0:00

return to your podcast in a moment. This

0:02

is Dave Kalen, Jimmy Jam, and

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Kelsey Webb for us. Yep,

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you have to listen to us. We have

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a radio show on WNCI 97 .9, and

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you must listen or we will steal

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your car. Only if it's a Kia. Hey,

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someone stole my daughter's Kia show. Oh,

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sorry. Hurry up, they want to

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get back to podcast. Yeah, just listen to

0:22

our show every weekday morning on WNCI. And you

0:24

can also listen on the iHeart app at Dave and

0:26

Jimmy. We're not going to steal your car. This

0:33

is It Could Happen Here, a show

0:35

about things falling apart. And this

0:37

episode is about the people who want

0:39

to make it, being the United

0:41

States, fall apart even faster, allowing them

0:43

to install a white supremacist ethno -state,

0:45

though it kind of feels like

0:47

that's pretty much already happening. This

0:49

episode is also about the people

0:51

in government who categorize and classify

0:54

wannabe terrorists who want the country

0:56

to collapse faster. And what these

0:58

changes in categorization methods can tell

1:00

us about the future of the

1:02

country? I'm Garrison Davis, and

1:04

today I'm joined by a very

1:06

special guest, philosopher and comedian

1:09

Michael Burns of the YouTube channel,

1:11

Michael O. Burns, and formerly

1:13

Wisecrack RIP. How

1:15

you doing? Pretty good, you

1:17

know, besides living in the world

1:19

that you just described. Past

1:22

that, everything's going great. Yeah,

1:24

that's kind of... my

1:26

mood the past three months,

1:28

maybe longer. There's

1:31

a tad, a tad like liminality,

1:33

but I don't know if that's just

1:35

like living in denial and trying to cope, but

1:37

hey, you know, what's wrong with a little bit

1:39

of coping? Especially if it

1:41

helps one simply survive these times.

1:43

So, you know, I encourage a

1:45

healthy dose of coping or sort

1:47

of a, you know, mental bifurcation, if

1:49

that's what we need to do to

1:51

get up in the morning and get

1:53

through it all. Yay. Now, unfortunately, this

1:55

episode that I have prepared today is

1:57

not a super cheery one for you, Michael,

2:01

which is maybe kind of appropriate

2:03

because the reason why I

2:05

have you on this episode today

2:07

is because the FBI and

2:09

the Department of Justice have come

2:11

up with a new terrorism

2:13

classification acronym, which name drops

2:15

the internet's favorite and sometimes

2:17

least favorite philosophy, nihilism.

2:20

They're calling these guys nihilistic,

2:23

violent extremists. Oh

2:25

boy. We will

2:27

we will get into this.

2:29

You want to give like a

2:31

philosophy 101 definition of nihilism,

2:33

a super well -known and universally

2:35

agreed upon term that always means

2:38

the same thing to everybody. So

2:40

yeah, it's not confusing at all. And

2:42

yeah, I mean, I think the root

2:44

of it, at least in like a

2:47

modern philosophical sense, is Nietzsche,

2:49

at least that's a common reference

2:51

point. And when Nietzsche is talking

2:53

about nihilism, especially in a book

2:55

like the Genealogy of Morality and

2:57

a lot of other places, he

2:59

is making the argument that sort

3:01

of Christian European culture, and in

3:03

particular the Christian European culture influenced

3:05

by idealist philosophy, creates nihilism.

3:07

The reason he says it creates

3:09

nihilism is because people care more about

3:11

heaven than they do about earth.

3:13

They care more about the life they're

3:16

going to have in eternity than

3:18

the life they have in the here

3:20

and now. So for him, it's

3:22

like this devaluement of life that happens

3:24

via Christianity. More broadly speaking, nihilism

3:26

has a, I guess, more positive

3:29

usage, which is the, you know,

3:31

disbelief in the inherent or necessary

3:33

meaning in an overarching system. Like

3:35

in like the existential sense. Yeah.

3:37

So you kind of have this

3:39

distinction in some people use of

3:41

positive and negative nihilism and to

3:43

be really crass and simple here.

3:45

Negative nihilism is nothing means anything.

3:47

So I don't give a shit.

3:50

I'm just gonna hang out and

3:52

do whatever. Positive nihilism is there's

3:54

no inherent meaning in reality, but

3:56

cool. Now me and

3:58

the homies can construct meaning as

4:00

we see fit, which is

4:02

more like the existentialist response. We're

4:04

gonna create meaning where maybe

4:06

there wasn't natural meaning in this

4:08

like old school platonic or

4:11

Christian sense. And I'm not sure

4:13

how much the FBI agents

4:15

who are doing these federal court

4:17

filings have read Nietzsche or

4:19

the French existentialists and instead are

4:21

probably using a colloquial definition

4:23

of nihilism, right? This like, oh,

4:25

nothing matters. You know, this

4:27

like apathetic, postmodernist idea to go

4:30

to go a little Jordan Peterson -y,

4:32

right? Yeah. I mean, I think there's

4:34

the sense in which it is

4:36

the kind of weird Jordan Peterson -y,

4:38

alt -right philosophy version of nihilism, which

4:40

just means like people that think the

4:43

dominance of the West is bad. And

4:45

it also reeks a little bit

4:47

of like big Lebowski nihilism for totally

4:49

you know, and of course in

4:51

that movie nihilism is represented by a

4:54

crew of I think Austrian techno

4:56

producers called autobahn who are also nihilist

4:58

and they say throughout the film

5:00

like we are nihilist We believe in

5:02

nothing Which is a really and

5:04

obviously co -embrothers made that film at

5:06

least one of them was a philosophy

5:08

major So they know what they're

5:10

doing. That's kind of the really basic

5:12

Not good enough version of this

5:14

thing that it seems like the FBI

5:17

is operating with like people who

5:19

don't believe in the goodness of the

5:21

Western project. Correct. And that's what

5:23

they're really honing in on. I will

5:25

read an expanded definition of nihilist

5:27

violent extremism. This is from a federal

5:29

court filing dated March 18th, 2025. Nihilist

5:32

violent extremists are individuals who engage

5:34

in criminal conduct within the United States

5:36

and abroad in furtherance of political,

5:38

social, or religious goals that derive primarily

5:40

from a hatred of society at

5:42

large and a desire to bring about

5:45

its collapse by sowing indiscriminate chaos,

5:47

destruction, and social instability. Nihilist

5:49

violent extremists work individually or

5:51

as a part of a network

5:53

with these goals of destroying

5:55

civilized society through the corruption and

5:57

exploitation of vulnerable populations which

5:59

often include minors. Now, this is

6:01

where it's going to get

6:04

into some kind of weirder stuff

6:06

that we will explain later. They

6:08

have a second definition here, quote,

6:10

nihilist violent extremists, both individually and

6:13

as a network, systematically and methodically

6:15

target vulnerable populations across the United

6:17

States and the globe. They frequently

6:19

use social media communication platforms to

6:21

connect with individuals and desensitize them

6:23

to violence, among other things, breaking

6:25

down societal norms regarding engaging in

6:28

violence, normalizing the possession, production, and

6:30

sharing of gore materials. and otherwise

6:32

corrupting and grooming those individuals towards

6:34

committing future acts of violence." And

6:36

that kind of outlines some of

6:38

the strategy of these groups. The

6:41

groups that they're kind of going

6:43

to mention here, I've been doing

6:45

like freelance research on for about

6:47

four years now. I've

6:49

been trying to publish a few

6:52

articles on these guys over the

6:54

years, but it's always tricky. And

6:56

we will get to kind

6:58

of the darker corners of that.

7:01

in a sec. But let's

7:03

first kind of talk about what

7:05

this new term, this NVE,

7:07

nihilist violent extremists, what this is

7:09

kind of replacing in the

7:11

FBI lexicon. Now, it

7:13

seems that this term is

7:16

being used in place of

7:18

two previous FBI terrorism categories.

7:20

This is from a November

7:22

2020 FBI bulletin, quote, anti

7:24

-government or anti -authority violent

7:27

extremism. This threat encompasses the

7:29

potentially unlawful use or

7:31

threat of force or violence

7:33

in furtherance of ideological

7:35

agendas derived from anti -government

7:37

or anti -authority sentiment, including

7:39

opposition to perceived economic, social

7:41

or racial hierarchies or

7:43

perceived government overreach, negligence or

7:45

illegitimacy. Can I say

7:47

something that stood out to me about

7:49

those definitions? The hatred thing

7:51

I found really interesting in like

7:53

the very first definition you give

7:55

that nihilism is defined as like

7:57

in a motive state because again

7:59

i think nihilism is classically conceived

8:01

totally is almost more like ontological

8:03

metaphysical and by that i just

8:06

mean looking at the structures of

8:08

belief in the world so rather

8:10

than being like motivated by hatred

8:12

or love or fear or whatever.

8:15

more classically nihilist view is just, again, like,

8:17

oh, I've been sold a bill of

8:19

goods on what the meaning of existence

8:21

is or what the undermining underlying principles of

8:23

political reality are, and now I see

8:25

that they are maybe BS. Not the hatred

8:28

of society and wanting to collapse it.

8:30

Yeah, I guess there's just like this negativity

8:32

associated with all that language. And of

8:34

course, I was, having never heard the

8:36

definitions that you were just bringing up, you

8:39

know, the way in which it just

8:41

quickly zigs and zags to like some

8:43

very dark. stuff in terms of like

8:45

radicalization. It seemed like there was a

8:47

reference towards like, like, like pedophilia or

8:49

something there. Child sexual abuse materials. Yeah,

8:51

come up a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.

8:53

So it just the getting from A

8:55

to B there is more like getting

8:58

from A to Z or something. It's

9:00

just not a connection that I think

9:02

would be obvious to anyone who has

9:04

thought about, read about, written about nihilism

9:06

as more of an intellectual or even

9:08

like a political and philosophical concept. Totally,

9:10

because there is like political nihilists in

9:12

like the Russian tradition and more recently

9:14

in like the American anarchist tradition or

9:16

the Greek anarchist tradition where they believe

9:19

in this like idea of like negation

9:21

and trying to try to like negate

9:23

government institutions. Yeah, but would

9:25

you still far cry from believing

9:27

in causing active harm psychologically, physically,

9:29

whatever to human beings? Vulnerable populations.

9:31

Yeah. Yeah, there's a sense in

9:33

which it's painted as like if

9:35

you knew nothing else And you

9:37

were to read those definitions and

9:39

you were just a scared suburban

9:42

insurance salesman or something. It would

9:44

sound as if it was like

9:46

a death cult infecting the minds

9:48

of children, like zombie -esque little

9:50

super soldiers. That's actually what they're

9:52

going for. And I have a

9:54

lot of mixed opinions on this

9:56

term, because I think this term

9:58

is trying to describe a that

10:00

does kind of defy classification. But

10:02

I think the use of the nihilist

10:05

term is also not good. So, I'm

10:07

kind of in a rock and a

10:09

hard place here as someone who does

10:11

a lot of extremism research. Now,

10:13

the other term that the

10:15

FBI is probably seeking to replace,

10:18

at least in part with

10:20

this new nihilism definition, is racially

10:22

or ethnically motivated violent extremism. This

10:25

is like a white pharmacist, you're

10:27

a neo -Nazis. The FBI defines

10:29

it as, quote, this threat encompasses

10:31

the potentially unlawful use or threat

10:33

of force or violence in furtherance

10:35

of ideological agendas derived from bias

10:37

after relating to race or ethnicity

10:39

held by the actor against others

10:41

or a given population group. Racially

10:43

or ethnically motivated violent extremists purport

10:46

to use both political and religious

10:48

justifications to support their racially or

10:50

ethnically based ideological objectives and criminal

10:52

activities. So this was the

10:54

group that saw a massive

10:56

explosion in growth the past 10

10:58

years, really starting around 2016

11:00

to 2017, with the

11:02

neo -Nazi mass shooting

11:04

epidemic, especially around 2017

11:07

to 2019. This is

11:09

the most lethal group, and it grew exponentially

11:11

during that period. And we're kind of

11:13

seeing some of these groups start to reform

11:15

now. Now, there's

11:17

been some reporting that this anti

11:19

-government or anti -authority violent extremism, which

11:21

I'm just gonna say agave, which

11:23

is the acronym, which does make

11:25

me a little bit hungry for

11:27

a glucose syrup, but it's fine.

11:31

There's been some reporting that state

11:33

agave is specifically like a

11:35

Biden era term. But it actually

11:37

predates the Biden presidency and was

11:39

in use under Trump. In fact,

11:42

a lot of the internal FBI

11:44

reforms that are being reported on

11:46

right now are actually undoing changes

11:48

and counterterrorism strategies that started under

11:50

the first Trump presidency. But

11:52

we'll get more on that later.

11:54

We're gonna go on an ad

11:57

break real quick and return to

11:59

talk about a gruesome act of

12:01

violence in Wisconsin last month. Hey,

12:08

it's Zuko and Kayla from The Wake Up

12:10

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listen to us online on the I Heart

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Radio app. All

12:38

right, we are back. I'm

12:40

gonna get more into how the

12:42

government is using this term and

12:44

like what they are applying it

12:46

to, what they're applying the nihilist

12:48

violent extremism label to. Earlier

12:50

this year, a Wisconsin teen

12:52

male named Nikita Kassup killed his

12:54

parents in an attempt to

12:56

gain the financial means and autonomy

12:58

necessary to carry out a

13:00

plot to assassinate President Trump and

13:03

accelerate the collapse of the

13:05

United States. I'm gonna

13:07

read a quote from a federal

13:09

criminal complaint filed last month.

13:11

Quote, on March 3rd, 2025, County

13:14

sheriffs obtained a search warrant for

13:16

CASP's cell phone. During the review,

13:18

they identified material on the phone

13:20

related to, quote unquote, the order

13:22

of nine angles. The

13:24

sheriff's review of the phone

13:26

identified possible usernames for CASP,

13:28

including accelerationist 14 and awoken,

13:31

unquote. Now, Michael, are

13:33

you unfortunate enough to be familiar

13:35

with the order of nine angles?

13:37

I am not. So this is

13:39

a group that was originally based

13:41

in the UK and now is

13:43

primarily active in Eastern Europe, though

13:45

there are branches or spin -offs

13:47

called nexions in the United States. This

13:50

is a group that is kind of

13:52

hard to define. People often call it a

13:54

Nazi Satanist group. I think

13:56

it's more accurate to call

13:58

them a white supremacist occultic

14:00

group. who essentially try to

14:02

cultivate evil for the sake

14:05

of evil. They're like a

14:07

left -hand path occult group

14:09

that has orchestrated multiple terrorist

14:11

attacks, especially through radicalizing US

14:13

soldiers. At this

14:15

point, they're pretty mythic with their

14:17

writing and tactics, leaving a

14:19

strong, lingering presence across the left

14:21

-hand path fascist occult milieu. We

14:24

also have a reference to quote -unquote

14:26

accelerationism here, which kind of similar

14:28

to nihilism is like this philosophical term

14:30

which has kind of been like

14:33

warped and changed via people's application of

14:35

it in politics. And

14:37

specifically kind of the way that we're

14:39

going to be using this word here

14:41

is this idea of trying to like

14:43

accelerate the collapse of the country, mostly

14:45

to install like a white supremacist ethno -state

14:47

after the country has collapsed. This is

14:49

how most Nazis use the term, even

14:51

though it has a slightly different like

14:53

cultural background. with the work of Nick

14:55

Land and Mark Fisher. When I was

14:57

growing up, acceleration just meant accelerating the

14:59

contradictions of capitalism, but kids these days.

15:02

That's right. Took in all direction and

15:04

not a good one. So

15:06

this federal criminal complaint alleges that

15:08

Kassup was communicating with people on the

15:10

messaging app Telegram and these people

15:12

were possibly in Ukraine and or Russia.

15:15

And these people helped him plan

15:17

this attack. The FBI found

15:19

TikTok messages on his phone where

15:21

he discussed the struggle of telling

15:24

his friends that he quote -unquote

15:26

follows O9A teachings, that's order of

15:28

nine angles, and he discussed a

15:30

previous FBI visit to his home

15:32

in 2023. In

15:34

other exchanges on TikTok, he

15:36

shared information with a user

15:38

named Nihilus about how to

15:40

find Nazi telegram channels. I'm

15:43

gonna read through some of

15:45

this chat transcript. Nihilus,

15:47

hey dude, do you know

15:49

any telegram groups where

15:51

Niners, that's O9A, And Drex

15:53

can interact and exchange

15:55

info. Awoken. That's

15:57

Kassup. Sorry, no, I'm

15:59

mostly in NSWP telegram

16:01

groups. LOL. If

16:03

you do find any, it'd be nice if

16:05

you tell me. Nihilus, what's WP? Awoke.

16:09

Wikipedia .org slash national

16:11

underscore socialism underscore white

16:13

power. Nihilus. Oh,

16:15

white power. Cool. Awoken.

16:17

Do you know any 098 telegram

16:20

groups? Nihilus. Oh, not a

16:22

group, but a channel. You can find documents

16:24

there. Awoken. All right.

16:26

Send. Awoken. Can you send

16:28

me the link to the account? Awoken. It says

16:30

I can't access the message. Nihilus.

16:32

How can I do that? Wait a

16:34

second. Awoken. Here's my Telegram username. Acceleration

16:37

is 14. Nihilus. I sent

16:39

a message. So there

16:41

you go. That's a... Man,

16:43

just... There is some

16:45

later Telegram messages. That

16:48

are archived in this in this

16:50

complaint as well where at accelerationist says

16:52

what country do you think will

16:54

get the blame for this? Meaning his

16:56

planned attack an unknown user replied

16:59

Russia will be blamed for it. This

17:01

is the goal Accelerationist said quote

17:03

when the time comes for me to

17:05

send my manifesto to you so

17:07

you can spread it online should it

17:09

be a PDF also And

17:18

also, you won't anyhow

17:20

change or modify the manifesto.

17:23

The unknown user replies, write it on a piece of

17:25

paper and take a picture. Wow. The

17:27

FBI personnel performing the preliminary

17:30

review saw images of a three

17:32

page document titled, Accelerate the

17:34

Collapse. The images are

17:36

screen grabs displayed on a phone.

17:38

And these images were created on

17:40

February 28th, 2025. This

17:42

document is the manifesto referred to by

17:45

act accelerationist. the manifesto calls for

17:47

the assassination of the president of the

17:49

United States in order to form

17:51

a political revolution in the United States

17:53

to quote unquote save the white

17:55

race from quote unquote Jewish controlled politicians.

17:58

The third page of the document contains images

18:00

of Adolf Hitler with text that reads, quote,

18:02

hail Hitler, hail the white race, hail victory. Now,

18:05

from what I can read

18:07

of this manifesto, it's pretty basic.

18:09

It's heavily plagiarized, like most

18:11

of these kind of white supremacist

18:13

accelerationist manifestos are. It talks

18:15

about how Jews control white countries

18:17

and are promoting white genocide

18:19

and degeneracy. It talks about the

18:21

need to, quote -unquote, collapse Jewish

18:23

occupied governments. The manifesto

18:25

states that his motivation for wanting

18:27

to kill Trump was to sow chaos

18:29

and raise public awareness that, quote, assassinations

18:32

and accelerating the collapse are possible

18:34

things to do, unquote, not that

18:36

possible since he's arrested and did

18:38

not accelerate the collapse, but... He

18:41

also advocates that people unable to

18:43

commit to taking direct action instead

18:45

make connections with other white supremacists

18:47

and grow a network to take

18:49

over the country once America collapses.

18:51

He recommends the writing of Nazi

18:54

accelerationists, including James Mason, who wrote

18:56

the influential Nazi book Siege, and

18:58

the Terrorgram Collective, a group of

19:00

white supremacists from around the world who

19:02

organized on the messaging platform Telegram

19:04

to share guides on how to do

19:06

terrorism. He also recommends the writings

19:08

of former Adam Waffen members, an

19:11

American Accelerationist group, writing, quote, there

19:13

is much to learn from the

19:15

successes and mistakes of Adam Waffen.

19:17

I think it's worth noting that

19:19

Adam Waffen was also either

19:21

like infiltrated or partially co -opted

19:24

and inspired by some O9A teachings.

19:26

This is kind of how

19:28

the more bizarre and occultic influence

19:30

of O9A seeped more into

19:32

the kind of general American accelerationist

19:34

Nazi milieu. This was

19:36

like in like 2018. Now,

19:39

Kassup advises that if the reader

19:41

of the Manifesto is already like, pilled,

19:43

that you should just skip the

19:45

theory and just read practical how -to

19:47

guides for terrorism and bomb making. Since,

19:49

quote -unquote, there is no political solution.

19:51

Huge amounts of violence will be

19:53

required. Long past the days where we

19:55

can vote for a Hitler to

19:57

save us. White Revolution is

20:00

only solution, unquote. Which,

20:02

I guess I'm kind of desensitized to

20:04

this sort of stuff. In fact, I just

20:06

find this slightly funny considering kind of the

20:08

victory lap that like Stephen Miller and like

20:10

white nationalists are currently having in the government,

20:12

where many of them do think they

20:14

can just vote for a Hitler to save

20:16

us and that Hitler may may already be

20:19

in office forever. Well, that isn't so shocking

20:21

hearing all this as someone that doesn't know

20:23

all these details. I mean, A, I feel

20:25

like the blinders just got taken off

20:27

me and I'm seeking the world anew. But

20:29

B, shocking that from a more normie perspective. In

20:32

my mind, I would think all of these

20:34

types would be pretty excited about how things are

20:36

going politically, not trying to tear

20:38

things down further. It's like, you guys

20:40

won, you know, accept it. Even Trump is

20:42

not extreme enough for a lot of

20:44

these guys. They really go places.

20:47

Now, Kassup was coordinating with multiple telegram

20:49

users, likely in Ukraine and Russia,

20:51

on how to build a drone that

20:54

can drop an explosive and then

20:56

paid some individuals for some of the

20:58

required materials. And also had a

21:00

plan to flee to Ukraine after his

21:02

attack that he was coordinating with

21:04

Ukrainian Nazis on telegram. Tough look for

21:07

telegram. It's always a tough

21:09

look for telegram. Not

21:13

great. Not a great platform. Pretty

21:15

much only used by these guys. Yeah,

21:17

no, he was talking about how

21:19

he probably needs to quote unquote brush

21:21

up on my Russian. Oh, yeah,

21:24

definitely. Before he flees to Ukraine after

21:26

trying to kill the president. You

21:28

know, you download Duolingo after you do

21:30

that. That's right. That's right. He

21:32

had plans to meet up with 10

21:34

people with similar beliefs in Ukraine. My

21:37

mind is just so blown by all this.

21:39

I thought I knew things. I know nothing.

21:42

Now, on March 10th, Sheriff's

21:44

interviewed a classmate of

21:46

Kassup. And the classmate told

21:48

them that the Kassup

21:50

would send quote -unquote gore

21:52

edit videos that includes flashing

21:54

gore, body gore imagery,

21:56

and war images put to

21:58

Russian music sent via

22:01

Snapchat. This is a

22:03

common tactic done by

22:05

these sort of teenage extremists.

22:07

This is a whole subgenre of video

22:10

that has changed and altered in

22:12

aesthetic multiple times. Frankly, if you

22:14

spend enough time on Twitter now in

22:16

the comments of blue check neo -Nazis

22:18

you can find some some of these

22:20

edits where they have like, you know,

22:22

like techno Techno like fast -paced sometimes like

22:24

Russian music set to like, you know

22:26

glorified images of like like like Rome

22:28

or Nazi Germany or a large variety

22:30

of stuff But the gore genre is

22:32

specifically unique to kind of the to

22:34

the o9a like a cultic Nazi branch

22:37

because they think that like viewing these

22:39

images like increases your power level of

22:41

like evil, right? It's a very video

22:43

game view of like, of like spiritual

22:45

development of like you have to, you

22:47

have to like raise your evil stat

22:49

by looking at gore and this will

22:51

make you more able to commit like

22:53

big acts of violence. Whoa. So just

22:55

desensitizing yourself to the image just makes

22:57

you a more violent person and capable

22:59

of doing these things yourself. Correct. Correct.

23:02

And that's like a big part of their

23:04

praxis. This is why they send this type of

23:06

stuff to a lot of like kids on

23:08

the internet because they hope that if they desensitize

23:10

these kids, they'll be easier to convince them

23:12

to then do acts of violence themselves. Kassup

23:15

told his classmate that he intended to

23:17

kill his parents by shooting them but could

23:19

not because he didn't have access to

23:21

a gun. He later told his

23:23

classmate that he would befriend someone with a

23:25

gun and then steal it. and told him

23:27

that he was in contact with a male

23:29

in Russia via telegram and that they were

23:31

both plotting to overthrow the government of the

23:33

United States and assassinate President Trump. Kassup

23:36

told the classmate that when he

23:38

saw 10 consecutive attacks in the

23:40

news, it would have to be

23:42

him. I've already transitioned

23:44

to the sort of person who can now

23:47

laugh at this because of the absurdity.

23:49

Oh my gosh. And get those

23:51

laughs in now because the next section is much

23:53

more dark. Oh no. Because

23:55

it's funny to laugh at a guy

23:57

like this who mostly failed. I mean,

23:59

he did kill his parents. That is

24:01

really happened. Okay. Oh, no, he did

24:04

he didn't kill his parents He did

24:06

flee to a different state. He wasn't

24:08

smart enough though He please tracked him

24:10

on him and his parents his cell

24:12

phone and their car Who he still

24:14

had with him? So get not not

24:16

a very good attacker I guess but

24:18

no like this this this this kid

24:20

murdered his parents sat in the house

24:22

with their decomposing bodies for 12 days.

24:24

Oh before trying to carry out the

24:26

rest of his attack on the United

24:28

States. So, yeah, though

24:30

he did not succeed in his

24:33

larger goals, like these people still absolutely

24:35

do get like groomed into doing

24:37

violence. And this is something that happens

24:39

at a pretty frequent basis, honestly, to

24:42

the point where these types of things

24:44

don't make giant headlines anymore. They would have

24:46

maybe in 2017. But now

24:48

a lot of journalists are desensitized to

24:50

this. And because it happens so

24:52

frequently, it is less newsworthy. Which is

24:54

a very unfortunate place to be

24:57

in for a country. Do

24:59

you know what else is unfortunate

25:01

Michael? I don't know what what's

25:03

that? Having to pivot to ads

25:05

actually Necessary evil. It's way better

25:07

than killing your parents. Yes. Yes.

25:09

I will I will go on

25:11

record I will go on record

25:13

eat me get aboard. Sorry I

25:15

love ads actually I'm

25:23

in terms of life. It's the Breakfast

25:25

Club. The world's most dangerous

25:27

morning show. Hey! Angela E. is

25:29

kind of like the big sister that

25:31

always picks in the boy. That's not

25:33

how it goes. That's not how anything

25:36

goes. Yeah, me's really like a... What

25:45

is wrong with ya? As

25:58

a heads up, the next section

26:00

will reference online exploitation and child

26:02

sexual abuse material. All

26:04

right, we are back. Let's

26:07

get more depressing,

26:09

unfortunately, but I think

26:11

we will find a way to turn this around.

26:13

Well, not like in an optimistic way, but in

26:15

a way that it's useful. We'll

26:17

learn something together. So

26:20

at the end of this section

26:22

of this complaint that attempts to

26:24

describe Kassup's collapse -driven political ideology,

26:26

is the appearance of this new

26:28

term, nihilistic violent extremists, right? Now,

26:31

this was actually the second time

26:33

this term has appeared in court

26:35

documents. The earliest appearance

26:37

of this term was in a

26:39

March sentencing memo for a child

26:41

sexual abuse material case first filed

26:43

in November of 2024, which was

26:46

linked to the 764 Child Extortion

26:48

and Exploitation Network. Ken Clapenstein,

26:50

who first reported on the use

26:52

of the nihilism term, missed this

26:54

first appearance and attributed the origin

26:56

to the Kassup case. Michael,

26:58

are you similarly unfortunate enough

27:00

to be aware of 764?

27:03

This is another one where my brain is

27:06

more pure than yours, I guess, at

27:08

this point, but it's about to get ruined,

27:10

so let's do it. Yeah, I mean,

27:12

it has been for a lot of people.

27:14

Like, I've been doing like extremism research

27:16

and I've been aware of these guys for

27:18

about for years. The FBI,

27:20

I think, first did their

27:23

public announcement, like, warning parents about

27:25

this in 2023. 764

27:27

is a network of groups that operate either

27:29

on Discord, Telegram, Instagram, social

27:31

media apps. They're kind of

27:34

inspired by some aspects of O9A, but

27:36

they are much more focused on

27:38

the production and distribution of child sexual

27:40

abuse materials and trying to manipulate

27:42

a groom and blackmail and extort minors

27:44

into producing this material. A lot

27:46

of it's done by other miners, too.

27:48

A lot of this is teens

27:50

targeting other teens with adults kind of

27:52

helping this process along. It's a

27:55

pretty big problem. There's been

27:57

some good reporting on it in Wired and

27:59

The Guardian the past few years, if

28:01

you want to read more. Now,

28:04

this March sentencing memo for the

28:06

764 case describes the 764 and

28:08

related groups as, quote, nihilist, violent

28:10

extremists who engage in criminal conduct

28:12

with in the United States and

28:14

engage with other extremists abroad. 764

28:16

networks accelerationist goals include social unrest

28:19

in the downfall of the current

28:21

world order, including the United States

28:23

government. Members of 764

28:25

work in concert with one

28:27

another towards a common purpose of

28:29

destroying a civilized society through

28:31

the corruption and exploitation of vulnerable

28:33

populations, including minors." Now, I

28:35

think this definition may be a

28:37

bit too generalizing. But it's

28:40

not incorrect. Like this is correct

28:42

in what the explicit goals

28:44

of this group are. Maybe not

28:46

just every individual member of

28:48

this group. But I think it

28:50

would be a mistake to

28:52

kind of dismiss this definition as

28:54

outlandishly grandiose, right? It kind

28:56

of, it calls into like mind,

28:59

you know, like conspiracy theory,

29:01

like framing, because it sounds very

29:03

like extravagant and complicated. And

29:05

it kind of is, but it's also,

29:07

it's also like simple. It's people trying

29:09

to automate the process of producing and

29:11

distributing illegal materials. But I do believe

29:13

it is a mistake to completely dismiss

29:15

this, both in terms of like the

29:18

government trying to ascribe political motive for

29:20

the distribution of these materials and also

29:22

the ideological justifications held by some members

29:24

of these groups. Now,

29:26

there have been two more 764

29:28

cases from April of 2025

29:30

that have used the nihilist violent

29:33

extremism designation in court documents. Now,

29:35

part of kind of the struggle

29:37

with this is like, Ken Clippenstein reported,

29:39

quote, it sounds to me like

29:42

some demented philosophical justification for just being

29:44

a pedophile. And like,

29:46

it is, but that doesn't

29:48

mean the political motivations shouldn't

29:50

be discounted. Because those motivations

29:52

impact how they operate, how

29:54

these groups spread, which targets

29:56

they pick, and other political

29:59

actions members might take, like

30:01

mass shootings, targeting racial minorities,

30:03

targeting LGBTQ individuals. So yeah,

30:05

this is kind of why I

30:07

push back a little bit on

30:09

this kind of dismissive tone towards

30:11

this like larger, almost conspiratorial kind

30:13

of matrix put onto groups like

30:15

7 .6 .4. Now, part

30:17

of the tricky thing with use

30:19

of this new nihilism term is

30:21

that it's being used to rope

30:24

in a variety of horrific incidents

30:26

under a singular nebulous category, right?

30:28

So let's take the case of

30:30

Kassup here. Kassup, the guy who killed

30:32

his parents in a plot to

30:34

collapse the United States, is a relatively

30:36

bog standard like neo -nazi accelerationist with

30:39

seemingly no direct ties to 764

30:41

activity besides an interest in O9A which

30:43

was just one of the inspirations

30:45

that influenced 764 as it evolved into

30:47

its own like complex machine about

30:49

five years ago. But Kassup openly admitted

30:51

to being radicalized by Nazism and

30:54

the white power movement online and yet

30:56

in his criminal complaint contains an

30:58

expanded version of the nihilist violent extremism

31:00

definition, which is literally copy and

31:02

pasted from a child sexual abuse material

31:04

sentencing memo from five days before.

31:06

So they just use this same thing,

31:09

despite it not really applying, reading

31:11

quote, individuals are targeted online often through

31:13

synchronized group chats. Nihilist violent extremists

31:15

frequently conduct coordinated extortions of individuals by

31:17

blackmailing them so they comply with

31:19

demands of the network. These demands vary

31:21

and include but are not limited

31:24

to self -mutilation, online or in person

31:26

sexual acts, harms to animals, sexual exploitation

31:28

of siblings and others, acts

31:30

of violence, threats of violence, suicide

31:32

and murder. So very, very

31:34

dark stuff. The definition goes on

31:36

to state how vulnerable individuals are

31:38

targeted and members of the group

31:40

attempt to gain notoriety throughout the

31:42

network and spread fear among those

31:44

targeted individuals for the purpose of

31:46

accelerating the downfall of society and

31:48

otherwise achieving the goal of nihilist

31:50

violent extremists. So while that does

31:52

accurately describe groups like 764, it

31:55

doesn't really relate to the case

31:57

of Kassup. It's tricky because a lot

31:59

of these 764 guys are also

32:01

Nazis and a lot of Nazis are

32:03

also pedophiles. Some of

32:06

these guys start off as

32:08

like evil occultic pedophiles who associate

32:10

with Nazism, because it's a

32:12

pretty universal symbol of evil. And

32:14

sometimes it's the vice versa, where

32:16

they start off as like an

32:18

anti -Semitic right -winger or a Nazi

32:20

or a fascist, who then associate

32:22

with this weird pedo -occult stuff

32:24

for a variety of reasons, like

32:26

spiritual, perverted pleasure, or tactical network

32:28

building. Usually it's a mix. Klippenstein

32:31

writes, quote, The warrant alleges Kassif

32:33

was in touch with the order of

32:35

nine angles, a satanic neo -nazi group

32:37

that espouses accelerationism. A fancy word

32:39

for the belief that destabilizing the social

32:41

order allows for radical change. That

32:43

is pretty heady stuff to ascribe to

32:45

a 17 year old and ends

32:47

up having the feeling of an episode

32:49

of altered carbon." And I kind

32:51

of like reject this dismissive framing like,

32:53

no, these 17 year olds are

32:55

thinking about this. They are getting convinced

32:57

of this material online. That

32:59

is the motivation for. This isn't

33:01

like a science fiction thing. This

33:03

is real. And it's pretty common

33:05

among like extremists this age. There's

33:07

a lot of young teenage male

33:09

extremists. That's kind of their main

33:11

demographic. And this type of

33:13

stuff is popular. Like this is at

33:15

least popular within this small group of

33:17

extremists. So yeah, it is a

33:20

little bit heady, but This is what they

33:22

are genuinely thinking about. It's not incorrect

33:24

to, like, ascribe that to them. Casep openly

33:26

admitted to this connection. Well, and to

33:28

even speak to the flip side of that,

33:30

you know, over the years making philosophy

33:32

stuff on YouTube. I've gotten in touch with

33:34

people who've reached out to be like,

33:36

oh, I've been watching stuff since high school.

33:38

And I was like 15. I was

33:40

watching these like philosophy YouTube videos on heady

33:42

ideas and reading stuff. So like me,

33:44

I was one of these people. Yeah, there's

33:46

like young folks out there who take

33:48

big ideas very seriously and they have more

33:50

access than ever to these things. So

33:52

it doesn't when it doesn't shock me at

33:54

all that some teen could go down

33:56

that rabbit hole or even could start reading

33:58

like a Curtis Jarvan or Nick Land

34:00

and going down those rabbit holes and stuff,

34:02

especially now that some of these people

34:04

are, you know, put on like the New

34:06

York Times and stuff like that. So

34:08

it seems weird to dismiss that. I can

34:10

understand the the impulse to be like,

34:12

this just seems like a very stupid evil

34:14

teen kid. Totally. It seems just as

34:16

plausible like you're pointing out that there could

34:18

be an actual engagement with ideas. And

34:21

that's it's important to recognize that because then

34:23

you have to get at the root

34:25

of that. Exactly. And like these people aren't

34:27

necessarily like. Philosophical nihilists or

34:29

existential nihilists. Yeah, but they could

34:31

be interpreted as reacting to a general

34:33

like passive nihilist culture with this

34:35

form of like pseudo political nihilism this

34:37

attempt at like social negation like

34:39

total systems collapse But like even still

34:42

they aren't totally political nihilists since

34:44

they have a very clear system of

34:46

hierarchy that they want the current

34:48

world order replaced with Though these individuals

34:50

may be seen as like victims

34:52

of nihilism and like in like in

34:54

like the Nietzschean sense Now,

34:57

like, my main problem with

34:59

the nihilist violent extremism term is

35:01

that it's so depoliticized and,

35:03

like, in a way that's rife

35:05

for political abuse. This

35:07

term can be used to cover

35:09

what the government deems as violence

35:12

stemming from, like, apathy, from frustration

35:14

with society, as well as, like,

35:16

anti -tech or anti -civilization politics. And

35:18

this is all coming from, like,

35:20

top down at the new Federal Bureau

35:23

of Investigation. For years, Cash Patel

35:25

has closely associated with QAnon, has helped

35:27

the legal defense campaigns for January

35:29

6th insurrectionists, which included Proud Boys, Oath

35:31

Keepers, and 3 %ers. And now, as

35:33

head of the FBI, he's investigating

35:35

FBI agents who worked those January 6th

35:38

cases. Joe Kent, the new director

35:40

of the National Counterterrorism Center, has made

35:42

media appearances with Nick Fuentes and

35:44

neo -Nazi YouTuber David Carlson. He hired

35:46

Proud Boys to consult in his failed

35:48

congressional campaign and his friends with

35:50

Patriot prayer leader Joey Gibson. Kent has

35:53

repeatedly called for the FBI to

35:55

investigate Antifa. The co -founder

35:57

of the Global Project Against Hate

35:59

and Extremism, Heidi Barrick, has

36:01

said that Patel's QAnon links and

36:03

Deputy Director Dan Bongino's public conspiracism

36:05

and bigotry make taking the threat

36:07

of far -right extremism quote -unquote

36:09

impossible for these two men. She

36:11

says, quote, I think it makes it very

36:13

unlikely that the far -right will continue to be

36:16

seen as the threat it actually is in terms

36:18

of hate crimes and domestic terrorism. All

36:20

of this marks a huge departure

36:22

from the first Trump administration, where the

36:24

FBI for the first time declared

36:26

white supremacy the country's greatest domestic terrorism

36:28

threat. Facts about violence

36:30

and its perpetrators probably won't matter

36:32

this time around, unquote. And

36:35

these changes are already taking place. An

36:37

old counter -terrorism strategy guide was removed

36:39

from the White House website in January. A

36:41

current FBI agent was quoted in

36:43

Vanity Fair as saying, quote, the key

36:45

is the domestic intelligence operations guide.

36:48

If they change that, Patel will be

36:50

able to shift domestic terrorism investigations

36:52

away from the accelerationists and the right

36:54

-wing street fighters and towards things like

36:56

BLM and Antifa, unquote. Patel

36:58

has cut the domestic terrorism

37:01

office staffing and reassigned agents and

37:03

intelligence analysts. with new

37:05

senior FBI officials reportedly considering

37:07

to disband the entire domestic

37:09

terrorism operations section. In

37:11

addition, the FBI has discontinued

37:13

their previous domestic terrorism tracking tool

37:15

where they tag relevant investigations

37:18

to identify and track trends for

37:20

terrorism probes across the country. Sources

37:23

for outlets like Reuters say that

37:25

changes to the agency will reduce

37:27

counterterrorism operations against far -right and

37:29

racially motivated extremists and militias. Jacob

37:31

Ware, a domestic terrorism expert at

37:33

the Council on Foreign Relations, told Reuters,

37:35

quote, there is a broader desire,

37:38

I think, within the administration to, at best,

37:40

ignore data and put their head in

37:42

the sand, and at worst, to

37:44

realign resources away from this battle, unquote.

37:48

A spokesperson for Ohio Representative Jim Jordan

37:50

told Reuters that the termination of

37:52

the domestic terrorism tracking tool is a,

37:54

quote, great step in the right

37:57

direction of returning the FBI to its

37:59

primary crime -fighting mission, unquote. Representative

38:01

Jordan previously in 2023 ran a

38:03

congressional panel that alleged the FBI

38:05

terrorism case tagging tool was being

38:07

improperly used to target conservatives after

38:10

January 6th. Three former FBI agents

38:12

testified at the Republican -led panel,

38:14

and two of those former agents

38:16

admitted to being paid by Patel,

38:18

who at the time was not

38:20

director of the FBI, he was

38:23

just a right -wing influencer after being

38:25

kicked out of the government after

38:27

the first Trump administration. We've

38:29

also seen the Joint

38:31

Terrorism Task Force largely shift

38:33

their efforts towards immigration

38:35

enforcement, helping ICE with deportations,

38:38

and the so -called wave

38:40

of Tesla terrorism. And,

38:42

like, the other thing

38:44

is that this new nihilist violent

38:46

extremism term isn't just replacing

38:49

agave. It's not just replacing the

38:51

anti -government or anti -authority violent

38:53

extremism, because the agave term itself

38:55

has three subcategories. as referenced

38:57

in an FBI document that outlines

38:59

domestic terrorism activity from 2015

39:01

to 2019. This includes militia, violent

39:03

extremists, anarchist violent extremists, and

39:05

sovereign citizen violent extremists. And

39:07

even in addition to those

39:09

three, there's actually a newer subclassification

39:11

from 2023 called agave other,

39:13

which really isn't a great term

39:15

at all. This is

39:17

the problem with trying to use

39:19

these like tracking and tagging tools

39:21

is that they can get very

39:23

convoluted. But now they've seemingly collapsed

39:25

all of these and are just

39:27

using the term nihilism. So

39:30

would you say like when you bring

39:32

up the Tesla example is one of to

39:34

be very reductive here. The

39:36

big risks at play that like someone

39:38

who starts Tesla on fire or

39:40

causes some damage at a Tesla dealership

39:42

largely for the motivation of trying

39:44

to stick it to Elon Musk or

39:46

something like that. Yeah. gets

39:48

classified in a way by the FBI

39:50

that is similar to some of

39:52

the folks you have previously talked about.

39:55

Exactly. Doing things that most rational

39:57

humans could agree are deeply more insidious

39:59

than like set a car on

40:01

fire. They can frame this as like

40:03

a rejection of society. Yeah, the

40:05

same way like there's there's been talk

40:07

that they're gonna try to use

40:09

this label to explain cases like United

40:11

Healthcare CEO shooting of the architect

40:13

at Josh Shapiro's house. They're gonna be

40:15

using this term to to apply

40:17

to kind of any act that they

40:19

see is like contrary to like

40:21

society and civilization and anything that's stemming

40:24

from frustration with society. And that's

40:26

the huge problem. And in doing so,

40:28

they're shifting focus away from right -wing

40:30

militias who do the majority of

40:32

actual lethal violence. When these

40:34

reports from the past five years talk

40:36

about, you know, militia, violent extremism,

40:38

it talks about how there is an

40:40

increased lethal threat from these militias

40:42

to law enforcement and government personnel due

40:44

to factors related to grievances from

40:46

the perceptions of fraud in the 2020

40:48

election, government measures related to COVID -19,

40:51

and legislation to restrict firearms

40:53

or expand immigration or manage

40:55

public land. And these the

40:57

people that do the vast majority of

41:00

planned attacks or executed attacks. This report

41:02

for 2023 outlines two attempted bombings by

41:04

militia, violent extremists in early 2021, one

41:06

by an individual targeted against a data

41:08

center, thought to provide services to the

41:10

FBI and CIA, the author by

41:12

two people against a state democratic party headquarters

41:14

in Sacramento, California, as well

41:16

as the quote unquote, dozens of

41:18

militia, violent extremists arrested for their

41:20

involvement. in January 6th. So,

41:22

even though we're going to take

41:24

the gas off of groups like

41:26

those, as well as racially motivated

41:28

violent extremists, this definition can

41:30

still include a lot of anarchist

41:33

violent extremists, which the FBI admits

41:35

in a 2023 report are most

41:37

likely to engage in non -lethal

41:39

criminal activity and just impact law

41:41

enforcement operations. It makes me think

41:43

of climate activism as well. you

41:45

know, the work of those in the climate

41:47

community that call for like the destruction of equipment

41:50

and not the harm of human life. Totally.

41:52

I mean, and the irony, of course, that you

41:54

could call someone, you know,

41:57

disabling an oil pipeline a nihilist extremist

41:59

when the act they're doing is

42:01

precisely for the purpose of ensuring the

42:03

continued existence of human civilization on

42:05

a large scale. That's the big issue

42:07

here. Like the Trump government

42:09

still wants a term that focuses

42:11

on what some people would like

42:13

colloquially refer to as like accelerationist

42:15

terrorism. And that does encompass some

42:17

of the extremist violence from the

42:19

weirder corners of the far right,

42:21

like in the case of Kassup,

42:23

but as well as like leftist

42:25

or post -left anarchist extremism. But

42:27

in the administration's mind, the previous

42:29

terms for this were tainted by

42:32

crackdowns on right -wing or patriot movements

42:34

after January 6th. And like the

42:36

nihilist violent extremism term is not

42:38

replacing the term terrorism necessarily like

42:40

the way clippenstein suggested in his

42:42

article The word terrorism appears frequently

42:44

in these very documents that we've

42:46

been discussing Nor does the term

42:48

terrorism have quote -unquote Limitations in

42:50

law as clippenstein said that like

42:52

prevent its use in political prosecution

42:54

if if anything It carries kind

42:56

of special powers of punishment which

42:58

can be overapplied to increase sentences

43:00

sway juries and strip rights We've

43:03

seen bills to label Antifa as

43:05

terrorists introduced to this year, the

43:07

whole Tesla terrorism thing. And

43:09

historically, like the use of terrorism has

43:11

been used as a repression tool in

43:13

Atlanta's top cop city movement, which similarly

43:16

has like a climate focus, like you

43:18

mentioned. And what this new

43:20

nihilism term lets them do is it

43:22

allows the Trump administration to signal to

43:24

their base that they aren't going to

43:26

be going after like right wing malicious

43:28

style groups anymore, not anti government, anti

43:30

authority extremists. Instead, they're just going to

43:32

target zany weirdos who want to destroy

43:34

society. It's a looser, more flexible term

43:36

that can be applied to a much

43:38

wider swath of people. And

43:40

the kind of final thing I want

43:42

to note here is that for groups

43:44

like 764, we really don't have a

43:47

good term for them. Some people have

43:49

defended this nihilist term, specifically for groups

43:51

like 764, since that was where it

43:53

originally appeared. And it is true

43:55

that these groups kind of defy classic

43:57

categorization. Some of them are certainly motivated by

43:59

racial bias. in the case of Kassup,

44:01

who's like tied with O9A, but not specifically

44:03

764. But a lot of

44:05

these other 764 guys who are mostly in

44:07

it for the pedophilia still do have

44:10

anti -government ideologies that they are roped in

44:12

with. Now, I have

44:14

seen a few alternative terms lofted

44:16

by certain independent researchers that don't

44:18

really do a good job, but

44:20

are gaining influence under Trump's government.

44:22

There's this like freelance researcher named

44:24

Becca or Bix writes, who mostly

44:26

operates on Twitter. She's

44:28

proposed the term satanic

44:30

accelerationism or SAC. Not

44:33

good. And this kind of outlines my

44:35

problems with this person's research. Now,

44:38

because all of the legitimate extremism

44:40

researchers have kind of moved away from

44:42

Twitter and are just on Blue

44:44

Sky now, people like this have like

44:46

exploded in influence under Elon's shepherding

44:48

of Twitter. And this person just spreads

44:50

satanic, panicked style writing that appeals

44:52

to conservative Christian audiences. She

44:54

boasts about how many mutuals she has

44:56

with these Nazi terrorists. She posts on

44:58

rumble. She went on info wars. So

45:00

that kind of tells you everything you

45:03

need to know about this person. And

45:05

a big part of her work

45:07

is trying to downplay the right wing

45:09

and a white supremacist influence in

45:11

extremism. She excitedly posted, quote,

45:13

the FBI has coined a new term

45:15

for this type of individual. Nihilist

45:18

violent extremists. This makes me so happy

45:20

because it indicates that law enforcement

45:22

are listening to researchers on the ground

45:24

and are no longer considering these

45:26

groups neo -Nazis or quote unquote white

45:28

supremacist. So yeah, this is

45:30

a big part of this push is

45:32

appealing to these types of people who

45:35

don't want their weird pedo freaks to

45:37

be labeled as right wing, even though

45:39

they all are pretty far right wing

45:41

terrorists in most cases. This

45:43

researcher also falsely linked to

45:45

Kassup. with a Ukrainian Nazi

45:47

group called MKU. She

45:49

later retracted this claim on Substack,

45:51

but left the original viral

45:53

tweet up online because, hey, engagement.

45:56

Her Substack post reads, quote, when

45:59

I first heard the news of Nikita

46:01

Kassup, my mind immediately darted to another O9A

46:03

and the MKU -linked individual named Nikita. This

46:05

turned out to be a mere coincidence. I

46:07

know because the other Nikita reached out to

46:10

me personally to clarify. It's moments

46:12

like these that cause me to reflect

46:14

on just how big this movement really

46:16

is and just how close to the

46:18

fire I am." This is not how

46:20

you do extremism reporting. This is not

46:22

how you do journalism. But this does

46:24

demonstrate kind of the problem with this

46:26

term is that, yeah, groups like this

46:28

do need a different term. Maybe like

46:30

accelerationist, violent extremists. That's a term. You

46:32

could use that if you're going to

46:34

remove all the other acronyms. But certainly

46:36

the nihilism label just kind of complicates

46:39

things and allows for the targeting of

46:41

just a massive swath of the population

46:43

that could become like political prosecutions that

46:45

then get linked to these child sexual

46:47

abuse material cases. Okay,

46:49

that is my, that's my script,

46:51

Michael. How do you feel about

46:53

that info dump? I'm so sorry,

46:55

truly. I, you know, you've, and

46:57

I can send it to it.

47:00

You've extracted a part of my

47:02

soul and put it into a

47:04

cosmic toilet today. I know

47:06

more than I've known before. As

47:08

a human, as an American, as

47:10

a parent, I'm terrified on every

47:12

front. And, you know,

47:15

my simple guy takeaway here

47:17

is, yeah, like the idea

47:19

that this is going to both

47:21

let some of the worst folks off

47:23

the hook, or at least make

47:25

it harder to classify them with the

47:27

groups they should be classified with,

47:29

while also making it easier to lump

47:31

in forms of what many of

47:33

us would consider more reasonable political activism

47:35

under that umbrella. is

47:37

quite bad. And I

47:39

think, of course, for me,

47:42

due to my pet interest, you

47:44

know, all of these instances of

47:46

continuing to, like, pervert and misuse philosophical

47:48

terms that have meanings developed over

47:50

hundreds and thousands of years for these

47:52

political ends is very upsetting. Well,

47:54

I'm excited to usher in the new

47:56

wave of Kierkegaardian violin extremists who

47:58

are going to usher in the... Don't

48:01

get me on a list! Stop

48:03

it! I

48:06

am actually sorry that this went on

48:08

nearly double the length than what I

48:10

thought it had planned. After such a

48:12

depressing episode, I'm gonna ask a kind

48:14

of an odd question. What

48:16

philosophy books do you think people should

48:18

read in this political moment? Because a

48:20

lot of people are approaching me with

48:22

like, how do I stay sane? How

48:24

do I stay? How do

48:26

I like keep going when things feel

48:28

so bad? And for me, I've always

48:31

turned to philosophy. I've been recommending different

48:33

books to different friends. And I'm kind

48:35

of interested in like what you have

48:37

to say about kind of what philosophy

48:39

can like offer us in these times

48:41

of like existential torment. Yeah, I mean

48:43

a really simple one that I talk

48:46

about way too much is Kirkergaard's The

48:48

Present Age which you find in this

48:50

book called Two Ages That's Easy to

48:52

Buy. It's normally really cheap or you

48:54

can just read it online someplace that

48:56

kind of describes a society in which

48:58

people get caught up in media and

49:01

reflection and the BS they are told

49:03

rather than developing their subjectivity for themselves.

49:05

I think that one's really great. In

49:07

terms of more contemporary stuff, I've been

49:09

very Frederick Jamison -pilled recently. Nice, nice. mean,

49:11

I've read Jamison before on and off,

49:13

but recently dove in more deeply. And

49:16

there's one... Okay, I have it

49:18

at arm's reach so I can say

49:20

the title correctly. that I've really

49:22

been enjoying. It's called An American Utopia,

49:24

Dual Power in the Universal Army

49:26

by Frederick James and edited by Slavoj

49:29

Zizek, and it's this large Jameson

49:31

essay about what he sees as an

49:33

alternative for leftist power in America,

49:35

responses from a bunch of other scholars.

49:37

I have found it very interesting,

49:39

but for me at least, I

49:42

find comfort in the fact

49:44

that others have accurately diagnosed and

49:46

understood what is happening right now.

49:48

And at least give us

49:50

the tools to understand the thing

49:52

so it feels less nebulous and

49:54

mysterious. We don't have to reinvent

49:56

the wheel all the time. Yeah. And

49:58

that's something that I feel like some leftists

50:00

kind of get trapped in. Or it's

50:02

kind of a two sides thing is what

50:04

some people just get fully lost in

50:06

like. The labyrinth of theory and the other

50:08

people get lost in trying to constantly

50:10

reinvent or like make for the first time

50:12

and stuff that already exists, right? And

50:15

I think there's a really careful

50:17

balance between like reading some stuff so

50:19

that you Can like know what's

50:21

going on and not feel the need

50:23

to try to like you cause

50:25

every you know philosophical evolution to come

50:27

about via your own thought Yeah,

50:29

you don't have to be the one to do it.

50:31

Someone else already did. You're not alone. Other people have done

50:33

this and you should still think for yourself and still

50:35

compare. But people have thought about this type

50:37

of stuff before. People have been in bad political

50:39

situations before. And it's useful

50:41

to know what they've thought. And

50:44

this is like, my work is mostly

50:46

looking at current events and trying to

50:48

track extremism and what the government is

50:50

doing. And more information always helps

50:52

me choose how to navigate in the world.

50:54

That's why I do episodes like this. And

50:57

I think philosophy is just one other side of that. Unless

50:59

you have anything else to

51:01

say, do you want to talk

51:03

about where people can find

51:05

you online and your new YouTube

51:07

channel? Yeah, I have a

51:09

recently launched YouTube channel. That's just

51:11

under the name Michael O.

51:13

Burns. And I think it's literally

51:15

just YouTube slash Michael O. Burns. And

51:17

quickly, yep, YouTube slash Michael O. Burns, where

51:20

I'm going to be doing more stuff

51:22

quite regularly like streams and video essays. largely

51:24

doing some of the stuff we're just

51:26

talking about using philosophy and concepts from theory

51:28

and from theory to try to understand

51:30

what's going on in both the political and

51:32

like the social and interpersonal levels. Like

51:34

I'm working on a thing I'm excited about

51:37

on like depression and capitalism and mental

51:39

health. So yeah, and

51:41

I'm on all most of

51:43

the social medias. I'm just

51:45

Michael Burns or Michael O

51:47

Burns relatively easy to find

51:49

on most places. Well, thank

51:51

you so much, Michael, for

51:53

joining me in this dive

51:56

through the darkest depths of

51:58

the Internet and the extremism

52:00

milieu that is festering in

52:02

America and abroad. for having

52:04

me. You

52:17

can now find sources for it could happen

52:19

here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks

52:21

for listening!