About Superhuman - From Engineered Desire to Engineered Consent
Superhuman is an investigative podcast and publication exploring child online safety, platform accountability, antitrust, and concentrated power. Through the story of my 16-year-old son Avery, it examines what it will take to build a safer digital world.
superhumanpodcast.substack.com (https://superhumanpodcast.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)
Host [Host Name] interviews Perla Mendoza, a grieving mother and public servant, about her fight for answers after her son's fentanyl-related death and her advocacy for change.
9 May 2026
Out of Balance (Episode 8)
In the season finale of Superhuman, Aaron brings on four guests for a closer look at the cracks in the system, at the incentives that put them there, and why remembering is the first step to fixing them.
Click here (https://player.vimeo.com/progressive_redirect/playback/1042358980/rendition/1080p/file.mp4%20%281080p%29.mp4?loc=external&log_user=0&signature=b55ff470dbeead7b0164cfad2014d84bd55c20b44777d80e2c9145482080d69f) to watch a collection of video clips of Avery set to the music from Koyaanisqatsi.
Guests
Danica Noble www.electdanica.com (http://www.electdanica.com)
Brian Boland www.delta-fund.org (http://www.delta-fund.org)
Julianna Arnold https://parentsrise.org/ (https://parentsrise.org/)
Reiko Callner
Music
Joachim Cooder Various tracks www.joachimcooder.com/ (https://www.joachimcooder.com/)
Evelyn Simone Requiem Theme https://evelynsimone.com/ (https://evelynsimone.com/)
Kjartan Abel CC BY-SA 4.0 https://kjartan-abel.com (https://kjartan-abel.com)
Get full access to Superhuman Podcast at superhumanpodcast.substack.com/subscribe (https://superhumanpodcast.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)
9 May 2026
Out of Balance
In the season finale of Superhuman, Aaron brings on four guests for a closer look at the cracks in the system, at the incentives that put them there, and why remembering is the first step to fixing them. Click here to watch a collection of video clips of Avery set to the music from Koyaanisqatsi. Guests Danica Noble www.electdanica.com Brian Boland www.delta-fund.org Julianna Arnold https://parentsrise.org/ Reiko Callner Music Joachim Cooder Various tracks www.joachimcooder.com/ Evelyn Simone...
12 Apr 2026
Wolves and Children (Episode 7)
Wolves and Children is about how that happens. In this episode, I follow the money, the lobbying playbook, and the legal arguments that shape the laws parents are told will protect their children. It is about what stands between harm and public understanding, and how easily accountability can be rewritten before most people even know the fight is happening.
I’m incredibly grateful to Brody Mullins, Julia Duncan, Sarah Gardner, and Lennon Torres for being part of this episode. Their contributions gave it depth, credibility, and heart. Brody helped expose the machinery behind corporate influence. Julia helped illuminate what families lose when accountability is preempted or buried. Sarah brought a clear-eyed view of the broader system of tech complicity. And Lennon brought lived truth to a debate too often manipulated in the abstract.
I learned a lot from each of them, and I’m thankful they trusted this project enough to be part of it.
Links and Resources
Brody Mullins
The Wolves of K Street Podcast
A companion podcast exploring lobbying, corporate influence, and power in Washington.
https://www.thewolvesofkstreet.com/podcast (https://www.thewolvesofkstreet.com/podcast)
The Deciders
A show about the people and forces shaping politics, business, and public life.
https://www.deciders.show/subscribe (https://www.thewolvesofkstreet.com/podcast)
Julia Duncan
American Association for Justice
The national organization representing trial lawyers and civil accountability work.
https://www.justice.org/ (https://www.justice.org/)
Sarah Gardner
HEAT Initiative
Advocacy focused on tech accountability and child safety.
https://heatinitiative.org (https://www.justice.org/)
Scrolling 2 Death
A podcast about social media harms and digital safety.
https://www.scrolling2death.com/ (https://www.scrolling2death.com/)
Parents RISE
A parent-led group advocating for reform and accountability around online harms.
https://parentsrise.org/ (https://parentsrise.org/)
The Amazing Generation
A youth-facing guide to understanding persuasive technology and healthier digital habits.
https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/book/amazinggeneration (https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/book/amazinggeneration)
Lennon Torres
Diary of a Palatable Trans Woman
Lennon’s Substack and personal writing.
Overturned by Kelly Stonelake
Not mentioned in the episode, but one of my personal favorites by a close friend in the movement.
Get full access to Superhuman Podcast at superhumanpodcast.substack.com/subscribe (https://superhumanpodcast.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)
10 Apr 2026
Wolves and Children
Send us Fan Mail A bill can say “child safety” on the front and still protect the companies causing the harm. In Wolves and Children, Aaron traces how lobbying, legal misdirection, and manufactured public pressure shape the laws parents are told to trust. Featuring Brody Mullins, Julia Duncan, Sarah Gardner, and Lennon Torres. Links and Resources Brody Mullins The Wolves of K Street Podcast A companion podcast exploring lobbying, corporate influence, and power in Washington. https://www.thewo...
11 Mar 2026
Muted Cases (Episode 6)
Last week I sat in a congressional hearing room watching legislators mark up a bill called the Kids Act — a bill with “online child protection” in its title. From my seat, holding a photo of my son, I watched a representative argue for the importance of shielding tech products from civil liability. The language had been carefully inserted into an immunity clause. It was not subtle if you knew what you were looking at.
Today is the sentencing of the man who killed my son. I am not in the courtroom. I can’t sit in a courtroom and not say the truth. So I’m saying it here instead.
Two settings. 6 days apart. Same problem from two directions.
In the hearing room, I watched the system that is supposed to write the rules work to ensure that the companies most responsible for enabling harm to children remain legally untouchable. Civil liability is the only mechanism that has ever forced these platforms to open their files. It’s the only reason we have internal documents showing what they knew and when. Strip that away — inside a bill named after kids — and there is no tool left to compel transparency.
In the courtroom today, the system that is supposed to deliver justice is compressing years of documented harm into a single transaction. No legal warning for the community.
Two stacks of paper.
On one side: what these systems say they do. Congressional bills titled after children. Platform safety statements. Press releases with percentages. Plea deals that close cases.
On the other side: what actually happens. A dealer who operated without fear for years because no institution stopped him. A warrant that sat with Snapchat for twenty days before they responded. An encrypted file with no instructions. A dealer’s account still active weeks after my son died. And a hearing room where legislators looked past the photos of dead children to protect the companies that connected those children to harm.
I started this podcast with two stacks of paper. After this week, the stacks are taller. The gap between them hasn’t closed.
“Muted Cases” is the story the courtroom wouldn’t tell — built from testimony, timelines, and documents the legal system never put on the record.
Get full access to Superhuman Podcast at superhumanpodcast.substack.com/subscribe (https://superhumanpodcast.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)
11 Mar 2026
Muted Cases
Send a text In “Muted Cases,” Aaron recounts the days after Avery’s death—the evidence scramble, the discoveries that came too late, and the slow, brutal realization that what the community most needs to understand can be narrowed, negotiated, and effectively erased from the official record. The episode expands beyond one family’s loss into a repeatable pattern: teen networks, platform mechanics, and legal structures that struggle to name what’s happening in plain language. Through an a...
23 Dec 2025
Ideas and Reality
Send us a text What happens when the news stops being news and starts behaving like marketing? In Episode 5, Aaron is joined by Jennie Desario to trace a line from early propaganda to modern algorithmic persuasion, where outrage is profitable and "both sides" can become a product feature. Together, they unpack how privatized media ecosystems shape what we believe, what we fear, and what we ignore, especially when child safety and accountability threaten growth. We're back earlier than expecte...
25 Nov 2025
Taking Time to Remember - Bonus
Send us a text Please sign up here to Rise With Us and protect childhood: https://parentsrise.org/ Visit scrolling2death and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts: https://www.scrolling2death.com/ Thank you again for listening. See you in January.
19 Nov 2025
In Good Faith
Send us a text Twenty-six words written in 1996 gave platforms legal immunity. One court decision in 1997 turned that immunity into a business model. Attorney Carrie Goldberg shares what it's like representing hundreds of victims, from sextortion to cyberbullying to suicide, and watching nearly every case slam into the same wall. Brett Allred and Kristin Bride reveal what the absence of "good faith" looks like when platforms know the patterns but wait for children to die. And as Section 230 f...
22 Oct 2025
Jeffersons Nightmare
Send us a text How did corporations get more constitutional rights than your children? When a bookshelf tips over and harms one child, there's an immediate recall. When platform algorithms push suicide content to depressed teens, they claim First Amendment protection. To understand how we got here, Aaron traces the path from Jefferson's worst fears to today's reality. In 1886, a court reporter's unauthorized footnote gave corporations personhood. In 1971, the Powell Memo blueprinted corporate...
16 Oct 2025
The Machine
Send us a text This Episode explores how a century of manipulation techniques became smartphone features, through conversations with Jean Cavendish, a clinical psychiatrist who spent decades helping people escape cult programming. Jean died on November 19, 2025, a month after recording. This episode is a dedication to her life and work. The episode features testimony from Lori Schott about how Meta targets children's insecurities, and Taj Jensen, a fellow parent who lost his son to fent...
16 Oct 2025
Two Stacks
Send us a text The episode opens by introducing the Superhuman series—how corporations became entities with more legal rights than humans but none of the accountability. This isn't just about technology or social media—it's about power, who wields it, and how we built a system where companies can harm children at scale and face no consequences. Then Laura Marquez-Garrett of the Social Media Victims Law Center, who represents over 4,000 families harmed by social media, walks us through t...
Inside a recent episode
Perla | Season 2 - Episode 1
Published 11 Nov 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] And, you know, yeah, you just you can't do drugs anymore. That was kind of the attitude. And the next year we go back. and do the same thing. And you see the shifts. Oh yeah, my college friend died from fentanyl this year. And now congressmen or US senators, someone in their circle has been affected. […]
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