Both podcasts spend a lot of time talking about the far right and history, and have some descent content in my opinion. However, btb is anarchist and often accuses the ussr of genocide, and is very much anti Russia and Scott ritter. Knowledge fight covers Alex Jones and obviously he is pro-Russian for very wrong reasons, and they often talk about that. I listen to both podcasts and enjoy their content, but am annoyed when they randomly bring in anticommunism. Opinion?
Here’s the guy who runs that podcast: an anarchist who works for the US thinktank, Bellingcat.
aah, good ol’ Bellingcat Bob, forever obfuscating the path towards the left and muddying the waters around ANY topic that would usually require a basic ounce of nuance
Damn I didn’t know he was THAT cringe Jesus
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It’s pretty obvious that Fedvans only reads just enough to help him build his brand, but his views are quite reactionary. He’s doomer in a very capitalist realism sense where, to him, this end of history thing is going to run global civilization into the ground no matter how you slice it. Cody Johnston is far more educated than him on theory (surprisingly) and has more grounded views on things. You can really see it when the two of them comment on the same events and Robbie is only really good at hamming it up and quoting mainstream sources. Overall, I think his whole network promotes liberal-levels of inaction or blaise syndicalism without any sort of goal or way forward. He also lays down loads of rhetorical traps throughout his work that kill revolutionary optimism or inspiration from AES states. If nothing works then all you can do is wait for the end.
Of course, he’ll be cozy in his little cabin no matter how things go, floating through life making bank on the quality of his voice.
Wow, nailed it.
Yeah, his only suggestions to all of the viewers he inspired crippling dread in was vague gestures at joining mutual aid networks, which while not entirely useless was undercut by him basically suggesting even that isn’t going to do much of anything ultimately.
If his future-set fiction book is anything to go off of, he thinks the best hope for humanity is lawless anarchist transhumanists fucking fighting and shooting up drugs all day, where apathy is morally right as actually doing something always ends up with something bad. Everybody is inherently evil. Also every country besides the US post apocalypse is just entirely absent lol. Not a lot of geopolitics for a guy who touts his journalism tours in Middle Eastern war zones so much.
Not up to speed on Knowledge Fight.
I like Robert Evans narrative style and the overall silly ridiculousness of BtB. Unfortunately he’s a pretty dumb anarchist given the life experience he has. Writes for Bellingcat, his other podcast It Could Happen Here just did a two-parter on the Tiananmen Square" Massacre," of course he did BtB episodes on Stalin and Kim Jong Un, has really bad Twitter takes as you’ve illustrated here, etc.
On the other hand the other contributors to ICHH do provide some valuable insight on trans struggles, ways in which people are organizing at a local level to make their communities better. Evans himself did valuable reporting on the Portland protests back in 2020. I don’t think he’s all bad, and definitely makes his listeners think about how capitalism breeds and rewards evildoers.
I’d agree with that
Update on knowledge fight. Bad takes: bucha was Russia, Putin wants to re-establish the ussr, South Korea is the real Korea, etc
Yes, the guy who did BTB also did another podcast called It Could Happen Here which was my first and one of my only podcasts. I even read his fiction post apocalypse scipolyfi book. Mixed feelings is all I can say, parts of both the podcast and the book (and BTB) are brilliant but yeah, can’t escape his LA style anarchism and the doomerism, anticommunism, and “ideal and pragmatic in all the wrong places” that comes with it. I haven’t engaged with any of his works since right before I became an ML.
