Decoding the Gurus - Gurometer: Stefan Molyneux *Patreon Preview*

Episode Date: December 13, 2025

In this unlocked bonus episode, Chris and Matt complete their forensic/esoteric/scientific assessment of the charming Stefan Molyneux, consigning him (sadly) to the eternal archives of the Gurometer.

Hello and welcome to decoding the gurus grometer edition this is your friendly bonus content mat where after we've decode gurus we file them away for all eternity in the the grometer right and that's where they know so we have to do that for stephen malnui i know you're very sad to see him go you want to do more content by him, but they'll be greatly missed. Great now. He's the people's philosopher, Chris.

I think the audience responded, you know, really warmed to him. They want to hear more. Yeah, that's not. Can I say about this does speak to my pathology, but I saw this morning

that he had a 30-minute episode of Byage proof that God doesn't exist. Okay? 30 minutes, in 30 minutes. So I listen to it. To me, like, that should be a fairly straightforward case, right, for someone to be it. Like, it's well, it's well trodden ground. Yes, exactly.

And the thing is, it's 30 minutes, probably 20 minutes of it is not really that relevant. It's just like him. It's kind of reminded me like what you said. He's bad at his job. Like, he doesn't, he doesn't mention any person's names. He doesn't mention any of the names of the position. right, for what he's arguing, for that kind of thing. And his argument against God, I can do it in two minutes, Matt.

So this is his slam-dunk argument. You know that there's categories of things that exist. There's categories of things that we can imagine exist, but we don't know whether they do or not, like unicorns or deep-sea monsters or whatever, right? But they could plausibly exist somewhere in the universe. And then there are things which are logically incoherent, like a tall and completely short person or, you know, like just something that logically is incoherent, a heavy light thing, whatever, or a squared circle or whatever. And he says, well, God is one of those like contradictory things, so therefore it doesn't exist.

That's it. Because he says, you know, could God make a rock that is too heavy? for him to left. If he could, he's not all powerful and if he can't, you know, like this kind of like little... Okay, let me

let me just see if I follow his thinking there. So he says by definition imagined things that involve logical contradictions can't be real. Yes. And if God is all powerful and

you know, everything that God says is, then then they could create things that are logically contradictory, therefore he can't exist. You know, it's like that, but it's also just, it's all these contradictions that people are very familiar with, which, like, if God is all knowing, he knows everything that's going to happen. But if he's all powerful, he can make anything happen, right? But then he, like, if he knew this was going to happen, some events since the beginning of time, then he didn't have the power to change it, right?

Because he, like, it's that and it's, that's it. But he spends about 20 minutes talking about these three categories and setting it up. But again, he's not really doing that. Like his examples aren't good. No, it's just like, God, he sucks. He's not even good when he's doing the stuff which is not interacting with callers. You know, like he could literally just get a philosophy one to one book, repackage it in his format.

but he can't do that so yeah yeah yeah um yeah i'm sure sounds pretty sounds pretty bad like i am again as you know i'm not interested this kind of thing but you can't help but be aware of the various philosophical arguments for this that the other uh around and you know so i'm aware of them and you know a lot of them are pretty sophisticated both the ones for and again so i know the shape of them that tack that he's taking sounds like you know it's like a children's crayon drawing of a... I mean, he's not good at it. And like, he was a new atheist kind of anti-feas guy before, right? And so the funny thing with him is, as we heard, he now does all the Christian pandering stuff, right? But he's such an or so he can't give up fully things that he's argued before. So even though

he was like, you know, constantly making the digs about, you know, atheism, they're all stupid and that. But his form of atheism is perfectly coherent and logical and, you know, universal. And his form of atheism is just the 1990s online atheist arguments, not even presented well. So anyway, there you go, Matt. He's still going on. His content continues to flow. Like, let me just have a little look here. I'll tell you what his last few shows have been.

How do I make friends, question mark, call in show? my biggest life regret Twitter space how to fight bias 35 minutes then on the existence of God the terrible truth about secular ethics

life in a group home the true nature of God why don't you listen these are all from this week Matt all of these so busy man our Stefan well there we go

so now that's him he's still doing this thing now we do our thing Matt and we put him into the grometer. Okay? We do. That's our job. That's our job.

It's his job to figure out whether or not God exists or not. It's our job to put him into the garometer, each to their own. That's right. That's right. So let's do that. So the grometer, an instrument that we use based on our... An instrument of power, Chris, must be wielded with great responsibility. A great tool.

It's 11 features, which are. recurrent amongst the secular gurus set and we we rate the people that we cover on one to five on it and and tally up their scores and it's it's not like an official score that will last for all eternity it's just our subjective opinion man okay so yeah score them your own way but we'll go through the 11 and score them ourselves and the first of the map the first is galaxy brainness tendency to issue confident opinions across a

consolation of topics okay galaxy brightness I would say hmm I think look it's either 4.9 or 5.0 I'm oscillating between in that range well said yes it is

it's five Matt we got to give him five he has nothing that he doesn't confidently opine on so and in this thing about God by the way he was just referencing all these physics, you would have hit it because he's rattling it off as if you know, like, he's an expert in physics and biology and all these kind of things. But it's, it's just like a show of it. So, yeah, he's a five. He's a five on this. What's next? This could be a quick episode, Chris. I mean, like, I don't really feel like we need to justify

these scores. Like, with Galaxy Brainness, I mean, you just read out all the topics he covers. And according to him, he's the final authority on every single one of them. You know, actually more and more, like he's reminded me of a few different people. But he reminds me of what's his name? The guy with the 500 IQ. Oh, Chris Langen. Chris Lange. Like, that's another dumb shit that thinks he's a genius.

Quite right, quite right. Yeah. And another, you know, white nationalists. So there you go. Yeah, they have something in common. these people that are real pieces of shit. I'm not saying everyone who's hard right is a piece of shit. But I'll just say that there are some political points of view that, you know, mesh quite nicely.

Attract them. Yeah. Attract them. Yeah. You still haven't told people. I feel like you're stolen for time. What is the second feature on the grammat? The next one is cultishness, Chris.

Cultishness. We'd like to make your case why you think he is or isn't cultish? I mean, you have to convince people. I mean, I just, the fact that he was well known for running, and he gives him five in this automatically, but also

everything that he did, all the binary black and white manakey and worldview and the undermining of his followers and, you're like, the poor drago. Yeah, poor drago, that bullying, that playing, you know, sweet

and then, and then, Yeah, controlling. Yes, we saw a bunch of the signs, even in just this very casual content, and he's done a lot worse. So, yes, this dimension's called cultishness, but he's not cultish. He is a cult leader.

So he gets a five. We'd give him more if we could. That's right. Anti-establishment terrorism, like taking a contrarian stance against, all the institutions are lying to everyone. all the time about everything. Yeah, yeah.

He's also a five on this, isn't they? Like, I mean, he likes Trump, but the Trump administration is sort of unique in that its pose is that it is, you know, draining the swamp and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, he's anti-establishment in the way Alex Jones is, which means like he's supportive of, you know, the kind of racist, misogynist elements of establishments, but his pose is still five. Yeah, yeah, his political alignment is obviously where it is. But yeah, I think, again, a bit like cultishness, he blows the doors off a bit because he's anti-establishment in the same way that the Westboro Baptist Church is anti-establishment, right? Like, it's all corrupt, the whole system

of, you know, it's not just the government, it's your family, you know what I mean? It's everything. So there is a sort of deep fundamental corruption to the entire modern world and a cult like Westboro Baptist and probably most of them basically sell a message that within their family you will achieve a kind of purity and be free of the of the various kinds of depravities that are out there in the rest of the world. And that is what he does. So five. Five, five, five. It's your turn? next. Oh, my God. Okay, so grievance mungering. Yeah, she did. Oh, my God. I, I really, you know, these episodes are incredibly

valuable because you think, oh, it's just like a, you know, it's obvious, there's not much to say, but honestly, it makes you think about things specifically that I wasn't necessarily thinking about all the time on the recording, and it brings it all together. So grievance mongering, it can be a personal, like personal grievance, like a grievance, you know, the kind of attitude of someone who feels they're being personally aggrieved all the time. And then, but it's also kind of inculcating a sense of grievance in your followers, right? Because that's a powerful tool as well. And I think there was a third pillar of grievance-mongering that I innovated, but I've since forgotten.

Do you remember what that is Chris? Well, did you, no, you didn't name the thing about like having a list of enemies, right? I mean, you didn't innovate that. I demanded that that be included, like, the people who, you know, they're bringing up unbidden. They're, you know, their kind of pet peeves and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. That's kind of like a indicator. Yeah.

Remember how he responded to Margaret Atwood, for example, when he just mentioned her, right? Like, which, which, evil, bitch, right? Like, that's the level of grievance you're dealing with there. so yeah yep yep so yes incredibly high

incredibly high on all counts like he became aggrieved like several times in the material we listened to talking to

like fawning followers who adore him that's how thin-skinned and prone to grievance he is and he obviously inculcates a sense of grievance

in his followers too you know he wants everyone to believe that they've been fundamentally wronged by everyone, but most particularly their mothers and the women of their life. So, yeah, fuck him. He's terrible. Five.

Yeah, yeah. He is terrible and he does deserve a five for that. So grievance mongering five. Self-a-grandizant. This is like shooting, this is like shooting disabled ducks in a barrel, Chris. it's just it's just too easy what you're making it too easy for us i know yeah so he's five he's five there's not even any room for it to be it around that that's that's what he is yeah yeah yeah so he's just well so far just yeah just yeah just it erases through and everything

he says and does um he's doing well he's look he's shaping up this is shaping up to be a top score Chris. I don't want to and it's not going to affect my future ratings. I just want to say he's in the running to push off he who shall not be named from these birch.

Okay, okay, let's see. So the next thing is Cassandra complex, like warning about say that women are going to effing end this world. Yeah, so I'm saying this because this is predicting incoming doom that you have foresaw the dollars have not. And again, he's going to

get five for this for me, Matt, because he's all about that. He's all about, you know, if people don't listen to him, Western civilization is on its way, on its way out, I should say. So, yeah, I can give him a five. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm tempted to give him five because you can't stop me. Yeah, yeah. Well, he's been getting a lot of fives from me. Does this is a five? Okay, is there anyone, he's more Cassandra complexity than him? Who else have I? The last five from me was Scott Adams in 2025.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I think he's going to get a five from me too. I think I'll move my mind up. Yeah. It's all right. I just looked at some of my other fives and I'm like, yeah, he's definitely at that. He's in there. Yeah.

And next? revolutionary theories claimed to have totally revolutionized a particular field that have got incredibly profound and deep contributions that probably unrecognised the rest of the idiots don't understand would you say that's true Chris

yes he's got multiple ones like he mentioned one about universal secular morality right when she developed and nobody paid attention to but that's just one that's one of his many systems self-published books yeah and remember no they're not systems because that implies that they're yeah they're just like a system

like not the system yeah it needs to it needs to be a universal truth so yeah although i think yeah i think yeah i think you got triggered because he said your system that was the thing you're not like to say yeah if it's the system that's okay so yeah he's five on this he's absolutely five on this absolutely five on that um yeah again he he reminds me of langer in that respect, Langham with his, what's Langham's theory called again? Oh, isn't it like linguistic geometric unity or something like that? I can't remember the. It's something involving God and physics and philosophy.

It always is. Whatever. The next one, I don't know. Actually, this is interesting. Sito-profined bullshit. To what extent does he utilize, you know, jargon and fancy terms and decorative scholarship to buttress his authority.

The funny thing is, like, I think he does do this, like dress up mundane points as if they're philosophically deep, but he doesn't do that by using so much jargon.

You know, like this one where he was talking about God, for example, he was speaking in like an affordative tone about his positioned, right? They were saying, you know, the epistemic knowledge that we have is like this, right?

And so he does use terms to look big, but he's not kind of the same as like the more you know, Eric Weinsteinian side of the gurusphere. So on this, this might be, for me, the first, I'm going to go free, middle of the road

for this. I would agree with you. I do agree with you. Like he doesn't do the jogging. stuff, but he, of course, is incredibly pretentious in his mode of speaking and his use of those flowery...

Oh, also the pauses. You just reminded me of the pregnant pauses. Yeah, the pauses. It's not just what's said, Chris. It's what's not said. Well, you wait. But also the metaphors, right? Oh, God. The metaphors. I mean, God, the metaphors.

I mean, where do slot. I mean, like, you know, I take a pretty broad view of the suit of profound bullshit. I think of it as all of those decorative elements. Yeah. You're right. So what are you going to give him? I think I give him a four just because he doesn't, like you, like he rightly said, he doesn't do some, you know, one type of them. Yeah, you're right. And you talked me up to a four. So Andy, if you're recording this, it's a four. You need that. Um, then conspiracy mongering. Yeah, he does. I mean, he didn't do this

this much in the content we listened to but he is the whole white replacement like women are plotting things. The communists are taking over society, right? The world have infiltrated everything.

He does have a conspiratorial worldview. So, yeah, so I'm going to put him up at four, even though he didn't do this this much in the content we listen to and I'm aware he does. He didn't outline any conspiracies in it. No, I, yeah, I know he does too. So we give him a four, but look, if we, he could go higher on that.

If we just listen to something slightly different. I know, I know. We just take the right episode. That's why he's not getting a low score on that. Yeah. Yeah. Profiteering. Yeah.

Well, I was just going to say, I mean, you know, In terms of what he's currently doing, I did actually look in terms of what it costs to become a member of his various things. And while, you know, he invites donations and he's quite happy to receive 500 bucks or a thousand bucks or whatever if you'll send it to him. But it only costs 10 or 20 bucks to be in his little, you know, sanctum thing. Currently, yeah, bargain at half the price. You should be paying money.

not to hear from him ever again. But what's he done in the past? Has he got any dirt on him? Chris, has he been done for like really extorting a lot of money from people? He did run like an online cult, right? Which strongly incentivized people to supply money, you know, to support his endeavors and cut off connections to the family. And like you, I mean, you heard in the content we heard, we heard him say to Drake

go or drag or whatever that guy's name was, you know, well, I mean, I think we're doing something more important here, but if you've got to go back to your family, and I think that was just like a small window into his whole, you know, technique. But I do think he's kind of, like, he absolutely is as manipulative as the other people that we've saw on the cult season. But I think he's kind of like a budget cult leader in a way. Like he has not really reached the heights. of the other millionaire leaders in that regard. So I think by cult leader standards, he isn't profiteering as much as some of the best of them.

But by normal human standards, yeah, he is. But I don't know the details of his scheme. So I'm like, like you, I'm kind of inclined to put him somewhere middle of the road. But I just feel like there's going to be lots of touchy stuff. So I'll put him 3.5. That's where I'm going to go. Yeah, I feel the same way.

It's kind of like any money that he's earning for anything he does. I feel like excessive profiteering, given what he provides. Yeah, that's true. That's not what it means. It's not what it means. Well, the last one, Matt, let's see. This one's going to be a bit tricky because I don't know if it was there. It was a bit subtle.

Moral groundstanding. Did you detect any hint of moral ground? He's seethed with it. He sees with it. He does. Yeah, he does. He does.

He does. He does. He's like, he presents himself as like Jesus Christ, basically. Yeah. He is way over the top. I'm giving him a five. That's good.

We're done. We are done. Yeah. And in a rare occasion, if you look at the conversion to the percentage, And we are both Sympatical, 92.

So he's high. That puts him up. Consensus achieved. At the level of Reverend Moon, Brett and Eric Weinstein, circa 2021. But, yeah. I realized I gave Jordan Peterson.

Jordan Peterson gets 100% from me. Oh, yeah, Jordan. Well, that's Jordan Peterson 2025. He has 100%. Jordan Peterson of 2020, or thereby when we recorded his first, he was at 81. So he's kind of went up. But yeah, Peterson is, I mean, that is accurate, right? Peterson is the embodiment of the secular guru template.

I feel him and Eric Weinstein are the alpha and omega of the guru night sky, the, what, psychosphere? The guru psychosphere? Yeah. But you know what? We're not finished yet because there's a quickfire round where you have to say yes or no. Your fault for creating this, the binary measures. These are bonus points. They don't actually affect the score, but it's good to keep track of what people are doing. So here we go. I'll correct you when you get, if you get things wrong. Monomania, a single theory to explain everything. Does he have that? Well, he's got several, hasn't he? Has he got several theories that explain everything? Yeah, I mean, he does. The thing is they're all his, but that doesn't really count, right? Like, so he's got, yeah, it's, uh, he's diversified. Yeah, modern mania kind of contradicts with the galaxy brainness, right? Well, except, but like Gary will always relate things to his, like, economic understanding.

Oh, well, this guy will relate everything to your mother. So. Oh, yeah, that is true. Yeah, he does have that. Okay. That's right. That's right. Shilling Supplements No I don't think he does that Browicity

Did he? No What about when he sang that Rocky horror picture show Or when he talked about showing up And he comes across To be honest He's he's queer coded Chris

Yeah Yeah he's in the closet Queer Coated For with the amount That he talks about Like in a rip And all like and stuff So yes

But he has also a very sort of faux-devener pretentiousness that is... I know. I mean, not to disparage queerness. But you know what I mean? He's not a bro. He's like... No, you're right. He's not.

I mean, I think he might like to see himself as that, but he isn't. Charisma? Well, again, we're trapped in this cast 22, which is... He is charismatic in the same. same way as the other cult leaders are in the sense that when it like you know what I mean like Keith Rennery may make may make our skin crawl but you make some people go weak at the knees and the same is true of Stefan I'm afraid no you're right so he does deserve I don't want to give it to him because of much I dislike him but it does make sense um neologisms like inventing

his he does do this he didn't see it in the thing but he has his own like you know universal moral and ethical system and various things. And, you know, defuing and all that kind of stuff, that applies. So I'm telling you my, yes, the answer is yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay. Strategic disclaimer, he did do that. Yes, I think I did hear some of those.

Yeah, because he would say, you know, like, no, that's just my opinion. And it might be, but as we heard, that's how it would be. It's incredibly strategic. That one he actually thinks, funny. did say that a couple of times like I'm someone that really enjoys discussing and debating and hearing different opinions and like are you

are you Stefan okay he gets one for that rebranding all the people's theories as his own I don't think so yeah I think he doesn't give credit but he's not he's just like kind of that's because he's so lazy yeah my loquaciousness

it pains me Very much. Yes. It kind of feels dirty to name what he does as Lucretius. But there we go. And this one will be a hard one. Never admitted an error. Is that?

Oh, my God. Tick, tick. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Yes, that's blown. Unfortunately, that's caused the garometer to explode. They'll have to send it in for maintenance. You know that clip we've got of Jordan Peterson. Now, this is just a suggestion that might well be wrong.

You never, you will never hear those words, but I step and Molandisly. Well, no, actually that's one thing is he does do that. He does do the, no, I, I, you know, this is just like he said, you know, here's two possibilities and there are other possibilities and blah, blah, blah. So he does do that. But it's incredibly strategic, right? Like, like Jordan, like Jordan Peterson will speculate wildly, but I can still imagine him

going, now, now that is wrong. You know what I mean? You know, actually, it's this. He'll change his mind. You know what I mean? Yeah, within certain domains, he'll change his mind. Yeah, of course. Of course.

Yeah, you're right. Christianity is more important to that. Yeah, within certain domains, right? But like when he's speculating about something. But with Stefan, whenever a thought enters his head, and even though he might position it as speculative or possibilities, it is purely strategic. There's strategic disclaimers every time.

what's it well uh well there we have it by the way matt you've probably noticed this in the grometer sheet but if you have a little look there just underneath my bonus points do you see the little visualization i just popped in uh it's in your row i have to where the bonus points would be uh yeah that's clever yeah yeah that's uh that's just a little visualization of where all the gurus are based on the average of your or my score. So I don't want to keep that in there for us. It's interesting. There's like a spectrum, but there are a couple of wiggles in that line. Yeah, that's right. Like John Vivek is like a cutoff port. Then you get to Andrew Huberman. John Verveke. Where is he?

He's down there at the bottom. He's down there at 33. How have you numbered them? Oh yeah, there he is. Oh, right, the score. You mean the average score. Oh, yeah, there is a, like a kind of, what would you call that, Matt, in statistics, like a cliff. Yeah, an inflection is what you'd call. An inflection point, yeah. Yeah, we got an inflection point at about 33 between Vovacchi and Huberman. And then you got 56, 56. Yes, and then at Douglas Murray, at 56, and then you get up to Jamie Will.

70s. It's probably just no. Yeah, but it's probably part of this is just by the clumping of, right, the. the scores, the fives and the fours and whatnot. But in any case, just a little useful thing to see. I'll post it up on the Patreon for the people to have a little gander. And that's it, Matt. He's in the grab it.

We don't need to think about Stephanie and I should probably unsubscribe of his feed. And next up is Scott Galloway, right? Scott Galloway. Oh, yeah, that's right. That should be better. That should be better. That's not for cult season.

That's just for, like, a break. Yeah, break from cult season. Yeah, we can't do another Stephen Molyneur, Keith Reneering. Not straight away. Not straight away. Yeah. Well, there we go. Good job.

Mischief managed and all that. And we'll be back soon enough with another wonderful guru. And you'll probably, I mean, if it's Galway, I'll say it now. He'll be better than Stefan. But it's, whoever we cover, it's going to be hard with the top's there but let's see

maybe another cult leader can be here we'll find out we'll find out thanks Chris see you later everyone bye bye

bye goos are the reason for the season so don't listen to the leader come with us and fire up your gorameter It's time for cold season

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