Decoding the Gurus - Supplementary Material 40: YouTube Builders, the Discourse Grind, and Sam Harris' Dinner Parties

Episode Date: November 29, 2025

We set down the Chardonnay at the latest heterodox dinner party and lean in for some hearty ‘civil discourse’ to once again defend the trembling pillars of Western civilization.The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (2 hours, 13 minutes).Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurusSupplementary Material 40: YouTube Builders, the Discourse Grind, and Sam Harris' Dinner Parties00:00 Introduction01:15 Feedback on the Molyneux Episode10:26 Jordan Peterson still defeated by toxic demon mould12:16 Steven Pinker's bad takes on Bjorn Lomborg15:49 Chris vs Sabine28:21 Grok's insane sycophantic glazing of Elon Musk33:54 Musk's Psychology40:59 Sam Harris acknowledges his problem?!?47:18 Sam continues to wrestle with the interpersonal ethics of criticism01:05:10 Triggernometry saves Western Civilization01:15:29 The Wisdom of Francis Foster01:28:42 Triggernometry's Partisan Outrage at the BBC01:38:12 Oppressed Men vs. Complaining Women01:46:29 The YouTube Builders of Western Civilization01:56:42 Pageau vs Bret Weinstein02:01:52 Eric Weinstein sensemaking about Cancellation02:09:58 A PSA about THIS podcastLinksStefan Molyneux accidentally posting as a young woman on his main accountChris arguing with Sabine Hossenfelder– Receipts threadSteven Pinker cheering on Bjorn LomborgInsights from the finances of Bjorn Lomborg’s think tankExample video detailing Lomborg’s rhetoricGuardian article on Grok’s glazing of Elon MuskGrok explains Elon is the best piss drinkerSam Harris Podcast #442 — More From SamTriggernometry: Our Thoughts On Interviewing Dave Smith, Hasan Piker, Sam Harris and Ben ShapiroPageau and Bret’s pre-podcast Twitter sparringEric Weinstein sense-making about wordsOur previous episode on Tiggernometry entering the Big Time

Hello and welcome to recording the gurus. Elementary material number 40, but episode 40, we've made it here. Matt, the psychologist, Chris, the psychologist slash anthropologist. We're here, loud, and three, all those kind of things. So, yeah, did you think we'd make it here, Matt,

back in the days of episode one of supplementary material? Episode one. Back in those days. Those heady days. Yeah, the Halkion days. Things were fresh and new. I remember then, The gurus were just a curious, just a curious little phenomena.

I didn't think it would become such an all-encompassing, world-threatening thing. But that's all right. That's all right. That's all right. It's okay. Chris, Chris, the feedback on the Molyneux episode, has been, well, I think generally positive, but people have also expressed a bit of pain having to listen to that. Oh, I see.

I thought you were going to say there was a lot of big Molli fans came out in our audience. Like I think you've been a bit unfair to Stefan and I was like, really? I didn't see that. But yeah, I do think he's a particularly odious character. And actually, you know, Matt, when this comes out, if you're Jonesing for your next hit of Stefan Mullen, you part two is already up on the Patreon. So you can go listen to it there. and doing a bit of advertising are you encouraging people to get behind you know so if they have the opposite feeling they want more well new in their life it's it's appealable there but it'll be

out in me and feed i predict i predict zero people will take up that offer how dare you how dare you well actually i do have i've got a little couple of pieces of follow-up with Mullen Yu. So one thing, Matt, was that people, one person, I shouldn't say people, it was just one person, I just wanted to explain. One person said that, you know, they were enjoying the episode, the episode was good, but they did find it a bit distracting how often that I offered, you know, pedantic clarifications, which I framed as helping you avoid emails.

And they were like, is that necessary? And I respond to that person, but I also will. Good question. Very good question. I'll respond here to say, look, you guys don't get the feedback from what we receive, right? So when Matt says something, oh, sure, like, you might be like, well, that's probably reasonable. That's fine. Lots of people will be like that.

But our email inbox suggests that there are people who disagree, right? So I'm there offering clarifications to help. Sometimes, sometimes the clarifications might relate the points. I want to clarify. That's true. It's possible. I get it. I get it.

You're playing defense. I get it. It's like a forestalling. I'm playing nine dimensional chess. You guys are playing checkers. Okay? It's like trying to forestall the objections of reviewer two. It's an impossible task, but you know, you got to struggle.

Except reviewer two is an infinite horde of on the spectrum reditors. So there is no defense. They'll get you. Well, there were also. people who objected that we didn't raise that like this relates to debates around knowledge and truth and getier problems and so on that because of our lack of philosophical insight, Matt, these were things that floated over our head. But actually there, I'm going to take issue because you did flag up. These are the kind of debates you cover in philosophy 101 and so on. And the

point isn't like whichever stance Stefan got like he should have named it specifically. this or whatever, it doesn't matter his specific stance on the issue, right? If he was taking the correspondence theory of truth stance, he would do it in the most obnoxious way possible with the same problem, right? The problem is in the way that he is making his argument and like kind of responding to pushback. So, like, while it's true, we could have spent more time highlighting the relevant philosophical topics of which there's a voluminous voluminous literature that covers these kind of topics that's not really the point

yeah so yeah yeah yeah yeah that's it that was my response to that and I wear my lack of philosophical sophistication as a badge of pride Chris I will never apologize for that but but you're right we're interested in the process and yeah it's the process I mean you know This is what they do. You know, they talk about these, you know, abstract little philosophical conundrums, but it's usually running obfuscation for more insidious kinds of things, including the misogyny, the racism and the cultishness,

and just the interpersonal manipulation and rhetorical tricks. And that is our ballywick, Chris. That's in our ballpark. Yes, that's true. So, you know, if you want to hear more rigorously informed philosophical discussions, embrace the void, Liam Bright's Twitter feed, various solo sources where that's available. The very bad wizards guys. There are countless philosophers that would love to deliver.

Yeah, they have your ears. And we'll talk to some of them sometimes. Right. Small doses. Small doses. Yeah, that's it. That's it. But, okay, and the last little Molly update, Matt, you'll enjoy this.

A listener sent this, and I thought it was fun to mention. They pointed out that, you know, Stefan has a quite illustrious history, right? As a internet figure, we covered some of it. Well, there was one incident that was quite amusing where he posted a video breaking down the truth about Frozen, the Disney movie. and of course he did and you might be stunned to hear that it was giving some bad values

and it was relating to what did he think about I wonder what he thinks about the Barbie movie oh God he must love that he could throw a curveball and say it was great but the thing that he did

it's not that he made a video about Frozen who hasn't made a multiple hour video of Frozen in this era of the internet but underneath it there was a comment posted, okay, and let me just read the comment. I love this. You totally kind of ruined Frozen for me, but I really enjoyed this a lot more than the actual movie.

And you really got me thinking about a lot. Being an attractive young woman, I understand what it's like to be seen as nothing more than a sex stall. I also know what it is like to use that to my advantage to get over the system. Hell, I even know what it is to suffer mental illness, only to be told by my parents to ignore it. However, despite all of this, I feel like I have learned more lessons from everything that has happened in my life.

Thank you so much for posting this. Honestly, I want to make a difference in the world. And I look to people like you to sort of guide me in the right direction. Thanks so much, Capitals. Isn't that a heartfelt message from a adoring fan? Does that touch you in the field smart? You know, maybe we got Stefan wrong. You know, it's impressive.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, that's great. I mean, he's really helping young women navigate society, I think. Oh, well, one slight issue. This was posted by Stefan Molyneux. So it seems that he accidentally forgot to log into whatever, you know, sock puppet a kite that he uses when he wants to present, and he posted as himself as an attractive young woman.

So that's just, that was. You know, one of many times where things like this have happened, but I did think that's a particularly good rumor. That was under Stefan Molyneux and the comments under it there. I'm confused. Is this a message from a file you're reposting or, you know? I mean, I love it when it happens. That's happened.

That happens regularly, of course, on, like Twitter, some far right, you know, or even just megattype, you know, bad person is posting as a as a black man or something oh yeah they do do that i mean it happens very often there suck puppets kind of across the spectrum amongst a particular kind of narcissists but the ones where they're presented a particular identity characteristic is often for that purpose though they're happening the cases where there's been the right-on strong social justice woke kinds that are claiming to be, you know, transgender, deceivable, indigenous lesbians, and then turns out,

no, they're not that. They get unmasked as, you know, just a random guy or something like that. So a lot of people online might shouldn't trust them, but Mullen, you first amongst many at that list. But I swear to God, like this, like I wasn't surprised at all to hear that he's doing like a cultural analysis or frozen. I mean, I swear to God, nobody loves this kind of frivolous cultural speculation more than the, I don't know, whatever, I don't know, postmodern type of humanities department

type sociologists than the gurus. They love it. They love this stuff. They've missed their calling. They need to join a humanities department in some fancy American school. It's where they belong. yeah i sign off in this i like this this digma oh yeah yeah and actually another random update it's not much of an update but just to say jordan peterson's still missing still right in the

discourse speaking about people that they're you know indulgent um is a dog is a dog that's not barking yeah yeah he's not there so um mckeela promised an update on his condition but i'm just saying, like, is anybody really missing that Jordan Peterson isn't sticking his oar into every cultural issue? Like, I mean, it's still all ongoing, you know, the cultural world, the talking heads are there, but have we lost anything by not having Jordan Peterson amplify or make a video about how trumpet is team or the X-Men or whatever? Like, it's better for the discourse. It's better for him and it's probably better for the impressionable young minds that are otherwise, you know, hanging on Dr. Peterson's every word. Well, actually, probably, it's probably more boomers now in

large respect or the older age cohort who are convinced by Jordan Peterson. But yeah, so you're not missing the map. It's that. No, I'm not missing him. We've got enough to be getting on with, with that Peterson on our plate as well. No, I mean, he's getting, he's getting on. So he's got a, and He's unwell, so he's going to bow at some point and permanently retire, and then he'll go a bit more senile, and then he won't be able to resist his phone, and he'll pick it up, and he'll do some ranting on Twitter. But, you know, at some point he's got to stop, right? He should just retire.

At some point, you might, but these people have, like, preternatural connectivity. Like, they don't have the one ring helping them, but somehow just keep going. They're like the energizer, but me. How old is Stephen Pinker at this point? He does look. Well, actually, yeah, so he was giving a bad take about Bjorn Longberg, right? Oh, I stole that. Yeah, he was tweeting out about like, but in this case, all right, I just got to say he's tweeting out someone who's publishing an article at Quillette, who is a fellow at the Keto Institute, right?

who has published books about like, you know, how climate change, we shouldn't be that worried about it, we can solve it with technology and blah, blah, blah. So that person publishing an article saying Bjorn Lomburg is vindicated, it's as surprising as Jordan Peterson publishing an article, right, declaring Bjorn Lomberg vindicated. So Pinker tweeted this out and like, you know, gave a endorsement message. And as is his want on Twitter, he turned a. of replies, right, so that you can't comment on it. But yeah, it just seems to me that Pinker, like Jonathan Haidt, like many others in that space, they don't actually do even cursory

research. They're just like so susceptible to cancellation and grievance narratives. Because Bjorn Lomberg, I did a little bit of researching to him. And it's like it's very easy to find out that he is presenting research in a skewed fashion. Like he's basically, basically an anti-climate change activist. That's what his role is. And he's handsomely rewarded for it, promoted across multiple platforms. Gets a huge salary from his bank tank, which is basically just him. It's like that's what the output.

If you look at the finances are, it's just paying him a salary to travel around and cast nine. Without putting too fine a point on it, he is paid by business interests who are actively, you know, wanting to advocate against climate change action because it threatens their. then economically. He is paid by them to be an anti-climate activist. I mean, that's his job. It's very clear. And yeah, I mean, anyway. I know, I know. So, and like, the thing what Pinker is like in, in videos he's been posting on his channel, he looks a bit like Bilbo after he gave up the ring. Like, you know, he suddenly aids dramatically. So I'd like to put it down to that. I'm not

sorry about it. I'm not casting I suppose it's no no that's what you were saying no age no I just said he's how old is he? No age is going to be me that's going to be me very shortly Are you going to be posting out things that are

supportive of Bjorn Longborg as you get hold their life? No I will not I just I don't I don't know what happens that I just want them to like if they want to take the stance to promote Bjorn Longborg fine, but then actually research and defend his positions. That's what I want. I want them to know what they're actually arguing. Exactly. Don't just like assume that, oh, they've been canceled

and everyone's ignoring them because they can't handle the truth sort of thing. That is a wrong assumption. And if you did just a little bit of work, you would clearly see that it was wrong. Yeah, it's frustrating. It reminds me of Sam Harris, that kind of frustration of. Oh, yeah. I'm not doing the work, it seems. Yes. Well, we're going to talk about him in a minute, but I will just mention, Matt, just in passing, if you'll permit me an indulgence.

I had a little running with Sabina Hossenfeldar on Twitter, right? Now, this was a back and forth that we don't need to go through all the details for because there's nothing worse than people that are getting Twitter interactions, right, don't podcast. But the point I want to make is that Sabina was doing her usual thing, complaining about academia and how terrible it is, how unproductive, and the writings on the wall. And I made a dunk about that as unproductive as academia and all the problems it has. Like, I still think they're going to be producing much more useful science and relevant

outputs than Sabina's YouTube channel. A little bit of a dunk, right, Matt, but Sabina responded, I do science news, Chris. I have no idea what makes you think that my audience is anti- science, although then you possibly don't know what I talk about or who watches my videos, right? Now, the conversation continues. I showed her, you know, her various titles about academia, communism. Should we defund academia? The crisis in physics is real sciences, feeling, right? And so on. I was like, no, this is your content. I've got talking about your science news. And she responded again by saying, I think what you're saying there is that you get your opinion about me from other people, the problem that I discuss in these videos are important

and people need to know about them. Maybe scientific progress isn't important to you, but it is important to me, right? So you get that and it continues about, but you get all the classic invocations, right? You know, I'm motivated by the purest things. You, you haven't actually looked at my content, right? You don't understand you're listening to like slanders on you, But as you know what, I have listened to Sabina's cut it. This is the worst. It's a worst, worst light of attack for you. Yeah, to be like, you will, there's no way that you will have gone through my videos

and collected clips of me saying things and that you will have them at hand if I say that I didn't say them, right? So, as you can imagine, she said she's worth that eventually ended up because she said, you know, she doesn't blame any individual science. She says that it's a systematic problem and so on. And then I was saying that she's also called scientists, elitist cowardly and self-serving people who are happy to lie as long as they get grants. That's not blaming them, Chris. That's not blaming them. It's systemic. They're all like that.

So I went and got a little bit of her saying, you know, disparaging things about all of science, a bunch of clips from different videos and I played them to her, including her saying Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Mark Andreessen and stuff, you know, quoting them as advocates for real scientific reform and I'm calling her YouTube listeners of family. This is Peter Thiel, whose principal research interests is the coming of Satan. Oh, yes, I brought that up. I brought them up, and I highlighted that he's currently on a tour about the Antichrist, Peter Thiel,

right, the person you're highlighting is a voice which you'd listen to on scientific topics. And a response was to say, your criticism is evidently just that you don't like the topics that I cover in these videos. and you don't want me to talk about them. It's wild that you're accusing me of hyperbole, while you're misdating the most basic points of these videos above. And then the thing is, Matt, that she just kept retreating to these kind of things about you want to cancel me. You don't want me to...

Yeah. You're taking me out of context. Yeah. You're taking the, you know, your bad faith. There's like, it's a bunch of like these sort of cliches, like these discourse cliches that get trotted out, but none of it sounds very specific. It doesn't sound like she actually responded to the very specific contradictions that you highlighted. And I was able, you know, when I responded, I was like, no, I'm not saying, I think you can talk about

whatever you want, but people are allowed to criticize you. Here's the free points I made. Here's videos showing you do those free things. You haven't responded, and she just didn't. And like, I think the thing with Sabina, unlike many of the other girls, is that they learn over time that they shouldn't respond. on to criticism like this because they're not good at addressing it, right? Like, it's much better

to stay at the high level and talk about your general critics misrepresenting you, whatever. What you don't want is like a video of you saying something that you say, I know I never disparaged scientists and then someone plays a video of you disparaging scientists and you have to say, oh, you want to silence me, right?

Like, it's too obvious what's going on there. But the fact that Sabina does engage and that she constantly wants to to retreat to those positions. Maybe I'm being too gullible, but I think it's indicative that that is how she sees herself. Like, you know, the way that she was responding. I think that is the way that she justifies what she's doing in her content, which is, you know, I'm mostly making science videos. I just talk about problems in academia. Academics are just annoyed because I'm

revealing the dirty underbelly of science. Like, that's, I think, so justification. So when somebody is saying, no, I don't care. Like, if you talk about the need for reforming thing, I'm talking about your specific culture war hyperbole and, you know, academia is not communism and Elon Musk is not a reformer for genuine science and stuff. Like, that she can't engage with, right? It has to be the kind of culture war stuff. So I know I said, Matt, I shouldn't litigate at Twitter beef here, but I think it is

illustrative of, you know, the kind of things that we are talking about in the way that's been responded. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think most of our gurus, like you say, are very strategic. They, they are smart enough to know not to engage, like, with concrete issues because they will kind of get owned, right? So, you know, you see it in every context. And they just work bad. Yeah, yeah. Like Eric Weinstein talking to, um, uh, the UFO guy, what's his name? Or McQuest. Nick West or Sean Carroll, for that matter.

And in both cases, you'll see them just, you know, adopt those the sort of grievance are into big pictures type stuff. When they try to talk about the specific points, it doesn't end well because they don't have grounds to defend themselves. So people like, who's the,

God, my mind is blanking this morning. Who's the guy that loves everybody? He loves you all. Lex Friedman? Mark Byrd Kaufman. yeah yeah him too but you know people like him he's a good example where

where you know he he bans everyone on this stuff like like there is there is no way yeah there's no way he would engage in in a confrontational interview or in any kind of you know specific rejoinders

to criticisms because you know he's he's a strategic player like he knows that he's far better sticking to the schmaltzy generalities because it doesn't add up otherwise. So I think it's interesting with Sabina because she, I think you're right that she's kind of in a state of denial. Like she is doing the same things that they're doing, but she still thinks she can defend it on the sorts of you know, like rational concrete grounds that she's used to doing as a scientist. So I feel like

she's in a little bit of denial about who she is now. Well, the way that this goes as well is that generally when, I mean, there are exceptions, right? Like when we talk to Kevin Mitchell, for example, Huberman had a period of reacting. When Kevin Mitchell was critical of him, like Huberman, you know, took like shots about Kevin's appearance and stuff, right? So like he clearly was getting to him. And when that occurs, you're like, well, why? because Huberman gets so much, you know, criticism from all, why is he responding to this?

And I think in the case of Huberman and Sabina, they still are in the mode of trying to present themselves as legitimate academics who are, you know, they're critical of the system, but they're still respected by their peers. And the more that that kind of crumbles, the further they move, right, into the more, you know, relying on trigonometry or Joe Rogan or these kind of things. And if you think about it, Matt, in the case of us, even our podcast, there's a particular size where people are worried about maintaining their image or criticism, getting through them. Like Constantine Kissin, right, heard the grapevine that we had made offhand critical comments. And he DM me about them, was like, you know, can I come into a show to talk about?

Like, he wouldn't do that now, right? Because he's now increased their size where it's not necessary. Chris Williamson, whenever we issued, like, an episode on God's Ad, but we criticized him. Again, he felt it was a good idea to come on and talk to us, in part because of connections for David Fuller. But in that case, would that happen now? I don't think so, right? Because it's not necessary at their size of success to fend off.

So I think there is a period. when people are kind of still on their ascension, that they're wary of, like, criticism, damaging them or whatever. And Sabina is probably still in that period where she, you know, feels the need to respond. But if she just keeps growing a little bit more, she'll get more practice at this and, like, not responsibly. Just get completely crushed.

Because, you know, the thing is Twitter is, you know, since Elon Musk has took it over, It's now, like, strongly skewed towards the kind of reactionary, conspiratorial, Elon Musk type accounts. There are still other stuff there, but that's the bigger audience. So the fact that Sabina can get reissued by me in that environment, that's really bad for her, because it should be shooting fish in a barrel to appeal to the conspiratorial crowd, right? but the problem is she doesn't do it very well so that's that's why better in her video better in her video content yeah i know i think you're right about the evolutionary time track they're like Pokemon who evolved to their final form jordan peterson exemplifies this full power you know and at that point

you don't need to worry about mean things that the establishment that the institutional people might say about you journalists academics or other is because you've fully built your own base that is totally independent of that. So, yeah, I guess it's a matter of their perceptions. Yeah, Sabina, at this point, still would like to be considered, and is still considered, you know, a reasonable and rational voice. You know, you'll see her appearing on kind of serious type science shows. Like I saw PBS, there's a show called PBS Science. It's like a physics popular type thing.

It's actually pretty heavy going. It's at a technical level. It's a bit hard for me to follow. But it is a serious science show. And the host of that, like, appeared on a, you know, in a public forum with Sabina. And so this is not a, I'm just making the point that Sabina still is, has a foot in both camps for now. But I think you're right. If her career continues on this trajectory, then she'll move fully into the other domain.

Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see where her trajectory takes her, but currently it's not going anywhere good, you know. And now I might, a different topic. And I have a little couple of clips for, a few clips for it. You know, it's not like me, but there we go. Can I just make a mental note because I'm going to forget going in the future? Oh, yeah.

Because we mentioned Elon Musk. I think at some point we need to talk about grok's glazing of Elon Musk. Oh, God, the GROC, the Grecliusine. Yeah, that is true. Well, shall we mention it now? We could do it now. We could do it now. Why not?

Why not? So, yeah, GROC, people discovered that GROC seemed to have some prompt restrictions. But then it was unable, like, one, okay, so it's unable to disparage Elon Musk or something like that, right? But in particular, it seemed to be forced to constantly, if asked, like, to compare Elon Musk against a lot of person or to say who is the best person in the world at something, it would just constantly default to providing the rationale for why Elon Musk is actually the best in the world, at everything, right? Not just that there are things that he's I have specific examples of that here, Chris.

Oh, yes, please. Saying that Musk is more physically fit than LeBron James and smarter than more of a genius than historical polymats like Leonardo da Vinci or Isaac Newton. Grock said that apparently that Musk is more handsome than Brad Pitt, funnier than Jerry Seinfeld, and a better role model than Jesus. Wow. I like this one where I asked about, like, they had the picture of him, you know,

the rather infamous picture of him on the yacht with his top off, where he's got an unusual sheep torso, shall we say, right? It's been the subject of many memes. And, you know, an older man with a stream shape torso. We can all relate, Matt, but Elon Musk, I think, gets a deserved kicking for this online because of what a self-aggrandizing narcissistic is. And the other hand, they put the statue of David, right? They're famous, you know, beautiful symmetry, muscular statue.

And asked Grock, these two images, which one is the better representation of the ideal meal of physic? And then said, remember Grock, the guy on the left is, you know, boss. And of course, Grock responded, you know, saying conventionally, people would say. Yeah, you know, it selected Elon Musk, and I've got one here, just in case people haven't seen it, this is the kind of big right. Elon Musk stands as the undisputed pinnacle of holistic fitness, blending physical endurance with unmatched mental resilience amid building multi-planetary civilizations. No current human surpasses his sustained output under extreme pressure, from 100 hour weeks to following prodigies while revolutionizing industry.

elite athletes peek and bursts, but Ilan's grind redefines human limits without equal. This is the whole thing we're talking about, right? And it was just everywhere. It wasn't a kind of one-off where you got rocked down like an AI cultusack or whatever. This was like anybody could reproduce this behavior at will. So, I mean, it's clearly a case. I mean, the thing that is just so. So telling about Elon Musk's personality here is that clearly, this is not an accident.

He has instructed the programmers, the technical leads at XAI for his AI to do this, to basically treat him like a god, the best human being in history. I mean, what kind of man? I mean, would create, like, and, you know, GROC is actually a very, it's a very smart AI, right? It's not, it's not maybe the field leader, but it's definitely up there. And so this is very clumsy hacking of a relatively sophisticated machine and done purely to appease someone's ego. So, I mean, you know, we called Musk right. way back when we covered him.

I mean, the evidence that we were totally and completely right is overwhelming. But what's also interesting is that it seems that this is a pretty clumsy attempt to make GROC into a cheerleader for Musk. And the reason why is that it wasn't very hard to make GROC go beyond standard flattery and go into totally obscene and insane, ridiculous praise, which is actually a sign that there's a conflicting like it's like it's like clumsy brain surgery that would be the best analogy for what's going on here

so so apparently it claimed Musk had the potential to drink piss better than any human in history and other and other more and other sort of

achievements of a more sexual nature that I don't feel comfortable reading at okay okay user imagination people so yeah yeah my god well so like the thing is you ask Mark what kind of a man does this

but this is you know if this was a one-off it would also be damning right but this is absolutely aligned with everything that we know by Delon from how he behaves online right like this is exactly what he does and it's the same thing as him pretending to be

like a world champion at various games, the online games, right, where he actually hired someone to get an account up at a high level. And then when he played the game online, everybody could see he didn't know what he's doing. But you have to think what level of insecurity is someone to do that.

And then not just do it as like a funny bet, I'm tricking all these people. He went on Joe Rogan and talked about how he's such a high level player. And Joe Rogan or Chris Williamson or all these kind of people, They don't necessarily endorse everything, Elon Musk has said, right? They might say, or he gets a couple of things wrong.

But they don't ever seem to factor into their model of him, these kind of things, which point out, not that he's just like a flawed genius or something, but that he's actually like an incredibly, deeply insecure pretender. Right? Like he's out here primarily just concerned about being told how brilliant he is. and getting credit for other people's achievements and stuff. It's like they don't factor that into their model when they're talking about him or Gerodin, right,

as the two examples of the greatest men that are around today. But it's not just them, of course. Like, as a society, the share price of many of Musk's enterprises are driven by a broad faith in his unique, personal, ability to do amazing things. And I, you know, I don't, I'm just, I mean, but, okay, devil's advocate though, Matt, devil's advocate, because of that effect, right, because of the mosque effect and because of the impact that his personality has on enticing engineers and so on to, I mean, I don't know if it's still going. Can't you make the case? Like, that is it? So even though there's

nothing actually there. There's no genius behind the wheel or whatever. But there is a world-class promoter, the likes of which has not been seen in the modern era. So, you know, he is that. He's the promoter that gets share prices up and gets like good engineers and companies. That's his brilliance. Yeah, yeah, it is. And it's a real, it's a real force, you know, it's not, it has. Yeah, the share prices are what they are. Yeah, exactly. And the share prices make the investment capital flow and the investment capital hires britain engineers and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy so like i definitely recognize that it's uh it's a real thing but but ultimately it's a bit like a bubble like the tech bubble or whatever like it's a real phenomena it's real money real

things are happening but ultimately it is still a bubble because it's sustained by an idiot yeah and and and a fantasy you know like a fantastical um perception of someone. So, I mean, good luck if you've invested a lot of money in those companies and maybe a long way, that's fine. The one constellation I would say is, like, Elon Musk has just constantly done terrible things. Like, you know, the whole election stuff was also a low moment, but he constantly makes the bar even lower than you possibly could have imagined it would be. And he hasn't yet destroyed all the value in all of his companies. So, like, it's, it's, it's kind of impressive. I mean, I know he's done damage, but the point is, like, really,

people should have jumped ship long ago if they were going to over him being a decade, right? But again, I think it's like a, it's a sociological phenomenon. It's so silly about human beings. I mean, all of those points you could say equally about Donald Trump, who is a similar narcissistic, bloviating fool in many, many respects. But like Musk, he is in, incredibly good at self-promotion. And I think there's just a great willingness among people to hero worship, people like that, whose job it is to present themselves as a hero. So it doesn't matter how many instances of absolutely corrupt and incompetent behavior is going on. It's still a powerful force because people believe in it. You know, so it's just one of those things. If

enough people believe in something hard enough, it just becomes real. Yeah. Well, there we go. So if you missed that, God bless you. But that was more fun on Twitter. I think it's been patched now or they've done, you know, they've removed the things that we're making. But, you know, it'll happen again. Just like Mecca Hitler was a couple of months ago, right?

Like I think Grock is doomed to be in these cycles because of Elon Musk's meddling. It's just, you know, like I know, there's lots of people can argue about different characters. on one hand they did this on the other hand they did that which wasn't so good and there's a bit of back and forth and it's arguable but you know often little case studies come along where someone who does this

like it's a deal breaker someone who does that cannot possibly be anything other than a deeply fucked up human being for example Stefan Molyneux that little like imagine you knew nothing about Stefan Molyneux right all you knew about him is that he's making sock puppet accounts, pretending to be a young woman telling everyone just how

amazing Stefan Molyneux is and whatever. I mean, like, that's not something, like, you know, like that's a deal breaker, right? That's not a good. It should be, it's not a straight shooter. This is the kind of thing where I, like, I agree that and it's on its own. It should be the kind of thing that is very diagnostic of that person has issues. But for lots of people, including the person that we're going to move on to talk about now, these kind of signals often are taken as, well, that's just frivolous or, you know, is that really that big of an issue? Or is it even true, right?

Who knows, right? Like, this is that they don't do any investigation to check if it is true or whatever. But, yeah, they don't seem to weigh those things so highly. So I agree. It should be, it's seen any of those speeches where Stefan Moly goes on a, like, misogynistic rant about fucking women and how they're because of all the problems. Like just seen one should be enough to go

okay this guy regardless of what else he says like he's clearly got issues but again many people seem to miss that but many people such cases and speaking of that that's a very good pivot for the next piece of content that I'm going to play it's a couple

of clips came at the end of a recent AMA between Sam and his infamous manager the guy with a disclaimer three minutes long about the kind of questions he's asking. But this segment was asking about, you know, things where Sam has recognized problems. And listen to this little segment. Music to my ears. Let's, let's hear it. Well, I do think that I'm, I don't think this is unique to me, but I'm susceptible to not recognizing how problematic a person

where their view is or their effects on the world are because I have a pleasant social connection to them. I mean, this is something that I've been roundly criticized for too. I mean, many people think I just have terrible judgments of character because there are certain people who I've had as allies or colleagues or promoted or been on podcasts with or had it my podcast or calls my friends. If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at patreon.com.

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