Brief: Olympics for Dopers

Summary

Conspirituality – Episode Brief: Olympics for Dopers

Released: August 16, 2025
Hosts: Derek Beres, Julian Walker, Matthew Remski

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Episode Overview

In this Brief, the Conspirituality team analyzes the "Enhanced Games"—an upcoming event branded as the “Olympics for dopers”—and the broader culture of performance-enhancing drugs, supplement grifts, and Silicon Valley’s role in turning human optimization into a business. The hosts unpack the event’s Silicon Valley financial backing, especially by Peter Thiel, and interrogate claims of “fairness,” bodily autonomy, and disruption of the traditional Olympic model. The episode weaves in commentary on wellness culture, supplement sales tactics, and how dangerous or misleading health claims become mainstream through charismatic “contrarians.”

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Context and Satire: From Lance Armstrong to Enhanced Games

• Lance Armstrong, still culturally relevant despite his doping scandals, announced he will participate in the Enhanced Games—a “no limits” sporting event for athletes willing to use performance enhancers.
• Irony abounds: Armstrong says he won’t dope for the Enhanced Games, and there’s no cycling event, so he’ll compete in track and field instead.
• Hosts immediately see this as attention-seeking contrarianism:

  "I'm gonna guess he's hoping that taking a contrarian approach here will help to elevate his profile. Whereas before going against regulations tanked his career. Who the fuck knows. I've stopped trying to make sense of people we cover on this podcast." (Unnamed Co-host, 03:26)

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2. The Enhanced Games: A Silicon Valley Supplements Grift

• The founders (including Aaron D'Souza/De Souza and backed by Peter Thiel) aren’t “sports people”—they’re businessmen eyeing the supplement market.

• Wired’s feature by Amit Katawala is cited for exposing the real goal: launch “Enhanced Performance Products,” i.e., sell supplements linked to the Games.

• D'Souza’s own words (as read by Julian Walker):

  "All through my reporting, I'd been struggling to understand what was in it for the investors, why billionaires with no interest in sport were so interested in disrupting it... Then D'Souza announced the launch of Enhanced Performance Products, a new line of supplements inspired by the ones athletes will be taking to prepare for the Games. This pill helped me run 100 meters in nine seconds. And now you can buy it, too. The model isn't the Olympics or the World Cup. It's Red Bull." (Julian Walker quoting Amit Katawala, 05:29)

• The Red Bull analogy is mocked as reverse engineering—start with the product, then invent the spectacle, versus recognizing genuine athletic achievement and then selling a drink.

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3. Who Is Aaron D’Souza (Desueza)? Scads of Contradictions

• Derek and Julian fuss over the host’s pronunciation of "D'Souza" vs. "De Sueza"—indicating how unfamiliar this outsized disruptor is in actual sporting circles.
• D’Souza’s Silicon Valley bonafides include having a hand in helping Peter Thiel engineer the fall of Gawker.
• Sam Altman is quoted saying D'Souza is, "obsessed with status and power." (06:03)
• Hosts highlight that Enhanced Games is simply the next get-rich-fast scheme for status-seeking capitalists.

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4. D'Souza’s Case: Leveling the Playing Field, or Just a Sales Pitch?

Clip breakdown from Joe Rogan’s show (08:33–13:16)

• D’Souza claims half of Olympians cheat, and that the IOC is exploitative, paying nothing to athletes.
• He proposes the “third Olympiad” as a blank slate using science and technology to push humanity’s limits.

Host Analysis:

• Derek and Julian question the data and sincerity—D’Souza’s performance is called a “canned sales pitch” (10:19), aimed at Rogan’s audience, strategically couching supplement sales as a technological mission.
• Rogan’s skepticism is praised for undercutting these grandiose comparisons:

  "You're not going to be serious. It's gonna be cool. You're just getting a bunch of guys juiced up, running really fast. Big difference." (Unnamed Co-host, 12:38)

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5. The Cultural Moment: Spectacle, Supplements, and Bro Science

Timestamp: 13:23–14:48

• The hosts point to how the Enhanced Games and extreme spectacles like the upcoming White House UFC cage match symbolize American decadence and the perverse marriage of tech money, violence, and biohacking.
• Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s deep-pocketed support for both militarism and entertainment are slammed as “malicious” (Unnamed Co-host, 14:16).

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6. RFK Jr., Fitness Optics, and the Appearance of Health

Timestamp: 15:04–18:19

• D’Souza holds up RFK Jr. (noted anti-vax, pro-testosterone figure) as proof “enhancement” is desirable; hosts ridicule both the logic and the optics—especially his penchant for working out in jeans.
• The myth that older men need to "look jacked" for health (and political credibility) is dissected:

  "If you don't look Jack, you aren't doing enough, no matter how healthy you actually are. It's all about appearances. It's not actually about health." (Unnamed Co-host, 16:43)

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7. Scarcity, Supplements, & Selling Libertarianism

Timestamp: 18:53–23:57

• Hosts identify the Enhanced Games’ rhetorical strategy:
  • Romanticizing bodily autonomy and “life extension”
  • Positioning steroids as akin to now-respected supplements (creatine)
  • Tapping both the optimization crowd and “alternative medicine” markets
  • Reaching for pharmaceutical partnerships, arguing GLP-1 inhibitors, etc., are trillion-dollar markets (fact-checked by hosts as wildly inflated).
• Satirical ad break:

  "If you go to creatine.com using the code conspira bros50, you can get 50% off... Most of our listeners are women, though, Julian, you should have created a better discount code. Jesus, man." (Julian Walker & Unnamed Co-host, 21:15)

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8. Libertarianism and Social Costs

Timestamp: 21:42–22:37

• The bodily autonomy claim is eviscerated:

  "Increased steroid usage we know can create more violence in men. Roid rage is a real thing. So you are saying give me this bodily autonomy that increases my risk of actually starting fights, possibly with my wife or domestic partner." (Unnamed Co-host, 21:42)

• It’s compared to Second Amendment arguments: the "freedom" to self-optimize can harm others.

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9. Fact-Checking D'Souza: The Flexner Report Fable

Timestamp: 25:00–33:06

• D'Souza (on Rogan) butchers the Flexner Report, crucial to medical education standards, and uses it to argue the medical establishment only treats the sick, not the “extraordinary.”
• The hosts, especially Derek, meticulously debunk D’Souza’s summary:
  • Flexner was not a professor or sociologist.
  • His report came in 1910, not the 1920s, and it brought much-needed scientific standards to U.S. medicine, not crony gatekeeping.
  • “Anyone could call themselves a doctor” is an exaggeration.
  • The report never defined medicine as just “making sick people less sick”—that’s an alt-med talking point.
• The hosts note how this trope is repeated by other wellness figures (e.g. Christiane Northrup), and the distortion is used to paint science as inherently hostile to “optimization” or herbal medicine.

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10. The Real Motive: Monetizing the Dream of Enhancement

Timestamp: 33:06–34:30

• The Enhanced Games, like so much wellness pseudo-medicine, aren’t about progress, health, or fairness—they’re staged to sell supplements and gear by manufacturing a false narrative about scientific suppression.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Lance Armstrong’s “clean” entry:

  "There's no way I will take anything illegal before or during the event. The only substance I will bring is a six pack of Shiner Bachelor." (Julian Walker quoting Armstrong, 03:07)

• On the Enhanced Games supplement hustle:

  "This pill helped me run 100 meters in nine seconds. And now you can buy it, too. The model isn't the Olympics or the World Cup. It's Red Bull." (Amit Katawala via Julian, 05:29)

• On the state of American spectacle:

  "It really does give you insight into. Into where we are in this culture." (Unnamed Co-host, 13:51)

• On optics vs. genuine health:

  "If you don't look Jack, you aren't doing enough, no matter how healthy you actually are. It's all about appearances. It's not actually about health." (Unnamed Co-host, 16:43)

• On libertarianism and risk:

  "It's my right. It's my freedom. I'm protecting myself. It's like, yeah, but what about all the people who are at risk as a result of everyone having access to every kind of gun all the time." (Julian Walker, 22:24)

• On podcast guest (mis)preparation:

  "You're being given an opportunity...to have the largest platform in the world to pitch your games basically. And you're just going to come with all this completely wrong and sometimes fabricated information." (Unnamed Co-host, 30:29)

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Segment Timestamps

• 01:13–03:26 — Lance Armstrong’s doping, legacy, Enhanced Games entry
• 03:26–05:04 — Enhanced Games’ supplement grift exposed
• 05:04–07:44 — Who are the founders? Connections to Thiel, Altman, Gawker litigation
• 08:33–12:38 — D’Souza’s mission pitch; Rogan’s skepticism
• 13:23–14:48 — Spectacle, Glorification of “enhancement,” UFC at the White House
• 15:04–18:19 — RFK Jr., testosterone, and the optics of health in politics
• 21:42–22:37 — Bodily autonomy and social risks (comparison to gun rights)
• 25:00–33:06 — Flexner Report, debunking D’Souza’s ahistorical claims
• Entirety — Hosts’ satirical tone, fact-checking, and broader critique of the alt-wellness/supplement economy

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Takeaway

The Enhanced Games, for all their Silicon Valley hype, are less about athletic liberation or fairness than about selling false dreams and dietary pills to people desperate for edge, status, or meaning. Their rhetoric recycles old tropes—disingenuous appeals to science, libertarian freedoms, and the spectacle of “disruption.” The Conspirituality crew unpacks the history, hype, and harm with wit and rigor—making the case that, as ever, the real winners are those selling snake oil under the banner of “progress.”

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Original Tone: Informal, skeptical, fact-driven, heavily satirical, and often exasperated with a dash of bro-y, podcast banter.
Recommended for: Listeners interested in the intersections of wellness, conspiracy, Silicon Valley disruption, and fact-based criticism of cultish supplement culture.

Transcript

[Julian Walker]

Hi, I'm Kristen Bell, and if you know my husband Dax, then you also know he loves shopping for a car. Selling a car, not so much.

[Derek Barris]

We're really doing this, huh?

[Julian Walker]

Thankfully, Carvana makes it easy. Answer a few questions, put in your van or license and done. We sold ours in minutes this morning and they'll come pick it up and pay us this afternoon. Bye bye, Truckee. Of course, we kept the favorite.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Hello, other Truckee.

[Julian Walker]

Sell your car with Carvana today. Terms and conditions apply. You say you'll never join the Navy, that you'd never track storms brewing in the Atlantic and skydiving could never be.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Part of your commute. You'd never climb Mount Fuji on a.

[Julian Walker]

Port visit or fly so fast you.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Break the sound barrier.

[Julian Walker]

Joining the Navy sounds crazy. Saying never actually is. Start your journey at navy.com, america's Navy, forged by the sea.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

You never know if you're ahead of the curve. I mean, Julian, on last week's episode, we talked about you being way ahead on the celebrity Lyme disease.

[Julian Walker]

Absolutely.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

But let's talk about cycling legend Lance Armstrong for a minute because he became a cultural punchline when it was revealed that he was doping during his seven Tour de France wins when he was using epo, human growth hormone hormone, testosterone, corticosteroids, blood transfusions and masking agents. Ever since, he's tried to stage comebacks to varying degrees of success. He does retain a solid fan base. He has 603,000 Instagram followers.

[Julian Walker]

Couldn't cancel him?

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

No, no, he gets trolled pretty regularly. Though I will say he did weigh in on the trans athletes thing a few months ago. I noticed. But the, the overwhelming sentiment. That one was like, hey, buddy, sit this one out, okay?

[Julian Walker]

Lance Armstrong is an advocate for fairness in so.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Well, that's what we're getting to because lately the 53 year old cyclist has been posting more workout content. He has a bunch of videos of him shirtless doing sled poles and kettlebell farmers carries. And yeah, some cycling videos he did announce in 2024. So this is pretty early on where we're going today, that he's going to be competing in the Enhanced Games, which is a Silicon Valley invention that aims to be the Olympics for dopers. And that's right, you probably heard about that, about this event and it's going to be held in Las Vegas in May 2026, where anything and everything is on the table. We're going to be talking about the Games today, but there's two real ironies to Armstrong's participation. First, there is no cycling competition in it, so he's planning on competing in track and field. Second, Lance has promised to not take any performance enhancement drugs leading up to or during the event. Let's actually Julian, can you read his announcement post?

[Julian Walker]

I know it sounds strange that I'm going to games where doping is legal, but just because you can do something doesn't mean you have to do it. There's no way I will take anything illegal before or during the event. The only substance I will bring is a six pack of Shiner Bachelor.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Okay, I mean Shiner box, a mid level lager. You know, fine. You know I'm not going to hate on you, but you could have at least chosen a better logger. But I'm going to guess he's hoping that taking a contrarian approach here will help to elevate his profile. Whereas before going against regulations tanked his career. Who the fuck knows. I've stopped trying to make sense of people we cover on this podcast. What is certain is that other athletes are definitely going to be taking whatever might give them an edge, as per the founders and the wonders hopes. All right, let's get into this. I'm Derek Barris.

[Julian Walker]

I'm Julian Walker.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

You are listening to a Conspirituality Brief. We do these every Saturday as always. You can find us on Instagram and threads on at Conspirituality Pod. We are also all individually on Blue sky and if you are able to support us as we are independent media, you can do [e-mail] conspirituality or via Apple Podcasts where you can access our Monday bonus episodes. Back to the funders. One of them is Peter Thiel, who's probably first to mind for many people when thinking of athletes. Of course I'm being sarcastic, but the odd thing about the entire founding team is that none of them are athletes or even care that much about sports. Which leads us to the most fascinating and mind numbing aspect of this entire story. And it's in large part why we're covering it on this podcast. The entire thing seems to be a supplements grift.

[Julian Walker]

Come on.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

All right, so Amit Katawala. He spent a long time writing an extensive feature on the game for Wired magazines. It's fantastic. I've included it in the show Notes. Yep, he does the reverse of what we're doing. He reveals this at the end of the article and when he does it just punched me in the gut. So to pre preempt the clips that we're going to play here. He's talking about the Enhanced Games founder, Aaron De Sueza.

[Julian Walker]

All through my reporting, I'd been struggling to understand what was in it for the investors, why billionaires with no interest in sport were so interested in disrupting it. Toward the end of the presentation in Vegas, it all clicked into place when de Souza announced the launch of Enhanced Performance Products, a new line of supplements inspired by the ones athletes will be taking to prepare for the Games. This pill helped me run 100 meters in nine seconds. And now you can buy it, too. The model isn't the Olympics or the World Cup. It's Red Bull.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

It's just utterly fascinating, you know, and think about Red Bull. I've. I've never actually drank it. I've taken a sip once, which made me never want to drink it. They're a company that actually does amazing content. I still follow them online because just the ridiculousness of what these athletes do. But it's. It's a bit different because they're always doing things that are pushing the boundaries, but they're. They're not leading with, hey, let's do and do this. Yeah, they're leading with fantastic athletes, and then they sell a shitty drink on the side. This seems to be sort of reverse engineering, although they're presenting it as if they're doing the same process as Red Bull. Let's step back for some context. Da. He's an Australian native who went to the University of Oxford to study law in 2009. And then a friend was coming into town. He said, hey, can you throw? Can you show my friend around? Can you take us? You know, just lead us around as a tourist? That friend happened to be Peter Teal. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman later said that De Sueza is, quote, obsessed with status and powder power. So during the early. We're getting there. So during those early meetings with Thiel, the law student devised a plan to help him get revenge on Gawker for outing him as gay. So this entire Hulk Hogan thing that brought down Gawker was devised by the founder of Enhanced Games. Since that time, he followed the only logical path open to him, which was to become a Silicon Valley capitalist and entrepreneur.

[Julian Walker]

I have not heard anyone say his name. I hear you saying Desweza. I grew up with a lot of people who had this name, and it was d'. Souza. Are. Are you saying it based on having heard people say it?

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

No, I regularly mispronounce things. But I've heard De Suza before. No, people have commented on my saying Theranos instead of Theranos, which. Which actually is a glitch in my brain because whenever I think of Theranos, I think of Thanos as the ultimate evil. And it just stuck.

[Julian Walker]

Yes.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

So I. So you know what? We're going to be saying it differently.

[Julian Walker]

Let's just say de sueza together and we'll just own it and just go right into whatever backlash we get.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Or we could go into d'. Souza. I'm fine with that now that you've opened it up.

[Julian Walker]

Okay.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

All right, cool. So, yeah, for listeners, you should know that I regularly mispronounce things. So I'm sorry. And deal with it. Okay, so let's hear d' Souza telling Joe Rogan why he started. Did I say Rogan? Right. Why he started Rogaine. Okay. Why he started the Enhanced Games.

[Derek Barris]

I've been studying the Olympics and the Olympic movement my entire life. You know, I'm 39 years old. When I was a undergraduate at university, it was just after the Sydney Olympics. And, you know, it was always something that inspired me. And I thought to myself, you know, I learned Some key statistics. 44% of Olympians admit to using banned performance enhancing drugs within the last year, according to research commissioned by the world antidepressant.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

44%.

[Derek Barris]

44%.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

And the other, you know, probably lying.

[Derek Barris]

Are losing.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Yeah, exactly.

[Derek Barris]

And so, you know, and then I learned that the average American Olympian only earns $30,000 a year. And I thought to myself, there's something really wrong in the system, and instead of, you know, trying to reform it, let's take a blank slate, slate of paper and invent the third Olympiad from scratch.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Well, the Olympics is kind of a scam because it generates billions of dollars in revenue, and the people that are there to perform make almost none of that.

[Derek Barris]

That's correct. Actually, the International Olympic Committee doesn't pay any of the athletes, incidentally. They may get some money in sponsorship or from their National Olympic Committee, but ultimately, the billions and $billions of dollars in revenue come into the Olympics, and none of that goes to the athletes. It gets wasted building stadiums. It gets wasted paying officials. And we thought there's a way to do a better, more honest model that inspires us to believe in the future of science and technology in the 21st century.

[Julian Walker]

I just always find it fascinating when someone leads by saying, I'm 39 years old and I've been studying the Olympics my entire life. And it's like, the guy's not even in academia, Right? He's just like, I've been around the block and I know a few things. In fact, I learned these two statistics that I'm going to drop on you right now.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

I have to say I did not fact check those. You're going to hear later from some of the Clips clubs you chose, Julian, that I go hard because he gets a lot of wrong. Those I let go. And I actually, I actually appreciated Rogan's comment there about the, the Olympics and not paying athletes. It reminds me of, like, college athletics. Like, he's absolutely right on that. But I find De Sueza's argument there disingenuous for two main reasons, both of which I learned about the Wired article. As I said, we know the founders don't really care about sports, so this romanticized notion I've been the Olympics fan is likely bullshit. Or we know it's not about paying athletes for their own good as well, and that's really the important part here. But it's to say, hey, look at these highly paid athletes now buy what they're on. So I, I, My bullshit detector went off during that clip.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, yeah, I'll, in a little bit, I'll go into, like, the multiple angles that they take, because I think this is actually a very carefully rehearsed and prepared way of trying to pitch essentially what they're selling to Joe Rogan and his audience for the whole of the interview. D' Souza is really doing this canned sales pitch. He's got all the angles covered. He starts in this clip that I'm about to play by suggesting that both natural athletes and those natural athletes who've won the genetic lottery and those who are enhanced could compete side by side, and it'll make great tv. And then notice where he ends up.

[Derek Barris]

Well, so, number one, you don't have to take enhancements to be at the enhanced game.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

You can just be a regular person.

[Derek Barris]

You can be a regular. Yeah, yeah. You can say, hey, I won the genetic lottery. Right. And I think I can beat all the enhanced athletes and make for great television.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, that's fun too, right?

[Derek Barris]

Yeah. And so, you know, if you, if you believe you've won the genetic lottery and you think you can show up and break a world record and get a million bucks, they'll come and do it right and do it naturally. And then some athletes say, you know, I did not win the genetic lottery, and I want the chance to be the Neil Armstrong of our generation. This is how I think of it. I think we're building the Apollo mission for the 21st century. You know what did the Apollo mission do? It showed us that we were so much more capable as a human species. Right. We hit a new threshold going to the moon, using science and technology to overcome our limits. This is exactly what the Enhanced Games is about.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Sort of. You're not going to be serious. It's gonna be cool. You're just getting a bunch of guys juiced up, running really fast. Big difference. But still, nature. Yes. I would say breaking a world record is. Is a thing. Maybe not going to the moon.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

But like, it's a. It's something people aspire to do. Yeah, I know. Rogan gets so much, and we've given him a lot of shit for good reason. He's platform a lot of nonsense. But you have to understand this is also what draws people in. Because when he hears shit like this about things that he knows in the world, the waters he swims in, he's not afraid to be like, what the fuck are you talking about?

[Julian Walker]

He goes. He goes, you're not going to the moon. And then d' Souza's reaction is, well, it's going to be cool.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

I also have to say the timing couldn't be more perfect for this. It just shows you it's a snapshot in, in where America is right now. Because in May you have this going on. And in July, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of fucking America, Dana White is going to be doing a UFC fucking cage match at the White House for the celebration. And I'm sure, I'm sure Rogan's going to be comment, comment, you know, commentating on that.

[Julian Walker]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

So this is as crazy and as much as we're laughing and fudge off to all of this about, like, putting people's lives in dangers, to shave, say, shave 100ths of a second off of a world record to sell supplements. It really does give you insight into. Into where we are in this culture.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. And that Peter Thiel and his VC buddies are like, yes, that. That's where I'm going to put my money.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Right. And there's been a lot of great reporting recently. Like more Perfect Union did a piece talking to an ex pal or employee who kind of breaks down what goes on inside of that business, which is just making billions of dollars right now. And you, you have this world where the same people who are defund funding the defense machinery, which are creating genocides and surveillance tech and all this is also on the other side, leading the entertainment charge by funding these sorts of endeavors. It's. It's really malicious.

[Julian Walker]

All right, so I don't know about you, Derek, but I just was waiting to see if a certain anti vax but pro testosterone replacement therapy figure would eventually show up in this conversation.

[Derek Barris]

The same compounds that allow individual athletes to run faster and jump higher are the ones that will allow us to be younger, faster and stronger for longer. And, you know, I think that's a very admirable aspiration. You know, look at Robert F. Kennedy Jr. You know he's doing pull ups when Joe Biden and Donald Trump can hardly walk up a flight of stairs.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Yeah.

[Derek Barris]

And he's very openly enhanced.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Yeah. Openly enhanced. And works out with jeans on.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Which is odd, right?

[Julian Walker]

Jeans thing is so weird.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Like, what are you doing, man? I was at the gym yesterday morning working out, and an older gentleman, I would push to put him about an 80 was in there, but he was wearing jeans and a button down shirt, like a proper dress shirt, doing like sweating, working out. And I was, it. It hit me in my head, I'm like, Kennedy could actually probably launch a fitness line at this point of workout jeans. And I'm sure a lot of people would start buying them. I used to have a student who took my yoga class straight from his finance job on Wall street where he'd wear a button down in slacks. And the first time he came into my class, I went over and I was like, hey, you know, I, I know you ran in, but if you want to change and then come back, it's cool. And he was like, no. And I, I never again said anything to him. I'm like, okay, you do you. And he kept coming back and wearing slack. So. So it happens. But to go back to that bullshit comparing Trump with Biden here, Biden works out five days a week. He incorporates cardio and strength training into a routine. He uses a personal trainer. He cycles on stationary and real bikes. But dude fell off his bike one time. Something that, you know, I'm not quite half of his age, but that happens as cyclists. It's happened to me.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

And the right did so much media on the fact that he happened to fall off his bike. And he's an older man fighting cognitive decline and he's doing the exact thing all the fitness bro podcasters say we should be doing as we age. But because he's not on TRT like Kennedy and doesn't look enhanced, they equate him, which they equate him with Trump, who infamously once claim he doesn't work out because the body is like a battery and once you use up all the energy, it's gone forever. These men are not the same, but it does give you insight into the poorly hidden vulnerabilities men like Rogan, Hogan and desuasa battle internally. If you don't look Jack, you aren't doing enough, no matter how healthy you actually are. It's all about appearances. It's not actually about health.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, very well said. Those comparisons are super telling. And I don't know if you want to hold up RFK Jr. As kind of a paragon of graceful aging.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

No. Well, Matthew made the comment about his jerky skin the other day, which is just so. And also, I don't know if you noticed, but on his Twitter feed, using his HHS feed the other day, he, he posted himself in jeans in a gym, talking about when he travels, he always visits gyms and works out. It was like his little. His little moment to be like, I'm doing this. And again, this is not to say like, I work out incessantly. Like I, I think working out is really important. But the optics of this, somebody of that age who is on something on a few things to show that to pretend that that's what everyone can achieve just by going to the gym is utter bullshit.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, yeah. He's the role model for making America healthy again. So this discussion takes a lot of twists and turns. It feels, as I said before, very well rehearsed. It feels tailored to Rogan's audience. So as you pointed out, Derek, the Olympics are a scam. They're environmentally wasteful. We can do it all online and streaming without building all of those single use stadiums. Fair comment. It's ruled over by a group of aristocratic elites and it's dishonest because everyone is actually on steroids. And then they go into psychedelics. Psychedelics actually are statistically safe.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Joe Rogan. Sure, it's going to be. They're going to be selling those too. I'm pretty positive.

[Julian Walker]

But people have an irrational cultural fear about psychedelics. Meanwhile, alcohol has incredibly bad outcomes at high statistical rates, yet it's widely culturally accepted and you can see it everywhere. I mean, they're not wrong. But this becomes a way of suggesting that steroids are not really so dangerous either, especially when done with high levels of medical supervision, which is what they claim to have as part of their model. Now, beyond the dangers of alcohol, there's a couple times in this interview where they make statements about how processed foods and sugar are even more normalized and they're the most dangerous drugs of our Time. So again, shout out to Maha.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Except if the real sugar is in Coke.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, exactly.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

That's fine.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, well, because your body knows how to break that down in a way that it can't do with. What is it? High corn syrup?

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Syrup, yes.

[Julian Walker]

That's actually what's, that's what's causing obesity and diabetes.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Right.

[Julian Walker]

And then they mock how in the early 90s 90s there was this hysteria about creatine as a dangerous new ped and that Olympians would be encouraging children to take it if creatine was not banned for competition. And we knew that that was wrong. So therefore steroids must be okay.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Right, but, but, you know, that's a, that's a good point because I take creatine daily. Creatine is one of the most studied supplements now in, in this optimization workout world. Yeah, and, and that's, that's how science worked. When there wasn't a lot of data on it, there was some fear mongering around it. And that makes sense because people didn't know now that it has been extensively studied, we've seen that it works for, you know, limited reasons. And then people update their understanding of the science. That does not mean steroids, which have also been studied, are safe because of that. It's not like decades down the road we're going to be like, oh, wow, juicing actually didn't shrink your testicles or make you lose your hair or give you fucking roid rage.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, yeah, no, they're the, they're the Galileos of steroids. And, and, and now I should just add that if, if you go to creatine.com using the code conspira bros50, you can get 50% off of spirit Bros.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Most of our, most of our, most of our listeners are women, though, Julian, you should have created a better discount code. Jesus, man.

[Julian Walker]

I'll work on it for next time. So another argument they make, which again, that you can see, they're doing their song and dance here to try to appeal to all the right people. They are pro bodily autonomy for adults. So therefore, you know, people should be able to use. It's a libertarian argument essentially. Right. If you want to use steroids, you should be able to regardless of the medical risks.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

That's a really fascinating one though, because if you think about that culturally, this is the biggest argument. So let's just, let's just actually think about that. Increased steroid usage we know can create more violence in men. Roid rage is a real thing.

[Julian Walker]

Oh, yeah.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

So you are saying give me this bodily autonomy that increases my risk of actually starting fights, possibly with my wife or domestic partner.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Which has, which has been documented before. So every, every time I hear this bodily autonomy about the individual thing, it's never considered who in that environment that they're in might be affected by that decision. Yeah.

[Julian Walker]

It strikes me as being somewhat adjacent to some Second amendment arguments, right?

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Very much so.

[Julian Walker]

It's my right. It's. It's my freedom. It's. I'm protecting myself. It's like, yeah, but what about all the people who are at risk?

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Right.

[Julian Walker]

As a result of everyone having access to every kind of gun all the time. They say we should be leading the world in the scientific advancement of human, human performance. And this can open up whole new markets for life enhancement for non athletes, as they were just saying with RFK Jr. As well as for endorsements from athletic gear companies. They're just pitching this right on the show who want to be associated with real progress. He's like, yeah, so. So Nike endorses the Olympics because they're like the fastest people in the world wear our shoes, so you should as well. Well, that means there's an opening for the enhanced games to have an endorsement from a shoe company who could, who could then one up n. Because actually their athletes are the fastest in the world.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

You know, that. That is so again, indicative of where we are as a culture, because here are people on the biggest podcast or one of the biggest podcasts in the world still saying we should be leading in this bro science optimization category. Meanwhile, we're bleeding out in public health.

[Julian Walker]

Totally.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Where the health of people, most of the majority of, who can't afford these wellness fitness accoutrements to gain an nth off some game that they want to try to, you know, enhance themselves for. It's. It's just so culturally telling.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. Yeah. And another, another thing that's really telling is that not only are they sort of angling for these different audiences, including like wellness people and, and optimizers, but then they pivot towards pitching to the pharmaceutical companies, which, you know, maybe a couple years ago would have seemed unlikely. But no, this is all, this is all hand in glove right now. So argument here is that GLP1 inhibitors, which they correctly point out, you know, to some extent, are used as an optional synthetic life enhancement drug, are actually valued at a trillion dollars, and that's five times the valuation of all AI according to de Selza. I haven't looked that up to see if it's right. So you've got this complex mix of libertarian, capitalist, transhumanist, even rationalist arguments being made, but also hitting the contrarian alternative medicine demographic. It's all part of the strategy. And I have to say now, Derek, this, this one had me like do a double take. Nothing lets you know you're in the alternative medicine camp more effectively than referencing the Flexner Report.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Ah, fuck.

[Derek Barris]

Do you know what the legal definition of medicine is?

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

No, I do not.

[Derek Barris]

So it's a fascinating thing. I only learned it a couple weeks ago. So, in the 1920s, the Carnegie foundation commissioned a sociologist from Johns Hopkins University, Professor Albert Flexner, to go and study medical education. And so it used to be back then that anyone could call themselves a doctor.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Really?

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, yeah, anyone could call them.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Damn, I missed the boat.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, anyone could just read some books and you call yourself a doctor. And after the Flexner Report, it was decided by state legislatures that we had to regulate what it meant to be a doctor and what medical education was required. And the definition of medicine as a result of that is that medicine is about the treatment and cure of disease. It's making sick people less sick. Right. And if you walk into your doctor and you say, I'm a healthy 39 year old, but I'd like to be extraordinary, he would say, I'm sorry, medicine legally cannot help you.

[Julian Walker]

He just learned about this a couple weeks ago, but it's probably another thing he's been studying his whole life and he's ready to just illuminate us.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

First off, off, Carnegie, not Carnegie. So all of us mispronounce words. So that's fine. I understood what he was saying. Oh, just to go backtrack a moment before we get into this, the Global market for GLP1 inhibitors is currently valued at $53.5 billion. It's expected to go to 62 billion this year. So the trillion dollar. Well, as we're going to get into now, the SUEZA doesn't really know what the he's talking about. So I've heard the Flexner story butchered numerous times by RFK Jr and his supplement salesman advisor, Cali Means de Sueza also gets many of this of this history wrong. So I do want to break it down here because I think it's relevant. Flexner was not a sociologist. He studied the classics at Johns Hopkins for two years. He then pursued psychology at Harvard and the University of Berlin, but he never got a degree there. Kylie Means always says he's a lawyer. He wasn't a lawyer either. He's considered a medical Education reformer. He did do some sociological field work, but that was not his title. He started that work in 1908 and published the Flexner Report 1910. So I don't know where the fuck he's talking about the 1920s from. He wasn't from Johns Hopkins, but he did cite it as the ideal medical school in his report. He wasn't a professor. He taught at a high school. He later opened an experimental private school, but he was not a professor, as De Sueza claims. He's to Swayze is also wildly wrong with the idea that anyone can call themselves a doctor. It's absurd.

[Julian Walker]

That was great.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

I recently read. I did a bonus on this book too. It's the Social Transformation of American Medicine by Paul Starr. Great book. It's an exhaustive review of the history of medicine in America. He details in great depth the struggles between competing medical schools in different states during the 19th century. While many of the problems that we currently have with our healthcare system actually stem from the competing interests that were started back then and the fact that medical schools engaged in a race to the bottom to see who could graduate students more faster to become doctors and therefore monetize more students, which later informed who open practices where and what types of insurance incentives were possible. This flattening of anyone can call themselves a doctor is just a fucking joke. It's not true.

[Julian Walker]

And he makes it sound like before Flexner there was no definition and so anyone could just say it. And then Flexner, the sociologist from Johns Hopkins came along in the 1920s, all completely a stack of incorrect statements and he came up with this definition. And so that's what medicine has been ever since. And we can change that definition because we are brave contrarians.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Right? Yeah, that's. This is one of the things about podcasts. I mean, you know, you and I are talking. Some of this is off script, some of it's on script, but the stuff we're talking about on script we've read about and vetted.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

And people go on podcasts and they just say off of memory. I just finished reading Medi Hassan's last book where he talks about the sort of research you should be doing before you go as a guest or as a debater or anything on, in anywhere, live podcast, whatever, just to actually be prepared and desuasa like, you know, you just threw out that trillion dollar number. I'm guessing most of what he said is wrong based on what I've actually looked into from the clips that were playing.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. And I actually love how Mehdi Hassan is actually very honest about this. Right. About how you prepare, you understand who you're going to be dealing with, what their arguments are probably going to be. You make sure that you come with facts and figures and data at your hands. And so I saw him doing an interview about the Jubilee appearances which has gotten him a lot of play over the last month. And he was very self effacing. He's like, yeah, you know what, I'm like one of these guys who crammed the night before the exam. Like I know my stuff, I commit it to memory. If you ask me to repeat any of it back to you right now, I probably can't do it because that's just the nature of being, of having a human brain, right? You, you, you go back and forth in terms of like how fluent you are with stuff. And that's why you have to prepare and you have to make sure you're, you're actually doing good sourcing and fact checking.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

So you're being given an opportunity, you know, in this waysa and this, this instance to have the largest platform in the world to pitch your games basically. And you're just going to come with all this completely wrong and sometimes fabricated information. And you notice it all trends in the direction of inflation. So everything is inflated. The trillion dollars is compared to $58 billion. This, this ominous figure of Flexner, which is what Cali means has been doing, creating this lawyer who's secretly funded. I mean all this was public. Yeah, but you create this picture of someone who is out to get people, which is the opposite of what was going on at the time.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, and actually the reason why I said what I said in setting up that clip is that we have multiple of the figures we've crossed. The one that jumps to mind the most for me is Christiane Northrup will reference the Flexner Report as the beginning of the end of being able to trust medical science. And what reason will a lot of these conspirituality figures that we cover give? Well, it started to discredit at things like homeopathy and all of the practices that are bundled together under naturopathy and started to actually have scientific standards. And so this was somehow, you know, a conspiracy because Carnegie was behind it.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

And Paul Starr writes extensively. This Monday my bonus will be about naturopathy and one of the figures on Prageru, which we're covering soon, but how they manipulate information. So if you're enjoying this part, I will be doing more of it on Monday. Starr writes about the Flexner Report extensively in the book as well, which is how I learned a lot about it. And it's important to recognize that that report brought coherence to medicine in America. And one of the biggest consequences besides what you said, which is discrediting homeopathy and naturopathy and chiropractic, it was that it took away accreditation from universities that were running programs right now. Now this did have some bad downstream effects too, but overall it started to create the system that we know today in terms of education specifically. All that said, you might not be surprised to learn that Flexer never defined medicine as the treatment and cure of disease. That's not a thing. He just. That's something he just made up because he probably heard it from someone somewhere. The report actually calls for medical education to be grounded in the scientific method. It emphasizes laboratory research and experiential hospital based clinical training as the standard for diagnosing, understanding and addressing disease.

[Julian Walker]

Diabolical. Derek. It's awful.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

It's horrible. It's horrible. People like to sueza and means they like to flatten this ambitious work, which to be clear, wasn't again as without its problems. So one of them was that because they were looking at programs, it just so happened that some of those programs were in states that were servicing minority and rural communities. So when the colleges were shut down, they had no access to medical education at all. So there was a racial component that's been rightfully criticized. Yeah, but the reason to sueza in one minute gets so much wrong is because he's just trying to sell supplements and apparently workout gear. Now we found out too. And if you could pretend that evidence based medicine is only about stopping disease, which is such a common trope in wellness and bro science spaces, then you can position your product as the true medicine, which is the literal tagline of cali means company support for this podcast.

[Julian Walker]

And the following message comes from America's Navy.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

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[Julian Walker]

Training and experience in careers like computer.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Science, aviation and medicine. Plus education. And sign on bonuses. Parents help your grads start their career [e-mail].

[Julian Walker]

Oh, what you eating?

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

The new banana split cookie from AM pm. All freshly baked with real butter with banana, chocolate and strawberry flavors. Wow, that sounds amazing. Can I have a bite? I'm sorry but no. But you can't split the banana split.

[Julian Walker]

Not even a little.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

Not even a crumb.

[Julian Walker]

What if.

[Unnamed Co-host (likely the main host or commentator of Conspirituality Brief)]

No, please mine when it's too legit to split. That's cravinions.

[Julian Walker]

Get a 3 pack for 99 cents with our app ampm too much good stuff plus tax where applicable. Prices and participation may vary. Terms and conditions apply.