Decoding the Gurus - Blindboy, Part 1: Unmasking the Evil Elite Cabal
Episode Date: March 6, 2026In this episode, Matt and Chris turn their attention to Blindboy Boatclub, the Irish podcaster, satirist, and former member of the Rubberbandits. Blindboy is recognisable for his plastic-bag headwear,... which has transitioned from a comedy prop into something a bit deeper and more philosophical. His podcast blends ASMR-style delivery, stream-of-consciousness storytelling, and cultural and political commentary, drifting between reflections on mental health, colonialism, Irish history, and the origins of the month of February. It is a distinctive format: whispered monologues over gentle piano where poetic association, personal reflection, and narrative intuition take precedence. For many listeners, that unique mixture of introspection, politics, and storytelling is exactly the appeal. As you might imagine, it is not entirely our bag, but to each their own.However, when Blindboy turns his attention to the recent Epstein document releases, the narrative becomes considerably darker and drifts into some familiar gurusphere territory. Blindboy describes this as a “phone call episode”, an unscripted stream-of-consciousness riff with minimal fact-checking, and then proceeds to expound for over an hour on a sprawling narrative connecting elite conspiracies to the hidden psychological forces shaping modern politics. Along the way we encounter a parade of lurid spectacles, including necrophilic Hell’s Angels, secret society members masturbating in coffins, murdered women buried on Trump’s golf course, potentially cannibalistic elites, and healthcare CEOs who delight in causing pain and misery. We also discover the crucial, if previously underappreciated, role that Jeffrey Epstein apparently played in the creation of the modern culture wars.As usual, the goal is not to adjudicate the politics involved but to examine the rhetorical and epistemic patterns at play. What happens when a charismatic storyteller combines emotionally compelling narratives with speculative leaps? How do strategic disclaimers like “I’m not saying it’s true” interact with extended conjecture? And why do some conspiracy frameworks feel persuasive when wrapped in an appealing ideological package? Matt and Chris listen through Blindboy’s riff to see how well the arguments hold up once the plinky-plonk piano fades and the claims are examined in the cold light of day.LinksBlindboy: A Deep Dive into Jeffrey EpsteinBlindboy: Butter Melting Down The Neck Of A Warm HorseThe Guardian: ‘I have a bag on my head. Deal with it!’ Is Blindboy the perfect podcaster?The Rubberbandits: Horse OutsideBobby Fingers' performance art on YouTubeJake Tapper shared the removed DOJ documents that contain allegations against TrumpA detailed debunking of the claim that Ghislaine Maxwell was a Reddit Mod2013 article covering approval for Trump’s family cemetery2016 New Yorker Article about Trump wanting to be buried at his golf courseThe Verge: Christopher Pool ‘moot’ rejects the claims about Epstein creating the 4chanRon Rosenbaum’s 1977 article on the Skull and Bones society initiationsAmerica's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones (Sutton, 1986)Atlantic Article from 2000 that mentions the coffin masturbation rumourArticle from the NYT: How The Times Is Digging Into Millions of Pages of Epstein FilesThe Rest is Classified: Was Epstein a Russian Spy?Epstein Files Declassified: Mossad, Israel, and Ghislaine MaxwellEpstein Files Declassified: Was he a Spy?Le Monde: Some consequences for the Sultan who Epstein messaged about the torture videoBBC: Luigi Mangione will not face the death penalty if convicted, judge rulesAn in-depth critical review of Whitney Webb's book (by an academic who might be a little conspiracy prone themselves)2022 Podcast featuring Brian Thompson (United Healthcare CEO) discussing his views on healthcareCritical examination of the headline denial rate of UnitedHealthcare2024 US Senate Report on Insurance Denials under Medicare Advantage Insurers
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hello and welcome to the credit new gurus, the podcast.
We're an anthropologist and a psychologist,
listen to the greatest minds the world has to offer.
And we try to understand what they're talking about.
I'm the psychologist, Matt Brown,
and with me, as always, is the cognitive anthropologist,
Chris Kavanaugh.
And I joined you, Chris, back in God's own country,
Queensland, after being down in the hellhole that is Melbourne,
Victoria, Australia.
You went to the big smoke.
It was like crocodile don't be in.
internal version.
Yes, internal version.
That's right, but it could well be the same.
Everyone down there, it's raining, there's multi-story high rises,
everyone's wearing leather or black or grey.
Were you confused by moving escalators and whipped out,
that's not a knife?
This is a knife.
Not quite that far.
You say, people don't know how to wrestle an alligator.
Watch this.
That's my Australian accent, by the way.
Let's just say, like I know you've,
often admired the bronzed, even orange coloring that I have. Yeah, you know, I stood out in the
same way in Melbourne. They're like wraiths, hardly kissed by the sun. Probably that's all relative,
because I feel what you regard as a reef in Australia would be a swarthy town. Well, let me put it
this way. I think they're about as un-Australian as you can get while still being technically
the Australian. Oh, that's good. I like that you're annoying Australians after upsetting the
Northern Irish and Scottish people for the last time. Nobody's safe. That's safe. You'll all come
to hate me. That's right. Speaking of people you'll come to hit, no, that's not fair. That's not fair.
We're looking today, Matt, at a beloved figure amongst some quarters.
Actually, somebody that I enjoyed quite a lot back in the day
when they were primarily part of a satirical Irish comedy hip-hop band.
We were looking at Blind Boy Book Club.
Okay.
So originally was one half of the band, the rubber bandits, which is where I came across
him with a famous song, I've got a horse outside.
Right?
That's, that's, you know, I swear it's a famous song.
That's if it's so famous, why haven't I heard of it?
That's what I mean.
You will have heard it.
The other thing that they're known for, that band, I don't think they still perform.
I think they've kind of went their separate ways, but they were plastic bags on their heads,
like shopping bags with eye holes and mouth holes.
So this was a signature look of them.
Sorry, it was Horse Outside.
That was the title of their song.
You probably didn't get it because of that.
You would know it as horse outside.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
And also, Matt, he is a fellow Irish man.
He's from the South.
you know, the real Ireland, as you would put it.
Yes.
From Limerick.
And, you know, I'm a, I'm a pretender, as you like to say.
I'm just a Norvin man, you know.
So I probably don't, I don't read, you know, the same level of Irishness.
But I'm just saying that, you know, we're from a related background, shall we say.
Yeah.
You're from the same landmass.
We can agree on that.
The same landmass.
That's right.
We're all from the Emerald Dial.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, like I said, kind of satirical comedy.
stuff. Some of it is specific
to Ireland. It's like Irish
Schumer, you know, making fun of different
counties and this kind of thing. But
some of it was just also broader
stuff and this is one half, right? So this
guy goes by Blind Boy.
Book Club after the band
he started a podcast,
the Blind Boy podcast, which is
apparently very popular.
Lots of people listen to it in Ireland
and the rest of the world.
And you might
see him pop up on like
Novara media, left-wing media, he mainly features in or some talk shows.
But yeah, but we are looking at his podcast, the Blind Boy podcast, which in the blurb,
often discussing mental health, masculinity, sociopolitical issues, so on, right?
Yeah.
And he's very well regarded, isn't he?
I don't think there's been much criticism of him online.
Even when I consulted with Claude, Claude was very good.
complimentary, I noticed.
Is that correct? I think loyal
following on
social media
like Reddit. So this will be fun.
Yes, you are right.
He is generally very
well regarded. You know, the thing is, in
general, Irish people, you know,
people like them. And
when you're talking about
the stances, which you have to work really
hard to get people to dislike you.
I've carved out of the opinion.
The one Irish person,
That's, you know, doesn't get that.
Well, be in Bono, me and Bono.
But, yeah.
So the thing is that he is often talking about, like I say, mental health awareness,
but also anti-globalization, anti-capitalism, anti-colonialism, the Gaza conflict, right?
So these are things, which at least in left-wing quarters, are generally seen as positives.
you're drawing attention to important issues,
raising awareness of mental health issues
and geopolitical conflicts that need more attention,
as well as the horrors of capitalism, right?
Yep, yep, certainly ticking a lot of boxes there.
Yes, so he had a series that was on BBC 3
called Blind Boy Undistroars the World,
and it would be familiar, you know,
the kind of manufacturing consent type analysis
of how the world functions and global exploitation.
He's not a fan of neoliberal capitalism.
Let's put it like that.
I mean, we're going to hear that.
And on that subject of his popularity, Matt,
may I invite the listeners this time
to recall what we do on this podcast,
which is we are interested in secular gurus, right?
That's the hook of this podcast.
and we note features that are recurrent amongst that set.
We look at people from that perspective.
And there are people that we've covered
that we genuinely don't like,
you know, Dave Rubin, the Red Scare Girls, for example,
who don't fit the template very well, right?
Never been critical of them.
But just because we don't like them doesn't make them a juror.
On the other hand, just because we might agree,
with someone politically on various issues, does one not mean that they are not a secular guru?
So we've covered this with Gary Stevenson whenever we were talking about is inequality
a problem.
Yes.
Does that mean that Gary Stevenson is not engaged in guruish things because of that?
No, right?
So I just invite people because I know that, you know, in our audience, there's a little bit of
skewery towards the left-hand side of politics.
and Blind Boy says things that appeal to that side a bit more.
But don't ask yourself, do I agree with Blind Boys politics?
Ask yourself, are the things that he's doing similar to what we've covered with other gurus?
Right.
That's a question because you can completely agree with whatever criticisms or completely disagree.
And it's a kind of separate question about whether the person is engaged in gururish.
tactics and rhetoric.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well,
that's a valiant attempt to
avoid getting accused
of being a neoliberal shield, Chris.
But, you know, I respect it.
I don't like your chances, but I respect
it. Well, we know
what's going to happen, Matt. But you just
got to, I just got to encourage people.
Come on. Like, just think,
you know, this is like
that occasionally happens, which is like,
Martin Chris, they're very good. I really
like what they're doing until
they cover someone that I agree with.
And then it just falls apart.
The whole system, it doesn't work.
None of it makes sense.
They're just biased assholes.
And you're like, just, I mean, is it that?
It's all I'm saying.
Anyway, anyway, that's, let's move on.
We may have nothing but nice things to say about.
That's true.
Who knows what we're going to say.
He knows.
And the bag he wears on his head.
It's not a, it's not just any old.
It's not like a shopping bag.
Well, there's a shopping bag.
Is it?
It looks tightly fitted, at least of the pictures I've seen.
It's almost like a balaclava but made out of plastic.
It sort of clings to his head.
Yes.
So I don't know if he was joking.
He said at one point that he has like a custom one,
which looks like a plastic bag,
but which is more comfortable.
But that could have just been a joke.
But the general thing with a plastic bag on the head,
the main argument,
as to why he wears it, is that he wants to maintain anonymity.
If he has this plastic bag, then outside of his public persona,
he's not identified, he's not recognized in public,
and he has issues about anxiety and introverted person,
according to himself, right?
So this helps him to remain anonymous.
This is the justification, the primary one that he offers for wearing the bag.
Now, a cynical person, not me, but a cynical person might note that it also functions as somewhat of a brand.
You know, like he rose to prominence as part of a band where the gimmick was that they have a plastic bag on their head.
And into his following career, he kept the moniker from the band and the plastic bag.
the other member of the band didn't, right?
He's actually on YouTube doing these quite weird experimental art projects.
Like he makes these videos about creating these very intricate dioramas or art projects.
And as I mentioned you, one of the things that the other guy did who goes by the name of Bobby Chrome, right, Mr. Chrome, was that he transplanted one of his arse hairs.
onto the top of his head in Turkey.
This was like part of, you know, one of those.
So like he's very involved.
But that guy is not wearing the plastic bag anymore.
So I'm just noting.
Otherwise, and otherwise completely normal with the transportation of life.
No, his YouTube channel is interesting.
No, it's like it's very, you would like it.
avant-garde.
I get it.
Yeah, I get it.
I get the statement that was getting made there.
Okay.
So he's stuck with the bag.
And yes, a cynical person might say it's a brand, a bit of a gimmick, a memorable one.
But he's offered other explanations for wearing it, hasn't he?
Well, I think he's talked about that the specific banks are associated with a local shop,
which is no longer in existence.
So it's like sort of a tribute to that as well.
But I mean, the majority explanation that gets cited is that it enables him to maintain anonymity that he otherwise wouldn't have.
So he told a story, for example, where he was out and he got wasted.
And the next day, he threw up while he was walking, you know, down in a street in Dublin or somewhere, Limerick.
I don't know, somewhere in Ireland.
And he was saying, if he didn't have the mask, people would have been like, oh, look, that's.
blind boy thrown up there in the street but because he wore the mask like people were just like
oh it's a drunk carriage person thrown up and yeah it's useful for that purpose that makes sense
that makes a lot of sense okay so in the material we listen to and uh you've heard a lot of other
stuff by blind boy i've only heard this one um you know and they'm doing just enough to get by
but uh um so this is a this is like a what's we call it a phone call episode like an it's an off-the-cuff
riff and a stream of consciousness,
isn't it? Yeah, so he
refers to this as a phone call
episode and
well, let me just play it because I
have the clip where he's explaining
what he's doing.
Repel from the melty bell,
you sweltering Emmets.
Welcome to the Blind Boy podcast.
If this is your first episode,
consider going back to an earlier episode
to familiarize yourself with the
lore of this podcast. I'm a
by this week. I'm in the middle of my Irish tour. Tomorrow night, well tonight if you're listening
to this podcast on Wednesday morning, I'm in Vickers Street. Sold out gig in Vicar Street. I cannot wait.
As I've mentioned before, gigging and touring is very time consuming. So for this week's podcast,
I'm going to do a phone call episode and a phone call episode is where it's very kind of riff. My riff
off the top of my head and the podcast isn't rigorously researched or written.
Yeah, yeah.
So, and you can hear there too, something we forgot to mention, which is that this is a kind
of ASMR?
It's, yeah, there's that, that clinky music in the background, soft piano or whatever it is,
is going to play throughout.
And the delivery is like that, a guy whispering in your ear and telling you stories.
and that's what it's like.
Right, right.
Some people might love that.
Some people might enjoy it.
I can't say I'm a fan of this kind of delivery.
I think, you know, podcast create in general a kind of audio intimacy, if you like.
And there are ways to ratchet that up and like whispering with soft music playing might be one of those ways.
But yes, so that's the delivery, take it or leave it.
Yeah, yeah. And of course, the framing there is that this is a stream of consciousness riff.
So I guess it's a caveat that you shouldn't take any of this too seriously.
It's not carefully researched or anything. It's just thoughts coming into his mind that he's
sharing with us. Yes, that's the general disclaimer, if you like. And just the highlight, man,
So that's the way that this episode gets introduced, right?
This is the next episode that came out after.
So just to give you a comparison about the introductions.
If this is your first episode, consider going back to an earlier episode
to familiarize yourself with the Lord of this podcast.
But if you're a regular listener, you know the crack.
We're in the gosset, the gosset of February.
Things are getting nice and sweaty out there.
I experienced my first, my first,
blast of decent sunshine the other day. The type of sunshine that hits your back and lets you know
that you have to start changing the clothes that you're wearing, that you have to adjust your
attire because you're moving into a new season. And the birds have started chirping. There's
no more silence in the trees. Now February, it's a greasy month. It's dirty, it's mucky.
It's a very teenage. It's a very teenage month.
Remember when you were like 12 or 13
And you get subtle hormonal changes in your body
You come home from school
And your school jumper is sticky
And so is your shirt
And you're suddenly thrust into this new routine
Of personal hygiene
It's like oh you gotta shower every fucking day now
You have to wear deodorant
And you get spots on your face
And the change comes so quick
That it takes a while to figure it out
And to get comfortable with the new things
That are happening to your body
February as a month is a bit like that.
Visually it still looks like winter.
The trees are bare,
but the ground is warming up
so everything's all muddy when you walk in it.
And you're just waiting for things to settle
so you can finally call it spring.
And I'm not going to say February's my favourite month.
It's not.
But the name, the name February,
by far it's my favourite month.
Because the origin story
where the word February came from.
And he's going to go in there.
to explaining the origins of her.
So I play that just to mention that his non-funkel podcasts,
they don't have a completely different, like,
field to them.
You know,
they're riffing from topic to topic and,
you know,
going into history and myth and legend and linking things together,
which he does in this episode.
But,
yeah,
yeah,
yeah,
doesn't seem to be a big distinction.
And you get a,
it was very familiar there,
kind of the,
I guess,
artistic associational approach he's got there. His main motif there was comparing the month
of February with being an adolescent, like a life stage. And then he, yeah, presumably just moved
on from there. So, yeah, I heard a lot of that coming through in this episode too. It's kind of an
artistic mode, isn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah. It's very based on associations. You know, it actually
isn't a million miles from the way
that the Sandsmakers or Jordan Peterson
work that, you know, they connect
things dramatically and
they go into like extended discussions
of little stories
to illustrate points. So
it's interesting in that respect
because like I think the people
that find Jordan Peterson appealing would not
find Blind Boy appealing
right? Because he's heading on very different
motifs and
political points of view.
But in terms of the
approach to evidence, to reasoning, and so on, it is actually very similar.
It's interesting, isn't it, how things can be immediately recognizable as being right-wing
conservative coded and left-wing coded. But as you say, that doesn't really mean anything.
They can be structurally or formally, like underneath it, very similar, but be appealing
to completely different audiences depending on how the coding is, for one of a better word.
Yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, yeah.
You know, the Epstein files, Matt, and the release have been just a gold mine, a kind of like online gold rush.
Yeah.
Of hot takes and conspiracy takes and so on, as well as legitimate outrage, revelations, all these kind of things.
But whenever you dump a huge amount of content out into the public, you know, it's the same thing that happened with WikiLeaks or anything like that.
the Democrats email, right, the Podesta email hacks or these kind of things like there just is
a rush to kind of connect them to whatever your particular perspective and interpretive
framework is, right? And Blind Boys doing an episode here because people have asked them,
you've got to give your tick on these Epstein stuff, right? So yeah, well, let's say,
where that goes. So here's the beginning of how this episode is streamed.
Hundreds of you have been sending me DMs and asking me to speak about the Jeffrey Epstein
carry on, which is the US Department of Justice. The US Department of Justice is releasing
some of the Epstein files. And it's the US Department of Justice now, you see. So you have to take
that seriously. And a lot of the Epstein files would suggest that a group of very powerful billionaires,
multi-millionaires, people involved in politics, the royal family, a lot of very, very powerful
people are alleged to be involved in sex trafficking, abusing people, abusing children.
Things that to speak about them would get you labelling.
as a conspiracy theorist.
Now you're looking at files being released
by the US Department of Justice,
which align with
Illuminati conspiracy theories,
and it would also appear.
Nothing's being done about it.
The current president of the United States,
Donald Trump, is implicated heavily.
Yeah, yeah.
So you hear their blind boy emphasises a couple of times.
that this material was released by the US Department of Justice.
And I think he goes on to repeat that theme a bit.
The implication being that this sort of institutional authority of the DOJ,
I guess, elevates the credibility or epistemic status of whatever is in those files.
You have to take it seriously.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And there's a reference to, you know, the like conspiracies by the
Illuminati have been vindicated. And this echoes what other commentators have said about, you know,
Pizza Gay is not so much of a conspiracy. Actually, also highlighting mentions of pizza in the emails.
And I'll just say, Matt, that's like, no, that's not actually true. Like the lurid claims of
Pizza Gay, Q&ONM.AI people have not been vindicated by this. This is like a popular narrative that you see
online. It's been echoed on the right by a whole bunch of people as well.
people like Bill Maher also saying, you know, now we know it's true. And that's not what the emails show.
What the emails show is elite networks, people being sycophantic to Jeffrey Epstein, not caring about his crimes.
People like Elon Musk asking the party with him, all this kind of thing, right, Lawrence Krauss being a creepy dude, all these kind of things.
What they don't reveal is that there's a network of secret pedophile trafficking,
going on that is out in the open, disgusted in emails.
No, actually the emails don't support that claim.
They support what we already knew,
which is like Jeffrey Epstein,
abusing underage girls and people not caring about that, right?
And of course, there's a massive corpus of material release.
Like it's a real bulk release, including not only emails,
of which I've read that like only a small percentage of them
are in any way sort of connected.
to the scandal. Like the vast majority of communications there are just basically this mover and shaker
schmoozing with a bunch of other powerful people, right? Now, there's also a bunch of material
like victim statements and things like that, but like a lot of them are anonymous or...
There's FBI tip-ops, for example, from anonymous callers, right? Which are... Some of them,
which Blind Boy will reference up, you know, were later sort of removed whenever they were making
lowered claims about Donald Trump. But like, in this case, you're talking about a call in line
where people are just free to say anything, right? There are also more serious claims and so on,
but it's like there's everything mixed in here. It's fertile ground for, you know, conspiracy
theorists. So with that in mind, let's see where we go here. But one thing that you've noticed is
that Blind Boyd does constantly appeal to the fact that the Department of Justice has released
this or no, you have to take it seriously.
And I'm kind of like, you know, an anonymous tip-off to the FBI isn't suddenly valid because
the FBI released it or an investigative reporter.
Talk about it, right?
Like, it doesn't make it valid because it comes from the government.
No, that's right.
It's conflating random and sometimes totally unsubstantial.
allegations as revelations and sort of leveraging the fact that this came through the
USDAJ as implying something it doesn't. Yeah. And oh, just the, I'll clip from later, Matt,
to make the point that he actually is talking about, you know, conspiracy theorists being vindicated.
So look, loads of you were asking me to talk about Jeffrey Epstein. The thing is, right, so
fair play to the conspiracy theorists. All right, you were right about a lot of stuff. Unfortunately,
you were right.
What a lot of the conspiracy theorists were not right about
was who was doing it.
You've elected into power, Donald Trump, right?
So the people who are funding right-wing groups around the world,
the people who want you to turn against immigrants,
the people who want you to turn against feminists,
trans people, women,
the people who want you to hate walkness.
The people who tell you everyone is a Marxist, communist
and they want to destroy the world,
the people have told you to turn against a walk.
They're funding all of that.
Okay, so those people are actually the ones
who they really want you to be against immigrants and feminists and trans people.
They really want this so that we have the type of division
that distracts us from what they're doing.
I think they funded things like Q&N, the alt-right,
they also funded conspiracy theories about a shadowy global pedophile elite
to make it look ridiculous
so that some people would never touch it
because it is so ridiculous.
Like adrenachrome.
I think it's ridiculous.
It only just occurred to me now, but that theory has got there.
It's actually incredibly similar to one of Brett Weinstein's theories, or he could have been Eric's.
Do you remember, Chris?
Which one?
Well, he had a theory that the powers that be, Goliath, was actually putting all of this, releasing all these clues about this crazy conspiracy.
So it would attract conspiracy theorists and then would delegitimize them by the living here.
Do you remember that?
Yes, yes, he did.
That was Brett.
Yes, Brett was saying people are, they're trying to make this conspiracy appealing
so that we can delegitimize conspiracy theorists.
Yeah, there is like a similar DNA there in that claim.
And the thing that is presented there is the conspiracies are right,
but it's just your targets are wrong.
Like the shadowy elite are the right wing people.
And they've created all of this.
Like they funded TUNON in order to throw you off the scent of the real conspiracies.
And yeah.
Yeah, that's quite a meta conspiracy theory that is up there.
I've got to say with Brett.
Okay, but you can also hear he's obviously linking this to like kind of all of the left wing badges, I suppose.
Yes, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And this is, of course, the commitments of the audience.
So I think that's quite a.
Well, I can see that such a move would be effective, I think.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And actually, Matt, there's a, I know a parallel.
I was going to point this out later, but I think it fits in with these clips that we're playing.
So there's one where he's talking about the global elites plans, right, and what they're up to.
And he's going to connect it to Gaza, which is something that dramatically comes up quite a lot.
And again, as you say, this is something that is more appealing to the kind of, like,
left-wing audience. But when you listen to this, I just want you to try and see how does this
differ from the Great Reset conspiracies that were popular on the right. Let's see if there's
a difference. In the face of climate collapse, I think they're trying to replace a huge amount
of the population with artificial intelligence robots. I know this sounds fucking nuts, but you can see it
unfolding. They're putting a lot of money into artificial intelligence robots that can perform the
work of the working class. They want to move to a type of technological feudalism where, and you can
see this now with how huge giant investment funds invest in property. So they don't want a future
where people own their own property. They want a future where we perpetually rent. So,
Everything is perpetually rented, not just your home, but access to resources like food, water, the technology that you use.
Everything will be shifted towards a subscription model where you're not really even a consumer anymore.
Everything is you're subscribing or renting and you're tied to that.
And then likely, because of what Palantir is doing, which is Peter Thiel's company, they're going to use AI to try and
and have some type of social credit system
where your access to the things that you can rent
is denied if you don't behave properly.
If you look at Trump and his Freedom Council
and some of the proposals
that what they want to do to Gaza,
the city that they will rebuild in Gaza,
like if you look at the plans that they have explicitly laid out,
the people in Gaza won't have cash
they'll have like
digital credits like Disney dollars
so there's full control over
how they spend
the land is treated as a
redevelopment asset
not as a homeland
Gaza would be a humanitarian zone
rather than an autonomous political entity
the population
would be viewed as
like aid recipients rather than
citizens just this weird
AI
controlled technocracy, ruled by Trump's Board of Peace, as he calls it, right?
Well, Chris, on the surface, that does have a lot in common with the Q&O-N-level conspiracies.
Different branding, of course, different vibes.
So, you know, yes, they're replacing all the people, but it's not the white people they're
replacing, it's the working class and so on.
So the details change, but the structure is very similar.
Yeah, I just heard a lot of echoes of James Lindsay type stuff, right?
You'll own nothing and be happy.
They want to take everything and make it subscription services.
And I looked into some of this stuff around like cashless Disney box in Gaza.
And this relates to like kind of proposals that have been made about the fact that because
there's going to be these rebuilding efforts in Gaza, you know, this is part of the idea
Because of how much resources have been degraded there, like with money production facilities and so on, that cryptocurrencies or whatnot might play a part in it.
But it's all, you know, it's just very much in the thing of Trump saying, we'll rebuild and it'll be an incredible utopia and all that kind of stuff.
Like it's not that they're now setting up that there's going to be like a techno utopia in Gaza where people won't own anything.
And this is a trial for the rest of the world.
then yeah.
Yeah, I think there's a theme.
I mean, similar to James Lindsay or, frankly, any of them,
there'll always be grains of truth in the things.
Yeah, there is a great reset.
There was a great reset document.
That's right.
Like the World Economic Forum did mention eating bugs or something, you know.
So there is, there's always raw material to build off,
but you have to look at that narrative and ask yourself,
is it reasonable?
I'm still a little bit stuck too about what's the great distinction
between renting food and consuming food?
I mean, like, what is this?
Like, is it the same thing?
Like, you buy the food, you eat the food.
Then a few days later, you buy some more food.
Like, what's the big distinction between?
I think the claim would be linked to, you know, the kind of Monsanto renting the Terminator seeds and this kind of thing.
Like, I think if you got into it, you would drink it into that.
So once again, literal seeds of truth there.
Seeds are crazy.
That's what I would take it to be.
But, you know, the general thing is like they want to, you know, extract more money from you, in shittification.
Yeah, insulators.
Yeah.
The elite 20 enslaved us.
So, yeah, okay.
But, you know, even if you agree with that general overall statement, I think you have to realize there are parallels with what Alex Jones says.
Now, he's talking about the fact that Thiel and Curtis Orvin have these anti-democratic, wet dreams about the techno feudalist states.
that they're going to set up. And those are true. Again, we've listened to Teal talk about that.
But the fact that people say that does not mean that it is actually a fact that Thiel is
controlling all of the government policies. Yeah. And likewise, I think you have to take Trump's
statements about turning Palestine into the Riviera of the Middle East, filled with gold-plated
hotels. I think you have to take that stuff with a great assault.
Yeah, I mean, he might want to do that, but, you know, that's the thing.
Trump wants to do a lot of things and claims a lot of things, right?
So you can't just take it as because he posted that video on Twitter or whatever,
that that's what's going to happen, right?
Like, no, you've got to be more skeptical.
But like, it doesn't mean Trump wouldn't want that or Peter Thiel doesn't want that kind of future
where there's the tech feudal overlords, right?
it's not like that. But even in that case, Matt, like Palantir, for example, he talks about
a social credit system, but the CEO of Palantir and the various other people in that, they
also are talking about, you know, that because they are anti-communist, right? They're always
presenting it that China has social credit systems and we're, we want to destroy that. But here,
Blind Boy says, oh, no, Palantir is the one that's going to bring that in, but they position
themselves as the anti-communists. So everybody's
choosing everyone that they're all going to bring in social credit systems. And techno,
techno slavery. Yeah, I mean, it is interesting how the same, the same sort of conspiracy narratives
actually conserve politically diametric purposes so, so easily. Like, it doesn't take much
modification to do so. Yes. Well, let's return down to Earth, because it was about Epstein,
right? Those clips that I'm playing come later. But let's build up to those conspiracies. It goes
further, I should say as well.
But here's the beginning.
Millions of files were released this week by the US Department.
Here's the thing.
Some of the things in these files
allege
cannibalism
of infants.
It's, I believe, the testimony of a person who said
they witnessed it may not
be true. But the point is
it's been released by the US Department of
justice, you see. So now, see, things have moved from tinfoil hat online Reddit thread to
released by the US Department of Justice. And you see, that massively changes things. And some
information is being interrogated by media. Some information isn't being interrogated by the media.
and from what I can tell so far
like I said police are assessing
something to do with Andrew
and
police are assessing
over in England
police are assessing something to do with
Peter Mandelson
and whether or not he disclosed
Manderson was
he was business secretary to
the Gordon Brown when he was
Prime Minister of the UK in 2009
and the police are investigating
whether he disclosed
closed sensitive government information to Jeffrey Epstein, which is white collar.
We call that white collar.
And that it's more serious than white collar crime because you're talking about someone in a position of political power and they're going against their country and they might bring a bit of sedition into it.
But it's in that white collar territory.
Okay.
So you heard there.
know, there's reports of cannibalism and, like, you know, they're not verified, Matt,
but the fact they come from the Department of Justice, that changes everything, doesn't it?
And like, I mean, just to point out, no, it doesn't, right? It doesn't. You can get anonymous
tips that are reported on Reddit or that are reported to the FBI. It doesn't mean that you have
to take it, especially, I mean, people should be skeptical in general of, you know, or
authorities and so on. But in this case, the fact that the Trump, Department of Justice,
releases something, no, it doesn't mean that it's definitely now much more serious or that
kind of thing. Like the Trump administration put out of things saying the lab leak was proven
on the official government sites. That doesn't mean now you have to take that seriously.
Yeah. And one of the epistemic problems I had with this episode was that he made those caveats.
just a couple around.
Now, you know, the cannibalism, those reports may not be true.
But then he goes on to treat a bunch of other equally unsubstantiated reports around, you know,
ritualistic murder and bodies being buried all over the place in golf courses as being,
you know, very substantiated that they have to be taken extraordinarily seriously.
So, yes, overall the framing is we need to take every.
we think in these files as kind of verified to some degree.
Yeah, yeah.
So you brought up that there's going to be references made to secret buried bodies on golf
courses and that kind of thing, right?
And what that is in relation to is some accusations, right, which are reported in the file.
So here's details about them.
So the Department of Justice released this one and then deleted it after an hour,
which means this wasn't supposed to get released.
So this is, it's a victim statement, I believe, and it says,
an unidentified female friend who was forced to perform oral sex on President Trump
approximately 35 years ago in New Jersey.
The friend told Alexis that she was approximately 13 to 14 years of age when this occurred.
She allegedly bit President Trump while performing oral sex
and was allegedly hit in the face after she laughed about biting President Trump.
The friend said she was also abused by Epstein.
There's another mention of a 14-year-old girl,
a big RG party with Bill Clinton present Victoria's secret models, Donald Trump.
Another part online complainant reported she was a victim
and a witness to a sex trafficking ring at the Trump golf course
in Palo Verde between 1995 and 1996.
She reported Gilane Maxwell as the madame,
a broker for the sex parties,
with Epstein,
Robin Leach, Donald Trump, complainant reported participating in orgies and that some girls went missing, rumoured to have been murdered and buried at the facility.
Complainant reported being threatened by Trump's then head of security that if she ever talked of what went on there and who she saw, she would end up as fertiliser for the back nine holes like the other cunts.
That's a quote there.
that was released by the US Department of Justice
that was taken down very quickly
but it was released. It stayed up about two hours.
It's well documented.
The only response from the White House
and the Justice Department
regarding that is that there was
a release and news release
with the new batch of files
and the Department of Justice in the White House
said some of the documents contain untrue
and sensationalist claims
against President Trump
that were submitted to the FBI
right before the 2020
election.
If you've been looking at
like corporate media,
they're focusing on
Peter Mandelson
fucking Prince Andrew.
Oh, so this is true, by the way, Matt.
There was a bunch of material
released, right, which included
those accusations and they were
removed after a couple of hours.
or whatever, right, with this presenter.
But can I just mention here that Blind Voice says, you know,
the media is not covering this, blah, blah, blah.
When I looked this up, the person who'd reposted it
with the documents, right, with the claims in it,
was Jake Tapper, the CNN anchor on Twitter,
viewed 17 million times.
Right? So, like, if the CNN anchor
is not mainstream media reporting on it,
Like, you know, it's not a claim that they're not interested in connections to Trump or whatever.
And you're like, what are you talking about?
They are.
Like, the right wing media is constantly trying to downplay it.
Yeah.
But the general media is very clearly interested in connections with Trump.
Yeah.
Yeah, the right wing media is very interested in connections to Bill Clinton or to Bill Gates.
Bill Gates, naturally.
Left wing media are very interested in these connections to Donald Trump.
And, you know, they're obviously incredible.
incredibly lurid and disturbing allegations, but they are treated as revelations rather than unsubstantiated
reports without a source from a data dump. Now, yeah, I think he is guilty of just laying
that stuff out there without any kind of, what's the word? You know, there should be some kind
of caveat there, I think, rather than taking it or rather letting the emotive work.
of those statements just substitute for critical analysis.
Yes, and what he wants to see, Matt,
what he suggests, like, what should happen in this case, right, is this.
Now we can't remember it because we're wondering whether or not Trump has been burying women
on golf courses.
And like I said, with that allegation, it's a victim statement in the files.
I mean here's the thing
If anyone ever says that
You then immediately expect that the golf course gets dug up
Don't you
Someone has just mentioned a murder
And a specific place where bodies are buried
Would you not just dig up the golf course then
And find out?
I haven't heard anything about that
The reason the golf course thing is sticking out for me
Is
I'm not going to repeat the specific threat
That was quoted in the files
I said it a couple of minutes ago
I'm not going to repeat it again
because it's so violent and misogynistic.
But it's alleged that Trump's then head of security,
that his threat to girls who had participated in orgies was,
you're going to end up as fertilizer in that golf course.
And I can't stop thinking about Ivana Trump.
Ivana Trump was Trump's first wife,
the mother of Ivanka and Donald Jr.
and Eric.
When Ivana divorced Trump in 1990,
she accused him of rape.
She accused him of cruelty and abuse.
She wrote a tell-all book about it.
She got a divorce settlement of 14 million in 91,
which in these days of billionaires,
14 million doesn't sound like a lot.
That was a lot back then.
knowing Trump's personality,
he holds grudges.
Anyone who's close to him says that he holds grudges,
he doesn't let go.
He's not a person who forgives people.
Okay.
So there, Matt, Blind Boy is like,
isn't it suspicious that they haven't gone
and dug up the golf course, right,
to check if there's any bodies there?
But one, no, that's not suspicious.
Like, you don't,
off an anonymous tip.
If you did that, you'd be digging up,
things all over the place.
And in this case, I went and did a whole bunch of research
for various claims of blind boy mates here, right?
And he's pointing out that Donald Trump buried his ex-wife,
Ivana, on the golf course.
This is true.
Now, some things to note here,
some people have pointed out, well, isn't that a fucking weird thing to do?
Like, why would you want to be buried on a golf course?
And it is, right?
Like, as a normal person, it is weird.
but some counterpoints to that view that it was like intended to discer.
Is that first, when Trump was requesting permission to create a cemetery on his golf course,
the planning thing, he asked for a 10-plot course,
and the justification, this was before anybody died,
was that he wants to be buried there because this is his like fever.
but this is one where he's going to bury his family, including himself, right, overlooking his golf course.
So the initial thing should be, okay, and this was done before his wife died, right?
You can go and see the reports around him claiming this.
All the people have claimed that's because he wanted to try and get like a tax loophole where
he wouldn't have to pay tax on some land if it would classify as a cemetery, right?
Could be as well, I wouldn't put that past him.
But the other thing, Ma, is that this funeral for his ex-wife,
was very public. It was in 2022. It was attended by, you know, all her children. So if this was
intended as a huge insult to her, doesn't it strike as odd that it was all, you know, done in
public with Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. and stuff, they were all there. And it was intended
as an insult. But like an insult where he justified it in advance by presenting it, that that's
where he wants to get buried too. Yeah. But, but, but also.
So that the argument or innuendo there is that this is some kind of proof that a bunch of murdered people are in that golf course.
And so the reasoning is essentially the files contain an allegation that women were threatened with being buried on the golf course.
Ivana Trump was buried on a golf course.
And then the sort of, you know, the pit of his stomach kind of stuff comes out.
he can't separate these two things.
They're just there in his head.
And he builds this sort of emotional case connecting them as if Trump has followed through on this purported threat.
And he disclaims that he doesn't have proof of any of this.
But he spends quite a lot of time working on that framing, planting the inference firmly in the listener's mind.
So this seems like a textbook example of just asking questions.
You know,
conspiracy,
hypothesizing.
It might not be true,
Matt,
but what if it was true,
right?
And yeah,
like the,
the other notion is like,
isn't it suspicious
that they haven't dug up
the golf course?
And you're like,
no,
that's not how that works,
right?
You know,
if I rang up the police
and said,
there's a dead body
buried in the cemetery,
they wouldn't be like,
oh shit,
we better go.
Well, Chris,
that wouldn't be.
Let me restate that.
Let me restit it.
He said, leave it in it. It's funny.
If I rang up the police and said there's a murdered person and they've been buried in the cemetery in an unmarked grave,
you better get down there, too sweet and start digging up. Like, what does blind boy think's going to happen?
They're going to drive down and start excavating this of the cemetery? No, it doesn't work like that.
So there's that implication that it's suspicious that they haven't done that. And it's like, no, that's not suspicious.
And then, as you said, Matt, the inference that he wants to plant into the audience is, well, come on.
Oh, and a small point, Matt.
But in that clip, you heard him say that, you know, Donald Trump never forgives a grudge, right?
Like, he's a person that never forgets his grudges.
But, like, how does that claim hold up with J.D. Vance being his vice president?
Didn't J.D. Vance call him, like, the next American him?
Hitler or something like this or, you know, present that he was a terrible person.
And in fact, a lot of Trump's cabinet seemed to have previously, you know, disparaged him or claimed
that he was a terrible person.
And he counted to what Blind Boy says, which is kind of like he never forgives.
It seems more like Donald Trump is extremely transactional.
If you're praising him unreservedly now, he doesn't really seem to care that much.
if you were, you know, strongly opposed them before.
The main thing is, do you abandon the knee now?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think that that is his character.
Yeah, and he has interesting friends, like Mamdani
and from New York City, for instance.
They've got a bit of a bromance going.
So Trump will typically, you know, say a bunch of horrible things,
but so on, but if that person is nice to them, nice to him,
and you know there's no barrier in Trump's brain to just doing a full 360 and either
either hating someone who was previously loyal or loving someone who was a previous enemy.
Yeah, it's not a, you know, it's not a huge point.
I was just like that characterization seems like slightly off.
Yes, he's someone that holds scrudges, but he also, it does seem like you can get him
to forgive your judges or you can get him to forgive his crudges.
Just flatter him.
Just flatter him a few times.
Yeah, and his ex-wife, Ivana, seemed to go down that route, you know,
initially, like, strongly criticizing him and but choosing him of rip and all that.
But in the end, like, you know, getting on as well as you can't, right,
when you're Trump's ex-wife.
Yeah, I think because Trump himself is such a bullshit artist and has absolutely,
is, like he said, totally transactional and just says things.
he expects everyone else to be the same.
So it's all part of the game.
I don't know.
Let's not psychoanalyzed Trump.
But whatever.
Okay.
Yeah, I'm just saying.
I'm just saying.
You're just saying.
Yvanna died in 2022.
She fell down a stairs.
And I don't know if you remember this, but it was very strange.
He buried her on a golf course.
Do you remember that, 2022?
And it being in the media and everyone going,
that's so fucking strange.
why would you bury your ex-wife on a golf course?
What the fuck is that about?
That's so strange to have a plot in a golf course.
That's really weird.
And everyone noticed how weird it was.
And there's just something in the pit of my belly.
That when I read that thing in the files where
allegedly women were threatened with,
you'll end up as fertilizer in the golf course,
that this was the threat.
This was the violent, misogynistic threat to women.
I can't separate those two things.
Ivana Trump was buried on a golf course.
I can't separate those two things.
It feels like he's getting his revenge on her in death.
It feels like he threatened her with that at one point and then followed through.
I don't have proof for that.
But I'm just saying she's buried on a golf course.
and then you have this thing in the fires, threatening women to be buried on golf courses.
Yeah, so this is what I was saying.
These sort of emotional gut feelings are elevated to paper over the very large cracks in the analysis.
These, like talking about my gut feeling and there's something in the pit of my belly,
and I just can't stop thinking about it.
I can't separate these things.
He just keeps repeating this.
And of course, the allegations are awful, right?
They're very emotive.
So it's an effective rhetorical approach, especially when you're dealing with stuff that
naturally sparks and, you know, a strong emotional reaction.
Right.
Yeah.
Violent, misogynistic, like, language, right?
He hammers that point.
And, you know, if we're, if you think we're being at a little bit fair,
the blind boy in that, you know,
he's just riffing and
like he's not connecting
dots that are too far apart.
So this is the next part
of where this goes. The other huge
thing that's standing out for me from the
recent release, the Epstein
files release, is
since the mid-2010s
we saw emerging
online, the culture
wars, the
emergence of the odd right.
Like I've,
I've been using the internet a long time.
And I remember, like, coming across neo-Nazi message boards,
like fucking hardcore racists,
and coming across these message boards in, like, 2009.
And it was not mainstream.
They were weird racists on these tiny little message boards.
It rarely spilled outside of that.
It didn't become popular.
didn't gain traction.
And then, in the mid-2010s, you start to see the emergence of the old right, neo-Nazis,
the manisphere, real toxic bad shit starts to emerge in the 2010s from, starts on the likes
of 4chan, an incredibly toxic place.
Ground Zero for this was a message board on 4chan called forward slash politics.
And that the art right emerged from that message board, okay?
And in the fucking Epstein files,
Jeffrey Epstein met with the founder of that board in October 2011.
And within 24 hours of their meeting,
that message board is formed,
which would, it would suggest that
the culture wars themselves of the 2010,
might have been a psychological operation.
The goal being chaos, division.
The chaos and division that we're living with right now.
You see, from that 2011 message board,
you follow all of that up until Gamergate 2016.
That's what got Trump into power.
Brexit came from that.
Online radicalisation.
The polarisation.
So what we have here is
is a hypothesis, that the culture wars...
A conspiracy hypothesis, if you like.
Yeah.
The idea that culture wars were engineered to break the Occupy movement.
So this flowering of a unified class consciousness was threatening to the elites.
So they manufactured these identity-based division to break it.
It's an elegant argument.
I don't see any...
What do you think, Chris?
It's based on, so like to lay it out for people, right, there's a thing in the Epstein files that shows that Jeffrey Epstein met with Christopher Poole, the founder of 4chan, right?
And that shortly after that meeting, there was the creation of the R-slash-Paul board, right?
And by the way, Chris, it was, at least from what I saw, it was about four days after the meeting that,
that the
or like it wasn't
like within the next 24 hours was it?
Oh no. Well the guy Poole said that
Epstein had nothing to do
with the reintroduction of a politics board.
There was one previously and he said
it was like
decision to add the board was made
weeks before the meeting.
The board according to him was added
24 hours prior to the first chance
encounter at a social event.
Yeah.
So that's the first problem with it, right?
Which is that the, first of all, the details around this meeting are not quite correct.
That there are other, it can very easily be a coincidental meeting,
especially given how many people, Epstein was always meeting.
And this slash poll discussion board, blind boy claims, is like the key thing that created the entire
outright phenomena.
Yeah. I mean, it was
a forum that
festered that. But like the Reddit
you know, R slash the Donald
also did that. That was like a
cultural movement, right?
At that time. And also
the notion here is that this happened in
2011 and then it
created the grounds for
like Trump to be elected
in 2016. So like
Epstein planned
this out, right? He met Christopher Poole. He made, said, you know, you better put this forum together so that we can gain
control in, in 2016 with, with Trump. And like, the, the evidence for this is the meeting. There's only
two emails to like Chris, that reference, Christopher Poole. And Poole's account is, I met him at a, you know, a
social thing. I went to one lunch. It was uneventful. And, and that's it. Right. Like, there's not actually,
I regret meeting him, blah, blah, blah.
But for Blind Boy, this can't be a coincidence, right?
Like, it's got to be connected.
And it's not thing, Matt, that, like, people once, you know,
it's conspiratorial reasoning where Epstein is now this larger than life figure.
So he has to be a very important node in all these events, right?
Like, it all comes back to whatever the specific person you're focusing on
at that time is and it's a massive
claim that the decline
of the Occupy movement
was engineered
by
by Jeffrey Epstein
like
like we don't need look
we're not going to spend all our time
debunking these things but I think most
listeners can can see
that this is an incredibly
weak conspiracy
it's a massive
reach. It's a conspiracy theory worthy of Brett Weinstein.
Yeah, and this comes after the golf course conspiracies, right? So it's not like this is,
the point is there's lots of this. You've got to hear a lot more of it, right? And there's also
a predictable villain that raises its head here. This is the connection of where this conspiracy
eventually ends up, Matt. See, before that you had the Occupy Movement, the Occupy Movement of
2010, 2011, after the Great Recession, you had a lot of young millennials.
Gathering online and in public space is saying, we want to take down the bankers.
Something is wrong.
We want to get at systems of power here.
And then all of a sudden, just when Occupy looked as if people were unified against neoliberalism,
then this division emerges where these people are racists.
then these other people are mad woke
and now nothing
there's no unification because everyone is fighting
about identity politics
so you get tribalism and polarization
and division
there was always a part of me that felt that
well I don't know if that shit was a conspiracy or not
but it's doing the job of what a good conspiracy would do
I'm not saying it's true.
I'm just saying it could be.
It could be true.
Can I point it?
I'm sorry, I just got to point out the structural similarity too.
Oh, yeah, go ahead.
Do you remember Brett Weinstein's theory about the Israel-Palestine conflict?
It was engineered to foster...
So division amongst him a COVID dissidents.
Yes.
Just saying.
Just saying.
Yeah, that's the same.
It's just a different target group, right?
Brett's is very much focused on him and his friends.
Blind boys is more like a traditional Marxist interpretation, right?
But the thing here, Matt, which I want to point out to people, is that according to
Brian Boy, right, according to what he says, this was all about protecting the neoliberal
world order.
So electing Trump was about, you know, protecting the.
neoliberal world order. Has that worked out for neoliberal globalized? Because what I see is
protectionist tariffs, like attacks on the UN, cozying up to totalitarian regimes. The greatest
attack on the neoliberal global order is Trump and his cronies, right? So the neoliberal's
globalist really miscalculated in this. Like, yeah. This is a common feature,
conspiracy theories. Like the moment you stop and think about them, they, you know, they just fall apart.
It doesn't make sense. But I do have to hand it to Blanboy because I think, like, his narrative is
compelling and he tells it well. Like it's a, like if you, if you don't do the annoying stuff that
we've been doing and you just listen to it, it's, you know, it's a, it's a nice sounding
narrative. The, the way he tells it. All of the pieces are kind of aligning and falling into
plays. Yeah. Yeah. Now, Matt, one thing is that, you know, people I suspect will say, right, but this is,
you're picking a very conspiratorial episode, right? This is, he's, he's saying that he's just riffing and he's,
you know, going to float ideas out there and whatnot. I just want to play two clips from the following
episode, right, which didn't have the same disclaimers. I mean, it had the steamers, but it was about
various things, but one of the things was about was the controversy over the half-time.
time show, right? You know in America,
bad money
performance and
the outrage because it was in
Spanish, right?
So,
this is from a separate episode, but
listen to this.
And we can stop after
we go for these two clips on them.
It's like there's the cave
over there where Romulus and Ramos
and Ramos were born. And now you
celebrate this festival. So now this pagan thing
gets folded into an
nationalism and the MAGA equivalent is like the Super Bowl there was at the weekend and
the Puerto Rican performer Bad Bunny was the main event during the fucking Super Bowl I don't
fully understand the Super Bowl right but it was all Spanish language now first off the
Super Bowl was also propaganda no disrespect to Bad Bunny no disrespect to people in
America who speak Spanish it was controlled
theater. It was the appearance of being subversive.
The NFL, the National Football League in America, is not fucking subversive.
It's billionaire dominated. It's a cartel of franchises. It's the machine of American capitalism.
And it's broadcast on the networks, which are also funded by billionaires.
So I would call the Super Bowl halftime show that everyone saw clips of on the internet.
That's controlled opposition. The halftime show at the Super Bowl.
Super Bowl is one of the biggest events in America.
The advertisement slots that are purchased are the most expensive advertisement slots.
This is big money.
This year, the main performance, the main musical and dance performance was by the Puerto
Rican singer Bad Bunny.
It was all in Spanish.
Why do I consider that to be propaganda?
I think it was deliberately so that white American people would feel overwhelmed.
and it justifies the actions of ice.
How about that?
So it was, what do you call that?
Yeah, controlled opposition or whatever,
but it was basically, it was all the plot.
They deliberately platformed a Hispanic singer to do something in Spanish,
knowing that it would be like a red rag to the bull of the American right,
and therefore spur them to greater heights of xenophobia.
Well, it goes a little bit deeper than that, Matt.
It's not just that.
So yes, it'll cause a counterreaction amongst the right,
but also the American people in general, Matt.
I mean, listen to this.
Ice are operating as a Gestapo.
They're illegally detaining people,
people who speak Spanish,
people from Central and South America.
They're doing this.
They're killing people.
They're imprisoning, detaining people without due process.
You're seeing the collapse of civil rights of law and order.
If you're a white person sitting at home trying to enjoy the Super Bowl
in your small little white American town,
and if for one second you're starting to think,
Jesus, maybe this ice thing is a bit heavy-handed,
maybe I don't like this.
Two people were murdered in Minnesota,
and you're seeing people who voted MAGA,
now going, I didn't vote for this.
I didn't want this.
Podcasters like Joe Rogan who encouraged people to vote for Trump,
they're now saying that, I didn't want this, I didn't know this was going to happen.
Now all of a sudden you're trying to watch the Super Bowl
and the halftime show is in Spanish language.
It's to make those people feel overwhelmed.
It's to make those people feel,
oh my God, the country is actually being taken over
by people who are not quote-unquote American,
people who speak Spanish.
And maybe I'm being cynical,
I just refuse to believe
that the NFL and the TV networks in America
are going to do something subversive
on behalf of the Spanish-speaking community in America.
I think it was theatre,
controlled opposition theatre,
to make a white American audience feel
as if they're being replaced,
they're being overwhelmed.
And then Fox News,
theatrically, were saying,
this is wrong, this is wrong, we need something American.
So they did the alternative, the Turning Point USA had an alternative Super Bowl show with
Kid Rock, white people stuff, all white people stuff on the Turning Point USA alternative
Super Bowl show, right?
There you go, Matt.
It goes deeper than you fought.
Yeah, how about that?
Well, yeah, that's kind of a wild theory, isn't it?
I mean, I haven't.
I didn't expect that.
Look, I mean, the thing is, Matt, right?
He says there, you know, I don't think the NFL were intended to be subversive like that.
No, they weren't.
They hired a very, like the world's most popular musical artist who performs in Spanish.
Like, it's not a subversive thing.
He's a very popular artist.
So, my boy, it's like, there's no other explanation.
Why would anybody want to have a Spanish singer on the, you're like, what are you talking about?
You remember the Korean guy that went popular with Wopham Gangnam style?
Yeah, Gengenem style.
I'd love to listen to, yeah, Bossa Nova, whatever.
Like, people always often, like whatever your political persuasion, often listen to music.
Yeah, the lyrics will often be in another language.
It's not the subversive thing that he thinks it is.
Yeah, it's a, look, let's just be, let's just be frank.
It's an absolutely stupid conspiracy theory that he's proposing there.
Yeah, and it's Brett Weinsteinian level, right?
Like, it's a gay and this notion that it's all, it's all K-Fabe.
It's all controlled opposition and secret things.
And it's like the millionaires and the billionaires and the capitalists,
they're all creating this play of conflict.
And, you know, this is a separate episode, right?
So I'm just highlighting that this is his narrative across episodes,
which is like the culture wars and all that stuff,
but it's not really what it's about.
And yes, there are, you know, cynical interests, Matt, right?
There are people that are interested in whipping up anti-immigrant.
There are people that benefit from culture war channels.
I complain about them every week on here and on Twitter, right?
Like, that does exist.
And yes, capitalists are interested in, you know, selling products
and increasing the thing.
But this notion that it's,
it's all about dividing the working class
and to like,
so the note,
his conspiracy,
just to recapitulate is that the halftime show
was orchestrated in order to increase support
for ICE by making white people uncomfortable
by seeing a Spanish singer talk, right?
And you,
or sing,
and you're just like,
no.
It's,
at the,
very least, it's again like a hell of a reach from the existing evidence. Yeah, it certainly is.
It certainly is. And I think, Matt, you know, even if people realize that that is like,
that is paradigmatic conspiracy hypothesizing, Alab Brett Weinstein, the fact that he invokes
ICE and, you know, ICE, they're acting as a Gestapo, they're imprisoning people, they're killing
Americans in the street. That's all, you know, this is all well documented.
and true. And so the feeling is like, well, that's why I agree with that, right? Like I think that
what's going on in America and the way that Trump is using ICE as a private army to terrorize
like immigrants is a problem, right? So it's kind of like that is big into the foundation. And if
you are being critical of the conspiracy theorizing, aren't you then like defending ice?
Yeah, yeah, I don't know whether he's doing it consciously or not,
but it's an incredibly effective rhetorical tactic.
I mean, we saw before how, you know, he took care to mention all of the paradigmatic left-wing issues.
You know, people we should be concerned about and supporting, you know, immigrants, trans people,
feminists, et cetera.
And the other kinds of ways in which sort of emotion is laid into it.
So I can imagine, yeah, I mean, if,
if you're a progressive lefty person like I am and you're relaxing at home and you're listening to
that, there might be a couple of warning bells going off and sort of thinking, well, maybe,
but then the sort of emotional gut punch comes in and you totally don't like those things.
So you, you not along and accept it. I think, I think it's effective whether he's doing it on purpose
or not. Yeah, and when you add into this game or like, I'm not saying, no, I don't know,
you know, this is just speculation, but it just feels right to me or whatever.
And then when people respond, they can say, well, he, you know, he said, right, that it's,
he doesn't know definitely that it's like that.
And it's just like people pick up on this with Jordan Peterson and Brett Weinstein and, you know,
Dave Rubin or whoever, whenever they add in strategic disclaimer that they don't really mean it.
They, because they're going on to outline, you know, the conspiracy is in great depth and very
strongly. And it's, I just want to say it's the same here, right? That's the same feeling I get here.
Same picture. Yeah. Well, anyway, back to the Epstein stuff. Oh, well, anyway, let's get back to the
Epstein business. Okay, so that's where we were. And I have the clip ready. So there you go.
Okay. So here it is. I always had a feeling in my gut.
that we would one day find out
that the culture wars of the 2010s
both left and right
were being stoked
by an intelligence agency of some description
and the reason I thought this was because
sometimes I would look at how
people become so divided online
and I just say to myself
well if this isn't an intelligence operation
or stoked by some type of military intelligence
it's certainly doing the job of it
because what I see is chaos.
And one thing I always said too,
whether it be Facebook, Reddit,
4chan, fucking Twitter,
you're trying to have political arguments
on a platform that's owned by billionaires
or the billionaires have decided
that all discussion must take place
in the form of turn and response combat
with algorithms that reward,
hate, fear and anger.
So you can't fucking solve anything.
thing on those platforms anyway because they're designed for conflict.
But you have it there in the Epstein files released this week.
Ground Zero.
Ground Zero for the fucking Culture Wars 2011.
That message board on 4chan forward slash Paul.
That opens 24 hours after the moderator meets Jeffrey Epstein and there it is in the emails from 2011.
And then there's another claim but this one isn't as verified.
You can't see an email about it.
but a lot of people reckon,
and this is hearsay,
that Gielane Maxwell
was doing the same shit on Reddit,
except for the left.
That one has less proof.
That's not in the files.
No,
it's got less proof than the other one,
and the other one had very little proof.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean,
it's tempting to fact-check this,
because there's a lot of...
I did fact-check this.
Yeah, I know you did.
It's kind of,
boring doing fact-checking.
No, I disagree.
I think it's necessary at times because I
heard this same thing crop up
two or three times in different contexts
about Gillian Maxwell, you know,
Stoking the Culture War on the left
and Epstein created, involved in,
at the very least involved in the creation of our,
sorry, slash Paul on 4chan.
So that's them, you know,
taking the right and the left and pitting them against each other.
And it's like a kind of appealing narrative, but it's not true.
We've already mentioned the issues around the claims that he created the,
or was instrumental in the formation of 4chan Paul, right,
and how it doesn't really hang together.
But in the case of Galane Maxwell,
this mostly hangs around an account that was identified
that the two key pieces of evidence presented are that it,
it has a name which includes Maxwell in the username and that it supposedly stopped posting
whenever she was arrested or another key event where she was attending something and,
you know, stop posting around that time, right? And that's it. That's literally the only
pieces of evidence. So, you know, people on the internet, Matt, being people on the internet,
I'll put a link to it. Somebody did a very, very detailed.
deep dive into that account and why it isn't Gillian Maxwell.
And like the only evidence presented is, you know, very, very, not just very weak, but
just it's not even convincing in the minimum form because they point out, for example,
that these two specific dates that people point to.
Like we have a whole bunch of records of Gillian Maxwell, you know, official appearances.
And you can go and look at the account's history and what, you know, she was doing.
And there's plenty of events where it's just posting away about, you know, random things at the same time.
And then on top of that, this is a Reddit power user.
It's like one of the people that got to, you know, the million promotions or whatever before anyone else and so on.
So it's like a head moderator on a whole bunch of different channels.
So it's somebody like who was a devotee a huge amount.
of their time to moderating on Reddit.
They took him place on things like talking about themselves
and described themselves as a middle-aged man.
Now you could say, oh, that's all, you know, disinformation
that they're trying to do for that.
But also on top of this, the account was posting after the,
like the alleged stop time.
It was just posting internally to other mods and stuff.
And those messages have been released.
So like when she was in, you know, going through.
the legal system, it was busy being a Reddit moderator. So yeah, it just, yeah, I know,
it just, but it doesn't work on on any level. Like what the, the Occupy thing happened in about
2011. This, this poll thing, this board was around then, sure, the culture wars emerged much, like,
years later. So as you said, it's, it's just retrofitting.
explanations to things that don't need a conspiratorial explanation.
Well, there were culture wars, though, like before 2015 and 16, but you mean like the alt-right
kind of...
Well, sure there were cultural wars before 2011 as well.
But, you know, like, it's just looking for an explanation for something that doesn't require
a conspiratorial explanation.
Like, oh, gee, people fight a lot and respond to rage bait and post-provocative things on
the internet.
Anyone who was using the very early internet knows what the medium encourages.
And the only version of that, I think that is reasonable, is the version whereby corporations
that are keen to attract users and are keen to promote engagement will obviously design their
algorithms to work.
Prioritize engagement.
Yeah.
Whether it's, you know, cute kitty videos or stuff that, you know,
encouraging some lot of responses.
Yeah, unfortunately, it's just human nature to respond to emotional and negatively reliance content more than serious debate.
Likewise, Occupy fell apart for well-documented, for well-documented mundane reasons.
And also that sort of shift towards identity politics also has.
had mundane explanations.
Well, like you said, you know, tabloid headlines highlight that, you know, people are
susceptible to outrage and demonization of outgroups and so on.
But, you know, what people will be thinking, Matt, raising counter examples, oh, hold on,
are you saying that, you know, various propaganda organizations don't engage in efforts
to stir up like social division?
Didn't we have well-documented cases from the internet research agency, right?
The IRA that René de Resta talked about where Russia was attempting to sow discord prior
to the 2016 election by on Facebook and other social media,
posing as either a progressive or hard-right groups and, like, encouraging division amongst
American society.
So that does occur, doesn't it?
I'm met Professor Brian.
Yes.
Well, that structure of Rejoinder is the one that conspiracy theorists apply to literally every conspiracy.
Oh, you think that the government didn't organize for the Twin Towers to be brought down as a false flag operation?
Don't they do false flag operations?
And don't they do nefarious things like this?
Don't they try to control the operations?
No, haven't they?
I think, like the usual thing is the problem.
point to a specific example, but actually somewhat interestingly in this case, the well-documented
propaganda by like Russia and enemies of America and whatnot tend to not be of much interest
to the kind of like Blind Boy, I don't think spends much time, you know, discussing Russian
disinformation efforts and that kind of thing. I guess the point is, is that when you have a very
clear, mundane, for one of a better word, because often the real causes are not mundane in the
normal sense. For instance, it's not mundane for planes to fly into the Twin Towers. But there is,
but terrorism is in this sense a mundane thing. It exists in the world. It's not a speculative thing.
So you don't need to search for extraordinary answers for events that have pretty clear and well
documented non-conspiratorial reasons for occurring.
You kind of accept the conspiracy interpretation of events if there is good evidence for it.
And as we just discussed, there isn't any for the idea that the culture wars were orchestrated
by a secret group of people involving Jeffrey Epstein and the...
Max Gillian McClough.
Yeah, the person that created the...
the poll message board has this huge long game back in 2011 to suck energy out of the Occupy
movement. It's, you know, it's an extraordinary thesis, which isn't required to explain the,
you know, social events that have happened over the last 20 years. Sure, sure. But Matt,
I put it to you that maybe there's another explanation. I don't want to get into the nitty-gritty
of what's released in the files. Millions of them.
I've only seen some.
What I have seen is shocking,
especially some of the fucking images.
Some of the images are almost child sexual abuse material.
The Department of Justice themselves said they did not release images that depict torture and death.
So that means they exist, but they haven't released them.
What we're seeing is organised crime.
That's what this is.
It's organised crime, perpetrated by,
the most powerful people
and wealthiest people in the world
I don't think there's going to be accountability for it
I think the fact that it's slowly being
dripped out to us
the fact that the
like why aren't they just releasing everything at once
they're not they're drip feeding
and the other thing too is
like they have to release these files
because of the law
US civil procedure
and the transparency laws they required that
the disclosure
of evidence, once secrecy is no longer legally justified.
So they have to, this is evidence and they have to release this legally.
The slow drip feed, that's the bit that's quasi-legal.
And I think it's like what we saw with the genocide in fucking Gaza.
There's a brazenness to it.
It's a flaunting of a lack of accountability to exert control and power.
What about that, Matt?
Did I follow that correctly?
The drip feed release of the data dumps associated with the Epstein files is a way to, what's the word, flaunt their lack of accountability and to sort of send a message in the same way that the Israeli actions in Gaza were?
struggling to see the connection.
Well, I think the claim is that like it's psychological warfare, right?
That like the powers that be, right?
So here he says, you know, they're not releasing it all at once.
And like, why aren't they?
But I mean, one, there's good clear reasons why they're not doing that,
which like on the one hand concern things around like, you know,
privacy of victims and so on, right?
if you take a very charitable thing.
But in a lot of cases,
it's more along the lines of protecting people
that will get mentioned in the files
and which might have connections
to the Trump administration
or other powerful people and so on, right?
But even with that,
they released like three and a half million documents.
So he's like, why didn't they just put it all out there?
And they did, they put out like a whole bunch of it.
They haven't put out a whole bunch of other material.
I think there's six million documents
or something that is supposed to be.
But they have just dropped a huge amount.
Now, he's saying the fact that this keeps happening where they're like shoving out a whole bunch of documents in various releases.
It points to, it's a conscious strategy, right, like by them to do psychological warfare where they're flaunting their ability.
Right.
And in the same way, in Gaza, they're denying what everybody can see is happening on social media, right?
like because the mainstream media is just like going along with the kind of Trump regime
this kind of thing yeah yeah so once again there's an incredibly mundane reason for the
the fact that every single document hasn't been released all at once whether you agree with that
reason or not but i think i assume that when any government department just releases information
under freedom of information, there is some kind of rules there,
and like some human has to kind of cite it and tick it off.
There's some administrative overhead,
and when you're talking about gigabytes and gigabytes of text files,
yeah, there's a very mundane reason why it all hasn't been released in one go.
But I guess it's just a springboard for another bit of speculation.
Yeah.
And so, Matt, one thing I want to make clear,
as well is like the criminal conspiracy stuff that often gets invoked, right, or around these
kind of things. So like, just to be clear, there was a primary criminal conspiracy that is very
well documented. You can find it in the emails and it was litigated in court cases as well, right?
And it concerns Jeffrey Epstein, Gillian Maxwell and other people in Epstein's
and employ that primarily served for him to get access to young women for his sexual pleasure,
right?
This is the primary thing.
Like, he's a super predator in the realms of the guy in the UK, Jimmy Saville, right?
Or the Japanese idol company, Johnny Kitigawa, right?
So a super predator, if you like, right?
That is well documented.
And the way that it operated,
which was detailed by the people doing the investigations,
the women themselves who were, you know, coerced into taking part in it,
was that it was like a pyramid scheme of sorts
where young women, vulnerable women and underage girls,
were coerced into giving massages to this wealthy,
to this wealthy millionaire slash billionaire, right?
And then inevitably, they would go beyond that, right, be forced into sexual encounters.
And then they got out of that role by bringing in new guards, new women, their friends, contacts, right?
And it created this horrific pyramid scheme, which a lot of the women involved have talked about, you know, the kind of shame and stuff that's involved in it because they also hurt other people, right?
And as a result, some of them were potentially going to be prosecuted, right, for their role in it.
Now, there's other people, and there are people mentioned in the files that were considered possibly to be treated as cool conspirators, cool conspirators, right?
But that's a limited amount of people.
I think you're talking like less than 10 people in total, right?
Definitely, you know, under 20 or that kind of thing.
you're not talking about a network of hundreds of thousands of people,
like trafficking women across countries and whatnot,
to all these different men and figures in like different countries
based on like, you know, a client list that Jeffrey Epstein had.
That is what's not documented.
And that's why like the New York Times,
if you read, they have an article which is saying, you know,
how we're digging through it.
And they're asking people.
and they're very clear. There's all these horrific crimes going on. There's abuse of young women and so on. But they're saying, but what we don't have evidence off in this material is a like huge criminal conspiracy, right? The kind of thing, and that's partly why you're not currently seeing prosecutions, right? The prosecutions that have started to emerge are all to do with things like sharing state secrets or what's the other one that the person's getting done.
for. There was
Mandelson is sharing
state secrets and then who's the other
guy? Do you remember Matt? There's another
hyper-profical one. I don't, sorry.
Oh yeah, I'm sorry. I'm Prince Andrew.
Right? And in Prince Andrew
the case that they're going after
is him like improperly
performing his role
as a like you know
some official role in the government
because of what's in the
emails and the
you know the way that he's performed
that kind of thing. So that's what they're going after. Prince Andrew already did go through
a court case because there was, you know, credible evidence for his abuse of some of the girls,
right, associated with Virginia Guffrey and so on. So it's just that like the thing I want to say
is that, you know, more details might emerge, could emerge those wider things. But from what it looks
like, it looks like there's a powerful individual who had a predilection for young women and
underage girls. And many, many powerful people didn't give a shit about that. In some cases,
they were happy, you know, to party with him or, you know, him to bring girls and, and do, you know,
the kind of things that you would imagine that the wealthy men want to do with young,
women, right? But
the way that
it's treated is like,
that's not interesting enough
as a story, right? Like,
that there was this highly
like connected,
this highly
highly connected
and very wealthy predator
that was indulged by the people in this
orbit and by many powerful
and well-connected people, right?
They didn't care
that he was doing what he was doing
relatively in the open, right?
They joke about it and all that kind of thing.
Like, that's not enough.
What it has to be is that that was a front for intelligence agencies
in order to gather information, which ties it back to, you know,
the Gaza conflict or the creation of R-slash-Paul to get Donald Trump into power
or, you know, creating the actual culture wars.
And you're like, why is it not, like, there is a conspiracy.
here and there is abuse of people and there are sexual crimes.
But it's just not, you know, that's the bit that seems to be, if you focus on that, you're
missing the forest for the trees.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, and I think Blind Boy is not alone here, right, of course.
This is a massive hullabaloo in the public discourse.
And I think the broader point there is that there's kind of a fuzzy distinction in people's minds
between what is established versus this spectrum of increasingly lurid theories and narratives
ranging from a eyes wide shut type, you know, deviant and immoral network and secret club
of ultra-rich people to the kinds of stuff that Blind Boy is outlining.
And yeah, I mean, what you say is.
that is right. I mean, I think where you and he wouldn't disagree at all is that it all reflects
very badly on the so-called great and the good in modern Western culture. I mean, there's no doubt
about that. And as well, it should. It's just maintaining that distinction between reality or
what we can establish with any kind of confidence and lurid speculation. Yeah, yeah. And, you know,
one point that often strikes me in these conversations is like there's a I think taken for granted
where we're getting these revelations that like the rich elites you know the kind of the people in the
all-end podcast the people in Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein's orbit do you realize that behind
closed doors they're actually like bastards you know they're the kind of people that look down
on others that you know don't seem to show much concern except for like
how they're going to have fun, make more money.
And, you know, the kind of people that make off-color jokes and a puerile.
Yeah, or cheating on their, cheating on their wives, you know, like all these kind of things.
And I'm like, that's, I mean, am I just unusually cynical that my background means that my
general baseline point of view towards like rich millionaires and billionaires is that they're
our souls, right? Like, that's my
baseline. I recognize
it's a bias that some of them
are not going to be, and there's probably
you know, like a spectrum of our soul
ness or like
shower of bastardness. But
the general thing is, I
expected them to be,
you know, when I see David Sachs and
Jason Collickness and whatever, talking
on that show, I'm not like,
oh yeah, they seem really nice guys.
I'm sure their emails are,
you know, very reasonable. And every time
Elon Musk's emails or something gets released.
It's full of sycophantic simpering and like people imagining themselves the master words.
We listen to them talking podcasts constantly like that.
So it's just, I don't know who it is that finds it a revelation that, you know, rich people
are sometimes very terrible people.
Like, I don't know.
It's been, I've just seen it been.
presenter does, well, now we know. And I'm like, didn't we always know that? Like, yeah, yeah. Well,
I don't know. It's a spectrum. I mean, you know, Bill Gates might have been having affairs, but he did
some good in the world as well. So, you know, the people are, people. But you can do both, right?
Like, but that's the thing. There's nothing in my mental apparatus that is like Bill Gates couldn't
be someone that cheats on his wife and were sleeping with, you know, young women or on the age,
women, it's possible. And is somebody that helped to eradicate like polio or, you know,
with the, what is it, measles, right? Whichever ones he's trying to get rid of. Like,
I can imagine both things are entirely possible. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, entirely. There's no
contradictions there at all. No. Okay. Well, anyway, that's. You got that off your chest. You got that
off your chest. Good, good. Oh, no, I'm sure it'll come back by them. Okay. So after that, Matt,
Let me just see.
Where is it here?
I was about to add the next one.
Nothing.
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
Okay.
So, right.
So where that goes from next is here.
And the goal is to exhaust the average person
so that we become conditioned to this being the new reality.
And that's what the Epstein files is doing.
It's conditioning us to go.
Oh, I guess there's a big elite, pedophile ring and sex trafficking ring and nothing's going to be done about it.
And I as an individual can't do fuck all about it.
So better just get on with my life and hope they don't target me.
See if our media isn't aggressively calling out the things that we can see with our own eyes.
And then the justice systems around the world aren't doing it.
Like the Brits are under pressure
So you've got things like
Police are assessing the Andrews situation
You're assessing really, are you?
If that was my neighbour down the road
I'm pretty sure they'd be arrested
Don't think you'd be assessing it
Be arrested
So then we are like
Well you can't rely upon journalism
You can't rely upon the justice system
I guess this is the new reality now
Familiar motifs
Matt
Journalists, oral liars
the justice system and the institutions can't be
corrupted.
Yeah.
And there's a secret elite pedophile ring,
which is being flaunted in public,
and it's not going to be taking care of.
Like it does,
it is very much.
And also like the, you know,
Alex Jones often says that they have to do it in public, right?
They have to leave clues and whatnot because it's,
it's like tended to rub it in your face.
he's saying the same thing, right? They're conditioning you to be like weak-willed and, you know,
what's that word? Where you, like, demure to authority. Yeah.
Subservent, where you become subservient, subservient and card.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, look, I mean, you're right. Just in purely analytic grounds,
you might agree or disagree to some degree with the wide variety of things that Blind Boy says.
but it does fit the structure of conspiracy theories, right?
This is exactly the same format that you will see,
regardless of the political orientation.
And, you know, it's the kind of messaging that is going to be much more appealing to you.
If you are, I guess, more on the populist left kind of side of politics
and you don't like elites and you think that the system is all set up to hold the little guy down,
then this kind of thing will work for you.
But you just have to be aware that those motifs,
like they're doing it in plain sight
just so that they can laugh at us
or make us feel that we're completely impotent,
that they're leaving clues.
You just have to recognize
this is the structure of all conspiracy theories.
So yeah, you know, like again,
the mundane reasons.
Like, it could be.
Like, there's no doubt.
There's a degree of incompetence and corruption in any human institution,
including, I'm sure, the current justice system and police in the UK.
But there is a more mundane view of events,
which is that to the extent that people are not getting rounded up by the police
and getting charged with things,
is that they may not have the evidence yet to clinch a case.
Just like with any criminal investigation.
Yeah, and there is this, there is the fly in the ointment that like Epstein was facing trial.
Gileem Maxwell was convicted, right?
They're, they're supposed to be in this, but if there's so much powerful control over the justice system.
Like, the bit that is true is like, it's well known that if you have money, you can hire better lawyers.
You can have more complex accounting arrangements.
You know, Donald Trump gets treated in court very differently than, you know, some random guy on the New York subway, right?
This is true and is known all across the world.
It's very hard to prosecute leaders in international courts, right?
Like these kind of things are well established.
But it's this, like, kind of claim that once accusations exist,
that that means that, you know,
like Blind Boy wants the graveyard
or wants the cemetery dug up, right?
He, if there aren't people
clapped in chains, every time a release comes out,
and you're like, no, but it wouldn't even work that way.
Like, Jeffrey Epstein still would have had to go through a trial, right?
And he says, like, my neighbor wouldn't get that treatment.
Really, your neighbor wouldn't, like, have to go through a trial
if he was alleged to be a paedophile?
Like, I know people that are, you know, connected to family members, right?
And were accused of child abuse or involved with child abuse or whatever.
They went to trial.
The people presented evidence.
They were sentenced, right?
And it wasn't like, they just said, well, we don't need any evidence because you don't have very much money.
Like, it's not like that.
So justice systems are never perfect.
There's always mistrials of justice.
And you can look at, like, the deal that Epstein got.
in the first case as an example of a miscarriage of justice.
But it's just like that presentation that it's all,
like the whole system is corrupt.
Nothing applies to things.
Like on the right wing,
people talk about two tier,
two tier policing,
two tier judgments, right?
So what's the difference in the rhetoric?
Isn't it just the same thing?
But their target is like saying,
you know,
white people are not treated the CM,
White right ring people are not treated to see them as like the, you know, the liberal progressive
groups that are favored.
And yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, well.
Okay.
Next clip.
Next clip.
Let's move on.
Next clip.
Okay.
So in comparison, Matt, to the non-treatment of the criminal elite class, you have
counter examples where they do for the.
the book of people and these are telling.
I mean, that's why Luigi Mangione
terrifies them.
They came down hard on Luigi Mangione,
very hard on him.
Because Luigi Mangione went,
hold on a second,
the US health insurance system.
So people pay for health insurance,
but health insurance companies make money
not by helping people who need health care,
but by profiting from denying,
it. Ah. So ye make money
when the person dies from cancer. That's how
ye make money, is it? When the little child
whose parents have paid for health insurance, you make money
by denying the health insurance to that child
and figuring out a way to let that child die. That's how you make money, is it?
Why isn't that illegal? It's not illegal? Oh, that's the system. And then
Luigi Mangione went, that seems a good. That seems a good. That's how you make money, is it? Why isn't that illegal? It's not illegal? Oh, I'm not illegal. Oh, that's the system. Oh, and then
Luigi Manjeon went, that seems like a very serious evil crime to me. And the justice system
isn't working for me. And politicians aren't working for me. And the media isn't working.
And what these health care, uh, what these health insurance companies are doing, that appears
quite like an evil crime. So Luigi Manjean went, I think I'm going to have to do justice
myself. And he assassinated the CEO of United Health Care.
and he wrote a little manifesto
and laid out very clearly
now this is what this is and this is why I'm doing it
I'm not crazy
this is what I'm doing
and then the justice system
came down really hard on him
they were pushing for the debt penalties
the media came down harder
and then politicians
the system came down hard
and said that's a criminal
see that guy
Luigi Mangione
that's a criminal
he's a criminal doing crime
yeah
Yeah, the system, man.
Yeah, look, I mean, again, he's putting a lot.
You're popping a bit so big.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, the system, man.
So, yeah, I mean, look, again, he built a lot of narrative onto a single point,
which is that Luigi Manjoni was charged with the crime.
And there's a mundane explanation, which was that he clearly did shoot someone and kill them.
So, that's, yeah, it might think it was an evening, but I mean, it was like, there was video footage.
Yeah. So, so that's why he's been charged with the crime. Like, I think, I think if there would, it was incontrovers,
contravertible evidence of such a serious crime in the evidence around the Epstein case against a particular
person, let's say Bill Gates, then Bill Gates would also be charged with the crime. There is a, there is a,
simpler explanation why Manjoni was charged at someone like Bill Gates or some other rich
random person who was named in the files hasn't been. Yeah, but they'll, you know, but if you
remember his narrative is that there's videos in the files of torture and potentially cannibalism
and stuff and, you know, nothing. So like, I think the implication throughout this has been,
there are documented crimes, probably even worse, because according to his description,
or Manjoni was, you know, pretty much doing the right thing.
He was doing the only reasonable thing by executing the head of United Health
because they are the immoral murderers.
You know, their goal at Matt is to make money by denying, like,
life-saving treatment to young children, right?
And that, you know, I think you've got to realize that that is presenting a cartoonish villain, right?
like what's presented is like elites are potentially feasting on the bodies of young children,
right?
The health care CEOs, they're sitting around rubbing their hands because the only way they can make money is denying coverage to six children.
Chris, we're also having the claim that the health care system only profits from making people sick.
Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right.
So there is a, there is some overlap in the anti-backs.
To be clear, to be clear for anyone who's not liking what we're saying.
I mean, I live in Australia and I would ban private health if I could.
I like socialised healthcare.
I don't like it either.
But it is cartoonish, I think, to then treat anyone involved in a private healthcare system
as being guilty of murder in the same way that Luigi Mangione is.
Yeah, yeah.
And, you know, just to be clear as well here, Matt, so there's another, you know, flying the ointment fact here.
Because he's talking about, you know, they came down and like, let's accept his framing for a second that Manjoni, you know, he killed someone possibly, right?
But lots of people have killed many people. So, you know, why is he being singled out?
And even if we adopt that, Manjoni's not facing the death penalty.
anymore. The judge
throughout the
charges that could have
led to that, right? So he's facing life
imprisonment. But given
his narrative there, where they
seek, you know, to do the harshest
thing, it's not really about justice, right?
It's all about things.
So, yeah, so I guess this is the thing when people are
talking about this system and gesticulating
wildly at all of this.
When you have a politician
or a journalist or
you know, a justice system,
that does something good or in line with what they think is good, for instance, prosecuting someone
or maybe dismissing the charges that would lead to a death penalty for Manjurney.
Like, that's not the system.
But when the system does something they don't like, like even the prosecutors even proposing
that in the first place or not charging someone that you would like to see charged, then that is
the system.
I think my, I think the, like on epistemic grounds, and that's my issue here, not political ones per se, is that it's very easy to just wave your hands at all of this.
And it's very vague and nebulous what you're referring to.
But it sort of for, it, it only works as long as you keep things incredibly vague as to what the system is.
and you have to posit these, like, really strong, nefarious motives to this all-pervading
and all-powerful entity.
Whether you call it Goliath, like the Weinstein do, or you call it the neoliberal capitalist system,
it sort of functions the same way.
Yeah, and, like, the thing is, insurance, Matt, you know, like as a system,
it functions as a business, right?
By it makes more money than it pays out, right?
Like you insure your car and the hope is that you don't get into a crash,
but if you get into a crash, your insurance will cover the majority of the expenses.
But the system only works because most people don't crash, right?
Like this is the general logic of insurance company.
So it's not wrong to say,
that an insurance company profits by denying payouts, right?
That's part of its profit.
But like the primary way that the insurance company make money
is that most people are not making insurance claims.
So it's the premiums that people pay.
And then, you know, like the payouts are less than the amount coming in.
Right.
So like they present it as the only way it makes money is like by denying,
you know, necessary medical treatments. And like you say, I'm not a defender of whatever decisions
are made by United Healthcare or any insurance company. I don't know enough about the details,
although I don't think the blind boy will have looked in detail given all the other topics
that he that he raises. But it's, if you present it us purely, like the CEOs are all just
there and they're all just plotting, like what is the way that we can kill the most people
and make the most amount of money,
I think you have a cartoonish view
of how those people function, right?
And it is the kind of view
where you can then kill them, right?
Because they're villains who, like,
if you take them out of the world,
it's a better world for it.
Yeah, I mean, as you say,
if you're going to run a private health system
or a private anything system,
a private telecom system or a private education system,
then some of the payments will be spent on payouts or services and some will be spent on administration and there will be a profit margin.
I think the payouts for American or Australian private health companies, and I've got it too.
I've got a private health insurance because you're kind of forced to in Australia because you get taxed more if you don't have it.
But anyway, it's in the high 80s to, in terms of what the payout ratio is to what the premiums are.
And that residual of 10 or 12 or 15%, whatever it is, is going to incorporate all of the administrative stuff, all of the costs of doing business, plus some percentage profit margin.
I don't know what the profit margin is, but it's probably not exceptional.
Now, you know, you could frame that as them feasting on the body.
of sick children to get their filthy lucre.
And you could think like me that it's much better just to, like, to be clear, if the
government runs it, you're still going to have administrative costs, right?
So it's not going to have.
You're going to have denials as well for like, you know, claims.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
That's right.
There are certainly denials in the Australian system.
The Australian public health system will cover what it can afford and it won't
cover other things because they're so expensive. It's just not considered to be a good cost-to-benefit
ratio. And yeah, so you know, you can frame that stuff as nefarious or more nefarious than it is.
But, you know, it's, again, it's pretty mundane. A lot of the stuff that is getting pointed to
as just the absolute evilest thing in the world is, you know, you can like it or do.
dislike it, but it's not the caricature that he's presenting it as.
No, and you know, one of the things that I would notice, like when people want to do this,
like construct the, you know, the worst villain on the other side or for whatever it is,
they'll just emphasize, you know, particularly selective features.
Like when the right wing media wants to talk about these events, which Blindboy is talking
about, they will much more strongly emphasize the family life of the United Health Care CEO,
the young children he had, right, and so on, which in Blind Boar story, they're just not
mentioned, right?
Like, because it's a better story to focus on Luigi Mangione as somebody like, you know,
crusading to help people and like, they're the ones killing children and doing the evil things,
right?
So it was like a, you know, it was a vigil.
the action, it was a vigilante action on behalf of the people.
But he doesn't spend much time like dwelling about the impacts, right, of the person that was
executed or whatever, because that would be less, you know, it would be, it just isn't as
as simple, as nice as story. And in the same way, like right wing media, won't want to
focus on, you know, the, like, the excesses of the insurance companies.
or like things that they've done which have lead to them being readily vilified, right?
In the like the coverage of them on the, you know, the left that supports what he did and so on.
So yeah, I'm just I'm just saying, you know, the kind of binary manichism and the selective portrayal of sympathetic characters is.
Yeah, these are, these are classic rhetorical.
It's universal.
Yeah, that never go out of style.
Yeah.
And you just pick whoever's the good guy and whoever's the.
guy, right? Now, Matt, let's turn to something a little bit. Let's get out of politics for a little bit.
I mean, there's going to be politics in it. But let's go to rituals. Rituals are important things.
I'm a researcher that focuses on rituals, right? This is my Bollywick, as you like to say.
And Blind Boy had some things to say about initiation rituals, something which I've written about.
So I think what we're seeing with it, the Epstein stuff is a conspiracy.
but I contextualise it as
it's organised crime
right that is organised crime
at a massive international scale
involving the most powerful and wealthy people
the
it looks like a combination of blackmail
and gang initiation
let's use the Hells Angels as an example
we can all agree that the Hells Angels
are an international criminal
organized crime organisation
all right across different countries
they're involved in
drugs, murder
prostitution, everything and anything, the Hells Angels and other.
Some Outlaw Motorcycle Groups are, they're mafias, that's what they are.
The reason I'm singling out Outlaw motorcycle gangs is because,
because of their really strict initiations, right?
In order to have a successful international criminal organisation,
where your co-workers are not nice people,
not people with honour, not people that you can trust.
Psychopaths.
In order to have a good business relationship,
you can't trust your co-workers
because they're murderers and scumbags.
So what they have to do is everyone has to have dirt on each other.
So if one person falls, everyone falls.
So do you follow the logic there?
Is the implication that everyone in these elite circles has dirt on each other?
Oh, yeah.
You're connecting it to the, yes, that is the broader connection.
But I meant about the criminal gangs and what they're up to,
like why they are engaging in initiations and this kind of thing.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, yeah.
I guess I guess so.
Yeah, I guess there's truth in that.
And, you know, it's fine to make analogies, right?
Like, I think I think he could certainly make an analogy with the way the Trump administration works
or some kind of organized crime gang.
As long as you appreciate, it's a metaphor.
Yeah, and, you know, look, like I said, I specialize insofar as I specialize in anything,
in dysphoria collective rituals, right?
So I'm very well aware of like the bonding effects of, you know, painful rituals and initiation type rituals.
I've written about hazing and all these kind of things.
So there are elements that are true about like, you know, the bonding effects of people have talked about initiation rituals as a either means of inducing cognitive dissonance, which we discussed recently under the coding academia, or as a kind of a coalitional psychology thing where you're, you're.
you're testing out for free riders, right? You have to go through the bad initiation in order to be
trusted enough with like groups, resources and so on, right? There's work by Aldo Cimino on this
topic, right? So there's stuff there and it is the case that like groups that are involved with
more high risk activities have to be more concerned about defection and loyalty of members. So you
tend to find initiation events amongst military groups, terrorist groups, criminal organizations,
like secretive, you know, societies or whatever the case might be, right?
So there are these things and also sports teams, at sumo clubs as well.
But these are like groups that require, you know, kind of tight bonds, right?
and high levels of trust amongst members.
But, but Matt.
So he mentions that the criminal gangs in particular, right, that they are gathering,
they get people to do this in order that they have like collateral on the people in general,
right?
And that's how they're able to keep everybody in line.
It's a bit like what we've covered with the cults where they're encouraged to give incriminating
information or talk about, you know, provide photos.
nude photos of themselves or whatever.
And then if they leave, or Scientology,
you know, Deepest Darkest Secrets,
if you leave the group,
we'll tell everyone what you've told us, right?
So this is a thing which exists.
But now, does it exist where he says it exists?
And the way of these, he says it exists.
So let me move on with the,
he's still talking about the biker gangs here.
So there's court reports of,
in order to get to the highest echelon,
of certain outlaw motorcycle gangs.
You have to do some pretty depraved shit
in the presence of other people.
Necrophilia is one of them,
which is sexual intercourse with a corpse.
Because if a person will do that,
well, they're definitely not a police officer.
Because they've figured out
any police officer as a job
who's undercover, even if they're in the job,
10 fucking years,
it is highly unlikely that they're going to have sex with a dead body in front of other people
in order to get to the top of the organisation.
So if you're willing to do that, then you're not a cop.
So you get to get into the elite inner circle of this outlaw criminal organization.
Now let's move from like motorcycle gangs, which, you know, with motorcycle gangs you're talking about
very traumatized, poor, working class, youth.
usually white men joining motorcycle gangs.
Now let's go for really, really posh people.
So in, I think it's either fucking Oxford or Cambridge,
I'm not sure which one,
but there's a club called the Bullington Club.
Okay, Matt.
So there, the claim is,
in, there's core reports than in Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs.
One of the ways that you get the top of the organization
has been forced to do.
public performances of necrophilia.
And that will prove that you're not a cop.
Matt, that's not true.
No, no.
That's not true.
That is not a documented or proven thing.
That is an urban legend.
And it's not associated just with biker gangs.
It's associated with, you know,
take your pick, right?
Like whichever moral panic that you want.
So like Blind Boy there,
listen to the tone of confidence.
that he explains that event, right, and how this is, you know, the kind of thing that they're doing.
And we know this.
And this is the puzzle piece that is going to help us understand the behavior of Donald Trump and the all-in guys and some English aristocrat, etc.
Yeah.
The other little non-secretors, that before his thesis was, these terrible things are done in order to have.
have blackmail material, prevent people from defecting.
But then in this one, he said, no, no, this is, this is a way of proving your loyalty,
proving that you're not a cop, that kind of thing.
So it's a bit, I guess it's kind of related.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think it kind of fits both.
But it's like, there are things where you're, there are gang initiatives where you're
required to like kill people, I'd attack people, beat people up, where you have to, you know,
get facial tattoos, various.
things, right? There are, like, costly signals of commitment to a group. But it's the, he goes for the
most lurid example of, like, having sex with a corpse, right? And it's, it's presented, like, and all of the
examples that we hear throughout it. So Donald Trump is murdering young women and burying them on the
golf, the remains on his, like, golf course, right? As an insult, there's cannibalism in the files
where people are being accused of even the health care CEOs,
they're profiting of the blood of young children, right?
Like every example is always the most emotionally evocative and lurid.
And this one struck me because I specialize in this particular topic, like ritual,
and I know that that is not true, right?
Like, it is, it is not a well-documented fact that outlaw motorcycle gangs or any group required,
like, sex with corpses as part of its, like, hierarchy, and definitely not ones that were,
it was like a public spectacle where the people were like, well done, you're now in.
And you're now respect you as like a, you know, a high-ranking member of the group.
Like, it's just as a humiliation.
It would even be better as like a punishment or, you know, this kind of thing.
But it's based on the truth that there are groups and organizations which require you to perform costly signals of commitment.
And these can involve things that involve breaking taboos, right?
So it's if you just don't reach for the most lurid example, you can kind of, you know, make the argument better.
but it's not as evocative
without the reference to having sex with corpses.
So yeah.
Yeah, I think this,
on balance it was actually one of the better,
relatively speaking, parts of his dialogue
where, you know, the general thesis
that you could understand elite depravity
through the lens of group cohesion,
blackmail, and escalating commitment.
You know, that general point is fair, I think.
But like you say, when you look at the sorts of things he cites, it is one on the less verified end of the spectrum, or in the case of that you mentioned, just merely urban legend, when he could have gone with examples that are a better verified.
And also that he chooses, of course, the most lurid and the most emotionally affecting points.
And this is a theme throughout the entire episode, that the argument is kind of stitched together
from statements of emotion, statements of feeling, and evocative, lurid examples with a kind of
tendentious relationship with what is actually verified.
That's the common pattern.
Yeah, and he moves on here to talk about the David Cameron story.
You remember this, about like he was accused of putting his.
penis inside a pig when he was at university. A dead pig's mouth, I should say. And like this being
part of, you know, the upper elite japs that people get on in the Bullying Dink Club or whatever, right?
You know, whatever elite group he was a part of in Oxford or Cambridge. Did you remember this
story? I vaguely remember that. Yeah. There was a Black Mirror episode kind of based on the same.
theme, right?
Now, I don't like David Cameron.
I'm not a big fan.
And I'm also not a huge fan
of, you know, the elites
in the British society.
The Bullying Club has well-documented
terrible history. He talks about them, you know,
trashing places and then paying for it
after, you know, the meal.
Again, that is something that's like actually
quite well documented.
But the pig thing,
man, the pig thing,
it's not well documented.
It's based on one person giving a quote that they were there
or that they heard from someone that they'd seen the photograph or something
and then nobody was ever able to find a photograph and other people, you know, denied it.
It was reported like in a book as I heard this from a source.
So like while it was fun to,
imagine that David Cameron
did that.
There's actually not evidence that he
did, but Blind Boy, when he reports
it, he's like, you know,
why would he do that, right? This is
why, and he goes into the psychology
of like, you know,
why David Cameron would do that
and why it makes him different than
normal people. But he was just talking
about motorcycle clubs and
stuff and presented
that they're working class. So in his
version, working class, people
also have sex with corpses, right, whenever they want to get up their criminal organization.
But in his next stage, it's like they've got a different psychology than the rest of us,
because they're willing to do these weird, you know, David, Cameron and others are willing to do
these weird initiations with pigs. And he talks about the skull and bones society in America,
right? And so listen to this. So with the skull and bones, I think Bill Clinton was in it, George
Bush was in it, a lot of presidents.
It's Princeton or one of them, I don't know.
Same shit. Elite colleges in America were future presidents, okay?
One of the Skull and Bones rituals, again, this is rumour, it's not 100% verified,
but I think they have to climb into a coffin and masturbate in the coffin while being
surrounded by other members and then listing out secrets.
as if they're at a confession.
And if they do this for group cohesion,
humiliation,
everyone has dirt on each other,
and then a lot of them go on to become American presidents.
The point I'm trying to get at is,
it's not satanic worship.
You don't need anything supernatural here.
You just need horrible people with access to power.
So can you guess?
But there's kids.
I imagine you don't know much about this color.
on board society, but how you think, how accurate would you imagine that is?
I'm probably guessing not very accurate.
Yeah, well, so there is, at least in this case, there is sexation.
So one, Bill Clinton, no, not a member, okay, but whatever, this is a phone call episode.
but the coffin masturbation ritual comes from a single investigative article in 1977, right?
And it's not that they masturbate in the account in that one was they lie in the coffin
and recount like histories and personal secrets, right?
like, you know, the same kind of thing that we've talked about, like that, you know,
high-demand cults get people to do.
So the masturbation detail has, like, been added in here, right?
And this is a society that, you know, is, like, associated with an elite university,
a bit like freemasons, right?
I can imagine dramatic rituals around, like, you know, skulls and coffins and all this
kind of stuff. But here, again, it's, it's kind of like Indiana Jones, you know, people jerked it off
of other things. And it's, and they're all going to become, you know, the future presidents. And
you're like, no, it's not. The thing is, I can very easily imagine that at some points in time,
in some, you know, fancy private school, I don't know, Zeta, Omega Delta,
society or some weird back alley of Westminster, all kinds of weird shit has happened from time to time, right?
But I think, you know, what's going on here is pulling out, you know, mostly unverified accounts,
if not just urban rumor and weaving it into what is a compelling narrative about the psychology of,
elite depravity.
And I think it's fine to have a thesis and it's fine to make analogies and, you know, whatever,
understand the psychology and stuff.
But the methods here and what he's resting it on is pretty weak.
And it does remind me of Jordan Peterson or a Weinstein kind of citing these rather weak little
you know, cherry-picked things of evidence.
And from that, weaving are very strong, very strong claims
and building basically an entire, you know, edifice
off of a foundation that's very insubstantial.
Yeah, and often psychoanalytic, right,
in the reasons that people are, you know,
like why left-wing people are doing what they're doing, right?
it's because they love like, you know, whatever, right?
The transgressions and it's connected to their, like, authority figures
and their love for postmodern neo-Marxism and, you know, all these kind of things, right?
I've seen narratives like this recently built around the idea of the feminization.
Yes, yeah, yeah.
And same kind of sighting cherry-picked random little things,
weaving it into a narrative.
And yeah, you could do that.
It's just, I wouldn't trust it.
I know, again, you're going to say, well, this is just, Chris, come on.
It's a pedantic fact-checking.
But can I also mention that the three presidents were William Taft, right, from the early
20th century, and then George H. Bush and George W. Bush.
So there might be, you know, another factor, like the familial connection might play a bigger role.
than their membership in the Skull and Bone Society.
But in any case, so you mentioned about like the,
the whole goal of this is kind of to support the broader edifice
about like the psychologizing of how, you know,
CEOs and politicians are not like the rest of us.
And, you know, like I said, Matt,
I share the kind of baseline negative image of that,
of that class of people, right?
Because I think it's very normal,
depending on your background or culture,
but, you know, Blind Boy is from Ireland.
Definitely in Ireland.
It is very, very normal to have a negative view of like elite British
tofts, right, or elite Irish people to,
but at a lesser extent, right?
And, yeah, so just listen to this.
I'm sure Obama rationalized it by saying,
look, I'm defending the Constitution.
like the CIA told me to do it, I don't know.
People who get into positions of extreme power,
they know they have to,
under the system, they have to create a hell of a lot of pain.
Not even drone strikes.
Someone who rises to the very top of a corporation.
The company can make more profits this year
if you close that factory
and 500 people who are supporting their families lose their jobs,
but we'll make more profits.
Okay, do it.
The CEOs of health insurance companies,
Your job is to make profits.
By denying people health insurance,
that person who's dying of cancer,
who has paid for their health insurance every single year
for this exact moment,
you have to figure out how to not pay them and let them die
because that's how this model makes money.
The people who rise to the top of the system,
the top of that fucking global international shit,
they're not good,
people. A lot of them might be
incredibly cruel. Sadists.
They might be people who
have a curiosity about other
people's pain, who get a thrill
from other people's pain, who enjoy
dominating, enjoy
hearting, enjoy abusing,
enjoy humiliating.
And judging by the Epstein files,
these are the roles of being
part of that club.
Again, it's
It's a stretch and it's built on emotions.
Yeah, like lurid imagery and emotions.
I mean, there's always a reasonable version of this.
Like I read, you know, was it John Ronson or someone or John, Ron Johnson?
John Ronson, yeah.
Yeah, the other way around.
Like, what, he wrote the psychopath test or something like that?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, you know, so he had a thesis there that, you know, psychopaths are over.
corporations and overrepresented because because essentially the role requires a kind of an injunit
kind of attitude you know and I think I think there's a reasonable version of this is what I'm saying
I've no idea whether it's empirically true or not um but his version is is is pushed up to the
max right like it is it is it is incredibly lurid it is like taking delight like stringing these
things together where you have whatever some initiation rituals and
some silly elite school and combining that with a health, private health insurer,
not approving a thing and weaving it together with the Epstein thing into a thesis,
that they're just bloodthirsty people who enjoy inflicting pain.
And these are the people that are running the world.
They are essentially vampires, a secret plan of vampires are running the world,
is what is what the thesis is.
and it's just over the top.
It is, and it isn't what the Epstein files present.
Because what the Epstein files present, Matt,
is people that feel that they have immunity, right?
And also people who are, like, arrogant, entitled arseholes, right?
But they're not people who are, like, cartoonishly, you know,
rubbing their hands and plotting out, you know,
icing a great suffering.
video, watch this, like, people will find there's a reference to torture in one of the, like,
in one of the emails or whatever. But what he's painting is that should be the primary thing
throughout all these emails. Because like what they're actually about behind the scenes is,
you know, like getting off on pain and suffering and abuse. And they're, they're all like,
you say, evil vampires. But that's not what it shows. It shows a much more mundane, pervasive evil.
right, which is just people being, you know, like self-centered, narcissistic, abusive, sexually abusive, entitled pricks.
And the other people primarily care about like what their interests are.
You know, can they get connected to this other person?
Can they have like a nice dinner with someone and so on?
And that is a much more mundane cruelty and exploratory.
and exploitative system than what Blind Boy presents,
which is like a cartoonish world of an evil vampire class
that is feeding on pain and suffering.
Like the reality is most people at the top of systems,
including the super wealthy and whatever,
they don't see themselves as evil people
and they're not engaged in satanic rituals
to like increase their bonds together, right?
The guys in the All In podcast think they're the masters of the universe
and they think they're all great guys.
Yeah, they're probably not cannibals.
Probably not.
I mean, they're not kids.
But it's just so frustrating.
It's so frustrating.
I don't like them.
I really dislike them.
I don't like them.
I don't.
I have to read it.
They're probably not cannibals.
Now, Matt, you know, there we've painted quite a picture, right?
There's quite a ghoulish collection of individuals.
And, you know, if you think that is how the world
operates and maybe you have a lot more sympathy than we do for the you know you might be more sympathetic
to blind boys message but um there are some people in blind boy stories that come off better
that are you know presented generally as doing good in the world and having good motivations
um principally blind boy and i do want to point this out because there's a you know there's a thing
where we often make the point, Matt, that like self-deprecation, right, we, coming from Northern Ireland
and Australia, come from cultures that value self-deprecation. There's actually even this debate
in the cross-cultural psychology literature about the universality of positive self-regard, right?
And this is questioned by the fact that when they do studies in East Asia and some other countries,
they tend to find that people are self-deprecating to the point where they seem to have no positive self-regard, right?
And this led some people to say universal positive self-esteem is not, or positive self-esteem is not a universal thing.
And all the people counter that actually in self-deprecating cultures, this is how you create positive self-regard by saying that you are, you know, the most humble, the most like out of the other.
So this is the bear.
But Blind Boy comes from partly my culture, right, the Irish culture.
So I feel like you and I are in a position to examine, you know, self-deprecation genuinely presented
and when it is perhaps self-serving, self-deprecation in other ways.
So I'm going to play you a little story and see what you think.
See if you pick up.
I know I've loaded the dice, right, in a particular way.
But yeah, I think it's worth examining this, especially in contrast to what we just covered.
Now, Matt, do you have time for two or three clips and we'll finish on this part?
Well, first, I've got to go to the toilet.
And secondly, yeah, do you just have to go for a swim?
If I don't leave now, then I'm not going to be able to cook dinner.
Okay, well, then hold on, hold on.
Before you, so you don't want to play them, right?
Just to be clear.
No, I don't want to play.
Okay, okay, okay.
So then I say instead of that, we record just a brief two-minute outro to say,
okay, that's part one.
We'll be back, you know, we're back in part one to talk about the non-vampiric aspects of the conversation.
And maybe, you know, I can just insert the other pivot, right?
So let me say to, yeah.
Well, so Matt, okay, that's a, you know, a cast of villains, world vampires.
like corpse fucking gang members.
It's a terrible blood first these CEOs, right?
We're living in the hell world.
Fortunately, in this world, there are some good guys.
You might be looking at two of them.
You might be, or not, depending on your point of view.
But, you know, Blind Boy does detail people that he thinks, you know,
are doing good in the world, and it makes quite the contrast.
and it might surprise you to find out who is, you know, chief in his presentation of being a good guy.
But I think I'll leave that, Matt, that surprise for next time.
Why do we leave people on that dark note with the ray of hope that they're going to hear about some more good guys next time?
See if he can guess.
This is an exercise.
Can you guess who was a good person of this otherwise terrible and full?
fallen world.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Okay.
And we look forward to feedback on this episode, as we always do.
Yeah.
And this will probably be a long episode.
So, you know, this is part one, part two, coming soon.
To a theater near you.
Bye-bye for now.
Ciao.
