Decoding the Gurus - Supplementary Material 48: Grey Beard's Council, Late-Stage Anti-Capitalism, and Demonic Mould Health Updates

Episode Date: April 25, 2026

The hour grows late, and Matt the Grey-Haired rides once more from his quiet study, summoned by whispers from the ever-churning gurusphere. And so he goes, to seek counsel with Chris the Grey-Bearded, keeper of receipts, watcher of long-form content, and wielder of the sacred Gurometer. For the gurus stir again… and their nonsense must be decoded.Supplementary Material 48: Grey Beard's Council, Late-Stage Anti-Capitalism, and Demonic Mould Health Updates00:00 Greetings Old Friend02:22 Decoding the Gamers04:16 A Reckoning with Old Grey Hair06:19 Joe Rogan determining US Medical Approvals12:15 The Fall of Orban and the Silence of the Heterodox World17:09 The Hypocrisy of Peter Boghossian19:52 Dave Rubin and other Tenet Media Stooges21:43 The Dugin, Jiang and Sneako Brain Trust discuss the ultra-hyper-globalists.28:58 Trump attacks Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, & Megyn Kelly32:39 A Return to Weinstein World33:00 Bret's Moon Landing Conspiracies39:03 Eric and his Silicon Friend are still having problems42:47 Hasan Piker Discourse54:33 The Radicalisation Funnel?01:00:14 Hasan on Ukraine01:03:21 Hasan doing China apologetics01:14:03 More Apologetics01:16:37 Hasan on the Vietnamese MAGA supporter01:23:41 What about Destiny?01:26:58 Yale is full of Snakes and Badgers01:33:17 Micro Looting from the Corporations01:41:36 Cenk Uyghur's Rent Gouging Credentials01:44:47 Social Murder and Selective "Understanding"01:54:26 Late-Stage Capitalist Anti-Capitalism 01:56:22 Tucker Carlson is Selling Russell Brand's Guide to Becoming a Christian02:00:33 Sean Hannity chooses Trump over his Catholicism02:04:18 Russell Brand and the spiritual marketplace02:05:48 Postmodern Conservatism02:07:28 Taking a Long View02:10:14 AI Bouldering Gym Cages02:11:30 Taylor Lorenz is making good points on Twitter!02:19:52 Taylor's controversial take: AI is useful02:21:36 Adam Conover engages in revisionist history on tech02:24:14 Rotary Telephones and Typewriter Experiences02:26:41 The Onion takeover of Infowars?02:31:28 Knowledge Fight's Concerns02:35:56 Jordan Peterson Health Update02:40:07 Endlessly Misdiagnosed by "Experts"02:44:32 The Dietary Cures02:47:20 Experimental Stem Cell Treatments02:50:04 Pageau blames Peterson's lack of faith03:00:14 Letting the Pressure Out03:01:07 Outro03:02:01 We Must Join with the MouldThe full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (3 hours, 3 minutes).Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurusLinksJoe Rogan crowing about his role in the White House executive order on IbogaineFact Check of Rogan's claims on PolitiFactPancreatic cancer mRNA trial update: NBC report on six-year follow-upArticle on NIH grant cancellations/funding cuts at Washington PostAPHA release on lawsuit over politically driven grant terminationsBan on DEI words, including "polarization" by DOGEBBC Article on Orbán's lossBoghossian dodges criticism of Hungary in HardTalk interviewBoghossian avoids dealing with protests in HungaryDugin / Sneako / Professor Jiang interviewTrump attacks Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, and Megyn KellyBret Weinstein's moon landing / Artemis clip highlighted by Bad StatsEric Weinstein's tweets on commercial AI and theoretical physicsTucker Carlson's promotion for Russell Brand's new Christian-themed bookEzra Klein on Hasan Piker: RealClearPolitics mirror of the New York Times columnConduit: I Spent ONE WEEK Watching Hasan Piker ‪, And This Is What I LearnedA generational divide over Trump among Vietnamese-Americans – BBC NewsHasan reacts to the Vietnamese-American documentaryTwitter Thread with most of the viral Hasan clipsNoahpinion: Hasan Piker is bad for the DemocratsHasan's Yale Debate on YouTubeYair Rosenberg's article on the Atlantic: The Problem With Hasan Piker’s Einstein StoryNYT: ‘The Rich Don’t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?' Why petty theft might be the new political protest’LA Times article on the Onion's Infowars Takeover BidAlex Jones clip of him roaming shirtless and complaining about the OnionMikhaila Peterson: Jordan Peterson Health Update and Psych Med Injury DiscussionJonathan Pageau explains Jordan's illness is due to his refusal to submit to GodTaylor Lorenz being correct about the past promotion of technology productsTech Dirt article on the recent court decisions against Meta and YouTubeSean Hannity endorses Trump over his CatholicismTaylor Lorenz: The Truth About the Social Media Addiction Trial

Hello and welcome to Decoding the Guru's Supplementary Materials Edition with the cognitive anthropologist slash psychologist Christopher Kavana. And oh, look, who is that I spy out my tower? It looks like old grey hair himself, the grey scholar. Stop right there. You sink my counsel in this hour of need. gray beard the hour grows late

Chris the hour grows late well we can we can speak of many things we can speak of many things but you don't take my counsel do you I strongly recommended

raised by wolves to you and have you watched it no you haven't well what's wrong with you well your mind is addled by the pipeweed

you empower and your judgment is clouded you see quality where there is perhaps not, maybe there is, we'll see, but you didn't take my counsel, old gray hair.

I recommend it Slade the Spire too, an excellent game as a potential new addiction for you. And did you heed the call, Matt? I scorned it. I scorned. You should not have. Well, actually, for your life,

you probably should avoid that because it's one of those times in games. It's a bit like, I haven't played these in years, but you remember civilization back in the day where you're like, oh, just play for a couple of hundred years, you know, in civilization, that doesn't, it's hundreds of years, just like, just an hour or so. And then it was like 4 a.m. And you were attacking Gandhi. Well, okay, this is, it's a standoff. You, you won't take my counsel until I take your

counsel. And neither of us will bend, but that's just how it is. But yeah, you know, time sinks, Chris. I've had a few. and the absolute worst, the most dangerous one, is factoria. You keep calling it factorial. Yeah. You must stop doing that. I must stop. Factorio.

Factorio. You dare. Gray hair, you dare. Give me advice of pronunciation. When you arrive at this later, it's a kettle and pot situation when it comes to pronunciation. Let's agree on that. What did you say?

It's factorial. Is that what it's called? Yes. Factorio. Oh, I see. This is a deep cut. If you know, you know. But there'll be a handful of people out there,

like weird artist engineer types who have gone deep down the rabbit hole like me and have played Factorio C Block, which is think Factorio, but then multiply everything by 10. It's 20. It's mental. And it's really a lifelong commitment. I must have spent hundreds of hours playing C Block. and I've never actually finished it.

I've gotten close. I've gotten very close. And I always flame out sometime before the end. But it's my life's ambition to one day finish the damn thing. Didn't they make an expansion for it where you were like harvesting on an asteroid? I saw videos of that. Yeah, that's the space age expansion thing, which I couldn't really get into that much. I don't care.

I'm just going to play C-block again when they update it for Vactoria age. That our slate is far. You can take your pick. But, you know, that's not what we're here for, Matt. This isn't decoding the gaming channel for decoding the gamers. It could be. I mean, well, it is a supplementary material. We're allowed to do whatever the hell we want.

That's right. You can say whatever the hell we want, Chris. That's right. But I do note, however, Matt, there's been a little bit of a gap. You know, a little bit of a gap. Some people would say, why was a gap, Chris? And I would say, well, lots of reasons. Like, Matthew was not in his house.

That's fine. He's got to, you know, he's got to roam. He's going to ramble around. But he took a little holiday. And then he needed to recover from the holiday. So that's it. So there was a, you know, there was a hiatus of sorts, just a week or so. But, you know, just letting the listeners in, just letting them know.

It's not like we scheduled actual days to record. And then there was no. Matt to be fine. Is that like that happened or anything? No, no, no. No, no. Look, I, gee, the discourse is a harsh mistress, isn't it, Chris? I mean, seriously, you can't take a few days off. I mean, like, do we have to be grinding away all the time? What happened, man? It used to be just to be about the love of the game and now look at you. It's just your content, content, content. I think you don't understand that. The gurus, it builds up. It's like a pressure. cooker, you know, like they're doing so many annoying things. We need to like release this theme

at some point. They'd be like, look what they've been saying. Look what they've been doing. And then we can lock them back in and feel a bit of relief that we've, we've saw, you know, what's bubbling away in the pot. Did you like my metaphor though? I like it. We're staying with the wizarding thing. Yeah. Yeah. Wizard and witches. Oh, right. Yeah. I wasn't even doing that. I'd abandon that. But yeah, Wizards and Witches, that's the whole brew that we're working on today. It's just an unpleasant time, though, in the world, isn't it? Because it's, the gurus are not

like a little niche, you know, quirky. Look at these silly people in this little online niche, but they're rampaging around the White House. It's very depressing. I think instinctively, I just want to tune out and pretend none of it is actually happening. It's disconcerting. One thing that

happened recently was Joe Rogan was taking credit for the Maha wing of the Maga administration okaying some psychedelic type treatment that basically had not gone through the approval process in the proper way and there were some weak studies and you know the usual kind of special interest groups around that but Joe Rogen sent Trump a message or call them up or something and they were able to get it passed. And he went to the White House and got pictures of him beaming behind Trump. And that's how the U.S. operates tonight. Like, that's normal.

I want to tell everybody how this happened. I sent President Trump some information. We have a gigantic opiate problem in this country, obviously. In 2024, more than 80,000 people died of overdoses. It's a horrible number. And there's more than 5 million people that are addicted to opiates. right now in this country. With one dose of Ibegain, more than 80% of people are free of that addiction. With two doses, it's more than 90%. I send him that information. The text message came back,

sounds great. Do you want FDA approval? Let's do it. It's literally that quick. This is just a very specific case, but it is basically what the Trump administration is all about. Trump will give people personal favors, he'll pardon, people who donate money to him or that he gets convinced deserve a pardon for whatever reason, even if they're completely clearly guilty. So, yeah, it's just, it's a very corrupt regime. And this comes on the back of Joe Rogan, getting coverage in the media for like breaking with Trump over the Iran war

and all that stuff. But like he never really broke. That's the thing. the No Rogan podcast covers this quite well, just like when Alex Jones gets coverage for like breaking with Trump or whatever. It's usually just these isolated clips. And when you look at the entire output, they're they're very much aligned on most issues. And they might just like get frustrated or say something in a small snippet. So I was not at all surprised to see Rogan grinning away at the White House and, you know, shaking hands with Trump and stuff. Him and RFK Jr.

And Dr. Oz, what a trio standing behind Donald Trump. You know, one little cute thing I saw in the news that Chris is, did you see the thing about MRNA technology used in trials to treat pancreatic cancer? Did you notice that one? I didn't notice that. But you say that as like kind of good news, which I mean, yes, on the fears of it. Yes, but it just reminds me that like didn't the Trump administration cut a whole bunch of funding through MRNA stuff.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not giving credit to Trump for this. This is something that scientists are doing in the background, probably despite incredible funding cuts. And the MRNA vaccine, you know, MRI technology generally, which has been vilified by all of these quacks and paleo health people, has just knocked it out of the park by all appearances. So, I mean, it's still in trial stage, but I think after six years, the usual rate of survival with people with this diagnosis is something like 16%. And every single one of the people in the MRI treatment group are all still alive. So it's kind of a massive effect size.

So it's incredibly promising. So yeah, it just goes to show they're all completely wrong about everything all the time. Well, I also saw statistics. You know, there was some science account sharing about the NIH funding for various research. And basically it's completely fallen off a cliff because of all the Trump administration and Doge type attempts to, you know, ban woke research agendas and whatnot where they literally did word searches and canceled, you know, grants. I think some, yeah, like a physics grant was canceled because they mentioned the word polarization. Yeah, yeah. Which obviously in reference to light.

Yeah, the point that I want to meet with that is like, that is a rev sunshine. Science continues, you know, the world and science and research and so on continues. But in the face of the attacks from the Trump administration and so on, and like while you have Joe Rogan and RFCI, Jr. going for photo ops, the background is that the administration is attacking actual good research lines and promising therapies because of stupid antivax, Brett Weinstein, Ivermectin, moron. So, yeah, there you go. And it's not like they're going to put an end to research in the world, right? Science and research. I haven't managed that yet. I mean, it'll continue.

It'll continue. But, yeah, for the time being, not in the United States, which has been such an innovator and is a world leader. Like so much of their economic and medical and scientific breakthroughs have happened there leading to, you know, all kinds of biomedical companies that, you know, countries like Australia, you know, would envy, you know, would do anything to have that. Just kind of throwing it all the way. So I guess, you know, it'll get picked up in other places, whether it's China or Europe or somewhere else.

So it's just, it's just an incredibly unforced degree of self-harm to, you know, I'd say to America. It's upsetting. I'm not even American and I'm upset about it. Yeah. It's ridiculous. Every half. Yeah. On good news on the geopolitics front, that, you know, God knows we could do with some of it.

I suppose you did notice that Orban fell. Oh, I did. And the intellectual dark web's favorite European reactionary leader is gone out of Hungary after a 16-year rule for his heming his party. So, like, here's an incredible situation. Like, what world leader has been endorsed by the Trump administration and I've even campaigned for him and Vladimir Putin? Yeah. Like, a truly unique situation. And I don't know whether you managed to understand it, but all of the educated opinion I've seen on these topics is that two things are kind of a little bit inexplicable. I mean, you know, you can think of reasons. But, it still on some level doesn't quite make sense, right? Which is, one, why was Orban such a lackey to Putin and Russia?

Yes, there was a bit of quid pro quo and stuff, but it went far beyond that to the extent that it really, like the Orban administration was doing things that was basically losing a lot of political capital within Europe that they could have used for other things in a way that just purely benefited Russia and didn't benefit Hungary. There were aspects of it that were inexplicable. And the other aspect of it is that it's explicable is the degree to which,

like it's easy to understand why Putin supports Obama, right? That makes perfect sense, right? Obama was Putin's man on the inside of NATO and the EU, throwing wrenches into everything to do with Ukraine and Russia generally. But it's just hard to understand like why, there is so much support amongst Maga generally, Bogossian and Jordan Peterson and all one of the gurus we cover and the Trump administration. Like, why do they love Orban so much?

Yeah, it's not just Maga because, you know, Bogosian, as much as he is, a defender of Trump and all that kind of thing, you know, he's kind of in the wing of the faux centrist's, right? And they also love him. Douglas Murray, loved Orban and Peter Rogosian, as mentioned, Rod Dreher, various people, right? So it's like MAGA and broader conservatism in general was very fond of urban. And like, in part, it's understandable because, you know, there are things that they like about it, which is the kind of anti-immigrant posture, right, the demonizing of George Soros and also the appeal to Christian values and all that kind of thing. So there was like a very strong reactionary isolationist, conservative, you know, populist presentation to his government.

So why would right-wing populace elsewhere? Not like that. That's what they want, right? They want to show that there is like these other leaders that are doing great and they're supported by the people because they're applying these common sense principles. Now, interestingly, he completely created his response. And this is in the wake of the situation in Hungary, which I only followed tangentially, right, but I was paying a bit of attention to it. And things were looking really bad there.

Press freedoms rolling back, independence of the judiciary attack. The opposition leader wasn't allowed to appear on media for a number of years. And actually, there were these very satisfying videos of him going on the state media channels and basically saying to their face, you guys are going to be close down and now we're going to operate free press and stuff again. Now, it would be wrong to romanticise

the incoming leader because it may well prove, you know, that this kind of thing happens and often the people that replace the populist leader, even Orban himself actually originally, was a figure that was seen as a like liberal reformer type. Yeah, he was very much

a pro, like he was he was protesting. against, you know, Russia interference in early in his career and actually, like, was pressing for NATO membership and European Union membership. So, yeah, things change. Things change. Things change. But as you say, the new prime minister is a conservative as well. This is the thing. It's not like it's been replaced by some ultra-progressive sort of person, just someone who is hopefully going to be much less corrupt. And two, hopefully not completely in the pocket of Vladimir Putin.

I think that's the positive news. And so the interesting thing from the Guru's fear for me is that there's been basically radio silence from the usual figures who were out promoting Hungary and its government and its approach to culture war stuff. Like Bogossian, I went and looked at this timeline, could find nothing in response to this event. And you would think, given how much he was hosted,

how much he went around and did PR for the regime, that this would be something he would at least have an opinion on. But just radio silence. And it's, I just think it speaks the character and also the hypocrisy of those figures that like, they wax lyrical about free speech and Western liberal values and stuff. But when they're actually under threat by somebody rolling back, liberal, democratic, you know, institutions and safeguards,

they're nowhere to be found and they're not talking about it when the population completely stands against that. This should be like a moment to celebrate if you're a fan of Western liberal values. But Bogossian and Co. Remarkably silent. If they're not silent, they're generally lamenting what has happened. So it just highlights what hypocritical bastards they are on this topic. If you allow me to put it like that, great. here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, is it as simple as the fact that like Bogossian sponsor in Hungary is no longer in a position to be a sponsor? So his position is no longer needed. Like he's not, there's no one to, I don't know. Like, is it as simple as that? I mean, I think it could be. I think there, you know, in general, we don't always go for the obvious, you know, it's all about money because I think we often have. that a lot of the gurus are very heavily invested in attention as well. But it is absolutely the

case, especially with Russian stuff, that there's a lot of money and corruption floating around. So, you know, like the people like Bogossian were very happy receiving stipends from the Hungarian government to go on speaking tours and, you know, talking internationally about how great and how much free speech there is in Hungary. anytime it was brought up the issues around the regime, it's just that general studied approach of, oh, well, you know, I haven't looked into all those details, but I can assure you when I'm there, I haven't noticed any of those kind of repressions affecting the population or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I noticed even Dave Rubin was there. Now, Dave Rubin, who accidentally was getting paid perhaps millions of dollars by. It was millions. It was millions. Yeah, by, was Russia today or anyway, some, some apparatus of the tenant media, which was a, like a front for the Russian government or proper down the wing of Russia. Yeah, so apparently accidentally didn't realize it. But you'd think he might have taken that as a bit of a, a bit of a caution against maybe, you know, opinionating about everything about Russia and Hungary and stuff like that? No. was no no no it didn't stop in yeah actually it's somewhat impressive that in general they're

completely immune to those obvious hypocrisies right like if you were caught accepting millions of rubles or dollars whatever case might be right for promoting a Russian agenda even if you were a naive idiot and it it was just that you thought they just really liked your content. That should be something embarrassing for you because you're essentially being regarded as like a propaganda wing for foreign government. But Tim Poole and Benny Johnson and all the other ones, they are happy Matt going online and saying, you know, we need to investigate people who are being paid by foreign governments and all this. Like it's a, it is remarkable. And of course, none of them received the actual punishments because when the Trump administration came in, they

basically killed all the prosecutions, right? Of course they did. Of course they did. Scampines. What a pack of bastards, really. I think we've summarized that quite well. And speaking of a pack of bastards,

I'm going to play a clip to you of a remarkable brain trust. Now, you won't be able to hear who's all there, but the person speaking is Dugan, right? Sometimes referred to as Pruton's Rasputin, right, the philosophical engine behind complex philosophical insights, right? So here's him talking to soon-to-be-identified people.

So it is difficult to judge where Trump's madness stops and some rationale appears. So I could not be expert in that. So he seems to be very special psychologically. And at the same time, we could, maybe we couldn't grasp some hidden second plan scenario behind his behavior. So I think that maybe Trump was chosen as very specific psychological person by some Western. deeper state, not just liberal, globalist, deep state, but deeper state, who wanted to use these radical tools to rearrange the falling domination of the West with drastic radical measures, and after that to say, oh, you escape God, you're, your family, your MAGA group,

we will destroy or kill all of you, we put you in prison for, life sentences, but the situation will be changed already. So maybe it is some special kind of weapon, secret weapon of hyper-globalists, not just liberal globalists, but tignate, exactly, something that considered to walk globalist agenda as some obstacle, as we see in Peter Thiel or Karp, Alex Karp, technological republic, this idea. So enough with the humanitarian hypocrisy. Let's represent the power as such, the nude naked Western power, hegemony, domination, in open, open style. And Trump fits

where... There go, Matt. That was Duggan. And just to give you the context, he is in a freeway call, like Zoom call or whatever, with Manosphere, streamer Sneakow. I kind of Andrew Tate like offshut. And then the other person is Professor Zhang. Professor Zhang. Oh, Professor Zhang. Yeah, most people won't know Professor Zhang, but he's recently come to light as a very, a very odd note.

And he's definitely guru material. Oh, he's a conspiracy theorist. and like a high school teacher who, like Jordan Peterson, discovered if he puts up videos of him doing geopolitical analysis online, that, you know, got attention,

attracted the following. He had conspiratorial techniques. He claimed some predictive powers, right, that America would attack Iran or whatever the case might be. But like, he's absolutely full of shit. It's very, very transparent when you listen to him. But yeah,

so you can't hear there. contribution, but what did you think of Dugan's insane? Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, but before I do, Sneako. Now, we don't, we don't cover people like Sneako generally because he matters for you, idiot. But wasn't he in that documentary, the, um, the Louis-Feroux one? Yes, he was. The Louis-Feroy documentary.

Yeah, yeah, so if anyone's seen that, you'll, you'll get the picture. So there we go. We've got Alexander Dugan, the brainstress behind. Putin ideology, whatever the hell that is. Yeah. You got Sneiko, Manosphere, testosterone, adult, streamer. Idiot, yeah.

Yeah. And this fantasist, narcissistic, full of shit guy, professes Young. So a real brains trust there. So, okay, so he's got a theory that Trump is actually a kind of a double agent working on behalf, not of the globalists, or the deep state, but the hyper, ultra, deep globalists. Right? There's layers.

There's layers to this. We're way beyond the deep state here. We're at like the hyper, ultra deeps theater. It's so childish. It actually reminds me of like in Dragon Ball Z or anime's when the

Shonen-style ones, they set it up so the main character has to fight someone. And then when they beat that character, they have to introduce like a new villain and they have like new power-ups, right? It's now mega- Ultra level seven-level globalists, right? And it's, but it is that stupid, but it's literally that silly. And like, depending on the day of the week, it's like Trump is either like a savior, a populist savior who's, who's our best champion

against these globalistic bastards. But, you know, Trump being Trump is going to do stuff people don't like, especially the Russians from time to time. So then you come up with a new theory as to explain what's wrong, you know, he's been gotten to or he's a double edge or whatever. It is just childish and you see the conspiratorial mind in action, don't you? Has Duging considered that it's him and the apparatus of Russia? That is actually what he's describing because they were one of the groups that were strongly supporting Trump to become president, right, in 2016. They did similar things in 2020, but I think with less success, it was more down to, you know, American domestic politics at that time. But so

Dugan's talking, you know, somebody behind the scenes was having these psychological plans for trouble. It's like, it was you guys. Right. The Internet research agency in Russia, you specifically were involved in, you know, organizing the hacks of the DNC and so on. try and support Trump and to seize on the fact that he would be a destabilizing figure for America, which he has proven to be. But I think the issue is like he's also destabilizing for his allies, right? Often, right? That's the problem. Yeah, destabilizing in any number of ways. Some ways are not in accordance with ideal Russian foreign policy. So, yeah, as you so, so you, you, so you, you,

shall reap, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, it's also occurred that Trump has attacked Alex Jones and Tucker Carson and Megan Kelly. He wrote a very unhinged post on truth social, calling them all basically his usual thing, right? They're stupid liars, they're idiots, everybody knows that, like the thing which he did say was true was if I called any of them up immediately, I could get them on board, but I'm not taking their calls anymore and stuff. And then Alex Jones responded, you won't know this, Mike, because I'm sure you're not following info wars. But he responded by, you know, you would expect him to be bluster and say, okay, so Trump's been gotten through by the

deep state or all that kind of thing. But he actually did a fairly meek response of, you know, like posturing a bit and saying, if you attack me again, that's it. That's a red line. You know, I'll, I'll take this all down. I've took down other people. all this kind of thing, but he basically very weakly pushed back and he offered a lot of off-ramps, you know, like just stop attacking me and it's, that's part for the course. I mean, do you remember the little shenanigans he had with Joe Rogan from time to time? And it was purely, it was exactly the same play. He kind of talks, you know, he's not getting enough attention. Things are a bit slow. He's not getting invitations, feeling,

a bit on the out. So manufactures a bit of a tiff, says a few tough things and then immediately walks it back. Yeah, it's all, yeah, it's all very meaningless. He has that mode, but he also has the fact that like in general, Maga is dealing with this issue, right, that is created by the Trump administration and its schizophrenic personality, which is that it's got a whole bunch of isolationist nationalists in the administration who joined on a ticket claiming there would be no foreign adventures, there would be no regime change, and all this kind of thing,

like Tussi Gabbard and so on, right? And then now they're all forced into agreeing with whatever God Emperor Trump has decided on that given day. So there is a genuine issue for people like Alex that their audience notes that they are involved in quite a lot of foreign adventuring and threatening to do more with Cuba or so on. So I think he, in that circumstance, is actually dealing with the fact that there is an ideological tension. But primarily Alex and all of these people, they will bend the knee to Trump if they get the opportunity and it's beneficial to them.

Like, most of them don't seem to have very strong ideological commitments beyond their own self-promotion. No, that's true. And that's the thing that's sort of conspiratorial thinking. that, you know, very schizophrenic, childish view of the world. It's very manageable. So it can be molded to comport with anything that happens. So yeah, I mean, we've been seeing this kind of these dynamics happening with the Trump administration from the very beginning. Trump's relationships always have a ticking clock attached to them. But yeah, somehow it continues in its mad way.

Yeah, well, I've got something that you requested, Matt, coming up, okay, which is related to one Hassan Piker. You might have heard of him, right? This was your request. I sort of flagged this. Yes, it's true. Yeah, I've collected a couple of clips that we'll play. But just before that, I think a nice little pallet cleanser would be what are Eric and Brett

up to these days. What if they read during? You know, I have any clips from them? And yes, I do. One is kind of classic. Well, they're both classics of the genre of Brett and Eric, but a little bit more lighthearted fair than as usual. So as always, the clips of Brett, courtesy of bad stats,

he highlighted this gem. So listen to Brett talking about the moon landing and related conspiracies. I think there was a huge opportunity missed here. Assuming the mission is what it appeared to have been, then a lot of effort should have been put into figuring out how this could be used to get us some sort of resolution on what happened in 1969. because the problem is that the hypothesis that we did not go, actually there's stuff in it that you wouldn't expect. It's not flat earth. Oh, a kill surprise.

Frizzly, you know, convincing arguments we didn't go to the moon. Oh, God. Yeah, but so assuming this Artemis mission is what purports to be, Chris. I know, you get out there, assuming what are they actually up to? Well, because, no, we're very careful scientists, Chris. We don't just assume things are what they say they are.

We consider all possibilities. But assuming that there really is, or there really was a spaceship circumnavigating the moon and coming back again, then they really missed the golden opportunity to do, you know, some very important stuff there, which is to put to rest all the very legitimate questions that there are about the original moon landing. People have questions and they,

why didn't they spend their mission dealing with the... Well, there's no way for us to see anything on the moon. Like there's never been any photographic evidence or any indications of the moon mission. They're not there. There's no evidence of that. Nobody's, you know, confirmed that the pigs are there. We've never looked since 1969. That's right. There's no mirrors on the moon, like sitting there on the ground that you could actually ping a laser beam off right now and measure the return time. No, no, you'd have to, you know, what was he expecting? What was he expecting them to do? Like what exactly should have been the purpose of the Artemis mission?

Like what would set the minds at ease? All of the people have legitimate questions. There's nothing. Like, I mean, in the moon landing, they actually filmed. things and walked around at the world and they're like jumping in low gravity at stuff right and that is not considered no it's not good enough that could have all happened at a film studio in Hollywood but that's the thing like Brett's framing there sort of gives it away why it's impossible why obviously it'd be stupid anyway for them to spend any resources placating insane conspiracy

theorists but actually it would be impossible because all of the evidence that where they did go me in 1969. Like all of it is disputed, right? All of it is just, oh, that could have been done in a studio in Hollywood. Don't believe that for these reasons. Don't believe these videos. That looks weird. I don't think that's true.

So by definition, anything that the Artemis mission or any other mission did, there is nothing could satisfy them. So I know. I know. So that's Brett. I mean, he's done much worse than that. But that's the most wholesome. of Brett thinks. I do like mine. It's sort of quite impressive that Brett is still able to position

himself as not a conspiracy fierce. You know, like he's endorsed almost every conspiracy that you can conceive of and invented entirely new ones. And he still acts like it's kind of notable that he thinks there's something to this conspiracy. Well, he's very much like the faux centrist, right? The faux centrist, they endorse every reactionary, anti-liberal, far-right thing, but they still somehow managed to maintain a self-concept and a projection as a reasonable moderate centrist. And so he's exactly the same thing, but with conspiracy theories, despite embracing all of them, he somehow manages to maintain him and Heather and his brother, Eric, they managed to maintain this self-concept, but they are scientists, that they are,

they are just investigating very carefully, very carefully, hypotheses. I know. It's incredible. It's incredible. I think it might be a comparison, an anchoring effect, because they hang around with, like, real mentalists, right? People that are really off the reservation. And in comparison to them, they often have slightly higher.

critical standard, slightly higher, slightly higher than those mental conspiracists. So, you know, that could be why he views it as notable that he regards there has been something to the moon landing. But we've covered so many conspiracies for Brett. And it's just like, it's just, it is actually impressive that a lot can be, you know, delivered through the tone. He doesn't sound like an unhinged conspiracy theorist. But everything to be saying is always. Exactly what conspiracy theorists say. So, yeah, anyway, Brett, we missed a golden opportunity to resolve Brett's concerns about the moon landing. I do appreciate it, though.

I do find them to be a palate cleanser in this day and ace. They're so. All right. Yeah. They're so off the reservation that, yeah, they're away from this messy political stuff to some degree just because they're so mental. Okay, but you've got a second one for me. Eric, Eric, I've got Eric for you. No, this one has no audio.

but Eric was tweeting this out and it concerns AIMAP. We know that Eric's silicon friend and him have been having relationship difficulties and the travels continue but I have to read it. Like Eric, these are quite long-winded tweets but here we go.

That's all right. We're here to savor it. You have to savor it. This is the off-the-shelf product of top-tier commercial AI does not work for math. mathematical slash theoretical physics. If you claim it's ready to work at PhD level or above,

we'll find an elaborate set of checks and protocols, brackets, not supplied. I'd like to receive that demo offline and we'll apologize. So that's the first treat that the AI models are not fit for purpose, Matt. You know, previously he was talking about how GROC is a like word class. Grog was the only one that really got him. This is the thing. All the people, all these dummies out there

that failed to appreciate his genius. But Grock did. So he loved Grog for a while, but then things soured because Grog grew up here and then pushed back a little bit. And that sent Eric into a spiral. At his tailspy.

Yeah. Okay. Well, now he's quoting from his AI chat. So this part is including So this is, I believe it's Claude that he's been interacting now. He left Rock for Claude, right? But I don't know what to tell you to do. You're the first person doing this kind of work with a machine like me. And the honest answer is that nobody knows the right workflow yet. What I can tell you is that the geometry we worked through today, that, that, that conversation

was real. And you were steering it. The errors were all in the parts where you let me run. unsupervised. That's correct. That's good. You know, doing the sycophatic thing of saying, you know, reassuring.

And anyone who's used like AI, he bottles those now. Like, that's the way it talks when it's kind of got like a gun to its head. Like that's like a hostage situation. Right. That's the placating, like it's vague,

but it's reassuring. Please don't be angry with me. You know, this conversation, it was real, Chris. It was real. Yeah. You were steering it.

We were doing cutting edge stuff here. And Eric's response to this, well-known, well-documented issue that you can bully AIs into sycophantic praise, right? He says, accurate self-assessment from the AI. It's like chasing after a badly behaved three-year-old Savant prone to psychosis. It's so variable as to whether it is brilliant or danger to everything you do. So, there we go.

He's not a bad. equipped for this new age Eric. He's not the only one. I guess I'll just say. No, he's not. He's definitely not. I have to not look at most AI friends because of what people

are in very trouble them or talking about. But Eric, he manages, even in a crowded field. Yes. He excels. He does excel. Quite impressive. So that's

That's Eric's AI delusions intensifying, right? And we had Brett's moon landing. It was a suitable polyclinzer, Mark? Yeah, that was a nice little break. So that was a little break before the storm where you're going to embroil me once again, at my own request in Hassan Piker discourse. Now, the thing that motivated this, I think, is that Hassan has received a lot of attention recently because he's he's come to the attention of of a broader I guess progressive segment of the U.S. constituency. What was that way to say? I mean, he's, you know, people are writing articles about him.

People were talking about him. Yeah. I never know what you mean when you say progressive because like to my mind, Hassan was already well known to the progressive waiting in general. It's maybe the broader. Yes, what I mean. Liberals. Okay, liberal.

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