Decoding the Gurus - Gurometer: Peter Thiel *Patreon Preview"

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

'Tis a New Year (sort of), and amidst all the chaos in the world, we thought we'd offer a small glimmer of light by making this Patreon episode available to everyone! If you enjoy it, consider joining us on Patreon—or not, it's your call!In this episode, Matt and Chris scry through the portents and ponder the apocalyptic insights of the tech and finance titan Peter Thiel. We all know that Thiel is an urbane gentleman of great refinement with a collection of revolutionary ideas but does he make the Gurometer sing? Tune in to find out—and, as a bonus, learn more than you ever wanted to know about the intricacies of academic grading systems.

Music Joining me today on Decoding the Gurus, we have a man, an Arbian man, a spectacular man, someone of great learning, insight, wit, a man who has revolutionized several fields that he's been involved with. And today he will be discussing with us apocalyptic figures and prophecies from the Bible. Matthew Brown, welcome. Welcome to Decoding the Guru's Gourmetar Edition. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Clearly you're familiar with my work. I'm glad about that. Yeah, I'm happy to be here, happy to dispense my wisdom. I've got so much wisdom accrued from the school of hard knocks throughout my life.

I feel too coherent and not enough halting there to yip pitter-patter. There should have been more, oh, well, the thing is that, yeah, the Bible. Well, actually, we've got to go back to some guy you've never heard of. Got to talk about him first. Why is no one talking about this, Matt? Why is no one talking about this? There's no one talking about it. Yeah, we did Peter Till.

Peter Till, how can a man be so inarticulate and yet also such a blathering mess? He should at least have the decency to be eloquent like a Jordan Peterson or even a Weinstein. I'll hand it to them. I do feel that it was right to do him and Curtis Jarvan as a package deal because they are essentially mirror images of each other. Some of them have distributed their ability points in slightly different stacks, but they're fundamentally very similar intellectual powerhouses of the new right, as some dare to say. But today, Matt, we are entering them into that sweet science of grometry. We're going to take them a couple of rounds, teach them a thing or two about what it takes to be a real secular guru. Are you tough to Peter T are you? Let's see.

Yep. It's like if you took all the best bits of alchemy and phrenology and mashed them together, you'd get the gromida. It's a, yeah, it's a science. It's a science. I'm the only, you and It's a, yeah, it's a science. It's a science. Only you and I doing it. But at the moment, but so far, so far, so far, that's yeah, the publications are someone's got to be first. And Matt, I know we're not allowed to do this. I know it's forbidden

by the Dakota Negroes High Council. But can I just say, would you allow me to say that I saw. Andrew Huberman tweeting out a heartfelt story. He saw a new generation of hard problem solvers. This little documentary short essay about look firetor.

OK, it's this senior at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, who was digitizing old texts and using AI technology to look for them. Now, I just want to give credit to Andrew Huberman for shouting out random students and inspiring stories. There's no other can't.

Oh, wait, this is Luke Farator, who is now on the Doge team. Oh, right. That might be why Huberman is tweeting out awesome story. The next generation of hard problem solvers is here. So, yes, that would be it, wouldn't it? He's just trying to be a sycophantic licks spittle for Elon Musk. Sorry, I retract that. They're all so predictable, Matt. They're all so predictable.

Look, Chris, these are all strong, powerful, vigorous, innovative men. Of course, they have high regard for each other. That's just how it works. Like recognises like. Game recognises game. Yeah, that's right. That's right. But we're not here. This isn't the supplementary material. What are we doing? We're not here to sling shit at random. No, we've got my specific

target. That's right. Peter Thiel is going to be upset. We're not telling him all the attention he warrants. Right. Yes. Our task today is to enter him into the gyrometer and

figure out where he lands. So Chris, the first entry... Where do we start, Matt? Where do we start? We start at the beginning, naturally, which is galaxy brainness. Galaxy brainness. This is that kind of, you know, you're spinning off on all different... You've got opinions on every different topic. It's all spread around. You've got opinions about religion. You've got opinions on every different topic. It's all spread around. You've got opinions about religion. You've got opinions about technology. Gee, where am I thinking of these examples from? Anyway, you've got a bit on a bunch of topics and maybe they're all linked together. People can go prophecies.

Yeah. I mean, just to take another random example. Yeah, that's the thing. So anyway, claiming to have some sort of deep insight across a wide variety of fields. Did we sometimes call this polymathery? Was this kind of another joke you turned me up on? Yeah, claim polymorphic ability. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. If you've got an academic audience and you're a bit worried you might blow their mind with

the galaxy brain meme, that's it. You can say, claim polymorphic ability. I'm with all these scores. We score them on a scale of one to five. Where do you land? Where do I land? Well, it's hold your horses, hold your horses. Let's consider it. Well, first of all, Peter Thiel, he actually in that episode

expressed a fair bit of respect for the polymorphic man. Remember, he lamented the sad solo ization of modern science, you know, back in the good old days, you would have a philosopher, he'd be, you know, figuring out what's going on in the minds of women one day, and the next day, doing mathematical theorems, and then the next day, figuring out physics, figuring out that everything is made of water or something. You know, that's back when men were real men.

Building a bridge. Yeah, that's building a bridge. Using Paphakis' theorem to work out dangles, for example. Just an example of the ability that polymathic genius grants you. But the trick is, is the bridge is also made of water. So, you know, it's like everything is, I mean, the modern theory is everything is made of cake, but the Greeks had their own versions of this. Anyway, look, I don't want to disagree. They also thought that everything was made of atoms, which yeah, got a hand. They kind of got that one.

Right. Is he like this? Is he galaxy brand? Yeah. Five think yes I'm locked it in five and and and certainly his interviewer Oh fucking praise his fair bit along those sorts of grounds what a guy what a guy this is the guy whose brain can encompass so many different things just one of the deep thinkers of our time good well he's five you want to say anything about it? Or I just want to say, no, I just, just wanted to mention as well. One person on Twitter was responding to the episode by saying, Oh, Peter Robinson. You guys don't understand.

He's the speechwriter that said Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall. He wrote that speech, Matt. And I was like, this is the interviewer. This is the guy that wrote the speech. Yeah. Yeah. Again.

And he came up with it. How did he come up with that phrase? Mr. Gorbachev tear down that wall. I mean, that is poetry. That changes everything. I retract all my critical comments about him. Like he came up with that line.

Jesus Christ. Uh, so yeah, Anyway, welcome feedback. But no, that doesn't change my view of Peter Robinson. And for anyone who doesn't get it, that phrase is memorable because of the events surrounding it. Yeah, the end of the Cork War, the fall of the Berlin Wall. Ronald Reagan said something pithy. It wasn't the phrase. It wasn't the amazing eloquence, the amazing brains that went into the

phrase that made it memorable. We just, it became memorable because of the circumstances. Would it have been, would anybody have remembered if it wasn't for Peter Robinson? It's hard to say. It's hard to say. Remember, because he could have said, you know, Mr. Gorbachev set your people free. And it would have been just as memorable, you know?

Anyway, yeah, well, that's it. Feedback. We welcome feedback. Thank you very much. Now, the second feature, correct, on the garrometer is cultishness, building of insular communities, praising people within those communities as the insightful truth-seekers, while those on the outside are bad fear factors that want to tear you down and you position yourself as a kind of charismatic authority. Now Chris, I see that I gave Curtis Yelvin just three

for this, which I kind of regret because, I mean, look, these are broad themes, right? And, you know, we've talked about this before, but cultishness, you can think about it more broadly. It's almost like as like a social kind of pernicious way of thinking about social relations and groups and hierarchies and stuff like that in a way that is very self serving, right? You can frame it very generally like that. And, you know, I realized that both Curtis Yavin and Peter Deal believe in this kind of aristocracy of ultra talent.

It's an aristocracy that includes them, and they're good friends, like Elon Musk and so on. Probably doesn't include schmucks like you and me. And now that is it's a kind I mean, you see it, there is a cult develops around that, like they're super fans, other peasants like us who, who idolize these people, because almost by vicariously wanting to be a part of this elite club. Yeah, I think it's a kind of cultishness. So I think even though he, you know, it didn't seem like he didn't do the sort of blatant like emotionally manipulated a friend. Yes. Yes. Like less sort of like,

you know, parasocial stuff targeted at his fans because he doesn't really have fans, right? He's a he's a billionaire, right? He's just a he's not a I mean, he does have fans, but but yes, he's not. Yeah, he's not he's not cultivating an audience like a Brett Weinstein. Russell Brand or something. No, Russell Brand. No. So yeah, so not cultish in that sense, but their mental view of society and groups

and where their privilege plays within it, it is kind of cultish. So I'm going to give them a four. And can I change curses like before? I want to back up to four because I didn't really think about that then. Yeah that's fine. I don't need to change anything. Do we need to make any? Yeah you can do that. I'll note it down in the meetings for this month's article. Yeah the Kurus up there but I will know my... I already gave them both of them four. I will know my I already gave him both of them for so.

Yeah, you're correcting your errors, but you're really only catching up to the correct score. So, yeah, he gets a four because he encourages that and because he he builds a whole lost boy ecosystem around himself. Right. There's a lot of sycophantic, insular thinking and Peter Thiel's various companies. So, yep, he deserves that. Anti-establish. Oh, sorry. This is your turn, but I'm going to steal it and I'll give you the next one. So anti-establishmentarianism, you know, reactive dismissal of all institutions and authorities. Yes. Five. Right. Like this is the easiest one to give.

Yeah, like it is 50% of his theories. It's 50% biblical prophecies. 50% anti-star-was-returnism, right? Like the one world. For him, any kind of institutions and stuff is like, you know, down the perilous road towards one world government and the Antichrist. Although, yeah, as we talked about that stupid thing where he, he wants us to, you know, like restore ancient churches and not buddy's board, the buildings haven't been updated in 30 years. Let me put it this way.

He's anti this establishment, like the establishment that exists in this world. Now he's anti that one. Yeah. He's got some theoretical alternative. I mean, he's, yeah, he's also relatively pro certain aspects of the current like he likes most billionaires that have a libertarian mindset, right? Like he's fine with those guys. So yeah, it's not like he's going to get everything. That's right. It's like against everything. That's right. It's like Trump is anti-establishment, right?

And Eli, right? Yes. They're literally running the government of the United States, but they're also, yeah, whatever. They have an anti-establishment stance. Yeah. Yeah, I'm giving them a five. So yeah, nobody tried to quibble with me about that one.

He's a five. That's correct. What is the next characteristic? Okay. He's a five. That's correct. What is the next characteristic? Okay, the next one is grievance mongering. Three facets to this, as I always like to say, you get your own personal tale of grievance. So you've been hard done by inculcating a sense of grievance amongst your followers. This is what they took from this kind of thing. And what was the third one?

Is it the list of enemies? Like having your kind of personal, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Your hit list, right? Yeah. Yeah. Having a list like, who's the president and how to list?

What'd he got? Putting you on the list. Nixon, yeah. Tricky dick. He had some grievances. Tricky dick. He did have some grievances. He did have some grievances. He did. No, well, when you find it out like that, Matt, you know, when you have all of those

laid out in calculating a sense that you've been personally wronged, I feel like he was a little bit, he dropped out of university, I think, didn't he? And like he, he now rages against universities as being useless and all that kind of thing. So, I mean, I think there is a, an element of that, at least in his narrative. Well, I mean, I'd, I'd cast that more along the anti-establishment terrorism stuff, right? Saying that the universities have failed, don't bother going to them and stuff. So, like, yes, you could say that him saying that the whole, the institutions are failing and it's all falling apart or going the wrong path.

You could say that, oh, then people are going to feel aggrieved about that. But I'm going to give him a low score on this one because I don't think he fits it. Matt, I just want to make clear that actually he did graduate from Stanford Law School. So I was fed fake news by people commenting on Teal saying this was part of his thing. Because I had this feeling that Peter Robinson and him were talking about him graduating from Stanford anyway. So fake news, just correcting that. All right.

Okay. Correcting that live as we go. He did graduate from Stanford regardless of his tail of those. And, and for that error, I'm going to knock down my grievance mongering to 2.5. 2.5. I'm going to put for, I think he does have it, but I do think it's not a distinguishing characteristic. What say you?

I'm gonna give him a one, cause I'm not afraid to give a one if I don't see evidence of something. So I'm gonna give him a one. I see evidence of it. So I'm just being kind. Self aggralentement and narcissism. Now, this speaks for itself.

I don't think we need to explain to people what self aggrandizement and narcissism means, but is Teal, like he's someone that has a very high impression of themselves, but in terms of behaving in a way, you know, I don't see narcissism about just having like a positive self image of yourself and thinking you're smart, right? It's beyond that. And I'm just thinking like with all the other gurus, how he comes across and he's in no way hesitant to give his opinion and to regard it as like weedy and important. But is he someone that comes across as incredibly narcissistic

when you have like Jordan Peterson and whatnot in the mix? I do say it's hard to say, isn't it? Like, I guess in, in many ways he's similar to someone like Elon Musk. Yeah. Who, who is one of the. No, but we get him like. Movers and shakers.

Yeah, I know, but Elon Musk is, is beyond that. He's also incredibly insecure. Right? So he's, he's also that and more, but you know, okay, maybe he's a bad example, but some other billionaire, whatever. you could almost pick any billionaire. What about a Rupert Murdoch? He certainly had a high opinion of himself. But these people-

We gave Andrew Huberman 1.5. Oof. Did we? Holy shit. Yeah. Well, that was back then. That was in the interview with him and talking to Peter Adia. I feel like Huberman would be up several rungs now, but anyway,

I was looking for someone else, you know, to mention as an example. I was like, woof! That was underestimating his arrogance, but yeah. It happens occasionally. So yeah, I'm not sure what a place in there because I reckon he's totally like, he clearly overestimates his own abilities massively. He believes what the interviewer was saying about him, that he is one of the world's greatest thinkers today, really grappling with the key issues, confronting humanity, one of the few people with the ability to do that. But I don't think he feels the need to...

Like self-prom, it doesn't need to you know, I don't yeah, but he doesn't because he doesn't need to amplify that I guess he's secure in his delusional self-confidence. Yes, the cure narcissism, which isn't something that typically his I think I think having over a billion dollars helps with that mostly assistant people. I think I think having over a billion dollars helps with that. Well, but it doesn't seem to help people like Elon Musk. Well, he's Elon Musk is unusual amongst billionaires. Being so needy. So look, I don't know, I guess I'm gonna I'm gonna have to give him a two because he just Yeah, it doesn't predict that doesn't quite shit. Yeah, just one lower than you. You could predict that.

Yeah, I should just root it for you right there. Well, Matt, can you foretell what the next feature is? Do you foresee it on the horizon? Cassandra Complex? Yeah, that's what it was. You're asking for the next category? Good job. Good job.

You made it sound like some sort of mystery. Yeah, that was the point. Cassandra Complex complex warning. Oh, oh, I see. I was doing a bad. Well done. Well done. Sorry. Okay, so this is the foretelling of doom, warning of terrible things that are going to happen. This is often the emotional hook that gurus have that make their ideas so fascinating to us, because who doesn't want to know about the terrible things that are going to happen next week, next month or next year? The apocalypse, the anti-cries. The apocalypse, perhaps. The anti-cries coming. You know, nuclear war, AI gone amuck. Someone warning about these things that could be happening and giving you some sort of special insight to maybe help us prepare for this. Would he be doing that Chris, do you think? Beep! Five! Very nice. Incredible, incredible. I'd like to give him a seven.

Doesn't go up to seven but I think it should be like the dials on that you know going up to 11 like spinal tap. I think occasionally the gyrometer should go up to six. Six. Yeah. Well, we, unfortunately we can't dance to get that night because it will mess up. Everything. But it's unfortunate, but he is like, just imagine he actually is a six, even though it's a five.

Yeah. Imagine he's a six. Okay. So five, I agree. Okay. Next one, Chris, what would it be? Revolutionary theories, like believing that you have these insights

that are very important. It's not just that you're giving ideas and talking about topics, but you have come up with these novel insights that would revolutionize fields, it could change the world if people would only hear you out and focus on what you're doing. Yeah, so this is interesting because I think Tila is very much a purveyor

of revolutionary theories, but he's kind of a conduit for others. You know, like he likes to be the kind of kingmaker or the man behind the throne, pushing certain ideas forward. However, I think his whole shit with life extension and various ideas around like the Bible and whatnot, that all counts. That counts, right? He thinks this stuff about the Antichrist of these gods incredibly important and insightful. So for that reason, I'm gonna put him at the

tippy top here. I'm gonna go five. I'm gonna go five for that. Well, I completely agree. I mean, we write this revolutionary theories thing not on whether or not it really is a revolutionary theory. Yes, but whether or not it's be clear, whether or not they present it as such, it's almost certainly not. So yeah, like you said, he is very much a derivative type of thinker. He just picks like a magpie at little bits, probably misunderstands them and dumbs them down and recycles them from the other bad thinkers. But in the breathless tones that it was presented in that interview,

very much as a revolutionary theory. I mean, it's so out of left field. I mean, would you have thought of this, Chris, using Bible prophecies to try to understand how we can prepare for technologically mediated Armageddon? You wouldn't, would you? No, I wouldn't have. You don't have the brain for it. I would have predicted that a bunch of billionaires would find that something

worth doing, but nevertheless, he gets a five from me. He gets a five from me on that. Yeah, we're not scoring me. We're not scoring you. He's clearly a five on that. Okay, this will be a fun one. It's you know, profound bullshit, Chris. You know, profound bullshit, Chris, it's a profound bullshit.

It's not only the turn of phrase, the use of acronyms or sciency jargon, all that stuff. But also I think that just that general stylistic way in which you present yourself as someone who's uttering incredibly profound, incredibly insightful stuff, putting lipstick on a pig, intellectually

speaking. So what have you to say about this? He does that. He does that a lot. And in this particular material we covered, it was aided and abetted by Peter Robinson. but I have heard it, he did and abetted by almost everyone that talks to Teal and he is all too happy to go along with that. Right. So again, this there's a reason that says pseudo profound, right. So Teal certainly thinks he's providing products of wisdom, but it is often very bog standard reactionary libertarian stuff dressed up with techno-babel and biblical references. So five, it's a five for me. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to reprise the episode, but everyone remembers the episode. We remember what happened. The substance to what he was saying was, was laughably thin and just plain silly, like I know that I've got a bad habit of just calling stuff stupid when

I should explain the reasons why, but honestly, come on, like biblical prophecies, you know, fine readings of some random snippets from the Bible. And then, you know, having readings of some random snippets from the Bible and then, you know, having your own bespoke interpretation of this and then it not even coming together into any kind of coherent set of things, setting up this weird dichotomies of the fucking Armageddon and the Antichrist, like absolute nonsense, yet it's presented with just that breathless seriousness and the references to the very important thinkers. And have you read such and such?

He's got some great thoughts on this topic. The presentation was amusingly in contrast with the substance. So yeah, I think that's a good example of sort of profound bullshit. He gets a five again from me. He's, he's, he's going pretty high. He's doing pretty well. Yes. So he, he did get a five from me as well. And that's, so we're, we're in simpatico. Now the next category, conspiracy mongering. Is he someone prone to conspiratorial thinking territorial thinking and the promotion of conspiracy theories. Unlike what Michael Shermer has argued,

this is not simply people applying reasonable heuristics to be skeptical and noting that conspiracies exist, it is in fact over applying heuristics around detecting conspiracies and promoting them without care for the level of veracity and evidence supporting them. And yeah, again, just for me, this is very easy. He is a conspiracy theorist like Joe Rogan is, like so many of them are in this sphere. I think he's five on this. Yeah, just remind me, Chris, what are some conspiratorial things that he talked about?

Remind me of this. No, well, in our particular episode, most of the conspiracies were hypothetically the antichrist's plots, right? But he does regard, you know, things like climate change, activism, and regards Like he's a credulous buffoon and yeah, he is conspiracy prone. Yeah, yeah, I hear. And like, you know, I've studied conspiracy theories

a fair bit in psychology and you know, it's a bit like there's a lot of other concepts too, where you can define them in different ways. Like with cultishness, I quite like to have a somewhat broader understanding of these concepts because you can define conspiracies as being, oh, that's very specifically about, you know, imagining that there's a small group of people with nefarious things, blah, blah, blah, doing stuff in secret.

And the definitions like that are kind of problematic in and of themselves. It's more about the cognitive processes, the conspiratorial ideation, we say, that is more important. And there is a degree of skepticism and cynicism, which taken to the nth degree becomes basically a perfect example of that conspiratorial ideation. So when he talks about, oh, you know, all the physicists, like they're all just pretending to do physics. They're really just doing these things, you know, shuffling papers around and really what they're trying to do is get research money and they don't care about that, right? It may not fit the archetypal definition of a

conspiracy, but it's exactly the same kind of reasoning. So yeah, anyway, long story short, I'm going to give them a five. Yeah, okay. Well, that's good. You're, you give them the correct mark. I'm glad to see that. And look at this pressure. Everyone noticed like I'm continually under pressure to conform. This is cultishness right here. Luckily, you went back and replaced your own score. That was, that was self. self that was that was organic. You don't influence me. You're not you're not trapped here and here with me.

You're not the boss of a other way around. Yes, I know. I have my own thoughts. And I outrank you anyway. So and I'm older than you. So true. Some respect. That's some respect. Okay. What's next, Matt? What's the next feature? It's the second to last one. It's the second to last one and it is grifting or what is it? Excessive profiteering, profiteering guy. Right. So we're not talking about his business activities.

Who can't comment on that? Uh, it may well have been character is because there's a profiteering, but I look, I'm just going to talk at the top of my head here, Chris, but I think he's not about that because he's already bloody rich, right? He's incredibly rich. There is nothing that he could possibly do. He could be earning Joe Rogan money from a podcast. It would be like another drop in the bucket.

So I think this is almost like non-applicable, but we don't have that. So we'll just give, I just give him a one. Same thing. I'd give him a one because like like I think it's companies are doing various forms of profiteering, but he himself, like he's not out chilling for dragons breath supplements or this kind of thing, or releasing like Peter Thiel hoodies or whatever the case is. So he is a billionaire who makes his money from his investments and his you know funds and all that kind of thing. But this is just to make clear that this is actually a useful example, right?

Now we have a very rich man with actions to lots of resources but he's not going to score highly on this for your me. In fact, I'm going to give him a one on this because I haven't seen evidence for him engaging in profiteering in the sense of we mean. Why would he? Why would he? There's absolutely no reason to. But like, why would so many of them? Like, I guess like, because Kuberman endorses everything under the sun. He's a millionaire now, Matt. You know, he has tons of income. He doesn't need that. Chris, no. Your mind cannot encompass the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire.

Right. I'm a millionaire like Huberman. Still hungry. Right. He can still get a bigger bloody mansion. He wants to, he wants to have a nice apartment in New York as well. You know, for his 10 girlfriends. Yeah, that's right. He wants to have walk because two would be better. Right, Chris?

I mean, six would be better. That's another deep cut. But you know, when you're when you're when you have Peter till money, then there's no right, right. There's nothing that can happen. There are levels. There's nothing that can happen in terms of subscribers or advertising revenue. It's just not going to happen. Coffee Coffeezilla explained this to us well, right? Because I was making out this point that sometimes people's behavior seems like hard to explain. Like Jordan Peterson, why is he doing all those stupid promotional courses or whatever? Why does he have all these like little business making schemes when he's already hugely rich, hugely successful?

He's set for life. He doesn't need to do anything. And Coffeezilla's point was you are not noticing that these people are comparing themselves to other people within their network. So their view, their comparison group is other people at their status, right? What's their deal? How much money are they making? And that kind of thing. And there's a competitive drive within that, right? Within influencers and all this kind of thing. So Peter Thiel might have that drive against other billionaires. Yeah, no, no, but you're missing my point. Peter Thiel may well want to be even richer, right?

Even I don't know how rich he is compared to say, George Soros or Musk, but I don't think he's as rich as that. He may well want to be richer than his peers, but he's not going to get that from advertising. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, that's not a kind of money. Yeah. Anyway. Agreed.

Okay. All right. Good. We're being very argumentative, splitting hairs over nothing. We're just helping people to understand. Serious agreement, helping them understand. That's right. Yeah, we're. Will you allow me? Will you allow me to give people one?

People aren't talking enough about how we give people one in this category. So yeah, the last category, Nauma, the final kneel on the coffin, if you will, I'm at the final kneel on the coffin, if you will, is moral, ground-standing, setting yourself up as a moral exampler who stands above all other men and it is men, by and large, judging them, you know, not quite worthy and looking down on the other people who aren't quite as morally elevated as you in their concerns and their tests. So, yeah, yeah, that's right. Um, just to remind people examples always help. I think Jordan Peterson is pretty big on the moral grand sandy. Um, Abraham candy, Robin, the candy from the Angelo as well. That's right.

So it's definitely a thing that lefties are known for doing. It's also a thing that people on the right like Jordan Peterson, they've found a way to do as well. Now, Teal. Teal. Yeah. I'm leaning towards no, I have to tell you. Well, I'm me too. Like in much the same way with Curtis Jarvan, I think he regards it as that he's beyond the normal constraints of morality. So it's not that he's extramoral. It's that he's beyond your petty moral concerns. Yeah, which makes sense.

Yeah, like I think like, although he certainly presents himself as someone who is spending a lot of time worrying and thinking about the end of humanity, biblical prophecies and potential risks and so on, but tackling the big questions that are essential for humanity. And that's, that's something that a good person would do. But I think, you know, he's not handing that up. I think he, I think that's genuinely what he sees his contribution of staying. I mean, yeah, I don't think he's grand setting. He just has his head up his own ass a bit.

So, yeah. He's a different thing. We don't have a criteria for that head of arsonistness. No. Head of arsonistness. I mean, that's a meta dimension on the gravity, which I think they all fit into. Well, I mean, like it's like Eliza Giedkowski, right?

Eliza Giedkowski is obsessed with AI doom, but you know, he's genuine about that. Anyway, whatever. He has a moral understand. Well, this is why we need to go back and add these all in. But yeah, I agree. G he got two ones. He got two ones. I know at the end there, pulled it out. He was heading for an overall high score, but he kind of- Well, then we got it, but he got a one from me for grievance mongering as well, because I just don't see him doing that. So, so we got a lot of fives and a lot of ones. You were wrong about that. That's right.

I forgot about that. So yeah, overall, Matt, no, you, you made the calibrations of the grometer, right? These percentages are not accurate. I think they're accurate. Yeah. Okay. So assuming that they're accurate. Okay. We only got 64 from me. Yeah. Got 69 for me, which is slightly higher, right? Or if you want it in the raw score, he got 41.5 for me and got 39 for Matt. So worth remembering that the level of difference there is two points in totality, right, between Matt and my score, but converted in the percentage, 64 for Matt and 69 for me.

So yeah, but that's, that's not low Matt. That's, you know, that is not low. That's right. Like if that was your score on a test, like an exam for uni, the, you know, that might feel low to you, but the garrometer, it works differently. Yes. There are a couple of people. Can I ask a question?

It's an unrelated question, but in tells meree, if you will, my indulge me just in Australia, when you're marking things, do you go from like zero to 100? Including on essays? Or is it like zero to 75? Why 7575? Especially? Yeah, yeah. No. So this is a weird quirk of the British system or ones that follow along there. In the UK, basically the highest mark you can get is like mid 70. Yeah, it's the highest. Like theoretically, you can't get 100. The marketing scheme goes zero to 100, but it's it is now never given. So like if you get over 70, it's understood that you got a like, you know, like an A plus. Yeah, that's so weird.

I did not know that about the. Yeah, it with essays. So it's actually very confusing for students initially because that is not the system in schools. So they come from secondary school and then they get like 67 and they're essay and they're like, what the fuck? And you're like, no, actually this is normal. Like the highest I've ever seen is like 76 or 77. So yeah, that is weird.

That is weird. No, ours is even more confusing. Like when we give a grade for anything, it could be out of however many points. So it could be out of 35, could be out of 12, could be out of 36. And then, you know, then it all gets, you know, come out, essentially converted to a percentage for, for calculating the GPA, you know. Okay. It's confusing in a different way for students.

Like I've filled in a lot of emails, like explaining to me how my grades work. And I have to show them the calculation. Well, yeah. Cause I, I feel that this is also a sort of arcade system because in the UK then to translate grades across to American scale, you know, like they have to be calculated that there actually is, you know, a lower limit, whatever. Anyway, it's just another question for you, Chris. calculated that there actually is a lower limit. Whatever. Anyway, it's just an interesting...

I've got another question for you, Chris. It goes to UK and Japan. How do they feel about marking on the bell curves? Is that a thing that is encouraged, discouraged, or are they silent on the matter? It's idiosyncratic in its implementation. It depends. It depends on the size of the class, the university, and the particular thing. I think in general, they would like to see a curve, right?

In general, they don't want to see like a large collection of people around the higher or lower echelons by them. Yeah, it's not enforced rigorously. See, we had this weird schizophrenic thing going on in Australia where on one hand for, you know, a decently large class, they do like to see kind of a bell curve, right? Because, because if ever, you know, if it's highly secure, everyone's getting A's or everyone's failing, it's obviously, you know, signifies something is not quite right.

Um, on the other hand, there is like a policy philosophy thing, which is I think broadly across all unions, which is we have criterion-based marking, Chris. Criterion-based marking, right? So we don't mark to a bell curve. We set criteria. And if students need to put the criteria for a given grade, you've got your big matrixes.

What's it called? A rubric. Big marking rubrics, all of that stuff. And you've the big matrixes. What's it called? Um, a rubric, big, you know, marking rubrics, all of that stuff. And you got to follow that. And so it's the bell curve is very much a dirty word. You do not mark students on a bell curve. Now the hand, this should come to a bell curve. I think, um, mixed messages, mixed messages. These are the insights that patrons get. Matt, they learn about marketing systems at different universities.

These are the kind of worldly insights that you won't get in the main feed. This is the kind of thing the gurus weren't talking about. Yeah, why people won't talk about marketing schemes at universities. They simply will not talk about them. Who's talking about that? Who's talking about this? Who's talking about this? No one, just us. Yeah, the podcast viewers, no one.

So yeah, well, now something we do, Matt, don't forget this before you hang up your decoding robe and wizard hat there. We have a bunch of bonus points that we like to assign yes or no binary ones or zeros to whether they do them. And the way that we do this is that I put them to you and you decide, and I only overrule you if you're wrong.

So you are the master here, I am the quiz master. But I might overrule you if you're wrong. That's the only thing that can happen. So, get ready. It's kind of like a can happen. So, Okay. Okay. Okay. Get ready. It's kind of like a quick fire round, but not that quick. So here we go. These are features which are not big enough to graduate

to pure grometer factors, but they are recurrent themes that we've noticed them that we think add to your curiosity if you're doing them. Yeah. Okay. And can I just go on my gut? Can I just go on my gut, my intuition? Yeah. What is're doing them. Yeah. Okay. And I can just go on my gut. Can I just go on my gut, my intuition? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

That's the, that's the beauty of this system. Um, okay. Okay. So first of all, we have monomania, monomania, like having one theory to explain everything. Yes. Okay. I say yes. You say yes.

Okay. Shilling supplements is tail shilling supplements? No. No, no. Does he supplements is still shilling supplements. No, no, no. Does he engage in bro. WS a day? No, I don't think so. He just does it. Is he charismatic?

No, he's not charismatic. Rare, rare miss there. Hey man, Curtis, Arvin both not getting the charisma bonuses. That's right. Most of them do get the charisma bonus. Almost everyone else has got it. Even people we hear it. So what about neologisms?

Does he come up with his own terms? No, he kind of borrows others. Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Good. Strategic disclaimers? Yes, I did hear him. Oh, does he? I heard him during that. Like, you know. Oh, Oh, I heard him. I heard him doing that.

Like, like, you know, you're right. You're right. You remember how he frames, like just before he's going to say something ridiculous about interpreting the Bible. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, you know, I wouldn't say completely ticket literally or, yeah, yeah. You're right.

He does do that. Yeah. Almost missed that. See, this is why you're the responder here. Rebranding other theories as his own. Well, like I'm going to, I'm going to kind of put it as yes, because he's a recycler. He gives credit to his credit. He gives citations, you know, he likes to name drop all the people that he's, he's recycling ideas from. But he is a big recycler. He's a big recycler. So he gets it. He gets it. Why? Loquaciousness? Hell no. Hell no. God damn. He needs to see a voice coach. I'm not very good in this department. Our last three gurus Sabine, Curtis and Peter Thiel have all been not

scored that bonus point. So Sabine's means a great talking compared to those these two. Yeah, she is. That's just to be clear, in comparison to them, she is good. But compared to John for Vicky, Dr. K, no, you can compare. You have us. Me immortals can compare. All right. Right.

And then last is never admitting error. Well, I didn't really, didn't really come across, didn't come up, didn't come up. Sorry, we can give him a pass before you talk, Cheryl. Okay, yeah, true. I think he probably doesn't, but in the content we looked at, it wasn't, it's not like Peter Robinson was calling him.

Like Peter, you got something wrong here. And in fact, he apologized for even having internal diet of IT insight or fetal cheaters. That was more history. Okay. Chris, Chris, Chris. Hey, I just had a great idea, a great idea and innovation for the gyrometer.

In gyrometry? These happen from time to time. Yeah. You need these ideas. Um, so, you know, we've got the scores and we've got percentages, but what we don't have is like the tomato meter on Rotten Tomatoes, where yes, there's all of the, you know, every reviewer is giving different grades and stuff like that. But in the end, Rotten Tomatoes gives a certified fresh or lemon type binary thing. Are they a guru? lemon type binary things. Are they a guru?

So my question to you is, I wonder if we could sort, we don't have to do it right now, but we could sort all of those gurus based on their percentages and see if we can identify a cut point where. You love this. This is not a new idea. This is a rebranding of a previous idea

that you've had where you're like, if they score high in a couple of factors, they kind of automatically become gurus, don't they? And as you know, Matt, someone did an analysis of this. They did a quantitative analysis of your insights and they said it doesn't make any difference. Right. It's like, it makes very, but I do like this. I think you're right. We've got've got some garrometer tinkering to do. We've got to go back and add moral groundstanding for all the people that we haven't covered. And we need to update some gurus. Like we've,

we've looked at Russell Brand and a bunch of different content since we covered him many years ago. Right? So we got to, we got to do a special episode, some tinkering, some maintenance on the grometer. And we can do that at that time. Just go for it and be like, this is their score. But like just in our gut sense, are they agree? Are they yes or no answer? No, I'm not.

Yes or no. Yeah. We could do that. We could do that. I agree, Chris. So we need a supplemental, a further kind of supplemental, a supplemental to the supplemental, maybe an annex and appendix to the grometer and appendix to the grometer appendix episode.

I think we will maybe just one episode will focus on the moral groundstanding. We'll get it all up. We'll get them all like moral groundstanding. We'll get all the bonus points. We'll get them all in order, all updated. Yeah, it's necessary. It is necessary. The science of grometry cannot be left to the amateur smart. We have to push the frontiers forward. This is what researchers do. Well, good work, Chris. We got the good work. Fantastic.

We've we've sorted out Peter Thiel. We know what the deal is there. Matt, two quotes. Christopher Kavanaugh. Peter Thiel's a big potato head and then Bible, John 316, whatever. Right. That shows my licorice ability to generate, of course, a big potato head.

That's not even accurate. If anything, he's more like a slim potato head. So, yeah, there we go. But Peter Robinson has badly infected my mind. That's what I'm going to say. I'll never get his questioning style. I don't think I'll ever get over that. Yeah, he's like that. He's like that sovereign nations guy. Oh, Michael. Yeah, imagine the two of them. Imagine if they got together. Oh, God, the hush. I mean, they probably had a big fight over picking the classical music that would serve as the intro to the show, because they have that in common too.

The particular biblical interpretation. I wonder in that case, if you get two guys that are really into biblical prophecies, do they gel on jazz or are they, you know, somebody coming in and they've got the exact same stick there? No, I'm that guy, right? Like I've got the we need to read the Bible more. That's my thing. Right. Well, like I'm just going to say this.

This is my final take. Like with the benefit of 700 years or so of hindsight, I think I think it's quite clear now that the Reformation was a mistake. Translating the Bible's from Latin and stuff into English, letting everyone read them, letting every guy have their own particular interpretation of it, start up their own thing. It was clearly a bad move. We need to go back. Everyone needs to come back to the fold. We need to return to the one universal Catholic church. Nobody gets to look at the Bible.

You can't even look at it, right? And it's got to be written in a language that no one understands. And unless you're authorized and you have a special dispensation from the Pope, you can't even read it. And furthermore, we need to bring back the Inquisition, because the Inquisition can then go out and hunt down people Oh people like Peter to yell and burn them. Oh Yeah, okay. Okay. That's a strong kick That's unexpected there, but yeah, why why not outside no fun? It's yeah, that's this is in the picture It's okay. We can say these things but I what the hell I know that was so It's okay. We can say these things. But what the hell?

No, that was so out of left field that it's actually not. I've literally blown your mind. That's right. You have. I wasn't expecting the endorsement of the Inquisition to come in there at the end. So I guess that's just right. I've been radicalized by a foul on a deal. I mean, you can't think of those people without wanting to bring back a little bit of an Inquisition. That's it. That's it.

Well, I remember what my hot take was now, and I'm not going to go into detail. I'm just going to leave it here as the final word. I think ultimately we have to blame the philosophers for this. That's all I'm going to say. It's philosophers. They have to be stopped. And I won't elaborate, Matt. I will not.

Okay? I'll leave it. That's my side out. Peter Teeley is your bastard offspring philosophy. You've got a lot to you've got a lot to answer for. Well said. Over and done. Over and done. Decoding complete service art. Nano Nano. Bye bye, Matt. Go. I'm going to be back. you