In this 251st in a series of live discussions with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying (both PhDs in Biology), we talk about the state of the world through an evolutionary lens.
In this week’s episode, we discuss how the Harris campaign spent their billion dollar war chest—including on celebrities who appeared to be endorsing her because they believed in her, but were actually getting paid. Also: $26 million was spent for “text message outreach,” any many people donated $10 or $20. It’s reverse Robin Hood: stealing from the poor, to give to the rich. Related: how can we stay optimistic about unity, when we are seeing such different things? Finally: the New York Times finds a whole bunch of well-credential “experts” in nutrition to assure us that seed oils are excellent for your health. (They’re not.) You have a choice: follow the science, or think scientifically for yourself, and actually be healthy.
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Mentioned in this episode:
Harris campaign disbursements from the FEC: https://github.com/gaiaus/2024-us-presidential-general-election/blob/main/harris%2Fspending%2Ftop_500_recipients.MD
News Nation with Lindy Li: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv3XbWtHyMg
Rescue the Republic: https://jointheresistance.org
Smith professors saw a perfect campaign: https://www.smith.edu/news-events/news/hope-and-action
Reason for Optimism: https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/reason-for-optimism
Are Seed Oils Actually Bad for You? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/09/well/eat/seed-oil-effects.html
Professor Gardner’s site: https://www.med.stanford.edu/profiles/christopher-gardner
Thumbnail Courtesy: Kent Nishimura / Stringer / Getty Images News via Getty Images.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 Holding Screen
00:05:42 Welcome
00:07:25 Sponsors: Policygenius, CrowdHealth, Ralston College
00:22:05 How Harris Campaign Funds Were Spent
00:23:34 Paying for Endorsements
00:26:45 Text Message Outreach & the Matching Mystery
00:29:16 Service Fees
00:30:39 A Lot of Bad Categories
00:31:59 A Gaming of the Mind
00:35:17 Was She Paying for Home Court Advantage?
00:41:54 Faking Every Aspect
00:45:54 This Feels like Robin Hood in Reverse, Downstream of a Terror Campaign
00:48:31 When We Take Experts at Their Word
00:51:31 Too Big to Win
00:53:12 Sacred Trust with Campaign Donors Clip
00:55:07 Wag the Dog Level Phony
00:56:52 Multiple PSYOPs
01:00:18 Smith College Reflects on Election 2024 Results
01:06:14 The “Flawless Campaign” Formula
01:09:49 Heather’s Call for Basic Education in Logical Thinking
01:11:58 Asymmetry of the Blue & Red Perspectives
01:14:19 Blue No Matter Who
01:18:00 Behind the Scenes of Rescue the Republic
01:20:32 The NYT Thinks Seed Oils are Awesome
01:22:48 Bret & Heather Critique the Case for Seed Oils
01:31:42 Olive Oil is Not a “Seed Oil”
01:33:23 The Game of Pharma
01:35:20 Heather’s Culinary Advice
01:39:17 Questionable Experts
01:41:34 Closing
We have "cartesian blinders being put on us so that we are trying to make sense out of scraps of information and hints." - @bretweinstein
WEINSTEIN: I mean, even if you have your villains who are engaged in the behavior that motivated this war in Iran, even if that's the story, presumably most of the people in the path of these ferocious bombings that he is describing are not deserving of going back to the Stone Age.
In fact, I distinctly remember him telling us that part of what we were up to was liberating the people of Iran from their tyrannical regime.
So if it's the tyrannical regime that justifies the ferocious bombing, then it's a tragedy that other people are going to be sent back to the Stone Ages with them. Right?
HEYING: It's it's not a narrative. It's an incoherent set of talking points.
WEINSTEIN: Yeah, it's a kind of cheerleading that is completely inappropriate from the perspective of the president.
Bret Weinstein discusses the Trump administrations "back to the stone age" recent remarks in the latest episode of The Evolutionary Lens, Episode 320 "Are we back in the stone age?" on DarkHorse.
Bret Weinstein explains, "If you stop businesses from starting here, and if you drive people so that they move elsewhere—even though it's difficult to do—then the point is the tax base dries up, which then forces you to become even more predatory for the people who stayed.
And that's really the thing, right? They're setting themselves up so that they have to go after more and more people, because the people who are starting new businesses are not going to do it here."
Bret and Heather discuss the Cornell 7, sex in modern times, and the plague.
Civil charges have been brought against seven men and several institutions, including Cornell University, by a woman who claims to have been drugged and gang-raped in a fraternity house on campus in October 2024. We go through legal documents and journalism about what happened and discuss consent, drinking and drugs, the Greek system, and what sex has and has not become.
Then: a woman has died of plague in Russia; is a global pandemic coming? We discuss what to look out for.
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EJWrPk7h78
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ICXPziVTJKS0dCUHhVdh7?si=Zsy8YzWlRAiWf8nxpk78IQ
Apple: ...
Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying will go live for Episode 346 of The Evolutionary Lens to discuss the Cornell sexual assault case.
Streaming on X, Youtube, and Rumble. Join the Watch Party here on Locals for the only place to chat while they're live at 11:30am PT.
Who Decided the Cornell 7 Was the Story?
I was watching the DarkHorse Podcast when Bret and Heather started talking about the "Cornell 7," and I did what I usually do, which is start googling while they talk. The more I read, the less the story itself bothered me and the more one question did: why is this national news?
I don't mean that the allegations aren't serious. They are. I mean that thousands of campus sexual assault cases happen every year and almost none of them become a coast-to-coast story with its own nickname. Somebody, or something, decides which ones do. This article is about that decision, and the Cornell 7 is just the case that made me notice it.
What Happened
Here's the short version. In October 2024, a 20-year-old Cornell student, known in court papers as Jane Doe, had about ten drinks over a few hours and walked to the Chi Phi fraternity house to see a friend. She says two brothers pressured her into snorting ketamine, and she agreed to a threesome with her friend and another member. Then one of them posted about her in the fraternity group ...
