Not Entirely Healthy Barbie

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand: "Not Entirely Healthy Barbie" Episode Summary

Release Date: July 11, 2025
Host: Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty
Podcast: Armstrong & Getty On Demand | iHeartPodcasts

---

1. Viral TikTok Challenge Sparks Safety Concerns in Florida

The episode opens with a discussion about a troubling new trend reported by Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood. Teenagers in Florida have been participating in the "Door Kicking Challenge" on TikTok, where they forcibly enter homes in the middle of the night, capturing the frightening reactions of residents.

Notable Quote:
Jack Armstrong (00:14): “That's a good way to end up dead, especially in Florida.”

The hosts express alarm over the potential for these pranks to escalate into real violence, citing cases where young participants were apprehended after causing significant distress to homeowners. The conversation underscores the dangerous blend of immaturity and disregard for others' safety inherent in such viral challenges.

---

2. The Debate Over Inclusive Barbie Dolls

A lighter yet controversial topic emerges as the hosts debate the concept of "Diabetes Barbie." The idea revolves around creating Barbie dolls that visibly represent health conditions, such as wearing glucose monitors or carrying insulin infusion sets, to promote awareness.

Notable Quote:
Jack Armstrong (02:28): “She's got skin problems, she's missing an eye, she's mangy.”

However, the hosts critique this approach, arguing that it trivializes serious health issues and questions the demand for such representations. They propose instead an "all-purpose, not entirely healthy Barbie" that encapsulates various ailments, though they acknowledge the impracticality and insensitivity of the concept.

---

3. Air India's Tragic Crash: Pilot Error Under Scrutiny

The hosts transition to maritime tragedies, focusing on a recent Air India crash that resulted in over 260 fatalities. Preliminary investigations suggest that the pilots may have inadvertently turned off fuel flow to the aircraft's engines shortly after takeoff, leading to the catastrophic failure.

Notable Quote:
Unnamed Contributor (05:02): “The switches controlling fuel flow to the jet's two engines were turned off, leading to an apparent loss of thrust shortly after takeoff.”

Armstrong and Getty critique the pilots' actions, drawing parallels to common mistakes like leaving a motorcycle switch off, yet emphasizing the deadly consequences in aviation. They also highlight Boeing's strong safety record, suggesting that mechanical failure was unlikely the cause.

---

4. Antifa and the Democratic Party: A New Militant Frontier

A significant portion of the episode delves into the relationship between Antifa—a fringe extremist group—and the Democratic Party. Citing Byron York from the Washington Examiner, the hosts discuss the growing perception of Antifa as the militant wing of the Democratic Party, especially in their opposition to Trump's immigration policies.

Notable Quote:
Byron York (Read by Host,07:55): “Would it be fair to call Antifa the militant wing of the Democratic Party? Maybe so. And if it's not fair, it is closer to true than many Democrats would ever want to acknowledge.”

Jack Armstrong and the unnamed contributor debate the alignment of Antifa's actions with Democratic ideologies, suggesting that mainstream Democrats may be inadvertently supporting or abetting such extremist elements through lack of denouncement and media coverage.

---

5. The Rising Radicalization of Young Women

One of the most in-depth discussions centers on the alarming trend of radicalization among young women worldwide. Drawing from Claire Layman's research, the hosts explore why young women are increasingly adopting hyper-progressive and militant political positions.

Key Points:

• Moral Foundations Theory: Women score higher on care, fairness, and purity, making them more susceptible to ideologies framed around trauma and moral absolutism.
• Social Dynamics: Female friendship groups often lack resilience against social exclusion, fostering environments where ideological conformity is prized over individual belief.
• Social Media Influence: Platforms like Instagram and TikTok amplify availability cascades, creating perceived consensus and pressuring young women to adopt and display pure ideological stances.

Notable Quote:
Unnamed Contributor (21:16): “There are some, including me, call the permanent Omni cause. If you, as she said, 'if you, as a climate activist, don't also fight for a free Palestine and an end to colonialism and oppression all over the world, then you should not be able to call yourself a climate activist.'”

The discussion also touches upon Greta Thunberg's activism as a case study of how institutional support and public accolades can perpetuate a cycle of radicalization, linking multiple social causes into a singular, uncompromising activist identity.

---

6. AI Energy Consumption and the Nuclear Debate

Transitioning to technology, the hosts examine a report from Fox News detailing the enormous power requirements of AI systems. Training advanced AI models necessitates significant electricity, potentially driving a resurgence in nuclear energy to meet these demands.

Notable Quote:
News Voice (14:43): “One gigawatt is about one Hoover dam worth of electricity. So imagine five Hoover dams being used to just power one data center full of one company's AI.”

Armstrong and Getty debate the practicality of relying on nuclear power to sustain AI advancements, lamenting the historical backlash against nuclear energy spearheaded by activist movements. They speculate whether AI might eventually drive innovation in energy production, such as fusion power, to alleviate current limitations.

---

7. Declining Demand for French Fries and Factory Closures

In a lighter segment, the hosts note the closure of a major French fry factory in North America due to decreasing consumption rates.

Notable Quote:
Jack Armstrong (35:46): “People are eating fewer french fries than every Uber Eats driver was like, speak for yourself.”

They humorously discuss the paradox of declining traditional fast-food staples amidst evolving dietary preferences, reflecting on cultural shifts and their impact on the food industry.

---

8. Modern Dating Quirks and Social Media Impact

The episode concludes with a humorous take on the complexities of modern dating, particularly focusing on the multifaceted identities people present online.

Notable Quote:
Jack Armstrong (36:05): “Date a girl who wears glasses. It's like dating two girls when she takes them off.”

The conversation pokes fun at the superficial layers added by social media filters and the diverse personas individuals adopt in digital spaces, highlighting the disconnect between online appearances and real-life interactions.

---

Conclusion

"Not Entirely Healthy Barbie" traverses a wide array of topics, from the dangers of viral social media trends and the complexities of inclusive toy representations to serious discussions on extremist groups, the radicalization of youth, and the environmental implications of advanced technologies. Armstrong and Getty balance humor with critical analysis, offering listeners a comprehensive overview of contemporary societal issues intertwined with personal anecdotes and expert opinions.

---

Note: Advertisements, non-content segments, and certain off-topic discussions were omitted to focus on the episode's core content.

Transcript

[Jack Armstrong]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Joe Getty]

Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln radio studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty. And now here's Armstrong and Getty. That's a good way to end up dead, especially in Florida. You've got to think you're about to become a victim of a home invasion robbery. Under the castle. Doctor, you're going to shoot first and ask questions later. You're endangering your future with this TikTok challenge. Oh my God, a TikTok challenge. And I love anytime the castle doctrine is invoked. What are we talking about?

[Unnamed Contributor]

Well, that's the sheriff of Volusia county in sunny Florida. There's a new viral social media trend where teenagers are kicking in people's doors in the middle of the night.

[Jack Armstrong]

You've got to be kidding.

[Unnamed Contributor]

I know. I have at least decent memories of being a teenager and my response would have been immediately, we're gonna get shot. There's no effing way I'm doing that.

[Jack Armstrong]

I, I, I'm sh, I thought for a long time whenever I'd hear the term Tick Tock challenge that it wasn't really happening and nobody was really doing it. Are more people doing it than I think? Because that's, I don't know what you think. That's nuts.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Yeah. So they, the sheriff, somebody on Tick.

[Jack Armstrong]

Tock drilled, pounded a nail into their eyes. So I guess I better do it. I just, I don't understand the thinking here.

[Unnamed Contributor]

So the sheriff, Mike Chitwood, who we just heard, said teenagers are kicking indoors and scaring people inside. They give a couple of examples. These folks had security cameras and it took deputies about two hours to catch a 13 year old girl and a 15 year old boy. Uh, let's see. Teens are accused of taking part in a viral prank known as the door kicking challenge on TikTok.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, well, I'm sure. And then you have a friend stand by and video it. That's the whole thing. Right. Then you post it and how hilarious it is that some people inside were scared to death and thought that they and their kids were gonna die. See that's.

[Unnamed Contributor]

And how brave and crazy you are. Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Even if you don't get shot. Just the morality of it that you scared to death the people inside.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Yeah, there's a combination of stupidity and moral bankruptcy there. That's a little bit challenging.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Contributor]

But you know, I don't come from the sort of neighborhood where we would like kill people for a minor dispute or a hard look. And so.

[Jack Armstrong]

Nah, I Think it's a. I blame Johnny Knoxville. It's. The whole jackass thing has just started decades ago, and it's just continued to where people are willing to abuse anyone for supposed laughs as a teenager.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Yeah, well, need to open up camps. Draconian punishments for this sort of thing.

[Jack Armstrong]

I have an update on diabetes Barbie. Just because it's come up a couple of times. I mean, we're making the jokes about like it's a. It's a condition. It's. You can't look at somebody until they've got diabetes. So like you said, what's a Barbie that was born with one kidney? I mean, is that a Barbie? No. Diabetic Barbie. Wears a glucose monitor on her arm, comes with the Barbie set, an insulin infusion set on her body, and carries the meter. So very visible markers of type 1 diabetes. Okay.

[Unnamed Contributor]

I don't know how this makes the world.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, exactly. That's a good question. Who's wanting that?

[Unnamed Contributor]

How about Lyme disease? People get that. Chicks bite them, et cetera. How about Lyme disease? We deserve a Barbie.

[Jack Armstrong]

Lyme disease. So you want Barbie who's for whatever reason, pulling one of those things, you know, the metal things on the wheels? I've had it at the hospital when I had. Getting chemo. You know, you got to go to the bathroom and you got to walk down the hall with that thing behind you because you got a drip in your arm.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's. That the Barbie you want?

[Unnamed Contributor]

Yeah, Maybe like an all purpose, not entirely healthy Barbie. Right? Odd idea, right?

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I agree. Very odd idea. And let's. Instead of having a whole bunch of different Barbies, I like yours. An all purpose. Let's have all the ailments or bad things that could happen to a human being. And in one Barbie, right?

[Unnamed Contributor]

A set of accessories you can buy. It's like a beach house, you know?

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. She's got skin problems, she's missing an eye, she's mangy.

[Unnamed Contributor]

She's just all kinds of things.

[Jack Armstrong]

Head lice Barbie, scoliosis Barbie.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Well, right. But I mean, diabetes can be a serious condition.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, of course.

[Unnamed Contributor]

So why not like. And I don't mean to make light of this, obviously, but why not leukemia Barbie? Or, you know, how did they come to this decision?

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't know. She's. Yeah, you got to pile it all in one thing. Get it over with. Yeah.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Just all purpose, unhealthy Barbie. Speaking of beloved American products, I just wanted to mention this. Very cool. Quickly air India's probe into that horrific crash that just One guy walked away from and 200 and some people died. Absolutely horrific. Obviously.

[Jack Armstrong]

Whatever happened to C. Levany, Is he like I expected? Ended up on Dancing with the Stars or anything?

[Unnamed Contributor]

Not yet. I haven't heard a word from him. He probably realized, wait a minute, they're exploiting me. All these media people, they don't care about me. And he is gone. With a lower profile. Yeah. 260 people died, which is just terrible, obviously. But the investigation is focusing on the actions of the jets pilots and not the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which has an unbelievably great safety record. And the engines appeared to be fine too. Preliminary findings indicate that the switches controlling fuel flow to the jets two engines were turned off the leading to an apparent loss of thrust shortly after takeoff.

[Jack Armstrong]

The people said, hey motorcycle riders, you ever leave your little switch to the wrong side and your motorcycle starts to die a block from your house?

[Unnamed Contributor]

Oh yeah, I haven't flipped that on show of hands.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, everybody's done that, so. But these pilots did that.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Unclear why they were turned off or how. Unclear whether it was accidental dental or intentional and. Or whether there was an attempt to turn them back on. If the switches were off, that could explain why the jets emergency power generator known as the RAM air turbine or rat, appears to have activated in the moments before the aircraft plummeted into a nearby hostel for medical students. Nightmarish, blah, blah. So you know, it is not a blow to Boeing's already bruised reputation, it would seem.

[Jack Armstrong]

Boy, very few people will hear that. But God dang it. So they didn't get more than what was it, like 600ft off the ground? Why can't we get this plane to.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Go higher, dude, where's the thrust? Where's the thrust?

[Jack Armstrong]

We don't have the gas on.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Oh, good Lord, that's a bad story. You want better pilots than that?

[Jack Armstrong]

God. I would say we're gonna get more into the immigration raids in SoCal coming up. A little bit later, the ICE raided an illegal pot farm. It turned ugly when antifa turned out to be there and resisted the ICE people in the way that they do violently. So more on that. This is. This has got the potential to turn into a really big story. Not this individual one, but just the overall antifa violence against ICE agents.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Right. In the militant left more broadly. But yeah, these antifa goons who you remember, the mainstream media told us didn't exist just a few years ago when they were raining violence down on Portland, for instance, 112 nights in a row. Yeah, they're out and proud.

[Jack Armstrong]

Now, let me read this from Byron Yorker, the Washington Examiner. I thought this was really interesting. There's no doubt Antifa is a fringe extremist group. You all know when TIFA is right, that's short for antifascist, even though they're absolutely not that. But a lot of the east coast mainstream media who didn't know what Antifa was on the west coast believed they were anti fascist and went with that for a while. But Antifa is a fringe extremist group, not isolated. There are cells throughout the country, but extremists, says Byron York. Now, the issue of opposition to Trump's immigration enforcement has brought the fanatics of ANTIFA more closely than ever in line with the beliefs of progressive Democrats and perhaps those in the party's mainstream too. Would it be fair to call Antifa the militant wing of the Democratic Party? Maybe so. And if it's not fair, it is closer to true than many Democrats would ever want to acknowledge, writes Byron York. Uh, I saw Fetterman, Senator Federman of Pennsylvania say something fairly similar on Fox TV today, and that ICE needs to be funded and supported and they're just doing their job. Um, he's, you know, an outlier, I think. But how closely aligned is Antifa and the thinking of a lot of the Democratic Party like, like Bayern New York says, I think a lot closer than previous Antifa issues.

[Unnamed Contributor]

I'm really intrigued by his question. Are they the militant wing of the Democratic Party? Because they are absolutely organized. They are decentralized, but they're 100% organized, which is runs counter to one of the other lies that the media tried to tell us for a long time. Their views overlap a great deal with the Democratic Party, certainly the progressive wing. They have been aided, abetted and covered up for by the left wing of the Democratic Party.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, if, if the politics were flipped because of the way the media leans left so much, every Democrat would be asked, do you support what Antifa is doing or not? And they'd have to answer for it.

[Unnamed Contributor]

But. Or Republicans, you mean? Yeah, if it were Republicans. Yep. Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Every, every, every Republican, every time they showed up anywhere, would be asked about that and have to denounce them, you know, like the people at Charlottesville after that and, you know, all that sort of thing endlessly. But Democrats won't be asked to speak to this, at least not yet. But this story is not over by far.

[Unnamed Contributor]

And in a related story came across some really interesting scholarship that finally thoroughly answers a question I've Been asking over and over again and trying to dig into why are young women not only in America but around the world becoming so radicalized and so left and, and way disproportionately women. Like that big fracas at Columbia University where 80 people were arrested after taking over and vandalizing the library and holding people hostage briefly. 80 people arrested, 61 of them women. What's going on? Finally got a great thorough answer. It's troubling, but man, you have to, you have to diagnose the problem before you can start talking about a cure.

[Jack Armstrong]

I did my first ever cold plunge. It was kind of a baby cold plunge and that I just jumped into a cold shower. Although it was shocking enough this morning when I jumped in the cold shower, I went, I actually made that noise.

[Unnamed Contributor]

I'm glad my bedroom get credit.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I'm glad my bedroom's far away from the kids so they don't think something horrible happened or, or I don't want them to hear their dad make that noise.

[Unnamed Contributor]

I'm picturing multi syllabic obscenities.

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't think I cussed. I think I just made that very wussy sound and, and expelled all my breath. It was shocking. But man, I came out of that just like, let's go. Come on world, bring it on. I can take it. It was, it was fantastic.

[Unnamed Contributor]

I need to consult a cardiologist whether that's a good idea for me. But I got to admit I know that feeling, that exhilarated feeling because I've like had to take cold showers at campgrounds and that sort of thing. And you do come out just, just ready to take on the world.

[Jack Armstrong]

Why isn't everybody doing this if it's a good idea? Well, because it's. It sucks. I don't even know if I can do it tomorrow. Even with the positive results, it was hard to work up the nerve. I just had to do it without thinking about it. Just did it because it just seemed horrible. I could feel the cold water splashing on my feet and I thought this was going to be awful. And it was briefly. So we got a lot more stuff to get to stay here.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Ad Voice]

Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? WashablesOfAs.com has your back. Featuring the Annabe Collection. The only designer sofa that's machine washable inside and out. Where designer quality meets budget friendly prices. That's right. Sofas start at just $699. Enjoy a no risk experience with pet friendly stain resistant and changeable slipcovers made with performance fabrics experience cloud like comfort with high resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing. The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime. Check out washablesofas.com and get up to 60% off your Anna Bay sofa backed by a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund. No return shipping or restocking fees. Every penny back. Upgrade [e-mail] Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply A Little.

[Jack Armstrong]

AI Talk One of my favorite pundits was ranting on a podcast yesterday about how underwhelmed they are with chat GPT and I thought, well that's interesting. That is the opposite of my experience. I think it's freaking amazing.

[Unnamed Contributor]

What's he doing with it?

[Jack Armstrong]

That's what I wondered.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Yeah, interesting. So speaking of AI, this is kind of tangentially connected to it. Special Report on Fox News with Bret Bear had a really interesting report about how much power AI systems need and it's it's astonishing amounts of power and how it might be provided and how it is fueling a return to nuclear energy which only went away because of Graham Nash, Bruce Springsteen and their band of merry leftist idiots. Among that's a short short list of the people involved with the no Nukes movement. But I found these clips very interesting, particularly some of the statistics held within them. Let's just go ahead and roll that.

[News Voice]

Michael in order to supply the increasing demand, data centers are providing a 24 hour connection to continue advancing AI technology.

Running all of these computational resources that modern AI needs requires an awful lot of electricity.

AI models are frequently trained to remain relevant. Software require regular updates, and data centers need large cooling systems to keep everything running.

The plans for the largest computing clusters to run the largest AI algorithms in the world in the not too distant future is in the range of 1 gigawatt to 5 gigawatts. One gigawatt is about one Hoover dam worth of electricity. So imagine five Hoover dams being used to just power one data center full of one company's AI.

[Jack Armstrong]

That seems like an underappreciated aspect of AI.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Help me signed the grid. I mean, it's already overtaxed in a lot of areas. Of course, my understanding of it is in many cases they'll have their own quote unquote grid. There will be a nuclear reactor. It will provide power to the data center right next door. Period.

[Jack Armstrong]

I Wonder if AI is never going to get going until we perfect that whole fusion thing where we have kind of limited, unlimited free energy, that would be exciting.

[Unnamed Contributor]

There's one more clip. I found this interesting as well.

[News Voice]

U.S. reactors supply nearly 20% of the nation's power. The 93 nuclear generators create more electricity annually than the 8,000 wind, solar and geothermal power plants combined.

[Jack Armstrong]

The grid operators tell us, and we.

[News Voice]

Develop a lot of solar, that we.

[Jack Armstrong]

Have to develop 20 times as much.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Solar to get the same impact as 1 megawatt of nuclear energy. Yeah. So again, the 29. Did they say nuclear power plants that are functioning right now in the US produce more than the 8,000 wind and solar and geothermal sites around the country that are enormously large and disruptive to the environment.

[Jack Armstrong]

So if the hippies hadn't killed nuclear power, with the United States being, you know, better than everybody in the world at everything for the past 80 years, God, how far down the road would we have been? I mean, if we'd have gone all in on nuclear power back in the 70s, how far down the road would we be to just everything is run on nuclear power. The, you know, the odd circumstance being that the very people that killed nuclear power are the people that hate fossil fuel power. Well, we wouldn't need hardly any fossil fuel power if we'd have gone all in on Nuke.

[Unnamed Contributor]

I was just going to say, hey, Bruce, we would have put five zillion metric tons less carbon into the air. Y' all had just said, hey, let's make sure our safety is up to snuff on this stuff as opposed to just reacted emotionally and acted like it was an evil spirit or something like that.

[Jack Armstrong]

Be interesting if it turns out that AI is what gets us over our nuclear energy phobia. Just out of practicality.

[Unnamed Contributor]

You gotta have it. Yeah, it's just another example of I love, you know, dreamers and poets and songwriters and artists and stuff. I just don't want them in charge. Right, Boy. So, speaking of people on the far left, really interesting thinking slash science about why young women are so prone to radicalization right now. It's a huge issue. Ask any young dude. They'll tell you chicks are crazy. We'll describe why scientifically cool.

[Jack Armstrong]

And if you missed the segment, get the podcast Armstrong.

[Joe Getty]

You get it on demand Armstrong and Gettysburg.

[Ad Voice]

Life's messy. We're talking spills, stains, pets and kids. But with anibe, you never have to stress about messes again. At washablesofas.com, discover Annabe, Sofas the only fully machine washable sofas inside and out starting at just $699. Made with liquid and stain resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind. Designed for real life, Our sofas feature changeable fabric covers allowing you to refresh your style anytime. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly. Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes. Plus they're earth friendly and built to last. That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch. Upgrade your space today. Visit washablesofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

[Unnamed Contributor]

You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm sorry about that.

[Unnamed Contributor]

My bad.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's on me.

[Unnamed Contributor]

That's of course young Greta Thunberg, back in 2019 or 18 time named her the youngest ever person of the year. She was performing that speech.

[Jack Armstrong]

Did you remember that? Do we have more from her? We love her. We love these clips from her. Yeah, she was. How old was she at the time when she was person of the year? Young, six months old. Blah blah blah blah blah blah.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Yeah, well, she might have been a little older at that point. Anyway, I came across this piece by Claire Layman about when women are radicalized and I'm going to characterize some of it and read some of it. Obviously. Katie, Jack, anybody, jump in anytime you want to. And she writes that women moving to the left is a global phenomenon. There's a study on a radical environmental group in the uk described it as a highly feminized protest culture. Surveys found that attendance at climate demonstrations in cities around the world tend to be about 60% female. Recent American progressive movements, from Black Lives Matter to Gaza encampments, many of which were supported or led by female founded Jewish Voice for Peace. Bunch of examples. South Korea, United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Gen Z. Women have shifted toward hyper progressive political positions while men in the same age cohort have held steady or moved to the right.

[Jack Armstrong]

Boy, that doesn't help with the global lack of babies problem. In fact, that we're now splitting completely along political lines.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Yeah, no kidding. In the U.S. according to Gallup data, women age 18 to 30 are now 30 percentage points more liberal than their male peers.

[Jack Armstrong]

And if I remember correctly from various polls I've looked at this, it used to be we were pretty much in line, right?

[Unnamed Contributor]

Right. Why is this happening in a minute or two? And it, trust me, it is really Interesting. And then she mentions that there's a growing awareness of how young men are drawn into radicalization. And there are studies about it, and people are curious about it, partly because men tend to be more violent. And so there's a more immediate need to understand it. But there's practically zero study of radicalization among women other than some in radical Islam. Da, da, da. Sometimes mainstream institutions don't just overlook female extremism, they actively encourage it. And she gives a bunch of examples that are interesting but would take a lot of time and says this dynamic is perhaps best reflected in the career of Greta Thunberg, since she began skipping school at the age of 15 to demand action on climate change. I should be back in school. Well, I see. That's funny. We agree on that, sweetheart. Thunberg has been showered with encouragement and awards. They mentioned the time thing. She's received multiple Nobel Peace Prize nominations, an array of awards from media, philanthropic, science, scientific, academic, hope.

[Jack Armstrong]

That makes up for the fact that we stole her dreams.

[Unnamed Contributor]

They paint like.

[Katie]

They painted like a 50 foot mural, terrifying mural of her on the side of a building in San Francisco that you just see every time you left the city. And it was awful.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Wow. How dare you.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Contributor]

And. And so Thunberg's trajectory illustrates broader pattern. Radical behavior from young women is not just tolerated, but actively encouraged through awards, platforms and institutional support. This creates a feedback loop. But wait, Joe, you said you were going to differ. That's true of men, too, that sort of thing. Okay, here we go. We're going to take one more step, kind of a preliminary step, and get to why women, or girls in particular, the incentive structures that rewarded Thunberg so handsomely for her climate activism, have since encouraged her to expand into pro Palestinian activism, what some, including me, call the permanent Omni cause. If you, as she said, quote, if you, as a climate activist, don't also fight for a free Palestine and an end to colonialism and oppression all over the world, then you should not be able to call yourself a climate activist.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, that's nonsensical.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Now we get back into Claire's absolutely excellent writing and scholarship.

[Jack Armstrong]

If you don't care about the death penalty, then you can't call yourself a fiscal conservative. What?

[Unnamed Contributor]

Right, right. Let's see. This demand for ideological purity across unrelated causes is a significant move of female radicalism and a feature of how intersectionality is used in activist cultures. Intersectionality, which was originally like an academic framework for understanding different forms of disadvantage and how they can overlap, it's now a litmus test for moral conformity not only on issues like climate in Gaza, but but also on heavily charged topics like abortion, where deviation from the dominant view is treated as betrayal while generally not coercing people through violence, female radicals coerced through threats of shaming and social exclusion. It's easy to dismiss such actions as inconsequential compared to the violence of male radicals. And she gets into the damage that some of the social coercion does among young women. But I promised you the really interesting stuff. Here it comes. Still ex still existing studies in moral psychology and social behavior offer valuable clues about the underlying dynamics of what we're talking about. The moral foundations theory, developed by social psychologist Jonathan Haight or Height and his colleagues, and I'm a big admirer of his, argues that human moral reasoning is built on a set of intuitive foundations. All right, we all have moral reasoning built on the following things. And you might quibble with some of the things, but this is his theory. Loyalty, authority, care, fairness, and purity. And yes, we will explain these. A 2020 study using this framework across 67 countries found that women consistently scored higher than men on the latter three. That would be care, fairness, and purity. The care foundation relates to our sensitivity to the suffering of others, an extension of the instinct that compels parents, especially mothers, to respond to infant distress. I tell you what, if you're a parent, especially a woman, and there's a baby crying, you cannot maintain an even keel in a poker face. It is impossible anyway. Fairness, the second of those three, is tied to notions of justice and equality, while purity, originally evolved to protect against disease, can manifest as a desire for ideological or moral cleanliness. These tendencies, while adaptive in many contexts, can also make young women particularly receptive to political narratives framed in terms of trauma, injustice, and moral absolutism. And they also create vulnerability to ideologies that use victimhood as currency. And then the way young women organize their social lives compounds this vulnerability. Studies by developmental psychologists who they mentioned have found that female friend groups tend to be less resilient than those of males. And many women suffer from an intense fear of social exclusion.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's pressured.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Yeah. And this is what I've been talking about with kind of an imperfect knowledge, having raised boys and girls and coached them and mentored them in that sort of thing. The fear of being kicked out of the friend group among girls is, like, mostly unfamiliar to guys. Yeah, they might realize that the cool guys don't want to hang out with them, but they'll find their own friend group and Be pretty comfortable with it, not think about it much anymore. Right. And they'll call the other guys dicks and just, just again, won't think about it anymore anyway.

[Jack Armstrong]

But if you're a woman, you're really, really constantly on the lookout for am I about to get kicked out of this group? And worried about.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Right. Most women, many women, suffer from an intense fear of social exclusion.

[Jack Armstrong]

The pressure to see this ring true with you, Katie?

[Katie]

The fear of being kicked out of a group, not so much because I wasn't really part of my group was guys, so I didn't.

[Unnamed Contributor]

You're not the girliest girl I've ever known.

[Katie]

No, no, I'm not. But I. I do get that whole like, maybe fomo. Like I did have a group of girlfriends that all hung out together and when they would do that and I wasn't included, I.

[Jack Armstrong]

That.

[Katie]

That stun.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, again, we're talking about tendencies and averages in the typical. But again, the pressure to fit into a group is stronger for girls than for boys, possibly leading girls to support beliefs or ideas out of a desire for social harmony rather than true conviction. These dynamics create perfect conditions for availability cascades, a social phenomenon described by several other scientists in which a group comes to hold the belief through chain reactions. I found this super interesting too. Take for example, Greta Thunberg's declaration that climate activists must also fight for Palestinian liberation. In progressive social circles where Thunberg is held as a. Up. As a moral authority. Good lord, this is all wrong. Some girls might think this. Yes, again, we find ourselves agreeing, Greta. Anyway, in progressive social circles where Thunberg is held up as a moral authority, some girls might think this argument makes no sense. But they won't say so collectively. Such silence can be mistaken for universal agreement, pressuring others to mold their views to fit in. This artificial consensus can snowball, as individuals assume everyone else in their peer group agrees with a given sentiment, completely unaware that many don't. The result is a fragile system held together by fear rather than belief.

[Jack Armstrong]

Boy, the two loudest, most aggressive people with their view would be spouting it. And everybody else would be like, I guess we're all agreeing with this. I assume everybody's agreeing with it. I don't, but I guess I'll go along with it.

[Unnamed Contributor]

And this is. And you know, putting aside the male, female thing, that last part especially really helps describe or answer the question Jack and I have asked over and over again. How did the very, very small number of people, although they have the megaphone of the Media and education. But the very small number of people who believe a lot of this progressive nonsense, the radical gender theory, the trans thing, for instance. How did such a small group of people hold sway over so many people? Well, part of it is that availability cascade or the. What do they call it? The assumption that everybody agrees because nobody is disagreeing, just because everybody doesn't want to stand up to the bullies. And so it snowballs. And then here's the final step in how this works, especially with girls. Social media intensifies these cascades. When female friendship groups migrate online, superficial displays of consens like the sharing of memes, badges and hashtags can feel mandatory. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok serve up a stream of trauma related content, activating the care instinct while exposing young women to constant cues that their safety, belonging and self worth depend on adopting pure ideological postures. The result is a technological and ideological hijacking of female psychology. Can you imagine a young woman who is part of one of those friend groups and they all hashtag and they all agree on all the issues saying, you know, I agree with 90 of that. But that, that idea you just expressed there, that's bunk. That would take a hell of a lot of moral courage.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Contributor]

And not a lot of people have a lot of moral courage. And then this is kind of especially.

[Jack Armstrong]

When you're young and you just, you know, you just want to have friends that hang out and fit in.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Right? Yeah, yeah. And radical politics were not part of that for our generation.

[Jack Armstrong]

No, really, hardly at all.

[Unnamed Contributor]

But it is almost constantly for kids, especially online. It should come as no surprise then that progressive girls were the first group to suffer a major mental health decline following the mass adoption of smartphones and social media around 2012. As height points out in his excellent book the Anxious Generation and in his newsletter Gen Z, girls have been socialized online in a culture based on hyper vigilance toward harm a company by demands for moral absolutism and purity. I find that reasoning combined with the science behind it damn near airtight. Claire Layman, writing in the Dispatch. Well done, Claire.

[Jack Armstrong]

So what do we do about this? Take away the vote.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Oh boy. Oh, folks, I'm gonna hit him. Shocked. And I'm going to wait.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm going to hit it.

[Unnamed Contributor]

We need a little more study of female violence now. Yeah, but on a serious level, what do we do? Is a great question.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I've read a number of books about the Vietnam war in which prominent were young women who were fighting for the North Vietnamese who were great at being infiltrating because they weren't suspected and often could pull off looking like 13 year olds when they were 19 year olds or whatever. But I mean they were, they were a major force to be dealt with because they were so committed.

[Katie]

Well, and I, I watched a crazy documentary about how the big time player ISIS recruiters were the women.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh wow.

[Katie]

They were the ones out there pulling people in.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow, that's interesting too. Yeah, similar reasons.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Well, and as Orwell wrote in 1984, the book not the year, and it's a work of fiction, but it's describing how socialism reaches its, its ultimate, you know, it's, it's, it's inevitable endpoint of totalitarianism. He wrote it was always the women and above all the young ones who are the most bigoted adherents of the party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers out of unorthodoxy. And that goes right to her, you know, her set of arguments that it's about conformity and purity of belief. You can't express any doubts about the set of beliefs or you will be cast out. He observed that in the 40s. It was the 40s or 50s when he wrote that.

[Jack Armstrong]

He wrote 84 and 48. That's why he named it. He just reversed the years, the numbers.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Good way to remember. Anyway, fascinating stuff.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, a lot more on the way. Stay here.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Ad Voice]

Life's messy. We're talking spills, stains, pets and kids. But with Anabe, you never have to stress about messes again. At washablesofas.com, discover Annabe Sofas, the only fully machine washable sofas inside and out, starting at just $699. Made with liquid and stain resistant fabrics. That means fewer stains and more peace of mind. Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly. Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes. Plus, they're earth friendly and built to last. That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch. Upgrade your space today. Visit washablesofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

[News Voice]

One of the biggest french fry factories in North America is closing because Americans.

[Jack Armstrong]

Are eating fewer French fries. People are eating fewer french fries than every Uber eats driver was like, speak for yourself. Wow. You shouldn't ever eat French Fries. I shouldn't ever eat French fries. I do fairly regularly, and some of them are delicious.

[Unnamed Contributor]

They're Satan's own side dish. To me, they are the combination of deliciousness and utter inadvisability to eat top of the.

[Jack Armstrong]

They have, like, no nutritional value. Is that correct?

[Unnamed Contributor]

Terrible idea.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. There's, like, no benefit. Oh, so good. Okay, so I'll just read this. I came across it. It doesn't mean I endorse it. Just came across it, thought it was funny. And we got Katie here for this because we need a woman to react. Date a girl who wears glasses. It's like dating two girls when she takes them off. Oh, geez. This goes on, this goes on, this goes on. Wash off her makeup, and then you date three girls. Wow. Remove her Instagram filter, and you could be dating four girls with one girl. Take her meds away, and you could have up to 10.

[Katie]

All right, enough. Good God. Let me guess it.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Dude.

[Jack Armstrong]

Of course. Yeah. I told you I didn't endorse it. I just came across it and found it in drinking.

[Katie]

Came across it, thought I'd present it to a national audience.

[Unnamed Contributor]

And you said you did that 100 agree with those sentiments. Correct? Is that what you said?

[Jack Armstrong]

Take your meds away. It's like 10 different girls. Oh, Jack, that's horrible.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Okay, retweets do not necessarily imply.

[Jack Armstrong]

No, no. It's the Internet, ladies and gentlemen. The Internet.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Unplug it.

[Jack Armstrong]

I was at IHOP last night speaking of inadvisable eating choices. Although I had the scrambled eggs with bacon. You know, it's not a horrible thing with one pancake, one small pancake. But they were advertising there while we were there, the cookie butter pancake combo. As I always say to my kids whenever we come across this stuff, what is causing America's obesity problem?

[Unnamed Contributor]

Where's the comma or the dash there.

[Jack Armstrong]

In that cookie butter pancake combo? You get bacon and eggs and hash browns with your cookie butter pancake. If you order cookie butter pancakes. Unless you're doing it as, like, a.

[Unnamed Contributor]

Dessert for birthday or something.

[Jack Armstrong]

So good. Oh, I'm sure.

[Unnamed Contributor]

What's cookie butter? I've never heard of cookie, but.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, I'm sure it's very, very good.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

This is an I heart podcast.