Decoding the Gurus - Supplementary Material 4: Passive Aggressive Therapists, Shit-posting Monks, and Weaponised Naivety

Episode Date: April 13, 2024

We ponder whether, due to our naivety, do we actually deserve the gurus and other topics, including: Is Hasan Piker even better than we said?The ethical quandaries of online therapy with Dr. KThe False Halos of Status and SuccessThe Rest is History Luther series and parallels with Secular GurusThe Power of Polemicists: Peterson, Trump, and Martin Luther?Secular vs. Religious GurusShit-posting MissivesOrthodoxic Atheism and Orthopraxic ReligionLex Fridman's Reflections on Intellectual HumilitySome important Messages from the hostsLinksGame Rant Article about Hasan Piker's donation to Strike FundsUncovering the Higher Truth about Jay Shetty by John McDermottCoffeezilla Interview with John McDermottDr. K and Doctor Mike: Debating The Value Of Eastern Medicine (Ayurveda)That stream with Dr. K and his wifeThe Rest is History: Series on Martin LutherArticle by Chris in Aeon about Orthopraxic ReligionLex's extremely humble tweet about his intellectual humilityThe full episode is available for Patreon subscribers (1hr 19mins).Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus

Music hello and welcome to decoding the guru's supplementary freaking hell you'd think i'd be able to say that supplementary materials for the fourth edition the it's a quadrology now is that what they're called i don't know i don't know it's it could be a word it could be and after three years of podcasting matt and i now have pop filters so we can put plosive peas on everything and we can breathe we can breathe heavily into the microphone should be fine i did have a pop filter before, a long time ago, a big one. But since we got the other mics, apparently they didn't need them, but they do need them. So we've updated it.

People love these kind of behind the scenes details. I like these fairy things. Yeah. Matt has one that looks like an 80s DJ and mine is is like a cropped afro that's the way i would put it so yeah different characters i was selling some ones in hot pink hot pink fluffy ones and i really wanted those ones but yeah yeah that's unfortunate that's unfortunate so you know matt this is the supplementary segment right there's various things that we can look at and talk about. One small detail to mention is, you know, we covered Hassan last time on the ideology

merchandise line and editor Andy put that up on the YouTubes. So we got another round of commentary on it. And I know there's no point to mention this every time this happens, but I just want to say once or twice that you then get a round of people saying, you know, we had the usual thing where people simply repeat the guy popping out of the well, that's the end response. It's just, you don't understand socialism.

That's right. He's participating in capitalism in order to undermine it yeah it's just it takes time and you have to really participate you have to get into capitalism and like you need the sports cars you need the mansion you need the fashion label all of this he's playing the long game we get it we get it that's right to defeat consumerist culture you must first become consumerist culture that's the thing it's uh you know sun tzu know your enemy by first becoming your enemy yes yes so so that that's the main one it's fine it's totally fine to that's the main one i think it is fine we're just saying it's inconsistent with being a communist revolutionary that's all but the second line of defense is chris so so there are a more rare line a more high quality cut of defense for for Hassan was that he donates all the proceeds to strike funds and to support unionized workers

and whatnot. Not just that he has done that, but that he does it entirely. All of the funds that he earns go to strike funds. If that were true, I would say that you and I would definitely have to eat humble pie. At least it would be consistent, consistent right if all of the profits that he was making he was investing into support of stuff that aligns with his ideology that would be a defense right you're just essentially using the tools of your master to take down their house so i asked the person that raised this for more details about this, because I had looked into it before we commented, but they were like, you didn't even check, you don't even understand where the profits go. And they said, you could just check his Twitter.

Hassan has talked about this a lot. So I did check Hassan's Twitter and all I could find was reference to him donating around $100,000 or $126,000 to strike funds. Now, that sounds like a lot. I also find articles mentioning that, but that is certainly not all of Hassan's profit from his merch line. In fact, that was the amount that he earned in one day when he released a merch line a couple of years ago so and this was covered in a whole bunch of sites that cover influencer culture so i knew that he did make a donation or maybe a couple of donations but there was nothing in those articles about him now donating all proceeds moving forward,

or that he is not taking any profit from his merch line. Nowhere did he say that. And it just, it struck me. And so I could find absolutely no support for that. And eventually when the person did provide details, they just said, there's an article on game rant and the game rant article is just talking about that one-off donation but the thing which that made me think about which is kind of broader principle is like the gurus are often you know they themselves are a little bit shameless they can make claims or they can you know exaggerate things or whatever. But their fans are sometimes way more extreme than they are. Like Hassan has not said, to my knowledge, I can't find anywhere where he said, I donate all income from this to, you know, strike funds.

But his fans, some of his fans have that kind of impression. And I've seen the same sentiment on other sites occasionally mentioned. And it's just, it's impressive because it's kind of like people are going much farther than the gurus, even they will go in whatever they're claiming. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it speaks to a broader point as you say of the psychological distortions that we do the sort of contortions we put ourselves through in order to make things consistent and neat for us so if you're a fan of hassan's you want to believe that

he is what he says he is so you you wave away these kinds of inconsistencies even to the point where you believe a kind of a fiction, something which isn't documented anywhere, but they choose to believe it. I mean, I think there's an exact parallel with what seems to me like this incredibly naive trust amongst the fans of Jordan Peterson or Brett Weinstein or whatever, Andrew Tate, you name it,

which is that they will say that, these people are just wanting to help us. Jordan Peterson just cares deeply about young people. He's not in it for himself. He doesn't care about the fame or the money or any of those things. He's on a mission to make the world better. And his fans truly believe that,

and it's true of pretty much all of our gurus. And it seems to an outsider to be an incredibly naive interpretation of some of his motivations. And so it should be no surprise that you see it with Hasan Paik's fans as well. Because it came up as well when we were covering Andrew Huberman a couple of months back. Because remember when we covered him, we made the point that there's a lot of ambiguity about donations right because his podcast was called the huberman lab and his lab at stanford was called the huberman lab but he was like but these are separate and you can donate to the huberman lab or you can join membership at the huoperman Lab, but it's like they're all branded very similarly. And some of the proceeds from donations will be used to support research.

Yeah. It's not quite clear. And there's no reporting. Like there's no sort of regular, hey. No, there will. No, you can go to his website and see where he's made. Like he does document, we've donated some amount of money to support this researcher, but it's not accounting.

There's not like we received donations of X amount and we donated this amount or Huberman sponsors equate to this and we donate 70%. No, no, no. Just amounts that look kind of big donated, but there's no relative comparison. But when we raised that point, people were like that's not what he's about, right? Like he's not about profiteering or that kind of it. But like Hoover is making huge amounts of money with his podcast and his advertising

and the fact that he can also cast it as being about philanthropy research philanthropy that's extremely convenient and so yes he will support research but what proportion of the amount goes towards that or yeah to all the sweet summer children who don't understand how the world works let me explain there are companies like for instance shell that will spend quite a bit of money on very nice advertisements that that feature children smelling flowers and grassy fields and in those advertisements they'll probably talk about some genuine donations that they've made to sustainable energy or clean water or things like that.

And they're real donations. It's real money. And if they print the numbers, they may look like large numbers. But this is an exercise. This is a tiny proportion. The gambling industry in Australia, a big part of its legitimacy is that they take, Chris, some of these profits and they give them back to the community. They support local sports teams. They have prizes and funds and things set up for young people. They don't talk very much about the

infinitesimal percentage that those charitable donations make up of their actual income. And I don't think anyone would be so naive to think that the gambling industry or the shell that the oil company are on a mission to make the world a better place and that's their primary motivating factor and and yet when it comes to these influences whether it's huberman or jordan peterson or hassan piker somehow because of the parasocial relationship and because they've developed like a personal ideology that their fans have committed to and invested in they will bend over backwards to suspend disbelief and turn themselves into the most naive chumps that has ever walked the planet grow up even as

the people buy mansions a driver learned it's for his car doesn't matter yeah it's it's shocking or in in the case of hasan as well there was a leak just talking about you know the amount that he earns from twitch streaming and it was a lot and that is not including all the other stuff that he's getting right so there were various comments like people saying you know he's just trying to be sustainable i think he's sustainable already i think he'll get by i think he's i think he's gonna make it guys don't worry he's okay so yeah uh it's just it's quite impressive so that that was something matt just wanted to mention in passing that it's kind of remarkable the level of faith that people have not cynical souls these people at least not about very select individuals at least that's the

way to put it yes very very cynical when it comes to those other guys but not our not our favorite but those guys are bad guys though so that stands it stands to reason well matt another thing that i wanted to raise to your attention coffeezilla was talking to a journalist john mcdermott about jay shetty have you ever heard of jay shetty i have heard of him yeah he's a kind of celebrity guru type spiritual psychological advice figure and there was a big expose in the guardian published called uncovering the higher truth of jay shetty by john mcdermott and it essentially reveals that he's a bit of a charlatan he's exaggerated his credentials like he a lot of his authority rests on being a monk but he was kind of unclear about

a monk of what tradition he would just reference the vedic tradition but he was a harry krishna and he also presents it as having like these transformative experiences where he encountered a monk and before that he was a high-flying kind of management consultant he was a secular guy and then he he came across this monk who transformed his life but that fails to mention that he's been involved in the harry krishna movement since like a child and there's videos of him online in material so that road to damascus moment was maybe perhaps not the thing which, you know, introduced him to the movement. He was like a leader in various youth camps and stuff. And he's exaggerated his credentials, as many of these guru types do.

So there's an interesting discussion that CoffeeZilla had with the journalist who did the investigative research on it. And that was very good. who did the investigative research on it. And that was very good. But it did make me think about a figure who I've seen coming up in various content recently because I've been looking at streamers. Have you heard of Dr. K? No, I've heard you mention him a couple of times,

but I know very little. Yeah, I think his name is Alok Kanogia and his online handle was Healthy Gamer GG. And he rose up by doing like Twitch streaming content, but with a therapeutic bent to it so you know initially i think talking about game addiction and social anxiety or these kind of things and doing streaming talking about mental health but more so i think rose to prominence by doing streams with influencers where it's not therapy, Matt. He's very clear. It's not official therapy, but he's just going to talk through issues and ask questions that you might find therapeutic and that might be beneficial, but it is not a medical therapeutic encounter. And he is a licensed therapist. so that would be a problem if he was

doing that kind of thing in in public right without all of the constraints and i saw various things where he'd interviewed an influencer and actually seemed you know mostly decent cbt style advice about how to reframe things or this kind of stuff and maybe a bit psychoanalytical or whatever for my taste but you know basically reasonable and then more recently I came across an interview where he was talking to another celebrity online doctor called Dr. Mike, who apparently is another big figure online. And it was called The Value of Eastern Medicine Ayurveda. Okay. And it's like a two-hour conversation. And now, Matt, we'll cover this conversation. So I'm not going to spoil it, all the stuff that goes on there. But suffice to say, it's very good content for us.

And it will remind you of many things from the 90s and 2000s, if you had any interest in complementary and alternative medicine. But interesting parallels with Jay Shetty are that Dr. K also frequently references that he was a monk. I don't think he indicates what kind of monk, just a Vedic Eastern monk of some description, which is what Jay Shetty used to say. So kind of curious there. He also got controversy because he was giving, I guess, not therapy, was having a chat with somebody, a streamer who was diagnosed with

depression. And they had a conversation where the streamer got emotional, a bit distressed, and so on. And the streamer went on to kill himself later, right? So this is a problem, quite an ethical quandary. Now, not to say that Dr. K is responsible for that right but if you are a trained therapist talking with someone that's diagnosed with depression and is dealing with suicidal ideation and mentioned that his family his brother killed himself as well there's ethical issues there right quite large ones i think yeah looming right anyway we'll get into all that when we cover them but i have two clips for you matt and this is from a stream where dr k is on with his wife and him and his wife are answering questions from the stream okay and somebody pointed this out to

me on twitter whenever i was making some commentary about the Dr. K content. They were like, oh, you should see this interaction. They found it quite telling. I wonder if you will. So let me play. I have two clips for you. And this is Dr. K with his wife, who seems a nice person from the bit on the stream that I saw. So here we go. So like Kruthi and I had a similar period where she was like earning in a functional human being. And I was like struggling to get into medical school. And I think that. Okay. You're going to be there.

Yeah. So, but I think that, so that's what you know. Right. And that's exactly what his girlfriend is telling him. Right. So you're saying basically this sentence, I feel like I'm dragging the relationship down despite her telling me that I'm doing fine as long as I'm working on myself. Listen to her. Yeah. So I think the perspective,

this person is asking for my perspective because I've been closer to that situation than you have. Tell him to listen to her. No, I mean, that's not sufficient. Go ahead. So I'm a little bit concerned with how disrespectful you are to me on stream. Okay. What do you think about that?

I'm serious. Um, okay. Do you understand what i'm saying tell me more so like when you say go ahead it implies that you're giving me permission to speak oh that's because we were both talking and then i'm saying you can talk like you can talk right and i will stop talking so when you say like you can talk that implies permission what should i say um I think maybe you should, if, yeah,

I think it should be a little bit more like if I'm speaking, you should ask me if you want to interrupt to begin with. Okay. Right. How's that, man? Healthy? I don't like that chris i don't like that i made my skin crawl did that spark joy did not spark joy so the context there was they were asked a question right and she answered and may have spoke over him a little bit i don't think she did but in any case she said go ahead and then yeah and he had to set her straight and

it's not just the you know whatever it is that ugly power game thing but it's expressed in that new speak that kind of therapy language like i'm sharing my feelings and now i want you like it just goes to show doesn't it that you can you can put old wine in these new bottles and it's just it's the same old nasty shit that people have been doing for hundreds of years what i think people should get is like when you see that that kind of language like what do you think about that like i'm serious what did you do you understand why i'm upset what why did you do that right that is yeah that's weaponizing therapy it is yeah yeah it's manipulative controlling it's just should be obvious to everyone what's really going on there like i don't look i'm coming at this completely cold i know nothing about these two people the context or anything like that but yeah i feel like i'm pretty firm ground to saying that that

is not the conversation that a decent normal person well-adjusted person has with their with their partner certainly my mom would hit me over the back of the head if she ever heard me speak to my wife like that. Yeah. And there was also two bits that I thought was kind of interesting about that. And again, it is, you know, analyzing a specific encounter. But nonetheless, after he says, you know, do you understand what I'm saying? And then she doesn't know what to say.

So she says, tell me more. So she kind of flips, judo flips, like tell me more about why you're feeling that way no this is not the first time they've done this little dance i'm sure no and she also asked some like after she's trying to defend herself by saying you know no i was just saying you know you go ahead and then she says what what do you want what would you like me to say instead he can't go up with anything that's what that big huge uncomfortable pauses it's worse when you can see the video because he's just you know like thinking that he doesn't have it and what he could come up with was you should ask

permission before to interrupt which doesn't even make sense yeah when you say something because you're still interrupted like excuse me i'm thinking to interrupt you do i have permission to do that that was so freaking weird so that was uncomfortable so this person's a self-help type clinical type guru who's helping people with their problems relationship or otherwise right oh yes and you can't see Matt the visual language that goes with that clip but after it it's extremely uncomfortable and the you know they they agree to move on and they make some jokes about arguing in front of the children right the twitch, but the look in people's eyes suggest it's not exactly over, right? And then later this happens. So this is after they've answered all the questions,

you know, they've moved on the other things and this little callback happens. I think telling each other in the moment is way better than being like, than stewing. Four hours ago, you did this and that don't do that. Right. So like if some, if, if someone does something that bothers you, you let them know that in there,

even if it's awkward and it scares the children a little bit and it can feel awkward for both of us, but now we're fine. We're good. And then we talk about it. We feel better. Is it okay if I go like this when you say, let's just think for about it. We feel better. Is it okay if I go like this when you say, let's just think for a second?

Sure. Okay. You can continue to mock me. I just felt slightly disrespected. And maybe it's because Twitch chat was calling you, was calling me a beta cuck. Y'all, come on. No, it's okay. I mean, they can call me a beta cuck. It's just if I feel disrespected, then I'll tell you. What does that

mean exactly? A beta cuck. It's just if I feel disrespected, then I'll tell you. What does that mean exactly? A beta cuck. It's basically like they're saying I'm whipped. Okay. Right. So. Okay. Am I whipped?

What do you think? I don't think that's a thing. I don't think. I don't think that's a thing. I don't think... I don't think... I mean, that's the thing. Sometimes you're going to be more dominant and I'm going to back down. Sometimes I'm going to be more dominant and you back down, right?

It's never always equal. Okay. Let's do one more and then move to twitter is it over the clip is finished i was up for healthy processing you know what it reminded me of i recently watched that wonderful movie best in show have you seen that movie yeah yeah you know there's a very neurotic couple in there that's like these yuppies that they're super tense and they drive their dog, goes mental too, and bites somebody or whatever. And so they're disqualified. That's who these people remind me of. Like just that absolutely messed up kind of thing. But there's all of this language very very middle class very very i don't know clinical speak but you know this is yeah you find some interesting things on the internet for us don't you chris yeah well the the thing which i noted from that and part of it relies again

on the visual is that when she says can i go like this when you ask me to think about it? She like points at her head, you know, like, so she's making a joke. And he looks annoyed and then said, you can continue to mock me. I just feel slightly disrespected. So he doesn't take the lighthearted escape and presents that as her continuing to disrespect them. And then he brings up the Twitch chat is calling him a better cuck right and he he's kind of saying you know yeah i mean i don't i don't really care they're just

calling me a better cuck but then he moves on to uh am i a better cuck to you what do you think just like this is your healthy role model you should just completely ignore if anybody in your life ever calls you a beta cuck like just take 10 steps away from that person but yeah yeah but i was mainly struck by just the levels of passive aggression throughout like he's litigating he's got some issue about not being respected enough and that you know he's not dominant enough and she needs to be in her place and asking permission to talk and stuff like that and he's worried about people on the internet calling him a beta cuck i mean like that's just how absurd i mean he's the therapist he's the therapeutic into it And the other thing about him that I think is worth mentioning, that he's found a little bit of way around the issue with doing therapy online

and not violating your code of ethics, because that would in so many different ways, especially when you bear in mind that this is public therapy, right? Like talking to people with a big streaming audience, in different ways especially when you bear in mind that this is public therapy right like talking to people with a big streaming audience that there's a whole raft of issues there yeah he by framing it as one not therapy but two spiritual guidance because he's also interested in Ayurveda and Vedic practices, and he can present it as it's a kind of Eastern spiritual guidance. And then, Matt, the licensing bodies and whatnot, I feel like they're a bit scared to try and address somebody

who's claiming that they're doing a non-western complementary or indigenous practice right you cannot apply the same restrictions to someone's spirituality as you would to their therapy yeah right well well religions of all kinds chris have always had a get out of jail free card when it comes to exactly and things like that especially in the united states so yeah that is a good trip but i'm just still flabbergasted how these two were reflecting on their own interactions just there and holding it up as an example to everyone about this is this is how you should you know we were talking about people being somewhat gullible towards the gurus.

If you look at the comments on the desk, they're all saying how great, you know, they're modeling how to do conflict resolution in real time. And, you know, sometimes I feel like we're just doomed. What's wrong with you people? And look, it's not the thing that everybody would have arguments with you know a loved one or a partner there's always going to be like strained times and nobody's relationship is is perfect right but i'll tell you this i've never spoken to a partner in that way by saying you will you disrespected me there and you need to think about asking my permission before you interrupt me like that's just that's not normal it's not normal i'm sorry

there's issues there so yeah i'm not a therapist i'm just a practitioner of cavernology it's an ancient spiritual practice so nobody nobody tried to censure me by any professional bodies i'm just saying in cavernology that interaction is a little bit telling well one of the things i really hate about language like fashionable language and there's so many different kinds there's the sense-makery type language the academic-y language there's a very corporate formal language and there's a sort of clinical language that there are so many ways in which fashions in language can be weaponized and because because they're new because they're kind of special ways of talking that people have bought into you can so easily smuggle in like the worst kind of just old-fashioned

bullying controlling uh insulting stuff but as long as you do it using the right language it's somehow it's a it's a magical wand where it you can get away with it and i just really hate how effective that is in in all circumstances you know you see it in a corporate world you'll see it in an academic world you can see it you might see it in social justice circles from time to time you might you might some people might do that yeah yeah no i mean but it's just it's a general observation isn't it that just be wary of these special coded language things they can so easily smuggle in just just use your common sense and think about what what is the person doing here in plain language and don't fall for it yeah don't let anyone be passive aggressive to you and controlling and manipulative like that guy is to his partner that's my advice for young folks out there. That certainly sounds like something you would normally say, Matt.

So it's hard to pretend to do it. For a second, you look confused. You look confused. You didn't pick up. So it didn't exactly go as intended, that pun. But, you know, I can be passive aggressive, but not on command, not on command. That's the problem.

So we'll look at Dr. K. He's a streamer, and there's a very interesting piece of contact with him talking to this Dr. Mike guy, and it tweaks my buttons because it's talking about alternative medicine and different things. And he's doing something more sophisticated than a Deepak Chopra person,

but not all together different. Anyway, we'll see. We'll have a look. That's for another time. For another time. I read that article in The Guardian. We might even link to it. But, yeah, it's no surprise that Gwyneth Paltrow is a fan of this Shetty fellow.

Jay Shetty. Yeah, he was in the White House. You know, he was doing stuff with Biden and stuff. And it's just an example that there are lots of people that can have high profiles, can be very successful and built on the foundation of lies, right? Like it's a, you see this all the time in like finance and whatnot,

but it's part of the reason why there are people who are millionaires or billionaires. I mean, just recently, Sam Bankman Freed, who was celebrated all over the place as a philanthropic billionaire who wants to give it all away, isn't interested in luxuries and whatever. And as various investigations have revealed revealed it was all a deck of cards right and he was he was up the stuff that he knew was wrong but also he was doing various things to try and manipulate his published image and and so on and he's been sentenced to 25 years for fraud um but just five years ago he would have been a figure that if you were pointing out he's wearing no clothes or that all his fortune might be based on a mirage, people would have been looking at you as skews. So there are other figures who are very wealthy and may at some point face similar consequences it's unclear

but just to say don't assume that status and success and high profile equals that people are fundamentally honest and have good personal qualities yeah no no no no most people should know that matt they should know that but it seems to be something that people have to repeatedly find out so yeah now speaking of that speaking about patterns that repeat speaking about morphic resonances that appear throughout history in different forms the kind of egregores if you will Matt I was listening to the rest is history a very popular history podcast that you also like. And they were talking about Martin Luther. I think they have a four or five part series on Martin Luther. And they made the monk Martin Luther, not Martin Luther King, the person who kicked off the Reformation and Lutheranism.

He spawned a whole race of enemies of your people, the Protestants. Right, yeah. The evil heretic Martin Luther, who tore asunder the one true church in Catholicism. So they make some observations which I thought were interesting and speak to themes that we cover here. So listen to them talking a little bit. If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at patreon.com slash decoding the gurus.

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