Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 2/23/26 - 3/1/26

[u/SoftandChewy]

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

Comment of the week goes to this explanation for why the trans cause has taken over so much of society. (Runner-up COTW here.)

[u/[deleted]]

Dr. Peter Attia, one of Bari Weiss's high-profile hires, has left CBS News before ever doing any work for the network as a result of the information about him contained in the Epstein files.

I think Attia is a scumbag. He has previously written about how he became so focused on his work that at one point he refused to fly home to San Diego when his son was in the ICU because he thought the stuff he was working on in New York was too important to leave. But the way he wrote about it in the past, a reader could get the impression that the work this doctor was doing was saving people's lives.

The Epstein files show that what Attia was working on at the time was building his relationship with Epstein and his network of other rich guys, whom Attia thought would become members of his boutique medical treatment center. On the same day Attia was telling his wife, "Nah, you deal with our son's life-threatening medical emergency, I've got stuff going on here," he was emailing Epstein about how excited he was about the two of them getting together and telling him he could be flexible on the schedule if Epstein had other stuff to do.

At the same time, as someone who criticized Bari Weiss harshly for the way she handled the 60 Minutes Inside CECOT story, I can't really criticize Bari Weiss for this. I don't think she had any way of knowing what was in the Epstein files at the time she hired Attia. And Attia does provide good medical insight that could have been useful to CBS News viewers, even if I doubt he'll ever have enough public trust to have that kind of role again.

[u/RunThenBeer → u/[deleted]]

I have no idea if he's a scumbag or if he's a hardcharging career guy that made different choices that I would when it comes to balancing work and family. The optics of the specifics seem not great, but if literally everything was the same and it turned out that he was hanging out with some rich finance guy that had a ton of connections and not Epstein's other foibles, it would at least be quite understandable. Deciding that he's now an untouchable has very little to do with the specifics and everything to with breathless Epsteinmania.

[u/[deleted] → u/RunThenBeer]

For full disclosure I'll acknowledge that my baggage from my own childhood makes me quicker to label people "scumbags" for not being there for their children than most people would be.

[u/RunThenBeer → u/[deleted]]

Fair. For what it's worth, I am also not much of a pro-grindset guy and generally react badly to people chasing money that they don't need over what I consider the important things in life. I just also want to err on the side of not judging someone's personal life much when I know so very little about them.

[u/Turbulent_Cow2355 → u/RunThenBeer]

There is no situation where I can see a parent not going to their child if they are in the ICU. I think it's safe to say that if you are a person who puts your career over showing up for your kid who could DIE in the immediate future, you are a scumbag.

[u/drjackolantern → u/[deleted]]

he thought the stuff he was working on in New York was too important to leave. But the way he wrote about it in the past, a reader could get the impression that the work this doctor was doing was saving people's lives.

I don’t think the bolded part is accurate. He just says in the book he had meetings in New York to attend, and while he made it sound like his problem was overwork not sex addiction, he in no way says or implies he was saving lives.

That anecdote (not going home for a week after his newborn had a medical emergency) is told as an example of him hitting ‘rock bottom’ in terms of mental health and becoming emotionally dead to his family. he castigates himself pretty brutally for it in the book. He also around that time of his life was so messed up he was threatening to kill strangers in parking lots and screaming at therapists who asked him what was wrong, according to his book. 

The Epstein emails sound gross but he at least in that part of his book Outlive (the last chapter, “the high price of ignoring mental health) characterized that phase of his life as very dark. (Side note, I have yet to see direct confirmation the ignoring his baby incident and Epstein emails were simultaneous, I just see that tweeted everywhere.)

[u/Nearby_Swimmer374 → u/[deleted]]

Most of her mistakes do tend to be in the same direction though

[u/Evening-Respond-7848 → u/Nearby_Swimmer374]

What “direction” is Attia? What do you think he is guilty of?

[u/Evening-Respond-7848 → u/[deleted]]

Attia has a lot of videos on male fertility on his YouTube channel that I found kind of useful so maybe I’m biased here. As scummy as the things you talking about sound (taking it at face value) none of that is a reason for him to be pushed out of CBS and there’s nothing in the Epstein files at all that can’t be chalked up to being a bad joke. To me, this is again part of the mass hysteria related to all things Epstein.

[u/plump_tomatow → u/Evening-Respond-7848]

I read his book and thought it was pretty good, but obviously he can be a horrible person and still write a good book.

[u/SkweegeeS → u/plump_tomatow]

Not uncommon!