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PODCAST

Ill Conceived

Josh Boerman & June Sternbach

A podcast about natalism. Hosted by Josh Boerman (The Worst of All Possible Worlds, Traditional Scrench) and June Sternbach (Kill The Computer, The Onion).

society & culture politics

All Episodes

102:39

Tucker Carlson: The End of Men

Ill Conceived ·

2026/03/08

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

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36:28

Jeffrey Epstein: The B-Side (PREVIEW)

Ill Conceived ·

2026/02/28

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

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108:22

Jeffrey Epstein

Ill Conceived ·

2026/02/20

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

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22:04

Surrogacy: The B-Side (PREVIEW)

Ill Conceived ·

2026/02/14

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

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98:45

Surrogacy

Ill Conceived ·

2026/02/07

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

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20:21

PREVIEW - Peter Thiel: The B-Side

Ill Conceived ·

2026/01/30

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

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109:39

Peter Thiel

Ill Conceived ·

2026/01/23

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

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16:09

PREVIEW - Mailbag & Chill: Masturbation & Pornography

Ill Conceived ·

2026/01/17

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS MAILBAG EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other biweekly bonus mailbag episode, 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

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91:51

Masturbation & Pornography

Ill Conceived ·

2026/01/12

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

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54:05

I'll Be Mailbag For Christmas

Ill Conceived ·

2025/12/23

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

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111:26

Eugenics, IQ, and The Bell Curve

Ill Conceived ·

2025/12/05

Charles Murray & Richard Herrnstein's book 1994 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

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20:31

PREVIEW - Mailbag & Chill: Balaji Srinivasan

Ill Conceived ·

2025/11/26

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS MAILBAG EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other weekly bonus mailbag episode, 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

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90:38

What is Childhood?

Ill Conceived ·

2025/11/23

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

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9:19

PREVIEW - Mailbag & Chill: Matt Yglesias

Ill Conceived ·

2025/11/18

THIS IS A PREVIEW OF A BONUS MAILBAG EPISODE. For access to the full length version of this and every other weekly bonus mailbag episode, 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

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102:20

Balaji Srinivasan & Network Natalism

Ill Conceived ·

2025/11/15

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

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110:21

Matthew Yglesias: One Billion Americans

Ill Conceived ·

2025/11/01

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

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114:43

Natal Conference 2025

Ill Conceived ·

2025/10/25

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

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61:27

The Good, the Bad and the Mailbag

Ill Conceived ·

2025/10/17

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..

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83:53

Elon Musk

Ill Conceived ·

2025/10/10

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

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108:56

Homeschooling

Ill Conceived ·

2025/10/04

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

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35 results

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