Critical Babe Theory

Jasmine Vojdani—a senior editor at New York Magazine and writer of the newsletter Book Gossip—comes on the show to talk about her piece “The AI Agents Begging Editors to Keep Them Alive” and the wild weird world of AI agents gone rogue—not to commit crimes, but to get published in literary magazines. Also discussed: how literary prizes are at the front line of AI plagiarism scandals, Francesca’s personal ethical journey with the NFL, digital sugar babies, whether you can still use Covid as an excuse for why you’re canceling plans, mathematicians crying and reading Ecclesiastes, when Big AI comes for their IP rights, is there virtue in abstaining from AI—and Francesca’s party line on maintaining the purity of her mind, “there is nothing new under the sun,” the unfolding spam apocalypse, mocking people who are on their phones all the time is an adaptive behavior, France is always ten years behind the US in terms of phone addiction, and the Big Question: what does it mean if our lives are built around the meaning of our labour, and our labor no longer has any value?Referenced:The Daily episode about crying mathematician Ezra Klein’s podcast on relating to AIThe first half of every episode of CBT is free. If you'd like to become a subscriber and hear the second half, please go to www.patreon.com/criticalbabetheory. Thank you for your support xo

Brian Wedeking, a lifelong Democrat and two-time Bernie supporter turned fiscal conservative, got into a comments fight with Francesca that spilled into the DM’s—so she invited him on the show. They debate billionaires, taxes, and corporate power—and Brian explains why he stopped voting blue.Also discussed: don’t let anyone read your bible for you, how the ultra-rich borrow against their stock portfolio instead of taking a salary (because “salaries are for suckers”), studies find that the majority of homeless people have jobs, what the king of capitalists Andrew Carnegie thought about taxing wealth, how the federal government subsidizes large corporations like Walmart and Amazon—because their low-wage workers rely on taxpayer-funded public assistance programs, Christ’s admonitions about caring for the poor, whether trickle-down economics work, Reagan’s racialized myth of the “welfare queen,” the postwar “golden age” many conservatives idealize had a federal top marginal income tax rate above 90%, and the question: why are Republicans so obsessed with entitlements fraud when Trump has spent nearly $45 billion on the war in Iran?***Correction: In the 2006 election that brought Hamas to power in Gaza, Hamas won 42% of the vote (with around 77% voter turnout). It’s estimated that less than 8% of Gaza’s current population voted for Hamas—either because they weren’t born in 2006, were too young to vote in 2006, or did not vote for Hamas.The first half of every episode of CBT is free wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to become a subscriber and hear the second half, please go to www.patreon.com/criticalbabetheory. Thank you for your support xo

Anya Kamenetz—journalist, author, and host of the podcast ZERO REJECT—comes on the show to discuss New York City’s pubic school system and how Carter cases (where families sue the DOE for private school tuition for their kids with disabilities) are demonstrative of the problems in public education today—and what it would take to build a school system that serves everyone.Also discussed: Carter cases cost the NYC DOE $1.4 billion a year—and are largely brought by wealthy white families, Nikole Hannah-Jones’s viral parenting article, “we cannot litigate our way to a more equitable system,” why some black parents say a Benetton-ad classroom isn’t the answer to racism, whether ADHD is a kid problem or a classroom problem, special-ed teachers don’t get paid a living wage (so there are 1400 unfilled positions in NYC), whether a pluralistic democracy needs a shared foundation myth, why the 1619 Project made the right lose their minds, Francesca is educated on why math matters, how high-pressure private schools can create degenerate drug addicts with eating disorders, and the question: do we really want to get our children hooked on amphetamines so they can sit still in class?ZERO REJECT: Listen to Anya’s new podcast on Trump’s dismantling of the Department of Education⁠Golden Hour⁠: Read Anya’s Substack about climate, children and mental healthArticles referenced:“The Special-Educaiton-Lawsuit Capital of the World” by Anya Kamenetz in New York Magazine“In Fight For Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?” by Nikole Hannah-Jones in NY Times Magazine“The Most Polarizing Parenting Essay Ever?” by Anya Kamenetz in New York Magazine“Have We Been Thinking About ADHD All Wrong?” by Paul Tough in NY Times Magazine

Molly Crabapple, author of the NY Times bestseller Here Where We Live Is Our Country, comes on the show to discuss her book on the Bund—the revolutionary Jewish socialists in the former Russian Empire—and what their successes and failures can teach us about the left today.Also discussed: Zionist fragility, what America does to its immigrant kids, how everyone saying they feel “unsafe” destroys dialogue, the sexy socialist alternative to the Olympics, the Jewish population in Poland went from 3.3 million before WWII to around 7000 today, the chicest Wall Street Journal denunciation, the recent (alarming) far-right leaders elected to office in Germany, a Jewish majority state always was predicated on ethnic cleansing, Francesca’s theory about the biblical Philistines, and as Ben-Gurion said: if the US had opened its doors after WWII to Holocaust survivors, Israel wouldn’t haven’t had enough Jewish people to found a state.The first half of every episode of CBT is free wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to become a subscriber and hear the second half, please go to www.patreon.com/criticalbabetheory. Thank you for your support xo

Political strategist and Lincoln Project co-founder Reed Galen comes on the show to explain why both the Democrats and Republicans are bleeding supporters; nearly half of Americans now consider themselves independent. We discuss how the Democrats don’t keep their promises to working people, because the donor class—not the base—is calling the shots.Also discussed: Reed explains how the Lincoln Project tormented Trump during Covid, Francesca as a militant child atheist, why the American right harnessed the Tea Party while the left crushed Occupy Wall Street, what’s more American than Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”?, how the affordability crisis is radicalizing college-educated young people and rural conservatives alike, “Stalin was a quippy guy,” why establishment consultants are trying to rein in insurgent candidates like Maine's Troy Jackson, and how Reed’s nonpartisan work through Civic Forum aims to give everyday Americans a political home that neither party offers.Find more of Reed’s writings on his substack The Home FrontThe first half of every episode of CBT is free wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to become a subscriber and hear the second half, please go to www.patreon.com/criticalbabetheory. Thank you for your support xo

Writer and cradle Catholic Jack Hanson (author of the Harper's cover story "Holy War" and the newsletter “Phantom Heresy”) joins host Francesca Root-Dodson to break down liberation theology: a "preferential option for the poor" built on the idea that God is most present among the marginalized, the church should stand in solidarity with common workers (rather than the elites), and that faith and justice aren't separate projects—they’re one and the same.Also discussed: Jack explains why the American left needs to stop treating pro-life belief as a punchline, how Archbishop Romero was gunned down mid-Mass for putting liberation theology into practice, why woke politics became a scapegoat for the Democrats' deeper failures, and how Catholic labor movements prove that religion and radical politics were never mutually exclusive.Jack’s talk Magnifica: Pope Leo and the Church in the 21st Century with Matthew Clemente at the Sheen Center September 30th at 7pmThe first half of every episode of CBT is free wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to become a subscriber and hear the second half, please go to www.patreon.com/criticalbabetheory. Thank you for your support xo#LiberationTheology #Catholicism #AmericanLeft #WokePolitics #Democrats #FaithAndPolitics #HarpersMagazine #CriticalBabyTheory #PoliticalPodcast #JDVance #Trump

Artist and self-described peace influencer Lucia Ribisi (@lucia4peace) joins host Francesca Root-Dodson to break down her philosophy of hot girl environmentalism—an eco-bimbo manifesto built on the idea that sustainability, empathy and passion for the planet are hot, that dreams do come true, pleasure is primary, and that peace is possible (if you're willing to fight for it). Also discussed: Lucia tells us how to embrace the sensual side of nature, why she thinks the "personal carbon footprint" is a guilt trip invented by Big Oil, that Greta Thunberg can't be the only face of climate activism, and how icons like Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton prove that glamour and activism aren't mutually exclusive.The first half of every episode of CBT is free wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to become a subscriber and hear the second half, please go to www.patreon.com/criticalbabetheory. Thank you for your support xo

On this episode of Critical Baby Theory, host Francesca Root-Dodson sits down with childhood friend Anna Durrett, a New York City-based communications consultant, to unpack how billionaire wealth has quietly redefined what it means to be a "moderate" Democrat—particularly in the hothouse of San Francisco tech politics.Also discussed: tracing San Francisco's arc from pandemic-era "progressive nihilism" to a billionaire-funded surveillance state, the sinking Millennium Tower as a symbol of zoning compromise gone wrong, the death of the middle-class creative life, why leaning on philanthropy instead of taxation might be the most dangerous political bet of all, growing up in San Francisco, terminal diagnoses, drug addiction in the Tenderloin, and why Francesca thinks billionaires should be a lot more frightened of history than they currently are.Discussed:“How San Francisco Became a Failed City” by Nellie Bowles in The Atlantic “The Billionaire Who Wired San Francisco” by Lauren Smiley in New York Magazine“The Strange Emptiness of the Crowded Governor’s Race in California” by Nathan Heller in The New YorkerThe first half of every episode of CBT is free wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to become a subscriber and hear the second half, please go to www.patreon.com/criticalbabetheory. Thank you for your support xo

The first half of my conversation with Adam de Picot—founder of the international youth advocacy and policy making group MESA—about the brave new world we’re entering, and how the 1.2 billion young people on the planet can shape it.Also discussed: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, proud globalism, the eating practices of the Maasai Mara, soft alphas, being a part-time apiarist, the Cockroach Revolution, “we have never elected so many autocratic leaders by democratic means,” peace & security vs free & democratic elections, lest we not forget the U.S. doesn’t follow international law, the moral responsibilities of postcolonial powers, exclusive economic zones and how they’re the real prize, the tragedy of USAID cuts, globalization is economists’ wet dream, the 4B movement in South Korea, condoms for Hamas, what happens if the dollar is no longer the global reserve currency, Francesca explains the art of the knuckleball, (of course) climate change, and the hard hitting question: why should Americans care about the world?The MESA Institute for Global Impact4B MovementThe first half of every episode of CBT is free wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to become a subscriber and hear the second half, please go to www.patreon.com/criticalbabetheory. Thank you for your support xo

Justin Charles—former member of the national board of the Democratic Socialists of America—comes on the show to discuss the recent congressional victory in New York City and what it means for the future of the left.Also discussed: white people crying after the 2016 Trump win, why socialism is still a scary word, Sarah Palin is the only woman who could ever have become President, Obama governed in “limp dick prose,” what a society looks like when we prioritize shareholder value over all else, Cuba is not the mastermind of left-wing terrorism, Mamdani is the guy in real life that he is on TV, street meat shame, “be harsh with systems be gentle with people,” date-inflation, single mom economies, the Dems are committed to bad pantsuits, Francesca becomes educated about Martha’s Vineyard, the White Devil Theory, the market=mammon, and the question underneath it all: do we really need the rich?The first half of every episode of CBT is free wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to become a subscriber and hear the second half, please go to www.patreon.com/criticalbabetheory. Thank you for your support xo