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Red Scare (Advance Release) (Patreon)

Published:
2023-12-07 12:09:54
Edited:
2023-12-07 12:10:57
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

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  • Decoding_The_Gurus_087_Red_Scare_V1.mp3

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Content

In today's joyous episode, we dive into the neurodiverse, postmodern hipsterism, and ironic trad conservatism of the popular 'Red Scare' podcast featuring the avant-garde novelist Tao Lin.  Get ready for hours of transgressive insights, independent research, and monotone delivery from Tao, Dasha, and Anna.  Thrill at endless talk about their bespoke theories of autism, anti-vax bullshit, and all the usual entirely predictable takes of postmodern conservatism. That said when it is all brought together there is a rather distinctive tang to this bizarre mix of neo-conservatism, trad-con lifehacks, new-age spirituality, conspiracy theories, and irony-laced, not even bothered posturing.

We also cover Elon Musk, some guru clashes, and how long Matt was breastfed for.

This is an early release so if you hear any audio glitches please let us know and we will fix them before release on the main feed.

Comments

RareTripleBait

It‘s happening! Got my Ibuprofen ready in case the pain becomes unbearable

Linda Sears

I’m in another grading marathon, but once I have finished, I will treat myself with listening.

weltysparrow

Good god, how does anyone listen to these people?! The whole style is like nails scraping continuously on a chalk board!

Jake Lawrence

You two are sadistic for making us listen to it...which makes me a masochist for continuing to listen. 😂 Good ep, guys, nice change of pace.

Podcast Phanatic

A few semi-important points about Tao Lin. It doesn’t seem mention on by A&D but his style and publishing house muumuu in the late 00s and early 10s is probably one of the most influential on the greater alt-lit, and general hipster manhattan (it was back in the day Brooklyn, now it’s lower manhattan) irony of something like red scare. It’s not that he’s such a great poet and writer that he’s irreplaceable, but I can’t imagine this style of literature without him, and then there’s been a broadly large impact of alt lit on pop culture. Second thing is he had a me too dust up. I suspect that has something to do with his now public beliefs. You may or may not also be aware there has been a lot of speculation about the involvement of Peter thiel in the “dimes square” lower Manhattan art scene of Red Scare. Thiel has been the patron, along with Mencius moldbug/curtis yarvin. The artists associated are the types of people who turn from hipster to “tradcath” (like Dasha herself), they had a party at the NYC young republican club that A&D hosted etc. One of the more bizarre things that A&D attended was an event for Yarvin’s group that questions whether Shakespeare really was the author of the plays attributed to him.

Allan Malcolm McPherson

I probably don't need to say this but I feel obliged to. The idea that Indigenous people of the Americas were "pre-agricultural" is pretty nuts.

Paul Bowman

They don't fit the guru mould, but what a trio of seriously annoying people. If I got stuck in a corner with these guys at a party, I'd probably jump out the window to get away from them (or, more realistically after a few drinks, probably just slot one, I know, not big, not clever). Tao's delivery is a performance shtick, I'm pretty sure. If you listen carefully to the eczema segment, just before he's about to mention his crotch (paging Dr Freud) he snorts with what would be the start of a snigger, but he immediately represses it. Listen to it again, you'll hear it. Why does he immediately repress his desire to chortle? Because it's breaking character in his act. Second piece of evidence, when he diagnoses his cat with ASD (god give me strength!) one of the symptoms he notes is that she is slow. For me his slow, deliberately monotone, affectless delivery is his antivaxx-pilled idea of how a person on the spectrum "should" speak. i.e. as if they were brain-damaged somehow and with the flattened emotion of a Hollywood screen psychopath. It's performance art. Just really shit performance art. Anyone who has listened to HFA people go off on a brain-dump about one of their favourite topics can attest, slow talking is not a thing. Going on too long and missing all the signals that you're audience got bored 15 minutes ago? OK, that's a thing. But not slowness or lack of emotion/affect. Like, just fuck off you ignorant pseud. While not in the guru mode, their epistemics are similarly broken, but with slightly different cause than the raw megalomania of the gurus. When they discuss how they can't be artists and conservatives, they kinda give the game away. "Because you can't be an artist without being detached from moral commitments" (or whatever the exact wording was from yer wan). I think that's true. They don't have any moral or ideological commitments. That's not all artists - there are plenty of ideologically-committed artists, as Chris pointed out, including extreme religious conservatives (Gaudi anyone?), conservatives and far right nutcases. But there is a layer of sociopathic moral and ideological nihilists who, for lack of any internal engagement with things they can believe in (apart from being "conned" into caring about something by Bernie - the fury was telling in that one) they are slaves to fashion. They are willing hostages to audience capture. Stockholm syndrome for hipsters. But I think it connects to their broken epistemics as well. Because they have no internal engagement with beliefs or ideology, they have never evolved a critical framework to figure out when things contradict (avoid the vaccine in case the pig was contaminated by glycophosphate, but make sure to eat the whole pig, because meat is cool... or at least our audience thinks so). So instead they have to fall back on how anything makes them feel. And this is their truth. How it makes me feel is what's real. That's the truth. And the fact that how I feel about anything is mainly about my anxieties over keeping the follower numbers rising, is neither here nor there. Up against the wall with the lot of them. Just kidding. (Sorta)

zaphods_revenge

I’ve been re-listening to and trying to wrap my head around: “I’ve got this really thick book that talks about…[insert antivaxx talking points]…but I haven’t read it”

Roscoe 112

Please take the energy level down. I'm trying to concentrate on my long sentences like a wolf.

Tim Tripp

Wow they play all the hits and in such a boring way.

commutercomputer

The more I listened these reactonaries pretending to be liberals the more I missed the old school conservatives. At least those people were intellectually honest when it came to their beliefs.

Riku

Thank you for breaking down the ways I can be one of the cool kids

Allan Malcolm McPherson

Having listened to the episode now I am wondering if there might be a modification to the Gurometer to indicate guru susceptibility in a person?

Christopher McLaughlin

Back in 2015 I started listening to a lot of the dirtbag left comedy podcasts, the funniest by far are Chapo Trap House and Trash Future. I tried listening to Red Scare back when they were Bernie Bros and found it unlistenable. I had no idea they had gone right wing since then, so when I tried listening to them again earlier this year I couldn’t figure out at first whether the Trump and Tucker loving was farce. I listened to a bunch of their podcasts to dig deeper and Chris the way you characterize Red Scare is right on. The podcast started moving right somewhat ironically, but as their audience changed they very much became beholden to the right when they finally started making money. You’d be amazed how popular Red Scare is among “serious” right wing media personalities and some of the heterodox antiwoke brainsmen. Thomas Chatterton Williams antiwoke writer for the Atlantic said on their 3/29/23 episode that Red Scare is his favorite podcast! It was clear Williams was simping for the gals, like he was obviously in love with them, and that helped me understand the appeal of the show to all these ghoulish right wing and heterodox men. These kind-of-attractive, in a way sophisticated and cosmopolitan, irony drenched women were providing something for these lame as fuck boring conservatives. They were flirting with something that even Gavin McInnes had failed at miserably: making it cool to be right wing. It’s incredibly difficult making it cool to be really into Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson. That’s why anarcho capitalists are so funny…we’re anarchists who love the free market! Inherently uncool. Now a normal human listens to Red Scare and wants to gouge out their ear canals within the first three minutes, but to a Steve Bannon like character he hears the skinny cool kids who never wanted to play with his fat degenerate ass agreeing with his right wing ideology for the first time. It’s puppy love plus white nationalism.

Leeroy

I wasn't prepared for quite this level of performatively offensive bullshit and pseudoscience, completely at odds with almost everything a real advocate would say. I also think you need to add a trigger warning for this amount of vocal fry. Self-diagnosis is mostly accepted among neurodivergent people nowadays due to lack of access to formal diagnosis but I agree that it seems strange that a pretty successful person like Tao Lin wouldn't seek diagnosis if it's part of his public persona. His delivery did also seem a bit affected to me (I'm loathe to admit that the Elon clip did seem more authentically familiar). Everyone's different though, as the saying goes "when you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person"

Helga

There really is no comparison between these annoying airheads and Chapo.

Ben Godek

A little nitpick: you used the phrase Neo-conservatism in the description text. That specifically means the Bush/Cheney/McCain type of conservative-interventionist and pro free market. These two are definitely right wing, but in the post Trump, populist way. Postmodern conservative is probably the better description

Protagonist Science

Could not listen to all of the podcast, these are so cringe, arrogant and uninformed it really drags me down

Artemis Green

Ohhhhh my lord, autofiction and excess testosterone causing autism? In a way, it must be liberating to live life with absolutely no worry that you sound like a complete ignoramus. But also, I'd rather not spend my life sounding like a complete ignoramus.

Emma

This is giving me flash backs to high school in the 90s. I remember when this sort of intentional dumb and apathetic thing was cool. And everyone wanted to be Daria. I don't know how much my social circles are representative but one thing I notice when interacting with teenagers and young people is that apathy is out and being smart and idealistic is in. I find it sort of funny they are trying to be 'cool' but in a way that only appeals to middle aged people.

Emma

I remember this thing about the perfect pre-collonial American Indians coming up when I got into a v frustrating argument with a carnivore guy. He was trying to say because the early explorers thought the American Indians were super hot, all people should eat only meat and plants are poisonous and modern medicine is also sus. I pointed out it could also mean that they lived in a harsh environment where old and sickly people were weeded out by natural selection and actually the presence of old and sick people in modern society is a good sign of our food & healthcare systems working pretty well (w room for improvement of course). But I think they don't really care about what is healthy for the population at large. It's more like a sort of resurgence of eugenics thinking. Which is worrying.

elcid

Not only vapid, execrable. Enough said.

Bill Beatty

Usually I enjoy the show but this is too much. Tapping out at 58 mins. See you next time.

Daniel Beddingfield

Vocal fry is completely normal; it's often misidentified as the culprit in cringe-inducing vocal affects of pretentious rich people. Fry occurs when we try to speak as low as possible. That's often associated with a valley-girl-like tendency to painfully elongate words for emphasis. The fry makes it obvious, but I'd bet it's the affect that grates on most people.

Simon Patience

Really hard to get through - their voices…I’m faaaaaaading……

Suzan Lemont

Staggering levels of stupidity and vapidity. And immaturity. Absolutely nothing interesting or thought provoking in their material, unless it's the bafflement at how the fuck they're popular. I should just stop researching anything and go with "yeah I feel that's true". The time I could save!

F

Holy crap Im 53 minutes in and this is fucking boring. Considering skipping this ep, but since that would stop my dtg streak I won‘t do it

Jenny

The combination of vapidity and ignorance delivered with a blase self-confidence was a bit alarming.

Recalcitrant Goat

The amount of times I checked to see if my internet had dropped during the audio clips because of the incredibly laidback and cool delivery was neither laidback nor cool. These people are almost too cool to be alive. I’m so glad I’m not cool. Or wait…

Karen Miscall-Bannon

This has been one of your more painful listens. Their voices… there is definitely something about them (and I put Peterson, Malone, and Mccollough, Rogan and Weinstein in the same aggravating voice basket) that is so grating. Where to start -how about that DDT is an insecticide and glyphosate is an herbicide -but why get bogged down in pesky details when it’s all about feelings anyway. Really appreciate you guys and look forward to every episode! Thank you.

Guest Post Office

They sound like american stoner versions of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie on the Windsors (royal family satire)!🤣 I tried listening to their Kissenger one before this and couldnt get through it… they sound ignorant. I mean i dont know much about him (to remember) but I know just by listening to Hitchens how serious the stuff he did was.

Roland Weber

I got some genuine laughs and head-shakes out of this episode. Sure, it has to do with testosterone levels. Too low. Or too high. Whatever. 🤦

Linda Sears

Thanks, Matt and Chris, for finding the determination to get through the Red Scare episode that so many of us couldn’t. It is odd to me that they say they don’t want to be politically aligned and yet their politics are transparent. It seems they want the coolness of being beyond or above all that while actually having views that are traceable to the far right wing. It doesn’t surprise me that one of them supported Bernie when that was the hip thing to do. They are poseurs who like to be provocative. The most honest thing I heard one of the women say is that she became conservative when she made more money. My guess is they like the rebelliousness of the alt-right because it fits their identities as not buying into the mainstream narratives, and it increases their following.

Erquirk

These women make the vein in my forehead start to bulge and pulsate, good lord our species is doomed

Tree

Aaaargh. They are so unpleasant. And the autism stuff is rage inducing. Most of your shows I love, but one or two Ive found the subjects too irritating to enjoy. This one is the worst by far.

JLolly

It wasn't the vocal fry I found strange or off putting. It was the way they seemed to stretch out every word as if it were building into an anticipated gem of wisdom they were surely bringing.....Just.......be.....pay-tient. It reminded me of talking to attorneys trying to stretch out very little, but into segments of 10 minutes that attorney use to bill by. But that was minor stuff in comparison to the disservice Mr. Lin does to the autistic community - a quite a diverse group of individuals in which I often hear the phrase 'if you have met one autistic person, you have literally met one. And you also ignore a huge amount of lived experience of individuals who start of thinking autism is one set of symptoms that has nothing to do with your family of origin much less that of your own or your partner's. And much of this comes from the intense amount of fear and discomfort parents and grandparents to be have around this topic. They're worried about a child who has linguistic impairment, difficult and frequent meltdowns, lack of eye contact and essentially as he presented both himself and and other autistics, as unable to have warm & loving relationships and empathy/feelings for others. Of course there are multifaceted reasons for each individual case. Some are genetic and most certainly there are things in the environment that exacerbate symptoms or prevent individuals to be able to adapt. In addition, the ability for a person to look at their family tree and be more realistic about what they see, depends on them knowing what to look for. So prior to the existence of my three children and with a much more limited understanding of what neurodiversity looks like, I could look at the traits of my partner and his family and mine and say 'not much see here.' 16 years and three children later, I can only look back and laugh at my naïveté on the subject! Two children might well make you a parent, but three or more turns you into a science experiment. A mad one haha! Turns out we are anything but whatever 'normal' counts for these days. While all three of my children are classified as neurodivergent, they are all full in mainstream education and are not cognitively impaired. In previous generations, we would have had less idea about what the cause of various issues were. Guess what - ADHD and ASD share many traits. They also seem to be cousins of other learning issues such as dyslexia. The high achievement within the family is a combo of having access to services and also different groups of parents who didn't seem shape or make assumptions about what it said about them as parents to have children needing various services. It takes stepping outside your own childhood and background and being ok with your own quirks. But let me tell you one thing that being autistic/adhd doesn't automatically make you - an arsehole. Mr. Lin chooses that himself, in part. When he makes his juvenile attempt to analyse science and make his own extrapolations he make himself seem limited in a way that might or might not be linked to his diagnosis, or lack of one. Because having these assessment dones in an educational setting helps tremendously. And it is way more than being 31 out of 50 ON ONE TEST. In addition, the lack of empathy and intellectual curiosity it takes to decide he is the a Trumper and has distaste to for liberals. It just makes very little sense to choose to equally as nihilistic about your own future and well being as all that. But sadly, that is where so many find themselves with lack of the things their parents had, eg somewhat steadier jobs with steady health insurance. I suppose I'd be much more checked out and 'fuck it whatever' that a liberal becomes when it came to the future of my family if we weren't dual national/expats, who in theory have a country not on fire with health insurance to go back to. But really, there is never any excuse to be such arseholes. Especially dystopian ones. Just yet, anyway, what with the availability of caprice salad for breakfast still at our shiny fingertips.

NIALL DAVISON

Jesus Christ! This is a joke, right? People like this don't actually exist, do they? It sounded like a bad sketch from The Fast Show or The League of Gentlemen. I had to listen to it in about ten different instalments just to get through. And people actually pay to get nauseated by these assholes? Just to clarify: I'm talking about Red Scare, not DTG.

JC Larke

Not that I don't love that you took them on, but don't they full heartedly embrace their non-intellectual, more intuitive analysis of social and political issues? I understand them to be critical of overtly academic, inaccessible, posivitist (male) style or system that many popular leftist intellectual podcasters go by? Like, not having your thought fully sorted out before you speak it, chatting about it, and going off how you feel about it rather than evidence that you have yet to understand. And that these traits are thought to be a more feminine way of thinking through problems and ideas? Though, I do think you guys rightly had to do this one because of the blatant vaccine = autism talk from all of them. I was definitely excited to hear this one. And, I have listened to their podcast, but I often can't get through an entire episode because of the ASMRiness of it. Thanks so much for your stuff Chris and Matt! You guys have won me, I listen to every opening about trail mix and live for snaps of the Galaxy brains at the end.

Dermot Power

Possibly the most painful one yet. New listeners might need to start with something easier ... work your way up to the Sense-Makers then this awfulness. DtG Gold.

Rodi

I hope this was performance art. This hits me the same way Andy Warhol does; it's too cynical and vapid to be worth attention.

Andrew Demos

My god! I didn't know I had that much rage left in me..

aneladgam_varelse

I enjoyed this episode a lot. I’m ashamed to admit, but Red Scare is something I could listen to, because somehow despite terrible politics and terrible epistemics it passed the vibe check. Idk I liked their feeble rambling, sound of voice and somehow they disclosed enough random, self-deprecating info to be relatable. Throwing lingo of progressive left made me feel home, because well, over the years I got used to exhausting vibe based discourse. The sad thing is that online left is more eager to take issue with inappropriate language than god awful ideas, so it was great to hear you dealing with Red Scare on the merits.

aneladgam_varelse

I have legit question: how to talk to people in private conversation about accumulated factoids and general knowledge which isn’t filled with details? I can’t defend many positions once I’m asked about sources, because I don’t have time for that and I’m not an expert.

Rebecca C

For me, this episode was the most painful yet…. I thought that when it came to autism and the conspiritualist guru-sphere, anti-vax rhetoric was the most offensive thing going; turns out there is a whole new level of misinformation I hadn’t yet plumbed the depths of. I did enjoy the DTG handing of it, but as mother to an autistic child, this was a tough listen. Thanks for the way you approached this.

Soapy Dishwater

I know this post is months old now, but I had to say this episode felt like it gave me a poison debuff. Just getting hit for 5 dmg every sentence

George

Digging through old unplayed episodes in an attempt to satiate my unquenchable DtG thirst. Holy moly this one was painful. Do people honestly listen to Red Scare unironically?