Decoding the Gurus - Supplementary Material 38: Toxic Mould Symbiosis, Mild Phrenology, and the Best People in the World

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

We end the futile struggle, embrace the toxins, and become one with our mould brethren.The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (2 hours, 38 minutes).Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurusSupplementary Material 3800:00 Intro02:54 Boomer Matt reacts to Twitter videos07:31 Shellenberger and Tucker discuss the 9/11 Files12:42 Eric's Google Ngram Investigations17:08 Vindication on the Elephant Graveyard22:00 Eric's ARC lecture goes viral25:24 Andrew Huberman is NOT a phrenologist...29:06 Eric Weinstein vs. Piers Morgan33:44 Everyone knows Eric is a serious thinker46:09 Peterson is taken out of the Gurusphere by Demons and Toxic Mould52:09 Gurus and Bespoke Alternative Health57:00 Social Contagion Hypocrisy01:02:55 Toxic Mould Symbiosis?01:04:46 Pewdiepie, Diogenes, and the Seeker Mindset01:16:14 The Wisdom of the Ancients01:21:01 The Meaning Crisis and Christian Pivots01:22:29 Konstantin Kisin's surprising Christian pivot01:25:17 The best person Konstantin ever met (not Francis)01:30:22 The Fifth Column Agrees with Megyn Kelly 88% of the time01:33:07 Megyn Kelly explains how the Democrats crossed the line and must pay01:41:35 Intellectual Clerics for MAGA01:43:16 Slightly Adversarial libertarians for hire01:47:00 Drew Pavlou and Fluid Populism01:50:17 Two Varieties of Online Derangement: Noah Smith's Hot Takes01:53:57 Need for Attention = Desire for Virality01:57:23 Status Seeking Networkers vs Paul Bloom02:01:27 Reflecting on the Al Murray Interview02:02:22 The struggle of podcasters02:04:52 Paul Bloom: The best person in the world?02:06:00 Mike Israetel's Thesis Controversy02:10:30 What does a PhD mean?02:16:55 David Deutsch visits Curt Jaimungal02:22:32 The Dangers of Doubling Down: Pirate Software02:23:32 Hasan Piker and Shock Collar-gate02:27:15 Matt's Take on Shock Collars02:33:51 Dystopia Update: Putin wants Trump to win the Nobel Prize02:37:11 OutroSourcesShellenberger and Tucker discuss the CIA’s role in 9/11Grok pressing Eric to get specificThe Elephant GraveyardViral post about Eric’s ARC speech on scienceHuberman’s phrenology endorsementJordan Peterson’s Health Update from MikhailaChris Williamson: It’s time to talk about my health.Chang, C., & Gershwin, M. E. (2019). The myth of mycotoxins and mold injury. Clinical Reviews in Allergy & Immunology, 57(3), 449–455.Borchers, A. T., Chang, C., & Eric Gershwin, M. (2017). Mold and human health: A reality check. Clinical Reviews in Allergy & Immunology, 52(3), 305–322.

Hello and welcome to Decoding the Guru's supplementary material. This is a side production of the larger Decoding the Guru's podcast ecosystem with the venerable psychologist Matthew Brown over there and his plucky young upstart companion, Christopher Kavana, me, psychologist slash anthropologist slash raconteur. The Dream Weaver. We have high hopes to you.

I'm trying to develop you into a fully-fledged academic podcaster and man. Well, likewise, Matt, you're my project. And one of the things that I like to do is, you know, help you with your audio quality. So I'll just mention at this early stage. Be careful of getting too close to your microphone. That's a sensitive piece of equipment there, okay? I was letting you go. My brand new microphone that I had Express shipped

because I left the exact same copy of the other budget microphone that is currently at my brother's house. But it's good, I'm going to have microphones in every place that I visit. We're moving up. You've got two microphones now. Yeah, quality isn't increasing,

but the quantity, yeah, the quantity is going up. The amount of microphones you're accumulating is impressive but well not really after this many years of podcasting only having two microphones feels like you're not really trying hard enough like shouldn't you have like different microphones for different occasions like this is my SMR mic this is my bass boosted voice bass it base boosted voice this is my bass boosted voice bass is it bass which making one is it I think it's bass I think it's bass I think it's base base base can you feel the bass.

Yeah. Like the bass drop. Yeah, I like it. I like it. Switch your mics according to mood. It makes sense. So, Chris, God, I think we've got the mother of all supplementary materials this week, don't we? Quite a lot.

That's true. We've got a lot of things on the agenda. A lot of things have happened. And we should probably get to it. But you know, Matt, we don't have to hurry. We don't have to hurry. I got to tell you, Chris. I mean, I don't know if other people

millions are in the same position and maybe I'm showing my age. But, you know, I'd live a reasonably wholesome life. Reasonably. Not entirely. But, you know, on a day like today, you know, I'm helping students, I'm doing research,

I'm pottering about in the garden, I'm cooking. And then you look at social media and stuff. And the thing that I looked at today, I opened up X, which nobody should do under any circumstances. And it's a clip And I've seen clips like this many, many times.

And I know, you know, there's a lot of whys and what have you. But the clip is pretty typical showing a bunch of masked men in full-up military gear with big guns struck to their back, basically accosting and apprehending a little 10-year-old, looks maybe Mexican, Hispanic, shall we say, girl, walking home from school with a little school bag there, detaining her taking her away there's no parents or anything around

and putting her into an unmarked van with the blacked out windows and stuff like that and so that's bad that's a bad thing that makes that

doesn't look good doesn't feel good and that isn't good I think on many levels whatever your political opinions are about immigration and all of that stuff and then

that's a mistake hold on before you move on there just want to check something now given what I know about social media you have checked the veracity of this no I didn't I'm a boomer Chris I didn't even want to look at it let alone check it okay well I

so I haven't seen this I'm just flagging up like the first thing before getting outreach is usually to check it is like what it is it's like what it is it's like it outrageous directionally correct I think

regardless of this particular video The fact that you could even believe it. I mean, there are dozens of these, right? There are dozens of these sorts of clips. Well, that means it even more. I mean, the heuristics are flying for the listeners here. Incredible. All right.

I'm getting radicalized by liberal rage bait. Sure. Okay, let's think that as a given. Fine. Okay, okay. But then, like, regardless of that, like, what's really depressing is just looking at the comments, you know? And I think the way in which these people who condone this and excuse it and go, this is great, you know, it serves a right.

You shouldn't be here in the first place. It's not our job to be educating people from other countries and all the stuff. I mean, I'm not saying they're completely wrong about their various political opinions, whatever, but just the way in which footage like that can be excused and dismissed and going, because it's just not, it's not good on any level. regardless of the context, a bunch of heavily armed men wearing ski masks and military combat fatigues, dragging a little girl off the street and putting her into a van. Come on, that's not good.

How can that be good? And anyway, I just, I mean, that's what depressed me, not so much the video, or it's veracity or that, but just the comments, which were a bunch of, you know, red-pilled megachuds basically saying, this is fine, good, more of it, cry more liberals, that kind of thing. Anyway, yes, well, I have experienced the same thing multiple times, especially, it's especially with Twitter, you know, Twitter is the worst of the social media networks there. And like, you know, that's not a like a novel observation, right? Everybody knows that. And a lot of the thing on Twitter is one being ground followed in there and only having the capacity to deal with one social

network. And two is like the one thing I will say for Twitter is if you want to see the most stupid things, it's a it's a gold mine. It's it delivers endlessly just stupid take after stupid take. And I went on a while back and I was just like I was, you know, if you stay in your your little bubble and you're dealing with the counts you interact with or you're tweeting, it can be fine. It's all okay. But when you just start going around by what's trending, you come across like the insanity that is there. And I have an example. This is one of the first things I bumped into. Let's see if you can identify the two gurish figures involved here, Matt. So here you go, a nice little clip to get you warmed up.

By the way, congratulations on your brilliant documentary. I saw the first part of it last night. So now it appears, if I'm understanding correctly, that the CIA was probably behind the 9-11 attacks. It was a botched CIA operation. It sounds like I haven't finished your series. But here you have this, so I mean, you kind of go, so here you have an organization that's responsible for just the worst, like, regime change coups, followed by dictators who tortured people. CIA that, you know, infiltrated American student groups that used labor unions to, you know, engage in regime change, you know, that spawn off people that were involved in the censorship industrial complex and lawfare may have been, it sounds like what you're saying, you know, that was behind or at least didn't stop or contributed to the 9-11 attacks. And then they did the torture after 9-11, which not only doesn't work, like creates bad inferred. and is a stain on the moral character of the United States.

At a certain point, you're like, what is this dog of an organization doing being just unreformed and trampling on all of our basic freedoms? Who was that, Matt? You're ready to ask some of the characters? No, I was going to ask you that. Who is that? Let's start there. Oh, well, I guess you didn't really hear the other person respond, right?

So one was Tucker Carlson. and the guy talking about, you know, his insightful new documentary, which blows the lid off 9-11, which apparently was the CIA Matt all along. That was a investigative reporter, star of the free press, Michael Schellenberger there. Oh, that guy. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like, I mean, there was, I mean, he said some true things, I think, about the CIA. Which ones in particular related to? 9-11? Not the 9-11 bits, I don't think. I mean, but he hedged his bets there, didn't he? I mean, it was, well, they, you know, they, they organized that it was a botched, you know, a botched operation, or they didn't stop it, or they, I don't know, he sort of covered all bases there. Yeah, stop or contributed and so on. But like, I mean, the implication is very 9-11

truffer stuff. That's where that is going. So was this in collaboration with the Jews or was this separate, these were separate operations? Well, we know from Anna Kasparian that the Jews were, you know, they were all celebrating and they knew about it in advance and stuff. So you've got them there. It would have been tipped off by the CIA. This is it. Yeah, that's probably the connection. So, so yeah, that was that was like one thing. It's, it's like, it's like. It's like. one of those like little memes where you have the guy, you know, come out in the station or whatever and look around, there's maniacs, like all these clips of maniacs, right? On the other handmat, there was Eric having a discussion with Grock, another one, right? They were, he was discussing

SpaceX and tagging in Grock about his intuitions or whatever. And just the funny thing about it was that Eric was lamenting, you know, physics is doing terrible. we need to develop things like let's get rid of this technician and grok was like you know this is great idea like give us a couple of names you know who you who who are you thinking and Eric's like oh you know well I could name a ton of people but let me throw a couple like who would you generate grok you know they're banging back and forth grok gave a list on the list was Sean Carroll had there and Eric responded saying well some of those would be great appointments but some would be terrible. Let's not get into the details, right? And they go back and forth.

And then the beautiful thing about it is that Eric starts trying to, you know, bully Grock into saying that his approach is right and that he's doing things correct and all this kind of stuff. And that he's been unfairly accused of not having a Lagrangian and, you know, all those kind of things. And then Grock, the helpful AI that it is, is like, well, look, Eric, you know, you're right. look, objectively, I can see all these things. But, you know, why don't we just resolve this now? I can put things into egressions. Why don't you just give me, give me the values for this?

I'll put it in and we can solve this data. And then Eric, Rick, he has to be like, no, no, no, no. We don't need to get in. There's no time for that today, Grog. Like, thanks for your help. I'll be all by way. So even Brock is like bullying Eric, you know, Yeah, this was the face.

Oh, poor Eric. Even the AIs are asking for the Lagrangian now. Yes. I mean, Eric also on Twitter was noting Matt that he did a Google Books andgram viewer and he looked for the word peer review or the free is peer review. When did it start appearing in books? You know Google Engrams give you these little graph about the frequency of terms so you can see, look, this word is being used more.

the books uploaded to the Google Books database. And he said, when I type this in, you don't see peer review appearing in any of the records, Matt, until 1965. And, you know, Eric's point is we were lied. We were lied to about peer review. This is not a fundamental part of science. It's just a recent invention. And on the one hand, just to mention, by the way, Matt, he is right.

You know, like the modern peer review system, it's built on older systems. and what that, but it hasn't been around since like the Greek and Roman times, right? That is true. It is a, the modern journal system is a modern thing. But he's wrong in the piece of evidence that he supplies from Google Ngram and what he takes from that. So do you see any issues with the logic there, ma, with using Ngrams to, you know, determine when something appears and so on?

or whatever, is that fine? Is that being reasonable? Okay, so this engram thing is basically some computer are basically searching through all of these textual sources and just counting how many times words appear in its database according to year of publication, right? Correct, yes. Right, right.

So if you make a chart of that going back into time, you're going to see, you know, some sort of curve, some sort of trend. Exactly. And it's going to have something to do with popularity, but it's also going to have to do with a lot of stuff like how many documents are accessible by the AI in a given year. So one of the first things I would do is if I saw a chart, a trend, which might be meaningful to me, is maybe compare it to a base case, some other innocuous word. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God, Matt. You would do a test to check that you haven't arrived at a false positive. Is that what you're saying? You would check for disconfirming evidence? Yeah, who would do that? This is something, by the way, that I will say the Internet is very bad at. It just disconfirming evidence checks. It does not like to do this.

And I did it for Eric Ma. So I took three words, which I know have a significant history beyond the 1960s. So one was Velociraptor. they've been around quite a while, and fossils of them have been around as well. Another was Moy Thai, the ancient art of Siam, the martial art of Siam, the science of Vietnam, again, not something that developed in the 1960s. And the last was Bayesian, Bayesian, right? Now, Thomas Bayes, a 18th century English statistician philosopher, minister, right?

So again, Bayesianism, it's been around for a couple of hundred years. Would you believe that, Matt, that all of those engrams give the impression that nobody was talking, or like maybe one or two people, but basically nobody, they all start after the 1960s to go up. So following Eric's logic, we were lied to about Muay Thai velociraptors and Bayesianism. I didn't even put Bayesian As I'm just to be clear I put Bayesian Sure sure

Sure There you go Yeah brain the size of the planet Eric Yeah He's developed his own physics He can see clearly Through everything

But yeah Incapable of the most basic kinds of checks To as you said Disconfirm Check that your little idea there Might possibly not be the support For your claim

that you think it is So, yeah, very much on par for Eric. Now, yes. And I do have another running Eric had with somebody questioning his logic in a second, Matt. But can I just interrupt because I realize there's an important announcement. We wouldn't want the free listeners to miss this. You remember the Elephant Graveyard video? Do you recall that?

Yes, yes. I remember. Yep. Yes. And we made a little response to it. You know, we pointed out that we'd, that we'd, generally, found it all, you know, enjoyable. It was a nice satirical video and pointing out real issues with your organ.

But, but one issue was that it, at times, seemed to be your, like, towards the conspiratorial, but not in a parotic way, in a way that, like, a lot of people seem to be taking very seriously, right? And we pointed out that there was an issue in that in terms of, like, the audience reaction and whether the creator wanted to endorse conspiracies, particularly around like Thiel and tech billionaires. And people dunked on us, Chris. People said we just didn't get it. You know, there's something wrong with this.

That L thing was reposted in the sub-relate. It was sad tire, Matt. Do you not understand. Now, the fact that we said that we know it's satire, that we enjoyed the satire, that we don't have any issue with the satire, that's not the point that we're making. That didn't seem to stop people. And as we pointed out in a response, there were people saying, you fools,

it's obviously all satirical. It doesn't mean anything. And there were a almost equal amount of people saying, you didn't get that he was dropping truth bomb after trip bomb. So this highlighted a point. But you could have continued to be like, yeah, well, that's your opinion. You know, people with the requisite intellect understood. Now, you could have took that opinion, Matt, until the elephant graveyard themselves posted on

YouTube. And they posted two things. They posted one, like kind of warning people to stop harassing a comedian that they highlighted in the video, right? So I'll just read it. It's not that long. It's come to our attention that people are taking the Dunkin' Trussle stuff way too far, and they're harassing, threatening the guy. Can't believe we even have to say this, but we are completely against this unhinged behavior. The point is, to the segment was to highlight how to talk about the infiltration of independent media he'd been having for years with Rogan suddenly disappeared once his predictions essentially came true, how relationships among media figures affect what gets said and what gets avoided.

Never once implied he's working for Peter Thiel or on his payroll, and to draw that conclusion is really, really dumb. It's a comedy video for facts sake. Harassing the guy with threats is beyond stupid and completely uncalled for, and if you're into that, then please unsub because we ain't about that here. Also, suey eyes is now a retired bit. It sucks now. Okay? So does that not imply that the elephant graveyard creator also noticed the issue, right,

with people overreacting and over interpreting the video? Taking it a little bit too seriously, taking it at face value, exactly what we were warning people about. Yes, Chris, I can see that. It does. and that they are also a very reasonable person who, when they noticed that, made a note to their audience to say, hey, cut it out. We don't endorse this. And they even said this bit that people are enjoying about, you know, kind of looking dead behind the eyes. We're not doing that anymore because people are taking it too far, right? To me, that's very responsible. And I said as much on Twitter. But the important thing, Matt, is we are vindicated. Yes, that's the important thing. But also, we're not just vindicated there, Ma.

We're not just vindicated there because I spoke to the Elphic Gear Guard. I spoke via email. And they confirmed that they are longtime listeners to DTG. And we shared mutual appreciation for our variable products and whatnot and talked about the thing. And we're in alignment. We agree about these kind of things. So there was no issue between us, the elephant graveyard and it was the stupid audience.

That's like them. Yeah. So those unwashed masses. Don't get it crooked. The elephant graveyard guy or guys or girls or whatever. The hidden collective there, great bunch of guys. Great taste in podcasts as well, my eyes day. Well, that's nice.

So I'm glad you corresponded with them because I, yeah, as I said, I did enjoy that. But, yes, I think still the caution is warranted about taking the satire a little bit too seriously. Chris, but you introduced Eric and then you moved on from Eric so quickly, but I've got, there's so much more. You've got no, Eric thing? There is so much more, I know. This is always more. Now, he gave a lecture, I think, is it at the ARC. Oh, yes, I did see this.

Yeah, and the lecturer is worth checking out. but another brain dead idiot hopefully gives a summary here which I'm going to not reading its entirety but it's a helpful cliff notes so in sum Eric presents this stunning and urgent thesis that we know the story

fundamental progress in theoretical physics has been mysteriously halted since 1990s so everything is stagnating it's very chilling there was a meeting where Mark Anderson was told by the Biden White House that they had deliberately stagnated fields of theoretical physics. It's not an accident, it's policy.

So there you go. The White House told Mark and Jason that they had been deliberately stopping progress in fields of theoretical physics. Huge if true. Yeah, no. I did see that this particular video of Eric, you know, kind of prancing around this stage

and pontificating as he's wanted to do. it did have the unintended consequence that that kind of video highlight being shared with the summary that a whole bunch of scientists the last remaining vanguard on on Twitter essentially I just saw endless scientists responding to it being like this is so stupid right and I was yeah I was glad to see that occasionally Eric can still you know inspire scientists to just be like he knows nothing about what he's talking about. And this seemed to break through. I saw lots of people commenting on that. Well, that's good, because he uses as a stupid person's idea of a smart person. That's his job. That's his role. There's no point ducking on him because

those people will forever fall for his nonsense. But, you know, you should dug out him anyway. I know. But there was just one bit. Look, there's so much here. It's all very profound. It's all very deep, you know, terrible things, conspiracies going on. We can We can surpass the speed of light and reach for the stars, if only these mysterious forces. Goliath wasn't standing in our way. But the bit that I liked is this, while some fear the rise of China and India, Weinstein argues the true intellectual threat lies with the world's greatest mathematicians in France. very good

most of it I was like this is all familiar narrative to me but the French connection Chris what's going on there I didn't know I thought Ed Whitten would have came in for some bashing

I'm sure he did he did he did Ed Whedon he did yeah well Eric you know he's he's nothing if not surprising and the curveballs that he can throw right and I do have

a little bit more Eric Cod then to go through. This one is sort of enjoyable for an unusual reason. But before we get that, just a little break. Just a little, you know, side quest. I want to mention. Yeah, side quest. That's the word.

Andrew Huberman, Matt, another, you know, Titan of the Guru's sphere. Self-optimiser man. Extraordinary. So he tweeted out something quite incredible. You know, we called him out for his playing footsy, with grinding for his tendency to promote low-quality studies and to suggest the placebo effect

could be used instead of vaccines, various other things that he's done, or completely contradicted his stance on light therapy when he gets sponsored by, or just his incredible grifting. Yeah, I mean, there's so many. We could, we could go on. Let's not reprise it all now. But, yes. But, I mean, let's just, you know, maybe one more, just that he, he castrated his dog, but then he started injecting his dog with testosterone. And his dog looked at him as if to say, thank you, Andrew. Thank you, Andrew.

That was another of his classic tweets. But this one, this one's up there. So he wrote, this is like down in a follow up to a tweet. and he said, dog breeds with different shaped heads are predictive of their demeanor and intelligence. And while I don't, exclamation, word, believe in friendology. When someone says that, by the way, Matt, you know, when they say this thing,

I don't do this. So let's see what he does believe in. I now do pay some attention to how the shapes of people's heads relates to their intellect and steadiness or lack thereof. And mind you, I did not describe what I think is the direction of the effect. So don't leap to assumptions. What does that even mean? Sorry, he's not a phrenologist, but he does look at the shape of people's heads.

And just their intellectual. But don't prejudge about it because he didn't say, the exact shape that correlates to like a positive assessment. That's right. So it could be flat heads or pointy heads that, you know, you don't know what he thinks. It could be the role is good. We don't know. And that's not phrenology, Matt, because he was clear, it's not phrenology, right?

Like, almost by definition, judging people's intellect by the shape of their skulls is phrenology. But for Huberman. No, no, it's enough. And it's a beautiful strategic disdeme. It's a beautiful illustration of that. Yeah, that is up there with, yeah, I'm not a racist, but I think coming up with something incredibly racist. I think it's will say I'm a phrenologist, just because I'm judging people's... Judging people by the shape of those gulls.

Those fools. How dare you? How very dare you? I do. Well, you know, I'm cut from a different cloth, Chris. I judge people by the shape of their tweets. And he doesn't an idiot. I mean, he's not a phrenologist.

He's not anything. He just says dumb shit. I mean, the annoying thing about that is it just doesn't make sense on any level just because you don't, you're not telling people like what shape of skull is associated with the good and the bad thing. That doesn't make it not phrenology. Like, that doesn't

like, you're quite right, Matt. It doesn't make it not phrenology. No, I said we'll get back to Eric. And I do think we should because Eric appeared with Pierce Morgan.

And it was ostensibly related to Charlie Kirk in free speech. But that's not what it entirely ended up being about. But that was, you know, the thing. Now, whenever I saw, oh, fuck, Eric is on Pierce Morgan again. And he's been given

another platform, the waffle. I was like, this is going to be annoying. Right? Especially when I saw that it's not a panel. So there's nobody to push back on, Eric, right? And he helpfully explains that this is like one of his criteria now for going on Pierce, that he will not go on when there's other people there to argue with him. I think people have no idea what Pandora's box they've opened. And Pierce, if I could just bring it back to this program, as you know, I very much enjoy doing this program. But principally, I insist that it's you and me in one-on-one. And why is that? It's because

this program also is normalizing the most insane voices. If you think about it, you're very capable of having a terrific one-on-one discussion, but you're also at the same time playing with people who are completely unhinged in a sort of jerry-springerization of the discussion of our problems. Now, what happens, though, during the conversation, Matt, is they're talking about Charlie Kirk and the reaction, and it's all, you know, predictable Eric stuff. But then Eric chastises peers. And that leads to a very extended segment. In fact, the majority of the episode is then about this topic. And here's Eric pivoting to it. Okay. Some of those people that you have on are revolutionaries. They're not actually normal guests. Who are you talking about?

And that revolutionary empathy. Who are you talking about? I'm not going to get into it. You're going to say, you're going to give an example of what you're, you've got to give an example, sure. I have no problem giving an example. I'm trying to tell you about what my issue is, is that they come to my house. They publish my address. What you're talking about is inviting people who have absolutely no regard for life, for family, for even normal politics. And what I'm trying to, what I'm trying to say is, we don't understand. who we've opened the door to.

I love the way Eric deflects, because it's so clumsy. But it seems to work. Okay. Well, but, you know, I know Piers does not let it go. But, okay, so Piers has quite reasonably said. Okay, who shouldn't I be interviewing?

Which guest shouldn't come on? Yeah, and I will also say that Eric's right. everything that he said there about Pierce Morgan is correct, right? Like, Pierce Morgan is essentially the modern social media incarnation of Jerry Springer, right? He gets all unhinged people together and gets them to argue, but he can't do. Notably, Eric. People like Eric, but anyway. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, the messenger here is flawed, but his point is actually, I agree with Eric. He's making a valid point about like what Pierce's role is in the modern ecosystem. him. But I think isn't he thinking of people like Sean Carroll? I think this is correct because

like as you're going, it's worth asking people, who is Eric meaning? Because you might think that he's talking about, you know, like extremists or so on there. But you, you heard him reference like people who publish his address or something. Like he just touched up. People have come to his house. Has there been any people, Morgan guests that have gone to Eric's house, I wonder. I know. Well, they probably are, but they're mostly like invited by Eric. In any case, so it goes on, right? And you heard peers be like, well, who do you mean now? It's like, yeah, I can name them.

And then he doesn't name anyone. But then... Coming back to what you said about this show and who we platform and stuff, you know, I have people who react to me platforming you, right, who say you're a dangerous extremist and so on. You've heard that yourself many times, I'm sure. I don't view you as I have... No, I haven't heard that I'm a...

I haven't heard that I'm a dangerous extremist. Look, I don't think that about you for a moment. But I'm curious who you think we've platformed, who would fit that category that you're discussing. But you just repeated something, which I don't. Well, I'm just talking about random people on social media. I'm not talking about a mainstream voice. I'm talking about random people commenting when we do stuff.

There's always a few that pop up who think you're a lunatic, right? as they are with everyone I talk to. I can interview Mother Teresa. There'd be people calling you a dangerous lunatic. Pierce, for God's sake, man. I'm a Harvard PhD with an MIT postdoc. I've been funded by Soros in Teal. Nobody really thinks that I'm stupid.

Nobody thinks that I'm a dangerous lunatic. Nobody really thinks that I'm far left or far right. There's a bunch of morons on the internet. And if you want to decide that they have a voice, then I'm sure that some of them think I'm a robot. Some of them think I'm a hologram and some of them think that I'm a space alien. If you decide that you're going to open the discussion to those voices, I'll go get a sandwich. You're not a dangerous limit.

A lot of classic Eric-Gism is there. Yeah, yeah. So does he manage to get any names out of Eric? Well, he didn't there. He got Eric, you know, recounting the CB. And did you notice, by the way, there, Matt, that Eric said, funded by Soros and Teal. Like, I know Eric was employed for, like, a decade or more by Peter Thiel, right?

So, yes, directly funded by Teal, quite attuned to his, you know, ideological mission and whatnot. Soros, that's not somebody I've really paired with Eric. I suspect that he's making reference to, like, one of his postdocs, the faculty or whatever, you know, had a grant that was somehow connected. but like he implies there I'm in the middle employed by all the people all the people recognize me as a serious thinker and you're like no the majority of people don't recognize you as a serious thinker and so insofar as they do they are very much aligned towards one side of the spectrum and not the other yeah I know I'm familiar I guess I'm just too familiar with it like the way he trots out the the PhD and the postdoc and the thing like named and and the teal name, now the Soros name. It's his go-to for establishing that he's a serious person, a very serious person. But it just hides the fact that he has done so little. Like millions of people have PhDs.

I know. So many people have done postdocs. You know, I've done postdocs, but like it's not the first. Anyway, whatever. I know. I know that. But also, you can see Matt as well that bit at the end when, you know, after he's like, for God's sake, Matt.

everybody understands, I'm a serious thinker, right, where even if they hit me, right? And it kind of says, you know, well, look, if you're talking about idiots online, you know, I'm just going to go, right? Like, I don't need to hear from, you know, people that say I'm a robot or people that say I'm a holocaust. And I'm like, that's not the critique, right? The critique, Eric, the people that you're talking about, the online people, it's not that you're a robot or you're an AI.

It's that you're a bloviating narcissist who over-exaggerated. So, like, the people who regard Eric as, like, secretly behind the Great Reset or whatever, that's the MAGA. Yeah. But the other thing, too, Chris, is he's deliberately misunderstanding Piers' point there. And Piers' point is a real basic one, which is the kind of, you know, it's good to have discussions with people. People are going to object to anyone that I have on and say that they're an extremist,

including you. So, yeah, that's the point that it's not. I know. Like, yeah, on what criteria? should I be excluding and who? That's the question. The only bet for me was, was he deliberately, like, I know he's avoiding answering that every time it's reused and stuff,

but like it's also Eric Skinner's so thin that that could have triggered him. You know, that peers mentioned criticism. So it's like, it's like Throdinger's insult, sensitivity with Eric, right? Like it could be a dodge, could be that he got distracted by his ego or whatever the case might be. But I've got another clip, Matt, another clip. So Pierce is going to try again. Pray, continue. You know, I think you're missing my point.

I've got no problem with you saying what you said about some of the people we've platformed. I'm just curious who these people are that you think I shouldn't be platforming. Because without saying who they are, it's very hard for me to assess it. Well, but Pierce, why would I want to repeat anyone's name who has this characteristic in profile? In other words, what I'm telling you is we've got a country that is wall-to-wall-stocked, with high-powered rifles that allow very far shots to be made relatively easily. And you're talking about the fact that woke is over. No, no.

There are going to be revolutionaries at various levels throughout your life. You'll never get rid of them. They are never going away. And what we're talking about is we're talking about not inviting them into our lives. Every time you ask for, what are the names, what are the specifics? Get into it. I will tell you, why invite that person? to a bigger audience, why invite that person to paint more targets with words like reactionary,

Nazi, Zionist, all of these things, alt-right, far-right, that stuff is going to get more and more people killed. So I would prefer that we talk about this in general, which is anybody with wildly and radically shifted empathy. You'll see somebody smiling when they're trying to destroy another person's character. Wow. Yeah. So he's looking to distract peers with some moral outrage. You know, he's referencing the Charlie Kirk thing and the general right-wing reaction to it, which is the narrative there, of course, is that there's just all of these left-wing people

that are encouraging assassinations of good people like Charlie Kirk. And if Eric speaks out and mentions any names, then they're going to come after him and shoot him. is that right yes that is the logic which is i mean he's on pierce morgan right like surely an unhinged person like that and he worked for peter teal and stuff they would already you know like he's already in their crosshairs so yeah so which which person on pierce morgan could fit that description who like because i'm not familiar with pierce morgan's guests who is he is he even thinking of anyone? I think, Matt,

the honest answer is he means Professor Dave. Like, he's talking about Professor Dave and Dan Gilbert bad stats and stuff. Because like with Eric, you're sometimes tempted to think, oh, you know, he's thinking about the big picture or not.

But like, in reality, it's almost always about him, right? So it's Sean Carroll and Professor Diem. I mean, he doesn't like the anti-Israeli people as well, right?

Like, but yeah, that's not his main concern. No, his main concern is you shouldn't be talking to people like that who might say bad things about me personally. With a smile. With a smile on their face, right? Like, because like he's linking it in, but it's the same way whenever before he used to on Twitter talk about like people targeting his family and he would kind of lump all his critics in

as if they were all targeting his family, right? And they aren't all doing that, right? So that's the thing. I'm pretty sure he's talking about the fact that Peers Morgan keeps platforming Professor Dieff, who's now like a recurrent guest. That's got to be it. That's going to be it. That is so funny.

But of course he can't say the name. No. Because if he does, then it becomes obvious that it's just a personal grievance that he's got against someone who said me things about him. I mean, like, don't talk to this person. Yeah. Yeah, well, it's so, you know, my. there's there's that okay now there's another one so this is this is at the end of the conversation

okay i hear you but here's how i'm going to end this because we've run out of time i'm going to get my team to send you a list of every guess we've had on this year and i want you to tell them before we speak again who i shouldn't have platform deal well sorry and then then what you talk about this or I'm the gatekeeper. I don't set me up for that. I'm not your gate? No, but you are suggesting, you're suggesting I need one, and you're suggesting a criteria,

which is based around values and empathy and so on. I'm saying that is, I'm saying that's a suppression of free speech, because actually somebody has to determine what those values are and what the level of empathy is. And so I think it would be really interesting for me, rather than talking in generalized terms, who are we talking about that you think, I've platformed, which is wrong, and we can have a debate.

Look, I know what I keep trying to tell you is I don't want these people following us after your show into our lives, calling our friends, our loved ones, publishing our at, yes, what I'm trying to say is some of the people you've had on are part of that complex and trying to draw me into a specific conversation with people who are very interesting. in acting as the shooter did at Charlie Kirk's, as the shooter did at Butler, Pennsylvania. What you're doing is you're trying to say, come on, man, let's have some free speech, let's have some fun, let's be open and free spirit and talk about people with whom we disagree.

Surely there is no gatekeeper. What I'm trying to say is, this show isn't as important enough to me that I want to endanger my family and myself playing these games. We know what morality is. We know that this is far outside it. And if you want to play with those people, because you think that those are interesting ideas, that's up to you. I'm not going to interfere with your free speech.

I'm not your gatekeeper. And as always, I love talking to you. Thanks very much for having me on Pierce. I love talking to it. And I simply have one word I will repeat, which I would love to have answered next time, which is who? Who are you talking about? Anyway, Eric, we're going to leave it there. That's so funny.

I mean, you just have to love it. This is up there with the Water Wiggle thing. with Joe Rogan, where Joe Rogan, you know, Joe Rogan sometimes has done the same thing to Eric, which is, I think people just get frustrated with the obscure dark hints and the little jabs and the posturing. Like these people, Piers Morgan and Joe Rogan, not the brightest bulbs in the room, but, but, you know, occasionally it seeps in that they're getting played and they kind of demand, you know some clarity and uh just to see here eric squirm like that it just it's so anyway and there's very there's various parts where like um peers points out like what you're doing

eric is like you're posing as a free speech of warrior but you're asked actually here no you're telling me you want me not to talk to people that you don't like and like you know peers in this kind of you know british outreach mode it's as if you're trying to say gatekeeping good or bad. It's like saying water good or bad. If you're thirsty, water's great. If you're hit with an avalanche, you're going to die from it or a tidal wave. You can't say that gatekeeping is good or bad.

The question is the quality of the gates kept. No, but my problem is it seems to me that you, Eric Weinstein, wanted to be the gatekeeper. You want to determine whether people's empathy levels reach your bar that warrants them being allowed to be on this show, for example. And I'm saying that to me, at least. is a pretty dangerous road to go down, isn't it? But he's right there, right? You know, like I said, Eric is right

that Peers is like a kind of cancerous latch on the modern discourse. But Pierce is right that Eric wants us... Yeah, but if you're going to tell him not to speak to people, it is reasonable to say, like who? Yes. The answer is Professor Dave. The answer is Professor David.

And that's why Eric can't say it. I know. Now, one thing that you haven't heard in the discourse sphere recently, I've always that's been silent, didn't even comment on Charlie Kirk. Jordan Peterson, he's out of the discourse. Yep, this happens from time to time. It does happen from time to time. And if you remember, Michaela declared that he was going to be taking a break.

He was having some health issues and whatnot. But they'd solved what the cause was. Like, it was all wrong before. Everything, whatever they claimed, the 1,000 diagnoses that they'd previously claimed, they were all wrong because what it actually was was toxic mold. That is the thing which was taking Jordan out. And now they've identified it.

They'll be able to resolve the problem. Or maybe not. Maybe not, Matt, because McKillah came out with another tweet, saying, look, things have gone bad. he's suffering from pneumonia, sepsis, he's got chronic inflammatory response syndrome due to decades of mold exposure. And she said they don't have a better explanation for what's going on at the minute than spiritual attacks, Matt. Spiritual attacks. That seems to be what has occurred. So let me just let Michaela lay it out for you. Like I said, the summer

has been exceedingly difficult and terrifying. Dad's condition is complicated by the fact he can't take most medications without suffering from severe paradoxical reactions, which limits treatment options. Like I mentioned, I believe there's a spiritual element at play here. I think a lot of people have felt it in the last few weeks and months. It's been hitting my dad and my family heart this summer.

In August, the day dad was brought to a hospital by ambulance, my newborn Audrey was also brought to a hospital. hospital by ambulance within hours of each other. It was unbelievable. This was the second time this summer we had brought Audrey to the hospital after she almost died from near heart failure at six weeks old that is exceedingly rare and they couldn't find a cause for. She was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary hypertension, which seems to have resolved, praise God. But it's not something that happens. It's serious.

So it seems to be, you know, it's manifested in actual physical consequences, but it does appear to be spiritual in nature. And you can tell because, you know, there are things be falling her daughter and so on, which are inexplicable. The health service has no address.

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