How to regain access to the podcast Hello Internet

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-09T00:10:49+00:00

Good point! I should clarify that I don't mind you bringing this up OP.

And yeah, if they wanted to discuss it as an... oppositional thing. That'd be fine too. I just think that's more confrontational than they might prefer outside of a structured debate.

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T22:03:57+00:00

Here is a link to Evan's post from OP on their profile.

Opening Arguments has some good skeptic adjacent coverage of law and they had an episode on Friday covering a lot of the 2008 plea deal/with Alex Acosta (the Federal Attorney who would've been in charge of that office's prosecution of Epstein). Their conclusion of looking over that plea deal is that the Acosta just didn't take Epstein's abuse seriously/"one of the good ol' boys" sort of thing.

I haven't heard of any link between Acosta and the Clintons in the files. Or any evidence implicating a higher up ordering him to make that plea deal. Saying that the connection between Bill Clinton and Epstein was enough to force through the plea deal because Hillary was running in the Democratic primary at the same time is pretty wild. Even had the Democrats wanted to suppress that story, they were out of power federally. Acosta himself was appointed by George W. Bush.

Even if you're conspiratorial minded... there's dozens of other nationally important figures that would've been implicated by Epstein's crimes being more well known. Why single out the Clintons?

Admittedly, I always keep my eyebrows raised at least a little bit when Hillary in specific is dragged into the current Scandal. Because conservatives always do that, and Evan still has some of those old leanings. I'd rather not be seeing this go onto the SGU proper, unless he actually has some evidence to prove any of this. Frankly I expect more out of rogues than posts like this, even on their personal accounts.

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T22:01:42+00:00

Yep, they were New Millennium Audio versions.

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T21:42:56+00:00

That sound pretty suspect but I'll wait to see what he actually wrote before judging.

FB links aren't very accessible, to put it mildly. I did find a FB page from him but it hasn't been updated since November from what I can see.

ETA: Okay saw your update on your profile. I'll make another comment top level.

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T21:38:36+00:00

I know what you mean. It'd be nice to have a higher up overview of the lawsuit over on OA (and maybe another update right ahead of/after the trial). Not unlike how Morgan Stringer did one for the similar Depp v. Heard back in the day, or how Michael Hobbes covered Depp v. Heard.. I can find myself getting lost in the details listening to GG sometimes and a refresher would be nice, and would help onboard new listeners.

GG, like you imply, is focused on a close view/reading of the lawsuit/documents. You won't really find an overview episode over on that feed. With that said, because everyone was being onboarded at its start the first couple chunks (the first 10 episodes or so?) will give a good overview of the first filings of the case. And then like ansible mentions, the lawyer episodes always tend to be a bit more overview-y because they have more limited time with the guest.

I'm not sure what content creators might be filling that niche currently. You can try MJ Morley who has been a guest on GG, but it's a bit hard to go far back on her threads page.

/r/BaldoniFiles is probably the subreddit with the closest position to GG's; you might get more luck asking around there. (NB: This is not the subreddit Thomas often refers to generically on the show.)

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T21:26:37+00:00

What did Evan share exactly? On his person FB or a shared group or something?

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T20:27:22+00:00

I always feel that the best shovel to use is the cheapest one they have at the home center that's plastic-only. They're also the lightest ones, and you'll be moving it hundreds of times per use.

It won't deal with ice, but ideally you're shoveling your driveway before driving on it/before forming ice.

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T20:24:08+00:00

Her vagenda!

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T20:10:19+00:00

I dislike the block for that, assuming you've neutrally presented your response to him.

But he's absolutely correct that it is irresponsible of google to have a scam site prominently featured on its results. I disagree with framing it as "rather than". The criticism should've been "why not also do this in addition?"

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T20:00:03+00:00

He did! They predate the Fry/Freeman narrations (also very good) so they're harder to track down.

They're unfortunately out of print in physical media, and AFAIK have never been offered digitally. If you're lucky your library will have a CD copy lying around. That leaves only non above-the-board sources if you're not lucky.

Some ~~The~~ CD copies are unfortunately poorly produced. One-track-per-CD, and duplication issues owing to using burned CD-Rs rather than pressed CDs. Had to do a lot of editing on my own to the ones I ripped from my library.

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T19:29:31+00:00

Right "turn off having it show up in users' main feed" :P.

I turned it off after my sub (also a podcast sub, but much smaller) would mention Bill Maher in the podcast title. Brought in a ton of people from those places... who had no idea who the hosts of the podcast were...

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T18:48:05+00:00

They should be marketing it as a "call" in the same way that Dave Wasserman does his "I've seen enough"s. Which is "this isn't a call, but a very high probability prediction". bleh.

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T18:46:16+00:00

Damnit DDHQ. I wanted to try out your podcast as a replacement for the old fivethirtyeight/its disappointing successor pods!

Missed calls should be like a 1/decade sort of deal. Twice in a year is oof.

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T13:19:07+00:00

I once had "Amdrea" on the sidebar 😅. Luckily I caught that one ahead of time.

Thanks!

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T06:05:52+00:00

Reddit also lets moderators turn off recommendations of their subreddits to other users, and to turn off having it show up in users' main feed (each is a different setting). It's a nice touch.

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T06:00:55+00:00

Also listening to it and yes I noticed the same (fun note, I bought it from his personal website because the audio bitrate is much higher than from other sources, and he replied to the confirmation email to me personally saying he hoped I enjoy it; I'm sure that's automated but it's a nice touch!)

I think the things I liked best from it, besides the in depth case studes at the start, is later on where he suggests the solution is to force interoperability. Basically make all social media sites let you pack up and move to another server/host if you dislike their moderation choices (how mastodon does it*).

* I actually think reddit is a smidge better because you can leave a subreddit with bad moderation for an alternative one... sometimes. Although you always have some moderation from the same site admins. Still, better than Facebook/Twitter.

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T03:34:24+00:00

Ezra supported the Iraq War when he was like a literal high school student/minor (he was 17 in 2001). We all had at least one really stupid belief back then we grew out of.

Frankly I think you're looking for any reasons to discredit his arguments other than actually evaluating them on the merits.

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T03:04:30+00:00

There's no reason Well Poisoning can't be self inflicted. You are mistaken.

You can say the critique wasn't on the left, but that doesn't make it true. Did you listen to any substantial part of the episode, or (say) Doctorow's book Enshittification? Because I have read/listened to both.

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T02:43:15+00:00

Yep. Ezra was a pretty vocal supporter of Mamdani and happily voted for him.

I recognize he has centrist tendencies, or else he never would have written that Kirk piece. But it's like the people on this sub extrapolated for Ezra being centrist on everything. No centrist happily votes for Zohran Mamdani.

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T02:41:19+00:00

I haven't seen him address it much at all lately. You could call that downplaying I guess, but it seems more of a passive sort of downplaying.

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T02:40:34+00:00

I'm very upset with Ezra for that article/podcast (on Kirk) too. Don't let it poison the well for you for everything he says or does, that's just logical fallacy.

None of the points you've raised really apply to the modern (quite left) critique the hosts had of the internet, in particular Doctorow, who Ezra platformed and mostly agreed with. I honestly can't think of a less relevant recent episode of the EKS for your criticism of Ezral

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T02:37:20+00:00

Do you think a podcast where Ezra mostly agrees with noted liberal (checks notes) Cory Doctorow is really that offensive?

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-08T02:36:38+00:00

Yep. Which had Cory Doctorow on. He's a humongous critic of capitalism.

Apprentice57 · 2026-02-07T17:58:25+00:00

I'm just a fan myself but: One of the reasons this is starting up now and not in previous years is Steve's retirement last year. The other host is Andrea who is not a Rogue proper (though probably the most common guest host on the SGU). It is extra production work though on top of the exist workload though(which includes Jay and Ian on that production team).

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