Ill Conceived

Jeffrey Epstein

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:
Exchange between Epstein and Stephen Kosslyn where Epstein requests the name of a psychologist for a 15-year-old girl
Epstein’s pitch to Martin Nowak for “commercial evolution”
Nowak’s first reply
Nowak’s second reply
Nowak’s third reply
Exchange between Nowak and Epstein about “a polish beauty”
Exchange between Nowak and Epstein about a “captured spy”
Exchange between Nowak and Epstein concerning Nowak’s “Korean friend”
Exchange between Nowak's assistant, Epstein, and Epstein's accountant concerning a wire of $10,000 to "the girl from Romania"
Journal that appears to document a young woman’s experience as a “human incubator” for Epstein
FOLLOW THE SHOW:
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
ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)

Surrogacy: The B-Side (PREVIEW)

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

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.
***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: 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:
Man into Woman: An Authentic Record of a Change of Sex (1933)
The History of Surrogacy: A Legal Timeline
Baby M and the Question of Surrogate Motherhood
Surrogacy Laws: The Best States For Compensated Surrogacy
Severe Maternal and Neonatal Morbidity Among Gestational Carriers: A Cohort Study
Americans want biological children but prefer adoption to surrogacy
The Difference Between Love and Surrogacy
Gestational Surrogacy Success Rates
Common issues with surrogacy and IVF
Surrogates 20 years on: long-term psychological health, contact with surrogacy families, and thoughts and feelings about post-birth contact
The Baby Died. Whose Fault Is It?
The billionaire obsession with surrogacy
Christianity Was “Borderline Illegal” in Silicon Valley. Now It’s the New Religion
The Chinese Billionaires Having Dozens of U.S.-Born Babies Via Surrogate
Artificial womb robot promises cheap surrogacy but sparks deep ethical fears
Silicon Valley wants to help me make a superbaby. Should I let it?
Suggestion to use brain stem dead women's bodies for surrogate pregnancies sparks huge backlash
Regulation of Genetic Tests
Perspectives on Surrogate Motherhood
FOLLOW THE SHOW:
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
ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)

Peter Thiel: The B-Side (PREVIEW)

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

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

Masturbation & Pornography: The B-Side (PREVIEW)

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

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
FURTHER READING/LISTENING:
The Worst of All Possible Worlds episode about Every Young Man's Battle (Apple Podcasts / Spotify / YouTube) 
The Zootopia abortion comic
SOURCES:
The Age-Gated Internet Is Sweeping the US. Activists Are Fighting Back
The far right’s crusade against porn is a red herring – it’s actually a crusade against progress
Re-Victimized: When Sexual Assault Gets Uploaded to Porn Platforms
The Disturbing True Story of Kellogg’s Anti-Masturbation Cereal
How Project 2025 Tries to Demonize LGBTQI+ People—and Why It’ll Fail
Nick Kristof and the Holy War on Pornhub
Delete history: Pornhub changed the world, but its empire faces a reckoning
Internet Censorship Bills Wouldn’t Help Catch Sex Traffickers
Project 2025 Tracker
Age verification regulations in the United States of America
Hack of Age Verification Company Shows Privacy Danger of Social Media Laws
Press release about the passage of KOSA from the office of Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-MD)
IHOPKC founder committed sexual abuse, misconduct against 17 women, investigation finds
Melissa McCarthy Apologizes for Supporting Charity with Anti-LGBTQ Past
FOLLOW THE SHOW:
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
ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)

I'll Be Mailbag For Christmas

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

Eugenics, IQ, and The Bell Curve

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

Balaji Srinivasan: The B-Side (PREVIEW)

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