Air Date: 5-27-2025

Slippery slope arguments are, technically, logical fallacies but they persist as potent political arguments because of the well-founded fear that good ideas, taken to an extreme, can become very bad ideas. And there's almost no slope more slippery than eugenics. The practice has such a well-earned bad reputation that we often forget that most who have gone down the eugenics path did so with nothing but the best of intentions... and it may be happening again. 

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KEY POINTS

KP 1: The movement that inspired the Holocaust - Alexandra Minna Stern and Natalie Lira - TED-Ed - Air Date 3-10-22

KP 2: MAHA's Soft Eugenics - Conspirituality - Air Date 3-8-25

KP 3: It Must Be Eugenics - I Must Be BUG'N - Air Date 4-24-25

KP 4: Hayek's bastards w/ Quinn Slobodian - Politics Theory Other - Air Date 3-30-25

KP 5: Even More News: Grok's Meltdown, Donald Trump's Rampant Corruption, and Ms. Rachel w/ Mehdi Hasan - Some More News - Air Date 5-16-25

KP 6: Undercover inside a ‘scientific racism’ network - Today in Focus - Air Date 10-25-24

(00:49:40) NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

On the likely future of gene editing ethics

DEEPER DIVES

(01:02:09) SECTION A: HISTORICAL CONTEXT

A1: The Eugenics Crusade | Full Documentary | AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Part 1 - PBS - Air Date 10-16-18

A2: Hayek’s Bastards w/ Quinn Slobodian - The Dig - Air Date 5-19-25

A3: The Origins of Eugenics in America | The U.S. and the Holocaust - PBS - Air Date 9-19-22

A4: Designing Destiny: Ethics of Genetic Engineering - Tiny Expeditions - A Podcast about Genetics, DNA and Inheritance - Air Date 8-2-24

A5: The Eugenics Crusade | Full Documentary | AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Part 2 - PBS - Air Date 10-16-18

(01:44:19) SECTION B: RFK JR. ON AUTISM

B1: RFK Jr. is doing Eugenics - Happy Pancake - Air Date 4-4-25

B2: “Absolute Nonsense”: As Measles Cases Soar & Kids Die, Expert Slams RFK Jr. on Vaccine-Autism Link - Democracy Now! - Air Date 4-18-25

(01:59:39) SECTION C: TECH BROS

C1: The Misuse of Data from Eugenics to Big Tech Part 1 - Against the Grain - Air Date 1-14-25

C2: How Big Tech Inherited Eugenics: Anita Say Chan on Algorithmic Bias, Data Colonialism & TechnoEugenics Part 1 - For the Love of History - world history, women’s history, weird history Air Date 5-2-25

C3: MORE NAZI STUFF: Republican-Proposed Birthrate Solutions Include NAZI MEDALS & MENSTRUAL CLASSES!!! - Brittany Page - Air Date 4-22-25

C4: How Big Tech Inherited Eugenics: Anita Say Chan on Algorithmic Bias, Data Colonialism & TechnoEugenics Part 2 - For the Love of History - world history, women’s history, weird history Air Date 5-2-25

C5: The Misuse of Data from Eugenics to Big Tech Part 2 - Against the Grain - Air Date 1-14-25

(02:46:44) SECTION D: PRONATALISM

D1: No kids on the block - Today, Explained - Air Date 3-20-25

D2: 'Hipster eugenics' – Why the US far-right is obsessed with babies - The Bunker – News without the nonsense - Air Date 3-26-25

(03:05:05) SECTION E: MAGA

E1: Soft Eugenics and the New Normal of Public Health - We Want Them Infected Podcast - Air Date 4-28-25

E2: MAGA Eugenics - What Rough Beast - Air Date 3-21-25

SHOW IMAGE CREDITS for #1712 - Eugenics

Description: Composite image depicting HHS Secretary RFK Jr. at a microphone in the center of an overlay of repeating, identical “people” icons. A handful of icons are different, bright neon colors and have a red X in a box over them. 

Credits: Composite design by A. Hoffman. Elements from Pixabay. Photo credit: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” by Gage Skidmore, Flickr | CC BY-SA 2.0 | Changes: Cropped, background color change, and added overlay

Produced by Jay! Tomlinson

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