Ill Conceived

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 discu...

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...

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 o...

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 menstrua...

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, J...

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 i...

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 (K...

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:...

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...

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...

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 "...

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...

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...

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 e...

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 YO...

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... J...

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,...

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 wi...

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...

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 epi...

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 cer...

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 t...

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 tak...

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 Aestheti...

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 cau...