Decoding the Gurus - Supplementary Material 47: The DTG Conspiracy UNMASKED, Quantum Idiots, and Triggernometry Prophecies

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

Our cover is blown. Our secret funders unmasked. Code Red: Abort! Abort! This is not a drill.Supplementary Material 47: The DTG Conspiracy UNMASKED, Quantum Idiots, and Triggernometry Prophecies00:00 Glowing Introduction03:14 The Secret Conspiracy at the Heart of the Podcast08:17 The Israel Connection19:09 Cenk Uygur's Pickleball Conspiracy23:25 Comment Section Conspiracies30:20 Pizzagate Conspiracies Revisited37:55 The Value of debating with ChadBigCum42:26 AI discourse reflections43:43 Ben Burgis's hyperbolic reaction to AI use44:53 The AI revolution and its potential impacts47:53 Social and Economic Disruption and Job Replacement51:33 The Dangers of Slopified Work and AI economies55:47 Statistical Analysis Software and the value of Friction57:36 The Perils of AI Usage outside of your Skillset58:59 The Solution is within yourself!01:04:22 The Hundred Schools of AI discourse01:05:58 Double Slit and Quantum Physics Insights from Warren Smith01:12:39 Schrodinger's poor, misinterpreted cat01:13:48 The Wonderful Benjamin Boyce01:14:41 Quantum Woo and Arrogant Sensemakers01:18:29 Young Matt and Aged Chris01:20:13 The Triggernometry Prophecy01:23:54 Quid Pro Quo in the Discourse Circuit01:28:25 The Anti-Institutional Horseshoe Theory of MEHDI HASAN01:37:18 So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (1 hour, 40 minutes).Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurusLinksReddit post unmasking our Israeli backersMother Jones article on whether 'pizza' is a codeword in the Epstein files (Spoiler: No it is not)Mickey's Opinion Piece in The Canadian Jewish News about "quiet anti-semitism"Ben Burgis is suggesting a journalist should be fired for using AICenk Uygur’s Pickleball ConspiracyVigeland & Citarella on Epstein: The One Conspiracy to Rule Them All (YouTube)Benjamin Boyce and Warren Smith discuss Quantum PhysicsTriggernometry: Mehdi Hasan Debate on the Iran War, Immigration and the Israel LobbyCreator of Horseshoe Theory Dies aged 100

And welcome to Decoding the Guru's supplementary material addition with the psychologist, Matthew Brown, and the cognitive anthropologist upsorts me, Christopher Kavana. We're here post-swim for Matt. I wasn't swimming, but he was swimming. So we're basking in the post-physical exertion glow. I am. I'm glowing. I'm glowing. I'm feeling good, which is unusual for me. I need more of this. You know, Chris, I had an experience with the pool, big school group.

The normal changing rooms and showers and stuff were closed because apparently all the kids have to be alone in there. And so that's fine. This is going to switch through action. Yeah, I'm glad the kid you could not access them, got it. Yeah. I could next either them or all my normal showers. Okay, that's the thing, right? But here's the thing, right?

The pool, as you know, I love it. brand new, 15-meter undercover, peated, semi-outdoor, beautiful pool. It's even got a great cafe. I love the cafe. But there's one downside to it, which is that the showers, Chris. They're only cold water and they're kind of low pressure, you know, that are kind of, you know, measly showers. So I waited to, I use the disabled, you know, single one. No, disabled, unisex.

Chris, the shower. Oh, my God. Beautiful hot water. really good water pressure. I may have to pretend to be leg disabled. These disabled people, they've had it too easy. They're getting all these parts. They've got it too good.

That's right. Yeah. Well, I accept that because sometimes, like actually, especially when my kids were younger, you know, when you're escorting your children to the bathroom. and in Japan the disabled or easy access bathrooms or whatever they just were like a lot better

I mean obviously they have changing things and stuff for very small infants but in general there was just you know more room to maneuver so look I'm not complaining I'm not complaining look it makes sense it's like it's like a kind of justice you know you know you've got it

a social yeah you know you've got it tough you've got a disability of some kind at least have a no shower I'm for it. I'm not anti-disabled people. Good. Nobody make a threat of Reddit threat about this.

Well, yeah, I, just to be clear, I do understand why. I do too. I do too. Don't explain it to us. We are being tongue-in-cheek. No need to explain it to us. We get it. We get it. Well, actually, speaking of people posting on Reddit,

I do have to point something out because I just find this incredible. And it's finally piercing the veil. It took people a while to work it out, Matt, but the conspiracy has been unmasked, our handlers have been identified. And I need to read out a conspiracy theory of sorts. Or is it unmasking of our actual motivations that came to light on the subreddit? You'll be surprised to hear it's in response to Andy posting up a clip where we are criticizing a kind of progressive leftist person. Emma Vigland promoting the Epstein conspiracy theories, right? Do you remember we covered that?

Yep. Okay. So in response to that going up on YouTube, there was a predictable response with some people not liking the criticism or disagreeing and so on. And then in the Reddit comments, this beauty. So in general, there were people saying, for example, I kind of naturally drifted away from DTG over the past year or so, especially after their decoding of Naomi Klein, which seemed very

lazy. Nothing I've seen coming out from them since from the Gary saga, even though I agree with a shit, to Scott Galloway and whatever the last one was. It just seems all very low effort and uninteresting. Their overall smug attitude towards anyone pointing out real systemic issues with the modern world, including anyone pointing out how corrupt the elites are and how in bed with Epstein. They are, has been enough to tell me away. But these attacks to satisfy their newfound destiny adjacent audience are the last bit of information I needed to unsubscribe from everywhere.

Okay. So this is, we are only complaining about this promotion of conspiracy. viewers, like amongst Blind Boy or Emma Vigland or the various other people that we've covered, only because we want to court destinies. Right? I see. Yeah.

Got it. Yep. Yep. So that's what this is, you know, kind of like in the roundabout. And then they explain this or somebody else responds to it saying, yeah, it's definitely interesting

how their viewership has fallen off, at least by the metric I found. They started getting much more political. The sub got significantly dumber. They started retweeting fucking Drew Pavlo. They switched the moderation team up, but their Patreon subs absolutely skyrocketed all at about the same time. I actually brought up these weird patterns once on the sub and given at the host and they promptly hit their Patreon numbers, which is kind of funny. Okay. So this is a response. This is a Reddit account called No, underscore. art. It's a, you know, random account on Reddit, no art, about six months old. But, but so

this is the start of it. Okay. So you see some of the issues, Matt? We've fallen off. We've lost a buzz. And we were into Drew Pavlo now. We're, I don't remember, I don't remember being a fan of Drew Pavel. Why, he's terrible. When did they get there? We retweeted them or something. Do we do that? Well, I'm sure there is every tweet at some time. of Drew Pablo because he probably posted something about someone

and like a retweet on Twitter doesn't equal an entire endorsement and like Drew Pavlo is somebody that was very clear was always very partial

to getting attention online he nearly exploded when he got a retweet from Elon Musk so you could see you know various warning signs but it is fair to say that like you know

a year or two ago, he was mostly posting about, you know, kind of critical of Trump stuff. So I don't imagine it would be impossible that you or I retweeted through Pablo. But yeah, not a general fan. Yeah. Yeah. But then, so we switched up the moderation team. I didn't know we did that. Well, I didn't know we had the power to do that.

Yeah, well, technically we do because the head moderator at Redda, I'm the second oldest there, right? Because they added us. So I could remember all the mods. But to my knowledge, I never have or added anyone. But we switched up the moderation team. And then our Patreon subs skyrocketed. All this was occurring at the same time, right? Now, let's continue on.

Okay. Curious to, around that time, there was a very obvious organized influence campaign against Hassan Piker. I didn't know much about the guy at the time, but the episode was odd and it piqued my interest. At around the same time that DTG did their weird hit piece episode on him, I also saw that people who are 100% A-PAC bought like Richie Tories was also repeating the exact same line about Hassan Piker. I think I even saw the same stuff being brought up on some cable news show, Fox or something, I think. I know that these are common tactics for Israeli interest groups. They organize these campaigns and leverage their contacts and people they have relationships with to repeat the talking points to cause cancellations and deep platforming.

And the only reasonable conclusion I can come up with is that this was part of an organized campaign and DTG with their new skyrocketing patron subs, but weaning viewership were part of this. It couldn't even really be a coincidence either because the actual event that they were trying to cancel him for happened many months earlier, but suddenly these groups of people were all trying to push it. I have to be real here.

I think DTG are getting paid. So this is the person who's got a problem with us criticizing these conspiracy theories from, you know, lift of centre sources. Yeah, it's in, I mean, they do from other things they've said, but like in this part,

this is responding to that previous post about our pivot to court the destiny audience, yes. And the wrong amount about our metrics being down. They're the same as they've always been for years. But I think they're, you know, probably based on as all random YouTube videos or whatever, but like the podcast is just the same as it's always been

and the YouTube is basically the same to you. I mean, it's only when we have episodes that are specifically featuring some topic that is in the algorithm that you get a whole bunch of downloads or whatever. So yeah, I don't know what they're talking about, which metrics, but in any case, their conspiracy is a bit more broke, if you like. They are saying that our episode on Hassan Piker, right,

came at a time when people were critiquing him independently. But that was from people who were mostly funded by APAC. So isn't it suspicious the timing and the choice to critique Hassan Paiq? So. Wow. Okay. Well, Chris, so let me ask you, do you deny being funded by Israeli intelligence? Look, you know, denial was such a strong word.

You know, our great friends in the Israeli government. Like, no, yes, we strongly reject any claim to receiving funding from APAC or the Israeli government. Or anybody. Anybody. Anyone. I'm sorry. Just to be clear, any shell organization from any government, to my knowledge, they are not providing us. And the Patreon thing that he's talking about,

the detective work there is quite impressive because as a person that can actually see the Patreon metrics, Matt, I can unveil the secret sauce to them. Okay. So we released supplementary materials in March 2024. That was the first time that that was released. Okay. That, Matt, this content you're listening to now,

this thing where we separated off our jibber-jibber into a separate, thing which has a paywall in it. That is what skyrocketed the patron. That's what doubled the amount of patrons that we had, right? Now, the following month, we covered Destiny, the decoding episode on Destiny. So that was like April whenever we did the Destiny episode. And they are correlating those two events, right? They're seeing a graph and saying, look, it bumped up in the,

the month that Hassan and then Destiny appeared. But with Destiny, the only thing that happened is the same thing that happens if we cover someone like Sam Harris or somebody, you know, with like an activated user base where there'll be like a bump of 100 people or whatever for a month and they go away. Like they come in, get access to like an episode earlier or whatever,

and then they unsubscribe because they're interested in Destiny or Sam Harris or that's all they want, right? Like so that's that. So this person is giving Hazan and destiny credit for our incredible, whatever, content strategy and so on. And the Israeli government or their shell organizations. Like, where's my credit, Matt? Actually, I think the credit goes to the patrons who are willing to sing us a few bucks to listen to this jibba, Java. Well, not really because they're just being funded by Israel to subscribe in order to, like, promote a anti-Hassan piker.

Like, it's so, it's such an indirect way to advance. It's really interesting. That is Baroque. Well, that is good. I mean, what are you going to do, Chris, conspiratorial thinking? There's a lot of it about. Yeah, there is a lot of it about. And just to respond to one other point in that, Matt, like, whenever something is in the news cycle or whatever, it's not like it usually takes us a couple of months to get there.

Like, could they do that this confirming thing? Is there anything else where something happened and it takes you and I months, if not years? Like, I believe if you listen to our first couple of episodes, we mentioned that we're going to do Cam Wilbur. We did Ken Wilbur a week or two ago, right? It's Ken Wilbur in the news. They're lucky that there was a couple of months gap between us covering that, right? That is relatively short turnaround for us. So, yes, I just, I like that this is the, you know, the notion is, and in true conspiratorial fashion, it's the damn

Jews, Matt. It's the Jews, you know? That is the only thing that could explain that several people are criticizing Hassan Piker. The only reason that could explain that is like a Jewish conspiracy to coordinate criticism. It couldn't be, but there's quite a lot of legitimate things to dunk on there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, anti-Semitism, it's so hot right now. It's very in. Well, yes, this is true. And in any case, there you go. So our podcast, Matt, not, is it official that we're claiming that we are not a APAC slash Zionist slush fund recipient for Israeli influence champions? Are we, are we clear that that's not where we're right here at the Cody de Gurus? Yeah, yeah. I hopefully we're clear. We're clear. Yeah. Well, what are you going to do? It does come up. It does come up.

saw somebody who didn't like the recent episode with Mickey and's like, you know, they disagreed with his AI kicks or whatever as well. And then they posted to an article that he had written where he was talking about experiences of anti-Semitism in his local community or what he interpreted, right, as anti-Semitism. And they were like, are you going to challenge Mickey on his Zionist propaganda kind of thing, right? And you're, you know, like, you know, there is a lot of things, Matt, where people are just now kind of like, they're like the Jew hunter from Inglorious Bastards. You know, like, no, we're not going to talk to Mickey about his experiences of anti-Semitism.

Because we were talking to him about AI and the fact that you're bringing it up in this completely unrelated context of like, are you going to challenge this Jewish guest about like his experience of anti-Semitism. Like, no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is, it's a little bit anti-Semitic. I'm sorry.

It just is to make that the center point of everything that we have to talk to him about that. Like if he's got feelings about October the 7th, is that the right date? Is that when that happened? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And maybe I don't agree with them 100% or I do or whatever. Like, it doesn't. matter. Like, I don't feel like grilling a Jewish person about their feelings about that.

So they're not going to feel obliged to because they're Jewish. That's absurd. No. He's an academic. He's, he's a psychologist and he's doing, did some interesting stuff. And he's published a bunch of papers about AI, right? Yeah, that's what we're talking to him. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, anyway, so anti-sebatism, it's, it's in the air at the minute. And it is telling that that kind of conspiratorial thinking often ends up pointing towards that as the ultimate source. But just to say, Matt, that, you know, I don't want to give the impression that that is what everybody does, right? This is like a specific Reddit account. And people commenting on Reddit are already like a subset of a subset, right? So you can often find single crazy comments or

that kind of thing. But this is representative of a kind of trend. in discourse that exists, which is sort of worrying, which is why I wrote it up, plus the fact that it's a conspiracy theory directed at us. But I just love that. There's no other experts. I can't think of any other reasonable explanation for this. This is like, the most reasonable explanation is that it's the Jews. Yeah.

The Jews are funding a small academic themed podcast. Like, they'll accept that we're going to do. a whole bunch of episodes about Sensemakers or you know, criticizing Sam Harris or whatever. As long as eventually, after a couple of years, we drop one on Hassan Piker.

So yeah, yeah. Yeah. Doesn't hold on Matt. Doesn't hold up. Well, you know, another thing that I saw that is reflective of that conspiratorial attitude just being around and somebody else that has credibly

being accused of anti-Semitic conspiracies as it happens. Chink Yuga. The Youngtuk, actually Hassan's uncle, as it happens, family connection. Matt, he tweeted out this. Charlie Kirk's mentor just died in a freak pickleball accident. That's an incredibly strange coincidence. If you're going to say that's not weird that there are tons of pickleball fatalities,

you sound nuts. I don't know what happened, but I don't think it's perfectly normal. Right. Right. Pickleball accident. Do you know what pickleball is? Not really. What is it? I don't, well, to be honest, I don't know. I think it's like tennis pop with really big bats and soft balls.

I think that's what it is. I've got a vague idea, isn't it? You put the ball on top of a little thing and then you whack it, like an easy version, a baseball with, but less difficult? I think it's like in general just like a less difficult or less strenuous version of all the types of tennis or badminton or whatever. That's the general impression I've got because older people can play it, right? But in this case, so the context here for the mentor that died, so he was 76 and he had a bad fall. So, Chank Huger is saying, you know, 76-year-old man who had some connection with Charlie Kirk

dies after falling badly when playing a sport. Doesn't this be some questions? What's going on? Yeah, oh my God. I think all these different examples, I like it, Chris. They're all thematically related. There's a common fundamental problem in the reasoning. that's happening here.

Yeah. Looking for dark, complicated explanations that are connected to your obsessions or convictions when far, far simpler explanations or no explanation is required. There is nothing going on. Yeah. And what he wrote in response to this, because obviously it became, you know, like an online thing where everybody was quoting that and pointing out that he's engaging in conspiracy theorizing around it, right? And he responded, you notice that the minute

you ask simple questions, you get labeled a conspiracy theorist by traditional media, are we not allowed to ask about strange occurrences? Or should all good journalists shut up and write down what the government said? It's hilarious to say reporters saying you shouldn't ask questions of the government. I didn't come within a country mile of reaching any conclusions. So it's the very active questioning the beloved government and the beloved powerful that so offends the press in this country. Yeah. Just asking questions, Chris. Just asking questions. Yeah, but the bit that gets me about is it's so on the nose. You know, like, this is exactly the conspiracy theorist pose. Like, I'm not making any suggestions. I'm just reasoning. Isn't this curious? It's very odd. I mean, it's

You've heard Brett and Eric Weinstein do it. So everyone, like everyone in our audience can hear it very easily when it's done by blatant right-wing MAGA accounts, right? For the ridiculous thing that it is and the rhetorical maneuver it is to say that I'm just saying that it's very suspicious, things just don't quite add up. I'm just asking questions. And then you're not just, yeah, anyway, it's very, it's very, It's very clear. It's very clear what's going on.

You know, as we said, thematically connected to all the stuff we were talking about. And actually, Matt, on a related point, you know, in general, when things are posted up on YouTube or in Reddit and whatnot, they get feedback. And as suggested by Joe Rogan and you, you should never read the comments. I disagree, Matt. I'm somebody that likes to get in there, see what people are saying. Maybe argue with people on Reddit and Twitter. It's what I like to do, right? But I actually find it interesting sometimes because you get to see the types of reasoning

that are widespread and common and appealing. And in the comment section around our video on Emma Vigland and Joshua Citarela, there was a couple of experiences that I just wanted to mention. Now, I know how much people enjoy people litigating comment section debates, right? right, in podcasts or Twitter and so on. But there is a reason. So just bear with me here. So in response to the video, there was a comment, Matt, that highlighted in this one section

that we had not played the follow-up segment where Emma Vigland was initially sounding like she might endorse pizza gate conspiracies. But if we had played the subsequent clarification, she would have added in that she doesn't think that this is definitely the case and she's actually, you know, more concerned about X and Y, right? So they heard the initial clip and us commenting on that and they said, these guys, they cut this off here because they don't want to deal with her elaboration and the fact that she's actually going to go on to say that she's not endorsing that. And they're kind of creating the false impression by selectively clipping, right? Yeah. Now, the

problem for them, Matt, was that had they have weeded a couple of minutes, they would have found that we do indeed play the clip that they are wanting, the exact clip. We play it in its entirety. Yeah. And the context does not help that much. No, it doesn't. Does not help their case. Yeah. And their response to that. So, you know, you might then think, oh, well, like, so somebody be the mistake. So they might respond by being like, oh, well, it's good that you played that. I hadn't heard that at the time or whatever, right? But no, ma. The response was, you moved it the almost 10 minutes later in your video. That completely changes the perception of what she was saying. If I love that theory line, you cut on. So the fact that we did play, but we talked,

you know, for five to 10 minutes, no, that is the problem, right? Because we obviously did. didn't want people to connect those two sections together. I just like, you know, that's the kind of goalpost moving that happens with like conspiratorial ideation that you can point out, okay, I think these guys are hiding this thing, right, because they don't want people to know about it. And then you say, well, actually, it wasn't hidden and they did reference it. And their immediate reaction is then, okay, so that completely other cuts the point. but there must be a way that it's still a problem.

And their response is it needs to be played in context, which would have made the clip four minutes, by the way, if we had played it, you know, for thing. I know. Yeah. You do get that a lot. It reminds me of the Jordan Peterson defenders, which is, no, no, you can't criticize that.

You have to listen to the whole 10-episode series, you know, 20 hours of stuff to be able to assess what he's saying. But also, Chris, I mean, what you're describing, which is people doubling down and never admitting they're wrong on the internet. Come on. Everyone who's used the internet knows that this is normal. Yes, I know it's normal. But it's just like when you encounter it in terms of people responding to like criticize you for not being far enough. Like in a Miller comment, they were asking us like, where do we get the confidence that it's likely he committed suicide?

And I've linked to the report, the, like, investigation that was commissioned, right, to look into the circumstances around his death. I've read it. And it's quite a detailed report, which explains, you know, the evidence for why it's likely. Then when I pointed them to that, this is a different person, but they responded saying, have you read that FBI report? It has, like, no support for the, as they put it, self-uneliving. and then it said all the stuff about the report. But first of all that, this report was not written by the FBI. It's not an FBI report, right?

And the report does not reach the conclusion that there's no evidence for committing suicide. It very clearly states all the evidence for it. But when I responded noting that it's not actually an FBI report and that it does feature a lot of evidence, they responded saying, oh, you think there's no FBI material included in the reports? So, you know, like they are not wrong because although it is a report written by the Department

of Justice Inspector General Office, because there's some material from FBI sources in it, that essentially means that they are correct to go out of the FBI report. So I know this is people doubling down and not want to. to acknowledge mistakes. But in the context of this video, I think it's indicative of the thing that we were talking about. We're like, everybody wants Epstein, the current conspiratorial squeaky toy

to be attached and endorse the things that they already believe. And if you kind of play party pooper and say, well, there's no evidence for that or, you know, this is counter to that, their reaction isn't like, you know. Oh, thanks for clearing that up, Chris. What were you expecting? Well, in general, I do think that whenever you try to dunk on someone and you, you know,

like you do something like you haven't even read the FBI report. It's not a report by the FBI. But you should be chastised by the fact that you are displaying like you're getting details wrong. But I know people online don't do that. that, but it's just very, like, the same thing Matt happened on Reddit. I was, I engaged in some Reddit to be it. I do this from time to time. You do.

You shouldn't, you shouldn't, but you do. Well, you know, we all have our hobbies. And I saw a beautiful illustration of this approach, right? Because, you know, in the Epstein emails, there are mentions of pizza. There's mentions of grape soda. a couple of times, right? And these are interpreted, just like in the previous case,

you know, with the Pizza Kate conspiracies, that they're code words for possible child abuse or other, like, sexually deviant acts, right? They're the code words, because people simply can't be talking about pizza and grape soda. Now, to be clear, there is actually a couple of occasions where it seems like there's reference being made to something else. Like there's a suggestion, I think, that there's a urologist in a couple that he's talking about.

And it may be, you know, I'll bring the grape soda as reference to prescription medication that they shouldn't have or something like this. So there are a couple of occasions where it looks like there's a reference being made to something else. But the vast majority of them are in reference to shall we eat pizza. That's restaurant or what you want to order from this menu or are you going for pizza tonight, right? So except for a handful of things, there isn't this clear code word. So I just mentioned this because I know some people will point out, oh, but, you know, the grape soda thing, that actually does sound odd in the context, right? And yes, there are a couple of things that he references about all the things.

as well, where he appears to be either referencing and in joke of the person he's talking about, or using, like, yeah, a code word, right? But in general, Matt, it is not the case that pizza in these files is a secret word, right, for child pornography. Right. Now, the reason that I mentioned this is that, so the whole thing with, like, the Pizza Gate conspiracies, if you remember, it was reading John Podesta and and all our Democratic Party, like, members,

talking about pizza, ordering pizza, and so on, and reading that it was a secret code for child abuse, because how could people be ordering pizza so much, right? And there's some unusual turns of phrases or so on, right? Mm-hmm. Yes. Remember, they localized it to this place, Comet Ping-Pong, which was mentioned, and they thought, like, in the basement,

they would find a secret child abuse ring, right? and somebody went there with a gun and there is not a bit of basement in the building, right? So this was the ultimate thing that kind of took Pizza Gate down was when that occurred. People stopped, you know, treating it so much as a joke, right? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Now, in response to the episode, people were saying, like, comparing what Emma Biggland is doing to the Pizza Gate conspiracy theories, it's completely wrong because she wasn't endorsing those, right?

She was just saying that elites are up to crazy things and the emails reveal that like we should be looking into elite pedophile networks, right? And here I'd encourage people, Matt, to go back and listen to the episode, right? Because while Emma Vigeland is not endorsing that there's like a child, pedophile cabal in the basement of comet ping pong. That's true, right? So not the literal Pizza Gate conspiracy theory. She is, if you listen to the clips that we play, there is a lot of talk about murder, potential cannibalism, and other lurid

crimes, right? So it's not the case that she was completely dismissing those things as unreasonable. And she also was suggesting that Jeffrey Epstein and Steve Bannon created QAnon in order to put people off the trail. So she is being a conspiracy theory around Pizsake, around the origin of Pizsake, which came from the Qianon community. So anyway, so someone else responded. And just like Cenk Yer, they. said, I was surprised by how little nuance was used by Matt and Chris when examining this exchange.

There is something very strange in the overlaps between the Epstein files and what was posted by Q. Could be coincidental, but considering the ways that Bannon seems to have his fingerprints on so many things, it's certainly worth some speculation. Speculating about conspiracies is different than falling into problematic thought patterns and drawing conclusions without evidence. and I don't think there are problems with what Matt and Chris are calling out. Yeah, so the person saying this

is also highlighting this thing about the frequency of pizza. And they say, I think it's because they literally use the word pizza in the Epstein files as a code word, along with plenty of other language that appears to be coded. Then they send a follow-up post.

I'm saying that the word pizza comes up pretty frequently in Epstein corresponding. And that word in dollars could be code for criminal activity. And I'm very happy to say that this is speculation and requires more evidence, right? And when people pointed out, you're reading a lot into mentions of pizza. They say, you know, you're reading into my things more than I'm saying. And I just find this frustrating. Because like the person is literally saying there are thousands of references to pizza in the publicly available files.

how often do you text or email your friends of white pizza? Seems like a lot. But I'm not trying to argue that that indicates anything. At the same time as a couple of posts before saying, I think it's because they literally use the word pizza in the Epstein files as a code word, along with plenty of all our language that appears to be coded. So they are saying it's suspicious and it's a code word. But when they're pushed on it, they say, you know, I'm not saying that it's actually a thing.

I'm just asking, like, isn't it suspicious? I know, I don't know. There's a real variance of that. I'm not saying it's aliens, but it's aliens meme, right? Yeah. It's a strategic disclaimer. I'm not saying it's definitely a code word, but I'm just saying this. It means something because, yeah, anyway.

But the bit that gets to me is like, you can literally say it. You know, I think this is a code word. It's mentioned much more than it's normal. So something strange is going on. And then you say, wait, are you insinuating? So you are saying that it's like a pizza kit style conspiracy that, you know, and they're like, what? You're taking me as endorsing anything?

Like, no. It's just the, you know, the words are right there where you say, I think it is a code word for conspiracy. And you're like, so you're saying it's a code word conspiracy. And they're like, where did you get that from? You know? So there. Well, there you go. Well, it's all your own.

fault for reading Reddit. Just stay away there. I guess so. To be fair, it is notable that like some of these people, the user names are like Chad Bigcombe. So there is, there is merit to the argument of what do you spend these your time to. Now look, in a bit we're going to talk about AI productivity, Chris, but talking about threats at productivity? Chad Bigcock there. He's a threat to your productivity. Get out, log off, my friends. Log off. Well, this is the thing. This is

the same energy that allows me to interact with people in YouTube comments and Reddit friends and loot to list is the same energy that allows me to listen to the various gurus podcasts. This is true. You can't have one about the other. This is true. This is true.

This is the engine that fuels DTG. It comes up its own cost. I've never denied that I am someone that uses forums. We always knew this. So, yeah, but I will say that this is one of the things that I think is interesting. And that I actually genuinely do find enjoyment and also interesting that like you can

see all sorts of conspiratorial reasoning and motivated reasoning and whatnot in, in comment sections on Twitter, in reaction to threads and so on. It's just, it's all out there. And if you're interested in that kind of psychology and that kind of reasoning, YouTube comment sections are not like the hell world. They're kind of a, you know, a verdant oasis of conspiratorial. Yeah. A petri dish, if you will.

Yeah. Yeah. And I will also just note as well, Matt, that like, you know, like everyone else, the worst examples are worth stick out to me. but in most comments under our videos and on Reddit and so on, you get a mixture of opinions, right? And you often get people that are very fixated on specific issues or that are very motivated on a particular topic.

And they can post hundreds of comments or get into little self-sealing response threads with other people that feel similar. So it is wrong to take a segment of like a comment section as representative of the entire audience of something. I'm just cautioning that, like, you know, it's always easy to cherry pick things to highlight, like, the worst examples. But equally, it is not the case.

As people often say, the comment sections don't reveal anything because they're just full of mad people. Because, like, if you look at a trigonometry section, you're going to see the kind of things that trigonometry promote reflected in their comment section over time. I think you're right. But I also have cherished the fond belief that in our case,

the vast majority of our listeners are not on discussion forums of any kind. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Not there's anything wrong with that. Many of my best friends are a forum contributor. That's right. Me and Chris certainly are sickos that we are. But I cherish the fond belief that the vast majority out there doing their thing. You know, they're being lawyers or academics or artists, what have you.

Yeah, actually, at the weekend, I met a Patreon member who was visiting Tokyo and was like passing through. Came out in the bulldoin gym mat with me and my son. And he was a Dutch guy of a Rhenian origin. But interestingly, a previous background in science, like kind of neuroscience-sy type topics as well. but now professional DJ you know music creator teaching people how to produce music

and a cool guy and that's one of our audience he might be in common sections I don't know but I just say he was a normal person I've seen photos I wouldn't put it past him that's true it could be there but that was cool

I like those photos actually yeah yeah very nice to meet you Navid I had a good time my children and we're enamored as well. So if you're passing through Tokyo, I'm always available in climbing gyms. You know my native habitat.

But be careful when you read the comments. But, you know, that's the way it goes, Matt. So did you see anything striking in Discourse Land as of Leah? Has there anything that's bubbled to your attention? No. It's been interesting to see the AI discourse is continuing in the up. Yeah, I know that our point of view isn't probably the most popular one amongst, you know, in our milieu. But yeah, I just find the whole cultural reaction to it really interesting. So like,

you know, there are some sort of people who are boosting it, who are academics and saying this is really good for research and stuff, as well as being a little bit perilous as I've said too. And then the replies are like, you should be fired. Oh, yeah. I find... If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at patreon.com slash decoding the gurus. Once you do, you'll get access to full-length episodes of the Decoding the Guru's podcast,

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