Decoding the Gurus

Oprah Winfrey is someone who truly needs no introduction. She's a legend of daytime television, a warm and charismatic juggernaut who steam-rolled her way to the very apex of media success. Now, an extraordinarily wealthy woman, she's busy with philanthropy and helping others manifest their inner light so as to truly Be in this world.

Certainly, in a category apart from IDW knuckleheads or bottom-feeding YouTube types, Oprah is nevertheless a self-help and spiritual guru in the truest sense of the word; both in the eyes of her audience and by her own lights. In the interview we cover, she talks frankly about her own philosophy of life and gives advice to others that they might emulate some portion of success. Inevitably not discussed are various controversies around her promotion of pseudoscience, endorsing self-help gurus like James Arthur Ray, anti-vaxxers like Jenny McCarthy and giving a massive leg-up to noted internet doctors, Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne, which promotes the Law of Attraction, is not explicitly mentioned, but Chris detects hints of it vibrating throughout the conversation.

So join Matt and Chris as they conclusively demonstrate why they remained the perpetual block-sucking kids at the nursery, while Oprah rode her self-actualised rocket past the first grade to become a billionaire media mogul.

Also on this week's episode discover whether Oprah earns a place on Guru island, if the intro segments will be tightly edited, how Chris prepares for job interviews, and just how many of Matt's enemies are Nazis!

Links

• Oprah Winfrey: The Secret of My Success. Stanford Graduate School of Business.
• Kurzgesagt's video on their funding and POV.
• PBS Space Time
• Dr Sam Gregson, the Bad Boy of Science

Apologies everyone, we've been compelled to break our 'golden rule' of interspersing decoding episodes with interview episodes. However, the opportunity to talk to the well-known psychologist, Professor Paul Bloom. There are so many reasons to talk to Paul: first, he's a walking, talking cornucopia of knowledge across so fields in psychology that fascinate Chris and Matt. He's also a prolific author, most recently of "Psych- The Story of the Human Mind", and previously with "The Sweet Spot" about pleasure and pain, and the controversial "Against Empathy". He's also a great educator, having created a bunch of open learning resources in introductory and moral psychology. In addition to the new book "Psych", which offers a layperson's introduction to psychology he is ALSO producing a new podcast with friend of the cast and no slouch at psychology himself, Very Bad Wizard/Psychologist, Dave Pizarro.

OK, that's enough reasons. There are probably more reasons, but we have provided enough. And anyway, who says we have to justify our guests and our interview to decoding schedule. We are free agents! We have agency... right?

In any case, you cannot complain too much as we felt bad and have thus included in the short intro segment a "mini" (40min!) decoding of the recent appearance of academic/political pundit, Matthew Goodwin, on Triggernometry. And it's a spicy one...

Next up Oprah! Coming soon...

Links

• Paul Bloom & Dave Pizarro's Psych Podcast
• Paul Bloom's New Book: Psych- The Story of the Human Mind
• Paul's New Ted Talk on The surprising psychology behind your urge to break the rules
• Triggernometry- Matt Goodwin: We're in the Post-Populist Era
• New Statesman- Going native: How Matthew Goodwin became part of the right-populist movement he once sought to explain.
• Eliezer Yudkowsky's Tweet about bombing the WIV

If you have managed to avoid the phenomenon of QAnon up until now, then congratulations! Your life is likely better for not knowing. Sadly many of us have been forced not only to learn about the 'enigmatic'(/idiotic) Q and his merry band of followers but also to witness the consequences of the movement during events like January 6th.

Travis View (the pen name of Logan Strain) is part of the motley crew of the hugely popular QAnon Anonymous podcast that attempts to document the phenomenon of QAnon. From undercover investigations to creative writing, the QAnon Anonymous team (including previous guest Annie Kelly) have approached the topic with a creative and anthropological approach.

We sit down with Travis and ask him to provide us with the 101 on QAnon before we delve into some of the more arcane topics, including cultish splinter groups, the psychology of QAnon adherents, just how much of a threat he thinks the movement poses, and how does he stay sane while looking at depressing craziness week in and week out.

Travis is a wealth of information and a groovy guy to boot. The kind of person you would want to have your back in a Zombie apocalypse. So kick back and enjoy hearing about the crumbling of contemporary society.

Links

Travis's Instagram account: Great nature photos!

QAnon Anonymous Podcast

Wisdom Signalling & the Wisdom of Criticism w/ John Veraveke, Chris M, Chris Kavanagh, & Matt Browne

The question of the SARS-CoV-2 origin: whether it was a zoonotic spillover from a wet market, or an engineered virus that escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, is seemingly a debate that will never go away. Most interestingly, while scientists with specific domain expertise seem to be building a consensus towards the former, public opinion appears to be trending towards the latter. This delta between expert and popular opinion has been helped along by the frothy discourse in mainstream and social media, with most figures that we cover in this podcast dead-set certain that it came from a lab.

Most recently, Sam Harris hosted on his Making Sense podcast the molecular biologist Alina Chan and. science writer Matt Ridley, spokespersons for the lab leak case, and authors of "Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19". To a layperson, and certainly to Sam, they put forward a rather watertight case. Intrinsic to the arguments advanced were the ideas that (a) experts in the area were refusing to engage with and unable to answer their arguments, and (b) a strong implication that there is a conspiracy of silence among virologists not just in China but internationally, to suppress the lab leak hypothesis.

So, as a case study in the public understanding of science, it seems like a pretty pickle indeed. To help unravel the pickle(?) in this somewhat special episode, we are joined by three virologists who are amply qualified to address the topic; both in terms of the evidence and whether they are involved in a conspiracy of silence.

Kristian Andersen is a Professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Research. He focuses on the relationship between host and pathogen, using sequencing, fieldwork, experimentation, and computational biology methods. He has spearheaded large international collaborations investigating the emergence, spread and evolution of deadly pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2, Zika virus, Ebola virus, West Nile virus, and Lassa virus.

Prof Michael Worobey, is the head of the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona. His work focuses on the genomes of viruses, using molecular and computational biology, to understand the origins, emergence and control of pandemics. Recently, his interdisciplinary work on SARS-CoV-2 has shed light on how and when the virus originated and ignited the COVID-19 pandemic in China and how SARS-CoV-2 emerged and took hold in North America and Europe.

Prof Edward "Eddie" Holmes, is an NHMRC Leadership Fellow & Professor of Virology at the Faculty of Medicine and Health at Sydney University, a member of the Sydney Institute for Infectious Diseases, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and a Fellow of The Royal Society. He is known for his work on the evolution and emergence of infectious diseases, particularly the mechanisms by which RNA viruses jump species boundaries to emerge in humans and other animals. He has studied the emergence and spread of such pathogens as SARS-CoV-2, influenza virus, dengue virus, HIV, hepatitis C virus, myxoma virus, RHDV and Yersinia pestis.

All three researchers have specialist expertise and decades of experience directly applicable to tracking viruses and their adaption to humans, and, fair to say, are fairly eminent in their fields (Eddie in particular!). Further, they are among the relatively small set of researchers collecting and analysing primary evidence on the origins of SARS-CoV-2, communicating their findings in top-ranked journals, including Nature and Science.

In this episode, Chris and Matt put to this trio of Professors the claims rasied by lab leak advocates to see what these (damn conspirators) experts have to say for themselves.

Links

• Sam Harris Making Sense

Dave Rubin has always sought out a career in the spotlight, beginning with stand-up comedy and then becoming a pundit (of sorts) on shows like the Young Turks. From there he (in)famously came to present himself as one of those classical liberals forced to 'leave the left'. He was also one of the honorary members of the Intellectual Dark Web although it is fair to say he primarily served as a conduit rather than a primary contributor.

So, where does he stand now? Is he the heterodox classical liberal and centrist he once claimed? Or is he a reactionary and conspiratorial hyper-partisan right-wing pundit? It's the second thing. It's obviously the second thing. Everyone knows.

But could he be anything more than that? Does he fit the secular guru template beguiling us with pseudo-intellectual, polymathic and galaxy-brained takes? Or just a slightly more acceptable version of Alex Jones without the drinking problem?

Well, in this episode we'll figure it out.

To be honest, it's not very complicated. The riddle of Dave Rubin is not so much a deep rabbit hole as a minor depression in the ground. So... Enjoy?

P.S. We also talk (probably for too long) about "discourse surfing" in relation to topics like the lab leak and why you shouldn't do it. Don't worry. There are bookmarks, so you can skip it if you want (though you shouldn't really, it's good).

Links

• Critical Profile of Dave Rubin by Ross Anderson at Quillette
• Greta Thunberg Gets Caught by Rebel News & Her Response Is Bizarre | Direct Message | Rubin Report
• Dave Rubin | Club Random with Bill Maher
• For 'Discourse Surfing' see Stuart Ritchie's article at inews. Stop blindly believing or dismissing the Covid lab-leak theory – focus on the evidence
• The Wall Street Journal article that reignited the Lab Leak conversation
• Our previous episode 'Calibrating the Gurometer'

Bill Maher is an American comedian, political commentator, and television host from the tail end of the baby-boomer generation. He's principally a centrist liberal in terms of his political leanings, being well known for his anti-religious and pro-animal rights positions, as well as a supporter of things like cannabis legalisation. On the other hand, he's something of a contrarian and styles himself as anti-political correctness and anti-woke, identifying as a disenchanted liberal, like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris.

Now, all of that is well and good, let a hundred flowers bloom! But... on the less-salubrious side, he's also a contrarian when it comes to his extreme scepticism of conventional medicine, and vaccines in particular. And as we'll see in the two interviews we cover, with Sam Harris ^ and Richard Dawkins, it never seems to take him very long before the conversation is steered back to vaccines.

So, will Maher make the gurometer go 'DING'? Let's face it, probably not. But if not, why not? It is worth checking to tune up the old instrument. And it is indeed something to behold as a boozy, stoned Maher tries (and manifestly fails) to coax Richard Dawkins out of his prim and proper shell.

Also features discussions of Chris' run-ins with the rationalists, a new 'Whinge of the Week' segment, and the rhetorical technique of 'pouncing'.

Links

• Richard Dawkins on Club Random with Bill Maher
• Sam Harris on Club Random with Bill Maher
• Astral Codex Ten- Contra Kavanagh On Fideism
• Medium Article by Chris - Am I a Fideist?
• Astral Codex Ten - Trying Again on Fideism
• Making Sense with Sam Harris - Did SARS-COV-2 escape from a lab?
• Konstantin Kisin - Reflections on Dealing With Bad Faith Criticism
• Upcoming discussion with John Vervaeke & Chris Mastropietro at The Stoa

In this episode, we take a bit of a detour from current trends and examine a talk by the philosopher Daniel Dennett on evolution. Dennett rose to public prominence as one of the so-called four horsemen of the New Athiest movement but he always seemed slightly out of place with that cohort. Dennett's is most certainly a guru in the sense that he offers big picture 'what does it all mean' lectures linking together consciousness, intelligence, the emergence of complexity and evolution. But is there some substance there? Or does his appeal hinge on on intuitively-satisfying cosmic woo offered by less reputable figures.

On a positive note, he seemed to be more interested in academic and philosophical debates than the latest culture war outrage. As such he doesn't share that much with our usual targets... and that's ok! Sometimes it is good to look at figures who fall closer to the standard public intellectual or academic motif than that of the secular guru. At the very least it helps to calibrate our gurometer! So join us for a slightly indulgent episode on a figure that we both broadly enjoy despite the inevitable nit-picking.

An extended introduction section will also reveal our first DTG conspiracy hypothesis, the mating habits of orcs and dragons, and what Nazi AIs have in common with Robocop. And stick around at the end to hear about the future of education from the Petersons!

Links

• Dennett's talk on Information, Evolution, and Intelligent Design at the Royal Institute
• Business Insider article on that historical figure AI chatbot
• Mikhaila Peterson: Q&A to end the Year Episode. 174
• Thread from Lex's Subreddit removed by Moderators

Recently the Oxford Union (based in Oxford but distinct from the university) hosted a debate on "whether woke culture has gone too far". A very fresh question, and it's been good to see people finally discussing this important issue. Former guest, comedian, and host of the Triggernometry podcast Konstantin Kisin argued for the proposition, and his 10 minute speech has gone viral, garnering over 20 million views (and counting). Kisin has received lavish praise for his compelling talk from across the interwebs for what has been broadly described as a masterful demolition of woke culture, leading to broadcast television appearances with Piers Morgan and Tucker Carlson.

Well, a video of the speech crossed our path on Twitter, and it seemed to us to be an interesting case-study on the effective use of rhetoric, so here is our decoding. As is our want, we are slightly more critical in our assessment than Piers Morgan Tucker Carlson, but we are able to identify points of concordance as well.

Enjoy!

Links

The original speech

Konstantin Kisin | This House Believes Woke Culture Has Gone Too Far - 7/8 | Oxford Union

Coverage

Konstantin Kisin’s Important Message LIVE on Tucker Carlson

Konstantin Kisin and Piers Morgan Discuss The Problems With Woke Culture

Background

Global Concern about Climate Change, Broad Support for Limiting Emissions

In this episode we are joined by the irrepressible "Coffeezilla" (aka Stephen Findeisen), a man who is, it's fair to say, kind of a big deal on YouTube. And rightly so! His channel focuses on exposing "scams, fraudsters and fake gurus" and he has received a great deal of praise for the detail, depth, and quality of the research that he goes into for each episode. Coffeezilla has been particularly active in digging into cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and other financial Ponzi and pump and dump schemes. Indeed, he has received praise from the MSM in relation to his coverage of the infamous Sam Bankman-Fried, and has most recently managed to arouse the ire of mega-influencer Logan Paul, after covering Paul's total NFT scam ‘problematic’ failed NFT offering.

We share a lot of common interests with Coffeezilla and this interview as a result is pretty broad-ranging. To mention just a few, we discuss Elon Musk, the way unscrupulous individuals leverage capitalist financial systems, the death of expertise, modern online ecosystems, the differences and parallels between financial and secular gurus , and the psychological and technological tricks gurus use to seperate people from their hard-earned cash.

Coffeezilla's hard work on financial scammer has made him extremely knowledgeable. He's also as sharp as a tack and really fun guy to chat with. So, we were super lucky to be able to snag him as a guest. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, and we hope you enjoy the interview too.

Oh, and Chris and Matt talk about Lex Fridman and that damn booklist in the introduction, and introduce a new segment the 'Weekly Wisdom of Mikhaila' at the end.

Enjoy!

Links

Coffeezilla feed on YouTube

Coffeezilla's Investigating Logan Paul's CryptoZoo series

Logan Paul's attempts to address and redress

CoffeeZilla on The Lex Fridman Podcast

MIchaela's Q&A to end 2022

Lex being sad about people dunking on his reading list

Nassim Taleb on Lex

Nathan J Robinson: The Guy Who Just Loves Everyone

So here we are rounding off 2022 with a Guru of the moment, Elon Musk.

Trust us, we want to stop hearing about him as much as you do but we have long had him scheduled as the finale for the tech season. Unfortunately, the Decoding the Gurus curse (most of the people we cover quickly become worse and spiral into conspiracism) seems to have become more potent. Now we don't even have to cover a Guru just announce that we will and the spiral occurs. And with Elon what a spiral it has been.

But we *try* not to dwell much on his recent antics and instead focus on decoding our chosen material. In this specific case, it is a recent wide-ranging interview conducted by a fellow billionaire and large Tesla investor, Ron Baron. This proved to be one of the most sycophantic interviews we have ever examined, which is a real achievement given the competition.

Musk himself is an interesting figure. Softly spoken, prone to mumbling, he can even seem self-effacing, and yet he is also a prolific hype man, prone to hyperbole, and self-mythologizing. Is he the master engineer and polymath he claims? The ultimate conman? And how has he become the guru for so many gurus? Join us as we try to disentangle the Elon puzzle box and see if there is actually anything interesting inside.

Oh and also Happy New Year! Remember to keep an eye out for those pesky Distributed Idea Suppression Complexes.

Links

• Ron Baron Interview Nov 2022 with Elon Musk: Source for the Decoding
• Thunderfoot Video: Why you should NEVER believe Elon Musk!
• Common Sense Skeptic: Debunking Elon Musk (Part 1 & Part 2)
• Guardian Article on Musk's comments on the Diver involved in the Thai Cave Rescue
• Futurism Article on Elon Musk promising Full-Self-Driving Cars Every Year since 2014
• Rolling Stone: Elon Musk Keeps Taking Twitter Advice From Right-Wing Trolls
• Article from buildd.co on Tesla's Marketing Strategy