Join Bret and Heather for their Q&A on June 17th. Add it to your calendar here: https://www.darkhorsepodcast.org/calendar

00:04:18 Welcome

00:06:25 I watched Huberman's video on ADHD discussing the link between blinking and focus. Higher blink rates reduce focus but may enhance long-term memory, possibly due to sleep consolidating daily images. A study noted long-term cannabis users have lower blink rates, better focus, but poorer memory. As our society increasingly uses stimulants' such as medication, caffeine & technology & decreasing sleep, could this be adding to the ever increasing ADHD seen in every age bracket who heavily uses tech? Could screen frame rates mimic blinking, potentially impacting focus? Thanks so much for all you both do! - AG

00:13:57 Where I live in california, there is a constant battle between wolves and ranchers. An interesting solution from the CDFW was to reintroduce Elk to the areas that have been hit hard with the wolf predation, what do you think about this, will this actually help?

00:18:09 Is it fair to say the "Woke Movement" was a nearly successful albeit perverse version of the "Game B" model you suggested as a prescriptive for an antiquated and calcified system no longer responsive to the needs of the constituency? Specifically, that the woke managed to both parasitize various institutions across socio-economic, political, and religious spheres while simultaneously constructing a parallel psych-social enforcement system via technology (social media shaming, doxing, language policing, etc.) as a malignant scaffold affixed to the crumbling Western paradigm to behaviorally carryout their cultic edicts? In sum, is the "Woke Movement" actually "Evil Game B"? Is AI likely "Evil Game B II" turn-key totalitarianism final edition?

00:22:41 Is it hyperbole to suggest that the days of white-collar work are over and done with? My reasoning is perhaps overly semantic but if most white-collar jobs are fully-remote, meaning that such “knowledge work” requires antisociality, then how could we coherently live in a job holders society anymore? The thought occurred to me in 2020 when our office shut down and everyone zoomed off into the digital diaspora. Yes, companies are still trying to entice employees back, but it’s still a mix of remote and “hybrid” out there. As a friend joked long before the pandemic, “Smart jobs are increasingly dumb, and dumb jobs are now smart.” More proactively to the point, I love Heather’s essay “Let us Aspire” – definitely been on my mind a lot this year.

01:01:28 I’m curious if you have an alternate interpretation of these behaviors, or if there is an evolutionary purpose to them. https://www.npr.org/2025/05/19/nx-s1-5395983/baby-monkey-kidnappings-capuchin-howler-culture

01:04:09 One description of Schmachtenberger’s “generator functions of catastrophic risks” is “compulsive behavior that is destructive toward things that we value”. Having cataloged predispositions that manifest destructive behavior, I found them to be inherent barriers to rationality, reconciliation, and change—manifestations of Goliath. Why is there no interest in addressing the generator functions, Goliath?

01:09:46 "Going Up Rabbit Holes, a poem

I stood at the edge of the Overton panes
Lies could there fledge as truth constrains
I opened wide topics that did harm of my head
From fluoride to vax, from pharma to the Fed
They’d peep I’d a habit: scrolling conspiracy
Strayed deep down rabbit holes into deliracy
Right turned to left, as upside where go down
Blues learnt to Red, men supplied their pronoun
Weinstein and Heying enthralling, upend this depravity
Fine line spanned flying or falling through an endless cavity
Wonderland exposed, twas The Cave where we started
Sleight of hand shadows, a managed reality departed
This light I scanned, those eyes opened wide
I find I’d not fallen but crawled up and outside!"

01:17:13 My wife suffers from chronic back pain after a car accident. We are in the Portland / Seattle area. any chance Heather could send me information of the two people she said were very helpful in dealing with her boat injury?

01:22:03 You’ve raised concerns about the absence of true placebo arms in vaccine trials. In trials where the “control” receives the same excipients as the vaccine but lacks the antigen, could the adjuvant-driven, non-specific immune activation make participants more prone to misdirected responses - e.g. new allergies or autoimmune reactions - precisely because there is no active ingredient to absorb that response? If so, wouldn't this inflate the apparent safety or efficacy of the active vaccine when compared with this adjuvant-only control, relative to what would be seen against an actual, inert placebo?

01:23:05 "Hi Bret and Heather,

I noticed in my home countries media that there was some scientists developing a new vaccine technology which was referred to as a holey grail.

In sted of getting the vaccine through a needle it is given as a nasal spray were the active component is transported through the mucous membrane in the nose. An adjuvant is used.

My gut instinct is telling me that this is not safer, because of the adjuvant. Maybe even worse because the adjuvant is in an area with ample antigens and pathogens.

With limited information, do you guys think this new transportation system is safe?

(Original article in Nature: Anthi, A.K., Kolderup, A., Vaage, E.B. et al. An intranasal subunit vaccine induces protective systemic and mucosal...)"

01:29:46 "Experience: in Dec 2024, our kitten scratched me badly & I went to the family doctor who insisted that an outdoorsman like me should take a tetanus shot every 6 months. In India, tetanus shot has 54% aluminium sulphate. But since I had taken the shot before (almost 5 years ago) with no ill effects, I assumed my body can handle it. I was wrong.

From Dec-Mar, I had on & off fever upto 104°F, lethargy to move for a day or 2 after my dry fast (once in 15 days). I generally never run out of energy & I rarely get sick & this was frustrating. Dr. Suzanne Humphries on JRE suggested chelation thru sweating for aluminium poisoning. I intensified my boxing, badminton during this spring / summer. 1 tennis elbow & a lot of sweating later, I'm better."

01:31:18 Is there any indication that the mRNA “vaccines” can accelerate aggressive cancers? My husband had the same diagnosis as Biden, last year. He was being monitored regularly. The final diagnosis took many weeks due to the medical services being damaged through Covid.

33:12 What are your thoughts on the safety of Ozempic and related weight loss drugs?

• Natural Selections, “Pharma Darlings:” https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/pharma-darlings
• DarkHorse, “Follow the White Rabbit(s)” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0-v1WVOFrQ?si=RirYCmbALmOypJDX
• Jillian Michaels: https://youtu.be/UqeowmwMgFk?si=h96sq4w3uVuSwxHB

01:33:39 Q: what are your thoughts on the UK trying to "dim the Sun" (a project started by bill gates during the pandemic that was somehow thwarted)?

How can UK take this unilateral decision on a shared resource such as the Sun? it's not as if the things they will spray into the atmosphere will stay in place or hover over UK at the rotational speed of the earth. Why are these people so dumb/ genocidal?

• "Mad Scientists" #273 https://youtu.be/dTqZj_psTDk

01:34:11 Bret - It seems like your thinking about cancer has evolved from a fundamental constraint of life to one that is mostly a result of our environment and various toxins. In light of this, does your famous idea of the trade-offs between infinite cell repair vs. cancer need an upgrade? If cancer is more rare outside of our modern environment, why not live forever?

01:35:13 What is the reason behind some plants giving off scent in your urine? For example asparagus and artichokes. Is there an evolutionary reason for it?

01:39:07 Bret should really look into Saw Palmetto daily to treat his prostate issue. Many years ago my dad was advised that surgery was inevitable, I got him on Saw Palmetto and his doc was amazed to find he had lost all of his symptoms. He lived another 20 years (he died at 88) without ever having troubles with his prostate again

01:40:03 I was wondering if there were another rally in the near future - perhaps "Respect the Republic" as a kind of temperature check of the current administration's fidelity to those who got them elected? An accountability measure?

01:40:39 As U said in Tucker, there’s no argument for alive beings to prefer being alive over being dead -yet the former outcompete the latter & accumulate, partner etc. Are AIs fundamentally capable of preferring to be «on» rather than «off»? What would their incentives for «on» be, outside of human-mediated rewards & human bias for being alive? If none, I wouldn’t call them a «new species» but a «new symbiotic species».
A good way to evaluate AI consciousness would be to see if they offer outstanding humans (like U) partnerships. Has that happened to you yet? 🤣 Gates/Musk/Bibi types seem more interesting to symbiose with, because access to resources is limited 🚀 while analytical power can be «plagiarized». Luv2u2

01:44:03 Dear Bret and Heather, I'm 51 and have found new love, but we differ on COVID-19 and mRNA vaccines. I completely align with your skepticism of power structures and mainstream narratives, while she trusts authority and vaccinated herself and her daughters. This concerns me, and I want to discuss it without causing a rift. How can I approach this sensitively? Any specific arguments or DarkHorse episodes to share?

01:53:08 I keep hearing people talk about how many millions of lives have been saved by the covid shots. How can that be determined? The same people never seem to want to acknowledge the number of injuries and deaths caused by the shots. Do you know where I could find the numbers of injuries from the shots? Kariko and Weissman won the Nobel Prize in medicine for developing the mRNA technology. Shouldn't Robert Malone have been included or was he excluded because he recognized the dangers associated with mRNA? Thanks for all you great work. I always look forward to watching/listening to DarkHorse.

• “Unsettling Science – Rebutting the Experts” https://youtu.be/UJnK9o0GS6s?si=6607Ol5ghHAWO5Vs