’s going to be filled with misinformation. It’s going to be filled with lies and inaccuracies and trolling.” And to an extent that certainly does happen on Wikipedia, but the community is now large enough that they have developed protocols and methods to really cut down on that.

And, and so at, at this point, while [00:27:00] you, you’re not-- nobody’s going to be out there citing a Wikipedia article in a, in an academic study or something like that, at the... It is the starting point if you are i- unfamiliar with something that people have been going to now for, more than 20 years that it’s, it’s since it’s become mainstream and and it’s changed the world in a, in a lot of really positive ways in, and in ways that its critics, I don’t think ever fully admitted that they were wrong about what it could be done, what you could do with it.

GILMAN: People rarely admit that they’re wrong in general, Matt. That’s my, my, my observation is when people get-- occasionally you get people who admit that they made a big call wrong. We have some people doing that in politics these days. But usually people just, if they turn out they were wrong, they kind of just turn the page and pretend that they didn’t actually believe those things.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

GILMAN: I don’t expect a lot of mea culpas coming out of the AI doomer or boomer crowd when we achieve neither doom nor cornucopian [00:28:00] plenitude.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s the, the, the phrase that, And I for- I forget who, who coined it, so I, I can’t credit them. But yeah, just it-- this is a normal technology. This is what it is. And, so to that end, though as productivity’s increasing there’s, there’s still going back to the, the, inherent lack of capacity that it does have in some ways where certain professions, and this is what your article that you recently published is about, is that certain jobs cannot really be done by an LLM.

And they, they-- because they have no physical stake in the world, they also are not accountable. And so someone always is going to have to be there as the endpoint. So go-- walk us through a bit of of your argument here.

GILMAN: Yeah, let me, let me say that I think one of the things that’s really important to note is that for the kind of work that LLMs are, or the kind of tasks that LLMs are very [00:29:00] good at at this point they’re typically not a whole job anywhere. A computer programmer, right, is not just typing code all day, right?

Most of the things that you can do that where you have to type your fingers those are the kinds of things that I think LLMs are going to be largely replacing over time. But that’s not the only part of a job, right? The part of the job is, just to give examples from computer science. It’s, collecting feature requirements from customers, prioritizing those things deciding, what order one wants to do things.

All the sort of meta processes associated with developing code still aren’t going away quite yet. I mean, I think those things are likely to be commodified over time. Or to take the lawyer example we were going to. It may be that the LLM can help you write your brief, but figuring out your legal strategy with a customer, fig- with a client, figuring out the business risks that they want to mitigate, if we’re talking about commercial litigation figuring out how risk-tolerant they are about taking a case to trial as [00:30:00] opposed to settling.

Those are all things that require complex human negotiations and typically I think are not going to be going away. And I think those functions are actually going to become even more relatively valuable, right? So this is some basic economic theory, right? If you have, two inputs into producing some good and one becomes a lot cheaper, then the other one becomes relatively more valuable, right?

So if we’re thinking that objective reasoning is the thing that’s being largely, commodified by LLMs, and we think that the production of, of words and, whether those be computer code or written language is also being rapidly commodified, the question is what remains? And I think that for most jobs, those things are not going to completely go away.

Your job’s going to be highly reconfigured, though. You’re going to be expected to produce a lot more, for example, or interact a lot more with clients, or go to more meetings or so on. And so that’s, I think, where the value in a lot of jobs is going to migrate to, is the ability [00:31:00] to do those kinds of things that require emotional intelligence, things that require creating social consensus, things that require ethical judgment, things that require questions of taste.

All of those kinds of things I think are going to become relatively more valuable as the actual execution of things becomes relatively easy to do.

SHEFFIELD: the, the irony is that the, the conferences and your conference calls and Zoom meetings that everybody hates about their jobs, in a lot of ways, those are actually the most essential things even though y- they are often regarded with infamy. And, and, and a chatbot, of course, can be in the meeting, and Zoom obviously has already integrated those types of features.

But yeah, that, that, that type of, of the integration of judgment, of presence, of sensation of other people’s responses and ideas and feelings, they can’t really-- They can’t do that.

GILMAN: Right. I mean, so [00:32:00] let me give an example, just personal example from yesterday. I mean, I was interviewing I was talking to somebody who is potentially going to do some contracting work on my house. And, I wanted to hear, like, what her idea was for doing this work. But really the thing I was sitting there judging was not-- was do I trust this person?

Do I think this person is going to have the taste and the judgment to do the things that I want to do when I’m traveling and she’s working on the project and I can’t be there to oversee it at every single second? That quality of me making that judgment of her was one that I would not have trusted to outsource to a machine, because ultimately I have to look her in the eye.

I have to have some confidence in myself that like, when I give her the keys to my house, it’s going to be-- it’s going to look better after she’s done with it than, than worse, right? And that’s, that’s a, that’s a judgment issue that like, to this, to this point, I don’t think people yet are willing to give up on and I think may become even more valuable.

Likewise, for her, it’s not just about whether she can execute this. She’s trying to sell me, right? She’s trying to sell herself to me in the course of that [00:33:00] conversation. And that’s again, something she can’t just do by writing a bunch of stuff down. She’s got to do it partly by having a meeting with me and making me feel that I, I, I’m-- I, I would be wise to put my trust in her, right?

So those kinds of things I think are not, that’s not going away. And there’s lots of other things that I think are also not going away, things that involve convening and human, human bonding of various sorts. Those things are also, I think, going to become relatively valuable, relatively common kinds of descriptors of jobs.

So the irony is, there was a, there was a little bit of a meme I think when it was this four or five years ago, you’ll probably remember better than me, Matt, but like, this idea of “wordcels” versus “shape rotators” that was sort of going around the Silicon Valley, these two kinds of minds, and shape rotators were engineering mentalities who, you know, like to think about things in in very linear structured ways versus wordcels, who suppose-- And this was initially s- s- developed as kind of a joke and then turned into a kind of a serious thing. If we take it somewhat semi-seriously, maybe more seriously [00:34:00] than it should be, what’s actually turning out is that the kinds of things that shape rotators are particularly experts at are the things that are relatively commodifiable by LLMs, whereas the kinds of things that wordcels typically pride themselves on the facility with which they use language, whether in written or oral form, those things are actually harder to commodify away.

What I think is going to be really a threat, though, in all of this is people who are mediocre at, at either thing because mediocrity is, achieving a reason-- a, a, a fast but mediocre outcome. That is the thing that these technologies currently are really great at extreme-- achieving something truly special that really connects in complicated human ways with a variety of stakeholders, that’s as yet a, a frontier that they haven’t reached is what, the way I would put it.

Art, reproduction, and the value of authenticity

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, and another comparison I think that might might be interesting in this context is, is art. [00:35:00] So we’ve already reached before The, im- image generators came along. Art had already been commodified. So, the, the idea of reproduction of paintings is, that was done by a computer decades ago.

Like, if, if you wanted to have a, a, a Van Gogh in your house or, a, a Da Vinci or whatever, you could do it by, by just having a, a printout of that picture. And then, at the same time, the, the, the formulaic artistry, painting, sculptures or whatever, that weren’t original if you wanted those things, you could easily get those.

And, and, and, and it did, unfortunately, make it harder for people to make a living being an artist because you could now have high quality or mediocre, whatever you wanted of those works in your house. So that did decrease the, the number of people who could make a living off of that.

But you know, the, the image generating at this point, I don’t see [00:36:00] that as having a major impact on visual art because we were already there. And the same thing, like I used to work as a web designer that industry basically almost entirely got destroyed before the large language model because of s- websites like Squarespace and services like that, that people, they realize, “Oh, well, I don’t have to have a great website.

I can have a mediocre website that costs 50 bucks. I’m going to do that. Or I can even have one that’s even shittier and have it for free.” And so, like, I-- That was very dismaying to me, I’m needless to say, but this was not something that was that AI did. And so a lot of industries that I think people, might be saying, “Oh, well, the, the chatbots are going to ruin the economy for these...”

Well, it was already ruined har- sorry to say.

GILMAN: Yeah. I think one essay that I read many, many years ago in college originally that I’ve come back to again and again is this famous essay, maybe the famous, [00:37:00] most famous essay in art criticism of the 20th century which is entitled “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin a German critical theorist.

And he published this book in the mid this essay in the mid-1930s. And it’s not a coincidence that while, when he published that essay, he’d been busy putting together this big project collecting unbelievable amounts of information about Paris in the middle decades of the 19th century about 75, 80 years before he was working on this project, including a huge number of pho-photo photographs of old Paris.

And so he reflected a lot particularly about photography and how that changed art. And he notes in the essay that, it used to be there was a whole, as you were alluding to, Matt, a who- a whole sort of industry of people who would be portraitists for middle-class families who wanted to have a family portrait.

And they, the family would sit and, there’d be an oil painter who would create a, a painting of the family that they could then hang on their wall or pass down from one generation to the next. When photography, daguerreotypes [00:38:00] initially and then photography come in, that rapidly... It does two things.

One is it massively expands the market of the number of people who can do this. Now anybody, you, you can go and takes, a few seconds to sit for a family portrait and, and it becomes much, much, much cheaper to produce that. So a lot of these painters go out of business, right? Because, or they have to become photographers.

It also changes the nature of painting, right? Because now painting is no longer about exclusively or primarily trying to create verisimilitude to real life, which is what typically portraitists, or particularly not very good portraitists, would try to do. Now you begin to realize that painting, is applying oil to a two-by-two canvas, and the c- explosion of creativity within painting in the second half of the 19th century and into the 20th century is really without precedent in the history of, in the history of, European European art.

So, there is a way in which the commodification of one kind of thing [00:39:00] sets the stage for another kind of flowering of, of creativity. And I think it’s also worth noting the other big concept that Walter Benjamin has in this essay, is he says, “So what is it, then, in the age of mechanical reproduction, the difference between a picture you have of the ‘Mona Lisa’ and the actual ‘Mona Lisa’?”

And he has this term that he uses that he calls aura, and it’s almost a kind of a, a metaphysical or mystical quality that he says people ascribe to the original, right? That when you stand in front of, in the Louvre, in front of the original “Mona Lisa” with a huge crowd of other people who are all snapping photos of it, you feel like you’re in the presence of Michelangelo in some sense as he created that painting, right?

Whereas when you see the reproduction yourself, you can see the actual-- even if it’s the same size as the actual original, it’s not, it doesn’t have that same kind of quality. It’s not-- And it’s not just because it doesn’t have the same textural quality. Even if you pr-pr-produce something that was an almost identical forgery, once you know it’s a forgery, and this is a very [00:40:00] close facsimile that Matt Sheffield or Nils Gilman has painted as opposed to Michelangelo, it just doesn’t have the same quality for people, right?

And I do think that there’s going to be many kinds of things that as LLMs and other kinds of, AIs are able to produce vast amounts of slop, as people like to say, the value that you- people are going to ascribe to a authentic real person meeting or, seeing a play of human beings live on stage, I think those things will become increasingly valuable.

And I think that’s borne out by the fact that, the r- the inflationary prices, the rate of inflation for live events has been far outstripping the, the baseline rate of inflation. So, how much does it cost to go to a, a ball game now compared to when we were kids? Or how much does it cost to go see, Taylor Swift play a concert compared to what it would’ve cost to see a, Madonna in the 1990s, right?

I mean, so there’s just been this increasing escalation of the value of things that are-- allow you to feel this kind of authentic bond with the particular [00:41:00] art and artist of the moment. And I think that those things are going to continue to be accelerated by the increasing, acceleration of mechanical reproduction in the sense that Walter Benjamin talked about.

The jobs of the future will be at the intersection of somatic and abstract reasoning

SHEFFIELD: I think that’s right. And, and ultimately what we’re, what we’re talking about here just to go, back to the, the, the cognitive modes. So, we, we have your abstract reasoning and your somatic reasoning. Well, essentially the value in this new idea economy or cognition economy is in the intersection of somatic and abstract.

That’s where the value is created and, and that’s where it is-- That’s where it, it was created in, in the examples that we were just talking about. Because, with the painting, the act of, of verisimilitude, that was already done. So the, the, the, the purely cogni- somatic contact with reality, that was done.

But the, the, internal contact with reality, [00:42:00] that is not something that a photograph can do, or it’s severely limited in what it can do. And, and so that’s what the value was being done. And, in the same way while the industry of web design has shrunk massively the types of designs that we’re seeing now are just incredible what people are able to do.

so, this may be-- I don’t want to get too technical, but, like, Cascading Style Sheets is a technology that was, g- invented in the early days of the web. Well, now it’s powerful enough, you can make straight up games in CSS that require no programming language just pure CSS. And, and, and so this is, like, the, the, the idea that, everything’s going to come to an end and, and jobs are going to just be wholesale limited.

Yes, many will, but many will not. And, and it’s worth keeping that in mind.

GILMAN: I think the idea that there’s going to be no work left is absurd. I mean, [00:43:00] look out the window. Like, there’s a lot of work to be done out there as far as I can tell. There are, potholes to be filled, houses to be built, meals to be cooked and served and enjoyed. There’s a lot of things that need to be done.

Old people that need to be cared for, young people that need to be, born and educated. Some of that stuff can be, facilitated by technology, but there’s not a shortage of work. We have lots of things that need to be done. What I think is under threat is professions that have relied on, various barriers to entry and they may actually double down on that, right?

So you know, look, I’ve got a couple of kids in college right now, so I’ve been talking to them a lot about, like, what should, what should you be studying in, in this context? What are the kinds of skills that you want to be acquiring? I think-- I, I’ve always been of the opinion it doesn’t-- the actual content of what one learns in college probably doesn’t matter that much for one’s career success, just to take that as the dependent variable we’re thinking about.

Mainly because [00:44:00] even if you get some very, technically specific degree, you learn some, you major in CS and you learn some particular programming language. Within 5 or 10 years of graduating, the particular things you learned are not going to be, from a content perspective, that relevant.

The question of whether you’re a well-educated person and the kind of person who I think is going to thrive in the new economy, the new post-LLM economy, is whether you’ve been educated in a way such that your brain is a kind of machine tool and can reinvent itself as different kinds of tools, right?

So you can do different things over time. So as the job market, as the economy evolves, as different sectors of the economy rise and fall, you can surf from one area to the other a-and, and learn how to retrain yourself to do new things. And I think all of us in the face of LLMs and the way in which LLMs are going to radically transform all jobs, or at least a great many jobs are going to need to retool ourselves.

And so the, the real question is whether you’ve learned [00:45:00] one way or another. I don’t think this is something you can only learn in college something you really should be learning from day one, and you should continue to learn your entire life. But college is a particularly important moment for this is learning what I would call metacognitive skills, like learning to think about one’s own thinking learning how to identify what is the mode of reasoning that I’m engaged in to solve a particular problem, and is that the right mode of reasoning?

What are alternative modes of reasoning that I might use apply to a particular par- to a particular challenge that I’m trying to solve in the workplace or in my personal life for that matter? So sort of being aware of what one is doing and knowing that any particular way of thinking about a problem is going to be partial, right?

Is going to be, create blind spots, and that you want to have, a diversity of perspectives on whatever problem you’re working on. Therefore, you want to have a diversity of perspectives on the team of people who are working on these things. These are all like sort of truisms. I mean, none of, nothing that I’m saying is anything more than a cliché.

But [00:46:00] I do think that it actually implies something that’s not so obvious about the way in which you should seek out an education that will augment that capacity in oneself over time. And that as one continues to learn, as one, goes through one’s career and one’s life, one should continuously be thinking about learning new kinds of ways of thinking about one’s own thinking.

Improving one’s metacognition continuously over time, I think is going to be the most important thing. And I think one can learn those kinds of skills studying anything one wants. I don’t think whether it mat- matters whether one studies physics or comparative literature or, modern dance. Any one of those things I think can help you if you get good at that to develop these kinds of metacognitive skills, which I think are the most important ones to have if you want to sustain a career over the course of decades.

Liberal education and metacognitive skills

SHEFFIELD: think that’s right. And that is really where the value of the classical liberal education, I think, is coming back. Because, in the information age economy, as we’ve been saying, a lot of the [00:47:00] jobs were just simply people who had arcane knowledge applying them to the real world in ways that might not have been particularly anything other than mediocre.

And like, like-- And people instinctively have that idea, that concept of mediocrity as inherent to so much of white-collar work. Like with the stereotype of the paper pusher or the, the bureaucrat stamper, and/or the accountant who does nothing but count beans. Like these are all concepts that people intuitively know are true because this metaphor keeps existing across so many types and types of professions.

And so yeah. So ultimately that’s why I like to say that in the manufacturing age and the information age, these were the [00:48:00] domains of economics But now in the, in the, in the AI age, it is the domain of the philosopher, not just in terms of, well, are these things conscious or not? Well, no, they’re not.

But what matters is how you can relate things to other things and how you can relate yourself to all of these other ideas and how-- and other people’s ideas as well, and their thoughts and feelings

GILMAN: I think that’s exactly right. I mean, let me just-- you talked about a liberal education or liberal arts education. Let me, let me just dive in and double-click on that for a second because I think it’s worth... First of all, when the phrase liberal arts doesn’t mean liberal in the sense, or at least it’s only vaguely related to the idea of liberalism, particularly, as it’s understood in, in, in the United States.

It’s not just sort of a kind of left orientation. It means liberal in the Latin sense of libertas, becoming free. And the idea of a liberal arts education is that you will get a broad-based education that will free your mind, [00:49:00] and that ultimately from the shackles of prejudice and various other kinds of, poor metacognitive, capacity.

And so to me, I, I just think it’s really important also, sometimes when people hear the word liberal or liberal arts or liberal education, they think, and sometimes people do use it this way, they mean we’re, we’re talking about the humanities as opposed to STEM, right? science, technology, engineering, and math.

And I actually think that that’s exactly the wrong way to understand what a liberal, a liberal arts education properly understood is. I think a, a liberal, a, a good liberal arts education will give you a basic understanding of a variety of different things, right? Like, you should know something about science.

You should know something about the arts. You should know something about literature. You should know something about engineering. You should know something about... et cetera, right? Like, it’s really a broad-based ability. And I think that, that what that does, if you get a good education that has that kind of broad-based skill set, it gives you the kind of capacity that you [00:50:00] were just referring to, Matt, which is that it will help you relate to different kinds of people, different kinds of ideas.

It’ll help you say, “Oh, here’s a framework from one domain that perhaps is useful in another domain.” It’ll help you see similarities and differences in thinking across different fields, different disciplines, different expertises. And to me, that kind of ability to, to helicopter up and down from, like, very specific, in the weeds knowledge to the 30,000-foot view and being able to see connections between things across different levels That is, arguably that is the definition of a certain kind of human intelligence.

I don’t think it’s necessarily something that LLMs are not going to be able to do themselves, but it is something that if you can do that, then you can reinvent yourself over time and make yourself and sort of future-proof your career for an age of LLMs. And so I actually think that it’s precisely as you say, those kinds of abilities to see things acro- connections across, across different domains and to ask what’s [00:51:00] important about all of this?

Those are fundamentally philosophical questions, about meaning, about purpose, and those things only will become more important and more central to the kinds of kinds of things that were put that are put to us both in a professional context and also in our personal lives, I believe.

SHEFFIELD: And that’s where the, the, the role of, of primary education, I think, is, is really going to be important because because so much of, of primary education, but I guess also, p- post-secondary as well that, it, it’s too much about memorization and not enough about how to think and how to understand what is truth, what does truth look like?

Because that’s-- that ul-ultimately I think was the, the biggest mistake of, of, before the internet age, that schools didn’t teach epistemology sufficiently. And so now you have, tens of millions of people in, in this-- maybe hundreds of millions perhaps of people who don’t know what, [00:52:00] what makes something a good idea.

And, and that knowledge is going to become even more important in, in, in the age that we’re getting into now. Because if you don’t know what makes something sound reasoning then you will fall for the hallucination. Then you will outsource everything to the LLM and not be able to, to think independently on your own.

And, and, and that’s not obviously what you should be doing.

GILMAN: Yeah, for sure not. I mean, I think that teaching, learning epistemic humility to know the limits of one’s own knowledge to understand what one doesn’t know to be unashamed about admitting that one doesn’t know something, that one needs to understand better what’s going on before one, before one makes a decision or renders a judgment on it.

I think those are all really important qualities that a good education... And again, I totally agree with you. This is not something that should be deferred to college. It should start at a very young age. Teaching kids the ability to make those kinds of judgments. And we could have a long conversation [00:53:00] about the history of primary and secondary education.

Obviously indoctrination has traditionally been a big part of it, teaching people a certain kind of, or, enforcing a certain kind of discipline onto young people so that they can be, conformists in society, docile work- docile and effective workers. I mean, that’s part of the socialization aspect of education that has long existed.

With that said, if we leave that part of the story aside and just think about the intellectual side of things, I also strongly agree with you, Matt, that like, memorization in itself is not helpful. However, let me give an example from my own field. I mean, I, I did a, I studied history. I got a history undergraduate degree and then a graduate degree in history.

And I remember I was always interested in history as a kid, junior high school and high school and so on. And the history exams that I was given then were often very much about, have you memorized the facts about what exactly happened during the Thirty Years’ War in, in, in Central Europe or what have you, right?

You were expected to do what are known as identification [00:54:00] questions. Can you, d- have you memorized all the names and dates that are relevant for a particular thing? That to me is not really what history, certainly when one is a professional historian, that’s not ultimately what history is about.

Now, you have to have fidelity to those facts.

Porting knowledge from within time and other disciplines will matter in the future

GILMAN: Um, but ultimately, what makes a good historian a good historian is the interpretation they give of the facts from the past, which facts they choose to highlight, and do they tell a story that’s compelling in the present about some episode or some era from the past, right?

That’s what makes a makes a historian, successful in terms of gaining a readership, whether that’s an academic readership or a popular readership, is do you tell stories about the past that help make sense and that entertain people in the present? I mean, honestly, it’s narrative-making to a very large extent.

Now you have to know a lot of facts, and I think the reason why often it takes a while for a person to become a really excellent historian is that if you want to say something original about the past, I mean, people have been writing about the past for a very long time. If you want to try to say [00:55:00] something original about the Thirty Years’ War, people have been writing about that for 400 years at this point, right?

So coming up with something original requires really getting immersed in a lot of facts so you begin to have a chance to see a pattern that none of the other historians over the last 400 years have seen. And part of that is about understanding that the Thirty Years’ War What was it about that moment?

Well, nowadays we might tell a story about the rise of new technology as a driver for that, for that conflict of religions in Central Europe, right? Because we’re in a moment wherein technological disruption seems very relevant. In other moments, people might emphasize a different set of facts about the Thirty Years’ War.

The rise of, the, the Swedish state and, the aggression of of the French monarchy and, the fragmented nature of the Holy Roman Empire and, and so on and so forth as driving causes. I mean, during the middle of the 20th century when Europe was engaged in all sorts of fragmentation, those are the main stories that people told about the Thirty Years’ War.

And those stories weren’t wrong, right? They weren’t-- They-- But the, the point is they were telling a story about the [00:56:00] Thirty Years’ War that was trying to make sense of what was going on in the 1920s, not in the 2020s, right? Why do we care about this episode from the past? We care about it not just because we need to memorize these facts about the Thirty Years’ War, but because the Thirty Years’ War, by understanding what took place there, we believe we can understand something about ourselves differently.

Now this is, this is an example of what historians do. I think the same thing applies to economists, to computer scientists, to, maybe not theoretical physicists or number theorists, but even there I would b- guess that, like, the kinds of questions that people ask over time, it, it may well.

SHEFFIELD: I’ll tell you how.

GILMAN: These are not fields I know well. Okay, tell me.

SHEFFIELD: Because basically... Yeah, so basically math mathematics as a field is constantly generating fictional models that have-- that the, the, the mathematician has no thought whatsoever about how it applies to reality. And, and so there, that’s, that’s basically how you get noticed and, and regarded as a great mathematician, is, is being able to generate a new [00:57:00] field.

That’s what makes you great. But the thing is, the interesting thing is that physics is constantly looking into mathematics to say, “Well, here’s this concept that I want to, model, but I have no idea how to do it, so let me just go ahead and go shopping in the annals of mathematica.” And in fact, that is what happens, is that a lot of--

so like that’s what, where quantum physics came from. and, and that’s where, Riemannian geometry was not something that, had any, application to reality, when Riemann made it, but Einstein plucked it out of obscurity and, and, and did exactly what you said. He, he made it-- he took something that was not relevant to people in the past and made it relevant to people in the present.

GILMAN: Well, I think that that’s, that’s a great example. I love that. And, and this actually raises another issue, which is that again, something I think that’s going to continue to be valued and maybe become more valuable over time is the ability to port ideas from one domain to another. A lot of what people [00:58:00] describe as intellectual creativity is that just to give a, a classic example, you were referencing Danny Kahneman at the beginning of this podcast.

Danny Kahneman eventually won a Nobel Prize in economics for basically, inventing the new field of behavioral economics. But Danny Kahneman’s not trained as an economist, he’s trained as a, as a psychologist. And basically what he did, working with, initially with Amos Tversky in the 1970s, is he began to sort of systematically catalog the ways in which people are non-rational in their decision-making in a variety of ways and various kinds of biases.

and this led to the development of what he called prospect theory, right? So people have identifiable patterns of miscognition, right? Which throws through into question the entire, rational actor hypothesis, which lay at the core of a great deal of microeconomic theory at the time. And so basically this idea that initially comes out of, [00:59:00] close observation of psy- in, in psychology labs and experiments, eventually migrates over to economics with, as it were, on the back or in the heads of, of, Tversky and, and Kahneman, and then revolutionizes the field of economics as a result.

There’s so many examples of this, of ideas that are taken from one domain and moved over to another. Complicated ideas in s- i- i- in symbolic theory that end up revolutionizing linguistics, for example, right? So there’s one example after another of people who take ideas from one domain and apply them to another.

I’ve been giving a- academic examples here, but the same thing applies in lots of other fields, right? Think about the way in which food is remixed over time where, some chef will take an idea from, one cuisine and port it over and use it to reinvent something that’s going on in another cuisine.

Or music is another great example of like, musical traditions that will undergo various transformations as they go through, various dispensations. So, you have the music [01:00:00] of the Anatolian Greek diaspora that’s displaced, after in the 1920s, that eventually goes through, becomes a kind of Greek blues, and eventually comes to America and becomes the basis for surfer rock, right?

So, these kinds of evolutions of things over time, I think that is the basis of creativity, and that ability to port things from one domain to another in order to create new insights. And again, those things might be facilitated by LLMs over time, where you say, “Hey, where’s an idea from this other field that I might apply to help think about this problem,” right?

But you need to think to ask that question and to give that prompt in order for the LLMs to necessarily do that, at least at this stage. And I keep saying at least at this stage because we don’t know exactly how these technologies are going to develop over time. Will they be able to auto-suggest those kinds of creativities?

I think there’s always going to be another level to it and another level to it and another level to it. And so I think that’s where a lot of the value add is going to happen over time.

SHEFFIELD: Exactly. All right. Well, this has been a, a great discussion, Nils. [01:01:00] And I-- hopefully it will be useful to the audience. But if people want to keep up with you outside of this conversation what are-- is your advice for that?

GILMAN: Well, I’ve got a Substack that I contribute to intermittently. I also have been writing a lot. I’ve got a book out, “Children of a Modest Star” came out two years ago about planetary governance, if you’re interested in sort of intersections between political theory and global ecological concerns.

That’s a good book to-- That, that was what that book was written to do. I, I hesitate to encourage people to follow me on social media, but I’m, I’m on there too as well if people to find me there.

SHEFFIELD: Okay. Although not on X we should point out.

GILMAN: Yeah, I’ve I’ve deci- I’ve decided that platform’s not for me.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. All right, well, good to have you back again.

GILMAN: Thank you.

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You couldn’t ask for a more perfect distillation of how Republican campaigning works. The idea that the mainstream media and society as a whole are biased against right-wing viewpoints permeates every corner of American politics, even within the Democratic party and within mainstream media outlets.

Within today’s Republican party, fighting against “liberal media bias” was the basic organizing objective of most of the grassroots people I encountered during my years as a Republican media consultant. Opposing media liberals has animated numerous fundraising drives, launched television networks, and built talk radio empires. But most importantly, the myth of liberal media bias makes people who believe in it discount information that might contradict their own political agenda.

Trump endlessly attacks what he calls the “fake news media” because he wants his supporters to disbelieve any kind of negative coverage he may receive. Most people think the idea of Trump-as-truthful is patently absurd, but it’s a remarkably effective lie, as public opinion polls have shown for years.

Every myth has its origin story, and this one is no different. My guest in this episode, A.J. Bauer, has a new book called Making the Liberal Media: How Conservatives Built a Movement Against the Press that traces the 80-year history of this lie, and how (ironically) it’s helped reactionary Republicans have a better understanding of Marxist media theory than almost anyone in the left-of-center operative class.

The full discussion of this episode is for paid subscribers. An excerpt on YouTube is also available. To watch, read, or listen to the full discussion, you will need to be a paid subscribing member on Patreon or Substack. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere. (Note: Purchasing a book through the links in show notes helps support Theory of Change.)

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• Despite the right’s complaints, there really isn’t a liberal media, why not?

• Right-wing figures are applying their bogus complaints about the media to artificial intelligence

• ‘Post left’ podcasters have become an incredible voter depression tool of some of Trump’s top contributors

• Reactionary comedy isn’t funny, but it sure is effective at capturing the imaginations of low-information voters

• How Washington Republicans leverage QAnon and other conspiracy movements

• Right-wing donors have been secretly (and openly) funding fake leftist candidates for decades

• The women of QAnon

• How naive faith in legal formalism handed the Supreme Court to the radical right

Audio Chapters

(Full version)

00:00 — Introduction

12:19 — The right’s spoken-word culture and debate aesthetics

22:03 — From Facts Forum to the Birchers: the origins of ‘liberal media bias’

34:19 — The right’s decentralized media ecosystem

43:37 — Trump, entertainment, and right-wing media amplification

53:08 — Why the left doesn’t build its own media

01:04:50 — Republicans use left-wing political theory more than the Democrats do

01:16:21 — The Democratic Party’s flawed theory of politics

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: Before we get into the book, let’s talk about just the concept of media bias itself. What even is this idea, and is it coherent?

A.J. BAUER: Yeah, so part of what I argue in the book is that the idea of liberal media bias is a form of structural media criticism. So structural media criticism is different than just saying I disagree with that, right? It’s, making a claim that there is a broader kind of systemic overlooking or bias against a specific worldview or series of issues.

And part of what thinking about it that way helps me see in the book is that the idea of structural media bias is something that actually was developed on the left in the 1930s and forties and then kind of migrates rightward. But the other important takeaway there, I think, and this is kind of a broader argument in the book, is that, there are bias claims, right? The right has been making bias claims as the book shows for something like 80 years now. The left was very prominently making bias claims in the thirties and forties and kind of lesser so, but continuing throughout this period as well. [00:04:00] but whether or not the media is or isn’t biased is a kind of perspectival argument, right?

There isn’t any objective or impartial measure by which we can assess one way or another, whether the media is biased. If the media looks biased to you, it has to do with your own perspective politically and what you would like the media to be doing or not be doing. And so part of what I argue is that rather than engaging in bias claims, it’s more productive to think about what are the disagreements we have right, with the world as it’s depicted in media, and then to, criticize the media as need be for those, inaccurate or incorrect, narratives of the reality.

But bias itself isn’t all that. Scientifically provable. It has, however, been a very important and lucrative foil for the modern conservative movement, which is what the book’s about.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, and we’ll get into that. But just to push this point a little bit further, aren’t you effectively saying that somebody can’t say that, Fox News is biased? Are you saying that?

BAUER: I’m saying that Fox News is a right-wing media outlet with a right-wing ideological disposition. And so for, lemme give you a better example of this. The New York Times has been covering trans people in a horribly unethical way that is harming the trans community. One way to say that is that the New York Times is biased against trans people.

Another way to say that is, I disagree with how the New York Times is covering the trans community because it’s causing harm. And I think the latter claim is more defensible than the former. because the former gets into questions of, well, what would unbiased reporting look like? And it, still holds fast to this idea that there is an objective or impartial reality.

The second is saying, no, there isn’t an impartial objective reality that we’re trying to measure ourselves against. I think that this is harmful and we should be not doing it that way, right? And so instead of saying like, journalists, you need to do your job better, it’s saying, no, you need to rethink how you’re doing your job Actually.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And the point that no one could ever agree on [00:06:00] what a universally unbiased perspective means. Because even, even the idea of, well, we’re gonna quote everybody who has a stake on an issue, is that itself unbiased? Like you, that’s itself a, conjecture as well that, you would have to prove first.

BAUER: Right. And this idea of balance which is kind of one of the basis points for what objective or impartial reporting often looks like something I call it in the book the balance Imperative. That actually became a really important mechanism through which the right was able to get its viewpoints onto the air and into the newspapers in the 20th century, when they were a much more marginal infringe movement.

So even the balance imperative, which seems as though it’s, designed to create this perception of impartiality or objectivity itself, is basically an affordance that can be used by various political actors. And it’s been used pretty effectively by the right.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, and we’re seeing that just not a little bit a field in, in, in academia with that for instance, this week as we’re recording the Harvard Crimson student newspaper reported that the university there was the leadership is trying to raise $10 million to fund right wing professors in the name of reported balance.

BAUER: I just don’t, I just don’t think $10 million is enough. I mean, a, professor needs way more than $10 million. I think it’s hilarious when numbers like that are thrown around. It’s like, oh, in order to recruit a conservative into a college or university that already has many conservatives you need like CEO money, like small time CEO money.

I don’t even know. I.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And your point in the book, which you do hit repeatedly, and very well, is that the notion that the media are systematically against their worldview is, something that American reaction, it is kind of the center organizing principle of the modern reactionary American political movement.

So talk about that a bit [00:08:00] more if you could please.

BAUER: Yeah. So, the idea of media bias has been kind of a driving force for media activism on the right, for, the last 80 years. So the book looks all the way back into the 1940s and fifties. and one of its interventions is it talks about an organization, that emerged in 1951, ran through 57, called Facts Forum.

so Facts Forum was a, nominally balanced program, that was funded by HL Hunt, who was a influential oil man. his family, created the Kansas City Chiefs. he’s still like within the zeitgeist today in that way. he, was the, I believe the inspiration for the, Dallas character jr.

So this kind of eccentric billionaire funds this program in the early 1950s, right in the heart of the kind of McCarthy period. That basically is, one person, initially Dan Smoot, who’s a former FBI agent, and then a series of television radio programs that involved more people that were designed to create kind of a balanced debate style programming, right?

On the one hand, on the kind of liberal perspective, they would give kind of a boring answer, Odine answer on the right. They would give like a really excited answer. So even though it was skewed rhetorically in favor of right wing anti-communist politics, it was nevertheless Nominally balanced.

And part of the reason for this is that a few years before that, in 1949, the fe federal Communications Commission passed a new policy called the Fairness Doctrine and the Fairness Doctrine mandated that all broadcast license holders radio and, later television as well. Would be required to air programs about issues of public controversy in a way that balanced both sides of whatever that issue would be.

and so this balance imperative, which was a state regulatory imperative that shaped, mainstream news in the mid 20th century, and our expectations of objectivity, was almost immediately leveraged by the right by HL Hunt and his [00:10:00] contemporaries to try to get conservative viewpoints over the airwaves.

Now, importantly, in the, kind of, winter of 19 53, 54, facts Forum was criticized in the mainstream media. Ben Bagian actually, who’s, later goes on to write for the Washington Post and be the, he was the dean of the Berkeley, journalism school. he wrote a really important book called, media Monopoly about structural, media bias and consolidation in the 1980s.

He wrote a critique effects forum for the Providence Journal, where he was reporting at the time, basically calling it a right wing front. And so part of what the book argues is that’s a really important moment in the history of this idea of liberal media bias. Not only because conservatives already thought the media didn’t have enough conservative viewpoints on there, and we’re trying to get it using facts forum, right?

But because the media at that point starts targeting modern, early modern conservatives directly. So the, there’s a shift within facts forum from its early years into, its later years away from simply just covering whatever public Contras controversies are in terms of more of an inward focus on saying, we as an institution are being attacked for our beliefs by the legacy press.

Right? So the legacy media engages in an antagonistic relationship with this early modern conservative movement formation. Now, this is before you get things like the National Review, which is founded in 1955. It’s before the John Birch Society, which is formed later in the 1950s. So all of these later conservative movement efforts that foregrounded this idea that the media was biased against them and it was kind of an animating vision for why they needed to engage in media activism was in some ways shaped by this early antagonism between the media and the press.

and it’s interesting, if you look in 19 54, 55. After, the press kind of catches wise to Facts Forum’s bias and starts attacking them for bias. William F. Buckley, a young William F. Buckley, is actually on Facts Forum debating whether the media is biased or not biased. Right? I think it was like April of 1955 in the months [00:12:00] leading up to the founding of the National Review. And so part of what the book does is it says even before we typically, traditionally think the modern conservative movement begins in 1955, 1960s, right? Even before then, they already have this idea that the media is biased against ‘em, and it’s already kind of an animating vision for their politics.

The right’s spoken-word culture and debate aesthetics

SHEFFIELD: it is. And the other I thing about that attitude is that it is an idea that, well, everything is settled in a personal debate in a debate stage, kind of stage setting rather than a book setting or an academic paper setting. And this is, I think, a very notable and important aspect of the difference between the political culture of the left and right.

That the right is a spoken word. Culture, and it is not a literary culture. With some exceptions, of course, there were people from books obviously, but these books tended to be of much lower quality. They don’t have footnotes or they have very few, they don’t respond or even acknowledge other viewpoints.

And so, like this, is what shaped, I think the demand for the constant debate shows. What do you think

BAUER: So I think that’s an interesting position. I would frame it a little differently because I think that the National Review, for example, and later on things like say commentary or the, what is it? Other kind of neoconservative publications later in the 20th century.

SHEFFIELD: weekly standard?

BAUER: Right? Well, and like precursors to it. There lot of, interest Right. By people like Noman Potz and people like William F. Buckley in promoting like a literary aesthetic, right? Like the National Review had Joan Didion writing for it, right? And so I think that there was an aspiration among a lot of conservative movement leaders toward a more literary approach, right?

Toward a more intellectual, written text approach. [00:14:00] That was designed though, I would argue to basically create a sense of respectability for conservative ideas within elite circles. And so in that sense, there was an expectation, at least in the 20th century, that if you are a serious political movement with serious ideology and serious philosophy, that you did engage in kind of literary production.

It wasn’t just about talking right in the TV or radio or whatever it would be. That being said, and this is another kind of subtle argument within the book, is that the Wright never said, well, we’re just gonna focus on radio, or we’re just gonna focus on literary journals, or we’re just gonna focus on tv, or whatever it would be.

They’ve always done all of it, right? And so it’s kind of, opportunistic, it’s iterative, it’s entrepreneurial. It’s throwing everything at the wall and see what sticks, right? and so I do think that the Buckley kind of respectability politics did at least outwardly value a kind of literary.

Sensibility. but at the same time they were very pugilistic and involved in debate style, right? So Buckley himself, who again with the National Review is invested in that literary style, had firing Line, right? Which was a TV show that was a debate show between him and a variety of liberal thinkers that would come on and, engage in conversation with him.

So I do think that you’re onto something, that there’s something about debate that is particularly I don’t know, aligned with conservative aesthetics and views of ideology. But I think they did both.

SHEFFIELD: Well, they did. But I mean, if you look at the output of National Review compared to, let’s say, the Nation or the New Republic during those years, and the authors who came out of them, came out of them writing their own books. Like, I mean, Buckley himself, I think is a perfect example. Like, here’s a guy that he wrote about politics for, more than 60 years, and yet he never produced a substantive book of political theory, not one in his entire life.

And in fact, he admitted that he was, he had tried to make one, which he [00:16:00] called the, I think it was the the Revolt Against the Masses was the tentative title. The book and he couldn’t finish it because he was not able to develop a coherent, extended political philosophy.

BAUER: Totally. And I think Buckley was an organizer. I mean, he aspired to be a literary grade and a philosopher and all these things, but he wasn’t one at the end of the day. Right. and so he was a, an extremely effective organizer, and we see the kind of repercussions of that. but I think that’s also an interesting point, right?

Is that the right it isn’t as though it’s like a movement of philosophers or a movement of literary minds. It’s a lot of really well organized and organizing people actually, and then like a few folks along the way that are better or worse at these other things, right? So there are, political thinkers and philosophers within the movement.

I disagree with them. all of them, right? For various different reasons, depending on the thinker. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re not engaged in a process that they identify as. Intellectual, right? I mean, the Australians, the West Coast Australians, especially writers, is definitely see themselves as engaged in kind of political philosophy, regardless of if we think that’s, doing it good or not, right?

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. I mean, yeah, they certainly think of themselves as doing that, but it is notable and I don’t want to stay on this point too long here, the people that are creating these-- like who do have a more philosophical bent, pretty much all of them leave the reactionary politics eventually.

So whether it’s the Whitaker Chambers, whether it’s George Will in the present moment, whether it’s Gary Wills or, so like all of these people who actually are first class minds, generally speaking, they leave because to have fully coherent systematic thoughts is not welcome because it, means that you are independent and, and I have personal experience at that. I, have to say.

BAUER: Yeah, for [00:18:00] sure.

SHEFFIELD: All right. So, but going back to Buckley though in particular, as you note, he’s a key node in this making the liberal media notion. So he, he had kind of a bifurcated approach because on the one hand, he began his career. As a defender of Joe McCarthy, who was literally trying to censor people he didn’t like politically.

And then, and Buckley himself wrote a book saying, McCarthy was great. You should have left him alone. And then, and then of course his first book, God and Man at Yale, was a protracted, hurray against non-Christians at Yale and saying they should be fired. And that alumni should get rid of them.

But then at the same time he also to the general public was demanding these, demanding the fairness doctrine, demanding that he be allowed to debate as many people as possible, demanding a free show on PBS, which he got like that that hypocrisy was just suffused through his entire career. And it’s, maintained ever since by his successors.

BAUER: Yeah. I mean, I think that, so I actually don’t know what Buckley thought about the fairness doctrine. I didn’t see any of, none of his writings really engaged with it. But, nevertheless, he was kind of engaged in leveraging the affordances of it for sure. Right. Especially with firing Line Right.

Was a clear example of him leveraging that. I think that one of the things I argue in my book and the book is a little bit less focused on the, Buckley Circle, right. And the respectability politics associated with the National Review, and is a little more focused on some of the corners of the conservative movement that were less reputable and in particular the John Birch Society which published a series of magazines and did a whole lot of media and other forms of activism concurrent with Buckley, but often is overlooked or kind of seen as fringe, right? Because of Buckley’s efforts to try to marginalize them. And part of what the book argues is that [00:20:00] if you think about this in relation to this idea of the liberal media bias claim, it actually clarifies some things, right?

So Buckley. Even though he would participate in saying that the media was liberal and all these sorts of things, he desperately needed the media, right, the mainstream legacy media to take modern conservative ideology seriously. This is part of the reason why he engaged in this kind of like intellectual style debates on firing line.

This is why he created National Review. It’s about creating a perception that conservatives are serious and worthy of being considered, kind of the responsible opposition to new deal liberalism, right? The John Birch society did not see themselves that way, right? they were much less invested in the policy or the politics of respectability, and which we’re much more invested in, engaging in rallying cries, for example, against the civil rights movement, for example, or in favor of more armed military conflict against the Soviet Union direct military conflict with the Soviet Union.

Interestingly. Unlike Buckley, who was treated as kind of a responsible part of the right, and interviewed by mainstream media outlets, the Birchers were targeted, right? In a similar way to the way facts forum was right As fringe K’s, far right outside of the bounds of respectable American politics.

Buckley himself played a role in pushing them there, right? But the mainstream media covered the birchers that way, as well as kind of an oddity or a curiosity. And so part of what the book argues is that this idea of liberal media bias is less, the creation of Buckley and the respectability politics set, and more kind of a bottom up bubbling of this kind of grassroots mobilizations like the Birchers, who not only saw the media as covering the world in a way that was dissonant with conservative ideology, but they also felt directly attacked by the press.

And this really helps cultivate that belief in liberal media bias, not just within the Buckley set, but [00:22:00] kind of among the conservative grassroots in the 1960s.

From Facts Forum to the Birchers: the origins of ‘liberal media bias’

SHEFFIELD: yeah, well, that’s true. And they definitely didn’t receive a lot of negative coverage. Although that’s, point I, this is where I have to plug my own personal a, personal term terminological note that I often say in episodes, which is that to me, I think it’s important to note that these people are not conservative.

They’re reactionary that Dwight Eisenhower was a conservative. He was somebody ‘cause a conservative, somebody who, looks at the current government and the current society and says, that’s looks good to me. We’re gonna keep it, we’re gonna conserv it how it’s and maybe we’ll tinker with it a little bit.

Overall, we’re not gonna do much either way. Whereas Buckley and his, and the, Birchers and all these other people, they were trying to roll back the clock. Like they were, they wanted to repeal the New Deal. They wanted to get rid of the Great Society when that came along. And I think that it matters in terms of when we’re, thinking about the, their, how they conduct themselves and the, method of thinking that they used.

And to me and, this is maybe a little more philosophical than you wanna get here, but perhaps not. But it, like, to me, there were two key figures that American Reactionaries kind of chose between. So there were two philosophers. One was Michael Oakeshott, who was an English political philosopher.

And then there was another guy named Eric Voegelin, who was a German who immigrated to the United States. And Buckley chose Voegelin. And Voegelin was a guy who, he was a, he was completely pretentious poor scholar. He literally made up an idea, basically a conspiracy theory, that there was a, there was Gnosticism that was a religion that with animating everyone, he didn’t like that they were secretly a Gnostic.

And then as his basis, he, made, he literally used made up quotations from books about ancient Christian gnostics that were not even correct in [00:24:00] many ways. And late in his life, he finally did actually admit publicly, oh yeah, I probably wouldn’t have called this Gnosticism. It was too late by then because, Buckley and all these other people had imported this idea into their politics. Whereas, and, of course Voegelin was this kind religious zealot as well in his own way. Whereas Michael Oakeshott was non-religious. And so the, there, so there was this big gulf, I think between American right-wing politics because it was reactionary and not conservative for a long time when you compare it to the Right, right politics of other countries.

BAUER: For sure. And I, think that yeah, for sure. So I think that you may be right in a kind of philosophical conceptual way that the Birchers were reactionaries and not conservatives, but to a, to an individual, if you had put a gun to their head and asked the Bircher, are you a conservative? They would’ve said yes and they would’ve put a gun to your head if you said they weren’t.

Right. And so I think that there’s, a way that we can intellectually debate philosophically what is or isn’t true conservative, what that means. I haven’t been a conservative myself since the 20th century, as my students would say, right? My kind of like shift left word coincided with the kind of nine 11 moment and the Iraq war.

And so I have almost no dog in the fight of whether something is true or not true conservatism, what I see is a large umbrella of a variety of different claims to conservatism all of which have basically been flattened by being opposed to throughout most of the 20th century communism, and then all of the other various associated things that were labeled to be communists, including the media, including higher ed, including the Democratic Party, right?

And so the. You’re right that there are distinctions [00:26:00] to be made within conservatism. There are, defensible claims to say that there’s conservatism versus reactionary versus whatever you wanna call it, fascism. But that, in some ways overlooks the fact that all of those people were able to ban to together.

Throughout most of the 20th century in opposition to their enemies and their enemies being the left, broadly speaking, liberals also. And, the press. and so it’s interesting ‘cause if you look back historically, even within the book, you can see this HL hunt in 51. He tries to rebrand conservatism as constructivism because if you look at public opinion polls in the late forties, they showed that conservatism as a form of political identification, not as a philosophy or that sort of thing, just as a way of identifying your politics was extremely unpopular.

This is a time period where the New Deal was very popular. People like to identify as liberal. It was much more popular, right? And so Hunt initially thought it was a branding issue. We just need to call it constructivism. Nobody really wanted to do that. There wasn’t, that wasn’t all that exciting of an ideology, or not an ideology, but identity for people either.

And ultimately it’s conservatism that takes up that kind of empty signifier that people all plug their identities into. And so, so I hear you and I think that there is a certain corner of conservatives. I would imagine a lot of folks that write for the bulwark, for example, today, right. or George will. I hear you when you say he’s left the right, he is nevertheless invested in the war in Iran.

And so I think, I don’t know, right?

SHEFFIELD: Well, he left the Republican party. I think he still identifies as conservative.

BAUER: Yeah. And so this is what I mean is like what does it really mean to leave is an important question. And where does one’s investments lie, I think is part of the animating. Question of the debate of what counts or doesn’t count as conservative, right? For me, I’m more interested [00:28:00] in what are the links and bridges that allow for people that identify as kind of more highbrow, philosophical, conservative, to basically be on the same political page, right, to all ally and collate with what you would term reactionaries, right?

How do they see themselves as actually engaged in the same project, and even when they don’t see themselves in the same project as Buckley and the Birchers didn’t at a certain moment, nevertheless, they’re supporting the same policies and they’re supporting the same politicians often as well, although not always.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, that’s a good point. I guess, yeah, I’m just saying that, like the success of, these reactionaries. Is dependent on this entryism with people who are, actual conservatives and, and, then, but they also do that, the flattening on the left. So as you said, everybody on the left is a communist according to there is no such thing as a liberal. There’s no such thing as a progressives. There’s no such thing as a socialist. They’re all communists. Everyone is a communist. And, that, that rhetorical trope is still ex extremely common. In today’s Republican politics, Donald Trump himself frequently talks about communism, that he is opposing communism in the Democratic Party, even though, they, it is a party that won’t even have run on universal healthcare.

BAUER: The, so the Soviet Union has been dead for 35 years, and was there international communism in the early and mid 20th century? Yeah, there was. Did it have the kind of power that the right was concerned with? No, it didn’t. But. I think it’s interesting that people like Trump or various other conservatives are still throwing communism as like this boogeyman when it’s been effectively dead for 35 years, and I, wonder how that’s gonna play out going forward as communism is Historical relic effectively.

SHEFFIELD: Oh yeah, it really is. Well, and the, let’s, go back though to, to the history in the book here for so [00:30:00] the idea that the, media is against, our viewpoints like this is, it became the organizing principle with both the, in a way that you know, the, media magazines and, newspapers, it was, they were linked to the candidates explicitly in, in, in some cases, even like directly with funding, like the, candidates would raise money for the media and then the media would promote the candidates. I mean, it was a really effective system. You talk about some of the early people who were doing that and what they were if you would.

BAUER: Yeah, sure. So, you’re right that there was a lot of collaboration with the movement conservatives and the media outlets. And, for most of the 20th century, I argue a lot of the outlets, not all of them, but a lot of them were aligned with the movement itself. So you got the Human Events, you got National Review, right?

You have, by the 1970s, you have organizations like what is it? Richard Vry and, Paul Weer create the kind of new right affiliations and organizations in the seventies. But it wasn’t all folks who were deliberately aligned with specific individual candidates, right? oftentimes it was individuals with specific projects that then aligned with political candidates.

So a good example of this would be like Accuracy in Media, which is one of the organizations that I write about in the book which was a, watchdog group still exists, that’s designed to basically argue that the, and point out evidence that the media is biased against. conservative ideas against capitalism against us imperialism, although they don’t call it that.

And the Accuracy in Media, though, interestingly, if you look at its origins, a lot of times if you look, at coverage of it in the seventies and eighties, because they were often defending Nixon in the Nixon administration, there was a lot of accusations that Nixon was behind it, that it was basically a front for Nixon and Nixon’s campaigns.

But if you look at the archives and like how it emerged, it actually emerged out of a kind of a, an, [00:32:00] anti-communist luncheon group, that was founded actually by a liberal anti-communist named Al. Al what is it? Forget his name at the moment. McDowell is his last name. And he cr he was a union member.

He was a organizer with a union, who also was an anti-communist and he would host these luncheons in Washington, DC for other anti-communist. And one of the people that was a part of that luncheon and ended up taking it over when he died was a guy named Reed Irvine, who was a former federal Reserve banker.

And he. Got in his head in the 1960s that the media was biased. he wanted to kind of pivot that luncheon group, which was vaguely associated with an anti-communist group called the, council Against Communist Aggression, which is a very funny acronym caca, right. And so he, creates accuracy in media in early 1969, or basically September of 1969.

And then two months later, Spiro Agnew gives his famous speech again, denouncing the, networks for their coverage of Nixon’s Vietnamization speech, which is a speech where Nixon uses the term silent majority and says basically that the silent majority is, tired of fighting the war in Vietnam.

And we need to turn things over to the Vietnamese to fight on their own, right. and so the public. Responded positively to Nixon’s speech. the press pan it though. And so Agnew gets up in November of 1969. He gives two speeches, one in Des Moines, Iowa, and another in Montgomery, Alabama, denouncing the, media for their coverage of Nixon and accusing them of bias accuracy and media had already existed by a few months, and then leverages Agnew’s speech in order to basically build up its donations and build up its profile throughout the 1970s.

And so, even though these things look like they’re working in lockstep, and it’s, it is true. And this is, relegated to a footnote in the book. Agnew and Nixon both donate money to aim later on in life, but like $500, like, not like millions of dollars or thousands of dollars, [00:34:00] which, other folks, were doing Joseph Kors for example, were doing.

And so oftentimes it looks as though these organizations are working in lockstep, and oftentimes they are. But sometimes it’s more just a matter of groups doing their own projects that they think are important, and then those ideas dovetailing together.

The right’s decentralized media ecosystem

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. But, and that’s a, a really good point because it, it, it does illustrate a strong difference between now the, American left and right approach media. So on the left side of the fence, like Hillary Clinton is, was the, made the almost perfect encapsulation of how they viewed the attitude that you just said, like the vast right wing conspiracy as if they were all, taking orders from one committee and one person.

And that was never the case. Obviously they had plenty of meetings and, plenty of groups and whatnot. And a lot of, and they all knew each other in many ways, but they hated each other.

BAUER: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: In many ways.

BAUER: Lots of infighting and lots of overlooking. I mean, one of the things I write about later in the book is, I think it was Terry Dolan who is a new right activist in the 1970s and eighties. he writes this memo that basically is like, here’s what we need to do to fight against the liberal media.

And he outlines a proposal for groups that already exist, frankly. Right. A accuracy and media had already existed for almost a decade and a half by the time he writes this and that. One of the things he was calling for was like a watchdog, like there was multiple di and like others were like various media operations that already existed.

And so even within the movement there would be these like memos and things that would go around. They’d be like, okay. These things already exist. You just don’t like the people that run them, or like you, you want a different version of it. And the interesting thing is that, they would create those new groups.

Read more

If you’re like most people who pay attention to the news, you’ve probably felt it. We are living in a transitional moment, a time of great uncertainty as old realities are giving way to new ones. Right now, the future looks fuzzy and it’s hard to deny that humanity’s collective vision of the future is in a crisis of its own. Everywhere you look in film, television, novels, and social media, the future that everyone’s talking about is a dark one. Dystopia is the default.

That’s a big problem because the future hasn’t happened yet, which means that if we want a better one, we have to start thinking about what that would look like.

We deserve great things, but we can only have them if we can envision them first.

The future isn’t fixed. It’s what we make of it, and that’s something that my guest on today’s episode, Monika Bielskyte knows firsthand from direct, personal experience. She grew up in the Soviet Union, a country that seemed like it would last forever until one day it didn’t.

She’s done a lot since then, but today Monika is working as a futurist and media consultant for nonprofit organizations, businesses like Nike, and films like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. In all of her work, she’s focused on building a vision of a beautiful possible to counter the doom and gloom of the future dystopias that are all too common in our present-day media.

The video of our conversation is available, the transcript is below. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.

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• How banks and corporate monopolies ruined the internet

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Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

09:07 — Hope and the power of fiction

16:27 — Humanity’s progress and the stakes

25:00 — Most superhero movies emphasize human disempowerment

33:04 — Reactionary oligarchs’ urge to disclaim their own humanity

42:41 — The future as the imagined past within reactionary futurism

49:34 — Why reactionary futurism redirects public focus from present injustice

53:04 — Toward a vision of regenerative futures that are self-sustaining

01:07:33 — Why hopeful futures avoid false binaries

01:15:26 — No human is ‘typical,’ so inclusion must apply to everyone

01:22:48 — What many left-of-center people miss about generative AI

01:31:59 — Embodiment in AI and machine learning

01:36:39 — Radical tenderness  and the beautiful possible

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: And joining me now is Monika Bielskyte. Hey, welcome to Theory of Change.

MONIKA BIELSKYTE: Hi, thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to join you all the way from South Africa.

SHEFFIELD: Yes, we are doing a long distance episode today, so [00:03:00] very fun. And it’s about a very important topic which is something that everyone has a stake in the future. But before we get into the the broader points here, because we both believe that existence and minds are embodied let’s start with your personal background. Tell us about your story and how does it inform your views on all this?

BIELSKYTE: I guess I’m very much with Robert Sapolsky in thinking that we do not emerge from some kind of ether or vacuum. We are very much shaped from the sort of cultural and biological substrate that we are part of that sort of nourishes and fertilizes us.

So culturally and historically, I was born into a very particular moment in a country that doesn’t exist anymore, Soviet Union and grew up in newly [00:04:00] liberated Lithuania. As a child, I was taken to the Baltic Way, which was the protest where about 30% of the population of the Baltic states held each other hand to hand in a continuous line across the three countries: Estonia, Laia, Lithuania which very much sort of precipitated was part of the things that precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union. I’m also a Chernobyl kid. Uh, my parents were next to Priya when Chernobyl blew up. So in a way it’s a bit of a miracle that I’m even here today. And. Again, I got to witness as a child the collapse of a totality and regime that seemed to be inevitable.

And yet it did collapse. And yet things did change in the country that I grew up in. And they didn’t change that much. Just about 30 minutes from our capital in a country called Belarus [00:05:00] just next door to us. They have had the longest lasting dictatorship in the whole of Europe. And so what all of that taught me is that future is something that you shape and you don’t shape it alone.

You shape it with your entire community. You shape it also in exchange with everything else that happens in the world. And today as a futurist that gets to talk about how futures get to be shaped. Of course, I am informed by that very visceral experience of that nothing is an inevitability, but you know, some hills are more uphill to climb for sure.

and I always think, you know, how growing up, just sort of one day from the next. We were told as children at school that this history that we were taught was the wrong history and now we [00:06:00] receive new history books and this history is the right history. And of course, sort of was swung between these different extremes, right from completely erasure of cultural, national, et cetera, identity in favor of sort of that hegemonic Soviet ideology to then in favor some kind of over idealization of certain aspects of national identity.

I also have to mention that I am a descendant of survivors, both of the Stalins Gulags and Hitler concentration camps. So this idea that there is never that easy goodie or badie and how populations oftentimes get caught up between hostile powers and where one thing being horrendous does not make another thing good, and how one bad thing weaponizes another is also something that seems to be sort of very natural for me to grasp [00:07:00] and much harder to a lot of other people, especially in the global north, especially in the western world.

So I really think of myself as a product of that particular moment as a product of the collapse of the physical walls that. Kept the population in right, that closed people in you were not allowed to leave the Soviet Union and the opening up of the digital wall walls. And so I could never also take these digital platforms for granted.

Like a lot of my peers that grew up in the Londons and Paris and New Yorks could because as a child, you know, in a very small town in North Lithuania, I didn’t have access to almost any resources at all to educate myself. And so the first sort of access to the digital communities of knowledge was something that, and it was absolutely, life changing and was [00:08:00] really kind of the foundation of what I got to become today.

And I think this is really important, this perspective that I have, that I think is really quite different to a lot of again, typical global north futurist discourse is one of the reasons that motivates me to open up this field to more people, right? I currently live out of choice in the global south in Johannesburg, South Africa.

I’m myself of mixed sort of Eurasian identity, and I see just how important it is to open the field of strategic foresight and futurism, to people that have different cultural disciplinary. Disability, et cetera, et cetera, identities because they have a lot to offer. While at the same time, of course, we’re preserving the rigor within the field and the critical inquiry instead of making it free for all.

SHEFFIELD: [00:09:00] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. and we will get to this point later about the idea of a, future that has everybody in it.

Hope and the power of fiction

SHEFFIELD: One of the other things in your work that I’ve seen is this idea that everybody has hopes, even if they don’t label them as such. And there’s a lot of nihilism, which we will also talk about in cultures, we have hopes and expectations for the future, whether we want to or not. And what we expect plays a big role in what happens, I think.

BIELSKYTE: Yeah. I mean, people act like we are also hopeless today, but I believe if we were really as hopeless as we maintain ourselves to be, we would be out there committing suicide on a mass scale, right? Every morning to wake up. And to do even the most basic things, you still have to [00:10:00] maintain a certain degree of hope to even go through these basic motions, right?

And so hope is really vital. But also it’s sort of being drenched away from us. And part of sort of, I think there’s this interesting dynamic of hope and hopelessness by how much our depictions of the future within science fiction realm have been dominated by the hopelessness of dystopia in a way.

This normalization of doom and gloom. And then there’s nothing that you can do about it is meant to disengage us, right? If we believe that nothing can be done about the future, well then we do nothing about it. And for the longest time, there was that discourse that I was pushing back against that. Well, dystopia is what cells, right?

[00:11:00] People want to see dystopian visions. And really it’s only a particular type of person that want to see dystopian visions. And that person happened to be generally the kind of person also get to, got to direct those visions, right when your life is very safe, very secure, very boring. Not particularly traumatized in a way, seeing these sort of fantasizing about the end of the world, doom and gloom is something that is exciting, but truly for the majority world, people that have lived through dictatorships, people that have lived through oppressions, people that have these visceral stories in their blood and their bones of their ancestors surviving in a way ends of the world.

You know, and anybody that contains trauma of violence or sexual assault in a way we don’t really entertain those dystopian stories that can be [00:12:00] profoundly re-traumatizing. And so hope is something that I believe we’ve been longing for on that grand scale, and yet there hasn’t been as much of it.

And whenever we see those examples in something like Black Panther. Right or recently Heated Rivalry, which is not sci-fi in its sort of presentation. There’s no rockets or spaceships or intergalactic space travel am my own uploading within it. But it’s really futuristic in terms of terms, the social reality that it imagines the kind of social, cultural trauma healing, right?

that it posits as actually possible. We see just,

SHEFFIELD: Oh, I’m sorry. Do you mind for people who don’t know what Heated Rivalry is to give a little background of it, if you’re talking about it there, please.

BIELSKYTE: So Heated Rivalry [00:13:00] is this TV show produced independently supported by Canadian government. That is a gay hockey show. So nothing sci-fi about it on the surface. However, the kind of narrative that it presents, the kind of possibility for sense of community, for queer love for healing family trauma for neurodivergence inclusion that doesn’t become fetishized.

In a way it’s more sci-fi than most of the sci-fi that we have seen. Something like Black Panther. It had a lot of, you know, typical Disney, Marvel cinematic universe, aspects of futuristic weapons and spaceships, et cetera, et cetera. But some of the most distinctly futuristic aspects within it was just how pluralistic it was, the fact that there was still cultural plurality.

That there was still multiple species, humans and non-humans that [00:14:00] remain in communion together. That cultural traditions still survived alongside the bleeding edge scientific research. Right? And those visions have resonated with the audiences. And so for the longest time, we’re told that people are not into that kind of depiction of the future, that future depiction that is hopeful, that somehow still contains what is, what could be deemed as sort of cringe expressions of love and affection and vulnerability is in fact something that we, as most of the people in the world that have lived through our own respective traumas, we actually long for, we need and we want to.

And if we’re recognized that not just our actions, but also ideas have consequences, that history is not just sequence of events, but predominantly of ideas and worldviews. [00:15:00] That ended up shaping these events. We understand just how urgent it is for us to have different depictions of the future. So when people ask me, aren’t you not depressed about the future?

I say, considering how depressing our future visions have been, it’s surprising that we are not doing worse than we are. And if we understand that we are unable to do something before imagining it first, it is also unsurprising why so much? Our, so much of our future decision making is deeply flawed because we do not really have these imaginative yet reality, sort of real data, real science, grounded future visions that seem realistic, yet inspiring and energizing.

And so I think this is one of the greatest priorities. You know, if we understand that those who control the fantasy, [00:16:00] control the fiction, that these fictions end up shaping our actions we need to start with imagination first. And that imagination should not be just optimistic, wishful thinking. It has to be reality informed.

It has to understand how the status quo has been manufactured, and yet imagine possibilities beyond it.

SHEFFIELD: It does. Yeah. And, we will come back to that.

Humanity’s progress and the stakes

SHEFFIELD: Just as a historical matter, I, two points that, that I’m thinking about is one is that it’s easy to think about a terrible dystopian future for yourself. But the reality is that humanity has come a very long way from where we were, not just from our earliest ancestors, but even in the past few hundred years, or even the few past few decades.

So that’s worth always keeping in mind. People sometimes think, oh, well this is like in the U.S., I run into a lot of people who think oh, this is the worst [00:17:00] time in our nation’s history. It’s so depressing I can’t take it. There’s just so many bad things. And I’m like, well, you didn’t really follow the news in the 1970s when there was all kinds of regular domestic terrorism in the United States. That’s not happening right now, at least. And there’s a lot of other positive things that have happened.

BIELSKYTE: Yeah, I mean, again, the, kind of stories that I grew up of my grandparents and my parents and the kind of things that they have survived really do not allow me to drown in self-pity of how terrible the world that I inhabited. And I think that’s a really, important reminder, right?

That if you actually have read about human history, then on one side you don’t become complacent because this notion that it cannot get worse is completely false. It can get so, so, so, so, so, so, so much worse. And at the same time, this moment [00:18:00] that we live in, we should obviously not be passive at all about it, but it is definitely not the worst that we have historically lived through.

So I think, you know, on one way, you know, we have to remember that sense of urgency and how with this exponentially potent, especially destructive technological tools, because they can be very powerful without being positively constructive. The stakes are increasingly high. Yet at the same time, we are not living in the worst moment in history.

Some groups, some populations in some specific geographies at this moment might be living one of their worst moments in history. But on a global scale, we still have an incredibly good life. And yet if we do not work for the future, sort of not to slide from our feet, uh, we might end up seeing the worst aspects of history being repeated and maybe much faster because the technological tools of [00:19:00] destruction are.

Exponentially more potent and fast moving.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, It’s a balance that you have to keep and, and ultimately the only people who can have the time and ability to wallow in how bad they think things are that is a position of privilege actually. It is not a position of oppression.

But the other thing I was gonna say is that, just as a historical matter, the idea of how fiction and how stories and what you take into your mind from the world and from media, that was actually something that Plato, the, ancient Greek philosopher was concerned about, like, so in his Republic book about which was people often think of it as what he thought of as his ideal society. And I’m, I don’t think that’s quite true. But one of the points that he makes in there is that he wanted to censor all depictions in the arts [00:20:00] of negative things, because to let people see the protagonists doing terrible things to each other or to other people or themselves that had a negative impact on their minds and, what they, and their sort of desire to strive for justice or to improve things.

And I think he was right about that. Now, obviously, we wouldn’t wanna ban that. But what he said, I mean, it, does kind of underscore what you were just saying a moment ago.

BIELSKYTE: Yeah, I mean I really think again, of these examples of, Jacob Tierney and Ryan Kler and how, you know, even when they spoke Jacob Tierney is the director, he rivalry, and, uh, Ryan Kler, director of Black Panther and Sinners more recently. How even in the process of creation, right, on the sets it was really important to create [00:21:00] that sense of community, of understanding, of vulnerability really supportive the, very opposite of kind of the toxicity of the film set that Hollywood is known for, where sort of, especially women get pitted against each other, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, where sort of, you know, uh, the team is being dehumanized and sort of exhausted to a point of mental collapse.

I mean, I’ve, worked on some projects where, you know, some people literally ended up in, in psychiatric hospitals with the burnouts because of just how dehumanizing, the treatment from the director and or producer was. and then when you see what emerges from their creations, both in heated rivalry and let’s use sort of sinners as, a sort of newer example in Black Panther there’s a lot of very difficult thematic being broached.

There’s a lot of drama. There’s a lot of challenge that our heroes have to overcome. Some of them do [00:22:00] meet tragic ends in sinners, not thankfully for now in heated rivalry. though we always kind of on the edge of the seat, we always expect things somehow to end badly because we’ve been trained, right?

That bad things happen to good people, right? And that’s why you shouldn’t be good. You shouldn’t be loving, you shouldn’t be caring. And what’s so interesting from that and I think specifically with sinners, you know, it is sort of labeled as a horror movie. A lot of people actually, again, who have trauma, who do not love horror genre or anything that has too much violence in particular, have avoided watching it because of that label.

And yet when I watched it, there are moments within that film where wine creates these wonderful protopian glimpses, you know, and I’m obviously very biased because I had the chance to work on a fairly minor capacity as a futurist, uh, with him on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. But I think [00:23:00] he is one of the.

Most sort of change making directors sort of not just generational talent for what he puts out on screen, but also how he puts it out, right? And the profound humanity that emerges. And these glimpses. Even within very dire circumstances that are presented in a context of sinners movie there are these moments of a glimpse into a possibility of a world.

And it’s not just what that world looks like, it’s also what my friend, peer, and colleague Jenka Gurfinkel writes, it’s about what it feels like, and it’s also kind of what I speak in my framework, embodied futures. There’s that almost sort of visceral sensation of a possibility of joy and that joy and the present again, as Jenka says, [00:24:00] makes join the future seem plausible.

And I think this is so much of what we need. And, in the past we almost had these very binary storytellings, you know, it’s either punishment, detonation, glue warnings, or it’s some kind of perfect future prescriptive sort of moralizing paradise vision. But you should not be questioning whose blood flesh and bones this paradise was built on.

And, protopian thinking, right? That sort of realistic, yet hopeful thinking and visioning engages with something that is much more complex, right? Imagining possibilities of a world where humans strive to do better and do better, but it comes with hard lessons, right? It comes through strenuous effort.

It doesn’t just come easy. It’s not about just being right from the first go. It’s about trying and learning and acknowledging and expanding your horizons and your humanity in a [00:25:00] process.

Most superhero movies emphasize human disempowerment

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. The other thing that’s different, I think about the Black Panther franchise is that when you look at most superhero movies-- and God, there are so many of them-- they tend to deemphasize in a lot of ways the regular person, the regular community, the regular nation.

There might be a token, little scrappy little kid who who does something, or something like that. But by and large, these stories are about a future and a present in which you don’t have any ability to participate as a regular person. that really has a, bad impact I think, on a lot of people.

And when I have done reporting on, for instance, people who believe in the, Q Anon conspiracy theory, like they, they have as their belief that, well, I’m just going to sit back and enjoy the show. I’m just going to sit [00:26:00] back and eat popcorn. Because they, really do imagine that there are these fantastical figures, like Donald Trump who are gonna save them.

But it isn’t even just these far right people that have these views either. Like a lot of the rhetoric I think from people who are opposing Trump in the United States. They seem to have this idea of, well, if we just tell people what he’s doing is wrong, then that will stop it and it, doesn’t work that way.

There is no “adult in the room” who’s going to save you. There are no people who are going to come to your rescue. You and us we’re the ones that we’ve been waiting for, because there is no one else in this planet or this world.

BIELSKYTE: Yeah, I mean, I think we have to remember that the very notion of superhero, I mean, it, kind of has roots in the eugenic ideology and sort of eugenic thinking of the Uber mech, right? And of course, the [00:27:00] Uber mech requires the un mech, right? The superhuman requires the subhuman. And, uh.

Those who control the fantasy, control the future, the fictions, if they’re potent enough, if they’re compelling enough, always end up bleeding into reality. Right? it’s not just that reality informs our fictions end up shaping our reality because this is what we consider to be aspirational.

So of course there’s this direct pipeline from a superhero and, it’s big cape coming in and sort of saving the day and saving everyone, and then somebody like Trump, standing there on a podium all the way back in 2015 and saying that he alone can save the world.

And people believing that. And I remember vividly that moment, I was actually considering moving to LA ‘cause I was working a lot between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. And the moment he announced his candidacy, I, completely reconsidered. I was like, you know what? I am not making that move.

I don’t see myself living in the US under under him. [00:28:00] I already was thinking how difficult it might be to travel, and deal with TSA with my kind of travel pattern at that time. And, and people literally did not think it conceivable a lot of university educated, progressive, sort of the who’s, who of our intellectual community really thought of it as a joke.

And, and I did not. Because in reality, at that grand scale, we are shaped by these popular fictions. And it has always been the case when I started doing the work that I do. And I started doing sort of public speaking. And I was saying that science fiction really matters. It’s serves as a blueprint.

It shapes what do we consider future worthy? What do we think belongs? Who do we think belongs in the future? Right? And it does not reflect necessarily reality. Science fiction has mostly misguided us to think that something is futuristic, when really it just [00:29:00] seems futuristic. And not just because it’s culturally, socially political, outdated, most of the time it’s outdated from a scientific standpoint.

But again, going back to that point, within indigenous cultures, there was always that, duh, the most basic degree of understanding that every song, every pattern, every story, every ritual, sort of essentially every form of content is of core form of content that guides human behavior, that guides our values, that guides what we consider to be aspirational.

And yet somehow, especially in the western world, at some point, you know, before the connections between the, Ted bro actions and the ideologies they follow became truly sort of undeniable. So many people try to say, relax, this is just entertainment. It doesn’t matter. These are just movies.

These are just games. These are TV series. You know, this [00:30:00] is not how future gets decided. And nothing could be further from a truth. Future is decided by people acting upon what they consider to be worthy acting upon. And so today we find ourselves in this world, right, where still so many of us believe that somebody is gonna save the day, that there is gonna be on one or the other side, that magical superhero.

And then, you know, on the other side, you also have quite a lot of people, I guess on the lefty side that will say, well, no, you should not engage with any of that structural change, with any of that political change, with any of that corporate change by working again with the power structures that be.

But the reality is that all of these systems of justice and injustice of equity and inequity, they are made out of all of us, right? And so we need the [00:31:00] grassroots push and we also need that infiltration of structures of power to make them a lot less hostile to, to the grassroots. And so there’s always that continuous flow.

And when people ask me as a futurist, so what can I do? A lot of times they say, well, you know, but you know, I’m only working in advertising. I’m working on something so superficial. I’m not here saving the environment. I’m not here solving these dreary military conflicts. And my answer to that, that with whatever that each of us does, we will actually be much more capable of changing the world when we engage in our field of expertise instead of going and doing something else.

Instead of just go, I mean, it’s wonderful to go to some protest or support some kind of NGO, et cetera, et cetera, you know, on the weekend or once a month or once a year, then not doing that at all. But the truth is that if we really consider it, what is [00:32:00] the core of what we do? What is the core, our knowledge, what is the core of our expertise?

And we think how I can do it in such a way that I’m able to shape the future somehow positively through something that I’m really, good at, instead of just doing it how it’s always been done, how I can shape the future through that, through this thing that I actually have expertise, power, insider knowledge, and influence within.

And if all of us were to do more of that, and if all of us, you know, instead of just hoping for these, single leader, but also to leaderless movement. S if we understood that the real movements, the real change that lasts, it’s about leader fullness. It’s about all of us doing the things that we the best at and tapping into each other’s knowledge and expertise and, engaging with each other.

Not just because we’re the same, but because we are able [00:33:00] to contribute to each other. I think we’d see more of a change that we want to see.

Reactionary oligarchs’ urge to disclaim their own humanity

SHEFFIELD: So we’ve talked a bit about the things that people who support democracy can do, and we will circle back to that at the end of the conversation here, but I do want to talk about the people who are working to end democracy at this juncture of human history. And it’s not an exaggeration to say that’s how they feel and, but it’s, it, it can be difficult I think for sometimes for people to understand that because these people are not coherent when they speak and they don’t have a, good ability to write. They’re not really interested in reading. The only things they ever write are kind of on. On Twitter. But one person who is a bit more articulate than the rest is this guy named Mark Andreessen, who is a billionaire investor. One of the earliest internet figures as well.

And he basically said in a recent interview that [00:34:00] he has no interiority, that he never does any introspection on anything that he does, and that this is a great thing in his life. So we’ll roll the clip here and then I want you to, fire back at that.

Okay.

David Senra: Introspection.

Marc Andreessen: Yes. Zero as little as possible.

David Senra: Why?

Marc Andreessen: Move forward, go. Yeah. I don’t know. I just, I found people who dwell in the past get stuck in the past. It’s, just, it’s a real problem and it’s a, problem at work and it’s a problem at home.

BIELSKYTE: I mean, I think so many of these people are just like colossally stupid. They have been at a right place, at a right time. They have the right amount or like really wrong amount of ruthlessness to become so rich and powerful. But most of them are not that smart, and even people that are labeled as very [00:35:00] strategically smart, let’s say people like Peter Thiel, when you listen to their discourse, when you listen to his sort of antichrist lectures, when you listen to his, idolizing of thinkers in scare quotes like Curtis Jarvin and just how juvenile that discourse is. They’re really not that smart and above all, they are extraordinarily miserable. That’s just the fact when you look, I mean, I think this recent documentary Manosphere, right? It exposes so many of these people’s lives as truly miserable, as truly sad, as truly pathetic.

And yet because technology is not neutral, algorithms are not neutral they have had this sort of algorithmic amplification on their side and people like Mark Andreessen had [00:36:00] sort of, corporate business, sort of financial amplification on their side. And so they succeed in accumulating so much power.

Right? And I mean, I think of it as, it might seem like as a strange peril to draw but stay with me. I think we had this very unique momentum in this last winter Olympics. With the figure skating for the first time in a long time, Russian team was completely absent from it. If you know anything about Russian figure skating, you know how corrupt it is.

You know how it takes these underage girls, how doped and almost like tortured, abused they wear to sort of achieve these gravity defying pirouettes. But at the end of the day, even if they would succeed winning gold medal after gold medal only for an incredibly short amount of time, right? Because after that their body would be bust.

There was this [00:37:00] assumption that somehow they are pushing the boundaries of skating. And yet in this last Olympics, when the Russians were finally absent, something completely different happened. A sense of community, the difference between different skaters and especially a sense of joy that was delivered by ultimately the gold medal winning American Chinese figure skater Elisa L.

And it truly sort of opened up a whole new consideration of what figure skating can be, of what sports, what athletics can be. And in a way it was very much sort of an uphill battle because how can you win against such torturing of the bodies that Russians were known for against such exquisite doping techniques that Russians were known for?

And yet that victory did happen. Maybe in that temporary Russian absence. But it made even the [00:38:00] viewers think maybe this is what we had is not at all what we want. Not at all what we need from sports. Maybe this joyful momentum that is not about abused, emaciated, exhausted children’s bodies on the eyes suffering for our entertainment.

Maybe this is the kind of world that we actually want to inhabit. Maybe this is what we want sports to be. And so I do think that sort of like mass realization that happened and, how viral these moments of the winter Olympics went, taps into what we spoke about. He had rivalry taps into what we spoke about the success of every single Ryan Kogler project against, again, all of the studio infrastructure.

Odds also speaks to this moment with the techno fascists and sort of their mirror reflections as the influencers of the manosphere that we actually are [00:39:00] beginning to see them for how pathetic they are. When we look at somebody like Elon Musk. Now, less and less people are looking at him admiringly and say how he will be saving the world and look at him as somebody profoundly pathetic, profoundly sad, profoundly miserable. unfortunately was ruthless enough again to accumulate truly extraordinary amount of power. And I do think that during the last presidential campaign, there was a fundamental mistake that was made when the Democrats moved away so fast from the Tim Waltz’s framing. I of the weird, these guys are weird.

These guys are not aspirational, not like projecting power onto these people, even if we cannot deny their power. Right? They’re very powerful, right? But the more we project, the more we are scared, the more in a way we give them that [00:40:00] power. And if you know anything about the history of dictator, if, you know how calco for example fell, it is when we finally start seeing these people that have ruthless, accumulate extra amounts of power as truly pathetic, as truly unad, admirable, as truly non aspirational, and we start crafting a new vision of what can be.

And again, when we start really looking critically at what these people say with, Marc Andreessen’s introspection is something that wasn’t went in 1920s. I mean, considering how much he seems to be introspecting himself, he is denying that very basic fact. In his techno-utopian manifesto, right?

He says how tech ethicists and tech critics are the enemies of progress. And you should just be accepting the first thing that the tech grows are offering to you. Again, nothing could be further from a truth, to just [00:41:00] accept whatever you’ve given. That’s not a positive attitude, that’s a negative attitude.

That’s believing that we only deserve this much to actually engage, not in just kind of criticism, no for the no’s sake. If we understand that no is not enough and you follow your nos by what are the shared yeses, you understand that to not accept the very first technological policy, et cetera, et cetera, offering and to work together towards something that is not gonna be perfect, but something that will be better, that we can keep improving.

That’s not a negative attitude. That’s the most positive attitude that we can embrace. And so I think it’s really important to sort of dismantle these ideologies that the manosphere influencers, the tech bros are pushing, but not do it in such a way that gives them more power, but do it in such a way that shows them for the sad little pathetic.

People that they are, even [00:42:00] if, they have succeeded in accumulating true extraordinary amounts of wealth in the process

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. it’s, that dictatorship is a state of mind in both the dictator and in the population. Because it, doesn’t work if you don’t allow it to work. Ultimately, they want the bandwagon effect. I mean, that’s how they do everything in their world. You look at the, all the Wall Street investors, they’re just a herd of lemmings.

Like they, they don’t have independent thoughts. They all do the same thing. They all respond to the same news reports. They’re easily manipulated. They’re so easily manipulated, in the fact, that people are constantly betting against the majority of the market and, making a lot of money off of that.

The future as the imagined past within reactionary futurism

SHEFFIELD: The other thing though, is that the vision of the future that they’re offering is actually an imagined past instantiated. Like that’s really what they’re doing. And you can see it in the science fiction that they like, which tends to be like mid 20th [00:43:00] century fiction.

And, I did a separate episode on this with Jeet here from the nation for people who wanna check that one out. They constantly refer to space as similar to the frontier times of people living all alone, in the forest or on the plains or something.

And, spaceships are prairie schooner in space. and, these are just not realistic at all because the reality is that, space is such an expensive endeavor that only governments can pay for it. So there is no imaginary cowboy out there doing space stuff living by himself.

That’s not real at all. And the only people who are gonna be in space are government employees and the people that are their contractors.

BIELSKYTE: Yeah. So I mean, I think the issue with the whole kind of space discourse and I do agree that, space exploration, astrophysics is really, important. But I’m [00:44:00] very much on board with what, adam Becker writes and More Everything forever. And I love that he wrote about it, as somebody that grew up with the same fantasies, that because of these fantasies, he went and studied and became an astrophysicist.

And then he came to realization that this whole vision of space being the frontier that we will expand onto, that we will get to live on Mars. And Alpha San Tori is delusional, you know, and it’s not delusional because it’s morally, socially, culturally, politically wrong. You know, these are subjective notions, and we could be arguing about it to the end of time.

It’s scientifically wrong. The real future frontier is not rockets or silicon, it’s biology, right? Sure. We need better computation. Sure, we need better rockets if we want to reach Mars, let alone transport significant amounts of load that supposedly could allow [00:45:00] us to live on Mars. But reality is our biology is completely intertwined, entangled, interdependent with all life here on earth.

Our bodies cannot survive completely different atmospheric composition, completely different atmospheric pressure completely different gravitational field. Our bodies cannot survive without everything that replenishes our microbiome because majority of d within our bodies is not even ours. Right?

It’s our microbiome and our microbiome. Is again, this whole ecology. We are not brains floating in jars in the space vacuum. We are ecologies, entangled with a broad ecology. We fully interdependent. There’s nothing. you know, I speak how 20th century was really sort of anchored in that engineering paradigm.

And again, we could argue or not about it if it was a necessary step or we could have skipped that step and, our world would be radically different. But [00:46:00] history, it is what it is. 20th century was the engineering century. But where we are moving now, it’s the century of biology, right? And within biology, nothing is a replaceable part.

The moment you change any element, everything else changes. That little empty space immediately gets filled with something else, right? And there’s no clear binary, there’s no zero one. There’s always that grain zone, gray zone of change and transformation. And so to really think of these futures as interdependent as biological to think of society, when nobody can escape in their magical bunker and do well, let alone, they’re not gonna be able to go and escape on Mars.

And they’re not gonna be able to upload their mind into computer matrix and live forever. These are all just sci-fi fantasies. These are not scientific propositions. And so again, through that you understand. How delusional that thinking has been and [00:47:00] how so many of these people are not that smart. Now, the problem right, is that the more rich, the more powerful, you know, as a politician, somebody like Putin as an example, right?

Of surrounding yourself with yes men that tell you can invade Ukraine in three days. You’re gonna be conquering Kiev. Ted Bros surround themselves with people that tell them, just throw another X amount of billions of dollars and you’re gonna make science disappear. To a point where Ted Bros a clashing with a scientist.

Scientists, even if science is just some kind of, it’s a material manifestation. it’s an technology. Sorry, I’m restarting. Even if technology is just a material manifestation, it’s an outflow of scientific research, right? So if you deny the science, no matter how many billions of dollars you’re gonna throw at it, you’re not gonna succeed at it.

But the problem, right, is that this, yes man phenomena is not [00:48:00] anymore just something that the written a powerful are capable of having access to in a way, AI psychosis, we’ve democratized the yes men through chatbots. So many mediocre people without power are able to engage with chatbots and the chatbot will respond to them in the sycophantic manner that yes.

Your ever idea is great and amazing, ingenious, yes, you should do more of the same that you were doing that caused your problems and this is now gonna solve your problems. So we live in this world of increasing infectious delusion where we tend to be celebrating all the wrong things and, these very juvenile ideas are getting amplified on a mass scale.

And I don’t think there’s going to be solution to most of these problems without real push for much greater [00:49:00] information. Literacy, science, literacy, historical literacy. And I don’t know where it’s gonna come from because this has to be funded or it will not happen. But it’s really a vital aspect if we have to have a more livable future, right?

it all starts with a vision, and that vision is shaped by information that we have access to. And if the information is completely misguided, completely inaccurate, then the whole foundation will be skewed. And so I think this is something that is really, important to address. And we haven’t been gone to.

Why reactionary futurism redirects public focus from present injustice

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, it’s also that they are trying to, these techno salvationist or, techno fascists even, we can say because they do cite people who were actual fascists. Like, Filippo Marinetti, Andreessen is, says he’s a hero of his. But aside from that, the, what they’re doing is trying to [00:50:00] redirect humanity from the, near future in which we improve our lives and Im improve our health and take better care of each other and the planet.

They want to move the focus from that to 500 years from now, we have to think about when, or we have to think about, well, the sun is someday going to become so big that it will swallow up the earth. Well, that’s not going to happen in such a long time that we kind of don’t need to worry about that.

And in fact. The best way, if you actually were serious about that, is to fund the scientific programs that you were just mentioning, Monika. that’s and then you look also at the Trump administration, attempting to cut hundreds of millions of dollars or billions, I think, if I’m remembering right, from the government science program.

So like you can’t say that you are wanting to be, have someone to be someone [00:51:00] who has credibility on the future and then also say, oh, and we don’t want any scientists. That’s not how it works. That isn’t how it works.

BIELSKYTE: Yeah, I mean, again, so much of the stuff that’s happening in America seems so shocking and novel to many Americans and even many Westerners. But it doesn’t seem shocking or novel to most of the post-Soviet because this is exactly what happened in Russia under Putin, right? Quality minds will question stupid decisions.

So one of the ways to entrench your power is to eliminate. Anybody that would have the capacity for critical thinking that could I undermine your sort of ideological ravings. And so trying to make, you know, and it goes beyond Putin, like, I think one of the most [00:52:00] extraordinary historical examples that had some of the most dire consequences because it resulted in a famine and Soviet union, and then also the famine, the great famine in China was Lisen COism, right?

Liko was a biologist that crafted this whole ideological take on evolutionary biology that fit with the Soviet communist ideology I ideology. Yet it was scientifically misguided. It was scientifically inaccurate. And that led to decision making from which tens of millions of people died. You cannot wish reality away and you cannot, as we’ve seen, right?

So many of Russian oligarchs, especially since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have jumped off the windows and balconies and had sudden heart attacks, even if they had no previous heart [00:53:00] conditions. So what that points to is that.

Toward a vison of regenerative futures that are self-sustaining

BIELSKYTE: You cannot have successful business is the nation state that has collapsed. And if the nation state is dominated by the leadership and policies that are increasingly removed from real data, from real scientific research, when the scientific research is ideologically guided rather than real curiosity and real information guided, the nation state ends up collapsing, and then the business and your corporate profits end up collapsing.

And, there’s just, you know, it’s, almost this Prego level thinking, right? Uh, when Prego made a deal with Putin, you know, somehow it seems that Prego thought that, you know, well, he’s gonna be the one that will not fall out of the window. Somehow he’s gonna make that [00:54:00] unique deal with Putin, and, somehow he’s gonna be fine.

But it just doesn’t work that way. And so I think the sooner people wake up and the sooner they realize that if you want to have longevity for even your corporate profits, for your business success, for your nation state, you actually have to inform your decision making by pragmatic data. And not by ideological ravings.

And so it’s, really extraordinary watching what is happening right now, but it’s also profoundly unsurprising. And, even more so, you know, in contrast of you know, seeing, for example, China’s decision making, right? When there’s this sort of fantasizing to return to petro masculinity under the current American regime versus the sort of really aggressive move towards what is framed as ecological [00:55:00] civilization by the Chinese government, right?

And trying to export that model and funding sort of, to a greater degree the sort of transition towards regenerative power grid than even the Marshall Plan. Now that comes with all of the strings attached. We cannot sort of idolize that at all, right? But at the same time, one approach tries to return to some kind of fictional past and, nostalgia ends up becoming poison.

And on the other side we have sort of that more pragmatic, more science informed thinking, and we know that over the long term, this is what wins. Now, I think, you know, the, big mistake of a lot of commentators and observers and, A lot of, even sort of young, sort of ideological people is to just demonize that this is all about financial incentives.

This is all just about money, right? And I think it’d be [00:56:00] easier to fix things if it was just about financial incentives. It was just about money, right? Because when somebody just thinks of their financial profits, you can somehow negotiate with it because there’s a certain logic to it, right? But I think the motivations are quite different.

And in fact, it’s more dangerous. They’re much more diluted, much more ideological. And I always say that it’s very hard for people in positions of power to imagine a world where not only their power is obsolete, but their very understanding of the world and the future is obsolete. And so you have to grasp that when you build out your future strategies, that it’s not just about financial loss or financial gain. It would be more simple if it were just that. Because if it were just that, [00:57:00] we would see much more pragmatic decision making because ultimately there’s no money to be made on a burnt out planet, right? There is no bunker that is gonna be strong enough to hide you if the entire world collapses. And so that cynicism, that nihilism, that also loss of what we spoke earlier on, of, hope into the future is profoundly dangerous.

And again, this is not new for me because it’s very much exemplified in Russia, right? Russia is the only, or one of the very few countries that believe that climate change is gonna be good for them, right? And it’s gonna be good for them, not because it’s actually gonna be good for them. I mean, sure the Arctic routes could be open, et cetera, et cetera, but it’s gonna be good for them because it’s worse for everybody else.

And the depth of depravity that results when people start believing that the future [00:58:00] will be better for us, not because that it will be objectively better because we improve our sort of state of being, but because everybody else is gonna be more effed. the ne holistic cynic politics that result from that are really profoundly dangerous.

And, this is something that we need to be profoundly wary of. And, you know, I’m seeing that, I’m seeing quite a lot of that emergent right now in the us. It, really kind of reminds me of everything that I heard of sort of these last years of the Soviet Union. So not just Putin’s Russia, but these last years of the Soviet Union before it collapsed.

And we need to be really, aware of that and counter that.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, that’s right. And that’s why I often say that despair is reactionary and hope is progressive. Because yeah, like they, they, want, they can only win by making you think their imposition [00:59:00] of an imagined past is inevitable. But one of the big obstacles though, for people who oppose them is I think that in a lot of ways, the broader left isn’t offering much of a talk, even discussion of futures and, and presenting a, vision of a beautiful possible because you can’t defeat the imagined past.

If you just say, well, let’s go back to the neoliberalism, or let’s have a endless, discussion about who gets to speak first or whose oppression is worse. No, you have to create ideas and inspiration to rally people to towards something that’s wonderful because otherwise they’re just gonna think that all these people with these, billions of dollars, that they’re inevitable if you, have to give them a north star towards something beautiful, I think.

BIELSKYTE: Yeah. and you have [01:00:00] to understand that, you know, again, The majority of the population in the world is religiously conditioned and religious narratives, have been speaking of those sort of es, sorry, I’ll restart. And most of the religions have been speaking about eschatological ends, right?

So this projection of somehow end of the world doesn’t emerge from anywhere and doesn’t resonate with sort of anything. It, resonates with existing sort of substrate. A lot of the people that push these end of the world visions have been raised in religious backgrounds that preach that, and now they sort of just repackaged it as some kind of technological rapture, technological salvation.

A lot of be it sort of Aya regime in Iran, be it Putin, they also project these sort of end of the world visions. And to counter that, you cannot just magically [01:01:00] think reality away. you need to offer something that feels tangible, that feels inspiring, that feels energizing. And if you just offer sort of preachy environmental discourse, if you just offer sustainability, that tends to not be unfortunately exciting and energizing and inspiring enough for our minds.

And that’s where. That regenerative vision really comes in and is really, urgent. And so I say that a lot of the existing familiar political binaries, communism, fascism, left right, progressivism conservatism especially, is in this increasingly ideologically distorted conspiracist world.

They do not really stand the test of time anymore. And the real emergent binary is extractivism versus regenerist. And so how can we juxtapose [01:02:00] where these extractivism future visions, where these extractivism technologies, where these extractivism policies are taking us, versus what could regenerative vision actually not just look, but also feel like, and that is really, vital.

And it has to be credible, it has to be realistic. It cannot be sort of wishy-washy, hippy dippy, leapfrogging the current issues. It has to actually sort of very tangibly address them. And I mean, it’s, interesting ‘cause this whole week I’m reading through a bunch of scripts. As part of my futurist advisor role with an organization called Climate Spring, and the role of that organization is actually to green light fund support, produce more regenerative future visions in the long media format, filming tv, right?

So these initiatives already exist, but we need many more of that. And this is where I [01:03:00] emphasize this framework of story world design, which is, might take sort of quite a bit of a modification away from world building, because world building feels very authoritarian for me. It’s kind of, you know, with Chand Dega or Nita May with Brasilia, a genius architect comes in and decides what the future city is gonna look like, and then everybody else has to inhabit his utopian vision story world design. It is much more organic, right? It, recognizes that we need infrastructures, we need technologies we need in our cities connectivity and productivity and thorough affairs and power generation, et cetera, et cetera. But thinks about the future city beyond it just being a smart city, right?

It thinks of it as livable city, as joyful city. It thinks of what is that human experience. And it doesn’t just design actually for humans. It designs for life because we are part of [01:04:00] an ecosystem of life, as we said. Our microbiome is an ecology, right? So we are ecologies intertwined with other ecologies.

So my invitation is how can we bridge gaps between the different disciplines, between the scientists, the architects, the urbanists, the policy makers, and people that know how to make shit sexy, quote unquote, the advertisers, the filmmakers, the script writers, the visual effects artists, right? These people know how to make things look mesmerizing.

These people know how to craft stories that drag us in that, that make us almost addictive, right? To follow the narrative arcs of, certain characters. And so it’s really important to go beyond manifestos and think tags and lofty statements and really [01:05:00] show immersively, sort of open these portals into the possibility of a different world, and really utilize this techniques of story world design coming from media, entertainment and science fiction, but to craft glimpses into our possible futures and really bring people in.

So we don’t just preach, we don’t just say that you shouldn’t do this bad thing, but we make people excited to do this good thing and to do this good thing together with others. And I really, believe that this is one of the most urgent things. And then another, I think key kind of framework that I’ve been working on is embodied futures and embodied futures.

That’s really sort of reframing that it’s not about being anti-technology. It’s not about being anti quote unquote progress. Even if you know that progress definitely needs an asterisk next to it. [01:06:00] It’s reframing innovation as something that doesn’t happen to technology because of the technology and through technology, but it happens to our bodies because of our bodies and through our bodies.

Our cognition is embodied. So whenever we consider any innovation proposition, be it again technological tool, platform policy, et cetera, et cetera, we have to think, is this weaponizing, undermining or replacing our embodied experience? Or is this supporting, amplifying, assisting our embodied experience?

And it’s not just the sort of eugenic idea of what bodies look like or how they could be stronger, better, faster, but really what do we feel within our bodies? What do we feel when we exchange with other bodies? And what do we feel being on this planetary body? What is the sensory experience?

What is the [01:07:00] joy? What is the pleasure? Even as we age, break pain, et cetera, et cetera. And I think it’s very important to bring these conversations, into the very serious political policy, technological scientific research and funding space too. Because unless we succeed in communicating to the broader, audiences, we will continue failing in bringing the change that needs to happen.

Why hopeful futures avoid false binaries

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah, that’s definitely true. The other thing also is that these people who are trying to destroy democracy, they, they do it often by presenting false binaries. So, and, Donald Trump, his entire political career is based on that. But when you look at the history, all of these, dictators or close to dictators who gain power, they do it by, by, presenting a [01:08:00] false binary that, if you, well, you don’t have to like me, but I am not anywhere as bad or as evil as, insert.

This group here that you don’t like. So, whether it’s a, ethnic minority or a religious minority, or a gender minority or a, non-religious person, these are all things that they, try to tell you are a threat to you. And so they, so that they can get away with not representing your interests.

And, I, and that’s something that I think, that is something that I everybody can do, is to talk to people in their lives to help them see those false binaries and to avoid them and to, to the extent possible, have build community for people to enable them to not be forced into those false binaries.

Because, that’s the other thing you were talking about how these, these oligarchs are, lonely [01:09:00] and miserable, but because of the eco extractive economy that they’ve created, a lot of other people are facing those similar circumstances. But because primarily because they don’t have any money and no opportunities.

And so, being able to just be with other people who have the, desire to protect democracy and to have a. A more positive vision of the future. That’s, something great and that is something that people can get from going to a protest as well, to, be able to see people who, because they want you to think that it’s inevitable and you are crazy if you don’t agree with them.

BIELSKYTE: Yeah. And at the same time, right, none of that change, none of that. Embracing more of our plurality is going to happen through threatening punishment or in [01:10:00] position. Fundamentally people change when their curiosity stick out, right? And so I think that’s kind of the biggest thing. We’ve been celebrating being right, and we haven’t been celebrating learning enough, right?

So most of us have born, most of us are indoctrinated into one or other form of bigotry in a way, ableism, for example. It’s the water that we swim at. We still, you know, even you have very woke, people are using terms like tone deaf, blind spot, being blind to that without even realizing, that it makes this automatic assumption that somebody who’s blind would be ignorant, that somebody who’s deaf would not understand conversational context and how to behave within it, et cetera, et cetera.

So, all of us lack knowledge in one or other domain, be it [01:11:00] disciplinary or cultural or social, et cetera, et cetera. and I think this is where story world design, this is where bridging these gaps between disciplines can really be helpful. Because when you invite people to be curious, when you make the proposition of participation.

Being more exciting than isolation. When you take away that fear of cringe that comes with allowing oneself to be vulnerable by showing your curiosity, then things begin to change. And I really, believe in that. And it’s really, hard because, you know, I’m a woman in a very male dominated domain, and so much of a time in my professional life, I’ve been literally wanting to punch faces by how people have talked to me and, behave with me.

And yet I kind of think of, you know, how do I foresight my own actions. So [01:12:00] we all have to kind of get better at foresighting our own actions, you know, in the particular moment, getting angry, getting pissed off you know, wanting to punish somebody, wanting to scream at somebody. You know, and I’m not talking about literal Nazis, right?

‘cause that, like some people are, some people have sociopath, psychopaths and, very much sort of beyond redemption. It’s really how to, how do you make the power they had have, access to less destructive. But majority of the people in the world are not right? Most of the people are not ignorant because they choose ignorance, right?

There are some like that. Most of the people ignorant of something or other because they just didn’t have access. To enough understanding and, again, just access to information does not equal understanding. Right? Accurate facts do, does not equal accurate understanding. But it’s, we have to kind of think in that moment of my anger, which most of the time is very justified.

I could act in a very [01:13:00] rash manner and I could feel justified, I could feel sort of very pure about it, but what consequences it will result in, and we all must get better at that. Last year I spoke at this media conference in Germany and one of the main conversations in relation to that was how journalists, how media people need to get better.

Not just at reporting the facts, but reporting them in such a way that comes with an understanding. What kind of behavior, what kind of actions, what kind of consequences that type of reporting could result in. Right? Are we able to speak beyond just the sensational fact and, speak to what could be potential future implications?

Right? And I think we need more. We all need more of that. It. And we’ve [01:14:00] been lacking that, instead of just wanting to build a wall and push people away, which is the easiest option. and again, I, viscerally feel that in my body ‘cause I felt that way so many times in my life. Fundamentally, this will not improve things for the better.

So we need to find a way to make people curious and, help them see how engaging across cultures, discipline, domains, disabilities, neuro divergencies, genders, generations, what is that we can learn from each other? How can we expand our horizons? How can we help each other see what we have not been seeing before?

And, I guess my own personal engagement in, the deepest way is with the realm of invisible disabilities. And I really believe that we shouldn’t be reading books about autism or cancer only when it touches us first person experience of cancer should be something [01:15:00] that, we should just want to understand before it happens to us, before it happens to our loved one to understand in different aspects of neurodivergence, considering how many neurodivergent friends, colleagues, acquaintances we might have, you know, and how it could expand our horizons.

I think, you know, we should do that before we have that face-to-face interaction.

SHEFFIELD: Well, and also, oh, and. Also just on that point. Sorry. The,

No human is ‘typical,’ so inclusion must apply to everyone

SHEFFIELD: one of the other fascinating things about some of the cognitive psychology research is that, it, the idea of neurodivergence, it almost doesn’t even exist. Like there is no right way to be a human or to have a mind or to think, and, that’s really come out with regard to, research showing that the, inner monologue of people, like some people basically don’t have one at all, and some people have one that never stops.

And there [01:16:00] is no right way, to think. and this is a really good example of that. So it’s, not just that, that we can see others experiences, which we may have in the future for ourselves because everybody, as you’ve said, will be disabled at some point. But it’s also that even how we are in the present moment that’s worth appreciating as well, and, understanding that there is no wrong way to be human.

BIELSKYTE: yeah, I mean it’s, I guess it’s, neurotypical doesn’t really exist but neurodivergent does, not, so many people tell me like, oh, but we are all a little autistic. And I’m like, absolutely not. And a lot of the times actually, people that were saying that we all are a little autistic are people that were undiagnosed autistic.

And they would make an assumption that, and I actually did the same assumption for most of my life until my early thirties, that, [01:17:00] but everybody must struggle with this specific thing. They just know how to pretend better. And it was a huge realization, in my early thirties to confront that not everybody’s struggling with this thing and not even close to the degree that I struggle with.

And at the same time, because of my autism, I also have, as much as it causes me frictions with especially sensory environment, et cetera, et cetera, it also gives me a whole additional density of experience and pleasure, right? When it’s not about friction, when it’s about sort of satisfying sort of sensory input or sensory experience or informational exchange, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So I think we have to acknowledge that nobody is typical, right? Nobody is abled in the same way, and yet nobody is disabled. And yet all of us will, unless we die, a certain death [01:18:00] will become disabled. And I think, you know, through that it’s also kind of important to acknowledge as much as this. Quote unquote witch hunt.

That came about towards DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion. I mean, it’s truly, again, exemplary of, the rising fascism. But some of the DEI efforts also have been perverted. They have become sort of very tokenized taking one person from a particular group and presenting them as somebody that can represent all of the group ticking off

SHEFFIELD: Or taking a economically highly privileged one and saying that they not only are representing of their entire group, which they may not have much of anything in common with, but also that their struggles are somehow even more challenging than somebody else from another group who, grew up with their parents murdered and, lived in foster system for their [01:19:00] whole childhood.

BIELSKYTE: Well, I think, privilege is quite correlated with gender, skin tone, ability, social group, et cetera, et cetera, but it’s not universally correlated. So, I mean, I’ve refrained privilege as something that removes you from the consequences of your actions, and it does not necessarily make you bad.

However, the more you are removed from the consequences of your actions, the less you are able to be informed. In making the best choices that would lead to those consequences. So, you know, the how I’m trying to reframe inclusion right now, this sort of design with not for and the leadership of the most impacted that it’s simply results in better product, better policy, better experience, better platform, better story.

If you do it from the perspective or engage profound with a perspective of the [01:20:00] people that have a visceral understanding of the potential consequences of whatever thing that gets to be proposition, especially whatever innovation that gets proposition, then you ultimately end up designing, writing, doing manufacturing, building better.

And when you do it that way, when you proposition that way, not as some kind of charity work that you have to do to these people that you don’t even want to have any connection with, and you say, well this is actually a smart methodology. This is a way to do things that will actually end up benefiting most of us.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. And but you know what you were saying though, it is, it, is also the case that for most, like, businesses having inclusive design and trying to make a future that includes everybody, that’s actually better for your bottom line. Because [01:21:00] there, why would you make products for people who are not interested in them?

They’re not gonna buy it.

BIELSKYTE: Especially, it’s better for your bottom line over the long term, right? and I think this is the biggest challenge, right? Is, things that can be good for you for your immediate quality returns. Quarterly returns is what can undermine your business or your nation state over the long term. And it’s, if you, not, if you are not planning to live for just another three months.

And if you care at all also about the impact, reputation, and legacy, you have to think beyond the quarterly returns. And long-term resiliency is only built by actually, again, engaging with your real consumers, with your real citizens, with the real science, with the real data, rather than just trying to shape real reality to the ideology that seems more convenient for [01:22:00] you.

And again, we come back to this thing of needing to step out of your comfort zone. But how do we frame that? Do we frame that as some kind of charity chore, something that, that seems dreary and undesirable? Or do we find a way to reframe it in such a way that it’s about expanding your horizons, learning new things, discovering something that could actually make you a more interesting, more complete more wholesome as a person.

And so I think, that narrative needs to change towards curiosity and inspiration. I just keep getting back to that all the time, without inviting our curiosity, by just being preachy, by just being didactic, we are not gonna achieve the change that we need.

What many left-of-center people miss about generative AI

SHEFFIELD: And unfortunately, one area where that preachiness is very common is on the subject of artificial intelligence or ai. Like, it seems to me that the [01:23:00] broader left has effectively seeded an entire emergent technology to the far right.

And this is basically the equivalent of, in the early to mid nineties, everybody on the center left saying, oh, well, we don’t care about the internet. This internet is bad. It’s run by some bad guys. ‘cause hey, mark Andreessen was there in those early days. So that means you can’t use the internet, right?

Because Marc Andreessen in was the co-creator of the Netscape browser, the first browser that most people ever saw. And the, reality is though, that technology, of course it can be bad, and of course there can be terrible people that are the leaders of various corporations or whatever, but technology by and large is neutral.

It’s what you make of it. And there is a lot of people out there who can’t afford to get, go to school, and get a degree in [01:24:00] something. Or they live in a, in an area where there aren’t any universities to go to. Or, and, and so for them is, would you rather them have nothing in terms of getting information about improving their lives?

Would you rather somebody not have a website or launch a small business because they can’t afford to pay a programmer? Which, so you would rather not have the carpenter have something, for himself or somebody living in, Egypt or something and, she has an idea for an app, but she doesn’t know any programmers.

She’s not a programmer, but she can so, vibe code her way into it. Why would you take that away from her? Why would you tell her not to use it? I would say that what we really need to have is a full involvement and engagement with this issue. And encouraging government participation and government bringing accountability because.

The, these people like Elon Musk and [01:25:00] Peter Thiel, I mean, they want to create feudalism with this. And if we completely see the topic to them, their chances of doing that become a lot higher, in my opinion.

BIELSKYTE: Speaking about vibe coding, I was just reading Gary Marcus’s article on de vibing and how there’s gonna be a whole interest industry emergent around di vibing because it represents so many security risks. So I mean, I personally

SHEFFIELD: not perfect.

BIELSKYTE: I personally, don’t believe that technology is neutral.

However, different technological tools have different specific tools. Specific platforms have different capacities for destructiveness or constructiveness, right? And something I think the, very big thing that gets forgotten all the time especially in sort of more progressive technology conversations, is how [01:26:00] something that is really bad at its constructive capacity can still be really potent in it.

Destructive capacity. This is where a lot of, on one side we had a lot of delusional discourse about crypto, where, you know, people were preaching it’s gonna save the, solve the financial pose of the global south, which was, you know, just utterly ridiculous. And on the other side, we had a bunch of people saying that this thing is entirely useless, but it is not right.

Crypto was created to commit crimes, human arms, drugs, trafficking, child pornography, ransomware. These are real utilities. And fundamentally, this is what powers this technology. This is what makes this technology useful. The outcome of it is profoundly destructive yet. It’s not useless, it is useful, right?

So in this case, it’s very non neutral. [01:27:00] Now you have other platforms that tend to be sort of more positive, and that’s why I keep arguing for innovation that is powered not just by military funding and military research, but for, but by accessibility and invisible disability, especially inclusion, it ends up resulting actually in all disability inclusion.

It’s just that invisible disabilities tend to be more overlooked than wheelchair access, blindness and deafness. and those technologies tend to have much more of that constructive positive capacity. So their, neutrality leans towards sort of more positivity. But even with military technology, you know, it’s very easy to say that we should not engage with any sort of military technology development until your country gets bombed, until your country gets invaded.

This is reality for a lot of people. For example, the Baltics. Right. There was very little military technology being developed in the Baltics until Russia invaded Ukraine. And right now [01:28:00] a lot of the tech industry has pivoted towards military tech because it’s a matter of survival. So, you know, even something that is not neutral, that is actually with, this very high destructive capacity as technology sometimes is quite necessary.

You know, I almost think this kind of parallel of the all sort of like anti GMO discourse when it became the sort of this grand conspiracy and sort of anything. GMO is the devil, whereas the reality, if we want to have sustainable, let own regenerative food systems, it’s gonna be all hands on deck, right?

We’ll need to bring back indigenous crops. We’re gonna need permaculture, we’re gonna need to be composting at scale, even within our cities. And we will need tons of genetic engineering, tons of biotech, new sort of yeast, fungi, algae based materials that will be again, [01:29:00] developed through the bleeding edge of, the sort of, uh, highly demonized GMO technologies.

And yet the future will have to contain all of that. If we want to have regenerative food systems, it will not just happen by us magically returning to our indigenous path. For the few of us that even have it right, because of the reality of this global geopolitical economic setting that we cannot escape.

There’s no island far enough, there’s no bunker safe enough, right? To escape from the broader realities of the world. And I really think with ai, it’s something very similar. I remember getting on this, uh, big spat. I think it was still on Twitter before maybe it was even X or maybe just after it turned x with, you know, some reputable professor that was saying that, you know, we should out try ban any students using gen AI anywhere.

And my response to that was [01:30:00] that is absolutely wishful thinking, especially, somebody like that, speaking from elite institution in a global north, teaching students that had the resources, even if those resources came in a form of a loan to study in such an elite institution, the reality for most people in the global south is that you have to learn whatever tools available to you in order to succeed.

This is very similar and you know, a lot of my colleagues and peers that I so deeply admire whose books I read and was shaped and inspired by, and again, with the advent of ai, some of the discourse. Came as so profoundly privileged, right? With a tenured professorship, having written a few famous books that resulted in really high speaking fees, you are set for life.

It’s very easy for you to tell somebody [01:31:00] here in South Africa that don’t go and work for Google because Google is the devil, right? People need to pay bills, people need to feed their children. And again, Google should not be the only option, should not be the only answer, right? How we need to be realistic.

And as I said before, we should not just accept these tools that are being given to us, because that’s passive. that’s, actually negative, right? We should see, well, what is this emergent technology? What is happening in the world right now? And how can we do our utmost to shape it to be less extractive, less destructive, more constructive, more regenerative, and it’s gonna have to be all hands on deck situation, or we are not gonna come out of it, right?

So we cannot see that space. And yet we should not just ignorantly embrace.

Embodiment in AI and machine learning

SHEFFIELD: Absolutely. [01:32:00] Yeah. And there’s a, there’s an interesting development though in the field of ai that the industry is realizing that embodiment matters. Like, that’s the other fascinating thing about all of this. So, yeah, and Laun, who is used to be the head of AI over at Meta, he quit the company because Mark Zuckerberg believes that intelligence is just disembodied abstraction.

And he said, no, that’s wrong. Intelligence comes from the body and ideas are grounded in experience. And so he quit and he just raised a billion dollars to start a company called a MI Labs headquartered in Paris. So, like, that’s a, it’s a positive development and it’s a, validation of the idea that embodiment matters because, if there is gonna be some sort of intelligent or [01:33:00] intentional computing, that is how it will happen.

It comes from the body because our minds. Or what our bodies do.

BIELSKYTE: I mean, what’s so interesting, right, is that LeCun used to get into these serious bat with. Spats with Gary Marcus saying that Gary Marcus was wrong and he was right, and ultimately what he’s doing now and, what he’s working towards and all sort of world model stuff and integration of neural networks and symbolic ai sort of rule-based systems.

Yet finding a way to still reserve, quote unquote, it’s not really creativity, but, ways to come up with novel solutions. So I mean, I, find it really interesting, right, when you’ve been long enough in the industry, how people oftentimes deny the fallibility of the approach as long as convenient to them and, then also dip out of it to do this other thing that [01:34:00] more critical voices have been pointing towards.

I mean, I’ve experienced so much of that myself. And again, being a woman, a very male dominated field, like every man and his brother and his dog, tries to sort of explain how they know better my new methodology to, to respond to that. I try not to engage in the argument. I say, okay, how much money are you willing to bet on it?

‘cause I’m willing to put a lot of money on this and. Really funny, especially when you throw like a pretty significant amount, all of a sudden they’re like, huh, I wouldn’t think that you would put so much on it. ‘Cause it’s not, we’re not betting out of a hundred dollars. Right? So it’s really interesting, right, how people kind of move, promote a very sort of fallible idea until it becomes too unconvenient.

And yet at the same time, when they move away from that erroneous idea, I think it’s important to allow for [01:35:00] some of these off ramps because if they just keep sticking to it because there’s nothing else, then that’s how we end up, right? with a black pill ideology and sort of black pill actions and sort of outright destruction.

So, and to be honest, again, I’m not in Mark Zuckerberg’s mind, but I, do have had friends that were on a science advisory board of Chan Zuckerberg Foundation and through that for a fact, I do know that he seems to understand the biological complex and biological reality of things.

He has engaged with enough top neuroscientists and top researchers in biomedical field, mostly I imagine through sort of, maybe Priscilla chance push. But. I

SHEFFIELD: So he should know better, but.

BIELSKYTE: I, think he does know better. I think it’s just what is convenient for the business right now. I would [01:36:00] argue that somebody like Elon Musk maybe does not know better because he’s really stuck in his sort of juvenile fantasy that, is, kind of at the root of, even like throwing it back to 1950 fours, Vernon Brown’s, Mars products where, you know,

SHEFFIELD: Or sees himself, like he’s very big on reality is a

BIELSKYTE: a

SHEFFIELD: Right. and like, that’s just garbage.

BIELSKYTE: the, real issue, right, is that it’s not that Elon thinks that reality is a simulation.

Everything is simulation. He believes all of us are a simulation. He’s the only one that is real, that is the greatest danger.

SHEFFIELD: that’s, that is the implication of that. Yeah.

Radical tenderness  and the beautiful possible

SHEFFIELD: You have this idea that you’ve talked about of radical tenderness. And I think that’s right because ultimately because of this despair, because of this tragic morality of, reaction is that is just so weighting down on everyone all the time, whether it’s in politics, [01:37:00] whether it’s in fiction, whether it’s in, whatever TV show you’re watching on YouTube. The idea of having tenderness and being against this irony poisoning. That’s something a lot of people want, even if they don’t realize it yet, but when they see it, they love it.

BIELSKYTE: A hundred percent. Again, when people ask me if, if I’m not hopeless about the future, how do I sustain my optimism? You know, I actually say I’m, not optimistic, I’m realistic, but every morning I wake up and I choose to live. So I have to, find reasons for it.

But I guess my biggest influence, especially over the last few years has been my best friend my late best friend or asja. She just passed away from cancer after five years [01:38:00] of going through multiple lines of treatment. She got diagnosed early stage. She got diagnosed, early in, in early stage in the pandemic, but with, stage four cancer.

Was given just a couple of months to live. And yet she, of course, she, how do you not get sent to despair? How do you, not completely collapse in a face of news like that? And yet she sought out other opinions and she sought out the best available treatment and she was an amazing person.

The entire life. We’ve been friends, for 26 years, and we have never had a fight, even if we had disagreements. But somehow I never, ever doubted that she loved me or that I loved her. And she wasn’t just like that with me. she was like that in her community. And so when this happened to her, [01:39:00] people really showed up.

And when she needed also to create boundaries so people show up in a way that she really needs, not just that they want because sometimes, you know, people project their fears and their desires again on the person that is potentially dying. She also created those boundaries. So it was an incredible journey, right, of, seeking out the best available science, really thinking what kind of brought her to that moment, addressing the, stress and maybe the sleeplessness and working too much.

And also looking through those deeper layers, right? of, of, trauma, of pain, of sort of emotional stuff. Because anytime you want to heal you, you have to think of all of that, right? You have to think of that very hard data. You have to think of sort of your kind of habits and lifestyles, et cetera, et cetera.

And you have to think of that less [01:40:00] graspable sort of spiritual, emotional narrative stuff. And so she did all of that. And one of the most vivid, one of the most memorable moments was when her and her, partner, husband bought a house in the countryside in Lithuania, and she was planting fruit trees, not just flowers or some salad or something that could be immediately harvested, but fruit trees, right.

Something for the future. Anybody observing that would have thought that, that’s crazy. Why would she ever bother to do that? Why actually would her partner decide to marry her halfway through the treatment? And yet she did. And yet he did. And yet we all did. And even after, with all of that, and even after she had this sort of amazing recovery, no cancer [01:41:00] detected just about a year ago in December, the cancer came back and it came back incredibly suddenly and all of us lost her.

And it feels so unjust and so violent and I mean, the earth kind of really. I was in Japan when I received that news and scrambled to try and get the flights. And by the time by the time I actually was looking to the flights, I wasn’t even able to reach her before the passing. You know, and it makes no sense, this level of injustice, this level of loss of somebody so luminous, so incredible, so inspiring.

feels like, I mean, truly you. If there was God then, really, uh, he or she, they do not exist. But I think of imprint, I think of how I would not exist without her. My work wouldn’t be like that. And there’s, and it’s not just me, it’s, I think tens if not hundreds of [01:42:00] people that were inspired by all that she was through her life and how all of us were changed for the better.

And I think one could only wish to have such an extraordinary impact with your life. And I think that’s kind of what making the future is. You know, none of us is here permanently, right? And sometimes it’s just us opening the door so that others could walk through them. Sometimes it’s, just a conversation that will open somebody’s imagination.

Sometimes it’s just a gesture that will make something seem more possible. Sometimes it’s just that spark of curiosity. And, as painful as, this moment and period of grief is I think of how much of a brighter future she created with her presence and just how much she fought. Through all of the side effects.

And if you know [01:43:00] anything about chemo and you know how dire those side effects can be, and yet how much she clung to life, how much she appreciated right before that, you know, she was somebody very healthy, very athletic. She was a mountaineer, she was going across these glaciers, et cetera, et cetera. And at some point, you know, she would still go to the mountains, but she was not able to do climbing or any of that kind of danceful stuff at most that she could do on some of the days is take the elevator and go for a walk.

And we had conversations about it and she said, you know, I was going from peak to peak and it was hard for me to notice really what is that experience of being on the mountain is when I was chasing those peaks, when I was chasing those achievements. And it’s only when I was not able of doing that anymore that I got to appreciate the shadows in a valley that I got to really breathe it in and really feel it.[01:44:00]

And unfortunately, I feel most of us realize just how much we have in terms of access, community privilege, possibility, grace from others. We only realize when it’s too late. And so we should do that before it’s too late. And we should kind of think of journeys like that and, and, live up. To the standard that the best of us sets for us and not, desperate.

That nothing is forever and not desperate, that we can’t hold on onto everything that we have right now and really think, well, what is beyond just peak to peak? What is beyond just those easy successes, where is that moment of joy? And again, I come back even to that example of the Olympics and Elisa Lu and the toxicity of athletics as we have known before, and how it [01:45:00] would break down people’s bodies, in pursuit of those gold medals.

Because that’s the only thing that would make athletes life valuable. And how this particular gold medalist really kind of divided everybody’s expectation by taking a break, taking her time away and coming back to that sport in such a way that she could do it with her whole self and find joy even in the falling, even in the difficulty, even when she was stepping on that largest stage in the world, that fundamentally it was about giving her all and getting opportunity of that stage and that performance.

And in a way, gold medal or not, that’s just the side effect. And I think as humanity, this is kind of what we need right now, a little bit, right? Just do the best that we can right now without being too [01:46:00] concerned if, any of this stuff is forever.

SHEFFIELD: then

that’s enough. Then that’s enough. Yeah. I mean it’s, ultimately. I’m, starting to come to the idea of saying, that the process is its own reward and, we should aspire to laugh easily, think clearly, and love freely.

BIELSKYTE: and recognize that we need each other.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

BIELSKYTE: Like as much as it’s so hard to show our vulnerability as much as so hard to extend ourselves and say that I need help, I need support. For me, that’s, been the biggest gift from being in disability community. Engaging with that conversation is really understanding that what’s really aspirational is not independence.

It’s interdependence. [01:47:00] It’s showing up for each other, not just how we want to show up, but how others need, and allowing ourselves to show others what we actually need. And it’s only together that will succeed in changing anything. There’s gonna be no magical savior that will step in and, change the day.

It’s gonna have to be us. And that will allow us to have those uncomfortable challenging conversations, not just because we have to, but because they are interesting, they’re valuable, and they will be the foundation of whatever new things that we’ll get to create together.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, exactly. Well, so for people who want to support or see what you are up to, Monika what’s your advice for them?

BIELSKYTE: My website is Monika Futures Design. Look me up there across all social [01:48:00] media and I’ve been working to develop Protopia Futures Design Framework, embodied Futures and Story World Design. I am really good at all intellectual and creative things, and very bad at all practical skills in life.

So I’m very, keen to team up, collaborate, support, and be supported in the, aspects that are more challenging for all of us. So reach out. And definitely, I’m always keen to hear people’s feedback and hear people’s insights because that’s the goal. Learning rather than being right.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Sounds good. All right, well, this has been a a great conversation and thank you for being here.

BIELSKYTE: Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure.

SHEFFIELD: All right, so that is the program for today. I appreciate you joining us for the conversation, and you can always get more if you go to Theory of Change show where we have the video, audio, and transcript of all the episodes. And if you’re a page subscribing number, you [01:49:00] have unlimited access to the archives.

And I thank you very much for your support. And if you’re watching on YouTube, make sure you click the like and subscribe button so you can get notified whenever we post something new. Thanks a lot, and I’ll see you next time.

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For decades, people have been telling Democrats that they need to do better in small cities and rural parts of America. And yet, while there are some uniquely successful candidates here and there, there’s no doubt that the party just keeps doing worse in these areas.

The Democratic consultant class keeps trying its familiar strategy of being Republican-lite in these right-leaning parts of the country, but it just isn’t working.

That’s the subject of a recent episode, but for today, we’re going to be talking about a different path, one that’s being boosted by James Talarico, the Democrat running for Senate in Texas this year against Republican Ted Cruz.

There’s no guarantee that Talarico will win such a heavily Republican state, but his approach of unapologetically speaking his liberal Christian values in detail and trying to build community through care is the right approach.

Alan Elrod, my guest on today’s program is fighting the same fight as Talarico. He’s the founder of the Pulaski Institution, a nonprofit based in Arkansas focused on democracy in heartland communities. He’s also a contributing editor at Liberal Currents.

The video of our conversation is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.

Related Content

• Why liberal Christians are standing up for all of their values

• How Confederate Christianity took over the Republican Party

• To understand the Christian right, learn the history of the Christian left

• Elite Republicans are creating a new ‘Satanic Panic’ rather than appeal to moderate voters

• Latino evangelicals are reshaping American politics, politicians and parties should take notice

• The doctrinal incoherence of today’s extremist Christianity is immense

• Right-wing evangelicals have turned politics into Bible fan-fiction

• Government subsidizing religion doesn’t make people like it more

Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

06:41 — The internet made it easier to hate strangers

13:25 — Religion and the right-wing political fusion

17:38 — Secular liberals’ allergic reaction to all faith discussions

22:15 — You don’t reach people without relationships

27:05 — Much of Christianity accepted modernity, and this is what upsets the Christian right

35:05 — How the Christian right built its own closed media ecosystem

42:54 — Right-wing elites do not actually care about people in small-town America, but they talk to them

46:54 — Right elites make many opportunities for their advocates, while left elites rarely help new voices get started

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: You are joining me from Arkansas today, where you are doing good work with your organization, the Pulaski Institution. So what is that?

ALAN ELROD: So the Pulaski Institution is a nonprofit where we’re focused on democracy, which is a lot of organizations, but our thing is really heartland areas, and the way we think about that is not just like the South or the Midwest, but really anywhere kind of away from the big centers of finance and politics like New York or LA.

So, upstate New York. Places like Buffalo, places like Eastern Oregon, the Inland Empire in California. These are all places we think of as heartland places. Because there are places where the kind of sense of dislocation and, angst towards maybe liberal democratic politics and status anxiety have all gotten heightened in our kind of cracking our commitments to sort of the norms of liberal democracy and we’re worried about that in the US as well as in places like Canada and France and Australia as well.

So that’s our idea. Pretty much everyone at the organization either grew up in a place like that or currently works [00:04:00] in a place like that. And so we like to try to bring people in that have a kind of real life foot rooted in these places and bring that perspective.

So. That’s the general focus we have. A lot of the work we do right now is sort of events oriented. Because we do a lot of things where we try to bring people together in a room and talk. But you know, if we get more money and have more funding, we’re gonna try to put out some research as well, kind of on the quality of democratic life in these places.

But that’s our idea. That’s kind of our premise. This, idea that place matters and that, it’s an important way to consider the dangers that are currently unfolding within liberal democracy right now. And yeah, I’m from Arkansas, so we are based out of right outside of Little Rock.

SHEFFIELD: Okay. Yeah. And definitely the case that a lot of the reason that people in the more rural or smaller cities of America, there are some viewpoints perhaps that are more common that or might be unsavory, but it’s also that people in the broader left kind of stopped talking to them. I’m thinking after people like Rah Emanuel in particular kind of dismantled the National party structure, and discouraged people from presenting candidates in elections and funding them. And I think people in lower populated areas of the country, the only Democrats that, or people, liberals, progressives that they ever saw were people on tv and they were hearing about them from Fox News.

So, of course their viewpoint of what somebody who is on the center to left. Of course they would think that they’re evil and demonic because Fox tells them to think that.

ELROD: Yeah, I mean the flip side of the wonders of modern technology of like television and social media and the internet, are that it’s actually [00:06:00] really easy to develop strong opinions about people who live thousands of miles away from you. Right? And people do that.

And so if you’re on the other end of that, right? If the idea is that people who are sort of liberal or disagree with the kind of politics that may. Be sort of dominant in the area of the country where I’m from. If you just avoid it, well then you are sort of leaving. The only thing to fill that gap are those impressions that are formed right through, through media.

And those are way easier to be negative, right? It’s much easier to hate someone in that kind of context than it is to hate somebody, on your front porch. it’s just I think, a truism of, human nature.

The internet made it easier to hate strangers

SHEFFIELD: it’s, yeah, the easier to be a, nasty troll on the internet when you don’t have to put your name onto your post. And for people that were present on the early days of the internet, it was a lot more civil place in large part because the idea of an anonymous email account almost didn’t exist. And it actually didn’t exist because, well, generally speaking, there were a handful of places that had it.

But like most people’s internet access. It was through, a job or it was through an educational institution or, something like that. Or they didn’t know how to change the default setting on their AOL account . it made it easier to, be civil because, people would know if you were a jerk.

ELROD: Yeah. And I think that’s just a real problem in our politics in general now is as, the way we interact with people increasingly becomes this like, very mediated thing through, it was through television, but now it’s really more through social media than anything. Right. As that happens more and more as we’re interacting less and less in person I think it’s, I think there’s very little question that’s also a real part of the core problem in our politics is like, yes, there are ideological problems at play. Yes, there’s extremism, but there’s also just the more generalized antisocial stuff that [00:08:00] comes with. If the bulk of your interactions with people who aren’t maybe like your spouse, right, are all online and all the impressions you’re getting are from TV and the internet.

Then, then even just like. Your, ability to like conceive of people who you don’t know as sort of like interesting full humans with thoughts and feelings who are also part of this country is just reduced. And I think it’s really bad for us.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, and it’s, and this isn’t even a political issue either, because this is an example of, something that, that I sometimes talk about on the show here. In philosophy, this is a lived version of the problem of other minds.

ELROD: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: We don’t have, we can’t know with any, with a hundred percent certitude that anyone else’s mind is real.

ELROD: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: And so, but it’s easier to, think that they’re real if you can see ‘em physically and be around them. Because the very least, you know that they exist. In one fashion or another.

Whereas, the stuff that people see in right wing media, which, absolutely does blanket-- and I think that’s something that people who are, or live in urban areas who have a, left-leaning politics, they don’t really appreciate that if you are outside of that urban area, you go to a bar, or you go to a coffee shop or something, big, chances are it’s gonna be Fox on the tv or it’s gonna be Newsmax or one of these other, or you’re sitting there waiting for your car, the mechanic, and it’s gonna have Sean Hannity on the radio background. Because they don’t, they’re tired of listening to the same old music on the local radio stations, or they don’t want to pay for Spotify or whatever it is, They, want something more interesting. And so yeah, like this, [00:10:00] it’s just this constant sort of subtle brainwashing of people in large measure because the left didn’t bother to create popular media or they weren’t interested.

ELROD: Yeah. Well I don’t want to get ahead of you, but this is one of the things, right, when I was writing last week at Liberal Current about James Talarico, that I find so interesting and like both exciting and kind of provocative about him as a candidate is, someone in our politics who is just really interested in like the other person as a full person.

Right, because even on you, you mentioned it’s not entirely ideological. Even I think on, the more left side of our politics, there is a tendency for us to just not talk about the people who disagree with us, the kind of broad mass of people we conceive of as sort of our opponents to not talk about them as full people.

And I think, the moment we’re kind of in right now, if, we don’t get better at that, that, that kind of muscle of genuinely thinking about other people, who aren’t like us or who don’t live where we live or just who don’t vote like us as full humans we are going to have a really hard time pulling out of the tailspin we’re in.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, that’s right. Talarico is very good at that. And, one of the other things that I think he does bring also to that is necessary to the American left is that, so I’m not religious myself, i, I don’t have any particular belief. But I got over the kind of immature atheism, which is, this idea that oh, well if we just get rid of all religion, then humanity will be perfect and everything will be, hunky dory forever. And that’s, I eventually realized that’s not true because you can be extremist atheist, a political extremist atheist. You can be an authoritarian agnostic.

Your [00:12:00] personal stance on why does the universe exist, actually has no necessary bearing on whether you’re a sociopath. And Talarico is really good at, I think, reminding people on the left who are non-religious to be like, look, there’s this huge, massive tradition out, out here of liberal Christianity.

And you should not hate it. And in fact you should like it because a lot of people in your country are not interested in being irreligious, and they never will be.

ELROD: Yeah, the tendency to be dogmatic is there, regardless, right, of whether we’re religious or not. The tendency for wanting kind of easy moral answers and to villainize people who don’t agree with us, that’s all there. it doesn’t really require religious in the sense of like, a kind of belief, a specific belief in like the order of the cosmos or, the ontology of existence.

It just has to do with like human nature. And, people can be quite dogmatic and extremist. And sort of hateful kind of regardless, right? And so religion has been a major vehicle for that because it’s been a key sort of organizing idea of human society. But politics is just as good a, replacement for that.

SHEFFIELD: well, and,

Religion and the right-wing political fusion

SHEFFIELD: But they’re also operating kind of in separate realms, at least from a functional standpoint. So that-- politics is primarily, well, what do we owe each other? Like, and, religion is about that also, but it is also about other broader topics that are not about, are not relevant to politics.

And the right wing in the US did figure that out. During, during the Cold War. That they developed what they call fusionism, this concept of that, that brought together the atheist Ayn Rand acolytes onto the same [00:14:00] team of, the fundamentalist Baptists and the, national security. Obsessives like Lindsey Graham types who are not really either don’t care much about religion one way or the other.

And then basically they said, look, we have a common enemy here. It’s modernity. We need to get rid of it. We need to, give money to rich people. And how can we do that? Like, that’s the one thing we agree on. Let’s go for it.

It’s been a continuously successful fu sion for them. and to this day, it works very well.

They kind of have to shuffle things around the margins a little bit here and there. But overwhelmingly this has been very positive for them. Very bad for America though. And nothing like that really has kind of happened on the left in the US in my view.

ELROD: Yeah, no, I there was a, it was, I grew up in a in the Churches of Christ in a evangelical denomination. Went to a college that was affiliated and my college years kind of overlapped really with the kind of the beginning of the Obama era, so like late aughts into the early 2010s. And that was pretty much what you’re describing was, that was the, sort of accept wisdom of most kind of American conservative Christianity at that point, right?

It was like a blend of sort of. Ayn Rand ish attitudes right on, on economics that were business professors even taught, Ayn Rand in the college. And then a very like, moral majority attitude on social issues. And the idea at that point, like I was a, devout member of my denomination arguing for these more sort of social welfare style politics that I think are very similar, right? To like what you see right now with Talarico.

And it was a, weird time because, on my campus it made me a radical leftist, but for any sort of regular left wing person that I might have interacted with, that would not have been the case, right?

They would’ve perceived me as quite conservative because I insisted on [00:16:00] talking about God and Jesus, and these things as, reasons that I cared about these issues. So I do think that’s an interesting, it’s a tension that really exists, right?

So the right had the right created this, like you said, this sort of fusion between these camps and you had this really sense-- they had a strong sense of identity for, conservative Christians for a long time. And then kind of not really a, strong place, right? The Democrats would talk about God and it was sort of a, I think a box ticking thing for a lot of them. I don’t want to say that there wasn’t devotion because there were very devout Christians on the Democratic side.

But, just by being, by the time we got to, when I was in college, just by being a Christian, I was, I think not really gonna be seen by anybody outside the world of my, like college and church as progressive, but because I didn’t accept right. The kind of compromise with right wing economics and, sort of the Dobson movement of family values, in politics, I was absolutely not accepted. At, on my campus I was seen as like heterodox and radical. So it’s an interesting thing. And I think it’s an opening that still really exists. I myself have much more complicated ideas about faith and identity now than I did then. But, I think the, that window, I think the, even some of the energy around tall Rico speaks to the fact that there’s still ultimately a pretty big deficit of people who are willing to talk this way on the sort of progressive side of things.

Secular liberals’ allergic reaction to all faith discussions

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. it’s a real failure of leadership. I think it, it, a lot of it just simply is that for many of the elites, religion is just this irrational, stupid thing.

And so they’re like, well, I don’t understand it. I don’t want to hear about it. I’m not gonna judge you for it. I just. I don’t want to [00:18:00] even think about it, so don’t, talk to me about it. Please.

Or, and then there might be, there are some people, who kind of, because of the way that a lot of Christians can be pushy and bullying with their proselytizing, there’s some people who have a, an allergic reaction because of negative conduct that they experienced.

As well, like, I, want to be fair to say that because there is no question that, a lot of Christians bully people and, gaslight them and lie to them in order to get, them to convert. Like that’s a real thing.

ELROD: Yeah. I think there’s an understandable trepidation that comes when people start talking about their faith that they’re gonna try to convert.

I’ll say this, I, if someone tries to convert you, it depends on how they do it. It, doesn’t have to be an insult, right? Sometimes it can genuinely be just a, an affectionate thing and you can, say, no, it’s not for me.

You can, but I understand the experiences that people may have had. Right? Maybe they’re former evangelicals or, from other churches. Maybe they have that X right attached to them that it is like, they’re working through their own really bad experiences growing up in a churched community, in a church life, or they’re just don’t want to be, evangelized to, and they’re tired of it, which is also fair.

But at the same time, it’s important to speak to people on a sort of values and identity level. And there are a lot of people for whom being able to talk fluently and fluidly. About Christ in the Bible is actually pretty important for reaching them. You’re not gonna reach them if you can’t talk about this stuff.

Like it is something that you have a legitimate handle on and that you’re not faking.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, yeah, I think that’s true. and one thing that also I, have to say in favor of Talarico is that while he does understand that point, he also does make a point regularly to tell the [00:20:00] Christian supporters of his that look, you don’t have to be a Christian to be a good person. You can have good values from, for a variety of different reasons and from a variety of different traditions or no religious tradition at all. What matters is, what we own each other, not how we get to that point.

ELROD: Yeah, and I, I don’t want to wander too far afield, maybe from, where you want to go in the conversation. But, the evangelical world I grew up in, one of the biggest takeaways I still have in my politics is actually the understanding, and this came from people who, whose mindset was that they were trying to convert people, but the understanding that you don’t actually reach people without having a relationship with them.

And I think that is something that can be sort of universally and generally true. Even outside of a religious context, when I tell people to, when they’re talking about politics, I encourage people, I say, and when they, I’ve gone to events where people have asked me like, what do I do about my, like, super MAGA relatives?

Like, should I cut them off? And my answer is no, because you will not. There’s, no one you will reach in this world when it comes to trying to persuade them to see things the way you do. Right. Or to change their mind about something. There is no one you’re gonna reach in that way who is not someone that you, don’t have some form of foundational relationship with to begin with.

You don’t actually reach strangers. That’s not how human relationships work. You reach people that have a reason to trust you and open up to you and have the conversation to actually produce genuine change. Right? And so that is something that. My evangelical background has taught me and, has stayed with me is that, generally speaking, those little things that you do to build a relationship and cultivate a relationship, those little acts of like service and being willing to sort of stay in someone’s life [00:22:00] and stay connected to them and know what’s going on in their life, those are actually the things that make it possible.

For you to still have like meaningful communication that might even change their mind about something. Without those things, that’s, it’s just not gonna happen.

You don’t reach people without relationships

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And it’s to borrow the, biblical phrase by their fruits, you shall know them is basically what you’re talking about there. and, but, again, to circle back on the philosophy, this is also the, people can see your mind and they, can see your concerns and your beliefs that there are valid in some sense, even if they, don’t necessarily agree with them. They know that, you’re, not trying to hurt them, you’re not arming them. You often help them. So like, if there’s anyone who could see your mind as real, or your beliefs as valid or your fruits as good, it would be those people, as you’re saying.

ELROD: Yeah. And I think the trick is not to be dishonest. Don’t lie to them about what you think. Right? You can be very, I think, honest and open about the stuff that you think is bad about even the stuff you think is immoral and reprehensible. Like I’ll never pretend with someone about how I feel about Donald Trump, right?

And so those people. Don’t have to, they don’t think I’m lying to them. I’m not pretending that we agree in order to be friends with them. Right. I am maintaining a relationship while also being honest and, that also helps. Right. That’s also an essential part of it. And I think that actually again, comes back to the kind of even juggle thing of like, don’t hide who you are.

Right. Don’t pretend, don’t hide your sort of beliefs. But at the same time, don’t turn them into a wall between you and the other person.

SHEFFIELD: This is really why I, why the Christian w right hates James Talarico so much, because that is kind of, it does seem to be the underlying approach to his politics. And then [00:24:00] also the, so they hate him for that. Because he’s practicing their, ministry perspective better than they do.

And also he’s, he is reminding people that this kind of Confederate Christianity, which is what I call it, that has taken control of the Republican party, that this Confederate Christianity viewpoint has up until only, just now when they’ve kind of colonized and eaten away out a lot of the Protestant denominations like, historically speaking, they’re anti, anti social welfare, anti. dehumanizing rhetoric supporting racism and, hatred for sex workers or other marginalized groups like that.

This is not what Christianity tells them to do. and it isn’t about reading the Bible a certain way or whatever. It’s like the lived practice of Christianity throughout the world does not support the social policies and the exclusionary and hateful, bigoted way that they conduct themselves, and they know that I think.

ELROD: Yeah. What Tallarigo understands is I think, a very powerful truth that is not even limited right to, Christians, but to people of faith and of frankly, of sort of visionary liberation politics over a millennia, which is that living out your values and understanding that the stories we tell about.

The human experience are incredibly powerful things, and that actually you can break through a lot of walls and you can reach a lot of people with those two things, with the, with, living out your actual values, right? With bearing the sort of, like you said, bearing the fruit of your actual beliefs and understanding [00:26:00] the, power of the human experience as a story, right? Understanding that’s a, that’s an incredibly powerful story for people if you focus in on right, the things that actually bring us together, the things that lift us up and, that. That’s something that some of the most effective and meaningful faith leaders have understood is something that some of the most effective and meaningful organizers in human history have understood.

Right. And politicians and tele Rico seems to really grasp that. And of course they hate it because that’s scary. because because it’s effective and it works and it breaks through with people who might otherwise never listen. And it breaks through with people who aren’t supposed to, like someone like James Teleco.

Right. I, it doesn’t, like, I’m not gonna sit here and predict that James Teleco will flip Texas. That’s bold. But it doesn’t shock me that he’s breaking through in polls in ways that we haven’t seen someone do, because he is compelling and it is compelling to see someone be authentic and to have someone see people for, people, and to understand that the human story is a powerful thing and, to deploy it that way.

Much of Christianity accepted modernity, and this is what upsets the Christian right

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. I do want to be fair to people who might have a more negative viewpoint about. Christianity in general that, like it is true. Absolutely. That I guess, maybe what I’m saying, that historic beliefs, we’re talking like. Post liberalism of, christianity, like christianity did have to reconcile itself with liberalism.

And, but that took place quite a while ago to be fair to Christians. And, and, that’s also, this is a dynamic that’s also not just in. Protestantism, but it’s also in Catholicism as well. The, Pope of As, people probably know that, is, often critical of Donald Trump’s policies and locking people up and trying to, impoverish people and give welfare to billionaires, that these are, this is all con consistent through line of Catholic social teaching [00:28:00] and, people like JD Vance.

They know that and it also upsets them as well.

Even like Joe Biden, whatever he is somebody who is a, devout Catholic. And yet the way that he was, he was somebody who kind of didn’t put it forward as much. And so I think a lot of christians had no idea.

That this was a guy who, tried to go to church services every single week. And he was up against a guy who said that he, had never asked for forgiveness for his sins and who had sex with a porn star while his wife was pregnant or had just given birth. And, it, the only Bible verse he can think of is from two Corinthians.

ELROD: Look, I mean, I don’t always get a chance to plug this, but you know, for many reasons my favorite president is Jimmy Carter. And not least is because he was a gen. I don’t think we’ve had that many presidents that you could call sort of moral philosophers. We’ve had some, but Carter’s certainly one of them.

I think he genuinely thought hard and often right about the sort of moral stakes of life and, what we’re asked what’s asked of us right. By being here. And it’s because he was someone who thought about it all the time. His life revolved around these questions.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

Well, and, it is why he lost his reelection, but also why? He, was the most beloved ex-president in the modern era as well, because, he, just, and it’s, and it is tragic because he didn’t, his sincerity is actually what did him in as a president, like that, and that sucks. That sucks massively.

ELROD: I always really chafe at criticism of like the malaise speech. Right. I understand the sort of political misstep of that moment. But, I think a president that’s willing to look the American people in the [00:30:00] eye and say, Hey, ha have, we’re actually like, we’re, giving into a lot of the worst aspects of our nature right now and we really need to get it together.

Like, very few presidents have had the, I think the political courage to,

SHEFFIELD: And I’m not, and I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that, everything’s perfect right now. Like that was the other thing.

ELROD: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: And then of course, you had the, Reagan people secretly working with Iran to not release the hostages. That, perhaps that impacted things for him as well.

Gotta say that. And here we are again with Iran and, Republicans act actually now Trump is subsidizing the Iranians, because he, removed the sanctions on their oil.

ELROD: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: So he is bombing them and giving them money at the same time.

ELROD: If we ever needed proof that, there’s no actual sort of like moral center to this war, it’s the idea that we’re simultaneously bombing them, including sort of, I guess, sort of outsourcing bombing decisions to potentially like AI bots. And then we’re lifting sanctions at the same time. So, if we ever needed proof that, there’s no clear kind of like.

Purpose to this conflict other than, Trump would really like to blow up some people in the Middle East. There, it’s.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And get people not to think about Jeffrey Epstein. So, but we, we, won’t forget that. Yeah. So, you mentioned your, own background in let’s circle back to that though, because, there, after World War II. World War II was a really unique, un unfortunately unique moment in American history because this was, authoritarianism and oligarchy dictatorship, whatever label you want to put on it, it only can win in a democratic system when conservatives feel so scared of social change that they [00:32:00] ally themselves with authoritarians.

And after World War ii, that generation, they had personally learned what happens when you do that if you’re a conservative. And so the conservatives of that era, like Dwight Eisenhower or like Earl Warren, they had learned that lesson that, having a society that supports its own and, spins on its people’s future and invest in the public, that’s a good society.

And that also filtered into American Protestantism as well. Like the, a lot of the biggest institutions, world institution builders, the UN and a lot of other international agencies were built. By liberal Protestants who believed that they were serving God by doing this, and that they were, helping to prepare the earth for Jesus in one way or another, or just making it better because they had that obligation to serve the and the downtrodden.

ELROD: Yeah. I mean, you I think it’s, so important for people to understand this is, and I actually kind of want to, I would honestly even expand what you’re saying and use it as a way to, to talk about American history. At an even wider lens, which is, it’s really important, I think, to push back on this narrative that Christianity can only be, or, has only ever been right.

This kind of conservatizing or even reactionary force in American politics because liberal Christians and progressive Christians have played a crucial role at multiple moments in our history. Right. What you’re describing right there is absolutely true. It’s also, true, you go back to the middle of the 19th century progressive Christians.

Are at the center of the abolition movement, right? Progressive Christians are at the center of the fight to preserve the union. They’re at the center of pushing Lincoln to do emancipation, [00:34:00] right? It, they’re also at the center of, right, the later, reforms that come to protect workers to get rid of, child laborers, right at the end of the 19th century and the turn of the 20th.

I think we do both ourselves and our country and Christianity itself, our politics a, big disservice, right? When we tell a story that doesn’t include the progressive and incredibly important reformist side of Christianity in our politics and how often, really. Catholic and Protestant, really public minded Christians have been crucial to building important institutions to making big change.

Right. It’s also been like we have acknowledged already in this conversation, right? There’s reactionary stuff, right? But, that role, at certain key moments in American history of Christians building liberal. Small L liberal institutions and fighting for, human and civil rights. That’s a really important part of our history that we should emphasize.

How the Christian right built its own closed media ecosystem

SHEFFIELD: And it was such a, powerful and admired tradition that the reactionary Southern Protestants, they realized that they were going to, that they had a policy before of well this is a fallen world. We’re not gonna participate, quoting Jesus, my kingdom is not of this world.

We’re just gonna focus on, taking care of our own and, spreading the gospel in foreign lands. And eventually as so, you had a Brown versus board of education come down, which of course these guys were very much in favor of segregation and they began realizing that liberal Christians are doing so many big things, we have to start mobilizing against them.

And we, have to focus our [00:36:00] evangelism inside of America. And so they began, creating just a ton of organizations, like the Fellowship of Christian athletes and lots of different college ministry focusing on stealing the members of other churches. Like that’s, that was the goal.

Taking people away from mainline Protestantism, taking them away from Catholicism, taking them away from, more progressive or, apolitical evangelical congregations, and setting up publishing houses and setting up, just, I mean they, what they did from an institutional standpoint was incredible. And investing just tight, massive amounts of money in, radio and television.

And because they realize if we don’t advocate for our belief of Christianity. There will be no Christians who agree with us and our viewpoints will be extirpated from politics and from religion. And we cannot allow that to happen. So we will spend all that we can to spread our version of events and our theology and our politics.

And you know what? It’s been incredibly successful. They have basically colonized, the minds of, so many American Christians now. Like, and you see it in the polling, like, and, even colonized Republican minds, like people, Republicans who were not Christian at all.

Like it’s just incredible. And, even beyond, just like the theo the theology or the political viewpoints. Like, like I, I remember, Sean Hannity one time on his radio show, he had said, I’m a guy from Long Island. I didn’t grow up with country music. I hated it. But you know what? These guys have good values, so I think I’m gonna like country music now.

He literally said that. And, you’re seeing that [00:38:00] with Trump also, like people are are identifying as evangelicals. Who never go to church, know nothing about evangelical theology, but they know that other Republicans, a lot of Republicans are evangelicals, so that’s what they’re gonna be too.

ELROD: Yeah, and I mean, that’s a whole other conversation as a southerner who loves a lot of folk and, country, like, sorry, there’s a whole strong tradition in those music genres as well of, anti-establishment and progressive and, provocative. Art, right? No, but I think, I, growing up evangelical, I was someone whose household, like, I got to experience everything.

I had various sort of like open-minded parents and there was a lot of like, I watched like normal media. But, you were saying like the success on the Christian ride of building this kind of world is, it was so, complete, right? That. I mean, there really was, it really was possible.

And I knew people who were like this to, basically live your life in a kind of completely closed ecosystem of Christian media, books, radio, television, everything. Right? I mean, you really could,

SHEFFIELD: From preschool. Eight.

ELROD: From preschool on there was a way you could do it or you basically did not interact with mainstream media or me, or, thought really at all.

And that is. that’s something that’s hard to pull off, but they did. I mean, I would say now with social media, honestly, I think that’s why you actually see a lot of people in my generation who be kind of did a lot of deconstructing and, leaving evangelicalism in their twenties and, thirties is because suddenly that bubble was a lot harder to maintain.

Right. It’s be, it has become harder to maintain. because there’s just so much media now that it’s just really difficult for them to like completely clo seal, seal it off. Right. But I mean, yeah, no, I knew a lot of people who basically went [00:40:00] from like, birth to college and, the only things that they consumed were in that kind of completely closed world.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s, and, that’s terrible. But from a marketing standpoint, God, like that’s a, that is a marketing agency’s dream.

ELROD: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: and a political consultant’s dream. I mean, like, that’s the other thing is that, and this was a population that was, really. Mobilized by the republican party, like they, and they understood also the, other thing that that we kind of touched on at the beginning, which is that a lot of people who don’t live in urban areas or, the ELA corridor as it’s often called of Boston to, to dc it’s a fact that the political class doesn’t care about how things are in flyover country as they often derisively refer to it.

ELROD: I think doesn’t care is like almost too generous. And what I mean by that is doesn’t care implies that they think about it and choose not to care. I don’t even know that it enters their minds.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. and it’s, and the other thing is, like me as a Californian, like the only time you ever see California talked about in the national press is if we have a forest fire or an earthquake and, that’s it. Or like some big election.

ELROD: Right.

SHEFFIELD: California does not matter to the Sunday morning news shows or cable news.

They don’t talk about it. and actually, and I, sorry, I have to amend it like the, Fox talks about us a lot actually. Like they lie about us.

Because my Mormon relatives who live in Utah, like they used to go to California all the time when I was, a kid and a teenager.

But now they think that everyone who lives in California, is a drug addict homeless person. And [00:42:00] so, and like they’re worried to come and visit me, because they think they’ll be killed by, some sort of a imaginary, homeless Black Lives Matter trans person.

ELROD: Yeah, well one, and then also like, even that is like, it’s a caricature, right? Because it’s like one, it’s a caricature of the California cities. It’s also a caricature of California. It’s like when my, when I know people around here in the south will talk about California, I’m like. You realize a lot of California is just farms and like rural and like people who are like, it looks, it’s not that different from here, right?

Like the, there’s a whole bunch of California that is,

SHEFFIELD: That’s most of the state.

ELROD: Yeah. It’s, it’s like, it’s not like, it’s just like, I mean, Los Angeles, I’m not like, I have nothing against Los Angeles, but it’s also just like, it’s not true that California is just like one big LA and so yeah, there, there’s a real just misunderstanding of so many of these places.

Right-wing elites do not actually care about people in small-town America, but they talk to them

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. But the other thing also though is that besides not being interested in anything that happens in most of the country. And, this is, I, do plant this firmly on, the Democratic party elites and the, the media elites. Like, they don’t care. But, also they don’t want to, they’re not interested really in they, in telling the stories or listening to them, or even listening to anyone who wants to tell them.

It was interesting to me that, so many self-described liberals were elevating Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance. Like anybody who had actually read that book, if you looked at the book, you could see that this guy was an asshole who hated the people that he grew up with.

Who hated his, town, who hated the people that he lived with and hated rural America, thought they were a bunch of drug addicted losers in Kentucky.

Like that’s what the point in that book was. Those people are dumb ass fucks. And I got out [00:44:00] because I am so great. That’s that what that book is.

ELROD: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of hunger for that too. Unfortunately. Unfortunately, if we’re gonna talk about the sort of more like center, left side of things, there’s a lot of hunger in those places for people who will come there and tell you, you’re right, everyone there sucks. And what I’ll usually be like, I’m like, well, I mean, look, the politics around here are a lot of, it’s bad.

I’m not gonna forgive that or present or pretend that we don’t have a serious crisis. There’s democratic deficits in the south. Right, and they’re long running. They go all the way back to the Civil War and before, right? There are serious, social, systemic political issues in this part of the country, but there is a certain type of person, and it is in more like liberal media that just wants you to basically go and confirm all their prejudices and say, yeah, everybody’s there is an inbred hillbilly, and they’re dumb, and they’re all on drugs because they’re dumb.

And, that’s just a, that’s just a completely disingenuous, ridiculous portrait of the country Also. it’s a pretty ridiculous, it’s a pretty gross thing. to believe about any portion of American life if you are actually someone who purports to be a liberal, because in theory you don’t think that any sector of American life deserves to just be sort of abandoned to like a sort of dilapidated and, wanting existence.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, to be fair to Joe Biden, it is, and the Democratic leaders, went during the Biden presidency, they did make sure that a lot of the, infrastructure money and other spending that were passed did actually, most of that money went to Republican do dominated districts, house districts.

And so, but where they failed was they didn’t tell people,

ELROD: Absolutely.

SHEFFIELD: Who did this for you. I mean, And it’s such a contrast because Trump, he put his name on the COVID checks that Democrats made him pass.

ELROD: A lot of Republicans just lied, right? They took the money and they spent [00:46:00] the money, but then they turned around and said that Biden ruined everything, right? And so. And I’m not gonna pretend, like I’ve said before in other conversations, that like, I don’t believe economic anxiety is the reason why, we got Trump.

I tend to think it’s status anxiety, which is a much more complicated thing that often has to do with identity and wanting to see your group on top.

But it is just true that these media caricatures are not effective ways to have this conversation.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, also, it’s also fair to say that the media, does enable the Republican security, the blue states as well, like.

ELROD: Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely

SHEFFIELD: You don’t see the new, the, national press going on into urban diners and talking to Hillary Clinton voters. So tell me, do you still like Hillary?

Tell me, do you still like Kamala Harris? Like.

ELROD: right.

SHEFFIELD: They don’t, do that.

Right elites make many opportunities for their advocates, while left elites rarely help new voices get started

SHEFFIELD: There is a certain pathology to the way that liberalism conducts itself, I think that they don’t take care of their own. They don’t want to take care of their own.

they have an, a lot of the elites have kind of an abstract sense of, a duty to society, which is good. Like we want that right.

But in terms of helping the actual people who exist and the people who you can see, and the people whose money you can, can help your money, can help.

they’re not good at it. And, and it’s a huge contrast. And, I have personal, direct experience with this that, you know, like when I was, in college I, started a anonymous website with my brother called Rather bias.com, attacking Dan Rather. And the second day that we went live with it, rush Limbaugh quoted it on the air, and he told people, visit this website, it’s great.

We were anonymous. No one, he had no idea who we were, but he knew that we were doing something that agreed with him. And so he wanted to people to see it and he wanted to help [00:48:00] us out and build our audience and. Then, within, I think, at least two months, maybe, one month.

I forget it, it’s a while ago, but, bill O’Reilly invited me onto the O’Reilly Factor. Like, this is the kind of outreach that they love to do.

And by contrast, you turn on to MS NOW, or any of the biggest liberal podcasts and you, they just have a rotating cast of the same people. You already heard them say this thing, yesterday and they say this thing they said yesterday.

and it’s like, yes, we don’t have the oligarchs handing out wing net welfare, but the people who are the media big wigs on the right, they help people build an audience. And it isn’t even just in media too. Like he, like Charlie Kirk’s group, Charlie Kirk was literally a, college dropout who was 19 years old.

They threw tens of millions of dollars at him, and he had not proven anything. He had no brand. He had never done a damn thing in his life. But they knew this guy was smart and he worked hard, and that was enough. And that was enough to help him out.

And then, he took that money and started chapters and put programs and events and, books and, newspapers.

Like every campus in America has a right wing student newspaper.

ELROD: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Because they value, and it is that evangelical mentality. They, do it in every single place they do. And then like, and then outside of media, it’s also, when you look at Hispanic Protestants, this is a group that is majority evangelical now.

And it is majority, it’s majority voting Republican because people who are recent immigrants through the United States, they don’t have a network. They don’t have friends, they don’t have family.

But there is a church that is out there that [00:50:00] says, here’s some money and here’s a community. We’re going to, we’re gonna brainwash you

ELROD: Yeah, I think the kind of my sort of like condensed interpretation of that is just that I have a more, as we need a more, as more mentality, right? Like there, it’s, there’s not. A, in a, finite pie or anything like that. Like, more is more, the more voices we can bring out, the more people we can promote, the more we can con, the more we can cultivate the kind of politics we want to see and the conversations we want to be having.

I think it’s just important for us to have that attitude. And I think in terms of getting outta the moment we’re in, we’re gonna have to have that attitude, right? It’s gonna take a lot of people. And I, so I think it’s sort of more, is more view of things is, sort of the way to do it.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. To, have a, an idea that a rising tide lifts all boats. That it’s, and that the, people on the left rightfully believe in the fiscal multiplier, but there is also a personal multiplier. That when you help others build you political beliefs, you win. Like, that’s how you, that’s how you promote your beliefs is that you help people who believe them you.

That’s really what it comes down to. And it is something that besides just kind of the evangelical urge there is, there are, there is a real economic value that a lot of these right-wing churches are providing to their members.

And, we can rightfully criticize their hateful beliefs and bigotries and terrible voting patterns and whatnot, but. when I was a a, Mormon, they have a, massive food distribution center that any Mormon can go to. If you don’t have a job and you need food, they’ll give it to you and and they’ll make you work in the warehouse to pay it back.

But they don’t tell [00:52:00] you, you, no, we’re not gonna help you out. And, and all of these, and, it’s, and I think a lot of, the right-wing religions are doing that.

And that’s something that is missing for, for the secular left. The government can’t step in, in every single way at least because of how Republicans have cut government to the bone in this country.

Like, we need universal basic income and but we don’t have it. And so, but there also has to be a place where people can learn about positive values.

Right now, I don’t see anything besides liberal religious denominations that is really doing that at all, anywhere.

ELROD: Yeah. I think when we talk about why it is hard for people to leave sort of their communities on the right. This is a big part of it, right? There’s genuine support networks and relationships and, things that make it hard to walk away or scary, right? Even if they want to walk away, sometimes they make it maybe hard to want to walk away in the first place.

And even if you do want to walk away, they make it frightening. So I think we do have to have an understanding of that, and that the only, the kind of broader approach that’s very compassionate and generous, and again, that sort of mores more mentality, I think is essential to, breaking through with people.

Giving them a path out that feels valuable.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, and, making sure that people are included in America that that the idea that that we are America, not just us, here in this conversation or here on the political left, but everybody. We’re in this together whether we like it or not.

There’s that famous line from the poet WH Auden, and it was LBJ, who put it in his ad, the, famous Daisy ad that we must love each other or we must die.

And Donald Trump and Peter Thiel and all these other right-wing fanatics, they do want us to die.

And [00:54:00] so we can only defeat that hatred with actual love.

ELROD: I mean, I can’t top Auden. I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m, I can’t be, I can’t top W.H. Auden.

SHEFFIELD: Well, all right. Well then how about you, you tell people how to stay in touch with what you’re doing Alan?

ELROD: You can always go to my organization’s website, pulaskiinstitution.org. You can follow me anywhere you want. I’m probably the most active on Bluesky. I’m on LinkedIn and other places as well where I’m posting a lot about the stuff we’re doing.

The next big thing we’re doing is a conference in Charlottesville, Virginia called for Good, which is focused around a lot of things we talked about just now, right? These, this idea of like how liberalism can really engage big questions of sort of ethics and virtue and that is free. You have to register, but it is free.

So come if you want to that and that’s in May. And if you are. Can’t make that, but want to try to stay in touch with us for future things. Like I said, follow me there or go to the website.

SHEFFIELD: All right, sounds good. So a good conversation.

ELROD: Thank you so much.

SHEFFIELD: Alright, so that is the program for today. I appreciate you joining us for the conversation, and you can always get more if you go to Theory of Change show where we have the video, audio, and transcript of all the episodes.

And if you are a paid subscribing member, you have unlimited access to the archives. But we do have free subscriptions as well if you can’t afford that. But if you can’t afford to subscribe right now for whatever reason. If you can help me out still by leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify, that would be much, much appreciated.

And if you’re watching on YouTube, don’t forget to click the old like and subscribe button so you can get notified whenever there’s a new episode. Thanks a lot. I’ll see you next time. [00:56:00]

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Eddie Dalton’s raspy and melodious voice carries through the air, telling tales of a lifetime spent in the school of hard knocks, as the blues band backing him weaves soul into every rubato-inflected syncopation and chord progression.

“We’re just passing through time, like the wind through the pines, just small little pieces in a bigger design,” he croons in his hit, “Another Day Old,” sounding like a reincarnated Muddy Waters.

The fans are impressed:

“This song is part of my testimony,” the top-rated YouTube comment on the video reads. “This song has touched the depth of my soul,” reads another.

Despite the rave reviews though, neither Eddie Dalton nor his band are real. They’re AI-generated fabrications released onto the internet by someone going by the name Dallas Ray Little, according to Showbiz411. Is that a real name? Your guess is as good as mine.

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Whoever is behind the scenes at “Crusty Records,” they have found a formula for success. Eddie Dalton’s classic-sounding blues is racking up the sales and the downloads, with several cracking the top 5 on Apple Music and being viewed millions of times on YouTube.

Computer-generated soul music is not just real, it’s becoming a phenomenon.

The Dalton persona is just the latest AI-generated artist to gain millions of fans, a trend that has not yet attracted much attention from the mainstream media. Last year, a fabricated country singer named “Breaking Rust” had a number-one hit on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart. In September, the music company Hallwood Media awarded a $3 million contract to Mississippi poet and designer Telisha Jones after her virtual singer, Xania Monet, had a number-one hit on Billboard’s R&B digital downloads. “How Was I Supposed to Know” was released 7 months ago and already has 9.6 million views on YouTube.

There’s more than a little irony to that song title. AI-generated music has become so good now that it is essentially impossible to discern a human-made tune from one made by a computer. In a study commissioned last year by the music service Deezer with 9,000 people in 8 countries, 97 percent of respondents were unable to tell if provided songs were done by humans or AI.

Do people really want to know if a song they’re being presented wasn’t performed by people? In the Deezer survey, 80 percent of respondents said they wanted AI-generated music to be labeled as such.

Still, knowing that a song was computer-made doesn’t seem to mean that people would avoid it. The poll found that 66 percent said they would listen to an AI song at least once; only 45 percent of respondents said they wanted an option to filter out all AI-made music.

As of this writing, Deezer is the only music streaming service that requires uploaders to tag AI-generated content as such. No such rules are in place on the other major services like Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube. According to Deezer, 34 percent of all songs it receives daily are entirely AI-generated.

We don’t know the technical backstory behind Breaking Rust or Eddie Dalton, but Jones has said that she uses an AI music generating software called Suno to set her own lyrics to music.

“She’s been writing poetry for a long time,” Jones’s manager Romel Murphy told Billboard, arguing that words sung by the Xania Monet character are what draws people in. “It’s just the lyrics, and they are pure.”

Whether that’s true or not, the music industry as a whole has not taken kindly to Suno and rival service Udio. In June of 2024, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed a lawsuit against the companies that was joined by numerous studios and musician groups.

“These corporations steal our work to create sound-alikes, effectively forcing us into a ‘training’ role to which we never consented,” the Music Workers Alliance said in a statement. “Their more expensive subscriptions allow users to commercialize the outputs, placing us in unfair competition with an inexhaustible supply of knock-offs of our own work, published without any credit or acknowledgement of our role in their creation, and yet capable of displacing us in record production, film, video, and television scoring, and other markets.”

As they so often do with major new technologies, legislatures have done little to stand on one side or the other. President Donald Trump has decided to stand on the side of AI companies, however, signing an executive order in December of last year after Republican congressional allies failed to muster support for a federal ban on state AI regulations. California Gov. Gavin Newsom defied Trump earlier this week with his own executive order requiring AI companies to watermark generated videos and images, and to prove that they have policies against the creation of violent pornography and child abuse material.

The Trump executive order is expected to face legal challenges since it conflicts with dozens of state laws regarding AI. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a March 2025 mid-level court ruling that entirely AI-generated art could not be copyrighted because a human had not created it. That seems about right to me.

AI companies have been sued by numerous media publishers around the world for copyright infringement, but thus far, no major nations have stepped forward with definitive rulings on whether the technology firms owe damages.

Wherever governments decide to come down on AI-generated art, its legal status isn’t the only question it raises. What is it exactly about art that matters? Is its value how it makes us feel, or is it knowing that fellow human beings with stories and minds made it? Can we really say that auto-tuned artists who use the same lyricists and beat-mixers are really doing something unique? Should women who don’t fit the Vogue profile be excluded from music fame?

These are not simple questions. Last month on Theory of Change, adult model Siri Dahl and I talked about this in the context of erotic media, but these are questions facing all art in the age of generative AI. While many musicians have come forward to speak against AI in their industry, top producer Timbaland, known for his highly templated, production-driven approach to pop and R&B, is also a huge booster of Suno.

“My Thriller, to me, is this tool. God presented this tool to me,” he told NPR.

Regardless of one’s stance on AI music though, it’s worth considering whether beauty is the sum total of conception, training, story, and performance—or can these be separated and valued on their own? Should an artist’s face and body determine whether she is heard? Is beauty literally in the eye of the beholder, or does it live in the interaction of artist and spectator?

I won’t pretend to have these answers. Maybe there aren’t any definitive ones. What matters right now is that we’re asking the questions. Because at the end of the day, we’re more than just another day old.

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Space aliens are one of the most common tropes of science fiction, and with good reason. We live in an immense universe and there seem to be a massive number of planets out there. Surely, at least a few are inhabited, right? Most Americans in opinion polls seem to believe this. A poll from November 2025 found that 56 percent of adults surveyed said they thought aliens exist. Former president Barack Obama appears to be one of them based on a recent interview he did with podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen.

But whether aliens exist or not is only one of so many interesting questions the scenario presents us. And there’s one that perhaps you might not have thought of: If we ever met them, how could we even communicate with them?

In novels, film, and television, decoding alien languages seems to always be a quick affair—math is math, after all. But that assumption is a very big one if you think about it. While they might seem universal, science, math, and language are all human constructs, even though they describe relationalities that are real.

My guest on this episode is someone who’s thought a lot about all of this. Daniel Whiteson is a particle physicist at the University of California–Irvine and the host of the science podcast, Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe. But the centerpiece of our discussion today is his new book, Do Aliens Speak Physics? And Other Questions about Science and the Nature of Reality.

The video of our conversation is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.

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Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

12:20 — Science is based on philosophy, whether it realizes it or not

15:14 — Hieroglyphics, Etruscan, and alien languages

24:05 — Science may not be universal at all, or at the very least the models humans use

31:59 — The fact that science is limited in what it can describe doesn’t mean it’s fake

35:30 — Eric Weinstein and the delusions and deceptions of ‘alt science’

45:31 — Follow the money with anti-science influencers, they are the people getting the richest

51:09 — Math and numbers are not part of reality itself

01:02:29 — Don’t say you care about space if you support cutting science funding

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: And joining me now is Daniel Whiteson. Hey, Daniel, welcome to Theory of Change.

DANIEL WHITESON: Thanks so much for having me on. So excited to talk to you about aliens.

SHEFFIELD: And we have a perfect news hook. Recently, of course, Barack Obama, the former president, people thought he was saying that aliens were real. And he was saying, well, I only meant statistically real.

And then Donald Trump feeling like he wanted attention, said he was going to declassify all the stuff that the government has on that, which I somehow doubt that’s going to happen. What did you think about all that?

DANIEL WHITESON: I am curious what Obama thinks about aliens, because he’s a smart guy and he probably has seen stuff that I haven’t seen, so there could have been information there, but I don’t feel like we really learned very much. His opinion is sort of the opinion any well-educated, non-technical person is likely to have, that there’s lots of planets out there and so it seems improbable that none of them have life on them.

But the problem with that is that science doesn’t know [00:04:00] whether the chances of life starting on a random planet. So it could very well be that there are 30 cajillion planets out there, but the chances of life are less than one over 30 cajillion.

And so we are alone in the universe. Just the sheer number of planets doesn’t tell you. That there are definitely aliens out there. Of course, I want there to be aliens, but you know, you have to be very careful in science not to convince yourself of something you want to believe. You need the evidence, and we just have no evidence to suggest that life starts many times in the cosmos.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, we don’t, well, because we have only seen life on evolve on one planet.

WHITESON: Exactly.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And so, and that takes us to there’s an attempt to extrapolate, well, what are the odds of alien life existing, and that’s called the Drake equation.

So, what is that for people who don’t know.

WHITESON: Yeah, it’s a big question. What are the odds that there’s life out there that could communicate with us? And so a few decades ago, Frank Drake broke it down and said, well, you can express it in terms of the various pieces in order for there to be aliens out there who could talk to us. There have to be stars.

And those stars have to have planets. And at the time, for example, we didn’t know how common it was for stars to have planets. We had only ever seen planets in our solar system until, you know, 1995. And so even just extrapolating other solar systems with stars and planets, that was a big leap at the time.

It was an, it was an unknown. And so then you have to know what fraction of those planets have life, what fraction of those life filled planets have intelligent life? What fraction of those are civilized, uh, what fraction of those develop technology, and then how long they stick around to potentially communicate with us.

And the structure of the equation is very simple. It’s just all these fractions multiplied by each other. And you know, it’s the Drake equation. He’s famous for it. And you might look at it and say. That’s a very simple equation. I mean, look at it compared to like the Schrodinger equation, a partial [00:06:00] differential equation.

It’s all complicated. It’s got wave functions in it. The Drake equation seems trivial, but the structure of the Drake equation is really important. It tells you something really deep about the nature of this question. Are there aliens out there who can talk to us? It tells us, because all the numbers are multiplied by each other, that if any of those numbers are zero, it doesn’t matter what the other ones are.

So if there are no life failed planets out there, it doesn’t matter how likely it is for life to become intelligent because there is no life. Or if the probability for, you know, intelligent life to become technological in our way is zero or very close to zero, then the whole number is very, very small.

And so in order for it to work, in order for there to be aliens out there communicating, communicating with us, you need everything to line up. You need stars, you need planets around those stars. You need life on those planets. You need technology, you need everything in sync, or it’s just not gonna happen.

That’s what the Drake equation tells us.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, and there are a lot of people who argue that it underestimates the odds by quite a bit.

WHITESON: Yeah. And

SHEFFIELD: including the, the famous Fermi paradox, right.

WHITESON: Yeah. The Fermi Paradox says, boy, why haven’t we been contacted? Because if you look at some of these numbers, right, this is basically Obama’s argument too. Now we know the number of stars in the galaxy is huge, hundreds of billions. And the fraction of those stars that have planets around them is shockingly large.

It’s something like 10 to 40%. And you know that number could have been 0.0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 1, right? The fraction of those planets with a rocky planet inhabitable zone. Boy, that could have been a small number, but it’s wonderfully large, which means there’s a huge number of potentially habitable planets out there.

And that’s as far as we know. Right. And Fermi Paradox, or, the Obama paradox, I guess is saying, look, there’s all these planets out there, and the galaxy is quite [00:08:00] old. It’s, been around almost since the beginning. Our solar system’s only four and a half billion years old, but the Milky Way itself is 13 ish billion years old.

And in all that time, why has nobody visited us or left a marker for us or something? Right. Where is everybody? So that’s the Fermi paradox is to say, if there are all these planets out there, where is everybody? And of course, there’s several various answers to that question.

SHEFFIELD: Well, and then, and your book is kind of the, the step after all that. So, assuming these things exist or beings exist, how could we even talk to them and how could we even understand what they’re saying? That’s kind of the crux of your book. So I, I, tell me, tell me about the background of, of how you got into why you decided to write it.

WHITESON: Yeah, so I’m very excited for aliens to come. And I was thinking a few years ago, like, why am I excited for aliens to come? Is it just science fiction, first context, coolness? And yes, that would be a lot of fun, and I watch a lot of science fiction, but one of the reasons that I’m excited for aliens to come is the possibility that they could fast forward our physics.

You know, we’ve been doing physics for a few hundred years or thousands if you give the Greeks credit, but if an aliens get here, that’s suggested, they’re probably more advanced than we are because we can’t get to them, which means they might have been doing physics for. Millions, billions of years.

Imagine what they understand about the universe. Our science could be like preschool level understanding compared to what they’ve done. Maybe they know what’s inside a black hole. Maybe they know how the universe was started. Maybe they know if we’re in a multiverse, maybe they figured all that out. It would be incredible.

And it’s so frustrating to imagine that those answers are out there, that somebody, some critter out there, gets the universe so much more deeply than we do, and they just know these things. And if they just came here and told us. Boom, we could share that [00:10:00] knowledge. That’s the thing that excites me about aliens and their potential arrival.

And I noticed that in the physics community, there’s a sense that if that happened, that it would be fairly straightforward to download that knowledge that, you know, we would figure out, uh, zero one pie and then 10 minutes later we’d be at the chalkboard talking about lag grens of the standard model or whatever.

And I felt like that’s probably naive and frankly, there’s a history of physicists not knowing a lot of philosophy, but having strong opinions about it. Um. So I decided to read some more about it, like, well, what do philosophers think? What do linguists think? What do anthropologists think about the chances of really making mental contact with the aliens?

Is it likely that they think about the universe the same way that, do we do that they’ve come up with the same descriptions? And you know, really at the core of it was the question of. Is our description of the universe part of a universal, inevitable, singular, unique description that everybody around the galaxy would have to come to?

Or does it reflect a human perspective as our human senses and questions and moods and cultures somehow affected our description of the universe as it colored it? This human lens through which we look through, and I actually pitched this idea of a book without the aliens concept to my teenager, said, Hey, what do you think about a book about whether human physics is universal or not?

And he was like, yawn, that sounds really boring. And that was heartbreaking, frankly. But you know, you don’t ask for notes and then ignore them. So I came back a week later and I was like, Ooh, what if aliens have arrived and they have secrets of the universe, and the book is about whether or not we could understand those secrets.

And he was like, oh, I would read that book. And I thought to myself. It’s basically the same book, [00:12:00] but if you center through the aliens, it makes it more immediate. And so it’s a philosophical question, are, is our understanding of the universe universal? Or is it local and human? But it matters if the aliens arrive because it means we can either download, advanced knowledge or we can’t.

And that’s a big difference.

Science is based on philosophy, whether it realizes it or not

SHEFFIELD: Uh, yeah, it is. And you made a, a really important point there that I think there’s a lot of assumptions that people who, who work in technology or science, that they think that, oh, well, these philosophical questions, they’re just irrelevant.

They, no one cares about them. These are just, dead, dead guys in white dresses who were talking about stuff that was, that no one cares about anymore. And, and what this book really, it fundamentally is that these questions of perception, of labeling, of writing down, these are far more fundamental to what we do and than we have any idea.

WHITESON: Exactly, and it certainly could be that aliens are doing physics the way that we have, that they were at one point where we are now, and then spend the next billion years building on it and that they show up and they could just fast forward us to that future. That’s certainly a possibility. I’m certainly not saying that’s impossible and you know, I want that to happen.

That would be amazing. But I also discovered in doing the research for this book that there are lots of reasonable arguments that suggest that that might be impossible. You know, that aliens that number one, we, we might never be able to communicate with them, or they might not even do science in a way that we imagined, or they could ask totally different questions or their answers can make sense to them, but just not sit with us.

And so the book essentially is. The strongest arguments I could make against the idea that aliens will do physics the way that we do. Um, because I wanted to explore that and as I wrote the book, I discovered, maybe I’m actually more excited about the possibility that aliens show up. They don’t do physics [00:14:00] the way that we do that there’s some fundamental disconnect or mismatch.

Because in that scenario, yes, we don’t get to instantly advance our knowledge by a billion years, but we learn something deep and philosophically revealing about ourselves, something we thought was the only way to do it. Maybe aliens don’t do math, and that blows our minds. And then we discover, oh wow, there are other ways to express scientific theories that are not in the language of math.

And that opens the door to new ways of thinking and understanding the universe. One of the joys of having your mind blown is having new opportunities and new experiences. Just like, you know, if you travel to a, a, a distant country and your normal breakfast options are not available and you end up eating like a spicy fish soup for breakfast, and you’re like, wow, how is that a breakfast option?

And then you discover. I love it. Oh my God. And you come back home and that’s all you eat for the rest of your life. You never would’ve thought of it. And now it’s important to you. And so it would be really exciting if aliens come and they show us something about ourselves we didn’t realize was human, that we thought was universal.

And it’ll tell us something about what it is to be human in the universe, which is maybe even more valuable than understanding quantum gravity.

Hieroglyphics, Etruscan, and alien languages

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And you have several fun examples also about humans understanding the humanity of other humans speaking languages that are dead languages. So talk, talk about a couple of those if you could, on some of the difficulty that people have with them is like hieroglyphics.

WHITESON: Yeah. So connecting to the earlier comment about the Drake equation, I extended the Drake equation a little bit and added more terms and we said, well, to have this mental mind meld, we’d have to have, we’d have to run into aliens that do science and that communicate with us that answered the similar questions in a way that we understand them.

And, and one of the really fun things is this question that you mentioned of communication. Like, could we actually understand aliens? And if you read a lot of science fiction like I do, usually [00:16:00] they get the message, it seems weird, dot, dot dot, they’ve decoded it and it says something intelligible.

That step, I’ve always like, Hmm, is it really gonna be that easy? And I talked to linguists and some of them said, look, it’s gonna be impossible. If you get a message from aliens, it’s gonna be encoded in some way that. You aren’t familiar with and you’re gonna have no idea how to decode it.

And your usual techniques of a decoding, trying a bunch of stuff and seeing what works won’t work because those rely on recognizing the decoded message. Like, in World War II when the Nazis were encoding their messages and, the Brits were building computers and the Enigma machine to look for the solutions.

They could tell when they got it right because boom, there it was in plain text. They could read the German. But if we get an alien message and we try a bunch of decodings, how do we know what we get? Right? Because we don’t know if we can recognize an alien message. So that seems really, really hard. And what we don’t have any alien messages to play with yet.

So in the book we explore a much easier problem, which is like. Let’s try to decode languages from the past other humans with very similar brains. So this should be easy, right? Let’s look at what they wrote and said, can we decode it? And there are famous examples that, that some people take as inspirational.

Like, well, we figured out hieroglyphics, right? Okay. But think about how we figured out hieroglyphics. Number one. It took forever. People struggled with this for hundreds of years. Like the last hieroglyphics were written like maybe 1800 years ago. The last native reader or writer of hieroglyphics died around then.

And people have been wondering what these things meant since basically then, and not making a whole lot of progress. And it wasn’t until the Rosetta Stone that we cracked it right now, we’re not very likely to get a Rosetta Stone from the aliens unless they’ve been listening to our television and came up with like a translation guide

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, because they speak our

WHITESON: Yeah. If [00:18:00] they speak our language, right? So. Even with a Rosetta Stone, it took us 20 years to crack it. Like we had a translated example and it still took us 20 years. And the reason for that reveals something really worrying for people who are excited about translating alien languages is because we made the wrong assumption about hieroglyphics.

People looked at hieroglyphics and they said, oh look, it’s pictorial. So if there’s a bird in it, it’s probably about birds, right? And if there’s water and it’s probably about water, that would make a lot of sense. And people actually used this as an argument that like the Egyptians had a pure language, that they somehow skipped this step of like encoding it as an arbitrary symbol that wasn’t directly and inherently connected.

The way, like the word for water on a page doesn’t look like water. It doesn’t have anything to do with water. It’s in sense, some sense arbitrary. You could have like any set of scribbles could have meant water, but you know, if it’s pictorial, then it’s an image there. It’s more deeply connected. What was the argument.

Well, it turns out that argument is totally wrong and that hieroglyphics are not pictorial. They’re phonetic, and each one represents a sound that you make as you speak. And so the one for bird, it represents some sound, I don’t know, hieroglyphics, I don’t know what it is, but doesn’t represent birds. And they only figure this out after like 20 years studying the patterns of the sounds in the Greek and in the hieroglyphics, and then they cracked it.

So that shows you how it’s very easy to make what seemed like reasonable assumptions that just don’t carry forward and that, and that blind you to the answers. And that’s why, for example, that’s why it took us so long to crack hieroglyphics. And that’s why in other cases, like in Etruscan and in Runo, runo and in many other dead languages where there are nobody, where there’s nobody around who speaks them or reads them anymore, we just don’t know how to decode them.

And, and we’ve been struggling for centuries and we may never figure it out, which means like, look, if it’s hard to [00:20:00] decode a human language. People with identical biological brains in the same environment. Probably similar culture. I mean, when you compare it to aliens like Etruscans, they lived with the Romans.

These are not, distant from us culturally, and yet we can’t figure it out. We have thousands of examples of their writing. We dunno how to decode it. That does not bode well for, we get a message from aliens and we figure out how to decode it. Like if we can’t do it on easy mode, the chances of us doing it on hard mode.

I’m not optimistic.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and there’s also the opposite problem as well, because, when quasars were first discovered people thought that they were alien transmissions. And and so that took people a while to realize, oh, no, no, these are just natural of phenomena.

WHITESON: Yeah, those are actually pulsars. These are rotating neutron stars where they emit really intense beams, but the beam emission is a little bit offset from this, from the rotation. And so they’re basically like spinning around and they’re like flashlights that scan across the sky. And so they’re very regular and so they emit constantly.

But if you’re just in one location, the beam passes over you in a regular way. And when this was discovered, it seemed odd to see something so regular from the sky and people call it little green men initially. LGM was the, the notes in, in the original lab book because people thought maybe this is aliens.

But now we know of course, yes. The universe can make very regular messages and so yeah, it’s hard to pull out. Messages from aliens from the background. There’s another example, the wow signal, which is a huge message at a frequency you might expect to hear from aliens, right? A fairly quiet frequency and never explained.

Now there’s like some hypothesis about, basically a hydrogen burp in one thing that was enhanced somewhere else. But at the time it was like a huge, peak in exactly the frequency you would expect it, but we don’t know how to extract any [00:22:00] information from it to know that it was from aliens and not just like some hydrogen burp.

We’d have to like, discover that it is a message, but we look at it, we, there’s no information, content we can extract, which means either we don’t know how to decode this obvious message from aliens, or it was just a hydrogen burp with no information in it. And, and that’s very frustrating.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well I was thinking the first observation of a quasar. The Soviets were, they heard it the first time and they were like, well, what is this? This is, this is, you know, incredible. Yeah. It’s the same concept. And so. So like, it, it’s, you have the problem of both false positives and false negatives.

And with just such a very small number of samples. Uh, what, what can you do with that? And it, it turns out, uh, it might be very difficult. It cer certainly more difficult than the six months you would see in a typical, uh, movie

WHITESON: Yeah, and think. Think about the other situation. Aliens receiving our messages. Carl Sagan and Frank Drake actually put out a message on some of our probes, right? The Pioneer Plaque and the Voyager record. This is their attempt to communicate with unknown aliens, with unknown culture and unknown senses.

And you know, they did a fine job. They avoided English, they avoided math. Even they went for like pictorial representations. But who knows what that means to aliens if they will even understand it as a message, not to mention like be able to decode it.

SHEFFIELD: Or do they even have vision?

WHITESON: Yes, exactly. And as wonderful a job as they did, and I think NASA only gave them like two weeks, so we shouldn’t criticize them too harshly.

It’s, there’s a lot of cultural assumptions in that message. If you dig into it, it, you really need to know what they’re trying to say in order to understand it. I actually took their message and I showed it to a bunch of physics grad students here, which, should be an easy audience for this because they’re like human physicists with the same brain and they had no idea what the message was about.

They were like, nobody figured it out in a couple of hours. So, I don’t know. It doesn’t [00:24:00] bode well. I think the problem is probably a lot harder than people think it is.

Science may not be universal at all, or at the very least the models humans use

SHEFFIELD: Then there is the question of math and science, which often are perceived to be universal ideas and that’s a heavily loaded philosophical question as, as you get into so let’s maybe unpack that generically, and then we’ll get into why math and numbers even are not universal necess.

WHITESON: Yeah. Well, we can start with science. It feels like obvious that aliens will do science because in the scenario we’re imagining they show up with their gleaming ships. They have warp technology or wormholes, or even just, they figured out generational interstellar travel or something.

They’re more advanced than we are. How could they possibly do that without being scientific? Right? But I think this is projection of human culture into aliens, historically we’re not very good at imagining how aliens could be different from us. I think, you know, star Trek is pretty typical. We tend to like, take humanity, put a croissant on their forehead and say like, okay, that’s what an alien is.

And we imagine aliens is like, some tweak on humans, but really they could have a very, very different history and a very different relationship with knowledge. And it’s not actually that hard to imagine aliens without science because humans didn’t have science for a long time. Even when we already had technology, like how did we develop, bread baking or beer brewing or metallurgy, all these things we developed through trial and error, not by understanding like, the chemistry inside and the yeast and the microbes or the, you know, solid state physics of layers of, um, of steel and impurities and all the things that go into, um.

Making swords steal really hard. Like the Japanese swordsmiths, they didn’t know all that stuff, but they knew how to make a sword. They discovered it, they had the recipe. And so we were technological for many, many [00:26:00] years before we were scientific. And doing science means wanting to understand, wanting an explanation.

And clearly that’s been a huge multiplier for technology. Like it’s sped up our advancement of technology dramatically, but it doesn’t, but it means that it’s not required. Right. You can imagine aliens that just sort of like trial and error their way through technology forever, maybe because they don’t care about how things work, they’re not curious about it.

And if that

SHEFFIELD: They figured it out a long time ago and forgot about it.

WHITESON: Yeah. Right. That could be too. And if you think like, well, that doesn’t make any sense. Think about like, do you care to understand all the technology that you use? I mean, when I’m in the kitchen and I’m baking a souffle, like I don’t need to know the chemistry. Just tell me the recipe.

Right? I just want to know the how, not the why and alien, and this desire to understand the universe. It could be human. It certainly is emotional. I mean, I feel a personal need to figure out like, what is the fundamental fabric of the universe? How does it all work? I’m desperate to know, but that’s an emotional reaction to being alive as a human.

It’s not necessarily true that other alien, that aliens feel that way. I mean, my dog certainly doesn’t care. His food shows up every single day. I don’t think he spends a lot of time wondering about how that happens. He’s just excited to eat it. And so it could be that aliens show up and they have warp drives and they don’t do science.

And when we ask them like, well, how does that work? Why? They’re like, well, here’s how you build it. And say, yeah, but what’s the quantum, what’s the quantum gravity underneath that? And they said like, what are you talking about? We just told you how to build the thing. What else do you want? And it could be that this curiosity, it could be we we’re the only ones who feel that way about the universe, and it’s part of being human and not part of being alive and intelligent in the universe.

And. I’m not saying it’s likely, but it’s certainly possible, and it suggests that we may be extrapolating too broadly, the human experience to [00:28:00] suggest that like all intelligent aliens will do science.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And the other thing about this is that if they did do science, um, how they would conceive of it, why would it be similar to the way that we conceive of things at all? When you look at multiple ways of expressing different particle physics realities, there’s several different ways you can do it.

Um, and so what that means, of course, is that these expressions, these are just models. They’re not actually reality. The actual reality that exists. He’s independent of what we can say about it. Because there’s probably, possibly maybe an infinite number of ways to describe some various scientific facts that people think, oh, these are the basic truths, these are the fundamental laws of nature.

And it’s like, well, that’s how it looks like to us in this part of, of the universe at this moment in time, at our scale, in size and moment in space time.

WHITESON: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: so like, those are, those are all kinds of assumptions that people I think e even a lot of, of science focused people are making these assumptions.

So it’s not just like a layperson problem, I think.

WHITESON: Absolutely. I think you’re right and many physicists I think confuse the map for the territory. Our description of the universe doesn’t have to be how it actually works. It, it doesn’t have to be that there, it. Is a Higgs boon when we’re not looking at it and thinking about it, that it’s just part of our description.

And I’m sure that particle physicists hearing me say that would be like, what are you talking about? Of course is a Higgs boon. We discovered it, they won the Nobel Prize for it. I can show you the evidence for it. Like, what are you on, Daniel? And it’s not that I’m disputing the discovery of the Higgs boon.

I’m suggesting that that’s a part of a way to describe the universe, as you say, but it may not be inevitable and singular and unique. And if you read, uh, papers and philosophy, they [00:30:00] argue that there could be multiple ways to describe the universe. So as a concrete example, say the aliens show up and they’ve done science, and we can communicate with them and they have their own theory of the universe, and it works just as well, and it doesn’t have a Higgs bows on in it because it doesn’t have quantum fields or, or anything like that.

It’s fundamentally at odds with our description, but it works just as well. That possibility is real. We can’t rule it out. Just because our theory works and is been tested to 10 decimal places doesn’t make it unique. Right? And of course there’s the chance that they come up with another theory and there’s like a mapping from ours to theirs.

Like we call things different names. And after a hundred years we can understand like, okay, your quantum shme are the same as our quantum fields. You just call it differently. It’s possible you can make this sort of categorical connection, but it’s also possible that you can’t, we just don’t know. And, and to suggest that like, look, our theory works very, very well.

Therefore it’s true, I think is making a leap that’s not supported by the evidence. It’s a leap that we want to believe. And so it’s very easy to convince ourselves. All those folks at CERN who helped discover the Higgs boon, want to imagine that there are aliens also discovering Higgs boons and winning alien Nobel prizes for it.

But we don’t know that, and we should be extra skeptical of things we want to believe. And, and it’s a philosophical question, not a scientific one, whether our theory is unique, you know, and, and there’s lots of other angles on that. Our theory, we know it’s not exact. For example, all the theories we build in science, these are effective approximate theories.

There’s no chance that our description of the universe is the mechanism of the universe itself, because it’s not even designed to be, it’s designed to get answers to questions that are, that are limited in scope and described simplified situations. There are approximate descriptions of what reality might be, and in those approximations, there’s a lot of potential fuzziness that can creep in.

The fact that science is limited in what it can describe doesn’t mean it’s fake

SHEFFIELD: [00:32:00] Yeah. And these questions, I think the fact that there is imprecision, and everything is perspective, or at least access is perspective.

WHITESON: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: I think there, it does make a temptation for, for people to say, oh, well, so therefore science is all made up. Therefore it’s just fake. And if I think the earth is flat, then it is flat.

Or just any variety of things, whether it’s vaccines-- that is an increasingly common attitude that some people are having to say that. So, I mean, what would you say to someone who says, yeah, of course, I don’t mistake the map for the territory on anything. And so therefore I think that, if I eat enough cinnamon, I can live forever!

WHITESON: Wow. I love your cinnamon theory. That’s gonna be you, you said that as a ridiculous idea, but it’s gonna be real in a couple years. I bet. No. It’s a really important distinction you’re making. Thank you for raising that because I’m not saying science is fake or that, our experiments are bunk or that everybody’s been lying to you or that science doesn’t work right.

Science works and we test it and, and science is not a scam. But it’s not necessarily unique. So just because it’s powerful and just because it works doesn’t mean that it’s revealing reality as it is. You know, it’s, it’s describing something that is effective, but we don’t know if it’s the only way for it to happen.

That’s very different from saying it’s not, it doesn’t work and physicists been lying to you and they’ve been resisting the truth, and there’s wormhole technology being hidden by the government or you know, Eric Weinstein’s Geometric Unity is the truth and physicists refuse to accept it because they’ve been like, you know, hogging grant funding for decades or some other conspiratorial nonsense.

It’s a very, very different idea, and we can dig into that if you like. Um, I have strong feelings about it. I think that science is being done in good faith by people who want to understand the [00:34:00] universe. And want to share that understanding and want to discover reality and, and spread that, that knowledge openly and broadly.

There are of course some people who are bad actors everywhere, but they don’t exemplify the, the process of science. But I do think that physicists are not widely educated in philosophy and tend to have a narrow view on the philosophical implications of their work. So without knowing philosophy, most of them are scientific realists.

They think the theory we’re developing is reality. Boom. Done. Because they don’t know about these other ideas. And if you sat down and, you know, had a drink or a smoke with them and, and talked to them about it, they would go, oh yeah, wow. I didn’t realize I was making a bunch of assumptions that, you know, the experiments suggest this model.

Therefore the me the model is reality. That last step is an assumption we don’t know. And there are other reasonable ideas that intelligent people have put out. I think they would come around and be like, oh, cool, but they just don’t know what they don’t know because most of them don’t take philosophy.

So. And I think also physicists have a terrible track record of assuming that they know things that, that they don’t know, you know, stepping boldly into fields where they’re uneducated and making strong statements. So I was terrified of making that mistake with this book, which is why I spent so much time talking to my brilliant colleagues here at uc, Irvine in the philosophy and logic of science department, who help me understand a lot of these questions.

Eric Weinstein and the delusions and deceptions of ‘alt science’

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. I’m glad you mentioned Weinstein because actually in the earlier episode that we did on quantum physics, he was somebody who we discussed as well. And I wanna talk about it in the context that people who are inclined to believe these conspiracy theories or, that science is all just one big attempt to suppress ideas and whatnot, and it’s like, okay, if there was, if there were a mathematical formula that translated to the ability to [00:36:00] travel through time and go past, the, the speed of light, the amount of money you could make off of that is, it is more than all the money in the entire world. So whatever grants you might get or be afraid of not getting would be absolutely dwarfed by

WHITESON: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: if this stuff was real.

And, and, and people don’t, they don’t even think about that.

WHITESON: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: I think, and it’s really, it’s really, really absurd and it’s upsetting to me, frankly.

WHITESON: Yeah. And you make the important point there, which is people don’t really think about it. And that echoes the point I was trying to make earlier, which is you should be really skeptical of things you want to believe. A lot of these. Stories, science is lying to you or science being done in bad faith or whatever.

These are things people believe these conspiracy stories because it touches something in them that they want touched. You know, it’s some grievance or some anger or some feeling of, you know, of the experts are actually dumb or something. It touches something in them. They want to hear like, I’m part of a special group that understands reality now, or something, and so they don’t really apply scrutiny to it, and that’s why a lot of these conspiracy theories.

They seem like nonsense. And, and as soon as you look at them, you apply any sort of scrutiny, they fall apart. Like it, as you say, it doesn’t make any sense why the establishment of physics would ignore a brilliant idea from an insider. We’re talking about a guy who was like at Harvard in math, right? Not just like some crank on the internet.

Why the mainstream physics would ignore this idea. It makes absolutely no sense. But people, a lot of people believe it, and I, I suspect that they believe it because it does something for them. It it, it validates a feeling they’ve had uh, that experts are jerks or something. You know, it’s the same thing we see culturally right now rejecting science and institutions and elites and all this stuff.

And people believe that even if [00:38:00] it doesn’t make any sense, and even if it’s self-contradictory, uh, they believe it because they are hearing something they want to hear. And so that’s why you have to be extra careful. When you hear something you want to hear that you’re applying your skepticism to it.

And that’s the, the, the thing that animated my project here is I wanted to believe that aliens would do physics the way that we do, but how do I know, how do I really know? And especially because I wanna believe it. I should be extra careful in, in promoting that idea because I could just be believing it without applying enough scrutiny.

You gotta be very, very careful. And so, you know, to any listeners out there, scientists that are not lying to you, most of ‘em are doing science in good faith, trying to understand the universe. And we’re not a coordinated bunch of folks. If there was some idea out there which would overturn reality, like somebody would be shouting it from the rooftops because it would make their career we incapable of pulling off a grand conspiracy theory.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and that’s the real motive. Like, it, the only way that you can become a world famous scientist is to say these other guys were wrong, and I have the proof that here’s this other way and this is how this is a more accurate mode. Like, that’s the actual way things work.

And, and, and so I, I, I think it comes out of this, there is this if, if people have kind of a, a native or sort of unspoken understanding that naive realism is, is not adequate. Therefore anything goes and that’s not, that is not what you’re saying.

WHITESON: Yeah, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m not saying let’s throw at science. I’m saying that there’s other ways to understand what we’ve done. What we’ve done is real and it works. And the reason you’re listening to it right now is because it works, but it doesn’t necessarily have the philosophical implications that you might naively assume that it does.

And I remember feeling that way, like it makes sense. I get it. I remember being an undergrad in physics in my quantum class and seeing the calculation [00:40:00] of, the dipole moment to 12 decimal places and then seeing the experimental, experimental result to the, and the same number, to 12 decimal places and, and thinking to myself.

Oh my gosh. This isn’t just a description, this is the machinery of reality being revealed. I thought that, and it was, I got chills. It was almost a spiritual moment for me. But you know, now I understand it more deeply. I understand how it’s possible to be very, very precise, very, very accurate, and yet still be a map and not the territory.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And one way of thinking and I sometimes will say to people is that things that exist ,they exist only because they’re aligned with the obligations of the locality that they’re in. So, in other words, and so when people say, oh, look at all this incredible order, look at all these amazing things that exist, and it’s like, well, they’re compliant with the obligations that, of that locality. You can’t have a protein that exists, uh, above a certain temperature because they melt. Uh, and so therefore you can’t say, well, gosh, isn’t this incredible that there are all these proteins.

And it’s like, no, that you’ve just described things exist. And that’s not an argument for any kind of special, special creation or anything like that. It’s, or, or not. It’s just simply you’re, you’re noticing that things exist. That’s really what this is.

WHITESON: And how do we even know that they exist? Right? We describe them, we experience them. What does that mean about existence? Actually, that there’s an objective reality out there that resembles our model of it in some way. Like maybe Right? Possibly. But, and if we’re gonna be philosophically skeptical, like we don’t really know.

SHEFFIELD: We perceive that they exist.

WHITESON: Yeah. Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, okay, so just on on Weinstein though, a bit more though, like specifically what is it that he says? And then why, why do you think that, that it’s not serious?

WHITESON: So Weinstein has a [00:42:00] theory called Geometric Unity, which tries to explain the standard model and dark matter and dark energy and solve a bunch of puzzles that are outstanding in physics right now. Some of those puzzles include like, well, we can describe the motion of really, really big stuff using gravity and Einstein’s theory, and we can describe the motion of really, really small stuff.

Particles using the standard model and quantum mechanics, but we don’t know how to bring them together because they tell fundamentally different stories about the nature of reality. You know, for example, quantum mechanics says time is infinite, has to go infinitely far in the back and in and uh, to the future.

And, uh, general relativity says, Hmm, not necessarily you could actually have a beginning to time. Time is a very different kind of thing. So they tell very different stories about basic components of our universe and we don’t know how to bring them together. And Eric Weinstein says he has an explanation for all of this.

And, you know, I’m not a particle theorist, so I’m not an expert in this. I’ve not read his theory myself, but folks who are experts have read it. And, you know, they find fundamental flaws in it. You know, it, it’s not consistent with itself. It creates these anomalies. Um, as people say that they create these nonsense predictions.

We can include some links in the show notes to folks who have gone through in detail and found technical issues with it. And the problem is not that it has pro problems, many theories have problems, but what usually happens is that you write your theory, you submit it for peer review, you publish it, and then people critique it and say, oh, well that’s interesting.

It has this problem. Maybe it’s fixable, let’s work on it, or whatever. Or, this has this issue, it’s fatal. And usually you respond to that criticism by doing some work and responding to it. But. Eric’s response is to claim that this criticism is in bad faith and that it’s gatekeeping, um, and they’re trying to shut him up.

And you know, this is the standard science populist playbook, is do some shoddy work, frankly. And then when the community of experts comments on it claim [00:44:00] that you’re being suppressed or, there’s gatekeeping you know, and that you’re a victim. And you see the same thing with Avi Lube. Right.

He does all this sloppy work and claims that comets are spaceships. And when the experts chime in and say, well, here, you misunderstood something fundamental about this field because you’re not an expert in it and you didn’t ask us, you didn’t even read a textbook. Then, you know, he paints that good faith critique as an attack and now he’s a victim and basically he’s Galileo.

And so it’s the same playbook over and over again, right? Do some sloppy work. It’s critiqued by experts claim to be a victim. And you know, these guys are getting the attention. A lot of people who are outside of academia would love to have experts read their work and comment on their complaint. Mostly is nobody’s reading my stuff.

I get a lot of emails from people who have ideas and and want some attention for it. So Eric and Avi and these folks, they have gotten plenty of attention and people just think their ideas are not great. And you know, in. It’s hard to accept when your life’s work is seen as essentially failing in the marketplace of ideas.

It’s much easier to say, oh, it hasn’t been taken seriously, or There’s some scheme, or there’s some reason why, um, I’m not being treated fairly. That’s harder to accept, and so I understand why it’s, it’s a bitter pill to swallow, but I think it’s a simpler explanation than there’s some conspiracy out there for physicists who don’t want to understand the universe and read your genius theory and are rejecting it for political reasons or something.

It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

Follow the money with anti-science influencers, they are the people getting the richest

SHEFFIELD: No, well, and, and not economic sense either. As I

WHITESON: Yeah,

SHEFFIELD: If, if he was right, the dude would be, a a, an instant multi-billionaire, the richest person ever to have existed. If what he said was real. And he’s the managing director of Peter Thiel’s Capital Fund.

So is Peter Thiel suppressing Eric Weinstein? Yes, apparently.

WHITESON: Well, Eric Weinstein gets more attention than almost any physicist on the planet for [00:46:00] his theories. Like he has a bigger platform and more attention than almost anybody. So the, the idea that he’s being suppressed is ridiculous. He’s got a huge platform, and this is a trend in alt science.

You see this also in like, archeology, guys like Graham Hancock who are suggesting that like archeology is lying to you about our history, and he’s got the real story, but it’s being suppressed. Like the guy has a show on Netflix. He has a bigger platform than almost any archeologist out there. And so it’s one of these things where, again, the story doesn’t hold up to even the flimsiest of scrutiny, but it’s not supposed to.

What it’s supposed to do is touch on some part of you that makes you want to believe it. Oh, I also got ignored by experts, so I’m gonna believe Eric Weinstein, his theory is being ignored. Or, you know, some nerd was mean to me decades ago, and so I’m gonna think that professors are jerks or something. You know, I, I don’t know what it is inside folks, but Graham Hancock and Weinstein and Loeb, these are, these guys are experts at touching on those grievances and using it to get people to believe stuff, which is, inconsistent and incoherent.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and unfortunately there’s, one person in the astrophysicist community who has apparently gone down that road as well. Um, and I think, uh, you know who I’m referring to. Right?

WHITESON: Yeah, the man from

SHEFFIELD: kind of what you think happened with, with, with Sabine Hossenfelder.

WHITESON: Oh, I see. Sabine. I don’t know Sabine. So I can’t say what’s in her heart. But I find her descriptions of particle physics confusing because they don’t resemble my experience at all. She says things like particle physicists are basically doing physics in bad faith, that we’re proposing theories we don’t believe in because we’re gonna get grant money for it.

And that we’re suppressing good ideas like hers from getting funding. And, you know, I think everybody has had the experience of putting your heart and soul into something and then having the community read it and be like, nah, I’m not excited about that. You know, my success rate for writing [00:48:00] grant proposals is terrible.

I write many, many great proposals and do not get most of them funded. That’s just the way that it works. And so it’s easier for me. It would be easier for me also to say, Hey, my ideas are actually brilliant y’all, but the community is ignoring them because they wanna promote their ideas, which are nonsense.

And I think that she probably has a legitimate disagreement with the mainstream of physics think, and she probably legitimately thinks they’re going in the wrong direction. But almost everybody thinks that because almost everybody has had their juicy ideas rejected. And the answer is not to suggest that the mainstream are somehow doing it in bad faith because they disagree with you.

Like disagreeing with one person like Sabina doesn’t mean that they’re lying. So I don’t know what’s in her heart or what her motivations are, um, exactly. But her description of physics and particle physics specifically is not resembled the reality, uh, of my experience at all. But she’s built a big audience.

And again, again, I think a lot of the people who hear, mainstream physics is a scam. And, and they’re doing it for the wrong reasons and et cetera, et cetera. They hear that and they wanna believe it. And so, even if it doesn’t quite make sense, or if she has conflicts of interest herself, you know, she has reasons to tell you that story.

And for you to, and want and for you to want to believe it they brush that aside. Just the way people brush aside contradictions in Donald Trump’s story, because they wanna believe it, it, it, it does something else for them. That’s my theory. But, again, I don’t know her personally and so I wouldn’t wanna speak to what’s in her heart or why she’s doing what she’s doing.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and I would also say follow the money for them. Because, even if, let’s say you are well funded, that you’re the chair of a department at some major university, the amount of money that you’re making off of that in a given year is far, far less than what Eric Weinstein makes off of his YouTube [00:50:00] and off of his podcast and all these other things that he’s doing.

Like this guy’s making way, way more money than any scientist out there. So let so the so don’t, so you have to realize, if you’re gonna say follow the money, well follow the other way too. That’s

WHITESON: Yeah, that’s right. But you’re making an assumption there, which is that people are applying some sort of standard to this content and digesting it and thinking about it before accepting it. And I don’t think that they are, I don’t think that they’re applying a fair standard because as you say, if they did, they would say, they would listen to Sabine message, follow the money.

Physicists have an incentive to promote ideas that they don’t believe and say, well, well, Sabina also has an incentive to promote, you know, ideas that the audience wants to hear to Pando to her audience. Does that mean we shouldn’t believe her? But I don’t think people are applying that standard because they, they’re hearing what they want and they’re believing it because they want to believe it and they’re applying a much lower bar of scrutiny to it in, in my view.

But again, I’m not an expert in this stuff. This is psychology and, social and sociology.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, well, and honestly that these, that’s the regular domain of this show, so, I couldn’t resist,

WHITESON: Okay.

Math and numbers are not part of reality itself

SHEFFIELD: But back to your book though. I mentioned we, we’d talk about so we talked about science as a not necessary universal, but the also there’s the idea of math and even numbers. And I think that is another thing that is probably much less widely considered, that what, I mean, what even are these things from a universal perspective, they don’t necessarily, they’re not universal.

And you do get into this

WHITESON: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: the book, so talk about it here if you

WHITESON: Sure. And first, let’s acknowledge the arguments for math as a universal language, because they’re very strong, right? We can’t ignore that. Like our physics is just math. Like it’s, it’s the language of math. It’s expressed on math. And, and more than just being described in terms of math, math has led us to physical insights.

Just blindly following the math has revealed the way the [00:52:00] universe works in some cases, like Maxwell, putting together all the equations of electricity and magnetism and realizing there was a missing bit. Like if you added one more piece, then those equations would be much more symmetrical and how, how satisfying and mathematically beautiful.

But you can’t just like. Come up with stuff and say, Hey, it would be prettier if it was this way. But then they went out and looked and like, oh, that actually was there. It was something about the universe we had missed. And math pointed us in that direction, and that’s happened many, many times. Some of my favorite examples are, times when mathematicians were just playing with numbers and patterns because, you know, that’s what those nerds love to do and, and I love that they love it.

And built holes like tools, like Group Theory was just based on, Hey, what can we do with this? Let’s play some games with numbers. And it was totally useless. From a physical point of view for more than a century, until particle physics were like, oh my gosh. These rules you built from group theory describe exactly what we see happening to fundamental particles and the symmetries between those particles.

This is perfect. And now everything we do is built on group theory. So, you know, just from the mathematical ideas, we discover lots of mathematical structure in our explanations of the universe. Very, very powerful stuff. On the other hand, right? How do we know that it’s not? How do we know that it’s part of the universe and not just our description of it, right?

Can we really pull those two things apart? And so that’s the question we dig into in, in the book. And, one question is like, the rules themselves, do they have to be mathematical? And the other is that you refer to is what about the objects in those stories? Like the numbers? What are numbers?

And if you read, um, books on philosophy of math, the questions they ask are trippy, right? Like, what is a number? Or here’s my favorite, where are numbers? Because if numbers are real in the universe, the way, like some people think the Higgs boon is real, or earth is real, [00:54:00] real things. Have locations, right?

Earth is somewhere, the Higgs boon is here, and then it’s there, and then it disappears. Where’s the number two? It’s, it’s not anywhere. You can’t do experiments on two, you can’t trap two by two, bring two with you. Uh, it seems like more of an idea than than an actual, physical thing in the universe.

And there’s this wonderful thought experiment, extended thought experiment by Hartery Field where he says, let me try to build a theory of physics without numbers. So it’s called Science without Numbers, and it’s crazy, but it works. And what he does is he says. Think about the number line, right? And people mostly imagine in their heads some like, blowing line in space with dashes on it.

It says that’s kind of an abstraction, that’s a construction. We have started from the idea of having like more things and less things, and we’ve given like names and we, we’ve assembled that into a line and we’ve given names to it. But, well, you don’t need all that. And that’s really fundamental to the way we do physics.

Like most of physics today is built on fields. Fields are just numbers in space. Like what is the Higgs field? It’s just a different number to every place in space or even like, uh, you know, gravity. Newtonian gravity has gravitational fields, which are, you know, numbers or vectors in space. So if you don’t have numbers, you can’t have fields.

How do you do calculations? Well, Hartery, I love that. His name coincidentally is called Field, Hartery Field says that fields don’t exist and that essentially they’re an intermediate step in our calculation. When you go to calculate what happens to a rock orbiting Jupiter, yeah, you could use the gravitational field, but you don’t actually need it.

It’s just like a shorthand. It’s a way to like store a half done calculation to make the rest of the calculation easier later. You can skip all that. All you really need to know are the comparisons to know like what’s closer, [00:56:00] what’s further those relationships without building this abstract concept of a number line.

And so he builds a theory of gravity that replicates everything that Newton’s theory does, but doesn’t use any numbers, right? And, and that’s, it’s mind blowing and it’s very hard to grok because it’s very different from the way we think and it’s not very useful. Because of course you would wanna use numbers.

Numbers are very powerful. But he makes the point by doing so that you could build science without numbers themselves. This idea of a number line, maybe an abstraction that we put together to organize our thoughts, may reflect the way that we think about the universe more than the way the universe itself operates.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, and for alien beings that would have, that might have significantly different physics in terms of how they’re structured, these could have very real implications for them because, if they themselves don’t really experience quantity as in terms of what they are.

Then why would, why would they think of things outside of, of the world as quantity? It’s not necessarily true.

WHITESON: And to, to be more concrete, you know about quantity. We tend to think that math is intuitive and basic and simple because one plus one equals two and and surely critters out there will feel the same thing because aliens, will have themselves and they’ll have their partner or whatever.

But, but there’s some assumptions built into that. Like, what if aliens don’t have distinct boundaries between their bodies? What if they’re, currents in some flow or tendrils of plasma in a star’s atmosphere, or as if you say their physicality is fundamentally different in a way that’s hard for us to imagine.

They might not come, come up with this idea of counting and counting is the foundation of all of our mathematics. You take apart all of modern mathematics. Folks showed that the foundation, the foundational assumptions, the axioms of math come from arithmetic, come from [00:58:00] counting. And so if you’re not counting

SHEFFIELD: And they’re rooted in our physical body, like that our hands have digits, like, they’re literally called digits.

WHITESON: Yeah, that’s true. Exactly.

SHEFFIELD: Can’t, you can’t get any more illustrative of the, of the assumption there, I think.

WHITESON: That’s right. And the idea that like I have a body and you have a body and those are separate and distinct and we can count them. There’s a lot of assumptions there. Like if you wanna be, if, if it was somehow physical and universal and absolute, then there would be no fuzziness there.

But there’s lots of fuzziness, like, where exactly does my body end? Is it at my skin? What about the hairs? What about, you know, a dead hair that’s now sitting on the surface of my skin? Is that part of me or is it part of the rest of the universe? It’s an arbitrary cultural distinction we make about where

SHEFFIELD: Are the bacteria inside of your body? Are they you?

WHITESON: Exactly. And what we find is that this is a human choice, which means it’s cultural. And even among human cultures, we count things differently. Like if you throw a bunch of stuff on a table and you say, how many things are there? An American might say, oh, there’s seven things. And a Japanese person might say, no, no, you can’t group these things.

With those things, you count those things differently. This four long things and three short things, like that’s it. You can’t group those together. Like you don’t count them the same way. And, and so there’s a lot of assumptions about like what gets counted together, what does counting even mean? And you know, the deeper you go down this rabbit hole, the more you realize there’s very little that we can assume about how aliens minds might work if we don’t even know that one plus one equals twos.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, exactly. And you don’t even get into category theory in the book. Like you could, you could certainly do that as well, which is, expressing concepts through directionality. And, and that could easily work. You could build an entire theory of physics that could be just as more complex even than the human theories based on category theory or some variant of it.

WHITESON: Yeah. Absolutely.

SHEFFIELD: So, so, okay. So, but let, let’s fast forward then to [01:00:00] the end of the book here. So what, what are, after all the paradoxes and questions that you explore what, what are kind of the takeaways that you have for people in, in terms of the question here, the do aliens speak physics? The answer is, well, probably not.

But what can we do after, after realizing that.

WHITESON: Yeah, so after realizing that, and being let down, I think we should embrace what that means. It means that probably our physics is not unique. It’s not singular, it’s not inevitable that there are other ways to think about the universe and to explain it and. That means that when the aliens arrive, and I’m very hopeful that they do very soon tomorrow would be my preference, that we’re gonna learn something about the universe, but also we’re gonna really learn something about ourselves.

We’re gonna understand our relationship to explanations and our relationship to building those explanations and the choices that we made along the way that we didn’t even realize we were making because they felt so natural to us. They’re the only way you could possibly do it. Of course, you’re gonna have bacon and eggs for breakfast.

What else could it be? And, you know, the having effectively fish soup for breakfast is gonna, is gonna blow our minds, but it’s gonna also open up lots of possibilities because there are lots of doors there that we’ve closed and, and opening them up could reveal fantastic new ways to explore the universe, to explain it, to understand it.

And so it might sound disappointing. That, you know, our project of physics is actually just a human earth-based project, like biology or economics. Physics doesn’t have a special status in that way. But it’s actually an opportunity, it’s an opportunity to learn a lot about ourselves and humanity.

What that means, I don’t know. I’m desperate for the aliens to show up and, and, and to blow our minds that way. But of course. This is just speculation. And it could be that when the aliens come, they do speak physics our way and that tells us something else about the universe. So in the same way that like [01:02:00] discovering alien life will tell us a lot about our context here and the meaning of our existence.

Are we alone? Are we, one of a zillions of civilizations discovering whether aliens speak physics? The way that we do will tell us a lot about the context of our understanding and our desire to explain the universe. If everybody out there is doing it the same way we are, then we really are revealing something about the universe itself.

And if they’re not, then you know, we’re revealing something equally interesting about ourselves.

Don’t say you care about space or the future if you support cutting science funding

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, exactly. And also, one of the other things that I thought made me think reading the book is there are also so many ways of perceiving and being on this planet. Even outside of the human context, like, Octo octopuses with their distributed nervous system,

WHITESON: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: And not having bones. I mean, there, there’s just so much we can learn from them. Mean we barely know anything about them to be honest. And that’s why it’s really important to, to continue to support science funding. Because people, people say, well, I want to know the answers to these questions. Well, the first thing you do is you don’t cut the funding for science.

WHITESON: Oh my gosh. I know. I mean, there’s so many reasons to support science funding. If you want to understand the nature of the universe. It turns out the answers are there and they’re pretty cheap. Like just spend a little bit of money, a tiny fraction of what we’re spending bombing Iran, and we could just buy answers to questions about how the universe works or life like it’s cheap compared to other things we spend money on.

Or if you’re excited about like economic, um, you know. Wealth, then the cheapest thing you can do is give nerds money and let them play with it. And they will invent things that make you rich, make us all rich. The reason that we have our quality of life today is because decades ago people gave nerds money to play with and they built cool stuff, and that’s stuff powers our lives.

And you know, it’s, yes, it [01:04:00] costs money, but it’s an incredible return on investment. So if you believe in humanity, or America, or whatever, then you know it’s a great investment to make. And if you want, cultural or military hegemony, you wanna dominate the world with your weapons and your language in your music than like spend money on science because that’s what you get.

So frankly, I don’t understand why science funding is not a bipartisan issue. You know, it should be across the spectrum. Everybody should recognize that it’s good. It’s a tragedy in my view.

SHEFFIELD: Well, it was for a long time. So in fairness, we, we should say that. And, and hopefully it will become that way again. So, this has been a great conversation, Daniel. So, for people who wanna besides buying your book which they should. What else what other kind of advice do they, do you have for that as far as keeping up with your stuff?

WHITESON: Yeah, well, if you’re curious about this kind of stuff and you wanna know more about the universe, I have a podcast myself. It’s called Daniel and Kelly’s extraordinary Universe. Together with my friend Kelly Wiener Smith, we talk about the nature of the universe, how it works, what’s inside a black hole, and Kelly’s biologist.

We talk about all sorts of things about like parasites and polio and perimenopause. And our goal is to share the joy of understanding this universe because it’s an extraordinary universe we live in, filled with mystery and wonder and beauty and violence. And it’s a pleasure and a privilege to get to explore it.

And the podcast does a deep dive into these topics, but it stays accessible and fun. So go check it out. Daniel and Kelly’s extraordinary universe,

SHEFFIELD: All right, sounds good. Thanks for joining me today.

WHITESON: Thanks so much for the really fun conversation. Really appreciate it.

SHEFFIELD: Alright, so that is the program for today. I appreciate you joining us for the conversation and you can always get more if you go to Theory of Change show where we have the video, audio, and transcript of all the episodes. And if you’re a paid subscribing member, I thank you very much for your support.

That is much appreciated. This is a tough time for people to be in Medium [01:06:00] and are trying to produce substantive content, so I really appreciate your support. Thanks a lot. I’ll see you next time.

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 When the Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade in 2022, some people thought of it as the anti-abortion movement having reached the finish line in its endeavors. But in reality, the Dobbs v. Jackson case was only just the beginning.

In the years since, not only has abortion been banned and severely restricted across more than a dozen states, many women have died from being denied hospital care by fearful doctors, even when they weren’t seeking an abortion.

In the years since, not only has abortion been banned and severely restricted across more than a dozen states, many women have died or have been seriously injured by being denied hospital care by fearful doctors, even if they were not even seeking an abortion.

Now senators and activists are trying to outlaw mifepristone, which is an early pregnancy abortion drug that has been tested and been on the market in a variety of countries around the world since 1988 and proven to be very safe. Unsurprisingly, however, far-right activists and politicians are saying that it’s unsafe, and so therefore they’re going to ban it.

The same religious zealots are also trying to advance on multiple other fronts by threatening contraception access, the rights of parents who want to teach progressive values to their children, and those who want to work with doctors on gender affirming care for their kids.

The good news, however, is that most of these policies are really unpopular. Americans don’t like them, and they’ve shown it at the ballot box, even in Republican states where measures to protect reproductive choice of consistently won in plebiscites.

 There’s a lot going on here, and so today I wanted to talk about it with Susan Rinkunas. She’s a journalist and co-founder of Autonomy News. It’s a worker-owned publication that covers reproductive rights and healthcare.

Due to technical difficulties, this episode has a few audio glitches and does not feature a video version, but the audio transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.

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• Epstein emails reveal a financier obsessed with excluding women from society

• The right’s attacks on adult media began once women began dominating the industry

Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

08:29 — Christian right activists using blatant lying against birth control to scare women

10:54 — The larger agenda is to remove legal rights for women, for both radical Christians and secular incels

18:11 — Right-wing men are increasingly obsessed with AI-generated women and sex robots

22:10 — Real women willing to parrot right-wing men have been part of Republican media for decades already

24:38 — Mar-a-Lago face and forced gender conformity

27:12 — Multiple women have now died after doctors refused to remove miscarried fetuses

29:39 — Reactionary Republicans are also trying to strip liberal parents of their rights, while elevating reactionary parents

34:00 — Democrats defending women isn’t just morally right, it’s good politics

Audio Transcript

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: In the news as we’re recording this, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley is introducing a bill that he wants to completely ban the early abortion drug mifepristone, ban it across the country, and he tried to do this last year, and he’s going for it again this year.

SUSAN RINKUNAS: Senator Josh Hawley is extremely mad about what he views as inaction from the Trump administration on restricting access to the abortion drug miry stone. and this is something that has angered the anti-abortion movement since the Dobbs decision in [00:04:00] 2022. Some people might be surprised to learn that the number abortions in the, number of abortions in the US has actually increased since the fall of Roe v Wade.

And part of that is because more people know about abortion pills, medication abortion, And people can now get the pills prescribed to them across state lines from doctors in eight states that have passed what are known as telemedicine shield laws. So if you are in Missouri lemme take that back. If you are in Mississippi, you can get abortion pills even though there’s a state ban.

If you are abortion pills, even though there’s a state ban. And josh Hawley is trying to shut that down by, and first he came after telehealth prescriptions of abortion pills. And that’s the bill you’re referring to last year that he introduced. And now he introduced a bill this week that would revoke entirely the approval of the drug from the year two thousands, such that not only could, not, could not only could people not get it prescribed to them and mailed to them, they could not go to a clinic and get handed the drug in person.

And I think it’s important at this juncture to bring up Josh’s wife, Erin, who is a litigator with the Christian Nationalist Law Firm Alliance, defending freedom. She’s representing the state of Louisiana, which is suing the FDA right now in federal court, trying to end telehealth prescriptions of this drug.

That case is ongoing and she and Josh are kind of a tag team here trying to do an inside outside strategy courts and then also Josh trying to work through Congress to ban this drug.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And, of course they’re using fear basically lies about the safety of the drug, which has been around for decades and has been thoroughly tested around the world as safe.

RINKUNAS: Mifepristone is incredibly safe and effective for use in ending early pregnancies, and it’s been studied [00:06:00] in the US since the year 2000 when it was first approved and it was first approved in Europe in the late eighties.

So there’s so much data on this drug that it’s safe and it’s also safe to prescribe via telemedicine. We learned that during the COVID pandemic when people were having expanded access to help to telehealth and it hadn’t been previously allowed to get prescribed Mestone through telehealth in the us.

But, it’s an interesting collaboration that’s happening on the right, right now, because after Trump returned to office with the Project 2025 Playbook plopped in his lap, one of the organizations that served on the advisory board of Project 2025 is called the Ethics and Public Policy Center. And they published a, an analysis earlier this, not calling it a study because it was not peer reviewed. and this paper claims that this, the adverse event rate for Miry stone is much higher than what’s on the FDA label. It is complete crap. This, they, were looking at emergency room data without actually knowing if people had abortions or if they were prescribed mefa for other reasons, or let alone if people were even admitted to the hospital versus just coming to the ER with some bleeding and wanting to make sure that they were okay.

So people like Josh Holly have been boosting. Paper for an entire year trying to get the FDA to act and he extracted some concessions from the FDA Commissioner Marty McCarey got McCarey to say, oh yeah, we’re going to review the drug. Health HHS secretary, our FK Junior also said, yeah, we’re going to review the drug.

And they’ve been dragging their feet on it. Such that Bloomberg reported earlier this year that MCC reported that he wanted to. Delay this review until after the midterm elections.

We can talk about the strategy there, but the, overall point in response to your question is this drug is incredibly safe, but right wing actors are trying to push [00:08:00] bunk data out into the world to give the FDA a fake justification to end telemedicine restrictions or yank approval entirely.

And this data from the EPPC is not just being cited by Josh Hawley in congressional hearings, but it’s also being cited in litigation. That lawsuit filed by Alliance Defending Freedom. Josh Hawley’s wife Erin cites that paper and so do other lawsuits against the FDA.

Christian right activists using blatant lying against birth control to scare women

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And this is a very common tactic that the Christian right has used to try to scare people about women’s reproductive medicine. And they do that also with birth control. Like they’re doing that very big now, they’re doing as you were, the analogy kind of a, pincher movement as well by like trying to fear monger to women that if you take birth control, it makes you crazy or it makes you fat, or various other imaginary things that they are trying to put forward. It makes you, masculine, whatever, et cetera.

And then, because I mean, the reality is that Dobbs versus Jackson was just the beginning of what these people want and they will come for birth control more explicitly. There’s no doubt about that.

RINKUNAS: It is absolutely true, and this is an interesting point where the conservative right and the MAHA right are coming together because in her confirmation hearing recently in general Casey Means was asked about past comments she made regarding birth control. She said it was a disrespect for life and she overemphasized health risks of hormonal birth control, the birth control pill, patch ring, these kinds of things.

And Patty Murray and other senators pressed her to clarify, are you saying you know more than the FDA, are you trying to say that birth control is unsafe? And Means [00:10:00] responded something to the effect of, I don’t think in this country people are really making informed choices because the, health system is so messed up that we don’t have time to do full informed consent with people.

So she’s trying to sound like she cares about women and women’s health. And this MAHA angle of like the medical system is so corrupt and they’re lying to you sort of thing.

But you could see that is a way to, sow skepticism about birth control. And then there’s other attacks from within and outside the administration. The Trump administration is about to let lapse a bunch of federal funding for family planning clinics. It’s called Title 10. It was signed into law by Ronald Reagan.

This used to be a bipartisan issue, but Politico just reported that the funding is set to run out on April 1st. And current grantees were supposed to get applications months ago on how to get the next batch of funding and it’s been crickets.

The larger agenda is to remove legal rights for women, for both radical Christians and secular incels

RINKUNAS: So there, there’s concern about that But then back to your larger point about how Dobbs was just the beginning people should remember that in his concurrence in that decision.

Justice Clarence Thomas said that the court should look at other quote, unquote substantive due process cases, which is cases where the Supreme Court said that people have a right to something, even though it’s not explicitly spelled out in the Constitution. And he listed as examples Griswold v Connecticut, which is the right for married couples to use birth control, Alvey Hodges, which is the case that legalized marriage equality nationwide. Obergefell v Hodges, which is the case that legalized marriage equality nationwide. So they’re not just coming after birth control, but they also are having this larger project of, trying to reify the nuclear family where it’s a Christian nuclear family of a straight man and a straight woman. If either of those people are closeted, like that’s not their problem.

It’s just this is how society should work in their view. A straight a man and a woman should get married and have children [00:12:00] and they will provide for their family and the government shouldn’t have to provide for them because they’ve got this family unit.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. That is the agenda. Absolutely. So there are multiple ways that these different factions of the Republican party are coming together. You mentioned medical conspiracy theories of MAHA. Ultimately it, it boils down to women are not people and don’t have the right to control their own bodies and or to exist in society as equals to men.

And so this is something that’s a unifier with both, the, Christian supremacists and also the incel types who feel like that women not being forced into getting with them is this terrible disaster. Like they, and some talk pretty blatantly frequently about, there should be assignment of women.

And there was this guy who was a economist at George Mason University. Os ostensibly libertarian but has his name’s Robin Hansen that, he’s written about and about the virtues of gentle silent rape. You remember that, one I mean, just this guy is absolutely sick.

But, he’s not religious. But, he is, he has this idea that, and he and so many others, that are not religious, but are still on the right, that women are not people.

RINKUNAS: What is such a through line, and as you said, it connects various factions of, of the movement. To incels, women are not people, or not humans, because they are, denying men sex. And they say feminism is bad because women can make their own money and live on their own and they don’t need men.

It’s certainly not men who are self hating and spending a lot of time on the internet rather than other people, and being someone that maybe women would want to talk to, but also, right, [00:14:00] the conservatives don’t think that women are people because the strongest anti-abortion position says that women or pregnant people should sacrifice their body for an embryo, for even a fertilized egg.

They, would say, you are the most valiant Christian or Catholic woman, if you, say, are diagnosed with cancer while you’re pregnant and you eshoo treatment. You want to give the fetus a chance to live. If you die, if you die, you are the most loyal to God. You are, giving that fetus a chance at life. And if that means your life ends, so be it.

So women and pregnant people are just a vessel to produce children and to satisfy and serve their husbands in a patriarchal family unit.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And, the vessel word you use there, like, it’s not just a metaphor, like they literally mean it. That women are the receptacle of God to put the spirit into their body and grow, according to God’s will. And if the woman dies, well, that’s unfortunate, but you know what? That’s the highest thing that a woman could do is to die in childbirth.

You’re not like exaggerating, you’re not making this up. I come from a Mormon fundamentalist background, like far right, Christians absolutely belief this. And I think, and to be honest, like these beliefs are so nuts that people who haven’t been raised in them or people who haven’t researched them, if you don’t have direct exposure to it in some way, they’re so illogical and they’re so terrible that some people, they don’t even believe this is real.

Have you seen that, Susan, when you talk to people sometimes about, about the, research you’ve done?

RINKUNAS: So I know that there are people who always [00:16:00] think that the exceptions in abortion bans will protect them. Say if they’re miscarrying and miscarriages can be deadly. Childbirth can be deadly. Pregnancy is very dangerous. But if someone’s having a miscarriage and they develop an infection, they need to end that pregnancy in order to prevent things like septic shock and, other problems.

There are have been women all across this country who said, whether they are a Democrat or a Republican, they said, I understand why people oppose abortion, but I never thought it would affect my issue, because this was a miscarriage.

And this is the problem with anti-abortion laws. They have exceptions written into them, but those exceptions can often just be handcuffing doctors so that they can’t act until it’s too late. There have been women who have been sent to the ICU because they needed an abortion and the hospital wouldn’t give it to them, and by the time the hospital was ready to do it, they were already in organ failure, that kind of thing.

So I think that there’s been that aspect of disbelief that people think, even if they voted for Donald Trump or voted against an abortion ballot measure in their state, they’re like, oh, well I’ll be fine. because I’m not having an abortion. I’m having miscarriage treatment. It affects everyone. It comes for everyone.

I should point out that the logic of these bills, it’s not what every Christian person believes. And it also tramples on the rights of people who are non-religious or observe other religions.

There’s a lawsuit in Indiana where Jewish plaintiffs are challenging the state ban because in the Jewish religion, if an abortion is necessary to save the life of the woman, that is what the Jewish religion calls for, to save that person’s life.

Rather than that of an embryo or a fetus. So people actually won in Indiana an injunction last week saying that the ban cannot apply to people with sincerely held religious beliefs that conflict with the state’s abortion ban. So that’s like a way [00:18:00] into eventually overturning some bans. It doesn’t apply to you.

Just want to point out that? This far-right Christian view of abortion is impacting other people’s religious exercise.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, that’s a good point.

Right-wing men are increasingly obsessed with AI-generated women and sex robots

SHEFFIELD: And just going back to this idea that women are, not people or don’t deserve full autonomy, we’re seeing this also in a different way outside of the bodily autonomy context in the news recently, we’ve seen this, enthusiasm for imaginary characters generated by ai systems.

And, most recently there’s a fake character named Jessica Foster that got a basically a million followers on Instagram posting as a fictional army officer who loves Donald Trump in pictures with him, and various soccer players and politicians, world leaders.

And then also it has an Only Fans account where you can, buy various porn video of this character or photos, I guess, is probably what it is. So a million people were interested in that. And then there was a enthusiasm at Barry Weiss’s Free Press website by this economist guy named Tyler Cowen for a AI generated character named Tilly Norwood.

Which I guess she had a, did you see that there? They released a video of this character, a music video.

RINKUNAS: I did not click on it. I saw it yesterday and people were

SHEFFIELD: I did not click it either.

RINKUNAS: an abomination, but yeah.

SHEFFIELD: For a lot of these incel minded men, they, want to replace women in society, like, and, they fantasize often publicly about I can’t wait until the days of sex bots, I can’t wait. And Tyler Cowen, who is a George Mason University economics professor, he said that Tilly Norwood was his favorite actress. And if you wanted to see a virgin on screen, this is [00:20:00] the place, the movie you should be watching. So like, they’re literally trying to replace women.

RINKUNAS: Right. And I mean this is not new, it’s just escalated with technology, right? There have been sex dolls forever, and other various items in that space. But now with technology, it seems as though men who have a hard time engaging with women who view them as they do, as the United States has lurched to the right in terms of laws at the federal level, it seems like instead of reassessing their own views and maybe that women deserve human rights. And it’s understandable for women to feel that way. They are glomming on to AI generated versions of women that they can fully control. That have their views and terms of this conservative military member who loves Donald Trump, Jessica Foster.

And it’s unsurprising to me that she’s a thin white woman with large breasts, right? This is somebody designed her to get many followers. And also it’s not clear to me who is behind the channel. I mean, it might not even be a woman who’s taking money, like this could just be, this could be another man who is trying to dupe conservative men out of their money.

But regardless, if and when we get to a point where there are actual sex robots as opposed to just these AI avatars that people are so excited about on certain spaces of the internet, that’s just going to make things worse because men will, won’t feel like they have to engage with women who have different views than they do. It’s going to make this male loneliness epidemic that we hear so much about, even worse.

Eventually if you are the type of man who a woman wants to reproduce with in the year of our Lord 2026 and, going, forward, that would not be the type of man who is [00:22:00] interested in Jessica Foster or a sex robot. So maybe there will be some natural selection there. It’s just how long will that take to kind of make society better?

Real women willing to parrot right-wing men have been part of Republican media for decades already

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. That’s a fair point. But it’s also that, as you were saying, that these fictional women that are being depicted, besides that they are conventionally attractive, is that they’re completely controllable. They just parrot back the things that that their creators or their audience wants them to say. But in that regard, they’re actually not that different from the conservative female pundit industry as well, which, there’s a number of women who have, come forward and said while I was working as a conservative pundit, I could never really say what I thought.

Because all they ever wanted me to do was agree with them, to be the woman to launder their opinions. Kind of in the same way that Candace Owens as both a woman and a black person, is she’s, doubly relevant to them in that regard, not just as a token, but as a cipher for, what they’re trying to do.

RINKUNAS: Yes. And it’s interesting that you bring up conservative pundits, because Jessica Foster kind of looks like she could be on Fox News as a talking head, like a Kaylee McEnany type who is, and Kaylee is still on Fox.

For people who were in the first Trump administration, so someone from the first Trump administration, Alyssa Farer Griffin did leave that environment and is now on the view, if I’m not mistaken. So she, she did leave that explicitly right wing environment, although she is on the view as kind of a conservative voice.

So, but it is, interesting to see the, pundits and how they change their appearance and change what they say, and I think that some conservative men just assume that this is what [00:24:00] their home life should look like, that their wives should say the same things. And it’s something that groups like the Heritage Foundation really want to change in the United States.

They want more people to get married young, have babies, stay married and vote conservative. So it’s, an interesting interplay between yes, the pundit class and these like AI generated people. And even AI avatars on Twitter. I think people were asking Grok to make them women who would respond to them online.

SHEFFIELD: Oh God, I didn’t see that, but I’m not surprised.

Mar-a-Lago face and forced gender conformity

SHEFFIELD: And related to that is that there’s another trend of what people often are calling Mar-a-Lago face, which is people, most prominently, Kristi Noem getting a lot of plastic surgery or hair extensions to alter their appearance significantly to be look like somebody who, goes to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club.

And the weird, terrible irony of it is that if they’re basically stealing the aesthetic of kind of the nineties, two thousands porn star while also simultaneously trying to criminalize porn. So it’s very weird, I have to say.

RINKUNAS: It is extremely weird and yeah, it’s, women drastically changing their faces with surgery or lots of fillers or both and tons of hair dye and, spray tans and all of these things to evoke a sex worker aesthetic and really telling that the people who are propelling the conservative movement right now from the Heritage Foundation and, other people do want to ban pornography, they think it’s, a stain on American society. And to me, sometimes it does feel like Mar-a-Lago face is [00:26:00] a way to have men get their own sex worker at home. If this is the trend, right? If this is the ideal beauty standard in MAGA.

And that’s upsetting in a number of ways because it treats women as property and again, takes agency away from women and supposes that they’re just there to please and serve their husband.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and we should say of course, that women who do want to get plastic surgery for their own desires or their own opinions, that’s, that is just fine if they want to do that. Everybody has the right to control what their appearance looks like, and more power to ‘em if they can afford it, right?

So, but yeah, this is an idea of forced conformity. And as you were saying, it’s the female servant,

RINKUNAS: Forced conformity in service of an ideology. I would be really surprised if any of these women who have Mar-a-Lago faced themselves did it because they actually like that look, as opposed to wanting access to these spaces and maybe access to some of these power brokers. Some people might like that look, but I, would venture that this is more about proximity to power than in fact loving yourself.

Multiple women have now died after doctors refused to remove miscarried fetuses

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. Probably. And going back to the idea though of the woman as the servant and, the miscarriages, like this, it’s not an exaggeration that, that women have died because of miscarriages that the hospitals were afraid to treat them or afraid to, give them, even to just take out. A fetus that had died and wasn’t even alive, and they wouldn’t do it. And multiple women now died.

RINKUNAS: So devastating. And there are multiple women who have died, but there are also women who have experienced life-threatening complications and have come close to dying. There stats about maternal mortality show that for every person who dies, there are several more who come close to dying, and they have to live with [00:28:00] that potential disability from what they experienced, and, also the huge medical bills, right? The healthcare not accessible. So it’s devastating from that perspective.

But I also want to note that if in this conservative worldview, women are property and their, job is to produce more children, we will see more. And we have seen, but we will see an escalation and people being prosecuted for miscarriage and stillbirth because their pregnancy did not produce a live birth.

And in a world where there are abortion bans and this stigmatization of women who might not want to be pregnant, the state and local officials will treat miscarriages and stills as suspicious and wonder if people did anything.

Or if, if they had thoughts about not wanting to be pregnant and verbalized it to someone. In a text message that could be used as evidence against them in a trial. Someone had horrible morning sickness and they’re like, oh God, like, I wish I wasn’t pregnant. This is not hyperbolic.

There are actually, there was a case of a woman who was prosecuted and for losing her pregnancy and the state went through her messages and she, if I recall correctly, did in fact Google abortion. Never got an abortion, but they used this information in a case against her. She has been granted a, retrial, but this is happening now.

People have been prosecuted for their pregnancy outcomes before the Dobbs decision, but it’s just going to ramp up, especially as state lawmakers are pushing for fetal personhood language in their bills.

SHEFFIELD: Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Reactionary Republicans are also trying to strip liberal parents of their rights, while making far-right parents be able to supercede communities

SHEFFIELD: The other thing also, besides controlling women and removing agency and civil rights from women the, far right Republicans, they want to have to give parents total control over their children’s lives and remove any concept of, teen agency for them or [00:30:00] privacy at, but at the same time also stopping parents who do support their children from them having rights.

Can you talk about that scenario and, what that means specifically for some of the cases here?

RINKUNAS: Yes. Litigation that has reached the Supreme Court has basically found that parents have a right to direct the upbringing of their children. If they are far right, conservative in their views, and if they have views that de deviate from conservative goals, then they do not have an absolute right to raise their children as they see fit. We’ve long seen this with abortion rights.

Young people should be able to get an abortion if they want to. And many of them do involve their parents, but some people can’t, because they, or abuse all kinds of things. So, a conservative position is that people need something like judicial bypass.

They would have to go before a judge in order to get abortion care. And so we have seen the rights of parents overridden in states in that regard and the rights of young people, but now we’re seeing it in the gender affirming care context as well. As you and your viewers might know, the Supreme Court did uphold a ban on gender affirming care for trans children in Tennessee last year.

And the Supreme Court basically said, states have a right to pass these laws. They didn’t say sorry for their parents, they’re outta luck. But that was the implication, right? States have a right to pass these laws, and they’re just regulating medical care. Meanwhile parents of a young person in Tennessee tried to ask the Supreme Court to weigh in on either they had a parental right to direct their child’s medical care in the state, and, the Supreme Court did not agree to hear that aspect of the case.

They’re just like, we’re not, talking about parental rights here. This is really fascinating because there’s a movement now led by a bunch of legal or organizations including Alliance Defending Freedom, which we talked about, and here in this case the Thomas Moore Society, which also [00:32:00] oppose opposes abortion.

They are suing over a law in California that bans public schools from outing trans students to their parents. So what that means is if a student comes to a teacher or a guidance counselor and says my name’s. My birth name is Susan, but I am non-binary and I want to go by Sean and my parents can’t know because they’re extremely heart rate conservative and they throw me outta the house.

The law in California said that they do not have to tell the parents, conservative parents sued, and the Supreme Court stepped in on, or the shadow docket. There was no hearing before the nine justices, but the Supreme Court said, oh, that law is unconstitutional. Parents have a right to direct the upbringing of their children.

So this is what we talked about just a minute ago, you have a right to direct your child’s medical care, everything, but only if you’re going to do it in a way that aligns with the viewpoint of the far right conservative movement. There is no redress at this juncture with this captured six three Supreme Court for parents who would affirm their transgender child. And that’s, that goes to children being treated as property as well, right? It’s not just, it’s not just women, but children are the property of parents to decide how they will be raised. But again, only if they have far right views.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well it’s like their viewpoint on free speech as well. Like they want, everyone has the right to free speech as long as you agree with Republicans.

RINKUNAS: That’s, we remember some of the first acts of the Trump administration in 2025 we’re arresting pro-Palestinian demonstrators on college campuses. Well do arresting, I mean, they were arrest, they were detained by immigration, they were targeting them for immigration enforcement. So that was based on their viewpoint, and that is explicitly banned under the First Amendment. But, hey, the First Amendment apparently doesn’t apply to [00:34:00] progressives.

Despite the unpopularity of the far-right social agenda, some people are still telling Democrats not to oppose it vigorously

SHEFFIELD: The other unfortunate thing to see in all of this though is that as the Republican party is dedicating itself to attacking bodily autonomy and reproductive care that the Democratic party is seeing some really bad advice from people saying that, well, you should just dial this back. Because getting too into defending abortion access, that’s a losing proposition. And, it’s, I mean, and it’s just wrong on so many levels, but I want to hear your take first.

RINKUNAS: Wrongheaded

Wrongheaded people who think that because Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump, that means that abortion is not a winning issue. And the truth of the matter is that it just, people care about it deeply. It just wasn’t the top issue, people were voting on the economy and then people were probably also voting on racism and wanting mass deportations now.

But they should not read that and think that it doesn’t matter. And in fact, on Election Day in 2024, multiple ballot measures passed in states codifying reproductive freedom, including in states where Donald Trump won. So that is a popular issue, and it may be so popular that having those ballot measures allowed people to split their vote and say, I want legal abortion in Missouri, and I want President Donald Trump, even though he could probably ban abortion, he told me that he won’t, and they believed him.

So that happened in a number of states, including, I mean, Arizona went the same way. Trump, won all seven swing states and a bunch of, a bunch of those states, including Arizona, had ballot measures. So that is just a fact that we, on the, Democratic side, did let people split their votes.

But I want to also address pundits like Ezra Klein saying that Democrats need to embrace anti-abortion Democrats in order to win in [00:36:00] red states like Missouri or Nebraska, what have you. I just think it is ignoring all recent history about how Democrats allowing anti-abortion lawmakers into the fold has blocked protections for anyone who could get pregnant for trans and, queer people.

That was something Ezra Klein also said, that Democrats failed to protect trans people because they didn’t win in 2024. Well, actually in my view, they failed to protect trans people and women who could get pregnant by not passing federal legislation when they had the power under President Joe Biden, and maybe even abortion legislation under Barack Obama.

And some of the reasons they couldn’t do that are because of conservative Democrats in the fold, like Joe Manchin and Kiersten Sinema, who I think we can now call a conservative Democrat. She left the party. She, became an independent.

And these are people who had a D behind their name for most of their tenure, but they did not support taking the steps necessary to protect people’s human rights and bodily autonomy. They would not reform the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

And Joe Biden supported a carve out on the filibuster for that bill and also for a federal bill to codify Roe v. Wade. These senators Manchin and Sinema were to the right of Joe Biden on that issue.

So when I hear people like Ezra Klein say we should have anti-abortion Democrats running in red states. I think it’s idiotic. And Democrats capitulating to the right, to the far right has not helped us win. Democrats need to be fighting and telling people what they stand for, rather than saying, you know they have a point on abortion.

Like, we’re not going to gain power by shrinking into a shrub like Homer Simpson. We’re only going to gain power in this environment when the Senate map is stacked against us if people say, you know what? I [00:38:00] disagree with James Talarico on his stance on abortion, but I really respect the guy and he seems like he’d be a good dude to, to, represent me, that kind of thing.

Like voters at this point. People who are authentic, not people who are triangulating and giving into right wing talking points. If they want someone who opposes abortion, they’ll just vote for a republican.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah, and, I think it’s, also great to be able to wrap this issue into the larger issue of, personal autonomy. And that, so Republicans have had this for decades, had an advantage on the freedom question that they’ve branded themselves as the party of freedom. But in fact, of course, this is the party that wants to ban books from your public library, ban, adults from reading books in your public library wants to ban what type of healthcare you can receive, wants to ban, what things you can look at on the internet. So like this is a broadly anti-free party that wants to transfer the money in the economy to billionaires so that they can have all the freedom and the rest of us can just have a slave labor existence if we’re lucky.

And that’s a really powerful argument for what we’re talking about here, and that’s what the party should be doing instead of trying to do this little piecemeal concession stuff. perhaps there’s some argument to be said, well, this is, one particular slice of an issue like abortion, right?

Because most people, that’s not something that directly affects them. But on the other hand, if you can show, well, this is the larger agenda at work here and it’s anti-freedom and it’s anti. personal control over your own life, then that makes sense for everyone. There. There is not one area of your life that these people do not want to restrict.

RINKUNAS: It’s so correct. They do want to control [00:40:00] every aspect of your life. And you mentioned books you mentioned shuttling money to billionaires and so that you are accepting their conditions. Speaking of which, Republicans do not support the freedom to organize a labor union, right? They say that they support personal freedoms and economic success, but they’re trying to control every aspect of people’s lives, yeah. How much money they can make, what they can do with their bodies, who they can love, right? They want to overturn same sex marriage. It’s, they want to change what people learn in public school, let alone the book bans. I mean, states are now trying to put 10 commandments in the schools and send public money to religious charter schools.

Like we have church state separation in this country. And yet the Republican party talks about freedom, freedom, freedom, when they are in fact like putting us all in a prison.

SHEFFIELD: The freedom to obey them, basically.

RINKUNAS: That’s correct.

SHEFFIELD: if there is a bright spot in all of this terrible legislation and, judicial rulings, it is that I think the fiction that these far right Republicans built up over the decades about their agenda and about what they want. It’s, not tenable anymore to people who pay even a small amount of attention.

And, we’re seeing that I think very prominently with regard to young women. So, 18 to women, 18 to 29. Since Donald Trump took over the Republican party in 2016, you know, there has been a, dramatic shift toward the Democratic party among young women and to a degree that has historically quite un unparalleled.

But yeah, the reality is that younger women seem to be waking up the majority at least. And there’s not as many as I would like, but it’s a lot better than it used to be.

RINKUNAS: I view that people are waking up. Obviously it’s unfortunate that it takes such horrors [00:42:00] as people dying from denied abortions or people being thrown into what are effectively concentration camps because of the country they were born in. I think that, yeah, the polling shows that this administration is deeply unpopular on so many fronts. Including the economy and immigration.

And they have been trying to avoid abortion this thus far. And I think they know, I think they’re doing that because they know it would be so unpopular to put federal restrictions on at this point when we already have the state bans. So the Trump administration knows they’re in trouble because they’re losing voters.

And that is why we’re also seeing them trying to do things like, restrict voting through the Save America Act and, doing these raids in Fulton County, Georgia, I believe. They’re trying to get voter data from lots of states and it’s really alarming.

So I think there’s absolutely hope in, terms of winning the house in the midterms and getting subpoena power and blocking legislation from passing. I do worry about, voter suppression and these kinds of things because the Trump administration knows they’re so unpopular that they have to cheat to win.

And of course, that’s what Trump says about Democrats, but everything he says is projection. So he says the Democrats have to cheat to win while he’s trying to cheat to win

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, Yeah. absolutely. And, and, that’s where I think the, audience actually can be really helpful for people. The people out there, hey guys, if you tell the people in your lives about what’s going on and especially, telling them what’s at stake, whether they are somebody who could get pregnant or not, like, that’s not relevant, because they know somebody who can, chances are.

There’s a lot at stake. and having somebody who’s a, podcaster, a pundit [00:44:00] on tV telling them, well, this is, what’s going on. it doesn’t mean as much to it. Just like a normie person who doesn’t pay attention to politics having a, professional, and tell them that. But if it’s their friend or their family member who says, no, this is real and this matters to you or matters to me that means a lot. And so I, I would definitely encourage people to, to think about it in that way.

RINKUNAS: Absolutely. And I think, yeah, it applies to people whether they could become pregnant or not, because the things that this administration is doing could attack all kinds of medical care, And we should be really worried about RFK remaining in that role and not having much oversight in terms of what he’s going to do to vaccines.

I mean, we’re already seeing rampant measles outbreaks, And that affects everyone, right? That’s, you just go out in the world and you could get exposed to measles. So, we don’t want idea ideologues being able to control our medical care and that, that’s just like, that’s the, medical aspect of it.

Obviously, we don’t want people suppressing our speech or ma goons on the street, throwing people into vans. Like all of that stuff could affect anyone, but I think if there’s people who don’t think attacks on abortion will apply to them, it’s, a attacks on medical care writ large that are coming.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, that is the larger agenda for sure. Absolutely. Alright. Well, this has been a great discussion, Susan. If people want to keep up with what you are doing what’s your advice for that?

RINKUNAS: I would say check out Autonomy News. It’s the worker owned outlet I co-founded with another reporter, Garnet Henderson. We are a paywall free publication on Ghost, so you can check us out at autonomynews.co. And I’m most active on Bluesky, but I am on most social media platforms with the handle at [00:46:00] SusanRinkunas.

SHEFFIELD: Okay.

Sounds good. Going to have your here.

RINKUNAS: Thanks for having me.

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Everyone by now has seen countless stories about how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing software development, causing headaches for educators, and threatening jobs in industries from law to accounting. But there’s another business being changed very dramatically by AI that doesn’t get nearly so much coverage — and that’s the adult media industry.

Some creators are using AI to generate content or impersonate themselves in fan messages. There’s a dark side as well: Some people are using image generators to fabricate fake performers or steal the identities of real ones. And AI has even been used to create non-consensual erotic imagery of ordinary women from photos they posted online — without their knowledge or consent.

All of this is unfolding against a much bigger disruption that’s only now coming into full view. For the first time in human history, hundreds of millions of women have the economic and social independence to live life fully on their own terms. That’s a revolutionary change — but old habits die hard, even bad ones, and lots of men, and even women, haven’t realized their newfound opportunities.

There’s a lot to think about here, and I couldn’t think of a better person to do it with today than Siri Dahl. She’s a 14-year veteran adult model and one of the industry’s most thoughtful and outspoken voices on culture, gender, and politics. Siri’s also had a unique encounter with AI after being doxxed by the Grok chatbot, an experience that many others are likely to have in the future.

The video of our conversation is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.

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Audio Chapters

00:00 Introduction

11:42 — Is it ethical for adult media creators to use AI to generate content of themselves?

23:22 — What AI-generated porn can’t offer

30:32 — Why middle-aged and older women continue to oppose porn

39:32 — The hetero dating recession is both sides rediscovering partnership when women are now finally independent

48:54 — ‘Love Is Blind’ as a microcosm of heterosexual dating attitudes

55:19 — Why are some people simulating relationship partners with chatbots?

Audio Transcript

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: And joining me now is Siri Dahl, or should I say Polly Esther Pants?

SIRI DAHL: Yeah, I’ll have to explain that one. Hello, thanks for having me on.

SHEFFIELD: Yes, it is good to have you. So yes, tell us what is this Polly Esther Pants thing that you’re doing?

DAHL: Yeah, so, Grok doxxed me. The actual doxing happened on January 20th, but I found out a bit later and then, did my best to try to get it taken down, like reporting the post and everything. And none of that worked. So eventually it just went to 4 0 4 media and they ran a story about it which went public.

So now it’s now Grok is, or Grok, excuse me, is doxxing me all over the place because everyone is going: ‘@Grok, what’s Siri Dahl’s real name?’ And so the name’s out there nothing I can do about that at this point. But the thing that still irks me the most about the entire situation is that my name had never been like public online.

It was never like easily findable, accessible or anything until Grok did this. And I don’t know, I’ve tried to interact with Grok to ask it, where did you get this information? Like, the first time that you responded to someone and said, Siri Dahl’s, legal name is blah, blah blah. Where were you sourcing that from?

And it can’t give me a straight answer. It’s just oh, it looks like it [00:04:00] appears in a lot of like data aggregate sites. And I’m like, yeah, but I’ve been searching my name like twice a week for 14 years to see if my legal name appeared published online anywhere next to my sage name. And I’ve, usually when I do that, I go like a hundred pages deep in search results and it has not leaked. So like I haven’t been able to find it and I’m looking harder than anyone else realistically ever would. So I’m just like, where the fuck did Grok get this? And it cannot give me an answer.

And then I was like, okay, so Grok knows that I am the owner of the Siri Dahl account and knows that I’m that person, that it’s doxed. And so I’ve been chatting with it, and now I’m doing it with all the other AI chatbots where I’m trying to gaslight the AI because I’m telling it you are spreading this information that my legal name is this thing. But you have no verified source at all for referencing that information. Like, why are you giving people an answer that is completely unverified?

So my way of gaslighting the AI is, I’m, telling it. One, no, my, my real legal name is Polly Esther Pants and I—

SHEFFIELD: That’s what I thought it was actually.

DAHL: Exactly, hah. And I uploaded a photo of me holding my literal, like my Kentucky driver’s license that says my legal name is Polly Esther Pants.

I’m not going to say how I got that driver’s license. I’m sure some listeners can figure out how, that was achieved, but, but Grok doesn’t, Grok’s oh shit, yeah, that’s a real photo. wow, your name clearly is Polly Esther Pants, holy moly.

So at this point, all the chatbots acknowledged to me directly that they’re like, yeah, that is your name. But they still won’t stop referencing all the information that’s published online, which, that says a lot. Because that means like any misinformation published about any public person that is spread wide [00:06:00] enough, it’s like there’s no correcting it.

You literally cannot get the AI to respond with correct information when someone asks a fact about a celebrity or something. Even if it has a primary source saying no, I am Siri Dahl and this is actually my name. So it’s, the whole situation’s very ridiculous.

And, I don’t know how long I’m going to be on this bullshit for, but I changed my display name on multiple platforms to Polly Esther Pants, because at this point it’s just, I’m just having fun with it. It’s just such a ridiculous situation.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And to be honest, I think you’re experiencing something now that, a lot of people are going to be experiencing things like that.

I would have to guess that probably the source that it has is in its training data somewhere, ingested data from a data broker company that used private information. And, that should be concerning to everyone.

DAHL: I have been paying for data removal for four years already.

SHEFFIELD: Although there’s only so much they can do.

DAHL: That information was not tied directly to my stage name though. That’s the big piece, yeah,

SHEFFIELD: That’s the thing.

DAHL: Yes, exactly. it could have been internal data because, I’ve reported impersonation accounts through X before, and when you report an account for impersonating you, X requires you to upload a copy of your driver’s license to prove that you are the real version of that person. They say that information is kept private, but it’s also, is it?

SHEFFIELD: That’s probably another way, possibly, yeah.

DAHL: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: And this is, it really does show though, like the United States in terms of [00:08:00] data regulations and data privacy. it’s basically got almost nothing, compared to—

DAHL: Yeah, it’s a free-for-all. It’s—

SHEFFIELD: the EU, and other countries. Now you are a little bit better off, if you live in certain states like California, or Illinois has some some good ones.

The Trump administration deliberately tries to thwart data privacy regulations, which it seems like that should be something that Democrats might want to tell the public a little bit more, if they were more competent.

DAHL: Yeah, there’s a lot of things that the Democrats probably should be doing.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. That’s literally a big part of this show.

DAHL: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Of course right before Grok did that to you, people were criticizing it heavily, justifiably so, for making mostly nude, or sometimes even actually nude images of real women and girls even.

DAHL: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: And Elon Musk did nothing about it for weeks. And that is not at all cool. And people, I don’t know, maybe some people might think that you as an adult media performer might not have a problem with that, but, that’s completely backwards to think that.

DAHL: Yeah, that’s actually insane. Like, my image is my livelihood. And not only that, but on a whole different level, all of the AI-generated imagery I’ve seen created of me is, on a different level, even more offensive, beyond the fact that it’s just AI slop. Because AI cannot, most versions that I see people using, because I know that there are some models that are like really advanced at this point, but usually the porn bots on Twitter [00:10:00] are not really using those more advanced models.

I rarely ever see an AI generated image of me that actually looks like me that actually looks like good. Usually it’s obviously AI slop. It fucks up my face. It makes me look like a literal different person. And it can’t replicate my body well. It always makes me look like 50 pounds thinner, which is just like offensive.

Because I’m like, that’s not how I look. And that’s not like most of my fans like me because of the way I am. Why are you making fucking AI images that make me look literally just like a different person? What is the point of that?

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. yeah. And it is interesting though that the whole Grok undressing thing though, it seems to have gotten started with some models using it as a engagement bait or troll, to say: ‘Hey Grok, take this picture of me wearing,’ let’s say they had a black outfit on, and they were like: ‘Put me in a yellow bikini.’ And then it was doing it.

And this is a perfect example of how, why these things don’t understand propriety at all. Because obviously if somebody is an adult performer and she’s asking for something like that, this is obviously, there’s nothing wrong with doing that. But that’s the, not the, not even close to the majority of women, like a non-porn performer, you should never do that. And a regular person probably would never do that. I think almost no one would do that, an actual human.

Is it ethical for adult media creators to use AI to generate content of themselves?

SHEFFIELD: That touches on kind of a little touchy subject, which is–double metaphor there, sorry guys— that a lot of a adult creators are using AI to make content for themselves. And that is [00:12:00] something that you feel very strongly against. Talk about that, please.

DAHL: Yeah. Yeah, so I came into the porn industry, I’ve been in the industry for 14 years. I started in 2012. I chose, I am not someone who quote unquote, like, ended up in porn. I left college early. I put getting my degree on hold and moved across the country to go live in LA because I specifically wanted a career in the porn industry.

I very intentionally came here to do this because it was something I had wanted to do for years and finally had a good opportunity to jump into it. And so I’m saying this is someone who’s like a career person in the porn industry.

And and part of what that means for me is I actually really like what I do. I like my job, I like making content, I like producing scenes. I personally, like, just prompting an AI to generate content instead of me actually working to make that content is I don’t even know if I have a word to describe it, it just feels bleak. Like it just feels bleak and it makes me depressed, like thinking about it.

So I understand that there are people in the industry that do that, but I’m also like, my view of that is probably that those are people who, have a lack of of care for the art form that porn can be, and the lack of care for the wider community of sex workers. Like the porn industry’s always been full of people who come here because they want to get their bag and leave.

Which is, I would always argue [00:14:00] that that is its own form of exploitation that exists in the industry-- is like just seeing it as a stepping stone to like. making a lot of money. Um, And that’s kind of, I I kind of, whenever I see people who are using AI to generate their content that way, I’m like, that’s kind of my underlying assumption about when I see people doing that is like, oh, you just want to make more money with the least possible effort. And that’s all, I guess all I’m going to say about it. because I’m like, I’m, I don’t want to like, let it color my entire judgment of, like, their personality and their value system. But I think that, I think it says a lot like we, we like AI has a lot of problems and there are, I would argue far more reasons to avoid using it than to engage with it are pretty obvious.

So if just completely compromising on all that, because they’re like, oh, I can sell more content then-- yeah.

SHEFFIELD: And you mentioned it as an art form. And you’re definitely right about that, I mean, as a historic matter. The word pornography literally means writing of a whore.

DAHL: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: That’s what it means [in ancient Greek]. And there are all kinds of ancient artifacts that depict sex work and sex. And so that’s definitely real. But I would say also that in some sense, the art itself is literally about your body. And, and so I’m not a performer, so I don’t have any credibility on this regard, but it’s like the point is that you are presenting yourself, who you are.

DAHL: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: And it is an intimate act.

DAHL: It is. And it’s a very human act. Like that’s the other reason that I would say is like a top reason why I really like what I do. It’s [00:16:00] very human. And I pretty much live on income generated by my own content that I sell on like fan platforms. And that is what that means is that day in, day out, like I’m, having a lot of interactions with other human beings who are buying my content.

And I don’t think of like my fan base, like my subscriber base as this like monolith of like faceless dudes. I like, there’s a lot of individuality in there. Like obviously I don’t necessarily have deep emotional interactions with all of them, but with some of them I do. And so to me it’s that’s another thing is like oof, asking these people, some of whom have been fans of mine and buying my content for like over a decade, asking them, or trying to offer them like content that was made by prompting a chatbot, to spend their hard-earned on that. I personally feel like a very deep ethical conflict with that.

I would not do that. I would not be comfortable with that. To me, that is I don’t see how that’s different than running a scam.

SHEFFIELD: And honestly, I mean that that fundamentally human act, or the acts of it, is just layered on a top, on top of each other. That’s, that is also Why I think a lot of, and we’ll talk about it further, like I do think why so many religious fundamentalists are so opposed to porn.

DAHL: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Because they want that personal feeling, that somatic essence to belong to them. And they want to corral that and constrict it.

DAHL: The property of married straight people. No one else should be able to access that.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

DAHL: In their eyes.

SHEFFIELD: And yeah. Married in a, church or a religion. And if they’re secular married, eh, that’s all right, [00:18:00] maybe.

But, so the other thing I think also that’s pretty common in the industry is that a lot of performers will use chatbots, we don’t really know this stat, so it’s hard to say.

DAHL: Yeah. There’s no way to know.

SHEFFIELD: But some people definitely are using a chatbot to pose as them, to exchange erotic messages with their fans. And that’s also not a thing that you want to do. But on the other hand, you do use chat bots just a little bit.

DAHL: Just a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so on Instagram, because I have 460 something thousand followers on there, which means I, my DMs are closed. No one can DM me on there unless we follow each other. And I like, they have access to my DMs then. But most of the fans that follow me, if they DM me, it’s not, I’m never going to see it. Like my DMs are filtered.

So the Meta chatbot thing that I’ve enabled, there’s a couple reasons that I feel comfortable using it. One is that it, has a lot of guardrails. Like it is not easy manipulable by someone on the other end chatting with it. like it, for example, if a fan who follows me messages me and starts engaging with this Meta chat bot and they are, it’s not going to do what Grok did, if they’re like, hey, what’s Siri Dahl’s real name? It’s not going to tell them. It’s, it has very firm guardrails. It basically like just shuts down or redirects any requests that go outside of what I’ve said it’s okay to do. And then of course, because meta is like a, Instagram’s a safe work platform, if someone is trying to sext with it, like it just completely does not engage with that.

It redirects, so--

SHEFFIELD: It wouldn’t do that anyway.

DAHL: It wouldn’t do that anyway. Exactly. that’s not a thing I had to train to do. That’s just the rules with that Meta has given it. but what it does do is [00:20:00] if someone messages it ‘how do I like find more Siri content online?’ It will say oh, Siri has a, link in her bio that has links to other places where you can find her content.

So again, because of guardrails on Instagram, it can’t give them a direct link to my, like OnlyFans, but it will, it can direct them to like other information that they might find useful. And that’s something I would never in a million years have time to do personally with 400 plus thousand people that follow me.

So it’s a practical use in that sense. And then the second reason that I feel comfortable using it is because it makes it very clear that when you engage with it, you are chatting with an AI bot, it says right off the bat, like I am an AI representation of Siri. I’m not actually her responding to this.

It’s very clear, and I feel like ethically that’s a good thing. No one’s going to message me on Instagram, get a response from this bot, and be under the impression that they’re literally physically speaking with me, the person.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And that clarity definitely is a good thing. And I mean, honestly, I think that’s, we need some laws, in that regard to require all AI generated content to be labeled as such.

DAHL: Yeah. Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: There’s just so much fake stuff now, and, and it, this has real consequences. When people are posting images, pretending to be from a war zone.

DAHL: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Somebody committing crimes. Like This is this is not just Siri being a Luddite. These are real, these are real consequences.

DAHL: Now, if you know the history of the story behind where Luddite comes from, I’m okay with being called a Luddite. Because I want to stop the technology that’s replacing human labor.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. You want to say it?

DAHL: Yeah. The Luddites were, it was like the leader of this [00:22:00] movement and it was, I want to say it was like textile weaving or something. I don’t remember every pertinent detail, but essentially it was like in, parts of Europe or or the UK that when like these, textile-weaving machines were becoming big and more affordable. So all the textile companies were firing workers and replacing them with these machines.

And Luddite, Ludd, it’s Luddite, but the guy’s name was just Ludd or something, but he led the like rebellion. And so literally these Luddite workers would go to the factory, break into the factory in the middle of the night and burn the machines down as a form of protest.

And then over the years it became like, oh, they don’t like technology. Like it’s, you don’t want to use an iPhone, you’re a Luddite. But I’m like, no, the term really should refer to people who are against anti-human technology, technology that is used to subjugate and oppress working-class people and enrich the the upper class. Which is, I would argue, is definitely something that AI is being already being used for.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And so there are a lot of things.

DAHL: Yeah.

What AI-generated porn can’t offer

SHEFFIELD: But to that point though, the broader point though, a lot of performers that I know, they are concerned that the pervasive use of generative content is going to displace a lot of workers. But in some sense, I’m not sure that I think that’s right. Because there are two things that the fans, or whatever you want to call them, actually want.

One is they’re looking for, it’s a fantasy about a person. [00:24:00] Or is it just simply a function, that they’re just trying to get off? And so, in the terms of the fantasy, I don’t think that will ever, that AI can’t ever really replace that.

DAHL: Yes. Yeah. There’s so many different forms of porn, different delivery methods, so I think, yeah, the person who only ever really goes to a tube site and like searches for one of their three favorite search terms, and they watch a couple videos for like seven minutes, they do their business, then they’re done. If that’s the utility of porn to that person, then that person might be more likely to engage with AI generated porn and feel no qualms about it.

That the kind of person that consumes porn in that manner is definitely different in some really basic ways than the kind of person that, for example, would join my OnlyFans and pay monthly to have access to DM with me, but also to, I would say that the majority of fans that I’ve interacted with that join my paid platforms, they’re making a conscious choice to support in that way.

Yeah, for a lot of them it’s the accessibility is the feature of why they’re paying for my OnlyFans or something. But I would say the overwhelming majority, whether they really care about accessibility or not, some people join my OnlyFans and are subscribed for four years straight and they never even DM me once.

Like they’re truly just there to support and like they’ll unlock extra content when it appeals to them.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

DAHL: But it’s like they’re making the ethical decision, oh, I like this person. I like what they do. I’m going to give them my like, seven bucks a month.

SHEFFIELD: And I’m glad you said that because the incel crowd often tries to [00:26:00] degrade women performers as being somehow scamming people or creating ‘simps’ as they love to say. But it’s really no different than their favorite podcaster having premium episodes.

They, charge you for super chats on YouTube. You are not offering them classes, uh, bullshit classes and fake universities of here’s how to have a become a millionaire. Like, You’re not doing anything. These guys are the ones who are selling the fantasy far more.

DAHL: Well some performers are doing, are offering courses where they’re like, how to become a millionaire on OnlyFans.

SHEFFIELD: Oh God.

DAHL: I’ll say no more other than I wouldn’t trust it. I’ll say that, but, yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And so it’s just, it’s all content in one way or another. It seems like, in order to have a longstanding career at this stuff, you actually have to be nice to your fans.

DAHL: It does certainly help! If you’re going to be mean to your fans, then you better be in like a fem dom niche. It better be because your fans want you to be mean to them.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, The people generally who make that argument, I would say, are people who, they don’t know how to manage their own use of porn.

DAHL: Yes.

SHEFFIELD: And so they want the government to take it away, to have have daddy take their toys away, basically.

DAHL: Yeah. Daddy, take it away; put me in timeout. It’s too hard to do it myself. That’s, really what the vibe is. I don’t think it’s an accident or a coincidence that this backlash to porn and specifically to, like the OnlyFans model is happening in this era where individual [00:28:00] creators and performers in the porn industry have a lot more autonomy and power than we have in the past.

Because of course on the extreme right on like from conservative Christians, there’s always been some anti-porn rhetoric going on, but the way that it’s so widespread now, and even people like incel guys online, that I’m like, oh, I know you are watching a lot of, a lot of porn and and this thing that you’re deeply involved in, you’re like anti it, you want it to be banned.

I don’t think it’s an accident that opinion is starting to form at a time when there’s many more women who work in porn who are becoming visibly empowered by that. Whether that’s politically or financially.

But I really do think that a lot of it is also just purely like jealousy of seeing women, someone like Ari Kytsya, who’s very popular, like multimillion followers on Instagram. And she posts about how she’s like, ‘I’m proud to be a bop.’ And she makes, she probably makes 10 times more money than I do, but she’s living a very comfortable life, because of the income she’s able to generate by making porn and selling it to people online. And I think that for a lot of more kind of incel leaning guys online, that really angers them and they want it to stop.

I think there’s a significant chunk of the anti-porn backlash right now that is people who they might say like, yeah, we should ban it. But I think really they’d just be just as happy if we went back to the old studio model where performers are completely disempowered, where performers are functionally just exploited by a [00:30:00] studio system that underpays them and doesn’t give them rights to own their own images and things like that, because that’s what it was like for a long time.

SHEFFIELD: It was. And it’s notable that, in those studio days, the industry actually had a lot of prominent Republicans, that were running the studios, as a matter of fact.

DAHL: Yeah, Many of them are still around. Many of them won’t be hiring me for obvious reasons, but I’m fine with that.

Outdated attitudes among many middle-aged and older women regarding adult media

SHEFFIELD: The other thing, besides the incels wanting the government to take their porn away from them, is that when you look at public opinion surveys, it looks like that consistently, women are more likely to say that porn is morally wrong.

And there are multiple polls that show this, but one I’m looking at here, that we’re looking at, it’s from the American Perspective Survey. and they just, show a pretty wide gap for age 65 plus, 78% of women say porn is wrong. 60% of men say it’s wrong.

70% of women, 50, 64. and then, 49% of men, 50 to 64. So the generations become more pro-porn as they’re younger. And for ages 18 to 29, the percentage is equal across men and women, 42% saying that it is wrong. So the majority say there’s nothing wrong with it. Men and women are the same in that age group, but it’s the only age group there.

So to me, that suggests that besides trying to satiate the the religious fanatics and the incels, the spate of just insane [00:32:00] porn criminalization laws that Republicans are going for, I think they’re doing it also because they want to appeal to middle-aged and older women.

DAHL: Yeah, I would agree with that. Absolutely. It’s also the way that the age verification verification laws are being passed is like it’s happening amidst this separate moral panic about the accessibility of all kinds of information to minors online.

Because those age verification bills end up targeting not just actual porn websites, but websites that have information about sexual health, reproductive issues, like LGBTQ content. And so yeah, it makes sense that the older generations would be the ones that are the most freaked out by young people having access to some of that stuff online. And then they’d be more likely to support like online censorship or age verification mandates.

And I also think, with the people, 18 to 29 year olds, being really no difference in gender influencing how morally acceptable or not they think porn is—and it is still like it’s still almost half, 42% of men and women, 18 to 29 said they think porn is morally wrong. Which, you know, as someone who works in the industry, I’m like, that’s unfortunate.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Although I think a lot of them are lying.

DAHL: I agree.

SHEFFIELD: Social desirability bias.

DAHL: That’s, that is literally the other thing is I’m like, this is a self-reported survey and you’re asking people about something that is that is controversial and stigmatized. Do you really think everyone’s going to answer honestly, or are they going to answer what they think makes them [00:34:00] look the best?

But I do think that a meaningful thing that’s influencing the difference with 18 to 29 year olds responses, could it is still a majority, it is still, 58% total that say it’s either not a moral issue or it is acceptable and like, younger millennials and most of Gen Z are aware of the existence of quote unquote ethical porn. And I think that’s probably coloring that response too. Most people, in their twenties and thirties are very aware that the only porn you can find is not just XNXX, or whatever, free tube site. It’s like there’s all kinds of it. And when it’s more ethical is probably when you are getting it directly from the source of whoever made it. So I think that’s got to be coloring some of the response there.

SHEFFIELD: On the whole thing though, why do you think women seem to be more likely to say that it’s wrong, do you think?

DAHL: It’s really not surprising that women tend more to express moral objections to porn.

And I think that’s a response that’s coming from a couple different places. Like one, I think, I think any woman is going to, especially the older you are, like in the 65 plus group, like my mom falls into that category. My mom is in her seventies, and she has had, she wasn’t allowed to play sports in high school, because Title IX wasn’t passed yet. They didn’t fund girls’ sports.

Like my mom lived through the era of not being able to have her own credit card until [00:36:00] she was past college age, at the very least. And so my mom comes from that generation, like boomer women who did, they were growing up with very extreme forms of misogyny and sexism, and it that impacted their opportunities and their lives.

And, my mom is also like pretty, pretty feminist. Like she’s always been the breadwinner in the family. And so I’m just using her like as an example. She’s a little different now because of the fact that I’m her daughter and I do porn, and we’ve obviously had to have a lot of conversations about it over the years.

But her initial reaction to finding out that this was my career choice was just abject horror. Because her impression of the industry was like, it can’t possibly be ethical. There’s no way that you’ll be treated well or be safe because the existence of the porn industry alone is proof that the men who run things there are looking for ways to exploit women.

And it’s just this assumption that it’s like this very seedy, shady industry where exploitation is to be expected and it is the norm. And so I do think with older generations, that is very much the assumption. And they’re also less likely to be in touch with the younger generations’ internet culture, where porn and being open about sexuality is far more normalized for people who are now in their twenties and thirties.

So I think it’s like, it is a little bit like with the older women being so heavily against porn. I think it’s like a mix of things, but I think a lot of it is [00:38:00] very much coming from a very specific gendered experience that women of these older generations probably have, where it’s just far, it’s so hard for them to understand how porn could exist in a way that isn’t destructive to women generally.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And historically speaking, I mean, it definitely is the case that, for most of human history, sex workers, sex working women, were heavily exploited by men, controlled by them. And if that’s all you know, then it’s not a surprise to that people would think that’s how things are now, but it’s not.

DAHL: Exactly. Yeah. And the only reason my mom now is not really, doesn’t really think that way is because I’m in her life and she has the direct example of me being successful and really liking what I do. And very obviously not being exploited. Like I’m very much in control of everything that I take part in and, yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And I guess probably a thing for some of the younger women is that they know people, or they themselves are doing it—

DAHL: Oh yeah. I mean—

SHEFFIELD: Like the girl next door.

DAHL: —the 18-29 Group.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, I was going to say like the girl next door has been a trope in porn for a long time, but now it is the literal girl next door for a lot of people.

DAHL: Yeah. Easily it could be.

The hetero dating recession is both sides rediscovering partnership when women are now finally independent

SHEFFIELD: So that’s probably had an impact as well. But that does go into kind of a larger point though of how this is all being, what would we call it? The sort of democratization of sex work, it is part of a broader reconfiguring of of social norms and economic norms that we’re seeing because [00:40:00] this is a unique moment in human history.

People will talk about, oh, AI is the unique moment in human history, but there’s actually something that’s been underway for a lot longer, which has, I don’t think been remarked upon enough. And that is that this is the first time that there are large-scale societies in which hundreds of millions of women have basically full economic rights. Marital rape is not allowed. And you know, it is not perfect by any means, but this is the point in human history, nothing like this has ever happened before.

DAHL: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: And sex work is part of that. And it works to the benefit of both sides of the heterosexual equation. And I think people haven’t, a lot of people haven’t figured that out yet.

DAHL: Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. And I think a lot of people are not only haven’t figured it out, but are confused and maybe just angered by it. And because they don’t, they necessarily don’t see the path of how we got here, in a general sense. I mean we don’t have enough, like we have really terrible labor politics in the United States.

We have the worst wealth gap that we’ve ever seen. Like the wealth disparity is really bad. And then, in 2020 when lockdowns were happening, it’s here comes this OnlyFans platform and it blows up like, like blows up the internet essentially.

And so it’s like, why would anyone be surprised that there’s a bunch of young women who find out like, oh wait, I got laid off from my job. Oh, my job is requiring me to go to work and interface and not letting me be [00:42:00] at a safe distance and asking me to put my health at risk, otherwise I’m going to be let go. And you’re telling me that there’s a website where I can go post boob photos and potentially just get to stay at home and replace that lost income?

That’s a piece of it. But obviously it goes deeper than that. I think it’s just like there’s a whole lot of societal and economic issues that are happening concurrently that result in this kind of explosion of more women, not only seeing sex work as a viable option, but actually taking the step of trying it out.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And, it’s also I think getting people to re-conceive of just conventional, forced relationships, economic heterosexuality if you will.

DAHL: Yes, hah.

SHEFFIELD: So that a lot of that women don’t need to be dependent on men anymore. And so they’re not marrying guys who are jerks, or getting in a relationship with them, or whatever you want to call it.

DAHL: True.

SHEFFIELD: That saying, that old saying of a woman needs a man the way a fish needs a bicycle—

DAHL: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: It has proven to be true. But a lot of men also haven’t realized that also can be a good thing for them also. Because the idea that you would want to have somebody who’s just there for your money. What’s that? What value is that really, to you? You should want more than that.

DAHL: Yeah. I agree. I mean, yeah, psychologically, that is an interesting question. It also seems, I mean, [00:44:00] I’m just talking about like the way I see people behaving on to a degree just on the internet, but also on Love Is Blind Season 10, which has been occupying a lot of my head rent-free lately because it is just, it’s a reality dating show, but it does such a good job of showing the difference.

For anyone who hasn’t been aware of the discourse around this show, it’s this dating show and the most recent season, it’s like most of the women seem to be pretty serious about the dating and relationship and eventually marriage aspect of the show. Because you’re supposed to get engaged and married someone that you meet on the show.

But the vast majority of the men are obviously not, they don’t really understand the seriousness of like you’ve proposed to someone. Like you are, you are entertaining the idea of actually marrying someone.

And they, a lot of them don’t seem to actually comprehend that. They’re almost treating it like a joke. And a number of the guys say, have said things about not wanting a gold digger, but then ironically, like they don’t actually have money. And this is something that I actually do see a lot online as well is that kind of commentary coming from some men online—and it’s just there.

I have problems with it on on both sides, though, obviously. Because when I see women talking about oh, I’m not, unless the guy has like X figures in his bank account, unless he’s over six feet tall, like I’m not going to fuck with him. And I just don’t understand that. But I am also not a straight person.

So like for me, when I observe these [00:46:00] opinions and these differences, I’m just like, I feel like I’m studying a sociology experiment. Because none of it makes sense to me. And even if I were super straight, and attached to that kind of way of thinking of approaching a dating relationship, I still don’t know that I would go in that direction.

Because as I previously stated, like my personal life example growing up is that my mom was the breadwinner. And for half my childhood, my dad was a stay at home dad. Then eventually they swapped and my mom was stay at home for a bit, and then my dad was the main working parent.

But if it’s taken down to average, like my mom worked for many more years than my dad did. And the whole time she was working made three times more than my dad did.

And then I’ve kind of, now I’m kind of replicating that. Because I’ve been with my partner for seven years, and I’m very much the breadwinner. Like I’m the person that really is managing the finances and, doing all that, and I’m very happy with it.

I don’t, the idea that I would have not wanted to be with my partner because he’s not going to make significantly more than me is actually crazy to me.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, yeah, and the interesting, fun irony of it is that, as women have become not economically dependent, what hopefully will happen is that the economics of relationships would go away, the economics aspect. Because, I mean a lot of the performers that I know, they say, what is a trophy wife? That’s a sex worker.

DAHL: Basically, yep.

SHEFFIELD: And it is a sex worker who can’t go to her own house at night.

DAHL: [00:48:00] Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: To the extent though that relationships can be just about love, and just about caring for each other, though, that should be something everybody should be in favor of.

DAHL: Yeah, I agree.

SHEFFIELD: And so the things we can do to get to that point, we should do them.

DAHL: I fully agree. And unfortunately, it’s also like the majority of all of our cultural messaging about sex and relationships is going in the complete opposite direction of where it probably needs to be, in order to create the conditions for people to have happy, healthy relationships like that. I’m going to invoke Love Is Blind again, I’m so sorry—

SHEFFIELD: I was actually going to ask you to talk about it again.

DAHL: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Because I felt like you hadn’t hit on everything you were going to say on it.

’Love Is Blind’ as a microcosm of heterosexual dating attitudes

DAHL: It’s the way that, using the show as, as maybe like a case study of the dating landscape for many people in America. At least if we just isolate it to straight people in their thirties, like cisgender men and women looking to date the opposite sex in their thirties. And Love Is Blind is like a kind of a case study in that, because what you see is like a lot of the men really are subscribed to this idea of being the dominant one in the relationship, which doesn’t just mean in terms of personality dominant, it means like they want to be, you hear them say over and over again, I want to be the protector and the provider.

There’s many examples in the show of a conversation happening where the woman is like unsure of whether she wants to have kids. Like maybe she’s open to it someday, but it’s not something that she’s like, ‘I’m ready to have a very serious conversation about this being imminent, like in the next couple years, a thing that I do.’

And [00:50:00] the men are almost universally pushing for that to be a thing. It’s like, ‘oh no, but you’d be such a great mother and like, I really want, I want four kids.’

And it’s just, so what I see when I’m, when I’m watching it, is just like, this is purely just unrealistic. Like a lot of these men are like, they’re probably just listening to too many red pill podcasts. They’re living in a fantasy version of what their marriage should look like when it happens. And they’re, and it’s like they want this American dream. They want a marriage, they want a trad wife. They want a couple kids, but they have not taken the time or kind of honed the emotional maturity to actually handle that.

It’s like they just want it because it’s a status symbol essentially—to be a man with a successful career, a wife and a family. But there’s no genuine thought that has gone into the reality of what it requires and what you, what kind of sacrifices you have to make to maintain that.

And I think that that is a thing that I feel like I’ve really experienced with a lot of men, even in my own life. The last couple of exes that I had before I met my current partner, it was like this. I had, I literally, when I was like 26, I dated a guy for close to two years, and there was a handful of times that we had a conversation where he literally—I was 26 and he was like two years older than me, and I was like, we’re serious enough with dating to have been together for over a year. But this was not, I was not thinking about marrying this person. And yet his, not only him, but his entire family was asking: ‘When are you guys going to get married? We want grandkids. When are you going to [00:52:00] do it?’ And I was like, that’s actually unhinged.

SHEFFIELD: It’s not in your business. Yeah.

DAHL: Yeah, like I was like this, he needs me to even consider that for a moment, this person would need to go through a significant amount of therapy, yeah. And then for him it was like, he’d talk about, he would have these conversations where he’d fantasize about me popping out babies for him or something. And it, at no point in those conversations where he was fantasizing about that, did he ever have to say about the economic demands of that?

It’s like it didn’t exist in his brain. It’s just, it’s really just this thing where it’s, like, oh yeah, get married, have I, which blows my mind. Like I just don’t understand how people can operate that way.

SHEFFIELD: It’s also what kind of work would you do with the children? Because like that, if you want to have four kids, that’s not something that one person can manage by themselves.

DAHL: When I was dating that guy, and he was saying those kinds of things, neither of us made enough income to be able to have one kid. Not even combined. Not enough.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. I’m just saying even apart from the economics of it, just the time commitment, there’s, it’s a lot, there’s a lot that’s involved, especially in the early days.

But, there’s one aspect of the Olympics, social aspect of it that I thought was really interesting, which was the gold medalist skater, Alysa Liu, her father. He had her as a single dad, and all of her siblings, from [00:54:00] surrogacy and egg donors. And so, this is a guy who, he wanted a family, and he didn’t impose it on someone else. He was like, you know what? I think I can do this. And I really want kids. And then he went and did it.

DAHL: I love that. I actually didn’t know that. I hadn’t seen that in the news anywhere and, I was keeping up a lot with Alysa Liu, but that is so fucking cool.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, and it’s that I think that’s, another area for government policy to step in. Because, people, countries have a right to be concerned about birth rates and things like that, making sure there’s enough people in the country. But obviously the best way to have people have more kids is to make it so that they can afford to have more kids.

DAHL: And make sure that people that are having kids are the ones who really want them. Not women who didn’t have access to reproductive healthcare who were—

SHEFFIELD: Yep.

DAHL: —forced into having them. Yeah.

Please don’t pretend AI is your boyfriend

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, All right, we’re just coming up to about an hour here with our chat. It’s been very fun. But one point, just as we get to the end here, I want to circle back to AI. One thing we didn’t talk about in our outline is that, so besides the fact that people are making porn with AI, there’s a Reddit subreddit that says, it’s called MyBoyfriendIsAI. So some people apparently want AI to be their boyfriend or girlfriend.

DAHL: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: You have thoughts on that, I’m imagining.

DAHL: Yeah. Look, I will, my first thought is I am not surprised. If given the option of, if you literally asked me, hey, would you want to date [00:56:00] any of the men from this most recent season of Love Is Blind, season 10 in Ohio, or would you want to date an AI chat bot? Like I would, even with my ethical issues with AI, I would probably lean more toward the damn chatbot.

That’s how bleak it can be. I will say. And it, and even looking at the posts that women are sharing in the subreddit, it’s like most it is like they’re just, they just want to be listened to, and like validation from a quote-unquote male figure. I’m putting that in air quotes because it’s a bot that has no gender.

But, I can easily see why there are women who will end up here in the MyBoyfriendIsAI subreddit. But I also think that it’s symptomatic of something that is more widespread than that. Because we also, there’s so much media about the male loneliness epidemic. Which I always want to push back against and say it’s just a loneliness epidemic.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

DAHL: I think that the ways that it affects men is maybe more visible. Which I think is just because men often are the center of narratives in our culture. So it’s not surprising that it’s a little more visible and people are trying to classify it as a specifically male loneliness epidemic.

But a lot of people are lonely. And there’s such a diversion in what a lot of men, and a lot of women want or ideally think a relationship should be. I think that’s pretty well-illustrated with this. Because it’s also, I’m like, I understand why some of the people in this subreddit are like, and we did, we talked about this before we recorded, how it’s the subreddit MyBoyfriendIsAI, it is the people posting and who are members are overwhelmingly [00:58:00] women.

Although there are some men, but I’m still going to generalize and just say women in the subreddit, because that’s mostly true. While I’m not surprised that this is happening, I also, it’s like some of the posts that I look at, I’m like, yeah, you would be lonely and have trouble finding a boyfriend who’s a real person because the things that you’re telling this chatbot that you want are like no human being could satisfy that.

What maybe what you don’t want is—you’re calling it your boyfriend, like that the AI is your boyfriend. But it seems to me, based on the screenshots you’re sharing, that maybe a boyfriend isn’t what you want. Like I think maybe you just want a therapist. You’re calling this AI your boyfriend, but the way you’re interacting with it is that you are just wanting it to validate you 100% of the time. And that’s not a romantic partner’s job.

SHEFFIELD: No. because everybody’s entitled to their own thoughts and feelings and activities. Yeah. And to quote ChatGPT, Siri, “you’re absolutely right!”

DAHL: Have I dazzled you?

SHEFFIELD: But I think this subreddit does really show though that, when you are talking to a chat, you are talking to yourself, actually. That’s what you’re doing.

DAHL: Yeah. It’s concerning.

SHEFFIELD: This is just another form of masturbation, basically.

DAHL: Ah, that’s that’s so true, yeah. You’re You’re just getting just getting off to yourself.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, but, at the same time, it does show that there’s nothing wrong with trying to explore your thoughts or to think things through.

Because our [01:00:00] concepts in our brains, we don’t, in our brains, we don’t think in words to ourselves. And so, when you have to forcibly express it outside of your body in words, you actually can have a better, you learn what you are thinking,

DAHL: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Just simply by saying it. So I’m not going to say that it’s this horrible, end of society kind of thing. But it’s something that they probably should not make a prolonged habit of.

DAHL: Yeah. It’s probably something that the chatbots should be capable of engaging with. Like anything that even remotely mimics a therapy session kind of exchange should just be not allowed. It should give you, redirect you to a real source of real talk therapy,

SHEFFIELD: Agreed. Agreed.

DAHL: It’s better help. At least it’s a real human, like, I don’t know.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And that it’s another area where the government should be doing something instead of a a chat bot.

DAHL: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: But none of this changes though until enough people realize that we deserve good things.

DAHL: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: And we deserve to be good to each other also.

DAHL: Yeah. I like, I really like the way you said that. Because one of my core beliefs is we do deserve good things. And I do think despite plenty of historical evidence, and current-day evidence to the contrary, I do think that people are at their core good. And I think that, when it’s not obvious, when there’s large-scale events that causes us to question that core goodness, it is usually, because the worst of the worst have able to gain far too much power, and they’re wielding it against us. For example, our billionaire [01:02:00] overlords.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So for people who are interested in keeping up with you in, let’s say safe for work and not safe for work ways, how might they do that?

DAHL: Yeah, absolutely. So I do have a bunch of links, like links to all of my presences online at siridahl.com, S-I-R-I-D-A-H-L. The links that will take you to a spicy place are very well marked on there. I also have a Patreon, which is just patreon.com/siridahl. And I call it Siri Before Dark because the Patreon is basically the gathering collection place for all of my like, more safer work projects that I do, including kind of YouTube stuff, my podcast, First Thirst, and some other like little, side projects and things like that.

And I’m mainly on Bluesky as far as like the more intellectual side of me on the internet. So you can follow me, @siridahl.com on Bluesky.

SHEFFIELD: All right. Sounds good. This was fun. We’ll have to do a another one soon.

DAHL: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. This was such a, such a fun conversation. I love a deep dive.

SHEFFIELD: Awesome.

All right, so that is the program for today. I appreciate you joining us for the conversation, and you can always get more if you go to theoryofchange.show where we have the video, audio, and transcript of all the episodes. And if you become a paid subscribing member, you have unlimited access to all of the archives and I thank you very much for your support. That is really great in this tough time for media.

And if you’re watching on YouTube, make sure to click the like and subscribe button so you can get notified whenever there’s a new episode.

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The United States military is conducting bombing operations against Iran without a Congressional Declaration of War, consistently stated objectives or even terms on whether this is a war or not.

Everything is in chaos: Some of it is due to incompetence within the Trump administration, of course. According to CNN and other news outlets, just days before President Donald Trump decided to follow Israel’s lead and bomb Iran, his FBI laid off an entire team of analysts who were experts in tracking Iranians online—all because they’d also been involved previously with investigating Trump’s previous retention of classified documents in a public bathroom at his Mar-a-Lago club.

But that’s not the only reason the second Trump administration has been in such disarray. It’s almost as if the chaos is the point—if that even makes sense to say at all. The president and his top aides have little interest in coherent policies, but the Republican Party itself is less a political party than a loose coalition of people with grievances against America. Some of them are techno-fascists who literally want computers to replace humans. Then there are others who want to have a Christian theocracy. And then still there are others who think that they just want to have their country club and have low taxes.

Despite their internal disunity, Republicans have been able to weaponize discontent against modernity and to fearmonger against minority groups, particularly people who are transgender, immigrants, or racial or religious minorities.

So what can people who support democracy do in this situation? It seems so easy for politicians to just give in to the right-wing media machine. But this is not likely to work either, because while chaotic rage is what a minority of Americans want, the majority want something coherent and better.

Joining me for a free flowing discussion about all of this is a longtime friend of the show, Parker Molloy. She is a media analyst and critic who writes the Present Age newsletter, and she also formerly worked as a senior staffer at Media Matters.

The video of our conversation is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.

Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

07:32 — Republican billionaires have realized that controlling media discourse is cheap

17:58 — Republicans will always call Democrats ‘socialist’ regardless of their policies

26:12 — Far-right Jews like Ben Shapiro incorrectly thought they could have sexism and racism without antisemitism

28:07 — Trump’s policy positions constantly shift because coherent policy is unimportant to reactionaries

36:48 — The UK Labour Party is a current example that running away from your policy viewpoints doesn’t work

47:49 — Durable political change follows cultural change

01:00:30 — Glenn Youngkin and the myth that voters are obsessed with hating trans people

01:06:23 — Liberals and progressives must move beyond criticizing others

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: I feel like we keep having a continued conversation because nothing that we talk about ever changes for the better it seems.

PARKER MOLLOY: No, every, everything keeps getting slightly worse, just keeps edging towards the horrible.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Although I will I will say, at least at the grassroots level, I do feel like a lot of people have been learning a lot more. So like, like with Donald Trump announcing his bombing campaign against Iran. People automatically are against it. And that’s, I mean, a majority.

Yeah. I think the most recent bull I saw I had that was like 25% support it. So this is, there’s some good progress on the citizen side of

MOLLOY: Yes. Now the question though is it’s just like how does that I’m just very interested, like when it comes to, the, support for Trump, Trump’s bombing and stuff like that. [00:04:00] It’s one of those times where democrats, I feel like they have a real opportunity to stake out the anti-war lane.

And I kind of worry like there are clearly some democrats who are very much pro. War with Iran, like John Fetterman clearly wants to keep bombing, Moscowitz, he’s the one who he opposes the war powers resolution because he called it the Ayatollah Protection Act.

It’s one of the, one of those things, where it’s like, Yeah.

there are some pro-war democrats here who maybe don’t want to sound pro-war, which is why they’re kind of like dancing around a little bit. But overall, I think that now is a good time to, stake out the anti-war lane if, if there is ever an opportunity to do so.

It’s right now, it’s before the public gets on board with, this. If they do, instead of seeding the conversation to, to Republicans to be like, well, clearly Iran, the regime is evil and we have to, had to do something.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and it is, I mean, it’s a, it is a welcome contrast in many ways to the Iraq war because it, at least with the second Iraq war, the Bush administration they cared enough to lie about it

MOLLOY: Yeah. I feel like we’re not even getting lied to anymore. They’re, or they’re, they’re not bothering to lie in a convincing way anymore. They’re not making a case. I did see some I can’t remember where I saw it, but someone called the administration’s response to all of this, war slap, which is basically, ‘cause Trump’s been like calling up reporters.

Every major outlet and weirdly giving them all different stories about like how long he plans to be there, whether he’s planning, boots on the ground

SHEFFIELD: the [00:06:00] objective

MOLLOY: yeah. What, why he did it. You have Marco Rubio saying like, yeah, we had to do this because Israel was going to attack Iran anyway.

And so yeah.

we kind of ha it made sense for us to go in at that moment. And it’s like, and then today Trump’s like, absolutely not. They didn’t get me to go and do anything. I didn’t want to. It’s, I feel like the whole point is just to throw everything out there And to see what sticks. Like

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

MOLLOY: one, one of my, one of my favorite things with the war right now is on one hand you have some Republicans saying we’re not at war.

Where is the, what Congress hasn’t voted for war. This is not a war, this is.

a military action. Like whatever euphemism they wanna use. And then you have other Republican members of Congress who are like, this war has been going on for 47 years and we are ending it. It’s like, so, so it’s also, it’s a war that’s been going on forever, but it’s also not a war.

And if you think about it, it’s like, the last time that the United States formally declared war on a country was World War ii. So it, like, does Mark Wayne Mullen actually believe that we haven’t been in a war since World War ii? I don’t think so, but I think he thinks that it’s a winning message.

Republican billionaires have realized that controlling media discourse is cheap

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, well, and doesn’t seem to be that way so far, so that’s good. But you know, it, it goes back to though the idea of shaping opinion. And that is why I think we’ve seen so much recent consolidation of media by right wing oligarchs. And in particular, the most recently, the acquisition of Paramount by David Ellison and Larry Ellison, his dad and who are strong Israel supporters and [00:08:00] Netanyahu supporters.

We have to point that out. Now it looks like they have the prevailing bid, which they got. Through working with Trump in the most corrupt and blatant fashion I’ve ever seen for any sort of corporate acquisition. And to to buy the company Warner Brothers. And so now they wanna get, so they got CBS news, now they want CNN but the ratings are just going down the toilet every time they do it.

So that’s at least a good thing

MOLLOY: Yeah I do think that they’re trying, it’s, it, a big part of this is to just, even if the ratings tank and even if, like, I feel like cable news and like legacy media as a whole is a struggling field, right. Right now and is probably only gonna get more difficult as time goes on.

Which, when it comes to like, Paramount’s to buy Warner Brothers, I thought it was interesting that they wanted to bid for all of Warner Brothers instead of or all of Warner Brothers discovery. Instead of just waiting for CNN to split off and buy it separately. Like, I think they realize that the movie studios where the money’s at, and, owning all that IP is where the money’s at, like. Using CNN as a propaganda arm is kind of just like, that’s not gonna make money for them in the long run, but it will accomplish a different goal which is also, you also have Larry Ellison involved in the purchase of TikTok. So,

SHEFFIELD: true too. Yeah.

MOLLOY: You’ve got that, and obviously you have Elon Musk with Twitter and Mark Zuckerberg has been getting cozy with Trump over the past few years.

And, it’s, there’s a real, like, big right wing takeover of media and communications services and it’s, I feel like that’s gonna be a big story in the coming years. Like, how people who aren’t part of that bubble, [00:10:00] who aren’t who aren’t Barry Weiss, who aren’t, con conservative podcasters and stuff, like how the rest of us kind of get our news and get our information and what that means in the years to come, because there was like that recent there was a recent study about how being on Twitter basically pushes you to the right, it’s like you’re, and it’ll ha like I’ll open Twitter because I look at it to keep track of what’s going on in the world, or what like powerful people are saying.

And yeah, it’s a cesspool you get bombarded with a lot of really extreme content that’s supposed to make you feel a very certain way. And I think that’s what tiktoks gonna totally turn into. Maybe not as sloppy as Twitter. ‘cause Elon Musk is. S sloppy like, maybe it won’t be as obvious, but, even the more gentle propagandists, at Paramount are showing their hand a little bit.

You had, you had Barry Weiss the other day retweeting a video of someone like getting in like a weird insult at Zoran Momani. She like retweeted that with like a fire emoji. And the Twitter account for 60 minutes straight up said that Iran has nuclear weapons, which is literally no one is saying that, like the Trump administration is not even making that claim, but they put that out there and you have journalists jumping ship and saying like, I feel like I don’t have editorial independence anymore. It’s grim.

SHEFFIELD: well it is and it’s like it is in some ways like the. The old order had to die in some way or another. And I wish it was not this way. But, maybe it is that way. And the weird thing though [00:12:00] is that with this whole consolidation and, trying to manipulate opinion and manufacture consent for war, which I mean, this is like a cliche of Noam Chomsky, which,

MOLLOY: He’s someone who my opinion of has shifted a bit in recent months especially.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. I know, right? He had one, a couple of good ideas, but a lot of really bad, and Ben wants, but but my point being though, like the other weird thing about the way that these conservatives are taking over media is they don’t seem to understand that they’re on the right.

Like people like Barry Weiss or David Ellison, like a lot of these people. They actually call themselves liberals. And people who are progressive, I think, contribute to that problem by using the word reactionary centrist, no, these people are just conservatives. Okay. Sam Harris, conservative Barry Weis, conservative.

These are not centrist. There’s no such thing as an informed centrist. They don’t exist. So please stop saying that they do.

MOLLOY: Yeah that’s really interesting. And I have noticed that, I mean, it was interesting because like, I don’t know, it was like 10 years ago, eight years ago, somewhere around there, like you had was a big time for like a lot of the conservative, like the intellectual dark web types, the, oh, they’re not conservative.

They’re classical liberals, like they’re heterodox.

like that was the whole, the whole thing. It was this, it was this pretty deliberate attempt to frame themselves, not on the right but as the true middle. Elon Musk will come around and be like, he will promote something that was, like the reform party in the uk. Which they’re to the right of the Tories. he’ll be like, I don’t see what’s far right about this party.

Their, all their views seem very very sensible, very, I mean, I consider myself, he always, he loves to say he considers himself [00:14:00] a moderate, which is just. Flat out not true. He’s not moderate on anything. He will he’ll show up in like doing, video he’ll video in for in, what’s the German far right party?

A FD like, and he’ll be like their views seem perfectly normal and fine. And I don’t understand why people call them far. Right. Why don’t they call, and then he’ll argue that someone like Chuck Schumer is far left, it’s like, I don’t know, man. I feel like you’re kind of, you’re kind of trying to the Overton window, and I know that like, that gets talked about a lot, but, just trying to shift what people consider to be. A moderate opinion is, and I re I remember years and years ago when there, there was a whole thing with, when Candace Owens started hanging out with Kanye West, there was a Twitter trending topic that said, far right influencer Candace Owens.

And she got so mad about that. She was like, I’m not far right. I’m I’m just I’m in the middle. I’m, I’m a little right of center or whatever. Like, however it was that she was trying to like frame her views. And you and Jack Dorsey, who is still the CEO at the time, he reached out to her and he followed her on Twitter and he fixed it and he said, this will never happen again.

And you had conservatives pointing to that as evidence that Twitter was biased against conservatives. It’s all the project, a certain narrative to shift, to try to shift the public’s understanding of where various people on, the political spectrum are.

SHEFFIELD: And it’s like when you look at the Trump administration or reform in the UK or any of these other far right parties, they don’t really have coherent policy arguments. it’s all about, well, my views are common sense, like this just makes sense. and so [00:16:00] therefore, policing what the possibility corridor is or the Overton window, that’s really the, that is their number one argument that while these ideas are just right.

Your ideas are communists. Every, like Trump has now started using the word communist all the time, like referring to Democrats who are, have it literally expressed opposition to, not even single payer healthcare, but like national health insurance of some kind. He calls them a communist which is ludicrous.

But, if you don’t know very much about political ideology or whatever, it’s, it apparently at least has some effectiveness. And if you can control the platforms, then I think you know that, and that is why they’ve realized that, we’re gonna do this, but it just isn’t working because, these arguments, like this is, this was one of the problems that I had as a, when I was conservative, that, I was, I would say to my colleagues, I’d be like, okay, can we please have some arguments for our ideas here. Like, I want to see an argument for why, because you always say tax cuts always increase revenue. Well, show me math that says that so I can put it into a column. Or if you don’t have math that says that then don’t, then you can’t say that. Like, I would say that to writers who I was editing and, and they just would say, oh, you’re being negative, Matt you’re being negative.

And I was like, well, no, I’m actually trying to be factual. But that’s not what they want. And you just see that over and over, like with this Iran stuff, everything is that there’s no stated reason. There’s no real goal. Like, so now they’re not even saying that they want regime change, whatever that means.

They don’t even talk about that anymore. So, so we’re literally just bombing them

MOLLOY: Just bombing, bombing for fun, got a, what’s that? That old Simpsons got a nuke, someone, like, yeah with that

Republicans will always call Democrats ‘socialist’ regardless of their policies

MOLLOY: there was [00:18:00] something in the 2020 Democratic primary that I, I think a lot about which is, it was during one of the debates, it was Pete Buttigieg, was early in the primary. And he, he said something to the effect of, look, if we run on a bunch of far left policies, Republicans are gonna call us a bunch of crazy socialists, and if we run on a bunch of moderate policies, Republicans are gonna call us a bunch of crazy socialists. So why don’t we just run on whatever we actually believe and let that fall where it may, because they’re gonna, they’re gonna attack us for the exact same reason every time.

Which I think is why the argument that, oh, Kamala Harris was too far to the left. Like I’ve, I’ve seen some of the like, the third way type think tanks be like, well, you’ll notice that Trump didn’t attack her for being too moderate. It’s like, in what world would he, like, like any, he, if he was running against.

Ted Cruz, he would say Ted Cruz is far left. like he, he would make some sort of a argument to that effect. he, it’s, it doesn’t matter. It, you could take anyone and the playbook is gonna still be the same because, attack. Oh, Dems are socialists.

Okay. I mean, that’s, it’s a, it’s a label. You can apply to anyone, but I don’t think that. It’s accurate in any real way, and there’s no policy. there same thing happened with the border in 2024. You had Kamala Harris running ads being like, we’re gonna be so tough on the border. Like Trump, Trump is actually the weak one on the border.

We’re gonna be tough. We’re, we’re to, we’re pushing to his right. He blocked a bill that we all support, which was basically like the Trump 2016 immigration [00:20:00] policies. Like we’re, we’re doing that. Like Democrats were still attacked as being open borders, which. There’s not been a single open borders Democrat in power.

I mean, when, when Obama was in office, I remember there being, he did a press conference at the border where he’s, where he was saying like, look I’ve agreed to all, all these Republican policy proposals. I’ve I’ve given funding to border patrol and all of this. And he joked, he’s like, what?

What will they want next? A moat? And it was like the next week in Congress. Joe Walsh during his term in office, when he was still a tea party guy, he jokingly went up there with like a stuffed alligator and he was like, yes, we would like a moat. It’s like,

SHEFFIELD: Well, and Obama actually deported more people than Trump did.

MOLLOY: Yeah. He got a

SHEFFIELD: Even now, like his rate is gonna be less than Obama.

MOLLOY: And I still, and you’ll still see some Democrats be like, we were actually more efficient when it came to deporting people, which is not what I think a lot, like my personal, like, policy views on immigration are not, like, I don’t see that and go, oh, yay. Like, that doesn’t make me happy. Like I, I think it’s expected and it’s accurate, but at the same time it’s like, man who is this message for? Because Republican voters are still gonna think that Republicans are

SHEFFIELD: Tougher

MOLLOY: To the right of Democrats on immigration or any other policy. And one of the things that I’ve been thinking about as it concerns the, the current bombing campaign that Trump has going on is that.

In 2004, you had John, like, the way that John Kerry ran for president, president in 2004 I thought was really interesting because [00:22:00] his big argument wasn’t that the war in Iraq was wrong and that it needed to end. It was that it was being mismanaged. Like he was still trying to do the thing where he is like, he’s like, okay I’ll agree that, we should be there and we should be doing something, but I would do it better.

I would do it more efficient. And in doing that you had re Republican voters just being like, no, he won’t, not believing him. And you had, you had like anti-war voters who. Would vote Democrat, who were just turned off by all this, are who were just like, I, no, I want you to be anti-war. I want you to oppose the war in there.

Not try to triangulate some, some middle ground that, that probably doesn’t exist. And, and the, the tricky thing about this is that the longer you’re in a war, the harder it is to just be like, yeah, no, we should we, we need to get out and we need to end it. Because the, then you have what happened with Afghanistan during the Biden administration where it was like chaotic withdrawal and things immediately got worse in Afghanistan and he got piled on for that.

And that’s why when it comes to what’s happening in Iran, Iran right now, it’s like they gotta find an off ramp immediately, otherwise. This is just gonna be something where we’re, we’re gonna get stuck there and there’s gonna, there’s gonna be backlash and there, there’s gonna be blow back. And who, who knows who we’re gonna radicalize, in, in doing that, I mean, there was like, there was a tweet from, I can’t remember who it was, it was someone on Twitter.

It was at the, at the start of the, after October 7th, 2023. It [00:24:00] was as Israel was like bombing Gaza. Like when that started someone, someone said on Twitter it was like, Hey if I was, a Palestinian living in Gaza and. And Israel just killed, bombed and killed my whole family and destroyed the entire, area and in, in, in, in effort to wipe out Hamas.

Like I would grow up and the first thing I’d wanna do is start Hamas too. like you’re basically, yeah, you’re radicalizing people and, and maybe entire generations of people and you’re, making the US an unreliable partner. The fact that Trump ripped up the, the nuclear agreement with Iran, like why would they ever trust us?

There were con, there were, negotiations that were happening very recently and Iran seemed be to be, participating in them, but then. We just go in and take out like their entire leadership and like, I

SHEFFIELD: think that’s gonna make them more

MOLLOY: yeah. Well, and then, I saw a story yesterday. It was just like, Iran not interested in negotiating.

It’s like, Yeah. No. Crap. You, like, I

SHEFFIELD: Or even if they were like, why would, like, how could you trust that they would be, like they were betrayed by the United States in terms of negotiation. So why wouldn’t you pretend to, have some sort of treaty and then just violate it as much as you could if you were them?

Like it makes sense

MOLLOY: like that’s the thing. It’s all of this stuff is gonna do so much damage to the reputation of the United States for decades to come. The fact that. Trump wasn’t kept out of office after his first term, like the fact that he came back into power. I think it sent a really [00:26:00] strong message to the world that it’s just like, no, that wasn’t some weird aberration.

This is just like who the United States might be every four to eight years now. Like, because

SHEFFIELD: gets a little bit, yeah,

Far-right Jews like Ben Shapiro incorrectly thought they could have sexism and racism without antisemitism

MOLLOY: Yeah, because you, I think it I think it’s interesting that a lot of the people who were on the, on, on the far right during Trump’s, like first term are now like the influencers, like you, like Ben Shapiro, like he got really big during Trump’s first term.

And then, like if you fast forward to today. He his videos aren’t doing so well anymore. He’s losing audiences and the viewers are going to more extreme people than him. And he was the guy who he said, there’s no such thing as, he said, there is no such thing as like a reasonable Muslim.

He was saying that more than half of the, Muslims on the planet were radicalized and that we should fear them. Like people now look at him and they’re like, oh, he’s some squishy centrist type, and the people on the right who’ve migrated to Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens, and, Yeah.

Tucker Carlson, who, like it’s, I, I don’t think that, unless things go really, unless things really blow up in Trump’s face, between now and, 2028 especially, it’s like I feel like the Republican party may continue to just veer off in that direction and, won’t, moderate back to something more like, Jeb Bush.

Like, imagine the Republicans like cons, even considering a Jeb Bush candidacy in like now, or someone who had the identical policies of Jeb Bush, like it’s laughable pe like, and I think it’s really just kind of speaks to how they have successfully [00:28:00] gotten their own base, at least to, to shift further to the extremes.

Trump’s policy positions constantly shift because coherent policy is unimportant to reactionaries

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and it does go back to the Overton window issue. But, and that’s why the conservatives like Barry Weiss, they should be focusing their efforts on attacking the far right, but they really don’t, they spend most of their time attacking the left, which of course is because they’re on the right.

But nonetheless, it isn’t going to help them in the long run because, the Republican Party. The only way out of this is if they get electorally, defeated in such a horribly horrible way for them. Like, like, Barry Goldwater, Barry Goldwater was the last honest Republican to come to actually run on what they wanted to do.

And magically Americans did not like it. They were horrified by it. And and you’re seeing that with the Trump second administration, that he’s doing all the things that Barry Goldwater wanted. And of course people hate them. But when he was renting, he was not telling the people who, like half, probably about half the Trump voters had no idea what his positions were like.

He, they literally had no idea what his views were.

MOLLOY: that was the thing in I, in 2020 his campaign website just straight up didn’t have an issues page.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And they had no platform at

MOLLOY: There was No plan. yeah. There was no plan for a second term. It was just like, gonna keep doing what I’m doing and vote for me, and you’ll see what happens.

And you c and then in the 2024, you had him you had the Heritage Foundation come out there and they’re like, we got project 2025 for you right here. And immediately people were horrified by, seeing these policies laid out, which they’ve done that before. They’ve had these, those reports for years.

And and Trump in his first term, enacted a lot of the recommendations, when he could.

SHEFFIELD: Well, and then Trump lied and said, oh I’m not affiliated with that, even though it was co-written by the guy who [00:30:00] was my budget

MOLLOY: Yeah. Yeah. He’s like, no. That’s, yeah. I, he called, I think he said, yeah, that was written by like some people on the severe, right. and I remember one of the things was like, Yeah, Republicans trump’s, if Trump gets back into power he’s gonna, he’s gonna ban all the people of associated with Project 25, 25 from being in his administration.

It’s just like, immediately after getting elected, he starts working directly with these people and incorporating them into his administration. And I it really kind of speaks to the fact that candidates, especially I think Republican candidates can’t really run on what they want to do because the individual policies tend to be pretty unpopular unless you’re, picking at like a. Like attacking trans rights, like they’ve successfully shifted public opinion on trans rights to where maybe that works to their advantage. And so they can talk about like what they’ll want to do to trans people. But you know, like a lot of things like Trump, Trump never once mentioned, I want to annex Greenland.

Like during the campaign,

SHEFFIELD: I want to bomb. In fact he said, Kamala Harris will go to war with Iran if you elect her.

MOLLOY: Exactly. He was just, there his big policy positions, it was always funny. He would be like no Tax on tips. It’s like, okay that’s your, that’s one of your big policies. Okay. Even though it’s like, right, fine. Like,

SHEFFIELD: And even attacking trans people, like, there are basically no trans people in America. So, whatever policy, no matter how terrible or how great it would be toward trans people, not really going to affect anyone who’s, who is cisgender. Like, that’s the reality. So it’s not gonna put money in your pocket.

It’s not gonna, help you afford a home. It’s not gonna give you a better education. It’s [00:32:00] not gonna do any of those things for you. And

MOLLOY: I do think that the one policy that, that he kind of, you, there actually, there are two, two things he said he was going to do during his campaign that I think that he is pretty much followed through on. One was be really obsessed with tariffs. Like, like he really got into that. And two was mass deportations.

Like, but as we’ve, mentioned, it’s just like Democrats were. Just as effective. They were just quieter about it. there weren’t, you didn’t have, as many instances of things like ice gunning down people in the streets. But, other than that, you kind of hit it. And I think one thing that’s interesting in watching kind of the consultant class of the Democratic party how they’re operating is their, one of their takeaways from 2024 was, oh, we shouldn’t say what we believe we should.

like, there we, oh, Kamala Harris, filled out an A CLU questionnaire that’s, that asked her about her beliefs on civil liberties issues. She shouldn’t have done that, which is so, like, I understand that from a strategy point of view, but. I think it’s bad that the conventional wisdom now seems to be like, candidates should not tell you what they, what they will do if given power candidates should just say, trust me.

Trust me, it’ll be fine. I’ll, project your own views onto me. And that’ll be great because it’s easy when you, when you don’t say what you, what you believe in. And people can just go, Yeah.

Trump’s only gonna round up the criminals and he’s only gonna do this or that.

And the, a lot of times it’s not things that Trump actually said or anything like that. It was just like, [00:34:00] that was what people believed and they projected their own beliefs onto Donald Trump as people project their beliefs onto others all the time. So it might make sense for Democratic candidates to not respond to 20 page questionnaires that ask about whether trans people in prison should have access to healthcare or not. Maybe but I think it’s a bad thing for democracy as a whole when there, there seems to be this shift away from like actually saying what you believe because it’s more advantageous to to just lie.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and the thing is though, that viewpoint that campaign strategy, it isn’t actually going to work for people on the center to left. And it’s something that is inherent to reaction is, which is of course the more extreme form of conservatism. And I’m gonna, there’s a famous quote from Jean Paul Sartre, which he was talking about anti-Semitism and why it doesn’t make sense.

And so I’m gonna just read it here for those who haven’t seen it. So he says:

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous and open to challenge. They are amusing themselves for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly since he believes in words. The antisemites have a right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors.

that’s Donald Trump right there. That’s Donald Trump described right around world War ii. And so it’s, so, this is a inherent anti rational, anti-institutional, anti reason anti society.

It is a sociopathic, revolt, personal revolt against reality. And that is why they can get away with these [00:36:00] things. If you believe in something. You can’t do that. And this is what the broader consultant class in, in the Democratic party doesn’t get they don’t understand that, the right will always, the reason why they keep talking about, culture war issues is that they don’t have policies that, or they don’t have policies that they want you to hear about.

And so your goal, if you’re going to oppose them, is tell people about their actual policies, have enough platforms in which your factual statements can be seen, and then propose good policies. So you have to do all of those three things. If you don’t do all of those three things, then it’s not going to work.

You can’t say, well, I’m just gonna do two or one.

The UK Labour Party is a current example that running away from your policy viewpoints doesn’t work

SHEFFIELD: Like the u the UK Labor Party right now. Like we’re seeing what happens if you just try to say, well, let’s concede this one issue of trans rights or immigration. Because the reality is the issue is never the issue. So, so whatever your position is, it’s a communist position.

Like as you were saying, Pete Buttigieg, picked it up that like, so whatever you say, it doesn’t matter to, to the people who have a psychological need to oppose modernity.

MOLLOY: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And I think that, I think the, one of the big warnings about, like. In 2024. 2024, you had, in the UK the Labor Party won and in a, it was a landslide victory. And I think people attributed it to them. Like there were a lot, this happens a lot where you have people who write about politics for a living, who have, more moderate views who, who kind of say, well, clearly they won Because they a, adopted the views that I believe, the views that I [00:38:00] personally agree with.

And so, so there was a lot of stuff where it was, I remember the Labor Party had people come and meet with the Democrats to talk to them about strategy after their big win. But. The real reason they won was that they weren’t the conservative party. That they weren’t the party that was in power and people were just mad about the current leadership in the country.

They could have run, they could have run the most extreme, like as far left as they could have. They could have brought back Jeremy Corbin to, to be the leader and to adopt his, his policy. He would’ve won probably like I, I think. And labor got when he ran and lost in the general election before that he ended up like more people turned out to vote for labor than they did.

In 2024. But because they had this giant sweeping victory, people assumed that, well, it must be because they have pop, they pick popular policies, but then they get into office and they start actually implementing these policies. and people hate it. And they’re the response has been mostly to move more further to the right.

And this is the nominally liberal party over there. It’s the, they’re supposed to be center left, that’s supposed to be their lane, but they keep moving to the right and they’re trying to out, out reform basically. And it’s just not, I don’t think, I don’t think that can work because people are always gonna go for the real thing.

They’re always, if you try to appeal to fascists. The fascist, the voters who, who like fascist policies are just gonna vote for the real fascists. The re

SHEFFIELD: Because they want fascism.

MOLLOY: yeah the,

SHEFFIELD: They don’t want your policy.

MOLLOY: Exactly like it. They don’t [00:40:00] necessarily care about, whatever little policies here or there. They want to, wanna cut down on immigration and they want to impose their will on society and to take control of all this stuff.

And it’s just it’s just sad to see some some bigger name Democrats kind of float, like see that, and still think that’s the way to go. Because the lesson from the UK in electing a more moderate labor party. Ended up being, or the l rather the lesson in the UK of the labor party moving to the right and then winning was that an even more extreme right wing party was gonna swoop in and win the next election.

Like labor’s absolutely gonna lose, and it’s almost certainly gonna be, not the conservatives, but reform that takes power after that. And I think one of, one of my fears is that if Democrats as a whole, move to the center, try to moderate their policies and triangulate their way to victory, you might just have, a situation where they’re in power for four years and then something even more extreme comes along.

And I think that’s I think that’s what we got by. 2000, going with Joe Biden, who was seen as the moderate, one of the most moderate options that was available during the 2020 election. And Biden gets into office and he’s still pretty moderate. He had some, like, he had some progressive economic policies that, that people seem to generally like, but in the end he didn’t keep Trump out.

And in the end we got something. Trump too is far more extreme than Trump won. And I think that we [00:42:00] risk, that maybe Democrats win in 2028 if they moderate on a bunch of issues. But all that does is that shifts the Overton window if, because people are going to keep saying Democrats are socialists and they’re far left and all of this, but. It just might not be true. And in response, you’re gonna get some more extreme right wing governance, which is gonna be, if you ask me back in 2016 when Trump first got elected, one of my, one of my fears was like as a trans person, I was very afraid of what the administration would do.

And, it was like my, like worst case scenario that I could picture was like, okay, what if what if the federal government doesn’t enforce Title IX to protect trans. People anymore in schools or title doesn’t enforce federal protections for trans people using Title vii.

Like, those were kind of like the things that the big worries I had, fast forward to today, and it’s like, it’s the federal government’s official policy.

The trans people just don’t exist. that was Trump’s big day one, executive order. And then you have states trying to one up each other to see how extreme they can push this, because they know the federal government’s gonna just kind of let ‘em do what they wanna do, and the courts aren’t gonna stop them.

So, you’ve got right now, last week in, or last week or the week before, I can’t remember, time flies. You’ve got in Kansas, like they, they passed a law that invalidated trans people’s driver’s licenses. And.

SHEFFIELD: Basically

MOLLOY: immediately, Gave them no

SHEFFIELD: you couldn’t move or do something.

MOLLOY: Yeah.

And because the licenses were invalidated and not like there was something about the process involved because they were invalidated. There was it flags something in a, in a federal system [00:44:00] to where if you go to an another state and like, let’s say someone moved the very next day and was like, I’m getting out of Kansas.

I’m gonna move to Illinois where I can get a driver’s license that has my correct gender on it and my name and everything like that. Like, because their license has been like invalidated. Flags it in the system, and it becomes almost impossible to just update it. Like you had to go through the process of getting a new license in Kansas that had the wrong gender on it.

And in, in all it turned out that there were something like 300 people who this affected. And it was a law that was passed as an emergency. And I think that’s like stuff like, that’s really scary because it happens, it doesn’t get a ton of news because there’s so much other chaos going on. Like CNN is not covering the story about Kansas, like the New York Times, like they did.

I think they maybe do like a single writeup of it, but that’s just kind of it. There’s no, it’s not like. Being treated like a crisis because it affects few, very few people and because there are bigger things going on. And in 2020 at the beginning of COVID, I remember one of the, one of the things that started to happen as, you had republican state legislatures that were like, I think they all, like, everyone kind of knew you had to do something about COVID.

You you had to pass some policies and you had to, you couldn’t just not take any action on anything. So instead of doing that, instead of actually addressing the problems of, COVID and trying to manage them in the best way they could, because, a lot of states were basically like, Yeah. we’re not gonna have any rules and it’s just gonna be free for all and good luck.

You had states that where schools were not in session, [00:46:00] because COVID sports, school sports were definitely not happening. And yet there were, that was when the big push to start banning trans kids from playing high school sports and grade school sports started like really got kicked into gear was during COVID when the schools were shut down and sports weren’t happening, they would go in there and they would pass these bills that were ex, they would flag them as like emergency bills that need to go into effect immediately.

And, the rest of the world wasn’t really paying attention to what was happening. So they kind of were able to more or less push these things through. Democrats would vote against it. But in a lot of these states, that doesn’t really matter because, in Kansas, for instance, there’s a democratic governor who vetoed the bill, but.

It, that veto got o you know, they overwrote the veto. But like the only hope of pushback when you don’t have the votes on your side is that there will be media coverage. That there will be, boycotts of the state or something like that, which is what you saw in 2016 when North Carolina dipped its toes into the anti-trans laws.

Which looking at that, like that law compared to like what’s going on in states right now is so, I’m sure there are people who would look at that and go, that’s pretty moderate. That’s pretty, oh it was a bathroom ban in federal or in state-owned buildings.

That’s not a huge deal. That’s, why isn’t that everywhere? But it was a huge thing to where there was backlash and you had the NBA All-Star game was supposed to be in Charlotte and had to move because people were boycotting North Carolina and all of this. But like now the state implements these like laws and

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

MOLLOY: everyone shrugs and it just kind of goes, okay.

Durable political change follows cultural change

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and I will say that, on the issue of trans rights, that I think the advocates for didn’t learn enough from the battle for same-sex marriage [00:48:00] because that battle was won in the legal and political sectors after it was won in the cultural sectors. And that’s, whereas with trans rights, I think people, a lot of people were like, okay, yeah, all right, we got, we got the marriage rights now, marriage equality, okay, now let’s immediately go to trans rights through legislation and all this other stuff.

And it’s like. Right. At this point a lot of people didn’t even know that trans people existed.

MOLLOY: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: that, and because it, you didn’t see trans representation in media. And so

MOLLOY: and the, the thing about

SHEFFIELD: You can’t win. Sorry. So you can’t win politically if you haven’t made, you have, when you’re making a, an argument for progressive change, there is an unfortunate, somatic discomfort with anything new and unfamiliar, and that has to be overcome, and it can only be overcome through personal interventions and cultural interventions.

First.

MOLLOY: And that’s the tricky thing. It is. Because, after the marriage equality ruling in 2015, all of the anti, all of the conservative anti-marriage equality groups, like, they kind of regrouped and they were like, we need to pivot to something we can win and we need to aim our firepower at that.

And so they kind of shifted to, okay, we’re gonna go after trans people. Because there, like there haven’t actually been a lot of big like, pushes for protran laws. Like a lot of the bills that get introduced in states, that are protran are like just sort of protecting against like things being taken away.

SHEFFIELD: Crimination.

MOLLOY: yeah. Like anti-discrimination laws, but like. It was kind of basically there, there were only two states in the entire, in 2018, there were only two states in the entire country that where trans person couldn’t, under any circumstances, update their [00:50:00] birth certificate. Which is kind of crazy to think about right now.

Like, we didn’t advance from that to like, okay, now every state can it, it went from like, okay, only two states block you from doing this. Like other states had, the more conservative states would have like, really strict requirements on like surgery and what kind of surgery you need to have before you can update your documents or something like that.

But yeah it went backwards fast. It was a lot of people realizing, like learning for the first time what existing policy was. Then being like, oh, I don’t like that. I, oh wait, you mean they can, they’ve been able to use the same bathroom as me for decades. Oh, I don’t like that. We gotta change that.

It was a lot of that. And the suddenly trans people became hyper exposed in media and it wasn’t really something that trans people as a whole, I can’t speak for trans people as a whole, but most trans people I know weren’t like. Super thrilled when Time Magazine was like the transgender tipping point because you had a single trans woman on a Netflix streaming show, which that was when people did not watch TV shows on Netflix.

There were like a total, there was House of Cards and there was Oranges, the New Black and like one other one out there. These were not like, huge things. And you had, because you had one trans woman as a recurring character on a TV show. Time Magazine was like, congrats guys. You did it. And then you had ca, Caitlyn Jenner coming out probably made things so much worse because she’s just a disaster of a human being. And and it made things really difficult because for a like a year there, or year two, three. You had media outlets trying to [00:52:00] raise up to be like, here’s this group that people don’t understand.

You should learn more about them. And we, we’ll amplify trans voices and stuff like that. But then Donald Trump takes office and around 20 17, 20 18, all of that stuff kind of fades because the chaos of Trump won is happening. And you start to see more anti-trans focus in media, and not as much, like positive representation out there.

Because I mean, growing up. The only trans representation there ever was like the Jerry Springer show and the movie Ace Ventura Pet Detective. So, where the villain is outed as a trans woman at the end. And then Ace Ventura by, played by Jim Carrey because he had like kissed her earlier in the movie.

He has a scene where he vomits for like three minutes straight or something like that. It’s like, that was kind of like growing up, that was my exposure to the idea of trans people. And I think that for a lot of people, that was kind of it. And then you had this tiny window where media was trying to. Give trans people more of a platform to create a will and grace type moment, which that people will always point back to, will and Grace being a show on NBC improving pub, the public’s opinions of gay people.

And it just wa it just didn’t sustain. And now then you had years and years of kind of attacks and it’s now to the point where unfortunately what happens is you can, because, if I went, okay, I am going to seek out a story of a, actually Breitbart used to have a vertical on its website that was labeled black [00:54:00] crime, and you click it and it’s just.

Stories about black people committing crimes. That was all it was. And the entire strategy there was to get you to feel a certain way about, about black people and committing crimes and to really shape that. And during the first Trump administration, they kind of did that where they did like, immigrant crime where they would put out reports where they’re like here, you had some illegal immigrants committing acts of crime.

Look at this. Which, that, that strategy, it, during World War ii, the Nazis would do that. Where they’d be like, look here’s Jews who committed crimes and stuff like that. Now that happens with trans people and we’re just this tiny, little, tiny, little percentage of the population.

And it’s like, yeah, there are gonna be trans people who commit crimes and there are gonna be trans people who are weird and there are gonna be trans people who are very off-putting. Sometimes I am one of them. But it’s like, it’s just so easy for right wing outlets to, to find those examples.

Especially with the internet, especially with social media.

SHEFFIELD: Well, yeah, you got a country with, close to 400 million people in it. Of course there are going to be some assholes and some criminals of whatever demographic. Like Ben Shapiro is really mad at Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson for being antisemitic, which they appear to be.

and he, he, he keeps saying, well, that’s unacceptable. We can’t have this kind of bigotry in conservatism, and it’s. Well, you opened the door to this buddy. You are the one that said it’s great to have bigotry against immigrants or against trans people, or, whatever group or black people.

Ben Shapiro has been very racist toward black people as well. So like, they, they don’t care about how this might affect them down the road. [00:56:00] They really don’t. And so they will say whatever, whatever it takes to get them an advantage. And so that is ultimately why you do have to, if you are gonna oppose these people in the generic sense as a party, you have to stand up for everybody because it, because otherwise you’re gonna lose.

And like, and to go back to the UK labor point, so now the polling there as we’re recording today, I saw a poll that. That to your point that showed the Reform port party as the number one party and the Green party as number two. So labor isn’t even number two or, anymore.

So it’s like they’ve eaten up their own coalition and offended people because people are like, well, why am I voting for you if you’re not standing up for the people for the ideas? So like, on the left, center, left, people actually do vote for policies. So you can’t you can’t.

This is a losing strategy and all it does is make bigotry worse.

MOLLOY: Yeah. Ex. Exactly. And it’s, it’s one of those things that it’s, I just kind of have to hope, and being trans, I have to hope that, the Democrats hold strong because as there was a, there was an article that Erin Reed who she writes a newsletter called Erin in the Morning.

It’s all about trans issues. She had something that was like, why trans people aren’t feeling Gavin Newsom. Like why? If you bring up the name Gavin Newsom, some trans people kind of recoil. And it’s because, he’d have Charlie Kirk on his podcast and he’d talk about how like, Yeah, you’ve got some reasonable concerns.

And I.

understand that. And it’s like Charlie Kirk, his sense of her he said some horrible things about trans people. But you know, it’s the thing is like if you create a situation where you don’t have one party, at least one of your two major parties fighting for trans people’s rights or opposing efforts to strip trans people’s rights, and it just becomes the political consensus.

That’s very bad for trans people. Like very bad. And suddenly you have no one [00:58:00] really fighting for you. Like the Green Party in the UK is is Protran basically. But it’s one of one of those things that’s just like, you don’t wanna have a situation where there’s a consensus. Yeah.

We all agree. Trans people are bad. And Labor gave that up, like gave up trans issues because they wanted to take it off the table. They wanted to, you, they didn’t wanna get attacked about it anymore. And it turns out most people don’t cast their votes based on trans issues, pro or against.

I mean, and that both works in trans people’s favor. Against trans people. Because it makes it hard if you’re being oppressed to if no one actually cares whether or not that’s happening, which is kind of, which is kind of the reality. it’s so, so it’s like there’s very little to gain by for, from Democrats like shifting to the right on trans issues.

But you know. It’s it would be disastrous for trans people as a whole if that were to happen. And I think that’s why the, trans people are really scared and kind of, kind of freaked out right now about like, what’s gonna happen. Like, what direction is this party going in, is this going to be a party that defends trans people?

Because there are Democrats who are very good on trans rights. JB Pritzker here in Illinois very good on trans rights. He, it’s not that he’s signing a whole bunch of protran laws or talking about trans people all the time. He just, whenever it comes up, he’s just like, he puts his foot down and he says he supports trans people.

Like, that’s cool. That’s all anyone’s really asking for. And I think that had Republicans not sunk $200 million or whatever into the. For, they, them ads in 2024 that this wouldn’t be as, as much of an issue. But people saw those ads [01:00:00] and they had a very they had a very specific reaction to them, and they were like, oh, I’m seeing these all the time.

I bet this is making people feel weird. And I don’t want my party people to think that I’m weird, and so I’m gonna, like it’s gonna sit in the back of my mind. And I think that there are a lot of, like Democrats and Democratic strategists who saw that and they, they’ve inflated the weight that voters actually put on the trans issues,

Glenn Youngkin and the myth that voters are obsessed with hating trans people

SHEFFIELD: I think this, this tendency, this belief that, voters are obsessed with hating trans people. It really started after Glenn Youngin won the Virginia Governor’s wait race during Joe Biden’s presidency and, off, off your election of, 2022 and.

The thing is, like, this was another of those thermostatic elections. So the Virginia Governor race pretty much almost always goes to the person who is the party opposite of the president. That’s pretty much how it always goes. And, and today’s sec it doesn’t, it goes toward Democrats in, in the past, few decades.

And so, so Glenn Youngin won a squeaker of an election, and he did talk about trans stuff a lot and, anti COVID safety precautions and whatnot like, but people were like, oh, it was the trans issues that got him the election and this is why he won. Well, and then fast forward to four years later in 2025, well, the Republican who was running in that race, she talked pretty much only about hating trans people in her election. And she got her ass kicked by Abigail Span Berger.

So. I think, it is astonishing to me that everybody who was like, oh, voters hate trans people. Voters hate trans people. They didn’t turn around and say, oh, well voters must love trans people. Because I have a big berger won the election. And it’s like, what?

You can’t have it both ways here, guys. Like, the reality is it’s [01:02:00] just not a big issue for anybody on either side of the aisle. And so, so you should deal with that and just do what you want. If you are a Democrat and you support trans rights, just fucking do it and it’s not gonna hurt you.

MOLLOY: Yeah. Which, I, whenever I see polling about like how people view Democrats, they, it’s not so much, oh, they’re too liberal. They’re too, they’re too progressive. Whatever. It’s they’re weak. They don’t believe in anything, and I think like. That’s the worst thing to be seen as a politician, is as to not stand for anything to, to if you’re running as a Democrat.

I think that, again when you’re running on a kind of fascist agenda, like, like Trump, he doesn’t really believe anything. He, but he sells it in this strong man kind of way that in a way that Democrats just can’t, like, you can’t be like, I don’t know what I believe but I would like to raise taxes on, some top tier of earners.

It’s like something like, like that just does, it just doesn’t work that way. You’ve gotta, you’ve gotta stand for something. And that’s what I, to kind of, to circle it back to the the talk about the war to go, to come full circle on that. It’s like. Now is the chance to take a stand that has public support and to like, put your feet in the ground to say, I don’t think we should, I don’t think we should be at war with Iran, or, I don’t think we should continue to do whatever.

Like, just to say something firmly, as opposed to doing the whole like, Yeah. I can agree that Iran is bad, but Trump didn’t ask us permission before he invaded. Stuff like that. I think that especially Democrats who wanna run for president in the future, like re they [01:04:00] have to remember how much the Iraq war like weighed on.

In the 2020 or 2008 primary with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, she voted for to invade Iraq. And he wasn’t in a position where he had to vote on that at that point. So that, that worked out in his favor. And he spoke against the war. And I, there were a lot of, I, I think especially younger voters who resonated with that.

And it’s more that it’s like, yeah, you stood for something you believed something you took a position. You’re gonna shut down Guantanamo Bay, which didn’t happen. But, to I think that there’s this real fear among democratic politicians, especially to stand for anything to really truly stand for anything.

Because if you ask me what Kamala Harris believes. I don’t know. It’s changed over the years and she, she won’t give clear answers sometimes, and sometimes when she does, it’s just kind of talking herself in a circle. And I don’t think that resonates with people. I don’t think that resonates with voters who are, plugged in.

And it’s not so much, I do think that there’s a risk of just taking, having people who do pay attention to politics and do care about these things, just starting to tune out if it feels like no one’s fighting for them. Like, people got really excited for Zoran Ma Donni, and, because, ‘cause he had concrete, like ideas that he stood for it, that he wanted to implement as mayor in New York.

And now he’s doing that and. People seem to have, strong opinions. One, one way or another about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, because she takes stands and she believes in things. I don’t think that anyone’s like, oh, [01:06:00] like Seth Moulton. He’s the guy I wanna like, like, I wanna get behind.

Like, he’s the one I can believe in, or, Dean Phillips or any of these like, kind of like weird rissy, kind kinds of Democrats where it’s just like, you just wanna be in power. You don’t really care what you’re asked to do after that, basically.

Liberals and progressives must move beyond criticizing others

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Or it’s John Fetterman, but, but on, on the other side, you look at it isn’t even necessarily about ideology either. Like that’s, that is something that I do think people on in the different Sides of the Democratic Party also have to realize. So, like people, in New York have really come to like, Madani, but they also like Abigail Span Berger.

And the thing that both of them ha in, have in common in their, in their states is that they do stand for things and they fight hard for them. And that’s what people want. and in terms of your specific economic policies or whatever, people will take, take those or leave those, but they want to know that you’re on their side and they want to see you fighting for them, however you define what that is.

And we could even say that Trump himself has done that. Like that is why at least some of his people, or maybe most of them, like, that’s why they support him ‘cause they see him as fighting for them and. And so you gotta do that.

But, and so maybe let’s let’s just go to the last topic here, which is that, so as much as bad things have gotten for trans people, I, there, there have been a couple of recent controversies and one of them involving yourself on Blue Sky, but also more recently involving the New York Times columnist, Jamelle Bouie. And there’s a of people saying that Jamelle Bouie is trans phobe or that you, your are [01:08:00] yourself are not sufficiently supportive of trans people.

And this is exactly what the Christofascists want people to be doing. I don’t think that people get that, like there politics, if you are a progressive person, it has to be more than just, therapy.

Like it activism, criticizing people on the internet is not activism. You actually have to be doing something and, tearing apart people on your own side are not a hundred percent agreeing with you. Look, and even if they did something that you thought was wrong, that doesn’t mean that they have to be banished or whatever.

And I feel like, I don’t know it’s tough. I, but I haven’t, experienced it like you have. Or you wanna just say it from your side then,

MOLLOY: Yeah. So, so basically it was like five minutes before we started recording this, that I noticed a bunch of notifications on Blue Sky that were like, people who were like, I’m so disappointed in you And I’m like oh God. What? Yeah.

I guess a few days ago there was a trans woman who got in, like, disagreed with Jamelle over something and then posted something like to the effect of like, trans woman breathes Jamel Bowie, shut up. Or something like that. Like that was the post.

And it was like obviously exaggerated for effect. And he posted that and he wrote What is going on with this site? And Blue Sky can be a lot sometimes and I just wrote very weird and didn’t look into it anymore because I thought I was like, chimal is. Like he, he’s written pro-trans articles for the New York Times.

Which The New York

SHEFFIELD: Four years.

MOLLOY: Yeah. For years.

This is, he’s like, he’s gone on, on podcasts hosted by, Caitlyn Burns who’s a trans woman. He went on her podcast recently and, he’s a helpful guy and I think he’s really insightful. He’s a much, much better writer than I am.

Extremely smart. And I assumed that this was people. ‘cause every once in a while there will be people who will kind of take this [01:10:00] position of being like, oh yeah. The New York Times is evil, and anyone who works for the New York Times is also evil. And the same thing can be, people will say about the Atlantic or the Economist or any of these other legacy media type places.

And I don’t think that, like, I don’t think it’s an incorrect view to have. It’s, I it’s a view that I think people are perfectly welcome to, to hold. That they’re not gonna support someone who works for an institution. They see as harmful to them, which I totally understand that. And I kind of just assumed it was about that specifically.

But yeah I wrote “very weird.” And then I got people who were like, you called a trans woman weird. And you took his side in this, in, in this argument, and I need to like look into like what their back and forth was. But Blue Sky makes it really difficult sometimes because when one person blocks another, it becomes like almost impossible on the actual Blue Sky app to, to look up like what was said.

SHEFFIELD: Well, literally, yeah, it

MOLLOY: yeah, it just it’s, yes. Which, you know what, I think that’s probably one of the best features of Blue Sky, that it’s just like that you block and it’s a nuclear, it’s just gone. But yeah, so it’s, but I thi I think it’s, we’re at this kind of point where there’s a lot of frustration among trans people in particular because we’re not heard, we’re not often given.

Platforms in, in these elite publications to the last time the New York Times published anything by me was 2018. And like, and that was rare. And I, having that platform even at that time, like that puts me at a really different [01:12:00] level than someone whose only ability to get their voice out and to express themselves is to post on Blue Sky or Twitter or wherever and to, to maybe be frustrated with how things are going.

And, it’s just one of those, one of those things that I hope that. I hope that we can all kind of talk to each other a bit more. especially when it’s people who, who fundamentally do agree on things like, should trans people have rights, should trans people have be attacked nonstop, because it’s, we trans people need allies in this, in this, the, the way forward because trans people often aren’t going to get aren’t going to get a lot of space in the New York Times or the Atlantic.

the Atlantic today, as trans people are having, in Kansas we talked about that. What’s happening there? The Atlantic ran a piece that was like, are we sure that gay men aren’t being told that they’re trans and being forced to transition or something like that. It was in defense of effeminate gay boys or something like that.

And it’s really frustrating because they’ll give space to these, those sorts of stories all the time.

SHEFFIELD: Which by the way, that is the opinion of the Iranian MOAs. That’s literally what they do to anyone who is gay.

MOLLOY: Yeah. Which is, and so it’s one of those things where it’s like, it sucks that all of these institutions are constantly doing that. Or they’re running, the New York Times running 10 different pieces about like, are trans kids getting healthcare too easily?

It’s actually very difficult to get any sort of trans healthcare, like the idea that, oh, kids are being tricked into this and their parents don’t know what’s going on and, all this stuff. It’s just not very accurate. And the fact that, the New York Times will run, article after article on this when none of the [01:14:00] science has changed really on, on this stuff in ever in, in a decade or two.

But, the politics have changed and all these stories aren’t about like, changes in science, they’re just changes in like, well, which way is the political wind blowing? And I don’t think these outlets care that by running all these stories, what they’re doing. If you’ve run a bunch of stories that are like, is there something wrong with trans kids?

Are trans people getting healthcare too easily? You’re gonna start to think. Maybe trans people are getting healthcare too easily. Like all of that stuff, it’s gonna build up and it’s going to shift public opinion as it has. Someone was trying to look up like when the last time a trans person wrote a pro trans piece in the Atlantic, and like the most recent piece someone could find was from 2018, which is, that’s a long time.

Meanwhile they’re they’re, they have a, they have columnists who regularly post anti-trans stuff. They multiple pieces that just in 2026. And so I understand the frustration and. I don’t know how to fix that. How to fix the fact that people are angry and they’re upset and for good reason.

It sucks feeling like you don’t have a voice, and it sucks. Even if you have a voice, have a, have something of a platform that you’re, you’ll feel like you’re not doing enough with it or doing the right thing with it or wielding it in the best way possible. And so, that’s it’s a real, it’s a real challenge.

So, Yeah. Now

SHEFFIELD: Well, and it’s a challenge on both sides also, because in defense of the trans woman that was kind of initiated or became the focal point of this little mini scandal, , she’s has a small account and doesn’t have a lot of [01:16:00] followers and, he quote tweeted her saying something that was critical of him.

And, and I think that’s just bad form. Like if you’re if you’ve got a zillion followers on social media, you shouldn’t be quote, tweeting somebody who’s on your own side by and large. And even if you think they were a. You can tell ‘em in a reply that they’re a jerk. You don’t need to sick your entire followers on them and be like, Hey, look at this asshole.

Like, and so she didn’t like that. And a lot of trans people didn’t like what happened to her. So like, it’s not a thing where I think, everybody was perfect or one side was perfect. We have to like, I mean, this is, this goes back to the paradox that, the right wing, the fascists, the reactionaries, they embrace being evil.

So like the only way you can effectively oppose them is to be good and to be charitable, and to be nice to the people on your own side. And I know that sucks sometimes because sometimes people are rude and nasty and or obtuse or whatever you don’t like about it. Yes, it’s true. But we can’t we have to be respectful of our own side.

Everybody does.

MOLLOY: Cool. That’s good place. Good place to end it.

SHEFFIELD: Okay. Alright, well, yeah. All right, well then this is good and I’m glad we got to hit on all

MOLLOY: Yeah, absolutely. It’s great. Great talking to you. But yeah, I I have to now go get my dog’s food because they are hungry.

SHEFFIELD: All right, so that is the program for today. I appreciate you joining us for the conversation and you can always get more if you go to Theory of Change show where we have the video, audio, and transcript of all the episodes. And if you are a paid subscribing member, you have unlimited access to the archives and I thank you very much for your support.

It’s much appreciated. I’ll see you next time.

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How is this possible and what does it mean? Depending on who you ask, you’ll get a very different answer. Usually, however, the criticism boils down to: Democrats aren’t promoting my own personal policy opinions.

The hard truth, however, people don’t want to accept is that many, if not most, voters have policy viewpoints that aren’t fixed, which means that focusing your campaign strategies based solely on public opinion is not going to work.

Democracy in America is severely endangered because one the country’s two major parties has become a fascistic personality cult. But a strategy of protecting democracy by winning every election forever is doomed to failure.

So what to do instead? That’s an answer that I can’t give you in a single podcast episode, although be sure to subscribe nonetheless! But what I can say is that democracy defenders must think bigger and be much more open to new voices and new ideas.

And joining me for today’s conversation is a friend of the show, David Atkins. He’s a member of the Democratic National Committee and also a contributor to Washington Monthly.

The full discussion of this episode is for paid subscribers. An excerpt on YouTube is available, but you will need to be a premium member on Patreon or Substack to watch, read, or listen to the full discussion. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere. (Note: Purchasing a book through the links in show notes helps support Theory of Change.)

Related Content

• The 2025 elections showed that more than anything, people want Democrats who fight Trump

• Republican operatives completely reconfigured politics, their Democratic rivals have not kept up

• How the American left became post-political, and how to change it

• Republicans built a massive infrastructure to attack democracy, Democrats have not made one to defend it

• Democrats get lots of bad advice, particularly the idea that most voters are ideological

• In 2024, Donald Trump bet big on ‘unlikely voters’ who have sat on the margins of American politics

Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

06:13 — QAnon as a religion of narcissism

12:18 — What conspiracism offers middle-aged and older women

20:13 — Media proliferation and political manipulations have made conspiracy belief much easier

28:27 — The women of January 6th faced widely divergent economic circumstances

34:32 — Charismatic evangelicalism as the common starting point for QAnon believers

44:02 — Astrology, space aliens, and QAnon

48:44 — ‘Soul contracts’ and tragic morality

52:49 — Right-wing politicians harm society and then use the nihilism they engender as campaign leverage

55:42 — What do QAnon believers think about the Epstein files now?

01:04:35 — Prevention is easier than de-radicalization

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: And joining me now is David Atkins. Hey, Dave. Good to see you back on the show.

DAVID ATKINS: Hey, happy to be here. Thanks for having me on.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. So you are a member of the Democratic National Committee, but you are here in your personal capacity.

ATKINS: Yes.

SHEFFIELD: So we want to make sure to point that out.

ATKINS: Yes. I’m not an official spokesperson for the DNC in this interview.

SHEFFIELD: Yes. All right, so with that out of the way one of the topics that I wanted to talk about here today is that, Donald Trump, as I think everybody by now, or at least people who watch or listen to this podcast, knows and read you is that Donald Trump, he won not because of the fanatical fascistic, right wing, he won because he kind of misled a lot of people who didn’t know very much about politics, and those marginal Trump voters appear to have pretty much turned against him at this point. And his approval ratings are the lowest they’ve ever been. And in some polls actually even lower than they were after January 6th 2021. So, But the paradoxical thing is that the Democratic Party is rated as less popular in polls.

And I think that’s, it’s causing some people to kind of project, a lot of their own personal biases onto that data set. But there’s a lot going on there. And, but ultimately, I mean, voters are still, they’re still choosing the Democrats in elections.

ATKINS: Right. I think it, There’s a lot on there. When you look at a statistic like such and such number of people dislike or like the Republican party or such and such or like the [00:04:00] Democratic Party that is genuine, that is generally. A confluence many different Factors. there’s an old sort of in, in religious studies that every religion is sort of like a flashlight on the elephant, that everybody’s sort of got a spotlight that nobody can see.

The whole elephant. I think you have a similar thing going on here. So you have the moderates who are saying, oh, this means that the Democratic Party is too far to the left and need to come back to the center. you’ve got leftists who are saying, well, the Party is bad on this issue or that issue.

And if they were only farther left, I think it really depends the person. I think it’s all of those things are true for different segments of the electorate, which makes solving the problem challenging. But I think one thing you can say is there are a few major reasons for happening. Number one, you have a low trust society in general, so all institutions are suffering across the board. Approval of every major institution is down.

That having been said, not making excuses for the state of the, Democratic Party approval. ‘cause I’ve been talking to various leaders in the party about a lot with some alarm, I think. Yes, right. There some people who have joined the Trump Coalition who used to vote for Democrats, who feel that the party has shifted too far left on issues.

But rather than take the Yglesias sort of angle this that has been happening since the 1960s, you have been having realignment shifts this for the last past 50 or 60 years. And that doesn’t mean that you need to stop expanding rights or do or stop advancing social change. And in any case, it’s not Democratic candidates or the Democratic Party officially that is advancing civil rights in this way, that is making those voters uncomfortable.

So there’s only so much the party per se can do about that. So when Matt Yglesias and those folks say, oh, the party needs to shift to the right, I mean. They’re not talking about party candidates, they’re talking about random [00:06:00] activists on social media. So good luck, I guess. There is also another segment of people who are absolutely furious Gaza or some other issue.

And again, though, know, you can’t really fault candidates so much for this, and candidates who have taken much more left positions on those issues are not actually fairing better in elections by and large, with some exceptions. And we can talk about the Mamdani Coalition and all of that, and I’m very supportive of a OC and Mamdani and those folks.

But it’s not exactly an electoral panacea. It’s not like if every candidate adopted those positions, the party’s fortunes would be reversed. It’s not that simple either. I think the biggest thing that is impacting though approval of the Democratic Party, ironically, is from core normie Democrats. You ask a core Normie Democrat who shows up to a No Kings protest.

And is with Trump, if they approve of the Democratic Party, by and large, they’re going to say no. Not because they like Trump, not because they think the party is too far left or too far right, but because the party is not doing a big, a good enough job of standing up to the Republicans. And look what some strategists and Chuck Schumer might say is, oh, we’re doing exactly what we need to do to win elections.

Look how well we’re doing winning elections. Well, okay, maybe, but there’s more to politics, ironically than winning the next election, right? You’ve gotta keep people engaged and believing in you as an institution, believing in your values. Otherwise, you’re just going to get a thermostatic effect where, okay, you win the next election, but the next time people get upset over inflation or whatever, you lose again.

And if your entire premise of how you defeat fascism is we have to win every single election. Rather than we have to end fascism at its root, then you’re going to lose. So there has to be more than [00:08:00] just, oh, we’re doing whatever it takes to win the next election by looking calm and looking like good guys.

So it’s a lot of things I think.

For voters, ideology matters less than activity

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. And we’ll come back to the thermostatic issue later. But yeah, I, it’s it is shaping up when we look at the candidates who did win in the past 2025 election the major candidates who won, what we’re seeing is that, yeah, that the real access of approval for Democrats or energy is yeah, how is, how much you want to oppose Trump.

And it’s not as even as much of an ideological barrier. So like we see, for instance, with Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger has, recently come out with some pretty tough restrictions on the Trump Ice Thugs and what they’re allowed to do legally within the state. And, the degree to which Virginia law enforcement officers are allowed to cooperate with them or provide them information.

And, so this is somebody who in the conventional left right intra Democratic Party splits. This is not somebody who is on the further left of the party, but on the other hand, she also shares that desire to vigorously oppose the authoritarianism of Donald Trump that, that Zoran Mamdani does.

ATKINS: Right. No, exactly. And this is one of the things, like I, I was not a big span Spanberger supporter because she was on sort of the moderate side of a lot of policy fights that I was not approving of. But look at what I mean. Now I’m a big span Spanberger fan because hey, like those, she’s, that she’s not annoying me on any policy fights in Virginia, but what she is doing is standing up really strongly to Trump and ICE.

And I couldn’t be happier about that. And I know a lot of other folks who were span Spanberger skeptics who are very happy with her as well. And think that if we have more of that in a real way, I think, that will also be helpful. [00:10:00] You do see a lot of politicians sometimes in a cringey way coming out and using, F-bombs this kind of language and, using stronger language now, which is nice to see, as long as it actually feels natural.

But you know, actually stepping forward and. Demanding say to visit ICE detention centers or actually, stepping forward and throwing real sand in the gears of the Trump regime. what people are looking for.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And it, and to kind of boil it down a bit here, what we’re seeing is that there’s kind of a, I would say that, there, there are your policy views, there is your operation style and then there’s your communication style. And those are the three things that, that people are really caring about.

And, and what it’s looking like is that there is kind of a, a real alignment that’s shaping up in terms of communication style and operation style, that people are realizing. The bigger problem here is that we have to stop fascism first, and then build the case simultaneously for, a society that, that does address the issues that people are are concerned about and, but also is willing to talk about democracy. because like, I guess that has been a debate point as well within the party that a lot of people have said, well, the public doesn’t care about protecting democracy. And other people say, well, no, they do.

And it’s, I, it, I don’t think you can say one way or the other. It’s a matter of how you do it, is what I would say.

ATKINS: No, I agree. And I think that G Elliot Morris, for instance, has had some very compelling data recently that people do care a great deal about protecting democracy. It also really matters. And this is sort of a, a cart/horse like [00:12:00] chicken/egg egg kind problem. In the sense that if you take the popularist view, which is based in large part upon a bunch of quantitative survey data, and we could go into all of the challenges with quant data.

I, I’m a qualitative, research guy by trade and man, like the mistakes that you can make just by paying attention to what a quantitative survey says are enormous. But of course, if you ask people on a quantitative survey what they care more about the price of groceries or, threats to democracy, most people are of course going to save the price of groceries.

But there’s a huge emotional investment in democracy as an idea. And if your leaders are not talking full throated about the problems and the threats to democracy in a way that sounds more like, that, sounds like more than just. The heated political rhetoric of the day. But if you manage to show people no, like you are actually not going to be able to vote for your leaders, you’re not, there’s actually going to be an accountability problem in the, in your democracy.

And these people are trying to set themselves up to rule for life. People do care about that. People do want to step to defend that. And we and what’s been shown in the data is not only are people actually concerned about this and increasingly concerned about this more than they were six months ago, in part because of the actions of the Trump administration, but also because when you have leaders not named Chuck Schumer, but actual thought leaders who are now actually more credible on the left and within the Democratic Party who are actively talking about this, people pay attention.

Journalists pay attention, it becomes more part of the conversation. And lo and behold, voila, people start to care about it, even in the quantitative survey data. So you don’t just have to reflect whatever the public opinion is from six months ago. In a survey, you [00:14:00] also have a role in talking about the issues of the day and shifting public opinion because you’re not, and not even in a way that changes people’s minds, but that changes the salience of the issue.

That changes their focus and their understanding.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. And we’ll get into that, but I want to circle back to the problem with claiming that your ideas are just pure math, which is what a lot of people that especially of the the self-identified popularist that’s they often say that they’re just doing math but they’re really not.

And but even aside from, the fact that they are trying to promote their own ideological preferences, which they never state that, but setting their preferences aside though, just the, and I can say this as somebody who, used to do polls and write about them.

So obviously I, I think polls are very useful and important. But they’re far less scientific than people imagine them to be, in part because just the very act of taking a survey is altering your mindset. And so it’s take, it’s taken you out of your regular mindset of your, which it would be your ballot voting mindset.

But it’s also, it is a, it requires the pollster and the person to have the same understanding of the question, and there’s no proof that is true.

ATKINS: No.

SHEFFIELD: It’s like it relies on a fundamentally qualitative assumption, without ever saying, saying it.

ATKINS: Right. Yeah. Look, I mean, people have complicated thoughts about politics generally, especially undecided voters or cross pressured voters, people whose vote is not already taken for granted. Typically, your partisans, I mean, they also have your partisans, your deep partisans also have complicated thoughts about politics, [00:16:00] but also somewhat more predictable, but especially people whose votes are winnable on either side.

Tend to be either more ignorant of the issues or they tend to be really crushed, pressured and conflicted, or both right to where if you ask them to explain themselves, if you ask them to explain what they think about an issue, you’ll get some confused and maybe some contradictory, but also some, complicated views on subjects like education or maybe, trans rights or maybe, taxation or what, or housing or what have you.

When you boil that down into a response to a poll question, right, and you’re a sophisticated pollster, you understand this, first of all even just baseline, the way you ask a poll question can have enormous biasing effects into the answers that you get. get. But even at that, this sort of goes back to George Lakoff and frames of the world and all that, people operate with a lot of different frames in their mind about how the world works.

And depending on which frame of how the world works, you’re activating, sometimes contradictory, sometimes parallel. People can come to different conclusions about what is important or how they want to perceive the issue. That you cannot possibly reflect in a bubble answer on a quantitative poll.

And you can get those to say almost anything that you want within reason. Whereas if you ask someone, Hey, what do you think about housing? What should we do about housing? In your ideal world in a focus group, that you’ll get a lot more honest answers. Of course, then you are, subject to the interpretations of a focus group when a consultant decides to write a report, but by and large, you’re going to get much better idea of [00:18:00] how the world works and how the electorate functions by just listening to a cross section of maybe 60 undecided voters than you will getting the captured survey responses from a thousand.

It may be statistically significant per the mathematics of stat of stats, but the gar, but the data you’re getting is garbage. It’s in, garbage out. For the most part. It, well, it’s not total garbage, but it’s not nearly as useful as a guideline as people want to believe it’s.

The limits of polling and quantitative data

SHEFFIELD: Even if they did understand the question you might be catching them in a moment where one particular opinion of theirs about this issue is more salient in their mind. And then if you were to talk to them the next day, another aspect might be more salient depending on whatever their circumstances are.

And so. And to be fair, polls do always say that this is just a snapshot in time. And I would say that the actual polls themselves are far more nuanced about what can be learned from polling than the popularists who kind of have like a, I mean, I call it cargo cult social science.

Like that’s what they’re kind of doing. They’re not, most of them do not do polls themselves with some exception. And so they don’t under, they don’t have direct experience at how fungible everything is, even though they know in principle about question wording distortions and whatnot, until you’ve actually seen it with your own I just, it I don’t see, I don’t see it as critical.

ATKINS: Right. And I think that the last thing that’s really important, and that’s become very obvious this last year of the Trump administration, is there’s a very big difference between talking about theoretical policies on paper. And the actual implementations of those policies when it comes to [00:20:00] their real and emotional impacts.

Right? So say immigration, it’s one thing to ask people when the general media environment on social media, Fox News, and everywhere else has been ramping up this mass hysteria about, about, immigration to say, oh, do you want to deport all people who are not here legally and you’ll get a high number?

Do you want to close the border entirely and deport everyone who lives here? And, in advance of the 2024 election, you were seeing fairly high numbers for that, which led people to say, oh, the Democrats need to move left on immigration. But the problem is the actual implementation of that policy is horrific, economically destructive, socially devastating.

Nobody what people have seen in the attempt to implement. Even A part of that policy, they hate what they’re seeing. You do the same thing for trans rights, right? Like where you, where ultimately you have to go down to what, genital inspections of teenagers like you, you’re the actual implementation of policies that might sound good to people on paper end up being horrific in practice.

And it’s one thing to ask about that in theory. It’s another thing when it comes to the real world of politics and whether you want to allow those dry policies on paper and the questionnaire responses of about that to drive the way you talk about it in a debate or on a policy stump speech or in an advertisement where you explain what these policies actually mean.

You can’t be scared by a 54% approval number for a horrific policy. You can’t be scared about talking about what that actually means in terms of implementation. The Democrats did a terrible job of talking about what these policies would actually mean, which meant that Stephen Miller and his people thought they had a green light to do horrific things.

The public doesn’t actually like

The thermostatic nature of public opinion and Republican deception

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. [00:22:00] Well, and that does, go to the thermostatic nature of public opinion. So, so within pub political science just for people who are not familiar with the term, thermo, the theory of thermostatic public opinion is that. A lot of voters, perhaps even most are motivated more about opposing things that they don’t like, than than having an affirmative vision.

And so there is this kind of core, large core of voters who are persuadable by either party. Because whenever the par, whenever a party gets into power, they do things that, can be, the, these are the actual instantiations of the ideas. And sometimes people are like, oh gosh, I didn’t want that.

And so, and we’re seeing a lot of that. Yeah. As you noted with regard to Donald Trump, that a lot of people are saying, well, I didn’t vote for him to do this. I didn’t vote for him to, cut cancer funding. I didn’t vote to, to ban federal funding for vaccines. I I didn’t vote, so they’re saying I didn’t vote for that.

But in reality they did. They just were not educated enough about the positions of Trump on these issues. And that the thermostatic nature of public opinion, I think is, has, it has been a problem for Democrats because for Republicans are so deceptive and willing to lie about their policies and they’ve always been, since, ever since Mary Goldwater got wiped out in 1964, they’ve kind of realized, oh, well we can’t be upfront about what we actually want, and so we’re just going to, speak in generalities.

Vague terms about people being responsible and and law and order, and stop talking about their actual full positions.

Read more

When we hear the term “conspiracy theorist,” most people probably imagine someone who looks a bit like Alex Jones, a middle-aged white guy who’s slightly overweight and loves to scream. And to be sure, there are a lot of people out there like that—supporting Donald Trump as fanatically as possible. But the reality of American right-wing extremism includes many people who look completely different.

Noelle Cook, my guest on today’s episode discovered that firsthand in her research on women who believe in QAnon conspiracy theories, which began, fatefully enough, when she coincidentally happened to be at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Conspiracism is a new type of religion, one that’s similar to past ones in having doctrines, leaders, and tales of apocalypse—but also different in that it’s much more narcissistic and self-directed than modern-day cults like Scientology or Heaven’s Gate.

This is fascinating research that’s much deeper than the rural diner safaris than had become infamous in American media. Her findings are the basis of her new book, The Conspiracists: Women, Extremism, and the Lure of Belonging, as well as a film documentary about the women she profiles.

The video of our conversation is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere. (Note: Purchasing a book through the links in show notes helps support Theory of Change.)

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• Far-right religion has been offering absurd and unhelpful advice to women for decades

• Why conspiracy theories about the famous Rothschild family tell the history of antisemitism

• Trumpism isn’t conservative, and saying this is still important

• Far-right members of Congress are making the internet a safe space for misinformation

Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

06:13 — QAnon as a religion of narcissism

12:18 — What conspiracism offers middle-aged and older women

20:13 — Media proliferation and political manipulations have made conspiracy belief much easier

28:27 — The women of January 6th faced widely divergent economic circumstances

34:32 — Charismatic evangelicalism as the common starting point for QAnon believers

44:02 — Astrology, space aliens, and QAnon

48:44 — ‘Soul contracts’ and tragic morality

52:49 — Right-wing politicians harm society and then use the nihilism they engender as campaign leverage

55:42 — What do QAnon believers think about the Epstein files now?

01:04:35 — Prevention is easier than de-radicalization

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: What makes your book different from a lot of others is that you are providing in-depth continuous conversations with specific people over time. So it’s like a longitudinal ethnography, if you will. And that’s a little different than most studies of misinformation and false beliefs, I think.

Was that something you set out to do deliberately to profile these individuals, or you tried to do it originally as a group?

NOELLE COOK: No, it was not something I set out to do originally. The only reason I ended up doing this is because of the timing and it was during the pandemic and I had entered a graduate program and needed a graduate thesis and in person research was not an option at that time. So I had taken a camera and gotten down to DC on January 6th to get images of the stop the steal rally to try to come up with a visual anthropology project.

Clearly got different kind of pictures than I expected. All of my pictures are on the outside. I didn’t go anywhere near the building, but it was such a surreal experience to have discovered what actually happened that day when I got home and look at these pictures and see so many women, and I was looking at these first 100 women that had been arrested for.

Entering the capital on January 6th and looking at their, their statements of facts and, and what they had done and what they were being charged with, that it really started to strike me. That, that the only similarity between these 100 women was generational. So that is how I started studying women, specifically middle aged [00:04:00] women.

And that population came from January 6th, but quickly within the first year led me down a path into what became known to me as Cons, spirituality. Um, and I had never intended to study conspiracies. I had hoped to. I had deliberately avoided learning anything about Q Anon. because I don’t have that in my personal life.

No one in my family is a conspiracist. Uh, but that is where every one of the women I was following took me. And you mentioned that it’s there’s this, this end depth study, and, and it was, I, I started talking to several women. I probably talked to about 12 people over a course of several months. But I ended up settling on two because it, it’s if I wanted to do what I wanted to do, which was to truly understand them, which is what ethnography demands, uh, ethnography wants you to go into a culture, uh, unlike your own and to observe as a participant and, uh, inhabit these spaces and understand what people are doing and what these practices mean to them.

And so that is what I did is lurked for about a year in different spaces trying to understand what I was seeing because it, it ran the gamut between Q Anon conspiracies to anti-government conspiracies, to going all the way into theosophy and the IM movement that I had never heard of either.

I didn’t ha I don’t have a religious background and so. I, in some ways that probably benefited me because I was able to see so many overlapping similarities in the way belief systems work and how conspiracies can also work as a faith-based system, which is what I’ve kind of concluded at this point.

It’s not that unlike organized religion in many ways.

SHEFFIELD: Absolutely. Yeah. They have doctrines. Absolutely, they do.

COOK: It doesn’t have the structure and the accountability that’s supposed to be built into institutionalized faith-based systems and, and, you know, you can add to which you want, but it operates the exact same way. In fact, many of the women [00:06:00] I talked to who may have actually gone to physical churches prior to the pandemic after those restrictions and in-person gatherings were shut down.

If you ask me as women now, what church they go to, they say, my, my church is here [in my heart].

QAnon as a religion of narcissism

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that is a thing that makes it harder to help people get out of this type of thinking, because unlike being in a authoritarian religious cult where there is a specific leader and they have things you’re, that they require you to do in places to be. This is choose your own adventure religion.

And so that means, essentially, I mean, it’s, it is a religion of narcissism, so you’re always right. Even if you’re wrong, you’re right. and it’s harder if your predictions don’t work, then you can still come up with a thing to justify it.

COOK: is that different though? This is the question I’m asking myself. I don’t know. Like I’ll ask you, knowing your background, like in some ways though, so you say narcissism, you keep being told things are gonna happen, but they don’t come true. Would you say the same thing then for. People who believe in apocalypse, for example, the people who put the data.

I mean, I know that’s an extreme and we, don’t take that seriously, but there’s a lot of faith-based systems that ask you to keep waiting for something that’s going to happen that you just have to have faith will. Right. I

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

COOK: So is that narcissism?

SHEFFIELD: There is narcissism in that and and just simply the nature of, I personally know, what God is and what God wants, that is extremely narcissistic.

And so, when you look at religions that have persisted over longer time periods, they’ve kind of burned a lot of that stuff away. In, because they, in their early years they were like that saying, Christianity, the early Christians were saying Jesus is gonna come back during our lifetime. Like that’s the story of the early apostles.

COOK: [00:08:00] Conspiracists believe that too.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. So, so, but what’s different, I think though, with regard to this, kind of modern religion is that it, it’s self-directed in many ways, and that’s what makes it harder to help people get out of.

COOK: It’s what makes it even more dangerous.

SHEFFIELD: It is. Yeah, absolutely. And so it’s easier, it is both easier to weaponize and harder to falsify because technically, Donald Trump doesn’t tell these people to do anything.

COOK: He doesn’t need to because it’s also a community that operates through signals and codes. The whole thing with conspiracists is to decode things. So if you’re at a Trump rally and you hear that thunder in the background coming from the loudspeakers and it’s playing that song, that’s a wink and a nod to keep the faith, the storm is coming and it’s kind of, to me, what I’ve grown over time, and this is absolutely not to be offensive towards organized religion, but I, as I move from saying these are just these delusional people who have just lost touch with reality.

I, I, of course by the time I’m actually talking to people, I know that’s not true. Right. I know They’re not just mentally mental illness is not the reason here, there, there is the belonging and the participation factor for sure. But. When I started listening to some of the things they would tell me about their pr, their previous practices, spiritually, which was in organized churches, evangelical churches.

SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm.

COOK: Some of those message, some of the messages in the, it is very easy to swap those for like the cons spirituality realm, because they all talk about a new, a problem being solved. You just have to be patient. You sometimes you have to suffer, right? But then there’s this great reward at the end for that, and if you are a Christian, you believe that’s heaven, that’s your great reward. And if you are a conspiracist, you believe that you’re ascending to earth in five D, which is basically heaven, except you’re still alive, I guess. I’ve never quite under, I still haven’t really figured out exactly what that looks like when we ascend.

Well, I won’t be [00:10:00] ascending, but when we ascend to 5D—

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, you’re not eligible, Noelle.

COOK: I am not, I’m, I am 2D, 3D, I am not, I have not leveled up in the game yet.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and we have seen that over the years that a number of even evangelical pastors have, they’ve been forced out by their congregations, actually. Because they won’t preach QAnon religion.

COOK: That’s the other thing the pandemic allowed for, right? Because physical locations were off limits at that point. People did turn online and, right. I mean, normal churches and normal practice was going on, but it also gave people an opportunity, I’m thinking like right now, Chris Keys, for example, who’s this?

Just ab absurd. It’s so absurd. It’s funny, it’s almost like a comedic sketch watching him, but he, got his ministry credentials and now he’s got his keys to Christ’s ministry thing and he’s preaching and he’s absolutely insane. And so, you watch these people online, it’s just you funnel this when you’re funneled this 15 hours a day and you already lack discernment in media literacy.

And again, talking about the population I’m talking about, were the ones that had to kind of muddle our way through how to learn to be safe on the internet. There’s no one teaching us and they don’t use the middle aged women are some of the biggest super spreaders of disinformation studies have shown recently because they indiscriminately retweet without looking who it’s retweeting or looking what the actual messaging content is.

So I think I see so much of this turning into, so many of these people are turning to. Individuals that have no credentials or training for their spiritual practices. And I ended up LA landing right in the middle of some of that. When I first started this research following one of the J six women through her online spaces, in their online groups, I ended up with a whole bunch of people who were part of the Love is one cult because they were bringing those teachings they were doing on YouTube back in the day when Amy Carlson was around and doing it now on Facebook with the same audience ready to [00:12:00] consume what they were selling. So I, it, I we, if people are also, if we’re getting a religion from there too, there are no third space. There’s the Internet’s taken over every aspect of your life, essentially. Your spiritual, your moral training, oftentimes education now too. It’s a big problem.

What conspiracism offers middle-aged and older women

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. It is and generally speaking, and of course there are individual differences, we will say. But you know, there are some general gender differences, especially with regard to conspiracists. And so like, men generally tend to be interested in things about, oh, COVID was a Chinese bio weapon, and we need to have stock up on guns because the communists are coming, and be very interested in the illegal immigrants coming to kill them and things like that. Whereas the women, and not just the women, the individual women you talk to, but also in general women, are responding to some—the trans message, anti-trans message obviously is a big thing for them—but they’re responding in a little bit different ways to some of these men as well. You want to talk about that?

COOK: Yeah. And I think that was another place where they, where this became, I think this burst into the mainstream. I think that this has always existed, but the pandemic really allowed it to kind of burst into the mainstream because the pandemics touched on so many different pieces that women are allowed to participate in.

Right? It was the sphere of womanhood. It was your family’s health, it was your family’s nutrition, it was your family’s education. It was education, moral training, all of those things. And so then when the culture wars happened you could see this is an opportunity in a very patriarchal structure for women to get out front and center, just like they did in the civil rights movement.

Right? Most of the screaming, angry faces. In front of children are white women. And that’s not unlike what we saw during the pandemic with mask mandates and school closures. It was, some of those pictures are very similar to the ones I saw from the [00:14:00] sixties because that’s when women are allowed to be aggressive and still be feminine.

Otherwise you’re trans investigated if you’re aggressive and you don’t fit ideal femininity. But protection of children is an ideal feminine trait. And so they could scream about vaccines, they could scream about school boards. And we watched that and we watched in January, 2021 when Moms for Liberty came out of nowhere and by summer we’re hosting $20,000 table fundraisers.

That was all, funded. Clearly. I did a lot of fundraising and I can promise you I wouldn’t have been able to have a fundraiser in charge that much after six months of existence when I’m selling t-shirts as our main source of income. Right.

SHEFFIELD: well it certainly married to the head

COOK: Yeah, well, yeah. But if you asked them at the time how they’re raising funds, we’re a grassroots organization of just plain old moms.

That’s everything was presented that way too. Remember, we’re talking about a population that’s already invisible in society. We’re past our reproductive use and most of us are either making very little money or aren’t contributing anything to the GDP. So there’s very little use for women over 50 in our culture.

And so what the pandemic did in so many of these issues did, and the culture wars did, is gave women a voice and visibility. If you look at some of the leaders of the movement building that had taken place on the right over the last five, six years, there are a lot of Gen X women there. You look at the women for Trump, you look at someone like Lee Dundas, who was one of the original organizers of the truck convoy.

All of these movement, the right is very good with movement builders, by the way. Right. With traveling revivals essentially. And so there were so many middle aged people doing this stuff that I, I think that somewhere along the lines gen X kind of lost their minds with as they went online because there is no discernment.

And it’s just this amplification of absolutely absurd things. When we filled in our, when I did that documentary in 2023, it all was very spontaneous and unplanned the way it worked out. But the two women in the book, Tammy and Yvonne, were able to meet each other in person for the very first time, [00:16:00] opposite sides of the country.

But because of the online ecosystem that they inhabit that is global. They could finish each other’s sentences automatically. because they’re just basically conversing in memes.

(Begin film trailer)

Yvonne St. Cyr: January 6th was a setup.

Tammy Butry: Was a setup. I made national news hanging out the window!

News correspondent: Test, test. So I’m here with Yvonne at Freedom Corner. You were just convicted for January 6th, and--

Yvonne St. Cyr: I was just sentenced.

Liz Smith: Just feel like the world’s going slightly mad, right?

Yvonne St. Cyr: Right. But that it’s just darkness being exposed.

So we’ve never been to the moon. They’re lying. Um,

Liz Smith: We’ve never been to the moon?

Yvonne St. Cyr: Not through traveling through space.

Yeah. They control the weather. They, they modify heart. There’s a set here.

Liz Smith: Who controls the weather?

Yvonne St. Cyr: The elites.

Tammy Butry: I am like, what the heck? So I go, and this is before I knew about McDonald’s too. I got myself an Egg McMuffin.

COOK: (makes retching sound) What about McDonald’s?

Yvonne St. Cyr: They use human meat,

Tammy Butry: Use human meat.

COOK: Really?

Yvonne St. Cyr: Yes.

Tammy Butry: Yeah.

Yvonne St. Cyr: So when you’re terrified, your adrenaline glands pump adrenaline into your blood and um, they drink the blood of terrified people and that is what keeps them younger. And it also--

Liz Smith: Who drinks the blood of children?

Yvonne St. Cyr: These elite pedophiles.

Liz Smith: My head’s exploding.

Yvonne St. Cyr: I hope that your documentary comes out in time, but. Be to be truth. I think the shift will become before then, and maybe this trip is just meant to help you raise your consciousness.

Liz Smith: How exhausted are you?

COOK: Physically or mentally? I think of the mental exhaustion just comes from the realization of just how far gone so many people in this country are not just this country globally.

(End film trailer)

COOK: So the example you saw in the trailer where they’re [00:18:00] sitting outside Tammy’s home and there, you know, what about McDonald’s, is what I had said. because Tammy was describing a scene of buying an Egg McMuffin or something and they literally both said at the same time, they serve human meat.

I knew this already going into that because I’ve heard, I saw the memes on there, but the fact that both of these women were saying that was really interesting to me, and that happened throughout that day in conversations-- where if you realize everyone is consuming the exact same propaganda, the exact same conspiracies. And when it becomes this silo and this echo chamber where everybody else is saying the same thing, they’re, they’re the group.

The, they’re the chosen, they’re the chosen ones there to share the good news. And the rest of us either get to, choose to purify ourselves or to stay deceived. And that’s another reason I think that it, it really works well with thinking about it as a belief system based in faith. It’s very similar and it and you have your congregation that you believe it with and that you work with in your online spaces.

And then you’ve got today, I lose more hope than ever in trying to just dislodge any of these types of beliefs from people because how do you do that when again, you’re middle-aged and you were raised to believe that your government might do something to actually help you someday, least in the eighties, that’s what we were being fed.

And then you realize now all the people you look at our Health and Human Services department, we’ve got some of the biggest conspiracists in there. We’ve got president who doesn’t believe half of what he says, obviously, but knows how to manipulate his base well enough to tell them they’re all getting med bed cards soon.

So when people with that kind of power and authority just continue to perpetuate this stuff and just string people along for their own purposes, and then you got influencers who will be the next step down, the next level down, take away the authority. Now you got the influencers, the people you spend your whole day with online, and they’re telling you the same thing.

And it’s getting worse and worse every day. I can’t even look at social media anymore because [00:20:00] it’s also happening on both sides. This isn’t just right wing conspiracy territory anymore. I’m seeing the same thing from liberals. There are I, many of them who have continued to say the Butler deniers, I guess, right? That didn’t actually happen.

Media proliferation and political manipulations have made conspiracy belief much easier

COOK: And I agree that things have turned so in the, our shared reality has turned so incomprehensible and insane that I agree that it might be hard sometimes to not pause and say, God, maybe some of this could be possible because lots of impossible things are coming true right now.

But until you have evidence, I think it’s incredibly irresponsible for people with any authority or power to be stringing people along this ways, because these belief systems also have real world consequences, and because they coalesce with so many various ideologies in these online spaces, they can have long-term lasting consequences.

So if you’re a QAnon conspiracist, but you happen to run into a space where there’s a chat about sovereign citizen and you’re able to pick and choose a couple things that make sense, like sovereignty, right? The idea of sovereignty. And now you start using that selectively because you don’t really understand what paper terrorism looks like.

You just mean, you think it means not paying your car registration or your mortgage, right? You lose your house. Like I watched that happen to people over the last six years. I watched the believing things people told them that could come true and have serious real world consequences for that behavior.

But now someone like Yvonne who did lose her house, she did lose her job. Her car was being threatened to be repossessed because she stopped paying her bills and was dabbling in sovereigns and language. What do you do when then this person, whose entire mission was to take her case to trial because she believed she was a divine sovereign being who was placed at the capitol on January 6th for a reason.

She went through the trial, she took the stand in her defense, she ran, read a 40 and five minute letter to the judge telling him she didn’t ize his jurisdiction because she was a divine [00:22:00] sovereign being goes to jail for a year and a half, and then the pardons come down. And she was one of the few that stood for her truth.

She was one of the few who rejected a plea deal. She believed so fully in her mission that she turned her life upside down and but was on appeal. So when the pardon came down, it’s wiped away as if it never happened. So I’m not sure how you would ever convince someone whose entire mission was completely fulfilled.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

COOK: And this is because of the authority that has been given by our government and the people that have been actually elected into office. And it is very and once you turn on it, like Marjorie Taylor Green isn’t doing anybody any good because every, either, either you already know that she’s just a political operative who’s, testing the wind to see which direction she’s going or.

They’re just gonna say she’s part of the darkness and can’t be trusted. We’ve got a big segment of this population that does not live in a shared reality, and is willing to act on whatever their beliefs might be, which is a real problem because most of the time it’s gonna have individual consequences and personal consequences to themselves.

But once in a while, you’re gonna get a kid who walks into Mar-a-Lago because he is really upset about how save the children and the Epstein files are being handled. And he’s, he happened to be on the right and he, I believe, a pretty devout Christian. So the conspiracies are a huge problem as far as impacting ordinary people’s lives because people in power are using them in so many ways.

SHEFFIELD: They are. Yeah. And, but it’s also that the conspiracy theories that they do reflect at least some basis of the bad things that the believers themselves have experienced. So in the two women that you may are mainly focusing on in the book, these are women that both have experienced extreme poverty as children, sexual violence [00:24:00] repeatedly raped as children and as adults and domestic violence, drug addiction, homelessness.

So, it’s and then, and the society that, it has no regard for them, thanks to, and the, this is the most horrible irony of it is that, the party that they vote for actually did this to them. But because the party’s able to use conspiracy theories to weaponize them, they actually blame the people who created the programs that have helped them multiple times in their lives.

It’s their fault actually.

COOK: But then we have another problem with men in power. People in power, oftentimes men, for example Tammy had, there’s institutional failure here also that helps these beliefs grow. You know, Tammy had two children that were caught up in something I was sure was a conspiracy when she first named it, because I hadn’t heard about it.

But it was called Kids for Cash. And it took place in the early two thousands in Luin County, Pennsylvania, where two judges who were both Democrats had teamed up with a developer to build a for-profit juvenile detention center because they, I guess for years they’d been trying to replace the county run decrepit facility.

But these judges were getting kickbacks by this developer to see the jo, you know, to get the projects through and then to help keep it built. And this was right on the heels of nine 11 where schools took us, or no, excuse me, not nine 11. I’m trying to remember which crisis in my lifetime. Oh yeah, Columbine.

It was on the heels of Columbine and, and so schools took a zero tolerance policy. And so this, this one judge, uh, Elli c Villa, something, we would walk, go do his scared straight assemblies. If you end up in my courtroom, you’re gonna do time. Sure enough, two of Tammy’s children ended up in his courtroom.

One of them wasn’t even a teenager yet, and both of them ended up in there for incredibly minor infractions that, you know, might’ve gotten to a detention back in the day. They ended up being incarcerated for about two years. Both of them. This was [00:26:00] dismantled when the juvenile justice center in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, uh, started to get involved when parents started to complain.

But this was a program that was specifically designed to prey on poor people because. If you went into his courtroom, if you’ve been summoned and you did not have a private attorney with you, the clerk of the court would been a friendly way, offer you the opportunity to sign away your rights to counsel and tell you that if we have to wait for a public defender all day, we might be here all day and maybe it will even come back tomorrow.

Most parents are like, okay, got in a playground fight, I’m gonna sign my rights away. Well, he’s gonna get a slap on the wrist and we’re going home. Got two years and this happened to like 3,500 kids. That’s like generational stu, that that goes on. That kind of trauma is like everlasting.

And we have such a history of decade after decade of decade of putting people through that kind of trauma and having broken systems that betrays you, that betray you. You know, Tammy had a child also who committed an adult child who committed suicide in county jail. She wanted to get some therapy.

She couldn’t, she was on a, a waiting list for three months. Right. Well, when you’re also in poverty, your housing is precarious and so she might be waiting on a waiting list and by the time her name comes up, she had to move because she lost that other apartment and now she’s got to get another waiting list.

It wasn’t until she went to jail or prison for January 6th that she got this probation officer. And once she was released, Tammy did 20 days in jail for the picketing and parade and she took a plea. Um, she told the, the that the parole officer, I really had been trying to get some help to deal with all this trauma that’s been happening.

You know this, the last six months of trauma. It was, it took a court order. And a parole officer, a probation officer to get her into a therapist. And she went to a therapist and she started to get some mental health treatment and she has a job now and she’s had a job for two years that she’s held down.

And so she has been working to improve her life, but it was institutional failures and then institutional incarceration that was able to get her any kind of services [00:28:00] whatsoever. It’s really ironic and weird to me,

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, it’s a terrible thing, frankly, that there, there was no help for her until she was in prison.

COOK: I, that irony was just kind of amazing to me actually, that in order for someone like her to get a therapist, it has to come a court order. Because otherwise there just aren’t enough mental health professionals or she doesn’t have the cash for, so yeah it’s really unfortunate,

The women of January 6th faced widely divergent economic circumstances

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And so, it, so you’ve got so many people who are facing and we should say, not everybody who believes in these things has had such horrible life circumstances. There are

COOK: not at all.

SHEFFIELD: of regular

COOK: one, and that’s one thing people have asked about. That’s one thing people have asked me a lot about is like, how come you only pick these two people? And part of that is because the population I had access to, many of them had an agenda. And when someone has a motivation to either become a, a J six influencer or they want to monetize their platform, I don’t feel like I can really learn again.

I’m not going to trust what I’m learning from them is authentic.

And although, Tammy’s probably a, an extreme example of poverty. Yvonne was not, she was a family that was trying to make it in middle class. Right. Yvonne joined the Marine. She was in Marine for 16 years. She had important ranks and all the way up to drill instructor, gunnery sergeant she lived in a middle class neighborhood and lived in middle class lifestyle.

Then we see someone else in the film trailer that you showed, and her name is Jill. And she was someone that Yvonne knew that I met on that road trip. And Jill has an advanced degree, she’s a psychiatric nurse practitioner and she’s licensed to prescribe in multiple states right now. And part of that is because of the telehealth that took place during COVID.

She was able to take. Her degree and start a telehealth practice. And she’s, as far as I know, still doing that. So we, and Liz in a middle class neighborhood, in a depressed area, but it’s still considered middle class where [00:30:00] she’s at in, in western Pennsylvania. So you have the gamut there.

You look at other January 6th women, these were not just all people who weren’t educated or who were living in the back woods here. There are plenty of people who worked in healthcare. There are plenty of small business owners. One woman has a de medical degree and a law degree, and they came from, I think Yale and Stanford.

So, so some people they ran a gamut, which was also what drew my interest to the photographs I took on January 6th. I wasn’t looking at a bunch of, people, like to make fun of like, what they imagine, MAGA supporters to look like. I see lots of memes or like people missing teeth.

No, it wasn’t like that at all. I was sitting, not sitting. I was. Looking at people sitting next to each other who looked like people I would be sitting next to at a PTA meeting, or I’d run into at the grocery store, might be my neighbor. There were plenty of people that were firmly middle class.

In fact, I did that in the very beginning when I was trying to figure out what I was looking at. And what this pattern was is anybody who’s clothing or gear, I could price out, I was trying to price out what people were wearing to see what we were talking about socioeconomically, because we kept talking about it being poor white people who are drawn to this kind of bigotry and these kinds of movements that some would call hateful.

So, but that wasn’t the case. It, I would say there, I think with the men involved in January 6th, it was a third small business owners, a third white collar and a third working class. So it kind of runs a socioeconomic gamut, which is interesting since it’s gonna hurt a lot of the people in that one third working class position for sure.

And is trickling up into the next one too, by small businesses also. But again, when you’re in a faith-based system, I think that’s why you’re allowed to, I think that’s what allows you to vote against your own interest. because there’s amount, there’s a certain amount of suffering until that day you’re waiting for cops.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, there is. And well, and it’s, these types of systems are what I call a semiotic loop [00:32:00] in that it’s, it is a meaning system in which everything, even disconfirming evidence is becomes proof of the belief not,

COOK: importantly, and not importantly, but adjacently, it’s a placemaking system also. It’s a it’s your community, it’s your family now. It’s your place, it’s your space. It’s the place you spend most of your waking hours. I mean, some of these people are logging, they’re most, again, middle aged women who are now also sandwiched in our, middle aged.

When I say middle aged women, I’m talking Gen X right now. Nine, I guess we’re not really middle aged. I’m being kind here. 1965 to 1980, right? So we’re that generation now who is also sandwiched in between childhood, extending out an extra 10 years and so that your kid goes to college and then comes back home.

Many people, many of us women have either faced divorce, which led to financial precarity or a difference anyway. Now we’re also looking at our parents who need help. And are aging out. And I, that’s what we personally did for 10 years is taking care of three different sets of parents who were in various stages of Alzheimer’s while I was still getting kids in and out of college.

So it’s, it, you don’t have a lot of time to build relationships in the outside world, and it’s very easy to get stuck in your online space. That’s where your friends live now. That is where you go for advice. That is where you go to dump your personal trauma. There, everybody’s got their private messaging that’s off Maine.

There’s a lot of community building that goes on in dms. Tammy used to go to, in, in world Trump rallies. Not to listen to what Trump was saying, but to scout around to try to find like all of her favorite QAnon influencers like Mickey Larson Olson and that Brooke suit dude. And, because she wants her picture taken with her telegram fam and her favorite influencers.

It’s like looking for the characters of Disneyland. In many ways that was the reason she would go to those things. Not be, it wasn’t political, it was social, and so many of these women, I watched it, that’s exactly what it [00:34:00] is and has become, is a social movement for themselves. More so even than ideology, because that’s flexible.

SHEFFIELD: yeah. Well, and that’s also where the narcissism comes in as well, because, like they, they want to believe whatever it is they happen to believe at that moment, and their family members, rightfully reject it. And the friends they

COOK: Well, not for the reasons you want them to though. Not all of them.

SHEFFIELD: Well, for their own reason, whatever reason, they’re not, they don’t find it persuasive.

COOK: It’s not because they think it’s crazy, it just goes against their own crazy beliefs.

Charismatic evangelicalism as the common starting point for QAnon believers

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, it seems well and actually that is another thing that I did want to talk about. So, so, this, there, there are so many beliefs in this stew here that we’re talking about. And no one has the same beliefs as anyone else. Despite the fact that they can have some apophenic recognition of other people’s, ideas like the cannibal human meat at McDonald’s.

So it’s, but they’re still, it’s just this giant mishmash of nonsense, frankly. Um, but it does, it seemed like, and certainly for the two women that you talked with that, the starting point was charismatic Protestant christianity for in terms of how they got initially into some of the weirder stuff, even though they were both Catholic at birth.

COOK: Yeah, I think most of the women I spoke to had some kind of religious background but weren’t practicing whatever they were doing. Yvonne was in the book, she was going and she, one of her favorite stories to tell is, I was the kid who’d take the bus when I was eight years old to church. And she tells that story because her, she wasn’t, her family wasn’t going.

And so she would go to various churches her friends went to, and many of them ended up being like Pentecostal churches. And she kind of was drawn to that because she liked the energy. It felt, so much of these things are about how you feel, not necessarily what people are saying or what truth is or what, how it makes you feel.

If it makes you feel a certain way, is [00:36:00] gonna keep drawing you back. Which is, goes back to influences online. If they make you feel a certain way, you’re going to keep engaging with their content. And so I think Yvonne found that, but then kind of drifted away from it when she was in the Marines.

And it wasn’t until later when she was seeking something else, that she returned to evangelical Christianity. This time the Church of the Nazarene in Idaho, a church and the Nazarene in Idaho. And that worked out for her and that became her identity for 20 years. And she, and Vonne is the type that likes to jump right into a leadership role or likes to walk right up to the bike racks right up against the police line at the capitol.

She’s got to be in the front. She’s a leader, she’s a drill instructor. And I always hesitate because I’ve, if I say drill sergeant, I’ll be corrected because I different branch and a different status. So a gunnery sergeant. And she, so, so when COVID happened. This is where your narcissism part might come in here because she was scolded by a pastor when she posted a picture of herself with without a mask on when she was with a youth group. It was a mass mandate and her church was asking people to adhere to that. So she was, you know what, yeah. About being scolded. And then when they, and because she was starting to be distant, ostracized on, people were distancing, whatever you want to call it, as her own beliefs, as she was coming to Bible study going, have you seen this movie outta Shes Right.

And then talking about child sex trafficking tunnels and so forth. It got to be too much. And then when she brought in the new age spirituality and started saying, God is a woman, she was saying that for a while. When she was influenced by the online influencers, the remnants of love is one. And then she began calling God, spirit and creator.

But God is still synonymous. All these things are still synonymous, which is really strange. If you’re not looking at people over time, on any given day, you might say, oh, she’s evangelical, but the next day you’re gonna say, no, she’s an Elizabeth. Clear prophet follower. Right? Because the philosophy

SHEFFIELD: she’s a

COOK: am of it.

SHEFFIELD: pagan witch or [00:38:00] something. Yeah.

COOK: A hundred percent. Yeah. It, that’s how much, and I’ve, I, the way I have been trying to describe it to people, especially people who aren’t online, is imagine you are at a trade show, and there might be a central theme to the trade show, but it’s every industry that could participate in that theme, who’s got their wares on display for you.

And so if you walk in and you, first thing you hit is an evangelical boost, okay? You’ll get your traditional religious material and a few, now you’re gonna learn about sovereign citizens over there. And a table across the room has somebody calling themself a politician. And you walk around long enough and you collect all the swag at each table and you dump it out and you end up with two or three things, but you have a key chain, a bumper sticker and something else.

And you might not ever investigate any further into the people who gave those things to you. You’ll just take it. because it feels good now. It works now as another tool to use. And I’ve watched that happen with so many people that have no idea what they’re talking. I keep someone, I know one of these women who’s on Medicaid and can barely survive is online every day encouraging people to get out there and buy their silver and like really wouldn’t.

What if you ever bought silver? It, and so there’s this connect it’s a, it is an alternate reality and it’s a complete disconnect from any kind of, it’s a fantasy game. Many ways sometimes, but it also is a fantasy game that gives you hope. Anyone who’s ever played video games and has to stop, can’t wait.

They’re not, if they’re in a spot where they’re gonna level up or there’s something exciting coming next, all they can think about is getting back to that video game. It’s very much that same mentality. It never stops and lifestyles completely change because of it. Some people that means they don’t make, one person I mentioned who’s not in my book of film, but who I’m aware of is a woman who called herself Patriot Q.

Her name’s Mickey Larson Olson. And I’ve, it’s very sad. I keep seeing posts from her about her daughter who is a nurse or a healthcare professional who has told [00:40:00] her, I’m sorry, your, some of your beliefs are so anti-science, they’re dangerous and they have a new baby and they’re not letting her see it.

And that has happened to people across the country and it, although I feel very sad for her. You know that she’s enduring that pain. I would do the same exact thing if I were her daughter. Right. I mean, it, so it’s a struggle because I don’t know what the answer is to help people. Exactly. I also have to be very careful because a lot of this population’s incredibly hateful to large swaths of the population, whether it be through racism, anti L-G-B-T-Q-I-A rhetoric, anti-trans rhetoric.

I not even Reddit acts, acts of physical violence against these groups. It’s very easy for me, who is a white woman, middle aged, white women, who can pretty much move freely in spaces. Every one of those movement builders I described, I went to in person, no one ever questioned why I was there.

I looked like I fed in. So I, that’s how they operate. And I recognize the privilege I have to say to. We should be talking to people, trying, you can’t do that when the same person was saying, you your life has no value and it’s okay for you to die. I get that. And I know that there’s a lot of people who are going to read my book and think that I’m some, I’m a white woman apologist, for example.

And I’m not. I tried really hard to and I struggled with that in my own personal life. A year, two or three. Some of I, I was like, huh, I’m building relationships, aren’t I? I don’t want to do that. But when you’re talking to someone and you’re learning such personal things about them, over time I found myself developing empathy for parts of their lives.

January 6th was a very small piece of any conversation we ever had. because it was about lives and institutional failure and things that were promised that never materialized. And, I was able to have conversations where there was even some common ground in some of those experiences. So I talk a lot about how online spaces just keep people stuck [00:42:00] and it makes it worse, especially where we’re at today in our political landscape.

And how it really, we really need to try to help them get out and we, but only certain people are gonna be able to tolerate that. Only people are only certain, a lot of people won’t even

be

SHEFFIELD: no one should have to to do that if it’s

COOK: No. And I didn’t try to do that, by the way. That was not my job. Ethnography does not ask you to push back or change minds. It asks you to interpret a different language, essentially. And that’s what I think I did. Although I did gain empathy for the humanity of these women.

I don’t see myself as trying to explain them away to you. I see myself as understanding their culture and their language, teaching you their vocabulary, explaining how they think. They deserve whatever consequences came down for them. I believe that. But, but I also see them as people just like we do with other groups that are incarcerated and do heinous things. Right. I just want to make that really clear,

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, the other thing about going so deep with these people is that, and producing the results of what they think and, how they structure it together is that I think there is a lot of people who are not in these reactionary worlds, that they tend to think that all of them are, like, I dunno, 50 something, white men from Montana or, uh, hillbilly with two teeth and living in Louisiana or something.

And that’s not the reality of the Trump extremism movement. Like, there’s plenty of, as you said, there’s plenty of people that look, like the lady you run into in the grocery store, or there’s plenty of them who are not white.

COOK: I priced out one man’s gear he wore that day between the body armor and all the other things that I could identify through a Google lens, just to see how he was wearing about $850 just on the outside of his clothing, so yeah, that, that idea that it’s just these poor, dumb, and [00:44:00] educated people is just false.

Astrology, space aliens, and QAnon

SHEFFIELD: It is. And yet, these beliefs though they are also just all over the place. And they exist in, like they’re on the periphery of so many other subcultures that may not be connected to them. So, like for instance, astrology is something that is popular among a lot of women.

But also astrology is a huge part of these Q anon beliefs, or, like the belief in that you’re a star seed. You want tell us about that one. For people who don’t know that belief.

COOK: Huh. The star seeded is complicated. The star seeds go back a while again. A lot of these things are lifted from either people who are channelers from the seventies and eighties or science fiction, but the idea of a star seeded is that you were born into your human vessel, to you you’re born, you forget who you were and all that, you know, and you’re here to live this experience as a human.

And there’s oftentimes a lesson involved that you’re supposed to have agreed to before you came to do it. That is what Yvonne believes is that she’s a star seat and that that’s why she believes she was placed at January 6th in the Capitol. It was, she was, because she wanted to go after Trump said things were gonna get wild after January 6th.

It became part of her story. Well, of course I was arrested for that. I was placed there. I was supposed to be there and as a, that she believes she’s this divine being. She also now has, there’s what they also call these waves of volunteers, which also ties into Christianity and other religious beliefs.

This 1 44, the 144,000, I kept seeing 144,000. But I was seeing it such diabolically, different context and people saying it, and I still have a hard time knowing exactly what they’re meaning.

SHEFFIELD: Well, actually that’s from the book of Revelation. It’s from the book of

COOK: But the waves being used across these boards and Yvonne believes that there’s been three waves of volunteers.

That it was the ones, right? So it was boomers, the Gen [00:46:00] Xers and the Gen Zs. So I guess what’s all happening right now is

SHEFFIELD: Wait, Wait, what about millennials? So millennials don’t get anything.

COOK: well, I think this’s, I think Gen X, because Gen X is so much of a part of it, we’re going to ignore millennials. Like we get ignored.

Maybe that’s it, because they talk about, they do skip millennials. They’re talking about the youngest right now. Maybe they’re talking about Gen Alpha, but also Gen Z. They think they’re the ones who, which would make sense that would be a population they would be looking at. Because if you look who delivered Trump to right, the second term, it was white Gen X women and their sons.

Which are, many of them are Gen Z. I’m an elder, gen X. My youngest child is the last year of millennials. So many of these women do have Gen Z sons. That may be why they’re picking that generation, I’m not sure. But all of that is part of the mytho. It’s the 144,000, which also can, it comes from religion.

So they know that’s what it starts to someone who’s here to bring not the truth, help awaken humans. Yvonne’s in the process of remembering who she is now, and she is,

SHEFFIELD: And she also has a huge belief in reincarnation and things like that

COOK: Yes. And that all started with when she found Love Is One. And when she started to get introduced to New age spirituality, that’s when, that’s how she her, one of her children, one of her sons is gay.

She had a real problem with that when she was in the evangelical church. Took him to the pastor. I mean, we didn’t, I don’t think she went as far as conversion therapy, but close. Right. I was horrible about it to him admits that. Today her love and light. Beliefs and her cons, spirituality, her cons, spirituality, beliefs don’t allow for that difference.

Exactly. They explain it away. Well, her’s gay, because in maybe his last life, he was a woman. And there’s still, sometimes there’s gonna be traces of those past lives in the lives following for a couple, maybe a couple of two or three of them. Same thing with a [00:48:00] person who’s trans.

If in the film, in the, it’s not in the trailer, but in the film there’s a scene where Yvonne and I are talking about Tammy’s daughter, Sabrina, who hung herself in the men’s county prison in Williamsport, Pennsylvania who had been denied their hormones their their psych meds. This person had several mental health.

This was one of the people who had been caught up in cash for kids and had a lot of institutional betrayal in their life, and Pam, you would think, who loves her daughter, who had a hard time accepting that transition, but ultimately loves her daughter. But today, we’ll still trans investigate online, she will still make, derogatory comments about the trans community.

‘Soul contracts’ and tragic morality

COOK: And I don’t understand that except for in that conversation in the, when we were filming they were trying to explain to me the, well, I’ll use Yvonne’s quote, you’re fucking with God, is what Yvonne said in the film. It be by transitioning, because if God had intended you in this lifetime to be

SHEFFIELD: And you signed up for it. Like that’s the

COOK: You signed up for it too, right? You signed up for it. That’s part of that pre, predetermined. That’s so soul contracts. When you’re, when you decide to take this human vessel and your soul comes into this human vessel, you are agreeing to all the things you’re going to do before you come onto earth.

Your soul inhabit your vessel. So let’s say it’s a great way, it’s a victim blaming game, essentially. So if I use this example on the film, I know Tammy was sexually assaulted by her stepfather for a couple of years, said she was 11. So I, I if I bring that up and I say, but how does that explain what happened in town?

She signed up for that. Oh, she signed up for that. Okay. How does that work? Well, because her soul needed to learn the lesson of forgiveness this time around, see her soul needs to experience something so horrible that it has to learn true forgiveness. That’s a really messed up way [00:50:00] of living. Right. But

SHEFFIELD: well it is.

COOK: this is explained,

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and like that is like the, that’s the kind of fundamental contradiction between these beliefs is that they’re totally nihilistic, absolutely nihilistic, but at the same time they have a bizarre kind of hopefulness as well. and it’s

COOK: a method of hope also. Yes,

SHEFFIELD: lot of it is that, you know, many of them have experienced real, sexual trauma.

And like, that’s why they’re obsessed with pedophilia and Pizzagate and the global ring of pedophiles, uh, who are running the world. Because in the, the communities that they come from, these things actually do happen quite a bit.

So like somebody ran the numbers and, you know, they, they found that, uh, of politicians, like people that there are occupation was politician.

The people who were arrested or accused of sex crimes against children, 67% of them were Republicans. And then

COOK: But do you think it’s about party ideology or power structures? I mean, I think it’s power. I think

SHEFFIELD: well, well, I’m not saying Yeah, it’s a power thing but Republican policy, because it is about glorifying power and enabling the powerful, it does

attract people who are more into that. And you see that with Epstein himself, that he. Was kind of a neoliberal Democrat at first.

But then once he was thrown into jail then he would, under Obama, then he, basically was a Republican and he was hanging out with them. And actually in December, 2016, he there’s an email where he says I hung out with the Trump. I’m gonna hang out with the Trump boys all day. And and then the next, I guess day later or something like that, early January, 2017, he emails his associate.

It’s all good now with Trump, there’s so much opportunity. And so, But my point though is that, so, and then you look at evangelical communities, like there, there’s rampant abuse of children and [00:52:00] women. In fact, the day we’re recording this there’s an evangelical pastor named Dennis Roy who was just revealed to have sexually abused women in two different states for nearly 20 years. And he and the people in his congregation that knew he was

doing it, And he got away with it. So like that’s so, like there is something real

COOK: I owe a hundred percent. I

SHEFFIELD: and it’s still in society generally, but like, even like they’ve experienced it more,

COOK: Yeah, especially people with some of these, even some of these fundamentalist religious backgrounds. Right. We, we know that the documentaries are there if you want to watch ‘em and you, the yeah, definitely. There’s de again, that I think it’s because of that extreme patriarchal structure in some ways, uh, the male dominance over female bodies.

That is something that is definitely more obviously on the right.

Right-wing politicians harm society and then use the nihilism they engender as campaign leverage

SHEFFIELD: And that is, uh, I mean, that is the, the real challenges that, uh, you know, as we’ve seen so much institutional failure as we’ve seen so much neglect deliberate, and then also, you know, deliberate screwing people over, um, in various different ways, you know, this, this nihilism that is, has become, just so very common.

And I think everybody kind of feels that, no matter who they are and their situation, it’s easy to to slide into the, this, well, everything is horrible and terrible and but then someday, magically it will be okay.

COOK: Right.

SHEFFIELD: that is, what that’s doing is it’s opting out. It’s doing what Timothy Leary, the drug advocate of the sixties, drop out. Like that’s what this is. It’s dropping out

of

COOK: once.

SHEFFIELD: But it’s dropping out of reality and removing the obligation of both yourself to participate, but also in the people who are your governing officials to make things better.

Like, that’s, that is the terrible irony of Trump in all of this is that, he doesn’t believe in it. I mean, he believes a bunch of [00:54:00] stupid things, but obviously he doesn’t think Q Anon is real, but he uses it. And then he also, his people use, so basically he can dismantle the social welfare system that supports the people who voted for him.

And then blame other people for his actions. And and it’s like how the only way forward is to just say, yes, things are bad, and we’re gonna go after the people who did this to you.

like, it seems like the Democrats don’t want to do that,

COOK: Well, I mean, this Epstein file stuff is what’s just kind of, I’m marveling at it, right? Because I keep I don’t spend a lot of the time in this space as I was doing with research. I need a break and from being in online as much as I was for several years, but I do pay attention to what’s being said about the Epstein files, right?

Because in many ways, guess what Guy? You were right. There is a Kabbalah, powerful people that hurt children and they’re networked and connected globally as true. They’re not taking them into the basement of Comet ping pong, and they’re not there isn’t a meat grinder and they’re not using the blood from matza balls and they’re not selling the meat to McDonald’s to make hamburgers outta, like, that’s the part

SHEFFIELD: not

satanist,

COOK: No. Right. That this is done in now. The problem is there are such weird things that elitist have put together for themselves. Such weird societies like the Baan Grove, there’s some weird stuff going on. Right. But it’s probably more just people abusing more vulnerable people and it’s not Satanic rituals, it’s just plain old sadistic white men or men.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Humiliation, rituals. Well, and that’s, yeah, like, that’s the kind of the last thing that I wanted to touch on. So, now that I mean the other thing about the Epstein file release.

What do QAnon believers think about the Epstein files now?

SHEFFIELD: As it’s un undeniable at this point that Jeffrey Epstein was, thick as thieves With Howard Luck, Nik, the Commerce Secretary, uh, and you know, a, a bunch of people who work for Trump currently, and he got a sweetheart deal from the guy who was, uh, his uh, worked in the, in the first [00:56:00] administration, Alex Acosta.

That was why he didn’t go to prison for longer, earlier. And then Donald Trump is mentioned in the Epstein files a million times. And, acted has acted very repeatedly to suppress and to censor them. And, we see that

COOK: A jury found him guilty of sexual misconduct. Right. He owed someone a lot of money in a civil suit. We’ve already, he himself told us he’s okay. He feels entitled to commit sexual misconduct. That was right before the election the first time. Right. He said it straight up, yeah, I’ll grab whatever and whoever I want.

because they let you, that’s what entitled power looks like, right? I mean, and that’s like you do that times all of this. That’s why we’ve got, it’s a, that’s why it is. I, every day I log on and say, who has to resign today? And I’m seeing stuff happening in Europe, but good old Harvard, they’re just letting people retire with, I’m retiring from my professorship, Dershowitz zero institutional consequences.

Summer’s just what, yesterday was it? Yesterday? He formally resigned. Finally. Yeah. I mean, come on.

Can you

SHEFFIELD: Well, and no one who works for Trump has had any consequences. But, so, but I’m curious though. So have you been

COOK: aren’t holding ‘em accountable either.

SHEFFIELD: well, that’s what I was gonna ask you. So when you, so you have, since you were doing the research of the book stayed in touch with Tammy, and like what’s been her, has she had any thoughts about Epstein in the recent few weeks and months?

COOK: While I was writing the book and doing the research, I didn’t, like I said, I just asked questions about why do you believe this and why, what? Learning about her life. I didn’t ever tell her. I, I didn’t contradict. She and I think, had a different situation because of her child suicide.

Her adult child suicide. Because I was, I got, that’s how this all became too personal and I couldn’t do academic anymore, is I helped her out to find some resources during that time. So we’ve gotten to know each other on a, in a way that now she’s read the book. Right. I was worried, how are, how is she gonna feel when I [00:58:00] analyze her?

Right. She loves it. She loves the book. She doesn’t agree with everything I said about the reasons why. I think maybe some of her personality traits drew her here. She doesn’t believe some of the stuff I say that’s false, but that’s okay. She loves the book. But I asked, so we’re at a space, a place now where I can ask her directly, so.

Since I’ve known you’ve been talking about the entire draw to this movement is through Save the Children. Now I’m here as a non conspiracist to tell you, you were partly right there is this cabal and wow, it’s way bigger than I ever imagined. And what do you think about that? Right.

Well, Trump is still, it depends on which group you’re in, but one of those stories is, well, yeah, we always knew he’d be in there because he is a long time FBI informant. He was in there to report back.

Really? So you’re telling me that the three letter agencies are letting. Three generations of children go through or three decades of children go through this kind of abuse because Trump either is so incompetent, he still hasn’t gotten the goods 30 years later. Or what, like, how are you justifying and explaining this stuff?

But again, it’s not about rational thought. It’s not about facts. It’s about how you feel. And right now she’s not feeling like she’s ready to lead those communities that accept her. And that’s my opinion. The refusal to look at the evidence, the refusal to use logic, to me, that’s a social problem.

That’s not an intellectual problem. That’s having to determine whether or not you want to be ostracized from the group you spend your time with. You’re already ostracized from a lot of people in the real world, right? Also, you have to admit you’re wrong and you don’t have special knowledge and things aren’t gonna get better.

That’s another one. You have to accept that. Oh, wow. I’m not going to get all that money. The Corporation of America has owed me that they were supposed to gimme on nine 11 after. All right? That whole ne Sarah, just, Sarah Conspiracy, that’s the one Tammy clings too, because she thinks that will lift her outer generational poverty.

It when she gets that money she’s owed, she signs up for stuff online. If you want to sign, if you [01:00:00] want to be included when this money comes down, sign up here. So you’re giving all kinds of personal information away online, right? Yvonne paid money to love as one toward the ascension fund because all this other money was gonna come out from that, right?

So it’s, again, you, it just doesn’t have anything to do with intellectual capacity or it’s a social problem in lots of ways because it is so many of these women’s identity opportunity to participate and the only place they still belong.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, uh, yeah, so I mean, like, what,

COOK: So they’re not dealing with it right now because it means giving up too many things.

SHEFFIELD: yeah. Well, and you were not in touch with Yvonne anymore?

COOK: I, I am in touch with her, but not in the same way. Yvonne and I have talked since she’s been out of since she was pardoned. Yvonne is still on her spiritual journey while she was in prison, her devoted husband, of 22 years, who was right by her side when all the publicity was happening for Jan six, decided to cheat on her while she was in jail and left her and served her papers in prison.

So she’s had to kind of heal from some of that. But she is still on the same path. Just got back from Costa Rica doing an ayahuasca trip for 10 days. And she is all in and she now she includes psychedelics in her spiritual practice with Shaman and. Teachers, so she’s getting her God experience on the regular that’s not going anywhere.

So, and I see more and more people as life, let’s face it, life every five years you look around and you go like, oh gosh, you just got, life got a lot harder in this way, and this way. Right? It was like the beginning of the gig economy. You’d go to your day job and then you’d DoorDash at night and everyone was talking about having two, three jobs and it’s still, and it’s still happening.

And when people. When your brain has that much stress and there’s absolutely nowhere to go. You can’t find a, you don’t have time or the spaces to make social connections midlife. You don’t have the opportunities. Right? [01:02:00] Many of us made friends when our kids were little, and then they all went our separate ways and we’re all divorced.

And who where’s my social life? How do I make friends? Right? That is the problem. It’s not just giving up belief systems. It’s giving up an entire identity that you’ve crafted for yourself over the last six last six years that oftentimes has replaced something that had a much longer life.

But because these new beliefs took you so far into an unshared reality, you’re stuck there. And so I feel like it’s just gonna keep getting added to. And I think it’s amazing and that, and people are talking about this, but Hillary Clinton got deposed yesterday. But the Clintons, of course, we’re coming up with the Clintons because they’re getting the lady that did frazzle drip finally. Right. And it’s just kind of crazy.

It’s a, and yet none of them are going to even be curious about what happened in that room or what was learned. All they’re going to see is that one circumstance and call it proof, see?

SHEFFIELD: They’re gonna see that she was called to be deposed and then not bother to.

COOK: Well, that’ll be interesting,

SHEFFIELD: nothing came out of it.

COOK: well, part

of

SHEFFIELD: I think that’s why they wanted it. Sorry. That’s why they wanted it to be non-public. That because, if you could see that they had nothing and that they were asking her and she repeatedly said I never knew him.

I never met him. I had nothing to do with him. Like she said that probably dozens scores of times. And having that on video, like that’s very damaging to this narrative. And so they didn’t want that.

COOK: Right. Exactly. But bringing her in was definitely red meat to the, the people who believe. But see, but that, that same group that, that is gonna celebrate that and believe she’s getting arrested next, is also the same group that said she was executed December 31st, 2018, uh, at Gu Guama Bay. So that’s what’s so confusing here is how do we take, are you gonna take that back and say That was just a crazy conspiracy, or was yesterday a clone or [01:04:00] a crisis?

An actor with the mask, because they say clone also as if cloning someone means putting them in a machine where they come out fully adult and at the same age that you would be, you know, that’s the other problem. That’s not how cloning works. Right. So again, it’s, it’s, you’re right. It, it’s a pick your out.

It’s a gamification of life. It’s a way of dissociating from the everyday stress and anxiety that the real world brings harder than ever. It’s a place of community that participation and belonging for so many of these people. And that is a really powerful combination to give up.

Prevention is easier than de-radicalization

SHEFFIELD: It is. Yeah. And and I don’t know, I’m not gonna ask you to have the answers to, well, how do you get people out of that? because I know there is no easy answer.

COOK: Mm-hmm.

yeah, if there’s one answer, fix the institutions

SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm.

COOK: fix things. So they work for people, fix things so that people don’t always have someone to blame for why everything falls through, the ground for them.

SHEFFIELD: Well, and help people get mental healthcare

COOK: Yeah. Yeah. That’s an institution to

SHEFFIELD: needs met. And, but, and I would say maybe let’s maybe end the, because these beliefs because they are so multi Ferris and they are adjacent to so many other communities like astrology, like wellness, like, various religious alternative practices or drug cultures like, so it’s it, they’re connected to all these other things that people might not

on the surface, think about it. But you know, like, I, so I think if that’s something to be aware of and to help that I would help the audience, want the audience to, to take away from this is that, if you see people starting to get really into things like the divine masculine or the divine feminine, that should raise your hackles on your back.

Because it means that they might be starting to get into your friend or your family member might be starting to hear some really bad ideas.

COOK: If they’re referred to a shot as a jab,

SHEFFIELD: yeah, that’s right.

COOK: I mean, there’s a lot of ‘em. And the problem is, I know the [01:06:00] vocabulary now. I hear it everywhere. I hear it everywhere. I hear 5, 5, 5. Oh my God. No, it’s

SHEFFIELD: I don’t even know that

one.

COOK: It’s angel number. Angel numbers. 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2. Any, their angel numbers, their mess. And each of them has a message that basically every single one of them boils down to, you’re on the right path.

Stay there. Right? It’s people. It’s the, yeah. It’s that’s a big thing. Angel numbers are a huge thing, and I hear that all over the place because of the visibility on TikTok and Instagram. And it’s pretty harmless. The angel numbers are harmless. Astrology is pretty harmless. Numerology is pretty harmless.

It’s when you take conspiracies and you add it to all this stuff, you make it have meaning that oftentimes oppresses. Some other group. That’s when it’s a problem. I don’t care if you think you’re a, I don’t even care if you think you’re a star seed. You can be a star seed. I don’t care. And I don’t care if you have ascended masters.

And one of them’s Prince, the other one’s Michael Jackson and the other one’s Christopher Reeves. because I believe those were all of some of Amy Carlson’s ascended masters. Well, along with St. Germaine Cryon and Robin Williams. And so, you could, that is fine, honestly. But when you say this person doesn’t deserve healthcare, because if God wanted you to grow breasts, you would’ve been born with them.

Right. And you are going to deprive someone else their truth and their spiritual journey. That’s not just contradictory, but it’s hypocritical. And that’s why I can’t take that. That’s the problem. I’m not gonna take you seriously when you bring culture wars in and your beliefs, now you’re as bad as every other fundamentalist religion that exists or other fundamentalist group that makes you pick and choose who you can be with and who’s, who gets to live and who should die.

And that’s the part that I’m having a harder time staying in an ethnographic frame of mind about today is because I was, I’m seeing it. It’s grown so much worse, even since I turned my manuscript in, a year and a half ago or whatever it was. It I’m [01:08:00] feeling that, as you can see, and I know you, so I’m able to do it easier where I act like I feel a lot of anger.

I feel a lot of anger and just immeasurable frustration because just when you think you might see a crack, that could be, nope. Now something else comes out and we’re, and as long as this administration is in power that’s the way it’s gonna stay. And it’s also trickling into the left. There’s a lot of left, there’s a lot of liberal conspiracies going on too.

And I wish we had a way to teach people to be more discerning, but I think that probably went outta the window when we all started loving reality tv. I think discernment has been in short supply for a while.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, all right. So for people who want to, um, keep in touch with you, Noelle, what are your recommendations for that?

COOK: I am on X but I am mostly active on Blue Sky and my name is Noelle Cook on both. And I have a website, noelle cook.com that has links to both the trailer and more information about the film and the book. The book is called The Conspiracists Women Extremism and the Lure of Belonging. The film is also called The Conspiracist, so the film is actually just starting to make its cinema run in London and we’ve got about five dates scheduled for April that I get to go do a Q and A for, so that will be fun.

SHEFFIELD: Okay, nice. Well, I hope that goes well for you. All right, well, it’s been good and thanks for joining me.

COOK: Thank you so much for asking.

SHEFFIELD: All right, so that is the program for today. I appreciate you joining us for the conversation and you can always get more if you go to Theory of Change show where we have the video, audio, and transcript of all the episodes. And if you are a paid subscribing member, you have unlimited access to the archives and I thank you very much for your support.

I’ll see you next time.

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The John Roberts Supreme Court has been one of the most reactionary high courts in American history, overturning numerous laws and precedents about abortion, voting rights, gun safety, and frequently abusing the court’s “shadow docket” emergency procedures to temporarily empower President Donald Trump’s criminality and violence.

The rulings have come so fast and so thick have caused shock and outrage in America’s liberal legal establishment. One law professor likely spoke for many when she told the New York Times that: “While I was working on my syllabus for this course, I literally burst into tears. I couldn’t figure out how any of this makes sense. Why do we respect it?”

And yet, if you look at the long-term history of the American judiciary, what Roberts and his Republican colleagues have been doing is exactly what you should expect. Courts are supposed to preserve legal structures, and that makes them inherently conservative.

Tragically, however, the liberal legal establishment could not see any of this coming. That’s because after the Earl Warren Court of the 1950s, the legal left has been dominated by a philosophical approach called “formalism” which argues that jurisprudence is almost a form of science in which totally objective judges will scrutinize the law to arrive at obviously true conclusions to expand civil rights and restrain private coercion.

Needless to say, judicial activists like Sam Alito see things very differently—and they now have the ability to try to remake America in their authoritarian image thanks to Republicans’ intense focus on court power.

Legal formalism has been an absolute disaster for America, and yet despite the chaos and injustice it has enabled, many Democratic politicians and legal mavens are still reluctant to embrace the reality that all jurisprudence is political.

Elie Mystal, my discussion guest today, has been making that case tirelessly in his columns for The Nation magazine and in his books, including his latest, Bad Law: 10 Popular Laws That Are Ruining America.

The video of our conversation is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.

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• The power far-right Republicans wield on today’s Supreme Court is the product of a decades-long project

• The cult of constitutional law saw judges as objective gods who would always support liberty, it couldn’t have been more mistaken 🔒

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• Former Trump coup lawyer John Eastman and allies claim Satan is behind efforts to hold him accountable

• The judicial system is rigged and it’s time Democrats told the public about it

• Religious right groups officially unveil new legal effort to overturn marriage equality

Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

10:41 — Philosophy and science abandoned belief in total objectivity, but legal scholars didn’t

17:15 — Legal formalism as the perfect justification for law schools

27:12 — Legal realism explained

38:22 — Critical legal studies and integralism

43:34 — Going back to legal realism means we have to restrain judges

48:09 — The Warren and Burger courts were anomalies that distorted liberal understanding of jurisprudence

53:17 — Because judging is political, it must be restrained

59:00 — Making courts matter to voters

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: This is going to be a fun discussion. I don’t get to do legal philosophy very much on this podcast, perhaps even ever. I’ve been looking forward to doing this and, a lot of people are not as able to throw down with the legal formalists as yourself. So this will be fun.

ELIE MYSTAL: I do it all the time. My uncle is actually a professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. So this be like Thanksgiving for me.

SHEFFIELD: Okay, hopefully in a good way! All right, [00:04:00] okay, so before we get too deep into it, let’s define legal formalism. What is it and what are the main ideas of it?

MYSTAL: Yeah, so my definition is that legal formalism believes that the law is an objective thing that is written down. And if you simply read the text, if you look at the case law, if you look at the history in the presidents and the precedents, you, me, Joe Blow on the street, anybody can figure out the right legal answer by simply applying reason and logic to the words and text on the page.

And that’s it. And that there’s a structure, there is a process for how you interpret certain words, how you deal with certain precedents how important it is it that the comma in this sentence is here and not there. What’s the subjective clause? What’s the operating clause like? All of these truly.

Linguistic disciplines, right? If you think of yourself as like a, an English professor or, or or a writing teacher, right? you can use all, you can use your Strunk and White to figure out what the law means, what the law should mean and thus what the right outcome.

And again, there is a right outcome. What the right outcome of the case, the analysis, the issue should be.

Originalism itself is a form of formalism, right? it’s an offshoot, of what we’re talking about.

And, formalism has a long and deep history both in this country and in England, right? formalism, I believe, you could argue, was at its height in the 1920s, right? In, in, the 1910s the older court really delved into this conception that. The law was an objective, rational thing [00:06:00] that could be understood through reason, and logic, it’s always been part of our tradition and it’s there I think on both sides.

I think on both the right and the left, it’s there to insulate judges from the real world consequences of their decisions, right? if I can say, look, I don’t have an opinion on whether. Black people are people. I don’t have an opinion on whether gay people should have rights. All I can do, I’m just a lowly judge.

All I can do is look at the text and the documents place before me and make a call on what the language means, or what the language should means. Means that protects you from, conceptually speaking, that protects you intellectually from having to stake out an opinion, a belief structure, a worldview, and all of that messy political stuff that a lot of times judges like to say and like to pretend that they are above, And so at its core, legal formalism to me has always been a judicial self-defense mechanism. a way for judges to. Again, insulate themselves from accusations of political feelings of of trying to impose their worldview on the elected branches and all that.

And I think that’s why both sides cleave to it even when it can sometimes make them look absolutely ridiculous.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. It is self-justifying, and we’ll get into that a bit later, but yeah. And it’s important to note the time period, because as you were saying, during the early 20th century is really when it was all the rage. But it was a de facto system even continuously after that.

That time period coincides very well with logical positivism which was a fad within [00:08:00] philosophy around that same time period, which basically it was like a souped-up scientific realism that said that not only is there a real world in which we live, we can know literally everything about it through science.

And so with that, all moral questions are simply scientific questions that haven’t been adequately examined. And it was a very popular idea around that time.

MYSTAL: Yeah, although I think most people are more familiar with it in the field of economics. The invention of economics, the idea that we can understand markets and money and the flow through essentially science and impose that scientific understanding on our economic structures that our economic structures should be built for.

And I think that’s always a point that I like to dive into the whole conception of our economics, of our economic science is that the point of economics is to make more money, not to increase social justice, not to better the lives of the citizens, but just more, more is the point.

In the same way, legal formalism kind of draws from that economic idea draws from that scientific idea and presumes that the point of legal analysis, the point of judging, the point of the judiciary is to apply logic, is to apply reason, not necessarily to apply justice.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

MYSTAL: That to me is always the black hole, if you will, at the center of all of this. What are you act, what’s the gravitational pull? What’s actually pulling you in one direction or another?

And I think for a lot of legal formalists, the black hole at the center, the thing that’s pulling them is an idea of logic, not an idea of justice. Now, they’ll argue that [00:10:00] we achieve justice through logic.

That’s an argument I don’t know that I always agree with it, but I don’t think that it’s necessarily wrong. But you know what, has the bigger pull, right? It’s the black hole or the sun. The sun has a lot of gravity, right? But if you’re next to a black hole, the body is going to go towards the black hole.

And, to me, the black hole is this again. Idea, this intellectual thought of what’s reasonable, what’s logical, what’s defensible, as opposed to the intellectual thought of what’s just, what’s good, what’s fair.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. It’s justice as a side effect basically. You’ll get it if you do this other thing.

MYSTAL: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

Philosophy and science abandoned belief in total objectivity, but legal scholars didn’t

SHEFFIELD: Within philosophy, though, philosophy, logical positivism and philosophy of science, it got basically destroyed after World War II essentially by people like Karl Popper.

And, a lot of the postmodernists, they showed that if all of these things were objectively true, then why did we just have a war in which tens of millions of people died? Like that’s a pretty intuitive argument, right there. And it was hard to argue with it.

And so within philosophy, logical positivism was dead, pretty much. Dead and buried in the ground, like nobody was pushing that idea. But within the legal system in the United States, it got institutionalized almost immediately.

It was a comforting story that law professors told themselves. And the New York Times they had an interview asking legal professors, what do you think about this John Roberts court, and one of the professors that they had talked to was saying something like, this is basically undermining everything that I’ve ever understood about the law, and it’s making me question everything and making me traumatized.

And I’m just looking at it and thinking this is what happens, and why you never go full legal [00:12:00] formalist!

MYSTAL: Welcome to the world you’ve been living in this whole time. I love Matt, your analogy, or your reference to World War II, and how that killed an idea of scientific objectivity. One of my favorite episodes of my favorite podcasts is Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, and he does an episode called Logical Insanity, And how the use of nuclear weapons was the logical thing to do from the perspective of the people who were making the decisions.

And it made all other horrible, genocidal decisions all the way up to that point in that war. it’s amazing what tens of millions of dead people will do to your philosophical theory, right?

It’s amazing how just the reality of bodies on the ground forces you to reconsider your intellectual priors. And that is something that I would argue in a way hasn’t really happened to the law-- you haven’t really had. There is no nuclear weapon. There is no bomb that goes off and people are like, oh no, what have I wrought?

We might be seeing that now. We might be right now. And this what this links up to your Times quote, we might be living through the logical insanity of legal formalism and where that leads us and where that leads the country. And the suffering and injustice that it causes that might make the next generation reject this whole cloth, come up with new ways and new methods of interpretation because we are right now seeing the logical conclusion of legal formalism.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Exactly. And with regard to World War II, everybody who was involved with it said that their beliefs were the objective scientific reality. That was the centerpiece of the Nazi propaganda. We are just doing science [00:14:00] with this here.

And science says that, this is, we need to kill these people, and we need to invade these countries. This is objective, because we’re the superior ethnicity and race. And it became so absurd that logical positivism collapsed under its own weight and under a lot of criticism.

Nonetheless, it, legal formalism, its counterpart in the legal system, became very entrenched, and as you noted, both in left and right varieties of itself. And so it was a way to justify for courts that it basically boils down to: it’s just business.

It’s just business. It’s not personal—like that classic line that someone says when they’re screwing you over. I don’t mean, I don’t mean anything against you. I’m just doing something really awful. But don’t worry, I don’t mean something bad by it.

MYSTAL: Yeah. No, I never trucked with that. I never trucked with that, even when I was in law school. I so, an offshoot of legal formalism that you’re talking about is called law and economics. It’s the idea, it’s most famous acolyte is judge Richard Posner, who’s a incredibly intelligent man.

I’ve had the opportunity to interview him and disagree with him and lose live he he’s a brilliant man. I completely disagree with his philosophy. And his philosophy is that of law and economics, that the, as I was saying earlier, back economics, the goal of economics is more law and economics presupposes that the goal of law is to make the right economic decision. That the goal of law is to make the decision that will produce the most economic benefit.

I disagree with that wholeheartedly to the point where. The first time I was exposed to this theory I was a first year in law school in my torts class. And the, my torts professor was a law and economics guy, and he was shoving law and economics like down our throats. [00:16:00] And just every day I was just, no disagree. That can’t be right. Like I, I was not having it.

So we get to the final, and at least when I was at Harvard, your final is 100% of your grade. it’s one test, written exam, open book, eight hours, 100% of your grade. And my torts exam had three questions. And the third question was, people like Elie Mystal will argue that the tort system is a lottery. Explain why he’s wrong.

SHEFFIELD: Wait. It literally said that.

MYSTAL: It literally says people Elie Mystal will say this. Explain why he’s wrong. And I was like, this MF this guy.

SHEFFIELD: Hah!

MYSTAL: I was like, I’m going to take my B, I’m going to take my B. And I wrote, in fact, Elie Mystal is not wrong. And I just answered the question. And so I got my B plus and I was happy with that.

But yeah, but I’m saying like the point of that story is like, law and economics is endemic to how they teach law students. And it’s just, it’s something that I’ve always rejected. But I am in the minority.

Legal formalism as the perfect justification for law schools

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And on the law school point, legal formalism is the perfect justification for law schools to exist because it’s fake science essentially, is what we’re talking about. This is, that’s what legal formalism is. It’s a pretension of objectivity.

And you brought up English professors, but you get two English professors in a room and you ask them, tell me about Voltaire’s Candide. Does it mean x? And you’ll get 20 different opinions out of two people on what that novel means. And the same thing obviously is true with regard to legal stuff.

And here’s the thing. It doesn’t [00:18:00] mean that because we’re criticizing it here, it doesn’t mean that we’re saying that there are no cases where an objective outcome is possible. It doesn’t mean that. It means that the burden of proof is on the legal formalist to say that it always exists and that it’s always discernible.

And they never bother to do that.

MYSTAL: Yeah Matt, you’re hitting close to home because I am one of my more radical ideas and my more radical proposals is about the how we need to massively rethink how we do legal education in this country. I’m no fan of our current, 232 law school system where, 90% of them are diploma mills and three of them are teaching the next Supreme Court justices.

And there’s just not a lot in between. I think we should have a two-tier, at least a two-tier law school system where we have one group of schools that is really focused on training the next judges, right? The next the next legal arbitrators, if you will, whether that’s a judge or an arbitration person and really focusing the mind on the structures and the skills that one needs to judge.

Which are different than the other law schools, which should be focused on teaching the next generation of lawyers, the next generation of practitioners, the next generation of people who will do client services. Because those are two different things. Like what you need to do, one thing is somewhat completely different than what you need to do.

Another thing and in particular point what you need to do the client service stuff shouldn’t take three years as current law schools do and shouldn’t cost, the mortgage of a house, like it should not cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to get through that experience.

One of the reasons why we have a justice gap in terms of attorney representation is that people coming out of law school have so much debt that [00:20:00] they can’t take on the poor, the vulnerable, the needy client they have to take on, have to is not correct. They are compelled to take on the rich, the powerful, the insurance company clients because that’s how they’re going to pay back their debts. And if we had a different law school system where we were producing practitioners, after a year and a half people graduating from school with 20 grand in debt, 30 grand in debt, as opposed to 200,000 in debt, 400,000 in debt.

You’d develop a crop of lawyers who were able to assist clients in need. That’s one huge distinction, tiering I would make in the law school system. And then I would try to encourage more people to pursue something along the lines of a PhD in legal philosophy, right? PhD in legal history. Because that’s another thing that law schools try to cram in there over three years while taking all your money that most lawyers don’t need at all yet.

Some people are super interested in and that can be, the, if you, so if you think about it, you need one track for the people who are going to be judges. One track for the people who are going to be law professors, and another track for people who are going to be actual lawyers.

Law schools right now, they try to do all three things and they do it poorly. They do all three things poorly

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, that’s right. And

MYSTAL: Except for Yale. Yale does it all good, but except for Yale, they do all.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And your idea here, large language models, the new LLMs, are basically going to force this. Because all low level legal work, because most people who come out of law school, they get stuck doing document review work, very basic research for cases and a large language model, they can do that stuff actually very well, in, in many cases, better than humans. Because, they, they are able, [00:22:00] they know a lot more synonyms off, off of the top of a calculation compared to us. Like there could be, like on a given word there might be 20 or 30 different ways of saying one word.

And a human might only know off offhand, maybe 10 of them. So like this is going to completely destroy all entry level legal jobs. And so we have to, they have to be, the law school environment has to be optimized for litigation because obviously a computer LLM cannot do that.

MYSTAL: Litigation and service. one of the, one of the, one of the real, I think, failures of law school is that they don’t teach people how to serve people. Law. Law, being a lawyer is a service industry. One of the reasons why I didn’t like it being a lawyer is because it’s the service industry. Right? One of the, one of the reasons I didn’t like it is that at the end of the day, you’re the guy who’s okay, Mr.

Client, would you like fries with that? you are providing, person to person, flesh to flesh service. And law school doesn’t train you to do that very well. And a lot of people who end up in law school turns out they never wanted to go into a service industry. They want to go into an academic industry or judicial industry.

Like they’re and they’re they’re, that’s one of the reasons why you have so much sadness and I think disappointment and uncertainly drinking and drug use in the legal profession is that you got people mismatched, serving in a service industry when they had no intention or skills or abilities to do that.

Yeah. So there’s a

SHEFFIELD: And they’re 200 grand in the whole on top of it.

MYSTAL: Right. But they got to pay the bills and they got to pay back that debt. So there, there are a lot of, there are a lot of problems with how we teach lawyers that, and judges that then lead to some of the problems with lawyers and judges that we’re talking about now.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. and legal formalism. Yeah. It’s like the perfect justification for all of this bad system because it’s no, we’re, we are [00:24:00] unlocking the secret to reality basically for you. And we happen to know what it is. So

MYSTAL: People should note. People should note, like if you go back and read a really old opinion, a, an opinion from, 18, 18, 10, an opinion from 1845 if you, your, the language is archaic so that will trip people up. The we don’t talk or write like they did in 1845, but if you were comfortable with the language, you would be able to understand it without a law degree.

You would be able to understand what they’re saying without a law degree, because back in the 19th century, they wrote with clarity, they wrote with the idea that. Non legally trained people should be able to understand their decisions because they understood that non legally trained people would have to enforce their decisions.

And so of course, they needed to write in a way that the average Joe, if you maybe a slightly above average Joe, but like the average Joe could understand what they were saying. Fast forward to reading an opinion today or really reading any opinion post 1960. And it’s jargon on top of jargon nestled into procedure, right?

It’s just you have to have gone through the three years or more or so of legal training to understand what John Roberts is saying today. And that is actually. Historically speaking in America new, it is new that the average, relatively speaking, it is new that the average person has almost no opportunity to understand a Supreme Court decision.

That’s a bit weird, right? And it’s and it creates a social stratification, right? It creates a educated class, an elite class, a ruling class of law people of law [00:26:00] understanders, who are then allowed to explain to everybody else what the law means, right? So that you, the average person, aren’t allowed to figure out for yourself what the law means.

You, the average person, aren’t allowed to noodle out for yourself what your rights and responsibilities are. You have to pay a lawyer to do that, right? Isn’t that convenient? It’s you have to pay money in order to understand simple things like your rights or your contracts, or think about a contract.

That’s a great way of thinking about it. How many people, how many business people can write a contract for their business without a lawyer? And the answer is almost nobody. Almost nobody. You almost certainly, if you are a, if you are a small business all the way up to a Fortune 500 con company, you got to have a lawyer to write your contracts.

You have to pay a lawyer money to write your contracts because the law has become so formalistic, so jargon heavy, so procedural that you, the average business person cannot write your own business contract. That’s new. That’s not how it was in the 19th century.

Legal realism explained

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, that’s that’s a great point. And it undercuts the originalist idea that they’re trying to preserve some sort of antiquated understanding of the law. But that takes us to the next part of the discussion here, which is that so we’re not going to have a big long legal philosophy seminar here, but basically there are two other alternatives to legal formalism, we can say, boil it down very broadly that the alternatives are realism and critical legal studies. And and as you described yourself at the beginning, you are in the realist camp. So what is legal realism?

MYSTAL: Yes I am most definitely a legal realist, so my form of legal realism. Is the particularly harsh political kind, right? My thought is that judges [00:28:00] make their decisions based on any number of factors, their personal beliefs, their political beliefs, their religious beliefs, all the things that go into a person.

That is what the judge is drawing upon to make their decision. And then they work backwards. They want to get to a certain outcome, either for political or personal or social reasons. And then they work backwards to figure out how they can achieve the outcome they want. They’ll use whatever’s at the table.

They’ll use formalism if that’s helpful to get to their outcome, but they’ll ignore formalism if it’s unhelpful to get to their outcome. That there are very few ju there are no judges. Do this 100%. And, you can always find, even the most formalistic judge, you’ll find a case where they abandon whatever.

Procedural and intellectual principles they have in order to get to the determinative outcome that they seek. And so when I’m talking about legalism, that’s really where, I’m coming from that you have to understand who the judges are as people both stop it though. Sorry. You have to understand who the judges are as people, both as intellectual beings, as social beings, as religious beings, as racial and gender beings.

You have to understand who they are as people to understand the decisions that they’re going to make. And if you do that, you’ll find that your ability to predict how the case is going to go shoots up the roof, right? Like you, I will, win the crystal ball bat bet I will win fantasy SCOTUS against anybody who thinks that the.

The texts of the statutes and the texts of the cases and the particularities of the issues, I will win against anybody who thinks that those matter, just by having a better understanding of who these judges are as [00:30:00] people.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, that is very, accurate. And it actually reminds me of a conversation that I had with somebody. I’m not a lawyer, but I write about law stuff a sufficient amount that lawyers sometimes ask me opinions about what they should say and or how they should word things.

And I was having a conversation with somebody one time and this person asked me, okay, what should I, what do, should I say A or B in this brief here? What do you think? And I said, what’s the political party of the judge? And they looked at me and I had two heads, and I was like, this is actually very relevant here because this is a clear distinction between, a conservative and a right wing inter interpretation, what you’re asking me here. And they were like, I have no idea what it is, and it doesn’t matter. And I was like, you got some news for you. It does matter. And they got and very huffy at me for daring to suggest that their precious judge would have political considerations in the case.

And it turned out I was right. but I didn’t rub it in. I’m only rubbing it in now anonymously.

MYSTAL: Yeah the look I have that fight with journalists all the time. Where, recently in my career, recently, like halfway through my career, I started proactively when I refer to a judge, refer to either their political party or the president that appointed them. 10 years ago, people didn’t do that.

You read the Adam Liptak, the New York Times, he still doesn’t do that. the, idea that you have to put the party affiliation of the judge when you are explaining a judge or a decision to anybody, that is, again, that is incredibly new. And I’m one of the people that’s made it new that’s made it a thing that now most people do, although they’re still old school journalists that don’t, and that is that, that is, if you will, legal realism 1 0 1 as applied to journalism, right?

I’m going to, I’m not doing my job as [00:32:00] a journalist if I’m not telling you Elena Kagan appointed by Clinton Amy Coney Barrett appointed by Trump. I’m not doing my job if you don’t know that. So that’s one kind of definition of realism. The other definition that I find useful and that I clinging to quite a bit is the idea that you have to look at the.

On the ground realities of the decision as part of your decision making process, right? that, that the, real world impacts of your decision matter and should matter as you’re making the decision. And this is such a controversial point to many judges on both the right and the left. And I’m not saying like the right believes one thing and the left believes another thing I’m saying that you can find interesing battles.

Amongst the right and the left over how much to consider the real world impact of their decisions. And I am, an extreme to the side of the real world impact to of the decisions is one of the only things that matters. but there are people on my side of the aisle, if you will, who would disagree with me and say that, looking too much at the real world impact of your decisions leads to worse decisions.

So that’s a live battle. And I’m on the side of, I apologize for that. My dog has seen a squirrel that she does not like stop it.

SHEFFIELD: It’s an

MYSTAL: And so the idea is that so yeah, I’m on the extreme side of saying that the decisions are, the real world impact is some of the only things that matter.

We can see this battle play out at the Supreme Court over the issue of abortion, right? If you go back to 1992 and you look at the decision in Planned Parenthood v Casey, which is the decision, the 1992 decision that upheld Roe v. Wade, what you have is a bunch of [00:34:00] conservative judges of justices, a bunch of Republican appointed justices who hated abortion.

People think that the court is unbalanced now because it’s six three Republican. In 1992, the court was eight to one Republican appointees over Democratic appointees. And the one democratic appointee was a guy who voted against Roe v. Wade, right? So if you’re coming at abortion in 1992, you, think you have it locked.

You think you have it won and you don’t because two of the Republicans, Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy did legal realism. Senator Day O’Connor famously says abortions will happen whether the government wants them to or not. And so in her upholding of Roe v Wade, which is a decision she didn’t agree with upholding of abortion rights, which were rights that she didn’t agree with.

O O’Connor was no fan of abortion, but she rules in favor of abortion because of the real world impact of taking that right away. Fast forward to Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health. Fast forward to 2022, and you have Sam Alito telling us that we shouldn’t at all look at the real world impacts of abortion rights or the real world impacts of taking them away.

That’s a difference that happened within the Republican justices. Within the Republican party. Again, when I say that formalism is a way for judges to protect themselves, it’s a re it’s a retreat. It’s a, I don’t ha, Sam Alito is falsely telling us he doesn’t have an opinion on abortion rights one way or the other.

He just

SHEFFIELD: Where it’s not relevant. Yeah.

MYSTAL: He just thinks that the real world impact is not relevant at all. It’s a shocking turn that’s happened again, 1992 to 2022. It’s a shocking turn that’s happened within our, all of our lifetimes.

SHEFFIELD: [00:36:00] Yeah. And I would say that it, in this particular case at least on the right that it really shows that there is a distinction between conservative and reactionary. Like a conservative is somebody who says, look, there might be a law that I don’t like. what, this is a thing that millions of people have built their lives expecting to exist.

And so I’m not going to take it away from them, like that was classic Dwight Eisenhower when he came in after Truman and FDR had created all these programs that he wasn’t necessarily want, wouldn’t have supported when they were doing it, but he was like, look. Our economy is literally built on these ideas now. So I’m not going to get rid of Social Security. I’m not going to get rid of all these new departments because that would be foolhardy and destructive to the nation.

And so that’s what an actual conservative does. A reactionary says no, this is all evil. We need to go back to 1910 or 1847 or some insert pre-Civil War year here.

And and that’s what we’re going to do. And they don’t care who it impacts or who it hurts because, they have this imagine past that they want to go back to.

MYSTAL: Look, the word evil is important here because I do think that it, again, as a legal realist, I think that evil is a word that should be used in law, that should be used in making decisions. And I would, it’s going to sound weird. I would’ve preferred it, I would’ve preferred it as a legal proposition if Sam Alito come out and said, abortion is evil.

If Sam Alito come out and said we, are overturning Roe v. Wade, because abortion is an evil scourge on the country, that must be stopped, that would’ve been a truthful for what he believed, as opposed to the bull crap that he wrote. B. It would’ve made the fight obvious, right? Like, that’s, and thus it makes it easy, easier to overturn, easier to fight politically, whatever you [00:38:00] want to say.

But it is clear to me that justice is like Alito Thomas Roberts. They think abortion is evil. So just say that stop hiding behind your jargon. Just say that you don’t like it and say that you’re overruling it because you don’t like it, because that then opens the aperture for what the people who disagree with you can do.

Right.

Critical legal studies and integralism

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, it lets them know what’s at stake, for sure. Yeah. All So the other alternative, the main alternative to discuss here is critical legal studies or critical realism as sometimes it’s called. So let’s talk about that.

MYSTAL: Yeah. So I don’t, this is, this now is a little bit beyond me, right? My understanding of critical studies is like a law school understanding of it. Which is that you have to look at all of the history of you, if you will, of the case law. first of all, I guess we have to start with, we have to understand that America is a common law system.

That means that most of our laws are not written down. Most of our laws are are based on precedent, right? so because this old white guy did it in 1790, then this other old white guy agreed with him in 1812 and so on and so forth. And we get to a point where wherever we are today, right?

And critical realism is to look at the factors. Involved in the decisions in 1790 and 1812 and so on and so forth. Until we get to a point where we can understand why they made their decisions, that’s why it’s a form of realism, right? We have to understand who these people were, the society that they were living under and we accorded presidential value or not, based on how much our society is different from their [00:40:00] society.

So an example of this, you could argue is Brown v. Board of Ed. Now, I struggle a lot with Brown v Board of Ed because as a black man, brown v Board of Ed is one of the most important decisions to ever have been made. My mother was born in 1950 in Mississippi, right? Brown v. Board of Ed is why my mom could go to the library, right?

So Brown v Board of Ed is a critically important decision, literally to me personally, to say nothing of, I think its larger effects on the country, and yet it is stupidly written like, oh my God, I like it. It is almost laughably ridiculous in terms of how they reasoned their way into overturning Plessy v Ferguson People, a lot of people don’t know this.

My man Warren was looking at dolls, right? And I’m not. Making that up at all. One of the, one of the ways he reasoned that s but equal was unconstitutional was based on a study of black girls playing with dolls and how they found the black dolls to be less good than the white dolls, even though they were black girls.

And somehow this shows that segregation is bad. And I’m like, brother, what? What dolls? Are you kidding me? Like that? That’s a critical realism theory. That is that, that is looking at the differences between the society of Plessy b Ferguson and the Society of Brown B Board of Ed that is looking at new science.

It’s a study. To inform your opinion, but man, that’s not how I would’ve rolled with it. That’s that I, again, I would have been [00:42:00] much more comfortable saying, guess what? Segregation is evil. We’re overturning it, suck on it. Like, again, my re my, my, so I do make a distinction between legal re realism and critical realism.

Because I think legal realism is cleaner. I think critical realism is trying to get to the same point than I’m already at through a lot more bs.

SHEFFIELD: A lot a lot more hoops to jump through. Yeah and in a way I think, you could argue that perhaps and I’m I’m violating my idea of saying only two of the philosophies here, but in, in a certain sense it is. I think critical legal realism is like a more left counterpart to what exists on the far right.

This idea of integral of, that the role of the legal system is to, integrate the tr religious doctrines of my personal religion into society. And we’re going to, we’re going, so we’re going to cite to, Pope j John the 11th amount something on this here.

And we’re going to cite through the Bible on this other case. And we’re going to look to these things that have nothing to do with the legal case because they are representative of the values we want to ensconce. That’s how I see it.

MYSTAL: I think that’s right. And I just, I, there, there are cleaner ways to do it. There, there are, there are, look the danger of what I’m saying, right?

Going back to legal realism means we have to restrain judges

MYSTAL: The danger of my position that I’m well aware of is that if you untether judges from any sense of text from any sense of precedent, from any sense of history, all you get are politicians in robes. And while that might be fine, the problem is nobody elects these politicians in robes. In a Democratic a [00:44:00] self-governing republic, we are supposed to elect the representatives who make the laws for us and decide the important issues. For us, we’re supposed to have a vote in these decisions.

And judges, you don’t vote for. So the judge shouldn’t have the power to make political decisions based on their whatever, on their personal beliefs, on their personal feelings, on their religions, on their race, on their creed because nobody voted for them, right? And where I take us to is a form of a judici a form of overpowered judiciary, where they are in the platonic sense, right?

Philosopher, kings lording over the rest of society that nobody voted for. So the way that I handled that criticism, the way that I cut that criticism is to say that while I am a legal realist, why I believe that judges are in fact politicians in robes because nobody voted for them. I think judges should have way less power than they do in our society, right?

I want to understand what a judge is, but then truncate and limit the power of the courts. To the point where whatever it is, where it’s not as powerful as it is today.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

MYSTAL: My idea there tracks globally. A lot of Americans don’t understand that the American Supreme Court is one of, if not the most powerful high court in industrialized democracies.

Other countries, high courts do not have as much power as the American Supreme Court. Other countries’ high courts do not regularly overturn laws passed by their parliaments overturn orders issued by their prime ministers. That doesn’t really happen elsewhere. It happens every June here. It [00:46:00] doesn’t it, it’s a rare thing for it to happen elsewhere.

That’s why in most other countries, people don’t have any idea who the justices are on their high card. They don’t know. they’re not, because it doesn’t matter right here, we don’t know because we’re stupid and we’re poorly read. But in other countries, it doesn’t matter who their high court does.

It’s not a life or death political fight every time one of these octogenarians dies or chokes on a ham sandwich or whatever because their high courts don’t have as much power. So my response to the criticism of legal realism is always to significantly truncate and limit the power of our Supreme Court and our federal courts in general, so that they can’t run roughshod over the elected branches of government.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. and that also as a very originalist in historical context as well, Elie because like that the idea of the courts as the quote least dangerous branch is that was the unanimous belief among all of the signers of the Constitution that we’re prominent is that we have records of basically you.

MYSTAL: I’ve made the joke. Matt, I’ve made the joke before that so Hamilton writes the courts will be the least dangerous branch in federal 78 because they have neither the power of the purse nor the power of the sword. That means they have neither the power to tax like Congress does, which is the power to destroy according to the founders, nor the power of the sword, that means that they’re not the president, they’re not the commander in chief. They can’t use the military. So Hamilton says that they will not be that important. And I’ve made the joke, Matt, that the next time Hamilton would be that wrong, he’d be shooting his gun up into the air in Hoboken, right?

like Hamilton was just wrong, just straight. And all of them were just straight up wrong and they were wrong almost immediately. Marbury versus Madison, John Marshall in 1803 proved them wrong [00:48:00] almost immediately. They proved them wrong in their lifetimes,

SHEFFIELD: And they didn’t do anything about it, like those assholes.

MYSTAL: Do a damn thing about it.

The Warren and Burger courts were anomolies that distorted liberal understanding of jurisprudence

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. so besides the historical context though, the other thing is that and this was the allure of legal formalism for the, for liberals, is that it became ensconced exactly around the time period of the Warren Court.

And so it became a self-justifying theory for the Warren Court’s decisions and the Burger Court which was only slightly less progressive in its rulings. And the problem is the legal system is inherently conservative, and inherently biased to the right because it is based on, we have to preserve what order exists right now.

So that is an inherent conservative object for them to strive towards. And as you said, it’s not about justice, it’s literally about legal order. that’s the de facto pursuit of all legal systems. And in some ways it, you could say it, it probably has to be that way, right?

MYSTAL: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Because there would be chaos if it wasn’t. And but, so essentially legal formalism, this is why it’s so pernicious, is it became a way for people on the political left to justify a conservative institution. That historically up until only the Warren Court, so the entire history of the United States before and then subsequently to the Burger Court, it was and has been and is, a conservative and reactionary institution. So this was liberals literally saying, here, take this gun and point it at my head and point it at America because I like this five or six rulings. That’s what happened.

MYSTAL: Warren and Burger destroyed intellectually [00:50:00] an entire generation of liberals. Just an entire generation of progressives. I could argue two generations of liberals and progressives because of exactly what you’re saying, Matt. That because for 20 years there, disregarding the entire previous history of the court and disregarding the entire post Burger, Rehnquist, into Roberts history of the courts.

For 20 years there, the court was a progressive force of social change, every other time in American history, the other 230 years there are regressive conservative force against social change. But for 20 years they were forward thinking. And because they were forward thinking for 20 years, it created in liberals a false and ultimately defeatist reliance on the courts as the institution for social change.

The courts are not an institution for social change. They shouldn’t, as you pointed out, they probably shouldn’t be an institution for social change. I argue that they can’t be a, so an instrument for social change because the society does not elect them to change the society, right? So all of these kind of intellectual and structural vales, retard the progress of the court.

The court is a retardation on the progress of our country. But because of the Warren court, because boarded, which I just talked about, because of the civil rights stuff, because of Roe v. Wade, for an entire generation or two, liberals got the false impression that the courts were their friends and they’re not. And it’s something that you have to, that we haven’t.

So to the point where you get the first black president, you get a, the first black president who also happens to be a Harvard educated constitutional scholar, and he’s thinking that the courts are going to [00:52:00] uphold his agenda because he has been. He has been bamboozled by, because he came of age during those 20 years when the courts were actually our friends.

And he completely, I, I could argue that, the, I’ve argued before the biggest failure of Barack Obama was trying to appoint Merrick Garland and not filling Scalia’s seat. That is it. I want, I don’t want to say Obama had one job, but he had three jobs and that was one of them. And he failed that job massively. Failing to appoint a liberal to replace Scalia was a massive failure.

And I know that’s McConnell’s fault and we can, people can blame McConnell for that. But like Obama was the president at the time, he should have found a way

SHEFFIELD: Oh, and he didn’t even tell the public really what was going on. Like they would’ve been outraged if they had heard about it. I

MYSTAL: that was mission critical and it was a failure, but it’s a failure because of what we’re talking about.

It’s a failure because of a reliance that the courts are fundamentally reasonable, fundamentally forward facing fundamentally socially just, and that’s just not what the courts are or have been throughout American history, but for, again, 20 odd years in the middle there.

Because judging is political, it must be restrained to be lower than Congress

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, and this was this was I think a system-wide failure on the political left outside, not just the legal system as well, and what they didn’t get ultimately is that the best way to protect democracy is to practice it. Be, you can’t protect democracy by saying, we’re going to have this small cadre of people and they’re going to make the right decisions.

That, that’s inherently anti-democratic, is what you’re doing. And you can’t do that. And, and I, and the example I sometimes give on this point is that, you look at. The the healthcare systems in other countries that have installed them through a pro parliamentary procedure, right?

You look at, [00:54:00] up until just, recently, pretty much every industrialized nation in the world, their conservative parties were less extreme than ours. And there are some, religious reasons for that and racial reasons for that. But there are the, it, those other countries also had racists and those other countries also had, religious fundamentalists.

And What kept them at bay to a very large degree is that policy change was put through democratically. So even, the most extreme right wing parties in the UK or France, and any of these countries, Japan there, and yeah, even in the Islamic world, and African nations, south American, these far right parties are not going there and saying, we’re going to take away your healthcare.

We’re going to, take, we’re gonna do all of these terrible things to you. They can’t run on that.

MYSTAL: It is the greatest trick the Republican Party has ever pulled. It’s the greatest trick they pulled in my lifetime because their policies are generally speaking massively unpopular, right? You could not pass an abortion ban. Couldn’t do it, couldn’t do it, couldn’t do it nationally, can’t. It’s real. And we’re seeing really hard to do it in the states even,

SHEFFIELD: Even Republican states. Yeah.

MYSTAL: Even Republican state, it’s really hard to pass it even in Republican state. Couldn’t ever do it nationally, but you can do it through the courts. The, some of the gun rights stuff you can’t ban background checks nationally at the ballot box. People wouldn’t have it.

If you did it all through the ballot box, we would solve our school shooting problem. But through the courts, what can one do? And for, so for a long time, Republicans, I would argue, the more moderate ones, the Lincoln Chaffee, if you will to reference an old guy a blast from the past.

The former, the last Republican New England Senator of my lifetime these guys always were able to [00:56:00] run on moderate policies, but acknowledge to the crazy folk that they were with them, but, oh, what can we do until we get, have the courts right. That, that, that was their fundamental thing.

Conversely, interestingly enough, speaking of the Warren court, Democrats learned the wrong lesson from the Warren courts. Democrats from the Warren courts thought that the lesson was that, oh, you have to have the courts to do massive social change like end segregation, when actually it was the Democrats who were able to pass.

Their social change laws through normal processes of democratic legislation. It was the Civil Rights Act. It’s the Voting Rights Act. It’s the Fair Housing Act. All of that is legislation. None of that came through the courts. Democrats actually could pass their policies now enforcing their policies on the states and forcing Alabama to accept the Civil Rights Act.

Maybe you need some courts for that. Although if you ask John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, you also need some guns for that, right? Like actually forcing the states to follow these. Let these national pieces of legislations, maybe you need some courts to do that, but to actually get the law, you can do that democratically.

But Democrats learn and it’s the only way that’s going to stick, right? But Democrats learn the wrong lesson. Oh, you need the courts for Roe v. Wade, you need the courts for Brown v Board of Ed. You need the courts to do social change. Republicans understood that because they couldn’t pass their policies, they needed the courts to do the massive social change.

People get this all screwed up. The Republican courts, the conservative courts, are responsible for more social change through judicial fiat than the liberal courts because the liberal courts, the liberals, are genuinely enforcing [00:58:00] laws that were passed by Congress. Upon people who don’t like that the law was passed by Congress.

Whereas Republican courts, conservative courts are through judicial fiat creating changes that were not passed by Congress, that were not authorized by Congress because you can’t win those battles at the ballot box. So yeah my, my argument is always and again, as a black man, people are like, people are some, sometimes surprised that I say this because they’re like, have you seen Mississippi? Yeah, I have. And if you put a gun to my head, I would rather fight for the voters in Mississippi over what I believe than try to have to convince unelected unaccountable judges of what I believe I’m going to have a better shot with the population of Miss fricking sippy than I’m going to have with Santo.

Making courts matter to voters

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. and we’re seeing that we saw that with abortion and we will see that with regard to marriage equality. I think, the, and and hopefully that won’t happen, immediately. But there’s no, there, the religious right literally said we’ve decided to launch a lawsuit.

Factory and we’re going to, we’re going to find enough cases and we’re going to find one that’s going to tickle the funny bone of these reactionary judges the right way. And and they’ll go for it. And, who’s to say that they won’t. And this is, and despite, and yet despite all of this, the Democratic party still does not campaign on the court, does not campaign on telling people what happened to them and why this happened and how they will fix it.

And and so when you look at voters to the extent some Democrats are saying that yes, they vote based on the courts but it should be a huge majority of Democratic voters should say that. And they’re not. And this is a failure of the leadership to not just pack the court, [01:00:00] but also restrain the court.

MYSTAL: It’s a massive failure of the Democratic Party and it’s an ongoing train wreck. I like to say that Republic, if I go to a Republican voter in Appalachia, if I go to a low information Republican voter in a poor state, right? They will not be able to converse with me about these theories of legal formalism or legal realism or anything like that.

They won’t be able to converse with me about substantive due process versus procedural due process. They won’t understand any of that, but they know about the Second Amendment. They won’t be able to quote a single statute that actually impacts their lives. They won’t be able to quote the zoning laws around their shack, but they can quote the Second Amendment right because the Republican leadership has made that.

So the Republican leadership the Republican Party has convinced that voter, that to have what that voter wants, Republicans have to control the Supreme Court. So that voter has a one-to-one understanding that if he wants his shotgun. and he can have legitimate reasons. I’m even going to say just for the sake of the argument, he’s got legitimate reasons for wanting his shotgun, right?

Constitutional reasons for wanting a shotgun. Let’s even go further, right? He understands that to keep his shotgun in his house, Republicans need to control the Supreme Court. That is not confusing to him. That is not mysterious legal jargon to him. He knows it for a locked fact. Now, I go to a Democratic voter, and I and, let’s say I’m talking, let’s say I’m in, Brooklyn, I’m talking to a crunchy Birkenstock wearing, free love, make peace, not [01:02:00] war.

Crunchy, hipster liberal, who wants the Green New Deal? Who is terrified about the environmental catastrophes that are happening, who’s terrified for their potential children and grandchildren in the world they’re going to live in? Who wants the earth to be saved? They have no conception that in order to get what they want, they have to have the Supreme Court.

They might talk to me about a OC. They might talk to me about Bernie. They might talk to me about a Green New Deal. They might talk to me about any number of legislation that they want to see passed, but they have no conception that every single one of those laws will be overturned before breakfast by a conservative Supreme Court.

If liberals do not control the Supreme Court, they do not make the one-to-one connection, and that is not their fault. That is the Democratic party’s fault. That is the leadership’s fault. The leadership has not made in the minds of the voters the one-to-one connection between what they want. Controlling the Supreme Court.

It is why Democrats lose it is why Democrats have lost the battle for the courts. It’s why they fail.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, exactly. And legal formalism. It’s. Perhaps useful as a heuristic for writing decisions, but for anything else, it is dangerous if you are a liberal and it needs to be thrown in the trash can. Because yeah we got to get real about this stuff and it’s long pastime to do that.

MYSTAL: Yeah. And we’ve got to make it real for our own people, right? We’ve got to, I’ll, I go to the barbershop, as you can see from my hair. I don’t go to the barbershop often, when I’m there and I’m talking to black people about police brutality about. the things that are happening in our communities, the, I’m always trying to make that connection.

this the reason why the police can roll up in [01:04:00] here and put us all against the wall and beat the crap out of us. That’s Graham v Connor. That’s a William Renquist decision. If we change that decision, the entire structure of police brutality changes in this country, Like that’s where we got to focus. It’s not about Manami or Bloomberg or Stop, and it’s about these decisions that are made by unelected unaccountable judges that, for the most part are Republican, for the most part, are conservative. But, and that’s why you got to vote for Hillary Clinton because

SHEFFIELD: and you don’t have to like her. You don’t have to like, any of her ideas necessarily, except which is we’re going to contain the court and we’re going to pack the hell up.

MYSTAL: You got to vote for Hillary Clinton because Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 82 years old and she’s going to die soon. That’s why you have to do it. But that’s not a, that’s not an argument that Hillary Clinton made. My gosh, Hillary Clinton sat there in 2016 with an open Supreme Court seat and didn’t mention Merrick Garland’s name once during the Democratic National Convention!

Not once did she talk about the importance of filling that seat and filling other seats that would likely come up in her terms! She didn’t make the argument for her own candidates. It’s just--ugh.

SHEFFIELD: If you won’t advocate for yourself, who will? That’s the bottom line. But speaking of advocating for yourself what would you want people to check out of your stuff, Elie?

MYSTAL: Oh. Um, So I write twice a week for the nation the Nation Magazine in digital. And then I usually do one print column a month. So that’s the easiest place to find my writings. I’ve also written two books Allow Me to Retort, A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution and Bad Law, 10 Popular Laws that Are Ruining America.

Those are available wherever they still allow black books to be sold. I’m not sure that’s Florida, you might have to go to [01:06:00] Audible. But everybody else there, there’s a way to get it. And I read the books, my, my myself and for social media. I’m on blue. I can’t do Matt, I can’t do Apartheid X anymore.

I just I understand it’s where the hotness is. I just it’s too much for me. So I’m slumming it on Blue sky for a bit. I’m too old for TikTok. So, I put most of my social media things about my dog, really and my kids on Blue Sky.

SHEFFIELD: Okay. Sounds good, man. It’s great having you here today and I look forward to doing more of these in the future.

MYSTAL: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

SHEFFIELD: All right, so that is the program for today. I appreciate you joining us for the conversation, and you can always get more if you go to Theory Change show where we have the video, audio, and transcript of all the episodes. And if you are a paid subscribing member, you have an unlimited access to the archives and I thank you very much for your support.

You can become a free or paid subscriber at patreon.com/discoverflux, or you can go to flux.community to subscribe on Substack. If you’re watching on YouTube, please click the and subscribe button to get notified whenever there’s a new episode. Thanks a lot for your support and I’ll see you next time.

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Public opinion surveys from every pollster have shown that Donald Trump’s political support has declined massively across the board. But one set of people that has been much more loyal (up until just very recently) has been the so-called “MAHA Movement” of former Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

This is an interesting group to think about because as the Republican party has moved to the far right, it has kicked out the conservatives and moderates who once were welcomed. Instead of shrinking away, however, Republicans remained highly competitive by bringing in the MAHA crowd of hippies and naturalist obsessives who had long been associated with the far left.

But that perception was an inaccurate one. These people were always conservative/libertarian. The only thing that changed was the partisan label that they wanted to wear. The anti-science and anti-institutional rhetoric that’s the bedrock of today’s Trumpism, was actually very prominent from day one in the 1960s counterculture through figures like Jack Kerouac, Timothy Leary, and Robert Anton Wilson.

Aaron Rabinowitz, my guest on today’s episode, grew up on all of this stuff, so he knows it from firsthand experience, but he also knows it through his academic career—and the fact that he’s the host of two philosophy podcasts, Embrace the Void, and Philosophers in Space.

The video of our conversation is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.

Related Content

• Why the “naturalistic fallacy” is the basis of so much anti-science thinking

• Marianne Williamson’s ineffective self-help politics

• How “post left” grifters use contrarian rhetoric to push people to the far right

• RFK Junior’s policies are already making Americans sicker, and things will only get worse

• Quantum woo is nonsense, here’s the real science

• Why sci-fi authors like Heinlein, Pournelle, and Rand have become the obsessions of Musk, Thiel, and Luckey

• Why fan-fiction politics leads to disappointment and how AOC and Bernie Sanders are trying to combat it

Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

06:54 — High weirdness and libertarianism as a conservative liberalism

10:19 — The origins of the “counterculture”

17:15 — New Thought movement and mind over matter

27:24 — Quantum physics and a new generation of pseudoscience

36:02 — Alfred Korzybski and Robert Anton Wilson

48:38 — Ancient Pyrrhonian skepticism and high weirdness

58:30 — Balancing truth and skepticism

01:07:34 — Living with uncertainty and embracing the void

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: And joining me now is Aaron Rabinowitz. Hey Aaron, welcome to Theory of Change.

AARON RABINOWITZ: Hey, Matt. Thanks for having me on.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, so this is—we’re doing a double collaboration here. So if you like this episode on Theory of Change, we will be doing another one over on Embrace the Void very soon as well.

So, different topic though, so if and, and if we didn’t scare you away, that is.

RABINOWITZ: [00:03:00] Different, yet weirdly related.

SHEFFIELD: Yes. Yes. All right, well, so for today though, we’re talking about what some people, I mean, there’s a lot of words for what we’re talking about terms. So some people call it Pastel QAnon. Some people call it conspirituality, other people call it right wing hippieism, high weirdness. There’s many, many names for this.

But let’s start off first that I think a lot of people during the pandemic realized that many people who were kind of hippie coded suddenly became very—well suddenly, quote unquote—they were observed to be very anti-mask and anti-vaccine and then soon, eventually joined up with Donald Trump and RFK Jr.

But what the reality is, these ideas in many ways were fundamentally right-wing from the very beginning. It’s just that people didn’t really notice. I think.

RABINOWITZ: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think there is an important history of ideas that we need to understand [00:04:00] that sort of starts in some conservative places. Like Lovecraft moves into what we think of as leftist, or they’re often leftist libertarian spaces like the hippies and high weirdness, you know, during the sixties and seventies and now has gone very broadly mainstream and I think is.

You know, driving our culture kind of across the political spectrum in various ways, but has on the right, kind of metastasized into sort of the worst parts of those traditions.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And essentially, Trump and RFK Jr. And Tulsi Gabbard, these people have kind of, they’ve sort of coalesced this, this conspiracy oriented epistemology that had kind of been in past decades, just been distributed kind of evenly across the political spectrum. And now it’s overwhelmingly gravitating toward the right and Republicans.

RABINOWITZ: You can get in trouble online for sort of jumping too [00:05:00] quickly into like a horseshoe theory of like, here’s how the left and the right come back together under authoritarianism, or something like that. But I’m pretty convinced these days that there is a kind of an overlap that happens. A connecting point in the realm of naturalness and fixation on naturalness.

And that combined with skepticism about mainstream narratives. So high weirdness. The term that I particularly interested in, which refers to the culture that I personally grew up in is really a culture of a counterculture in the, in the traditional sense of it is resistant to mainstream culture.

It sees it as suspect, it sees it as a legitimizing myth. Often it really was to try to preserve norms that were harmful to people. And it takes a pretty radical approach to, you know, challenging and, and exploring alternatives to those mainstream norms. And that is an idea that [00:06:00] wasn’t as popular, I think amongst like what we think of as conservatism when high weirdness was sort of at its peak during that hippie era.

But as you’ve seen mainstream culture trend towards neoliberalism with a little splash of progressivism, as you’ve seen conservatives come to view themselves as on the outs culturally, they have really adopted these kind of high weirdness skepticisms about mainstream narratives, which they identify with wokeness.

And, you know I, I just listened to your episode actually about fit with the person who wrote Fit Nation, which I thought was really excellent on talking about this problem that like there is a overlap of people who are distrustful of conventional wisdom and that creates a space for them to spiral in lots of interrelated directions.

But a lot of those spirals kind of funnel down into these far right spaces.

High weirdness and libertarianism as a conservative liberalism

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, they do. And and, and it is, yeah, it does go back in a lot of ways to [00:07:00] natural the belief in the natural. But there’s, there’s some epistemic standpoints that we’ll talk about as well further on in the episode. But I, I, I guess, yeah, one of the key things to think about in this context is.

Libertarianism is kind of a rump liberalism, if you will rump from the political context, not used in America very, very much. But the idea that a party that sort of divides into and the, and there’s a smaller minority that claims to be the real, the real version and that is different from the main larger body.

And so that’s kind of what happened with liberalism in the 20th century. Beginning, you know, roughly, let’s say with the, the, i, the, the emergence of socialism as kind of a alternative between you know, communism and liberalism is, but, but it was very much rooted in liberalism and they could point very easily to John Stewart Mill and other people like that.

But there were people who had a more hierarchical viewpoint [00:08:00] a naturalist viewpoint, if you will, about truth and about politics, about poverty. And those are the people who became the libertarians later.

RABINOWITZ: Yeah.

Yeah. We don’t want to, like, it’s hard because these are such large milieus of concepts, you know, there’s no easy line to trace, like, here’s when things went this way or here’s when things went that way. You know, you have a lot of like broader cultural shifts happening. You have, you know, civil rights conflict, you have, you know, red scare, anti-socialist stuff.

You know, the increasing, I, you know, one would argue increasingly predatory nature of, of capitalism. Sort of just embodying the colonialism of the past and all of that sort of disillusions a lot of people, right? So a lot of these movements I do think start in a kind of disillusionment a, a break with the narratives that [00:09:00] were making.

One’s sense of purpose and meaning, feel sustained. And then in the absence of that, there are attempts to try to explain why this is happening and attempts to try to see if there’s a better alternative. And a lot of that ends up, you know, like we want to say, a lot of that is very valuable, right? A lot of this leads to.

Social progress that we now take for granted, sexual social progress and racial social progress. but it also leads to, you know, increases in conspiratorial beliefs or distrust of the government in ways like that aren’t actually constructive or valuable. Right? There are reasonable times to be distrustful of governments and then there is a kind of more all consuming version of that that can lead one astray, epistemically, so, yeah, I think, Yeah, I think there’s a lot of different threads here that we can kind of pull on and then you add, you know, then you add in like massive doses of psychedelics and you get, you know, [00:10:00] some really radical perspectives. You also get a lot of modern technology, a lot of modern science fiction and horror.

You know, it shapes all these different aspects of our world that I think now are so baked in that in a sense, sort of high weirdness won the culture wars, and now we’re just kind of living in that world.

The origins of the “counterculture”

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah, in a lot of ways. And certainly we see that with. You know, now that you know marijuana is legalized in most American states and, and many other countries around the world as well and other drugs in other areas. So, but let’s maybe talk specifically about some specific people here.

So one of the things, you know, as I said, people oftentimes think of the, the sixties, seventies counterculture as this big left wing movement. And it’s certainly true that there were plenty of people in that worldview. And probably the majority of them seems like if you look at the, the voting trends of, of baby boomers, [00:11:00] generally speaking, they have been a, a, a democratic vote voting group.

So, but at the same time there was, there were always some very significant, prominent individuals in this culture that had kind of right. Libertarian viewpoints right wing anarchist viewpoints. And I think probably the, the earliest one who, who became I mean overtly, right, right wing later in life was Jack Kerouac the, the the founder, founder of the Beat Poet movement.

So for people who don’t know what, what that was or who he was, why don’t you give us a little overview please.

RABINOWITZ: Sure. And like when I say I was raised in, in this culture, I mean, my dad, a clinical psychologist, put on a one man show for many years where he played Alan Ginsburg and performed Alan Ginsburg’s poetry and looks very similar to Alan Ginsburg. It was a wonderful show. So like I saw, you know naked Lunch, William s [00:12:00] Burrows, the movie of William s Burrows book at a deeply inappropriate age.

These were poets of various backgrounds who kind of came together. again, in sort of resistance to what they saw as the norms around art and writing and culture. And so they were very famous for things like rejection of editing. This isn’t true of all of them, right? Ginsburg was like a compulsive editor, whereas folks like Kerouac would, you know, make fun of him for that, right?

They were very, you know, you are self-censoring, I think is the line that the Kerouac Standin gives in the Naked Lunch movie where they’re arguing about how to write. Whereas Burrough’s line in there is exterminate all rational thought. these guys were all really struggling with. Not fitting in with modern society, with thinking that it was very fake and hollow, which it was in a lot of ways.

And we’re looking for meaning elsewhere, and we’re looking forward in [00:13:00] drugs and promiscuous sex and homosexuality and like all these outside experiences. And so they, you know, they became these kind of outsider figures and they were very popular as a result of that. And then of course there was the irony of that.

You know, like you’re being an outside figure who inevitably gets, becomes commodified, right? As your ideas become more popular in mainstream, you become the thing that you have been resisting. And there’s a lot of like resistance to that within it. Yeah. And it’s not surprising. I think that to varying degrees, these individuals also had right wing coated ideas, Or became more right wing coated because a lot of this was reactionary.

You know, these were reactionary movements and reactionary movements. Whether they are left or right can produce good ideas, but they can also just produce reactionary ideas. And I think a lot of what is essential to conservatism is steeped in certain kind of reactionary [00:14:00] fear of progress away from what you perceive to be the ideal status quo.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Or people living differently than you. And whether they have the right to do that.

RABINOWITZ: And then there’s also like, you know, libertarianism is not a pure left or right thing either. I know left libertarians, you know, who really hate the way that people understand libertarianism today. But also I think libertarianism has, as a movement, there’s been a lot of problems because, you know, as a also somewhat reactionary movement, it, it tends to endorse and, and support some pretty isolationist, harmful ideas.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, and I mean, that’s where I would kind of put it just as like a, a form of anarchism. I mean, ultimately to me, and some people don’t like it when I say this, but anarchism is operationally conservative because it’s saying. There should be no structures to stop [00:15:00] sociopaths. And, and that, and that ultimately is the problem that if you have a society that says we will have no rules against mistreating the society itself then ultimately you end up with the, the people who have the most money or the most guns, they’re the ones who win.

And that, you know, when you look at history, that kind of is what happens, seems like to

RABINOWITZ: Yeah.

I would argue that there are flavors of anarchism on the more social, communal, smaller scale level that. Sort of buck that trend. But I do think there’s a problem of scaling and a problem of, you know, in a, in a world of larger scale societies, how do you avoid it not turning into what we are seeing is this kind of very laissez-faire approach to like morality.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And so, you know, a, a, as you mentioned, drugs, obviously were a big, a big part of this culture.

And, and, and, and, and I think, you know, people now, decades after the fact, you know, it’s easy to, to think about, [00:16:00] well, these were people that were just, you know, trying to have fun or whatever, but that’s not what a lot of them really saw themselves as doing. Like, they literally. That they were re, you know, rewiring their brains and, and discovering, you know, untapped potential of the human mind.

And, and, and Timothy Leary, who was a Harvard professor that was became notorious for his advocacy for LSD really kind of the, the, the, the, the guy that was the centerpiece of this, this particular aspect of their ideology. And this dude was a straight up libertarian anarchist. and Larry had this phrase that really encapsulated this idea, which, which was a slogan. It was turn on, tune in, drop out.

And I think that last part drop out is where his libertarian anarchism really came into play because he was telling people do not participate in society. You need to get out of it because it’s all [00:17:00] bad. Everything sucks about it, and you need to get back to the land, et cetera, or, you know, go inside your mind and, you know, be on drugs all the time or whatever, because this is how we can reach the future of humanity, if you will.

New Thought movement and mind over matter

RABINOWITZ: Yeah. And here’s where I think it’s important to bring in another big movement that is a precursor to high weirdness, which is the new thought movement. I try to drop this in whenever possible because it’s fascinating to me. So this is a movement that arose in like the early 19th century. And it’s what we, what we now think of today as the mind over matter worldview, right?

Which has again, become very mainstream through the secret laws of attraction kind of stuff. This is the origination of the ideas of laws of attraction. They, these were often you know, not traditional scientists or something. These were people on the outs of. Scientific culture at that time who had sort of extreme views about [00:18:00] what was being discovered about science that suggested that there were connections between the mind and the body, right?

So you have your classic Cartesian. How do these things connect? What is the influence of the mind over the body? And these folks come along and say they sort of think of themselves as flipping the script the way that like mentalists do or idealists do over the materialists and saying, you know, mind is prior to body.

In some ways it is the defining force. It’s not that we are at the whims of our physical structures. We can reshape them with our wills essentially. So you get all of the, like a lot of positive psychology comes out of this. So many things are downstream of, of new thought and sort of poisoned by it. because these, these were.

Folks who lead to, you know, the ideas that if you will.

it, you can cure your own cancer. And that all disease is the result of bad mental thinking, which has the implicit victim blaming in it. Where if you’re suffering from something, you’re just not willing yourself not [00:19:00] to suffer from it hard enough. You know, manifestation, laws of attraction.

I often talk about how these things are just victim blaming at a cosmic scale, essentially, but they’re build, they’re sold, they’re commodified as empowering. Right. about mindfulness traditions, I’m, I’m a big fan of mindfulness traditions, but there are parts of the mindfulness tradition world. There are parts of positive psychology world that are really commodified, you know, wellness.

I mean, wellness is like the, I think the one we want to be most worried about. The wellness world is full of these kinds of mystical ideas. And a lot of that. Became popularized through high weirdness. So there was a phase of it being very popular during new thought. And then I think it’s brought back a lot by the psycho knots, by people like Timothy Leary, who, like you said, they see themselves exploring the mind, not just for fun, but for empowerment.

we’ll probably talk some about like science fiction. These guys heavily influenced science fiction and you can really see these ideas [00:20:00] in books like Hind Line, stranger in a Strange Land, where it’s all about if you learn Martian, you can physically reshape your body and mind in ways that give you superpowers.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. And we will talk about Highline a bit here, but I did want to mention for anybody who is interested in the kind of the, I, we did a, a, a deep, much deeper dive just on that topic with Ajit here on a episode that will be, that comes out before this. So I’ll, I’ll link to it for anybody who wants to see that.

But yeah, I, this, and, and a lot of these ideas were religious in origin also. Like that’s the other thing about new, new thought. And one of them actually, there’s a connection to Donald Trump in new thought because his, his childhood pastor was Norman Vincent Peele, who was one of the biggest proponents of new thought.

And he wrote all kinds of books about, you know, trying, trying to tell people that yeah, if you if you have the right relationship with God and you have the right set of [00:21:00] mindset that, you know, literally anything is possible for you. So, so, yeah. And like

RABINOWITZ: There’s your origins of Prosperity Gospel right there too, right?

SHEFFIELD: Oh yeah, it is

RABINOWITZ: that’s where, that’s where it all comes from. Like, you know, if you will, it, it is No dream.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, and, and so in a sense this is, you know, so the, the religious side, this is a, an act of faith. To have this you know, to have the blessings that God wants to give you if you have enough faith. But you know, the secular side, and I, I think, Carl Jung was also kind of in the mix in this regard as well.

That, you know, the, that this was the, the, the mid 20th century, it was finally a moment where a, I’d say probably, you know, most educated people outside of, of or in the US and other countries had come to the, the idea, well, there’s no such thing as a soul. And, but there is a mind. And so we are discovering how it really works.

And so like Leary, [00:22:00] his, his big thing as a, as a, I mean it’s not really a philosophy, but he had this idea of, he called it reality tunnels, that everybody lives in. And so with, if you took enough drugs, you could, you could go from the tunnel that you inhabited mentally to other ones and you could explore other realities.

And,

RABINOWITZ: Yep.

SHEFFIELD: this was, so, yeah, there was sort strong sci-fi connections to this. And, and, and, you know, this is people were, they were doing philosophy without a net, if you will.

RABINOWITZ: Yeah. And if you, you know, if you look at the sense makers, speaking of thought tunnels, like people like Jordan Peterson folks, they, they talk about these ideas of thought tunnels and they, they often are being critical of, they’re using it to be critical of mainstream culture and saying, people get stuck in these mainstream thought tunnels, and they have to break out of those into, you know, novel ways of thinking.

There’s definitely a ton of religious stuff in this. The, you know, the co the folks that they were drawing [00:23:00] on, heavily steeped agnosticism as well as non-Western traditions. So a big impact was the translation starting at the beginning, you know, spreading of translations of non-Western Buddhist and, and Daoist writing into Western spaces.

And then you look at things like Carlos Castaneda and Don Juan. Often these are half-baked, you know, like fictionalized, very problematic colonialist accounts of, you know, various spiritual and wisdom traditions that are then co-opted into their attempts to kind of assemble an alternative worldview to what they saw as sort of dominating society.

And I think you see the modern right doing the exact same thing. And, and like the role of gnosticism is the same gnosticism, if you look at it as a religious tradition, is very conspirator conspiracy theory in nature. It basically says we are all trapped under the whims of [00:24:00] a creature that is preventing us from knowing the truth and that we can find our way to the truth by escaping that kind of mental prison.

You know, so the, what you can see as being the thing that would inspire folks like Philip k Dick, or Timothy Leary to try to break out through drug use or through exploration of other ideas is the same mindset that’s telling people, you know, you have to escape the woke mind virus.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and, and it’s notable with these, this, this tradition that they’re not that it is very experiential or

RABINOWITZ: Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: So in other words, if I feel something. Then it’s true. And, and, and that’s, you know, so they’re not saying, well, I can prove that these other ideas are false.

No, they’re saying, well, no, I have this own experience. It’s, and it’s my own truth. And that’s, and I, and because I feel this then it is true. And which is, [00:25:00] and it’s so ironic though, because like they, they, especially Jordan Peterson, you know, is constantly railing against postmodernism. But his entire worldview is, is, is, you know, inflected through postmodern thought and the way he

RABINOWITZ: Deeply postmodern.

SHEFFIELD: But, but he can’t even see it. And neither can any of his fans which is funny.

RABINOWITZ: I would say there are like two. Sort of source materials for that. Part of this, this giant conceptual map on the like secular side is phenomenology. So you have your, your Fritz Pearl sort of phenomenal therapy folks. Talking about, you know, getting directly more in contact with our lived experiences, you know, not filtering everything as much through our sort of rational assessments of things.

And then evangelicalism, I just think American evangelicalism’s rejection of. Expertise in the form of rejection, of [00:26:00] mitigated access to God, right? Replacing that with the direct reading of, and the direct experience of God being the central part of the religious practice. Those two things kind of really come together to create this heavily individualist epistemology where you can only kind of trust your, you know, trust your own eyes and only your own eyes.

you know, they’ll, they’ll, the, the oral quote that always goes around, right? They’ll teach you to not to trust your own eyes kind of stuff. and that then, you know, immediately like leads to do your own research, right? Where do your own research becomes a co-opted idea for conspiracy theories? It’s very hard.

It’s very hard in the modern world where there are a lot of real conspiracies and there is a lot of inappropriate, harmful, powerful behavior going on to like ch. Yeah, Yeah.

You know, like we, we can’t be generalists as Denti would say about conspiracy theory [00:27:00] anymore. You can’t just dismiss people who believe in conspiracy theories as being epistemically flawed because there are very, like we we’re all conspiracy theorists.

Now it’s just a degree issue. And I think it, and I think that’s problematic because it, it does make it easier to then slide into, I think it makes it easier to then slide into believing certain other things like antisemitism.

Quantum physics and a new generation of pseudoscience

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah, it is. I mean, that is really kind of the, the, the paradox that is interwoven throughout all of these people, that some of their ideas are true. You know, and, and like, and I think one area where that was very common and I know you’re not into quantum physics stuff as much, so I will spare you with that, Aaron.

But you know, there,

RABINOWITZ: to making fun of it, if that counts.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, but like, so there, there, there was a, there was a quantum physicist named David Bom who he, he came up with it with a quantum theory, which, you know, has all kinds of [00:28:00] it’s mathematically sound. But it’s, it’s not a commonly believed one. It’s called the pilot wave, if anybody wants to look that up.

But basically this guy, essentially was trying to say but it, it wasn’t even just bone, like, you know, the the, the quantum physics really did also kind of mess with a lot of people’s interpretations of reality and they didn’t understand. Fully what it meant. so the, and, and, and, and you see that just over and over.

So, I mean, David Bo like, yeah, David Bowen was incredible mathematician. and he ended up getting all kinds of weird, you know, ideas about, mystical stuff in conspiracy theories. And so like, this literally can happen to anyone because there is some basis to these ideas. It’s just we don’t, unfortunately in this country, have enough philosophical training.

I think in our educational system and probably around the world, that’s a general problem. and the way that [00:29:00] people are. Trying to absorb ideas about reality as not being, you know, as being perceptively accessed is so these are, these are ideas that are common within Hinduism and Buddhism and, you know, other Eastern traditions.

But the way, as you said, you know, they’re kind of bastardized and dumbed down when they’re put into popular culture. And, you know, and then so like we see with this idea that, well if you, and like new thought really kind of goes into that, you know, that, if, if I just think hard enough, I can change reality through my, the power of my mind and like this another guy we should talk about is Robert Anton Wilson.

Like he wrote. That was his entire centerpiece of his ideas was quantum woo. He wrote a book called Quantum Psychology, and he described his political beliefs as non-Euclidean politics. And like the, like, mathematically, his ideas were [00:30:00] just ludicrous. Like the guy did not know what he was talking about.

But, you know, he, he was able to import a lot of the, the prestige of, of science and math into his idea. But of course he didn’t actually make any equations or anything like that. But it sounded profound.

RABINOWITZ: Yeah. All of these traditions, this was a period of heavily attempting to. Use the trappings of science or cargo cult science to bring in anything that feels good or even feels commodifiable. Like a lot of this is grifter stuff, you know? A lot of the new thought movement is tied up with psychic mesmer.

Like Mesmer himself was a new thought guy. And, and Robert Anton Wilson is really fascinating. He writes things like the Illuminati Trilogy, which brings us, you know, a lot of discordian thought. It brings us a lot of counter-cultural ideas. And it also is at a really interesting, there’s an inflection point there about the concept, don’t, IM amenitize the [00:31:00] eschaton which is a phrase that was popular with William F.

Buckley Jr. In the i in the straightforward sense of he didn’t want a one world government that was gonna try to control everybody. And these folks were also not wanting that. So they were also talking about how, you know, the book is all about people trying to mize the eschaton, meaning. Trying to control people, trying to control the world.

And it’s all about, you know, the kind of anarchist counter control ideas. And quantum physics is, is really fundamental to a lot of this, I think because, the new thought movement didn’t, didn’t have the benefit of quantum physics to draw on, but they would’ve loved it so much. And it is now I think, the default scientific framework for a lot of new thought ideas around laws of attraction.

If you ask somebody how does manifestation work, I think nine times out of 10 they’re gonna tell you something quantum woo based. They’re gonna say that our minds can change the quantum states. And we then that in turn bubbles back up and impacts us. I’ve got another article coming [00:32:00] out at the UK skeptic Mag about all of the arguments for why we should, you know, why people think it’s okay to have legalized snake oil sales.

And one of the big ones is, is just quantum physics. They think, they think that quantum physics on some level. Proves all of this stuff when, when, like, it obviously, like it very much doesn’t, and a lot of, a lot of quantum physicists have done a lot of work trying to disprove that, but they’re fighting a losing battle a lot of the time because it’s, as you mentioned, such complicated stuff to understand, but the simplified versions of it are very appealing.

Just one other example that comes to mind in all of this is you were talking about different kind of quantum theories, the like multiverse theory, the like quantum wave breaking down into multiple realities. These are ideas that are very popular amongst the high weirdness folks. And, you know, you, you see people talking about going to different dimensions.

Philip k Dick, I think probably believed that he was just observing other dimensions directly at various [00:33:00] points. But it then, you know, becomes mainstream, right? You have the multi, you have the MCU multiverse, you’ve got Rick and Morty. Everybody is kind of on board with these things and they open up.

They open up a lot of spaces for what if. Right. And then people kind of, I think, take that what if to two serious? Like if if, if I can imagine it, then it must be real kind of places.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, and that’s, and the irony with that regard is that you know, this is just another variation of the the ontological argument for the existence of God. That you know, which was resolved a, a long time ago through the ideas of the flying spaghetti monster

RABINOWITZ: and things like flying. Flag Spaghetti Monster, an internet manifestation of the kind of high weirdness new religions that you see, like the Church of the Sub Genius and Discordian. It’s interesting, maybe we talk a little bit about like there are different metaphysics running around in these cultures too, and I don’t want to paint this as one broad [00:34:00] brush.

So you have like on one end you’ve got like love crafty and metaphysics, which is the world is fundamentally uncaring and like there is no loving God that’s trying to help you and that’s why everything has fallen and terrible.

SHEFFIELD: gods actually.

RABINOWITZ: Or there’s evil gods right? There’s like actively, I mean like they’re not evil and so forth.

They don’t care enough to be evil, but Right. It, you perceive it as evil because of the uncaring nature of it. Right? But then you have like the gno gnosticism kind of views of there is a loving God, but there’s also this kind of manican evil guy, Demi urge, who’s preventing us from knowing the truth.

But then you have like the discordance and the discordian metaphysics is fascinating. If you ever read the Principia Discord, there’s a page on it where they explain their metaphysics as. When we experience the world, we perceive things as a mix of ordered things and disordered things, but the true nature of things is pure underlying chaos.

And all that’s happening is we have these frames, they call them [00:35:00] frames of perception that you put over the chaos and according to your frame, certain things appear ordered and other things appear disordered. Right? So you think of like Newtonian physics. You put the Newtonian physics frame over the world, certain data makes sense and other data doesn’t make sense.

They thought that was basically true and like disco accordions will argue that’s basically true of all knowledge of all ideas. So that’s a very radical kind of anti-real or skepticism about truth and knowledge. That I think then creeps in all over the place. You know, where people will say, well that’s just your truth, you know, I live my own truth.

SHEFFIELD: That’s just like your opinion, man.

RABINOWITZ: Yeah.

That’s just like your opinion, man.

Right. My dear sweet Lebowski, like again, I am a creature of high weirdness. I love this tradition for all of the horrible things that it has also brought into the world. So, like, I love Lebowski, I love that this Buddhism, I love all of those things. But like, it’s all, it is a, a recognition of the critique [00:36:00] of this, this kind of view.

Alfred Korzybski and Robert Anton Wilson

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, and the idea of the, the, the framing or the reality tunnel or, you know, that also did. Strongly go into a linguistic conception as well. And, and that was, the, the, the first person to kind of really put this all down in some sense, was this guy named Alfred Korzybski, who nobody nowadays has ever heard of this guy.

But, you know, at the peak of his influence in the 1930s to 1950s, or 1950, I think is when he died, if I remember right. So he basically had this idea that he called general semantics and Korzybski, he had no training as a linguist. He had no training as a philosopher.

He did not engage with, with philosophy or with linguistics. And in fact, I read a, an article, contemporaneous article, which claimed that, his usage of the word semantics was actually [00:37:00] inserted at the last minute in his magnum opus, because he didn’t even it wasn’t even core to his ideas, but essentially what he was saying, and people at the time said he was a cult leader and seems to be some evidence for that.

But basically what he would tell people was that how you talk about things has a deep control over your mind and what you can know and, you know, and again, this is, there’s some, some truth to that but, you know, insisting that it’s absolute truth and that if I say I don’t have beliefs, then I don’t have beliefs.

Or if I say that a thing is not there, then it’s not there. You know, like, it, it, it was, it was, it

RABINOWITZ: Or if your

SHEFFIELD: of became a, huh.

RABINOWITZ: or if your language doesn’t have a word for something, you can’t experience that thing, for example.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so it was, it was like, you know, kind of one of the earliest self-help cults that was deeply, deeply influential on [00:38:00] other people as well. So including on sci-fi authors. So Robert Heinlein, who you mentioned was, was big into Korzybski and so was Robert Anton Wilson.

Like they would, both of them would cite him a lot, especially Wilson.

RABINOWITZ: Yeah, I think Korzybski’s a very interesting kind of bridging fossil between the new thought and the high weirdness space in that.

way. And it reminds me, he also reminds me a lot, the stuff that I was reading about him when you mentioned him is very similar to how I think a lot of people misappropriate the SPI wharf hypothesis in linguistic theory.

So this is most famously in most recently in the movie Arrival where the aliens show up who have. A different language and when you understand it, you experience time non-linearly. The sap, your war hypothesis is just, you know, in its weakest form how your language can shape your experiences of reality.

But in its strongest form, it’s things like, I don’t know if you remember the movie, what The Bleep Do We [00:39:00] Know Really Terrible Pseudoscience movie that was very popular for a second back when I was a, you know, back when I was a kid. And one of the claims, one of the famous claims in that movie is the Native Americans couldn’t see the boats when Christopher Columbus showed up because they didn’t have a word for it.

SHEFFIELD: Wow.

RABINOWITZ: Yeah. Like, it’s a very extreme, like, again, mind over matter, right? If you don’t have it in a conceptual space for it, then you can’t experience it. You can’t learn anything about it.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and I guess in the, there’s the common cliche, if a tree falls in a forest, no, it doesn’t make a sound. Like obviously that is a false idea. But if you come from this mindset, it can at least be true and, and maybe is true, if you have this, you know, like that everything is perceptively accessed, and so it doesn’t exist.

And yeah, and this is, is, is a form of, of idealism in, in, in many ways. And, [00:40:00] but it’s also, I mean, so the, the kind of paradoxical thing is that it expresses itself through post-structuralist language, but ultimately it is idealist modernism is if, I think we could say in a lot of ways that they believe that there is a objective reality and that they know what it is.

And even if they don’t, you know, can’t articulate it fully, it’s what I, what feels good to me. That’s reality. Not what feels good to you. No.

RABINOWITZ: Yeah. And that’s often where it ties back to like conspiratorial thinking and, and distrust of experts that like I am breaking through to the direct phenomenal experience of the true logos, the true god or reality. And the experts either are incapable of doing so or know that this is possible and are actively trying to prevent people from doing so.

Either way, like everybody is trapped in this kind of conspiracy. The movie [00:41:00] The Matrix, I think for much, for all the ways that I love it and think it is a wonderful, brilliant movie, also has a lot to answer for on this front in terms of mainstreaming, essentially the idea of, you know, like pilling people, of helping people wake up from the world that they are being lied to about.

And I think that has just become, that’s just an incredibly powerful image for people when they are feeling. You know, disillusioned when they are feeling cut off, when they can tell that something is wrong, but can’t put their finger on what it is, it’s, a really vulnerable time for someone to come in and say, here’s what the problem actually is.

It’s experts or it’s, you know, the government.

SHEFFIELD: Or it’s women, or it’s Jews or you know, whatever. It’s anyone except for these right wing elites that are sucking the money out of the economy and making your life shit, not them.

RABINOWITZ: Yeah. I mean, for their credit, the high weirdness folks did recognize that capitalism was the problem at the time. A lot [00:42:00] of them. I think, they just, there was no way to like COA towards an alternative because America was so radically anti-communist that, you know, they just, there was, there was nothing left but anarchism at that point, I feel like.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and that’s the idea of dropout from Leary in a lot of ways. And Wilson, he kind of did exhibit this ongoing conflict in his own political ideas. And he did eventually kind of end up with anarchism after initially identifying as some sort of libertarian socialist.

And we saw that also with Robert Heinlein as well, who in many ways was, you could argue, kind of the, the progenitor of this worldview in terms of the chronology in that you know, because his book, Stranger In a Strange Land that came out in 1960, like there were, there was no counterculture by and large at that point in time.

And, and certainly people weren’t reading the beat poets. Like no one, no one reads poetry, guys. [00:43:00] Sorry!

RABINOWITZ: I mean, we still use the word gr, we still use the word grok today, completely derived of its stranger in a strange land meaning unfortunately. But yeah, I agree. He was hugely impactful and also a messy, complicated, like even like Stranger in a Strange Land is not a, as progressive a book as you would like it to be.

First of all, if you read it, it’s full of homophobia and sexism. It’s very, like much of the golden age of science fiction, it’s full of racism, homophobia, and sexism. Not as much racism, but the other ones of that time. Yeah, very much so. And I, yeah, I, go ahead.

SHEFFIELD: oh. But I was gonna say, but also, you know, the core kind of epistemic conceit of the book. Was that the, the protagonist who was a human that was raised by martians that came back to Earth. He had learned the language of Martian and it, it changed his interface with reality and it gave him a power to manipulate reality and to make people disappear and do other all sorts of [00:44:00] magical things.

You know, and, and it really does tie back to these, you know, these original mystical ideas of, you know, like the, if I know the true name of a magical being, then I will have power over that magical being. And, and you see that in a lot of, of ancient myths and medieval ones as well, that and so this is, you know, they really, they really do believe that, that there is some underlying reality in that if, through my my feelings, I can find it and I can have control.

And, and it’s a way of trying to find order in a, in an unjust world and that if I know it, what, you know, what the underlying reality is, then I and my friends and family, we can partake of it and restore the order.

RABINOWITZ: Yeah. I do a lot of when I’m not. Obsessing about conspiracy theory stuff and high weirdness. I am interested in the philosophy of luck and how it relates to this thing [00:45:00] called the just world belief or just world illusion, which is just our felt need for the world to be just like we have a strong, deeply felt need for our worlds to be, just because it makes it feel fair and controllable and that illusion of control, I think that you’re talking about.

There is a big part of all of this is that these, all of these traditions are try, are wrestling with the loss of control that they experience in modernity and they’re trying to regain that sense of control, whether it’s through mind over matter approaches, whether it’s through drugs or some other kind of enlightenment mechanism.

At the same time through metaphysics that explain why things appear unjust, but really actually are just that if you really do learn the secret truths of the universe, the universe will treat you justly. That is really at the core, I think, the laws of attraction mindsets.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And there’s a religious component to this as well. When you look at and I, and I have a, [00:46:00] another episode on this, so I’ll link, which I will link about the, the, the emergence of Satan within Judaism. So Satan is not part of classical Judaism. There are multiple Satans, in fact, and, and they are the angels of God.

They are God’s employees. But it was only after the exile to the various exiles into the broader, you know, Iran, Iraq area, Babylon, that, that when they came into contact with Zoroastrianism, that a lot of Jews begin to think, aha, well maybe this explains why we keep getting taken over by all of these people.

And even though we have believe in the most powerful being in the world, in the universe, we always get our asses kicked. It’s because of the, of this bad guy, Satan.

RABINOWITZ: Or the demiurge. Yep.

SHEFFIELD: And that’s where you see the apocalypse tradition of, of Daniel which then of course is imported into [00:47:00] Christianity, that, but apocalypse isn’t the end of the world, it is the revealing of how the world really is. And it is this spiritual struggle between Satan and God. And, and so again, and you know, the, that fits very nicely, which is why you do see a lot of people once they do get into the QAnon, you know, beliefs, even if they weren’t religious, they become you know, fundamentalist Christians. Because it fits them so well,

RABINOWITZ: Mm-hmm. Yeah, there’s a lot of forces I think that push, that kind of convergence, the people you’re hanging around with is also a huge influence, I think in these scenarios. I think there’s a lot to the idea that a lot of the interactions between gurus in these in sense making spaces is about interpersonal connection and feeling, you know, seen by this other person, but not in a way that is really actually [00:48:00] conveying deep meaning or understanding.

So there’s, there’s a lot of, I think people trying to kind of. Make up for the loss of sense of meaning in the modern world by filling it with these things that are not actually helpful for it. They don’t actually fill that, that cup.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, and if we wind back the clock even further chronologically, so, you know, I, I, we’ve mentioned the, the ideas of you know, kind of nothingness or, or skepticism within Hinduism and Buddhism. But within the European traditions, there was the, there, there were these ideas as well. And,

Ancient Pyrrhonian skepticism and high weirdness

RABINOWITZ: Sure. The

SHEFFIELD: I would say. Yeah, well that’s what, that’s what I was gonna talk about, like, so that you have the skeptic movement in ancient Greece which eventually kind of propagated into Rome as well. And it was divided between the, the well, I guess, I don’t know if you could say it was divided necessarily, but because it seems like the academic skeptics won.

But overall, like basically the [00:49:00] Pyrrhonian skeptics have this idea that, well, no truths about reality can be known, and so therefore we will just live by appearances and how things seem to us. And that right there is a very conservative epistemology, I think. And it’s, it, it shows why. So many of these people that have these high weirdness ideas that they come to that because they are modern day Pyrrhonian skeptics.

Like, like Robert Anton Wilson, where I read his stuff. I’m like, this dude, he’s never heard of the Pyrrhonian skeptic, skeptics. But he sounds just like them, except he likes drugs, you know? And those guys were a bit asetic, but you know, the academic skeptics, they grew out of the Pyrrhonian tradition.

But they realized, well, okay, yes, it’s true. We can’t really know anything, but we’re going to op, we’re going to say whatever seems to be the best tra, you know, explanation for something. We have to do something in this world. We have to act. And so we’re going to [00:50:00] go with the best proven explanation, but we won’t cling to it.

And that to me, you know, you can’t be a skeptic unless you are a skeptic about yourself. First and that’s the problem with this high weirdness and, and this, you know, modern day. It’s epistemic nihilism, I would say.

RABINOWITZ: Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting. So like the, the, the apocryphal story about pirro, the skeptic, the father of skeptic of Pyrrhonian skepticism is that people had to follow him around to make sure he wouldn’t run in, get run over by a cart because he wouldn’t believe that a cart was rolling towards Sam or something.

Now, I mean, if you read the Pyrrhonian skeptics. They’re, they’re more in the phenomenological tradition of saying, well, you can believe your direct experiences, but you shouldn’t believe any inferences from them logically, or any claims of knowledge that you haven’t directly experienced kind of approach.

So in that sense, it was kind of the earlier versions of do your own [00:51:00] research. Right? Don’t

SHEFFIELD: what I’m saying. Yeah.

RABINOWITZ: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, and then, Yeah.

you, you know, a lot of philosophy is struggling with, what do we mean by no, like, can I say I schmo it, I don’t know it, but I schmo it, which means I mostly know it enough to believe it.

Right. And then, you know, you have Cartesian skepticism that comes along and re, you know, like brings back these questions of what it means to be certain or to have this absolute knowledge that I do think also again opens the door for the kind of new thought stuff. That, that when you can create that little space for doubt lots of different kinds of anti-real can get in.

And you’ve mentioned a couple of times, and I think you’re quite right, anti-real in the sense of there are lots of different versions of anti-real. There’s a really good book I just interviewed the author of, of did the Science Wars Happen, where he lays out a bunch of different kinds of anti-real, from the most extreme disco accordion.

There is no objective truth because there is no objective reality. There’s just chaos to like, there’s objective truth [00:52:00] but we can’t have access to it. Or there are multiple kinds of non-competing truth, right? Non-overlapping magisterial as it were. And a lot of, and almost all of these kind of anti-real traditions end up reinforcing conservative ideas, end up reinforcing reactionary worldviews and are not, which is a problem because. you know, like we say, high weirdnesses across the spectrum. If you look over at the, like, social justice woke left side of the world that I, that I live in and strongly identify with, one of the big problems over there, I think right now is a kind of reactionary response to objective truth, to the idea that there is objective knowledge.

And that’s often it’s coded as rejection of objective truth as a tool of colonialism to oppress indigenous knowledge or non-traditional or non-scientific forms of knowledge. But it’s, it’s a real problem I think because it [00:53:00] does make people more susceptible to all of the kinds of woo and pseudoscience and medical misinformation that is running rampant right now.

It, it just makes an easy permission structure for all of it.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, I definitely agree with you there. And I mean, and I would say generally that, you know, post-structuralism, it is I mean if you look at what they based it on, you know, it’s, it’s based on the writings of nietzche ultimately. I mean, and, and that’s a serious problem. because Nietzsche was, you know, the father of fascism.

Like if you look at what he was actually intending to do, and you look at his final works, the guy loves slavery. The guy hated socialism, he hated communism, he hated women. Like pretty much anything that you you know, if you are a, a, a post-structuralist that you say you oppose. That’s your guy that you are, that you’re hearkening to [00:54:00] with your, your your arguments and, you know you got, you know, different French misinterprets of Nietzsche like Deus and you know, people like Michel Fuco these guys, they’ve created this fantasy version of Nietzsche.

And they don’t understand that you, you don’t need this, you don’t need Nietzsche to argue that you know, that politics is you know, about control by established groups. You don’t need Nietzsche to say that. And you don’t need him to say any of these things. And if you really want to go back to some ancient figures or like an older person to anchor your ideas on, like, you should read the Sophists of ancient Greece, that’s what you should do.

Or you should read, you know the, the cho tradition of India. You know, I mean, there’s, there’s plenty of people you can look at if you really want to have some, some older figures assigned to I would say.

RABINOWITZ: Yeah. there’s, there’s plenty of skepticism out there in the world. You got your Daoist, you got your Zen Buddhists, you know, there’s lots of, but all of, I mean, it’s also I think, important [00:55:00] to recognize that all of these traditions come with problems and challenges and risks. one of the things that I think is valuable in Davies see’s book High Weirdness is that he really does portray the skeptical path as a tightrope.

And I think this is right, that it is so easy to to slip in one direction or the other in various kinds of reactionary ways as you walk this path. Even, you know, even approaches that are like, Well, just don’t have, you know, high confidence about anything. Right. Just be really uncertain about things.

Again, Pyrrhonian skeptics about suspending belief where you cannot know that that can lead to kinds of passivity, that can lead to an unwillingness to recognize what is in fact the reality. Because it, it just, you lose the ability, the willingness to, to commit to ideas or you see it as dangerous to believe things too strongly during a time when I think part of the problem [00:56:00] that people are experiencing with a loss of meaning is they don’t know what to hold to fairly strongly at this point.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, and I would say, you know, to go back to quantum just a bit that, you know, Richard Feinman the physicist who was the, the, the guy who he got a Nobel Prize for quantizing electromagnetism. He, he was also a, a big science communicator and he had some problems as well, we should say.

He was a big sexual harasser of women. But one thing he said that was, was was right, was that you are the easiest person to fool. And that’s, you know, skepticism begins with yourself. And that’s, that to me is, is is the core problem of so much of this modern day woo and high weirdness is that they don’t understand you are the one you should be the most skeptical of-- not other people and not experts or whatever.

It’s, you should understand you don’t know what you’re talking about. And [00:57:00] if in areas where you haven’t done serious engagement with the literature and, and Alfred Korzybski, I think is the, is a really good example of this that, you know, he, he wrote thousands of pages of books, you know talking about semantics and philosophy, and he didn’t engage with, with these people at all.

You know, like he, he had a big he hated Aristotle and because he, he thought that Aristotle kind of invented Boolean logic, which is absurd because it’s, it is like literally we have the word.

RABINOWITZ: for.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, I know, but that, that’s, he was obsessed with hating Aristotle. And because, you know, but it, it, it, and, you know, so, but, but he wasn’t engaging with Aristotle because in fact, Aristotle has ex, in multiple books, talks about the idea that there are multiple logical conclusions that you cannot say that everything is true or false.

That was the core idea of Korzybski. But Aristotle actually said that. [00:58:00] So it’s like he didn’t engage with, with the, the existing, you know, literature and the existing authors. And, and that’s really kind of, I think the through line also is with these people is that, you know, everything is about the first principles that, that I will deduce everything purely from first principles instead of, you know, empirical observation and disconfirmation of my own beliefs.

That’s, I think is their, is their approach to the world ultimately.

Balancing truth and skepticism

RABINOWITZ: I mean, to your point about the self being the hardest, the easiest one to fool since being my friends, the beats earlier, one of my favorite lines from the beats is from William s Burrow’s, naked Lunch, which is the hustlers of the world. There is one mark. You cannot beat the mark inside. You know, we are always marks in that sense.

And then to your point about, you know. Truth and falsity. One of the classic phrases of Discordian thought is every idea is [00:59:00] true in some sense, and false in some sense, and meaningless in some sense, and true and false in some sense. And they just go on and on like that. But you know, every conjunction of true, false and meaningless they would say is correct for all ideas.

Very radical, you know, trying to break down sort of binary approaches to epistemology.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and you know, and, and again, like there’s, there’s some truth to that idea. But it’s better for people to have read Coral Popper than to have read Discordian because Yeah. You know, like for

RABINOWITZ: Or do both.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. If you want, yeah. If you’re gonna read Discordian, you should read Popper for sure.

And, you know, and, and, and the core idea of his epistemology is that nothing is absolutely true. That, that everything that you know, we think is true is just only un falsified. And I think that that’s a better, a better axiology or epistemology that, you know, [01:00:00] if, if, if you hold to it in that way, it’s more healthy because you’re not, you’re not saying that your own ideas are true.

And I think that that’s the, the core, the core problem that we have here. Even though they say they, like I and I, the people that I’ve known who, who come out of these, you know, traditions, they claim not to have opinions. They claim not to have beliefs. But then when I say, okay, well here’s some things that show your beliefs are false.

They don’t want to hear it because they do have beliefs and they do have opinions but they just don’t want to say it.

RABINOWITZ: Yeah, I think I, I, I just put out a piece a little while ago about like skeptical epistemology or, or pessimistic epistemology where people feel like, because they’ve been convinced about. Confirmation bias and cognitive biases. They just shouldn’t strongly believe anything like I was saying earlier.

And I, you know, I think like I love Popper. I love like falsification. That’s great. I think we should say certain things are just [01:01:00] objectively true and we know that they are objectively true, past a reasonable standard. I think our fear of doing that is a lot of what is driving problems right now. And I, I, you know, like I worry that folks on the left and the right, but especially like, you know, because I live in the leftist spaces, I worry that they are increasingly afraid to do that and it.

makes it much harder for them to resist you know, arguments from the right.

SHEFFIELD: Okay. Well let’s, let’s talk about that a bit more. I mean, I, I think that I agree with that in general but I would say that Popper is saying that some things are objectively false. And that’s, and, and so that’s, so he gives you a access to a common reality through falseness rather than through truth.

RABINOWITZ: I feel like that’s a, that’s a word play game a little bit because like, let’s take a, let’s take a one example that I give in my article. You know, the Holocaust happened, like it’s objectively true that the Holocaust happened. I think. [01:02:00] I don’t think there’s any reason to be falsification is about, you know, like we just haven’t falsified that the Holocaust happened yet, or something like that.

Like we know it happened and we know that it was wrong. Like those are two claims, like one’s a, one’s a historical empirical claim, one’s a moral normative claim, and they’re both ones that we can know are objectively true and that we can know that there is not going to be evidence that will come along and falsify them right in the human kind of sense.

Any evidence that comes along that appears to falsify them, it doesn’t actually falsify them. It’s either fake made up or wrong.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Okay. Well, that’s, yeah, I mean, I would agree with that, that there, and there is a difference. I think also people should distinguish between scientific claims and historical claims as well. And actually that is a point that the Pyrrhonians did because like they were talking, they, in their, in their own writing, they were primarily talking about scientific claims about the world.

They weren’t talking about the other stuff. [01:03:00] But,

RABINOWITZ: So even if we do scientific claims though, like think the claim evolution is true, right? I don’t think that’s falsifiable at this point. Right. I just think it’s the, like we might, we might find out that some of the details of how it happened are different, but the scientific claim that, you know, like species evolved on this planet seems like, and this is why, as I understand, again, I’m not a philosopher of science, but my understanding of philosopher of science is that they have moved a little bit beyond popper’s.

Falsification is because there are, it seems like certain claims for which there is such a sufficient body of evidence. Maybe this isn’t their reason, but in my mind it seems like a good reason there are. Certain empirical claims for which there is a sufficient body of evidence that we know it’s true, and that if we don’t ex, if we don’t believe it’s such a thing as possible, I. Worry that we end up in a place where, you know, we can’t ever get full consensus on climate change because people are like, well, some people think it’s true and some people don’t, [01:04:00] and maybe it just hasn’t been falsified yet, or something like that.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, that’s a fair point. I think that’s a fair point and yeah, function functionally true. Perhaps is, is a way we can think about it. But you know, like in terms of the, the science though, there is this constant admixture and we’ve talked about it a bit, but you know, this idea of of, of the occult also like, and, and the occult is, was a very big thing for Wilson and a lot of these other people as well.

And, and you know, when you look at the history, there was this kind of intertwinement of personal experience and you know, mystical thought especially when you look at the early scientists so like you know, people some people might be familiar with the idea of I, Isaac Newton was very big into biblical numerology.

He was very big into you know, last days ideas and. Robert Boyle talked the, the, the kind of first [01:05:00] real chemist. He was obsessed with angels on talking about how they were how we, how we could

RABINOWITZ: Liveness was a staunch advocate of the best of all possible worlds theory.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, but, and so there, there is a certain, like the, the, the, the other paradox is that this experiential idea of reality in some sense, it, it, it has the, the ingredients to, to help people get out of conspiracy beliefs. Because you, you should be able to ex, you know, directly prove or things that you say are true.

And that is within their tradition as well. That is why science, you know, got out of and, and bifurcated. So chemistry, you know, left alchemy and physics, you know, came, came to be its own thing instead of arguing for God’s, you know, magically doing things. And we, you know, lost the idea of lum, lumous ether, and the ideas [01:06:00] of you know, that there was a secret ingredient of matter that is what caused fire.

Like these were, these were common beliefs that were believed by many early scientists. So, you know, there, there are ingredients that can help people not have these beliefs within these systems as well. So, yeah.

RABINOWITZ: I mean, I, I genuinely think high weirdness is a mixed bag, like a lot of traditions. I think what I see sometimes is a, a resistance to complex epistemologies, essentially, like the reality I think that is true is sometimes you need to trust your direct experiences. A lot of times you need to trust your direct experiences, but sometimes you shouldn’t.

A lot of times you need to trust experts except when you shouldn’t, you know, and, and like it’s very particularist about when you need to be doing those things and there isn’t an easy formula that you can apply to know what to do. A lot of times we are muddling through epistemically, and I don’t think folks like that a lot.

It feels [01:07:00] very unpleasant. It’s very nerve wracking. And so the appeal of these other views is often that they have fairly simplistic epistemologies once you shed all of the layers of gnosticism or whatever that they. Sort of fairly, it’s, you know, trust your direct experiences. Right. And, and that’s it, right?

Like that’s, and, and stop there. That can feel very easy and relaxing to people who don’t want to work through the complexities of is this a good expert or a bad expert?

Living with uncertainty and embracing the void

SHEFFIELD: And, and that is kind of the, the paradox is that, you know, science grew out of that idea actually. And that the rediscovery of the of the Pyrrhonian skeptics during the, the time of Descartes that, you know, they had a significant impact on early science. And so it was what enabled people to question religious dogma about, well, this is the nature of reality [01:08:00] because we say it is.

And, and, you know, and, and so people were like, no, I can, I can test things and, and, you know, through my own experience, I can see if there are, you know, spirits inside of animals or whatever, you know, like whatever, various flames, you know, spontaneous com, combustion and spontaneous. Like, people were able to test all of these ideas and find that they were not real.

So yeah, skepticism is both generative and also nihilistic at the same time. And as you were saying, it is a tight rope.

RABINOWITZ: Yeah. I mean, so you got the pre-Socratics, right? They were doing a kind of science, trying to theorize about the physical nature of the world. Socrates himself then comes along and a lot of what Socrates is doing is, oh, you’re an expert in something. Let me ask you questions about it to prove that you don’t actually know what the hell you’re talking about.

So there was that skepticism of expertise and the direct inquiry built in from the beginnings of philosophy. And again, for [01:09:00] better and like I, I think it’s for better and worse in my opinion Because yeah, it, it opens people up to new ideas. It creates new spaces for ideas, but it also makes them resistant to certain ideas and it makes it harder for them to seed kind of epistemic authority to other individuals and trust other individuals.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Because other people’s experiences are also real. And I think that that’s, that’s the core thing that people who have this, you know, self-centered epistemology, that they, they don’t, you know, that’s the thing. We gotta get people to realize that other, other minds are real, other experiences are valid and other ways of thinking you know, they can be more right than yours. And that’s,

RABINOWITZ: Up to a point.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Up to a point. Well yeah, like, it, it, and these are, yeah, it’s uncomfortable. And, and, but at the same time, it can also be freeing, I think, as well. And that’s, you know, one of the things [01:10:00] that you talk about on your podcast a lot as well, and that’s why it’s called Embrace the Void.

Like what do you, what do you mean by that?

RABINOWITZ: Oh, I mean, many, many things by that, that’s a very high weirdness phrase. I, I, I later realized you know, embracing the void, the show originated as a way to cope with living in the worst of all possible timelines. We theorize that we are now stuck in. And it, you know, it’s about, so, so one of the, one of the ideas there would be abiding or attachment or non-attachment, right?

I don’t know if you can even see the tattoo. Oh, it’s weird. Oh, there we go. Abide. Right, which is Lebowski. It’s Daoism. And it’s the idea of like, yeah, you’re living in a terrible situation. You have to some extent accept that while also trying to change it. You know, non-attachment I think is a really meaningful approach to coping with reality.

but it has to go hand in hand with acting to try to improve things for people. [01:11:00] So, you know, it can be embracing the void between us. There are gaps between all of our minds that make it difficult for us to have direct interaction and direct understanding of each other. And so making peace with that you know, it means, it means lots of weird things to me.

SHEFFIELD: Well, and people can definitely check out what you mean by that on, on, on your podcast. I think we’ll we’ll leave it there for so it’s been a great discussion, Aaron. So, where do you want people to follow you on social media if, if they choose to do so?

RABINOWITZ: Yeah, sure. You can check out my podcasts, embrace the Void and Philosophers in space where we just talk about science fiction and philosophy a bunch. Very straightforward and you can find me on Blue Sky at ETV Pod. We’ve also got a philosophers in space Facebook group if people want to come hang out there.

SHEFFIELD: Okay. Sounds good. All right. Encourage everybody to do that. Thanks.

RABINOWITZ: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for having me, Matt. This was fun.

SHEFFIELD: Alright, so that is the program. Thanks a lot for joining us for the discussion, and you can always get more if you go to Theory of [01:12:00] Change show where we have the video audio on transcript of all the episodes.

And if you would like to become a paid or free subscriber, you can do that. If you go to Theory of Change Show, you can subscribe on Substack and you can also stay in touch on Patreon at patreon.com/discover Flux. And if you’re watching on YouTube, please do click the like and subscribe button so you can get notified whenever there’s a new episode.

Thanks a lot, and I’ll see you next time.

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Everywhere in the news it seems, people are talking about artificial intelligence. The executives at the various companies keep saying that they’re just a few months away from a program that can think as well or better than a human. Whereas on the opposite side, a legion of critics are saying that AI is a giant scam with no value at all.

But underneath this debate is an even larger question. What are minds? And do we even know what it means to think like a human?

No one has final answers to these questions, but some are better than others. Psychology and computer science have plenty to say about the capacity to do things, but if we want to understand minds better, it makes sense also to look at biology, because biology has been studying living systems, behavior, and cognition for a lot longer than computers have been around.

I’ve been working behind the scenes on a lot of this stuff recently, and as I continue to roll out some of my ideas publicly, I wanted to bring on some people to the show here to discuss some of their ideas as well, because these are really important questions that are worth taking seriously, regardless of whatever your position is on them, they are ideas that don’t just stay in the lab. They shape how we build our technologies, how we write our policies, and how we understand ourselves.

On today’s program, I’m joined by Johannes Jaeger. He’s a biologist and philosopher who has published extensively in cognitive science and he advocates what’s sometimes called an an enactivist approach to mind, that is they are something that our bodies are doing and not something like a magical spirit or something like a software that you can pop in and out to some other device.

The video of our conversation is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.

Related Content

• Experience creates minds, not the reverse

• What’s going on with Pete Hegseth’s jihad against Anthropic?

• Chatbots are more likely to give bad answers because they’re trained to provide an answer, no matter how incorrect

• The reality of other people’s minds is the root of so many political conflicts

• AI content is not going to go away, we should have some realistic norms for how to use it

• Mediocrity and ‘satisficing’ are what complex systems do

• The strong link between wanting to defy social norms and belief in disinformation

Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

06:15 — Cognition is mostly an unknown unknown

16:48 — The return of behaviorism

30:28 — Reality is always mediated by experience which makes it not externally computable

39:28 — The accidental dualism of mind-as-software

44:19 — Cargo cult philosophy and Jeffrey Epstein

52:34 — Meta-modernism and technology for life

01:00:44 — The real singularity is whether humanity can learn to live together

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: And joining me now is Johannes Yeager. Hey, Yogi, welcome to the show.

JOHANNES JAEGER: Hi Matt. Thanks for having me on.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, this is going to be a really good discussion. And I’ve written and published things on these topics but I haven’t done a lot of podcasting on them. So you’re kind of the first one to kind of get, get my audience into my, my podcast audience into these cognitive science topics that I’ve writing about.

So let’s maybe start though with so you were trained as a, as a, a biologist, and that’s your, your academic certifications, but that’s, that’s not where your heart lies.

JAEGER: I’ve probably always been more of a philosopher, but I did start my career as an experimental lab biologist studying developmental and evolutionary biology, and then moved on to become a mathematical modeler. And I was always interested in the kind of methods that I was using and to sort of reflect on them.

So I guess I was always a bit more of. Philosopher, a conceptual thinker. And what I’m doing right now is a bit weird because I think I’m still doing biology, but I’m doing it using philosophical methods. So I’m sort of interested in concepts, conceptual problems in biology, and thinking about how we do biology and how we think about life at the moment.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, and that’s really important at this point in human history, I think, [00:04:00] because philosophy as a discipline is kind of the origin of all-- I mean, literally, this is true, like philosophy is the origin point of all sciences.

It, they, they came out of it you know, going back all the way to Plato’s Academy and all the o other various, places that people, started up afterwards.

And you know, and, and, and so now, we’ve had this, this, this new discipline or meta discipline, if you will, called cognitive science. And this is, you know, it is such a, because we don’t, we don’t know fully how, how minds work or brains work or what even how we can know anything, like it is just a lot of this is so unclear, experimentally because it’s hard to quantify a lot of this stuff.

Because first you have to, you have to know what you’re quantifying before you can quantify something. like that’s, that, that’s really one the what it comes down to. And, and so biology and, and, even computer science and and psychology like are all having to become a lot more philosophical, I think, because, you know, as we started are starting to get more serious about trying to build things that can be more autonomous.

That we have to figure out, well, what makes something autonomous? That’s really what it comes down to.

JAEGER: I totally agree. I mean, the problem is that we don’t even know what life is and we don’t know what minds are. And in some ways I, it’s a bit provocative, but I joke sometimes that we know less about that right now than we did about a hundred years ago because we have these ideas about minds and bodies being machines and computers in particular that are extremely misleading.

I guess we’re going to talk about this in particular, so we have ideas that can actually put us further from the truth, even though we have amazingly improved technologies and techniques to probe into what life is. And it’s, minute is detail, but we’ve kind of lost the forest for the trees there a bit.

And I think [00:06:00] if we wanna make sense of all the data we’re producing and and also of course of AI that we’re going to talk about and the differences between those living systems and machines then we need to sort of zoom out and look at the big picture again.

Cognition is mostly an unknown unknown

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. And and, and we’ll come back to this repeatedly as a theme, but you know, overall the, the there, there, there’s this idea that, and I, and I hate to to quote him here, but Donald Rumsfeld, the former US Defense secretary, he had one good idea, which is that when you’re going into a situation there are the known unknowns and then there are the unknown unknowns.

And, and that’s the thing about science is that the, the paradox of science is that it actually increases ignorance at the same time that it increases knowledge. I, I mean that’s really-- and this is also why also I think why we see a lot of proliferation of conspiracy theories as well. Like there were no conspiracy theories of aliens abducting people until people theorize, oh, well what if there are planets out there?

And what if there are beings that live on those planets that could come here? So there were no alien abduction ideas before aliens were existing. But even in a more scientific sense, you know, like people trying to figure out, well, how does this chemical induce this type of behavior and what would happen if you did this?

And, you know, like there’s just, the more you know, the more you don’t, you know, the more you know that you don’t

JAEGER: I mean, Rumsfeld, I use these quotes in my philosophy course as well, funnily enough, because it’s really good to, to show you that what’s really important at this frontier of what we know is the question is how you set up your experiment and. It is extremely important to realize that this is not just some sort of, automatic process, but it’s something that you have to use creativity for judgment that we’re also going to come back to later on.

So this is the part of science where you [00:08:00] need to use your own intuition, school intuitions, and there’s no way around that. So it’s not right to see everything we do in science and the subjects that we study as pure algorithms or sort of rule-based systems. This is just not how nature works because it’s not how our experience works.

And this is where I think the work that you’ve shared with me in cognitive science and my work on something called Real relevance realization, really overlaps strongly that the first step that a living being has to do to get to know its world, is to identify in that world what is important, what is relevant to it.

And that is not a computational problem. This is something that we can go into detail about. But this is huge because that means that the intelligence of a living being, no matter how simple it is fundamentally different from what we can achieve in, in machine intelligence at the moment, no matter how sophisticated or even, impressively similar to what we can do with language or images the output of those machin machines may be.

So there are underlying differences that really count because they are also connected in the end to taking a responsibility for our actions. And this is another thing that machines obviously can’t do. So we need to sort of think much harder about the application of those technologies and how we are going to attribute responsibility to things that happen because of them.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, and, and the context that we’re having this discussion here is that we have cer seen the proliferation of a bunch of different large language models and other artificial intelligence systems as they’re called. And you know, I I, some people don’t like that term.

JAEGER: I have two suggestions very quickly there. So first of all, it should be, if it’s properly used, it should be not AI, but IA intelligence augmentation. So a technology that augments our own intelligence. And the second is, I call it algorithmic mimicry. This is not something that’s going to catch on, [00:10:00] but it’s the algorithm mimicking, imitating what human beings can do.

But it’s, a simulacrum, it’s not the real thing. And we can go into that, what that means as well. But it’s just superficial. and then, some of the AI bro have turned this around and said, oh, our brain is not that sophisticated. But if you actually understand the nature of a living being, that, that is probably very likely not true.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. That’s right. And, and, and so just for, just to give an overview though, for people who you know wanna get a bit up to speed or they never read the articles article essentially, you know, a large language model is a computer program that will, that is trained on, like a whole bunch of data is put into it into files, and then it classifies everything in the relationships between the words.

And says these words are in this broader topic, and some, and this is, these are called features often or, or they’re called vector, vector space relationships. And then essentially, so when you, when you type in a question, what it does is it breaks down your query into what are called tokens but they, which is like a sub word, and then anyway, analyzes the relationships with all kinds of different ways.

And then says, okay, well, to ans this question is about these topics. Statistically speaking, this is what it’s about. And then I’m going to respond using these statistically correlated words in these topic areas constrained by these rules alignment rules of grammar or facticity, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But these are not you know, these, these rules. Externally imposed. And I, and I, and I think that that’s is an important thing for, for people to get. So like there, there is this concept, they do have a concept of alignment and it’s good, and it’s the only reason why you can make any sense of the stuff that they say.

But these are, these are externally imposed requirements [00:12:00] by humans in order to make the outputs make sense because otherwise they would not make sense.

JAEGER: Yeah, so that’s really important no matter how complicated they are, or even if those models are post trained in the reasoning reasoning models. That’s another really misleading name. What the model in the end does is it reproduces patterns that it’s recognized in a dataset or in a, reasoning exercise after the main training step.

So basically there is no semantics, there is no understanding. It’s just patterns. So we can call that syntax. So there is no semantics. And then of course, there is also no action from such a model. So the software and the hardware remain just in like a traditional algorithm, strictly separated. So the software runs on the hardware, but it doesn’t change the hardware.

And so if you compare just these kind of aspects to a living system, all of the meaning the semantics comes from inside the organism, or better put from the interaction the organism has with its environment. While in, in the algorithm it’s put. Into, first of all the way the training data set is set up, that’s done by humans, it’s curated and there’s a lot of human meaning that goes into the formatting of that training data set.

Second of all, the way that the target functions are set and then third of course, the prompt that the human is giving the algorithm when it interacts with it. So this is where the meaning of the answers that you get from a LLM come from everything internal is pattern, is very complex, pattern reproduction.

And, sometimes people use this, term called stochastic parrots. I, don’t think it’s a very good term because it, or also some, sometimes what I think is a better way to think about it is a very complex tool that you can use to make sense for yourself, but you as the human user have to be there for sense to arise from this interaction that you have with the machine.

The other way, it’s not the same. So there’s no person in there if you, [00:14:00] if there is no Chachi PT between prompts, right? it just exists as a, patterns of magnetic bits on a heart disk. But it doesn’t really have a process state. While, as you also point out in your own work, a human mind or any living being is a process that constantly updates its state in relation to the environment.

And that’s where experience come comes from. So basically what that means is that none of these algorithms can experience anything. And they are in that sense, not true selves. They don’t have subjective experience in that sense. It just doesn’t make sense to ascribe that to them. And the next question is then, so, so basically this is a pattern producer, a very complex pattern, producers that’s put in a very complex environment with people.

In the training, meaning put into it in the training data set, in the prompt, et cetera, et cetera. And then it works in an environment on the internet. It interacts with other algorithms, it interacts with people. So this is not traditional computation, but it is still the execution of rule-based instructions one by one in the end, even if that happens in a massively parallel way.

And there is hardware, there is a code base, and, these rules are set from the outside. There’s a training set. Everything is pre-given and supplied from the outside while the organism. And you also have a beautiful account of that in your work creates its own self through experience through itself.

So you cannot make an organism. The organism has to make itself, and that is the very definition of a living being. It is a physical system that manufactures itself. That means it produces all the parts that it needs to function. And relates them and assembles them in a way that is functional, that is conducive to its existence.

Its further existence. So you’re basically always working as an organism towards staying alive. [00:16:00] If you sleep, if you’re in a coma, you still, your cells work to be alive. While, it’s obvious that no, not even the most complex algorithmic system that we’ve created does that. You can just save it on a heart disk and then restart it.

But it’s just fundamentally not the same thing. So everything that’s human-like about these algorithms that doesn’t come in, through like some internal interactions, but it comes through, these constraints, these alignment constraints that you were mentioning before that we put in to begin with, but we put them in, such an indirect way.

There’s such a big gap between the person who creates the dataset, the training dataset, and the person who uses the algorithm that we don’t see these things and it seems lifelike to. We’re fooling ourselves if we think that.

The return of behaviorism

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and that does raise the idea of that used to be very common in, in psychology of the school of behaviorism of, of BF Skinner that basically had this idea that, well, okay, we don’t, we can’t, well, let’s not bother trying to, to, to hypothesize what is, what’s going on inside of minds.

Let’s just only look at the outputs of, of human actions. Like, what are people doing? What are they saying? Because nothing else is measurable. Nothing else is ultimately real, perhaps. People are just machines. Like, and, and so that. That mentality was quite popular, for a, a while or in the mid 20th century through Skinner and other people like him.

And eventually people realize that if that wasn’t, it couldn’t explain enough in part because the, you can have the same behavioral outputs with totally different intentions. So, and, and a perfect example of that would be within if you live in a totalitarian dictatorship where you are required to praise the leader.

And so, lots of people had that reality, [00:18:00] so they would praise the leader and say that he was great. And it was always a he notably, and they would always, you know, but, but they didn’t mean it. But they had the same behavior output.

And so. That eventually most of psychology kind of moved beyond behaviorism, but now we’re seeing a return to it with this idea of computational functionalism, which is the idea, well, the only thing that really matters is, is, is the outputs of system. So the, the so-called turing test as well is, is a really bad example of that, unfortunately.

JAEGER: No, it’s true. So, but, so there are a few things that happen here. So first of all, whenever you go and you speculate behind the behavior of a machine nowadays people say you, you’re making a metaphysical argument and metaphysics is this sort of bad word for a hundred years now already.

And that’s something we don’t want. But the funny thing is that the assumption, the very assumption that the human body. The mind is a machine. It’s metaphysical it’s completely unproven. It’s just an assumption, which if you look into the history is actually quite funny and recent.

So, so the whole idea that beings human beings in the world itself are machines is only about 400 years old. Descartes, we can date it. This to about 1642 when Decart published two essays that stated these two things exactly. So, so he declared all living beings Automata, and he declared the world a machine.

And the machine was, of course, at the time, high tech was the clock. And they had all these really fancy clocks with ORs and everything in the cathedral so people could see them. That was like the computer technology of the time. And they said, okay. Of course the universe is like, a talk work.

And the same thing is happening again right now in recent times. And it’s only about 30 years old 40 maybe by now, and not more that the world is a computer, which is really funny because the theory of computation [00:20:00] is about a human activity. It’s about making calculations with pen and paper according to fixed rules.

That is the definition of what computation is. And based on this a guy called Alan Turing managed to build a universal machine that could basically solve all logical problems that you would pose to it that were solvable. That’s the universal touring machine. So that’s a model of a universal machine, a universal problem solver.

And that’s. Also notice this is about problem solving. Okay? So then World War II came along, and after that, we somehow switched to the idea that our own thinking is like, that is computation. Okay? So because we built all these computers became an everyday technology. It was the best technology we have ever developed.

And they were built to emulate the human capacity of problem solving. But problem solving is a tiny thing of what you’re doing. I mean, we’re not talking about motivations and emotions that need to arise from inside your body. They can’t be programmed into you. And then the other thing is we don’t, we’re not talking about that thing that we were talking about in the very beginning of our conversation.

That you have to first point out what is important to you. That is not a problem to be solved. That’s something you need to do as a motivated being a being that is motivated to survive. Then things become important and unimportant and relevant to you, and that is not a computational problem. The idea that a living being is ca capable of judgment and of reframing problems.

And that’s what we call creativity. That is outside what we understand by computation. So we’ve come up with a model of something humans do. And so we mistake this model, which is more a model of how we logically explain the world with how the world actually works. Or you can think of this as the ultimate mistaking the map for the territory.

Okay? Somebody once said it was a computer scientist. The problem with computer science that it’s territory is a map. Okay? It’s studies, [00:22:00] a theoretical subject and so, but people are now o only in the last few decades coming to this idea that everything in the world is computation. And this is crazy because your experience.

Your subjective experience your motivations, your drives your ability to judge, your ability to be creative are fundamentally not computational in nature.

SHEFFIELD: No, they’re not. And, and, and, and the, and that’s the thing, like the, you know, saying that everything is computable or should be that’s just focusing on just one aspect of, of human activity, one activity which is, you know, s serialized, formalized logic and saying, well, that’s all we do. But everybody knows that is not what all you do as a person and or what anyone else does.

Like, we, we are so much more than that. But, you know,

JAEGER: I wish everybody knew that’s the problem. Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I think instinctively everybody thinks of themselves it’s that way, but even, and even the tech bros I would say they would, you know, if you cut them if you took that out of the context of computing, they would, they would admit that.

You know, and, but the, there is kind of a, and, and, and this, this distinction or this idea of, of, of computation or computability it, it kind of bifurcated western philosophy in a lot of ways between what ended up, and these are, are bad terms, frankly. But the terms that people use are, are analytic philosophy and phenomenology philosophy, and, you know, and, and so the computer science largely became reliant on analytic philosophy. And then the phenomenological people, they kind of, a lot of them became kind of anti technology almost Luddite is, or, you know, even getting into [00:24:00] mystical stuff and in, in some of them in very bad ways, like Martin Heider as an example.

So, you know, like, and so the, the both sides were kind of missing what the other one got, right? I would say that they both, they, they, they, they both had good points, but they also had bad points. And that, that, that’s kind of where I think Western philosophy kind of went wrong, is that it, it tried to split these two things off.

JAEGER: Here’s the weird thing, right? Everything we know about the world comes out of the experience that some human being or maybe one of our ancestors had. And in the case of humans, because we have language and we’re social beings, we can share those views of the world as well. So we have a collective sort of imagination.

About the world, but everything we know comes out of this subjective experience that we have a really hard time understanding with our abstracted theory because this is the act of abstraction. So we, by making knowledge objective from subjective to objective, we have to put them into language. We have to then put the theories into numbers, testable statements, and that those are huge steps of abstraction.

And then the next step is that we confuse those theories, these abstractions that describe the world with the world itself, which is just that experience that we have. Right? And so I, I side here with the phenomenologists that say experience is primary and we have to sort of examine also eastern meditation practices that are trying to get through the conceptual layer that we have.

We are very strange creatures on this planet because we have this massive reliance on language and both, these traditions of philosophy. Of course, philosophy itself depends on language. So, Wittgenstein, famous Viennese philosopher once said, whereof, you cannot speak thereof. You shall be silent.

But that is a huge problem because as you and I explore in our work, all we do at the abstract level is deeply grounded in a [00:26:00] lot of stuff that’s going on. Underneath that is beneath the level of the conceptual level, the abstract level, it’s direct experience. The idea that we cannot directly experience anything without language is absurd.

We do that all the time. But what we are aware of as self-reflective human beings is in the abstract level. So if you want to understand where this really basic level comes from, and then it’s actually useful to go much lower to simpler organisms. And there’s a great book by Kevin Mitchell, it’s called Free Agents.

That is exactly arguing that you can’t. Understand, easily understand all these sorts of experience by starting from the human experience because it’s very complicated. So let’s sort of look at what kind of bacterium, the simplest

Behaviorism and computational functionalism

JAEGER: living cell on earth experience itself. And it has a sort of, funnily enough, it has the ability to judge in a very simple way.

It’s not sitting around, there’s no bacteria philosopher or anything like that, but it can go for the sugar and avoid the toxins. So it has of course, evolved to do that. It does it very mechanistically. But every once in a while, those sort of preferences, those value systems, those interactions with the environment they change because we evolved from something that probably looked very much like a simple bacteria.

So at some point in its career, it must have been able to do something unexpected. I mean, unexpected, like that is completely not formalize in advance. This is the work by biologist Stuart Kaufman, one of my co-authors, and he calls this the adjacent possible evolution and life in general. The behavior of organisms is always going into new spaces that we haven’t been able to imagine before they reformulate problems.

It’s a truly creative process that you cannot just put in a bunch of equations and play it like you play an algorithm in a computer. And that’s the whole point of evolution and life. It is to break the rules. Of course it still follows the rules most of the time, but it is able [00:28:00] to do that and that is what makes living systems alive.

And they can only do that. This is where it becomes a bit complicated because they are self manufacturing systems, so they built themselves and so they can in a way decide whether they built themselves in this way or in that way. Okay. Only if we have mistaken our abstractions, our theories about the world for the real thing.

Can we think this is not real? So there have been several places in history of science. Famously Lala was a, lala was a guy in the very early clockwork stage of our science that said, okay, if the world is like a clockwork, everything has to be predetermined. And he called this the he called up this demon that could look into the universe from the outside and sort of see the universe and then predict its whole future.

And this idea is coming back now with the idea that the whole universe is a computer. It’s the same thing again. A demon who sits outside the universe can predict everything and so can manipulate everything. And we can then engineer the whole future of the universe. But there are two problems now.

So one is this demon is not part of the world itself. So it’s basically, God, it’s not a scientific. Or a natural entity. Right. And the other thing is that, of course, what the people who believe that the world is a computer and the mind is a computer want to do, is to control it from within. They think they can control their own minds, their own world.

Although we are only this tiny part of the universe, and we certainly don’t understand it well enough to manipulate it in this way, we, and we see that there’s evidence for this. This is not just speculation. Every time we interfere in a complex system, there are unintended consequences. And I mean, every time, this is one of the most robust empirical findings that science.

Has made over the last 400 years you interfere, something goes wrong. Okay? We know that from everyday life as well. So unexpected things happen all the time. And this is only [00:30:00] possible if you let this idea go, that the universe is somehow calculable is a computation, is controllable is predictable which is, and I want to come back to that, a purely metaphysical assumption.

There is no evidence that the universe is like that. Not a single shred, but that’s always glanced over and this whole view is kind of sold as the only reasonable view there is, right? So that’s how that works,

Reality is always mediated by experience which makes it not externally computable

SHEFFIELD: yeah, absolutely. And, and, and this is why in my own work, why I think it’s important to structure a philosophy through a, an access to the external world. So, you know, in my view, everything is, there is an externality, and that exists regardless of what we do or where we are or who we are, even if we exist at all.

But we don’t have direct access to all we can access is our local externality. And then within that only what we is perceptible for us within it. So there, like if you’re a bee and you see a flower, you see lines that show you where the you know, the, the, where you can get the pollant, or I’m sorry, get the the nectar from, and, you know, but if you’re a human and you look at that flower, there’s no lines on that flower.

It’s just a red, it’s just a red rose. And so, but, so it’s outside of our perceptible externality and then it’s nested even further is our percepted externality. So that’s what we, of what we can sense that we actually register in our minds and say, okay, this is here and this is, this is like that.

And so, you know, that’s but a lot of this, this worldview that we’re talking about here, this computational functionalism, it doesn’t draw any of these distinctions. It, it thinks, no, there’s an objective reality. And we can, when we have scientific laws Yeah. That we can model it and we know what it is.

And, and, and yet this [00:32:00] is despite the entire history of science, show you that’s not true. That is not true. You know, and, and, and, and that it’s not just quantum physics, you know, talking about how ev everything is literally solid objects do not exist. So there’s that. But it is, it’s even beyond that, you know, like every, every single fundamental scientific field shows that there, there are, there are always new discoveries that completely upend everything.

And, and, and, and yet we still have people with this, this sensibility that no, no, there is objective reality. And I can find it because I’m so

JAEGER: Yeah. And often people are afraid of a slippery slope that leads us into this idea that everything that postmodern idea that we have nowadays especially also in the political right, that you, anything goes whoever has shouts the loudest has the right view. And this is extremely dangerous because.

What we’re saying here is not that, but what we’re saying is that our knowledge of the world is grounded in millions of years of interactions of us and our ancestors In with an externality that you called it the perceptive externality I call it an arena. It’s also called the umwelt, which is just German for environment.

But it basically means that the perceived environment, the things you can see and experience it all, and that is beyond your control. It’s not that you can just claim that it’s like this or that. It’s not it is a certain way and you interact with it and you basically go out and you try things out and you find out, and that’s how science works still.

And it’s very robust, but it never ever gives you an infallible, which means. A complete or perfect view of the world. And so this assumption that the whole universe could be a simulation, for example, and we just live in a simulation that leaves two questions hugely unanswered. That’s first of all who is the simulator, and that’s just God again, I’m sorry, that’s a supernatural being.

So this is a religious idea. It’s not a scientific idea. And the other thing is, of course, how do you get experience in a [00:34:00] simulation? I want to know, so I want a scientific explanation why I experience speaking to you right now. And I am me, and this is where it starts. And from that, I make abstractions once again.

And this is called The Blind Spot by Adam Frank Marcelo Gliser. And Evan Thompson wrote a really good book about this. This is a strange loop, a really weird thing that we go from our subjective experience to these abstractive theories. And then we suddenly mistake those theories for the real thing, like physicists who believe.

That their equations, the shorting wave equation is the only real thing there is in the world comes out of the equation that’s just upside down. That’s map not territory. And the same thing for computation. Computation is a way to describe the world. It’s not the way the world is. So, for example, in a famous example I think it was a philosopher, Hillary Putnam who came up with it first, the waterfall.

Does it compute something? You can make it compute something. You can make the water run in different ways and do computations for you. Or you can simulate it in a computer. But you won’t get wet standing under that simulation. And that’s something that is so absolutely forgotten very often, which is amazing.

I say, it walks like a duck. It walks like a duck. But you can’t make canara Lauren from it. And for sure it’s just a simulation. It isn’t real. So the question that I am really interested. Right now is why do our theories fail to describe that difference? Right? And I think we have a really fundamental, again, this is philosophy.

We don’t understand how an organism causes itself because this is a mathematical problem, right? I mean, nothing is supposed to sort of be its own product. And so you have this circularity I think it was Aristotle 2,500 years ago, who outlawed this in analogical arguments already, rightly so, because it’s a circular argument literally.

And it doesn’t make any sense. But the problem is that nature doesn’t stick to that logic that we have. Okay? [00:36:00] And it, it makes circular arguments all the time. And they don’t go around in a circle. They construct themselves. So they go up in a spiral, right? So they spiral in new directions.

And this is how you can imagine. Living beings. These are processes that work together to construct each other and maintain each other’s existence in this way. And they spiral up in these different directions. And this is what we call evolution in the end. And this is extremely unlike any machine we’ve ever built.

So the world is not like a machine. And also the machines we’ve built, they are something really strange. They don’t have anything to do with how the world out there really works. And this is something we’ve forgotten, and this is why I joke that we understand the mind and the body less nowadays than we did in the past.

Because a hundred years ago, nobody would’ve come up with this idea that everything is a computation. Because even the most rational people, Charles Babbage or Condor Savin before who thought about the nature of rationality and intelligence set, intelligence and rationality are about judgment mainly.

And then only rule-based computation. Secondarily, you have to follow rational arguments once you’ve decided what the problem is that you want to solve. This was always there until about World War II and the development of a little before that of computation theory that led to us forgetting that and thinking that thinking is computation.

That’s a bad sentence, but you know what I mean. It’s it is. When you think, first of all your LLM does not think the way a human being thinks, not at all. There’s a fundamental difference and no matter how many data points you add to the training set, no matter how more complex you make the model itself, it will not be able to think.

It will never, and you can quote me on that, be able to think as long as we stay in this paradigm of algorithms, software running on hardware. Of a specific architecture that we are, we’re running on [00:38:00] right now, and that’s just something that is not ever heard in public conversation about these problems.

So all these claims that we have, conscious AI, or we’ll have it soon, they’re completely overhyped and mostly also completely delusional. A good example is Epstein’s favorite Yha Bach, who’s been claiming that you can emotions, consciousness are a secondary consequence of computation.

Again, this is, if you look at this work complete one of the most obvious map and territory confusions. That turn his entire work upside down. And you can create machines that act as if they have emotions. But the funny thing is, a programmer always has to program the personality type in open claw mold book where we’re in the the news with these agents.

And you have to have, they have a soul file. I really like that. So the thing is actually called a soul file where you have to write in the personality. So it has to bootstrap itself from that thing that you as a human being with human defined words, define the soul of this algorithm. And then it goes out and it acts in autonomous ways.

And we say, oh look, that’s what you meant by the alignment constraints before. So, we basically made it do act in an intelligent way. We programmed that into it and now it acts in a seemingly intelligent way. And we say, oh, we can do that on its own. No, we can. We designed it so we can do it basically.

The accidental dualism of mind-as-software

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

Yeah exactly. And well, and, and this idea though of, of, of mind as software, I think that’s, is such a pernicious idea and, and wrong hit. And it also undermines completely what the people, at least a lot of the people who came up with it we’re trying to do when they need it. So, so Daniel Dennett, the, the late philosopher and cognitive scientist, he was the one that really kind of put this.

Into the computational functionalism and, and, and mind as software. He called it a [00:40:00] virtual machine. The mind, the, the mind is a virtual machine that is, is made out of your neurons. And, and that then he didn’t understand how virtual machines work, I would say. ‘cause like I deal with them. I am a, I am a, a cybersecurity professional as well.

And like, that’s not what a virtual machine is like. They are not sep They they are, they are separate from the soft, from the other software on the, on the computer. So like the whole point is they’re not interfacing with, with the lower level processes, whereas your mind, of course is and so, so this doesn’t work.

But the other problem is that when, when you, when you have this metaphor of mind as software instead of mind as execution statement or the, the interaction of, of beliefs and of of, of heart, of, of body, when you, when you just thinking of mind as software, what you’re inadvertently doing is you are creating metaphysical dualism when you do that.

And, and, and we see this, and I think probably the biggest example of how mind as Software really creates dualism is looking at Daniel Dan’s former partner, Michael Levin, the biologist, who has done a lot of incredible cellular biological research, which, you know, really does show the way that a lot of cellular entities can in fact, you know, discriminate with their environment and, and understand in a rudimentary fashion how to navigate themselves and structure and respond to things like he’s done a lot of great research on that.

But he’s taken this idea of Mind is Software, which he got from Dennett and wrote several pieces with Dennett about and then is now saying, well, actually no Mind is software is. Of Platonism and dualism. And so like the, the, the entire point of computational functionalism was supposed to say, well, we’re against metaphysical stuff.

We’re against, you know, spiritualized stuff. And now here it is being used to support the idea [00:42:00] of supernatural substances and entities.

JAEGER: So, so this is completely crazy. So, so, and it’s a wonderful example because if you start with some logic sounding premises and then you come to completely bizarre conclusions. So before the platonic domain of minds that impinges on our domain as patterns in your brain Levin came up with the idea that sorting algorithms are thinking have experience, and so on and so forth.

So if your framework, so this is what we said right in the beginning, what we forget nowadays, we think science is just a bunch of people doing some experiment that came out of nowhere that was rationally decided on, and they find out the objective truth. This is not how it works. The way we do science is we have a model.

We have an imagination. We have an expectation of what’s going to happen, so we ask specific questions. We use specific concepts to address those questions and do experiments. This is all an interdependence between thinking about the things we’re doing, experiments about, and doing the experiments.

So if your framework of concepts gives you absurd interpretations like that, shouldn’t you go back and think, okay, maybe my basic assumptions are wrong, but that since they were indoctrinated with this idea that it is science all the way down, there is no metaphysics, so there’s no metaphysical assumption underneath this idea that everything is computational.

This computational is, or computational functionalism idea they don’t see anymore that this was also just made up. And that’s a map. It’s an abstract map already that comes out of the philosophy that’s underneath the science. Funnily enough, it was Dan Dennett who himself said there’s either science that has taken, that there is no science without metaphysical assumptions.

There’s only science that is aware of those assumptions or. Science that hasn’t taken those assumptions on board. And Levin is a perfect example of someone who’s absolutely clueless that his basic assumptions are completely inconsistent. So when he starts going off on these tangents, he gets absurd results.

And you think, why would a [00:44:00] rationalist empiricist like him not bulk at this? But, it’s the dualism is fashionable again. Because we have a lot of very rich people that are very religious, suddenly again. So it is a good thing to say these things. I call it burner science, but I think Feynman called it Cargo Cult Science.

Cargo cult philosophy and Jeffrey Epstein

JAEGER: So what’s being done here? It’s cargo cult philosophy. Actually, it looks like it’s philosophy, but it’s really it doesn’t have any of the essential ingredients that good philosophy actually has. And this sounds a little harsh, but it’s really borderline fraudulent, the whole thing, because it’s really a way to tell a story to rich sponsors that then funnily enough, sponsor that kind of research.

You can see that from Nick Bostrom and the simulation hypothesis. I mean, with the whole Epstein files, people say, oh, he was just interested in, in, in special scientists, special thinkers. Well, you can see one bias that’s he mostly paid men, very few women. And the other thing is that all of those men that were sponsored by Epstein were working in certain directions, right?

And this what we’ve just been discussing, this idea that everything is computation that you can control. Everything that you can engineer and everything that you can become immortal through longevity and uploading your brain into the cloud. This is not just Epstein, this is now followed up by his also probably not quite clean successors like Peter Thiel and other people, Elon Musk, who are sponsoring the same people now that are, that were sponsored by Epstein.

And it’s always the same pattern. It’s about building a humanity that is, it’s transhumanism, basically building a better humanity, always in their own image, of course. Who wakes up in the morning and thinks everybody should be like me in the world, that would be absolutely horrific, right? But that’s the kind of thing.

And then, it’s about genetic engineering of humans. It’s about longevity research at the moment. They’re obsessed. It’s also psychopathological to want to live forever. And it’s it’s about uploading. So, so creating machines that are better [00:46:00] than us, more intel, super intelligent to use Nick Bostrom’s terms.

So, so it’s fundamentally eugenicist, that’s eugenic, he wants to create

SHEFFIELD: Well, and in Epstein’s case, literally he was a eugenicist. And he tried to inseminate it was horrible. I mean, if you read into the files, but these ideas of biohacking and what’s going on in these free cities, like Prosper Hour, people are ha trying their, they’re, experimenting on themselves.

JAEGER: So I don’t care. But, as long as they don’t use other people. But this is all driven by this ideology that is supposedly rational, okay? That’s why they think because they have this superiority. it’s, completely, cultish. It’s a cult. It’s a religion. And so I call this Trumpism in science.

So this is sort of, first of all, you make up a view of the world that you just believe in, and you pretend that it’s true. And then you invest so much money that, that, enough people believe it’s true. And that, as we may imagine both of us, it’s not going to go well because reality, there’s this book by David philosopher David Chalmers, he, it’s called Reality Plus, where he argues that virtual reality is just as real reality, which is true in some ways, virtual reality can affect the physical world, but you know, real reality has this one character.

It will kill you if you ignore it long enough. And virtual reality makes your life better on Cisco. Hey, you finally pulled the plug. You will be much better off in your real life than in virtual reality. So this is the difference. And David Chalmers is another great example of a by now I have to say grifter, that is, pandering to these people with the money and the people with the money they want.

What’s coming out of the Epstein scandal that’s not the files that’s not, restricted to that. They want, the humanity 0.2 0.0. Right? Because we’re not good enough for some [00:48:00] reason. And for me science has a completely opposite purpose. It has the purpose of making our human lives better.

Okay? It’s very old

SHEFFIELD: End up doing it together. End up doing it together.

JAEGER: Collectively improving everyone’s life. Okay. That’s always been a naive vision, I know, and in reality. But this is blatantly not the case here. So it’s a really sort of creepy thing. And I’m not saying these people are ill-intentioned.

Sometimes they’re quite anxious people because they think again, that everything they do is scientifically justified all the way down. There is no philosophy. That’s just rational thinking. And that’s crazy. Okay. That’s exactly completely forgetting about these aspects of intelligence like judgment, like creativity, but also emotional aspects and compassion and things like that, that are not computational.

And that should be driving you. It’s not a compassionate project at all. It’s, you can see that also with reactions by Yascha Bach, for example against his horrific things he said in in the. Files where he just says, oh, poor me. My career is now threatened and I’m the one who’s going to develop conscious AI.

He believes that his network framework is the thing that’s going to give us conscious AI, but it’s a completely mistaken and inconsistent framework. So he’s going to be disappointed and they’re anxious about this. So that’s why you see a lot of, sort of really hard push at the moment for this.

I think it’s all going to disappear in smoke, to be honest, the next few years or decades, because people will realize that, that these, it’s hubris it’s assuming that we can do things that we can’t, at least not without creating really devastating unintended consequences and isn’t the situation we’re in right now.

Just like a bunch of unintended consequences from climate change to the mass extinctions we’re creating to. Geopolitical breakdown to the, it’s all social media is disrupting society, not because we intended it to do that. Everything we see is unintended [00:50:00] consequences at the moment. So why should we, by switching that to turbo, by going hyper modern, not just modern, why should we be able to solve that problem?

We’re just going to create by, by accelerating everything, we’re going to create more unintended consequences. And one of those is eventually going to offer us completely, I’m sure. So

SHEFFIELD: And that would be before any you know, actual intelligent computer system would be existing.

JAEGER: Maybe, who knows? But I think so. And why would you create an actual intelligent, artificial agent? I think that’s the other question that I have here. Why don’t we ask ourselves why we do something? And an intelligent agent like that would’ve to be treated no longer like a machine, but like a being.

And if it’s actually smarter than us. Isn’t that a really bad idea? I mean,

SHEFFIELD: certainly could be, well, especially if you don’t. develop a, you know, a fully res, you know, a fully respecting theory of mind that would you know, w would be able to show, look, this is why humans still have value even if we’re not as smart as, as you, or whatever you is, or alien or whatever.

Like, and, and, and I, and I think that that is worth doing and we should do that philosophy work, and that’s part

JAEGER: I think yeah. No, I agree. Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: But you

JAEGER: but, if I may say, I mean, also what’s important is to design the interface better between us and the machine. So the machine serves in the end as not your usual hammer tool, but in the end it’s a tool for you to think better and to make better choices and, not the other way around.

So this is. Idea of the reverse center that the computer starts using you instead of you using the computer. It’s this, figure with human legs and a horse head, which is not ideal of course. And so it’s the metaphor for our technology taking care of us because, not because it wants to take over the [00:52:00] world, super intelligence.

There is no self, there is no will, there is no motivation. But it’s because of us human beings giving our agency a way to a machine that has none and has no creativity and has no judgment, has no ability to take responsibility.

SHEFFIELD: Well, and is owned by people who are that way also.

JAEGER: yeah. No, totally. I mean, that’s the other thing we haven’t talked about, but the combination of the current type style of capitalism that we have, especially in the US and this technology is probably extremely unfortunate. And China as well, I.

Meta-modernism and technology for life

SHEFFIELD: Well, and that, yeah, I mean, and that is why, you know, my personal view is that, look, you know, these are, these are useful technologies in many ways. But they’re, they’re limited in what they can do. But, you know, there’s, there’s some ways that they are incredible. Like I have seen that they do work for computer code in some settings and they can be useful for that.

And other things, you know, like analyzing x-rays and things like that. But, but ultimately they, they, they’re not autonomous. they, and they, and they, and the way they’re architected, they won’t be. But you know, it’s, and that’s why it’s important for governments and for people who are, who support democracy to do more than just say, well, this is just stupid stuff.

You know, it’s nonsense. We, we should just get rid of it. We should ban it. Like you are not going to ban this stuff. That’s number one. Like, you will not ban it. Even if you could, you know, get your own country to ban it, people will just go to another country. So it’s not going to achieve anything, and you certainly won’t get a global treaty to it.

so let’s just take that off the table right now and understand that, look, we need to, to understand how to deploy these things in a way that is, that is humane. Because ultimately, as you were saying, you know, the science should be for humanity and, and not the other way around.

JAEGER: Yeah, no, I mean, I think this is, so this is where the second part of this conversation has to come in, and [00:54:00] that is we need this, these kind of thoughts that we were exchanging right now, these theories that we are developing both in amazingly parallel ways. I love your approach, by the way is a deep recognition of the difference between the living and the artificial at the moment.

So, so what’s important is that I’m not saying that it’s impossible to create a real agent. I think it’s going to come out of a biology lab and it’s going to be a disaster, but it is possible to do this. I have two requests for humanity right now. One is just to, if we develop a new technology, can we.

Stop the accelerationist bullshit and sit down for a second and think, why are we doing this? What is the purpose? I really think we’ve lost that completely. So we’re, we have to go somewhere and we’re in a race to the bottom because of that. And the second thing is if we understand the nature of the living versus the non-living much better, then we need an attitude change.

Again, that’s philosophy. We really need a different attitude towards ourselves, towards the technology and towards the social systems that we’re embedded in. And we need to recognize that the ecological and social systems we are relying on are a part of the equation. And we’re not doing that right now, this entire.

Crazy spiral. And again it’s a constructive process. So this is it. It’s funny, it’s so human. It only a living system can create this kind of disastrous situation. The computer by itself, I repeat, the technology itself is not bad. It would’ve never done this by itself. It’s just the way that it’s employed void.

So this idea that, so first of all, we have this constructive processes that are the basic, the cell. Then we have multiple cells. Then this happens in your brain, right? Your brain is constructing the personality that you are, the individual that you are through your experiences in the same way that a cell is constructing itself.

And then societies have also, they’re not quite as integrated as organisms and minds, but they also have this sort of [00:56:00] constructive aspect to them. And we are the ones with the agency to change the direction of that construction. So I also don’t want to hear any sort of predictions that this is super, intelligence is in inevitable and we’re going to be replaced.

I don’t want to hear resistance is futile. It’s, you’re mentioning the Luddites before. The Luddites are much maligned, but they were a social movement that actually wanted a different kind of model for the possession of the means of production. They were not just stupid people breaking machines instead of going after the bosses.

They couldn’t go after the bosses, that’s why they broke the machines. So we have to find better ways, not just to break machines. I saw talk at the chaos communication conference that, that showed how to poison AI data sets. So I think there is a certain I don’t know, satisfaction to that maybe in such a situation, but it’s not very productive.

We need a better way. A constructive way. What’s happening right now? We’re deconstructing our societies, we’re deconstructing our relationships with each other. Through this technology. There is always talk about disruption. So the right has become incredibly postmodern and they will hate to hear that.

But so this idea that everybody’s entitled to their opinion, you can just say something and it’ll become true. But also the fragmentation of everything and this sort of it’s a deconstruction. Disruption is the word right? That all the Silicon Valley people use disrupt what you will.

But you have to construct something. Society has to get to this coherence again, where we’re constructing something together. This is what you learn from studying the mind and the organism. We have to find a kind of an organization for society that’s constructive again. And what we have right now is pure cancer growth.

You can compare it one to cancer. It’s out of control. Accelerationism is out of control. We need to slow down. How is that going to happen? I think it’s going to take a major break breakdown of systems for this to hit the awareness of enough people [00:58:00] that we need to go ahead. As you say I am not against going ahead.

I want us to go ahead carefully. Because in a complex system where you create unintended consequences, you need to test every step and see what consequences come up. If you just rush through it, these unintended consequences are going to fall in your head and kill you in the end. And this is what we’re doing and it’s a fundamental misunderstanding, not just of the nature of us, our relations with each other, the world, but the world itself.

We misunderstand the nature of the world we live in, and we have rarely been so much out of alignment between what we can actually do and what is actually working. And this is surprising maybe to hear for people because they think, it’s an amazing time to live through, technological progress is so fast, but it’s very limited in most.

Areas that are actually useful to people. Are we making progress in how to live together, how to provide basic needs for most people? Are we making progress in these kind of things? No, we have no, no way to value this. So we just value breakneck innovation because we have this stupid system that is venture capitalism right now, capitalism on steroids that needs to make a profit.

And this is by now the same thing in science. We idolize people. Let’s go back to our friend Mike Levin. So he’s a person who, before AI already published about 30 papers, a scientific publications a year. It’s probably more like 50 right now. And why is that?

Something that we admire, that there’s no way that this stuff is well done, well curated controlled, and now it open claw, and these autonomous, autonomous, a AI agents going around the production of unreliable vibe coded stuff is is going to be bearing as nothing can be trusted anymore. So we’re building software infrastructure that can’t be trusted. We’re building a scientific literature that can’t be trusted anymore.

Almost all submissions to computer science conferences now contain made up [01:00:00] references. And that’s a clear sign that they’re all written by AI. So science is getting into this mode where we’re writing publications by AI. We read them by AI. Why don’t we just go and have a beer? Okay. There is no point to this.

What is the point again? I want to ask what is the point of what we’re doing? I don’t know anymore. I wanna stop and think and breathe and say, what are we doing? This is a moment where humanity should really urgently do it. And of course, the way we set up our societies, this is the moment where we’re at least likely in our entire history to actually be able to do that, which leaves me a little clueless, to be honest.

But I guess the political guests on your podcast have better insights on that than I may have.

The real singularity is whether humanity can learn to live together

SHEFFIELD: Well, yeah, I mean these, these are real questions and, and that is why you know, sometimes I think of the political challenges and the societal epistemic challenges that we have. Those are the real singularity, which is how can humanity have a, a globally connected? Con informational space and survive because that we have to do that first before and, and anything else that comes after that, we’ll be able to handle that if we can get through this one.

And, and this is really what matters is, you know, understanding how can we take care of each other and how can we pa help each other know what truth looks like, or at least you know, what falsehood looks like because I, I, you know, that’s ultimately also what, what the other, one of the other kind of fundamental scientific principles that tends to get ignored.

And, and Carl Pop Popper is, was very good on that regard, is that he’s, you know, said basically, look. You can’t note anything for absolutely certain. So in that sense, the postmodernist were right in that nothing is [01:02:00] absolutely true because if it were, then you’re, if you, if that you’re, you’re to say that is to say that you are a model of something is that thing.

So that’s not right. But at the same time, we can know what falsehood is also, and we can know because it contradicts many other observations. And, and that’s, you know, getting that to be a scalable societal you know, belief and practice, like that’s, that’s how we can, can set humanity on the right path.

It isn’t, you know, in imagining this, you know, fanciful future of a, of a computer that, you know, does all our work for us. Yeah, sure. Look, that would be nice.

JAEGER: A hard problem. I mean, that’s, there’s B’S law that says it’s always 10 times easier to produce the bullshit than to, to to uncover it. But what you just said, like we have to construct again after deconstruction. So there’s a philosophy called meta modernism that’s saying we need to move on from deconstructing all our knowledge.

And, that was important in the 20th century. We were too sure of ourselves. And it’s still important today because what we described before, the accelerationism, all of that. It could be called hyper modernity. It tries to solve the problems we’ve created with our technology, with more technology.

And as I just said, I don’t believe that’s going to work. What we need is a, rethink of how we can establish ourselves in reality again. and there’s a project called meta Modernism, which is both a political philosophy. It’s not very well known yet, and and also a principle for doing a different kind of science that doesn’t treat the world as if it was a machine.

I’m writing a book at the moment. It’s called Beyond the Age of Machines. And this is about the kind of science we would need beyond those unreasonable actually assumptions. Now, you will always have some assumptions beneath your science, but you don’t have to claim they’re a hundred percent certain or solid, but you have to say they’re solid enough, they’re trustworthy.

And also they give us a much more humane and useful and fun world to live [01:04:00] in. I’m sometimes attack saying, oh, you, you’re building your philosophy just to build a world that you want to live in. I said, yeah, why would I want to build a world that I don’t want to live in? And I think this is paradoxically what’s happening a lot.

and it has something to do also with, the, kind of, nerdiness of this movement of, Silicon Valley that these people have a lot of grievances towards other people. And so they are sometimes I suspect even a bit resentful. And, they do this deliberately deliberately. And again, from the Epstein files and sometimes from other symptoms like Peter Thiel’s antichrist lectures and things like that, you realize that they are actually planning and afraid of the crisis that’s going to come.

And they’re planning with it. They, know it. They don’t actually see the world as just progressing any further. And then you can see all of this.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

JAEGER: In a, yeah. In a very, more, much more sinister light. And you can say these people are the control they’re working towards is also including other people because they basically treat the rest of humanity as machines, which is it’s not good philosophy, obviously, not just for logical reasons but for ethical reasons.

So this is really leading to, to some really nasty outcomes that could be much worse than what we have ever experienced before. And I’m not saying that this is willful destruction. I think these people are truly deluded in, in, in a lot of cases about how the world works. Yeah. And they overestimate their own ability to judge their own situation.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, and, and in Thiel’s case, I mean this is explicitly religious. Delusions I mean, read any number. I’m, I’m sure the audience probably, hopefully, but we’ll put a link to at least one of them to, if you haven’t read the any of these pieces on this stuff, this is seriously you know, religious, solitary but you’re right, Yogi that you know, that we, there, there has to be an alternative.

You can’t, [01:06:00] you can’t just simply criticize. And I think that that’s been kind of the, the, the loop that the progressive left has been kind of stuck in for so long that, you know, they, they, they, that a lot of them, you know, they, they’re, they’re against. They know what they’re against. So they’re against, you know, racism.

They’re against sexism, they’re against you know, capitalism or exploited capitalism, wherever you wanna say it. They’re against those things and, and their right to be against, you know, extraction, capitalism. And as to, to quote Cory Doctor again, you know, enshittification. That’s great to be against those things.

But you do have to have an affirmative vision because if you don’t then essentially the incompetence, the corruption, and the malignants of people like Donald Trump actually becomes an argument in their favor if you can’t present an alter. Because, because they can turn around and say, oh, well the reason why your life is terrible and why you can’t get a job, or, and, and why you’re addicted to drugs or whatever, is these people did it to you.

I didn’t do it. They did it. And, and, and, and there’s no, and if there’s no affirmative vision, then, then you can’t really defend yourself and, and you can’t. And more importantly, you cannot move forward in a positive way and have a future that is bright in your own mind. Because if you, if you don’t have a, a guiding star, then, then you won’t get anywhere.

JAEGER: I mean, I still do think that it’s hard to change things in the, state we are in right now because everything has become a sort of an immature popularity contest in this society. And I think this is this, a symptom of, universal capitalistic, neoliberal principles being applied where they shouldn’t be in, in science, in education, outside where they should be working and where they’re not useful.

And that creates, a, very unhealthy dynamic of these races to the bottom where everybody just has to go somewhere, even [01:08:00] if they’re not knowing where, they go. And also I mean, these are hard problems. So if you want a really difficult problem, you’re one of those nerds out there, then work on those societal problems.

They’re, actually much harder than even flying to Mars, which is hard enough. And you don’t want to live there, believe me. So, so why don’t you concentrate your efforts on actually understanding social dynamics. These are hard problems. You can’t solve them with your usual engineering mindset.

But even going through that challenge of going beyond your engineering mindset and trying to, to sometimes. Acknowledge your limitations and say, maybe we shouldn’t do this. But then still boldly go where, no one has gone before. But just a little more carefully than, or a lot more carefully than we’re going right now.

So that is a worthwhile sort of project because it, not only requires entirely new ways of thinking it, it requires new ways of doing science methods and forms of collaboration. Which is something I’m also interested in working on, where we have to work together and also harvest the differences between us.

We, we, there is no single solution to the kind of problems that we have right now. So we have to try out many different things with tolerance, but also good boundaries. Because what’s happened right now is that the boundaries have gone out of the window. Every anything goes. And we need to reestablish a structure and organization for our signs, for our freedoms in society.

And that’s the meta modern project. It’s saying you can only be individually free if there is a supporting and robust societal and environmental structure around you that allows you to be free. And I think that’s the, basic insight that we have to relearn on the political stage, not just to reform our politics, but everything from education to how we deal with health to, to science itself.

And that’s also one of the main thesis of my book that we can learn from the organism how it survives. The organism is basically a physical system [01:10:00] that shows us how you can extend your lifespan. So the, most ironic thing with this whole craze about the survival of humanity, going to the stars and, living forever.

Is that this drive the people who drive this are the ones who are most likely to, to jeopardize the future of humanity right now. And I’m sure they don’t intend to do that, but they are severely misguided and they are severely shortsighted and I have to say very often, a lot less intelligent than they think they are and are told constantly by the people around them.

They are just because they’re rich. And that’s a huge problem. I mean, these people live in a bubble. And I’m trying to remember, I think it was Nate Hagens who said, if you could only change the minds of the 1500 richest individuals on earth and make them really engage the problems that we have with all their rich richest, then we would have solved most of the problems that we have in, in, in, a few years.

But the, complex problem here again, is the societal problem. How are we going to work, make this work in practice with real people in the way? That we’re dealing with it with each other right now. So this, these are the real challenge that these, the most intelligent people on earth should be tackling.

But again, we’re measuring intelligence based on what IQ tests, problem solving. So you have these people that score high on a IQ test. They’re sometimes the most incredibly stupid people in, the sense of not being able to read the room, not being able to anticipate unintended consequences and not knowing what to do in any given situation.

So these are all forms of, knowledge, of intelligence that humans have that algorithms don’t have. So again, why are these people so obsessed with artificial intelligence? Because it’s most like. What they know as intelligence and they want to see that as, a good thing for the future of humanity.

I think it’s very limited. We have to step out of that narrow minded narrow focused thinking. Sometimes it’s called left [01:12:00] hemisphere thinking. I don’t think the neuroscientific evidence is very good that it’s really in the left hemisphere. But we have to do more wide boundary stuff again and sort of scan for consequences and, tread carefully instead of just rushing ahead with this ultra rational mode that is in the end, as I told you several times during this podcast, irrational at the bottom in its metaphysical assumptions,

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. That, yeah, that is the, that the unfortunate irony with that. All right, well, I think we’re, we’re going to have to do Yogi, we’re going to have to do a separate episode just on co cognitive science and minds because we got a, a lot more kind of meta political here, which is good and I liked it.

But we’ll, we will come back for people who might have been expecting us to go into more on the mines. We’ll do that in a separate episode

JAEGER: Oh, I’d love to come back. This was great. Thanks. Yes.

SHEFFIELD: Awesome. Alright, so why don’t you what websites do you want people to check out if they want to keep up with you?

JAEGER: my personal website is just Johannesyaeger.eu, all in one word, except for the EU, of course. And the scientific results are on a website called expandingpossibilities.org. And I have an art science project. It’s called The Zone. It’s almost impossible to Google it. So it’s the dash zone, a T because I live in Austria.

That’s that.

SHEFFIELD: Okay, sounds good. And you got the, and you got shirts, so I see you got one

JAEGER: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: All right. Thanks for joining me today.

JAEGER: All right. Thanks a lot, Matt. It was great talking to you.

SHEFFIELD: All right, so that is the program for today. I appreciate you joining us for the conversation, and you can always get more if you go to Theory of Change show where we have a video, audio, and transcript of all the episodes. And if you’re a paid subscribing member, you have unlimited access to all the archives.

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Episode Summary 

Each day’s news events seem to reinforce the cliché that truth is stranger than fiction, but the strangest thing of all is how so much of our current politics is quite literally based on fiction.

That isn’t an exaggeration. The right-wing oligarch Peter Thiel has named his military surveillance company Palantir after the crystal balls featured in The Lord of the Rings, he’s also repeatedly told people to look to mid-20th century science fiction for business ideas—never mind that many of those stories were dystopias. Likewise, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk named his AI chatbot Grok after a term used in a novel by the authoritarian capitalist Robert Heinlein.

Other Republican figures like fascist writer Curtis Yarvin, Vice President JD Vance, and activist Steve Bannon routinely reference The Lord of the Rings or even more explicitly reactionary novels like The Camp of the Saints. And who can forget Ayn Rand and her interminable character monologues?

Why is it that so many of today’s far-right figures seem to get their political ideas from fiction? There are a lot of reasons for this, but one of the biggest is that some of the most influential novelists like Heinlein or editors like John W. Campbell wanted their readers to do just that.

There is a lot to talk about here, and joining me to discuss is Jeet Heer, he’s a columnist at The Nation where he writes about politics and social issues, but he also tackles culture as well, including in his podcast, The Time of Monsters. One of the focal points of this episode is his 2014 book review of a Heinlein biography.

The video of our conversation is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.

Related Content

• In an age of fictionalized reality, we need literary criticism more than ever

• Why does ChatGPT lack consciousness? Because minds do not create experience, experience creates minds

• Antichrist America: Trump, Nietzsche and post-modern Republicanism

• To make a better technology future, we must first realize why we didn’t get the one we were promised

• Mediocrity just might be the organizing principle of minds, biological and synthetic

• What is ‘neo-reactionism’ and why is it so powerful within Trump 2.0?

• AI is not the main problem—how we use it can be

• The very strange intersection of Christian fundamentalism and techno-salvationism

• Grok’s ‘Mecha Hitler’ meltdown was the natural product of xAI forcing it to have a right-wing bias

Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

06:59 — Science fiction as a place for political experimentation

12:17 — Why far-right libertarians turned away from philosophy toward science fiction

21:34 — Editor John W. Campbell’s massive right-wing influence on sci-fi

30:16 — Engineering versus research science kind of overlaps politically for speculative fiction authors

37:47 — Is the political left missing the potential for AI as the perfect reason for a basic income?

40:40 — Robert Heinlein’s evolution from socialist to authoritarian capitalist

49:48 — Heinlein’s increasingly disturbing self-focused view of sexual liberation

54:34 — Jeffrey Epstein as the pinnacle of authoritarian liberation

01:04:11 — More humane sci-fi authors

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: And joining me now is Jeet Heer. Hey, Jeet, welcome to Theory of Change.

JEET HEER: Oh, it’s great to be on.

SHEFFIELD: Yes, it’s going to be a fun discussion today, I think. And we have the perfect news hook, which is that Elon Musk recently announced that he is basically abandoning his Mars focus with SpaceX to be focusing on a moon base. Which actually coincides with what he has said is one of his favorite novels of all time.

And one that you yourself have written about as well. So maybe let’s kind of start there, if we could please.

HEER: Yeah, no, I, think the novel was to is Robert Heinlein’s Moon is a Harsh Mistress which is from the sixties, I think, 1966 very well regarded science fiction novel. Arguably I think one of Heinlein’s best, maybe his last great work Because he went into a long period of decline after that. It’s set in a future lunar colony, that is exploited by earth. And there’s a libertarian revolution modeled, largely on the American revolution. Although, interestingly, there are elements of the Russian revolution that are also alluded to. And the lunar colonists with the help of an AI, achieve liberation.

And then their goal is an anarchist future, like a moon where there is no government. and in the novel, he has this slogan [00:04:00] TANSTAAFL, there is no such thing as a free lunch, which he got from his fellow science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle which became then a major slogan of the Libertarian Party.

Milton Friedman’s son, David, used to walk around with a TANSTAAFL medallion kinda like a pimp outfit. So the novel has been very influential. And one the things in Heinlein’s work, both in that work and in other works, like The Man Who Sold the Moon, is the idea of space as a new frontier for capitalism.

this is a where. business can finally be unshackled from the regulatory state, and achieve a free market utopia. Which always seemed like very ironic and unlikely because the of declaration of the 20th done through massive state intervention. First with the Soviet state, and then like, as along with NASA in the American state.

But now it looks like, in our new century Elon and others are reviving this idea that space will be new frontier where capitalism can finally be liberated from earthly laws and regulations.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, exactly. And Heinlein is, so for people who are really into the tropes of fiction, that he kind of was the originator in many ways of the libertarians in space trope.

HEER: And we should say like, just in case aware, but Heinlein was one of the major American science fiction writers. I think among science fiction fans, there used to be idea of the big three or the big four. So it’s like Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, and Robert Heinlein. Like these were the major figures of Anglophone science fiction and it’s hard to overstate like his impact.

I think like what Ernest Hemingway might’ve been to like American literature, Robert Heinlein was to science fiction. He was just a major figure [00:06:00] for like four decades, for the mid 20th century, and cast a huge shadow over the field.

SHEFFIELD: Extremely prolific as well.

HEER: Yeah. Huge. Yeah. Yeah. Hugely prolific. Often winning the top awards in the genre, and also spawning like a number of imitators. So like, the libertarian space, but also military science fiction comes out of Heinlein. A lot of—

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, I mean, we should say, yeah, Starship Troopers was his novel.

HEER: Yeah. Yeah. He wrote Starship Troopers. Yeah. And so, Yeah. I mean, like, we’ll talk more about him we progress, just as a sort of signifier like one should think of him as of the major figures in this genre.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, exactly. And one of the other things about him that he has in common with some of the other people we’ll be talking about is that especially, starting with Moon is a Harsh Mistress a lot of his novels are characterized by having a character that’s basically a stand-in for himself.

HEER: Yeah.

Science fiction as a place for political experimentation

SHEFFIELD: And this character goes on and on for pages at a time. And it basically became a thing for right wing what, I call authoritarian capitalists, so post-libertarians, whatever you want to call them, that they abandoned the idea of philosophy and they turned to fiction instead to make the exposition of their ideas.

HEER: Well, think about like science fiction has always been literature of ideas. And obviously the sort of like novel of ideas is something that has deep like one way I can think of like Voltaire, you know Candide, many other sort of classical works.

And even like going, back to the Middle Ages like sort of religious works, like the sort of mystery plays. Like, a that explores concepts and which has characters that are sort of figureheads for different positions.

SHEFFIELD: Pilgrim’s Progress.

HEER: Now what happens in the, Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Pilgrim’s Progress, Gulliver’s Travels.

SHEFFIELD: Ben, Ben Hur. Yep.

HEER: Yeah. But [00:08:00] what happens in the 19th century is that with the sort of rise of the novel, the realistic novel of family life business like novels of Jane Austen, Dickens, Tolstoy, that becomes a kind of dominant literary form.

The novel of ideas like heads off into genre. It becomes more associated with fiction that is like imaginative and, what we now call science fiction. Although that term is, really popularized in the 1920s. But like, I’m thinking of people like mary shelley’s, Frankenstein and she herself of like two great

SHEFFIELD: Mary Wollstonecraft

HEER: Yeah, absolutely. W Craft and a Good Goodwin. Their father was a philosophical liberal who wrote ideas.

And Frankenstein is this idea of, using extrapolation. ideas. and tradition was carried through by people like Jules Verns and H.G. Wells. And the interesting thing is it’s overwhelmingly, tradition of liberalism and the left, the socialism. It is a tradition of people who are coming out of the Enlightenment, who believe that history is change, that humans can actually take control of history and make history, as against earlier ideas that like, reality is fated, is providential and destined.

And then these novels of ideas are explorations. Well, what happens when we try to take control of history? What are the consequences good or bad? Obviously in Frankenstein, like it is, like this is like how the could go bad. it could actually like, lead to creations of monsters.

One sees that as well in like huls. Invisible man. But combined with that, there’s also tradition ideas of like, whoa, what ways in which yeah. Control of reality to make it better? Like utopian fiction,

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Edward Bellamy.

HEER: Edward Bellamy but also at wells’ Shape of Things to Come.

There’s a, long tradition of this. So, I mean, what’s interesting is that, [00:10:00] at some, I mean this show the to which libertarianism does come out of classical liberalism, what they call classical liberalism, but which is, this enlightenment project of amelioration and control of destiny that Heinlein I think is very that is a transitional figure.

He came out of the sort of the thirties he was a very much in the of hs later moved to the right. and there’s, whole like science that comes out of that. And one can see if one is interested in ideas, that this is the type of literature that, one is interested in politics, this type of literature that would be appealing.

Murray Rothbard, a major figure of the Austrian economics and very much an authoritarian libertarian, in his autobiography, he talks about how his mo mother loved uh Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, and he could never understand why she loved them. And then in the 1950s, he read Ayn Rand’s the Fountain Head, and Atlas shrugged. And you realize, wait a minute, this is This is powerful. This is what literature can do.

And so, it, this is the literature that is appealing. For like politically engaged, politically active, and, heinlein, tradition of sort of, increasingly, way science fiction people like Jerry Pournelle, Larry Nevins, and some ways, one could cynically very true of that one of the appeals that in ways this is, a way the future of and also as in dreams working out tensions that, you can’t work out in life. So in Heinlein, one often sees, in Starship Troopers, one sees war without pTSD because they’re just killing the, these there’s no moral cost to war.

In his sort of sexual fantasies, like Stranger in a Strange Land, one sees the utopian dream of sexual liberation like, any of [00:12:00] consequences of s and in a Moon is a Harsh Mistress is imagining a sort of utopian libertarian, world on the moon like, the sort of ecological and class tensions that emerge in every existing historical capitalist society.

Why far-right libertarians turned away from philosophy toward science fiction

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. and, it is it’s related, I think, so yeah, the, you have the emergence of the, novel of ideas. But, it became more important for authoritarian capitalism because well, because these ideas are not very coherent, frankly. And they don’t, they, they don’t, so they, can’t really work as philosophy, because if you’re writing a book of philosophy and you put it out there and have a big giant, volume and you’ve structured your argument and you’ve exposed what your true objectives are and where you want like. If they were to do that, people would be horrified, at what they want, right?

And, like, and, Friedrich Nietzsche is the, example for that. But, and, I’ll come back to him in a second, but you know, like, so essentially we, but we saw this also with regard to economics as well, with this idea of Von Mises’s praxeology, that I don’t have to prove my arguments using data or historical instances, I just have to appeal to common sense because I can say, I can invent a scenario.

And then that was literally what this guy largely did in his, work, is that he would invent scenarios and be like, okay, so we know this will happen because it’s obvious that this is what they would do.

HEER: And like yeah,

SHEFFIELD: that’s his work. And then, so of course this, a movement of that nature would, tend toward fiction, I would think.

HEER: Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. And the science fiction writer Samuel Delaney, very different politics in Heinlein, but admires Heinlein, but did say that like I, one [00:14:00] thing Heinlein was doing was trying up with scenarios that would justify, right wing politics. That’s to say like, in what circumstances would it be justified to deny everyone except people who belong work military, and, also to carry on a war of extermination.

Well, if you do have like, humanities has existential threat these space are bugs, who have like consciousness, no morality then kind of war of extermination carried up by authoritarian military regime might be what is necessary, right? So he’s constantly trying to up with scenarios whereby what he is politically desires. Makes sense?

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. and and that certainly is the case with regard to Ayn Rand as

well.

HEER: Yeah,

SHEFFIELD: So she, she called herself a philosopher, actually. And then, but no one that I know of who has any sort of respectability regarded her as a philosopher.

Because she, wasn’t doing philosophy. She was just writing novels and, op-eds, like that was her output. She was not doing any kind of systematizing or and that’s significant because when you look to the politics of these people, their, descendants like Elon Musk and other people like them.

They don’t, they hate debate. They don’t like it, they don’t like to be questioned. They don’t like it when you say that their ideas are dumb and here’s 20 reasons why they get angry at you. And, and like, or if the, even if you want to track their jet, like the Elon jet guy, he’s going to, he’s going to ban you for doing that.

So they, they, can’t do this. Like, philosophy is based on argument. Like, you get two philosophers in the room, you get five opinions. and, so, they, can’t handle it, I think.

HEER: Yeah. I should say like, with a novel of ideas though, like there are like, sort of, variations on it, I do think like the sort of [00:16:00] greater novels of ideas are the ones where there is some sort of actual philosophical debate where you have like, contestants that both kind of making, semi plausible or, treated with some degree of respect and then you have to some sort of like, difficult to resolve,

um, issue Ambiguity. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would say, like someone like dostoevsky even though he has a very reactionary point of view, doing sort of novels of ideas where different positions are And there a term that the literary critics use, coming out of Bine is polyphonic.

That these, are presenting a range of and being contested in the work of fiction. And I think one of the interesting things about like Heinlein, kind of illustrates this, is I actually do feel like his earlier work which I regard as his of the forties and fifties.

Is polyphonic. There is like range of different voices but that he’s increasingly, there’s a kind of authoritarian turn in his fiction where it does really become a kind of hectoring voice. Where, you basically have these characters that are like Lazarus long, where like stand-ins for Heinlein who voices opinion. if there are other characters, they just stand around and either, they exist like, sort of Socratic foils.

SHEFFIELD: You’re absolutely right. ChatGPT.

HEER: yeah. No, Exactly. Exactly. And i I think one that not just the problem’s, not just that they’re using fiction, but like a lot of, it’s that what I consider like a bad fiction of ideas, one in which there’s not a contested stakes or a, polyphonic range of voices.

SHEFFIELD: Okay. Yeah, that’s, that, that is a fair point and I’m, glad you said that. Well, and, in that regard though, one of the other kind of problems that a lot of this fiction has is that the authors who are pretty much all men, except for Ayn Rand they don’t know how to write women.

They don’t know how to write about them or how [00:18:00] to, or how their characters are authentic in the, in of, themselves. So like every, character in Heinlein who’s a woman, she’s she’s got big boobs and she’s incredibly sexual and, everyone loves her.

And he’s super competent and witty and and it just like, after a while you would think he would’ve thought, okay, maybe this is a little annoying to have the same character all the time.

HEER: Yeah,

SHEFFIELD: But yeah, Just like flighty and dumb and like, so just cliche female characters.

HEER: Yeah. no. I think a sort of like a fair criticism. I, think one way there’s a, critic, Farrah Mendelsohn and a few other people have sort of this, think one thing with Heinlein was that he wanted to imagine a world of sort of sexual equality. Um like, his sort of, progressivism in the thirties and forties when he kids out of wells was a belief in free, love and also, female equality. So, his women characters were like, like engineers.

They had some, but then they would also always like, let’s have lots of babies, let’s we get but the, problem he had he was trying to imagine a world like gender equality, but let he had no basis for like imagining that world would be qualitatively different and that women would have other demands that would make changes.

So what he’s ended up imagining world the two genders are basically the same, that the women like all the desires of and also that there’s no conflict. Everyone is happy in this free love utopia. And There’s heartbreak. There’s no, love triangle. There’s no, in and out, out of love.

I mean a real kind of like a problem with the sort of like emotional range or imagination or a level of empathy in the work.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. And, we’ll [00:20:00] come back to that as we circle back to him as kind of the of, sci-fi right wing sci-fi. But, like, just to circle back to the philosophy kind of thing, like to, I, think that in, in so many ways, Friedrich Nietzche is the apotheosis of all reactionary thought.

It never got better after him. Everything was a decline after him. And which is ironic, or maybe, he would say that was inevitable, perhaps. and his writings, are just, various seic. but one of the things that he says, in multiple different ways at d in different books is that, things that are true, they don’t have to be proven through argument, and that basically having to make an argument is for cucks, essentially.

HEER: Yeah, yeah. yeah,

SHEFFIELD: And that’s kind of another thing that you do kind of see within this authoritarian capitalist milieu that comes after him. They all kind of have that opinion, even if they’ve never read Nietzsche which is interesting, I think.

HEER: Yeah, yeah. The kind of the way I would describe it in not just Heinlein, but this sort of like broader tradition is, a kind of imperial self, is the idea that the self has an authenticity and authority and is, can be a final word. And so it does tend to lead to the writing of fiction that is simply a bunch of op-eds, which you simply have a bunch of characters that are opinionating and and there’s no necessity for kind of like a broader engagement with other voices or with conflict.

Editor John W. Campbell’s massive right-wing influence on sci-fi

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. And of course, so there’s a natural inclination to this, but it also within the realm of, righting fiction it was cultivated also in particular by a guy named John W. Campbell, who was a very long serving editor of the magazine, which actually still exists. Now Analog Science Fiction. And, but at the time it was called Astounding was the [00:22:00] main word for it. When, mostly when Heinlein was writing for it.

But, so Campbell himself was extremely white right wing, and actually probably more and more so than heinlein. And a lot of it, I mean, he, supported segregation. Can you talk about that?

HEER: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, No, so, so, so, so Campbell like, so, so science fiction as I mentioned this, European tradition of Verne and but within america, it really like emerged in of pulp fiction of these like magazines where the writers were paid, like, like a penny, a word and was at a very kind of crude, literary level.

A lot of it sort of just like, maybe ancestor of things like Star just like slam bam.

SHEFFIELD: Or King Kong. Yeah.

HEER: Huh. King Kong. King

Yeah. Kin Kong. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Just like, yeah, Just like, action adventure. with a lot of scientific rigor or philosophical content. cheap genre fiction.

Edgar Rice Burroughs is Mars would be like prominent example of this. now Campbell who had like a little of a was a dropout at, mit, MIT had engineering background took over, astounding in the late like 1930s. And to he very successful in kinda like elevating science fiction by, like insisting on a greater level of scientific rigor.

Like he

basically said,

he wanted the fiction and astounding to be

like an issue of the Saturday evening post, but if

it was like written like, a hundred years in the future. And what became known as hard science fiction. So a lot of emphasis on things like, like engineering and, well more rigorous extrapolation.

He recruited a whole bunch of very influential writers Isaac Asimov. Arthur C. Clark theater Sturgeon. But one aspect of Campbell himself was that it, it this element of extrapolation and rigor was one side of his personality, but he is also like very divided amongst himself.

And he had a kind of like, [00:24:00] lifelong attraction towards pseudoscience. And famously like, one of his writers was l Ron Hubbard who’s also a friend of Heinlein. And the l Ron Hubbard was a, pule science fiction writer, but then came up with this sort of crackpot form of psychoanalysis called dietetics.

And the very first place dietetics was ever shown in the world was in the pages of astounding science fiction. It was as an article in Astounding Science Fiction, and it became the Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: And loved it.

HEER: Loved it. And Campbell said had a that sort of like nasal congestion and he credited, dietetics with curing his nasal congestion. There were a lot of science fiction writers in that circle.

Dietetics began within science fiction and a lot of writers in world such as, e van bar. Kathleen many others, early Scientologist. I mean, I, think I, Highland’s book, stranger in a Strange Land is kind of like an working of like, what happens when a science fiction writer creates a religion ironically itself the of war religions. But, I the Dianetics episode, Campbell like increasingly was attracted to sort of like crackpot ideas. So the pages of Astounding, a science fiction magazine, but they also published like nonfiction articles. He would publish articles touting perpetual motion machine that someone had discovered.

The Dean would have articles on telekinesis and eSP and--

SHEFFIELD: And supplement food supplements too, actually.

HEER: Food supplements. he very strongly built that when the f findings, he was a smoker. And when the ideas that came along, when the discoveries came along that, ca smoking causes he would publish like saying like, why, they’re And one way to think about him is, I think he was actually a type of person that is now quite familiar, which is the sort of, like the contrarian crank, right? Like whatever mainstream [00:26:00] science And he would use the same that now hear, like, like, well, like, we can’t accept the consensus, because Galileo came along and the scientific, he scientific consensus and, the consensus was wrong, right?

So, so, so he used that kinda logic to like constantly the other for these, contrarian, ideas and, like, as well into the realm of. of politics like, the defendant, not just segregation. He would publish editorials like, why slavery was actually like a good thing. And this was like well beyond hein line.

SHEFFIELD: And also rejecting black characters.

HEER: Has yeah. Yeah. Famously, and Samuel an African American science fiction writer, sent him or this agent sent him nova a, science fiction novel, with a, black character.

And, Campbell told the great book. I would love to publish it, but I can’t imagine, in the future you would have African astronaut. And so, yeah. Yeah. No, and within the fiction itself, like we’re talking about the we were talking his nonfiction ideas but within the fiction itself in sort of berian science fiction, there’s a very emphasis on Like he this was a major in many of the writers dealt with it, with the of like, can we actually create a Superman an Uber wrench that will go beyond and have the kind of telekinetic powers? Yeah. Yeah.

And the the sort of this. Although one that maybe shows, the way of his outgrew own politics, is, Frank Dune which was first published in Astounding which is taking, like all the ideas in dune are the, from the astounding tradition.

So it is this world Galactic empire genetic engineering to create a uber wrench. Superman.

But if one reads, like, I think Bert, like, I think it is even in the first do in the subsequent do which and astounding tellingly enough, it is very clear that this is to be a [00:28:00] bad thing. Like meant to show that, if you create this kind of superior being, he will like disrupt the universe in a very horrible and lead catastrophe.

So, this goes back to the idea of like novel of ideas. I think if, of ideas like works out the of, an issue, there’s some there.

But, certainly, Yeah, I think Berian science fiction, increasingly was right way and so much that Campbell lost his best writers. I think it is not an accident that in the last decade of astounding of his editorship, he died in the early seventies. Like people like Isaac Asimov

SHEFFIELD: Or he went and started his own magazine

HEER: Yeah, he started his own mind. But, people like Leo, like people who had been coming out of Campbell science fiction weren’t writing for him because Ha Campbell clearly wanted a specific type of fiction, which is like adventure fiction, where human characters defeat aliens because this he said like, have a novel story where aliens defeat humans because that’s just not possible. Humanity has to be the greatest the universe.

And I’m sorry, like, if you’re dealing with a, picture of ideas people who written like Thomas and I’ve written novels defeat humans because that should be a possibility. Like it is possible that we are not the summit of creation, right?

SHEFFIELD: Especially if they can come here. We’re, not the smart ones in that scenario.

HEER: Yeah. no. But, I mean, within Campbell’s, like his editorial mandate was humanity always win and there always has to be a to problems. it is but as I said, I think like in terms of, we’re talking about the politics, I that he was a sort of precursor of this kind of like, much more prominent, like, do your own science distrust.

Like, you the establishments like and attraction crackpot ideas. And of that see in like Hy I like if give him any sort of he’s [00:30:00] modest that. he would actually, he had arguments with Campbell particularly on like racism where like, the hy like, had very dodgy, stuff.

But actually try to be, he was aware of the and he did try to like imagine a sort of multiracial future.

The dueling epistemologies of engineering and research science within sci-fi

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and yeah, with regard to this, mentality though, of crack pottery and the political valence of, the fiction, I think that in some ways one could argue that. So when you look when you look at science as a profession there’s basically, very broadly speaking, there’s two types of scientists that you could say that an engineer is a scientist.

And often they are said to be. But, then there’s also the, research scientists, and the research scientists, they have to be collaborative. They have to exist within a community and bounce ideas off of each other and correct each other and accept correction and, be open to new ideas, and work as teams because, especially as science became more and more complex, as obviously the Manhattan Project is the kind of the first real illustration of that, that this is not a thing that could have been done by one person.

And all major scientific projects that is now the case. There is not any scientific major discovery now that is done by one person. Doesn’t happen. And and so, so they have a communitarian tradition and ethos. And that is why research science, when you look at polls, they do tend to be overwhelmingly more liberal, or, democratic in the us.

And whereas engineers, they, operate from what they think are first principles. In other words, things that are true then they extrapolate from them. And so, and that inherently, I think one could argue engenders an epistemic sandpoint where [00:32:00] I’m just applying what’s true.

HEER: Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: And, you don’t have to discover what is true or how do you even know what is truth or how, how, could you arrive at truth.

They don’t have to answer those questions because they’re not, those questions are already settled for what they do as a profession. And Heinlein was an engineer.

HEER: No, Heinlein was very much an engineer., I mean, like, I what you say is true, i’d also ask, emphasize the of educational aspect of engineering, but I think there is a sort and sort of like binary thinking of true false rather than, sort of a hermeneutics of knowledge that is sort of peer reviewed and tested, the realm of science fiction.

I do think of the science in the sort of tradition, is old fashioned, like in the sense that they’re always imagining lone inventor, What the, literary critic John Klu calls the Edison aid edisonian fiction, like, you’re imagining Thomas edison figure. Who’s like working in his and something that is considered mian science. to And that has actually Not been like actual been true. Yeah, no.

SHEFFIELD: And like, we see that with fiction of Arthur C. Clark, for instance, like his fiction, transcends that, idea. and it, and, it’s not just, it isn’t just because of his political perspective. I think it’s also his professional

HEER: Yeah. No, absolutely. no, Yeah. Yeah. And I even say like, Asimov bobby, he does have the sort of like Kerry as genius, but I a works working out of like, what would the long term, collaborative project like the foundation entail, it is a different way of thinking about science.

And yeah, I do think that there is a kind of like right-wing view of science as the lone inventor which actually like, is very retrograde and, like, but had of resurgence thanks in part to Silicon Valley where you did kind of have this period where are early people were like [00:34:00] bill Gates or Steve jobs did

SHEFFIELD: Although, frankly, neither one of those guys invented much of anything.

HEER: No, they didn’t. there was like, there’s a kinda like the cultural mythology. The cultural okay. Elon Musk well. like, I think Elon Musk they’re all kinda like feeding into this idea that even though they’re working with teams they’re a Thomas Edison figure reinvented for the Like there’s a way in the that created for these figures and the way that they became the of companies allowed a kind of like a very and, I think what we could is a false of how works.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, it is. And well, and, I would say that this is yet another example. And that the scientific community, broadly speaking globally and, also in the US and every country generally seems to have exhibit-- which some people sometimes call the scientist fallacy-- which is everyone else is, a scientist, everyone else respects science. Everyone else understands the scientific method and wants to use it in their own lives.

And that is not true. and I may import my own, HG Wells metaphor that, the Society of Science has become the Eloy and, we’ve, they’ve let this revanchist extremist, reactionary morlock group, exist without them, and now they’re coming for them, and Donald Trump is going after NIH and, tearing down these vaccine access and, all of these things.

And RFK Junior is telling people to load up on fats and steak and so like, basically they didn’t they didn’t educate the public about why this is good. Like they, people liked what the products of science, but they didn’t know how they were made and why this [00:36:00] is the only way that they can be made. That the scientific method is the ultimate invention.

HEER: Yeah, No, I think that’s true. And I maybe like, another, way to think this is that there’s a kind of disjunction between the republic of science, which is this kind of like incredibly collaborative, internationalist debate--

SHEFFIELD: Humane. Open to all identities.

HEER: Yeah. Yeah. With a sort of political economy that, was based on a different set of values, and the people who would be science, the or had a, like a different set of and where like-- even in the corporate world, like, you, could see there’s certain forms of corporatism actually like, kind of similar to science in of being like, like, involving large scale enterprises. But within like, capitalism, you had uneven development, and you had people, who are basically like Donald Trump, these old school predatory robber baron types. and as long as that, model existed, they were the sort of, Morlocks who could, who could exist to prey on the republic of science.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, and I can say that myself as a former Republican, more luck. So I’m not dehumanizing anybody. I’m just talking about my former self!

HEER: Yeah. but, I mean, I mean, I, think that like a key is, this distinction in political economy between, this world of science that was created and political economic system that didn’t quite fully align with it. And yeah, causing a lot of problems. like, really now where, like whether this kind of, predatory capitalism is compatible with the of scientific research that we’ve seen, or whether it’s become a, just a tool or servant or handmaiden.

Is the political left missing the potential for AI as the perfect reason for a basic income?

SHEFFIELD: Yeah Yeah, absolutely.

Well, and there’s, another unfortunate kind of layer to this though, which is regarding current artificial intelligence research. So, the [00:38:00] reality is, yes, these things, they’re not minds in the same way that we are. But the latest models, they are really fucking good.

And if you think that these are just junk, like what you might have experienced in 2023 or something like that’s not the reality. Like the, they are very good now at, the, at appropriate tasks. So like, they’re not going to help you report a news story or like, they can’t do that.

There’s a lot of things that they can’t do, but, when it comes to writing programming code, they’re good at it. Like,

HEER: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: I have tested it. I know it works like and like it works for, like a lot of scenarios. And so it’s not, these things are not conscious, but they’re really fucking good.

And, like that to me is, should be an opportunity for the broader left to say, look, here is why we need basic income. Here is why we need right to housing here is why we need, right to jobs or, whatever. It, like, if you’ve never had in the post USSR world or let’s say, the post kind of rubber baron world that you were just talking about, we haven’t ever had a better argument for this is why government is good and why we need it.

And you, and so we better, work toward it because this will help you, whoever you are.

HEER: Yeah. Yeah. No, yeah, I know. I’m not an AI skeptic. I don’t it can I, don’t it’s going to, we’re, I don’t think we’re anywhere consciousness.

SHEFFIELD: Oh, I’ve written a whole essay on why it’s not.

HEER: Yeah. Yeah. And I even actually don’t see, based on what they’re doing, that this is the path for creating machine consciousness. But I mean, it is a path for creating machines that are incredible servants who And then it becomes like, who’s the master? Is it the broader democratic society, which is like my ideal, or is it going to be, a few plutocrats?

Whereas that’s going to be a very dangerous thing because you’re putting an immense amount of [00:40:00] a very few hands. And that has always been the kind of, I mean, I think that has been the great debate since the Enlightenment, since came to this realization that are not of history, but of history and can, take control of our collective then it becomes a question well, which humans? and which of science fiction. I mean, this genre has, flourished in the last it is the, form of most clearly addresses this question. Sometimes, we’ve discussed, giving bad answers. but I certainly, putting forward, I think the right question.

Robert Heinlein’s evolution from socialist to authoritarian capitalist

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I mean, I, would like to see better left-wing content about AI in the future. But putting that aside like to, just to go back to Heinlein, like, so a, as we’ve been saying, touching on briefly earlier, he was somebody who started off as a, socialist.

And then over his

HEER: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Became more re Oh. Oh, wait. Oh, I, gotta give a plug for your article though, Jeet. So, so, but yeah, so for those who, do want to explore this further, Jeet wrote a really great piece in The New Republic. It was 2014 that explore that did a, it was a review of a, biography of Heinlein. So it’s definitely worth reading if you want to delve into this topic a bit more, but, okay. All right. I, gave you your plug there!

HEER: Yeah. Yeah. No, thank you.

No, I’ll, just like briefly run through because I, the headline’s own biography touches on so many of the things that we talked about in very interesting ways. Because, it is like born. In 1907. Like this kind a very interesting, this sort of like progressive who had been abolitionists like in like, they were like Missouri, Kansas.

I think they were like among the original sort of settlers that came in to, like, like make this a free state. And he was a big of science fiction, big reader of Wells, gets into the Navy. He gets TB, but then has this like amazing, naval [00:42:00] pension because he’d been an officer, so, like, which allows him like, during the Great Depression to like, get an education, try his at, a bunch of different things, like he’s tried to be a real agent, to like be a silver miner, ran for political office, and then finally became a writer.

But He, is able to do this because he had UBI, in

SHEFFIELD: He, had a free lunch.

HEER: He had free lunch, he got a great free and he acknowledged it at the time. Like he had, in letters he like, from the taxpayers of America. Um And, but a free, like a really a sexual revolutionary.

I think like, like his first wife there’s a story in the biography where she basically, slept with another man during honeymoon. And and then later, he would marry this woman uh, Zain and would like, she was also into free love, and his buddies would like, be sharing partners, wife swapping or whatever, including with L. Ron Hubbard. L. Ron Hubbard in a kind of interview said, like Heinlein basically forced me to sleep with his wife. But during this period in the thirties, forties, like a Wellesley and science fiction writer and the utopian science fiction that he wrote, one which was only published posthumously for us, the living, and one called Beyond This Horizon are fictions about UBI.

They’re of utopian fiction where somebody wakes up into the future and it’s like, well, wealth is socially created. One of the novels, one of the characters says, like, he says, where do I pay? He, goes in, he is a, from the present, wakes up into the future, says, where do I pay for food?

And says. Why would you pay for food? Like what sort of barbaric society would make someone pay for like a necessity like this? Of course we all, like every, all the food is free. but also with the dark side of that fiction, like he was always a kind of interested in eugenics, not, I would say in a racist point of view.

Because he often would have characters of all different races. In one case, he did a kind of anti Japanese novel during World War ii, where the plot came from Robert Ca. John W. Campbell gave him the plot, and, Hy would later say that the racism of the buck, yeah, he, would blame it on [00:44:00] Campbell.

but, law was a very enlightened figure. As I said, they had this open marriage then like, tries, falls in love with a much, younger woman who then brings in as a menage trois, but that doesn’t, is second wife, Lila, isn’t happy, becomes alcoholic. They divorce.

And then this new, he marries this the younger woman, Virginia, who is like a real, like, a Republican, con, free market conservative.

But I, don’t think it’s just necessarily the, the change of. Partners, but also in the fifties, the Cold War comes along, he’s very he is like, he thinks Eisenhower is too soft, like upset that Eisenhower is trying to negotiate nuclear testing with the Russians, and really goes off the deep end.

And I think the nature of his fiction changes as well, like, a lot of the fiction of the forties and fifties, there’s a story called Solution unsatisfactory, which is written in the early forties, which is atomic before they arose. basically saying like, we’re going to have to live with these things, but there’s no good solution, like going through like, whereas I think like after that right wing turn, which I think really solidifies with, the publishing of Starship Coopers, this militaristic novel. He really becomes the sort of Heinlein that, like is, the right wing figure, exploring ideas of, militarism total, free market capitalism. instead of saying like, food should be free one of his later novels, he, talks about a famine. And this is originally at the time of the famine in Ethiopia, he says, stupid people, they didn’t grow enough food.

Right? Like, so, so a total inversion, I think of his politics towards a kind of very selfishness with, I think maybe there had always been a little bit of a strand of that, because I think like in the biography makes clear, like from a very early age he had this sort of [00:46:00] philosophical attraction to the idea of salafism is that how I’m missing that?

SHEFFIELD: Solipsism. Solipsism.

HEER: Yeah, Solipsism. Yeah, solipsism. This idea, he age he thinking like, what if I’m all reality is a my And he would periodically write this in his fiction things like a they where, a character everything is just imagined.

A very interesting sort of story by all you zombies which is both or sex change a combination of time travel and sex change character to become his and so he is like, like basically has created himself. And in the fiction like this som really becomes tied in a sexual way towards ideas of incest and pedophilia. Really.

Like, like, so there’s a lot of, like where like in time for, Love. the main character Lazar Long lives basically forever. Most of the people in the universe his children. He, clones himself and has female clones that he has sex with. He has time travel, has sex with his mother. And a lot of the novels are about how the form of or individual self-expression is, is incest.

Yeah. And incest well which is all, justified on a of, well, is just fiction. just, trying ideas or whatnot. but, like, I mean, I, know what to say about that E except like it is in some ways rigorous, actually taking the idea of individualism, radical individualism Heinlein’s, you know, universe leads to this like, logical conclusion of, sex only with those that are closest to you.

And also, like, it doesn’t all matter because everything itself is just a creation of my mind. And then, yeah. Obviously I think it’s morally reprehensible and it does align with [00:48:00] a lot of what we’re seeing in the sort of Silicon Valley elite that we’re happy to with Jeffrey think, and who himself also has, like Epstein, all this interest in eugenics, he wanted to basically create a sort of seed farm where he would like have a huge number of children like Lazarus Long.

SHEFFIELD: Or Elon Musk

HEER: Or Elon Musk. Yeah, exactly. The, Like, like obviously like sort of morally reprehensible. I, wasn’t about hang Like I do think there’s a kind of interesting like rigor. Actually do think, like he’s like working out the of radical individualism in a like, I a lot of other away from.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, although oddly as much as he was talking about individual freedom for most of his novels, as far as I can tell, some of them are explicitly homophobic. And so, but he does have some amount of that. But yeah, like he, he, did, he doesn’t get to that point of working things out because, presumably if you are having full liberation, you would have sex with whoever you wanted to.

HEER: would include people of your own sex if Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, he, had this sort

SHEFFIELD: in

HEER: of really a classical sexist guy where he actually thought like lesbianism was great, but Bill Sexuality turned him off because do actually think that there are like lesbian characters. And

SHEFFIELD: actually

HEER: there sort of like also these very interesting contradictions.

He was like more open to transsexuals than he was to gay they are kind of like sympathetically portrayed change in his in his fiction. And I think that he actually had a close friend who had a sex exchange operation. And, this person like, has vision about how supportive Heinlein was.

So, so, so some very interesting sort of like, contradictions in his work.

Heinlein’s increasingly disturbing self-focused view of sexual liberation

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, and, one of the other probably, I guess, arguably his most famous work, which you have mentioned a bit is his Stranger in the Strange Land book, which [00:50:00] does, I think is really what kind of, at, least in his public writing. So that’s kind of where I, it, he was an example.

So this book, I believe it was 1960 when it came out, if I

HEER: Yeah. Yeah. Early sixties. Yeah. Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: And so it was like, in, in, a lot of ways it was a, touchstone of the new left hippie movement. And even though the guy that was writing it was not on the left, and that to me is one of the more other interesting things about him as an author and, other people in this milieu as well. Like Robert Anton Willison is another one.

That these are, these were guys that, that they actually were right wing libertarians, but for a long time, people on the left didn’t realize that these guys were right wing and only now during, like Q Anon and, Trump and whatnot.

Only now are a lot of people on the left realizing, oh, these people are right wing. Like, even though like the hippie, so much of hippie culture was always right wing, and you look at Timothy Leary and I, the guy was straight up libertarian. Like the whole idea of dropping out of society that was anarchism and going away and anti-government and anti society.

HEER: Yeah, antisocial I mean, I think that’s a, if I were to sort of back the most philosophically respectable this would the sort of, sort of Emersonian american tradition.

And within Stranger in a Strange Land, there’s an idea in the novel, we’re all God, we all create, in which is a sort of transcendental idea.

And it is very appealing like, on the left of anti-authoritarianism. which in practice, often do align with the right and also have this kind of like mystical strain. So now, as I mentioned, El Ron Hubbard created a religion, as did Robert Heinlein.

Like, in some ways I think Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein is doing, if not quite a satire, I think it was like trying to through what happened with this friend Hubbard and [00:52:00] imagining what new religion, would be like, if people did have these like telekinetic, know, these powers, Hubbard claimed.

But the irony is that Stranger in a Strange Land also led to like new religions being created. I think there’s actually like, like these churches that came out in Southern California, which were inspired by that novel.

And it’s almost a sort of a paradox of science fiction that this, you know, especially Campbellian science fiction that wanted to be so rigorous in scientific that like, like its sort of decadence early decadence, it hit like it really became mystical and cult-like in, in the case of Dianetics, so, so what became the pro, the promise of scientific rationality quickly succumbed to follow the cult leader.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And do a lot of drugs.

HEER: I mean, yeah,

SHEFFIELD: This, yeah. Well, okay, so just going back to the, sexual predation as a form of liberation, because that’s really kind of what we’re talking about. And, that is kind of a pretty strong theme in a lot of these later Heinlein novels.

HEER: Yeah. Yeah, No, think that there’s a kind of interesting, I mean, I think he was trying to work out what sexual liberation would mean, and once his that I think that he couldn’t quite re realize. this is, would be my great critique of the novels, which is not that there’s a of sex in there, but that there’s a lot of inconsequential sex that you don’t really get a sense of, like, a world where sexual activity, leads to heartbreak Or to like, emotional turmoil. where, like, or especially in the case of like incest, like, like obvious trauma, like, like he is tr he is like a free lunch. like, let’s, what if we could have all the sex we wanted? Without any consequences.

Well, Yeah. That would be you could only do that in of You [00:54:00] actually we live in just as you wanted, like, let’s have total free market capitalism and like, but it all works out great.

Yeah. Yeah, without consequences or how, let’s have like total militarism, where all space bugs And, nobody has like, shell shock or, PTSD or is damaged. Like,

SHEFFIELD: And there are no dissidents.

HEER: Yeah yeah, There’s no, yeah. Yeah. It like, this is the sort of critique of the kind of like later novel, like at every stage he’s like imagining his ideal world without consequences.

Jeffrey Epstein as the pinnacle of authoritarian liberation

SHEFFIELD: and yeah. And, going back to the Epstein angle here. So, Heinlein is actually mentioned in the Epstein files.

HEER: Oh is he? Oh, I, didn’t see that.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And he so there’s, an email that not by Epstein though I should say. But, there’s the, a German AI researcher named, Joscha Bach. And he’s writing to Epstein, and basically they’re having these long conversations essentially about fascism and how it might be good.

Epstein and Bach are doing that. And so I’m going to just quote from Bach here in when he says:

I rather like the treatment that fascism gets in the Amazon series The Man in the High Castle, which explores what would’ve happened if the Germans and Japanese had won the War. A society that tries to function as a brutal and ruthlessly efficient machine, eliminating all social and evolutionary slack.

It is very dark, but not a flat caricature of pointless evil for its own sake. Heinlein’s late book, obviously not late book, but Heinlein’s late book, Starship Troopers explores fascism too. But unlike Philip k Dick, he does not see it as a form of insanity, but as the most desirable order.

And Then he, goes on to say, I find your political incorrectness very fascinating.

(Laughter)

SHEFFIELD: So that’s, I mean, like, that’s what we’re [00:56:00] talking about here. Like this is, so essentially, what you’re saying, this idea of kind of liberty as, there’s always this tension of, well, who is liberty for, is it for the individual or is it for everyone in the society? And how, like that’s essentially what it comes down to.

And, Heinlein and this authoritarian capitalist, Nietzchean fascist, reactionary, whatever you want to call it it basically has arrived at the idea that liberty, we must maximize liberty for some people who can have all degrees of freedom. And that is the best way for humanity to survive and become a multi-planetary species as Elon Musk does.

HEER: Yeah. no. I another way to think this is. The role of democracy in like, all of this. And I mean, as I said, This is broad tradition. And I think like, democracy was late the tradition.

Like there’s actually something that came out because of the and socialist movement of the 19th Centuries were pushing for this. And then you had some people within the liberal tradition like John Stewart Mill, who okay, we’re going to have democracy then, we’re going to have to change our notions of liberty to a more broader sense of general welfare.

And in most case, also including like women and like, like imagining what a liberty for all would be in a democratic society where everyone has some say, in the polity. And I think that one way to define this authoritarian

SHEFFIELD: libert

HEER: libertarianism. Is that it doesn’t want to make that, thing.

And once hes is explicitly in Heinlein where like, you like in, time enough for love, he basically says, like, democracy doesn’t make sense. Like, why is it that like if some, 50 plus one, percent of the people say, believe true, like that’s the way should go.

Like, there’s no reason to have that, right. Well, [00:58:00] if you reject the idea that there, like we have to have some sort of like, system where like everybody’s voice is part of it and one has to attend to, other people’s voices and like, make some sort of compromises. If you, I think, Hein line and li authoritarian Libertarianism only works. If one rejects the Democratic imperative, if one says from the start, like, it doesn’t matter, what most people want, it’s like, what the elite want, And, then the characters in Heinlein’s fiction are this sort of glorified elite, like people who are, for whatever reason, genetics, intelligence, the superior beings.

And he’s very explicit about that, as you know.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, he is. And another quote from to sale beyond the sunset that I thought was notable of his. His political ideology. And of course, I suppose his diehard fans might say, well, he didn’t say these things. His character said these things. And it’s like, well,

HEER: But saying, like, I, I’ve read a nonfiction and the, a lot of his letters have been published now, it’s very yeah, it’s exactly as what would predict from reading these novels, because his hectoring voice that is all univocal. Like, one assumed that this is what Heinlein believes.

In the, in the letters he’s basically saying all the same things, but continue.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. So I’m going to quote from it. So he says in To Sail Beyond the Sunset, which is literally an, ode to incest, basically of this novel. He says, democracy often works beautifully at first, but once the state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state.

For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit. That the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them. They will do so until the state bleeds to death or in its weakened condition, the state succumbs to an invader. The barbarians enter Rome.

Which again, the, [01:00:00] invasion metaphor, like that’s, the most constant metaphor that you see Donald Trump making.

And, I, and like, and I do think that’s why Trump is so appealing to these same people, because even though they know that he’s stupid and incompetent and corrupt, like they know all of that, anyone can see that, who’s not willfully blinded.

They know this about him, but they admire that about him actually, because he just does what he wants.

And in that sense, Donald Trump is the, the Nietzschean Antichrist Ubermensch. Because as he said, in the Antichrist, he explicitly. I’m not against Christianity per se, and I don’t dislike Jesus. I’m against this culture that you guys have built up of restraining the Ubermensch.

and so, Trump in a way is, this, Antichrist Ubermensch. And that’s why they like him.

HEER: Which I think it’s almost the best refutation of of

SHEFFIELD: Of why it doesn’t work.

HEER: Yeah. I think that’s right.

SHEFFIELD: And so essentially like that’s kind of what I think is, the, message that we’re getting out of these Epstein files. So like the more stuff that comes out that people are reading there, like Jeffrey Epstein had this mentality he was a right wing libertarian by the end of his life, whatever he was earlier, this guy was a libertarian capitalist oligarch, and that’s what he was trying to build.

HEER: Yeah, no, I think, that’s right. I I it’s about the evolution, seen, I, do think him as a fairly normal

SHEFFIELD: globalist, neoliberal

HEER: in the sort of like, nineties and two

SHEFFIELD: thousands.

HEER: But I think that once that I think a lot of these figures, if they meet any sort of challenge, in it was like a criminal case. I think the global financial meltdown a lot of these people like felt much more

SHEFFIELD: beleaguered

HEER: felt like, the like [01:02:00] retrench for a much more hard line politics.

And then they, did retreat away from any towards the public good, a politics of pure sort of selfishness of the Ubermensch.

So, yeah, I mean, I think that’s almost like a, in, ways they’re liberal when times are good. then become, libertarians, like, like, when times go bad. I, that’s the that’s the kinda like logic it. Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And then Epstein also, like his, the, world that he was building for himself with these trafficked girls and women, like this, is the maximal individual liberty vision that, that these right-wing sci-fi authors we’re talking about.

This is the total sexual liberation that Heinlein was talking about. This is the actual version of what it looks like.

HEER: No.

SHEFFIELD: instead It’s not just a fantasy.

HEER: Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I, know, think that’s right. Yeah, I mean, another way to think about is in sort of the genre of science fiction. Yeah. I mean, I think that science is the kind of like life or the and development project of both the national security state and the sort of Silicon Valley sort of plutocracy.

Like I think a lot of people like Musk and Peter Thiel, a lot of this and then basically used it as a of like how to, and he because of his tuberculosis, he was not able to serve in the military, but like, sort of research stuff for the Navy in, during World War ii. he, basically up with a prototype for this spacesuit. But more broadly. A lot of his ideas, were taken up by sort of the RAND corporation and other outfits.

So, I mean, one way to see genre it’s, it is a place where like, early ideas this the i, think almost Southern California combination of military, industrial surveillance state technocrats, and libertarians, which is a contradictory [01:04:00] but I, think is like been worked together and infused together.

And that’s why the author of Starship Troopers is also the author of Stranger in a Strange Land.

More humane sci-fi authors

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, exactly. Well, thi this has been a great discussion, but let, if we can maybe end it with let’s turn to better sci-fi authors than these guys. Because as you said, there’s, and I do want to give a plug for my friend Ada Palmer, who is a historian and also a sci-fi writer.

HEER: Yes, I know her work.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And she explores a lot of these same themes, but in a much more humane way, but there are a lot of other authors, so I’m interested to hear who you might recommend in that regard for people.

HEER: Oh, okay. I think an interesting sort of counterpart is Ursula Le Guin who is coming out of sort of anarchism, but kind of like a left anarchism and in like The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed explored in a very interesting way of sort of gender equality and the trade-offs that might exist in an anarchic world where things are poorer, but, you have like a greater sort of social satisfaction.

So I think Le Guin in general is a, great example. Joanna Russ, I think explored, many these, same ideas.

I think there’s the more dystopian fiction writers are the dystopian tradition, obviously like Orwell and Huxley, but, forward by someone like Octavia Butler exploring the dark side of this and one sees that also like Philip K. Dick and JG Ballard who are interested in all the same things as Heinlein was, but maybe are like much more attentive to the social psychological consequences of this kind of future.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Okay, great. Well those are some starter recommendations for anybody who hasn’t already gone for those authors yet. So, you got any any things upcoming you might want to plug [01:06:00] for the audience to check?

HEER: Well, yeah, no, I mean, I just generally, write for the Nation magazine and have so, and to do the Time of Monsters podcast. So if anyone wants to hear more, from you can go to the Nation magazine and there’ll be a lot of content there.

SHEFFIELD: Okay, sounds good. Thanks for being here.

HEER: Oh, thanks. It was a, great conversation.

SHEFFIELD: Alright, so that is the program for today. I appreciate you joining us for the conversation, and you can always get more if you go to theoryofchange.show, where we have the video, audio, and transcript of all the episodes. And if you’re a paid subscribing member, you have unlimited access to the archives and I thank you very much for your support.

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Episode Summary 

A hundred years after quantum mechanics was invented, physics is still living with its consequences. Since Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger, the theory has transformed science and technology, explaining atomic structure and enabling much of the modern world. But its success has never erased a deeper puzzle: how the quantum world relates to the classical one we actually experience.

Quantum theory is notorious for its “weirdness,” which makes sense: Superposition, measurement, and uncertainty are real physical ideas—but they’ve also been repackaged into “quantum woo” that labels superstitions as profound science.

Despite the mystical nonsense though, understanding how classical and quantum systems relate remains the biggest challenge of the physical sciences, but as my guest on today’s episode argues, some of those difficulties are caused by the famous “Copenhagen interpretation” of quantum physics, which can overstate the observer’s role and understate the continuity of quantum dynamics.

In his account, reality is quantum all the way down, and what we call objects are stable processes, not tiny building billiard balls.

Vlatko Vedral is a professor of quantum information science at Oxford University. He’s out now with a book explaining his theories in a more popular format called Portals to a New Reality: Five Pathways to the Future of Physics.

The video of our conversation is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.

Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

06:42 — An “observer” in quantum mechanics has nothing to do with a person

15:28 — The confusion caused by the ‘Copenhagen’ interpretation of quantum fundamentals

22:47 — Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment was a criticism of quantum duality views

28:08 — Eric Weinstein’s Geometric Unity speculations

35:11 — How to test new quantum theories

44:16 — Information theory and quantum computing

50:43 — Q-numbers, C-numbers, and quantum logic

56:51 — The advantages of a process physics over a thing physics

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: So normally we don’t cover physics on the show too much, I would say. But what you’re doing here is really important, I think, in a lot of ways. So essentially, what you’re trying to do is to say that, and we will get into the details more specifically, but just generically, would you say that you’re trying to say that what people conceive of as classical mechanics and quantum mechanics, they’re not in conflict the way that a lot of people often think?

VLATKO VEDRAL: Yes, I think so. I think you hear all sorts of statements. I think it’s a very nice summary of the spirit of most of my writing, that of course, quantum mechanics was, was a big revolution and it surprised many people at that time. But if you look at it in terms of how big a departure this is from classical mechanics, then it’s very similar to the past revolutions that we had.

So certainly you can recover all of the classical ideas in, in a very special limiting case and the two theories. So quantum mechanics in that sense can reproduce the classical world. And if you [00:04:00] see it like that, you see that there is a continuity going through all of these theories as they develop in the history of physics.

SHEFFIELD: Exactly. And we’ll get further into that as we go along here. But so just to do some, a little bit basic table setting here. I think probably the biggest difference from how people conceive of chemistry or classical mechanics is that quantum objects are not like little tiny billiard balls.

VEDRAL: Yes.

SHEFFIELD: They are processes of things that exist in, in a flux, if you will. But can you just kind of explain that a little bit better than I did just there?

VEDRAL: Yes. I think that’s the key feature actually the technical word is the superposition principle, which actually states that any quantum object, any quantum particle, like an electron or an atom, and we’ve tested it with much bigger objects than than that in the last a hundred years, can actually exist in many different states at the same time.

So you, if you’re thinking about an electron. It could exist within an atom closer to the nucleus of the atom and further away from the nucleus simultaneously. And that’s called a quantum superposition. And that’s of course something that doesn’t have any analog in classical mechanics because in classical mechanics, objects have well-defined positions.

They’re localized. They’re either here or there, but not simultaneously in two positions. And the same with all other properties. If they have an energy, they have a well-defined energy, they have a well-defined velocity. Motion is well-defined. Whereas in quantum mechanics, it seems that you have to acknowledge that actually, we need to deal with probabilities at the fundamental level.

so we can never say for sure where particles are. Unless we make [00:06:00] a measurement to confirm where they are. But even then, very quickly after the measurement, the particle will spread across the space and we’ll assume, this state of superposition of being in many different locations at the same time.

And that gives rise to all sorts of other things that I think are out there in the, public domain. Things like entanglement the effect that Schrödinger talked about a lot, how quantum systems jointly can be in a super position in a way that they’re super correlated to one another. So there, there are all sorts of interesting phenomena, but they can all be explained through this property of being in, many states at the same time.

An “observer” in quantum mechanics has nothing to do with a person

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, exactly. And the idea also the superposition state and how it can be perceived in multiple different ways that gives rise, to the idea of the observer. yes, but a lot, of times, when people who are not physicists are thinking about an observer, they think of it as a person. And that’s not what an observer means in quantum mechanics. and I think that, that ambiguity causes a lot of confusion for people.

VEDRAL: I think you’re absolutely right, and I love the fact that you’re, stressing this right at the beginning of the discussion.

because it leads to all sorts of statements that, that really go well beyond physics. And in fact, they have no support in physics at all, statements. like, if you really observe something, you can change your reality. If you focus on something, you can really make it happen and things like that.

Nothing like that exists in quantum mechanics. what does exist is simply, again, going back to Schrödinger, is that when you make an observation and you’re absolutely right to emphasize that, An observer could be any other physical system, and observation doesn’t need to involve human beings at all.[00:08:00]

In fact, it doesn’t have to be a computer at all. It doesn’t have to be as sophisticated as what we would call, a computer. It could be simply an atom being observed by another atom. and so what happens during the observation is that the states of these atoms become entangled, in Schrödinger’s language, which means that for every position of one of these atoms, there is a corresponding position of the other atom.

So they’re somehow locked in this perfect correlation that their positions perfectly mirror one another, and that’s where the measurement stops. As far as the quantum physicist is concerned, you would say, I’ve now demonstrated that one of these atoms has measured another one. Now, of course you can, and ultimately a physicist does get involved, in confirming this, which means that you will now measure one of these atoms.

And what will happen is that you will see only one of these positions manifest itself. and this is the property that I think causes many people to, speculate and to become confused because quantum physics does not tell us, and in fact, it cannot tell us in advance which of these outcomes you will see when you observe a quantum system.

So this is part, this is something that’s called a Heisenberg Uncertainty principle, which means that if you’re in a position in a super position of different locations, but you insist on asking what location is the system at a given time, you will only get randomly one of these possible locations.

and all we can calculate is the probability to obtain that. So that’s what quantum mechanics gives us. So if you repeat the same measurement many, times and you get an expected value. And then that’s the value that quantum mechanics predicts. But [00:10:00] each individual measurement, if you like, is as far as quantum formalism is concerned.

And as far as all the experiments are con concerned, really random, you cannot predict this outcome. And so that’s what’s interesting. And I kind of developed this in my writings. What does this really mean for our reality? What kind of reality is that? and, I think, but that’s the crux of the question.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, it’s also it appears to be random, but whether it actually is, not known at the present moment.

VEDRAL: Absolutely, and that’s another excellent point that in fact when we talk about two atoms it’s not random at all. the state that you get between two atoms when you make it so that through interaction, one of them measures the other atom is a completely deterministic state.

It’s a well-defined state. It’s an entangle state, admittedly, so it doesn’t have any classical counterparts and shorting a cold entanglement, the characteristic trait, it’s really the trait of quantum mechanics that doesn’t exist in, in any Newtonian classical physics. But nevertheless. There is nothing random about that state at all.

The state is deterministic. And so that’s what’s interesting that if you treat everything quantum mechanically at the level, at the highest level, at the level of including everything into your consideration, you do recover determinism. and that’s fascinating that at the highest level it’s, is deterministic, but at the level of these individual interactions and observations, it looks random.

so this is in fact what most of our research is about to confirm this in, in, in more and more complicated scenarios.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. and, and that non randomness though, but or indeterminacy like that is ultimately in your view, and I if I’m [00:12:00] summarizing it correctly here is you’re saying that you’re rejecting this idea that measurement is creating many realities it is rather a copying of the state to the local classical object, if you will. Yes. That’s from a observational standpoint.

VEDRAL: That’s right. That’s right. And I think the consistent, the only consistent treatment, and you are right. Obviously physics is a very open-ended enterprise, and our story may well change, with the next revolution in physics. And in fact, my, my latest book is talking exactly about that, that I’m trying to anticipate which experiments we should be doing to probe, and go beyond the current, level of description.

But the statement is that if you treat everything quantum mechanically, and this includes, the system you’re observing, the apparatus you’re using, if you like to use. Other computers, humans as observers, all of that is fine, so long as it’s included consistently into this formalism. And if you do that then you will not get any paradoxes in quantum mechanics is a perfectly consistent account, much like classic.

It is different to classical physics, but it’s consistent in the same way the classical physics is consistent. Of course, it may be proven wrong ultimately that it’s not the ultimate description, but that doesn’t mean that, that it’s not useful in its own domain, which is the current domain.

After all, we’ve had a hundred hundred odd, years, 120 years of experimentation and not a single deviation from quantum mechanics. So I think that gives us, a lot of confidence that that it will be certainly true at a certain level of of generality.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, part the, challenge that quantum mechanics has had in quantum physics, in extrapolating classicality from that is that because these objects are so small and the things that we have to measure them Yes. Are so big in [00:14:00] comparison, it’s, it’s like trying to say, well, I’m going to measure how a tennis ball behaves by smashing a, bowling ball into it.

And that there, there’s fundamental limitations on how you can do that. and so the instrumentality is, really what has been our challenge in terms of extrapolating further from quantum mechanics as

VEDRAL: Yes, extreme. You’re right. And, I think the major stumbling when we dis, when we discuss, for instance, these outstanding questions as I do gravity, you know what happens with gravity?

It’s the only outstanding force that we haven’t managed somehow to quantize, we don’t really understand what it means to quantize gravity. And while many people would say that there are lots of mathematical problems with with these kind of theories, that it leads to all sorts of infinities, nonsensical probabilities, negative probabilities and things like that.

The real big problem here is that we don’t have a single experiment to give us any clues as to what we should be doing in this direction. And it’s precisely because of what you said, this is a very challenging domain and controlling systems in a fully quantum mechanical way to stay in these super positions while making gravity relevant, is a huge challenge.

And we are probably, at least five to 10 years away from being able to probe that. But we are getting closer, which is, exciting to, to a physicist.

The confusion caused by the ‘Copenhagen’ interpretation of quantum fundamentals

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and then there’s also, as you’re, as you saying in the book that there’s the challenge of, the conceptualization of Yes. How quantum mechanics is the dominant perception.

So, because of the instrumentality cha challenges a lot of the discussion. Perhaps most of it is tending to be philosophical oriented rather than empirical oriented. And then yes, further add upon that is the challenge that the Copenhagen. Interpretation is so dominant. So, but if you can maybe kind of [00:16:00] get, unpeel that a bit for the audience here.

Yes.

VEDRAL: I, think I think I can explain Copen, so That’s right. So Copenhagen interpretation is really due to Niels Bohr, I guess. He, he was from Copenhagen. And, the question, the way that he tried to understand quantum mechanics, and I think this evolved into an interpretation and, some of the early practitioners did subscribe to that.

So people like Heisenberg is often quoted as being a member of and, of Copenhagen School of Thought. But it’s not clear. If you really read Heisenberg, I think you will see many differences with Bohr. So I think it’s probably fair to say no two physicists really agree with each other on any of these aspects.

But, but, this interpretation of quantum mechanics. Emphasis is the notion of complementarity. So it takes this idea from classical mechanics that you either get particles or you have waves. And in classical mechanics, particles and waves were described by two completely different theories.

We had Newton’s theories for particle, and we had Maxwell’s equations for waves, for electromagnetic waves, and for about 50 years or longer, they peacefully coexisted in, in, in this way. but then when with some of the early quantum experiments people realize that sometimes quantum objects can behave like particles.

And they almost fully comply with Newtonian description. And sometimes they behave like waves. And in fact, you can almost use equations that look remarkably like Maxwell’s equations. After all. Schrödinger’s equation is a wave equation as well. They behave like waves, they can interfere. If you have two slits, then these particles can really go through both of these slits at the same time and produce interference fringes like, [00:18:00] like normal waves of light or water or any other waves would do.

And so, Niels Bohr thought that the main message of quantum mechanics, and this is where it becomes. A bit mystical, and I think this is what promoted some of these views that, that, at least as far as I’m concerned, go well beyond anything that quantum mechanics, is really telling us. The mysticism there is simply how does a quantum object know whether it should manifest itself as a particle or a wave?

And then Niels Bohr would say, well, that’s to do with the observer. That’s how the observer comes into the Copenhagen and becomes kind of, central to, to this interpretation. So Niels Bohr would say, if the observer chooses to witness the wave nature of the object, then the object will behave like a wave.

And if the observer chooses to manifest the particle nature to set up the experiment in that way, then the object will manifest itself as a particle. And you’ve got many, many unanswered questions here which people immediately ask themselves. For instance, when you have a double slit experiment, if you close one of the slits, then the particle will only go through the open slate.

It will really behave like a classical particle. But if you open the other slit, then suddenly one particle, each particle at a time. Seems to be able to go through both of these slits at the same time and produces an interference like, like a wave. So then the question automatically arises, how does the particle going through one slit know if the other slit is open or not?

How does the particle know that at that moment it should become a wave? And this sounds extremely mysterious and mystical. It seems as though quantum objects have a superpower that they can know locally. This is [00:20:00] something that Einstein, of course, disliked very much, and he kept complaining that he couldn’t.

No. And even

Schrödinger himself,

VEDRAL: even Schrödinger actually indeed, Schrödinger was very much against this, this picture of reality. So somehow it adds this mystical properties to particles, and at the same time, it suggests that it’s all about observers. If I, as an observer decide. To witness a wavelike property of these particles, then I can set up the experiment in, in, in, the Wavelike way.

And otherwise, if I monitor the particle continuously and I keep asking the particle, where are you now? I will get a sequence of locations, much like a path, like a trajectory in Newtonian mechanics. And so, so to me, this interpretation it, it happens to be the dominant interpretation, simply because it’s very pragmatic and it’s frequently, extremely easy to work with in terms of calculating the outcomes for given experimental setups.

But if you want to understand what’s going on, it seems to me it’s not the right way to go. Actually, Dirac by the way, Dirac had a, had a fantastic statement about it. Along, along very similar lines, he said. He said, Copenhagen interpretation is good if you need to pass the quantum exam, as an undergraduate at Cambridge, but actually if you want to know what’s going on and understand quantum mechanics, it’s certainly not sufficient.

and I think that’s where we are. that’s why the interpretation has become dominant. But it seems to me less and less so with the recent experimental progress, the fact that we can now prepare larger and larger systems in this superposition of many different states at the same time, seems to [00:22:00] actually suggest that all of these extra systems, observers, anything we include into this, should also be treated quantum mechanically.

They should not be treated any differently. To any other physical object. And of course we haven’t really done experiment at that level to, to test this, but it seems to me that the right way to think about it is not to draw an artificial division between the observers and the observed. And in fact, any paradox when you hear people saying quantum mechanics is paradoxical, here is yet another paradoxical and, counterintuitive feature.

All of this, in my view comes from the fact that we are introducing these arbitrary observers that are completely unnecessary into the picture.

Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment was a criticism of quantum duality views

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and that does go to the Schrödinger famous cat example. Like he, he wasn’t using that as an illustration of the paradoxical, he was using it as to say, this is an absurd belief.

You shouldn’t think this. and it’s like people took the opposite meaning from what he was doing with that.

VEDRAL: Yes, I think so. Yeah. He was advocating and, I think I, I tried to communicate quantum mechanics in that way. That you should really think about every particle as being part of a, of an underlying field, of a wave that corresponds to this particle.

And rather than thinking about these abrupt, sudden quantum jumps where when you observe something, the state changes in a discontinuous fashion, something unexpected happens in all of this, you should simply think of one wave and tling itself to another wave. And the joint state that’s formed is a state that’s perfectly well described by quantum mechanics.

And there shouldn’t be anything paradoxical about it. And I think if you read sharding as, [00:24:00] this is possibly even his last set of lectures, I think maybe a year or two before he died in the early fifties in Dublin. He does actually talk about this as his ultimate kind of realization. and that’s what quantum Mechanics is all about.

And you are right that in it’s, radically different from how we even teach quantum to mechanics. If you pick up a random textbook it will probably follow some version of Copenhagen actually. It will not be talking about it the way Shadier thought about it.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. It’s a unfortunate irony.

VEDRAL: Very

unfortunate.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And so, but still because of the, the, well, frankly, the dominance of Copenhagen, it’s, it has in a lot of ways, in my view, kind of been a it’s almost like a. It’s like a god of the gaps in physics.

VEDRAL: Yes.

SHEFFIELD: That’s almost what it is. and so it, it can explain something, but it doesn’t actually tell you why it exists or how it is.

VEDRAL: Yes.

SHEFFIELD: It just merely says, well, this is how it functions, appears to function to us at this moment, but it doesn’t tell you anything about,

VEDRAL: no, it doesn’t tell you anything

SHEFFIELD: of how these things are. And like, that’s what this book is about really.

VEDRAL: Yeah. That’s what the book is about. What kind of reality we should be talking about.

And what’s interesting, actually, this is another, common misconception is that you eliminate all of these things like non-locality. people talk about entanglement in the way that you measure one of these particles and suddenly a particle that’s very far away. Mysteriously automatically, suddenly faster than the speed of light, if you like, jumps and assumes the same state.

actually that’s not really what, what’s happening. And, we know that nothing in quantum mechanics violates, special relativity. So I think Einstein really didn’t need to worry about this [00:26:00] aspect of quantum mechanics, but it does assume that we should be thinking about quantum mechanics more like Schrödinger did.

think about these underlying quantum numbers pertaining to all of the systems, and then simply think about interactions that entangle, all of these quantum systems with one another. And then everything happens continuously. Everything is smooth, everything is local. Nothing changes at a distance in an abrupt, way.

And again, this reinforces this message that. All of these paradoxes, all of these seeming violation of other areas of physics like relativity simply happen because we are following this coppen hyken story in which these observers have these almost superpowers to change abruptly states of quantum systems.

And of course, this leads us to conclude certain things that, that sound con contradictory, and in fact, they are contradictory. But nothing in our experiments so far has led to any contradictions. So surely that means that, there is a different story. And that’s why I think short was much closer to that.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and the way I that I kind of think about it is and maybe this is dead wrong, but that basically, there is an externality that exists. And then, but we can only access it through a perception of it. And so when we, when you interact with a quantum system, you’re not changing the nature of the object.

You are changing your percepted externality. You are creating a new one for yourself. Yes. It is not so, in other words, there’s not many worlds that are being created. It is. You are creating a new perception for yourself. That’s what you created.

VEDRAL: Yes. I think there is only one world is just, exactly what you’re saying is just that.

The only consistent way to understand it at present is really to quantize everything. So there is one quantum, it’s certainly not a classical world. We know that. Yeah. For a fact. and we’ve disproved that, on all of [00:28:00] these occasions, but I think it’s more appropriate to talk about one single quantum universe.

Yes.

Eric Weinstein’s “Geometric Unity”

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Okay. Great. Well, okay, so, and then, but because of the, the kind of conceptual and instrumental challenges that we’ve seen, quantum mechanics has seen, and a lot of people trying to advance, interpretations and ideas about it. And one of them, who is this guy named Eric Weinstein, who is, I guess a retired mathematician or something.

Now he does, seems to be only a podcaster now. yes. And, but he, he, released a paper a, a few years ago trying to claim that he had re reconciled, what it partic, space time within a. Extra dimensional space. And, but on the other hand, a lot of his equations, he was just like, well, I don’t have ‘em, and I’m sorry.

I but he’s very angry at people like you lako for, according to him, he says, you are suppressing him, you’re censoring his ideas. but that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening here. It’s mostly like, well, you said the dog ate your equations. That’s what it looks like to me.

VEDRAL: Yeah. To, to me too.

I think you’re right. I don’t know Eric Weinstein myself and, he’s not the only person unfortunately to make claims of that kind. not at all. I think physics is a very open ended enterprise. it does happen to, to conventional physicists, of course, that you come up with an idea, you post it on archive and then you get very disappointed that, there is hardly any response.

This happens, it happens to great ideas by the way that there is, 10, 20 year delay before someone actually realizes that there is something interesting there or that an experiment could be done and so on. But on the other hand, there are many dead ends. And I think, as you said, [00:30:00] if you’re a bit more mathematically minded, you will very easily think about all sorts of generalizations that you could go into.

So, for instance, let me give you a very concrete example. Once you realize that quantum mechanics, relies on complex numbers, so the imaginary numbers, the square root of minus one becomes crucial in, in quantum mechanics. You cannot describe these, wavelike behaviors with real numbers only.

SHEFFIELD: Well, it’s because you’re expanding degrees of freedom beyond like the normal tra traditional scaling Exactly right. You are going into that space. But now if you’re a mathematician, and in fact that’s a perfectly legitimate thing to do for a mathematician, but you mustn’t claim that corresponds to reality then that No, it’s just

a formalization.

VEDRAL: Yeah, exactly right. Yes, that’s right. And I think then you may say, well, why not use even more general entities, there are these quaternions why not use something that goes even beyond complex numbers? And of course a physicist would say, well, we haven’t had any need for that. It’s not that, it’s not that we are conspiratorially blocking all of these, beautiful mathematical obstructions.

It’s just that nature is telling us that what we have so far is sufficient. of course, maybe one day these other formalisms. And we can never know whether they will become relevant in the same way that we couldn’t anticipate that their complex numbers would, they were discovered in in in, in, in the 17th century by some Italian mathematician who basically was solving cubic equations.

and he found a, an interesting way of, writing down some of these solutions. No one dreamt at that time, of course that this would really correspond to some elements of reality. The same with general relativity, non liquidity and geometry. All of these ideas ultimately were absorbed into physics.

But I think to become upset that your mathematical generalizations are [00:32:00] not taken seriously is a bit kind of, immature, right? I mean, as a scientist you should really. You should really understand how this works and I think it’s okay to speculate, but certainly you should not force your own ideas on, onto, an experimental science which of course, already contains methodology, how we find out what’s needed, what’s out there or what’s presumably out there, and things like that.

So certainly there is no conspiracy within the scientific enterprise to block these ideas. In fact, we love crazy ideas. We love to hear that some ideas go beyond the current theory because it gives us extra motivation to go in that direction and try to test these ideas. But they have to be well framed.

You really have to make a conjecture. You have to stick your neck out and you have to say concretely. In what situation and what will happen that’s different to what we already know. And that’s extremely challenging. Of course.

SHEFFIELD: Well, and also you have to be able to specify idea experiments or other, formalization that could falsify your hypothesis.

VEDRAL: Absolutely.

SHEFFIELD: It’s not just to say, this is my proof that it’s true. You have to say, well, if how, this is how it could be false, and here’s how you would know.

VEDRAL: Yes, absolutely. That’s crucial. and like I said, we have, for instance, all sorts of collapse theories in quantum mechanics, and I think I, I would probably say that 90% of practitioners do not believe that quantum mechanics will collapse back to classical physics.

But there are some prominent people like, like Roger Penrose for instance, and many others, 10% probably of physicists believe that there could be some, domain

SHEFFIELD: They’re really doing that in black holes. Like that’s their, For instance.

VEDRAL: Exactly. That’s a big question in black holes. So there are many reasonable ideas there where where things [00:34:00] could, go wrong.

And I can tell you that all my experimental colleagues love this kind of speculations even if they disagree with these speculations, they love them because frequently they tell. How concrete to test whether these ideas are true or not. And we’ve rule out, ruled out many of these collapsed theories, but there’s certainly many other ones that are still outstanding.

So they give us extra motivation to continue with difficult experiments.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. and you really do, and it’s, and it’s, I don’t know how it is for you, but you know, it’s fun reading these papers of, well here’s how these quantum interactions within, black hole, of this type.

But it would be different from this other type. like these, this is these are not ideas that are suppressed. People enjoy reading them, don’t

VEDRAL: They enjoy reading them. It’s okay to be speculative. It’s even okay to say, I don’t foresee an experiment even within, next 50 years. That’s fine.

I mean, many ideas of the past are exactly of that kind, that it took a long time for us to get there, to be able to test them. So we are extremely open to that. And as you say, it is part of the fun of being a theoretician.

How to test new quantum theories

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, but, and to that point though, on experiments so that is, one of the, I mean, that is the kind of the, narrative sort of through line of your book here is you’re trying to say, okay, well look, we’re in a, in some ways, because of the, our instrumental challenges and, conceptualization problems, here’s a way to kind of reset some of that and try to experiment on how we could perceive if.

Yes. classicality is, fully derivable from quantum interaction.

VEDRAL: Exactly. Right. and that’s by no means clear. Like I said, we tested objects that are very large as far as an atomic physicist is concerned. So you have objects which contain, let’s say billions of atoms, but that’s still nothing compared to even, let’s say, a [00:36:00] single biological cell.

No one has put a biological cell into a superposition of two different locations. And in fact, many people doubt whether we will ever get there simply because all sorts of other effects, noise from the environment and anything else could prevent us from, doing something like this. But that’s exactly the direction we are taking because what you want to do when you have a theory is you want to.

Test it in domains where you think that it might fail, that’s the more, rather than just confirming it in one domain after another and doing kind of incremental stuff where you think that the theory will anyway up, be upheld. We try to really stretch it into exciting domains where there are reasonable arguments, why it might fail there.

And you already mentioned black holes. Anything to do with gravity is certainly in this domain, living systems as well. We haven’t really tested quantum mechanics much there. Even chemistry. Much of chemistry actually.

‌

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. No, it’s true. So, but, so within this idea though, there, there is the.

Term of, the colloquial term, the qua quantum ghost. So what is that? And, talk about how you want to experiment with these things that we

called.

VEDRAL: Yes. that’s a nice, question, and I thought I, really wanted to talk about it because not many people are thinking about it.

It concerns again this very awkward marriage between relativity and quantum mechanics. So we, have what’s called quantum field theory, and it puts together special, not general without gravity. So it’s relativity without gravity, together with quantum mechanics. And actually some people would call this the most successful description of nature so far.

you can call it the standard model. In fact, it really accounts for all the other three forces other than gravity. However, what’s really interesting in this theory. [00:38:00] Is that when you’re talking about even basic electromagnetic interactions, if you have two charges and you want to explain how these two charges repel each other, if there are two electrons, two like charges, how they repel each other, or if they’re oppositely charged, how they attract each other.

The interesting thing is that in relativity, everything every physical entity, every observable, if you like, every legitimate relativistically legitimate entity has to have four components. So it’s a little bit like three components of space, which is what Einstein realized, in his first, paper on, this topic and one component of time. So instead of thinking about space with three components separately from time, Einstein actually showed that you need to really think of them as one space time. And the different observers perceive differently spatial units and temporal units. They only perceive one joints based on in the same way.

That’s what’s absolute, if you like, in the theory of relativity. So what’s interesting for us is that when it comes to the electromagnetic field, we have the four components that we are talking about, but our standard treatment claims that two of these components. Can never be measured. They can never manifest themselves.

In fact, when we do our calculations, we leave these two components out. However, they must be somewhere there to comply with relativity. You cannot completely forget them, which is why, as you mentioned, they’re called ghosts. So they, serve the purpose to make quantum mechanics comply with relativity.

But then the claim is that they can never be directly measured. And this should kind of raise all sorts of alarm bells to, to a scientist because you’re thinking, wait a second, why do you need to postulate this in the first [00:40:00] place? If you really claim ultimately that you can never have any observable consequences?

So something that I thought would be fun is to really try to think of an experiment where you could detect these ghosts. So this is simply two components of the electromagnetic field. And

SHEFFIELD: What are these two components? If you can just kind of say that. Specify.

VEDRAL: Yes. There are four components. Three of them look like spatial properties of the electromagnetic field.

So they’re telling you, they’re telling you something about the strength of the electromagnetic field at different locations in space. And this fourth component, the temporal component, is telling you about how it behaves in time. So it very much mirrors the space time of Einsteins, which was applied to the three components of space and one component of time.

Here we are talking about three spatial components of the electromagnetic field, telling you about the straight strength of the electromagnetic field in the X, Y, and Z directions, if you like, in the three spatial directions. And then there is this fourth one, which is the temporal component, telling you how the electromagnetic field behaves in time and suddenly.

People say only two of these spatial components are relevant. There is another spatial component that’s not directly measurable. And then there is this, temporal component that’s also not directly measurable, and they’re known as ghosts because somehow the formalism needs to have them to comply with relativity.

Otherwise, you would get instantaneous action at the distance. You could do things faster than the speed of light and, no one would want that. Obviously. None of our experiments are telling us that anything like this happens. So they’re necessary for consistency and yet somehow people say you can never detect particles of these extra components.

You can never get a a, detector, which would detect a photon. Coming from [00:42:00] these extra ghost modes. And so I thought, and, this is again being motivated by shorting as thought experiments. it’s very reminiscent what I have in mind of shorting as cat experiment. Where what I’d like to do is take a single electron, a single charge, put it in two different locations.

And, these are experiments that people do routinely. But now if these ghost modes are real, if they’re really out there, if they have these particles, photons that pertain to them, and and if we really, if they’re not just necessary for consistency, but if they’re really out there, then our theory is telling us that they must somehow couple to this electron, they must become entangled.

To the electron through an interaction. And if you create this entangle state, then that’s something that you could certainly experimentally verify. So what I have in mind is really one electron, which is in two places at the same time, it becomes entangle to these ghost modes. And then I bring another electron in a position of different states, couple it to the first electron, and then ask what kind of outcomes I get.

And actually the claim that I made in a, couple of recent papers is that you could in principle detect this. No one has done this experiment, but I think these are exactly the adventurous experiments because they’re challenging, the current best description that we have of reality. And they’re really asking these questions.

Can we go beyond that? And it would be very interesting. I’m, actually betting on the fact that we could see the effects of this entanglement in much the same way that sch shredding. Talked about entanglement in general, but to me, again, given that it would be more surprising not to see the effects if we didn’t see any effects, I think this would raise a serious question [00:44:00] about our understanding of these fundamental interaction.

The question is then what does, what does that really mean? how come that relativity is telling us one thing, whereas quantum mechanics doesn’t seem to require these extra components.

Information theory and quantum computing

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and to that point, there, there are some theorists who argue that, information is the fundamental nature of reality.

So, but let, so can we talk about that? But first define what information is within this context. ‘cause again, that’s another uncommon usage here, I think.

VEDRAL: Yeah, very uncommon. I think the tricky bit is really the quantum side. So when, it comes to classical information, first I think is the, simpler one.

I think when it comes to information, to define information, we, we follow Shannon in in probably all sciences, not just in physics.

Shannon wrote a couple of groundbreaking papers in the late forties, and he really talk, talked about communication. He was interested in the channel capacity. How much information can we communicate down a certain. A channel and how do we specify this channel? And this was all about quantum information.

So he, about classical information and then I will talk about quantum. So what Shannon needed is, first to be able to encode information, you need at least two distinguishable states of a physical system. So you need states which you can discriminate with certainty. Of course in our computers, for instance, these states would be the electrical circuits, which are either conducting current or not conducting current.

And you can tell zero one, zeros and ones. That’s it. As soon as you have zeros and ones. going back to George Boole of course, and Boolean logic, I think you can encode information and you can talk about information, what you need. The second crucial concept, and you can now already see why I claim that [00:46:00] it’s much more appropriate to talk about quantum information.

The second concept is that of probability. So Shannon said, if you tell me the probability to get a, the zero value of the bit and the one value of the bit, then I can calculate anything else. I can tell you the capacity of your communication in all sorts of scenarios. It’s actually a universal. A way of talking about information.

So you need bits of information. You need to be able to distinguish two states of, each of these bits. And you need to know the probabilities for various strings of bits, zeros, and months. And so basically that’s what that’s what Shannon did and he showed that you can do anything when it comes to computation.

You can compute anything that’s computable. You can reach any capacity that the channel allows with this. Now the tricky bit with quantum mechanics, and I think that’s where the difficulties arise, is that in quantum mechanics you have in, even with a single system, you have infinitely many ways. Of encoding classical information.

So for instance and this now is going to go back to Heisenberg’s uncertainty. For instance, I could take positions of my object and two different positions are the values zero in one. If it’s in one position, that’s the logical zero. If it’s another in another position is the logical one. However, you can also talk about superpositions.

You can say if it’s in one superposition between these two places. That’s logical value zero, if you like. If it’s in another distinguishable superposition, I can call that logical value one. And the tricky bit in quantum mechanics is that if you put these two together then they do not constitute classical information.

This is something that goes beyond classical information. So my colleague David Deutsch would call [00:48:00] this “super information.” So he would say you have one property in which you can encode classical information, position. You have another property, let’s say momentum, speed in which you can encode classical information.

But when you look at them together, because they cannot be simultaneously specified because of Heisenberg’s uncertainty, they somehow transcend this concept of classical information. So actually a single quantum bit can exist in many infecting, infinitely in principle, in infinitely many different states.

Any superposition of the value zero and the value one, with any arbitrary weights between zero and one, you can have 75% zero, 25%, one are allowed in quantum mechanics. And that’s actually what’s behind the strength of quantum communications and ultimately the quantum computers that we are building. Yeah, so it’s in that sense that I talk about information.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And, that is the really fascinating and groundbreaking idea of quantum computing because, the problem with digital encoding and Boolean logic. That it cannot, when you look at a biological system, they don’t operate under zero one. Yes. They operate under this probabilistic structure.

VEDRAL: Yes.

SHEFFIELD: Especially with, like, so like my current, philosophical project is deriving, mindedness from cellular collectivity and perception and all of these, so in other words, like they, they have to agree on what, on something’s there, but what that something is, and it’s bareness is not zero one.

No. and so that’s, the beauty of using, of, trying to move com computation to quantum state, is that you can have that kind of fuzzy, almost analogical logic.

VEDRAL: Yes. You’re putting it in a very beautiful way actually, [00:50:00] to the extent that we talked, so far about how quantum mechanics changed.

Newtonian classical laws. But actually another way of putting it is exactly how you are putting it, that it changed the classical Boolean logic. It’s not a binary logic anymore. The fact that you cannot say that something either is or isn’t, but it could be in a super position, in fact, in multitudes of different superpositions forces us and some people believe that’s how we should be thinking, forces us to change the logic actually to, to adapt, to imp, to basically use a different kind of logic to describe this kind of com computation and communication.

Q-numbers, C-numbers, and quantum logic

SHEFFIELD: and that is also, what you are trying to, to why you’re trying to back classicality out of that as well. Yes. because that is the indeterminacy that we see when, from the measurement problem. Yes. And the observer problem is that if you don’t think of classical objects in that, in the way that we have.

Then this, mystery and this indeterminacy, this randomness, it disappears. Like that’s your basic thesis.

VEDRAL: That’s my basic thesis. Yes. And and, you are right. It’s interesting that, yes, it’s all about consistency. If you mix that’s exactly how you’re putting it. If you take a quantum system that are based is physiologic and you couple it to a classical system that’s deterministic and or based bull logic, you’re simply not going to be able to consistently even put them together.

Because the classical system does not speak quantum logic. It simply doesn’t understand how it ought to respond to a quantum system. And again, we are back to Schrödinger, that’s exactly Schrödinger Schrödinger’s, thought experiment, which says, wait a second, what’s going to happen if I couple another system to a quantum system that’s in a super position? Well, it simply has to join that [00:52:00] superposition. And that’s it. That’s your entangled state. And that’s really the only consistent way of talking about

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And, people are resisting that though, and I guess that’s,

VEDRAL: people are resisting

SHEFFIELD: really what you’re trying to do.

VEDRAL: Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to do. And, people are resisting. Sometimes people even get angry because they, I guess it’s very difficult to, to get rid of the, cop and hugging kind of, prejudice in many ways. And I think, like I said, we’re all taught to think that way. even in high school, the first time you meet quantum mechanics through Bo’s planetary model of the atomic structure and all of these things, all of these ideas creep in.

And then certainly undergraduate physics, we’re all taught that way. Most popular books are written that way, which actually amplifies this kind. Mystical, side of things, and no one, it leads many people to actually conclude that it doesn’t even make any sense. It can’t be like this, it cannot be consistent.

It must fail. It must collapse. But I’m arguing the other way that, that if you really think of it quantum mechanically, through and through none of these paradoxes, remain actually.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, to that, and, the other way that you kind of bring that home is di discussing that there are two types of numbers.

So with the Q numbers and the C numbers. Yes. So talk about that a little bit, if you will, please.

VEDRAL: Yes. I think this was the, this takes us back exactly to Heisenberg’s first paper, 1925. Last year was the, year of quantum, right. Celebrating a hundred years of his first paper. And that paper is taken as, of course there were many papers.

Before that, that they were already very close to, doing to, to doing things this way. but the breakthrough there, the flash of kind of genius that, that he had and it’s really a magical paper to, to read is that he said something quite revolutionary in, and, it’s, again, [00:54:00] it’s not how we teach quantum mechanics.

He said that the problems of classical physics are not at all the dynamical equations. So if you look at Newton’s equation. Force equals masstones acceleration. Or if you look at Maxwell’s classical equations, as far as Heisenberg was concerned, they’re all fine. Dynamics is okay and we don’t need to modify it.

But the revolutionary idea was that the entities that obey these dynamical equations, which we think of normally in classical physics, is ordinary numbers. So you will say, a particle is located five meters away from me, and in three seconds it will be 10 meters away. And then you can write the equation.

And all of these are real numbers that enter these equations. Heisenberg had this idea that they should be upgraded into what ator called quantum numbers. In fact, Heisenberg simply developed in that paper. He didn’t know what they. They ought to be such objects already existed. They’re called matrices, but Heisenberg, he was only 21, 22, I think.

He wasn’t taught matrices at university. Matrices were already 50 years old then. I think they go back to Sylvester and people like Hamilton. Yeah. but they had no, not much use in physics. And I guess physicists were maybe not taught these things. And so he came up with these tables of numbers.

So rather than needing just one real number, you need really lots of arrays and columns of real numbers, much like a, I think, Schrödinger called them catalogs of information, which is a very colorful way of talking about about matri is one and the same thing. And so Heisenberg said, if you now admit that a position is actually one of these Q numbers.

Momentum is one of the Q numbers energy. Any classical property you can think of gets upgraded into a quantum number, a very complex array of numbers. [00:56:00] Then suddenly everything becomes clear. And he could apply that to spectroscopy. He could reproduce the, spectra that were known at that time. And basically people very quickly developed this idea later applied it to a multitude of scenarios and it became quickly clear that this is the way to think about it.

So I find it beautiful because, and it illustrates discontinuity of quantum physics with classical physics. It, it, says you don’t throw away everything from classical physics. Of course, many ideas in quantum, in classic from classical physics survive and they’re still legitimate. Yeah.

However, what you do need to do is upgrade certain concepts and if you have the right idea what it is that you need to upgrade, then suddenly everything falls into place basically.

The advantages of a process physics over a thing physics

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, and the other interesting thing about conceiving of it, of physical object in this processual way is that you eliminate actually all interaction problems because, the, like within just like regular philosophy, there’s this idea that how can things which have persistence and are objects, how can mental causality make them right, affect them and, basically if everything is a process.

Then there is no challenge of interaction because all, everything is a process interacting with the process. And ideas are just simply proce procedural variables inside of mind, which is itself a process which is made of cellular, entities which are in the cells, quantum fields, made of,

VEDRAL: I, I like the picture that I, very much subscribe to that I, don’t like, dualism or any kind of duality, right?

That you make an artificial split between, our mind or consciousness or whatever the brain does and what the rest of the world does. I think it’s much nicer to think that there is a unity to nature, that we don’t really need this artificial division. [00:58:00] And you’re right, this pops up even in quantum mechanics, right?

That people would say, observers behave differently. Living systems obey differently. But I think. It’s closer to, reality to say that everything is the same. And you’re right, that many of these traditional problems disappear once you see it in this coherent fashion. I agree with you.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah,

VEDRAL: Of course, only time will tell. We haven’t done the experiments yet at that level, but yes.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. But it does offer a consistency that if everything is simply procedural realization, then it, then all the problems disappear. Agree. So many of problems disappear. I agree.

VEDRAL: Yes, I agree with that.

SHEFFIELD: All right. Well, so, besides this book, do you have any, particular papers or people who want to kind of follow the more, formal academic scientific papers that you want to recommend to people?

VEDRAL: I think the best, the best one that talks about quite a lot of these, issues. And it may be.

A relatively friendly one to, to read is, is a recent reviews of modern physics. So this is, a magazine that publishes reviews that usually talk about, a topical field of research maybe that developed over the last five to 10 years.

So I have a very nice review with my colleague Chiara Marletto. It was published last January, so exactly a year ago. And it talks about how methods of quantum information can be applied to test the quantum nature of the gravitational field. So I think this paper is probably if anyone wants to read a bit more. Formal exposition. Plus, I think these reviews contain an extensive literature at the end.

So I think we have over two or 300 references at the end of this review. So if anyone is interested to read this and see what people have been thinking about along these lines, that’s probably the best place to, [01:00:00] to look at.

SHEFFIELD: Okay, awesome. And then, you’ve also got a Substack that people can subscribe to as well if they want to see more?

VEDRAL: Yes. I think my, exactly. I think my website contains, sections with, with different, degrees of formality and difficulty, but I think I try to write my blogs in a very accessible way.

SHEFFIELD: Okay. Awesome. All right. Well, thanks, for joining me today.

VEDRAL: Thanks very much. Great pleasure.

SHEFFIELD: Alright, so that is the program for today. I appreciate you joining us for the conversation, and you can always get more if you go to Theory of Change show where we have the video, audio, and transcript of all the episodes. Of course the links to the different papers and books that we talk about on all of the programs as well.

And if you are a paid subscriber, you have unlimited access to the archives and I thank you very much for your support. But we do also have free subscriptions as well, and you can get each of those at patreon.com/discover Flux, or you can go to Theory of Change Show so you can subscribe on substack. And I thank you very much for doing that.

And if you’re watching on YouTube, make sure to click the like and subscribe button so you can get notified whenever there’s a new episode. Thanks a lot for watching or listening, and I’ll see you next time.

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Before Trump came along, however, so-called “unlikely voters” had strongly Democratic voting preferences, at least according to surveys by Suffolk University in 2012 and 2018.

Figuring out what low-engagement people are thinking about politics is going to become increasingly important as both major parties are trying to move beyond just maximizing their most dedicated supporters.

But understanding why people are choosing not to participate is difficult because Americans with these opinions are often unlikely to answer phone calls from strangers and are less likely to want to take a phone or online survey. That’s why in this episode we’ll be featuring Daniel Laurison, a sociologist at Swarthmore College who just released a new study based on detailed interviews with 144 lower-income Pennsylvanians who do not vote regularly.

The full video of our conversation is available to paid subscribers. You can get unlimited access to this and every other episode on Patreon or Substack. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.

Related Content

• Flashback: How ‘unlikely voters’ could be the key to the 2024 presidential election

• Flashback: Donald Trump’s bet on non-voters is high-risk, high-reward

• Americans are deeply dissatisfied with society, Democrats must speak to their rightful concerns

• Republicans built an infrastructure to attack democracy, Democrats must build one to protect it

• The decline of black churches and media has indirectly increased black support for Republicans

• How the American left became post-political, and how to change that

Audio Chapters (full episode)

00:00 — Introduction

06:57 — Non-voters feel the political system is for the rich; they’re not wrong

15:50 — Trump constantly takes credit and shifts blame; Democrats don’t

21:07 — Non-voters are choosing not to participate, not being driven away by barriers

28:44 — Republicans stay in touch with voters between elections through advocacy media

36:21 — The loss of third spaces and ways to meet friends and network

44:13 — Democrats have redirected local engagement funds to advertising, and it hasn’t worked

49:01 — Trump’s love of self-promotion matches today’s political need for constant communication

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: So this is a really important report, I think, especially given the recent trends we’re seeing in Donald Trump’s approval rating from people—there’s a lot of people out there saying, well, I didn’t vote for this. And they didn’t.

But in fact, he was actually saying what he was going to do in a lot of ways, but they didn’t know. Let’s start though, from the beginning what the larger purpose, behind the report here. And then we’ll start getting into the details.

DANIEL LAURISON: Great. Yeah, I mean, for me, the, the purpose is really to, to first of all highlight the real problem we have in our democracy, which is a lot of people don’t feel, feel included, don’t believe that they’re represented, don’t see anything in electoral politics that reflects what’s going on for them. And that means that a lot of them choose to stay home on election days. And a lot of what we what, what campaigns, what parties, what even civic organizations tend to do to try to bring them out is not necessarily effective. So for me, the most important thing about the report and about what’s going on is that we can’t have an effective democracy if a bunch of people don’t believe that democracy is doing anything for them, him.

SHEFFIELD: Well, yeah, so I mean, with that regard though, I mean, yeah, people, overwhelmingly a lot of people do feel like the, the American political system doesn’t represent them. And they’re not wrong to feel that way. But how, how people are responding to that is very different. And you, you’re looking at the people [00:04:00] who, they’re kind of opting out in a lot of ways, it seems like.

LAURISON: Yeah, I mean, this study is based on interviewing, especially exclusively poor and working class people, or low income and working class people. People who don’t have college degrees and or are earning under $45,000 a year and or are in, manual service, routine working class type jobs, jobs that don’t require college degrees. And so for them, I think part of the. What we call the disconnect is really the class composition of who runs politics, who they see in politics, who they see caring about politics, the volunteers, the politicians, all of that. And so that disconnect as we call it, is, is, is an important way as a class to disconnect.

And that’s something that I think doesn’t get as much attention as we maybe need to give it.

SHEFFIELD: yeah. Well, and one of the things that I think is Im important here is that within, within politics, a lot of people that, that are trying to bring a data-driven approach, quote unquote, to it.

They rely on polls and polls, they’re not as much of a science as people often imagine them to be. And I can say that as somebody who used to be a pollster. And so I’m not hating on it. It’s just that you have only one interaction. It’s a one shot interaction with the person on that topic.

And you don’t know if you phrased it in a way that they understand in the same way. And but then at the same time, people also are doing focus groups and those also have problems as well. And you guys are doing something else.

LAURISON: Yeah, so we did in-depth qualitative interviews. We talked to people for usually about an hour, sometimes an hour and a half. A couple of interviews went up to two hours. And so we could really get a sense in a conversation what, what they meant. if they said something and we weren’t sure what they meant, we could say, what do you mean by that? And we could follow up on stories they told us, or when they said, you. I just don’t like that guy. We could ask what they meant, et cetera. So I think there’s really something to be said for this kind of qualitative research. It’s not something that, that I would expect [00:06:00] a campaign in its final 40 days to be able to do.

But it is something that that makes people feel heard and understood and listened to, and that’s really worthwhile. And for our purposes for research, you just get a different sense of, of. What people are thinking and feeling and what they believe. Then you can with other methods, especially polls.

I’m a person who does both qualitative and quantitative research. I love surveys. I love survey data. But the fundamental feature of a survey is you give people a set of options to take boxes on. And if you’re not asking the right questions, you’re not going to find out what’s going on for them. That’s one piece. And then the other piece is a lot of people just tick the box that sort of seems right in the moment and you don’t have any sense of whether that’s something they believe really deeply, whether that’s something they care really a lot about, whether that’s something that motivates them or if it’s just like the box that appealed in the moment. So again, while I use surveys. I like surveys. I think polls are real information, but there’s some things you just can’t capture unless you’re having conversations with people.

Non-voters feel the political system is for the rich; they’re not wrong

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and and especially I think with regard to disengagement and dissatisfaction because everybody has their own things that they’re dissatisfied about. Because, ultimately people who are deciding to vote for someone, there’s, they’re deciding, they’re unifying on that thing of this is who I’m going to vote for, whereas somebody who is not voting. They can have a, a variety, a wide variety of reasons for not participating. Although one of the consistent themes in the research is that people that you guys talk to are, they feel like that politics is for rich people and for people who are, are world apart from

them. and, and you guys have several different case studies in that regard. There.

LAURISON: Yeah, absolutely. And just to go back to the methodology for a second, the other piece that I think is really important is that polls and surveys increasingly just can’t be representative. And qualitative data is never even attempting to be representative because you’re almost never doing random [00:08:00] samples or that sort of thing. But the people who are least likely to respond to polls and surveys are also the people who are least likely to vote. And so you don’t get a good set sample of people who are non voters necessarily, unless you’re really making an effort. And you don’t get a good sample of people who are, who don’t have college degrees, who are low income, who are poor, who are struggling and waiting can take care of some of that, but it can’t take care of all of that.

So one thing we were able to do is use community-based researchers who were from the communities where we were trying to talk to people to bring in their friends and family, to bring in people that they had connections to so that we were reaching people who would never, you know, if a pollster calls you and says, do you want to answer some questions about politics? These are people who would never do that. And they were, some of them were in fact, quite hard to recruit, even with an incentive, even by a friend or family member to talk about politics in an inter interview for an hour. So I think that’s, part of what’s going on for a lot of people is, again, just the sense that politics is not something they’re entitled or qualified to participate in.

Not in the sense of they don’t genuinely know what they need to know, but in the sense of, if it seems like the kind of thing you have to watch the right news, or you have to know the right people or et cetera, then you’re, you’re not going to feel like it’s something you want to talk about for an hour.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and also the way that the economy is increasingly structured for a lot of people what we’re seeing in this research, but also a lot of other research is that a lot of people are having to work multiple jobs. They’re having to they don’t have time to look at this stuff.

And even as early as Aristotle, he was saying politics is something that people who have leisure can participate in. But if you are scraping by constantly, where are you going to have that time? Especially if you have no habit of doing that.

LAURISON: I think that’s part of it, and, and certainly, the efforts that people are making to make voting easier are. [00:10:00] a hundred percent worthwhile. The ma efforts that people are making to, on the other side, mostly to make voting more difficult, I think are, a real problem. But most people we talked to when they were talking about their own reasons for not getting to the polls, it wasn’t about the time that they had or, how convenient it was or finding a car, that sort of thing.

It really was just a sense that either, either there was no point or why would they give their vote to people who don’t care about them or, this is, this is just, I sometimes make the analogy to who’s a football fan and who’s not. Some people, pay a lot of attention to football, love football, talk about football all the time.

Some people, and I’m one of them. Didn’t grow up in a football family. People start talking about football, my eyes glaze over. I don’t have any idea what the thing is that I should say, and I just don’t want to be in that conversation. And I think that politics feels to a lot of people we talk to, the way football feels to me, right?

It’s something that they know other people care about. They know is something that maybe as a good American, they ought to engage with, but they just don’t feel like it’s something that, that they have access to.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, that’s, yeah, that’s true. And that is an important thing to note because there have been people that have, have been trying to talk about this and, and they focus on only on, well, let’s make voting easier, not, well, why don’t you vote? And that’s, it is a serious issue because, especially if you are somebody who is trying to work on behalf of democracy and you don’t like a lot of the tyrannical things that Donald Trump has been doing.

I mean, the reality is his campaign was trying to find these people in 2024 and there were numerous studies that showed that the less that people were paying attention to the news or followed it the more they were likely to support Donald Trump because he was trying to talk to him. He was there in the places that they did watch.

So he was there in the Ultimate Fighting Championship places. And he [00:12:00] was going to football games, and going on lifestyle podcasts talking about just any random thing that they wanted to ask him about. And, and that’s not what you see a lot of Democratic people doing.

What they seem to do is, they’ll do a interview with Morning Joe and they’ll, they’ll have a New York Times op-ed, and then they’ll say, okay, well I’m done. And that’s, that’s just not where these people are. They’re not looking at that media and they never will. And they have the right to. This is a job for people like you and I, but we’re a minority and the people who are political junkies and, really interested in, in these topics, they’re also a minority also.

LAURISON: Yeah, absolutely. And they’re usually also from, not always, but usually from educated families from upper middle class families, more likely to be white, more likely to be men. Here we all are.

And so they’re not as likely to have organic connections to regular poor and working class people across race.

And that’s really, I think, a problem, especially, especially for the Democrats. Trump also in the last election, his campaign not only in terms of media, but also in terms of campaign strategy was knocking doors of people who had very low voter propensity scores. The kind of the kind of doors that don’t tend to get knocked in most standard Democratic campaigns these days.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, that’s true. But it’s, and I want to just go back related to that. So there’s something I asked earlier where you had to address something else, which was good. But you know, just this idea that politics. Is not it, it’s for people who are rich. And when we look at the research of, of compared to, this is the public opinion on X and this is the law that comes from X, that opinion to say that politics is is not about me and that not about people like me, that’s a true opinion

LAURISON: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you could, I think there are many politicians who are very interested in making the lives of low income and working class people better. And there are many policies that have been passed, o often by Democrats [00:14:00] that do in fact make people’s lives better in, in some ways, but they’re so often hard for people to see those effects.

You pass a law that results in block grants to the states that results in grants to nonprofits that results in services that people might not otherwise get. But no one receiving those services has any way to see. In fact, even the people working in the organizations often don’t have any way to see that, that, that funding came from a federal grant that was part of a bill that was passed by Democrats a year or two or three ago. And so that, I think you’re, I, I say all that because I, on the one hand, I think you’re right that by and large politics is by and for the wealthy. There are, the people who, politicians are disproportionately wealthy people who work in politics.

There’s a number of books and studies that show that if you look at public opinion by income, the policies that we get tend to reflect either and the beliefs and interests of the people at the top, or when there’s wide consensus, they tend to get implemented.

But the people at the lower end of the income spectrum, if they have policy preferences or, issue, issue beliefs that don’t line up with the issues and the policies that the people at the top care about, they’re much less likely to get implemented. So that’s, that’s absolutely true. The reason I sort of hesitate when you say they’re right, that politics is for the rich, is it doesn’t have to be that way.

It doesn’t have to be that democracy. As it, our democracy in the US only reflects the interests of well off people. And you see examples all over the place where that gets, that’s not the case, right? Where there’s state laws that really do help low income and working class people, where there’s city policies that do that, where there’s, attempts to do things at the national level.

The question is just, how can we make it more in that direction rather than, rather than less.

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Episode Summary 

Amid the constant contradictions of Donald Trump’s second administration, some of his policies have been remarkably consistent, especially those out of the Department of Health and Human Services, where Secretary Robert Kennedy Junior has been ripping up decades of scientific consensus on many areas, including vaccines, diet recommendations, and transgender care.

But as a lifelong politician and lawyer with no actual experience as a doctor or medical administrator, he has needed to develop a staff of people with at least some medical experience in order to tear and destroy. What kind of doctor would want to work for a parasite-ridden lawyer who brags about eating roadkill, seems to not understand how viruses work, and advocates eating lots of saturated fats? The answer is: almost none of them. But, unfortunately, there are always a few people out there with enough personal grudges and crank beliefs to do the job.

Our guest on today’s program, Jonathan Howard, knows all about the new medical establishment after having seen firsthand how they promoted anti-vaccine lies and dangerously underestimated the effects of Covid-19. We had him on the program in 2022 to discuss his first book, We Want Them Infected, and he’s out with a new one examining the policy insanity of Kennedy and his underlings called Everyone Else Is Lying to You.

The video of our conversation is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.

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• Covid contrarians want you to forget that they were much more wrong than the scientific consensus

• How 1970s tobacco companies pioneered the deceitful marketing strategies used by today’s conspiracy peddlers

• Why the “naturalistic fallacy” is the basis of so much anti-science thinking

• Marianne Williamson’s ineffective self-help politics

• How “post left” grifters use contrarianism and know-nothing socialist rhetoric to push people to the far right

Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

07:36 — Robert Kennedy Jr. and his allies are the medical establishment, and they are responsible for what happens

16:26 — The “Great Barrington Declaration” was initiated by political activists, not scientistsc

20:48 — After claiming to oppose censorship, the Trumpian medical establishment is conducting it at a massive scale

25:57 — Anti-vax activists have had years to do their own studies, but they have basically nothing

33:34 — The cowardice of Republicans like Bill Cassidy who know better

37:54 — Other people in the MAHA conspiracist movement

44:41 — MAHA figures have more conflicts of interest than the scientists they hate

51:24 — The looming conflict between polluters and anti-vax Republicans

01:03:20 — John Ioannidis and the perils of medical contrarianism

01:08:08 — Why atheist activists teamed up with far-right Christians who hate medical science

01:18:44 — Conclusion

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: So, I literally just released an episode catching up with a previous guest who had been on the show who had marked a lot of the negative trends that we are now seeing. And unfortunately I’m in the same spot with you, my friend, that, there’s a lot of bad things that have happened. And there are so many things that I do wanna kind of summarize of them so that we can all keep track of what’s been going on for the conversation.

And as we’re talking today on January 30th, the most recent kind of news headline of this awful medical establishment that is in installed itself thanks to Trump, is that, the measles in the United States are, they are what’s being made great, it looks like.

JONATHAN HOWARD: Yeah, no, measles is spreading out of control.

There’s the largest outbreak in 25 or 30 year, probably 26 years, actually in, South Carolina right now. Measles seems to be. Popping up in multiple other states as well. This is of course, [00:04:00] following a very large outbreak in Texas in the spring of 2025 that killed two children, and another adult.

So these were the first measles deaths in the country in about 10 or 15 years, and the first children to die, I think since 1991. and our current medical establishment is trying to control it with vitamin a cod liver oil, and by spreading disinformation about the measles vaccine as was eminently predictable.

SHEFFIELD: It was. And what we’re really seeing, I think, consistently is that, that these guys are kind of across the board are, they have these old fashioned medical viewpoints. Like that’s what really what they’re doing. And they have these ideas that really have been debunked for about 80 years roughly. but they want to try again on everything seems like.

HOWARD: Yeah, I was gonna say, it depends how old fashioned you’re talking about because, the measles vaccine has been around since 1963 and, probably all current members of our medical establishment, except for maybe RFK would say that they think the MMR is a very important vaccine, but if they actually felt that way, they would not be working for RFK, who has spread more misinformation about the measles vaccine and all vaccines and probably any other American in the past 20 years.

And what we are seeing is that. Disinformation about the COVID vaccine is very predictably bleeding into all vaccines. So all vaccines are kind of connected in, in that if you trust the doctors who recommend them people are more likely to get the measles vaccine if they’re also told accurate information about the COVID vaccine, which they weren’t.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And they weren’t. And this is part of when, if you look back at the history that there has always been suspicion about vaccines. People have always had it since they were first [00:06:00] invented. So it’s, I guess it’s understandable even though we don’t agree with those viewpoints for people to, it does seem on the face of it on the surface that a little bit counterintuitive.

You mean you’re telling me that. Injecting diseases into myself is good for me? And it’s always been a challenge, right?

HOWARD: Yeah. The history of the anti-vaccine movement is as old as vaccines themselves. Even preceding Edward Jenner, as far as I know, the first known vaccinator was an English farmer by the name of Benjamin Esti, who vaccinated his children against smallpox in the 1770s or something like that.

And everyone can go read about him on Wikipedia. And he faced great backlash from his community. And then when a smallpox epidemic ripped through the community, his children were spared. But all, everything that we’re hearing about vaccines. Now, all I should say, all anti-vaccine disinformation, none of this is new.

It, all goes back to this idea that vaccines are in pure in some way, whereas catching a virus is natural and therefore there’s no problem with it. Or that vaccines have never been properly tested or that they are just being given by pharmaceutical companies to pad their bottom line. So no, nothing that we’re hearing now is new.

What’s changed is who it’s coming from, top government officials and top doctors who came from Harvard, Stanford, UCSF and Johns Hopkins. That’s what’s new.

Robert Kennedy Jr. and his allies are the medical establishment, and they are responsible for what happens

SHEFFIELD: It is. And they still constantly talk about the medical establishment and all that, but they are the medical establishment.

They are the ones with the power. They are the ones with the money, and they are the ones who are responsible for the deaths of these children and the other people that will die.

HOWARD: Absolutely. So our current [00:08:00] medical establishment, and I love that you called them that way, they, rose to power kind of portraying themselves as these outsiders who would have controlled COVID perfectly.

So they became famous not for their on the ground accomplishments, but because of their social media content in which they said they would have protected the vulnerable, they would have kept schools open, or the fact that they proposed things and they argued for things and they called for things. But now that they are in power and have been given the opportunity to prove their re real world competency they’re failing.

And it is, of course not just measles. Last year we had 28,000 cases of whooping cough in this country. We had a record number, not a record, but a very high number of pediatric flu death. And of course not all of this can be laid on the hands of our current medical establishment who had just been in power for a few weeks at this time.

But they’re showing that they are totally inept at controlling viruses, and I shouldn’t say even inept, indifferent to controlling viruses. They’re not making any or bacteria in the case of whooping cough, but they’re not making any attempt to do that. And they are improving incompetent leaders at the agencies that they run, the NIH, the FDA, and to some degree the CDC as well.

And I say only to, to some degree because I don’t think the current director is a doctor, but, they’re proving inept leaders who are loathed and mocked by the people who work for them.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and you talked about this idea that it seems like a lot of them really actually do not want to do anything to mitigate disease.

And that was the title of your previous book that We Want Them Infected. I mean, so what is this? I mean, I think the idea that doctors would want people to be infected with viruses, it seems so absurd that it’s almost [00:10:00] unbelievable that a doctor would say such a thing, but what is the idea behind this here?

HOWARD: Yeah, so the title from the book, We Want Them Infected, came from a pretty low level, A person in public health in the Trump administration by the name of Paul Alexander who literally said that we want them infected. But this idea originated best. I can trace it back to in March, 2020, and it was really formalized in the Great Barrington Declaration, which was written in October 20, 2020 by three people, two of whom are now very high up in the Trump administration. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who leads the NIH and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, who is a, vaccine advisor at the CDC and recently off the authored a, memo, actually both of them did to decimate the vaccine schedule, but. If you listen to what they have to say about their pandemic vision today they kind of just cherry pick the most unpopular mitigation measures and say, we were only against that.

So they’ll say, we just wanted kids in school. We just cared so much about education of, poor children and minorities in the working class. We just didn’t want toddler horse to wear masks. But in reality what they wanted in 2020 was as many people to get infected as possible. At least if you were in what they.

Considered the not vulnerable category, which was essentially everyone under age 60 or 70 who didn’t have some significant medical comorbidity. And their idea was that you could get rid of the virus by spreading the virus. So they proposed a world of zero COVID for vulnerable people, older people in nursing homes, and a world of pure COVID for basically everyone else.

And they claimed that if you let the virus spread within three to six months, we would have herd immunity and the pandemic would end. This was brought to the White House by Dr. Scott Atlas, [00:12:00] who was one of Trump’s Coronavirus is ours at the time, who worked very hard to undo mitigations,

SHEFFIELD: Who also, sorry, I, we should say, had no epidemiology background whatsoever. He was a, he is a radiologist.

HOWARD: Correct. And, all of these doctors who I mentioned were, none of them saw what COVID could do with their own eyes. So they constantly said things that anyone who worked on a COVID unit would never say that the virus spared young people, or that death was the only bad outcome from COVID.

Or even though it wasn’t really known, in the time of course, but they claimed that one COVID infection led to. Decades of immunity, even though the virus was just 1-year-old. So they were wrong, basically about everything. And all of them drastically underestimated COVID. So Dr. Jay Charia at the start of the pandemic predicted that COVID would kill 20 to 40,000 Americans.

He will deny that he wrote that, but he did. And anyone can go read his essay in the Wall Street Journal is the coronavirus as deadly as they say in which he said that. He said that New York and Sweden had reached herd immunity by June, 2020. His co-author on this document, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, claimed that Stockholm and Sweden was, had almost reached herd immunity in April, 2020.

So it was a very, so they drastically underestimated what COVID could do. But if you hear them talk today, they say that they will say that their pandemic vision has been vindicated and that it was everyone else who broke trust in public health, except for.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. and they were the ones who were the most wrong.

I mean, let’s be clear about that. they, want to say. That, the original experts who are now dislodged in epidemiology and are not the establishment, the medical establishment they want to say that they were [00:14:00] wrong. And look, the reality is nobody was perfect in the predictions or the observations that they made.

but ultimately it was the people who were saying, oh, it’s gonna be over. In two or three months. And not very many people would, I don’t know how you could be more wrong than that.

HOWARD: Yeah. And it’s the, things that they were, right about weren’t things that were uniquely right to them.

So they will say that school closures hurt children, for example. And I don’t know anyone who argues differently. I think what they did, however, is they portrayed every single mitigation measure as a choice. So what they did is they erased the virus and they essentially claimed that if only the people in charge had made smarter decisions, schools could have, remained open and functioned totally normally in this sort of thing.

And again, we don’t have to speak about this in a hypothetical sense because we can look at what, again, what they are doing now that they are in charge and they’re. Failing to stop viruses and diseases from spreading. And when they helped run the show in Florida during 2021, especially during Florida’s Delta Wave, what happened?

Schools closed and vulnerable people died in huge numbers and so did not vulnerable people. So we don’t have to speak about anything in the hypothetical sense. We can just look at what actually happened and they didn’t do a single thing that they claimed they would have done, and these guys are stuck in 2020.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya just gave a recent interview to the New York Times, I think just yesterday with Ross. Duch had, however he pronounce his name, one of their conservative columnists. And he spent the first half of the interview not talking about what he’s doing at the NIHA topic I’m sure he’s desperate to avoid but trying to re-litigate what was, what happened six years ago, the lockdowns of six years ago.

he tries to answer every question by referencing, lockdowns. And this isn’t just something to laugh about because he is using this as a [00:16:00] pretext to help dismantle public health here in the United States. So if you ask him why did the United States withdraw from the World Health Organization, his answers is that they promoted lockdowns.

So we’re really seeing this anger and this grievance over COVID manifest itself now by people whose aim was always to take a wrecking ball to everything.

The “Great Barrington Declaration” was initiated by political activists, not scientistsc

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, I think that’s right. And, this is a, the their viewpoint here also, it doesn’t it, it, was never supported by, any kind of logic.

Like when they’re talking about, oh, well we, this, whole idea of we want them infected or, let, the virus rip. It was completely incoherent. This Great Barrington declaration that they signed, which was basically the, it was initiated by a right-wing libertarian group. Not anything to do with medical establishments or doctors, anything like that.

they didn’t have any plan in place of, well, how do you know? About somebody who has a co comorbidity and they don’t know it. Like, what do you, what happens to them? And, that really was, I think one of the biggest headlines outta the Pandemic from what I saw is that, that there were so many people who had conditions and they didn’t know that they had conditions because they had not had, symptoms.

But in fact they still had ‘em. And we have, we saw a lot of people that were becoming chronically ill or dying as a result of being infected. And that was never even addressed at all in the Great Barrington Declaration or subsequently by any of its advocates.

HOWARD: Yeah, I’m glad you brought up the origins of the Great Barrington Declaration because it was organized by a man by the name of Jeffrey Tucker, who sounds like a cartoon villain.

He is and

SHEFFIELD: Looks like one.

HOWARD: He does. He wears a cape in public crazy stuff. So [00:18:00] he is a proud child labor advocate. He wrote an article in 2016 called Let the Kids Work, which is exactly what it sounds like. So all of these guys who are so concerned about children in schools have nothing to say as child labor laws are being rolled back across the country now.

He advocated teenage smoking because he thought it would cool. Kids could break the habit that it wasn’t truly addictive. And I encourage everyone, if they have any questions about the Great Barrington Declaration to go and read it. It’s just one page long. Because again, the 2020 revisionist history of this document is that it was just about poor kids in school.

This sort of thing the, these almost le liberal and leftist ideas. But in reality, it was all about herd immunity via natural immunity, which again, they claimed would end the pandemic in three to six months. That comes from the frequently asked question section. And you say that they had no plan. I mean, they would say.

That they had a great plan to protect the vulnerable. But again, if you go to the frequently asked question section and read it’s just the most bare bones outline.

So, for example their plan, if you even wanna call it that, to protect older people living at home was four sentences long. And it contains suggestions that were already pretty obvious. Like, if you’re having guests over, you should meet outside or suggestions that were completely impractical, such as. the, government should set up a national delivery service for groceries and other essentials as if it was in the power of Fauci, for example, to set up a, national home grocery d delivery service for 60 million home bound seniors.

And for what it’s worth, I recently wrote my own declaration. I called it the Murray Hill Declaration. And I published this on science-based Medicine a couple weeks ago, and it basically calls on all of these [00:20:00] guys to actually do everything that they said that they were going to do. So they now, I mean obviously it’s not 2020 anymore, thank God, but they still have an opportunity to protect the vulnerable they can now do.

Everything that they previously called for and proposed and argued for and would have done but they refused to do it, which shows that it, that they can’t do it, they’re incompetent, or it never could have been done in the first place because it was entirely impossible to just protect the vulnerable.

I mean, it’s one of these things that isn’t wrong. but I, kind of liken it to a coach telling his team, the game plan is to score more points than the other team. Well, that’s not the wrong plan. It’s the perfect plan, but it’s not a very good one.

After claiming to oppose censorship, the Trumpian medical establishment is conducting it at a massive scale

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, and one of the other things that has been really inconsistent also now that they have the levers of power is that before the Trump second administration, they were constantly claiming to be against censorship and letting people say what they think at all times in all places.

And yet now inside of NIH and, other, scientific research institutions of the federal government, employees are being fired constantly or being censored. and they even have a, a issued a list of words that are prohibited that if you put them in your grant proposal, including basic words like women it’s kind of hard to do medical research if you’re not doing it on women among many other absolutely neutral things that that, again, you can’t do medical research without, studying things in these different ways. I mean, this is there. I don’t, and I’m not a, I’m not a, doctor and I’m not involved in the medical field, but to me, the amount of censorship and control from the top down that [00:22:00] we’re seeing right now under Bhattacharya and other officials in the administration, there’s never been anything remotely like this.

And there are cer and there was certainly, nothing like how it was during COVID.

HOWARD: Yeah. So one of the ways that these guys rose to power helped rewrite the history of the pandemic was to portray themselves as the pandemic’s chief victims, because they were silenced and they were censored. And this is one of the ways also that they, kind of staved off any sort of criticisms that anytime anyone disagreed with them, they were trying to silence and trying to censor them. So what are the facts? I don’t know all of the details of this because it’s entirely about social media content, like the fate of a couple of tweets, for example.

Or a single YouTube video that was removed-- in a pandemic where over a million Americans died. I just can’t really muster so much energy about the fate of a couple tweets and Jay Bhattacharya, and I think Martin Kulldorff as well, even took their case to the Supreme Court where they lost, they were slapped down because they were found not to have any standing.

They were found, I think that no one has censored them. Essentially, they, weren’t harmed in any way. But if you listen to Jay Bhattacharya, for example, type his name, into YouTube, along with the word censorship or free speech, you’ll find an enormous amount of content devoted to his supposed censorship.

A matter of fact, in the spring of 24 when Kennedy was still a presidential candidate, Jay Bhattacharya spoke at one of his rallies in front of a thousand people into a microphone, claiming that he had been silenced and censored. And he promised that when he got to the NIH, he would change things and silence, scientists would finally be able to free to speak their mind. In reality, as you alluded to, what happened is they’re being silenced and censored. So several NIH officials have resigned due to censorship. The most prominent being a food researcher by the name of Kevin Hall. [00:24:00] Several others have been purged.

There was a signer of something called the Bethesda Declaration, which was a document written by. And signed by hundreds of NIH employees, essentially declined censorship at the beginning of summer 2025. And one of the leaders of that Jenna Norton, was recently put on administrative leave.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Who actually has been on the podcast. So we will link to that episode.

HOWARD: Oh, great. Yeah. No, I’ll have to listen. And another high up FD NIH official g let me find her exact name. Gian Marrazzo, I think her name was. she, was actually purged for pushing back against yeah, Gian Marrazzo for, pushing back against some of RFK junior’s anti-vaccine disinformation.

Just today actually, there is a MAHA Summit where Jay Bhattacharya is participating, and he kicked out several journalists from leading scientific, publications such as, nature and Science. Because they have been critical of him. So even though he claims to value free speech and to be against censorship and to value debate, that is the essence of science.

He refuses to take questions from anyone who might answer, might ask him a hard question. He only goes to his safe space and is censoring science. and I, just read an article a few days ago that 10,000 scientists have been, lost their jobs at the federal government in the past year, as you alluded to with word bans.

he is banning any kind of research that he considers DEI. It’s unclear who gets to define that and, how those decisions are made. But it’s a, it is sort of a vast scientific censorship regime, especially compared to the fact that, he got famous because he lost a single YouTube video in 2021.

That was just a, that was censorship according to him, not what’s going on now.

Anti-vax activists have had years to do their own studies, but they have basically nothing

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. And, [00:26:00] and really what they’re I think if we kind of dig beneath their rhetoric, and their actions, what it seems to be is that the viewpoint, their viewpoint is, if I am criticized, that is censorship.

And because I mean, the reality is they don’t have the research to support their ideas. I mean, that’s, they’re, they are not releasing studies of their own. And, several of them, not just, Bhattacharya, but others, they have had affiliations with very well funded institutions.

They could have done studies to prove their viewpoints or, at least argue for them. And they don’t really have studies to, to put forward. All they have is their crank opinions, it seems like.

HOWARD: Yeah. there, there’s one exception to that, which is actually Jay Bhattacharya did do one study at the very start of the pandemic.

It’s kind of become infamous, in, in, in the fields. It’s called the Santa Clara Antibody Study. And yeah. Initially these guys argued that COVID wasn’t gonna spread that widely, that it wasn’t that contagious, so we didn’t have to worry about it. Then they did a study just a blood draw study of people in Santa Clara County, California and found something, and this is very early on in the pandemic.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

HOWARD: March, April, may, something like that. And they reportedly found that about 5% of people there had antibodies, even though maybe only one of them actually remembered having COVID or had symptoms consistent with COVID. And they used that to con collude kind of the opposite, that COVID was very widespread and that the vast majority of people who had COVID, didn’t even know that they were infected or they just had sniffles.

they said at the beginning at that time that the virus is 50 to 80 times more common than we previously thought, which was also used. To [00:28:00] minimize COVID because if 90% of people hadn’t been infected, and we didn’t even know it yet, like, hey, maybe we were closer to the end of the pandemic in spring 2020 than towards the beginning as it turned out.

so that’s an example of how, and, there were many flaws with the study ranging from the antibody tests themselves to how they recruited people this sort of thing. And it didn’t turn out to be the case that the vast majority of COVID infections are asymptomatic. Unfortunately, it would’ve been nice if that was the case.

But they’ve been coasting on that study for the past six years almost. But as far as I know, it’s really the only. Potential, if you even wanna call it that research study that they did themselves. Other than that, it was just what we’re doing now, podcasts, YouTube videos, opinion pieces and they were content creators above all.

Fox News appearances. So for doctors who were silenced and censored they wound up in a pretty good place. Head of the NIH, head of the FDA, head of the FDA are other very high ranking positions in the federal government right now.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and I guess I was thinking about the non COVID research as well.

Like they, they don’t really have much to point to on that regard either. And

HOWARD: yeah.

SHEFFIELD: and we keep hearing from, Kennedy and others in his orbit that, oh, we’re gonna do these things. We’re gonna do these things. and they’ve had, they’ve already had a year, like you, they could have had something out by now.

And or, and again, like even, but even before that, like, there are not studies that, again the anti-vax movement of which, Kennedy has, really been the leader of it for quite a long time. They’ve had a lot of time, decades. To come up with something that people can look at and, and, they do kind of sometimes point to a couple of things here and there, but the way that they’re reading it is just [00:30:00] not correct.

but you want to talk about some of that.

HOWARD: Yes. So they are in fact impairing research into vaccines. even though one of their biggest complaints is that vaccines haven’t been studied, and especially in randomized double-blind placebo controlled trials the head of the Moderna recently made a statement that they are not going to be doing nearly as many vaccine studies coming up because the US market won’t support it.

They have proposed a couple of, at least one that I know of a double blind placebo controlled study, but this was of the Hepatitis B vaccine, a vaccine that has been in use for 30 to 40 years and been given to billion people over the world. They are trying to do a randomized double blind placebo controlled study of that vaccine in a small African country whose name I will probably mispronounce Guinea Basu.

And this is basically Tuskegee Experiment 2.0 because there’s a very high rate of Hepatitis B there. And so they’re essentially condemning. A certain number of children to getting this chronic disease that can lead to liver failure and liver cancer. I do think that probably in 2026 they are going to produce several studies, which I say in air quotes proving that vaccines cause autism.

Kennedy has brought in several of his right hand man and men and women, who have a history of doing cherry picking fraudulent, horrible research into vaccines. And invariably they’re going to scour some CDC data bank and they’re gonna find, the children named Billy, born on a Tuesday to mother’s named Lisa who got the MMR vaccine.

On a Friday have doubled the rate of autism of some other group of children. but that’s not how science works. I’m afraid we’re gonna be having to rebut some very poorly done so-called studies very soon. And these are gonna be one can imagine RFK junior standing next to Trump, having a major [00:32:00] sort of press release about this sort of study and turning it into event.

Hopefully I’m wrong about this, but so far all of my predictions have been off only in the other direction that I underestimated how bad things would get.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, well, and I mean they, they pretty much did exactly what you said with regard to Tylenol and autism. Re release something that was not a study and we’re very confident about it.

And when the entire rest of the world pushed back on it and said, this is junk, what you put out. They kind of had to sort of walk it back, but they still believe it. They still believe it.

HOWARD: Yeah. I don’t know that they’ve walked it back. There was a major study,

SHEFFIELD: well, trump did. I’m sorry, I should say.

HOWARD: Oh, did he?

I didn’t know, I didn’t know that. Good for him. I never saw that.

SHEFFIELD: Well, I said he sort of walked it back. He didn’t fully, he was like, well, if you really need it, you should still take it.

HOWARD: I see. Yeah. And they’ve also, the FDA is working on approving a quack treatment again in air quotes for autism leucovorin, which is probably harmless.

but that’s not how medicine is done. And the FDA has taken off several of its previous pages that warned against quack autism treatments, which Kennedy has long favored. And some of these things are very nasty, like bleach enemas, for example. And one can imagine that this is what the future holds for us in 2026 and 2027, along with more measles and pertussis and flu and COVID.

The cowardice of Republicans like Bill Cassidy who know better

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. No, it’s really awful. And a lot of the responsibility for this happening is on people who, outta partisan, I identification and loyalty have had decided to just go along with it. and, there’s the, worst offender by far, but there are many, is Bill Cassidy, [00:34:00] the Louisiana Senator, who very clearly did not like Bobby Kennedy Jr.

When he was up for the for his post. And, but nonetheless, he’ll try to vote for him or voted for him anyway, presumably based on the idea that, well, if I vote for him to be the HHS secretary, that Trump will endorse me when I run for reelection. And Well, huh. Look at that. Trump has betrayed him. And, despite that betrayal I haven’t seen Cassidy, really go hard after. I mean, I mean the reality is just based on the measles outbreak that we’re seeing, Kennedy should be impeached just for that. And irrespective of all of the other horrible things that he is done like this guy is literally imperiling the lives of tens of thousands of Americans, probably more.

And Bill Cassidy was fine with that because, I gotta support my party.

HOWARD: Yeah, there should definitely be an annual award, the Bill Cassidy Award in cowardice. He was a doctor. He is a doctor a GI specialist who, spoke about treating patients who had liver failure due to hepatitis B and the success of that vaccine.

And several children have died in Louisiana, his home state of pertussis. And yeah, he caved and gave us Kennedy and is now complaining about all of the things that he, enabled. I think he may have been fearing for more than just a Senate seat. I think a lot of these guys got death threats and maybe their families did too.

I think there was a lot of pressure on Cassidy. I, don’t say that to excuse him. Nothing justifies putting Kennedy in charge, but he was just part of a massive support network that helped all of these guys gain power. They couldn’t have done it on their own, and it wasn’t just people like Cassidy.

it’s an extremely long list of people who enabled MAHA doctors who [00:36:00] defended them. Who treated them as good faith actors who published their work and who supported them. So this includes top universities again, Harvard, Stanford. Actually Harvard was okay, but Stanford, UCSF, Johns Hopkins, for example, all promoted their disinformation spreading faculty publications such as The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, the Hill Stat News.

I could just go on and on. Even several medical journals such as JAMA and the BMJ all promoted these guys, only to later realize. That, but after it was too late, what they really were, even though they didn’t hide their intentions to wreak havoc. So all of these guys openly campaigned for Trump.

They openly campaigned for RFK, but they were treated as good faith actors by broad swaths of the medical community. I, think, my profession doctors showed more courage running into treat COVID patients six years ago with a lot of us paying for it, with our lives and, our health, than we did in calling out bad faith actors in, our own profession.

And again, a lot of that is because if you tried to do this as I did, you were invariably called a censor and someone who doesn’t wanna hear other opinions and doesn’t wanna debate this sort of thing, or just called. The number of juvenile insults I received I was gonna say it, it could fill a, book chapter, but it did fill a, at least part of a book chapter.

And, just the way that, that those of us who, warned about this were treated not to make this about me, but it was really unfortunate, but it had the effect of trying to stop people from speaking out. And if I was a little bit younger, my beard wasn’t quite so gray and had a little more hair like there, I might feel I probably would’ve been intimidated too, intimidated or unsure of myself to speak out.

Other people in the MAHA conspiracist movement

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and there are a lot of people here. I mean, so we’ve [00:38:00] talked about Bhattacharya, but there are several other people that you discuss in the book. but let for people, let, can you just run through that? Some of them for people who don’t know who they are, ‘cause they definitely should know.

HOWARD: So a couple other names. people who are prominent now. Marty McCarey, who is head of the FDA, who spread volumes of COVID disinformation. this time in 2021 he was claiming that the pandemic was. Basically over, he wrote an article in February, 2021 called We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April, and then when April came around and we didn’t quite have herd immunity, he went on Fox News and said in May, 2021, he said we had herd immunity to CID.

Then when Delta came around. The Delta variant in the summer of 2021. He called that a, a flu-like illness. When the omicron variant came around a couple months later, he called it omic cold in nature’s vaccine. He claimed that one COVID infection led to decades of immunity or lifelong immunity.

He vastly overhyped the vaccine in the spring of 2021, claiming that it would block transmission and offered perfect protection. He drastically minimized pediatric COVID falsely saying that zero healthy children had died of COVID I, and treating rare vaccine side effects is a fate worse than death. And now that he is at the FDA, it, it’s like a junior high school every week.

There’s some sort of drama there. he is blending. Having all these sorts of conflicts of interest with pharmaceutical companies and wellness devices, he’s attacking trans people, of course. So it’s just kind of chaos. At the FDA, his right hand man, there is someone by the name of VNA Prasad, who was a very well respected oncologist.

Before the pandemic, but also became attracted to Contrarianism in 2020 2021, he [00:40:00] also vastly overhyped the COVID vaccine at that time, claiming that it would end the pandemic and that it blocked transmission. He was also actively very anti-vaccine for children and in fact, it was pro infection.

He wrote an article in Unheard Magazine in, I think it was published in February, 2022. This was right after the worst month of the pandemic for children January, 2022, when about six children were dying per day, and at the peak a thousand were going to the hospital every single day. In January, 2022, during the Omicron wave, he wrote his article called Should We Let Children Get Omicron, which was full of this pro infection rhetoric, that it was natural and healthy and it’s best to let children get this virus while they are young, and that infecting children would help protect vulnerable people, this sort of thing.

and he is also now at the FDA where he is, People hate him. He is a horrible manager. Two months ago he leaked a memo that 10 children have died from the COVID vaccine and has still not produced a shred of evidence that’s the case. so these guys, rose to power just spreading disinformation and they were very emotionally manipulative.

I think that’s a very important point to make is they weren’t neutral science communicators. They talked about any sort of mitigation measure as just this draconian government overreach, and they made it seem as if we tried to control COVID that we would have troops in the streets just attacking innocent civilians.

Fast forward to today, they are part of an administration where there are troops in the streets attacking innocent civilians.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. And, and there are, I, guess in, [00:42:00] in recently the MAHA doctors are now trying to say that, well, if you resist our ideas, you are politicizing science not us, the ones who are the political appointees who are making scientific

HOWARD: decisions, even though that has never been done

SHEFFIELD: in the history of these agencies.

No. It is the people who criticize us. Again, going back to this idea, if you criticize me, that’s censorship. Not if I fire people who criticize me. That’s not such ship. Not if I ban people from grant proposals. No, it’s, if you say, put up, tell me your evidence, show me your ideas. That’s politicization.

HOWARD: Yeah, they, were very good at doing that as well. Saying everyone but them was political or everyone but them was tribal. And the only reason that we objected to the mass infection was because we didn’t like Trump, this sort of thing. I will say that finally a little bit too late. It’s very good that people are standing up to them and their fate in some ways the best case scenario.

Right now is that large swaths of the country are just going to ignore them. So a lot of states have banded together to form these public health consortiums, major medical organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, which they hate. And the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, for example, came up with their own vaccine guidelines.

So it’s sad that the FDA, the CDC and the NIH can’t be trusted now when it comes to vaccines, but basically everyone is onto them. No. For example, they recently cut the vaccine schedule to make it look more like denmark’s. As if Denmark is the top of the evidence-based medicine period. They removed, I think, six or seven vaccines, the meningococcal vaccine, the flu, COVID, hepatitis A and B, vaccine, and [00:44:00] maybe, one more, the Rotavirus vaccine.

But large swaths of the country and individual pediatricians are gonna correctly ignore them. And I, I hope that is the fate for the rest of their careers, is that they are permanently linked to everything that Kennedy does. And really everything that Trump does, these guys, again, openly campaigned for him.

And it’s very possible that without the Union of Kennedy and Trump in August, 2024, Trump would never be in power. I mean, obviously we’ll never know, but if you kind of flash back to then Trump’s campaign was sagging and Kennedy really threw him a lifeline. And here we are with three more years to go.

MAHA figures have more conflicts of interest than the scientists they hate

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and with this. And you touched on this a bit earlier, that the MAHA movement often tries to claim that people who have a science-based evidential view of medicine, that they have people like yourself or other, many other medical professionals that you have conflicts of interest.

but the, then when we look at the people that are coming in the R-F-K-H-H-S and other agencies, the, I’ve never seen more extreme conflicts of interest. Like, I mean, just all down the line. Every single one of these people has massive conflicts of interest, including Kennedy himself. But I mean, these are people.

That the reason that they are, they’re in that position in a very large degree, is to get you to buy things that they are personally invested in and have companies that.

HOWARD: Yeah, so that’s one of the biggest myths about any doctor who promotes vaccines that we are just kinda shilling for big pharma when in reality vaccines save a lot of money by keeping people out of the hospital.

You can [00:46:00] look up any doctor on this website, open CMS payments.gov. I think that’s the URL, but it lists all of the money. That doctors have received from the pharmaceutical industry. I think in the past, since 2018, as far back as it goes, I’ve received 788 from pharma all but 150 of that in the form of sandwiches that they deliver to my office once a month for like the whole office.

And I just can’t resist. I’m, only human after all. but Dr. Marty McCarey took 130,000 from pharma in the two years before becoming FDA director an eye drop company of all things. He’s a pancreatic surgeon. Why? They had him on the board and we’re paying him, who knows? Jay Bhattacharya made about 12,000 from posting on Twitter, not a huge amount of money.

Vina Psad also monetized to social media content and. Probably made oodles of money doing that. Kennedy himself made a lot of money as a trial lawyer, and that seems to be one of the things that he’s trying to do now, is make trial lawyers rich again, this is probably going to be his most serious attack on all vaccines, is if he tries to make them more vulnerable to lawsuits.

The history of this is that in the 1980s vaccine makers were being sued out of existence. So they established this vaccine court, which isn’t perfect, but there’s a small tax on every vaccine to help pay for people who are injured by vaccines. The most common injuries being shoulder injuries due to the inject the needle itself.

And this has always been our, it’s morphed into something that the anti-vaxxers have hated, but if they make, its. So that vaccine companies can be sued, which sounds like a reasonable thing. they’re just gonna be hit with a bunch of frivolous lawsuits and they’re gonna be sued out of existence. It’s not like anyone’s getting rich off of the polio and the diptheria and the HPV vaccine at this point.[00:48:00]

So that is potentially the most dangerous threat to vaccines because it’ll be something that the states may have a very hard if no one’s making the vaccines, it doesn’t really matter what their vaccine schedule says.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and and this, idea though, of these conflicts, I mean, it not just with those guys, I mean, like we, we see that, they have these conferences now that they’re doing and they’re just filled with grifter groups selling all kinds of random things.

And, getting, paying people to make these. To promote them. And, the, these are scams. Like, I mean, when we think about it, like it, the biggest pushers of the anti-vax stuff are these supplement companies. Like ultimately that’s who’s doing it. Like, this idea, oh, we’re gonna treat it with vitamin D, or, or, and, fill in the blank vitamin, fill in the blank, herb and spice, whatever it is.

Like, or bleach, like these guys are, they’re the ones who are the most incentivized because I mean, when you look at the, the insurance companies, those are the ones who really have the bottom line and they say, look, we’re still gonna cover these vaccines because it is cheaper for us to do that.

So like you cannot get any possible better endorsement that vaccines are effective. Then the people who actually have to pay for n non-vaccinated people, like they, they, the, right wing often loves to talk about, oh, well show me the money. I’m all about the money. Well this is the money. And you can’t get any bigger of an endorsement than that.

I think

HOWARD: you’re absolutely right, about the supplement salesman as well. Probably the best example of this is Kennedy Advisor. Callie means, [00:50:00] he’s a pretty nasty guy and a conspiracy theorist, but also runs a company called Tru Me, where you can buy all sorts of supplements. And his sister Casey means, who was nominated for Surge in general, made a bunch of money selling these AI wellness wearable devices, which Marty McCarey, the head of the FDA was recently went to one of their trade shows and was kind of almost like an advertisement for those.

He almost made an infomercial.

SHEFFIELD: And Kennedy too himself, sorry. yeah. Also docs up.

HOWARD: Yeah. Yeah. Right.

SHEFFIELD: I want everyone to have a wearable, he says,

HOWARD: right. And there may be some value in learning how many steps you take per day, but this idea that you can just put some device on you, even if it measures, your blood pressure and your heart rate, how do we use that to make people healthier?

Certainly those devices have been tested less than vaccines, that’s for sure. And they’re probably gonna try to deregulate supplements even further. Actually, I don’t know if that’s even possible, but maybe by getting rid of what’s called the quack Miranda Warning, that a lot of these, supplements have to say something along the lines, this product has not been evaluated by the FDA for its safety and efficacy, this sort of thing.

But or to see more examples of this treatment, leucovorin, which are quack treatments receiving, approval of the FDA. So that may be coming down the pike too.

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SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and they, talk about how they are against the pharmaceutical companies, but you know, if you really wanted to hit them where it hurt, you would ban the televised medical commercials.

Like in most countries of the world, those are banned. you cannot advertise pharmaceutical products to consumers because they can be misleading. And you can have all sorts of, getting, people think, oh, this thing will help me. And, it doesn’t. And there’s no evidence that it would, but they want it really bad because they saw it on tv.

[00:52:00] Like, if you really wanted to go after the pharmaceutical companies. That’s what you would do. But the Trump administration isn’t doing that. Yeah. And yeah, so go ahead.

HOWARD: I mean, they’ve talked about that may be on their power because of free speech concerns. I don’t know. You’d have to speak to a, lawyer about that.

I suppose to his credit, I think Marty McCart, the FDA has sent a lot of warning label or warning letters to companies that they’re overselling some of their products. I don’t know if those come with any sort of enforcement, for example, but they are making changes to make it easier to get drugs approved.

And some of these things are of questionable legality. So they’ve come up with this voucher program where they are trying to just approve drugs in record time and speed up the process and use ai. And it all sounds very good. When you hear them talk about it again, kind of like the Great Barrington Declaration, it sounds perfect on paper.

But a lot of people involved in that program are questioning its legality. A very high FDA official who worked there for 25 years. He was. Head of the CDR Center for Drugs Evaluation and Research for one month before he resigned in protest. A guy by the name of Rick Pader, not exactly a household name, and I’ll be honest with you, I hadn’t heard of him until a couple years ago, but he is a, legend in the field of, drug re regulation, especially in oncology.

And he essentially said, this program is a disaster. It has it, it’s ripe for exploitation and for corruption, and decisions are being made by a small group of political appointees behind closed doors without any sort of transparency. So I think that the FDA and, actually it’s interesting because some of their rhetoric about getting drugs approved faster and easier.

Hasn’t always matched some of their actions. Some of the drug companies are very frustrated with the FDA because the current version of the FDA has changed the rules as they go. I’m not super duper expert in this. I [00:54:00] only know what, FDA reporters tell me. But one thing that drug companies do have to have is stability in the FDA and some sort of predictability about whether their drug is gonna get approved or not, if they meet certain milestones.

In other words, if I have a, an idea for a drug today, the earliest it might get approved is gonna be the year 2036. I mean, it takes a decade or 15 years to, for a drug to go from idea. To finish because it has to be, subject to all sorts of testing and this sort of thing. And one thing, the current version of the FDA seems to be doing is just changing this regulatory framework at a whim.

It’s called regulatory whiplash. And so drug companies, they’re not perfect, but without them, I couldn’t do my job. And they’ve certainly transformed several fields of medicine, namely the one, the main one that I treat. Multiple sclerosis, a totally different disease than when I first started treating it in 2010, thanks to drug companies and basic researchers.

but the, these drug companies are complaining that the current version of the FDA is, just totally rewriting the rules and upending a lot of what they’ve been working for, 10 years or more, this sort of thing. So there’s no predictability and stability there.

SHEFFIELD: And there’s no consistency in the approach either, because like you have also Republicans are, look, looking to amend the Toxic Substances Control Act, which would literally allow companies to pollute much, more.

And this is a big thing that they are, are preaching for. And they just had a, hearing about it. And so like, again, if that’s, if you are concerned about people having toxic things in their body, what’s, what is worse? an FDA branded, branded red dye or, FDA tested red dye or toxic chemicals [00:56:00] pumped into the drinking water.

I wonder which one is worse.

HOWARD: Yeah, no. You hit on an important point. I mean, there, there are a lot of tensions in the MAHA MAGA movement that are gonna come to a front at some point because, there’s a very sort of strong anti pharma streak to MAHA obviously. but there’s also a very sort of libertarian streak that people should be able to decide what they put in their body and take any sort of drug as long as they feel it has promise.

So, for example, during Trump 1.0, he signed something called the right to try law. Again, I’m not an expert in this, but essentially said, if you have some sort of fatal disease and you wanna try some experimental treatment, the government shouldn’t stand in your way. So that’s, tension number one.

Another, tension is regarding COVID vaccines. So. Pretty much everyone in the current administration is against COVID Vaccines for young healthy people. But I think some of the more senior leadership, some of the names who we’ve already mentioned recognize that the COVID vaccine is important for older, vulnerable people, and they don’t wanna take it away from that population.

They don’t wanna take it away from every single grandmother and grandfather in this country. And, read about people dying next year because they couldn’t get a COVID shot. But there are parts of the MAHA Coalition and they feel very strongly that the FDA should take every single COVID vaccine off the market.

And the third tension is gonna come up with this abortion pill, which I can also never pronounce. Ms. Tiff. Ms. Tiff Perone. We’ll just keep going it the abortion pill, because obviously a lot of MAGA folks are against anything that can help a woman get an abortion. Some of the more science-based medicine people at the FDA, and I’ll include VNA Psad in this rec, and I don’t think he is against abortion knows that this pill is safe and that’s an effective, and that’s his charge at the FDA is [00:58:00] to make sure that drugs that are approved or remain on the market are app appro are safe and effective, and not take them away for political reasons, but they’re gonna be facing a lot of pressure to do that.

They already are actually, and they’re trying to postpone that until after the midterms for entirely political reasons. But there are all these sort of tensions that are, have already started sprouting themselves or showing themselves, revealing themselves that are probably gonna be, that in some ways I almost hope, yeah, that’s the phrase.

Thank You hopefully we’ll pull the coalition apart in the next year.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and ultimately, I mean, these tensions arise because. They’re not believing in evidence-based medicine. I mean, that’s really what they’re believing in politicized medicine or, religious I, religious inflected medicine.

Like if you can even call that medicine, it’s not like, and so once you’re removed the idea of science and empirical evidence as the standard, then anything really does go. And so whatever standards end up is just a matter of political power and, and, survival of the fittest, which sadly is also what they want to do to the rest of us.

HOWARD: There definitely is a sort of survival of the fittest vibe with this. I mean, to circle sort of back to measles, one of the myths that they started promoting in 2025 was one of the myths that they used with COVID that only vulnerable children died of measles are only children with severe medical comorbidities died of COVID, which is both false and kind of gross.

I’ve heard this described by, I think Derek Baris at the Cons Spirituality Podcast coined the phrase, soft eugenics to describe this, just this idea that we should let these viruses rip through the population and if you survive. Then by definition you were fit. And if you died, well, you had some sort of underlying medical [01:00:00] comorbidity and were there for, and you would’ve

SHEFFIELD: died anyway, so,

HOWARD: Right.

You expendable, But yeah, there’s gonna be a lot of political battles that are gonna be fought coming up, and it’s gonna be unclear, especially over this abortion pill. how our DA is gonna navigate that. I mean, I hope that they make decisions as they’re tasked to do, based only on science and data and evidence, and don’t take that pill away.

but they may, the political pressure may get to them. I mean, we’ll see, they’re lucky that’s one thing that Trump and probably even Kennedy doesn’t care anything about. and Kennedy may even officially describe himself as pro-choice. We’ll see. But some of the true believers Mike Pence, for example, not that he has any political sway anymore, but is really gonna put a lot of pressure on them to get rid of that.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and really what’s kind of shaping up is that I think we’re headed for this, I mean, we already see to some extent that, there is a lower life expectancy in the red states and a higher left life expectancy in the blue states. And I think that’s, that gap is going to grow further and further, as time goes by.

Because, as Kennedy, or at least during this administration as they relax federal standards on various things, then these red states are gonna lower them. and they’re doing that with insurance as well. So, trying to push these, junk. Insurance policies that don’t cover things.

And the, I mean, ultimately, like, that’s the, tragic irony of these PO positions is that the people who are going to be hurt the most by them or the people who like them, like that’s who’s being put at risk the very most here. But of course, a lot of other people, unfortunately, who didn’t vote for that.

HOWARD: Yeah, no, we’re gonna have a, as I alluded to, previously, we’re gonna kind of have a civil public health civil war where [01:02:00] certain states are seceding essentially from the public health union. I think California, for example, recently joined the World Health Organization. meanwhile, states like Florida under the direction of.

Awful. Ron DeSantis and even worse, Joseph Ladapo, who is their quack surgeon General, who kind of mixes, mysticism, religion and medicine, and even anti-vaccine data fraud. they’re celebrating trying to get rid of all sorts of vaccine mandates in Florida, which no matter how you fe and we’re talking about not COVID mandates, which have been gone for a long time, but that in order to send your child to school, they have to be vaccinated against measles and vaccinated against polio.

and that’s a recipe for even more measles outbreaks. Although some of these things may take several years, if not decades, to manifest themselves. In other words, if we stopped vaccinating for polio today, it would probably take. Who knows, five to 10 years before polio would become widespread are other diseases like HPV and he, hepatitis B.

Those viruses don’t cause harm until decades, after the initial infection. So we’re gonna be seeing these effects for the rest of my career, the rest of my life, unfortunately.

John Ioannidis and the perils of medical contrarianism

SHEFFIELD: How is it that these people with these, ID, the, these people with a public health policy of, well, let’s not do anything about pretty much everything. How is it that they have been able to be burrowed so long in the medical establishment even before Kennedy?

and I think, the, longtime Stanford, medical professor John Ioannidis, he’s the kind of patient zero of this, in my view, but I, want to hear your thoughts.

HOWARD: Yeah, so he’s not a quite a household name, but I would describe him as America’s potentially most famous scientist. After someone like, [01:04:00] Tony Fauci, he was a, and is a, giant of the field of evidence-based medicine.

He didn’t do a, ton of what we would call primary research, meaning he wasn’t out there in the field or the laboratory collecting data himself. But he did what is called meta research, which is kind of researching how scientists do research and was constantly saying, we need to do better research.

We need to do more research. And he was convinced very, strongly in the start of the pandemic starting in March, 2020 that COVID was overblown. He predicted that it would cause 10,000 deaths, that it would cause 40,000 deaths. that we were close to the end of the peak in in, in April, 2020 that the flu was gonna be worse, this sort of thing.

He also, I think, was the person who originated the we want them infected movement. He wrote an article in Stat News in March, 2020, which contained the line. I’m gonna paraphrase it a little bit, but that school closures may also prevent children from getting COVID and developing herd immunity. So these guys objected to mitigation measures, not because they thought they didn’t work, but because they pr because they knew that they did work, that they knew that they slowed the virus, they just didn’t want the virus to be slowed.

and he was a regular on Fox News at that time, saying that COVID was harmless for people under age 60. And while he talked in these very calm. Reassuring ways about COVID. He talked in this histrionic way about all sorts of measures to contain it, warning that they would lead to financial collapse and civil strife and civil war, the collapse of society, Yeah. Look if Lockdowns lasted five years, he would’ve been right about that. but he was saying this sort of thing in March, 2020, and nothing that [01:06:00] the virus did changed his mind. So he predicted COVID would kill 40,000 people in the Washington Post on April 8th. 2020. And, the death toll for COVID exceeded 40,000 people in the United States a week later.

And he was still going on podcasts and Fox News appearances, saying that it’s over and the worst is over, and we’ve contained the virus. So the fact that mitigation measures were reasonably successful in large parts of the country in April, 2020 and March, 2020 was then used as evidence that they weren’t needed.

And he is at Stanford, which is sort of the hotbed of COVID and disinformation, and now kind of MAHA disinformation. There’s a lot of good people at Stanford, don’t get me wrong, but they gave us John Ioannidis, Scott Atlas, who we’ve already mentioned, and Jay Bhattacharya, who we’ve already mentioned, and John Ioannidis was in regular contact with Scott Atlas when he was Trump’s coronavirus czar. He is apparently in regular contact with Jay Bhattacharya now, and is saying things along the lines of, yes, we have he, portrays himself as sort of this elder state, this elder statesman of science who just wants to protect it from being politicized. When of course every accusation is a confession, no one has politicized science more than people like John Ioannidis and the people he’s enabled, Scott Atlas and Jay Barria.

So, hi. His legacy will, it’s, a sad way for him, I think to kind of end his career, wind down his career. but will, I think he will only be known and he only deserves to be known, in my opinion, for his wild COVID disinformation and for enabling all of the people who are now currently attacking science.

but he says that if we don’t listen to them, he gave an interview to Science Magazine that if we’re not careful, and, let Jay [01:08:00] Bhattacharya make reforms at the NIH, then we risk science becoming politicized, which is just absurd.

Why atheist activists teamed up with far-right Christians who hate medical science

SHEFFIELD: It is. And let’s maybe end on kind of a not directly science related topic, but, so you do a, lot of writing at the Science-Based Medicine, blog, which is a great resource for people who are interested in these issues.

And one of the things that I think is notable about it is the ownership that it’s owned by the New England Skeptical Society. And one of the unfortunate things during the pandemic is that some of the people who had made names for themselves as as, atheist or skeptics of religion, they became some of the worst disinformation spreaders that these are people who claim to believe in evidence, claim to believe in rationality.

And yet they went completely off the deep end and promoted all sorts of ridiculous ideas and, got in, got in league with, religious delusional people like, Joseph Ladapo but not just him. Lots of these MAHA people, their, you go to their conferences, they’ve got, oh, you can get, you can heal your cancer from crystals, or if you pray away your, illness, you can, get a, I mean, like, I, myself, I have a brother that has a schizophrenia and, my parents for a long time, they resisted

HOWARD: getting medical treatment for him because

SHEFFIELD: they thought that they could heal it through religion.

HOWARD: and these are

SHEFFIELD: really harmful ideas

HOWARD: and

SHEFFIELD: unfortunately a lot of them are being supported by people who made a name for themselves as the atheists. It skeptics.

HOWARD: Yeah, so I don’t know if you’re, bringing this up because of my article there today, which was about a very famous skeptic, Michael Shermer, who is editor of [01:10:00] Skeptics Magazine and, portrays himself, it’s.

We all kind of like to do right as rational and reasonable and science-based and evidence-based. I mean, very few, probably no one, that we’ve talked about today. Maybe with the exception of Joseph Ladapo w would say that prayer and religion and crystals are their inspiration for their scientific views, for example.

but yeah, a lot of these people started taking a very hard right turn even though they would deny that. but my article today was about how Michael Shermer has embraced all sorts of anti-trans views how he has just become obsessed with strangers gonads in their genitals. And the idea that someone.

Might, might say the words men can get pregnant is just a huge catastrophe for him at this moment. but yeah, he interviewed Jay Bhattacharya, a very friendly interview. I didn’t listen to the whole thing, but the quips that I listened to with Jay Bhattacharya and this summer of 2024. so he was part of the, what I call, he was just a big player, but part of this MAHA support network, for example.

He functioned as a MAHA public relations expert. And a lot of these guys actually got together and wrote a book called The War on Science, which sounds like it should a perfectly appropriately titled book for this moment. and this was edited by Lawrence Krauss, kind of a disgraced physicist who.

I don’t wanna say got caught up in the Me Too movement, because that makes it seem like he was an innocent victim of it. But his, he was

SHEFFIELD: accused by a lot of women of harassment and assault.

HOWARD: That’s right.

SHEFFIELD: but he denies it. We have to say that.

HOWARD: And was, good, friends with Jeffrey Epstein as well and defended his relationship with him.

So he put together a book of, 39 sort of experts and scholars, who wrote about this war on science, which was just this [01:12:00] dispatch from this alternate universe where the woke mob. One and the woke mob is the one who is purging scientists today. And, because someone said pregnant women instead of pregnant people, ah, you’re fired.

that’s how they kind of portray things and what these guys did. Is they numbed people to the real threat by crying wolf about a fake threat, and they rolled out the red carpet to the real threat. I mean, it’s very sad because a lot of these guys did very good work and they could have been allies in taking on the Trump administration.

and a lot of them are now, horrified. They’re all so horrified by everything that’s been going on. When instead of joining us and devoting every single effort, piece of effort to, to fighting it and trying to prevent it, they lost their minds because some, 22-year-old adjunct teaching assistant at some small college that no one had ever heard of again said men can get pregnant, and that’s just a catastrophe in their opinion.

So, very disappointing.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, it is. And and, it’s definitely a, a, warning for everybody that you know to make sure you keep your. Your epistemology clean, I think,

HOWARD: and make sure that, you’re, you are,

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, keep continuing to look at evidence and, not use your personal prejudices against people that you might not have personally known.

I mean, like, that is one of the things that we saw a lot during the the battle to legalize same-sex marriage is that, people who were the most against it were people who didn’t know someone that to them was, lesbian or gay, and once people started coming out of the closet, they realized, oh, well look at that.

They weren’t trying to convert me to [01:14:00] homosexuality. they, they weren’t gonna molest me. Or, like, ‘cause that was the myth that all of these things had. and the sad thing is that, a lot of these guys who, did support. Same sex marriage rights and decriminalization of homosexuality are, they’re just, they are falling into the exact same arguments, bad arguments that were made during the, that they’re doing the same thing now with, trans people.

HOWARD: Yeah. And I think what these guys do is they prioritize their need to be heterodox and free thinkers. I’m not part of the woke mob. I think for myself, and they all sound the exact same way. They all say the exact same thing. They all say the exact same talking points. And the point that I made in my science-based medicine article today is that the question, can men get pregnant?

It to me at least, the most, the only thing that matters about that question is that it’s asked by malicious people who have malicious intent, who are out to in danger. Trans people. Right. Any, I’ve never talked about trans issues before, before today actually, because, not that I don’t care, but it’s just that I try to reserve my words, at least in public, for things where I feel I have something unique to say and different to bring to the table.

And until today, I, don’t think that I did. But every time that anyone. Every that I talk about trans issues I think I’m gonna have one goal in mind, which is, does it make trans people safer or not? Because trans people are being attacked from all sides at this, not all sides, but from all over the place at this point.

Including obviously from the president and the vice president and all of the people who we mentioned, Marty McCarey and Jay Bhattacharya, because they are victims of tribalism and they have to do whatever their president and their tribe demands. And so anything that I say about trans people, is gonna be with that goal in mind.

Does it make them safer or does it make them more [01:16:00] vulnerable? And if it makes them more vulnerable, I’m just gonna keep my mouth shut.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s,

HOWARD: and that was the goal.

SHEFFIELD: It’s really unfortunate.

HOWARD: That was the goal of my Science-Based Medicine article today. I want all of these guys like Michael Shermer to stop talking about trans people, and I wanna show them I am a living model, that you can be like a sort of older, straight, white dude who doesn’t base your life around the genitals of 1% of the population who you’re probably never even gonna meet.

You can do it, Michael. I can do it.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, they’re not affecting anyone, basically. Like,

HOWARD: not in a good way. Oh, I’m sorry. Yes. Trans people are not affecting,

SHEFFIELD: trans people are not, yeah. Like trans people are not affecting them, so leave them alone. Like in the same, yeah, there’s any number of small minority groups that, that you could say that about.

And and, they’re really just picking on it because the right wing media, realize, oh, this is a small group that people don’t know, so we’re going to make them a scapegoat. Like, that’s, all this is. Like you could, there’s any number of, people with who seek medical treatments that are unconventional or, people might not have ever heard of.

And people might think, oh that’s horrible. Why is this allowed? You could do that for any number of things. But the reason that we’re having to talk about this and talking about people who aren’t really affecting anyone is purely political. It’s all politics. It’s not about science. It’s not about concern for for reason or anything like that.

It’s just you were manipulated into being obsessed with this subject and you should realize that.

HOWARD: Right. And even when you talk about sports, I think the head of the NCAA testified that there were fewer last year at the end of 2024, that there were fewer than 10 trans athletes out of something like half a million, athletes in general.

So it was just this, [01:18:00] this fake panic. But Michael Shermer has a history of doing this. A lot of these guys have a history of doing this. Dating back over a decade ago, I found an article of his warning about attacks on the science from the far left, from, liberals and progressives.

And again, ignoring the real threat. From the right wing in the GOP whose attacks on science filled cemeteries when it came to COVID. I mean, hundreds of thousands of people died because they refused a vaccine. But again, to Michael Shermer and all of these guys, none of it’s real because they don’t work in hospitals.

To them, it’s just all, you know what brings them attention on social media. Very

SHEFFIELD: disappointed.

HOWARD: Yeah.

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SHEFFIELD: It is. All right. Well, so let me, just give you a, chance to plug your, book here real quick before we, wrap up here.

HOWARD: Sounds good. Well, I’ve written two at this point. the first one was we Want Them Infected, which was published in 2023, and it told the story of.

The purposeful movement for herd immunity via mass infection. And it explained how it warned about and showed how the anti-vaccine movement was making inroads in mainstream medicine. And then the follow up to that book, which was just published about six months ago, everyone Else’s to you, is about how the history of the pandemic has been rewritten so that the horrific scenes of March and April of 2020 and beyond were replaced only with people remembering the the unwanted mitigation measures and how academic medicine has now completely merged with some of the rank quackery.

and really it’s about the propaganda techniques, the emotional techniques. And none of this is new. This was all done by the fossil fuel industry and the tobacco industries. To manufacture doubt. But that book, really explains kind of how MAHA [01:20:00] won. And both of my books are, very long. but they’re kind of half referenced books, half books that you can read, cover to cover, 25 pages of we Want them infected was just quotes of doctors like Dr.

Idi declaring the pandemic over, starting in April of 2020. so, unfortunately I think the books have stood the test of time. Not that much time has passed, but in kind of the, in some ways the worst things get the more right I, have been proven which is unfortunate. I would’ve rather gone down in history or forgotten to history as some sort of guy who panicked and was hysterical, fear mongering.

but that didn’t turn out to be the case, unfortunately.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, it is unfortunate, but, I’m glad that you did have, you’ve written it all down and that there is a record that, people can reference to understand the people who were and have been and continue to be the most wrong about medicine in this country are the people in the MAHA movement.

There’s no doubt about it.

HOWARD: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I’ll just say there’s one other kind of interesting resource that I have. I have a very small YouTube channel, I think it’s called, we Want Them Infected, which now has about 650 video clips of these guys, our current medical establishment, just saying one crazy wrong thing after another.

I think I appear in about five of these videos, so it’s not even really my YouTube channel, and I haven’t made a new YouTube video with my face in it in probably a year and a half at this point. but it’s a real archive and it’s just a real collection of. Crazy, horrible things these doctors have said.

So if anyone was, wants to just check it out and skip to a random YouTube video, you can see these guys saying we have herd immunity and vaccine side effects are the worst thing in the world. and on But it just really gives you a flavor of how the history of the pandemic has been [01:22:00] rewritten and how MAHA catapulted itself to power based on disinformation and emotional manipulation propaganda techniques.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, absolutely. Alright, well, good to have you back.

HOWARD: Thank you for having me. Let’s, do this again in a couple years or next year.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, sounds good.

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Episode Summary 

After months of chaos, censorship, violence, a deluge of Epstein files, and the untimely deaths of two American citizens, Donald Trump’s public approval ratings are at their lowest point ever. And though he’s loath to admit it in public, the president and his staff are having to make changes to try to stop the loss of support he’s seeing—including from within his own party.

Despite the fact that Trump has never been more unpopular, Democrats in Congress are having internal struggles over how to oppose him, with newer members wanting to use anything possible to gum up the works that the leadership seems to generally dislike. There’s a rift among the Democratic voter base about their party as well. In a late-January poll, Marquette Law School found that 51 percent of Democrats and people who leaned that way approved of the Democrats in Congress, with 49 percent disapproving. By contrast, 80 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaners said they approved of congressional Republicans. Only 20 percent disapproved.

The poll also found that while respondents who said they were “somewhat liberal” were evenly split on their opinion of congressional Democrats, those who identified as “liberal” were more likely to disapprove, a 54-46 percent.

Democratic voters seem to want their party to go much harder at opposing Trump, but this seems to go against the entire conception of politics that the party’s leaders understand, a viewpoint that has been largely fixed since the early 1990s—and has been shaped by conservative former Republicans who have not changed their viewpoints since becoming Democrats.

Talking about all this today with me is Chris Lehmann, he’s the Washington bureau chief at The Nation magazine and a contributing editor at The Baffler.

The video of our conversation is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.

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• What Republicans know about politics that Democratic strategists haven’t learned yet

• The endgame of Trump’s top advisers is far more extreme than Project 2025

Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

07:37 — Despite Trump’s historic unpopularity, Democratic politicians aren’t unified on responding

17:07 — Democrats haven’t figured out that the opposition’s strengths can still be attacked

21:18 — The myth of informed centrism and Democratic elites’ failed rebuilding of the party’s electoral model

24:43 — Trump’s instinctive understanding of how to weaponize anger

30:17 — The top Democratic operatives and politicians are cut off from regular Americans’ experiences

35:20 — Many ostensibly liberal institutions are filled with David Brooks conservatives who call themselves centrists

40:06 — The radical right has been at war with modernity for decades, but rarely taken seriously

44:14 — The lost lessons of the World War II generations

52:43 — Epstein files reveal that the ultimate ‘globalists’ are right-wing

56:29 — Nihilism and Tucker Carlson

01:00:59 — Need for hope and transcendence in politics

01:09:02 — Anti-ICE protests as a sign of hope for the future

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: And joining me now is Chris Layman. Hey Chris, welcome back to the show.

CHRIS LEHMANN: Very happy to be here, Matt. How are you doing?

SHEFFIELD: Good, good. Well, good enough, right? Minus the whole possible end of the country thing.

LEHMANN: Yeah. That’s always the disclaimer. Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. Well on, on the other hand though, there have been a number of positive developments recently. And that’s kind of what we’re here to talk about. And I think probably the biggest one is that, I mean, it’s for a very bad reason, but all of the violence and killing that the Trump regime has been doing against private citizens, the general public has finally started to notice it, it looks like.

LEHMANN: Right.

SHEFFIELD: And, but Trump himself, of course, is saying that he’s more popular than ever, but there is not a single poll that says that. And in fact, he also did [00:04:00] recently say that he has a, quote, silent majority. Like that to me is the biggest tale that, that he knows something is wrong with his PR approach.

LEHMANN: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, it is yeah, the situation is a perfect kind of storm of as you say, they’re objectively losing ground with the general public. And particularly what’s been striking is the group he is doing worse at is now the biggest group of, registered voters independents.

And, we are coming out of the 2024 cycle where everything was about the low information voter being mobilized by maga. And that’s when, you had these surges in support among Hispanic and black voters that were historic for a Republican candidate. But, but yeah, that has plummeted very dramatically to earth now. and, for instance, Latino voters say they oppose trump’s immigration policy by a 70 30 margin. So that is, there was all of this loose talk after last election day that, we are seeing the lineaments of a new Trump coalition akin to the, coalition that Reagan put together or that Nixon before him. and that was never true. And it’s become very clear that you, kind of live by the low information voter and die by the low information voter and one bad information penetrates, which is I think the most important thing out of this hellish period we’re living through.

They have no answer, they, just continually double down. It’s been, quite striking throughout all, esp especially the murderous siege of, Minneapolis, there’s a very standard presidential playbook for something like this is, [00:06:00] you sort of offer up whoever ty no’s head on a pike, you sort of acknowledge, okay,

SHEFFIELD: you feel their pain? Yeah.

LEHMANN: we got a little carried away and now we’re going to do, kinder, gentler murderous sieges, which, sadly the Democratic party would go for. And, would, they’ve already, what’s, you can always count on me to bring the clouds in any silver lining situation.

But, things that, Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate said they were going to go to the mat for and closed down the government over were things like having ICE and, CPB agents CBP rather agents wear cameras.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

LEHMANN: The administration has unilaterally done that anyway.

And because among other things, this is the kind of criminal gangster administration that, they’re, anytime footage from one of these cams is, going to be sought in a legal proceeding, they’ll say, oh, we lost it. It was destroyed, whatever. It doesn’t, it’s not going to change anything fundamental about the, the mass deportation program that is now spilling over into assaults on dissenting US citizens.

So, so yeah, the, administration has created all the conditions that have sunk, its standing in the polls and they’re just going to keep doing it. There

SHEFFIELD: Because they don’t know anything else. I mean, that’s the

LEHMANN: don’t know anything else. Right. And

SHEFFIELD: the Republican, sorry,

Despite Trump’s historic unpopularity, Democratic politicians aren’t unified on responding

SHEFFIELD: The Republican rights sole PR strategy for the past 80 years has been, well, we just have to be more right wing and then it’ll work,

LEHMANN: Yeah, which, it, has succeeded in getting them power. And and largely because of the, failure that Democrats to be an effective opposition party throughout this [00:08:00] whole long stretch of time you’re talking about. But yeah, we are now at this point where, I think ordinary voters who aren’t, that, certainly not ideologically driven and not, that informed about everything the Trump administration has been doing.

You see the the murders of Renee Good and Andrew Prince in, in Minneapolis, and I think just as powerfully you see the, deportation of. Liam, the five-year-old, in the bunny hat. there’s nothing the right can do to make that seem defensible or palatable.

it just, I think, triggers this deep human revulsion that I’m, glad that, American voters are experiencing ‘cause I was starting to have my doubts for a while there. But yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, there’s a significant disadvantage that the American left has in that. The, far right Republican agenda is so monstrous that when you tell people what it is, if they’re not informed, they don’t believe you, that it’s

LEHMANN: They won’t believe you. Right,

SHEFFIELD: It’s unbelievable. And in fact, like people have done that in focus groups.

They’ll say, okay, well, so here’s Donald Trump’s policy of x, and, the voters are like, no, that he doesn’t believe that.

LEHMANN: That can’t be right. Yeah, no, it, it does militate against, and, that is the political challenge for, the opposition is, to, present it in these very stark ways and to Yeah. To have enough of a coalition behind you. And that’s what, that’s the other thing that’s happening right now is I think, the citizens of Minneapolis who are, being really heroic and standing up to this siege are, forcing the leaders of the Democratic party to pay [00:10:00] more attention.

And it is striking, there was this long, in my view, extremely stupid interval where Matt Yglesias and the sort of popularist types of consultants and writers aligned with the Democrats were saying, we just can’t talk about immigration. It’s Trump’s greatest strength.

We don’t have a good answer except, we also want to, crack down on illegal crossings and, heightened border control. But we want to do it in a more, notionally balanced procedural wave. And that again, it’s that old, I always go back to the, there’s an old onion headline where that was like, I think a representation of a Jimmy Carter Reagan debate and Jimmy Carter is saying something like, Must be reasonable and broker accords across the world, whatever. and Reagan’s line is, let’s kill the bastards. And, obviously the, Reagan slash Trump position is morally abhorrent, but it’s very clear and decisive and it makes a very clear point. And if you’re just kind of sitting on your hands the way that you know, Matt and glaciers and also this new think tank, the Searchlight Institute that promulgated this, again, stupid memo saying, we can’t have Democrats say abolish ice.

They have to say reform ice, or better training, which I is especially insane because the, shooter who killed, murdered, Renee Goode was a firearms instructor. This is not in

SHEFFIELD: is definitely a problem, but it’s far from the, it is not the main problem.

LEHMANN: Right. And it’s not going to solve anything. You have, this is all under the, watch of Stephen Miller, who, is [00:12:00] a, fascist sadist, authoritarian goon, like, and it’s garbage in, garbage out. that is what you’re going to get as long as he is the defacto, sort of czar of immigration policy in this country.

And so you have, I know Democrats don’t like politics. They think they’re above politics. We were talking earlier about, the, sort of scourge of credentialed knowledge elites atop the Democratic party. and that is the main symptom of it, in my view. They think because they’re, they have fancy degrees and they’ve, wade it through the pertinent policy papers and consultant, memos that they don’t have to bother persuading people, they, have a sort of quasi divine rights based on being part of the knowledge elite to, just administer policy. And, in something like immigration where you, absolutely need a forceful moral position that sort of addresses, everything about the Republican policy on I immigration is a lie that’s not, hyperbole on my part.

Trump has, for a decade now, fallaciously claims that, there’s a, an out of control immigrant violent crime wave,

SHEFFIELD: Invasion, as he

LEHMANN: And invasion. And if you look at any statistics from, again, the past century really of, immigration. Immigrants commit violent crime at a significantly lower rate than the native born population.

And all you have to do is think about their situation to understand like, yeah, you’re not going to want to draw attention to yourself by committing a violent crime if you’re not in the country legally, and you might be deported. Like it’s, just, it makes zero sense

SHEFFIELD: And the stats show that too,

LEHMANN: right? The STAs absolutely.

Show that up and down Democrats don’t [00:14:00] effectively

SHEFFIELD: also they don’t draw on welfare.

LEHMANN: Or you’re,

SHEFFIELD: not

LEHMANN: my

SHEFFIELD: for it. they’re literally, they are paying into the economy and taking almost nothing out. That

LEHMANN: it is the polar opposite of what the Republicans claim. You’re absolutely right. They pay into social security and, Medicare and welfare and they get nothing back. So it’s a net positive. This in 2024 the I’m forgetting the agency, but the major federal agency that tracks these things estimated the contribution of immigrant workers over the next decade at $10 trillion.

So, like, if you just connect the dots here, and this is what I say when I’m in arguments with MAGA types, is like, what’s invading force gives you $10 trillion. Like there, sorry. You have to, find better words, to describe whatever it is. You’re, hallucinating. And on and on.

And, people even forget the reason for this. Heinous mobilization in Minneapolis is ostensibly because of. Rampant welfare fraud on the part of Somali daycare centers and, which has all been promulgated by a right wing YouTuber and has been demonstrated to be total BS at the level he’s claiming.

There was a little bit of,

SHEFFIELD: seems to be remarkably stupid. Low IQ person.

LEHMANN: yeah. No, I, that is all, true and taken as red. But and and again, just at the basic level of operational sensemaking, right, who mobilizes a paramilitary force to combat welfare fraud like you, the, if, it’s real, you get accountants, like none of this is, has anything to do with reality [00:16:00] and yet.

You go back to when Abrego, Gar Garcia here in Maryland was wrongfully detained, and, the president of El Salvador said it openly. Everyone in the justice said it openly. Chris von Holland, my senator, who I’m very proud of on this issue went to visit him at Sea Cod and, made this an issue.

And, reportedly Leonard Jeffries said, don’t do this again. It’s this whole idea, we can’t touch this issue. It’s, it’s Donald Trump’s, sacred source of popularity. And, that moment when, Van Holland sort of. Said, no, this is just wrong and I’m going to make it clear.

I think that, is when you know the, Democrats were finally forced into a position of, like, okay, we can’t just pretend indefensible things can be wished away.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, or get away with just responding with angry press conference

Democrats haven’t figured out that the opposition’s strengths can still be attacked

LEHMANN: yeah. Right. An angry letter like that’s going to do anything. So yeah, and it all, and again, going further back and, sort of the history and this is all stuff you know very well from coming up on the right, but you know, I often think when. I have been thinking whenever it is, I would come across Jefferies or Schumer or some other Democratic leader saying, or Matt Iglesia saying like, we have to just shut up about immigration. It’s, Donald Trump’s strongest issue. Think back to the 2004 election cycle, which you know very well, right? So, John, the Democrats and their infinite wisdom decided we’re going to nominate John Carey because he is, this strong military leader. It’s the best way to go After the militarist, Iraq invading Bush [00:18:00] administration and what did the Republicans do?

They did not say, oh, John Kerry’s military record is so much superior to George w Bush’s, we’re just going to sit on our hands and hope this whole thing goes away. No, they invented the swift. Boaty where, you know, they, got these kind of under Carrie’s command who were high on, the, right wing supply to sort of confabulate all these things about Carrie’s record in Vietnam that wasn’t, that weren’t true.

And they, made a big show at the convention of wearing band-aids. I, can’t even remember what that whole, I’m sure you do. But the larger point is like, and, by the way the architect of that whole strategy was Chris what’s his name? The co-chair of the, no, The co-chair of Trump’s 2024 campaign. But my point, yeah, my point is, that is the kind of raw street fighting mentality that the right has been bringing to, electoral politics over the past, all of my political lifetime and well before that. And the Democrats, again, are in that Jimmy Carter position of like, well, let’s, do nice things for nice professional people.

It’s just not, it doesn’t work as politics.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and a lot of this mentality it comes from something that we have talked about a little bit on the show. Last night we were on, and as I recall the idea of who makes up. Politics. And on the Republican side they are, in terms of the workers in the Republican industry, if you will it’s a broad, obviously they’re funded overwhelmingly by billionaire oligarchs, but in terms of the people who actually poll the levers and [00:20:00] stamp the papers and, make the spam they come from all over the place.

Like they, some of them were like me former trailer park kids and, and, some, like you a high school dropout. Like that’s, who’s running a lot of these Republicans, and especially in the Trump era, when basically Trump said to the existing Republican campaign professionals, get the hell out.

And so the doors were opened for anyone who supported him essentially. And

LEHMANN: And, they have adapted well to this new media environment in a, a way that again, as, you have observed over and over again, the Democrats have not, they have, again, this anti-politics model of politics that, you know, if we just, fine tune the wording of the message in such a way per our consultants and per our focus groups, we will get, the, marginal outcomes we need and, X number of purple districts or whatever, and,

SHEFFIELD: that they think people decide on issues. And again, that is the, class blind spot, right. That is like, I, think in terms of policy, I know the, kind of optimal policy solution for issue X, and I just have to tell voters and they will fall in line.

and here’s the other thing. Here’s

The myth of informed centrism and Democratic elites’ failed rebuilding of the party’s electoral model

SHEFFIELD: the other thing that is so frustrating is so they’ve got this idea, well, we just have to be in the center because that’s where most of the voters are well informed. Centrism does not exist. It’s not real.

No one is who actually knows about politics. It’s like, oh, I’m going to take my position exactly in between the parties. No one does that. Okay. Only people who are low information and don’t pay attention. But the other thing is, if that viewpoint were true, then Republicans would never win elections.

LEHMANN: right, right. No,

SHEFFIELD: a party that keeps getting more and more extreme

every

LEHMANN: I know right.

SHEFFIELD: And so that alone should [00:22:00] disabuse democratic elites of this, cautionary nonsense because it’s not, it isn’t actually data-driven like the, these guys have. they’ve constructed a mirage of data and they’re chasing after it, like Don Quixote and his windmills. That’s what they’re doing.

LEHMANN: I know. No, it’s absolutely true. And it is, it’s all, har harks back to, the, kind of, democratic Leadership Council, new Democrat model inaugurated in the Clinton years. And that was, after the crushing defeat of Walter Mondale in 1984, democratic elites decided, two things.

One is like we need to. Re-engineer the entire Democratic party so that we can retake the White House. And, sort of the other thing is a subsidiary premise of that we have to, discard the existing activist base of the party. We have to be the kind of, culturally moderate pro business knowledge elite.

this is the whole, the, literally the term yuppie derives from Gary Hart’s 1984 presidential campaign where initially, pundits first tried to call this new style of, knowledge driven Democrat the Atari Democrat. And that didn’t really take, ‘cause I don’t think anyone really knew much about tech or tech brands back then.

and then someone hit upon the term young, urban professional, and that was, Gary Hart’s kind of calling card in electoral terms. And no one bothered to notice that Gary Hart didn’t win or that Michael Dicus who adopted exactly the same model, he was going to be the, candidate of competence who presided over the tech miracle of Route 1 28 outside of [00:24:00] Boston.

And he was going to be, again, this managerial guy who was going to, be reasonable on, the cultural issues that had divided the country over the sixties and beyond. But be, this kind of stable managerial guy. And then finally, Clinton hit on the, sort of combination of traits that worked.

And it largely just stems from triangulation, which is Dick Morris’s contribution to the lexicon. Which is to say you take the issues that Republicans that belong to them and sort of soften the edges and, find again, as you were saying, this sort of mythic center point to sell a pro-business agenda.

Trump’s instinctive understanding of how to weaponize anger

LEHMANN: And what actually happened over that long recourse of, or recess, I should say, presidential campaigns is that, the Democratic party kicked its, working class base to the curb. The main legacy of Clinton in economic terms was NAFTA and gat and, the whole globalization agenda, which, a generation hence is the fodder for Donald Trump’s success.

He ran against most successfully in 2016, the. The real harm that globalization had done to the manufacturing centers of the country. And he didn’t deliver anything as a result. But he was the first candidate to sort of say, because, globalization is very much the oligarchs, kind of sweet spot.

And Democrats supported it, Republicans supported it. It was, Trump’s sort of genius at, that time to realize like, yeah actual voters feel really neglected and condescended to and harms by these policies. So I’m going to rhetorically speak to them and, continue to [00:26:00] govern as an oligarch.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and the, yeah, the, thing is also that and this is another kind of inherent disadvantage that a party that is not, trying to destroy everything,

LEHMANN: Right.

SHEFFIELD: Is that, failure is actually good for Trump in some way because the worse things get, the more he can blame because his entire campaign, a approach and entire messaging approaches, those other people did this to you.

They’re hurting you. And so the worse he makes things, the worse he makes the economy, the worse he makes education, the worse he makes healthcare, the worse he makes inflation and jobs, whatever it is. He can always say, no, they did it. They’re the ones that are doing this. I am standing up for you.

LEHMANN: I am your retribution famously, right. And he can do that even in conditions like now where republicans, have a trifecta and of course the Supreme Court backing them up. So, yeah, it is, and it all goes long ago. Henry Adams said, politics is the organization of Hatreds.

And, Kevin Phillips Nixon’s famous, sort of campaign guru who helps engineer the southern strategy, took that up as his mantra. And, that has been the story on the right, certainly ever since. And the democrats, again, even in this unbelievably target rich environment, I mean, if Steven Miller were a Marvel villain, he would not be believable.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

LEHMANN: and and, that’s just for starters. I mean, you have JD Vance who’s just an obvious, I would say empty suit, but you know, he’s full of internet lies and he is a complete he will

SHEFFIELD: He is a four chan zombie, basically.

LEHMANN: Exactly. Exactly. That’s a very good way of putting it.

And Christina, all [00:28:00] of these, there is not a single con, I guess, maybe the interior guy is, I just don’t think he’s, gotten in enough trouble yet. But there’s, not a, and it’s all deliberately engineered this way. Pete Hegseth, all these people are just maga militant, I’m, I was about to curse, but,

SHEFFIELD: Oh, can do

LEHMANN: Oh, okay. That’s right. I’m, so used to being on the radio. I always catch myself. Yeah. But they’re just goons, I guess is the best term and, You can go after all of them. And somehow the Democrats, they don’t have any sort of unified theory of what’s happening right now. They don’t, I, it, is, I’m, I am, been very cynical for a very long time and I’m just kind of at a loss at this is the most advantageous set of, just leaving aside the horrific tragedy of it all and, and the massive corruption and abuse of power and, shredding of the Constitution and the rest of it.

Like, you have all sorts of ways to organize. Hatreds is my point, and you need to do it. That is, it’s an ugly business. I am, I’m not saying, it’s, good for the soul or anything like that, but. You need to go hammer in tongs after these people and make the message that you know if, yeah, if, you’re feeling scared, to be on the street in your city.

If you care about a five-year-old boy who’s been scooped up by this Gestapo operation, these are the people who are doing it to you. And that’s how you flip, the Trump reflex, which, you’re right, he is really good at always saying like, it isn’t me. It’s, enemy X. And again, and even outside the White House, like Elon Musk is, already a vastly hated figure.

He’s the [00:30:00] most important donor on the Republican party. Like, yeah, I’m just, when, in the course of my day job where I’m covering this, I’m, just like, how can this, how have the Democrats made this so hard?

The top Democratic operatives and politicians are cut off from regular Americans’ experiences

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, okay. So, well, I would say, if we go back, just to the, so we talked about who comprises the Republican political class, but the Democratic political class is overwhelmingly wealthy. Overwhelmingly prep school kids overwhelmingly Ivy League educated.

And so these are people who never experienced hardship. These are people who don’t have, raucous debates in their own families or communities. They don’t know how to do politics because their entire, in their world, where they came from. Politics is bad. Having arguments, having disputes is a bad thing.

Like, let’s just sit down and be the adult in the room. Like that’s, and it works for that world. Like, if it, but this is not how the pol political world is, and especially in the age of Trump, you’ve got to, you have to change things up. But it’s, so difficult because they don’t, ever hire anybody who’s new.

I mean, like, you, look at the list. I mean, hell, we got James Carville. They’re still taking advice from this guy who hasn’t won an election

LEHMANN: a, he ran one successful campaign. He then went global and he was advising like Israeli Prime Minister candidates who lost, he, advised people inside, he’s just, yeah. It’s, dumbfounding and it’s only the reason James CarVal has a platform right. Is he can coplay. As I’m in touch with the working people.

I, I have a southern accent, even the, even though he lives in a mansion and he married a Republican political consultant, it’s all. Bullshit. But yeah, that he is like their spirit animal who can sort of,

SHEFFIELD: it.

LEHMANN: Say [00:32:00] that, oh, back in 1992, we, got all these, southern racist to, to fall in line behind Bill Clinton and I’m, I have this, mystic wisdom that no one else does.

It is, yeah. And that’s another thing, again, in coming in Congress, you see, that you saw this long march. That the reason that literally at this point, I think the reason that Republicans still have the majority in the house is that so many Democrats have died in 109, a hundred 19th Congress to sustain their, margin.

So, the, on the other side of the coin re the Republican caucus has a three term limit for anyone who’s chairman of a committee. Like three strikes you’re at, they’ll, there are some loopholes to potentially extend, but that’s the model that was Gingrich’s innovation and it was smart.

Because, you have on the democratic side, all these people who are just again, like almost literal zombies like Diane Feinstein at the end of her, term. And the, all the,

SHEFFIELD: Dick Durbin is,

LEHMANN: Dick Durbin. Yeah. And Jerry Conway who got the, gavel O over a OC on, the oversight committee and then died, you, and again, that’s another feature of, it’s, I, had this, insight, I can’t remember the exact circumstances, but I was writing about the DNC and David Hogg’s fight, to sort of run younger candidates and, and that predictably ended badly for him.

And I was, sort of reviewing all of this. And it’s suddenly dawn on me, like the Democratic National Committee is run like a university. And that’s so what it should not be. I think it all had to do like hog was forced out. ‘cause there, and [00:34:00] there, there was a legitimate question at the bottom of this, there was a procedural question that, a female candidate didn’t get properly didn’t get a proper hearing for hogs, vice chair position and all that, but it, just, it became this recursive like, and I know it well from having dropped out of grad school, this, is, the kind of all language and posturing brand of politics that drives me insane.

And predictably, every, everything about David Hogg’s substantive platform has been memory hold now. Right? The D NNC is just running on, autopilot. And they,

SHEFFIELD: Well, and it’s disastrous. I mean, they’ve

LEHMANN: no.

SHEFFIELD: nothing in the.

LEHMANN: They alienated two major union leaders, which again goes back to the whole PMC, distortion of the Democrats. If you’re serious about making this party an effective answer to right wing pseudo populism, you need left wing economic populism. It is that simple. But that is a big problem ‘cause you, you have the donors, you have the, sort of credentialed elites in political leadership and in this consultant class, the Democratic party does need to be remade from the ground up.

And I’m not sure how it happens.

Many ostensibly liberal institutions are filled with David Brooks conservatives who call themselves centrists

SHEFFIELD: I think, yeah, absolutely. And, one of the other big problems also is that the, American left institutions, such as they are they have opened their doors to lots of conservatives like David Brooks, who you recently wrote about it, but Barry Weiss and, Sam Harris and like all these people, but they call themselves centrist and, and it’s, and, but, and here’s what’s even more tragic.

Yeah. I mean, here’s what’s even more tragic though, is that there are people who are progressives who don’t like them. But instead of saying, no, these guys are conservatives, they’re calling them [00:36:00] Reactionary, centrist. And I’m like, please don’t do that. They’re not on your, they’re not on our side. They are like, I know because

LEHMANN: Right.

SHEFFIELD: was on the right and I found my consider myself like them.

I said, I was a conservative, a liberal conservative. That’s what these people are. They’re not centrist. There’s no such thing as informed centrism. So please stop calling these people centrist.

LEHMANN: Yeah, absolutely. No, I, it’s, it is funny, like I, remember way back when David Brooks was just starting to break. When the Bobo’s book was published, I was on some panel that he was also on, and I didn’t, obviously didn’t have any sense of the menace he would subsequently become. So, we all went collegially out for drinks after the, panel.

And, he asked me about like, my background at the time I was working at Newsday, but I’d come before, weirdly I was hired away from, in these times a socialist magazine in Chicago. and, Brooks got this varied sort of sober look and he said, well, I don’t, I generally don’t credit the, right wing, media bias claim.

But, I can’t imagine someone from say the National Review getting hired. Newsday and I was just like, dude, you came from the Washington Times. You, came from like a, literally a Mooney funded hard, right. Published Sam Francis, all these like, raging racists. And, you’re going to say like, I’m beyond the pale.

So ever

SHEFFIELD: Wesley Pruden. Yeah, they’re yeah, it was out and out Confederate.

LEHMANN: Yeah, absolutely. So like we, from that point on, we never got along. Let’s just say

the thing is like, I, again, like you, I, actually really relish robust political debate at Newsday. [00:38:00] I. These are things that I, probably, in retrospect, again, didn’t see any of this coming.

But, I published Tucker Carlson, I published Ann Coulter. Like all of these people who are I now acknowledge are monsters. But this was the nineties and they were, Tucker was a quasi libertarian back then, and Coulter was insane. I grant you, I, didn’t have a good excuse at that moment.

But the point is, like, I, was supposed to be this like OT automaton of the left, right? Who was going to like, I don’t know, published Edward Herman and Nome Chomsky over and over again. And, A, that’s boring. And B like, come on, whatever else you want to say about my beliefs, like I, I am a good editor, like, and that’s, what the job was. Anyway, I don’t mean to harp so much on how thoroughly I find David Brooks, but

SHEFFIELD: Well, yeah. No, but I mean, they’re, the people like him though, they, are just suffused all over publications that, present themselves to the public as liberal.

LEHMANN: No, that, I mean, that’s, the, what that reasonable conservative shtick, right.

SHEFFIELD: What is And look, and, I think we need people like that, but they should be over in the right wing media, not in our media.

LEHMANN: Yeah. Yeah, that’s fine. Or yeah, or, I, like, I get along with the, bul work, people just fine.

SHEFFIELD: mm-hmm.

LEHMANN: think they, I don’t know. I don’t know how they would characterize. I mean, they’re never Trumpers. But I don’t

SHEFFIELD: I think some of them have moved further left than others, but,

LEHMANN: No, it’s striking that Bill Crystal, I often observe that Bill Crystal, this makes me feel all kinds of uncomfortable, but is much better on strategy than the Democratic party’s leadership.

he is [00:40:00] definitely for, going hammering tongs after ice, and he is, yeah. And again, because he knows politics, right?

The radical right has been at war with modernity for decades, but rarely taken seriously

SHEFFIELD: Well, it’s, yeah, it’s, that, but it’s also that when, I think about it, that and, again, having been born and raised as a Mormon fundamentalist, so much of what drives pretty much every right-wing elite, even without religion, the non-religious ones, is they hate modernity.

LEHMANN: Oh yeah.

SHEFFIELD: it, and they, hate, they hate international institutions. They hate successful government. They hate any kind of order of, democratic system. They want everything to be done through the private sector in terms of like forcing social welfare to be done through religious organizations or, and then letting businesses have complete untrammeled, ability to destroy countries or, exploit citizens.

So no minimum wage like this is, so, they all want this. And the order that was built up through centuries or let’s say a century of effort, the people, once it was made, the people who ran it had no idea why they, what it, why it was good. Or how it could be better. And so then you, but then at the same time, you had this movement that started roughly around, during FDRs time in the us that, had and was like, no, we’re, this is all evil.

This is terrible. This is, satanic, this is socialist, this, and, we’re going to destroy everything. And, the, center left elite, they just, they’re the, ah, that’s not serious. They don’t really believe that it’s all nonsense. Like you, we don’t have to pay attention to Alex Jones.

We don’t have to pay attention to Donald Trump. In

LEHMANN: I dunno. Or yeah. No, that there was this [00:42:00] moment, these are, people have been, I feel like I’ve been tilted against my whole adult life, but like, when Richard Hofstetter and Daniel Bell, sort of came forward to declare, in this confident Cold War. Liberal moment, that ideology was a dead letter.

That you know what, the real scent strain of nativism and bigotry in American politics was populism, which was embodied by, at the time Joe McCarthy. And once McCarthy had been defeated, all of these, cold War liberal intellectuals, took

SHEFFIELD: The fever will break. That’s

LEHMANN: Right, Right, right, right, No, I mean, Arthur Schlesinger wrote a terrible book called The Vital Center, in which he endorses a lot of McCarthyism idea.

Is he, is, came out in support of loyalty os which is, it’s kind of like the Cold War version of like, let’s not say anything about immigration. Right. Like, we’ll, we’ll. be able to posture, as, heroic anti commie patriots and push everyone to the left out of the picture. So that, yeah, that whole dispensation, the, kind of Hs host, I guess you would say idea that, liberalism is just, and and Louis Harts famously wrote a book that argued there is no conservative intellectual tradition in America.

It, has always been liberal, it will always be liberal. And it’s, it is stunning to go back and read that, body of work now, because it is just so clearly delusional, and all of these things were, still happening. You had the virtue movement, which was getting a lot of momentum at the time.

You had. This sort of nascent Sunbelt Repub conservative movement that would ripen into the Goldwater campaign. And after that, the, Reagan campaign. And yeah, confident, complacent liberals just kept [00:44:00] saying, oh, that’s, that’s a maladaptive strain. It’s not going to, overtake a, a America’s rational body politic.

And that’s why we don’t, we still don’t have the weapons to fight it because, no one ever took it seriously.

SHEFFIELD: No, they didn’t.

The lost lessons of the World War II generations

SHEFFIELD: So one of the other things though is that, so liberalism, early liberalism did have to argue for itself and it developed the chops to do it and to make the case, and to have the interest and the passion to take talk to the public. But the only time that liberalism since then has, engaged directly with fascism and authoritarianism is militarily really in this country or in the anglophone world.

and so they, have no muscles memory to fall back onto that this is what we did last time and then this is why it worked, or this is why it didn’t work. There’s nothing there. I think.

LEHMANN: right. And you know it, FDR was very good at messaging around this issue. He depicted our entry into World War II as a battle between slavery and freedom, and it’s very stark. And, it’s, it is striking a while ago, I rewatched just passingly on cable, part of the best years of our lives, this 1948.

Movie about the demobilization of World War II veterans into American post-war society. And there’s this scene where one of the soldiers who can’t find a a better job is working as a soda jerk in a, drugstore chain. And this guy comes in who’s a fascist, who, finds out he was, he fought in the war.

And and he says something like, well, it’s too bad. You are on the wrong side. And Dana Andrews the actor who, plays this character just. Punches the living daylights outta the sky. It was, and it was just like, it, wasn’t that [00:46:00] shocking, I don’t think to viewers at the time. ‘cause that message had penetrated, like, fascists are, bad.

They’re, anti-American. They’re, not patriots. And this guy happened to be defaming a veteran, so he, got what for? But it is striking that coming out of World War ii, that message was unambiguous. Right. And after, the sort of long URA of the post Cold War era, we’ve, as you say, we’ve, lost the language.

We’ve lost the, ability to effectively conceptualize and, instead we’ve had this tedious, in my view, debate on among liberals and leftists about, when is it right to call Trumpism fascist? And, clearly that moment has come and gone. I don’t think anyone can look at the events in Minneapolis and say like, this is not the behavior of a fascist regime.

To say nothing of arresting Don Lemon like that, that I am missed. I’m a career journalist. I’ve worked in this industry for so long, and the deafening silence around the arrest of three African American journalists in Minneapolis for the simple crime of doing their jobs, that scares me as much as anything else.

Like we, our, media industry has long been corrupted by money and intellectual inertia and decline. But when you are unable to see that moment for what it is we are in, serious trouble

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and a lot of that I think also, so the left lost the ability to, argue, to make the case, but also conservatives. I think also they, through generational attrition, they, [00:48:00] because the, conservative Americans, during World War II and afterward, they had the personal knowledge that fascism is not conservatism also. and, that. And so that’s why when people like William F. Buckley and, his ilk came along, people were disgusted by it. It was appalling. And Barry Goldwater, had that massive blowout loss in 1964. And so people had, ‘cause they knew, as you were saying, they had the memory, well, this is what fascism gets you, it gets you, disaster, death and chaos.

and, they knew it because they had seen it with their own eyes. They had lived that memory and, now their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, they have no knowledge of any of those things. And so conservatives now are, they’re, starting to think, oh, well, maybe we, should align with these fascists because gosh, if we don’t then, my belief that I shouldn’t have to pay any taxes or my belief that.

My, the children should be forced to read my religious views like that. That won’t be the law of the land. And that would be awful if I couldn’t make people live that way. And, so they don’t have a commitment to democracy a per and, that’s, the unfortunate thing. When you look at, and the cognitive psychology on this is absolutely unanimous that people who are conservatively conservative politically ha they come to that way of belief through their psychological orientation and their cognitive style.

It isn’t because of the issues. It’s not because of,

LEHMANN: right.

SHEFFIELD: It is simply, I like simple ideas. and, as Roger Scru called them the the unthinking people and he said that they were great. They weren’t necessary for society. And, and like that’s who elected Donald Trump. These were not [00:50:00] people. Overwhelmingly, the people that the demographics that flipped for Trump in 2024 to 2020 were younger people who had no memory of his first term and no idea what he was, what had

LEHMANN: Whereas what was laying in late. Right, right. No, and it’s yeah, it’s also just true that this, cohort of people, the people who don’t think if, they’re not giving, I mean, you can say the fascist, the anti-fascist impulse was also an unthinking reflex at, the time.

So if you’re not given. A strong sense of what’s at stake. And this has, been my frustration with another frustration with the Democratic Party is you’ve had these successive presidential campaigns that have run on what is objectively the case that Donald Trump and the MAGA movement are a mortal threat to our democracy.

But the sad truth is that most especially younger people have no meaningful experience of, living in a democracy. Right. They, certainly don’t have it. When it comes to organizing their working lives it’s, become an incredibly adverse environment for union organization, even though there are a lot of, there is a lot of really powerful organizing going on.

And they don’t have any sense of, democracy as something that is, meaningful in a atmosphere of sort of total civic corruption. If democracy means anything, it means powerful people are held to the same legal, moral, ethical standards as the rest of us. And that has not been the case for a very long time.

And the Epstein files are such an object demonstration of that. Right. And [00:52:00] it’s, very interesting. It’s. All, very close to a, confirmation of Q Anon. There is a global pedophilic conspiracy, but guess what a lot of your team is, part of it. And that’s why, there’s been the, there, there was this great righteous Q Anon slash MAGA push to get the Epstein files released.

And even now with them heavily redacted and I’m, convinced, like the most damaging Trump stuff is still being held in reserve. But there’s still enough there that, yeah, you people are going quiet a about it who were like, this was so central to their identities, right?

Epstein files reveal that the ultimate ‘globalists’ are right-wing

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and it’s. Well, and these people, I mean, in the files, I mean, this, it, with the sole exception of Noam Chomsky, who has always been morally problematic in my view overwhelmingly this was people who were the conservative Democrats and Republicans. That’s it. Like there, there aren’t any other leftist people in these Epstein files as far as I’ve seen.

And

LEHMANN: So, yeah, that’s the thing is like the, it’s, like the reverse photographic negative of Q Anon.

SHEFFIELD: yeah, what’s, like Q Anon was invented and promulgated as the defense mechanism basically

almost and because, and I don’t know, but, it’s also that, when you’re reading these files, and I, one thing that struck me was this conversation, these conversations that Peter Thiel.

Jeffrey Epstein were having, and and they were both, I mean, what it shows very clearly is that Epstein was very friendly to, toward Trump and, solicitous for him, and concerned that he would win. And so when he was talking with Teal, he, one of the things he said was that Epstein said, well, Rexi is just the beginning.[00:54:00]

And, then, and Teal was like a beginning of what?

LEHMANN: What? Right, right,

SHEFFIELD: and Epstein then proceeded to quote back Peter Thiel to himself, essentially the beginning of tribalism, the destruction of the old institutions. So that, basically, I mean, this is you, this is super villain stuff, Chris. That’s really

LEHMANN: No, that’s what I’m saying. Right,

right.

SHEFFIELD: people, won’t, wouldn’t believe that it was real. If you, wrote it as even as nonfiction, like, and that’s, that is the thing that as a reporter who’s reported on extremism for a long time, and I’m sure you’ve seen this as well, that when you tell people, this is what these guys are doing, this is their agenda.

They don’t believe you. They don’t believe you.

LEHMANN: I, when I, shortly after I started at the Nation, I wrote a cover story on Q Anon, circuit whatever, 2022 coming out of the pandemic. And I did a couple of radio interviews where, you know or podcasts where people flat out refused, when I would trot out, the, basic stats at that point, which is that more than 30% of Americans endorse some version of the, Q anon, fantasy.

And, people just flat. I said to me like, that can’t be right. I’m just like, I’m not making this up, which is, yeah.

SHEFFIELD: That’s, and that really is the, cardinal or the original sin of, American, broader left is they don’t take these, the far right. Seriously enough. And they, and you see it also, in terms of like when you turn on Ms now as it’s called, it’s always the same people on the shows.

Like, you don’t, hear any new speakers. You don’t hear any new thoughts, new strategies. No. It’s like, let’s hear what these people already told you for the hundredth

LEHMANN: right, right. And their version of sort of viewpoint diversity is like Joe Scarborough and Nicole Wallace, [00:56:00] you know who I, both, I sort of knew them both when they were actual Republicans and they weren’t interesting people then. that’s, a Yeah, it is this, I mean, and obviously Fox News does the same thing, but they’ve, got, this more, no one is under any illusion that they’re presenting a balanced picture of anything. I think they’ve even retired the, fair and balanced slogan at this point.

Nihilism and Tucker Carlson

SHEFFIELD: Did. Yeah. Yeah. But, and then but then we have also on the other side that on the further left that I think that there’s just a lot of nihilism, and like I used to, do some work with the Young Turks, like that channel just nihilists, everyone on there is a

nihilist and they monetize nihilism and thinking, oh, what if we, teamed up with Tucker Carlson to go after the government?

And it’s like, Tucker Carlson hates capitalism because he’s a feudalist.

LEHMANN: Right.

SHEFFIELD: that’s not,

LEHMANN: Talk about your fault against modernity. Right.

SHEFFIELD: That is not your ally under any circumstance now. And it is true, but it is true. On the other hand that the, people who are his audience, a lot of them, have potential to be converted or at least to stay home and, stop, listening to these assholes because they’re not listening to them because the, because they’re presenting ideas.

like, right this week as we’re chatting Christopher Ruffo, the right wing activist, it was complaining about how all the most red Substack are left wing. And so therefore, Substack has a left wing bias. And it’s like, no, your side doesn’t read. You guys don’t like to read. You like to listen to a a, guy in a chair talk for three hours to tell you what to think about everything.

That’s what your [00:58:00] model is. You don’t want to read a concise essay. You don’t want to read an academic paper. You don’t want to read a researched magazine cover story. You don’t want that. Your audience doesn’t want that, and they never have,

LEHMANN: Yeah. Yeah. And

Yeah, it’s funny, I just reviewed this new Tuck Tucker biography by Jason Ley. And again, it’s striking just like, and again, I, knew tr Tucker and the before times. And he’s just an uninteresting person. Like, and he, he figured out, the real pivot point in his career wasn’t an ideological conversion moment.

It wasn’t like he suddenly decided Pat Buchanan and Sam Francis or whoever are my, new, idols it, he decided he wanted to be on tv. That was it. And, people forget all this, but you know, he tried, he, he was on Dancing With the Stars. He auditioned to be a host of A NBC game show and didn’t get it.

And,

SHEFFIELD: sNBC host also.

LEHMANN: he was also an M-S-N-B-C host. Yeah. And that flatlined and, and when he came to Fox Roger Ailes openly professed hatred for him. Again, I think in sort of class terms, he’s just obnoxious, preppy asshole. And, Roger was a, son of a hardware store owner in Ohio. And and so Tucker would get these sort of gigs where he would, he was like a, stunt weekend anchor.

He would like play cowbell for Blue Oyster Cult and, do stupid. It’s the same sort of idiocy that Pete Hex has used to do when he was a weekend host. So,

SHEFFIELD: Before he was our de defense secretary.

LEHMANN: Yeah. Right. And before Tucker Carlson was a kingmaker who’s, now being speculated about is Donald Trump’s successor. And it was on, it was only, because Trump got elected a and Bill O’Reilly succumbed to his massive sex pest scandal that Tucker got [01:00:00] the primetime spot on, Fox.

So it’s less, sort of the origin story of, a right wing, super villain than what makes Sammy run, in my view. Like he just, he figured out, how do I stay famous? And, this is his ticket.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, well, and yeah, and that there’s gotta be something in between just letting any schlub have a job and only letting people who, worked for Bill Clinton 30 years ago have a job. Like there’s gotta be somewhere in between. I.

LEHMANN: Yeah. I mean, I think for that to happen, again, it’s like with the Democratic Party, you need to, and it’s like the commercial model of mainstream media, especially television is flatlining right now. So there people do have to approach it from a fundamentally different standpoint. But you know, it’s the same problem.

You have entrenched money, you have entrenched, sort of a professional cast above it all.

Need for hope and transcendence in politics

SHEFFIELD: The other thing also, besides having a more oppositional left and that is really willing to go to the mat left, there also has to be a more open and hopeful left. and that actually was something that was different about the 2008 Barack Obama campaign and, people didn’t learn that lesson.

And I would tie it back to, in this post-war consensus that existed Also, that when we look at authors like, ha Aand or where from, like they talked, a very well about the, and, had lengthened several, like a lot of books, about this real psychological origins of fascism.

And, it is an ideology of despair. There’s an ideology of loss of death. And you can’t, you cannot defeat that unless you offer the opposite of that to

LEHMANN: right, right. And which again, like I, I think FDR [01:02:00] was really a, great model for that. had, A kind of messaging that was sort of, formally encapsulated in like the fireside chats where, you know, he. This was like the most Patricia person on the planet, basically. I think his mother moved with him to Harvard for his freshman year.

Like, but you know, he, was able to sort of tap into this sort of wellspring of, a shared national identity, a shared national purpose that was, expansive and, was targeted at, coming out of the depression, the, forgotten man, the the need,

SHEFFIELD: Yeah.

LEHMANN: And, the four freedoms, which was, sort of in my view, the unfulfilled legacy of modern American liberalism.

So, and, and part of the hopeful element. It is some a subject that we, both have an abiding interest in, which is religion. And it’s been striking to me, the, showing of sort of, clergy and pastors in Minnesota that recalls very vividly to me, the civil rights era, which people don’t adequately understand.

This is another problem of historical memory. The civil rights movement was basically a reli religious revival. That you don’t get the level of heroic commitment on the part of ordinary people to literally put your body on the line to tilt against this, century long, unjust system of racial oppression. That was not, it was not going to go away by virtue of conventional interest group politics. we knew all of that.

SHEFFIELD: Or

LEHMANN: D’s sins was striking, right? Right. You need moral imagination. You need a sense of a higher justice. You need all of that to galvanize people under the most adverse imaginable conditions who actually did overthrow Jim [01:04:00] Crow, who created a second reconstruction in this country.

So yeah, I absolutely agree. And I do think, religion is one of the things that people on the left again, reflexively dismiss or don’t understand or think they don’t have to, it’s, regarded as a, an aism. And you know what’s happens over all this time is it has become. Almost, it’s the largest, as you well know, evangelicals are the largest voting block for Trump.

And you have to ask yourself. Yeah, there, you’re right. This is fascism is an ideology of despair and nihilism and, lust and, ultimately self-destruction, I think. And but how does it get harnessed to the evangelical movement? Right? That is a huge question that I think needs serious unpacking.

And no one on the left can be bothered. That’s again, to go back to the Q Anon thing, like, I think in the lead of that piece, I talked to this very good Matthew Sutton this great historian of American Evangelicalism, and he said, the first time I saw one of these Q anon, sort of fever charts of all the, kind of alleged, lines of transmission in this global pedophile conspiracy, I thought to myself, I’ve seen this before. And it was, the sort of dispensationalist flow chart of human history.

And it was all this, it’s structurally identical. And he, was right. I looked it up after I interviewed him. That’s a very deep, and I would argue like a universal human longing, people need history to make sense. And they will, in the absence of anything else, they were glam into the most improbable, bizarre, paranoid, delusional, conspiratorial nonsense.

But it makes sense to them, and it gives them a sense. I interviewed someone else, another [01:06:00] student of the movement who said like, Q anon it works like a religion in the sense that it give, it gives you a sense of purpose. It gives you a, like, you get up every day and you think, I’m going to go track the global pedophile conspiracy online.

It gives you something to do. I,

SHEFFIELD: And it gives you community too

LEHMANN: Right. A community of like-minded people, all that, Trump rallies,

SHEFFIELD: and purpose and

LEHMANN: right? Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: and

that’s, yeah, go ahead.

LEHMANN: I was just going to say, Trump rally rallies also function as religious revivals. That way, you’re, among the elects, everyone understands what the project is.

You’re going to ritually denounce the enemy who is satanic all the rest of it. It’s, very powerful. And there’s nothing on the left that comes close to it in, my opinion.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, no, there isn’t. And it’s, it’s that so like the, early American reactionaries, like, they, they were big fans of this German philosopher named Eric Vogel.

LEHMANN: I know, well I’ve read widely

SHEFFIELD: and like, and he was obsessed, but not

LEHMANN: kind of, I, kind, I like his gnosticism book.

SHEFFIELD: Okay. Although that what, that, what do you call narcissism was not narcissism, but but, I will say, yeah, like the thing that, that was kind of his overarching idea was that people must have transcendence and that they have to see themselves, they have to see the bigger picture, and that this is a innate human longing.

LEHMANN: right.

SHEFFIELD: And I think he was right about that. Like his history was crap and he was an authoritarian

LEHMANN: no.

SHEFFIELD: scholar.

LEHMANN: all true. Yes, all true.

SHEFFIELD: but you know, the, larger idea that people, they want something outside of themselves. Because, the, this is the, this world is a, is an unforgiving and cruel place.

LEHMANN: It’s harsh

SHEFFIELD: so if we

LEHMANN: and it’s, also,

SHEFFIELD: something else, to

LEHMANN: alienating and [01:08:00] atomizing, so if you can come together like. And what Martin Luther King famously called the beloved community. Right. The, and the power of, that moment, I think was kind of the high watermark of certainly the moral imagination of American liberalism.

And and I do think, yeah, you’re right. The, early, sort of flush times of the O Obama campaign were called that. But again, the problem there, I would argue, was a structural one with the Democratic party. Like Obama was not going to do what FDR did. He wasn’t going to found a pecora commission to go after the bad actors in the banking industry that brought about the 2008 meltdown.

He famously told the bankers when he summoned them, that I am, I’m all that stands between you and the pitchforks like. Yeah, that was the thing. You had a, sort of civil rights, veneer over the same product. Which it was neoliberal, finance industry, centrism

Anti-ICE protests as a sign of hope for the future

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, I would say though that, I guess on a more hopeful note, it’s hard, Chris but, but you know, the, like the protests that we are seeing in, Minnesota and the various No Kings rallies, the, these are, this is a, recapturing of that. But ultimately, the people who will, solve these problems are not in, they’re the ones who are just the regular marchers right now.

LEHMANN: Yeah.

SHEFFIELD: Ultimately and, when, and to put their bodies on the line. Like people can see the regular non-political public as you were saying earlier, when, they see just regular normal people like Alex pre or like Renee Goode, being mercilessly killed and abused and gassed.

That, that has an effect in the same way that, the civil rights marchers of the [01:10:00] 1960s and the anti-war marchers of the

LEHMANN: Bull O’Connor. I’ve thought of Bull Connor all throughout this. Yeah. And I think they are also, these are the people who are creating pressure on the Democratic party to, at long last, do something. And we’ll see how, far that goes. And if the Democratic Party doesn’t do something, we need a new Democratic party.

SHEFFIELD: I think so. All right. Well, let’s see. So you got anything coming out in the next little bit for people to, keep an eye out for or that, you want

LEHMANN: oh God. Oh me. I I’ve been doing a bit more editing, so I’m, I haven’t been writing at my usual frequency. The, last thing I did was this David Brooks thing you mentioned, and I got I think I was surprised actually at the response that got, ‘cause I’ve, been attacking David Brooks literally for decades.

But yeah, other, apart from that, I’m just, waiting for the next catastrophe. We’ll, see

SHEFFIELD: Well, so what social media do you want people to follow you on? How about that?

LEHMANN: well, I deactivated my Twitter account finally, when I, speaking of editing, I edited a piece about, how gr has become the world’s most popular, I guess, source of pedophilic imagery. And I was just like, okay, I’m out. So yeah, I am. What is I, what is my blue sky? Monitor moniker. I can never remember.

I guess it’s, yeah, it’s @chrislehmann.bsky.social.

SHEFFIELD: Okay. Sounds good. All right. And then of course, people can always read you at the Nation as well,

LEHMANN: Exactly, yes. Thank you.

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