Decoding the Gurus - Supplementary Material 41: Ironic Nazis, Blustering Tories, and Ol' Squeaky's Lament

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

In this tragic episode, we pay tribute to a fallen comrade and honour his memory with a Supplementary Material 4100:00 Introduction and Swimming Update02:34 The Tragic Tale of Old Squeaky09:01 Sam Harris interpersonal bias & Megyn Kelly26:05 Gary Stevenson vs Rory Stewart36:26 Master Certificates and Jaffa Cakes41:59 Dasha's Nick Fuentes Problem50:08 Nick Fuentes' Racist Remarks54:29 Piers Morgan vs. Nick Fuentes59:08 The Two Nick Fuentes Personas01:02:39 Father Issues01:20:51 Nick Fuentes the Racist01:30:36 Piers Lab Leak Ad Break01:32:52 Antisemitism and Holocaust Denialism01:45:25 IDW Style Credulity and Holocaust Denialism01:48:12 Hitler was really f**king cool?01:58:20 Blustering Boomer Outrage vs. Online Groyperism02:02:09 Debating Misogyny and Extremism02:12:54 Piers Take on Fuentes02:17:11 Overall thoughts on Piers Morgan vs Nick Fuentes02:20:15 Infighting on the Conspiratorial Right02:25:13 Bret Weinstein's Powers of Prediction: Trump on Rob Reiner02:30:29 OutroLinksSam Harris AMAMegyn Kelly Talking About the Drug SmugglersThe Rest Is Politics – Zack Polanski: “I Am a Populist, Farage Is Not”Gary Stevenson’s Public Statement on Rory’s CommentsGary Stevenson’s Master’s Thesis & Chocolate BiscuitsRed Scare – “Nuzzi Salute”“What a Crock of S***!” – Piers Morgan vs Nick Fuentes (Full Interview)Jason Calacanis Reacts to Trump’s MessageBret Weinstein Displays His ForesightTrump’s Follow-Up Comments on Rob Reiner

Hello and welcome to the Hello and welcome to recording the gurus. supplementary materials edition. Number 41, Matt. Number 41. This is the spin-off to the hit podcast to coding the gurus where an anthropologist and a psychologist talk about gurus. But in this case, we get to talk about, you know, lots of gurus and what they've been doing and general things and we're allowed to, we're allowed to Matt and just talk about how things are going. And how are things going for you on your end? on that you're right yeah okay i'm okay i'm okay i'm okay uh the big news is that the uh the local pool

Olympic pool heated undercover it's like three different pools a whole complex a pool complex chris has opened in my small town and it's a game changer it's it's not overstatement it's a game changer for me from my physicality from my mental acuity it's gonna keep me young it's my I've been four times that I feel the better man for it. So, yeah, I'm good. I'm good. May I just say you're glowing, you're glowing there, Ma. And, you know, look, you're getting in early with your New Year's resolutions.

You know, you don't follow these trends. You're a renegade. So you start your New Year's program one month early. That's beat the cries. That's it. You know, get in there. That's right. I don't observe.

I don't observe these. I'm just a Judeo, Christian, cultural hangovers. I mean, what even are they? I'm a, I go my own way. I like that. You're a man going your own way. To the pool. I've got my own way to the pool.

That's right. That's right. You're not anti-woman. No, I'm just pro-pool. I'm just pro-po. Just pro-po. Just, yeah. So, well, that's good.

I like that. But, you know, you said, my. That's big news around there. That's not the kind of big news you need to be sharing. You tease people in the past that there was going to be an update on fan favorite, my favorite contributor to the podcast, Old Squeaky. You said there was important news about him. I don't see him here.

So would you like to update the listeners? How's old Squeaky doing? Are you going to wheel him in? for the podcast or what's happening? I can't wheel him in, Chris. He's in no state. He's in no state to be wheeled. Oh, dear.

Poor old squeaky. Poor old squeaky. Look, I was there. I was in my comfortable old saddle. And what was I doing? I was putting my feet up. I was probably having a sip of whiskey or something like that. Just, you know, contemplating, you know, life to universe and everything, as I want to do.

And I thought, I thought old squeaky. he felt a little bit different. He had a little bit more given him than usual. And he gave one almighty final squeak. And then the back snap, Chris. Oh, dear. And I went, I didn't quite tumble. I could have hurt myself there because there's bits of metal stuff like that.

But I'm okay. I'm okay. Don't worry, everyone. I'm okay. But old squeaky. Forget about that. How's a little squeaky? Oh, Squeaky is in pieces.

And I, he's off, he's off to a better place. He's off to the great office in the sky. I like to, I like to think of him rolling around, you know, frolicing. Yeah, he's going to, he's gone to an office upstairs in the countryside. We're going to follow chairs, squeaky chairs. That's what I've told. That's what we've told the children. That's correct.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's a shame. I am very sad to hear that. I did notice this. I knew ahead of the listeners because I was like, oh, that's nice. Matt is like trying to sit in the other chairs, you know. But little did I realize it was not due to his choice. So. Well, you know, look, the silver lining to this tragedy is that, like, you know, I attempted to replace old squeaky. I bought alternatives. They were unsuitable, uncomfortable, unworkable. for various reasons. I'm looking at one of the chairs that didn't meet the bar. God knows what I'm going to do with it over there. And they were expensive too. The things I do, the investments I make,

this is where you're hard earned, this is where your pay your money goes, just me buying an endless number of chairs that will satisfy Chris and his eardrums. But the happy news is that I needed a chair like immediately. So instead of buying where on the internet, like I usually would, which was a mistake.

I went to a chair shop. I went to a shop that sold chairs, and I went to several shops, actually. And I sat on them, and I rolled around, and I lent backwards and forwards. And I found one that, I mean, it's a gamer chair. It is a gamer chair. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like Constantine Ketson. Yeah, I mean, that's what makes it good, right?

Because you get one that sort of looks good, and all the money's gone into, I don't know, faux leather or you know you can't make them look good you can't you can't you can't hit everything at once right and and gamer chairs they are built for slovenly neck beady hairy guys that probably weigh about 180 kilograms it sit in that chair for 12 hours a day like that's what I'm sitting on right now and oh my god it's it's luxury it's great I'm very content that. Well, there we go. The era of Old Squicky has ended. We're all very sad. No one will miss him more than I, but off he goes. So the end of an era. But, um, say, Lavee. Sandoz Squeaky will carry on his, the tradition. Yeah, he'll develop a squeak, um, which can't be

alleviated with oil as well. We can only pray. We can only pray. But, um, well, that's a lot of Banta finished, Matt. That wasn't banter. That was my life, Chris. This is not, that's right. That's true. Your life isn't panther. It's basically pool, swimming and sitting. This is my two activities. Well, well, I'm not, people are dying here, Matt. They're gagging to hear an update on the old bouldering. And they're going to tell them, they're going to have to tune in next time. They hear my up theater bouldering. Why, you know, we don't have to I don't have to fulfill people's interests every time. So that's next time.

That's a teaser. Yeah. It's a shame in a way because it's very sad. I did the swimming thing and it is, it is your place. You know, you're at home up there on the wall. That's where you're meant to be. Just like I was meant to be, you know, careening through the water like a demented dolphin. You are meant to be scattering about in nooks and crevices like a gangly spider.

Yeah, that's right, falling off the wall with loud bangs. That's what I like to do, like surprising people, like a column. Do you always lay down your feet like a cat? And I land on four split out like a frog and then say, precious, precious, and scuttle off. But yeah, yeah, I did actually, I can't just mention passing that I met a Patreon member who was passing through Tokyo, doing physics stuff, and they met me and my son, and we went bouldering together. So there you go, Matt, perks of the patron, a private bouldering session. And Kyle, very nice guy. We also went to Mossburger, I had a most burger. So there you go.

Nice. But you don't need an excuse to boulder with someone. You'll bolder anyone anytime. It was like, he wanted to go. I was like, I don't know. Should we do that? Oh, okay. For the fans, Matt, for the fans. Yeah, you really wanted to go to the opera. I did. I did. Yeah, that's what I'm into. Now, Matt, we don't often mention Sam Harris. He doesn't come off very often.

But, you know, from time to time, he said things that we've took issue with. But if you remember recently, he kind of acknowledged that he has a little bit of a problem. what I might have flagged before to him directly, but, you know, we're all making progress. We're all moving at our own pace. And let me just remind you of what Sam said recently. 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 or 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 on my podcast or called my friends or they called me their friends or what, you know, people who I've been associated with who are just fucking awful influences on our culture now. And I admit that and it's a problem, right? And honestly, I still don't know how to navigate it, right?

Because when you have dinner with somebody, presumably even, you know, Heinrich Himmler can seem like a nice guy, right? I mean, it's like there's a corrupting aspect to just being social with another human being. I mean, some people are charismatic and apparently sane, and then they go off and do the insane and unconscionable thing or say the insane and unconscionable thing or just have a, undergo some kind of evolution in their view of the world, wherein they migrate into some other orbit, which if, you know, if this person were a stranger, I would be destroying them at podcast length, but because they were, quote, a friend or an associate or a friend of a friend or whatever the relation is, I feel some kind of ethical imperative to bend over backwards to give them the benefit of the doubt or to not say anything or to not say it as much as I might.

There we go. Good. I've got a fairly comprehensive mayor culpa, no? Yeah. Yeah. I guess we approve. This is, this is good. Well, we did.

We said, so, you know, we highlighted that he then went on to display the same issue, right, when it came to trigonometry and his attitude to Douglas Murray and stuff. But nonetheless, I still think that was a, you know, reasonable thing to note that you might have this limitation that might have skewed your ability to recognize problem. in people that have been nice to you. I mentioned this, Matt, because in the following episode that Sam released, more with Sam. This is the one where he does like AMA things with his manager, Jerome. Right. And they took a moment to talk about Megan Kelly.

Okay? So the issue was around Megan Kelly's comments. Well, you're here. Let me just play it for you. Did you see Megan Kelly getting ripped over her comments for just in one? between teenagers and children? Yeah, I mean, just, again, Megan has been on a bit of a journey. I think she's said some things that I wouldn't want to defend of late, but this, I mean,

this is, strikes me as totally innocuous and an obvious distinction, and it's a distinction without an important difference in this case. I mean, the guy, it's not like she was saying he isn't criminally culpable for, for sexual assault and, and abusing girls and shouldn't be in jail. and that he was a good person. She wasn't defending any of that. She was just saying it's, again, this is, I didn't watch this. I just have secondhand information about what she said.

But my understanding is that she's just making the obvious distinction that a guy who's into 15-year-olds is different than a guy who's into five-year-olds. And we all know this. And it's just a fundamentally different social phenomena. Did you get the context from that? I got the context. I also noted that he, as is his one, has not listened to or read the thing that he's commenting on. This is, this is right. Yes. Yeah, I noted that too. But, you know, so Megan Kelly, there, Ma, is she was wanting to make this important distinction between hippophilia and pedophilia, right? So there are people that are attracted to prepubescent children, pitophiles, and there are people that are attracted to early stages of pubesity, people, heapophiles, right?

So the two are not the same amount. We've got to make, you got to make that distinction clear. Like one is, you know, I mean, it's bad, right? But it's not as bad as the other. I think, I actually think we could agree with that, right? But on the other hand, the reason that Megan was made. making this distinction was because of a tranche of emails and documents and stuff that came out linking Epstein with Trump, right? So it's not that she just wants to make this distinction,

this important distinction, you know, for no reason. She wants to downplay the severity of what Jeffrey Epstein did because it reflects badly on Trump. That is why she's saying that. If it was Biden that was connected to Jeffrey Epstein, she would not be emphasizing the important distinction there, right? Of course, of course. And it seems obtuse to not recognize the context, right? This is not an academic discussion where we can all agree that, you know, we can study the psychology of these people and make these clinical and academic distinctions.

That's all very fine, well and good. But the context is that she's minimizing it in order to defend Trump, which is, you know. Obvious. That's obvious. It should be obvious. But if you hear Sam's summary of it, it sounds as though it's a purely academic distinction, which is clearly fair enough. Yeah. She's been leapt on by the Bayne Croyds, right, for making a very reasonable distinction.

He did say that, you know, he wouldn't defend everything. that she has said lately. Good choice, Sam. Good choice. With that clarification. But in that case, Matt, you know, whatever, he just hasn't done the research. He's not really understanding the context or like factoring it into his assessment. But, you know, it's not really related to this statement that I played before, except it goes on a little bit. So, so that's here. Absolutely. I mean, I like Megan Kelly. I really hope she can figure out her way to call to talk her out. So, and yeah, I mean, that's the thing that you, Megan is has, again, she's always been entirely fair to me and, and I've noticed and appreciated it. I mean, she's, and she was fair

in a moment when she would, would not have been incentivized at all to have been fair. And I saw, you know, former friends or friends who became former friends fail this test. You know, there's around the whole Hunter Biden laptop thing. I mean, she was, she did a little tightrope walk in front of her audience on my behalf over that. And it really seemed impeccable there. So, I mean, I think she's capable of being impeccable on all these other topics. I don't know why. Again, she's, I think, suffering some kind of audience capture over there to not want to differentiate herself from Tucker and Candace more clearly. Or maybe she's just, you know, maybe she's going through what I've gone through and talked about, which is feeling the

friction of having a friendship or what seemed like a friendship with somebody who's got a huge public platform whose brain goes totally fucking haywire. And then you are dealing with what you need to say or not say in front of your own audience about that. Right. So she's, she's probably really friends with Tucker. Right. So how slow is she going to be to acknowledge that he's a super spreader of truly toxic ideas, she might be slower than anyone would want her to be. Yeah, and while we're getting hated for half your audience for talking nicely about Megan,

maybe we can get hated by the other half. So do you see the issue perhaps there? Matt, do you think has Sam put into practice? You know, he noticed he has a bias for when people treat him nicely or what he regards as nicely, and this skews the depth to which he researches their opinions.

So, what's he doing about? What is he doing? I think, speaking of someone that is of a reasonably advanced age at this point, I think I have to admit that I'm well and truly middle age. It is difficult, I think, for people to change. Like, like, and I think this might be

triple e quadrupley true for Sam I don't think he can change I don't think so either Matt but it just like the bit that got me is literally the previous episode he was noting

like this is a bar juristic that I shouldn't be applying and then the following episode is like but you know she's always been nice to me I mean he presents it like you know Megan has a lot of potential she's a you know she's very

inside phone stuff She's a Fox News polemicist. Yes, she dallied across to MSNBC, but that is illustrative that she is just a kind of mercenary, you know, media figure. Yeah, like what evidence is there, apart for being nice to Sam personally, what evidence is there that she, you know, has fantastic motivations, has great things to contribute it as something more than what she appears to be? No, she's, and she's, you know, Sam is kind of acknowledging he hasn't paid that much attention to her output as of late.

But like her output, Matt, she's extremely polemical, pro-maga. She's actually criticized Sam on stage. I don't think he knows relatively recently. He heard that he might, he might change his, that might, that might make him change his mind. But the thing is, the day after or one or two days after he says this, Megan Kelly, There was a clip of her going viral, you know, responding to this thing with the Trump administration under the instructions of, what's his name, P-Texf, you know, the murder of the people of the coast of Venezuela, wasn't it? You know, the murder of the drug smugglers, alleged drug smugglers. Yeah, so in the wake of that event, she commented.

So I really do kind of not only want to see them killed in the water, whether they're on the boat or in the water, but I'd really like to see them suffer. I would like Trump and Hexeth to make it last a long time so that they lose a limb and bleed out a little. Like I'm really having a difficult time ginning up sympathy for these guys who 10 seconds earlier almost got taken out by the initial bomb, but because they managed to get ejected a little too soon. had to be taken out in the water that's the kind of you know there's the kind of thing where like can't you spend an evening researching what Megan's been up to

and what she's doing right like I mean like research is even too grandiose a word for it like you just need to take a casual glance surely because it's not like these like incendiary type stuff

is hard to find no no no so and when I pointed this out on Twitter this problem. I had a lot of, you know, Sam Harris fans saying, oh, you're holding him to such an unfair standard. Like, he admitted he has a bias. What more do you want them to do? Like, he's, he's flagged it up. He's held his hands up. And I feel like that's, that's not the thing, right? Like, the thing when you have a bias is you don't, you don't get points for just that, right? It should then be the next step should be, oh, it turns out I have an unjust prejudice.

So I'm going to try and counteract it, right? Like just simply holding it up your hands, right? I'm saying, well, it's a bit like when, you know, Joe Rogan, you know, he has his changes of heart. And he goes, oh, you know, I realize he speaks to a virologist and he realizes that vaccines are actually okay. Or he speaks to a scientist of any kind who, and now he thinks the moon landing actually happened. But then next episode. So, yeah, or, you know, sometime later he's right back doing the same thing. Like he's done that many times and it's not enough to do the mea coppa.

What was the thing that Joe Rogan did do that mea copper for? Remember he got into trouble for something and then he recorded. Oh, it was for anti-vaccine stuff. It was for probing Ivermethin and stuff. Yeah. It was back when that would have been a thing. So I think you and I at the time were incredibly skeptical that that would stick, right? boy, where we're correct.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Not only were we skeptical, Matt. We actually slammed Sam Harris, who came out and said, this was a fantastic apology. Joe Rogan's the man. Look at him. Oh, Nina. And if you listened to the, you know, the apology, as we did, right? We did an episode on that.

It's very clear that he wasn't walking anything back. He was hedging and stuff. He was doing damage control, but he's not really wasn't. It was very obvious, very obvious. So I just have to return to it. It makes me sad to see these prominent figures in the rationalist, the skeptical, and the heterodox spheres, just applauding the apology video seemingly ignorant or totally unaware of the misrepresentations and mismatch between it and what Joe's doing. So, you know, like if Joe's content fundamentally changes and he becomes, you know,

very balanced and he fax checks people and he starts looking into the claims and we see a mark change. He doesn't talk with guests that have no relevant expertise. Then I'll be happy to come back here and say, I was wrong, got it wrong. Joe had a change of heart. He has appeared more skeptical. He started trying to look into issues before he talks about them. I'll be happy to be wrong about this. I wish the same were true for the people in the heterodox sphere. If it turns out that this is not a dramatic change,

right? If it turns out that this, the way that Joe responded, they didn't indicate a change of heart. If that were the case that they might say, well, maybe I should look at things more critically, but they don't. They don't do this map. They never do. And I am taking, like, you know,

not Shaddenford. I don't even know frustration at this. because I just see it so many times. Like, you could tell when Joe's got, his heart is really in it. What he's saying, it's usually when he's talking about vaccines or something like that. Weak man. People. Weak men.

Liberals. Yeah. I mean, he's very passionate. You can tell when he's speaking from the heart. And you can tell when he's just doing hedging and damage control. I know. So yet again, another example we're like, and the issue is that like, you don't need to be the most cynical person. We're talking about noticing the skew of Megan Kelly and Joe Rogan.

You don't have to be a professor of psychology. You don't have to do mind reading or complex stuff. You don't even need a gorometer, just a modicum of common sense and to actually just have a little look at what they, or listen to what they write and say. That's right. So, you know, first step, recognition you've got a problem. Second step, second step, this is important, right? It's a follow through. It's a follow through. It's like, it's like the Seinfeld episode. Anyone can take a ticket. You have to hold the ticket.

Yeah, yeah. That is a very good episode of Seinfeld. So, yeah, well, anyway, Matt, there we go. Let's see how things develop over time. We hold out hope. Hope springs eternal. But the next thing I wanted to mention, Matt, another favorite of ours, and Mr. Gary, Gary Stevenson.

Did you notice what was going on with him? Recently, he had a running with Rory Stewart that you might have come across. We did talk about this, but I've actually forgotten. It reminds me. This is good. So Rory Stewart was talking to the leader of the Greens, I think, in the UK. You know, like he had them on his podcast and was interviewing him. And he didn't like some of the policies that the green leader was suggesting economic policies.

And he asked him to name the economists, you know, that he's relying on for these kind of policies being successful. And he mentioned Gary Stevenson, to which Rory Stewart responded. Where's the academic consensus? I think the academic consensus is among economists who aren't working for the government. I think they're all looking at government. And you see Gary Stevenson as a sort of pseudo-academic economist? I don't think he's pseudo-academic. I think he's literally an economist. That's his job. What about you mentioned? It's not his job. He's a city trader. He's studied an undergraduate degree in economics.

Right. Okay. He's not a professional economist. But I think if you do a degree in economics, it's fair to say you're an economist. Where are the people with graduate level degrees in economics that you're focusing on here? Where are the professors? Where are the people who, for whom this is their academic speciality? So this underlines some of our conversation too. We're not in government right now. He didn't. It wasn't just Gary Stevenson. I think he said in general, you know, the people that he named aren't really reliable sources. But he, in so during, he made the cardinal sin of saying Gary is not an economist. He's just somebody with an undergraduate economist. And he actually described him as a pseudo economist. But now, when this got back to Mr. Gary, he posted a thing on his Patreon, on his social media networks. Let me just read it, Matt. In a recent episode of The Rest is Politics.

The well-known podcaster and former politician Rory Stewart described me as a pseudo-economist on the alleged and incorrect basis of me not having any postgraduate degrees. I do, in fact, have a two-year economics master degree from Rory Stewart's own alma mater, Oxford University. In all honesty, this was a sad moment for me. I have enjoyed Rory's work for quite some time and hoped him to be a well-researched and honest man. it has been disappointing to find out that it is not always true. As someone who himself received a professorship at Harvard, seemingly without any postgraduate degrees on the basis of his achievements in his professional career,

I would also have hoped that Rory could have understood that achievements in the workplace can often be as educational, if not more educational, than achievements within academia. I hope that this was merely a case of a rare mistake of bad researching, and I expect Rory Stewart to do the honest thing. publicly own up to his mistake and correct the record. The life of a high-achieving working-class person in elite spaces is to be constantly accused of not having really done the things which you have done. This has happened to me so many times in my life that I've come to expect it from polite British society.

But I did not expect it from Rory Stewart. Be better, Rory. Apologize and correct the record publicly. I'll be waiting. Tax wealth not work, X, X, X, X.X. Gary. Oh, God, that's, yeah, so that reaction has the same tone as if you were to accuse Eric Weinstein of not being a physicist. Oh, quite right.

I have to say. I think it has the same tone. Now, let me just, let's set the record straight. Having a master's degree in economics or any discipline is not generally considered to be sufficient criteria for describing yourself as an economist. An economist is a role, it's not a credential. And you usually call someone an economist, just like this is true for many fields, right? But let's just stick with economists. If you work professionally as an economist.

Not a trader. Not a trader. Not a foreign exchange person. Not an investment person or whatever, but you work for the government, central bank, something like that. I think tank as an economist. But, you know, usually you'd be conducting economics, research, or analysis as your primary occupation. And, yes, you would often be publishing in economics journals, doing economic modeling, advising on economics policy, right? And if you weren't writing ivory tower academic articles, you might well be writing reports, white papers and things like that for government.

That is what you would describe is interconic. So by any reasonable definition, no, he's not. not an economist. He has a master's degree in economics. You could be an academic economist though, and you could be like teaching in the university, not doing any of that practical stuff. But you would still be publishing papers and talk, you know, kind of like... Yeah, I mentioned the conducting economics research and publishing in economics journals, right? It's covered, right? There are economists within academia and economists without academia. But no, you're not automatically an economist if you've done a master's degree in the economy. Yeah. The way to imagine it is, you

know, somebody who's studied a master's in history. They have an interest in history. They might have produced a very nice thesis. They're not a historian automatically. Right. Like, you need to work. And that is so true. Like, that is a great example because, you know, as you know, I listen to heaps of history podcasts. And they're usually done by enthusiasts who are not professional historians. So they, yes. Yes. In fact, they, I know. that they do have master's degrees or undergraduate degrees or some kind of qualifications in history. My God, do they know their stuff? They're extremely fantastic. They read all these books, but they often make the point that they're not historians. And often they'll get

like a real historian on and make a big deal about it. That is someone who is doing primary research and doing what historians do. Yeah. And so look, that is what a normal person he was in the public sphere who doesn't have a massive chip on their shoulder, that is how they would represent themselves if they were doing a history podcast or doing a YouTube's thing

on economics. Yeah, and it's like the thing is Gary wants to present this as like a class thing, right? Like that's the fallback which he goes to and it's not that. Maybe for some people, but I don't think that is the reason why. Like if Gary

was a Marxist economist or whatever, working at an economic think tank and publishing about the things, like Rory Stewart also wouldn't agree with him, but he would be like, you're an economist. Yeah. And it's not even a big deal. Like, you can have, you can have good ideas. Gary could be an economist if he, you know, if he went and got employed as an economist. Yeah.

And you could still have bad ideas or good ideas or whatever. And same with, same with historians. It's not actually a big deal except for. people who have this kind of attitude. And likewise, I would even go as far to say that they're, I mean, it's pretty arguable as to whether or not someone like Eric Weinstein should be thought of as a physicist. Because yes, he does have a PhD in physics, but. No, in maths.

Well, okay, so it's even more debatable then. That's right. But he's published little to nothing in the academic literature on physics. He's never had a job as a physicist. And so you shouldn't, you shouldn't call himself, is this? Like it's only a particular kind of self-aggrandizing person who puts a big stake on these labels and wants to abrogate that kind of stature. I will know just in passing, and I don't know whether this is his particular fault or just like a matter of publicist or whatever. but like Sam Harris

completed a PhD in neuroscience and this often introduced as a neuroscientist because he published a paper in neuroscience Hi everyone, today I'm talking to the neuroscientist and host of the Making Sense podcast Sam Harris about Silicon Valley's shift towards authoritarianism

But again, that's the kind of thing where actually most people wouldn't regard that as, you know, that's like there is fuzzy, there is fuzzy boundaries, but but I mentioned to say that Sam was often introduced primarily as a neuroscientist, right? It's kind of shifted, actually, in about the past five years, but previously he was introduced as a neuroscientist.

And it's kind of like, it's just a common denominator on our Gorometer where, you know, all of the characters we cover, they're very, very likely, much more likely than a typical person to want to take on certain badges and credentials and various things. I mean, who did we cover recently, Stephen Molyneux, right? It's incredibly important to him that he is described as a philosopher. Yes. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's just one of those little telltale signs.

Yep, yep, this is true. No, and I will just mention in passing to Sam's credit, I think a couple of times he has demurred at the notion of being described as a ge neuroscientist. But in any case, Matt, that went, right? Rory eventually, you know, responded. in saying, I apologize, Gary, it was unfair in a cheap shot. You have studied economics at an undergraduate master's level, and your position is held by many other people.

I disagree with your view, but it was not right to make it personal. And as you say, it was inaccurate. Right. Now, Gary's not really satisfied because he didn't say he's an economist, right? But he recommends that Roaring needs to say it on his show, right, to make it clear to the enough people. But the other thing he did. Say I'm an economist.

Say I'm an economist. the other thing that he did and I this actually initially flew over my head a bit so he took a picture of his master's certificate from Oxford right and it's it's kind of shot from an angle like semi-artistic angle and you can see this is to certify that gary stevenson kebel college satisfied the examiners in economics blah blah blah master's of philosophy right and he put a hashtag more postgraduate degrees than Rory Stewart when he posted it. Okay, but so I was like, oh, that's, you know,

like that's kind of an annoying thing to do in general. But then I noticed later when I was just looking at it that in the top left of the image, there is two biscuits placed on top of the certificate and the mug, the cup of tea polka dot mug from the thing. And then I was like, wait a minute. So he took those two biscuits and put them on top of his PhD before he took the photo, right?

And he angled them just so. So it's that performative jaffa cake thing from the videos, right? Like, I wonder if it's the same biscuits. Are they the same ones that are always there on the desk? Like, that should tell you something. It's not like they fell off the table, right, and landed on top of his certificate. because you just moved them. So he placed the biscuits there to, for what purpose, right?

To signal that he is a biscuity person. It's kind of like, it's a studied presentation of working classness. This is the thing that gets me. So I was actually thinking of recreating this image with like posting my, you know, PhD, but like putting a can of Guinness on the corner. I feel it would be a deep cut that nobody will understand so oh and he also put a

plectrum over his middle name there's a small middle name there's a plectrum which covers his middle name right and a comment he said it's embarrassing it's a small middle name Matt I wonder what it is could be Hugo or like Wadsworth or whatever

I have a feeling it's not because of the privacy aspect I suspect it's a middle name that he might not want people to know about. But that's just me. You know, I'm just, this is me, conspiracy, hypothesizing. I fully acknowledge that. But, yeah, my middle name is Michael, by the way, in case you want to know.

I don't have a middle name. And not of my kid either either. I've got a confirmation name as well. There's like a fake one that Catholics get, an extra one. An extra one? I picked Martin. Yeah. I don't.

Right. Well, I do know why I picked it. There was a guy who was a hanging around with at the time. You know, he was a nice guy. So I was like, his name's Martin. I'll do that. Yeah, they'll pick a saint's name. So, same Martin.

Genuine question, is it more working class to not have a middle name at all than to have one? Oh, no, no, no. It depends on the middle name. Like, because like Catholics, all Irish Catholics, for example, pretty much everybody has middle name. So, in that case, like everybody I knew had a, did they have a middle name? I'm trying to remember now. But I think it's, if your middle's name is like, you know, Francis or the Cuthbert or, you know, or Hugo, these are signifiers of status.

But if your middle name is like John or Tim or usually like in my case, my middle name is my dad's name, this is one thing that people do. Like they just put their name in. So, yeah, I don't think it's a, but like double-barrowed names and. those kind of things, they are a signifier of that kind of class. Yeah, Disney was sure. Yeah. I've seen a lot of those.

I'm listening to a book about the campaign, a World War II campaign in North Africa, and there's all these like upper class English offices. I've got the most amazing, amazing names. Yeah. It's from that period. Cyril, I think, you know, these kind of names. So there is, I mean, names are an interesting thing, right? But Gary is a neutral name.

Just like Christopher. It's a neutral name too. Matthew also. Good biblical names. Is Gary in the Bible? It's Gary. Is he an apostle? Did he follow Jesus?

Gary. What is Gary? Answer is in the postcard. Where does Gary come from? I don't know. I don't know. She had looked it up beforehand. Oh yeah, maybe Garf.

Maybe Garf. But yeah. So there's another thing, right, that this one is going to take more. time. I'm afraid because we've got to go through a series of clips. But it was an event that, you know, some things resonate across the discourse sphere. And this was Pierce Morgan talking with Nicholas Frantz, right, the kind of Christian nationalist, Hitler-loving little asshole, insult type person. So Pierce Morgan had him on for a two-hour chat. with him. I'm going to play some clips for you. But before that, Matt, before you get to that

joy, I have to take you back to Red Scare Island. You remember the Red Scare people? You're a big fan. I remember them. Yeah, that was an ears bleeding. Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. So Dasha recently got in trouble and she got dropped by her county agency. She got removed from a movie that she was preparing to be acting in. And this was related to her hosting Nick Frentice on her podcast and talking about, you know, how much they liked him. So she got cancelled, if you will, Matt, for her podcast activity. And her and Anna discuss the blowback.

So would you like to hear a clip about that? Do I want to hear that? I guess so. If you'd like to continue listening at this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at patreon.com slash decoding the gurus. Once you do, you'll get access to full-length episodes of the Decoding the Guru's podcast,

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