Michael Shellenberger: Journalist and author of Apocalypse Never; one of three reporters given access to the Twitter Files; environmental and pro-nuclear advocate and former California gubernatorial candidate.
What this episode covers
Shellenberger recounts how he was brought in by Bari Weiss to report on Elon Musk's Twitter Files and what he found: a sprawling 'censorship industrial complex' of US government agencies, contractors, and government-funded nonprofits pressuring social media platforms to censor Americans. He walks through three major disinformation campaigns he says were run by the government and its allies, the Russia 'hoax,' the Hunter Biden laptop, and COVID origins and vaccine side effects. He profiles figures like Renee DiResta and Stanford's Election Integrity and Virality Projects, arguing they flagged and got tens of millions of posts censored with no accountability. The conversation broadens into nuclear power's renaissance, gender ideology and detransitioners, the decline of patriotism and religion, AI risk, UFOs, and Shellenberger's shift toward libertarianism. Throughout he frames free speech and biological reality as foundations a fracturing civilization must reclaim.
Recommended on this episode
The Phenomenon
James Fox
“they're scrambling Jets to go chase them it's in this great James Fox documentary James Fox had another”— Michael Shellenberger
What Is a Woman
Matt Walsh
“I mean Matt Walsh you had in here too did a whole movie called what is a woman so very good movie”— Michael Shellenberger
The guest's own work
Apocalypse Never
Michael Shellenberger
“when my my book on the environment came out apocalypse never in 2020 I wrote an article that sort of summarized the book as one does it went super viral”— Michael Shellenberger
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
The Real Anthony Fauci
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“if you look at Robert Kennedy Jr's book the real Anthony fouchy if that book is accurate I don't know if it's accurate it's a terrifying book”— Joe Rogan
Revolt of the Public
Martin Gurri
“so this is the Revolt of the public by Martin G is he argues that really all of this is just the elites freaking out about the rise of the internet”— Michael Shellenberger
A Time to Think
Hannah Barnes
“particularly in Britain where there's a big new book out a time to think about the Tavo clinic”— Michael Shellenberger
Woke Racism
John McWhorter
“because we had read I had read John mcc's book woke racism which came out right around the time that San Francisco came out”— Michael Shellenberger
Dune
Frank Herbert
“do you remember you read Dune remember the solution from Dune what was the they just ban they banned it yeah”— Michael Shellenberger
Atomic Hope
Frankie Fenton
“my friend Frankie Fenton has a movie coming out called Atomic hope”— Michael Shellenberger
Misery
“it's a bit of also like the the Cathy Bates character in misery which is like I'm going to take care of you”— Michael Shellenberger
The Breakfast Club
John Hughes
“remember you know breakfast club and you know it was like yeah you can like date whoever you want you want to date a black girl”— Michael Shellenberger
Black Mirror
“I think that all of these ridiculous Black Mirror scenarios will come to light and I think we're going to be dealing with a reality”— Joe Rogan
Antifragile
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“you know Nim TB does a good job with this with his book um anti fragile yeah antifragile”— Michael Shellenberger
Dopamine Nation
Anna Lembke
“he's got a a colleague uh what's her name she did dopamine Nation um I'm blanking I'm killing it”— Michael Shellenberger
Blue Cube
Blue Cube
“we have a new one that's getting installed here that's a blue cube it's even more horrific because it's got a constant flow like a river”— Joe Rogan
Jack of the Dust resin skulls
Jack of the Dust
“these are all from this guy Jack of the Dust who's a an artist they not real skulls real skulls no these are just their resin he makes these”— Joe Rogan
Big reveals from this episode
- DHS created CISA and the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force to police domestic speech on social platforms.
- The Aspen Institute ran a June 2020 'tabletop exercise' to pre-bunk a Hunter Biden hack-and-leak months before the laptop surfaced.
- Former FBI general counsel Jim Baker, then at Twitter, repeatedly pushed to censor the New York Post Hunter Biden story.
- Facebook censored accurate COVID vaccine side-effect information under pressure from the Biden White House.
- A firm tied to Renee DiResta, New Knowledge, was caught running fake Facebook pages and fake Russian-bot activity against Roy Moore in Alabama.
- The Election Integrity Project flagged a database of over a billion social media posts and got tens of millions censored in 2020.
- Facebook censored Shellenberger's own viral climate article after his book Apocalypse Never came out.
- An IRS agent showed up at Matt Taibbi's house in person the day he testified to Congress.
Worth remembering
- The internet and Google originated as spin-offs of US Department of Defense projects.
- Section 230, passed in 1996, is the liability protection that allows Google, Facebook, and Twitter to exist.
- DiResta got a computer science degree from SUNY Stony Brook, a major NSA recruiting school, and worked at Jane Street.
- The phrase 'censorship industrial complex' echoes Eisenhower's farewell warning about the military-industrial complex.
- A statistic cited from Jordan Peterson: ~50% of women are childless at 30, half of them never have kids, and 90% regret it.
- Nuclear power is enjoying a renaissance, with pro-nuclear documentaries from Oliver Stone and Frankie Fenton (Atomic Hope).
- There have been fewer wars and far fewer war deaths since WWII; nine countries have nuclear weapons versus 1960s predictions of dozens.
- Walter Isaacson was writing a biography of Elon Musk at the time of recording.
- A fake verified Eli Lilly account tweeting free insulin caused the company's stock to drop after Twitter's verification rollout.
- Shellenberger adopted an Andrew Huberman-inspired routine: a morning run before coffee plus a cold shower for beneficial adversity.