Decoding the Gurus

What happens when you try to squeeze a muscle-bound Twitch streamer into a precise measurement instrument like the Gurometer? And can it even function when it encounters this level of left-wing nodulation? It's an empirical question and since the Gurometer recently had all its oil replaced, we decided to give it a go.

This is also a reminder that we do Gurometer episodes for ALL the Gurus we cover and you can find the back catalogue over on the Patreon, if so inclined.

The full episode is available for Patreon subscribers (44 mins).

Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus

Avast Ye Harties! 

Yar! This week be the inaugural episode of a New Streamer/Academic Guru season. Join us as we set sail with a bang and embark on an adventure with the famous and controversial Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. Formerly of the Young Turks, Hasan has carved out a niche as a popular left-wing commentator. He is sometimes described as representing a new wave of political communicators who leverage social media and live streaming to reach new audiences, particularly disengaged younger viewers.

But how does he fare in these Decoding waters?

We take a look at his recent interview with Rashed Al-Haddad, a dashing Yemeni teenager (nicknamed Tim Houthi Chalamet), who recently found himself streaming video on an international transport ship hijacked by Houthi militants. But fear not! Hasan addresses this sensitive topic and the complex geopolitical issues involved with due diligence and care. Moreover, Rashed reports that all of the kidnapped crew are having a grand old time in Yemen! They are simply vibing with their captors, chewing khat, and have fully embraced the honourable Houthi perspective.

The Houthis' official slogan, "God is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam", and reports of severe human rights abuses in their territory, might still give one pause... but as Hasan explains—drawing on his deep political and psychological insights—the Houthis are just like the heroic Straw Hat pirates in the popular anime One Piece!

So with that settled, we can focus on the more important questions like what videogames Rashed likes, if he has ever heard of Mr. Beast, whether he's eaten 'Western' food, what cartoons he watched growing up, and if there are KFCs in Yemen? Truly, this is a conversation for the ages, and Hasan is just the man for the job.

So join us for this week's episode as we ponder whether combining influencer culture with political analysis was a wise move and if there are any possible contradictions or minor ideological skews in Hasan's content.

Links

- Hasan Interviews Viral 'Hot Yemeni TikTok Pirate' | Hasanabi Reacts

- Atlantic article about the Houthis and the situation in Yemen

- AP article on the crew of the hijacked 'Galaxy Leader' ship and their ability to contact their families

- Amnesty article on Houthi sentencing of stoning and crucifixion for crimes of homosexuality

- Human Rights Watch article on Houthi recruitment of child soldiers

- Human Rights Watch article on the al-Ahli Hospital Explosion

- Willy Mac 'drama' YouTuber collated episodes on Hasan (part 1 and part 2)

An adventure in formatting, welcome to the inaugural Supplementary Material episode. Here we are trying to save you all from the ever-expanding intro segments.

On this episode:

• Announcement of the New Format
• Who Decodes the Decoders?
• A Mystery Sense-Making clip
• Lex Fridman on Navalany
• Jordan Peterson's fury at the Associated Press
• Bre Weinstein's superpower: Cringe Immunity
• Anti-Capitalists for AG1 and the ethics of sponsorship

The full episode is available for Patreon subscribers (54 mins).

Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus

Links

• Post-Apocalyptic Theology Decodes Us
• John Vervaeke & Jordan Hall discuss Christian Virtues in a Diverse World
• 2lazy2try: Bret Weinstein Has Completely Lost It
• Some More News 'promoting' AG1
• Jordan Peterson's unhinged tweet attacking the Associated Press

In this episode, Matt and Chris converse with Kevin Mitchell, an Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin, and author of 'Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will'. 

We regret to inform you that the discussion does involve in-depth discussions of philosophy-adjacent topics such as free will, determinism, consciousness, the nature of self, and agency.

But do not let that put you off!  

Kevin is a scientist and approaches them all through a sensible scientific perspective. You do not have to agree but you do have to pay attention!

If you ever wanted to see Matt geek out and Chris remain chill and be fully vindicated, this is the episode for you.

Links

• Kevin's website
• Robert Sapolsky vs Kevin Mitchell: The Biology of Free Will | Philosophical Trials
• Kevin's TedX Talk: Who’s in charge? You or your brain? | Kevin Mitchell | TEDxTrinityCollegeDublin

Controversial physics firebrand Sean Carroll has cut a swathe through the otherwise meek and mild podcasting industry over the last few years. Known in the biz as the "bad boy" of science communication, he offends as much as he educ....

<< Record scratch >>

No, we can't back any of that up obviously, those are all actually lies. Let's start again.

Sean Carroll has worked as a research professor in theoretical physics and philosophy of science at Caltech and is presently an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He currently focuses on popular writing and public education on topics in physics and has appeared in several science documentaries.

Since 2018 Sean has hosted his podcast Mindscape, which focuses not only on science but also on "society, philosophy, culture, arts and ideas". Now, that's a broad scope and firmly places Sean in the realm of "public intellectual", and potentially within the scope of a "secular guru" (in the broader non-pejorative sense - don't start mashing your keyboard with angry e-mails just yet).

The fact is, Sean appears to have an excellent reputation for being responsible, reasonable and engaging, and his Mindscape podcast is wildly popular. But despite his mild-mannered presentation, Sean is quite happy to take on culture-war-adjacent topics such as promoting a naturalistic and physicalist atheist position against religious approaches. He's also prepared to stake out and defend non-orthodox positions, such as the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, and countenance somewhat out-there ideas such as the holographic principle.

But we won't be covering his deep physics ideas in this episode... possibly because we're not smart enough. Rather, we'll look at a recent episode where Sean stretched his polymathic wings, in the finest tradition of a secular guru, and weighed in on AI and large-language models (LLMs).

Is Sean getting over his skis, falling face-first into a mound of powdery pseudo-profound bullshit or is he gliding gracefully down a black diamond with careful caveats and insightful reflections?

Also covered the stoic nature of Western Buddhists, the dangers of giving bad people credit, and the unifying nature of the Ukraine conflict.

Links

• YouTube 'Drama' channel covering all the Vaush stuff in excruciating detail
• The Wikipedia entry on Buddhist Modernism 
• Sharf, R. (1995). Buddhist modernism and the rhetoric of meditative experience. Numen, 42(3), 228-283.
• Radley Balko's Substack: The retconning of George Floyd: An Update and the original article
• What The Controversial George Floyd Doc Didn't Tell Us | Glenn Loury & John McWhorter
• Sean Carroll: Mindscape 258 | Solo: AI Thinks Different 

Sometimes our intrepid Decoders like to focus on a specific rhetorical technique or recurrent pattern that can be observed across the Gurusphere. Here, Matt and Chris take a look at a bite-size portion of the philosopher John Gray's recent appearance on Sam Harris' Making Sense podcast.

Gray was invited to outline his critique of New Atheism, and his response is a remarkable monologue that encompasses a vast range of intellectual topics, philosophical thinkers, and historical periods. We travel from ancient religion to medieval peasants and finally to (almost) the contemporary era.

It is a veritable tour de force of an erudite philosopher's mind palace. So join us for a hike around through that palace and see if you agree with our assessment that the notable features reflect some common issues in academic, philosophical, and guru discourse.

Alternatively, you might find Gray's approach vibes with your interests, and that it is Matt and Chris who are simply showcasing their grumpy materialist perspective (again).

It will probably be impossible to tell unless we first consider what Spinoza said to Oldenburg in 1665 while taking due consideration of the Kokutai doctrine as elaborated by the Mito School in Meiji Japan, but that, of course, leads us to ancient Egypt and the pharaohs...

Links

• Is Moral Progress a Fantasy?: A Conversation with John Gray (Episode #354)

Sam Harris is an author, podcaster, public intellectual, ex-New Atheist, card-returning IDWer, and someone who likely needs no introduction. This is especially the case if you are a DTG listener as we recently released a full-length decoding episode on Sam.

Following that episode, Sam generously agreed to come on to address some of the points we raised in the Decoding and a few other select topics. As you will hear we get into some discussions of the lab leak, what you can establish from introspection and the nature of self, motivations for extremism, coverage of the conflict and humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and selective application of criticism.

Also covered in the episode are Andrew Huberman's dog and his thanking eyes, Joe Rogan's condensed conspiracism, and the value of AI protocol searches.

Links

• Our Decoding Episode on Sam
• Our interview with three virologists on the Lab Leak
• Kevin Drum's blog. 'I read the entire Slack archive about the origin of SARS-CoV-2. There is no evidence of improper behaviour'
• New York Magazine article by Eric Levitz 'Sam Harris’s Fairy-Tale Account of the Israel-Hamas Conflict' 
• Making Sense Podcast Episode 351: 5 Myths about Israel and the War in Gaza
• Making Sense Podcast Episode 352: Hubris & Chaos- A Conversation with Rory Stewart
• Global Catastrophic Risk Institute: The Origin and Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Expert Survey. 
• The Israel Democracy Institute. War in Gaza Public Opinion Survey (2): See Question 15. 
• Atran, S. (2016). The devoted actor: Unconditional commitment and intractable conflict across cultures. Current Anthropology, 57(S13), S192-S203.

Sometimes it's important to check in on old friends, just to make sure they're doing okay. That's the theme for today's episode. We felt it was necessary to pay an unannounced house call to our old pals Bret Weinstein and Jordan Peterson. Rumor had it that Jordan was facing some challenges with his clinical license, while Bret had been brewing up revolutionary evolutionary theories that weren't getting the recognition they deserved.

Knowing Jordan's stoic nature and aversion to publicity, we anticipated he'd be reluctant to 'make a fuss.' So, we decided to drop by his podcast to see how he and his daughter, Mikhaila, were handling the news that another Canadian court had determined that the evil College of Psychologists of Ontario does indeed have the authority to reprimand him for rampaging on social media like a deranged badger. We were confident he would be taking it all in his stride, with his usual level of decorum and we were certainly not disappointed.

As for Bret, well, let's just say he's cracked the code behind the Chinese evolutionary LINEAGE and its motivation for instigating the one-child policy, with implications that shake the very foundations of our current world order. This is one for the history books and cements Bret's status as a world-class evolutionary thinker. When you start looking through Bret's evolutionary lens, suddenly everything starts to make sense.

So come join us to see how these two titans of the Guru-sphere are faring in 2024 and in the process learn exactly which of them is morphing into a Lord of the Rings character.

Links

• Ep. 71 The Tucker Encounter on X: Bret Weinstein travelled to the Darien Gap to understand who's behind the invasion of our country.
• Jordan B. Peterson Podcast: My Clinical License is as Good as Gone
• Clip of Bret elaborating on his new theory with Neil Oliver on GB News
• Article on previous complaints the Ontario Board received about Jordan Peterson
• CBC News article on the Ontario Court judgement
• Article by a Canadian Lawyer on the Judgement

Join us for a mini decoding to get us back into the swing of things as we examine a viral clip that had religious reactionaries, sensemakers, and academic philosophers in a bit of a tizzy. Specifically, we are covering reactions to a clip from a 2014 TEDx talk by Yuval Noah Harari, the well-known author and academic, in which he discussed how human rights (and really all of human culture) are a kind of 'fiction'.

Get ready for a thrilling ride as your intrepid duo plunges into a beguiling world of symbolism, cultural evolution, and outraged philosophers. By the end of the episode, we have resolved many intractable philosophical problems including whether monkeys are bastards, if first-class seating is immoral, and where exactly human rights come from. Philosophers might get mad but that will just prove how right we are.

Links

• The original tweet that set everyone off
• Bananas in heaven | Yuval Noah Harari | TEDxJaffa
• Paul Vander Klay's tweet on the kerfuffle
• An example of a rather mad philosopher
• Speak Life: Can We Have Human Rights Without God? With Paul Blackham (The longer video that PVK clipped from)
• Standard InfoWars article on Harari

In this episode, our intrepid hosts embrace a rare opportunity for sincere self-reflection, spurred by a face-to-face meeting in an inspiring ryokan in a Japanese mountain setting. The discussion delves into the nature of the podcast, audience capture, underlying motivations, and their thoughts on the journey so far and the path ahead.

In an act of pure parasocial manipulation, listeners are invited to imagine the snowy ryokan landscape and 'taste' the amber liquid savoured during the conversation. And should you desire to TRULY see the location (with your eyes) photos and additional videos are up on Patreon.

In any case, we genuinely do want to send a New Year note of thanks to all the listeners for their support, especially the smart ones who agree with us and recognise that Matt is the bad one.

Normal decoding services to resume shortly...