The Right Can’t Read

Episode 30: The Gang Reads a Jehova’s Witness Book

Have you ever received a book in the mail that you didn't order and, like a maniac, chose to inflict it on friends instead of throwing it away? Aaron has! Join us as Aaron reads bits of a sadly dull Jehovah's Witness book at Shark and Rachel and the three talk about how disappointed they are. Hey, you can't always have a well-researched episode about culture. You just can't.

Episode 29: The Country Music Follow-Up

Robert and Aaron talk about two amazing contributions to human civilization.
Music by Daniel Griggs

Episode 28: The Perceptive Boys

The conclusion to our three-part series on Watchmen! Jonny takes the gang through various analyses of the comic and everyone is - still - amazed that anyone can walk away from it with a positive perception of Rorshach.
Music by Daniel Griggs

Episode 27: Who Casts the Pod Men?

Jonny takes the gang through a DETAILED (and yet not detailed enough) synopsis of the Watchmen novel. We talk through the characterizations a bit and start delving into what it all means, but more of that to come!
Music by Daniel Griggs

Episode 26: Podwatchcastmen, Part 1

Long-time listener and first-time caller Jonny Lim takes the gang on the start of their journey through Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen. I, Aaron, would like to reiterate that Welcome Back Kotter is a show that exists and I'm very glad that Jonny backs me up on this.

Episode 25: They Live

What?! An episode under an hour?!?!?!?
Aaron brings some serious old coot energy to another """"palette cleanser."""" This one's about John Carpenter's THEY LIVE.
Music by Daniel Griggs (good luck on the move, buddy!)
Some extra reading:
Revisiting the Dystopian L.A. of Sci-Fi Classic They Live, 30 Years Later: https://www.lamag.com/culturefiles/they-live-filming-locations-30-years/
John Carpenter’s ‘They Live’ Was Supposed to Be a Warning. We Didn’t Heed It. We Didn’t Even Understand It.: https://www.theringer.com/movies/2018/10/4/17933020/they-live-john-carpenter-america-donald-trump
John Carpenter Looks Back on ‘They Live': 'It's Not Science Fiction. It's a Documentary'
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/john-carpenter-looks-back-on-they-live-its-174619686.htm
30 Minutes on: "They Live" https://www.rogerebert.com/mzs/30-minutes-on-they-live
Influencers are faking brand deals https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/influencers-are-faking-brand-deals/578401/
TikTok is full of shady secret advertisements
https://www.vox.com/recode/23197348/tiktok-ad-sponcon-influencers

Episode 24: Alpha Males

The gang fails at having a relaxed conversation about the bullshit phenomenon of alpha wolves. Yet another palette cleanser that is not a palette cleanser. Ah well.

Episode 23: The Internet’s Crypto-Grift

The group wraps up our journey through the internet with a long, long discussion about the gold standard, grifts, crypto, and AI. Shark and Rachel align themselves with the Machines, while Aaron yells at clouds.
Music by Daniel Griggs
Reading list:
On Mt. Gox: https://www.wired.com/2014/03/bitcoin-exchange/
“Could gold be the next Libor scandal?”
What Drives Gold Prices?, Federal Reserve
The Bank War, history.com
Is Gold an Inflation Hedge?, Forbes
Wizard of Oz and the Gold Standard, Marianne Hayes
Ron Paul and Steve Forbes Jack Each Other Off About Gold
A year on, El Salvador's bitcoin experiment is stumbling
The New York Couple Behind El Salvador’s Bitcoin Experiment
The Electricity Costs of Bitcoin, CNET
Proof of Stake, Proof of Work
No, Bitcoin isn't pumping because it's a "safe haven" from banks
Dunning-Kruger Effect
Dunning-Kruger Isn't Real, Psychology Today
A Crypto Game Promised to Lift Filipinos Out of Poverty. Here's What Happened Instead, Time
Exclusive: Large bitcoin payments to right-wing activists a month before Capitol riot linked to foreign account, Yahoo News
The Enshittification of TikTok
 

Episode 22: The Internet - Part 2: Web 2.0

Aaron brings Robert and Rachel through the horrors of venture capital, Meta's quarterly reports, and the enshittification of the web.
Music by Daniel Griggs.
READ THIS STUFF:
A funny Tweet about how shitty the Internet is.
How Venture Capital Works, Harvard Business Review
How Venture Capitalists Make Decisions, Harvard Business Review
Competition is for Losers, Peter Thiel in the Wall Street Journal
Facebook's culpability in genocide
NBC News
Council on Foreign Relations
The Guardian
Meta's financial report
The Supreme Court Could Destroy the Internet Next Week, Legal Eagle
How to Ditch Facebook Without Losing Your Friends (or Family, Customers, or Communities), Cory Doctorow and the EFF
TikTok's enshittification, Cory Doctorow
Content Moderation is Infosec, Cory Doctorow
A series of studies on the ease with which tech companies spread misinformation
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/22/22740703/twitter-algorithm-right-wing-amplification-study
https://www.businessinsider.com/transphobia-ted-kaczynski-tiktok-algorithm-right-wing-self-radicalization-2021-11?op=1
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/26/facebook-conservatives-2020-421146
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1536504218766547
https://www.brookings.edu/research/echo-chambers-rabbit-holes-and-ideological-bias-how-youtube-recommends-content-to-real-users/
https://www.wired.com/story/right-wing-fake-news-more-engagement-facebook/
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/facebook-twitter-don-t-censor-conservatives-they-hire-promote-them-ncna1245308
https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/10/more-internal-documents-show-how-facebooks-algorithm-prioritized-anger-and-posts-that-triggered-it/ 
The Internet's video focus is based on a lie, Slate
Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things, Catherynne M. Valente
Social Media and Algorithms, PBS Nova

Episode 21: How Cyberlibertarians Laid The Groundwork to Ruin the Internet

Aaron leads Robert and Rachel through the early days of the Internet. The gang talks about the worst people imaginable: Corporate stooges and Grateful Dead lyricists.
Music by Daniel Griggs
Sources:
Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software, Stallman: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
Cyberlibertarians’ Digital Deletion of the Left: https://jacobin.com/2013/12/cyberlibertarians-digital-deletion-of-the-left
Making common sense of cyberlibertarian ideology: The journalistic consecration of John Perry Barlow: https://jstor.org/stable/community.32839336
Cyberlibertarian myths and the prospects for community: https://doi.org/10.1145/270858.270864
Cyber Libertarianism - The Case for Real Internet Freedom: https://techliberation.com/2009/08/12/cyber-libertarianism-the-case-for-real-internet-freedom/
Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace: https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence