249: Kings of Pain

Summary

Conspirituality Podcast - Episode 249: Kings of Pain

Release Date: March 20, 2025
Hosts: Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker

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Introduction

In Episode 249 of Conspirituality, titled "Kings of Pain," hosts Derek Barris, Matthew Remski, and Julian Walker delve deep into the intricate web where conspiracy theories intersect with spiritual movements. This episode dissects the dangerous convergence of New Age cults, wellness grifters, and the alt-right, highlighting how these factions undermine public health and foster widespread paranoia.

Investigation into Joe Mercola

Timestamp: [04:31]

The episode opens with a discussion on a new investigation into Dr. Joseph Mercola, a prominent figure in the alternative health industry. Julian Walker introduces the investigation conducted by Jonathan Jerry, a science communicator at McGill University, who scrutinizes Mercola's collaboration with a psychic named Balon.

Notable Quote:

Jonathan Jerry [05:19]: "Dr. Joseph Mercola is one of the biggest, most influential alternative health gurus out there... I finished watching it this morning. It is fascinating and let's just say Mercola did not hold back."

The investigation reveals that Mercola, under the influence of channeler Balon, has been promoting violent actions against veterinarians and heavily relies on dubious sources like ChatGPT for his "health insights."

Health Misinformation and Its Consequences

Timestamp: [07:14] - [09:32]

The hosts explore the real-world dangers posed by health misinformation. Derek Barris outlines three primary risks:

1. Avoiding Professional Medical Care: Individuals forgo necessary treatments, leading to severe health deterioration or death.
2. Financial Wastage on Ineffective Supplements: People spend substantial money on unproven supplements instead of effective medical solutions.
3. Unregulated Supplement Industry Risks: Unlike pharmaceuticals, supplements aren't required to disclose all potential contraindications, posing additional health hazards.

Notable Quotes:

Derek Barris [07:28]: "The most dangerous in my estimation are people who choose not to see a doctor and forego the care that they need."

Julian Walker [08:29]: "It's such an unintended side effect of regulated versus unregulated industries."

The conversation underscores the irony that supplements, often perceived as safer, lack the stringent regulations that govern pharmaceutical drugs, making them potentially more dangerous.

Political Shifts and Public Health Cuts

Timestamp: [10:43] - [17:23]

The hosts highlight alarming cuts in public health funding under the current administration. Derek Barris enumerates significant reductions:

• $800 Million Cut to Johns Hopkins University: Resulting in over 2,000 job losses, impacting critical research in biomedical engineering and vaccine development.
• NIH Grant Cuts: Over 40 grants focused on vaccine hesitancy and immunization improvements were canceled.
• FDA Vaccine Advisory Meeting Canceled: The FDA proceeded without expert input, risking the effectiveness of influenza vaccines.

Notable Quotes:

Derek Barris [13:45]: "The NIH has directed all scientists to remove references of mRNA from their grant applications."

Judith Remski [15:36]: "So why are we even gonna bother with it anymore?"

These actions are portrayed as deliberate attempts to destabilize public health infrastructure, with devastating implications both domestically and globally. The New York Times report indicates that cuts to USAID could result in 1.65 million deaths due to reduced funding in HIV prevention, vaccines, food aid, malaria prevention, and tuberculosis control.

Language of Purification and Historical Parallels

Timestamp: [22:18] - [35:03]

A significant portion of the episode examines the rhetoric used by the alt-right and its historical roots. The hosts draw parallels between current purging language and that of fascist and authoritarian movements, particularly referencing Nazi Germany's purification efforts.

Notable Quotes:

Julian Walker [30:50]: "We all need to cleanse. But then there are also some ailments or diagnostic assessments that can really indicate how crucial it is that you do some kind of cleansing..."

Matthew Remski [39:11]: "You know, of all of the things that have made me feel insane with rage and depression in waves, I think the scrubbing of the US Air Force's websites of black and people of color veterans is almost peak."

The discussion extends to how contemporary political figures use metaphors of purification to justify exclusionary and oppressive policies, echoing the "America First" rhetoric and white supremacist ideologies.

Economic Policies: Detoxing and Privatization

Timestamp: [22:18] - [27:58]

The hosts critique the administration's economic policies framed as a "detox" from government spending to stimulate private sector growth. Derek Barris illuminates how this narrative masks a shift towards privatization, potentially leading to higher inflation, reduced purchasing power, and diminished trust in institutions.

Notable Quotes:

Derek Barris [25:36]: "If you're picking strains that are completely ineffective, all of a sudden, you could say this just never works. So why are we even gonna bother with it anymore?"

Scott Besant [49:15]: "This is just shock therapy coming home to roost."

The discussion highlights the flawed economic reasoning behind policies like the Mar-a-Lago Accords, which propose sweeping tariffs and a Bitcoin reserve to weaken the US Dollar—an approach likely to cause economic instability rather than the intended growth.

Discussion with Quinn Slobodian

Timestamp: [48:10] - [60:50]

The episode features guest Quinn Slobodian, a professor of International History at Boston University. Slobodian provides a scholarly perspective on the intertwining of economic policies and authoritarian ideologies.

Notable Quotes:

Quinn Slobodian [50:37]: "Charles Murray bridges the gap... transforming the welfare state was to actually make people suffer again."

Scott Besant [52:12]: "Spencer says... we cannot repress and gradually diminish this body of relatively worthless people without inflicting much pain."

Slobodian and Besant explore how historical eugenic ideas influence contemporary policies that marginalize and purge vulnerable populations. They discuss the resurgence of rhetoric that dehumanizes certain groups, aligning with neoliberal shock therapy concepts that advocate for painful economic reforms under the guise of long-term stability.

Cleansing and Purification Metaphors in Modern Politics

Timestamp: [37:44] - [44:29]

The hosts connect historical fascist purification metaphors to current political strategies, emphasizing how these language tools are repurposed to justify oppression and exclusion.

Notable Quotes:

Julian Walker [42:44]: "They erase the history of the Navajo Code Talkers... It's incredible."

Matthew Remski [35:03]: "We have this ancient history and there are resonances, but the pipeline doesn't go exactly from Ayurvedic ashrams... to Marjorie Taylor Greene's post crossfit massage parlor."

This segment underscores the continuity of oppressive language and strategies from past authoritarian regimes to today's political climate, where historical symbols and narratives are manipulated to serve contemporary agendas.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Timestamp: [61:20] - [64:53]

As the episode wraps up, the hosts reflect on the pervasive influence of conspiratorial and puritanical ideologies in shaping current societal and political landscapes. They caution against the seductive nature of purification metaphors that justify systemic harm under the pretense of greater good.

Notable Quotes:

Scott Besant [60:50]: "The idea of a surplus population is something that is lurking not too far beneath the surface."

Julian Walker [62:44]: "They have their own version of evolving fragments... retaining some notion that there's something holistic that they're trying to hang on to."

The final discussion emphasizes the cyclical nature of oppressive ideologies and the urgent need for awareness and resistance against the manipulation of spiritual and conspiratorial narratives to legitimize authoritarian measures.

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Key Takeaways:

1. Intersection of Conspiracies and Spirituality: The blending of conspiracy theories with New Age spirituality creates potent cult-like movements that undermine public health and foster societal division.

2. Danger of Health Misinformation: Misinformation leads to real-world harm, including the avoidance of medical care, financial loss on ineffective treatments, and increased health risks due to unregulated supplements.

3. Authoritarian Rhetoric in Modern Politics: Current political discourse employs historical purification and eugenic metaphors to justify oppressive policies and marginalize vulnerable populations.

4. Economic Policies as Purification: Policies promoting privatization and reducing government spending are framed as necessary "detox," masking the underlying intent to dismantle public health infrastructure and increase economic disparity.

5. Historical Continuity of Oppressive Ideologies: There is a troubling continuity of language and strategies from past authoritarian regimes to present-day political movements, emphasizing the need for vigilance and resistance.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Julian Walker]

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[Derek Barris]

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Conspirituality, where we investigate the intersections of conspiracy theories and spiritual influence to uncover cults, pseudoscience and authoritarian extremism. I'm Derek Barris.

[Matthew Remski]

I'm Matthew Remsi.

[Julian Walker]

I'm Julian Walker.

[Derek Barris]

You can find us on Instagram and threads at Conspirituality Pod. We are also all on Blue sky individually and you can access all of our episodes ad free, plus our Monday bonus episodes over on [e-mail] conspirituality if you use Apple Podcasts and you just want access to our Monday bonus episodes, you can find them via Apple subscriptions. As independent media creators, we really appreciate your support.

[Matthew Remski]

There's going to be a natural adjustment.

[Scott Besant]

We move away from public spending to private spending.

[Matthew Remski]

The market and the economy have just become hooked and we become addicted to this government spending and there's going to be a detox period. Did you hear that, listeners? You're all hooked. Addicts. Your appetites are out of control. You've been on a bender totally debauched on the drug of state. You're fat with education, sluggish with science, coddled by your veterans benefits and filled up with the torpor of national parks. You've been nodding out to the psyop trance of voice of and the sloth of public health is clogging your veins. But don't worry, that was Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and he's here to manage your withdrawal purgation and purification. RFK Jr. Is standing by to give you a castor oil enema. Nicole Shanahan is going to power wash you down with kombucha and ICE boss Tom Homan is turning every deportation cell into a sweat lodge. So if they lock you up without cause, at least you'll sweat out your cultural Marxism in the meantime. And the pain will be swift but effective. You'll shake and barf and shark through this dark night of the soul, but the journey will return you and your kin to your natural sovereign balance as the masters of your own private equity. So today we look at peak conspirituality, convergences between biological and political purification projects. Where is it coming from? Project 2025, the Mar a Lago accords Curtis Yarvin's Discord. We're not exactly sure, but we know the language of detox, pain, sacrifice and austerity, sliding off the wellness sites of maha grifters and onto the press releases of Doge flunkeys is here. Oh, and stay around because friend of the podcast and brilliant political historian Quinn Slobodian is going to be joining us to get into even more detail. But first.

[Derek Barris]

But first we need to talk about a new investigation into Joe Mercola by friend of the pod, Jonathan Jerry, who of course is a science communicator over at McGill University. On Tuesday he published an investigation into Mercola, one of the biggest alt med supplement salesmen in America and his relationship with a supposed psychic named Balon. After reviewing a few dozen zoom calls between the men, we had early access. I finished watching it this morning. It is fascinating and let's just say Mercola did not hold back. So in preparation for next week's episode, which we're going to call them Mercola Tapes, which is what Josh Jonathan calls his investigation, I asked him to give me a high level overview of what he found.

[Jonathan Jerry]

So we already knew that Dr. Joseph Mercola is one of the biggest, most influential alternative health gurus out there. He was one of the first ones to latch onto the promises of the Internet and create a website for himself. We knew that he was incredibly wealthy, that he had donated money to the anti vaccine movement. But we also knew from a bit of coverage from journalist Rick Polito in a trade publication that that focuses on dietary supplements that as of late 2023, Dr. Mercola had been consulting with a medium who claimed to be channeling an entity and that he was getting a lot of his advice from this channeler and that he had completely dismissed his executive staff and replaced them. There was a lot of movement happening within his company, but we had never seen the video sessions between him and the Chandler. A whistleblower from inside of Mercola's company reached out to me and delivered many of these videos. And I've watched over 50 hours of this stuff because, yes, that is what I do for the good of mankind. And there are a lot of very interesting things that come out of what I'm calling the Mercola tapes. One of them is this massive call for violence where he is planning on recruiting millions of people to march with weapons on these creatures. And by creatures, he's referring to veterinarians. He is against the veterinary industry and he has a plan that his spiritual guides gave him for people to march with weapons on veterinarians. I've also seen that a lot of his alternative health insights come from this spirit that is being channeled by the. By the medium. The name of the of the spirit is Balon. And when it's not coming from Balon, it's often coming from ChatGPT. Because Joe Mercola says that ChatGPT doesn't lie because apparently he doesn't know that large language models can hallucinate.

[Julian Walker]

This week in conspirituality, one question we've grappled with for years is this. What harm does health misinformation really cause? And Derek, I know you've been reflecting on this lately.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, I've thought about it for years and the answer over and over from so many the health experts that we've had on the show, it usually includes three different possibilities or scenarios.

[Matthew Remski]

Okay?

[Derek Barris]

The most dangerous in my estimation are people who choose not to see a doctor and forego the care that they need. We wrote about this in our book at the end, when of course people died of cancer because they did a Joe Dispenza workshop. Instead of getting oncology, seeing an oncologist, you have the most expensive, which is people wasting money on things like supplements that do nothing for their health. And then you have a more rare situation. But it's also important, and this involves basically all chemicals, even in the form of supplements have contraindications. Now pharma companies need to list every possible contraindication that they know of on the packaging by the law. But supplement manufacturers do not have to do any of that.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, it's such a good point. You know, and with regard to the first couple of things you said, it really just strikes me these, these people have formed a set of beliefs based on the influence of misinformation that then leads them to take what can sometimes be catastrophic action with regard to their choices about whether to avail themselves of medical science or whether to trust the new beliefs that some influencer has sold them on. With regard to like the, the contrast between supplement manufacturers and, and then the contraindications and the warnings that come with, with pharmaceutical drugs, it's sort of this unintended side effect. Right. Of regulated versus unregulated industries. And the big irony that always strikes me here is that the safer drugs are required to tell you in those super fast disclaimers, you know, it may make all of these sorts of things happen. Be careful if you've ever had this kind of condition in the TV ads. So any possible side effect, no matter how rare, has to be disclosed. And by contrast, it makes these so called natural supplements seem safer because they've not been thoroughly tested, they're not held to the same standards, they don't have to tell you all those things.

[Matthew Remski]

I think it's really unfortunate that those disclaimers were so easy to turn into a joke because I, I think that says something about perhaps public tolerance for jargon and proceduralism, like if they can't see the benefit clearly it sounds boring. And of course if they buy the supplements, they don't have to listen to that stuff. There isn't a punchline attached to it or a potential joke. It's, it's just an unfortunate situation.

[Derek Barris]

You know, one of the promises of RFK is that he's going to ban DTC advertising because we are one of two nations in the alongside New Zealand who feature it. Of course I don't think that's ever going to happen. But also my wife is a UX researcher who works specifically on pharma inserts. That's what she does for a living and she tries to make the experience as clean and smooth as possible for consumers, especially disabled consumers. That is her specific job. So I have some insights into what goes on to make those inserts. And that language, it is a lot because one wrong word you have lawsuits all over the place. So the idea that like their pharma is hiding everything. And they're so nefarious when they are probably one of the most transparent industries we have is just ludicrous.

[Matthew Remski]

But it's wild because. Because not hiding everything means that people will feel overwhelmed. And then what happens? They turn off, they become bored, they think they're being talked down to, who knows?

[Julian Walker]

And they overestimate the danger.

[Matthew Remski]

Right?

[Derek Barris]

Yeah. And that gets into patient adoption, which is a whole other thing. And of course this is all in a for profit model, which is horrible. We all know this. With all these scenarios that we've been covering over this time, what no one has brought up that I've heard, and to be clear, I don't think it was even actually possible to bring up prior what happens when an anti vax wellness crowd runs all of our health agencies. We covered the basics of this on episode 247. And even in those two very long weeks since, there are suddenly a whole lot of new problems that we are now facing.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, I mean, the misinformation peddlers and the conspiracy theorists, and they have their hands now on the levers of power and their mouths at the megaphones. And so then it raises the question, are actual scientists and those informed by the science the new outsiders, the new conspiracy theorists, the new whistleblowers who are gonna look like cranks?

[Matthew Remski]

Yeah. Suddenly like Peter Hotez's like little bow tie looks a little bit crankish. Looks like he's the outsider now. And I'm like, no, no, he's just. He was the nerdy insider. No, it hasn't flipped. It hasn't. He's still cool.

[Derek Barris]

So I've often remarked how Maha is just a ripoff of maga, but it is not a one way relationship. So in our main story today, we're going to discuss how MAGA is using language that has been part of fascist and authoritarian movements for generations. But that's also long been at home in Maha, which is the language of purity and the spiritual necessity of pain, which we'll get to shortly. For now, I want to do a brief rundown of some of the existential problems we are facing when it comes to health. So first off, the administration just cut $800 million in funding to Johns Hopkins University, which ranks first in the nation for biomedical engineering and second for medicine and biology out of all American universities. And they had to cut over 2,000 jobs. And those jobs impact the university's Bloomberg School of Public Health, its medical school and affiliated non profit for international health. But also all of the research that they're doing, including some really important MRNA vaccine research. Which brings up next one, which is the NIH cut or canceled over 40 grants focused on vaccine hesitancy or improving immunization levels. So think about this like they're studying how to get wider adoption of public health protocols like vaccines. And Kennedy was like, nope, we're going to stop that research. Then the agency's acting director requested information about MRNA vaccine specifically. So that's led some to speculate what will be next. And in fact, on Sunday, a Kaiser Family Foundation Health News news reported that the NIH has directed all scientists to remove references of MRNA from their grant applications.

[Matthew Remski]

Does that mean that, that the actual term itself, like if it shows up on the grant application, that it's just going to be sort of, it's going to be shelved or it's going to be trashed?

[Derek Barris]

That is what they believe. And that is the NIH saying, if you are going to be looking into research into this, just understand it's not going to get funded. Yes.

[Matthew Remski]

Right.

[Derek Barris]

And this comes at a time when cancer researchers are discovering that a new wa of MRNA vaccines could actually provide a moonshot for combating certain cancers that have plagued us forever, basically. And it's going to stunt research on those vaccines to combat influenza and bird flu, which are now being researched as well. Next up, the fda, which falls under hhs, of course, canceled its annual meeting of independent vaccine advisors for the 2025, 26 influenza season, and then it made its recommendations without their input. So this means that only strains selected by the FDA are allowed to be distributed in the U.S. that's a long standing rule, but without that input from actual experts. Now, normally the WHO and FDA are in lockstep as they meet twice a year to discuss this vaccine. And the US usually looks to Australia to see what's coming down the pipeline. So it's a, it's a, it is a global effort. Now normally all of this is also public knowledge, but now the recommendations were published without any of the information on who selected them or why.

[Matthew Remski]

Okay, so, so they're not pooling the information anymore. But that, I mean, that can only decrease the effectiveness because the sort of, you know, the pool of data that they're looking at is reduced is what's the end goal is like. It's like, well, the flu vaccine hasn't been effective. Now it's 2028 and it really hasn't worked against the flu. So we're going to stop it altogether.

[Derek Barris]

Ding, ding, ding, ding. Now I'm wearing the Bow tie. But yeah, I mean, that could be it. I mean, if you're picking strains that are completely ineffective, all of a sudden, you could say this just never works. So why are we even gonna bother with it anymore?

[Matthew Remski]

Right?

[Derek Barris]

Fun. So HHS also sent all 80,000 employees a 25,000 dollar buyout to retire or leave their jobs. As of the recording, there is no official number of workers who have accepted this specific offer from H. According to The White House, 77,000 workers across all federal agencies have accepted a buyout, including the hhs. So those numbers apparently are wrapped in. And this is on top of thousands of probationary employees, which from my understanding is people who've been there for a year or less across all the agencies being fired in the last two weeks. Okay, a couple more. The CDC is planning a large scale study on the link between vaccines and autism. Because why the not we haven't done that already? Given this new crop of anti vax publications posing as scientific journals that we flagged two weeks ago, I'm pretty sure they're going to magically find a link and publish it in one of those journals, which will further spread this horrendous myth.

[Julian Walker]

Bow ties all around.

[Derek Barris]

We are also up for new dietary guidelines. Now this isn't just because of Kennedy. We update them regularly. Just happened to fall during this administration. And given Kennedy's recent advertisement for the beef tallow fries at Steak and Shake on Sean Henn show, I can't wait to see what's at the top of that food pyramid. Okay, we haven't used the pyramid since 2011. I know. We use it my plate now. What's it going to be now? Like, you know they're going to come along with ice baths and sauna rituals too.

[Matthew Remski]

Derek, there must be like in the foodie capital of Portland, there must be beef tallow fries that are already on the menu. Way before rfk, there was some early adopter. Have you tried them yet? What do they taste like?

[Derek Barris]

I don't know. But I will say the fry game in Portland is strong. But Portland is a tater tot city. That is like our official food.

[Matthew Remski]

I thought that was Wisconsin. I thought that was only the Midwest.

[Derek Barris]

The Cajun tater tots here at like Roscoe's. Jesus, I mean, they are delicious. So. So they fry all sorts of stuff here. I am kind of immune from a lot of the chaos that we cover in such a foodie city. Now finally, when it comes to global health, the New York Times crunched numbers of what, a year without USAID intervention means in terms of, of deaths. It is startling. So this is again because the US is no longer funding usaid. Usaid. They are showing all of the impacts on a global level that's going to have so HIV prevention and treatment. They think 1.65 million people will die because without the money that's been going into these projects for decades. Vaccines 500,000, food aid 550,000. Malaria prevention, which we have to remember a ton of people die from every year, 290,000. And tuberculosis prevention, which I just before recorded read a scientific article stating that we are looking down the pipeline of a tuberculosis which cannot be combated because of the USAID cuts. But from New York Times article last week, it's 310,000 deaths.

[Matthew Remski]

You know, I think we're trying to get very clear on our language. And Derek, you've been using the term soft eugenics to describe all of these gutting procedures at HHS and across the board. I would personally, I know this doesn't match any sort of like technical definition, but I would call this list of statistics a genocidal act against the global poor.

[Derek Barris]

I agree.

[Matthew Remski]

Yeah, I saw another source that predicted 2 to 3 million malnutrition deaths. And also, you know, this is a parallel issue but I just want to throw out there something that's obvious. I'm sure we'll talk about it bit as we go on through this. It's, it's downstream and a little bit hidden but every single reduction in health care and social support that we see through these cuts, it represents a structural ratification of misogyny. Because as home and community care needs go up, the vast majority of extra labor in all of this stuff is going to fall on women.

[Julian Walker]

This is also incredibly disheartening and it's making me think too. Matthew, I'm sure you've tracked this of the messaging amongst the evangelicals about the sin of empathy, about how you know, having empathy for so much of what we've just been discussing is part of what limits the agenda of moving forward with Christian nationalism.

[Matthew Remski]

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[Julian Walker]

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[Scott Besant]

If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll.

[Julian Walker]

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[Derek Barris]

Okay, Matthew, you found that Scott Besant quote off the top and definitely all rang in our ears to be like, yeah, we need to look into this more. And interestingly, Besant is the first openly gay treasury secretary in our history. He's also the first openly LGBTQ plus Senate confirmed cabinet member in a republic administration ever. I mention this because a man who is married to another man with two children through surrogacy is quite an outlier in this administration, but his economic policies do line right up.

[Matthew Remski]

Okay, so just pausing on this for a moment. Do we think that the rule is that if you're like, sufficiently wealthy, sufficiently techno libertarian that, that, you know, being gay but not trans is just fine as long like this a kind of Peter Thiel clause or something?

[Julian Walker]

You know, there's a very infamous quote from Roger Stone where someone asked him about Roy Cohn being gay and he said Roy Cohn was not gay. He liked to have sex with men.

[Matthew Remski]

Right.

[Julian Walker]

Gays are weak and I think that.

[Matthew Remski]

Probably conveys that sounds like Bronze Age pervert stuff, right?

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, totally, totally. And then there's, you know, in terms of trans people, I can think of, you know, three off the top of my head. Brianna Wu, Buck angel, and Blaire White, who, you know, are darling of the. Right up to a point. Right. Of course, that no one's going to go to their, to their anniversary parties as, as Shapiro famously said to. To Dave Rubin, because they believe it's immoral. But there, there is a welcoming if they have their, their political ducks In a row.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, I would imagine being that wealthy and in. In those situations just kind of gives you a pass look the other way. I mean, the. The Republicans have done that with black people for generations too, putting certain tokens. I mean, we all know that. So I would imagine it cuts that. That intuition about trans people is totally on. Although who knows what's coming down the pipe there. So, Bessant recently stated that the US Economy needed to detox, which we. We played off the top. Now, in economic terms, this means reducing dependence on unsustainable government spending. And here's the key point. Privatizing as much as possible. This is specifically what that term means for this Trump administration. Besant believes that this will stimulate private sector growth, maintain employment levels, and then you flag that addiction off the top. Right. And that's the idea that the American government is just addicted to spending on its people because they're so empathetic to get back to your terms. So this detox period will supposedly help us avoid a recession, which, of course is in contrast to reality. Besson is also in favor of what's been dubbed the Mar A Lago Accord, which everyone knows is Trump's flawed theory of ecological economic stimulation through tariffs. Specifically, this accord involves sweeping tariffs on America's largest trading partners and establishing a Bitcoin reserve. Embedded within this philosophy is the desire for a weaker US Dollar.

[Matthew Remski]

Now, however, we. We actually don't know if the Mar A Lago Accord is a real thing or whether it's like a script in Vince McMahon's binder of WWF storylines. Like, what is the status of this thing?

[Derek Barris]

I first heard about it just last week on Ezra Klein's P.O. podcast. And then I looked into it more. I don't know the origins of it, but I don't know who coined it to give the overall impression. But it's. Those two points are linked to it with the tariffs and the Bitcoin reserve.

[Matthew Remski]

Right.

[Derek Barris]

So it seems like it could get further into our language as we move forward. As in terms of who's adopted it, I'm not clear on that.

[Matthew Remski]

It's not like a page, though. Or it's not like it's not like written on parchment or something like that. It's not signed with. We can't access it. We don't know where it is until.

[Derek Barris]

It replaces the Constitution, which is going.

[Matthew Remski]

To happen on Thursday. Right? Yeah.

[Derek Barris]

So going back to the dollar, why would Trump and friends want to weaken the world's global reserve currency? In their minds, it would boost American exports, enhance Manufacturing competitiveness, create more jobs, reduce our 1.2 trillion dollar trade deficit and reallocate global demand, which this idea is that a weaker dollar would force the rest of the world to pur American goods. But then we have the unfortunate reality which is that all actual economics would be like that's bullshit because it would actually turn into higher inflation for Americans, reduced purchasing power and diminishing trust in both our currency and our products as well as our politics.

[Matthew Remski]

Yeah, so, but there's a lot of magical thinking involved. It seems like this, this imagination that manufacturing could be instantly restored. It reminds me of, of this logic where there's a lot of world building and strategy games like Civilization where you can just sort of like click and drag and spawn in fully functioning factories for, for your country with a click and then suddenly they're pumping out cars like instantly. And I, I think that's what, what's on their brains.

[Derek Barris]

It also contradicts the free market principles that they all espouse because in a free market the corporations, if you're going to try to tank their business, they're going to look elsewhere or for just other ways to reduce costs, have on one hand them saying the state is going to do this and then make everything better, which completely contradicts corporate philosophy and you're only going to make it worse for them. So chaos again, you know, could be part of that end goal and just distrust all around in institutions.

[Julian Walker]

You know, Matthew, what you said about magical thinking reminds me of Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize winning economist who in his criticisms of austerity measures in Europe in the 2010s he said, you know, austerity obviously is going to be bad during the period where the economy is at a low. And that the argument against this was that no austerity measures would create public confidence. And he came to refer to this as the confidence theory, theory of economics, that somehow there's this magical confidence that will improve everything because people know that the government is tightening their belts.

[Derek Barris]

The Heritage foundation, whose project 2025 is, is obviously the blueprint for pretty much everything that's happening right now, including every moving every government dollar into the private sector. Well, they applauded Bessant's appointment and we should note that Besson gave Elon Musk and Doge access to the Treasury Department's payment system. And he also had a one week gig where he was the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and he ordered the agency to halt all work. So yeah, for the common man. Now I know we're going to get into the history of detoxing now and parallels between detoxing the body and detoxing the body politic. But let's just say that the only ones getting clean from this proposed detox are the billionaires and their C suite enablers.

[Matthew Remski]

Yes, on the history. Derek and Julian, let us go back long ago to when sickness was a problem of demonic possession. The wrong spirit in the wrong body cavity would bring madness, sloth, lust, addictions, groaning, excessive sleeping, bad smells, too much sleeping. Oh, I said that already. Extra, extra. Too much sleeping. You could also die. The possessor could be appeased through prayers and rituals, or they could be chased away with clanging noise, fire or flails and whips. Slowly, this idea secularizes and medicalizes. In India, some of the possessing gods became synonymous with bodily humors or energies that would send the body's equilibrium with nature into a kind of turmoil or imbalance. The healer would still pray over these patients. They would commission rituals and sacrifices. But as they navigated the journey between priest and doctor, they also concocted herbs, powders and smoke to tease the toxic substances out. They used oil and heat, steam baths and sweat boxes, flaming incense and burning glass cups. They let blood, they purged people. They studied the snot and the poop to verify that the austerities had done their work.

[Julian Walker]

So basically the good old days is what you're saying?

[Matthew Remski]

The good old days. We've covered it for years that nothing about this basic logic of healthcare care has evolved with the emergence of online wellness economies. Except, I mean, the marketing tech has changed it quite a bit.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, and I'll just add that having once actually been a huge consumer and proponent of cleansing, I can report that the contemporary American narrative is that we are all unavoidably contaminated by the chemicals of the modern world. Pesticides, GMOs, cosmetics, toiletries, cleaning products, clothing, materials and dyes. All of the off gassing and the runoff from unnatural manufacturing. Plus you've got birth control control and antidepressants, the hormones that are fed to cows. It's really a minefield of things that could contaminate you. And the contamination is not diagnosed or treated by Western medicine, you see, but it's still touted as the real cause of most illnesses. So how else do we explain that humans are more unhealthy than ever before? So we all need to cleanse. But then there are also some ailments or diagnostic assessments that can really indicate how crucial it is that you do some kind of cleansing, like a Sluggish or slippery or dry meridian line as detected through a fingertip or a weak muscle test. Maybe you have acne or exhaustion or depression or a pain syndrome that won't resolve or a palpation of the tissue having this telltale fudgy feel.

[Matthew Remski]

That's a big one. I remember when I had, but I didn't know what it was a DVT in my calf. And what I was really trying to do is because I thought that the energy was stuck, I was trying to dig my fingers into to the muscle to really sort of like get that moving and to free the prana. And then I remember I'm in emergency and I'm showing the doctor, I said it really hurts right here. And I get my thumbs out and I start digging and he says, don't, don't do that. You're going to break it off. It's going to go to your brain and kill you. Yeah. So there's all kinds of very intuitive things that go along with this stuff that end up just being not good.

[Julian Walker]

I mean, if you'd caught it earlier and done some good liver cleansing, you may have avoided the whole crisis, maybe.

[Matthew Remski]

With green apples and olive oil. Yeah, I know, I know.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. And so then once you've started the prescribed cleansing regime, just about any bodily response, especially negative ones, are all evidence that you need it and it's working. So diarrhea, great nausea, it's a cleansing reaction. So too a rash or indigestion or exhaustion. Question. Fever and double vision. You're having a healing crisis. The ordeal is a moral initiation. It's the price of purification. You will emerge on the other side stronger, healthier, more protected from the illnesses that all of those normie toxic people are prone to.

[Derek Barris]

Last night I was making dinner and I, for the first time in my life because we cook with Thai peppers almost every night and I got some in my eye, eye and I couldn't open my eye for 10 minutes. I wouldn't call it cleansing in any way. It was one of the scariest eye related incidents I've ever had. So there was a crisis going on. I just don't know about the healing.

[Julian Walker]

But as I gaze at you right now, I can tell that it was your left eye because it's, it's, it's brighter, it just looks healthier.

[Derek Barris]

It was actually my right.

[Matthew Remski]

No, it's reversed in the camera though. Right.

[Julian Walker]

The reason as, and I could say I could cop to this because this is something I used to say that this is common within this Domain of beliefs. The reason no evidence supports any of what I've just been describing is that Big Pharma needs to keep you sick to keep raking in their profits.

[Matthew Remski]

And of course, it's not just bodily sludges, because now we also have the poisons of things like cultural Marxism and. And radical gender ideology that poison the psyche as well. And those are going to have to be cleansed and purged.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. So cleansing in the time of diagonalism. I mean, in the past it was just your victim consciousness and, you know, not having strong enough belief in abundance.

[Matthew Remski]

So we have this ancient history and there are resonances, but the pipeline doesn't go exactly from Ayurvedic ashrams in the jungles of South India to. To the in house spa at Mar a Lago. It doesn't go directly to Marjorie Taylor Greene's post crossfit massage parlor. There's a more proximal source, which is the European romanticism that resists modernity tooth and nail. It's holding onto its nature cures, hydrotherapy, you know, walks in, you know, forest bathing, their version of it, homeopathy. Because their cities were filling up with industrial pollution, with coal smoke, with chemistry labs. The universities were pumping out doctors. Everything is getting dirtier and more complicated. And the people who seized on these old cures for their violent political metaphors, well, who were they? We have a whole chapter in our book called the Nazis Loved Yoga. So that's who. Because for them as for the Maha crowd today, the impurities of modernity are both chemical and interpersonal, and you can't pull them apart. So Jewish doctors, according to them, were anti healers who devised abortion drugs to target Aryan babies. They were compared to lice who spread typhus. They needed to be quarantined. I mean, ghettoized. They needed to be purified that would be exterminated. It's impossible to disambiguate bodily anxiety from the will to power in this system. And then cleansing and purification metaphors transition into war and conquest. You know, so I'm always thinking about like on the other side of RFK Jr. S bullshit. You know, Pete Hegseth is standing there in a military baseball cap, right?

[Julian Walker]

Yeah.

[Matthew Remski]

Heinrich Himmler portrayed the war as a clash between the pure Germanic Nordic blood of national socialism and the mixture of races and peoples on the other side. Describing the enemy as animals and subhumans, linking them to historical invaders like the Huns and the Mongols. The Volksgemeinschaft, or the community of pure people unified by the mystical German Ubersul. This is what would be restored through the purgations. But purity is always a lie because, you know, in this case, within a few years of the invasion of Poland, the entire German army is tweaking out on ketamine. I mean, sorry, methamphetamine. Here we are. And Julian, you've been like making these connections too.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, I mean, when you mentioned Hegseth, not only that, also underneath his clothing he has tattoos that in various ways connect him back to a lot of these sorts of ideas. There's certainly a lineage of demagoguery. I talked about this a little bit last week. It stretches back over a hundred years and has prominent flashpoints along the way. I did a whole Patreon bonus deep dive into how this sort of, this, this fetish for purification led to what I called sex, lies and communist spies. This sort of red scare panic. As we know, Trump has resurrected the slogan America first, which has its strongest associations in the America first committee that opposed US entry into World War II and propagated standard anti Semitic conspiracies after the war. But that same reactionary isolationist usage of America first goes back to World War I and the segregationist President Woodrow Wilson, who used the term in contrast to what he called hyphenate Americans.

[Matthew Remski]

Yeah, so Irish Americans, Italian Americans. Not quite white people at that point.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, exactly.

[Julian Walker]

And so Wilson said so in a speech in 1915. I'll quote him here. There are citizens of the United States, I blush to admit, born under other flags, but welcomed under our generous naturalization laws to the full freedom and opportunity of America, who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life.

[Matthew Remski]

Yeah, that's.

[Julian Walker]

It sounds familiar.

[Matthew Remski]

That's the stuff.

[Julian Walker]

Now one event I mentioned a couple weeks ago also happened under Wilson during 1919. In the wake of at least 250 black people being terrorized and killed by white supremacists and their fighting back being labeled race riots and communist agitation. The Attorney General arrested thousands and deported hundreds on suspicion of being communists or anarchists. So here we are again. We must be cleansed of this poisoned blood in order to make America great again. Trump and Musk also constantly tell lies about undocumented immigrants and their supposed negative effects on our country. They eat our pets. They take up all the entitlement settlements. I don't know how that works, but somehow they do this. They rape and kill our young girls. Democrats pay them to come here and then turn them into voters. This is classic white replacement theory, part of the Purge now is scrubbing any mention of dei, which we know is really code for a return to white male Christian dominance, and then resurrecting these old racist tropes about who's on welfare, who's taking up the resources of the country, country, as well as eugenic style cruelty towards those who need Medicaid and Social Security.

[Matthew Remski]

You know, of all of the things that have made me feel insane with rage and depression in waves, I think the scrubbing of the US Air Force's websites of black and people of color veterans is almost peak. So what they've done is that the links to those pages have all been broken with a random insertion of DEI into the URL so that nothing works anymore. The they erased the history of the Navajo code talker talkers. I don't know if you guys know the Navajo Code talkers, but tell us. Yeah, well, they were Navajo guys who spoke an ancient language that nobody else in the world knew anything about. It wasn't written down. There was no dictionary for it. And so it got past all of the German surveillance and they were essential against the Nazis and in the South Pacific. And the purest examples of merit that you can actually find because literally no one else could speak those languages and evade the decryptors. And. And they're wiping that away from a people who, after their own genocidal displacement, were able to help out in this war. It's incredible.

[Julian Walker]

And then, true to Project 2025, alongside this, we see the purification of official documents and agency websites, eradicating any mention of gay or trans people, other minorities, climate change, and in some cases even women, because we don't want to have any special dispensation. We see too, how Trump has recycled Joe McCarthy's Red Scare terminology. He uses his same phrase, the enemies within. And disturbingly, JD Vance voiced this exact idea to win a gas group of leaders in Munich last month. European premieres. The term has always referred enemies within to the communists and the gays and today's association, as you just pointed out, Matthew, or with the woke, proponents of DEI die. We've seen all of this coming both through Chris Rufo's propaganda against critical race theory, which, which goes back a few years, as well as his hostile takeover of New College in Saratoga, Florida. And then the astroturfed local activism, which has best been exemplified by Moms for Liberty, that has sought to purge school libraries over the last several years of anything that doesn't fit with some kind of white Christian nationalist morality.

[Matthew Remski]

So we're going to get to friend of the Pod, Quinn Slobodian in a Mom. But as we round up this section here, I think we should just. I think we've said a lot, and I think the themes are clear. But one thing to drive home is that every theory of detoxification predicts a kind of pain that has to be accepted in a noble fashion. And usually, you know, the poorer you are, the more noble you have to be. And there's always going to be these religious or pseudo religious rationalizations that invoke the disciplining of, you know, the desires or even a kind of ego death. I mean, the Christians who are Writing Project 2025 are worshiping a crucified sun, and a lot of them are in Opus DEI and wearing that thigh strap, the celice. But, I mean, I don't think J.D. vance needs it because his pants are really tight. In fascism, the ego also dies. But to serve the nature nation, not God per se. But in this vein of the cruelty is the point, which I can't remember who wrote the article several years ago, but I think it was in Trump's first term. You know, I feel like there is this rationalization of pain that actually really allows the administration to conceal a kind of sadism. And so with that, I think about what it means for them to. To welcome Andrew Tate back to the States as a known batterer of women, in a way, kind of openly saying that disciplining women and minorities is what we're all about, right? That's what we do.

[Julian Walker]

And even more than that, I mean, Andrew Tate has held up on rape charges, on human trafficking charges. He has virtually held women in captivity and forced them to do sex work for him.

[Matthew Remski]

Then we have, I think, probably the most spectacularly open displays of sadism yet from the administration through the deportation videos. One of them was literally. And these came out. These come out over the White House social feeds. One of them literally says, you know, deportation, ASMR or something like that. And it just features no scripted or no. No voiceover, just concentration on the sounds of shackles and, you know, boots moving up the gang planks of planes. And just incredible, like, asmr. This should give you pleasure as you watch people, you know, being deported. And then I think, even worse, the music video, I think from yesterday, we're recording on Tuesday, which is kind of like a. I don't know, it's just a music video orgy over images of the Venezuelan deportees in pain positions and being humiliated as they're shaved. Again, these are people we don't know who they are. They. They've just been scooped up and black fanned. I think. Anyone wait and seeing about whether or not that alone is a constitutional crisis, right? Like whether the administration will ignore the court orders that are still playing out. I think they really have to square their thoughts or their hesitations with this crowd actually saying not only will we say fuck you to the judge, we're going to post a victory lap video of us doing what we're doing.

[Julian Walker]

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[Matthew Remski]

Our guest today to wrap up is friend of the podcast Quinn Slobodian, professor of International History at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. His books, which which have been translated into 10 languages, include most recently Crack Up Capitalism, Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy, and forthcoming is High Ex Race, gold, IQ and the capitalism of the far right. Always on point, always brilliant. I asked Quinn for the big picture on our Kings of Pain. Quinn Slobodian, thank you for taking the time.

[Scott Besant]

Happy to be here.

[Matthew Remski]

We have this quote from Scott Besant that we played off the top of the show. I want to hear your take on it. He says, look, there's going to be a natural adjustment as we move away from public spending to private spending. The market and the economy have just become hooked and we've become addicted to this government spending and there's going to be a detox period to which you tweeted in reply. Maha logic meets Trumponomics. But what else comes to mind for you with that?

[Scott Besant]

Yeah, I mean there's actually a much simpler reference which is just the idea of shock therapy therapy.

[Matthew Remski]

Right.

[Scott Besant]

I mean, this is unusual only insofar as this kind of commandment to suffer for later economic well being is being transmitted to an American population. If you're on the other side of the equation, usually you're in the Global south, you're in post Soviet Eastern Europe. That idea of short term suffering for some kind of long term stability is a pretty common motif through the neoliberal period over the last few decades. So that's the first thing that came to mind to me was, oh, this is just shock therapy coming home to roost.

[Matthew Remski]

You've also talked about this kind of triumvirate of groups that are now in play within the Trumpian world. You're talking about finance backed corporate interests previously friendly with the Democratic Party, Christian conservative think tanks who are always advocating for the end of the administrative state, and then this online driven movement of totally reactionary extremists who traffic in white supremacist and neo Nazi rhetoric. And so where does this type of discourse fit in within that soup?

[Scott Besant]

Yeah, I mean, I have this book coming out called High Ex Bastards comes out next month, the middle of April that tries to knit together some of of this story. And someone who's quite helpful there is Charles Murray. So Charles Murray bridges the gap, I would say quite well between Clintonites, Christian conservatives and then the new racialist IQ fetishists. The way he does that actually dovetails pretty well with the Besson quote as well. Because in his early work Murray was really influenced by behavioral economics. So his argument and behavioral psychology.

[Matthew Remski]

Right.

[Scott Besant]

So his argument was that, you know, poor people were addicted to welfare just because they were seeking pleasure and they were able to specifically have sexual pleasure with no consequence, according to him, because of no fault Divorce and then support for things like single poor mothers. What needed to be done transforming the welfare state was to actually make people suffer again. So the idea was quite explicitly that you need to tweak the incentives so that people experience more pain than pleasure. And then you know, they will go back to self governing and self disciplining. That got turned into a kind of moral cultural register quite easily often obviously I was looking back at this book that he was associated with called this Will Hurt the Restoration of Virtue and Civic Order.

[Matthew Remski]

Oh my God.

[Scott Besant]

It was public and published in London by the International Economic affairs think tank in 1995. So it works on both ends, right? I mean it works as sort of Skinnerian language of, of inducements and, and, and objections. But then it also works in a more Christian language of actual punishment and self flagellation actually. And then it dovetails tells well with the idea of a hierarchy of humans. Because this idea that people have innate ability in his, in his mind, measured by IQ means that these kind of social Darwinist purges of the unhealthy ends up, you know, separating the wheat from the chaff. And people who hurt too much presumably then just fall by the wayside. And without a social safety net that's okay. They can just take care of themselves and sort of, you know, perish in the twilight while the more effective economic actors in the crowd will be able to fight their way to the top.

[Matthew Remski]

Turning to like specifically the, the biopolit, the metaphors involved, the pollution and purity metaphors that we see on display here have been core to reactionary and fascist politics forever. Now they're also part of the marketing core for a lot of Trumpian figures because a lot of this circle are actually invested in affiliate sales for alt health products. And I'm wondering if that part is new as far as you can tell.

[Scott Besant]

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I mean the idea of the economy itself being either healthy or sick is of course a very old idea. One of the things I write about in globalists is the way that business cycle charts that would actually show, you know, the rise and fall of specific indicators, whether it was the stock market or consumer confidence or unemployment, even get treated kind of like EKGs or EEGs of the body politic. And it becomes this thing where you can kind of plug it in and say like okay, things look like they're going all right. So that anthropomorphization of the economy and then thus its treatment as either a well or an unwell subject has a pretty deep and Long history. The idea, though, that some of the people managing the economy. Would have specific business interest, investments in ways to juice that economy that are fringy or unconventional. Is probably newer. I mean, I'm actually what comes to mind for me, and maybe you've heard about this, is what. What almost ruined bill ackman's reputation, right? Was his big bet on herbalife.

[Matthew Remski]

Right? I am recalling this now. How did that work out for him?

[Scott Besant]

Poorly. Really poorly. I mean, it actually almost cracked him up. And I don't remember the details, but it would be interesting to return to that now. And. And sort of ask whether he has reformed his way of thinking. To realize that actually the supplement industry is the future. And we need to go long on herbalife Rather than try to short it. But I think that, in general, that idea that there is some edge that can be gained. Inside of the zero sum competition of the market. Through some kind of a product, Whether it's a pharmaceutical product Or a lifestyle product, or simply a new diet, or a new kind of smoothie or whatever, Is something that yuppies have long believed for decades. And it is, though, interesting to see how that, in the figure of all of your favorite character, rfk, has now just crept closer and closer to the heart of economic management.

[Matthew Remski]

Then there's a question I have about holism, which is, very broadly speaking, the thesis in crack up capitalism. Is that the ideal of these newly evolving Fragmented techno fiefdoms Is now in competition with, and maybe even overcoming these older ideals of the nationalist state bound with corporate interests. Do you think that a concentration on body purification metaphors. Lets the fragmenting people, the fragmenters, retain some notion that there's something holistic that they're trying to hang on to. Because, for the most part, they're really just creating little kingdoms, as you. As you suggest.

[Scott Besant]

It's well timed, actually, because this week I'm teaching the beverage report, so the kind of document of the post war welfare state in the united kingdom. So I've been looking back at that. And it's really interesting to compare that rhetoric. To the kind of rhetoric we hear today. Then it was all about the idea of pooling risk, right? So the idea was everyone in the course of their life. Is going to have some of these things happen to them. They're going to be a child, they are going to get sick, and they're going to die. So it makes sense for everyone then to pitch into a common pool that covers the costs of childhood, the costs of occasional unemployment or illness, and literally, the Cost of funerals. That's a central part of the beverage report and the post 1945 welfare state. I think that, you know, we've already been down this road quite a long way in the United States through the total privatization of health insurance. But the, the turning of that up to 11 through the shattering of something like Social Security or Medicare and Medicaid, which definitely seems to be on the agenda. Elon Musk referred to Social Security as the big one in need of elimination just last week. It does, it does a number or maybe a terminal fatal number on that idea of pooling risk in which the pool of the nation now is just, you know, these innumerable small hot tubs that are behind barbed wire fences.

[Matthew Remski]

Right, right. Or ice baths.

[Scott Besant]

It really fits with this Victorian vision of the virtues of stigma and the, the need to, to punish those who have been dependent for too long. So this Besant quote called to mind for me something that was in the, the, the introduction to my, my book that's coming out where Charles Murray himself voices a similar concern that there needs to be this, this withdrawal period where as he put it, where as he put it, quoting Herbert Spencer from 1898, that the transition from state benefice to a healthy condition of self help and private benef deficiency must be like the transition from an opium eating life to a normal life. Painful but remedial.

[Matthew Remski]

Right.

[Scott Besant]

So the idea is quite clear that you know, there will be this withdrawal period and that it not only will be painful but not everyone will survive it. Because curious about that quote, I actually went back to the original and to see what context Spencer was referring to that in. And it's a completely eugenic sort of bone chilling passage where he says, Spencer says having by unwise institutions brought into existence large numbers who are unadapted to the requirements of social life and are consequently sources of misery to themselves and others. We cannot repress and gradually diminish this body of relatively worthless people without inflicting much pain. Evil has been done and the penalty must be paid.

[Matthew Remski]

Wow.

[Scott Besant]

So this is not just, you know, some people are not doing well and they need a period of rehabilitation. It's a purging that is being prescribed that some people need to be who are large numbers of people unadapted to the requirements of social life. These people actually need to be eliminated from the body politic. So in the drastic escalation of the rhetoric of hyper libertarianism and the like that we've been exposed to over the last couple of months, months, this sort of thought starts to be much closer to hand. I think that the idea of a surplus population is something that is lurking not too far beneath the surface.

[Matthew Remski]

You know, escalations, amplifications, abound. Because in our archive, we look very closely at how wellness culture throughout the period of neoliberalization really created a kind of political subject that was responsibilized, that was supposed to be, you know, self caring, that was supposed to be fluid and in flow and be able to adjust to the rises and falls of the market like they were surfing or something like that. But now we have the additional sort of overbearing image of the figure who was often at the top of that communications network, the tech giant, who now also has to be an ubermensch, also has to be the muscle man. Whether it's Mark Zuckerberg wearing new clothes or whether it's whoever it is broadcasting their workout regimen. There's now it's more than we all just have to get along because there's no such thing as society. As Margaret Thatcher told us, it's that also the titans have arrived and they're flexing over us.

[Scott Besant]

Yeah, no, and that rawness is definitely a shift. I'm thinking of someone like John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods, who had this idea of conscious capitalism and he was part of this thing called Flow Freedom Lights Our world. Michael Strong, who was an early investor in Prospera and Honduras, was part of that. Or Jack Dorsey with the long beard and the lotus position on Matt Mountaintop.

[Matthew Remski]

Totally.

[Scott Besant]

There's just such a difference between that and the Zuckerberg thing. I was talking to Nicole Hammer, who's a good historian of the right, and she was listening to Rogan recently. And Rogan and some of his guests kept on complimenting Zuckerberg on the thickness of his neck. It's something that kept on coming up that, you know, they're admiring him, you know, the, his physique. So this like, self regarding vanity, which comes along with obviously a contempt and scorn for people who don't measure up to that particular kind of physical parameters is, yeah, it takes things from a kind of, you know, everyone needs to get their head right to some people, as in Sparta, are just not going to be able to make the cut and so need to go over the cliff.

[Matthew Remski]

Last question, Quinn. How do you know for sure that you're not simply polluted with cultural, cultural Marxism yourself and that a good sweat lodge won't sort you out?

[Scott Besant]

Such a good question. I mean, I, I, I know I could definitely use a sweat lodge or 20 these days. My thinking about this cultural Marxism woke mind virus stuff has been influenced by my unfortunate lengthy exposure to Musk and Jordan Peterson batting around these issues, after which something became clear to me, clear to before, which is that Musk sees the idea of the woke mind virus literally. Maybe this is something you all talk about in the on the pod already, but he actually thinks that Altman's OpenAI has, as he said, ingested content infected with the woke mind virus.

[Matthew Remski]

Yeah.

[Scott Besant]

And will now virally be spreading into minds and machines. And the. The most motivation for XAI is to create a. I don't think it's a pure vaccinated, you know, large language model. I think it's one that spreads an anti woke mind virus. I think he thinks you can only fight viruses with viruses. So, you know, maybe, you know, I. I don't need to go to the sweat lodge and purify myself. I just need to inject myself with the anti woke mind virus and just. Just like let it pump through my veins.

[Matthew Remski]

Quinn Slobodian, thank you for all of your work. Keep safe.

[Scott Besant]

You too.