The Jordan Harbinger Show

When amateur mad scientists can leverage AI to engineer future pandemics, we need to be prepared to counter the threat. Rob Reid is here to tell us how.
Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1390
What We Discuss with Rob Reid:
How a terrifying thought experiment reframes bio risk. Rob argues the scariest scenario isn't a Soviet-style industrial complex but the mere passage of time, since an exponential technology turns what a handful of elite specialists can do today into routine undergraduate coursework tomorrow.
Why a $100 million USAID program called DEEP VZN struck Rob as a suicide pact. The plan was to hunt 15,000 undiscovered viruses, sort them for which posed the gravest threat, then publish the findings openly. Rob and MIT's Kevin Esvelt pushed until it was quietly defanged and later killed.
What makes smart, well-meaning people defend this work. Rob points to an insider culture where open-science absolutism, confidence that we'd out-invent any bad actor, and vaccine promises that collapse under scrutiny combine into a stew that lets good people talk themselves into terrible ideas.
Why Rob keeps returning to aviation as the model. America had 40 to 50 hijackings a year until basic airport screening arrived in 1972, and the next year there were zero. You can't make a threat impossible, but a high enough bar forces conspiracies big enough for law enforcement to catch.
Fortunately, the countermeasures are cheap and already understood. Wastewater sequencing at major airports, stockpiled gear for frontline workers, and germicidal UV light in schools and hospitals would cost a sliver of the defense budget. Denial and despair both produce nothing.
And much more...
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How did Russia's mafia become its government? Jamison Firestone, a Moscow lawyer who dealt with both, explains how Putin turned the courts into a racket.
Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1389
What We Discuss with Jamison Firestone:
How Russia's justice system became a pay-to-play storefront where a rival could buy the whole package — investigation, arrest, jail, and conviction — with one respected opposition paper later pricing Sergei Magnitsky's arrest at $6 million.
Why Putin's 2004 takedown of oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky was the turning point. Once investigators, prosecutors, and judges learned to railroad someone for the state, they realized they could sell the same service to anyone.
What growing up around his father's crack habit, contract killers, and Manhattan's priciest brothel taught Jamison about handling mobsters, and how respect, humor, and non-yes-or-no answers helped him fire a Russian protection racket.
How Magnitsky exposed a $230 million tax fraud, died in custody after being denied medical care, and was then blamed for the very crime he reported, and how the fight for accountability produced the Magnitsky Act's targeted sanctions.
What Jamison learned from backing Yeltsin's 1993 assault on his own Congress — a crisis that cost him his best friend — and why guarding democratic institutions over any policy of the moment protects all of us, whichever side we're on.
And much more...
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Do divorced dads always lose the kids and half their stuff in court? On Skeptical Sunday, Nick Pell shares how he got 50-50 custody and child support!
Welcome to Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of The Jordan Harbinger Show where Jordan and a guest break down a topic that you may have never thought about, open things up, and debunk common misconceptions. This time around, we’re joined by writer and researcher Nick Pell!
Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1388
On This Week's Skeptical Sunday:
Family court's rep as a kangaroo court run by man-hating judges is a relic of the '80s. Every state now has gender-neutral custody and child support laws, "best interests of the child" is the North Star, and effective 50-50 parenting is increasingly the norm — not the exception.
Accusations aren't evidence — and judges have heard them all before, probably that very morning. Without receipts like police reports or documented incidents, divorce-day abuse claims rarely stick, and calling your ex an "abusive narcissist" may sink your credibility, not theirs.
The real villain isn't anti-father bias — it's billable hours. A roughly $50 billion divorce industry rewards lawyers who stoke emotions and feed the sunk-cost fallacy, turning a few-grand, few-month settlement into a six-figure, two-year slog that bleeds everyone dry.
Many dads lose before the opening bell — they swallow the horror stories, panic at a bluffed custody evaluation, and fold. Meanwhile, "family court reform" activists want allegations treated as true until proven false, flipping innocent-until-proven-guilty on its head.
How do you stand a chance at winning? Lawyer up fast, and pick one who favors a cooperative settlement over a bloodbath. Document everything, stay involved in your kid's life, and keep communication BIFF: brief, informative, factual, firm. Courts reward the calm adult in the room, so be that adult.
Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at jordan@jordanharbinger.com and let him know!
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He took you to Italy, then billed you $21,000 for it. Do you sue him for fraud, or chalk it up as the priciest date ever? Welcome to Feedback Friday!
And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at friday@jordanharbinger.com. Now let's dive in!
Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1387
On This Week's Feedback Friday:
If Gabe's movie news isn't quite your bucket of popcorn, we'll give you the full Hollywood treatment and roll out the red carpet, and you can skip to the first question at 26 minutes and 30 seconds!
You met a charming guy who works for a judge — set up by the police chief's wife — and he whisked you off to Italy. Back home, instead of a sweet text, came a $21,000 invoice, a small-claims loss, and a lien on your property. Is suing him for fraud worth the fight, or was this just the priciest date in history?
You wrote in a while back about a rocky marriage and a spark with a woman from a conference in Indiana. Now the fuller picture emerges — explosive rages, extreme OCD, counseling flatly refused — and divorce papers sit with your attorney. How do you share a roof once she's served, and will moving out cost you custody?
Recommendation of the Week: Isopure Protein Drink — a light, Gatorade-like alternative to milky shakes that packs 32 grams of protein, goes down easy mid-workout, and, unlike nearly every other protein drink, still tastes fine warm. Jordan found it after sampling the protein-spiked teas of Hong Kong.
You're 45, married almost 20 years, with four kids and a warehouse career you helped grow from $1M to $40M. Then came the numbness, the lost names and dates, the flashes of temper — plus a layoff and open-heart surgery. Is this depression, early-onset dementia, or just midlife, and where do you even turn for help?
Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at friday@jordanharbinger.com!
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Russia's spy services are a bungling clown show that can still kill you anywhere. Here, ex-CIA officer Sean Wiswesser takes us inside Putin's secret war.
Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1386
What We Discuss with Sean Wiswesser:
Russian intelligence is a paradox. It's comprised largely of bungling fools who siphon gas from their own surveillance cars and binge-watch The Sopranos, yet they remain formidable adversaries. What makes them dangerous isn't competence but real capability paired with no moral limits and no accountability.
Corruption isn't a bug — it's the system. Officers invent sources and pad reports with rewritten news to flatter the boss. That yes-man culture is how Putin was assured Ukraine would be a one-week war, now in its fifth year. A criminalized service takes reckless risks.
The most insidious threat isn't assassinations — it's information warfare. What Russia did in 2016 is now amplified thousands-fold by AI, and it targets American youth to erode their faith in democracy itself. The one thing democracy asks of us is an informed public.
The West is fighting a hybrid war it won't name, with severed undersea cables, a targeted German CEO, teenagers hired on Telegram for sabotage, and drones over Poland. Deterrence without consequences invites more, and Sean warns the Baltics are likely next after any Ukraine ceasefire.
Democracy runs on an informed public, so you are the defense. Slow down, resist reacting to clickbait on emotion, and check sources before you share. And if anyone ever tries to compromise or coerce you, report it — silence is the only leverage they hold.
And much more...
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