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.
Our sponsors:
Policygenius: Save time and money providing a financial safety net for your family. Go to http://policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save.
CrowdHealth: Pay for healthcare with crowdfunding instead of insurance. It’s way better. Use code DarkHorse at http://JoinCrowdHealth.com to get 1st 3 months for $99/month.
Ralston College is reinventing and reviving higher ed. Join their MA in Humanities program and spend the first term in Greece before joining your peers on campus in Savannah, Georgia. Apply here: http://www.Ralston.ac
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 new cats, fat bears, and overwhelmed frogs. The tilcayo, a newly named species of cat from Bolivia, is part of a group of New World “tiger cats” that live on the outskirts of the Amazon basin. We discuss Carnivoran relationships, cats more specifically, and what is known about the history and ecology of the tilcayo in particular.
Then: it’s fat bear week at Katmai National Park in Alaska, where grizzlies are fattening themselves on salmon for the Winter ahead; we discuss hibernation, reproductive diapause, and general chonkiness in bears.
Finally: female Cope’s gray treefrogs have a harder time choosing good mates when there’s a lot of noise, and when there are too many suitors—kind of like how women often make bad choices when confronted with chaos and wingmen.
Rumble: ...
Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying will go live for Episode 344 of The Evolutionary Lens to discuss new cats, fat bears, and overwhelmed frogs.
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.
"And so we fall again.
Summer’s exuberance gives way to decay, a slowing down, the falling of the leaves. Winter’s slumber will, in turn, cede to the springing of the leaves anew. A cycle, a circuit, a loop. We return, over and over, to the same literal place in our solar system. But we are never quite the same again."
