Matthew Browne, a high-profile advocate for pan-psychism, compels his reluctant co-host to endure a public struggle session on the topic of consciousness, hopefully for the last time.

Supplementary Material 49

00:00 Introduction

02:47 Returning to the Emerald Isle

03:44 Irish History Segment: The Titanic & Potato Famines

10:45 McGilchrist Reflections

12:51 Knowledge Fight has ended

26:23 Podcasting Motivations

34:37 Calibrated Expectations

41:03 The Problem with the Patreon Members

42:51 Shermer's Activist Skeptic Research

47:24 Research on Support for Political Violence in the US

54:35 Rob Henderson and Decorative Scholarship

58:11 Ryan Holiday Stoically Flames MAGA

01:04:41 Zuby and Motivated Reasoning

01:07:15 Monocausal Explanations for Declining Birth Rates

01:08:51 More credulity from Shermer

01:10:25 Bryan Johnson and Testicular Optimisation

01:14:41 Testicle Fixation Gurus

01:15:24 Professor Jiang thinks Trump is Immortal

01:19:57 When Dawkins Met Claude

01:30:00 The Great Consciousness Debate of 2026

01:42:47 When Cladius met Claudia

01:52:39 Chris's Concession

01:54:23 Animal Minds and AI Consciousness

01:56:31 Russell Brand vs Piers Morgan

02:10:13 Thirsty Christian dunks on Dawkins

02:13:18 Brand's Family's Response

02:22:39 Hasan Piker is the one who knocks!

02:27:44 Outro

02:28:36 A final message of hope!

Links

• Knowledge Fight's Last Episode – The End of the Road
• Jordan's video on the Onion
• Dan's blog on his next plans
• Rob Henderson’s thread promoting the Shermer Skeptic Study
• Polarization Research Lab- Low levels of support for partisan violence
• Polarization Research Lab - Did the 2024 Election Change American Attitudes About Democracy?
• Ryan Holiday’s response to the Shellenberger video
• Ryan Holiday responding to article that he is ‘fuming’ at Ivanka
• Zuby’s insights on Birth Rate Decline
• Vice article on the history of testicle transplants
• "Massive GRIFTER!" Piers Morgan Grills Russell Brand On Allegations, Prison, 'Truth' & Religion
• UnHerd: When Claudia met Claudius- So are they really conscious?
• UnHerd: When Dawkins met Claude Could this AI be conscious?
• ‘Professor’ Jiang on Trump’s Immortality
• Mehdi Hasan dunking on Dawkins

In this episode, we return to Iain McGilchrist as he spirals upwards from his binary hemispheric model into full cosmic spirituality. The rule is simple: everything McGilchrist likes is due to the subtle, nuanced, and deeply sophisticated right brain, while the left brain (pffft) is responsible for reductionism, modernity, and most of the problems in your life.

From this neuroscientific foundation, the theory expands with admirable ambition. Civilisations rise and fall depending on which hemisphere they inhabit. Ancient societies were properly attuned to the right brain, while the modern world has gone mechanical and spiritually bankrupt. The details are, of course, very complex, but the moral is clear.

Scientific evidence features occasionally, mostly in a decorative capacity or as parables of scientists being baffled by mystical forces. Hence, we learn that decapitated worms retain perfect memories, Nobel Prizes have been awarded for demonstrating a mystical direction powering evolution, and near-death experiences establish that memories form when the brain isn't functioning.

Alongside this hard science, McGilchrist also ventures into more spiritual realms, where we learn that artificial intelligence is likely to be channelling demons, schizophrenia might be caused by malign spiritual forces treating our brains as a luxury resort, and recently exorcised demons prefer to communicate via text message. No really...

Ultimately, what matters is that McGilchrist's bespoke theology, bespoke metaphysics, bespoke biological teleology, and bespoke panentheist philosophy are really very impressive. And if you don't find any of it compelling, well, we are sad to inform you that this itself proves you are stuck in the wrong mode of thinking and failing to recognise true profundity.

And if that doesn't work, then let's just say it was all a metaphor anyway!

Links

• Alex O' Connor: Why Evolution Gave You Two Brains - Iain McGilchrist
• Jonathan Pageau: Artificial Intelligence, Possession, and Mental Illness - Dr. Iain McGilchrist
• Think Faith: Philosopher Iain McGilchrist DEBATES neuroscientist Anil Seth on God & minds | Uncommon Ground
• Spezio, M. (2019). McGilchrist and hemisphere lateralization: a neuroscientific and metaanalytic assessment. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 9(4), 387–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2019.1604416
• Corballis, M. C. (2014). Left brain, right brain: facts and fantasies. PLoS biology, 12(1), e1001767.
• Carson, A. (2010). The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. By Iain McGilchrist. Yale University Press. 2009. US $38.00 (hb). 608 pp. ISBN: 9780300148787. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 196(6), 498-498.
• De Haan, D. (2019). McGilchrist’s hemispheric homunculi. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 9(4), 368-379.
• Shomrat, T., & Levin, M. (2013). An automated training paradigm reveals long-term memory in planarians and its persistence through head regeneration. Journal of Experimental Biology, 216(20), 3799-3810.

The hour grows late, and Matt the Grey-Haired rides once more from his quiet study, summoned by whispers from the ever-churning gurusphere. And so he goes, to seek counsel with Chris the Grey-Bearded, keeper of receipts, watcher of long-form content, and wielder of the sacred Gurometer. For the gurus stir again… and their nonsense must be decoded.

Supplementary Material 48: Grey Beard's Council, Late-Stage Anti-Capitalism, and Demonic Mould Health Updates

00:00 Greetings Old Friend

02:22 Decoding the Gamers

04:16 A Reckoning with Old Grey Hair

06:19 Joe Rogan determining US Medical Approvals

12:15 The Fall of Orban and the Silence of the Heterodox World

17:09 The Hypocrisy of Peter Boghossian

19:52 Dave Rubin and other Tenet Media Stooges

21:43 The Dugin, Jiang and Sneako Brain Trust discuss the ultra-hyper-globalists.

28:58 Trump attacks Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, & Megyn Kelly

32:39 A Return to Weinstein World

33:00 Bret's Moon Landing Conspiracies

39:03 Eric and his Silicon Friend are still having problems

42:47 Hasan Piker Discourse

54:33 The Radicalisation Funnel?

01:00:14 Hasan on Ukraine

01:03:21 Hasan doing China apologetics

01:14:03 More Apologetics

01:16:37 Hasan on the Vietnamese MAGA supporter

01:23:41 What about Destiny?

01:26:58 Yale is full of Snakes and Badgers

01:33:17 Micro Looting from the Corporations

01:41:36 Cenk Uyghur's Rent Gouging Credentials

01:44:47 Social Murder and Selective "Understanding"

01:54:26 Late-Stage Capitalist Anti-Capitalism

01:56:22 Tucker Carlson is Selling Russell Brand's Guide to Becoming a Christian

02:00:33 Sean Hannity chooses Trump over his Catholicism

02:04:18 Russell Brand and the spiritual marketplace

02:05:48 Postmodern Conservatism

02:07:28 Taking a Long View

02:10:14 AI Bouldering Gym Cages

02:11:30 Taylor Lorenz is making good points on Twitter!

02:19:52 Taylor's controversial take: AI is useful

02:21:36 Adam Conover engages in revisionist history on tech

02:24:14 Rotary Telephones and Typewriter Experiences

02:26:41 The Onion takeover of Infowars?

02:31:28 Knowledge Fight's Concerns

02:35:56 Jordan Peterson Health Update

02:40:07 Endlessly Misdiagnosed by "Experts"

02:44:32 The Dietary Cures

02:47:20 Experimental Stem Cell Treatments

02:50:04 Pageau blames Peterson's lack of faith

03:00:14 Letting the Pressure Out

03:01:07 Outro

03:02:01 We Must Join with the Mould

The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (3 hours, 3 minutes).

Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus

Links

• Joe Rogan crowing about his role in the White House executive order on Ibogaine
• Fact Check of Rogan's claims on PolitiFact
• Pancreatic cancer mRNA trial update: NBC report on six-year follow-up
• Article on NIH grant cancellations/funding cuts at Washington Post
• APHA release on lawsuit over politically driven grant terminations
• Ban on DEI words, including "polarization" by DOGE
• BBC Article on Orbán's loss
• Boghossian dodges criticism of Hungary in HardTalk interview
• Boghossian avoids dealing with protests in Hungary
• Dugin / Sneako / Professor Jiang interview
• Trump attacks Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, and Megyn Kelly
• Bret Weinstein's moon landing / Artemis clip highlighted by Bad Stats
• Eric Weinstein's tweets on commercial AI and theoretical physics
• Tucker Carlson's promotion for Russell Brand's new Christian-themed book
• Ezra Klein on Hasan Piker: RealClearPolitics mirror of the New York Times column
• Conduit: I Spent ONE WEEK Watching Hasan Piker ‪, And This Is What I Learned
• A generational divide over Trump among Vietnamese-Americans – BBC News
• Hasan reacts to the Vietnamese-American documentary
• Twitter Thread with most of the viral Hasan clips
• Noahpinion: Hasan Piker is bad for the Democrats
• Hasan's Yale Debate on YouTube
• Yair Rosenberg's article on the Atlantic: The Problem With Hasan Piker’s Einstein Story
• NYT: ‘The Rich Don’t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?' Why petty theft might be the new political protest’
• LA Times article on the Onion's Infowars Takeover Bid
• Alex Jones clip of him roaming shirtless and complaining about the Onion
• Mikhaila Peterson: Jordan Peterson Health Update and Psych Med Injury Discussion
• Jonathan Pageau explains Jordan's illness is due to his refusal to submit to God
• Taylor Lorenz being correct about the past promotion of technology products
• Tech Dirt article on the recent court decisions against Meta and YouTube
• Sean Hannity endorses Trump over his Catholicism
• Taylor Lorenz: The Truth About the Social Media Addiction Trial

In this episode, we take a journey into the mind, traversing both the left and right hemispheres, but mostly the left, as we engage with the truly mind-bending insights of British psychiatrist-philosopher-neuroscientist-theologian-author Iain McGilchrist. Best known for his 2009 book "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World" but also a much lauded academic and sensemaker.

We outline McGilchrist’s extremely complicated thesis that the two hemispheres of the brain reflect fundamentally different “ways of being” and that this is reflected in individuals and civilisations that rely more on one side than the other. This is, of course, not merely a crude binary. As McGilchrist repeatedly emphasises, it would be quite wrong to suggest he is simply valorising everything he likes (religion, poetry, classic literature, wood-panelled interiors, sense-making chats) and attributing them to the products of a profound and integrative right hemisphere. Similarly, he does not simply want to denigrate materialists as reductive left-brain thinkers who cannot appreciate art, beauty, or love because they are too busy thinking about atoms. There is definitely none of that in his chat with Alex O'Connor (AKA CosmicSkeptic).

Expect neuroanatomy, metaphysics, and extended reflections on the nature of love. In other words, a completely standard Decoding the Gurus episode.

Links

• Alex O' Connor: Why Evolution Gave You Two Brains - Iain McGilchrist
• Iain McGilchrist's website.
• Spezio, M. (2019). McGilchrist and hemisphere lateralization: a neuroscientific and metaanalytic assessment. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 9(4), 387–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2019.1604416
• Lamm, C., Decety, J., & Singer, T. (2011). Meta-analytic evidence for common and distinct neural networks associated with directly experienced pain and empathy for pain. Neuroimage, 54(3), 2492-2502.
• Stavrova, O., & Ehlebracht, D. (2019). The cynical genius illusion: Exploring and debunking lay beliefs about cynicism and competence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 45(2), 254-269.
• Lindquist, K. A., Wager, T. D., Kober, H., Bliss-Moreau, E., & Barrett, L. F. (2012). The brain basis of emotion: a meta-analytic review. Behavioral and brain sciences, 35(3), 121-143.

On this episode, we’re joined by Stevie Baskin, a skeptic and YouTuber who released a five-hour detailed critique of the “meta-deception” of Oz Pearlman. He argues that mentalism differs from traditional magic by introducing an additional meta-deception because, unlike magicians, mentalists often leave their audiences with inaccurate beliefs about body language reading, subliminal influence, NLP, and general psychology. In Stevie’s framework, this places mentalists closer to psychics and mediums than to magicians, because the deceptive element is not clearly acknowledged.

We examine this position, unpack common mentalist techniques, consider the role of strategic disclaimers and TED-style “epistemic theatre,” and explore possible parallels with contemporary secular gurus.

Sources

• Metadeception: the truth about Oz Pearlman
• The Disagreement: Debating a mentalist professor of psychology (Scott Barry Kaufman) about Oz Pearlman
• Chris' old blog covering the ethics of Derren Brown's claims in 2009
• The Power Of Subliminal Messages | Trick Of The Mind | Derren Brown

Our cover is blown. Our secret funders unmasked. Code Red: Abort! Abort! This is not a drill.

Supplementary Material 47: The DTG Conspiracy UNMASKED, Quantum Idiots, and Triggernometry Prophecies

00:00 Glowing Introduction

03:14 The Secret Conspiracy at the Heart of the Podcast

08:17 The Israel Connection

19:09 Cenk Uygur's Pickleball Conspiracy

23:25 Comment Section Conspiracies

30:20 Pizzagate Conspiracies Revisited

37:55 The Value of debating with ChadBigCum

42:26 AI discourse reflections

43:43 Ben Burgis's hyperbolic reaction to AI use

44:53 The AI revolution and its potential impacts

47:53 Social and Economic Disruption and Job Replacement

51:33 The Dangers of Slopified Work and AI economies

55:47 Statistical Analysis Software and the value of Friction

57:36 The Perils of AI Usage outside of your Skillset

58:59 The Solution is within yourself!

01:04:22 The Hundred Schools of AI discourse

01:05:58 Double Slit and Quantum Physics Insights from Warren Smith

01:12:39 Schrodinger's poor, misinterpreted cat

01:13:48 The Wonderful Benjamin Boyce

01:14:41 Quantum Woo and Arrogant Sensemakers

01:18:29 Young Matt and Aged Chris

01:20:13 The Triggernometry Prophecy

01:23:54 Quid Pro Quo in the Discourse Circuit

01:28:25 The Anti-Institutional Horseshoe Theory of MEHDI HASAN

01:37:18 So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!

The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (1 hour, 40 minutes).

Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus

Links

• Reddit post unmasking our Israeli backers
• Mother Jones article on whether 'pizza' is a codeword in the Epstein files (Spoiler: No it is not)
• Mickey's Opinion Piece in The Canadian Jewish News about "quiet anti-semitism"
• Ben Burgis is suggesting a journalist should be fired for using AI
• Cenk Uygur’s Pickleball Conspiracy
• Vigeland & Citarella on Epstein: The One Conspiracy to Rule Them All (YouTube)
• Benjamin Boyce and Warren Smith discuss Quantum Physics
• Triggernometry: Mehdi Hasan Debate on the Iran War, Immigration and the Israel Lobby
• Creator of Horseshoe Theory Dies aged 100

Mickey is BACK with two new papers he has co-authored, a bunch of opinions, and a very unwelcome idea: maybe the problem with AI isn't that it doesn't work but that it works too well!

The first paper, Against Frictionless AI, argues that AI assistance and its ability to take away the effort from thinking, writing, and smooth out social(like) interactions could be robbing those activities of the very thing that makes them worthwhile.

The second paper is a more empirical investigation that presents a bunch of studies examining the topic of the (alleged) moralisation of AI. Some findings suggest that opposition to AI among some people isn't really about risks or trade-offs but rather about non-negotiable sacred moral values. Who knew?

We also discuss effort justification, reproducible research, robosexual allyship, and just how much humanity remains within the cyborg Matthew Browne.

And remember... It's just like our opinion, man!

Links

• Decoding Academia 34: Empathetic AIs? (Patreon Series)
• Ovsyannikova, D., Oldemburgo de Mello, V., & Inzlicht, M. (2025). Third-party evaluators perceive AI as more compassionate than expert humans. Communications Psychology, 3, Article 4.
• Zohar, E., Bloom, P., & Inzlicht, M. (2026). Against frictionless AI. Communications Psychology, 4, Article 39.
• Oldemburgo de Mello, V., Côté, É., Ayad, R., Inbar, Y., Plaks, J., & Inzlicht, M. (2026). The moralization of artificial intelligence (Manuscript under review).
• Paul Bloom's Small Potatoes Substack
• - My friend thinks it's a good idea for us to spend most of our time with AI companions
• - Is it irresponsible for academics to refuse to use AI?
• Mickey's Speak Now Regret Later Substack
• - AI Alarmism Trades on Fear, Not Facts
• Mickey's provocative tweet on his recent paper
• DTG Previous Interview with Mickey on the Replication Crisis, Mindfulness, and Responsible Heterodoxy
• Andy Masley Substack debunking the AI water usage claims
• Andy Masley Substack: Using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment - a cheat sheet
• Pataranutaporn, P., Karny, S., Archiwaranguprok, C., Albrecht, C., Liu, A. R., & Maes, P. (2025). “My Boyfriend is AI”: A computational analysis of human–AI companionship in Reddit’s AI community. arXiv.
• Critical response to Mickey's paper from Roy Schulam on Substack

Ken Wilber, the grand architect of Integral Theory, enters the Decoding chamber (wearing a striking but slightly unconvincing wig) as we explore a worldview that confidently absorbs every religion, philosophy, and half-remembered psychology paper into one majestic, Borg-like synthesis. Resistance, as it turns out, is not just futile... it is probably “first-tier thinking".

This is a world of elaborate, baroque cosmologies. Layers within layers, quadrants within stages, spirals within states, with each offering a map of reality that grows more intricate the closer it gets to its own centre. Traditions are not debated so much as absorbed, their distinctiveness dissolved into a higher synthesis that always leads to the ultimate insight: integral theory.

Get ready to experience high-level political analysis where Kamala Harris becomes a “fractured green" and Donald Trump the embodiment of a "rational orange". You will also learn how Ken is working with AI companies to help them incorporate integral thinking into their algorithms. The implications this has for human evolution are hard to fathom.

Finally, in true Columbo fashion, we circle back to Matt's core philosophical system … panpsychism. Just a small detail, and also take some time to conduct a brief spiritual inquisition into Matt’s alleged Christian upbringing. Fortunately, nothing is rejected. Everything is integrated, including all possible critiques.

Sources

• Suma Gowda: Ken Wilber on Future of Consciousness, AI, Trump's Election: A Deep Dive into Spiral Dynamics
• The Rise and Fall of Ken Wilber – Mark Manson
• Rebel Wisdom: Interview with Ken Wilber- What Happened to Jordan Peterson
• DS Wilson finds wisdom in Ken's approach
• Ken Wilber's website

In this Gurometer double bill, Matt and Chris break out the much-sought-after Gurometer™ to score Teal Swan and Scott Galloway across the 11 recurring guru traits. In one efficient episode, we compare cosmic-certified spirituality with secular man-talk (and a surprising amount of puffer-jacket merchandising). As a bonus, get ready to thrill at Matt's eternal puzzlement at his own simple binary question of 'guru-osity'.

Links

1. Gurometer scores to date

The full episode is available for Patreon subscribers (51 mins).

Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus

Gurometer: Teal Swan and Scott Galloway

00:00 Back to the Gurometer: Teal and Scott

02:33 Galaxy Brain-ness

04:18 Cultishness

05:25 Anti-Establishmentarianism

08:31 Grievance Mongering

10:55 Self Aggrandisement and Narcissism

14:30 Cassandra Complex

18:03 Revolutionary Theories

21:49 Pseudo-Profound Bullshit

26:07 Conspiracy Mongering

28:50 Excessive Profiteering

36:25 Moral Grandstanding

40:33 Overall Gurometer Score

41:27 Rapid Fire Bonus Guru Points

In our never-ending quest to alienate all potential online audiences, we finger-wag about rampant Epstein conspiracism and explain why we are, on balance, anti-murder.

The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (2 hours, 42 minutes).

Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus

In our never-ending quest to alienate all potential online audiences, we finger-wag about rampant Epstein conspiracism and explain why we are, on balance, anti-murder.

00:00 Intro

03:39 Flooding Adventures

06:54 Eric's Troubles with his Silicon Friend

13:09 Peter Boghossian's Hardcore for Grok

17:16 A Promising Paper on reducing AI Hallucinations

22:17 Statistical Consults

23:12 Epstein Discourse Lollapalooza

27:24 Eric Weinstein thinks Epstein is connected to UFOs

29:09 Rogan Plays Apologist for Trump on Epstein

32:21 Emma Vigeland and Joshua Citarella engage in Conspiracy Hypothesising

35:07 Reasonable Conspiracy Theorising

42:24 The Real Conspiracy

44:26 Epstein and Ghislaine puppeting the culture wars

48:18 The Joy of Conspiracy Theories

53:29 Epstein and Bannon created QAnon as a Psyop

01:01:37 What about ritual child abuse, dissolving bodies and cannibalism?

01:09:05 Lurid Cannibal Fantasies

01:15:56 Emma's UFO theory

01:20:08 The Joe Roganification of Podcasts and some strategic disclaimers

01:24:14 A dichotomy in contemporary American attitudes to Wealth?

01:28:32 The Mainstream Media won't focus on Epstein's connections with Israel and Mossad

01:32:08 The REAL Epstein scandal that no one wants to talk about

01:34:36 Behind the Bastards coverage of Epstein

01:36:01 Epstein's alleged role in creating microtransactions in games

01:40:46 Epstein's cringey Edutainment ideas

01:50:53 What Robert Evans Got Wrong

01:54:08 There are No Coincidences

02:00:57 The Danger of Appealing Narratives and also... Michael Tracey

02:06:00 The Anti-Murder Podcast

02:07:47 Warren Smith highlights Violent Rhetoric aimed at Konstantin

02:14:12 Justifying Murder is Bad... M'Kay?

02:17:55 Experiences of Violence and Naivety

02:21:16 Levels of Political Violence

02:23:49 Destiny's Community and Edgy Political Violence Takes

02:27:56 Alienating online audiences 101

02:30:14 Eric talks wormholes with a UFO maniac

02:35:28 Lord of the Idiots

02:36:18 Does Matt know Snorlax?

02:39:43 A failed disclaimer outro

Links

1. Erik arguing with Grok
2. Boghossian’s hardcore rules for Grok
3. H-Neurons: On the Existence, Impact, and Origin of Hallucination-Associated Neurons in LLMs (Gao et al., 2025)
4. YouTube comment under our NXIVM video about Epstein
5. People article claiming Epstein was Putin’s Wealth Manager
6. Taylor Lorenz – Panic World: How Epstein Warped the Entire Internet
7. Garbage Day: “Here’s How Epstein Broke the Internet”
8. Eric Weinstein on Piers Morgan connecting Epstein to UFOs and his “research”
9. Triggernometry’s 7th appearance on Rogan
10. American Alchemy: Eric Weinstein & Eric Davis on Wormholes
11. BBC: Ex-police chief said Trump told him in 2006 “everyone” knew about Epstein’s behaviour
12. Joshua Citarella & Emma Vigeland – Epstein, Conspiracy & Right-wing Media | Doomscroll
13. Pew Research: Demographics of the Progressive Left in the United States
14. Debunking claims about Ghislaine Maxwell being a Reddit power mod
15. Obama did not say aliens are real – PBS NewsHour
16. NBC News: Epstein’s relationship with Ehud Barak
17. Al Jazeera: What were Jeffrey Epstein’s links to Israel?
18. Warren Smith’s post about threats from Digital Gnosis
19. Digital Gnosis Substack statement
20. Destiny’s Head Mod Confronts Him On His Rhetoric
21. Eric Weinstein Demands UFO Secrets From Pentagon Scientist

Epstein email documents

1. Email from Pablos Holman to Epstein (document 1)
2. Email from Pablos Holman to Epstein (document 2)
3. Email from Pablos Holman to Epstein (document 3)
4. Epstein forwarding Holman’s email to Bobby Kotick
5. Pablos Holman responding and dunking on Kotick

In Part 2, Matt and Chris return to Blindboy, now broadcasting from a solar-powered podcast and therefore morally unimpeachable. The darkness, however, remains. Having established in Part 1 that the global elite are a vampiric class of depraved blackmailers who traffic children and delight in cruelty, in Part 2, Blindboy offers us some welcome relief in the form of answering the question of what it looks like to be one of the good ones. You may be surprised to learn that it involves a missing dressing room, muddy socks, and a loyalty to small-time promoters that some might call heroic.

The episode also traces an ambitious historical arc: from street gangs in 1800s Limerick to the New York underworld, Meyer Lansky, Roy Cohn, CIA brothels and LSD interrogation programmes, and eventually to Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. The connecting thread is a continuous tradition of sexual blackmail passed from master to apprentice that has, apparently, been quietly guiding Western (criminal) civilisation for the better part of two centuries.

Matt and Chris sift through the historical material, examine the leaps required to keep the chain intact, and consider whether a conspiracy hypothesis that explains quite so much, quite so neatly, might deserve a small dose of skepticism. As you might anticipate, the episode features discussions of many of our old friends, including strategic disclaimers, moral grandstanding, and layered preemptive defences. Finally, get ready to learn who the real villain is, when the mask is finally removed.... spoiler: it's neoliberal capitalism. A revelation that some listeners may have suspected from the very beginning.

Links

• Blindboy: A Deep Dive into Jeffrey Epstein
• The Rest is Classified: Was Epstein a Russian Spy?
• Epstein Files Declassified: Mossad, Israel, and Ghislaine Maxwell
• Epstein Files Declassified: Was he a Spy?
• The Saville Inquiry Report on Bloody Sunday (2010)
• BBC Panorama reporting on the British Army’s Military Reaction Force (MRF)
• Popular Mechanics article on Operation Midnight Climax
• US Senate Church Committee report on MK-Ultra and CIA covert experimentation and the archived report
• NY Times: What Donald Trump Learned From Joseph McCarthy’s Right-Hand Man
• A less conspiratorial but more sympathetic perspective on Epstein's influence by Taylor Lorenz and Ryan Broderick
• An in-depth critical review of Whitney Webb's book (by an academic who might be a little conspiracy-prone themselves)
• Webb, W. A. (2022). One Nation Under Blackmail-Vol. 1: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime That Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein, VOL. 1. Trine Day