Decoding the Gurus - Supplementary Material 17: American Dreams, YouTube Algorithms, and Poisonous Plastics

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

In this episode, Chris and Matt open the lid on Matt's adventures in America. Basking in the land of the free, Matt is forced to consider YouTube dynamics, indulgent podcast conversations, potential Russian influence campaigns, and the environmental toxins that sound him.We will return soon with another SM election special and a better mic for Matt!Content00:00 Introduction03:20 Matt's American Insights10:41 Flint Dibble, Graham Hancock & a silly racist19:21 YouTube & Audience Capture with Andrew Gold27:35 Justin Trudeau accuses Jordan Peterson of being Russian Funded34:29 Bernie Sanders & Lex Fridman: What's the point?47:24 Huberman's Latest PSA52:20 Environmental Toxins and Modern Health Concerns58:58 OutroThe full episode is available for Patreon subscribers (1hr 3 mins).Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurusLinksExpress article on Hancock's work being used by racistsNational Post article on Peterson's response to Trudeau's accusationsHuberman's Twitter PSA on microplasticsBernie Sanders Interview | Lex Fridman Podcast #450

Hello and welcome to Coding the Guru's supplementary material number 17. Can you believe that? 17 of days have passed and I am Chris Kavna, the anthropologist from Northern Ireland in Japan. He is Matt Brown, the psychology professor from Australia in America. If you can believe it, he's not in his natural environment. It's a roving correspondence episode with Matt in a hotel room, still unable to locate a dongle, which would give him access to his microphone. So he's logged his nice microphone halfway around the world and then cannot plug it into his PC and you have to bear with him because he's only in America where it's very, very hard to find dongles.

It's not a civilized country like where I'm from, where you are, Chris. No, it's true. I didn't find a dongle today, but in my defense, I was quite hungover and I didn't. You didn't work. I also didn't look, but I wasn't really, I didn't really feel capable. Though my brother did go into a Best Buy or some kind of a Walmart where, you know, there were lots of guns. He did see lots of guns, but no, he didn't see any dongle.

Wiss didn't tell me about them. Right. No, I did my best. I did my best, which was nothing. Yeah, that's it. So bad audio, bleh Matt, okay? Emails to Matt. But this will give it more of the authentic, you know, Rovin Reporter vibe. Matt's in the hotel room.

This is Gonzo podcasting. I'm like Hunter S. Thompson. People often say that. So yeah, that's what the hotel room. This is Gonzo podcasting. I'm like Aunt Jerelle Thompson. And people often say that. So yeah, that's what I'm doing. I'm just delving deep, working my way to the dark heart of the American dream. And I feel like I'm making good progress, Chris. I'm making good progress. So you've been to San Francisco.

You've been to Glastrow Alley or whatever. I don't remember the name of it. You've been to Seattle and you're now in Portland, right? You're slowly hunting down Brett Weinstein. You've narrowed down the search. Yeah. Yeah. And Chuck Chris, last night I spoke to someone whose brother I think it was was a former student of Brett Weinstein. He knows, I think, almost precisely where he lives. So.

Yeah, I'll be going there. I'll be tracking him down. No, no. This could be the start of a 13-part podcast series, Finding Brett Weinstein. Finding Brett Weinstein. And it turns out that Brett Weinstein was at our hearts all along. Yeah, we didn't need to go anywhere to find him. So yeah, well, but you're only there for one day. So you better get on it. You've got to find the dongle and him in the next like couple of hours.

Maybe that'll be in the same place. Maybe I'll find Broke Weinstein with the dongle. You know, first off, Matt, you are in America. You're going to be there for a while, right? So you don't need to give us all of your insights in one download. But do you have any morsels that you want to share? Insights from the good old US of A? You know, what have you noticed? You already told us to remind you on a previous episode that squirrels are nice. Yep. And that there was some burger you like. Oh, in and out burger is good.

In and out burger is good. That's the three insights we've received. What else you got for us? Well, I think building on the in and out burger theme, it's really clear that there are two things that Americans do better than anyone else. And that is make hamburgers and cook fried chicken. Like the French have their breads, the Germans have sausage, the Austrians have pastries. In America, my god, Chris, they cannot fry chicken badly.

You cannot find bad fried chicken in America. And the burgers are all pretty good. Mind you, I have avoided the lower tier fast food chains. But you know, I haven't been slumming it the whole time. Went to some very groovy places. I caught up with one of our friends from the Conspiratrality podcast, Derek. He and his lovely wife, they were both charming. And we went to dinner. We had Malaysian food. Well, it was like Thai, Malaysian sort of mixed, I think. Fusion. Fusion. Yeah, it was delicious. And we went to dinner, we had Malaysian food. Well, it was like Thai Malaysian sort of next, I think fusion, fusion. Yeah, it was delicious. And we went to a hipster bar, there was a guy playing with it. They all had really long beards. This is I've noticed this in Portland,

like young men who surprisingly can even grow a beard to be honest, but they have beards like down to the but they're like dwarves. The beards go down to their knees. Yeah, but they're cool. I have a beard up there. I've got a beard up there that's like dramatically related. That's purely my, you may not have noticed. Usually I rock very out of fashion, 1990s dodgy investor, Wall Street beard. Yeah. Like, but I've decided to go for more of the bit 2,000s filled in beard. Nice.

Oh yeah. I'm going like a little bit more filled in. Just cheating things out. It looks good. It looks good. It looks good. Now you look less like someone who would be trying to sell you crypto and more like someone that's trying to sell you gold.

So that's an improvement. Yeah. Now I look like somebody that's going to talk about how beneficial trad wives. So, Matt, is there more on the conveyor belt of American wisdom or do we need to wait for it to percolate? No, no, no. We'll leave it there. We'll leave it there for the American wisdom. I know we should get to the supplementary materials. Not allowed to rub your hands on these podcasts, Matt. Not allowed. Just even if you're cold, those noises, they travel.

At least there's no squeaky chair. There's no squeaky chair, but there is a bed. That's true. So when there's no squeaky chair, you feel obliged to create new noises from your environment. You're like a noise machine. But yeah, well, we look forward to it. I expect at least some.

What is the word like controversial insights? You need to tell us about the homeless people problems in the cities you visit. The law and order. It's breaking down. Ma, I've been hearing these George Soros guys taking down the country. Somebody is getting paid. You got to find out what's going on. No, no, I have.

I have fed up with what the mega people are saying about the coastal elites is true, actually. I didn't want to mention it at first, but yeah, it's actually true. Like San Francisco, Portland and Seattle, they were literally in flames. The cities were burning. Yeah. They joined the Bad Max gang, the Liller beard maniacs. It's hard to come up with a name. Okay, the Liller beard maniac gang.

And the kind of the let you podcast. Yeah. In between your duties. Yeah, that will fly with it. That will fly with it. Yeah, no, America, it's not that interesting. I mean, America is interesting. Don't get me wrong. The scenery is very nice. It's a bit like Australia, you know, lovely scenery. Shame about the people. But, you know, the people are quite nice too.

They're like, they're like Australians. That's Australian humour, mate. You flagged that up. No, no, you know, Americans, especially people from San Francisco, like Australians, but just more, more flair. They got more, more joy to views. In my last visits to America, I felt reverse culture shock, right? Well, it's not even reverse because I'm not American, right? But just, I felt like everybody was, to be fair, I did go to California, right? But I felt like everything was to be fair, I did go to California, right?

But I felt like everything was turned up. The eleven like people around me were emoting like they're in a video game or something, you know, was a ha ha ha ha ha. And then like other people on the street like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh know, like the Truman show, where it was like heightened reality. And yes, it probably was in part because of the contrast, you know, coming from Japan, where a lot of these things are more subdued. But yes, I'm wondering, you don't get that. Maybe maybe it's like if you go to California, you'll experience that, too.

But you don't get that, like a kind of heightened sense of reality. No, I think that's true. They are like Australians, but Australians are dialed down to six and they're turned up to 11. And you know, like I think you would have this particularly because, you know, you come from a devastatingly emotionally crippled culture. Yes. Northern Ireland.

Yeah, that's right. You know, just broken shut down people. And exactly. So, you know, Americans, know, just broken shut down people. Exactly. So, you know, Americans, Americans, they live in large man. This is this is how they operate. And it seems like they're doing a bit. You got to keep this copy for real. But they're not. They're actually genuinely like now. They're actually having joy, the experience in joy.

That's right. They have optimism and they have plans and they feel like they might accomplish things. Obviously, they're delusional. None of that's going to happen. But, you know, I'm happy to see it. I do like it. It is like an uncanny valley type thing. And I think Australians, not Australians, Americans feel that with us too, right? Let's be honest. It does the uncanny valley thing. It's like you're kind of normal, like a normal human like us, but not quite.

And there's little differences that really yeah in intrigues Demetri well Irish Irish people might were popular wherever we go sadly the word and what loves us too much Charmers, yeah Except maybe not the English but even the English like us, you know, it's the degree to which it's reciprocated. As long as you stay in your place. Like serving drinks at a bar, at an Irish bar. That's true. That's where you belong.

That's true. That's true. That's true. Well, I've got a whole array for you today, my boy. I know I can't fit them all in. So I'm going to have to, you know, I'm just going to take little mortals from here, the ones from there and pop them into your mental wheelhouse and see how they spin around. Yeah.

Surprise me. Surprise me. Surprise me. I'm curious what you've gathered. Well, did you notice that I interviewed Flitdibble? Flitdibble. That name sounds like a dwarf, like a character from Lothar. I know. It's a good name for an archaeologist. Because his dad's an archaeologist. That's how he got it, as he explained to us.

Yeah, I did notice that. How'd that go? Everything went well? That went well. You didn't panic, do an interview without me? You were okay? I didn't freak out, though I did record it at like 1 to 3 a.m. So I think in the video I probably look a bit snoozy, but it's not Flint's fault. It's just biological reality. And given that, it went very well. And you were missing me. It's OK to say it. It's OK. That too.

It was hard to hear myself talk so much, but I persisted. But I mention it, Matt, because Mr. Hancock, old Graham, he's been doing the rounds on the heterodox sphere. He's been on Joe Rogan. He's been on with Chris Williamson. He's been on Joe Rogan. He's been on with Chris Williamson. He's been on with Lex Friedman, so on, so forth. Yeah, popping up all over the place and besmirching Flint. There's usually like a little segment on each of them where he says that Flint's a

liar and, you know, tricked him and great can Joe. And Joe, to his discredit, did go along with this talking about how, you know, tricked him and great can Joe and Joe, to his discredit, did go along with this talking about how, you know, dishonest that Flint had been in his presentation. And I really didn't like that because like it's one thing for Hancock to do it, you know, on all those shows there he can air his grievances. But if you do a debate with someone and then you go on the same show later, provide that person and kind of editorialize about the performance with the host. It just seems a bit. Yeah. And with Joe Rogan on board with all of that, it's just not done. That's not good podcasting etiquette. No, I don't approve of that.

So in what ways was Flint lying? What was his crimes? It was actually most of the stuff that we covered in the interview, just like Hancock wanted to present that during the interview, he didn't perform that well because he put too much faith in Flint and believed what he was saying. But afterwards, him and his audience found a lot of things misrepresented in Flint. He'd overstated some figures and he'd claim that they don't have evidence for this, but actually they did and he found it very dishonest afterwards. This was a great shock to him and terrible.

So yeah, it was all like that. Well, big archaeology has been doing that to to poor Hancock for years now. So it's part of the course, hasn't it? Yeah, I know. And that is one of the things I wanted to just ruminate on was that this pose that the heterodox system has of its willingness to hear controversial ideas, that it's sticking it to the mind, these mainstream authorities with all their influence, the heterodox fear exists to give the people access to these voices that they haven't heard. Now, I just want to compare here,

but that like Flint Debel, as he described on the interview, is an academic on a 50% salary with a small YouTube channel. Now he has about 30,000, but a lot of that is off the back of his appearance on Rogan. Graham Hancock, in comparison, is someone appearing regularly on the largest podcast on the world for I think 12 years or so is when his first appearance on Rogan was. But he, you know, a recurrent guest. He has two Netflix seasons. Right.

Two Netflix seasons, one featuring Keanu Reeves and he's doing a publicity tour all around the kind of heterodox sphere talking about his new season. And I feel like there should be an element where the people in the heterodox sphere look around and say like, are we maybe like actually the mainstream media or stuff? There's a multi-million dollar Netflix series and podcasts with huge income and advertisers, huge audiences, but they're still presenting themselves as we're the renegades, you know, presenting the things that won't be talked about. And actually Graham Hancock has a whole bunch of bestselling books. I knew about him when I was a teenager.

It's, it's not hard to find his Atlantis stories. In fact, it's very popular, popular enough to get multiple TV series. So that pose that we're going to be dealing with renegades and heretics and whatnot, it strikes me as, as an offer that's very self-serving and untrue. That's right. I mean, like the truth is, is that someone like Hancock, is it the, is it the frontier of like entertainment? Like, you know, he creates these popular books. He does these Netflix series. He's on the Joe Rogan podcast. He's on heaps of them.

Selling a very appealing, but entirely wrong myth about Atlantis and ancient civilizations and ancient technologies and so on. Archaeology does not have that bigger profile. There is no big archaeology, right? If you're an archaeologist, you're really lucky to get a tiny little grant and to do a bit of teaching and so on. It doesn't have the same sex appeal as these ancient technologies. So yeah, Graham Hancock with the wounded bird thing, you know, with the dangerous ideas that no one's allowed to talk about. Now everyone's talking about them because they are appealing, stupid and wrong, unfortunately, but that's what Joe Rogan specializes in, doesn't he?

So this is the other thing, Matt, that, you, that one of the sore points and one of the things that got Rogan upset was these supposed links between white supremacy and Graham Hancock. And in the interview that I did with Flint, he's very clear that he is not accusing Graham Hancock of being a racist, but he is saying that what Hancock's material does is provide fuels for racists and potentially deal in Victorian racist tropes in some respects. So this is what he wanted to argue, that he doesn't feel that Graham Hancock is personally racist, but he should be critical of how his material is used and he should be more interested in the racist attitude of Victorian era figures or colonial adventurers and whatnot. And there was a story, Matt, in the Express in the UK where the Express found a open white supremacist, like neo-Nazi.

They have recorded a video of them explaining how useful Graham Hancock's material is for recruiting people. And they described it as like third, right, archaeology. I thought that was a good way to introduce. But long story short is is Hancock Yeah, no, he basically says Aryan without saying Aryan I mean he constantly makes he he cites constantly the The ancient texts that say that they were white-skinned people that they were white-skinned people with beards that there are white-skinned people

blue-eyed with brown beards or gold beards or red beards and he'll write that and I'm to tell you the truth I'm surprised it's taken them this long to slander the guy because as soon as they came out with this Netflix documentary which is surprising in and of itself all of a sudden the Jew media started bashing Hancock and all you got to do is look that up, and it's interesting that they weren't saying this stuff 20, 30 years ago. 25 years ago, 1994 I think was when he first published,

it was 94, 95 when Fingerprints of the Gods came out. And he's basically saying yes, white people, ancient white man created everything. I'm surprised it's taken them this long to attack the guy. But I mean, like, if you read his books, it's like reading something from the third right. I've read Fingerprints of the Gods five times and I use it as a source a lot. I think it's a great book. Now, to Hancock's credit, he responded to this giving a statement where he

basically explains that he doesn't endorse that view, you know, racism is terrible and that we're all people. So he gives like a kind of strong rebuke. Yeah. Right. In the response. But the thing is, this is what Flint was talking about, right? Flint was saying, people are using your work for this purpose and you should denounce it.

And Graham Hancock was saying, this is a smear. But as it turns out, actually, no, it is true. And there's a video of, you know, some idiot racist talking about this. So now he's been forced to respond to it and to his credit he has, but that just spoke to me that like that point, which is perhaps one of the more controversial ones actually, you know, turned out that there are legitimate connections and that Dibble was saying, you know, because he doesn't think that Hancock shares those views, this is a point that they can agree on where they should be able to just both

talk about that being a misuse and to Hancock tried it. He has done that in response, right? But it's the way he presented it was that, you know, that was just a smear meet up to try and discredit him. Yeah. Yeah. So, so it's good. Graham Hancock did the right thing by totally distancing himself and condemning that sort of use of his theories. But at the same time, yeah, he's also demonstrating that by he actually just did what Flynn Debell suggested that he do. He has to in fairness retract that that outrage over that particular point that Flynn made.

Yeah. And now, Matt, I have a little bit of an extended clip from our good friend, Andrew Gold. He did a Q&A and he was... There's a lot of clips I could take from Andrew Gold, but this is, I think, one of the least cruel ones to focus on. So he's talking about the dynamics on YouTube, the kind of algorithm and this kind of thing, and I think he did a pretty good job of illustrating what is motivating people when they're focusing on YouTube and feeding the monster. And this is in response to somebody asking him about, would he like to cover other topics other than the stuff that he focuses on, which is primarily all the anti-woke at the minute.

And I thought this was interesting. So listen to this. What new topics would you like to touch on in the future? And I think there are many that I don't and I think there are questions later that I'll sort of labour this point. But when you make a channel like this, you are somewhat limited. And I think a lot of idealistic people are somewhat offended by this or let down by this when I talk about it because they want to believe that here I am as some creative pioneer of the internet just making what I want to make and what floats my boat and to a large extent that is true. However it is

just a fact of how YouTube works that if you release a video that is not popular as a topic among your subscribers that that video will die. It will be a waste of a lot of money that you've put into it, let alone a lot of time. Now you can argue, hang on, it's not a waste of time. You got it out there and 20 people still saw it. Okay, you know, I get that, but I could just tweet about it as well, rather than make an hour long, huge video just for a few people to watch. The second issue is once you do that all the people who didn't click on it are less likely to be shown the thumbnail, the video link, for my next video and that won't do as well.

So then it's basically a downhill slope from there. You, you are under constant stress as a YouTuber, constantly stressed. Uh, and every video has to do incredibly well. And if one video comes out that doesn't do as well as the rest, it will influence the rest of them. Equally, if you have a couple of really big ones as I had this month with Richie Herron, which is over a million, and Dr. Hilton, which is approaching a million fast, it lifts the rest of the channel and you start to grow at a much, much faster rate. And it is very much like gambling.

It's very much you wake up in the morning after a video has come out and the first thing is you look at your phone that this is an addiction. And the people who get to the point where they're actually able to make a living from it. We're addicted we are addicts with regards to youtube and it's you cannot get to this position without being so. I know some people get you know a bit older and more successful and they hire huge teams to take care of this kind of thing. But unless you are a Stephen Bartlett or something like that, you're basically a one-man show and you are addicted. Well, Chris, I've found that quite refreshing really. He's quite aware and self-aware about the incentives of play and how the YouTube algorithm works and a little bit like Constance in Kissin, he shows his hand quite readily. I mean,

he's a creature of the algorithm and he feels compelled to make clickbait essentially. But, you know, if you want to have a successful YouTube channel, you're kind of compelled to do that. I mean, there's a fair bit of truth in that, isn't there? I mean, yes and no, but like, I feel I see a bunch of creators who choose a different path. Take a coffeezilla, for example, right? He's tried a whole bunch of different things, but when we were talking to him, he was saying, you know, initially he was thinking he has to feed this algorithm with consistent content. But then he found out that his audience actually responded to longer form investigations, even if they took time and that people were willing to support that.

And he didn't need to do these kinds of daily news breakdowns. Yeah. They sort of, he didn't need to do the, the grinding and the optimizing. Yeah. And like what Andrew Gold is describing is audience capture, but leaning into it. Cause what he talks about is like the success is Stephen Bartlett, right? Dari of a CEO. Yeah.

You know, that's the people that have made it and are doing it. Right. And from my perspective, those are the people that are making a lot of money, but are producing a lot of draws, right? They don't care if the person they have on is a Brett Weinstein talking nonsense for three hours, as long as it gets enough downloads or like Lex with Kanye West, these kinds of things.

So his role models are just like people that make a lot of money. Yeah. Well, of course, I mean, this is the Constantin Kyssen understanding of what it means to be successful, right? Which is they do equate metrics with success, not totally unreasonably, right? Because this is obviously the ticket to everything they want, which is monetary benefits and a higher profile

and all of that stuff. Influence. Yeah, but like you said, it's not compulsory. You don't have to do that. You can simply be good, like Coffeezilla. You don't have to do that. You can simply be good like Coffeezilla. You can simply have something unique to offer and to continue to deliver that. And with the hope that people will appreciate it.

Or you could be like a Constantin Kyssin or an Andrew Gold. There are different paths, Chris, to success. I know, I know. So it was mainly in part, they're describing the YouTuber dynamics, which I've heard elsewhere, but what he's describing there is basically that you must feed the algorithm in order to grow

and grow phase the goal. It's a bit like a Mr. Beast mindset, but I usually hear YouTubers talking about how that is a poison. That is a mindset that leads to the dark side, right? Producing pandering content and whatnot. And his view that if he made something that was worthy, but like not many people saw it or it damaged his ability to get future downloads, that's the metric, right? It doesn't matter if what he produced was actually more accurate than the thing

that got like more downloads. So yeah, I just thought it was revealing enough that mindset and there was much more revealing stuff in that Q and A, but I'm not going to. I mean, Chris, honestly, I think it is revealing. I mean, like more and more, like genuinely, what do you think about this? Because I've saw like more and more like genuinely, what do you think about this? Because I feel like more and more that the incentives at play is actually a bigger and bigger part in terms of Understanding why people are like this when you look at most of the gurus they are all really focused on their metrics Yeah, it's true of Brett Weinstein just as much as the result of Andrew Gold

Yeah, like they notice immediately when their engagement or Jordan Yeah, or Jordan Peterson when their engagement levels drop by 15%. Like they are, like Andrew says, addicted. And whether it's attention or the immediate financial benefits of getting more subscribers and advertising revenue or whatever, I mean that is what is driving them to to be what they are. And I think this explains a lot of what is contributing to an unhealthy discourse in, in America and other places in the world where just things get like everything gets more and more click baiting more and more extreme more and more negative emotions, and an outrage or conspiracy

theories and delusional fantasies instead of content. It's just like, it's like junk food for the brain. Um, but that is, you know, that is what sells, I guess. Well, so speaking of conspiracy theories and junk food for the brain, Justin Trudeau in some testimony in Canada mentioned about Russian influence campaigns amongst popular media fingers and specifically cited Jordan Peterson as one such figure. We have seen that anti-vax messages during the convoy and during the pandemic were amplified by Russian propaganda, especially in the media of the right. And it was continued by messages

the people who were sharing anti-vax messages. It doesn't mean that there weren't people who were sharing anti-vax messages. It doesn't mean that there weren't people who were legitimately anti-vax, but that was hugely amplified by Russian propaganda. And once Russia, Ukraine was invaded, we saw a lot of those channels become pro-Putin propaganda channels. And as I said, we names that are well known,

Tucker Carson as well, in order to amplify messages that are destabilizing. If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at patreon.com slash Decoding the Gurus. Once you do, you'll get access to full-length episodes of the Decoding the Gurus podcast, including bonus shows, Gurometer episodes, and Decoding Academia. The Decoding the Gurus podcast is ad-free and relies entirely on listener support. Subscribing will save the rainforest, bring about global peace, and save Western civilization. And if you cannot afford $2, you can request a free membership, and we will honour zero of those requests.

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