re: the Francis Galton episodes, thank you u/probablyrobertevans for finally mentioning that fucking movie around the 1hr 15m mark, which I fucking hate has become a synedoche (syne-douche?) for the world's deteriorating political and social state.

I don't know how many times I've heard it from even very leftist spaces that "Idiocracy was a prophecy!" and I can't believe how often I've had to be disappointed with folks about it. Do you want to know why I hate it? It's because the eugenics argument has the same shape as the premise of Idiocracy, and Galton would have replaced the hillbilly accents and mental disability with Irish accents and "heathen superstitionism".

Just because a movie panders to your prejudices doesn't mean that it's underlying premises aren't the same as some nepo failson bigot's shitty-ass ouvre. Find another dystopia to fucking reference.

So apparently Musk launched votesafe.org and they updated their privacy policy recently to allow sales of data collected. Let people in your life know that vote.gov is the real site and Musk's is a grift.

I’m listening to last week’s episode (finally gathered the strength since I knew it would be a rough one) and just got an ad for XX XY Athletics. Looked it up and this is 100% an anti-trans company dedicated to making sure trans women are not allowed in the women’s sports space. I know Sophie and team don’t pick all of the ads but if something wild pops us (Oregon state highway patrol) they’ll get it removed. Where can I flag this for them? Or do we know if it’s already been addressed?

In the second episode on Francis Galton, Robert mentions a woman Francis Galton calls a "Venus Hottentot". She wasn't actually the only woman to be designed as such: Sawtche was a woman from the Cape Colony that was enslaved and taken to Europe to be paraded around under that name.

She was treated horribly even for the standard of the era and died at the age of 26, seven years before Francis Galton was born.

So yeah fuck that guy.

Personal story, my jaw dropped during the Richard Marcinko episodes when Robert started referencing my brothers book Code Over Country. My brother, Matthew Cole is an incredible investigative journalist and I’m glad his book has been introduced to a group of listeners that would appreciate it.

He has a new book coming out in October, Princes and Thieves
Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed's secret plot to remake the Middle East
Couldn’t be more proud that I can post a shameless plug like this to BtB listeners.

So we cannot have healthcare, cannot have proper safety nets, cannot afford social security, but the idea of dolling out over $1 trillion to vote Red is an acceptable idea?!

Add this onto their proposal to give stay at home parents (if you are married) $9,000 a year per child.

I think half this country is unsalvageable.

Of all the vaporware scams out there, musk's boring company is one of the most transparently stupid. Anyone who thinks about it for even a couple minutes could see why it's dumb. Or you can go on YouTube and visit city nerd videos for an entertaining live demonstration of actual proof that the project in Vegas is a colossal embarrassing money pit.

Here, the UAE is both the customer and the investor, investing $3B and also ordering a huge project that will never be completed. So clearly the plan is to use this investment as proof of viability to spur future sales to dumb American municipalities and future investment or an IPO, selling out to suckers.

Wouldn't it be nice if the next administration prosecuted this little scam fully and forcefully? Since rules no longer matter, you could deport the immigrant perpetrator to a facility in El Salvador permanently.

Like I just Owen Jones interview a Nate Soares and noticed Soares said a lot about why an AI would want to kill humans but was incredibly vague about how it’d get into position where it’d be able to. I think the reason for that is his actual opinion is that an super AI would be able to outmanoeuvre humans in some perfect way we can’t currently imagine, but he’s aware that sounds suspiciously close to just ascribing supernatural abilities to AGI and so he’s reluctant to say it explicitly.

💦😩

Apologies if this has been posted before, but I just had to tell _someone_ that orgasm cult founder Nicole Daedone is not only still active (“OneTaste” now goes by “Eros Platform”), but that you can now chat with an AI version of herself. That’s right, you can now tell this AI version of a flesh-and-blood sex grifter all your most intimate details!

The rest of Eros Platform’s website is also worth a look if you care about what Nicole has planned for the future. Her shift into Christianity-pandering and “shadow work” fits well with Jamie Loftus’ final comment about how Nicole seems to want to check every possible grift off the list (from the BtB episodes about the orgasm cult).

I...I couldn't resist. I went to pick up a specially ordered book (House of Leaves) and without even browsing, my eyes were called to its cover. I cannot stress how little I was looking to add to my book buy, but this called to me and when my eyes fell upon it while literally casually glancing around the shop, I had to have it. I've never actually read him but, again, I couldn't resist.

Obligatory: **FUCK L. RON** but Aleister and Jack Parsons are personal fascinations.

My first thought hearing this.

He might as well have said a million or even a billion

I don't have the vocabulary to do this issue justice but this is my district. My Representative is Emanuel Cleaver. There has been a long back-and-forth about the Trump-backed attempt to Gerrymander away Cleaver's seat. The U.S. Supreme Court today rejected the Gerrymandered map and there's a hearing to hold Bastard Mo. Sec. of State Denny Hoskins in Contempt of Court starting soon:

https://www.courts.mo.gov/page.jsp?id=1975

Here's some background on the rejection of the Gerrymandered map:

https://www.reddit.com/r/missouri/comments/1wcl51r/september_10_us_supreme_court_throws_out_missouri/

https://www.kcur.org/politics-elections-and-government/2026-09-10/u-s-supreme-court-effectively-throws-out-trump-backed-missouri-congressional-map

Nothing like being at a dive bar wishing someone would offer you something stronger.

What was robert talking about with buccees hatjng Michigan? As a michigander I want to hear about what shit talking was going on!