Ill Conceived

JD Vance

Sat, 09 May 2026 01:23:31 -0400

The Vice President of the United States and his wife Usha are expecting their fourth baby, setting an apparent example for their fellow natalists. But just how intertwined is JD Vance with the natalist movement overall and what does it have to do with Usha’s new podcast about children’s books? This week, June and Josh dig into JD Vance’s history with conservatism and Catholicism to try to figure it out.

***WANT MORE ILL CONCEIVED? Every other week, we release B-side supplements to the main episodes where we read your e-mail responses and discuss things further. Come check us out at Patreon.com/illconceived!***

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WORLD FAMOUS MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: JD Vance in a press photo by Niall Carson for Getty Images. Born in Middletown, Ohio, Vance graduated from Ohio State University and Yale Law School, eventually working under Peter Thiel at Mithril Capital. After being elected to the United States Senate in 2022, Vance was selected by Donald Trump to serve as his running mate for the 2024 presidential election.

AUDIO CLIPS:

18:51 – Donald Trump reading from 2 Corinthians as part of the America Reads the Bible special event
24:51 – JD Vance referring to Democratic opposition as "childless cat ladies"
59:39 – Usha Vance reading The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter for her podcast Storytime with the Second Lady

SOURCES:

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)

Ballerina Farm / Hannah Neeleman: The B-Side (PREVIEW)

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 20:05:16 -0400

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived

--------------------------

Fox News has reported on the "problem" of teenagers not getting pregnant anymore. We're talking about it, and reading your letters because it turns out that a lot of you had a lot to say about Hannah Neeleman, including:

The cultural specifics of Mormonism and how they're reflected in Ballerina Farms
The sinister overtones of her husband's whole deal
The economics of farm tourism vs. functional scale farming
Natural births and why many people prefer them
Ballerina Farm-style natalism as a reflection of European settler-colonialism

As always, our babies stay winning!

Ballerina Farm / Hannah Neeleman

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 21:03:37 -0400

Natalists have an ideal life and an ideal wife: rugged, individualistic, and dedicated to self-sufficiency. Perhaps nothing epitomizes this ideal better than Ballerina Farm, the popular social media account of dancer and pageant queen Hannah Neeleman that is growing into an influential direct-to-consumer food and lifestyle brand that no longer sells raw milk. This week, Josh and June look at the history of Ballerina Farm and try to understand how its strange brand of seemingly apolitical tradwifery serves as a stalking horse for the natalist movement and reactionary politics more broadly.

CHECK OUT OUR RECENT PODCAST GUEST APPEARANCES!

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WORLD FAMOUS MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: Hannah Neeleman in a professional headshot. After graduating from Juilliard's dance undergraduate program while pregnant, Neeleman moved to Brazil then back home to Utah, where she and her husband Daniel purchased a farm along the east side of the Wasatch Range. Her Instagram account Ballerina Farm has over 10 million followers.

AUDIO CLIPS:

1:01:48 – "Strength at Every Stage" protein powder advertisement from Ballerina Farm
1:27:12 – Response to the Sunday Times article from the Ballerina Farm Instagram account

SOURCES:

Ballerina Farm website
Ballerina Farm Instagram
“Meet the queen of the ‘trad wives’ (and her eight children)” by Megan Agnew (The Sunday Times, July 20, 2024)
“She Gave Birth Two Weeks Ago. Now She’s in a Beauty Pageant” by Madison Malone Kircher (The New York Times, January 30, 2024)
“Tycoon or Tradwife? The Woman Behind Ballerina Farm Makes Her Own Path” by Julia Moskin (The New York Times, December 3, 2024)
“The Business of Ballerina Farm” by Liz Flora (Business of Fashion, May 27, 2025)
“When Ballerina Farm Comes to Town” by Erica Schwiegershausen (The Cut, September 10, 2025)
“Park City Creamery to sell business to Ballerina Farm” by Katie Hatzfeld (The Park Record, December 23, 2025)
“Ballerina Farm pauses raw milk sales after samples fail health tests” by Grace Doerfler (KPCW, January 29, 2026)
Hannah Neeleman’s feature spread in Evie magazine
“Audio Recording From Ballerina Farm Times Interview Exposes Dishonest Journalism” by Nicole Dominique (Evie, July 29, 2024)

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)

BONUS - The Worst of All Possible Worlds: Beast Games StrongSmart feat. Kill The Computer

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 02:00:00 -0400

Beast Week continues as the gang from The Worst of All Possible Worlds join with June and Caleb to dig into season 2 of Beast Games. This is the first half of a full-length episode; to get the whole thing head over to Patreon.com/worstofall!

BONUS - Kill The Computer: The Smile Merchant feat. The Worst of All Possible Worlds

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 08:00:00 -0400

We're so back. The next Ill Conceived, about Ballerina Farm, has been recorded and will drop this coming Friday.

To tide you over until then, we've brought you some extra goodies. Our other shows, Josh's The Worst of All Possible Worlds and June's Kill The Computer, are doing a full crossover collaboration that we're calling Beast Week, dedicated to celebrating Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson. And it kicks off today.

In this episode of Kill The Computer, the gang from The Worst of All Possible Worlds talked with June and Caleb about a number of videos MrBeast released in 2025. Then we dug into his theme park Beast Land, a temporary pop-up in Riyadh that was open for 45 days as part of the annual Saudi entertainment festival known as Riyadh Season.

Next up, on Wednesday, Kill The Computer will be joining Josh, Brian, and A.J. on The Worst of All Possible Worlds Patreon for a premium episode about season 2 of Beast Games. We'll also upload the first half of the episode here so you can get a taste for it.

Finally, on Friday, alongside new Ill Conceived we’ll be concluding Beast Week on the Kill The Computer Patreon with an in-depth conversation about what Jimmy’s been up to so far this year and where we think he might go next.

Thank you as always for being our beloved babies.

Love, Josh

Tucker Carlson: The End of Men: The B-Side (PREVIEW)

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 15:05:02 -0400

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived

--------------------------

We try to clarify some of our thoughts last week on weight and health, then dig a bit more into some claims made by the Bro Scientists. Plus, June gets a bit loopy and we spend a solid 10+ minutes on ball tanning. We also read your emails about:

Avoiding plastics because your dad is afraid of estrogen
Jobs with lots of physical activity that are bad for your health

Finally, here's a link to the GIF that June was cracking up about.

Tucker Carlson: The End of Men

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 13:42:30 -0400

Testosterone is lowering. Sperm counts are shrinking. Men, a once proud and noble half of the human race, are accelerating down the road to extinction. So say many natalists, who tie their fear of demographic decline into their anxieties about gender. But how much of what they claim has any basis in truth whatsoever? This week, June and Josh take a look at Tucker Carlson's 2022 Fox Nation short "The End of Men" to see how it both set a template for and propagated narratives about declining masculinity that have since become ubiquitous.

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WORLD FAMOUS MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: Tucker Carlson in an ABC News press photo. After spending years as a mid-level host of various news shows, Carlson became a leading star of Fox News' primetime lineup with the debut of Tucker Carlson Tonight in 2016. Carlson was fired by the network in 2023 for spreading falsehoods and misleading video about the January 6, 2020 riots on the United States Capitol and has since become a leading voice of right-wing new media.

SOURCES:

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)

Jeffrey Epstein: The B-Side (PREVIEW)

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:46:02 -0500

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived

--------------------------

The new CEO of Xbox is worried about birthrates and thinks AI might have the solution. We're talking about it, plus we read your letters from the Jeffrey Epstein episode regarding:

How "pregnant people" provides more specificity as a term than "pregnant women" and why natalists don't like it
The emails that Sarah Ferguson, the then-wife of then-Prince Andrew, sent to Epstein
How Epstein associate Nick Bostrom's obsession with superintelligent AI reflects a faulty consensus among tech industry types

Also, here's a link to the official music video for Jimmy MacMillan's song "Ain't Nothing To Talk About" in its entirety.

Jeffrey Epstein

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 14:34:24 -0500

On January 30, the U.S. Department of Justice released over 3 million pages of new information about Jeffrey Epstein. Among these documents are thousands of new emails detailing Epstein's links to technologists and academics in the world of evolutionary biology, eugenics, and artificial intelligence. This week, Josh and June dig into the history of Epstein's connections with these people and discuss how his bizarre plans for his own offspring reflect the ideas and objectives of the tech natalist agenda.

***REMINDER: WE HAVE A PATREON! Every other week, we release B-side supplements to the main episodes where we read your e-mail responses and discuss things further. Come check us out at Patreon.com/illconceived!***

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and human trafficker, wearing a Harvard university sweatshirt. One month after being indicted on federal child sex trafficking charges in 2019, Epstein was found dead in his jail cell, leaving his likely thousands of victims without justice for the crimes he committed.

SOURCES:

“Harvard closes evolution center after finding connections to Jeffrey Epstein” by Edward Helmore (The Guardian, March 27, 2021)
“Martin Nowak Sanctioned for Jeffrey Epstein Involvement” by Lydialyle Gibson (Harvard Magazine, March 25, 2021)
“How Jeffrey Epstein Captivated Harvard” by Michael Massing (The Nation, July 24, 2023)
Harvard report concerning Jeffrey Epstein’s connections to Harvard University
“Professor Corina Tarnita on the Epstein Files: ‘I Wish I Had Never Known Him’” by Lia Opperman (Princeton Alumni Weekly, February 10, 2026)
“Jeffrey Epstein Raked In $200 Million After Legal and Financial Crises” by Matthew Goldstein and Steve Eder (The New York Times, October 3, 2019)
“Epstein files reveal deeper ties to scientists than previously known” by Dan Garisto (Nature, February 6, 2026)
Epstein testimony before the Economic Development Commission, USVI
“Jeffrey Epstein: International Moneyman of Mystery” by Landon Thomas Jr. (New York Magazine, October 28, 2002)
“Jeffrey Epstein files shed light on ties to Santa Fe Institute scientists” by Clara Bates (Santa Fe New Mexican, February 11, 2026)
“Jeffrey Epstein E-mails Reveal Depth of Ties to High-Profile Scientists” by Dan Vergano (Scientific American, November 13, 2025)
“The DIY designer baby project funded with Bitcoin” by Antonio Regalado (MIT Technology Review, February 1, 2019)
“Jeffrey Epstein Hoped to Seed Human Race With His DNA” by James B. Stewart, Matthew Goldstein and Jessica Silver-Greenberg (The New York Times, July 31, 2019)
“Why did Jeffrey Epstein cultivate famous scientists?” by Dan Vergano (Scientific American, January 20, 2026)
“Jeffrey Epstein had a 'Frankenstein'-like plan to analyze human DNA in the US Virgin Islands, and it reportedly pulled in $200 million” by Erin Brodwin (Business Insider, October 4, 2019)
“Texas GOP politician Don Huffines plans Christian retreat at Zorro Ranch” by Clara Bates (Santa Fe New Mexican, February 16, 2026)
“Former MIT scientist funded by Epstein made racist and sexist claims in private emails” by Kate Selig (Boston Globe, November 21, 2025)
“New Mexico House unanimously enacts Epstein ‘truth commission’” by Danielle Prokop (Source NM, February 16, 2026)
“How Jeffrey Epstein Bought His Way Into An Exclusive Intellectual Boys Club” by Peter Aldhous (Buzzfeed News, September 26, 2019)
“How Epstein Infiltrated the Silicon Valley Network Behind Trump’s New Tech Order” by Nafeez Ahmed (Byline Times, December 3, 2025)
“How Epstein Channelled Race Science and ‘Climate Culling’ Into Silicon Valley’s AI Elite” by Nafeez Ahmed (Byline Times, December 5, 2025)

DIRECT LINKS TO EPSTEIN FILES QUOTED IN THIS EPISODE:

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)

Surrogacy: The B-Side (PREVIEW)

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 21:11:51 -0500

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived

--------------------------

We didn't get a lot of mail about surrogacy this week. But you wanted to hear more about weird Silicon Valley Christians and we wanted to talk about them, so we read from an interview with the founder of a Peter Thiel-connected organization called ACTS 17 that hosted the "Code and Cosmos" event we mentioned in last week's main feed episode.

Plus, an update on Trump Accounts.

Surrogacy

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 23:59:55 -0500

An increasingly popular childbirth option for couples who cannot easily naturally conceive is to utilize a surrogate who gestates and births the pregnancy on behalf of the intended parents. And as of late, surrogacy is also being used by some especially wealthy people, particularly in the tech industry, as a way for them to avoid pregnancy altogether. This week, June and Josh look at the history of surrogacy, the moral disagreements among the religious right about the practice, and some of the ethical and legal complications that can result.

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: Cindy Bi, a venture capitalist who attempted to give birth via surrogacy. When the pregnancy resulted in a stillbirth, Bi sued her surrogate and went to the press to disparage her further.

AUDIO CLIPS:

1:15:47 – Epic Church promotional "About Us" video
1:22:49 – Ben Pilgreen, pastor of Epic Church, delivering a sermon called "What Maturity Demands"

SOURCES:

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)

Peter Thiel: The B-Side (PREVIEW)

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 16:05:10 -0500

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived

--------------------------

Palantir employees are in their feels about their company's complicity with ICE and we're talking about it. We also issue a couple corrections about the Peter Thiel episode (28 is the number of days in a menstrual cycle and it turns out that Thiel does have children), then dig into the world-famous mailbag for your thoughts on:

The way that Ashley St. Clair and other right-wing media figures have influenced children to develop a conservative worldview from a young age, both recently and in the past
The privacy and data tracking implications of period tracking apps
The paradox of the non-identity problem and how it applies to IVF

If you haven't listened to June and Matt's interview with Ashley St. Clair, go check it out!

Peter Thiel

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 16:54:36 -0500

Big data controls our lives like never before, and few people are more responsible than Peter Thiel, the billionaire cofounder of Palantir who made the bulk of his fortune by investing early in Facebook. But it turns out that beyond his obsession with data, Thiel is equally fixated on the end times, the rise of the Antichrist, and the recent trend of declining birth rates in the West. This week, Josh and June try to figure out why Peter Thiel has the worldview he does and how it bears out in his investments in natalist technology.

CHECK OUT OUR RECENT PODCAST GUEST APPEARANCES!

June on A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein talking with Ashley St. Clair about her history with, and regrets about, the right-wing propaganda machine
Josh on Have You Seen This? talking about the movie Catch My Soul
Josh on Reserved Recommendations talking about the Christian musical group Newsboys

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: Peter Thiel in a 2016 address to the Republican National Convention. Born in Germany, Thiel spent the bulk of his childhood in an apartheid settlement in South West Africa. After graduating from Stanford and briefly attempting a career in law, Thiel co-founded PayPal, Palantir and numerous venture capital funds, also making a critical early investment in Facebook that now represents the core of his fortune.

AUDIO CLIPS:

59:59 – Peter Thiel talks about the Antichrist in a Mercatus Center interview about political theology
1:24:12 – Peter Thiel talks about demographic collapse in an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience

FURTHER READING:

"The Real Stakes, and Real Story, of Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession" by Laura Bullard (Wired, September 30, 2025)

SOURCES:

"No Death, No Taxes" by George Packer (The New Yorker, November 20, 2011)
"How the roots of the ‘PayPal mafia’ extend to apartheid South Africa" by Chris McGreal (The Guardian, January 26, 2025)
"South‐West Africa City Remains ‘More German Than Germany’" by Henry Kamm (The New York Times, October 30, 1976)
"Quote of the Day: PayPal Co-Founder on Sullivan & Cromwell Stint" (Bloomberg, May 24, 2016)
"Peter Thiel is totally gay, people" by Owen Thomas (Gawker, December 19, 2007)
"What Does Palantir Actually Do?" by Caroline Haskins (Wired, August 11, 2025)
"‘ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid" by Joseph Cox (404 Media, January 15, 2026)
"Jeffrey Epstein Invested With Peter Thiel, and His Estate Is Reaping Millions" by Matthew Goldstein (The New York Times, June 4, 2025)
"Concern Grows Around Billionaire Peter Thiel’s Period-Tracking App" by Maggie Harrison Dupré (Futurism, September 11, 2022)
"Surveillance Titan Peter Thiel Invests Millions in New Anti-Feminist Menstrual Tracking App" by Kylie Cheung (Jezebel, September 6, 2022)
"Would You Wear a Period-Tracker Funded by Peter Thiel?" by Jessica Valenti & Kylie Cheung (Abortion Every Day, November 11, 2025)
"With backing from Thiel, Recharge Capital launches $200M women’s health investment vehicle" by Catherine Shu (TechCrunch, June 15, 2023)
"Rhea reaps $10M more led by Thiel" by Kate Park (TechCrunch, May 30, 2024)

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)

Masturbation & Pornography: The B-Side (PREVIEW)

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 23:05:39 -0500

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived

--------------------------

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is now going to allow young women to go on their mission starting at the age of 18 in the hopes of getting young Mormons married even younger. We're talking about it, plus we read your letters responding to our Masturbation & Pornography episode regarding:

How age verification works for restricted websites in Australia
How anti-pornography action reflects the natalist agenda
Resources and organizations that are fighting online CSAM, including the Canadian Centre for Child Protection's Project Arachnid
The important differences between the Kellogg brothers

From here on out, you can expect Mailbag & Chill episodes every other Friday where we read your letters responding to the previous week's episode. (And we'll eventually get around to doing a dramatic reading of the Zootopia abortion comic.) Thanks as always for being a subscriber!

Masturbation & Pornography

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 01:29:26 -0500

Moral panic about masturbation and pornography is nothing new, but in the wake of Donald Trump's re-election, numerous conservative groups—many of whom have deep ties to the natalist movement—have started to ring the alarm bell once again. This week, June and Josh take a look at the early history of fear of masturbation, then jump forward to the present day to see how the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) reflects many of these paranoias and introduces problems of its own.

There's also a pretty significant detour into talking about the Zootopia abortion comic, if that's your thing.

***REMINDER: WE HAVE A PATREON NOW! We record bonus mailbag episodes and release them at the beginning of each week. Come check us out at Patreon.com/illconceived!***

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: John Harvey Kellogg, a physician who founded the Kellogg Company with his brother Will in Battle Creek, Michigan in 1906. Kellogg believed that bland food such as unsweetened corn flakes could aid in reducing the urge to masturbate. He also was a notable eugenicist and co-founded the Race Betterment Foundation in 1914 to discourage interracial relationships.

AUDIO CLIPS:

16:07 – Tucker Carlson talks to Milo Yiannopolous about homosexuality

I'll Be Mailbag For Christmas

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 00:37:33 -0500

Josh was really sick the past couple weeks so we haven't been able to get new episodes out. But we wanted to get you something before the end of the year, so we talked about sperm racing and read some more mail.

New episodes in the standard format will resume on a biweekly schedule starting Friday, January 2. Thank you for being our wonderful babies and we'll see you in the new year.

***REMINDER: WE HAVE A PATREON NOW! We record bonus mailbag episodes and release them every other week. Come check us out at Patreon.com/illconceived!***

EPISODE ART: A charming LEGO mailman who is holding a brick of mail.

AUDIO CLIPS:

13:09 – The official Sperm Racing trailer, as posted to the brand's X account on December 12

SOURCES:

"I Watched Sperm Race With Hundreds of Teens. It Was a Total Sh*t Show." by Jason Rogers (Men's Health, May 7, 2025)

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)

Eugenics, IQ, and The Bell Curve

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 14:27:28 -0500

Charles Murray & Richard Herrnstein's 1994 book The Bell Curve caused tremendous controversy on its publication by positing a link between intelligence and race. But this certainly wasn't the first time someone had made this argument, nor would it be the last. This week, Josh and June take a look at the foundation of the eugenics movement in North America, track its close relationship with the development of IQ testing, and discover some surprising links to German, Italian, and American fascism.

***REMINDER: WE HAVE A PATREON NOW! We record bonus mailbag episodes and release them at the beginning of each week. Come check us out at Patreon.com/illconceived!***

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve. Murray, a Harvard and MIT-trained political scientist, is strongly opposed to social welfare programs and has made dismantling the welfare state a central goal of his project. He has been in residence at the American Enterpise Institute since 1990 and currently holds the F. A. Hayek Chair Emeritus in Cultural Studies there.

SOURCES:

“Christianity and Eugenics: The Place of Religion in the British Eugenics Education Society and the American Eugenics Society, c.1907–1940” by Graham J. Baker (Social History of Medicine, 2014)
“The Pioneer Fund: Financier of Fascist Research” by Steven J. Rosenthal (American Behavioral Scientist,1995)
“The Pioneer Fund: Bankrolling the Professors of Hate” by Adam Miller (The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 1994)
“Revealed: International ‘race science’ network secretly funded by US tech boss” by David Pegg, Tom Burgis, Hannah Devlin and Jason Wilson (The Guardian, October 16, 2024)
“A Company Says It Can Predict Your Baby’s IQ Before Birth. But Where’s the Science?” by Darren Orf (Popular Mechanics, August 7, 2025)
The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Charles A. Murray and Richard Herrnstein (Free Press, 1994)
Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and our Fight for an Independent Future by Anita Say Chan (University of California Press, 2025)
“The Pronatalism of Silicon Valley” by Emma Waters (The Heritage Foundation, August 22, 2024)
“The influencers who want the world to have more babies - and say the White House is on their side” by Stephanie Hegarty (BBC, April 1, 2025)
“The Education of a Libertarian” by Peter Thiel (Cato Unbound, April 13, 2009)

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)

Balaji Srinivasan: The B-Side (PREVIEW)

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 23:45:54 -0500

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other weekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived

--------------------------

NYC Subway's Broadway-Lafayette station is now full of apparently eugenicist ads for an IVF and genetic testing company called Nucleus. We're talking about it, plus:

The parallels between Balaji Srinivasan's ideas and the novels of Neal Stephenson
Other sci-fi that predicts other futures
Electrical engineers and why they're Like That

A screenshot of the embryo selection grid on Nucleus's website: https://imgur.com/a/bfV9Hay

What is Childhood?

Sun, 23 Nov 2025 02:20:28 -0500

The White House will likely soon release a large set of documents about convicted pedophile and human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein further detailing the depths of his crimes. Alongside this, a line of rhetoric seems to be developing in certain right-wing circles: although what Epstein did was morally abominable, not all of it was criminal, and it's certainly categorically different from preying on "real children." But what exactly is childhood, and why are certain reactionaries making this argument now? This week, June and Josh look into the history of the concept of childhood in the United States to try and figure out why.

***REMINDER: WE HAVE A PATREON NOW! We record bonus mailbag episodes and release them at the beginning of each week. Come check us out at Patreon.com/illconceived!***

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: Richard Hanania, a writer and online right-wing personality whose work includes 2023's The Origins of Woke, published by HarperCollins under their Broadside Books imprint. Hanania is a co-author of Project 2025, previously wrote for white supremacists publications under the pen name Richard Hoste, and recently wrote about how pedophilia is a moral panic.

AUDIO CLIPS:

3:11 – Megyn Kelly speaking about Jeffrey Epstein in a recent episode of The Megyn Kelly Show
1:05:01 – "Jailbait," a song released by Olivia Nuzzi under the pseudonym "Livvy" in 2009 when she was 16 years old
1:14:32 – Neil Sedaka performs "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen" on American Bandstand in 1963

FURTHER LISTENING:

The Worst of All Possible Worlds episode about Fireproof (Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Pocket Casts)

SOURCES:

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)

Matthew Yglesias: One Billion Americans: The B-Side (PREVIEW)

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 13:50:03 -0500

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS B-SIDE EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus B-side, go to Patreon.com/illconceived

--------------------------

Dr. Oz expects a Trump baby boom in 2026. We're talking about it.

Plus, we read your mail from the Matt Yglesias episode, including:

Regional visas in Australia and how they compare to Matt Yglesias's city visa concept
The U.S. economy's shift toward health care as a core industry in response to an aging population
Large families as a status signifier
The difference between a Park & Ride and a Kiss & Ride

Balaji Srinivasan & Network Natalism

Sat, 15 Nov 2025 01:35:00 -0500

Natalcon 2025 featured a number of high profile speakers whose speeches weren't recorded. One of these speakers was Balaji Srinivasan, a technologist who made his fortune in pre-pregnancy genetic testing and now preaches the gospel of cryptocurrency and decentralized "Network States" to anyone who will listen. This week, Josh and June discover what Balaji's whole deal is and end up deeply confused and repulsed by it.

***REMINDER: WE HAVE A PATREON NOW! We record bonus mailbag episodes and release them at the beginning of each week. Come check us out at Patreon.com/illconceived!***

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: Balaji Srinavasan at TechCrunch Disrupt. After graduating from Stanford and co-founding genetic testing company Counsyl, Srinivasan joined the venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz and later worked at Coinbase. In 2024 he founded Network School, an incubator in Malaysia that seeks to develop applications for his concept of the Network State.

AUDIO CLIPS:

48:23 – Balaji Srinivasan's "Ultimate Exit" talk at Y Combinator Startup School in 2013
51:56 – ibid.
1:04:11 – Balaji Srinivasan's talk at Natal Conference 2023
1:10:45 – Balaji Srinivasan at Token2049 in Dubai, 2025
1:20:29 – ibid.
1:22:17 – ibid.

SOURCES:

SAAWA 2013 Honorees profile of Dr. Bhavani Srinivasan
"NY Physician is Fellow of Royal College of Physicians in London" (The Indian Panorama, July 23, 2016)
PDF of the March 2006 issue of State Magazine
Balaji Srinivasan's LinkedIn profile
Crunchbase profile of Counsyl
MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 profile of Balaji Srinivasan
"The Blockchain is the Internet of Money" by Tunku Varadarajan (The Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2017)
"The Turnaround" by Balaji Srinivasan (Medium, April 16, 2018)
Network School website
Praxis Nation website

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)

Matthew Yglesias: One Billion Americans

Sat, 01 Nov 2025 02:32:07 -0400

In 2020, Vox cofounder Matt Yglesias published a book entitled One Billion Americans which ostensibly sought to lay out a liberal argument for dramatically increasing the population of the United States. This week, June and Josh read the book. Hoo boy, do we have thoughts about it.

***BIG NEWS: WE HAVE A PATREON NOW! We'll be recording bonus mailbag episodes that will release at the beginning of each week. The main show will continue its regular release schedule at the end of each week and will stay free to all of you, our beloved babies. Come check us out at Patreon.com/illconceived!***

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEKLY MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: Matthew Yglesias, the author of One Billion Americans. In 2014, Yglesias cofounded the news website Vox alongside Ezra Klein and Melissa Bell. He departed Vox in 2020 to join the Niskanen Center, a centrist think tank. Yglesias also publishes a newsletter called Slow Boring.

SOURCES:

One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger by Matthew Yglesias (Portfolio, 2020)
“The boring journey of Matt Yglesias” by Dan Zak (Washington Post, January 11, 2023)
A Bluesky post about JD Vance by @helldude.bsky.social
“MTV cancels ‘Ridiculousness’ after 46 seasons, star Rob Dyrdek’s price tag became public” by Taijuan Moorman (USA Today, March 31, 2025)

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

Natal Conference 2025

Sat, 25 Oct 2025 01:30:16 -0400

In March 2025, 200 natalists and their closest friends assembled in Austin, Texas for the second gathering of NatalCon, a convention intended to discover the core causes of declining birthrates and come up with solutions to address those problems. This week, Josh and June watched videos recorded from that convention to see what they were cooking. Turns out that it was mostly fascism.

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEKLY MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: Kevin Dolan, the founder of Natalcon. Dolan posts on X under the pseudonym "Bennett's Phylactery" and was fired from his position as a data scientist at Booz Allen Hamilton after being doxxed in 2021.

FURTHER READING:

"Surprise! Even Tradwives Like to Share Nudes, Talk About Sex, and Be Single" by Erin Vanderhoof (Vanity Fair, October 21, 2025)

AUDIO CLIPS:

34:48 – Kevin Dolan in his opening remarks at NatalCon 2025
44:02 – Jack Posobiec's speech at NatalCon 2025
47:42 – Carl Benjamin (aka Sargon of Akkad)'s speech at NatalCon 2025
57:45 – Indian Bronson's speech at NatalCon 2025
1:08:56 – Peachy Keenan's speech at NatalCon 2025
1:10:54 – Peachy Keenan's speech at NatalCon 2025, continued
1:17:29 – Carl Benjamin's speech at NatalCon 2025, continued
1:23:29 – Raw Egg Nationalist's speech at NatalCon 2025
1:35:24 – Michael Seifert's speech at NatalCon 2025
1:42:02 – Raw Egg Nationalist's speech at NatalCon 2025, continued
1:48:13 – Carl Benjamin's speech at NatalCon 2025, continued

SOURCES:

The Natal Conference YouTube channel – contains links to all of the speeches mentioned in this episode
“Giving entrepreneurs an 'EXIT' from cancel culture” by Matt Himes (The Blaze, June 7, 2024)
“#4: You're going to be doxxed.” by Kevin Dolan (July 20, 2021)
“The Eugenic Circus Comes to Town” by Brant Bingamon and Maggie Quinlan (The Austin Chronicle, November 2, 2023)
“Revealed: US pro-birth conference’s links to far-right eugenicists” by Jason Wilson (The Guardian, September 4, 2023)
“Tech bros and tradwives are unlikely allies in a little-known movement that’s gaining momentum” by Catherine E. Shoichet, Deborah Brunswick and Meena Duerson (CNN, April 10, 2025)
“Eugenics Controversy Looms Over Natal Conference at UT’s AT&T Center” by Lucciana Choueiry (The Austin Chronicle, March 20, 2025)
“Reflections on Natal-Con” by Bryan Caplan (March 31, 2025)
“They say they want Americans to have more babies. What's beneath the surface?” by Lisa Hagen (NPR, April 25, 2025)

The Good, the Bad and the Mailbag

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 08:00:00 -0400

Next week we're recording our first in-person episode together and Josh is still prepping, so it's time for another mailbag episode. This week's topics include Elon Musk's super-sperm, Warhammer 40K, adoption as a tool of natalism, the pitfalls of accelerated home learning, and how we've discovered the flow and format of the podcast as we've gone along.

***COME SEE JOSH IN CHICAGO THIS MONDAY... Josh will be performing as part of Genius Night: A Night For Geniuses on Monday, October 20 at 7pm... This free event (with a $5 suggested donation) will be at Cafe Mustache, located at 2313 N Milwaukee Avenue... SEE YOU THERE????***

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEKLY MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: The cover for the movie The Good, the Bad and the Ugly except it's been edited to say The Good, the Bad and The Mailbag

FURTHER READING:

Law Banning Child Sex Offenders From Homeschooling Stalled After Nine Child Sex Offenders Testify Against It by Tony Delvecchio and Fennick Nym (The Spoon, Belt & Rod, October 9, 2025)

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

Elon Musk

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 03:35:01 -0400

Elon Musk was once hailed as one of the brightest wealthy Americans who was standing up for progressive causes like climate change. Then he threw away that reputation as he rapidly shifted rightward and publicly embraced white nationalist conspiracy theories. This week, June and Josh explore Elon Musk’s under-discussed but high-priority views on birth rates, natalism, the Great Replacement theory, and sexy chatbots.

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEKLY MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: Elon Musk, the current wealthiest man in the world and by some metrics the wealthiest man to ever live, wearing a black hat that says DOGE on it. Musk's current net worth is estimated around a half trillion dollars based on his equity positions in Tesla and SpaceX. He also owns X, the social media network formerly known as Twitter.

AUDIO CLIPS:

24:38 – Elon Musk in an interview with WELT Documentary
36:09 – Bob Page, the primary antagonist of the 2000 video game Deus Ex, in one of the game's three endings
58:20 – Elon Musk in an interview with Matteo Salvini, the deputy prime minister of Italy
1:12:09 – Luke Priddy, a YouTube content creator who teaches American English, reviewing Grok's "Ani" persona as a teaching tool
1:18:07 – A demonstration video of "Ani" posted by Elon Musk to his X account on July 18, 2025

SOURCES:

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

Homeschooling

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 17:33:18 -0400

It's no secret that large families tend to homeschool their children. But why is this their approach of choice, and how does it work? This week, Josh and June take a look at the origin of homeschooling and discover how the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), an advocacy organization founded by homeschool parents, has effectively created a parallel education system in the United States with almost no oversight or accountability.

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEKLY MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: Monica Swanson, a Christian homeschool advocate and author of the books Boy Mom: What Your Son Needs Most from You; Raising Amazing: Bringing Up Kids Who Love God, Like Their Family, and Do The Dishes; and Becoming Homeschoolers: Give Your Kids a Great Education, A Strong Family, and a Life They'll Thank You For Later. Swanson also has hosted podcasts about homeschooling and has four sons.

AUDIO CLIPS:

42:30 – Monica Swanson, a homeschooling advocate and author of Becoming Homeschoolers, in conversation with Jim Daly on Focus on the Family Radio
1:03:58 – Tiffany Jefferson, a homeschool mom, in a HSLDA promotional video entitled "What Is Freedom For?"
1:20:07 – A promotional video for HSLDA's online academy on their website

FURTHER READING:

"Mechanisms of cultural diversity in urban populations" by Harin Lee, Noric Jacoby, Romain Hennequin & Manuel Moussalam (Nature Communications, 2025)
"Implicit racial biases are lower in more populous more diverse and less segregated US cities" by Andrew J. Stier, Sina Sajjadi, Fariba Karimi, Luís M. A. Bettencourt & Marc G. Berman (Nature Communications, 2024)

SOURCES:

"A look at homeschooling in the US" by Isabelle Pula (Pew Research Foundation, February 20, 2025)
US National Center for Education Statistics Fast Facts on Homeschooling
Becoming Homeschoolers: Give Your Kids a Great Education, a Strong Family, and a Life They'll Thank You for Later by Monica Swanson (Zondervan, 2024)
"The Dangers of Early Schooling: The Need to Reexamine our Motives and Methods" by Raymond Moore (1973)
Homeschooling: The History and Philosophy of a Controversial Practice by James G. Dwyer and Shawn F. Peters (UChicago Press, 2019)
The Homeschool Choice: Parents and the Privatization of Education by Kate Henley Everett (NYU Press, 2021)
Biography of Michael Farris on the Alliance Defending Freedom website
Generation Joshua website
Homeschool Legal Defense Association website
- Archived copy of HSLDA statement on same-sex marriage
- Current HSLDA statement opposing the Make Homeschool Safe Act
Center for Responsible Home Education website

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

Moms for Liberty

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 08:00:00 -0400

The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown created an online ecosystem ripe for misinformation and radicalization. One of the new right wing movements that got its start during this time was the "Parents' Rights" movement, and the group that has pushed this the hardest is Moms For Liberty, who portray themselves as moms standing up for freedom. This week, June and Josh dig into Moms For Liberty to unravel their true agenda and discover how they’ve managed to become an organizing base of the Republican Party in their goal of dismantling the public education system.

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEKLY MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: Bridget Ziegler, co-founder of Moms for Liberty and current member of the school board in Sarasota County, Florida. In 2022, Ziegler accepted a director position at the Leadership Institute, a conservative training center in Arlington, VA, but was later forced to resign due to sexual assault allegations involving her, her husband, and an unnamed other woman.

AUDIO CLIPS:

25:18 – Amber Schroeder, a Moms for Liberty chapter leader in Wisconsin, being interviewed for a segment on ABC's Good Morning America
51:47 – Mia Hughes, a Canadian anti-trans advocate, in Moms for Liberty University's YouTube video "Gender 101: Gender Ideology"
57:16 – January Littlejohn, a Florida mother, on the Moms for Liberty "Joyful Warriors" Podcast

FURTHER READING:

Josh interviews 404 Media's Jason Koebler about Facebook AI slop on The Worst of All Possible Worlds (YouTube / Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Pocket Casts)

SOURCES:

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

Oh No! More Mailbag

Fri, 19 Sep 2025 20:58:13 -0400

We dug into the mailbag again for thoughts on how natalists pass that shit on, fulfilling or shirking your family’s desires for your life, TeenPact, being a T4T tradwife, the natural gendered division of labor, the impact of benevolent sexism, daddy/daughter dances vs. father/son camping trips, and handing your daughter off to her husband. Our programming will resume as usual next week with an episode on Moms for Liberty, and thank you as always for your continued support.

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEKLY MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: The box art for the 1991 Amiga game Oh No! More Lemmings except it's been edited to say "Oh No! More Mailbag"

FURTHER READING:

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

Quiverfull

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 15:54:09 -0400

Quiverfull is an evangelical Christian philosophy that takes the Biblical command to "be fruitful and multiply" extremely literally by refusing to use any contraception, including natural family planning. It rarely sees coverage in the mainstream media, so this week, Josh and June look into the principles and practical lifestyle of Quiverfull and discover why it holds such a strong appeal to a certain type of Christian.

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEKLY MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: Jim Bob Duggar, a realtor and politician from Arkansas. After serving as a member of the Arkansas State House of Representatives for four years, Duggar mounted an unsuccessful primary challenge for US Senate in 2002 and again for Arkansas State Senate in 2006. From 2008 to 2015, Jim Bob, his wife, and their children were featured on the TLC series 19 Kids and Counting (formerly 17 Kids and Counting and 18 Kids and Counting).

AUDIO CLIPS:

33:03 – The introduction to the “Defining Manhood and Womanhood” episode of the CBMW podcast
44:52 – A trailer for a Quiverfull advocacy documentary entitled Birth Control: Is It Up To Us?
50:09 – Jennifer Flanders, a mother of 12, in an interview for Al Jazeera America Tonight
1:06:56 – Olivia Shedd, a 12-year-old eldest daughter, in an interview for HDNet World Report
1:10:23 – Jay Jusino, a quiverfull father and Christian schoolteacher, in an interview for a Quiverfull advocacy documentary

FURTHER READING:

“The Baby Died. Whose Fault Is It?” by Emi Nietfield (Wired, September 3, 2025)
"Why Are There So Many Mormon Influencers (A Theory)" by Alyssa Greenfield
Utah stats on intimate partner/domestic violence

SOURCES:

Saving Sex: Sexuality and Salvation in American Evangelicalism by Amy DeRogatis (Oxford UP, 2014)
Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement by Kathryn Joyce (Beacon Press, 2009)
“The Population Bust: An Opportunity” by David Crank (Unless The Lord… Magazine, Fall 2004)
“Quiverfull of Shit: a Guide to the Duggars' Scary Brand of Christianity” by Jennifer C. Martin (Gawker, May 25, 2015)
The Danvers Statement as posted on the CBMW website
“The Unmaking of Biblical Womanhood” by Eliza Griswold (The New Yorker, July 25, 2021)
“In Quiverfull Movement, Birth Control Is Shunned” by Barbara Bradley Hagert (NPR Morning Edition, March 25, 2009)
Birth Control: Is It Up To Us? Trailer
“Beyond Belief: Is Eight Enough?” (HDNet World Report, August 11, 2009)
“Inside the home of one family living the ‘Quiverfull’ lifestyle” (Al Jazeera America Tonight, February 8, 2016)
Quiver Full Documentary

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

Tradwives

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 10:00:00 -0400

Within the last few years, women portraying themselves online with a “trad wife” aesthetic have skyrocketed in popularity. This new trend embraces long dresses, traditional gender roles, cooking homemade meals, and raising massive families. Josh and June take a look into what the Trad Wife life experience is all about, what’s so appealing about it to some women, and the aspects that make it more than just a harmless apolitical lifestyle.

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEKLY MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: Abby Shapiro Roth, a "traditional lifestyle" content creator who formerly published videos on YouTube as Classically Abby and now writes a newsletter called The First-Gen SAHM. She's also Ben Shapiro's sister.

AUDIO CLIPS:

21:54 – Nara Smith's homemade Cinnamon Toast Crunch TikTok
23:52 – Estee Williams prepares for her husband
29:59 – Alena Kate Pettit in a podcast interview about being a #TradWife
39:19 – Abby Shapiro on five lies the Left tells women from her YouTube channel, Classically Abby

SOURCES:

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

Purity Balls & Daddy-Daughter Dates

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 10:40:28 -0400

Purity is a load-bearing concept in the conservative Christian ideal of family and reproduction. From as young as five years old, Christian girls are told to guard their hearts and bodies against men with bad intentions. But what about a positive model of masculine pursuit? This week, Josh and June take a look at the men who believe the best way to teach their daughters about their worth is to take them out on dates and pledge to guard their virtue in elaborate ceremonies known as purity balls.

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEKLY MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

EPISODE ART: Randy Wilson, field director for the Family Research Council and creator of the concept of the purity ball

AUDIO CLIPS:

13:41 – Dr. James Dobson talks about father/daughter dates in a Dr. Dobson Minute
19:42 – Dennis Rainey and Bob Lapine talk about father/daughter dates on an episode of FamilyTalk
50:54 – Hannah Lane and her father Ken in an interview from the documentary The Virgin Daughters
53:55 – Lisa Wilson in an interview from The Virgin Daughters
57:45 – Randy Wilson in an interview from The Virgin Daughters
1:00:44 – Interview from The Virgin Daughters
1:10:36 – Clip from Virgin Tales (2012)
1:16:35 – Jody Hice & Randy Wilson in an interview about Mike Johnson for the Family Research Council's Washington Watch

SOURCES:

"'Purity Balls' Get Attention, but Might Not Be All They Claim" by Mark Oppenheimer (The New York Times, July 20, 2012)
"Daddy’s Little Girls: On the Perils of Chastity Clubs, Purity Balls, and Ritualized Abstinence" by Breanne Fahs (Frontiers: A Journal of Woman Studies, 2010)
88 Great Daddy-Daughter Dates by Joanna & Rob Teigen (Revell, 2012)
Daddy Dates: Four Daughters, One Clueless Dad, and His Quest to Win Their Hearts by Greg Wright (Thomas Nelson, 2011)
"Would You Pledge Your Virginity to Your Father?" by Jennifer Baumgardner (Glamour, December 31, 2006)
"The Purity Ball: A promise I didn't understand" by Eboni Statham (Cipher, March 13, 2017)
"Women’s Bodies Are Bearing the Brunt of Purity Culture" by Karen Alea (Jezebel, September 20, 2022)
Saving Sex: Sexuality and Salvation in American Evangelicalism by Amy DeRogatis (Oxford UP, 2014)
The Virgin Daughters dir. Jane Treays (Channel 4, 2008)
Virgin Tales dir. Mirjam von Arx (Ican Films, 2012)

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

Oops! All Mailbag

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 22:17:15 -0400

Josh is still really tired from his trip to Europe so we talked about James Dobson for a bit and then read some listener mail. Our regular programming will resume Friday, and we thank you for all of your thoughtful feedback!

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEKLY MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

FURTHER READING:

"AI: The New Aesthetics of Fascism" by Gareth Watkins, New Socialist

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

Project 2025 and the Future of Sex Education

Fri, 15 Aug 2025 09:27:53 -0400

The era of the Christian political agenda and conservative cultural hegemony took a backseat after Obama ushered in a time of progressive social optimism. For a moment, it felt like conservatives would never win again, especially on social issues.

But they did.

This week, June and Josh explore how the Obama administration rolled back abstinence-only sex education while advancing liberal social causes. Then they discover how the Christian right strategized to take back over politics and successfully redirected culture toward conservatism through the Heritage Foundation and its signature document: Project 2025.

***WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEKLY MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to illconceivedpod@gmail.com***

AUDIO CLIPS:

47:13 - Former US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in a PragerU video about Title IX

SOURCES:

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

Abstinence-Only Sex Education

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 11:02:19 -0400

There's one guaranteed way to never get pregnant or contract a sexually transmitted infection: not having sex. In the 1990s, the United States government expanded efforts to fund programs that taught adolescents this fact. Unfortunately, that funding came with a few restrictions—most notably, the programs weren't allowed to promote or demonstrate any type of contraception whatsoever. This week, June and Josh try to figure out how these abstinence-only until marriage sex education initiatives got so much traction for so long.

***IN EDINBURGH THIS WEEK? Get tickets to the play Josh is directing, THE BOY FROM BANTAY, by clicking here!***

EPISODE ART: A graph from a report commissioned by the United States government to study the effectiveness of four abstinence-only sex education programs. There is no meaningful difference in outcomes between those who participated in the program and those who didn't.

SOURCES:

"Budget Widens Teen-Pregnancy-Prevention Efforts" by Laura Meckler (The Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2009)
"Clinton Fires Surgeon General Over New Flap" by Paul Richter and Marlene Cimons (Los Angeles Times, December 10, 1994)
History of Dedicated Federal Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs FY 1982-2019 from the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS)
"Context counts: Long‐term sequelae of premarital intercourse or abstinence" by Nicole M. Else-Quest, Janet Shibley Hyde & John D. DeLamater (The Journal of Sex Research, 2005)
Full text of Section 510, the Separate Program for Abstinence Education
"Whatever Happened to the Adolescent Family Life Act?" by Rebecca Saul (Guttmacher Report on Public Policy, 1998)
"Clinton Frees $250 Million for Sex Abstinence Teaching" by Melissa Healy (Los Angeles Times, March 1, 1997)
"Impacts of Four Title V, Section 510 Abstinence Programs" report, published by HHS in 2007
"Consequences of sex education on teen and young adult sexual behaviors and outcomes" by Laura Duberstein Lindberg & Isaac Maddow-Zimet (The Journal of Adolescent Health, 2012)
"Funding for Abstinence-Only Education and Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention: Does State Ideology Affect Outcomes?" by Ashley M Fox, Georgia Himmelstein, Hina Khalid & Elizabeth A. Howell (American Journal of Public Health, 2019)
"Sex Education in Public Schools: Sexualization of Children and LGBT Indoctrination" by Cathy Ruse (Family Research Council, 2020)
"The History of Federal Abstinence-Only Funding" fact sheet (Advocates for Youth, 2007)
"Abstinence Education: Assessing the Evidence" by Christine C. Kim and Robert Rector (Heritage Foundation, 2008)

AUDIO CLIPS:

29:58 - Rush Limbaugh talking about Joycelyn Elders on an episode of the Rush Limbaugh Show ca. 1994
35:30 - Joycelyn Elders in an interview with the National Visionary Leadership Project
1:04:03 - "Learn Gun Safety with Eddie Eagle" children's training video from the National Rifle Association (NRA)

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

Send us an email: illconceivedpod@gmail.com
Website: illconceivedpodcast.com
Bluesky: ‪@illconceivedpodcast.com
Tumblr: @illconceivedpod

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Kill The Computer
Writing: June's Substack

Lyman Stone, Marriage Defender

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 12:02:54 -0400

With natalism coming to the forefront of American politics in recent years, people who have long been writing about the declining birth rate have begun to take center stage in the larger political discourse. Many of these thinkers skew toward a conservative ideology. This week, Josh and June read through the writings of a modern conservative natalist writer, Lyman Stone, to get a better picture of where the natalist movement stands and better understand the political demands of the conservative natalist in the era of Donald Trump.

EPISODE ART: Lyman Stone press photo from Demographic Research

SOURCES:

AUDIO CLIPS

21:12 / 25:44 - Lyman Stone in an interview with Vox Media's Today, Explained

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

Send us an email: illconceivedpod@gmail.com
Website: illconceivedpodcast.com
Bluesky: ‪@illconceivedpodcast.com
Tumblr: @illconceivedpod

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Western Kabuki
Writing: June's Substack

James Dobson & Focus on the Family

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 14:31:16 -0400

In the history of the evangelical Christian family movement, one figure stands tall above the rest: a children's psychologist from Louisiana named James Dobson. For three decades, Dobson built up his media empire, Focus on the Family, on the back of his plain-spoken traditionalist approach to child rearing. Then, as the broader cultural tide shifted in favor of normalizing homosexual relationships, he got kicked out. This week, Josh and June take a look at why Dobson's approach resonated with so many parents in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, how his work institutionalized the natalist project among evangelical Christians, and how religious fundamentalism, no matter how polite, corrodes a healthy society.

SUPPLEMENTAL LISTENING:

Listen to I Hate James Dobson: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Pocket Casts / YouTube
Listen to The Worst of All Possible Worlds episode about the James Dobson/Ted Bundy interview: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Pocket Casts / YouTube

EPISODE ART: Focus on the Family press photo of James Dobson c. 2007

SOURCES:

Focus on the Family's official historical timeline
Focus on the Family 2015 financial disclosures, ProPublica
Dobson's 1999 announcement of the leadership succession plan
Dobson's 2003 announcement of Don Hodel's appointment as CEO
Focus on the Family's Guiding Principles as enumerated on their website in November 2002
Focus on the Family's Guiding Principles as enumerated on their website today
Family Research Council list of Family Policy Councils

AUDIO CLIPS:

33:52 - James Dobson interviews Ted Bundy on death row
1:00:24 - James Dobson in a Focus on the Family Radio broadcast, October 6, 2005
1:04:03 - Guy Raz interviews Jim Daly on NPR All Things Considered (February 12, 2012)
1:11:16 - James Dobson interviews Ken Harrison, former Promise Keepers chairman, on Family Talk Radio
1:15:38 - James Dobson talks about declining birth rates on Family Talk Radio

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Western Kabuki
Writing: June's Substack

Catholics, Evangelicals, and the In Vitro Fertilization Debate

Fri, 11 Jul 2025 12:00:00 -0400

When the first human baby was born through the use of a blossoming treatment called in vitro fertilization in the late 1970’s, society largely viewed this as a miracle of science that gave those struggling with fertility a chance to start a family. Catholic leadership, believing that taking procreation out of pregnancy went against God’s will, aligned themselves against the practice. Evangelicals, meanwhile, have still to this day not found solid guidance from their leaders on whether this procedure should be embraced or condemned. This week, Josh and June explore the history of in vitro fertilization and the complicated relationship many on the religious right have with it.

EPISODE ART: Bishop Richard Burbidge, Catholic anti-IVF advocate

SOURCES:

VIDEO CLIPS

How Evangelicals Came to Oppose Abortion

Fri, 04 Jul 2025 12:00:00 -0400

Opposition to legal abortion wasn't always a consensus matter across the Christian Right. In fact, as recently as the early 1970s, Protestants mostly considered it a "Catholic issue." But against a backdrop of paranoia about government overreach into religious affairs and fear of demographic decline, a Catholic named Paul Weyrich and an evangelical named Jerry Falwell joined hands to turn abortion into the signature mobilizing issue of their new Moral Majority. This week, June and Josh look at how this historical moment was primed for exploitation, why Christian rhetoric and policy toward abortion shifted so quickly, and what the long-term durability of this unholy alliance means as Americans continue to see their civil rights rolled back by the Trump administration.

CLICK HERE AND DONATE TO AN ABORTION FUND IN YOUR AREA TODAY

EPISODE IMAGE: Paul Weyrich, cofounder of the Moral Majority, in a Heritage Foundation portrait from 1982

SOURCES:

"Creating the Litmus Test: Abortion, Mainline Protestants, and the Rise of the Religious Right" by Sabrina Danielsen
"Family Values" and the Formation of a Christian Right Agenda by Seth Dowland
Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right by Randall Balmer
“How the Right Uses Abortion Restrictions to Reinforce Racist and Gendered Hierarchies” by Cassie Miller, Southern Poverty Law Center
“Respect for Unborn Human Life: The Church’s Constant Teaching” from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Historical Abortion Law Timeline: 1850 to Today from Planned Parenthood Action
“The Religious Right and the Abortion Myth” by Randall Balmer, POLITICO
"Here's how much the ICE budget would increase under Trump's megabill" by Grace Deng, Snopes

AUDIO CLIPS:

42:55 – Ronald Reagan delivers an address to religious leaders at the 1980 National Affairs Briefing

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Western Kabuki
Writing: June's Substack

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Health & Human Sicko

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 12:00:00 -0400

Josh and June look into the past of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the current Health and Human Services secretary, and how his history led to him getting involved with the MAGA movement. Once a liberal and advocate for environmental issues, Kennedy took a turn into anti-science and pseudo-health political movements later in life and gained notoriety within Trumpworld. Now that this conspiracy theorist holds the reins of America’s largest government health institution, we zoom into how these beliefs inform what he has done, what he still intends to do with this power, and why his long-standing emphasis on children's health resonates so strongly with people who are invested in the natalist agenda.

SOURCES:

AUDIO CLIPS:

16:29 - Bernie Sanders asks RFK Jr. if he is supportive of these onesies in a Senate hearing (C-SPAN, January 29, 2025)

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Western Kabuki
Writing: June's Substack

Promise Keepers: 700,000 Dicks Out for Jesus

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 12:00:00 -0400

Josh and June take a look at Promise Keepers, the organization that massed 700,000 men on the National Mall in Washington, DC for a 1997 rally that promised to bring spiritual renewal to its attendees and a new order to the social health of the country. While they didn't quite pull off the fundamental transformation they were hoping for, Promise Keepers left a significant impact on the evangelical Christian psyche. And somehow, they're still around today, desperately trying to convince the world of their definition of fatherhood and family.

SOURCES:

The First Promise Keepers Event: Witnessing the Power of God" by David Roadcup
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes du Mez
Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper by Bill McCartney et al.
"Promise Keepers pledge to move from stadium rallies to the marketplace" by Adelle Banks, Religion News Service
"New Promise Keepers CEO ready to see a revival among men" by Maina Mwaura, The Christian Index
"Promise Keepers Pour Into The Nation's Capital" (CNN, 1997)
"The Promise Keepers Opens Its Doors To Women" (NPR, 2009)

AUDIO CLIPS:

6:18 – Bill McCartney in a profile by WXYZ-TV Detroit (September 24, 1994)
32:46 – Norm MacDonald on Saturday Night Live Weekend Update (October 4, 1997)
33:23 – Joseph Garlington, Promise Keepers worship leader, at the 1997 Stand in the Gap rally
34:55 – Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women, on Charlie Rose (October 3, 1997)
36:31 – Huron Claus, Native American Christian evangelist, at the 1997 Stand in the Gap rally
38:00 – Bill McCartney, Promise Keepers founder, on Larry King Live (October 7, 1997)
47:49 – Shane Winnings, current Promise Keepers CEO, on Morning Joe (April 3, 2025)
50:50 – Web trailer for Wake-Up Call, the 2025 Promise Keepers in-person summit in Yakima

FOLLOW THE SHOW:

Website: illconceivedpodcast.com
Bluesky: ‪@ill-conceived-pod.bsky.social‬
Tumblr: @illconceivedpod

FOLLOW JOSH:

Website: joshboerman.com
Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world
Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds
Stream: Traditional Scrench

FOLLOW JUNE:

Bluesky: @junlper.beer
Other podcast: Western Kabuki
Writing: June's Substack

Ill Conceived launches on June 20. Here's what we're all about.

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 15:36:04 -0400

Ill Conceived is a new podcast about natalism—the ideology that sees declining birthrates as the most important issue in modern American politics—and how it's a skeleton key to understanding both the MAGA movement and reactionary conservatism more broadly. Hosted by Josh Boerman of The Worst of All Possible Worlds and June Sternbach of Western Kabuki, each week the show will take a look at the actions and effects of this movement, as well as the people and organizations that paved the way to the moment we're now in.