"Why are you in the Epstein files?"

It is a question Rushkoff received from his own daughter, and in this raw monologue, he gives the full answer.

His name appears in the CC field of emails from his former literary agent alongside Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, and yes, Jeffrey Epstein. But the story of why those names were grouped together reveals something much darker than a mailing list.

Rushkoff recounts a disturbing mid-90s dinner party where he was physically grabbed by a host and scolded for "wasting his plus-one" on a brilliant female intellectual instead of "eye candy" to decorate the room for the male elites. He traces the lineage of this misogyny directly to the "scientism" of figures like Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, whose theories of humans as "meat machines" and "survival vehicles for genes" provided the perfect philosophical cover for sociopaths like Epstein to commodify and abuse women.

This is not just a story about a predator; it is an indictment of the permission structure built by the scientific and tech elite. A worldview that dismisses human soul, consent, and morality as mere delusions.

Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.
Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off on Cobi Dryer Sheets

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Credits

Hosted by Douglas Rushkoff
Produced by Josh Chapdelaine

Music by:
Fugazi (On this Episode you heard “Foreman’s Dog” in the intro – thanks to the kindness of the band and Dischord Records.)
The Team Human Band - Growth Trap

Special thanks to Stephen Bartolomei.
Team Human is a Production of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at Queens College.

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Do Tech Billionaires Want Us Dead? (w/ Taylor Lorenz)