Bret Weinstein

The Raw, Unprocessed Truth: The 345th Evolutionary Lens with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying


On this, our 345th Evolutionary Lens livestream, we discuss immigration, AI, and rawness. First: a new Harper’s article chronicles the effects on local people of the mass migration across the Darién Gap in Panama between 2021 and 2025, and what has happened since the number of people coming up from Colombia has dropped to a trickle. The reporting on the ground is excellent—human and honest—while the political analysis is naïve at best. Then: what is it to be raw, how is it inherently human, and what is its relationship to grief, and to AI?

@BretWeinstein

Positive change? Bret Weinstein would impeach Trump.

In a recent DarkHorse Locals Q&A, @BretWeinstein was asked what positive change he'd like to see before the end of the year.

His answer: "I hesitate to say it, but I'd impeach him."

Bret Weinstein responds to Michael Shermer in the episode "Just Asking Questions" on DarkHorse.

"There should be no bar to just asking questions. Just asking questions is the normal behavior. And the fact that something out there would like to stigmatize it is conspicuous in and of itself."

@BretWeinstein

In a recent DarkHorse Private Q&A Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, both PhDs in biology, answer a Locals Member question about boogers.

Q: "Funny one. Why do kids pick their boogers and eat them? Is there an evolutionary advantage? Forgive me if you've already answered this one. Love you both! Thanks for all you do."

@BretWeinstein starts by summarizing his answer: "Two adaptive explanations, for which I do not have a high confidence …

One, it's a resource and this is a way of recycling it.

Two, it may contain information and that information may have an adaptive utility."

Was Charlie Kirk Killed With a Drone? Viva Frei and @JimmyDore on DarkHorse

Bret Weinstein speaks with Viva Frei and @JimmyDore on the subject of the Charlie Kirk assassination discussing the paved-over crime scene, the missing microphone, the ballistics, drones, and what a functioning investigation would have looked for.

@BretWeinstein

The Strange Rise of Fanaticism: The 339th Evolutionary Lens with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying

On this, our 339th Evolutionary Lens livestream, we discuss the rise of fanaticism in the context of Jason Arday—the former Cambridge professor who was under fire for plagiarism and fabulism, and was recently found dead. Arday benefitted from the progressive stack, and played up both his blackness and autism; he was also an actual marathoner and a human being. There can be no nuance on either side—either he is beloved and his name is chanted at a gathering at Trafalgar Square, or he is denounced by the anti-woke (including race realists). Other examples of cases where fanaticism is met by fanaticism on the other side, when there should be some people who hold an intermediate position, include: Covid vaxxers vs anti-vaxxers; traditionalists vs libertarians; and climate science deniers vs enthusiasts.

@BretWeinstein

Bret Weinstein shared the investigative work of Josh Walkos in the most recent DarkHorse podcast, "We're Beyond Flocked."

"Inside Toka and the New Age of Frictionless Surveillance" from @JoshWalkos explains Toka "can reportedly locate cameras, remotely access them, watch live feeds and even alter live or previously recorded footage while concealing evidence the system was compromised."

@BretWeinstein on Toka: "The ability to actually create false memories for profit is an inhuman level of power.

Now, they say, this company — an Israeli company that has now moved to Maryland, interestingly — says it will only contract with governments.

I don't know how much comfort I take from that."

@BretWeinstein

Bret Weinstein and Peter Boghossian discuss the new Director of the CDC, Dr. Erica Schwartz and her belief that mRNA vaccines are "safe and effective."

"Dr. Erica Schwartz, Dr. Jason Arday, are variations on a theme, right?

One of these people is much more serious in a sense than the other, but they are taking advantage of the fact that there's a niche — you know, in the case of Erica Schwartz, there's a niche for an attractive, black, yes, well-spoken person who can lie to the camera about matters of life and death and it doesn't faze her."

Plus a confession from @BretWeinstein

"Here's the confession, and it pains me to say this, but I feel a moral obligation:

I misjudged Thomas Sowell before knowing much about what he thought. When he was introduced to me as a concept, before I'd seen his work, I felt like I knew the story: a black conservative gets embraced by the right because it's so useful to have a black conservative saying something that is surprising to hear from such a person.

Only when I encountered his actual work did I discover — no, no, no, no, no. This guy is an intellectual powerhouse. His blackness is completely irrelevant to what he is saying. It may call attention to it, but I think that's all well and good because from the point of view of the quality of the thinker, he's absolutely top-notch.

@BretWeinstein

DarkHorse Locals Members: Today's questions from the Q&A are timestamped.

Bret & Heather discussed Covid and the homeless, the effects of the full moon, blood pressure, circumcision in Iceland, modern dating, and boogers (along with a few other subjects).

"We're a little bit more, if this is even possible, more off the cuff, a little bit looser in the Q&As— our cuffs are off."

@BretWeinstein

Children on the Front Lines? The 337th Evolutionary Lens with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying

On this, our 337th Evolutionary Lens livestream, we discuss how Western society is treating its children. First, the good news: the Department of Justice, working with AGs in Texas and Ohio, have effectively shuttered two major “gender care” clinics, and extracted promises to create clinics to support people in detransitioning. It’s about time. But: why is there a Trump banner on the DoJ? This is not typically how Americans do things, for good reason. Add the Trump branded passport, and $1 coin, and there’s a definite Dear Leader vibe going on. Politics has taken over analytical thought—today, all you have to do is know who stands for a thing, and you know whether you do or do not agree. (See the protein panic currently taking blue-media outlets by storm.) Then: a Yale law professor says the insane part out loud. Finally, a guy caught taking out Flock cameras suddenly has a lot of friends, at least on-line.

@BretWeinstein

"I reject the idea of gender identity."

Biologist, Dr. Heather Heying shared that this is one of her foundational beliefs on a recent episode of The Evolutionary Lens on DarkHorse.

She goes on to explain, "the idea that you feel like a man or feel like a woman is a fabrication. You just are a man or a woman, or if you have not yet gone through puberty, a boy or a girl. And all boys who go through puberty become men and all girls who go through puberty become women."

@BretWeinstein

A Yale law professor says the insane part out loud.

HEYING: "Let me just say that last line again. This is from Yale law professor Samuel Moyn.

'Part of our goal as a society is trying to make sure that children aren't the hostages of their parents as much as we rely on parents to raise them.'

He does have children."

WEINSTEIN: "Oh, I do not feel good for these children."

@BretWeinstein

Bret Weinstein explains that the best way to think about Fauci after the Senate Hearing is as a made man.

"Thinking of him as a made man in a mafia, whose name we don't know makes a lot more sense of what you saw.

What he was effectively doing was a flex.

He was sitting there and saying I don't have to answer your question, because who the hell are you? Congress? What's that?"

@BretWeinstein

In a recent Locals Q&A, biologist Heather Heying was asked about her opinion on homeopathy.

She shared that her thoughts on the subject have recently changed due to careful thinkers she respects.

Bret Weinstein's opinions on homeopathy are also changing. Tomorrow's Inside Rail features a conversation with Leslie Manookian about the fight for informed consent and homeopathy being an expression of medical freedom.

"I didn't realize how much homeopathy was not always the joke that most normies take it to be today. It used to be a very serious thing with homeopathic medical schools and accreditation and all of this. And then it got attacked by allopathic medicine the same way osteopathy got attacked."

@BretWeinstein

In the aftermath of their son's motorcycle accident, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying make the difficult case that children must encounter real risk to become capable, courageous adults.

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He's the Front Runner! The 335th Evolutionary Lens with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying

@BretWeinstein

Larry Sanger named and led Wikipedia in 2001, and he has now been permanently blocked from the site.

Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying discuss how Wikipedia has become an ideological racket rather than an encyclopedia, but we need an encyclopedia.

@BretWeinstein explains, "Wikipedia is a mess. It's a mess of multiple kinds, one of which would be expected.

Obviously, an encyclopedia that is written in the way that Wikipedia is written is going to have errors in it. The nice thing about it would be that they should be self-correcting.

But there's obviously something much more sinister going on at Wikipedia..."

Fraud, Tyranny & the Legal Battle to Save America: Bobbie Anne Cox on DarkHorse

Bret Weinstein speaks with attorney, Bobbie Anne Cox on the subject of election laws, voter fraud, and the political landscape in blue states. But first they honor the legacy of their friend, Warner Mendenhall, in discussing the Brooke Jackson case and fraud in Pfizer Trials.

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Why Even Try? The 322nd Evolutionary Lens with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying

On this, our 322nd Evolutionary Lens livestream, we discuss the Cartesian crisis, whether going to the moon is valuable, and college in the age of AI. Before the ads, we discuss the nature of knowledge, and whether paying attention all the time, to all the things, can backfire and make a personal less capable of comprehension. Later: why go to the moon? An op-ed writer at The Guardian says there’s no point—there’s nothing to see, no one to talk to. We discuss the value of science—not just in terms of what we become capable of doing, but also for the human values of awe and wonder, openness and curiosity. As humans, we must encourage discovery, innovation, and exploration; we cannot cave to the fearful, provincial, and bland. Finally: professors and students are in an arms race over AI. A better move would be to seek two wildly different educational modes: one in which no outside sources of knowledge are available at all (e.g. a remote site with no cell service), and classroom-based work that encourages engagement and learning from and with the AI.

@BretWeinstein