Decoding the Gurus - Stefan Molyneux, Part 2: Back in the Moly Hole

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

Cult Season continues, and much like Stefan himself, you may have hoped this would go away after Part 1. Unfortunately, like all persistent internet hauntings, Molyneux has returned. And this time, Chris and Matt venture even deeper into the Moly-Hole, a place where truth is redefined, callers are slowly gaslit into existential confusion, and every philosophical insight is served with the overwhelming scent of narcissism and emotional manipulation.We return to the joyful world of Stefan’s caller-domination rituals, courtesy of Twitter Spaces, where he continues his life’s work of berating strangers and stroking his own ego while insisting he alone possesses the True Meaning of Truth.Listeners can thrill to the culmination of the Truth Call™ from Part 1, where the philosophically inclined young father is sucked further into Stefan’s epistemological meat grinder as Stefan tries to uncover the imaginary psychoanalytic roots of the caller’s ongoing defiance. From there, we are introduced to Caller No. 3 for just a sprinkling of the patented victim-blaming and misogyny of the Molyneux Method.Finally, Chris and Matt offer their overall thoughts on Molyneux’s long and illustrious career as an internet arsehole. They conclude that while Stefan has managed to cycle through platforms, ideologies, and degrees of baldness, he has maintained absolute fidelity to the same psychological tactics—gaslighting, projection, undermining, hypocrisy, and the uncanny ability to make even a throwaway joke feel incredibly creepy.So that’s it for now… collectively we can escape the Moly-Hole, carefully sealing the tunnel entrance as we leave. And let’s pray this is the last time anyone has to think about good ol’ Stefan.Aside from that… Cult Season continues. Abandon hope, etc.LinksFreedomain Radio 6162: The Most Frightening Fact! (Twitter/X Space)Philosophy student reviews Molyneux’s The Art of the ArgumentMichael Shermer’s amazing excuse for endorsing MolyneuxFormer guest discusses Molyneux’s descent into racist pseudoscience (2016)Guardian article (2008) on Molyneux’s online cult & “DeFooing”Daily Mail article (2015) on a family impacted by Molyneux’s communityDaily Beast profile on Molyneux during his Trump pivotSPLC profile on Stefan MolyneuxSPLC investigation of Molyneux’s alt-right connections (2018)College of Psychologists of Ontario:...

Hello and welcome to the Kodi the Gurus, the podcast, or an anthropologist and the psychologist, Listen to the greatest minds the world has to offer. We try to understand what they're talking about. I'm Matt Brown, the psychologist from Australia. And with me is Chris Kavanaugh, the Anakin Skywalker to my Obi-Wan Kenobi, partner in crime, junior co-host, anthropologist slash psychologist, and academic in Japan. Hi, Chris. Wow.

Wow, that was very professional. I like that. I've got no notes. No notes. Perfect. you're fine you're totally fine with it but Chris not the young not the younglings Chris

not the younglings oh wow you've watched those movies I'm actually pretty shocked I didn't I did not enjoy them have you seen the sequels you know the ones that came after the more recent the Disney ones yeah like I

what's the more recent one the one like there's the series they're better they're much better no no they're not I'm not talking about the Mandalorian or those kind of things I mean that I'm talking about the one

that's kind of you know what was the series that was it sort of dwelt upon Oh Andor you're talking about Andor Yeah andor Andor yeah no I mean the the three movies that they made it after Right with Kylo Ren and all that Yeah no I have

not seen those. I will not see those. I think they're not. You're cattle of fish, shall we say. Hey, are you still watching Foundation? Not recently. I mean, but I mean, I think I saw the most recent series or some of it. I think I'm catching up. Yeah, I think I'm catching up. Yeah. It's okay. What about Pluribus? You seen Pluribus? Yeah. Yeah, I'm watching pluribus. That's, that's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's our general ticket, these are. That's why we're not a movie review show. I feel like we're dancing around you, Matt, because we know what's, we know what we're bringing people back to. We know what's coming. We know what's coming. We know what, we warn people. We want you. He's, he's in everything. He's in your

ear. You're going to be hearing all of them then. Yeah, so this is part two of our Stefan Molniew episode. And we give people a break. I think it's only healthy that you don't get Molnu blasted into your earhole for over three hours. That's dangerous, right? But this episode as a result, you know, it's the tail end of the conversation. And you're going to hear the wrap up of that stirring conversation about truth and what it means. And then you'll hear a little bit from the third caller from that episode that we looked at.

And then that will be the last, hopefully, here, but Stap Malje. I mean, the Gromader episode will come, right? But apart from that, hopefully you can leave your mental space. You know, it's not a pleasant experience, but we do promise that after this episode, you will never need to hear from the man ever again. And, you know, it's important to know what's out there. It's important. That's right.

What's lurking in the darker corners of the internet. And, well, we can only hope that he activates his right to reply. That would just be great. But yeah. So anyway, Matt, any final thoughts before we get back? I will say that we're going to start off. You're going to be hit straight away by a clip. And the context of that is, you know, it's just building on the company.

conversation, the gaslighting that you were hearing from the previous conversation. So any final thoughts before we let people get it with the full brunt of the Molinue again? No, I'll save it. I'll save it till the end. I'll save the hot take still afterwards. Clips first. Well, they're the opinions. Clips first.

Okay. Here we go. Clip number one. Even if I did explain it to him, he can't justify himself. He just says it. So I guess when he, when my son says it. as the earth revolves around the sun, can I say under this understanding of truth

that he is making a true statement or is he not making a true statement? I'm trying to understand because he doesn't have the correct process because I failed at teaching him, right? Maybe I failed. Let me ask you something. I mean, I understand this

because I've already covered this when I said truth is attached to a proposition when it is proven. It doesn't have to be proven by every individual, right? Right. I mean, you and I didn't have to come up with all the words in this conversation. Let me ask you something, because I'm, I feel like we make no progress.

You don't concede anything. We never get to any meeting of the minds. It feels the media just keep moving the goalpost. Now you're talking about what? About a child. And it's like, well, we're not talking about children, right? Children are a process to development. So let me ask you this.

Why does this matter to you so much? Okay. All right. So seems like this caller is trying to make a pretty simple point, which is imagine a child. Imagine I tell a child that the earth goes, around the sun. The child goes, oh, okay, dad. So the earth goes around the sun, does it? And according to Molyneux, the kid has just said an untrue statement. But maybe not. Because he's kind of changing his grounds, right? Because now he says, as soon as someone has verified this claim,

then anyone can say it. And it becomes true, Chris. But this is quite different from what he was saying before, which is that if the person doesn't know, then they're not speaking the truth, right? Well, I think he's unwilling to address that contradiction, right? So instead, and he's tried various attempts to deflect from it. But then, here, this is the beginning of a pivot, right? So he said, we're going round in circles. You don't concede anything.

Like, I'm delivering troop bomb after troop bomb, and you're just, you're stuck in the mud, your furry nights, you know, what's this about kids have come in, right? It doesn't clarify anything. So he says, you know, why does this matter do you? That's this new thing, right? That's the flip of the gurus. And this is the judo flip we're very familiar with from Dr. Kay, which is, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Why does this matter to you? Why did you ask me this? Why do you seem so difficult? Explain yourself to me. Yeah, we did hear this recently with Keith Renier as well. So, yeah, well, let's see. Maybe we'll hear a little bit more echoes of Nixium here. So listen to this.

Because how we think about truth affects, how we believe and understand, navigate through life. Why does this matter to you so much? It's a very abstract. Why does this matter to you personally so much? Like, people can call me up, and I'm pretty good at just about every life situation. I've got 20 years experience doing public answers about. So everything else in your life is great.

Everything else in your life is going as beautifully as it could be. except for this issue because this is what you're bringing up. So that's my sort of question of all the things that we could talk about. Why is this one so important to you and why do you never agree?

I disagree with the premise. I think it's a loaded question. You disagree? This isn't the one issue. What have you conceded to me in this conversation? That based on how you described truth

that needs to be true No, not based on how I describe truth. That's not a concession. It's something we have to agree on. Don't make it subjective to me. What have you, because listen, if you and I have talked for like 40 minutes or whatever and we haven't agreed on anything, earth would I want to continue the conversation? What have you agreed with me on?

What have you accepted that I have put forward? I accept. Well, I accept that you have a different definition of truth and I understand it, but it's not, no, that's just accepting that we, no, that's just accepting we don't agree. What have you accepted that I have put forward? I put forward a large number of arguments and observations and, and so on. Well, hang on, what have you accepted? This feels very sneaky and manipulative on a lot of fun. So the first of the clear, cultish dynamics is I'm a very well-respected. figure. I have 20 years of advising people and people, you know, recognize me as a very important figure. And yet we are disagreeing here. So, and he refraims at the start initially saying, you know, is everything else in your life going well? Is there no other issues? Is this, is this maybe a symptom? The fact that you refuse to agree, right? That's what, you know, if you're feeling resistance, doesn't this reflect some problem with you? And then the very obvious rhetorical technique of the end of

tell me what I'm right about and I'm not just like what I believe or what you've accepted like say hi I'm correct and you're wrong yeah yeah it's it's incredibly sneaky because he sneaks in the premise there that this this caller has to agree with him has to concede to him he doesn't have to concede anything to the caller and he hasn't he just keeps repeating his position on this without actually responding to anything the caller is actually proposing to him pretty clearly, really. And flipping it around so it becomes, let's do some soul searching and figure out what's wrong with you and how you can do better to make me happy, to please me. Yes. And every time they tries the answer, you know, saying, well, I understand that you

have presented. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not enough, right? You have to, you have to completely accept that he's right. Yes, submit. So no, he doesn't even get to finish the sentence where he says, you think, right? Because that's implying that there's a subjective assessment, right, that other people could disagree, which he doesn't really be possible. Yeah, and like a micro observation there, you notice the interrupting, like he can and does interrupt the caller. The caller cannot interrupt him. There's something I've noticed there with these characters, which is they're very good at controlling the conversation. And I noticed this too with, say, Eric Weinstein when he's having debates with people and stuff.

They're not very good at a lot of things, but they're good at these sort of micro strategies in conversations. Yeah, quite manipulative. And like here as well, we'll hear more of this, but there's the implication, maybe we need to end this conversation, but I'm not enjoying it. It's not going anywhere. Like, you never hear the caller or the, you know, because of the power dynamics. They never say, well, this conversation is just boring me. Like, what are you actually saying here that's worthwhile? Why should I continue?

Because obviously, in that, when you would say, well, if you don't appreciate the kind of wisdom that I'm dropping, well, I've done plenty of other people who we need to call. But he's implying, you know, if you don't change your attitude sharpies, maybe we need to just stop interacting. Like, we're not going to get anywhere. So, yeah. I mean, I'd consider it a blessing, but. Yeah. I mean, that's right. The person is making poor choices.

Those poor choices started with listening to Molnion in the first place and culminated with him making these calls. The other little observation too, Chris, is I don't think, like, these manipulative strategies are definitely in the repertoire of cult leaders. But you also see it in controlling manipulative people in all walks of life, right? Oh, sure, sure. Could be at work.

So I think it's kind of useful to notice them when they're happening. Yeah. Yeah. And so he posed the challenge there. You know, no, tell me what you agree. And let's hear what the caller comes up with. I accept that we have no business believing something or calling something true if we have improved it through the robust, you know, I mean, I started use that word experimental methodology through, you know, if we haven't empirically tested something, we should not attach the label of truth to things that involve matter and energy. Okay. So you accept that something is true when it is proven. Not is true. It's recognized as true. So I don't accept is true. I say is recognized as true. For me, that's a very important thing. Okay. So is there anything that is true?

Is there anything that is true? Two and two make four. Is that true? Yes. Of course. Yeah, of course. Yes, no, of course. Yes, there are things that are true. Okay, so there are some things that are true and other things that are recognized as true. I would say if the Venn diagram is there are things that are true

and a subset of those are recognized as true. So anything that is recognized as true must necessarily also be true, but some things are true and we can't publicly verify or recognize them as being as such. So, like, this is why it's so fucking circular. So, Stefan really doesn't like any of this. But to me, Chris, it seems pretty straightforward. Like, there's probably some better theory of physics out there that, you know, whatever, reconciles, I don't know, you know, quantum mechanics and gravity, whatever. You know, we don't know what it is.

Geometric unity. We do know what it is. Yeah, we do know what it is. That's probably a bad example. It doesn't have to be something so fancy. But there's all kinds of things that are true, right? Like, did this animal is a descendant? Did it evolve from this other animal?

We don't know, right? We don't have the false evidence, whatever. But there is clearly a truth out there. So that's all this guy is saying, right? Yeah, well, I mean, he did a good job again of saying there are things that are true and there's a subset of things that we verified that are true. So to be verified is true, it has to be true. But that doesn't encompass everything that's true.

And Maloney's reaction is that fucking circular. Yeah. No, what is it? Yeah. So now, let's see. Malnew is going to explain how it's circular, okay? Oh, God. So now you're right back to,

so I said truth is when it's proven, and you say, no, no, and you accepted that. And now you say, well, no, but truth can also be unproven. Well, for example, you stated earlier, you had an experience. Hang on, did you say that? Did I say that, no, that's not how I characterize it. You said there's a Venn diagram. Yes.

And there are things that are true that have not been proven. proven as true. Yes. Sorry. We can't publicly verify, yes. Okay. So this is, so you've accepted nothing. Oh, I can prove that to you, actually.

No, you have accepted nothing and you lied to me when you said that you had accepted that things are not true until they're proven. You said to me, hey, I accept that things are true. If you keep talking, when I'm making a point, we cannot have a conversation. This is what I'm saying. So you are emotionally compelled by this and you don't even know why. Like I told you why I fight you on this because I come from this mystical bullshit culture from the 70s.

So I've given to you my emotional investment in this topic. What is your emotional investment in this topic? Because you're very manipulative. You have an emotional investment in this topic. You have an emotional investment in this topic. I just need to know what it is. Chris, at the beginning, you called it projection. And just perfect examples here.

When Molinke accuses this guy of being manipulative, it's just interesting, isn't it? How they always project what it is they're doing on the person. I guess the other things that he's doing there is he's really, like he wants to get away from this topic because Stefan knows that he's caught up. He's fucked up, right? So he needs to ship this quick smart.

to a discussion about what's wrong with this person, why, you know, why are you so fucked up? How can I, you know, play the guru and, you know, fix your psychological problems? Yeah. And it's, yeah, it's just very interesting that, you know, these sort of little threats and accusations that he just throws in there. Oh, you lied to me. You've accepted nothing. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, very strong direct accusations, right? And you also heard, Matt, that he kind of lays on. But as I said earlier, like he's revealed some things. He's been honest and direct. Like he's told him his investment and about his childhood. And you're being manipulative. You're lying. You're not revealing what.

Like, why don't we actually talk about what's important instead of this bullshit about truth, which I've already solved that you refused to. Actually, you know, this is a well-known trick, isn't it? If you want to get somebody to open up to you, divulve old stuff. Oh, yes. to you, then yeah, it's a standard trick, isn't it? You could make up something if you like, but definitely make out that you're opening up to them, and that puts the burden on them to reciprocate. So Molnue is very straightforward. Yeah. So the other thing is, and I did notice this

when we're listening to it, that Mullenew dropped the, like, what have you agreed? Because he mistook that the guy was endorsing his perspective. And then when he can't, matches on, but it's not as a mission through his word of view. He gets angry, right? And he needs to get back to the psychologicalizing of things. So that was something because he temporarily became mollified if you like that. You know, like, oh, okay. So let's let's carry on then and, you know, ask some questions.

But here he realizes, we're still harboring a different opinion to me. You can't be through that. I thought we agreed that I was right. And of course, you're interrupting me, double standard, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so he's got a resistant person on his hands. He does, and he's asked them, you know, let's talk about the real issue. So let's see.

And remember how this started out, you know, oh, very happy. I'm sorry if I, you know, maybe I didn't express myself clearly there. I'm sorry, I feel like I'm not getting through. and I'm sure that's on me. I'm sorry. I'm just getting a little annoying. Doesn't mean it's anything to do with you. Doesn't mean it's your fault.

Okay. That's not your fault. It's quite shifted. The tone has shifted quite a bit. And it's going to shift more. So, uh, this. Well,

I mean, right now I feel a little sad. If we're going to talk emotions, I feel sad because I think you're accusing me of being bad. And I'm genuinely trying to understand. And I feel like you're mad at me. And I don't want to get when someone's mad at you. You're not,

it's not a feeling. I am mad at you because you keep moving your definitions and changing the goalpost and it's frustrating and annoying. It's an important topic. And when I'm having frustrating interactions with someone, there's no point pretending to keep reasoning. So you can talk about your emotional investment in this or why it matters to you so much. Or I've got other callers because I'm not enjoying this. I love intellectual discussions, right? But I'm not enjoying this. I find this really annoying and frustrating. Now, I've got 40 plus years of having intellectual discussions. I love debating. And you can either accept my expertise or not.

But I'm telling you, you have an emotional intensity or reason for this topic. And I know that because I've been doing this shit for almost half a fucking century. I know this. Okay. So once again, the playbook is, you're disappointing me. You're being very resistant. I've got other, I've got better things to be doing than to be talking to you. It's a choosing him of being emotional. It, again, projection because Stefan is a good one.

He sounds pretty emotional. Yeah. But didn't this, didn't this strike you as exactly the same as, why am I not enjoying the feeling I have in my body right now, at Midwest? Like, yeah.

I'm not finding this conversation enjoyable. And that's your fault, right? And it can't be me because I have 40 years of having conversations. I'm a legend of having conversations. Look, you can either accept my expertise or not. Go get fucked up, basically. Because that is it.

It's my way of the highway, right, with these sorts of people. Yeah, yeah. So then he goes from that to this. But then you're just telling me something that I know. That's not, you're telling me something is not so that I absolutely know to be so. And that's fine. You mean, you can disagree with me all you want. But we have to have a conversation about the underlying emotions because we're not making, hang on, because we're not making any progress on the intellectual side because everything keeps changing.

And the reason that I'm saying that is I make a proposition, you change the topic. I make a proposition you change the topic. I try and draw you back. You change the topic. Now we're talking about, well, a semi-robust explanation to a child and it's like, but you haven't accepted or admitted anything. And then you say, no, no, no, I do accept that something is true only after it's proven. And then you say, oh, no, but there's a bunch of categories of things that are true that aren't proven. And that's just contradictory statements.

And you don't even notice that they're contradictory statements, which means you're arguing emotionally and not from a place of reason. Yeah, that's. Yeah. Wow. The manipulation. Gaslighting continues. Gaslighting. Yeah.

And, you know, the thing that's interesting here is I actually think this is perhaps an insight into Stefan's mind. That is his recollection. of their exchange where he's provided, you know, just proposition after proposition, highlighting these, providing a very robust, you know, intellectual framework. And this guy's just been throwing out nonsense. It doesn't make sense. Shifting gopals, moving things and getting emotional. And none of that is true, right?

It's Stefan, who's been unable to answer basic hypotheticals, who's contradicted himself, who's got emotional, who raised the issue that he doesn't understand what the child example is, what's a child got to do. It was very straightforward why he raised the child's example. And Stefan kept trying to leap on these things like, what do you mean by robust to deflect? So it is just extreme gaslighting where he's like his his account of the situation is just so far from reality that it's somebody's wrong and it's actually not the caller. Yeah, exactly. I think it's Stefan's mind. He's like provided like not only an assertion, but he's providing.

divided, like, a very robust grounds for it, you know, a whole bunch of arguments or not, like a logical sort of, but he, if you think back to what he's actually said, he's done nothing except just repeat his assertion using different words every time. He's such a terrible philosophize. No, and he hasn't even addressed the contradiction, which is the whole point that they're stuck on, right? That's the reason that the whole conversation has stuck, and the reason it's got bogged down into this nightmare scenario because of Stefan, right? And the color's willingness to go along with it, it has to be said as well. But so let's get back to Mr. Manipulation himself, Stefan.

Where does he go with this? I'll sure see my emotion. But again, I just think I'm being misrepresented. But, you know, I don't think I'm beginning. But if you think I'm misrepresenting you, then we can't have a, I'm not. It's recorded. You can go back and listen to it. And I double-checked.

with you. So then if you think that, like, the reason we're having a terrible discussion at this point is either both of our fault or one of her fault. Now, I have a history of having very productive and positive discussions, and I love the topic. And I've been open and vulnerable about my emotional reasons for the importance of the topic. I mean my most. So, hang on. So if the conversation is going badly, I'm at fault or you're at fault or we're both at fault. Now, I've been very honest and open about my emotional investment in this and why, and I've told you what a delightful and positive topic it is, I've asked you questions about what you've conceded or accepted and if nothing, and I've told you I don't like it when you keep talking about my system and then I've told you when you say, oh, I accept that things are only true after they're proven and then you say, well, there's a whole category of things that are true even though they're not proven. That's not a productive discussion. So if you want to talk about the emotions, that's fine. If you don't, that's fine. I'll move on. Yeah.

Yeah. Again. There's so many, like, there's so many false choices, right? Like, he's like, it could be one of us as at fault or both at fault. And then he gives the reasons it can't be him, right? Because I'm, I always have protective discussions. I never end up in like these kind of things except with you. That's not true, by the way. You can hear hundreds of recorded.

Stefan is spasying out of his callers. So he has a long documented history of going crazy at call. at callers, but also that thing at the end where he's like Eler, you accept my shifting to we're going to focus on your emotions and whatever else is going wrong with you and we can do that

or I'll move on to someone else. So there's no option to continue to discuss like the philosophical issue, right? It's talk about your personal issues and what you're doing wrong or get off the call. Yeah, yeah. And at this call

are like he's like remarkably willing to take abuse which is oh yeah but but putting that aside he's he's not very emotional his his topic he keeps wanting to return to the this little you know philosophical conundrum and it's stephen who's emotional and wants to bring in all this other stuff so yeah it's interesting Stefan really really wants to get off get off any um philosophical discussion yeah Yeah. I mean, I want them to get off it because I've had enough of Steph and just assertive things. But unfortunately, I know where he goes with us. I think when you hear, you'll prefer that he stick on with the philosophical thing. So this is the color giving in, okay, and giving Stefan what he wants. The emotions, I think for me, you know, if we get into the emotions, I mean, you know, having gone through life, right, there's times where I believe the lie.

and then, you know, and then I encounter the truth, and I realize, wow, I've been lied to, have been deceived. And there's been many of those moments, right, moments of awakening to something that was happening. You didn't even realize what's happening. So in that sense, I have a deep love for truth. Okay, who lied to you, though? Who lie, hang on?

That's not, I mean, everybody gets lied to. I mean, so your particular emotional intensity, who was it that was the most important to you in your life, probably when you were growing up? Who was the most important person? listen to you that you found out lied. Yeah, I don't know if I buried that or not, but I'd say the meaningful lies where I remember experiencing, you know, an embarrassment, right, is like, let's take friends.

Let's say friends and, well, people I thought were friends. You know, like in college, right, where they seem like you got you back, but then really, you know, they were, they were mocking you. there's this whole they they pretended to be your friend but they're not your friend kind of thing so I remember that that that that list at least an impression certainly not having a father growing up you know I think that I've had to question everything okay so I suspect we're getting into ground here that Stefan is much more comfortable with which is that the microscope is on the caller. Yeah. And Stefan can play this role of pseudo-psychologist. Yeah, the psychotherapist. And

the caller here sounds like he's searching for something. You know, this is the thing that you find like, because there Matt, I noted a bit of cold reading from Stefan where he's like, you know, cold reading this technique that mediums and psychics like to use where he's angling here for something to do with family and parents, right? So if you look at what he said, he said, when the guy said, you know, I don't, yeah, I've been lied to by people in the past and giving. And stuff's like, okay, everyone's been lied to.

But who lied to you? Who is it that lied to you? And he says, you know, you've got an intensity in your life, probably when you were growing up. Who was the most important person to you that you found out lied to you? Right. So he wants to drill this into your parents like to you. That's where the issue is.

And that's what his whole model is about, right? There's like people being abused and they're younger by parents. So that's much more firmer grinding to him. And then the guy goes on to talk about his friends at college. But the last line he mentions his dad being absent. Right. So I wonder which one, Steph. phone's in on. So here's the patented. I mean, he's already

due to clip the conversation, but we're about to hear a kind of full-scale epon to the caller. So in this case, I don't even, I really hate to, I don't mean to offend you at all. So if I come across as asking questions, I'm, I'm not trying to be offensive. It's just literally, no, no, no, no, don't do that. Don't no, don't do that. Don't that's so rude, man. That's so passive, aggressive. Jesus. Don't fucking tell me that the reason I'm upset is just because you're asking questions. Come on, man. You understand. That's really insulting.

No, you're right. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that way. No, no. You didn't mean to say it. Stop lying to me. Jesus. What do you mean you didn't mean to say it? Did you have Tourette's? Are you possessed? Own what you said. I'm scared of being interrupted. I'm trying to say quick things. No, don't lie to me. You said it. It's rude. Don't say, well, I didn't mean to say it. That's not, that's not reasonable. No, you're right. No, you're right. I see that it sounds passive aggressive. It sounds like the reason that you don't like me asking questions,

and that's just the pure thing. The way I said it makes it sound like that. So why would you, but why would you do that? I feel frustrated in that I can't ask the questions, and you've attributed bad will to me in this conversation. And I feel like you misinterpreted what I've said, but rather than being open to hear how maybe you made a mistake, you're just saying, I'm the one doing the bad things,

and I'm not learning anything, and it's just really frustrating for me, and that's my experience of it. And what is your relationship like with your father? Yeah. God. So that was like a wrenching kind of turn, right? Yeah. Suddenly just dropped the thing.

But let's go back, because first of all, the guy said, I don't mean to offend you at all. Yeah, I'm not trying to be offensive. He's apologizing. Yeah. Yeah. Defan chooses to get angry at that and misrecalls it or misstates it as the person was lying about saying that he didn't say any of the things that made Stefan angry when actually

the guy's apologizing for the things that he said. Now, well, but I understand this. This is like a kind of manipulative technique where the person is saying, oh, you're, you know, you're right. I'm sorry. And now the power in the conversation has shifted. And Stefan says, no, but you don't. really mean you're sorry right you're you're saying that but you're trying to minimize what you're

doing right you're not owning it and every time he says you're right i didn't you know i shouldn't send and it's like so why did you what you lied about there was he's then saying well then you were lying right when you just said there that you didn't mean to do it because you did mean to do it right you're trying to present me as doing something unfair and like it's uh this is weaponized therapy speech one-on-one but it's quite notable how Stefan's tone has like become so much more a sort of now he's on firm grind right he knows how to like needle at people here and yeah yeah he's feeling he's feeling very confident because yeah he's on his front foot but just the Chris just the just the hypocrisy there he he cruises this guy that you don't do that don't you

fucking do that that's so rude man that's so passive aggressive yeah and then everything he says after that it's just the epitome of the worst kind of passive aggression. Yeah, we've talked about him being the manifestation of various things, but he is

hypocrisy given for him. He's like the platonic ideal of hypocrisy in human form. We've seen it earlier and him criticising the left or whatever for people that are going to criticize him. And here, it's with a like one-on-one

situation. Like you said, it's not just all based on ideology and politics. It's also in the interpersonal relationships. It's the exact same technique. Yeah. I mean, you know, you said it best at the beginning, which is that projection thing. But it just, it staggers me that he can like basically accuse everyone else of doing the thing that is his pure modus operandi. I'd like, like in the same breath. It is incredible. They can't keep getting away with this, Chris. I was thinking that he can't keep getting away with this. But so, you know, Stefan's final question, what about your dad? Let's get back to your dad, okay?

I mean, he didn't really talk about his dad, but Stefan noticed the chance. Oh, with him, I mean, we don't, at this point it's kind of apathetic. We don't, you know, there was a period where I was angry about the whole thing, angry about the absence, you know, angry about not having the moments. And then especially, you know, when I have in my own experience of being a father myself, I see all the beautiful things that my children can experience and already they've experienced more than I have my whole life. So that's been a thing. But at this point, it's kind of just an acceptance of he's been through his experience that's

made him a certain kind of way. Sorry, who's been? Your father's been through his experience? Yeah, yeah. My father, right. Yeah, like a resignation that he's kind of become the person he is through his own traumas. And he's trying to understand. So he's not responsible for his bad behavior because he had trauma?

No, no, he is, he is, but he lacks the self-awareness. No, no, hang on. See, this is, this is, you understand, this is exactly why you're so confusing to talk to. You said he did what he did because of his own traumas. And I said, is he responsible? Yes, but he doesn't have the blah, blah, blah. So he both is, he's like Schrodinger's responsibility. He both is and is not responsible.

Yeah. Just just pause on that for a second, right? Just take a breath. Sure, sure. Just take a breath, pause on that for a second. Do you understand that that's confusing and contradictory? Do I understand it's confusing? It is contradictory.

It's I mean it in the same way both times when I say, Yes. Okay. Do you understand that it's confusing and contradictory without caveats that your communication in this, like let's just take that little time slice of 10 seconds ago, right? Yeah. Again, seizing on some trivial interpretation of words and making a massive deal about it. I'm requiring complete submission, right? Again, it's not enough to just say, oh, yes, I understand that you could be interpreted. He's like, no, no, without caveats. without any indication that this could not be completely your fault, admit that you were wrong, right?

Yeah, and the guy is just doing what he's told, basically. He was told to talk about his father. He's expressed a sentiment that's pretty, you know, a normal everyday sentiment. Yeah, I had an absent father, you know, maybe I felt bad about it or resent for, you know, but, you know, whatever, he had his own shit to deal with. So, you know, that's what he's saying. Right. And, but Stefan chooses to treat this as a contradictory, confusing, frustrating. It's not because he said, you know, he had stuff that, you know, meet him like that.

And you're like, oh, so you're, you're letting him off the hook. And he's like, no, no, but he lacks the awareness to note any of those kind of issues. It's like, well, it's a complete contradiction. Like, no, no, it is. And it is not. It's like, only because you want to leap on it. But one of the things that I have to say that annoys me a little bit of like all over here, like I have sympathy. for him because he's been bullied by an arsehold, a world-class arsehold. But why does he have to be such a pushover? But, like, I mean, he is

defending his corner in the philosophy point, but why have you let this arrogant bully, like start lecturing you about your relationship or your following stuff? Like, God, I... Well, Chris, I've been thinking about that a lot too, but isn't it connected to the theme

of the cults, right? It's the same as asking why did those people, what did those women and let Rainiery walk all over them. And the answer is that, you know, at some point, prior to this conversation, this caller has accepted a bunch of stuff about Stefan, about his, about his, you know, about the power dynamics, about his insights, about him being the leader.

And, yeah, I mean, it's incredibly frustrating to me, too, that that happens, but I guess that's the answer, right? he's it is but this guy smarter than stephan he's smarter than stephan and he's right in his you know little philosophical thing which there's no harm in what he's interested in in talking about and instead he now on front of this manipulative bully has to give in to him about like personal stuff i just i i i hate it and i i'm not you're right that i understand there's a there's a there's a whole bunch of stuff that go into this but it's just like you really want the person to say, you know, just shut up, Stefan, you, you blowviating bald bastard.

Like, you're so, you are there. He needs that so bad. I almost, look, we need to join, we need to join this Stefan's cult thing, just so we can blindside him. Yeah, but he'll just cut you off. I mean, if he did that, he just cut him off. So it wouldn't make a difference. He's had loads of interactions for people fighting with him on.

Okay, so let's continue to the end of this segment. And so here's the somewhat inevitable way that this was going to go, and this is what Stefan does. You say your father is not responsible because he had trauma. And I say, so your father's not responsible. You say he is responsible, but he lacks this blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Yeah, right. So you understand that's contradictory.

And I'm not trying to nag at you and I'm not trying to corner you and I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I'm just trying to give you a microcosm of why it's confusing. Yeah. No, I see my, it's my bad communication. of being ambiguous. If I were to be more precise, what I would say is that he is responsible,

but what I meant by the trauma thing is that I've lowered my expectations because my mental model of who he is and what he's aware of is he has a low self-awareness that, you know, because he needs a certain level of self-awareness to be aware to improve his behavior. If he doesn't have that level of self-awareness,

he's not going to improve his behavior. So that's what I meant, and I didn't elaborate on that, but yeah, that's what I meant, where he is responsible, but I've abandoned my expectations on, you know, an improvement there because I don't think he has the self-awareness. I don't know what you mean by half the self-awareness.

Self-awareness is something, do you just choose to be honest with yourself or not? Let me ask you this. How old is your father? 50s. He's in the 50s. Late 50s? It's funny. It's funny. I don't even know exactly the day.

I have to think about it. I think getting close to mid-50s, I should know. know the exact number but so he's almost exactly my age okay you think that's a coincidence yes here he's got the rosetta key this this calls to me like the dr k you know when he was talking to ludwig or various people where he homes in on an interpretation right and in this case all of this obstinence, all this daring to disagree. It's because this person has unresolved all our issues. He's projected them on to stuff on. That's why he can't accept them. It's so silly. It's so stupid. Yeah. And sadly, Matt, sadly, the caller acquiesces to this.

So listen to this. Oh, yeah, it could be, could be the mirroring archetype. That's right. You know what? That's interesting. So why I'm getting emotional, I think that's a fair call out. Because I do remember, now that you mention it, you know, when I was 14 years old, I tried to have discussions about the big topics. And then for him, rather than addressing my arguments, he would get into the whole, well, you're an experience, do this, that. It would be all these kind of sidetracked things rather than dealing with the argument.

And then whether it's happening here or not, my perception, was like, man, I feel like Stefan's not addressing my argument. He's maybe doing what my father was doing. And so maybe that's why I'm getting emotional. It's a thing coming up for me on the emotional level. I appreciate that. Honesty. So what did your father do in regards to leaving the family?

How did that happen? He was right. His perception that Stefan was not addressing his argument. He was quite right. and it had nothing to do with the fact that they're approximately of similar ages to his father. Oh, dear. So this must place this young man in his mid-20s, perhaps. No, no, he must be.

Oh, is he? God, I was thinking of him as like someone in his 30s or 40s, but you're right. Like, he has to be younger than that. It kind of makes it worse, doesn't it? Like, there's Stefan Molineer basically predating on. young, impressionable, like you said, they're somewhat lost seeker types, perhaps to succor socially, not very good at standing up for themselves, and I guess maybe they're quite happy for someone like him to, yeah, I don't know.

Oh, he's got a very storied history of praying on like young people who are, you know, just like teenagers or people who are having. family issues or so on, right? So that's like a lot of stuff's audience. And that's the thing, isn't it? Like he is, you know, he keeps bragging about who he's so experienced.

He's, you know, decades and decades of doing this stuff. Yeah, actually some of manipulating people. Yes, right. The nugget of truth in that is he's incredibly experienced at manipulating vulnerable people. That has been his career. And you have to hand it to him, he's reasonably good at it. Yeah.

Oh, the manipulative stuff is pretty good. Yeah. He's not going to philosophy. No, no. And just to mention that, I mean, we've plumbed various horrible depths, right? But this is the kind of parting part of this conversation. So the guy's going to leave because he's got family commitments. Now, you might imagine that Stefan would be like, well, that's good. You know, I like to see somebody prioritizing their family.

No, not exactly. And sorry, just a heads up. I got about three minutes because my family's also calling me. so I'm sorry to, I know it's a really good thing we're doing right now. I'm getting the nudge as well, so I apologize for that. I mean, honestly, I tell you this is a more important conversation than what's going on with your family right now. Well, I actually would agree with you,

but I also feel guilt as a father who is responsible and taking care of others that sometimes, yeah, I can take care of myself, but I feel like I also have to balance the needs of the other people I'm responsible for, so I always feel that tension. Well, I mean, if you've got to go, you've got to go. But if you have, well, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do in two minutes or whatever. Right. Yeah. No. Right. Yeah. So my, my assessment of this is that you're angry at your father, but you've cloaked it up with a sort of feminine forgiveness thing, which isn't really real. So you still got a lot of anger towards older intellectual authority figures, which you're really frustrated and angry at your father, but you're not admitting it to yourself, which I understand. And so, emotion. that we don't admit to ourselves, we tend to recreate within others. So because you're frustrated

and angry at your father, you then call me up as a father figure and frustrate and anger me as a kind of vengeance. And I won't obviously do that because it's not healthy for either of us, right? Oh my God. Yeah. So he didn't like that. Stefan didn't like that this kind of, I'm leaving you. I'm ending the conversation. Yeah. And such, I mean, I thought it was a joke initially when I heard him start to do that, you know, like he said, well, you know, you should really prioritize this cover. And I was like, no, that's not a joke. He's actually negging the guy for saying he's got to go take care of his family.

Like, what a fucking manipulative snake. And that's the kind of cultish thing, right? Like, well, we're making progress here. This is very big. But, you know, if you got to go take care of your family members, you got to go to, you think you need to go to work or look after your family. I mean, you got the priorities wrong, but you really need to stay here. What am I going to do for minutes, you know? And that and not summary at the end.

I mean, that reminded me so much of the Dr. K episode, Chris. Do you remember when, after the person he was talking to, I think it might have been the poor chap who committed suicide. Gregful. Yeah, he could have been someone else. I can't remember. But he had only told Dr. K like two or three brief things. And then Dr. K rattled off this detailed speculative diagnosis with complete confidence.

Yeah. And you see how quickly Stefan does it too, based on basically nothing. just a couple of little nuggets of information. Oh, yeah, and you heard like feminine forgiveness, right? You've cloaked up your, you're, like, yeah, I think feminine just is really bad. Yeah, not good. Yeah, not good. It's the chaos dragging coming in there.

But, yeah, and I mean, they should hire him as a writer for a perspective of the chin because his alternative reality there is very detailed and completely unconnected or like very loosely connected. with actual things that happened in this conversation. But in Stefan Ward, this has now been a revelation where he's came to the real core of the thing, which is his callers, issues with his father, instead of the fact that Stefan contradicted himself and then went on an African entire Lord of the Rings style journey

to avoid admitting and contradict. To avoid answering a question. That's right. What really happened is Stefan couldn't answer a simple question about his own little philosophy and then spazzed out as you said and spent the rest of the conversation attacking this poor fool. And gaslighting him.

Yeah. And the guy, the one choice I will say, in credit to the guy, one, he's kind of repeatedly suddenly hinted that he still makes terrible as wrong. Right. Which I appreciate that he still has the cuts to do that. But the other thing is, he made the right call

here. He prioritized his family and he does leave the call, which is you know, come on more of that. More of that. Stop calling in. Yeah, please stop calling in. Yeah, God, I hope this young man just goes away and maybe focuses on his family and real things and stops thinking about different theories of fucking truth.

Or if you have to, if you really must indulge your interest in philosophy, go take a course. Enroll an online course. You know, do that. Don't be dealing with this man. Get away from him. no well one last clip from this part map before that color is gone or i think he leaves during this but stephen takes the chance to like kind of monologue about it but you'll hear the color annoys him one last time before it leaves which i'm i'm kind of glad for so uh here you go uh yeah i think

whether there's psychological patterns happening uh or not uh i do think and we can listen to the recording or maybe I'll put it in Stefan AI. I do think there's an actual substance of disagreement that we have that I don't think was understood, but I guess we'll leave it to the recording and we can evaluate it. I don't agree with that. I mean, you can drop it in an AI that's kind of a cop out. No, it's not that we disagree.

See, that's also insulting to me. You're still being passive aggressive. So the fact that we disagree is not a problem. The fact that we were having trouble finding the right definitions, that's not the problem. The problem is the falsehood in the moving goalposts. the passive aggressive jabs at my system and things like that's just too much hostility that's underlying the conversation. So again, you're back to being passive aggressive, which is your

frustration at your father or maybe you've internalized your father to that degree and now you're trying to treat me like your father treated you or something like that because you're back to passive aggression. It's not that we disagree. That's fine. The whole point of the show is I say people call up and they disagree with me and we can have very productive discussions. The problem is, ironically that you claim your father lacks self-knowledge and that's why he does bad things and I would say that you lack self-knowledge and listen I say this like we all lack self-knowledge and I say this with all the humility that I'm certainly not perfect in self-knowledge either but I think I'm a little further ahead in that particular regard maybe because my father's

dead and the whole story is done. There you go more more of Stefan's gaslighting being incredibly passive-aggressive while accusing the other guy of being passive-aggressive. Yeah, and this amateur our psychoanalysis and yeah, he gets away with it. The guy defers to him, clearly

accepts him as the guru and accepts all the little jabs and jibs and insults. No, he does, he does suggest the thing that annoyed Stefan right, where he was like, you're still doing it, you're still doing it, was he suggested, you'll put the

conversation in Stefan AI. I don't know if that's something that Stefan has released his own kind of prompt AI or it's just something that that caller has me himself, but he didn't like that, right? Because I think

he rightly anticipated the AI complies that there's, even if you've loaded it up with like all Stefan's assumptions, it will still detect the very obvious contradiction in Raniwian. I know what you're saying.

This guy's kind of interesting because he's like a bobo doll. Like Stefan keeps pummeling him and he falls down and, you know, grovels and he accepts it. But he also pops back up again. Like he never actually conceives. No. And that really annoyed Stefan, which made us both happy. Yeah. I just, I love if you triest that conversation right from the initial things where Stefan, like,

because he's still saying the same things down. I really enjoy conversations. You know, these are great, it's great we have philosophical, but that's not, it's not what the issue here, right,

was that's the issue. But like, you heard him go from, I'm sure I'm just not communicating this clearly. It's not your fault, right? It's probably my fault, too, at the end,

you are just refusing, and it's probably because you're down about it. Yeah. I'm a standing for your follower, and that's why you've been, you're so aggressive and so annoying to do. you just give you to torture me

because you think to have your follow. Yeah, so oh God. What what a character, right? Well, we're almost at the end map, but there was one more caller in this segment. I'm not going to play as much clips from this, but it's just to highlight

the full smartest part of what you get from like a a call-in segment with Stefan. So we had the guy at the start, you know, talking a little bit about politics that got him to talk about leftists who are, you know, hitful monsters and whatnot. He also had the interesting question about Halloween and, you know, what's the scariest philosophical thing and the give a crap answer?

And then we had the interminable discussion with caller to about truth and his fellow issues and so on. The last caller is a woman, Kerry. So let's hear from her. Yeah, and just for those who don't know, Kerry was the fine young lady that I was referring to in the show from 30th October 2025, who gave me a great question that had my mind tumbled down a whole row of thoughts and insights. So I really do appreciate it was a great, great, not just one. I think it was two questions in your ex post. Yes, thank you. It was an excellent

answer. I had my husband listen to the whole thing afterwards and he's learning more about me by my interactions with you and just the things that I'm, you know, being able to sort out by listening to you. I'm glad to hear that. And, you know, if what I do brings you and your husband closer, I couldn't consider that time better spent. So thank you for that thought. Very, very, like all of these colors, Matt, the making bad choices.

Like, you know, playing back your interactions with Stefan to your partner. so they can understand you better, it's, um, yeah, a choice, Kerry. Bad, bad choices. So, but I guess, so Chris, this is a question for you. Like, this is the general pattern where he is like a, like a self-help. Yeah. Like, yeah, no, like some sort of combination of, of an amateur psychologist and amateur philosopher, therapist, whatever. Um, and so he's, he's in there. He's, uh,

he's sort of helping people with their relationships and, um, insinuating himself into families and so on. Yeah, I think the amateur part is the very strong qualifier. Like he, he has been doing this for decades. Like he's, he's like a pro with manipulation, but his actual insights are, are all fairly limited. But yes, this is this is one of the elements, right? He does do other things where he does kind of extended monologues on topics. And he used to do, YouTube explainers on issues like we talked about at the start. There was a while

where he was trying to get attention by just hopping on whatever the kind of culture war topic was at the time and during the real facts behind X, Y, Z event and it was him with a PowerPoint going through what he presented as the facts with this kind of delivery.

So yeah, but there always was this element. This was a big part of his content is interacting with caller and like giving them life advice, right? So. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Any more from Kerry? Yes. Well, let's hear what her advice is and pertains to. And you'll hear a little, yeah, interjections from Stefan along the way here. So I think nice guys get used on one hand because let's say like, for example, you know, one time I was moving back to my hometown. Um,

to go to grad school and I needed help and I don't have family to help and I asked an old friend that I knew I guess you know he never really dated any of us girls but he always liked us and I asked him to help me move right and no intentions of dating him or anything like that and so years had gone by since I'd seen him and he'd never never wait wait hang on sorry I'm so interrupt. I hate interrupting. I really do. I just want to make sure I understand this. So you need help moving and you ask a guy you haven't talked to in years that you never dated to come help you move. Yes. He was one of, he was almost like one of the girls. He was just one of our guy friends. But we kept in touch over Facebook and things, you know? No, but you hadn't talked to him

in years. Right. So I was using him. Okay. So as long as we agree. Okay. I was using him as my little buddy. He's one of the girls, but you need a guy with a strong, you need someone with a strong back so he's no longer one of the girls. He's one of the guys who can help you move. Okay. Yes, that's what I'm saying. So on one hand, yes, they get used. But then he turned around and quid pro-quote me after he helped me move. And it just offended me to no end. I just could not believe that he did, quit, quod you. What do you mean? He said, he gets done helping me move all my things in. We sit down at the table and then he's like, well, you know, to thank me such and such. And I was so offended and could not believe that came out of his mouth.

How dare the slave have preferences of the master. That's not how this works. Yeah. Okay. So she's calling in and describing a situation where she was relying on some guy to help her out with moving and stuff like that, and they get into the dynamics of that. So she wants to say she relied on some guy that, you know, she used to know, and then after he helped her move, he, like, made a move, or he suggested that she repay him with sexual favors or whatever, right? And Molyneux does at times in this interaction, like, come might and say, well, that's not, you know, that's, that's creepy and weird, right? Like, you can't do that. But you can hear, like, his immediate reaction is, like,

he constantly say, oh, so you're just making use of a man, right? Like, you understand, you're using him and, you know, you know what the dynamic is here and you're just, like, willing to abuse his strength, right? With your feminine, whilst the sleeve and the master, as he put it at the end there. Sure. Yeah, but so he does, at least, manage to condemn or, you know, at times say that, well, if he expected sex, that's bad on him as well, right? So at least you get that. But throughout this, you can constantly hear him wanting to insert his misogynistic kind of interpretation of things. Or women are always these manipulative harlots, right?

And you can also hear his like fairly strong, what would be the word, paternalistic. He's kind of like paternalistic philosophy regarding people who don't have high enough income or this kind of thing. His view is often, well, you'll hear, right? So just listen to this. Yes, you're right. So, you know, sometimes though, like in my situation, this is not an excuse. Like I said, I feel like I was the jerk also for asking someone that I knew maybe expected to date. And I took advantage of that by getting free labor.

But, you know, if you're a, you know, a poor person and you can't get your car fixed or you can't hire a mover, then you ask for help from people that can help you without you having to pay. But at the same time. But in return for what? Right. That's always the question. And now, of course, there are times who are generous and there's.

times when we do things for other people and I get all of that. But I would say that one of the reasons why you were poor at that time in your life, I know a little bit about your history, but we don't have to get into anything specific. But I think one of the reasons why you were poor, I look back sort of when I was poor at times in my life, and that's to some degree because I was not good at negotiating and I was not negotiating in good faith and I was not negotiating negotiating up front and when you have hidden motivations and you're not up front it tends to be very hard to be efficient it tends to be very hard to be honest and that shows up in work that shows like you can't negotiate well at work and so I think it's all tied in together I don't

think it's right I could be wrong again I'm not trying to tell you your life I don't think it's right to say well I was poor therefore I needed help and therefore I couldn't be honest and I would say well perhaps part of the poverty was not being honest as a half But which again, I'm not blaming you for. I'm how you were raised. How most of us are raised is to not be direct and honest because we're usually punished for it. So more amateur self-help, psychologizing. She was asking help from a male friend.

And one reason why is because she didn't have money to pay for professional movies. So she's got to rely on friends to ask them to do things for her. So she's poor because she's not dealing with people honestly. But she's trained to do like that, probably her parents. you know, she's just, you know, she's out there in the corrupt world, not in Stefan's, you know, under his influence yet. So of course she was behaving badly. Now, and we, we know from like the clips that you heard earlier, which are much more overt, right? This is Stefan being charming. Yes. It is a way like, but he, he fundamentally thinks that women are the root cause,

even when men be here badly, it's because women have like kind of led them on and like, so this guy, Yes, he's doing bad things, right? And he's not being chivalrous or any of these kind of things. But, like, fundamentally the issue is that a woman tried to exploit him and his affection for them. And, like, that's what Stefan is really interested in, right? Like, he'll make reference to men being bad and there are an arsewell man, right? His followers are an arsehold. Anyone that disagrees with him is an or soul.

but his real venom is reserved for women. And the caller here is totally on board with this general. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She sort of sets him up with it, you know, and basically is, you know, or, you know, is quite eager to adopt his explanation, but that she was largely at fault here. Yeah, so now the last clipper of this interaction,

there's not much to it. Basically, this is the kind of thing they go back and forth on. But I like this one, Mark, because at the start, it shows that the second-collar Drago is still on Stefan's mind. He's still played. He's that kind of got him. I kind of like that. He's out of the call, but he meets reference to him. And then he goes on to link this to his broader philosophical system, this specific example.

Like, how does this relate to his thing? And I think it's just a good illustration of what he's constantly. doing, which is like, you know, always trying to maneuver things into his little realm where he can, you know, put things into this framework he has for how human interactions are. And his realm of how human interactions is like Scott Adams in a way. It's very zero sum. It's very, it's very cynical. Yeah, it's very cynical. And it's, it like often pretends to have behind it that he wishes, you know, people would be more authentic and honest and have more. genuine relationships, but it's like that thing at the start where he's saying, you know,

if you don't respect my libertarian anarchist, anarcho-capitalist philosophy, you want me dead, right? That's the only logical conclusion. So, yeah, just bear that in mind. Does you listen to this? And good on color, too, for sticking in this crore. So I think it's all kind of tied into, can you be upfront with what you want? Can you negotiate, right? So in the caller, I don't know if you listened to the call prior, but in the call before,

I wasn't getting what I wanted, which was a productive and enjoyable discussion. So I had to put the discussion on hold and try to get to the emotional roots, which I think we got to. I mean, obviously not very deeply, but we did get to them. So I think that it's all tied in together. It's not like, well, I'm poor, so I need free stuff. It's like I think you're poor or I was poor because we have not yet developed being direct and honest with our negotiations. I agree with that.

But I, from the beginning, I just wanted to say, when it comes to the nice guy issue, I think, you know, it is true on one side that truly nice guys are getting used. And then the girls are using them. And like you said, the answer is to be up front on your expectations and what the payment is ahead of time. But I would also argue in your defense that they're also using you because either they're going to get a date or this bizarre, let's have sex because I helped you move now that I'm sweaty. But they're also using the girls because maybe this is the closest they can get to a date.

Maybe they fantasize later and get good spank back material out of the interaction or something like that. So there's nobody who could be used. I mean, you weren't using violence. You didn't kidnap him and throw him in a windowless van, although that may have been his next fantasy. But it is mutual exploitation. The, quote, nice guys are exploiting the girls.

and the girls are exploited in the nice guys but nobody's forcing anyone the only thing that's really driving the interactions is the avoidance of directness and honesty yeah compassionate Stefan yeah yeah yeah but

you're right it is he is like Scott Adams in that in that cynical worldview like there isn't any space for that in kind of there might be two people who are friendly and one of them asks the other to help them move and they go okay

because yeah and maybe maybe one of them got the wrong impression or like misunderstanding yeah yeah like but in in his framing it doesn't you know there's a negotiation you know and and you know it's about getting getting what you want and bargaining terms and so on and yeah i know it's just it's interesting to see where he takes it he doesn't he doesn't really consider the less sinister interpretations of the event, which is maybe a misunderstanding. Yeah, or, and, you know, the other thing that he does is there, right? You know, he in general is kind of condemning people for being poor, lacking negotiating skills or whatever, right?

Like, that's likely because, right, you know, this is the kind of, you should be able to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, right? And it also applies because he's, you know, somebody who wants to focus on psychology and philosophy, like his particular brand about it. So talking about socio-ecological things, it doesn't really help like with what he wants to do, right? So best to say, well, they might be a factor, but, you know, that's not what we heard to deal with.

But the other thing I noticed was whenever he's condemning people for being poor or whatever, when he wants to soften something, he will imply that he's also including himself there. I wasn't good when I was poor. It was because I lack. So I'm not saying that that's what applied to you, right? Maybe it does or it doesn't. I don't know your full life story.

But so like when he wants to give himself wiggle room or come across as more reasonable, he'll often suggest that, no, I could be wrong about that. Like, this is just an idea. But I know for me, this is what was holding me back at that time. Right. But he very strongly wants to imply she was in this situation because she lacked the skills, right? that yeah she was weak and lax girls and was also a harlot leading him on exploiting yeah exploiting him i mean that's that's what he thinks and that's where it would go but you know

as he said he's in charming mode here this is charming this is charming this is charming stephan yeah this is him playing nice but if you don't agree with every little thing he says then he starts moving towards less charming less charming yes charming yes imagine if she strongly challenged him here how this would go right so yeah uh anyway After all that, it's very short after that clip that I just played that, the session ends right then. Literally, I've been subscribed to his feed. There's sessions every day like this coming out every day during this, you know, multiple times per week. So this is a sample, but it is representative of what his contents like.

But here's the outro of it, just so you can hear. Okay, listen, I know we got a bunch of people who want to talk. I'm really, really sorry. Now I have to go. but I actually do. But I will do a bonus show tomorrow. Just keep your ex running and I'll throw it up because I'd love to hear what people thought

about the earlier discussion, which I found really, really interesting and I would love to go longer now, but I can't because it's Halloween. So have yourselves a glorious lovely evening, free domain.com slash donate. Everybody who donates today gets a bunch of free goodies. You don't have to necessarily know what they are,

but it's often. us to help you move and I will show up in a thong. Great. And the thong won't even be where you think, and it might. Okay. Sorry, I'm going to gross myself out with that whole analogy. So thanks, everyone. And again, thanks to Kerry for a great conversation and for great questions yesterday.

Lots of love to everyone. We'll talk tomorrow. And don't forget, Sunday morning, 11 a.m. We've got our donor show, which you can get a hold of by subscribing at freedomain.com Slash donate. Love you guys so much. Thanks, Emil. Bye.

Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah. He's kind of a creepy guy. He's very creepy. He's just like naturally creepy, right? Even when he's making jokes, which are, you know, like in another context,

it could just be, oh, he's making, you know, an off-color joke about something and highlighting, oh, that would be inappropriate. But with him, it comes across. It's sleazy. Yeah. Yeah. Character. It's amazing that it works because, like, like, I know.

Like, I get that he's got the gift of the gab and all of that, but like, does he have charisma, Chris? Which he called back charisma? I mean, he clearly does for some people, but I find him repellent in his core essence. Like he, just the way that he's constantly manipulated, constantly undermining, constantly projecting, being hypocritical and everything. And even when he's being nice, there's like sinister undertone. So, yeah. Yeah, I just under and overtones. the tones are just echoing around the corridor.

And yeah, like the thing is, if you remember, you know, just to give my overall thought on this, when we started, we played clips that were, I think from 10 or 15, 20 years ago, right, stretching back to his early content. And you heard him being a horrific person. As I said, I interacted with a friend who got interested in his material

because he was doing the kind of right wing political stuff and listen to some of this kind of content years and years ago and it was full of the same things and here we are in 2025 and he's still doing

the same things and he's been through times when he's had actual like physical locations with young impressionable people living near him in like cult like settings he's been profiled in documentaries about online cults and he's become a MAGA Republican.

He's went on tours with Lauren Sovereign. He's done like a whole ton of things. And now he's in like a little, you know, the little niches that exist. He's back on Twitter. Elon put him back on. He's able to carve out his niche online. And he's insidious. Like I find him as rebound as I do, Scott Adams and the worst figures that we've covered.

He might not have. the most rich, but I think he does a lot of damage to people that fall into his web. Yeah, yeah. He just seems like a pretty terrible person. And I think we kind of deliberately didn't focus too much on all of the big ticket things that just makes him a terrible person, like his, you know, being basically a racist, you know, pushing the white genocide conspiracies and stuff supporting eugenics type policies and i think we we have covered his misogyny stuff it comes through entirely but it's really quite intense and it just it is every every part of his philosophy it's just imbued into it i shouldn't call it philosophy because it's not it's so it's a weird

culty system and speaking of the cult dynamics like as you said he's found this little niche for himself He's got these various paywalls. He's been kicked off and banned from pretty much every payment-providing type platform. But he's still there on locals and on his own domain, whatever it's called. Freedom and freedom. And he's coined for those terms like defoeing,

departing from family of origin, encouraging people to sever their ties with their families if they don't meet his very specific moral of philosophical standards and like it's good that he's been sort of pushed into this tiny little bubble it's good for the rest of us it's good for society but the flip side to that it too is is once you get past his teasers if you find his teaser like free material interesting whatever and you cross that threshold then you're in a very high intensity thing where you know you'll be calling up he knows you you're having repeat conversations yeah apparently we had this illusion

to it, but he seems to have created these and the thought is horrifying Stefan Mulmew AIs that have been trained on all of his content and are kind of there with you all the time to answer all of your life questions. No, it does sound like he doesn't trust them

to be as manipulative. But the guy was like, I'll, you know, why don't I play the transcript to the Steph AI buy? He's like, no, wow. That's a cop part. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, what can you say about this person? Like, it has given us, like, I think, better insights into the interpersonal nature of how cult leaders operate, right?

We saw it with Reneery. We saw it with... Who was the other cult person who covered? Reverend Moon. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, they're, you know, I think you're getting a feeling for how they operate. like one-on-one, like there is, like all of those toxic behaviors that you might see in your

everyday life. You might see it in your workplace, like, you know, to varying degrees, but you see them here at full intensity, the gaslighting, the passive aggression, the manipulation, all of those little tricks, those little judo flips and stuff to sort of turn, turn the spotlight back on you and put you on the back foot where the intention is always for you to essentially submit to them. accept everything that they're telling you. So I think it's helpful for people to hear these techniques because hopefully you'll never run into a real-life cult character like this. But, you know, people do run into like watered-down versions of this

in all kinds of contexts. And I think it's just good to be able to spot the red flags. Yeah, and I also think it's worth noting that some of the more kind of unpleasant aspects, like the direct challenging, the accusations, the calls for submission, they're usually wrapped within softer stuff, which is expressing, caring, expressing, I'm a deep philosophical. I love having conversations.

I like to be challenged, right? And you've heard how much Stefan enjoys being challenged, but you also heard how many times that he explicitly stated. That's what he's about, right? Like he loves having challenging discourse about philosophical topics. Does he? everything he says everything he says is a lie

everything he says is untrue it's the opposite it's more than untrue it's more than untrue is the opposite of the truth but no it's true like everything is wrapped in a sugary little coating and what they are good at

this was true of Reneer as well which is like listening and being quiet like let the person talk right and they definitely like they give the people the feeling of being seen I guess like really pay attention to And as long as you do what you're told, there is a lot of sugar there in terms of that deep connection that they're forging with you.

And I kind of are getting some insight into why it works. Well, I also noticed, like, I swear to God, this is a warning sign. When people are willing to take such long pregnant pauses when responding to people, like the only people I've seen do that are guru types. or a couple of academics, right? But it's not actually that comment. And it's unusual, right? Because they're like pausing for effect for their words to hit. And it's also like a power dynamic where you're able to just like, you know, stop in silence

until someone responds or give like a long dramatic pause. And yeah, I think that's an interesting thing that we've heard that in the Kifuneri stuff and the Stefan stuff. and I suspect we'll hear it more. Oh, that long pregnant pause, you hear it amongst most of our gurus. Eric Weinstein absolutely does it. Yes, exactly. And I know, but not normal people, man.

They don't do that because it sounds. So it's just, it's kind of part of part and parcel of the performative nature of like gurus and cult leaders is that they're skill maxed in like linguistic abilities and, you know, manipulative rhetoric. So, yeah, just, you know, when you hear the things repeating, I think it's worth registering. I think that's key. They have a very specific set of skills, just like Liam Neeson. Like, you know, like, take this guy, Stefan.

Like, he's an imbecile. He knows nothing about any of the topics he pretends to be an expert. I mean, not nothing. Be careful. Wow. You know. Yeah. It has a very superficial body of knowledge, yes.

Yes. incredibly superficial, certainly cannot apply it. Like, it's Mickey Now's stuff, you know, like that psychologizing or whatever you want to call it, that he's doing there. Like it's, you know, it's nonsense. He has no skill set in the stuff that he professes to have. But what they are good at is what we've been talking about, all of this manipulative stuff. That is, and it's definitely, he keeps talking about his decades of experience of this area. He does have decades it experience in just being an asshole being an absolute piece of shit i have four decades of being a terrible arseller yeah yeah i yeah just an absolute um you know contributes nothing to

society chris just a complete a complete cancer on on i wonder we'll see when we get to the the grometer if he things up all of the things or if like keef rineri he's kind of maxed in specific areas right and yeah i'm not i'm not sure because i thought like you that minari would score high across the board and then he didn't and uh stephen could be to see him in that respect well we'll find out we'll find out yeah that's interesting thing about the gromit like we're often surprised aren't we it's not until we actually come to do it that we um that we that we find out um It's a useful thing. Useful thing.

Okay, yes. So, no, I'm up. We're done with that. We've got to give the patrons that kindly support the good ship, DTG. A little shout out. I've got their names here in front of me. Would you object if I were to give them a little acknowledgement? All right.

Go on. Go on. Go on, going, going, going, go on. So conspiracy and hypothesizers, the least of the Patriot community. Chris, Chris. What? But they're the least financially, but, you know, everyone is equal in our, what is it, luxury communist future, whatever you're. Fully automated luxury, gay, space communism.

Yeah, that's right. The meek will inherit the earth. That's right. That's right. So there we have Gary Bushwell, R. Deanne Gregory, Thomas Jones, Patrick Vanderwell, Ogilie, Ogilis Gets, Ellis Edland, Ida DuPont, Jacob Kachar, Autumn Foxx, Kevin Kee, Dougie Jones, Theo O'Donnell, Dan Hartold, Nate Cross, Andrew Copland, Sean Saunders,

Joseph Boyle, Gregory Hodge, Maple, William Chandler, Yo-Yo, Almond Catna Tjano Gifleo, Xavier, Dave, Victor Mion, Brennan, Drury, Danny Pearson's, Nick Sim, and Nikolai Sundby. Those are our conspiracy, I prophesizers. Thank you. Thank you. all. I feel like there was a conference that none of us were invited to that came to some very

strong conclusions, and they've all circulated this list of correct answers. I wasn't at this conference. This kind of shit makes me think, man, it's almost like someone is being paid. Like when you hear these George Soros stories, he's trying to destroy the country from within. We are not going to advance conspiracy theories. We will advance conspiracy hypotheses. that we will now we will yeah please please never

never put Stefan Moliner in this I'm I was actually thinking as there's a couple of clips I could certainly go in there I could I could

I could divitjade please um revolutionary geniuses you know the ones that are not showing off they're like middle of the pack

just like us they're your average average shows of the coding the guru community there we have oh and they get access to the

Code an Academia series amongst all the things. There are tons of other benefits, but hardly worth mentioning. Just said, we have Hans Bern Herschel, J.W., Christian Colombo, Hugo Roman Ward, Danny, J. Scott, N. Dogg, Vera, Ballant Magar, Daniel Johnson, Oberto Pagoda, Peter Crane, L.D., Anna Maria Bleuick, J.G. Chris Laurel, Abrad, Kostya Paschalides, and yeah, that's them, the revolutionary geniuses for this month. I'm usually running, I don't know, 70 or 90 distinct paradigms simultaneously all the time. And the idea is not to try to collapse them down to a single master paradigm. I'm someone who's a true polymath. I'm all over the place.

But my main claim to fame, if you'd like in academia, is that I founded the field of evolutionary consumption. Now, that's just a guess, and it could easily be wrong, but it also could not be wrong. The fact that it's even plausible is stunning. Stunning, indeed. And you know what's also stunning, Chris, the highest tier of how Patriot, the class of people in that tier. I mean, the peacocks of the Patreon subscribers, they are showing off. Peacocks? Is that what they are?

Yes, well, there we have Chris Constantine, David Rosenman, old squeaky. Enjoy. Jason Kuzma, Matt Denner, Rachel Price, Cindy S, Andrew Pablisky, he told me how to pronounce this. And I keep saying it, we're on. Got them, we're going to interview him up. Andrew Smith, Jonathan Kane, Ryan Ernest, Chris Sullivan, Kismet 13, Curtis Friede, Curtis Friede. Freeman and John Schumacher and John. Excellent.

Well, thanks to all of them, but especially old squeaky there. It just reminded me, we've got an update on old squeaky. There's some news. There's some news. But I'm not going to tell you now. Wait to the next supplementary materials. See, for the supplementary materials. I know that I think, I mean, I do know what it is, but it's very big news.

It's squeaky related. Yeah, big news. He joined a Patreon. He's going to do. see even old squeaky supports that's a that's a surprising thing about him you got to give we do appreciate all of this part from all of these nice people we do we do chucks aside and if you want to you can come and you know talk to us in the the live streams we do every month we can't promise it'd be particularly interesting but we promise we'll be there we can't

We can promise there won't be any passive aggression or gaslighting. There won't be anything. We can't promise that. If you want to ask us about your personal problems, I wouldn't advise it. No. I'm just with it would advise it. So it's all we can do with, to deal with our own personal problems. We can't help you.

We can't. No, sorry. But what you do get is this lovely audio clip. So here you go. Hello there, you awakening wonders. You may not be aware that your entire reality is being manipulated, become part of our community or free speakers, we are still allowed to say stuff like this. Science is failing. It's failing right in front of our eyes and no one's doing

anything about it. I'm a show for no one. More than that, I just simply refuse to be caught in any one single echo chamber. In the end, like many of us must, I walk alone. A great combination of people over there. Each of their own particular process. of, like, you know, rhetoric. They're all so unique, yet so, so fucking similar. They're very predictable, very predictable. But I will say that all three of those people, well, maybe with the exception of Russell Brown,

but I don't rank as manipulative or dangerous as, as like Stefan. Yeah. But Russell Brand, I realized that probably would enjoy it in that practice. So I don't think, I don't think that Sabina or Lex is currently at the level of giving their listeners interpersonal advice on the relationships, right? Not yet. No, no, no. So, you know, well done, both of you.

Yeah, congrats. They cleared that bar. Yeah, clear that bar. Good job. Yeah, yeah. Well, there we go, Matt. This was, this was an epic link, but that's classic DTG. That's what we do.

That's what we do it. Yeah. And no more, Malnew, we're done with him. But now, back in these little box, back to the Stefan box. And, yes, we'll carry on. Cult season continues. Look forward to more coming in, yeah, the next episode of cult season. Can't wait.

Bye. for the season so don't listen to the leader come with us and fire up your gorameter it's time for cold season get out your decoderings

this is cold season on the deep It's time for cold season. It's time for decoding this cold season. Chris and Matt on the DTG.