Decoding the Gurus - Supplementary Material 22: Tim Tams, Nazi Salutes, and AI Demonology

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

We immerse ourselves in the Dark Side of the Gurusphere and come out forever altered by what we've seen and praying for an escape from this demon-haunted world.00:00 Introduction01:38 Reverse Culture Shock in Australia11:01 Tim Tams and Food Progress12:14 Russia Today endorses Lex's statements on Zelensky19:20 Elon Musk's Controversial Gesture38:31 Destiny's (Most Recent) Controversy01:02:12 Bryan Johnson vs. Andrew Huberman: Civility Insights01:14:21 Sacriligeous Sycophancy: Bill Ackman and Sam Altman01:15:55 Jonathan Pageau's Stargate Theories01:26:52 Escaping the Demon-Haunted WorldThe full episode is available for Patreon subscribers (1hrs 30 mins).Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurusSourcesRussia Today tweeting about Lex and announcing his upcoming interview with PutinJoe Rogan Experience #2260 - Lex FridmanVideo comparing Musk's gesture with other politicians' gesturesPxie's statement about the lawsuit on her substack and Destiny's response on his subredditBryan Johnson and Huberman's Twitter ExchangeBill Ackman suggesting Trump's achievements are greater than God'sJonathan Pageau's thread on Stargates

Hello and welcome to the Coding Guru's supplementary material with two academics of sorts, Matthew Brown, professor of psychology, Christopher Kavner, not really a professor of anthropology, but just I'm in academia. Okay. I'm in academia. That's all that matters. And here we are. We're back knee deep in Guru's fear muck. It's seeping into all our clothes. It's covering everything in the house. It's getting over things. We need to clear some of this out, Matt.

An update. I was there working away away doing my research, looking at gambling and how much money people are spending in the Australian capital territory, pretty dry stuff. So then when you contacted me said Matt, time to do an update in the gurus. I said, yes, yes, Chris, let's do it. That's right. They must be stopped. They must. They must be. It must be stopped. We, we't stop them, but we we must try.

And I have to just ask my you know, we're allowed to indulge yourself a little bit on these episodes. We're led to indulge ourselves a lot, Chris, a lot. Is that the way it works? Yes. OK. All right. Well, you're back in Australia. You know, you were in America for a relatively long time, like three months. That's a length. I'm not for someone your age, but, you know, you were in America for relatively long time, like three months, that's a length time, not for someone your age, but you know, for other people, it's a large amount of time.

So how has it been back in Australia? Have you had reverse culture shock? Are you welcomed back by the Australian vibe? Well, what's, how are you settling in? Back in the bosom of Australian-ness. Yeah, I did have a bit of reverse culture shock. Things seemed a bit uncanny and weird when I first got back.

I mean, basic things like as I was driving to my house and even my brother's house in he lives in a bigger town. It was so dark, Chris. Like I'd never noticed it before, but there's there's no lights. And I was asking my family, has it always been this dark?

Like it's much brighter in San Francisco, in New York is what I'm saying. I like that as insight. Like the world seems a little bit darker in Australia since you've come back, but it's possibly because of the lack of electricity and infrastructure development in the region you live. I think it's purely, yes, the amount of population. But I've been annoying everyone by telling everyone that I like Americans and

American culture is better than Australian culture. Australians do not like to hear that, that noise. I'm sure they don't like it at the minute as well, especially with like, it's, that's not a super popular opinion at the minute, but you know, like America is not on the ascendancy in the international opinion polling at the minute. Well, it's never been a popular opinion in Australia. Every now and again, they do these attitudinal surveys, Chris, of, you know, Americans do them of other countries. What, what do people think of Americans? And the Australians have pretty negative attitudes to America. Like we're down there with, I don't know, Turkey, maybe a smidge above South North Korea. How do they feel about Ireland? No, well, it's a survey, not about what they think about Irish. It's about what Irish people think of Americans. I think Irish are probably similar in negative. Nobody asked. But you said an artitudinal survey of Australians, right? No?

Yes. Yeah, so don't they get asked about Ireland? Why don't they get asked about Ireland? Oh, god, no. No. This is done by American survey companies. They want to know what other people think of Americans, obviously.

That's really what they care about. Nobody cares what people think. I bet they like them. They, well, I'm not sure. Anyway, we'll find out. But anyway, the attitude is always pretty low, which, which is always upsetting to Americans, because they're like, hey, we like you, why don't you like us? And, you know, the fact is, it's all driven by politics and stuff, you know, like it's

driven by media and stuff. And it's also, it's all driven by politics and stuff, you know, like it's driven by media and stuff. And it's also driven by the fact that Australians consume so much American culture that there's this kind of chip on the shoulder thing where they kind of pretend not to like it because it's not cool. Why don't you consume our culture? You're Americans, right? At least in the case of Ireland, again, not just to mention Ireland, we essentially get, we get credited in a lot of countries with people tracing their roots to us, right?

Like, you know, Americans like to have connections. That's because they do. Well, sure, sure. Yes. But, but I mean, as a result, Ireland has an outsized kind of national profile, right? Because lots of other countries are kind of like, yeah, we love Ireland because, you know, four generations ago, my family were living in Kilkenny or whatever the case might be. Yeah. My family's from County Clare. Have I ever told you that? Isn't that interesting?

Yeah. Fascinating. Irish people loved to hear about you. Yeah, I know. Basically, I am Irish, as well as being Australian. So that's like better than just the one. Like my dad visited the old farmhouse where great grandparents grew up. The neighbours still know our name, the family name. The Brine Family. We can trace our roots. It was more of a family hover in a bog. That's right. When I was growing up, people were often talking, what about the Browns? Did you ever hear about them? They immigrate to Australia. Will they ever come back? One day, one day if we're lucky, it's a white crisis with the present. So, yeah, well, I'm glad to hear you're settling back. I hope the light situation gets sorted.

And yeah, that's good. It's good you returned with a positive image. That's that's nice cultural cross-cultural outreach and that kind of thing. Good job. Rather than coming back like I've cemented my head Of the yes, that would be a bad outcome, right? I I just think it's funny how everyone is prejudiced against americans even americans Like like everyone has booked on america Basically had terrible things to say about the country and even worse things to say about any part of America that they didn't live in.

So the people from the South didn't like the North, the people from the Midwest didn't like the people who lived on the East or the West Coast, people from the East didn't like the West and vice versa. Lot of parochialism, lot of anti-American feeling in America. Amongst Americans. Well, that's interesting. In this era of American exceptionalism, that's kind of nice to know, right? That just everyone's still divided. What a beautiful note.

Not me, Chris. I think they're great. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I have a bad, like, I think it's good to criticize Euroculture and be negative about it. I like, you know, truthfully, like not doing it in an over the top way, which I, is I think a bit of a, like a, it's kind of, it's a bit narcissistic or something to sort of be overly, you know what I mean? It's like, I don't know how to phrase that, but you know what I mean? Like making too much of a fuss about, oh, we're so terrible and stuff. It's there's a narcissistic way.

Yeah, those. Two it's too narcissistic to be too negative about your own country. That's what I'm saying. OK, OK. Yeah, because it's it's put on, you know what I mean? It's like showing how, you know, I see. So you should have like a little bit of pride, but but not too much pride. You're like you need to be the the bear in the Goldilocks story. Not too little pride. That's cringe. Not too little pride, that's cringe.

Not too much pride, that's annoying. But just enough pride. Well, I wouldn't describe in terms of pride, I'd say it's about criticizing it, but criticizing it for the right things appropriately and getting it right. For instance, Australia. Is Chalmers cringe? Yes, he's cringe. Let me give you a concrete example. For years, ever since I first went overseas, I've been going around Australia, telling every Australian that will listen to me that Australian food sucks. It's terrible. And they'll go,

Hey, what about the lambingtons? What about the Tim Tams? Okay, look, that those do not a food culture make like food here sucks. And they go, Oh, you know, there's this really amazing restaurant in Melbourne, and it only costs you $300 a plate. I'm not talking about that. Yes, there are fancy restaurants everywhere. I'm talking about the food that you can buy in your neighborhood. And you can go anywhere in Japan, as you well know, Chris, and get

pretty good food. I've been to many parts of the world, get great food. It's true in America. Not all places in America, fair to say, the South, but you can get food, really good food in a lot of places in America, just at a deli or whatever. That's not true in Australia because our food culture sucks, which is ridiculous given that we have people that come from other countries,

people that know how to cook, right? People from Thailand, say, people from India, they know how to cook really right? People from Thailand say, people from India, they know how to cook really good food and then they have to dumb it down and make it cheap and nasty to suit the Australian palette and the Australian marketplace. It's a crying shame. So anyway, you know, we need to just pull ourselves up by our bridge straps. Now that's not being faux self-critical. I'm just stating true facts, right? True facts. Okay, I got it. I think that's true of Northern Ireland. You understand you come

from a food desert as well, don't you? No, we have a vibrant food culture that's recognized. You do not. Don't lie to me. Well, that's a I shan't Sully the name of Belfast. I'm I don't describe to your your petty narrative of grievances But my my country is just fine with it for culture Everyone knows that's not true. Everyone knows that that's true. But nonetheless Nonetheless, I'll defend Northern Ireland's honor, but I I less, nonetheless, I'll defend Northern Ireland's honor. But I, I, well, I'm glad to hear that, Matt. I'm glad to hear that you've got a, you know, an appreciation for the pros and cons and

an accurate thing. And I don't think anybody in the world was arguing Australia has a well-developed food culture. So, so I'm glad that that that has been beaten back anybody that is arguing that in Australia, but like they know as well, they know deep down in the gym. Deep down they know. They do get defensive. Australians don't like it when you tell them. I don't even know what Kim Tams and Lemington's are, but I know they do not offer culture rake. So I think Tim Tams are actually pretty good.

I'd fact most people know what Tim Tim. Yeah, they are a biscuit. I know what a Shuri is. OK. I know what a Shuri is. Chris, I got to tell you. So Tim Tams are a classic Australian biscuit. People eat them all from all over the world. Right.

Listeners will know what I'm talking about. I've never had one, but okay. And you know what, you know what a company does? They, they have their hit biscuit, like the classic biscuit. And then they go, Oh my, how can we, how can we do more? And they get their food scientists out there and they come up with all these different versions, you know, like a, like a raspberry one or a dark chocolate one and all of these different variants that you can buy.

And they're all worse than the original, but I was committed. I thought they could never improve on the Tim Tam. And then just the other day I had the salted caramel Tim Tam. And oh my God, Chris, it's they they outdid themselves. I'm imagining in some laboratory somewhere there are food scientists just high-fiving each other and hugging each other because they superseded the original amazing Tim Tam flavor. Salted caramel, amazingly good.

So you know, progress is possible. That's what I'm saying. Okay, well good up there on Tim Tams. So, you know, there is progress in the world. That's what our message is to people there. Now, Matt, in regards to progress in the Guru's sphere, okay, there's been things happening. We covered Lex Reedman quite a bit recently and his interviews with Zelensky. And there has been a little bit of movement related to that afterwards. So as you might anticipate, Lex went online, like we covered and bemoaned the people criticizing him, you know, for his interview. We have an in-depth breakdown for anybody interested in that.

But he also went on Rogan and did, you know, a usual three hour episode with a large segment dedicated to talking about Zalensky, the haters and personal attacks online that he's received, you know, all those things. And also that a surprisingly long and return to topic about Genghis Khan's historical impact and how it was an empire, it was brutal, but, you know, it achieved something that has withstood the test of time. No, that's not relevant to anything else that we're referencing with, you know, Putin or any empire built. But just just want to spend a long time talking about like, yes, Genghis Khan was,

you know, a brutal murderer and expansionist, but he he had a legacy, but he built a legacy. OK, so good or bad, who could say that? Yeah, it's just, you know, it's just a thing of history. And, you know, we were talking about how Lex framed his interview with Zelensky in his, um, post interview editorializing as like very negatively for Zelensky, right? He failed to take the opportunity, all this kind of thing. Now, Russia today, a state media outlet for Russia, right?

The propaganda wing of Russia, right? The English language version of it. So they retweeted out that segment of Lex, like talking about the interview with this. They said Lex Friedman has harsh words for Zelensky, whom he interviewed earlier this month. Says he'd give him every chance to talk about potential avenues for peace, but instead got crude words about Putin. So they got the message.

They got the message. And then they reported after the Joe Rogan episode came out. So this is Russia today. The state media of Russia, right, reported on the Joe Rogan episode. Lex Friedman confirms he is traveling to Russia to interview Putin. And they also quoted the previous tweet of Tim criticizing Zelensensky just in case the connection wasn't clear enough. Right. So yeah. So I guess Russian today just heard, you know, on the Joe Rogan experience

that Lex was going to be coming on. And the fact that he put out criticisms of Zelensky in the week of the interview. I mean, that's just the reporting on the news, right? Like it's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pressure today, I think approving of Lex and his stance there. It's interesting. I wonder if they're like, do they monitor Joe Rogan, like generally, or are the lines of communication open? I'm sure they'll keep watching every episode with an extremely attentive gaze. No, I would suspect, Matt, in this occasion that, well, Lex is a special character, right, because he's going to be talking about the conflict and that kind of thing.

But I also suspect that Russia Today has other sources for who Putin has agreed to be interviewed by. Like I don't know, but I suspect they might have known that through other sources. So yeah, yeah, it's just, it's interesting that Lex talks about how he gets hit from both sides equally. You know, people are calling them a shill for the Zelensky and stuff. And yet Russia today seems to have mistaken his message for one that was extremely critical of Zansky. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

He doesn't get hate from people like Joe Rogan or at the moment today or that the whole Magus fear. No, he does not. He gets hate from people like us. Right thinking people. Chris. Yeah. Well, on that subject, Matt, of all the here and the

hardship. So Lex tweeted this site a couple of days ago. This is a tweet unrelated to, well, it could be related to the landscape in Britain, but it's more just a confession of feelings. I'll read it with sensitivity.

Feeling lonely. Just one of those nights. I'm sitting outside 7-eleven at 2am, like old times, listening to music, trying to figure out what it's all about. Silly Brian is stuck feeling low tonight, even though I know life is so fucking beautiful. These nights make the happy ones that much sweeter. I wouldn't have it any other way. If you're feeling low, hang on.

We're in this together. Love you all. Heart. Do you remember that movie, Chris? American Beauty? Oh yeah, yeah. You know, not a bad movie overall. And there was the young man, the son and the daughter. And he was, you know, he was, he was a deep and soulful young man.

And he, he videoed like the plastic bag flowing around him. He would say things like, you know, sometimes life is just so beautiful. Like can't stand it or something like that. And I think overall a good movie, but it did have those moments of, you know, a bit over the top. And Zelensky is that. Zelensky is pretentious. Zelensky is like that character. Not Zelensky. You can't put my brush in there. Yeah. Rex Friedman. Rex Friedman is that.

Times. At least he pretends to be that. Times 100. Is there anything bad in that message? He's just telling people who feel sad, you know, even successful podcasters like him set out at 2 a.m. in front of 7-Eleven listening to music and thinking about the beauty of the world and I'm feeling sad. No, just like there's nothing wrong with telling everyone that you love them all and you're just going to keep on striving to make, bring peace and understanding to everyone.

I mean, these are all perfectly fine sentiments, but you know, something sells a little bit off, doesn't it? Just a little bit performative, you might say. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. So that's, that's old Lexi. That's what he's been up to. One, one thing that has happened, right, that obviously everybody talked about quite a lot. It was in the news, was in the international media, was shown here in Japan, which means it's definitely hit the international news. There was the inauguration event, a collection of vile characters hanging around together. It really was. And I'm not even talking about the political figures. I just mean like Conor McGregor or Conor McGregor's coach, who I think before I

had regarded as like, you know, relatively harmless, you know, like a coach appearing with Tosie, just like every image that came out was a collection of, you know, kind of the Logan Paul brothers alongside Conor McGregor and whatnot, like terrible people gathering together. And then Elon Musk decided to throw out a gesture. It could have been anything, Matt, a gesture that some people unfairly compared to a Nazi salute because he was just doing the time honored gesture of, you know, strongly firmly clasping your hand to your chest and then throwing your heart

out with a raised downward facing palm. The universal sign of here is my heart. Let me give you my heart. That's right. That's what I think of when I see a stiff palm held against the chest and then raised palm downwards, keeping the palm out to a stiff armed position above my head. I think, uh, I think of love. Um, I've, I've argued about this with people online far more than I normally would. I just, I was in the mood for an argument, I think.

And yeah, it is, it is amazing. I think, um, people were looking for other videos, right? Of other politicians making, you know, innocuous gestures. But they just happened to have their arm out, their palm out. Yeah, as comparison. Like, look, this just happens. OK. Yeah, it's just this just happens. And, you know, they found a bunch. But when you look at the videos, none of them look.

They don't give off the same energy. Not exactly the same energy. No. It's like it's pure biomechanics. You could mathematically describe a similarity metric of any gesture and say, how similar is this to a Nazi salute, a stereotypical Nazi salute? And I know that there are different kinds of Nazi salutes. You know, there's the casual officer salute, the heil, how's it going? Yeah, I know that one. Like,

your family, we have one. Yeah, yeah. A slightly fruity one, that one. But you know, there's the stereotypical, very emphatic one. Everyone knows what that is. And you could look at any video from any public figure, making any kind of gesture to the crowd. And people have and they haven't found a single one that looks anywhere near as close to the Nazi salute as Elon Musk. So it's a big coincidence that Elon Musk just accidentally happened to make the most Nazi like wave or heart gesture in the history of public figures. Yeah. It becomes even more unlikely, doesn't it, Chris?

When you look at the probabilities, when you look at Musk's background. Our contextual behavior, right? Like that he's being sent being for alternative for Deutschland and like a party with strong, well-documented neo-Nazi connections, such and so extreme that Marine Le Pen distanced herself from them, right, like because they were doing things that were considered too far right. But that is the group that Elon Musk has chosen to like, you know, strongly endorse. And this also on the back of him endorsing Tabby Robinson, somebody that is on the far right of British politics, again, with associations with like neo-Nazis in previous

movements. So there's smoke swirling around, right? But like the issue as always with this is that people view it as like they will present it as, oh, so you're seeing Elon Musk is like a Nazi. You're saying he dresses up in SS uniforms and that he subscribes to Hitler's doctrine and that he does all this and that he's joined several neo-Nazi groups and you're like, no, I'm saying that Elon Musk likes to pander to the far right and likes to troll. And so he may very well have like sympathies that align him with like hard right parties. And he liked doing something that's going to cause controversy. It can be all multiple things going around, but the view that it's either like absolutely innocent, just an accident, or he is like a full-throated, you know, Nazi SS uniform wearing, yeah, member of the modern day Nazi party. That's not the two possibilities. There's plenty of things in the

middle there. And you know, you said the thing about like the officer salute from movies, right? The kind of like, raise your hand backwards. So that would be like, that'd be the, I think, a comparison. Because you know, there's plenty of people in family photos, they're just waving, you know, they put their hand up and they wave. But if they accompanied that with like a stiff back

and a stamp over their foot, right? And they didn't wave, they just raised their hand and like stamped. People would look and go, what did you, what was that? Right? That's what happened. That's what happened in this case. So yeah, just everyone online fell into what

you would anticipate. And I think the heterodox accounts in general are the ones that are often the most vulnerable to this high decoupling exercise where they're just like, well, all that other stuff, you know, what does that matter? What is what's the relevance of of controlling and doing various things before? This is completely irrelevant to that. You're like, not not exactly. Not exactly. No, that's right. Decoupling is a disease. Yeah. You got to decouple. You know, some things need to be coupled when it's relevant. So yeah. Some things should be decoupled. Some things should be coupled. But in general, I think the common mistake made is that the option is completely disregard

all contextual information, or you simply don't take any of the specifics into account. That's your two options. You must choose one or the other. And it's like, no, why would I not look at the specifics of the event and consider relevant background information? That's perfectly reasonable. In fact, it's perhaps the most reasonable way to approach things is not appear like a naive bambi that's just wandered into the world and doesn't understand anything about

people with large public profiles, but also be aware that you might have biases against people that you're going to treat people that, you know, aren't politically aligned with you worse than people that are. But but that doesn't mean that just because you don't like someone they didn't do something which obviously resembles a Nazi salute. So, yeah. do something which obviously resembles a downstairs look. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it was a, it was a great display of terrible reasoning and terrible arguing online.

It was fun to engage with it just a little bit, just to see it all on display. Everyone obviously lines up according to the political prize. I mean, you and I admittedly have lined up according to our political prize, not liking no long must to begin with, but you know, and I think it's, it's still a good little practice exercise. You can go, okay, Elon Musk is an awkward guy. He's, he's a weird guy. He may well be prone to making weird gestures after all, like he's

you jump up and down on stage and star jumps and things like that. He does a lot of odd things. So that is, that is the case on one side. And I think that's fair. And I think if there was no other information, I'd say, okay, well, you know, he is a weird guy. Yes, he just happened to make the most Nazi-like gesture that anyone has managed to find recorded on video. But, you know, someone's got to be number one.

So maybe he was just particularly unlucky and that could have been him. But I think when you combine that with the independent information that, that one, he is, he is very keen on trolling and signaling and triggering, you know, these are the kinds of person that be brought a sink to Twitter, right? As a, as a gesture, but he does, he is a gesture. He is motivated by some dumb things like that, that demonstrably. And his far-right sympathies and like, exactly what you said, his willingness to pander to it and also wanting to trigger the libs is also really well documented. So when you take that, like he is on the spectrum, like whether or not he's a Nazi,

he is absolutely on the, on- Hard right. On the hard right. Like he's on the small percentile, on the spectrum of people's things. He's quite close to that way of looking at the world on the far right. So when you combine those two things together,

then the chances of of being totally innocuous becomes incredibly small. Right, yeah. And I mean, if you think that's an unfair description of Elon Musk, bear in mind that in UK politics, he thought that Nigel Farage was too mucked toast. He's pushing for someone farther to the right of Nigel Farage. So what's the

That's right. So this isn't a moral judgment on my part or a distorted perception. It's just a factual statement that on the political spectrum, he sits in the single digit percentiles of the far right. And he made a very unusual gesture that people just never make, essentially. So, yeah, no, that is what it is. It is what it is. But like, so you said, you know, we line up predictably where you would expect. But I think like the bit where not entirely is like, I'm not, neither of us is arguing that that means that like, Elon Musk wants to execute all the Jews, right? He wants to implement the final solution and he thinks that the third Reich should spread.

But that is the kind of, that's the strong opposition that people think, right? That like, well, he must, so you mean that he's endorsing like all of the Nazi, you know? Like, how can it be a Nazi when he doesn't clearly endorse every single one of the articles of Mein Kampf, right? And nobody is saying that he's a 1930s card carrying member of the SS, right? Of course he's not, right? Nobody is today. Well, they might be one or two. None of them would like to be, but yeah.

Yeah, I don't think they issue cards anymore. Yeah, but specifically the question is, did he somewhat intentionally make something that looked like a Nazi salute? And people can do that, as you said, for a variety of reasons, including just having weird-ass, griper, slightly neo-Nazi sympathies? Or could it even be a more juvenile motivation? including just having weird-ass, groper, slightly neo-Nazi sympathies? Or could it be a more juvenile motivation? Also, it could be that you did it, like you...

I can't think of a very good reason for it to happen, but let's just imagine that that particular gesture, like the exact biomechanics, you did it for an innocuous reason, right? Like, you know, it was, you were not signaling that, but you are at a political rally. And you didn't have any history whatsoever of, like, pandering to the far right of anti-Semitism. In fact, you're somebody that was, like, strongly opposed to that, right? And you've got a record of, like, being whatever, you know, like pro-Israel and, and kind of like strongly critical of neo-Nazis and that kind of thing. People wouldn't be making such a big deal, right? It's the full package that does it. It, it would still be potentially something that people would note,

but then there would be the immediate response of like, well, but obviously, you know, like that isn't that person's constituency. They would likely come out immediately after and say, yeah, I'm sorry I made that gesture. But like, obviously, I didn't mean I have no support for that point of view and that kind of thing. But that's not what Elon does, right? He goes out and he trolls and he laughs and says, oh, the media is lying to you and all this kind of thing. So yeah. And he did just the bare mind. He did it twice, right? Like he did it once and then he turned around but it gives the people behind it missed out on the show like so Yeah, yeah, I think it's worth mentioning that actual proper self described

American neo-nazis. What's the name of the person that I'm thinking of? Christy? Nick friend is me. There were many, many others like proper, proper neo Nazis very strongly believe that he was intentionally doing a Nazi salute and are obviously delighted by the fact. So that's probably just worth noting too. They have their own motivations, but worth noting. Yeah. Yeah.

It is what it is. As you say, no, Matt, so just to put a quota on that. And you may notice significant improvement in audio quality, possibly because I was on the wrong microphone and my professional over there didn't interrupt what they had to. But I see. I apologize for this, Chris. All right. Nobody said you had to. Nobody said you had to. Nobody said you had to.

But on on the subject, just to put a pin on that little segment about Elon Musk and his awkward gesture. So I did hear someone else talk about Elon Musk. Now, this is before this kerfuffle. It was actually on stage with Andrew Gold at an event, a book tour, somebody that we've covered who is applying guru heuristics to explain why he regards Elon Musk as a very good guy. So listen to this. I have sat with him on a transatlantic plane and had a very, very long conversation with him.

He's undoubtedly highly intelligent and knowledgeable. I've had lunch with him on two or three occasions, and so I know him a very favorable impression of his intelligence and his knowledge and his concern for the welfare of the world. Richard Dawkins on Elon Musk, right? Correct. Yeah. So maybe maybe maybe something about a different Elon Musk. So maybe maybe maybe so but a different Elon Musk. Could that be Chris? No, I mean, I wish.

But this is just a good illustration of how people like Richard Dawkins and others in the Gursphere operate. Right now, he could go online. He could look at, you know, reports and details about what Elon Musk is saying. He could just go and look at his timeline for one day, right? He could do that. He could look at Musk's behavior over the past 10 years, right? That would be something that Dawkins could do. He could spend an hour or two and get a picture of the man, you know, from his activity. But he had a flight and some lunches together and he found him delightful

and intelligent, and that means he has the best intentions for mankind. And he's a smart and good man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. The personal, the personal connections and the, had a nice chat. So they're clearly one of the good ones. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, Richard Dawkins has been pretty poor on his social commentary.

And in general, I, I, I listened to one of his books, the ancestor's tale while on my travels. And it was pretty great. And. In general. I listened to one of his books, The Ancestor's Tale while on my travels. And it was pretty great. And I enjoyed it. But man, I just do not think he's very good on non-evolutionary topics. He doesn't put much effort into it. No, he seems to put zero effort into it. I mean, to his credit, thank God. I almost expected when I was listening to this book that there'd be some injection

of culture war stuff. Of culture war stuff. And thank God there wasn't. So I'm glad that he's able to compartmentalize that stuff. I didn't see any of that in his new book, the genetic book of the dead. Maybe I misremembered, but I don't remember there being any like culture war inserts, which was good. Again, it was good. That is good. So we should we should be grateful for small

mercies. This his sympathies here and his his general that book doesn't, you know, he's compartmentalised his, his evolutionary work. So that's, that's nice. But yeah, he's just, he's just not particularly good on these matters. I just don't think. No, and Matt, one thing that often gets me about this kind of thing though is like, is it the case that these people in general just find it really hard to have nice dinners or lunches with people? Like are they normally having conversations that just break down into yelling manches? And you know, like it's so rare to be able to have a friendly chat with someone if you don't, you know, raise controversial topics with them or you focus on what you agree with. Because I just

don't get it though. It's always presented as if what an achievement and how diagnostic it is that I had a nice conversation with someone interpersonally. And I'm like, is that hard? Is that something that people are finding really challenging these days? And I just didn't hear like. Well, this is the you know, this is what we're troubled with in this modern age, with every public figure glazing everyone, every other public figure they run into

mutual backscratching, unless they're having a serious tiff or they've identified each other as enemies. Other than that, there's just this tendency to sort of default to this kind of thing, which is fine. I mean, I guess with Tokiomedi's word. I mean, I don't think if I was, I've heard Elon Musk speak a fair bit now. And I just do not think I genuinely do not think if I knew nothing about him, didn't know he was a billionaire. I don't think I would enjoy a conversation with him very much. Just from what I've seen, I'm surprised that Richard Dawkins did. I, I suspect that it's kind of that, you know, the public figure glamour. I mean, being rich and famous.

Yeah, I think so too. Yeah. Well, not speaking about glazing up people and the mutual back padding of the gurus fear. So Destiny, Stephen Bordel, you familiar with him? You heard about him? You heard about this guy? Oh, Destiny, Stephen Bonnell. You familiar with him? You heard about him? You heard about this guy? Oh, Destiny, clean living. Yeah.

Straight talking. Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Yeah, that figure. So we recorded an episode with him recently, which was Fields field spotter's guide to guru rhetoric, going through the techniques that we notice in the guru sphere and comparing notes with Destiny about the tactics that he observes amongst the kind of debate ecosystem that he's in and streamers. And we asked Destiny to participate because he'd been making good critical analysis of people like, you know, Lex's appearance with Zelensky, Joe Rogan, so on, all the other

things. There was a lot of crossover in the points that he was making. And the episode went as intended. We did have an enjoyable discussion. We had a myself and him had an extended back and forth on Dr. K and potential manipulative tactics that he was using or not using. And unfortunately, shortly after recording, Destiny got himself into a rather severe controversy. Right. Now we had put the episode out on the Patreon before that. So we obviously we didn't discuss it with him because it hadn't happened yet. But that did scupper our plan somewhat to release the episode on the main feed. And we've decided that we're not going to release it on the main feed. And we've decided that we're not going to release it

on the main feed because the controversy, surprise, surprise relates to sexual relationships with collaborators. Now I'll go into more detail, but just to be clear, we made the episode before the allegations came out, the The episodes available on the Patreon. We're not going to take it away and like, you know, pretend it didn't happen or that we decided not to do this in advance. Right. We made the episode. We're going to put it out.

But recent events made us think it wasn't really appropriate to put it out on the feed and we can discuss why. But yeah, is that your recollection of events, Mr. Brian? Yeah, is it my turn to talk now? Yes, that is all true and correct. An unfortunate incident, unfortunate for the people involved, people affected by destiny, unfortunate for destiny, even unfortunate for you and me in their own small way.

Yes, perhaps not the main victims. Yeah, so that people understand, there are legal cases pending and various accusations wafting around. Plus, you have various people that strongly dislike Destiny as you would expect, taking full advantage of the situation. But nonetheless, what seems likely from logs and comments made and all this kind of thing is that Destiny previously had a relationship

with a collaborator of his called Pixie. You know, everybody in this space has like various nicknames, right? Pixie, Destiny, Lonerbark, so on. And the relationship was not public. It seems like during the relationship, they recorded some of their sexual activity together, as you do. And as far as I ascertained, I wish I didn't know any of this, but as far as I've ascertained, the recording was consensual.

But again, it's all very hazy. So then Destiny allegedly shared the recordings of this and other sexual encounters with some other girl that he was interested in. And in the various accounts around this, girl that he was interested in. And in the various accounts around this, this girl is referred to as a discord e-girl or e-kitten, 19 year old discord e-girl.

The funny thing is, it's not funny, but like all the people reporting on it seem to use that terminology and that in itself seems like fairly inappropriate. But the general thing is that he shared it with like a young woman in his community, presumably because he was hoping to have some sexual relationship with her or something like that. I genuinely don't understand the psychology behind sending sexual activities with other people to potential future partners, but I gather that this is something that some people might do. Right. Okay. So that's, um,

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm not finished yet. So no, no, you haven't finished. So he sent the thing, I'm not finished yet. No, no, you haven't finished. So he sent the thing. Sexual nudes or whatever. Sexual material. Yep, yep. To another, presumably potential partner, another ego.

Is that right? Another person. Yeah, I don't think the original person is an ego, more like a collaborator. But in any case, right, like, and I also think the term ego itself is like a disparaging term, right? That's not my term. That's, yeah, it's not our term. I just say that's what it is in all the reporting. Anyway, so Destiny likely shared the nudes of his past sexual encounters with this person.

And notably here, I think the main point is, we're like the consent of the other people that were in the videos or pictures, including this woman, Pixie, right? So her material was shared, we're like her consent. Then the person that he shared it with is hacked or leaks it or I don't really know how it gets out, but that's where all that stuff was around where there was a bunch of like sex videos of Destiny that flooded the internet. It was from this leak or hacks or

whatever the case might be. And in that case, like Destiny was kind of seen as a victim, right, of private material being shared. And he still is a victim of that invasion of privacy. But of privacy, but it seems that allegedly he engaged in a separate non-consensual envision of privacy by sharing previous sex acts right now. So there's a legal case. I'm sure there will be various other details that come up. There's like other people making allegations at the time, But even if this was the only thing, the only reason there is any issue at all is having sexual interactions with collaborators

and people in your Discord community and sharing nudes and this kind of thing. And this is not the first time that this has happened with Destiny. Yeah, that's right. It happened before our original episode we covered in. We talked about those issues in his personal conduct in some depth and unfortunately it seems there is more to come. Well speaking of that previous episode, Matt, so I have clips just to

highlight that we did address this tendency when we did the decoding episode. So here's the first one. It does overlap and end up with there being debates about, is this to do with getting access to audiences and who is taking advantage of who and all this stuff. And there are various, you know, accusations about who's being a stalker, who's been revealing too much private information and so on. And very often also to say many of these conversations involve people talking about self-harm, talking about feeling suicidal and that. And they're all dramatic people. So it is what it is. You know,

I think talking about mental illness and something is just stuff that is a lot more common amongst younger people and amongst like a progressive liberal set. But there are people in the community or figures, various streamers that have committed suicide or overdosed on drugs and stuff. So like I do think very serious consequences can come about. So there, Matt, that was me kind of making the point. And like, I have to say, in the context of these clips, we are mainly assuming that things are broadly consensual, right?

That there's going to be people that end up regretting various choices and whatnot. But like everybody is an adult broadly on board at least at the time. But as mentioned there, when you have people who are, you know, have mental health problems or claiming mental health problems and threatening suicide and whatnot, it certainly seems that there's a lot of scope for abusive relationships or just, you know, exploitation or things like that. So you would want to avoid that. But in general, in Destiny's content, it was kind of like part of the show, so to speak. The people were interacting and having feuds and debating the past experiences and whatnot.

And you described it as a kind of reality TV show like Love Island. Well, to sum up my impressions, Chris, I'm a very confused boomer at the moment. Like on one hand, I just don't agree with Justin's philosophy in terms of living your entire life in the public, making everything part of the show. And I do think that a lot of those debates and a lot of those litigations of drama is entertainment. And it's, you know, I guess anything that people find entertaining is fine in a way, but in the same way that I don't like Love Island, I don't like that stuff. I think there are concerns about having sexual relationships with your…

Orbitors? Orbitors? Yeah. And they just are. And I know it's a different world where everyone's polyamorous and everyone's online and and so on but Wise words, wise words for my wise mouth. A wise man. Yes indeed, but Yeah, so this I guess these these latest things are In a way par for the course. It's not incredibly surprising, I suppose, that they have happened again.

No, and the last clip from the previous episode. I don't know, like maybe some people don't consider this an Ian, you know, it's just an element of life. It's just people having sexual relationships and whatnot, but like, but it's, is it really something that... Well, I might jump in here, Chris, because like, if it came to light that Jordan Peterson was sleeping with a large number of women in his audience. Orbiters. Yeah, then fans, then that would be big news. If Joe Rogan was, that would be, it would be something that I'd, you know, like I'm not one of these people that

make a big deal out of, you know, power dynamics and things like that. But the fact is, is that Destiny is kind of like the Joe Rogan of streamers. He's the king of the hill. He's an important guy purely for pragmatic purposes. A lot of wannabe influencers, wannabe internet personalities are drawn to him for those reasons. So there are those dynamics that are going on and it doesn't mean that these people are victims and that he's necessarily a predator. But I think there are problems with these permeable boundaries and there are rules for professors, for instance, in terms of not sleeping with students or graduate students

or even junior colleagues. And those rules are there for a good reason. Good insights from two commentators. Look, I think that's all true. And but like you said, we still we chose to speak to him again, despite that. Yeah, given what we just said there there and what we've just played. So what about the issue? Like, well, if you know that then why collaborate with someone? Yeah, I guess, well, I think for me, I don't particularly like

Justin's personal behavior and how he conducts himself a lot of the time. The way he talks about some people, I don't like a lot of it. But I guess it didn't quite pass the threshold for saying, I'm not going to have anything to do with this person. I'm going to cut them off. It's beyond the pile. I think there are people for whom it would cross that threshold. Perhaps just if it came close to it.

But I think it was still sort of sub-threshold for me in terms of, you know, decouple. The behavior we covered previously. Yes, yes. The behavior we covered previously did not preclude me saying yes to, oh yeah, we'll talk specifically about these, you know, rhetorical styles and things like that. It still seemed to me that Destiny is someone that would be legitimate to talk to. This is kind of the point is like we covered this stuff. We did raise it in the right to reply, and he kind of addressed it pointing out that having normal relationships with people outside

of this ecosystem would be difficult because you're either inviting in a normie person and asking them to deal with all the stuff that streamers deal with. And when are you going to meet them? So he kind of justified that that is the permeable boundaries are more of a feature. And I think we didn't push hugely back on that, in part because, in case it isn't clear, we're not super keen about discussing people's sex lives. It's not a core thing that we're super interested in usually. Now, streamers, sometimes it ends up becoming part of the topic, right? Or like, Huberman with this multiple relationship simultaneously. But in there, my interest in Huberman's sex life remains zero, right? I have no interest in that except in so far as it deviates from the image that he presents of himself. And so like in Destiny's case, it seemed like he is acknowledging that aspect.

But he was saying, well, this is just, you know, this is a different style of life. And us being relatively liberal people, they thought, well, you know, it's not for us, but we're not judging whatever other people want to do. But when it comes to the potential for abuse, when you're like the central figure in a community around which other people orbit and you're interacting with people with, you know, extreme personalities, many mental health issues, I feel like Destiny

is smart enough to understand the potential harmful dynamics that are at play there and also that we are smart enough to recognize them, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a small point of difference as a hint of that is that with Andrew Hooperman, the point of interest for us, because we're not in the business of, you know, running around making moral judgments with this, that and the other. There's plenty of other people online who can do that.

He can do that. Yeah. With Huberman, the point of interest for us, of course, is the massive delta between how he presents himself and what he was doing in his private life. And he still hasn't acknowledged it, pretends that it's wrong. No, no, no. Right? Silesius, Silesius Galv.

Yeah. So there's just a point of difference there with Destiny, who kind of presents himself as a weird sex goblin. And that is how he is continuing to act. So as such, we kind of made the call, look, Destiny is very good at what he does, he's very good at debating, he certainly has a lot to contribute

in terms of the points of interest, in terms of rhetorical techniques and so on, where to a large degree, we're happy to criticize people's personal lives and how they conduct themselves. Maybe they're a fairy, maybe they're, I don't know, polyamorous, maybe they're a hardcore fundamentalist in their personal life, right? But if they've got something interesting to tell us about viruses or debate tactics or you name it. To some degree, we're quite happy to decouple.

There's obviously a limit there. If someone is a criminal, right, is doing dastardly evil acts, then I wouldn't want to talk to them. But anyway. Yeah, my notion of it was that like that stuff that I liked in Destiny's content was his analytical mind, critical perspective on things, being willing to do research and owning positions that he took. And I still think the various things and insights that Destiny offers is good and he is critically minded. And that episode that we produced together was valuable for that reason. Now, all of the stuff around orbiters and streamer dynamics and that kind of thing, I'm not a fan of. And more so in this case, I'm not putting that under the blanket of, well, all streamers do this

kind of thing because like they all don't. But my notion with a lot of the things that we were covering in the content where we covered Destiny was that that seemed to be him from a couple of years ago, and that he'd moved on to doing more things focused around politics and less of this community-based controversy, edgy things. Now, there were instances of that coming out, but not like this, right? So I had viewed that as, well, that's mostly a thing of the past.

But I think it is fair to say that, like in our case, if you say that somebody is edgy and controversial and often getting themselves in trouble because they're doing various things with community members, you can't really then be surprised when it ends up that they are called out for some controversy. Like we didn't anticipate it to happen, but was in the realm of possibility. And I think it's just right to own that.

That like, yeah, we were aware of the issues. Yeah. Yeah. Like I know it's, I think there's a clear guideline about when you should and shouldn't speak to someone. I think it's just a personal thing. We talked about decoupling at the beginning, right? And you can have this super high decoupling where you go, that's this thing, it's got absolutely nothing to do with the topic we're talking about, so it doesn't matter. But if this person has been abducting and abusing children, they may well be very

good on this completely separate technical topic that has nothing to do with their child abduction pursuits, right? And you still wouldn't do it, right? Because you wouldn't let anything do with that person. On the other hand, you could be a bit too quick on the draw with that kind of thing and go, oh, this person, something happened in the past, some shady thing is going on. Therefore don't talk to them under any circumstances, no associations whatsoever. Um, you can go too far in the other direction and there's lots of examples of that.

Yeah, I, I guess I don't, you know, I just go on gut feeling basically. I don't really have any clear clear guidelines. There are limits and where those limits lie is very much a personal decision. And rightly or wrongly, when we scheduled that interview with Destiny, he hadn't really crossed that boundary for me. But the scandals continue. And so we... Yeah, this is like, I think, his analysis and critical evaluation of things is very good. That's why we wanted to talk to him about those things. And he remains good at those.

It doesn't change because of the accusations that have came out or his previous behavior. But those things do make a difference, right? And us producing content and then releasing it, especially content that doesn't address it at all, it would likely be read as a broader endorsement and taking a side on this issue, which obviously we don't want to, right? There's something rather self-destructive about sending sex videos and images around people in your community. So like, I think it should go without saying, but just to make it clear in saying it, like, obviously we don't endorse that, right? And obviously, we don't think the non-consensual sharing of nude images is a good thing that anybody should be doing.

And if they have in fact done that, then they should face the consequences, right? Whatever they be legally, socially, professionally, I think that's all perfectly reasonable and understandable. And it also, it doesn't matter that like, so when we talk to Destiny, we get on quite well with him and we see a lot of things similarly in regards to like the gurus and the beat sphere and politically. So we can have a perfectly, you know, friendly, enjoyable conversation with Destiny. But key dynamics here are one, we are not young women orbiting Destiny, right? So we are not in the demographic of concern.

And secondly, so what? Like, you know, as we often say about the people in the guru sphere, the fact that you're able to have an enjoyable conversation with someone, it's not a big bar to overcome, right? Especially when you're talking about some topics that you share views on. So it's just, in that respect, I think that a difference, if you want to see it

between the people in the Guru sphere and us is that somebody could be doing all of the things that he's alleged to have done and also be a good analytical thinker, you could combine both of those traits. It's perfectly possible. But in our case, it means that, you know, just that we have to own our decision about like where the boundaries are with collaboration and regards to the previous stuff we covered with Destiny, it was like there was sketchy stuff, but it all seemed to be rather consensual and it also seemed to be, you know, more in the past. But this is like a recent event, right? So who knows how it will turn out? Who knows what will

happen? I think Destiny, like all other streamers will, regardless of this, carry on. But yeah, that is why we are not going to put out the episode on the main feed. But we're also not pretending it didn't happen and like deleting it or that kind of thing. So, yeah, all our decisions are available. But that was the one that we thought that was appropriate. Yeah, it is. Yeah, very good.

All right. Well, after that, let me move on to something which is at least a little bit more lighthearted. It involves Brian Johnson and Andrew Huberman, two figures again that we've covered. It's a clashing of the gurus in the guru night, right? The big swinging balls have come together and, sorry, the big swinging Briens, sorry. Well, you know, think it's... That's a little bit, yeah, Søren?

Freudian slip, a Freudian slip. We like the image of the big Briens, the Clyde in the night, but in this case, these are also, you know, people, Brian Johnson does spend a lot of time talking about his erections and various other things. So whatever. But so Brian Johnson, he's the don't die guru. We've covered him before. Right. Now, he tweeted out a thing about doing a eight hundred and fifty pound leg press one rep. OK. And he tweeted out this little seven second video of him doing doing a 850 pound leg press, one rep, okay? And he tweeted out this little seven second video

of him doing the leg press and talking about how it's top 1% of 18 year olds, right? This is his whole thing. His metrics are comparable to the strapping young people at the peak of their physical ability. And Huberman responded, awesome, but friends don't let friends do partial reps. Okay?

You can come to the... No, that's a... I would regard that as a gentle... If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at patreon.com slash Decoding the Gurus. Once you do, you'll get access to full-length episodes of the Decoding the Gurus podcast, including bonus shows, gurometer episodes, and Decoding Academia. The Decoding the Guru's Podcast is ad-free and relies entirely on listener support.

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