Decoding the Gurus - Supplementary Material 20: Stolen Valour, Based Murder, and Eric Weinstein's Phonecall Problems

Episode Date: December 27, 2024

In this end-of-year supplementary material, we unleash the hounds of war, battle through the discourse, and emerge alive but bloody and battered on the other side. Enlist now and join the fight.Supplementary Material 2000:00 Introduction and Ethnographic Insights01:38 Matt's Observations from Washington DC05:50 Smithsonian Museums and Star Wars Memorabilia07:48 Lego Creations and Gacha Collectibles12:13 Social Media and Blue Sky 'Culture'13:29 Matt's Contribution: Eric Weinstein's UFO Speculations21:21 Graham Linehan, Andrew Doyle, Jordan Peterson & Recognising Past Errors23:18 Jordan Peterson's Reflections on Vaccination28:59 Huberman's Upcoming Vaccine Series30:52 Taylor Lorenz and Stochastic Terrorism32:31 The Hypocrisy of Glorifying Violence36:29 The Problem with Political Violence43:48 Tim Kennedy's Exaggerated Military Stories55:09 Tim Kennedy's Response to Criticism01:07:37 Prebunking Criticisms01:17:20 Shane Smith at Vice is NOT A CONSPIRACY GUY01:21:27 Final Thoughts on Populism and Vibes-Based Reasoning01:25:18 OutroThe full episode is available for Patreon subscribers (1hr 26 mins).Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurusSources Jordan Peterson: Europe Imploding | Andrew Doyle & Graham Linehan | EP 506Tim Kennedy: Setting the Record StraightPiers Morgan Uncensored: “Why The F*CK Are You Laughing?!” CEO Murder Arrest & Daniel Penny NOT GUILTYThe AntiHero Podcast: Ep 101: Tim Kennedy: The Book Of LiesValhalla VFT: Green Berets, Delta Force & Navy SEAL DENOUNCE Tim Kennedy Stolen Valor LIES

Hello and welcome to Decoding the Guru's supplementary material. That is with me, the anthropologist from Northern Ireland, Chris Kavanagh. With him, the psychologist from Australia, world-renowned psychologist of addiction, of conspiracy communities, of all shebang statistics. That is Matthew Bryan. But he's not in Australia. As we know, he's touring around the US. He's engaged in ethnography. He's gathering observations. And he promised me that he has fresh insights that he's delivering about America. He's even sent me images that I have yet to open. So, Ma, do you want the

tea up? What delights await me when I look into my messages or should I just go in and look now? What is there any framing I need? Well, you've probably built this up too much. I'm not sure if I've got any great sociological anthropological insights. Um, you know, southerners are nice. You know, all the stereotypes are true basically about Americans. Oh yeah. Where are you now? I'm in Washington, DC, the nation's capital.

I've been wandering around. I've been looking at all of the monumental buildings and things. I went to the Abraham Lincoln Memorial, you know, the big guy was sitting on a great big chair and I enjoyed reading his- Did you stare him dying because of what he did to America? He blinked. He blinked first. No, no, I read the Gettysburg Address, which is there on the wall, and then I think there's another speech on the other wall. I'm not sure where that's from. And both very good speeches, both very good speeches, fine sentiments.

And the thought did occur, I have to say. It's just hard to believe that he occupied the same position that is now occupied shortly by Donald Trump. The setup for the inauguration was already happening. Quite the contrast. That's progress, Matt. That's, you know, Steven Pinker's face is that the overall things are getting better. A good indication of that is the development from, you know, these figures from the past, these presidents that have reputations that transcend the ages and Donald Trump who

I suspect will also have a reputation that transcends the ages in a certain way. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, before anyone gets too depressed, remember, you know, America's had some pretty bad presidents before they haven't all been. Abraham Lincoln. No, a lot of bad ones along the way and the the Union survived. So it'll be

fine, hopefully. But yeah, no, Washington, DC is a nice town, Chris. Like it's, it's a little bit I've never been to Paris, but it looks like how I imagined. Yes, exactly like Paris. I think it's the same. That's what people often say. Washington DC in Paris, basically the same. That's right. And the fact that I've never been to Paris just makes like edgy comparison all the more authentic. I've been to both of them and I can say, yeah, yeah, that's spot on. No difference. Maybe slightly better baguettes in Paris. difference. Maybe slightly better baguettes in Paris. But Paris. I just meant that, I just meant that like there is like some high rises outside of town a bit,

but in the main part of town, it's all pretty like mid-rise, you know, mid-rise and a lot of the buildings look very European, you know, because they were built with that in mind and all the embassies and stuff look kind kind of European that just got that. I actually, I went to a conference that was in Washington, DC. Isn't that what it's called? Like the place where the White House and the National Monument and all that. That's that's Washington, DC. Isn't that? Yes, yes, it is.

Okay. Right. So I, I went to conference area and I wanted to go and see, you know, the landmarks that are there and I, I found that whole area like quite impressive in the vistas and stuff that are available. Might've been just the autumn season when I was there, but there was a lot of nice parks and whatnot. And I went for a dander. I walked from the conference center down through the town. And this seemed like a city where you could walk places, which is rare in America.

And I ended up though, that I didn't have any signal on my phone because I didn't have a SIM card. And I wasn't staying in the conference center, I was staying in like an Airbnb that was quite far out. And I ended up walking, I think 35,000 steps that day because like I just couldn't get back and then I was out of wi-fi things and I desperately wanted to get like an Uber at the end to get back and I eventually did but I had to walk for a day. There was some holiday or something that like places were closed and I couldn't get the thing. So I walked the length and breadth of Washington, D.C.

and saw it in all its glory. And there's squirrels, there's squirrels around there. I believe, man. There's squirrels all over the United States, Chris. There's no way. You know, you've run out of interest in squirrels now. I still, yeah, no, I still like them. I still like them. They're just not specific to Washington DC, as I'm

sure our American listeners will agree. Very interesting stuff there. But the thing that I saw in the American History Museum that would be more appealing to a man of your caliber, your tastes, you can look down at your phone and tell me what you see. Look up my messages and, oh God, why did you send it? No, no. They, okay. I see C3PO and R2-D2 beside some video playing. Okay, so there's Star Wars guys. But those are the original, that's the original suits

from Return of the Jedi, 1981, C-3PO and R2-D2. I thought that would appeal to you. It's a bit underwhelming in a respect. It's not like the Mona Lisa where there's crowds galloping around. It's just like somebody stuck it in the corner. But maybe you just arrived at a particularly unpopular time. And then your next image, Matt, is a series of colorful boxes. Yeah, just treat this as like a mental exercise for you, Chris.

Can you identify what that is that I sent you? Paint a picture with words to our viewers. Tupperware arranged in a kind of stack with various seeds and leaves inside it. And it seems to be the thing that it is all stacked in is made out of Lego, a rainbow Lego kind of design. Yeah. That's right. That's right. So, you know, your, your thing is those gotcha that we can see behind us.

Um, for visual observers of the, of the audio podcast, they can see, I have a little collection of figures from gotchas behind me on my ledge. Yes. Yeah. Which is, you know, a cute little hobby you have. This is what my wife's working out at the moment. She makes things out of Lego. She makes lots of stuff out of it.

Cause we bought so much Lego for our kids and now the kids don't seem to want to play with it so much and my wife just likes to relax, but instead of playing stupid games on her iPhone, like, like I do, she, she makes things out of Lego, but she makes, she makes things just for fun. But she, she's made like lampshades and she's made a Lego lampshade, like a, like a coffee filter caddy, like a thing for holding those coffee filters. And this, what you're looking at this master piece is a spice rack made out of Lego because I cook a lot of Indian food.

As you know, Chris, I'm a bit of Indian food, as you know, Chris. I'm a bit of a chef. And she's made me a great big spice rack out of Lego to put all my spices in. This is what she's up to while you're away. Well, that is interesting. She's not up to mischief. This is good.

She's up to just awesome normal adult activities. Yeah. Well, and adult activities. Yeah. Well, and also I need to defend myself just before we get on to the business of Guru decoding, because when people initially come to Japan, they're quite into gatches, they find these, you know, very interesting because there's a lot of weird stuff that you get in gatches. And a lot of it is around like Japanese cultural products, you know, Pokemon or Ampanman or Ultraman or various things, right? But over time, you become desensitized to them because you see

them all the time. And if you, if you pick up the things from them, your house will quickly fill up with like random plastic tat, right? So this is like one of the differences between short term or holiday visiting people and people that are in Japan longer term, the like loss of interest in Gacha. But I would just like to point out I've developed another, like a kind of more refined, I would like the Kurdish Yardin of Gacha appreciators because, and I know that this is designed as part of it. These are like the machines where you put in, you know, like the equivalent of one or two dollars and you get a random selection of one of six different items, right? And you cannot select. So that's the random lottery aspect of it.

There's so many of them in Japan and they're such a thing that they become hyper specific. And this is part of their appeal. So they're like, we'll be a gacha for foldable chairs. And there are six different small plastic foldable chairs that you can get, or like lenses for a particular camcorder from the nineties, right? That's how specific we get. And to illustrate, I saw a gacha machine that made me excited because it had six different types of like tissue boxes

of a Japanese brand of tissues. And there's one that I often buy, which is like six colored ones stacked on top of each other. And I was like, oh, what if I get that? And I paid it and I got it. So just to show the people with the visual thing, there, look, see a little stack of like toy tissue box stack and like meta move. I also got a gacha box machine that was like selling miniature

gacha boxes. So it's like, it's got, you's got you know a little gacha there so I feel this is uh you know I'm going for the more esoteric thing man I'm not into your mainstream gachas I I like the the obscure stuff yeah yeah that's true I like I like the gacha that was dispensed the gacha dispensing a gacha and yeah you told me it's got gacha in it. It does, yeah. What would be really cool is if it had a little gacha. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but you'd have to be doing quantum level engineering

at that point. But yes, that would be cool. So that's what we've been up to, Matt. That's what we've been doing., Matt. That's what we've been doing. Now on these supplementary material, we're allowed to talk about these things. This is part of the deal that we've made with our listeners that we will allow ourselves this indulgence so that the decoding episodes are more focused. So, so don't complain. That's how I'm saying that this is the deal that we have made. And yes, we do have gurus to talk about today. Yes, we do have silly things that we do.

We have some items. I don't have as many items as you Chris, because another bit of personal use is that I migrated over to Blue Sky because I totally got fed up with Elon Musk. And you know, Twitter slash X is assessable. But you know, if you make a firewall and stuff, you can get by in there. But I, yeah, no, Blue Sky, it's a bit of a mixed bag. It's a bit, yeah, I don't know, what's the word? A bit finger waggy? How would you describe it, Chris? I would say a little bit scoldy, a little bit Twitter circa 2019, 2020 vibe.

Not entirely, but I think there is an element of that. And like you say, Twitter is a wretched hive of scum and villainry. So there's a little bit of pick your poison. Yeah. Well, I mean, this affects my ability to provide material for this segment, because I, apart from the traveling, I haven't been really up and off the social media. I haven't been paying attention. I only have one thing. One thing. It is a good one. So what is your one thing? Let's start with Matt's contribution. One contribution.

It's from the very wonderful, the spectacular Eric Weinstein. Now, Chris, UFOs are back in the news. So I've heard. A UFO panic. A UFO panic over New Jersey, is it? Yeah, we don't need to comment on that. Nick West seems skeptical. That's oh yeah. And I'll take him as my barometer for these things and not devote too many neurons to it myself.

Nobody gets tired. Nobody gets tired of the exact same thing happening. You know, it's like the lab like this course, but yes. So carry on. Yes. Just to say where you're right to be skeptical that this is a big, important news story. It looks the exact same as every other your phone news story. But it's like a schedule, right? Every 18 months or so it comes along. Everyone flaps their hands at talking about the government and how can we explain this? And maybe it was the Chinese. And then everyone realizes it's a nothing burger

and they forget about it. Now, Eric is interested. Eric has something to contribute. And so he says that people want my speculation on drones over the East Coast. I do. Yeah. Yeah, we do. Let's take note of the following. I am not in here, I'm not hearing anyone say,

let's get together smart people with resources. At this point, I don't take anyone seriously in USG. I don't know what USG is Chris, do you know? United States government? Oh yeah, United States government. In United States government who doesn't ask to convene smart people and resources. Is this ringing any bells for you Chris? Smart people putting them together with the resources they desperately need in order to

come together and solve the problems of America. Could Eric be one of these smart people? Oh, could Eric be referring to himself? Is that possible? Well, was he wearing a jacket when he wrote this tweet? Well, I assume so. I assume so. I can't say for certain, but you know, this should ring bells

because Eric has spoken on this topic before. You know, he seems to bells because Eric has spoken on this topic before You know, he it seems to be expecting. Yeah Well, he was he was quite blatantly complaining about not being offered a position in the new Trump administration That's just the most recent case. Yeah, but even before then this of course has been a regular theme for him He is ready to serve the government, which is then the helicopter, pick him up. He's he's got his jacket on. He's ready to go. Why won't they come? And he's very sad about it. And he brings it up again.

So he continues. This is simple. A, you call up smart people and tell them it's urgent. B, you tell them where you want them to go. Yep, it's probably the White House, wherever, could be the Pentagon. C, you send transport to get them. Could be a helicopter, could be like secret service and those bulletproof service and those bulletproof bus ticket. Yeah, it could be anything. D, you tell them they have access, full access to information. I think that's critical, isn't it? Okay. Yeah, that's crucial. Yeah. There's a lot of information that's not being released that the smart people need to look at it. And E, you tell them they have whatever resources they need. Just bucket loads of cash.

Anyway, he hasn't mentioned himself here. Hasn't mentioned himself, not explicitly. If not, that says it all. Anyway, anyway, if they are not. Eric's phone is not ringing. Is that what you're telling me? Like it's still, he hasn't received the call. So they're not serious about this issue.

Like in all fairness, we don't know for sure that he believes that he's one of the smart people that he's referring to in these tweets. Do we? Do we not know that for certain? I'd say we have a lot of reason to infer that Eric thinks he is among that class. But I guess if you want to be very pedantic about it We cannot say that for certain is referring to himself here, but yes So it yeah, I mean Eric doesn't do what McQuist does like he doesn't analyze videos

he doesn't go out there and interview people and collect data and and Collaborate with others in order to figure stuff. He doesn't do any of that, but he's, you know, he just talks occasionally on podcasts about this stuff, but he's available. This is the important, and I don't know what resources he'll need. They just know the microphone. But it has to be unlimited. They have to be unlimited.

Like, money is no object. Money is no object. I think that's important, lots of resources. But anyway, it continues, Chris. Couple more tweets here, which are nice for it. If they are not trying to figure this out, and they're obviously not since they haven't sent the Secret Service, then there is some reason that they are not trying to resolve this. But I see no signs of trying to quickly resolve this, even if the claim is that it is a panic or a mass psychosis. So to be clear, my speculation is that I think that this is not something

the United States government wants cleared up for the public. And I don't want to publicly speculate beyond that. This is disturbing enough. So there you go. So that's the thing. The government, like regardless of whether the aliens are real, it could be mass panic, could be mass hysteria, it could be aliens, could be Chinese drones. But regardless, they haven't called Eric and other smart people together and given them

limitless resources to figure it out. Therefore they don't want to figure it out. There is some reason they are trying to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt. What one presumes. So anyway, that's, that's Eric Weinstein's takes on the, uh, UFO flap. Um, you know, he's on par, he's on par, but I enjoyed that. That was classic, classic Eric, never change. Yeah. Yeah.

That is, that's pretty good. And one day the phone might ring and we'll get this stuff resolved. But until then, Eric is, you know, it's quite impressive that out of all the people we cover, he is the, one of the most blatant in that it's his personal grievance that he has not been invited to, you know, whatever, whatever event that is. I remember when the COVID was happening, he also wasn't receiving the call. He was like, if you're serious about finding out where this virus came from, how to do the public health, you would have called me and my friends up. Right. So you're obviously not serious. So in general, they're just not calling enough. And this is a sign of the times, but you know, in a previous age, Eric would have been getting phone calls nonstop for all these issues. And

the fact that he's not personally getting called is basically the main proof that all of these conspiracy theories that the government is trying to bamboozle everyone is true. Because if they were trying to be, you know, honest with everyone, they would have called Eric up got him to sort it out. Well, yeah. No, Matt, I have from my little grab bag, fun box of, you know, guru treat treats I have some, just a few that are actually just one that is from a classical guru. So since you're dealing with Eric Weinstein,

I will just get this one little example or one little treat out of the box and out of the way, right? Cause this is Jordan Peterson. You've probably heard enough from him lately. I know I have, but I chose to listen to him talk to Andrew Doyle and Graham Linehan about their new comedy ventures in the US. And we also heard recently, I think Jordan Peterson announced that he's leaving Canada. He's fleeing Trudeau's repressive totalitarian works for the land of the free, right, in the US. He's doing that when by all

accounts like Trudeau is likely to lose the next election. So, but never, you know, maybe he'll come back. But in any case, there's no point in listening to that podcast. Nobody should. It is just a grievance-mongering, anti-woke session. You've heard it a bazillion, jillion times. But there was one segment of it that I thought that was notable. And it was whenever they were addressing, but previously, before Graham Linehan took his strong, well, I mean, he's been on a anti-trans kind of conspiratorial personal grievance journey for many years now, right? So that's not a new turn. But before he was also being kind of critical of the, you know, reactionary right wing type

people, right? So he had actually been critical of Andrew Doyle over something previously and had went and tried to get his like GoFundMe campaign or something cancelled, right? So they bring this up in the interview that like, oh, actually, you know, it's funny that we're working together now because previously Graham tried to cancel me, right? And this leads Jordan to talk about, you know, mistakes that people make. We've all made mistakes. It's the fact that we can acknowledge them that's important. So let's see the example of a mistake that Jordan made that he, you know, thinks it's

important to acknowledge. But you'll hear the little interaction about the cancellation at the start. And we wrote this satirical piece mocking the court's decision where the character, you know, and Graham attacked me for that online. I think you called me alt-right or fascist or something. Oh, I'm so sorry. No, no, no, I'm not saying it to embarrass you. I think it's quite funny. It's a nice little connection we have. Back in the day before we were friends, I was a fascist.

But you know, I did that. Now it's important to highlight these sorts of things though, because you want to see where you're just like I said, it took me like six months to trust you on X, you want to see it's not like only those people are susceptible to this like mass hysteria. It's you got to watch and see where you're susceptible. And if you and if you have been susceptible in some manner, you should admit it. Well, you know, at one point during the COVID epidemic, the so-called COVID epidemic, I got vaccinated twice. Now, in my defense, I was very ill at the time and wasn't really able to

think. But I did get vaccinated. But I also said at the end of one podcast, and I would say in some ways, despite some inner prompting that people should just get the damn vaccine. And my thinking at the time was, seriously, I was like, I'll take the shots. Here's the deal. I'll take the shots. You leave me the hell alone. And then I found out instantly that the deal was you take the shots and then you take six more and forget about being left alone. And that was the end of that as far as I was concerned.

But still, I made a mistake. I made a mistake. And I would say, it was very difficult for me at that point to believe that the pharmaceutical companies had become so corrupt that you couldn't trust their vaccine policy. Yeah, you know, it was it was easier to think that it was get vaccinated and he got vaccinated himself, Matt, because he didn't realize the so-called epidemic and how dangerous these vaccines were. And he has to live with that, Matt. He has to live with the fact that he recommended it and that his audience were potentially put in harm's way by his recommendation. This is a good illustration of the alternative reality of the right wing sphere. But also, if you remember, we did an episode where Jordan Peterson was talking to Brett Weinstein when he came back from his recovery period, and

he was reluctant to endorse Brett's like more conspiratorial lurid stuff about the vaccines. And we said, Oh, that's, that's to his credit, you know, that he's, he's not willing to go there, but that is a big, that he feels very regretful of it. So yeah, no, it, it illustrates that group thing. Right. So it's kind of ironic because their favorite thing of course is how, you know, everyone who was a progressive or on the left or mainstream

is just subject to this, you know, stultifying pressure to everyone conform and become NPCs and all agree about things. And they're the ones that are brave and robust enough to deal with facts and logic. Yet they all coalesce and come together and when they start off disagreeing, they realize that's a problem. They have discordant views and they need to reconcile them. And now they're all very much on the same page. So just at the beginning of that segment,

the other two characters were talking about at some point in the past, one of them called the other person like a Nazi or something. And they were like, now I realize, of course, you're one of the best people. Like that was totally wrong. Did I understand that bit correctly?

But that would be another example, right? Of them, when they hadn't linked up, when they hadn't formed this community. The dream team. They were, you know, being somewhat heterodox, you know what I mean? Including throwing bubs in the direction of each other, including people who seem to be saying extremely reactionary right-wing stuff, but now they're all on the same page. They're all in lockstep. Yeah. Well, this is also, you know, like Graham Linehan, I think in general was, you know, more left-leaning traditionally.

Yeah. Yeah. So Graham Lineahan has his one issue, right, that was his entry point for this, right? Obviously, the trans issue. But in other respects, his political social opinions may well have been, well, all over the shop, right? They could have been anything. But the important thing is that now they're all in the same faction.

Everyone has to conform. Everyone has to have the same array of political views, policy views and enemies, right? Yeah. So it is that, and, you know, as you say, Lenehan has started to get into anti-vaccine conspiracies, you know, the kind of standard MAGA stuff. Yeah.

You have to align. I mean, Jordan's not just aligning on vaccines being, you know, dangerous. But even as he said there and, you know, you heard in the conversation the hour of destiny, he's not even sure there actually was a pandemic. The so-called pandemic or epidemic. It did kill millions of people worldwide. But like, really, Matt, can we call it a pandemic? Wasn't it just a seasonal flu?

Yeah. Yeah, flu? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's it. So, you know, just, I just thought that was a funny example of the Bizarro world, where they live in where he, you know, needs to apologize because he recommended people will take a vaccine during the global pandemic.

And also relatedly, Andrew Huberman now announced that he's going to do a series on vaccines. I wonder what changed that he was not talking about vaccines, but now he has decided that he's going to do like an in-depth series on the topic. It wouldn't be that the administration has shifted and that he's going to do a both-sides thing. No, no, I'm sure he will correctly highlight that the evidence base for vaccines and their efficacy is rock solid and that a lot of the fears about them are overblown and based on misunderstandings or an anti-vaccine movement. I'm sure that's why

he's going into this and not because he's been attempting to appeal to the new administration and his heterodox audience. That's the way it will go. It'll be about the science. It will not be about pandering to his audience of vaccine slightly skeptical folk. Yeah, we'll see. Almost certainly going to be a both-sizing thing where he avoids taking too strong a stance because he doesn't want to get into trouble and further demolish his credentials as a reliable scientific Stanford researcher, all that stuff. And you know, he will get more attention if he goes all out. He's certainly not going to tell the truth because that would be bad business, frankly, for him given his audience.

So we know what he'll do. It'll be that both sides think it's all very complicated and there are these things and who can say it's very reasonable to have serious concerns, but he'll probably concede that there could be some benefits for some vaccines for some people, depending on the situation. Well, so now I'm at to gurus that we don't cover or guru contenders. Are they gurus? We'll find out in due course. But are you familiar with the journalist Taylor Lorenz? Not really. When you mentioned that name to me before, I thought you were talking about Taylor Swift. You thought I was talking about Taylor Swift. Yeah. So Taylor Lorenz is a journalist that has covered extremism, online radicalization,

a variety of topics, but like she did an interview with the Libs of TikTok woman, and she's somebody that's beat the drum for concerns about stochastic terrorism, for example, which would be Alex Jones talking to his audience about all these Klaus Schwab figures that it would be better if the world was without them. But he's not directly saying that people need to do something, right? Or actually he is saying they're doing something, but he's not directly saying go and kill this person, right? And concerns about stochastic terrorism are that people can kind of gin up like paint targets on people that are then going to encourage people to

actually engage in violence or activities. For example, Joel Roth, the former head of trust and safety at Twitter, whenever Elon Musk targeted him and made implications that he was a supporter of pedophiles because of misrepresenting his dissertation. He had to move out of his apartment and stuff and was in danger. Right. So I think Taylor Lawrence is correct when she highlights that we should be concerned about the possibility of encouraging sarcastic terrorism and this being a concern on the right. Sure, yeah, yeah. Yes, now, so given that, what's been quite notable

is how she and a number of other people, mainly on the left side, have kind of glorified the guy Luigi Mangione that shot the CEO, that executed the CEO of the health insurance company in America recently. So he's become a bit of a celebrity figure in a way. And there was a palpable disappointment when it emerged that people find his Twitter account and it turned out he might be a Huberman Joe Rogan, slightly libertarian type, right? That was not what people were hoping for. But the thing that has struck me is like Taylor Lorenz, who previously presented this as a huge issue,

right? You shouldn't be glorifying violence because it can lead to genuine outcomes in the real world. Nye, absolutely no concern with that. So after this news came out, you know, she was posting on Blue Sky, a bunch of stuff, implying that this was, you know, actually a celebratory event and also posting up the CEOs of other health insurance companies, almost like she's putting out a freaking hit list.

And just today, four hours ago at the time of recording, there's a picture of Luigi going to, I think it's trial or something like this, and he's in the orange jumpsuit being escorted by police and, you know, FBI agents or whatever. And he's working towards it. And she has posted that picture and said, they can't stop making him look cool as hell. Right. And she's kind of reveled in this position of, yeah, she's not advocating that people do this, but it's just that like it's completely reasonable and understandable that they would and like he is very Cool and be is then this kind of thing I don't I don't like him and I have a clip to play and the illustrate then to get your thoughts off This is a person we've never played before because it involves Piers Morgan, right? So what I I this are really

Dislike on the genetic level. I feel Piers Morgan, but in this clip I think he is playing the role of a reasonable critic of Taylor Lauren's position. So listen to this short exchange. Why would you be in such a celebratory mood about the execution of another human being? Aren't you supposed to be on the caring sharing left where you believe in the sanctity of the sacred? And you're not supposed to be on the sacred. You're supposed to be on the sacred.

You're supposed to be on the sacred. You're supposed to be on the sacred. You're supposed to be on the sacred. celebratory mood about the execution of another human being. Aren't you supposed to be on the caring, sharing left where, you know, you believe in the sanctity of life? I do believe in the sanctity of life. And I think that's why I felt, along with so many other Americans, joy, unfortunately, you know, because it feels like... Joy? Seriously? I mean, joy in a man's execution? Maybe not joy, but certainly not empathy. Because, again, this is a man responsible for... How come this makes you joyful?

This guy's a husband, he's a father, and he's being gunned down in the middle of Manhattan. Why does that make you joyful? So are the tens of thousands of Americans that are being murdered. So are the tens of thousands of Americans, innocent Americans, who died because greedy health insurance executives like this one push a policies of denying care to the most vulnerable people. And the many millions of Americans that have watched people that I care about suffer and in some cases die because of lack of health care. So should they all be killed then? Should they all be killed,

these health care executives? Would that make you even more joyful? No, that would not. Why not? Why are you laughing? I think because, Piers, because it doesn't, wouldn't fix the system. You seem to find the whole thing hilarious. I find your question funny. A bloke's been murdered in the street. I don't find it funny at all. You've got Piers' moral outreach. Yeah, Piers is doing his thing. Yeah, so I mean, this is, you know, for people that are not on social media, you might not know, but you know, it's a pretty commonly expressed sentiment amongst the, I don't know, activists left, I suppose you'd call it, that, you know know people might not outright endorse it as a

as a positive policy going forward but at the very least a kind of okay with the executing healthcare CEOs because of their crimes essentially so so there has been a lot of hero worship definitely helps that the guy's good looking. I saw someone say this is like, like finding out about Robin Hood in the 1300s. Like every new update that comes from this guy, I'm like, that's so sick. So yeah, that's it. That's the thing that's been going on. Uh, yeah. In that clip as well, Matt, you hear that thing where it reminds me of a lot of the

people that we've covered where they want to like say something edgy. They'll say, you know, yeah, know, what was your reaction to that event? Well, it was actually joyful. And then when they're pushed on it, they'll immediately say, well, I don't endorse it. I don't endorse it. Yeah, I'm not saying it's good, right? Like I'm not saying that we should call for it. And I feel like if this were a different target, if it was somebody that was vilified by the

left and somebody was being interviewed and said like the murder made them feel joyful. And then they said, well, you know, not joyful, you know, I'm not advocating for it. Like I just think you cannot do the hand-wringing about stochastic terrorism and then promote, oh, look how cool this person is. And there's plenty of legitimate reasons that people would feel that it's okay to kill healthcare CEO. And that doesn't matter in terms of your opinion about the American healthcare situation, whether you think it's great, which very few people I think do, or whether you think it's terrible and exploitative. The issue is executing people responsible for those.

So like, if this principle is okay, there is a lot of exploitative industries out there with a lot of capitalist figures, right? A lot of CEOs around that it would be, maybe it's not okay, but you know, like the moral calculus for murdering them is certainly something that we have to be at. And like, if you want to take that stance and take the stance that it's extremely bad when people imply that others could be morally correct to act in targeting people that they see as doing severe harm. Like it just there's an obvious contradiction there because like if you think that doctors are poisoning people with

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