Nicole Shanahan, RFK Jr's VP pick, has recently started her own podcast. Dilbert creator Scott Adams joined. The conversation quickly turned into a conspiracy free-for-all, starting with DEI, then swerving into fertility, vaccines, transgender people, EMFs, and much more. Derek responds.Show Notes<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/nicole-shanahan-rfk-jr-vice-president-beliefs-rcna153535">Inside the fringe worldview of RFK Jr.’s VP pick</a><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/technology/nicole-shanahan-rfk-jr-vp.html">A Running Mate’s History: $1 Billion, Cocaine, a Fling With Elon Musk</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMcOEVjDRDI">Back to the People: Reframing Our Brains on Food, Debt, and DEI (full episode)</a> Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

209: The Right’s Fantasy Super-Villain (w/Renee Diresta)

Dismantling New Age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy-mad yogis. At best, the conspirituality movement attacks public health efforts in times of crisis. At worst, it fronts and recruits for the fever-dream of QAnon. As the alt-right and New Age horseshoe toward each other in a blur of disinformation, clear discourse, and good intentions get smothered. Charismatic influencers exploit their followers by co-opting conspiracy theories on a spectrum of intensity ranging from vaccines to child trafficking. In the process, spiritual beliefs that have nurtured creativity and meaning are transforming into memes of a quickly-globalizing paranoia. Conspirituality Podcast attempts to bring understanding to this landscape. A journalist, a cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic discuss the stories, cognitive dissonances, and cultic dynamics tearing through the yoga, wellness, and new spirituality worlds. Mainstream outlets have noticed the problem. We crowd-source, research, analyze, and dream answers to it.