Decoding the Gurus - Supplementary Materials 14: Return to the Gurusphere

Episode Date: August 31, 2024

World travels complete the Guru Decoders reconvene to examine how the Gurusphere has been behaving in their absence. Bad news abounds.Featuring:Introduction and Hosts' ReunionChris's Travel Tales Cultural Observations and ComparisonsHealth Concerns and Anti-Vax MovementRFK Jr. and Political EndorsementsQuarantine Measures in HistoryBret Weinstein endorses TrumpEric Weinstein's quasi-endorsementStephen Bartlett promotes Bret and gets in trouble for adsPlagiarism Allegations against Robin Di AngeloElon Musk's Twitter Investors RevealedKonstantin Kisin vs. a normal InterviewJonathan Pageau and 5G ConspiraciesSam Harris & Destiny ConversationSam's Analysis of Jordan PetersonSocial Media Derangement: Sam vs. DestinyOffline vs Online BehaviourFocus on the Far Left vs. the Far RightClosing Thoughts & Next EpisodeThe full episode is available for Patreon subscribers (1 hr 36 mins).Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurusLinksRFK endorsing TrumpDelusions, Right and Left: A Conversation with “Destiny” (Steven Bonnell) (Episode #381)Konstantin Kisin vs. NBC interviewerFortune: Elon Musk was just forced to reveal who really owns X. Here’s the listBBC: Steven Bartlett nutrition adverts banned for being misleadingEric's quasi-endorsement of RFK Jnr. and TrumpBad Stats clip of Pageau from Peterson AcademyBret endorsing Trump and RFK Jr.Free Beacon: Robin DiAngelo Plagiarized Minority Scholars, Complaint Alleges

Hello and welcome to Decoding the Gurus, supplementary material with the cognitive anthropologist Christopher Cabot, the psychologist Matthew Bryan, here to talk about gurus and what they've been up to and all those kind of things. But it's been a while, Matt, that the coding booth has been empty, sitting here underutilized.

What happened? What did you do? Where did you go? You know very well. You've been away, haven't you? You've been off on a trip back to the old country. Yeah, on a pilgrimage. I went back to the UK, to London and to Oxford, both places I've spent time in. And I went to the spiritual homeland, the Emerald Isle, to Belfast to see my family. And I did also go down to Dublin just to fly out of the airport, just to say hello, Dublin. And then I went to Switzerland and then I came back. So I've been away from Japan for a while.

And I did log around all of those countries, a microphone with the best of intentions, Matt, the best of intentions. But it's hard. It's hard to find the right mind space, the right mentality, the right empty room when you're jumping around between locations and places. So, yeah.

You see, Chris, I knew you taking your microphone was an act of incredible optimism. I knew when you say things to me like, oh, it'll be fine. I'll record on the road. I know it's never going to happen but you know what i don't contradict you i just say yes chris yes we'll record then and you were just telling me that this is a cultural fault uh of you and your people this is a thing an irish thing yeah and by my people we potentially mean just my family it's it's quite possible that this is not a Northern Irish treat, but a Kavanaugh family treat, because I did notice that the Kavanaugh family were prone to optimism

in their time assessments and fitting things in. So yes, this could be a Northern Irish treat, could be a family treat. It's hard to say without a wider sample. But yeah, i was back experiencing the joys of customer service in the uk and and ireland and i'm finishing off with switzerland i will say because i've only had like a couple of days in switzerland switzerland's quite a country like in terms of scenery it's ridiculous ridiculous. It looks like the little, you know,

if you type in like Switzerland scenery into Google, you will see these mountains with crystal blue lakes. And that is what the country is like, which is, I was quite surprised. Like that's usually, you know, one specific location in a country, but that seems to be what Switzerland is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know what else they have. I didn't, like, that's primarily what they have. And I did go to a chocolate factory and the little Simpsons scene, you know, we come from the land of chocolate. Simpsons was constantly playing in my head. But yeah, Switzerland, quite a scenic country. That's my take.

And how were the people? Would you like to slander the Swiss? Or have you got only good things to say? The Swiss that I interacted with, that I was staying with, the Swiss-German family, actually international family, but never mind, one of them at least, is Swiss-German. Perfect actually international family, but never mind, one of them at least is Swiss-German. Perfect. Unbelievably.

Very nice hosts. The general Swiss people, mixed. But I got distinctive German undertones in the engagement. Makes sense. Yeah. Well, what about Northern Ireland? What about Belfastfast did you get reverse culture shock i did yeah i'd reverse culture check the whole trip i've been in japan for a

decade it's worth noting that this is going to increasingly occur perhaps but you know nothing nothing hugely shocking but um just just just what you would expect from somebody traveling to europe and there are good points there and there are bad points i notice you're being much more diplomatic now we're talking online than where we spoke earlier but that's fine that's fine you don't need to share look look in terms of food culture i think it's clear that asia and japan in particular sets a high bar which yeah i know the way to say it is that it just like knocks belfast for six oh yes specifically belfast certainly 100 100 and belfast or northern ireland i will also is like, it is really green. It's so green.

Like, you know, the stereotype of Ireland is it's green. It is. It's ridiculously green. There's green everywhere. And it's because it rains a lot. It's green. And also it's flat. That's something that hasn't, like, stuck in my mind. Because I've been in areas with mountains for quite a bit now.

And then you go to ireland and yeah there's technically mountains some people refer to these things as mountains but essentially the glorified hills um that's yeah just like and a lot of sheep a lot of sheep a lot of cows this this is it is the stereotype i was feeling like hey you know follower 10 didn't have everything wrong in the way it represents there's a surprising amount of sheep around well there you go this is good um so the takeaway is that stereotypes are real and true the switzerland is just like that um the land of chocolate and uh and postcard scenery northern ireland is very green with lots of sheep you know i had the same thing when i came

back to australia coming on the plane and then after i landed i had the same thing after living away for a while which is like you your response was wow this is incredibly green for me this my response was this is just incredibly brown. I can't believe how brown everything is. There's just one color. We live in monopilot cultures. That's what I came to appreciate. And I did might go to a bouldering gym, as you know, I want to do.

So I experienced Northern Irish bouldering gym culture you know i want to do so i experienced northern irish bouldering gym culture which was interesting two two things that are notable one was i was actually very glad to see it because there was it was in high use that particular gym and very nicely set up and organized and a wide age range that's all nice you know healthy culture not just people getting wasted in forests i did oh yeah she mentioned this as well you know going to go to the supermarket or whatever in belfast i went to locations where as a teenager i hung around and seeing them in the harsh clear of day like you know 20 or 30 years later where i was hanging around it was like that's not a good good environment you know parking lots at the edge of forests whatever just yeah and i was mentioning that

and my wife would say but what did you but what did you do here and i was like nothing good nothing nothing good went on in these dark nights around here and so people going to the bouldering gym epic comparison it's daylight it's bright there's colors there's nobody drunk that's uh yeah that's relatively wholesome but the funny thing is i expect this is just like we're applying a whole bunch of countries but groups of shirtless young men not that many to be fair but this seems to be a thing that people do. And in a hot country, you know, like at least Australia, you have an excuse, but in Ireland, you don't really have an environmental reason for that. It's purely aesthetic and that's fine.

You know, like it's, like I say, better than getting drunk in parking lots and forests. But yeah, that was different, as was the fact that when we arrived at the opening time, somebody was busy vacuuming. And they saw us come in. And then they just proceeded to vacuum for another eight minutes or so. Actually, they never came. Somebody else eventually came. But my son was like, oh, they don't work here.

They must just be. And I was like, no, no, they work here this is just not japan that somebody will potentially come and he you know he was he was confused he's like it's not open and i was like no it is open they're just ignoring us so yeah they have seen us that was quite funny but um yeah yeah oh and my son picked up a northern irish accent within like one day because it's oh his default accent is northern irish right because he you know learned from me both of my sons um yeah the primary language model is me in english but as soon as they heard everyone else being very northern irish it's like their you know their cognitive units kicked in to be like oh so you

just turn it up the 11 and then that's what they it was really funny because it became like really really broad belfast accent almost immediately oh that's fantastic because i've heard a certain lilt in your sons um oh yeah it's way stronger no it probably won't last but you know it was just very funny because it's like accent was stronger than mine very very quickly so yeah i enjoyed that well you know what's been going on here while you've been away gallivanting having a nice time there's been in my kids school there's been measles and chicken pox outbreaks and actually i was contacted by the um public health unit

for the for the area stop your kids getting these johnson that's right the government the government they wanted to put the kid in the bubble uh no they wanted to make sure they didn't go to school you know what i mean just to stay away from which we knew not to send it to school to stop spreading the infection but i did read chris vaccination rates for those things are dropping measles and chicken pox um since the old covert and the old influencers have been making their mark so good on them thanks very much for that guys appreciate it yeah anti-vax people bringing back long-defeated infectious diseases. Lovely, lovely stuff.

Yeah, they should be proud of themselves for all they've accomplished. Yeah, yeah. Well, that leads nicely to mention that one recent rotation in the gurusphere is that RFK Jr. has dropped out of the u.s presidential election race and rfk jr noted anti-vaccine advocate for many decades but also just generally he's a pseudoscience lover of every stripe basically every conspiracy every pseudos stance he can come across, he's big in. Well, on that note, you're probably not aware of this because you were away. But he's a chemtrail guy as well as the anti-vax and all that stuff.

He's super worried about chemtrails. And he tweeted a thing assuring someone who posted about all the poisons that they're spraying in the sky that he's going to put a stop to it when when he's uh in the trump administration so you know we thought it'd be primed for the health spot the health czar but uh maybe he'd be tempted away by aviation he can put it into that chemtrail spraying, I did see that actually this morning. But I mean, so RFK Jr. was ostensibly running initially on the Democrat ticket, right? He's a Kennedy, as his name indicates. And there's the general reason that it gets any attention. But then switched to

independent later when he didn't get much traction amongst Democrats. However, it was quite clear that the majority of momentum going for him, yes, there was some built-in, you know, Democratic support and independent leaning and whatnot, but he was always much more aligned with the kind of Trumpist reactionary populist stuff, right? So it isn't a huge surprise to see him drop out and endorse Trump. I thought that was in the long-term possibilities. So it is notable, Matt, that Brett Weinstein called for a unity ticket, right? He wanted Trump to select R.K. Jr. as his vice president. But he didn't do that.

He chose J.D. Vance. But now he's basically spiritually got what he wanted. Brett Weinstein, this is, with the two campaigns combining their energies. So Brett has now come out and endorsed Trump. Shocking, shocking revelation that this has occurred. But before, you know, the Weinsteins like to be a little bit arch about what they're doing. So Brett, even though he basically promotes almost every conservative conspiracy and every attack on Democrats or whatever, he still presented himself as a left-leaning radical.

That's how he constantly presents himself. And here's him talking about, you know, his change of heart, Matt, his new view. There is no conceivable scenario in which I would vote for Kamala Harris. about, you know, his change of heart, Matt, his new view. There is no conceivable scenario in which I would vote for Kamala Harris. I just simply will not do it. Am I open to voting for Trump? I am. I'm especially open to it if he is partnered with Bobby Kennedy, because what that tells me is that my values, which are a much closer match for Bobby's, are represented in that administration.

And that's really what I want. I want a coalition to redefine American politics because, frankly, we have a longstanding problem with it. Very accurate. I mean, his values aren't strongly aligned with RFK's. I mean, they're both conspiratorial nutjobs. Yeah. Did you see the event that Brett brett is at rescue the republic yes i saw the list of talkers did you have a handy who's there russell brand tulsi gabard

brett weinstein robert malone have hanging pierre cory and matt taibi More to be met. What an incredible team. Oh, Jimmy Dore. Jimmy Dore, of course. Jimmy Dore. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's, you know, they were looking for that last zinger. Yeah, yeah. So Tulsi Gabbard, I think you mentioned, has also endorsed Trump. Yeah, that's shocking. But she was a Democrat, Matt, as well.

Like, yeah, Tulsi Gabbard, who was Tucker Carlson's stand-in for a while, that should give a hint about her general political lean, but once was a Democrat. So that's it. Like, in so many people's minds, that's all that matters, right? Like, if there's any affiliation, she is a liberal for life and now a disaffected liberal. But yeah, she's come out and endorsed Trump as well.

And she appears regularly on various heterodox podcasts. She was on with Chris Williamson talking about, you know, how the Republicans are just making so much more sense now. And the Democrats are crazy. Like they're off the hinges. So, yeah, that's a collection of thunderheads um anti-vax anti-vax primarily right yeah anti-vax is the thing that binds them together like that rescue the republic event has you know started as the defeat the mandates anti-covid 19 thing but also linked together with uh another thing this rage against the wall machine which

is basically a anti-ukraine pro-russian thing so lovely they just have to have their then i was worried yes actually they're i think their their agenda here their um their key bullet points are instructive crews um war is always the last resort okay that's fine but that's frankly code for the pro-russia frankly sanctify recodify informed consent secure monetary freedom enact a rational border policy restore family sovereignty liberate truth-seeking banish state media control surveillance and propaganda um oh yeah it just captures what they're on about like what their political valence is and i think it's it's kind of interesting because they're more than just conservatives right they're more than just reactionaries it's this

nouveau stark raving conspiratorial thing yeah i think that is very much the modern conservatism. That is modern conservatism. And each of those, you know, I don't like the over-reliance on dog whistle or that kind of term, right? But each of those is essentially something like, you know, protect the family is anti it's code for anti-gay right anti-trans stuff and informed consent that's vilify doctors and like say that Fauci should be in the Hague so all of those are just like the positive spins of quite nefarious things and and all of them align with the kind of trumpish populist

stance yeah yeah isolationist yeah it's just that things have changed the political axes have swiveled and like well yeah like you said conservatism is not conservative modern conservatism is it's not really conservative anymore it needs a new label it's it's something else well populist populist right but but yeah like secure the border yeah anti-immigration right like because that thing that annoys me so much is that the discourse and the i do think the extreme left on occasion do this as well but they're not maybe as vocal as the far right or this like insane conspiratorial right to frame everything as the position being open borders or secure the borders, right? And what they mean by secure the borders is ethno-nationalism in essence, like a very

harshly restrictive immigration that is highly balanced around ethnicity. But those two positions. So you're either, if you are not that, you are for pure unfettered immigration with anything less than that being regarded as complete racism or insanity, right? And no, no, the majority of political parties, the majority of people are for immigration that is controlled, like controlled immigration with reasonable limits, with good paths to citizenship and whatnot that is, you know, humanitarian focused and whatnot. So there's a whole bunch of positions in between the most restrictive ethno-nationalists and complete borderless utopians who want national

identities, ariest or whatever. But online, these are the two camps that a position does give. Well, if you're not going to be an ethno-nationalist, then you're a far left person who doesn't think there should be any immigration restrictions. Yeah, I know. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, things are really going to get crazier before the election. What else has been going on?

Can I also mention, just before we get off the Bobby Kennedy thing, that like, so Brett just comes out and directly says, yeah, I'm going to vote for Trump now. Oh, this is kids views aligned with mine. What a surprise. It's not like Brett has been carrying water for the populist right for many years already but uh his brother matt so brett's endorsement is pretty up front eric made a comment also about rfk jr dropping out and i think it highlights both the similarities and the distinctions between the two of them because eric posted on instagram

not on twitter a picture of him and i think his wife with rfk jr and his wife cheryl um and somebody's son could be eric's or rfk's but happy families you know hanging together and he says from may 2023 i got to say my father worked for yours and wrote one line in your uncle's state of the union address this is a courageous man i didn't post it at the time because i don't post a lot of things that feel personal or strategic but the robert f kennedy jr i met was a courageous man willing to risk his own life and comfort for his love of his country. I promise you that. Please listen to his speech suspending his campaign.

It is an address for our times, one that will be listened to when this election is long since decided. Praying hands. That to me reads like essentially, because if you listen to his concession speech, it's basically him talking about how important it is to now support trump but also it's a rambling conspiracy thing about how he was going to definitely be the democratic candidate until the evil forces stop them right and all those things so one no it's not going to be listened to for decades or even weeks after the current cycle but but to this is eric's version of an endorsement for what kennedy is saying which is you know who for trump but he will in coming weeks also say that he can't endorse thing or whatnot so in content essentially

pointing people towards the RFK Trump ticket, but not as directly, as openly as Brett. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. This is Eric's signature style. A lot of strategic ambiguity. You notice he's not going to endorse anything specific that they do because then he's tied to it.

He likes to maintain just a cloud of obfuscation and he's very good at it. And, you know, not surprising because Robert F. Kennedy is promising people he's going to put a stop to the crime of chemtrails spraying when he gets it devoured. So that's probably not something that Eric wants to spend his time defending. I really, it would be funny though if he gets in and and he's he gets appointed by trump to be one of the people in the cabinet or

some chief of something or other and i just i just want him to send out like a executive order to the aviation companies to cease all chemtrails yeah yeah it'll be like even though that old simpsons thing where he keeps telling the baseball guy like cut off those sideburns i mean yeah up to the top and yeah so yeah well so both of them and also just to do it as well matt he shared the picture right of their families he highlighted some connection somebody writing a speech or like this is very much eric right it's about interpersonal connections and the key characteristic i think is which person pays attention to eric and can he post a picture of them with their arms around that's that is the key ingredient like that's the fun so like if biden had invited eric to the white house treated him nicely and whatnot i think you would find eric

willing to look past his disagreements right it's whoever is putting that man in the suit into the important table to talk to the adults so yeah yeah you can't go wrong oh oh a side note on that just before i forget the diary of a ceo guy stephen bartlett two things about him one related to this is he recently promoted brett or he platformed Brett for a three-hour talk about a whole bunch of things, like basically all of Brett's conspiracies about COVID, of course, but also, you know, predictions about sunspots and alternative theories of global warming, all of the things. And yeah, it just reminded me, you know, we recently covered Stephen Bartlett when he was talking to Gabber Mate. And these people, part of the reason that Brett

even has anybody listening to him talk about RFK Jr. is because of people like Stephen Bartlett, who put him in a high production room and then listen to him waffle on for three hours as if he's a very insightful professor with great expertise as opposed to a raving conspiracist who really shouldn't be getting long-form interviews with anybody at this stage well yeah that just illustrates the abysmally low standards of these influencers like that guy, Dario, the CEO. He doesn't really have an availence of his own too much. It's more just that he'll have anyone on. He'll do the numbers, right?

Gets the clicks. Yeah. And he was also, just to note, this is our, we never missed Tali getting dinged up, Matt. He was reprimanded recently for failure to disclose ties to various brands that he worked for in advertisements that he read. So, you know, I think that we dinged and said, like, isn't this a bit underhand? He received a UK equivalent of official reprimand for that the advertisement standards agency banned some of the ads that he's been producing saying that you know it wasn't disclosing his role in the company well you'd think you'd get sick of being proven right all the time but you never do chris there was

actually two more news stories involving our gurus that came across my desk oh the gurus pod news desk yeah um one involving robin d'angelo and one involving elon musk which one would you like to hear about first oh neil but tell me about robin d'angelo robin d'angelo uh well people may know that there's been a bit of an outbreak of people being done for plagiarism who who was the other person who it was the heads of the universities that got in trouble for the presidents after their kind of questioning at congress and then people looked into their records, right? Wasn't that it? I know there were all those.

Claudine Gay, I think was the most preeminent one. Yes. Oh, and what's his face? Wife. The Ackerman, his wife, Neri, Neri Oxman, who got black basically by being in proximity to him yeah so um yeah like um it is that the reporting was is by um the free beacons of some right-wing publication but if the screenshots are accurate the the case looks quite strong in that there's a lot of copied and pasted work

from scholars of colour that Robin DiAngelo has copied and pasted into her PhD thesis, you know, with the insertion of a word or two here and there, which is obviously a bad look for Robin DiAngelo who makes an incredibly big deal about um citing you know white people have to cite people of color's voices and they should um always give credit and always you know elevate those other voices and so it is a bit inconsistent with um with that when you are plagiarizing their words and passing them off as your own so yeah we'll see what happens

with that there'll be an investigation and like i said it's not confirmed it's just this one source even though you know on the face of it it doesn't look good for robin no we did an episode about the plagiarism thing before and and i agree this is you know like it's it's never good i haven't looked into the case with Robin DiAngelo, so no idea how much is plagiarized versus not. But it does, to me, very much matter the extent of it, right? Like, you do tend to find that when people plagiarize without credit for substantial sections, that this is not a single sin, right?

It's a recurrent thing. for substantial sections that this is not a single sin, right? It's a recurrent thing, but I am much less concerned about a paragraph in the thesis going uncredited than I am, you know, somebody passing off like a chapter in a book or something like that. Like it does seem like, well actually like taking a whole theory say and basically yeah and repurposing it or like because i mean if somebody took a paragraph that they

thought was really good you know in their literature review section and they stole it from someone else like that is lazy it's bad but it's it's not like somebody was going to get huge amounts of credit for that and you've stolen it. Like that's different than taking someone's paper, you repurposing it and presenting it as your own work that you get citations for and they don't. So I feel like that, you know, might be a little bit. Well, yeah. Chris, I will agree with you. Chris, I will agree with you. In fact, it did occur to me that a lot of the kind of stuff that D'Angelo writes and people in that genre,

it feels like much of what they're writing is like rehashing the same 12 sentences anyway. And I think you're correct in your take there, which is it's more indicative of just laziness than anything else. Like here's a paragraph of the kind you describe. The original, indeed indeed whiteness may be characterized by a contradictory consciousness in which a definitive innocence is contingent upon involvement in racial oppression okay yeah um d'angelos is indeed

whiteness may be characterized by a contradictory consciousness in which an insistent but that's that's the one word of hers that's original and insistent in a sense is contingent so i mean i think your point is true like that paragraph as far as i could tell is is just kind of saying the same thing as like it's it's that jargon sort of vague stuff and it's lazy but it's not really stuff of substance is it no just to be clear i still think she deserves to be hoisted by her own petard on on this especially because she would present this in someone else as like you know a huge sin i i feel like live by the moral crusade die by the moral crusade right like so i don't have sympathy in that regard for her specifically, just in all of these cases, including Neri Oxman or some right-wing figure.

Neri Oxman isn't, I think, a right-wing figure, but, you know, she was getting targeted because of Bill Ackman. In all those cases, I think, like, you know, if there's a pattern of it and if it's very bad it is indicative of like sloppy laziness but it's like it's it is this huge sin in academia that can completely take people down and that you you shouldn't do like i don't i don't do it specifically because of that but i also i'm like it would be perfectly fine if they took that exact paragraph changed the words around and then said the exact same thing that's fine but then you know

taking it and changing one word is terrible i'm like i know it's fine i'm not saying it isn't but i just mean to me it's kind of the same thing they're just like yeah it's just it's just like it's just lazier and like you said the substance is the same but yes it is like i feel like journalists also regard this as a very big sin because their income right is based on their work right so like when someone plagiarizes in journalism it's a really big sin and i get why it is in academia too but i i just think you have to have the degrees for it so if it turns out that d'angelo has done this in like lots and lots of her papers and she's constantly you know plagiarizing all her work without credit then fine if she was just lazy writing her thesis and stole stuff that's bad but to me it's you know

whatever but but in her case like given all her rhetoric people will absolutely crucify her for and tough yeah hoist by hoist by their own petard uh okay elon musk elon Musk. Again, this is just a news thing that came to my attention. It seems to be backed up when I did some cursory checking, but he was forced to reveal the investors that helped him buy Twitter as part of some legal cases that he's perpetually getting himself involved in. Science or free speech, were they? No, Chris, they were not um well who knows maybe maybe maybe russian oligarchs yearn to be free and and really just want america to have

more free speech and for katya to to spread the good word in miles chung needs to be heard matt he must be heard yeah so i i believe uh it's also the case that uh a fair amount of saudi uh money i thought that was known though i thought like yes that was already known that's right so we have russian oligarchs now that's the new added into the mix added into the mix so i think they've all lost a huge amount of money by investing in twitter um but you know one does suspect because it is also i think the case and it is not really in dispute that you know countries like china or russia or probably factions within other countries like perhaps maybe not saudi arabia i don't know but um you know it is used to do what they would see as destabilizing the United States right they see America's you

know free speech thing and you know free markets and all that stuff is basically an Achilles heel and they see what looks to them like a lot of lack of social cohesion and they see it as an opportunity to uh you know, weaken the United States by essentially promoting whatever is going to cause disruption and contention. So, you know, it could be vaccines one day. It could be trans things the next day. It doesn't really matter as long as it makes Americans upset.

So, you know, one can't help be a little bit suspicious about the motivations behind um some of those foreign investors yeah well you know the cm playbook i think it's just a very old playbook as well but like the internet research agency or what is it anyway the russian uh disinformation bureau basically yep their um activities were documented and they were doing stuff like that not as on such a grand scale as pumping billions into twitter but this was you know setting up various facebook groups that were on different sides of issues and fermenting you know distrust but but it is also noticeable like that's often presented as they were astroturfing the left and the right equally, but it wasn't.

The relative proportion was vastly in favor of Trumpish stuff, but they also did do left-wing racial identity politics stuff as well. But it was all about stoking grievance and division and dissension. The civil war is imminent, as Elon Musk would say so yeah yeah yeah I think they see I think they see people like Trump or Musk as easy marks frankly um useful idiots to help them with that kind of thing um yeah anyway uh Konstantin Kisin got contacted by a reporter. I forget for which publication it was for, but he recorded the telephone call.

NBC was the journalist. And it was a journalist who wanted to ask him about comments that Musk had made about a civil war in Europe being inevitable, and I think the UK as well. And then Constantine kind of seeming to endorse these, right? And the reporter wanted to ask him about his view about those and what Musk meant. And obviously the reporter had a line,

which was that he read Musk's various tweets predicting imminent civil war as exacerbating the possibility of that happening, especially in the wake of that happening, especially in the wake of, you know, violent outbreaks, anti-immigrant riots and whatnot in the UK. So Constantine, he posted the recording of the interview and kind of presented that as the mainstream trying to railroad him. Right.

But if you listen to it, Matt, as I'm sure you did, it was essentially a reporter doing their job. They were calling up, they were asking about Constantine's take on things. And Constantine was giving very diplomatic answers towards things and then being outraged by the implication that he would be presenting things as immigrant versus non-immigrants or this kind of thing. And then getting annoyed at a reporter saying, like, I've already answered that. Like, why? I find it strange that you're still asking me for this and like predicting the context of a civil war. Like, why are you asking me? Right. And it's just their audience then laps up. You know, this is the kind of dishonest the media is. And you're like, no, that is just a reporter asking questions in a way that you don't like with an implication that you don't like.

And yes, they are wanting to frame it as isn't this a bit racist? Isn't he encouraging dissension? isn't this a bit racist isn't he encouraging dissension but like they're aligned to do that right this whole freedom of the media and it's presented very much as you know by doing that it's illegitimate and what you should be doing is sitting down with Elon Musk for three hours and just asking him in indulgent ways you know like yeah flattering him flattering yeah that's right their idea of an interview is is where you sit down with them for three hours let them ramble on about whatever takes their fancy and take every opportunity you can to flatter them that's it like so it's it's ironic that these are champions of free speech but they all hate the media just the normal like normal

media practice like a tough interview being asked difficult questions yeah they hate that they hate that and it would actually the thing is as well if a reporter came out with an article that was biased right and over interpreted elon musk's tweets and whatnot that could perfectly happen right and a outlet has an editorial line and then that gets criticized you can criticize the line and the spin that they're taking on it, but they just present it as fundamentally dishonest. Like Constantine talks about the media narrative that he wanted to impose on this event, but he doesn't talk about the fact that like Elon Musk has a narrative, right? That Constantine Kishin has a

narrative. They all have narratives. So the reporter is pressing them on what their narrative implies and they don't like it. So yeah, just that it's this constant presentation of persecution. They're trying to get me, they're trying, you know, but I'm one step ahead of them. And I noticed this because Andrew Gold retweeted it saying, you know, do you ever think or wish that you were just as quick thinking as Constantine Kissin is, you know, as soon as, and I was like, Jesus Christ, the level of crawling that is accepted because this is Constantine Kissin defending Elon Musk's tweets, right. And, and trying to demonize a reporter and kind of get kudos from elon musk right and and then andrew gold crawling to constantine kissin as an important person to argue back against the mainstream it's

like layers of sycophancy deep that you get very quickly on social media it's like a pyramid of idiots kissing each other's butts up the hierarchy it's it is it's a bit like the uh that horrible movie the human centipede oh the human centipede yeah i thought of that too but i didn't go there well that's that's it but um so there's two last things matt i've got two for you now to to round things off and one of them is short so i guess we'll do that first before going to the the longer one the short one is just you know peterson academy launched and intrepid internet explorer bad stats signed up for their course and has been taking the courses documenting that peterson doesn't know how to use PowerPoint to present a vote and various issues with the tests that are automatically generated, seemingly not working and whatnot. But he also extracted a clip of Peugeot, who teaches a course on symbolism and religious symbolism and all this,

but he talked a little bit about 5G, Matt, and COVID. And let's hear the wisdom of Pajot on this topic. When COVID started, if you remember, some people started saying that the, what is it? The new internet, I forget what the name of it. It's like this new, the the the new internet i forget what's the the the name of it it's like this new this the highest form of internet whatever these towers these cell towers and these internet towers they were the ones that were causing covid remember that right so these sorry yeah 5g sorry so you see how little i know about these things it's like 5g towers are causing covid and it got

so far that some that some people actually like burned some down. Some people like attack some of these 5G towers. And so ridiculous, right? I mean, it's so ridiculous to think that these 5G towers are causing COVID. Okay. Is it really that ridiculous? okay, is it really that ridiculous? The question is, at what level is it not ridiculous? So often the problem is that we look at material causalities and then we look at those and that's ridiculous. Like I honestly really, it's clear that 5G towers

aren't causing the virus in your body or the symptoms in your body. But are 5G towers causing COVID? Well, that's a more interesting question to ask. So think about what happened during COVID. And imagine that happened 100 years ago. Would we have had COVID if that had happened 100 years ago would they have shut down everything they shut down schools and stores and could they have shut down everything

and the answer is obviously no right if COVID had happened 100 years ago, people would have died and people would have cried and people would have buried their dead and they would have mourned and then life would have continued. Of course. What made it possible for COVID to happen? 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.

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