Decoding the Gurus - The Passion of the Jordan and the Wisdom of the Bret

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

Sometimes it's important to check in on old friends, just to make sure they're doing okay. That's the theme for today's episode. We felt it was necessary to pay an unannounced house call to our old pals Bret Weinstein and Jordan Peterson. Rumor had it that Jordan was facing some challenges with his clinical license, while Bret had been brewing up revolutionary evolutionary theories that weren't getting the recognition they deserved.Knowing Jordan's stoic nature and aversion to publicity, we anticipated he'd be reluctant to 'make a fuss.' So, we decided to drop by his podcast to see how he and his daughter, Mikhaila, were handling the news that another Canadian court had determined that the evil College of Psychologists of Ontario does indeed have the authority to reprimand him for rampaging on social media like a deranged badger. We were confident he would be taking it all in his stride, with his usual level of decorum and we were certainly not disappointed.As for Bret, well, let's just say he's cracked the code behind the Chinese evolutionary LINEAGE and its motivation for instigating the one-child policy, with implications that shake the very foundations of our current world order. This is one for the history books and cements Bret's status as a world-class evolutionary thinker. When you start looking through Bret's evolutionary lens, suddenly everything starts to make sense.So come join us to see how these two titans of the Guru-sphere are faring in 2024 and in the process learn exactly which of them is morphing into a Lord of the Rings character.LinksEp. 71 The Tucker Encounter on X: Bret Weinstein travelled to the Darien Gap to understand who's behind the invasion of our country.Jordan B. Peterson Podcast: My Clinical License is as Good as GoneClip of Bret elaborating on his new theory with Neil Oliver on GB NewsArticle on previous complaints the Ontario Board received about Jordan PetersonCBC News article on the Ontario Court judgementArticle by a Canadian Lawyer on the Judgement

Hello and welcome to Decoding the Guru is the podcast where an anthropologist and a psychologist listen to the greatest minds the world has to offer and we try to understand what they're talking about. I'm Matt Brown with me is Chris Cavanaugh and today I am told we have a medium sized decoding not looking at new people we're returning to some of our old favorites just because they've been delivering such beautiful content tell us more chris okay and for anybody who might not know he's a psychologist i'm an anthropologist of sorts i thought you were going to clarify that i was a professor but no you went with the psychologist that's fine no that too he's a full professor.

I'm an associate professor. That's important to clear as well. That's going to annoy that one guy. Yeah, so we cover gurus. We cover new gurus. We cover old gurus. We are doing decoding, but we're still nursing you back slowly. We're building you up to a full decoding.

And this time we've got two classic gurus who have been on the rampage. And I think it is interesting to look at them because documenting the spiral of people is an interesting thing to do. And these are two figures who have absolutely spiraled. I don't think I would ever say they were good paradigms of kind of careful speakers who were making well-researched points, but it is fair to say

that they weren't as overtly insane as they now are and will hear. And that is one Brett Weinstein and one Jordan B. Peterson. Isn't he B. Peterson? Yeah, he is B. one Jordan B. Peterson. Isn't he B. Peterson? Yeah, he is B. Peterson. B. Peterson. They have spiraled, but they never stop delivering amazing content. So I guess there's a silver lining to every cloud. And to us, like if we were a band, Chris,

they would be our Take Me Home, Country Road, and Hotel California. You know, we can trot out the old hits anytime we want. And there's some good content there. But Chris, as you said, this is not just for entertainment purposes. This is serious stuff. We need to monitor what's going on. That's right. So let's deal with the Weinstein brother first.

The main clips that we're going to play are from Brett appearing with Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson is now on X. That's where he's, what's the word, Matt? He's immigrated to. He got fired from Fox and he's relocated on X. So he uploads his little things there. The first clip that I'm going to play is not from his most recent appearance. It's from a slightly older one. So here's the introduction part for that clip. I'll let you hear this first. Humanity is depending on everybody who has a position from which to see what is taking place, to grapple with what it might mean, to describe it so that the public understands where their interests are. It is depending on us to do what needs to be done. If we're to have a chance of delivering a planet to our children and our grandchildren that is worthy of them,

if we're going to deliver a system that allows them to live meaningful, healthy lives, we have to speak up. And I don't know how to get people to do that. I'm very hesitant to urge others to put themselves or their families in danger. And I know that everybody's circumstances are different. Some people are struggling just simply to feed a family and keep a roof over their heads. Those people obviously have a great deal less liberty with respect to standing up and saying what needs to be said. But this is really, it's what we call in game theory, a collective action problem. Right. We don't know what he's referring to there, but Brad is most certainly referring to himself i guess he's carrying the cross he is one of those people who understand what is going on and is the one that

needs to step up he wouldn't want to ask anyone else to carry that cross because it's dangerous out there it's a huge burden it's a heavy burden it's dangerous and the interesting thing with the classical guru figures that we've covered is that it's so overt in a way, like the part that is impressive in a way with Brett is how sincere he sounds about this being a really serious issue that he's fought hard about. You know, he's coming at it with a heavy heart, but he's got truths that the world needs to deal with like it's just it's such an earnest delivery and the stakes are so high it's the future of the planet that's at stake it's our children our grandchildren yeah if we cannot stand up what

will they inherit yeah he's very good at it the tenor of his voice like he never actually blatantly says there i am the one who understands what's going on. I am the one who's speaking out. I'm the one that everyone needs to listen to. And I'm almost Christ-like in bearing this burden because, you know, it's so difficult. But that's the subtext. You know, I think you gave him too much credit

because Brett doesn't deal that much in subtext anymore. I mean, his fans seem to believe that his self-aggrandizement is not at the surface, but it is. He very directly says, I mean, we played a clip of him a couple of episodes ago saying that he is the person, like the Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy, has understood everything, the meaning of life, and the most informed person in the world so like he's not above saying i am one of those people who get everything right like every day on twitter he's running around doing victory laps saying you know when you're as right as i am it's just amazing that you know more people don't pay attention to you so yeah i get it i get it i

think in little periods like this where he's going you know, he's talking in weighty tones about the future of humanity and making a better world for our children and our children's children and our children's children, children. I can see how that works on less cynical people. Right? It does. And I think actually, this clip that we just played is the thing which people like to invoke as showing that he is humble and sincere and a good guy. And then he can go on to say stuff like this. So I call the force that we're up against Goliath, just so I remember what the battle is. Goliath made a terrible mistake, and it made it most egregiously during COVID, which is it took all of the competent people, took all of the courageous people, and it shoved them out of the institutions where they were hanging on. and it created, in so doing, the dream team.

Created every player you could possibly want on your team to fight some historic battle against a terrible evil. All of those people are now at least somewhat awake. They've now been picked on by the same enemy. And yeah, all right, we're outgunned. It has a tremendous amount of power, but we've got all of the people who know how to think. So I hate to say it, or maybe I like to say it, but I don't think it's a slam dunk, but I like our odds.

I've never met a more fluent biologist. Brave words there. Yeah. Brave words from a brave man. It's saying that, you know, just in case you didn't pick up on the subtle message that him and his friends no longer the idw because they were not brave enough his new anti-vax colleagues are the most insightful bravest smartest people in particular

anybody that has disgraced themselves or lost a job or whatever, because of their polemical anti-vax rhetoric or whatever. These are the absolute dream team of intellectuals. So, you know, he's talking about people like Steve Kirsch, like Robert Malone. Yeah, Peter McCulloch. Yeah, or Del Bigtree. All these very, very well established anti-vax loons. And they are loons. You know, Joe Rogan would be also here, Pierre Corey, all these kind of people who have repeatedly shown themselves to be incredibly credulous, absolutely incapable of looking at things critically but brett regards them as the dream team you know tucker carson is included there right and again this stakes could not be

higher it's a terrible evil it's a historic battle it's good against bad it's black against white the dark against the light yeah david and goliath and And David does beat Goliath in a feat of extraordinary courage and skill. So it's epic, yeah? It's an epic story in which he places himself. I mean, it is good rhetoric. I know it just seems so blatant if you're familiar with him like we are. But he stops short of saying, I am the one, you know, follow me. I can see further.

Like, personally, he's careful to describe it as a small group, of which he is most definitely a part of. But he does little things like that to make it just less, obviously, self-aggrandizing. Well, constantly presenting himself as the underdog, you know. We're outgunned. There's a tremendous amount of power. But, you know, like the plucky rebel alliance is the image that he likes to conjure up.

You know, while he's talking to somebody who has a huge audience and platform because for, I guess, over a decade was one of the highest paid, most influential pundits on Fox News, a polemical right-wing outlet. But it doesn't matter, you know, like there's no amount of attention that will satisfy people like Brett or Tucker. They can be sitting with the richest man in the world, one of the highest paid media pundits, with these people being given, you know, time and attention from right wing politicians. And they'll all be sitting around saying how terrible the elites are. You know, the institutions are really to blame, ignoring that they are in a media ecosystem, which pumps them up and promotes them and all these things. But it does feel incredibly transparent to me. You know, this digs the grommeter on creating this kind of epic story of you and the other people that support you as freedom fighters that are important to the world.

But also just to note that often happens in these communities. It actually also famously happens in left-wing activism spaces as well. Because Brett invoked a dream team and appeared to be insinuating that he is amongst them right and obviously the people that he likes a bunch of conspiracy more hardcore anti-vaccine people were annoyed at this because they were like you're Johnny come lately you weren't properly scared at the vaccines at the start and you know you're not dismissive enough of vaccines now so you're not the dream team you're just uh what's the word like Johnny come lately yeah these these extremist and conspiratorially minded groups are famously fractious and it's been a little bit fun to see Brett dealing with the little world

that he's made for himself, dealing with conspiracy theorists and crackpots who are his audience now, many of whom are crazier than him. For instance, believe that it's all a plot from the Jews specifically, or that COVID was not actually a disease. It didn't actually exist at all. The apparent disease was caused by persistent inflammation from maybe chemicals being sprayed by the government or something like these are the people that he's now engaging with on social media and i derive a small amount of joy from that forgive me for doing so though i don't think it really seems to impact him because you know i mean it impacts him because he complains about it but in all cases he's just constantly presenting himself as

you know that he was more ahead of the curve that people realize so it's it is funny to see because he essentially like brett weinstein is a huge anti-vaxxer now massive it's very transparent so if he's not anti-vaccine enough for you you are you know, at the insane wings. But for Brett to derive credit from there, he has to say, I'm more anti-vaxxing than you ever imagined. Like, if you look carefully, I was hugely anti-vaxxing, you know, way back when. But you know, they don't say that because none of them are anti-vaxxing. But he will point out things that he said, which can be interpreted as stronger or whatever. But that's the point is that a lot of his followers back at that stage would have been arguing the ambiguity that he inserted

was because he's not anti-vaccine, right? So like now, if you were somebody that cared about consistency and you had spent a bunch of time like defending Brett saying, you know, that he isn't somebody who was, you know, that far gone. He is now saying, I was, I was much more anti-vaxxing than anybody appreciates. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter to the people that follow him. It's good news, basically, because they're along for the ride. He's led a bunch of people down the same rabbit hole with him. So any audience

members that he's lost by being hugely anti-vaccine, he has replaced with more hardcore conspiratorial types. He's up at Alex Jones level. Although I noticed that his Patreon numbers, maybe an index of his popularity have been waning. Yes, there's a slow decrease, but you have to consider that they have a whole bunch of other revenue sources like Brett. Every episode has about four or five advertisers. Oh, yeah. I'm not talking about, you know, he's poor now or anything. I'm just saying it's an index that there was a peak of anti-vax, conspiracism, paranoia, et cetera, around COVID, understandably. That time has passed, and it's now returning back to baseline levels.

Maybe. I don't know, because, like, John Campbell seems to be going from strength to strength. I don't know. Maybe there's a specific analysis you could do. I would imagine there is a I don't know, maybe there's a specific analysis you could do. I would imagine there is a peak, you know, when Brett was presenting about being demonetized on YouTube and all that, he did get a big burst of support. But I think now there's a high ceiling when it

comes to support from conspiracists and anti-vaxxers, because I think that community got a real shot in the arm, if you will, from the COVID pandemic. So, you know, RFK Jr., I'm sure is riding high on donations. He's not going to get elected or anything like that, but he's definitely more relevant now than he's ever been in the past decade or whatever. So I just saying i think you're optimistic if you view it that their influence will wane it may do i would hope so maybe so all right so play us another clip let's find out where he was going after this this epic setup so that was a while ago and he had a more recent appearance on tucker um where he forwarded a new revolutionary theory he's developed. I don't know if he developed it just in that moment, or, you know, it's been swirling around, but it's quite

impressive. He went to the border to kind of do an investigation for Tucker. That is the southern border of the United States, the border with Mexico. Yeah. You need Brett Weinstein to go and work out, you know, what's going on with the migrant situation there. Obviously, he's going on with the migrant situation there. Obviously, he's the man for the job. So let's hear some of the thoughts that he had. And some of this is related to basically him seeing different groups of immigrants and how they reacted to him. Like if they were friendly, and they wanted to talk to him, or they were willing to talk to him, you know, he was kind of like positive about them. But in the case of Chinese immigrants, they didn't seem interested in talking to him. And this raised Brett's

suspicion. So he developed some interesting theories out of these experiences. I wrote an essay years ago about the one-child policy and the paradox of a heavy bias in favor of males. No matter how different males and females are in their maximum reproductive capacity, they tend to default to one-to-one. If you have a society that has too many females, you should produce a male. And if you have a society with too many males,

you should produce a female, which tends to balance these things out. That logic should have applied to China. The fact is there were lots of excess males. And if you put yourself in the mindset of a Chinese person having a child, if there are too many males, you should want to produce a female. A male is very unlikely to find a mate. A female is certain to find one. And what's more, she has her pick of the litter yes so that logic should have caused the sex ratio to return to 50 50 and yet it did not which caused

me all those years ago when i wrote this piece to wonder if there wasn't another evolutionary force in play if evolution did not have a mechanism for producing armies, that when a country was in a position to expand, that producing excess males does pay off at a lineage level. That excess males who have no reproductive prospects at home become an effective weapon against neighboring populations. So I can't believe that that did not occur to me as I was preparing for this trip, but it has occurred to me now. I guess it didn't occur to me because when I wrote that all those years ago, I was expecting to see evidence that this was turning into a military force and I didn't see it. So I stopped thinking about it. But now I wonder if that isn't exactly right.

And if what happened is that a male-biased population in China was produced as a weapon, and if that weapon is now being deployed. That's remarkable. That is remarkable. We're going to have to resist the temptation to just respond in three words here, Chris, because that's my immediate inclination. But let's, as an exercise, let's follow through his logic there. His logic. Yeah. So in Brett's world, there are lineages, right?

So the Chinese are a lineage, and a lineage sort of has interests, some sort of group selection thing. A lineage sort of has interests, some sort of group selection thing. And evolutionary biology can explain things like China's one-child policy or in other parts of the world at different times at different places. Often, you know, there is a fair bit of misogyny. There is a fair bit of patriarchy. And for various reasons, people in different cultures at different times have preferred to have a boy. The boy can provide for the parents and yada, yada, yada. preferred to have a boy. The boy can provide for the parents and yada, yada, yada. So when China introduced its one-child policy because the Chinese Communist Party was concerned about overpopulation, the effect, especially in the countryside, led to somewhat of a preponderance

of boys being around, but not because women were biologically just having more boys, right? There is no way that could possibly happen rather just through various mechanisms whether or not there was some sort of abortions or even abandoning children or not looking after them as well as they could be and if they're a girl there's probably a variety of unpleasant things there has led to a small a relatively small i mean in statistical terms what was the number we're just looking at a graph there what did it peak at it peaked at 117 in around 2005 to 100 117 boys to 100 girls and and it's now 111 this is according to our world in data there's different measurements right there's a whole bunch but the one that we saw which which seems pretty reliable and and good is this one which and the rate now is down to 111.8 yeah and

if you want to be specific and the baseline by the way is about 105 for various reasons we don't need to get into biological reasons it's not as wrong when he says it's always one for one yeah right like first of all it isn't but you know close to yeah the general point that he was alluding to is that because sexual reproduction is an inherently symmetrical exercise that in general theoretically you're going to expect to see a one-to-one ratio but where he goes really bonkers is thinking that this is a strategy. This is a lineage level strategy deployed by Chinese people at like as a gestalt or something like that to sort of deliberately as a lineage to have more boys so that they can create an army. And first of all, this doesn't

actually create more boys, right? All it does, it actually reduces the number of girls. But anyway, that aside. So Bretttt has as we've covered many times he has a hyper adaptionist perspective but even doing that is slightly unfair to bad evolutionary biologists like brett's form of evolutionary biology is just purely in his head like he he recognizes something that exists and if it exists in the world, it is essentially an adaptation if he thinks it is. It sounds like I'm kind of straw manning his process, but that is literally it. And if there's something that he doesn't like that he sees in the world, then it's like

kind of counter to adaptive processes or whatever, or maybe it is a negative lineage thing like in this case so the whole point is everything that Brett sees in the world he talks about seeing things through an evolutionary lens but it essentially just means that he can make up endless amount of just so stories we saw before that he talked about post-mortem ejaculation, which again is also not a thing, but he talked about it being like a last ditch adaptation for, you know, males who are being executed to like potentially spread their seed. It's just, it's so, so stupid,

but he seriously suggested it. And here he is suggesting like another extremely silly thing because, okay, the Chinese one-child policy is something that emerged because something in the environment signaled to the Chinese lineage, which again, let's not really think about what a lineage is. Let's just assume that he's right,

that the lineage picked up that the environment requires, you know, like an ant colony. It needs to defend, so it's got to produce more warrior caste people, more males. So through whatever, again, the mechanisms are fuzzy. It led to the Chinese Communist Party instigating a policy that restricted the number of children. Now, you might think, Matt, there one logical thing would, wouldn't they want to increase the amount of meals? So like, yeah, wouldn't they want more children, not just one? Yeah, sure. You could be meal biased, right? But then why did they restrict it to one if they need a big army to envy it? But you know, there's complex interactions.

Maybe it's that their lineage worked out that the environment could only handle a certain carrying capacity. So, yeah, so through an evolutionary mechanism, perhaps influencing the minds of Chinese people and the ones that got into power expressed this instinct that they need to instantiate a one-child policy. You know, it could have been a whole bunch of different ways

that they did it. This is the way that they did it. And now they have built up a male army. And that army has been sent by the lineage through the Communist Party, or maybe not, maybe through some gestalt understanding, to Mexico. Is that right to in order to cross the border into the united states presumably they're just sending them everywhere you know china is forging alliances across africa and so on as well and it's establishing but that they're an army like they're warriors right they're not just men

so they're going overseas in order to, I assume, do some kind of fifth column or stage some sort of insurrection, a Chinese insurrection in the United States or something. I'm just following the logic here. Let's let him detail a bit more so that you can follow where he's going with this. So, you know, we've established

that the Chinese are attempting to send an army, which the lineage have created, to the US, simply by the southern border with Mexico. Why are they doing that? You know, because they're not doing direct conquest. That would be too obvious. The lineage knows that. So what's up? People who get more than three of these shots have an interesting effect that none of us saw coming, which is the triggering of something called IgG4. The fact that these shots seem to trigger the production of IgG4 is fascinating. It could just be an unexpected consequence that nobody saw coming. But if you think about what it is that the folks who try to produce biological weapons want, they want a weapon that separates populations. The message that was injected into so many people

was like a firmware update. It was a firmware update that caused the immune systems of those people to take up a new way of viewing the world. And that new way of viewing the world seems to have produced this attenuation signal uh in response to the antigen the spike protein antigen so am I seeing a Mirage let's hope so so just to try to flesh out or put in non specialist terms what you may be suggesting it's plausible that this was all an effort to make one population effectively immune from some new bioweapon and another population susceptible to it is that what you're saying that is what I'm saying and again all it is is possible I don't know who's

who on this playing field and I don't know what they want, but to the extent that there seemed to be an absolute obsession with injecting absolutely everybody with these so-called vaccines, that was conspicuous. That did not seem like just greed and a desire to sell more shots. I agree completely. just greed and a desire to sell more shots. I agree completely. He's seeing evidence through this IgG4 thing or whatever that the vaccines actually, in some populations, maybe European ones, Caucasian populations, actually reduces their resistance to viruses like COVID and actually divides people or it's a firmware update or something.

I didn't quite understand that. The general thing is there's like a new anti-vax thing which is igg for antibodies claiming to be a high following vaccination right mrna vaccination and brett and others are saying that because this has happened and the vaccines have been administered you you know, in the US and mRNA vaccines have not been administered across China that we have potentially not only not vaccinated against COVID, but we've weakened the immune system of everybody who's been vaccinated. And it's worse for the people who have been repeatedly vaccinated.

Right. So he doesn't know who's behind this, but it seems to be something that's operating in the interests of China. And it's related to their sending an army to the United States because Chinese people, for interesting reasons, haven't had access to the same mRNA Western developed vaccines. China wanted to develop a domestic vaccine, which they, by the way, claim to have done

and are in the process of starting to roll out. But they didn't administer all the same vaccines that were across the Western world. So isn't that suspicious what's going on there? And Brett isn't saying that it's true. Isn't that suspicious? What's going on there? And Brett isn't saying that it's true. He's just raising the possibility of have we, at the same time that the Chinese lineage has been busy creating this super army of males, the next step seems to be that we, you know, is it through the Chinese creating COVID or whatever the case might be?

We have, you you know badly weakened our populations and they have not yeah so he doesn't i mean he's not saying that's true he's just saying yeah what if that's true yeah i particularly appreciated his um coming to the conclusion that mere profiteering giving these dangerous and unnecessary vaccinations just purely in order to for the you know rich companies biotech companies whatever to to make money that is an insufficient explanation for the rampant vaccination that's been going on globally there could be something more to it it's like connected to the chinese interesting interesting stuff yeah so you know as as tucker says this is the Simpsons line, huge if true.

Yes. Well, let's get to the last bit of the plot. Doubtless you have seen Senator Dick Gerber of Illinois' comments in the Senate where he said, hey, we should let people who came here illegally join the US military. What does that make you think well this makes me think back to the covet crisis and some thoughts that i was developing then about the insanity of throwing highly trained people in many cases out of the u.s military for refusing to take the so-called vaccines. Now, my sense at the time was that that likely had the purpose of getting rid of the kinds of people who refuse moral orders, and that it created a much more compliant force. compliant force. Now what happens if migrants are given citizenship in exchange for military service in the U.S. military? That seems to create a major hazard because the perverse incentives for a

migrant and the lack of allegiance to fundamental American values means that that would be just the kind of force that could be used to impose tyranny on other Americans because they would have, you know, no history with us that would cause them to think twice. We've seen this before with the Roman legions. That's exactly my conclusion. Does that sound like a crazy conclusion uh i think we have to stop punishing ourselves for considering things that once seemed crazy with the pattern of recent history i'm sorry i want to repeat that i think we have to stop punishing ourselves for considering things that one seems crazy. It's good that Brett and Tucker have each other to keep themselves in check, right? Because if they were conspiracy-prone fantasists with right-wing tendencies, they might end up agreeing on things that are unlikely to be true. But fortunately, they don't have that problem.

They're both part of the dream team team the sharpest minds that we have i feel like tucker like tucker is an absolute grifter an opportunist who i don't think believes three quarters of what he says he's an absolute shit but he's a cynic and a profiteer and when i hear him giggling like that i feel like there's a part of him that knows what that sounds like i think there is but i think he is also as his emails about trump revealed like he's absolutely cynical he's no problem completely lying about things that he knows aren't true no of course there's no dichotomy there it's no like oh tuck is a has perfectly normal opinions and he's just pretending no after he left fox right he's been unleashed to a certain extent.

And it's just shown that when he isn't under editorial control. There is nothing to which he will not stoop. That is absolutely for sure. But, Chris, the logic here is great. So it's very concerning that there is some kind of consideration for the idea that undocumented residents of the United States could join the US military and after putting in however many years of military service, that might earn them a path to citizenship. That's very concerning because it forms part of a pattern whereby people from the military who are good, honest, native-born Americans

could be expelled from the military for reviews and the vaccination they're obviously the good ones the ones that have a moral center and can think for themselves and they're being replaced with a more compliant foreign a fifth column yeah it's amazing how much brett is able to link everything back to covid and vaccines and and stuff right like i mean we saw this with the 7th of october attacks by hamas that he linked the subsequent discord in anti-vax communities because of that conflict to like a plot i think he identified so it was an israeli intelligence failure right they did not see it coming and they which is impossible which could have been possible so that was an indicate and also israel had vaccinated its population they've put these two things together and you see that the israeli government is actually in the pocket of goliath to exterminate the israeli people yeah

yeah and that you know for brett the most salient thing is that it's causing him trouble in his little dream team communities so that therefore has to be the the point of the pot right like it all revolves around him and his friends and this thing and in this case he's been sent to work out immigration crisis what's going on there and he saw some chinese people that didn't want to talk to him. And this is what has resulted, right? He's forged an incredible evolutionary theory about the one child policy. And now he's linked that to his anti-vaccine theories

to say that the Chinese and presumably other lineages, which are, you know, doing similar sorts of things, like they are sending in little drones that are then being encouraged by the democrats or the agents of goliath one in the same really to join the military and they are compliant because they want to get citizenship and stuff like that and the brave the dream team of soldiers they got kicked out for refusing to go along with the totalitarian orders about vaccines. So now you have this terrifying situation where you have the only the compliant soldiers remaining and an ever increasing fifth column of immigrants from different lineages that are infecting the US military. So they will not be hesitant to take on totalitarian orders.

Now, one step further from that might be to consider if you had a populist right-wing leader who had shown authoritarian tendencies and a desire not to give up power, that you might add that, right, this conspiracy, that if we have made this supplicant army, you know, that would be a dangerous force. But like for Tucker and Brett, you know, they want Trump. Or Trump is the, he's a, you know, a relative goodie compared to the bad guys, even if they don't like him personally.

So it's not that. This is the army for China, Biden, Kamala Harris. According to Brett, Biden should already be dead. I believe he was supposed to die shortly after his inauguration, but certainly within his first term. He's not supposed to have seen that through. That's right. It was meant to just be a facade through which Kamala Harris could segue

to the presidency. But the sign must not have worked or something. Well, it seems that Biden is too robust. He won't die. Or alternatively, they've just jettisoned that. And now they're like, actually, it's better because he can be, you know, the puppet that takes the blame while Kamala Harris and the other agents of Goliath are the actual power. But, you know chris i mean i haven't thought about brett that much for a long time but are you like me like

almost impressed like his ability to make these disparate connections between his pet things evolutionary biology crazy mad evolutionary psychology and anti-vaxxed and the kind of conspiratorial wef goliath thing he connects it all together yeah in a way that is well you know it is impressive it's impressive he goes like he constantly outdoes himself in how far right and insane his conspiracies are right like this is really this is wild by infowars what i'm saying is alex jones doesn't have the imagination to craft these things the difference with alex jones is that i mean alex jones does but he just you know he just he just says it in a very gravelly, ranty way and frozen whatever. But the thing with Brett is he's saying absolute ludicrous things

and they're batshit. They rest on a complete lack of understanding of evolution, of politics, of everything. Like he knows less than nothing. He knows less than nothing. But the way he delivers it. Yes. Unlike Alex Jones, who at least conforms in most respects to the stereotypical presentation of an insane, you know, conspiracy theorist.

He's ranting and getting animated and all that kind of thing. Brett is at the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of delivery. He's very considered. He's almost saddened by the news that he has to delivered yeah he doesn't want to talk about these ideas but he can't stay silent because him and his wife they're the kind of people that stand up when bad things happen yeah but he's his conspiracy is just the same as alex jones conspiracy and people have noticed this some people in the heterodox sphere particularly those that stood against his anti-vaccine stance have noticed this but i do

think that still there is a surprising amount that take eric and brett at least somewhat seriously yeah treat them as people that we should listen to their opinions about you know what's going on in palestine and israel or this kind of thing and like this should illustrate at very least in the case of brett that there's absolutely no reason to listen to him on anything if this is the quality of his thought it should draw on the question any respect you have for him because he's referencing the areas that he claims expertise and to justify this position and also this will be forgotten this is just you know Tuesday he doesn't need to return to this he might reference it sometimes but he he just it's throwing out

conspiracies like this constantly these days so yeah yeah he's he's a maniac a soft-spoken maniac and the soft-spoken sciencey tone of delivery seems to throw off a whole bunch of people yeah admittedly it's mostly morons now but you know not entirely yeah yeah i mean it is it is not different from what he was doing previously when we've covered him, but it is, I guess, the discrepancy between the lunatic ideas that are there and the tone, the delivery, which he's maintained and probably improved upon. You know, casually referring to the IgG4 synthesis and so on, as if he's one of the people whose minds are totally wrapped around this thing. It's all designed to create that impression that this is a scientist, this is an intellectual, this is a careful and considered person. And yeah, it's an amazing trick. I'm a little bit in awe of this because he's, him and people like him, you know, there's

a few others in our guru pantheon, but they've done what someone like Alex Jones can't, which is to put that veneer on utter batshit crazy so uh yeah thanks for thanks for bringing it to our attention chris are there any more clips from brett or are we done no that's it for brett but just to mention as well matt that you know he's managed to appear on tucker. And he previously appeared with Michael Shermer and said that, you know, no immunologist would be able to explain these problems he had about, you know, basic COVID vaccines stuff. And debunk the funk, Dan Wilson got four experts together to deliver detailed rebuttals, which he asked for specifically. And he hasn't produced any response

to that. They highlighted how he was absolutely wrong in everything that he said, that experts have addressed these issues multiple times. And Brett has completely ignored that because he's busy doing shit like this, right? So like you say, like referencing the IgG4 is just like somebody referencing Fimerosal. He's just picked it up from Ant-vax twitter and whatever and yeah

but it is a good pantomime he's good at pantomime in and he sells it to his audience one final thing before we leave brett just want to shout out the bad stats i don't know about you chris but certainly his twitter thread on brett weinstein and this content was the first time that i became aware of it um so

thank you bad stats for gracefully letting us steal your content yes that is true so as always thank you to mr bad stats but now that's one of the old classics returned to and it's always nice to see an old friend another old friend someone that we have covered multiple times and crops up now and again with his takes is one Jordan Peterson. Now, as we've covered, Jordan Peterson has over time spiraled as well. He always was narcissistic, grandiose, and prone to flights of interpretive fancy, but he's become increasingly polemical, increasingly unhinged, more overtly partisan, so on and so forth. And, you know, we've covered some of the speeches he gave. Remember when

he came back and once upon a time he was saying he doesn't know enough about the vaccines to comment, but he's certainly beyond that now. So one thing that's happened to him recently is that the licensing board for his clinical psychology qualification received complaints about his conduct. And this was mainly his conduct on social media, on Twitter, but also on podcast appearances and whatnot. And various people complained. complained, and then the licensing body agreed that there appeared to be a case for his social media activity to not be befitting that of one of their members. So they gave him a slap on the wrist. Of course, he appealed their judgment and all that kind of thing. But basically, they said,

you need to go to a training course about how to use social media responsibly. So Jordan Peterson promptly took them to court, claiming that they don't have the right to send them to a training course. It's against his free speech. A court confirmed that they do have the right as a licensing body. So Jordan Peterson appealed that, and his appeal was rejected on similar grounds grounds so he's now twice lost at court saying that they don't have the right to discipline him in this way because it's infringing his political speech and so now he made a podcast talking to Michaela about this judgment this recent you know failure to successfully appeal that the licensing body doesn't have the right to send them on this course. So it's basically, if he wants to keep his license, he has to do a use

social media responsibly course. And this is him talking about that situation. Okay. So here's the framing of that. You asked me how I'm doing. It's like, this didn't really come as a surprise. So I'd already prepared for it. And as you and I spoke about last night, and I've talked over with Tammy too, and with Julian, my son, for, you know, to some degree,

we're going to see what good we can make arise from this. arise from this and if this is my opportunity to further expose the machinations of the radical left narcissistic resentful woke mob then bring it on boys we saw what happened to claudine gay we saw what happened to the president of upenn if the good people at the ontario college of psychologists think they're immune from such things, they have another thing coming. Okay, so that's Jordan throwing down. Bring it on. As usual, just one point I'd note here

is that they often reference, you know, they've checked with the people they trust, their family, and their family have said, all right, you do what you got to do, right? It's like the same thing as when Brett says, I checked with Heller and Eric and they both confirmed or whatever. Like they've got this network of people.

In many respects, it's a reasonable thing for someone to say, I'm going to do something that is disruptive of my family's life or whatever. So I'm going to check in with them. But it always strikes me that like when Jordan Peterson or Brett or whatever talk about the,

you know, the way that they check themselves, they're checking with people that are hugely biased towards them and invested in seeing things from their perspective, right? It's always like their wife and family members or people that are very ideologically predisposed to agree with them. So yeah, anyway, they agreed that he should do what he wants to do so he's going to do what he wants to do and you know if they didn't think they're in for a fight they have another thing coming yeah like jordan hasn't actually as far as anyone knows hasn't undertaken any clinical counseling for many years am i wrong no i, he was in a coma, unable to even podcast for a year. I mean, he wasn't in a coma for a year, but he was recovering. Yeah. I guess my point here is

that he quit his academic job. He no longer does clinical counselling, hasn't done for a very long time. He's a full-time author, pundit, entrepreneur, maker of videos, etc., public figure. This court case, everything is fundamentally fundamentally it's like a culture war thing right it's like a media kerfuffle that if i was in his shoes and i was totally focused on what generates more attention and more drama etc how can i project myself into the role of the a little bit like brett there david fighting goliath then you know this is a nice little opportunity he's never one to turn down the chance to crusade so this is jordan jumping on a new crusade and whether you're a fan or a critic this is something that he does he goes on tirades and these kind of crusades which he

regards as being because he's a very principled person. And, you know, if he won't stand up for things, bloody hell, who will, Matt? So you mentioned that, you know, it's not really a huge threat for him to have his license removed. And he does make that point. You know, and maybe I'm wrong. I'm not wrong about the damn tweets. You know, I might be wrong

about how this is going to unfold. But even there, the worst thing they can do to me is take my license. license now they're definitely planning to do that because the rule is i have to be educated by people of their choice at my expense for whatever length of time they deem suitable until by their standards i've learned whatever the hell lesson i'm supposed to learn and i can't even imagine what that lesson would be it's like what don't tweet don't speak don't think don't tell my clients the truth so I don't know how to learn that lesson I don't know

how they're going to measure whether or not I've learned it I don't know who they're going to get to measure it I have no idea who they're going to get to teach me I guess we're going to find out I would like to find out I'm very curious about that person. And so I'm set up for failure. And, you know, my detractors will say, well, Dr. Peterson, you set yourself up for failure. You know, whatever. But I don't think I've set myself up for failure. I wouldn't say the evidence so far suggests that I have.

There's quite a lot there. The bit at the start where he mentions that the worst thing is them possibly taking his license and how that's not really bad anyway. And then he, Matt, they're going to put him on this training course and who knows when that can end or what it will entail. And then he lets his imagination run wild where it's like, what are they going to say? Don't speak? Don't say anything? Don't talk? And like, no, Jordan, they're going to tell you to stop tweeting like a demented Muppet. They're going to tell you if you want to be, you know, a licensed psychologist, you can't just be running rampant, unleashing your id all over the internet that's what they're gonna tell you it's a very straightforward like

it would be an absolutely bog standard thing but he seems to genuinely work himself up into this tizzy that he's going to be like you know clockwork orange have his eyes taped open for who knows five years in a fucking canadian siberian yeah style prison like a re-education camp yeah yeah because he does tweet madly regardless of what you think of jordan peterson he does tweet in a pretty demented way and you know i can understand that even a a board that probably doesn't want anything to do with this there are very strong free speech protections in north america and like you said it would be some sort of just by the numbers little thing look please, please, please don't call someone a whatever, a raging fat hag or something like that.

That isn't appropriate for a thing. And then he does that little voice, which is. Oh, yeah, that was. He was imagining some hypothetical critic. Detractor. Yeah, detractor. But the words that he was putting into the detractor's voice there was not something that ever occurred to me. That's just stuff that would occur to jordan right well no the one about you know that these you've set yourself

up for failure right i mean he is doing that i would say that i mean i would probably wouldn't use that tone of voice but like he is setting it up so that he cannot do the training course he could have just went because he's like you know know, who knows how long it could be. I can tell him it could probably be a maximum like eight weeks or, you know, a couple of months. Training courses don't tend to last indefinitely when they're a kind of punishment thing, right? So yeah, it would be a set amount of time and it would be extremely boring probably but you know so by him setting it up that it's this big thing and that he's going to rage against it and that he's

going to fight it at every step of the way he is essentially making it so it's almost impossible for him to comply with some bog standard training course because he's going to make it into a huge deal no matter what it is oh yeah of course it's clearly like a rehash of the original thing that helped propel him to fame where he took his principled stand against what was it c16 c16 yeah and whether he's right or wrong like whatever you think of that issue, he was definitely beating it up in order to make it a drama with him at the center of it. This seems to be now his modus operandi. Yes, let's hear him go on a little bit more about potential consequences that could happen from losing his license. Now, what's the consequence of me losing my license? Well, it's annoying, you know, because those are hard licenses to get. And I worked very hard to earn and deserve that license and to

maintain it. And also very hard at being a good therapist, which I was. There were no complaints taken about against me by anyone until I became known in the public sphere, you know. So that's a good thing to consider. And I'm not that happy about the prospect of the woke Beatles that you described having their way with my professional credentials. It annoys me deeply. Now, on the other hand, I'm not dependent on that license anymore. I have other tricks up my sleeve, so to speak, anyways. And at some point, I'm going to determine that being a member of their pathetic, little, incestuous, ideologically addled, resentment-ridden, bureaucratic, pea-brained, micro-souled club is not worth the effort.

And I suppose we're probably there already, but I have something to do publicly, you know, in my delusion. So I guess he's acknowledging that they're probably, he's probably going to lose this fight against Goliath, but you know, he doesn't care. He says, tricks up his sleeve. What he means is very large, significant sources of income such that it really doesn't matter very much whether he practices or not yeah though it does strike me as a something of an internal battle that you can hear like bits of it flashing up there because at the start you know he's like one of these things that jordan likes to do is pose himself hypothetical questions and

then answer them himself right and he's like so what are the consequences well it's annoying you know and then he's saying these licenses are hard and i worked hard to get it and i'm a good i was a good therapist and blah blah blah and that annoys me then though it kind of shifts to and then anyway i've got a lot of tricks and do i want to be a member of your little pathetic incestuous ideologically adult bureaucratic pratic, pea-brained, micro-soul club? Like, this is him into the Jordan Peterson, the polemicist, you know, the pundit character. This would be an example. variety, and your licensing board was taking disciplinary action against you, and you went on a public broadcast and referred to the members of the board as pathetic, incestuous,

ideologically addled, resentment-ridden, bureaucratic, peabrain, micro-souled individuals. That wouldn't show that you are a particularly responsible member of the community, right? Or that you're concerned about revealing a good standing. Like he isn't. And this is the kind of thing that he does all the time, even worse on Twitter. I can remember him talking about his own university who didn't fire him and treated him pretty well, I thought. But he described it in like the worst possible terms like constantly attacking it you know using the same kind of language almost wanting them to do something to yeah to sort of

justify this but like i have a lot of discussions with people online chris about you know sort of free speech and stuff like that and there will be people who feel very strongly about free speech and i can understand why they do it's it's an important thing who would be sort of on jordan peterson's side saying some professional organisation shouldn't be monitoring your tweets and things like that and telling you what you can say and what you can't say. And I have some sympathy for that point of view.

Like I don't want my vice-chancellor checking my tweets and then sending me an email if he thinks that I'm giving incorrect opinions or something, right? Yeah. I agree with that, right? But at some point it becomes a bit mad, doesn't it, where you have some kind of professional organisation or a social group or a parents and teachers organisation

or you've got a job with a company or a university and you're spending all your time just saying what pathetic little shits they are and how you hate them and you want nothing to do with them, but they can't do anything to you. You know get all your rights protected and yeah jordan had in his twitter bio you know he's a clinical psychologist and i'm sure that he will you know continue he'll probably put some you know renegade clinical or something right like disgraced clinical psychologist or whatever he'll do but he very much markets himself on the

credential of being an expert, of being, you know, this respected, not just a polemical pundit. He's a psychologist and he's a good psychologist, goddammit. These gurus, and Jordan's not the only one, they lean so heavily on their academic professional credentials, which are given by institutions, but then describe those same institutions as being absolutely bereft of any kind of goodness or validity. They're the most evil things in the world. And that's a paradox, right? That is a paradox. I agree. But it's also that Jordan wants those credentials, but he doesn't want any of the usual restrictions that would come in regards to your conduct that might apply. your opinion on unrelated issues or whatnot. And various people could argue that the things that Jordan's being penalized for, they're not directly related to his clinical practice or what business is it of the institution, but they're kind of a symptom of the way that he's acting. And most psychiatrists or psychologists or whatever that become famous, like Dr. Phil or whatever,

they do end up giving up their license because they don't want to abide by the restrictions of that discipline, right? And Peterson doesn't want to do the restrictions. And if you, Matt, if your, you know, vice chancellor or whatever was like complaining about your tweets, but then he went on Twitter and said, what a fucking pea brain, what a micro-souled idiot he is, right? Somebody would say, well, hold on, Matt. That's not professional behavior. Even if you're right, you can't just insult all the other people in your institution constantly or that kind of thing, right?

It's unprofessional. Now, you can do it and you can face consequences for it and you can battle against them or that kind of thing right it's unprofessional now you can do it and you can face consequences for it and you can battle against them or that kind of thing but it's very normal that there would be consequences yeah for being unhinged in the way jordan peterson is yeah it's a very nuanced thing because i'm completely i completely agree chris that jordan peterson and people like that are totally gaming the system and frankly deserve everything they get if they get anything. Jordan hasn't actually experienced any negative consequences yet. But at the same time, I'll just mention that, you know, in places like Australia, you do have academics who are fired for things like talking publicly about exam standards, for instance, saying that we're sort of waving students through who are full fee paying and so on and challenging the university on that so so there is i think

genuine free speech issues there's an issue there yeah and it's just jordan is on the wrong side of it but i'm i'm not saying no just to be clear if i was the one like on the licensing body I wouldn't penalize Jordan for the particular tweets that he got highlighted for the one about the model on the sports illustrated and some joke where he you know he said that somebody should kill themselves on Twitter because it was obviously a sarcastic comment right it is akin to the fucking Twitter but you know say no we detected that you said something positive about vaccines when you're being sarcastic or that kind of thing. So my argument isn't that in this specific case, all of the objections are completely valid, but it's more

that those are symptoms of his unhinged conduct online. And it's why the licensing board has taken a mild disciplinary procedure and all that would have happened is that he would have took a course and he probably wouldn't have stopped and it would have happened again at some time but like he can't handle that so my argument is that Jordan's behavior is not befitting of like a responsible clinical psychologist it's not it's befitting of like a responsible clinical psychologist. It's not. It's befitting of a right-wing polemical pundit. And that's what he is. And that's what he does. But he wants to lean on the credential of being a clinical psychologist. And he isn't a clinical psychologist anymore. He doesn't have a practice. He doesn't have any patients. And actually, he was previously

penalized when he got famous for abandoning his patients. He mentions there that he was never in any trouble before he got famous. But when he got famous, his patients did complain that he was no longer available and wasn't treating them. And the licensing body agreed, right? And he got a little slap on the wrist then as well. So he's not a clinical psychologist with a practice anymore. He's never going to be that again, but he just wants the credential and the

credibility and he doesn't get everything he wants. He's a millionaire polemical pundit for the daily wire. That's his job now. So he can still say he's basing it all on this psychological insights from his years of practice or whatever but he the ontario clinician of clinical psychologists or whatever it's called they don't have to be associated with his opinions which is why they're taking this issue right like they they don't want to deal with we are signing off on his opinions because they clearly don't it's like it's a matter of having your cake and eating it too. He's moved on. He's much bigger.

Like you said, his full-time job is being a political polemicist. It's not being a clinical psychologist. A lot of what he does as a really hardcore political polemicist is inconsistent with that of being a nice, normal clinical psychologist. And, you know, that should be fine. You should understand that and just move on so if i was on that board i wouldn't have a concern with his political views or things like that specifically right it's just what i'd have a concern with is this he's got given so many indications that he is not mentally well that he's unbalanced right and that this sort of alternative

universe that he's segued into clearly affects all aspects of his life yeah you know like i wouldn't recommend a friend to be treated by jordan peterson no seriously like you're going to recommend someone who is unwell is suffering from depression and insecurity and is unbalanced in all kinds of ways yes go talk to jordan peterson he's going to help you no so the unhinged tweets is is an indication of on the lays and i think like i don't know if these professional bodies have like a good procedure for sort of detecting that or like a way to sort of prove that or demonstrate that and i'm sure their procedure they've got here is inadequate or whatever but that's why i would say that he is on the wrong

side of this i'm sure they don't have procedures designed to deal with one of your members becoming a global superstar and conspiratorial pundit. Like, they don't. And, you know, they're a little regional licensing board for clinical psychologists in a particular region of Canada. They're not agents of Goliath, right? Well, I mean, the outcome of this is that that organization has about 3000 followers on Twitter. And they tweeted out something, you know, like, Happy Christmas. Think about your mental health this Christmas. And the response to it underneath was like, you Nazi scum, die in hell. Like you're how dare you? It was just hundreds of court retreats from Jordan Peterson fans.

Yeah. You know, the most unhinged, rabid things that you can imagine. And that's what the fan base that he's built. And that's what he's whipping up here. Let's continue on because it gets worse. So here's him talking a little bit, still on the consequences, right? But you'll hear him go back and forth in the kind of Socratic dialogue with himself. And like I said, maybe I'm wrong and I should just shut the hell up

and pack up and go home. But my sense, grandiose though it may be, is that these bloody colleges, regulatory boards, they pose a major threat to the free speech and free thought of all Canadians, not just professionals.

Canadians can think for themselves what sort of professional consultation are you going to be able to obtain when the people you're talking to are terrified of telling you the truth when you bring them your 13 year old daughter who's in major distress it was so concerned about her body that she's thinking about sterilizing herself and having her breasts removed and your psychologist isn't going to be able to do anything except lie to you that it's all right how's that gonna go for you you think that through for like 15 seconds and if you don't think that'll happen to someone in your family soon you either don't have a family or you're deluded because it's coming your way real soon you know at the at the start, like again, Matt, just there, he started saying, you know, maybe I'm wrong and I should just shut the hell up and go home. And I might be thinking in grandiose terms.

And by the end, he's saying, all of you, this is coming for your family. You know, if you haven't experienced it now, you need to wake the hell up. You know, he works himself up into these demagogue tizzies. Even if he has kernels of points about things that, you know, he wants to argue about, he takes it up to like 11 constantly. He can't just say, you know, should we be concerned if people have to, you know, think about how their clinical opinion is going to reflect on them politically? No, it's that everyone is going to be experiencing this soon in their immediate family. It's coming for you. Yeah. It's, you know, the WEF.

Yeah. It's not about this provincial professional registration board getting complaints about unhinged tweets and then instigating this process to basically say please stop making unhinged tweets no it's about them being instruments of this work orthodoxy that wants to take your daughters and make them chop their breasts off chop their breasts off and so on like it's yeah it's up to 11 immediately and it's visceral and it's him being what he is now which is this lunatic political extremist pundit you know laying the rhetoric on super thick and he demonstrates every time that that's not the role of a clinical psychologist it's incompatible you could do one and you could argue that that's okay in a pluralistic society you're allowed to have you know unhinged radicals

on and polemicists on every side of the spectrum. But then there's actual clinical psychologists, like normal ones, right? His job is to treat people who are unwell. And, you know, anyway. Well, you know, Matt, we kind of painted them as a bit of a melodramatic villain in some respects. So maybe that's unfair. So, you know, i feel that i have an obligation to fight this out in the public sphere in many ways it would be simpler for me just to tell them to go directly to hell and give up my license proudly you know and uh not worry about

this again but i don't know i'm not there yet it might happen I'm not there yet. It might happen. I'm not there yet. We'll play out this farce to its end, and I'll do that in the faith that if I conduct myself with a certain degree of honor and care, that the results won't be precisely what my would-be enemies intend. Let's put it that way. You get the raw emotion there.

You can hear his voice cracking at some points, right? But the interesting thing for me, again, is you can hear the kind of internal battle, right? Because he's saying, you know, maybe it would be simpler for me to proudly just accept this and, you know, move on. But I'm not there yet yet and maybe it won't go the way they expect and if i'm an honorable person you know what can they do and at the end it's like

my enemies it won't go the way they imagine i won't go silently into the night right well chris you know on agoramata we have this grievance thing. And, you know, this is essentially a grievance playing out in real time. And it's very similar to Brett that we heard earlier portraying himself along with a small group of brave others in the Rebel Alliance who have been cast out from the institutions bearing that cross because they have to for the good of humanity. And that's the subtext here. It's only just barely below the surface, but let's call it a subtext. and that's the subtext here it's only just barely below the surface but let's call it a subtext and i think it's really important for guys like jordan peterson and brett weinstein to get those emotional hooks in because that's the thing that that inspires that immense loyalty and sympathy amongst the audience like here is a brave principled man who is fighting a corrupt and evil

system and he's doing it just because it's the right thing to do you know god my god you have to respect that don't you yes you you do what a what a guy you know it's amazing what he's willing to do now matt here is uh another thing where we see a bunch of behaviors that are common in the guru sphere i had to hold my tongue and bide my time while this legal action was proceeding and now it's like it's very dangerous to put someone in a position where they don't have anything to lose i don't have anything to lose the worst they can do and this is what they'll do is they'll take my license and then I'll be known by those who wish to foster enmity against me as now disgraced Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson but what that's going to do I believe is

bring disgrace to those who levy that epithet it'll just undermine the validity of the designation itself it'll undermine public trust in the idea of psychologist in the reliability of that designation now you know that's a pretty preposterous claim but and maybe I'm wrong and if I'm wrong well I'm willing to take the punches but but there's a reason that people bought 11 million copies of my book the reason they bought 11 million copies of 12 Rules for Life was that they found it helpful, like psychologically helpful, which was its purpose. There's a reason that the video interviews and lectures that I produced on YouTube and released on YouTube, mostly for free, not that I haven't benefited financially from all of this because I certainly have and I'm not the least bit ashamed of that fact I'm pretty happy about it and grateful for it and hope it will continue and I'm

striving to make sure it does it's like there's a reason people are watching those videos and listening so we'll see whose reputation suffers. Hopefully I won't do anything too stupid and angry along the way. And I don't think I will because I'm actually not particularly angry. It's like I digested all this a long time ago. I'm sad about it. I'm sad for my country. The one thing that keeps striking me in this is, and I mentioned it previously, is like Jordan has this thing where he sets up an opponent, you know, you might say, or my critics would say, oh, Jordan, blah, blah, blah. And he usually does a funny voice and he makes a very bad, you know,

straw man version of his argument and then experience why it's wrong. But the interesting thing here is that he seems to be kind of doing it, you know, with himself. Like he was talking about him being reprimanded and losing the clinical psychologist label will damage the credibility for all clinical psychologists and all of psychology. And then he realizes how that sounds. He says, well, maybe, you know, maybe I'm wrong. And maybe, you know, I just need to take the criticism. But actually, 11 million people have read my books. And, you know, they've listened to my talk. So he's got this like weird split persona thing going on. Yeah, this weird back and forth.

We often compare characters to people in star wars or lord of the rings or something like that and i was thinking lord of the rings and your first thought would be saruman jordan peterson he's very gaunt he looks like someone who would own a palantir he's gazed too long into various orbs that's the obvious choice but i don't think so it's gollum right he's got he's got the voices he's having the conversations with himself there's the little reasonable one then there's the other voice and then he is stupid psychologist see my precious credential will they yeah though it is like that and also that thing of just constantly referencing

how many people read his books, listen to his things, that that validates, you know, what do these pea-brained micro-souls know anyway? You know, like, gollum, gollum, Jordan, Jordan. But, you know, he is speaking to like a very real power that these guys acknowledge that they have, right? That they are insanely popular in a way in which the Ontario Board of Psychologists is not. And, you know, you mentioned them making their little milquetoast tweet about,

be sure to take care of your mental health these holidays or whatever. And they're just getting slammed by whatever. And like that's the power that, not Saruman, Jordan Peterson wields. And, you know, he knows it and he's right. You know, he is more powerful than them in the field of public opinion. But he doesn't want them to take away his precious, this little registration thing. Yeah. You know, he's talked about the Peabrain's Ontario Clinical Psychologist Board.

Now, one other thing to condemn with Matt is that the courts in Canada have consistently said that he's wrong. The board does have the right to impose training courses as penalties in response to complaints if it regards that as justified and that they are not infringing on his free speech more broadly by doing so. So what about the courts? Do you think that you're going to continue this battle legally? Well, we do have one avenue. There is one appeal route left. We can appeal directly to the Supreme Court. It's a very low probability uh maneuver and you know another loss who knows right because assume that gets rejected which is the most likely outcome well then those who are are not very fond of me will say to those who want to believe well you

know three different levels of canadian judiciary decided that dr peterson was wrong who the hell is he to make claims that this is uh what an inappropriate response and look i can understand why people would believe that i would want to believe that you know yeah it means the entire entire court system is compromised. Well, it implies, it certainly implies that. He explained accurately the reaction to somebody consistently being told they're wrong by all levels of the legal profession, right? That doesn't actually prove that you're, you know, wrong, but it is a sign that you might be, like at least legally, incorrect in your interpretation.

But Jordan is able to recognize that, but then immediately McKayla comes in with, well, that would mean that all Canadian legal system is completely corrupt, wouldn't it? And Jordan's response isn't, well, you know, hold on. He's like, well, it certainly implies. It cannot be that he could be wrong right he cannot be in this instance so well he's up against and the gurus

generally are up against all the institutions right the anti-institutional thing on agoramata is real and it's not just the ontario board of psychologists it's not just what's his university waterloo calgary toronto it was toronto i mean he is an emeritus professor at toronto still despite reeling against them for giving that to him but yeah you think the work mob would have gotten around to removing that but they haven't and also the entire legal system and obviously all politics and like it's everything All the institutions are hopelessly corrupt. So Michaela Peterson is just a few steps ahead of her dad there, I reckon. Yeah.

Helen Lewis, she, of course, is, you know, at the vanguard of that charge against Jordan's persecution. So, you know, if all the institutions are corrupt, Matt, and we can't trust any of them, what can we turn to? Is there anything? So whatever success I've had is because I say what I think. And obviously, I paid a certain kind of price for that. I don't have a research career anymore. Although that's not exactly true either, because I have some pretty damn good researchers on my staff, and we're doing some

remarkable things at a rate that was like 100 times faster than anything I could do in the university like I don't think in some sense I haven't lost anything like I had to change I'm not a full-time practicing professor anymore although I'm still a professor emeritus so I have that designation I don't have a clinical practice but I'm kind of practicing on a global stage that's not an over that's not an exaggeration i don't have a university but i'm building one that's kind of interesting um so not there's nothing in it that hasn't been gained apart from a certain amount of stress but you know what are you going to have a life without stress j Jordan, you know, I've lost my university position. Have you, Jordan?

We have a bigger position now. We've got a bigger audience. But, you know, I'm not really teaching anymore. Are you not? You're teaching millions. He is the most terrific. Yeah, you can see it playing out in his head. Like he's straddling both sides or both angles on it,

which is on one hand he's on the cross, right? He's been crucified. He's lost so much. He's lamenting. He's lamenting the losses. But he's not unaware and is happy to admit to the tremendous successes at the same time. And, yeah, I don't know.

He seems a little bit confused about whether he wants to play the victim or the kind of all-powerful, I laugh at your petty attempts to take away my. He seems a little bit confused about whether he wants to play the victim or the kind of all-powerful, I laugh at your petty attempts to take away my… It is a split, right? His tone of voice shifts to kind of forlorn and, you know, I'm well, I'm not able to do research really anymore, and I like research, but my team does research that's incredible. It's better than we do research

stupid peter said you know so it's a yeah it is it's a very golem it's very golem he needs to pick a lane he needs to decide whether it's been a good thing all of the wealth and the attention and the success in the public sphere or not uh yeah. Well, so that we're coming to the end, Matt, but there's two things we have to play. One, because, you know, there's been a lot of this stuff, the conspiracy mongering, the anti-establishmentarianism, the narcissism. It's all digging the grometer, right? Proving the validity of that instrument. One of the things that we have on the

garometer is the cassandra complex i just thought i'd mention it because you know i have i have some of the abilities of cassandra cassandra was a seer who was fated to be entirely accurate in her predictions her torture was that no one ever listened to her. So I don't have that problem because people do listen to me, but I do have some ability to see down the road to where things are going. I mean, I'm optimistic fundamentally. I certainly do believe that as a species, we're on the cusp of a potential prosperity

and realm of possibility that's unparalleled. Jordan, Jordan, Jordan, don't make it this easy for us. Give us a challenge. Come on, we're smart guys. We can decode it from the subtext of what you say. You don't need to just tell us that you're literally Cassandra. Come on. It's not so hard. This was a shot in the barrel. If all the gurus just run about saying, you know, I'm anti-establishment. I'm Cassandra. I'm profiteering like Ma. That is kind of what Jordan is doing. And these are my grievances. Yeah. I'm mongering them. They come very close to doing that sometimes, our superstars. They've dinged so many of our dimensions on the grommeter this episode,

haven't they, Chris? Yeah. And just to finish with, I'll give a clip, which is a classic Jordan Peterson weaving in mythic symbolism and doing his sense-making thing and tying it in these anti-establishment rhetoric, all of it. This is Jordan being Jordan. Just because the thing that's happening to you at the moment presents a problem doesn't mean it isn't rife with opportunity. And I do think that's a reflection of the old dragon gold symbolism, you know? It's like you have to confront a dragon to get the gold. But what that also implies is that, well, it might look like a dragon, but maybe it's a treasure house. You know, and we're sort of taking that attitude with regards to Peterson Academy

and also with Essay, the app that I'm working on with Julian. It's like, well, nobody teaches people how to write. Okay, well, if nobody's doing it, and you see that, well, then you could do it. The universities are disintegrating. Okay, well, hey, people still need to be educated. And that's a better way of looking at the world is just because it looks like, I don't know if there's any such thing as an opportunity that doesn't present itself as a problem. It's a great way of thinking about problems.

You got your homespun wisdom about, you know, every problem is just an opportunity waiting to be reframed in such a manner and referenced to mythic symbolism. But is it really a dragon or a treasure house? You know, the proper sensemaker style debates and setting up an essay writing app. He's setting up an alternative university. They've got big things planned.

The institutions are crumbling. Fortunately, gurus like Jordan are here to save the world. Brett is contributing. Jordan is contributing. We're going to be all right. Yeah. There's a good entrepreneurial spirit there. They've got a lot of irons in the fire.

He doesn't even need that little license. It's nothing. No, these guys are doing very well. Thank you very much. They don't need a little license from the Ontario Board of Clinical Psychologists. So, Chris, as a little bit of a wrap up, how about a whirlwind tour of just some of our garometer dimensions? Galaxy brainness.

We saw this in spades with Brett, that really quite impressive way that he spans between evolutionary psychology, anti-vax and these various conspiratorial geopolitical theories about China and the United States. We saw anti-establishment stuff coming through. I did detect a note of that, yeah. You did detect, yeah. I won't rehash it then. It was pretty much there.

But I think that grievance mongering thing was really validated in this episode because you know like you often think about it as being this kind of like retrospective thing like i've been badly done by i was mistreated by these people back then and they certainly do that yeah eric and brett have their tales of of abuse that they suffered at the hands of institutions institutions but i think this episode actually showed me how it actually plays a role in kind of how they cast themselves in what is transpiring now yeah yeah so they are they are bearing the cross they are the ones who are standing up despite the fact that just the mere act of bravery in doing so is just going to have

so many slings and arrows cast their way i mean that's that sort of christ-like you know like up despite the fact that just the mere act of bravery in doing so was just going to have so many slings and arrows cast their way i mean that's that sort of christ-like you know like you can see how that is that is grievance but sort of happening now right yeah mistreatment you know unjust mistreatment that has happened to them right now as a result of their integrity their bravery and their intellectual abilities cassandra complex, not much needs to be said there, does it? Jordan said it. Jordan said it. Conspiracies, they were there, mainly from Brett this time.

And the pseudo-profound bullshit too, both of them are very good at it. We talked about with Brett how he really does have a talent, same as his brother, in talking at an Alex Jones level degree of insanity, but doing it in a tone of voice in a calm reflective professorial fatherly kind of fireside chat tone almost regretful that one has to speak up like this referencing scientific technical jargon certainly works with tucker carlson tucker carlson said you know could you explain that you know just in less technical terms, in layman terms for us? I mean, when in actual fact he's just, like you said, he's just picking up random buzzwords from the anti-vax discourse.

And, of course, Jordan with his lovely allegories and analogies and metaphors, classic Jordan style. I think that's it for me. I just see this as a total validation of the grommeter. I'm glad we managed to work Lord of the Rings in there. The ones you didn't mention, but I'll just name them because I think people can do their own. Matching up is self-aggrandizement and narcissism.

Again, I did detect a note of that in the content for both of them. Encouraging cultish dynamics like say for example talking about the dream team leading the good people against the forces of evil or the corrupt institutions needing to be you know fought against by led by brave psychologist heroes and revolutionary theories developing your own novel insights into how the world functions. If people would just take these ideas that you had seriously, Brett admittedly did that more. But I mean, Jordan is about to revolutionize the field of academia with his new university. So you've got that and profiteering Jordan, again, i think illustrating that very well with all of the money

making schemes he has which are set up to replace the establishments none of these apps are free it is not free to enroll in this university there might be a free trial so yeah it just they all thing up and you know jordan and brett do it their own unique style. But so many of those things reoccur. And frankly, they've gotten worse. That's the thing that I think people need to know. They were never good, never particularly good. But like Jordan Peterson has become a version of Gollum, a like political right wing Gollum character.

And Brett Weinstein is more overtly unhinged conspiracy theorist in the vein of alex jones yeah so yep they have gotten worse it is a weird thing that happens with us where when we cover people and i remember i know that when we cover people like elon musk for instance i don't know much about them i have relatively ambivalent opinions about them i do some research about them and i go they actually don't seem that good we do a you know a generally negative kind of coverage but then they always become so much worse subsequently it's like the guru's pod kiss of death i know yeah i i feel with elon musk we didn't really i mean we caught him well into the spiral but like everyone that

almost everyone that we've covered has spiraled further but like everyone that we almost everyone that we've covered has spiraled further there are people that we've covered that haven't but in general they scored low at the start you know they weren't exhibiting that many concerning qualities so there you have it it's definitely not a mini decoding uh but it it is uh checking in on old friends and sadly i'll just close the door and silently back away from that room with the old friends and leave them there for now. I'm sure they'll be back soon enough, but we'll be back too. We have Sean Carroll to look at.

We have Sam Harris coming to discuss things with us. And we've got other things. Yeah, we actually have some good guests like interesting intelligent nice normal not mentally unbalanced guests so you know um there's balance in the force that's right that's right well it's been a pleasure matt um so i'll i'll bid you adieu will i will i bid you adieu should you say that yeah all right bye-bye good night sweet prince goodbye you