30: Are There Really Two Sides? (w/Charles Eisenstein)

Who gets to take up space in critical times? How do we orient ourselves toward expertise? In a culture dominated by “experts” on social media, do charismatics outperform fact-checkers?

This episode marks a milestone for our podcast, as Matthew interviews Charles Eisenstein, whose essay “The Coronation” has cast a long shadow on our ongoing critique of how New Age and spiritual spaces interact with public health. It’s a respectful but robust conversation about the limits of what laypeople can know about science and journalism, the intersection between conspiracy theory and myth, what the word “narrative” really means, and whether activism on the left and conspiracy theories on the right can be equally misguided. The conversation ran long: we dish up and comment on the first hour here.

In the Ticker, we cover Gaiam TV—Netflix for the Q-adjacent—and JP Sears keeping it classy by using the birth announcement of his son to punch down at trans people. On The Jab, Julian reports on Robert F Kennedy Jr’s role in flooding social media with anti-vax ads, and targeting propaganda at minority and immigrant communities, to their detriment.

Show Notes

Suzanne Humphries on Rational Wiki

Why Dr Suzanne Humphries, an anti-vaccine activist, is lying to you about measles

JP Sears’s transphobic post

JP Sears’s squat workout / Bill Gates post

Overlap between conspirituality and anti-trans politics

Invite from the “Awarehouse”, oh and this one too

Why this mainstream yoga site is now a hub for QAnon influencers

A Thrive interviewee regrets his participation

Bell’s Palsy, Allergic Reactions, and Deaths in Covid Vaccine Trials

Funding for anti-vax ads on Facebook

RFK is very concerned

The Coronation: Eisenstein

The Conspiracy Myth: Eisenstein

The Banquet of Whiteness: Eisenstein