This is a short bonus episode.

Distorted — the book behind Think First — is now available as a free Advanced Reader Copy, in signed paperback or eBook, for listeners.

If you’ve left a rating for Think First on Apple Podcasts — and plan to review Distorted on Amazon when it officially releases — you can request the ARC here:

👉 https://www.jimdetjen.com/arc

No verification.
This is built on trust.

Early reviews don’t reward popularity.
They act as signal — helping thoughtful work surface in noisy systems.

Until next time, stay skeptical, stay curious… and Think First.

Support the show

Stay sharp. Stay skeptical. #SpotTheGaslight
Read and reflect at Gaslight360.com/clarity

An AI-generated answer landed at the top of my Instagram feed — calmly explaining why, when intelligence strips away scripture, science, and human narrative, it still arrives at the idea of God.

Not revelation.
Not belief.
Just reduction.

The conclusion felt familiar. Reassuring, even.

This episode isn’t about whether God exists.

It’s about what happens when AI compresses reality until one explanation feels inevitable — and how easily certainty settles in when complexity disappears.

This isn’t a debate.

It’s a moment of recognition — and a reminder that reassurance still deserves discernment.

Support the show

Stay sharp. Stay skeptical. #SpotTheGaslight
Read and reflect at Gaslight360.com/clarity

An AI-generated carousel landed at the top of my Instagram feed — calmly explaining why, when intelligence strips away scripture, science, and human narrative, it still arrives at the idea of God.

Not revelation.

Not belief.

Just reduction.

The conclusion felt familiar. Reassuring, even.

This episode isn’t about whether God exists.

It’s about what happens when AI compresses reality until one explanation feels inevitable — and how easily certainty settles in when complexity disappears.

This isn’t a debate.

It’s a moment of recognition — and a reminder that reassurance still deserves discernment.

Support the show

Stay sharp. Stay skeptical. #SpotTheGaslight
Read and reflect at Gaslight360.com/clarity

What happens when protest quietly becomes interference — and language outruns the law?

In this episode of Think First, Jim Detjen examines the Minneapolis ICE shooting not to adjudicate guilt, but to understand something deeper: how stories harden into certainty, how moral language becomes permission, and why video no longer settles anything.

Jim looks at:

• how legal standards actually work in split-second encounters
• why vehicles collapse decision space faster than intent can explain
• how narrative drift turns policy into personal threat
• and how tension can live in the streets and the courtroom at the same time

This isn’t about sides.

It’s about patterns.

Because when language breaks before the law does, people step into danger believing it’s justice.

Support the show

Stay sharp. Stay skeptical. #SpotTheGaslight
Read and reflect at Gaslight360.com/clarity

Some animals don’t just react.

They anticipate.

In this episode of Think First, we explore a quiet idea most of us already sense but rarely say out loud: animals may notice shifts in the world before we do — emotional, social, and environmental — in ways that complicate how we think about consciousness.

From dogs that read the room before anything happens, to crows that plan, elephants that remember relationships, whales that communicate across vast distances, and octopuses that solve problems without a centralized brain, this episode looks at what animal behavior reveals — not about animals becoming human, but about humans reconsidering the frame.

No mysticism.

No metaphysics.

No forced conclusions.

Just observation, humor, and an open question that lingers:

What if consciousness isn’t rare — just unevenly distributed?

Support the show

Stay sharp. Stay skeptical. #SpotTheGaslight
Read and reflect at Gaslight360.com/clarity

The deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history didn’t fade because it was resolved.

It faded because asking questions became unwelcome.

In this episode of Think First, we revisit the 2017 Las Vegas shooting — not to advance a theory, but to examine what happens when explanations arrive quickly… and then stop evolving.

Drawing on a recent long-form interview between Tucker Carlson and researcher Ian Carroll, we explore how narratives stabilize, why timelines shift, and what it means when transparency pauses instead of progresses.

Along the way, we consider parallels to more recent events — including the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, and the murder of Charlie Kirk in Orem, Utah — where public clarity never fully arrived.

This episode isn’t about telling you what to believe.

It’s about modeling how to sit with unanswered questions — calmly, carefully, and without rushing to conclusions.

Support the show

Stay sharp. Stay skeptical. #SpotTheGaslight
Read and reflect at Gaslight360.com/clarity

After forty years at Harvard, historian James Hankins quietly walked away.

Not in protest. Not in anger. But with a diagnosis.

In this episode of Think First, we examine Hankins’ final essay and a recent interview to understand what changed inside elite universities — not ideologically, but institutionally. From the disappearance of Western civilization requirements to shifting hiring incentives and the loss of a shared cultural foundation, this isn’t a story about politics. It’s about drift.

We explore how poetic truth replaces standards, how reassurance substitutes for evidence, and why institutions can look unchanged while becoming something entirely different.

If this episode feels less like an argument and more like a diagnosis, that’s intentional.

Read my essay at detjen.substack.com

Support the show

Stay sharp. Stay skeptical. #SpotTheGaslight
Read and reflect at Gaslight360.com/clarity

Nick Fuentes didn’t appear in a vacuum — and this episode isn’t about defending or denouncing him.

It’s about why certain voices cut through during moments of institutional fatigue — and why the same mechanics repeat across the political spectrum.

Drawing on campus observations, recent media flashpoints, and Episode #52 (The Pendulum Swing of Gen Z), we look at how attention, irony, certainty, and drift shape what rises online.

Not persuasion — selection.

And if something in the conversation feels clarifying, this episode asks a quieter question:
Is it informing you — or just making things feel simpler?

Support the show

Stay sharp. Stay skeptical. #SpotTheGaslight
Read and reflect at Gaslight360.com/clarity